A brother asked me the other week how I balance the parts of my life.  He is a student finishing a second Masters degree in the realm of pastoral and theological studies.  He knows how difficult leading in a church can be.  Most divinity students or seminary students hear and learn pretty quickly that the work of pastors can be, let’s say, ongoing.  We don’t finish projects in the same way that non-pastors do.  Even with increasing specialization in ministry, it’s difficult.  In my church, we aren’t necessarily generalists, meaning we don’t do “everything.”  We do specific things.

My friend David Swanson is different.  He is on our staff, but as a church planter, he’s much closer to doing everything than, say, Peter Hong, our lead pastor.  Because of New Community Logan Square’s age, most of the staff consists of ministry ministry specialists.  One person oversees Children’s Ministry as an example.  That’s her area.  Another leads worship and ministries related to Sunday worship service because that’s her area.

I’m not a senior pastor.  Part of what that means for me in my full-time work life is that I don’t consistently prepare sermons or studies.  I teach at New Community periodically, regularly, but not hardly as much as my supervisor or some of my friends.  That said, I don’t get bored with the details of my role.  I’m an executive pastor, though I prefer the title associate pastor, and for me that involves leadership in the areas of staff supervision, ministerial duties, and vision implementation, to choose the three predominant and no less clear-for-you areas (you who aren’t in my church) I spend time working on.

So, me and my seminary student friend discussed balance.  We got to me and writing and parenting and pastoring.  I told him that I wasn’t balancing well.  At least not lately.  I told him that when I’m not exercising consistently, I’m also not writing consistently.  I told him that I’m just reentering the world of regular exercise after a year since the boy’s coming.

I’ve read the advice that writers should write daily, that where ever we have to squeeze it in, we need to.  My life doesn’t allow it.  And, of course, that nags me.  But I write as much as I can, as often as I can.  It’s a little compromise.  I can’t quite give up being a pastor, particularly since that’s what I spend the largest amounts of my time doing, thinking about, preparing for, etc.  With parenting, you don’t just pause as a father after the child comes.  This kid doesn’t go away.  He’s always around.  He’s adorable, but he keeps me occupied.  Even when he goes to bed, he’s goes after having left me with rooms full of things to do.

Writing, well, writing is different.  I can short change writing and claim exhaustion.  Of course, writing will complain.  My characters show up, crowd, and scream in my dreams, doing their best to rouse me to my desk.  A trusted person told me, after I explained some really deep-for-me things, that I was being called to write more.  To spend more time with my writng.  I’m almost back to a stride, not my old one when I wrote 1,000 words per day until the story was done or at least done with me for the moment.  I’m much slower.  But I’m thinking about that story, those people, and their lives.  I’m writing in my head nowadays, even if I haven’t gotten all those letters into this bright box.