Blog Post
A H Harry Oussoren • Nov 19, 2020
Walking for Survival in Ministry - PastPost in PMC May 1997
[A Past Post from PMC by Harry Oussoren while serving as ordained minister at Erin Mills United Church in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada and as chair of the Board of Potentials - Ecumenical Centre for the Development of Ministry & Congregations.]
It is a privilege to be an ordained minister in this congregation. But after almost nine years, I am getting worn down. It's not that I am discouraged. I'm just tired.
Feedback has been good. The Ministry & Personnel Committee's careful annual performance review of my work is very helpful - lavish in priase and constructive in criticism. The committee recommended to the Board that we enter a two-year sabbatic leave program for me and my diaconal colleague.
So in six weeks, I'm off for three and a half months. Just to rest, relax, read, attend some conferences, and spend a month in South Africa.
There I hope to learn more about how to help congregations become intercultural. We need to find ways of valuing the gifts and heritages of participants from diverse backgrounds - racial, cultural, economic.
At the end of the summer, I hope to return with new energy, some new thoughts, and perhaps a deepened sense of God's covenant love.
Part-time ministry is what I'll be coming back to. I've been working too hard and too long. Fifty-five hours a week average is not good for me, my family, or for the congregation.
So I've asked both Board and Presbytery for a reduction in the terms of call from "full-time" to 90%. In part, this allows the congregation to free up some money to add a youth coordinator to the staff. But for me, it puts boundaries around my working where previously none existed. The M&P Committee has promised to help me stay honest about spending less time working.
I won't cut out the weekly lectionary group meeting with eight neighbouring ministers - it's as good a support/learning group as I've ever been involved with.
Nor will I drop the monthly bag lunch gathering of peers. We grumble about what's hapening in the church. We debate issues. We prick each other's inflations. We encourage each other.
But I am giving up involvements in the regional church conference - a bottomless pit of frustration and misdirection of energy.
With regret, I'm also ending PMC [Journal for the Practice of Ministry in Canada] involvement. After 17 years as a founder, board chair, and advocate of reflecting on ministry, it's time to move on. So this is probably my last UpFront column.
The stress of ministry is real - no matter how satisfying the work.
The normal, healthy stresses in ministry are exacerbated today because we find ourselves in a period of church decline with little leadership for renewal. When some are burying 30-50 parishioners per year, that's heavy! When others have to worry about whether there will be enough for th next payroll or about how to resolve yet another conflict - the ulcers and other ailments brought on by unrelieved stress are lurking around the corner.
Stress is not necessarily distress. Hans Selye has taught us in his classic work Stress without Distress.
Since it is unlikely that ministry will become less stressful, ministers had better learn to cultivate strategies for creative coping with stress.
It is not rocket science to conclude that aside from prayer and rest, for us physical activity is key. I ride my bike to the office in good weather. Some may garden. Swimming is my colleague's activity of choice.
But I hunch that walking in particular is therapeutic, as heart patients have discovered. It combines physical activity with time to reflect and think. "Walking is [the hu]man's best medicine," claimed Hippocrates.
On my leave time, I want to learn the habit of walking for 45 minutes each day. Femmy will be happy. I expect to be too!
Pilgrim Praxis
The genocide in apartheid and settler colonial Palestine urgently calls for urgent discernment and action. Could the ongoing rounds of blood letting and destruction finally end to begin a journey toward truth, and justice-based peace? I hope so for the sake of all who dwell in this (un)Holy Land.