Self-Care in Ministry: A New Blueprint
Intriguingly, almost every blueprint I've heard for self-care as a Christian missionary is pretty much indistinguishable from its secular equivalent.
Sleep eight hours. Drink water. Exercise. Set healthy boundaries and learn to say 'no'. Know your goals and priorities. Do things that 'fill your buckets'.
Okay. Sure.
These are good things. Literal hydration is essential if you want to share the Living Water with others and not keel over halfway through the process. I'm not saying sleep and exercise are bad. Do them, please, for your sanity and that of the rest of the world.
But self-care as a missionary (and if you're a Christian, you are a missionary) means so much more.
Because it is not ourselves that we proclaim. (2 Cor 4:5)
Unlike secular workplaces in which the focus is on achieving, succeeding, and preserving your own good works, the daily life of a missionary is about Someone else's kingdom.
Secular self-care strategies equip us to function effectively in order to build our own kingdom. But in attempting to use them as perseverance mechanisms in my life as a Christian, I've found these strategies severely lacking in what I actually need: God's grace.
St Paul said that he could do all things through Christ, who gives him strength. (Phil 4:13)
It is Christ who gives us strength.
Not Netflix. Not Zumba.
Jesus.
If you are feeling burnt out as a missionary - heck, if you're even just attempting to keep a busy life in balance - there is only one failsafe, foolproof strategy for self-care: deep, life-giving union with the God of Love.
Practically, what does that look like?
This morning Jesus and I spent a bit of time coming up with an alternative blueprint for self-care - and there's actually just one step:
Spend as much time receiving the Lord as you spend proclaiming Him.
Yup, you heard me right. As much time.
A little while ago, I wrote about contemplating God before you attempt to communicate Him to the world: "If I spend my whole life showcasing the Beloved, I will cease to know Him."
I firmly believe that we can only offer to the world the overflow of our relationship with Christ.
This is not to encourage an individualistic, self-gratifying faith that begrudgingly offers the world Jesus only when all its own needs are satisfied.
But I do know - from experience and from observing others - that the moment you attempt to share the Good News without first giving it a chance to transform your heart, you become 'a clanging gong'. (1 Cor 13:1)
We become drained, burned-out, insincere vessels of the Gospel if we are not constantly receiving it afresh. And every single day He has 'new mercies' for us. (Lam 3:23)
Here's just a few of the strategies I've found effective in this principle of Christian self-care:
- Soak up Scripture. Read the Bible carefully and lovingly, knowing that they are His words to you. As a starting point, read Luke's Gospel and make a note of every time Jesus' eye contact is mentioned - He's looking at YOU, little missionary!
- Go to Adoration. Keep looking at Him looking at you, and let that Love make you whole again.
- Make the most of daily Mass. Receive the Eucharist as frequently as you can, and let that bread of life be your nourishment more than anything else.
- Get to Reconciliation - not just if you're in a state of mortal sin, but if you find yourself distant from God's voice. Be reunited with Him and reminded of His extravagant mercy.
- Read good books that inspire you and empower you as a missionary. Underline your favourite sections of Evangelii Gaudium. Learn passages of Divine Renovation by heart to keep you going on days when your parish frustrates you.
- Find silence. Breathe in and out. Look out on the grandeur of creation and see His handiwork everywhere.
- Listen to podcasts that broaden your understanding of faith and deepen your desire for holiness and mission.
- Haul out your journal and Bible, and have a good old heart-to-heart with Jesus. Write out your dialogue so that it can encourage you retrospectively one day too!
- Attend faith events where you have absolutely no responsibilities. Receive the kerygma again. Listen without an agenda. Let God reach out to you.
- Finish your day with a Gratitude Examen. How has the Lord been working in your life beyond your immediate understanding?
- Go on a retreat. Preferably multiple days. Preferably in silence. Preferably in nature. Go be in the desert and let Him speak tenderly to you.
- Be part of a fellowship group (again, something you're not leading) and let God speak through your friends to you
- Find a spiritual director whom you trust, and realise that you don't have to go it alone.
- Worship in a way that comes naturally to you - sing praise with your hands in the air, or grab an instrument and let whatever melody you produce be an offering to the one who first made music.
Imagine the transformation that the Lord could effect in us and through us if we committed to spending as much time with Him as we spend doing things for Him.
But Kate! (I hear you protest), that's a totally unrealistic paradigm! We have real lives to live. Ain't nobody got time to invest as many minutes in steps 1-14 as in everything else there is to do in a day.
Yeah. You might be right.
But the beautiful thing about receiving God is that it's not limited to specific times.
St Elizabeth Ann Seton reminds us that "we must pray literally without ceasing – without ceasing; in every occurrence and employment of our lives."
Spend as much time receiving Him as you spend proclaiming Him - that also means being open to receiving Him in every moment that you are proclaiming Him.
At the end of the day, it's all His initiative.
We don't proclaim ourselves as the ones who are carrying out this mission. We proclaim Jesus as the Lord of our lives. He desires our good, and wants to care for us in every moment of exhaustion and organisation.
It is Christ who gives us strength.
In every moment of potential burnout, then - let's give Him a chance to.
AMDG
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