What You Get From Saying Goodbye
When I mentioned meeting at 8am, they looked at me as if I was asking them to run 50 miles through thorn bushes. Last year, I started a tradition of…
Pace Groups: Why We Need Help Keeping Pace In Ministry
Christopher Wesley
Oct 17, 2010
I love this time of year, weather gets cooler, leaves change color, but most importantly mid October is when I run in the Baltimore Running Festival. This year I participated in the 4 person relay with three guys I know from church. It was fun to do it with them, we had a good time and made good time. When I run in a race I look for people to run with, people to keep pace with, often times I’m that guy who introduces himself to another person at the starting line. For me it was nice because in the second leg half of my race I ran with a coworker, someone I knew and what I found is that we helped one another move forward and keep pace. And that’s key because if you can find someone to help you keep a healthy pace your chances of finishing strong are high. So who’s helping you keep pace in student ministry?
It might be your ministers, a professional coach, a seasoned youth minister, maybe even your pastor. But it’s important to have someone who helps you keep pace because they help you:
- Move Towards Our Goals – It’s not that we forget our goals; however, when the path to achieving them becomes overwhelming we need those people to help us push forward. Whether it’s a reminder to do one step at a time or to focus, we need that someone to keep us in the right direction. It feels like we are always the ones vision casting; however, when our ministers can remind us of our goals, it becomes easier to push through.
- Manage Our Health – Often times when you run it’s hard to notice every health issue going on, you aren’t sure if you are tired or in fact in serious risk. Running alongside someone you can see whether or not they are struggling, you can tell if they become elusive. In ministry we need someone to tell us if we are getting jaded, burnt out, even if we need to take a season away. Someone who helps you keep pace in ministry needs to be there to tell you to take a season off.
So again who’s helping you keep pace in student ministry?