Lisa O
Life in ministry is often described as a calling, but it’s also a job — one that comes with unique, daily pressures people outside the role rarely see. The public moments on Sundays are just a fraction of what happens. In between sermons and events are constant shifts between spiritual care, practical demands, and personal sacrifice. It’s work that can fill your heart and drain it on the same day.
The Work Rarely Fits Into a Schedule
In ministry, a “day off” can vanish with a single phone call. You might be halfway through dinner when someone asks if you can come to the hospital, or in line for groceries when a parishioner starts sharing a family crisis. You learn to keep your schedule loose but it still takes a toll when you can’t fully switch off and just be present in your own life.
Balancing Teaching and Listening
One hour you’re preparing a sermon, shaping your thoughts into something clear and encouraging. The next, you’re sitting across from someone who just needs you to hear them. Switching between guiding with your words and quietly holding space for someone else’s pain takes a surprising amount of energy. It’s a skill you build over time, but some days you still walk away feeling drained in both roles.
Carrying the Weight of Others’ Struggles
Ministry means people trust you with the hardest parts of their lives — the arguments they haven’t told family about, the grief they can’t voice anywhere else. You offer comfort, but those stories stay with you. Sometimes they return at night when you’re trying to fall asleep. You can’t share the details so you learn to pray through the weight alone, hoping you’ve given them what they needed in that moment.
Navigating Limited Resources
It’s common to have more ideas than the budget can support. You might want to start a youth program or upgrade outdated equipment but the funds just aren’t there. Even with volunteers, there’s only so much time and energy to go around. You get creative — reusing old materials, repurposing spaces — but there’s a quiet frustration in knowing some good plans will never leave the paper they’re written on.
Maintaining Personal Faith While Serving Others
When your role is guiding others spiritually, your own prayer life can slip into the background. You spend hours in scripture, but it’s for teaching, not personal reflection. You pray with people daily, but rarely just for yourself. Without noticing, your faith can start to feel like part of the job instead of a personal lifeline. You have to fight to keep it personal, or burnout creeps in quickly.
Keeping Boundaries Without Feeling Guilty
It’s hard to say no when the person asking is hurting, even if you’ve already given every spare hour you have. The line between helping and overextending is blurry. You try to block time for rest, but it only takes one request to make you feel selfish for holding that boundary. Over time, you learn that preserving your energy isn’t neglect — it’s the only way to keep giving long-term.
Handling Criticism With Grace
Criticism can arrive in a casual comment in the church hallway, a carefully worded email, or a public challenge during a meeting. Even if it’s well-meaning, it stings — especially when it’s about something you’ve poured hours into. You smile, thank them for the feedback, and move on, but later you replay their words in your head. It’s a quiet skill to take criticism without letting it harden your heart.
Balancing Administration and Ministry
Some days feel like a blur of spreadsheets, budget meetings and fixing small problems — a broken microphone, a mix-up in the calendar. It’s necessary work but it can crowd out the moments you came into ministry for, like studying scripture or meeting one-on-one with someone in need. The constant switching between spiritual and practical roles can make you feel like you’re never giving either side your full attention.
Finding Time for Family and Friends
When everyone else is free on weekends or evenings, you’re often at services, leading events, or visiting people in need. Birthdays, dinners, and casual gatherings get missed more often than you’d like. You tell yourself you’ll make up for it later, but later is rarely clear in ministry. Maintaining relationships outside the church takes planning and persistence, or they slowly fade without you meaning for them to.
Dealing With Emotional Highs and Lows
A single day can hold a baptism in the morning and a funeral in the afternoon. You go from joy to grief in hours, adjusting your tone, words, and presence for each setting. It’s part of the role, but it can be emotionally jarring. The feelings often catch up to you later, when you’re finally alone and the pace slows enough for everything to sink in.
Avoiding Comparison With Other Ministries
Scrolling online or visiting another church can stir mixed feelings. You see their bigger attendance, newer facilities, or thriving programs and it’s hard not to compare. You remind yourself that each community is different, but the quiet voice of “Why not here?” still whispers. Staying focused on your own calling is a daily discipline, especially when the comparison is so easy to find.
Supporting Volunteers Without Overburdening Them
Volunteers are the heartbeat of most ministries, but they have limits too. You walk a fine line between asking for help and asking too much. If you push too hard, you risk losing the people who make things run. If you hold back, important work stalls. Showing appreciation and care for your team is as important as the tasks you need them to do.
Adjusting to Changing Community Needs
The neighborhood changes and so do the needs. Families move in, industries close, new cultures and traditions arrive. What worked five years ago might not connect now. Adapting can mean rethinking long-standing traditions or shifting focus entirely which isn’t always popular. Change in ministry often comes with tension, and leading people through it requires patience that doesn’t always come easily.
Finding Encouragement in Private
You spend much of your time encouraging others, but it’s not always easy to find someone who encourages you. People assume you’re fine because you’re the one helping them. Sometimes you have to go out of your way to find peers or mentors who understand the unique challenges you face. Without that, ministry can start to feel lonely even when you’re surrounded by people.
Keeping the Calling Fresh
When you’ve done the same annual events, the same calendar rhythm, year after year, it’s easy to fall into autopilot. The challenge is finding new life in familiar work — looking for fresh ideas, remembering why you started, staying open to change. Without that intentional renewal, ministry can shift from something that fills you to something you simply maintain.