Re the February 2009 editorial, Suffering Servants
No professional that I know works a 40-hour week, other than hourly paid workers. Everyone else, salaried or contract, works the hours required to complete their job descriptions. Particularly in today’s world, the onus is on the employee to prove their worth everyday.
Self-employed persons have to work very long hours to support themselves, keep their business afloat, and pay their employees. Non-professionals have to satisfy their employer that they can fulfill their expectations and produce at least as much, if not more than the long line of people who would like to have their job. Highly educated persons in many professions are under scrutiny daily to produce. C.E.O.’s only care what you did for the firm today.
A minister’s stipend, rightly, relieves her/him from this job insecurity, but this is the reality for the members of the congregation.
Everyone is under stress. Stress is and has always been a part of life. Some professions/jobs have more stress than others. The key for everyone is to assess the stress in their life and to learn to handle it. If it is too much for them, perhaps they need to change the elements that cause the unbearable stress. The merchant may need to seek a partner to share the load or sell the business and work for an employer that can use their unique skills.
Professionals need to think about what their work will entail and whether they can handle the long hours and the stress before they make their final commitment. How many future lawyers, teachers, nurses, dentists, doctors, and ministers have modified their career goals midstream?
With today’s dwindling congregations, I think that it is just as important for ministers to visit those who are in their pews as those they wish to attract.
I agree with many of the boundaries you have suggested, prayer, study time, and continuing education most of all. But the thought of a 40-hour week is ludicrous.
