The Importance of Buffer Time
I don't know an employed children's, youth or family minister who works their hours. How do I know this? Well, I have been mentoring for about 20 years now and - without fail - I have a conversation with everyone about the challenges of time. One of the things I think we all struggle with in ministry is the tension between our sense of calling and vocation and being an employee.
Sometimes the language used in churches do not help us to navigate this well. We here someone say in a sermon, 'What is your gift to the church?' or we are asked in a staff meeting, 'How are you engaging with the community of faith in your own time?' In the past, I have joined a house group - only to find that some of the other members of my house group see it as a chance to talk about the youth ministry! There is a sense of never being 'off' even when I'm choosing to do something that isn't in my job description. What we struggle to do is recognise that we are limited, we are finite - we cannot do everything, we cannot meet the needs of all the people, we cannot be 'always available'! An anecdote to 'just work smarter, harder, and squeeze in more' is the excellent book, '4000 Weeks' by Oliver Burkeman.
Working with people though is messy - whether that is children, young people, families, church leaders, a congregation of people, parents, school leaders . . the list goes on! People do not neatly file themselves at the end of the working day, they don't skip in to an 'out tray' on our desk and that is it. Nope, the work is never finished because we as people are never finished. We are all a work in progress. You can't 'productivity hack' another human!
If we are going to give of our best we have to find ways of managing our time, learning to say a no, not feeling guilty for taking time off and protecting precious family and friends time.
I don't want to burden you with a load of extra 'to dos' to help you manage all of the above - I just want to suggest one thing I have found helpful. It's called, 'buffer time.'
It is quite simple really - a buffer of a couple of hours beyond your working week. If you are part time, say on 20 hours - make that no more than 2 hours; if you are on 35 hours - keep it under 40. I'm not suggesting that you just work those extra hours - they are your buffer time, that if required you can dip in to (a bit like having an agreed overdraft). However, part of your agreement with yourself is - you don't EVER go beyond your buffer.
That's it.
Why might this be helpful? It reminds you that you have control over your time. If we use that same analogy around money - if you are always dipping in to your overdraft, you might realise you need to reassess your spending habits. It is the same principle. When you feel like the buffer is approaching, be very disciplined about how you spend your time. If your mindset is, 'I know I'm employed for X hours, but I can't do the job in that time so I'll just do what I can as my gift.' You will find yourself living off your overdraft.
This leads to stress, lack of sleep, poor decision making and an increasing likelihood that you are ministering out of a place of anxiety.
Pop in some buffer time. Be kind to yourself and - as much as you are able, try and work from a place of rest rather than collapse in to your day off. Look out for our Zoom Session in the next few months tackling this topic!
Ali Campbell is the founder and lead developer of Paraklesis. As a freelance youth and children's ministry consultant, Ali has been running The Resource for the last decade. Over the years Ali has been involved in leading youth and children's ministry at a national, regional and local level and continues to volunteer in his own church. In his spare time Ali enjoys hanging out with his family in their caravn, drinking great coffee, reading a good book and listening to jazz funk - though not all at the same time.