Paraklesis
[‘encouragement’, ‘exhortation’, for life and ministry]
November 2025
Peter Adam
Dear friends,
This is my final Paraklesis on this year’s topic of Leadership.
We live in an over-busy world, where everyone is busy, and busyness is a matter of pride and a sign of importance. I heard a little boy asked how he was. His reply, ‘Very busy!’ His reply no doubt reflected his parents’ replies when asked the same question, possibly their style of parenting, and the ideals of our society.
Here are some of the many reasons why people in ministry get into over-busy mode, and can’t break it. As you read through the list, see which reasons apply to you. Busyness is the result of many different causes. We need to tackle the causes, not just the symptom! [For your interest, I have noted the most common causes of my own busyness!]
- If we love those to whom we minister, we created more opportunities for care.*
- There are often no limits to the number of people to whom we could minister.*
- Often we have no direct supervisor who can limit our ministry.*
- Often we have no limit on the number of people who can request ministry.*
- We often have to deal with the strong expectations of others for ministry, at the same time as we have our own ideas about priorities and new opportunities for ministry.
- People usually have to pay for attention and care: we offer it for free.
- We may find it difficult to say ‘no’ to requests for ministry, because we like to be liked; we like to be needed; because we find it hard to say ‘no’; * and/or because people have strong expectations that we will meet all their needs.
- We are not good at organising our time, energy, and timetable.*
- We waste time flitting from one unfinished task to another.*
- We are not good at setting and achieving our priorities.
- Those who employ us have unreal expectations of what we can achieve.
- We are competitive in ministry, and want to do more and better ministry than others.
- We want to be ‘successful’, or need to be ‘successful’.
- We are overwhelmed with the seriousness of our ministry, and of its eternal consequences.
- We are trying to prove something about our capacity and ability.
- We think that serving people as Christ served us, means meeting all their needs and demands.
- We over-value our importance in God’s gospel economy, or even imagine that we are the Messiah, when the job is already taken!*
- We want to function in ministry, where we are professionally competent: and avoid our marriage and family responsibilities, where we feel less competent.
- We are perfectionists, either by temperament, and/or by our training and practice of our previous employment.
- We like being needed, and become dependent on those who need us.*
- We are overwhelmed with personal ambition.
- Any other cause?
If you want to decrease your busyness, then you need to tackle the causes, not just the symptoms!
Some practical advice that may help.
- Don’t make inflexible and permanent decisions about the shape of your ministry, but change them from year to year.
- If you come into a ministry in which there are some less helpful patterns of ministry, make changes slowly. Do the good ministry you want to do, but begin where people are, not where you think they should be!
- If people expect you to be their slaves, remind them that you will serve them, but that they are not your masters: Christ is your only master!
- Put a draft 4 year plan on your wall, so that you can put things in later years, and not think they all have to happen this year!
So, for example, if you were starting in a new ministry:
| Year | Particular focus of ministry |
| 1 | Set a culture of Bible, prayer, godliness, mutual care, and outreach. Get to know people and built relationships. Find out what God is already doing. Find people with ministry potential. |
| 2 | Train people for leadership, mutual care ministry, Bible-teaching ministry, discipling, mentoring, evangelism and administration. |
| 3 | Encourage and coach people in their ministries, and lead in Bible teaching and evangelism. |
| 4 | Begin a new ministry or outreach. |
5. Don’t fall into the easy trap of thinking that ministry can be reduced to just one task: I must care for people; I must teach people the Bible; I must care for people; I must do evangelism, etc. The New Testament tells us to do all those tasks and more: the issue is how we balance them from time to time.
6. It is well worth while making good use the ‘down-times’ during your ministry year. Use them to work hard on the books of the Bible you will be teaching from and preaching during the coming year. Spend lots of time on each book, asking questions like, ‘What is this book about?’ ‘ ‘Why did God write this book?’ ‘What difference did God intend to make in peoples’ lives by writing this book then?’ ‘What difference does God intend to make in these people’s lives now?’ ‘How does this book apply to individuals?’ ‘How does this book apply to this community?’ The more work you do on a book of the Bible ahead of time, the easier it is to divide it into preachable/teachable sections, and the easier and quicker it is to prepare each sermon/talk.
7. The sooner you start preparing a particular Bible talk/sermon, the more time you have to process it. Begin it at least 6 days before you teach/preach it.
8. Allocate time each week according to your priorities for the current year. For example, for a 40 hour week: 4 hours in ministry prayer by myself and with others; 9 in preparing talks; 3 in team-work; 7 in administration, 5 talking to people before and after services or meetings, praying with them, encouraging them, answering their questions; 2 in one-to one meetings with people; 4 in training, 4 in evangelism, 2 for unforeseen and emergencies! Of course I did not stick absolutely to the hours I had allocated to teach activity, but doing this helped me cover the necessary range of ministry tasks.
9. God’s provision of electricity means that we can work evenings as well as days. But God did not instruct humans to work 6 days and 6 evenings each week! By a ‘day’ he meant a Mediterranean day: sunrise to sunset. It did not include evenings! If you divide the week into 21 sessions [mornings, afternoons, evenings] then I think that working between 11 and 14 sessions a week is satisfactory.
10. Beware of getting too focused on one particular ministry task! If you are not careful, time spent on one act of ministry can balloon out of control! The advantage of allocating specific hours a week to different ministries can help you avoid doing this.
11. In order to continue long-term in ministry you need to keep as healthy as you can. We are not disembodied ministry machines! Healthy food, healthy diet, healthy exercise, healthy sleep, healthy relationships with family and friends, and healthy activities and interests apart from ministry are essential. Don’t think that you are exceptional, and can ignore these. If you do, you will diminish your quality and quantity of ministry.
12. Build some mutual accountability with a colleague or colleagues in ministry, meet and pray with that person or persons, and support each other. Don’t dump your all ministry frustrations on your spouse!
13. Remember that God is in charge of his people, that Jesus is building his church, that God can use you in ministry, but also achieve his gospel purposes without you!
14. Regularly confess your sins of ministry, both bad things you have done, and good things you have not done, and receive forgiveness and cleansing through the blood of Christ. Don’t build up a burden of guilt.
15. Like the apostles, devote yourself to prayer and the ministry of the word [Acts 6:3].
16. Thank God each day for the Bible, ask God to continue to transform you into the image of Christ as he teaches, trains, rebukes and encourages you through the Bible; and use it as your chief tool of ministry in every part of your ministry.
17. Spend time each day praising and thanking God that he has prepared good works for you to do; that he works in you and through you to achieve those good works; and that he will provide all the energy, time, and wisdom for you do to those good works. At the end of the day, commit those good works and the people you have served to God, and entrust them to his powerful care and love.
18. Spend time each day praising God and thanking him that he will achieve his gospel plan for this world, that he will bring the nations to trust in Christ and honour Christ, and that he will bring people from all nations to gather round his throne to worship him and worship the Lamb. Don’t just know this, but praise and thank God for his divine gospel plan, and divine gospel power.
Four good books on this topic:
- Peter Brain, Going the Distance: How to Stay Fit for a Lifetime of Ministry, Matthias Media, 2004.
- Zack Eswine, Sensing Jesus: Life and Ministry as a Human Being, Crossway, 2012.
- Kirsten Birkett, Resilience: A Spiritual Project, Latimer Trust, 2015.
- Christopher Ash, Zeal without Burnout, The Good Book Company, 2016.
This is my final Paraklesis for this year.
With warmest good wishes,
Yours,
