Is Self-Care Selfish? Stewarding Your Personal Life for Long-Term Ministry (Part 2)

Read Part 1.

A Biblically-Based Perspective of Self-Care

Does self-care have any place in a pastor’s life? Viewed solely from a worldly perspective, it’s questionable. But through a biblical lens, self-care resembles the biblical concept of stewardship.

Viewed biblically, self-care is stewardship of our personal resources and priorities. It is managing the resources God has entrusted to us for eternal benefit. Several Bible texts containing either instructions or examples come to mind.

The parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30 teaches us to invest the resources entrusted to us for the benefit of the Master.

According to 1 Corinthians 6:19-20,

Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit … you are not your own. For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

Our physical bodies are a means of glorifying God. We should treat them accordingly.

Peter exhorts,

As each one has received a gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. (1 Peter 4:10)

Each of us is to use our gifts not only in a way that benefits others, but as good stewards of what God has graciously entrusted to us.

Jethro guided Moses to radically alter his leadership style or he would burn out and hurt the people he was supposed to be helping (Exodus 18:13-23).

Jesus took his disciples on a self-care retreat.

And He said to them, “Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat. (Mark 6:31)

Paul told Timothy to pay careful attention to his personal life in order to have an effective public ministry in 1 Timothy 4:16.

He also told Timothy in 1 Timothy 5:23 to treat physical health issues and prevent them if possible.

And notice in 3 John 2 how one leader prays another would be both physically and spiritually healthy.

Here is a helpful definition of biblically shaped pastoral self-care: “The wisdom to ensure, as far as humanly possible, a wise and orderly work that conserves and lengthens a pastor’s ministry.”⁶

Resilient Ministry identifies pastoral self-care as “the ongoing development of the whole person, including the emotional, spiritual, relational, physical, and intellectual areas of life.⁷

I especially like how Nathan Foster describes it as “attending to and respecting the limitations and needs that God has designed for humans … respecting and attending to our human limitations and needs is simply caring for God’s crowning creation, the human machine.”⁸

The secular concept of self-care is the world’s recognition of what Christians already know. God endowed His creatures with sufficient yet limited capacity to serve and glorify Him. We are responsible to manage our lives in a way that sustains a lifetime of effective ministry. As one pastor quoted in Resilient Ministry said, “It’s about burning on, not burning out.”⁹

Stewardship is taking responsibility for maintaining areas of your personal life so you will burn on rather than burn out. You manage your life for long-term ministry. You see the need for it, you take the initiative, you make choices, and you live accordingly.

The term self-care can be legitimately used, but should be seen as a form of stewardship. It definitely requires a God-focused rather than a self-centered perspective. Consider these distinctions between self-care and stewardship:

For example, rather than allowing church members’ needs and expectations to determine a pastor’s daily schedule he establishes a reasonable plan for using time throughout the week. He prioritizes personal devotion, family time, exercise, and a date with his wife as well as sermon preparation, discipleship meetings, and hospital and homebound visits. A true emergency may alter his plans, but he works the usual requests for his time around the priorities he has established.

Balancing Servanthood with Stewardship

Servant-leadership is a biblical concept often associated with ministry, but it must be kept in balance. Some pastors think that because we are supposed to be servants, as Jesus taught in Mark 10:42-25, we should be available to anyone at any time. Other people’s needs or expectations take precedence. This concept has been instilled in us, possibly resulting in a diminished view of stewardship. Herein lies a tension in a pastor’s life – balancing servanthood and stewardship.

According to a servant mindset, pastors feel they must always be available to respond to needs, and whatever they’re doing is secondary. However, pastors need to understand and practice stewardship as well, proactively managing their time, energy, and abilities to honor God, serve others, and sustain long-term ministry.

As I thought through the tension between servanthood and stewardship, I developed the following comparison:

Servanthood and stewardship are taught in Scripture, so both are valid approaches to life and ministry. It seems to me servanthood fits within stewardship. Culturally, a household manager (“steward”) was one of the servants. So a steward was in the position of a servant. His overall role was a steward. He carried out his responsibilities as a servant by being a good steward. Servants can be wise stewards, and stewards can be faithful servants.

Conclusion

Is self-care a legitimate pursuit for a Christian in ministry? If we’re not talking about self-indulgence, but stewardship, then yes. A pastor should ensure he rests adequately, eats healthfully, exercises regularly, grows spiritually, and prioritizes time and energy for his marriage, family, and other relationships. He should steward his personal resources for long-term ministry for the glory of God.