{"id":5025,"date":"2021-09-27T17:07:44","date_gmt":"2021-09-27T21:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michigancog.org\/?p=5025"},"modified":"2021-09-27T17:07:44","modified_gmt":"2021-09-27T21:07:44","slug":"harvest-blog-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/michigancog.org\/harvest-blog-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvest Blog 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"> Having been in ministry for thirty-four years and 24.5 have of those as a lead pastor, I have often experienced times of stress, and anxiety; I even came close to burnout once.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>The ministry is not for \u201cthe faint of heart.\u201d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>In those tough times, I learned to lean into my calling and to lean upon the Lord and His faithfulness.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>In times of stress and depleted resources, however, our body retreats unto a fight or flight mode.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>If this flight or fight response continues week after week, month after month, you will eventually burnout. <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"> Archibald Hart said, \u201cPastors tend to become overly involved emotionally, overextend themselves, and then feel overwhelmed by the emotional demands imposed on them by others.\u201d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Sadly Hart is right; the statistics often confirm his statement.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>80% of pastors believe that ministry has negatively affected their families (Life Enrichment Ministries 1998).<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>According to a Barna 2002 report, 25% of pastors don\u2019t know where to go for help if they have a personal or family conflict.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>In one of his newsletters in 1998, James Dobson said, \u201cOur survey indicates that 80% of pastors and 84% of their spouses are discouraged or depressed.\u201d <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"> As a pastor I often found myself like the speaker in<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Solomon 1:6 (NLT)<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>\u201c . . . My brothers were angry with me; they forced me to care for their vineyards, so <b>I couldn\u2019t care for myself-my own vineyard<\/b>.\u201d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>All of us in ministry need a soul care plan.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>We often take care of our physical bodies but what about our souls?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Proverbs 4:23 (NAS) says, \u201cWatch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.\u201d <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"> This coming Tuesday, October 5, 2021, Dr. Gerald McGinnis, a longterm pastor from Park West, Knoxville, Tennessee, will be sharing via a webinar on soul care at 8:00 p.m.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span><b>You will not want to miss this<\/b>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Dr. McGinnis is one of the best on soul care that I have ever heard.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>The link will be emailed to you next Monday for you to join<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>our \u201cPastoral Matters\u201d webinar.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>I will be looking forward to seeing you. <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Having been in ministry for thirty-four years and 24.5 have of those as a lead pastor, I have often experienced times of stress, and anxiety; I even came close to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michigancog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5025"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michigancog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michigancog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michigancog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michigancog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/michigancog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michigancog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michigancog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michigancog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}