Today’s devotion on the theme of Pastor’s Relationships is by Geoff and Sherry Surratt

One of the healthiest things a ministry couple can do is find a circle of friends who have nothing to do with their ministry. They may be in the church or they may not attend church at all, but they aren’t involved in any way with your work. More important, they aren’t looking to you to fix them, teach them, or respond to their agenda. We spend so much time helping people, we can become completely drained. We need friends who are simply friends.

I believe this is why Jesus was such good friends with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. It seems that, while they did learn from Jesus, mostly they just enjoyed being together.

Sherry and I often find this experience in small groups. One of the best groups we’ve been in met at our next-door neighbor’s house when we lived in California. It was the quirkiest group we’d ever met. There were single moms and empty-nest couples. There were people with significant resources and people barely able to pay their rent. Some attended the church where I worked and some did not. It was incredible to just love people who loved us back and expected nothing in return.

It was hard to leave that small group when we moved to Colorado, but we’ve found other ministry couples here who do not attend our church. It is fun to get together and laugh or cry over the scars ministry can leave. We’re not trying to fix, lead, or heal each other; we’re simply connecting with another couple who understands what it’s like to do ministry for a living. We can’t stress how important it is to find other life-giving couples.

You can’t allow ministry to smother you. Sharing the redeemed life with people far from God and leading them to be disciples should be life-giving. When you find yourselves feeling overwhelmed, tired, and on the edge of burnout, it’s time to retreat from ministry for a few hours and reconnect with each other and with non-needy friends.