I don’t have the time
Subtract - Add - Focus
“I don’t have the time.”
We hear it from clergy all the time. “I don’t have time. I need an assistant. I need more lay volunteers. I’m overwhelmed. I can’t take that much time off now. I can’t attend that program. I don’t have time for all that.” Familiar? If so, here are three ways to improve your situation: subtract, add, focus.
A demand system
The web of expectations and pressures calling for energy, time, and money
Every one of us has a demand system. All of our parishes have a demand system. “That demand system is the web of expectations and pressures calling for energy, time, and money. The demands may be external or internal. All parishes have the regular flow of work they must attend to. There’s the occasional crisis, problems to solve and deadlines to meet. We also get caught up in work that just isn’t very important to what we exist to do and be. Some meetings, phone calls and e-mail are like that. Most of us also have routines that are in fact either busy-work or time wasters. All those things, the important and the unimportant, consume most parishes and most of our individual lives.”[1]
Trapped in the existing demand system
“We can be unmindful of the web of expectations, pressures, and beliefs that inhibit our ability to do what’s necessary for a healthier parish. We get driven along through the weeks and years by the routine demands of parish life. We assume there will be a time when we have the time to work on all the strategic and truly important developmental possibilities. It’s a never-to-arrive point in the future.
Developmental work occurs when we make the developmental and strategic matters part of our demand system … Putting developmental activities on the parish schedule and weaving them into the fabric of parish life will create a new system of demands and expectations.”[2]
Subtract
You know this already. You need to stop doing some things. And you need to say “no” more often. Let your “ ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ ” Something else He got right!
What in your demand system might you let go of? What are the activities that try your soul and have little real benefit for the parish? What are the time wasters that bring you little pleasure?
Think ahead – don’t undermine yourself by acting in a manner that you know is not responsible. Finish the commitment you made to serve on that committee and when asked to continue – say “no.” Maybe also make a rule for yourself – don’t agree to any more long term commitments without first reflecting, praying and talking with your best friend, your spouse, and your spiritual director.
Add
“The activities that transform parish and personal life can take a back seat to the routine business that must be done and to the unimportant interruptions and trivia of life. What renews life and develops the parish waits for when there’s time. This means relationships don’t get built, people don’t receive training and coaching in spiritual practices, strategic issues aren’t addressed, opportunities are missed, and crises not foreseen and prevented. These transformational activities, specifically because they aren’t front and center in most people’s expectations, and specifically because no immediate disaster will take place if they aren’t attended to, generally do not form part of the existing demand systems of most parish churches. We can turn all that around by consciously adding elements to the demand system. Yes, that’s right: we need to add to the pressures we experience. We need to add activities and resources into parish life—literally put them on the calendar—that keep the important, transformative matters in front of us.”[3]
Recently, in the Shaping the Parish program a participant asked Sister Michelle what he might do, in between modules, that was developmental. She responded, “Begin a public daily office.” I loved that. It’s a wonderful example of something that is very developmental both for the priest and the parish. It grounds and lifts those participating. It communicates to the whole parish what is essential. It tells the neighborhood that the parish has more than a Sunday life.
Focus
Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Parish churches and their leaders all have to attend to the routine stuff of life. Some of that is life giving and central – each Sunday we celebrate the Holy Eucharist. And we do all the things that our parish does in preparation for that -- choirs and servers rehearse, bulletins are prepared, sermons are written. And some of that is “the trivial round, the common task … a road to bring us daily nearer God.”[4] And at times we get caught up in the trivial, we waste time, and against our better judgment we give time to matters that feel urgent but really aren’t. Then there are the moments of real crisis – the toilet backs up, a fire in the kitchen, the wife of the treasure hits the senior warden, a small community of homeless men set up tents in the parking lot.
How to stay focused
Consider the three purposes of all parish churches.[5] Are you attending to them?
1. The worship of God
2. The formation of the People of God for the sake of the world
3. Being a sanctifying presence in the broader community
Beware of rationalizations. You may find it helps to occasionally assess things in terms of those purposes – “Purposes of a Parish Church Assessment.”
Have a way to distinguish among what is really developmental and what is something else. I find it helpful to make use of the Covey Time Management Matrix. Stephen Covey saw what all institutional leaders spend time on as being in one of four areas. We’ve slightly modified that and come up “Focusing the Parish on What’s Important” with these areas: Parish Development, Normal Parish Business, Interruptions, and Trivia. It may be useful to assess your time use in terms of those categories.[6]
A Starting Place
One place to begin is to reflect on your existing demand system. Contemplation often starts with looking at things as they are now. Trying to see clearly.
One method is a demand system exercise. I first experienced this in the 1990s when Loren Mead consulted with the bishop’s staff in the Diocese of Connecticut. We did it as a group using large sheets of newsprint. I’ve used it many times for myself and clients. Try it.
1. Draw a small circle in the center of the paper. Write your name within the circle.
2. Around you’ll describe your existing demand system. Create circles for every person and group asking for your time, energy and money. Name the pressures and expectations of your life – those self-generated and those coming from outside you. At this stage don’t try to sort out which ones are stronger or weaker, closer or further away. That will cut across your brainstorming. You’ll hit a place where you’ve got it all on paper. More will occur to you later. Add them in.
3. You may want to take a walk at this point. Get a cup of coffee. Or possibly something stronger. It often helps to take a brief vacation from this task – 30 minutes, a day, a week.
4. When you return. Add any additional people, groups, expectations.
5. Then begin to sort it all. Maybe draw a red circle around those that you experience as being major forces. A blue circle around those that you experience the most joy in engaging. Green around forces that are essential to the health and development of you and/or the parish. You get the idea. Use another sorting system if you wish.
6. That’s it. That’s your reflection. Your picture of your current demand system.
In the back of my head
For me the other beginning place has been for it all to sit in the back of my head – the idea of a demand system, an understanding about the need to “schedule your priorities”, clarity about the purposes of any parish. For me, it all sits in the back of my mind. And because it’s there, at times when I find myself reflecting as I walk, something will occur to me about my time use. For example, recently I focused on what I was reading. I have Many subscriptions related to current affairs, politics, and national security. For over 50 years I’ve read the New York Times just about every day. It occurred to me that there were six sources I read each day and another 3 or 4 each week. I then canceled 10 other newsletters that I’ve been receiving and all too often feeling slightly guilty about rarely reading. A small thing. But most often these decisions are about small things. Small things that become time wasters.
Brother Robert, OA
[1] “Focusing on Strategic Issues” in Finding God in All Things pp 148 – 158, Heyne & Gallagher, 2023. Also in In Your Holy Spirit: Shaping the Parish Through Spiritual Practice, Robert A. Gallagher 2011, Ascension Press pp.16 - 18
[2] In Your Holy Spirit: Shaping the Parish Through Spiritual Practice, Robert A. Gallagher 2011, Ascension Press pp. 132-133
[3] “Focusing on Strategic Issues” in Finding God in All Things pp 148 – 158, Heyne & Gallagher, 2023.
[4] From “New every morning is the love” John Keble
[5] An Energy Not Its Own: Three cycles of parish life and the purposes of the parish church , Chapter 1, Heyne & Gallagher, 2023
[6] “Making time for developmental matters: The Covey Chart” in Finding God in All Things, Heyne & Gallagher, 2023