At our last Bishop's Committee meeting, I asked if I could change my regular day off from Monday to Friday and the BC said yes. I'm trying to re-structure my week so that I can use my time in the best way for me and the parish.
In the past I've used Mondays as my day off to recover from the stress of Sunday. Now I'd like to try taking Friday off so I can have something more like a regular weekend. My Saturdays are usually oriented around getting the sermon into shape. Having a sermon looming the next morning is enough to keep my distracted all day! So I hope that taking Fridays off will be helpful.
The tired old joke about clergy is that "they only work one day a week", so why should they ask for a day off during the week?
But one of the traps that clergy fall into is burnout. It's often hard to measure how much you've accomplished as a clergyperson, so the temptation is to keep working at something - anything - to try to feel like you've "done enough". And of course you can never do enough, so many clergy have poor boundaries when it comes to personal care.
The challenge is to use your time well, and then learn to separate yourself from your work for time off that is refreshing. It's generally accepted that healthy and whole clergy tend to lead healthy and whole parishes. So the best thing for everyone is for the clergy to keep good boundaries and have sufficient time off.
My Letter of Agreement says this:
"The Vicar's scheduled work-week is five days, usually measured as ten units of mornings, afternoons, or evenings in various combinations reflecting the demands of this ministry, and shall include Sunday activities. In general, no more than three evenings per week shall be expected from the Vicar to be committed to congregational activities. The Vicar is expected to preserve at least one continuous twenty-four hour period each week solely for personal use."
Sounds like a good plan!
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