Last Sunday afternoon through Tuesday I took a personal sabbatical at the campuses of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX, and Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas to try to slow down, catch my breath, and assess my life.  One of the things that has become abundantly clear to me is the need to minimize somewhat my relationship with technology.  To that end, I deactivated my Twitter account yesterday (you will notice the feed is now gone from the right column), am in the process of shutting down Words With Friends (a relaxing game to which I am way too addicted), and, biggest of all for me, will be changing my phone number next Monday in an effort to better guard my time as well.

All of this is difficult for me to do.  I do not see social media as necessarily inherently pernicious (nor do I see it as inherently benign – I’m still chewing on this).  Rather, for me, it kind of became a too-easy-venue for time wasting and for viewing reality through a series of 140 character sound bites.  I will say that I have begun thinking a great deal about the nature of social media and what it does to our view of the world, of others, of human interactions, etc.  I suppose the jury will be out for some time on the overall effects of social media on the national psyche, but I do wonder if it does not have certain damaging effects.  (I have been off of Facebook for two years now.  That was easy.  I came to hate it.  I have never missed it.  My advice:  start doing a lot of marriage counseling for struggling couples and you will soon see the other side of some of these social media platforms.)

That being said, I again want to stress that I am not trying to make judgments about social media per se or those who enjoy being on it.  All of this is much more a commentary on me than social media.  Many people use it well, benefit from it, and enjoy it.  For me, it became somewhat counterproductive.

As for my phone, this is a tricky one.  I am an odd mixture of recluse and extrovert.  That is simply a matter of temperate.  Ministry dynamics play a role in this as well.  It’s interesting being a pastor:  you love and care for and want to be accessible to the people to whom you have been called to serve, but you cannot let the church utterly consume you.  It’s a balance.  Regardless, it has become clear to me that, simply put, way too many people have my phone number.  Central Baptist Church is averaging just over 500 people in attendance this year.  A sizable percentage of those 500 people have my phone number.  This means that it is very difficult to ever really detach and rest, even if the phone is cut off.  (The moment you turn the phone back on, a stream of messages and texts are waiting.)

I say this is tricky because I fully believe that a pastor should indeed be accessible to his people, and, to the best of my ability, I have striven to be and will continue to strive to be.  To that end, I am working on a plan whereby church members will have an emergency line that will be manned by a ministerial staff member, myself included, on a rotational basis on weekends.  In this manner, Central Baptist Church members will be able to get ahold of ministerial staff members at any time (in the case of emergency of great need), as it should be.

On the other hand, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that boundaries are necessary in all relationships, even (especially?) those closest to you.  A failure to establish boundaries can destroy relationships.  My previous church ran around 200 folks.  My current church, 500 folks.  But I have taken the same approach to my phone in a church of 500 as I did in a church of 200.  Eventually, that will catch up to you.

Thus, I am now trying to make adjustments so that I can be a better husband, father, pastor, son, brother, and friend.

This is not about me wanting to do less.  It is about me wanting to be more.

I will be keeping this website.  It is a creative outlet that I am mainly using now for posting sermon manuscripts and audio as well as the odd random post here and there.  I have a much more relaxed approach to this site.  It takes a little more to actually post on it, as opposed to the immediate availability of something like, say, Twitter, so I don’t really sit around looking at this site other than when I feel the need to post.

We only have so much time in a day, and managing that time is a matter of great importance.  I would covet your prayers as I try to hit the right stride in managing the time allotted me, and I would encourage you to do so as well.  We all face this challenge in an increasingly busy world.