My Bowl Runneth Over

Today, I was sitting in the studio at church watching the service...okay, so maybe I was hiding. There are only so many missing teachers, puking kids, and “concerned” parents that I can handle in a weekend. Occasionally, by the 3rd service, I just need a little break and I can always count on an empty seat in the studio. The guys that work in there are still nice to me, even though my husband isn’t their boss anymore.

Of course, if I’m really honest, it’s not much of a hiding place. In fact, if someone is looking for me, it’s one of the first places they’ll look. If I really want to get away, I just go to the prayer room, put my head down and close my eyes. It’s a major Christian faux-pas to interrupt someone when they are obviously praying. So I know I’m good to go for at least 10 minutes.

Well, today I hadn’t reached the breaking point and so the studio it was. Sitting on the table was a book. The title read Mad Church Disease: Overcoming the Burnout Epidemic. Ah-ha! I had heard of this book. And since I had been sitting there all of 5 minutes and the children’s ministry seemed to be plugging along just fine without me, I picked it up and began to read.

The author had suffered major burnout both as a pastor’s kid and as a ministry leader herself. She has lots of advice on how to recognize, avoid, and heal from ministry burnout. I only read a few pages, but I think I might buy a copy for myself.

See, I’m pretty sure I am on the edge of burnout. And it’s not because of sick kids, long hours, mean people, or my own imperfections interfering with my ministry. My inevitable burnout boils down to one thing...my nemesis...the source of my weekly headache. It is...the preschool toilets.

See, when I first started at Capital, I thought, “Good! All of the preschool classrooms have bathrooms. Perfect!” After all, those toilets were cute. Low to the ground and sparkling white, with seats just the right size for little hineys, they seemed so harmless.

Little did I know what those cute little porcelain vessels had in store for me. See, I think the shortness of these toilets must have had some effect on their gravitational pull, and that coupled with every preschoolers’ tendency to use half a roll of toilet paper for every swipe, leads to constant clogs and the dreaded overflow. I am sooo over you, toilets.

Rarely does a week go by, where at least one of those toilets doesn’t fight back against the flush. And the worst is when it overflows ONTO a child. Imagine having to explain to the mother of a 3 year old, that their recently potty-trained child is wearing Jimmy’s old pants and outgrown t-shirt because the Juicy-Couture dress she sent her to class in, is soaked through with pee-pee water. Yea, they’ll be back next week for sure...

And then there is the clean-up. Last January, during our annual Catalyst conference, after working for 4 services straight, I was finally IN a service, worshiping my heart out, when I got the dreaded text. “5s toilet just overflowed.” Stink! I looked around...Seth’s at the sound board...Bob’s got Ethan...Phil, I don’t know where Phil is...okay, I’ll go. But at least I was wearing heels and designer jeans. If you are going to spend an evening mopping up toilet water, you should probably look your best. At least that’s what Emily Post says.

I told my assistant the other day that I was pretty sure I had a lot of job security. She agreed and then handed me a plunger.

I think I may have left it in the prayer room.


UPDATE: Since the author of "Mad Church Disease", Anne Jackson, was kind enough to leave a comment on this post, (I feel like I just met a celebrity!) I'll go ahead and pimp her book. You can find out more about it here. I know, I tend to be a little lazy with my link love, but I'll try to do better. And now off to order the book with my handy-dandy one-click over at Amazon!