Surviving Christmas (S.T.O.P)

Christmas is frantic for everyone, particularly for clergy families. With all the frantic activities sandwiched in between Christmas carols, nativity set ups, Christmas fetes, and church services, there is little time to stop and see how you're doing or maybe even taking some time to enjoy the activities you've arranged.

This great little S.T.O.P exercise takes no more than a minute out of your day and you can do anywhere - without anyone even noticing! If you can fit this in once a day for 1 minute (or more if that helps), you might just be on your way to holiday sanity.

Clergy Families Need Your Help

For the past 6 months we have been working our way through hundreds of studies, stories and journal articles about clergy families. We have read about the joys and blessings of ministry, the wonderful communities of accepting church members, and the wonders of Christ working in people's lives. And I would like to say these are the most common stories we come across.

The Clergy Family Christmas

As the Christmas season is upon us, responses to the study have slowed down. Not surprising, with the busy lives that clergy families lead at this time of the year, but I wanted to take a moment to consider the traditional Clergy Family Christmas - with all the trimmings.

I found a great article written by the Herald Sun "After Church: How Clergy Spend Christmas". It talks about the hospital visits, the shared meals with church members, the many extra services to mark the important dates on the calendar, and the fine balance between family and church expectations at this particularly important time of the year.