Picture this: It’s Saturday evening of your interparish spring retreat, and everything has gone beautifully. You’re tired, but it’s a satisfied, man-I-love-this-job kind of tired. As you prepare for bed, your roommate (the youth ministry coordinator from a neighboring parish) hands you a pair of earplugs, apologetically explaining that they snore. You plug your phone into the nearest outlet and settle into your bunk for what turns out to be your best night of sleep in months.

In the morning, you walk across the rustic cabin and pick up your phone. To your horror, you see dozens of missed calls and texts. Your spouse is in the hospital with acute appendicitis and could be rolled into surgery at any moment.

It’s Sunday. The rest of the day is full of responsibilities. You have some choices (and phone calls) to make.

The Moment When Theory Becomes Reality

This exact turn of events happened to me nearly a decade ago, when I was six months pregnant with my firstborn. By nature, I am a little stubborn: Just the weekend before, I surreptitiously set up 20 folding tables on my own instead of asking for help – in spite of my pregnant belly. But I had some really, really good mentors, so I knew, intellectually at least, that good ministry can’t be done on your own.

This moment was the first real test of that principle in action for me personally – can I actually do the right thing and ask for help? I had to face some big fears to find out.

Fear #1: No One Will Answer When I Ask for Help ➔ Practical Action #1: Build A Team You Trust

If there is no one to delegate to, it’s not possible to step away. Your options are to work instead of attending to a family emergency (for example), or to cancel everything. The first is an absolute non-starter, but the second feels awful and can have repercussions on your employment in some cases.

When my husband’s appendicitis took center stage, I was grateful that I had laid the groundwork, cultivating relationships with a bunch of different folks by building up trust, shared vision, and solidarity. They sprang into action to get me to the hospital as quickly as possible, showing Christ to me in a number of ways:

• My fellow youth minister took charge as we finished the retreat.
• The retreatants’ parents arrived promptly for pickup.
• The adults and teens involved in the afternoon and evening programs stepped up to the plate, running an entire 6-12th-grade formation program night in my absence.
• My co-worker (and his family) sacrificed his time, staying late to make sure the building was unlocked, the team had access to what they needed, and everyone stayed safe and secure.
• My pastor trusted my decisions and adaptations and provided prayerful support.

Know who is on your team at your parish and in your wider community, including your colleagues in other parishes. Become familiar with the available resources for mental health, human formation, and workers’ rights within your diocesan context. If you are employed by your parish, you may have an Employee Assistance Program available, which makes things like mental health therapy and financial counseling much more accessible.

Fear #2: No One Can Do This but Me ➔ Practical Action #2: Know (and Document) What You Actually Do

Some things in ministry don’t make sense to delegate – until you have no choice but to delegate them. But if we have a standard operating procedure, whether written or well-established, we can delegate even those central responsibilities in a pinch.

When I enlisted my coworker’s help, I was able to describe the needs to him in detail. In a quick text exchange, I told him what needed to happen when, where everything was located, and how to get in touch with those who needed to be looped into the plan. Less than ten minutes later, I could confidently step away to be totally present with my spouse.

Fear #3: If “Anyone” Can Do This, That Makes Me Less Valuable ➔ Practical Action #3: Get a Grip and Reality Check Your Heart

Nothing we do in ministry is life or death. NOTHING.

Practice stepping away and fully unplugging NOW, before crisis hits – at the end of your workday, when you’re on vacation, on your day(s) off (you do have a day off, right?). Responsiveness in ministry is vitally important, but unless you are qualified as a medical or mental health professional (and explicitly working in that capacity!), or ordination enables you to administer the sacraments, the work of ministry is not as earth-shatteringly urgent as it may seem.

“But what if someone is struggling?” Relational ministry depends upon reliable boundaries, including creating a culture that normalizes rest and demystifies the process of seeking qualified medical and sacramental care. And as a mentor once reminded me, prayer transcends time; even if an important message arrives on our day off, our “belated” prayers are still efficacious.

God desires our “yes” to ministry, but what is more fundamental is our “yes” to the Lord, not our ministry function. What God is doing through you in ministry is far less important than what he is doing in you as a disciple.

The Big Takeaway: Interdependence Is a Feature, not a Bug

Providentially, I happen to be writing this reflection from a hospital room, sitting at the bedside of another family member. In case you have not yet been the patient in such an equation, let me put it plainly:

Being the one in a hospital bed is abjectly humbling. You must ask for help to do some of the most basic human activities, whether you want to or not. You are at the mercy of the finite humans tasked with your care, whether you like it or not. Illness strips us of any illusion that we are independent, self-made rockstars who have it all together.

Those of us who serve in ministry are absolutely rockstars! But we don’t grow into ministry excellence as atomized individuals, efficiently optimizing and self-improving our way to a polished holiness by sheer force of will or merely private prayer—we are supported every step of the Way by a great cloud of witnesses.

When you are tempted to go it alone, remember from the beginning, God created us to need one another (Genesis 2:18). Interdependence is not optional – it is actually the fundamental, irrevocable state of a creature made in the image of the Triune God.

Ministry puts our lived anthropology on display. If we believe what the Church professes about humanity, it is imperative for us to smash the idols of our own independence. Our model is the humble Christ who emptied himself in obedience instead of clinging to divinity (Phil 2:1-11). When we call for help, our cry will be answered first and best by the One who wept for his friend Lazarus. In spite of all our striving and grasping at greatness, in our dependence, we discover real closeness with the Lord, who drew close to us in the vulnerability of the manger and the cross.