Staying healthy in ministry

One of the blogs I track is churchrelevance.com. A recent post was titled 10 Tips to prevent scandal, but I think it has much to say about ministry anyway. Here's the post:

The world has seen quite a few ministry scandals over the past year.
Fortunately, Charisma magazine’s J. Lee Grady has 10 tips on how you can prevent scandal in your own life. Here is a summary.

• Live a humble, transparent life.


• Stay open to correction.


• Audit your actions regularly.


• Stay in touch with the real world. Ministry is about loving people. But you will never develop compassion unless you are close enough to the grass roots to smell the poverty, lay hands on the sickness and cry with those who are in pain.


• Don’t allow people to make you a celebrity.


• Make family a priority.


• Live modestly and give extravagantly.


• Don’t build your own kingdom.


• Develop keen discernment.


• Maintain your spiritual passion. People who experience moral failure almost always lose their spiritual passion first.
  

Now it seems to me that this framework provides a good basis from which we can all develop a checklist for ministry health.