I coached a pastor who was making 150 slides for every Sunday service. He personally was making them. I asked why they needed so many slides. He said someone complained early in the pandemic that they wanted every word on the slides, not just “ … Lord in your mercy, Hear our Prayer.”
He couldn’t remember who requested it. Maybe they weren’t even attending anymore. Or maybe they were, but it was only one person who wanted it. And since it had to be every word, it had to be him who created the slides because he had to write the prayers and other liturgy.
He was also thinking about taking a new call, but was so buried by weekly obligations it was hard to get the process moving.
We are often buried in the expectations of an unseen set of eyes to which we can never measure up. Sometimes it is the echo of someone who actually did set an expectation at one point. Sometimes it is society. Sometimes it is completely imagined.
Those voices are never going to be satisfied. We need to decide what we can do, what we are called to do, and set boundaries around the rest. Ironically, doing less is the only way to free ourselves up enough to step into the next life-giving thing to which we feel called.