Excerpt from a book called Sub-merge

written by John B. Hayes,
"...But this is exactly what my mind and body needed to cope with ministry stress. Exercise like this would have been so good for me. You're right. But you were so busy doing ministry that you didn't do any of the very life-giving things that would have sustained you. Isn't that what incarnational ministry is all about? Your ministry is your life? That's how you've been doing it for six years! In fact, the opposite is true: Your ministry is not your life; your life should be your ministry. What's the difference? It's a tiny change in word order, but there's a gigantic difference - one that will lead you to burnout and misery if you confuse the two. When ministry is your life, you will give when you have nothing to give, work when you should be resting, neglect that which should be your greatest priority, and ultimately loathe the very people you are called to love. In short, when ministry is your life, you have no life to offer to others and nothing but ministry to invite others into.
On the other hand, when your life is your ministry, all of life becomes a sacrament before God: your work and your rest, your eating and sleeping, your generosity and your neediness, your care for your body and the environment, your trivial pastimes and your greatest accomplishments. When all of your life is what you offer as your ministry, then nothing is wasted. In short, when your life is what you offer to others as ministry, what you offer is multifaceted and rich with meaning.
Are you suggesting that going for a run with my dog is just as significant as any of my ministry objectives?
No only is it significant, but it is also vital. Without a fully lived life, what you present to God and to others is one-dimensional and incomplete. The lost are compelled to follow Christ when they see how you do life -how you treat your children, where you buy your groceries, how you care for your neighbors - not by how much you do ministry -
So all those times when I skipped lunch and pulled all-nighters for the sake of the ministry -
The people you were discipling saw a man living a life of destruction.
Then what did people learn from me?
How to live an unbalanced, chaotic life of ministry that ruins the soul rather than nourishes it.
And if I had dropped what seemed so important to go for a run or to cook lunch?
Your followers would have seen a man (or woman) un apologetically living the kind of abundant life Jesus calls us to.
I want that kind of abundance. I want that kind of life. My ministry is not my life, but my life can be my ministry."