Our staff has come up with some practical techniques, such as:

If it's me or YP who's being cornered excessively, the other one will come up and say, "Sorry to interrupt...do you know if Pastor wants a staff meeting today?"  It's not lying; and a lot of times our SP does want to touch base with us quickly after a service (Since I work a FT day job, after services is sometimes the only time during the week that our whole staff has to get together and talk!!).  To which the other of us will reply, "I don't know - we'd better go track him down and find out."  The conversation is wrapped up without any hurt feelings!

If we see that our poor SP or his wife is being cornered, we'll wait awhile and then come up with some reason why we need to talk to them before we leave...either that or find their four year-old (who's always wandering around looking for his mom or dad - he's four!!), and say, "There he is!  I found him," and then the kid will go tearing across the room saying, "MOMMY!" or "DADDY!" (and what parent can resist that?).  Obviously, that technique won't necessarily work for you, Deanna (if a child the age of your kids came tearing across the room yelling for Mommy or Daddy, that may look odd, lol!).

Point is, when at church, use your staff!  Watch each other's backs...I know that I'm there to be a support to my SP just as much as I'm there to minister to the kids, and if he or his wife needs my help, I'm more than happy to provide assistance - and it is totally possible to do so without lying!

At home, DH and I have started turning the ringers off (except for now, when I am expecting phone calls from potential employers!!), letting people leave a message, and then calling them back if we need to.  I try to make myself available most of the time, especially since I don't keep regular office hours at the church, but on evenings that we have designated for "us," the phone gets shut off.  Even if we're just throwing in a movie or vegging, that is the time we have committed to each other - not church people, not friends, not even family members (Sorry, Mom...Sorry, Dad ). 

Thanks for your advice.  I will try some of it and see how it goes.  I have a few pet peeves regarding this stuff that I just can't get around...

1)  People that want you to counsel them but don't want to be faithful to church.  I speak to most of the issues that people want counseling about in my women's class.  If they were faithful to women's class they would have already had all the answers, but they don't want to get up early and come.  I did make a rule - if you don't come to women's class, I don't counsel you.  I think that's fair...they have to show forth effort to really want to change and if they can't come to class I don't believe they want to change.

2)  Most of the time it's attention they want, not counsel.  Most of the issues if not all, I have spoken to in class or from the pulpit.  What they want is extra attention, to sit next to me and just have me love on them.  I understand that to a degree, but can't it just be a hug after church in that case? 

3)  Many people don't understand the interruptions like the kids running across the room, in the "mommy!" mode.  My kids did this for years and people would just ignore it and keep talking.  My dh will even approach and tell me we have a meeting in 5 min. with so and so or whatever, or that we have people waiting for lunch or what have you, and the monopolizing individuals just keep going as if to say, "I'm more important right now..." and they just keep talking.  I hate to say it but in some cases I just need to be brutal and I hate that because I'm not that type of person.  But sometimes you have to be blunt with people. 

I have started to be blunt when I have a meeting or lunch and people come up and say, "do you have a minute?"  I say, "no, I really don't - I have a meeting right now but if you'll call the office tomorrow morning we can set something up."  What is it about people that they don't understand that or think it's odd when you say that?  Many people really do think that anybody should just be able to approach the pastor after church and have a personal counseling session.

This past week I had a church member say something to me that I thought was really off the wall.  They spoke about how they called one of our ministry leaders to tell them their mother or father had died (someone out of the church that no one knew) or something like that and the leader was in the middle of their son or daughter's school play and said "Can I call you back, I'm at my daughter's school play."  And the church member got really offended by that and thought it was grounds to not trust that person again or go to them about anything - that they really did not care about them.  Why is it so hard for people to see that they are cared about - but there are boundaries?  (FYI - the ministry leader in question would have always called the person back asap, and in fact, they did!  The point is, this person believes people should be there for them 24/7, on the spot) 

Sometimes high-maintenance people make me so weary and I hate to say it but when I sense one is coming into the church such as when they first arrive I pray that God might speak to them to become part of another church. Have any of you ever felt that way?

My dh has a practice of something that I have always found very valuable.  He goes out of his way in certain instances for those who are not high maintenance and at the same time high impact.  He makes sure that if something major happens in their life, he's the one that goes out of his way to take care of it.  That's because he does not want to lose low maintenance /high impact people because they are so valuable to the church.  If a high impact/low maintenance person goes in the hospital he will often go see them himself rather than have the visitation pastor do it.  He wants to communicate to them how much he appreciates them.  Boy those type of people are worth their weight in gold, huh?