When Life Feels Crazy

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At different points throughout the year life can feel out of control. When we hit summer, with schools out and trips planned, we hope to find ourselves catching our breath, slowing down and recalibrating.

But what happens when that season ends? When late nights on the patio, long walks, afternoon naps or sleeping late and vacations are gone, and you are back to the normal rhythms of life? How do you live when life feels crazy?

If we aren’t careful, we roll from one busy season right into another one and find ourselves constantly out of breath.

With that in mind, here’s how to bring the feeling of a slower pace, summer vacation and breaks into the normal rhythm of life.

1. Build in breaks. You should schedule daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly breaks. Every hour at work, get up and move around, walk around the office to move some blood around and clear your head. I find that when I get up from a sermon or a problem and walk around, when I get back to it, I have a lot more clarity.

Make sure that you have scheduled in breaks during your week, that you are turning off your email alerts at night, things you would do on vacation. (If you don’t turn email off on vacation, start.)

One of the things Katie and I do is look at our family, school and work calendar from a quarterly perspective so we are able to know if it will be a busy season. This helps to make sure you build in a break at some point. Look at it for three months. Is it faster than normal? What is your plan to slow down after that?

2. Look around. In the busyness of life we miss the little things. Smiles, laughs, sad looks, and our surroundings as we run from one thing to the next. We are so focused on our phones, head down, crossing things off our list and being productive that we miss the opportunity to be present.

This is hard for me because I like accomplishing things, and you probably do, too. Yet most of us can’t remember what we did last year or five years ago, what we accomplished. But we can remember relationships and experiences.

Which leads to number 3…

3. Laugh with friends. Let’s face it, if you are a leader, you are a serious person. You are a driven, accomplish things kind of person.

I realized something recently. I struggle to enjoy things. I get so focused on winning, accomplishing, and moving forward that I fail to enjoy life. To have fun.

When was the last time you laughed?

I mean, really laughed? So hard that it hurt?

If it has been awhile, if you can’t remember, that is a problem.

4. Savor a meal. Have you had this experience?

You had a great meal with some friends. Good food, great conversation, no kids. It was amazing. Inevitably, someone probably said, “We should do this again soon.”

But…

You don’t.

Months go by where you don’t spend that time with friends, don’t linger over a great meal. We rush from one thing to the next, eating fast food, something thrown together. We sleep too late and stay up too late, so we hurry through a breakfast of cereal or pop-tarts.

Yet food and savoring good food is one of God’s great gifts to us.

There is something about an amazing meal. Something that slows us down and helps us to enjoy and calm down.

5. Take a nap. When life is crazy, one of the best things you can do is stop and take a nap.

I know, I know.

Life is crazy, so who has time for a nap.

You do, and you need one. Your body and your brain need one. I rarely hear someone say, “I’m so mad I took a nap.”

How Many Times a Year Should a Pastor Preach

preaching

The other day a church planter I coach asked me. “How many times a year should I preach?”

The answer to this question depends on the person, church, philosophy and what the person can handle. While most churches have one person who preaches the majority of the time (ie. 40-48 times a year), some churches have a team where people preach an equal amount of split in some fashion.

When we started Revolution Church, I preached 98 times in the first 2 years. This was partly because we didn’t have anyone else to preach, my desire to get better as a preacher, but also I felt the need to help set the tone of what our church would be like. This was tiring.

Now, the elders have set a goal for me to preach at least 40 times a year. This allows me to preach the most (which is important for the church, which I’ll talk about in a minute) and still develop other communicators. As I get older, I could see this number going down so others can be preaching and developing their gift.

I think it is important for a church to know the person who communicates regularly. This creates a normalcy to church, people know what to expect and they feel connected to a communicator.

The other question a pastor has to ask is how he will break his weeks up.

I’ve learned, my limit for preaching in a row is 10 weeks. Other guys it might be 8 or 13. Around week 10 I start to get incredibly run down mentally and spiritually and feel like my tank is low. I shoot to make sure I have a week off from preaching at least every 10 weeks. Some times I’m able to make that happen and other times because of the season of our church, I can’t.

One question a lot of young planters wrestle with is: when to take a break. 

Each year, before I put together my preaching calendar of topics, I pull out the school calendar (district in my area and the university of Arizona) and see when the breaks are. We run on a year round school system here so we get 6 weeks of summer instead of 3 months. This means we have random breaks in October and March when Tucson seems to shut down. These breaks are great times to have another person preach. The sunday after thanksgiving and the 4th of July, the Sunday of Memorial Day and Labor Day and the last Sunday of the year and the first Sunday of the year are great weeks to take off from preaching and have someone else do it (that’s 6 right there).

I also shoot for a 3 week break from preaching at some point in the summer. The benefits to this are enormous for you personally and your church. This is when I plan the next year of sermons, work ahead, work on my own soul and take a vacation with my family.

But what do you do on a week off?

For many pastors or people in their church, the idea of the pastor having a week off from preaching sounds like he is taking a week off from everything. This is an opportunity for you as a pastor to work ahead on sermons, think through a series coming up, meet with leaders to plan ahead or evaluate a ministry, go to a conference, take an extended spiritual retreat to be with Jesus.

If you aren’t proactive, you will waste these weeks off.

So, why do pastor’s preach too much and burnout?

For some, it is a pride issue. They don’t want to give up control of the pulpit. They think if they aren’t at church, it will cease to exist and fall apart. This gets to the heart of who is building your church, you or Jesus.

For some pastor’s, they truly don’t have anyone else who can handle it. This is a tough spot to be in. You can use a video sermon from a pastor of a large church like Craig Groeschel or Andy Stanley (we do that once a year simply to expose our church to some great speakers and authors that I think would benefit them).

The bottom line is, you get to choose this as a pastor. The choice you make though has an enormous affect on your health and the health of your church.

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