If you’re like me, you are rolling into the summer of 2020 tired, maybe exhausted. You have spent the last several months doing church online, preaching to an empty room, navigating the politics of covid with your people, shepherding your church to think about race in America. You have been homeschooling, quarantined, and just had your life changed in ways you didn’t even imagine in January.

There’s also a chance that your summer plans have changed. The place you were planning to go to, that trip you had booked, has been altered or canceled. I know the place we usually go to in California is closed. So traditions in the Reich house will be different this summer.

So, how do you enjoy the summer then?

I think everyone needs to plan their time off as much as their time on. Even in covid, you can still do this and to come back and roll into a ministry year in fall (who knows what that will look like), you need to rest.

To do that, you must identify what will help you to rest and if you can pull that off. For me, resting involves not creating. That’s not creating sermons, blogs, podcasts, not reading books for sermons or leadership books, but merely resting my brain. This is hard because this is what I do each day, but to rest, I need to. I need to read books that nourish my soul, books that are fun and take my mind off of work. One of the things I do most summers is read through sermons by people like Eugene Peterson. These have a way of refreshing me and reading novels or historical books that take me to a different place. If you’re a leader or creator, you need to give your brain a break.

As you are thinking about your time off, what is refreshing and recharging for you and your family, think through relationships as well. Who do you need to spend time with? Who will help you to feel refreshed and not drained? Because we have been so starved for face to face relationships over these last few months, this is crucial. And yes, because of covid, you need to be wise about this. But plan a time to be with people who will lift you.

Many leaders, though, are not spontaneous. If that’s you (and that’s me), plan some last-minute spontaneous things. Do some adventures at night with your kids: watch a movie out back, get some late-night ice cream.

While this summer will look different than any other summer, you’ve experienced. I mean, when was the last summer you lived in a pandemic? You can still enjoy summer. You can still make it great, but it will take some planning.