Author Archives

Josh Reich

Posted on

How to Make the Most of Your Morning Routine

by

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

If you have kids (even if you don’t), the morning can be crazy. You stayed up too late watching that last episode on Netflix or the game, hit the snooze button too much, and now you are racing out the door, throwing lunches together, and stuffing breakfast into your mouth.

There is a lot at stake in what we do with our mornings. The most productive people maximize their mornings.

Here’s the reality: If you don’t make the most of your morning, you will feel behind all day.

If you don’t make the most of your morning, you will feel behind all day.

Click To Tweet

If your morning determines your day, how do you make the most of it?

Here are six ideas:

6 ways to make the most of your morning.

Click To Tweet

1. Get up before everyone. If you want to make the most of your morning, whether single, married, or have kids, you must get up before everyone else. It would help if you were up before people started sending you texts and emails.

Something happens in the quietness of a morning when it is still dark out.

I know you are exhausted and not a morning person. I get it.

When we started our church, I would work late into the night because I hated the mornings, but the reality is that most people do their best work and best thinking in the morning. I certainly do. 

There is a definite difference in my day when I am up before everyone else and when I am not.

Parents know this truth because they feel behind if they wake up when their kids do.

2. Pick a spot. The place is vital to many people, particularly when it comes to focusing on your heart. Choosing a location you return to each morning to recharge, focus, and pray is essential.

This might be a porch, a spot in your room, or a favorite chair.

Wherever it is, don’t simply make this haphazard. Choose a spot that will help to quiet you and focus your heart.

The consistency of a spot and place will signal in your mind that it is time to relax, think, and connect with Jesus. This becomes a very powerful part of maximizing your time.

3. Read/Journal. Focusing on your day will often come through feeding your soul first.

For me, it is spending time reading my Bible. Being able to have space to read, process, and write down what God is doing in your heart and mind is critical.

What things stand out to you while reading your Bible? Write them down.

Many people find a lot of relief from getting their thoughts and feelings out of their minds and onto paper. This is often a great stress reliever but also a place to leave something behind. You can also track what you are praying for and when those prayers are answered.

4. Pray/Think. In the busyness of life, especially with kids, if you want to have time to pray and think in silence, you will have to carve it out. This is why you need to get up before everyone else. If you want quiet, you have to make it happen. Quiet does not magically find you.

Quiet does not magically find you; you must plan it.

Click To Tweet

If you are a leader, this is very important.

Part of your job as a leader is thinking and praying about what is next for your organization, church, and family. As a parent, you must believe and pray about what is next for your marriage and your kids.

Recently, an older leader challenged me on this and said, “Josh, if you don’t spend time thinking and praying about what is next for your church, who do you think is?”

5. Tackle your most challenging task first. If you’ve noticed, you haven’t done any work yet. For many people, you might be wondering when you start being productive.

But I would say that all of the above will bring greater productivity and success.

As you think through your day, do what takes the most mental energy, the most challenging task that will move the ball the furthest in your life and career, first.

For many pastors and me, this is sermon prep, not a meeting or a counseling session. Tackle the tasks that are not only hard but move the ball furthest in your life or work.

6. Turn on the electronics. Notice: This is last; depending on how long everything else took you, it might be until lunchtime before you check email, Facebook, or Instagram. That isn’t bad (unless your boss would be mad at you about checking your email that late, which is a different topic). Side note, if your boss doesn’t like that, have a conversation about how you can be more productive if you don’t check your email first thing in the morning.

Why does that help?

An email has a way of hijacking your day and brain. It sidetracks you. I don’t check my email on sermon prep mornings until I am done. It keeps my head clear.

6 ideas to make the most of your morning.

Click To Tweet

In reality, no one else is responsible for making you successful, effective, or productive. You are. If you aren’t, as much as we don’t want to admit it, that is often on us.

Take control of what you can control.

Posted on

5 Things Productive People Do in the Morning

by

Photo by Cathryn Lavery on Unsplash

 

We all want to accomplish more, to make the most of our lives and the hours of our day. Productive people accomplish more than everyone else, and it isn’t because they have less to do or more hours in the day. They do specific things that everyone does not do.

Yet, few of us accomplish all that we want to. Why is that? What do productive people know and do that others don’t?

I think this becomes especially relevant right now as so many people seem tired and struggling to keep up. If that’s you, learning how to use your morning more effectively can be a game changer and help you move ahead in life.

Here are five things productive people do in the morning:

5 things productive people do in the morning.

Click To Tweet

1. Make their bed. I came across this from Admiral William McRaven, the Navy SEAL who commanded the operation to capture Osama Bin Laden. He says, “Start every day making your bed, which was the first task of the day at SEAL training. Doing so will mean that the first thing you do in the morning is to accomplish something, which sets the tone for the day, encourages you to accomplish more, and reinforces those little things in life matter. And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made–that you made,” McRaven said, “and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.”

2. Read. Productive people read in the morning. It might be the Bible, a leadership book, but something that will grow them. This is pouring into themselves, so they have more to give to others. At this time, they don’t check their email. The most productive people check their email at lunch or a few hours into work. You’ll see why in #5.

3. Eat breakfast. Breakfast is the day’s most important meal and starts things off well. Productive people not only eat breakfast, but they eat a high-protein breakfast. That means no cereal. You will be hungry in an hour and then spend the day snacking, which will hurt your health, and you’ll end up overeating sugar, and you’ll feel it in the middle of the afternoon.

How to fuel yourself in the morning to make it through the day.

Click To Tweet

4. Sleep. While sleep isn’t a morning thing, it does determine the morning. Productive people do get better and more sleep than unproductive people. They go to bed at a decent time (usually the same time each night) and get up at the same time each morning, so their life is more routine. A good night of sleep goes a long way to having more energy and better clarity to conquer the day.

A great day starts the night before.

Click To Tweet

5. Plan your day. All of us have known the feeling of our day getting away from us. That doesn’t happen to productive people. They don’t waste time. They don’t sit in meetings they shouldn’t be in; they check their email on their timetable, not someone else’s. The first thing I do after reading in the morning is list the 2-3 most important things I need to accomplish in a day and then strive to do those things.

What are the 2-3 most importnat things you need to accomplish today?

Click To Tweet

You might think you don’t control your schedule or your kids hijack your morning. And that might be true, but as Carey Nieuwhof points out in At Your Best: How to Get Time, Energy, and Priorities Working in Your Favor, you control more of your time and schedule than you think. The key is to figure out what you control and schedule and focus on that time. 

How you start your day determines how your day turns out.

Click To Tweet

Posted on

The Seasons of Leadership & Church

by

Photo by Skull Kat on Unsplash

Recently, I gave a sermon on the seasons of life and family at my church. As I thought about it, there is a lot of application to it for pastors and churches.

When you think about the year’s seasons, there are joys and challenges in each season. There are things we love about each year’s season and things we dislike about each season.

Here’s a way to think about each season:

Winter is the season of hibernation and resting, holding steady. It is also the season of sadness, sickness, and loneliness. There are seasons in life and family of sorrow, illness, and loneliness. Seasons of resting and clearing the calendar to sit by the fire. Winter is also the season of preparation because you aren’t doing other activities. 

In the church world, this can be the times of vacations and breaks throughout the year, the season when you are evaluating ministries and thinking through budgets and plans. It is also the time when your staff is resting and on vacation.

While it can feel like nothing is happening in winter, many things are happening in winter.

Spring is the season of new beginnings and opportunities, the season of hope. Life is blooming. This season can feel like a shotgun went off. Like it is all of a sudden busy. Everything is happening at once. This season can start with a new job, opportunity, or school year. I remember a farmer telling me once that to have a great fall; you have to jump on the opportunity in spring and work harder than you think. 

In the church world, this can be the beginning of a new series, ministry season, program, or the start of a church. The beginning is fun and chaotic; you feel like you are building the plane as you are flying.

Summer is the season of growth, enjoyment, and fun. Summer is the season of life when you begin to see the payoff for some of what you did in life. In the summer, you also need to be pruning your life to live effectively and at a sustainable pace. In farming, you are weeding, protecting what matters to you. Summer can also be the time you are tempted to sit back, but if you do, that’s when you can lose your crop. 

In the church world, summer is when you are fixing what you are doing and tweaking this or that to make improvements on something. You are having meetings to keep everyone on the same page, staying unified, and moving in the same direction as a church and staff.

Fall is the harvest season. We reap all that we have sown in the fall. Fall is when you see the results of what you did and either celebrate or lament. Fall is also the season of change; the leaves change, and the weather gets colder. Fall is also the time that you prepare for winter. You winterize your house and pipes. The same is true in life and relationships. You need to prepare for winter. 

One way to think of the fall season in churches is to see it through the lens of the harvest, big days. Days like Easter Sunday or a baptism Sunday. When you sit back and see the hard work of walking with people, those days are also the beginning of journeys for those people, and you start cycles of discipleship with people.

Which season is your church in right now? And how does that change how you lead and work as a church?

Now, something more personal as a leader: I think each pastor and leader has a season they are best. Do you know which season of the life of your church you are best suited for? What about the others on your team?

It isn’t enough to know which season your church is in; you also need to know where your leadership muscles are the strongest.

Posted on

Classes, Groups & Spiritual Growth

by

Photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash

One thing every church wrestles with is how to help people grow and mature in their faith. Every church and every follower of Jesus has different ideas about how this should happen. Some of that is based on personality, learning style, and what worked best for us.

Every pastor has sat in a meeting where someone says, “We should do a class on that.”

Now, are classes wrong? No.

Should every church have classes in addition to groups? Maybe.

How do people grow spiritually?

Click To Tweet

Here are some questions you should walk through to figure that out for your church. Right now, our team is working through these:

What is missing from our groups or church right now that classes will provide? Groups don’t do everything, so things are missing with just being in a group. But we need to identify what those things are.

What is the goal of classes? What will they do that nothing else can do (including sermons, personal bible reading, study, groups, etc.)? Are classes the only way to accomplish these goals as a church? Churches are good at doing things we’ve done in the past, or other churches do without asking why we’re doing them.

Classes serve an essential purpose within the life of our churches, but too often, we aren’t sure what they are supposed to accomplish, and when that happens, they miss the mark.

How do classes help someone grow in their faith to maturity? Classes make people more intelligent and give them more bible knowledge but don’t always make them mature followers of Jesus. We need to be clear on what classes do for spiritual growth and not oversell them in our minds, which is easy.

7 questions every pastor and church must answer.

Click To Tweet

Who is asking for classes? Are they mature followers of Jesus who should be leading? Are new believers trying to take their first steps of faith? The person asking helps us to see what is missing and what classes should or shouldn’t be on. And just because someone thinks they need a class doesn’t mean they need a class. I have paid people to help me with nutrition and workout plans, and often they don’t give me what I want or think I need because I usually don’t know what I need but what I want, and those things aren’t always the same.

How does the New Testament instruct us on discipling people? Did they use classes, one-on-one, groups, mentoring, or a combination?

Many of us do not fully understand how people grew in the New Testament and how that should shape the life of our churches today. 

What is the rhythm of classes? Are we doing them as a one-off to meet a specific need, or will they become a regular rhythm in our church? This is important to identify before you begin something because it makes it easier to stop or pivot without hurting the feelings of those who are excited about classes.

The last question that I think you need to work through is possibly the most important, and hopefully, as a church, you already have an answer for it.

Here it is:

One question every church must answer.

Click To Tweet

What do you believe a healthy, mature follower of Jesus does and is? This question should shape every ministry you do, every program you create, and every outreach you attempt should be aimed towards this, along with all your sermons and resources.

Too many churches do not have a clear answer to this, which shows their ministries’ confusion and what they are shooting for.

The most important question for every church to answer.

Click To Tweet

Now, for my soapbox.

Most of the people, not all, who ask for classes in a church are church people who want more knowledge when the reality is, those people are ready to lead and disciple others, but they’d rather stay comfortable and take in more bible stuff. Hands down, the best growth anyone can have as a follower of Jesus is disciplining someone, not sitting in a class. More spiritual growth will happen from having conversations with someone who is not yet a follower of Jesus than any class will ever give a person, but a class is more accessible.

7 questions to help your church grow spiritually.

Click To Tweet

Posted on

The Seasons of Life and Family

by

Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

Life is full of seasons. 

We see this in the seasons of childhood and school, the seasons we walk through each decade, and the seasons of our careers. 

I’ve always gravitated toward the year’s seasons and how they reflect our seasons of life. 

Here’s what I mean: 

Winter is the season of hibernation and resting, holding steady. It is also the season of sadness, sickness, and loneliness. There are seasons in life and family of sorrow, illness, and loneliness. Seasons of resting and clearing the calendar to sit by the fire. Winter is also the season of preparation because you aren’t doing other activities. 

While it can feel like nothing is happening in winter, many things are happening in winter.

Spring is the season of new beginnings and opportunities, the season of hope. Life is blooming. This season can feel like a shotgun went off. Like it is all of a sudden busy. Everything is happening at once. This season can start with a new job, opportunity, or school year. I remember a farmer telling me once that to have a great fall; you have to jump on the opportunity in spring and work harder than you think. 

Summer is the season of growth, enjoyment, and fun. Summer is the season of life when you begin to see the payoff for some of what you did in life. In the summer, you also need to be pruning your life to live effectively and at a sustainable pace. In farming, you are weeding, protecting what matters to you. Summer can also be the time you are tempted to sit back, but if you do, that’s when you can lose your crop. 

Fall is the harvest season. We reap all that we have sown in the fall. Fall is when you see the results of what you did and either celebrate or lament. Fall is the season of change; the leaves change, and the weather gets colder. Fall is also the time that you prepare for winter. You winterize your house and pipes. The same is true in life and relationships. You need to prepare for winter. 

Which season are you in personally? What about your spouse and each one of your kids?

Do you know which season of life you are in? The answer matters a great deal.

Click To Tweet

This is because if we don’t know which season we are in, we will be unprepared for the next season. We will also miss the blessings that each season brings. 

Winter brings the blessings of slower times, sitting by the fire and relaxing, doing a puzzle, and being together with family and friends. 

Spring brings the blessings of warmer days, walking outside, and beginning gardens and new rhythms. 

Summer brings the blessings of longer days, picnics and beach days with friends and family, and vacations from school and work. 

Fall brings the blessings of a new school year, new adventures, and cooler temperatures. 

Each season has its blessings, but it also has its challenges. 

Each season of life has its own blessings, but it also has its own challenges.

Click To Tweet

Winter brings the challenges of sadness and loneliness. The days are shorter, and the nights are longer. 

Spring brings the challenges of busyness and feeling behind. 

Summer brings the challenges of a new schedule that can throw your life into chaos. 

Fall brings the challenges of being behind the eight ball and not being prepared. 

Each season of marriage has its own blessings, but it also has its own challenges.

Click To Tweet

 

Posted on

One Thing Pastors Overlook in Preaching

by

Photo by Kevin Gonzalez on Unsplash

Recently a younger pastor asked me, “What do pastors miss or overlook when they preach that hurts them?”

It’s a great question. Like all things you overlook in life, you often don’t know it, and the things you don’t know can hurt you.

What pastors miss in preaching.

Click To Tweet

To answer this question, you must first have a clear goal for your preaching. You can see what I think the goal is here, but to sum it up in one word, I would say transformation. It is not knowledge, more bible information, a running commentary, or even some good tips and advice. It is life change, the transformation of our hearts.

Most pastors would say the same thing when asked, but the way we preach would give a different answer. When you dig into sermons, you will see the running commentary, political ideas, and a push for deeper knowledge. Deeper knowledge isn’t bad, but knowing more about God and the bible doesn’t make someone a follower of Jesus (James 2:19).

The goal of preaching is life change, transformation.

Click To Tweet

I looked at this pastor, and I said, I think pastors miss two things in their preaching. Most pastors do the first well in their sermons, but the other, most pastors miss, hurting them and their church.

First, the one most pastors get right: Pastoring through their sermons. 

Most pastors are wired as pastors and shepherds, and you feel this in their sermons. This is something I’ve had to work hard at over the years because it isn’t natural for me; the second one is, though.

Pastoring in your sermon is helping people find hope for their problems and hurts, letting them know you understand where they are walking, caring through your words, and providing comfort. To do this, you need to know what people are walking in with, what problems and baggage they are carrying, what heartaches they have, and what keeps them up at night.

How to pastor your church in your preaching.

Click To Tweet

In your sermons, do you take moments to pastor people? To shepherd and comfort them?

A shepherd also guides their church. This means pointing out dangers and things that can kill the church. This can be idolatry in the hearts of your people but also guide them when it comes to politics and cultural influences. This isn’t comfortable for anyone.

Two things pastors overlook that make your sermons better.

Click To Tweet

The second one, and most pastors miss this one, is Leading through their sermons.

As a pastor, one of the greatest things you have at your disposal is the ability to lead through your preaching. This means that in your sermons, you are leading your church somewhere to where you believe God is taking your church. Your sermons should reinforce your church’s mission, vision, and strategy. A pastor must continually say, “We are doing ____ because ______.”

This doesn’t mean that all of your sermons are vision-casting sermons or even about the church’s mission. But you need to connect your sermons to your mission and why you exist as a church, or what you are doing as a church.

How to lead your church through your preaching.

Click To Tweet

For this to work, there is a critical component: your mission and desire must center around life change/transformation as a church. While every church would say its goal is to make disciples, not every church lives this out and tries to see lives changed.

As a church, do you want to see lives changed? Are all your systems and ministries centered around this idea? If not, you will preach to reach whatever mission and goal you have as a church.

Posted on

The Big & Little things that Destroy Relationships

by

Photo by Caleb Gregory on Unsplash

All of us have watched families and relationships fall apart. Marriages fizzle out, friendships grow distant, and families stop talking to each other. Some of these are simply life situations (like when friends move), but others are things that could be avoided. The problem is that we usually see relational issues too late.

What if you could see ahead of time what could destroy a relationship? What if you could do certain things to ensure a relationship didn’t fall apart? The answer is, you can.

In Galatians 5, the apostle Paul gives us two lists, one that shows us what can destroy relationships and one that shows how to have the best relationships possible. 

Before getting to the lists, I want you to think about one person or relationship. This could be your spouse, kids, grandkids, or in-laws. It might be a combination of a few relationships. Each relationship has its challenges, but as you think about this, remember you can only control your part of the relationship. You can only change yourself. You can’t change your spouse, kids, boss, or friend – only yourself. 

The big & little things that can destroy your most important relationships.

Click To Tweet

Okay, with that in mind, let’s get to the list. 

The first one is what can destroy our relationships found in Galatians 5:19 – 21: Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. I am warning you about these things—as I warned you before—that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

The little & big things that can destroy your marriage.

Click To Tweet

There’s a lot here. 

Can you see what you might struggle with? What shows up in your most important relationships?

Each of us has something. 

But think about your relationship; what could destroy it from this list? What do you need to be aware of? What do you need to be watching for? What things have you fallen into that you must confess or put guardrails around?

Dr. John Gottman is considered the expert on marriage and relationships. He says four things destroy our relationships and calls them The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Now, in our relationships, each of us has a go-to move. We might use all of them, but one of them is our favorite. And they back up what Paul says in Galatians 5. 

What the best relationships have in common.

Click To Tweet

You can’t change what you don’t name, and you can’t guard against something you don’t identify. So, knowing what can destroy your most important relationships is essential. 

Then, Paul gives us another list. A list you have heard before if you have a church background. He tells us in verse 22: the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Paul shows us the opposite of our default selves by giving us another list.

What the best marriages have in common.

Click To Tweet

He calls this list the fruit of the Spirit. Notice it doesn’t say fruits. Meaning this should be true of every follower of Jesus. Before we apply these, notice that Paul doesn’t give us an out. We don’t get to say, “well, I’m just not a patient person.” Or “I’m argumentative; that’s how I communicate.” He says these should be evident in the life of every follower of Jesus. 

Some of them may come naturally to you based on your personality. You might be a naturally patient or kind person. Gentleness or self-control may be easy for you.

By calling it a fruit, though, Paul is telling us something else about these things:

  • Growth is gradual. Fruit doesn’t grow all at once. Being led by the Spirit is a gradual move in our life, but it is moving.
  • Growth is inevitable. With suitable soil, fertilizer, and ingredients, change will happen.

But what do these look like in relationships?

Love: To serve another person, choosing to love them. Love is not a feeling that overwhelms you but a choice you make daily. It is the opposite of fear, self-protection, or abusing people. It also means to seek the best for the other person. 

Joy: is the opposite of hopelessness or despair, not having mood swings based on circumstances. Not blind optimism, but not wallowing in self-pity and pessimism, and seeing the good in each situation you face. 

Peace: Having confidence in God while life seems to crash on you. Peace replaces anxiety and worry, apathy, or not caring about something. This also means striving for contentment and unity in relationships. 

Patience: To face trouble or anxiety, or stress without blowing up. Not having resentment or cynicism or not caring. In relationships, this can mean being slow to speak and slow to become angry. 

Kindness: Serving others practically, being vulnerable, opening your life up to others and not being envious, being able to rejoice when someone else succeeds or celebrating their joy.

Goodness: Integrity, being the same person everywhere rather than being phony or a hypocrite, and saying things with kindness. Telling the truth in love while being loving, not just telling the truth.

Faithfulness: To be reliable and counted on. When you make a promise, you can take it to the bank; you don’t cheat or cheat on people. The people closest to you should be able to trust and believe you. 

Gentleness: is softness, a caring that you have for those around you and those in need. Having humility in relationships and being calm. Men do not get to say, “I’m not gentle.” 

Self-control:  Not impulsive, able to control your emotions, actions, and desires. Having willpower over areas of your life, not being controlled by porn, feelings, drugs, alcohol, work, or anything else, striving to control your impulses. 

What the best marriages look like.

Click To Tweet

Which of these come naturally for you? Which ones are a struggle that you need to grow in?

What would it look like if your marriage and most important relationships had these in them? Imagine if this list was true of your most important relationships and life. 

What is true of the healthiest families.

Click To Tweet

Posted on

Pastoring When You’re Tired

by

Photo by Christian Erfurt on Unsplash

One of the common refrains I hear among pastors when I talk with them is that they are tired, rundown, going on fumes, and some of them, going through the motions. And that makes sense when you look at the past few years, but the reality is you can’t lead and live for a long time when you are tired. 

You can survive, but you aren’t thriving. 

What happens when you lead tired.

Click To Tweet

What happens when you live and lead tired?

You have a shorter fuse, have cloudy judgment and struggle to make good decisions. You can fall into temptations and unhealthy patterns. Your relationships suffer, and ultimately, you coast on your gifts as you don’t have the mental and physical energy to move forward. 

Now, this can be seasonal. This happens in life. There are busy and slow seasons in all walks of life. 

This isn’t about a season in life but a regular pattern for many pastors and leaders. 

Pastoring when you are tired.

Click To Tweet

The other day, I talked with a pastor who said, “I just feel spread thin, and I don’t feel like I’m moving anything forward substantially.”

Here’s why this matters: If this pastor isn’t careful, he will feel like he isn’t accomplishing anything, that he isn’t “winning,” and the people in his church will slowly start to feel like nothing is moving forward. Churches do not have to continually move forward to be healthy; there is an important season where “the ground needs to be still” so that things can be ready for the future. But that’s not what this pastor was talking about. 

Leading when you are tired.

Click To Tweet

If that’s you, what do you do?

I think you first have to be honest about where you are, how tired you are, and how much fuel you have in your tank. Once you can articulate that, here are a few questions to work through: 

How did you get here? You didn’t all of a sudden get busy and tired. You didn’t wake up one day demoralized and deflated in ministry. No, this happens slowly, like a leak in a tire. 

How did you get here? What choices did you make or not make that brought you here? 

It could be as simple as not getting enough sleep, not eating healthy, or exercising. You might have slipped in your spiritual practices or other rhythms that keep you healthy. 

This is incredibly important because often hidden in what got us here will help get us back to a healthy, sustainable pace. 

What will refill your tank? When I’m exhausted, it is hard to articulate what will fill me up again; when that is hard to tell, it feels even more deflating. 

But look back over your life: what did the excellent seasons have in common, what things do you enjoy, what brings a smile to your face and lightheartedness to your life? Who are the people who make you laugh until it hurts, and who do you want to be around? Are there places (the woods, mountains, beach, coffee shop) in which you love spending time?

To refill your tank, you need to know what these people and places are so that you can make sure they are a part of your calendar because they are easy to crowd out. 

What changes do you need to make to live and lead at a sustainable pace? This can feel like an impossible question to answer when you are tired. 

Another way to ask it is the question my counselor asks me whenever I tell him I feel overwhelmed or tired or during a busy season “What do you need to make it through this week? This month? What do you have to get done? What would you like to get done?”

This is where the work is put in to move forward, creating a plan you can stick with. Often, we overestimate what we will be able to do, but be realistic about what it will take to lead and live at a sustainable pace. Layout when you do your best work and block that time off, so you aren’t stressed. Schedule in your personal growth, exercise, and relationship time. Have a clear plan for sleep and eating and how you will stay on track. 

All of these things go into leading and living at a sustainable pace. 

How to lead and live at a sustainable pace.

Click To Tweet

 

Posted on

What You Need To Get Through the Day

by

Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash

One of my favorite questions that John Eldredge asked in his excellent book, Resilient: Restoring Your Weary Soul in These Turbulent Times, is, “What do I need today?”

Each month when I meet with my spiritual director, he asks me, what do you need today, this week, this month? What will bring you life, restore life to the weary parts of your soul? What do your relationships need? What do you need physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually?

Too often, we gut through it, put our heads down, pull up our bootstraps, and get it done.

Then we crash.

But our daily practices reveal our hearts and what matters to us.

If we don’t build in practices each day to strengthen us, when the storms hit, we won’t survive them.

One of the fascinating lessons in the book of Daniel is what he did each day and how that enabled him to move through his life with strength.

We’re told in numerous places, but it’s highlighted in Daniel 6 about his prayer life. In verse 10, we’re told: that Daniel went into his house. The windows in its upstairs room opened toward Jerusalem, and three times a day he got down on his knees, prayed, and gave thanks to his God, just as he had done before.

In Daniel 6, life is getting hard for Daniel. Those around him have betrayed him, sought a way to kill him, and he does what he does every day; he prays.

Here are a few questions that rumble around my soul this week as I looked at this text:

  • What do I look to or go to alleviate that pain and difficulty when life gets hard?
  • How much do I pray? How often do I pray each day?
  • How focused am I on the things of God versus my things?
  • How focused am I on what God is doing around me versus what God is doing for me?

Eldredge said, “Resilience is built in our daily practices.”

Resilience is built in our daily practices. -John Eldredge

Click To Tweet

Our actions each day determine where our lives end up.

We know this, yet we continue to waste a lot of time in our lives on trivial things and then wonder why we aren’t where we want to be or have the things we hoped to have.

Posted on

The Goal of Your Family

by

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Do you know that you have a goal for your family if you’re a parent or grandparent?

Of course, you do; we all do.

But can you articulate it?

Years ago, when Katie and I started having kids, we would talk a lot about our kids’ goals, hopes, and dreams, as all parents do. But we had watched plenty of families never reach those goals; we had watched great ideas flame out. Why?

Before I tell you, take a moment to answer this simple question: What is the goal for your family?

What is the goal for your family?

Click To Tweet

Maybe you aren’t able to put it into words, but that’s okay. Here are a few examples I’ve seen over the years:

  • For some, the goal is to have fun, not to get too serious.
  • For many married couples, their goal is simply to stay married. To survive. Not to be happy, not to be in love, but to survive.
  • Some parents aim for their kids to grow up and have everything they didn’t have.
  • For some parents, their goal is for their kids not to do anything stupid or embarrassing.
  • In some cases, the goal is to get too close because of a background of abuse or abandonment. To have a relationship with their child that they didn’t have with their parents. 
  • In some families, it is about keeping the peace or one person happy.
  • For others, it is to take care of one family member.
  • For other families, their goal is centered around school, getting into the right college, and doing the right steps.
  • For others, it is all about sports, scholarships, and winning.

Now, depending on the season of life, the goal for our family might change. And even as you read through the list above, those aren’t bad goals. There are a lot of good things on that list. But, most people have never articulated their goal or even agreed on it with their spouse. Then, you start working towards something, your spouse works towards something else, and you find yourself pulling against each other, which leads to all kinds of disagreements and frustrations.

If you’re following along with our Future Family series at CCC, I’d encourage you to sit down with your spouse and work through your goal for your family. As we move through this series, we’ll help build that out and bring more focus. In week 6 of this series, I’ll share one of the most important things Katie and I have ever done in our family. 

Once you articulate your goal, here’s a question that I think is a little harder: Is it the right goal?

Do you have the right goal for your family?

Click To Tweet

If we aren’t careful, we can go after the wrong goal in our family and figure it out too late.

That’s why it is so important to make sure you have a clear goal, and it is the one you want to go after in your family.

You might wonder, is there a universal goal for families? That depends.

As followers of Jesus, we are to be image bearers of Jesus and reflect Him to the world around us. This means when people look at your family, parenting, and grandparenting, they should think, “I bet that’s how God parents us.”

Put simply, as a follower of Jesus, your family’s goal is to reflect the heart of God.

Put simply, as a follower of Jesus, your family’s goal is to reflect the heart of God.

Click To Tweet

One of the clearest pictures of that is in Luke 15, in the story of the prodigal son. We meet a family, a father and two sons in the story. The younger son comes and asks his father for his inheritance. In this culture, the oldest son received 2/3 of what the father had when the father died. Notice the father isn’t dead. The remaining children received what was left after that. This son says, “I want mine now before you are dead.” He is telling his father, I wish you were dead. Maybe you’ve said that to a family member, maybe someone has said that to you, so you can understand the intensity of this moment. The father, instead of arguing, gives it to him. Which means he would’ve had to sell land. In this culture focused on the father, the people hearing this story would’ve been blown away by the son’s audacity. The younger son leaves, takes his money, lives it up, and spends it all. Then a famine comes to the land he is in. He is at the bottom, so hungry that he wants to eat the food pigs eat.

The younger son drags himself home. I imagine he is incredibly humiliated by this. 

The text tells us that while the son was a ways off, the father ran out to meet him, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. Then, he threw a party for the son who had returned. 

The older brother, who stayed home, and followed the rules, was the dutiful, responsible one, is furious. Maybe you can imagine your family now and see the different people and their roles. 

Tim Keller, in his great book The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith, said of this passage, “both sons missed the father because neither wanted the father, only what they could get from him.”

In this story, Jesus shows us the heart of God. God’s heart is for us. God gives us our choices and freedoms no matter where they will lead us, but when we come home, God runs out to meet us, throws his arms around us, and brings us home through his grace. That heart should be reflected in how we parent and relate to each other in our families.