Category Archives: Healthy Living

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Why Pastor’s Should Take a Summer Preaching Break

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I am coming off of my summer preaching break at Revolution. When we started the church 5 years ago, I preached almost 100 times in the first 2 years. While it seemed necessary at the time, it was not unwise and certainly not sustainable.

It is always interesting to me when pastors hear about the break I take each summer. They often tell me how they could never do that or what they would do if they did that. I’ve talked to church members who don’t know what to do with a pastor taking a break. I get quizzical looks and then they say, “It would be nice for me to take 4 weeks off.” Which totally misses the point, but it would be nice to take 4 weeks off.

Here’s what I do on my break & why you as a pastor should take one:

  1. Rest. During my break I go on vacation, spend longer time with Katie and the kids than I normally do. I take more retreat days to be alone with Jesus and work on my heart. In the flow of a ministry year, it is easy to get busy and drown out the voice of the Holy Spirit. While I take my day off each week and try to take a retreat day each month, it is easy to skip these. A break gives me no excuse. During a break, I’m able to read my bible longer and journal more, pray more and work on me as a man, a father, a husband and a pastor. If this were the only thing a pastor gained from his break, his church would be better off, but there’s more.
  2. Let the church hear from other communicators. I would love to think I’m the greatest communicator my church has ever heard, but that isn’t true. In fact, they get tired of me, how I say things and what I say. I start to run out of interesting things to say, my stories get dry and don’t connect and I get tired of the series we are in. This happens every series we do, 10 weeks into it I’m ready for the next one. A break lets other people preach, which develops other communicators who God is calling into ministry or preaching. It allows my church to hear a different way of preaching, a different lens of reading the Bible and new insights and stories. Depending on how well they do, it might also give your church a greater appreciation for you. Some notes on guest speakers: they must line up with you theologically, don’t preach heresy on your week off. They must be good. I knew one pastor who booked speakers who weren’t as good as he was so when he came back people were excited he was back. I want Revolution to be great 52 weeks a year, regardless of who is preaching.
  3. Get your love and passion for preaching back. Preaching is hard work. It is tiring and draining. I love to preach and prep a sermon. It is one of the favorite parts of my job, but it is physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally tiring. Pulling back for a few weeks is incredibly important. Two weeks into your break, you will want to preach again and have the itch. This is good, then enjoy the last 2 weeks. For me, I’ve learned that I need to take a week off from preaching every 10 weeks. Every pastor is different, but that seems to be my limit.
  4. Evaluate the church. Andy Stanley calls this “working on the church, not in the church.” When I’m not working on a sermon, it gives me a chance to pull back and look at everything. This summer we and my leaders spent a great deal of time evaluating Missional Communities, talking about our first Revolution Church plant and what that will look like, and how we will get from 250 to 500 in attendance and what needs to change for that to happen and what will change because of that. In the normal flow of a ministry year, it is hard to have these meetings because they take time, but the summer is the perfect time to pull back and evaluate.
  5. Look ahead. Right along with evaluating your church, you can look ahead. You can read for upcoming sermons and series. You can work ahead on things. This summer, I started to work on the series we will begin in January. This is a huge help to our church because it allows us to have resources, daily bible study questions, mc guides, and study guides to educate our people in Scripture. None of these things happen at the last minute.
  6. Grow your leadership through books and conversations. Taking a break gives you extra time to read outside of sermon prep. I love to read and it seems I am always reading 5 books, but a summer break helps me read more and from a wider variety of books and topics. It also helps me have time to talk to other leaders, ask them questions, learn from them to benefit our church. This summer, I’ve spent time talking to pastors of church that are in that 350-500 range to see what is next. I’ve talked with pastors who have planted a church and what they learned in the process.
  7. Gives you energy for the fall. In most churches, the fall is the second biggest growth time of the year. The spring is the biggest for Revolution. Taking a break in the summer, pulling back gives you the energy for the season that is coming. If you go into the ministry season at 85%, you will burnout and not make it. If you go in at 100% you will push through and be of greater use to your church and Jesus.

If you are an elder or a church member who has the power to encourage your pastor to do this, do it. The benefit to your pastor, his family and your church is enormous. If you are a pastor, stop making excuses about this. Educate your elders, vision cast and lead up. I had to at the beginning as my elders didn’t understand why I’d do this. To them it felt like I was taking a month off. That’s okay, but don’t let that stop you.

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What I Eat

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Because of the weight I’ve lost and then I shared last week in my burnout series that certain foods help or hurt you when it comes to fatigue, I often get questions about what I eat.

A few disclaimers before I share what I eat. One, I am not a certified anything when it comes to nutrition or exercise. I’m simply a guy who lost a bunch of weight, kept it off and strive to continue to live healthy. So my knowledge is simply from what I’ve read or talked with actual experts. Two, whatever diet or eating plan you choose, you need to stick with it and do what they tell you to do. I meet a lot of people who do Paleo, weight watchers, nutrisystem. Whatever you choose, do it, eat it, don’t veer from it. You won’t see the results it promises if you don’t stick to it. Third, not every plan works for every person. I believe there is something to the reality that each of our body’s respond differently to different foods. While most nutritional laws are universal, some might not be. I haven’t read much about “Eating for your blood type” but have friends who swear by it and there could be something to that.

One of the things that guided me when it comes to what I eat is that I want to have an eating plan I can do for the rest of my life. I also like food and want to eat good food. I have a friend who juices his breakfast and lunch and eats a salad for dinner, everyday. If pushed on it, I think I’d rather be 300 pounds again than eat that everyday. I want to grill out with friends, go eat at someone’s house, eat out with Katie or have a meeting with someone. I want to enjoy Starbucks (kind of a vice) and some dessert and not feel bad about it.

Here are the principles I’ve used:

  • Eat a lot of protein, fruits and vegetables. Lots.
  • Drink at least 100 ounces of water a day.
  • No soda.
  • Very little bread, carbs or grains.
  • Dessert once or twice a week. Max.
  • Two cups of coffee a day. That’s it.
  • When eating out, always know what you are going to order before arriving at a restaurant. It saves you faltering when you get there and see the really good 3,000 calorie plates on the menu.
  • No more than 2 alcoholic drinks a day. This is a good rule of them anyway.
  • Eat every 3 hours, snacks count.
  • Make a plan. If you know what you are going to eat each day for the next 7 days, you have a better chance of eating healthy. Last minute meals often are very bad for you.
  • Cheat once a week. Sunday is my cheat day. I don’t worry about what I eat, I eat what I want and I don’t feel guilty about it.
  • If you are counting calories (and I did when I started losing weight), pick your ideal weight and add a zero to that number. Whatever that number is is the number of calories you should eat in a day. If your goal weight is 180, eat 1800 calories.
What I eat:
  • Breakfast is always 4 – 5 eggs. Getting that much protein first thing in the morning is crucial to the rest of the day.
  • Snacks: 3 pieces of string cheese, banana and peanut butter, protein shake (we make these at home), Greek yogurt (Katie makes this and then take it with us), protein bar (I prefer the clif builder bars).
  • Lunch: Salad with spinach leafs, lots of veggies, 6 oz. of chicken and olive oil for dressing. No croutons.
  • Dinner: Meat with lots of veggies. Very little carbs. I read somewhere that you shouldn’t eat carbs for dinner, period. Don’t always stick to that but at least try. We get a lot of our meal ideas at this blog.
What about eating out? Here are a few ideas of some places I frequent and what I get:
  • In n Out: Cheeseburger protein style no sauce, eat half the fries.
  • Chipotle: Chicken burrito bowl, light on the sour cream.
  • Subway: Spinach & Chicken salad.
  • Starbucks: Nonfat Caramel Macchiato.
While not perfect, this is what I do and how I eat to stay in shape, while leading a growing church and a growing family.
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My Journey of Losing Weight

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Over the last week, I blogged about my journey of losing weight and keeping it off. It has been awesome getting messages from people about how this series has challenged and encouraged them. I hope it spurs you to being healthy.

You can read the posts here:

  1. How I got to where I am 
  2. The idol of food (the spiritual side of weight loss)
  3. Have a plan
  4. It’s for the rest of your life
  5. The effects
  6. Do your homework
  7. The idol of exercise & staying in shape
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Losing Weight Part 7: The Idol of Being in Shape

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I’ve been chronicling my journey of losing weight this week. It is by far the thing I get questions about the most. You can read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6 here to get some background on this post. I talked in part 2 about the idol of food, one thing I want to end on is the idol of being in shape.

In the same way that it is easy for us to make an idol out of food. It is just as easy to make an idol out of exercise, being in shape, looking fit. This hits a different idol. While food can often be for comfort, the idol of being in shape often hits approval.

When I got assessed for Acts 29, they asked about my weight loss. The reason is because most church planters put on a ton of weight. The stress of church planting, the meetings at restaurants and coffee shops, the long hours, sleepless nights lead a lot of guys to put weight on. I was the opposite. I think that is one of the reasons we were able to make it through the hard start up months of Revolution.

As I described my journey, which you’ve read this week and talked about the idol of food one of the guys asked me at the end of the story, “Has exercise become your idol?” I think at first, as I was losing weight it did. If I missed a workout I would get angry, like I used to if I was hungry. It is natural for this to happen. When you lose 100 pounds, 12 inches off your waist, you want to keep it off. This makes sense. But it doesn’t make it right to make it an idol. It is easy to trade one idol (food) for another idol (being in shape or working out).

Now, I am not as tough on calories or working out as I used to. Our church has grown significantly, so has our family. It is harder and harder to make time to workout, so I’ve created a plan that fits my life. In fact, I went 10 days without working out to see if my food plan would allow me to not gain weight, and it did. If you have lost a bunch of weight and are working out, go a week without working out. If you just gasped, you may have an idol of working out that you need to deal with.

Don’t mishear me, there is nothing wrong with working out, being in shape, wanting to be healthy. Only when we elevate it to a high status in our lives. When we find our identity in working out or being in shape.

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Losing Weight Park 6: Do Your Homework

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I’ve been chronicling my journey of losing weight this week. It is by far the thing I get questions about the most. You can read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5 here to get some background on this post.

Many times people go into the idea of losing weight or being healthy without doing their homework. They might have a plan, eat better and exercise. But what does that mean? Are you going to do the right thing? Recently, for our workout plans, I started using Men’s Health Huge in a Hurry and Katie started using The Female Body Breakthrough and one of the things they both pointed out is that many people shoot themselves in the foot by doing the wrong things. While I am not a trained personal trainer, going on what they have said, what we’ve seen happen to our bodies, their logic (while not conventional) makes sense.

Often the idea that men have who want to lose weight is lift a light weight a lot of times. Not true. Cardio alone is the not the best plan for losing weight. This is why, the authors point out, you see aerobics instructors, strict runners who don’t have a lot of overall muscle.

My point? Do your homework on your plan.

I used to think, if I wanted to lose weight and be healthy, I needed to run. Not so. I maybe run once a week now (which because I hate running is awesome for me). This isn’t to say running isn’t good and healthy, but make sure you do your homework.

While there is a ton out there, here is one thing I’ve used to wade through all the information:  Look at the person giving forth information and ask, “Do you want to look like them? Feel like them?” If someone isn’t healthy, I don’t want to hear their opinion. Just like I don’t take marriage advice from couples whose marriages aren’t healthy. I do the opposite.

It’s the same with making a plan.

When I started out almost 4 years ago, I read almost every article on Men’s Health’s website. I wanted to learn what food does. When to workout, how often. It took me awhile to find something that fit my body, my schedule and I could do for the rest of my life. That’s the key and that’s why this takes so long. It is not a quick fix. I didn’t become 300 pounds over night.

So, do the homework, read, study, make a plan that you can stick to for the rest of your life.

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Losing Weight Part 5: The Effects

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I’ve been chronicling my journey of losing weight this week. It is by far the thing I get questions about the most. You can read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4 here to get some background on this post.

This last post I want to talk about what losing weight and being healthy has done in my life. It brought things I hoped for and some things I didn’t expect. My goal here is to give you a vision of what the future could be like. You have to have this to continue on this journey because it is easy to quit. Losing weight is hard work. Being healthy takes time and is difficult. If it wasn’t, everyone would do it.

There are the obvious things like I feel better, my body doesn’t hurt like it used to. I have more confidence in my life, when I speak, etc.

One of the most interesting effects of losing weight was being more organized and purposeful in life. I realized that I was very sloppy in my life. When I used to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, not exercising, having bad sleeping habits. You don’t have to plan for that.

You have to plan to eat well, plan a menu, buy food, plan out buying fruits and vegetables. If you are going to be going out for lunch or dinner, you have to plan ahead, look at the menu and decide what you will eat. You have to plan mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack. This changes a lot. You no longer just grab McDonald’s cause you are out and didn’t think ahead, you have to. This will change other areas of your life. I found that I started being more proactive and purposeful in my job, my relationships (especially with Katie in our marriage and with our kids). I also became more purposeful in my relationship with God. Until I started eating better and exercising, I hadn’t realized how lazy and sloppy I’d become in other crucial areas of my life.

The idea of planning though is one of the reasons many people struggle with weight or keeping weight off. It is easier to not plan.

If you are going to exercise 3-4 days a week, you have to make the time to do it. Which means, you will spend less time on something else. I find that I watch a lot less TV than I used to. I get up earlier than I used to. Get to bed earlier than I used to so that I can exercise and get done what I need to for work and my family.

Tomorrow, I’ll wrap up this series. Stay tuned…

 

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Losing Weight Part 4: It’s For the Rest of Your Life

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I’ve been chronicling my journey of losing weight this week. It is by far the thing I get questions about the most. You can read part 1, part 2 and part 3 here to get some background on this post.

The reality of your plan (exercise and eating) is that it is a lot like getting out of debt, most people miss this concept. They think about losing weight as something they do now, put the weight back on and then lose it again. The ones who see it as a lifestyle change are the ones that keep it off. When getting out of debt, it is a lot of little changes over a period of time, it starts to snowball to quote Dave Ramsey. Eventually, your start to see money differently. It is the same as dieting and exercise. You lose 2 pounds here, 3 pounds the next week, and then it snowballs.

Like someone who has worked their way out of debt, I can’t imagine going back to the way I used to live. I can’t imagine eating like I used to or feeling like I used to. When I think about the pain I used to have, the self esteem I had, the way I felt after eating a meal. I can’t imagine that.

Have a plan. Start small and slow. Know that this is a lifestyle change, not an overnight change. Nothing overnight lasts forever (just look at all the one hit wonders in music history).

If you go into losing weight and being healthy with the mindset that you are looking to do something that you can do for the rest of your life, it will affect your plan and how you do it. Many of the diet fads and workout plans are things you won’t do for the rest of your life. I have a friend who did a diet that was 25 days and claimed you’d lose a pound a day. It might be true, but you aren’t going to eat that diet for 60 years. But the people who write them don’t care. If you quit, put the weight back on, you’ll just buy more stuff when you get miserable. The up and down nature of weight loss fuels this industry.

Whatever your goal is, do you have a plan you can do forever?

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Losing Weight Part 3: Have a Plan

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I’ve been chronicling my journey of losing weight this week. It is by far the thing I get questions about the most. You can read part 1 and part 2 here to get some background on this post.

One of the problems many people run into when they want to lose weight or be healthy is that they don’t have a goal or a plan. If you say you want to lose weight, how much? How will you know if you are healthier? How do you plan to get there?

I remember when I went to the doctor when I was 27 and telling him I wanted to be skinnier. He told me that wasn’t the goal. He said, “The goal is to be healthy.” So, I set out to be healthy.

We started small. Before going on I need to say this, if you want to lose 30 pounds in a month, what I am about to describe will not help. It is not sexy what I did. But here is the prize, what I did I can do til the day I die. Which means, I accomplished my goal of losing weight and my doctor’s goal of being healthy. So, start small. We started by changing to wheat bread, which was a bigger battle than you might think. We stopped drinking soda, sweet tea (this was a battle for me).

To get an idea of what I would eat. When Katie and I would go out to eat, we’d share an appetizer, I’d eat my meal and finish hers. No leftovers was my motto. It wasn’t uncommon for me to eat a footlong sub, drink a gallon of sweet tea, eat a whole can of pringles (not the snack size) and sometimes eat a can of chunky new england clam chowder. That was a meal. Recently we were back in Maryland and ate at our favorite sub shop where I would drink 60 oz. of their sweet tea, eat a footlong sub, a huge bowl of cream of crab soup and eat a side of fries. That would be a lunch. It was not a secret for me why I was fat. This trip, I could barely finish an order of the soup. My stomach and appetite has truly shrunk.

But again, this has taken since 2005. I started working at it at the end of 2007. In 4 years this change has happened. You will never see that on a magazine, but if you want to be healthy for the rest of your life, you must take the long range view of it.

So, what is your plan?

I read books and magazines on food, understanding calories, and I began to see food as fuel for my body, not just something I enjoy or turn to. The secret to losing weight is exercise and portion control. Regardless of what fad or plan you use, if you boil it down you will get to these two things.

So I started controlling my portions, eating less. I still grill out meat, eat dessert, enjoy good drinks, coffee. I basically eat just about anything I want, just less of it. Now when I grill out meat, instead of a large portion of potatoes and a small veggies, we will have meat with 2 veggies. I often get asked about alcohol and weight. According to Men’s Health, you should limit it to 2 drinks a day. The calories in alcohol is pretty high, especially mixed drinks, so if you drink, be smart about what you drink. You can go to Starbucks, but again, be wise. You can get a drink at Starbucks and knock out a third of the calories for the day.

Exercise is the next part of the puzzle. When I was my heaviest, I couldn’t run as it hurt too much. So I bought a bike. We spent more than we normally would have, but it needed to hurt for me to ride. I started riding and slowly started to see the weight come off. When I was able, I started running. And running.

Now, I use the workout plan found in Men’s Health Huge in a Hurry. I eat 5 smaller meals a day (lots of protein and veggies). I workout 3 days a week and then watch what I eat. The great thing is that I have essentially been this size and weight for almost a year. Since using this workout plan I have seen a difference in my weight and physique.

Again, these are all changes that I can do for a long time. I can eat well and exercise regularly.

More tomorrow.

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Favorite Posts of 2010

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In case you missed them this year, here are the top posts for 2010:

  1. Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream
  2. Radicalis Notes
  3. Being a Pastor’s Wife
  4. How a Wife Handles Her Husband’s Sexual Addiction
  5. Thoughts on Burnout, Sleep, Adrenalin, Stress, Sex and Eating
  6. Don’t Malign Your Spouse
  7. Someone Pays the Price
  8. The Role of Men in the Family
  9. Why We’re Homeschooling
  10. Leadership Lessons from the Dancing Shirtless Guy