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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: Loneliness

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If you talk to any pastor or his wife and ask them about friends, more than likely you will get a sad, longing look. Many pastors and their wives are lonely. They have been betrayed, hurt, and left out.

As I’ve been sharing the weights and joys (Preaching God’s word every week, You can’t change people, God’s call on your life, Seeing life change, People under you are counting on you, God using you, What God thinks of you and Communicating God’s word) of being a pastor, the loneliness a pastor and his wife experience can be unique to this role.

Weight #5: Loneliness

Why is this true? Because you are a part of the community you are leading, and it is hard for you and for them to change hats. When you are the pastor, you are always the pastor. People always see you this way. You always see them as someone you lead, care for and shepherd.

This is kind of the culmination of the previous four. I think one of the biggest weights that many pastors carry is the weight of loneliness. What we do is not a job, it is a calling. I heard someone once say, “If you want a job, go get one; this one gets you.”

As pastors, not only do we carry the weight of a job (bills, staff, expectations, workload, church happening every week), but we also carry the confidentiality that comes with it; knowing the truth in many situations but not being able to share it.

Much of what a pastor does is in the context of being alone. While pastors are learning how to include other leaders in vision and preaching, which is important, and pastors are also releasing power and responsibility to other leaders so that others help to carry the load, which is also good, the reality is, the pastor still carries much of the weight of the church. The pastor and his family are often the ones attacked by those in the church, outside the church and Satan.

This was not clear to me before becoming a lead pastor. For me, spiritual warfare and attacks from people were there but not something that happened a lot. In my house, you can always tell when it is Saturday night as Satan seems to do whatever he can to throw off my rhythm, put a wedge in between Katie and me, and do what he can to keep our kids from sleeping. I grew up in a church environment that believed in spiritual warfare and demons but didn’t give a lot of credence to it. While the other end of the spectrum sees a demon behind every door, spiritual warfare for me growing up was left more to what Satan did to tempt you. When we lower spiritual warfare, we also lower the need for the power of God. It is possible, though, to fixate too much on spiritual warfare and attacks, to see a demon around every corner, and for that to become the focus of our lives. There is a balance that is needed.

The reality of this is that it is lonely. One person gets up in front of their church and opens God’s Word [add link]. It is weighty, there is a lot riding on it, God is working in people’s lives and eternity is literally at stake. That is weighty and often lonely.

When people attack the pastor, where do they turn? When the pastor is weighed down by things, where do they turn? What about the pastor’s spouse? This is often the most difficult position in the entire church. They see what is said about their spouse, they hear it, they feel the pain, they see the sleepless nights, the exhaustion, and are often unsure of what to do.

For Katie and me, we’ve developed some things that help.

  • Retreat day. Once a month I do a spiritual retreat day. This is a time for God to refresh me, speak and listen. I go with my Bible, a journal and some worship music, and that’s it.
  • Sabbath. I cannot say enough about how important it is to set aside one day a week to just stop. Even though it is all over the Bible, Christians everywhere, especially pastors, pretend that it is a suggestion.
  • Meet with a counselor or spiritual director. I can always tell when it is time. (Scratch that. Katie can always tell when it is time.) My pastoral counselor or spiritual director helps in discerning where God is moving, what He is saying and how to sort through the last month and the feelings that go with life. This is important because pastors are good at doing this for others but not for themselves.
  • Have people praying for you. Katie and I have people in our church and outside of our church praying for different things. This is huge and often overlooked.
  • Be low key on Saturday. Since church is on Sunday, we try to make Saturday night fun and low key. We don’t have any intense, serious conversations, we avoid stressful situations and do something fun and relaxing. And get some sleep!
  • Have friends. Get some men around you who understand. Too many pastors are walking it alone. Get some people who understand the weight of it, let them encourage you, lift you up in prayer and just generally be there.
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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: Communicating God’s Word

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One of the best parts of being a pastor (or a Christian for that matter) is seeing God use you. There is nothing like using the gifts God has given to you.

Recently I’ve been sharing some of the weights and joys of being a pastor to help people who attend church understand what it is like to be a pastor and how they can support their pastor and his family, but also to encourage pastors to keep going and not give up, as so many do.

Being a pastor is unique. It isn’t harder than another job, just different.

If you’ve missed any of the weights or joys I’ve covered, you can see them here: Preaching God’s word every week, You can’t change people, God’s call on your life, Seeing life change, People under you are counting on you, God using you and What God thinks of you.

Joy #4: Communicating God’s Word

While this is a weight that pastors carry, this is also a joy.

To have the ability to open God’s Word and share it with others is a huge joy. To have people come to hear what God is saying through his Word and you is unbelievable. It is humbling, holy and scary all at the same time. For me, because teaching is one of my top gifts, I love being able to preach every week.

I love to see the way God chooses to use the work that I have put in and the time I have labored on a talk. It is something that is difficult to describe. It goes back to God using us.

For me, a sermon starts about six to eight months before I preach it. I lay out where I feel God is taking our church over the coming year and begin meditating on those passages, researching, finding articles, books and commentaries to see what others have to say on those topics. By the time I get up to preach something, I have been sitting with that topic for quite some time. To see more of how I prep a sermon, you can read that process here.

I am always blown away at how, even though we plan in advance, our church seems to be in the place where what I’m preaching on is what they need. Countless times God has shown up where we are going through what I’m preaching on. I used to be surprised.

By far this is more work, but at the same time it is so worth it. To be a part of God’s work in the world in this way makes what I do worth it.

Too many pastors, while they enjoy preaching, get lazy at it. They don’t plan ahead, they are trying to figure out Saturday night what to say instead of getting a good night’s sleep. They simply download someone else’s ideas instead of doing the hard work of figuring out what God wants to say to the church they serve. Or, they get up and say too many things instead of doing the hard work of editing.

Preaching is a weight, and according to the New Testament something you will get judged twice for. So if you preach, it is a joy as well as a weight. If it is not a joy, do something else in your church, or ask God to make preaching a joy to you.

When you see this task as a joyful weight, you finally get it. In that moment, a lot changes as a communicator. You are humbled by the opportunity, how God works but also that God will move through your prayers, confession and study. Those are never wasted in this weighty joy.

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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: What God Thinks of You

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When God thinks of you, what comes to mind?

This is a hard question for many of us to answer. We often think the answer is failure or disappointment or unloved.

Yet, none of those are true.

What you believe the answer is to that question shapes much of your life. This is especially true if you are a pastor.

There is a weight that pastors feel that I don’t know translates into other jobs. I think that people in churches can know about it, but not fully understand it. I know that as a youth pastor, I didn’t truly understand the weight of pastoring until becoming a lead pastor. For no particular reason, it just worked that way.

While there are many weights that a pastor carries, some of them are just human weights that others carry (including parenting), but I thought up five that I think pastors particularly carry on a daily basis because of what they do each and every week. There is an important distinction here. These are not pains; they are the weights of pastoring. There is a huge difference between pain and weight (so no one misses that).

I’ve been sharing these weights and joys recently so that those who attend a church know what it is like to be a pastor and how to best support their pastor. When those two (a pastor and the congregation) work together, some amazing things happen. When they work against each other, it is a disaster.

To see the other weights and joys, you can read them by clicking on the links: Preaching God’s word every week, You can’t change people, God’s call on your life, Seeing life change, People under you are counting on you and God using you.

Weight #4: What God Thinks of You

Pastors do not answer to their churches, boards or anybody else. Ultimately, they answer to God. Even though it is incredibly biblical, most Christians don’t like to hear it.

While pastors do answer to boards in their job, we ultimately do not answer to people. I remember having a conversation once with a guy who was upset about something we decided to do, and he said, “I give here. You answer to me. I should get to say what happens because I give here.” It is a whole other post, all the inaccuracies in that statement. I looked at him and said, “I don’t answer to you. I answer to God, and that scares me a whole lot more than the idea of answering to you.”

While this is true and biblical, most Christians do not like this idea. (Side note: This isn’t a ticket for pastors to do whatever they want.)

And it should scare a pastor to death. It should keep him humble and on his knees.

The idea of God judging how I lead Revolution, how I preach, how I shepherd, scares me. But I think it is a holy fear and one that should drive all pastors. Will God approve of what I did? Will God be glorified with what I did?

Before many pastors can answer those questions, though, there are some things they feel but never deal with. Many pastors get into ministry to help others, but many carry around approval idols. Not dealing with this causes them to put the emphasis on what people think of them instead of what God thinks of them.

Don’t miss this: Whichever one you think is more important will have an enormous impact on your leadership and the kind of church you lead.

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How Guests Become Regular Attenders at Your Church

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Have you had a guest come to your church and seem excited but never come back? Maybe you had a big day on Christmas, Easter or Mother’s Day (our three biggest days), only to have no return guests? Maybe as a pastor you feel, “We’ve had a lot of guests, but no one seems to be sticking.”

What’s going on?

The reality is, your church competes with a lot on a Sunday morning, and that competition is not other churches.

It is being outside, kids’ sports, sleeping in, football, errands, a slow morning, catching up, working out.

church

So how do you make a guest’s experience one where they return and become a regular attender?

Answer this question: Does your church environment communicate something positive?

Does your church environment communicate something positive?

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When a guest shows up, here is what is running through their head:

  • Am I already here? Is there anyone else like me?
  • Were they expecting me?
  • How uncomfortable am I going to be?
  • Are they going to ask for my money?
  • How long will this last?
  • Will I have to do anything weird?
  • Will I feel stupid if I don’t know what to do?
  • Will my kids be safe?
8 things every guest at your church is asking.

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If you don’t answer these questions for guests, they won’t want to return. Their defenses are too high.

Here’s a way to break through those: Create a church environment that says, “We’ve been expecting you.”

Create a church environment that says, “We’ve been expecting you.”

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Here are some ways to do that:

1. Signs. The moment you think you have enough signs as a church is the moment you should buy some more signs. You can never have too many signs at your church.

A guest should be able to navigate your church without asking anyone where anything is.

A guest should be able to navigate your church without asking anyone where anything is.

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I know this sounds uncaring, and you want community and want them to talk to you and let you know that they are there, but they don’t want to let you know they are there. They want to let you know they are there when they are ready to let you know that they are there.

You should have signs where the bathroom is, the auditorium, the front door (I can’t tell you how many churches I’ve been to where the door wasn’t obvious), and where kids and students meet.

2.Give them something. One of the fears that a guest has is that a church wants something from them. So, give them something. Throw them off balance. Thank them for being there. They could’ve been anywhere, but they used their time to come to your church. So thank them.

Give them a gift and don’t make them give you a name and email to get it. Just give it to them.

We have a gift bag that we give to guests with some fun things in it and some information about our church. We put them on a table that stands by itself with no one manning the table.

Remember, let guests make themselves known when they are ready to do so.

If they fill out a connection card, we send them a Starbucks gift card to say thanks again.

3. Security for kids. One of the questions a guest has relates to their kids, and this is a big deal in our culture. I’m blown away that there are still churches that do not check kids in and give a tag to parents. When you do this, your church is communicating, “We know everyone here.” That is completely unwelcoming to a guest.

You wouldn’t put your child in a childcare at a YMCA without getting a tag. Why should church be any different?

A tag communicates safety and security, which are enormous desires for parents when they arrive at church.

4. Talk directly to them in the service. Many pastors when they stand on stage seem to be oblivious to guests. They talk only to the insiders. This communicates to a guest, “We weren’t expecting you.”

When you talk to guests, you speak directly to them. You also tell your regular attenders that we expect guests to be here. You can do this in the welcome when you tell them how glad you are to have them. Invite them back at some point in the service. Also communicate how long the service will be as that is one of their main questions. In the sermon or scripture reading or singing (which might be new to them), you can say something like, “You might be new and maybe you aren’t sure that Jesus exists. Here’s something to think about.” Or, “Here’s what you can do in this moment while we sing or take communion.”

All of this communicates care and we expected you to be here.

4 ways to help a guest become a regular attender at your church.

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A Vision for Your Marriage

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Marriage is hard work. There are many times that you are excited to be married, you and your spouse are on the same page, romance is high and affection feels easy. Decisions flow without much work, and you wonder why it isn’t always like this.

Other times your marriage feels like if it is moving, it is moving backwards. You fight, never hold hands, you struggle to understand your spouse, and decisions always end in fights and hurt feelings.

If you’re single you think, “I’ll worry about my marriage, someday…when I’m married.”

Regardless of where you are, one thing is sure: you need a vision for your marriage. The one you are in or the one you will enter into one day.

It is easy to miss this. It is easy to get stuck in the day to day of marriage and miss this. So much happens in a day, it is hard enough to stay married, let alone think about your marriage.

Too many couples have no idea what they are doing in their marriage. If you don’t have a vision, a destination, you don’t know where you are going.

Here’s what happens: you do what your parents did. You talk to your spouse the way your mom talked to your dad. You treat each other the way your parents did. You do the same things your parents did. Your dad did the finances, so you expect your husband to do the finances. Doesn’t matter if he’s good at that. It’s what you expect.

Or you do the exact opposite of what you saw your parents do. They seemed miserable, they got divorced, so no matter what it is, let’s do the opposite.

We do this without ever asking, “Is that what I want?” Or, “Is that what God wants?”

In Ephesians 5:22 – 33 we are given a vision for marriage, a picture, a reflection of what marriage is supposed to look like. When someone looks at a marriage, they are seeing what that couple believes about God’s love and how they respond to that love.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

In light of that, here are some things to consider. First men:

  • A husband makes his wife’s burden lighter. Here’s a question every husband should ask his wife on a regular basis: What is one thing I can do to help you and make your life easier?
  • He enjoys serving her.
  • He serves her by providing and being her defender. He takes her side no matter what. He stands with his wife, for his wife, even if that means he makes his mom mad.
  • And he does this all cheerfully without wondering what he will get in return.
  • He nourishes his wife. This means to develop, nurture and to lift up. Are you helping her develop into the person God called her to be? To develop her gifts, her dreams?
  • Does your wife have space for her dreams?
  • Nourish also brings to mind care and attention. Does your wife feel like she is cared for by you and she has your attention?
  • A wife who experiences this will get to the end of her life and think, “Being married opened up my life to so many possibilities. My husband cared about where my life was going. My husband thought of me.”
  • He loves his wife like he loves himself. This happens by cherishing her. This means she feels his warmth, by being valued by her husband. He does not make fun of her, ever. He does not put her down. He builds her up. He doesn’t compare her to other women, he doesn’t fantasize about other women. Instead he delights in her. He prizes her.

For women, whether your husband does that, you are called to respond to him. Not as a doormat, but with strength through the personality God has given you. It means:

  • You are not a doormat. You are not doing whatever your husband wants, but you are thinking for yourself. It is asking questions of your husband, expressing your reservations, helping your husband see something from another angle. It is adding value to your husband.
  • It is knowing that your husband bears the responsibility and accountability to God for your marriage and family.
  • Lastly, it is a heart attitude towards God. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. It is a step towards God.
  • Submission is not really to your husband but to God.
  • In everything, Paul says in verse 24. Why? Because you are one flesh. There is not an area of your life that is cut off from your spouse.
  • One flesh means one dream, one bank account, sharing all things, not having social media profiles the other doesn’t know about. Katie could literally shut my life down because she has all my passwords to everything.

Why is this so hard?

Tim Keller says, “Self-centeredness is a havoc-wreaking problem in many marriages, and it is the ever-present enemy of every marriage. It is the cancer in the center of a marriage when it begins, and it has to be dealt with.” Living out this vision requires you to let go of what you want. To crucify your desires in many ways.

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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: God Using You

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One of the best parts of being a pastor (or a Christian for that matter) is seeing God use you. There is nothing like using the gifts God has given to you.

Recently I’ve been sharing some of the weights and joys of being a pastor to help people who attend church understand what it is like to be a pastor and how they can support their pastor and his family, but also to encourage pastors to keep going and not give up, as so many do.

Being a pastor is unique. It isn’t harder than another job, just different.

If you’ve missed any of the weights or joys I’ve covered, you can see them here: Preaching God’s word every week, You can’t change people, God’s call on your life, Seeing life change and People under you are counting on you.

Joy #3: God Using You

This joy is much like joy #1. The fact that a holy God would use us is crazy.

For God to use us, we need to have a posture that allows him to use us. God does not force you to allow him to use you, but he does draw you to himself so that he can use you.

This also gets at our stories. Too many Christians are embarrassed by their stories and what they were like before God saved them. God does not waste stories. While we should not glory in our sins, we also need to see them as things that God wants to use right now. Our stories are not mistakes. God did not save us too late; he saved us at the right time.

We also need to have a level of humility that will allow God to work through us. I think too often, especially as pastors, we want to control everything. We cannot control the way God is moving and how he is working. We need to go along for the ride. Whether that is in a service, a sermon or a conversation, we need to be open to how God is moving and whom he is moving. This is scary because we give up control, but that is when the greatest things happen.

There is nothing like being in the middle of God working and being a part of it. There is nothing like seeing someone get it, seeing someone cross the line of faith, get baptized, come out of addiction. There is nothing like it.

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Pastor, If you Burnout…

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burnout

Pastor, if you burnout, you have no one to blame.

I know, that sounds absolutely depressing and accusatory.

But for pastors it’s true.

Why?

Before I answer that, let’s back up.

Why do leaders burnout?

Why do leaders burnout?

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They burnout because they don’t get enough sleep, they say yes to too many things, they don’t eat properly, they preach too many times a year, they have too many meetings, they don’t recharge themselves well, they don’t do anything relaxing or fun, they don’t take a Sunday off, they work too many hours and they don’t deal with the emotional side of ministry well.

10 reasons most pastors burnout.

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So, whose fault is this?

Well, if you suffer from these, your first response will be to say that your church puts a lot of pressure on you (which they might), your elders have high expectations for you (which they do), so it must be them.

Your kids want to be in every sport, and you and your wife want to make sure your kids get all the things you didn’t have.

So if you burnout, whose fault is it? If you are tired, whose fault is it?

Stop for a minute and imagine you and you alone are standing in front of a mirror.

If you burnout, that’s your fault.

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That’s whose fault it is.

That’s who’s responsible.

Re-read this paragraph: Pastors burnout because they don’t get enough sleep, they say yes to too many things, they don’t eat properly, they preach too many times a year, they have too many meetings, they don’t recharge themselves well, they don’t do anything relaxing or fun, they don’t take a Sunday off, they work too many hours and they don’t deal with the emotional side of ministry well.

All of those things are on you.

Does anyone make you get up at a certain hour or stay up until a certain hour? Does anyone make you say yes? Who puts food in your mouth? Who decides the preaching calendar? Who makes your meeting schedule? Who prevents you from doing something fun? Who keeps you from taking a Sunday off? Who decided not to have a friend outside of their church they could vent to about the emotional side of ministry?

The answer to those questions?

You.

Let me give you an example if you are still skeptical.

Right now you’re reading this blog (thanks for that). Does your church know what you are doing? Does your church know if you are reading a blog to better yourself, working on a sermon, counseling someone, taking a nap or researching for fantasy football?

They have no idea.

Your church doesn’t know what you eat, when you sleep and how you recharge. And for the most part, they don’t care, because they expect you to be responsible and care for yourself.

You are responsible for your health, your relationship with God, your emotional and physical energy, for making sure you relax, take your days off, take a vacation. You are responsible for that.

So if you burnout, that’s on you.

Maybe another example will help.

This happened to me recently. I had over-scheduled my preaching calendar (so I preached too many weeks in a row), I had too many trips on top of each other, our kids were in a lot of activities, I was angry and hurt at a few people that I didn’t deal with as quickly as I should have, and I had put too many meetings on my calendar.

I was tired and I got upset, blamed some other people and talked about the high expectations that people have for me. Then my wife reminded me that I’m in charge of all that stuff.

So are you.

Take responsibility and control of it.

Remember: too many pastors give control of their lives and calendars to others.

Too many pastors give control of their lives and calendars to others.

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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: People Under You are Counting on You

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Recently I’ve been sharing some joys and weights of being a pastor. While being a pastor isn’t necessarily harder than other jobs, it is different. In fact, I cringe when a pastor says that they have the hardest job in the world, but that’s another topic.

I’ve been sharing these so that those who attend church can have a better understanding of what their pastor walks through and how to best support their pastor, but to also help pastors process what they live with and how to handle it.

To see the weights and joys I’ve already talked about, go here: Preaching God’s word every week, You can’t change people and God’s call on your life and Seeing life change.

pastor

Weight #3: People Under You Are Counting on You

While everyone has people in their lives that are counting on them, I’ve noticed a different feeling among pastors. While you have those who work for you, you have to worry about their livelihood, paying salaries and the bills of a church. You also have your board that you are a part of who oversees you.

There is also the unwritten expectations that people have in your church. These are always the most dangerous and toughest to handle.

Whether it is from their last church, what they think the Bible says about a pastor or what they saw someone on TV say or do when it comes to preaching, all of these things converge in people’s minds, and they want you to be all of these things and more. The reality is if you had your church list five things a pastor is supposed to do, you are only gifted at one or two of them. While team ministry is the biblical approach and the one that works, it doesn’t make it any easier.

Everyday a pastor ends his day with this knowledge: there is someone else I can call, someone else I can counsel, another meeting I can go to, I can write/research more of my message. There is always one more thing.

Whether this pressure actually comes from people, our own thinking, or both, it is real.

One area this bleeds into and can cause a great deal of pain is in the pastor’s family. Expectations that people have for the wife and kids of a pastor are often so overblown it is crazy. The pastor’s wife is not an employee. If she is, then she can do her job, but if she isn’t paid, she is just like everyone else in the church. I’m often asked what a pastor’s wife should do in a church. The answer: what everyone else does. She’s a follower of Jesus like everyone else is. Yes, her role is unique and different from others, but she is a follower of Jesus before she is anything else, so that shapes what she does.

One thing I’ve learned is to be very honest about expectations (as honest as I can be). I once ran into a situation where a group of leaders had an expectation for me that actually went against what the Bible calls pastors to do. This happens a lot and is very difficult to bring up.

Here are some things you can do:

1. Know who you actually answer to. What does your immediate supervisor ask of you? As long as they are on your side and feel like you are hitting the agreed upon expectations, that can save a lot of pain.

2. You need to have some clear boundaries. Too many pastors have absolutely no boundaries when it comes to their schedules, meetings, e-mails and phone calls. On my day off, on family day, the computer stays off, the phone is off and I don’t have meetings. This can bleed over into being lazy, but for me, when it is time to work, I come with my game face on and throw down. But when it is sabbath time and family time, I enjoy every moment of it.

3. Teach your church. You will also have to teach your church what a pastor does, what they are supposed to do and what the church is supposed to do. Many of the things people think a pastor should do, in reality, the church is supposed to do those things. If just the pastor did those things, we would actually rob the church of being able to use their gifts.

4. Talk with others who understand. No matter what job you have, it is helpful to spend time with others who have the same role and responsibility. Only a lawyer can really understand what it is like to be a lawyer. The same is true for pastors. Get some friends who are pastors so that you can have someone who understands what you are walking through and can give wisdom from that perspective.

5. It’s not your church anyway. At the end of the day, while this weight is real, we as pastors often make it heavier than it is supposed to be. It is not your church. Those are not your people. Yes, you are responsible and accountable, but it isn’t yours. You aren’t building it, you didn’t die for it, you didn’t rise from the dead for it. Stop acting like you did.

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How to Maximize a Retreat Day

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Do you ever take any time for yourself? Do you ever sit before God in silence, listening? Not leading or doing, but resting and being.

Do you ever take any time for yourself?

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For all of us, resting is crucial. Stopping, letting go, not using a list, not thinking about the future, projects, people or vision is important, but we seldom make time for it.

If we do, it feels awkward and clumsy.

retreat day

The question becomes, how do you maximize a sabbath or a retreat day?

How to take a retreat day as a leader.

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I was asked recently by a campus ministry leader how to unplug for 48 hours and recharge. As I thought about it, I thought I’d share some of those ideas with you:

  • Have an idea of what you hope to get out of it.
  • Make sure it is realistic so that you aren’t depressed afterwards if you don’t accomplish that.
  • Are you trying to rest, recharge, connect with God? Have a clear goal for it.
  • Turn off everything electronic. I would start this before the retreat day or time off.
  • Have a plan for what you will do after the retreat day to reengage work and relationships. The reentry can be the hardest.
  • Go somewhere that is recharging for you. I like to go up to the mountains and walk around and sit.
  • If you’re going to read a book, read one that enriches your soul, not a ministry book.
  • Listen to music that connects you to God and helps you to worship.
  • Schedule it, block it off and don’t let anything interrupt it (unless it is a massive emergency).

I’d also encourage you to use this time to evaluate yourself, your heart, your leadership, etc.

Here are some questions I’ve used that might be helpful (some of these came from The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal):

  • On a scale of 1 to 10, how fully engaged am I at work? What is standing in my way?
  • How closely does my everyday behavior match my values and serve my mission? Where are the disconnects?
  • How fully am I embodying my values and vision for myself at work? At home? In my community? Where am I falling short?
  • How effectively are the choices that I’m making physically – habits of nutrition, exercise, sleep and the balance of stress and recovery – serving my key values?
  • How consistent with my values is my emotional response in any given situation? Is it different at work than it is at home, and if so, how?
  • To what degree do I establish clear priorities and sustain attention to tasks? How consistent are those priorities with what I say is most important to me?
  • How do my habits of sleeping, eating and exercising affect my available energy?
  • How much negative energy do I invest in defense spending – frustration, anger, fear, resentment, envy – as opposed to positive energy utilized in the service of growth and productivity?
  • How much energy do I invest in myself, and how much in others, and how comfortable am I with that balance? How do those closest to me feel about the balance I’ve struck?
  • How much energy do I spend worrying about, feeling frustrated by and trying to influence events beyond my control?
  • Finally, how wisely and productively am I investing my energy?
  • What’s my current word from the Lord? (It’s not new, but what is God whispering to you lately?)
  • What’s my current obedience to the Lord? (There can be sacrifice without obedience, but there can’t be obedience without sacrifice.)
  • What is my current awe before the Lord? Will I get on God’s agenda and trust Him to take care of my agenda?
How to maximize a day off.

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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: God’s Call on Your life

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Recently I’ve been sharing some joys and weights of being a pastor. While being a pastor isn’t necessarily harder than other jobs, it is different. In fact, I cringe when a pastor says that they have the hardest job in the world, but that’s another topic.

If you’ve been reading along, you might think that being a pastor is only misery, but there are a lot of joys that go along with being a pastor.

In fact, if you are a pastor this might be just the reminder you need.

pastoring

Joy #1: God’s call on your life.

One of the many joys of being a pastor.

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While there is a call on all Christians lives to live a certain way, for a certain goal and to invite others into this, scripture is clear that God calls certain ones to lead his people. It does not mean that pastors are better than everyone else; they are just called to lead the people of God. In fact, this calling means they get judged twice. (James 3:1)

God’s call on your life (in any capacity) is humbling. That God would ask me to do anything is crazy. If we’re honest, we would all agree that God should call someone else or come up with a plan B. But we are plan A without a plan B. That God would even think I can fulfill his call and fulfill his will is humbling.

God’s call also gives us a specific way to live and a specific thing that we are trying to accomplish. It means life is not an accident, that we are not mistakes, but that God has set us apart from others. This means that as a follower of Jesus, God has placed a call on your life to do something. Your role is to figure out what it is and then do it.

God’s call is also important as a leader because when life gets tough, when critics get loud, when God’s voice seems silent, your call is what will keep you going. There have been countless times for Katie and me that the only reason we stuck with being a pastor was because of God’s call on our lives.

Another aspect that too many leaders miss is that your personal call must also be your spouse’s call (if you are married). In fact, I would venture to say that your spouse almost needs to feel this call more than you do. They will feel the pain more than you do, they will want to defend you, they will feel the hurt more than you do. When something happens to you, you can brush it off. But when something happens to someone you love, it is hard to brush it off. Too many pastors get into ministry and drag their spouse with them and use God’s call as a club to say, “We have to. God called me.” He may have, but you also chose to get married, and they need to be on board with it. Your call must be their call, or you will not be in ministry or married for long.

I know that last paragraph makes this seem like a weight instead of a joy, but that is one of my soapboxes because we have talked to countless pastors who dragged their spouses into ministry.

If you are unsure of God’s call on your life to vocational ministry, that doesn’t make you a second class Christian. All Christians aren’t called to be pastors, but that doesn’t mean God hasn’t called you.

If you are tired right now as a pastor, worn down and are unsure if you can go on, your call to ministry is one of the things that will get you through. Remember that moment, that clarity, that excitement. Cling to that and the one who gifted you and called you to what you are going through and what is ahead.

God’s call on your life will get you through the difficult times of pastoring.

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