How To Avoid Burnout

Great wisdom here from Brian Howard.  I don't know many guys who know how to rest well.  We need to work really hard and rest really hard.  Laziness should never be part of the discussion.  This article contributes greatly to the resting part.

Brian writes:

These kinds of collapses are common in leaders:

• Physical Collapses - Sickness, Exhaustion, Insomnia, or Lack of energy.
• Spiritual Collapses - Spiritual discouragement, Lack of spiritual interest, Moral failure.
• Emotional Collapses - Anxiety, Depression.

Burnout might seem to come out of nowhere, but it really doesn’t. Burnout is often the by-product of poor choices on the part of a leader. There are patterns that lead to Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Collapses. These patterns involve not paying attention to what your body and soul really need. 

One of the most important strategies in avoiding burnout is to get rest. Without rest, burnout is inevitable. Without rest, collapse is certain.

Consider the following 4 strategies for rest that will help you to fight against Burnout.

Read the rest.  

Ministry is Not For The Superhuman

Mike Emlet reflects on Zack Eswine's book on pastoral ministry, Sensing Jesus, and our tendency to want to be omnipotent and omnipresent.

So what does it look like to lean against the temptation to be “everywhere-for-all”? 

• Frame your day with pauses that remind you of your absolute dependency on God and ground you in the present. Eswine suggests using the time-honored tradition of breaking the day into four portions—morning, noon, evening, night—and pausing at the beginning and end of each period of time to pray and read Scripture for a few minutes. Although my consistency in this discipline waxes and wanes, I can attest to how it acts as a speed bump to what would otherwise be a frenetic, prayerless, and unreflective day.

• Focus on the here and now as you meet with people. Truly attend to the people in front of you—their words, smiles, grimaces, and furrowed brows. So much of interpersonal ministry is being with a person, not arriving at a destination. We are like children on a long car ride who whine, “Are we there yet?” while missing the glory of the ordinary passing scenery, not to mention the blessing (OK, sometimes!) of being together as a family.

• Learn to value the ordinary, “exult in monotony” (66). If you don’t do this, you miss much of daily life! Without those eyes to see and ears to hear, it’s no wonder the here and now feels insufficient and the whisper to be somewhere else for someone else beckons. Can you smell the sautéed asparagus? Feel the warmth of your child’s hand? See the impish grin of one of the preschoolers in your Sunday School class? Taste the bitter goodness of that first swallow of morning coffee? Savoring these ordinary moments, gifts from God for a given place and time, reminds us that he will give us what is needful for the moments of ministry as well.

• Go to bed! “Sleep is a Sabbath-like act. We rest from it all and leave it all for God’s keeping while we lie motionless in the world for a while” (80). Honestly, this is hard for me. While I don’t have the stamina of twenty years ago, I still am often driven by an everywhere-for-all mentality that trades sleep for the diminishing returns of working late.

Read the rest.

Work Hard, Rest Hard

I've gotten serious about this in the past year or so.  It has made a big difference in my mental health.

Kevin DeYoung:

People like to say life is a marathon, not a sprint, but it’s actually more like a track workout. We run hard and then rest hard. We charge a hill and then chug some Gatorade. We do some stairs, then some 200s, and then a few 400s. In between, we rest. Without it, we’d never finish the workout. If we want to keep going, we have to learn how to stop. Just like the Isra­elites had in their calendar, we need downtime each day, and a respite each week, and seasons of refreshment throughout the year.

Which is why it’s so concerning that our lives are getting more and more rhythm-less. We don’t have healthy routines. We can’t keep our feasting and fasting apart. Evening and morning have lost their feel. Everything is blurred together. The faucet is a constant drip. Life becomes a malaise, until we can’t take any more and spiral into illness, burnout, or depres­sion. We can’t run incessantly and expect to run very well.

Read the rest.


Books by Kevin DeYoung:

• The Hole in Our Holiness: Filling the Gap between Gospel Passion and the Pursuit of Godliness
• Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will
• What Is the Mission of the Church?: Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission
• The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th Century Catechism
• Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion

"What Happened When I Truly Disconnected"

Interesting narrative here on the blessings of a technological detox.  I am seeing my need to do this for an extended period of time at least once a year and one day a month each month.

"For most of us, it’s not heresy or rank apostasy that will derail our profession of faith. It’s all the worries of life."

Kevin DeYoung:

For most of us, it’s not heresy or rank apostasy that will derail our profession of faith. It’s all the worries of life. You’ve got car repairs. Then your water heater goes out. The kids need to see a doctor. You haven’t done your taxes yet. Your checkbook isn’t balanced. You’re behind on thank you notes. You promised your mother you’d come over and fix faucet. You’re behind on wedding planning. Your boards are coming up. You have more applications to send out. Your dissertation is due. Your refrigerator is empty. Your lawn is too long. Your curtains don’t look right. Your washing machine keeps rattling. This is life for most of us and it’s choking the spiritual life out of us.

The second thorn is related to the first. Jesus says the work of the word is swallowed up by the desire for other things. It’s not that possessions themselves are to blame. The problem is with everything we do to take care of them and everything we do to get more of them. Is it any wonder that the most stressed out people on the planet live in the most affluent countries? Cottages, boats, campers, timeshares, investments, real estate, snow mobiles, new cars, new houses, new computers, new iStuff—they all take time. We’ve heard countless sermons warning us about the dangers of money. But the real danger comes after your spend the money. Once you own it you need to keep it clean, keep it working, and keep up with the latest improvements. If the worries of life don’t swamp us, the upkeep will.

Jesus knows what he’s talking about. As much as we must pray against the devil and pray for the persecuted church, in Jesus’ thinking the greater threat to the gospel is sheer exhaustion. Busyness kills more Christians than bullets. How many sermons are stripped of their power by lavish dinner preparations and professional football? How many moments of pain are wasted because we never sat still enough to learn from them? How many times of private and family worship have been crowded out by soccer and school projects? We need to guard our hearts. The seed of God’s word won’t grow to fruitfulness without pruning for rest, quiet, and calm.

Read the rest. 


Books by Kevin DeYoung:

• The Hole in Our Holiness: Filling the Gap between Gospel Passion and the Pursuit of Godliness
• Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will
• What Is the Mission of the Church?: Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission
• The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th Century Catechism
• Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion

Taking Time To Do Nothing At All

The Wall Street Journal:

After Bernard Lagat competes Saturday in the Fifth Avenue Mile, he plans to do something that would feel completely foreign to many elite runners: He will toss his sneakers in a closet and pig out for the next five weeks. No running. No sit-ups. No heavy lifting, except for a fork.

For a handful of top-notch athletes, including Lagat and fellow U.S. Olympians Matthew Centrowitz and Leo Manzano, Saturday's race will mark the end of a taxing year of competition. There were long training runs last fall, indoor races last winter and meets throughout Europe this summer. Lagat is ready for a long break, so he is going to take one—just like he has every fall since 1999.

"Rest," he said, "is a good thing."

At age 37, Lagat continues to defy the corrosive effects of time. A four-time Olympian, he placed fourth in the 5,000 meters at the London Games in August. He owns seven American records, ranging from the 1,500 to the 5,000. He is the defending champion of the Fifth Avenue Mile—he won last year's race in 3 minutes, 50.5 seconds—and doesn't appear to be slowing down at all. "Talk about a superhero," said Manzano, the Olympic 1,500-meter silver medalist.

Yet for all of the hard work he puts into training, Lagat cites inactivity as one of the reasons for his success. He takes the time to be lazy.

Read the rest.

Work hard.  Rest hard.

Tim Keller on Sabbath

Great article here with many points of wisdom related to taking a Sabbath.

Why The Sabbath is Quite Profound

Imagine that you are self-employed with very tight financial margins.  Miss a day's work and your competitors get the upper hand.  Miss a day's pay and you wonder if you'll be able to buy groceries.  Time is money.

Now consider an agrarian economy.  Here time might mean survival.  Delay planting and you might miss the rain.  Take a day off in the midst of harvest and your produce might over-ripen or even rot.  With these risks in mind, the Sabbath was a big deal.  It was a test, a weekly tutorial for anxious people.  God was saying through it, "I am the Creator God who will care for your needs.  Embedded in the rhythm of your week will be an opportunity to rest.  You will do this because I rested on the Sabbath, and you will do it because I continue to be at work on your behalf on the Sabbath."

Just when your think you are getting the knack of the manna and are not worrying about tomorrow, you are told to trust your heavenly Father for today and tomorrow.  Once again, we can't help but be astonished at God's strategy.  Worry and fear are about danger, perceived needs, and being out of control. By incorporating the Sabbath into the normal rhythms of life he gives us weekly opportunities to say, "You, God, are in control, and I will practice trusting you by honoring your Sabbath and resting today."

- Ed Welch, Running Scared: Fear, Worry & the God of Rest, p. 78

Wisdom on Resting

Thabiti Anyabwile:

1.  Rest before I’m tired.  I learned that from Matt Schmucker at 9Marks.  Sometimes even our vacations and breaks don’t help us because we’re too far in the hole.  Our rest only partially fills the depletion we’ve been experiencing for long periods.  So, I need to rest even when I don’t think I need the rest so that I don’t end up in the ditch.  Here’s a hint: If you finish the year with any amount of accrued vacation you’re probably not resting enough or resting before you’re tired.  Most employers don’t give you too much vacation.  So if you finish with some left over, you’re depriving yourself of necessary rest. 

2.  Rest at regular intervals.  I’m a bit of a binge worker.  I hit periods, for example, where I write constantly.  On some level, it’s the way I’m wired.  But in other ways, absent a plan for getting rest, it simply deepens the lows and extends the periods of fatigue.  Most things in my schedule are planned.  I need to put rest in the schedule, too.  There ought to be a regular interval (every couple months?) for getting at least a few extra days off from work and the normal routine.  In fact, I think I’ll spend some time tomorrow identifying the next window for vacation. 

3.  Rest weekly. At least fulfill a sabbath principle.  The Lord’s Day is a day of rest, a market day for the soul.  Even if you’re not a strict sabbatarian, you should have a weekly 24-hour period where you cease from your labors, repose and repair with God. 

4.  Rest daily.  How do you do that?  Most people call it “lunch.”  Few people outside manufacturing settings take the 15-minute morning and afternoon breaks any more.  We tend to keep our eyes glued to the pixels before us, or our minds busy during the umpteenth meeting.  Our breaks become times where we hurriedly “get one more thing done” or “check on one thing.”  In the ministry, lunches become prime opportunities for shepherding.  There’s a place for that.  But if we never allow ourselves short breaks, or if we never have an unhurried lunch, we’re missing daily opportunities to silence the world, to turn off the engines, and rest.  Most of us are probably too busy, too frenetic.  We need more soothing respites sprinkled in the course of the day. 

Does rest make your list of resolutions or priorities for the New Year?I hope you’ve come to see the value of rest in your life, too.  Whether you’re in full-time Christian ministry or facing the demands of work, school, family and a host of other valuable gifts, you need rest.  In 2011, stay rested so that you may stay fruitful.

Read the rest.