Have you taken the time to thank your pastor? Peter Drucker, one of the world’s greatest leadership experts, once listed what he considered the four hardest jobs in the world. Here are those four: President of the United States, a university president, a CEO of a hospital, and a pastor. That’s incredible. If he’s right, then our pastors are facing one of the hardest jobs at one of the hardest times in history and it’s reasonable to think, they might need some refreshment!

LET’S TALK

Today’s blog is by Charles Stone. He shares eight ways a pastor can refresh their souls. Here they are:

1. Do something totally different from ministry. Often pastors spend even their free time on ministry related pursuits and thoughts. Consider doing something totally different from the ministry vein. I once took improv classes I found very refreshing to my soul.

2. Be okay with taking care of you. Pete Scazzero, most known for emotionally healthy spirituality, learned this the hard way and wrote these words. “The degree to which you love yourself corresponds to the degree to which you love others. Caring for ourselves was difficult for us to do without feeling guilty. We unwittingly thought that dying to ourselves for the sake of the gospel meant dying to marital intimacy and joy in life. We had died to something God had never intended we die to.” (www.christianitytoday.com/le/1998/winter/8l1063.html)

3. Keep healthy boundaries with others. A boundary is a line that helps define those things for which we are responsible. They define who we are and who we are not; when properly managed they can bring us great freedom with others in our churches. I recommend Henry Cloud and John Townsend’s bestseller Boundaries for better understanding.

4. Lighten up and laugh more often (not at others’ expense, though). Current research on how humor affects leadership has discovered that the most effective leaders use humor more often than less effective ones. (Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee, Primal Leadership, 34).

5. Build relationships with no ministry purpose in mind. Eugene Peterson, the author of The Message Bible paraphrase said, “Pastors can lose touch with relational vitality when their relationships are driven by programmatic necessity. When this happens, pastors can lose the context for love, hope, faith, touch, and a kind of mutual vulnerability. In the midst of the congregation, pastors become lonely and feel isolated-and that isolation can be deadly to the pastoral life. Those are the conditions in which inappropriate intimacies flourish.” (http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=3280)

6. Take care of your body through exercise, healthy eating, and adequate sleep.

7. Master technology, don’t let it master you. I’m a techno-geek. I was one of the original Mac owners and I use an iPhone and an iPad. I love electronic gadgets. I’m on Facebook. I tweet, text, e-mail, and blog. I’ve found, however, that technology can easily enslave me. It’s a battle yet when I control my technology, I’m more at peace. Interestingly, research has shown that the average worker is interrupted every eleven minutes and takes twenty-five minutes to refocus back on his job. I found that to be generally true in my life when I compulsively check e-mail.

8. Periodically take a solo retreat. Occasionally I’ve taken a night and a day at a local retreat center. I’m usually the only one there. When I go, I think, pray, plan, write, and study. Those periodic getaways refresh my soul and help break me from the rigors of ministry, resetting my focus to respond appropriately to the stresses ministry brings.

Originally posted by Dr. Charles Stone

BEFORE YOU GO

If you are a pastor, what has helped add life to your soul as a pastor? If you are not a pastor, how can you empower your pastor to take advantage of these eight steps? There’s so much in the world that is beyond our control right now but there’s much that we can do to make sure we are healthy enough to face the current challenge. It’s easy to feel helpless in the face of a global pandemic, political division, and racial tensions. When circumstances seem overwhelming that’s the time to dig deep, to do what we know to do to be healthy, rested, and prepared for the task at hand. Whatever the challenge, let’s commit to doing our part to be ready for the solution and look for ways to empower our leaders to pursue health for themselves!