Rick Warren was interviewed by Andy Stanley on pacing and ministry. There are too many pastors and ministers burning out and crashing because they don’t know how to pace themselves and rest because they’re doing “God’s work”. Warren fainted in the pulpit the first year he started his church and he was depressed for the entire second year of his church – oh, it was due to working 18-20 hours a day. So, he knows something about ministry burn out.
- Learn how to divert daily (do what energizes you), withdraw weekly, abandon annually.
- Don’t call it a “day off”, call it a “sabbath”. You’ll cheat and work on the day off, but if you break the sabbath, you’re sinning.
- Learn to manage energy not time. We all have the same amount of time but not the same amount of energy. Learn your energy capacity.
- Never compare yourself to others. If you do, you’ll always find someone better which causes you to be discouraged. You’ll also find someone not as good as you and you’ll be tempted to become proud.
- Warren had a big old milk jug sitting near his front porch. Every night when he got home he’d stand before the jug and dump all the stresses and concerns of the day into the jug before entering the house to see his wife and kids. Don’t bring that stuff inside the house.
- God wants us to be faithful AND fruitful.
- You judge the health of your church not by its seating capacity but by its sending capacity.
- Three encouragements: 1. Never stop learning. Only a fool thinks he can’t learn from someone else. 2. Don’t compare yourself to others (see fourth bullet above). 3. Never give up.
- Everything you do, do it like Jesus.
- As an aside, Warren hates the term “purpose-driven”.
2 Comments
April 25, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Great advice! Applicable to my practice as much as your ministry. I love the point of energy management before time management. Thanks for sharing, Mike.
May 20, 2009 at 8:42 am
Super website. will definitely visit again.