What a Pastor Does on a Break

Ever since being a student pastor I have watched lead pastors (sometimes from afar and sometimes up close) burnout and fizzle out of ministry. Ministry and leadership is a marathon, not a sprint which it is so often treated as such. This past year our elder team worked through my job description (I didn’t have one before) and laid out what I should be spending my time on, who I should be spending time with, how much time I should spend on sermon prep, how many weekends a year I should preach, etc. One of the things we talked through was each summer having 3 – 4 weekends in a row that I don’t preach. To use that time to recharge, listen to preaching, go on a family vacation, spend extra time with leaders, work on upcoming sermons and study guides.

Well, my break starts this week. I couldn’t feel more excited and weirder about the whole experience. Which I think is a good thing.

The next month will be filled with some personal evaluation, taking a step back to look at Revolution, looking ahead to the coming year, working on the study guides and family devotional guides for our sermon series Ultimate Fighter (2 Timothy) & The Blessed Life (Philippians), prep for The Perfect Kid series, going on a family vacation, some reading and world cup watching.

Starting this Saturday, we are partnering with almost 1,200 churches from around the globe for the One Prayer initiative in our series Unstoppable. I’m not only excited about this series because of the topic and how it will challenge us as a church, but also who our church will get to hear from over the course of the series. I know many pastors who take the mindset that when they go on vacation, they want to get a speaker worse than them so when they return their church is excited they are back to hear good preaching. Our goal is that whether I speak or not, whether Paul is leading worship or not, 52 weeks a year you can know that Revolution will be awesome and you will not have to worry about bringing a friend. Revolution will be Revolution regardless of who is speaking or leading worship. For the next 4 weeks we will get to hear from Luke Simmons, Craig Groeschel, Steven Furtick and Timothy Keller.

If you think of it, Katie and I would appreciate your prayers to be recharged, refreshed over the next month. God is doing amazing things at Revolution and we are praying and expecting the next year to be even better than this year (which is hard to imagine) as we move to our new location.

Get ready!