Thread by @lukedsimmons

How can pastors survive this high-pressure world, stay sane, avoid burnout, and prioritize what matters?

An underutilized tool: The Personal Retreat Day

Here's how to get started: 🧵

A Personal Retreat Day is biblically informed, water for your soul, and a gift to those around you.

📖 Jesus often went off to pray — if he needed it, so do you

💧 Having time to pause and pray is so replenishing

🎁 My wife is usually encouraging it — she sees the difference

You'll feel a little guilty for taking a whole day by yourself and you'll try to talk yourself out of it because:

• there's so much to do
• people need you
• it's not the right time
• other people don't get to do this in their jobs
• it seems self-indulgent

Get. Over. It.

A Personal Retreat Day will recalibrate your heart, realign your focus, and have a disproportionately positive impact on your life and ministry.

The more leadership responsibility you have, the more you need it.

And for those pastors in mid-life, you really need it.

As my friend @gary_mayes says:

"The rhythms and disciplines of life that sustained us when we were younger will be inadequate to meet the demands of future seasons."

aboutleading.com/post/when-your…

📅 #1 PUT A DATE ON THE CALENDAR

This is the most important step, because without it a Personal Retreat Day *will not happen* — the urgent will crowd out the important.

If possible, put a few dates on. Maybe every 6 weeks or so.

🌄 #2 PICK A LOCATION (IN ADVANCE)

Try for a change of scenery from your normal flow, because it puts you in a different frame of mind.

If you go to the typical places you work, you'll end up doing typical work.

I often go 45 min - 2 ½ hours away because the drive is a chance to think, listen to music or a sermon, and decompress.

Usually it's a day trip. Sometimes it's an overnight.

Monasteries and cheap hotels — or even camping — can be part of it if you have a small budget.

📝 #3 TAKE A PERSONAL INVENTORY

Begin with some self assessment. How are you doing... REALLY?

On a journal or your computer, take some time to linger around some key questions.

I've used a number of questions over the years:

• Is my heart for God increasing?
• Is my capacity for loving deepening?
• Is my calling/vision clear?
• Is my passion hot?
• Is my character submitted?
• Is my pride subdued?
• Is my pace sustainable?
• Are my practices healthy? (sleep, eating, exercise, sex, prayer)

I also like the #Essentialism ?s from @GregoryMcKeown:

• Looking back on the past 90 days, what is the news in my life?
• Am I focused on the things that really, truly matter most to me?
• Where am I spending my time and resources?
• What’s really essential?

• What’s ultimately most important to me?
• What’s ultimately most important to my work and leadership?
• What am I already committed to? What’s already on my calendar?
• Are these things really things that are essential,?
• What is most essential in the next 60-90 days?

Or take the "Emotionally Healthy Leadership Self-Assessment" from @petescazzero:

emotionallyhealthy.org/leadership-ass…

🙏 #4 ENJOY SOME EXTRA TIME w/ GOD

When you started in ministry, you thought you'd spend most of your time reading the Bible & praying 😆

Now you know how hard that is.

So take some extra time to read, pray, walk, sleep, & enjoy Jesus like you did back before you had a title.

🛫 #5 WORK "ON" YOUR WORK

Zoom out, get to 30,000 feet, and assess what is truly most important for you to be working on.

What's coming in the next 30, 60, or 90 days that will move things forward?

OR

What's your 6x6 — the 6 most important things in the next 6 weeks?

Too often, we're so stuck IN our work that we don't ever work ON our work.

We're so busy just REACTING that we don't think about what needs PROACTIVE energy.

Think ahead, remember what you're especially called to do, and make some plans for the next month or two.

FIGHT THE RESISTANCE & DO IT ANYWAY.

@cnieuwhof has helpfully said:

https://twitter.com/cnieuwhof/status/1429910569939832834?lang=en

So make this a regular part of how you spend your time on.

You'll last longer in ministry, be a more joyful leader, and have the satisfaction of getting traction on what's most important.

I'm pulling for you!

Thanks for reading!