A Christmas Gift You Give Yourself: Replenishment

As a pastor, you set the emotional and cultural tone for your team and for your church. And so, when your personal energy is running strong, the entire church benefits.

• Ministries are more cohesive
• Tough decisions are made with confidence
• Tensions on your leadership team are resolved in a healthy manner
• The atmosphere in the church is positive and strong

But when your battery is depleted, when your mind, soul and body are drained, everything changes. The entire church suffers when your emotional and physical energy hits the “red bar”.

And so it is that, during the Christmas season, you have a golden opportunity to unwind, replenish and recharge your personal batteries before the challenges of the New Year present themselves.

But do you really need to recharge this year? How can you tell? Pastors can sometimes live in a world of sheer willpower and determination, to the point of being almost oblivious to the need to stop, pull back, and recharge.

So, how do you know if your own battery needs a recharge this Christmas? These are some of the most common red bar indicators I have found in my own leadership:

Irritability

When I drive to work, the way I react to other drivers tells me a lot about the condition of my soul. Does heavy traffic immediately push me into the high-irritability zone? That’s a warning sign I need to heed.

Pay attention to your own levels of irritability. They could be telling you that your personal battery is starting to run down.

Entitlement

The more replenished my soul, the more I tend to focus on the needs of others. When a sense of entitlement begins to appear, and my personal agenda begins to trump all other considerations, that’s a real danger sign.

If a creeping sense of self-importance is emerging and you don’t seem to be concerned with the welfare of others, watch out. It may be that the red bar of depletion is appearing.

Rationalizing

When my soul is in a good place, I can spot a moral problem a mile away. But when I am depleted, I can begin to convince myself that a minor indiscretion can be justified in the bigger picture. Ethical matters that would normally be black-and-white issues can start to look gray.

Watch out when you find yourself justifying questionable decisions. Your red bar might be telling you something.

And if it begins to tell you that you are in the danger zone, take advantage of the Christmas season to recharge yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually.

• Unplug: detach yourself from your digital devices (at least for a while)
• Unwind: engage in soul-filling activities that bring life to your world
• Untether: release yourself from tending to the spiritual needs of your congregation to tend to your own spiritual needs.

Make this Christmas season one of soul-filling replenishment, because your most effective leadership will only happen when your personal battery is fully charged.