Join Pastor Lance Witt and Pastor Kerry Mackey as they take a look at Replenish Ministries; its birth, year in review, and a look to 2008.
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When you study the life of Jesus, you soon discover that he never seems to be in a hurry. One of the things he regularly took time for was time alone with his father. These carefully guarded moments with his father were spiritually energizing and replenishing.
The Bible says Jesus regularly withdrew (Mark 4:35, Luke 5:16, Luke 6:12). “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (Mark 1:35 NIV). When I read a verse like this one, I don’t know about you, but I long for more of that in my life. There is something in my soul that knows I need moments of solitude, quiet, and slow.
That does not come easy for me. Over the last couple of months, I have been anything but the poster child for solitude. But, I can also tell you that the pursuit of a healthy soul is much more on my radar these days than it used to be. Establishing a life that pays attention to my soul is a higher priority.
Thomas Moore wrote, “The vessel in which soul-making takes place is an inner container scooped out by reflection and wonder.”
In other words, imagine your life as a container or bucket. Your life is full of things, pressures, distractions, temptations, and fast-paced living. Thomas Moore says that it is reflection and wonder (solitude) that scoops these out of our soul. It is through being quiet that we make room to meet God and let him do the work that he longs to do in us.
Four tips for a healthy soul
At the risk of giving you more to do, let me finish by giving you some challenges to consider as we move into a new year.
1. Slow Down. Walk a little slower this week. Don’t check your e-mail as soon as you get out of bed. Engage in unhurried conversation. Drive slower. Don’t rush through your quiet time.
2. Schedule times of spiritual reflection and solitude. Put them on your calendar as recurring appointments. You may feel like you can’t afford to carve out this kind of time, but you can’t afford not to make time for this.
3. Start reading to feed your soul. Pick up a book that isn’t about leadership skills or church growth. Find something that will feed your soul and deepen your relationship with Jesus.
4. Schedule a mini personal retreat. Sometime in the early part of the New Year, take a half day or a day just to get alone and be with your heavenly Father. Why not go ahead right now and block off some time in early January?
God speaks in the margins of life. To hear God and know God, you must create space in your life. You must create margin moments in your day when you can just “be” with Jesus. These times will not only help you grow, they will replenish and nourish your soul.
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Pastor Lance lends his expertise to the “Live Like You Were Dying: 30 Day Church Campaign”.
Read what www.tolivelike.com has to say about the project below.
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LIVE LIKE YOU WERE DYING™ is a 30-day church-wide campaign, inspired by the Grammy® award-winning song recorded by Tim McGraw that has touched millions with its evocative imagery.
Live Like You Were Dying is unique because it creates turning-point moments by causing thoughtful reflection on what really matters. It combines an award-winning song that touches our deepest longing for meaning, with the timeless truths of God’s Word in a learning experience for the whole church. A 30-day emphasis works because it involves everyone and builds momentum through multiple reinforcements. The campaign includes several different elements to challenge people each day of the week. Many pastors have discovered that an annual campaign that unites the church has significant benefits for building a stronger sense of community within the congregation.
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A CAMPAIGN THAT ENCOURAGES TRANSFORMATION
This campaign takes a song of the culture, the deepest needs of people, the truth of God’s Word, and brings it all together during a focused period of time for spiritual transformation. The Bible teaches that we’re not guaranteed tomorrow. So how should we live? This campaign will challenge your members to:
1. Live with a sense of urgency (1 Peter 4:7-8)
2. Live with a sense of eternity (Psalm 90:12)
3. Live with a sense of priority (Ephesians 5:15-17)
4. Give up the frantic pursuit of the “good life” (Matthew 16:25-26)
5. Make more time for relationships (Hebrews 10:24-25)
6. Offer forgiveness (Ephesians 4:32)
7. Celebrate being released from God’s judgment (Romans 8:33-34)
8. Liberate others from your judgment (Romans 14:13)
9. Do the unexpected in love (Matthew 5:39-42)
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“I know you’re busy, but…” I began to notice a pattern. More and more people who wanted to talk with me began our conversation with those words. My own staff, small group leaders, church members coming out of a worship service – the people around me began to feel like they were an interruption or imposition. People were sensing that I was in a hurry and overloaded.
I confess to you that I am a hurrier. I wish I had a dollar for every time my family has heard me say in an irritated tone, “Hurry up!” Sometimes I walk in a hurry and leave my wife behind. When I have to wait, or get delayed, or there is dead time in a worship service, or someone is telling a long story, I find myself internally saying, “Hurry up.”
The truth is I hate the pressures on my schedule, but I love being in demand. More often than I want to admit, the feeling of being in demand is intoxicating. Having every moment filled with activity and noise can be a kind of drug. It can actually become the fuel that keeps us going at an insane pace.
The badge of busyness
The badge of busyness is one that we ministers often wear with honor, but in reality it is a curse to the health of a soul. Before long, busyness is not just about the length of my to-do list or the number of meetings on my BlackBerry. It has morphed into a state of mind and disposition of the soul.
I have a hurried spirit. So, even when I try to be alone with God, I have difficulty staying engaged in the moment. I sometimes feel guilty and embarrassed that my spiritual attention span is so short. My hurried spirit constantly reminds me of all that I should be doing. I know Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” Yet, I often feel like I don’t know how to turn off the noise.
For years I intuitively knew that I was violating my soul. In honest and quiet moments, I longed to get off the treadmill but didn’t know how.
Everything in our culture and most everything in our ministry world goes against slowing down and paying attention to our soul. This insatiable need for speed sets us up for a monumental spiritual struggle. Our lives are over-stimulated, but our souls are undernourished.
You cannot live life at warp speed without warping your soul. You cannot follow Jesus at a sprint. A fulfilling and empowering connection with God cannot develop in busyness.
Unhurried time is a non-negotiable quality of all intimate relationships.
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I have learned over the years that there are some toxins inherent to modern ministry that can poison my soul. Our ministry, which we would assume would enhance our relationship with God, can actually become a threat to our relationship with God. These ministry poisons are subtle, but insidious. Actually, these toxins can feed your ego and fuel your ministry success while wrecking your soul.
One such ministry toxin is Image Management. We all know what it is to feel the need to prop up an external image that doesn’t match the internal reality of our soul. It’s like getting a facelift when you have cancerous tumor living inside you.
The danger is that we can get used to it, comfortable with it, and adept at playing the Image Management game. Think about this: you don’t have to have a healthy soul to be seen as a success in ministry. You are walking in a ministry mine field when your experience and skill and outward success begins to outpace your character and soul.
Many years ago while I was in school in Dallas, there was an old YMCA building right across the street from where I attended class. They wanted to take down the old dilapidated building in order to erect a skyscraper. Because of several other large buildings on the same block and some with historic value, they couldn’t just indiscriminately start pounding away with a wrecking ball. This job required a different strategy. For weeks everything on the outside looked very normal and remained unchanged. The only thing we noticed was the regular flow of workers in hard hats. After several weeks, we heard that the plan was to implode the building. I will never forget going downtown on the Saturday morning they were going to destroy the building. They had barricaded the streets cleared all traffic from the immediate area. With no advance notice, the charges were detonated. We heard the blast, but for a few seconds it looked like nothing was happening. But, then, the walls began to crack and give way and the whole structure lazily fell to the ground in a cloud of dust.
That scene reminds me of a lot of people I have observed in ministry (including myself). On the exterior, you would think everything is going well. However, internally, imperceptibly, something destructive is happening. They are being dismantled from the inside and they are headed for an implosion.
So, what’s the antidote?
Certainly there is no magic pill that cleanses my system from the poison of image management. But, let me give you some ideas that might help you in your ministry journey.
1. Get brutally honest with yourself. Stare this issue in the face. What is the condition of your soul? Has there been spiritual drift in your life?
2. Take ownership of your own spiritual life. Don’t play the victim card. Don’t play the “this is just a busy season” card. You can’t blame the condition of your soul on your staff, elders, board of directors, or spouse. You are responsible to lead yourself.
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I know the conflicted feeling of standing up to preach and yet knowing that my own soul is empty and dry. I know what it is to do ministry fueled only by experience and obligation. I know what it is to feed others while neglecting to feed my own soul. I know what it is to lead others while not leading myself very well.
Proverbs 14:8 says “The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception.” It is healthy for those of us who serve in ministry to regularly push the pause button and “give thought” to our ways. It is good for us to do an honest diagnosis. Solomon says you are a fool to live in self-deception. So, let me ask you to give thought to the ways of your ministry. As you plot the trajectory of your life and soul, where does it lead?
I have been a Christ follower for more than 35 years and in full time Christian ministry for more than 25 years. I know my own struggles and I work with pastors most every day. It is no longer safe to assume that we as Christian leaders are doing well while doing good. It is no longer safe to assume that people in ministry have healthy souls and just need a little coaching in the leadership area.
I remember sitting in Milwaukee about 5 years ago with a group of seasoned Christian leaders. One white-haired man at the table was probably in his upper 60’s and had served in ministry 40 years. I will never forget the words that quietly but powerfully rolled off his lips that day. He said “the older I get the less concern I have with what I have or have not done and the more concern I have for what I have or have not become”. The older I get, the more I resonate with his wisdom. The older I get the more I realize that the greatest gift I give those I lead is my own authentic walk with Jesus.
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In July, 2006 I made the agonizing decision to leave my role as an Executive Pastor at Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, California. As hard as it was to step down, my wife, Connie, and I had complete confidence that God was leading us.
When I resigned I had no idea what I would do. We had to walk by faith and depend on God in new and fresh ways. It was a spiritually rich time in our lives and I will always be grateful for God’s faithfulness.
At first I assumed that I would go back to pastoring a local church. This would have been a very familiar and comfortable step. However, as we talked and prayed, Connie suggested that God may have something different in mind for our ministry future.
God began to open up various ministry opportunities and to be honest it was all a bit confusing. During this season of confusion and searching, I flew to Singapore. On that long flight through the middle of the night, I spent a long time in prayer asking God to bring clarity to my future. As I read Scripture and prayed and listened, I had a powerful encounter with the Lord. I remember saying “Lord, there are many things I could do, but what do YOU want me to do?” And, in that moment, God spoke to my heart and said “I want you to help pastors be healthy, holy, and humble.” Immediately my response was “That would be a worthwhile investment of the rest of my life.”
Out of that encounter high above the Pacific Ocean we have been led to start a new ministry called, “REPLENISH”. It is dedicated to helping pastors and Christian leaders pay attention to their soul, live spiritually healthy lives and build spiritually healthy teams.
During the fall of 2007 I was captivated by a couple of obscure verses in Exodus 28 where the Lord is describing in painstaking detail the priestly garments being made for Aaron and his sons. Two different times (v.2 and v. 40) you read the words “so they might have dignity and honor”. God has laid it on my heart to help those who serve in ministry to serve with “dignity and honor”.
In recent years, we have all witnessed the carnage of gifted ministry leaders who stopped paying attention to their soul and character. In Christian leadership, we cannot separate the message from the messenger. It is a dangerous thing to equip ministry leaders with strategy and technique and “best practices” without at the same time nurturing and cultivating the soul. The heartbeat of REPLENISH is that our doing and leading must flow out of our “BEING”.
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