Week 1: Rhythms of Work and Rest

I remember sitting in a staff meeting once at a church I was serving; the purpose of the meeting was to talk about how we could attract more people to join the church. At one point someone counted the requirements for church membership already in place and made the startling discovery that there were at least five time commitments per week required of those who wanted to become church members!

Outwardly I tried to be supportive of the purpose for the meeting, but on the inside I was screaming, who would want to sign up for this? I was already trying to combat CFS (Christian Fatigue Syndrome) in my own life and couldn’t imagine willingly inflicting it on someone else. How is it, I wondered, that life in and around the church often gets reduced to so much activity, so much busyness, such weighty expectations?

One of the main reasons life in and around the church is full of so much activity, so much busyness and such weighty expectations is that is the way its leaders are living. Most of us only know one speed: full steam ahead. And we have been stuck in that speed for a very long time. If we do not establish saner rhythms in our own lives—life patterns that curb our unbridled activism and calm our compulsive busy-ness—we will not make it over the long haul and neither will the people we are leading.

Worn out by our passion

Jesus seemed to understand how quickly our passions, even the most noble, can wear us out if we’re not careful. Early in his ministry with the disciples, he began to teach them about the importance of establishing sane rhythms of work and rest. In Mark 6, Jesus had just commissioned the disciples for ministry and had given them the authority to cast out demons, to preach the Gospel and to heal the sick. They went off on their first ministry excursion and returned all excited about their new-found powers and crowded around Jesus to report in on all they had done and taught.

But Jesus didn’t have much time for their ministry reports. Immediately he instructed them “to come away with me and rest awhile.” He seemed to be much more concerned about helping them to establish rhythms that would sustain them in ministry rather than allowing them to be overly enamored by ministry successes or inordinately driven by their compulsions to do more.

Rhythms of work and rest

When we keep pushing forward without taking adequate time for rest and replenishment, our way of life may seem heroic but there is a frenetic quality to our work that lacks true effectiveness because we have lost the ability to be present to God, to be present to other people and to discern what is really needed in our situation. The result can be “sloppy desperation”: a mental and spiritual lethargy that prevents us from the quality of presence that delivers true insight and spiritual leadership.

Charles, a gifted physician illustrates the point: “I discovered in medical school that if I saw a patient when I was tired or overworked, I would order a lot of tests. I was so exhausted, I couldn’t tell exactly what was going on…so I got in the habit of ordering a battery of tests, hoping they would tell me what I was missing. But when I was rested—if I had the opportunity to get some sleep, or go for a quiet walk—when I saw the next patient, I could rely on my intuition and experience to give me a pretty accurate reading of what was happening…when I could take the time to listen and be present with them and their illness, I was almost always right.”

When we are depleted, we become overly reliant on voices outside of ourselves to tell us what is going on. We react to symptoms rather than seeking to understand and respond to underlying causes. We rely on other people’s ministry models and outside consultants because we are too tired to listen in our setting and craft something that is uniquely suited to meet the needs that are there. BUT when we are rested, we bring steady, alert attention to our leadership that is characterized by right discernment about what is truly needed in our situation, and we have the energy and creativity to carry it out!