Live Blog From Reach Conference: 39 Facts About Effective Church Capital Campaigns

This weekend INJOY Stewardship Solutions dispatched me to St. Louis to attend the Reach 2016 Conference.  Followers of Christ are constantly shifting gears to meet the demands of family, work, school, relationships and ministry.  Reach 2016 is a time to reconnect and recharge the spiritual batteries of the attendees in preparation for all God has planned for them.
While there I attended a breakout session conducted by INJOY Stewardship’s Director of Consulting Chad Aukland (pictured above).  Chad taught on the necessary elements for a church to have a successful capital campaign.
Before getting to his comments, Injoy Stewardship Solutions also wants to invest in your leadership by offering a special gift to you, a FREE ebook Breaking The Next Growth Barrier: 10 Things Pastors Can Do To Break Down Growth Barriers.  Click HERE for your complimentary copy.
Now as promised, the following are 39 Facts About Effective Church Capital Campaigns from Chad’s breakout session.  These lessons will help you fully-fund your church’s vision.

1. Our mission as an organization is to resource the vision of the local church.
2. As leadership of a local church, you’re always wanting to go the next level but there’s always a gap.
3. Dollars is usually the biggest resource gap but what about people?
4. A capital campaign is about life change.
5. A win in a capital campaign is expanding the level of service the people are willing to give.
6. Everything we do is rooted in 1 Chronicles 28 and 29. This is the biblical blueprint of a capital campaign.
7. Before communicating the vision, David gathered his leaders together.
8. King David gave $5.2 billion in today’s dollars in gold and silver. The leaders gave $13 billion. It does not register what the crowd gave.
9. Our vision often doesn’t resonate in the hearts of people because it’s too long. 140 characters they can retain.
10. The campaign supports the overall mission and vision of the church.
11. Leaders go first. Leadership is influence.
12. You can’t spend a pledge card.
13. This is not collections. We are not knocking on doors. We are not sending Guido to houses.
14. You know your church better than we ever could because you’re there everyday. We want to learn from you.
15. No two churches are alike. Hence, no two capital campaigns are alike.
16. Vision clarity is much different than vision messaging.
17. The first stage of leadership development is recruiting.
18. The job of a senior pastor in a capital campaign is what David did in 1 Chronicles, cast vision. It is not the day-to-day work.
19. Jesus spoke 7X more to people about money than prayer, hope and love combined.
20. As leaders we might need to get a little more bold than we currently are.
21. If you don’t talk about money, you’re going to leave 40% of the funds on the table.
22. The message to financial leaders is, “Join me on the journey.”
23. Equal sacrifice not equal gifts.
24. The message series of a capital campaign is not a money message series. It is generosity, stewardship, and sacrifice. In the end, we will ask people to sacrifice by way of generosity.
25. This is a spiritual journey. This must be transformational and not transactional.
26. The hardest part is to obey.
27. Nothing great for God ever happened outside of sacrifice.
28. 60% of giving comes from your leaders. 40% comes from the people.
29. Do not ever underestimate the power of the giving of children and students.
30. You want to maximize initial commitments.
31. You want to develop a consistent line of communication for the two or three years of the campaign.
32. If you want a church decline strategy, communicate all you want is people’s money.
33. Your vision must be clear, crisp and compelling.
34. Is your project urgent?
35. When you reach 80% of your capacity in the service or parking lot you will start to decline. You need space.
36. Are our leaders unified? No one likes to follow leadership that isn’t unified.
37. People know quickly if there is a fracture in the leadership.
38. Do you have a trusting congregation?
39. The process works because it’s found in 1 Chronicles 28 & 29.

To learn more about how INJOY Stewardship Solutions could help your church with its capital campaign needs, reply to this email or click HERE.  It would be an honor to serve you.

As previously mentioned, INJOY Stewardship Solutions would like to offer you the FREE resource Breaking The Next Growth Barrier: 10 Things Pastors Can Do To Break Down Growth Barriers.  Click HERE or on the image to the left for your complimentary copy.

The Top 10 Leadership Posts I Read The Week Of July 4th

Leadership cannot be compartmentalized.  It is pervasive in all areas of your life.  For instance, my influence is felt at home, work, my neighborhood, online and of course, my local church.  I can’t “turn it on” in one place but “turn it off” in another.
This is why I love this week’s Top 10 list.  It deals with leadership in a variety areas such as work, family and ministry.  So check out this week’s list.  It will make you a pervasively better leader.
The following are The Top 10 Leadership Posts I Read The Week Of July 4th:

1. If It’s Not On A Screen It’s Not Multi-Site by Paul Alexander
2. 4 Stages Of Engagement With First-Time Guests At Your Church by Rich Birch
3. We Still Don’t Get It…Human Life Is Precious by Brandon A. Cox
4. 5 Things To Do When You Don’t Have The Full Story Of Your Past by Mary DeMutch
5. One Powerful And Effective Way Your Church Should Use Facebook by Steve Fogg
6. The Emotionally Healthy Leader: Seven Reflections by Pastor Bryan Loritts
7. Who Is Really For You? by Shawn Lovejoy
8. How To Talk To Audiences So That They Remember What You Say by Dr. Nick Morgan of PublicWords.com
9. 10 Questions You Should ask Your Spouse on Your Next Date Night by Joshua Reich
10. 5 Questions Pastors Neglect In Sermon Prep by Charles Stone

Well, that is my Top 10 for the week.  What other great posts did you read?

Click HERE or on the image to the left and as a free gift for subscribing to this site, you can receive my new Ebook 1869 Leadership Quotes: Timeless Truths From 2015 Global Leadership Summit, That Church, REACT and Catalyst Conferences.  If applied, these insights will make you an exponentially better leader.  Enjoy!!!

7 Sexual Lines No Pastor Should Ever Cross

By Joe McKeever

7 "dos" and 7 "do nots" for pastors to avoid being snared in lust traps.

Recently, we did an article on “7 Women Pastors Need to Watch Out For.” Someone who just read it wanted to know why we put the blame on the women when pastors are more likely to be the sexual predator. “Google that,” she suggested, “and see for yourself.” My only defense is that in the body of the article, we said, “Sometimes women are the victims; sometimes they are the victimizers.” However, my critic is correct. And thus, what follows …
I’ve known more than one pastor who was a sexual predator. And, if it makes the reader feel any better, every one of them is out of the ministry now.
My observation, however, is that no serial adulterer occupying the pastor’s office entered the ministry with such sordid intentions. He fell into sin and one thing led to another. (Sound familiar? It’s how life works.)
So, what follows is for young ministers in particular who have not been snared in the lust trap and wish to make sure they don’t. (For your information, I invited my wife Margaret to add her observations.)
Here are seven lines pastors do not want to cross.

1. Do not use cologne.

Women are sensitive to fragrances, my wife says, which is why they wear them in the first place. When a man wears them, he sends out a subtle signal, the type no wise minister needs to be emitting.

2. Do not hug women.

One pastor said he hugs no one between the ages of six and 66.
To the minister who argues that, “Well, I am a toucher and people need to be hugged,” I reply:

a) Granted, but let women hug women and men hug men, if necessary and appropriate.

b) In most cases, your “touching” indicates some physical or emotional need in yourself, and is not what healthy ministers do.

Even if your intentions are pure, you make yourself vulnerable to charges of inappropriate touching. And—do not miss this—in the minds of many, to be charged is to be convicted.
Best to guard against these dangers.

3. Do not be in your office with a woman alone.

A pastor of a large church told some of us why he does not counsel in his office. “All she has to do is run out of the office screaming and your ministry is over.”

4. Do not be in the church alone with a woman.

This is more difficult for small churches that have no one on staff but the pastor. In my first post-seminary church, the secretary worked half-days. Often, she and I were in the building alone all morning. In those cases, you do the best you can at keeping your distance, making sure the doors are unlocked and drop-ins are welcome, and when possible, have others in the office too.
A pastor I used to serve with would sometimes ask me to remain after hours because he was counseling a woman, and wanted to make sure someone else was in the building.

5. Do not make pastoral visits alone.

If you knock on a door and find that a woman is home alone, do not go inside, but visit briefly at the door. Many pastors take a deacon or their wife with them on such calls.

6. Do not compliment a young woman on her appearance.

My wife says with women middle-aged and older, you can say, “You’re looking nice today.” But do not compliment a woman on her dress, her figure, tell her that her diet’s really working and such. You are stepping over an invisible line.

7. Do not fantasize about women.

Most sins of a sexual nature had their beginnings long before as the individual imagined certain situations with some individual. Then, when the opportunity presented itself, he was ready since he had been over that ground a hundred times before.
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable unto Thee, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer” (Psalm 19:14).

When someone catches him following a worship service with, “Pastor, could I come by and talk with you about a problem?” he answers, “Let’s sit in a pew right over here and talk now!”
Their visit is in public, but far enough removed from people so that no one hears their conversation.

The “do nots” clearly have no end. But here are seven “dos” which a minister will want to observe to keep the enemy at bay …

1. When complimented inappropriately, laugh it off and change the subject.

“Oooh, pastor, you look so good today.”

“Mmmm, preacher, I like the way that suit looks on you.”

“Have you been working out, Brother Al? You’re looking good.”

The insecure pastor soaks this stuff up like a sponge. But you are not insecure. “You are complete in Christ” (Colossians 2:10).
Do not acknowledge the compliment. It will only encourage her.
Laugh briefly, then ask about her family or something—anything!—to change the subject.

2. Anticipate situations that may arise during the day and plan appropriately.

That is, if you know a woman is coming for counseling, make sure your secretary or another minister is just outside the door. Pray always the Lord will guard you and give you wisdom about these things.

3. When you are close to some woman other than your wife, and you begin to sense all the signs of attraction—your temperature rising, your blood pressure elevating—walk away quickly.

Make up an excuse, even if it’s only that, “I just remembered something; I’ll be right back.”
Then, get to your office or pretend to make a phone call and talk to the Lord. Ask for His divine protection.
Just because your chemistry with that person is strong does not make it right. As a mature follower of Jesus Christ, you are beyond running your life by your feelings. (You are, aren’t you?)

4. Center your love, your energies, your everything on the Lord and your wife.

(The Lord does not mind being lumped together with her. He planned it that way. See Ephesians 5:25ff.)
The biggest safeguard against sexual transgressions in the lives of ministers is a good relationship with one’s spouse.
After numerous cautions against sexual sin, the writer of Proverbs counseled his son, “Drink water from your own cistern, and fresh water from your own well” (Proverbs 5:15). In the margin of my Bible, I’ve written: “Focus on your wife, son!”
Read on past verse 15 and he gets more explicit that that, with verse 19 being one you probably won’t read in church, but it definitely communicates!

5. Have an accountability partner or a mentor.

Or both.
If you are truly wise, you will have someone—usually an older, mature minister—to whom you can say anything. Such a veteran pastor has seen it all, has the scars to prove it, and has come up a winner.
(The one thing you do not want in such a mentor is someone who has never suffered! Spurgeon said, “God gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.”)
Once you find such a friend, you must meet with him frequently enough to be comfortable in speaking what’s on your mind. He must be a man of prayer who will pray with you and for you later. There is no way to overemphasize this.

6. A healthy fear of the Lord is a good thing.

One pastor’s wife said of her husband, “I don’t have to worry about Frank straying. He’s too afraid of God.” He laughed and said, “You’ve got that right!”
Someone asked Andrew Murray the greatest thought that had ever occupied his mind.
He answered, “My accountability to God.” Indeed. It’s enough to strike terror into our hearts and to drive us to repentance and submission. “Knowing the fear of the Lord,” Paul said, “we persuade men” (II Corinthians 5:11).
That said, we also rejoice that “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Nevertheless, even the saved will give account for what they have done in this life. God help us to be found faithful.

7. Encourage younger ministers to be faithful.

If you’ve been in the Lord’s work as long as a decade, you are a veteran compared to those just leaving seminary. You have a lot to offer them.
Reach out to the new ministers coming to churches in your area. Take them to lunch. Then, after the first session, both of you bring your wives. The ministry can be a lonely profession.
No church member understands the stresses you and your family have to endure. That’s why no one ministers to pastors better than other ministers.
The goal is to be faithful. Do this and you will find a strength and courage beyond your own. “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God” (I John 3:21). Yes, and confidence before men too.
Toward the end of His ministry, our Lord told the disciples, “The prince of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me” (John 14:30). I like that.
Readers may recall I told recently of meeting an old couple in a rural Alabama cafe. The man was in his 90s and the woman wasn’t all that far behind. They had been married four years, I think, and were clearly still in love. With a twinkle in his eye, the old gentleman said, “I have iron in my blood and she has a magnetic personality.”
When the devil waves his magnet over us, let there be nothing inside us that responds to his enticements. May we say, “He has nothing in me.”
And nothing “on” me.

7 Characteristics of Cowardly Lion Leadership

By Ron Edmondson

“Let’s face it. Leading others is hard. There is often loneliness to leadership.”

You remember the cowardly lion from The Wizard of Oz, don’t you? He was supposed to be the king of the jungle, but he had no courage.
I’ve known some leaders like the cowardly lion. If I’m completely transparent—at times it’s been me.
Let’s face it. Leading others is hard. There is often loneliness to leadership. Leadership takes great courage.
You have no doubt encountered cowardly leaders. Perhaps would even admit you’ve been one too.

Here are seven characteristics of cowardly leadership:

Say what people want to hear. They might say, for example, “I’ll think about it,” rather than “No”—even if no is already the decided answer. I get it. It’s easier. But the ease is only temporary. These leaders are notorious for saying one thing to one person and another to someone else. They want everyone to like them.
Avoids conflict. In every relationship there will be conflict. It is necessary for the strength of relationships and the organization. When the leader avoids conflict, the entire organization avoids it. Hidden or ignored problems are never addressed.
Never willing to make the hard decisions. This is what leaders do. Leaders don’t have to be the smartest person in the room. They don’t even have to be the one with the most experience. Leaders make the decisions no one else is willing to make.
Pretends everything is OK—even when it is not. When everything is amazing, nothing really is. Cowardly leaders gloss over the real problems in the organization. They refuse to address them either because they fear they don’t know how or their pride gets in the way.
Bails on the team when things become difficult. I’ll have to admit this has been me. I’ve written about it before, but when I was in business, and things were difficult, it was easier to disappear than face the issues. The learning experience was that once I checked-out or when I was disappearing, so was my team. Great leaders are on the frontline during the most difficult days, leading everyone through the storm.
Refuses to back up team members. No one wants to serve someone who will not protect them or have their back. People need to know if they make mistakes there is a leader who still supports them and can help them do better the next time.
Caves in to criticism. Make any decision and a leader will receive criticism. Even if it is unfounded, cowardly leaders fall apart when people complain. They take it personally and refuse to see any value in it. These leaders see every criticism as a threat against their leadership rather than another way to learn and grow.
What would you add to my list?
Let’s be leaders of courage. In fact, I believe courage should be in our definition of leadership.
Do you find it scary to be a leader sometimes? What’s the scariest time you face as a leader?

The Intangibles of Leadership with Bill Hybels

The Intangibles of Leadership with Bill Hybels – The 2015 Global Leadership Summit Has Begun!

Esther Laurie

From the opening Summit session, here are five aspects of leadership that don’t get a lot of media attention, but are subtle essentials.

Bill Hybels opened the 2015 Global Leadership Summit with a talk on the Intangibles of Leadership based on Richard Davis’ book.
Hybels stress everyone wins when you grow as a leader.  Here are the five aspects of leadership that don’t get a lot of media attention, but are subtle essentials of leadership:
1. Grit – Grit is passion and perseverance over the long hall. Hybels gives the example of the children’s story, The Little Engine that Could.  This unlikely little hero painstakingly made its way up the mountain to bring the toys to the children.  “Grit can be developed, but its archenemy is ease.”  We must assign ourselves difficult tasks (lots of mountains!) to grow grit.  After all, gritty organizations are unstoppable.

2. Self-awareness – Blind spots can be devastating. Statistics show that each person has about 3.4 of them, so no one is exempt.  When we make decisions from a place of wounding, we remain tethered to the past and often we don’t even know it.  The good news is we can grow in our self-awareness.  Step one is to talk to your people.  Those closest to you can see what you can’t see.  “You cannot grow in isolation.” Growth in self-awareness “demands input from others.”
3. Resourcefulness – Hybels defines this as learning agility. You need those who are quick learners, endlessly curious, enthusiastic experimenters and collaborators.  Resourcefulness can be developed by putting yourself into situations that are abused, broken, dysfunctional and then staying with it to “figure it out.”
4. Self-Sacrificing Love – King David gives us the most astounding example of self-sacrificial love and leadership. When his key leaders sacrifice their lives to bring him water, he is overwhelmed with thankfulness and humility.  He refuses to drink the water and instead pours it out as a sacrifice to God.  He loved and led this motley crew (1 Samuel 2:2) into a deeply devoted, capable, army and family.  Hybels said, we live in an age of celebrity leaders, but we lack good ol’ fashioned love.  “Love changes the order of things,” Hybels says.  Don’t hesitate to show genuine love for others and tear down the professional veil.  “Love never leaves a heart the way it found it.”
5. Create a Sense of Meaning – Using Simon Sinek’s TedTalk and book on starting with the why, Hybels shares it is absolutely essential to know and be driven by your “white hot why.” To go from success to significance is to know what is in your “top box.”  Leadership matters so much in every industry and discipline.  “Life is too short to live without your white hot why.”
Leadership is about moving people from a current reality to a better place.  As Hybels, says, “Lead well.  The stakes are high.”

Brokenness in a Pastor’s Life

by Charles Stone

Many issues can keep a church from growing and hinder a pastor’s effectiveness. They include circumstances beyond his control (demographics or a location that hinders growth), an uncooperative board (they say No to his vision), or even family issues (a chronically ill child who requires an inordinate amount of energy). These experiences can bring painful brokenness to a pastor’s heart. And, we seldom see any immediate benefit from our brokenness. But could God use it in our lives? I believe so.

Brokenness has touched my life in the two places where it hurts the most: my family (a child chronically ill for 25 years and a child who rebelled for many years) and my ministry (many dreams not fulfilled).
Yet, I’ve taken comfort when Jesus explained that brokenness must precede fruit bearing.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (John 12.24)

And nineteenth-century Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard captures the essence of Jesus’ words when he wrote these words.

“God creates everything out of nothing—and everything God is to use he first reduces to nothing.”[1]

Also, Richard Foster, one of today’s most influential voices on spiritual formation, describes one of the greatest benefits from brokenness. He calls it the “crucifixion of the will” and says it brings “freedom from the everlasting burden of always having to get our own way.”[2] Always having to get our own way is the antithesis of the other-centered life Jesus modeled for us.
As I enter the sixth decade of my life and reflect over the brokenness I’ve faced as a pastor, I’m beginning to see its great value. It still hurts and I’d prefer not to face it. Yet, I’m experiencing the fruit of brokenness: inner peace, joy, and a purpose that supersedes ‘ministry success.’
How has God used brokenness in your life and ministry?
Related posts:

• The Apostle Paul’s Thorn: prescriptive or descriptive
• Leading in Turbulent Times: 4 Essentials

How I Recovered From Burnout: 12 Keys to Getting Back

By Carey Nieuwhof

“These 12 things helped me immensely, I offer them in the hope they might help you even in some small way.”

Facebook Twitter Google+ Pinterest Share

I had never been through anything quite as deep or, frankly, personally frightening as my burnout 10 years ago.
Burnout moves fatigue and the darkness from a place where it was in your control to place where you can simply no longer control either.
I’ve heard from more than a few of you who have let me know that you’re in the midst of burnout right now.
Gary summarized how many leaders feel when he wrote in this comment:
So I’m there now. If I were honest I would say my life and ministry are in shambles. Still going, but no one really knows except my wife, I am ready to quit.
Oh man.
All I can say is I understand, and I’m pulling for you and praying for you.
I told part of my story in this post along with sharing nine signs you might be burning out.
So how do you recover from burnout?
Let me share my journey. While everyone’s recovery will be different, there were 12 keys that, in retrospect, were essential to my recovery.

Not an Instant Cure

And as far as time goes, for me there was no instant cure.
It took about six months for me to move from ‘crisis’ (20 percent of normal) to operational (maybe 60 percent).
It took another year to get from 60 percent to 80 percent of ‘normal.’
Finally, it took another three or four years to finally feel 100 percent again—like myself. Even a new self.

12 Keys to Getting Back from Burnout

Along the way, these 12 things helped me immensely. And while your story might be different, I offer them in the hope they might help you even in some small way:

1. Tell someone

This was hard. I think it is for most leaders, especially guys. My guess is you will resist because of pride. But pride is probably what made you burn out. Don’t miss this: Only humility will get you out of what pride got you into. Swallow your pride and tell someone safe that you have a problem. It’s tough, but it’s the first step toward wellness. When you admit it to others, you also finally end up admitting to yourself.

2. Get help

You can’t do this alone. Really, you can’t. I went to a trained counselor and had a circle of friends who walked the walk with me. You need to talk to your doctor and to a trained Christian counselor. And you need others. I had people pray over me. My wife, Toni, was an incredible and exceptional rock. I’m not sure I would have made it without them. I’m a guy and I prefer to work through my own problems. This one was so much bigger than me. But not bigger than God or the community of love and support he provides. So get help.

3. Lean into your friends

Yes this could have been included in Point 2 but the guys would have missed it. Friends. You need them. Guys—word here. We tend not to have a lot of friends and we tend not to open up. Mistake. Lean into your friendships. Friends came to the house and prayed for me. They called me. One day a friend called and simply said, “I know you can’t feel it today, but the sun will rise again. It will.” I can’t tell you how much those words meant to me that day. Your friends care about you. Lean into them.

4. Keep leaning into God

Just because he seems silent doesn’t mean he’s absent. I did not feel God for months. Not when I prayed or read the Bible or worshipped. But I didn’t give myself permission to quit. In these pivotal moments you will either lean away from God or into him. Lean in, hard. Even if you feel nothing. I did, and eventually, the feelings of intimacy return. Just because you can’t feel God’s love doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. Your emotions will eventually catch up to your obedience.

5. Rest

I was so physically and emotionally tired when I burnt out. I slept for about 10 hours a day for a month straight, adding naps to my daily diet on top of that. I think sleep is like money; deficits become debt. And debt needs to be paid off. I paid off my sleep debt that month and I always try now to make sure I am not running a deficit. If I do for a week or two, I pay it off with more sleep. You were designed to rest, and to rest in God. While I personally didn’t take a sabbatical or medical leave (our board offered me one), some may need to. I was too scared I’d never come back. So I took three weeks vacation and came back slowly.

6. Find something else to take your attention away from your pain

The problem with pain (or at least my pain) is when you do nothing you only have your pain to focus on. Distraction is a powerful tool to get your mind thinking about other things. Watch a movie. Go out for dinner. Go for a hike. Go to a party. Go to a concert. It’s not easy. At my worst, I would go to social settings and not want to talk to anyone, sometimes even ‘hiding’ from people behind my wife who is a foot shorter than me and 100 lbs lighter. But at least I went. One night we hosted a dinner party and I left the table early and ended up crying in my bedroom for the rest of the night. But at least we threw the party. It got my mind off the constant cycle of depression.

7. Do what you can

Again, you may need a long sabbatical. But I took three weeks off and went back to work. On my first week back in the office, it took me longer to write a three-line email than it took me to write this entire blog post, but I focused on doing what I could. The first weekend I preached, those who knew the shape I was in all told me, “We would have had no idea you were feeling so bad. You were amazing.” I knew how I felt inside, but it was good to know I could still be helpful to others in some way. I think for me it was important to discover what I could still do.

8. Don’t do anything drastic or stupid

Underline this. Because my illness involved my mind, I was tempted to do all kinds of things that could have ruined my life. I felt like abandoning my calling, running away from everyone I knew and everything I knew, even my wife and kids. In my worst moments, thoughts of ending it all crossed my mind. I am so thankful I didn’t succumb to any of those impulses. Some days I just said to myself “don’t do anything stupid today.” And if I didn’t, that was progress. I’m so thankful I didn’t do anything rash or irresponsible.

9. Trust again

One of the contributing factors to my crash was a few relationships (not my family) in which trust was broken. As hurt as I felt and as cynical as I was at points, I made a conscious decision to trust again. And the wonderful thing is: So many people are trustworthy. And God always is. Trusting again after your trust has been breached keeps your heart fresh and alive and—ultimately—hopeful again.

10. Closely monitor balance

I used to pride myself in being able to go at whatever I was doing longer and harder than anyone else. Pride’s not a good thing. I now closely monitor how I’m feeling, my rest and my balance between time with people and time alone. I’m hyper focused on it. Because I can’t afford not to be. I build margin into my schedule because without it, the edge of the next cliff is right around the corner.

11. Watch for the warning signs

I watch these nine signs of burnout diligently. About a month ago I saw over half the warning signs creep back in. I told our elders immediately. I was two days into what I thought was a ‘mini burnout,’ but I sounded the alarm bells. In the end, it turned out to be my frustration over a leadership issue that was producing the symptoms. As soon as I cracked the leadership issue, the symptoms disappeared almost overnight. But that kind of monitoring is for me central to staying healthy.

12. Take full responsibility for the health of your soul

Nobody else is responsible for your health. You are. Pray, read your Bible, seek life-giving friendships, replenish your energy, eat right, work out, love deeply. These things nourish your soul. If you don’t do them, nobody will.
OK, I promised 12. But here’s a bonus tip. This one’s huge and you’ll be tempted to skip it.

13. Believe there’s hope

It took me almost five years to feel like ‘myself’ again (a new self for that matter). It was a long road back for me personally and I had to keep believing that God wasn’t done with me. Seven years later I’m so thankful. Our church has never been healthier or more effective. I am enjoying what I’m doing more than ever. And the opportunities before me have never been greater. How much of that could I see or imagine seven years ago? Exactly 0 percent. But I had to not give up despite that. In those moments and days where I still don’t feel good, I cling to the hope that the sun will rise again. And it does.
So that’s my story.
I’m praying for you today and I hope that in some small way this helps those of you who are defeated, discouraged or believe it’s over.
It’s not. Our God still lives. And He loves you.

Want more?

I included a full chapter about personal health and team health in my new book, Lasting Impact. You can pick up a copy for you and your team here.
In addition, listen in on my interview with Perry Noble, lead pastor of NewSpring Church who burned out while leading a church that reaches tens of thousands of people. Perry tells you not only why he burned out, but how he came back.
If you prefer, you can listen to the podcast on your phone or other device by subscribing here. Once you’ve subscribed, just look for Episode 2, which is my interview with Perry.
Additionally, don’t miss the free resource page Perry and I put together to help leaders who are burning out. You can access it here for free.
Get a fresh leadership podcast episode delivered to your devices every week by subscribing for free.
You can subscribe to my podcast for free here on iTunes, Stitcher or Tune In Radio.
What’s helped you move through your toughest seasons?