Enlivening the Dry and Weary Heart of the Church Leader

WHY THIS MATTERS:

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WHY THIS MATTERS:

“I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable.”
- Anne Morrow Lindberg

What we need is NOT new information ... we need to spark commitment to ACTION

THREE GOALS TODAY:

• Understand ..
• Appreciate ...
• Commit to ...

1. We need to understand that this is not just about post-COVID doldrums

PRE-COVID TRENDS:

PRE-COVID TRENDS:

• Growing mental health crisis
• Declining church attendance

2. We need deep appreciation for the desperate state of our Current Default Reality

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“Currently, we live in a culture that produces more unhealthy, unhappy people than healthy, happy ones. In fact, right now, the unhealthy-to-healthy ratio is arguably running about a hundred to one. … If you are currently a healthy and happy person in today’s United States of America (or in any one of a growing number of countries now following our lead), you represent a tiny and shrinking minority. You are, statistically speaking, an endangered species. …

"In my mind these facts raise a rather captivating question: What kind of society makes being healthy and happy so difficult that only a single-digit percentage of its population can hope to pull it off?
The answer is self-evident: A SICK SOCIETY. And within a sick society—one where chronic illness, obesity, drug dependence, anxiety, and depression are rapidly becoming the prevailing norms—what does it mean to be one of the few who buck those unhealthy odds? ...

"It means that you have to be prepared to successfully resist your society’s standard way of doing business. You have to oppose its rules and defy its conventions. You have to make all kinds of inconvenient and unpopular choices. You have to become a sort of renegade freak—or at least be willing to think and act like one some of the time."
- Pilar Gerassimo

3. We need commitment to a protocol that enables us to show up as our best selves

"BEST SELVES?"

• Spiritually strong

Jesus Reinstates Peter

"BEST SELVES?"

• Spiritually strong
• Mental, emotional, and physical health

Key Components

1. A rhythm of inhale and exhale

2. Strategies to reorient our focus -- to what is controllable

“Of things some are in our power, and others are not… examine it by the rules which you possess, and by this first and chiefly, whether it relates to the things which are in our power or to the things which are not in our power: and if it relates to anything which is not in our power, be ready to say, that it does not concern you.”
-Epictetus from The Enchiridion

"The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results."
- Ecknath Eswarin

3. Strategies to let go of other peoples' judgments

"I did not intend to become an unhealthy pastor, I became the pastor that I thought that the church needed, and it just so happens that is unhealthy."
- Dace Clifton

"What are you doing? Everybody is looking for you!"

4. A morning and evening routine that helps you

5. Deliberate care about what you take in

WE'RE NOT DESIGNED FOR:

• Hyper-palatable, highly-processe food
• Infinite variety of artificial sexual stimulation
• Access to suffering, tragedy, and horror from all over the world.

In light of all this,
starting today,
WHAT WILL YOU DO?

"The outer work cannot be great if the inner work is small. The outer work cannot be small if the inner work is great."
- Meister Eckhart