Burnout Week: Divert

I recently finished Anne Jackson’s book “Mad Church Disease” and it has me thinking about burnout.

I have always used an idea that I heard Rick Warren say a long time ago:

Divert Daily

Withdraw Weekly

Abandon Annually

Pretty simple. But what does each of those look like? I’m going to take some time this week to break down those three things.

So first how do you Divert Daily?

I divert daily three ways:

First I pray. A lot. The Bible tells us several times that Jesus woke up early and prayed. If Jesus, the Son of God needed it how much worse do we need it?

Second, I play. I recently heard Rick Warren say that if you work with your mind all day, then you need to divert with your hands (physically.) Likewise, if you work with your hands all day, you need to divert with your mind (i.e. reading, board game, etc.) I typically use my mind all day so I like to divert by running, shooting my gun, working in the yard, or wrestling with Couper.

And last, I pass over.

Imagine a remote that controls your ministry day to day. It has a ministry mute button. I had to train myself to do this and I still fail miserably at it sometimes. But when I go home I hit the ministry mute button. Just like on a stereo when you push mute the music is actually still there. You are just choosing to ignore it for a while. Ministry can never be turned off. Its is ALWAYS there.

If you and your family are going to stay in ministry for the long haul you absolutely must learn to mute it for a little while every day.

My mute button is a small bridge that I cross coming home each day. As I pass over that bridge, I purposefully, intentionally let everything from the day of ministry go. I just take a deep breath and get it all out. That way, when I get home, I can be in family mode and focus. On days that I fail to do this, I come home and I am a bear that causes all kinds of conflict and carnage.

For me diverting daily is the single most important element to throwing water on the burnout fire and eliminating stress.

How do you divert daily?