Leadership Blog 3

        To be completely honest, the state that best describes me would be exhaustion. As a player on the men’s soccer team, a Discipleship Leader in residence life, and a full-time 17-credit student, it is easy for me to be in a stage of exhaustion. There are points in my life that I also feel a bit like I am in the existing stage because of my exhaustion physically and psychologically with all of the responsibilities on my plate. Obviously my goal is to always be in an excited state in my life, but getting to this stage doesn’t require more of me as an individual. It requires me to put my faith in God and to continuously remind myself that the most important part of my life is the relationship I have with him. Although I do have many responsibilities, I need to give them over to Him because I cannot do it all to the level of excellence that He wants of me on my own strength.

            In regards to my process of renewal, I am normally pretty good at caring for my body and soul. I keep good sleep habits and try to constantly monitor myself physically. I also attempt to spend a significant amount of time with the Lord through prayer and devotion times. My mind is the most difficult for me to renew because I am constantly analyzing and thinking about my responsibilities and the welfare of other people over myself. In order to help with this I am specifically giving a period of time throughout the day in which I surrender everything I do at the feet of Jesus. I spend time worshipping him and praying, but I emphasize the practice of letting go and giving Him control of my life.

            After reading the MBTI Type and Stress handout, I believe that what I am doing is the best way to reduce stress. I need to have time alone in order to recharge. Also, the more time I spend with Jesus, the more I allow Him to transform and change my heart. This allows me to have patience and grace as well as insight and compassion when leading others.

            In response to the video on Mad Church Disease, I do not know of any ministry leaders that have struggled with this type of burnout ministry to the point that Anne Jackson described. However, many of the ministry leaders that I know have expressed the initial challenge of dealing with stress, especially early on in ministry after graduating from school. Many of them have taught me ways to combat the stress that comes with ministry, some of which I try to put into practice now as a student. I believe I, as well as anyone is at risk of burnout if we are not carefully evaluating ourselves My greatest challenges are already known to me as well as the practices I can use to counteract them. I also believe it is important to have friends and family that can help encourage as well as watching out for us. Ultimately we can’t do it all alone.