20 Tips for Reducing Stress
by Phil Gons on July 16th, 2007
Mark Driscoll (Wikipedia) continues his series Death by Ministry. In part 9 he shares 20 tips for reducing your level of stress.
- Accept the size of your plate and fill it.
- Exercise.
- Do not allow technology to be your Lord.
- Have two cell phones.
- Have two email accounts.
- Have someone schedule appointments and screen all email.
- Consider getting rid of your voicemail.
- Delete emails quickly.
- Have an assistant send you a daily items email.
- Use an out-of-office autoreply as needed.
- Sabbath hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually.
- Schedule your vacations first and block them out on your calendar.
- Pick an acceptable release valve.
- Appoint someone other than your wife as your lightning rod.
- Spend most of your time training leaders.
- Pay attention to what God is saying through your body and emotions.
- Feel your emotions but do not allow them to drive you in a bad direction.
- Do not worry yourself into a frenzy.
- Work from conviction, not guilt.
- Get a coach or a counselor.
- Have a study and an office.
- Schedule meetings rarely.
- Say no, and keep saying no.
- Get a wedding coordinator.
- Carry a notebook at all times to jot thoughts and notes.
- See your days as buckets to fill.
- Consider regular medical massage.
Many good suggestions and reminders. Do you agree? Disagree? Have any others that you’ve found helpful?
Here are all the contributions to the series so far.
- Death by Ministry (Part 1) | Video
- Death by Ministry (Part 2) | Video
- Death by Ministry (Part 3) | Video
- Death by Ministry (Part 4) | Video
- Death by Ministry (Part 5) | Video
- Death by Ministry (Part 6) | Video
- Death by Ministry (Part 7) | Video
- Death by Ministry (Part 8) | Video
- Death by Ministry (Part 9) | Video
- Death by Ministry (Part 10) | Video
- Death by Ministry (Part 11) | Video
See our previous post: The Burden of Pastoral Ministry.
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Chris Anderson
I enjoyed the video, and thought he had some helpful ideas. However, it really amounted to several tips on “How to isolate yourself from your flock.” I can see the need for that in a church of thousands, but I don’t know that it is realistic or desirable in most settings. Shepherds smell like sheep; they don’t try to avoid them—at least not as a perpetual way of life.
My two cents.
Jul 17th, 2007 11:53 am
Phil Gons
Good thoughts, Chris. I got that same feel when listening to a lecture by Pastor Mark Minnick. He was sharing all his tips for how he can devote 30 hours a week (if I recall correctly) to sermon preparation. (Stop reading the newspaper, get rid of your TV, do sermon prep from home in a private office, etc. It was helpful.) He is, no doubt, in a unique ministry, and the leadership and people are all agreed that they want him spending his time this way (feeding the sheep) while the other elders spend more time doing the dirty work of tending to the other needs of the sheep.
As you point out, it really does depend on the size of the church and the number of equipped leaders. There’s no one-size-fits-all advice.
Thanks for the two cents.
Jul 17th, 2007 12:22 pm