Category Archives: Life Balance

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11 Meeting Killers and How to Kill those Killers

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As leaders, it seems we spend an inordinate time in meetings. However, we can’t lead well without face time with others. And face time means we must meet with our teams in person. At the same time, an unproductive meeting wastes time and creates frustration. What are some common meeting killers? Consider these 11 and potential solutions for each (some very obvious).

  1. You do more than 25% of the talking.
    • Solution: monitor how much you talk and ask others off-line if they feel like you jabber too much.
  2. Team members regularly jump to conclusions and make pre-mature judgments about what others say.
    • Solution: train your team that great listeners seek understanding first before being understood (a famous Covey quote)
  3. Some people seldom speak up.
    • Solution: specifically ask the quiet ones what they think about an issue.
  4. Team members get easily hurt and offended when their ideas aren’t received well.
    • Solution: if a staffer consistently does this, talk off-line and find out what root issues are causing the touchiness.
  5. There is too much happy talk. Seldom do you discuss emotional and/or difficult issues.
    • Solution: don’t fear difficult conversations. Encourage them. Those can provide some of your greatest leadership learnings.
  6. Someone interrupts to complete somebody else’s sentences when he or she is having a difficult time formulating ideas.
    • Solution: if that happens, ask the person who was cut off if she felt she was able to fully share her thoughts.
  7. Personal stuff comes up that should have been addressed off-line and 1-1.
    • Solution: set expectations annually about how you expect meetings to go. Include the importance of discussing personal issues off-line.
  8. Too many rabbits get chased that have nothing to do with the agenda items.
    • Solution: if you lead the meeting, again, set the expectation that as the meeting leader you have the prerogative to shoot the rabbit.
  9. You try to accomplish too much in a meeting and as a result feel rushed.
    • Solution: schedule different kinds of meetings…perhaps some need to focus on weekly tactical items while others should focus on just one or two strategic items.
  10. Your meetings are waaaaay too long.
    • Solution: Shorten your meetings. Meetings beyond 2-2 1/2 hours are seldom productive unless you break them up with lunch, dinner, or something that isn’t mentally draining.
  11. You don’t start or end your meetings on time.
    • Solution: start and end on time.

What meeting killers have you seen in your experience? How have you killed those killers?

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Monday Morning Blues and the Pastor: 6 Proactive Steps

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A pastor’s life is filled with both ups and downs. Sundays can be either. Good attendance, a message well-received, and positive people can make it an up day. Low attendance, poor offerings, and critical people can make it a down day. However, in my thirty plus years of ministry whether Sunday is up or down, I’ve found that most of us pastors often face the Monday morning blues. What can we do about them? Here are six suggestions I’ve learned through through the crucible of church life.

  1. Remind yourself that one down Sunday does not determine destiny. Sometimes my sermon is barely a bunt. Sometimes it seems the harder I preach, the more people’s eyes glaze over. Sometimes everybody decides to take their kids to Six Flags on the same Sunday and attendance tanks. Stuff happens. But I’ve discovered that when I take the long view of ministry, those down Sundays don’t loom as large.
  2. Refuse to second guess. Sometimes I’m tempted to dwell on how I could have organized my sermon to make it better. Or, I wish I had not preached so long. Or, I wish I had responded more tactfully to a critic. Potentially I could rehash the entire day and beat myself up for what might have been. But I’ve learned that second guessing in that way seldom solves anything. Yet, there is value in a healthy review which leads to my next suggestion.
  3. Develop a learning mindset. I’ve tried to create a learning environment at our church. I encourage staff and volunteers to learn at every turn. If something doesn’t go well or fails I ask the person involved, “What did you learn?” It’s just as helpful for us to ask ourselves that same question. Objectively review a Sunday service will yield good learnings. But the purpose is key. Review not to focus on what went wrong to then ruminate and regret. Rather, state what went wrong and ask yourself what you can learn from it to make things better next time.
  4. Realize it’s normal to feel a bit out of sorts. Sundays are usually stress-filled days and our body turns up the stress hormone, cortisol, and the neurotransmitter, dopamine, which is involved in reward and motivation. Usually Mondays don’t offer as much stimulation so your body is adjusting back to normal levels of these chemicals. As a result, you may feel a bit blue and unmotivated. There’s probably nothing wrong with you. Give yourself a day and you’ll feel back to normal.
  5. Never forget that feelings and thoughts don’t really mirror reality. When we feel down and discouraged, it’s easier to believe our feelings and the commentary we add to them. I’m a …. I just can’t …. I’ll never …. Our church will never …. Stepping outside our thought stream and reminding ourselves that our feelings are not reality is easy to do, but heard to remember to do. Yet, so very necessary to keep a healthy emotional life. The next suggestion has helped me do this.
  6. Think about what you are thinking about. The term for this skill is called metacognition. In other words, pay attention to your inner chatter that goes on when you daydream and think about what happened on Sunday. Neuroscientists tell us that we have five times more negative networks in our brains than positive ones so we naturally dwell on the negative. Because of this they’ve discovered that a wandering mind tends to make us unhappy. So during the day when you feel blue, periodically listen in to your silent, mental commentary and change it when it turns negative.

As I’m well into my second half of life, I’m realizing that managing the Monday morning blues actually gets easier. Perhaps it’s because after so many years of mishandling them, I’ve finally learning how to deal with them. Perhaps it’s because I’m more able to keep a big picture perspective. Perhaps it’s simply a result of growing wiser. Whatever the reason, I imaging the same will hold true for you, no matter what stage of ministry you’re in.

Remember these words from the writer of Hebrews, Let us fix our eyes on Jesus.’

What has helped you deal with the Monday morning blues?

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10 Indicators You Have no Margin in your Life

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In Richard Swenson’s seminal book, Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives, he defines margin this way. Margin is the space between our load and our limits.

Margin is the space between our load and our limits-Richard Swenson

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He says it is related to our reserves and resilience. He calls it a buffer, a place where we can recharge our batteries, and a space where we can focus on what matters most. I highly recommend the book. Unfortunately, those in ministry often lack margin. Here are 10 signs that may indicate you lack margin and 5 steps to gain more of it.

  1. I’m always mentally and physically exhausted.
  2. Small things more easily get under my skin. I can’t turn my anxious thoughts off.
  3. I don’t seem to have the joy for ministry I once did.
  4. I count down the days until my day off. Yet even on my day off I’m still anxiously thinking about ministry stuff.
  5. Those who love me most tell me to slow down yet I always have a comeback excuse.
  6. I often worry about what others think of my performance.
  7. I too easily take things personally.
  8. I find that I can’t focus as well as I once did.
  9. I get easily distracted and try to multi-task more often.
  10. My devotional times with God are mostly dry.

If a few of these are consistently true of you, you may need more margin in your life.

If that’s so, what should you do?

When I’ve found myself with little margin, it hasn’t been easy to change things, but these steps have helped.

  1. Admit that you life is too full and that it’s not good, pleasing to God, or healthy for you.
  2. Learn the art of mindfulness, being aware of and in the present moment without being harsh on yourself or worrying about what happened yesterday or fretting about what might happen tomorrow. Meditate on the words of Jesus in Matthew 6.
  3. Take a day off, really. Turn off your phone and don’t check email. Do something that refreshes your soul.
  4. Turn your mind off earlier in the day than you do now. Perhaps you need to decrease night meetings. Maybe you need to establish hard stops for those evening meetings.
  5. Remind your self that if you don’t take care of you, you can’t take care of others.
    if you don’t take care of you, you can’t take care of others

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    After all, Jesus did say something about loving yourself.

What has helped you gain better margin?

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When you Feel Beaten Up

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Life and ministry can sometimes beat you up. And when that happens, we don’t need a kick, we need a lift. Read a part of this old children’s story first published in 1922 and be encouraged. They are wise words offered by the Skin Horse to the Velveteen Rabbit taken from the book, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams.

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else.

For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse.

“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

If you’re going through a tough time and feel shabby and it seems like your eyes are dropping out, remember the wise words of the Skin Horse. Once you are real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand. 

Remember, no matter how you feel, God sees you not as bruised and broken baggage, but as a beloved child of God, cherished and accepted beyond measure.

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Arresting Anxiety when Spiritual Practices Fail, part 2

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In my last blog post, Arresting Anxiety when Spiritual Practices Fail, part 1, I shared an insight that helped me deal with anxious thoughts and emotions when spiritual practices like prayer and fasting didn’t seem to work. I realized that when I prayed for God to take away my anxiety, I was often asking God to do a miracle, to suspend his created laws of nature. I came to realize that often He wanted me to respect His natural created order (i.e., my anxiety may be due to me not taking care of my body). I had to be OK if He chose to work in ways other than a miracle. In today’s post, part 2, I share a simple A-B-C process that God has used to give me greater internal peace.

In Philippians 4, the Apostle Paul intuitively understood how our internal world works long before we knew anything about hormones or neurotransmitters that profoundly affect our emotional life.

In verse 6 he commands us do not be anxious about anything, something easier said than done. In the verses that follow, he tells how we can turn down our anxious thoughts and emotions.

Here’s the simple outline that verses 6-9 suggest.

Don’t fret.  

Instead, re-direct your…

Attention

Brain/thoughts

Conduct

Redirect your attention.

He says in verse 6 that instead of fretting and worrying, we should redirect our attention…

from the problem (do not be anxious): whatever is the source of your anxiety

by prayer (by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present yours requests to God): to the Lord, who is the problem solver.

“Prayer consists of attention,” and “the quality of the attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer.” [Laird, Martin (2011-06-29). A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation (Kindle Locations 232-233). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition]

for peace (and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and mind)

We must do this because often we get caught in an infinite thought stream and these thoughts and feelings become our identity because we have reinforced them through rehearsing them and ruminating over them. It’s like a video constantly playing in our minds that we can’t seem to pause. These thoughts can actually become the themes in our mind… I’m ugly, fat, skinny, she hates me, life is hopeless, my church will never grow, I can’t do anything, they are talking about me, my preaching does not connect with others, etc.

When we constantly rehearse these anxious thought and emotions, our brain actually rewires itself. It’s called neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to rezone itself. Those themes become rivers of neuronal networks in our brain and form much like how a river forms. A river starts as a small stream but the more water that flows into it, the deeper the channel the water creates and the wider its banks grow until it becomes a river.

The only way to divert the river’s flow is by starting another small channel that comes off the river. Over time the new stream digs a deep channel and widens its banks until it becomes the main river and the former river becomes a stream.

Our brains work in a similar manner. When we re-direct our attention, our brain creates new networks that reflect more healthy thinking. And as we continue to redirect our attention from the problem to the Problem Solver, we create new networks that diminish the power of those anxious ones (make that river smaller). As we do that, God sets His peace like a sentry over our minds and hearts.

The key is to keep redirecting, even when the anxiety comes back. Repeatedly redirecting our attention is crucial. The re-zoning process takes time.

Redirect our brain/thoughts.

Next Paul speaks directly about our thinking.

Phil. 4.8   Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.

When he writes, think about such things, he means a deliberate, prolonged contemplation. Intention is crucial… to deliberately choose to think a different way. And to do that we must be aware of what we are thinking about. This is easy to do, but hard to remember to do. Often our inner mental chatter goes on and on without our conscious awareness. Our minds are often stuck on autopilot.

Yet, as we repeatedly redirect our thoughts/brain to such things, God will create a new river of truth and joy and peace in our minds. He will transform our minds (Romans 12.2).

Martin Laird gives one of the most helpful metaphors about our anxious thoughts and emotions, weather around a mountain.

Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever. (Ps 125.1)

Mt Zion symbolizes God’s power, blessing, and protection. So, when we trust in the Lord and redirect our thinking and our attention, we are like a mountain and how it responds to weather.

A mountain has weather around it all the time. The mountain does not become the weather. It simple observes it. In Christ we are like that mountain with all kinds of external and internal weather around us. Now we may prefer certain kinds of weather, but we are not the weather.

Your anxious thoughts and emotions are not you. They are simply the weather.

The marvelous world of thoughts, sensation, emotions, and inspiration, the spectacular world of creation around us, are all patterns of stunning weather on the holy mountain of God. But we are not the weather. We are the mountain. Weather is happening—delightful sunshine, dull sky, or destructive storm—this is undeniable. But if we think we are the weather happening on Mount Zion (and most of us do precisely this with our attention riveted to the video), then the fundamental truth of our union with God remains obscured … When the mind is brought to stillness (what Paul calls thinking on these things) we see that we are the mountain and not the changing patterns of weather appearing on the mountain. [Laird, Martin (2006-06-07). Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation (Kindle Locations 287-293). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition]

So, paying attention to our thoughts is essential to spiritual and emotional well being.

Without paying attention to our thinking, we become captive to the changing weather patterns of our lives, our emotions, moods, thoughts, experiences, anything, everything that we have little awareness of, this constant chatter. These thoughts can blind us and victimize us. We can let them become us, or convince ourselves that they are us when in reality they are just the weather in our minds.

We must see our thoughts and emotions like weather and remind ourselves that we are hidden in Christ in God… our rock, our fortress, our sure foundation. We are like Mt Zion.

As Mark Twain once said, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

 Re-direct our conduct.

The Apostle Paul then writes in verse 9, Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me put it into practice.

Ultimately, as we pay attention to and redirect our thinking from anxious thinking to that which is good and wholesome, we will develop Godly character and virtues which will show up in conduct.

So, the next time anxiety strikes, heed the counsel of the Apostle Paul.

Don’t fret. Instead, re-direct your…

Attention

Brain/thoughts

Conduct

What has helped you deal with anxious thoughts and emotions?

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