The Church Planter’s (or everyone’s) Secret Weapon
Robert Frazier
August 16, 2019

I was sitting on the floor in my office, looking at my ceiling trying to figure out what was going on. Everything felt numb. I had no energy, no passion, no excitement, no desire. All I wanted was to lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling.

Although as a pastor, I have helped many people through their journeys with depression and anxiety, I am not prone to bouts of melancholy, and yet here I was staring at my ceiling, wondering what went wrong.

I peeled myself off the floor and like I have done many times, I wrote down what was going on in my life. The responsibilities, vital relationships, the stressors, the roles. During seminary I had been taught well through a discipleship process to take stock of my life and build a rule of life that would keep me on the tracks.

As I started to pour out my list, it kept going and going. It would not be good for you or for me to list everything on that list. I am a high energy leader and entrepreneur so I end up with a lot of things on my plate. A lot of people who are important to me, and a lot of work that I expect myself to do week in and week out.

But there was one culprit in my life that had left me laying on that floor. 8 months prior in a fit of idiocy I decided to put an addition on our house, by myself. The plan was to take time off of my work, say no to some contracts and lean in to get this remodel/addition done in 12 weeks. I had a plan, a schedule and a lot of help…not to mention a ton of pride.

I worked like a maniac. 12-14 hour days, so long that when I held tools I could not feel my fingers. And when there were delays around the drywall guys and the schedule got extended, I made a really stupid decision, I added back in all of my day-to-day responsibilities as a business owner and a church planter alongside trying to finish my house. Pretty soon 6 days stretched into 7 long days of long hours and physical and mental demands that wiped me out. After 5 months of hustling every day, in every area and feeling like a complete failure, I was laying exhausted on the floor wondering how I would recover from this exhaustion that felt like a weight on my back. My daughter had come to me that morning and asked: “When will you be done with the house? I miss you Daddy.” That was the straw that broke this camel’s back.

I don’t listen to a lot of other Pastor’s sermons. I find too much comparison in my heart when I do, but when I walk or run I listen to John Mark Comer at Bridgetown in Portland. My wife does too. She sent me a link and said “Listen to this, we need to talk”. Comer had been working through a sermon series on spiritual practices and there was a long series on Sabbath that transformed my life.

We all know about Sabbath. The 4th commandment, a rule and a gift from God, built into the fabric of creation. We need to take one out of every 7 days to rest, in obedience and as an act of faith. You have probably all preached on Sabbath at some point, maybe when you were preparing your congregation to go on your first sabbatical. My wife and I have tried to have a day of rest at times throughout our 15 years of marriage. Between her work as a nurse with hospital schedules and my work in ministry as a missionary and pastor, we have had a hard time building a consistent time of rest. But this winter, we looked at our lives and said…we can’t keep going at this pace, we need rhythm to our weeks that include regular rest. So that is what we did.

We committed to doing nothing from dinner Friday to dinner Saturday. It works for us because of her work schedule. We don’t answer emails. We don’t answer work texts. We only schedule things that bring joy, we follow the Marie Kondo method of Sabbath. We don’t work on our house, and my wife doesn’t even clean up our house during sabbath. We watch very little media, we don’t stress about our schedule, we say no to parties and things that are busy and are not restful. We say no to activities that are on Saturdays for us or our kids. We try not to shop or eat out.

It is the best decision we have ever made. Something has happened along the way. I haven’t gotten rid of anything from my life. It is still hectic and crazy. I probably need to say no to some things that come along, but at this point I can handle the crazy pace because I know that Friday night is coming. I know that rest will refresh me. I know that for one full day I can trust that God will provide without my striving, without my work. And by Saturday evening, instead of feeling restless and annoyed with how little I have gotten done, I am ready to hit another week of work with joy.

I had believed for most of my life that if I make good decisions and work really hard I can make anything happen on my own. And God let me get to that ultimate spot of surrender where I literally couldn’t work anymore. I couldn’t keep going. I didn’t have any drive to push through and finish one more project, and as I reached my natural limit, I found God waiting for me saying: “Here is the rest I set aside for you. To sustain you. It is a gift for you.”

It sounds crazy and it sounds hard. You may be thinking: “you don’t know how busy I am, how much I have to do, there is no way I can take a day off each week.”

First , I am a bi-vocational church planter less than 2 years after launch. I have 3 small businesses I run and a wife that works 30hr/wk and 3 kids under 5 years old. If I can take a full day off and still thrive in my work, you can too.

Second , God gave you the sabbath as a gift. 15% of your week is meant for no work. Then he gave us a command because we are idiots and don’t receive gifts well. But if you don’t receive the gift, or obey the command, God gives you an ultimatum: Rest or Die. Burnout, exhaustion, depression, suicide, stress, heart disease, obesity….you will literally kill yourself in a half dozen different ways without Sabbath.

So today is the day. I promise you, if you honor God by receiving the gift of the Sabbath, if you trust him enough to cease your work and rest in the joy of His grace, you will experience joy in the journey of church planting that you can’t get anywhere else. For a couple primers on Sabbath take a look at “The Rest of God” By Mark Buchanan and “Celebration of Discipline” by Richard Foster.

I truly believe and feel in my heart that I can stay long term in the race of ministry if I keep receiving this gift of sabbath. For the first time ever I feel like this rhythm is a sustainable pace for me and for our family. Have you ever committed to regular rest? What has it meant for your family?

Postscript:

For some of you reading this article, it might be too late. You may be fighting depression and anxiety, exhaustion, burnout or even suicidal ideation. For you, a day off is a good start but it won’t be enough to restore your soul. There are two other parts to sabbath that get over-looked by many people but are a part of the rhythm God made for us as humans.

  1. The Jews set aside 7 long holidays throughout the year as extra days of rest and celebration. This is a part of God’s plan that we have ignored as westerners for far too long. Two weeks vacation is not enough, especially if you use it as a trip to visit family. Pastors are the worst at this. We feel guilty about taking time off so we don’t. We kill ourselves around the holidays and never take time off to recover. When it comes to church planting, the only reasons the plant fails is that the Pastor runs out of calling/energy or both. The moral failures are almost always related to burnout. Find ways to build into your schedule weeks of rest and restoration. At Redemption Hill I have built into our culture 4 weeks of time off from preaching in July. It gives me the time and space to restore my soul and read and listen without preparing for the next Sunday. Have some hard conversations with your Elders about creating space for rest, for you and for them.
  2. Every 7 years God told the Jews to leave their fields and not work them. This is great agricultural guidance for restoring nutrients to the soil, but it is also good advice for our souls. We need enough margin in our work and our ministry to take extended periods without work every 7 years. These are called Sabbaticals and are meant to help us make it long term in ministry. How long have you been in ministry? Have you done the discipline of taking a Sabbath to restore your soul? It will be good for you, great for your family and really good for your congregation, because you will be healthy and energized with vision and passion for the next 7 years of ministry.
By Bob Hyatt January 17, 2025
When I graduated from college, I moved to Alaska and took a job teaching middle school- a job I had zero business doing. I want to give props to those of you who are teachers- it’s a fantastically important job, but also a ridiculously complex one. You must balance pedagogical skills, HOW to teach so others learn, with sociological ones, classroom management, and so much more. It was classroom management where my ineptitude really shone, though. I thought managing classrooms full of middle schoolers would be easy- just call them out when they do something wrong- make sure there are consequences in place, and the place will basically run itself. I learned that year that you cannot punish someone into good behavior. You more often just punish people into stealthier ways of misbehavior. It wasn’t until years later that the light bulb came on for me. I was volunteering in my son’s kindergarten class, and I assumed I was going to be walking into a zoo. Contrary to my expectations, Mr. Waters, the teacher, had that place running like a well-oiled machine. And the most surprising way was how he did it. He called for reading time when all the kids were supposed to get up from their tables and sit on the reading circle. He made this call and like two kids responded. Oh man, I thought- he’s lost the room! Nope. He just stood at the front of the class and said “I see Billy doing what I asked. I see Sienna doing what I asked.” And every time he said that another few kids would look up, leave what they were doing and rush to take their place. In about 30 seconds, he had them all sitting quietly around the circle. Blew. My. Mind. It seemed so simple once I saw it done, but I had never realized just how big a gap there was between trying to motivate with consequences and nagging versus motivating with encouragement. Which is funny, because as I thought about it, I realized my wife had been using this tactic on me for YEARS. I married a woman who liked to dance- swing dance, even. I grew up a Baptist, so… But whenever I would do a little two-step with her in the kitchen or just play-dance with her to music in the living room, she would go OVER THE TOP. “Bob, you are doing that really well! Bob, you’re a great dancer!” I totally knew I wasn’t, but… I sure liked to hear her say it, and so I’d do it more. So, here’s the rule: What you criticize me for, I may stop doing. I may also just try to hide it from you. But- What you praise and encourage me in, I will continue doing. The Apostle Paul was a master at this- just look at 1 Thess. 5:11- ”So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.” What is Paul doing here? Yes, he’s encouraging them to encourage each other by encouraging them for how they’ve already been encouraging one another! That’s a lot of encouraging. But he’s doing what he’s asking them to do- demonstrating how it works. I’m sure not everyone in the church of Thessalonica was good at encouraging others- but those who were doing it well were heartened by Paul’s words here, and those who weren’t yet, were… encouraged to be more encouraging. Paul uses the word “encourage” 7 times in 1st Thess. alone. This command to encourage each other is central in the NT. Hebrews 10:24-25 says this: Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. Paul writes in 2 Cor. 13:11 “Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you.” How long can you go on one compliment, or one word of encouragement? A few days? A week? Our words have so much power! I once had an orange t-shirt, that had a disturbingly deep V-neck. My co-pastor Dustin would laugh every time he saw me in it. But you know why I continued to wear it? Because it was literally the only shirt I ever owned that had been complimented by a woman I was not married or related to. A barista one time told me she really liked that shirt… So, what I’m saying is, you can get me to do just about anything, if you encourage me. BUT- With great power, comes great responsibility. Notice that these verses on encouragement come in the context of helping others become the followers of Jesus they could and were meant to be. “Encourage each other and build each up.” “Motivate one another to acts of love and good works. Encourage one another.” “Grow to maturity. Encourage each other.” There’s a growth mindset behind the biblical admonitions that we ought to encourage each other. The growth mindset says “I may not be good at this or have mastered it… yet. But if I keep trying…” Unfortunately, most of us get stuck in a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset says “I'm either good at something, or I’m not. So, I’ll give myself only to things where I can show I’m good. If I must work at it, it means I’m not good at it, or smart enough for it, so why try?” Studies have shown that encouragement has a positive effect on performance, while discouragement has a negative effect. Ok- that’s obvious. But… studies have also been done about how TYPES of encouragement affect performance. Encouraging effort, for example, has a positive effect on performance, while praising ABILITY has a negative effect. One study showed that when two groups of students were presented with difficult challenges 90% of the ones who had been praised for their effort embraced the difficult tasks- while the majority of those praised for their ability resisted tackling hard things. I probably don’t have to spell out the leadership lessons here. So, I’ll just leave you with this: I encourage you this season to be thinking about the people you work with and especially those who work under you. They are just as hungry for encouragement as you are. You have the power to give them not only what they need, but through that encouragement to spur them on to the personal and ministry growth you want to see in them. (By the way, while we’re talking about encouragement, if you need some this season, join us Feb 25-27th in Alexandria, VA for this year’s Ecclesia National Gathering . I guarantee you and your team will leave feeling encouraged, equipped, and empowered. And think about how encouraging YOUR presence would be to everyone else!)
By J.R. Briggs November 26, 2024
“Food is just fuel for your body.” When the raw vegan enthusiast in my community said it I knew that wasn’t right. I thought of all the great meals shared with family and friends around tables for Thanksgivings, Christmas Eves, and Easter afternoons – among others. I recalled the verse: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” And I realized that if this was God’s vision for food, then he would have designed our bodies with built-in IV ports where we would hook up pouches of food to our sides and let it drip in slowly to our bloodstreams. And Jesus wouldn’t have given us the greatest experiential metaphor of communion around the table in fellowship with others if it was merely physical and transactional in nature. I get his point: what we put into our bodies matters. Food is for much more than just physical energy. It’s also about connection, bonding, and relationship. Storytelling and laughing and crying and interacting. Like former U.S. President Ronald Reagan said, all great change in America begins at the dinner table. But I’ll offer a rejoinder: all great change – no matter the country – begins at the dinner table. The U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, has declared loneliness as a public health crisis and an epidemic . 30 percent of adults say they feel lonely., with 10 percent reporting loneliness every day. 60 years ago the average dinner time was 90 minutes; today it’s less than 12. We are more connected to our devices and less connected to others. Almost twenty five years ago political scientist Robert Putnam wrote the popular book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community . Over the summer, the New York Times interviewed him , inquiring if he saw this crisis of loneliness coming. He stressed the idea of “social capital,” saying it comes in two forms: bonding and bridging. Bonding ties us to others like us and bridging ties us to people who are different from us. Meals together with others at tables have the transformative power to do both. They bond us to other people in our church; they bridge us to connect with others who aren’t yet connected to faith. As my next-door neighbor says when we’re trying to find a time to connect for a meal, “Everybody’s gotta eat.” Coffee tables, lunch tables, high top bar tables, card tables, dinner tables – all have the intent to bring us together with others over food and/or drink. It was Len Sweet who wrote in Tablet to Table that Jesus was killed for his table manner and his table company. Later he stated that the gospel message was Jesus eating good food with bad people. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find any gathering in the New Testament that didn’t involve some sort of table. And as Ian Simkins, lead pastor of teaching at The Bridge Church in Nashville, shared with me, the table is the centerpiece by which the gospel is expressed. The church has moved to prioritize the table by asking some key questions: What if we reclaimed the table? What if our tables weren’t for just feeding, but for forming? What if, at the table, foes became friends? What if, every time we sat down, we prayed, “at this table as it is in heaven”? What if we brought the gospel back to the table? These are the questions that must become front and center for the church in North America in the days ahead. In fact, you can view the church’s creative and compelling videos on Instagram here and here . Americans eat, on average, 21 meals a week. Think for a moment: how many meals did you share with others this week? How many meals did you eat alone this week? How many people did you share with those who weren’t your immediate family members? How many of those were with people who are not followers of Jesus? What if the greatest advancement of the gospel in the days ahead occurred not in our churches, but around tables?
Share by: