The first rule of leadership: stay spiritually alive

It almost feels like an indulgence writing about rest and joy for Christian leaders at a time of global crisis. Surely if ever there was a time to swap sabbath replenishment for strenuous labour it is now?

Of course, the problem arises when we see these things as opposed to each other: that we can work hard for the Lord and others or be spiritually invigorated, but not both. When we embrace this false dichotomy, we doom ourselves to serving out of a place of spiritual unfreshness sooner or later.

Spiritual resilience is not merely about how we can press through exhaustion and be strong. Rather, it is about how we maintain our joy in God. How do we regularly draw from the well of salvation, especially in times of unusual exhaustion and drain?

In Exodus 18, we find Moses judging to the point of exhaustion from morning till night. There seemed to be two reasons: the people wanted to know God’s will for their lives via him; and, for untold reasons, he didn’t delegate.

It was wearing out both Moses and the people. It was all good work. There was nothing sinful in what he did. The problem wasn’t hard work, but that he was overextended. He was ‘maxed out’ and doing more than was possible to sustain in a spiritually, emotionally and physically healthy way.

Christian leaders can usually give a long list of reasons for why we overextend. Some are internal to the leader, such as getting affirmation from activity. Some come from external expectations. Often we find ourselves in situations in which needs or relational complexity just outstrip our capacity. And sometimes there are reasons to do with church culture, such as an expectation that the pastor has to be at every event, or has to demonstrate their work hours are as long as the hardest-working lay person in the church. A common result is a culture in which everyone feels it is necessary to achieve everything that could possibly be achieved and nobody knows how to get off the hamster wheel.

We can generate a lot of activity while grinding to a halt spiritually. We mask the stall with more activity – and receive social approval for it. Stuck in an activity spiral, very few Christian workers manage to renegotiate the pressures on their own. Like Moses, it takes a Jethro to come from outside to help us analyse the situation and encourage us to make changes. Step One in taking the lid off this pressure cooker is almost always the intervention of spiritual care.

The main issue at stake is a healthy life of joy in God. One of the reasons God gave the seventh day was to create a rhythm for us to enjoy Him and for Him to deliver grace, goodness and joy into our lives. We neglect His patterns at our peril. In dividing work from rest, He gives permission, pattern and invitation to be restored and revived in a consistent, regular way.

The first rule of leadership is that you have to be alive! Dead leaders don’t lead anything. And leaders for whom the joy in Christ has disappeared under the pressure are dead. If our internal delight has gone then so has our ability to minister, because that depends on our being spiritually alive. However great the pressures under which we serve, the Lord intends that our receiving from Him should be greater than our giving out for Him. The excess is spiritual healthiness.