Lead On Podcast

On this episode of The Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the SBC Executive Committee, discusses how ministry leaders can sustain their passion for serving others, drawing lessons from Jesus’ model of compassion. He shares practical strategies for engaging deeply with people while emphasizing the essential rhythm of intentional rest to prevent burnout and maintain lasting drive in ministry.

Creators and Guests

Host
Jeff Iorg
President, SBC Executive Committee

What is Lead On Podcast?

Ready to hone your leadership skills and unlock your full potential? Tune in to the Lead On Podcast, where Jeff Iorg dives deep into Biblical leadership.

Hosted by SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg, this dynamic podcast provides insight for seasoned executives, aspiring leaders, or those in ministry who are simply passionate about personal growth. The Lead On Podcast offers actionable, practical tips to help you navigate the complexities of ministry leadership in today's ever-changing world.

From effective communication and team building to strategic decision-making and fostering innovation, each episode is packed with valuable lessons and inspiring stories to empower you on your leadership journey.

Put these principles into practice and Lead On!

Jeff Iorg:

Welcome to the Lead On Podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, talking with you once again about practical issues related to ministry leadership. On this podcast, we talk about the ins and outs, the ups and downs, the daily grind of what it means to be involved in local church ministry or in ministry and Christian organizations. So welcome to the podcast. I wanna talk today about sustaining your passion for ministry.

Jeff Iorg:

Sustaining your passion for ministry. It was early in my first pastorate. I had really only been in town a few weeks when I attended a minister's luncheon. It was a gathering of all the local pastors, especially the Baptist pastors in our area, and I sat across from a veteran pastor. He was a pastor of a well established and respected church in the inner city part of our town where we lived.

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Now others at the table were welcoming of me, and we were making small talk about family and past ministry experiences. And since I was relatively new, they were asking me about my relocation and all of that.

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Then someone asked me to describe my vision, if you will, for the ministry. I was excited. I shared my vision for how we were going

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to reach people, enlarge our facilities. I could already see that we might need to relocate someday, how we were willing to grow and expand and do more for missions and all of that. When I concluded my sharing of my vision, I said something like this. I said,

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I'm really excited about the future and the vision God has given me. Well, the pastor, that veteran guy sitting across the table from me that I already mentioned, he finally spoke up and said the only sentence he spoke to me that day. When I shared my excitement, he said, you'll get over it. Well, his slumped shoulders and permanent scowl told me he meant it. He had definitely gotten over it.

Jeff Iorg:

It was obvious he had lost any enthusiasm or excitement about the ministry. He seemed beaten and defeated. And whatever passion had prompted him to enter into ministry looked like it was gone. And when he said to me, you'll get over it, I didn't think I would. And so I prayed as I left that day, Lord, don't ever let that happen to me.

Jeff Iorg:

And so far, it hasn't. But God has moved me from excitement about the ministry, which is where I really was that day when I was talking with him at that luncheon, to passion for ministry. You know, there's a significant difference between excitement about ministry and passion for ministry. Excitement is a feeling that ebbs and flows, comes and goes, but passion. Passion is deeper.

Jeff Iorg:

It's deeper than a feeling. It's a sustaining force that God ignites in us that keeps us going in ministry.

Jeff Iorg:

Now, I wanna share with you today some things I've learned that helped me along the way to sustain my passion for ministry. Now the first thing is passion is an interesting word. You know, in modern usage, passion often has a positive connotation, like I'm using it in this podcast. But in the New Testament, the word translated passion usually had a more negative meaning. It was usually associated with, baser or really evil desires like lust or something like that.

Jeff Iorg:

The New Testament word that more closely connects to the modern notion of passion is actually compassion. Now, that's also puzzling because the word translated compassion in the New Testament is a much stronger word than the word compassion is in our world. When we say compassion today, we we mean a Hallmark movie feeling, something that's touchy feely and warm and cozy and fuzzy and comforting. Well, that's

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not exactly the Bible's definition of the word compassion. The word compassion in the Bible literally means a rumbling in the gut or a

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stirring in the bowels. Now that sounds gross,

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but remember, in the Bible, the bowels are the inner person, not the heart. We're the symbol of the center of life. So when the Bible says someone has compassion in the biblical sense, it means that deep within the core of who they are, there's something cooking, something simmering, something percolating that's going to impact the rest of who they are. Compassion

Jeff Iorg:

is the part of a person that drives them forward because it's located at the core of who they are. Now this is contrasting with the modern view of compassion, which is again a touchy feely word. So compassion, as it's used in the Bible, is really more closely related to passion as I'm using it in this podcast. So when I talk about sustaining passion for ministry, the biblical word would be sustaining compassion for ministry. Now, the best model for this is Jesus.

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Matthew chapter nine verses thirty five and thirty six tells that Jesus felt compassion for the multitudes of people that

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he was seeing. He felt compassion.

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Now this phrase is tucked within a broader summary of Jesus's recent ministry, but the summary helps us understand what it takes to sustain passion for ministry. And what it takes to sustain passion may surprise you. First, Jesus really connected with people. You know, Matthew writes, Jesus went to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness. In short, Jesus spent a lot

Jeff Iorg:

of time with people. You know, the Bible often has these summary statements that can be read quickly, but it took days, weeks, or even months for those verses to take place. Jesus went, the Bible says, to all the towns and villages. Have you ever considered how long that took? I mean, walked or maybe rode an animal of some kind.

Jeff Iorg:

His modes of transportation did not allow him to rush from town to town. He went slowly. He connected with people. He identified with them, where they lived, and where they worked, and where they worshipped, and he was with them, among them, really with them. And while he

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was with them, he spent time teaching and preaching. And those two activities also take time. Jesus spent time healing, you know, with rare exception, and there

Jeff Iorg:

are some rare exceptions. Jesus was in the physical proximity of the person that he healed, and in most cases, actually touched them. Traveling in those days also took time. I'm just saying Jesus was with people. And isn't it interesting that in the context of Jesus being with people in all these different ways I'm describing, it says he felt compassion for them.

Jeff Iorg:

It's not just that Jesus was with people, but when he was with them, he saw people as they really are. Matthew continues writing, when Jesus saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them, get it here it comes, because they were weary and worn out like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus saw people as they really were, not as they appeared to be or as they may have tried to be. Jesus did not see faceless crowds. He saw individuals who were weary and worn out, who

Jeff Iorg:

were helpless and hurting. You know, the stories in the chapter just before this are of Jesus healing a paralytic, calling a disciple, confronting the Pharisees, confronting John's disciples, healing a woman, resuscitating a young girl, restoring sight to a blind man, casting a demon out of a guy. That's what Jesus was doing. Jesus saw the crowd, but he saw it as a collection of individuals with needs requiring personal ministries, connecting with them as they really were.

Jeff Iorg:

You know, Jesus had the

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uncanny ability to see people as they really are. And when he saw them as they really are, it changed the way he viewed them. You know, a number of years ago, my oldest son in a moment of conversation with me said and when he was a teenager said something about what was wrong with going to a strip club. Now you may wonder, why were you talking about that? Well, you know, it comes up.

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So he said, you know, what was wrong

Jeff Iorg:

with it? And I said, well, what do you mean?

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And he said, well, dad, you know, the the people that are going there, they're doing it voluntarily. The people that work there are doing it voluntarily and people are making money and getting what they you know, getting something for it. If everybody's making a free choice, then why is it wrong to go? In that moment, I I wanted to marshal all the theological and all the practical and all of the and all of the, you know, legal reasons and and and God stopped me.

Jeff Iorg:

And I turned to my son and said, well, here's why. That girl up there on that stage, that's

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somebody's sister

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and we're not going. And my son just sort of

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stopped and looked at me

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and goes, I get that, Ed. I get that. You know, he had a sister. And when he

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thought of it that way and he personalized rather than objectified the person on the stage, so to speak. He realized this is a human being made in the image of God that's somebody's sister. I can't participate like this. That's what I mean when I say when you see people for who they really are, it changes your perspective on them.

Jeff Iorg:

Jesus models for us that compassion is somehow rooted in being with people and seeing people for who they really are. And when

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you find yourself immersed in people's lives and seeing the neediness of those lives as it really is, something deep down inside of you will start rumbling up. And that deep down inside of you something is what the Bible calls compassion.

Jeff Iorg:

Now, is there a way

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to practice this practically to facilitate this kind of compassion rising up within you? I think there is. And I wanna give you a little acrostic that helps me. It's the acrostic a r m s, arms. I wanna talk with you about how to get your arms around people so that you are with them in close enough proximity, it's like an embrace, and that you see them with clarity such that their lives and the needs, the longings, those

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things in their lives draw you toward them with compassion. First, a, accept people as they are. This is a challenging discipline for leaders. We want people to be more than they are, and we sometimes even get angry or disappointed when they're not. But start but being with people means accepting them as they are.

Jeff Iorg:

Now, doesn't mean that we want them to stay how we find them, but it does mean that without being judgmental, we embrace people as they are. You know, people are sinners,

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and naturally, they're going to

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act like it, which means that sometimes it's really challenging to embrace people as you find them.

Jeff Iorg:

People have different levels of intelligence and giftedness and commitment and potential. And in spite of our brilliance as leaders, not every follower is going to excel in every area of life. In fact, some are going to disappoint us and disillusion us and we're going to have a perspective that rises above that and embraces them for who they are and doesn't give up on the potential of who they can be. I'll tell you, this happened to me a number of years ago during my church planting days. We had a teenage girl that came to our church, attended a youth retreat, and the focus that year was on

Jeff Iorg:

sexual purity. For two days, she learned about it, talked about it, made commitments regarding it, and then she returned home well intentioned in her commitment to maintain the moral values that she had established at that retreat. But a few months later, she became pregnant, and she was devastated. She asked to speak to me as her pastor, and it was hard for her to tell me what had happened. And then she she apologized to me.

Jeff Iorg:

She said, I'm sorry for letting you down. You know, in that moment, I had to make a choice. Was my disappointment in the moment going to define how

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I was going to relate to her?

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I had to make a choice to not let that happen. She had lost so much. She

Jeff Iorg:

had lost her virginity, her future plans, the respect of her parents. She had lost relationships with friends. She had lost high school experiences she was now going to miss.

Jeff Iorg:

My response to her did not need to compound what she was already going through. The real problem was not how I felt about it. The real problem was the pregnancy and what

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we were going to help her do about it going forward. You You know, it's important to keep this perspective. We accept people as they are. Doesn't mean we don't want

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them to change, but when they disappoint us, we don't shun them or dismiss them or move away from them. We hold on

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to them and recognize that, once again, our pastoral responsibility, our

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Christian responsibility, is to take the brokenness of life and make the best we can out of it. You know, it's so easy. It's so easy to be put off by offensive behavior. But frankly, a

Jeff Iorg:

lot of the time, offensive behavior is just a smokescreen. It's a smokescreen for problems that people are hiding that they just don't want to admit. You know, for many years, I've been involved with the ministry to baseball umpires. And a lot of people think, well, baseball umpires are all, you know, arrogant people full of bravado, oftentimes profane language who strut around because they've got

Jeff Iorg:

it all together. Well, that's just an act.

Jeff Iorg:

I see my empire friends for who they really are. I see through the tough guy facade to the brokenness. I see the damaged marriages, the drinking problems, the chain smoking to relieve stress, and the body jokes to mask fear of intimacy in relationships. I see all of that.

Jeff Iorg:

I see them for who they really are. And when I see them for

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who they really are, it doesn't evoke out of me judgmentalism. What's wrong with you people? No. When I see them for real as they really are,

Jeff Iorg:

it invigorates passion, our biblical word, compassion, for reaching them with the gospel and seeing their lives changed. Listen. The first step toward embracing people so that they produce compassion for them in your lives is to accept them as they are and to recognize that you have to take them on their terms. Second, that's what I was gonna say, relate to people on their terms. You gotta relate to people in ways that connect with them.

Jeff Iorg:

Now, people get at this in different kinds of ways, but you have to go where people are, see what they're experiencing, connect with them in their world,

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and relate to them on their terms. And when you do that, it's amazing what will come out of you. You know, a lot of pastors don't really spend time with people in their context. You invite them to church. You invite them to your office.

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You invite them to your home. Nothing wrong with any of that.

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But what happens when you go to where they work? See what they're dealing with every day.

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What happens when you go to their home and see how they're living and what their challenges are? What happens when you

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invest yourself in their lives and see life from their terms? It's amazing how that changes your perspective on them. You

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know, I've worked in different contexts with different kinds of people over the years, and one particular group was important to me. A number of years ago, I got involved with a small group of prominent women that were leading, in our community and had a bible study group. And, one of them was a member of our church, they were working through their bible study. And they came up to some hard passages and asked if I would come and answer questions about them. And, of course, I said I would, and that led to a larger relationship with the group.

Jeff Iorg:

And then that led me to getting invited to their group's Christmas party. Now this Christmas party included their husbands and was an opportunity to interface with about a dozen of the most influential men in our city. People that were on city council, people that ran the large companies, people that were making a real difference in our city.

Jeff Iorg:

When I went there, met them on their terms, at their party, in their place, it helped me to see who they really were and it

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invigorated compassion in me for them

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because I saw I saw them. I saw the brokenness. I saw the I saw the duplicity. I saw the preening and the desire for not for for somebody to acknowledge them or to notice them or to to say they were important. As I'm watching all

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of this, something just deeply stirred inside of me.

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They need the gospel. They need the gospel.

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And I was motivated to stay in those relationships and share the gospel with them. You know, a third way to kindle passion that comes out of the example of Jesus in this acrostic arms, accept people as they are, reach people where they are, and then third, meet the needs of people.

Jeff Iorg:

Meet the needs of people as you find them. You know,

Jeff Iorg:

a few years ago, I was on a sports board for an organization in a community. And in that context, I was trying to serve the president and make him as effective as possible. I was always looking for ways to serve him personally, and it took years, but it finally happened. After serving with him for a couple of years and doing all that I could to build that relationship, he had a death in his family, and he called and asked me if I would officiate the service. And I did.

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And that further cemented the relationship that we had. And then a couple of more years passed, and he had a really tragic and serious problem in his marriage. And he called me and said, I wonder if

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you could help me. And I did. Now this was a multiyear commitment to being invested in this man's life

Jeff Iorg:

that ultimately resulted in me being poised and ready to meet some significant needs for him, which led me then to the opportunity to share the gospel. The passion for this man and his family and all that he was going through was engendered in me because of the years I spent building relationship with him, serving him, and growing to the point where he trusted me to meet some

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of the serious needs of his life. And then finally, serve people with abandon. Serve people with abandon, recognizing that in service, there is this capacity to build relationships that makes it possible for you to care for people

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in ways you might have never imagined possible. You know, when you commit yourself, to a service relationship, it puts something deep inside of you about the other person and about how you're going to relate to them going forward. I remember a few years ago when I was a pastor, we had a church service called a come and go Lord's Supper. Now you may have never done anything like this, but what we did was we had a holiday weekend. And so on that eve, I think it was Christmas Eve, we had a series of services, one on the hour from like 03:00 in the afternoon to 08:00 at night.

Jeff Iorg:

Because we had so many people in our congregation that were traveling and so many different things, we had these come and go services where they each lasted about forty minutes. They were led by our deacons, and we had a format that they worked through of readings and prayer and serving the Lord's Supper and fellowship together. It was a beautiful time. Well, I just went and sat in the back and watched these services as they unfolded. And as I was watching them, I was seeing people coming, and I was thinking about all the ways I had served them over that year and what they had been through and what I had supported them or stood by them to experience.

Jeff Iorg:

I thought about some of the things we'd

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been through that only only were known to us.

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It was never publicized in any way. And I just found myself with tears on my cheeks back there watching this thinking, these are the people I get

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to love and serve and care for.

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And because I care for them and serve them and make a difference in their lives, God stirs up something deep inside of me that can only be described as compassion

Jeff Iorg:

for ministry. So here's what we've learned so far. Passion for ministry, biblical word, is really compassion for ministry.

Jeff Iorg:

Jesus models it by being with people, identifying them in their need, really connecting with them. We do that by getting our arms around people, accepting people as they are, reaching them where they are, meeting their needs as we find them, and serving them with reckless abandon. And when we do that when we do that, something is engendered deep within us. That's something that cooks up inside of us, bubbles up over us, simmers inside of us, and drives us to keep going

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in ministry. It's called compassion for people like Jesus had. Now, some of you are thinking, but wait a minute. Wait a minute. It's the people that drain me.

Jeff Iorg:

How is it that all of this that you're describing contributes to compassion for ministry when it's actually the people who are draining the life out of me? Well, how does this work together? The answer is in something called intentional rest. Intentional rest.

Jeff Iorg:

You see, Jesus not only modeled being with people and was with them a lot. He also modeled getting away from people. Throughout the gospels, Jesus modeled the principle of intentional rest. He went on private retreats, private prayer retreats, and prayer retreats and cruises with his closest friends.

Jeff Iorg:

He went to parties, celebrations, and worship services. Jesus knew the importance of being with people, of also the importance of being alone, and of balancing the demands of being with people with the

Jeff Iorg:

rejuvenating power of rest. Now, many leaders are deluded, thinking that they have to be with people all the time to demonstrate their importance. They have delusions of adequacy. Are you like that? If so, you're probably not developing the discipline of pulling away from your ministry responsibilities and resting.

Jeff Iorg:

So this idea that you're going to draw compassion that keeps you going from being with people as Jesus was and seeing the needs of people as they really are, just like Jesus, and getting your arms around them and investing yourselves in them in such a way that something deep down inside

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of you just can't stop ministering to them in the name of Jesus. What's going to

Jeff Iorg:

keep that from turning into burnout and causing the thing that is very good, these intimate relations with people, to become very bad, this draining influence in your life, is intentional rest. It's doing like Jesus. And that is from time to time pulling away and recharging yourself. So I want you to pull away in three different ways. Number one, I

Jeff Iorg:

want you to rest weekly. The Bible's pretty clear about this. Work six days

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a week, rest one. You have to find a way to commit to pulling away one day a week and disengaging from the ministry relationships that you have. That doesn't mean you have to go on vacation. Doesn't mean you have to spend a lot of money. Doesn't mean you have to do anything.

Jeff Iorg:

It means you have to disengage. It means you turn off your phone, do not check your email, and clock out, if you will, so that you can recover and get ready to go back into it the next day. Rest weekly. Now a lot of you've heard me teach on this in the past. I think I've done a whole podcast on this.

Jeff Iorg:

Back in the mid eighties, my wife and I had really critical situations where we were not doing well, and part of it was my workaholism back in those days, and Anne had to confront me pretty strongly about that. Long story. Don't go into it on this podcast. I've done it on others. But, ultimately, I made the commitment to my wife that I would start resting one day a week for ministry demand.

Jeff Iorg:

And for the last forty years, about forty two to forty five weeks a year, my wife and I pull away one day a week from ministry. We disengage and we rest and we rejuvenate so that

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we can go back the next day and pour ourselves back into people. You say, well,

Jeff Iorg:

you need to get that get that up to 52. Well, you get it up to 52, and then tell me how that works. I'm really happy that for the last forty years, somewhere in the forty two to forty five weeks a year, we've been able to discipline ourselves to one day of pulling away from ministry and resting. So the first way to rejuvenate is to pull away so that you can go back. Second, retreat occasionally.

Jeff Iorg:

This is what Jesus did. He went away for prayer retreats or other kinds of getaways. Retreat occasionally.

Jeff Iorg:

This means that periodically, and I won't put a timetable on this, maybe once a year, maybe more often if you can, But periodically, you pull away for two or three days, and you set aside time for prayer and reflection and study and rest, to sleep, to read the Bible leisurely, to pray without being rushed, to rejuvenate yourself for two or three days. Sometimes this can take place in the context of like a marriage conference or some other kind of thing like that. But just be sure that the goal in this kind of event, if you go to a conference, is not to conquer the conference, it's to rest and let the conference be a rejuvenating part of your days of rest. Rest weekly, retreat occasionally, and you'll love this last one, vacation annually. Vacation is a part of the rest.

Jeff Iorg:

Pull away weekly, retreat occasionally, vacation annually. When I say vacation, I mean pull away, disengage, and recover. That can be a week at home. It can be a a week in a reasonably planned vacation time where you go away as a family and do something together. It might even be going to visit family, but it doesn't always include that because that can sometimes be stressful, I know.

Jeff Iorg:

But for whatever it means, it means you pull away and you set aside a week or so and you rejuvenate through rest. So today, how do you sustain compassion for ministry? How do you avoid being that pastor who told me you'll get over it while I haven't gotten over it? What's kept me going is following the pattern of Jesus. I've invested myself in people so much so that I see them for who they really are.

Jeff Iorg:

I get my arms around them. I accept them as they are, reach them where they are, meet needs as I find them, and serve them with reckless abandon. And when I do that, God kindles something deep down inside of me that cannot be explained by any other word except compassion that motivates me for ministry leadership. But too much of any good thing becomes a bad thing, and too much people can become a draining experience that leaves you with burnout. So to balance out what I've been describing, you follow the biblical prescription of rest weekly, retreat occasionally, vacation annually to recover and prepare yourself to reengage with people.

Jeff Iorg:

Think about what I've said today, put it into practice as you lead on.