by Eddie Pipkin
Apologies if you eagerly awaited the arrival of this blog last week, because there wasn’t one. I was on a cruise with the family, and while I had initially planned to write last week’s blog in advance so that it could be published while I was frolicking in the Caribbean, that did not happen. So, I just took a week off, which is, I am aware, a luxury many of you do not have. Sure, you are allowed to occasionally “take a week off,” but focused intentionality is required to disappear for seven days in a way that doesn’t produce reams of stress in the weeks before or the weeks after – and even then that’s only if the work crew will leave you alone for a few days, electronically shackled as we all are.
It is a common theme to talk to ministry folk who are too exhausted to enjoy their vacation time because of all the additional preliminary work they have to do to prepare for being away.
Although we usually share those stories by laying the blame for our depletion at the feet of the demands of the work and the insatiable people we serve and with whom we serve, it would be much healthier if we would take responsibility for the strain we place on ourselves. We can control our own narrative (or at least exert greater control over it). It’s a classic case of not waiting until the last moment to take control; careful groundwork and preparation is required to keep things running smoothly while we are away.
Our unhealthy workload is tied to many things:
- Disorganization.
- An unwillingness to rely on other people who could share the load.
- Unrealistic expectations.
- Perfectionism.
- An overinflated sense of our own importance (a conviction that things will fall apart without us).
Let things fall apart a little. If nothing else, other people will be reminded of our value and will see the need to step up. I offer that pithy assessment with a caveat: Do what you can reasonably do to assure success and continuity while you’re out of pocket and then be willing to let things fall apart a little. Letting things stray off course a bit (or a lot) because you have made no preparations and communicated poorly is a bad look, but if we have sincerely checked the appropriate boxes before we leave town, it can only be a restorative time away and season of refreshment if we are committed to letting things go. If there are glitches along the way, they will be fixed without too much heartache in most cases. I think of my awesome house sitter, Olivier, who does a great job while I am gone, but inevitably misses at least one obscurely placed house plant. I’ve come to accept that I’ll probably have to replace one plant as part of the cost of getting away. It’s a healthy compromise.
Our get-away times are the perfect opportunity to express our confidence in others in leadership. Let them take the reins for a bit and show what they can do in our absence. This is one of the natural opportunities to make the team stronger. It only works if we give people the chance to express themselves without micro-managing them. If we are electronically looking over their shoulders during our absence, we undermine the entire process. Similarly, let them know that it is not necessary to check in with you for every little dilemma or snafu that might arise. Encourage them to use their own wits and consult other members of the team to make decisions. Such confidence is contagious and will carry over to everyday leadership once you have returned, refreshed and refocused.
If you are a preacher, it’s good to cycle in additional voices. Let the congregants hear some additional perspectives and presentation styles. Give gifted presenters from within your circle a chance to express themselves. If your community is fixated on the need for you to preach at every opportunity at all times – because that’s what they are paying you for! – spend some time educating them on a better way.
Likewise, if you have a major role facilitating a group, make it part of your routine to share that responsibility on occasion. Then, when it’s time for you to travel or take a break, having a substitute will just seem like a natural part of the process. This same rule applies for chairing a meeting, writing a blog, leading an outreach day, or bringing the expected refreshments. Shared leadership is powerful on so many levels. It not only makes an organization intrinsically stronger, but it creates a system in which no one is overworked or burned out.
If you feel there are certain things that you have no choice but to get done before you can leave on vacation with a clear conscience, try one of two strategies. You can sit down a couple of months before the scheduled getaway and make a list of all the things that must be pre-done, then chart out times to do them here and there in addition to your regular workday. Check them off steadily, and file them away ready to be deployed. A counter-strategy is to block one day ahead of your vacation where you focus exclusively on doing things that must be checked off before you head out. The key is to be intentional in identifying those things and having a plan. It’s great if you do this in consultation with your team, because you will be surprised how often they either say, “That doesn’t have to be done – don’t worry about that,” or “I can take care of that for you.” It’s a beautiful thing to see team members sharing the load for one another, and this load sharing can be a great way for us to learn more about one another’s jobs and build lasting connections through which we understand one another better.
Once you’ve laid out a pre-vacation plan and executed that plan, it’s up to you to take responsibility for unplugging. If you are looking at your phone every five minutes or calling people to check in, that’s your problem, not theirs. (We should set people’s expectations that we are not going to be checking in or micro-managing. It’s neither healthy nor realistic. We do this work of setting expectations about the value of time away by first making sure that we encourage this model for all the people we lead. We should not be expecting them to be available to us during their time away! We should not be imposing our bad habits on them!)
When we return from our unplugged and soul-replenishing downtime, we should encourage people to share how they flourished while we were gone. We should bolster them if they are self-critical about anything they think they got wrong, and we should demonstrate our gratitude for their gap-filling service. Everybody wins.
There is a variation of the time-away scenario in which we split the difference between sampling a different location and still getting some work done, just as there are variations in which we take a designated writing, study, or service break, but these are special circumstances that should be clearly defined as what they are (as in, “a friend has loaned me a cabin in Tennessee for a week, and I am going there for a working retreat during which I will accomplish A,B, and C objectives and be fully available during specified times”). Be very, very clear in what it is and how it will work. Be careful in those situations not to dump extra responsibilities on people who do not have the same opportunities. In these cases, there should always be a quid pro quo.
How do you and your team do at getting time away that is well and truly time away? Do you have trouble putting the phone down? Do you kill yourself in the run-up to the vacation? Or do you plan so poorly that you dread the train wreck to which you will inevitably return? Share your horror stories or your cherished secret tips in the comments section!
Great Blog! Thank you!!
Ray Long