In a previous post, I mentioned the pastors groups that just returned from participating in the New Hope Leadership Practicum. Pastor Wayne Cordeiro mentored these young guys by sharing some of the leadership lessons he has learned along the way. One of the lessons involved margins and tanks. He explains why these two things relate to creativity and minimizing stress. Consider the rest of this post as quoting Pastor Wayne’s teachings.
Margins – build margins to keep creativity high and stress low. Guard the margins in your life. In the margins, leaders find creativity and vision. Build friendships, find laughter, engage in times of solitude, take time to dream. The more leaders focus on the management of ministry, the more the leader’s soul shrinks.
Tanks – monitor what fills your tank and what drains it. Envision a drawing of a tank, open at the top with a drain pipe protruding from the bottom.
Leaders need to take time to evaluate what really fills their tank. Are you devoting time and energy to these pursuits? How much time? Now consider what drains your tank? How much of your time is spent on things that drain your tank?
One of the exercises we did involved having each person write down the things that fill our tanks and the things that drain it. Next we were to honestly evaluate the balance (or lack thereof) in filling and draining our tanks. We learned that it’s tempting to protest that in ministry we just can’t spend enough time pursuing those things that fill our tank. There is a tendency to think that these things are luxuries – things we can only do during the rare downtime occurrences. This is false logic. The busier you are, the more frantic the pace, the more intentional you need to be about filling your tank. Otherwise you will simply drain it and suffer the consequences.
One sad statistic – 22% of all pastors are on some form of anti-depressant medication. One reason could be because they didn’t take the time to fill their tanks.
Pastor Wayne says there are three major tank levels that leaders need to constantly monitor.
Stage 1 – your tank is down by a third – you experience an underlying feeling of anxiety that you can’t seem to shake. Your joy of ministry is replaced with a feeling of dread.
Stage 2 – your tank is down by two-thirds – you’re setting yourself up for panic attacks or an emotional breakdown. It’s not too late to seek help and get serious about refilling your tank.
Stage 3 – your tank is down to the last one-third and still draining – you’re in serious trouble and in danger of a complete nervous breakdown. Crash and burn. Game over.
Take a few minutes to evaluate your tank. Is it continually draining faster than it’s filling? What do you need to do to reverse this action? Don’t just think about it or write about it – do it and do it now.
Have your spouse also do this exercise and then compare results. You may be doing or saying something that drains your spouse’s tank and not even know it and vice versa. You will both learn some things about the other and enhance your marriage in the process.
Linda Stanley serves as Director of Life Stage Leadership Communities and provides leadership for the Next Generation Pastors Leadership Community groups. The Next Generation Pastors Leadership Community exists to create relational peer networks of senior pastors who share similar ministry challenges and desire connections to other leaders serving in similar ministry situations. Additional information is on our website - www.leadnet.org, linda.stanley@leadnet.org
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