[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #9b9b9b;”]T[/dropcap]his past spring many of you joined us as we had a wonderful time at our Shepherd’s Blessing Dinner. Our speaker was Marshall Shelley, vice-president of Christianity Today and editor in chief of CT’s Leadership Media Group, which develops resources for church leaders, including Leadership Journal, PreachingToday.com, ChurchLawAndTax.com, and BuildingChurchLeaders.com.
With his years of experience writing to and for pastors and other Christian leaders, Marshall is highly qualified to address issues related to Christian leadership. The title of his presentation was, “The Air Leaders Breathe”. In his presentation he addressed topics such as an “inescapable calling”, church politics, constant comparisons and others.
By: Dave Ragsdale, Vice President of Counseling & Team Training
Every Christian leader can practice healthy self care with 3 simple strategies that involve: A Priority, A Plan and People.
1. Make Self Care a top Priority
2. Create a Good Self Care Plan
3. Enlist the People that will support your plan.
I am not going to give you 10 steps to practice self care. This is not a “How To” workshop because most self care is plain common sense. You need to exercise, see your doctor, spend quiet time with your family and friends, set better boundaries with work, plan that vacation, take that Sabbatical, have some fun on a regular basis, there’s a 1001 ways to do self care.
What I want to do is inspire you to do self care if you’re not. You might be practicing self care, but maybe you need to be more intentional. Take some time to think about how you can apply the three principles I listed to your own context. Do you have a good suggestion for other leaders? Maybe, the best question is to ask how you are getting intentional about planning self care… and then actually following through… post some good suggestions or resources you would point other Christian leaders to use.
Stay tuned to learn more about principle #1 (make self care a priority) in the next post.
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