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Real Rest. Really?

Nancy Reece · Mar 12, 2019 · 1 Comment

a guest blog by Teresa Moon

Laughter. The sound emanated from the mobile phone speaker, filling my office. This was the eighth phone conversation and the eighth response of incredulous laughter. Though I hadn’t expected it, I knew I had earned this response to my proposal.

I was proposing an organization-wide Rest and Renewal study. I called strategic team-leaders in my organization to pitch the project and to enlist their support. My objective: to complete the required research for my last doctoral course on the assigned topic, “Rest and Renewal,” and, of course, for my team to experience renewal in the process. 

My colleagues did not mean to insult me. They just didn’t see me as a “rest-and-renewal” kind of leader. I couldn’t blame them; I didn’t either. I was the responsible party, setting the break-neck tempo for my fast-paced, no-time-for-a-break, short-staffed, under-funded organizational culture. With each conversation, I wanted even more desperately for it to be different. 

I listened as my colleagues echoed many of my own excuses and arguments when challenged with the need for rest. “When we get through this launch…” “After the big event…” “When the kids go back to school…” “When the kids get out of school…” “When there’s more money…” “When I have more help…” The list is always as creative as it is long.

A growing body of research illustrates my fellow leaders and I were not unique. Studies suggest more than 50% of pastors and an even greater percentage of ministry family members experience burnout. “Compassion fatigue,” the result of chronic stress, is growing among mission and ministry leaders and workers. The literature links burnout, cynicism, disengagement, and compromise to the ignoring of our need for rest. 

So, why do we fight against our God-designed need for rest? We are familiar with his invitation: “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Our heads know his divine rest is accompanied by perfect peace. Yet both elude us. 

In my journey, I came to a significant realization: rest is about trust. When I follow the voices in my head calling me to work longer, harder, and faster, I am trusting myself. When I deny my need for sleep, off-the-grid times, Sabbath rest, and creative outlets, I am placing my trust in my own efforts. The more fatigued I become, the less compassionate I am. But when I trust my Creator, I trust His design. We were designed to flourish in rest. Rest is an act of trust. 

A dozen unrested, overwhelmed, and stressed-out colleagues joined me in my organization’s “Leadership Rest and Renewal Project.” We practiced and shared our personal insights about meditation and reflection, appreciation and affirmation. We kept sleep journals, experimented with 5-minute breaks, shared Sabbath-keeping rituals, and tried on new habits. We compared notes and discussed what did and did not work. We re-prioritized, re-focused, and ultimately found ourselves –  individually and collectively – renewed. 

My team made an important discovery: we’re better together. When we pursued rest together, we leaned on each other to help us make courageous decisions to practice real rest. We had attempted restingfromourwork. We were now beginning to work from our rest.We moved from an unhealthy habit and culture to a healthier one. It felt like Paul’s letter to the church in Rome had come to life for us: our minds were renewed and our behaviors transformed (Romans 12:2). 

I still talk about naps a lot more than I take them. I also hesitate to tell people the reason I’m not attending their meeting or function is that I need rest. But I do have a new outlook. I now value real rest. And my teammates no longer laugh at me for talking about it. 

When I first approached them with the project, God had been at work, planting in my teammates seeds of desire for real rest and renewal. As only the Divine can do, in the middle of our busiest season of organizational life, God “made [us] lie down in green pastures” and restored our individual and organizational souls (Ps. 23:2-3). The to-do lists have not disappeared. Many of us still struggle to prioritize rest. Yet, in the middle of near chaos, God loves me and, together with my co-laborers, delights in bringing me to “still waters.”

Dr. Teresa Moon, founding President and CEO of the Institute for Cultural Communicators, is an internationally-recognized seminar speaker, education consultant, author, and leadership coach. Each year, she travels globally equipping students, teachers, and parents to become “cultural communicators,” transforming ordinary students into extraordinary communicators and authentic leaders.  You can follow her blog here: http://teresamoon.org/real-rest-really

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Accomplish More by Doing Less – Part 2

Nancy Reece · May 20, 2015 · Leave a Comment

When I wrote about my struggle to accomplish more by doing less last month, I struck a cord for a lot of you. One reader shared this: “I travel almost weekly. To catch flights I’m up many mornings around 4 am. Last night I arrived home at 10:30 pm. The easiest thing to give up is my “quiet time” for prayer, reading or meditation or exercise…all of which I need to stay healthy and productive.”

It is a hard struggle to shut down the years of a performance driven life and to willfully choose to live your life in a way that has greater benefits – for both yourself and for those you lead. So, if you’d like to accomplish more by doing less – here are the 4 choices I made that enabled me to live with margin in my life. [Read more…] about Accomplish More by Doing Less – Part 2

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Top 10 Ways to Lead Yourself

Nancy Reece · Sep 29, 2014 · Leave a Comment

It was 6:30 am when he came in the building wearing a green baseball hat. Had he been at any other YMCA in Chicago, it wouldn’t have been an issue, but this YMCA was in the heart of Cabrini Green, a housing project rife with gangs. Depending on how a hat was worn, and its color, it could constitute a gang sign, so we had a “no hats” policy in the facility. At 6:35 am, one of my staff members came to tell me a man was refusing to take off his cap. I went out to meet him, knowing that once he understood the reason behind our policy, he’d be happy to comply. [Read more…] about Top 10 Ways to Lead Yourself

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Nine Minute Moments

Nancy Reece · Jul 22, 2014 · Leave a Comment

In my last blog, I shared the painful struggle of being fired over 20 years ago. As a result, I began a 20+ year journey of learning to choose well, lead well, and finish well.

Being fired all those years ago was an incredibly painful experience. I lost confidence in my abilities, felt like a total failure, and simply wanted to crawl into a dark cave and lick my wounds. I seriously thought about giving up my YMCA career and starting all over in a new field. I had to make a choice. While on the surface the choice was between two career options, in reality it was a choice to either pull out of the self-criticizing death spiral I was in or let failure win. When you’re in the never ending cycle of defeating thoughts, it’s pure choice to replace those negative thoughts with ones that start to speak truth to your soul about who you are and Whose you are. Choose truth. [Read more…] about Nine Minute Moments

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Unethical “Ladder Climbing” in the Workplace

Nancy Reece · Apr 15, 2011 · Leave a Comment

This is a guest blog from a colleague I met at National SPeaker Association UNconference.  Bonnie’s discussion is about a person who takes the ideas of others and promotes them as her own.  In my next blog, we’ll be discussing people who lead out of mutual fear vs. mutual trust.  Nancy

Fear, concern and even intimidation are very real feelings that develop in many work groups.  It’s not uncommon to see a group in which “ladder climbing”, striving, and metaphorically speaking, scratching, is done in order to put one’s needs and desires ahead of others’. I saw this recently in a group where I was consulting.  The operations manager was determined to be seen and heard above all others, to the point of bypassing her co-workers and staff members to achieve her goals. She was known to take others’ ideas and present them to leadership as her own.  What drives this type of unethical behavior?  [Read more…] about Unethical “Ladder Climbing” in the Workplace

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