Advent is traditionally the time of waiting and preparation for the celebration of Christmas. For busy church leaders, I suggest choosing a practice to remind you we’re all waiting for the celebration of the birth of Jesus.
Thanksgiving this year may be an opportunity to go deeper with your gratitude. Around the holiday table, or alone, you might reflect on what you’ve learned from the challenges of this time, and what the less-obvious blessings have been.
Here’s what I’ve been doing, and what I recommend to others: focus on the next 90 days.
Even a job you love can become a drag–witness much of pastoral ministry during lockdown, or ministry through a time of church conflict. There is much you can’t change about the reality of this ministry challenge. Still, consider how you might change what you bring to it.
There can be a lot of “should” in the spiritual life—I should pray more, go back to in-person worship, read the Bible more. What it would be like to make pleasure rather than duty one of the motives for spiritual practice? What spiritual activities do you enjoy, and can you do more of them? Can you make a routine of them?