collaborate

About two years ago I was totally and completely burned out as a pastor.

It’s a horrible place to find yourself, because you have one of the greatest jobs on the planet, and you basically work for God, so you’re not supposed to be able to burnout. But I found myself physically, emotionally and (worst of all) spiritually empty.

After a week of decompression, I worked with some people around me to craft a year-long recovery plan. And launched on a journey that ultimately lead me back into deeper relationship with Jesus and healthier rhythms of living here in this world.

When my friend Michael Chanley emailed a few months ago and asked me to write a chapter in a book on how the church can reach families, I immediately thought of my journey.

Because as I’ve talked to pastors around the country, I’ve realized that I’m not alone when it comes to working myself into a spiritual and emotional deficit. And my theory is that if the church wants to reach families, then it’s going to need pastors who aren’t burnt out.

So, i joined with over 30 other pastors to write a book called Collaborate. It’s a multi-faceted view of how we, as the church, can work together to reach the families in our communities. My story of recovery is just one of the many practical chapters on how to design your life and ministry to connect with this generation.

Our prayer is that this book would unite churches together and that our crowd-sourced ideas would lead to life change in the next generation.

You can pick up your copy of Collaborate here.