Self-Care

Engage & Disengage

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The phrase, “Engage and disengage,” has been part of my vocabulary since I first heard it during orientation weekend for Asbury Theological Seminary’s D.Min. program back in January 2004. The phrase came from Dr. Anthony Headley. The idea is, our lives must include rest, as well as work. We must not only engage (work), but … Read more

God’s Crushings

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Last month, I wrote 3 Steps I’m Taking to Manage Stress Better (one additional step was the vacation that ended yesterday). In the days ahead, I will be writing more about my experiences and learnings over the last five weeks, starting with this one. This morning, while praying, I remembered listening to Chuck Swindoll’s talk … Read more

3 Steps I’m Taking to Manage Stress Better

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Throughout most of my life, I’ve known I need to learn how to manage stress. While I am aware that I need to take care of myself and my relationships (with God, family, others), I also know there’s lots of room for improvement. I’ve always said, I do well with vacation time, okay with days … Read more

It Takes Time to Recover

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Last month, Joleen and I celebrated 18 years of marriage (Really?!). It’s been quite an adventure. Everyone has challenges, and we’ve certainly had ours! The first 9 years of our marriage were intense enough—married in 1994, graduated from seminary and moved to PA to co-pastor a small, dying church in 1995, moved to Williamsburg to … Read more

5 Practices to Make the Most of Time

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I’ve been writing about The Balancing Act by Bishop Robert Schnase (see “The Balancing Act” and Pray More Than Criticize). Bishop Schnase writes on “Redeeming Time.” By that, he means “making time sacred, useful to God, holy” (119). Schnase adds: … redeeming the time involves discovering the holy, gift-like quality, the grace of time. It … Read more

Recovery Time at the Bishop’s Retreat

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One thing we’re slowly learning is that it takes time to recover from major stressful legs of the journey. The most recent stressful leg of our journey was working toward the monumental milestone of last week’s deadline for our ordination work. Fortunately, the Bishop’s Retreat, which I wrote about last week, came at just the … Read more

Preparing for Retreat

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As we near the end of our ordination journey (more on that in the next few days), we are in much need of a retreat. So, the Bishop’s Retreat comes at just the right time. After lunch this Sunday, we will head to Lancaster, PA for the retreat. This will be the third year in … Read more

Adrenaline Hangover

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Yesterday, the first day after the 2010 HealthFlex HealthMiles Challenge (a program of Virgin HealthMiles through our health insurance program), I experienced an “adrenaline hangover” (I’ve written before about a pastor’s hangover, which is probably a form of an adrenaline hangover). I was able to hit the daily limit of 30,000 steps/day for each day … Read more

Incentives for Healthy Living

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One of the main benefits of the Virgin HealthMiles activity rewards program is that it provides a nice incentive for healthy living. Part of the program encourages the use of “challenges” where participants can challenge one or more others in the program to a friendly competition. In addition to the participant-initiated challenges, the plan sponsor … Read more

Temporary Workstation

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If you read my post about the 2010 HealthFlex HealthMiles Challenge, you may know why I’m looking for creative ways to get my steps in each day. My newest experiment is a temporary workstation on our treadmill (pictured below). I tried it out for about an hour this afternoon and it worked pretty well, although … Read more