"I hate my life" ... words muttered under my breath as I rushed to get back to the office. My meeting had run long, and now I was late. My assistant called to let me know that people were waiting in my office for my 2:00 meeting, and how long would it be till I got there?
I had started a church several years previously, and
it was doing well. But the more it grew, the more stressful and frustrating my life got. Money and space were always tight. There always seemed to be people unhappy about something going on in the church, or someone embroiled in conflict with somebody else. And I was always behind. Running from meeting to meeting during the week, and staying up late into the night writing my sermons. Excited and gratified by the good things happening, but anxious and stressed out about
everything.
In business, when the founder of a company gets to this point, he or she can sell the company and move on, often making a nice profit. But I felt trapped, foolishly thinking that I needed to stay on, because a transition to a different leader would be bad for the church. I just needed to learn more, work harder, delegate more, suck it
up.
Have you ever been there? Feeling like the work is good and important, but that it's hurting you? I don’t think my experience was unique. In fact, in the years since I had my crash and burn experience, I’ve worked with hundreds of other spiritual leaders in similar situations. Everybody says the same thing: “The work is important and rewarding, but it’s
often challenging, sometimes discouraging, and usually feels overwhelming."
And it’s not just the leaders of spiritual communities who feel this way. Everybody does. This is the world we live in. Many people are trying to balance busy careers, family life, and some kind of volunteer work, possibly in their church. Or maybe they are involved in some
community activism, or other kind of service work. How do you balance it all?
In 2006, I started a company called “Recovery Remixed,” now called “Renew Resources.” In the course of this work, I’ve gotten to know (and learn from) many “heart-centered entrepreneurs” -- people starting businesses that are built around offering products or services that help people find healing and
help: coaches, therapists, medical practitioners, healers, consultants, etc. These are people devoting themselves to helping other people live better lives, and trying to make a living (or at least part time income) doing so. This work carries its own challenges, and people struggle with the overwhelming needs in front of them, the dizzying array of options for “building the business,” and the usual challenges of time and money shortages.
I got the idea for the title of this book “Not so Overwhelmed” from architect and author Susan Susanka. She is the author of a series of books on home design called “The Not So Big House.” Her philosophy is that people will be happier living in homes that are smaller in size, but better and more thoughtfully designed.
Not long ago she wrote “The Not So Big Life,” applying this philosophy to life in general. So when she talks about adapting to our increasingly overloaded lives, it’s not surprising that she uses a house analogy: “remodeling.” Here is how she opens her book:
“We are facing an enormous problem
in our lives today. It’s so big we can hardly see it, and it’s right in our face all day, every day. We’re all living too big lives, crammed from top to toe with activities, urgencies, and obligations that seem absolute. There’s no time to take a breath, no time to look for the source of the problem. We are almost desperate for a solution. If we stop and consider what our lives would be like if things got much faster, we might feel overwhelmed by hopelessness and futility. We just don’t have any
more time to give. We’re at the end of our rope.
“We need to remodel the way we are living, but not in a way that gives us more of the same kinds of space we already have; that would simply create an even bigger life. What we need is a remodeling that allows us to experience what’s already here but to experience it
differently, so that it delights us rather than drives us crazy.”
That’s the world we are living in, and that’s the primary challenge people in our churches -- the context where I work -- are facing. People are overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with the pace of life, overwhelmed with challenges of making a living, overwhelmed by the problems they are bombarded with in the
media, in their neighborhoods, and in their families. They are working crazy hours, commuting to work on congested roads, and coming home to chaotic homes with spouses and children struggling to manage their own overloaded schedules.
People who are overwhelmed are looking for help — they are searching for direction, encouragement, and insights about how to navigate the
world of stress and overwhelm. On amazon.com, for example, you can find 777 books on “simplifying your life.” A search on google for the phrase, “simplifying your life” creates 2,470,000 results. People are looking for help.
People come to churches today hoping they will find a place of refuge from the epidemic of stress and overwhelm. Instead of helping with this problem, people often
find their churches are adding to it. All too often, church leaders are not asking: "How can our church help make your life better?" Instead they're asking: "How can you help make our church better?" Those are two very different questions. One leads to a ministry that lifts people's burdens, the other adds to them.
People come to churches today hoping they will
find leaders who can give them tools to live with serenity and joy in the midst of our over-loaded world. Instead, they often find leaders who themselves are stressed out and overwhelmed. They find leaders who can offer no genuine wisdom for how to live differently, because they are as harassed and rushed and anxious as their parishioners -- in many cases more so. So people are really lost … they are like sheep without a
shepherd.
My study and the writing project of “The Not So Overwhelmed Leader” is based on belief that it is possible -- and necessary -- to have a life of serenity and joy even in the midst of our efforts to "change the world" and help others. We can -- and we must -- find ways to doing good and important work without damaging our
souls.
This issue gets to the heart of our faith. We promise that people can experience an “abundant life” (Jesus words in John 10:10), a life where we experience joy and peace, even in the midst of the ups and downs of our fallen existence.
Is this a reality in our lives? For many years it was not the reality in mine. If we fail to subdue the three-headed monster of busyness, anxiety, and stress in our own lives — we have no credibility in trying to help others find better lives, and whatever good work we are doing will eventually crumble, because we can’t sustain the pace.
Overcoming
overwhelm is not just a good idea for pastors or other “spiritual people.” It’s essential for everyone. Failing here, we fail everywhere.
