Just a note: In 2025 we launched “The Revitalization Playbook.” The “Playbook” is similar to the ones used by football coaches on the sidelines. The coach’s playbook contains all the plays that the coach is confident that his team can run. Conditions on the field determine which play he chooses next.
In my “Playbook,” knowing that every church is unique, we began with five “scripted” plays (appropriate for any church in need of revitalization,) followed by fifteen “optional” plays. I mentioned in the “Playbook” that some of the plays (chapters) were going to get longer in subsequent editions and that completely new plays were going to be added as I worked with pastors in their in-need-of-revitalization churches. It has since been my joy to work with Revitalization Cohorts, as well as individual pastors who are also “deep in the weeds” of revitalization projects.
Because of what I’ve seen and heard, here’s the second of which will likely be several additional plays for the “Playbook.” I am praying that you are blessed and helped.
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I have some bad news and I also have some good news.
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first:
For short periods of time.
But sooner or later the pastor’s need for – what I’ll simply call “revival” in this post – catches up with him. You can only fake it for so long.
The positive flip-side to this bad news – and I haven’t actually gotten to the gloriously good news yet – is that the pastor’s lifestyle is a powerful factor in the evangelization of the lost and the discipling of believers. We’ve largely forgotten this, but Jesus expected his followers to live the way he lived and the Apostles made disciples with the same expectation (Philippians 3:17, 4:9; I Thessalonians 1:5-7). They knew that the lessons afforded by their lives were almost as powerful as the lessons delivered through their words.
That’s good news, pastor, because it means that when you get back on track, your revived life will be a powerful tool (a “play,” in the metaphor of this book) which you can employ in the revitalization of your church.
The even greater good news is simply that your own revival is possible. The gospel we love so dearly includes the eventual, complete healing of our bodies (Matthew 8:17) and even the healing of the material universe itself (Romans 8:18-21), and while some of us will live out our lives with some pretty serious scarring due to the fallenness of this world, the sins of others against us and even our own sins, we are able to achieve substantial “soul” healing in and during this life (Ephesians 3:14-21, Philippians 1:3-11, II Peter 1:3-7).
No one put it as succinctly as King David: “He restoreth my soul” Psalm 23:3a
I have known the experience of which David wrote, again and again. My soul would be in terrible shape if this was not a possibility. Pastors are not immune from having to pursue this experience and pastors are not so holy as to find it to be unavailable to them. I have my own stories of soul restoration and I have heard so many more from others.
Here’s a sampler: A couple of years ago a gifted young pastor who had experienced two difficult church departures in a row told me he would never be a pastor again. I didn’t argue with him, but I was hoping he would turn out to be wrong. I told him I’d pray for him and I did. About a year later I saw him again. He was joyful, hopeful, completely healed and happy to be shepherding a group of people again.
God restores the souls of pastors, and, if necessary, He can restore yours.
SUGGESTIONS FOR GETTING STARTED:
(1) Repent of all known sin. The ancient formula for revival always begins here. There must be no holding back; no rooms which God is not supposed to visit; no doors you’ve asked Him to not open. This is not the same thing, of course, as a demand for perfection. Everybody slips and falls and some of us fall hard, but there must be an intention, at least, to not fall and the desperate dependence of one who knows that he can oh-so-easily fall if he’s not praying “lead me not into temptation but deliver me from the evil one” every day.
(2) Get back into the Word. I’m not the one who’s going to give you the old scold that your sermon preparation “doesn’t count” for a devotional life. I think that’s absurd. I’ve always been more moved and challenged and changed by my sermon preparation than any other kind of Bible reading I do.
My point here, the real issue, as I see it, is that, like anybody else in our churches, we can slip into reading or even seriously studying the Bible, whether it’s for our “devotions” or our sermons, in a heartless, loveless, impersonal, prayerless, mechanical manner. “Gotta get through these two chapters today like the rest of the church.”
And it’s not always sin (as in #1 above) that ruins our Bible reading. Sometimes it’s haste; sometimes it’s the distraction of crying babies, or harder still, the distraction of church problems, gnawing at our hearts and occupying our head-space.
I’m not going to scold you for this either. God knows all about your distractions and your head-space and He cares deeply. As I’ve told stay-at-home moms, if you have to lock yourself in the bathroom to get some peace and quiet, so be it. If you only have a sweet time in God’s Word once a month on a retreat day, so be it. Tell God how hungry your soul is for Him; he’ll help you with that.
I think the crucial thing is to slow down and really listen – even if it’s really listening to one chapter, one Psalm or one verse. Tell God how much you need Him and He will not turn you away.
(3) Soak in the Psalms. I know that we’re not all wired the same, but personally, every year finds me growing in my love for and delight in the Psalms. Every emotion you can imagine has already been explored and sanctified in these incredible poems. The Psalms touch every nerve and help us process every experience. When I’m feeling strong and stable I can get all tough and militant reading Joshua or II Timothy, but when I’m hurting, I need the Psalms.
(4) Tell somebody the truth about your soul’s need for revitalization and ask for prayer. Hopefully you can tell your wife. Hopefully you can also tell somebody beyond your wife, like your coach or counselor, which is my next suggestion.
(5) Get a coach, mentor, counselor or prayer partner. Every pastor, in my view, needs at least one of these. Don’t expect your wife to bear the burden of your burdened soul all by herself. If she’s in a fragile state herself (often the case, if her pastor husband isn’t doing so well) she will only be dragged down by your sorrow, especially if it is tinged with doubt.
(6) Unload your bitterness and/or resentment ASAP. Bitterness is the anger I continue to have toward those who have done something bad to me. Resentment, the evil twin of bitterness, is the anger I continue to have toward those who failed to do something good to or for me.
Our enemy, the Devil, makes sure that pastors have many reasons for bitterness and resentment. When we give way to either of these, the Evil One wins, we lose and God’s kingdom loses.
Every pastor has multiple opportunities to become bitter. In my case, resentment builds up when, in my own lack of healthy assertiveness, I fail to tell people what I need, want or expect. What a waste of our anger it is to be bent out of shape toward those who have no idea that they’ve hurt us!
In addition to unburdening our souls of the poisons of bitterness and resentment through forgiveness, leaving some case files on God’s desk, it is a strong faith in Providence that brings beauty out of ashes. When we can say with Joseph, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20) we are ready to journey on: older, wiser and sweeter, as was God’s intent.
(7) Get some sleep. Young men say: “Sleep is overrated.”Old men say: “Sleep is underrated.” Us old guys are right. Most Americans today are under-rested and over-caffeinated and this includes pastors. The great Warren Weirsbe said that “Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is to take a nap.” Personally, I find it almost impossible to be joyful if I’m exhausted.
(8) Take a long walk, ride, hike or drive and talk to God about everything. If your mind drifts in and out of prayer, God can handle it. If you have to do this day after day for awhile, until you get thoroughly “caught up” with God, do it. If I don’t get enough “thinking time” during the day my brain insists on making up for it at night, when I should be sleeping.
(9) Quit something. As a young pastor I had a relentless taskmaster who almost killed me. It wasn’t my church, my board or my job description. It wasn’t God, superstar pastor/authors or the haunting presence of seminary professors who weren’t there. It wasn’t my pastor-peers, my wife or my son. It was me.
If your life is too intense for you to enjoy it, it’s time to sit down with Stephen Covey’s famous “four quadrants” tool for sorting out your responsibilities and figure out what needs to “go.” Jesus said that his yoke was easy and light (Matthew 11:28-30). I wrestled with that phrase for forty years before I decided to side with Jesus against every voice which says that his yoke is hard and heavy. My job is to figure out what my personalized “yoke” looks like, and live it.
(10) Start taking at least one day off every week, go on a vacation or ask for a sabbatical. It’s not selfish to take care of yourself so that you can take care of others; it’s good stewardship of your time and your body. It’s not selfless to work seven days a week or fifty-two weeks per year; it’s arrogant, as if you are some sort of machine or superhero who doesn’t need the humbling experience of rest (see Psalm 127).
(11) Read or reread a great book for pastors like Spurgeon’s Lectures To My Students, or David Lloyd-Jones’ Preaching and Preachers. If you haven’t read these classics, now is the time to feed your heart on some powerful soul food. If you read them long ago, you will enjoy them more than ever re-reading them with some miles on your shoes and blood on your tunic.
