127: You Can’t Serve Well If You Aren’t Well: Church Health & Personal Healing

Too many small churches are filled with saints who are overstretched and disheartened.

Our modern church culture hasn’t done us any favors with its focus on church attendance over loving our neighbors. 

Our bent toward over-programming is exhausting the volunteers we have left and not producing the fruit we think we are working toward. 

We wonder what is going on and if we can even do better in our current world. The first steps toward overhauling this failing church culture start with you and me. 

Listen in to:

• Hear how what we consider normal church culture is far from reflecting the character of Christ
• Identify some wrong beliefs that may be holding you and your church back from health
• Assess your own soul health with a list of symptoms of self-neglect and over-serving
• Learn what to do in the face of ongoing, unhealthy behavior in your own church
• Gain practical steps to move toward your own healing so you can truthfully say, “It is well with my soul.”

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Transcript

Laurie Acker: 0:01

Hey, this is Laurie Acker. Welcome to the small church ministry podcast. Hey, welcome to the small church ministry podcast. It is anniversary month here at small church ministry. So we've got four upcoming episodes that are going to pretty much hit hard into what we're doing and why each episode this month really gets to the core of why we exist and the change we are trying to be in the world today. I truly believe deeply that the church is God's chosen instrument in reaching a hurting world with His love and saving grace. I also deeply believe that the modern church has a lot of unhealth. We've developed some bad patterns of behavior, wrong expectations, a lot of it based on really good motives. But as we learn, as we know better, as we see more clearly, as we grow in our experience of our good and great God, we also just need to do better. Many of us are serving and we see things that we question, or we're carrying some pretty deep stuff that has gone unspoken, or something just feels off or wrong. Or we feel like we're spinning our wheels and not seeing the results of the fruit that has been promised. And instead of inviting God into the struggle, we just keep doing. And oftentimes we're doing harder, and we're doing more. So whether you are exhausted or on fire, whether you are hurting or moving forward, maybe even as a wounded healer yourself, whether you are the volunteer ministry leader, pastor or spouse, paid or unpaid or wishing you were paid, whether you feel valued or undervalued, or you don't even know your incredible value. The episodes this month are for you and for you to share. You're gonna get a lot of me this month, not a bunch of five steps or three ways or quick solutions, you're gonna get a lot of my heart and my soul. As we walk into June, our fourth anniversary here at small church ministry. I will probably say some things wrong. I know I don't have everything correct. And I don't think I ever will on this side of heaven. And as I grow and learn, probably each year you hear me saying slightly different things or more evolved things but to the best of my understanding, I will be sharing what I see what I believe to be true from my experience and in light of scriptural truth. Are for upcoming episodes include the following today we'll be talking about you can't serve well if you are not well. Followed by you can't be well if you don't love well. Next up we'll have you can't love well without understanding. And then we will wrap up the month with you can't lead well if you don't teach well. And that episode will delve more into ministry skills, practical helps, which is one of the things I know that we are known for here at small church ministry. Now around each podcast episode, there's kind of a weak theme. We're going to be developing some special bundles of Best of conference replays that speak to a specific question need and solution, not just like the whole conference, but like really what speaks into that question. Giving solutions. The best of conference bundles will be available at a special introductory price during the month of June. They will be available after this month. This is not like a limited time offer that you need to jump on. But the introductory price will be for a limited time only. And a quick very quick word about selling before I jump into the focus of today's topic. We chose from the very onset of our of our ministry to be a for profit ministry, which means that our aim is to sell enough stuff. So we can keep giving a lot of stuff away for free 90% of the content that we produce here is free. Our free conferences are only sustained by the selling of the replay bundles. Now that being said, we absolutely would love your support. We currently have several full time employees, we hire contractors quite often to help with our workload. We have more expenses than you will ever know about and probably you wouldn't even believe what they are. So yes, we would absolutely love your financial support. Those of you who purchased like you help us keep going. So if you do want to toss some support our way, here's three ways you can support us. Number one, just buy our products, our products are amazing. If you love what we give free, which is 90% of all we do, you're going to absolutely love what you get when you actually purchase something. To see the products that we have for sale, you can just go to Resources at small church ministry.com. To see the products that we have for sale, just go to Resources dot small church ministry.com as these bundles pop up for this month during our anniversary month, they're going to be put right on that page. The second thing you can do is join our network and we have a monthly membership and not only would you be helping us with some consistent revenue, but I'm absolutely positive that you will find a new community New support and new skills, probably many of which you didn't even know you needed, that would really benefit your ministry in your church. And third up just special for this month, during our anniversary celebration, we are opening up a little bit of a giving portal. So if you'd like to send us a gift for our anniversary and help support the work that we're doing, we will gladly accept it. You can find instructions on that and more details at the links in the show notes. But for now, let's get into today's topic. You cannot serve well, if you are not well. Let me say that again. You can't serve well, if you are not well. Reality Check. Your church has levels of unhealth. It's not 100%. Well, how do I know this? Because your church is full of humans. Now we can serve, we can keep serving a lot, we can surf really hard, we can try, we can put in a lot of effort. But we can't serve well. If we're not well. Here's another reality. Most people as individuals don't know when they are unwell. We don't recognize that we're unaware. And in many ways, we have been taught to ignore all the signs that point to this. And we teach it too many times in our churches, we push through and persevere because we have grit, because God will sustain us and He will. However, hold on to this you cannot serve well, if you are not well. You may be among the many who are serving tired. But since you think you're better off than most people, you've got more skills, you can handle it, you're going to keep serving tired, you may be among the many who believe that the call to serve is more important than your feelings or your own health and I beg to differ. I absolutely know that your feelings and your health affect your service, they can be shoved down, but their impact remains. You also might be among the many who are frustrated as you work so hard. But you're not seeing the results that you want or the results that you believe are promised. Which leaves us wondering what's wrong with us what's wrong with you, or maybe what's wrong with them. This comes out of this belief that we believe that our action creates the results. And if we're not seeing the results, instead of looking deeply at what's happening, we doubled down on the action and we work harder and we do more. But that often leaves us in a loop of failure instead of leading to our success. So after hearing that little list, whether you realize you need some help or not. Maybe you want to have some others in your church serve well. Whichever it is this episode is for you. By the end of this episode, we're going to identify some wrong beliefs that many of our churches are functioning in. We're also going to get a quick list of signs and symptoms to identify our own health and need and help others to. We're going to talk about when the church collectively is unwell, and how to respond to it. And we're also going to identify some clear steps. Next best steps to move toward our own health for you, and ultimately for others around you. Now, there's obviously no way to give you everything you might need to know about health and healing in one podcast episode. So as mentioned, watch for other resources coming more conversations on this topic, more podcasts, more blog posts. And don't forget those best of conference replay bundles special for our anniversary this month. There will be one for sure that speaks directly to this topic. In those bundles, you will hear from other experts and ministry leaders and volunteers and people in small churches, not just me, but others who are also carrying the flag for this cause of more health and ministry. Our prayer is a cultural shift to move toward more health in the church, the global church or individual churches, that we would function more and more as the body of Christ, we were created to be as a reflection of who Christ is himself. And it starts with you and it starts with me. So here's some quick signs of not being so well. You are serving hurts clearly because you talk about it. You blame others for your feelings. They are making my life miserable. Or maybe it's more subtle. Maybe you feel overwhelmed. Or like this brain fog where you can't really make decisions and you're not thinking clearly. Or you feel like you need to take a break but you can't take one. These are signs of being unwell. Or maybe you feel like you want to quit and this feeling is hitting more and more frequently. Or your heart rate and your blood pressure you're noticing them rise. Maybe you can even feel when it does it Maybe you're not sleeping well, or not enough. And just that increasing sense of being more tired and not being able to catch up. Now when I say you're unwell, it's not like it's black and white, it's a continuum, like everything pretty much in the universe, it's just a continuum. You may be a little unwell or a lot unwell. But anytime we have unwell it would do as well to address it. Here's a few more things, maybe you feel like you have no choice, you can't take a break, you can't quit, you can't do something else, you have no options, you feel stuck, whether it's on a certain team in a certain church in a certain ministry position in a certain role. Maybe you're not having any fun anymore, you don't laugh enough. Or maybe you don't even remember what that looked like when you did. Maybe you don't feel supported by leaders by others in the church, maybe even by your friends, or maybe your current friends have the same complaints you do. And you're noticing that your conversations are more and more negative, and are filled with defeats. Or maybe you don't know what to do about the narcissist in your church. You feel stuck with unhealthy people. Now, I'm not really talking about the narcissist or the person you think is a narcissist or the unhealthy people, I'm talking about your feelings of being stuck like you don't have a choice around them. The last one I will mention here, and obviously there are more. But we hear see this more and more increasingly, in small churches you feel dread or anxiety, or maybe even panic attacks at the thought of going to your church or being involved in a certain ministry or physically when you're headed to a certain meeting or knowing you're going to be around a certain person. Now, even if even if just a few of the things on that list describe you, or maybe many of them do, I would like to suggest that we address being not as well as maybe God wants us to be. You can't serve well, if you're not well. I love the song, it is well with my soul. And I love that statement. It is well with my soul. But I want to say it is not a declaration to put on top of how you feel. It is a truth to consider. Like is it well with your soul? Because God wants you to be well, he wants me to be well. And it can be well with our souls. Now if you're thinking all those symptoms of brain fog and anxiety, and you know just being overly busy if all this seems very normal. Like everyone I know in church feels like this. Everyone I know in small churches feels like this. I'd like to give a resounding yes, you are correct. Many, many people in small churches think this is normal to over serve to claim the 8020 rule to feel stuck. To Have you committed doing all the work to feel angst and conflict in church meetings. Yes, this is the point I'm making. This normal shouldn't be. This is not reflective of the God that we serve. We should instead be looking more and more like Jesus in our churches. When I think of Jesus, Jesus was calm. Jesus was peaceful, he was relaxed. Jesus felt fulfillment. You see that in the choices that he made. Jesus did not rush he was not anxious. Jesus rested and prayed not out of obligation. Jesus felt connected to his father, Jesus made clear decisions. He didn't feel torn, or operate out of a place of stuckness. Jesus moved and functioned with purpose. Jesus was healthy. It is well with my soul. So what is normal in our churches is not always reflective of what God wants for us, which also is reflected in what he actually wants from us. Normal the word normal, what's normal is so often, like connected with the lowest common denominator of society. Have you ever thought about that? There was a time when marginalizing the poor was normal. There was a time that women and children were treated as property. That was normal. There was a time when slavery and discrimination and selling humans was normal. There was a time when neuro divergence and mental illness was punished and even institutionalized should I go on? Let's just not be normal. Like wouldn't it be cool to create a new normal in our churches and look back on this time on today's time and be able to say, you know, there was a time when serving exhausted and burnt out in the church was normal soak had we're not there anymore. There was a time when power struggles were normal. Yes. Even in the church, can you imagine? There was a time when people at church meetings were unkind. There was a time when people left the church, because they felt more loved outside the church, then inside the church. This is normal today. And it should not be. This is not God's design, let's do better. The Bride of Christ can do better, it starts with you and I. And it doesn't start with more determination or grit or perseverance. It does not start with more programs or better outreach, it starts with better health. This is the foundation of the gospel, even if this feels like a foreign teaching. This episode is about what has become normal behavior in churches, and it is not okay. You cannot serve well if you are not well. And neither can they. Now, if you're on the healthy side of this discussion, and you are not the norm, and you move in health and make great choices, and you have boundaries, and you feel filled and equipped and ready. And well, maybe your purpose listening to this episode is to keep moving in that healthy direction. And to help create a culture of wellness in your church, please do please be the change that we want to see. And at the same time, I also want to make sure that we all know it is not our responsibility to point out other people's unwellness. In fact, if your gut response, as I'm talking, is to use this episode as a weapon to be able to say you are unwell to someone else, that my church needs to hear this that my pastor needs to hear this that our church culture is oppressive. If your gut feeling is that this episode is about them, I just want to ask you to take a breath, a big breath because that feeling alone is a big red flag that God has more for you. being unwell is not an indictment being unwell is not embarrassing or shameful. In fact, Jesus came for us. It's not that healthy that need a doctor. It's the sick being unwell is the opportunity to get the closest to Jesus that you have ever been. Being able to say yes, I need help. Yes, this is not healthy. Yes, I want to be more well. This is your chance, our chance my chance at living and being fully alive. So wherever you're at on this continuum of health, I pray that you would listen to this episode with you in mind that there would be an opportunity for you in here. I want to address the statements hurt people hurt people. Have you heard this, it's all over social media. It pops up all the time. You know, that person is behaving badly because they are hurt and hurt people hurt people. Now I've seen this phrase used as a dismissive statement, like well, they're just hurt people, they're going to do that. I think that's really wrong. I've also seen this used as a reminder to develop empathy, hurt people hurt people, we need to care about those people who hurt us. And I would love to throw another thing into the mix of this phrase. Hurt is not an identity. It's not permanence. I don't think we should be calling people hurt people. People are hurting. Yes, people feel hurt. But we don't need hurt to be our identity or anyone else's identity. And identity is who were created to be God did not create us hurt. identity doesn't change. Hurt can change. How about we have this statement to the mix. Hurting people can heal. So often we use this phrase hurt people hurt people. It's I've never seen anybody use it about themselves. I've always seen it used about other people, right? Well hurt people hurt people. How often do we actually flip that around and and really identify that, hey, we're hurting too. Let me give you some other descriptives of hurting people. If I can add in the church, hurting people tend to try to change other people in the church. Hurting people often blame others for their emotions. How often do we that do that in the church? I'm upset because they didn't volunteer. I'm upset because they didn't show up. Hurting people. Often how hide their hurt, says happen in the church. Yeah, we say we're tougher than at all we can do it. Hurting people carry shame. Yes, in the church, hurting people tend to have terrible boundaries. Yep. That describes us in the church, hurting people continue being hurt we get in a loop in the church, do you see us there? The church is full of people who are hurting. We are the hurting people. We need to take responsibility to pursue our healing. It's not just them that need hurting. It's us. It's me, it's you. We need to be able to identify when we're hurting. When they are hurting, the core volunteers, the over servers, the pastors and their families, the ones who are doing the doing. I'm okay with being a person that Jesus came for. If Jesus came for the sick for the unwell for the people who are hurting, I'm okay being that. In fact, I want it. I hope you do too. All right, did I describe enough the need for this podcast? Let's go ahead and move into some solution. This podcast episode is not long enough to go into all the steps of moving from unwell to well or pursuing healing from our hearts through our hearts. Although I do think the first step of awareness is something we can absolutely do today. We can absolutely become aware that we are part of the unwell hopefully we've got that. Also, there's the awareness that there is something in the church that is unwell, patterns, culture, meeting structures, the way we handle conflict or ignore it. There's a lot of unwell. How do we move toward? Well, I'm gonna give you four steps. One is to educate yourself on ministry health, and personal wellness and health. Hang out with us at small church ministry. We do this a lot. And we will do be doing more of it. Make space for learning about ministry health and personal health and prioritize this. Don't let it get crowded out. listen to podcasts on health and healing. Learn about your own story, how it has looped how it repeats. Don't ignore your past and your history and things that have affected us throughout our lives. Don't live in the dark, don't live in denial. Educate yourself on ministry, health and personal health. I don't just mean teach on it. I mean, educate yourself and let it become part of your soul. The second thing I want to add is find support for you. Move into a place where you are taking care of yourself. Go to a physical doctor, yes, find a counselor Yes. Find a community that enters into this conversation that is not arrogant or proud that keeps no record of wrongs. That trust that perseveres that loves. Find this support that you might not even know it exists. And often it exists outside of your local church, we're going to talk about that in a little bit to the third thing I want to suggest is doing the work of getting well. This is not quick and easy. This is not read a book and do what it says this is work. This is longer term. This is the slow grind. This is about developing better boundaries and practicing that. This is about understanding that sometimes we do need to leave relationships or situations that are destructive for us, maybe for a time, maybe for longer. And this is exactly why educating yourself and finding support comes first. We can't just dive in by ourselves alone. God did not put us on islands alone. He created us to learn and grow and community. But this work of getting well it will change your priorities. It will also change your capacity, possibly lessen it for a time. It will change your relationships. But that work of getting well leads us to a place of freedom and wholeness and health like you've never experienced. So we had educate yourself, find support for yourself do the work of getting well. And the last thing I want to mention in this four steps is as you are taking care of you or perhaps after you've been doing it for a while. Begin to have the conversations, maybe bring them into your church, maybe lead a small group on a certain topic or a book that has meant a lot in your healing. Journey. Now why I say as you are taking care of yourself, or maybe after you've been in it for a while, is because of this. You might find fellow journeyers in your church, people on the same journey with you. But more likely, you will feel alone, at least at first. People really aren't super quick to jump on the bandwagon that yeah, we've got some issues, or we have problems, or I need to look at myself instead of blaming others for how I feel. This is a bit of a lonely journey. But as you journey you will find other people who also feel alone and then you're not alone anymore. But as you bring the conversations into your church culture, don't expect it to be instantly well received. cultural shifts take time. And many of our small church cultures are not really healthy right now. It's difficult to jump on board and admit that we need help. We have a natural instinct to fight against that to be defensive. These are part of our coping skills. Honestly, all the things that have helped us probably survive all the years up until now. We're kind of coming against it. We've actually been taught and trained to blame others for our emotions, to keep our defenses high, to do the work of grit and perseverance, right, which is needed in a healing journey. But to let our defenses down to go there, that is not something that's going to be really popular, at least at first. Sometimes our best choice is to live healthy. With the support that we find, and just model a healthier ministry life. Your journey is going to be your journey, I can share what has helped me and at the same time, there is no one who is you who has walked your journey who has your uniquenesses your beauty and your light. I can recommend books that have been amazing in my journey, like running on empty by Dr. Denise Webb, or forgive for good by Dr. Fred Luskin, or trauma and abuse by Dr. Janine makhana. Hey, or good boundaries and goodbyes by Lisa Turk. Hurst these books have been really meaningful in my journey. But you're probably going to find different books, because our journeys even up till now are different. I'll be putting together a blog post that that kind of go through books that have been meaningful to me on my healing journey, people organizations and podcasts, so watch for that in future blog posts. But before we move on, I do want to just have say a word about counselors. I get emails often that ask for what counselors do you recommend? That's a difficult thing to do with the way that licensing is set up between states and some really can only practice in certain areas. But a word about counselors. I love counseling. All counselors are not the same. And all counseling is not the same. If you have had bad or negative experiences with counselors, you are not alone. My heart goes out to you. And I still encourage you to seek a counselor. If a counselor has left you feeling shame or confusion, that's not a good counselor. Finding counselors isn't just about finding a person that you resonate with or you like there are different modalities, different things counselors are trained in. For me. I've really appreciated story informed counseling EMDR counselors who are trauma informed, there are counselors who specialize in abuse or spiritual abuse or understanding church trauma or internal family systems. There's a lot of good stuff in a lot of this. But educating yourself on what you need and what some of these terms even mean are going to help you find the right counselor for you. I have a really hard time recommending biblical counselors. I'm going on record right now. I don't think I've ever said this publicly before. I have a really hard time recommending biblical counselors or pastors as counselors. Most of them do not have the training that is needed to actually delve deeply into any sort of issues that are holding you back. Many use scripture wrongly or incompletely. Many have caused a lot of issues. If if someone has ever said to you that everything is a spiritual problem, I would like to just tell you to run away because honestly, that's not true. Sin often is a symptom, not the cause. And when we go into a shame spiral that we can't do what we want to be doing, or we're doing things wrong, and we're sinning against God. When that becomes the crux of all of our wrongs. We literally are driving a wedge between God the guy Out of grace, and love and healing. So please be careful of that. Again, we're going to be putting together more blog posts that speak to these resources and things that we recommend things that align with what we're saying in this podcast episode. But the gist is this, God wants you connected to him. We have a Creator God who loves us. And we should be feeling that and living in that. And he wants us healthy and whole, not beating ourselves up with shame or beating our bodies into the ground because we're working too hard. Not spiraling psychologically or mentally, because we really don't even have the understanding of what it is to be healthy. You cannot serve well, if you're not well, we've got to quit pushing past that, to thinking that the more we work, the more we're going to fix everything. Maybe as we've been talking in this episode, you're thinking you're pretty good. And maybe you are. I would like to just bring up the issue of church culture, our contribution to it and our responsibility in it. If you are living in health and you see unhealth in your church, maybe it is not happening to you. We are not just talking about extreme abuse, or emotional abuse even. I just want you to think of unhealthy things in typical churches. overworking, focus on results, achievement over love and grace, guilt, manipulation, meanness, bullying in meetings, Scripture being misused, people who are hurting people and are in positions of power in our churches, constructive criticism that is not constructive but is destructive. These are all examples of church hurt. Now, if you're allergic to the term church hurt, there's nothing mysterious, or even you know, like, mountainous about its church hurt is simply hurt that happens in the context of the church. When hurt happens in the church, it's church hurt, because we associate that with the church that's very typical. It's the same with hurt, that happens in a workplace or that happens on a bus or hurt that happens in your home. Church hurt is simply hurt that happens in the context of our churches, and all of us have that. If the term church hurt feels too extreme to you just change it in your mind to hurt that happens in the context of the church. We see this often. The sad thing is, is we ignore it a lot. I want to say we ignore it as often as we see it. And oftentimes that's true, which is so sad. But we need to quit ignoring it and looking the other way. When you see emotional abuse or bullying or something is not right. To not respond to look away to ignore it is actually heaping on the pain. It's contributing to it. If someone is mean to your husband, your wife, your pastor, your pastor, spouse, to children, to someone sitting in a meeting with you, if someone is demonstrating cruelty, or harshness or condemnation. What are we supposed to do? I'll tell you what we're not supposed to do. We're not supposed to watch it happen and allow it to keep happening over and over again. As a church culture, we have been complicit in this. And we need to stop. We need to speak when we see things that are not loving, joyful. I'm thinking of this fruits of the Spirit, peace and patience and kindness, self control. We need to speak up not an arrogance or disrespect. But we need to offer care to the person being hurt. Yes, we can speak to our leaders we can speak to those doing what we would consider wrong or harm. But we also need to speak to that person who is the target or the unwilling participants and being hurts. We need to start conversations of change. We need to offer solutions and alternatives. And if you don't know what these are, what those are. This is where our education comes in. How can we be healthier? How can we respect our leadership and yet move in health and not allow the normal? The normal unhealthy? How can we do that? Sometimes we need to remove ourselves if we He cannot be healthy in the midst of a situation. We need to take care of ourselves be responsible for ourselves. Now I've got a little fear kind of grip in my heart right now I had some fear as I was planning out this episode, that I might contribute to breaking up a church, or the church, or this episode might cause people to stand up and rush out or make a fuss. Maybe even leave unhealthy places. Or maybe the person that's standing up for good might be forced out of a church or become the target of more unhealth. I find myself sometimes asking what am I doing? Should I be doing this? If there's, if this is even healthy, but how much unhealth is there in that, that I'm even questioning that there should be fear in my heart, that someone in a church would stand up for the weak or for the hurting or for the marginalized? And that that could in any way be wrong? Do you see how my history in the church is even playing out here? There are many, many terribly unhealthy churches out there. And you may be in one. There are many, many terribly unhealthy Jesus followers out there. And we all I think, honestly have been that at some point, and maybe even today, and the call isn't to label the call is to move toward health. The call isn't to say hurt people hurt people, oh, well get out, or marginalize that hurt person. The call is to move toward healing. We cannot serve well, if we are unwell. We can't serve well, if we're not well ourselves. And isn't it so awesome? That Jesus came for us. So here's the hope of moving toward health. Here's what happens as you become well, as you go through the hard work of educating yourself finding support making changes. You're gonna find yourself coming to life in a whole new way. Your habits absolutely will change. healthy boundaries become more natural, your breathing will slow down. You might even catch yourself relaxing or thinking how I feel really calm right now what is that? It is hard work to become well. You may also find a gap widening between you and others that used to hang with or be really tight with. We humans tend to not like change, we like to stay where we are even if it's dysfunctional. So if you feel those, those gaps widening, just know that it's totally normal. You also will awaken in new ways, spiritually, and find a freshness in how you relate to the God of the universe. A new level of abiding that you're like, where did that come from? I had no idea. This is what happens as we become well. I really do hope we change the culture of churches of the modern church culture that we can look back and say, Wow, that used to be normal, to be burnt out and over serve, and have power struggles and conflict to be talked harshly at church that used to be normal. I can't imagine that. Someone asked me not too long ago what my education was how I was qualified to talk about small church ministry. I don't believe they were questioning my worth or my value or anything. But it was just an interesting question to ask and to think, wow, how am I qualified to talk about what I'm talking about to teach what I'm teaching. The best thing I can tell you is this is my journey. I am sharing with you my journey, what I have learned how I have grown and how I have changed. This unwell journey. That's my journey to the books that I've read the counseling I've experienced. Healing is my journey. We've got to quit telling people that they need counseling. If we have never experienced counseling ourselves, we've got to quit telling people that they need to rest more or take a Sabbath when we are not taking care of ourselves. As you heal people may even say See I told you so. I am so glad you're getting better. Finally that person is getting better that's for own good. I knew she was missing something, I knew there was something wrong. And I just want to say, when that happens, that is the clearest example of the whole taking out the log in your own, I don't focus on the healing other people need. Focus on what you need. That scripture has taken on a whole new meaning for me. The more I heal, the less judgmental I am. The more I move forward in wellness, the less concerned I am about everyone else's. I want to serve people. Absolutely. I want to care for people, I want to share my journey with people. But I'm not judging your journey. We truly cannot serve well if we are not well. And you are worth the efforts to be well, not only to get well, but to stay well. It is well with my soul, is it? It is well with my church is it it is well with my ministry is it well. If you struggle with serving, hurt blaming others, if you have increased brain fog, if you feel overwhelmed, and you keep serving, if you need to take a break, and you can't take one or you're feeling more and more like you want to quit. If you notice things in your physical body, you're not sleeping well. Your heart rates not great, maybe your last doctor appointment didn't go so well. And they said take care of yourself. And you came home feeling like I don't have time I don't have the energy, I don't have the support. If you're not enjoying life or feeling fully alive. If you don't feel supported. If you feel stuck with a person in a place in a ministry area, these are all signs that yeah, we're really not well, or maybe we're not moving in that wellness that God has for us pursue your wellness. If you can do this on the side of your ministry while you are serving, that is great. Pursue your wellness as you serve. But if you cannot pursue your wellness as you serve it, it's okay to step back from serving, you may need to lay it down, that might be part of the plan. And if you've noticed things throughout this episode, that point to some unhealth in your church culture. I would ask that you do something about that. Whether it's for your church, whether it is for you. But don't just sit by and watch it. Don't just like be a bystander that sees all of this unhealthy because this is the normal culture. In many, many churches today, let's not be normal. Let's do better. All right, that's a wrap on this very long episode of the small church ministry podcast. We will be dropping links. We've got a lot going on this month with our anniversary celebration and I can't wait to talk to you next week. Next week we're going to talk about loving well, so until then, be alive.