1. Make time for a personal spiritual retreat.
Get away to someplace nearby for 48 hours to recharge your energy, pray, study the Scripture, and practice spiritual disciplines that are most meaningful to your own growth in God. You may have a great retreat center nearby. Or simply jump on a Web site like www.priceline.com (use www.biddingfortravel.com to find out what to bid) and grab a place where you can get quiet with God and seek God.
2. Develop a mentoring relationship.
Don’t Miss
Sometimes, dips in our own ministry are a result of not pouring out into a meaningful relationship. Prayerfully consider whose life God may be calling you to invest in and pour into. Who can you help raise up as a leader and passionate lover of Jesus in the next generation? As you develop this relationship and become a voice of encouragement, you’ll be amazed at how this person becomes a voice of encouragement in your own life.
3. Talk to the people on the margins.
It’s easy to learn to brace yourself for the self-appointed critics in the church—those individuals who will tell you when you weren’t on your A-game in teaching, who will inform you of the typo in the church bulletin, who will remind you that the service went 8 minutes over for the second week in a row. We need these people in our lives and churches to keep us on our A-game, but to prevent a ministry dip, we also need to seek out those who will never say anything at all but rather disappear without ever saying a word. Often, these people have insights and the ability to forecast what others are still trying to find the words to express. Listen to the people on the margins and invite their helpful feedback.
