By Alan and Gem Fadling
Advent is a busy season of ministry for most church leaders. It’s a temptation to think, I just need to get through this season. It’s even easier to assume you just don’t have the time to engage in practices that remind you that you are with God and God is with you.
As a young leader, I [Alan] remember hearing Martin Luther’s idea—I have so much to do that I need even more time to pray—and thinking, That sounds really spiritual, but totally impractical. It could work for someone who sits around in a monastery, but not for me. But I’ve come to experience now that dense seasons of church ministry are exactly the times we most need access to the kinds of practices that help us engage and remember we are always in the presence of God. My math brain says, “If I do that, I won’t have time to do what I need to do,” but my Kingdom mind says, “Being more attentive to God will enable me to be present in all the ways that the season of Advent invites me to be.”
As we step into the Advent season, here are a few ways you can prepare yourself.
Change Your Perspective.
It’s easy to begin the season with a sense of overwhelm and a long list of tasks. We’d like to suggest a different perspective on the Advent season. Instead of being crushed under the thought, I have to lead Advent in my church or family again this year. There is so much to do and I hope I survive, what if you could say with integrity, I cannot believe I am privileged to be involved in the work of God in a particular congregation during Advent. Look at all the ways I get to be with God and with people. What an honor. It’s a very different perspective. We have had both of those perspectives in busy seasons and we prefer the latter!
Build in Practices.
In order to best welcome the Lord among us this Advent, it is good to cultivate a posture of receptivity. Here’s where Dallas Willard helps us: It’s the practices we engage prior to intensive seasons, not in the middle of what we do, that cultivates in us a capacity for receptivity. We are not talking about during idealized quiet times at the beginning or end of the day, but a posture we develop right in the middle of the busyness.
If I wake up the first day of Advent and say, “I’m going to be more receptive today,” it might work. But it also might be like deciding to run a 10K when you haven’t been in training. Over time, certain practices enable us to develop a posture of receptivity that we’d find challenging to simply will into existence.
We are in this ongoing apprenticeship, learning not only to do what Jesus does, but how to live as Jesus lived. Spiritual practices help us cultivate the same receptivity to the Father that Jesus both demonstrates and talks about: “I only do what I see the Father doing.” Jesus learned to live in an ongoing dependence on the Spirit. He engaged practices as a human person so that even when a crowd surrounded him, he had an awareness of the Father’s voice and hand at work.
Perhaps you typically engage Morning and Evening Prayer. In a more intensive time, you might consider building in a bit more structure, such as Midday Prayer and/or Compline. The key is to begin engaging these practices as early as possible prior to a busy season.
Watch Your Thoughts.
As Advent begins, it can really help to begin to notice your thoughts. If you find lots of thoughts and feelings of anxiety, stress or overwhelm, it can be helpful to remind yourself that you actually do have all the time you need to accomplish what truly matters. And if you find that you don’t have the time to do what matters, it might be good to assess what you are doing.
A helpful invitation for us this Advent season is to notice what we’re thinking about what we’re doing. You can be peacefully energized by reminding yourself that you do, in fact, have enough time. We can make things more difficult for ourselves by adding shame, guilt, fear or control.
We encourage you to not be a slave to your thoughts about time. If you do feel like you have too much to do, then take time to discern your plans and engagements. Is what you’re doing, in fact, too much? You are free to make choices. A full season of ministry plus added anxiety becomes burdensome. However, a busy season engaged with some inner peace yields better fruit.
Breathe.
Not only in Advent, but in all seasons of ministry, we like to bring to mind the metaphor of breathing. Breathing involves inhaling and exhaling. We exhale heavily as we engage in the activities of our lives, especially the seasonal intensity of the church gathered. We encourage you to inhale just as deeply. What are some practices of receptivity, of inhale? It might be moments when you’re starting your day and enjoying the Book of Common Prayer as a way to be in the presence of God through those historic prayers and rich readings. It could be anything you do in a posture of enjoying the presence of God. It’s easy to let those moments get crowded out during Advent and Christmas seasons.
Fill Your Cup.
Alongside the breathing metaphor, we like the metaphor of the cup. Psalm 23 says, “My cup overflows.” In busy seasons of ministry, you might imagine a cup pouring out and becoming empty. Instead, you can envision the cup remaining upright. God is like a pitcher that is pouring water into the cup so that it has a chance to overflow. Ministry is the extra that flows out of the cup, so you’re not emptying yourself, you’re sharing what God is filling you with. We encourage people to keep their cup upright.
In a season where we may be giving out more than we do in Ordinary Time, the cup metaphor helps us realize we need to be more attentive to how God is pouring into us, so we have sufficient capacity to let the river of living water flow from us. If we’re going to be ministering a great deal, we need to be receiving a great deal. That’s a practical Kingdom reality. If we’re giving more than we have, it’s no mystery at all that we can feel tired and spent.
Engage in Silence and Solitude.
In Advent, one especially enlivening practice for Christian leaders is silence and solitude. We call it “Unhurried Time with God.” What if you could block out half a day, 9 am-12 pm or 1-4 pm on a given day, and go somewhere beautiful like a park, another church’s sanctuary, a museum? This is a receptive, filling time, not necessarily studying anything, or engaging in intercessory prayer. It’s more like inhaling and imagining that your cup is upright. God is pouring and you are being filled. Allow yourselves 3-4 hours of that and then form your own version of the prayer, “Lord, prepare me to wait for you.” Advent can be a personal engagement before the inevitable professional engagement—it’s about you as a person. You can pray, “Lord, prepare me, my mind, my heart, and my body.”
Carve Out Time for Fun.
Going into this intense season, families can carve out some time for fun. This falls into the category of you have all the time you need for the things and people that matter. We’re not talking about lengthening your to-do list, but filling it with life-giving engagements with the people who matter the most to you. In the month of November and once or twice in December, get out and have some fun together and be present with each other, laying aside your work focus during that time. We can be intentional about spiritual practice, and we can also be intentional about enjoying being a parent, friend, neighbor, husband, wife or grandparent.
Learn more about being schedule-busy and soul-unhurried at UnhurriedLiving.com.
C4SO originally published this post in 2019.
Alan Fadling is Founder & President of Unhurried Living. Alan (MDiv) serves as a frequent speaker and consultant with local churches, national organizations and leaders internationally. His content is approachable, usable and transferable. He shows leaders how to get perspective so their leadership flows from a full soul and out of healthy rhythms of rest and work. A trained Spiritual Director, Alan is author of An Unhurried Life (IVP 2013), An Unhurried Leader (IVP 2016), and A Year of Slowing Down (IVP 2022).
Gem Fadling is Founder & Vice President of Unhurried Living. Gem is a founding partner of Unhurried Living, Inc., a non-profit that resources and trains Christian leaders to rest deeper, live fuller, and lead better. A trained spiritual director, retreat speaker, and podcaster, she enjoys serving as a guide, with the intention of helping people encounter God in their very real lives. Gem is the author of What Does Your Soul Love? Eight Questions That Reveal God’s Work in You (IVP 2019) and Hold That Thought: Sorting Through the Voices in Our Heads (IVP 2022).