Running on Full with Mitch Harrison

Summary

In this episode of the Church Talk podcast, hosts Jason Allison and Rob Paterson engage in a heartfelt conversation with Mitch Harrison, a former executive pastor and author of 'Running on Full.' The discussion revolves around the challenges of burnout in ministry, the importance of emotional well-being, and practical strategies for replenishment. Mitch shares his personal journey through burnout and the lessons learned, emphasizing the need for leaders to balance stress with intentional self-care. The conversation introduces the 'Five Rs' framework—Rest, Release, Receive, Recreation, and Relationships—as essential components for maintaining health and vitality in ministry. Listeners are encouraged to develop a personal plan for replenishment and to seek support from trusted individuals.

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Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Excitement for the Guest
03:44 Mitch Harrison's Journey and the Birth of 'Running on Full'
06:46 Understanding Burnout and Depleting Mindsets
12:57 Balancing Stress and Replenishment
18:13 Creating a Personal Replenishment Plan
24:50 Recognizing Early Warning Signs of Fatigue
26:05 The Five Rs Framework for Replenishment
30:28 The Importance of Emotional Release
36:29 Receiving Inspiration and Purpose
42:35 The Role of Recreation and Relationships

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Transcript

Jason Allison (00:01)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Church Talk podcast with Rob and Jason. We are so glad that you took some time today, whatever day this happens to be for you to listen in and man, we're excited. We got a good one today. Rob, you and I have been talking about this for a week now. Well, I've been talking, you've been listening, but it's going to be a good one, isn't it?

Rob Paterson (00:21)
I'm excited. I am excited.

Jason Allison (00:25)
Probably one of the things that got me most excited as I was reading our guest book, he's a golfer. so like, I'm starting to get to the point now where a qualification to be on our podcast, you have to be a golfer because now I have friends all over the country that play golf. So as I travel, I'm going to start just keeping my clubs with me.

Rob Paterson (00:46)
That's, that's a good idea, you know, and it's funny after seven weeks off of golf, cause of my, my hand issue. let's just call it that for a little while. and I finally got clearance that I actually played in a golf outing, last Saturday where our team shot 25 under, which is a whole other story, which was good, but we came in a, like five way tie for fifth, I think is what it was, which is again, unbelievable.

Jason Allison (00:47)
Yeah.

year.

Yeah

Rob Paterson (01:13)
so I, I, I parlayed this into a great story, in my message on Sunday, where we were looking at, first Peter five, six through 10. And one of the verses talks about, you know, like to cast all of our anxiety on Jesus because he cares for us. Right. And, and so I was talking about like, sometimes like we believe this lie that our action is more powerful than God's care in our lives. And, and so I told the story of I had a funeral.

Um, on Saturday morning and then a grave side, and then I had to drop Bethany off my wife, and then I had to run home and change. And then I am like speeding to the golf course and I pull into the parking lot 13 minutes before the tee time. Right. And that, that stresses me out. I want to get there early. I want to be relaxed. I want to feel warmed up. But you know, uh, one of the interesting things is there were five of us on this, this team.

two of which were college golfers, a 19 year old and a 20 year old. You know, these kids are so limber, like their swings look effortless and they hit the ball and it just effortlessly flies 300 yards, you know? I mean, and so my point on Sunday of sharing that was, you know what, if I can actually like cast my anxiety on a 19 and 20 year old and feel like, it doesn't even matter if I hit a good shot,

first few holes they've got me. How much more should all of us really think, man, when Jesus tells us he's got us, like we should buy into that. If I can count on a 19 and 20 year old, I can surely count on Jesus. ⁓ And then I kind of joked about, I can still hit 300 yard drives, but I require chiropractic care after that. And then that afternoon I went out and the front nine was not pretty. We played a Sunday afternoon with some guys from the church.

Jason Allison (02:44)
Yeah.

Hahaha!

Mitch Harrison (02:51)
Yes.

Rob Paterson (02:58)
But on the back nine, I hit a 310 yard drive, a 300 yard drive and like a 290 yard leaker to the right in back to back to back holes. And I'm like,

Jason Allison (03:07)
You still got it. Yeah, yeah.

Rob Paterson (03:09)
So

all that to say is, I'm all in. If we're just gonna switch this to a golf podcast, that could be cool.

Jason Allison (03:16)
Oh, well, I'm not quite ready to do that, but as long as golf is involved, I'm happy. hey, today, though we do. have a guest with us. We have with us Mitch Harrison, who ends up we have like 52 mutual friends that we didn't even know about. But Mitch served as the executive pastor at Cameron Ridge Christian Church out in Vegas for 24 years. Still connected there. He's just no longer the full time executive pastor.

Rob Paterson (03:20)
You

Jason Allison (03:44)
And he just started an organization called Refill Coaching and Consulting. And he's the principal person there. And he, basically helps leaders learn how to run on full. He's been married 30 years, three grown boys, which he raised in Vegas, which I think is impressive. And been in ministry 40 years. know, Mitch, man, I am just honored that you would be here and I'm excited to get into this conversation. How are you doing today?

Rob Paterson (03:54)
Mm.

Mitch Harrison (04:10)
Well, thank you all for having me on. It's gonna be a lot of fun.

Jason Allison (04:12)
Yeah,

yeah. Well, you just well, actually, the book comes out September 2nd, and I think this will drop September 1st. So people may have to be patient and wait one day before they get the book. But the name of the book is running on full and it is you allowed me to see a pre pre-release version of it. And my gosh, I literally consumed it in two days. It was just so amazing. So much good stuff.

and I'm just glad we get to talk about it for a little bit. Maybe let's just start with why did you write the book running on full? You know, what of your story precipitated this book?

Mitch Harrison (04:49)
Sure. Yeah, I never really set out to write a book or anything like that. But, you know, a few years ago, as I really began to explore what God had for me in this next season of life, this issue of pastoral health, staff health, leadership health really came to the surface for me. And the reason that it did was because of my own season of burnout that had happened several years before, where I found myself, you know, veteran of ministry in it for a long time, kind of

you know, flirted with burnout occasionally, like I think many people do along the way. And then all of a sudden I found myself in a season where I just could not recover anymore. You know, I couldn't rally one more time. I couldn't kind of pull myself back up one more time. And realized I was kind of in trouble. know, the good feelings were not coming back. know, the health, the rest, all that stuff was just not coming back.

Rob Paterson (05:25)
Mm.

Mitch Harrison (05:41)
and had to go into kind of an intentional season of recovery from all of that, that so grateful that the people in my church were willing to help. Drew, our lead pastor, was so gracious in providing some things that I could really walk through and learn from and then take some time to rest and come out the back of that. Well, that season, again, really came to the surface a few years after that.

that maybe that's what I ought to be helping people with ⁓ is leaders, especially pastors, sometimes business leaders. I find myself in that arena a lot these days who man really want to do good, but find themselves running out of gas, maybe regularly, maybe finding themselves running out of gas to a point that they don't know how to recover. And I began some work in this. I have a workshop that I put together that I began.

Jason Allison (06:06)
Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (06:27)
sharing with people, sharing with some church staffs around. And it just started to become pretty obvious that this was going to be the work of my life. And that workshop eventually turned into this book in an attempt to try to get this kind of help to leaders that need it as much as I possibly could.

Jason Allison (06:35)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (06:46)
That's so good. Mitch, you know, we were talking a little bit about this beforehand, but I just, hear this all the time, you know, from people I'm running on empty, I'm burned out. And I even like, you know, cause I try to pay attention, you know, to my own soul in this respect. And it's just interesting, you know, like after years and decades of doing the same thing in our case ministry, you you think, well, the, technical skills.

become easier, you know, the more you engage in them and practice them. But there is this sense that things just kind of wear on a person. And I think sometimes, you know, we just get to these places. We're not doing horrible things. We're even trying to have healthy practices. Like you said, you know, you had a couple 90 day sabbaticals kind of leading up to you feeling that way. So you were doing some good things, but you know, we still get to these places. And I think just for our listeners to hear,

Like if you're, if you're experiencing some of these things internally, you know, that's, it doesn't make you a bad person. and, and, know, all of us in some ways flirt with this, get to these places and there's help out there. so I am, I am excited not only to have this conversation, but to really be able to dig into your book, as well. So a question I have, you know, before we talk about like the five Rs, could you just talk a little bit about depleting mindsets and like the ones you identify?

Mitch Harrison (08:07)
Sure, yeah. I think, you you kind of pointed one, is we are engaged in ministry for a long period of time. One of the mindsets that I find that I ran into was, I kind of know how to do this. And so we're just going to kind of go along and yeah, things are going to worry you out, but I kind of know how to do this. I kind of know how to get through all of this. And I found out that you do right up until you don't, you know, you can keep doing that right up until you can't.

Jason Allison (08:22)
Hmm.

Rob Paterson (08:22)
Mm.

Jason Allison (08:33)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (08:33)
⁓

Mitch Harrison (08:36)
And, you know, like I said, I look back, you know, and I had kind of flirted with burnout here and there, I really actually looked back and identified some real cycles that I would go through of dive into the grind, do the work, you know, get it get done, whatever needed to get done, end up pretty wiped out. And then kind of rally myself out of that and then start the whole thing all over again.

And then I just finally got to a point where I just couldn't rally anymore. I couldn't recover anymore. And I think that's really the textbook definition of burnout. When you sum it all together is when you finally wear yourself out enough that you can't recover anymore, you're in trouble. And the problem with that is nobody shows up holding a sign going, Hey, it's going to be this week, you know, like a couple of weeks, you're going to burn out. So get ready. You'll kind of go over the edge. That's never how it happens. You know, it

Jason Allison (09:06)
Hmm.

Mm-mm.

Mitch Harrison (09:30)
It just shows up when it shows up and you find yourself in this place of going, wow, something is really different and something needs to change. And I think at that point, you have a couple of decisions to make about how you're going to deal with that. I think for pastors in particular, there definitely are some mindsets that we have to address in us that might actually

Jason Allison (09:39)
you

Mitch Harrison (09:55)
be the things that talk us, like Andy Stanley has often said, talk us out of things that we really should be talking ourselves into, like getting some rest and taking the time to replenish. And I think the problem with these mindsets is that they are actually our best qualities. So I talk about them in the book. In I a whole chapter on these in the book. I call them adaptive challenges. And I'm not the only one. That thinking comes from some guys at Harvard that did some studies around this.

but they identified the difference between technical problems, which are just fixing technical things, rewiring your house or whatever, as opposed to adaptive challenges that are more human. And the challenges that I think we have are really an overuse of some of our best qualities. So, Rob, you're talking about mindset challenges. For instance, I think

Jason Allison (10:37)
Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (10:42)
being responsible was probably one of my best qualities. It's probably why they were willing to let me be the executive pastor of the church. The problem was that I overused that good quality to my own detriment. And I heard somebody say this way, way back. They said, an unguarded strength is a double weakness.

Jason Allison (11:05)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (11:05)
Mmm.

Mitch Harrison (11:06)
So

Rob Paterson (11:06)
It's so good.

Mitch Harrison (11:08)
if you're prone to this very noble quality of being responsible, you can overuse that and wear yourself out. One of the other ones that I identified was what I call, fact, I call that toxic responsibility, where you were so responsible, it's now become toxic to you. I talk about what I call chronic improvement. The chronic improvers are just the perfectionists among us. They're the ones that

cannot stop improving. A lot of the people that lead worship for you are in this camp. The technicians that work in your churches. Because they have this picture in their head, man, of this song sounding just like this and this moment being just like this. And it's their best quality. Like it's the thing we love. It's why we're paying them. It's like this is the reason we love these people. But when that quality gets overused, it becomes chronic.

Jason Allison (11:35)
Hmm.

Rob Paterson (11:38)
My worship guy is that guy. He is totally that guy.

Jason Allison (11:50)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (11:58)
Meaning, can't stop, I can't control anymore.

Another one is compulsive achievement. Like there is something in us that wants to achieve, and especially when you put kingdom terms on it. Man, we want to achieve for the kingdom. Like we want our churches to grow, we want our people to grow, we want people to experience Christ, we have good numbers and goals and all this stuff that we're supposed to have. But all of a sudden, this achievement is only as good as the next achievement and then the next one and then the next one, and we just can't.

Jason Allison (12:09)
Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (12:27)
get off the cycle of I gotta climb the next hill, I gotta climb the next hill, I gotta climb the next hill. And in church life, man, the next hill is six days away. I mean, it's never more than six days away. Yeah, you preached a good sermon this weekend, load up another one and outdo yourself. You had a great fall season last year, you came up with a great series, you better do a better one than that. It's this constant achievement that gets going and...

Rob Paterson (12:35)
No.

Jason Allison (12:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (12:53)
It's those kind of mindsets. Again, some of our best qualities that get overused to our own detriment and it just becomes this slow burn that eventually turns into a place where you have a very difficult time recovering.

Rob Paterson (12:57)
Mm.

Yeah, man, Mitch, I love how you talk about these things in a hopeful and life giving way, right? It's not like this horrible thing. It's like, these are good qualities, but we've got to guard them. You know, and even like you said at the beginning, I heard, I think it was 14 years ago at exponential Judd Wilhite and his wife were speaking for a breakout talking about relational health. And one of the things he said was he's like, I had this sensation.

Mitch Harrison (13:17)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (13:35)
Like I was literally speeding toward a cliff and for Jesus, and I just knew like my elders were gonna like, hey, slow down or my staff, like somebody was gonna show up and save me and nobody did. So I just like, I've heard that exact same thing that you said so many times and it's again, a helpful caution because we think we're just good until we're not.

Mitch Harrison (14:00)
Yeah. And I think what causes this whole burnout issue, and especially what, Rob, what you referred to is, you kind of get going and then you wake up one day going, man, there has been a toll taken over time. I think it's because of this right here that all of us have to balance the equation of stress and replenishment. So.

Jason Allison (14:14)
Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (14:26)
The amount of stress that I'm experiencing has to be balanced with the kind of replenishment that I'm getting. And it just makes sense to us. I mean, that's not a new concept. think Wayne Cordero talked about that in the book way, way back. We just understand that if you're experiencing a particular kind of stress, especially the kind of stress that the ministry affords to you, then that's gotta be balanced with a kind of replenishment that matches that.

Jason Allison (14:39)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (14:40)
Mm-hmm.

Mitch Harrison (14:55)
You know, it's like having like, I got this cup sitting on my desk here and you know, imagine if this thing had a hole in the bottom of it, we're just draining water out of the bottom of it. If I wanted to keep this cup full, my first reaction would be stop the drain. But you know, ministry, man, there is no such thing as stopping the drain. mean, there's always something that's draining us. There's always something that's demanded of us, always something that's required of us. There's another sermon to preach or another worship service to get ready for, another counseling session.

Jason Allison (15:11)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (15:23)
There's never a stop at the drain. So then what's the option? If I want to keep this 80 % full, or at least I got to fill it up in a way that matches what's coming out the bottom. like I found myself one day, I talked about this in the book, I was running a half marathon through Vegas. Like they do this rock and roll half marathon up and down the strip. You get a run up and down the strip, it's awesome. And I'm chugging along one night feeling great. Hit mile 11.

Jason Allison (15:29)
Fill it as fast. Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (15:51)
And in about the next half mile, I went from feeling so good to feeling so bad. It was unbelievable to me. Like I had to stop. I couldn't run anymore. I thought if I literally thought in my head, if I keep going, I'm going to pass out and you know, they're going to I'm going to wake up in a medical tent someplace, you know. But it was it was because I hadn't eaten enough. Like all this stress and not enough replenishment. And you bomb out and have a marathon about mile 11. At least that's what I did.

Jason Allison (16:10)
Mm.

Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (16:18)
And

that is the exact same equation that happened to me in ministry, that over time, the stress that I was experiencing was not getting matched by the kind of replenishment that I needed. And it was just this slow burn until finally I couldn't recover anymore. And I hear a lot of people these days talking about work-life balance, and that's really kind of entered back into our culture as almost the antidote for the stress that we're experiencing. Just get you some work-life balance. But here's why I...

I think that term maybe doesn't help us as much is I think because of this. I found out one day there is as much stress that comes from a life as ever comes from work. So my wife and I were on this trip and turns out she had breast cancer. Like this was one of the most challenging seasons of ministry for me at Canyon Ridge. It was really rough. And then my wife gets breast cancer. So now where's my stress coming from?

Rob Paterson (17:02)
Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (17:13)
I had more stress coming from my life than I had coming from my work. And so the idea that I just got to balance out the amount of hours at work with the amount of hours in my life, and that'll fix everything, that maybe, you may be waiting on a bus is not coming, if you're hoping that that's the solution. It really is better to think about balancing the stress that you experienced with a kind of replenishment that puts it back in.

Jason Allison (17:15)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Mitch Harrison (17:38)
and meets your depletion in that. And I think that's what we've got to get a handle on if we're going to ever stop that slow grind that you're talking about.

Jason Allison (17:38)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (17:39)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (17:47)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (17:47)
Yeah,

Jason, I'm so sorry. I got to ask another question. I know I'm like hogging this, but you know, as I'm listening to you, I literally, I mean, I just my brain is like, firing because I'm thinking of, there's really no way to mitigate against like the, the, you know, the drain in the ministry cup, there's always going to be something or someone, and then life throws it into. if I'm listening to this right now,

Mitch Harrison (17:51)
You

Rob Paterson (18:13)
I'm thinking probably, okay, so what do I do? Like what do I do in my personal life and my vocational life and everything is just causing all of this stress and need. Like is there even a way to replenish at that level? What do you do in those crazy moments?

Mitch Harrison (18:30)
Yeah, and that's where what I advocate for is that we all have to have a plan. We have to pause for a minute and consider what is it that I need to match the stress and the depletion that I'm feeling, because everybody's is different and everybody is different. And so I think we have to have a way to us build a plan for this. And that's what I wrote about in the book about this

this simple framework that helps each person develop a plan. And one of the things people notice right away when I talk to them about this stuff is, I don't have your plan in mind. I just have a framework to help you build your plan because, again, I know me pretty well. And I'm learning more and more about me all the time about what I need. But what each of us needs is going to be different. And so we each need to stop for a minute and end.

Jason Allison (19:09)
Right.

Mitch Harrison (19:27)
really develop some self-awareness around what is it that actually helps me to fill the tank back up in those kind of moments. Not just what relieves the pain for a minute, but what actually puts fuel back in the tank. And so what I write about in the book is these five things that really become a framework around which we can start to build a plan that helps us to have the kind of replenishment that we need.

Jason Allison (19:51)
Yeah. Sure, yeah, let's let's yeah that because actually before we dive into that really quick, ⁓ how do you measure your tank? Because before you dove into the ours in the book, you kind of talked about this idea of, you know, magic, it's like you illustrate a car. You know, you can see when the tank is full. The problem with the car. And I thought this was really insightful. The problem with the car is it runs great.

Mitch Harrison (19:51)
So is this a good time? You guys want to talk about these five things right now or how do you want to this? Yeah.

Okay.

Jason Allison (20:20)
until it's out of gas and then it just dies. But we operate differently. As our fuel levels deplete, we actually get less and less effective and less and less efficient even in what we do. So for you, how do you suggest people measure their own tank? And then let's talk about the ways to refuel.

Mitch Harrison (20:39)
Yeah, absolutely. I think the best thing we can do is to just pause for a minute and ask ourselves, what am I like when I am at my best? Think about what you feel like on your best day. You wake up rested. Maybe you just came back from a great vacation. Man, you feel the presence of God close to you. You feel like you're hitting on all, you got wind in your sails.

What are the kind of qualities that start to show up in your life when you're at that point? So for me, I identified for me, it was pretty easy. When I am joyful and peaceful and when I am a little more outgoing than I am introverted, I tend to kind of walk the line between an introvert and extrovert, but mostly I'm introverted. But when I'm tired, I withdraw.

Jason Allison (21:19)
Thank

Hmm.

Mitch Harrison (21:27)
And I can, to the point that I can even isolate. But man, when there's fuel in the tank, when my energy's good, I'm like, I like chatting people up. I like talking, I like interacting and all that. So, but when I am joyful and when I am peaceful and when I am outgoing, those are the three things that describe me at my best. And when I can develop an emotional muscle memory around that, that I know what that feels like. I remember moments when I have felt like that.

That right there becomes a guide for me so that I can begin using that to correct course the minute I see myself wobbling off of that. I think sometimes, and then I say this with a huge amount of compassion because again, I have been in the trenches with you where it's almost hard to look back and go, when was the last time I actually woke up feeling good? When was the last time I woke up and didn't feel the heaviness on me? The last time I woke up and

Jason Allison (22:00)
Mm.

Rob Paterson (22:07)
Mm.

Jason Allison (22:18)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (22:18)
Mm.

Mitch Harrison (22:24)
didn't feel the anxiety that creeps up. And so I really think we gotta take some time and go back and really dig that back out and go, wow, when was that? And re-experience that again and just remind ourselves that is exactly the abundant life that Jesus meant for us to have. That is exactly a life full of the spirit that demonstrates that in love and joy and peace and patience. In fact, I said to somebody one time, said, you know what I realized?

Jason Allison (22:38)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Mitch Harrison (22:52)
Nobody has ever accused me of being joyful and peaceful.

Jason Allison (22:57)
Hahaha

Rob Paterson (22:58)
Ugh.

Mitch Harrison (22:59)
Like that just wasn't characteristic of me. Maybe creative, maybe productive, maybe all the world's other good leadership words, but nobody would ever accuse me of being joyful and peaceful. And that's like two and three on the top nine list of things we should be when the spirit is filling our life, right? And it was convicting to me. And so I just started wondering, what would it be if that was what characterized me? If people said, man, Mitch, when I'm around you, I...

Jason Allison (23:02)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (23:02)
Mm.

Jason Allison (23:16)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (23:16)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jason Allison (23:24)
Mm, that's good.

Rob Paterson (23:25)
Mm.

Mitch Harrison (23:28)
I just sense a real peacefulness around you. When I'm around you, there's just this lighthearted joy that comes naturally from you. You are out here and about people. You're not all twisted up and knotted up around your own axle. So identifying that, and I call that our true north, because it becomes this guide for us that says, how can I build a plan to get to that? What kind of plan would get me in that direction?

Jason Allison (23:34)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Mitch Harrison (23:55)
that would cause me to be more joyful, that would cause me to be more at peace, that would cause me to be more outgoing, to feel like I have the energy for other people. And then you start building a plan in that direction. And then I would say on the opposite side of that, you start to ask yourself this question, like, what are the things that start to show up in me first when I first start to get depleted? So then you ask, you know, well, maybe when I'm getting depleted, gosh, I notice like for me, I get easily irritated.

Rob Paterson (24:06)
Mm.

Jason Allison (24:16)
Hmm.

Mitch Harrison (24:23)
about stuff. And I started giving myself a little bit of grace. like, you know what, maybe me being irritated is not as much a character problem as it is a fatigue problem. If I just run myself into the ground so much, I'm not a bad guy. I'm just a tired guy. And my fatigue shows up as irritation. Now, you you can't let that go too long. And maybe we do have some stuff we got to work on. We all do. But I started realizing maybe a lot of my irritation is because I'm tired. And so

Jason Allison (24:32)
Yeah.

Mm.

Rob Paterson (24:40)
Mm.

Jason Allison (24:48)
Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (24:50)
So irritation is one of my early warning signs. One of my other ones is, call it like a phantom anxiety. Like I wake up and I'm not sure what I'm anxious about, but I got the butterflies going somehow. And I'm pretty sure I forgot something. I'm pretty sure I missed something. I'm pretty sure there's something I was supposed to get done today and I didn't get it done. It's that phantom anxiety. And I started realizing,

Jason Allison (24:54)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

Mitch Harrison (25:14)
That's another symptom of my fatigue. And so...

Jason Allison (25:15)
Yeah, that's good. I know. I was like, wait a minute. I know we have a lot of mutual friends, but have they been talking about me? Because...

Rob Paterson (25:16)
Mmm. Yeah, it's like he's reading our mail.

Jason, when Mitch was given the picture of what he feels like when he's firing on all cylinders, I don't know if it sounded like this to you, but what it sounded like to me was when he's on the golf course with you and I, that is his perfect picture of health.

Mitch Harrison (25:26)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (25:39)
Yes, so that means we need to take care of that, right?

Mitch Harrison (25:39)
Yes.

I'm

Rob Paterson (25:42)
we

really do need to pay attention. That's part of the plan.

Mitch Harrison (25:42)
sure we definitely need to go. Golf is on my plan too, like I'm just saying.

Jason Allison (25:45)
Well, yes, it is.

Yeah. OK, I want to I will skip that for another day because I do want to talk about the over over replenishing. But let's let's get it before we run out of time. Let's get into the to the five hours because that is the plan. Right. What does that what does that mean? Talk a little bit about that.

Mitch Harrison (25:58)
Yes.

Yeah, right.

Yeah. So these five Rs really are just a framework. And, you know, I had to make them all start with the same letter, you know, to prove that the Holy Spirit guided me in this, you know, know how this works. ⁓ But really, it's just a plan to get me more of my true north and less of my early warning signs. Right. And so it starts with the first one, which is rest. The obvious one. We got to get some rest. It's amazing how many people argue with me about this, that they think they can just work all the time. And I'm like,

Jason Allison (26:12)
Right, exactly.

Rob Paterson (26:13)
Amen.

Mitch Harrison (26:32)
You know, I really think you probably should think about the fact that your body automatically knocks you unconscious and renders you completely incapacitated for some period of time every single day. It's called sleep. That should tell us something about our need for rest when your body involuntarily knocks you unconscious, right? And so all of us need some rest every once in a while.

Jason Allison (26:56)
Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (27:00)
I think the problem is we don't really know what rest is, what helps us to feel rested. And there's all kinds of things that we could think of that help us to feel rested. Like if I said, hey, hey, fellas, take a couple of days, go get some rest. Like we might immediately get going golfing or going for a hike or going sitting at the beach or doing lots of things. But all of those things have one thing in common, and it's this, they are not work.

Jason Allison (27:26)
Hmm.

Mitch Harrison (27:27)
And I, I realized, wow, Mitch, that's brilliant, right? Rest is about not working. Like you spend all day working that one out. But here's what, here's what I mean by that. That we need time regularly that we set aside our work. And the problem we have most of time in the ministry is our work is not out here with like a shovel, you know, or a hammer. Our work is in here and our work is in here. And we need to take time to pause from that work.

Jason Allison (27:49)
Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (27:53)
It's what the Sabbath principle is all about, that we hand that off to God, let God run the world for a while, and we take time to not work. And so what I suggest is this, to set up a plan for rest that allows you periods of time to call your no work zones. So daily, weekly, monthly, periodic, every three or four months, and annually.

Jason Allison (27:57)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (27:57)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (28:11)
Mm.

Mitch Harrison (28:19)
When in those periods of time do you set aside blocks of time to not work? So here's an example. A daily time to not work are your sleep hours. Do you have set sleep hours? Do you have a plan for when your sleep hours are going to be? For me, 10 PM to 6 AM are my sleep hours. Now, I travel all over the country. Last week I was in Miami. Tomorrow I'm heading to a

Jason Allison (28:29)
Mm-hmm.

Mitch Harrison (28:42)
Colorado Springs, mean, I'm all over, I live in the Pacific time zone. I mean, I'm all over the place time zone wise. I don't care. Whatever the time it says on my watch, when 10 o'clock comes around, everything goes off. I start shutting my computer down, my phone down. I shut myself down. I turn the lights down. I cool the room off, the volume. Like I'll do all the wrong stuff. Like I'll watch TV a little bit laying in bed, know, stuff like that. I do all the stuff they tell you not to do. But it's all in an attempt to start calming the system down.

Jason Allison (28:54)
Hmm.

Mitch Harrison (29:11)
to shut the system down to sleep, to not work. And so 10 PM to 6 AM is a no work zone for me. It's my sleep hours. Weekly, again, my schedule is weird. Many of us, right, we work on the weekends. So we don't have a regular, but when are your periods of time for no work so that you can have a finish line and then a gap and then a starting line? So.

Jason Allison (29:22)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (29:24)
Mm-hmm.

Mitch Harrison (29:34)
Sunday afternoon, is it a no work zone for you? After all the work of the ministry's done on Sunday morning, services are put to bed, if that's your church's schedule. Is Sunday afternoon a no work zone, where you give yourself full permission to not work and to rest and to begin to build a mindset that I can set aside work, trust it to God, and just rest? ⁓ So this plan includes

Jason Allison (29:57)
Hmm.

Mitch Harrison (30:02)
periods of time that we rest and you've got to have some. Vacation should be a no work zone annually, right? I take a monthly day away from my office and it's funny because my office is at my house now but I still go away from my office and go find a day to not work and to do some things that help me to rest my mind, to set it all aside, to let God run the world for a minute and for me to just get the rest that I need.

Jason Allison (30:06)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm.

Mitch Harrison (30:28)
So rest is about periods of time to not work and setting those up. Into those you'll put other things. The second R is what I call release. And this is what we were talking about earlier. When we get to set down and unpack the emotional baggage that we tend to accumulate in the ministry, particularly around the emotions of sadness, fear, anger, and disgust.

Jason Allison (30:32)
Yeah. Right.

Mitch Harrison (30:53)
Those are four of our six core emotions. joy is one of the other ones. Joy is the emotion that makes us lighter. Joy is the feeling. In fact, all these psychologists and real smart people have identified, scientific people have identified joy is our primary emotion and it makes us lighter. But those four make us heavier. They're not negative, they're just heavy when we're sad.

Jason Allison (31:16)
Hmm.

Mitch Harrison (31:18)
about something. I think about the sadness that we experience in the ministry when somebody comes up and said, I just lost my husband of 60 years, or my kid walked out in the street and got hit by car, or my husband's wrapped in addiction, or like we just feel the sadness. We carry the sadness of those things. We carry the anger when things happen that shouldn't happen that way. And we just get, these are God given emotions. They're just heavy and we've got to be able to set them down appropriately. So I call that

Jason Allison (31:24)
Right.

Rob Paterson (31:33)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (31:41)
down.

Mitch Harrison (31:45)
discipline release. And when do we make time for a plan of things that we might need daily? Maybe we need them weekly. Maybe we need a monthly, but times to unpack those emotions. And I would say this, there are two things that the Bible says we need to do to release these emotions appropriately. One of them is to cast what Rob Dickey mentioned earlier, cast our cares on God. And the second is bear one another's burdens.

Jason Allison (32:10)
Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (32:11)
Those are the two things that the New Testament tells us to do with emotionally heavy stuff is to cast them on God and to share burdens with one another. So my question would be, what is your plan for doing that? Like daily, is there a time in your daily time with God where you are letting go of the burdens that yesterday brought to you and appropriately handing those to God? Are there times every week that you meet with a group of trusted people that you can say anything you want to? I met with one of my guys last night for dinner and

Jason Allison (32:25)
Mm.

Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (32:39)
unpacked some things with my friend and he is sharing some burdens ⁓ with me. Is there maybe a time monthly where you sit down maybe with a journal or something? And like I do this once a month on this day away that I do, where I just get my journal out and I ask myself my early warning questions. What's made you irritated or anxious this month? And I just write and write and write and because of that phantom anxiety thing, you know, I just need to get clear. And that helps me to...

Jason Allison (32:42)
Yeah. Yeah.

haha

Yep. Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (33:08)
to unpack those things. So what is your plan on a daily, weekly, monthly, periodic, or annual basis? Again, won't need stuff in all of that, but you may need some really well-placed things. Like I do an annual check-in with my counselor every year. I make four hours worth of appointments with him. I do this big personal inventory that you can get. I look up a thing called the Great Annual Examine. And it's spelled, examine, spelled a little differently, but maybe you've heard of it. Great Annual Examine, you'll find it. And.

I use that as an annual inventory and then I go unpack for four hours with my counselor. I make four appointments all together and I unpack with him every year to make sure I'm not smuggling baggage from last year into next year. So that's release. We need to do that. We need rhythms and we need habits around release. What is your plan so that you can set the heavy emotional things down appropriately, give them to God, give them to somebody else to carry with you ⁓ so that you can be your true North, right?

Jason Allison (33:48)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I don't want to belabor this too much because I want to get through all of them. But this idea of having someone that you can talk to, mean, obviously counselors, professionals, those are great. But I mean, there's a reason, you know, Rob and I have a constant text change, you know, chain going. There's a reason, you know, that I know at any time if I call him, he's going to pick up and vice versa. And because we've shared ministry long enough that, you know, we understand each other. And so

Mitch Harrison (34:20)
That's so good.

Jason Allison (34:32)
I just, that is so invaluable. And I just know too many pastors that don't have that. And it's because they don't look for it because they don't think they need it.

Rob Paterson (34:35)
Mm.

Mitch Harrison (34:42)
You

gotta have it. And that's the thing. You gotta go find those people. They probably will not just show up. I think you gotta go and look and cultivate those kind of relationships for sure.

Rob Paterson (34:51)
Yeah. And I think that's why counselors can be really helpful. But I also like Jason, you just talked about, you know, and I would say one of the things that makes this work for you and I is we have enough trust that, and I'll just use it like I'll say extreme words and I know it's, you know, some, maybe some of our clergy friends, you know, like, no, that's, but like, listen, if you called me or I called you and I said, or you said, I just killed someone and I need help bearing in the body, there would be no judgment.

and there would likely be help. know, like, and we just need one or two people in our lives. even if we, I mean, I've just heard so many stories of people in ministry. They're just like, they're struggling with a sin, an issue, an addiction, whatever. And they go to someone they're like, because they want to get better. They want to be free from this and they share this and then they're crucified and it reinforces there are no safe people and there are no safe places. So I've either got to figure this out.

or maybe it's gonna kill me and that's not helpful or healthy in any way.

Jason Allison (35:50)
Yeah, yeah. All right, so.

Mitch Harrison (35:51)
Yeah, I say it this

way. I need someone to say everything to. I gotta have somebody that I can say everything to, you know. And frankly, my wife and I even have had this conversation where she's like, there's some things I don't wanna know. Like stuff that happens at the church with some of these people, she's like, I gotta be their friend. Man, I gotta show up like I don't know anything and just be, you know, just be great to them. So she said, you don't have to tell me all that stuff, but you probably should be telling somebody. And I think.

Rob Paterson (35:56)
Yeah, yes.

Jason Allison (35:56)
Yes, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep. That's right.

Yes.

Yes.

Mitch Harrison (36:20)
That's the thing. We need to tell somebody everything, right? Yeah, anyways, sorry. So yeah.

Jason Allison (36:23)
Yeah, yeah. No, no, I interrupted.

So we did rest and release. Let's go with the third R, receive.

Mitch Harrison (36:29)
Yeah,

yeah, the third one is so critical. It may be the most critical one for us in the ministry. And that's, I call this receive, obviously, because we all need regular habits and withers where we are just receiving from God. We are receiving the good that God has for us. But I want to point to something very specific about this one. I think in particular, and especially for us in the ministry, I think it's true for everybody, but I think it's especially true for us in the ministry.

We need time set aside specifically to receive again our calling from God. We need to get back in touch with the calling, with the purpose that God has buried in each of us, the meaningful contribution that each one of us make. And I think what that means is finding places of inspiration, finding those places that re-inspire us about our particular calling.

And here's the difficult thing about finding inspiration. Most of the time it finds us. Like when I was a kid, me and some of my buddies went and saw Rocky, you know, for the first time. You guys remember, and you heard that music and dude, we came busting out of the theater as little kids. We're trying to do one arm pushups and we're trying to, you know, run all the time. We're trying to be Rocky, you know? In fact, our moms are like, hey, what happened to all my eggs? And we were like, mom, we drank them. You know, cause we were doing stupid stuff.

Rob Paterson (37:28)
Mm.

Jason Allison (37:28)
Right.

Right.

Ha

Mitch Harrison (37:51)
because we got inspired, know, inspiration found us that day. And what I'm saying to us is we need to go find it. We need to put ourself in a place where God can re-stir the fire of passion that we have for ministry all over again. We all know that man, this right here, like it is the nail in the last nail in the coffin when our sense of calling and purpose and mission.

Rob Paterson (37:51)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (37:52)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (38:00)
Mm.

Mitch Harrison (38:19)
you know, the fire of that goes out. We're done. That's what has caused 40 % of pastors to want to leave the ministry in the last several years, right? It's because they're like, the difficulty of ministry and of life in general over the last several years has beat the living purpose out of a lot of us. And we have to go find places to keep that fire.

to keep that fire burning hot. We have to do stuff to put logs on that fire, to go find the fuel for that fire again. And man, this one's hard. I mean, to find good places like that, conferences that we would go to and things like that. That's what those conferences are for. And we talk about them as mountain top experiences and camp. In the ministry, we can get jaded because we're like, I've been to so many of those things. Listen, maybe we ought to find

Rob Paterson (38:53)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (39:08)
Yep.

Mitch Harrison (39:12)
a renewed reason to go back to those places, to go in and drink from the well of God's purpose and finding our purpose again and again and again and again, because that fire needs fuel. Man, the fire of our passion needs fuel. And I'm telling you, if it goes out, you might be done. So where are the places daily, weekly, monthly, periodic, annual, that you are going to intentionally to get

Jason Allison (39:24)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Mitch Harrison (39:39)
that fire of passion to receive again the calling from God. And that's why I call it receiving. Sometimes we just need to sit and receive from God again what he has in mind for us and to let him restir that passion inside of each of us. This puts fuel in the tank. The first two stop the drain. This is what puts fuel in the tank. ⁓ So receive, critical one for us to have. We cannot ignore it.

Jason Allison (39:49)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Mm-hmm. That's good.

Mitch Harrison (40:05)
And then the last two are pretty easy. Recreation, i.e. golf fellas. I mean, that's right. That's all that stuff that's fun for us to do. then, right? man. And then relationships. Who are the life-giving people that we love to get with? And both of those are tough, man, because recreation, it seems, it feels like an enormous waste of time.

Rob Paterson (40:14)
Hey, what are you guys doing tomorrow?

Jason Allison (40:15)
Hahaha

Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (40:29)
because we're just out having fun. And honestly, I used to ask this question in the workshop and I didn't really know why I was like, why we needed to have fun. And I'd ask people, just prod them, why do need to have fun? It's weird. This is a weird human condition that we need to have fun. Cause if you're thinking of it, like if you think about evolution, you know, which, you know, whatever you want to think about that, but that's a terrible evolutionary quality. You start goofing around and you get eaten by a dinosaur, man. mean, that it'll, that's not, you know.

Jason Allison (40:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (40:55)
So why is it baked into us that we seem to need to have fun? And then I asked this guy, he's one of these very philosophical guys, and he said this, fun drags us into the present.

Jason Allison (41:07)
Mm, that's good.

Mitch Harrison (41:08)
He said,

you've never had fun except when you were fully present. And that's what recreation does for it. It takes us away from work and it takes us into a captivating moment that we can only be present in. do what you'll go to the beach, go golf and go. What you'll find is when you go, man, this is so good. You're not thinking about anything else except that. You are in the present. And that's where God meant for you to be, to find moments of enjoyment.

Rob Paterson (41:12)
Mm.

Mitch Harrison (41:36)
in your life and you know to know that God gives us full like if you read the end of what is it first Timothy you know six where he's talking about giving and tell rich people to you know to be rich and good deeds and all this kind of stuff and he says he says this in the midst of this whole thing about finances for God gave us everything for our and I was waiting for him to say for our provision because he was talking about finances God gave us everything for our what's the word Rob enjoyment enjoyment

Rob Paterson (42:01)
Enjoyment, is it? Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (42:05)
He gave us all this stuff for us to enjoy. And yet, you we go blow and pass it all the time because we're at work in our mind instead of present in the moment in God's creation or present in the moment with these friends. So recreation and relationship, we need regular rhythms with the places and the things that cause us great enjoyment and the people that we love being with that just refill our tank just by being with them. So those five things rest.

Jason Allison (42:34)
Yeah.

Mitch Harrison (42:35)
Release, the emotional release, receiving, again, they're calling our purpose, recreation and relationships. You start to build your own personal plan around those five things. And then you take that plan and put it on your calendar before you put anything else on your calendar. Before you put the depleting stuff on your calendar, put that in your calendar and make sure you have a plan. Here's how it all fits together. Have a plan of those five things.

that allows me to balance stress with the kind of replenishment that I need so that I can be my true north all or most of the time. That's the goal.

Rob Paterson (43:10)
That's awesome.

Mitch, we're out of time, but I just got to ask this question. If there's someone listening to this podcast right now and they're like, well, I'm going to get the book, you know, and we want you to get the book and we're getting the book and all that sort of stuff. you know, and, but they're like, I am hanging on by a thread. I feel like I'm done. Like I love the five Rs, but I don't know if I have enough energy to even write those down and think about them.

I mean, if you were just given one word of encouragement, one word of hope, like one step that somebody could take in kind of that moment of desperation, like what would you tell them?

Mitch Harrison (43:43)
I would really say this find one or two life-giving things in the next seven days and Put them on your calendar Like maybe it's just a lunch with a dear friend Find one or two life. Maybe it's just get up and just take a walk around your neighborhood You know walk down that trail by your house or whatever it is

Do one or two life-giving things. Put it on the calendar for this week and then put it on the calendar for next week and then put it on the calendar the week after that too. And start a rhythm of just simple things like that to begin to reclaim some time for God to begin to refill your time.

Jason Allison (44:20)
That's so good. Well, I can tell you right now I'm probably stealing several things for the sermon that I have to give this Sunday in ⁓ Virginia. But no, I really appreciate it. I cannot recommend this enough. And I'm already working on ways we can get this to the pastors that we serve in our network that we're part of, as well as just

Mitch Harrison (44:27)
Steal away,

Jason Allison (44:42)
know, the church talk podcast followers, like we want to help them. I, this is gonna, this could be life giving in so many ways. So I'm Mitch, I'm sorry, you had to go through what you did to get here, but man, am I glad you did. ⁓

Mitch Harrison (44:58)
Well, thanks.

And, you know, it really has become a labor of love these days. I mean, there are so many good people, especially, and I would say this, so much is made of large churches these days and what large church is doing. I'm telling you, small church ministry is harder, way harder than, than mega church ministry, because you don't have the numbers of people around. You don't have the resources. There's limited places to go for

for the kind of replenishment that we often need. And I think it's harder to find replenishment and more stress and depletion is put on people ministering in churches of 1,500 or less. And my brother was in small church ministry for a long, long time and just watching the workload that was on him. I have such a heart for pastors who are in places where they are just gutting it out, and doing the work every week. And so maybe grab...

you know, a couple things from this that you can put in place because God loves you as much as he loves those people you're working with. He has good for you as much as he has good through you to the people you're working with.

Jason Allison (45:55)
you

that's great. Well, to all our listeners, we'll put links and everything in the show notes or reach out to us and we're happy to connect you with these resources. We appreciate you and we'd love for you to take a minute and share this podcast and subscribe to it so that you can get amazing people like Mitch right into your feed every week.

Rob and I are just honored that we get the chance to do this and we love you and we are so happy we get to serve you and we are praying for you and we are cheering for you. Have an amazing week. We'll talk to you soon.