6 Questions to Better Understand Awareness and Ability
In the last episode of Productive Pastor I listed out 6 questions that help us understand our relationship between our emotional/spiritual life and work. Work is a complicated thing. And work is ministry is even more complicated.
We have this complicated relationship with work as ministry leaders because we are called to a life that embodies self-sacrifice and servanthood. As I talked about in the episode, we often feel the tension between this call AND the desire to find fulfillment and happiness inside of what we do. And this tension isn’t a bad thing, The original call towards “working and keeping” that we find in Genesis 2 is part of understanding purpose.
So this first step is moving beyond this compartmentalization and into a healthy mental relationship with work.
So here are those questions, and a few brief thoughts.
What makes you work well?
For me, I have found the greatest amount of clarity with the Clifton Strengthfinders model. Understanding my natural wiring and how it relates to both personal mental health and a well-rounded understanding of vocational work has been a game changer. Knowing what gives me energy and what parts of my ministry bring out and feed those energizers is one of the most valuable parts of my personal productivity system.
This leads right into the next question.
Are you currently working well and what affects that?
For me, it is about understanding the movement of the day and when I am at my best. In the episode (and tons more in the workbook) I talk about three categories of “work”. But to be honest, we could call them pretty much any activity.
Draining tasks are those that take life away from us. Dealing tasks are those that we are OK with, but aren’t living at our fullest while inside of them. Developing tasks aren’t just us at our best, but where our best is growing.
Where we are as a current average is going to tell the best story about if we are currently working “well” or not. (I could go so much deeper into this).
What can cause a good/bad day?
Do you ever have work triggers? And let’s be honest…the idea can go both ways. Knowing what has the ability to either catapult us into flight or kick us off the deck is a real thing. This is where a journal becomes really helpful. Writing down a few thoughts in the morning and evening about how things went can help you to begin to build out the knowledge of what you can have authority over. And this is usually in direct relationship to your developing tasks AND your application of positive energy.
What parts of ministry are personally fulfilling to you and what is draining?
This is another major part of the awareness game. And I hate to tell you…but there is no way around this. Sometimes we have to do things that are further than just not liking something. As leaders we hold responsibility in our hands. But this doesn’t mean it always stays that way. Once we begin thinking of the draining, dealing, developing framework we can begin to understand how our own personal management as well as organizational management is built up. Why is something draining? What is something fulfilling? Think about the why.
How well are you taking care of yourself?
If you are living deep into a draining cycle it is going to be rough. I say that because draining just doesn’t mean not fun. Draining means a loss of identity. This is where depression and mental health issues begin to kick in. Part of the personal awareness of work means we can exercise agency over ourselves. Dallas Willard referred to the kingdom of God as the “range of our effective will”* and I don’t just believe that as far as missions and such are concerned. If you are made and created to be a specific person with unique and gifted callings…then you are also uniquely able to create the world in which you live. The biggest step forward is to begin drawing boundaries around what drains and defend what develops.
Is your spiritual life where it needs to be?
If your relationship with Jesus is trash, then everything else will be a struggle. In some of the worst and identity-less times of my life, I have also felt the strong presence of the Holy Spirit in my life. Building our personal spiritual life as a primary and initial part of our work will undergird everything with a power that is beyond ourselves. The Spirit can provide a clarity and focus for our entire existence that is beyond human capacity and understanding. If one thing is done to increase “the range of effective will”, start with your spiritual life.
So these 6 questions are just a quick dip into the whole idea of work awareness, but I wanted to go a bit deeper than the brief episode mention.
And stick around for the next episode of the podcast where we will get more into the difference between control and agency and what it means for us to gain clarity through our time and practice.
Do you want more actionable and practical resources to work through content on the first season of Productive Pastor? I’ve created a workbook resource full of actionable questions, worksheets, companion videos and other resources.