Training Session 12
Establishing Healthy Rhythms

OBJECTIVES
  1. To understand the Biblical basis for Sabbath, rest, and how that impacts your relationship with God, yourself, others, and your work.
  2. To develop and practice a plan for your Sabbath day.
  3. To implement Sabbath rhythms into your life on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis.
  4. To organize your work week in a manner that facilitates healthy rhythms.
EQUIPMENT
A notebook for taking notes and access to whatever method you prefer for calendaring.

WORKOUT
Watch the following videos and reflect on the questions.  You will discuss them with your coach.
  • Do you tend to “rest from your work” or “work from your rest”?  How would you describe the rhythm of your life? List a few adjectives. 
  • Look at Exodus 20:2-17 - verse 2 says “you once were slave, now you’re free" and verses 3-17 online how they can stay free. Sabbath is within the Ten Commandments. How might living the Sabbath bring more freedom to your life?  
  • Why would God want to prune things in you that already bear some fruit? Why would He want to cut off things that don’t bear fruit? Why would He want you to rest? What does this say about His character and love for you?
  • You may not think that you have a daily or weekly routine, but whatever your habits are point to the fact that you do. What does your current morning/evening and weekly routine look like? How does each support the concept of Sabbath? How does each impair the concept of Sabbath?
  • What has a Sabbath Day looked like for you traditionally? Is there anything you desire to alter about it?
Now that we've been challenged in the area of establishing a healthy rhythm of work and rest, let's get to the practicals.  How can we create a schedule for ourselves that "gets stuff done" AND maintains a healthy rhtyhm?  Chaudlier "Shep" Shepherd has some great wisdom regarding the "why, how, and what" of schedules.
  • What are your big "whys" and priorities in your schedule?
  • How do you schedule and/or what methods does Shep employ that you want to try?
REPLAY
In Western American culture, we can be prone to feeling success from “getting things done” and working hard. In Scripture, we see that God wove a work/rest rhythm into creation and that rest was actually Adam and Eve’s first experience of God’s great creation. John 15 speaks to this rhythm of Rest leading to Fruitfulness, then full fledged Word peeling back into Pruning so that we will eventually “bear much fruit”.  

Sabbath Rhythms are daily (morning and evening routines), weekly (a Sabbath Day), monthly (a “seek week”), and yearly (restful and fun vacation). Ideas for your Sabbath Day can come from the acronym PRUNE: Pray, Reflect, Unify, Notice, Enjoy.

But how do we practically live healthy rhythms in the day-to-day?  We have to be intentional about it.  You have time for what you make time for.  Creating Task-lists at daily, weekly, quarterly, and annual intervals will help us prioritize.  Fitting those tasks into time-blocks will help us strategize.  Two pro-tips are to always create "white space" or margin within our schedules and to automate everything we can with reminders that enable us to be present with the current task while not neglecting the next one.

PRACTICE
Pick one of the Overtime Experiences below for your practice this week.  You are welcome to do all three if you desire or need it.  For now, choose the one that you believe will be the MOST game-changer for YOU - not just the one that seems easiest.

DEBRIEF
Write a reflection or record a video that demonstrates what you have learned and applied in regards to Establishing Healthy Rhythms in your work and life.  In it, outline which overtime experience you chose.  Turn In below.

OVERTIME
  1.  Experience:  Take time to consider the daily, weekly, monthly, and annual rhythms of your life as Daniel suggested.  This worksheet may help you think through it.
  2. Experience: Truly take a Sabbath day.  This worksheet is provided to help you work through the PRUNE acronym and reflect on the experience if you would like.
  3. Experience: Try what Shep described in his video.  Make your daily, weekly, quarterly and annual task lists, then craft a sample week with timeblocks.  If you'd like to, go ahead and schedule any major events you need to put on your calendar across the upcoming year.
  4. Book: Unhurried Leader - Alan and Gem Fadling are authors and also provide experiences to help you live out an unhurried life of leadership.  Their supporting website also provides further reading, podcasts and even coaching.
  5. Listen: A Better Way - Sermon Series by Craig Groeschel

Debrief Turn In