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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Introduction and Background
04:37 Principle #1 - Self Awareness
05:54 Personality Profiles
14:08 Refueling Strategies
17:54 Get a Hobby Out of Church
19:47 Be Aware of Seasons
25:03 Balance over Time - Grading Principle
30:06 The Walk, Sprint, Rest Explained
33:21 Find your True Unplug - Sabbath
34:32 Maximizing Vacation Days

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TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01.178)
Well, what's up everyone? Here I am with my friend Derry, who we're just, what were we doing? Like last week we were like counting it out. We've known each other now like nine years, I think it is, which is, that's actually like a weird number to say. That makes me feel old. And I don't think of myself as old, but I think I am now. So Derry, how you doing this morning, bro?

Derry (00:23.319)
I'm good. You're not old. You're like my youngest brother old does that make sense? I can't be I could be your uncle, but ultimately

Nick Clason (00:27.654)
Sure, I'll take it. Yeah, so give us like a 30 second flyover, like who are you, in, know, what qualifies you to talk about this topic today of burnout?

Derry (00:43.758)
I am a youth pastor at heart that served in traditional youth ministry in a youth pastor role for 26 years, 23 of those at one church, three at another. And now I work with ministry leaders as a whole, but really it's all next gen people is where my heart is. And that's what I do through an organization called Standing Stone Ministry and run that in a lot of different formats. And it's all free, confidential, all about coaching, consultation and care.

And why I can talk about this is because I've had incredible victories in it and deep, massive failures when it comes to, I think, avoiding burnout in a lot of places, but also coming face to face with burnout, because it sneaks up on us. And so I can speak from both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, which is an old ABC-wide world of sports thing. If you've never seen it, watch the YouTube clip. It's amazing.

Nick Clason (01:37.946)
Well, I'll listen, I'll just say, for those of you who are like, you know, later on in maybe your youth ministry career and you're trying to create like coaching and cohorts, like Derry is the guy that is throwing a wrench into all of your plans because, I'll just plug like the youth ministry leader cohort, which is incredible value, which people would pay typically thousands of dollars to be a part of your offering now for somehow free. And I don't know how you're doing it.

but I've been a part of it, I've helped facilitate one. I mean, it's awesome. So there's your plug and that's at least a step in this whole burnout deal. So.

Derry (02:10.958)
Yeah. Thanks, man.

Absolutely, it's huge. how we do it, you just said part of it, because there's some amazing people that do it where by payment is friendship. And then there's a group of people and organizations that believe in this stuff. They love the church and they love the next generation, and they are footing the bill for us to do this. And I hope that alone brings hope to this youth ministry world. Like we just sometimes feel like, you know, everybody's against us. And it is, there's parts that are lot against us. There are people that are

Nick Clason (02:23.982)
Hahaha

Nick Clason (02:29.988)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick Clason (02:35.27)
Which is really cool.

Derry (02:45.95)
So no, they just so know the value. They're either paying it forward from their youth ministry experience, they just recognize that the church and the hope of the church is found in this next generation, and so why not invest in the people investing in them? so, yeah, that's how we do it, but also it's just a reminder to anybody listening to this. Because if you're watching this and you're thinking you're burnt out, part of it is I just, don't make a difference and nobody sees what I'm doing. No, that's seen.

Nick Clason (02:48.998)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (02:59.302)
Yeah, it's good.

Nick Clason (03:07.056)
Hmm, that's good. Well, so Derry has like kind of like a three step sort of framework or little outline, I guess, of what we're gonna kind of walk through today. So what, Derry, take us through like step number one of this whole burnout conversation, where does someone start?

Derry (03:24.942)
Yeah, yeah, think, you know, it's so hard because burnout comes in so many forms. I mean, there's I'm just way overworked burnout. There's I'm not fulfilled burnout. There's relational burnout, which I don't think I'm to be able to hit that one a lot, but that's big, you know, and that's that's a little bit different. And then there's just like I'm in the wrong kind of work burnout, you know. So so it goes all these different ways. So ultimately, I was just thinking like you said, how do I? And I would say here's how I either have burnout.

or in the midst of burnout, caught it and recognize and put in practices, not so much to get out of it to avoid it the next time. Because I have burnout multiple times, you know? And so people are like, yeah, you lasted 23 years. OK, so three things. they're not like steps, but just like I guess I'd go principles and then some ways I do it. The first, I think, a key to avoiding burnout is self-awareness. I mean, it's just a simple thing. It's self-awareness because we're all wired in different ways.

Nick Clason (04:02.021)
you

Nick Clason (04:10.576)
Okay.

Nick Clason (04:16.39)
Hmm.

Derry (04:21.326)
that we will find our fuel, we'll find our exhaustion, we'll find ourselves caught up in our head and we'll refuel in different ways. And so that's a big one and I'll give you three pieces inside of self-awareness and you can stop me and ask me along in this. I would say the first one that I would throw out is your personality and your working genius is what I throw out. There's profiles out there that help you just learn.

what, like who you are. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't, they're, they're profiles, right? They're not, they're not like, I got really tired of the Enneagram when it hit because I, I was into the disc profile. Others are Myers and Briggs, Myers Briggs. And I got annoyed with the Enneagram because people were like, this is the answer to everything. I never forget. sat in this like a millennial group and a person said, Enneagram is like a color wheel. And I was like, you just basically said this thing.

Nick Clason (04:52.592)
Like who you are, how you work, how you recharge, all that, yeah.

Nick Clason (05:02.726)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (05:15.206)
Ha

Derry (05:20.856)
can say whatever you want. Like there is a reality of that, but no, like there is absolutely wiring inside of it. So I don't care what it is, if you take it and it resonates with you, pause and say, okay, if I am a personality that comes alive when I'm helping people versus I'm a personality and it's behind the scenes and I don't want credit versus I do want to be out front. Well, then when you're aware in that and you're catching that, you recognize.

Nick Clason (05:22.435)
You

Nick Clason (05:39.942)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (05:48.854)
man, I gotta find myself over toward the work that's gonna bring life to me. And if I'm living too much over, and those profiles help you a lot with that.

Nick Clason (05:55.43)
Well, and then conversely, right? Like how you rest too, right? In that, so even like, like I'm a task type person. Like I'm an Enneagram one, my wife is an Enneagram two, so she likes to help people. So like she recharges a lot through like relationships where like I not quite as much. And so even within our own like marriage and relationship, understanding like a thing that might bring her life might drain me, you know? And so we kind of need to know even how to strike the balance like within that too.

Derry (05:58.772)
Exactly right.

Mm-hmm.

Derry (06:23.822)
Yeah, and Nick, for those that are married, personality stuff and I'll talk about the working genius in a second, awesome to do with your spouse because let's be honest, when they're out of whack, if our spouse is not in a good space and they're burning out, it burns us out too. And it's not their fault. It's actually maybe we gotta take the responsibility to go, am I aware enough?

Nick Clason (06:29.902)
Yeah, yeah.

Nick Clason (06:41.826)
Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah.

Derry (06:47.586)
I'm telling you, man, I've dove into the working genius side a whole lot more. We're getting ready to learn more on some personality profile stuff, my wife and I to help people. But it makes sense, right? Like the love language talk, you're going to tend to express love in the way you want it. But if that's not somebody's love language, they might not receive it to the level you think they can. so so so that it is just big. So personality profiles really good. If you aren't aware of this thing called working genius, it's a lot like if you've ever heard of strength Clifton strength finder. It's a similar thing, but it's a work.

productivity tool. wish it was called like working energizing or working joys because genius can throw you off. The idea is there's these six different parts to work and all of us come alive in two parts to it. It might not be step one. It might be or step one and step two. It might be step one and step five. So it mixes all around, but we come alive into, we can get by into and we die into meaning

Nick Clason (07:18.8)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (07:29.082)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (07:37.914)
Mm.

Nick Clason (07:45.636)
Yeah.

Derry (07:46.146)
There's two of them that like when we're in it, we're like, we're Captain America. I could do it all day. So like work, if you're a creative person that then loves to track down the creatives, your invention to nasty. I don't know anybody like that. Yeah.

Nick Clason (07:50.288)
You

Nick Clason (07:55.738)
Give us yours, like what are you, like what, talk about a project that you're Captain America in, like you could do all day, and then talk about a type of project that like you can't, you don't wanna do, or you wanna hand off, or you just wanna like, you know, be done, cause it's the worst.

Derry (08:01.026)
Yeah. Yep.

Derry (08:06.658)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let me help you with it even. Because I think there's that way to do it. There's also just the, it's every work involves all six of these steps. And so it's also an awareness of if I have to do this from beginning and end, when I'm aware of that, I can do that. But also you're usually working in a team. So there's wonder, which is you love pondering the possibilities. There's invention where you're the, me a blank whiteboard and I come up with ideas. There's discernment where I'm processing through.

Nick Clason (08:15.696)
Yeah.

Derry (08:34.926)
what ideas have merit, where there's themes, and just kind of catching what goes on. There's galvanizing, where it's like the cheer everybody, bring everybody together and go, let's go for this. It's the rally cry person. A lot of youth pastors are galvanizing geniuses, because they love to rally the group together. It's that, like the greatest accomplishment is we're all excited, don't know what we're doing, but we're all, no. No, but that's galvanizing. Then there's enablement, not the best name for it, but that's where you want to come alongside.

Nick Clason (08:50.923)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Derry (09:03.926)
and help whatever the vision is happen. Also, youth pastors are enablement geniuses, especially if they last a while, because you're often having to fulfill the mission of the greater church and then come alongside. you're the moment when they go, we're looking for volunteers to help with. you might not, you just go, would love to, yes, thank you, let me do this. And then there's tenacity. And that's like the hit the deadline, nail the detail stuff, right? So my genius is invention and discernment.

Nick Clason (09:08.251)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (09:13.638)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (09:20.132)
Yeah, let's the youth pastor. Yeah.

Nick Clason (09:28.87)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (09:33.154)
give me a blank whiteboard or a brainstorm session and I come alive. Because not only like you present and the second, they call it the genius, competency and your frustration. So my genius is invention and discernment. They are back to back. My competency is wonder. So I don't mind pondering the questions and galvanizing is my other competency. So I can rally the team together. But I'm at my greatest on service, like semester planning.

Nick Clason (09:45.168)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (09:53.062)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (10:02.85)
When we would do that in my team, it was the greatest day in the world because that was our time where we were going to brainstorm. We were going to identify possibilities of what we could do. We were going to try to see how the Holy Spirit would bring together all these ideas we put up on the whiteboard and find the themes and go, there's a series. Here's the scripture we're going to come out of, or here's the scripture we're going to start with. But here's how we can flesh this out for students. Here's this new idea we have on something. I mean, like you can see me like talking about, right? And then.

Nick Clason (10:28.996)
Yeah, but as someone that is like tenacity, like a whiteboard meeting's great, but I feel like I'm losing a day's worth of work.

Derry (10:36.052)
Exactly right, right? So that's the key in this thing is because there's that part for you where your genius is dying when you're in that one spot because you want to get to it. But then there's also your frustration that when you get into that portion. So my assistant for years, best assistant in the world because she was amazing and she wasn't an assistant. She was like a co-pastor. She just loved the behind the scenes and getting things done.

Nick Clason (10:41.83)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (10:59.974)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (11:03.138)
Okay, I wish we had a map, but wonder, invention, discernment, galvanizing. Remember, that's all the beginning of the work. And I am either good to go or fully alive in that. And then my frustration is actually the enablement piece of being delegated out to me, especially if it's not my idea. kind of like, gosh, don't call on me to do it. It sounds so selfish, but I get it, I'll do it, but it kills me. And then finish the project. So my big joke I tell people all the time is I'm amazing at starting things.

Nick Clason (11:09.296)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (11:23.078)
No, I get it.

Derry (11:32.846)
period.

Nick Clason (11:33.476)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (11:35.278)
Um, but she was enabled into nasty genius. So she's dying in these brainstorm meetings. I'm frustrated in part because like, why aren't you excited about this? And she's like, just tell me what to do and I'll do it. And then, and then she's coming back to me and going, give me the details. like, I just gave you the big vision. I, know, I don't want to get in your way. Well, that's because I don't want people to get in my way, but we, we also found ways to work together. So that's team side. Personally, here's why this is so important in burnout. They've done a ton of study on the thing, like 2 million assessments and

Nick Clason (11:39.366)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (11:45.83)
Mm.

Nick Clason (12:03.334)
Hmm.

Derry (12:04.738)
Remember, there's three areas. There's the place you're a genius where you come alive fully. There's then your frustration, the one where it's like, just get me out of here. Then there's like, yeah. Then there's your competency, where you're actually good at it. People affirm you, you know you're good at it. But the trick is over time, it loses its fulfillment. That's where people burn out. Because if you're not aware of that's like my competency space, and I'm hitting resistance again and again on that, or

Nick Clason (12:11.802)
Yeah, you know you hate it, don't wanna do it, yeah.

Nick Clason (12:18.438)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (12:23.108)
Hmm. Hmm.

Derry (12:33.518)
I'm living all my tasks. For me, I was in a place where I needed to galvanize in the midst of COVID, a team that wasn't all together on stuff and didn't have a ton of trust in me yet. And I burn out. I burn out inside. I was at a church for three years. Remember, I was at the other one for 23 years. And this is not the fault of anyone. In fact, I think the Lord led me toward it, but a piece that happened that if I could go back over again, I would go.

Nick Clason (12:45.466)
Yeah, you were pretty new at your role. Yeah.

Nick Clason (12:51.429)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (12:59.938)
Who's the galvanizer on my team that I'm gonna go to and say, I need you when it comes time to bring us all together. I wanna work on our relationship so you can trust me, I can trust you, and I need you to step up and galvanize and help me out. So the awareness in that is huge. And I know we dove into that a little bit more. Anybody wants to know more about that, I actually am. I got a certification and facilitation for that. I will be happy to like, you the first five people that.

reach out to me that watch this. I'll do a free assessment and a free debrief for you because there's something to be learned in this. Yeah.

Nick Clason (13:34.33)
That's huge value too, so yeah. We'll link stuff down below in the show notes. can reach out to Dairy for sure. So let's talk about how you then, how do you refuel? How do you refuel in your self-awareness piece of this?

Derry (13:39.352)
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So.

Derry (13:46.636)
Yeah. Yeah, this is really good. Yep, yeah, and I think the biggest one, and this is just simply being aware, are you an introvert and an extrovert or an ambervert? You know, and I don't even know if that's scientific. I haven't done a lot of study on it. It's just the ultimate question is what really refuels you when you need to unplug, which we'll talk about un plugging a little bit, but in the moments of unplug, when work needs just be shut off, what is it that actually refuels you? Not what

Nick Clason (13:57.52)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (14:04.805)
Yeah, yeah.

Derry (14:16.46)
What do you, what you do to cope or just zone out? You know, cause people are like, yeah, doom scrolling video games, you know, for some people, man, it is, I just sitting by myself or I, our buddy, Josh Griffin, he is an extrovert off the charts. People refuel him. And I remember he loved online gaming. So video games, it wasn't about the video games that refueled him. was plenty, but he loved video games too, but he was playing with others.

Nick Clason (14:21.712)
Doom scroll and eat pie.

Derry (14:44.59)
I don't even know. I'm saying video games that shows how lame I am in that world. I am a creative in nature. love I love like try and I love like seeing creative and trying to pull themes from it. So movies are a great thing, but I'm also I I love people, but I actually refuel when I'm on my own. And so for me, a long there's a long season, the dumbest thing that I think this would help people. So if that's the reality, I kind of refuel on my own, creative things.

Nick Clason (14:47.366)
You

Nick Clason (15:04.806)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (15:14.168)
I'll give you two moments where I'm most greatly refilled that you go, that's stupid. Why would you do that? One was I would weekly on Thursdays pick a movie that had been out for about two or three weeks and go to a local movie theater that I knew it had like daytime matinee times. And this was before kids. And I would try to go to the movie. And my greatest accomplishment was when I got to sit in the movie theater all by myself and watch that movie. Like that was my goal. Yeah.

Nick Clason (15:29.412)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (15:38.71)
You create like a little bingo card of it. Like, you know, how many times do I get to go to this movie by myself?

Derry (15:43.884)
Right? Yeah. And it was weird. It was like this one. was just really cool when I said when I would get to that point, because I was just sitting there. It was also a little sense of accomplishment with it. What was really awkward is a lot of old ladies like to go watch movies at that time, too. So it often end up with me and two old ladies in the same studio. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And a lot of old ladies really like action movies. That's another thing. So but that was just that to me, like

Nick Clason (16:00.634)
Which who knew, right? But now you do because that was your goal.

Nick Clason (16:06.886)
You

Derry (16:12.334)
A joke. mean, my wife would laugh at me. People would go, you don't do them movies by yourself. I'm like, I do. You know, I could watch them at my house and do the same. But there was something about that. The other one was for my 40th birthday, you and I both are Disney lovers. And I think I helped you fall in love with Disney. I apologize to your bank account for that. But for my 40th birthday, we spent a lot of time going to Disney World. I was going out to California to a DYM event. And Janelle said, hey, for your birthday, if you're interested, treat yourself to a couple of days at Disneyland.

Nick Clason (16:24.858)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (16:29.346)
Yeah, I need it.

Derry (16:42.378)
And so I did, I flew out early and I spent a full day and then a half day at Disneyland all by myself. Nick is so dumb. I was walking through the Magic Kingdom purposely wearing headphones so nobody would talk to me and I started crying because I realized it was the first time in a long time where I was just on my own at nobody else's agenda. I didn't have to worry about anybody else's agenda.

Nick Clason (16:59.206)
You

Mm.

Derry (17:10.862)
Now that's partly because I was in the season where I was leading team. had little kids. My main role was helping others. Yeah. Yep. And so, so I needed a refuel in a creative space. Like that's what I For me, it's not about the rides. It's the design. It's the creativity. It's the brilliance of a guy like Walt Disney that the single lives on. And so I got it there. So, so that's for me, how I refuel. That's not going to be the same for you. That's not going to be the same for somebody else that's listening. Another person's like, I need to join a book club.

Nick Clason (17:16.474)
A lot of people vying for your, just your attention, yeah.

Nick Clason (17:28.166)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Derry (17:40.718)
because I love reading, but I love talking with people about it. Others, might, you whatever it might be.

Nick Clason (17:44.634)
But I think within that though, right, like one thing that's really key for youth pastors, I would say, is like try to find that community or if you do need like people to recharge, like try to find that, but try to find it in like a lane of like a hobby and not like by being a part of a church small group. You know what I mean? Or like where you're around church people and you still have to sort of like lean back into your role, like find something that truly genuinely like allows you to

Derry (18:00.141)
Yes.

Derry (18:04.492)
Yeah. Yep.

Derry (18:13.742)
That's good, Nick. That's good. You even got me just thinking out loud right now of that moment. I'm sure there's many couples that have set together and said, man, I'm just burned out by this place and we need to find fellowship. And then the next thought is we need to find fellowship in here because that will make us fall back in love with place. And that might be true, but it also might be the greatest mistake you could make is actually, no, we need to find community by going and joining a gaming like board game group.

Nick Clason (18:14.318)
separate.

Derry (18:43.022)
or forming a board game group with people, maybe a couple people from the church, but outside the church, but we make it really clear upfront, this is not sponsored by our church whatsoever. Or if you're feeling a level of burnout because you're always leading, what's the thing you can go join that's a group where nobody even knows that you're the leader? Because you walk into your church, and I did it, part of some awesome small groups, but the minute a big theological question came up, or a question about the church, even though I wasn't leading the group, where did all the eyes go? Boom.

Nick Clason (19:01.55)
Yeah, you're not the leader.

Nick Clason (19:11.11)
All eyes on you. Yep. Yep.

Derry (19:12.588)
You know, so yeah, that's right on. like there's a lot of layers we could take that. How do I refuel introvert extrovert? What brings life to you? What type of seasons you're in? I mean, I just thought about this. was telling you part of that Disneyland moment was I needed a space because I was on so many on the demand of so many people. And my wife and I just hit this. She's heading down to Florida with a good friend because she's been in five years of just just always being there for others.

Nick Clason (19:30.576)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (19:38.969)
on. Yeah.

Derry (19:39.864)
So even our vacations, she's still on, she's gotta be mama. And I'm like, babe, you are gonna go and it is treat yourself, you know? So there we go. that's self-awareness is key, personality. And then let me give one last one. We can do this one really quick, but it's important. If you've been in ministry for a while, be aware of the seasons that hit extra hard and the seasons that you just come alive in. And if that's the case, then you wanna be aware of it. So like there's season, like we have seasons.

Nick Clason (19:42.726)
100%, yep.

Nick Clason (19:46.95)
haha

Derry (20:09.006)
that will hit literally in the calendar. If I were to talk to somebody who's been in ministry five or six years or longer and say, tell me some of the toughest times you've gone through. And we were to list out like 15 of them. I guarantee you will notice something that it hit in a certain month or right after a certain event or just in a fall time. I was talking with a counselor who works in the same church I worked in. My season was February, March. And I think a lot of youth pastors do that. February.

Nick Clason (20:11.044)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (20:19.866)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (20:29.03)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (20:38.86)
And March is like halfway through this year. Students are kind of like in the doldrums of things, especially in where I live. I'm in the Midwest where the official colors of February and March are brown or gray. And so there's that piece.

Nick Clason (20:53.144)
And it's just a long, I've learned too, from a youth ministry standpoint, it's a long stretch of nothing. Like the fall, you get to like come back from summer, but it's a quick, honestly, two to three months sprint until the holidays. And that's exciting. But then you come back in January and there's really nothing until like, know, Easter, but that's not for us. That's not for youth pastors.

Derry (21:07.788)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's not January. Yeah. January is kind of the joy of getting back together, kicking off here and then it hits. And I just would love for you, you pastors, think about the times where you had to like do an intervention on a suicide, a call to Child Protective Services because of something that came up in the group or a really weird situation where you're like, gosh, that was heavy.

and ask yourself, how many times did it fall right in that time? I would like literally tell my team guys, it's February. Once you'd be ready for an extra late night coming up somewhere, cause we're to have to sort through something. Now that, now the counselor that I was working with, he talked about how October was his time, which I love October around here. It's beautiful for him. The trick is it's like, he's in a lot of adult ministry stuff. Groups get kicked off. It's like, he's going, going, going, going. And then it's done. And it's just like a crash time. And so he just hits really, really hard. So

Nick Clason (21:45.083)
Mm.

Nick Clason (21:52.026)
Hmm. Yeah.

Nick Clason (21:58.906)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Derry (22:06.926)
The fellow youth pastor with me who was very like contemplative in nature it was right after summer camp and right there's like this short gap between summer camp and starting for the fall where he would just like struggle and want to quit. So it's different for all of us and I just would say be when you're aware of that one just the awareness alone helps you go. I'm not burning out right now. I'm just in a tough season.

Nick Clason (22:14.18)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (22:22.118)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (22:31.734)
Mmm. Mmm.

Derry (22:34.698)
Also, maybe this is the time where I need to book a vacation or get away, you know, so there's that. So be aware of those areas.

Nick Clason (22:38.316)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, when we lived in the Midwest, we were like, we gotta get outta here in January, February, March. Especially March, because March, when we lived in Chicago, March was like fake spring. It tricks you and you're like, it's spring now, but no, it's not, still in the 30s, it's still in the 40s, and it's still very gray. And you're like, dang, it never switches to spring until really like May. And so that's where we were like, we need to,

Derry (22:47.544)
Yep. Yeah.

Derry (22:52.718)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (23:07.746)
What we would always do, we weren't good at getting in front of it, is during that time, that's when we would book a vacation. And then we'd book it for like September when it's like beautiful. like...

Derry (23:14.498)
Yeah, right. Good.

Yeah, but the anticipation of that and that's probably somewhat inside of how do you refuel? I also refuel on the planning of the vacation almost as much as going on it. And so, yeah, yeah, right, right. So yeah, that's good. And I'm officially lobbying for a fifth season and the season is called Blah. It runs from February up until either Easter or spring break. It's one of those two.

Nick Clason (23:21.84)
For sure.

Nick Clason (23:26.47)
Hmm, especially if you're a Disney person that you gotta like you gotta get nerdy about it. So Yeah

Derry (23:43.842)
The mascot's a leprechaun that's angry, kicking a groundhog. I've got colors, I've got the general, I mean, like, I think we should do it. Name it that and call it what it is.

Nick Clason (23:50.596)
Listen.

We already have it. you, yeah, it's not on the calendar technically, but like it's already there for real. like consider it done. The club is formed. You have your season. Yeah.

Derry (23:58.53)
Yep. Yeah.

There we go. We did it. We did it. Okay, so there we go. That's all I, but that's all inside self-aware for me is know your personality, working genius, recognize how you refuel and then pay attention to where the seasons hit. And we didn't hit it, but where do you come alive and be aware of those times and make sure you're capitalizing on those times in what you come alive with.

Nick Clason (24:08.282)
You gotta know. Yep.

Nick Clason (24:16.262)
Mm.

Nick Clason (24:21.348)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, okay, so all self-awareness, like the piece of like burning out into your point, like as people in ministry and maybe even families, like you have a lot of responsibility. And so it almost sometimes feels like even selfish to consider who am I, understanding yourself, where do I come alive, and what do, like this question, what do I need, right? And so part of that burnout piece is like being bold enough

to declare what you really need in order to stay healthy. And so, all that being said, that's step one. What's step two?

Derry (24:53.422)
Mm-hmm. You're still the right...

Derry (24:59.118)
Yeah, yeah. in that, and then I'll go right into step two out of that. Give yourself permission to speak up for yourself with this mantra in your head. A burnout me is not a successful me. And so you go, man, I can't do that. And grit, yeah, dang it, grit yourself through. There's some of us that are being lazy. We're giving this as excuses. We're saying, need more time off. And it's on us. But also recognize, there's a legit.

Nick Clason (25:11.951)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (25:19.184)
For sure.

Nick Clason (25:22.886)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (25:27.15)
breaking point at times that can happen in some of the stuff. so advocating to say like, hey, I need to schedule a little lighter during this time. I need to... Okay. So with that, that leads great into the next part is recognizing that balance is something you find over time, not in the moment. Yeah. know, balance gets used a lot. am I in balance? And yeah, work-life balance.

Nick Clason (25:34.586)
Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that, which is so good.

Nick Clason (25:45.84)
Hmm. Flush that out.

Work-life balance.

Derry (25:55.086)
You know is just like I got it I can't I feel so out of balance and I was feeling that for so long and I remember I was sitting with a in a network valuable that also helps you avoid burnout I was sitting in a network and a guy that been a little longer the topic is balance He goes I've just learned balance is a pipe dream. It's a pipe dream I'm never gonna get it and I was like Balaan. That's ridiculous now. He unfortunately didn't Yeah, he didn't He didn't really flesh it out over time. I'm like

Nick Clason (26:13.478)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (26:17.798)
You're like watch this I'm gonna get balance

Derry (26:25.314)
But I started thinking through it and I was talking to with my mentor and he said, I agree with him if you're looking at it on a day by day basis. The real question is how do I find balance over time? We're gonna probably, like today, my day will be out of balance when it comes to time with my kids because they're at school and it's church tonight and we all head off to our different spaces. But Saturday,

Nick Clason (26:46.886)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (26:50.54)
areas,

Derry (26:54.112)
As it sits right now, my daughter has a musical that I'm gonna go, she's three days with a musical for a middle school musical. We've learned. Whole family's going Friday. I'm going Saturday. Wife's going Sunday. Now people that might wanna get mad at me, she's like prop crew. I'm only gonna see her foot once. So Saturday is a ton of family time. But I'm not gonna work at all. That's out of balance, right? My work home life in Saturday.

Nick Clason (27:13.626)
Yeah

Nick Clason (27:20.304)
Yeah.

Derry (27:22.316)
So the whole idea is what does it look like over time? And two tools that I would just say I've learned. One was I taught it to myself. The other was a really brilliant man with wonderful calves named Josh Griffin. I was talking to him right at the time he was finishing up at, what's that one? Saddleback, yeah. I don't know if you ever heard of it. Small church out in California.

Nick Clason (27:40.537)
Ever heard of it? Yeah.

Derry (27:43.88)
And he was also starting up DYM, student leadership conference was running like crazy. He was traveling around and doing stuff. And he had like four kids all in like, I got to be on. And I just said, dude, how do you do it? You know, like how in the world do you work this whole balance of stuff? And he goes, no, not great. And then he said, but what I've learned to do is I'm constantly grading myself in those categories. I'm just constantly giving myself a grade. I stop, I pause, I reflect, you know, so saddle back.

Nick Clason (27:54.224)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (28:06.374)
Hmm.

Derry (28:13.774)
How am I right now? know what? Camp just finished up A minus. Like I've given them my best and I feel like I'm crushing it there. How am I doing on the DYM world? You know what? It's a B minus, but the reality is we're in summer and a lot of stuff can go on autopilot there. So that's totally fine. How am I on my own soul? Man, I'm really good. I'm gonna live. I'm gonna give that an A because I got great times with Jesus at camp.

Nick Clason (28:17.67)
Mm.

Nick Clason (28:32.869)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (28:43.726)
He didn't tell me this. I'm making this up, but this would be like I could see this be like he didn't tell me these grades, but but then he said, you know, but man, my wife and my kids, I'm going to see minus. And so that's now time where I need to shift over there. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And he said, and that's that's the recognition. And I recognize, you know what? I can go ahead and let Saddleback get down to a BB minus right now. I can I can continue to. Yeah, right.

Nick Clason (28:49.114)
Bye bye.

Nick Clason (28:54.982)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (28:58.914)
There's self-awareness, right? Like that goes back to that first step there.

Nick Clason (29:10.758)
Yeah, my job's safe. Not getting fired.

Derry (29:13.74)
Yeah, and let me tell you that like youth pastor, not every not every program has to be an A. There are times where it's OK for it to be a C. I know that's hard and you might have your bosses tell you otherwise. Well, I'm telling you it's OK. It's going to happen.

Nick Clason (29:26.852)
Yeah, we talk about all the time the principle of good enough. it's like, we've been having this conversation with some of our residents and say, hey, listen, I appreciate how much time you're pouring into message prep, but it's taking away from the other things that we need you to do and that you're really also very good at as well. so like make this message be, or for the love of all that is good, just use co-leader, which is already like better than anything you and I are gonna come up with.

Derry (29:43.97)
Yep. Yep.

Derry (29:51.362)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Nick Clason (29:54.062)
Just use it, because sadly the kids aren't gonna remember it. so fudge so that you can give yourself other places. I love that principle, because you gotta find that, like you said, you gotta find that balance over time. You gotta.

Derry (30:03.363)
Yeah, yeah.

Derry (30:08.846)
Yeah, yeah. So it's yeah, as you're grading, sometimes it's, oh, this grades low and I got to get it back up. Other times it's this grades low and that's really OK. Like we have misapplied. I don't get it wrong, but that Colossians passage about whatever you do, do it all for the glory of the Lord, that that that doing it for the glory of Lord equals one hundred and fifty percent. And I absolutely would say, no, that's actually not to the glory of the Lord. You're burning yourself out. And if I give one hundred and fifty percent to make an announcement video where I spend 30 hours turning it into like, you know,

Nick Clason (30:13.144)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Derry (30:38.67)
MCU movie trailer quality. I was actually wasn't to the glory of the Lord. That was actually to the glory of me or to the glory. And it was a loss that I could have been spending that time with students listening to their struggles and praying and you know, so I think that's really important in it. So there's that grading thing. This is the other one. This one has been huge for me. I we joked about it. I do have a podcast that set dormant forever. And I did a whole episode on this principle. And it's the idea of

Nick Clason (30:43.609)
Hmm.

Interesting.

Nick Clason (30:53.808)
Mm.

Nick Clason (31:07.654)
Yeah, we'll link it. We'll link it. What's it? 2018 when it aired? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Derry (31:10.874)
It. 2018, 2019, but it is one of my favorite episodes I've ever done, to be really honest, because it just walks through this idea is simply walk, sprint, rest, understanding that that I need to have seasons of all three of those in my own life. And also in my actual ministry flow. And what do I mean by that? I think most of us live with the idea of it's sprint rest more times than not, or if we're lazy.

Nick Clason (31:20.422)
Mm.

Nick Clason (31:25.702)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (31:37.499)
Hmm.

Derry (31:38.978)
We do walk and then rest. But what do I mean by sprint? Sprint is when it's all hands on deck. I'm not gonna fit inside of the 36, 50 hours or whatever that are expected of me. It's gonna be more than that. And it's worth it. Summer camp for me, I recognize that was the time where I got the full group together. We would build vision and we'd do a mission strip before that and something after it. That was a sprint time. Like right around October in our ministry, was outreach season.

Nick Clason (31:42.278)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (31:50.95)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (32:08.203)
be able to just have our kids grab ahold of evangelism. And so it was worthy of the extra time. And so that was like that sprint and it needed my best efforts and the ministry needed my best efforts. But then there's also times like where it stop and ask, wait, do we just need to walk right now? And this is almost going back to this is okay if we're at B level or C level here. And in my ministry, December was that time. We would shut down, we would like,

Nick Clason (32:33.701)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (32:37.006)
December leading into Christmas. We would shut down the ministry pretty much at Christmas, so that was even rest. You the only thing I had to do was show up to Christmas Eve. But in December, we recognized like, man, if we just hand things over to small groups, that we're gonna crush it, and that takes less planning for us. Like all we have to do is just make sure we've set up small groups well. And so, and we didn't add, like I remember we were wanting to add a fall retreat, and we couldn't find a November, we started to move it to December, and I was like, no, nope, no, that, we were gonna walk in December. We're not gonna throw one more thing in.

Nick Clason (32:38.406)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (33:06.19)
And then, and what's crazy, now recognize this, that is a walk season for me. And then my worship pastor, total sprint season, right? But June and summer camps, almost like a rest season for him, right? So, so it's, it's, it's different. So being aware of that, looking at your calendar and even like marking it out and just knowing like, Hey, if there's a sprint season, sometimes it might be, it might be two weeks. It might be six to eight weeks. Now, if they're all like six to eight weeks and you don't see it.

Nick Clason (33:13.902)
Exactly, yeah.

Nick Clason (33:19.206)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (33:30.363)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (33:34.19)
But this is the idea, like, I think we get into this idea, sprint, rest, sprint, rest, sprint, rest. I don't think we're resting. We're sprinting and then we're crashing. Rest actually involves rejuvenating. And then if we're sprinting and then we say we're resting, but all we're doing is walking, we're not taking any time off, then we're in trouble. So finding those things where those come into play and remembering the seasons. So if it's a season where it gets really, really rough, I might personally...

need to get the ministry at a walk pace so I can hand it over and I can truly rest and go take a vacation. Honestly, sometimes during a sprint season in the ministry, if you get there long enough, you might actually be able to, again, rest some. I got to the point where I planned some of my vacations over that October time because I had residents that would run without reach, they got the vision, and we'd get away. And it was really, really good for me. again, that grading system and that walk sprint rest system were huge and have been huge for me in helping learn.

Nick Clason (34:06.714)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (34:20.272)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (34:32.152)
to avoid burnout.

Nick Clason (34:34.256)
So then that's, so step one, be self-aware. Step two, aim for balance over time using those two things, walk, sprint, rest, and the grading system. So then your third one, how do you do, how do you manage and avoid burnout? What's this last piece here?

Derry (34:51.406)
Yeah, Yeah, and this is where the rest part is key is finding my true unplug. That's the way the principle is the idea of find my true unplug. Rest is unplugging, especially, let's just look at it from ministry, unplugging from the church and the ministry so that I can truly rest or in that rest invest into my soul, my family. And two things for me that are big, and I'll be honest, the one,

I'm learning more now over the last couple years that I didn't do well in my ministry life. And that Sabbath, understanding the principle of Sabbath, if you've not read or listened to anything from John Mark Comer on just the idea of the ruthless elimination of hurry and the difference between a day off and Sabbath, there's some great principles in there to hit and what it means to truly just stop, to stop and find joy in the day.

Nick Clason (35:36.507)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (35:49.986)
been rediscovering that dude and it's wild and that's a lot more for me that I need that. With the recognition of my family. But the one that has people would ask me all the time. How'd you last 23 years at one church? And I'd say all the time. This is not the reason, but it's the number one thing that I think gets missed so often. And it was huge for us as vacationing. We are in a small town at a very large church that

Nick Clason (36:14.694)
Hmm.

Derry (36:18.498)
that just goes, I loved and still love youth mystery. And so I can't stop thinking about it. It's on my mind all the time everywhere I'm going. And so the ability to truly unplug from the church, I needed to get away. And so my wife and I learned, yeah.

Nick Clason (36:24.762)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (36:31.728)
Mm-hmm. Because you can't just do it in town because it's the church is such a big component of that area. Yeah.

Derry (36:38.53)
Yeah. Yeah, we would literally have to go on dates if we wanted to like get away. We would go like two towns over just so we wouldn't run into people. And and and so the idea of a prolonged time to truly get a week to go on vacation. I some people do staycations didn't work for us because my mind was too on. so getting and traveling somewhere and we got pretty pretty dedicated and it was huge. It became significant before kids. We went six years without kids and we had

Nick Clason (36:44.292)
Yeah. Yeah.

Derry (37:08.974)
two significant vacations a year most of the time. And some people would go like, can't afford it. Well, we found ways to do one.

Nick Clason (37:17.296)
That's, I was gonna ask that, like, youth pastors notoriously, I can't do it, I don't have money, like, how do you do it?

Derry (37:22.668)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'll say there's two things. One would be you find creative ways, you know, my parents, I'm fortunate my parents had a cabin up in Michigan that we would go to and that was a much cheaper vacation. But Dave Ramsey would get mad at me for this. But I say, I think you got more money than you realize. It's just where you spend money. And so we committed to run our cars into the ground and not like do a new

Nick Clason (37:38.438)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (37:50.949)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (37:52.59)
new lease. We dropped a lot of subscriptions other people would have because we said, man, this is where the money goes. But this is my Dave Ramseyism. would I so believe in this. would have even risked debt in that area to go on a vacation because I don't think this money we're spending on vacations is spending, it's investing. And so Disney, like you and I have talked about, Disney became our thing. Well, there's not a way to do Disney cheap. There's a way to do

Nick Clason (37:56.486)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (38:06.288)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (38:12.215)
Yeah, that's good.

Derry (38:20.728)
There's a way to save money on Disney if you learn how to do it. And so we did, we found ways to do that. And but what we did with that, was a couple key things we learned over time. One was Janelle would say it all the time. First, that's my wife, by the way. She would first say it was just the two of us. It's like, that's the one time where I have you. Like I have you. Like you're totally there and present with us. And it's not like she was saying you're a terrible husband who never does, but.

Nick Clason (38:22.048)
Do it cheaper. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Clason (38:39.174)
Hmm.

Derry (38:47.906)
But I know you love the ministry and I love the ministry too. She worked at the church as well most of time. so that was so significant. But also man, memories that have been built. With my kids, we sit around the table lot of times and we just do a, hey, share a favorite family memory. Do you know how many of them are tied around that one time at Disney when my youngest who had always walked into the house after swimming in our backyard and just pull his shorts down? like, know, so we were like.

Nick Clason (38:54.928)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (39:02.372)
Mm.

Derry (39:15.842)
done in the way pool, gonna go grab lunch. And we just look over and he's like walking naked in the middle of a water park at Disney because, know, we're like all laughing and remember like you just the memories, the piece of that so key. But this is the other part and a key rule we did. We set a 30 minute, 30 mile rule where because we were both working in the church, it was like, once we get to a certain point, we don't talk church at all. And we kind of got really belligerent with it where it was like, we aren't even gonna talk about.

Nick Clason (39:23.565)
Thank

Nick Clason (39:32.144)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (39:42.374)
Hmm.

Derry (39:44.268)
our friends who go to the church. Because we were just so enveloped in it. was like just such a part of like we both worked there. We loved it, but also it drove us nuts at times. so.

Nick Clason (39:45.892)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (39:51.312)
Yeah. Yeah.

That, I've tried that too, like I tried implementing that and it's hard, bro. Like it's really difficult to do and I actually like failed a lot at it.

Derry (40:00.212)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we've been able to hold. She's great at holding me accountable to it in a loving way. But also there were moments I needed it. And so so we would we would stick to it. We didn't like, you know, when we fail, we'd go, OK, tomorrow we pick back up again. But what that did would often lead to some really awkward. don't know what to talk about time. And then on the other end, it would lead to I wouldn't call it like.

Nick Clason (40:13.381)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (40:25.51)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (40:29.858)
deep, rich, like all of sudden, you know, we're burying our souls to the, you know, the Lord's speaking new vision to us. Sometimes it was, but sometimes it was just, we just got to like talk about random things from our childhood that we never knew before, because we needed to find a topic to talk about. We just like watched some really, really stupid videos together because we weren't sure what to do and laughed a ton. And so things like...

Nick Clason (40:46.394)
Hmm. Yeah.

Derry (40:56.854)
just other topics and other things and zeroing in, been enormous for us.

Nick Clason (41:00.164)
That's so good. Yeah. think, I think, like listen, if you're watching, listening, maybe for some of you, like this is your next step, like plan a vacation, right? I know you might not feel like you have money, the means, whatever, but like you have vacation time. And one of the things you said on a podcast years ago that resonated deeply with me is don't leave any vacation days on the table.

Derry (41:16.386)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (41:21.485)
Yeah.

Derry (41:26.146)
I'm so glad you just said that. Yeah. Explain it. Explain it.

Nick Clason (41:27.524)
Yeah, because like here's the thing. What I now tell people is like, you're if you get two weeks of vacation, you are being hired like in America, we stink at this, first of all, but like you're being hired to work 50 weeks out of 52 weeks. So if you work 51 weeks because you only take one week off, you gave your church a free week of your work and that's not fair to you. And they're taking advantage of it. And nobody is going to say anything. Like if you have a great manager who's

Derry (41:40.888)
Yes.

Derry (41:47.96)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (41:56.326)
pushing you to do that, that's fantastic, but that's typically the exception, not the rule. And so if you get 50, if you get two weeks of vacation, you better only work 50 of them. And even if like you, even if you said, do a staycation, don't go anywhere, but like don't go to the office. it's, the job will get done without you because the other thing that I hate to break it to you is one day you're gonna leave cause you're gonna resign, you're gonna retire, you're gonna die and they will figure out.

what to do with that position. But you will never be able to be the husband to your wife or the wife to your husband or the father to your children or any of those other relationships like you uniquely can only invest in those places. And so don't leave days on table.

Derry (42:39.278)
Yeah, yep. thank you. Like you're right on, that's so key. It's, you know, like I would just love people to reflect. Are you at a church where when you do your all staff and you come together and you go through and you just celebrate everybody that worked extra hard, right? And everybody cheers. Why doesn't the church ever go, hey, it's the end of the year. We just want to celebrate the following people that used up every one of their vacation days. You know, they're not going to do that, but actually they'd be smart.

Nick Clason (42:56.249)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (43:04.548)
Yeah. No.

Derry (43:08.312)
What you're saying is true, but the reverse is true as well. If I haven't taken that time to unplug that 51st week and probably the 49th, 48th and 47th aren't even going to be the best versions of me, right? Like you're, you're, you're actually making it suffer because there's, we could go forever in this. When you're away, you have to delegate. So you now are living out the Ephesians four principle that you got to equip people for ministry. And then also you're reminded, I love this place, but they don't need me. Everything. Nothing fell apart.

Nick Clason (43:17.238)
Mm. Yeah, they suffer a little bit, but...

Nick Clason (43:27.194)
Mm-hmm.

That's it. Yeah.

Nick Clason (43:35.76)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Derry (43:37.154)
And so now you get to do it out of joy, not out of obligation. And then here's, let me give one more on top of this. This is what people are doing that are listening to this right now. I've really sucked at this. I really need to do it. And then if their vacation recycles in December or mine always recycled in June, they're like, I'm to do that. But then there's a real problem you've got probably where you're, moving toward burnout. If you find yourself every year when it's about time to recycle that you have to all of sudden cash in all your vacation days or you lose them.

Nick Clason (43:39.662)
Absolutely.

Nick Clason (44:04.432)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (44:04.834)
And so you're saying, no, I take all my days off. But what you do is not spread them out. Well, go back to the walk, sprint and rest. Look at that plan ahead, block out where the times are, find what works for you and recognize that I got so sick in the team. I was leading that I, I put my money where my mouth is on this, where I would say, how many vacation days are you at? And like, I'd celebrate it, but it also they are vacation time would recycle in June. And we had till August to use it.

Nick Clason (44:09.03)
Mm.

Yup.

Derry (44:33.56)
Well, that was all our summer camp season that went right into the fall break. And I would have like people gone in between camp and fall. And I was like, listen, I believe in this so much, we're gonna figure it out. But next year, please think through, you know, cause this isn't good for you. So there's like, I would just say that's really, really important to think through with it all. And again, find your true unplug. Nick and I love Disney.

Nick Clason (44:36.09)
Yeah, can't, you can't. Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (44:44.794)
Yeah, do something in March, bro. Yeah, yeah.

Nick Clason (45:00.358)
Mm-hmm.

Derry (45:01.016)
That might be the worst place for you to go do an unplug. And quite honestly, I'm not doing it much now because my oldest son, he's too cool for it. We've made the shift over to national parks because our kids can walk. And my word, man, like I'm exhausted, but God is alive in the beauty of it. So find your unplug.

Nick Clason (45:14.896)
But it's good, yeah.

Well, and I would say for us, the reason we like it is because it keeps us so busy, we don't really have time to sit around and talk about work. You know what mean? That's one of the reasons that we like Disney so much is like you said, it's just our family, it's just us trying to accomplish the thing and with all, trying to get the schedules and everything locked in.

Derry (45:26.21)
Yep. Right.

Derry (45:36.664)
Yeah, your boys are at a spot where like they you get to see there's nothing quite like seeing your kids overwhelmed with a joy. Yeah, like man, I'm getting flooded with even great memories right now of some times with that. Yeah, man. I love it.

Nick Clason (45:42.798)
See Mickey. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so true. Yeah, yeah. Man, Derry, you crushed it. Thank you. People wanna do some of the stuff you got offering, like plug it up, plug it up here real quick before we wrap up.

Derry (45:53.57)
Thank you, man.

Derry (45:59.992)
Yeah, yeah, still working on the best way. don't, you know, I'm not, I don't have a great corporate master plan in this all, but I would say the first thing to check out from a website is YML cohort.com. That's Y is in yodel, is in marry, L is in ladle. I don't know. cohort. Yeah. Youthministereleadercohort.com. That's something we're doing that Nick talked about. and we, we run them in winter, spring, and in the fall and they're 10 weeks long.

Nick Clason (46:15.993)
or youth ministry leader.

Derry (46:28.97)
I'm toying around with maybe a summer one. I don't know. But check that out. But even if it's like in the middle where there's not one, there's an interest form you can fill out there. Always reach out to me anywhere on social. Like I offered that working genius thing. It's just at Dairy Prinkert. So D-E-R-R-Y P-R-E-N K-E-R-T. Find me. I'm not on TikTok.

Nick Clason (46:51.77)
That's okay, people aren't finding people on TikTok anyway. They're just watching funny videos, yeah.

Derry (46:53.612)
Yeah, it's hard to find. I'm on Instagram and I'm on Facebook the most and so find me there. And if you don't like anything, go post it over on X and I won't read it.

Nick Clason (47:06.544)
There you go. Love it, man. Hey, thank you so much for investing in youth leaders in this way and how you avoid burnout. Absolutely. Thanks, dude. All right. Hey guys, until next time, we'll see you. Bye.

Derry (47:09.602)
Thank you, dude. Thank you, Nick. Thanks for your investment, man. I love what you're doing.

Follow us on Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/hybridministry
Or check us out online - http://www.hybridministry.xyz

TIMECODES

00:00-1:29 - Intro and Welcome
1:29-6:28 - Rest & Boundaries with Digital Ministry
6:28-11:10 - Hack 1 - Find a Hobby
11:10-18:00 - Hack 2 - Turn your phone to mute
18:00-23:22 - Hack 3 - Avoid Social Media
23:23-28:26 - Hack 4 - Get up Early and Read your Bible
28:26-33:10 - Hack 5 - Take care of yourself physically
33:10-37:21 - Hack 6 - Use all of your vacation
37:21-38:57 - Stat Correction - Take your TikTok Watermark off of all your Instagram Reel posts
38:55-39:12 - Outro

TRANSCRIPT

Nick Clason (00:01):
Well, hello everybody. And welcome to another edition of the hybrid ministry podcast. I am your host, Nick Clason alongside my amazing friend. And co-host Matt Johnson, Matt, how are we doing this morning,

Matt Johnson (00:18):
Nick? I am doing great. I, uh, woke up with for a nice little run, go the sunrise. It was, uh, just a really refreshing morning, able to pray a little bit. It was a great way to start the day. So,

Nick Clason (00:31):
So when you run, are you a podcast guy? Are you a music guy or are you a nothing guy so that you can have your, your prayer moments?

Matt Johnson (00:41):
Oh, good question. Um, so normally I'm a podcast guy, but right now I'm going through an audio book about how to raise great daughters, cuz I'm about to have a daughter and I'm freaking out a little bit um, but you got

Nick Clason (00:56):
The first little bit, all they do is poop, man.

Matt Johnson (00:58):
Yeah. So you know of watching all the newborn videos and stuff, but I think that was why I went for that run, but I usually pause it at some point and just, you know, do some prayer. Um, but I'm not a psychopath like Joe Rogan where I just listen to nothing, my entire run like a crazy person. I don't understand that.

Nick Clason (01:15):
I didn't know that about him, but yeah, that's psychotic,

Matt Johnson (01:17):
he, uh, I remember podcasts forever ago where he was talking about that. He's like, if you're listening to something during you're run, you're not running right. Or something along those lines. And ever since then, I was like, this man is a crazy man. So,

Nick Clason (01:32):
Well, that's actually a good kind of segueing tool I wanna talk about today. Um, I, this one, this one feels a little bit of like a deviation. I feel like from what our normal kind of topics are, but I wanted talk about rest and boundaries. Um, love it as it pertains to working in a church as it pertains to being the social media person. And so, you know, I thought, I thought we could just kind of have a conversation around the importance of that, um, rest, uh, and how we restore ourselves. Uh, because from my vantage point, if you're listening to this podcast, the odds are you are the social media person at your church, or at least you're interested in it, some degree in fashion and people like that are typically the most technologically savvy in their church. That means that they're, um, young or whatever, for whatever reason you've been pegged that person.

Nick Clason (02:26):
Uh, and so that means that you are the person on social media maybe personally. So how do you create good boundaries between, um, your work life, which is gonna be about what you're posting and what you're trying to do for your church, uh, digitally in a hybrid sort of way, and then how you personally restore and how you personally, uh, rest and reflect. And so even, you know, you saying you're out on a run and, uh, just using that as a time to kind of pray and process. I'm wondering if that's one of yours, but I'm not gonna give, give anything away. So mm-hmm, what, like before we dive into like tips and hacks, like what's been your observation or your experience with this sort of thing, as it relates to people working in churches or working in ministry context.

Matt Johnson (03:09):
Um, the biggest thing I have noticed personally, of people working in the ministry, especially, uh, the church ministry world is burnout is exceptionally high. Um, and I think it has a lot large part to do with, uh, you know, usually people are wearing multiple and multiple of hats. Um, mm-hmm, for some, probably 90% of people listen, this podcast are, you know, running social media, being a youth pastor and, uh, in charge of some other ministry at their church. So, um, and it's just, cuz we know, um, the margin of like resources at a church is just little thinner when it comes to stuff, cuz you're relying on not revenue streams necessarily. So, um, I think it's easy to get burned out and it's easy to kind of lose focus of what's actually important and not take care of ourselves. And I've also noticed usually people go on a sabbatical way too late mm-hmm um, usually we go, okay, it's time for you to do a sabbatical. And you know that person's been there 20 years on burnout. They come back from the sabbatical and they still have it fully recovered usually. So, um, yeah, we just gotta figure out how do we get you through those points where you don't have vacation where you're in the middle of everything else going on, especially like Christmas and Easter seasons is a great example.

Nick Clason (04:33):
Yeah. Yeah. It's , it's the whole sabbatical. Thing's funny. I've been in, in ministry now 11 and a half, almost 12 years. Most churches give sabbatical around year seven, but it's, it's a sabbatical from like your church. So seven years at your church and I've never, I've never made it that long. So yeah.

Matt Johnson (04:52):
exactly.

Nick Clason (04:53):
Don't know what that's they don't know what that feels like.

Matt Johnson (04:55):
I know that's more, that's the typical person. So they go from one church, you know, they get pretty to that edge of burnout and they go to the next church, they get refreshed. Cause you get that energy being somewhere new, but then like that mean it's the same workload sometimes more. Um, I've never really been anywhere. That's been a less workload than the last place for a long period of time. So

Nick Clason (05:17):
Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. And, and in my case almost most, most jobs I've taken, I've not had any sort of like weaker whatever in between. Like I remember, uh, couple, a couple of job transitions ago. My last week, um, at one church was running, executing everything for summer camp. We like did our own summer camp. So like I was teaching, speaking, all those things, um, drove home, packed my office. And then that was like on Saturday morning, the next day I went to my new church and then that Monday morning I boarded the bus to go to their summer camp. So it was like two back to back weeks of summer camp. And so it wasn't, it wasn't, you know, from one job with a nice little break and a nice little pause, it was literally like boom done. Here we go onto the next one.

Nick Clason (06:01):
And so, yep. And I think that some of that mean like there's just a cultural expectation about, um, work and hustle and all those types of things and, and you know, we can get into like, uh, generations and the different, the different approaches to work and attitudes toward work and all those types of things. And I, there's definitely a difference. Um, and we don't wanna be lazy, you know, but we also wanna be smart, you know, with what we're doing in our workloads and stuff like that. So, uh, I had each of us kind of come up with three tips or tricks, uh, as it pertains to, um, rest boundaries. And so Matt, do you wanna go first and share your first tip, your first trick, your first hack, um, on having good rhythms of rest?

Matt Johnson (06:44):
Yeah, absolutely. Um, my first tip hack, um, is really find that hobby that, um, helps you escape. Um, like that is your hobby that you can, um, when you get home or on the weekend that you can go do that is nothing to do with work. like it can't have anything to do with work. And I have two, uh, one is fly fishing and I love fly fishing, especially, um, what the aspect is. I can go to the middle of nowhere and I have no cell service . And

Nick Clason (07:22):
How often are you fly fishing in Chicago?

Matt Johnson (07:24):
Uh, not a lot here, but when I was in Colorado, I was going about every other weekend and my stepdad dad, and I would go up to the mountains, find some river and I'd have go to canyons and I'd have no cell service. So even if the of the world went on fire, I'd have no idea. Um, which was awesome because like I could really unplug. And then the second thing for me personally is, uh, gaming video games. Um, you need, and that's, uh, you know, I worked in the game industry as an intern for a long time and um, they've always been a huge part of my life. So, uh, I, uh, able to escape different worlds, um, and really just like live out whatever I'm doing, but that's actually become a time where I bond with all my friends from like high school and stuff. So those are two great hobbies, both, uh, very different one. I literally unplug from the world and the other one you're virtually unplugging. So both, uh, the work good for me mentally.

Nick Clason (08:26):
Yeah. So like, okay, let, let me, uh, push, push a little bit on this. So you are not in Colorado anymore. You are in Chicago, you don't like fly fishing is not a super accessible thing here. So how have you personally kind of dealt with that as like, do you feel like, uh, the, the geography of your, your current occupation is keeping you from being able to access one of your hobbies and how, how are you like dealing with that navigating through that?

Matt Johnson (08:55):
Yeah, that's a, I mean, that's a great question. It has definitely changed the way I do fly fish. So, um, I mean there's a fly fishing community out here, but it's very different than the Colorado community they're fly fishing and ponds and like lakes and stuff.

Nick Clason (09:09):
Yeah. Which

Matt Johnson (09:10):
I mean is totally fine, but I, when I fly fish, I like to stand in the river with my waiters on, let the water rush over me and just be, really be in nature. So I've done that aspect where, okay, I'm gonna, you know, um, go lake fly fishing or whatever. Um, there are a couple streams, you know, you just gotta drive to them. So it definitely though has hindered my, uh, my escapism through fly fishing. So I've had to be a little more creative with how I escape into nature now. And that's been more intentional going to just nature preserves and, you know, um, uh, like just trying my best to escape into the wilderness, how I can here. But as you know, there's not tons of nature around the , so

Nick Clason (10:00):
yeah,

Matt Johnson (10:01):
Yeah. It is definitely a challenge here.

Nick Clason (10:04):
Yeah, no, it's good. I, I think like for me, uh, this is one of things I'm honestly really, really terrible at is having my own hobbies because I, I like my hobby. I do feel like in a lot of ways is being a youth pastor. And so, um, it's funny cuz like, uh, guy used to work for, uh, I would text him like an idea about youth mysteries, like randomly late at night and he was like stop working. And I said, I, I, this is, this is what's fun for me, you know? Uh, but the, to your point, the problem is like if I only ever do that only ever think about that, I don't have anything that's legitimately just for me, you know? Yep. Um, and even like things like I'll go on runs and I'll listen to podcasts and they're typically ministry related podcasts, you know, I have some, I have some that are more hobby related like sports or whatever. Um, and those typically those typically fly to the top of my playlist queue anyway. Uh, so that, that maybe is the way I do it, but yeah, I'm not, I'm not very good at this. So thanks. Thank you for challenging me already this

Matt Johnson (11:10):
Morning. It's my

Nick Clason (11:11):
Goal, man. So all right. Uh, okay, so here's a hack I have. Okay. Um, and I don't know if this is a good strategy or not, especially for like a communications person in your church. Um, it's gonna, it's gonna maybe feel like, uh, not the, maybe the best strategy. Uh, but my phone personally, dude, like it never rings. Yep. Um, I literally have it on mute all the time. in fact I was it yesterday, maybe it was two days ago. I literally lost my phone for like two hours at work. And um, I, I, I retraced all my steps. I couldn't find it. And do you know what everyone's solution was? They said, oh, do you want me to call you which like I have an office phone. Like I would've done this myself. If I thought that this was an option, but I knew it wasn't because even if they call me, it was just going to be silent and, and people are like, oh, but if you're near it, you'll hear it buzz.

Nick Clason (12:13):
No, like not on vibrate, like all the way silent. Like it never, I don't have any notifications come through ever. Um, and so like the only thing that's even like remotely, uh, close to my phone ringing, quote unquote, is, uh, I have a watch. And so like my, my wife, her texts and phone calls, those are the two things that like come through to my watch. Otherwise everything else is essentially muted. And I don't have like email push notifications come through to my phone. Um, the only thing that does come through to my phone or like text messages or whatever. And, and that's part of my, like part of my strategy, because as I've stepped into this place, which has got just more people and more demands and all those types of things, uh, more and more people are looking and kind of vying for your time.

Nick Clason (13:01):
And so instead of the way I, the hack, I guess, and this for me is instead of letting my phone dictate to me when I'm supposed to respond, I, I choose those and I build pockets of those into my schedule, you know? So like it's not that I don't check my email. I check it every single day, multiple times a day, but I don't do it when it dings and comes through to me. Um, and that's also just like for me, a focus, uh, a focus hack as well, because if I'm writing something or doing something and I get a ding or a notification, uh there's there's studies that say like the brain is unable to multitask and is unable to, to go over to one thing and come back to another thing with the same capacity it takes, it takes a gr I don't remember what the exact like numbers are, but it takes a ridiculous amount of time for your brain to shut that back off and go back into, you know, that other thing.

Nick Clason (13:56):
So, uh, I just, I grab my phone and if there's stuff on there that I need to respond to, I do it, but I do so kind of on my own time. So I, I really, I treat text a lot, like how I treat email. Um, because again, they're not, they're not driving me and speaking of driving, uh, sometimes that drives people insane. Um, and so I, you know, I just like, I'm up front with them a little bit and I say, Hey, sorry. I was, you know, doing whatever, cuz it's, it's not that I'm often just being lazy and ignoring it. It's just that for me to be able to focus, I need to not be being distracted. Mm-hmm so,

Matt Johnson (14:31):
Yep. No, I love that. I, uh, I'm the same way I keep my phone on mute too. Um, except for my wife and, uh, setting that up has been a game changer for me personally. And I'm sorry if I miss your calls or it takes me a little bit to get back to you, but if it's super important, give me a call. Like you, it goes to my watch and then I go check my phone and then, um, see what's going on. So

Nick Clason (14:55):
Yeah. Well, and I mean, yesterday I sent you like four messages, um, and they, like, none of them were urgent and they were all just sort of like, um, observations or like funny things or like, oh, did you see this? And you just, you responded to all of them, like in one text, you know? Yep. And I didn't need it. I, I didn't need you to respond. So I was totally fine. Like with the pace with which you replied, I knew eventually you'd get to it. And so I wasn't, you know, I wasn't like worried about it. And so that contrary to popular belief, uh, that is okay. Yes,

Matt Johnson (15:27):
Definitely. And we need to be okay with that as a culture and a society. Um, and we also need to realize that 99% of things that we have think is urgent are not urgent now. Um, that's something I've run into a lot. Uh we're like, we get this out right now. This is super important. And I'm like, well, yeah, let's get it out right now. But the difference between now and, you know, an hour from now, there's no difference actually in communication or, uh, the stress level of that. So, and that's gonna, we have to get out of the tyranny of the urgent. So mm-hmm

Nick Clason (16:02):
yeah. So, so like, let's get super, super practical on this for just two seconds. Cuz so like my wife and I, for whatever reason, the last two churches I've worked at have been like, they've been like the absolute iron curtain for uh, text messages. And so like my phone doesn't really work super well in, in the churches I've worked in. And so my wife and I have just defaulted to using, um, like WhatsApp as a text message service. And so I use that regularly every single day, but really only with my wife. And so that's how I have like custom notifications of hers that come through. But nobody else's. Um, how, how have you set it up where you get text messages alerted to you that are only from your wife and nobody else, like what's the setup for you on your

Matt Johnson (16:48):
Like phone? Yeah. I just I've set her up on iPhone. Like you can start setting people up and you do not disturb as like, um, your favorites or whatever. And that's who she is. I have her and my mom and that's it. And I only have MYM on just cuz you know, whatever craziness could happen back home, I want to be available. But um, and then my wife obviously, cause like I said, she's pregnant, so I gotta be ready at the drop of a whim to make sure, you know, whatever happens happens. So it's been a yeah, it's my wife and obviously she's, you know yeah. My favorite

Nick Clason (17:20):
Even if, even if she's not pregnant. Yeah, yeah. It's it's your wife. So I love that. Cool. Yeah. So like you said, I think that's a really good, I think, I think, uh, we're we are in a little bit of a cultural moment of shifting more to this because I mean asked, think about the other day I grabbed my phone and I was like, dang, there's so many just notifications on here. And like that's what apps have have learned like, oh push notifications are the way to get people's attention. Yeah. But if, you know, I like when I grab my mom's phone, for example, she has 47,000 unread notifications. I'm like, what is the point of this? Like your brain can't physically process all this. So I dunno. Anyway. All right. Hack number two for you.

Matt Johnson (18:01):
Um, so even I'm gonna piggyback off a little bit of your phone stuff. So mine is also with phone and this is really to do with mental health and this is gonna probably sound crazy coming from the, a marketing communications person is I try to avoid social media as much as possible in my free time. Um, yeah. So I try to keep up with social media trends. So maybe at the most I'm on, you know, I'll look at social media an hour at the most, but I try driving a hit an hour, you know, I try to do like maybe 30 minutes, I've deleted most of the apps off my phone. So I actually have to be do my due diligence, like make it part of my work rhythms. Like I'm taking social for work. I'm not checking social to pass time. Um, and I was just realizing that I was just becoming so negative about so many different things, um, that I shouldn't be negative or mad about. Like my sports teams being mad about whatever's going on with them. um, mad about some

Nick Clason (18:57):
Sports are so dumb, man. They get me in such a bad news.

Matt Johnson (19:00):
Exactly. That's like, why am I mad about this? Like I used to love this, uh that's cuz I wasn't on Twitter worried about what other people were saying or worried about what trade was happening or on Reddit, seeing what all the sports, all the people in my fandom, my, um, think, um, seemed with like video games, the bashing of like video games or even the church, like, you know, you would go on Twitter and I can see how people, you know, make, say, say something about the church and it's really easy to get down about that. So I just started like going, you know, this isn't worth it for me mentally. Um, and uh, I'm not gonna waste my time with it. So I deleted a bunch of the apps and I've made it okay, I'm gonna check social for work purposes or um, check it up on family.

Matt Johnson (19:44):
But I, most of my family doesn't even post anymore. We have our group chats and that's kind of, what's become the thing for us to like keep in touch with each other. So if I have a photo of ultrasound or whatever, I don't need to post that on Instagram right away. I just send it over to my group, my family group chat, and I hear all their thoughts and there's only ones I even care about. So, um, yeah, it's definitely weird cuz like the last couple episodes we've talked about how important it is for you to be on social. Um, but yeah, I think it is important to be on social, but you also need to have that balance where social media is not taking over your life. And if you're starting to see it affect it mentally affect you. Like you, you should do something about that. Mm-hmm and you and I were talking yesterday about all the studies that have come out about the effects of social media on the brain, watch the social dilemma on Netflix. Like we don't know, well, we're starting to see the ramifications of social media and we need to have clear boundaries with it. I think personally.

Nick Clason (20:42):
Yeah. I, you know, as a youth pastor we'll post a lot of stuff on social media or whatever, and then like I'll have a mom or dad or whoever a parent say, you know, Hey, our kids don't have social media and I will literally respond with that is great. And I fully support that decision. Exactly. Honestly, I do. Like if, if be, so I feel like being on social media is an opportunity to try and reach a certain demographic of kid. Who's probably not doing anything, um, useful or good with their time on social media and if they have poor boundaries and they're just on it all the time, like then I want us to, to be a part of their feed and part of their algorithm. And so that there is some, some Jesus in there. Right. But otherwise if a parent is parenting in that sort of way, like I support it fully.

Nick Clason (21:29):
And quite frankly, as a dad of a six and a half year old, like I can't imagine giving him social media here in more years or, or 10 or whatever, you know, whatever that's gonna be like. And so I, I think it's, yeah, it feels very like double edged sword. So it's, we're, we're producing things for social media. We're producing things for digital content, but we're not, um, necessarily personally engaging in those things. Mm-hmm , you know, um, ourselves and yeah, I, I agree with you. Like there's been times where, um, I, I feel very, uh, full of anxiety or I'm really like, I notice myself being really short, like with my kids, I have a really short, uh, like just patience level with them. And oftentimes that's a direct correlation to just the amount of time I'm spending on my phone or the amount of time that I'm, you know, worrying about whatever sort of thing I'm and that's, you know, especially in the last couple years, like, uh, at work and stuff, I'll people will talk to me about news, like news things. And I literally am like, oh wait, what's happening. Like I don't watch the news. Like it is not, is not good for my mental health. Just tell me what I need to know and what lit was actually affecting me and the rest. I'm gonna try to not think about cuz that's again, the, the, I think the brain was not meant to process the amount of information that we as Americans have access to on a daily basis basis.

Matt Johnson (22:55):
No, it definitely wasn't. I mean, you just look at the history of the human brain and you see like, this is the only time in culture where we've really ever had to deal with this. So, and why is anxiety, depression and everything so high right now? I mean, it's not all cause of social media, but definitely that's a contributing factor to it. So cause I felt it, you know, I feel it, I get more depressed and anxious like you were saying, so

Nick Clason (23:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, alright, sweet. So, um, alright. So my next one is, uh, it's gonna feel like a little bit of a, a Zig to the zag of this rest conversation uh, but I, uh, gosh, it's been about a year, year and a half or so. Um, but I have made, um, mornings, uh, getting up in the morning with coffee, going, uh, to read my Bible a priority and it's been a thing I've basically not missed for about a year. So I used to, you know, I have, I have young kids, uh, six and four. And so, um, you know, a year ago, year and a half ago when I started there five and three or two or whatever. And uh, I would used to just sleep in, um, until they came and woke me up, which so that there was no sleeping in all right.

Nick Clason (24:09):
But there was a, they were pretty, pretty good. Uh, we have this little like clock thing that turns green when they're allowed to get outta bed. And so that's set for seven. And so they're pretty good about following that. And so I would, I used to lay in bed and sometime after seven they'd come in with their little clock that was green and they'd say, Hey, our clock's green, you know, we get up and I would always feel like I was just running, be behind. Like I was, I'd always just felt like I, uh, was catching up to the rest of my day, the rest of my morning. And so kind of around that, whatever, whatever time, like a year ago or so I was like, I'm gonna get up at six every morning cuz I knew that they're probably gonna get up around seven.

Nick Clason (24:47):
And uh, the way I did it is we have like, uh, uh, Amazon Alexa app, uh, like all of our lights. Uh, so like I have my lights automatically turn on at six down in the dining room and every night before I go to bed, now I program coffee. And so as soon as I wake up, I literally smell coffee and see the lights. Um, those things just helped me get out of bed. the idea of setting an alarm and then getting up and then going down and doing all that stuff. Mm-hmm um, it, it, I just would, at that time I would just mentally cash it in and say whatever I'm asleep in, I'll do it again. I'll do it tomorrow. And so like those few hacks have helped me get up. Um, and then what I do is I get up, I drink coffee and I spend time reading my Bible and that has been one of the most centering and grounding things for me.

Nick Clason (25:37):
And, uh, I was doing it by myself and then a couple months later my wife actually joined me. Um, and so it's been a thing that we'll we'll do together. We'll just both get up. Coffee's going, we each have a cup. We're sitting, uh, at the dining room table, she's reading her Bible, I'm reading my Bible. Um, and we are just connecting ourselves, centering ourselves to our source. Mm-hmm and it's less sleep. Yes, because I'm waking up an hour early. So on the like immediate need of rest, it may feel like it's, it's less right. But as a discipline, now that's woven in to what I do. Um, other things have adjusted to accommodate this because I know how important it is. And so for example, we don't stay up as late because we know we're gonna get up at six, uh, to read our Bible and to drink coffee.

Nick Clason (26:26):
And so maybe we're not watching that next episode when we end one on Netflix instead we'll turn the TV off and you say, all right, what? It's probably time to go to bed, you know, so we can get up. But that has been an absolute game changer for me, uh, just in, in my personal rhythms. And um, if I start my day, that way with a little bit of it's a slower pace, uh, without the kids, um, waking me up outta bed, uh, then, then when they do come outta their rooms and everything like that, I feel like I've done what I need to do. Um, and I'm able to, uh, go after whatever I need to go after that day. Um, as it pertains to work, rest, social media, all those types of things. Like all those things can happen now because my time with Jesus has already taken place. Mm-hmm so that's been a game changer for me develop

Matt Johnson (27:14):
That. I, uh, yep. I do. I do the same thing. So, uh, wake up early and I love reading my Bible in the morning, um, before or after my workout. So

Nick Clason (27:26):
Yeah. Yeah, it's good. And like I said, uh, you know, I, I, I knew myself and so know yourself. Like I knew I needed some prompting to get out bed. And so that's why I learned how to use the programmer on my coffee maker. Um, and I, I recently started roasting my own coffee. And so I, my, the coffee I make at my house is actually my, my, my favorite coffee, you know, there's a really good roaster down the street that a lot of people here like, and I like it too, but I, I think my coffee's better. I think your coffee's better. What

Matt Johnson (27:58):
I'm literally

Nick Clason (28:00):
Well, what I'm literally drinking right now, I roasted at like five 30 last night in my garage. So like, it can't, it cannot get fresh. Exactly. You know? And so there's really, you know, that's maybe another podcast topic, all do

Matt Johnson (28:13):
A coffee roasting podcast.

Nick Clason (28:15):
I love that job. Also people out there it's really easy and it's actually quite cost effective. Very, so, uh, there you go. All right, Matt, your last one, what do you got? So

Matt Johnson (28:26):
My next, my last one, um, this is something that you, I think everyone should be doing is we gotta take care of ourselves physically in some aspect. Um, yeah.

Nick Clason (28:36):
Yeah.

Matt Johnson (28:37):
I, uh, I'm, I love running. Running's a great time for me to, uh, you know, really process and rest and get my endorphins up and think, and also take care of my heart and my body. And it's also, I've noticed as I've worked in ministry, like every year I gain a little bit more weight because, you know, they just get a little crazy. And also as you know, these churches and ministries, they love the things that are bad for you like donuts and, uh, um, as much junk food as they can get chips, mountain do, especially being a youth pastor, all the stuff you deal with, it's really easy to kind of lose sight of your, uh, physical health. But, uh, honestly my favorite thing to do is to swim. Um, I'm a big swimmer. I was a swim in my, with, uh, in high school, very competitively went to, uh, state and stuff.

Matt Johnson (29:27):
So, um, met my wife's swimming. It's like a really big thing in our lives. And, uh, what I love about swimming is waking up at, you know, um, usually very early, like 5:00 AM. going to the pool and it's just, it's like dark out and I'm just in the water, me and my thoughts. Um, mm-hmm and so it's kind of a time of meditation. I'm, you know, weightless, I'm able to really work out, control your breathing cause you have to in swimming, it's this very, um, cathartic thing for me that I've, uh, really grown to love. And it is honestly probably the hardest thing to wake up to. Cause there's nothing like waking up and being cold outside and going. I'm gonna go get in a 72 degree pool and uh, swim for an hour. And, uh, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna be honest. It's been a little bit harder to keep my swimming hobby here in Chicago, because there's just not a lot of pools here, really,

Nick Clason (30:28):
Dude, I know, trust me. So,

Matt Johnson (30:30):
And I'm coming from a world, like when I lived in Colorado where every recreation center had a pool, cuz the pool swimming was just a huge, um, pastime there. So it's been very hard to keep that up here. That's why running has become more of my zeitgeist, but like swimming is that thing where, cuz you can't really have headphones swimming. You can't, you, I mean you have to be in your thoughts, which, um, it's just a weird time, but it's also a time that I've talked to God more than any time in my life is when I swim. So

Nick Clason (31:01):
yeah, it's good. Yeah. Since, you know, like when we moved here, it was middle of pandemic and so like, uh, we canceled our gym membership in Ohio from when we moved and I didn't pick one back up when I got here, obviously cuz there's a pandemic going on and gyms weren't even a thing. And so, uh, I took up running just to get out of the house and I never thought I'd be a runner, but you know, um, I am now and I look forward to it and I enjoy it. And in a lot of the same ways, it's kind of that just cathartic experience for me. Um, a great place to be alone with my thoughts or even just on a podcast and back to your hobby point. Like there are, I listen to a lot of ministry podcasts and so those are in there for sure.

Nick Clason (31:48):
But uh, the ones I most look forward to our, the entertainment ones, ones about sports, basketball, fantasy football, all those types of things. And so that's my, that's my attempt to disconnect, you know, a little bit. And so I agree like man exercise that there's such a, I don't know what I, I think like the landscape is shifting a little bit, like I think millennials and gen Z are, are pushing these things. But I think that there's some, there's been some notions of older generations that are like, oh, I don't have time to do that. Like I just, I need to focus on my work and um, that's just, that's super,

Matt Johnson (32:20):
Very, somewhat healthy.

Nick Clason (32:24):
And, and you like in all of this, right, this entire conversation is woven into like you, you need to be the best version of you to be the most effective at leading some of stuff. And if you're not, you're you're not gonna be very effective. Mm-hmm so find whatever that thing is. And you know, like you, my wife will say like, you know, she's like, she'll struggle to like find time to do it. And I'm like, you, you can't afford not to a little bit, you know, like you gotta, you gotta figure it out. You gotta make it a priority. And so it's, you know, cuz we got kids and so someone's gotta stay with them. And so, you know, I'm like, Hey, like I know this is important for you to do so let me, uh, you know, let's, let's figure it out so that you can have what you need. I can have what I need, all that type of stuff.

Matt Johnson (33:04):
So exactly.

Nick Clason (33:05):
Yeah. All right. Love it. Last one for me then is, uh, this one's work related. Um, but use all of your vacation time that your work gives you.

Nick Clason (33:17):
Like don't leave any on the table. I, there are people who like don't use it all and I, what are you doing that is li PTO stands for paid time off your, your job is telling you that we will pay you. If you take this time off, you have earned this. This is a part of our agreement that we've made with you. You can work here and we will still allow you your paycheck and your salary. If you, uh, take this amount of time off mm-hmm so don't leave any PTO on the table. Like that is a bad, bad strategy. , uh, use it all. And you know, there like our, our, our work lets you like roll some like a, a week's a week's worth into the next year. Um, I never have that to do. Like I literally never have any to roll.

Nick Clason (34:12):
I burn all of it. It is gone. I use it early. I use it often. Like it is, uh, it's it's one of my strategies to staying, uh, you know it, my, I don't know. It's just, for me, life is more than just a job and life is more than just work. And so, uh, use all of your PTO. That is a great way to stay fresh, stay healthy, do the things that are important to you, do the things that matter to you. And even if you're, you know, if you're listening to this and you're in ministry, odds are, you probably are thinking like, okay, but I don't have a lot of money to go on vacation. Then don't go on vacation, just stay home and do fun stuff with your family and your kids. But like, don't like, just because you can't go anywhere else doesn't mean that you should then default into going to work. Like the place will not burn down if you're not there. Yeah. So

Matt Johnson (35:02):
Exactly. And um, my favorite thing is it's kind of a badge of honor with the, uh, lot of older gen the older generation that I know is like, yeah, I have this much PTO. I haven't used my old vice president on marketing. My old job used to have every year he would roll over like 120 hours of PTO. And finally I got to the point where I would tell him, like, you need to take PTO, don't check on me. Like just go on vacation. He was his vacation. So, um, he started doing that and he would take two weeks off a year to just do some carpentry stuff, cuz that was his favorite hobby and it was super healthy for him. So, um, but he hadn't done that, you know, for like 15 years at the company. So take your PTO. I totally agree.

Nick Clason (35:43):
You look, you literally, I mean there are literal studies out there I should have, I should have had 'em to cite 'em a little bit more, but you are not good if you don't have margin baked into your life, like you, your body and your brain need those things to make you more creative. Yep. And it's, you know, in some of those spaces and in some of those margins where your brain will be able to connect some of those dots, you can't just, you can't just hard charge and be eight hours or 12 hours a day with, with no space, you know? Yeah. Some of the, I, I, I dunno if you've ever heard of this map, but uh, I think like Winston Churchill, um, he would take like a nap every single day and he is like one of the most, you know, successful, uh, leaders that we've known in our world.

Nick Clason (36:28):
And he did that because he knew it was good for his brain. Good for that rhythm of rest. And it made him a better leader. Exactly. So, yep. Yeah. So cool. All right guys. Well that is it for today. Uh, just some hacks, some thoughts. Um, again, like we said, your ministry will not be successful if you are not personally healthy a hundred percent. So be personally healthy, put the guardrails, the things that you need into place, um, figure out your rhythms, your hobbies, and the things that, um, work for you and are important to you. And, uh, don't, don't burn out because your church and the world and, uh, people, they, they need what you have to offer and so take care of yourself and uh, those other things will, uh, will be there when you come back. I promise any last parting thoughts.

Matt Johnson (37:21):
I have one thing that I wanted to talk about real quick, about last week's episode that you and I talked about as a correction, uh, we had talked about the TikTok water mark, and I wanted to correct everyone, myself, especially cause you and I talked. And it's something that changed very quickly is if you had that TikTok water, mark Instagram is going to suppress you now. So mm-hmm I wanted to just tell everyone don't do that. We'll have more tips in an upcoming episode about that. but just wanted to get on the record as quick as possible. Hey, we messed up there. Um, pull that. Don't put the water mark on Instagram, so

Nick Clason (38:00):
Yep. That's my fucked box. Yeah. Well, and, and if you listen closely, I was trying to disagree with Matt amicably, uh, live last

Matt Johnson (38:07):
Week. So, and we get into like, I read that article forever ago and I sent it to you and then I changed the article and I hadn't read it and I didn't do my due diligence there. So a lot of good lessons in it, but yep.

Nick Clason (38:19):
Well, and that just goes to show just how quick everything changes. So what, what works today at, you know, quote, unquote time of this recording? Like may not even still be treated yeah. Watch

Matt Johnson (38:28):
Next week the watermark is boosted. So let's just say, who knows?

Nick Clason (38:34):
Yeah. That's why all this is very in lifetime, very important. Like this is, you know, trends now, but especially with social media, I mean, they're always changing their algorithms and uh, you're, you're on borrowed space with them. So you have to play a little bit by their rules. Exactly.

Matt Johnson (38:48):
Yep. So I just wanted to give that correction real quick before we think goodbye to the audience. So.

Nick Clason (38:54):
Cool. All right guys. Appreciate it. Hey, follow us on Twitter. http://www.twitter.com/hybridministry we are online, at http://www.hybridministry.xyz and, uh, give us a subscribe, maybe a rating. That'd be incredible. I share this with a friend and we will talk to you guys next day.