The Importance of Operational Pauses

There’s a saying in the Marines: “We fight how we train.” So the OpTempo [1] remains high. They are constantly in the field training in tactics, maneuvers, medical care, marching, rapid deployment, and dozens of other skills. There are always new things to learn, procedures to perfect, skills to hone and polish until you can literally accomplish them in your sleep. Because they must be ready, at a moment’s notice, to deploy where they are needed.

Many of us have felt the personal effects of high OpTempo over the last year. COVID has redefined our realty and changed the way we work, worship, play, socialize, and shop. We had to pivot from sending our kids to school to “online learning” with parents facilitating at home. Activities ended, schools closed, daycares were shuttered, churches learned how to livestream, and many discovered how to cook at home. Thankfully, many of us could continue to work, but we had to adjust to working from home. Now most of us have offices set up somewhere in our homes as we learn how to balance our kids, our homes, and our jobs in the same location.

While that has been a blessing, it has also been a challenge. It is impossible to “be off.” Your desk is literally in the other room, and the work must get done, projects must get finished, calls must be returned. We find the work creeping beyond the 9:00 to 5:00 margins, and we discover we are returning emails while brushing our teeth or polishing tomorrow’s presentation at 11:00 p.m. As one friend of mine recently confessed over coffee, “The work never stops. Even when I am ‘off,’ I’m never off. My boss knows my desk is just 20 feet away.” Yes, our personal OpTempos are high, and they show few signs of slowing down.

And for those of us in ministry, the OpTempo seems uniquely high. We’ve had to learn how to lead in the midst of a pandemic. As our churches remained closed, we had to adjust to livestreamed worship and preaching to a camera. We had to adjust to online staff meetings and pastoral care when we couldn’t be physically present. We had to listen to the fears and frustrations of our parishioners who had a wide range of opinions on everything from pandemics to politics. (And it’s amazing how many of our members suddenly thought they were epidemiologists!) Not to mention the usual disagreements over doctrines, policies, procedures, and worship. We, too, were always on. We needed to listen to people’s fears while wrestling with our own. We had to lament loss while not in person. We had to hold out hope when many around us were crying in hopelessness or hollering in despair. As ministers, our OpTempo has been high as we have dealt with stress, sickness, anxiety, fear, worry, regret, and feelings of inadequacy.

So what can we do about it?

The Marines have a high OpTempo, but we also have operational pauses. When a pause is called, the actions cease. It is to help us reset, reorganize, retrofit, and retool so we can be our best.

What are you doing to build operational pauses into your own life and ministry?

A few years ago, I was sitting with my spiritual director, struggling with all of the tasks I had to do: the military demands; ministry responsibilities of preaching, teaching, caring; being present for my wife and kids; and so on. I was going on and on about how busy I was. My spiritual director calmly listened to all I was saying and then sat silently for a moment. Then he told me something profound: “Daniel, you are not the Messiah. And even he stopped to rest. What makes you think you have to do it all?”

Mark 1 tells us about the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. He was traveling around Galilee, preaching and healing. His fame started to grow as word about him spread around the countryside. People traveled from all around to bring the diseased and demon-possessed. Jesus spent much of the night healing. But then Mark tells us that Jesus got up very early in the morning and went off the pray. For Jesus, nothing was more important than that operational pause. It was his chance to reconnect, re-center, and reset for the ministry ahead of him. Jesus set the right priority. Prayer reenergized him for his mission as he reconnected with God.

And that prayer allowed Jesus to set new priorities, ones that shocked the disciples. When Simon Peter and the others found Jesus, they told him there was so much more work to be done! “Everyone’s looking for you!” But Jesus stated: “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come” (Mark 1:28-39).

In a world that values productivity – doing more and more – Jesus reminds us that faithfulness is greater fruit than fame. There’s always work to do … so we must begin in prayer. Echoing that idea, Martin Luther once wrote, “Work, work, from morning until late at night. In fact, I have so much to do that I shall have to spend the first three hours in prayer.”

Those pauses remind us that it is God’s mission and God’s work all done for God’s glory. Although God calls us to minister with him and for him, he also reminds us that sometimes we need only to be still and let God do his work in us. I love the words of Exod. 14:14: “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” [2]

What can you do to build those operational pauses into your own life and ministry? Maybe it is to take a mini-retreat and spend the day in prayer. Maybe it is to set aside 20 minutes in the morning to pray intentionally. Maybe it is to go fishing or hiking and let the day’s cares subside. Maybe it is to spend a day with digital distractions disabled: turn off your phone, close the laptop, don’t turn on the TV. Maybe it is to spend time gardening and use that as a time with God.

Our pauses are unique to us, yet we all need them. Because you can’t do it all; you aren’t the Messiah. And even Jesus took time to rest.

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[1] OpTempo stands for operational tempo, the rate or pace of operations or training away from the primary duty station.

[2] I especially love the translation in the Complete Jewish Bible (CJB): “Adonai will do battle for you. Just calm yourselves down!”