Staying healthy as a church planter

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:09

Welcome everyone to Unfiltered, a podcast for church planters. Real conversations about church and church planting.

My name is Lee Stevenson and I have the privilege of serving with Converge as the Executive Director of church planting and my co host here.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:24

I'm Danny Parmalee from Converge Mid America, overseeing church planting in the Mid America region.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:30

Fantastic. We're excited to be able to be with you today and thanks again for tuning in.

We're going to be talking a little bit about how to maintain healthy rhythms and self leadership and self care in really the while you're in the trenches of church planting and doing church work.

Because it's hard, it's challenging, there's a lot of stress involved and we want you to be doing what you're doing for the long haul, carrying out the call and that God has upon your life. So let's kind of begin. Danny, talk to me a little bit like, how do you say, so fit man?

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:03

Yeah, yeah. I wish I could say that it's because I eat healthy and exercise daily, but that's not the case.

Probably just somewhat of the metabolism that God gave me. But I do think this is a really important subject.

Not many people talk to me about it early on and so definitely in the early years of, of church planning, I basically just put my head down and kept on working. The things that were absent from my life in those early years were regular Sabbath rest.

So I did not take weekly Sabbath, I did not have an exercise routine, I didn't have hobbies or things that I did for fun. My hobbies were working more type of thing. And again, part of that's personality makeup, part of it's just the demand of church planting.

Now some of that stuff began to shift for me and it was really, really helpful. So now I am a huge advocate of it. From the simplest form of honestly just starting with Sabbath rest.

And I don't say that out of a legalistic thing, but for me it was taking Monday mornings off and like to hear if you did Mondays or Fridays type of thing. But for me it was Monday and for me it meant a big thing was no email.

Because the moment that you go in and check one thing, your mind just goes to another, to another place. And my Mondays also became important as my wife and I as we had children and then she was staying home, it was time for us.

So I called it family Sabbath time. And that's even how I communicated it to the church as well too. It's like, hey, this is time that I'm actually with my family.

There's also time for me to rest and to pray, to recuperate. Yes, I would do certain house projects and things like that, but it was really important for that to become a pretty consistent thing in my life.

But it did take discipline because again, I like working. I want to keep going and keep growing and doing all those different things. So.

Lee Stephenson: 00:03:14

So walk us real quick then. You know, Monday mornings was kind of Sabbath time for you. What did the rest of your week look like? And then I'll share from there as well.

Danny Parmelee: 00:03:24

Yeah, so for me, the way that, you know, obviously it changed and morphed over time, but because we were multi site and we utilize video, we recorded a backup version of the sermon on Friday, which that may sound kind of crazy, but it ended up being one of the most life giving things to me because it meant my sermon was done by Friday and I could literally tuck it in my Bible and pick it back up Sunday morning. And so that we also because we had a preaching team, we did sermon evaluation on Thursdays.

So sermon was about 90% done on Thursday, which meant that I did some sermon prep stuff that you know, was done a little bit, maybe the week before, but then Tuesdays and a little bit Wednesdays a little bit. Then did lots more leadership stuff and worked on the church on that kind of Tuesday and Wednesday.

And I spent a majority of the day on Thursday really trying to focus on finishing up sermon stuff.

Lee Stephenson: 00:04:27

Okay, so what did Saturdays look like for you then?

Danny Parmelee: 00:04:30

Yeah, so for me, my Saturdays were, I call them like 50% off days type of thing. Because there's times where it's like, hey, that's when small group leader training is.

Or maybe need to visit someone in the hospital or there's just some meetings. But for the most part I would do stuff with family. So it was whatever I could kind of do around the house.

And then Sundays we had services from the morning all the way to the evening. So that was full day.

Lee Stephenson: 00:04:58

Did you take the full day Monday off or just.

Danny Parmelee: 00:05:00

Yeah, I did full day Monday, even if Saturday was half day or whatever. So. But a lot of times. And so that's why a lot of pastors don't. But for me it was fine because Saturday I literally was off.

Like I could talk the sermon in the back of my mind. I mean I would literally have people be like, so what are you preaching on this weekend?

And I'm like, I don't know, like my sermon is done and it's going to be great. But I literally could do this mental block to Just enjoy. Yeah, just move on. Move on with life that way.

The other thing is, which we'll talk about exercise in a moment.

But I played hockey, which was usually on Saturdays and Sunday, sometimes Friday nights as well too, which became just a huge component that I had been missing in those early years.

Lee Stephenson: 00:05:46

That's great. That's great for us too. It changed. I think you got to know yourself more.

I think it's not about time management as it is more about energy management when you're leading at these levels. And so I encourage you guys like pay attention to the energy. Some days you're going to be able to work 18 hour days.

Other days you may only be able to work a three hour day. And so pay attention to that. Don't run yourself dry. For me, the rhythm is a little different than what we did when we did Saturday nights.

It got really hard finding the time. But up until then, Mondays, Monday morning, I just kind of slowly worked in my sermon. So it was spending time at home.

I studied, prayed and just kind of was recouping from the weekend.

I didn't want to give Mondays as my day off because I knew I was tired and I was not functioning well and I didn't want to waste my day off, if that makes sense. And so I purposely, I still went to the office then at about noon and worked the rest of the afternoon on Mondays.

Tuesday was kind of meeting day, so it was just stacked out all day meetings. Wednesday morning was again come back to the sermon, work on that a little bit. And then I usually did staff meetings.

So I would connect with our staff guys and things like that for Wednesday afternoon.

Thursday morning was finalized the sermon and then, then a lot of that was then like Thursday afternoon blocked aside from my executive pastor and I to connect. And I'd schedule a few luncheons and things of that sort. I got to the time when I could only give one morning a week to breakfast meetings.

And so the rest of the week I had no meetings before 9 o'clock in the morning. And so that allowed me to just make sure I stay focused and kept healthy rhythms for me.

And then Fridays were my day off and had to religiously learn how to shut my phone off, not check email, you know, not answer the phone all the time and, and just really focus in on the family and my marriage. And Saturdays were hit or miss. Yeah, kind of depending on what was going on that weekend.

When we moved to Saturday night, it, you know, by noon I was working and so in the mornings was usually like games with the kids, you know, so we were going to baseball games or football games or soccer games and. And then by noon I was, I was ready to go and having to move into that mode. Sunday nights is when we did small group.

And that was a good rhythm for us and for me during those years.

Danny Parmelee: 00:08:22

Very cool. Yeah. And I forgot to mention, so for me, morning stuff, Friday mornings was my men's small group that I did in the morning.

So that was an early thing for me. It kind of depended. I would sometimes do early morning coffees, but it also, there was times where we lived pretty close to the church.

I could literally go do a coffee breakfast appointment and be back by the time Stella was getting up in the morning type of thing that way. But I also kept nights very free. So I made kind of that.

It was besides our overseer or elder meetings, which were once a month, if there was something that was happening at night and there had to be some sort of special meeting or ministry thing, I talked to Emily about it. So that was the. Not. It was outside of the norm. So that required a conversation. And that was just. That was really helpful.

And I mean, I'm hearing pastors like, ah, they're gone five nights a week or whatever. And for whatever reason, it just stuck within our, within our culture and helped to really kind of keep that down unless it was necessary.

Lee Stephenson: 00:09:27

How did you, you know, you were young, you have a fast growing church, your influential position, you know, your church has an influential piece in the city. I'm sure that there are a lot of opportunities coming, your direction to speak at this or to serve on this board or, you know, leverage your time.

How did you navigate some of those things to make sure that you stayed focused and stayed healthy, both in your personal walk with the Lord, but your connection with your marriage and your kids and stuff.

Danny Parmelee: 00:09:59

Yeah. And I think one of the earlier podcasts I mentioned that, I think that in the beginning of church planning that yes is a really important.

You just say almost say yes to everything just because you're starting and then you have to work to say no. I just had to learn to say no to things. And sometimes that is hard because it's like, hey, will you be on this board?

And yeah, it's not for the money because you're not going to get paid for this board position. But it's like, wow, I've got to seat at the table. And it might even help the church because now I'm connected to this.

Lee Stephenson: 00:10:29

Other people or.

Danny Parmelee: 00:10:30

Yeah, with these people or with this organization. So I Think it's saying no, because when you do say no to some of those things, then you are saying yes to other things as well too.

So for me, I had shared earlier about hockey and that really came about because someone from the church had heard me say a couple different illustrations on hockey. And so they picked up, well, he clearly played hockey and he had an opening on his team. And he's like, hey, do you want to play?

I haven't played in years and I probably can't even skate anymore or whatever.

And that first time that I got back out on the ice, got some equipment and he laughed because I had some equipment that was still like from high school. Like, they don't even, they don't use aluminum sticks anymore. Everything's carbon now.

And I was like, well, when I got this, this was like the most amazing hockey stick. And I mean, it's hard to explain, but it was like life was breathed back into me.

And what happened was, is that it was a love and passion for me that was reawakened. It was the physical exercise as well too. And I mean, I'm a competitive person.

And I mean, I mean I was playing as if I was playing for the Stanley cup for, you know, men's league B league guys. Yeah, yeah. And. But I was laying it all out as if we were going for it type of thing.

And then the third component of that, which was just amazing, is that I was out of the Christian bubble. And so I'm in the men's hockey locker room and it brought me back to the reality of what's being talked about, what people are going through.

And I like to say what normal people are instead of like, hey, these are just, I'm in this Christian bubble. And so that was transformational for me to be able to have that as both a hobby and exercise and outreach.

And I don't know, it was just a really important part of the rhythm of my life to be able to have that kind of connected.

Lee Stephenson: 00:12:29

Yeah. Oh, that's great.

Danny Parmelee: 00:12:30

What about you for hobbies? Was there anything that was kind of your, hey, you know what?

Even if there's hard ministry stuff going on, this is something that I can kind of plug into.

Lee Stephenson: 00:12:41

I'd say there are a couple things.

One, I always like being a part and even today still like being a part of my kids sports teams, whether or not coaching the team or assistant coaching or just being there. And so I try to always carve out time to be able to do that and be a part of that world for them. For me too.

When we were planting before, kind of some of my health challenges that we talked about in an earlier podcast, I loved mountain biking. Like that was my outlet. And so I would mountain bike probably consistently five to six days a week.

And Saturday mornings I created kind of a riding club of guys in the area made up of Christians and non Christians. And we just go ride for a couple hours and maybe grab a cup of coffee afterwards and talk about life. But I was pretty religious.

At, you know, 4 to 4:30, I'd check out of the office and I'd go ride. And it was all year round. I mean, in Arizona, riding at 4 o'clock in the afternoon during the summer is kind of brutal. But you know, I needed that.

And I know that that worked in my rhythm and my schedule.

And I just, I knew it was life giving to me, both in that it allowed me to decompress from the day, but also it was life giving to me that it was keeping me fit, you know, physically and stuff of that sort. It was a really hard season when I went through the medical challenges I did, and all that kind of got ripped out of my hands.

I'm like, I don't have that outlet anymore. And I'd say I never fully figured out how to fully replace that. Now today I minimum work out four times a week.

Danny Parmelee: 00:14:24

That's why those biceps are so big.

Lee Stephenson: 00:14:26

I gotta keep at it, man. So it's like one of those things as I grow older, if you stop, you're gonna get into problems. So it's like, just keep going.

But I know myself, I need some type of intense outlet.

And so I, I do high interval intensity training and, and it works well for my personality and, and I can do that even carrying my travel schedule and you know, but I, I just encourage you. You got to pay attention to that part.

It's so easy to give in and just before you know it, like, you lose sight and physically you start paying the price and the stress just gonna grow over the years. And as the church grows, you know, I try to watch what I eat.

And now when I travel, like my lunch, when I'm on the road, one meal a day, minimum is gonna be a salad. It's just, it's gonna be light, it's gonna be low calorie, and that helps me maintain healthy weight and things as well. But don't.

Danny Parmelee: 00:15:29

That's great. I put lettuce and tomato on my burgers.

Lee Stephenson: 00:15:31

That's good. That's good. Well, not everybody's blessed with the metabolism like you, so. But I just. You got to schedule these things. Like, it's got to be.

You got to write it in the calendar and be okay to just say, I'm not. I'm not going to bypass this commitment because it has long term outcomes that will help you. You know, I made the decision too when I turned 30.

Like, I'm gonna go get a physical every year. Like, I'm just committed to that.

And, and so that way I can make sure I'm routinely, you know, in tune with who I am and I can pay attention and change if I need to change something.

Danny Parmelee: 00:16:11

Yeah, that's great. Speaking of mountain biking, I think. Didn't you just do some crazy mountain biking?

Lee Stephenson: 00:16:16

I did, yeah. It was fun.

So I, you know, I was kind of told that my mountain biking days were done years ago and, And I might be able to mountain bike for fun and, and. But totally have to dial back and wouldn't be the same. And I kind of set out to prove the doctor wrong and decided to go back one last time.

I used to do multiple races a year, and one specific was a 24 hour mountain bike race. I just loved and had a team that we'd always go and compete every year. And I, I just, it.

That part of my life kind of got ripped out from me without me having a say in it. And I just told Melissa, like, feel like I'm in good enough health and physically fit enough.

Like, I'd want to go back and just do it one more time for fun. Like not going as a high end competitor, but just go and have a good time. And it was a blast.

Danny Parmelee: 00:17:07

Did you finish it?

Lee Stephenson: 00:17:08

I did.

Danny Parmelee: 00:17:08

Did you write a letter to the doctor?

Lee Stephenson: 00:17:10

No, but I thought about it like, you know, I did it, so. But it was, it was, I would say it was even a worshipful experience, like out there on the bike. Like, I got emotional riding.

You know, I'm huffing and puffing, but I'm like, emotional. Like, this is unbelievable. Like, Lord, thank you for giving me this back in this week.

Danny Parmelee: 00:17:31

Yeah. All right, I've got a question. Family vacation. How were you able to do that? What did you do? And then I wonder if you.

Well, actually, yeah, just go with that.

Lee Stephenson: 00:17:46

Yeah. I mean, we just, we didn't have a lot of money to do any extravagant vacations, so that was not, you know, part of our desire.

But we always tried to find ways to get out and just decompress and be, you know, away from things. A lot of vacations were spent visiting family, but at least Like, I had family that lived in Fort Myers, Florida.

So, you know, we're going to the beach and we're doing things like that that are still fun and what people pay a lot of money to go do. And we had a free place to stay. But, you know, we.

Every other year, we made a commitment to go camping for a week, and we usually, you know, we get a trailer or something of that sort. And for multiple years, every other year, we go to Yosemite national park, and just. It was just.

You're in places where the cell phone doesn't work, and you're just outside. And for us in our family, we enjoy being outside. We want to be outdoors. We want to be doing things, hiking and just enjoying God's creation.

But one of the biggest things is it's so easy for you to get away from you. And so I encourage guys, you need to plan a family calendar a year ahead of time. Where am I going to take vacation?

What seasons is it okay for me to miss a weekend and try to at least take enough vacation where you can get two Sundays off in a row once a year, because you're pressing so hard, and if you miss one Sunday, you're still having to prepare the next Sunday. So it's kind of freeing to have two Sundays off. So you have one week where you're just totally not having to prepare a sermon. You can truly relax.

Danny Parmelee: 00:19:22

Yeah, yeah.

For us, I enjoyed doing, like, the Caribbean thing, but that was also a struggle as well, too, because, I mean, we were doing this off of free airline miles or whatever. But we've got a young congregation, people without money, and there's the pastor, you know, taking his. It's like, do I tell people?

Do I say I'm going on a missions trip? You know, like, what do I. How do I.

Lee Stephenson: 00:19:45

How do I do this picture on Facebook? Exactly.

Danny Parmelee: 00:19:49

But I do think that that was just really important for Emily and I and for our marriage. And now we're trying to figure it out more with kids. Like, do we take them every time? Do we not?

And so I was curious how you kind of did that and balance that.

Lee Stephenson: 00:20:01

Yeah, we've tried to at least once a year, like Melissa and I, and this for years. Like, we've tried to at least take two days or two nights where it's just us or we don't have any kids at least once a year. And that's good for us.

I think it's good for our kids as well.

And we either schedule it near our anniversary or we just schedule it somewhere it works, you know, it doesn't always have to be center around the anniversary. And you know, we did a missions trip. I remember my.

On our second anniversary we had to do a missions trip into Uganda and we just happened to be in Africa on our anniversary. So we booked a three day safari. We're already there. So it was like it ended up being pretty cheap.

And I remember trying to Melissa and I said, well, I think I just outdid myself for the rest of my marriage. So I don't know if I can ever compete with this.

But it, you know, we have fun and part of this just be creative and find things that work for you both for the kids. But you need time away as well. Just you as a couple.

Danny Parmelee: 00:21:00

Cool, cool, cool.

Lee Stephenson: 00:21:04

How Any other advice that you would have, Danny, for just young guys getting started when it comes to thinking through their rhythms and making sure that they maintain healthy rhythms in those early days of planning?

Danny Parmelee: 00:21:18

Yeah, I think just reviewing what we said, like if you can even just start out by having that once a week Sabbath and to disconnect from things. So it doesn't mean just, you know, not taking meetings and really stick to it.

Start that culture in your church and you're gonna, you're gonna find extenuating circumstances all the time. So you really have to. Is it really an extenuating circumstance?

And it's hard because lots of pastors love to be loved and love to feel like I'm breaking my Sabbath, I'm taking my time off. And even for friends to be like, no, I kind of, you know what I mean? I need to be able to have this time.

And I do think finding that outlet and if that outlet of exercise and hobby can be together, that's great. But if not, then still figure out exercise. But if there's hobby, maybe it's woodworking or whatever.

Use that as even your mental and emotional release to be able to kind of just dive into that type of thing.

Lee Stephenson: 00:22:13

And I think I would add to that, like know that in ministry people are going to come to you all the time with emergencies. And just because it's somebody else's emergency doesn't mean it's your emergency.

And so it's okay to say, you know, not now, like I need to focus here, I need to focus on my family or I have a game I got to go to and we'll talk about this at another time. And I would encourage you especially in planting, like you're driving so much. I mean you're just go, go, go, go Go.

Don't neglect your family when you're home. I learned that the hard way. I remember I would come home, I'd walk in the house, be on the cell phone in a conversation.

My kids would come running up to me, and I'd basically ignore them because I'm still on the phone. And I remember Melissa kind of saying, do you realize what you're doing to your kids? I'm like, oh, I missed it. Like, I'm sorry.

And I just made, at that point, even a commitment.

Like, if I have an important phone call that I need, and usually I'm at every time I'm in the car, like, I'm on the phone, I'll stay in the car until I'm done with that phone call, and then I'll walk in the house. And when I walk in the house, I put the phone in a drawer and I'm present. So those little things matter.

And you gotta pay attention to making sure that your kids know you're there.

Danny Parmelee: 00:23:28

Yeah, I think one of the things that was a great realization for me is that when we did do the vacations, when we would go, I would again, complete disconnect. I actually changed my path, or had Emily changed my password and not tell it to me. So I could not get into my email for any reason.

And when I came back, I remember seeing some that said emergency, like urgent, whatever, in the. In the subject line, and I'll read. And then five emails later, it was all taken care of.

And I was thinking, you know, if I was back home, what I would do, And I would have jumped on that and tried to solve, and I didn't need to, you know, you didn't.

Lee Stephenson: 00:24:04

Need to solve yourself.

Danny Parmelee: 00:24:05

And so that's one of the reasons, like, on your Sabbath, if you. If you pick the phone and someone says, hey, I'm at the doctor's office, can you come here and pray with me? What are you going to say then?

So don't pick up your phone, don't answer the email. Don't. And let that be an ongoing, known thing. Because even if someone emails you and they're like, hey, what are you doing? Oh, nothing.

I'm taking my steps. Now they know you've been checking stuff. You know what I mean?

And so it's just easier to just kind of set those kind of parameters and boundaries and stick with them.

Lee Stephenson: 00:24:35

Great advice. Great advice. Advice. Well, it's good being with you. This is Lee and Danny. Thanks for tuning in to the unfiltered podcast.

Real conversations about church planning until Next time, keep it real.