Tomorrow is our “Revive Refocus Retreat” which we’ve been planning for several months. This retreat is for leaders to grow and experience God more deeply through prayer. The reason for this retreat is simple: the best. most fruitful, life-changing groups are led by healthy leaders who have a strong, growing relationship with God. But let’s face it, leaders are usually busy people who face stress, frustrations, discouragement, and even burnout.
There are some things a leader can do to avoid or beat burnout (which I discuss in my book, The Pocket Guide to Burnout-Free Small Group Leadership, by the way). The #1 burnout buster is to realize and always remember that you are not the real leader of your group. God is. Your role is to “lead from the second chair.”
As I wrote in Burnout-Free, “your main job as a leader is very simple: to stay very close to God,” and sometimes we just need to get away (“retreat”) from our everyday worlds to spend some focused time on God. We need to revive our souls and refocus our minds.
This is not the last Revive Refocus Retreat we’ll do for our leaders. I hope to make it a regular experience. I’ll let you know how this one went soon.
