pretending to be the vine

... makes it impossible to rest

Author

Likewise Worship
September 24, 2024

It often feels like it only takes a few days after vacation to go back to being as stressed as you were before vacation. Can you relate? Turns out resting from ministry won’t be enough…

In Today’s Email

  1. 3 Reasons Why You Can’t Seem to Rest

  2. 2025 Retreat Registration is OPEN!!

  3. Darlene Zschech on Praise

3 Reasons Why You Can’t Seem to Rest

At Likewise Worship, we are fresh off our our 2024 Retreat @ Sea! It was incredible. Our speaker, Bruce Garner, left us with so much to wrestle with and we wanted to share some of it here.

Inspired by our sessions, here are 3 reasons why you might be finding it hard to rest.

1. Identity

There’s a reason why we are always being encouraged to find our identity in Christ. The reason: if we don’t get that right, our foundation for our lives becomes ourselves and what we accomplish - yikes.

Who are you?

In Christ you are, accepted, secure, and significant. Read more here. (After reading, which of these are easy to believe? Which are harder? Which are meaningful to you?)

Who you are is not what you do.

If you get that wrong and what you do is mistaken for who you are, it will disappoint you and then destroy you.

Your rest depends on your unchanging identity, not your ministry activity.

If your identity isn’t rooted in Jesus, it just simply won’t matter how many vacations or weekends off you take - you will not truly rest.

2. Orientation to Jesus

Question for you:

Does your day include time with Jesus? Or is it built around time with Jesus?

In Bruce’s nationwide survey of full-time pastors he found:

  • 60% find the demands of ministry overwhelming

  • 34% don’t believe they can escape the demands of ministry to refresh themselves

  • 25% say their love for God has NOT increased because they serve as a pastor

  • 26% say they do NOT hunger for a closer walk with God as a result of being a pastor

Friends, he is YOUR friend. If your time with Jesus is an “if time permits” activity, you won’t experience His nearness and the rest He offers.

3. You’re a Branch, Not the Vine

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

John 15:5

Jesus’ part is to give us life.

Our part is to stay close to Him.

In what ways has this become reversed in your own life and ministry?

If you are a branch pretending to be the vine, you will never rest.

Retreat 2025 - Registration OPEN!

USE THE CODE: EARLY - SAVE $100

“If we don’t stop to rest, we miss the rest of God: the rest he invites us to enter more fully so that we might know him more deeply… Some knowing is never pursued, only received. And for that, you need to be still.”

~ Mark Buchanan - The Rest of God

Worship Leaders, Music Directors & Spouses - Join us September 22-25, 2025 at Forest Home Retreat Center in Southern California!

More info and registration here!

Darlene Zschech on Praise

Praise is declaration, a victory cry, proclaiming faith to stand firm in the place God has given you. Praise is a proclamation that the enemy's intent to plunder you will not rock you.

- Darlene Zschech

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