Easter is a busy time.
For those entrusted with leading the people of God, the season of Lent may serve to focus deep attention on spiritual reality, but the celebration of Easter is often filled with dramatic intensity, layered worship services, heightened expectations, emotional proclamation, and a desire to do justice to the mystery of the cross and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus.
When it is over, many ministers and other church leaders find themselves relieved but depleted. The alleluias may continue to echo, but the soul may feel stretched and the body exhausted.
Yet the more restrained weeks between Easter and Pentecost offer space for recovery and renewal. The risen Christ does not hurry us. He meets us, restores us, renews us, and prepares us for further service in his kingdom of love and grace.
Here are four practical steps to help rebuild freshness, focus, and zeal in this holy season, with God’s help.
1. Reclaim unhurried attending to Jesus
After Easter, it is tempting to move immediately into the next cycle of short- and long-demands. We face various challenges of planning, leadership, administration and pastoral care. Yet the Gospels gently remind us that the risen Jesus spent qualitytime with his disciples in ways that were (by our standards) rather slow, personal, and attentive.
Think of the narrative of the unexpected encounter on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), the two post-resurrection meetings recorded in John 20:19-29, and the breakfast gathering by the lakeside (John 21:1-14).
These texts suggest to me, among other things, the imperative of a deliberate return to Scripture as a place of encounter with the risen Christ. Set aside a protected time each day to read the Gospel resurrection narratives in a relaxed, reflective, unhurried, devotional manner. Resist the instinct to analyse or extract potential sermon points. Read them several times, attending to the presence of Christ – how he speaks, what actions he performs, how he restores, how he reassures, how he challenges and commissions.
Freshness in ministry rarely comes from new ideas alone; it comes from renewed attention. The mind may be tired, but the heart can be quietly reawakened through sustained, unhurried gaze upon Christ.
2. Simplify your ministry
After the intensity of Holy Week, not everything needs to be equally urgent. You have permission to reduce unnecessary complexity. Attempting to sustain a hectic pace without regular withdrawal comes at a cost. A wise man once counselled me to divert daily, withdraw weekly, and abandon annually in order to make best use of my time and gifts.
For example, take a brief, honest audit of your current commitments. Which activities genuinely serve the spiritual formation of your people? Which are driven more by habit or expectation than by necessity? Streamline where possible. Delegate what can be shared. Postpone what is not time-critical.
The early church in Acts, between resurrection and Pentecost, does relatively little in outward terms. They gather, they pray, they wait. Their focus is not on multiplying activity but on aligning themselves with what God is about to do.
A simplified ministry creates space for attentiveness to God, to people, and to the quiet work of the Spirit that is often obscured by busyness.
3. Cultivate small practices of embodied renewal
Exhaustion after Easter is not only spiritual; it may bephysical and emotional. Ministers of the Gospel carry the weight of public leadership, often at a cost to their own well-being. Renewal must be more than a theological concept; it must be embodied.
Identify two or three practices that have the capacity to restore you, and commit to them consistently in the weeks ahead. This might include a daily walk without devices, a regular shared meal with family or friends, or a fixed day off that is genuinely protected. It may involve revisiting unstructured practices of prayer such as silence, gratitude, or lectio divina.
These practices are forms of resistance against a model of ministry that equates faithfulness with constant public action and output. Zeal that is not sustained by renewal becomes brittle; zeal that is rooted in a replenished life becomes durable and quietly compelling.
4. Pray for those stirred by the Easter story
Holy Week and Easter often draw people into the life of the Church in fresh ways. Some return after long absence. Others encounter the gospel with unexpected clarity. Still others are unsettled by fresh conviction, questioning, searching. This has certainly been my observation in the past week.
In the busyness of leading services, it is easy to miss the workthe Spirit may have begun in others. The weeks after Easter are a crucial time for follow-up and prayerful attentiveness.You may not know all their names, but you can hold before God the visitors, the “occasionals,” the seekers. Pray for clarity where there is confusion, for courage where there is hesitation, for perseverance where there is fragile new faith.
Where appropriate, create gentle pathways for connectionsuch as an invitation to conversation or a small group, or a follow-up message. The Spirit who raised Christ from the dead is at work in hidden ways; your role is not to control that work, but to accompany it in prayer.
In this season, take time to slow down, to look again at Christ, and to trust that he is at work within you, and within those entrusted to your care, preparing all for the gift to come.
Rev Dr Rod Benson is General Secretary of the NSW Ecumenical Council and a minister of the Uniting Church in Australia serving at North Rocks Community Church in Sydney.
image source: Catholicjules
iDigress 