I remember sitting in a staff meeting at a church I was serving. The purpose of the meeting was to talk about how we could attract more people to join the church. At one point someone counted the requirements for church membership already in place and made the startling discovery that there were at least five time commitments per week required of those who wanted to become church members!

Outwardly I tried to be supportive of the meeting, but on the inside I was screaming,

Who would want to sign up for this? I was already trying to combat CFS (Christian fatigue syndrome) in my own life and couldn’t imagine inflicting it on someone else. How is it, I wondered, that life in the church often gets reduced to so much activity, so much busyness, and such weighty expectations?

One of the main reasons this happens is simply because it reflects the way church leaders are living. Most of us only know one speed: full steam ahead. And we have been stuck in that speed for a very long time. If we ...