It’s been said that if you don’t control your calendar, it will control your life. For many senior ministry leaders, this is exactly the situation they face week after week. The tyranny of the urgent obscures any ability to rise above a daily sense of chaos and create a better ministry.

With increasing expectations that seem to demand leaders do even more with fewer volunteers, money, and time, the situation isn’t likely to improve without an intentional intervention.

More than 20 years ago, Ministry Architects founder and veteran ministry leader Mark DeVries introduced what he called the “rhythmic week.” He specifically wrote about the concept in the context of youth ministry, but it also has wide-ranging — and timeless —implications for senior leaders. 

Designing a “Rhythmic Week”

According to DeVries, establishing a rhythmic week involves dividing one’s working days into three slots – morning, afternoon, and evening. In each slot, a leader organizes the various activities that occupy the week. For a pastoral leader, this might be a weekly staff meeting, worship preparation and sermon writing, time in the office, pastoral care visits, Bible study leadership, and standing committee meetings. 

Alongside work tasks are three essential, and often overlooked, categories of weekly time: Sabbath, family time, and “balcony time.” These three categories are critical building blocks for personal wellbeing, longevity, and joy in ministry. 

Without sabbath and balcony time, vocational ministry is reduced to a series of endless tasks, and the people you serve become items to check off a to-do list.

“In balcony time, we step out of the wild, rushing current of doing ministry and step into a place where we can actually work on the ministry,” DeVries wrote in a Group Magazine article in 2004. “It’s in the balcony that we find the leverage to move our ministries forward; it’s in the balcony that we move out of a victim mentality and into the mindset of a leader; it’s in the balcony that we learn to say no to the secondary priorities so we can attend to the essential ones.” 

Balcony time allows a leader to slow down and zoom out to 30,000 feet above their ministry to gain perspective, listen for the Holy Spirit’s leading, and make strategic decisions. It allows for planning that moves a ministry away from operating from a reactive stance and toward a proactive posture. During balcony time, a leader is able to make decisions that actually save time and resources in the long run.

From the balcony, decisions aren’t made in a state of constant triage and freneticism, but with true discernment. 

Impacts on Wellbeing 

Organizing one’s time in a rhythmic week also contributes to greater well-being for leaders. Studies show that multitasking, characterized by quickly flitting from one task to another, actually increases blood pressure and stress levels in the body. Left unchecked, this can lead to symptoms of depression and anxiety. Taken to the extreme, this level of operating with a constant sense of urgency leads to burnout. 

For busy ministry leaders, balcony time may feel like a luxury they can ill afford. But the opposite is true. 

Balcony time might just be the most important part of a leader’s work calendar. 

Without ever rising above the fray of daily tasks, ministries won’t be rooted in a clear sense of mission or purpose. The cascading impacts of rudderless decision-making are unclear expectations for fellow staff and volunteers, and ministries that feel messier than necessary. Ultimately, this leads to people within the faith community not having a clear sense of their goals or if they’re ever actually achieved. 

Getting Started with Your Rhythmic Week

The summer is a great time to begin implementing a rhythmic week since it’s often a slower season for many senior ministry leaders. This means establishing clear boundaries for how you’ll spend your time can feel easier now than during the busy program year. 

You can use this free resource, adapted from DeVries’ original tool created for youth ministers, to build your rhythmic week. Commit to following the weekly schedule for at least three weeks and let your colleagues know that you’re implementing a new pattern for how you spend your time. Then after running the experiment, ask yourself the following questions to reflect on what you experienced. 

  • What did you notice in your body about your sense of stress, anxiety, and urgency when you followed the rhythmic week you created? 
  • Did your rhythmic week allow you to spend more time in prayer, reflection, and discernment? How so? 
  • How did your rhythmic week impact the people closest to you (your family, friends, colleagues, faith community members, etc.)? 
  • What did you find helpful about the way you designed your rhythmic week? What might need to shift so your rhythmic week is even more fruitful for you? 

Establishing a rhythmic week isn’t meant to feel like one more task to accomplish. It’s an intentional way of orienting one’s calendar so that it serves the leader, not the other way around. A rhythmic week is a discipline that ultimately leads to more faithful — and fruitful — leadership.