This is the second key to the soul care of the preacher: Taking time to be with Jesus and taking time to rest.
If you are anything like me, you must grab your calendar by the throat.
Left unattended, it will gladly give itself away to everyone else’s priorities. Meetings multiply. Requests feel urgent. Ministry expands to fill every available hour. And before long, the most important things (family, rest, prayer, joy) are nowhere to be found.
This is why managing the calendar is not administrative trivia; it is spiritual stewardship. It is an act of soul care. When we place the big things on the calendar first (time with God, family, rest, and even hobbies) we are not neglecting ministry. We are creating a pace that allows us to stay in ministry over the long haul.
Calendar management creates space for the Word to dwell richly, for the Holy Spirit to tend our hearts, for illustrations to emerge organically, and for the craft of preaching to be practiced rather than rushed. It allows us to rest and to be present with the people we truly love; the people who, as my wife regularly reminds me, will be the ones who show up at our funerals.
And this stewardship of time leads directly to the second key to the soul care of the preacher: Regular time with God, culminating in a weekly Sabbath.
The Obvious and the Neglected
I know what some of you are thinking, “Of course he’s going to say we should spend time with God,” and you are right. But sometimes the most obvious disciplines are the ones we often consistently neglect.
“I’m so busy,” we say. Busyness has become the new greeting, a kind of pastoral aloha, filled with layered meanings. But when we turn to the Gospels, we see something striking: Jesus never appears frantic. Despite the urgency of His mission, He repeatedly withdraws to pray and to rest.
Mark tells us, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed” (Mark 1:35). At least nine times in the Gospels, we are told Jesus intentionally went away to be alone with the Father, and almost always following seasons of intense ministry.
Yet, many preachers would admit, if they were honest, that their time with God is not always life-giving. Prayer can feel routine. Scripture can feel utilitarian; read only for sermon preparation. Silence can feel unproductive. Over time, abiding in the Vine becomes sporadic or absent altogether.
But the truth is unavoidable. The preacher’s authenticity, vibrancy, and (especially as ministries grow) integrity are intrinsically tied to their relationship with Jesus. Practices like prayer, silence, reading Scripture slowly (and even in different translations), and cultivating attentiveness to God are not optional extras. They are the soil in which faithful preaching grows.
Time with Jesus must also be connected to rest. Which brings us to the Sabbath.
Preachers especially need to hear this: You were not made to produce endlessly.
The Holiness of Time
In the opening chapters of Genesis, God creates the world and declares His creation good. But on the seventh day, God does something unique. He rests. And in doing so, He sanctifies not a place, but time itself.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his profound little book The Sabbath, observes that while we are accustomed to calling spaces, objects, and people holy, the first thing ever called holy in Scripture is time. This insight exposes something deeply disordered in us.
We are obsessed with space; with building, acquiring, producing, and leaving our mark. We pour ourselves into work and accomplishment in an attempt, often unconscious, to secure some kind of immortality. We begin to believe that what we produce is what will make us last.
That, quite simply, is justification by works. And it is a dangerous illusion.
The Sabbath interrupts that illusion. Heschel argues how Sabbath rest reminds us that we are not God, and our legacy (our productivity, our achievements) will eventually fade. What endures are relationships: With God and with those nearest to us. Prayer and rest, the activities of the seventh day, orient us toward eternity rather than achievement.
Later in Scripture, this sanctity of time is entrusted to humanity in the commandment: “Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy.” I say this as a sinner, not an expert. I often live as though God gave us nine commandments and one helpful suggestion: Keep the sabbath... if it works out.
But the Sabbath is not a legalistic holdover from the Old Testament. It is a God-given, practical strategy for sustaining a healthy pace of ministry. God baked Sabbath into creation because nothing, not land, not animals, not human beings, was made to produce all the time.
Preachers especially need to hear this: You were not made to produce endlessly.
Knowing that Sabbath is coming forces us to shape the other six days with intention. It requires rhythms, boundaries, and trust. I once heard the Reverend Dr. Timothy Keller say, “You know work has become an idol when rest feels like sin.”
Rest as Trust
This, then, is the second key to the soul care of the preacher: Taking time to be with Jesus and taking time to rest.
Sabbath is an act of trust. It is releasing control. It is believing God is at work even when we stop. It is allowing our worth to be rooted not in output, but in grace.
When this rhythm takes hold, by the power of the Holy Spirit, integration begins to happen. Our preaching deepens. Our words carry weight. Our sermons connect, not because they are clever, but because they flow from a real, lived relationship with the Lord we proclaim.
The preacher who rests preaches from abundance, not exhaustion. And that kind of preaching is a gift, to the Church and to the soul of the preacher alike.
