One of the best things that you can do for yourself as you begin a new pastorate is to find two to three other colleagues who are willing to walk this walk with you. You can ask them if they will meet with you at least once a month to help you be accountable for maintaining a balance that is healthy in these initial months of your ministry. If it is possible, there would be some advantage to forming that group with other pastors who are in the similar experience of new beginnings. That way each of you are helping the other, and you each experience both the benefit you receive and the satisfaction of providing support for the others as well. If distance makes it difficult for your meetings, you might also experiment with skype or some other type of video conferencing for some of your meetings, but not all of them.
As a beginning, you could try to draw up a contract with each other in some basic areas of health maintenance. For example, you might agree that all of you will engage in some physical exercises each week, get an average of ? amount of sleep each night, strive to eat a healthy diet, etc. You don’t need to be overly strict on these commitments. Simply talk about what you think might be a minimally healthy approach and agree that you will report honestly to each other how you are doing and if any modification to your commitments need to be made. The very fact of knowing that you will report to each other will help reinforce your commitments.
You would also agree that you would share a story of one of the more satisfying and one of the more frustrating experiences in the past month and allow the group to help you process both. Putting the experiences into words can help you gain some perspective but also the group can help you determine your most healthy response.
I will share more about this when I return from the conference.
