Replenish

These stats changed my life.

I first saw these numbers when a friend gave me a book by Wayne Cordero called Leadin on Empty. A friend of mine gave me this book on a trip… It was the first of the kind in the first of many of the same kind of trips. We called and replenish trips and the goal was to combat the dismal statistics below.

From Barna, Focus on the Family, and Fuller Seminary

 * Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month (due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches)
 * Fifty percent of pastors' marriages will end in divorce.
 * Eighty percent of pastors feel unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastor.
 * Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.
* Eighty percent of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years.
 * Seventy percent of pastors constantly fight depression.
 * Almost forty percent polled said they have had an extra-marital affair since beginning their ministry.
 * Seventy percent said the only time they spend studying the Word is when they are preparing their sermons.

I am giving a talk today at Thrive at Bayside Church, Granite Bay, CA with a couple of experienced Replenishers. Ill share some additional thoughts at being better, getting better and recharging, refocusing, resharpening and replenishing.