In today’s episode we welcome back Josh Spurlock to the podcast. In part one of our interview, Josh unpacks the current leadership landscape in terms of mental and emotional health; the silver lining issuing out of the struggles of the past two years, and the core building blocks of preventive self-care.

Here are the show notes:

1. What’s new in your ministry since we last talked?
   • The grind that Covid has taken on leaders has a silver lining to it. It’s created space and brought things to a head that needed to be addressed.
   • The pressures of trying to reinvent church forced actions that are now helping churches thrive.

2. From your perspective, what does the current leadership landscape look like in terms of mental and emotional health?
   • The pain of the pandemic forced us to acknowledge reality.
   • Leaders are more open to talk about their own mental health issues.
   • Leaders are more willing to talk to the people they lead about mental health issues.
   • We are gaining ground in dismantling the stigma the enemy uses to keep people trapped in anxiety and depression.
     • The starting point is with leader himself/herself being appropriately transparent with safe people who are close to them.
     • Normalize the struggles that are common to man. Give people permission to be human.
     • Understand that the enemy uses shame to keep people trapped in their mental health struggles.
   • Leaders are beginning to dream again about reaching their community.

3. What are the core building blocks of preventive self-care for leaders?
   • Understand God has given us a body that has real needs and limitations. Diet, exercise, and sleep.
   • Being in community and connection with others. Having a small group of people we’re neither responsible for nor accountable to. We don’t metabolize the stressors of life in isolation.
   • Camel vs. tomato plant.