5 Practical Reasons Why Exercise Enhances Your Ministry
Exercise – weight training, cardio, walking, hiking – have great benefits to enhance ministry (not just your body). Even the Apostle Paul mentioned the importance of exercise so that spiritual effectiveness would be evident. In short, exercise has been proven to:
1. Enhances Creativity
- Creativity RARELY happens in the office. In most cases, creativity happens when you are being active. For example:
o Steve Jobs' most innovative ideas occurred when he went on his daily walk,
o President Roosevelt was fishing when he came up with the Lend Lease Act (that ultimately took the US out of a recession) during WW II,
o Barak Obama ponders policies and decision-making acts on the basketball court,
o Churchill had a standing desk and was MOST productive when he worked standing or walking around his office (even though he didn't exercise)
- With that said, all of these leaders found creativity in doing something that they LOVED. Jobs walked, Roosevelt fished, Obama shot hoops, and Churchill had a standing desk. In any case, leaders who are productive are active. What activities do you love to do to enhance creativity?
2. Decreases levels of stress
- The signs of stress can be hypertension, tense muscles, migraines, and can be serious enough to cause heart attacks and/or strokes.
- Exercise causes natural anti-anxiety + stress chemicals in the brain thats released to the rest of the body. Those chemicals acts as a natural “pain-killer”. Exercise relaxes muscles, clears the mind, sharpens the senses, and increases energy so that you and I can be MORE effective in ministry.
- EVEN 5-10 minutes a day of aerobic exercises has the power to decrease overall levels of tension, elevate and stabilize mood, and improve sleep.
3. Builds Self-Esteem
- Working out produces endorphins that stimulates happiness and positive thinking. This is definitely important in ministry as exercise builds self-esteem, sharpen concentration, and will reduce fatigue.
4. Enables Longevity in Ministry
- You will be healthier longer in life. Whatever you do now in life will affect you – negative or positive – later in life. This is the same with exercise - the MORE you exercise now, the better health you will have in the future.
- Exercise is proven to fight sickness, combat stress, and curb disease.
5. Faithfulness in Ministry
- Exercise will help you eat well. In ministry, healthy eating habits are hard to live by. In a poll of those who deal with stress, people say that eating healthy is ONE of the most important ways to deal with stress (14%)(1), including exercise.
- Eating healthy will help you fight stress, remain mentally + physically strong, and feel great.
- Ultimately, one important reason leaders are faithful in ministry is based on good eating habits.
Paul says that physical strength is important BUT spiritual vitally is even more so. YET, please remember – there were NO cars, elevators, and McD’s back then – so it is IMPORTANT to balance exercise AND ministry.
Enjoy the workout!