Finding Ways to Keep Moving...

Hello, friends!

A while back, I got a fitness tracker that does all sorts of fancy stuff. It takes my heart rate, it tells me how far I've run. It counts steps and calories burned. It tells me to breathe and has a timer so I know when Ezra's done with his timeout. The feature that I find most interesting is that my fitness tracker makes sure that I get in at least 250 steps every hour from 8am to 8pm every day. Y'all know that I'm super competitive, so there's not quite as satisfying as knowing that I nailed all 12 hours and nothing quite as heartbreaking as seeing that I missed a few hours on any given day.

What does this have to do with ministry? Well, as I'm writing this, I'm sitting in a coffee shop. If I wasn't at a coffee shop, I'd be sitting at home typing. One of the things I've noticed about this job is that as I've gotten higher and higher up in InterVarsity and my job descriptions have changed from doing mostly field work to doing more supervision and development, I don't move as much as I used to move.

Back when I was planting ACF, I could easily walk miles upon miles in any given day without even thinking about it. I'd bike to campus then have one meeting with a student in the Student Center before meeting another student at Memorial Union. I might decide to take some students on a prayer walk around campus then walk back to my bike so I could get home in time to get ready for that evening's activities. When evening came, especially for Large Group, I would spend the entire night on my feet, checking in on student leaders, connecting with students, and generally staying busy. I didn't have my fitness tracker back then but I'll bet that it would have been working pretty hard.

Now? More days than not are spent in front of a computer. There are emails to write. There are video meetings to be had. There are trainings to be planned. It's all good and important work. It's also much more sentient.

So, I've had to find ways to keep moving. I have a timer that goes off every 25 minutes so I can take a 5 minute walk. I make it a point to set up as many phone conversations as possible so I can walk back and forth while I'm in a meeting. With one of my supervisees, I make it a point for all of our meetings to have at least some element of walking and talking. The little things add up.

I'm going to say that the results have been positive. Knowing that I have 25 minutes to do something before I "have" to go take a walk and break my concentration keeps me working hard. I haven't exactly shed a bunch of pounds but I'm also not putting on a ton of weight. My legs are a little tired at the end of the day but at least I'm active. The next step? Treadmill desk. =0).

Have an excellent day!

~Adam