Young: I spend twenty-five to thirty hours at least a week on a weekend message. The Team Creativity helps me because some of that time now is with people and we have a great relationship — we have fun, we laugh, we storyboard, we dream and this [Ed's office] is like a family room. We designed it like this because this is where we do all our planning. It's not like my office. My office is around there. I spend ten percent time in there and ninety percent in here with people talking through things. Now after I talk through things — we're writing things down and all that — nothing is as demanding as thinking in an innovative, creative way. Nothing is. We always say you have to ask the right people the right questions to get the right answers, and the questions we have to ask ourselves about preaching are: what do I need to know, what does my audience need to know, what do they need to do? If you can answer those three questions then you've got a great message but the work is tough.

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Pastors and speakers often take breaks, and it's important to do that. I think that too many of us don't take enough time off. When we're in a relaxed state that's when we have the most creative ideas. We have these great ideas in the shower or maybe driving in our car listening — it can be a country western song or whatever — or maybe we're playing golf or fishing and we have these incredible ideas. Those are fade-aways and we need to make time for that. And then, also, when we take breaks regularly it gives us a chance to really think in a creative way. My best, my most innovative stuff always comes after breaks. Maybe it's for a week or maybe it's for three weeks.

You have to learn to take breaks during the week as well. What energizes you? What gets your creative juices flowing? You need to find out what that is. And it's important to take a day off where you totally unplug from church. You've got to do that. Also, pastors need to miss the natural days — like Memorial Day weekend. Miss that weekend. Let someone else speak. Like Thanksgiving weekend, Christmas weekend and the first week of the New Year. Labor Day — miss that. That's five weekends a year you can miss. And on top of that I would have you miss at least 4 others. I would challenge people reading this article to miss at least 3 weeks to a month straight every summer. And they're going, "Whoa! I don't have any one to speak." Yes you do, because when you plan in a creative way and use a creative team you've trained two or three people.

I learned that from my father. I learned from him about the importance of taking breaks because if you don't take breaks your schedule will break you. That's true because preaching is brutal! I mean, it drains me. On Monday I say I have a holy hangover. It's kind of funny but it's true. You're wasted. That's why you need that day off or that date night with your spouse. We're running a marathon not a sprint. I'm challenging a lot of my friends to do that. Andy Stanley used to never take time off. This year he's taking three, three-week breaks. He's never done that. He's telling me he loves it. It's awesome.