Business Leader's Unconventional Choice: Embracing Rest
In the August 2025 edition of Líderes Empresariales Cristianos, José Manuel Castellón, a seasoned business consultant, trainer, and coach with over 30 years of professional experience, discusses the importance of rest for Christian leaders. The article, translated with permission, emphasizes that rest is not merely about physical rest but also involves spiritual rest, setting healthy boundaries, and seeking time for prayer, silence, and reordering priorities.
Castellón argues that a company that embraces rest is healthier, more humane, and more consistent with what pleases God. He contends that resting is not wasting time but trusting and stopping our striving. The rest we seek does not begin when activity ceases, but when we draw near to God.
The author presents practical steps for Christian leaders to incorporate rest into their spiritual, emotional, and business lives. These steps include institutionalizing sabbaticals, embracing unhurried living principles, engaging in renewal retreats, communicating rest as strategic, not optional, and incorporating prayerful reflection.
Institutionalizing sabbaticals, rooted in the biblical principle from Leviticus 25, promotes long-term vitality and creativity in the organization and prevents burnout. Embracing unhurried living principles helps leaders prioritize leading from fullness rather than exhaustion, fostering spiritual and emotional well-being and leadership effectiveness.
Renewal retreats, such as the "Discovering Renewal" retreat, offer leaders spiritual, emotional, and recreational rest. These retreats provide space to recover, reconnect with spiritual practices, and foster creativity, helping leaders return to work refreshed and more effective.
Communicating rest as a strategic element of enduring leadership and organizational health counters cultural stigmas and integrates rest into the leadership identity. Incorporating prayerful reflection ensures that rest aligns with spiritual priorities and business responsibilities coherently.
By implementing these steps, Christian leaders model that rest is a vital investment in spiritual vitality, emotional resilience, and business sustainability. They transform cultural stigma into a respected leadership practice, living at a pace that recognizes God as the center.
In the context of faith, rest is a gift from God, designed for our good. As Christian leaders, we are encouraged to embrace rest, not as a sign of weakness, but as a strength that leads to healthier leadership and sustainable success.
Evangelical Focus, as a community, has a sustainability challenge ahead. Readers are encouraged to join their mission, embracing rest as a necessary element of their spiritual, emotional, and business lives, and leading by example in a world that often overlooks the importance of rest.
- Embracing rest as a key component of their lives can lead to healthier leadership, improved emotional resilience, and sustainable success for Christian leaders, as argued by José Manuel Castellón in the August 2025 edition of Líderes Empresariales Cristianos.
- Integrating prayerful reflection into their lives ensures that rest aligns with spiritual priorities and business responsibilities, allowing leaders to model rest as a vital investment in their overall well-being and organizational health.
- By following the practical steps presented by Castellón, such as institutionalizing sabbaticals and engaging in renewal retreats, Christian leaders can demonstrate the importance of rest in the context of faith and transform the stigma around rest into a respected leadership practice.
