Teaching a class

This Saturday I'll begin teaching a four week class on "Personal and Family Care."  This is one of the courses we require in the Church Leadership Institute and is the only one I teach.  Classes are held all day on four Saturdays on the campus of Franklin College.  I always look forward to teaching this class because I think it is important that we encourage our church leaders (both clergy and lay) to develop healthy habits for themselves, their ministries, and their families.

In the course we'll look at several issues such as some of the stressors that exist in ministry, time management, the needs of families, and the importance of developing priorities and setting goals.  In my opinion, this is a course that should be taught in seminaries and Bible colleges, but to my knowledge is not offered in any of them.  Too many ministers and their families suffer due to the fact that they do not know how to balance the various demands on their lives.

We are losing too many good ministers to burnout, fatigue, and family issues.  The causes of these are many, but a few would include: insufficient finances, unreasonable expectations from the congregation, poor time management, refusing to delegate, a lack of priorities to govern one's life, the wrong priorities, and a Superman complex.  Add to these the challenges of ministering to a 21st century audience, and you have the perfect recipe for a disasterous life and ministry.  In this class we'll try to help the students recognize the problems and find ways to address them.  If you are interested, we will use three textbooks in the class: Pastors at Greater Risk by H. B. London, Jr, and The Bivocational Pastor and The Work of the Bivocational Minister, both written by me.

Our Church Leadership Institute (CLI) is designed to train both lay leaders and clergy, especially bivocational ministers.  A number of our graduates are now serving churches in our Region and doing a very good job.  A larger number of our graduates are serving as lay leaders in their churches, and they are providing a much higher quality of leadership as a result of going through our program.  Although we created the Church Leadership Institute for members of our American Baptist Churches in Indiana, we would certainly consider applications from persons outside our denomination.  If you think you would be interested in learning more about CLI please feel free to contact me.