Finding peace in the ministry

While serving as a Region Minister in our judicatory one of the things that troubled me was the number of pastors in the churches I served who were simply waiting until they reached retirement age. The pressures of ministry had wore them out, and now they were just counting the days until they could retire. Essentially, they had given up on ministry. Some were still serving their congregations well, but others were just going through the motions. Some were obviously battling depression, but none of those pastors were willing to see a doctor and get some help. I felt sorry for the pastors and also for the churches they were serving. Those churches were not getting the kind of pastoral leadership they needed.

I can understand why some pastors feel beat down. They are serving in churches I often referred to as "widow makers." During my time as Region Minister I finally told two churches I would work with them to get healthier, but I would not recommend another pastor to them until they worked through their health issues. Not surprisingly, they were not interested in working on health issues so I never worked with them on finding a new pastor.

Fortunately, most churches are not like that. Often, in those churches, when a pastor feels overwhelmed it is self-inflicted. Most people enter the ministry wanting to impact people's live. Many of us struggle to say no to almost any request. It doesn't take long before our schedules are so full of meeting the needs of others that we have no time for self-care or for meeting the needs of our families. We begin to feel like we are in a vise. The pressure can continue to build until we feel overwhelmed.

So how do we deal with this pressure? What can we do to recapture the joy we first felt when we entered the ministry? We can start by learning to say no to some things. We do not have to touch everything in the church. We do not have to attend every meeting. We do not have to run over to someone's house when their cat stubs it's toe. We can learn that it's OK to let a phone call go to voice mail. We can learn that not everything is an emergency. 

We can learn to own our calendars. I suggest setting aside time each week for personal time. Put it on your calendar. Add some time on your calendar to spend time with your family. Have a date night with your spouse, and put it on your calendar. If someone asks to meet with you during those times just tell them you already have an appointment at that time.

Build margin in your life. If your calendar is packed full you have no time for true emergencies. That adds stress to your life. You can't control when you will need to do a funeral or deal with a crisis in your family or in someone else's family. If you have no margin, you'll be trying to do too many things at the same time. Talk about stressful!

Determine your priorities and work with those as much as possible. If you are responsible for preaching remember that Sunday comes every seven days. You must make that message a priority, and that doesn't happen if you start working on that message on Saturday night. If your church is having a special event that you are required to participate in, start early preparing for that. The week before is not the time to start. I had an instructor in Bible college who had plans drawn up four years in advance for events he was responsible for leading. I'm not suggesting anything that extreme, but I also never saw him stressed about anything. Start early planning those special events and you'll have much less stress.

There's more you can do, but if you'll start with these simple steps, you'll find ministry to be much less stressful.

Sermon planning

 When I served as a pastor I began planning my sermons out at least a month in advance. I had a title and a text which I would give our pianist who selected the music for each service. This gave her time to prepare a worship service that complemented the message. I am now serving my third church as the Transitional Pastor, and I have done the same thing in each of these churches. This allows for a better worship service because everything is connected.

Notice I said I have a title and a text. I know where I am going with the message, but I usually don't have the message prepared yet, but I can tell you it's much easier to prepare the actual message when you know what you are going to preach compared to when you get to Saturday night and you still haven't decided on a sermon for the next day. I've preached a few "Saturday night specials," and they aren't fun.

Eventually, I was able to plan out my sermons at least a quarter in advance. Again, this was just with a title and a text, but this helped me be even better prepared. For instance, when I pastored I would preach through a book of the Bible or a major section during the summer months. Knowing in advance which book or section I would cover enabled me to purchase needed commentaries or other Bible helps well in advance. This strategy also gave me an opportunity to explore a section of Scripture in more detail which, in turn, helped the congregation become better informed about what the Bible taught. An additional benefit was that it prevented me from skipping over the "hard" teachings of the Bible. Let's face it, there are some passages many preachers would just as soon avoid, but when you are committed to preaching through a biblical book you can't avoid those passages. (For total transparency, I still have not preached through the Song of Solomon.)

There are still some ministers who insist they never prepare their sermons in advance but depend upon the Holy Spirit to direct their words when they stand to speak. I've heard a few of those sermons, and I would not want to blame the Holy Spirit for them. Listen, He can lead you in preparing your messages a month in advance the same as He can lead you in preparing them on Saturday night or Sunday morning.

While I am a big advocate for planning your preaching in advance, I recognize events may require the minister to change the schedule. For instance, the Sunday after 9/11 I did not preach the message I had planned for that Sunday. Instead, I prepared a new sermon that addressed the events of 9/11 and tried to speak to the fears and concerns many people had at the time. Here is where the Holy Spirit can lead us in a different direction, and it's important that we are sensitive to that leading.

Whether one is a bivocational pastor or a fully-funded pastor, he or she struggles with time constraints. Planning your sermons in advance is a great way to save time in your busy schedule. While it takes time to plan a preaching schedule, you will save much more time by doing so.

Planning for the new year

The new year brings new opportunities for churches, families and individuals. I've always looked forward to the start of the new year because of the opportunities to learn new things, to have new experiences and to see how God will work in my life and the lives of my family. At the same time, I do not believe in merely sitting back and waiting to see what God will do. I'm convinced we have a part to play in this as well. Each of us needs to have some plan, a vision, for what we want to see happen in the new year.

For a number of years I set several goals I would work on in the coming year. Some of these would be short-term that would be achieved before the year ended. Some would be longer term that would need several years to see fulfilled. These would include goals for my family, my ministry, my finances, my own self-care and any other thing that I felt was important. I used a goal-tracking program to ensure I was making regular progress on each goal. One of the things I learned was that setting these goals allowed me to accomplish much more than if I had just sat back hoping that something good would happen that year.

Every goal was not fully achieved. Once I set a work goal of reaching a certain number of people I would serve in an area of my ministry. I came up about 10 people short of that goal. When our Executive Minister asked why I thought I didn't reach the goal, I explained that I knew that goal would stretch me, but I had still achieved more pursuing that goal than I would have without the goal. Occasionally, I would realize that a particular goal I had set was not for this time in my life, and I would stop working on it. Sometimes, God would lead me in a different direction for a certain goal. It's often been said if you want to make God laugh just tell Him your plans. I've made God laugh a few times, and He has led me in a different direction than I thought I would take.

What goals have you set for 2024? Without goals you run the risk of coming to December 2024 and look back to see that you really didn't accomplish very much, you didn't grow very much, and everything looks much like it did at the end of 2023. No one should be satisfied with that. 

Set goals and find ways to hold yourself accountable to achieve them. If you have goals for the most important things in your life you will find yourself more in control of what's happening rather than drifting around wondering what's happening.

Unintended consequences

Economists have a term called unintended consequences. This occurs when someone devises a plan to fix a problem but doesn't realize that the fix will create another problem, sometimes worse. Politicians seem to be especially proficient in developing solutions that have unintended consequences that often create worse problems than the ones they were attempting to resolve. Avoiding unintended consequences requires that one is able to think ahead and consider all the possible effects of a plan, and many politicians are seemingly incapable of thinking ahead or very deeply about the problems they are elected to resolve.

But before we can place too much blame on politicians for unintended consequences we need to admit that church leaders can be guilty of this as well. We are confronted with a problem, we attempt to address it, and then later we find that we have created an even worse situation.

When I was an Area Minister in our denomination I received a call one evening from one of the churches I served asking me to meet with their Church Growth Committee. As soon as I heard those words my heart sunk. I can't think of anything that is more likely to cause a church to not grow than a Church Growth Committee. When a church has a Church Growth Committee whose responsibility is it to grow the church? Yes, it's the committee's responsibility. The rest of the church is off the hook. Church growth is the responsibility of the entire church, not just a particular committee.

This call also told me their focus was off. Knowing this church as I did I knew their most pressing need was to become a healthier church, and if they became a healthier church they would be more likely to grow. If they grew in their current state an intended consequence is they would more likely become even unhealthier. Fortunately, as a result of this call I was able to meet with the committee, share my concerns, and found they were willing to work towards becoming healthier. Even though I'm retired from that position I am able to follow some of what they are doing on social media, and it appears the church is doing well.

Calling the wrong person to be the church's pastor can lead to unintended consequences. Some churches, especially smaller churches, cannot stand to be without a pastor. I know one church that called a pastor after their long-term pastor accepted a call to another church. They called this individual six weeks after beginning their search. It was a disaster. This church lost just about every positive thing it had gained under the previous pastor's leadership.

When church leaders are considering how to best address issues or challenges within the church they need to carefully consider what unintended consequences might arise. It could be helpful to bring in an outside consultant with fresh eyes to help this process. That could be a denominational person, a consultant or even another pastor outside your area. Unintended consequences could result in worse problems than those who were trying to resolve. They could also bring serious problems to your church.

Church planning 2021

 I doubt that anyone will be sad when 2020 is over. This has been a very challenging year for nearly everyone including churches. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that 2021 will be any better. Things change so rapidly that long-range planning is impossible. Rather than develop a five or even a ten-year plan as organizations used to do we need to think in terms of months and be willing to make adjustments as necessary. Still, planning is important, and I've always found the fall of the year to be a good time to begin planning for the next church year.

Sermon planning is especially important. While I have not planned out my sermons a year in advance, I do like to work two or three months out. This gives me time to gather resources that I will need for upcoming messages, and it allows me to watch for events that can serve as illustrations of the points I'll make in those messages. If you've planned the messages ahead of time it saves you from the frustration of trying to decide on Saturday night what your message will be the next morning. (I've been there, and it's not fun for the minister nor the congregation!) It gives you more time in actual sermon preparation which should make for better sermons.

The church's vision should be considered when doing ministry planning. Let's assume that vision involves reaching people with the Gospel. What steps will the church take to help make that happen? What activities will you schedule? What programs will you implement, and are there ineffective programs that need to be discontinued? Does special training need to occur? These, and many more, should be considered as you think about the upcoming year.

Training should be a component of your planning. What training needs to occur in your church? Who needs that training, and who can best offer it? What resources will you use to provide the training?

Many churches fail to include stewardship in their planning. Some churches are so afraid to talk about money they don't, and the result is that generations have grown up with no understanding of biblical stewardship. While anyone grows weary of those churches that have a 15-minute sermonette each week before the offering is received, every church needs to plan for some stewardship training or emphasis each year.

Planning for discipleship is another area often overlooked. How will your church do discipleship in 2021? Will you focus on SS classes, small groups or find another alternative? How will this be affected if Covid continues to keep some people from gathering together? These, and all the questions listed above, are difficult to answer, but they must be addressed.

Now is the time to begin thinking about 2021. It's time to be seeking God's leadership in each of these areas, identifying strategies appropriate to your church and setting your goals for the coming year. Make sure these all get written down. A vision or a goal that is not written down is merely a dream. In Habakkuk 2:2 we find God saying, "Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it." Write your plans down and prepare to run into 2021 to accomplish the vision God has given you for your church.

What will your church do differently in 2020?

As I've written here many times before I love the start of a new year. When January 1st rolls around I feel like I have a brand new, clean sheet to work with. As a pastor I always loved planning for the new year and thinking about the possibilities that were available.

It's so easy for a church to fall into ruts in its thinking and ministries. One year just flows into the next, and nothing ever changes. We keep doing the same things, getting the same results, and complaining that nothing is improving. Why not spend some time leading up to the new year thinking about what could be done differently that might produce different results? Let me offer some suggestions to consider.

• What will your church do in 2020 to improve its evangelistic outreach? If we believe the Bible as many of us claim, people without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ are lost. The Great Commission tells the church that we are to go into all the world and share the good news about Christ and encourage people to trust in Him. How many people did your church see trust Christ for their salvation in 2019? Are you satisfied with that number? If not, what are you going to do intentionally to change that in 2020?
• The second part of the Great Commission has to do with discipling those who come to faith in Christ. How effective is the disciple-making ministries in your church? How many of your people are involved in Sunday school classes or small groups? How many people showed spiritual growth in the past year? Does your church need to improve this aspect of its ministry, and if so, how will you do that?
• What can your church do to strengthen families in 2020? So many families are struggling with problems related to addictions, finances, single-parent homes, abuse, and a host of other issues. I see no organization other than the church and para-church groups offering to help families address these challenges. Because many of these problems have a spiritual element to them, I don't believe any other organization can help families overcome these problems. Every church needs to have some ministries that specifically address family issues if we want to see families remain healthy. Does your church have such ministries?
• How will your church deal with justice issues in your community? There is so much injustice in our world today it can seem to be overwhelming. Everywhere we look we see poverty, homelessness, racism, sexism, ageism, crime, violence and the list goes on. Government cannot solve these problems. They can pass laws, and they have, but these laws do nothing to change human hearts, and injustice occurs when people's hearts are hardened to the point that they don't care about the fate of other people. The church must address these issues by not only talking about them but also by doing something to effect change. I ask the question again, what will your church do in 2020 to address the injustices that exist in your community?

This should be enough for your church leaders to think about between now and the start of the new year. If your church does nothing new in 2020 your church will look a lot like it does now when 2020 ends. But, if you are willing to dream and pray I believe God will show you some new things that will make the new year an exciting time of ministry and growth for your church.

Rules of thumb for the church

Bivocational pastors need all the helpful resources they can find. I want to share one with you that I wish I had owned when I served as a bivocational pastor. It is What Every Pastor Should Know: 101 Indispensable Rules of Thumb for Leading Your Church by Gary McIntosh and Charles Arn. These individuals have written several books addressing administrative tasks every minister faces and both serve as professors at their respective seminaries. I had the opportunity to talk with Gary at a conference where we were both speaking about this book and told him how helpful I thought it would be for any pastor and especially for those who serve bivocationally.

As the subtitle suggests, the book includes 101 rules of thumb that pastors should consider when leading their churches. Let me share a couple that I believe would be beneficial for a bivocational pastor to consider. Number 6 says that "churches that are effective in reaching their community train at least 10 percent of their people in friendship evangelism each year."

This speaks to at least two concerns I find in every smaller church. One is the need to fulfill the Great Commission, and the second is the concern about the small number of people who attend the church services. Obviously, if we were doing a better job of obeying the Great Commission it's likely we would have more people in our services! Since the most effective evangelism is done through friendships it stands to reason that we need to intentionally teach our members how to do friendship evangelism.

One sermon every year or two isn't going to cut it. A class on friendship evangelism also isn't going to be effective. We need to be more intentional about training people, and we need to begin slowly.  One mistake I often made as a pastor was to begin something new with great expectations and then become discouraged when those expectations were not met. Start slowly.

The book suggests training 10 percent a year. That may seem too slow to some, but it is doable given the time constraints many bivocational ministers have. If you do this for five years you now have one-half of your congregation trained in friendship evangelism. That should make a difference in most churches. The authors give some tips on how to conduct this training.

A second tip mentioned in the book is number 35, "One of every five adult education classes should have been started within the last two years." I know what some of you are thinking: It's hard enough to get teachers for our existing classes, and they've been around forever! That may be the problem. I've read elsewhere that an adult class will stop growing after about 18 months. New people are reluctant to go into a class where everyone already has relationships with each other. New classes need to be started to reach new people.

Early in my Christian journey the pastor of the church we attended asked if I would help start a new class for young adults. Our present class had about 40 people attending, and it had stopped growing. We did start that new class and almost immediately had 15-20 people enrolled without taking anyone from the existing class. To grow an adult Sunday school program you add classes. Again, the authors provide advice how to begin these new classes.

This book addresses many of the administrative tasks a pastor has and provides targets to consider when facing these tasks. Again, I wish this book was available when I pastored. It would have saved me a lot of time. I think it will be a help to you as well.

Planning your preaching for the new year

During my pastorate this was the time of year I spent time thinking about my sermons for the new year. I would often begin with a theme for the year or a primary focus our church needed to have as we began a new year of ministry. That didn't mean the entire year would be given over to that focus, but it would be the one we would begin with. My goal was to have at least the first three months of sermons planned with at least a title and the text. If I began the year with the first quarter planned it was much easier to stay prepared 2-3 months in advance.

This allowed me to do several things. One, I didn't have to begin each week trying to decide what to preach. I could spend that time actually preparing the message. This also enabled me to be looking for illustrations and stories that could be included in the message to help bring it alive.

It also made it easier to have the resources I needed to prepare the messages. For instance, each year after Father's Day I would do a series of messages on a book or major section of the Bible. Once I decided what book I would cover, I could order commentaries and other helps  to assist me in preparing the messages. When it came time to prepare the sermons I had the resource material I needed.

Planning my sermons this way helped me offer more balanced preaching. Every pastor has his or her favorite topics. Our people need to hear more than that. We need to provide them with a well-rounded study of what the Scriptures have to teach us.

In addition to preaching through a book of the Bible each year I also did a shorter series between Mother's Day and Father's Day that focused on various aspects of family life. Families in America need a lot of help, and the Bible has much to say about the family. If I returned to the pulpit today I would also offer a series of messages each year focusing on apologetics to help people be better able to defend their faith.

I found that planning my sermons well in advance made me a better preacher and helped me better manage my time as a bivocational pastor. I quickly got tired of not knowing until Friday or Saturday what I was going to preach the next Sunday. Saturday night specials are not helpful to anyone. Planning my messages at least three months in advance did much to relieve that stress.

As important as sermon planning is, your schedule cannot be written in stone. In fact, I wrote my sermon's title and text in pencil. You always want the flexibility to change your message if circumstances dictate. For instance, I know one pastor who preached the sermon he had planned a year before the Sunday after 9/11. The church was full that Sunday of people who wanted to know what God had to say about such events, but they left after hearing a message that said nothing about the event. It was a great opportunity that was missed because the pastor would not deviate from his plan. If you feel God leading you in another direction be willing to change your sermon plans.

Sometimes people will push back on the idea of planning their sermons in advance by saying they want to allow the Holy Spirit to lead them. I've heard some of their sermons, and I don't think I would want to blame the Holy Spirit for what I heard! I've always thought God can lead us three months in advance just as well as He can lead us from week to week.

If you have not made it a practice to plan your sermons in advance I encourage you to try it in 2019. If it doesn't work for you feel free to go back to whatever you were doing. My guess is once you do it for awhile you'll continue doing it.

Plan your preaching in advance

Each year about this time I post an article recommending that ministers need to plan their preaching in advance. This is especially true for bivocational ministers. It's another way of controlling your time, a topic I covered in yesterday's post.

When I was a pastor I began my preparations in the fall of the year for the next year. The process I used was very simple. I took a legal pad and wrote down every Sunday's date. Because we had evening services each date had two lines, one for the AM service and one for the PM service.Using two lines allowed me to have enough room to record the Sermon title and text for one quarter of the year for each message. I would then go through the calendar and note any special days such as Mother's Day or Easter.

I would then prayerfully consider what needed to be addressed in the upcoming year. On the Sundays between Mother's Day and Father's Day I would normally do a series of sermons on family life. During the summer I would do a series through a book of the Bible or a major section of the Bible such as the Sermon on the Mount. By planning in the fall of the year this gave me a lot of time to get any research material or books I might need for my sermon preparation. Once I filled in major blocks I could begin to look for opportunities for shorter sermon series or individual sermons. Possible titles and text would be written on my sheet of paper in pencil. I always wanted to be able to make a change if circumstances required. My goal was always to prepare at least one quarter in advance.

There are so many advantages to planning your preaching schedule.

1. When you plan ahead you can focus on sermon preparation instead of trying to decide what you are going to preach on the next Sunday.
2. You avoid the "Saturday night specials" which usually are not that special.
3. You allow your worship teams to also plan in advance. During a recent stint as a Transitional Pastor the worship leaders in both services voiced their appreciation for knowing my sermons a month in advance so they could develop a worship service that flowed around the message.
4. You are prepared for those times when you have an extremely busy week with people in the hospital, funerals, and other situations that would make preparing your sermon difficult.
5. You will have a more balanced approach to your preaching because you will have more time to prepare messages on the more challenging topics that require more study.

I always began this preparation in the fall because I found that time was a little slower for me, especially the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas when many families were involved in their own activities.

Some question whether such preparation takes away the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I've always believed the Holy Spirit can lead us in preparing a quarter in advance just as well as He can lead our preparation a week at a time. That's not to say that I never changed my message from what I had scheduled. Certainly, the Sunday after 9/11 I did not preach the message I had prepared for that Sunday but preached one more pertinent to that event. There were other times I switched messages around, but these were few and far between.

If you have not prepared your messages in advance I encourage you to try it in 2019. I think you'll be happy with the results.

Sermon planning for 2018

Every year about this time I post an article about the importance of using the fall to think about your sermons for the upcoming year. Well, it's fall, and it's time to start that planning.

Some pastors are able to plan their entire preaching schedule for a year. I was not that good. I tried to plan at least three months worth, and I could often get six months of planning done before the new year started.

I always began by taking a yellow legal pad and writing down the dates for each Sunday in the left hand column. (Yes, you can use your computer. I'm old, and I like paper!) To the left of that I would write out if that Sunday had a special emphasis such as Mother's Day or the first Sunday of Advent. If you have to preach both on Sunday morning and Sunday night you will find that a legal pad will give you enough lines for one quarter of sermons. If you only preach on Sunday morning, just skip a line between each date.

The next thing I would do is pray about what I wanted to accomplish. Your church's vision should inform much of what you are wanting to do. I would then begin to think about themes. Soon these would lead to sermon titles with a text. That's what I would write down. The special emphasis Sundays would have their own special theme. (It really wasn't too hard to know what my topic would be on the Sunday before Thanksgiving!)

One thing I often did was plan a series of sermons on the family between Mother's Day and Father's Day. That was often one of the most popular sermon series I did each year.

The Sunday after Father's Day I would often begin a lengthy sermon series through a book of the Bible or a major portion of Scripture such as the Sermon on the Mount. This series would normally run through the entire summer and sometimes into the fall. This helped make sure I wasn't avoiding difficult passages, and it deepened our congregation's understanding about what the Bible teaches.

There are several advantages to planning your sermons months in advance.

• It allows you more time to actually prepare your messages. Too often, pastors who go Sunday-to-Sunday in their sermon preparation actually spend more time trying to decide what to preach than they spend in the preparation.
• It enables your worship planners to know in advance what your messages will be so they will be better able to plan the music and other elements of worship to coordinate with the message. This provides a better flow to your worship service.
• It lets you have a good overview of your sermons. One year as I was looking back at my messages for that year I realized that I had become rather negative in my preaching. God convicted me of that in such a way I apologized to the congregation the following Sunday and made a shift in my sermons.
• It makes sure you will have the necessary resources to prepare your sermons. For example, one year I decided to preach through the book of Romans for my summer series. At that time I did not have a lot of commentaries and other sermon helps on Romans. I made sure that problem was corrected before it was time to begin preparing those messages. 
• It helps ensure you are not just preaching on your current interests. Right now, I am very interested in reading on apologetics. I have shared some of my learning with my current congregation, but it would be unfair to do that every Sunday. By planning my preaching I am more likely to offer them more balanced messages that includes more than just apologetics.
• It also gives the speaker an opportunity to keep the church's vision before them. We are told that a congregation needs to be reminded at least once a month of its vision for ministry. Planning your messages in advance can help make that happen.

It does take time to plan a preaching scheduled, but after doing this for years I can tell you that the time you spend on the front end will be made up on the back end. It's a great feeling to sit down on Monday and know what your sermon text and theme is for the next week. You can go straight to preparing your message and not spend days trying to decide what to preach. Try it. Just plan one quarter and see how that goes.

Plan your own life

We are now at the start of October, and I've done something I've done for years. I ordered my 2018 planning calendar. For my younger readers who keep everything on their smart phone or tablet, this is an annual ritual you don't have to follow. However, I prefer paper over technology to schedule my life, so I have to order a new planner each year.

As a bivocational pastor I soon learned that time management was essential to being effective in the many roles of someone in my position. When I went on staff in our judicatory time management became even more important.

In our November staff meeting we would list all the things we knew would occur in our region for the coming year. I would write those down in my planner. I often referred to these items as the "pay the rent" requirements. These were things I needed to attend or do as part of our region staff. But, once those were noted in the planner, then the planner belonged to me. It was then that my wife and I could schedule vacations. I could then begin to fill the calendar with local events that would occur in the area I served. I could also schedule my days off and reading days. Reading days?

Leaders cannot spend all their time leading. We need time to take in new knowledge and learn new skills. We need time to sit and think. A pastor who spends every waking minute working on sermons, attending meetings, and visiting everyone in the church will soon wear out. If a pastor never takes time to fill his or her own tank, that pastor will soon be running on empty.

I have to admit that I learned about reading time later in my ministry. It was during my doctoral studies. I quickly realized that there was so much reading required for the program that I had to schedule blocks of time for reading. Once my "pay the rent" items were written in the planner, and I knew what reading was required for a particular course, then I could schedule 2-3 hour blocks during the week just for reading. If a request for my time was made during that schedule reading time I would just explain that I already had an appointment. It never created a problem. Of course, if it was a genuine emergency I had space to respond to it and would then schedule reading time for a later date.

My wife and I enjoyed a date night during my pastoral ministry. That was also put in the planner. We selected Friday evenings as our date time, so every Friday my wife's name was written in the planner for the evening hours. Again, if someone wanted to meet or call me during that time I would explain that I already had an appointment and would need to schedule them for a later time.

If you don't plan your life, someone else will plan it for you, and chances are they will not have the same priorities for your life that you have. By planning ahead and ensuring that your priorities are given preferential treatment on your schedule you will feel less stress, enjoy better relationships with those closest to you, and be more effective in everything you do.

Don't live on autopilot

In yesterday's post I quoted a statement I discovered in a book I am reading. The statement reminded us to not waste our lives living below our potential and outside our calling. That reminded me of another quote from another book I recently completed, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport. The statement is

We spend much of our day on autopilot - not giving much thought to what we're doing with our time...It's difficult to prevent the trivial from creeping into every corner of your schedule if you don't face, without flinching, your current balance between deep and shallow work, and then adopt the habit of pausing before action and asking, "What makes the most sense right now?"

The strategy the author suggests may sound extreme. He recommends that you schedule every minute of your day, and that you do that every day. While I certainly agree with his emphasis on intentional living, I have two problems with this solution. One, no schedule is going to be accurate. Some things are going to take longer than you anticipated, and some things will go quicker. When that happens the author recommends revising the schedule. I would think we would spend too much time revising schedules!

The second problem I have is that interruptions are going to occur, especially for those of us in ministry. People are going to call and need to speak to us. Interruptions are part of ministry, and there is no way to plan for them. That's why they are called interruptions.

I am a big believer in scheduling our time, but I do so around tasks. There are certain times of each day when I need to accomplish certain tasks. For instance, on Monday morning I go into the church office and prepare my preaching outline for the following Sunday and prepare the PowerPoint presentation that will be used. That presentation is then sent to our office manager so she has the entire week to get it ready for our computer system. On Thursday mornings I go into the church office and prepare my Sunday evening Bible study.

In a couple of weeks I have a large auction scheduled, and I've identified days in my schedule when I need to complete the various tasks associated with conducting an auction. I know what dates I will send in my newspaper ads, the date I will mail out flyers to my regular buyers, when I will begin preparing the items for auction, etc. I don't try to schedule every minute, but I do schedule the various tasks I need to complete for all that I do. Incidentally, the author also recognizes the value of block scheduling for those who are not comfortable with trying to schedule every minute.

Living our lives according to a schedule eliminates the possibility of living on autopilot and ensures we will get done what we need to accomplish. This is critically important for anyone involved in bivocational ministry, but it's also important for anyone who wants to fulfill God's calling on their lives.

Looking into the future

As you know, I am currently serving as the Transitional Pastor of a church seeking new pastoral leadership. Yesterday, the Church Council had its annual retreat. In a beautiful setting we looked at the previous year's ministry of the church and began to look forward into the future. We looked at some of the challenges the church must address in the coming year and the many opportunities we will have as well. We identified some weak spots where we can do better and some ministries in our church that are exciting and making an impact in the lives of people. It was a very productive day.

This, coupled with the vision discernment process the church is working on, is preparing this church for an exciting future. It's always exciting when a church determines to live into God's vision for its future instead of sitting back and waiting to see what happens.

Hoping something good happens seldom produces the results we want. Intentionally working to make good things happen often does produce those results. This church is intentionally working to identify and live into God's plans for its future. I believe their new pastor, when they call one, will be walking into a wonderful place of ministry.

No one can predict the future. The only thing anyone can say with certainty is that it will continue to change rapidly. This does not mean that we cannot seek to discern God's vision for our ministry in that future and become very intentional about living into that vision. As a church begins to understand the values and bedrock beliefs that shape it and the gifts and passions of the people who make up the congregation, it is prepared to minister despite the changes that occur around us.

Many churches seeking a new pastor do not want to do this discernment. They want to wait until the have a new pastor who can "give them their vision for ministry." That is a huge mistake. There is too much danger of the pastor's vision being a poor match for the make-up of the church, and this can do nothing but lead to conflict. It's far better for the church to do the discernment work prior to calling a pastor, and then matching the person to the vision. I am so pleased this church is taking this second approach.

If your church is content to live in the "glory days" of the past, it is on the wrong side of its life cycle. We are called to minister in the present and to prepare for the future. We can't do that if we spend all our time looking in the rear view mirror. Invite God to begin to reveal His purpose for your church and develop plans to live out that purpose. Only by doing this will you have the impact on your community God desires.

Core Values

Last night the church I serve began a vision discernment process by looking at its core values. The church is seeking new pastoral leadership, and this is an important time for a church to revisit its vision. Any time I lead a church through this process I begin with core values because any vision the church discerns must be congruent with its core values.

In my book Intentional Ministry in a Not-So-Mega Church: Becoming a Missional Community I write, "The core values of a church determine its decisions. The behavior, the attitudes, and the decisions made by individuals and groups are always determined by their core values." If you've ever wondered why a church made a decision it made it is because it was operating out of its core values. Those things we value most are seen in our decisions.

The challenging thing in the exercise is that people want to write down what they think their core values should be or what they believe the community thinks about them. Every time I lead this I have to ask, "Is this truly a core value the church has today or is this something you believe the church should aspire to become?" Sometimes people admit that their response was a goal the church should have. It's critical that the church understands its current core values because God's vision is going to align with that core value.

While speaking with a pastor recently he complained that he was unable to get other churches to assist their church in a food ministry to the community. His small church was very active in ministering to people with needs in their inner city. He was trying to get suburban churches in his denomination to assist them and was constantly refused. I explained to him that his church and those churches were all operating out of their core values. One of the core values of his church was to assist people who need help. That was not a core value of the churches he was contacting. I suggested he contact other inner city churches in his community regardless of denomination because he might find out they share the same core value his church has.

As businesses, as families, as organizations, and as churches we will consistently operate out of the core values we own. Some of those core values will be negative and will lead to results we may not prefer. If we identify negative core values we can begin to correct them, but if we never examine our core values we won't likely know what they are. We will just keep functioning the way we've always done getting the same results we've always got.

Last night, as every time I lead this exercise in a church, our time generated a lot of discussion. This is not a topic a church normally talks about or even thinks about which makes these discussions very helpful and important. In some cases I've seen some of these discussions become rather heated as people disagreed on certain core values others identified. Fortunately, that did not happen last night! But, even when it does happen, it's still a good thing because it often identifies something the church has tried to sweep under the rug, and it has limited their ability to do ministry in a healthy way.

What are the core values of your church? Once you identify them you will better understand who your church is, what it stands for, the ministries you value most in your congregation, and where you are going. That's good information to have.

Reflecting on yesterday

Yesterday I was privileged to preach at Madison FBC, a church in my hometown. The two services were both very good although I can't take credit for that. I was there to preach. The worship planners for each service are the ones who arranged the service and gave it a good flow. They did an excellent job. Still, I've taken time to reflect on the service and my message and see what I learn for future worship services.

Monday is a good day to review what took place the day before in our worship services. Many pastors take Mondays off claiming that they are tired and feeling run down after the pressures of leading worship. I never wanted Mondays off. If I'm feeling bad, why take a day off? I'd rather take off a day when I'm feeling good! However, that doesn't mean that I wanted a full day of ministry activities such as counseling sessions, committee or board meetings, or strategic planning. I preferred a day with more simple tasks and reflecting on the worship service from the previous day is a good example of that.

I'm sure many people told you on their way out the door how much they enjoyed your sermon, but how do you think it went? Was there a flow to the message? Do you feel you accomplished your goals with the message? Did people seem engaged? Could you have used more study before presenting it? What did your spouse say about it on the way home? Did you say some things in your message you now wish you had not said? Could it have been better presented another way? How did people respond?

What about the rest of the service? Was there a good flow to the entire service or did it seem to jerk from one thing to another? Did the service have energy? Were the worship leaders prepared? How well did the congregation engage in worship? What changes might need to be made to the worship service?

Especially in smaller churches, the worship service is the one time when a pastor is able to connect with a large number of the congregation. It's important that these opportunities are not squandered. I've preached in some small churches when the pastor and song leader got together five minutes before the service to decide on the hymns. That showed me how much they valued the service that was about to begin.

Worship should be planned at least a few weeks in advance so the musicians and other worship leaders can be prepared and to ensure a good flow throughout the service. That does not mean that everything is so rigid there is no room for the Holy Spirit to work. At times he does take over a worship service and it becomes something very special, but he also can work in our planning for the service as well.

However, planning is not enough. There must also be a time of reflection, a time to ask the above questions to see if we accomplished what we intended to do in our worship service. If we do that on Monday we'll have time to make needed changes before next Sunday.