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Time Management Matters in a Pandemic More Than Ever

Esther Ritchey — Sat, 11 Jul 2020 09:00:00 +0000

By: Brandon A. Cox

Time Management Matters in a Pandemic More Than Ever

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As I write this, we’re preparing for our 17th Sunday of NOT meeting together for a weekend worship service. Most of our people understand and appreciate the caution. A few are trying to understand and be gracious and patient even if they disagree.

And I. Miss. My. People!

I love my church. A LOT! I love being a pastor. I love preaching to fellow humans and interacting with the crowd. I love greeting people in the lobby. I love singing. I love all the church gathering things.

But with each week that passes, the emotional roller coaster ride of trying to maintain a sense of community gets a little wilder. I’ve spent 23 years being a busy, productive Pastor with multiple teaching or speaking opportunities each week, meetings with staff and leaders, and coffees with guys here and there. And even though I’m an introvert by nature, I love all of that.

Where I live, coffee shop tables aren’t open yet, and if they were, I’d be too cautious to sit at one. We don’t have offices at our church building (we work remotely), and if we did, I’d be too cautious to spend a day there in close quarters with others.

So I work from home, like most pastors I talk to these days. I study and read more. I’m on social media more (ministry happens there now more than ever). And since it’s summer, I see a lot more of my kids (sometimes, every few minutes for help with a major crisis or question about snacks). My wife is an incredibly bright spot and lifts my spirits daily. But some days, I get down, like you probably do.

I put together a somewhat fictitious schedule of what life looks like on the worst days. Perhaps you can identify?

8:23 am –
Roll out of bed, read the Bible, have quiet time.

8:51 am –
See the latest headlines.

8:58 am –
Panic, then remember the Bible reading and calm down.

9:06 am –
Check social media.

11:18 am –
Delete that post.
Backspace over those comments.
Make a vague and passive-aggressive post.

11:23 am –
Decide to leave Facebook.

11:39 am –
Eat breakfast.

12:09 pm –
Eat first lunch.

1:14 pm –
Brainstorm about how to be productive.

1:17 pm –
Check social media, including Facebook.

2:26 pm –
Delete the post from this morning.

2:28 pm –
Check the headlines to see what ELSE has happened.

3:14 pm –
Second lunch.

3:32 pm –
Power nap.

4:48 pm –
Wake up in a panic that I over-napped.
Do something productive.
Anything.

5:21 pm –
Check headlines one last time.

And in the evening…

Go pretty much nowhere.
Watch no sports.
Don’t watch the news.
Hang with the family!

Let the kids finally pass out at 11:07 pm on the couch.

Binge watch something.
Anything.
Crash by 1:44 am.

Actually, I still try to get up by 6 am and do a lot of reading and writing. I’m still preaching weekly but it’s scheduled each week to be recorded and then broadcast live on Sundays. I still get to prepare sermons and I get to minister to people via email, social media, and texting. Our staff meets every Wednesday (via Zoom) and then I host a Facebook live gathering every Wednesday night.

So there’s a lot to do and I stay busy, like most pastors I get to talk to. But it’s harder than usual to stay focused. It’s easier to get distracted. It’s easy to get buried in any number of controversies erupting around us. I’m slowly learning how to get more productive and I wanted to shoot from the hip with some personal recommendations for anyone else who might be struggling.

My Top Tips for Staying Productive in a Pandemic

Start with prayer and the Word, not the news, email, or social media. Technically, I start with making coffee, but then it’s into the Word.
Just start writing and creating. Even if you don’t know where you’re going with it. Get 300 words on paper about something.
Stay in a rhythm. Impose deadlines on yourself for various projects.
Enjoy the extra family time. Hopefully, you’ll only live through a season like this once in your life, so look back on it as a bonding time.
Work on your marriage. Have intentionally deep conversations with your spouse about the things you haven’t had time to talk about in a while.
Be balanced in your viewpoints. In an age of radical extremism in every direction, be a beacon of hope and stability.
Get outside. I’m most productive on days when I get out and refuse to sit behind a computer all day.

That’s all I’ve got. I’ve never been a productivity expert and I think we should give ourselves a bit of grace in this season.

You’re not going to get everything right.

You’re not going to get everything done.

You’re not going to make everyone happy.

So just live for an audience of One and bask in the sweetness of the knowledge that you matter, that you are loved, and that God wants to use you in the middle of the mess. Keep loving Jesus. Keep loving people. And be that rare bright spot in someone’s day.

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Source: Time Management Matters in a Pandemic More Than Ever

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When You’re Completely Spent and Have Nothing to Show For it All

Sean Cronin — Mon, 16 Sep 2019 09:00:04 +0000

When You’re Completely Spent and Have Nothing to Show For it All

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by Brandon Cox: When my wife and I were first married, we lived in Beebe, Arkansas where I served as pastor of a small church and we commuted several days per week to Conway, an hour away, for classes at Central Baptist College. The chariot that carried us back and forth was a 1991 Dodge Spirit. It wasn’t fancy, but it was faithful. Until…

One day I noticed that, while I was driving normally, the car started slowing down. The engine was running. The RPM’s were normal. The battery was fine. But the speed would drop until we were only driving 15 or 20 mph, even with the gas pedal almost floored.

Some guys in our church offered to take care of the problem, so they borrowed it for a day and removed the catalytic converter, then returned it to us, having diagnosed the problem as a backup of exhaust. Nevermind that the car was now illegal and missing a fairly important part of the exhaust system.

But that didn’t fix the problem. The next time we made the long commute, the car slowed down again. This time, I wheeled into a mechanic’s shop in the edge of Conway and they put it up on the rack to check it out.

The head mechanic showed us the problem. Upon removing the front wheel, they’d found that the brake rotor was bright red, essentially on fire. The master cylinder was faulty and had been applying the front brakes the entire time we’d been driving, even though I wasn’t pushing the brake pedal at all.

All that gas and energy spent, with nothing to show for it!

And that’s exactly how far too many of us are living life.

We’re working all the hours we can, and filling the rest of our time with activity until we don’t have any time or energy left. Then we spend all the money we make trying to obtain the nicest things we can afford.

We’re spending ourselves. Our time. Our money. Our lives. The critical question is, of course… does it matter? Is it a worthy expense?

Tragically, we’re often left unfulfilled and unsatisfied, wondering what life is really all about. Just skim the book of Ecclesiastes and hear the heart of a man who had come to his final days and wondered, is this all there is?

Solomon proclaimed that all the working and grinding and hustling was just “vanity” and “more vanity.” Keep reading until the end and you’ll see that the light dawned on this seemingly cynical writer. He concluded that life does make sense in light of our being created by God for eternal purposes and not merely earthly, temporal pursuits.

The Apostle Paul once said,

So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.

– Colossians 3:1-2, The Message

Paul gives us, in this passage, a fairly simple way to make sure we’re maximizing the investment potential of our time and money.

Put your energy into spiritual things, for which you were created!

Don’t get to the end of this life and look back only to realize you spent all of our energy getting nowhere. Give your life to the pursuit of God’s purposes for you and you’ll never have to question the value of your investment!

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Source: When You’re Completely Spent and Have Nothing to Show For it All

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6 Things That Make Ministry Harder Than It Was A Decade Ago

Patrick Bradley — Sat, 23 Jun 2018 09:00:34 +0000

by Carey Nieuwhof: Ever feel like ministry is harder than it was a decade ago?

You’re not alone.

I am an eternal optimist when it comes to the church, but I agree that ministry is more challenging than it’s ever been.

Understanding why is key to figuring out what to do and how to respond.

You may or may not like the change in culture you see around you, but the fastest path to ineffectiveness in the church is to ignore the change you see around you.

The gap between how quickly things change and how quickly you change is called irrelevance.

So why is ministry a little more challenging than it used to be?

Here are 6 reasons…and a beacon of hope to guide us into a better future.

The gap between how quickly things change and how quickly you change is called irrelevance.Click To Tweet

1. The automatic return to church is long gone

There was an assumption in ministry (it still lingers in certain circles) that although young adults who grew up in the church might walk away for a season, they’ll come back as soon as they have kids. I heard a church leaders say this as recently as last month.

The research shows that’s just not true.

Ditto the assumption that unchurched people will turn to the church the moment they hit a bit crisis in their lives. They are just as likely to turn to a meditation app or yoga class as they are to a local church.

Unchurched people think about church about as much as the average Christian thinks about synagogue—rarely.

Unchurched people think about church as much as the average Christian thinks about synagogue.Click To Tweet

Will you occasionally have people who turn to the church in times of crisis? Of course. Or young families who come back? Absolutely.

But the exception is never the rule. It’s the exception.

But if you treat the exception like the rule, you’ll be deeply frustrated with your inability to realize your mission of reaching people with the Gospel.

Leaders who are waiting for young adults to automatically return to church will wait a long time.

Leaders who are waiting for young adults to automatically return to church will wait a long time.Click To Tweet

2. The gap between what Christians believe and the culture believes is bigger than ever

If you’ve sensed that the values many Christians hold are significantly different than the values our culture holds to, you would be right.

What Christians believe about sexuality, money, love, drugs, ethics and compassion are increasingly different from what our neighbours who don’t go to church believe.

So how do you bridge that gap?

Too many preachers just yell at the world for not believing what we believe. Ditto for Christians on social media.

Not only is that a mistake; it’s a terrible strategy.

Guess what? Christians are supposed to be different than non-Christians. It shouldn’t surprise us that it’s happened.

Sharing why we believe what we believe in love is so much better than yelling at the world in hate.

Sharing why you believe what you believe in love is so much better than yelling at the world in…Click To Tweet

3. Christians are perceived as irrelevant

A few years ago I connected with a news anchor who has worked for the major TV networks in the US and Canada.

He was shocked that anyone under 50 attended church. He had no idea that there were still churches that were actually growing.

That attitude shouldn’t shock Christians, but it does.

I’ve been introducing myself as a pastor for two decades now. At first people seemed either impressed or dismissive. Some people were glad to see a younger leader in ministry. And many were open to checking out a church that was making changes.

There were always a few who showed disdain when I mentioned I was a pastor, often, I suspect, because they had had a negative experience with church.

Today when I introduce myself, I’m more often greeted by bewilderment or confusion than anything.

People just don’t seem to have a category for people who work at churches. It’s like people feel sorry for us.

Irrelevance is more difficult than relevance because it’s hard to find immediate common ground. You have to establish it from scratch, and often the easiest way to do that is to

But it also provides opportunity. Imagine becoming known as the most radically loving group of people anyone has ever met.

Irrelevance is more difficult than relevance because there is no common ground.Click To Tweet

4. Fewer gifted people are entering ministry

This one really bothers me.

I talk to leaders every week who talk about how hard it is to find great leaders to staff their ministry.

Naturally, you should raise up leaders from within, and we do that.

But the truth is fewer and fewer bright, capable young adults are considering full time church ministry as an option.

A century ago, the best and the brightest flooded into ministry as easily as leaders today float into business, law, engineering, start-ups and medicine.

Today, drop by a top tier school and tell them you’re thinking about ministry and people will stare at you in disbelief. Sadly, sometimes so will your parents.

That’s heartbreaking.

Some people might say “Well, people just don’t feel called into ministry.” I get that, but I think it might be time rethink what it means to be called into ministry.

Similarly, I think many leaders who could make a huge contribution to ministry are in the business and start up space instead. I’d love to see more entrepreneurs enter ministry.

When you get the best leaders in a room, problems become easier to solve.

Fewer bright, gifted leaders are entering ministry. That’s heartbreaking.Click To Tweet

5. Contemporary churches are less rare than they used to be

In the 90s and early 2000s, churches that switched to better music, more relevant teaching and generally became more effective at what they did were few and far between.

Many early adopters who made changes like this would find themselves as the only church in their town/region/denomination that had adapted to a more contemporary form of church.

That’s not the case anymore.

Many churches that have adapted a contemporary form of worship or even a particular sub-style of church now find themselves in cities with other churches doing exactly the same thing.

When it comes to contemporary churches, what was once unique is now commonplace. What was innovative is now normal.

That’s not a bad thing. It’s just a thing. And it helps explain that what got you far a decade ago doesn’t take you as far today.

Cool church itself might even be dying, as I argue here. But again, that’s not a bad thing. Something far greater and more effective will emerge.

When it comes to contemporary churches, what was once innovative is now commonplace.Click To Tweet

6. The internet happened

Just over a decade ago, there were no smart phones and a meaningful percentage of people were still on dial-up.

No more.

Today, anyone can listen to any preacher or worship leader any time, anywhere, on any device, pretty much for free.

Courtesy of the internet, the local pastor is not the sole voice in a congregation’s life.

You and I are being compared against people who are often far more talented that we are. And again, that’s not a bad thing. It’s just a thing.

There will always be a role for a local communicator and pastor who knows his or her people and loves them. A powerful role.

But many in your church now have a handful of pastors and leaders they follow. Maybe dozens.

It’s just different.

Courtesy of the internet, the local pastor is no longer the sole voice in a congregation’s life.Click To Tweet

There’s Plenty of Hope

So, is it time to lament and console ourselves?

Not at all.

First of all, it’s Jesus’ church, not ours. God has more invested in the future of the church than any of us do.

The church will prevail because it’s His, not ours.

God has more invested in the future of the church than any of us do. Click To Tweet

The first step in solving a problem is diagnosing it, and hopefully this helps get us up the field.

As I outlined in this post, great leaders never make excuses. Instead, they study the reasons things are the way they are, and then they make progress.

Where one leader sees obstacles, another sees opportunities.

I encourage you to see all of these as opportunities.

Where one leader sees obstacles, another sees opportunities. See the opportunity Click To Tweet

What does that look like? Well….

If you’re relying on the automatic return to church, stop that. Develop a strategy to reach the unreached.

Speak into the gap between what you believe and the culture believe with love, not with judgment.

If you’re seen as irrelevant, develop some common ground and even friendships with people who don’t understand why you do what you do.

Short leaders? Challenge some marketplace leaders to leave what they’re doing and serve full time in church leadership.

If lots of churches are doing what you’re doing and what you’re doing isn’t working for you, change what you’re doing.

Instead of feeling threatened by the internet, use it. We just completely redesigned our website at Connexus Church to become mobile optimal, added an online campus and made many more changes to reach the unchurched. Everyone who’s not in church is online. Go to them if they haven’t come to you.

Everyone who’s not in church is online. Go to them if they haven’t come to you.Click To Tweet

That’s what I’m learning these days about some of the challenges facing all church leaders.

I address numerous practical solutions in my book, Lasting Impact: 7 Powerful Conversations That Will Help Your Church Grow if you want more.

In the meantime, what are you seeing and how are you responding?

Scroll down and leave a comment!

The post 6 Things That Make Ministry Harder Than It Was A Decade Ago appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: 6 Things That Make Ministry Harder Than It Was A Decade Ago

The post 6 Things That Make Ministry Harder Than It Was A Decade Ago appeared first on Passion for Planting.