Your Life and Ministry Is A Balancing Act

Balance in life does not come naturally.  For many of us, our lives are lived in extremes.  Incredible things happen when ministry and life are lived at their fullest. The problem however, is that when one area of our life is lived at an extreme, the others become out of balance. 

Spending larger amounts of time in one area causes the other areas of our life to become anemic.  Few vocations understand this more than the ministry.  Our dedication to God and commitment to His church often cause us to have an imbalanced allocation of energy and time resources.   Sadly, our families are too often the benefactors of the lessor of the imbalance.

Someone once said, “Time waits for no one!”  How true!  We really do only have one life and one chance at making the moments of every single day of that life count.  Moments that are divided between our jobs, families and ministries.  Moments that we will never get back.  Moments that turn hours into days.  Days into years and years into lifetimes. 

• How do you manage all those moments? 
• What are the priorities that you have set to budget those precious moments? 
• What rules have you put into place to guard the distribution of those moments? 
• Is your life so frenzied that you really have no idea who should get the best of “you”?

Tax Time! - What is a Ministerial Housing Allowance?

Any licensed or ordained minister in the U.S. who performs ministerial duties and who is employed by the church qualifies for a housing allowance which is a great tax benefit. Housing allowances are not taxable to federal or state income taxes, so you can save taxes by utilizing the housing allowance. In general the rules are as follows.

To have a housing allowance, you must have a resolution pre-authorizing the housing allowance. A pastor cannot designate his own housing…it must be done by either the church board or the church membership. The amount designated goes to pay all housing expenses: rent or house payment, utilities, taxes, insurance, repairs & maintenance, upkeep, association dues, furnishing & appliances (purchase or repair). Any expenditure that is for the upkeep of the house you live in is included in the housing allowance.

The housing allowance is ONLY for your primary residence, not any other vacation home, etc. The allowance is paid by church funds as a portion of the overall compensation of the minister. The housing allowance used cannot exceed the actual expenses incurred for the housing expenses. The amount paid toward the house payment cannot exceed the fair rental value of the home.

Making the Visioneering Process Work for You (Part 1)

It would be foolish, or at best naive, for any of us to believe or even infer that what works for others will work for you as well. The Vision process, or Visioneering, is included in that statement. There is no cookie-cutter formula that works and produces for everyone. However, there is a common development route, or process, that can be modified to suit your environment, and it will work for everyone if allowed to. There are questions to ponder and ask at the inception of the Visioneering process.

Why is this important? It is important because every leader, church, or organization is not ready to undertake a successful Visioneering process. Before you waste your time and that of others you need to validate that this is the right thing for you to do.

To do this you will have to determine some things. Every church or business has its own unique and distinguishing traits and characteristics, including but not limited to:

· The number people and talents it has available

· The unity it either has or doesn’t have

· The spiritual maturity and understanding level of the people

· The level of commitment to excellence and continuous improvement

· The work ethic

· The corporate attitude

· Financial and resource strengths and/or weaknesses

· Demographics

What are yours? Write them down clearly and concisely. Do the necessary research. Thoroughness and honesty are absolutely essential.

Next, of course there are many other ingredients that must be considered as well, including but not limited to:

· The connection between the leader and the people

· The level of trust and confidence in leadership

· The size and commitment to and understanding of teamwork

· The organizational structure

· Area demographics (white or blue collar/wealthy or welfare/educated or non-educated/innovative or non-innovative/adaptability to change or resistance to any change, multicultural blend and ethnicity traits/ and etc.)

· The culture of the area and of the church

Once again, write these down clearly and concisely as well. Do the necessary research. Thoroughness and honesty are absolutely essential.

Are You Stuck in a Rut?

Has your church replaced truth with tradition?  Have you done the same things for so long that neither God nor man could change things at your church? Do committees and programs substitute for the moving of the Holy Ghost? Has your church become boring and predictable? If so, your church may be stuck in a rut and may be unable to see a way out.

In his book, Rut, Rot or Revival, A.W. Tozer states,

"The treacherous enemy facing the church of Jesus Christ today is the dictatorship of the routine, when the routine becomes "lord" in the life of the church. Programs are organized and the prevailing conditions are accepted as normal. Anyone can predict next Sunday's service and what will happen. This seems to be the most deadly threat in the church today. When we come to the place where everything can be predicted and nobody expects anything unusual from God, we are in a rut.

The routine dictates, and we can tell not only what will happen next Sunday, but what will occur next month and, if things do not improve, what will take place next year. Then we have reached the place where what has been, determines what is, and what is, determines what will be. That would be perfectly all right and proper for a cemetery. Nobody expects a cemetery to do anything but conform. The greatest conformists in the world today are those who sleep out in the community cemetery. They do not bother anyone. They just lie there, and it is perfectly all right for them to do so.

You can predict what everyone will do in a cemetery from the deceased right down to the people who attend a funeral there. Everyone and everything in a cemetery has accepted the routine. Nobody expects anything out of those buried in the cemetery. But the church is not a cemetery and we should expect much from it, because what has been should not be lord to tell us what is, and what is should not be ruler to tell us what will be. God's people are supposed to grow. As long as there is growth, there is an air of unpredictability. Certainly we cannot predict exactly, but in many churches you just about can. Everybody knows just what will happen, and this has become our deadliest enemy."

Why Some Churches Grow And Others Decline

In a recent study of church growth, the following factors and strategies were noticed as being utilized in growing churches while churches that were declining were not using these principles.

1. Reach out to Newcomers. Focusing on the needs and concerns of newcomers, making inquiry convenient and non-threatening, and allowing people to move at their own pace, characterized the growing churches.

2. Build Member Commitment. While reaching newcomers is most important, the growing churches expected much of members, and active involvement of everyone was sought.

3. Train and Involve Laity. There was always a bold, compelling vision for the congregation’s future as well as ways of equipping and deploying laity drawn to the vision for ministry.

4. Make Bold Plans. Churches with goals and dreams far beyond current ministries and resources were more likely to grow than other churches, all other things being equal.

15 Principles for Organizing Your Life

1. Get Rid of Stuff - Paper, publications and possessions require maintenance; maintenance costs time, energy, space and money. Dispose of seldom or never-used items. Ask yourself, “What will happen if I let this go?” If the answer is “nothing,” get rid of it.
   
   
2. Limit Your Reading Material – Realize that you can’t read, know, or retain all the information you receive. Set up a reading folder for holding unread information. Pitch the oldest material (read or not) when that space is full.
   
   
3. Touch it Once – Be decisive: Handle mail only once and move on. Don’t shuffle papers with the vague “I don’t know what to do with this so I’ll put it here for now” Syndrome. Use a simple DRAFT technique – Delegate, Read, Act, File or Toss – the first time you touch it.
   
   
4. Think Before Acquiring More – Evaluate before accepting new items. Get off mailing/routing lists that serve no purpose. Ask yourself if you really NEED this item.
   
   
5. Organize Before Increasing Space – The more space you have, the more inclined you are to be a saver. Keep things as simple as possible by retaining as few items as you absolutely need.
   
   
6. Don’t Leave Things Out As Reminders – Leaving items out is a common mistake.
   
   
7. Keep Frequently Used Items Handy – Keep within easy reach your current working papers and items you’ll need when you answer the phone.
   
   
8. Don’t Crowd – Individual file folders over ¾ of an inch thick need to be first purged, then divided if necessary.
   

Are You Ready For Your Healing?

Have You Been Praying that God Would Restore Someone's Health...

But with No Answer? 

Many have prayed for healing and felt like their prayers landed on deaf ears. It can be frustrating. It can wear your faith down and have you wondering if God still cares. Rest assured he certainly does care!

Do you feel that you have faith, but for some reason
have never seen miracles?

Everyone knows someone who’s in need of physical, emotional or mental healing. Yet most people who aren’t educated or experienced with the will of God, seem lost and often unsure if their prayers will even be answered. Is there anything you can do to prepare yourself (or someone else) for a healing?

When You're The New Pastor

New Pastors often make elementary mistakes when they assume the pastorate of a church. Even though you’re now the pastor, you’re still the “new kid on the block.” Listed are some strategies to employ during the first year of your new pastorate.

• Earn confidence by showing competence in decision-making.
  
• Focus on people first – programs second.
  
• Make no major changes the first year.
  
• Promote health through loving the people.
  
• Tackle the most critical problems one at a time – line them up single file.
  
• Respect culture – each church has its unique history.
  

Kingdom Building

In one of our recent family devotions, my wife and I sat our three children down to talk about the importance of 'family.' We do this ever so often because our children, and probably yours as well, often withdraw into their own world of fantasy and ignore the rest of the family. They each have their own room and their own ideas about how to spend their free time. If we allow them, they will shut themselves out from the rest of us to do their thing. While this can be cute when they are very young, my wife and I have noticed that it lends itself strongly to an attitude of selfishness. It becomes all about 'me' and less about others in the family. When the kids do get together, it becomes a war of words or worse, as each of them stand up for what they feel is 'their rights'. They have no sympathy or compassion for their siblings. It is almost as if they desire to build their own little 'kingdom' or 'empire' in their own little space.

As I was thinking about this it struck me that this is also a danger for all of us in ministry. If we are not careful, we can allow ourselves to get caught up in building 'our kingdom' instead of building 'His Kingdom.' Even though we feel like we are doing the work of Christ, it can become more about 'me' and less about others. There is a grey area here where the lines of demarcation become blurred. 'His Kingdom' begins to blend into 'my kingdom.' Motives become mismanaged. Desires turn dangerous. And it is not too long until 'my kingdom' becomes more important than anything or anybody else. Because of this danger, we all need to test ourselves every so often. We do this by asking; How do I feel about the others in this Kingdom? Do I truly have sympathy and compassion for their needs? Or, are my desires more important?

As we all do, I understand the importance of caring for others, but recently, while listening to a Jewish Rabbi, this understanding became crystal clear.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin was speaking of the typical Orthodox Jewish family. I paraphrase his words;

Why is it that everywhere in the world the Jewish people are so successful and wealthy? Why are their families so close knit and strong? Why is there very little divorce?

The obvious answer is they put God first. However, beyond that, it is because of their strong sense of 'family'.

The origin of the Hebrew word for 'family' means; to serve. A family is not a family unless they serve one another. Brother serves brother. Sister serves sister. Husbands serve their wives. They put others needs in front of their own. The Jewish people live this way.