Take Time For What Matters

Understand the value of your time. In the corporate world, managers are encouraged to assess the actual dollar value of their time. This helps the person and their staff understand that time equals money. As much as the church is not focused on money as the corporate world is, a minister should understand that his time is very valuable and it is limited.

Invest your time wisely. Understand that you only have so much time to invest in a given ministry, project or person. Make the best use of it. Don’t allow distractions or other people’s agendas to keep you from staying on track. A minister should be allowed the same courtesy as any other professional when it comes to his time.

Think of your time like you think of your money. You would never think of investing your money unwisely or just wasting it on every person would ask you for it. You would consider wisely where it should be spend and on who. Time is more valuable than your money, invest it wisely.

Set aside time each day to prioritize the demands on your time. Yes, you should be allowed to decide how your time should be spent. Prioritizing the demands of your time will allow you to spend time in areas where it is most needed and where the greatest return will come from it.

What If Everyone Tithed

The following was a excerpt from chapter 2 of the EBook intitled Where Your Treasure Is...

You can find out more about this incredible tool and related resources to help your church increase it's tithe and giving at http://www.pastoralhelps.com/training/where-your-treasure-is-teaching-set-edownload-w/cd

What are the possibilities if every Christian in America tithed ten percent of their increase to the Kingdom?

We can imagine those possibilities through a recent CNN article about tithing....

The churches of the U.S. last year received about $4 billion in donations. If the 112 million Americans who claim a religious affiliation had given one tenth— the traditional tithe—of their personal income to churches, that total could have topped $25 billion.

It takes money to advance the Kingdom of God in this world yet, according to this article, the average Christian in America gives only $35.71 to God’s work each year. And we wonder why America is straying so far from God.

Jesus said in...

Matthew 6:21 KJV

21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Notice this verse reads the opposite of the way we think. We think that wherever our heart is, our treasure will be also. Or whatever our passion is, that is what we will support.

That is not what Jesus said...and His ways are above our ways.

Jesus said that our heart is the follower, not the leader.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Our heart will follow our treasure...What a revelation!

This is what commitment is all about…

Bi-Vocational Ministry - The Need to Refuel

     To avoid burnout one needs to identify ways to refuel the energy expended in their challenging role of bi-vocational ministry. Exercise, proper diet, and adequate rest cannot be over-emphasized for long-term health, stamina, and creativity. 

One analogy is that of an automobile over the course of a year. It order to function without failure it needs to visit the occasional gas station, be serviced for lubrication and filter replacements, undergo routine preventive maintenance, be cleaned, have inspections and documentation kept current, and so forth. Just as these things are essential to problem-free automobile service, similar things are essential to problem-free bi-vocational ministry. A few tips include: 

• Block out multiple windows of time for quality family time each week.
• Maintain spontaneity and the capacity to have fun.
• Schedule a vacation or time away from church and work at the same time.
• Leave work at the office. When you come home bring “you” with you.
• Discover ways to expend excess energy, tension, and anxiety.

If It's Frustrating You, It's Definitely Frustrating the Church

What are we talking about?  The loss of ministry momentum.  When the church starts and a pastor promotes a new ministry in the church, everyone gets excited.  That excitement is the fuel that this ministry is going to need to get started and for success to quickly begin to happen.  The labor and energy that goes into promoting new ministries within the church is great.  The planning aspect alone often takes many, many hours of several people working together to cause this new ministry to be possible.  However, once it starts, if constant encouragement and direction is not given, it could very possibly begin to lose its momentum within just a very short amount of time. 

Simply placing somebody over a ministry is not enough.  You have to work with that person, train them, encourage them, and let them know exactly what it is you hope to see accomplished in this new ministry.  This mentoring of the new leader is absolutely necessary if you want this new ministry to succeed.  However, oftentimes our own schedules don't allow us to properly train and equip the people that we placed over various ministries within the church.  When this happens, the new ministry begins to lose momentum.  Do your leaders consistently lose the encouragement that they need?  Do they have questions that are not being answered?  Do they lack the training and direction that they need, or are they too are simply losing interest?

7 Things to Consider When Asked to “Lead the Service”

All too often the people who lead the service mislead it.  These good people whom the Pastor has asked to help out in the service many times serve to cause frustration and confusion in a church service.

Leading a service properly can bring about a move of God that can break every yoke in the service.  Leading it improperly can cause people to go home more bound than they were when they came. 

Every element of the service should prepare the way for the next.  The end result of the service is the move of God in the alter.  When you get in the way of the progression, you kill the potential of what could happen.

Here are a few things to consider when asked to “Lead the service”. 

Keep it moving.  Don’t allow for delays or “dead air” places in the services.  In radio, “dead air” is when you hear silence.  It is also when the producer did his job wrong and did not prepare for those seconds of the day.  It is during this time that many people will change the channel or turn off their radio.  You don’t want this happening in the church service.  “No Dead Air!”

Do not continually comment.  If you are introducing the various singers and elements of the service don’t comment each time on the last person who sang or spoke.  Just introduce the next part of the service.

Be prepared.  Have a written outline of how the service will run.  This way you will not forget any part or aspect of the service.  (Forgetting to have the children’s choir sing when they have practiced all week will get a lot of people upset at you.)

Don’t ramble.  Recently I attended a service where the person who led the service in the Pastor’s leave, killed it with his constant rambling.  He actually spoke more than the preacher did.  He thought he was funny with his jokes and spiritual with his “little messages”.  Needless to say, the congregation did not pay much attention to the preacher when he was finally introduced, since they already heard plenty of oratory from the person leading the service.  I love preaching, but I have to admit, the guy leading this service wore me out.

The Seven Habits of the Highly Ineffective Pastor

What would an ineffective pastor look like? Here are seven habits of highly ineffective pastors and how you can avoid them.

• Be reactive. Effective people are proactive. They take responsibility for their lives and aren't swayed by their physical or social environments. Being proactive means responding by choices and values, not by emotions or circumstances.
  
• Focus only on short-term results. A good habit says, "Begin with the end in mind." This attitude will help you keep a heavenly perspective throughout your day-to-day work.
  
• Do the least important thing first. An effective pastor will look at all the things in his or her life and prioritize them. The people or items at the top of that list will receive the pastor's first and best attention.
  
• Think win/lose. Truly effective pastors will look for win/win solutions. They find agreements that benefit and satisfy everyone involved. This principle is especially valuable with staff and volunteers.

Investing The Talents

Investing The Talents

The following is an article being shared with the Indiana Trumpet.  You might want to place it in your weekly bulletin or in a place where your members can read it. 

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Mt 25 14-30

Mat 25:14  For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.

Mat 25:15  And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey...

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This often misunderstood passage of scripture is a key parable for real revival.  Revival and growth can only come when we understand and implement the simple factors spoken of here.

The man traveling into a far country is Jesus Christ.  His servants are the Pastors of churches and the talents are the saints of the churches.   When Jesus placed a shepherd in the church, he was doing more than placing someone there who would watch over the souls of the church.  He was also placing someone there who would lead that group of people into personal and numerical growth (Revival).

This parable was not written to the saints, it was written to the Pastors of the churches.  As a saint, this is important for me to understand as it allows me to comprehend the burden and psyche of my Pastor. 

Every Pastor is under a great burden for the souls of not only those who attend the local church, but also for the souls of those people in the community who do not attend.   This burden does not leave a Pastor day or night, the entire time he Pastor’s a particular church.  Those who do not understand this burden will usually misunderstand the actions and decisions of their Pastor. 

Notice in the parable the Lord gave us, the servant/Pastor pays a great price if he does not invest his Lord’s talents/saints wisely.  Saints will wonder why their Pastor is pushing so hard to begin a new program or simply encourage the church to get involved in evangelism.  They will grumble and complain because he has asked them to consider a new ministry the church is capable of implementing.  Yet, regardless of their lack of cooperation, the Pastor is still under the directive to cause every talent/saint in the church to become involved. 

Notice what happened to the servant who buried his talent in the ground.  His labor was to hide his talents.  This Pastor simply preached to the “Us 4 and no more crowd”.  He was satisfied with a lack of growth and had grown weary of trying to get the church to become involved in soul winning.  So he stopped trying.  He just kept the same old crowd.  His burden for the community died and his church had no increase.  With this mindset, this servant purchased a harsh judgment.

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”?

Momentum - When taking up the offering.

Here are a few things to remember when taking up the offering.

Don’t be timid or embarrassed to ask people for money.   It takes money to make ministry happen.

Teach your people to give financially to the church.  You are robbing them of a tremendous blessing if you are not teaching them to give tithes and offerings.   It is the job of the ministry to instruct people how to give financially to God’s work.

Be the first to give.  Instruct your ushers to take the offering from the platform first.  The Pastor should be the first to give and then anyone who is seated on the platform.  Preachers, musicians, singers, everybody should be instructed to be an example in giving in every service.  Rule number 1 – If you are on the platform, you must give in every offering.  (This serves as an example to the rest of the congregation.  You will be amazed at the increase in offerings when your congregation begins to notice the leadership of the church being the first to give.

Tell the ushers to slow down.  Recently I visited a church where the ushers went so fast collecting the offering that people did not even have time to get their wallets out before the ushers were finished.   Slow them down.  People need time to dig deep.

Pass the plate.  Don’t let the ushers simply walk around with the plate in hand  – only putting it in front of those they feel will give.  Tell them that each person in the congregation should have the plate passed to them.  Let the congregation handle the plate as it passes through every row.

Worship during the giving.  Don’t let the offering be the dead spot of the church service.  Have the musicians play and the singers sing.  The church should worship while they give.