Time Management for Pastors in School and Bi-Vocational Pastors - Part 1

Let me say at the outset that this article is not intended to berate anyone for struggling with productivity but to encourage you and facilitate your success. I still recall my surprise during my first pastorate when, as I prepared to preach one week, I figured up the number of hours we have in one week – 168! The context was retired people saying they didn’t have time to serve in church ministries, but that knowledge has served me well through the years. Those of us in vocational ministry often face serious challenges when it comes to time. This can be doubly true for those in bi-vocational ministry or those working on advanced degrees. Although I write this article from the pastor-in-school perspective, its content is adaptable for the bi-vocational minister or any busy professional. Here are some suggestions you should find helpful. For the bi-vocational minister, replace the terms “work” and “school” with your designations for non-church work and church work. The principles remain the same.

Construct a Time Budget – The premise of a time budget is that, just as with finances, we have “fixed expenses” – things we have to do – and “approximate expenses” – things that may be flexible, but we can estimate and plan for. Then, we need margin time for personal business, time off, and time to take care of family and health. Here is mine. Note that yours may be different, but this will give you the idea.

Sleep                           7.5 hr / night x 7 nights                      = 52.5 hr / week

Daily prayer                1.0 hr / morning x 7 days                    = 7 hr / week

Daily get ready          1.0 hr / day x 7 days                             = 7 hr / week

Lunch / Dinner           1.5 hr / day x 7 days                            = 10.5 hr / week

Workouts                    2.0 hr / day x 3 days                          = 6.0 hr / week

Totals (fixed)              11.0 hr / day x 7 days + workouts       = 83 hr / week

Time remaining         13.0 hr / day x 7 days - workouts       = 85 hr / week

Alternate (1 day off)  13.0 hr / day x 6 days - workouts       = 72 hr / week

During my doctoral work, I tried to limit my church work to 40 hr / week, and my school work ranged from 18-34 or so hr / week depending on classes, dissertation, etc. I tried to make sure to care for the church as needed, so there were many weeks of more than 40 hours, thus there were many times I did not take a day off and many times when housework, time to visit family, and personal business got neglected. Now, let’s look at what a time budget might look like for the “approximate expenses” – work, school, family, household and personal business, and rest. Here us a sample.

Time remaining after “fixed expenses” 85 hr / week           (alt) 72 hr / week

Work week                                               40 hr / week

School                                                      25-30 hr / week

Time remaining for other things             10-15 hr / week       (alt) 2-7 hr / week

When we break this down per day, it looks like 12-13 hours per day available after “fixed expenses.” The 10-15 hr / week amount is if you count a 7 day week, while the 2-7 hr / week is figured with taking a day off each week. This “time remaining” is all you have left to do everything else – spouse and children (if you have a family), doctor appointments, haircuts, house cleaning, yard work, vehicle repairs or other unexpected business – absolutely all other rest and responsibilities. In all fairness, when I went through my doctorate, I was not married. You may need to put spouse and family time in your “fixed expenses” category, or you may need to put some spouse and family time in the “fixed expenses” category and some in the “approximate expenses” category. Do not sacrifice your family on the altar of school or work, but also know your family will make some sacrifices during this season, and think through creative ways to combine work or school time with spouse and family time.

Keep a Productivity Log and Evaluate – Although your productivity log must not take an inordinate amount of time, it can be helpful to track your time use each week, keeping up with this on a daily basis. You may use an electronic calendar or a paper planner, but I suggest color coding it and doing a weekly tally for the major responsibility categories – for me those were work, school, and personal responsibilities. Your goal is not to use a certain amount of time on any given area but to get done what is needed. However, tracking and evaluating your use of time can help you tighten your efficiency as you identify patterns, time-waters, and ways to accomplish more in your allotted time each week. At the end of each week, when planning for the next, ask three questions. 1) “What went well?” 2) “What could have gone better?” and 3) What do I want to do differently next week?”

Overlap Activities – One way I found to get everything done and maintain my mental and emotional stamina was to overlap activities. Here are a few suggestions to get you thinking.

• Combine work or school tasks with spouse or family time when those tasks require low levels of focus. In other words, if you have to go pick up a book or get something printed, take your spouse or child with you.

• Take reading or proofing work to lunch or work outside if you need a change of scenery or need to get some fresh air and sunshine but do not have time for a complete break.

• Use personal errands, workout time, or meal times as breaks so you don’t have to take additional breaks.

• Alternate low-concentration and high-concentration work so you don’t need as many breaks.

Let me encourage you in two more ways. First, rely on the Lord and give your work to Him as worship. He will enable you to do what He calls you to do. Second, you can do more, at least for a season, than you ever thought you could.

Caring for Family and Church - Part 2

The tension between family and ministerial call is not easy to resolve, nor should it be completely resolved. Both your family and your ministry setting are matters of stewardship, and allotting time and effort to these cannot be a matter simply of what we might feel like doing at any given time. Last week, I offered a some observations and questions to help you live well in the tension, and this week I want to offer a few suggestions.

Honest Self-Examination – You and I need regularly to examine our goals, motives, expenditure of effort, and use of time. We need to answer questions about where get our sense of identity and worth, why we use our time and expend effort the way we do, and how these relate to furthering the Kingdom at home and in our ministry. Here are some examples. If we find our identity either in our family or in our ministry work instead of in Jesus, we may misappropriate time and effort toward whichever gives us our greatest sense of value. Additionally, if we find our worth in being needed at church or busy at work, we may slight our family and work in our ministry setting more than is justified. Further, if we feel our church is treating us unjustly in some way or we are frustrated with our ministry context, we may begin to shrot-change that service and pull our attention away from it to preserve our self, to punish our church or ministry setting, or to make some point they probably will not understand. What I mean by neglecting the ministry to make a point is failing to do something the church feels is valuable but you do not see as valuable without adequately communicating to the church what you are doing or why. This simply looks like dereliction of duty on your part and does not teach the church anything constructive. Difficulty at home or at church can lead to unhealthy patterns, as can the desire to matter, addiction to work, a “Messiah complex,” or any number of motives and assumptions. There are other examples, but the point is, you and I need to understand why we do what we do and check our motives. On occasion, we may need outside help from a coach or trusted confidant to do this.

Evaluation and Communication – I believe communication and evaluation belong in an ongoing, repeated cycle. Regular evaluation at home and at church should help you catch trouble before it gets out of hand (i.e. figuring out what needs are not being met before they cause problems). Communication helps clarify expectations and needs in order to avoid problems, and it helps clear up difficulties once they are discovered. At home, this involves clarifying needs and expectations, how to meet needs and expectations, and how the family relates to your ministry. We need regularly to discuss and evaluate where we stand in terms of meeting needs and expectations so stress, distance, and resentment do not develop.

In my experience, clarifying expectations and evaluating whether or not you are meeting those can be more challenging in your ministry setting. As you enter a ministry position, you need to do your best to identify and clarify explicit and implicit expectations and perceived needs. You also need a solid Biblical understanding of the needs of God’s people and the expectations of ministry. Moving forward, periodic evaluation helps keep you on track. Here is where things can get difficult. You may or may not have a formal evaluation system, and if you do not, you might benefit from informal input. However, you must be careful from whom you solicit that input. If you open yourself to the wrong person or persons, you can lose leadership capital and fall prey to manipulation and the agendas of those who give you input, or at least subject yourself to the debilitating stress of confusing demands and un-Biblical expectations.

Cultivate a Philippians 2 Perspective – Without digressing into a Bible study lesson, I believe there is a pattern for maintaining healthy family and ministry balance in Philippians 2:1-11. Paul encourages us to, from a place of the blessedness found in Jesus, find unity and cooperation with one another in an attitude of humbly looking to others’ interests in addition to our own. Then, he gives the example of Jesus who humbly was self-emptying and placed Himself at the Father’s disposal for Kingdom purposes. Your family, in addition to your church or other ministry, is “others” to whose interests you are to look. Additionally, I believe you can cultivate the blessedness of Christ’s benefits in your home and a family spirit of selfless ministry that characterizes your family itself.

Some Additional Possibilities – Understanding each church and every family is different, I think we need to explore a few additional possibilities.

• I suspect that, in some churches, pastors or other ministers may, in some respects, allow their church to be like an extended family in Christ – a family that nurtures their own family.

• I suspect that, although the ministry is a job, we may over professionalize it in some respects. Maybe our family needs to serve alongside us when possible instead of being kept separate from our ministry as if it were a secular vocation.

• I suspect that, if you attend fully to your family when you are with them and do not take them for granted – guarding your time with them and keeping your commitments to them – you can develop in them a heart for ministry that should keep you from feeling you need to slight your church.

• I suspect there are churches who will take advantage of you and demand more of you than they should, forcing you to set and maintain some boundaries in order to care for your family adequately.

May the Lord give you a passion for His work in your place of service and your home, and may you be a good steward of both.

Caring for Family and Church - Part 1

A few months ago, a friend’s social media post re-surfaced for me the issue of tension between caring for family and carrying out the ministry. He wrote, “In the past, pastors sacrificed their families on the altar of ministry. Now, they sacrifice ministry on the altar of family. We need balance.” You probably have your own examples of this tension, but the following came to my mind:

• A seminary professor telling me to make sure and take care of my family, because if my marriage failed, my church would not support me

• The real life instance of an acquaintance in ministry whose wife cheated on him, and his church asked him to leave

• Sharing with a minister from the previous generation how, while at seminary, I had been encouraged to take care of myself and find a healthy pace in ministry, to which he countered forcefully that this sort of measured approach certainly was not the case when he learned about ministry

• A respected friend’s observation that ministry students seem to want ministry to be easy and do not understand the level of sacrifice and hard work it demands and deserves

The Issue of Primacy and Priority – At the most basic level, this is a question of primacy and priority. Obviously, from a chronological perspective, marriage and the family predates the church as an institution of God. The question becomes, “What, if anything, changed about the primacy of the family with the coming of the New Covenant and its inauguration of the family of God and the church?” Does the family of God, and specifically the local church and one’s ministry, preempt the biological family? Scripture clearly teaches the sanctity of the marriage relationship. Alternatively, Jesus speaks of believers as His true family, and He predicted faith in Him would bring division amid the closest ties of the natural family. Let me suggest looking at the issue through the lens of the Kingdom of God. At the heart of Jesus’ picture of the disciple’s life, we find Matthew 6:33, which establishes seeking the Kingdom as our defining priority. We need to consider the balance of family and ministry in light of the Kingdom priority.

The Issue of Call – On a secondary level, we are dealing with the issue of call. What is God’s call on your life relative to your family and your ministry? The book of James (albeit in a slightly different vein) warns that a believer who refuses to care for their family is worse than an unbeliever, and the Pastorals include the management of one’s home as a qualification for ministry. More fundamentally, you and I are called to further the Kingdom and make disciples of Jesus, and this work of making Kingdom disciples certainly cannot exclude our families. Shifting to focus on the Gospel ministry, the call is a call to sacrifice for the sake of the church and God’s Kingdom purpose for it and through it. Christ died for the church, and the Apostle Paul testified to making up that which was lacking in Christ’s suffering for the church. Your calling is a costly one. By extension, your family enters with you the struggle for the Kingdom in your church or other ministry context (either directly or indirectly). Finally, your family, more than likely, is part of the church you serve. Jesus wants to reign in your home and your church, and He wants your family and your ministry to be agents of the Kingdom. Your call is to further the Kingdom in and through your family and your ministry.

The Issue of Wants and Needs – Moving to yet another level, we must look at the issue of wants and needs, realizing the distinction is crucial if we are going to be good stewards of our call to our families and our ministries. At times, our families and we have to sacrifice wants because of the call to ministry. Churches, like families, have wants and needs. Some churches and church members confuse wants with needs and have unreasonable expectations of their pastors and ministerial staff.

Questions to Help With the Issue – Rather than giving specific suggestions, let me make an overarching suggestion and pose some questions for you to answer in your own context in order to be a good steward of your family and the Gospel ministry. I would suggest we live in this tension rather than ignoring it or eliminating it. Without the tension, we might slight our families or God’s flock knowingly or incidentally.

• How would you prioritize family and church if seeking the reign of God guided your use of time and how you serve both your family and your ministry setting?

• How can you relate to your family and your ministry in ways that further the Kingdom and involve your family in seeking the Kingdom?

• At what points can your family serve with you in your ministry?

• Are you careful to distinguish between wants and needs in your family and in your ministry setting? Are you communicating sufficiently with your family and your church to make sure you agree on the things that are wants and those that are needs?

• What boundaries are in place or need to be in place to make sure you care for both your family and your church?

• What indications can you see at this point that you may be slighting one or the other?

The tension between family care and ministerial call is not easy to resolve, nor do I believe it should be completely resolved. Both your family and your ministry setting are matters of stewardship, Allotting our time and effort to these correctly cannot be a matter simply of feelings, opinions, or what we might feel like doing at any given time. We must consider Kingdom, call, and the issues of wants and needs in an ongoing and intentional way.

Preaching Preparation Beyond Academics

Several years ago, I mentored a young man who ended up preaching his first sermon at our church. As he prepared, I sat down with him to share some insights and encouragements concerning the nature of preaching and the work of preparation. If you are early on in your call to preach, the following observations should help you develop your theology of and effectiveness at preaching and sermon preparation. If you are more seasoned, you also may find some encouragement here.

Three Kinds of Work – Sermon preparation involves at least three kinds of work. First, there is intellectual work – appropriate linguistic, historical, and exegetical research; discerning timeless Biblical principles and how those relate to your people; and thinking through the structure of the sermon. Second, there is devotional work – dwelling on the passage and meeting with God about it for yourself. I recall some years back several times of asking the Lord, “How does this connect with our people?” Immediately, the response in my spirit was, “How does it connect with you?” You and I must deal with the passage before we can, with credibility or integrity, lead our people to deal with it. Personally, I prefer to intersperse the academic and the devotional work, exegeting the passage first so that, as I reflect on it, I make sure I reflect on a correct understanding of the passage, then rounding out the intellectual work in the rest of the preparation time and returning to a devotional approach toward the end of the week. Finally, there is the work of connecting with the power of God’s Holy Spirit as you walk with Him uprightly and humbly pray over your own life, the sermon preparation, the hearers, and the preaching event itself.

The Balance of Teaching and Preaching – Although I don’t know if it was original to him, I recall a pastor friend saying in a sermon long ago, “All good preaching contains an element of teaching, and all good teaching partakes of the spirit of preaching.” I believe solid Bible teaching, like preaching, involves all three kinds of work I mentioned in the previous paragraph. For me, the difference in preaching and teaching is somewhat subtle at times but is multi-faceted, apart from the obvious difference that preaching usually is not discussion-based while good teaching is more interactional. One difference is that preaching conveys God’s message for this people in this time, while teaching conveys timeless truths to this people for this time, allowing them more latitude for discerning God’s message in their own lives. Similarly, preaching exposes people to the claims of God upon their lives and the experience of God in the text, while teaching may also facilitate an experience of God but does more to help learners process and live out the truths of the text.

The Message, the Sermon, and the Call – As noted above, there is a difference in the message and the sermon. Not only is there a difference in delivering a sermon and delivering a message, there is a difference in substance. The message is what God wants said to this people in this time. The sermon is the vehicle by which we convey the message. You may or may not directly state the core message in a single sentence or two, but you must communicate to the people what you are supposed to communicate to them. The sermon consists of the structure and words you use, along with the delivery you use, to help them open up to and grasp the message. So, as we prepare to preach, we must ask, “What does the Lord want said in this time (message), and what is the best way to say it (sermon)?” Similarly, there is something God wants us to do in response to His Word and the message delivered from it. You and I preach for a response that varies a bit from person to person but always has to do with the message. So, as we prepare, we must ask, “What does the Lord want us to do with this, about this, or in response to this?” As I learned from the preaching of a former pastor years ago, you begin delivering the invitation early on in the sermon – at the transition from the introduction to the first point if not sooner. Begin letting them know how they might respond or what the call might be or at least use rhetorical questions to prime them for a response. The aim of your preaching is not simply an increase in their knowledge but a change in their lives.

Multiple Aspects of Discernment in Preparation – We prepare to preach, we must have discernment at several levels.

• Discern the passage of Scripture – Pray through and discern what passage to preach and the truths contained in the passage as you consider the Bible, your people, the Lord’s work in their lives, and discoveries in your research.

• Discern yourself and the people in your church and its setting – What is happening in your life and spirit as you come to the Lord through the passage? What biases or agendas do you need to guard against? Who are the people and where do they find themselves? What are their life stages? What will they bring to the passage and the preaching event? How does the passage connect with the church in its setting?

• Discern the Lord – The Lord is the Source of our life for preaching. How will you remain connected to Him and dependent on Him in the entire preparation and preaching process? How is He moving as you choose the passage, exegete it and the people, discern the message, design the sermon, and preach?

For preaching to be what it needs to be, it is both a human and a divine work. The preacher is in partnership with the Lord and must be empowered by Him. The work of preparation and the time of delivery require your effort and attention enlivened by the Holy Spirit who gives His Word, opens our ears and hearts to it, and opens your mouth to proclaim God’s message.

Increasing Efficiency When you Preach Multiple Times per Week

If you are a ministry student or are new to the pastorate, you may wonder how to prepare and preach two or three sermons per week in addition to your other responsibilities. As I offer some help with efficiency and effectiveness in this vital part of your ministry, allow me to begin with two observations. First, although preaching is the most important thing you do all week, it and its preparation cannot be the only things you do all week. You have a responsibility to pray for your church, disciple others and minister to those in need, attend to church communications and marketing issues, keep yourself sharp in ministry, participate in church and community events, and attend to administration,

Preaching Planning – One way you can manage your preaching and teaching load more effectively is wise and intentional planning. First, you can preach series, and when you preach Bible book series, you only have to do the in-depth historical research at the beginning of each series instead of having to start from scratch each week. Additionally, you can try to stagger series so you do not have to do in-depth research on more than one book of the Bible at a time. Finally, keep a running list of possible preaching topics and sermon ideas, and re-visit those from time to time. These steps should streamline your research, keep you from having to generate new preaching ideas each week, and make your overall work of preaching and teaching more efficient.

Wise use of Academic and Personal Study – If you are a ministerial student, consider preaching from the books of the Bible you are studying or have studied in class. Your academic work doubles as sermon research, and your practical use of the material in preaching will help you more firmly grasp the Biblical content. Your schedule will be more efficient, and your people will benefit from your academic work. Whether a student or not, you and I should have a regular time of contemplative reading and Bible study, but do not use your personal quiet time as sermon preparation time. In fact, you probably should not use for your personal reading any of the Biblical material you are currently preaching. However, a rich devotional reading life can and should enrich your preaching and teaching.

Judicious use of Commentaries – Admittedly, some will not agree with my approach on this, and my time-mandated strategy developed during seminary and doctoral work probably means I need to broaden my use of commentaries, but I usually utilize solid historical and exegetical commentaries only (as opposed to homiletic or devotional material) and limit the number to three for each sermon. When you are pastoring full-time and preparing two or three sermons per week, time is of the essence, and when you are in school, this is doubly so. If you want exposure to what others have preached on the topic, my suggestion is to use driving time to listen to additional preaching or teaching so as not to cut into devoted study time. Another option is online resources and Bible study software tools. You need to use enough sources to be thorough without spending so much time in research that you do not exegete your congregation and their setting, praying and reflecting on what God needs you to say at this time to your people. If you have a hard time making practical application, you might want to modify my suggestion about not spending time in devotional or homiletic commentaries until you get a feel for your own work of communicating the practical application of God’s truth. Also note my suggestion is limited to commentaries and does not imply you should not consult other types of Biblical research tools as needed.

Alternate Formats and Overlapping Content – I am not suggesting laziness in preparation, but you can increase efficiency and educational effectiveness by utilizing formats other than standard preaching and by occasionally overlapping preaching and teaching content. You may sometimes use Sunday nights or Wednesday nights as teaching times rather than preaching times. Additionally, if your church is small enough, you occasionally can use the material you preached on Sunday morning for your evening or Wednesday teaching, turning it into discussion, application, and analysis time. In addition to helping the people wrestle with their own prior knowledge and apply the truths of Scripture, you may get some helpful insights into your own preaching and teaching that will increase your effectiveness. Finally, you might use a prayer guide approach for some services, taking a passage of Scripture and teaching the people to pray based upon it. Not only can alternate forms and overlapping content increase efficiency, they give you and your people a variety of ways to experience Scripture and hear from God, and they may increase your teaching effectiveness.

Everything Communicates Something

Have you ever felt misunderstood? Has that misunderstanding cost you in terms of negative impact on others, emotional strain, relational strain, or lost leadership influence? I would like to offer you some suggestions that will help you maintain communication awareness, avoid miscommunication, and increase your effectiveness. Although we could examine verbal communication, in this post I want to address interaction and self-presentation. And, I suggest everything we do and do not do communicates something.

How we respond to people in crisis communicates something. – A couple of preliminary observations are in order. First, not every perceived crisis is a crisis, and our response can help a person gain perspective. However, in the moment, it is a crisis to that person. Second, some people live from crisis to crisis, and a lack of boundaries keeps us at the disposal of these people and prevents adequate attention to the rest of our ministry. Third, we need to be a stable and dependable presence as we represent Jesus and bring His ministry to people. Given these realities, think about our response to crisis. What you do and do not say communicates. Your timing, availability, presence, and level of calmness and / or urgency all communicate something. Our challenge is to be aware of what we communicate and what we need to communicate and do it well.

How we use time communicates something. – I would suggest there is some variation between different types of churches when it comes to written and unwritten expectations of how you use time. However, we need to know these expectations and exercise self-discipline in how we use our time. By how we use our time, I am referring things like how much time and what hours are spent at the office, in the community, and with church members. Do you allow some aspects of the job to keep you from doing others or allow your personal responsibilities and interests to prevent you from doing your job well? Do you appear to be late, or are you late? Even if you have been working before you arrived, if you are late or appear harried when you arrive, you may communicate lack of care about the work or the people and may communicate you are not attending to your responsibilities. Do you allow yourself to be interrupted sufficiently to let people know they matter and to let God bring you ministry opportunities, yet keep enough schedule to ensure your work gets done? You may be a hard working pastor, but if people have no idea where you are they may assume you are lazy. You may have a great heart for the community, but if you are not also available to your people, they will assume you do not care about them. Conversely, if you spend all your time in the office and doing inreach, you may communicate a lack of concern for the lost, and you are not doing evangelism.

How we present ourselves communicates something. – At this point, I am referring to dress and grooming. First, you and I serve a holy God, and our work is vitally important. In my opinion, how we present ourselves says something about the God we serve and about our work and its importance. Second, I would suggest your ministry context has something to do with what you wear. Are you in an upscale city church or a rural church? Are you in a working-class church, a ministry to the poor, or a cowboy church? I would also suggest that the given work you are doing dictates how you dress but not your grooming – you should look sharp and dress appropriately. There is some disagreement over what one should wear at church, particularly to preach. Whatever you wear, it should befit the seriousness of the preaching event and the worthiness of God. I believe that, if your people have built relationships with lost people who visit your church, and you handle yourself with humility and accessibility, lost people will not be turned away from God because you dress as if God and His Word are serious business, whatever that looks like in your context.

Space does not permit a full discussion of other means by which we communicate, but a list of examples should suffice.

• Staying withdrawn before church may help you focus on the Lord, but it can communicate aloofness and disinterest in the people.

• Failing to take care of something the church believes is your responsibility may teach others to take up responsibility or develop other leaders, but if not handled well, it can communicate dishonor for God, disrespect for your people, and a lack of concern for the work.

• You may demonstrate a lack of preparation for some aspect of ministry because you feel the people place an inordinate emphasis on it or because other duties seemed more pressing, but a lack of preparation forfeits the respect of your people.

• Failing to return calls or emails in a timely manner may communicate you are inaccessible and people are not important to you.

There are other examples, but my point is that you may intend an action or lack of action to communicate one thing, but it can communicate something very different. On the other hand, you may act or not act with no intention of communicating anything, but you still communicate something. Here are some suggestions:

• Be aware of what you are doing and what it may communicate.

• Understand the culture and expectations of the church.

• Remember people cannot read your mind and may not give you the benefit of the doubt when they have to guess your motives or what you are trying to communicate.

• Be careful about making changes or delegating things the church expects you to do without communicating what you are doing and why.

• Be well prepared for whatever you do.

• Over communicate.

• Build respect and relationships with the people.

Everything communicates something. Does it communicate what you want it to and what it needs to?

When You're the Pastor but You're Not - Part 2

In my last blog, I began addressing the difference that can exist between your understanding of the pastor’s work and the church’s understanding of it. Reasons include the age disparity between you and older members, the maturity of an elder and your life stage, your lack of history in the community and church, Baptist doctrine and polity, church size, and church culture. Now, let’s look at how you might respond to the situation.

In 1 Timothy 4:12, the Apostle Paul writes, “Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe” (NASB). Here are some practical suggestions for putting his counsel into practice.

• Handle the Word with excellence. – In your preaching and teaching, as well as your decision-making, counseling, and suggestions to the church and its members, use God’s Word with excellence and accuracy. Also, learn what the Bible says about doing church and life, and rely on Scripture rather than opinion in your work. If you look through the Bible not only for verses that address the church directly, but also for verses that teach guiding principles of wisdom, business, relational interactions, etc., you will find a wealth of guidance for the local church.

• Be a person of integrity in life and ministry. – Your own life and ministry need to reflect the truth of God’s Word in every area. Live above reproach and maintain a good reputation (1 Timothy 3:2, 7; Titus 1:6-7).

• Be a person of humble confidence in and through Jesus. – In an earlier blog, I discussed the relationship between confidence and humility. Humility in light of your lack of history at the church, others’ life experiences, etc. should earn respect with your church.

• If you are inclined toward insecurity or defensiveness, seek the Lord’s healing and, if needed, get outside help to overcome it. – Insecurity and defensiveness lead us to resist the input of others, but wisdom directs us to have teachable spirits. Your people can be a rich source of counsel, alternate perspectives, and general knowledge you need and the church can benefit from. Additionally, insecurity and defensiveness may lead you to respond to people and situations in destructive and immature ways, harming the work of the Kingdom and costing you credibility and leadership capital with the people.

• Love the people deeply and pray for them by name regularly. – Obviously, praying over all your people regularly is easier in a smaller congregation, but love for your people leads to prayer for them, and prayer for them can lead to understanding and connecting with them better. The Lord can create love in your heart even when your church is quite challenging. I recall, during a particularly trying season in a previous church, asking the Lord to love the people through me, and He did just that. People sense when you love them, and it will help them let you be their pastor.

• Build relationships of respect and be consistent in how you relate to each person. – Pastoral leadership scholars point out the relational nature of pastoring God’s people, and the need for relational connections for leadership makes intuitive sense in a voluntary organization like a church. As for consistency, we live in a chaotic world, and what people receive from you in your interactions with them does not need to be one of those chaotic, unpredictable pieces of their world. Consistency also builds trust. Finally, Wayne Oates, in his classic The Christian Pastor, highlights the symbolic role of the pastor. You represent Christ to the people and the community, and, although you don’t want to be fake with people (i.e. when we are ill or going through trials), we represent a God who is consistent, so you and I need to be consistent.

• Realize role expectation differences may exist. – When you and I deal honestly with the possibility that our role expectations and the church’s may differ, we can work to learn those expectations and areas of disagreement in order to navigate them wisely with grace and care.

• Learn the history of the church. – When you first go to a church, read its historical documents and its governing documents, but also ask for and listen to its stories. Do not allow story-telling visits to devolve into gossip, and keep in mind people tell stories with their own biases and agendas. Nevertheless, you need to understand where this congregation has walked and how that might affect its relationships with its pastors.

• Discern between legitimate and illegitimate suggestions church members give you. – Ideally, when you go to a church, you will find one person or a few people who want you to succeed and have the best interests of you and the church in mind. These people can be invaluable sources of wisdom and insight. However, there also may be people who do not want you to succeed, and these may provide you suggestions or feed you information in a manner calculated to trap you or lead you to make a leadership or ministry mistake. We have to have wisdom and discernment to know the difference.

• Acknowledge the potential issues I listed at the beginning of this post and think through, pray through, and get mentoring in order to handle them well. – Pastoring is by no means a one-size-fits-all endeavor. You and your church bring history, assumptions, and goals to the table as you seek to fill your role. Assumptions may have to be clarified; regular evaluation is important; and pastoral and leadership advice you get from various sources may need to be contextualized, modified, or discarded in your particular setting.

I realize you may see all these suggestions as too much to keep up with and a distraction from simply preaching the Word and pointing people to Jesus. However, I believe these strategies for the pastor are somewhat analogous to checking your mirrors and maintaining awareness of traffic around you while driving. The longer you practice them, the more natural they become, and they will help you navigate your journey more effectively. The Lord bless you as you serve your people.

When You're the Pastor but You're Not - Part 1

Do you ever feel your understanding of your role and the church’s understanding of your role are at odds? One of the earliest lessons in my first pastorate was that the title “Pastor” did not mean the same thing to me that it meant to the church. I believe this can be especially true in small, Baptist churches when you are very young. I would like to make some suggestions as to why this sometimes is the case and how to navigate it in such a way that you do not become overly frustrated or discouraged and do not harm your church.

Some Reasons for the Confusion – I do not know what your experience has been, but I found the experience of being the pastor, while seemingly not being allowed to function as such, confusing and frustrating. I felt God held me accountable for the church (as per Scripture). I saw strong pastoral leadership and solid followership modeled in my childhood church. And, the people had voted to call me as their pastor. So, what was the problem, and what may be the issue in your case? Here are some suggestions.

• The Maturity of an Elder – Although Baptists use the term “pastor,” the predominant New Testament term is “elder.” This connotes being seasoned and mature. You may love Jesus, handle the Word with integrity, live uprightly, and love your people, but when we are very young, we still have some maturing to do. Older church members understand this. It may lead some to resist your leadership, but it may lead others to come alongside you and encourage you as you grow as a minister.

• Age Disparity – When I went to my first pastorate, I was only two years older than the grandson of a lady in her early 60s, and I had members in their 90s. When you want to lead people and you are as young or younger than their grandchildren, you will need a very special ability to earn respect and leadership capital.

• Priesthood of the Believer and Baptist Polity – Priesthood of the believer asserts each person can interpret Scripture and relate to God apart from a mediator, so we tend to be a bit defensive about letting pastors guide our churches. Sometimes, members are afraid this violates priesthood of the believer, and in some cases, pastors do violate priesthood of the believer in their leadership approach. Additionally, our congregations are governed democratically, which means powerful political influencers may and do exercise leadership, whether or not the pastor is afforded a measure of influence.

• Lack of History in the Community and the Church – This may be different in city churches, but in rural seminary churches, you are there for a short time, and your people have often been in the community and the church for decades and will be there long after your departure. This may lend itself to a “wait out this pastor since he will be gone soon enough” attitude. It may also lead to the congregation having an established leadership person or group to give the church continuity across its succession of short-term pastors.

• The Church Culture – From the church’s understanding of what a pastor’s job is to potential negative experiences with poor pastors in the past, a church may have a culture in which pastor’s are neither allowed nor expected to lead. Therefore, you are more chaplain and preacher than pastor.

• The Church Size – Both research and common sense suggest churches of differing sizes call for differing types of pastoral ministry and leadership. You may have grown up in a large church where you experienced staff and / or pastoral direction of the church at-large (or at least in many of its functions). However, you may be called to serve in a church where little administrative coordination is needed by the pastor, strong lay leadership, and a grassroots system of communication and leadership.

Obviously, there are several reasons you might experience a situation where you feel your church does not allow you to function as you believe your calling and position suggest. Due to space, I will simply make a few suggestions for addressing this issue here and will elaborate in a later post.

• Live with integrity in your life and ministry.

• Love the people deeply and pray for them regularly by name.

• Build relationships of respect and be consistent in how you relate to each person.

• Handle the Word with excellence.

• Be a person of humility.

• If you have any inclination toward insecurity or defensiveness, seek the Lord’s healing and, if needed, get outside help to overcome it.

• Realize expectation differences may exist; learn the history of the church; and acknowledge the potential issues I mentioned earlier in this post.

Over the past 20 years, I have served as pastor of three very different churches, and in each, I had to earn leadership capital and learn the church culture and pastoral expectations. May the Lord be with you as you navigate your call and your church’s culture.

Authentic Leadership: Self-Awareness in Ministry

One contemporary leadership theory is Authentic Leadership, and the basic premise of this leadership construct is that the leader consistently acts in line with his or her own values. Although this theory is grounded in the leader’s self, I would argue that it is applicable in the pastoral and ministry context so long as we think of the regenerate self, surrendered to Jesus, guided by God’s Word, and empowered by the Holy Spirit. I want to flesh out this approach to leadership in practical terms, and the first component I want to address is self-awareness.

What is Self-Awareness? Self-awareness is a person’s awareness of what is going on within the self. It would include the leader’s awareness of his own values and whether or not he was acting in accordance with those values. Self-awareness also extends to realizing one’s own strengths, weakness, motives, values, tendencies, as well as one’s own mental and emotional state. In thinking about a self-referenced leadership approach, we need to understand self-awareness is not self-absorption, self-centeredness, or self-insistence. I hinted at a couple of areas of self-awareness in my articles on boundaries. I suggested you need to know your weaknesses and tendencies so you understand your need for boundaries and so you maintain good boundaries. I suggested also that you know your preference for tasks or people in a way that allows you to maintain balance among your responsibilities. Another area in which to maintain self-awareness is emotions. When do you tend to get defensive or angry? Do you know when your are heading down those paths, or does it sneak up on you? Additionally, what are your strengths? What are you good at, and where do you need help? Do you excel at preaching while needing help with administration? Do you do well at leading a business meeting but not so well at disciple-making or planning events? Finally, what types of people “throw” you? Where does your personality need strengthening in order for you to be more effective?

Why is Self-Awareness Important? Have you ever known someone who seemed oblivious to how she or he treated others? As a minister, you do not want to be that person. Are you aware of when your life is and is not exhibiting the fruit of God’s Spirit or lined up with His Word, or do you assume you automatically are being and doing what you should? As we think about these things, the importance of self-awareness becomes obvious. If we are not aware of what is happening within us, it is more difficult to evaluate, to make course corrections, to receive Godly council, and to do what God’s people need us to do as we point them toward Christ and work to make Christ-followers and guide the church. Finally, if we are not self-aware, we will not know when we are living in ways that are contrary to our own teaching, thus undermining integrity. On the positive side, when we are self-aware, we can keep a reign on our actions and reactions, better aligning them with our core values and God’s Word.

What are Hindrances to and Helps for Self-Awareness? Hindrances to self-awareness come to mind immediately – the human proclivity for self-deception and self-justification. Scripture testifies to the deceitfulness of our hearts and the tendency to convince ourselves of our rightness. I can think of several helps for our self-awareness. One is simply realizing and admitting the difficulty we may have in being accurately self-aware. Another is building in filters to our thinking and responses, along with giving ourselves space before we respond. In other words, cultivate the pattern of evaluating your thoughts and feelings by the Word (such as the fruit of the Spirit) as you go through the day or start to respond to someone or a situation. Also, try not to reply or react immediately so you can evaluate your response first. Third, build evaluation into your life on a regular basis. Finally, you may need someone who can help you by asking challenging and honest evaluation questions to help you develop an understanding of yourself and your faithfulness to your values.

Is evaluation a regular part of your work and life? How honest are you with yourself, and how consistently do you operate according to your values? Is there someone in your life who might ask you the “hard” questions to help you evaluate? How can you cultivate self-awareness without becoming self-absorbed, self-centered, or self-insistent?

Leadership and Shepherding

What is a pastor’s job? Is it to shepherd God’s people or lead the church? How do these two relate if they are not synonymous? Recently, a pastor friend mentioned a tension between leading and shepherding, indicating a preference among today’s pastors for leading and a neglect of shepherding as unimportant. Allow me to propose a framework for our thoughts and offer some suggestions.

Elements of the Framework – In order to explore the relationship of shepherding and leadership, we need to clarify some ideas.

• Shepherding – My friend did not clarify what he meant by this term, but I suspect he meant the traditional pastoral work of being with the people, building relationships, visiting the sick and homebound, offering counsel and encouragement, etc.

• Leadership – Scholars make a distinction between leadership and management, suggesting leadership has to do with change. Again, I should have asked my friend to clarify, but my hunch is that, by leadership, he meant the execution of organizational change.

• Church Size and Polity – Research and common sense suggest that the size of the church affects the pastor’s role, and church polity (organizational and decision-making structure) figure into a pastor’s expected role, as does the culture of the particular congregation.

• Kingdom – I want to suggest furthering God’s Kingdom in Christ is the foundational agenda of our Lord and His churches as we worship God in all we do and as we make disciples of Jesus.

Leadership and the Kingdom Agenda – If leadership concerns change and the Kingdom is the church’s defining agenda, it follows that leadership is a pastor’s job when and to the extent change is needed to further the Kingdom more effectively. When change for Kingdom purposes is not needed, leadership is not needed. I would suggest that some change (i.e. growth in Christ among members) is always needed, while other changes may or may not be necessary from time to time. If we accept this premise, we are required to recognize the various areas in which we might lead change for Kingdom purposes – spiritual development, programming, administrative issues of structure and function for Kingdom effectiveness, etc. It also requires us to evaluate based on Kingdom advancement rather than the pastor’s preferred tasks, need for recognition, or desire to implement change for change’s sake. Scholars assert pastoral leadership concerns every area of the church, and that leadership falls into the categories of worship, Christian witness, teaching and preaching, nurture and development, and administration. 1

Shepherding and the Kingdom Agenda – A common and much-loved way of referring to Jesus is as the Good Shepherd, and pastors are under-shepherds of the Lord’s flock. Thus, shepherding is a central concept in the pastor’s work. It also follows that, if the Kingdom in is Jesus’ agenda and we are His under-shepherds then we are called to shepherd the flock with a view to forming them into the image of Christ and extending the reign of Jesus in them and through them. Scholars insist on the relational, caring nature of pastoral leadership and highlight accountability to God for their respective flocks as they frame pastoral leadership in shepherding terms. Additionally, literature on pastoral leadership insists that, historically, the work of pastors has included those spiritual development and care ministries that might be classified as shepherding. This comports with the relational element and its importance in church leadership, particularly in Baptist life and its congregationally governed churches. 1

Leading and Shepherding – In thinking of the work of a shepherd, the shepherd leads, feeds, and protects the sheep. Thus, leadership is not all the shepherd does, but leadership is part of (and integral to) what the shepherd does. I would suggest that the work pastors typically classify as shepherding builds leadership capital with church members – leadership capital that, in turn, allows for more effective efforts at what typically is considered leadership. We might rightly say, as I concluded in my review of literature on pastoral leadership, “Although certain pastoral tasks seem more obviously to involve leadership, the flavor of shepherding care ought to infuse everything a pastor does, and everything a pastor does ought to encourage the people toward being who God wants them to be and functioning as God wants them to function, in other words, leadership.” 1

As I reflect on my own research on pastoral leadership, 20 years in pastoral ministry, and the example of Jesus, these summary points come to mind.

• Caring for people and building relationships with them is a crucial part of pastoral ministry and pastoral leadership.

• Leadership is broader than the administrative mission, vision, staffing, building, and finance issues some think of when they think of leading an organization.

• In voluntary organizations, and especially congregationally governed churches, relational connections are vital if people are going to trust a pastor enough to follow pastoral leadership.

• The love of Jesus and His care for His sheep are to permeate the pastor’s heart and so should permeate all leadership efforts.

• The goal of all leadership must be the worship of God and extension of the Kingdom as people are grown in Christ and equipped for ministry.

1 Danley, Ronald. (2016). The Relationship Between Authentic Leadership and Church Health in the Baptist General Convention of Texas. (Doctoral Dissertation).

Photo Credit: Andy Barlow / Barlow Creative of Rockport, TX

Staying in Bounds - Why are Boundaries Important?

As we conclude our look at boundaries in ministry, I return to the driving illustration once more. In my teens, I often drove the stretch of Highway 377 between Leakey and Vanderpool. Lines and guardrails along this particular route are especially important, because crossing them can send you plunging to your death at the bottom of the canyon. There is a very good reason for those boundaries. Similarly, there are some good reasons for ministerial boundaries.

However, before we get into some of those reasons, we need to address the reality that some believe boundaries are unnecessary. They may believe we are to minister so sacrificially that any limit on our service, availability to people, etc. constitutes a denial of our responsibility. Others may believe the Lord will guard against trouble regardless of irresponsible actions or that everyone in church is good. Still others have an intrinsic propensity for risk. Finally, I think some feel having boundaries is an outdated way of doing things.

Now, let’s look at some reasons for boundaries. It seems there are four categories of reasons. One category encompasses legal and Biblical requirements on our church work and our lives as Christian ministers. Personal and procedural boundaries guard against violating the law concerning such issues as personnel, finances, and safety. Similarly, boundaries help us maintain obedience to biblical instructions in order to live and serve within God’s blessing and honor Him.

Boundaries are important because of the minister’s own tendencies, weaknesses, etc. – As ministers, we need boundaries because of our own tendencies, weaknesses, blind spots, etc. As I reflect on this truth, three Bible passages come to mind. Jeremiah 17:9 warns, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? Boundaries help guard us because the human heart and mind have an incredible propensity for self-deception and self-justification. Additionally, Proverbs 14:23 cautions, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” Again, boundaries have this protective function. Finally, James 1:14 teaches, “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.” Boundaries help us avoid situations where un-Godly desire is kindled.

Boundaries are important because of the nature of other people and churches – The nature of people and organizations makes boundaries a necessary part of our lives as ministers. Some people are malicious, and others simply demand more than they ought. For example, some people need or want more ministerial attention than is healthy for you or the church or want that attention with no regard for the time of day or night when they seek your help. You have to set time and space limits. Some want a close relationship with the pastor or information from you in order to manipulate you, in order to gain power in the church, or in order to further their gossip. Some members of the opposite sex want an inappropriate relationship with you regardless of the purity of your ministerial motives. Additionally, churches seem not to realize the pastor has human limitations, non-work responsibilities, a family, and the need for rest and refreshing. There are more, but the point is you need boundaries because of the tendencies of people and churches that need to be held in check in some ways.

Boundaries are important because of the glory of God and the witness of the church – To the extent boundaries prevent transgressions and the false perception of transgression, they provide the following protections and more. They guard the church and its ministers from the charge of hypocrisy, since they help maintain integrity and credibility. They help the church and its ministers demonstrate alignment between teaching and action. They make the church a safer place for people to find God and explore spiritual issues. They help the church and its ministers not hurt and drive away their own people. As the world watches the church and its ministers, and as church members deal with the church and its ministers, boundaries guard God’s honor, and our witness.

The fact is, there are lines that should not be crossed, and there are areas of thinking and acting into which we should not venture. Boundaries help keep us from crossing those lines relative to the church and other people, keep others from crossing those lines relative to us, and help maintain our witness in the world. Whether protecting us and others from actual transgression of merely the perception or accusation of it, boundaries are important in the ministry.

Note: All Scripture citations are from the ESV.

Are there additional reasons or categories of reasons for boundaries in ministry that you would suggest?

Boundaries in Ministry - Part 2

I suggested in my last post that boundaries are crucial in ministry. Like the lines on the road, ministry boundaries are intended to help us avoid drifting toward danger and crossing over into detrimental attitudes and actions. We already have looked at boundaries among ministry tasks, with certain people in the church, and with money. I want to explore three more areas in which boundaries are important.

Boundaries With Self, Family, and Church – A recent succession of conversations, articles, and social media posts has reminded me of the issue of balance in ministry. Ministry can be all-consuming, but we have additional responsibilities, including self-care and the needs of our families, not to mention simple life responsibilities. In a recent training event, Becky Biser, of Tarrant Baptist Association, pointed out the four-faceted issue of self-care, consisting of Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual elements. I would suggest certain boundaries, as well as other measures, help us ensure our fitness for the work of ministry through addressing each of these dynamics. Further, as relates to the family, 1 Timothy implies pastors must take adequate care of their families, as the Apostle Paul speaks to family stewardship as a ministry qualification. Conversely, the example of Jesus and the Apostles is one of sacrificial love and service to and for the church, suggesting ministry is a work of sacrificial love and total effort. I believe appropriate boundaries with family and church enable us to serve well and be good stewards of the family flock under our care at home and God’s flock in the church. We will explore this tension further in a later post.

Boundaries With the Opposite Sex – Although I intend to address the rationale for boundaries in a later post, I must mention a few reasons here. When ministering to members of the opposite sex, boundaries are necessary to guard against inappropriate relationships and the perception of inappropriate behavior on the part of others. As a minister, you must guard your heart and mind so the relationship never begins to meet needs for you that it should not – affirmation, closeness, romantic fulfillment, etc. Similarly for the person to whom you are ministering, your service to them must be for their growth in Christ and must not be allowed become something it has no right to be. Finally, people inside and outside of the church, for various reasons, may make suppositions and accusations and stir rumors about you and your ministry to a member or members of the opposite sex. Boundaries guard you, the persons to whom you minister, the church, and the Gospel witness in the world. Boundaries may include not meeting with a member of the opposite sex alone or behind closed doors, not meeting with them outside of the church office or office hours (i.e. not at restaurants and coffee shops and not at odd hours), and not discussing intimate subjects. Additional precautions include accountability partners, having someone of their gender minister to them or meet with you as you meet with them, and not allowing the counseling or ministry to extend into a protracted number of meetings. Finally, I would suggest, in this era of privatized communications via personal cell phones, texting, and personal social media connections, that you guard against private and secretive communications and watch closely the nature of any communications for signs of impropriety.

Boundaries With Minors – In writing this, I assume that you, as a minister, have no inclination to hurt or misuse a minor in any way. If you do, you have no business in ministry and need to get out of ministry and seek professional help. I also need to caution you about situations in which you may be a young minister and have youth of the opposite sex who technically are not minors but functionally are under your ministerial care. Boundaries with minors protect the children, you, the church, and the cause of the Gospel. As I did in addressing boundaries with money, I want to begin by pointing you to outside resources such as denominational and associational experts and materials and services such as Ministry Safe. Some basic boundaries, however, include background checks for anyone working with minors, windows in doors of rooms where children are, adult supervision of children at all times, and adequate adult supervision (i.e. at least two adults with children at all times). Additionally, some of the same guidelines I mentioned in the previous paragraph apply here – no odd hours, no private locations, no inappropriate subjects, having a person of the same sex as the child present for counseling, etc. A post of this nature is not adequate fully to addressing these boundaries, but the point is to guard against any situation where a child might be hurt, where your actions or someone else’s might be misunderstood, or where false accusations might be made.

Boundaries serve as limits to the situations in which we place ourselves and others. Boundaries guard people, churches, and the cause of Christ. Good boundaries align with wisdom, God’s Word, the law, and church policy, and they are crucial in ministry.

• What modifications would you suggest to the above boundaries?

• What additional boundaries would you suggest?

• What additional areas need boundaries (areas other than boundaries with tasks, people, self/family/church, the opposite sex, and minors)?

• When have you seen boundaries keep a pastor or other minister out of trouble?

• When have you seen the transgression of boundaries result in harm in ministry?

Boundaries in Ministry - Part 1

What is your understanding of boundaries? What are they; what is their usefulness; and how should we establish and respond to them? What personal and professional boundaries should you have as a pastor or other minister? I think for most of us, the easiest early boundaries to identify are the lines in coloring books. Of course, when we got older and started driving, the stripes on the pavement marking the right edge of the road and separating our lane from oncoming traffic were a bit more serious. In my observation, boundaries are crucial in ministry, so I want to explore three of those with you in this post. I plan to deal with additional boundaries and some reasons for them in future posts.

Boundaries Among Tasks – I write from the perspective of 20 years pastoring small churches, so my experience related to task diversity will resonate with small church pastors more than those in churches with specialized staff roles. In the small church where you do most of the professional ministry, weekly tasks probably fall into the categories of prayer, sermon preparation, worship and church events, inreach, outreach, communications and marketing, and systems and support. With so many responsibilities, no one task or type of work may dominate the week if you are to do the job well. One way to handle this is to estimate reasonable times for each of the areas and schedule them, realizing some interruption and flexibility are to be expected. You will have to find your optimum performance level in each area. Additionally, you will have to stay aware of your preferred tasks and your tendency to allow those to keep you from things you want to avoid. One instance of the need for balance finds expression in that the private and solitary aspects of our work can keep us from time with the people we are called to serve, and we have to use appropriate boundaries in order to spend enough time with people and enough time on non-people ministry work. Boundaries with tasks and people help maintain balance and enable us to do that comprises our work.

Boundaries With Certain People – We must address this area of boundaries from two directions. On the one hand, you and I will have a proclivity to spend more time with and minister more often to certain people than others. This may be because ministry with these people is more strategic or more effective, because we sense friendship and support from them, because we need to be needed, or any number of reasons. We simply have to stay aware and maintain proper boundaries in our use of time, manner of relating, etc. On the other hand, there will be those who pursue you, and you will have to set boundaries to keep them at a proper distance. They may seek power or influence, may have a need for your attention, may simply want to dominate your time, or may want some other sort of relationship with you. You and I have to contain or delegate ministry to these individuals in a way that does not let them gain power or positions they should not have or keep us from ministering to others because they demand an inordinate amount of time. However, we must do so with wisdom and love, affirming that these people matter to God and to us. Boundaries are important with people who desire an inappropriate amount of information, time, or influence, as well as with people toward whom you simply seem to gravitate.

Boundaries With Money – As I think about boundaries relative to money in the ministry, there are at least three areas of concern – your own integrity, your ability to minister without bias, and legal requirements. Let me begin by suggesting you avail yourself of denominational resources concerning church finances, the council of church accounting experts, and Zondervan’s Church and Nonprofit Tax & Financial Guide. In addition to policies and procedures, these resources will give you clear and suggested boundaries related to your involvement in church finances. One piece of council you will hear is that you, as a person who is paid with church funds, should not ever handle church money and contributions or have signing privileges on any church accounts. If you have a church credit card or spending privileges of some sort, hold yourself to the accountability standards any other person in the church has to follow or even more stringent ones. Another piece of advice I received early in my ministry was that I be sure not to know what anyone in the church gives and make the commitment to my church that I would not know this information. In some churches, I think this is expected anyway, but in some other cultures, I get the impression that expectations for the pastor’s awareness of giving differ. The point of this advice was that it would enable me to minister without bias, neither neglecting those who do not give nor favoring large contributors. I understand this, but I have begun to experience some tension with this arrangement, so we need to think though this carefully. If you have staff or other church leaders who are disobedient with the tithe and you do not have any way of knowing it, you cannot exercise leadership or discipline in this area. If someone comes to you complaining about church finances, but they are not a giver, you have no way to lovingly correct them or adequately respond to their complaints or efforts to control church finances. You may need to think through ways by which you or an appropriate committee can address these matters of discipleship in a way that is acceptable to the church you serve. Boundaries with church finances guard your integrity, your witness and leadership, and your legal standing.

Just like the lines on the road, ministry boundaries are intended to help us avoid drifting toward danger and crossing over into detrimental attitudes and actions. Future posts will address additional boundary areas and reasons for maintaining boundaries in ministry.

• What modifications would you suggest to the above boundaries?

• What additional boundaries would you suggest?

• When have you seen boundaries keep a pastor or other minister out of trouble?

• When have you seen the transgression of boundaries result in harm in ministry?

Holy Reverence and Common Accessibility

Are you ever frustrated on a Sunday morning or Wednesday evening because you have been in private prayer and have the things of God in the forefront of your mind, only to step into the midst of gathering church members and find their focus is on mundane and sometimes sinful things? Do you avoid them, resent their carnal mindset, throw your focus on the Lord “out the window” and join in their banter, or something else? I believe every pastor must bear this challenge in mind and navigate it successfully, and I wrestle with it even after 20 years of pastoring. This is the challenge of serving in a holy manner in fellowship with the Lord, on the one hand, and remaining accessible to our people, some of whom may have little heart for the spiritual and holy, on the other. It is the challenge of being fully engaged with the Lord and fully engaged with the people simultaneously.

 Holy Reverence and the Weightiness of Your Work – One of the most drastic images regarding holiness in ministry is found in Leviticus 10. As Aaron and his sons served before the Lord and His people, his sons Nadab and Abihu offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, and the Lord blazed out and consumed them. Their presumptuousness violated the holiness of God, and He responded decisively. Beyond this, Aaron and his other two sons – the immediate family of the two killed – were not allowed to mourn because they were in the sacred garments and functioning in their priestly roles! It burdens me when pastors and other ministers are flippant about the things of God, make crude jokes and find entertainment value in un-Godly things, and do not bear the weight of holiness. I grant you I referenced an Old Testament picture, but it seems that caring for God’s flock and ministering the Word of God and touch of Christ is weighty business. And hopefully, when you encounter the people on a Sunday or before and after any other time of prayer, worship, or meeting, you have spent time with the Lord preparing your spirit and worshipping Him. On Sunday morning, for instance, you have been in a private time of worship (hopefully), and you are heading for a time of corporate worship. In-between, you encounter people in their Sunday morning routines and fellowship, and you interact with staff as they work. You must bear the holiness of your calling and invite them to encounter and focus on the Lord.

Common Accessibility and Relationships – A favorite picture of the pastor is that of under-shepherd of the flock, and shepherding is relational work. The sheep need to be acquainted with the shepherd and his care for and knowledge of them. This happens as you interact with them, and the times surrounding worship services and other meetings provide some of this time, although not all of it. I would suggest that you need to interact with them concerning their interests without abandoning your call to point them to Jesus. I would suggest that, if you seem too different from them and appear too detached from regular life, they will not listen to your teaching and preaching as well. However, if you are no different than they, you do not call them upward. This also applies to your work with staff. As they prepare for the worship service or event, they may be focused on the details of their role, and this is commendable. You may have to give them practical instruction or encouragement. However, your call is still to help them bring a spirit of worship to the work and to prepare them to meet with God and help others meet with God. We must be relationally accessible without failing to encourage a worshipful and God-focused atmosphere.

Some Issues to Keep in Mind – As you seek to maintain close fellowship with the Lord and full engagement with the people, there are some things to consider.

• It will always be more challenging to experience the moving of God and hear His prompting in the crowd and in the midst of ministry than it is alone. It was not without reason Jesus often withdrew to pray and early church leaders practiced private spiritual disciplines.

• The culture of your specific church comes into play. Some churches have more reverent and worshipful atmospheres surrounding worship times, and others less so. You will have to navigate the particulars of connecting with your people and not failing to point them to the Lord in your setting. Your call is to influence your church’s culture and cultivate God-centered meetings and worship.

• In my experience, most of the people at church seem not to prepare their hearts for worship adequately, so we must keep this in mind and be sure we prepare and encourage others to prepare as well. Teaching this preparation is part of our leadership and disciple making.

• Fellowship is an important function in the life of the church, and for older people, church times may be their only fellowship opportunities. Therefore, as we seek to lead the people into a worshipful mindset, we also must appreciate the role of fellowship and how that intersects with the focus on God as we gather.

• Look for ways to redeem the secular aspects of their interactions to point toward the work and place of God, not in a sermonizing way but in a natural way. This will take practice.

• Keep in mind God’s goals for worship and meetings (and the times immediately before and after these gatherings), as well as the people’s goals and your goals. All of these goals must be kept in mind as we work toward God’s goals.

Earlier, I asked how you respond to the tension between your focus on the Lord and the people’s lack of focus on Him. I believe we cannot afford simply to avoid the people to stay focused on the Lord or give up on the prospect of pointing them toward the Lord and simply join in the banter. Some years ago, I encountered the idea of seeing the work and grace of God in the everyday things of life and worshipping Him in the enjoyment of life. With prayer and intentionality, I believe we can bring together the presence of God and the fellowship of His people. In the cross of Christ, we see the pinnacle of simultaneous engagement with God and the world. Jesus expressed God’s love for us on the cross, He maintained steadfast focus on the Father and the work of redemption in a heavenward direction and a focus on the crowds, His disciples, and the thief on the cross and the work of redemption in an earthly direction. Likewise, as we love our people, we must keep hold of God’s hand even as we shake hands with our people and guide them into His presence.

Getting the Turtle off the Fence Post

I have heard it said that if you see a turtle on a fence post, you can bet he had help getting there. It’s kind of sad, a helpless turtle, sitting on his shell bottom, all four feet dangling in the air and unable to move. You see, it’s also a pretty safe bet he’ll need help to get down and get moving. From time to time, I feel like that turtle, and I figure you do to. I know where I need to be heading (or at least that I need to head somewhere), and I just can’t seem to get there, in spite of good intentions and effort. Let me assure you this is not an effort to berate anyone or help us beat ourselves into motivation, but getting “high-centered” is a problem because it keeps us from moving from where we are to where God wants us to be and keeps us from what He has for us to do. So, let’s make some observations about fence posts and how to get off of them.

The first step is realizing you are stuck. Interestingly, we can be stuck without realizing it and can be moving ahead nicely in some areas while we are stuck in others. You may be moving upward in your career and making no progress knowing, loving, and caring for your spouse. You can be moving ahead in the activities of church and be stagnant in your spiritual life and connection with the Lord. As you think about the areas of your life and ministry, what does God’s Word say about where He wants you heading and what kind of progress are you making?

Most of the time, the next step is figuring out what our fence post is. These fence posts distract, make our efforts weak or counter-productive, lead us to make poor decisions and miss the richness of life and ministry God has for us. The following are some common things that get us “high-centered.” (This phrase refers to a vehicle that has run up on something so its wheels can’t get traction.)

• Fear / Uncertainty – When we don’t know how something will turn out or are concerned about how our idea or efforts will be received, we may get stuck.

• Perceived lack of skill or understanding – In a given situation or for a certain task, we lack the skill or knowledge we need.

• Sin – We have knowingly or unknowingly allowed into our lives something that keeps us bound up, defeated, and removed from God’s blessings.

• The Past – We get stuck re-living or analyzing the past (good or bad), celebrating or stewing on events gone by instead of living in today and toward the future.

• Un-forgiveness – We get stuck on a real or imagined offense that we or another person has committed.

• Grief – A loss and the process of working through it can begin to define our life in counter-productive ways.

What do we do to get off high-center and get moving once again?

• Ask yourself whether or not you really want to get off and get moving. Sometimes, we keep something in our lives that meets a need for us, even if it is destructive. So, what is the problem doing for you, and do you really want to be freed from it?

• Ask what God’s Word says about your situation and how to deal with it.

• Try (with help if needed) to get as realistic a perspective as possible on the situation. Sometimes, we are stuck because we don’t see situations, others, or our self accurately. We may also need help getting the right tools to deal with the situation.

• Seek the healing and power of the Lord for deliverance.

• Make decisions on a consistent basis that move you in God’s productive direction and off the post.

• You may need coaching and / or an accountability partner in the process.

In short, getting off high-center takes a right way of seeing things, the right desire (to move forward), right dependence (on God), and right decisions (not to stay stuck). Please do not hear me making light of difficulty that has you trapped. I simply want to get you thinking about the issue and encourage you to get off high-center. You may need the help of prayer and Godly counsel. It might take some time, but the Lord wants to help you get moving in the right direction.

We might need to know how we got stuck in the first place. There are times (though not all the time) when it is helpful to know why we got stuck. When the issue is sin, we must confess and repent to get moving again, so we need to know if sin is the problem. If we are stuck because God is working on some issue in our lives, we might need to know that in order to cooperate with Him in our growth. If we have gotten back on track, we can learn how not to get stuck on the same fence post again if we know how we got high-centered before. Pride, not trusting the Lord, indulging the sinful flesh, not living in God’s Spirit and according to His Word some common causes of getting stuck, and we need to learn not to make those mistakes again. However, there is a caution here. It is all too easy to get high-centered on the fence post of self-analysis. There are plenty of times when we don’t need to know how we got high-centered, and we certainly don’t need to become self-absorbed. We just need to realize we are stuck, possibly figure out what we are stuck on, and take steps with God’s help to get moving in the right direction again.

What things or types of situations tend to get you "stuck"?

What are some other ways you have found to get moving again?