Permission to Quit
Here’s your permission to quit! You can stop the unsustainable pace and saying yes to time-filling tasks, and take your life back!
How to Put 18-24 Months of Preaching Prep into Play
So many pastors get caught in the week-to-week grind, frantically finding themselves at the end of a week trying to conjure something to say for Sunday. Early in my ministry I found myself in this place. I thought crafting a message would be energizing. Even fun. But each week the urgent overshadowed the important and…
How to Do 18-24 Months of Sunday Morning Sermon Prep
It’s Friday, and it happened again. You’re sitting in front of your laptop trying to come up with something to preach on Sunday. Your mind is blank. Your soul is dry. You’re frustrated and angry for getting to this point again. You were so excited earlier in the week about what you wanted to share. Now, you don’t want to be here, stuck doing sermon prep. It’s the weekend and there are other things you’d rather be doing. All the while your cursor is blinking, “You’ve got nothing. You’ve got nothing.”
Making Church Committee Meetings Matter
Let’s get to the point by naming the problem: Many church committee meetings don’t need to take place. Often, we leave a meeting, see a bumper sticker in front of us and think, “Yep, I’d rather be fishing, too.” I don’t even like fishing, but that would be better than some of these meetings. People…
Preventative Maintenance Calendar? WHAT?!
“Okay,” you say to yourself, “something with that many syllables in it better be good.” Well, give me a few minutes of your time and a chance to convince you! I must admit that “Preventative Maintenance Calendar” does not immediately stir the imagination, nor does it quickly inspire teenagers to new heights of faith and…
Multi-Level Planning and Strategy in Children’s Ministry
Years ago I landed my very first gig in Children’s Ministry, and I was in so deep over my head that I didn’t even realize I was under water. In complete fairness to younger me, the odds were well and truly stacked against me. The last staff person had come into the church in the…
Cleaning Up At the End of the Year
Well, wasn’t that Easter Egg Hunt that your youth sponsored for the children’s ministry just a blast! I hope you had plenty of “Extra Eggs for Empty Baskets.” I heard of a neighborhood that had an Easter Egg Hunt that was a lot of fun, too – kids running everywhere, prize-filled plastic eggs hidden in…
Turning a New Annual Page: Calendaring for a New Year
Introduction Christmas is approaching fast. You’ve just completed your annual, well-loved Youth Christmas Progressive Dinner. You’re thinking about that last Christmas present that is yet to be bought, when a concerned parent walks up to you and asks, “Hey, when are registration materials for the February retreat going to be available?”.All of a sudden it…