I call this principle “The Three Buckets.”OK

Picture before you three buckets. The bucket on the left is called the “Sunday Bucket.”

The Sunday bucket represents everything that needs to happen to make your Sunday worship services happen – adequate facilities, preaching, worship leading (including leaders, artists, tech, etc.), children’s classes (including teachers, assistants, registration, etc.), greeters, hospitality, parking, etc. I would also include the student ministry, which typically meets on a Sunday morning or evening.

The bucket in the middle is called the “Midweek Bucket.”

The midweek bucket represents anything and everything you’re doing outside of the Sunday experience – small groups, kids’ programming, different groups, and activities, etc.

The bucket on the right is called the “Missions Bucket.”

The missions bucket represents all local, national, and international outreach. This includes everything from assisting your local soup kitchen to supporting missionaries around the world.

WATER = Available Resources

To the left of these buckets, envision a pitcher of water.

Water represents the resources Senior Pastors have to deploy that enable the congregation they serve to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20).

Every Senior Pastor has four types of resources to deploy:

1. People
2. Money
3. Time
4. Energy

Since every church has limited resources, your job as the church’s Senior Pastor is to lead the way in determining both WHEN and WHERE your church will deploy its people, money, time, and energy in each of these three buckets.

How Stuck Churches Have Deployed Their Resources

Whenever I coach Senior Pastors, I will lead them through an exhaustive analysis of where they are currently deploying their resources.
Inevitably, in every single situation, the Senior Pastors that I coach are leading churches that have taken their water and equally distributed it among all three of their buckets.

They will have poured SOME of their water (people, money, time, and energy) into making Sunday happen, but not all of it.

They saved an equal measure of water and poured it into their midweek activities.

Finally, they poured an equal measure of water into their missions bucket.

Stuck churches almost always have equal measures of water in each of their three buckets, but none more than half full. Translated: they are doing many things, but few well, especially the Sunday experience.

Filling One Bucket At A Time

The secret to creating growth is to pour ALL of your resources into the Sunday bucket FIRST.

Then, once the Sunday bucket is “filled,” meaning the Sunday experience is fully staffed, resourced, and done with excellence, then and only then does the water “spill over” into the midweek bucket. Imagine continually pouring all available resources into the Sunday bucket until it naturally begins to overflow into the midweek bucket.
The order of progression in effective outreach-focused churches is always Sunday first, then midweek, then missions.

The typical church does Sundays poorly, but still, thinking this is the best course of action, throws themselves into starting small groups, Awana, etc., all the while supporting 6-10 missionaries at $50 to $150 a month.

The result? They stay stuck. Why? They are ineffectively deploying their resources.

Listen, you have no business starting small groups when you can’t adequately staff your children’s ministry classes.

You know your worship services and how they’re just terrible, right? But you keep complaining about how you don’t have the money to hire staff to lead in that area. You and I both know that you do have the money. It’s just being sent overseas.

You have no business supporting missionaries around the world when your worship service isn’t even remotely close to where it needs to be.

God has gifted that money to your congregation to reach your area FIRST. Then, once outreach and growth have been firmly entrenched, then, and only then, do you move into starting mid-week groups and activities for deeper growth. Then only after that bucket is filled do you send money overseas.

There is much more to say about this, so let’s pick it up next time in Part 2.

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I would like to share with you a very simple framework for coaching your staff that will make your job, and theirs, much easier. I call it 4x4x4.

A 4x4x4 coaching process is when a Senior Pastor meets with a staff member to help them identify and make progress on the 4 people they are going to meet with and the 4 tasks they are going to accomplish over the next 4 weeks.

Setting Up A 4x4x4 Coaching Process

To lead at the next level every person on our team needs three things in place: responsibility, authority, and coaching.

Responsibility (I need you to tell me for what I am responsible)

This is provided when we give our staff clear job descriptions, in writing, that outline for what they are responsible. In my experience, most Senior Pastors of churches under 600 do not provide written job descriptions for their staff. This is a mistake and one that is easy to remedy.

Authority (I need you to give me the ability to do my job without your micromanagement)

This is provided when we Senior Pastors simply let our staff members do their jobs. Often we micromanage staff because we’ve never seen a good role model in action. But more often than not this happens because (a) our staff members don’t have clear job descriptions that outline for what they are responsible, or (b) we don’t have a simple coaching process in place that allows us to coach and not dominate, influence and not direct.

Coaching (I need you to help me see how what I’m doing fits into the larger picture of the church’s mission).

A 4x4x4 coaching process allows our staff to operate independently without our micromanagement while allowing us to help shape their monthly priorities. It’s the best of both worlds – we get to guide staff at the highest level, and they get to lead without micromanagement – a win/win.

How A 4x4x4 Coaching Process Works

Put 30 Minute Coaching Blocks In Your Schedule

The first step to making this happen is to block off time in your schedule for when you’re going to meet with individual staff members. In my article, How Senior Pastors Can Schedule Their Week For Maximum Impact, I argue that staff coaching needs to take place on Tuesday afternoons. For staff who are part-time and can’t meet during the week, this will take place on Sunday afternoons.

I encourage Senior Pastors I coach to schedule 30-minute meeting blocks, with 15 minutes in between each meeting. A typical Tuesday afternoon would look like this:

1:30-2:00 pm. 1st Meeting with Children
2:15-2:45 pm. 2nd Meeting with Youth
3:00-3:30pm. 3rd Meeting with Adults
3:45-4:15pm. 4th Meeting with Worship
4:30-5:00pm. 5th Meeting with Finance

As I’ve said elsewhere, Senior Pastors should create five “departments” (Children, Youth, Adults, Worship, Operations/Finance) with individual staff leading each of those departments. That means a Senior Pastor should have no more than five direct reports. All additional staff need to report to one of those five people. This is critical in helping your staff lead at a higher level and to build infrastructure.

Once you get to 600-700, you should have full-time staff for all five of these areas except Operations/Finance, which will come in the form of an Executive Pastor around 800-900+. Since you don’t have someone leading the Operations/Finance Department, you’ll lead it, with the assistance of a part-time bookkeeper that you’ll meet with in that fifth slot.

Initial Meeting At The Beginning Of The Month

The first Tuesday of the month your staff member will bring to you one sheet of paper listing the 4 people they feel they need to meet with, and the 4 tasks they feel they need to accomplish, over the next 4 weeks.

This is your chance to provide feedback, challenge them, and ask them questions. If there’s any hint of being “directive” in your leading style, it is in the few minutes when you discuss what their priorities should be.

The key, as any successful leader knows, is to help them get to the point where THEY can identify their top priorities. Anyone can “tell” someone what their priorities should be. Leaders are those who help their staff think for themselves.

It’s at this initial meeting you want to reiterate the church’s mission, help them view the organization globally, point out tendencies in their thinking, and challenge “safe” assumptions. Some staff will identify tasks that couldn’t possibly be accomplished in four weeks, let alone one. You’ll have to help those staff members think more tactically. Others will be so focused on the weeds, you’ll have to pull them up and help them think strategically. Coaching staff is both an art and science.

The first few times you meet you’ll rewrite the 4x4x4 for each staff member, but if you’re doing that after three months, you’re the problem, not them. Pull it out of them. Get them to dream. Get them to take risks and push the envelope.

On-Going Meetings

Initially, you’ll meet every single week, but as your staff proves their ability to lead themselves, you’ll back those meetings off to two times a month, and for some once a month.

The key is to identify what individual staff members need. Coaching is all about them, not us. The less experienced a staff member is, the more you’ll have to meet.

I’ve found that Senior Pastors often feel the need to meet more often than needed because two things aren’t in place: a staff policy manual and an online portal for their 4x4x4 updates. Once these two vital pieces of staff performance are instituted in the staff culture, the need to meet as frequently dissipates.

Staff Policy Manual

HERE is a link to our churches’ staff policy manual. It outlines every single thing you can think of that a staff member would need or ask: days off, vacation time, what to do about XYZ, etc. If you don’t have one, please steal ours and make it better. Just steal it.

Online Communication Portal

Most Senior Pastors start out by having their staff members put their 4x4x4 on one piece of paper. But as your staff grows, you’ll want to move to digital.

We’ve used THIS online resource to facilitate our 4x4x4’s and have had great success. This allows the staff member to update their 4x4x4 remotely and for you, the Senior Pastor, to provide real-time feedback on their progress.

The key to creating and maintaining a great staff culture is to get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, getting our staff to sit in the right seats, and then to keep everyone pointed in the same direction.

A 4x4x4 coaching process is but one of the tools to make this happen, but it is a vital one for us.

I hope it helps.

Read more posts by Brian Jones

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I want you to look at three maps that just rocked my world.

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I want you to be brutally honest with yourself because how you answer this simple question should determine the focus of your remaining years in ministry. Are you someone who loves to lead, but has to preach? Or are you someone who loves to preach, but has to lead?

There is no right or wrong answer.

Are You a Leader or a Preacher?

There are Senior Pastors who LOVE every aspect of leadership, but…

• Have always struggled with making time for sermon writing
• Who do a really good job when they preach, but just aren’t as passionate about it as other leadership tasks
• Who deep down would love it if someone else could write their sermons
• Who have always thought that the world would be a wonderful place if they could be a Senior Pastor but only had to preach when they felt inspired and had something important to say
• Who make it a regular habit of utilizing other preacher’s sermon series ideas, sermons, and illustrations for their own preaching

Then there are Senior Pastors who LOVE every aspect of preaching, but…

• Secretly wonder if they would be better suited to be a teaching pastor at someone else’s church so they could focus on preaching while the other person focuses on leadership
• Feel guilty because of the amount of time they like to spend reading, studying, writing, planning, and dedicating themselves to the creative sermon process
• Who can clearly see the difference it would make to their church if they threw themselves into various leadership tasks, but honestly feel no inclination to do so
• Who make it a regular habit of utilizing other leader’s ideas, talks, plans, visions, and strategies for their own context

The Freedom to Be One or the Other

The fact is you were DESIGNED BY GOD to focus primarily on one or the other, but not both.

In fact, I would encourage you to envision your role as a Senior Pastor as falling into a 2/3 to 1/3 split between the two tasks.

If you’re a preacher who has to lead, then focus 2/3 of your time on preaching and 1/3 of your time on leadership.

If you’re a leader, who has to preach, focus 2/3 of your time on leadership and 1/3 of your time on preaching.

And don’t apologize for it.

Accept the fact that this is how God wired you and make adjustments accordingly.

Here’s the thing…

Andy Stanley is a freak of nature. So is Craig Groeschel and Bill Hybels and Rick Warren.

They are the outliers. They are the five talent type of Senior Pastors. They are the best of the best of the best in their respective denominations.

They lead like the finest corporate CEO’s and preach like Charles Spurgeon.

I’m sure they would say that they naturally gravitate towards one or the other, but the reality is they are so gifted at both preaching and leadership that their preference is almost indistinguishable.

You and me? Not so much.

The difference between our top passion/gift and our second is so pronounced that to be effective, we have to think differently about how to approach our ministry priorities.

How to Function as a Leader Who Has to Preach

If you’re a leader who has to preach, let me share some things you might find helpful:

• Preach shorter sermons.
• Steal other preacher’s sermon series ideas, sermons, images, and sermon titles.
• When you write your sermons, limit yourself to only writing 1-page sermon outlines that you take into the pulpit.
• Free yourself up to be okay with creating content while you preach (i.e. “making it up on the fly”) instead of writing everything out ahead of time.
• Use your leadership gift and passion to create teams of people who help you with every aspect of your preaching (research, planning, writing, execution, and promotion).
• Write sermons with a group of preachers.

Here’s the thing:

We don’t chastise our children’s ministry teachers for using “other people’s stuff,” do we?

Of course not.

So why do you feel guilty for using other preacher’s sermons?

That’s ridiculous.

This isn’t an integrity issue; it’s a stewardship issue.

It makes no sense for you to spend 2/3 of your time doing something for which you have neither the gifting nor passion.

Working Together Benefits Everyone

I hear stories all the time about how someone (who is wired to lead but has to preach) who used someone else’s material and got called on the carpet by some moron in their church.

Please.

Wayne Smith of Southland Christian Church in Lexington was one of the greatest Senior Pastors of the 20th century. He, Bob Russell of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, and a number of other preachers formed a sermon-writing group and shared material.

Everyone has said that Wayne brought the jokes and Bob brought the material.

One time Wayne was preaching – spoke for a bit about something, using material that Bob had wrote – and while preaching said out loud, “Hey, wait a minute, I disagree with that!”

He literally disagreed with “himself” in the middle of one of his sermons!

Everyone in attendance laughed. More importantly, everyone knew that he didn’t write the majority of his messages and they were totally okay with that arrangement because Wayne was such an amazing leader of people.

Listen to me – people just want a good meal – they don’t care if you prepared it.

One of the most well-known churches in the country employs a full-time staff member who literally writes every sermon preached at the church.

That works for their Senior Pastor, so good for them!

The Secret to Church Impact

The fact is it’s more socially acceptable to steal other people’s LEADERSHIP material than it is their SERMON material for some reason.

This has to stop. Why? Because if you’re going to make it a moral issue, let’s be consistent.

Intellectual property is intellectual property, whether it is an 8-page manuscript or a newcomer follow-up strategy. There are Senior Pastors all over the country that have completely ripped off entire mission statements, vision statements, class outlines, church organizational systems, etc.

And this is exactly how it should be in the kingdom.

Listen, say this to yourself out loud: “The secret to church impact is STEAL, STEAL, STEAL.”

If you’re wired to lead, you don’t have time to reinvent the wheel.

Beg, borrow, re-use, incorporate, cannibalize, and rename everything that anyone will allow you to use and do it knowing that you are doing absolutely NOTHING wrong.

How to Function as a Preacher Who Has to Lead

If you’re a preacher who has to lead, let me share some things you might find helpful:

• Know that some of the greatest churches ever built were led by preachers who delegated leadership to other people.
• Find someone with executive leadership skills and make them your lifelong ministry partner on your staff team. Let them cover finances, HR, buildings, systems, and strategies while you focus on the ministry of the word and prayer (Acts 6).
• Don’t feel compelled to create an original mission statement or church strategy. Survey what’s out there, and what fits you best, and just adopt it. Period.
• While you can’t completely delegate leadership (you will always keep 1/3 of your time focused on leadership tasks) make sure you spend that 1/3 finding leaders who can lead. The tendency is to delegate to people who are less-gifted in leadership than we are because we feel intimidated. Always delegate up.
• Preach vision rather than cast vision – meaning, if your gift is preaching, then create a calendar in which you are forced to systematically cover certain “vision” matters on a regular basis in your sermons. Leaders cast vision intuitively and reflexively. You will excel at this through planning and consistency.
• Don’t over-spiritualize things as a way to “beat the leaders” back into their place and justify yourself as a preacher who doesn’t enjoy leadership. I see this all the time – where a Senior Pastor will make people on their team who focus on buildings, budgets, systems, and processes feel “less than” because they feel threatened by those with leadership gifts.
• Reach out to a coach who can allow you to verbalize your insecurities (without fear of losing your job). They can help you put systems into place that other people can run with.

The biggest struggle Senior Pastors who love to preach but have to lead experience is self-doubt.

They can lead.

They just don’t enjoy it as much as they do everything involved with preaching.

Pastor From Your Strengths

My encouragement, to the roughly 60% of you who are in this boat, is to follow the advice Dick Alexander of Lifebridge Christian Church in Cincinnati shared with me a long time ago:

“You must cover the leadership bases until God brings the right person to take over that role for you. Until then just make sure you don’t get in the way. You must develop enough proficiency in leadership that you don’t get in the way of the church moving forward, but stay humble enough that you’re willing to delegate when the time is right.”

That’s about the best advice I’ve ever heard.

Become the best leader you can be, even though it’s not your top strength.

Then pass the baton when you find someone you trust who is content leading from the second chair. They can move the church beyond where you could take it.

Give Yourself the Freedom to Be a Preacher or Leader

Your greatest contribution to the kingdom is going to be where you are the most gifted and passionate.

So…

1. Stop listening to that shaming voice in your head.
2. Stop listening to the trolls in the pastoral community who try to make you feel guilty for leaning on and incorporating other people’s stuff.
3. And start enjoying the freedom that comes from accepting how God wired you to impact people’s lives.

Read more blog posts by Brian Jones

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For lack of a sexier phrase, I call the sermon writing process that I use and teach based on this three-act structure: “Introduction. Explanation. Application.”

At this point, the most helpful way I can teach you how to write a sermon using this method is to briefly go through the steps of writing a message right now and comment along the way.

So, imagine for a moment that we’re sitting side by side at your desk, looking at your computer monitor, and we’re ready to rock and roll.

1. Set your document up for a sermon.

I always use a 13-point Arial font and put the page numbers in the top-right hand corner.

I always put the relevant sermon information in bold in the top left-hand corner.

Here’s mine from this Sunday:

The Happiness Challenge
Message #4 “The Happiness Challenge”
CCV, 02-11-18
Brian Jones

2. Craft the set welcome statement that you will use with every sermon.

Here’s the same 20-second introduction for all of my sermons:

“Good morning, my name is Brian Jones, and I’m the Senior Pastor here at CCV. I’d like to welcome all of our guests here today!

And I’d like to say hello to everyone watching this online.
…we know most people will check us out online before they ever visit
…so, we really look forward to seeing you soon…

I want to start today by…”

The reason I start this way is that 1,700 people will view my sermon live this Sunday, but 5,000+ people will view it next week (70% on their phones, 30% on a desktop). I always want to greet the person watching online. Words marked in red font are reminders for me to look into the camera. When my sermon is finished I’ll go back and highlight 2-3 places on each page in bold red where I want to remind myself to speak directly into the camera.

3. Next type the words INTRODUCTION, EXPLANATION, and APPLICATION in all caps

Underline them and put “(10 minutes)” in parentheses after each.

INTRODUCTION (10 minutes)

EXPLANATION (10 minutes)

APPLICATION (10 minutes)

Yes, that means each section will only be ten minutes, and yes, that means you will preach under 30 minutes, or you will die.

4. Pick out the central idea from your Bible text, turn that into an action statement, and place it at the bottom of your document.

If I were sitting next to you the very next thing I’d do is ask you to determine the central idea of your message.

Let’s say you are preaching on evangelism and you’re using 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 as your passage. I’d ask you what the central idea is in that passage, and you’d say it is found in verse 22,

“I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”

Your first thought is the central idea in that verse is “become like the people you’re trying to reach.” But we talk, and you finally settle on the idea of “removing every barrier” that stands in the way of your friends hearing and responding to the gospel.

Now, turn that phrase into an action statement that starts with a verb. This is what you want them to DO when they are done listening to you.

You finally pick, “Be willing to get uncomfortable so you can earn the right to talk to your friends about Jesus.”

Okay, since that’s what you want people to DO when they leave, that will become the bullseye that your entire sermon is aiming for.

Take that phrase and put it at the bottom of your document. Then you go back up to the top now and tentatively title your sermon. Let’s call it “Trading Places,” which admittedly is lame, but you just need a placeholder until you can go back after it’s written, generate ten options, and pick the best one.

At this point in our sermon, our document will look like this:

Engaging Evangelism Series Name
Message #4 “Trading Places”
CCV, 02-11-18
Brian Jones

Good morning, my name is Brian Jones, and I’m the Senior Pastor here at CCV.

I’d like to welcome all of our guests here today!

And I’d like to say hello to everyone watching this online.
…we know most people will check us out online before they ever visit
…so, we look forward to seeing you soon…

I want to start today by…

• INTRODUCTION (10 minutes)
• EXPLANATION (10 minutes)
• APPLICATION (10 minutes)

“Be willing to get uncomfortable so you can earn the right to talk to your friends about Jesus.”

____________________

5. Under the “INTRODUCTION (10 minutes)” section, write the words Jab 1, Jab 2, Jab 3, right hook.

Here’s what that will look like:

INTRODUCTION (10 minutes)

• Jab 1
• Jab 2
• Jab 3
• Right Hook

For the INTRODUCTION, I want you to think like a boxer.

What most preachers do – especially in this day when preachers overact to Andy Stanley and swing in the opposite direction and try to make themselves into Matt Chandler – is they stand up and say, “Open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 9. We’re in a series called …” and just start talking.

I swear, if you’ve been in the habit of doing that, I will lean over and stab you in the leg with a pencil.

The first 10 minutes of your sermon needs to build like a roller coaster – up, up, up, then downhill a million miles an hour.

That “right hook” information—“Open your Bibles…”—needs to be the LAST thing you do in your introduction (at 9 minutes and 30 seconds in), not the first thing.

In boxing terms, you need to jab, jab, jab for the first 9.5 minutes THEN give them the right hook.

Remember, the people you’re talking to are coming in cold.

They’ve been working, living life, and, for the last 15 minutes, wrangling kids to get them to their classes in time to sit down and listen to you.

They know NOTHING about what you’re about to say. Meanwhile, you’ve LIVED this material all week and are excited about it.

See the problem?

We can’t honestly expect people who know NOTHING about what we’re going to say and have a million things swirling around in their heads to get focused and engaged in only 30 seconds.

They need to be hooked (jabbed)—not once, not twice, but three times. I believe it takes a full 10 minutes to do this.

The Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook 10 Minute Introduction

Jab 1 (2-4 minutes)

The reticular activating system at the base of our brain filters out everything unless it is funny, bizarre, shocking, or interesting. So, start by telling a story that is funny, bizarre, shocking, or interesting that is related to “being uncomfortable.”

Jab 2 (2-4 minutes)

Then, share ANOTHER compelling piece of information that’s funny, bizarre, shocking, or interesting that is related to “being uncomfortable.” Why? Because it takes a while to engage in an idea and get excited about it.

Jab 3 (2-4 minutes)

Next, tell them why you are so passionate about what you’re going to talk about.
Give them the central idea, without calling it that, and why embracing it matters.
This is where you must have passion in your voice and fire in your bones.

Right hook (1 minute)

NOW is when you say, “Turn in your Bibles to…we’re in this series…” If you jab, jab, jab well, I CAN’T WAIT to open up my Bible and find out how this passage addresses what we’re talking about.

So, for our purpose, your hypothetical introduction will look like this:

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook To Introduce 1 Corinthians 9:22

Jab 1 (2-4 minutes)

Tell a story about the time you asked that kid to the 7th-grade dance and they said no. Follow it with that Dallas Willard quote about unrealistic expectations.

Jab 2 (2-4 minutes)

Then share the stats of people who get turned down the first time they ask someone out on a date, and ask people to guess the most common “openers” they used that got shot down. Follow that with a transitional statement about if people are scared to ask someone out on a date, “I can just imagine what goes through your minds when you are encouraged to talk to people about Jesus.”

Jab 3 (2-4 minutes)

Next tell the story about how uncomfortable it must have been to approach you when you weren’t a Christian, and how your friend was willing to get uncomfortable to share the gospel, and how there are thousands of non-Christian people living within a 20-mile radius of your building who will never be reached because their Christian friends care more about staying comfortable than their friend’s eternal destiny.

Right hook (1 minute)

THEN say “Turn in your Bible…”

Does the introduction need to be 10 minutes? 100%.

“That seems like FOREVER before you get to the text,” I can hear some people say.

The point is you want your people to collectively nod across the room and say, “Okay, we’re ready now, let’s do this thing. We’re fired up and want to learn what the Bible says about this topic.”

6. Under the “EXPLANATION” section…

Under the “EXPLANATION” section, copy and paste your scripture in its entirety, then highlight three nuggets in that passage you want to teach them.

The EXPLANATION is the part where you EXPLAIN what the Bible is saying.

You just spent 10 minutes introducing the topic of getting uncomfortable, now tell me about the ways Paul got uncomfortable.

Read the passage in its entirety, then tell them you want to point out three things about that passage (that they couldn’t pick up on their own).

You only get 10 minutes for this section, so get after it. Don’t waste time.

• Tell them about how Jews were grossed out by non-kosher food, and this was Paul’s upbringing, but he was willing to be uncomfortable to reach Greeks. Pull out key phrases that illustrate this. Make me FEEL how uncomfortable Paul FELT.
• Tell them about how second temple Judaism “orthodoxy” revolved around clear boundaries that marked who was “in and out.” Tell them about the social pressure Paul would have felt to stay away from Greeks. Dig into the historical background and maybe quote Hillel or another rabbi at this time talking smack about Jews who didn’t stay holy in this regard. Dig into the background of the word “ethne” in Greek. How that’s the word Jesus used in the Great Commission. How this is who Jesus wanted us to reach.
• Most important, I would tell you if you were sitting next to me, if you skip over what Paul meant by “save some” and the reality of hell without the gospel, you miss the whole point of the passage. This was what was driving Paul. THIS was why he was willing to get uncomfortable.

Don’t waste time on inconsequential background material or Greek words that don’t add value.

I remember hearing a preacher say, “In the original Greek, the word ‘to sleep’ means ‘to close your eyes and go to sleep’”

Dude. Seriously. If you do that, here comes that pencil.

Teach this section as if you are teaching it to your small group leaders who are going on a mission trip afterward to a severely persecuted area of Myanmar and they will have to teach new believers what you’re teaching them.

Teach stuff that matters, that you can’t wait to point out, and most of all show the lengths to which Paul was willing to be uncomfortable.

Hold off on the illustrations in this section unless they can be told in less than 30 seconds.

And MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING ELSE, teach them DEEP CONTENT in 10 minutes or less. Not a minute more.

Get in, attack it with a vengeance, then get out, in 10 minutes.

As Howard Hendricks used to say, “Leave them longing, not loathing.”

7. In the “APPLICATION” section…

In the “APPLICATION” section, tell your people HOW to do what you just showed them that Paul did in the first century.

You spent 10 minutes INTRODUCING the topic of getting uncomfortable, then spent another 10 minutes EXPLAINING the different ways Paul got uncomfortable, now you need to take 10 minutes APPLYING this to their lives and showing them how to be uncomfortable.

The INTRODUCTION section has already answered the WHAT? question.

This message is about being willing to get uncomfortable.

The EXPLANATION section has already answered the WHY? question.

Paul was willing to do this because heaven and hell hang in the balance.

The APPLICATION section needs to answer the HOW? question.

How do I do in the 21st century what Paul did in the first?

Most preachers don’t have three acts to their messages, they have one.

They stand up, tell people to turn in the Bible, talk for 30 minutes, and then pray.

Listen: the application section is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of your message. NOT the Bible teaching part.

Let me repeat that.

“The application section is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of your message. NOT the Bible teaching part.” Brian Jones
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Somehow – someway – we preachers got the idea that the best and holiest section of the sermon is the “teaching Biblical information” part.

How did we come up with that? We certainly didn’t get that from Jesus.

Go over to the Sermon on the Mount and pull out a piece of paper and create two separate columns. Over one column write, “Taught expository information about the Old Testament” and over the other column write down, “Told people what TO DO with the information from the Old Testament.”

Read the entire sermon through that lens then tell me what percentage of that sermon was EXPLANATION of the text and what percentage was APPLICATION of the text.

Maybe 10% EXPLANATION and 90% APPLICATION?

In the Great Commission, Jesus told us “to teach people to obey” (Matthew 28:20).

That’s your job in this section.

You must teach them, in very SPECIFIC and CONCRETE ways, what you want them to DO.

Three Things To Remember With Application

Keep three things in mind when writing the APPLICATION part of your message:

First, over half of your listeners are SJ’s on the Myers-Briggs.

Which means when you give them a proven model that they can benchmark from, they will be much more likely to create their own. Meaning, it won’t “click” for 60% of your people unless in this section you share a specific time when YOU got uncomfortable to reach a friend and show them how you did it.

Second, people must be CALLED TO ACTION or they won’t do jack.

Your job is to teach them “how to obey” and exhort them to do it the minute they leave the room.

Third, the reticular activating system is still in play here.

Especially here. Unless you intersperse your application with ideas, phrases, quotes, stories, stats, etc. that get through the RAS you’ve lost them at the most important part of the message.

I always try to begin this section by sharing the action step I want them to take.

I’ll say something like, “Listen, here’s the thing I want to make sure you leave with: YOU MUST BE WILLING TO GET UNCOMFORTABLE TO REACH YOUR FRIENDS.”

I’ll try to brainstorm 10+ questions I know people will have at this point in the message. Anticipate the most important ones and answer them now.

Sometimes all I have is one point and just keep hammering it home in different ways. Other times I’ll say, “Okay, here are four things I believe Jesus would tell us to do if he were standing right here.”

It varies each time.

The key is to picture an actual person sitting across from you. Look them in the eye and give them specific, godly counsel about HOW they can do what Paul did THIS WEEK with their friends.

Two Final Thoughts

Here are two things to keep in mind:

1. Simple Structure. Deep Content.

This is a writing mantra I live by: “Simple Structure. Deep Content.”

Preaching is an annual marathon of creating 3,000-word documents (whether written or not) 42-47 times a year. That’s 141,000 words a year.

For a point of comparison, that’s the equivalent of writing three-full-length non-fiction books a year. That is an ENORMOUS amount of content you have to create out of thin air.

That’s like John Grisham-level kind of heavy-lifting writing and idea creation.

No one feels the weight of this like you, and I do.

Writers who crank out novel after novel after novel have a secret: pre-existing templates into which they insert their best material.

If you want to become a great communicator God can use to expand his kingdom, you must do the same thing.

INTRODUCTION, EXPLANATION, APPLICATION is the template you’re looking for.

It’s proven. It’s simple. It’s action-oriented. It’s universal. And it works.

2. Create The “Structure” For Your Next 10 Sermons And Begin Dropping Content Into Them Now

Let me suggest something that will dramatically improve the quality of your sermons and decrease preparation time.

Go ahead right now and create a Word doc for your next 10 sermons.

(FYI – those of you who have already “finished” your next 10 sermons, we hate you. Just saying.)

Create these 10 Word documents and in each of them type the words INTRODUCTION, EXPLANATION, and APPLICATION. Leave room between each to drop content underneath.

Then copy and paste the text you’re going to use for each message (if you know it).

When you do this, something really cool will happen. You’ll start finding material you can use in each of these messages IN ADVANCE. Like 4, 7, and 10 weeks in advance.

Ideas will just start dropping from the sky. “Oh, I can use this for my APPLICATION in my sermon on….”

Just yesterday an idea came to me that I’m going to use for my entire introduction for the first sermon in our upcoming series called, “Three Easy Ways To Blow Up Your Relationship.”

If I hadn’t already created these documents, that idea would have vanished.

Ideas will come to you because, well, God, of course, but also because your brain will become conditioned to notice useful material.

If you can take it one step further by doing advance work and identifying the central idea and ACTION STEP you’ll want people to take derived from the passage, so much better.

If you really want to do next-level preparation, you can ask volunteers and staff to do sermon research for you and input ideas, quotes, stories, YouTube clips, articles, etc. into each of these sections.

Ask them to comb what they’ve read in the last two months for illustrations. Have people survey your people and ask what questions they have about these topics. Have them solicit testimonials. The possibilities are vast.

For those of you with personal assistants – you have no excuse for not doing this. Seriously.

Remember this: preaching has more impact on the overall growth and health of your people than everything else you do, combined. So, leverage every available resource you have.

I hope this helps.

Read more blog posts by Brian Jones

The post Introduction. Explanation. Application. A More Effective Way To Write Sermon appeared first on ChurchPlanting.com.

Last night I had a dream that I was sitting in the back seat of a car riding around the streets of 1950s Clearwater, Florida.

Everything I saw in my dream had a yellowish tint, like the way the Cohen brothers filmed the movie No Country For Old Men.

At some point in my dream, the scene shot changed, and I saw who was driving the car. It was Francis Chan.

Francis Chan was driving the car in my dream with a wig on.

He took me on a joy ride in an old Studebaker, cruising the streets past palm trees and shiny new houses.

At some point, Francis looks in the rear-view mirror and says, “I don’t see it. Brian, I don’t see the obedience in your life.”

This is normal for Francis Chan, known for his persona of radical obedience to scripture (I had just been listening to a Catalyst podcast with Francis the day before – which is probably why he was on my mind).

Looking up from the Bible I was reading, I locked eyes with his in the mirror and defensively said, “You don’t know me. You don’t know me at all.”

Then he pulled the car over, put it into park, and turned around.

Wiping away a single teardrop slowly falling from his right eye, he said, “Brian, I’m just being honest. I just don’t see it.”

And then I woke up.

 

When Francis Chan Questions Obedience in Your Life

 

Dream Interpretation Options:

1. If Francis Chan carjacks your Studebaker wearing a wig, keep calm, and no one will get hurt. At some point, he’ll pull the car over and start crying. Then you can make your move.

2. God is calling me to move back to Clearwater, Florida (where I lived in the mid-90s), but only after everyone gets jaundiced.

3. I was having a conversation with myself – a continued conversation I’ve been having lately – about greater levels of simple obedience to the teachings of Jesus.

I’ll go with option #3.

Read more blog posts by Brian Jones

The post My Car Ride With Francis Chan appeared first on ChurchPlanting.com.

This includes wasting time on unfocused sermon preparation.

I’ve always been a bit suspicious of how long Senior Pastors spend in sermon preparation anyway. The leaders I run in circles with throw around numbers like 15 to 20 hours a week. Knowing how my week usually flows, I’m quite skeptical.

If I had to guess, I think the average Senior Pastor spends no more than two mornings a week on their sermons. That’s usually 4 hours on a Wednesday, and another 4 hours on a Thursday.

I actually think that’s plenty of time to write a good message.

The problem I have isn’t the amount of time spent, it’s that I believe most Senior Pastors could be much more effective in how those 8 hours are spent.

If you follow the 5 steps I outline in this article I believe you will consistently preach better sermons with 8 hours or less of preparation than some Senior Pastors will having only spent 15 or 20.

Here’s how…

1. Adopt The Concept Of “Minimum Effective Dose” With Your Preaching.

The idea of “Minimum Effective Dose” comes from the world of medicine.

A Minimum Effective Dose is the principle that the smallest dose needed will produce the desired outcome, and that anything over that exact dosage is wasted.

For example, if your daughter has an earache and is prescribed a 400mg dose of Amoxicillin, 2 times a day for 5 days, that’s because clinical trials have proven that she only needs 400mg, 2 times a day, for her symptoms to go away in 5 days or less. Nothing more, nothing less.

Would doubling the amount of Amoxicillin make her get better, faster? Of course not. In fact, it might do her more harm than good.

This principle applies to everything from weight training, to learning a language, and, of course, to preaching.

You shouldn’t feel guilty about not spending 20 hours a week in sermon preparation if it only takes 8 hours to get the job done.

Spending more time than the Minimum Effective Dose needed to produce excellent sermons wastes precious time that could be spent on other vital ministry tasks.

2. Target 2,500 Words, 28 Minutes Max.

What is the Minimum Effective Dose with regards to the length of an effective sermon?

In other words, how long does it take, on average, to accomplish what we’re trying to accomplish?

It’s so easy for Senior Pastors to forget that the reason we prepare sermons is not to prepare sermons. We prepare sermons to help people obey Jesus (Matthew 28:20). Learning, equipping, rebuking, encouraging, comforting, etc. – all come along for the ride.

How long does that take?

In almost all cases, I’d say 30 minutes max, and probably closer to 25. This is why I try to preach between 25-28 minutes every single time. To help me do this consistently, I had a large screen installed in the back of our auditorium which projects, among other things in the service, a clock counting down from 28 to 0 to keep me on track. The clock starts counting down the moment I open my mouth. The times that I haven’t used that clock, I’ve gone over by at least 10 minutes, thinking I’m actually right on time.

Think of the time needed to teach any new skill.

How long does it take to teach someone how to use a new app, appliance, or remote control for the TV? All things being equal, it takes no more than 15-25 minutes to learn the who, what, when, where, and why of doing something new. Anything beyond that is repetitive. Why would a sermon be much different on most occasions? There’s no theological justification for sermon length.

This is important because finding our Minimum Effective Dose in terms of sermon length immediately clarifies two other things we should track: word count and page count.

I know that a 28-minute sermon of mine is roughly 2,500 words, which, when condensed, is 5 single-space pages, or an extended outline 9 pages long. That means I never go over 9 pages. Ever. I may preach longer than 28 minutes at times, but I never walk into the service with more than 9 pages in my hand.

What about 45 minutes?

Will preaching 45 minutes instead of 25 really help our listeners more fully obey the teaching of Jesus we’re covering? In most cases I doubt it.

That extra 20 minutes is wasted time in your service spent at the expense of your listener’s attention span, excluding other creative elements that could drive your message home.

As Howard Hendricks was so fond of saying, “Leave them longing, not loathing.”

3. Narrow Down Your Preaching Subjects To No More Than 20 Subjects.

Senior Pastors know that one of our biggest time wasters is waiting for lighting to strike from above and magically infuse us with Andy Stanley’s certainty regarding what we should preach on next.

We wait, and wait, and wait, and in doing so waste precious time we could utilize elsewhere.

Here’s a better alternative:

Identify your most important 16-20 annual sermon series’ topics.

In other words, what’s the Minimum Effective Dose regarding preaching topics and sermon series’? Go through your past 5 year’s sermons, the Bible, and the needs of your people. Pick out the top 20 sermon series subjects you’ve preached on (or should have preached on) every single year. Since we don’t do sermon series’ that are longer than 3-4 weeks, we narrowed ours to 18.

Here, in no certain order, are the 18 sermon series topics we use at CCV:

1. Apologetics
2. Bible Book
3. Bible Character
4. Biblical Issue
5. Jesus
6. Cultural hot topics
7. Marriage
8. Parenting
9. Money
10. Spiritual Disciplines
11. Evangelism
12. Felt Needs (Stress, Purpose, Work)
13. Community
14. Serving
15. Healing
16. Missions
17. Christmas
18. Easter

That’s it. We don’t preach on anything else. Narrowing down the topics for sermon series’ has decreased our anxiety, saved time, and produced clarity.

Arrange each series in the calendar for maximum impact

Place each series on your annual sermon calendar in the months that best fit the life of your church. For instance, we start the Fall with a serving series. November is money. April or May is usually cultural hot topics, depending on where Easter falls in the calendar. Forget planning each actual series. Just put “Parenting” on your calendar where it fits best, etc. Do this for your entire upcoming year.

Research 3 great options for each sermon series

Read, study, pray, brainstorm with your team of volunteers or staff, and steal sermon series ideas from other Senior Pastors (see the right sidebar for the list I routinely scan), in order to come up with three good options for each series. Put those series ideas into your annual calendar, and as you move closer, narrow each series down to one and plan it out.

Stay one series ahead

Commit to stay one series ahead in terms of having the next series completely fleshed out (series title, sermon titles, series image, sermon scripture, and big ideas) before your current series ends.

4. Set Up An Evernote Account To Store Sermon Illustrations For Your 20 Sermon Series Subjects.

If you follow through on this one piece of advice you will thank 6 lb. 8 oz. baby Jesus for the day I was born. Trust me.

One thing that wastes a lot of time when writing messages is searching for good sermon illustrations. I recommend Preaching Today for solid illustrations in a pinch, but I tell the Senior Pastors I coach that they should find and store their own sermon illustrations so they’ll be ready when you need them. Evernote to the rescue.

Evernote is an online aggregation software designed to help you easily add and then quickly retrieve pieces of information. It’s hands down the single best way to store and recall sermon illustrations. It’s the 21st-century version of great preachers did in the past with filing cabinets.

I don’t have enough time to do an overview of Evernote here, but here are two good resources: Ron Edmondson’s ebook A Guide To Evernote For Pastors is really helpful.

Here’s how I use it:

• Whenever I read a book in my Kindle, I transfer my highlighted notes to a Microsoft Word document and email it to Evernote.
• Whenever I read a newspaper or magazine article, I snap a picture and send it to Evernote.
• Whenever I read a great email newsletter, I forward it to Evernote.
• Whenever I’m on a great website, you guessed it, I copy it into Evernote.
• When I come to a series on, say, marriage, and you need 2-3 good illustrations, all I have to do is go to Evernote and type in the searchbox “marriage” and it will bring up every single piece of information I’ve saved on the subject. It even searches text in PDFs and images. It’s really cool.

The point is that any time you read something that could be used in ONE OF YOUR 20 SERMON SERIES’, send it to Evernote. Don’t save random things that won’t be used. Focus on accumulating sermon pulp for your 20 sermon series’.

Evernote also has tagging features that are extremely helpful. The app on my iPhone and iPad link directly to my account too. Wherever I am and whatever I’m doing I can quickly snap, click, or send something to my Evernote account.

The key is focusing on finding rich material for your 20 sermon series’ months and years in advance. That way when it comes to sermon preparation time you have quality material at your fingertips.

5. Prepare Sermons The Same Way Each Week.

Over the years, I’ve wasted so much time simply because I’ve prepared my sermons differently from week to week. One week I’d just start writing. Other times, I’d read a commentary first. Still, other times, I’d go to the Greek or start with an illustration.

When it comes to sermon preparation, our greatest enemy is randomness masked as creativity. Routine is our greatest ally.

My encouragement is to identify the exact step-by-step way you go about writing your messages, document it, and then repeat that each and every time, refining the process as you go:

Here’s the process I use:

MONDAY: Organizational Jumpstart Meeting (1 hour)

Since I benefit from a more extroverted idea generation process at the beginning of sermon creation, I’ve asked my Associate Pastor, Dan Reischel, to join me for a standing appointment in my office every Monday at 1pm, to help me kick-off my sermon preparation. You could do this with a volunteer.

The value of this exercise is that I have a standing appointment every Monday that forces me to get started on my message early, whether I feel like it or not. The other value is Dan is a great collaborator and preacher himself. Two heads working on a message are always better than one.

Here’s the exact order of what we do in our Monday meetings:

Pull Up Our Upcoming Series’ Overview

We pull up on our laptops the sermon series overview for the upcoming series. This is a document that was produced in a prior meeting, and that has the series name, sermon titles, and tentative scriptures and big ideas for each message. This series overview is completed usually 2 weeks before our current series is about to end.

Create A Sermon File in Microsoft Word

Since I like to keep my hands free, Dan will create a Microsoft Word file for the sermon. He’ll sync his laptop with Apple TV and project what he’s working on onto a flatscreen TV so I can view it. This is the actual file I will use for my sermon. He’ll email it to me once we’re done. It will be done in Arial font, 12 pt, with page numbers in the top right corner.

In the top left corner, Dan will put the following for each message:

Name of series
Name of message
Location, date
My name
Scripture

For example, here’s what was written down for my most recent message:

The Upside-Down Way of Jesus
Message #3 Serving
CCV, 03-08-15
Brian Jones
1 John 4:10

Finalize Scripture

When we decide on the type of series months in advance, I may think a potential scripture is a good idea at the time, but question it once I’m staring down the barrel of Sunday morning. Oftentimes we’ll scrap what we have written down and spend 30 minutes trying to find the right passage. This is obviously not needed when we’re preaching through a Bible chapter or book. We make sure not to delete any scriptures that didn’t make the cut, since they may be worth quoting at some point in my message.

Get English and Greek Text

Once finalized, he’ll cut and paste the text of the passage from Bible Gateway’s passage lookup feature, and then cut and paste the Greek text from GreekBible.com underneath.

Study Greek Text

I’ll spend a few minutes looking at the Greek text and looking for any big ideas that may jump out. Usually there will be a word or unique phrase whose nuance was missed in the English translation, and that will take me off in a certain direction. For those a little rusty in Greek you can hover your cursor over a Greek word at GreekBible.com and it will give you it’s complete background and use in the sentence.

Brainstorm All Ideas

At this point I’ll begin randomly throwing out ideas, thoughts, passages in books I’ve read – anything that could become pulp for the message. This is why I have Dan type while I talk. I want to just freeflow with potential ideas, unobstructed by the keyboard. We’ll check our Evernote file as well as Preaching Today for illustrations.

NOTE: we share ONE Evernote file with our entire service design team (two other people besides Dan and I),  so everyone can put things they read into the file. You can do this with volunteers, or you could even find 3-4 other Senior Pastors and share the same resources. Some of the best resources to put into Evernote are our past sermons. That way we can search for “marriage” in the search box and scan all our prior messages on the topic in addition to material we’ve added since then.

File Sent To Me

Once we’re done brainstorming he’ll send the file to me and I won’t do anything with it until Wednesday morning. This time away from the message allows me to ruminate on what we just discussed.

WEDNESDAY: Heavy Lifting (3 hours)

This is what I call the “heavy lifting” day because it’s the day when I am simply trying to get everything on paper, and in the order I want to use it.

Whether I feel inspired or not, I will take what I have and start moving it around, fleshing things out, and doing more research. I will also do a random stream of consciousness writing – I’ll just start typing and won’t stop.

Here’s where you will save the most time:

While other Senior Pastors boast about spending an inordinate amount of time in sermon preparation, what I believe many Senior Pastors are actually doing is fidgeting back and forth from commentary to websites, to checking email, etc. Many Senior Pastors are not disciplined writers. You’re going to save time by actually writing. Pen to paper. Words on the screen. As Stephen Pressfeld so eloquently put it in his book, The War of Art, the muse doesn’t show up until our butts are firmly planted in the chair.

An important time-saver here is never taking notes on paper. Retyping scribbling into a Microsoft Word file always takes time.

Without fail, when I have roughly an hour left, I will do what I call my “Two Minute Warning.” This exercise helps me organize all my material into a usable outline.

The end result is that I walk away now, having all my material in my sermon file in Microsoft Word, organized, and ready to refine.

THURSDAY: Refinement (3.5 hours)

This is the day I dedicate to fleshing out, refining, cutting, finishing, and preparing my sermon for slides.

I always end up with an extended manuscript outline that is no more than 9 pages.

I’ll highlight, in the yellow blocks, different phrases, and scriptures that I want to be turned into slides. I used to do slides myself. Now, others help me.

SUNDAY: Preparation And Delivery (30 minutes)

The next time I touch the sermon is 30 minutes before I preach.

That’s it. No rehearsal and endless editing. I’ve written down what I feel God has given me, and I’m ready to go.

Altogether, the time spent on an average message of mine is:

1 hour           Monday
3 hours         Wednesday
3.5 hours      Thursday
30 minutes  Sunday
8 hours         Total

What isn’t reflected in this count, obviously, is the countless hours spent reading, placing sermon illustrations into Evernote, and the many meetings it takes to plan ahead for each sermon series.

Do I stray from this process? Occasionally, but I pay the price afterwards in terms of extra work later, more stress, and a less effective message.

Your Biggest Takeaway

If you take nothing away from this article, please take this: the enemy of effective sermon design is trying to live up to someone else’s expectations.

Implement the principle of Minimum Effective Dose in everything you do, and just be yourself.

If you’ve refined your process and it’s working for you, and it takes 13 hours or only 6 hours, then be thankful. You’ve found what works for you!

My only reason for sharing my process is to demonstrate that you can have a packed schedule as a Senior Pastor, spend only 8 hours a week in preparation, and still do a good job week in and week out.

As Chuck Swindoll once shared with me, “You need to be yourself to the glory of God. Period. The more you try to contort yourself into someone you are not, the more ineffective you will be in ministry.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Read more blog posts by Brian Jones

The post 5 Steps To Writing Excellent Sermons In 8 Hours Or Less appeared first on ChurchPlanting.com.

• Seek God’s face for next year’s ministry
• Write down what they believe God wants them to do
• Translate those dreams into SMART goals
• Turn those annual goals into daily prayer affirmations
• And storm the throne room of God every day until they become a reality

…the impact for the Kingdom of God would be staggering.

I want to make you a promise.

If you’ve been a reader of mine for any length of time, you know that I rarely make promises. When I do, it stems from something I have been doing for a long, long time, have seen consistent results in my own life, have led the people I coach to experience the same results, and that tactic has become part of my ministry DNA.

So here it is…

I promise you that if you do what I’m about to tell you – exactly as I tell you to do it – you will look back upon next year as the most impactful 365 days you have ever spent on this earth. Period.

Here’s how…

1. Get Out Of The Office And Dream

Whenever I force those I coach to get out of the weeds and walk with me through the dreams God has put on their heart for the next year, the first thing I notice is God hasn’t put any dreams on their heart. It’s like they just stopped dreaming. Or worse, if they have dreams, they have no conceivable plan for making them happen anytime soon.

As the point leader, you must routinely take off the “execution mode” hat, leave the daily grind, put on your “dreamer” hat, and hightail it to Mt. Sinai to meet with God. Then, just as important, you must come back with a plan written on stone, ready to execute with a vengeance.

I completely understand that it feels like you simply don’t have the time to do this, but you do. And you must.

As my leadership mentor, Warren Bennis, reminds us, “I really believe that the best leaders I’ve met and known over the years have been reflective practitioners, that they both think and act.” (Reinventing Leadership, p. 27).

Elsewhere, Bennis warns, “It’s very clear to me that failing organizations almost always fail because they’re over-managed, and they’re under-led.” (Reinventing Leadership, p. 7)

Get out of manager mode!

So, get out of manager mode, getaway to a monastery or a state park this week, and pray two bold leader prayers:

• “God, if I stopped self-sabotaging my ministry and lived out the dream you have for my life and the congregation I’m privileged to serve, what would I/we STOP doing, and what would I/we START doing?”
• “God, what are the four things I/we could do in the next 90 days that would make a 50% difference?”

Ask those questions, then start writing.

You will know you have God’s dreams in hand when you are ready to come back and work so hard that, in the words of Bennis, your “…lawn and goldfish have died of neglect.”

2. Narrow Down Your List To 4 Personal and 4 Congregational Annual Goals

Out of all the things you wrote down, the next step is to determine which ones are what Tim Ferriss calls the “lead dominoes.” These are the specific actions, in each area of your life, if executed, that will cause a chain reaction in other areas.

For instance, for many Senior Pastors, “losing weight” will undoubtedly be on their list.

Losing weight is a “lead domino” because if you tackle that, a chain reaction will have taken place. You will have changed your eating. You will have worked out 5+ times a week. You will have energy as a result. You will sleep better. Sex will be better. You’ll feel better. You’ll care about your clothes and how you look. It will affect how your family eats. You’ll save money by not eating out. Etc…

Examples of “lead domino” PERSONAL goals I’ve created in the past are…

• Go on one “date” with each of my daughters once a month
• Pay off all my consumer debt
• Write a book
• Get up at 5:01 a.m. every day
• Lead ten men to Christ
• Take my wife on a trip to Europe for our 25th anniversary
• Lose 30 pounds

Examples of “lead domino” CHURCH goals I’ve created in the past are…

• Baptize 50 people
• Break through the 400 barrier
• Sponsor our 200th child in Kenya
• Transition our church plant from an outside Management Team to an internal Elder Team
• Hire a Group’s Pastor
• Buy land

3. Turn Your Annual Goals Into Prayer Affirmations

Now, this is going to sound “out there” for some of you, but trust me on this.

I want you to turn those annual goals into a list of daily “prayer affirmations” that you will go to the throne room of God every day and beg God to see fulfilled.

For instance, here’s what such a list might look like for a Senior Pastor of a church of 275 in Illinois:

With God’s strength and for His glory…

• I will weigh 215 pounds.
• I will pay off all my credit card debt and save $10,000 in my 403(b).
• I will take my wife on a date every other week.
• I will read one book a week.

With God’s strength and for His glory…

• I will lead Grace Church to 375 in attendance.
• I will lead Grace Church to baptize 50 people.
• I will lead Grace Church to hire a full-time Children’s Pastor.
• I will lead Grace Church to make a by-law change to a policy-governance model of oversight.

Your list will no doubt be different.

And FYI – make sure each annual goal has been turned into the positive form (ex. “I will weigh 215 pounds” vs. “I will lose 37 pounds”).

4. Place These Prayer Affirmations EVERYWHERE And Pray Them Continually

I have taken my daily prayer affirmations and placed them into my iPhone Reminders app, so the first thing I see when I grab my phone and go to the restroom in the morning are my prayer affirmations.

You might think I’m nuts if you were standing there with me. I pull my phone out, and sometimes I’ll quietly pray through them 3-4 times. Other times, I’m shouting to God over and over again: “With YOUR strength and for YOUR glory, I will…”

I have these prayers saved as the desktop image on my MacBook Pro laptop, on my iMac desktop, and on my iPad.

You might want to attach them to your bathroom mirror, so they’re the first thing you see in the morning.

Maybe you could tape them on the back of your office door. You could have them texted or emailed to you daily.

The key is to put them EVERYWHERE.

So why do I personally do this?

I do this because I believe the most important thing I can do as a leader is figure out what God wants us to do NEXT, pick up my cross, and make it happen.

I also do this because picking up my cross, for me, means doing whatever it takes to change my behavior.

If I don’t keep God’s MOST IMPORTANT goals for the church and me in front of me at all times, I’ll stray. I just don’t have enough willpower to stay focused without daily reminders.

Three months will pass, and I will have done a whole bunch of things, but most will have had virtually no bearing on the dreams God has for me and the church I serve.

The enemy will have seduced me into believing that the good feeling I get when I get to inbox zero is an acceptable substitute for risking everything I have for the kingdom.

Most importantly, I do this because I believe heaven and hell hang in the balance.

And while going on a date with my daughters twice a month or leading ten men to Christ may not sound like much, especially in the celebrity church world, these are the dreams God has for MY life.

And I’m going to do everything I possibly can to stay focused and passionate, so I can accomplish them.

With HIS strength.

And for HIS glory.

The post The Game Changer: Annual Goals And Daily Prayer Affirmations appeared first on ChurchPlanting.com.

I said WHEN you lose confidence in yourself.

It’s going to happen. You WILL lose confidence in yourself. Multiple times over the years in fact. It is not a matter of IF but WHEN.

The question is, why?

In my experience, Senior Pastors lose confidence in themselves when they are unable to lead their congregations to grow numerically, increase their offerings, and generate conversions.

Changing Attendance is Harder Than You Think

Offerings and conversions are unquestionably the easiest things to change in the life of a church.

You can change your financial situation in a matter of months. If you’re willing to follow the admittedly hard-to-hear advice I have in my article “What To Do When Facing A Massive Budget Shortfall” and combine that advice with THIS article and THIS one, you’ll change your financial situation in 90 days. I promise.

Conversions? That can change in 90 days as well. If you’re willing to do THIS and THIS and THIS AND THIS, things will change almost immediately.

But changing a church’s attendance is about as easy to fix as that underperforming restaurant in your area that’s been in decline for years.

Things won’t change for that Chinese restaurant by whipping up a new Kung Pao Chicken recipe or printing new menus. There are systemic things to address, like location, management, branding, supply chain management, facility appearance, maintenance, etc.

The list of things to address is massive, and rarely does one know where to start first. Like Senior Pastors of declining churches, the owners are busy running the restaurant putting out fires, and trying to keep everyone paid in the midst of mounting personal despair.

After helping dozens of Senior Pastors like yourself find a path forward, I’ve learned ten undeniable truths about church attendance – the way churches decline, how they pull out of a spiral, and what this does to a Senior Pastor’s soul in the process.

Ten Undeniable Truths About Church Attendance

1. Once a church’s attendance stagnates, it’s about 50-50 whether they’ll ever actually grow again. Most churches reach a certain attendance threshold and then stay there until the church disbands. Chances are that whatever attendance you’re at right now, you will NEVER grow beyond that.
2. No matter how bad it is right now, it’s only going to get worse with time.
3. Even if you want to grow again, it takes 3-5 years to re-engineer the culture, staffing, facility, and resource base needed to make that happen.
4. Since there’s a LONG lag time between the desire to grow and the ability to grow, frustration quickly mounts, and it’s almost always self-directed frustration by the Senior Pastor.
5. The leaders around the Senior Pastor almost always have more faith in the Senior Pastor than the Senior Pastor does. However, after a few years, even the most loyal of leaders start to get antsy.
6. When this happens, Senior Pastors become outwardly defensive and inwardly depressed. I know because I’ve been there.
7. Few Senior Pastors in this state are willing to make the emotional investment needed to change themselves. That’s because they’re too inwardly obsessed and broken.
8. While the Senior Pastor may not have been the cause of the church’s decline, they will most certainly be the church’s only ticket out of a spiral. Churches will not grow unless their Senior Pastor leads the charge. Period.
9. Unless the point leader can find a way to (a) go out and find the tools/insights needed to lead the church in growth and (b) stay motivated in the 3-5 year “pit of despair” when things are being tried with few tangible results, they’ll eventually give up hope.
10. There’s always hope.

How to Recapture Your Edge

Are you in that long lag time between the desire to grow and the ability to grow?

Let me give you three things to ponder that will help you re-calibrate the frustration you’ve been feeling.

1. Make Sure You’re Comparing Apples to Apples

Much of what passes for church growth these days is either (a) larger churches stealing church members from smaller, under-resourced ones or (b) more entrepreneurial churches “adopting” churches as their campuses.

There’s a ministry friend in the Midwest who is an entrepreneurial genius. He’s a multi-site madman. He approaches dying churches with good properties in towns of 25,000 or less and appeals to them to become a satellite of his church. He then gets the church to deed the property over to his church, hires a campus pastor, rebrands the facility, and pipes his sermons in via satellite every Sunday morning.

It’s a great strategy.

Until people start talking about how amazing he is at “growing” his church.

His church didn’t “grow.” You realize that, right? All he did was re-baptize Sam Walton’s strategy for launching new Walmarts.

Personally, I think this is a GREAT 21st-century evangelism strategy. I laud him for his vision and sacrifice. I especially laud him for his sincere faith and humility.

When in one week, his church “jumps” by 200+ people in attendance, he knows all he did was “take over” a church. He rejects any comparisons because he knows that comparing your singular non-growing church to his is comparing apples to oranges. He fights against this comparison with every ounce of his being.

I have another ministry friend in Texas whose church is one of the fastest-growing churches in the country. It’s one of those churches everyone visits and fawns over for his amazing leadership and clarity of vision.

The problem is I know him. When a Senior Pastor of a megachurch down the road – a church five times his size – faced hard times, he told me, “His people have started visiting my church. I’m going to go after them. I need their giving.”

Sure enough, three years later, his church had literally doubled in size and was on the list of “fastest-growing churches” in America list.

I bring up these two examples to simply ask: are these the people you’re comparing yourself to?

If so, STOP IT.

You must compare apples to apples, and you’ll find that when you do, the absolute vast majority of Senior Pastors who are in your shoes are facing the EXACT kinds of situations you’re facing.

So, turn the shame volume in your head down a few notches and take Third Eye Blind’s advice and “step back from that ledge, my friend.”

You don’t suck as a leader.

You are normal.

2. Create Your Own Conferences/Learning Experiences.

One of the keys to finding a path forward as a congregation is for you to stare at yourself in the mirror and admit to yourself that you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing.

I mean that.

Tell yourself, “I haven’t the foggiest idea what to do next.”

Nothing happens until you get to that point because until you can admit that to yourself, you can rest assured that you’re not hungry. You don’t really want it bad enough to go out and find the answers. You’re not in search mode yet.

The problem is that most elder-board situations aren’t healthy enough for you to just blurt that out at your next meeting.

Instead, you have to find people OUTSIDE of your church with which to bear your soul and from which to seek objective advice.

Besides coaching, one of the best ways to do that is to create your own conference. Early May is one of the best times to plan a trip like this for late summer.

About six years ago I stopped going to Exponential and other regional church conferences for pastors – not because I don’t find them inspiring (they always are), I just don’t find the information shared very practical for my specific situation.

What I decided to do was “create my own” conference each year.

Here‘s what I did:

• I picked a large metro area where I could easily find a ton of churches.
• I located churches that had recently grown through the same attendance barrier we were facing.
• I then set up meetings with the Senior Pastors of 8-10 of those similar-sized churches. I created a list of questions I asked each of them and then ended by sharing my situation. I asked them, “If you were in my shoes, what would you do?”
• Then I had that Senior Pastor take me on a tour of their facility. I stole all their literature and took a million pictures and videos to take back home.

In the last six years, I’ve been to Orlando, Los Angeles (twice), Las Vegas, Northern California, Denver/Colorado Springs, and Dallas. I simply took the same amount of money that I would have spent on a conference and created my own.

There are some very practical benefits to making these trips.

1. I realized I wasn’t the terrible leader I had convinced myself I had become at each barrier I faced.
2. I had a ton of fun. I made three appointments in the mornings/early afternoons and then did fun sightseeing stuff in the late afternoons and evenings.
3. I realized I have to “see” a place. I have to walk into an auditorium at the next stage of growth. I need to count the parking spaces. I need to sit in on their staff meeting and see how it looks with a few more people at the table.
4. It greatly helped my staff and elder board to “see” these churches as well. I’ve gone back to the videos and pictures from these churches countless times. “Need an idea for what to do to that kids’ classroom? Here, look at Eastside or First Christian’s color scheme. It’s really cool.”
5. These trips gave my wife and I an opportunity to fall in love with ministry again. Words cannot express what it meant to us when Rick Stedman and his wife Amy took the time to meet with us over lunch so many years ago. They were such an encouragement. Suddenly we didn’t feel alone.

3. Refuse to Play the Victim

I get it.

In 2008, the same month the stock market crashed, we broke ground on a $6,000,000 facility expansion.

In a matter of 9 months, we went from a rapidly growing congregation garnishing national attention to a church whose lender couldn’t pay the contractor’s bills.

Over the next four years, I went through personal ministry hell.

Attendance flatlined.

Staff had to be fired.

We burned through every cent we had and accumulated $500,000 in unpaid accounts payable.

I gained weight.

Became depressed.

Went on an anti-depressant.

And dug an emotional hole in which to crawl and simply hang on and survive.

If it weren’t for the amazing leaders on my Leadership Team, I simply wouldn’t have made it.

When did it turn around?

The day I admitted to my Leadership Team, I had no idea what I was doing, but that I was going to visit other churches and find out. In fact, over the next four years, I visited 30 different churches around the country. Over time I found a path forward and found my confidence again.

More specifically, things turned around for me and the church the day I stopped viewing myself as a victim facing impossible circumstances and instead began to view myself as a leader who wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

It turned around the day I got pissed.

And came out swinging.

Read more blog posts by Brian Jones

The post What To Do When You Lose Confidence In Yourself appeared first on ChurchPlanting.com.

Yet, if someone were to ask us how we’re doing, we’d be lying if we didn’t say that’s how we spend the majority of our week. We race from one “oh, that’s good enough” partially finished task to the next.

In his book The Contemplative Pastor, Eugene Peterson said there’s a reason he throws away any mail he receives that is addressed to the “busy pastor.” Not that that doesn’t describe us at times, for it surely does, but because, as Peterson says, “I refuse to give my attention to someone who encourages what is worst in me.”

Why Become A Minimalist Pastor?

Some Senior Pastors I coach tell me they thrive on high-stress pressure. I tell them that the extra 30 pounds they’re carrying, or their superficial relationships, or their mediocre sermons week after week would beg to differ.

Jesus had a center from which he operated which was perfectly still, unmarred by the waves around him. He knew what he was called to do, made decisions accordingly, then acted to the best of his ability, and never felt rushed.

Jesus is our model, not that guy on the stage at the last conference we attended. That guy – you know the one – the guy who built that supermassive church in under three months flat and is on the covers of all the magazines in church world.

Let me let you in on a little secret: that guy is miserable. Trust me. I rub shoulders with these guys, and they’re not what they appear.

The high-rising celebrity has won the battle and lost the war.

That guy is not someone you want to be like, no matter how big his church gets, how many book contracts he signs, or how cute/special/endearing/meaningful his Instagram feed (that his assistant runs) appears.

Here’s the thing – the problem is not that guy. We know that guy is a mess.

The problem is us.

Your Life Doesn’t Have To Be Chaotic

If we’re perfectly honest, we are that guy, just without the sizzle.

Deep down, we want to switch seats with that guy – to be where the action is and growth is happening. And who wouldn’t?

Here we are in our boring, flat-lined, stale church that’s going nowhere in the town that we hate, so we pay money to hear guys like this implicitly tell us how we can be like him.

The mistake we make is thinking that that kind of frenetic lifestyle is what is demanded to create kingdom growth.

I’m telling you it’s not, at least not the kind of sustainable growth that helps people who are legitimately far from God grow into self-feeding and reproducing disciples of Jesus.

That kind of growth takes a different kind of Pastor altogether.

That kind of growth demands an uncluttered one. One that is free from distraction.

That kind of Pastor is never busy.

That kind of Pastor has time.

That kind of Pastor doesn’t feel rushed.

That’s because that kind of Pastor has embraced the spiritual concept of minimalism.

From Clutter To Centeredness

Our physical surroundings are simply a manifestation of the decisions we make and the processes we allow to occur around us.

Crammed calendars, overstuffed bookshelves, credit cards with balances, random files stored everywhere on our laptops – it all comes from one place – our conscious choice.

We’ve chosen to live this way.

In his book Confessions, Augustine said, “The punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder.”

In other words, our disordered minds create disorder around us, and that disorder manifests itself in the very things that end up imprisoning us – both spiritually and physically.

If our heads have been allowed to function for too long in a dizzying mess of randomness and shallowness, then pretty soon, our physical surroundings will begin to reflect the disordered states of our minds.

Centered Pastors do not have cluttered desks.

Centered Pastors do not have overbooked calendars with zero whitespace for contemplation.

Centered Pastors do not feel the need to say yes to every opportunity.

Centered Pastors do not finish their sermons at the end of the week.

Minimalism In Action

I have dedicated the next two years of my life to systematically minimalizing every aspect of my life and ministry.

What do I mean by minimalism?

Minimalism is consciously stripping away the extraneous things in my life to make room for God’s best for me, my family, and my church.

I’m decluttering, divesting, leaving, giving away, selling, and saying no to countless things in my life right now, all in the attempt to make room for God’s best.

I’m only about a 1/10th of the way into my journey with this, but here are some of the things I have minimalized so far:

Daily Priorities

Ten years ago, if you asked me what I did, I would have pulled out a long sheet of paper highlighting my priorities and goals, blah blah blah.

Today if you ask me what I do I can actually tell you. I don’t need a piece of paper to help you understand my complex, convoluted thought process.

I get up and write, and then I work out, then I pray. Then I do 1-2 tasks at my desk; then I meet with staff and leaders, then I coach. Then I spend time with my family, read, and go to bed.

That’s what I do every day.

Weight

I hired a trainer and a dietician and slowly stripped away the extra 47 pounds I was carrying. I sleep better and have tripled my energy. My disordered body was simply a reflection of my disordered mind.

Meetings

I went from countless standing meetings in my calendar, as well as the seemingly endless impromptu meetings I would randomly schedule every week, to just three. No meetings on Mondays. If what God has called me to do can’t be done in those three meetings, then what I feel pressured to do isn’t from God. My staff knows if I catch wind of carelessly thrown-together meetings, they will hear me say loud and clear, “Plan better. Use the existing meetings you already have in place. This is an endurance race, not a sprint.”

Books

This past Wednesday, I held a “book party” at my house and gave away my entire library except for three commentaries for each Bible book and my collection of spiritual classics. THAT. WAS. PAINFUL.

Desk Space

I purchased a standing-sitting Varidesk and love it, and nothing but the bare minimum exists in my workspace area.

Unplugged Wires

Nothing remains in an electrical socket overnight unless it is absolutely needed. Not only is this a draw on electricity, wasting precious resources, but it is also a sign of disorder. Waste is always the first sign of disorder.

Screens

I eliminated every unused app that had been sitting on my iPhone and have condensed everything so that it fits on one screen on just three lines (no swiping to the right or left to find things). On my iPad, I have eliminated every app (including email, messages, etc.) except for YouTube and Netflix. I use my iPad for viewing programs while I work out on the elliptical and nothing else, so why have the distraction?

Sermon Writing

I used to brag about how much time I spent on my sermons. What a blowhard. Now my sermons are done by noon on Monday, and they are the highest quality messages I’ve ever preached in my life.

Social Media

I have no social media apps on my cell phone. Enough said.

Computer Files

I have moved ALL my files on my laptop to Dropbox so I can share them between all my devices, as well as share certain files with my co-workers. Doing this has dramatically decreased the time spent locating and sharing files. For instance, everyone involved in planning services can access my sermon in real-time in Dropbox. They can follow its progress and know where to access it later for slides, etc.

File Organization

Not only have I streamlined the location of my files to Dropbox, but I’ve begun purging the endless number of files I’ve accumulated over the years. I’m moving important ones to an external hard drive.

My Car

I’ve removed everything except the bare minimum in my car’s glove box, center console, and trunk space.

Nightstand

Nothing but a Bible and my Kindle sits next to my bed.

Wardrobe

I donated almost my entire wardrobe to Goodwill and now have a streamlined closet. No more bulging drawers. I purchased quality hangers that allow me to clip my pants and hang them without wrinkling. I own three pairs of dress pants for church and an assortment of high-quality shirts that will last. I got rid of the bazillion unmatched socks I had in my drawer and reduced my workout shorts to seven pairs of shorts and shirts to work out in each week. Every piece of clothing has a purpose and makes me happy when I wear it. If I don’t like it and look good wearing it, it’s gone.

Church Office

Ten years ago, if you walked into my church office, you would have been greeted by a ring of bookshelves, floor to ceiling, that walled the perimeter of the room.

Now when you walk into my office, 80% of the room is taken up by five big lounge chairs and a coffee table in the middle. Why? Because that’s what I value.

There are lots of other things that are on my to-do list to attend to, but these are a few of the highlights so far.

The Benefits of Pursuing Minimalism

I’ve only just begun the process of minimalizing my life and consciously stripping away the extraneous things to make room for God’s best for me, my family, and my church, but the process of decluttering and divesting myself has been transformative.

First off, I have white space in my weekly calendar to live a deep life. I have time for prayer. I have time to read. I have time to evangelize leaders in my community. I have emotional space in my week to reflect and live in a centeredness that allows me to spring into action and attack problems when needed. The difference between where I am now, and the place where I used to lead from, is intentionality. I am not responding to problems as much as I am thinking of steps to take before problems can occur.

Second, my physical surroundings are slowly beginning to take on the characteristics of my inner world. Rooms, closets, desks, drawers, and files are becoming clear. It’s clear why I have them. Everything serves a purpose and is of high quality, whether it is a future sermon illustration or a shirt.

Questions To Ask As You Minimalize

Here are some questions that I’m finding helpful as I strip away the extraneous things in my life to make room for God’s best:

Do I Have Two Of These?

I’ve been haunted as of late by Dorothy Day’s comment that “If you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor.”

I’m looking at where we have two of everything. Do we really need two large ladles when one will do? Why three large bowls when one will do? Do I need that extra coat when a homeless person in downtown Philadelphia could be wearing it right now?

Does This Have A Purpose?

Minimalizing my life, for me, is not about getting rid of stuff for the sake of getting rid of stuff. For me, it is about getting rid of the stuff that creates noise, clutter, and undue expense.

So I’m constantly asking myself, “Why do I own this? Do I need it? Did I simply buy this on impulse? Would selling it or giving it away create much-needed space in my life?

Anything that doesn’t have a specific purpose is dead weight. Leave it behind.

Does This Bring Me Joy?

I want more joy in my life, and the funny thing is, as I’ve gone from room to room, file to file, drawer to drawer, I’ve paid closer attention to what makes me joyful.

Many of the things I thought would bring me joy, upon closer examination, do not.

For instance, expensive meals do not bring me joy, but the adventure of finding obscure and unique restaurants around Philadelphia does.

Crap in my basement and garage (not surprisingly) does not bring me joy. That’s gotta go.

Debt does not bring me joy. Gotta go. Every penny of it.

Three hours of TV does not bring me joy, but one hour spent on a great show I love does.

Saying yes to everyone who asks to meet with me does not bring me joy. Getting people the help they need does.

The Path Forward

I don’t know what journey you’re on right now, but I would love for you to join me in this pursuit of minimalism.

What could happen in your life, your family, and your church if you consciously stripped away the extraneous to make room for God’s best?

Just imagine what your life could be like.

More is not better.

Better is better.

Read more blog posts by Brian Jones

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