Don’t bother denying it—we know it’s true because Rev! Magazine’s managing editor witnessed this reality at last year’s National Pastor’s Convention in Nashville. The audience of about 2,000 pastors, staff, and spouses listened attentively and responded with respectful applause as various renowned preachers and Christian writers presented excellent speeches. But their response to Bob Cates, a Christian comedian and juggler, was a stark contrast.

Cates performed the classic vaudeville routine of spinning ceramic plates on sticks. In Cates’ version, though, each stick was numbered, and each plate represented an aspect of a pastor’s life. Plate #1 represented hearing the call of God; plate #2, going to seminary; plate #3, starting a pastorate; plate #4, getting married and having kids; plate #5, finding new material to preach every Sunday; plate #6, managing a church building project; and plate #7, attending board and committee meetings…and so on and on.

At Cates’ urging, the crowd hollered out the sticks’ numbers whenever they saw plates begin to falter. Cates darted to and fro, frantically trying to keep everything going and adding plate after plate until more than a dozen were spinning.

For comic effect, at about 15 plates, he reached for a bottle of water and took a swallow, and said he was experiencing a “spiritual retreat.” Behind him the plates wobbled precariously, and the crowd screamed at him to move instead of just standing there. Back to spinning the plates he went, adding more and more. By the end of his routine, he had 30 plates spinning, and he was visibly perspiring.

Cates then quickly gathered all the plates and concluded the act with a statement to the effect of “And that, pastors, is your life!”

The audience leapt up in wild applause, screaming, “Amen!” and “Yes, preach it, brother!” Perhaps it was because every pastor (and spouse) there could identify with the entertainer’s frantic scramble to keep a growing number of plates spinning—knowing that if anything went wrong, some or all of the wobbling plates would fall and shatter on the stage. (For a sample video of Bob Cates doing his juggling, go to www.comedyinmotion.com.) >>>>

It’s Not About Time—It’s About Priorities
Unlike Bob Cates’ vaudeville shtick, your ministry never ends. There are always people to care for, worship guests to follow up on, sermons to prepare, meetings to attend, and emails and phone calls to return. How do you manage it all?

Priorities-management in ministry is more important than traditional clock administration. “Don’t count time—make time count” the wise saying goes. Unless you stop and reflect on your priorities, you’ll get sucked into the ministry whirlpool and have less to show for all of your activity.

Priorities-management also respects the spiritual discipline of stewardship. God gives us the time to accomplish what’s important. “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, for he grants sleep to those he loves” (Psalm 127:1-2). You’ve probably preached on that text. Practicing it is another matter. Getting better at getting things done is often overlooked because, well, we’re so busy trying to get things done that we don’t take the time to actually get better at it.

It’s Tempting to Putter When No One’s Looking
Many pastors putter around with their ministry like a weekend mechanic tinkering around on a classic car. Anyone can fiddle around at the church office, open junk mail, email at will, file papers, answer the phone, hide in the study, and shoot the breeze. Why? For some, no one’s holding them accountable. For others, they’re not sure what they should be doing.

Most of us pastors are our own bosses. Unlike many jobs, pastors often have large chunks of time to use with discretion. The upside of this flexible schedule allows us to run errands, attend to our kids’ appointments and events, come in late after a long evening meeting the day before, or take long lunches. The downside of flextime is that we sometimes work very long hours. We skimp on family time to connect with people around their work schedules. And no one’s looking, except of course, the One who’s omniscient. The One sees us when we choose faithful priorities–and also when we choose laziness.

Confronting our practices at priorities-management takes courage. Here are 10 tough but honest principles for being good stewards of the time God’s given us.

1) Perform triage and stick to the plan.
When emergency rooms have too many patients, a triage nurse assigns priorities for treatment. There will usually be more worthy needs in your church than you can handle alone. Therefore, you must become a “triage nurse.” You need to be able to see the tasks and potential ministry opportunities that will yield a good benefit, and place those items first on your list.

Never confuse busyness with productivity. You can run ragged chasing items that yield small returns while leaving big profit options on the sideline. At the start of each ministry week, invest 30 minutes writing (because this articulates one’s thinking) the tasks you need to accomplish and why they benefit the church the most. At the start of each day, take 10 minutes to think through the day and assign approximate time allotments for each task. This is not a to-do list. This is a productivity estimate. Then work this plan unswervingly unless genuine emergencies appear.

2) Use your gifts, but not exclusively.
God’s endowed each of us with a very limited number of gifts. In addition, we vary in the degree of gifting. On top of that, the fertility of the soil in which we minister varies. That means you’re most effective when you invest most of what you do around your gifts. Recruit volunteer or paid staff to handle what needs to get done that doesn’t match your gifts.

Because we gravitate toward doing what we’re gifted to do, we run the risk of avoiding what’s needed in areas in which we’re not gifted. For example, many pastors invest 20 or more hours a week to prepare sermons. They enjoy the academic research, the nuances of Hebrew and Greek, the surfing in print and the Web for dynamic illustrations, and the bringing it all together in the writing of the manuscript.
In reality, they could probably yield the same ministry results in half the time (or less) and invest the remaining hours in more strategic areas such as equipping potential leaders. Sermons usually accomplish a lot less than we’d like them to, and more would get done for the reign of God by investing ourselves in staff and leaders. But for gifted preachers, the latter usually isn’t as enjoyable.

3) Apply a “two-thirds” time estimate.
We get more done the week before and after a vacation than normal. The reason is that time pressures force us to do a better job at prioritizing. Most tasks are time sponges—they absorb the time given to them.

The key is to work as if you had two-thirds the time to accomplish a task than you think you will. Thus, if you think a task will take three hours, assign it two and work with the two-thirds deadline in mind. You will learn to cut back on the “getting ready” stage and the “finishing touches” stage, both of which tend to eat up too much time.

There are exceptions to this rule, such as overestimating what you can accomplish in a given day, so that you’re always running behind or performing sloppily. (This will be addressed in items #7 and #10.) In general, less time equates to leaner work.

4) Use nonfamily time “pockets” effectively.
When you’re home, be home. We’ve all felt the tension that comes when we’re out on a date with our spouse or spending time with the kids, and our mind remains in ministry. The discipline of leaving work at the door is very difficult in ministry. To do so, find hidden pockets of time—such as early mornings, late nights, or lunch hours—when you can read or write without interruption. Cut an hour off your sleep pattern if you can. Go into the office an hour before others. Putting an hour or two a day “in your pocket” creates extra ministry effectiveness over the long haul.

5) Create a stop-doing list.
We all create some sort of to-do list, but perhaps more important is discerning what we should stop doing that’s wasting time and energy. These things are difficult to perceive on our own because we’re all a bit distorted in our thinking. New things can’t get done if we’re overdrawn by current or past commitments. We must let go of Egypt if we’re to embrace Canaan. Part of “butchering sacred cows” is to delegate important tasks so that they get done—but not by us. Delegating or deleting an activity from our schedule doesn’t always come easily. If we delegate, we risk that the delegatee will drop the ball. If we delete, it may feel like an admission that perhaps we shouldn’t have been doing it all.

Right now, write your top three “stop doing” items, and decide whether to delegate them or delete them.

6) Schedule “quadrant two” activities weekly (or you’ll pastor weakly).
In pastoral ministry, the urgent often trumps the important. However, merely reacting to situations is rarely effective over the long run. Jesus avoided being controlled by others’ agendas (such as Mary’s “urgent” fear about the wine shortage at the Cana wedding). He was constantly teaching his followers to think of more important things than temporary urgencies. We need to practice what he practiced (and preached).

A pastoral variation of Stephen Covey’s “Time Management Matrix” can help us categorize our activities into four quadrants based on urgency and importance. Quadrant two items are important, but lack urgency, so that they’re often overlooked. As a result, we fail to get around to things that will benefit our people because we’re consumed with putting out fires. Quadrant two activities include leadership (such as visioning, recruiting, and nurturing leaders), personal growth (such as prayer, spiritual reading, and exercise), and proactive planning (such as sermon outlines six months out, strategic analysis three years in advance).

7) Invest time with The Boss.
I love the cartoon that shows a pastor kneeling for prayer in the study, being interrupted by the secretary who says, “Oh good, you’re not busy.” Sometimes we wonder what others will think of us when we’re not in our office because we’re praying in the sanctuary. We feel we should be doing something.

Mark 1:35-39 presents a defining moment for those of us in ministry. Jesus arose early to pray alone. When he returned, the disciples told him about numerous people who’d been waiting for him. Instead of agreeing to their request or even considering the bad press he’d receive by not meeting with the people, he instructed them to go to another place. Because he’d invested time with his Father, Jesus knew what needed to be done. It wasn’t what his “staff” or “church members” thought he should do. Our minds race to people, tasks, and pressures, so that our prayer time seems unproductive. “Wasting” time with God isn’t an option for us. It’s a required minimum. Prayer is not preparing for work—it is our work.

8) Be a ministry factor—not a ministry manufacturer.
Think of yourself as a local seminary equipping ministers, not a local minister turning out acts of service. Exodus 18 depicts an all-too-common pastoral scenario. Moses is burning the candle at both ends caring for the people, and the people still aren’t satisfied. They wait in line for hours and still don’t get to him because he’s run out of time. In one of the Bible’s most memorable coaching scenes, Jethro names the problem and suggests a solution. The problem was that there was only so much of Moses to go around. The solution was to raise up and train others to meet the needs of the people. This managerial principle is as old as history, but like Moses, we have to learn it for ourselves to do our jobs effectively.

In Acts 6, we see the same thing happening when the care ministry needed attention. Instead of abandoning their call to preach, the apostles assigned the responsibility to seven new deacons. The apostles neither let it go nor rescued it themselves. Ephesians 4:12 says that the role of the pastor is to “equip God’s people for works of service.” The result is maturity. Churches are filled with immature Christians, not so much because of inadequate preaching, but because of a lack of equipping. For some reason, we’ve bought into the ministry paradigm where we “do” ministry (like Moses) instead of recruiting, training, and unleashing ministers. Look at your schedule and figure out how you can invest at least one quarter of your work time in discipling and training ministry leaders. For many of us, it means humbly embracing the idea that we’re not as important as we think, that others do not “need” us to fix their lives. We serve a better purpose if we raise up others, even though they will receive the joys from serving people as we assume a background role. There will still be plenty for pastors to do.

9) Hold yourself accountable for ministry goals.
Lone wolves don’t enjoy being held accountable. A Rev! Magazine survey showed that only about half of pastors even had a job description. More baffling was that most of those who didn’t have a job description didn’t want one. However, it’s well established that we do better when there are clear, established expectations for which we’re held accountable. There are myriad ways to ensure accountability. Use touch-base forms in weekly meetings with staff. Provide the church governing body a written report at each of its meetings. Secure a “coach” and keep written goals and objectives. If we have someone with whom we have to give an account on a regular basis, we are far more apt to get things done >>>> as well as focus on what is most productive.

Lack of ministry accountability creates numerous problems. Lay people are less willing to help us be accountable because they usually don’t understand the pastoral role. Many are consumed with their own lives and are often intimidated by spiritual leaders. Start by never saying, “I’m only accountable to God.” Set out specific, public organizational goals as well as personal goals. Attach rewards, such as pay raises, time off, and other perks and benefits, to accomplishing the goals set out in public.

10) Show no mercy for time wasters.
Like a leaky faucet, time wasters can quietly drain us of valuable resources. If we’re not diligent, we become lulled by the tides of ministry. After a few years we grow accustomed to the highs and lows, and we can become aloof to time and energy wasters. Admit that you’re doing things that are not producing fruit for the harvest. All of us have habits and activities that begin to eat more and more of our creative energy. Look for these leaky faucets. Ask those you admire what they do to maximize their efforts and learn new ways of accomplishment.

The goal is not more hard work, but more effective priorities. Priorities-management requires wrestling honestly with what matters most and confessing our flirtation with laziness and waste. With discipline, and with God’s help, we’ll know which ministry opportunities are less important than others.

Remember the ultimate goal: to hear The Boss say to you, “Well done thou good and faithful servant. Way to gidder done!”

ALAN NELSON is the executive editor of Rev! Magazine and the pastoral ministry champion at Group Publishing. He’s invested more than 20 years in getting things done as a church pastor. His most recent book is Coached by Jesus: 31 Life-Changing Questions Asked by the Master (Howard Publishing).

Dinner and a Movie
Arrange for your staff, leadership team, and spouses to eat dinner together and watch The Preacher’s Wife. Then discuss these questions:

• Why does this unhealthy stereotype of a pastor tend to be common?
• What were some of the things that the preacher might have done through others?
• What almost happened to the preacher’s marriage when he became “wedded” to the church?
• How do you differentiate between work and God, when your work is God’s church?

What Helps Me…
Communicate frequently but on your schedule. Concentrated, uninterrupted work time is very important. I only return emails at two preset times a day so that I’m not disturbed by them or constantly wondering, “Who emailed me?” My secretary knows that I only return phone calls during a certain hour each day so that I’m not at the disposal of everyone else’s schedule. The secretary informs the people in advance so that they can count on a response, but they also come to value my time.

Have an open door policy. That means that anyone can talk to me, but I don’t keep my door open, so that I’m not interrupted all the time. My staff and lay leaders know they can schedule a time to see me. I informally touch base with staff in the office halls and spend intentional time shooting the breeze a few minutes daily. This keeps me in touch with them while reserving a majority of my time focused on ministry tasks.

–Stan Toler, senior pastor, Trinity Church of the Nazarene, Oklahoma City

What Helps Me…
Keep the spring unclogged. My energy, attitude, and perspective are directly connected to the vitality of my relationship with God. One of the things I do is to take regular spiritual retreats (five times a year). The primary posture of my soul for the first day and a half is that of listening to God. I push my agenda, my concerns, my planning, and my handling of all the levers and knobs of ministry into the last quarter of the retreat. I go for long, wandering walks where I try to become attentive to God’s presence. I believe that God doesn’t always want to tell us stuff—but actually enjoys simply being with us. Without these retreats, I would lose touch with a part of my heart that needs that particular type of nurture.

Listen to your spouse. My wife is a great barometer on the work/home balance. Yet, she’s found that it’s much better to say to me, “I miss you. I need you in my life more. I feel distant from you,” instead of saying, “Hey, you’re working too much. You’re never home. Aren’t we important anymore?” She informs me of what she needs rather than telling me what to do.
Flow with the seasonality of ministry. We can’t run the tachometer of our lives in the yellow and red zone week after week. There are times we do need to push it—for me it’s September, Christmas, January, and Easter. A lot of energy is expended during these times. But there are more idled back times as well—the week between Christmas and New Years, some weeks in the summer, even in May when many ministries wind down a bit. It’s okay not to have meetings every night during these weeks. Don’t feel guilty about it. Just go home and enjoy your backyard, your neighbors, and your hobbies.

–Dennis Anderson, associate pastor, Crossroads Community Church, Loveland, Colorado

What Helps Me…
Get a life coach. My life coach recently challenged me with the question, “What would success look like to you in five years—personally and vocationally?” From the answers to that question, I was able to identify some specific dreams God’s given to me, dreams that I have not “had the time” to pursue. Then I scheduled a few hours each week for that pursuit. The result has been renewed energy and focus in ministry.

–Alan Kraft, senior pastor, Christ Community Church, Greeley, Colorado

What Helps Me . . .
Focus on The 1 Thing. In seminary, my worship professor once asked our class, “With all of the tasks facing you today, and knowing you cannot possibly get them all done, how do you choose what to do?” Students offered a variety of responses, including: “Get my work done for your class.” “Prepare my sermon.” “Get organized.” All good responses, she said, and all wrong. She said something to the effect of, “Pastors are to build the community of God. That’s what comes first—and anything on your to-do list that doesn’t build community should go to the bottom of your list.” It’s one of the most memorable things I learned in seminary.

At Group Publishing we believe the building of the community of God is through The 1 Thing, which is a growing relationship with Jesus. (See Luke 10:38-42.) The 1 Thing is simple in theory, but difficult in practice when well-intentioned distracters appear on the scene.

Take a moment to name the distractions and distracters of The 1 Thing. Do the same with your staff and volunteers. Then list simple ways that you and your church can focus or refocus on The 1 Thing.

–Lee Sparks