Priority Pastor

Young Pastors Take More Hits

January 11, 2021 by Admin

Today I want to highlight the fact that young pastors take more hits. I was commenting to somebody a while ago about a young pastor we both knew who was really quite gifted, capable and doing some amazing things in the church was just being dogged at every turn. Individuals inside the church seemed to be interfering and wanting to interfere with what was going on.

I made the comment to this person that very few people know how many hits and how intense the hits are that a lot of our young pastors take on. Young pastors take a lot more hits, and not just young as in age, but new pastors, and even people who are going into the ministry as a second career. They are often not prepared for the way people take shots at them.

How Much Truth Can They Handle?

December 7, 2020 by Admin

I’ve been mulling a bit lately on T-units, also known as truth units. It’s a concept I learned from Sunlife many years ago. The idea being that when you provide a teaching in a ministry setting, you are communicating a unit of truth. A good talk or presentation really has one focal point.

A lot of talks, if you look at them, actually have many points. I’ve noticed a lot of sermons lately actually often would work as two sermons. There’s so much content in there and they’re pretty long. A lot of sermons I’m seeing these days are 45-50 minutes long, and I think it’s important to note that there’s not a lot of preachers who can do it for 45 or 50 minutes and do it well.

Are You Being True To Yourself?

November 23, 2020 by Admin

We’ve come to the end of another transitional role in the community after being here almost two years. We’ll have been here 23 months when all is said and done. In preparation for a move we’ve been shedding, whatever we can shed and I’ve been continuing to scan documents. I’ve dropped another file box worth of documents just in the last weekend.

I came across a file of documents which I’d actually already scanned, but hadn’t tossed out because I wanted to read them through again. These are documents from conferences and sermon notes I’ve done, but they were so good I didn’t want to chuck them out yet, so I’ve been reading them through again and taking more notes as I think about them.

Ministry Amnesty: Your Window Is Closing

October 26, 2020October 21, 2020 by Admin

It is time to get back to business. We figured out how to do ministry online and offline and with various restrictions. We figured out new systems and new tactics, and we’re looking at new software, new hardware, cameras and all kinds of things. But I need to tell you that the amnesty period is pretty much over.

We’ve had this window of time to figure it all out. It is now time to get back to business and revisit our reason for existence. Revisit our purpose and move beyond maintenance mode and move beyond learning new software, new toys, and those kinds of things.

Memo to a New Pastor

October 13, 2020 by Admin

Today I’ve got a short memo to a new pastor. I’m in a transitional role right now as a transitional pastor and we’ve had a successful candidating event, and have a called pastor who is starting in just a few weeks. As we typically do in a transitional role, I will overlap with him for about a month, although it’s not a full time month. Usually it works out to about a week of work handing off documents, having meetings, and giving him a heads up about all the crazy people in the neighborhood, that kind of thing.

I’m thinking of this incoming pastor, and there’s something I often tell young leaders which I think will be relevant for new pastors as well as us older pastors. I want you to think of three different ways of approaching challenges and problems in the church. I want to think in terms of teaching and leading and praying. Teaching, leading and praying. I realize this is a simplification, but just bear with me and you’ll get the point.