As we have pushed forward into the information age, ministry has followed suit in many ways. . . ministry work has evolved so that it isn’t strictly about counseling, facilitating discipleship, teaching on a one-to-one or one-to-some basis. Sophistication in communication resources has allowed growth-oriented ministries to find themselves planning, producing & presenting more content, running more outreach programs, serving more people by collaborating in teams and more.

This has changed the daily routine of ministry work a bit for some.

Have you ever had meetings to plan volunteer training, or leadership lunches, or ministry team retreats?

I’m sure you have at some point, if its not already a regular occurrence in your work.

Are you aware that you’ve gotten to the point where you are meeting about meetings?

Today is a Monday, and it’s typically a meeting-heavy day here.  I already know not to schedule any meaningful calls or meetings with new people on Mondays because I’ll be consumed with various standing meetings.   In the end, Monday’s are not really a day where I “get work done.”  Have you ever felt the same thing?

How do you change this? At least for the people you manage and interact with?

Before you figure it out, here’s a great TED talk where Jason Fried discusses “Why work doesn’t happen at work?” to put it into context:

One of my colleagues at work, Rich Birch, has offered up this response:

The author, Al Pittampalli, is trying to dig one layer deeper than usual to figure out how to radically change our work habits around meeting and productivity.

Rich has arranged an opportunity for us to sit down internally with Al this coming January, and I’m excited to read his book, READ THIS BEFORE YOUR NEXT MEETING — and then interact with him to see how I can activate some of the insights for my own praxis in year ahead.

I definitely want to ramp up productivity in the next year, what about you?

QUESTION: Are you sick of meetings? What do you do *during* your inefficient meetings? Got any tips to make meetings radically useful to everyone that comes? Share your rant or tip below in the comments. I’m looking forward to hearing all of it!

Whether you are in a ministry situation where you are a solo pastor, team-based ministry or non-profit organization, there’s one thing everyone surely shares in common: tons of stuff to do on your plate.

Overworked, burned out ministry leaders are everywhere. You can see them a mile away – they are ineffective, impersonal, rough on the edges and just plain old not fun to be around.

One of the key success factors for a vibrant personal ministry is not taught in seminary: Adapting your own personal workflow so that you become more productive over and over again.

Here is one method that I find very helpful when coaching others that are seeking a way out from the overwhelming demands put on them(selves) in their vocational roles: (more…)

For many churches, the calendar is driven by the academic year because the ministry has many families with kids involved.  And if that’s the case, we’re right at the point where you’ll be rewind the clock and “start over” with your ministry programming this fall.

Aside from the Sunday School and youth ministries, the other parts of the church might also be preparing for a new small group season or new lay leadership team installations, or new . . .

It might all be “new” but at the same time, it can quickly become “old” and repetitive…just the same old thing over and over again year in and year out!

I don’t know about you, but when this happens it can quickly lead to paralysis and lifeless leadership on my own part.

But what can you do about it? Well, just sitting there and playing along isn’t going to solve anything!

Here’s some tips — eye-opening ways of approaching your “job” as a pastor or ministry leader to help “unstick” what’s “stuck” for you right now: (more…)

It’s a new year, and you undoubtedly have a shiny new list of objectives to tackle this coming year. You’ve envisioned how you’re going to make it all happen, how you’re going to engage, how you’re supposed to conduct yourself…but is BEING RUTHLESS on your list? It should be. And oh yes, it’s still going to be a great year.

According to Harvard Business School, one of the big ideas is that how you prioritize your time and energy against your projects and tasks is critical to your potential successs. How true it is.

You have to be RUTHLESS in your prioritization – which means including one more dimension of consideration in your planning: One of the key tips from the HSB article is kind of eye opening for me… Instead of writing down all the stuff you have to do and then do the usual sort, kill and delegate, they recommend including another perspective.

Figure out how much total time you have first to work — treat your time available to work as a limited resource and then you can allocate that accordingly against the priorities you’ve set ruthlessly.

When you figure out exactly where you’re spending your time currently, you’ll mostly likely be surprised. This is what I call the Quicken Effect. When people start using Quicken on the computer to track ALL their spending, and see the graphs and charts showing them exactly where their money is going, they go into utter shock. The spending habits are clearly not in line with their conceptual ones. The same thing goes with where you are spending your time. You are most probably NOT spending your time where you THINK you are.

The suggestion is to take the highest priority tasks and knock those out first taking into consideration how much time you actually have available to work today, this week, this month, etc.

If you take the time to be ruthless first, you’ll have the time and energy to be accomodating in the end.

What other time management tactics do you use to help you make the most of your schedule? Please share one with us in the comment section below!