It was a normal Wednesday — until it wasn’t.

My heart was beating out of control. My Fitbit congratulated me for getting zone minutes. The problem? I wasn’t working out. I was just standing there. My wife took my blood pressure. It wasn’t good. Off to the Emergency Room we went, where they stuck me with needles and couldn’t get my heart rate down after many attempts. I was totally confused: What in the world is happening to me?

Treat the Patient, Not the Number

After sending me to the hospital in an ambulance, I stayed for multiple nights, where they ran tests on me and poked me several times, once around 4:00 am on the top of my hand while I was trying to sleep. I have a high pain tolerance, but that hurt. I had a procedure that Friday morning, and they sent me home roughly that evening after I pushed for it. My back was in debilitating pain from the hospital beds, and I longed to be at home.

I’ve had to wear a heart monitor and take blood thinner meds, and shortly after I post this, I’ll have a follow-up with my cardiologist. While sitting with friends over dinner, a former nurse asked how I was doing. She eventually shared helpful advice: “When I was working in the emergency room, we used to say, ‘treat the patient, not the number.’”

That advice stuck with me. So did the advice from an older saint: “You’re a person, not a number.” She shared that with me after I told her I wasn’t allowed to have caffeine for a week after my procedure. Was she really encouraging me to consider going against the doctor’s orders? I guess life isn’t so black and white after all.

The heart behind “Treat the patient, not the number” is to focus on the particular individual and their needs, not allow the data, heart rate, and lab results to rule all of your decisions. People are complex creatures, and lab results were made for man; man was not made for lab results. “Treat the patient, not the number” and “You’re a person, not a number” are good advice — and surprisingly applicable to pastoral productivity.

Do You Know Your Church Context Well?

After resting for many days at home, I got cabin fever. I was already scheduled to attend the Church Leader Summit Conference in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, with my staff and elders, and was technically cleared to attend, even if I was wearing a heart monitor. So I got off my bed and went. And what a great time we had: we learned about church culture, systems and structures, staff values, and other practical ideas for ministry.

After the conference concluded, however, I went back to my friend’s comment: “Treat the patient, not the number.” Why?

Most of the church leaders who spoke pastored churches of thousands, if not tens of thousands. I couldn’t relate. Neither could most pastors there. So while I learned valuable information, there isn’t a direct one-to-one correlation of utilizing the information in my own ministry context. I must consider my own ministry context before making any changes.

I wonder how many pastors are pastoring a church in their minds, not the actual church they have. I wonder how many pastors make comments in sermons that sound great for short-form video content but are not helpful or relevant for the people they pastor. I wonder how many of us are spending time on the wrong things in our ministries because we are pastoring a church we wish we had or used to have. I wonder how many of us don’t truly know the people God has entrusted to our care and are not intuitive enough to know how to spend our time well.

It is true that in every church the pastor must be godly, lead by example, and prioritize preaching and teaching of the Word. These are non-negotiables for every pastor. But the way a new seminary grad spends his time in his first pastorate will be different from the way John Piper spent his time in his last five years of pastoral ministry. The way a church planter spends his time will differ from the way an associate pastor in an established church spends his time, just like it will be different from the seasoned pastor who is working on revitalizing a church that’s 120 years old. While every pastor must prioritize Word and prayer, from there, what you should spend your time on will depend on your title, experience, geographical location, specific ministry context, and season of your church life. The inability to know your context well and know how to spend your time in relation to your context has rendered many well-intentioned pastors ineffective.

Treat the patient, not the number.

Ministry is Service, not Self-Serving

Church planters, for example, must be able to raise money. If you don’t feel called to raise money, God is not calling you to plant a church. Crucially, church planters must spend their time wisely. They must prioritize their time on preaching, leadership development, evangelism and outreach, hospitality, and raising money, and they are kidding themselves if they think they’re truly productive because they updated the church’s Facebook page once.

Of course, at that stage of ministry, you may not have much help, and church planters must be willing to stack chairs, print bulletins, and send emails. My point is we can mistake busyness for productivity: it is possible to be busy and yet remain ineffective. And just because your favorite celebrity pastor doesn’t lead meetings and spend most of his week in study doesn’t mean you get to do the same.

I’ve had to onboard two new full-time employees in the past 13 months. I had to onboard two part-time employees before that, and now we have two new elders on our team. For me, treating the patient looks like spending more time building relationships with new staff and elders, which means retreats, prolonged meetings, lunches, and recreational activities, and being together a lot. I lean slightly introverted, and I often feel taxed in this ministry season. But I can’t blame my personality for my lack of involvement with the leaders of my church.

A pastoral friend of mine shares the painful story of having to move on from an associate pastor. The associate pastor wanted to do what he wanted to do, not what the lead pastor hired him to do. Eventually, they parted ways.

Why was the associate pastor ineffective? He lacked situational awareness. He was doing ministry in his head, not ministry in real life. He didn’t develop the skill of completing tasks he didn’t feel like doing. He didn’t understand power dynamics in the church. His job existed to serve himself, not the people entrusted to his care.

Ministry is not about always doing what you want to do. It’s about doing what is needed in your particular ministry context. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book Life Together, writes about the wish-dream church. He pushes back against having an idealized vision of Christian community. Bonhoeffer writes: “He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.” Pastors do the same when we are stuck pastoring the church of our dreams rather than the church that we have.

If you want to be productive in ministry, you must pastor the church you have, not the church you wish you had, and spend your time accordingly. This often takes intuition, honest self-assessment, and feedback from other godly voices in your life. While certain aspects of ministry pertain to every pastor, truly effective pastoral ministry comes from knowing your ministry context well and spending your time on what your church most needs in its present ministry season.

Why Use Dictation Software?

To put it simply, it will save you a significant amount of time, enabling you to spend more time on other projects or spend more time doing activities you enjoy.

Let me give you some of the pros and cons of Wispr Flow (and dictation software in general), and you can decide if you want to try it for free for one month.

What I Love About Wispr Flow

I’m a fast thinker, but my typing speed is average at best. So using dictation software helps me spew all my thoughts without slowing down my thinking. Wispr Flow picks up on rambled thoughts and knows when to avoid the “uhs” and “ands.” The AI technology also gives you the correct grammar of what you say, so you don’t need to go back and edit your writing in painstaking detail (although some editing is inevitable). It’s made with specific artificial intelligence that commands it to do the auto-edits. It's like talking to a long-time friend who knows what you’re thinking and helps you finish your sentences.

Wispr Flow claims to be four times faster than typing, and I have found that to be true. For example, if you type 45 words per minute with a keyboard, you'll get 220 words per minute with Wispr Flow (an example they have on their website). This is a drastic difference in speed and output.

As a pastor, you might be thinking about starting a blog or a newsletter or writing a book, but you don't start these projects because you think it will take up too much time. And maybe it will. But if you use a tool like Wispr Flow, you can creatively work on a writing outlet in less time than you may realize.

When I use Wispr Flow, I don't have to tell it to give the right punctuation; it already does it for me. For example, I don't have to say "period!" or "check mark," it just knows. I can even say “put this in bold,” and it will do it without me having to do any extra work. Or you can say “put that last part in parentheses,” and it knows what you're thinking ― it will put those last words in parentheses.

I’ve tried other dictation software. It was moderately helpful. But not nearly as good as Wispr Flow. For example, when using other dictation software, I needed to be utterly clear and even loud when talking for it to understand what I was saying. Sometimes I felt like I was yelling at my computer screen. It was exhausting. Even with a low tone, Wispr Flow understands what you're saying. I suppose that's where the word “wispr” comes from.

Like you, I'm on the receiving end of a high volume of texts and emails. Even as a productivity aficionado, I often feel behind with responding. If I type my responses, I am prone to being abrupt or sharp, treating the inquiry like another task to be done. But with dictation software, it exhibits significantly less mental and emotional energy, so people experience me as more relational, and as a pastor, that is a good thing.

Like many of the new technological tools, I'm sure there are way more features to Wispr Flow than I currently realize. What I've seen so far has impressed me so much that I'm shifting most, if not all, of my writing to it. I even wrote this article with it and plan on using it for Kaywood’s Kitchen.

It’s available on Mac, Windows, and iPhone. You can use it on your iPhone or desktop computer. It’s not available for Android yet, but it appears they’re working on it.

Are There Any Negatives?

Are there any negatives? Possibly.

First, dictation software is helpful if you already know what you want to say, not as a means to help you process your thoughts. I'm an internal processor. I don't need you to help me think, thank you very much. I prefer to process alone and only share thoughts when they're baked.

But if you’re a verbal processor or if you have unclear thinking, you may not want to use dictation software because you'll eventually have to go back and spend too much time editing your thoughts, rendering the dictation software counterproductive. I’m not talking about the basic editing that Wispr Flow can do for you. I'm talking about sentence flow and sentence structure that’s consistently too scattered for any technology to understand. Self-awareness and trial and error will let you know if it’s a good fit for you.

Second, using dictation software is slightly less enjoyable than typing. At least that’s true for me. I don't inherently enjoy sending texts or emails, but I do enjoy writing articles and sermons, and the joy of putting together articles and sermons has lowered slightly, but only slightly.

That said, however, my life goals have changed. Gone are the days when I was single and not a lead pastor, and I had more time to write, read, and think deep thoughts for long, unhurried blocks of time. Those days are gone. Now, as a lead pastor and with two young kids, I barely have time to breathe. While the joy of writing sermons and articles has marginally decreased, my productivity and efficiency are up, so I’m okay with that for the season of life I’m in.

Third, you have to do an extra step when using it on your iPhone. It’s hard to explain, but when using it on your iPhone, Apple requires you to take an extra step of going back and forth between the Wispr Flow app and the app you’re using to dictate your thoughts. It takes a split second, but it's a bit annoying, and Wispr Flow even acknowledges that they hate that Apple makes you do this.

Recommendation

The artificial intelligence era has arrived. There's so much more to AI than just ChatGPT and Claude. We also have resources like Wispr Flow that can increase our personal and pastoral productivity. We should be thankful we live in an era that has this kind of technology, but use it wisely and prudently.

I love using Wispr Flow. I encourage you to at least check it out. You get the pro version for one month free. Here's my affiliate link:

Start Saving Time

Not me. That’s for other pastors.

Me, I’m passionate and resilient. I love the Lord and I’m fired up about doing ministry. I never see myself burning out.

Boy, was I wrong.

I never saw myself coming even close to burning out in ministry. I remember thinking in my early twenties how I would be the exception to the rule because of my zeal for the Lord. Once, at a party, a friend in ministry shared about being burned out, and I couldn’t relate. The truth is, I do have the gift of passion. But passion is a necessary but not sufficient grounds for avoiding pastoral burnout. Pastoral ministry has shown me just how weak I am, and I’ve been on the brink of burnout more than once.

As we begin our fall ministries, now is a good time to ask hard questions about your life and ministry. Although burnout is months and sometimes years in the making, it has a way of creeping up on you unexpectedly.

I offer the following suggestive but not exhaustive list of questions to help provoke healthy introspection under the categories of spiritual, practical, family, physical, and vocational.

Spiritual

1. Do I have a regular devotional time with the Lord? If Satan can’t get you to commit adultery, he’s going to try to make you think you can be effective in ministry for the long haul without regular, unhurried, and prolonged communion with God in private.

2. Am I reading edifying Christian books regularly? As much as I appreciate secular books, a diet of too many secular books and not enough Christian books can shrivel the soul. When’s the last time you read a theology book just to edify you and not because you needed the information to preach and teach?

3. Does sermon preparation energize me, or drain me? Occasionally not feeling like putting together a sermon? That’s normal. But if you regularly feel drained by sermon preparation, you’re probably close to burnout.

4. Am I living in secret sin? Ongoing, unrepentant sin robs you of joy.

Practical

5. Is there any task required of me that I’m avoiding? Usually, it’s a hard conversation. Procrastination is not only a productivity killer, but it also zaps you of your mental and emotional energy.

6. Do I properly recognize the season I’m in? The young pastor who just had a baby should probably do less than the seasoned pastor who is an empty nester. In some seasons, you can write a book and start a podcast and take on responsibility within your denomination. In other seasons, you need to spend more time at home and remove the social media apps from your phone. Know your season.

7. Do I take one day off every week without fail? I sometimes find the theological debates regarding the 4th commandment comical. While these theological debates might be needed, let’s not overlook the plain, obvious, common-sense wisdom: taking one day off per week is good for your soul.

8. Am I properly delegating? It’s more work in the short term, but less work in the long term. The inability to effectively delegate because of your need to be needed or your need to control the ministry will lead to pastoral burnout.

9. Do I regularly feel apathetic? Feeling regularly aloof or emotionally distant is not a sign that you could burn out someday; it’s a sign that you are presently burning out right now. Immediate action (usually time off) followed by changing behaviors and patterns will be needed to recover.

10. Do I check my phone too much? Social media addiction and constant unnecessary Google searching may temporarily help your dopamine levels, but they burn your mental energy and lead to an unsatisfying life.

Family

11. Does my wife still want to do this? If your wife does not feel comfortable in the church you are serving, or does not desire to be a pastor’s wife anymore, it will be difficult for you to endure.

12. Are the needs of my wife and kids so great that I am emotionally taxed and need to step away? Everyone in your family may have been fine when you started ministry, but unforeseen traumatic things could happen later, which may mean you need to step aside to care for your wife and kids.

13. Do I get paid enough? You shouldn’t feel bad for desiring an adequate salary to cover your family's needs, but you should not labor for shameful gain (1 Peter 5:2). It could be that you are mismanaging your money. Or it could mean you should get a raise.

14. Do my wife and I love where we live? You both either need to love where you live or learn to love where you live. It’s hard to have a heart to minister in the city you’re in when you don’t like the city you live in.

Physical

15. Do I exercise regularly? I received a N.A.S.M. certification in sports nutrition and personal training, so health and fitness are near to my heart. You don’t need six-pack abs, but moderate to vigorous exercise at least three times per week will do wonders for your mood and stress levels.

16. How’s my diet? One of the blessings of pastoral ministry is the frequency with which food is available to you in abundance. But it can be a trap. What you eat affects how you feel and your ability to focus deeply.

17. Am I getting 7.5-9 hours of sleep every night? Over a decade ago, John Piper tweeted: “Adequate sleep is not merely a matter of staying in health, it is a matter of surviving emotionally in the ministry.” God doesn’t need sleep. But you do.

18. Do I spend enough time outside? Even if you are not an outdoorsman, enjoying God’s majesty in creation regularly will refresh your soul.

19. Do I have an outlet? Not everything you do needs to be spiritual. Get an outlet, like coaching football or lifting weights, or even gardening or fishing.

Vocational

20. Is this church a good fit for me? Every church is dysfunctional because every church has people in it. A new pastorate might be better for you, but it’s not like there won’t be problems there as well. But you might feel deflated in ministry because you’re not able to use your gifts in ways that energize you. In which case, it might be time to prayerfully consider a new pastoral call.

21. Should I do secular work instead? There’s that old line for ministers, of which I’ll abbreviate: If you can do anything other than be a pastor, then don’t be a pastor. I don’t fully agree with the saying. While a personal desire to be a pastor is an irrefutable prerequisite to be or stay in ministry( 1 Timothy 3:1), at times in your life you may have a desire to participate with Jesus in the renewal of all things through starting a business or leading in a business, in which case you may want to serioulsy explore those desires.

22. Am I trying to get something out of pastoral ministry that God did not promise? At some point when you are young, you watch sermons of John Piper or Tim Keller, and the thought comes to your mind, “I think I want to do that with my life one day.” But inevitably, that desire is matched with an unspoken expectation that you, too, will one day preach to the masses. Then you don’t. Then you realize you may never preach to the masses. Then you have to decide whether you want to stay in ministry or leave, and that may also lead you to wonder if the reason you pursued ministry in the first place was to remove an internal feeling of inadequacy through success in ministry.

    ---

P.S. One of the best ways to avoid pastoral burnout is by stewarding your health. To help you get healthy, I started Kaywood’s Kitchen along with my wife, where our mission is to help you and your family live as healthily as possible — from recipe ideas to non-toxic swaps. If you’d like to learn more, subscribe here:

Kaywood's Kitchen

🍎 Helping you find healthy foods for the family 🛒 Non-toxic swaps & product recommendations 💡Healthy recipe ideas

By Kaywood’s Kitchen

New! Introducing Kaywood’s Kitchen, a new email newsletter started by my wife and I that exists to help you and your family get and stay healthy. You’ll find healthy recipes, food product recommendations, non-toxic swaps, and general health advice. And we’re just getting started. As one who is certified in Sports Nutrition and Personal Training certifications through the National Academy of Sports Medicine (N.A.S.M.), I’m passionate about health and nutrition. In particular, we want to help pastors and their families be as healthy as possible. So subscribe today if this sounds interesting to you.

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Speaking of health, please enjoy this interview with David Mathis.

“Why would a pastor, of all people, write a book about exercise?”

It’s a good question. And it’s how David Mathis, executive editor for Desiring God and pastor at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, begins the introduction of his brand new book, A Little Theology of Exercise: Enjoying Christ in Body and Soul, which releases today from Crossway. The book explores the intersection of Christian faith and personal exercise. Writing about the body and exercise from a Christian perspective can be polarizing and even offensive. Still, Mathis handles an oft-neglected topic well, pleading with the reader to take up exercise for the cause of his or her joy in Christ.

Crossway was kind to send me an advance copy months ago, and Mathis was kind to accept my interview invitation for Pastors & Productivity. You can find our conversation below.

You are a pastor who lacks formal fitness credentials. So why did you write a book on exercise?

God made our bodies and souls, and they are deeply, enigmatically connected. The thoughts and affections of our inner persons profoundly affect our bodies, and what we do and don’t do with our bodies greatly affects our minds and hearts. Go without sleep for a night, and you quickly feel how much the body affects the soul. The body is not irrelevant to Christianity and pastoral ministry.

First, as a Christian myself, I’ve acutely experienced how much a modest pattern of exercise in my life for more than a decade (after many years of a sedentary lifestyle) has helped my soul — my mind, my heart, my faith, my will. As a pastor, I’ve also had the opportunity to share these truths with other 21^st-century Christians, who encounter the same modern-day challenges, and who’ve expressed gratitude for help on a biblical perspective on the human body and its movement. This includes some practical-theological motivations to help us embrace the momentary discomfort of exercise for both the natural and spiritual joys we can experience through exercise as one aid among others.

What are the main biblical texts that provide a Christian defense for exercise?

First Timothy 4:8 is the text many expect to hear: “while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way.” Let’s get there eventually, but I start a few verses earlier with 1 Timothy 4:4–5. Paul is talking about life in the body — the dinner table and the marriage bed. As Christians, we’re not to go about these things mindlessly, whether like animals or like unbelievers, but we’re to consecrate or “make holy” these aspects of our bodily life. This is why many of us pause to pray over meals. We’re thanking God for his provision of food, and asking him to bless or consecrate the meal, to make it holy, for his good purposes in our lives. Praying over meals is a good practice, and it would be a good practice for other aspects of our bodily lives as well: the marriage bed, sleep, work life, and this modern phenomenon known as exercise (since many of our post-industrial work-lives no longer get us to the normal levels of human movement needed for health and wellness).

The first passage you’ll find in the book, and likely the most often repeated, is 1 Corinthians 6:19–20: “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” That is very countercultural: “you are not your own”! And it’s amazing that Paul’s call here is not to get outside your body or despite your body or overcome your body, but to “glorify God in your body.” We glorify God, or not, in these bodies. Exercise, like sleep and eating, is one way among others in the modern world for glorifying God in our bodies, and conditioning the bodies in which we glorify him.

Now back to 1 Timothy 4:8, which is about “bodily training.” Paul himself and his readers two thousand years ago didn’t have cars and screens. They did manual labor; they were not “knowledge workers” like so many of us today sitting all day to peck at computers. Before we can even talk about Paul’s blessing of “bodily training” as “of some value,” many of us first need to restore normal human levels of bodily activity to our lives. This is what exercise does for most of us. For some, they then condition their bodies for running or strength or balance or some particular athletic skill. But for most of us, we’re just talking about getting normal human levels of physical activity to build and condition our brains and get our bodies in working (not world-class) order.

How does a Christian person exercise – or go about thinking about exercise– differently than an unbeliever?

That’s right, it begins with how we think about exercise. Our Creator tells us about himself and his world and why he made it and us and our bodies. To exercise like a Christian begins with receiving what God says about our bodies and their movement. And how we feel about what God says matters as well. The movements and motivations of our hearts make our exercise more or less Christian. Then, as noted above in 1 Timothy 4:4–5, an often overlooked aspect of exercising like a Christian is praying about and for our exercise. Do you pray about your exercise — whether you should supplement the bodily activity levels of your job with exercise or not? Or how often it would be good to exercise and for how long and where and with whom and what kind of exercises? I suspect that for many Christians, myself included, our default regarding exercise is far more like Nike’s slogan “Just do it” than Paul’s “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Then it also would be Christian to pray for your exercise, like many of us pray for our meals. We thank God for his provisions and ask him to use this physical act for his good purposes in us and through us. It’s not only Christian to say grace before we eat but even before we exercise.

In A Little Theology of Exercise, you set forth five motivations for Christian exercise. Can you briefly mention each?

First is the glory of God, which you might expect — but it’s no less important for being expected. “Glorify God in your body,” says 1 Corinthians 6:20. But that’s a far more complex reality than we might assume at first glance. So, at least four other motivations are, I find, very helpful.

Second is joy. I’m a Christian Hedonist. I believe that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. You cannot glorify God as he deserves if you don’t enjoy him as he deserves. Finding deep and enduring joy in God, deeper and more enduring than life’s sorrows and pains, is not optional in the Christian life but essential. I want to do what I reasonably can to be as happy in God as I can be. Regular exercise helps. I know exercise requires discomfort, but it’s not discomfort for its own sake but for greater joy on the other side.

Third is the health and clarity of my mind, or the brain. Perhaps the biggest payoff, humanly speaking, from exercising is not what it does for the body but the brain. This is one of the most fascinating discoveries for me in the last ten years.

Fourth, I talk about our wills and how exercise trains and conditions our wills. Which relates to a fifth and finally one: love. For Christians, exercising is not about looking good but doing good — that is, putting these bodies to work to meet the needs of others. Doing good works typically requires some work, some exertion of our bodies and expenditure of physical energy. As Christians, we want our bodies to be assets, not obstacles, in doing the good deeds to love and serve others that our Father calls us to, for his glory.

Many pastors believe they are too busy to exercise. They feel regularly inundated with work and always feel behind. As a result, exercise is an afterthought at best. How do you counsel this pastor? What types of exercise goals could a pastor have?

Dear brother pastor, your work is too important, and your God-given vessel too important (that is, your body and brain), to just let your body go. Now, if your life is relatively active, if you’re getting well over 10,000 steps per day, say, or working often with your hands, then you don’t need to exercise necessarily. But many of us pastors spend lots of time in front of these screens pecking at keys, or in FTF (face-to-face) meetings where we’re sitting down. 21^st-century pastoral ministry is typically pretty sedentary work. And your mind and the clarity of your thinking and decision-making, and your joy in Jesus and joy for the work and heart to love and bless others, all that will benefit, I believe, from some modest pattern of activity in your life.

God made our bodies to move and be at their best and be at our happiest when we’re regularly moving. For pastors, I would not want this to land on you as some new obligation but a new opportunity. Let this help you put some boundaries in your life. Far too many pastors are too busy because they are choosing to take on too much. Put some non-negotiables in your life, like time for unhurried daily Bible meditation and prayer, enough time to produce quality time with your wife and kids, adequate sleep, and modest exercise. Do those things well, and at a pace where you can enjoy them, and you end up with a clearer sense of the limited number of hours you have in the week for doing the work of pastoral ministry. Use the increased clarity of thought you get from exercising to triage the 80 hours of work you could do and get it down to the forty or so hours of what’s really most important.

As for exercise goals, try to find what you enjoy doing. The recommendation of many doctors is pretty modest: walk for half an hour every other day. If you don’t have time for two hours of modest physical exertion each week, I suspect you’re making poor decisions with your time somewhere.

In preparing this interview, I reached out to my email subscribers of Pastors and Productivity and asked for questions for this interview. One pastor writes to me, “I have seen several marriages strained and even come to an end over affairs that developed from gym relationships. I . . . see the danger of the gym culture, both in affairs and in pride that develops in how someone starts looking and feeling.” He wants to know “how to protect Christians who find themselves in gyms.” Your response?

I don’t think you need a gym membership.

I’ve been exercising regularly now for more than ten years and never had one. In fact, resolving to exercise without the extra hassle of commuting to a gym helped tip the scales for me ten years ago. I live in Minnesota, so I get that you have to find indoor space to survive the winter (or the height of summer, in some places). I did run a used treadmill into the ground and then bought one for our basement several years ago. We have some weights in our basement now as well. Over time, we would have put far more money into a gym membership than we have acquired for our basement. Mainly I run outside most of the year. So, I don’t know gym culture, but I think pastors should be able to figure this out. If you need a gym, perhaps you need a workout buddy too, or go with your wife.

As for pride, that’s a danger for all of us. Oh how deceitful our human hearts can be. We lose ten pounds and can think we look better than we do. Brother preacher, you’re no Adonis and you can take joy in being very normal and humble. In fact, consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were impressive according to worldly standards, not many were strong, fast, handsome. But God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. Pray that God would keep your heart, and that your modest amount of exercise would not aim at looking good but doing good.

In your book, I got the impression that you run in the mornings, but that’s all I picked up on. Can you explain your exercise routine?

My own routine doesn’t matter much. It’s very unimpressive. I do run. Running’s efficient. I can get in a lot of steps in 25 minutes, and enjoy the “persistence high” (formerly known as “runner’s high”) from enduring in strenuous activity for more than twenty minutes. As a young dad, I did not have time to drive to and from a gym, and I didn’t want to pay for a gym. It was and continues to be cheap and quick to run or walk outside.

I play basketball with some men on Tuesday mornings early. I also do some baseball activities here at there with my twin sons who play baseball. In recent years, I’ve added some minimal resistance training (weights, pushups, pullups). I keep using the word modest for a reason. I’m not calling on pastors to be bodybuilders or triathletes. If I run four times in a given week, that’s about two hours total. My weights would be less than an hour a week. If I play basketball, that’s about 75 minutes. Add it all up, and that’s 30 minutes/day max for me, and it’s plenty to unleash the cascade a good benefits for my body and soul through exercise. And it’s taken me ten years to work from no physical activity to an average of 30 minutes/day. Think big arc.

How has exercise served your joy in life and in ministry? How are you hoping pastors and other readers will respond to the message of your book?

On the one hand, the natural joy I get from exercise is not much more than a “boost” for the joy that really matters, that is, spiritual joy in Jesus. On the other hand, that boost can be so helpful. I don’t want my mind and heart hindered from experiencing the joy in Jesus I could because I’m so mistreating my body through lack of sleep, and bad eating, and sedentary living. Very practically, what keeps me putting on my running shoes and moving my legs and doing pull-ups is I want to be happy. I’m happier all day when I’ve exercised in the morning, and I’m happier in life when I have a pattern of regular exercise. On its own, that’s not enough. I want that joy to be Christian joy, that glories God and spills over in love for others.

I hope that fellow pastors, and other readers beyond, will find a new avenue (among others!) for seeking joy in God through a wise use of the physical bodies God gave them. Exercise does not replace God’s word and prayer and fellowship, but it can help my engagement in these means of God’s ongoing grace for the joy of the Christian life.

Get the Book

You might remember the seven chosen to serve the Hellenistic widows in Acts 6. The church's growth in the community created administrative problems in the church and led to some widows being neglected. The apostles were approached about the problem and replied: “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables” (Acts 6:2). They also added, “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4).

Caring for widows is crucially important. And somebody’s got to serve the tables. Serving tables is a good thing to do and so is posting on the church’s social media channels and sending church-sponsored email newsletters. But there are more spiritual, sacred tasks that distinctly relate to the office of the pastor that should take top priority. Those sacred, spiritual things that specifically relate to the pastor's ministry are praying and studying the Scriptures. Stated differently, if pastoral productivity relates to spending your time on your most effective priorities, then the most effective thing you can do is devote yourself to the ministry of the Word and prayer.

In a 21st-century world where pastors are pressured to act as CEOs or leadership gurus, it can be easy to overlook the sacredness of ministry. Directional and organizational leadership is essential for advancing a church. No one would dispute that management skills are valuable for a pastor. However, being overly influenced by secular visions for vocation can lead to pressure to “make something happen” and keep you occupied with tasks that are unrelated to pastoral ministry. Prayer and the ministry of the Word are not the only responsibilities a pastor should have, but they should be the primary focus. Time and again, as I reflect on the most effective use of my time, I find myself returning to the Word and prayer.

Devote Yourself to the Ministry of the Word and Prayer

Word

Being dedicated to the Word starts with your devotional time. It means regularly reading the Bible devotionally in an unhurried manner. It means regularly reading Bible studies, Bible dictionaries, and serious Bible reference books to help you grow in your understanding of the Word. One of the best compliments you can get as a preacher is when someone says, “I can tell you put a lot into that sermon.” On the contrary, one of the worst impressions you can give someone when you preach is that you are unprepared.

One of the most dangerous pastoral situations is when you are experiencing success in ministry, but are neglecting the means of grace in your private life. This will undoubtedly eventually lead to moral failure, a domineering spirit, burnout, etc. When things are bad, devote yourself to the Word. When things are good, devote yourself to the Word. In every and all season of ministry life, devote yourself to the Word.

Prayer

Prayer is also time well spent in ministry. You can always be sure that you’re using your time wisely when you are praying for yourself, your family, and the people in your church. Prayer, of course, goes hand in hand with action. When Ezra discovered God’s people had married those with pagan worship practices, he lamented and prayed. And then he got up and took action. We don’t just sit around all day and pray, but we don’t take decisive action without first seeking the Lord in prayer.

So prayer for you might look like this:

• Private prayer

• Praying with your wife

• Praying with your family

• Praying with your elders

• Praying with your church

• Praying with other pastors

• Praying throughout the day

Pastor, how will you spend your time this week? This month? This year? Don’t allow the secular 21st-century influences on work to pressure you to undermine the sacredness of your calling. While there is always something you can be doing, the most effective use of your time is in prayer and studying the Word.

It’s hard to believe this month is the first anniversary of my first published book, A Call to Contentment: Pursuing Godly Satisfaction in a Restless World (Christian Focus: March 2024). It was a dream to become a published author, and I’m thankful that dream came true. While I have no aspirations of writing another book any time soon, I’ve had enough time now to reflect on the entire writing process, particularly the mistakes I made. Thinking about them still makes me cringe.

I tread lightly because I don’t want to come across as an expert in something I’ve only done once. But I’m assuming at least a few pastors following this newsletter aspire to write a book one day, and even established authors willing to learn from a less experienced author. Whether you’ve never written a book or you’re an award-winning author of multiple books, here are five mistakes I made when writing my first book.

5 Productivity Mistakes I Made When Writing My First Book

Mistake #1: Not having sufficient knowledge of the subject material before writing the book.

Duh, right?

You should know a lot about a book before writing one, right? I guess I missed the obvious.

There are four reasons why you might write a book:

A) Because you know a lot about the subject (knowledge).
B) Because you have lived out the material (experience).
C) Because you are passionate about the subject (emotion).
D) Because you are convinced others need to hear the message (need).

Ideally, you’d have all four.

I just had the last two.

While I remain passionate about the subject of Christian contentment, and I’m still convinced it’s a message the church needs to hear, I didn’t have sufficient knowledge about the subject before writing the book. I also struggle with the sin of discontentment in my own life. Of course, no man can perfectly live out what he writes. However, since I lacked knowledge on the subject when the writing process began, it was an uphill battle of knowledge acquisition just to figure out how to start writing the book.

I ultimately completed the book because of discipline and hard work, but I put myself under tremendous strain. I exerted tremendous mental and emotional energy on a project that could have been easier if I had an adequate knowledge base first. As a full-time pastor, trying to squeeze in time to write a book is hard enough. It’s more effective to write a book on sermons you’ve preached, articles you’ve written, or a subject in which you’ve built an overflow of knowledge in your mental reservoir.

Passion might get you to finish the book, but you’ll bring unnecessary pain in your life during the process without prior established knowledge.

Mistake #2: Writing a Christian Living book for my first book.

I barely even read Christian Living books anymore. Since I preach almost weekly, these days the bulk of my reading is biblical commentaries. I loved reading Christian living books back in my twenties, but now over a decade into serious reading, I just can’t stomach them anymore.

But there’s a business side to this, too. The Christian Living market is overcrowded. Some of it is gold. Much of it is junk. It’s hard to get noticed when there’s so much out there. When you write a generalist book, like I did, it’s hard to gain traction, unless you already have a large, well-established platform.

Mistake #3: The way I assembled the information.

During the research phase of writing, I did everything the hard way. Since I didn’t have sufficient working knowledge on the subject of contentment to begin with, I needed to read many books and articles on the subject. Here’s how I collected the info:

A) Read many books on the subject.
B) As I read, I highlighted and took notes.
C) I went back through the book and typed everything I highlighted.
D) Once I decided on the list of chapters for the book, I color-coordinated the copious amount of notes I had and assigned each highlight to a chapter.

Not the best use of time. I thought the more I strained myself, the better the book I would write. Nope. I cringe just thinking about how much work I put into it. A better thing to do would have been to use my Kindle to collect and utilize information. It’s much faster and easier to use Kindle along with other apps to store information.

When I told my seminary professor I was talking to a publisher, he gave me good advice: “More work doesn’t necessarily mean better results.” That stung, but it’s true. Worked on a book for two years? Bad news: there’s no guarantee that it will sell well just because you tried hard and you like the subject material. While working hard on a book is valuable, it is equally valuable to work smarter and strategically, and that I failed to do.

Mistake #4: Under-marketing the book.

In this day and age, publishers expect the authors to have an established platform first before giving them a deal. Not always. But most of the time. Whereas before a publishing company would handle the heavy lifting of marketing your book, now the expectation is that you do. And I did — but not enough.

I thought posting about it too much came across as prideful. I assumed one or two emails would be adequate. I didn’t ask people enough for Amazon reviews. I just tried hard to write a good book, and based on that effort, assumed things would take care of themselves. I should have been more aggressive with my marketing approach from day one.

Mistake #5: Not getting a Literary Agent.

I don’t want to shop around with a book proposal to random publishers again. It’s tedious and stressful. Unless a publisher pursues me, I’d prefer to get an agent, give him or her the proposal and say, “Here ya go — now please find me a publisher.” I want a middleman next time. Getting a literary agent will save you a ton of headaches. It is particularly helpful to get an agent if you want to write several books and not just be a one-hit wonder.

Learning From My Mistakes

If the Lord allows me to write another book, I know how to avoid energy depleters and time-wasters. I’ll probably utilize Kindle more for gathering and assigning information. I’ll be sure to pick a topic I’m familiar with. Hopefully, I’ll land with an agent and be more intentional with marketing the book. If wisdom in life is hard-won, then I definitely acquired wisdom from this whole process.

Get Your Copy of the Book Today

While I’ve got you here, I encourage you to grab a copy of my book, A Call to Contentment. If the endorsers are right, the book will be a blessing to you, and your purchase of the book would be a tremendous blessing to me.

Get the Book

As I get out of bed, it enters my mind that the amount of work that needs to be done is insurmountable. Christian ministry is open-ended: there’s always something you could be doing. I long to linger in God’s presence through unhurried Bible reading and prayer, but I simultaneously have the urge to skip my devotions to do church work. It’s ridiculous that a pastor would skip his devotions for church work but unfortunately, it happens. On this day, I resist and enjoy time in the Word and prayer. Good decision.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a book. Part of my morning routine is unhurried Bible reading prayer and reading a book for 15 minutes. But on this day, I can’t read for 15 minutes. Since I struggle with all-or-nothing thinking, my reflex decision is to therefore not read at all. Do I skip reading a book for 15 minutes altogether because when I decided to craft a morning routine I put the number “15” down and anything less than reading for 15 minutes is a failure? No. I decide to read the book, but only for two minutes. It wasn’t 15 minutes, but I did something.

Next day comes again. Time for the book again. Again, I set my Fitbit watch for two minutes and stop when I feel the vibrating on my wrist. After a couple of days of reading for two minutes, I realize I’m 20 pages into a book I otherwise wouldn’t have started yet. Two minutes matter. Suddenly, I’m building a reading habit. If there’s anything I’ve learned about building habits over the years, it’s this: frequency is more important than length.

In the personal development world, they like to say that consistency compounds. I like that expression. Let me say it again: consistency compounds. If you want to build new habits, you need to be consistent. Doing something every day is more important than doing it for a long time. Reading a book for two minutes a day is better than reading it for 30 minutes once a month. Don’t neglect the accumulation of daily wins over time.

Building Habits in Minutes

I said that frequency is more important than length. But here’s where the power of consistency comes into play: the more frequent you are, the more that length will naturally grow. That two-minute reading habit will eventually lead to 8 minutes, then 15 minutes, then possibly even 30 minutes. Length naturally grows over time.

How long does it take to build a new habit? It depends on the sources you utilize, but experts will tell you around 66 days. Building a habit, however, might take longer or shorter, depending on the person and the habit you’re seeking to acquire. But while it might take weeks and months for new habits to materialize, it takes minutes of consistency to get there.

Ask any voracious reader you know about how he or she built his or her reading habit, and you will likely find a person who doesn’t have large chunks of time devoted to reading but has learned to read in the in-between times of the day. Right before meetings. At the Doctor’s office. While you’re waiting on your kids. Those little blocks of time between appointments and meetings should be captured for productivity, and for building new habits.

What habit do you want to build? Reading? Exercise? Prayer? In your mind, you think you need a long chunk of unhurried time to begin the habit. Perish the thought. A rough two minutes will do. You should also utilize your free time during the day. 15 minutes here, 45 minutes there. As opposed to mindlessly scrolling social media during that time, use it to develop a new habit.

Some tasks have great Return on Investment (ROI hereafter), some have little ROI, and others have none.

There are some tasks you should put your best energy towards, other tasks you should delegate, and other tasks you shouldn’t be doing at all.

The key to an effective, productive ministry is not measured by numerical statistics but by consistently focusing your best energy on the tasks that yield the greatest ROI.

ROI is not measured by secular standards, but by what the Scriptures tell us a pastor is and is supposed to do with his time. If ROI sounds too businessy to you, then think about the tasks that have the greatest eternal, spiritual impact — or tasks that most align with your main pastoral priorities.

What tasks have great ROI in pastoral ministry? A few come to mind.

1. Prayer.

Talking about prayer to a pastor gets an eye-roll. Articles on prayer might be read by lay Christians, but not by professional God talkers. I don’t even know what to say in response, despite Scriptural evidence and personal experience that I am powerless in ministry without a vibrant prayer life.

When I pray at length, it feels like I get through any trial. When I skip prayer, it’s like the smallest trials bring me down.

2. Reading.

Your best energy should revolve around personal Bible study and preparing to preach and teach the Bible to the people under your care. You should also be a voracious reader of commentaries, Christian books, non-fiction secular books, and other kinds of books you enjoy reading. I don’t enjoy reading fiction, but I can see how reading fiction would help my writing and illustrations as a preacher.

As you develop a deep reservoir of knowledge, it makes preaching and teaching a lot easier because you have a deep well to pull from. On the contrary, if you are not an avid reader, your teaching will be perceived as shallow to those acquainted with the Scriptures. Every teaching pastor should be a voracious reader.

3. Writing handwritten thank you notes.

I had lunch with a retired pastor. He gave me three pieces of advice for my ministry. Honestly, I forgot 2/3rd’s of the things he told me probably because I was too focused on eating my steak burrito. But 33% of what he said stood out to me as if I found a huge piece of gold on the beach. He said writing multiple handwritten cards to members of his church each week was one of the best uses of his time in ministry. They might not remember what you say, but they will remember for a long, long time that they received a hand-written card in the mail from their pastor, and that is so meaningful to them.

4. Raising up other leaders.

Am I an extrovert or an introvert? I’m right smack dab in the middle, which makes me somewhat of a difficult person to figure out. My wife says I’m slightly more introverted, so let’s go with her. I find meeting with other men to raise them up somewhat exhausting, because for me if I want to learn something, I am driven to acquire the information independently. Meeting with other men can feel messy and difficult when you have a hard time understanding why someone else’s growth is taking so long, but raising up other leaders is one of the best uses of your energy in ministry.

5. Planning the Order of Service.

Most church people don’t realize how much time and effort goes into planning a worship service. But Paul says that “all things should be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40). This includes, of course, the worship service. Effort spent on planning every second of the service is time well spent.

6. Time spent with the people you pastor.

Shepherds smell like their sheep. This includes general shepherding and counseling. But also church events where people are present. People need to trust you for you to lead them, and that comes through time. While being locked in your office studying theology and preparing sermons is enjoyable, we also need to come out and be with the people we are called to serve.

7. Family, friends, and mentors.

The ability to manage your household well is a prerequisite to being a pastor (1 Timothy 3:4). That won’t happen if your wife and kids don’t feel deeply loved by you, and giving them your unhurried time is one of the most precious demonstrations of love.

You also need friends and mentors in your life. These meetings might be long. Sometimes they are frustrating. Sometimes a mentor or pastor friend will say something that rubs you the wrong way, questioning your need or desire for friends in the first place. Keep pursuing them anyway. While it might be wise to end a friendship when needed, we also need other men speaking into our lives if we are going to last for the long haul.

What Doesn’t Make My List

The list above is suggestive, not exhaustive. There’s more you could add, like practicing your spiritual rhythms to pursue holiness.

But consider these tasks:

• Unnecessary meetings.

• Certain administrative tasks.

• Writing the church email newsletter.

• Posting on the church's social media page.

Should you be doing those things?

With every task, I think in terms of three categories:

1. I should be doing this (do it).

2. I shouldn’t be doing this (don’t do it).

3. Someone else should be doing this (delegate it).

The key to pastoral productivity is knowing the difference between each.

Pastoral productivity is not measured by numerical statistics but by consistently focusing your best energy on the tasks that yield the greatest ROI. It’s not always possible to delegate or defer in smaller churches and in certain seasons of ministry, but as much as you can, center your day around true pastoral priorities.

Paul shares that “bodily training is of some value” (1 Timothy 4:8). He doesn’t say exercise is irrelevant. But there’s a time limit on the benefits of physical fitness because in the New Creation, you’ll get a transformed, perfect body. Exercise is not more important than godliness, but working out consistently makes life more enjoyable and bearable. It has some value.

My aim in this post is to re-hash part of Naselli's testimony while adding my thoughts along the way.

Andy Naselli’s Fitness Testimony (Along with Personal Thoughts)

Naselli starts by sharing how he entered the 1,000-pound club, which is measured by the total one-rep max number of each exercise: bench press, deadlift, and squat. His health changes were motivated by a disease he got while teaching a theology course to pastors overseas. Too often, men don’t start taking fitness seriously until they have a health scare. Deciding to get serious about your fitness in light of a health scare is proof a good thing can come out of a bad situation, but you want to get serious about your health before you have the health scare.

Four Big Changes

Naselli made the following four big changes.

1. Eat well.

Sticking within a calorie range, Naselli prioritized eating protein using a macronutrient calculator. Most people don’t use a calculator; they use an App. MyFitnessPal is used by many people, but I didn’t like it. I use Nutritionix.

When people think of eating well, they think of suffering through a plate of vegetables. Get these images out of your mind. Eating well, in fitness terms, generally has two criteria: (1) Eating an adequate amount of protein per day. You typically want around 0.8-1g of protein per body weight per day (so if you weigh 170 pounds, you’d want to eat around 170g of protein daily). (2) Proper energy balance. This relates to calories. For those who desire to lose fat, you must burn more calories than you consume. Getting enough protein and knowing how many calories you should be eating are the two best places to start when putting together a diet.

2. Do strength training.

The second thing Naselli did was lift weights 4-5 days a week in the morning, turning his basement into his home gym of sorts. Those of us who live in Florida can’t do that, since we don’t have basements, but we can buy gym memberships or turn our garage into a gym (something I hope to start soon). Naselli chooses to train in the mornings, which is wise for productivity, but I personally feel stronger after having one or two meals in me, which is why I train in the early afternoons, usually.

Lifting weights, or strength training, is important. Don’t just do cardio; also lift weights. Muscle is important. You might think, “I’m married and secure in my marriage, I don’t need muscle. Muscle is only for athletes. I can get by just by doing cardio.” But building muscle is not just about ascetics, but is surprisingly linked to longevity.

3. Do cardio.

Naselii mentions doing murphs for cardio, and explains what they are: “There are three parts to a Murph: the first part is to run one mile; the second part is to do 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, and 300 squats (I usually break this up into twenty sets of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 15 squats); and the third and final part is to run one mile.”

Too complicated for me. And maybe not ideal for your joints long-term. This is the beauty of fitness: you don’t have to uncritically copy what other people do; you have a myriad of options to figure out a fitness schedule that works with your personality and schedule.

For many years, I avoided running because I believed running burns muscle. I do believe long runs can burn some muscle, but others have encouraged me to run and I have loved the results. Perhaps I am slightly not as strong as I could be, but running gives me great mental clarity, helps me shred the calories, and makes me feel good.

4. Sleep 8+ hours.

This is crucial for life and ministry. I will emphasize that you should focus on quality over quantity, but you need a bare minimum of 6 hours (not preferred), but preferably 7 hours. You want to track your REM and Deep sleep. I use the Fitbit Charge 6 and view my sleep score every day. I make adjustments to my sleep based on my score.

Start Today

Naselli’s article is not only inspiring but filled with recommendations. I hope you read it and get inspired. In the fitness world, people are keen on saying “I’ll start Monday.” But don’t wait until a new day or year to begin. Just start now. Get a gym membership, buy running shoes, lift some weights, and start getting serious about your health today. Focus on eating well, strength training, doing cardio, and getting enough sleep.

1. Use multiple computer screens.

I don’t think I can ever return to regularly working on my sermon from one screen. Utilizing multiple screens will help you work faster and save mental energy. Dragging and dropping between screens and viewing multiple pages or apps while working is highly efficient. On the contrary, using only one screen seriously limits your ability to work effectively.

Only working from your laptop? Buy another computer screen. At home, I use two screens. At church, I use three.

2. Dictation.

Using dictation software allows you to spew your thoughts easier than writing them down. The first draft is a mess, but you can quickly edit them.

I sometimes have a paragraph or a long-form quote I want to use for my sermon. Perhaps I noticed it in a commentary or book I’m reading. But to check back and forth to ensure I copied every word correctly is tedious. Instead, you can simply speak the quote into dictation software in a matter of seconds. I’ve used a free version called dictation.io.

3. Write and save your sermon outline you use, then quickly copy and paste it when starting a new sermon.

I usually follow this method for my sermons:

[Introduction]

[Transition Sentence]

[FCF]

[Big Idea]

[Overview]

[Main Point 1]

[Explanation]

[Illustration]

[Application]

Or something like that.

It might change depending on whether I’m preaching from the Old Testament or the New Testament or if I’m not giving an expository sermon, but I generally follow a similar outline. Why spend time writing the same outline every week? I have the outline saved in Evernote, and when I begin my sermon, I copy and paste the outline into Logos.

4. Begin your sermon preparation on Sundays when you get home.

Or on Mondays.

But if you wait until Tuesday morning to start your next sermon, you’ve allowed ~48 precious hours to pass before working on your next sermon.

Even working on your sermon for 90 minutes on Monday makes a huge difference in getting ahead.

5. Use e-books.

One of the best things I’ve ever done to make my sermon preparation process more efficient is using e-books. I bought them on Logos. I don’t use all the resources for sermon prep as e-books, but there’s a foundation of a few big books I use for every sermon (e.g., study Bibles, one-volume commentary, etc.) that I want on file electronically. Clicking on a button and scrolling is much faster than looking for a book and flipping through pages. Hauling your books from your church office and back home regularly can also be an ineffective use of time and energy.

No, using e-books is not as pleasurable and enjoyable as physical books. But my goal is saving time; not acquiring pleasure. Still, I love the feel and experience of a commentary or academic book, which is why I haven’t gone all in on e-books. So some books I use as e-books; others are physical books. The physical books are more enjoyable to read, whereas the e-books are way, way more efficient to read.

6. Work from a stand-up desk.

You probably don’t want to stand up and work eight hours a day. But sitting all day while you work is not optimal for your health. There’s something about using a stand-up desk that makes work feel more official and gets you into the zone faster. You might be interested in reading about my productivity stand-up desk setup.

7. Work from a checklist.

There is a strong tendency for pastors to rely on intuition for the sermon preparation process. After all, you’ve preached over 100 sermons and you’ve found your preaching voice. Good and well. But you might be tempted to cut corners and be sloppy while preparing your sermon precisely because you are so experienced. Working through a preaching checklist holds you accountable and ensures you don’t miss a step while motivating you as you mark steps off the checklist.

8. Use Bookmarks.

Such a simple idea, but also so effective.

If you decide to use physical books, then use bookmarks. They will save you time as you locate the page number you need. Pastors are used to having books that are 500+ pages by your side, and flipping pages each week in multiple books is a poor use of time. It might only seem like a few seconds, but those seconds add up each day and week. You will grow in your productivity as you learn to optimize seemingly inconsequential moments like saving a few seconds to avoid flipping pages.

9. Use a Book Stand.

While we’re on the subject of physical books, put them on a book stand. Reading a book on your lap is not good for your neck and back. It’s also not the most optimal way to read.

10. Create Timelines and Proper Accountability Structures

Setting progress goals will hold you accountable. For example, you might set a goal to have your outline and Big Idea nailed down by Tuesday at 4:30 pm. But you can also create interdependent accountability. There might be someone in your church who needs your PowerPoints, Community Group questions, or sermon outline by a certain date. Having people dependent on you (in a good way) to get them the material they need to keep the ministry running well encourages you to focus and get the work done sooner. It’s not a good example for a leader to constantly turn things in late.

The best way to learn how to effectively save time for your sermon preparation process is simply by preparing a lot of sermons and learning as you go. While you never want to compromise biblical fidelity just to say you can write a sermon in six hours, the tips above should help you save time for your next sermon.

One of the causes of pastoral burnout is the inability of pastors to properly work within their creaturely limitations. The word “creature” seems awkward. It’s like I’m referring to an animal. But that’s what you are: a creature. God is the Creator, and you are a creature. As a creature, you need food, water, and adequate rest. You must embrace your God-given limitations to avoid burnout.1

But this is hard to do, isn’t it? In The Unhurried Pastor, Ronnie Martin writes: “Embracing my humanity feels boring, average, mundane, uninspiring, and full of opportunities to not live up to the potential that I imagine for myself as a 21^st-century pastor.” We struggle with embracing our limitations because there’s something about prayer and the ministry of the Word that seems too simple (Acts 6:4). We over-complicate ministry and take on too many tasks that aren’t necessary to our main calling.

Sometimes church members put pastors on a piety pedestal. But you know that you need the Lord’s grace just as much as the people in your congregation. You have personality quirks, personal blindspots, spacial limitations, character deficiencies, family of origin issues, and you’re continually undergoing sanctification. You are a person before you are a pastor; a sheep before you are a shepherd. You are a human. The Creator-creature distinction must always be on your mind when you consider what you’ll say “yes” to and what you’ll say “no” to.

The longer I’m a pastor, the more I see that spiritual maturity and growth in godliness are the most important factors for my effectiveness in ministry. I’m glad I got an MDiv and my church was happy to see me ordained, but those certifications in and of themselves are insufficient for me to pastor well. If we are not secure in the Lord, we will seek security in something else. If we do not preach the gospel to ourselves, we will be less effective in preaching the gospel to others. If we do not ponder the glories of our union with Christ, contentment will be difficult in ministry. So much of avoiding pastoral burnout comes from working within your creaturely limitations, and so much of your ability to work within your creaturely limitations comes from deep spiritual and personal maturity.

So yes, we are wise to heed the oft-shared counsel of taking one day off per week, not checking your phone the first hour or last hour of the day, practicing the sabbath, exercising regularly, getting adequate sleep, and enjoying a high-protein diet. But practical tips won’t be useful in the long run without godly character.

How do you know your limitations? There are many ways to answer this question, but here’s one: listen to your body. Your body talks to you more than you realize. If you’re always tired, you likely need better sleep and should be doing less. If you never have joy, you might need more unhurried time in private prayer and Bible reading. If you constantly feel discouraged, you might need more mentors and friends. Listen to your body.

Also, if you’re married, listen to your wife. Ask her if she feels like you are present when at home. Listen closely to her feedback. Don’t get defensive. Better to hear hard words now than to go through the emotional pain of burnout later.

Finally, you’ll grow in embracing your limitations through trial and error. It’s okay to make mistakes. After all, wisdom is usually hard-won. Just be sure to learn from your mistakes and not make them twice.

The fastest way to burn out in ministry is to believe it’s impossible for you to burn out in ministry. You might think you are the exception to the rule because of your zeal, calling, or credentials, but you are sadly mistaken. As long as you live in this fallen world, burnout is on the table for you. The first step in avoiding it is by embracing your human limitations.

An excellent book to help shed light on this question is Resilient Ministry: What Pastors Told Us About Surviving and Thriving. Co-authored by Dr. Bob Burns, Dr. Tasha Chapman, and Dr. Donald Guthrie, the book seeks to answer this question: what does it take to have a fruitful ministry over the long haul

The book is based on seven (seven!) years of research. After gathering pastors and their wives from varying denominations for years of study and research, they discovered five key factors that are needed for a fruitful, lifelong ministry.

The five key factors are:

1. Spiritual formation
2. Self-care
3. Emotional and cultural intelligence
4. Marriage and family
5. Leadership and management

The book goes into depth about each factor, though you can find a brief snapshot of each one below.

Five Factors of Resilient Ministry

1. Spiritual Formation

The authors define spiritual formation as “the ongoing process of maturing as a Christian, both personally and interpersonally.” This involves the private spiritual disciplines, things like Bible reading, prayer, journaling, and personal worship. Spending regular time with the Lord is a crucial component of an effective ministry. As Diane Langberg once said, "Before you were called to be a shepherd, you were called to be a lamb."

Notice, however, that the definition includes maturing both personally and interpersonally.

Ministry leaders need to be relationally wealthy. Just like any Christian, pastors need to cultivate rich, enduring friendships with others. It can be difficult for pastors to find friends since the people they lead may act weird around them (oh no, it’s the pastor!). It can be hard to be yourself when you’re the spiritual leader everyone looks to. Nevertheless, it is essential for pastors to have confidants, other Christian friends that they can go to for regular self-disclosure, accountability, and genuine friendship.

2. Self-Care

The second key factor to a long, fruitful ministry is self-care. “The idea of self-care,” the authors say, “involves the pursuit of physical, mental and emotional health.”

Peter Brian defines self-care as, “the wisdom to ensure, as far as humanly possible, a wise and orderly life work that conserves and lengthens a pastor’s ministry.”

The authors provide helpful examples of what self-care looks like:

• Getting to bed on time.

• Saying no to work by establishing sabbath, sabbatical, vacation, and days off.

• Building in regular exercise.

• Maintaining a nutritious diet.

Many pastors don’t put an emphasis on self-care, probably because it seems selfish, unnecessary, or because of personal bad habits. But the statistics show that self-care is a must for pastors.

In his book, Pastor As Person, Gary Harbaugh points out that “Nutrition, physical exercise, and other forms of self-care were at lower levels (for pastors) than for the general population.”

This is a factor that ministry leaders must not overlook.

3. Emotional and Cultural Intelligence

The authors describe emotional intelligence as “the ability to proactively manage your own emotions (EQ-self) and to appropriately respond to the emotions of others.”

They continue, “Without the ability to understand our emotions - as well as our strengths, limitations, values, and motives — we will be poor at managing them and less able to understand the emotions of others.”

Pastors and ministry leaders must be able to recognize anxiety, fear, depression, and other emotions when they feel them. They must be able to name it and learn how to deal with it properly.

Jesus Christ is the perfect Chief Shepherd who can empathize with your weaknesses. He can help you, brother pastor, with your current trials and tribulations in the pastorate -- even the trials of unwanted feelings.

For many guys, it seems cowardice to talk about feelings. At least this is how it feels for the circles I ran in growing up. But this way of thinking must be fought against.

One pastor from the book said:

“When I was in seminary, I was taught how to preach and how to exegete the Scriptures. I wasn’t taught how to exegete people . . . I didn’t know that pastoring is dealing with people and their messiness.”

The EQ of others, they say, has a two-part challenge: it requires “discerning accurately what others are feeling; second, it means responding to those feelings well.”

So, again: not only must Christian ministry leaders respond well to their emotions, but also to the emotions of others.

Cultural intelligence, furthermore, is also an important aspect of ministry, which the authors define as “the ability to recognize and to adapt to different cultural contexts.”

They continue, “It involves an awareness of ethnic, geographical, socioeconomic, educational and generational differences in one’s perspective and behavior.”

One example of cultural intelligence is Tim Keller. You may know him as the former pastor from the vibrant city of New York, but before being called to the Big Apple, Keller was a pastor in Hopewell, Virgina, a town of fewer than 25,000 people. Hopewell and New York are two vastly different cities, and yet, Keller enjoyed fruitful ministries in both places. It takes cultural intelligence to pull that off.

4. Marriage and Family

The fourth key factor to a long, fruitful ministry is the pastor’s marriage and family. Before being able to shepherd the church, the pastor must be able to shepherd his wife and kids. This must be a priority. As the book shows, if the pastor puts his ministry over his family, this will damage both his church and family. As one pastor put it, “The most effective way to develop a healthy church is for me to be healthy and maintain the health of my marriage.”

The authors continue: “A healthy marriage and family strengthens pastors. At the same time, marriage and family difficulties can derail ministry leaders. Therefore, the health of a pastor’s marriage and family is also a priority for the well-being of a congregation.”

One wife shared this experience:

“. . . I resent the fact that he’s so exhausted (mentally, physically and emotionally) from dealing with the church’s problems all day long and that he just wants “down time” when he’s home. I often feel we get the leftovers, if that.”

The pastor must make it a priority to shepherd his family well. As Jason Keith Allen puts it, “You can have a great marriage without a great ministry, but you can’t have a great ministry without a great marriage.”

5. Leadership and Management

Pastors love loving on people. It’s one of the reasons why they are a pastor. But one thing that many prospective pastors don’t realize is that pastoral ministry comes with a lot of administrative tasks. That is, according to the book, pastors without leadership and management skills will hinder their progress and fruitfulness as a pastor. There's more to ministry than just preaching, teaching, discipleship, and evangelism.

One pastor said:

“When I got out of seminary, I was sent out as a church planter. I didn’t know what I was doing. I found I was so deficient in the area of leadership. I had to self-educate — and I’m still doing that.”

Suffice it to say that leadership and management skills are important skills for ministry leaders to learn in order to be able to handle certain aspects of the ministry well.

As a pastor, I'm thankful for Resilient Ministry as it exposed me to some of the biggest issues and hardships that come with ministry, and provided keen insights on how to handle those issues well. I can't think of a single ministry leader who would not benefit from it. This is a great book that I plan on turning to again in the future.

1. Get clear.
2. Get organized.
3. Get consistent.

These three principles are a good place to start if you're new to pastoral productivity. Each one builds on the next. If you’re struggling with focused effectiveness in ministry, one of the three might be missing. Allow me to build upon the three principles for pastoral productivity.

Three Principles for Pastoral Productivity

1. Get clear: Identify your priorities.

Every pastor should clearly understand what he is called to do. The narrowest description of pastoral ministry comes from Acts 6:4: ”But we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.” Ministry is simple, but not easy. Prayer and study of Scripture are not the only two things you should do, but it is indefensible for these two things to be absent from your schedule.

The more I think about pastoral productivity, the more I’m inclined to give this advice:

1. Identify your main pastoral priorities, and give your best energy to accomplish them.
2. Gently delegate tasks that don’t align with your main pastoral priorities but still need to be done.
3. Say “no” to everything else.

The point is this: get clear on what you should be doing with your time. You can’t be effective in pastoral ministry if you’re not clear on what you’re supposed to be doing, and what success looks like in your role. This is where a season of seminary, church internships, and observing effective pastors is beneficial.

While every pastor has to prioritize the ministry of the Word and prayer, not every pastor’s schedule will look identical. This might change slightly depending on your title. Church planters, for example, will spend their time differently than a church revitalizer and a church revitalizer will spend his time differently than a Lead Pastor of a megachurch, and so on. Church planting pastors may need to spend an inordinate amount of time raising money and developing leaders, whereas a Lead Pastor of a large church already often has plenty of funds to work with and has equipped others to develop leaders. There is room for flexibility based on your church setting and cultural circumstances.

For more on priorities, see my article Pastoring, Productivity, and Priorities.

2. Get organized: Develop your systems.

In his book, Christ-Centered Preaching, Bryan Chapell states being labeled as “unorganized” in your sermon delivery is a deadly assessment. I agree.

Imagine that. Here you are a lover of Jesus, having spent much time in the Word, waking up on Sunday morning ready to serve God’s people, and your listeners view your sermon as ineffective because you were unorganized. That stings. But it’s true. Thank God he can use pathetic sermons to accomplish his will, but that doesn’t mean we should presume on God’s kindness and cut corners in sermon preparation. To be unorganized in your sermon delivery will undermine your effectiveness.

Something similar could be said about the organization for your day-to-day activities. Some pastors make pastoring harder than it needs to be. Don’t get me wrong: it’s already hard. But being unorganized makes it harder. What does being unorganized look like? Constantly procrastinating. Flying by the seat of your pants. Not following up on what you said you’d do. Waiting until the last second to do everything. If you live and work like this, you’re unintentionally shooting yourself in the foot.

If that’s what it looks like to be unorganized, what does it mean to be an organized pastor? It means having developed and proven systems and structures in your ministry that empower you to be effective in your main pastoral priorities. But that’s a mouthful. So let’s get more practical. Practically, being organized could look like: working ahead from a clean desk, using technology to store and organize information, gathering all resources needed ahead of time to write your sermon, being aware of all moving parts in your ministry, and so on. Getting organized doesn’t have to look the same for everyone. You can tweak it based on your personality and church context. But disorganization will make your job harder.

3. Get consistent: Do the work.

James Clear, author of the modern-day classic, Atomic Habits, gives this insight: “Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.”

Others in the personal development world have chimed in and referred to the “two-day rule” which encourages its adherents not to miss an important task twice. If you miss one day of exercise, that’s fine. You’re human. But don’t miss two times in a row. If you do, you’ve started a new habit. This underlines the importance of consistency. Many of the most productive people I know do the right thing even when they don’t feel like it. Determining every decision you make by how you feel is a recipe for pastoral ineffectiveness.

Many older pastors don’t know a thing about Todoist or Notion, but they show up and do the work. Seen this way, there’s a danger of over-complicating productivity. Many people first look for the perfect apps and tools before getting started. But true pastoral productivity is rooted in character. This takes the form of discipline, self-control, perseverance, and plain ole grit. On the opposite side, it must be said that a lack of consistency often stems from a character shortfall. So much of being a productive person for God’s glory is less from downloading the right apps and more from being the right person.

Being clear about your priorities and being organized with your systems won’t matter much if you can’t be consistent.

If you want to be a productive pastor, you need to get clear, get organized, and get consistent. Getting clear means identifying your priorities. Getting organized means developing your systems. And getting consistent means showing up and doing the work. All three are interconnected and empower you to do the right things for God’s glory.

While driving in our SUV on a Saturday morning, my wife asked, “How’s your sermon coming along?” I was set to preach the next Lord’s Day. “It’s about 95% done,” I said, although I spent a better part of 10 hours or so working on it. In truth, 95% done means . . . I’m completely done ― because I never finish a sermon.

When R.C. Sproul spoke about total depravity, he distinguished it from “utter” depravity. Total depravity means sin hurts the entirety of the individual. But as bad as this is, it could be worse. We are sinful but not as sinful as we could be: there is always more evil that can be done. Similarly, when I say “you never finish a sermon,” I’m not saying preachers cannot preach a prepared sermon on Sunday morning. Instead, what I’m saying is that your sermons are never as prepared as they could be. There is always more sermon preparation that could be done.

If there is always more sermon prep that can be done, should you do it? No.

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell writes about why some people make it big and others don’t. Gladwell says talent, GPA, and good test scores only go so far. You need these things to be successful. You can’t get into Harvard with a 2.5. But after you get a 3.8, your grades don’t matter much. The difference between a 3.9 GPA and a 3.95 GPA is obsolete. Instead of trying to be the absolute best at everything you do, according to Gladwell, there is a certain “threshold” (that’s the keyword) that needs to be met. After you meet the threshold, your success or failure will be determined by other factors, most of which you cannot control, such as genetics, personal upbringing, where you live, who you know, etc.

This same concept, I think, can be applied to sermon prep. After you reach a certain threshold (only you can determine what your threshold is and if you have met it), your sermon is done. That’s it. It’s over. Stop looking at it. If you must work on it some more, spend more time in prayer and content consumption, but put the laptop away. Tweaking a paragraph or two in your sermon after you have reached your threshold will not make your sermon noticeably better.

Not for a second am I saying that preachers should cut corners while crafting sermons. Preaching is the most important job responsibility for the pastor. The man who regularly preaches unprepared sermons is likely not fit for ministry. But there is a real danger in turning writing the perfect sermon into an idol, especially if you are motivated by fear of man rather than love for God.

Perfectionism seems spiritual, but it’s actually a form of self-absorption. In his book, Reset, for example, David Murray tells about one of his former students who battled perfectionism with his sermons: “A fellow seminarian of mine wouldn’t spend less than thirty hours on a sermon, polishing and polishing it until it was ‘perfect.’” Murray continues, “Not surprisingly, he burned out and left the ministry within a year.”

Once I was speaking with a respectable New Testament scholar about his forthcoming commentary on an Epistle. I asked him when the commentary would be done. He said that a commentary is never done. He just gets to the point where, after years of study and writing, he submits it to the publisher to meet a looming deadline, despite living within the nagging feeling of knowing more could have been done to write a better commentary.

This is a similar experience that preachers feel. There comes a point during the sermon prep process, usually on Thursday afternoon or Saturday morning, where the preacher says, “I’m done. I’m tired of looking at this. I can honestly say I have not cut corners in the prep, and what I have is enough. I read voraciously, prayed often, look at the original languages, developed a solid structure, lived in the text, and put meat on my structure. And now I’m done. I’m going to preach the best I know how, knowing my efforts will feel weak and pitiful, but I will trust God with the results.”

We never preach perfectly penned sermons. We, instead, as Dan Doriani says, preach sermons in a mild state of panic. Being overly prepared, particularly being unusually concerned about every word on your manuscript, usually leads to stale, boring sermons. Your extra effort can backfire. More effort doesn’t always lead to better results. Having a heart full of biblical truths and prayer is better than perfecting your notes.

So, preacher, be encouraged. There will never be a time in your ministry when you will finish writing a sermon because there is always more work that can be done. We work until we meet our threshold. After we do, we try not to think about the sermon on Saturday while spending time with family. We rise early on Sunday for prayer, Bible reading, and one more glance. We drive to church, and before we step into the pulpit, we submit our offering to the Lord, asking Him to bless what we have more than we could ever on our own, sort of like the boy who gave Jesus five barley loaves and two pieces of fish.

With that in mind, here are some thoughts on effective time stewardship for this time of year.

1. Enjoy extended devotional time.

Why not linger longer in God’s presence through unhurried Bible reading and prayer? Since the holidays naturally allow you to slow down, it’s also a good idea to slow down and enjoy more extended devotional time.

2. Have someone else preach on the last Sunday.

It’s too late now, probably.

But if you can swing it, have someone else preach on the last Sunday of the year. You’ve done a lot of work leading up to Christmas. Take the last Sunday away from the pulpit.

3. Plan your rest.

In his article, Rest Takes Work, Tim Challies writes about a time he “messed up over the Christmas holidays.” Challies writes:

“It was only as the weekend came and I faced the prospect of the end of the holidays that I understood the mistake I had made. It was only then that I remembered that I need to plan my rest as much as my work. It was only then that I remembered that I rest best when I rest according to at least some kind of a plan. I just don’t have the instincts or the self-control or the character to make something when I’ve planned nothing.”

We assume resting will naturally come easy to us because, after all, there’s not much to it. It’s resting, for crying out loud. How hard can it be to rest? Well, turns out it’s very hard, especially for those of you who labor in the Western part of the world where individualism and work tend to be idols. Challies is right: rest takes work. It also takes thoughtfulness and planning.

Determine ahead of time what energizes you, and schedule time around those activities. For me to feel rested, I need to recharge spiritually through time with the Lord. I also need good books, quality sleep, time away from technology, and time spent outside. I’ll plan my rest time around those activities.

4. Finalize your goals.

The new year often brings more motivation. Leverage that motivation toward strategically written goals.

Although your worth derives from your union with Christ, goals are a practical way to hold yourself accountable, aim for greater achievement, and push yourself. If you’d like a basic primer on goal-setting, see my post How to Write Goals: A Practical Guide.

5. Reflection and gratitude.

The last days of the year are a good time to reflect on the year that was. If you don’t stop to think about all the good things that happened, it’ll be hard for you to learn the skill of living in the moment. Write down a list of your accomplishments. Create a gratitude list. Spend a little extra time lingering in thankfulness in prayer. Don’t let the stress of in-laws and traveling stop you from giving thanks to our God and King who is worthy of ceaseless praise.

6. Read energizing material.

And it doesn’t have to be Christian books, either.

Read material that energies you. Prioritize books over online content.

7. No meetings or appointments.

Don’t accept appointments or meetings, and, if possible, bless your staff with the luxury of working from home for the week. The last week of the year is perfect for breaking up regular rhythms and spending more time at home.

8. Plan the preaching for the next year.

Having your preaching schedule lined up for at least 3-6 months is ideal. Some pastors prefer up to a year. Getting ahead on your preaching schedule will relieve stress down the road.

9. Family time.

Spend extra time with family. If your kids are home for an extended Christmas break, you will be tempted at some point to display unrighteous anger. There’s a reason why “Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again” is a memorable Christmas song lyric. Pray for wisdom and love to be present for your family, and make the most of the time with them.

The last days of the year are amongst us. Use this time to slow down from your regular rhythms, but effective rest will take work and planning. If you squander this time now, you’ll regret it later.

Working hard toward God-approved goals increases my happiness and overall quality of life. I can’t explain it, but I’m sure there’s science behind it. I know from experience that setting goals gets me out of my comfort zone, gives me direction in life, and usually leads to more productivity.

To help you accomplish your goals for the new year, I’ll give you my step-by-step goal-setting process.

Challenge: Write at least 3-5 goals using the steps below. 

How to Write Goals: A Practical Guide

1. Start with prayer.

When James tells us to ask for wisdom, the immediate literary context is suffering (James 1:5). But another application is to pray for wisdom in life’s decisions, such as goal-setting. Spend time with God before making your goals, asking for his guidance; spend time with God after making your goals, asking for his blessing. It honors the Lord when you acknowledge him first in prayer before setting goals.

2. Cultivate the right mindset.

If you think setting goals is only for secular people, you’ll never be serious about goals. If you think having goals in ministry is wrong because, after all, God is sovereign over all things, then you won’t seriously consider ways to set goals for your church. If you struggle with low self-worth, you might feel like an unworthy candidate to push yourself to accomplish something great. Either way, your mindset is key. You need to believe God can help you, that goals are a great tool for success, and that you can accomplish your goals. Mindset is crucial.

3. Use pen and paper ― at first.

I encourage you to write your goals down on paper, perhaps in a journal, before writing them in an app (such as Evernote or Notion). I know that’s an extra step, and good productivity advice avoids extra steps when necessary. But in this case, there’s something powerful about writing down your goals on paper. You don’t need a fancy pen or an expensive notebook. Don’t overcomplicate this. Any pen and paper will work just fine.

4. Dedicate 1-2 hours at a scenic place.

I live in Northeast Florida. The beach is just around 10 minutes away from my house. You might live near mountains or a nice lake or you might like being out in the woods. While you don’t need to be dramatic and book a vacation to your favorite getaway, there is something powerful about being out in God’s creation as you write God-glorifying goals in God’s fallen world. Being in a scenic place as you write your goals makes the experience of writing goals more enjoyable. It also sparks creativity.

5. Select your areas.

In his article on New Year’s Resolutions, Tim Challies suggests seven areas: family, devotion, character, vocation, time, relationships, and church.

In his book on goal-setting, Michael Hyatt recommends 10 areas:

Spiritual: Your connection to God.
Intellectual: Your engagement with significant ideas.
Emotional: Your psychological health.
Physical: Your bodily health.
Marital: Your spouse or significant other.
Parental: Your children if you have any.
Social: Your friends and associates.
Vocational: Your profession.
Avocational: Your hobbies and pastimes.
Financial: Your personal or family finances.

Important: a goal is not required for every area. The lists above are suggestive, not exhaustive.

Many people only pick one or two areas, but that might be selling yourself short. Setting 3-5 goals is a sweet spot for most people, but others might choose to do more.

How do you know which areas to select? Consider the things you want to accomplish and the poor habits you want to stop doing. You might want to save $20k for a house, have a quiet time every morning, and run a 5k (things you want to accomplish). Or you might want to cease your social media addiction, stop unnecessary Google searching, and stop going to bed so late (things you want to stop doing). What good habits do you want to cultivate? Which poor ones need to go? Make goals around those things.

6. Write down your goals using the SMARTER framework.

Michael Hyatt writes: “Writing down your goals makes you 42% more likely to achieve them, according to a study from Dr. Gail Matthews at Dominican University.”

Don’t just think about your goals or ponder them. Write them down.

Putting pen to paper is one small step to seeing how your life can change.

Although SMART goals are a popular framework for setting goals, Hyatt adds “er” at the end to make it SMARTER:

S: Specific
M: Measurable
A: Actionable
R: Risky
T: Time-keyed
E: Exciting
R: Relevant

Read below to see examples of goals using the SMARTER framework.

As you write your goals, don’t worry about making them perfect. The next couple of days after writing down your goals, your brain will continue to work, and you might slightly tweak your goals. Perfectly fine. Don’t put pressure on yourself to write perfect goals the first time.

7. Know what well-written goals look like using the SMARTER framework.

Some examples:

Bible Reading

Bad: Read the Bible more.

Good: To read the entire Bible by December 31st.

Prayer

Bad: To pray more.

Good: To spend 30 minutes praying every morning with prepared index cards in my living room.

Fitness

Bad: Run more.

Good: Run 3-5 miles on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:00 am.

Hospitality

Bad: Be more intentional about inviting people to our house after church.

Good: Schedule a time to have one family over for lunch after church every month for the first six months of the year.

Writing

Bad: Write more often.

Good: Post one new article on Substack every Tuesday by 9:00 am.

Sermon

Bad: Finish my sermon earlier in the week.

Good: Finish and complete the sermon by Thursday at 4:30 pm.

These examples should spark ideas about what goals you’d like to set for 2025.

8. Write down all the next steps.

To accomplish your goals, you need to know the tasks and habits required to accomplish them. For example, suppose you want to post a new article on your blog each week. In that case, you need to write most mornings (habits), follow through on doing the writing (productivity), put it in on your schedule (calendar), and develop the self-discipline (character) to continue to write even when no one is reading. Habits, goals, productivity, and character are interconnected.

As you think about your goals, write down all the next steps required to accomplish them.

If you want to post a new article every week, you may need to:

• Buy a new laptop.

• Communicate with your wife that you’ll be writing more frequently, and why this is important to you.

• Figure out when you can write, and block out time for writing in your schedule.

• Read voraciously on your desired writing topics, since you won’t have much to write if you don’t read about it.

• Exhibit the self-control and self-discipline to follow through on writing.

• Edit the article.

• Post the article.

And so on. There is more to accomplishing a goal than people realize.

One of the reasons we fail in our goals is that we don’t think through all the steps required to accomplish them. By pausing to create a list of all the next steps required, and to schedule a time to complete those next steps, you’ll empower yourself to accomplish your own goals.

9. Regularly review your goals ― either daily or monthly.

Now that you’ve written your goals, you need a system to regularly review them. This is when you can transfer your goals to your preferred app or print them somewhere and keep them close by. You can either review your goals daily or weekly. But you don’t want to let seven days go by without viewing them.

Regularly reviewing your goals keeps you accountable. It inspires you to get moving. When you review your goals and don’t feel motivated to take action, you probably didn’t write challenging enough goals. Re-write them and make them more difficult. You don’t want to write unrealistic goals, but you also don’t want your goal to be so simple to accomplish that you don’t feel challenged.

I challenge you to write 3-5 goals for 2025. Use the steps above, and by God’s grace, you might find yourself happier and more productive.

One of the most productive things you can do to ensure you don’t miss a step in your work as a pastor is to create a checklist for all projects that require multiple tasks. It’s more work in the short term but saves you time and headaches in the long run. You can create a checklist for baptisms, order of service planning, sermon preparation, and more. In any aspect of your work where multiple tasks are required, especially if multiple people are involved, a checklist ensures a thorough job is done.

A checklist is not something you set and forget. It’s a living document that often needs tweaking. How do you create one?

Let’s use baptism as an example.

To create a checklist for baptism, write down all the steps you already know that are required to do a baptism. After the baptism is over, you’ll likely realize a few more tasks that can be added to your checklist. Write down those tasks. Keep refining the checklist until no more tasks are required to add or change.

By God’s grace, I’ve baptized five adults in the past couple of months. At our church, we barely had documents or a formal process for baptism. Getting the first baptism together was stressful. What’s supposed to be an amazing spiritual highlight as a local church pastor turns into stress because we don’t have adequate structures and systems. After a couple of baptisms, I created a checklist. That has made the baptism process more enjoyable and less stressful.

Is the checklist perfect? No. Even after posting it, I see how it can be better. There are other tasks to include. You can assign tasks to people on your staff, and categorize the tasks by dates.

The Preacher’s Checklist

That brings me to preaching. One of the most helpful places to create a checklist is for your sermon preparation process. Experienced preachers may rely on intuition. But even experienced preachers can become sloppy with sermon preparation. Having a checklist holds you accountable for not skipping any needed steps for an effective sermon.

Below you’ll find one I use. I don’t always follow it perfectly, and I find it’s more helpful in the beginning part of the process than in the end. I also don’t always succeed in getting every step done on the designated day. That’s okay. Checklists were created for man, not the other way around. Feel free to use and tweak as needed. And if you’re reading this post via email, don’t forget to snag your PDF copy.

Monday

• Pray for illumination

• Copy and paste sermon text in Logos and format

• Read the text in ESV, NIV, and NASB

• Write questions and observations in Logos

• Come up with rough big idea, FCF, applications, main points, and illustrations

• Read ESV, NIV, NASB, and Systematic Study Bible

• Read One Volume Bible Commentary

Tuesday

• Read two exegetical commentaries

• Read one pastoral/devotional/preaching commentary

• Come up with official big idea, FCF, applications, main points

• Write out applications.

• Consult original languages

• Team Sermon Prep

Wednesday

• Read two-three exegetical commentaries

• Read one pastoral/devotional/preaching commentary

• Read any other books as needed

• Begin writing sermon

Thursday

• Read one-two more commentaries

• Finish and print sermon

Friday

• Off day

Saturday

• Read anything else on text

• Read sermon once in mind

Sunday

• Read sermon once aloud

• Print out sermon

Interestingly, sometimes Christians have a confused, over-spiritualized view of goals. Church staff members might seem perplexed when a Lead Pastor encourages his staff to make ministry goals. “You can’t run a church like a business,” one staff member might protest. Since church growth is from God and much of our work is spiritual and unseen, goal-setting can seem like an anti-Christian pursuit.

Here’s how Dan Doriani puts it: “I propose that good work has five elements: need, talent, disciplined effort, direction, and correct social appraisal.” Consider Doriani’s use of “direction” for doing good work. How can you have proper direction in your work without a goal? How can you tell whether you’re succeeding or failing if you don’t know what you’re aiming for? In truth, sometimes we relieve ourselves of setting goals because we don’t want to face the music that we’re not as faithful with our lives as we should be.

I plan to add my voice to the mix of those talking about the practicals of goal-setting. But before I share the practical, I want to think theologically. Here’s my question: Does God have goals? The answer is yes. In studying Christian theology and Scripture, you’ll discover a God who has a goal for his creation. The basis for Christians to have goals is because God himself has goals. Setting goals, therefore, is not an anti-Christian pursuit.

What Are God’s Goals?

The word “telos” comes from the words “purpose” and “end.” God has an ultimate purpose, or telos, for his creation. Jonathan Edwards brilliantly discusses this topic in his A Dissertation Concerning The End For Which God Created The World. If you’re familiar with Edwardian theology, then you probably know the answer: God created the world to glorify and magnify himself, and for his creatures to take pleasure in his glory. At least, that’s the short answer, and Edwards elaborates at length on God’s goal in creation in his book. The only real way for people to find happiness in a fallen world is by being satisfied by the glory of God. There’s a purpose ― or a goal ― for God’s creation and your life.

Consider the way Paul says it in Ephesians 1. Paul tells us God has “a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10). And God does this “to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:12). God has a plan to unite all things in him, and this is for his glory. It hasn’t happened yet ― but it’s one of his goals that will indisputably come to pass.

God has a goal to accomplish the great commission through his church. We often refer to the Book of Acts as the acts of the Apostles, but it’s the acts of God through the Apostles. The great commission will one day be completed. But it hasn’t yet. It’s one of God’s goals, but he is patient, giving unbelievers time to repent.

God has a goal to gather his chosen people to himself. Why hasn’t Jesus come back yet? Many reasons. One of them is because God has more people he wants to save first, more people he wants to find fulfillment in his glory, and more people he wants in the New Creation. God is always working but works on his timing. He always accomplishes his goals, but he doesn’t always rush them.

God has a goal to renew all things. When Jesus returns, he’s not going to annihilate everything but renew everything. God has a goal to renew and restore creation. On his timing, he will complete it.

In saying that you can have goals because God does, I need to make a distinction. When you set a goal, you may or may not accomplish it. For you, you not only need to develop the proper habits and self-discipline required to meet your goals, but you also need to anticipate the future and make adjustments to the inevitable obstacles that will be thrown your way. But God is different. He doesn’t need to develop new character traits to achieve his goals because he is already perfect. He doesn’t need to anticipate the future because he is omniscient. God always accomplishes every one of his goals.

So, are goals then required of Christians? Required? No, you’re not required to have goals. But it is ethically permissible for Christians to have goals because God himself does.

To properly understand Ephesians 5:16, we cannot interpret it in isolation but need to interpret it in light of its literary context. 

Here’s Ephesians 5:16 in its context: 

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is (Ephesians 5:15-17).

It’s chapter five of the book of Ephesians. In Ephesians 5:1-20, Paul writes on, as the ESV Study Bible points out, “general instructions for holy living.” I appreciate that phrase. There might be some disagreement about explaining Ephesians 5:16, or how to apply it to our lives, but we need to see the relationship between time management and personal holiness. Anything we say about time management from a biblical perspective must be rooted in our desire to grow in holiness. 

In the New Testament's original language, “making the best use of” can be rendered as “redeem” or “purchase.” It can also be rendered as “buy” or “buy up” or “buy back.” Interestingly, Paul says something similar in Colossians 4:5: “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.” It’s obvious Colossians 4:5 is about evangelistic opportunities, but what about Ephesians 5:16?

In Ephesians 5:15-17, Paul calls his original readers to a life of wisdom. He tells them to “look carefully” at how they “walk.” Walk is a metaphor for their conduct in life. It’s a call for careful, thoughtful, and deliberate examination of how they are living. There is a need for wisdom (v.15) to know how to spend your time (v.16) to know how to honor God when surrounded by evil (v.17). 

We can safely infer Paul is instructing his readers to make the most of an opportunity or the time. In the next verse, Paul says, “because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:17). This is not a mysterious kind of secret will that Christians are somehow to discover. It means living in a holy manner. When we are living holy lives, we are living according to the Lord’s will. And to live holy lives, we need to be wise about our use of time. 

Understanding Ephesians 5:16 in its context, then, we can imply the following: “making the best use of the time” means to live wisely and not foolishly and to structure your time in a way that aligns with holy living ― or the will of the Lord (v. 17).

But what about personal productivity? Can we say Ephesians 5:16 relates to personal productivity? Yes. 

S. M. Baugh, in his commentary on Ephesians, states: 

To "redeem the time" is a vivid metaphor for making the best use of one's time and efforts. 

Making the best use of time does relate to effective time management for your personal life. Practically, this means that seizing your commute, developing a morning routine, and being disciplined in your work are all good things to pursue. And yet, we must maintain the idea that our desire for growth in personal time management should not be exclusively restricted to personal accomplishments, but personal holiness and pleasing the Lord. It’s a call to spend your life wisely, by making the best use of the opportunities that come your way, in such a way that God is glorified by how you redeem your time.

At the very least, Paul calls his audience to personal diligence. Too many Christians go about life without proper self-examination and neglect to seize the opportunities right in front of them. Time is precious and must be treated with the utmost care for holy living. It must be redeemed. Or as Jonathan Edwards puts it in one of his resolutions: “Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.” 

At least, this is what I’ve found in my own life. 

I love acquiring information. Books, podcasts, and YouTube videos are among my favorites. Even this newsletter exists to provide information. But sometimes my quest for more information is simply a sophisticated way of stalling. It’s a form of procrastination. 

This doesn’t negate the times in life when you genuinely don’t know what to do. Should you accept a different pastorate? Should you leave ministry and go into secular work? Should you add another service? In these moments, you should pray for wisdom and talk to mentors. There are times when issues are complex and require an extended season of prayer and seeking wise counsel. 

And of course, there are other situations when you know what to do, but you don’t know how to do it. I can think of the projects in my home that I need to work on but I’m doing nothing about it because I’m not good at fixing things. I have a vision of what my house will look like but don’t know how to make that vision a reality. 

There are times in life and ministry when you don’t know what to do, or you don’t know how to do something. But in truth, most of life does not require more information or a new set of skills. In more cases than not, we know the next step, but something stops us from taking it. Usually, it’s fear, perfectionism, or procrastination. It’s like a mysterious force prevents us from moving. 

Consider, for example, the idea of fat loss. You lose fat by eating fewer calories than you consume, referred to in the nutrition world as a “calorie deficit.” Unless you have a significant health issue, for most people in the world, if they eat fewer calories than they burn, they will lose fat. But for many factors, especially living in our prosperous 21^st century age where food abounds, it’s difficult for most of us (including me) to follow through on eating fewer calories than we burn. We know what to do, but we don’t do it. 

Or how about retirement money? I’ve had the misfortune of witnessing people work for decades, only to have little to nothing to show for it in their retirement years. There are providential hindrances and extraordinary circumstances that prevent some from saving. I’d probably be clueless about saving for retirement were it not for the internet, something that wasn’t around in previous generations. But wisely investing a modest amount of money monthly for decades can lead to great financial provision. Something deep down tells us to talk to the HR person, learn the difference between a stock and a bond, and ensure my 401k is being maxed out. We know there is wisdom in saving and investing and admire those who are diligent in their finances. But we don’t do it ourselves.

Ministry is not easy, but it’s simple. What God calls you to do is not rocket science. Most of life and ministry is simply the ability to take the next step in faith. At the risk of oversimplifying, Christian ministry is about loving Jesus and helping others love Jesus. Growth in the Christian life comes from the Holy Spirit as we appropriate ordinary means like Bible reading, prayer, and meaningful local church involvement. I’m thankful God has not ordained a world where Christian ministry and Christian growth are like complex algebra problems to solve, but like a boy learning to walk and depend on his parents for his needs. 

“So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17). This is a go-to text when speaking of sins of omissions, the good that we’re supposed to do, but aren’t (versus sins of commission, which is blatantly doing wrong). Of course, James’ words speak to ethical Christian living and obedience to God, but derivative of his point is the understanding that we often know the thing we should do, but fail to do it. 

It’s been said repeatedly that we live in an age of information, but not an age of wisdom. Wisdom, as Tim Keller would say, is the ability to make the right choices. What’s equally true is that we live in a day of information paired with inaction. We watch videos on social media and listen to podcasts, and then do nothing with the newly acquired information. In addition to praying for wisdom, we need to pray for courage and power to move forward in faith.

The next time you’re paralyzed by inaction, ask yourself why. Is it because you don’t know what the next step should be, or how to take the next step? Or is it because you know what to do, but aren’t doing it? Don’t just pray for wisdom. Also pray for strength and courage to take action on doing what you already know you should do.