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Matthew Cornell, from Matt’s Idea Blog, wrote a article entitled Best Practices for GTD and Administrative Assistants, a great GTD-flavored companion for my post, Tips for Working with a Secretary.

This is the first time I’ve introduced the term GTD on this site but it was bound to happen sooner or later. If you’ve never tasted GTD, Getting Things Done, put your bibs on because you’re in for a messy, filling course of productivity delight that you pastors will dive into like a potluck dinner after a 30 hour fast. In the meantime, learn how the system of Getting Things Done works with an administrative assistant so you can free up your time for people ministry and worship.

Best Practices for GTD and Administrative Assistants

A little light on cash this holiday season… or all year round? Pastoring, in many cases, is not a well-paying business to be in and sometimes pastors need to have an extra source of income to supplement a low salary at the church. As Dave Ramsey says, there are two sides to the equation: income and outgo. Perhaps your income is low because you’re fresh out of college and this is your first pastorate, you are in small church that can’t afford a full-time pastor’s salary, your position is only part-time, or the church flat out isn’t paying you enough. On the other hand, maybe your present lifestyle is exceeding your income, you have debt because of school loans or poor choices in the past, or life happened and you’re having to pay medical bills from a serious illness. For whatever reason, you need to earn income from another source and your spouse is already working or is staying home to care for your family.

As an aside, let me say that pastors should be paid well and, if possible, be able to support his family adequately with his income alone. It is generally accepted, except in those churches that believe they should keep their pastors humble, that a pastor should earn an income representative of those in his congregation. 1 Timothy 5:15 (ESV) states, “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.”

Following are some guidelines you can try to follow when looking for ways to supplement your income as well as specific sources of extra income.

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My church has been focusing on the Ten Commandments during our weekend worship gatherings and this past Sunday was number seven: You shall not commit adultery (Exodus 20:14). Jesus instructs us in Matthew 5:27-30 that adultery includes the act as well as the thoughts leading up to the action, so don’t think you’re off the hook if you haven’t committed the physical act of adultery. Since I’m not the one preaching here, I’ll move on.

If you’re in pastoral leadership, you’ve probably read many articles and books on the subject of protecting yourself in the area of marital faithfulness and more recently about not taking the bait of Internet pornography. I don’t feel I need to develop a rationale to convince you to pursue Christlikeness in these areas because you should know better. If you’re a student of God’s Word and are in church leadership, as a pastor or in lay leadership, you should already understand how God thinks. Others have accomplished that much better than I could so I encourage you to dig up those magazine articles and books and go through them periodically and prayerfully. We know there is a hook attached to the bait and a fisherman at the other end of the line with every intention of pulling you in. It’s good to re-read those materials and remind yourself of those truths from time to time because our minds might blur the distinction between the bait and the provisions God has given to us.

Think of it like reverse beer goggles. Beer goggles enable the drinker to view the not-so-attractive barfly as a thing of beauty the more alcohol they consume. The more we study God’s Word and other materials on the subject of purity, the clearer the lines will be between that which God has blessed us with and that which ensnares us.

While I’m not going to give you instruction on why you need to have victory in this area, I will give you some ideas on how you can succeed and steps you can take to reduce the chance of making the wrong choice.

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‘Tis the season to be infectious. Since we’re approaching that time of year when your health can fluctuate as often and severe as the price of a gallon of gas, it’s time to consider the ramifications of you, the pastor, getting sick and having to attend Bedside Baptist instead of preaching on a Sunday morning. What do you do when you wake up on Sunday morning as sick as a dog?

1. Establish a plan and procedure ahead of time and discuss it with those involved.
   We often think clearer when we don’t have the pressures of a crisis breathing down our necks. The military has operation procedures and football teams have play books. They execute strategies and plays that have been predetermined for every scenario. Take the time to develop a contingency plan in advance so you’re not dumping responsibility on someone at the last minute.
2. If there is another pastor on staff or church leader who is able to preach, make sure he has a message prepared for this purpose.
   Football teams have second- and third-string quarterbacks and the military has a chain of command so if someone gets taken out, another can step in to take their place. I was the second-string preacherman at a previous church. Shortly after I had taken this ministry, the senior pastor instructed me to have a message waiting in the wings in case he was ill. I never received the early Sunday morning call but I was ready, nonetheless.
3. Designate a point man to make a final decision about what will take place.
   Your plan may work 95% of the time but it’s possible that you’ll be sick on a Sunday when your plan won’t work. You may need to call an audible. For example, your plan is to have a fellow pastor preach a message from Genesis 3 that he already has prepared. However, it’s Mother’s Day and it’s probably not a good time to talk about the whole ordeal with Eve and the Serpent. Have your point man call an audible and put an alternate play into motion.
4. Strip out elements for that day’s service that are unique to your message (drama, special music, videos, etc.).
   If you have music or other aspects to your service that are closely tied to your sermon, put those on hold until you preach that message. People are pretty flexible and I’m sure soloists and those involved in drama will appreciate an extra week of preparation.
5. Early the next week, think of the impact it will make on your sermon schedule and adjust accordingly.
   Changing this week’s plans might have implications for future weeks. You may be in the middle of a series that needs to end on a certain week or you might be approaching a holiday or another event. Look ahead on your message planning sheet and figure out where you need to make adjustments in the schedule.

Here are some specific ideas to include in your plan.

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Right now many of you are working on closing out the year as 2006 comes to an end. You’re throwing your Harvest Party (Holy Ghost Weiner Roast), gathering testimonies for the Thanksgiving service, taking up your yearly missionary offering, and preparing the hotest Christmas cantata from the late John W. Peterson to draw people in for Christmas. After it’s all said and done you’ll probably retreat to your office, sit back in your chair, and let out a big sigh of relief. News flash: 2007 is coming (unless the good Lord returns, that is). If you fail to plan, you plan to fail and if you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time and all those clichés that communicate the truth that nothing will get accomplished if you don’t set goals.

Take some time over the next month, sit down with your leadership, and lay out a plan for what ideas you want to communicate in your worship services over the fifty-two weekends in 2007. Set aside the other plans you have to make, like your church softball league, the Easter program, and your all-church picnic, and think of Bible passages you want to teach from and the topics you want to cover. Here are some ideas to get you started in planning out the 52 sermons for 2007.

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This article is the fourth part of the series Extending Your Sermons Beyond Sunday. Be sure to read the first, second, and third articles, if you haven’t already.

This series is designed to give you ideas on how to help your listeners remember your sermon after they walk out the church doors. We’ve discussed having them leave with an outline, an object, or an action in part one. Part two was about using technology and providing your sermons online, on CDs, and through podcasting. Tweaking your message was the topic of part three. This article will give you ideas on how to expand your church’s ministry to further your Sunday morning teachings.

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This article is the third part of the series Extending Your Sermons Beyond Sunday. Be sure to read the first and second articles, if you haven’t already.

As a reminder, the point of this four-part series is to give you some tips on what to do to help those in your congregation keep the words you speak on Sunday morning on their minds throughout the week. You invest many hours in preparation for your sermon on Sunday morning and you want to have some assurance they won’t forget it as soon as they sit down to Sunday dinner. The first article dealt with ways you can send them home with something. The second article introduced ways you can use technology to increase the shelf life of your message. This article will address the sermon itself and how you can structure and formulate your message to help it stick. Without any further blah blah blah and yada yada yada, I’ll get right into it.

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This article is the second part of the series Extending Your Sermons Beyond Sunday. Be sure to read the first article, if you haven’t already.

Nine seasons of Seinfeld sadly came to a close as Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine sat in a cold, lifeless prison cell as a result of their selfish ways and thoughtless inaction. A small tear ran down my cheek when I watched the last of the Lord of the Rings trilogy knowing that this was the end. The telling of such a great tale had been told only to live within my memory (oh, and the books that I tried to read and gave up on. But, whatever.). Those evenings in May of ‘99 and December of ‘03 represent the void that is present in my soul every Sunday morning after hearing good, Biblical preaching, a moment that lasts for about thirty to forty minutes and then ceases to exist outside of our memory.

But soft! The proper placement of ones and zeros on a computer or an optical disc or the reconfiguration of a piece of magnetized tape can capture the essence of Seinfeld, Middle Earth, and a 30 minute message allowing them to exist in my collection forever and ever.

Technological advancements in the last few decades and especially the last few years have changed the way we can capture, store, and distribute media. Take technology by the reins and allow the people in your congregation to relive those moments at their leisure… not a season of Seinfeld, I mean, but your series on Jesus’ prayer in Matthew 6 or your message on Psalm 23. Here are some ways you can use technology to extend the shelf life of your sermons.

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An assistant is essential to the success of many a great leader and the pastor is no exception. It has been said, “Behind every successful man is a woman.” Even though that quote most likely refers to the worth and supportive nature of a good wife, the principle still applies. Or, we could defer to Groucho Marx’ quote, “Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.” Then again, maybe not.

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Scenario: you’re at Bob Evans having breakfast with your head deacon/elder and you ask him a question about the great sermon you delivered just two days ago. Beads of sweat appear on his brow and his face becomes flush. It’s apparent that he can’t remember a word you said or if you spoke from the Old Testament, New Testament, or the newspaper. The cinnamon pancakes taste different smothered in awkward tension that now exists between you and the soon-to-be-ousted elder. Ok, maybe it’s not that bad but the reality is that an individual only remembers a small percentage of information he hears and it’s probable that the three points and poem you preached on Sunday exists in his memory between his childhood friend’s phone number and the color of the pizza delivery guy’s shirt from last Friday.

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