The church’s problems seemed easy to diagnose in our consultation with the congregation. The church was not reaching people with the gospel. They counted on transfer growth in earlier years to sustain their ministries. Of course, transfer growth means that the church was receiving (taking?) members from another church. Transfer growth is elusive these days. If churches are not growing by conversion or evangelistic growth, they probably are not growing at all.
The pastor’s two responses to my questions surprised me.
Me: Do you know your church is not reaching people with the gospel?
Pastor: Yes.
Me: Can you tell me why you think that is the case?
Pastor: Because I don’t have time to lead the church in evangelism.
Digging Deeper
I appreciated the pastor’s honesty and thoughtfulness. He did not make excuses. He did not blame others. And he knew the problem.
Moving to the next step was rather easy because the pastor already diagnosed the problem. And to some extent, he took responsibility. His challenge was his inability to see a solution. “How can I find hours I don’t have?” he asked me.
That question led me to request the next step of him. I asked the pastor to write down his closest estimate of the number of hours he spent leading his church and being a pastor to the people. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he had already done this exercise to some extent.
He suggested to me that we should meet the next day. “This won’t take long,” he said. “I’ll have your list to you tomorrow.”
The Checklist
He seemed eager to share his list with me. This pastor did not want to continue doing the same things he had done for some time. He eagerly sought solutions.
I received his email a few hours before our Zoom meeting. It was straightforward. “Here are my typical work hours. Of course, they are always subject to change. You can’t neatly predict a day in the life of the pastor. Anyway, this checklist is a close estimate of my workweek.”
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- Sermon preparation: 12 hours
- Sunday services (including prayer and three services): 6 hours
- Church meetings: 3 hours
- Denominational and community responsibilities: 2 hours
- Custodial/building issues: 2 hours
- Counseling: 4 hours
- Working on newsletter: 2 hours
- Hospital and nursing home visits: 4 hours
- Administrative work: 9 hours
- Community ministry: 2 hours
- Attending and leading life groups: 3 hours
- Leading staff: 5 hours
- Crises and other unexpected events: 7 hours
Total hours: 61 hours
“If I have any cushion in this list, I try to spend more time with my wife and three daughters,” he told me. “If you suggest I cut back in one of these areas, I will have to deal with fallout from different church members. Sometimes, I use my ‘cushion’ for more sermon preparation time.”
Then the pastor said those words that stuck with me: “I have to get my checklist done every week.”
Good Is Not Always Great
This pastor works hard. He serves both his church and community well. He seems to be a good husband and a good dad. But he does not lead in evangelism because he must get the other checklist items done each week. Obviously, he has some level of expectations or accountability for all the responsibilities on the checklist.
But evangelism is not on his checklist.
And, frankly, this one omission is the most common problem we see in struggling churches.
Help us to help pastors like this one. What would you say to him? What would you recommend he do?
I would love to hear from you.
Posted on June 3, 2024
With nearly 40 years of ministry experience, Thom Rainer has spent a lifetime committed to the growth and health of local churches across North America.
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25 Comments
Let this pastor train his church on delegation and responsibilities and he will get people to releave him of some of his busy schedules. He can not do anything alone for church is not a one man show as stipulated in Acts 6 :1-7.
There is one question I would be interested in, does his Board have any interest in evangelism? If they do, then the Pastor could intentionally start shifting some of those items to other leaders and “make room.” Life groups, community ministry, admin work, hospital visits etc can all be done by other people equipped for the ministry. If the Board has no vision for growth, then he will have an uphill battle.
Build a Team to do what is urgent (hospital Visits, Admin Work, Custodial work, etc.) so that he can work in what’s most important (Sermon Prep, Teaching, Leadership Development, etc). If he is not intentional about working ON ministry, he will forever be stuck in the rat race of working IN Ministry. Moses father in Law taught it.
Thanks, Eugene.
His checklist does not include meals. Perhaps that’s an oversight or he combined his meals with the other meetings. I have found that mealtime is my best time to have meaningful conversations with the lost and my church members. I intentionally schedule at least one meal a week with someone I am trying to win to Christ. Maybe, that could help him.
Good word, Ricky.
Great idea, Rickey.
Moses had a similar problem until his father-in-law showed him, he needed to delegate. Delegate some of the responsibilities to the deacons/elders or other church leaders. As far as evangelism goes, it doesn’t come from the pulpit. It is a lifestyle. You are a living picture of Jesus every moment of every day. We are not salesmen; we are living examples of God’s love. As a pastor I am aware of all the things that come up needing your attention. How about 2 hours each day with 4 grandkids. I am not complaining. they are a gift from God. So is my congregation. God knows better than I what needs to be done, what needs my attention. Throw out the checklist, spend that time in prayer and you will be surprised what you can accomplish. Try it for a couple months. Lean on God, not a checklist.
Thanks, Jared.
Delegate!!
Two concerns from the checklist:
First, everyone has a checklist at their jobs in the private sector. If pastors can’t fit evangelism into their schedule, how do we expect our members to do so with their busy lives?
Second, I don’t think the list is intellectually honest. Funerals, weddings, VBS, conventions, seminars, revivals all gain access to our schedule. We all have to adapt our checklists multiple times a year.
One of the things we try to do is teach our people to be evangelical in the midst of their lives. Learning to share the gospel at sporting events, family gatherings, and even work. We send groups out on Wednesday nights to prayer walk and/or conduct surveys, preparing the way to have intentional gospel conversations. We use Easter, Christmas, Halloween, VBS, service projects and Back to Church Sunday to create events lost people will attend and train people to share the gospel with them. We infuse our student and children’s ministries with gospel presentations and teaching about baptism.
We dedicate one month a year for a “Who’s Your One” campaign, and emphasize gospel presentations and resources.
Even within this checklist there are evangelism opportunities: Sunday services, community responsibilities, counseling, the newsletter, hospital and nursing home, community ministry, life groups, leading staff (encouraging them to share the gospel), and definitely crises–all have the potential for gospel conversations and engaging lost people if you are strategic and intentional. I pray my brother will not think of it as adding to his schedule, but redeeming the time he is already investing.
Troy –
I agree with your point that we have to become evangelistic in the midst of our lives. I don’t think the pastor was being intellectually dishonest. He knew he needed to change; such is the reason he came to us for help.
This one is a challenge I think a lot of us face!
I needed to lead through a culture change in my own church (when I came in, it was very internally-focused and self-centered, and relied almost exclusively on transfer growth). And I set up a few values that I think help with transitioning into better health in this area.
1) Ministries won’t run unless there’s someone who is passionate willing to do the work. Period. We dropped weekly bible study until someone stepped up willing to lead it. If i’m the only person running something (translation – if everyone wants it done, but nobody wants to do it), then it doesn’t get done. This was a great way to get help (people will come out of the woodwork to run things if they really believe in them). But I tell my church regularly – the day that nobody wants to help run Sunday services is the day we cancel Sunday services.
2) You grow what you celebrate. Regularly highly ministries and volunteers that are outward focused and sacrificial. Find even the smallest ways to orient your church towards the outside (we asked a local grocery store to donate and freeze 500 freezies for us, then we grabbed a table and handed them out at a local Canada Day celebration. Took literally a single volunteer) and celebrate it. But find as many possible ways to communicate from as many possible angles, ‘this thing here that’s outward focused, this is great!’
3) Pass off things you’re doing simply because you can / no one else will. I’m pretty good at organizing, designing stuff, etc. But lots of people can prepare volunteer schedules, clean the facility, prepare newsletters, etc. Sort your priorities into musts (community ministry) and can’s (newsletter prep), and give away the cans. If you can’t find someone to take a can, see rule #1.
4) Aim for unity in leadership, and sell them hard on the vision. When people start to become uncomfortable with change, the more voices saying, ‘no, this is where we’ve decided to go’, the faster you can move.
5) Hammer in the idea that we all have a part to play in the ministry of the body. I think in every single message I preach, I work in the idea of ‘we all can contribute to the health of the church’ in some fashion. Even down to the smallest things (like helping to prepare coffee on Sundays, or putting offering envelopes in chairs), push people constantly into service.
These are really great responses, Jon. Thank you.
The newsletter, many of the administration duties, and the property management should all be handled by church council/board of elders and congregation members. There are some things that only the pastor can do, and that’s where the pastor’s efforts have to be concentrated. I sympathize, Pastor, it is difficult to watch people do important things poorly. And it is easy to do administrative work because you’re right there. But you can’t do it all, you have to delegate, and you can’t delegate leadership. I hope that you have a supportive congregation and that they are checking on your wellbeing regularly. God bless you.
Great word, Mary. Thank you.
I, like you, believe evangelism has become the “lost art” of the church. I know that the task is daunting and not necessarily because it is intentionally overlooked. I have been searching over the past few years for something that would help me to overcome the cultural changes that have left the methods and techniques taught to me forty years ago (EE ain’t workin’ for me!), woefully ineffective. I believe we have to move a congregation from hoping all the professional Christians on staff will take care of evangelism, to individuals being ready and equipped to evangelize.
I am now using two sources to build a curriculum for my life (Baby Boomer) group to teach them the need to know and understand conversational evangelism in a postmodern, post-Christian environment. I have been especially motivated after reading Thom’s paper concerning the CHRINOs amongst us.
That is so good, Jack. Keep records of everything you do. Your work could become a movement to reclaim evangelism, particularly since it is lay-led.
Thom,
Thank you for your ministry and your encouragement. You always offer thoughtful and helpful material. I have always grown through what you offer.
Concerning the check list pastor,
It is likely that most of us have labored under the tyranny of expectation and the limits of time. When I consider your example, I realize the difficulties faced by most pastors…
The answer lies in leadership development and mentoring within the local church.
2 Tim 2:2-3 And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. NKJV
The “Paul to Timothy Institute” (paultotimothy.com) has developed material and ministry that could assist pastors in raising up leaders (Ministry partners) withing the local church. Partners in ministry would share the “check list.”
We would love to help
You nailed it, Robert. Thank you.
It is a struggle balancing the responsibilities of a pastor. I like the phrase, “lead in evangelism”. A couple of things we do that seem to help and not take a lot of time.
1. I have trained a man in the church to take on evangelistic responsibilities.
2. We go out as a church for our Sunday evening service once a month.
3. We are planning an evangelistic crusade.
That is great, Patrick! May your tribe increase.