Lower the bar…

• “Brevity with completeness is a virtue.” _Jerald Daffee (From a 130517 Tweet from Jim Stephens)

This week I had a couple of conversations with bi-vocational pastors that really touched my heart.

I’ve been there – it’s tough trying to pastor a church, prepare two-three sermons a week, being a family man and also work a full-time job; all this while trying to maintain a healthy relationship with God and a healthy lifestyle.

Their struggles were a good reminder to me at a couple of levels.

It was a good reminder to me of my many “tent-maker” pastors out there that deserve a huge “atta-boy” for their faithfulness and commitment. It was also a reminder to me of the many “bi-vocational” teachers that we pastors have serving in our churches. God bless you if you are serving your pastor and church as a teacher of a class or small group!

In light of that let me offer this suggestion: Lower the bar

First: Lower the bar on your expectations (and other people’s expectations)

As a preacher or teacher the main thing that you need to do each week is be prepared to say something God-inspired and helpful each time you speak. Don’t complicate your with a lot of other expectations.

Remember, the answer to almost every suggestion and idea is “No.” It may be a great idea or suggestion; but remember, the main thing – even the one thing – that you must do is be prepared for the next time you speak. Get that right consistently week after week and it will pave the way for you to eventually get to other things.

Second: Lower the bar on how much you must say.

The temptation is to build a message or lesson to fill a certain amount of time. For example, if you have an hour for your Sunday School class you may feel you’ve got to talk for at least 45 minutes. But as a bi-vocational pastor or teacher you may only have a good 15-20 minutes each morning to really study. Just think, if you put in a good 15 minutes per day in prayerful study- in six days you’d have studied 90 minutes. Then hopefully you could study a good hour on Sunday morning – that would give you two and a-half hours of study. It would be better to have developed from that time a solid 20-30 minutes lesson/sermon than to ramble on about things that you are not really prepared to talk about for 45 minutes.

Now I’m not suggesting that you only study for 15 minutes per day; but sometimes that’s the best you could do. And less you feel that only a 2-3 hours is not enough to be prepared to say something God-inspired and helpful, just think if you’d prepared your remarks 2-3 hours before you had your last “fight” with spouse – I bet it would have turned out a whole lot better!

Bottom line, you can get a lot done in focused study fifteen minutes at a time.

Remember, no one will ever complain about you preaching or teaching to short // don’t put pressure on yourself to do so. If there is still time left in your allotted time; call your people to pray about what you’ve just taught them; God can do more in that prayer time than you trying to stretch a lesson/message out too long.

God bless all you dear bi-vocational pastors and dedicated volunteers that work your jobs while volunteering for your church. I am thankful for you and I know God is.

Warmest regards, dlkemp