I steward Productive Pastor, a podcast and community of ministry leaders focused on how productivity and strategic ministry in the average church. I write about practical approaches to ministry productivity. I also write emails about church stability/development and my own theological musics in our current social moment.
How I'm preparing for 2025 | Productive Pastor
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I love the end of the year. Each year, I try to reserve the week between Christmas Day and New Year's for planning and review. This isn’t so much about ministry, but family and personal goals I want to have. We are going to talk about this idea over the next few weeks. I’ve done several emails about using personal values and beliefs to help understand growth and goals. You can listen to them here. Setting Personal Goals Through Values | EP 107 Core Values and Decision Making | EP 77 I like this approach because it helps me get beyond some random list of 5-10 goals. Sure, I’ve got those. Over time, I have found more valuable in drilling deeper into who I am personally. If I focus on who I am and aspire to be, hitting an objective goal will be easier. Starting off with some reflection around “what do I want to embody over the next year?” is a much better assessment. Sure, you could say you want to lose weight. Or you could say, I want to strive for physical fitness long-term and begin the pattern of getting 15,000 steps in every day. This sounds like a goal, but I attach a personal wellness goal to my core value of being healthy enough to not be physically unfit. That way making a goal to go on a strenuous trip or event isn’t just a one-time thing, but pointing my life towards what and where I want to be. Currently, I am having to level up my administrative skills. I could attach a goal or two to that. Where I am more likely to be heading is instead embodying better communication practices, reviews, and using systems to get long-term results. I’ll share more on this in the next couple of emails, but I want to give you a specific call-to-action. What would the one-step better version of you be next year? Think about this with 3-5 bullet points. These are what we want other people to say about us when we aren’t around. Next week we will hit the specifics and some systems, but think about those bullets. Yes, these might need to be ministry related. Or personal. Think holistically. I’ll see you back next week. Chad |
Hey. I'm Chad Brooks.
I steward Productive Pastor, a podcast and community of ministry leaders focused on how productivity and strategic ministry in the average church. I write about practical approaches to ministry productivity. I also write emails about church stability/development and my own theological musics in our current social moment.
For the past year, I’ve been on a personal tear about the church and social media. For the gist of it, here’s a video about one of the biggest mistakes I see churches make. The TLDR is that many pastors and other leaders in normal-size churches don’t understand how the algorithm drives Facebook, to really get traction, you have to pay to play, and the realization that many churches' posting strategies are actually HURTING their ability to reach people on Social Media. What’s the biggest...
A decade ago, when I was church planting, I was in a season where I wasn’t “at” a local on Sunday mornings. I spent some of that time preaching for colleagues when they needed a Sunday off. I also led worship at another United Methodist Church frequently. But on the Sundays when I didn’t have some assignment at a local church, I decided to skip church. I think you need to do it every now and then as well. Does this sound a bit off? Well, I realized this past week how the idea is actually...
Let’s wrap up these conversations on “calling on the name of the Lord” as a primary spiritual act. I’ve got a few articles* you can read if you want to catch up, but let’s get right into it. You might know I’ve got a really intense system of Bible notes and list-making. One of my commenters on YouTube remarked last year, it seems like what you might find in the Thompson Chain Reference. I’ll call that a compliment! This feeds into today. It isn’t about a specific mention of “calling on the...