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.
Learn to do big things by doing small things. Do you like to experiment? I am a serial experimenter. I spend time trying to figure out how things work. Sometimes, what I learn affects the larger way I work. At other times, my experiments finish, and I store what I learned in my brain if I need something in the future. Experiments can be handy. I want to share with you how little things learned can be helpful for big things. I also want to talk about the dangers of experiments and how to avoid...
Hey Friend - I’m a practical guy. I like systems, processes, and data. I can’t imagine how one would work in ministry, lead a church, or do the job I do right now as a congregational developer without these practices. On a more personal side, I am obsessed with the classic devotional life. Those Spiritual biographies. Spending time in scripture and prayer (using the daily office), and other well-trod practices. I have the privilege of working with awesome folks here in Louisiana. One of the...
“When nostalgia becomes the test of faithfulness, we’re not guarding the truth - we are exporting a culture.”-James Bell In the last few articles, I’ve been riffing on an encounter I had at a workshop. The question “What about our seniors?” was asked by a well-meaning person during a conversation on reaching new people and guest integration. In both emails, we covered plenty of ground on the idea. What about our Seniors? I shared a question I received from a workshop participant nervous that...