Beyond the Firehouse Syndrome
Carl F. George
If you accept the notion that a church can have a mission (other than shepherding), then you will take on a strategy of leveraging your time in the areas that will bring the greatest payoff.
—Carl F. George
Pastors make many decisions every day, but too often they are handicapped because they almost inevitably think only in moralistic terms: rightness versus wrongness. "What's the right thing to do? What ought to be done?"
But there are other modes to consider: effective versus ineffective, good versus best, safe versus risky.
I'm not dismissing the moral dimension—virtually every decision has a moral aspect, either in its consequences or in the way the decision will be implemented. And most of us in the ministry carry an intuitive desire to reach for the godly, to hear the words of God on a given issue and line up with him rather than against him. But not all church administration deals with Mount Sinai issues. Many decisions are more mundane and subtle, yet they still require thought.
Time evaluation
Of the range of decisions a pastor faces, one of the toughest ones, in my judgment, is what to do with one's time on a daily basis. When I ask a pastor, "Who are you going to call on this week?" and the pastor says, "Well, I have seven sick people, a couple of appointments from the new-members class … and I suppose other people will call during the week about various things.…"—he is basically playing fire fighter. He's waiting for the bell to ring (or the axle to squeak, or the Spirit to move). He doesn't see that there is such a thing as taking intelligent initiative in the area of contacts.
This same person may be very conscientious about sermon topics, laying out an annual preaching plan. He may be very intentional about selecting ...
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