5 Resources Smart Pastors Use To Save Time For More Ministry
All pastors have more work to do than time to do it. Until Jesus comes back, there will always be more ministry to do.
You could always do more…
- sermon prep
- outreach
- phone calls
- emails
- hospital visits
- meetings
- Bible studies
- plus a hundred other things.
You will always have more work to do than time to do it. But there is good news.
First, you need to rest in knowing that God will use your imperfect efforts to accomplish his perfect mission.
Second, you don’t have to recreate the wheel every week. There are awesome, ministry-minded people who create excellent resources to serve the church and free you up to do more of what matters.
So here are five resources that smart pastors use to free up more time for ministry.
1. Bible Study Tools
Whether preparing for a sermon or a Bible study, smart pastors use powerful Bible study tools to help.
They use resources like study Bibles, commentaries, multiple Bible translations, the original Greek or Hebrew text, and more.
Not long ago, a pastor needed a huge library of heavy and expensive books to get all of this done. Today, there are computer programs like Logos or Accordance to keep a library of hundreds—even thousands—of books with you at all times for easy research.
Quality research used to take hours thumbing through dozens of books to find what you needed. Today I have over 2,000 books in my pocket that I can search in seconds. Smart pastors take advantage of this technology.
2. A Preaching Calendar
Planning your sermons in advance saves time and minimizes the stress of trying to figure out what to talk about every week.
I highly recommend that all pastors have an annual preaching calendar. It doesn’t have to be set in stone, but planning your topics and scripture passages ahead of time is game-changing if you have been flying by the seat of your pants.
