Tue, 6 December 2016
How well does your ministry use email? Email series can increase engagement and lower the amount of work you have to do.
Front Matter
Using Email Series for Greater EngagementSo what is an email series? How do I build an email series? After you are set up with automations/sequence, begin dreaming about how you can use email to engage with people in your church. The most common ways are connecting with first-time guests, first-time givers and first time recurring donors. This are three easy programs to implement. So what do they look like? How would you tell someone a story in stages? This is exactly what you are doing with an email series. You can use this to cast vision, tell stories, give information and make big asks. The sky is the limit. The benefits. Folks to listen/be aware of. Bobby Williams interview with Rich Birch on Email Series and Guests. Back MatterMake sure to subscribe to the Productive Pastor Insider. You can join the Productive Pastor Community on FB also. Remember to Review and Rate in iTunes. You can do it right here.
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Mon, 21 November 2016
Happy Thanksgiving! This is one of those weeks in ministry where we slow things down a little, spend time with folks we care about and get some serious eating done. So I decided to source some questions and conversation from the Productive Pastor Community on Facebook for the episode this week. If you haven't joined yet, click the link and get access. you can find full shownotes at Here are the questions with resource links. Community QuestionsWhat does a Productive Pastor's day look like? From Stephen Collins. Productive Pastor 59. How to have momentum with a future focused calendar. Productive Pastor 48. Building Guest Systems
I need Evernote for Dummies! From Jeff Lawson Resources Mentioned. Evernote Essentials by Brett Kelly
I need help with administration and delegation. From Benjamin West. The Fine Art of Delegation by Michael Hyatt Back MatterMake sure to subscribe to the Productive Pastor Insider. You can join the Productive Pastor Community on FB also. Remember to Review and Rate in iTunes. You can do it right here.
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Tue, 15 November 2016
How well do you and your church do email? I think email is one of the best ways for us to communicate with people...but we need to wade through some legit bad practices first. Front MatterI'm still obsessed with Planning Center's People app. It's a free church database system that links into the rest of the (paid) Planning Center universe. It absolutely makes ministry significantly easier. If you aren't using church management software, or you are looking for a better solution...you need to check out Planning Center People.
Planning Center Mastermind Group (on Facebook). The 5 Emails You Need To Be SendingEmail is all about strategy. You and your church are (hopefully) already sending emails to people. I want to help you understand how those emails affect things, how our sending method affects open rates and how you can use 5 strategic emails to change your own approach. So what's your current email strategy? I asked folks in the Productive Pastor Community on Facebook. Check out the responses for more information (and ideas). Below are the three strategies I see churches using the most.
5 Email Ideas
Back MatterMake sure to subscribe to the Productive Pastor Insider. You can join the Productive Pastor Community on FB also. Remember to Review and Rate in iTunes. You can do it right here. |
Thu, 3 November 2016
I'm really excited about this episode. Two big reasons. The first is it is the 3rd birthday of Productive Pastor. The second is I am replaying a section from THE FIRST EPISODE. It is all about taking advantage of daylight savings and hacking it to give you some more time back for your morning. No long shownotes here, but let's take advantage of what we can to make our mornings great.
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Mon, 24 October 2016
Welcome to this episode of Productive Pastor. We jump away from our typical discussion this week to talk about the relationship between patterns, rhythms, and health in ministry. Also-I share with you some of my recent discoveries about church administration and databases. Shownotes can be found at revchadbrooks.com/pp65 Front Matter: The Productive Pastor Community on Facebook-this is a recent addition to our community. I couldn't be more excited about the conversations already part. Make sure to cruise over and request membership. Have you reviewed and rated on iTunes yet? You can do so right here. Evernote landing page AND Trello landing page for ministry use cases. Rhythms, Health and Administration in ministry.In this episode, I want to get into some real-talk. Not much material for shownotes, so make sure you listen. Episodes Mentioned: Productivity, Call and Soul-Care Also-make sure to check out the good folks at Planning Center, especially their Services app. It's free for anyone to use. Make sure to subscribe to the Productive Pastor Insider. You can join the Productive Pastor Community on FB also. Remember to Review and Rate in iTunes. You can do it right here. |
Mon, 17 October 2016
What does it mean to pull off something impossible? This episode, I sit down with my WIFE. Meredith is a beast at many things; two of them being 1. Endurance Sports and 2. Systems and implementation. This year she is training for the Texas Ironman. I wanted to sit down with her and have her talk about what it is like to attain the unattainable. shownotes at revchadbrooks.com/pp64 We talk about:
It was great to get Meredith on the show. Make sure to subscribe to the Productive Pastor Insider. You can join the Productive Pastor Community on FB also. Remember to Review and Rate in iTunes. You can do it right here. |
Tue, 11 October 2016
Do you ever struggle with known weaknesses? Or do you feel that you don't have an adequate knowledge of something that keeps coming up in ministry? The solution is self-education. In this episode, I am sharing how each of us can create a ministry self-education plan. Shownotes at revchadbrooks.com/pp63
Front Matter:Productive Pastor Community FB Group. Monday Moments Creating a Ministry Self-Education StrategyI remember the last thing I wanted to do after seminary was read another book. Actually, I am lying to you. I had a STACK of books I wanted to read. I made it through around 3 of them until I realized much of what I wanted to read had absolutely nothing to do with practical ministry. It has been 6 years and I still haven't finished the stack. But I have read plenty of books that weren't in the stack. What is a ministry self-education strategy?This is one of the secret places that many of us forget about. We don’t understand the power that self-education holds for us. For some ministry leaders, their entire career has been crafted by self-education. For others, we have had the privilege of bible college, undergraduate university, seminary or even beyond. What both have in common is the power of continued self-education. Great leaders are always going to be learning. You can either try to do this by accident or happenstance…or you can begin building a pro-active strategy of self-education for ministry. A good ministry self-education strategy is built around intentional learning AND creating the environment for accidental and serendipitous learning. What do you want to learn?What are the parts of ministry you just don't feel prepared for? A few years ago, I knew I would need to learn more about discipleship. So I called folks I felt were good at it. I asked them for their recommendations. I set up internet filters to pick up articles by folks I knew I wanted to learn from. I began building a 6-month plan to learn more about discipleship...specifically discipleship in church plants and from a missional perspective. What is the growing edge you need to be standing on? Your ministry self-education toolsReading I divide my intentional reading into 3 buckets. Devotion I did an entire episode on how I organize my reading notes. I also wrote a blog post on using Trello for organizing your reading list. Why You Need To Build a Trello Reading List (and how to do it). Listening 1. Find a podcast you like. Ask the host/producer who they like? 2. Take advantage of the “related” or “other’s like” option in the podcast application. That will help you out. Poke around on google. You’d be surprised how many amazing podcasts are out there you can learn from. Coaching I am also a big fan of coaching programs from The Rocket Company and Church Fuel. I've used both of them with tremendous success. Conferencing
Make sure to subscribe to the Productive Pastor Insider. Remember to Review and Rate in iTunes. You can do it right here. |
Tue, 4 October 2016
Have you ever wanted to write a book? In this conversation episode, I sit down with my friend Tom Fuerst and told us the story of how he wrote his first book. Tom is a pastor at Christ Church in Memphis, Tennessee and is one of my favorite people. You can find the shownotes at revchadbrooks.com/pp62 Here is what we talk about:
LinksUnderdogs and Outsiders (Cokesbury) Back MatterMake sure to subscribe to the Productive Pastor Insider. Remember to Review and Rate in iTunes. You can do it right here.
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Mon, 26 September 2016
Welcome back! I spent last week at the New Room Conference put on by my good friends at Seedbed. As always, I had a great time interviewing folks for the Threshing Floor and learning TONS. In this episode, I want to show you how to have a great conference experience. Front Matter:Earlier this month I build an AMAZING whiteboard at the house. If you follow me on instagram, you've probably already seen it! I did it using a melamine shower board from Home Depot. I also bought a few different marker packs from amazon. I finished it up by mounting it with screws on the wall and gave it a quick coating of Turtle Brand car wax. Super easy project and it provided TONS of killer benefits.
Thanks to MPWinky for the fantastic iTunes Review and Rating. If you haven't left one yet, you can do so right here. It helps out the podcast get to more and more folks. How To Have A Great Conference ExperienceA couple of years back, I wrote a few blog posts on enjoying and learning from conferences. They continually get traffic and folks always love them...so I wanted to combine the content for this episode of Productive Pastor. How To Make The Most of a Conference Map Our Your Schedule Find a Note-Taking Setup Take Advantage of Relational moments Define Your Takeaways When You Get Home Back MatterEpisode 60 was about building a sermon engagement strategy. As a follow up-I wrote about the two main embedding strategies for audio content on Wordpress sites. Make sure to subscribe to the Productive Pastor Insider. Remember to Review and Rate in iTunes. You can do it right here. |
Mon, 12 September 2016
Do you want to keep folks focused on Sunday? You need a sermon engagement strategy...and I'm going to help you build one! It is a chance to make the sermon stretch past Sunday. Front Matter Building a Sermon Engagement StrategyEngagement is the magic word. Remember, this is about making the sermon stretch past Sunday. Engagement helps folks interact, share, invite and participate. Engaged folks will serve, give, grow and be part of the mission. Sermon engagement will help you and your ministry work on discipleship every day of the week. Carey Niewhof on engagement: So let's look at the 5 building blocks to help you with your sermon engagement strategy The Sermon Preview JR Forasteros sermon preview links My older preview's (using Series Engine) hosted on my site. Current preview's (using Smart Podcast Player) on the church website. Images Podcast Podcast Plugins: Video Think about these types of videos: Here is the mic I use for phone videos. Sermon Engagement Calendar Back Matter Make sure to subscribe to the Productive Pastor Insider. This week I’ll be sending out some more additional information about doing a future focused audit and building your calendar. Remember to Review and Rate in iTunes. You can do it right here. |
Sun, 28 August 2016
Do you struggle with future-focus? In this episode, I share how I am tackling that EXACT problem. Stay tuned and learn about creating a future focused calendar. Front Matter I am almost done with the new sermon worksheet AND an accompanying eBook. This will be an incredible free resource I've been working on for the last few months. 5 Tell-Tale Signs Your Congregation is Inward-Focused. Carey Nieuwhof. iTunes review and rating. Thanks for leaving such incredible feedback! How To Have Quality Momentum With a Future Focused CalendarSo what exactly is future focus? Future focus is the ability to pro-actively keep a schedule focused on leading your team, organization, ministry or church further toward the missional vision God has called you to. Intentionally investigating and creating future focus is all about creating awareness that leads to action. This isn't done outside of the context of mission and strategic vision. Over the last few months, I've increasingly frustrated personally with what my schedule has looked like. My realizations have come because of dissatisfaction with how I'm spending my weeks. I'm a big fan of auditing my schedule, so I decided to tweak what I was doing in order to learn what exactly has been going on (that I can control). Paper vs. Digital Many of us keep a digital calendar on our computer or some other device. I couldn't live without my iPhone reminding me of what is coming up each day. But digital devices didn't have the ability to really look back and investigate effectiveness. I wanted a paper solution (since my daily work is usually done on paper anyway) to look back on from a week long view. I pulled out my week dominator planner I funded a few years ago on kickstarter. It's perfect. (if you want to see pictures of how I've been using this, make sure to subscribe to the Productive Pastor Insider. I'm doing a bigger write-up with pictures this week. It will be the only place you can grab it.) How I Build I decided 5 categories will keep up with the majority of my tasks.
If you want to build a future-focused calendar, make sure to give yourself 3-4 normative weeks. Nothing out of the ordinary (as much as you can help it)!
I build my calendar with black ink. As tasks come up during the week, I change things up. Blue ink gets new appointments added in. Red ink tells me where something changed my schedule. Back Matter Make sure to subscribe to the Productive Pastor Insider. This week I'll be sending out some more additional information about doing a future focused audit and building your calendar. Remember to Review and Rate in iTunes. You can do it right here.
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Mon, 15 August 2016
So what makes a ministry leader unproductive? It might be a little different than you expect. Today we are talking about the habits of unproductive pastors. Front Matter Our new interview format is going great! I've heard great things from folks with last week's episode with Dave Shrein. Make sure you check it out. This week I have spent PLENTY of time listening to Dan Carlin's podcast Hardcore History. His recent series entitled "King of Kings" is a fascinating look into the world of the ancient near east. For anyone who teaches the Bible, it would be a great resource to utilize. We have had some great iTunes feedback. I want to thank these reviewers for their support of the show. If you haven't, please review the Productive Pastor on iTunes. You can do so right here. 7 Habits of Unproductive PastorsThey Aren't Incarnated They Don't Know What They Are Doing Building a Priority Based Schedule | PP3 They Can't Differentiate Between Urgent and Important They Don't Delegate They Don't Know Their Personalities and Strengths They Can't Keep The Future in Focus They Don't Have Routines
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Tue, 9 August 2016
I am excited about this episode of Productive Pastor. I am *attempting to start running weekly episodes. The odd weeks (outside of the older episode structure) will be interview and conversation focused. Our first episode with this new format will be Dave Shrein. Dave is a social entrepreneur who has led in the communication sector for years. I wanted to grab Dave and have a conversation about marketing in ministry and what it means to have an entrepreneurial mindset. The Entrepreneurial Mindset with Dave Shrein
Mentions:Jon Acuff's Books Carey Nieuwhof | Why We Need More Entrepreneurial Church Leaders, Not More Shepards Find out more from Dave at: |
Mon, 1 August 2016
Welcome back to Productive Pastor. In this episode, I share some amazing workflow templates I've built out and use constantly in Evernote. Front Matter I read this a couple of weeks back and I was amazed. It gave such a great pathway to creating an experimentation plan to learn your most productive hours and days. You need to check this out. A big thanks to our iTunes Reviewers for this episode. If you want to hear your name on the podcast, just leave a rating and review. You can do so right here. Organizing Workflow Templates in Evernote.I'm a big fan of templates AND Evernote. You can hear more about them in these two episodes of Productive Pastor Up Your Productivity With Templates. Productive Pastor 6 [smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/productivepastor/Episode006.mp3" title="Up Your Productivity With Templates" artist="Productive Pastor 6" ] Managing Your Week With Evernote. Productive Pastor 49 [smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/productivepastor/DR0000_0421_01.mp3" title="Managing Your Week With Templates" artist="Productive Pastor 49" ] I love building out workflow's inside Evernote because of these three things Repetition Builds Response
Having Effectiveness Systematized is Worth It
Creativity
Shared Evernote Workflows/Templates Sermon Sheet
Back Matter Remember to Review and Rate in iTunes. You can do it right here. If you want more of my writing and other free content, you can subscribe to the Productive Pastor Insider List. |
Mon, 18 July 2016
Do you struggle with Bible reading? Even folks in ministry have problems with a Bible reading routine. No matter what your 9-5 is, I want to help you out in this episode of Productive Pastor. Front Matter Michael Hyatt on How To Vacation Like A Pro Carey Nieuwhof on Why Driven People Suck at Vacations (and 5 Ways To Fix it). Awesome Vacations and Exactly How to Make Them Work
Building a Bible Reading Routine
Let’s be honest. How well do you do with daily Bible reading? Yes. Even in ministry some of us stink at it. My own journey was all over the place until I found the 90-day bible plan. You can check out Why I Read the Bible Every 90 Days for a little more information. But I still felt like I stunk at it. Stuff just was janky…and I felt like I had holes missing. I needed a better bible reading routine So a few years ago I began modifying a reading strategy I learned from Mike Slaughter of Gingumsburg Church. I want to share this with you. Why A Bible Reading Routine Makes Sense
Why I Read Systematically
My Own Personal Bible Reading RoutineI use a pretty standard pattern. Every morning, after my 90-day read, I pull out my notebook and I make a quick outline. My paper is simply divided up into Date, Passage, and two larger section. The first is simply titled “observations” and I use it to note whatever I observe. Remember, this is done in rhythm with a larger read, so my observations are sometimes running thoughts. The second section is for application. I tend to ask myself two different questions, “What questions is this making me ask?” and “What do I need to do in order to respond?”. This is a pretty simple pattern for me. Sometimes my read takes 15 minutes and sometimes I catch myself doing around 45 minutes. DOWNLOAD: basic bible reading sheet
Back Matter Remember to Review and Rate in iTunes. You can do it right here. If you want more of my writing and other free content, you can subscribe to the Productive Pastor Insider List. |
Mon, 4 July 2016
Are you forgetful? I know I am. This episode focuses on overcoming forgetfulness. We dig a little into what makes us forgetful and how we can get around AND correct it. Front MatterThanks for engaging so much on social media! The Productive Pastor is getting BIGGER AND BIGGER each week. You can connect with me at @revchadbrooks on all social media networks. Free resources I've been writing more focused productivity content through my Insider list. If you want these articles before anyone else gets them, you can sign up for the Productive Pastor Insider list here. I'll shoot you my daily planning sheet for signing up. iTunes Review and Rating Overcoming ForgetfulnessJust like I said in the episode, and I'll say it again here, I am incredibly forgetful. need to get it under control. So I started doing some research into the causes of forgetfulness and how to overcome it. 7 Common Causes for Forgetfulness- Harvard Health What Causes Forgetfulness in Young People? 7 reasons you keep losing your keys explained. - Bustle Overcoming Forgetfulness part 1: Health
Always Wear the Same Suit: Obama's Presidency Productivity Secrets- Fast Company Overcoming Forgetfulness part 2: Reminders and Rhythms
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Sun, 19 June 2016
Welcome back! In this episode, we are talking about 5 tasks to gain serious traction. I'm STOKED to share them with you! Front Matter
Five (first thing) Tasks to Gain Serious TractionWhat exactly is traction?
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Mon, 6 June 2016
Are you good at procrastinating? I'm a champ. In this episode, I am going to tell you what I have learned about avoiding and attacking procrastination. So let's jump straight in. Avoiding and Attacking ProcrastinationThe first step to understanding the motivations behind procrastination is realizing it lives first in the realm of fear. Fear is an absolutely catastrophic element of life. When we delve into the realities of what we are scared of, we begin understanding the motivations behind why we individually procrastinate. By continuing to allow fear to reign in life, we will begin leading from the perspective of fear. When that happens, we will be tied to bad leadership practices and a recipe for a serious "not getting things done" problem. Avoiding ProcrastinationNo one leads well out of the shalom zone. Productive Pastor 5: A Conversation with JD Walt about Sabbath Build rhythms to help you stay relaxed and focused. Organize your work time to plow through trouble and focus on fun. Attacking ProcrastinationBuild your schedule focused on goals and effectiveness. Learn to ask yourself "What's at Stake?" Break things up into approachable goals. Thanks for listening and I hope this prepares you to avoid and attack procrastination. Articles Mentioned Fear of Failure: Psychology Today Why you procrastinate, and how to stop it. Now. | Forbes 15 practices of leaders who lead by fear | Brian Dodd
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Mon, 23 May 2016
Do you use systems? When I talk about systems do you struggle to understand what it's like to build and implement them? In this episode we are going to talk about developing systems that work. Front Matter I've been digging getting tagged in conversations on facebook about Productive Pastor. Keep it coming! Also, a big thanks to Country Parson Hugh for the iTunes review and rating. Developing Systems that Work 1. Decide. So what’s the difference between a good system, a bad system and an effective system? An effective system is one intentionally designed for achieving specific outcomes. Getting a good idea of your current situation and your (intended) future situation is an important step. What environments/behaviors/actions can we control to better improve a specific situation? I recommend doing this as a team and just starting to discover the holes and to what depth they go to in your ministry? 2. Decide What will make this system effective? At this point, the job of you and your team is deciding what will actually make this system work well. You ask questions of culture and context at this point. You realize how simply moving things around might seriously change things. 3. Delegate Who and how will we run this system? Remember, systems are about creating a replicative pattern for folks to follow you as they join in ministry leadership. Developing how the system will be implemented will affect who you get to run this system. For us, external systems are usually run on paper and in person and internal systems take advantage of digital technology. The easiest (and most effective) system most churches need to build is a visitor follow-up system. So gather your team and make a system! Make sure to let me know about it.
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Sun, 8 May 2016
Welcome to the 50th Episode of Productive Pastor! I am going to help you learn how to discern big goals in this episode...but until then, there is even more awesome stuff I want to share with you.
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Sun, 24 April 2016
Did you know you can use Evernote to order and organize your week? I use Evernote for nearly everything and the two tasks that I can't imagine NOT using it is ordering my week and ordering my contact list. Front Matter iTunes Reviews. THANKS!!!
Productive Pastor in Google Play Store. Managing Your Week in EvernoteI use Evernote to manage my daily repeatable tasks. I make mention of several previous episodes and I will link them in the bottom of the shownotes. For me, Evernote is an amazing tool to keep up with the small tasks I do every week on the same exact same day. I am always curating my weekly work template for the best effective use of my time, energy and mind space. This is what I am currently using my focus days for. Monday -> AM. Sabbath. PM. Visitor Contact, Team Communication, Basic Administration and Sermon Preparation. So each day gets a checklist of repeatable tasks. Honestly, these lists get pretty sparse as the week goes on. I try to reserve Mondays and Tuesdays for these type of tasks. I also use Evernote to keep up with one of my main goals. I try to stay in contact with 2-3 new people a day and 5-7 existing church folks a day. On Monday, during my weekly planning session, I build a list of the people I am going to make contact with during the week. For the ones that get a phone call (around 5 a day), I put their name and phone number into my weekly note. That way, I don't have to hunt for the number. I just click on it inside Evernote on my phone. It makes the call and I can go down my list. This sounds super simple...but it is SO EFFECTIVE. Mentioned Episodes: PP45| Maximizing Ministry With Evernote. PP3 | Building a Priority Based Schedule PP6 | Up Your Productivity With Templates PP37 | How Batching Rocks Your World
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Sun, 10 April 2016
Do you struggle with how to contact, assimilate and lead visitors into part of your church? This episode is ALL ABOUT building guest systems in your church. I sit down with my friend Rev. Allison Sauls. Allison isn't a normal guest, but she leads Foundry with me! We break down the systems we have built over the last 9 months in starting a new church and the lessons we have learned. Front Matter From the Vault: [smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/productivepastor/Episode_3.mp3" title="Building a Priority Based Schedule" artist="Productive Pastor 3" ] JD Walt and Sabbath | Episode 5 [smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/productivepastor/Episode_005.mp3" title="A Conversation with JD Walt about Sabbath" artist="Productive Pastor 5" ] Giving Rocket: Get ready for their 50% off sale THIS MAY. Trust me. This is one of the best resources and coaching products I have ever purchased.
Build Guest SystemsThe Benefit of Systems Episode 19: Michael Lukaszewski on Systems [smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/productivepastor/PP19_mixdown2.mp3" title="Michael Lukaszewski on Systems" artist="Productive Pastor 19" ] Assimilation Systems Our larger framework is based all around collecting guest information. We do this in two ways.
Check out my post on using Trello to streamlining Church Assimilation with Trello for more details. Email Systems We use aweber.com. I love it. To use an email system, you have to have a paid account somewhere. Mailchimp charges a few dollars for this, but I have been using aweber for a pretty long time and I'm familiar with it. One of the best explanations of using an email series for guest systems is from Bobby Williams. He was a guest on Rich Birch's Unsemianry podcast and explained how his church used them. Facebook Systems I've outlined my strategy for using Facebook lists and leveraging them for ministry here. 1st time Giving I'm a big fan of The Rocket Company's What Happens When You Give booklet. You can purchase it here. |
Mon, 28 March 2016
In this episode of The Productive Pastor we talk about having a proactive vs. reactive strategy for ministry. One of the dangers of a non-strategic approach to ministry is simply spending all day reacting to emergencies, facilities, office issues and a multiplicity of other things (much less the actual work of ministry, which is about response). Front Matter Trello Week
iTunes Review and Ratings Proactive vs. Reactive MinistryBeginning to plan ministry in a proactive way is all about a mind shift. We individually decide to lead and pastor from a proactive point of view. We don't do this to get out of reactive situation, but to allow ourselves the absolute amount of margin we need for when we DO need to react to emergency situations. This point of view is the biggest difference (I feel) between healthy, vital ministries and struggling and declining churches. If you feel you can necessarily lead others proactively right now, begin leading yourself proactively. I constantly ask myself if I am leading from a proactive or a reactive position. Understanding this proactive vs. reactive shift is tremendously important and one of the key tasks I am always checking myself for. What does this change?
What do we learn?
Eugene Peterson, The Pastor. (amazon link) How to we begin a proactive ministry
I hope this episode has been helpful. Make sure to interact on social at @revchadbrooks and use the hashtag #productivepastor. |
Sun, 13 March 2016
Over the last 6 months I have finally found the project management tool I've been looking for for YEARS! Trello is perfect for ministry. I was looking for a project management solution that could accomplish these tasks and requirements.
After doing some research (and seeing some instagram posts), I realized Trello was probably the perfect tool for mine and my teams needs. Organizing Ministry with TrelloI am currently using Trello for many tasks. Here is a breakdown of 4 of them. Sermon Series Preparation New Member Assimilation Master Calendar Social Media Schedule
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Sun, 28 February 2016
Do you use Evernote? If you don't, this episode is all about maximizing ministry with Evernote. It's no secret how much I think Evernote is a crucial ministry tool. I have spoke about it quite often, but have never devoted a full episode to this AMAZING app. [smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/productivepastor/pp45.mp3" title="Maximizing Ministry with Evernote" artist="Productive Pastor 45" ] Maximizing Ministry With EvernoteStarting Evernote The first suggestion I always make is to download the (free) desktop Evernote app. This makes it substantially easier to use. Then, get your evernote email address and find a clipper app for your browser. This biggest secret is to simply USE Evernote. How I use Evernote
5 Ways to use Evernote for maximizing ministry.
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Sun, 14 February 2016
I am a HUGE notebook fan. This shouldn't be a secret to my friends and regular listeners. If you want to keep up more with my notebookery...you can get a glimpse at instagram.com/revchadbrooks. So in this episode I am going to be sharing with you WHY you need to be keeping a notebook, some of the reasons I do and how you can set up your notebook as a modular time/project tracker. First-I want to thank Brett Byford for his awesome review/rating in iTunes.
Why You Need To Keep A NotebookMy notebook journey has been wild. It all started out with my trying to keep up with life and ministry. I have gone through plenty of different types of notebooks. Here are some of my favorites. Moleskine (amazon link) Rhodia (amazon link) Muji (amazon link) I'm also a big fan of Field Notes Brand, Seedthoughts from Seedbed and Leuchtturm1917. Why keep a notebook?
Here is my blank notebook page. Related Links: Why I Keep A Prayer Notebook
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Sun, 31 January 2016
Welcome back to the Productive Pastor. We have a great episode in store for you today. Have you ever found yourself in a hole or a slump? The good news is digging yourself out of a hole is easier than you think. It's about awareness and intentionality. We are going to dive headfirst into the issue and hopefully finish standing on solid ground.
Digging Yourself Out Of A HoleConfront the Spiritual Issue. G.T.D Bankruptcy. Organize Top Priorities
Preventative Care
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Fri, 15 January 2016
This episode I sit down my friend Isaac Hopper and we have a conversation about productivity AND parenting. Tons of listeners have asked for a conversation like this. Isaac is a United Methodist Pastor who leads a church, leads a family and is finishing a PhD in England while living in Indiana. I would say Isaac has practical productivity down. Isaac and I talk about a few things such as; learning productivity, how to office from home and what it means to be present with your family and lead them well. Isaac writes at isaachopper.com. His recent posts mentioned are; Ministry Blogs and Podcasts You Should Follow |