Prayer for the Week of 2/21/2016: ENRICHMENT
“If you have good sense, instruction will help you to have even better sense. And if you live right, education will help you to know even more.” Proverbs 9:9 (Contemporary English Version)
MY PRAYER FOR PASTORS this week is for your enrichment — how you are continually leveling up your education and keeping yourself sharp beyond the weekly rigors of pastoral ministry.
As a pastor, just like in any other profession, you have regular tasks, activities, and responsibilities that dominate your week. You preach, you teach, you study, you pray, you do home and hospital visitations, and you have counseling appointments.
You have board meetings and ministry meetings at the church, you support your members’ outside events and activities, you attend community meetings and events, and then you come home in the evening and take care of your family. Oftentimes, you even find yourself getting up in the middle of the night, trying to handle the responsibilities that come with pastoral ministry.
And for those of you who minister in denominational structures on top of all of those aforementioned responsibilities, you also have to attend various meetings, workshops, and conferences all relating to your denomination and the business of that particular organization.
What time do you carve out of your weekly schedule in the midst of all of these activities to enrich yourself? What kind of time do you take out to learn more and further develop your expertise in preaching, studying, reasoning, or critical thinking? What are your go-to sources for leveling up your knowledge in different areas?
What books do you read, ministry- and non-ministry-related? What blogs and news articles are part of your daily or weekly repertoire? Do you listen to any podcasts or watch informative videos or TED talks of any kind that push you to become a better thinker or help you become more a well-rounded person?
What websites are you looking at to help you do what you do better? Are you taking a look any new videos on YouTube or are you taking any online courses or anything of that nature to help you become better at what you do? Have you consulted any resources to develop a new skill set that will help you to become a better minister of the gospel?
Are you attempting to expand your horizons and learning how to use a new social network or new video streaming platform, or how to get your church started on a new mobile giving service? Do you go to any enrichment conferences, online or in-person, that have nothing to do with you denomination? How are you expanding yourself in areas in which you may not be comfortable in order to help you do what you do better and take your ministry to the next level?
It is so incredibly easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day, week-to-week rigors of pastoral ministry, especially within a denominational context. You have so many responsibilities to your family, to your church, to your community, and to your denomination that it is easy to get lost in all of those obligations, and it is easy to forget that you need to have some time in which you are enriching and empowering yourself, in which you are becoming better at what you do.
My prayer for you this week is that continuing your education, continuing to strive for improvement, continuing to get better at what you do will become a top priority for you and your ministry. My prayer is that you are able to insert enough margin into your life to have the time to read, watch, and listen to content that is going to help you to be a better minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I pray you are able to attend conferences or workshops or seminars that can be helpful for your ministry but are completely unrelated to your denomination or the business of your denomination. I pray that your church deems it so important that you attend events and do things to further your education beyond whatever your degree attainment is that they would budget attendance into your compensation package (if you receive one).
No matter how educated you are or how successful you’ve been, my prayer for you this week and beyond is that you never become complacent in where you are right now, always thinking of ways to improve yourself, learn more, and grow. The pastor who is ever committed to getting better will lead a church who will continue to get better as well.
#PrayForYourPastor
A former pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Marcus A. Cylar is an editor, writer, digital strategist, and speaker. He holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit and is the author of Rebuild: A 12-Part Framework for Rejuvenating and Restoring the Burnt-Out Pastor. He is currently working on his second book, #PrayForYourPastor, to be released in 2017. Dr. Cylar and his wife, Chariece, are consultants helping churches, nonprofits, and small businesses organize more intentionally, communicate more effectively, and use technology with greater savvy.
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