PASTOR
Communicator
Team Leader
As a Pastor it is your job to lead and to communicate. Whether that's
preaching, leading a meeting, developing and managing your team, your
skills must always be improving. "
"
"
Like many pastors you may have one job title but you wear many hats, but
the two most crucial roles you have are Communicator (preacher/teacher/
presenter) and Team Leader (boss/visionary/manager/team leader). These
two roles are crucial to you and the success of your church. If you do
everything well but fail in these two areas your ministry is undoubtably
extremely limited. "
"
If you were to break up your week into chunks what would it include? "
• Email"
• Meetings you run"
• Meetings you don’t run"
• Meetings you got roped into "
• Phone calls"
• Preaching prep"
• Personal Development"
• One on ones with direct reports"
• Sunday Services"
• Non Sunday Events"
• Family time"
• Spiritual Habits"
"
Now go back to that list and tell me which ones you wear your team leader
hat for and which you wear your communicator hat for. Seems like you
pretty much change from one back to the other. "
"
So when you look at that calendar you’ve got to be as efficient and effective
as possible. And with that comes the two critical strategies. But first, a
warning…"
"
On the next page, you’ll see the “BIG PICTURE” of your two critical
strategies. This will give you a bird’s eye view of where we are headed. "
"
So let’s get started..."
"
Copyright 2014 The Stronger Group. All rights reserved.
2
Copyright 2014 The Stronger Group. All rights reserved.
3
"
Now I know I can’t leave you with just the big picture and there is so much
to cover, so let’s start at the beginning. Lets start by building a system for
communicating. As a communicator it’s your job to deliver a powerful
message, not to mention you need to do it week after week. So to keep
from becoming overwhelmed (or from always working under pressure/
behind the eight ball) you’ll need to break your delivery process into 5
manageable phases. "
"
Phase 1 - Calendaring"
Phase 2 - Preparation"
Phase 3 - Writing"
Phase 4 - Delivery"
Phase 5 - Follow Though"
"
Undoubtably, the best place to start is at the beginning, so let’s start with
phase one - Calendaring. For many pastors this is a hard place to start
because it feels so far away from the final product that it’s nerve racking to
pigeon hole yourself without having done the in-depth studying that tends
to happen the week of. But, at the same time, nobody likes staring at a
blank page, so it feels like a necessary evil. One way to ease that pain is to
start with a template. Some sort of “flow” that will get the juices flowing and
give you some clay to start working with. "
"
Copyright 2014 The Stronger Group. All rights reserved.
4
What you’ll see over the next few pages are three sample templates that
are real life examples from real life pastors just like yourself. These are
three men I very much respect and I think they are a great place to start. "
"
"
"
Template #1 - Church Seasons"
6"
Template #2 - Essential 100"
8"
Template #3 - The Balancing Act"
Copyright 2014 The Stronger Group. All rights reserved.
10
5
Template #1 - Church Seasons
"
For some of your audience, life is moving at a very fast pace. Everything
around them is changing and at times nothing seems constant. Some times
what this audience needs is a moment steeped in the past. Something
constant, something that has been around for decades or even centuries,
something that ties them to those that came before them. When everything
is constantly moving, tradition can be exactly what we need."
This template comes to us from Tim Dickau, author of Plunging Into the Kingdom
Way (Affiliate link) and the Lead Pastor at Grandview Calvary Baptist
Church. While the Church Seasons template existed long before Tim and
his church, Tim gives us a little insight as to how he and his staff implement
something that has been around for decades."
"
The Concept!
"
The Church Seasons follow the life of Jesus Christ, beginning with the
preparation for his birth in Advent, the birth of the Christ, the journey of
discipleship in Epiphany, the preparation for remembrance of Jesus'
passion and death during Lent and Holy Week, the resurrection of Jesus
from the dead at Easter, and his ascension into Heaven. After his
ascension, we celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and
build our relationship with the risen Christ during this season. "
"
"
"
"
Copyright 2014 The Stronger Group. All rights reserved.
6
The Logistics!
"
The Church seasons give focus to the teaching themes.With every new
season, the art, the preaching theme and the liturgy all change. Grandview also marks and celebrates each high holiday (advent,
Christmas, epiphany. Ash Wednesday, lent, palm Sunday, maundy
Thursday, good Friday, holy Saturday, Easter, ascension, Pentecost, Christ
the king). We use the church year to shape our worship and to tell the
Christian story each year."
"
The Resources!
"
Tim suggests the anglican or episcopal book of prayer and the Celtic book
of prayer are good places to start. "
"
Book of Common Prayer (Affiliate Link)"
"
The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way to Everyday Joy (Affiliate Link)"
"
"
Copyright 2014 The Stronger Group. All rights reserved.
7
Template #2 - Essential 100
"
This template comes from Greg Hochhalter, the Lead Pastor at Sherwood
Park Alliance Church. This template took Greg and his team 2 years to
complete, but boy was it worth it. "
!
"
The Concept!
"
The Essential 100 (E100) is a Bible reading plan (you can find it on
YouVersion.com or the YouVersion Bible app). 50 Old Testament passages
and 50 New Testament passages — The Essential 100. It's a "through the
Bible" experience, giving you a big picture of God's Word. The idea was to
build a calendar that focused on these 100 essential passages."
"
The Logistics!
"
Instead of getting lost in a single two year long teaching series, the team
broke the 100 passages into 20 five part segments. This gave them the
ability to move the segments around to better work with major calendar
events like Christmas and Easter. It also created more manageable "mini"
series, allowing the 5 sermons in each segment to build on each other."
"
The Work!
"
While this template defines which scripture you will be teaching from, it
does not decide what you will be speaking about. Make sure this template
Copyright 2014 The Stronger Group. All rights reserved.
8
doesn't just have you sharing the stories of scripture. Always ask the
question, how should people act, live, think after reading this essential
passage? Copyright 2014 The Stronger Group. All rights reserved.
9
Template #3 - The Balancing Act
"
The third template comes to us from Gabe Kolstad,
the Lead Pastor at Westside Community Church
and a Nelson Searcy certified coach to Senior
Pastors. "
"
The Concept!
"
This method is all about balance. It’s a topical approach that attempts to
balance focus like pendulum swinging back and forth. All topics will attempt
to address the entire audience from seekers to established believers but
each series will be designed to address either believers, new to church
guests and then balancing somewhere in between. "
"
The Logistics!
"
Teaching series balance between focusing on: "
"
Growth [Believers] (40%) with topics like "
• I Am Jonah - A study in the book of Jonah"
• My Epic Life - Discovering how God works through ordinary people to
create extraordinary stories. "
"
Attraction [New] (40%)"
• Church For The Rest Of Us - Unpacking GOD’s Design For The Church"
• Buck Naked - The Truth About Finances "
• Hot Topics - Too Taboo To Talk About"
"
Balance [Typically Relational] (20%)"
• Relationship Rescue - Friends and Family"
• You Make Me Crazy - Family Problems"
• Love Shack - Sex Series"
"
"
"
"
Copyright 2014 The Stronger Group. All rights reserved.
10
"
The Work!
"
This template reminds you to focus on your audience and your community.
It means you’ll need to understand what’s going on in the lives of people
regular to your church as well as people who may have only ever walked
into a church once before. It forces you to think more about the people you
want to reach as well as the issues your regulars are dealing with behind
closed doors. "
"
Choosing a template is a great place to start. Which type of template can
you get most excited about? What would your current audience be most
drawn to? What would the audience you’d like to have be most drawn to?
Pick a template and give it a try. Commit to it for the next 3 to 4 months.
You’ll need a couple months to get comfortable with it and learn about what
will work best, but you’re in a great place. "
"
Be sure to post a comment on the download page to let me know what you
think. Let me know which template you’re thinking of trying.
FYI, I'll be opening registration to my Stronger Communicating course later
this year. But in the mean time, watch your email for more post and training
to help you become a stronger communicator and a stronger team
manager. "
"
"
"
Steve. "
"
@stevenjbarker"
"
Copyright 2014 The Stronger Group. All rights reserved.
11