by Bret Capranica | Apr 6, 2010 | Featured Articles, Pastoral Ministry, Time/Life Management
Busyness is a given and is not unique to pastoral ministry. But make no mistake, busyness is often more of a problem, than more of a sign of effectiveness. I have always wrestled with personal focus, whether practicing my trumpet in high school band, or finishing a paper in college. Procrastination could be my first, middle, and last name. Time and life management has always been a struggle. But it has become a major pursuit as well; one in which I trust I am making progress. Challenges to Productivity Sin. Sin steals time. Whether misplaced conversation, inappropriate activities, or laziness in and of itself, sin steals time. When activities of life that are not faith-founded dominate the schedule, sin is present. Sin is never productive, not in the long run – rarely in the short run, never for things eternal. No real need to get too specific here. Sin steals time. You probably know how that shows up in your life. I am quite well aware of how it shows up in mine. Family. I don’t mean to suggest that productivity is more important than time spent with family. I don’t believe that and would never advocate it. However, I am quite sure that family requests, kid’s desires, and even legitimate, necessary family needs prove challenging to your being productive. Productivity may mean staying up later, or in my case getting up earlier, so that family is not inappropriately neglected. Nonetheless, family responsibilities are always a challenge to being productive in your work. Unintentionality. This may be one of the biggest challenges. Simply having no intentional plan regarding your...
by Bret Capranica | Apr 1, 2010 | Featured Articles, Ordinary Pastor, Pastoral Ministry
Based on my previous post on this subject, here’s a few video’s on my present office/study set-up. I am very blessed. My church graciously provides me a place to use as an office, and I have an extra room at home from where I also work. I use my church office mostly for administrative tasks and meetings. For sermon preparation, significant reading, writing, and thinking projects, I use my home study. My office study contains the majority of my books, while my home study contains the books that I am currently reading or using for various projects. Monday and Tuesday’s are the days I primarily give to ministry administration, shepherding, meetings, etc. Wednesday and Saturday are my primary days for sermon preparation. Thursday I spend half of the day at my home study writing and half of the day at my office study (or out in the community). Here’s the video tour of both my church office and home...
by Bret Capranica | Mar 30, 2010 | Featured Articles, Ordinary Pastor, Pastoral Ministry
Pastors (well, many if not most of them) do love to study, read, write, and pray. The location and set-up of their space for such ministries becomes a fairly important issue, the longer ministries goes on. What goes in to making a pastor’s study an effective place to work? A place that is relatively quiet. I don’t know any ordinary pastors who can have a completely quiet place to study or work, but relative quiet is something essential for considerable thought and consistency of work. I don’t study at my church office because it is rarely quiet and not the best set-up for significant study. You would think that a house of two toddlers and two infants might be more noisy, but in reality, it’s not really all that bad, so at this time my home office is the best place for me to do significant study. My church office is set up and designed more for administration and meetings. My home study, however, was put together with reading and study in mind. The furniture and arrangement are all set up for study. A desk that you can spread out on. I have a desk in my home study that I’ve had for over twenty years. It is very large, allowing me to stack books, spread out papers, and arrange my study tools exactly how I desire them. I use two flat screen computer monitors for my virtual desktop giving me a significant amount of screen surface area. I keep a coaster, a phone connected to my office system (VoIP), and a small lamp. That’s it. The space is...
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by Bret Capranica | Mar 25, 2010 | Featured Articles, Ordinary Pastor, Pastoral Ministry, Preaching
Here the rest of the mess I started on Tuesday – how do I determine what I will preach? 4. Topical Periods. I do recognize that the summer months and holiday seasons in American ministry bring great challenges to successive exposition. I do generally plan to preach through shorter series during these periods, addressing a number of topics that I feel are critical for the congregation’s understanding – issues of which we believe exhortation and action are needed. I generally preach a message on the importance of preaching at the beginning of every year. I try to address the subject of the Lord’s Supper (what, why, how, etc.) every year. I make it my aim every year to preach a message on how to listen to a sermon. This summer I plan to preach through some of the distinctive convictions we have as Baptists. There is a waning understanding and commitment to these convictions blowing in the wind, and I want to show from God’s word why they are significant. Sometimes, a passage will lend itself to a break from the exposition so we can focus on a subject. For example, I paused the series in Revelation after preaching chapters 4 and 5 to take 4 weeks and preach a series on corporate worship. 5. Preach the Paragraph. As a general rule, a paragraph tends to reveal a significant thought, or comprise a single argument, press an important emphases. I don’t stress peaching one verse at a time as much as I want to stress showing the main idea revealed in a pericope. So, I tend to want to...
by Bret Capranica | Mar 23, 2010 | Ordinary Pastor, Pastoral Ministry
Brian Croft, a good friend and very faithful pastor in Louisville, KY, has started blogging. Another good friend, Stephen Jones, pointed out Brian’s latest foray into the blogosphere. Those of us ordinary pastors will be wonderfully helped and our souls ministered to through this faithful under-shepherd of Christ. Check out Practical Shepherding and read Brian’s books: Visiting the Sick Test, Train, Affirm and Send: Recovering the local church’s responsibility to the external...
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by Bret Capranica | Mar 23, 2010 | Featured Articles, Ordinary Pastor, Pastoral Ministry, Preaching
In a recent conversation with a group of pastors, we were listening to each other discuss how we determine what we will preach. Here’s a few of the ideas that govern my sermon selection: 1. Annual Planning. In late fall each year, Kelly, the kids and I get away for about a half week. We each take turns watching the kids for half of a day to allow the other to spend some time alone to pray, think, and plan. This is the time that I normally plan out my preaching schedule for the following year. The details of this would comprise another blog post. Suffice it to say that after listing each week of the year, I think through how I plan to preach the major book I am expositing. I then plan out a number of topical messages, and think through calendar items such as vacation, holidays, and major church events that would effect my preaching schedule. Obviously, this annual calendar is interrupted by the unplanned issues like sickness, or events in church and family life that necessitate a change. But it is a helpful tool throughout the year that helps me provide some guidance to the Scriptural diet I provide the flock. 2. Every Genre. I heard from another pastor how he made it his aim to try and preach through each major genre of Scripture each year. I love the idea and have tried to follow it for a few years. So, I will plan a short series or one message here and there through the year from which I will cover an Old Testament...
