Purple Fingers

When I was a kid in grade school you could always detect the school secretary. She was the staff member with purple fingers from the mimeograph machine. Technology has changed drastically in the last 25 years.

I just spent the last hour trying to get the fax line on our new copier to work in tandem with the DSL connection that is also on that same phone line. Yesterday I spent an hour with the phone company regarding some line problems we have been having with our system. I also spent about thirty minutes trying to confirm a donation over the Internet that required a user name and password that we did not keep in our records from the last time we used it over a year ago.

I recently heard a young pastor in our area say, "I just want to Pastor like old Brother Smith, the pastor I grew up with." I thought to myself. Dude, that is impossible! Brother Smith did not have a cell phone.

Today Pastor's have greater expectations placed upon them than ever before because everyone assumes they are more accessible. Answering cell phone calls, e-mail, voice mail, FAX transmissions, and the regular mail gets a bit busy for a Pastor. Old Brother Smith was never expected to keep up on a web site and efficiently post his pod cast each week either.

The bottom line is that a solo pastor can't even do all these things by himself. You have to have people helping you. Often volunteers can be used, but they need a specific skill set. We have found that getting I.T. volunteers may place a big load on a volunteer who is already helping in several traditional ministry settings like teacher or Elder. Now they too may be overloaded with the weight of technology the church is expected to keep up with.

They key is making sure that you keep your priorities right. Here are some suggestions.
One, make prayer and personal devotion time the first thing in your day.
Two, set aside the first hour or two of ever day for study time. I actually make my cell phone remind me every day for these first two scheduled items.
Three, keep track of how much time you spend on technology and make sure that you get enough face time with people who need ministry. Face time is not face-book time or e-mail time.
Four, if you are really in trouble with time management you need to start keeping a written description of your working hours. Find out how many hours you actually work in a week. Most pastor's don't keep a time sheet, but for self examination it is good to do so occasionally. Then you can actually tell people how many hours each week you really work. It may save your family in some cases. In other cases it may really convict you as a pastor who gets very little work done for the church.
Five, only do what you can do well. If you don't have time to do some ministry item well, then you need to put that on a list of future/visionary things to add later. Do what you can, and do it well.

There is a way to overcome. God is faithful and by his leading we can be creative and effective. But, if you want to pastor your church like old Brother Smith, be ready for purple fingers.