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Ministry Encouragement Podcast – 12-26-12 – Rev. Jim W. Hollis
Sponsored by Proactive Ministries: www.proactive-ministries.org
Welcome to Episode #26 of the Ministry Encouragement Podcast. I’m Jim Hollis, the founder and Executive Director of Proactive Ministries, a ministry that has worked with nearly 1000 congregations across North America since 1993. If you are passionate about seeing your congregation grow, give us a call at Proactive Ministries. We would love to talk with you about ministry strategies and possibilities for growth. Our Atlanta, GA office phone is: (770) 803-9988.
In this Episode I’ll be discussing three productive Ministry Tools for 2013 that can make your ministry more effective. As Christians we don’t grow by resisting change and effective new ideas for drawing us closer to Christ. As congregations, the same is true. We can become more effective in ministry by carefully considering 3 Ministry Tools as we turn the calendar corner into 2013.
These are:
1) Adjusting our Ministry Priorities to Maximize the Basics:
Pastors, Christian Staff Leaders, and dedicated Christ-followers in active ministry often struggle with choosing the most important priorities for any given day or week. Too often Christian leaders are RE-acting to incidents, situations, conversations and distractions that keep some of the most important priorities from taking place.
Of course there are emergencies and crisis in people’s lives. We will respond to those as they occur. Yet -What are these Basics of every ministry?
- A stronger foundation of Prayer and Prayer Ministry Coverage
- Increasing Communications: Writing & Publishing; Priority phone calls; and Presentation Preparations
- Strengthening Administrative Ministry and Management Planning
- Relationship Building – Leaders; Prospects – Visitors & Never Churched; Inactives & Exited members; and Active members
- Increasing the Joy of Giving and Donor Development
Let a week go by without serious time, prayer and attention being given to the Basics of ministry and we’ll find the weakening of the foundations of our overall ministry. We can become engaged in “running a fire department” but we must not become overwhelmed by the urgent while neglecting some of the most important basics that will clearly grow our ministry effectiveness in changing lives.
There is a second Ministry Tool we can benefit greatly from as we head into the coming year of 2013.
2) Applying Responsible Use of Social Media Tools in our ministry:
Two preliminary considerations in this area before talking about any specific Social Media tools:
- MULTI-TASKING leads to insanity, increased stress and wasted hours
- Most of what we like about social media is fun, but not important
The three most important Social Media Tools we can get maximum return from in ministry are:
- Email lists coupled with relational, searchable notes
- Free Conference Calls (with or without video links)
3) Keeping Ministry Data Organized and Easily Searchable:
- Evernote as the ultimate organizational ministry tool
- Evernote compared to Dropbox
- Organizing our data based on our Maximum Ministry Priorities
A key verse I want to share today as we head toward a brand new year is:
33 Seek first God’s kingdom and what God wants. Then all your other needs will be met as well. (Matthew 6:33, New Century Version)
As we move toward a new year, let’s remember that our top priority in life is to seek the God first. Discovering and walking in God’s Will for our lives is a close second and part of this same text. As we get these top life priorities in line, then God will provide for our other needs.
As always it is a joy and blessing to hear from each of you who share in our Ministry Encouragement Podcast. As we come to the close of 2012 and prepare to head into the adventure of 2013, we want to continue to build our ministry community that we share in this way.
What would you personally like to see me address as ministry topics for 2013? Are there questions you have about issues or struggles in your spiritual life? Are there things in place in your church that are preventing your church from reaching new people and spiritually growing? What would be most meaningful for you and your ministry that I could address in this Podcast? I’d really love to hear your ideas and thoughts as we go forward.
You can contact me by email: jim@ministryencouragementpodcast.com
You can reach me through calling our Atlanta, GA ministry offices at our main number: (770) 803-9988. Or you may wish to contact me directly through our ministry Website: www.proactive-ministries.org
This Podcast exists to help Christ-followers, including Clergy, find ministry encouragement and creative ministry ideas that will make us all more effective in sharing the Good News and Divine Love of Jesus Christ through many forms of ministry.
Let me encourage you to be a spiritual game-changer. You can touch other lives simply by sharing this Podcast with them. Who could you share this with? How about someone from this list of possibilities:
- Those in your own immediate or extended Family who need encouragement
- Your Pastor or other Staff Leader in your church
- Someone who is growing in Christ you know at work
- A seminary student who is investing to grow in ministry
- A Pastor with little pastoral experience or relatively new to ministry
And as you may recall from many of our 2012 Episodes, we work in our ministry with single churches and groups of churches together over extended periods of time for Discipleship development and increasing ministry outreach in numerous ways. These ways have been proven effective in hundreds of churches across North America over the last 20 years.
It’s my prayer that as we head together into 2013, that the coming year may be one of the finest and most productive any of us have ever experienced to this point in our lives. Let’s celebrate the fact that God can use someone like you or me to truly reach out, love others unconditionally with the love of Christ, requiring nothing in return for the authentic friendships we begin to continue.
God bless you!
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