Why Your Pastor Should Outsource His Mind series: Click | View Series

The last post showed why a pastor should outsource his mind by hiring an assistant. This post will offer some guidance on how to choose a good pastoral assistant.

Basic Requirements for an Assistant

If outsourced properly, your assistant should have at a minimum two basic giftings: adaptability and discernment. These may be the counter to your weaknesses, allowing for a fuller response to the needs of your ministry, or they may be enhancements to the collection of talents and gifts the Lord has given you.

1. Adaptability To Change

Church plants are static in only one area—change. At Mars Hill we have found the only constant in our work here in Seattle (and now Albuquerque) to be never-ending, always-fluctuating change. For assistants, the ability to take the changes that are sure to come and approach them with a correct heart and mind is a priceless gift.

An assistant’s job is to build systems to catch as much work from the pastor he serves and to carry out the tasks quickly and efficiently. As the work in the ministry changes, those systems are made obsolete. A correct approach to this inevitability is to simply start from scratch and build new systems if the ones that were created weeks or months ago are now outdated.

An incorrect approach is to stubbornly hold onto old systems, now defunct, simply because they are how things have been done. God brings new things into our ministries to test and shape us; to respond to the new issues in the same manner as the old is a foolish way of doing his work and will result in frustrated pastors, assistants, and church members.

2. Discernment

An assistant should know who needs to have contact with the pastor served. A proper understanding and sometimes a Spirit-directed knowledge of who is truly in need of the pastor's time is crucial.

It is easy for an assistant to read over hundreds of emails and letters and to file each request in its appropriate box: “He needs to read the website,” “She needs to take the membership class,” “They need marital counseling and the pastor I serve doesn't have that responsibility,” “He needs a half-hour phone conversation,” “A simple form email will suffice for these people,” “This guy is Satan and ‘delete’ will work just fine.” The workday continues in this vein because, hey, the systems were built for efficiency and strength of the ministry, so let's use them.

In this routine and task-completion mode, discernment is indispensable as the Spirit nudges an assistant toward a particular email that could easily be handled personally by the assistant or directed to another staff person, but is truly meant for the pastor. I have seen this many times at Mars Hill. God has brought many men forward to carry the counseling load for our people and relieve Pastor Mark of this role, so he can focus on the pulpit and future of the church. Yet when I served as his assistant, there were emails that came into his inbox that I knew could easily and quickly be directed to someone else, but the Spirit led me to pass them on to Pastor Mark instead. The fruit that comes from these instances is great and simply confirms that discernment is needed.

Before You Pick Your Assistant

Read A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard. This title has been highly recommended reading for assistants at Mars Hill Church. "A Message to Garcia" shows a great example of the type of person each pastor should pursue as his assistant.

Remember that the job description is written by you. This article is general because the tasks that Mars Hill assistants carry out are specific and tailored to each pastor. For some, the qualifications and job description include budgeting, tech support, and scheduling; for others editing, research, proofreading, and inventory; for others still, project management. The point is that for each pastor a specifically tailored assistant was found and is now leveraged to make the ministry more efficient and sane so that the gospel can go out.

If you do not yet have an assistant I would recommend that you squeeze your budget like you haven't before and hire one. The benefits we see at Mars Hill are great. As a member of this church it is good to know that the pastors are working in their giftings and that there are men and women in place to enhance their ministries. These people were hired based on the strengths and weaknesses of each pastor, so the resulting assistants vary in skill, experience, and gifts. There is no cookie-cutter model, so trust and pray that the Lord will bring you the help you need in just the right way.

Know that we pray for you and your churches constantly and love being a part of the greater movement God is working out in our country and world.

Assistants: Listen Up

Listen to Humble Service: The Ministry of Timothy. This Mars Hill sermon deals with the topic from a scriptural standpoint and gives a reference point for those seeking to be an assistant.

Pastor AJ Hamilton is the Executive Pastor for Mars Hill Church’s Albuquerque campus. You can watch his amazing testimony and read his previous Resurgence posts here.

Pastor Mark

Get the latest content from Mark Driscoll, the preaching pastor at Mars Hill Church. See More.

Why Your Pastor Should Outsource His Mind series: Click | View Series

Pastors Need An Assistant

The world of church planting can be fast-paced and stressful. Pastors have sermons to prepare and preach, worship bands to assemble and practice, community groups to launch and maintain, weddings and funerals to perform. There are emails, letters, and phone calls to return, initiate, and ignore; books to order and then find time to read; children's ministry volunteers to rope in; youth activities to manage; and the list goes on and on.

With all of these duties, and more, on a pastor's plate—especially a lead planting pastor who may be wearing all of those hats with varying degrees of success—it makes sense to look into outsourcing his mind.

An assistant is the perfect way to farm out much of the work that weighs on a pastor's mind at 3am. Yet "How?" seems to be a common question. How can a pastor truly leverage an assistant to maintain peace of mind, remain focused on the macro vision for the church/ministry, and still feel like he is working and deserving the big bucks his church is paying him? Below are several main areas of outsourcing that will help a pastor maintain sanity and accomplish what God has given him to do (Acts 6).

Outsource Your Energy Drains

Energy Drain #1: Letters
With an assistant, the tasks that you know you have to do, but hate doing, can be outsourced. Depending on the ministry you oversee, there are always small tasks that inspire loathing when they come due. Addressing letters in this day of email can be truly frustrating. For a pastor it takes time that extends beyond the simple act of thinking of someone and writing them a letter, sending a gift, or paying a bill. It has now become an act of locating the recipient's address, finding an envelope that fits the contents, and then scrounging around the office for stamps. What could have been 10 minutes of caring thought has turned into 45 minutes spent crushing several fruits of the Spirit.

Energy Drain #2: Email
Email can also drain a pastor's energy. I have discussed email techniques with several pastoral assistants and the mode for delivery varies. Some assistants gather email correspondence for the pastor they assist and send one large email daily. The pastor can then simply reply below each message and hit "send" back to his assistant. The assistant can then sort through and send out the return emails, work on any action items that were created, as well as see some of the larger picture the pastor oversees.

I have heard of one faithfully followed author and ministry leader who does not "do" email. Instead he has his assistant fax him all of the day's email. He replies with return messages and action items in pen and faxes it back to his assistant.

Energy Drain #3: Setting Up Meetings
Communication with entire department personnel can be time-intensive. A pastor needs each of the major stakeholders present at meetings. He knows that as he begins calling each person, what is intended as a quick interaction can easily turn into an impromptu counseling session, an off-topic (though important) side meeting, or a general tail-chase as schedules seemingly refuse to coincide. An assistant can be given this task to coordinate schedules, set aside time for the counseling appointment, and gather an agenda for the necessary side meeting, all while the pastor is focusing on different important tasks.

By outsourcing this simple task the pastor can then enter into each appointment and task in the correct frame of mind. Trying to schedule his own meeting and being blindsided by an over-the-phone meeting or a counseling conversation can be exhausting. This isn't to say that a counseling appointment scheduled by his assistant won't be exhausting, but it would be a set time he is aware of and can prepare for appropriately.

Leverage An Assistant Wisely

Other tasks a pastor can easily put on an assistant's plate include mail sorting, filing, and corporate credit card reconciliation. Some of these tasks may seem ridiculous to some of you, but the point isn't that you should hire an assistant so you don't have to lick a stamp again, but that the assistant can do the things that drain your energy in whatever shape those may come.

Oftentimes pastoral assistants serve as an extra set of eyes for their pastor. They can do a variety of tiny things that are not in themselves urgent, but vitally important, and they can build systems to keep stuff from falling through the cracks as urgent tasks overtake important tasks.

I asked several pastoral assistants at Mars Hill Church other ways they specifically serve their pastors, and here is a quick breakdown:

• One pastor at Mars Hill regularly rattles off several ideas that he is suddenly hit with and asks his assistant to remind him to "think" about these mental downloads later. As he is heading into a meeting, to keep from either being distracted by the plans forming in his head or completely forgetting altogether, he trusts his assistant to note his thoughts and remind him of them later.
• Another pastor leans on his assistant to make sure that he is demonstrably thanking the people the Lord has brought into his ministry. He frequently receives reminders from his assistant like, "There were over 25 people here last week rebuilding the stage and installing lighting rigs well into the morning hours. If you'd like, I can organize a thank you party at your house early next month." He knows that thanking people can easily be forgotten or that the planning for a thank you type event, though totally necessary, requires time and skills he may not have himself. By bringing on this assistant he can leverage another person to accomplish his desires for the ministry.

To be continued.

Pastor AJ Hamilton is the Executive Pastor for Mars Hill Church's Albuquerque campus. You can watch his amazing testimony and read his previous Resurgence posts here.

Total Church

Tim Chester and Steve Timmis present a vision for churches centered on gospel community. Find out more.

Sojourn Community Church in Louisville has created a new podcast containing the full audio from two sessions of the Worship Track at the November 2009 boot camp at Sojourn, featuring Sandra McCracken, Tim Smith, Mike Cosper, and others.

Subscribe to the Podcast

The podcast is called "Inside Sojourn," and you can download these and other interviews and features of the podcast via iTunes or RSS.

The first is the "worship leader panel" featuring Tim Smith, Mike Cosper, Kevin Twit of Indelible Grace, Marc Heinrich of Bethlehem Baptist, and Josh Dix of The Journey.

The second is the "songwriting panel" featuring Tim Smith, Mike Cosper, Kevin Twit, Sandra McCracken, Neil Robins of Sojourn and Chip Stam of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Direct Download

• Worship Leader Panel (mp3)
• Worship Songwriting Panel (mp3)

Trial Study Guide

Get the companion study guide to Pastor Mark's Trial sermon series in downloadable PDF form. Find out more.

In Light of the Ages Series: Click | View Series

"The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn."–Alvin Toffler

A Contrast of Two Times

History has had a few moments where one concept or process would change the direction and practice of a society. At one point words were enough. Then some ambitious person assigned letters or characters to represent words, immediately changing the world forever. When that print was mass-produced, ideas were more easily preserved and distributed. The printing press and pamphleteering (the 18th-century equivalent of blogging) are attributed as key factors in such revolutionary movements as the Reformation and the American colonial uprising against Great Britain.

In the earlier part of this series, the Industrial Revolution, which produced and moved goods with new speed and standardization, was presented as a powerful force for changing the world. It was responsible for the shape of schools, suburbs, and churches as we would eventually know them.

The Dawning of a New Era

Then came the new era, the Information Age. Man was no longer to merge with and mimic a machine; he was buzzing electrically like a central nervous system. The world was immediate, relentless, and perpetually in flux. In many ways, the Information Age is characterized by concepts that are precisely the opposite of the previous era.

Industrial Revolution vs. Information Age

Key Contrary Concepts of the Ages:

• Standardized vs. Customized
• Localized vs. Borderless
• Control vs. Influence
• Hard Product vs. Evolving Versions

In the second part of this series, I will be discussing changes that are necessary and part of the learning curve for those who wish to pastor in this new world. These will include:

• How to lead in a flatter structure and restore a biblical body theology
• Discipleship as a fluid journey versus solid circuitry
• Being part of a network, moving from the record store to a peer-to-peer community
• Being present everywhere: multi-sites and hotspots
• The tension of living in the culture of constant change and being counter to it

To be continued.

Advance 09 Media

Video, audio, and images from the Advance 09 conference in Raleigh-Durham, NC, June 2009. Find out more.

In Vintage Church chapter eleven we answer the question, "How Can a Church Utilize Technology?" This chapter includes a succinct summary of technological innovations in the history of the church such as pews and seats, electricity, organs, and the Internet. We also discuss the things churches need to consider regarding their use of technology. An example of this is the following excerpt from Vintage Church pages 274-275:

In addition to using technology in the corporate worship service, the church also benefits from taking full advantage of the opportunity for its preaching and other resources to become "sticky" to a larger audience for a longer period of time, thereby multiplying its influence. This includes use of the Internet, which has become the new front door for churches and the place people visit before showing up at any physical location....

Admittedly, not a lot of pastors are interested in the specific details about new technology. However, consider why it matters to churches. First, nearly everyone is on the Internet. Second, while on the Internet people are primarily looking for content and connection—two specialties of the church. In short, technology gives the church an opportunity to provide gospel content and relational connection to more people than ever before....

I offer this chapter as something of a field guide for those churches that want to wisely determine how to utilize various technologies for the benefit of the gospel. In offering specific counsel I am well aware that much of it will quickly become dated as innovation continues, but I offer it nonetheless in hopes of being helpful. My point is not that our church is cool and yours can be too, but that there are some great new ways to reach more people for Jesus that are worth considering for every church.

Vintage Church:

In this book, Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears discuss the essentials of what it means to be a biblical church. Find out more.

In Vintage Church chapter ten we answer the question, "What Is a Multi-campus Church?" With the fast growth of multi-campus churches and the multiple ways they are organized and led, we felt there was a timely necessity to discuss and define multi-site churches. Since Mars Hill, where I preach, is a multi-campus church with video broadcast sermons, we addressed this controversial issue as well. The following excerpt on multi-campus churches is taken from Vintage Church pages 247, 254:

With increasing advances in technology, we are now seeing the principles of one church meeting in multiple locations exponentially applied. The result has come to be called the "multi-site church revolution," which includes the controversial advent of "video venues." In many ways this is the circuit-riding preacher model renewed by technology. This chapter is devoted to exploring these two phenomena in both theological and practical detail....

Admittedly, by the time this book is published we will be doing things differently and likely will have added even more campuses. In sum, since our experiment with video two years ago, we have grown to a church with a peak attendance of eight thousand people spread across sixteen services on seven campuses with the capacity to double our attendance in the coming few years. Half of our attendance already participates via video, and in the coming years video will be the primary way in which people hear me preach the gospel. I now preach live four times on Sunday at our main campus. Some weeks I pre-record the sermon if I am traveling, in which case all services are video, and if I am sick or need a break I can just preach the morning services, which is a great relief.

Based on the five ways of doing multi-campus church, we are doing the partnership model at one of our seven campuses, the teaching-team model roughly 20 percent of the time across all campuses, and the regional-campus model. We also have some smaller informal gatherings both in the U.S. and around the world experimenting with the low-risk model to see if there is potential to make Mars Hill a national and international church.

We are by no means experts at all of this, but we have learned some things that I believe are helpful. (Seeing how friends such as pastors Ed Young Jr., Craig Groeschel, and Larry Osborne do their campuses has been very helpful.) Therefore, the following suggestions are offered as observations-not obligations-for those considering doing multi-campus church.

Vintage Church:

In this book, Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears discuss the essentials of what it means to be a biblical church. Find out more.

At Mars Hill Church the Preaching & Theology Branch is filming nine sermon introduction videos to support the series TRIAL: 8 Witnesses from 1 & 2 Peter as preached by Pastor Mark Driscoll.
 
This video was for our first “Witness,” Temptation. Candice Clem, now famous for the LED Stage Design of Peasant Princess, was our main character and did a wonderful job.
 

Before

This first video is the rough version without a score or final chroma key compositing. The frame rate on this original cut was shot in slow motion and is much longer than the final version.

The chroma key work was complicated, but after seeing how John Adams worked their actors into a bay full of ships we did the same with a few choice shots of our principle.
 

After

Here is the final intro video for Temptation:

 
Here is a Flickr set taken during the shoot. Apparently the photographer at the shoot was also inspired by John Adams and enlisted similar camera techniques; or maybe it was the Batman Angle they were re-creating.

Trial Study Guide:

Get the companion study guide to Pastor Mark's latest sermon series in downloadable PDF form. Find out more.

Recently, 30 pastors from all over the country visited Mars Hill Church to sit down with Campus Pastors and Branch and Department heads to see how Mars Hill structures its leadership, manages its programs, and generally leads the people God has called to participate in our church.

Each church represented had at least 1500 people in attendance each weekend. As I gave tours of the P&T Broadcast Booth, a common question I received was:

“How does Preaching & Theology get from Pastor Mark deciding on a book of the Bible to preach through all the way to the stage design, visuals, and theme that we see in TRIAL: 8 Witnesses from 1&2 Peter?”

This question is not exclusive to these visiting pastors, but is often echoed by many of you. To see how Mars Hill works from Bible book selection to fully themed sermon series, check out the 1&2 Peter Battle Plan. In this 200+ page document you will see the advance work done by Pastor Mark, Pastor Brad House over Community Groups, and the Preaching & Theology Branch. This plan was sent to every major organizational area of Mars Hill for review and feedback. This collaborative effort resulted in a smooth launch on January 11th, with support from all campus pastors and departments and a unified Gospel message from pulpit to counseling office to home community groups.

Trial Study Guide:

Get the companion study guide to Pastor Mark's latest sermon series in downloadable PDF form. Find out more.

1. You never miss a blog post from your favorite sites.

Once you subscribe to a feed, your feed reader will make sure that you see every new post from that feed. Whether you want to read your websites once a week, once a day, or every ten minutes, any unread items will be saved for you.

2. You can scan a ton of articles quickly.

When using a feed reader, you can quickly filter through the articles that you don't want to read. When surfing the web, you have to shuffle through different interfaces, type in web addresses, and surf bookmarks. This takes a ton of time. It’s much better to have the content you want delivered to you than to have to go find it every time you get online.

3. Melting-pot learning.

One of the great side-effects of using a feed reader is that you begin to learn about various memes in a melting-pot fashion, where ideas flavor each other. You'll learn new ideas over time, and understand the relationships between them.

4. You can save articles for later.

Feed readers allow you to save articles to read for later. In Google Reader, you can put a star next to items you like and come back later to read them in full. You can also tag articles and search for them later.

5. You can always be up to date with the Resurgence.

I am so excited to see the Resurgence have an impact on so many people's lives. I get emails all the time about how theResurgence.com is pushing people to live for Jesus, and I love it! I want more people to sign up for the feed so that they don't miss anything here. We're bringing in numerous experts from different backgrounds to help form a Christ-centered vision for our lives, and I don't want any of you to miss out on that.

What is Google Reader?

Links

Google Reader
I would highly suggest using Google Reader. It's getting better all the time and is incredibly easy to use.

The Resurgence Feed
Keep up to date with everything at the Resurgence.

Pastor Mark:

Get the latest content from Mark Driscoll, the
preaching pastor at Mars Hill Church.

1. Have a good Bible.

Every Christian needs a good Bible that they can easily read and enjoy. A translation such as the English Standard Version (ESV), the ESV Study Bible is very well done, or the New International Version (NIV) is preferable as your primary reading Bible, although there are many other translations that are also quite good (e.g., New King James Version, New American Standard Version).

2. Have some good Christian books.

If you want to build a reference library, the first book you should buy is A Commentary and Reference Survey by John Glynn by John Glynn. That book will tell you which other books are the best resources available for in-depth Christian study and anyone who is serious about studying should have a copy of this book.

3. Have some good (free) online study resources.

There are many great websites that can help you do Bible word studies and such for free. Good examples include the following, with the first one built and run by Mars Hill elder, Zack Hubert:

ReGreek (Editors not: This site has been suspended for copywrite complications) specializes in word studies from the Bible 's original languages.
Crosswalk has many translations and Bible study tools.
Bible Gateway has many translations and Bible study tools.
CCEL has most of the major works from Christian history for free and a “Study Bible” feature that pulls up historical church commentary on specified verses.
E Sword has numerous Bible study tools.

4. Have some good Bible software.

If you can afford it, Bible study software provides some amazing resources and companies like Logos Bible Software are worth considering.

5. Have some good websites.

There are many great resources available for free on the web with articles, books, blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, and MP3s. The following are some recommendations:

Desiring God is the website featuring a large repository of sermons and articles from my friend, Dr. John Piper.
Covenant Seminary has a “Free Downloads” link on their front page that will enable you to listen to hundreds of hours of their class lectures on many areas of Christian study. I am grateful to my friends at Covenant who have given the church such a gracious gift.
Mars Hill Church is where hundreds of hours of my teaching is available for free and has been the number one podcast on iTunes for religion and spirituality.
carm has good articles on cults, world religions, and apologetical issues.
equip.org has good articles, book reviews, and more, on cults, world religions, and apologetical issues.
www.christianitytoday.com/historyhas some great articles on Christian history and biography.
www.monergism.com has an almost overwhelming number of free articles on nearly every theological issue from a Reformed perspective.

6. Have some good community.

Most of the Bible was written to communities of people and is therefore best studied in community with other Christians. For this reason, getting plugged into a Community Group and/or taking midweek classes in addition to regularly attending a Sunday church service is essential.
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