Transcription
[Music] You work too hard. You think you’re indispensable. Have you heard that from, you know, not just a book, from your wife, from your husband? It’s so easy to be out of balance, and so easy to be messianic. I speak from experience. We’re gonna talk today about priorities and the balance of life. You guys, is there such a thing?
I’m Newt Larson, Jeff Bogan, Jim Brown. Is there such a thing as a balance to our life and our schedule? No, it’s it’s every week you you have to gain control of your time and don’t give someone else control of your time, and you have to plan well. I I’ll back up. Early days, I didn’t do a very good job of it. I didn’t take my day off because I thought there’s this all this work that needs to be done. And I’ll never forget a conversation, I to conversation, went ahead with a guy in seminary. He said, “God always gives you enough time to get done what you need to get done,” and that was John Teaming said that. And then I was kind of wallowing in self-pity because I was putting a bunch of hours and it wasn’t taking my day off. Went and went to an elder board meeting, and one of my elders asked, “I hadn’t taken a day off in six months.” He looked at me, said, “That’s stupid,” and he was right. Make sure you gain control of your schedule.
Yeah, I would say yes and no. Also, I think the same way. I actually did. I don’t think I believe in balance here. You’re never gonna have a nine-to-five, you know, weekends off thing. It’s not and so we signed up for, and in fact, almost no one works that way anymore, right? So it’s just it’s just not the way it is. I believe in correction. So I think you’re gonna have, I think a 50-60 hour workweek is relatively normal. If I think of other other white-collar workers who do the type of work that I do, that’s what they’re working, and they’re working 50 hours plus and then coming and volunteering at the church, right? So I can live with that, but you’re gonna have a few, you’re gonna have an emergency, you’re gonna have whatever, and when you get hammered like that, I would look and say, “Right, you take some extra time the next week. You’re you do some of your personal life during your day in day out schedule. Get to have integrity with it, but you can correct it so that when you’re home you’re not hammered with a big to-do list or a bunch of chores, but you can actually invest in your kid and your family things like that.” So I I’ve used correction a lot as my motto. I’m not looking for better a good way to it’s just ask your wife, the correction comes there. Let’s go to that subject. Hey, let’s remind the 28-year-olds that the tension never goes away.
Right, right, right. And you’re always gonna grapple with this. It’s not gonna get perfect, but you’re always gonna agree. So what are some of the main enemies of key balance or of good family life? What are some main enemies of your time? Expectations of other people. If you live up and try to live up to their expectation as spent instead of spending time with God in prayer and seeking his way and listen to the Holy Spirit directing your path and trying to do what he wants you to do instead of what people want you to do, you will never ever have fine balance otherwise. Good planning is huge. So I think that you know you need one of your big things is Masterson’s schedule. It’s in the old end, the new T is I think you taught me that 20 years ago, and I have lived by Newt chapter 1, verse 8 is where you find that, and master schedule is a big big deal. Scheduling out your to-do list and your downtime, and then when somebody calls, it’s an interruption; it’s not an emergency. You look and say, “No, I’m I’m booked Tuesday night.” You know, you don’t have to experiment. If it’s your daughter, you notice my daughter, she why wouldn’t she get that priority? Right, absolutely. So planning is a big one for me, planning that downtime and then gauging whether that emergency is actually an emergency or not. You know, turning that that’s a good one, Jeff, a pretty practical way. If you look at my business card, I I put them in this order: husband, father, pastor. It’s a reminder to me when I hand that off to someone, I hand it off; that’s the order; that’s the priority; that’s that’s what I try to work hard at. You know, everybody has, I think it’s 168 hours in a week. I put as one of the enemies, improvisation. Yeah, just that. Oh, okay, okay. That’s a master schedule and just say no. They learn to say no. Oh yeah, the world will go on.
Yeah. What are some disciplines? I know it’s right on the same thing, or some policies in your church, any size church, that can help you keep your priorities straight in addition to master schedule? My cell phone, I don’t give my cell phone number out to everybody. There’s a select few; there’s an inner circle of people that that that I hand it off to. I don’t I don’t I don’t publicize it anywhere. If I sign up for something, my cell phone number is not available to everybody. Well, that you don’t have this the people all those that have my cell phone stand-up things like that. Cell phone, I would say disciplines are things like this: I don’t say yes immediately when you say, “Can I get together with you?” I always say, “Let me check my schedule first.” I don’t give you immediate yes. I don’t tend to make reoccurring weekly meetings. So what if someone wants me to meet with them once a week? We can probably accomplish all the same things every other week or even once a month, right? I set priorities and keep them, so my day off is a priority for me. Using occasion vacation absolutely is a priority for me. It’s it’s some of my richest family times when the kids are out of school. I’m out of the office. Generally, that’s when I use how I used my vacation. So you take three months off all summer long? No, but but Spring Break, fall break, Christmas, I want to be my kids, so we’re gonna vacation there. You’re not really welcome to pop over to the house or or my cell phone like an emergency, everything right, but like, “I want to visit, and I thought it’d be fun to hang out.” No, you’re just stealing from my family. So those kind of disciplines. The other thing I would say is this: I make it a discipline to equip the body to do the work of ministry. Oh, say more. So I have a little saying that if you invest in leadership for five years, it’ll pay off for twenty-five. And my job as a minister is not to do everything; my job is to equip. Now, when you’re twenty-eight and you’re starting or you’re in a new church and you’re starting, you’re gonna do a lot, but take guys with you. Raise up elders, raise up small group leaders, raised up hospital visitation teams, and over the course of two, three, four years, those burdens start to spread out, and you’re not the the phone call every time. When I was a younger person, thankfully, I think my big brother Dave Bogan kind of got this into my head, and so when my kids were little, you talking about the twenty-eight-year-old guy, you know, when my kids were little, I realized that I had a year window where I could be gone and they would still be glad to see me when I came home. I used that to double down on training leaders so that when they were they got to the age where they needed me around more and more, those leadership those leaders were in place and raised up. So making a disciplined effort to make that a part of the foundation. They did. I’d say if you fail as a husband, if you fail as the father, you failed as a pastor. Love, invest as much and more in that arena. And another thing I would say, one things I love to do is I free our staff up to be with their kids. They have events that are going on in school. I give them the same benefits that I have. I want to see them flourish to good and and to say soberly, you not only feel as as a pastor, you may flunk your whole vocational absolutely if you don’t watch your time, and it’s so true. Spending when they add a mundane thing of your sleep habits and your exercise habits, your physical habits and how you eat has to do with how energetic you are in the when you are at work. And let’s say something about that both because you work at that. I would it’s very important. I know it is that all of us here in one. I’ll go back to a very simple thing in our arena. We have sunny morning services, and we had three services on Sunday. I want to give my absolute best Sunday morning, so Saturday night in our home, I shut down earlier than any night of the week. I go to bed early. I prepare myself to be ready, but the only way I can do that is if I’m physically have an exercise in an eating plan in place, and my wife helps me with that. I’m very very very intentional about running, very very intentional about exercising because if any place you want to give your absolute best is in your home and is in your church. God has handed us the bride of Jesus Christ; we should give our absolute best. Hand the other piece of that is how can I effectively serve when I if I’m not physically able to? If there’s one area of my life that’s toxic, it’ll affect all the others areas, and physical health is a toxic place for a lot of pastors.
Yeah, the I would I would celebrate the same things, especially on the weekends. We have Saturday night services, and Sunday morning I have a very strict routine. I eat the same thing every Saturday because that because I it literally like lots of protein, those kind of things. Carbs in the morning kind of get you going. So I think through like an athlete would try to figure through before a game, right? Sleep is it is a deal, and so you got a guard like getting on the internet or getting on a television thing, like if it’s got to go off, it’s got to go off. Exercise, exercise is always a discipline for me. I don’t enjoy running or those kind of things, so what I’ve tried to do, what motivates me the most is when I can exercise with my kids, so right now that’s full combat basketball in the driveway, you know, because I feel like I’m with them and I’m getting my heart rate up, those kind of things. During the day, if I have a meeting that is kind of a relational meeting with a staff person, we’re taking a walk and having that meeting, you know, so we’re moving, and it does it clears your head. So yours you’re thinking like that an athlete would prep themselves, an actor would prep themselves, that kind of a thing, and that’s that’s the intentionality we would want to put into. I know this is gonna cover with just a fraction of the people listening, but some don’t have as many demands on their schedule. You start off in a church of 50, what do you do by self-discipline to fill the time in good ways when you’re just building a church? Our lives in church leadership have been prescribed for us to a large extent. I would say get outside of your walls. Yeah, you got to get out and meet people in the community. Invest ourselves in community events. I coach the whole way through. In fact, if you were asked people that are part of Grace now how they first met me, I was Coach Brown. You had time to coach and invest. Get out there with your kids, be their coach, invest in community stuff, get outside of your walls. Yeah, you when you have 50 people, you don’t need to study for a sermon 40 hours. You need to get some godly correct thoughts together and present those on the weekend, so you meet people, coach, go to every funeral home in town and volunteer to do the funerals for them; you’ll meet tons of people that way, right? Invest in your leaders, families of the well you can count, but but the families. Yeah, you just get into networks of people that way. Every breakfast, every lunch ought to be booked, trained elite, or meet a person, connect with and follow up with maybe with somebody who showed up on the weekend, but when you when you’re when you’re at that phase, you invest yourself, you meet people, you meet people, you meet people, you meet people, you need people. Salute. I begged pastors to also schedule their wives. We’re saying that kind of thing. Schedule your children, and when somebody asked if you could do something, then you say, “I have something.” That I can write a good guide is our wife, correct? Yeah, most of our wives are feral, and we only have one each, but they’re they’re fairly candid with us, and we know when it’s time. They should actually probably do this this session. We’re not going to get well, you’ll see the notes, and we hope you’ll be helped. We all struggle with it, even in our lives now, we admit that, but it’s it’s there. There’s 168 hours and every week, we got to fill them carefully and with wisdom, starting with God, dealing with ourselves. Thank you for being with us, Jim Brown, Jeff Bogan, Newt Larson. God bless. Thank you.