In the book First, Break all the Rules, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, they list 12 core questions Gallup discovered that, when asked, give organizations the information they need to attract, focus, and keep the most talented employees.

Pastors and church leaders would do well to regularly ask their employees to answer them.

Statistics tell us that pastors don’t take great care of their bodies. However, if we are to remain effective for the long-haul, we must pay careful attention to taking good care of our bodies.

Answer these 8 questions and determine how well you are caring for your body.

1. Am I keeping my body weight at a reasonable level? Calculate your body mass index here.
2. Do I regularly exercise (3-5 times a week for at least 30 minutes)?
3. Would others say I manage my stress well?
4. Do I do some fun things outside of ministry?
5. Do I take a full day off each week?
6. Do I avoid guilt feelings when I take my day off?
7. Do I take a real vacation each year?
8. Am I able to disconnect from the phone, email, and computer for several hours at a time?

How did you do?

If you answered ‘no’ to any of these questions, what should be your next step to take better care of yourself?

Related posts: Defeating the demons of discouragement

For more Help and Resources for Frustrated and Discouraged Pastors, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.

Peter Drucker, often called the father of modern management, was also a committed Christian. I’ve read several of his books on leadership that have helped me become a better leader and pastor.

Jim Collins recently spoke at Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit. At that conference he told us that after Drucker died, he spoke at an event in his honor and had the opportunity to step into his office. On one bookshelf someone had arranged his 35 books in the order in which he wrote them. Jim remarked that when he put his finger on the book he wrote at age 65, 2/3′s of the books were still to the right, written after he turned 65. Old age never slowed him down. Rather, his age seemed to spur him to even greater productivity.

These four statements Drucker made about great leaders have never left me.

1. Great leaders had followers
2. Great leaders got results–they did the right things and didn’t worry about popularity
3. Great leaders knew that leadership was responsibility, not rank, privileges or titles
4. Great leaders set good examples

Church leaders would do well to heed his wise words.

Related posts:

• Seven Leadership Learnings from Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit
• What Snorkeling Taught me about Selecting Leaders

For more Help and Resources for Pastors, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.

My wife and I just returned from a conference in Bogota, Colombia where we taught pastors and their wives. We were privileged to serve with Juan Carlos Flores Zúñiga and his wife Orietta who arranged the conference through his organization. Lance Witt and his wife Connie were also on the teaching team. He served as the executive pastor at Saddleback for several years and now leads his own ministry. Vicente Castillo, a pastor from Mexico also taught.

We served over 75 pastors and their spouses and it was a humbling experience. These gracious people reminded me of 4 crucial leadership principles.

1. Leaders who grow must must cultivate a hunger to keep growing. I was amazed at how these pastors took prodigious notes as I spoke. Their desire to learn was palpable.
2. Godly leaders embody an attitude of gratitude. Although all the pastors showed appreciation, one brought tears to my eyes. He said many years ago an American missionary gave him a small new testament. That small bible became instrumental in his conversion. He said with great joy, “God bless America.” He viewed America as a tool in God’s hand to point him to Jesus.
3. The best leaders never stop sacrificing for the greater cause of the Kingdom. I learned that many of these pastors left good paying jobs as engineers, business executives, and other professional vocations to serve Christ full-time. Unfortunately, in America we are tempted to settle into a comfortable life-style in ministry and forget Jesus’ call to continual sacrifice.
4. God uses leaders who show child-like faith. I sat in a restaurant and listened to a pastor’s wife tell story after story how God had miraculously provided for them. She described God’s work with such freshness and enthusiasm that the Lord convicted me of my sometimes lack of this kind of faith.

Leaders must constantly remind themselves that these four principles really matter to God. And, He uses the most unlikely people and places to remind us, as He did for me.

For more Help and Resources for Pastors, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.

I’m a techno geek … I stood in line for 5 hours to get the latest iPhone, I use a MacBookPro, I use an iPad on stage when I preach, I twitter, and I write a blog.

Our church is techno … we use video extensively, power point, YouVersion which allows people to follow the sermon on their mobile phone, and we’ve done texting feedback during services.

Yet, sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in too much technology.

Recently during our programming meeting, our creative director suggested that we use a different medium to help the sermon delivery…the old flannelgraph.

In case you’ve never heard of a flannelgraph, it was a Bible teaching technique extensively used many years ago. Sunday school teachers would prop up the flannelgraph on an easle (a large piece of cardboard with flannel on the outside) and as she taught us the Bible lesson that day, she’d stick cardboard images of people and Bible objects on the flannelgraph. The flannel on the back of the images would stick to the flannel on the board. Thus, the flannelgraph. Today the flannelgraph is being used quite extensively in areas around the world with illiterate populations.

This past Sunday we tried it. I taught from Ephesians 2 and 3 where Paul uses several word pictures. These metaphors made it easy to find and cut out images.

Here’s how it added to my teaching.

1. It was drastically different from how I usually teach. Its novelty helped the message stick.
2. It helped those familiar with the flannel graph feel a bit of nostalgia, which endeared them to the medium which enhanced the message.
3. It helped me easily remember the next point. I simply picked up the picture and stuck it on the board.
4. As I walked back to the board, it was easy to keep reviewing the main points when I referred back to the images.
5. It built interest as the people wondered what was next.
6. It helped visual learners stay more focused.

So, if you’d like mix things up a bit, give it a try. All it takes is a board (wood or foam core), some felt, and some pictures (I used velcro on the back to make them more sticky) and … PRESTO, you have a flannelgraph.

Although we still used powerpoint images on the screens so people could see the images in detail, I now have a new tool in my preaching toolbox.

Related posts:

• How pastors can benefit from using an iPad, part 1
• How and iPad improved my devotional life

For more Books, Help and Resources for Pastors, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.

I’ve been in full-time vocational ministry nearly 30 years and used to  think that the most important use of my time was preaching the message. I still believe that, especially for the masses, but perhaps the second most important time is what I do right before the service and right after the service.

I call it the “ministry of presence.” My high visibility as I chat with people, shake their hands, and give them a listening ear provides a tiny “one-on-one” window into their hearts. I believe those brief interactions often affect them more than the sermon itself.

Here are four simple choices to maximize that time.

1. Look for the “deer-in-the-headlights” look. This look often telegraphs new people. I look at peoples’ eyes and I can usually catch their “I’m new here and have no idea what to do or where to go.” I will introduce myself and try to make them feel that I really care. A touch like that from a pastor can make a profound impact on a new person.
2. Seek out those in wheelchairs, those with canes, or those with other physical or mental challenges. One guy, Robin, comes to our service in a motorized wheelchair. A mobile ventilator attached to his wheelchair keeps him alive. Another boy, Nicholas, is confined to his wheelchair. He is twelve. One older teen walks with a bent body and slurs her words when she talks. I don’t let a service go by without talking, touching, and affirming them.
3. Give your full attention to people when you do talk to them. Avoid the, “talking to one person while you are getting ready to talk to the next person” persona. People quickly sense half-hearted listeners.
4. Finally, steer clear of the monopolizers. This may sound harsh, but some people will take your entire time before and after a service as they talk about themselves or some problem. I will often walk up a different aisle so as to avoid getting cornered by a monopolizer.

These simple practices have made many powerful spiritual deposits in others as I offer them my “ministry of presence.”

Try out these ideas this month and see if you, too, feel God’s pleasure.

Related posts:

• What a guy on a ventilator taught me
• What a dying man taught me

For more Help and Resources for Pastors, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.

Jules Bastien-Lepage: The Blind Beggar

Two experiences this morning caused me to pause not only my body, but my leader’s mind that seems to always churn, thinking about the next project or task.

This first occurred at a local diner as I ate breakfast with a friend.  The both I choose gave me a view of the exterior entrance to the diner. Out of my peripheral vision, I noticed a middle-aged man walk up to the glass door. Nothing odd there…until he reached for the door handle. He missed it, by about a foot. For about fifteen seconds he kept fumbling with his right hand to find the handle. I thought that a bit odd at first. He finally opened the door. The view from where I sat also allowed me to see the inside entrance. As he walked in, the waitress spoke to him. Then she gently held his arm and directed him to a table. He was almost blind.

In an instant I felt both compassion toward this man and gratefulness for my vision.

When I arrived at the office an hour later, the second experience forced me again to push the mental pause button.

The older daughter of one of our admin staff takes care of a young boy confined to a wheelchair. His body is broken, he can’t speak, he drools, but his mind remains intact. She had left him alone in his wheelchair a few moments to go into our conference room. I stood at the end of the hall and noticed him alone. I walked up to him, patted him on the head and shoulder and said something like, “You’re a bit wet. That rain is a mess out there.” As drool slid off his lips, he responded was a loud grunt, the best his body would allow him to articulate.

As I reflect on these two experiences, I was reminded of a concept that Phil Yancey, the great author, described as ‘time between time.’ He explains that he tries to discipline himself to mentally pause between each day’s activity to reflect over what he just experienced and to prepare his heart for what comes next.

My encounter with a blind man and a boy with a broken body reminded me of those moments in time, the ‘time between time,’ that are often pregnant with meaning.

Leaders are always looking ahead for the next hill to climb. But sometimes, we must pause and make ourselves fully present in the moment so we don’t miss God’s subtle, but important lessons.

related post: The Guy on the Ventilator

Sometimes we can view leadership as simply big-picture, long-term, and strategic, especially if we lead organizations such as a church or a non-profit.

I’ve learned, however, that how I treat one-on-one encounters with leaders can impact the leader and the organization often in greater ways than my big-picture leadership.

Here are three questions to silently ask ourselves when with another leader.

1. If I were in his/her shoes, would this leader feel loved?
2. What does this leader need from me now and how can I meet it?
3. What is God doing in this person’s life and how does He want me to help?

Perhaps these questions are ways to live out the maxim, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Do you silently ask yourself any questions that help you one-on-one lead?

For more Leadership Resources for Pastors, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.

Recently Leadership Network asked 40 pastors (including the likes of Wayne Cordeiro and Elmer Towns) to explain in 6 minutes what they wish they had done differently in ministry. They held an online conference called SAGE.

As one of the speakers, I spoke on why I wish I was less like a turtle.

You can read an article that Leadership Journal posted, Animal Instincts, taken from my book 5 Ministry Killers and How to Defeat Them that unpacks this concept in more detail.

Do your ever find yourself responding like this to ministry’s challenges?

CS Leadership from Ginger Creek Community Church on Vimeo.

For more Resources, Tips and Help for Pastors, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.

I’m a busy pastor and am committed to developing my walk with Jesus through several spiritual disciplines. One discipline I practice is a daily time with God when I read Scripture, pray, and journal.

Before I owned an iPad, my quiet time looked like this.

1. read my bible (the paper version), often reading several different bibles to compare translations
2. read a devotional from a paper book
3. journal with pen and paper and later I journaled on my Mac in a Word doc
4. pray through my prayer list on a Treo outlining program, when I got an iPhone I began to use it

Here’s what has changed since I got my iPad 6 weeks ago.

1. read my bible on my iPad using Olive Tree’s BibleReader program (multiple versions, side-by-side comparison, ability to hi-light, take notes, and cut and paste into another program)
2. read an e-devotional from one of the best bible study apps, Logos
3. journal on my iPad using a program called MaxJournal
4. pray through my prayer list using a program called PrayerLists

How this has improved my devotional life.

1. While not feeling rushed, having these tools all in one place has saved time that I can now devote to the actual spiritual exercise.
2. Reading on the big iPad screen using BibleReader is an incredible experience as I can view side-by-side 2 translations at once, can pull up commentaries alongside the text, can copy a verse and paste in into my journal, can hi-light in one color verses I’m memorizing and hi-light in another color a verse that stands out
3. MaxJournal gives a very nice layout, the ability to search, and the ability to use the on-screen keyboard or a bluetooth keyboard. Very cool.
4. PrayerLists provides an easy way to record prayer needs and allows me to schedule them on the days I want to pray for those needs.
5. Having everything in one small package makes it more convenient since I don’t have to lug around four things-bible, journal, devotional, and prayer list.

Struggles I still face.

1. To be honest, I still feel kinda’ guilty not reading out of a paper bible. Sometimes I feel like I’m not really reading the bible though the more I read from BibleReader, the less guilty I feel.
2. It is a bit of a hassle with the current iPad os to move back and forth between programs, but OS 4.0 will allow multi-tasking.
3. PrayerLists is not yet adapted for iPad but the developer is working on it.
4. At first it seemed too ‘tech-y,’ but the more I use this system, the more I’m finding this tool to be an invaluable help in my walk with Christ.

If you have an iPad, has it helped you grow? if so, how?

In a few weeks I’ll post my experience using the iPad in preaching.

Related posts: How Pastors can Benefit from an iPad

For more Help, Tips and Resources for Pastors, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.