Before the first weekly article arrives, I want to tell you why I’m opening The Pastor’s Workbench.
I’m writing for the pastor who has a sermon to prepare and another job to get to. For the ministry leader trying to give volunteers clear direction. For the small church where the same few people keep finding another responsibility on their plates.
That work deserves careful attention. So do the people carrying it.
Faithful ministry includes much that nobody can reduce to a checklist: listening to someone who is hurting, studying Scripture with care, praying when the answer is unclear. A useful tool should respect that work. It should also help with the ordinary responsibilities that can consume more time than they need to.
That’s where I hope the Workbench will be useful.
We’ll look at the work close enough to do something with it. How do you give a volunteer an assignment they can actually complete? What belongs in a church announcement? How do you finish a meeting with a clear understanding of what happens next?
Some pieces will address AI and other technology. We’ll ask where a tool can help and where a pastor or ministry leader needs to make the judgment. The responsibility stays with us.
I also want to keep the demands of this publication reasonable. You don’t need another program that assumes you have a staff member waiting for something to do. My aim is to offer an idea you can examine, adapt to your church, and use when it serves a real need. Some weeks, the most useful decision may be to stop doing something you can no longer sustain.
The first weekly article, The work that follows a pastor home, arrives Tuesday, September 29. It begins with the recurring tasks that keep finding their way back to the pastor. The articles and email subscription are free.
If you’d like a working resource before then, the free Skool community is open. In the Classroom, begin with 01 Start Here and Choose Your Starting Point. Choose one task that would help this week.
I’d like to hear from you, too: What recurring part of ministry takes more time than it should? You can reply to this email or leave a comment. A general description is enough; please leave names and private pastoral details out.
Thanks for reading. I hope something here makes the work in front of you a little clearer.
Joe