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Your Church, May/June 2000
MANAGEMENT
RESOURCES
The Well-Organized Pastor
Some
great products to help you stay on top of your schedule
Jim L. Wilson
When
I entered the ministry 20 years ago, I typed my sermons on a manual typewriter,
kept my appointments on the 12-month calendar that my insurance agent gave me,
stored my illustrations in a 3-by-5 card file, and kept my concordance handy
to look up Scriptures.
When I left the office,
I'd carry a list of important phone numbers, appointments, and a to-do list
on a pocket memo pad. And I'd use a pay phone to call the office periodically
to make sure everything was all right.
High-Tech
Aids for Busy Pastors
Times have changed.
Today I have an office
computer equipped with Word Search, a software program with several translations
of the Bible, commentaries, maps, and Greek and Hebrew dictionaries. I have
a Palm Desktop, a personal information manager; and InfoSearch, a software program
that stores and retrieves illustrations. My desktop computer is networked with
other church computers, allowing us to share information and hardware with each
other. And when I travel, I take a laptop computer with me that will network
with office computers.
To keep in touch with my
congregation, I wear a pager and carry a cell phone at all times. And to stay
on top of my schedule, I've replaced my pocket memo pad with a Palm Pilot that
I synchronize with the personal information manager on my office computer.
I'm not alone in turning
to a handheld computing device. According to analysts at International Data
Corporation in Framington, Massachusetts, more than 5 million people in the
United States are expected to own handheld computing devices by 2002.
The Palm Pilot is preloaded
with a calendar, memo pad, address book, and expense tracker. And with just
the touch of a button on the Palm cradle or modem, the Palm synchronizes with
the Palm Desktop Software on the desktop computer.
The Palm also runs third-party
software that helps a minister to be more efficient, such as:
• ProxiMail (www.proxinet.com),
a free e-mail service. Using my Palm and a special modem, I can retrieve and
respond to my e-mail from any phone. The newest version, the Palm VII, offers
direct Internet access without the use of an exterior modem or phone line.
• Street Signs (www.TrekWare.com),
a mapping program. With a Palm and this program, I can search for a place based
upon an intersection, address book entry, or address that I enter for any major
city in the United States.
• Trip (www.handshigh.com)
helps me track business miles. It makes quick work of entering beginning and
ending mileage and categorizing a trip for reimbursement and tax preparation.
With its export feature, the Palm allows me to send the data to my desktop computer
to import into my mileage database program.
• OmniRemote (www.pacificneotek.com)
uses the Palm's infrared capability to control multiple televisions and VCRs
at the office and at home.
• Peanut Press (www.peanutpress.com)
publishes electronic books that I can download and read on my Palm Pilot using
the free Peanut Reader.
More
Electronic Helps
Memory limitations
do not allow me to load the entire Bible on my Palm, but Franklin Electronic
Publishers has a solution for that. Franklin offers a palm-size electronic Bible,
either in the King James Version or New International Version. It includes the
complete text of the Old and New Testaments plus a built-in search concordance
to quickly find passages. You can search for Scripture by key words as well
as by book, chapter, and verse. The electronic version also includes daily devotional
verses, the capacity to store up to 50 bookmarks, and adjustable type sizes
to make copy easier to read.
This product helps pastors
save time. "With the electronic Bibles, flipping through hundreds of pages
is eliminated so you can spend more time reading passages than searching for
them," says Denise Bleidorn, associate product manager of Franklin Electronic
Publishers.
To keep in touch with other
pastors and workers within a church complex, try a portable radio or paging
system from Alpha Communications. The Premise Pager, used most often to contact
parents of children in nurseries during worship services, can also be used by
pastors and other staffers during the week. The VX-400 portable radio system
has 16-channel capacity, is almost as small as a pager, and has a great range.
Low-Tech
Helps for Staying Organized
Whether in the
office or on the road, pastors must stay organized and focused on their ministries.
Sam Varner, author of Slimmer, Younger, Stronger: Twelve Simple Things You
Can Do to Achieve Optimum Health (Element Books) and the conditioning coach
of Olympic athletes Tommy Moe and Picabo Street, believes such focus is a key
to success. "One common denominator in all the successful athletes I've
trained is their ability to stay focused on a desired outcome and the discipline
to stick with it," Varner says.
A professional planner
can help them stay focused. Jack Allen, pastor of Cottonwood Church in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, uses high-tech things in his office but prefers a low-tech approach
to organize his ministry on the go. "The best system for me seems to be
a cheap pen and a legal pad used in conjunction with a 2-page-per-day planner,"
he says. Every Sunday afternoon, Allen uses his legal pad to prioritize a to-do
list. Next, he sorts the tasks into what he needs to do himself and what others
can do. Then he transfers the list to his planner and makes a few phone calls
to delegate the other tasks.
Several systems are available,
but Allen is currently using a Day-Timer planner. "It includes the ingredients
that I find necessary: this, last, and next month's calendars on every page;
a page for appointments, expenses, and things to do; and a diary page to track
what I actually did," Allen says. He appreciates the high quality and low
price of the product and the convenience of finding it at most office supply
stores.
A personal planner that's
unique to the pastor is The Shepherd's Tools from Moody Press. In addition to
features found in most planners, it includes tools to help the pastor grow in
his relationships with God, his family, and his congregation. The planner includes
sections for such entries as prospect visitation notes, committee and board
notes, personal devotions, professional development plans, community development
plans, counseling records, a wedding checklist, and sermon preparation worksheets.
"Our hope in creating
Shepherd's Tools is to help equip the minister to maintain balance in every
area of his life," says Julie-Allyson Ieron, who was managing editor of
Moody Press when Shepherd's Tools was published.
Whether they use cutting-edge
technology or a 99 cent pen, legal pad, and a planner, well-equipped ministers
are finding ways to stay organized and keep focused on their ministry.
Jim Wilson, D.Min,
is senior pastor of Light house Baptist Church in Seaside, California, and
online editor at www.FreshMinistry.org
helpful resources
• Alpha Communications
770-263-8843
• Day-Timer 800-225-5005
www.daytimer.com
• Franklin Electronic
Publishers 609-386-2500
• InfoSearch www.infosearch.com
• Moody Press 800-678-8812
www.moodypress.org
• Palm Pilot www.palm.com
Copyright © 2000 by the
author or Christianity Today International/Your Church Magazine. Click here for reprint information on Your Church.
May/June 2000, Vol. 46, No. 3, Page 59
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