Page 3 of 3Monday I meet with church committees, write my newsletter columns, pen correspondence, meet with individuals. Tuesday I'm with my staff. Wednesday I have classes and my prayer group and teach an adult class across town.
Thursday morning I finish my sermon for the coming Sunday. I can do that because Thursday afternoon and Friday is uncontaminated time (with Saturday as my day off). On the previous Thursday afternoon I have excavated for this next week's sermon, and on Friday I've done general research.
Advancing deadlines for essentials, like the sermon, has helped me escape the garbled tyranny of the urgent. When pastors wait until Saturday to pound out their sermons, the undone sermon has overshadowed every day of that week. This kills thorough research. Therefore I begin preparing Sunday's sermon a week and a half early, and finish it the week it's due by Thursday noon.
This helps me use Friday in freedom. Friday I can read Les Miserables or the latest book on C. S. Lewis or a new commentary on John. I couldn't do this if my unfinished sermon was hanging over my head.
My week becomes a rhythm, then, a rhythm that enables me to become textual and people fluent.
Paying the Rent to Become Fluent
In order to maintain cooperation from the congregation to do this, I've found they will grant freedom for whatever we hold to be the linchpins in our ministry, especially if we're careful to "pay the rent." To do anything valid in a church, anything we crave in ministry, we must earn the right. A tenant pays the rent before enjoying a house; otherwise he's continually looking over his shoulder for the landlord. After paying the rent, he relaxes. He can do most anything he wants there. In the same way a pastor pays at least four rents for the freedom to pursue the essentials of his ministry.
• People must perceive that we know and are under the text. Pastors must master the Scriptures and proclaim them clearly. In addition, our lives are to be under the Word, congruent with it. In his letters to the Ephesians and Philippians Paul says, "I want your life to be worthy of the gospel." The Greek word for worthy also means "congruent." We don't have to be perfect, but people must feel that our life affirms the message.
• People must sense growth in us. If not, they worry about us and, ironically, give us less time to study. They begin to hover around us, discipling us because they think we're going stale, going downhill. They expect a payoff for what they're allowing. Seeing growth, they want us to do even more of whatever caused it. They'll say, "Hey, listen, whatever you're doing, keep doing it."
• People must know we're working hard. We don't have to publish a work schedule, because most of the time people can catch it, feel it, when we're working hard. By our actions and demeanor they sense vigor. They sense an honest day's work for an honest day's wage. It's not the pastor waving his flag and saying, "I work so hard." (Besides, people often pinch the freedoms of a workaholic.) They just sense the pastor's pulling his oar.
• People must know we love them. When pastors show that they like their people and treasure them, the people go to bat for the pastor. If they are convinced the pastor is for them, they'll let the pastor take the time to become text and people fluent.
I once read an article in The New York Times by Norman Mailer on the subject of writing. He observed that some of his best writing had been done at times when, ironically, he was the driest. That's because when dry, he did more research, which resulted in some of his best breakthroughs.
At any given moment, sweet fluency, whether with people, text, or schedule, can seem like an unreachable goal. And that's just the time to give ourselves wholeheartedly to becoming fluent. For that's just when we may be closer to eloquence and effectiveness than we think.
From the bookMastering Teaching, Copyright 1991 by Christianity Today, Inc.
