You’ve made it! Christmas happened and the whole Church didn’t burn down. At least I hope it didn’t burn down. Regardless, you have made it though a very busy time of year and, God willing, many people got to experience an amazing Christmas season at your Church or ministry.
Now what?
The reality is, for pastors and ministers, the week between Christmas and New Years presents a rare and valuable gift for them. It’s the gift of time. Time to relax. Time to spend with friends and family. Time to plan ahead for the next year of impact.
While it is important and essential to rest and enjoy this week between Christmas and New Years, it also presents ministers with a great opportunity to refocus, recharge, and set our sights on the year ahead in your Church and community. In fact, here are some things you can do this week to plan for the next year of impact.
Reflect, Evaluate and Pray
Before powering forward into next year, take time think through and evaluate how the past year went. What was good and what was bad? Think through the preaching, teaching, ministry programs, outreach events and activity as well as the leadership. This should be done on your own. Make sure you honor your staff, volunteers and team by letting them rest during the week. However, you can process and think through this on your own time, then, in the new year, get your team together and start processing this together.
Revise Vision and Goals
After you have taken time to reflect, evaluate and pray, look at your vision and goals and revise or adjust them as you view necessary. As you look at your goals, make sure they align with where your church or ministry is at currently. Brainstorm some new or updated monthly and/or quarterly benchmarks as you work to your goals. Using a method like S.M.A.R.T. goals will be very helpful in this process.
Look at Your Preaching Calendar
While you work through your goals and pray, taking a look at your preaching calendar would be a good exercise to do. Seek God’s guidance both in choosing Bible passages and timing for next major sermon series. Hopefully your sermon calendar is set already, but this would be a time for you to look through it and update anything based on what happened over the Christmas season.
HAVE A NEW YEAR OF IMPACT WITH THESE DIGITAL TOOLS. THEY CAN HELP YOU EXPAND YOUR EFFECTIVENESS AS A MINISTER.
Take Time to Rest and Recharge
You have worked REALLY hard the past few months. While you can do the above suggestions, make sure you take time to rest, recharge and spend time with your family. If you do not prioritize time to rest and recharge emotionally, physically and spiritually during this time, you will increase the chances of burning out sometime in the new year. Rest and recharge this week!
Conclusion
You made it through one of the busiest seasons in the Church calendar. Congrats! Now is the time to rest, recharge and spend time with your family. You need that. But this week also presents a chance to look ahead as you get ready for the next year of impact in your Church. DO NOT work 40 hours this week. You’ve earned a break. But also carve out some time this week to process and prepare as you look forward to what God is going this coming year.
Before you finish reading this post, write down a quick action plan. How else can ministers get to know people in their Church? Share them below or on social media.
Interested in being a Digital Missionary or want to learn digital tools to expand your reach in ministry this year, join the Digital Bootcamp Facebook Group!
