A couple years ago I wrote an article giving Six Tips for Helping the Busiest of Pastors to Start Writing. I wrote that as an associate pastor whose time was spent a bit differently than it is now as a senior pastor. I’m one of those really busy pastors right now who has a passion for writing well but I’m struggling to find the time to do so. I thought I’d dust off that article and see how well I can apply it to my current situation.
Here are my six tips in their original form…I’ll provide comments afterwards:
Six Tips for Helping the Busiest of Pastors to Start Writing
- Write out your sermons and edit them for the public. You don’t have to go into the pulpit with a full manuscript if that isn’t your bag. But it does help to be intentional about your thoughts and really flesh out the right words. Once you write your sermons you could easily turn one sermon into a week of blog posts.
- Prioritize. It is essential that you are convinced that writing is a vital part of your ministry. If not it will get thrown aside quickly. Force yourself to write at least something every day.
- Make it part of your devotional time. Do your daily devotionals with a pen and paper. Write out your thoughts and prayers. Go back to them a week later and try to craft them into an article.
- Avoid procrastination, today. This is especially for those of us that have deadlines to meet. If you don’t take captive every moment then sure enough you’ll be called out for a hospital visit when you had planned on writing.
- It’s okay if you aren’t Stephen King. You don’t have to be the best writer in the world. Just write something. If it’s not good enough for publication then keep it between you and your aunt Maude. Or perhaps try a blog. That’s where us not-ready-for-primetime players get our feet wet and actually get gooder…I mean better.
- Read Good Writers. You will get better at communicating if you take the time to read those that have mastered the craft. Don’t spend all your time in commentaries. One of the most helpful things that you can do for your preaching and ministry is to read a good novel. (Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. I know that the power is in the Word preached and not the preachers eloquence. But we don’t necessarily have biblical promises attached to the words that we choose in business meetings. Those can be made better by reading helpful communicators).
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Looking back on these six tips I wouldn’t change a thing. Especially if I was communicating to a pastor who was just beginning to add writing to his ministry. I still believe pastors should be writers—maybe not published writers, but intentional writers nonetheless. And I believe these six tips would help a busy pastor to prioritize. But now that my schedule is different than it was a couple years ago, I think I’d add one more thing.
7. Block off two periods of time per day for writing but expect to only get one of them. This is the part that I am struggling with the most. I have so many pressing needs and so many thoughts running through my head that devoting time to writing is difficult. I have several ideas for articles but I don’t have the time to write them. I think my first tip is good—but it needs a bit more. It takes time to edit a sermon into a series of blog posts. If I’m not intentional about my time it is going to be taken up. So, what I’ve started doing is setting a bit of time for writing in the morning and some for writing in the afternoon. But rarely do I get both of these times. Yet, if I have two of them I can be a bit more flexible with my schedule. Rarely, will I have two emergencies hit in the same day.
To be honest, I’m still struggling through this adjustment of how my day is spent. One thing that I haven’t addressed, because frankly I haven’t figured it out, is how to have myself emotionally ready to write. What I mean is that just because I have time scheduled to write at 2:00 it doesn’t mean that at 2:00 I’m going to have a mind ready to write. So what I’m having to learn to do is to know my body. I have to know when my mind is sharpest and most conducive to writing and when I’m probably just going to stare at a computer screen. But even still, if my 1:00-2:00 is spent on something that is emotionally taxing I’m not going to be able to write as well during that time. I suppose I need to allow myself a bit more freedom to juggle.
If you are a busy pastor who also writes…how do you do it? What tips would you give?
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