Skip to main content

Ministry Monday: The Checklist Means Nothing

I have a somewhat Type-A personality. For those of you that know me (at all) there will be some of you that disagree totally and will perhaps point to some area of my life that is a big hot mess. If that's you, I have two things to offer you. 

1. Don't tell me. I have a wife for that.
2. I did say somewhat Type-A.

As I examine my life, the Type-A area in which I am most Type-A has to do with to do. Lists, that is. I like to make them. I like to complete them. Which is why the following would not work for me. 


That would not go well for me. This is also why I struggle in my ministry life. Because the to-do list of a pastor never gets fully checked and completed and put away. In fact, I love lists so much I have downloaded Wunderlist on every piece of tech I own, so I can always have my to-do lists with me. 

I have created to-do lists for every day of the week. I do this so I can remember what needs to be done. In planning ahead, I can place a task on a list for next week. I also like checking them off, bringing a sense of accomplishment to my day. 

Which brings me back to my dilemma. Not even my daily lists get completed on a normal basis. Some may say my lists must be unrealistic, which might have a glimmer of truth. But it is what I would like to accomplish on any given day. 

But ministry rarely works like that. Because relationships never work like that. If you have any friends at all, I'm sure you would agree. I have yet to hear of the husband who compliments his wife, turns around and checks that off a list and feels done for the day. If any guy tries that, he may in fact be done...for every day. 

So, my Type-A friends out there, I encourage you to tackle as much as you can, but never to feel defeated when tasks remain on that pesky to-do list. Or, if it makes you feel better, check everything off just to feel the sweet satisfaction of completion, as long as you have those uncompleted tasks written down for another day of course. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Accountable

I recently officiated a wedding. The ceremony was simple, lovely, and ended with another couple professing to keep the covenant of marriage. But it all started with a clarification...from me. At our first premarital counseling session, as I have done with every couple I have agreed to marry, I clarified a couple of matters. First, I officiate Christian weddings, where both spouses-to-be are professing Christians. I firmly believe that marriage is difficult enough, without adding disagreements about God into the mix. Second, as a minister of Jesus Christ, I believe the pastor’s role in a wedding is to represent the blessing of God on that union. So we have several sessions of premarital counseling where we discuss married life. It’s not that I have this imaginary card in my head, with a picture of me on the front and my stats on the back. (You know, like a baseball card.) Ok, I do picture cards. Pastor cards! And being a competitive guy, I want my stats to look good. The number of coupl...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Facebook Maybe

Granted, I'm a pastor. I have Type-A tendencies. Ok, my tendencies border on freakish OCD behavior patterns, but... Few things bother me more than the Facebook 'maybe'. I suppose I could go on and on about the grey areas of our society and the refusal of people to accept absolute standards. I could discuss the great need of people to accept that what is wrong for one person is likely wrong for everyone. I should certainly be concerned about mentioning that someone might have sin in their life. But I don't believe the Facebook 'maybe' is quite sin. Perhaps if I were coming up with new sins, I would add this to the list. But alas... Some might think the Facebook 'maybe' did not exist prior to the Internet, but they would be wrong. When I was in high school and asked a girl out on a date, I would normally be told that if they had no other plans, if nobody else called them, if there was nothing good on television and their hair did not need washing, then per...
5 comments
Read more

Crossing the Lines

I'm sure this has been said before. Certainly I'm not the first to rant about this. I'm positive I won't be the last. And in my usual manner of coming to a story late, I want to comment on Bobby Petrino, recently fired head coach of Arkansas. But this isn't really about Bobby, or I should say, not just  about Bobby. He is simply the latest in a series of stories where big-time athletes, coaches, or celebrities does something stupid and gets caught. But that's not the story, because, quite frankly, we all do dumb stuff. But when too many people get angry, defenders line up to separate the personal life from the professional life. I actually heard a woman quoted, in relation to the Arkansas story, saying that Bobby has won a lot of football games for them. Oh, so that makes it ok?  Arkansas  went 11-2 last season, so the head coach can be immoral? Is that how this is supposed to work? Why draw the line there? If splitting personal decisions from professiona...
2 comments
Read more