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Why Your Pastor Should Outsource His Mind
Pastors Need An Assistant
The world of church planting can be fast-paced and stressful. Pastors have sermons to prepare and preach, worship bands to assemble and practice, community groups to launch and maintain, weddings and funerals to perform. There are emails, letters, and phone calls to return, initiate, and ignore; books to order and then find time to read; children's ministry volunteers to rope in; youth activities to manage; and the list goes on and on. With all of these duties, and more, on a pastor's plate—especially a lead planting pastor who may be wearing all of those hats with varying degrees of success—it makes sense to look into outsourcing his mind. An assistant is the perfect way to farm out much of the work that weighs on a pastor's mind at 3am. Yet "How?" seems to be a common question. How can a pastor truly leverage an assistant to maintain peace of mind, remain focused on the macro vision for the church/ministry, and still feel like he is working and deserving the big bucks his church is paying him? Below are several main areas of outsourcing that will help a pastor maintain sanity and accomplish what God has given him to do (Acts 6).
Outsource Your Energy Drains
Energy Drain #1: Letters With an assistant, the tasks that you know you have to do, but hate doing, can be outsourced. Depending on the ministry you oversee, there are always small tasks that inspire loathing when they come due. Addressing letters in this day of email can be truly frustrating. For a pastor it takes time that extends beyond the simple act of thinking of someone and writing them a letter, sending a gift, or paying a bill. It has now become an act of locating the recipient's address, finding an envelope that fits the contents, and then scrounging around the office for stamps. What could have been 10 minutes of caring thought has turned into 45 minutes spent crushing several fruits of the Spirit. Energy Drain #2: Email Email can also drain a pastor's energy. I have discussed email techniques with several pastoral assistants and the mode for delivery varies. Some assistants gather email correspondence for the pastor they assist and send one large email daily. The pastor can then simply reply below each message and hit "send" back to his assistant. The assistant can then sort through and send out the return emails, work on any action items that were created, as well as see some of the larger picture the pastor oversees. I have heard of one faithfully followed author and ministry leader who does not "do" email. Instead he has his assistant fax him all of the day's email. He replies with return messages and action items in pen and faxes it back to his assistant. Energy Drain #3: Setting Up Meetings Communication with entire department personnel can be time-intensive. A pastor needs each of the major stakeholders present at meetings. He knows that as he begins calling each person, what is intended as a quick interaction can easily turn into an impromptu counseling session, an off-topic (though important) side meeting, or a general tail-chase as schedules seemingly refuse to coincide. An assistant can be given this task to coordinate schedules, set aside time for the counseling appointment, and gather an agenda for the necessary side meeting, all while the pastor is focusing on different important tasks. 
By outsourcing this simple task the pastor can then enter into each appointment and task in the correct frame of mind. Trying to schedule his own meeting and being blindsided by an over-the-phone meeting or a counseling conversation can be exhausting. This isn't to say that a counseling appointment scheduled by his assistant won't be exhausting, but it would be a set time he is aware of and can prepare for appropriately.
Leverage An Assistant Wisely
Other tasks a pastor can easily put on an assistant's plate include mail sorting, filing, and corporate credit card reconciliation. Some of these tasks may seem ridiculous to some of you, but the point isn't that you should hire an assistant so you don't have to lick a stamp again, but that the assistant can do the things that drain your energy in whatever shape those may come. Oftentimes pastoral assistants serve as an extra set of eyes for their pastor. They can do a variety of tiny things that are not in themselves urgent, but vitally important, and they can build systems to keep stuff from falling through the cracks as urgent tasks overtake important tasks. I asked several pastoral assistants at Mars Hill Church other ways they specifically serve their pastors, and here is a quick breakdown:
- One pastor at Mars Hill regularly rattles off several ideas that he is suddenly hit with and asks his assistant to remind him to "think" about these mental downloads later. As he is heading into a meeting, to keep from either being distracted by the plans forming in his head or completely forgetting altogether, he trusts his assistant to note his thoughts and remind him of them later.
- Another pastor leans on his assistant to make sure that he is demonstrably thanking the people the Lord has brought into his ministry. He frequently receives reminders from his assistant like, "There were over 25 people here last week rebuilding the stage and installing lighting rigs well into the morning hours. If you'd like, I can organize a thank you party at your house early next month." He knows that thanking people can easily be forgotten or that the planning for a thank you type event, though totally necessary, requires time and skills he may not have himself. By bringing on this assistant he can leverage another person to accomplish his desires for the ministry.
To be continued. Pastor AJ Hamilton is the Executive Pastor for Mars Hill Church's Albuquerque campus. You can watch his amazing testimony and read his previous Resurgence posts here.