Confessions of a Missional Pastor (Wannabe?) - Looking Back on Some Frustrations With Time

David Fitch has a great post on church planting and what he wished he had done. Click on the link to read the whole article... what follows below is the bare bones outline.

1. Spend less time writing sermons, more time listening and speaking truth relationally lovingly into people's lives.
2. Spend less time reading-writing on leadership and more time walking with/mentoring young leaders, speaking into their lives, having them with you when you minister, in the hospital, in the coffee house… in the homes, in the neighborhoods.
3. Spend less time planning the worship gathering - more time in silence before God on a quiet hill overlooking the missionfield of NW Suburbs (this place is Walter Payton Hill - Arlington Hts.)
4. Spend more time with the children, less time programming "entertainment with pizza."
5. Spend less time in meetings, more time in the neighborhood.
6. Spend less time in meetings figuring out details to make things work better, and more time in meetings where we ask "what is God doing?" where is He working?
7. Spend less time trying to please Christians, more time trying to minister to the hurting, lost and poor outside of Christ.
8. Spend less time answering bizarre twisted questions about outlier doctrines, and more time sharing the vision of what church, community, mission and transformational life can be together as we join together to participate in this great life God has given us.
9. Spend less time worrying about numbers and less time filling out forms
10. Spend less time frantically trying to catch up with all the words I have to write and deliver any given week as a pastor, writer and professor, and spend more time praying, taking long walks, thinking praying, letting the Spirit speak in silence, the situation at hand, the Scripture I just read and studied.