A brilliant little video went viral a couple months ago. It’s titled “It’s not about the nail.” If you haven’t yet watched it, you really should.

If the video upsets you, my brief disclaimer: it’s promoting a stereotype that’s not totally fair or true. But it’s a good and funny depiction of said stereotype.

Dear pastors and leaders in the church,

You have people with nails in their foreheads and snags in their sweaters. And yet my experience is that a lot of you are making excuses rather than telling people about the nail.

A rather superficial, but common example. Someone wants to sing a “special music” piece in worship, but you keep putting them off. “Just not a good time, we’re already scheduled out for the next several months, let me run it by the worship committee…” When the real reason is that you’ve heard them sing, and it won’t go well. The audition tape went like this:

This person shouldn’t be put in front of a crowd to sing. For their sake and the crowd’s. But you don’t have the heart to say it, so you make excuses.

Something a bit deeper. This might happen with someone who wants to lead a small group, but you know they have some serious psychological problems, perhaps some psychiatric things that need attention. The kinds that can blow up without notice and do a lot of damage to everyone around. The person needs to see a counselor (and perhaps a psychiatrist). Most of the people around them know they need to get help, but again, no one seems to have the heart/guts to say it.

One final, most important example. Someone wants to join your church, but he’s in an adulteress relationship. Oh, and just for fun, let’s say that he’s a pretty successful businessman and writes sizable checks (yes – a real situation a friend had). When he joins, you’ll stand in front of the congregation with him and ask if he earnestly repents of his sins. It’s too uncomfortable to bring up and might scare him off, so you don’t say anything about it and go ahead with it.

Insert your own situation. The possibilities are endless. Someone has a problem, but you don’t want to say it for fear of offending or causing a disturbance. So instead you work around them. Or perhaps just as bad – you put them in a situation destined for failure, then let them fail.

Sometimes it really is about the nail, and you need to say so. You have a duty to say so. It’s the most gracious and loving thing you can do.

You’ll want to tell them about the nail with grace and tact. But if you’re any kind of real pastor — charged to care for people’s souls and lives — you really need to address it.

Another disclaimer: telling people about the nail doesn’t guarantee success. I’ve encountered acceptance and change along with denial and anger. I think it was important I at least told them about that nail, though.

We laugh at the “not about the nail” video because we all know that it’s about the nail. And the obvious correct answer is to deal with the nail. I’ve found that too often in church world, we let someone walk around with that big nail jutting out of their forehead and never tell them.

I’m told that pastors in a past generation were advised not to share anything personal. “Tell stories – but not about your own life.”

I’ve even heard some say they expected a call to ministry meant they couldn’t have friends. They needed to keep a professional distance. The same way your psychologist shouldn’t golf with you.

When I spoke to a seminary class a few months ago about discipleship groups that share about their faith and lives – areas of celebration and areas of struggle – someone asked, “The pastor doesn’t share in those groups does (s)he? I’ve been told it’s not good for my congregation to see that much of me.” So maybe it’s not just a past generation that has heard these things…

But the example I find in Scripture is quite different. What remains hidden of Jesus’ life to his disciples?

Jesus says, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (John 13:15).

Paul even has the audacity to say, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). And he tells Timothy and Titus to set an example with their lives, too (1 Tim 4:12; Titus 2:7).

Two questions for pastors…

1 – Are you prepared to say with the boldness of Paul, “follow my example”?

What would happen if those you lead actually lived as you live?

What if they treated their families as you treat yours? What if they handled money and generosity the way that you handle yours? What if their efforts in sharing the gospel, the way they dealt with anger, the way they forgave, looked like yours? What if they prayed the way that you pray?

If you said to those you lead, “follow my example!” and they did it… what would your congregation look like?

Some churches would triple their budgets. Others would go broke.

Some would be full of a spirit of love and forgiveness and hospitality like they had never known before. Others would be so full of rage and malice that you might be scared to walk into the room.

What would happen if your people lived as you live?

Now this isn’t to require your every action to be perfect – exactly as Jesus would do it.* It isn’t to expect that you’ve never done anything you didn’t later realize was wrong. But when you do something less than perfect, what’s the response? What’s the next step? Is it the same next step you hope your people might take when they injure or offend, when they do something out of selfish ambition or vain conceit?

2 – Would your people know how you live if you asked them to follow?

Have you shown them how you are following Christ? Do they know the spiritual disciplines you keep? The ways that you’re showing compassion to the afflicted, justice to the marginalized, advocacy for the oppressed? The ways that you’re witnessing to others and inviting them into the life of the Church?

Have you shown them those areas where you fall short? How you’re seeking improvement and God’s grace?

Do they know how you use your money? How much you spend on yourself and how much you give away?

Do they know what your family life is like? Have your people seen what life is like in your home? Not just your best face at the Christmas open house — your real family life?

Two hesitations

I see two primary hesitations from pastors for letting people in this much.

The first hesitation is a fear of what people will see. That itself can come in two forms.

A – The more obvious form: broken and neglected homes, scant or non-existent spiritual disciplines, lavish living and meager giving, rage and anger… For these leaders, the message is, “Do as I say, and I pray you don’t find out what I do.”

If this is you, you need to resign. Tomorrow. Or at the very least, request require that your people give you some leave time to get things together. (If they won’t allow that, then you need to resign.)

This is for the sake of your people. Can they go on growing even with a fraud for a leader? Well, they can. By the grace of God. But if discipleship has so much to do with that call to “follow me,” then whatever you’re giving them isn’t true discipleship.

Even more, this is for your sake. It’s for the sake of your soul. My hunch: you already know you need to back away and get things together. The reason you’re not: shame, anxiety about income and career, the lying voice in your head that your people are still better off with your message and leadership, even if you’re not living it. Or perhaps the lying voice has you convinced that you can fix these major problems without taking a break.

Sadly, I believe a number of people have taken this road all the way to their destruction. There were warning signs. They knew they needed to get out. But they just couldn’t pull the trigger because of those reasons above. And when everything was revealed, it was too late for them to recover (not because of an absence of God’s grace, but because of how much they had hardened their own hearts).

B – The other form: the leader who thinks (s)he needs to be perfect in action. This is the person who doesn’t want anyone to see the blemishes for fear that they’ll lose respect — or that it will give others an excuse for falling short. They don’t want people to see or know that they have bouts of anger or depression, or that they don’t have an amazing prayer life. They have few friends – superficial ones, at that – for fear of what others might see.

If this is you, I think your people could gain a lot from seeing that you’re human. Either they already know it and they’re tired of your charade, or you’re painting such an unrealistic, unstruggling, perfect picture for them that they’re going to give up because of how far short they fall from it.

And it might give you relief to admit that you’re not that caricature of a person who never had a struggle or weakness.

The second hesitation is a fear of coming off self-righteous.

This person can’t imagine having the audacity to say, “follow my example.” How pompous and self-righteous! And it can be. But it doesn’t have to be. Otherwise Paul couldn’t tell people to follow his example. Right?

If this is you, I think you need to ask yourself what you really believe — about God, about yourself, about your people.

When Christ called us to follow him, did he mean it? Did he mean it when he said, “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”? Did God mean it when he said, “be holy as I am holy,” and when he said, “I am the Lord, who makes you holy”? Do you truly believe God calls us to holiness and makes us holy?

Do you believe you can, by the grace of God, live a life holy and pleasing to God? Do you believe your people can?

Then dump the concern about self-righteousness and claim it! Tell your people that by the grace of God, you are following Christ. Enough so that they should follow you. This also shows them that you believe they can follow Christ and live lives that are holy and pleasing to God.

Briefly – a third hesitation. (I know, I said two…) A call to ministry may mean a call to public life for you, but does that require your family’s lives to all be public, too? Well, no. I hear that telling embarrassing stories about your spouse and children in public is a bad idea. On the other side of that, my wife has embraced with me some of this felt need to keep our lives public. It’s great to be in that together. This will be a much more legitimate tension to manage than the first two hesitations, which I think we just need to get over…

The Call

So what if you took down some of the “private” walls in your life? What if you shared your life more openly with more of your people? What if you shared your honest struggles, how you’re working through them, and asked for prayer?

And what if you shared what you’re doing to try to be faithful? What if you (gasp!) shared your family’s budget — the whole thing — with your people? Share some stories of how you’re trying to live a life faithful to God. Don’t paint false, idealized pictures. Just tell the truth.

I’m becoming convinced that a call to ministry is a call to public life. I think any of us, as leaders, need to be able to show others our lives and be so bold as to say, “follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”

With that, I’ll end this on a different note: I’ve made some big claims here about living publicly. Is there anything you’d like to ask about my personal life? Use the form below. I’ll do my best to give an honest answer, and if I think any question is inappropriate or unhelpful for some reason, I’ll at least try to give you my honest rationale for not answering.

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* By the way, I do think you can be perfect. But it probably looks different than our typical definition. More on that another day…

A few years ago, I found myself bogged-down and overwhelmed. My to-do list was out of control. I came home on Tuesdays (typically my most-stressful days—often 13 hours in the office) exhausted, sometimes feeling nearly physically ill, and often feeling like I had accomplished almost nothing other than reacting to the next person/thing demanding my attention. I came home dreading the rest of the week, as my 13-hour day had only lengthened my to-do list.

I needed a more productive attack. I needed a better way to manage my energy, as I could feel myself going slower and slower as the day and week progressed.

So I started looking for help. I should first credit Michael Hyatt, as he pointed me to so many helpful productivity tools that I’m not even sure anymore which ones I found at his recommendation.

I found this brilliant little article from the Harvard Business Review: “Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time” [pdf]. Then I came across the pomodoro technique . Then I found the Nozbe time/project management application and read Getting Things Done [affiliate links]. These combined to help me iron out a much more productive workflow, establish a more sustainable pace, and stop hating Tuesdays (at least most of them) and dreading a peek at my to-do list.

My new workflow

Here’s the new workflow I put into place:

Whenever it’s possible, I view my day in 3-hour chunks. I actually view those 3-hour chunks in 30-minute blocks.

When I’m doing office work, I set a timer for 25 minutes. I identify the single task I plan to work on (or occasionally the group of small tasks) before I set the timer. Then I go as hard as I can until my time runs out. When the timer goes off, I wrap up (no more than 20 seconds or so), stand up, and take a quick break. That’s a 4-5 minute break. Use the restroom, refresh my coffee, check voice mail, respond to a text message, take a quick walk through the office…

Then I do it again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I do 5 little blocks in total. After those, I take a bigger break—about 20-30 minutes. In the morning, this is usually a walk. In the afternoon, I had been trying to take a 25-minute nap. I’m pretty well intellectually convinced that I should. But I’ve never gotten it to work for me. I feel like I just lie there for a while, and then it ends. So I’ve ended up using that time for other things—checking Facebook, responding to personal e-mails, etc. I don’t think that’s a good use of the time—surely not reinvigorating, the way the time is supposed to be spent—but I’m being honest here.

So that’s my basic workflow. On most weekdays, it amounts to three 3-hour chunks (usually four on Tuesdays). Or fifteen 25-minute blocks of work per day, with two half hour breaks and several mini-breaks.

To-do lists and inboxes

I have two primary inboxes and one primary to-do list. My inboxes are my e-mail inbox and the top of the 4-compartment tray I have sitting on my desk. On my most-disciplined days, I use two blocks to go through them—usually one block around early-mid-day and one near the end of the day. (On my less disciplined days, my e-mail sits open all day and is too much of a distraction.)

When I run through e-mail, I handle anything that requires no more than 5 minutes or so. If something requires more than that, I throw the action needed onto my to-do list, and if I need the e-mail for reference, I move it to my “ACTION – WORK” folder. If it’s a personal e-mail, I move it to “ACTION – PERSONAL” and will try to take care of it later at home. Everything else goes into the “Processed” or “Trash” folders. Or if I send something to someone else to do, I move a copy to my “Waiting For” folder. I learned most of my e-mail system from Michael Hyatt.

I do the same with the physical inbox. Any paper that comes my way throughout the day goes into my top tray until it’s time to process it. I’ll also throw my own notes in there—phone calls to return, items to file, etc. The second of the four compartments is for action items that I’ll need to spend more time on later. The third compartment is for things I’m waiting on. The bottom compartment is for things I’d like to read later. No stray papers or stacks of paper on the desk. When those pile up, things get left at the bottom un-done. And a messy office just makes life feel chaotic. A clean desk has greatly reduced my stress.

Nozbe is my single to-do list. Anything I need to do but don’t want to be distracted doing at that exact moment goes into Nozbe. Why not just a normal to-do list? I got to the point that I needed something a bit more high tech—something that could show me my to-do list based on contexts or dates I needed to do them or “next actions” vs. actions that are contingent on something else. It’s helpful because I can batch things like errands by listing them all in my “errands” context, and then running out and hitting them all at once.  And I can create a “waiting for” context to review every couple days to see if I need to follow-up with anyone I’m waiting for. If you can get your whole team to use it, I could see Nozbe’s family and team plans being great. Also, it has a computer app, a web app, and a smart phone app that all sync.

I usually transfer the to-do list items for the day onto a piece of paper. I still like to actually check things off on a piece of paper. And this allows me to keep my computer closed when I’m not using it.

When I’m planning my time blocks for the day, I usually try to estimate how much time my top to-do list items will take. How many blocks will it take me to upload sermons or to compile job descriptions? I’m also able to create a project that’s titled “small stuff” and run through as many of those things in one block as possible.

Handling things that don’t fit

This doesn’t work perfectly for everything. What to do with meetings? Or office drop-ins? Or urgent calls? Well, I do the best I can with them. With meetings, I usually still log them in blocks. I count a 90-minute meeting as three blocks. If an office drop-in or call comes that I can’t avoid, then I just deal with it. It’s no perfect system. But this at least makes me more aware of the time spent/lost if someone drops in my office to chat, and 20 minutes later, I have a timer going off.

And I should be quick to note here that every office drop-in and urgent call shouldn’t be treated as unwelcome. There are times I have to remind myself of this, but it’s typically much better for everyone when I get over myself and give due attention to the person at the door (and politely keep the conversation short if it really is unimportant).

Benefits

Some of the greatest benefits:

– I’ve found a better rhythm. My days are more focused. Thanks to the mini-breaks and longer breaks, my energy is better at the end of the day. And my back and eyes don’t hurt from sitting and staring at a screen for hours without a break.

– I know what I’ve done. Before, when I felt like I was in constant urgent response mode, I would finish a day and wonder where it had gone. For better or worse, I’m able to recognize those things that suck my time away. I know now that a problem with the office Internet isn’t just a nuisance, it’s four blocks of time. That little form I told someone I didn’t mind filling out? Now I know it represents two more blocks. Some of this helps me know when to stop and ask for help. Or when not to agree to taking something on in the first place.

– Because I see how much time (how many blocks) simple procedural work is taking, I think more about how to make it more efficient. What technology can I use to speed up a process? What can I delegate?

– I plan better. I intentionally carve out blocks to do planning and problem-solving work. Those things that are important but rarely urgent now find dedicated time. And I’ve also recognized that they get a much better, true block of my time if I “hide” somewhere (i.e., get out of the office) to do them.

Do I follow this to a tee? No. There are days when I follow it rigorously, days when I follow it loosely, and days when I abandon it altogether for one reason or another. But the days when I stick pretty closely to this model are generally my most productive and least stressful.