Maybe you do. For most of us, our time in seminary was a dance (or interpretive movement if you're Baptist) between school, family, church, and work. We had to learn how to navigate the demands for our time between competing priorities, always working to make sure that we did our best.

But it's not always that pressure cooker. And when we find ourselves serving in ministry we won't be finding ourselves working with a schedule printed on a wall. I loved that when I worked Retail in college and seminary. I knew when I'd be working, what time, who with, what time I'd be getting off, and how many times I'd be getting up at 4am to open the store. I've never seen a time clock since I've been in vocational ministry. But we must manage our time well if we're going to be faithful and fruitful in our calling.

Prioritize - As a senior pastor, Sunday comes every 7 days whether I like it or not. And every Sunday I've got to be ready to preach. So there's a priority to ensure that I've spent adequate time preparing and studying to be ready for Sunday. Some people take a whole day to write and study, others take time throughout the week. Whatever they do, they must make it a priority. But managing time doesn't stop with one priority. You need to balance a number of them. You'll need to prioritize time to prepare for the meetings you have, the luncheon you're attending, etc.

Block Your Time - The best way I've found to schedule my day has been to work it in a sequence of time blocks. I do my calendaring on my computer, so if interruptions or emergencies happen and I have to rearrange my schedule, all I have to do is slide the blocks around to make them work. And sometimes that block gets slid to tomorrow. I've found the best way to block is 15/30 minute increments. It allows a lot of freedom and mobility in case things need changing.

Communicate - Nothing is more awkward than someone looking for you and for no one to know where you are and what you're doing. If you have a good assistant, they'll cover for you, but that's not managing your time well. Communicate when you'll be in the office, when you'll be working off site (I'm spending time today with the patron saint of sermon preparation, St. Arbucks), when you'll be making visits, when you're off, when you're out of town, etc.

Limit Distractions - The constant ding of our email or Facebook can be an ongoing distraction. Close the window. Put your phone on silent. Turn off push notifications. One thing I've found helpful is scheduling email time, and my mail program stays closed until that time. I've also set my phone up to show the text on the screen so I can know if it's something to deal with now or later (hint - your spouse is always a "now" to deal with). It's not perfect. But when you have the attention span of a squirrel, it takes some planning!

Be Accountable - We're accountable first to God for the way we use our time, second to our family, and third to our church. If we find ourselves misusing our time and not working hard (or the opposite and becoming a workaholic - I talked to one guy yesterday who said his church was proud of its pastor having a heart attack and coming back to the office), we're going to be out of rhythm and one of our accountability systems needs to step in. If you're spending too much time at work, let your family speak into your life. If you're spending too little time working, let your leadership and godly counsel speak into your life. Finally, be sensitive to God's accountability in your life with how your time is managed.

How have you managed your time well in ministry?

If you're serving as a lead pastor or overseeing a larger department, you're probably responsible for the process of hiring and developing staff members. It can be incredibly intimidating to be the one who has to decide who gets a job, or worse if you have to separate someone from their job. Seminary teaches us a lot about leadership principles and management, but sometimes we have to learn through experience the process of staffing ministries and our churches.

Above all else, let me encourage you to strive towards a team mindset in staffing. It's really easy to just accumulate people and hope it works out. But leadership is a lot of culture setting, and that's where we can develop healthy teams. In my book Dream Teams, I believe in 4 key aspects: Calling, Character, Competency, and Chemistry, in developing a team. Many times we just have a group, where everyone works alongside each other but not together. See the difference? One exists, the other thrives.

It's possible to have a team mindset among your staff. But it means you have to work hard to cast vision, invest in people, build systems, and harness synergy. All of those are much harder than simply filling needs. But it's in these that far too many ministries stagnate because they just have people on the bus, not (as Collins says) "the right people in the right seats."

Taking each of those, how can we strive for a team mindset?

Calling - We build a team of people who love what they're doing. When you're hiring, identify people who have a particular calling to the work you're seeking. Our ministry assistant rose to the top during the interview process when she said she felt her work was a ministry, not just a job. That stood out among other (very qualified) candidates. She loves what she does. We need to make sure the people we bring on and develop love what they're doing. If not, we have to ask ourselves two questions: 1) Can I help them find the right fit here? 2) Is God beginning to call them elsewhere?

Character - We build a team of people who we can trust. In the book I have a long list of key qualities people should have in order to be a good fit on a ministry team. And it's important to make sure we put character before competency. Who you are > What you can do. We have to surround ourselves with people of integrity, people we can trust with money, people who are capable of handling sensitive situations well, people who have a strong track record and work ethic and credit score. 

Competency - We build a team of people who are good at what they do. It's important that we make sure character > skills, but we can't overlook the importance of skills. We need to make sure that those we bring on board or develop have the necessary ability to do the work they're expected to. For a critical ministry staff role, we asked a candidate how they would share the Gospel with a child. Their answer was all over the map, and they didn't get the position. When we're doing our annual evaluations, we need to identify areas of strength and weakness. The good news? Competency can be learned. It can be improved upon. So if you have someone lacking in some needed skills, get them some training, surround them with coaching, and identify a mentor who can work alongside them.

Chemistry - This is where it's always important to make sure you're bringing other people into any decision about hiring. You can have blind spots that others may not. Our church's bylaws make sure that no hiring decision is made in isolation. A search team of 5 have to be on board with a ministry candidate, and a hiring team of 3 have to be on board for a support position. Why so many voices? Because fit matters. We want to make sure that the people we have on board get along, enjoy working together, have a good rapport, and interact not only professionally but Christianly. In the book, I make the point that Chemistry = Friendship, Unity, and Trust.

Ministry leader, more than just for hiring, these principles are important as you develop the team around you. But you can't do that without spending time with them. Do daily check-ins, do weekly/monthly conversations. Make sure you're listening as much as you're talking. Help your team keep their eye on the main thing, and in everything you do remember that your charge to steward God's church well means that you need to steward God's laborers well.

I know. You probably took a preaching class (or multiple) in seminary. But our preaching classes in seminary are only the first step in a lifetime of ongoing learning about how the Word is rightly exegeted, understood, and applied in our churches. For one, our seminary preaching labs are often built to resemble churches, complete with pulpits, and with a camera to record you for grading (or destruction) later. True story, this was a chapel at the seminary I went to with its awesome elevated preaching platform.

Your time in seminary should be an incredibly intense time of exegesis, learning the technical aspects of digging into a text to find what its meaning is and how that meaning, seen through the lens of the Gospel, applies to us. You should read big books on preaching, read and listen to good sermons, and work hard to learn how to navigate multiple genres of biblical text (hint: you can't live all your ministry in Paul). Those are invaluable skills that are refined and learned in the crucible of seminary.

But there's so much about preaching that you'll never learn in a seminary preaching classroom.

You'll learn to weep over people's trials in your preparation - The biggest difference between preaching a text in a seminary classroom and preaching in the local church is you're speaking directly into the lives of people you're serving and ministering alongside. As you prepare and study for each Sunday, you'll find yourself drawn to certain people going through circumstances the text speaks to. This Sunday I'm preaching on anxiety and worry from Matthew 6, and I've spent time with someone worked up and anxious. It's pushed me to pray for them as I've reflected and prayed.

You'll learn to plan and prepare preaching in series - Expository preaching is often the best diet for a local church, the regular feeding from the Word preached verse-by-verse through lengthy chunks. So your series can be going through an entire book of the Bible, working through significant portions (Sermon on the Mount), or even doing surveys of books of the Bible (covering books like Exodus or 1-2 Kings in a span of 10-12 weeks for example). Series help you shape what you feel like God is wanting your church to hear. Even topical series, which are still incredibly valuable, provide a systematic way of developing godliness among your people.

You'll learn to calendar in advance - I know a lot of guys in ministry who go week to week deciding what to preach on. I served with one pastor who I remember asking on Thursday afternoon what he was preaching on (so I could weave it into our youth group opening that day). He said he didn't know, and I think I had a mild heart attack. But when you are in the weekly (and monthly and yearly) process of preaching regularly, you'll learn to structure your messages. Each year I know I'm going to have a few special emphases, I'll take a week in the beginning of the year to cast vision, I'll preach in October about deacons as our church elects new ones, I'll do a 4 week Christmas series, and I know I'll be out a couple Sundays for vacation. Developing a calendar helps me plan around these benchmark moments in the church calendar (I don't do Mother's/Father's Day or July 4 messages, you might and that's ok).

You'll learn to lay an egg and move on - When you're preaching for a grade, you get a limited number of chances. So it needs to be strong. It needs to be crisp. When you're preaching 45-50 Sundays a year, the law of averages says you're going to have a dud. It might be after being sick for a week, or after a busy season, or just one of those days where the illustrations are flat and you're watching the clock more than anyone else. When you're preaching week in and week out, it'll happen. Move on. And when you lay an egg, that's sometimes where God speaks most strongly to people because when we lay an egg, it's the reminder that it's not about us.

You'll learn to manage time better - Effective ministry is often the wearing of many hats. You're a leader, a visionary, a janitor, a counselor, available labor (I got drafted once into climbing a ladder to cut a palm tree--not what I'd envisioned for a Monday). And the regular practice of preaching forces us to remember that no matter what we might be facing in the week, Sunday will come exactly every 7 days. When we're preaching regularly, we're finding ways to grow in how we manage our time, prioritize our preparation, schedule our meetings, and commit to extra appointments.

Pastor, what's something you learned after seminary about preaching?

A lot has been written about what we learn or didn't learn in seminary. I loved my time working on my M.Div. and doctorate. It was an incredibly fruitful and edifying process. But it wasn't complete. It's not supposed to be complete. You don't learn pastoring just by going to seminary. You learn exegesis, hermeneutics, theology, languages, philosophy, homiletics, historical theology, missiology, and more in seminary. But the actual practice of ministry is something that can only be learned on the field. I'm incredibly thankful for the practical coursework I had, but the best on-job training for ministry comes by actually doing ministry.

One thing that seminary can't prepare you for fully are hospital visits. You can read about visits, hear from experts about how to do a gracious and encouraging visit, and even do case studies about hospital visits. But nothing replaces actually doing visits. And when you do visits, you'll learn way more than you could have ever imagined in seminary.

You'll learn way more about your church members - Something happens to modesty in the hospital, it's left at the door. There's no telling what you'll see, or smell, from people you see on Sunday mornings when you visit them in the hospital. You might also hear them tell more about their procedure or sickness than you ever care to know. But as a shepherd, you love your people whether they're in the Sunday best at the visitor center or in their hospital gown talking about their catheter being too tight.

You really do have a ministry of presence - Hospital and nursing home visits are less about what you say and more about you being there. Many who are in long-term care have no visitors, even family. Your presence there is possibly their only non-clinical human contact in a day. Just by being there, you're able to minister greatly to the one in the bed. So don't worry if you don't have the right words to say in the right moment. If all you do is speak a word of prayer, read Scripture, and hold their hand, you've done more than you can imagine.

You can bless not only the patient but the staff - A few months ago I did a visit at the ICU where the patient was brain dead, and they were awaiting the family's approval to remove life support. The nurses and doctors who work in those situations see death happen every day, and it's never easy to watch a wife say goodbye to her husband of 50 years, or a mother say goodbye to her child. Thank them for the work they do, and assure them of your prayers for not only the patient but for them. 

You're going to have some stories - Every pastor has had one kind of funny/awkward hospital visit where you just have to laugh and keep your head about you. Just walk out and go "I should write about this." I've been shown scars, seen full bedpans, fed someone who couldn't do it themselves, been mooned by an open hospital gown, and been asked to photograph a trauma victim for a possible lawsuit.

​What have you learned from doing hospital or nursing home visits?

3. Don't talk about things that could be an email - All of us have sat in meetings where endless discussion happened on things that could have been quickly covered in an email. The only things that need to be talked about in a meeting are the things that require a meeting. Anything else, send it in an email before or after. That's the argument from Read This Before Our Next Meeting, where meetings have a specific purpose and function - to generate action.

4. Have an action plan - If at the end of the meeting you've got nothing you're doing as a result of the meeting, congrats... you wasted everyone's time. No meeting should ever end without clear action plans that flow from the discussion. An action plan includes a point person, a specific task, and a timeframe for completion.

5. Facilitate discussion well - If you're leading a meeting, you're setting the pace. Discussion is important, but as the leader you have the responsibility to steward and shepherd the discussion well. Make sure it stays on point, contributes to the discussion, and then when the dead horse has been beaten enough, you bring it to an end.

6. Expect punctuality - All of us have things that keep us from being on time. A few weeks ago I got snagged in another appointment and left a guy hanging for 30 minutes while I was trying to get away. But these should be the exception rather than the rule for us. If we're going to do meetings well, we should expect punctuality. Extenuating factors can certainly be considered, but someone just "not being able to make it on time" is unacceptable.

7. Keep the main thing the main thing - A meeting should have a single purpose, keep the focus on that. Always keep coming back to the main thing. If you're in a planning/strategy meeting for VBS, this isn't the time to discuss the Wednesday Potluck. If you're planning the worship service for Sunday, don't tack on discussion about facility usage. Drawing everything back to the purpose for the meeting ensures that you not only have the time needed to discuss, but also the attention of everyone there to make sure it's a fruitful meeting.

What have you done as a leader to avoid Time Sinkholes?

Earlier today I took our minivan through an automatic car wash, and got frustrated by how long it took. I caught myself saying "Unbelievable, why is it taking 10 minutes!" Like that's a really big deal.

I think too often in ministry we find ourselves taking the short view of things, rather than the long view. The short view is where we expect changes to happen overnight, for lasting culture to be changed in a week, for vision to be captured and implemented off one meeting. Or we look at the attendance one week to the next and determine "We're growing!" or "We're doomed!"

But pastoral ministry isn't a microwave, it's a CrockPot. It's something that develops and matures after years of faithful labor, prayers, sweat, and effort. It's something that happens long range, that's hard to measure on a micro scale. So how can we as pastors and ministry leaders take the long view?

1. Commit to a Long Tenure - The average tenure for a pastor is 3-5 years, for a youth minister 18 months, for other positions 2-3 years. The common denominator: no one sticks around long enough for the long view to take shape. We can't control what God may do in calling us to another ministry, but we can commit to ourselves that we'll endure through difficult times to see lasting fruit on the other side.

2. Don't Make Unfair Comparisons - It's easy for us to look week to week in attendance or giving numbers and make the jump to say things are growing or things are doomed. But rather than look week to week, look at month to month compared across years. Where we live in Florida, we have a unique demographic with the snowbirds. So I look at comparative attendance during our summer months (May-September), our first Snowbird Migration (October-December) and the second Migration (January-April).

3. Bad Sundays Will Happen, Roll With Them - Sometimes you'll have a day where your attendance is down, giving is down, key families weren't there, your message felt like a flub, and more. They happen. Roll with it. Don't beat yourself up. Don't write a resignation letter on Monday morning. You're going to have a bad Sunday. But they're not cause to give up. Instead, brush off and make the next Sunday better!

4. Avoid Apples & Oranges - Your church isn't your friend's church. Your church isn't like the church across town. Your church isn't the megachurch with the slide in the children's area. Your church is unique, and it's not fair to compare what you're able to do (or not able to do) with the other churches in your area. God's called you to be faithful, to shepherd and serve well, and to lead your church towards the vision God has for you. He's not called you to be <Insert Church Name Here>.

5. Don't Get Frustrated - You can lose weight by going on a crash starvation diet, or you can lose weight by gradually dropping pounds through calorie control and exercise. Guess which one is healthier for you. It's the same way in the church. You can get frustrated when things don't happen as quickly as you'd like, or the changes you feel are important to the vision aren't received immediately. But that's where the long view comes in. That's where the long view of leading with kindness, teaching and preaching faithfully, and strategically praying all come in to help gradually, over a lengthy tenure, see changes happen that make a church more fruitful and faithful.

Pastor, how have you taken the long view in your ministry?

I'm preaching through the Sermon on the Mount now, and this morning finished writing for an upcoming message through Matthew 6:1-18. Basically, the point of the message is that whatever we do for God we do for Him, not for the applause and visibility of others. There's a line that comes up several times in the passage, "they have received their reward."

The idea behind that is that those who do things so they get attention, so people will brag on them, so they can get good comments and accolades are getting exactly what they want, the praise of men. And Jesus uses a commercial transaction language (thanks Crossway exposition!) that basically says "they got the receipt."

That's all. They got the receipt.

On the other hand though, those who labor and serve and give without expecting others' approval will be rewarded by God.

It's a very common problem for us in ministry. An incredibly small percentage of pastors will ever get known, will ever be "Christian famous," or get the Blue Check by their Twitter handle. Almost all of us will labor outside the limelight. We won't be asked to speak at conferences, our books will never be on anyone's best seller list, and for decades we may labor faithfully and never see explosive growth in our churches or end up in the corner office of a suburban megachurch.

Can I give you a word of encouragement? One Person sees you, God.

God sees your faithfulness week in and week out to study, pray, write, and preach the text. To see not only your mind but your heart and your soul poured into ministering to the people God has called you to.

God sees your selfless sacrifice when you turn down a raise because the budget is tight.

God sees when you do things behind the scenes that will never be shown on a highlight video as you help clean the sanctuary or sit with a lonely widow in a nursing home or counsel the pregnant teenager.

God sees you as you work hard to serve your church, and then come home to serve and love your wife and kids. God sees when you're tired and you still read a story or throw the ball.

So hang in there pastor. The one who sees you is the one who will reward you. No matter if nobody else knows you're alive.

Over the weekend the internet exploded in outrage over remarks made by Paige Patterson, president of SWBTS, over counsel he gave to a woman who shared that she was in an abusive marriage. This is one of the times it's hard to argue that the words were "taken out of context" because there's direct quotes and even Patterson affirmed the words themselves in a statement/clarification.

Patterson is a giant in SBC life. If not for his work in the 1970s to stem the tide of theological liberalism, the Convention itself might very well be dead. His unquestioned convictions have made him a polarizing figure, whether it's about his position on Calvinism or on gender roles. Like a good Texan, he's stuck to his guns. I think the counsel he gave was, though well-intentioned, off point. But it's not the point of this to heap coals on Patterson or his comments.

The point is to respond to the second wave of firestorm on social media: the equation of complementarian views of gender to a culture of abuse or the condoning of abuse. In particular the idea of "submission" that says a wife should stay submissive and quiet even when she's being used as a punching bag. Pushed by noted egalitarians/Christian feminists such as Rachel Held Evans, the real bad guy in this is a system of oppression--a patriarchy perpetuated that silences victims and protects abusers.

Let's be clear first about one thing: under no circumstance, under no pretense, under no "faithfulness to Scripture" is it ever OK for a man to emotionally, verbally, spiritually, or physically abuse his wife. That's not complementarianism. That's evil. Submission is a gift from a wife to her husband that flows from his Christlike leadership and guidance in the home (Ephesians 5:22-33 puts much more emphasis on the husband). This is intentional, it shows that where authority/leadership is given, there is greater expectation to lead well, with Christ as the example. Christ who provides for His Bride, Christ who suffered for His Bride, Christ who lives for His Bride, Christ who died for His Bride. Husbands, if you expect submission in your home without being willing to in a moment take a bullet for your wife, you're not a complementarian. You're a jerk.

How then, do we respond? How do we serve as a complementarian pastor and lead when we're confronted with something like what Patterson presented?

1. Call it what it is, and call the cops - If you're giving counsel to a wife and she shares she's been hit or that she's being abused, don't call it a "personal matter" or don't try to fix things in house. A crime has been committed. You have not only a moral obligation but in some cases a legal obligation to report abuse. It could be a child, it could a senior adult in a care facility in their own excrement. At that point, it's not up to you anymore. The police need to be called and the legal protection afforded by God through the State needs to be applied.

2. Put them in contact with appropriate resources - In most states you'll have a dedicated group to help families in abuse/domestic violence situations. As a pastor, you need to make sure you know who to call or where to get help for a number of situations. One thing I've found useful is to keep a listing of community supports. In Florida, we have a listing of local centers through the FCADV. These trained professionals are experienced in dealing with issues of abuse/violence in ways that you as a pastor simply aren't. Don't be too proud to make a call or a referral.

3. Counsel the priority: safety for her and the children - Patterson is unquestioned in his commitment to never counsel a divorce. I know a lot of pastors with the same conviction, they hold so strongly to the permanence of marriage they can't go against that conviction. But even with that conviction, if you have that, you can still counsel and advocate for safety. Whether it's legal separation, counseling for a protective order or in extreme cases packing bags and getting them out, it's not unbiblical counsel or "destroying a marriage" to counsel for safety.

4. Pray, let the system work itself out, and then handle it in the church - Too often churches see themselves as the court system for believers based on a mishandling of 1 Corinthians 6. But the church's internal response comes after the legal response. If there's been a crime that leads to conviction, then it becomes an internal matter. Then it becomes an issue of church discipline (walking through Matthew 18 -- for the purpose ultimately of seeing the lost redeemed). But it's not something we handle apart from the responsibility of justice.

As pastors, we can have an incredible amount of influence on peoples' lives through the regular preaching/teaching ministry. If we teach/preach from a true complementarian perspective (that men and women are equal in value before God, but distinct in function) then we lay the theological groundwork for husbands to see their role in the home to make their wives like Christ, and for a wife to see their role in being a strong presence in the home.

In an evangelical subculture that sometimes perverts manhood into machismo, we must stand unashamedly on the truth that a man's power, physical strength, or "headship" in the home is never an excuse or reason for him to treat his wife as anything but a treasure and jewel. If we are to learn from any of this, we must be willing to acknowledge our blind spots and our need to develop systems, policies, and practices that allow for victims to be safe to disclose their abuse and know that it will be handled and treated seriously.

What do you do in your church to work with these sensitive issues?

One of the hardest decisions a family has to make is what avenue of education you want to pursue with your children. All of us recognize that our children are God's gift to us, that we are entrusted as stewards of not only their schedule but their soul, and that we want our best for them. In general, there are three avenues to consider taking:
1. Public School - The county/state funded school in your neighborhood or community. It could be what you're "zoned" for or you could have magnet schools.
2. Private School - Whether you choose to pursue a specifically Christian school or a private school without a specific denominational affiliation, you'll be responsible for footing the bill for tuition.
3. Homeschool - You as the parent are the primary teacher, though you may connect with other families or co-ops, you can use a dedicated curriculum or an individual assembly.

I realize this isn't nuanced. It's not supposed to be. This is something that every family has to determine for themselves, and even may be different based on each child's individual needs. But whatever course you decide to take, you need to think through some questions.

Is this something we're passionate about? - If you're not passionate about who and how your child is shaped and educated, you're not being a responsible parent. Whichever path you choose, it must be something you are passionate about. If you choose public school, be passionate about your child's mission impact on their friends. If homeschool, be passionate about individualized instruction.

Is this something we can afford? - Jesus had warnings for those who sought to build without counting the cost. So many times we do the same with our kids. We want the best for them and we may be passionate about (for example a private Christian school), but we've failed to do the hard work of seeing how our budget would need to adjust.

Is this something realistic? - A lot of Christian families are enamored with homeschool. They may be frustrated with a broken public model, they may have a desire to incorporate a biblical worldview, or they may want more time with their kids. But some families just simply can't. Both parents may have to work. It may not work with their schedule. It may be hard because they have a large family or don't have the space to dedicate to teaching.

Do we have support? - Regardless of what route you choose, it's important to make sure you have support. Even in public school, it can be exhausting with projects, homework, extracurricular activities, school plays, and more. You need support to help you with all those requirements, it can come from extended family, neighbors, or through church. Or if you homeschool, do you have outlets for PE or field trips? Trying to do it alone is a recipe for burnout.

Is this best for this child? - I don't know how your kids are, but my two are complete opposites. Each child is uniquely made in God's image, and comes with their own way of learning and perspective of what's best for them. Some families find their kids thrive in different settings. It's harder in terms of coordinating and transportation, but again that's where this comes back to each family considering what's best and wisest. 

Is it something you've prayed through? - One of my favorite promises of God is the promise of wisdom, where we're able to navigate life and apply the Bible and the prompting of the Spirit to our daily activity. And we should never make such an important decision without giving it to a season of prayer (and fasting if needed).

How about you? How did you decide on your child's education? What did you choose? How's it worked?

I know this sounds crazy, but...

Several years ago, during a particularly difficult time in ministry, I was laying in bed when what felt like something oppressive came over me and I heard (not audibly, it was louder in my head) accusations from previous sin/mistakes with pronounced judgments. It was the scariest thing I've ever gone through, and I felt trapped. I couldn't speak, I couldn't lift my arms. I finally was able to say to Carrie "Wake up! Pray!" After Carrie prayed for a minute, whatever was going on stopped and I was able to catch my breath and tell her what had happened.

When we think about spiritual warfare, we think about moments like that. We think about times where we feel like we're being hit with arrows from the Enemy. We think about being falsely mistreated and enduring difficulty. We think about nightmares and horror movies. But I love how my friend Sam Rainer put it:

For most of us in leadership, we'll endure a time of spiritual warfare, in fact if we're honest and faithful in our pursuing of God's calling, chances are we'll endure a number of seasons of spiritual warfare. I read about the failure of Nazi Germany to invade Switzerland, with German commanders refusing to attack. The reason? The Swiss were trained marksmen, and as one German said "Snipers don't shoot privates."

But more often than not, our seasons of spiritual warfare are more in the realm of the ordinary. What can they look like?

Distractions - If you ever watch basketball, you'll see people do everything they can to distract whoever is at the free throw line. Arizona State even calls it the "curtain of distraction," and surprisingly it works! Distractions happen whenever we're knocked off our vision and mission. Spiritual Warfare Distractions are when trivial matters are turned into life-or-death and require immediate attention. When you're distracted and focused on these, you can't pursue the calling and build on the vision.

Apathy - When we experience apathy in ministry, it can be spiritual warfare. It can be the boring of the Enemy where God's people aren't captivated by the glory of Christ. Instead, life and ministry becomes a ho-hum, nothing-happening, daily repeating of the same old same old. There's no motivation. There's no vibrancy. There's no vitality. There's no life. It's just, meh.

Molehills - Sometimes we think about the big landmines in ministry to be issues of theology. We like to think of ourselves as Martin Luther nailing 95 Theses to the door and changing the world. I was in a meeting once where I had to defend what the Bible teaches about marriage, gender and sexuality. I had my hammer and nails and I was ready to start a Reformation. But most of the time, the landmines we experience in ministry are molehills. They're not that big a deal. Yet when you step on them, you don't think anything will happen, but it turns into a much bigger deal than you thought.

Drifting - Drift happens when there's no motor, no propulsion, no power. You're just moving along with the current. You're not moving to anywhere in particular, you're just moving. It's spiritual warfare because you're not accomplishing anything. You're not going anywhere. And in fact many times we drift away from mission towards danger (ever seen a movie where they're not drifting towards a waterfall?).

Busywork - When I was in school, I hated busy work. Even in middle school, we all knew there was absolutely no purpose to the silly worksheets we were doing. All it did was keep us busy for a half hour or so. There was no point, no learning objective, no reason. Just to stay busy. And far too often, spiritual warfare is busy work. It's mindless meetings, over-structured committees, feeling the pressure to be at 12 ice cream socials in a weekend, and grinding in the never-ending cycle of activity.