PODCAST | Why Pastors Should Be Intentional About Rest (Feat. Wade Bearden & Justin Trapp)

Resources:

https://ministrypass.com/

https://sermonary.com/

Transcript:

Christa Neidig:
Welcome to the Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Christa Neidig, Senior Marketing Coordinator here at Vanderbloemen. In today's podcast, Will Klotz talks with Wade Bearden and Justin Trapp. Together, they founded Ministry Pass and Sermonary in order to help resource pastors when it comes to their sermon prep. In this conversation, they share why pastors should consider preaching less and resting more, by discussing the benefits of sabbaticals. They share ways to equip others to teach and how to balance the burden and blessing of preaching. We hope you enjoy this conversation.

Will Klotz:
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Vanderbloemen podcast. My name is Will. I'm actually new to the Vanderbloemen team. This is my first podcast. I work in client relations here with Vanderbloemen. It's my real privilege to meet with church leaders, nonprofits, and schools, and ask the question, what does it look like to help fulfill your mission by making your team whole? And so, that's what I do here, and it's my privilege to welcome on today the leaders of Ministry Pass. I've got Wade and Justin here. Guys, thank you for joining us. We've got an important topic to talk about today, but would you just introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us a little bit about what Ministry Pass is all about?

Wade Bearden:
Yeah. So this voice is Wade, and thanks for having us on. Welcome to the Vanderbloemen team. I am glad that we could be here for your first podcast. So Ministry Pass has been around for almost eight years. We're coming up on eight years and we provide ministry resources, multimedia resources, and sermon series research for pastors. I guess that's the best way to kind of boil it down. We create sermon series media packages. And then along with that, we include sermon series guides that come with illustrations, applications, background information, context information and that way, a pastor can really help plan his sermon series and they've got stuff there to kind of help them get going. So it's been really exciting. We also plan calendars. We help pastors plan their monthly calendars, their yearly calendars. And Justin, you did the calculation. We have, is it 75 years of content on Ministry Pass?

Justin Trapp:
Yeah. So if you're a preacher and you're wanting to preach through our sermon series, it's a little over 75 years worth of content. So it's quite a lot in our library. We have over 1,600 sermon series, one on every book of the Bible, and we add to it every single month. Our aim is to really help pastors put your best foot forward from a presentation standpoint, but also as you're in the trenches writing your sermon, researching that sermon, prepping for the weekly sermon, to give you some of that content framework that helps you have a springboard, so to speak. And so, that's what we aim to do here at Ministry Pass.

Wade Bearden:
We don't believe in giving pastors manuscripts. Any pastor who's probably preached a manuscript knows that it's, I don't know, it's just kind of hard to take someone else's words and make them your own, but we give y'all research information, background information, help as you kind of plan out a topic or a book of the Bible and hopefully that's helpful. And then about four years ago, I started another company called Sermonary and Sermonary is a cloud-based sermon writing word processor. So the way that I explain it is, you got Microsoft Word, it's a word processor and it does a little bit of everything. You've got [inaudible 00:03:45]

Justin Trapp:
[inaudible 00:03:45] 10,000 things.

Wade Bearden:
Yeah, I mean, you'll never know how to use everything in Microsoft Word. Then you got Google Docs, which is really great at collaboration. You've got Evernote, which is good for on the go. But we sat down, we were like, "Hey, there's no sermon writing word processor that's designed specifically for pastors," so we created one where you can create templates and you can edit your sermon in blocks and then we've got a podium mode with a timer. It's really great. I would encourage anybody listening to this to hop on sermonary.com, our website, and just kind of give it a look, because it's a great platform. I use it every time I preach. I love it.

Will Klotz:
That's phenomenal. You guys have a lot of really great resources for church leaders, especially preaching pastors, to grab a hold of. In our discussion today though, I think there's a particular maybe topic or issue that you maybe you're running into a lot that's on your minds. Tell us a little bit about that.

Justin Trapp:
Well, I think it's sort of taboo, when it comes to preaching pastors, we feel like we have this bird in this calling to preach and to preach often. And so, when we look at some studies and we've done our own research, pastors are preaching on average 40 plus times a year.

Wade Bearden:
And some pastors are preaching every weekend and on Wednesday too.

Justin Trapp:
Yeah, I've seen that too. So some pastors even preaching over a hundred times a year. And what does it take to write a sermon? What does it take to prepare a sermon? It takes a lot. It's an arduous journey every single week. Pastors spend on average 10 and a half hours, that's just the average. That's more time than pastors will spend eating their meals that week. They'll spend more time on their sermon than they will eating. And I like to say that writing a sermon, researching, writing, preparing a sermon is like writing a college term paper. It's such a dense piece of work. And not only do you have to research and write that sermon, but you've also got to present that sermon to a room full of people. And there's another burden that comes with that. The responsibility to communicate the gospel, not with just conviction, but also clarity.
You have the unchurched single mother and the retired old couple, that's a wide gap. And then everybody else in between that spectrum. I think it's quite a burden to preach and to preach, not just with conviction, but with clarity. And we see pastors man, it would be a little easier I would say, if they were just preaching, but pastors, as you know Will, are wearing multiple hats, doing all kinds of things. And I told Wade this, I said, "Listen, I don't know any other people group in our society that will write the equivalent of 40 college term papers in a given year and manage all their other responsibilities, that people group called, pastors." But there are no other people groups in our society that actually do that. And I think pastors don't give themselves enough credit. How much work and how much of, I don't want to say burden, but a responsibility it is to carry that message every single week. And a lot of pastors, man, they just don't have help.

Wade Bearden:
And here's the deal too. If I'm writing a term paper on the Louisiana Purchase, my professor is going to read it and that's it. Maybe, I get a B, it's like, okay, whatever. When you're preaching, you're like, "I'm preaching the word of God. I'm preaching the words of Jesus. I'm preaching the inspired word of God." And there's this burden to get it right. And that burden's healthy, that's a good burden, but it's also a lot of pressure. I don't preach every week anymore. I'm a teaching pastor in my church, but I kind of just hop in whenever I need to.
But every week it was just this burden because I'm like, "Okay, I've got teenagers or I've got congregation members in front of me and they're going to listen to what I say. And some people might forget every word of this message. Some people might remember a couple of sentences for the rest of their lives." There's a lot of pressure. And so, it's a journey. And as we've thought about that, and as we've helped pastors, and as we've worked with pastors, we've really come to the conclusion and this sounds really weird, that lead pastors should probably preach less than they do right now. And there are a couple reasons why, we'll get into that, but pastors should probably preach less than they do. It's kind of weird to say.

Justin Trapp:
Well, we've said it before on some Facebook ads and people brought out their pitchforks and that had all kinds of name calling. You can't touch the pulpit. Will, we did this survey over a thousand pastors responded to it. And the question was, "Does preaching, writing a sermon add stress to your life?" And 50% right down the middle said, "Yeah, it does"

Wade Bearden:
And the other 50% were probably lying.

Justin Trapp:
Yeah, probably.

Will Klotz:
I remember early on when I was first started getting into this rhythm of preaching every week and obvious sign for me of the pressure that I was feeling was, we were a church plant. So I would preach on Sunday night and I would finish my sermon, come down from the stage. It's the final worship set. And I found myself opening my Bible and my church members probably thought like, "Oh, he's just giving us another kind of reflection to close the service."
I was actually beginning to look at next week's passage, because I knew if I've got to get the wheels turning now, so that I'm not behind the curve heading into it. It is a lot of pressure. And I think the need for pastors to trust other people to help carry some of that pressure and get some rest themselves, is really important. A lot of pastors might not be mindful of, we're just powering through it, week in, week out. And we're not really mindful of maybe the toll that, that kind of week after week of preaching is taking on us. You guys speak to, what kind of effect is this having on pastors that are preaching regularly? What kind of toll is it taking?

Wade Bearden:
Oh man. I think it's a lot. You hit on it, Will. There's this cumulative effect that you don't quite fathom oftentimes, but it just adds up every single week. And that's why I think sometimes it's hard for pastors, maybe when they take a sabbatical that first or second week, most people are just kind of anxious. If you're a pastor and you haven't preached in two, three weeks, it's just a weird feeling. And you start to realize the stress that's involved and it's difficult. And two, I don't know if it's necessarily good on the congregation, because when we preach every single week and no one else shares the pulpit, we're essentially telling them that I am the only one in our congregation who communicates the word of God to you. And that's not necessarily healthy. We have to teach our congregation that it's not just about me. It is about Jesus.
And we have a high standard for who gets up and what they say, but other people can share the pulpit, because it isn't just about me. And we've seen certain churches will do that. I remember going to New York and wanting to hear Timothy Keller speak at Redeemer Church. They've got a couple different campuses and going online and it's like, "Oh, they don't say when he speaks." They don't say, at least at the time, what congregation he speaks at, because it's not about him. He doesn't want people following him from church to church. And I think we can do our people harm or disservice whenever it's like, "Hey, you can only hear from me." So I think, personally on the pastor, but also on the congregation.

Justin Trapp:
Well, I said at the beginning it was a little taboo and here's what I meant. I got a little head on myself. But we did a survey and we asked pastors and we gave them multiple choice. It was like 30 something answers. It's like, what does your church need the most help with? Or where do you need the most help with? Excuse me. Where do you need the most help with as pastors. And dead last on that list, was preaching. Pastor's like, "No, no, no, I got it." The identity, is to be the voice in the pulpit. And I mentioned that we've said before that, "Hey pastors, you should preach less. You should preach less sermons in a year. And here's why."
It really tends to rattle some cages a little bit. I don't know why, I guess just because, a pastor's identity can get so wrapped up in that, but the cumulative effect, going back to that comment you made Wade earlier, that there're all kinds of studies and research done and you can find it just typing in Google real quick, on the current state on pastors, pastors depression rates and burnout rates. It's actually a lot more serious. And when I ask myself, "Why are pastors burned out? Why do pastors need more rest?" I start to look at the things that are taxing pastors the most, beyond people. And I look at the sermon. I look at how much work is involved and what we've already talked about, the responsibility of that gap.
It's not just a teacher giving a presentation to fourth graders where everyone in the same room is on relative, the same level. You've got that spectrum of unchurched single mom and retired church co, they've been in church all their lives and everybody in between. That's just a lot of work and it's a big burden. It's a good burden, but that takes a toll. And I think it's okay for us as pastors to say, "Hey, listen, writing a sermon, preparing a sermon, it is stressful. It wears me out." And that's okay to say, it's okay to admit. And it's okay to say, "Hey, I need a little help. I need a break. Maybe I need a sabbatical." All those things can actually rejuvenate your voice and help you become even better communicator in the future.

Wade Bearden:
It's crazy too, because we've heard about the great resignation and how difficult it is for employers to find high quality individuals to join their team. But that's happening for pastors too. And it's out there and it's real. I remember when I graduated from Bible college, I was looking for a full time youth ministry position and it was a competition. I mean my resume, like I'm saying, "Hey, I can do graphic design. I can do video." I mean, it is a competition and now I'm talking with churches and they're like, "Hey, do you know a youth pastor?" And I'm like, "I'm sorry, I don't."

Justin Trapp:
We'll take someone that can drive a [inaudible 00:14:54] responsibly, I'm at that point.

Wade Bearden:
"Do you have a license and do you have cool pants?" You're a youth pastor. No, but it has become difficult. And it's because the circumstances of our world have just changed and that affects a lot of different people and a lot of different employees, but it affects pastors a lot. And so, we're seeing pastors just burnout, they're anxious more than ever before. And that was a problem two, three years ago or sorry before, COVID and it's more of a problem now.

Will Klotz:
I think you guys are spot on. So I'm in the shoes of a pastor then saying, all right, I hear you guys. One, it's fruitful for my congregation at times to hear other voices. Two, this is by me preaching so often I'm actually less effective, because of the toll that it's taken on me. So that's, all great. But how do I do this? What are steps that I need to take in order to help maybe share the load a little bit and then get some rest for myself as a pastor?

Justin Trapp:
Yeah. So I'd say first thing that comes to mind, is it's hard to rest without a plan. It just is. You have to have a plan in place. And what I mean by plan is, I think it's appropriate and it's healthy for pastors to have a preaching calendar, because we've talked about all the reasons why preaching is hard. So now, if you need to delegate that sermon every week for a few weeks or once a month, how do you do that? Especially, if you're at a smaller church and you're really the only trained person giving presentations of the gospel. And let's say you have a volunteer youth pastor and they're great with kids, they're great with the teenagers, they're great with small groups, they're great with youth trips, but they're pretty raw in the pulpit.
And how do you assimilate them into a preaching rotation? I think the only way that you can really start with is by having a preaching calendar and having a plan and going, "Hey, listen, you have a great testimony about forgiveness and we're doing a series on forgiveness next month and I think you would actually be really good at week two of the series. And here's a few talking point ideas. Here's a passage that you can use. Maybe some illustrations. Of course, you have your own and you have your testimony. But let me go ahead and give you this material, so you can look at it now."
And start preparing for that and you can coach them through that. Of course, it is going to take a little work as you're adding new voices. But I think you're going to be much better for it. Let's say you have an elder, who's never preached in their life, but you know that they have godly character and they have something to say, they have wisdom. Maybe they've been a pillar in the community for a long time. And the congregation could benefit from the lessons they've learned and from their own testimony. Again, you can't take Sundays off or you can't take weekends off without a plan in place. And I think it's easier to add people to your preaching team, especially if they're inexperienced, if you have a preaching calendar in place.

Wade Bearden:
It's fascinating, because we're talking about some of the resources that we have on Ministry Pass. And there are people who will email us like right now and they're like, "Hey, I want to see some of your Christmas material. I'm thinking of ideas. I need to get that going." They'll send in some messages. But without a doubt, every single year, there are people the night before Easter, the night before their Christmas services, there is a huge mean Holy Saturday, the Saturday before Christmas, I mean, there is a huge spike for Easter material.
People are putting their stuff together at the last moment. And if you are living that type of hectic life and I realize people are [inaudible 00:18:45] vocational too, and they're just trying to make it. But if that's the kind of plan you're putting together, it's going to be really difficult to get anybody else on the schedule. But if you can say, hey, we are pre... And then what's also difficult, is if you have someone who's never preached before and you're like, "Hey, I want you to preach your message." And they're like, "What should it be about?" And you're like, "Whatever you want." Then they're just like, "I've got 66 books in the Bible and I've got to [inaudible 00:19:09]."

Justin Trapp:
Talk about overwhelming men.

Wade Bearden:
But you say, "Hey, we're preaching through the book of Colossians and in six weeks, this is the text I think you would do well. Can you speak on that?" That changes everything. And so that's, why it's so important we talked about building a plan and we've done a number of webinars where we talk about how to build that plan and what sermon series are good for the year. What sermon series is good for January, for February, for March, because we really want to help pastors kind of get ahead of this.

Justin Trapp:
Most pastors in our research will plan about two weeks in advance and that's it. And I think it's really hard to add people. It's really hard to take a Sunday off if you're only planning two weeks ahead of time, it's almost, I wouldn't say it's impossible, but it's close to it.

Wade Bearden:
And I just wrote a book. And so, I've been emailing a bunch of pastors about coming and possibly speaking and being able to talk about this book that I wrote. And there are a lot of pastors who've emailed me back and they're just like, "Well, I don't really know what I'm doing." So I'm like, "Hey, can I come in October?" And they're like, "I don't really know." They don't have any type of plan. And like I said, I say that with compassion, because we know these people have got so much going on, but it really does limit that.
And then too, Justin, you were mentioning ideas. There are a lot of churches in the area where you have people who really love to preach and they preach maybe once every three months or maybe they've got a book coming out and they're like, "We don't really need an honorarium." [inaudible 00:20:49].

Justin Trapp:
[inaudible 00:20:49] I mean, I might know someone.

Wade Bearden:
"But I don't really need an honorarium. I just want to talk about this book and maybe sell this book." It's okay for a pastor, maybe if you're still trying to develop people in your church to get guest speakers from other churches who just really want to speak, maybe they're associate pastor, they speak three times a year and they're like, "I would love to speak more often." So I think there are some creative ideas out there, if you start thinking and planning in advance.

Will Klotz:
You guys are just hitting on just this obvious, but so often neglected point of just in order for us to get some rest, we've got to put some planning, some thought, we've got to work to be able to rest. We've got to prep for it. And you guys are hitting on that and your organization offers a ton of great resources to help pastors set up a plan. And so, I wonder if an immediate takeaway for some pastors, is to do what you just said Wade of, Hey, here in the next month, bring somebody in. And then during that week, when you would be sermon prepping, put a plan together and maybe they could visit Ministry Pass to get some resources on that, put a plan together, so that in the coming year, you've got some times to step back and get some rest.
I think that's really good. And then what I wanted to follow up on that to ask was, you've already indicated that pastors don't even know what to do when they do get rest. They're anxious and uncomfortable and it's weird. Do you guys have any thoughts on, all right, I've got some people filling the pulpit for me. What is going to be life giving, what is going to help during that time to set me up for success when I come back to preach?

Wade Bearden:
That's a good question. If there's one of the 10 commandments that we talk about the least, it's probably the commandment to take Sabbath, but that's so important because when we rest, we essentially say the world goes on without me. And I think deep down, if we're honest with ourselves as pastors, that's a little scary, the idea of our church going on without me and it going well, maybe even better than if I was there that week, is a little scary because we all want to feel needed.
We want to be the one kind of rushing in at the last second and saving the day, because this person didn't load this on the computer and I know how to do that or rushing in at the last moment because we are important, it's pivotal for us. So I would say it's to pull away from your need for that, take an opportunity every once in a while and just not go to your church. Maybe go to another church. And that's helpful in a lot of different ways, you can make connections and you can also just kind of see how other churches do it. But when you start to teach yourself, the world goes on without me, everything is going to be okay, then it just changes your perspective. And so that, would be probably my piece of advice.

Justin Trapp:
Will, I actually, several years ago came on the Vanderbloemen Podcast with William and I was talking about taking a sabbatical. And I think the obvious benefit for taking a sabbatical, is rest. The rest that you get, especially if you do it right. But what was the most surprising to me, because I think I came on the podcast right after I had gotten back or the year after I had gotten back off of a sabbatical. The most surprising benefit, is that our organization was so much better when I got back, because we had a plan in place and I didn't surprise everybody and say, "Hey, just FYI, I'm going on vacation for the next 45 days, starting tomorrow."
No we said, "Hey, in six months Justin's going to be out for an extended period of time." And so, our whole team of worked to make sure that everything was covered while I was gone. And when I got back, our team was so much better for it. And I learned to delegate more through that process. And so, when I got back, not only was my focus more precise on the things that I need to do, I was not doing a lot of the busy work that I had been doing before, just because you get accustomed to it and it's like what you've always done.
I sort of offloaded that before the sabbatical. And when I came back, I was actually able to focus on the things that really, only I can add to our organization, some of the big picture vision things, some strategic things. Before I was doing some of that and a lot of busy work. When I came back, I was able to just really, really focus on my sweet spots and the organization was so much better. And that to me was the most surprising thing about a pastor or a leader, maybe on a business taking an extended period of time off or resting, is that the organization is better for it. Not just, you're just getting rest. And to me, if you're a pastor, you get rest and your organization, your team, they grow as a result of you taking off. That is a win-win for everybody. And I think pastors should be thrilled about that opportunity.

Will Klotz:
Yeah. I think that's a great point and it really hits on a discussion I was in with a local pastor here, even about creation and how it's tied to Sabbath. So he pointed out really thoughtful insight that on the sixth day God creates man. He creates Adam and it says that at the end of that sixth day that it was morning and evening. So it kind of concludes that day. So what is Adam's waking day? He actually wakes up into the Sabbath. He begins his week with the Sabbath and it communicates this idea of when he goes on to work, he's actually working from a place of rest. He's not working striving to rest. He's carrying out his responsibilities in the garden from this position of rest.
And just like you guys are hitting on, when we are actually operating out of a place of rest, whether it's leading our organization or preaching, we're going to have a lot more fruitfulness as a result of that. And so, I think those are all great points that you all have with that. I think pastors do need to take time to step out of the pulpit a little bit more, allow other people to preach and get a little more rest. Well guys, I think this has been a really helpful discussion. I hope weary pastors out there take this to heart. Thank you for your time. And may the Lord continue to bless your work as your resourcing pastors with just areas that can help them improve their preaching. Thank you guys so much for being on.

Justin Trapp:
Thank you Will.

Wade Bearden:
Thanks Will

Christa Neidig:
Thanks for listening to the Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast. At Vanderbloemen, we help Christian organizations build their best teams, through hiring, succession, compensation and diversity consulting services. Visit our website, vanderbloemen.com to learn more and subscribe to our Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. Keep up with our newest episodes. Thanks for listening.