Email can bury you faster than quicksand. Before your day and energy are consumed at the computer, answer these questions:

1.     What part of the day am I most creative and sharp? When do I do my best work? Morning or afternoon?

2.     Do I usually process my email during my prime part of the day?

3.     Does God want me to use my best time of day answering email? Or is there some calling more crucial that needs my best effort?

As a leader, the best change happens when you first decide what must never change.

Churches die for two reasons. They change what they should never change or they refuse to change what God gives them the freedom to change. In the first, they abandon the message of God and in the second they abandon the culture they are trying to reach out of their dedication to antiquated methods. In either case, it is essential to determine what things are okay to change and what things should remain constant.

Check out I Thessalonians 2.  The apostle Paul’s enemies are talking negatively about him and in this passage, Paul defends himself as a leader. From his defense we can extract 6 key essentials for our own leadership.

1)    Healthy Churches Grow, and Growth Requires Change.
  Change is a natural outgrowth of health. Think of a healthy child. As healthy kids grow, they need to change. They need bigger shirts, different size shoes and more to eat. If nothing else, change is needed to accommodate growth.

2)    The Natural Lifecycle of the Church Requires Change. 
Churches go through various lifecycle phases. First there is the church plant phase, similar to infancy. Often the church does not have its own facilities. It has its first pastor and often he is the only staff member.

Even if you develop and implement a perfect plan to organize your schedule around Rest Time, Results Time and Response Time, the plan will not work forever. Your plan will fail at some point.

Life and leadership are always changing, our responsibilities and priorities, inevitably, are going to shift. Even our unique abilities are under constant refinement, still being discovered and developed as we lead. This is why we need the 4th “R,” Refocus Time.

Refocus Time is dedicated to working on the mission, not just in the mission. This time is used to assess, adjust, and innovate for the future; to make the necessary tweaks to your plan so that it continues to work for you.

The main questions you want to ask yourself during Refocus Time are: