Seth Godin blog something really remarkable that every pastor should take heed. I am reposting his blog and will comment

The first rule of doing work that matters

Go to work on a regular basis.

Art is hard. Selling is hard. Writing is hard. Making a difference is hard.

When you’re doing hard work, getting rejected, failing, working it out–this is a dumb time to make a situational decision about whether it’s time for a nap or a day off or a coffee break.

Zig taught me this twenty years ago. Make your schedule before you start. Don’t allow setbacks or blocks or anxiety to push you to say, “hey, maybe I should check my email for a while, or you know, I could use a nap.” If you do that, the lizard brain is quickly trained to use that escape hatch again and again.

Isaac Asimov wrote and published 400 (!) books using this technique.

The first five years of my solo business, when the struggle seemed neverending, I never missed a day, never took a nap. (I also committed to ending the day at a certain time and not working on the weekends. It cuts both ways.)

In short: show up.

They say pastor don’t have a 9 to 5 job and it is quite true. For some pastors they go beyond 9 to 5 and if they don’t check their schedule they may end up having a wife who despises him and kids who don’t know him because the church has taken him away from his family.

BUT at the same breath let me say something important.

A lot of pastors mismanage their time. The reason ministry time is eating up most of their time is because they never showed up when it really mattered. A pastor must exemplify work ethic because we are in a way looked upon as people who serve God literally.

I’ve learned a valuable lesson about ministry and work and Ive blogged about it in one of my post last year. I learned it from pastor Steve Murrell when he shared to us the principle of logging on and logging off. Click here to read the post and it might save your life.

Pastors we need to show up. That means being in your office and working. That means being on time in meetings. That means your church staff should know where to find you when needed. That means your church staff should know when not to disturb you because you have set a time for work and a time for rest. That means meeting people that matters to your work. I hope you get what I mean?