Just because people think something is urgent doesn’t mean it is.  As a pastor you want to be available to those who need you, but every pastor has had meetings that were honestly a waste of time.  This one sentence can save you from wasting your time in meetings that can’t have genuine impact.  Here’s how:

Sunday mornings for a pastor are a constant push and pull between tasks and people.  Both are important, and both demand your attention.  One way to lose precious Sunday morning moments is to try to schedule a meeting with someone the moment they ask for it.  First, you are distracted so you can’t properly evaluate the importance of the meeting.  Second, the actual act of scheduling the meeting often takes longer than expected.  So what do you do?

Here’s what you should never do: take responsibility for scheduling the meeting.  The seemingly easiest response is “Sure! I’d love to meet with you.  Let me get back to you about when I’m available.”  The problem? Most likely you are busy and aren’t going to remember.  Pastors are better off not making promises than making promises they won’t be able to keep.  So, again, what do you do?

Put the responsibility for the meeting on the person who wants it.  Empower them to contact you during the week to initiate scheduling the meeting.  However, minimize the potential need for back and forth by telling them in advance what you need: three times to choose from.  

This comment has one added benefit.  In twenty years of pastoring, I said this to people on Sunday mornings hundreds of times.  In the vast majority of cases, by the time it came to scheduling the meeting, the person involved realized they didn’t actually want to meet with me.  So, by putting the responsibility for the meeting back on them you give them an opportunity to self-select whether they really need an hour of your time or not.