{"id":503,"date":"2014-08-07T14:48:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T14:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html"},"modified":"2014-08-07T14:48:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-07T14:48:00","slug":"the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html","title":{"rendered":"The Only Two Questions Any Pastor Should Be Asking Right Now"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">Pastors spend a lot of time solving problems, and that means asking questions. Unfortunately, most of those questions are unimportant, even trivial. I know this because I\u2019ve wasted plenty of my own time wondering about these same things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In fairness, many of these questions are forced upon pastors by their job description as the leader of an organization and have little to do with their real work as shepherds of God\u2019s flock.<\/p>\n<p>But a pastor has to earn a living somehow, so most spend the majority of their time pondering things like these\u2014<\/p>\n<p>How can I get more people to come to church?<br>Where will I raise enough money to pay the mortgage?<br>How can I direct church ministries and still find time to write sermons?<br>How do I keep the women\u2019s ministry director from strangling the youth pastor?<\/p>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\"><b><br><\/b><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\"><b>The Operations Question<\/b>\n<p>All these are versions of the Operations Question, which has to do with managing the church as an organization having property, employees, activities, and constituents. The Operations Question solves the problems of management: staffing, funding, scheduling, time management, logistics.<\/p><\/span>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\"><b><br><\/b><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\"><b>The Vision Question<\/b>\n<p>A few pastors are asking a different question, which goes something like this:<br>How can I lead this church to change?<br>What strategies will most effectively reach people in my community?<br>How do I lead this congregation in accomplishing the mission?<\/p>\n<p>That sounds better for sure, but the Vision Question is just the operations question with more panache. It\u2019s about doing the same thing better or bigger or with a different audience.<\/p>\n<p>Neither of these questions addresses the fundamental problems the church faces now, which have nothing to do with funding, scheduling, or growth strategies.<\/p>\n<p>Two more urgent questions address the primary problems we face today.<\/p>\n<p>Read the rest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lawrencewilson.com\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pastors spend a lot of time solving problems, and that means asking questions. Unfortunately, most of those questions are unimportant, even trivial. I know this because I\u2019ve wasted plenty of my own time wondering about these same things. In fairness, many of these questions are forced upon pastors by their job description as the leader [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Only Two Questions Any Pastor Should Be Asking Right Now<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pastors spend a lot of time solving problems, and that means asking questions. Unfortunately, most of those questions are unimportant, even trivial. I\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Only Two Questions Any Pastor Should Be Asking Right Now\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pastors spend a lot of time solving problems, and that means asking questions. Unfortunately, most of those questions are unimportant, even trivial. I\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rhetoric Race and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-08-07T14:48:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Guest Contributor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Guest Contributor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html\",\"name\":\"The Only Two Questions Any Pastor Should Be Asking Right Now\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-08-07T14:48:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-08-07T14:48:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/2869b699bf0e57982cb1f212243705f2\"},\"description\":\"Pastors spend a lot of time solving problems, and that means asking questions. Unfortunately, most of those questions are unimportant, even trivial. I\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Only Two Questions Any Pastor Should Be Asking Right Now\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/\",\"name\":\"Rhetoric Race and Religion\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/2869b699bf0e57982cb1f212243705f2\",\"name\":\"Guest Contributor\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5010a3cc274cdb37811bf24de46dc280?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5010a3cc274cdb37811bf24de46dc280?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Guest Contributor\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/author\/admin\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Only Two Questions Any Pastor Should Be Asking Right Now","description":"Pastors spend a lot of time solving problems, and that means asking questions. Unfortunately, most of those questions are unimportant, even trivial. I","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Only Two Questions Any Pastor Should Be Asking Right Now","og_description":"Pastors spend a lot of time solving problems, and that means asking questions. Unfortunately, most of those questions are unimportant, even trivial. I","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html","og_site_name":"Rhetoric Race and Religion","article_published_time":"2014-08-07T14:48:00+00:00","author":"Guest Contributor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Guest Contributor","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html","name":"The Only Two Questions Any Pastor Should Be Asking Right Now","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-08-07T14:48:00+00:00","dateModified":"2014-08-07T14:48:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/2869b699bf0e57982cb1f212243705f2"},"description":"Pastors spend a lot of time solving problems, and that means asking questions. Unfortunately, most of those questions are unimportant, even trivial. I","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-only-two-questions-any-pastor-should-be-asking-right-now.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Only Two Questions Any Pastor Should Be Asking Right Now"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/","name":"Rhetoric Race and Religion","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/2869b699bf0e57982cb1f212243705f2","name":"Guest Contributor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5010a3cc274cdb37811bf24de46dc280?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5010a3cc274cdb37811bf24de46dc280?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Guest Contributor"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/author\/admin"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}