When I was pastoring in California, occasionally I’d here comments along these lines: what do you do with all the rest of your time when you’re not preaching? Must be nice to have a job where you only work one day a week! Anyone who has followed me around for any amount of time laughs at these comments, but now that I’m doing mission work, sometimes there are similar comments: What do you do with your time when you’re not training pastors? It’s a legitimate question, so I’ll just share a few thoughts here:

1. You’d be surprised how much logistical work goes into one of my global trainings. Literally dozens of hours of connecting with national leaders, stateside leaders, networking for new potential fields, ReachGlobal responsibilities, searching the best routing and prices for flights, hotels, making sure my family is set for while I’m gone, prepping for all the trainings and preaching I’ll be doing, etc.
2. In addition to training leaders globally, I also equip domestic pastors to train globally. I was recently in San Diego training a great group of guys who will do Pathways in Zambia.

   

   Tomorrow I leave for St. Louis on my way to Zambia to train another group of pastors for Togo. One of the pastors in San Diego, who had flown in from England for the training, Pastor Simon, said, “The process of Pathways has renewed my zeal for the Word and passion to preach it well.

3. I am also pursuing a doctorate in intercultural studies. This involves countless hours of reading, researching, writing, courses domestically and globally, all moving toward the dissertation capstone project I will do. For a sample of a paper I wrote in October on oral hermeneutics, CLICK HERE: An Introduction to Oral Hermeneutics.
4. Every opportunity I get to preach anywhere, I take it. Since leaving the full-time pastorate, those opportunities in America are a bit rare, although this month I’m preaching four out of five weeks, which is awesome. Every time I go to Africa, I preach. But since I teach hermeneutics and to some degree “preaching” to pastors, I want to make sure I’m giving the best sermons I can. To listen to the sermon I preached last Sunday at my home church (Littlerock Community Fellowship), CLICK HERE.
5. There are many other elements that I could share, but the last one I’ll mention is that I want to be careful to guard my own spiritual well-being, not getting caught up in the “professionalism” which John Piper described in a book I read this week, “Brothers, We Are Not Professionals.” So it is important to withdraw and spend time with the Lord, in prayer, in devotional Bible study, in fasting, in worship, in listening and quietness. That doesn’t work like checking off a task list. It takes time and discipline. But it is vital for anyone who wants to minister not in their own strength, but in the strength of the Lord (Ps. 46).

So I hope that gives you a bit of a taste of some of what I do. God is good and I’m blessed to be engaged in fulfilling the calling He has given me. So now it is time to get back to it. Blessings to you.

Pressing on, Eric