318. Thought of the Week

I am adding another way to communicate with our church members. It is called “Thought of the week” (TOTW). Pastor blog will continue to be the main communication between me and the congregation. But there have been some things I want to share with the congregation that were too long to be an announcement, but too short to be a blog. So, you can consider my blog to be YouTube and TOTW as YouTube shorts, if that makes sense. I am planning to use this to highlight any upcoming key events, what is on my mind currently, and what the congregation should know at a particular season of ministry.

The reason it is important for church members to know what is on the pastor’s mind is to prevent misunderstanding, which breeds suspicion that eventually breaks trust. Pastor has to make some key decisions occasionally, while the impact of the decision can only be verified much later. In other words, the validity of the decision might not be so clear at the moment, which creates a gap. But if the congregation doesn’t have a good understanding of the pastor’s life and his thoughts, members end up filling in the gap with their assumptions, whether good or bad. When members begin to become suspicious of the pastor’s motive, the pastor cannot no longer lead with influence. So, I use Pastor Blog as a preventative measure to build trust and understanding.

As the TOTW involves video recording (and editing) every week, it is a bit burdensome task for me, to be honest. In fact, that was the main reason I was holding it off, though the idea came way before. However, as Pastor Anthony started preaching more, there were some Sundays I had things to say but didn’t have a platform to do so. I took it as the right timing to implement this. Moreover, as we have many young members who gravitate more toward video-form than written-form, I’m excited about the opportunity to connect with them more in this new format.