ADD PASTOR AMIN BINDER SYSTEM

It is truly funny. being an ADD Pastor, i originally thought up this idea to share some helpful tips for other Clergy and alike, on how to be better organized as this is a daily task for me in my life. ADD Pastors get the whole Empathy, Pastoring, Preaching thing but "at least i do" struggle in Calendering, filing, etc...

over the last couple of years I had been meeting with a great retired Principle who gave me many extremely helpful tools!

Here is one of them: The Binder System!!! dadada....

Basically if you want to make it the best you can get put aside about $400 from your Continuing Educational Account or Accounts Reimbursable.

Go to Staples: They are like a good pet, a persons best friend, and they even clean up after themselves!!

Pick up a bunch of the Staples "Better Binders" they last a long time, look great on the shelf, and hold a lot.

This is Color Coded of Course:

Name of Ministry: Color of Binder
Youth Ministry: Orange Binders
Church Ministries Navy Blue Binders
Personal Ministries: Light Blue Binders
District&Conference: White Binders
College&Grad School: White Binders
Clinical Pastoral Education White Binders
Finance&Pension&Sallie Mae White Binders
Confirmation: Yellow Binders
Retreats&Personal Written Curriculum: Brown Binders
Missions&Fundraisers: Pink Binders
Magazine Resources Green Binders
Music&Guitar Red Binders

*Keep them all in order of color on your office bookshelves
*Keep hole punch next to them as well
*have a couple hours set aside per week to file what comes in or to shred

This has helped my ministry more than I could write down!

Here are some examples of what I file under each binder section:

Church Ministries: (NAVY BLUE) Binder Size
1. SPRC 1/2 inch
2. Church Counsel 1/2 inch
3. Church Calenders 2 inch
4. Orders of Worship 3 Inch
5. Prayer Lists 2 inch
6. Church Newsletters 2 inch
7. Ministries Planning Team (MPT) 1/2 inch
8. Program Planning Team (P&P) 1/2 inch
9. Charge Conference 3 inch
10. Child Protection 1 inch
11. Staff Meetings 1/2 inch
12. Trusties 1/2 inch
13. Communications 1/2 inch
14. Worship Meetings 1/2 inch
15. Music Ministry 1/2 inch
16. Scouting 1/2 inch
17. Young Adults 1/2 inch
18. Parents of Little Ones Group (P.O.L.O.S.) 1/2 inch
19. Public School Resources 1/2 inch
20. Public Sports& Recreation Resources 1/2 inch

**it is good to start of on small inches, when you need more space, bet a bigger binder
*The Orders of Worship will seem like a large Binder but after a year, I am now on my second 3 inch binder

**you need to make sure and pick up a lot of calender tabs as well. for prayer lists, meetings, orders of worship it is easier to place them under the month it actually happened instead of placing them hap-hazardly!!

Another example:

Personal Binders: (Light BLUE)
1. Candidacy Guidebook
2. Licencing School Binder
3. Provisional Binder
4. Ministry Inquiry
5. Myers Briggs
6. Advent and Christmas (resources, your sermons, what is going on,)
7. Lent and Easter
8. Worship
9. Children Messages
10. Preaching (past and future sermon ideas)
11. Baptisms
12. Weddings
13. Funerals
14. Holiday Resources (other holidays besides Christian biggies)
15. Theology Resources
16. Pentecost
17. Ecumenical&Interfaith Resources
18. Pastoral Care

You get the Drift this is awesome...use it well and you will be very happy. if you have any further questions shoot me a message or facebook me!

Being Schooled by a 3 year old

Tonight, I was schooled by a 3 yr old.

It was not a normal Sunday. I normally wake up around 6:30am to get ready with (a majority of help from my wife) to get the kids, myself and my other half over to church and get ready for our day at Church. This morning however I stayed home, and picked up my youngest daughter Sophia's prescription from CVS. she has been having a bad reaction to this wonderful allergy season. also my Parents have been visiting. (my wife and I actually had a date on Friday with no cost babysitting!!)
So the only worship I got today was from Subway where they were playing 95.5 the fish, and some good theology discussion with my Dad on the way to home depot to get a couple things to fix our fence. As the day rolled on into evening, and evening into night, I was summoned by my Daughter Grace who was trying to fall asleep.
She wanted more juice, more stories and more time up. (we had already read five stories, had a cup of juice and a great evening of activities which included a campfire with smores). when I got her settled down into bed, she told me she was scared of ghosts. I told her that there were no ghost's in her room, and told that she would be just fine. then I got up to go, gave her a kiss told her that I would be around the corner if she needed anything and she looked up at me and said,

"Daddy you forgot to pray to God!!"

I was in awe and a smile lit up my face in the darkness. I said I was sorry that I forgot to pray, and we decided to have a little prayer before I tucked her back into bed. she prayed with me and as I left the room she said she had one more thing she wanted to share with me. I said, "ok Gracie one more thing then you need to get some sleep", so she got really close to my ear and whispered,

"Jesus Loves you"

I am reminded of the Scripture from Matthew 21:16
¹⁶ "Do you hear what these children are saying?" they asked him.
"Yes," replied Jesus, "have you never read,
" 'From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise'?"

How easy it is for us to let a day slip away where we forget to do the important things in life, how easy it is on the Sabbath to forget about the Lord?

It is from the mouth of babes, from the children who will lead us that God reminds us what is truly important. a lesson for any ADD Pastor and norm alike!

I look at my daughters and I believe.................. ("Live")

Introduction and Welcome

I want to give a proper introduction and welcome to all those finding blogs and things to read. in my writings I might not always have the greatest spelling, grammer, etc.. but that is my wife's department as an English Major. I also will sometimes have short entries and sometimes long, depending on my attention span, time and memory!! LOL. I will always be honest, brutal, and real when it comes to the quirks around like with ADD, and sometimes I might write about it or the fact that I love Peanut Butter, but I hope this can also be a place where folks living with ADD and other learning disabilities can take comfort that we are not alone, in our struggles, we are not alone and can help each other with ideas we can apply to our everyday lives.
Also this is a place where I can share some of the more funny moments of my life whenever I remember to write, so cheers to the world of wireless
----ADD Pastor