​A Word to the Wise – Good Leaders Are Readers. How Much Do You Read? ​- Collin Garbarino, 7.19.24, World Magazine’s Muse Newsletter
 
Time to read: Last month, the U.S. Department of Labor released the annual American Time Use Survey, and you probably won’t be surprised to hear that we’re not doing much reading. According to the study, the average American man reads for about 12 minutes a day but spends almost three hours watching TV. The average woman does a little better, reading almost 20 minutes a day and watching TV for only 2½ hours. Americans over the age of 65 read more than twice the national average. I guess that means I’ll have time to catch up on these piles of books once I retire. 

​A Word to the Wise - James Clear, Author of Atomic Habits
I'm not the best writer, but it is a strength. I might be a 90th percentile writer.
And I'm not the best marketer, but it is a strength. Again, maybe 90th percentile? 
I'm better than most, but if you pass 100 people on the street it won't be hard to find some people better than me.
What I have gradually learned is that it is not your strengths, but your combination of strengths that sets you apart. It is the fact that writing and marketing are mutually reinforcing—and that I enjoy both—that leads to great results.
How can you combine your strength? That's something I would encourage everyone to think about. You will find talented people in every area of life. It's the combinations that are rare.
James Clear, 3-2-1 Thursday, 7.4.24
 

​A Word to the Wise: Rethinking Pastor Compensation (Share with your Churches!)
 
Consider how other comparable professionals in your community are compensated and set your pastor’s salary appropriately. 
Start by looking at salaries for local jobs in for-profit and non-profit sectors, such as business owners, accountants, school administrators, religious organization directors or others with similar responsibilities. Too often, churches look exclusively at factors such as a pastor’s experience and previous salary, what they paid their previous pastor or the church’s size. This narrow approach does not consider other key factors, such as cost of living or market trends. 
​

​A Word to the Wise:
"Doing the easy stuff makes us feel good, doing the hard stuff helps other people live better.
When we focus on our real work over busywork, we see intentional progress toward a focused vision or goal, rather than just checking things off a list.
Busywork isn’t always a waste of time, but it’s not the best use of time and should always be in second, third or last position." - Dan Reiland, The Art of Pursuing Real Work vs. Busywork

A Word to the Wise: The “Nones” Have Hit a Ceiling
 
"After seeing a slow and steady rise from 28% in 2020 to 31% in 2022 - the Pew data from 2023 indicates that the share of nones in the general population dropped to 28% or back to the levels that they recorded in 2020. This is three surveys that are all pointing to the same, very simple conclusion:
The rise of the nones may be largely over now. At least it won’t be increasing in the same way that it did in the prior thirty years.
Of course, the question is why? I don’t know if I have a bulletproof answer. I think the easiest explanation is that a lot of marginally attached people switched to “no religion” on surveys over the last decade or two. Eventually, there weren’t that many marginally attached folks anymore. All you had left were they very committed religious people who likely won’t become nones for any reason. The loose top soil has been scooped off and hauled away, leaving nothing but hard bedrock underneath.
But generational replacement is an impossible trend to stop. Older people will not live forever. Instead, they will be leaving this Earth and their replacements will be a whole lot of members of Gen Z who tend to be less religious than their grandparents. Although, the generational gap between those groups may be smaller now than many initially thought.
I don’t want to be too hyperbolic. But I am a preacher and it runs through my blood. This really may be the end of an era in American religious demography. The trend lines might have reached an inflection point, and we can demarcate religious history around this time period. Hopefully, before I wind up my career in a few decades I can make sense of all of this.
Soren Kierkegaard once wrote, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” It’s exciting to be living in this moment right now."

Ryan Burge, 5.20.24, The Nones Have Hit a Ceiling: After Decades of Non-Stop Increases, Non-Religious Americans Have Plateaued
 

​A Word to the Wise: *“In this journey, God has given me a more mature appreciation for the assurance that we have,” Shaddix told Akin and his listeners. *“Hope in the world is different than hope in the Bible. Hope in the world is a maybe, a might be, a want to be. It might happen; it might not. But hope for believers in Christ is a certainty.”
He quoted the passage in Revelation 21 when the new Jerusalem appears and God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (v. 4 ESV).
“I can’t tell you how rich that becomes,” Shaddix said. “Knowing that that is what awaits me on the other side has been such an encouragement, such a blessing, and that Jesus is going to usher that in and usher me in.”

​Baptist Press article from SEBTS, 5.3.24, Jim Shaddix encourages Southeastern family with message of Gospel hope (Please pray for Dr. Shaddix, who is fighting brain cancer.)
​