3 Huge Goals for Every Pastor in 2023 (And Steps to Accomplish Them)

November and December present a unique opportunity to every pastor. Not only do we get to gather our people for Advent and Christmas services but we are more inclined than any other time of the year to set goals. 

Goals are powerful because of the focused energy and steps they generate. 

If you set the right goals and work toward them on a regular basis, you’ll make tremendous progress. 

Here are three huge goals for every pastor in 2023.

1. Grow in your preaching

This may be an obvious one, especially for regular members of the Preach and Lead community but it never ceases to amaze me how many pastors have decided that they’ve reached their preaching potential.

And truly, that makes me sad. Because there are always ways to improve and grow in your preaching. But if you already don’t believe it’s possible then you’re most certainly not going to grow.

There are so many ways to grow in your preaching. The question is, have you done any of them?

To grow in your preaching in 2023, you could make it a point to do a couple of these things:

• Begin with prayer
• Read a book on communication
• Learn comedy through a book or class
• Read a book or take a course on storytelling
• Get a preaching coach and have them review a sermon or two of yours
• Take a preaching course and do the work
• Listen to a greater variety of preachers and take notes while you listen regarding what they do well and how they do it

If you preach on a regular basis, growing in your preaching is a huge goal to have. But in order to grow, you need to have practical steps in front of you to accomplish it.

Pick a couple of these steps and make a plan on when you’ll do them.

2. Lead with more clarity and direction

No matter how well you perceive yourself doing in this area, we can always lead with more clarity and direction. But it doesn’t happen accidentally or even naturally. 

In order to lead with more clarity and direction, you must be intentional. 

Too often, church leaders and the churches they lead simply spin their wheels. They do a lot of activities, but they don’t go anywhere. 

That’s not how things should be. The church has the greatest and most important mission in the Universe. Because of that, church leaders should be setting the example on how to lead with clarity and direction.

So what can you do to lead with more clarity and direction? Here are some things you can consider for 2023:

• Begin with prayer
• Take stock of what is true in your church regarding the 7 systems in every healthy church (are these operational and if so, how well?):
• Master Calendar
• Yearly Planning and Evaluation
• Organization Chart
• Assimilation
• Discipleship
• Generosity
• Leadership Development
• Begin a FIKSS conversation with your leaders (everything your church does is evaluated):
• Fix it
• Increase it
• Keep it
• Stop it
• Start it
• Begin a prayer-filled conversation with your leadership team regarding what the Lord is leading your church to in the next few years
• Work with your staff and leaders to develop a few goals for 2023
• Revisit your mission, vision, values, and discipleship pathway and see how well you’re living those out as a church
• Create a communication plan that includes your church’s goals, mission, vision, values, and discipleship pathway

If you sense that you could be leading with more clarity and direction, the people you lead feel it even more. So put the time in and begin to lead with more intentionality in 2023.

3. Reach more people in your community

The local church is… local. Every church resides inside of a broader community. And inside every community that every church resides in are people who need to hear the gospel of Jesus.

Literally every week, there are people around the locale of your church building who are desperate for hope and asking big questions about life and God. 

So how can your church reach these people?

Here are some ideas you could consider implementing to reach more people in your community in 2023:

• Begin with prayer
• Equip your people to invite others to church
• Equip your people to have spiritual conversations with others
• Leverage social media as a church
• Through posting regularly
• Through leveraging paid advertising
• Emphasize neighboring
• Invite people to church and have spiritual conversations with others yourself
• Leverage social media as a pastor
• Through sharing additional biblical insights relevant to life
• Through promoting what’s going on at your church
• Encourage your people to get more involved in community organizations and events

The Lord is the One who grows the church. But we are called to sow seeds. So, make it a point to sow more seeds in 2023.

Want Help?

Because these three goals are so vitally important, I want to do everything I can to help you. 

That’s why on Friday, I’m making available the 2023 Ministry Jumpstart Bundle. 

The 2023 Ministry Jumpstart Bundle is designed to help you with each one of these three goals. It will help you:

1. Grow in your preaching
2. Lead with more clarity and direction
3. Reach more people in your community

It will be available to grab beginning on Friday at a steep discount.

Grow in Your Preaching

If you want to be faithful to the text, prepare efficiently, and craft your sermon memorably, I’ve got just the thing to help. It’s called the 10-step guide to writing a sticky sermon and it’s yours for free. Just click here to grab your copy.