Top 5 Things Intentional Pastors Do in the Fall

The fall is my favorite leadership season.

It’s often a time when momentum can be built in the church while simultaneously getting your leaders together to dream about the future.

And on top of that, it’s the perfect opportunity to work in a few Dallas Cowboys illustrations (often to illustrate suffering and heartbreak).

As we close the door to summertime (in sackcloth and ashes, mourning her departure), we can joyfully look to the fall season as a pivotal time for intentional, prayerful leadership.

So, if you want to set up your church for a fruitful 2025, make the most of the fall season.

Top 5 Things Intentional Pastors Do in the Fall

1. Emphasize the Discipleship Pathway

September and October, especially, are the perfect months to pour fuel on your discipleship pathway.

What do I mean? This is the time to make sure you plan an experience for people who are new to your church to be able to connect with your leadership team.

This is the time to make sure that in every message you preach, you mention your main discipleship environment whether that’s small groups, bible studies, or something else. Mention them and call people to take action by signing up for one.

Then, mix up your promotion by asking a few people to share about their experience in their group or study either live on stage or in a video testimonial (usually best) and play it during service and on social media.

If you have a next steps class or a growth track or something similar, schedule it to begin in October or early November.

The Fall is the perfect time to fuel your discipleship engine.

2. Execute a Fall Outreach

Whether you do a Trunk n Treat, a fall festival, or something completely out of the box… make it happen.

Figure out a way to provide some fun or fill a need in your community.

Get your leaders together as soon as possible and try something.

And then, during the outreach? Make it a point to have conversations with as many people as possible. Take a genuine interest in them. And if it makes sense, invite them to church.

If you already have a fall outreach planned, consider adding a way to connect with people on the other side of the outreach.

Do a giveaway and ask people to leave their phone number so you can contact them if they win. And get some good prizes that people would genuinely want. Gift cards to local coffee shops or restaurants are a great option. And then? Follow up with those people whether they won or not. Ask them if you can pray for them. And see where the conversation goes from there.

3. Engage in Strategic Planning

The fall season is the perfect time to take some time to slow down, step back, and evaluate how the year has gone.

Pray through… How the church is doing. What is going well. What isn’t going well.

And here’s the key: don’t just do this yourself. Get your team together and get honest.

Here’s a framework you can use.

And then? Identify the three most important things to work on/work toward. These are your goals for 2025. Next, identify the three key steps to accomplishing each goal and put deadlines to each.

And remember: you’ll make tremendous progress when you have narrow focus on one step at a time. Don’t try to hit every goal in the first quarter of the year. Instead, take it Gradatim Ferociter (step-by-step ferociously).

This is a very simplified way of doing strategic planning, but it’s effective.

4. Engage in Sermon Planning

If you haven’t prioritized sermon planning (specifically, planning a year of preaching), it’s time to start. But don’t sermon plan alone. Invite others into the process. And, of course, labor in prayer throughout.

If you’ve never done this before, it can feel quite intimidating. But I promise you it’s completely worth the day or two it will take to get it done (plus the few weeks of prep and lead time to get others involved).

I teach an entire masterclass inside the Advanced Preaching Bundle on this topic because it’s so important.

In sermon planning, you ask the Lord to guide you and your team on the topics and texts He wants you to preach and teach on. Everyone should come with ideas. And everyone should hold those ideas open-handedly as you pray together and converse.

By the end, the goal is to have (most) every Sunday mapped out. Not every sermon written. But every sermon series is outlined (with recognition that the specifics might change) and added to a calendar.

And hopefully you’re going into this yearly planning time with a treasure trove of ideas you’ve been coming up with all throughout the year (using something like what is included in the Notion Ministry Dashboard).

5. Engage in Budget Planning

If there’s one thing that many pastors despise, it’s paperwork and budgeting.

But here’s the truth: a budget facilitates money going to ministry. Without a budget, a church is going to have a difficult time stewarding the resources God provides. With a budget, a church can intentionally steward its resources for kingdom work.

So, every fall it’s important to prayerfully get clear on what the church needs to focus on in the next calendar year (strategic planning) so that it can allocate resources to those ends.

To be clear: strategic planning comes first. The budget comes second and is put in place to facilitate those plans to become reality.

And this strategic planning shouldn’t just be done by the lead pastor and board. Every ministry leader should engage in a process to identify goals for their ministry which will give them clarity for what kind of budget they should request.

Then, as those requests come in, the leadership team works through the budget to make sure it aligns with the most important goals of the church.

[Free Download] The Intentional Pastor's Roadmap

Want some more help with leading the church intentionally?

In this Roadmap, I'm going to show you the path to lead the church with clarity and direction (into a brighter future).

Click here to get your copy of The Intentional Pastor's Roadmap.