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We live in a world where it can feel hard to make the right decisions, as we’re exposed to so many different opinions, expectations, and options on a daily basis. While analysis paralysis can feel suffocating, there are ways to help overcome it. In today’s blog, read how “analysis paralysis” can affect pastors, and some tips for pastors to overcome it.
Have you ever had one of those experiences where you want to unwind from a long day, so you turn on Netflix and begin the endless scroll of finding the perfect movie or show? You flip through titles, try to narrow your choices down by genre, read short descriptions, watch a snippet here and there, yet aren’t quite sure what to land on?
If you’ve had this experience, or have had an experience like it, then you’ve experienced analysis paralysis.
We live in a world where it can feel hard to make the right decisions, as we’re exposed to so many different opinions, expectations, and options on a daily basis.
Even as a pastor, you might be faced with how to navigate God’s Word in today’s world. It can be overwhelming to decide on what topics to address in today’s society, the differing opinions across the congregation, and even the varying opinions and interpretations of scripture.
While analysis paralysis can feel suffocating, there are ways to help overcome it.
In today’s blog, I am going to go over “analysis paralysis,” how it can affect pastors, and some tips for pastors to overcome it.
Our faith and relationship with God is a lifelong journey and commitment. For me, I was born and raised within a Christian household, being taught the Bible by my parents from an early age, and going to Sunday school. As I’ve matured, continuing to grow in my relationship with Christ, I still find myself constantly asking questions and finding new revelation in God’s Word.
While verses such as Malachi 3:6 and Matthew 24:35 reminds us that the character of God and His Word are enduring, we strive to grow in spiritual maturity through Christ. Of course we live in an imperfect world where decisions and distractions may try to draw us away from God’s Word, and bring damage to our faith. We’re painted a picture of this idea in Luke 8:14-15:
“The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.
But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.”
Fortunately Ephesians 4:11-13 also tells us that:
“Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
Only by then does Ephesians 4:14 tell us that “we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.”
While the deceit that’s in the world may throw us for a loop, complicating our relationships with God –– pastors play a pivotal role in building up and uniting the Church.
Equipped with a gift of leadership and teaching, pastors have a big role to fulfill within the Church. The role and responsibilities of a pastor might look a bit different from church to church, but overall Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3 lays out a list of expectations for Church leaders. One of these expectations calls for leaders in the Church to “hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.” (Titus 1:9)
While many pastors study the bible and church history extensively, it can still be difficult to navigate scripture in a world filled with many opinions, interpretations, and expectations. Controversial topics in today’s world range from sexuality, gender, class, race, politics, societal or global issues, to economics. Discourse within the Church is nothing new, as we can learn from Paul’s letters in the New Testament. Though with living in an interconnected world of vast information, it can be easy to get lost in the weeds of biblical interpretations, societal pressures, or just making sense of a changing world.
Because of this difficult task of building up the Church in divisive times, pastors might come down with a bad case of “analysis paralysis.”
“Analysis paralysis” isn’t quite a medical term, but it describes a common feeling that comes from the anxiety of not being able to make a decision; or rather being able to make the right decision.
According to self-help website BetterUp, “Analysis paralysis is when you over-analyze a situation and feel so overwhelmed with information that you can’t make a decision. Sometimes you have too many details to consider, and other times the weight of making the right choice debilitates you.”
This phenomenon of being overwhelmed with analyzing too much information has also been coined the “Paradox of Choice” by psychologist Barry Schwartz. Task management company Todoist explains that Schwartz uses the phrase to “describe his consistent findings that, while increased choice allows us to achieve objectively better results, it also leads to greater anxiety, indecision, [...] and dissatisfaction.”
For pastors, analysis paralysis might affect the way they lead the church, address social issues from a Biblical perspective, or even how they read, interpret, and teach on verses and stories from the Bible. This can perhaps come from anxiety of not properly leading the Church in sound doctrine, social pressures, or even a combination of those two factors.
With our ability to understand so much of the world through accessibility of information, how can pastors effectively overcome a feeling of analysis paralysis?
In moments of doubt, it’s best to:
As a pastor, you may sometimes find that your head is spiraling with a cyclone of information. Perhaps the overanalysis of information has you doubting, anxious about miscommunicating a message, or worrying about properly addressing societal issues. When faced with analysis paralysis when developing a sermon, there are tools to help.
Pastors now have access to sermon preparation applications that are not only able to generate prompted modern day examples of scripture, but are even able to create sermon outlines, quick search verses, Bible stories, and create character studies. With access to sermon building tools, it allows pastors a space to organize their thoughts, to have assistance on exegesis, and for creating helpful examples.
As pastors fulfill their role in equipping and building up the Church until it’s reached full unity in Christ, they may continue to face and overcome the challenges of the world. In times of being challenged with wading through the many facets of information that the world might throw at us, it’s important for pastors to keep focus on God’s Word and Jesus’ teachings –– overcoming feelings of anxiety, doubt, and societal pressures.
