Escaping the Tyranny of the Immediate

Why pastors must learn the difference between what is urgent and what is important.

Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from Chapter 8 of The Quiet Weight: Ten Tensions Every Pastor Feels but Few Name, an upcoming book by Stephen Hay that explores the often-unspoken tensions of pastoral ministry and offers biblical encouragement for leaders seeking to shepherd with wisdom, faithfulness, and hope.

A Bulletin That Became a Battle

The change seemed so small that I barely gave it a second thought. To simplify Sunday mornings, we removed the detailed order of worship from our church bulletin. It wasn’t a theological shift or a philosophical statement. We simply wanted to reduce printing, free volunteers from another weekly task, and encourage people to engage in worship without feeling tied to a printed program. The service itself hardly changed.

The response, however, was immediate. Emails arrived that afternoon. Phone calls followed. Conversations lingered in the hallways after church. Some people told me the bulletin helped them worship. Others believed it preserved reverence. A few worried we were becoming “one of those churches.”

What began as honest feedback slowly became something heavier. Coffee meetings filled my calendar. I found myself explaining the reasoning over and over again, proposing compromises that were debated just as intensely as the original decision.

Eventually, what started as a formatting decision found its way onto the agenda of a formal church meeting. Motions were made. People spoke passionately. In the end, we held a congregational vote over a bulletin.

Somewhere in that process, a question quietly surfaced in my own heart: Is this really what my time is meant to be given to?

No one doubted the importance of worship, but the urgency of preferences had crowded out the necessity of formation.

The hidden cost took longer to recognize. For weeks I found myself writing sermons late into the evening, not because God’s Word was unusually difficult that month, but because my best hours had been consumed managing discontent. The work that required prayer, thoughtfulness, and spiritual attentiveness had been pushed to the edges of the day, where exhaustion always waited.

Looking back, I realize that the bulletin itself was never the real issue. The real issue was urgency. It had quietly become the loudest voice in my ministry.

When Urgency Becomes Our Master

I’ve rarely met a pastor who doesn’t feel behind. Behind on sermon preparation. Behind on email. Behind on hospital visits, leadership meetings, phone calls, and the conversation they meant to have three days ago.

At first, I assumed this was simply a problem of organization. Better calendars, stronger systems, and more disciplined planning would surely solve it. Those things certainly help, but over time I’ve come to believe that the deeper problem isn’t poor time management. It’s misplaced attention.

Charles Hummel famously described this as “the tyranny of the urgent,” observing that “the urgent drives out the important.” Few sentences have explained ministry quite so well.

Urgency has a unique power. It speaks loudly, demands immediate attention, and convinces us that if we don’t respond now, something significant will fall apart. The tragedy is that what shouts the loudest is rarely what shapes people the deepest.

Sermons are formed slowly. Disciples are formed slowly. Healthy leadership develops slowly. Prayer deepens slowly.

Yet ministry constantly tempts us to abandon those slow works in order to satisfy immediate expectations. Before long we become reactive rather than reflective, busy rather than fruitful, available to everyone except God.

The Unhurried Way of Jesus

One of the most striking characteristics of Jesus is not simply what He accomplished but the pace at which He accomplished it.

Crowds pressed in around Him. People demanded healing. His disciples interrupted Him constantly. Entire villages searched for Him. Yet Jesus never appears frantic.

After an exhausting evening of healing in Mark 1, the disciples wake to discover He has slipped away to pray in a solitary place. When they finally find Him, they announce, “Everyone is looking for you.”

I know what I would have done.

I would have gone back.

Jesus didn’t.

Instead, He simply replied, “Let us go somewhere else.”

He refused to let popularity or urgency dictate His mission because He was anchored in His Father’s will.

That same rhythm appears throughout the Gospels. Martha hurried while Mary sat quietly at Jesus’ feet, and Jesus called Mary’s posture “the better portion.” When Lazarus became gravely ill, Jesus intentionally waited before traveling to Bethany. Everyone around Him believed He had arrived too late, yet Jesus knew He was perfectly on time.

Again and again, He chose presence over pressure, prayer over performance, and faithfulness over frantic activity.

Reading those passages has exposed something in my own heart. I often fear disappointing people far more than I fear drifting from God’s priorities. Jesus never seemed burdened by that fear. He loved people deeply, but He refused to allow their urgency to determine His obedience.

The Hidden Cost of Constant Urgency

The greatest cost of living reactively isn’t simply that it steals our time.

It steals our depth.

Most pastors don’t burn out because they worked hard. They burn out because they spend themselves responding to everything except the things that actually sustain them. Scripture slowly becomes preparation instead of communion. Prayer becomes fragmented. Listening becomes difficult. We spend our days solving everyone else’s problems while quietly neglecting our own souls.

Zack Eswine writes, “Almost anything in life that truly matters will require you to do small, mostly overlooked things, over a long period of time with Him.”

That sentence has become something of an anchor for me because it reminds me that the Kingdom rarely grows through frantic activity. It grows through quiet, ordinary faithfulness. The deepest work of God almost always unfolds more slowly than we wish.

Learning to Resist Urgency

Pastors don’t accidentally drift into healthy rhythms. We build them intentionally.

Protecting Sabbath reminds us that Jesus is carrying His church, not us. Beginning sermon preparation weeks in advance allows Scripture to shape the preacher before it shapes the congregation. Unhurried walks through the neighborhood or quiet moments in the sanctuary retrain our ears to hear God’s voice beneath the noise of constant demands.

I’ve also learned to ask three simple questions before responding to another request:

• Is this truly necessary?
• Is this mine to carry?
• Does this require an answer today?

Those questions have saved me from countless hours spent solving problems that weren’t actually mine to solve. They haven’t eliminated urgency, but they have helped me distinguish between what merely feels important and what actually is.

Choosing Faithfulness Over Frantic Activity

Looking back, I don’t regret caring about people who struggled with change. Shepherds should care. We should listen patiently, answer graciously, and walk compassionately with those entrusted to us.

What I do regret is allowing urgency to become the organizing principle of my ministry.

Leadership cannot simply follow the loudest voices. It must continually return to the clearest mission.

Every pastor will eventually face a version of the “bulletin vote.” It probably won’t involve a bulletin. It may be a budget discussion, a staffing decision, a worship preference, a building project, or a controversy that suddenly consumes the congregation’s attention.

Whatever form it takes, the temptation will be the same: to devote your deepest energy to the loudest problem.

Resist that temptation.

Not because people don’t matter, but because the deepest work of shepherding has never happened in a hurry.

The church doesn’t need pastors who respond the fastest. It needs pastors whose souls are anchored deeply enough to know the difference between what is urgent and what is essential.

The ministry that endures isn’t built by reacting to every demand. It’s built by walking steadily with Jesus, trusting that faithfulness, not frantic activity, is what ultimately bears fruit.