Let Me Think About It

What’s your first response when someone asks you to do something? If you were raised like I was, you want to accommodate people. You want to help them out. So, you say yes. That can get you in over your head in a hurry. Before you know it, your week is full. You don’t even have time to finish your sermon. And there goes your day off.

Or you say yes to serving on a community board. Then you discover that also means you are assigned to two board committees. Triple the meetings you thought you signed up for.

Here are the five magic words: Let me think about it. Just slow things down. Then you take a minute, five minutes, a day, a week. First, you get clear on your own thoughts. Do you want to do this? Do you have time to do this? Does it fit with other priorities? Give yourself some time. Breathe. Pray. Discern. Then you say, yes--or no.

If you already said yes but want to rethink, that’s OK. Dave Ellis, a teacher of mine, used to say, “All agreements can be re-negotiated.” I was taught if I said yes, I had to keep my commitments. I was stuck even if I changed my mind later. Turns out, you can say, “I’ve thought more about what I agreed to. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be able to do it/keep doing it.”

If you do say no, or change your mind, wow, it can feel bad. I say to the pastors I coach, just because you feel guilty after you say no doesn’t mean you should have said yes. It could be a sign you are on the right track.

Let’s be realistic. If you’re a pastor, you work for the people you lead and serve pastorally. That makes it complicated. You realistically have to weigh the cost of saying no to certain folks. Especially to people in key positions or people who can raise a big stink. Sometimes you have to pay a price. I said no to a wedding before I officially started my first pastoral position. Frankly, it wasn’t a hard decision. I had just moved across the country. And it would have been my first wedding. The grandmother was an active church member. She thought since I had arrived in town, I should have said yes. Years later she was still talking about it. But I never regretted that decision. I knew it was right for me.

However, it sometimes makes sense to say yes for strategic reasons even if you’d rather say no. But you can still say, “Let me think about it.” If your principle is to say yes to anyone from church who asks, you might want to think about it a little more.

Give some thought to your decision-making principles. Consider how you decide what to say yes to and what to say no to.

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