Photo by Mr. Tom Lillis IV via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Here are things that I hear people use as growth limiters when they talk about the vision and day-to-day action of reaching a community with the Gospel.

1. Budgets - I would do x, y, or z if I had more. More often people talk about too much money in the church being allocated for one ministry while the thing they think will really reach people is under-funded.
2. Buildings – Either a ministry has too much building so they need to have programs that justify the building or a ministry has not enough/no building and they use that as an excuse to not do something.
3. Boards – The board is asking too many questions. Or the board doesn’t care. Or the board cares about the wrong things. Or the board doesn’t support your vision.
4. Butts – We don’t have enough people. Or, more likely, we don’t have the right people. Or maybe too many of the wrong people. But I never hear someone complain of having too many people, in general.
5. Boundaries – Some congregations are limited by physical boundaries while others are limited because they have no boundaries.

All of these are just excuses.

All of these imply that the spread of the Gospel in your community is somehow tied to the growth of your fiefdom.

All of these are just as much asset as they are liability.

All of these imply that church growth is about the organization and not the individuals leaning into their walk with Jesus.

All of these imply that its our job to grow the church and lead people to Jesus and not the other way around.

This I know to be true.

When you love your neighbors, when you meet practical needs, when you speak the truth in love, and when you lay aside your aspirations for the aspirations God has for your community… nothing can stop the spread of the Gospel message. It is too powerful.

The faith that Francis is talking about. This is the faith that will cause other people to look at you in horror and say, “That man is crazy enough to change this neighborhood.”

Don’t know about you. But that message was a like a dart to the gonads for me.

Stop talking, stop praying, stop studying. Do what you know you have to do.

Today.

ht to Terry Weaver for the link

I’ve noticed that many folks in ministry are cranky right now. No one seems to get along or agrees with anyone. (I had to say “many” because if I didn’t someone would get cranky about my use of generalization!) It’s all the rage to be a raging disagree-er.

Exhaustion from the launch of the Fall season probably is impacting this back-biting time. The fact that the economy is feeling scary probably isn’t helping, either. The guilt of unconfessed sins. The weight of working for money instead of passion. Too many carbs and not enough sleep. Forgetting to put the seat down. You know, big stuff that weighs us down.

Our tribe feels tired and cranky.

I just want to share what I’ve been saying to myself lately. (Guilty as charged, your honor.)

The world is already full of smart asses. I’d rather be known as an encourager than a smart ass. Something tells me my kids would be more proud of me for saying nice things about people instead of always trying to prove that I’m right or clever or funny or whatever.

That’s why I’ve been trying to lean into the wisdom of my wife. She’ll give me the look and say, “No one cares if you are right if you’re a jerk.” The woman is a prophetess, I tell you.

Prophe-tess.

I’ve been reminded that I need to be more conscious of encouraging the people in my life. Even the 45 seconds it takes me to send a text to a friend make a big difference. It’s not much, but it’s something.

As the recipient of some timely encouragement lately, let me say what everyone already knows.

I can live a week on a compliment.

It still giggle every time I hear this. Just the “Ticky” cracks me up.

I’ve heard this phrase to the point where I think people actually believe this is somehow a biblical concept.

God has opened the door for me to ____.

I was pursuing something I really felt called to, but God closed the door.

That’s not in the Bible folks. It is a non-biblical, non-Christian philosophy called fatalism.

I believe this little phrase, God opens and closes doors, has lead to people falsely blaming God for missed opportunities. We put this philosophy of open and closed doors above biblical concepts like perseverance, patience, and long-suffering.

Instead, many have bought into a mentality that it’s meant to be, God will open doors. If it isn’t meant to be, God will close doors.

Again, that’s fatalism. That isn’t how God works. Nor is it how God’s people are asked to look at the world.

This is what God says about opening doors:

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20

• Did David tell his friends, “Yeah, I was anointed as the next king, I don’t know though. Clearly, Saul doesn’t like me so I think God is closing that door?“
• I don’t think God cared too much about Jonah’s “closing the door” on going to Ninevah.
• I don’t remember Jesus telling Paul the whole blinding thing was an open door to a life in ministry.
• And a ship-wreck was clearly a “closed door” if I’ve ever seen one. But did that stop him?
• Persecutions of the first apostles weren’t seen as God closing doors. The only door that ended their ministry typically involved lions.
• Pharaoh refusing to release the Jews for the first 9 plagues wasn’t God closing a door.
• Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had an open door to a fiery furnace. But that didn’t stop them, did it?
• Seems like the doors were closed around old Jericho, weren’t they? Did that stop God’s people from taking action?

On and on we see that Scripture is not fatalistic about vocation, doing good, doing right, or fulfilling our call!

But God does work in us and through us when we persevere, when we are patient in affliction, when we long-suffer for doing right.

God rewards the righteous. God smiles on those who seek justice. God hears and answers prayer. God wants us to seek wise-council. God’s calling is true. God can move literal and figurative mountains for the faithful.

God calls us and asks us to depend on Him and Him alone.

He could care less about our education. (Paul) He could care less about our abilities. (Moses) He could care less about our lack of faith. (Jonah) He could care less about our past failures. (David)

When God asks us to do something open and closed doors are meaningless.

If He is asking you to do something He will make a way.

Rather than worrying about if the door is open or closed we are asked to open the door. We may have to kick it in. And we may need to buy a sledge-hammer to make a way where there is no way.

But waiting for doors to open or doors to close is meaningly, dangerous, and destructive. The only door you should be closing is on fatalism. The only door you should be opening is to Jesus, “Here I am, use me how you want. I am yours. You are my Savior and Lord.”

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2

Your role as a ministry manager isn’t just to plan programs and teach students. Successful ministry largely lies in your ability to properly manage a group of volunteers.

Take five minutes and identify which category each of your volunteers is happiest in:

• Low capacity
• High capacity
• Super capacity

What are some ways you can vary what each volunteer contributes to reflect how God has gifted them?

Photo by t. magnum via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Somewhere along the way ministry became a desk jockey job.

When I read the book of Acts and even the pastoral epistles I get the idea that being a pastor was action packed.

• John didn’t kick it in staff meeting for 2-3 hours per week.
• Peter didn’t make edits to the bulletin.
• Matthew didn’t work late to attend the facilities team meeting.
• Phillip didn’t put on a collared shirt and sit in a swivel chair from 8-4.

Even if you go back 50 years the pastoral staff wasn’t all about programs and project managing. They were out in the commnity visiting elderly, the sick, and doing house calls. If the staff had an office it was for study. If the staff met it was for prayer. There was an administrative staff that did admin work and project management. Not pastors. Pastors were out doing, not sitting behind a desk.

But somewhere between there and here all ministry jobs became something else. If we’re honest the ministry job became 75% administrative and 25% ministry on a good day. New people in a church always say the same thing... this isn’t what I thought it would be.

At least once per week someone will ask me if I miss working in the local church. The truth of the matter is that I have the same level of contact with high school students today as I had in nearly a decade of full-time church ministry as a youth pastor. I’m not in a rush to go from actually doing ministry to riding a desk in the office and talking about ministry. If I ever accepted a call to a church again, the role would be radically different… or else I’d go insane.

Life in ministry isn’t meant to be boring

But for many people the jobs that pay are boring.

Too many meetings and not enough ministry. Office hours and office gossip and office meetings and trying to look busy.

The goal is all jacked up. Where does the desk jockey model lead too? More desk jockeys running more complicated programs. We need to rebel against it because we know where this leads. With less than 10% of the population actively engaged in a local church… seriously, we know the current way of doing things doesn’t work!

Stop it.

Radical change is required in the way church staff operates to reverse the trend.

We don’t need a revival. We need full-time ministers to do full-time ministry.

Exceptions: No doubt, there are objectors to my generalization. That’s the nature of hyperbole, isn’t it? But at the same time compare the hours per week that your own church spends in the office vs. the amount of time the New Testament church did. They didn’t even have an office! So it was 0%. The biblical model is 0%. God’s Word is true, right? God is unchanging and unchangeable? Did I miss the memo in my Bible? How can we justify 50%, 75%, or 90% of our hours doing office work?

Church, we have an office problem. (Misappropriation of funds if you ask me.) And if we want to reach more than the 10% we currently reach, we need to change or watch that 10% shrink to 5%. We know where this leads.

Stop what you are doing and think about a new way.

What’s the solution?

Follow the church planters. That’s where the growth happens, right?

Close the church office. Morph your ministry staff into field agents. Tell your team to go out and visit the sick, serve the poor, feed the hungry, teach the Bible “out there,” and minister to the widows and orphans. The pastoral epistles give us a pretty good vision for what to do. The reality is that we don’t want to do the job laid out there.

Remove the office temptation and lease the office space. Pastors who are lazy will just set up offices in coffee shops or their homes. Fire them. If the church is to change, we will need agents of change and not desk jockeys.

Church planters do it every day. It’s funny that they come up with all sorts of fancy statistics as to why they think their new plants stop growing after 12-18 months. Maybe it’s not the movement that slows, missiologically. Maybe it’s the staff that stops trying and starts with office hours?

OK, I thought this was funny. If you don’t get it here is the original that this is mocking.

Photo by Bill Lollar via Flick (Creative Commons)

A youth worker in Minnesota asked me to share my definition of worship with her as part of a lesson she’s preparing for her youth group. I thought it’d be fun to post my response to her (with her permission) for a couple of reasons.

1. I hadn’t thought about it like this before.
2. I like it when people call me a heretic.

What is worship?

I think the English word for worship is limiting versus what God asks of us. So I break up the act of worship into a bunch different categories. (Not limited to this list)

• We come together to worship God in community.
• We spend time in prayer, fasting, song, reading of Scripture individually.
• Our work is worship.
• Our attitude is worship.
• When I give my talents and treasure to God, that is an act of worship.
• When I journal, that is worship.
• When I am alone with my wife, that is worship.
• Everything I do… I can do as worship of God.

Now, how do I define worship? Worship is any intentional human actions which bring glory and honor to God.

What do you think? Is the intention what makes an act worship? Or have I overstated what worship can be?

This is Pastor Wilnord. We got to know Wilnard and his ministry while in Carrefour last month.

If you are interested in helping fund the school in Wilnard’s church or perhaps your church (Or a group of Christian educators, or any combination) is interested in adopting this school to help pay the teachers, provide uniforms and shoes, or even feed the students, please let me know.

If you’d like, we can plan a trip together and I can introduce you to Pastor Wilnord myself.

The needs in Haiti are still real. The opportunity is still huge. Please don’t forget.