While I totally miss being on staff at a local church– there’s one thing I don’t miss at all.
I don’t have to filter my interactions with students through the grid of “what I’m supposed to say because I work at this church.”
Category: Church Leadership
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Telling the truth versus something less
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St. Patrick’s Day Prayer for Church Leaders
With St. Patrick’s Day this Sunday, I’ve been reflecting on Patrick’s life and deeds.While all manner of silliness is now done in Patrick’s name as Americans pretends to be Irish enough to live out a drunken stereotype and wear colors they’ve not thought about for a second– Patrick really did live an incredible life of faithfulness.
Enslaved as a child, he escaped Ireland only to be called back to the land of his captivity where he spent a lifetime building the Christian church. Legend has it that Patrick planted 1,000 churches. Take that church plant gurus!
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Restraint
I sat my jetlagged, cold-suffering self down in front of the television on Monday. My heart swelled with civic pride as I prepared to watch Barack Obama, a man whose skin color long prevented individuals like him from having a serious shot at the nations highest office, be sworn in for his second term as President of the United States… on Martin Luther King, Jr Day.
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Adding Discernment to Your Decision-Making
You Need Discernment
When I watched this video my mind recalled many bad decisions I’ve made on teams. Too often, I’ve relied on the decisions of a group and skipped the all-important process of discernment. Then, before I knew it, my teams were working hard on something that’s not a good idea.
When that happens, it’s a waste and you know it… but you’ve suspended those emotions in an endless cycle of trying to turn a bad idea into a good one.
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Mark Riddle on Discipleship & Leadership in the Church
Pastors often confuse leadership with discipleship. Our infatuation with leaders has stunted the development of disciples in our churches.
Rinse. Repeat. Discuss.
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7 Ways to Build a Sustainable Movement
A flywheel is a rotating mechanical device that is used to store rotational energy. Want to see change? Don’t start a church. Don’t start a business. Don’t hire a bunch of experts.
Those things are great. But they are a bit finite in their ability to affect macro-level-change in society.
Instead, start a movement of people.
And if you really want to see change, start a sustainable movement. As in, something that’ll go beyond you, outpace you, and grow bigger than you can imagine.
A sustainable movement starts with you and grows a life of its own.
It is possible. It is within your skill set. And it just might be what God wants you to do.
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3 Tips for Dealing with Ministry Frustration
I have several friends for who have used the word “frustrated” in response to the question, “How are things going in your ministry?”
Why Am I Frustrated?
If your ministry is a job, you will be frustrated for a few reasons.
- God promises in Genesis 3 that our work will be frustrated as a result of sin in the world.
- I’m convinced that Satan has a special department for ministers. He knows our weaknesses and he takes great joy in frustrating us.
- People tend to transfer things they can’t control into their lives onto you, because they think that since you are a minister, you work for them.
- Ministers have a tendency to transfer frustration from other areas of their lives into pressure/expectations on their ministry.
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3 Mini-Rants for a Wednesday
Mmmm… nothing like hormone-induced gigantic turkey for your families pre-Black Friday festivities. - Don’t shop on Thanksgiving! – This year, in a sign of pure greed, many retailers will open up their stores for pre-Black Friday sales. Target stores nationwide will open at 9:00 PM on Thanksgiving, basically destroying the holiday for their employees. Their employees started a petition to keep Black Friday on Friday. Last week I got several emails inviting me to “secret sales” where I could get Black Friday deals right now. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Making low-level employees work on a holiday so you can make extra money is wrong.
- We all pay taxes! It is true that lots and lots of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes directly. But I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with people saying that most people don’t pay taxes. We all pay taxes, lots and lots of them. And while most of the readers of this blog won’t write a check for federal income taxes we pay taxes in lots of seen and unseen places that our more affluent neighbors don’t. We all pay sales tax, property tax, payroll tax, state income tax, tariffs we don’t see, taxes added into the goods we buy like gasoline. Then there are the taxes we pay not in money, but in situations beyond our control. Can someone in the working poor pay to send their kids to an elite school? Nope… so that’s a tax on them. Can the working poor afford the best access to healthcare? Nope… so that’s a tax on them. What about the best nutrition? Or social access to powerful people. On and on and on. My point is simply that we all pay taxes!
- There’s more to church leadership than preaching! No, really. The more I get to know folks in a lot of contexts the more I realize that what you do off the platform is what makes you a leader in the church. And if you look away from the org chart and walk around seeing who is actually leading, almost all leadership (People leading others where they wouldn’t go by themselves) is happening outside of the preaching person and outside of the paid staff. I’m not talking about redefining what leadership is in the church… I’m talking about recognizing who are the leaders in your church. How can you go to a church, see all that goes on, and say… “Oh, this is ____’s church.” Gimme a break.
OK, I got those off my chest. Time for a second cup of coffee.
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Pushing Past the Pain of Change
This weekend, at Open, I heard a few things. Some were from attendees, some speakers, and others from the Holy Spirit.
Most of the thoughts that stuck are along the lines of change. People are ready for change. They are hungry for it. And the pain of continuing this cycle of depreciating returns is too depressing– finally overcoming the reality that making some levels of foundation shifting change is worth the cost.
Thoughts like this…
- how we as a tribe gathers needs to change
- how we gather teenagers needs to change
- how we disciple teenagers needs to change.
- how we think of ourselves needs to change.
- how we fund the movement of ministering to adolescents needs to change.
With declining numbers in all of the categories that seem to matter, the reality is that there are so few winners and far too many losers.
We all need things in our life and vocation to change. And we are in the position to do something about it.
People, like you and me, are beginning to realize that it is up to us to make these changes instead of waiting for someone else. (Cough, be a leader. Cough, cough. Entropy. Cough, cough. I KNOW! Cough, cough.)
The Pain of Change
Actually changing things will cost you something. It might make people hate you. It will be messy. It might lead to your organization losing money or even closing. There’s a pretty good chance that you could get fired.
But I want to encourage you as you think about change. When you lead towards what you feel God is calling you to move towards… it’s always scary. It’s always full of fear. It’s always brought with some pain.
Sometimes in Scripture we need to read between the lines a little bit. I think of people like Noah going home and telling his wife he needed to build an ark and gather animals. I’m guessing he and his wife didn’t see eye to eye on that at first blush, something tells me he slept on the coach, and maybe it was a little while until she accepted the lunacy of her husbands vision. Rest assured… building an ark isn’t good for your sex life. Or I think about the Centurion in Acts… I’m sure it went well when his boss in Rome found out he and his entire house converted to the religion he was paid to squelch. I don’t think that guy got a raise. Or I think about the Peter on the day of Pentecost… I’m sure that his message of Jesus as the Christ went over like a pile of bricks. Remember, most of the people in the audience walked away saying he was drunk.
So this is what I know. Not just from the Bible but from my own life: Until you suck it up, accept that the changes you know you need to make will involve some pain, you’re just going to keep doing nothing.
No sir. Not for me. I want to sleep at night. The word regret will not be on my tombstone.
Things will change because they must. Pain will be overcome because its just pain. And the vision and dreams God has laid on our hearts should scare the hell out of us.
But fear of pain preventing me or you from the leaders we can be?
May we never sink so far.
