Relationships, conversations, and connections – all important to me. Today I spent time with a couple church people. I prayed with Jonny in our auditorium. I had lunch with my wife. I met with my staff. I waved to my neighbor while running through the rain. I talked with my pastor-coach, Dave Jacobs.
Jonny and I recorded a great conversation with a pastor from Pennsylvania, that tonight I turned into something called “episode 74”. I watched a review of the Spurs-Heat game on ESPN with a student who knocked on my door at 11:00pm. I talked on the phone with a woman whose father is in the hospital. I spoke to the bank about a check I deposited on Monday, that never showed up in my account. They called me back – they found it! I listened to Pat Flynn for thirty minutes this morning while getting ready for the day. I texted three of my four kids. I hugged the fourth one. I sent 18 emails to people that I know. But. The greatest relationship, conversation, or connection I could have, on any given day, is my relationship with the triune God. In an age where I can make almost endless connections every day with people next door or on the other side of the world – as a pastor I get to model and practice my connection with God. With him is the greatest relationship I could ever experience. I’m gonna have a busy weekend, and I’m gonna make sure to spend my best part of it, with him.
In 2014 we are partnering with three ministry leaders who are going to join us once a month on the podcast. One year ago this week, when we recorded our first podcast episode (which by the way, never actually got recorded, since we did not have a memory card in the mp3 recorder! LOL) we had no idea how many fantastic people we would get to know, let alone have the pleasure of partnering with!
One of those partners is with us on this week's podcast - Dave Jacobs, from SmallChurchPastor.com. Dave coaches pastors and church boards toward optimal ministry health. He is not just a pastor's coach, but a huge cheerleader of pastors. The biggest problem with Dave Jacobs is that there is only one of him - other than that, he is a great guy and huge builder of pastors. On this, Episode 53, we talk about what we think is the absolute #1 priority of every small church pastor on the planet. This priority is essential if we are going to both survive ministry and be effective at it. We believe that the health of our souls is the #1 priority for us in ministry. The soul health of a pastor is his or her single greatest source of ministry passion, power, and energy. If your soul is sick or weak, you will not be able to shepherd, feed, and lead in a manner that your people need you to. How's your soul Pastor? Really? We are calling Dave's segment "In the Locker Room" because Dave, for a living, coaches small church pastors. We are the players, he is the coach, and he wants all of us 200church pastors to WIN! So, when you listen to this episode, think of yourself as being "in the Locker Room" with Coach Jacobs. Then take his coaching out onto the court - and put the ball through the hoop! We are also excited that Dave is writing a book. It's not finished yet. The title will be something along the lines of: A Mile Wide and an Inch Deep - Soul Care for Busy Pastors. We think that this book is so needed by all of us pastors. As we always say, pastors can never get too much encouragement. That's why we started 200churches. We want to encourage and support - build up and inspire, pastors of small churches... 200churches. While his book is in process, Dave has a number of very moderately priced resources for pastors and church boards. Check them out here. Maybe it's time to focus on one of these areas and resources in your church ministry in 2014? So enjoy this episode with Coach Jacobs! Find Dave at SmallChurchPastor.com and at his blog, DaveJacobs.net. God bless you as you love and lead your people. Never forget: your ministry in your 200church, no matter the size, is impacting the Kingdom of God!
Again, welcome to 2014 and the second year of the 200churches Podcast. Can we say it?? We've learned so much from sharing this podcast with you! We have grown in our appreciation and understanding of what it means to be pastors of a 200church.
We had no idea the people we would get to know - YOU! You all have enriched our lives and grown us as pastors, friends, and leaders. We hope to continue building you up as pastors and shepherds of small churches, pastors who are often forgotten and undervalued as you serve in smaller ministries loving and shepherding God's people. In today's Episode 52, we share with you three lessons we are learning as we enter the new year. These three lessons are basic, so basic that we often overlook or forget them. If you lean into these lessons with us, your leadership in your 200church will grow and your church's health will improve. We are going to give you the outline to this episode, and then provide you the links to the resources we reference at the bottom of this post. TODAY'S EPISODE OUTLINE: We are focusing on three lessons to lean into as we start 2014. They are - 1. Getting over our fear of failure. Most people are unwilling to experience the number of failures necessary for success. If we do not try, we will never fail, and for some of us, that's our strategy for success - to never fail. Unfortunately, if we never try, and never fail, we will also never succeed. Is your church small because it has simply reached its Kingdom potential, or, is your church small because you're afraid to fail. Just a thought... -Moses failed -Peter failed -from a human perspective, even Jesus' projects failed - Judas betrayed him, the disciples forsook him, and he was killed on a cross. Perhaps we need a different perspective on failure. Sometimes a failure can accomplish God's will - you think? 2. Prayer. We need God. Our dependence on God is revealed through our time of prayer and communion with Him. How are you doing spending time with your Father, your Savior, and your Comforter? 3. FOCUS on the people you have. This point is, as they say, worth the admission price! You just have to hear what we say about this... LINKS: Two great books about handling failure: Failing Forward by John C Maxwell **Phenomenal Kindle price of $2.99 at the time of this post!! Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lo... Learn! by John C. Maxwell Pictures of the books at the bottom of this post are also links to purchase them on Amazon - we are not affiliates and get no kick-back. They are simply GREAT books! Please give us your input: Please email either Jeff or Jonny and share with them a topic you think would be good for us to discuss. Also, feel free to share a person you think we should have on as a guest. Our goal is to provide guests and content that encourage and equip you as small church pastors. We have some exciting guests lined up in the coming months. Jeff and Jonny have a little friendly competition going as for who will receive the most emails. You can email either one of them with your suggestions, their email links are below: jeff@200churches.com jonny@200churches.com :) Well, this is an easy one, right?! Just make sure that at some point during your message, three armed police officers interrupt your service to arrest, handcuff, and lead away at least one person in the front row. That’s it, no more boredom! But alas, there is one reason why that can’t happen… no one sits in the front row! Okay, so let me suggest something else. The fear of the majority of pastors is that they will bore their people when they preach or teach God’s word. Why, it’s inevitable at some point. The guy in the third row is sound asleep, people check their watch, or their smartphone. Even you or I get bored once in a great while during a message. But there is hope.
I’ve been preaching and teaching for thirty years now, so let me share a few presuppositions, then a few ideas. Presupposition #1 – God changes hearts with his holy Word. The Holy Spirit of God uses his word, to do the work. He can use what we might think of as the most boring sermon or lesson. Presupposition #2 – We do not use presupposition #1 as an excuse to bore people. Presupposition #3 – The listener must have a pulse. What I mean by that is the listener must have at least an entry level intention and willingness to listen, hear, and be changed. If not, we could explode, and they would still yawn. Presupposition #4 – Boredom is as much in the mind of the listener as in the actions of the speaker. Presupposition #5 – Content should trump presentation style. Content is most important. Without it, the presentation style is meaningless. Presupposition #6 – Presentation style should deliver content, not overshadow or obscure it. Now, here are some ideas for how not to be boring. We will share more in our podcast on Wednesday, Episode 32 – Why You Should Explore Creative Communication Methods In Your 200church, and in our post on Friday. This is “Communication Week” at 200churches! Idea #1 – As the preacher, we MUST be close to God ourselves. Be close to Him through prayer, intimacy with Scripture, and personal heart devotion to our Father, our Savior, and our indwelling Holy Spirit. There is no shortcut to OUR intimacy with God – the source of power in preaching! Yeah, I know this one is not a "silver bullet" that is easy to do - but it's the truth and there is no substitute for it. Idea #2 – Be close to our people. Our love for them, and our knowledge of them, will be both our motivation and our direction in our preaching. We are not preaching or teaching a crowd every week, but our friends, the people we love. While I prepare my messages, I am thinking about the lady who just lost her husband, the student struggling with alcohol and parties, the man addicted to pornography, and the parents whose teenage son shot himself in the head in their family room... and died. Our relationship with our people certainly influences our messages. Idea #3 – Variety! We can change how we deliver the message. Stand, sit, speak, point, loudly, softly, onstage, off stage, video, handout, object lesson, story, list, challenge, action step, lectern, table, whiteboard, pulpit, no pulpit, images, art, music, interview, team preach, personal story, etc. etc. We must use creativity and variety. It is good for our people to wonder what might come next. Idea #4 – Let’s be ourselves, not someone else. You have likely heard it before – God doesn't want another Billy Graham or Francis Chan – he wants YOU. God created us to speak to our people, love our people, and teach our people. We can trust him that he has given us the personal, intellectual, and creative resources we need to get the message across. Let’s just be ourselves. Well, that’s a good start! Wednesday’s podcast will expand on this, get you thinking, and hopefully inspire you to seek that “next level” in your ability to communicate God’s wonderful word. What was the most creative thing you ever successfully pulled off in a sermon? That Apostle Paul guy was quite bold. In Acts 9 where he makes his big debut, and while he was still Saul, it says he was “speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.” Wow. Quite a start! How about us? Do 200church pastors speak and lead with boldness? Are we bold? Or… do we pander, hedge, spin, and dodge the issue? Are we confident enough as leaders to be bold in our leadership, confronting doubters and worriers? Do we shrink back at the first sign of opposition or discouragement? In Episode 26 of the 200churches Podcast this Wednesday, we talk about being bold and, if we have to, creating a stir! Our people are looking for bold leadership and bold faith.
There are prerequisites to boldness though. Pastors and leaders aren't just automatically bold. Certain things have to be present in us, and practiced by us. On that note, here are 7 ways to be bold in our ministries: Walk with God. Isn't this the bottom line? Is this not what brings us integrity and power in leadership? Walking with God by faith and by communing with the Holy Spirit is essential to boldness in ministry. Complete reliance on God for wisdom and ability in pastoral ministry is where it all starts. How are you and God getting along? Confront sin in your own life. If we maintain willful, hidden sin in our life, we will lack the boldness to speak and to lead with authority. We can be sure that sin will ultimately bring our ruin, or at the least, hamper our effectiveness for God. How are you and sin getting along? Poorly, we hope! :) Be full of the Book. That’s one of the “basics” we talked about in last Friday’s post. When we are consuming large quantities of scripture, we are full of God’s truth. Daily intake means it is within arm’s reach of our minds all day long. Biblical truth coming in is a prerequisite to boldness. How are you and the Bible doing? Rely on wise advisers. In the multitude of counselors there is wisdom. (Proverbs 11:14; 15:22) John Maxwell says that “those closest to us will determine the level of our success.” He calls that the Law of the Inner Circle in his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. We will never know it all. We should be talking to people, listening, learning, and borrowing all the brains we can. Got advisers? Listen to critics. Our critics are never all wrong, and rarely are they all right either! Critics will point out the flaws in our thinking, the gaps in our processes, and the weaknesses of our plans. When we listen to them, and learn from their insight, we can be more confident, having been strengthened by their scrutiny. We then will move forward with more boldness, enjoying clearer direction. Are you paying attention to your critics? Plan ahead. You've heard it, “if you fail to plan you plan to fail.” How true that is. Boldness and uncertainty do not occupy the same space well. If we have not planned well, thought through the potential problems, and predicted the unintended consequences, we usually won’t move forward boldly. Instead we are hesitant, halting, and indecisive. Boldness comes from quality planning. Do you have a plan? End by giving it all to God. When we are done preparing, processing, and praying, we move forward boldly, in FAITH. Our faith is in God alone, not any of the above steps or processes. God is the one who has filled us, and commissioned us to serve him by making disciples. Boldness comes when we drive the car, but God holds the Title. It’s his game and he’s already won, we’re just moving across the board in faith. Can you say "In God I trust"? You see, boldness in ministry is not the result of a microwaved process. Vision by sound bite doesn't go very far. There needs to be completeness about our ministry in order for us to have boldness in ministry. No shortcuts to the above 7 prerequisites. Want to be bold?
How are you doing in these seven areas? Which area do you need to work on the most today? Maybe you need to take action in order to become more bold in your ministry. Go for it! Do it! On Wednesday’s podcast, we are going to talk about some very practical tensions that may preclude us from being bold in our ministries, and encourage you to go ahead and be bold, and perhaps “create a stir”!
In episode 25 Jeff and Jonny are joined by Greg Atkinson, from Carthage, MO.
Greg is a writer, speaker, consultant and campus pastor at Forest Park, a multi-site church based in Joplin, Missouri. Greg has started businesses including the worship resource website WorshipHouse Media, a social media marketing company, and his own consulting firm. As a consultant, Greg has worked with some of the largest and fastest-growing churches across the United States. Greg’s latest writing project is his eBook Church Leadership 101, which has been downloaded by more than 20,000 church leaders around the world.
Greg is a Campus Pastor, so the weekend preaching comes via Forest Park in Joplin and Lead Pastor John Swadley. This gives Greg a unique advantage to pour himself into people, relationships, and leadership at Forest Park Carthage.
When Greg arrived at his church, he faced immediate challenges. He was the third pastor in 3 1/2 years at this multi-site location, and had to quickly earn trust and credibility. Greg shares the specific things he gave his attention to in order to create a turn around at his church. You can find Greg at www.gregatkinson.com, where you can also download his book for free, Church Leadership 101. This week on 200churches.com and on our 200churches Podcast we have been talking about prayer. To wrap up the week and this theme, I want to tell you why I don’t meet with God. I always wanted to be Pastor Praymor. I assumed that Pastor Praymor would be more holy, get more things done, preach better messages, make fewer mistakes, visit more people, parse more Greek verbs, pump out great church bulletins, diagram entire epistles of Paul, and generally have more people in his worship services. After all, Pastor Praymor would certainly deserve those things. I mean, earn those things, through his much prayer. Well, I was never able to completely become Pastor Peter Praymor. Thank God.
I’ve been a pastor for over 26 years in just a few churches that ranged from 17 to 700, and at some point, although I don’t know when, I realized it was more important for me to do life with God, than it was for me to make my daily scheduled meeting with God. After all, my wife would be ticked, I mean really ticked, if I met to talk with her once every morning, even if it was for an hour, and basically ignored her the rest of the day! Of course I would think of her often throughout the day, and maybe even peak in on her a couple times just to see how she was, but not to talk. Then at the end of the day I would get into bed with her and promptly fall asleep because I would of course be too tired to talk to her then. I know, you can see where this train is heading. Thankfully, my wife is not God; she would not be nearly as patient and forgiving as he is! I certainly don’t meet with my wife once or even twice daily and think that is sufficient for our marriage. Neither should I meet with God once or twice a day, even for a relatively extended time, and think that is healthy or sufficient for my friendship with him. So, I don’t meet with God. I try to just do life with God. Whenever I am involved in something, I try to ask for his help or advice, express thankfulness to him, and cry out to him for mercy and/or wisdom. Sometimes I just give up, and admit I need him and am powerless without him. I can’t live without God. And I can accomplish absolutely nothing without his power and blessing. So, I have stopped meeting with God, and have started doing my dead level best to do life with God all the time. If you meet with God, what do you do with him when you’re done meeting? Do you just turn your back on him and walk away? When you say “amen” is that like saying, “Okay God, thanks, but I've got it now. I’m good. See you later on.”? Of course we know better, especially as pastors, but don’t we really sell our relationship with God short when we simply have “devotions”, and then leave God up in our bedrooms and take off to start the day? As pastors and leaders of 200churches, we are probably it at our church, no staff, perhaps not even a secretary or janitor. We’d better not leave God in the study, the bedroom, or sitting down on our living room couch – we’ve got to take him with us every single hour of every single day! We need his help and empowerment to shepherd our flock, be available to our community, and love our neighbors. Pastor Peter Praymor? No, I’ve given up trying to be him. I’d like to be more like Rev. Robert Restwell. Robbie Restwell just enjoys hanging around Jesus every day, asks for his help, watches him do his thing in people’s hearts, and savors the journey. Maybe that’s what Paul meant when he told us to “pray without ceasing”. He did not say “pray in your meeting.” So, what do you say? Instead of meeting with Jesus for ten minutes this morning, why not cancel the meeting and ask him to shadow you for the day, that you need the company and the help, and that you’d welcome his input and assistance. You might be amazed at the kind of day you’ll have! But first, go ahead and show Pastor Praymor the door, and don’t worry if it does hit him on the way out!
In Monday’s blog, we got transparent about prayer and talked about the 5 major reasons that we suffer prayer shortages in our lives. As 200church pastors, we know that prayer is vital to our ministries, but often there is a gap between what we know and what we do. On today’s podcast, we talk about approaches for bridging that gap and moving beyond our excuses for why we don’t pray.
The first reason we give for our prayer shortage is that we get too distracted. To counter this, we talked about:
Think about prayer as a two way conversation: Often, we think of prayer as being “requestional” when really prayer is meant to be relational. Take time to really talk to God, not just about our needs, but about our lives. Take a prayer drive: Sometimes, we just have to get out. Take a drive (without the radio) and just talk to God. Talk out loud! Taking God out of the building can do a lot for a conversation. Be constantly aware of God’s presence: One of the most difficult things for us to remember about prayer is that God is a person and he is constantly with us. We believe that “pray without ceasing” is more about being aware of God’s presence than wearing out your knees in the sanctuary. The second reason for our shortage is that we often feel we have no time. What we need to recognize instead is: We don’t have time NOT to pray! If our goal is truly to have a Spirit-led and empowered ministry, we need to make prayer a priority. We've all probably heard of putting “first things first” in our lives, and prayer is the first of those first things. When we say we don’t have time to pray, what we’re really saying is that we believe prayer is optional and that something else is more important. Don’t believe those lies any longer and always make time for prayer first. The third reason we give for not praying is that we forget. So how do we remember? Schedule your prayer: Scot McKnight writes about this in his book Jesus Creed and it’s an important lesson for all of us to remember. Set an alarm on your phone or computer. Leave sticky notes on your desk. Schedule time for prayer and you won’t forget for long. Find a prayer resource: In some protestant traditions, the idea of reading or writing prayers makes people shudder. But finding a Book of Common Prayer or writing some of your own prayers can be an excellent way to keep prayer at the top of our minds and our lives. Don’t be afraid of some structure in your prayer life! Finally, we often miss prayer time because we wonder if our prayer actually makes any difference. Truthfully, this is a difficult thing to talk about for pastors and church leaders. We’re called to pray at emergencies, at weddings, at funerals and dozens of places in between. One of the best ways to remember that prayer really does matter is to keep track of what we are telling God. Don’t do this with the expectation of getting more positive answers, but just as a way to remember what God has done in your life and your ministry. The bottom line for all of us is that we need to make prayer a priority in our lives! These are some of the approaches we’ve tried and are continually working on. Are there any others that have worked for you? Prayer is the pastor’s power and priority. It’s what we do, right? I mean, is not prayer the great calling of the clergy, the privilege of the pastor, the mandate of the minister, the first business of the bishop, and the desperate shout of the shepherd? Hey, that’s a pretty good description of prayer. Now, why don’t I live it?! If you’re like me, you never feel as though you've prayed enough. All too often I find myself in a shortage of prayer. Maybe you do too. Why is that? Here are some reasons why I think this is so:
I get too distracted. I mean I do start to pray, but inevitably I get distracted by a phone call, a dinging task notification from my smartphone, an email, a noise, a bird, an errant fleeting thought, or the memory of a specific play in the Laker’s game from last night. Why is it when I set myself down to pray, I just get so easily distracted?! I don’t have time. I woke up a few minutes too late, hurried through my morning routine, and planned to pray in the office. But then there was someone who needed to talk with me, mail waiting to be opened from yesterday, an urgent request from a needy person, my task list staring at me, and that message I had to start just to make sure it got off the ground before Wednesday. Between my ministry, my graduate courses, my wife and kids, and Angry Birds, I just ran out of time. I completely forget. Sometimes it’s like this – I meant to pray today, but honestly it just never crossed my mind. My first waking thought was how I would approach my 2:00pm appointment with someone who wanted to share “just a few concerns about our ministry.” Then, one thing led to another, and before I knew it I was on my way home for supper… at 6:45, and it had never crossed my mind all day to pray. That is somewhat troubling and disconcerting to me now that I think of it. I wonder if it will really make any difference after all. We pray and pray for people, and then they die anyway. Sometimes I am reluctant to pray too specifically for someone who is sick, for fear that they will not be healed, and my God will look weak, or worse – unconcerned with their plight. If God is in control of all things, isn’t he already in control of basically any request I might send his way. I wonder sometimes if my prayers should be mostly relational/conversational, and hardly at all requestional. It is not a priority to me. Perhaps I have just not made it a priority. But why haven’t I? I’m a pastor doggone it! If anyone should have prayer as a priority it should be me. Now I feel sufficiently guilty for my intermittent prayerlessness. I do believe that if there is one thing that I put off today to do tomorrow, it should not be prayer. Prayer should be the foundation of my day, of my ministry, of my life. Not sure where that leaves me. I’d better start doing… better! If I were honest with myself and you, I would say those five reasons are truer than I care to admit. I want to grow in this area of prayer, because I really do believe that prayer is our first priority as pastors. I want to believe it so much that I never "forget to pray". So this week, our topic here at 200churches.com is going to be prayer. On Wednesday our podcast will focus directly on how, as pastors, we handle this area of prayer. Then on Friday, we will have a concluding post on our way forward, and how we might positively embrace our relationship with Jesus through prayer. I hope that we are all encouraged and inspired to enjoy this gift of prayer – talking to the one who loves us most! Remember, no matter the size of your church, your godly, and prayerful leadership of your church family matters HUGE in the Kingdom of God! |
Welcome to the 200churches blog! We have hundreds of posts covering every issue imaginable. So pull up a chair, pour a cup of coffee, and stay awhile.
|