On Monday of this week Brandon Cox from Pastors.com posted an article I had written for their site. It’s called – Pastoral Secrets Lead to Pastoral Sickness. As pastors, there are certain things that we just don’t want to admit to people. Sometimes, the things we hide and fail to reveal about ourselves, are the very things that will connect us, even endear us, to our congregation. Our people need to know that we fail, suffer disappointments and setbacks, and even struggle with our faith at times.
The enemy of effectiveness in ministry is perceived pastoral perfection. We should never spread that myth! I had a pastor as a kid who always tried to do everything appropriately, as a good pastor would. He wife was the ever dutiful, appropriate, if not adequate, pastor’s wife. Heaven forbid that something should be amiss in their lives or “ministry”. This myth of perfection and appropriateness was not helpful for us as a church family. We could never attain to this level of appropriability that they reached. (I just invented a new word! Everyone, use it as much as you can in the next month!) Take a look at that post at Pastors.com. Pastoral secrets, regarding our weaknesses, faults, failures, or sins are never helpful or constructive, nor are they instructive, for the people in our churches. Just be a person. Don’t be perfect, or perfectly appropriate. Perfect pastors are not normal. Be normal. Church people love normal. Tomorrow we talk with Karl “The Shark” Vaters about The Astonishing Power of Small Churches: Over One Billion Served. That’s on episode #78 of the 200churches Podcast!
The 200 Barrier. Just seeing those words strikes fear into the hearts of small church pastors. Did you shake in your boots a bit when you saw that? Did you feel inadequate? Guilty? Like you just can't cut it?
WELL DON'T! You are doing Kingdom work. You are making a difference in people's lives. You are leading a church that is important to God. You are not defined by the number of people in your congregation and you are definitely not less-than because you haven't broken a so-called barrier.
Today on the Podcast, we talk with Karl from NewSmallChurch.com about the dreaded 200 barrier and why 80% of churches will never get past it. In fact, we are discussing the content of one of Karl's essential 12 blog posts, #6 - The Surprising Reason 80% of Churches Will Never Break the 200 Barrier.
As usual, Karl is full of encouraging thoughts for small church pastors. Karl encourages us to see ourselves the way God does, rather than letting the church-growth mentality drag us down. Maybe the most poignant thing Karl brings up is the real reason he (and most of us) will never cross the 200 barrier: we stink at running systems and being administrators. Karl knows that he is a gifted teacher, counselor and peacemaker, but none of those skills really translated over into a bigger context. Karl recognizes his strengths and weaknesses and is set free because of it! Instead of deluding ourselves into believing we're something we're not, we could all follow Karl's example of self-awareness which leads to greater fulfillment. It's so easy to get discouraged in the church-growth culture of American Christianity, but our churches need us to stay focused on the positive. That positive is this: God is using small churches across the globe to further His mission and bring people to Christ. Instead of seeing 200 as a barrier, we can see it as an opportunity to do big ministry in a small context. Instead of thinking about it as a barrier, we can recognize the unique advantages that having fewer than 200 people allows us to have. Finally - we think 200 is juuuuuuuust right. More than that is just too dangerous! :) Check it out...We talked to Kevin Pringle on the 200churches Podcast last Wednesday about.... burnout! I took it to heart this week, when I missed my usual Friday blogpost. I am about 70% through my spring semester of three courses, family is busy, church ministry is active, and I have too many irons in the fire, again. Some people have to learn the hard way. When one of my kids called with car trouble on the way home for the Easter weekend, I needed to leave and miss my usual Thursday night foray into the Friday blogpost. Wow, it's been a busy weekend. On a normal day, I would have just made it happen somehow, even from my phone. But it's not been normal lately.
So, I thought, before going to bed on Easter eve, I would just write a very, very short post and say that this is one of the ways one avoids burnout - you just have to scale back when life starts to overwhelm. Sometimes you cannot, but when you can, do it. I'm glad I did. This week we will be talking with Dave Jacobs, the Pastor's Coach. I think we are going to get a lot more good coaching from him and I can't wait. I need it! Happy Easter! Have a wonderful and life-changing Resurrection Sunday! Years ago I had a secret. A secret so shameful, that I could not tell anyone. At the time, it just wasn’t done. It was a secret that wasn’t spoken about at dinner parties, and a problem you were expected to solve on your own. I had carried the secret for years, and it was making me sick. DO YOU HAVE A SECRET?
Pastor, do you have a secret you wish you didn’t have? Is it one that you don’t want anyone else to ever discover? Are you getting tired of hiding this part of you, of masking over the pain and the shame? Is it a secret that only you and your husband or wife know about? Or, maybe, they don’t even know? Is your secret making you sick? One of the secret weapons against secrets is also one of the secret weapons against sin. That weapon is… the light of day! Your secret only has power because it’s a secret. As long as it’s a secret, it has control over you. Once you shine the light of day on it, it loses its power and hold on you. Once you tell your secret to another person, you share the burden of it, and it begins its descent into irrelevancy. God does not want us pastors to carry secrets. They lead to shame, guilt, lies, holding our cards close to our vest, etc. God doesn’t want us doing ministry alone, and he certainly doesn’t want us carrying our burdens, our secrets, alone. Maybe it’s time for you to come clean, to share your secret with a trusted friend or mentor. Maybe you need to share the burden of it with another, and to get help. When you tell your secret, it’s like a new car immediately after you drive it off the show room floor, it’s drops in value big time! A shared secret loses its teeth, and releases its bite on you. BACK TO MY SECRET... Back to that secret I had years ago. Dear God. I carried that thing around, with my wife’s help, for years. We sweat over it, prayed about it, tried our hardest to fix it, and did make some progress. In fact, we made a good deal of progress. But we bore it in silence, and in secret, hoping no one would find out. If they did, they would think less of us, perhaps consider us unworthy of ministry. When it was time for us to move to a new ministry, I decided I would open up and let our new church leaders know up front what my situation was. I was almost sick over it, no, I was sick over it! I wasn’t sure they would want me. I’ll never forget the call. It was a special call I made before I came to candidate. I was honest and open. I shared my secret. To my shock, and delight, it was a nonstarter. “Is that all you got?” they said. I was floored, and felt a ton of weight being lifted off my shoulders. “Has it been difficult?” they asked. “Yes” I said. “Then good, we want a pastor who has been through the ringer and knows what it’s like. We want a pastor who has crashed and knows what it means to get up and keep going. We’re on your side, we’re in this together.” After we hung up, I sat there in my van, staring at my cell phone, weeping. This is what grace is. I finally experienced it. Grace. Love. Acceptance. Jesus. This is the body of Christ. What was my secret, you ask? I’ll never tell! LOL. You see, you don’t have to tell everybody your secret for your burden to be lifted. You just have to tell the right person or persons. Paul said, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” James said, “confess your sins one to another, that you may be healed.” If I told you, you would say, “oh yeah, that” and move on to the next thing. No big deal. But it was huge to me, because I had no one to help me carry it. What secret are you carrying? Can I scream it? Here I go – FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, BARE YOUR BURDEN! TELL SOMEONE! SHARE YOUR SECRET! And watch it lose its power, and feel the weight lifted off your shoulders. Then understand what Jesus meant about finding “rest for your soul.” OUR GIFT TO YOU This Wednesday, on the 200churches Podcast, episode 64, we talk with John Lynch about our pastoral health. We talk to him about what it’s like to be honest with someone else, nothing hidden. If you have secrets that are making you sick, don’t miss this episode. We love you Pastor, and we want to bring hope and encouragement to you this week. So, today, this one’s for you! For all the men and women out there pastoring small churches – we love you! You bear the burdens of others, carry the water for the ministry, and often go un-thanked and unnoticed. So from Jeff and Jonny today – THANK YOU! Hey, we noticed. We’re two of you! We know. It’s a new week. If you need Wednesday’s episode – we offer it to you as our gift of encouragement and support. Happy Monday. Now, go get ‘em! Pastor, if your people knew the worst about you, would they still want you to be their pastor?? Here’s a question, is there someone in your church who, if they did know the worst about you, would still love you and support you as a brother or sister in Christ? Pastors can often languish in the prison of secrecy, believing that if people knew the real them, they would be rejected and expelled from their leadership position. Is this not the real definition of stress?! You must hide yourself so well from your people, because if your people found out what and who you really are on the inside, they would run?
What if the worst really is that bad? Who can you tell? Who can you trust with the truth? How is it that pastors are supposed to get help? What if you are in deep in a situation and you need someone to talk with, confidentially, so that you could get out? This is what next week’s podcast is about. It’s about living grace. Grace that lives. Grace that is so real, and so much from Jesus, that it actually lives, and gives you life. Go back and listen to episode 61, with our friend John Lynch. If you’ve already listened, listen again. Then get ready for episode 64, which is the conclusion of our conversation. In the meantime, go ahead and buy the Kindle version of The Cure. You can find it here. Read it, and listen to these episodes, #61 already on iTunes, and #64 which will be released this coming Wednesday. Pastor, if you’re in trouble, help is on the way. This week we have tackled the topic of the pastor's soul care. And, this week, I (Jeff) have experienced the proverbial "death by a thousand paper cuts" in regards to my ministry soul. More than a dozen comments and conversations that, by themselves, would be fairly benign, have all landed in this week, and bundled together have dragged my soul down and caused my ministry enthusiasm and passion to wane. I realized this was happening today, and I consciously determined I should figure out what to do about it. How could I restore my soul to a place of energy and passion in my pursuit of shepherding the flock - loving, leading, and teaching the people in my church? I realized tonight that I used 5 ways to nurture my pastoral soul:
1. I talked about it. This morning I had a significant conversation with my wife. After that, but just prior to Jonny and I having our final major prep session for our Sunday message, I shared my thoughts with him. It worked. My thoughts did disentangle themselves as they passed through my lips. My wife and my associate helped me to make sense of them as well. I was not crazy alone, I had two others join me! 2. I prayed about it. Talking to God allowed me to have some perspective on those "thousand paper cuts." Prayer reminds me who I am serving, who I am loving, who is helping and empowering me in ministry, and that I really should never rely on my own abilities or strengths - but his. 3. I disconnected those dozen comments/conversations. When all clumped together, they seem formidable and ugly, like a pack of wild dogs intent on taking me down. But when I mentally disconnect them, separate them, and put them into perspective, they lose their power. It's not as bad as I thought it was. His comment was hardly so caustic, her email not as biting. 4. I remembered why I was in ministry in the first place. God called me. He wired me for this. He promised to always walk with me through ministry. He pulled me out of an unlikely upbringing, and set my path on serving others, loving God, and giving my life for the Gospel. Sometimes you just have to live the "good news" in the form of patience, long-suffering, humility, and even just being willing to be dumped on now and then. God called me to love people and share truth. Oh yeah, that is why I'm in ministry. It's good to just remind yourself once in a while... 5. This may sound old-fashioned, but I consciously counted my blessings. I have so much to be thankful for, and when I focus on those things more than my "thousand paper cuts" of critical comments and conversations, my attitude changes and my soul is refreshed. In fact, I have EVERYTHING to live for, give thanks for, and get moving for. The question for me is - what am I going to focus on, some critical comments and conversations, or the really important stuff of life? So those are the five things I did to nurture my ministry soul back to vibrancy today. I talked about it, prayed about it, tried to put things in perspective, reminded myself of God's calling on my life, and specifically counted my blessings. How are YOU doing Pastor? Jonny and I hope you are doing well. We hope that you are being reminded again this week that your pastoral SOUL is so important - it's YOU. It's who you are on the inside. It's that beautiful person that God made you to be, to care for his wonderful, precious sheep that he's herded over to your pen for protection and provision. Your soul is the reservoir, the repository, of your ministry energy, pastoral care giving, and preaching/teaching content. Feed it, nurture it, and prioritize it. Take time to sit in wonder of God. Allow him to love you and enthuse you with his grace and power. May your soul bask in the sunlight of the Spirit, and be filled to overflowing with the love and heart of Jesus. Pastor - for this weekend, leave all your talents, gifts, and abilities at home. Go and preach and teach in the power of the Holy Spirit, the heart of Jesus, and the love of the Father. See what God is going to do through you in the lives of your congregation. No matter the size of your church - YOU and YOUR PEOPLE matter huge in the Kingdom of God! This week we are dealing with an issue that brings us grief and pain. Too many 200church pastors, let alone church leaders and members, are embroiled in this every week, some every day. It is a subject that we approach reluctantly, but out of necessity. You want to wear gloves to type about it and take a brain bath after thinking about it. The issue is pornography addiction, and, porn addiction in the church. Any pastor, male or female, who has spent any amount of time online, has at least accidently crossed paths with online pornography. It might be soft porn, but it’s porn. Too many have viewed site after site, and still others are all-out addicted to it. It is heartbreaking because of the pain, loss, and suffering it causes in too many lives. This week we are going to talk about this topic, and we hope that it is encouraging to you if you 1) struggle in this area yourself. If you do, welcome to humanity! We hope we can help you find hope, or, 2) have a close friend or family members who struggles with porn. There is an entire industry committed to your potential, current, or ongoing addiction! Here are some interesting statistics, and again, they are heartbreaking:
Only you can answer the question: “What part does porn play in your life?” This week on the 200churches Podcast, episode 43, we are going to have a conversation with Nathan Stob, the Director of Atlas Ministries, about pornography and pastors. Nathan is involved in the Sexual Wholeness Task Force, a group of professionals in Sioux County, IA who are committed to working together to reduce the instances of addiction to online pornography in their county. The Sexual Wholeness Task Force recently gathered community leaders in the areas of counseling, education, law enforcement, and church leadership. They shared their vision of making a difference and discussed the challenges of addressing this pervasive cultural problem in our communities. We have asked Nathan to talk with us about the problems of porn, the secrets in our society, the dangers to pastors and their families, and the potential hope of overcoming the addiction. This is a really sad podcast for us, around a troubling subject. But it is absolutely necessary for us to talk about this if we are going to move forward in this area of our spiritual commitment. **The above stats come from this site Me. I actually thought of leaving it with just that one word – “me.” Yeah, a one word blog post. Kind of appealing, actually. If you were honest, I bet you would have the same answer to that question – “What is your biggest leadership challenge?” This is the last week of the month, and so this week on the podcast we have Part 3 of our conversation with none other than The Pastor’s Coach himself, Dan Reiland. We talk about a number of local church leadership issues in this podcast that will be sure to challenge you in one or more areas of your 200church leadership.
Part 3 is based on chapters 5 & 6 of Dan’s book, Amplified Leadership – 5 Practices To Establish Influence, Build People, and Impact Others For A Lifetime. If you don’t have this book, we encourage you to pick it up on Amazon, either in paper or on Kindle. The principles in this book fit very well with the leadership challenges of 200church pastors. Back to my biggest leadership challenge - me. If I could control what I do every day, I could control my destiny. Sounds easy enough, right? Sure thing. All I need is discipline. John Maxwell said “The secret of your success is found in your daily agenda – what you do every day.” Isn’t that the truth! But isn’t that also the problem? Because –
So – what is the answer? Well, if I had the answer (other than what the 482 ministry leadership books already written say) I could, as they say, make a lot of money! I know this – part of the answer is to 1) Be truthful about our struggles and challenges, and 2) Stay in the game. Be honest with one other leader you trust, and who cares about you unconditionally. We need another we can be totally open and vulnerable with! Oh yes we do! Too many pastors are on the solo route, avoiding that personal, fully transparent, face to face encounter with rationalization after rationalization. As Bob Neuhart said, “Stop it! Just stop it!” Make it happen – if you are having problems, get help. Do. It. Now. And, for the Kingdom’s sake, stay in the game! Don’t quit. Take time off, go on a retreat, sleep in, get counseling… but stay in the game. It’s always too soon to quit. (I know, I know, hyperbole yes, but you get my point…) So, are you your greatest ministry leadership challenge? Don’t quit, and seek out someone you can talk to. Ministry leaders fail in isolation and loneliness. Don’t be that woman or man. If you’re going to be your greatest ministry leadership challenge – then also be your greatest ministry leadership asset to meet that challenge. We’re looking forward to meeting you on Wednesday’s podcast, Episode 42 – with Dan “the Man” Reiland. Dan Reiland Part 1 Episode 33 Dan Reiland Part 2 Episode 37 So again, here we are, 200chuches, all about encouraging pastors of smaller churches – and this week we've been talking about how to break the 200 barrier. Head scratcher, right? Well, no, not really. Because if we are a 200church only because we never realized that we could start another service, or work on any of those other practices that might help move us beyond the 200-stage, then that’s not good, right?! We need to stretch and grow. If we’re not willing to, then maybe that’s a conversation for another post… But, what if we just aren't equipped to handle the complexity that comes with a 300, 500, or 1,200 member church? What if we’re only 26 or 34 years old, fairly inexperienced yet and we can’t do it? Should we quit and move on, hoping our church can find the “right guy” or the “right lady”? That’s where we say NO.
This is where faith comes in, and a self confidence that comes from believing that God has created you, just the way you are, to serve your church, just the way it is, at just this time in history! None of us is as good as the people who are better than us. (Now, that is a profound statement that you just might have to reread!) Really, we aren't. And that’s okay. My wife did not choose the most handsome hunk of a man for her husband – she did not choose the best guy in the county. There were better. But she chose the guy God created to be her husband, for the rest of her life! Yes, that would be ME! Thank you very much. Your church does not have the best pastor in your denomination, or in your state. They don’t. But they chose you, and better, God chose you to serve and love the people who make up your church. Should you do the best you can? Of course! Should you also rejoice that God created the person of YOU to be the pastor to THEM at just this time in all of their lives? Yes! This is another case where it is a yes and yes. Yes you should get better and be passionate for reaching people in your community with the Gospel! And yes you should accept who you are, serve to your potential, and trust God with the rest. Just do your best, and trust God with the size of your church. For whatever reason, God chose guys named Jeff and Jonny to love and serve the people of our church for just this time in the life of our church. We GET to serve! We LOVE serving! And we are accepting of our weaknesses, and undulating in our abilities at the same time. (you might have to look that word up!) Pray this prayer with me, would you? “God, thanks for making me just like I am. I accept your wisdom in my calling here at my church. I also trust in your power in me to shepherd these people, and reach out to this community. My calling is from you and I commit myself to you and these people – in ministry and Kingdom service. Use me. I love you. Amen!” Last thoughts: We are so excited with the upcoming episodes we have to share with you! We have some great guests lined up, and great content and conversations we know will encourage and inspire you as you pastor a phenomenal 200church! If you haven’t yet, subscribe to both our blog and podcast, and we would be honored to walk alongside you in ministry. This week our theme has been strengths and weaknesses. We introduced it on Monday and talked about it on our podcast on Wednesday, outlining eighteen reasons why they both make our ministry what it is. Now, there are two final steps you must take to leverage both your strengths and your weaknesses. The first step is to provide a crystal clear answer to these two questions:
Maybe you've never actually put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, to list them. You may need a close friend or spouse to help you with this. Everyone has strengths, and everyone has weaknesses. Having them is not the question – you have both! The question is, what, exactly, are they? So list the top three. How about this, I’ll go first – deal? Here are mine: Strengths: 1) Relationality. I am a highly relational person. I connect easily and put people at ease in my presence. 2) Communication. I know how to communicate with people in small and large groups. 3) I have the gift of service. I love to serve people and help others. Weaknesses: 1) Administration. I am not a good organizer of details. I live in the moment and tend to forget last hour. 2) I am a people pleaser. This is the dark side of the gift of service. I like to make others happy. 3) I often lack sustained focus or follow-through. I lose interest, get busy with something else, and drop projects before they are completed. There you go. That’s me. The good, bad, and ugly. (well, mostly ugly…) Now, where are your lists? C’mon, just take a couple minutes and list those six areas. As I look at my six, it occurs to me that I probably should find out what to do about them! What should I do with my strengths? What should I do about my weaknesses? This brings us to the second step: Figure out how both of those lists inform what you do. If we don’t understand how those things affect us, we will never prioritize our lives in ways that build up the Kingdom of God, and bring us fulfillment and joy. When I was a young pastor, I had no idea I had any weaknesses, and thought that anything that had to do with ministry, must be a strength of mine. In fact, I never considered my weaknesses, nor had I ever doubted that I was strong in every ministry area. When someone would point out a weaknesses or flaw to me, or suggest that I might not be good at some aspect of ministry, I would get defensive. I truly believed that if those critiques were true, they threatened my staying power in ministry. So, step two, what to do about them? Let’s answer in a very general way, and then you can apply it to your specific strengths and weaknesses. First, you should work on your strengths, and in your strength areas. These are the areas where you are already naturally good, and can get really great if you work on them. Second, you should bring others around you who are strong in your weak areas, and let them help you. After all, you are naturally not good in these areas, and you will likely never be great in them. Remember, this is how God wired you, so get others involved and lean on them. I work on loving and caring for people, my public and private communication, and serving and helping others. I am really good in these areas. At the same time I try to find others to help me organize and plan. I try to have the people closest to me alert me when they see me caving in to others, just to please them. And I build teamwork with others who will insist I follow through to the end of a project. Go ahead and list your strengths and weaknesses – investing effort and work in your strength zones, and allowing others to shore up your weaknesses. Finally, rejoice in the way God made you! David said “fearfully and wonderfully” about how we were made (Psalm 139) and that God knows us fully, because he made us. Nothing is hidden from him. If he had wanted me to be a wiz-bang administrator, he would have made me one! Well, I’m not one, and that’s okay. The way God designed you is okay too, in your 200church, with the people you have, for such a time as this. How have you seen God use both your strengths and your weaknesses in your 200church ministry? |
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