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...What if God isn’t who you think he is, and neither are you? That is the subtitle to the book, The Cure, which our guest from last week’s podcast authored – John Lynch. BUT, this week we will talk with Karl Vaters from NewSmallChurch.com about megachurches, and our attitude toward them. Our point will be that NewSmallChurch.com and 200churches.com, while cheerleading small church pastors and their churches, are not out to bash or trash the Biggee Big Churches! So, let’s take The Cure’s subtitle and adjust it a bit to make it the subtitle to this week’s podcast, episode 65: What if your church isn’t what you think it is, and neither are you?! Did you think that your church, because it’s small, is not quite as important or significant as the larger church? Maybe you thought that your church is not as valuable to the Kingdom as First Megachurch across town.
Have you considered yourself not quite as valuable or vital to the Kingdom of God because you only pastor 50, 150, or 300 people? I mean, you don’t command a staff of 23 or 230, so your ministry is kind of small fry compared to the Big Boys, right? Of course. You’re somebody, but you could easily be replaced. You’re not nobody, but you’re only a notch or to above it. Well, what if your church isn’t what you think it is, and neither are you?! What if your church was significant, vital, valuable, important, and key to what God is doing in your community? What if, without your church, scores or hundreds of people would be without Christ over the past two decades, Christian families would be pagan, and missionaries wouldn’t have been sent to the field? What if your church is the central location of how God is showing love to your neighborhood? What if you were an important and substantial force for good in your community as a Christian pastor and leader? Maybe the children of your church are forming what will be a lifelong love and respect for God and his Word because of how you interact with them and lead their parents and your congregation? What if you knew that future pastors, missionaries, godly business leaders, neighborhood evangelists, teachers, doctors, scientists, or national leaders were growing up in your church right now, and that you were having an enormous influence on the way that they will love and lead in the future? What if comparing your church to the megachurch was like comparing a tire to an engine, or a social worker to a brain surgeon? All four of them are much needed and important, but they all have different responsibilities and functions. They really cannot be compared. If you were a social worker, should you spend most of your time feeling inferior to the brain surgeon? No! You should spend your time helping people find answers and solutions and making their lives better. If you were a tire, should you stare endlessly in envy toward the engine? No! You should keep your grip on the road and maintain the fine looking machine you’re carrying. Are you a pastor? Is your church a real church? Is it a group of Christ-followers joined together for the purpose of worshiping God, growing spiritually, serving others in love, and reaching the lost with the Gospel through message, care, mercy and justice? Then stand tall! On Wednesday, I hope we are able to get you to think about your church differently, and about yourself as a pastor with pride and pleasure at what you can do in the Kingdom of God. And we won’t bash the megachurches. We love them! And we love the medium, large, and biggie big churches too! Happy Monday pastors. We get to do this. Monday, Monday. Oh boy. How are we doing Pastors? Back in the ‘60s, the Mamas and the Papas cut a 45 record with the title: Monday, Monday. Ironically, here are some of the lyrics: Every other day, every other day Every other day of the week is fine, yeah. But whenever Monday comes - but whenever Monday comes You can find me crying all of the time. You really should listen to it here while you read the rest of this post!
Some pastors find themselves depleted and drained on a Monday. I think they are the pastors who are more introverted by nature. If you’re introverted, or lean that way, the weekend just drains you. You have to be around people all day on Sunday, likely on Sunday evening – and by Monday, Monday, you’re just out of gas. You need to be alone and recharge. Other pastors find themselves energized on Mondays. They’re the more extroverted type. They feed off the power of people and relationships and crowds – even small crowds. They have six days until the next Sunday, lots of time to prepare, and they are riding a high from all of the social interaction of Sunday. This category, the extroverts, would be me and Jonny. In fact, we like being around people all the time. We don’t like being alone. Solitude is draining to us. On Saturdays we are tired. We can’t wait until Sunday morning and evening, when we are going to be with the masses, again, even the small masses. No matter which you are, sometimes Monday finds us “crying all of the time.” We replay defeats in our mind from the day before – the critical church leader, the disruptive student, the ungrateful, complaining parent, the person who didn’t show up for the third Sunday in a row, the piece of technology that did not work as planned, you name it, you fill in the blank. These days, these Mondays, these are the times when we remind ourselves of two things: 1. Who we are serving. 2. Why we signed up for ministry. 3. That we wanted a life of significance. 4. And that even Moses and Jesus experienced follower problems! Okay, so I can’t count. I got inspired. Will you allow me to focus you a bit? 1. You and I are serving Jesus, the KING of all the universe, who called us to make disciples of all ethnicities, and share his GOSPEL OF GRACE with real lost, and real found people every day. Both the believers and the unbelievers need that grace, because Jesus bought it for us, and gave it to us to pass out with reckless abandon! 2. We signed up for this gig because we felt God tugging, yeah, yanking on our heart – to step forward and say, “here I am Lord, send me!” We enlisted because God asked us to, and well, since he asked, we couldn’t refuse. 3. We wanted our lives to be significant! We didn’t want to do ANYTHING ELSE! We could have. We could have gotten a degree in so many different vocational areas, but we chose ministry because we care about people, just like Jesus did, and we wanted to give 100%, our full time effort, to nurturing peoples’ faith. 4. Yes, even Moses and Jesus did not have a 100% retention rate. Why, Moses saw whole crowds of people swallowed up into fiery holes in the earth! Kind of wish you could… I mean, never mind. Anyway, Jesus saw crowds walk away from him and his message, and He was God! Don’t feel bad if people reject you, react to you, or simply walk away from you. You’re in good company. Oh, Monday, Monday – ya gotta love this day! C’mon, listen to it one more time, especially if you’re over 50, just for old time’s sake – then get up and get to work. You work for the KING, and you’ve got significant stuff to do. Your ministry matters so much in God’s Kingdom as he builds his church and uses you. This week at 200churches we have talked about church boards. On Monday we encouraged you to give your boards some slack, they’re people too. On Wednesday’s podcast episode 58 we talked with Dave Jacobs about what to do with a dysfunctional church board. As we close out the week, we want to share with you what we think is the #1 thing that church boards need, after their relationship with God and His Word. What is the #1 need of a healthy church board?
You might say it’s unity. You’d be close! Unity is so important. You might also think wisdom, direction, integrity, godliness, and teamwork, and they would all be good characteristics as well. As would courage, decisiveness, perseverance, and love! But the #1 thing a good church board needs is… (drum roll please…) a good pastor! You want good board members, right? You want good Sunday School teachers, small group leaders, tech people, sound engineers, and worship leaders. And your board members want and need a good pastor! Finally, what is the #1 character quality of a good pastor, that the board members need? That would be… LOVE! When they look at you, they should see love. When they interact with you, they should experience someone who loves them. Love tells the truth, even if it hurts. Love is patient and kind. Love never keeps a list of wrongs. Love works for the best of the one loved. When Jeff was a kid he had a pastor who he felt truly loved him. This guy was not the best preacher, administrator, or leader, but Jeff felt loved by him. He invited him to his home for meals, took him fishing, and even asked him to help him in his full time ministry. This man wasn’t the perfect pastor, but his love for the people covered over a multitude of his sins. Commit to the LORD your church. Trust him to heal and grow your people. All you have to do is love them. Love your board, and love your people. After all, Jesus said love was the greatest commandment. It’s for the LORD, and for the people. What can you do this weekend to love your boards? How can you model love for them? They need a healthy, godly pastor to encourage them and grow them. Your leadership and shepherding in your 200church will matter huge in God’s Kingdom! I (Jeff) talked with an old college buddy today. It was soooo good! We were in the same dorm on campus a mere 30 years ago. When I got married, he was pastoring a small church near our campus, so my wife and I attended there. I had no idea I would be the pastor of that church within months. My friend decided it was time to move to a different ministry. We were just college students, and he was graduated, so – time to go! After he left they asked me to take over for a while. Yeah. For three years! It was a small church. The smallest crowd I had was two people… plus me. The largest? Fifty! The lowest of lows and the highest of highs – ah, the memories!
Since then, my friend has served in at least four churches, two as senior pastor. He took a church of 150 to 500, but then experienced an ending that was not happy. No sin, just one of those ministry stories that ends tough. I talked with another pastor the other day who planted a church and “grew it” to over 300. Today it’s at 100 and he wonders how he should feel about it all. Another pastor I recently visited with said 100 in attendance would be pushing the walls out! Jonny and I are happy to be pushing up past 200 in our church these days, but not consistently. Of course, our church is a special situation. (aren’t they all??) Are you crazy yet? Or have blogs like ours and NewSmallChurch.com encouraged you to think that maybe you are just alright after all? I think I’m not crazy anymore, no longer like the walking dead, fixated on a number and staggering mindlessly toward it. I think I’m learning how to just love God and love my people. I love my wife and kids too, and in moments of weakness, I even feel some semblance of fondness for Jonny. Soon on the podcast, we will be joined by Karl “The Shark” Vaters from NewSmallChurch.com. We’ll be talking with him about the subject of his second Essential post titled “Your Church IS Big Enough.” That's an obnoxious title, right? I mean, if there is one person in your community without Christ, then your church ISN’T big enough, right? Well, here I think is a perfect time to decide what the word “is” is. Really now. Today your church IS big enough. Tomorrow, if a person is seeking God and attends your church for the first time, it’s STILL big enough! Now I’m confused. So – I’m looking forward to talking with Karl and Jonny about this soon. We’ll be looking to drill down on this a little. I’m looking for some perspective that goes deeper than the title, but something that we all need to hear and learn. Because even though we think we’re okay, we must always remind ourselves whose church it is, who we are, and why in the world we are even doing this thing called “pastoring”. Were we crazy or what signing up for this life?! Hey, have a phenomenal weekend! And please, I will if you will – on purpose, intentionally, and with firm resolve – LOVE your people. They need you pastor, that’s why God gave you to them. Now LOVE them with all your heart. Be extra nice to them this weekend. Stop to say hi, give a touch, and a sincere smile. Or, maybe just STOP. BE with them. Hey, we get to do this – we will all have people to teach, encourage, challenge, and love this weekend. Let's go for it! When I was 17 years old, I got both my driver’s license and a car. My mother bought a new car, and gave me her old one. I was the proud recipient of a 1973, mint green, Chevy Impala 9-Passenger Station Wagon. It was a kid-cruiser, a grocery-getter. And it also took a four-lane highway to do a U-turn… unless that turn was on solid ice. My next car was a German Opel. It was small. I could get into, and out of, the smallest of parking spaces, and I could do a U-turn on a sidewalk. Well, almost. I found out that when it comes to cars, the smaller the car, the easier and quicker the turns. For the record, I’ve never owned, driven, or even seen – a Lamborghini! What’s true for cars is also true for churches. The smaller the church, the easier and quicker the turns. If you pastor a small church, you are able to change things quickly, often on the fly. That is a perk every small church pastor should enjoy, and utilize.
It happened to me, and for me, this morning. Jonny and I spent a fair amount of energy preparing a tag team message for this weekend. We invested prayer, discussion, debate, a short shouting match, and much study into this message. We achieved some serious spiritual and emotional focus. We practiced it on Saturday night, and went home prepared, and excited, having asked God to do his work on Sunday morning, the work we could not do. WHAT HAPPENED... On Sunday morning I taught a Membership Class with 15 people from 8:30 – 10:00am. Our service starts at 10:30. At 9:55am, as I was landing the “Membership Class plane”, Jonny walked in and whispered in my ear, “we’re headed to Sioux Falls.” That meant he was leaving right then, at the last minute, to tend to an emergency situation. He quickly turned and walked out, waiting for no reply from me. He didn’t need one. He would not be with me to give the message. Could I do it myself? I sure could. No problem. But we had a special guest with us this weekend. He had spoken to some adult classes in the auditorium during the 9:00 Sunday School hour. He was phenomenal. “God, are you giving me an opportunity here?” I wondered if God was allowing this guest and me to, last minute, tag team the morning service together? At 10:20 I met with this man, Eric, in my office – ten minutes, mind you, before the service would start. He agreed with me that the Holy Spirit was leading us to do the service together. He was so ready in his heart to share with our people in this "moment". Our prepared message would wait another week. Eric and I were on! After talking with the morning service coordinator at 10:25, Eric and I spent five minutes in prayer, asking God to use this service to minister to the people who were there. There were just over 200 people in the service this weekend – hence, our “200church.” J THE RESULT... Eric shared passionately about his commitment to orphan care in Nigeria, his native country. He talked about what God was doing through his orphanage there, the Cornerstone of Hope. I played a somewhat cameo role, but was able to tie in his passion with the theme of our current series. It was a fantastic service. Truthfully, I left a lot of details about this weekend out of this blog post. It was really an amazing weekend, in both good, and difficult ways. But throughout Sunday morning I was so aware of God directing us, and the size of our church helping us pull off some necessary and wonderful last minute changes. In a 1973 Family Wagon Church, I would never have been able to pull off changing the service in literally five minutes, but in my Lamborghini Church it was not only possible, but fun! In our 200churches, we can do this. It is a pleasure and a privilege. I enjoyed it and am thankful for it. We pulled it off, and people were blessed. HOW ABOUT YOU? Pastor, are you thankful, or resentful, for your small church? You can focus on the positives, or the negatives. Choose to focus on the positives – the benefits, the opportunities, and the blessings of small church ministry. When you do that, you will BLESS your people! Your Lamborghini church is making a difference in the Kingdom of God! As a young boy, I (Jeff) experienced the social, psychological, and financial disadvantages that accompany having a father who was an alcoholic. My dad is the best guy on earth! He is loving, caring, and thinks the best about others. But alcohol robbed him of reaching his potential in life. As a 40 year old man and father of four, he visited a young pastor, reaching out for help in his addiction to alcohol. This was likely one of the most difficult encounters of my father’s life. He had to admit weakness, admit he needed help. The pastor meant well, but he was bewildered as to how to help my dad. He talked with him, but never followed up, never figured out a way to reach out to the man who reached out to him. There was not a second conversation. Dad came up dry and never reached out to another “church person” again.
Four years later, that pastor was gone, and another was in his place. My family did not regularly attend church, and dad never did. We had just moved to another town, and did not yet have a phone installed. My mom’s mother died, and the pastor drove the 30 minutes to my home to tell us. He came into my bedroom, asked me to sit down, and then sat next to me. He told me my grandmother had died the day before. He put his arms around a 12-year-old boy who could not stop crying. I have never forgotten his kindness. Both of those events in our family’s life, as our family’s story was intersected by the single act of a pastor, had profound implications on how we viewed God, the church, and ourselves. My father was disillusioned, and has never attended a church to this day. I was profoundly impacted by a pastor’s shepherding love, and that care has impacted my own pastoral ministry for the past 26 years. On any given day, the actions we take can make a difference in someone’s life – for decades to come. We can, like Charlie Brown, be the hero, or the goat. If we are the goat, it doesn’t help much to rationalize away our actions by telling ourselves we were just having a bad day. We don’t get a mulligan, a do-over. The damage is done. If we are the hero, we can thank God that the events of the day are the reason we were born – to help people in their deepest times of need. Bill Hybels says ministry is not a “life or death deal.” In fact, he says that it’s an “eternal life, or eternal death deal.” Ministry, and how we perform it in the actions, attitudes, and words of our day – well, the stakes are always extremely high! With so much hanging on how we interpret scripture, how we counsel, the decisions we make, how we respond to both praise and criticism, how we handle an emotionally unstable person, an irate church member, or a grieving individual, and how we decide to spend our time, and on what priorities – all of these things are accompanied by what Paul described like this: “Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.” 2 Corinthians 11:28 Pastor, for these very reasons, your “job”, your calling, your vocation in life IS much harder, much more stressful, than other peoples’ jobs. Yes it is. If you goof it up, you might be the cause of two children in a family becoming disconnected from the body of Christ, and moving away from God and into the arms of the world. Yeah, that can happen, or any other negative consequence of careless ministry you can imagine! You say it is all up to God, but no, your dumb mistake, or careless word can cause lasting damage. The older you get, the more weight you will carry (sometimes literally!) with people, and the more important your words and actions become. That is very stressful, and a heavy burden we carry every day, even when we are not consciously thinking about it. So, you have to take care of yourself. How are you doing? Are you healthy, rested, in shape, and ready for the long haul? Again, how are YOU doing? This week on episode 44 of the 200churches Podcast, we talk with Dave Jacobs, who for seven years has been a life coach for dozens of pastors. He spent almost thirty years in ministry, and then transitioned to helping primarily pastors of smaller churches – 200church pastors! He lives and works at www.smallchurchpastor.com. We have a great conversation with him, and one of the major themes is how the pastor needs to care for herself or himself. He uses the oxygen mask illustration and reminds us that we can only care for others, after we’ve first cared for ourselves. Pastor, when it comes to your own personal physical, spiritual, and emotional health, the question is: Do you care? What are some ways that you care for yourself in the rigors of ministry? I miss the voice of Paul Harvey on the radio, who would say, “Hello Americans, it’s Frrriiiiday.” That one voice went out over the airwaves for 70 years and literally created radio news and commentary. He was one of the most well-known radio men ever at the time of his death in February 2009. Voices are not influential only on radio, but also in the local church. I’ve heard this “seven people” stat for many years, and recently I read a post by Dr. Jim Meyer that said this: “Regardless of church size, when push comes to shove, most pastors leave a church because of a group of 7-10 individuals.” Having been a pastor for more than 25 years, I can attest to the accuracy of this statistic.
When I am really feeling discouraged and worn out, I intentionally list the people that I feel are working against what I am trying to accomplish in my church. Only once was there more than seven people! It’s usually just a handful of people who are critical, and the vast majority of people are doing just fine. Of course, the smaller your church is, the fewer critical people you need to feel you are being attacked. Wouldn’t it be great if we paid as much attention to the happy and/or quiet people as we do to the complaining and/or critical ones? Perspective, outlook, and attitude are all so important for us to control as we lead our 200church. Don’t allow yourself to fall under the influence of just a couple of naysayers. It’s important for you to stay focused on the big picture of what God is doing in your church through you. So, how about you? Are you discouraged today because you feel like a lot of people are against you? Take out a paper and pen and list them. That’s right, scribble down their names. Got more than seven? I doubt it. Now, frame that kind of reality, and allow yourself to feel the affirmation of all of the people in your church who are thankful for you and thrilled you are their pastor. That’s it, now you’re feeling a little better! Today a member was in my office and did something that was very uncharacteristic – she praised the Lord, our church, and my pastoral ministry! How unusual – people more often stop by to lodge a complaint or “concern.” This lady told me what my ministry in my 200church meant to her and to her family. How encouraging! If you feel like the walls are closing in around you, get out of your office, take a run or a drive, or just a walk, and feel the sunshine and smell the outdoors. God is bigger than you, your ministry, or the complaints of naysayers. They may even be right, and we need to discern that so that we can learn, but we should not allow complainers to muffle the call of God in our lives to pastor and shepherd God's people. It only takes 7 people to get you discouraged in your role as a pastor - don't let them! Stay confident, be hopeful, and expect God to work through you. Don't start counting those people until they number 8 - then you can get serious about finding the cause of the raucus! Next week we talk about the scourge of pornography and its effects on our communities, and even pastors! Like tens of thousands of others, I attended the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit this past week, August 8-9, 2013. This event was pure Leadership Concentrate! It reminded me of the frozen orange juice concentrate that my mother used to buy. It came in a small can, but you had to mix it with a quart of water, you could never drink the concentrate! That’s the Leadership Summit – you can’t use everything you get there right away, you have to mix it with a lot of time, and practice. I had not attended a Leadership Summit since 2008. Every summer I’ve been on vacation with family in New York during that time. This year I could make it – WOW. I won’t miss another one. Every single session and speaker brought their absolute best thinking and best practice, and I took pages and pages of notes.
The Summit notebook was heavy duty, for which I’m glad; I will be referring to it for a while. I’ve already implemented some learning this weekend in my ministry. I’ve got a lot more to work on over the coming months. I truly cannot give you my “favorite” speaker. Every single one of them brought such great and different content, and I personally needed it all. One Learning I Took Away From The Summit Let me mention just one learning I took away, from Dr. Henry Cloud on day two. He said, “the hardest thing that a leader has to be ridiculously in charge of is him or herself.” And, he said that the greatest determination to the success of a leader is whether or not they think they can succeed. He cited a study that revealed that the “lower ability” employees, who nonetheless believe they can win and succeed, produce more and better than the “higher IQ, or higher ability” employees who have doubts and do not think they can achieve or succeed. In other words, a positive mental attitude and can-do spirit will win the day over intellectual or academic abilities alone. Cloud said, “the #1 factor is this – do you believe it can happen?” Okay, I have to check my mental attitude, my faith, and my determination. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course we believe that it’s God and his power at work in us – of course we do. BUT, we can thwart things on our end and squander even the power of God available to us, by wallowing in self-pity, fear of failure, or negative thinking. He said that a few failures can retrain our brain in a new direction – a negative direction. So I am thinking positively today, exercising my faith in a God who can move mountains, and use even asses to do his bidding. I want it to be true of me that “I believe it can happen!” God is willing. Am I? Well, yes, I actually am! Bill, I'm Back! Okay, I am a Hybels junkie from way back that has gotten busy in the last few years with college kids, long distance family, etc. But even I was shocked at the quality of the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit this year. Such good stuff. I’m re-convinced, and recommitted. How To Process The Leadership Event? So how do you process a leadership event? One day at a time! Open the notebook regularly, process your notes, set goals, discuss learnings with others on your team, and ask God to help you be the best YOU that you can possibly be. The goal is not to be more like other leaders; the goal is to learn from other great leaders to be the best leader God wants YOU to be. The Global Leadership Summit is a great event to attend. This Wednesday's 200churches Podcast, Episode 31! On Wednesday, Karl Vaters is joining us for a conversation about small church ministry, on Episode 31 of the 200churches Podcast. We will talk a lot about leadership, belief in God and ourselves when it comes to small church ministry, and even the greatness of the next generation of leaders coming up. Karl is the founder of NewSmallChurch.com, and we are excited to be joining together with him in this episode to encourage pastors of small churches! Did you attend the Summit? What was the most important learning you took away from it? Yesterday I shared the first two, of four ministry lessons I learned by giving blood. They were, 1) Know your people, and 2) Give yourself away. Here are the last two: Focus on the positive.
When you give blood, the first part of the nightmare process is when they stick that little needle in your finger to check your blood. I hate that. Brushing my teeth is more painful, but I still recoil when they take out that 2 millimeter needle and prepare to stick. I just never look. I look away. Then, when they actually put the real needle in your arm, after torturously wiping your anti-elbow with a cold towelette for the obligatory thirty seconds, I never look then either. That’s the rule, don’t look. Focus on the other side of the room, and think about puppy dogs and kitty cats, but never, never watch them stab you with “the needle”. You know, the one that is a minimum of two feet long! In ministry, when the bad stuff happens. Don’t look. Turn away. Focus on Jesus. Think good thoughts. I mean, learn from your mistakes and all, but don’t focus on the negative. When giving blood, as much as I may want to let out a blood curdling scream (no pun intended), I always think about the person who will receive the blood. One time when I gave, they told me that they had someone right then who was going to get my blood. They said they would be driving it off to the hospital and someone who had my exact “antigen” type needed it badly, whatever that meant. That made me so happy. So when the tough ministry times come, don’t focus on them. Serve with joy. Relish the love of God for you and freely give it. Focus on the positive. Go the extra mile. A couple years ago I went to give blood, and the first blood person asked me, “do you want to give a double?” No kidding, she really did! I cringed as I asked if that meant two pints. I did not think you were allowed to give away that much. She said “No, I mean double reds, double red blood cells.” She explained that they take a pint out of you, spin it through a disgronificator (maybe that wasn’t the name), and separate out all your red blood cells, then give the rest of what’s left over back to you, along with a little yum yum solution (maybe that wasn’t the name either) to fill your veins. They do that twice, thus the “double reds”. What they end up with is a clear plastic bag filled with very, very red blood. It takes a little more than twice as long as giving the usual pint of blood. Two days ago I gave “double reds”. I was in and out in an hour. I went the extra mile. Someone is likely happier today, enjoying a little more energy, with all my ironman red blood cells. That again, makes me so happy. I realized that some weeks go by where I only give my expected pint, my “pound of blood”. But the weeks that make me so happy are the ones where I go the extra mile and give double. It is not that much harder, just a little. It does not require that much more effort, just a little. It does not take that much more time, just a little. It does make a difference in someone’s life, actually a very big difference! So, go the extra mile in your ministry this weekend. It might mean one more person to encourage, one more hand to hold, one more call to make, one more encouraging email to send, one more affirmation to share, one more confrontation to engage in, or just one more conversation to have – but, go the extra mile. You’ll be so happy you did! Two days ago, I gave blood. Double, actually… |
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