Hello Pastors. This morning I received an early morning call from a mom who wanted to know if the stuffed animal her daughter received from me last night was a keeper or just on loan… Wow. Yup. Remember my recent blog post about giving stuffed animals to kids? Check it out here if you haven’t read it yet… And yes, it was a keeper! Now, back to the show! By Kareem M (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons Hello Pastors. We like you. Yes, even Jonny. Even Jonny likes you! He told me.
I have just two more things to tell you on this Friday: 1. You are a pastor who is loved by God! That’s right. God loves you as His child, but also as a shepherd to his sheep. Jesus said, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” He loves you. Pure love. True love. LOVE love. Know his love today Pastor. God knows what you are struggling with today. He knows your weaknesses, and he chose you anyway. He knows your heartache and your joy, your insecurities and your slam-dunks, your silly fears and your inexplicable courage. God loves you pastor. He doesn’t expect you to be Superwoman or Superman, but he has filled you with his Spirit of power and ability. Do you think he’s disappointed with you because you’re not better than you are? No, you’re actually the only disappointed one. He knows you and stands with you. C’mon now Rev, just take this one day off from beating yourself up! In fact, take the whole weekend off! God. Loves. You. Yes, God loves the pastor. Just sit in that for a while. Then, when the people come around this weekend, you can share some of that love with them. 2. Your people love you more than you realize! You know God loves you, but your people love you too. And, they really enjoy it when you love on them, brag on them, affirm them, honestly care about how they are doing, visit them, and even when you might need to have a difficult conversation with them. People love, and need, to be cared for, encouraged, supported, cheered on, affirmed, equipped, and even confronted when they are wrong… in LOVE of course. Remember, love is not weak, it is strong and confident – always working for the best of the one loved. When do the people realize how much they love their pastor? When he or she…
In the flow and course of ministry, sometimes our people do take us for granted – and sometimes we take them for granted. But in the important, critical times of life, people need their pastor and realize just how much they are loved by him or her, and just how much they love their pastor! So, my dear pastor friend – you are loved. Not mushy, gushy, meaningless, Valentine candy kind of love. No, real love, from God and from your people. This weekend, be loved… and love. Today, Friday, January 2, 2015 – we are restarting our twice weekly blog posts on Mondays and Fridays. These posts will bookend the Wednesday 200churches Podcast episodes that have not missed a Wednesday in two years! The purpose of these blog posts will be to provide ministry encouragement to pastors of small churches. This has been our focus from the start, and we want to get better at it, and reach more pastors with it, in 2015. As I (Jeff) kick off 2015 with this post, I am forced to remember the year we have just ended. Four significant things contributed to this past year for me personally…
1) My daughter Alissa developed two serious chronic health problems earlier in 2014. 2) My son Joel got married in July. 3) It almost killed me, but I finished a Master’s degree in August. 4) Then, on October 18, my son Douglas suffered a traumatic brain injury in a rollover accident that took the life of one young man, and injured three others. His recovery would consume the next two months of our lives. As of today, January 1, 2015:
Yeah, it’s a good thing we don’t know what 2015 will bring, because if we knew, we might run screaming into the darkness, right?! I will leave it to Jonny to report, or not, on his last year. We have a blast doing ministry together. I can tell you that he continues to prioritize his family – his wife and boys – over ministry. And his ministry is that much better for it! I and our church are better for his ministry in our lives. The Quality and Reach of 200churches Jonny and I have spent much time talking about our church ministry for 2015, but we have also invested some time on plans for 200churches. We have two over-riding concerns: 1. How can we reach more small church pastors? 2. How can we get better at encouraging pastors with our 200churches Podcast and website?! So many of your have communicated to us how encouraging and inspiring the podcast is to your life and ministry. We want more pastors to experience the same thing! Just so we’re clear… our almost primal passion is to HELP small church pastors out there who absolutely need encouragement as they pastor their people in their small church. We care about the men and women who are hurting, isolated, lonely, and desperate in their local church ministry. Working together, all of us can help them – that’s how God has designed the body of Christ, to minister to each other and to build each other up. That is exactly why we ask you to share the podcast on your social media of choice, with your friends, in your pastors’ fellowships, etc. We need to reach more hurting, lonely pastors. What about the pastors who are not hurting and lonely? Well, it’s just a matter of time, right? They will absolutely get to a point in their lives when they will need some major doses of encouragement – and we want to be there for them at just that time. So – two areas of focus for us: 1) Continue to encourage pastors, but do it BETTER! 2) Continue reaching small church pastors, but REACH MORE! So sometime today, how about you: 1) share the 200churches website with another pastor – however you want to. Let’s reach more pastors and in so doing, continue to build the KINGDOM OF GOD. 2) comment on this post and tell us how we can get better at encouraging you in your ministry? What are some areas of life and ministry that you need encouragement in? We love you men and women who pastor the people of God! What you are doing in your local church, no matter the size, matters HUGE to the advancement of God’s Kingdom! See yourself that way – see yourself as a ridiculously loved child of God, equipped with gifts to lead, teach, and shepherd God’s precious people. God loves you and is using you in His Body! See you on Monday. Have a fantastic first weekend of the New Year! God bless you, Pastor!
Jeff and Jonny share a personal message on the very last day of 2014.
They talk about why small church pastors need so much encouragement. The heart of 200churches is to give MINISTRY ENCOURAGEMENT TO PASTORS OF SMALL CHURCHES! Why would they do that? Why would they target small church pastors? In this episode, they explain why. Jeff's son Doug sustained a traumatic brain injury in October and has spent the last ten weeks recovering. Jeff & Jonny's church graciously gave Jeff time off to care for Doug and for his family. Jeff has been very focused on his son's recovery and rehabilitation ever since, but they have kept up the podcast every single week. By the way, Doug is doing great and will return to normal life at college and work in early January, for which they are very thankful to God! Jeff has said that 200churches has continued to be a passion of his and Jonny's even though family and ministry events and surprises continue to come up. They know that all of you go through crises and trials as well, and they have wanted to continue encouraging you as a valuable leader in the Kingdom of God. We at 200churches want to wish all of you a very wonderful and blessed New Year - and we hope that you enjoy and are encouraged by this, Episode 102!
We talked to Karl Vaters from NewSmallChurch.com about his blog post titled, It's Time For Small Churches To Become Great Churches. So many pastors, and even church members, intuitively think that if a church is small, it simply cannot be "great". They assume that there are no great small churches.
Do you think that's true? Do you pastor a small church? Is it a great church? Or, are you absolutely too humble to ever claim that your small church is a great church?! Pastor, when others ask you about the people in your church, does the word "great" ever slip through your lips? It does?! Well then, that settles it, you CAN have a great small church! We say it over and over, we have great people in our church! We can then go on to describe our leadership, then those who serve in our ministries, those who have been around for decades, some who have been around for just a few months or years and have made a huge difference, etc. We think that the people in your church would love to be members of a great church - without needing to attend a megachurch to do it. They should be able to know that their small church can do great things for God and be a great church. Again pastor, it's about self-esteem, perception, and perspective. Who does Jesus say you are? How does the Word of God describe your people? Who indwells the people in your 200church? That's right, Jesus says you're his friends, the Word of God describes your church family as righteous children of the living God, and the Holy Spirit of God indwells every single believer who worships within your walls. THAT, my friends, is a GREAT CHURCH! We hope that you are encouraged to pastor a great small church. Any church, gathering to worship the Living God, and his Son, our Lord Jesus, in the power of the Spirit - should use no less descriptive a word! It's all about how you view yourself, and how you understand God's view of you. Enjoy episode 85 of the 200churches Podcast! BONUS FUN Every once in a while, size is important - like this pizza slice from Two Ton Tony's Pizzeria in New York. While on vacation this month, Jeff took his son and his nephews for lunch - it was reported to be both huge, and delicious! So many times us pastors end up doing ministry alone. We don’t mean to, we’ve just gotten really good at it.
Here are five reasons why we think you should not do ministry alone:
You are facing a new church/school year. You are planning for the fall. You are ramping up for a new ministry year. For the sake of your people and your community, and for the glory of God, don’t do ministry alone! Enjoy the company of the Savior who loves you and wants to live his grace through you – into the lives of your people. Paul said, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20) You are a pastor, a servant of the Living and Almighty God – an ambassador of the Savior of the world. Whoever you have to minister to this weekend, do so with all of your heart. And do it with Jesus. Pastor, our prayer for you is “Father, would you use us this weekend, and would you allow each of us to love our people with the love that you have for us? Please encourage each pastor in the way that he or she needs to be encouraged and built up. May they know the confidence that comes from doing ministry with YOU. Amen!” Recently, in the last few months, we have listened to our podcast and felt like it would be easy for a large church pastor to be somewhat stung by some of the things we have said on the podcast. We don’t like that! WE ARE SORRY
That is not a trick paragraph. We really do not like that. So, we just want to say that sometimes, when we are attempting to encourage and affirm small churches and their pastors, we may inadvertently say things that sound critical of larger churches – and we are sorry! We love all churches. We respect all pastors, of any size church! Jeff has been on staff in churches from thirty to seven hundred. Jonny has served in large and small churches. We love the church. We never want to be critical of large churches, their motives, or their methods; just as we would not want to be critical of small churches and their motives or methods. Being critical is like picking all the low hanging fruit – it’s so easy! Of course there are a lot of things to criticize – that’s life, right? So being critical is not our purpose, and not our focus. Our focus is encouragement. Our intention is that you will never hear us being critical of others – except each other, in jest! Communication is a challenge, and we’ve communicated a lot! So we are going to be extra diligent to screen our language so that we are affirming small church pastors, without sounding down on large churches. The end. HAVING SAID THAT... WE MAKE NO APOLOGY for being focused on PASTORS OF SMALL CHURCHES! We will always believe that small church pastors are on the front lines, battling not against flesh and blood, but against the forces of spiritual darkness, and against wickedness in high places (yes, just like large church pastors!). But, small church pastors often battle on these front lines with little support, few comrades, and great exhaustion. These men and women need encouragement and affirmation, and we love giving it to them, and finding great guests to help us along the way! Check out a previous post/episode where we say we LOVE large churches - with Karl Vaters! This week on episode 84, we share from our hearts about some thoughts and dreams we have as we look ahead for 200churches. As we write this, Jeff has just finished his final assignment, less than 48 hours ago, for his Master’s degree. He will have some more time to dream and invest in 200churches. We look forward to 200churches.com and the 200churches Podcast reaching more and more pastors with encouragement, training, support, of course humor, and tons of affirmation! Happy Monday! (When I was a kid, I attended a very small church. We met in a living room, a mobile home, and then a ranch style building. Today there is a larger church building on a hill at the edge of town – with oh, about 200 people attending. Imagine that.) When I was about ten years old, the church had an outing to a small amusement park in our area. I was very excited to go on the biggest ride in the park – the roller coaster. Excited that is, until I got on it and it crested the first hill! I screamed like a girl until my breath could scream no more. The entire ride found me clutching the youth leader who was next to me, screaming for him to make it stop. Big man I was. To this day I don’t like heights, and I would never go on a roller coaster. As a teenager, to impress my girlfriend, I got on one with her. I closed my eyes and screamed loudly on the inside during the ride. She never knew. I never again went on one… to this day. Ups and downs, ups and downs. Let’s see now… hmmmm, what is like a roller coaster, with all of its ups and downs?? Hey! Pick me, pick me! I know, I know! Yes, Jeffrey? Do you know? I know… “Ministry!” Very good Jeffrey! You get the gold star for knowing the right answer! Just so you know you’re not crazy, Pastor, yes, ministry is full of ups and downs! If you’ve experienced that, don’t worry, you’re normal. Just today I received both compliments and denigration, praise and criticism. Today I was both appreciated and taken advantage of. Today I was both cared for and ignored, understood and misunderstood. Today I was riding high on good things, and then hanging low in the depths of despair. Now, to be fair, today was a little extreme, but it was still just another Sunday, nothing out of the ordinary. As a pastor, you just never know. You’re ready for anything, unless you’re not! Then you get blindsided. I got blindsided today. I said I wouldn’t get blindsided anymore, but I did. I always expect the best, and many times receive the best, but people act like I act sometimes, like a person, a fallen person. I’m just like everyone else, I struggle to encourage others even as I want to be encouraged. But we keep trying, right? So, Pastor, did you ride a little bit of a roller coaster this weekend? You did? Okay, fine then, you’re normal. Tell God about it, let him love you. Tell your husband or wife and perhaps a trusted advisor or friend, and then trust God with both the good and the bad. We’re not like regular people, we’re pastors. We ride the roller coaster, and sometimes we close our eyes and scream inside, but we try not to let anyone know. Sometimes that’s good. We’re pastors, and we’ve committed our lives to making it all about others, not us. There’s good to that. Of course, stay healthy, don’t ignore your needs or your health, but it’s OK to make it about others, and just scream on the inside. J So this seems like a strange post to me, but I somehow feel like all of you pastor friends will understand. The one difference between the roller coasters I don’t ride anymore and the roller coaster that is ministry sometimes is this: I never get off the ministry roller coaster – it is my life calling. I love it. Yeah, so what, sometimes I scream. But I still love it. Wouldn’t want to do anything else. God, help us to LOVE your sheep, just like you LOVE us pastors. They are beautiful and precious to you – and we get to love them, care for them, and feed them. Thank you God. We have a fantastic podcast episode for you this Wednesday with Doug Grogan, the District Superintendent in charge of me and Jonny. Poor man. But he is a man of wisdom, humor, and grace – and has some awesomely wonderful words to share with all of us 200church pastors – this week on episode #79 of the 200churches Podcast!
This post is coming out, very uncharacteristically, on a Tuesday. Family needs precluded us from posting on Monday. We try to NEVER miss a post or podcast on 200churches.com, because we want you as our readers and listeners to trust that you will consistently receive encouragement from 200churches. But we have missed a post just a few times in the past eighteen months. Because, well, you know – life happens, right? We have never missed a Wednesday podcast, and tomorrow will be no exception – we’re excited to bring you a conversation we are having with Dave Jacobs, and also our analysis of his content, and some specific words of encouragement to you as a small church pastor.
We never miss a podcast because we absolutely LOVE providing each episode for you – and with all our hearts we want to BUILD YOU UP as a pastor to your people, your sheep. We know that the episodes we produce contain guests and content that not only equip you, but also entertain and encourage you. So, we never want to miss a Wednesday – we are too excited to share this gift with you. By the way, when we finish an episode, produce it, and upload it to the pipeline, fresh and ready for delivery to you – we think of it as a special gift to you – our small church pastor friends – men and women all over the country and the world (well, at least twelve other countries!). We have labored over it, prayed over it, sometimes we’ve even argued over it – and it is our best work for that week to offer to you. We want to affirm you, cheerlead you, and inspire you for the work and service you give to your church family. In fact, there are more guests and more topics than we have time to get to – we don’t think we’ll ever run out of people to talk with or topics to cover. We have 15-20 guests in the bullpen right now, and we are anxious to get to each one of them. A couple of them have been “on hold” for longer than we are comfortable with – and if you are one of them, thank you! Please be patient with us while we keep our day jobs! So, here we are – small church pastors all! We’re living it with you, every single day. We ride the highs and lows of small church ministry. We remember to pray and forget to pray. We love our people and get frustrated with our people. We offend and seek forgiveness, and sometimes are offended and need to forgive. We run out of time, patience, energy, and often wisdom. We see a ball get dropped, in a painfully predictable way, look at each other, laugh so we don’t cry, and just say, “classic.” No one is in the video booth to provide lyrics for the last song after the message. That important announcement doesn’t get in the bulletin, and then – we forget to make the verbal announcement too! A member is in the hospital… “they were?!” Oops. Yup. Here we all are – small church pastors! We love it. We love God and people. We try, fail, try, succeed, and just keep trying. Don’t give up folks – be men and women who serve out of the fullness of Christ in you! Walk in the Spirit – live in the Love. Be. A. Small. Church. Pastor. Later, J&J Someone got me riled up today about church growth. It seems that so much of the leadership and training material available wants to show all of us pastors how to move into the arena of success and blessing. In case you’ve never noticed (psst, I know you have!) ministry is not always about success, growth, coolness, good times, rad (is that still a thing?) music, and the latest technology for worship and church management. Yet, every day as pastors we deal with other struggles, stresses, and challenges. Off the top of my head in about six minutes, I made the following list of topics I think most small church pastors are dealing with every week.
What do you think of this list. What topics would you add to this list?
Again, what do you think of this list? What topics would you add to this list? Do you think this should double as a future podcast episode topic list? Have a wonderful weekend loving and serving God by loving and serving your church family – and guests! “Why are you pastoring a small church?” How often have you received that question? Probably not many times, if at all. And the reason you haven’t is that people are kinder than that. They believe that the answer shines a negative light on you, so they would not set you up with a question like that. Have you ever asked yourself that question, Pastor? Perhaps you haven’t for the same reason most people wouldn’t ask you. Maybe you believe the answer, truth be told, would not be complimentary to you. So you avoid it, you don’t think about that question, or others like it:
You might think that the answers to those questions are as follows:
We are going to talk this week, on episode 73 of the 200churches Podcast, to Karl Vaters from NewSmallChurch.com about an article he wrote titled: The Surprising Reason 80% of Churches Will Never Break the 200 Barrier. Karl has a great take on this, but admittedly one that not everyone will agree with. We will engage Karl on the gridiron of ideas, of motivation, and of thinking that will either propel us in ministry, or restrain us from successful ministry. In this week’s episode we are going to delve into some touchy, sensitive areas for us pastors. Areas that are sometimes too close for comfort. But hey, we all think about these things! We all, as small church pastors, have to deal with the doubts and discouragements, the fears and the frustrations of not seeing continual upward motion. So we are going to talk turkey with a friend named Karl! It will be a good episode, and if we have anything to do with it, an encouraging episode! ONE MORE THING Now, as Columbo used to say, “Uh, just one more thing…” Just think about this – when us pastors are thinking about the size of our churches, concerned about how much others like us, or whether or not we will be able to pull off a multisite in the next two years – what do you think the majority of our people are thinking about? Yeah, that’s right… NOT that! They’re living their lives, probably loving their church and pastor, and just trying to live for Jesus. So the next time we get a little too introspective about our ministry, let’s not forget about the people we shepherd, and how much they need our love, support, encouragement, and spiritual care and feeding. The best way to get out of a slump sometimes is simply to engage people, serving them, loving them, and meeting their needs. It can be really simple, like what my father once said to me, “Jeffrey, the best antidote for inaction is… action! Now get moving!” Yeah. Why didn’t I think of that? Thanks Dad! We will catch up with YOU on Wednesday! Have a wonderful week. |
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