Pastoral Leadership
I hear a lot of people playing the blame game when churches are not growing and reaching their potential. The blame usually falls into one of two camps, the pastors who are not leading well or the people who will not follow.
After observing this for many years and spending time both in the pew and behind the pulpit I have reached some personal conclusions. Overall, the majority of times when there are serious problems the churches have not had effective pastoral leadership.
The ultimate tragedy is that in most cases the issues have nothing to do with theology. It comes down to the character and spiritual immaturity of the man or simply poor leadership skills in the area of knowing how to work with people.
With that said an even greater tragedy is when churches react to poor pastoral leadership by assuming the role of pastor and becoming a lay lead church. All great churches have strong key men and women who help lead the church but there is only one God called person that has been delegated the role of being the pastor of the church.
Romans 13 makes it incredibly clear that God in every aspect of life works through designated human authority to accomplish his will. Ephesians 4 also states that God gives church’s pastor leaders to help equip the laity for the work of the ministry.
If your pastor is not leading well then give him all the help you can and if that does not work then fire him and find God’s man. The one thing you must not do is change God’s plan. Once you do that you might as well hire a permanent interim and stop playing the games because your church will never be successful again.
Changing Role Of Pastor
In all of my years studying and leading churches the changing role of the pastor and the laity within the local church is probably one of the most misunderstood and potentially damaging issues facing the church. The biblical model is incredibly clear, the pastor is God’s gift to the church and his role is to lead the church by equipping the laity to do the work of the ministry.
Tragically in most small churches the laity hires a pastor to do the work of the ministry and they run the church. The pastor is to preach, visit, counsel, attend meetings, conduct funerals and weddings and the people once a month conduct the business of the church.
As the church starts to grow additional staff is hired and the old culture begins to be threatened. Now the pastor is expected to do everything he has always done and manage an ever growing staff and minister to an even larger number of people. New buildings are being built and the financial administration becomes complicated.
Many pastors hit the wall at this point because they are not gifted to make the transition from shepherd of the flock to leader of the people. The expectation level of the people has not changed and they are simply left with more work and all the issues that come with personnel problems.
The major reason though these changes do not occur is not because the pastor cannot change his leadership style but the people are not willing to delegate control to staff and lay leaders and assume their God given role of ministry responsibility.
When a church reaches over three hundred the pastor cannot continue to visit every member in the hospital and every member of the church does not need to be involved in picking the paint color for the kitchen renovation. These transitions of roles will continue to occur every time you reach an additional five hundred people or the church will simply stop growing.
There are a lot of legitimate and complicated reasons people are not being reached for Christ. This should not be one of them.
Cursing The Darkness
As a lifelong Southern Baptist I am deeply concerned that we still do not understand why we are declining as a denomination. I hear everything blamed from emerging churches, seeker services, contemporary worship, reformed theology, postmodernism and watered down preaching just to name a few.
We certainly will never be able to solve the problem if we can not accurately diagnose the cause. We must stop cursing the darkness and talking about everything that is wrong and start shinning the light about what is right.
We must start with the simple truth that the people who are not attending church are significantly culturally different from the people who are. This means that all pastors in America must become missional in their methodology in order to reach new people or our churches will die.
The days of build it and they will come through transfer growth are over forever and in the end that is a very good thing.
We must stop preaching that the culture is our enemy. It is simply the context in which we have been called to do ministry. As a necessary reminder the modern culture with all its logic and reason was no friend to the gospel because it produced humanism and evolution.
I am extremely excited about the next generation and their passion for community, integrity, spirituality and service. We need compassion for their lostness but respect for their uniqueness.
It is our responsibility to understand them if we want to reach them and not require them to become like us if they want to come to Christ.
Effective Evangelism
For years we have all been told that we are to be witnesses for Christ so that people can come to know Him. The major problem is that the prevailing strategy that has been used for years has never worked for the overwhelming majority of Christians.
The problem is not that this command is somehow out of date to the point that it should no longer be taken seriously. The critical failure is how we as leaders have modeled this ministry and trained our people to carry out this most important assignment for the church.
In the worst of situations we have trained our people to memorize a lot of facts and then after meeting a total stranger try to share all of the facts with them so they can make the most important decision of their lives all in thirty minutes.
I will acknowledge that in some cases there are divine appointments that God has prepared someone’s heart for just such a meeting. However, that does not mean that we should take this aggressive an approach with everyone we meet.
In the normal course of everyday we all tell stories about things that have happened in our lives. The subject matter can be anything from our last vacation, great new restaurants, job stress and personal family problems.
The reason why all of this works so easily is that it is in the normal course of our everyday lives within relationships that already exist to some degree. This is the biblical model of as you are going about your life share with other people the incredible and wonderful things that He has done in your life.
When evangelism moves from direct confrontation to casual conversations more people are going to respond to the good news of the gospel.
Glocal
During the last century there were very clear distinctions between the concept of evangelism and missions. In the simplest of terms evangelism was reaching people for the local church and missions was reaching people for the kingdom.
Within the context of missions there was a local, national and an international segmentation. This implied the potential for several different strategies to be effective in all of these areas. It was understood that to reach people in an international context that significant cultural barriers had to be addressed for the gospel to be effective.
Today the cultural distance between the people who are in the church in America and the people who are not is significant enough to require a cross cultural missiological approach to reach them. They hold an entirely different world view and they are simply not going to come to our buildings regardless of how cutting edge our marketing may be.
For churches to be effective today in reaching the unchurched in America we are going to have to become missionaries in our own local context. We will have to find ways to take the gospel to where the people live, work and play and do it in a culturally relevant way.
That is why we need to stop thinking in terms of the old models of segmentation. The world has literally moved to America and through the use of technology and the new global economy everything has changed.
The church must become glocal in its thinking, which means one missiological mindset that produces multiple strategies depending upon who we are trying to reach in our area.
Law Of Harvest
There are many biblical principles taught in scripture and this may be the most important one. It is foundational to understanding how the Christian life works on a very practical daily level.
The simplest way of stating this principle is that you will eventually reap what you sow . If you consistently fill your mind with the truth then you should reap all of the benefits of many good decisions.
On the other hand, if you fill your mind with other things then the result will be believing the wrong thing. Many times we act with even more passion when we believe a lie because the resulting behavior produces pain and rejection. At this point we really do not want to admit we were wrong.
Another important part of this principle is that we will also reap to the degree we sow. If we spend little time in God’s word then the result will be a double minded life that is constantly being tossed about with no clear direction.
The next major piece of this principle is that we have a responsibility for the maintenance of the soil where the seed will fall. If our minds are cluttered with many other things then the truth cannot be heard because all the other noise will drown it out.
Finally, I must go back and deal with that very important word eventually. Sometimes people are making bad decisions and yet see no immediate negative consequences. In sharp contrast many people are doing the right thing and have not seen the benefits of walking by faith in the truth.
God in His perfect timing will bring in the harvest. We all will reap what we have sown. No suffering for the present time is joyful but it will yield the peaceful fruit of a surrendered life.
Multi-Generational Churches
There is always the debate about what is the most effective strategy for reaching new people, change an existing church or simply start a new one with its own unique culture. In my opinion both have their strengths and weaknesses, so the decision should depend upon the context.
There are several things I have noticed when churches are started with one particular age group in mind as the target. All of your programming, especially your worship can be one style depending upon the age group in the room. The staff and the facilities can be designed with the needs of this age group in mind as well.
Although this may work for a short period of time there eventually will be serious challenges that must be addressed. One day all of these single adults will get married and then they are going to want programming for their children. Eventually, this same group will become empty nesters and that will bring on another whole set of needs.
My point is simply this, every church given enough time will become multi-generational unless you are going to tell people at some point you need to leave. Since that is a reality then why not start with a multi-generational model from day one that will avoid all of these potential crisis points that can kill momentum and destroy unity.
An even more significant reason is that it is biblical. Every person is important to God from the youngest newborn to the oldest senior adult. The gospel will always be more receptive with younger people but the ministry of the church must include the widow who is all alone.
Pride
Pride is a terrible thing. It causes you to focus only on what is in your personal interest and blinds you to the reality of what you are doing to hurt other people.
The public spectacle that has been playing out in the news concerning Reverend Wright and Barack Obama has been painful to watch. In this tragedy you have two people who once genuinely cared for each other now forced to publicly attack the other person because of what has been said.
Pride also causes you to lose touch with the truth about yourself and what you really believe. You literally become like the thing you hate but you cannot see it.
The great irony about some of the positions being advocated by the Reverend Wright on the extreme right of black liberation theology is they are really no different than those of other hate speech being advocated by the leaders of the extreme right of white liberation theology.
The only difference between the two groups is literally the color of their skin and if they heard that they would deny it to the death. What should we all take away from this?
This is not a story just about politics. It is about every relationship we have in our lives.
When you think the other person is always wrong and you are always right be careful. The reason you may be able to see their faults is because you are looking at them through the mirror of your own life.
We as Christians are told to always clean up our own issues before we even begin to criticize someone else. God does resist the proud but he will give His grace to the humble.
Principle vs. Precept
Any good dictionary will help you know the difference between these two important words. A precept is a commandment or direction given as a rule of action or conduct. On the other hand, a principle is a primary truth from which other truths are derived.
In Christian speak, a precept is black ink on white paper where someone quotes you chapter and verse with the understanding that there is one and only one meaning of this truth. Salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ period, end of conversation.
To be sure we as churches have beaten unbelievers over the head with our precepts to the point they are totally turned off to the gospel. I am not talking about watering down the truth but when people do still walk into our buildings they just want to know is there any good news for my life today?
On the other side of this issue, many Christians can spiritually rationalize their behavior because they cannot find a clear precept that prohibits certain behavior on their part. Obviously the New Testament was written in the first century so the writers did not cover the part about staying away from internet pornography.
Eating meat offered to idols was a big deal in the first century so the principle of deference was taught to make sure a Christian did not offend a weaker brother or an unbeliever with their behavior. Today there are many contemporary issues that will never be addressed by precepts but the principles that are taught in scripture still apply.
If you have any doubts just use I Corinthians 10:31 as your guide, “therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Just always remember, everything that is for His glory is also for your good.
Worship Wars
This is a subject that really breaks my heart because the pain that has been suffered by so many good people is so unnecessary. If this issue is not dealt with in a thoroughly biblical manner most of our current churches will stop reaching the next generation and will eventually die.
To be sure our people should be spiritually mature enough to not insist on their own personal musical preference so that others may come to Christ. However, poor leadership has caused far more problems than “older adults” that only want their hymns.
For at least 50 years or longer one basic musical style was enjoyed by both the World War II and the Baby Boomer generations. Large choirs and orchestras were the preferred choice that could lead a primarily performance style of service that was a blessing to many.
Today the emphasis has shifted to participation styles of music that involve the people in worship and praise. In our current services it is no longer come sit, watch and listen as it is get involved and enjoy.
I think every generation has its own heart language when it comes to music in worship. The problem comes when we try to force everyone into one box and demand they like it or leave.
I think the days of building one massive worship center are over. As soon as your church grows large enough for multiple services you are already multi-congregational. At that point if you are reaching different age groups you can choose to be multi-generational.
Then when you plan a service ask yourself one simple question, who is in the room and what do they need from the music and the message to help them move into the presence of God?