Organized religion 'will be driven toward extinction' in 9 countries, experts predict

CNN is reporting on an article that says that organized religion 'will be driven toward extinction' in 9 countries.
Watch it here. http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/23/religion-to-go-extinct-in-9-countries-experts-predict/?hpt=C2


-K

Four Principles for Leading the Change Resistant Church

RE-POSTED from Thom Rainer  web page.  Find it here...
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The telephone call happened just this past week. But it was representative of dozens of similar calls and emails I receive in the course of a year. The pastor was deeply frustrated. He was considering leaving his church, but was also dealing with the reality that the congregation may push him out as well.
He is a faithful pastor. He is doing all he can to lead his church to become a Great Commission congregation. But many members in the church believe their congregation has changed too much too quickly. They no longer recognize the church they loved.
Looking for Answers, Looking for Hope
The pastor was waiting for me to respond. Even more, he was desperate for some type of hope. He was tired of dissension, tired of criticisms, and tired of hurting. What I shared with him was not a magical formula for fixing the change resistant church. To the contrary, my comments were so basic that he likely felt disappointed.
But I have heard from thousands of pastors in over two decades of research on American churches. And I have served as pastor of four churches myself. The four principles I offered are therefore not theoretical. Nor are they limited to pastors of change resistant churches. In many ways they are principles for leadership in all churches.
Love the People
I remember the first time a mentor told me that I should love everyone in the church where I served as pastor. I told him that I could love most of the members, but there were a handful that was just too mean and too evil to love. He then asked me if they had done anything more harmful to me than I had done to put Jesus on a suffering cross.
His words stunned me. I guess I was stunned because they were so true. If Jesus can love me after I sent Him to the cross, I can love others who hurt me. I may not feel emotions of love for my critics, but I can pray that Christ’s love will work through me.
Focus on the Basics
Another pastor recently told me that his church had resisted almost all the changes he had tried to implement. Instead of continuing the battles, he and a few other members began spending their time praying and sharing the gospel with others more fervently. Now the church is seeing people become followers of Christ every week. And the congregation has grown over 20 percent in less than two years.
“I still would like to see the church make some desperately needed changes to better contextualize in our community,” he told me. “But, I have to admit, God is doing a great work despite the obstacles we face.” The pastor is also spending 15 to 20 hours per week in sermon preparation. “The congregation is definitely responding to my preaching,” he said. “Almost everything we’re doing is just getting back to the basics.”
Stretch the Rubber Band
Every congregation has an “elasticity factor.” When you stretch a rubber band, one of three things happens. Stretch it far and will snap back on you. Stretch it too far and it will break. But if you stretch it slightly, it will become just a little bit longer. The increase in length is almost imperceptible, but nevertheless the rubber band has transformed slightly.
A leader of change resistant church must stretch the church to change. But, many times, the change is almost imperceptible. Still, it can be less painful than the congregation “snapping back” or, even worse, breaking altogether. A wise leader will know the church’s elasticity factor, and lead the church toward incremental change.
Pray and Trust God
The fourth principle is so obvious that I almost did not post it. But we who are leaders need to be reminded again and again that our clever devices of leadership and change are worthless unless we are people of prayer who trust God. Sometimes we become too enamored with our own leadership abilities and the latest methodological approaches. Sometimes we need to relax a bit and let God be our strength and power instead of trying with our own means.
It’s amazing what God can do when we relinquish our will to His. Many of us leaders need to trust less in our own devices and spend more time in prayer listening to and speaking with God. It is, after all, His church that we are leading.

10 Reasons Why Small Churches Stay Small

Joe McKeever is a retired  Southern Baptist pastor and author.  Here is his thoughts on small churches.

Do you agree with him?   Comment and we can talk about it.

 

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First, an explanation or two, then a definition.
I know more about getting smaller churches to grow than larger ones. I pastored three of them, and only the first of the three did not grow. I was fresh out of college, untrained, inexperienced, and clueless about what I was doing. The next two grew well, and even though I remained at each only some three years, one almost doubled, and the other nearly tripled in attendance and ministries.
By using the word "grow," I do not mean numbers for numbers' sake. I do not subscribe to the fallacy that bigness is good, and small churches are failures. What I mean by "grow" is reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you reach them and start new churches, your local church may not expand numerically, but it is most definitely "growing." If you are located in a town that is losing population and your church manages to stay the same size, you're probably "growing" (i.e., reaching new people for the Lord).
These are simply my observations as to why stagnant, ungrowing churches tend to stay that way. I send it forth hoping to plant some seed in the imagination of a pastor or other leader who will be used of the Lord to do great things in a small church.
I have frequently quoted Francis Schaeffer who said, "There are no small churches and no big preachers." I like that. But it's not entirely true. We've seen churches made up of just a few people and stymied by lack of vision and a devotion to the status quo. And here and there, we may encounter a preacher with the world on his heart and the wisdom of the ages on his lips; that, for my money, is a "big preacher."
But this is not about being such a preacher. We're concerned with not being one of those churches.
The "ten reasons" that follow are not necessarily in the order of importance or prevalence. This is the way they occurred to me, and the order seems right.
1. Wanting to stay small.
"We like our church just the way it is now." While that attitude usually goes unspoken--it might not even be recognized by its carriers--it's widespread in many churches. The proof of it is seen in how the leaders and congregation reject new ideas and freeze out new people.
The process of rejecting newcomers is a subtle one, never as overt as snubbing them. They will be greeted and chatted with and handed a printed bulletin. But they will be excluded as clearly as if they were--as I was once--the only man in a roomful of sorority women at a state university. (I was an invited guest, about to bring a message to them. They couldn't have been nicer, but alas, they did not invite me to join!)
"Bob's class is meeting this week over at Tom and Edna's. Come and bring a covered dish." "The youth will have a fellowship tonight at Eddie Joe's. We're serving pizza and you don't want to miss it."
Unless you know who Bob, Tom, Edna, and Eddie Joe are and where they live, you're out of luck.
Pastors who want to include newcomers and first-timers in things should use full names from the pulpit. "I'll ask Bob Evans to come to the pulpit and lead us in prayer." This allows newcomers to learn who people are.
"For those who need directions to Eddie Joe Finham's house for the youth fellowship, he's the guy with the crew cut wearing the purple shirt. Raise your hand, Eddie Joe. He has printed directions to give you."
No one can promise that if a church wants to grow it will. However, I can guarantee you that if it doesn't, it won't.
2. A quick turnover of pastors.
A retired pastor who had served his last church some 30 years was supplying for a small congregation south of New Orleans. That week he told me of a discovery he made. "On Sunday afternoon, no one invited me to their home, so I had several hours to kill before the evening service. In the church office, I was reading their history and discovered that in their nearly 50 years of existence, they've had 22 pastors."
He was aghast.
"Think of that," he said. "If they had around 6 months between pastors, that means the average tenure was less than two years."
He was quiet a moment, then said, "They didn't have pastors. They had preachers."
It takes at least a couple of years to become the real deal for a church, a pastor in more than name only, one who has earned the right to lead the congregation. With larger churches, the time period is more like six years.
Again, no one will promise you that keeping a pastor a long time guarantees the church will grow. But I can assure you that having a succession of short-term pastors will prevent it from growing as surely as you took a vote from the congregation to reject all expansion.
3. Domination by a few strong members.
The process by which a man (it's almost always a man) becomes a church boss is subtle and rarely, if ever, the result of a hostile takeover.
The pastor of a small church leaves for another town. The pastorless congregation looks within its membership for leaders to rise up and "take care of things" until a new pastor arrives. There will be pulpit supplies to line up, a search committee to form and train and send forth, and a hundred details to see to for the operation of the church. So two or three faithful and mature members (we assume) are chosen. They do their job well.
If the next pastor leaves after an unusually short tenure for whatever reasons, the congregation resorts to the fallback position: they enlist the services of those same two or three mature--and now experienced--leaders.
That's how it happens that one of them or possibly all three began to look upon themselves as the church itself. They make important decisions for the body, and everything works out. When the new pastor arrives, they let him know that anything he needs to know, he should call on them. He quickly sees that they have set themselves up as the board of directors, a layer of authority between the hired man (the preacher) and the congregation.
The bosses explain that they are protecting the congregation. "We don't like to upset them with matters like this." "These things are better off handled by just a few."
The longer this situation continues this way, the more entrenched these men become in their dictatorship. Pity the young idealistic pastor who walks into that church unsuspecting that they lie in wait for him, to--ahem--"give direction to his ministry." Or, as one said to me, "We thought you would like to have some help in pastoring this church."
In almost every instance, such self-appointed church bosses exist to frustrate the pastor's initiatives, block his bold ventures, and control his tendencies to want the church to act on (gasp!) something he calls faith!
Result: the church stays small. No normal church family coming into the community would want to join such a church.
The remedy: the congregation must see that key lay positions in the church rotate, that no one stays chairman of deacons for thirty years or church treasurer for a generation. Members of the congregation must stand up in business meetings and ask questions: "Why was this done?" "Who made the decision that our church would do that?" "Why was the congregation not informed on this?"
The one thing church bosses cannot stand is the light of day shown on their activities. Even though they convince themselves what they are doing is in the interests of the congregation, they don't want others to know about it. "They wouldn't understand."
Oh, we understand all too well. (Read about Diotrephes in the little Epistle of III John. He "loves to have the pre-eminence.")
4. Not trusting the leaders.
A phenomenon which I've seen in small churches and never in a large one occurs at the monthly business meetings, which incidentally, is also a custom a lot of growing churches have found they could do without. (They choose excellent leadership for the deacons, finance committee, and other key groups, and ask them to keep the congregation on course.)
In the small-and-determined-to-stay-small church, the treasurer passes out the monthly financial statement, which accounts for every penny spent this month. The discussion centers on why 35 cents was spent for call forwarding and 2 dollars for paper for the office.
The director of the vacation Bible school, the Sunday school director, the children's choir leader, and of course, the pastor---all are frustrated that the congregation doesn't trust them with 20 bucks, let alone 200, for some task.
The small-and-determined-to-stay-small church is far more concerned about the dollars and cents in the offering plate than in the lost souls in the community.
"I want to know what that revival cost the church," said a disgruntled deacon in the monthly meeting. The pastor rose and cited a figure.
"And what did the church get out of it?" the plaintiff said. "Only one person saved, and a child at that. Poor stewardship of our resources, if you ask me."
With that, another deacon walks to the front and takes something out of his pocket. He writes in his checkbook, tears out the check, and hands it to the treasurer.
"Gentlemen," he says, "that one child that was reached is my son. And he's worth every penny of it."
The tiny-and-deadset-on-remaining-tiny church would never step out on faith and do something so bold as to have an aggressive evangelism campaign to reach the lost and unchurched of their community. And if they did, unless their mindset changes, they would then harass their leaders into the grave demanding an accounting of every dime spent.
When the pastor search committee announced plans for the candidate to spend the following weekend at their church, a member stood to raise a question. "That's not long enough for us to get to know him. How do you expect us to be able to vote on him if we only have a weekend with him?"
Another member stood. "May I respond to Mr. Alan? We can't get to know him well enough in a weekend to make this kind of decision. That's why we have elected good leaders for this search committee. Let's trust them."
Elect good leaders and trust them to do their work. It's a faithproof system for growing a church.
5. Inferiority complex.
I was a seminary student when called to my second pastorate. Determined to figure out how to grow that church--they had been stuck at 40 in attendance for years--I read everything I could find in the seminary library. Fortunately, they had quite a few books on pastoring the small church.
What I discovered was something I was beginning to notice in my people. Small churches often are stymied by inferiority complexes. "We can't do anything because we're small. We don't have lots of money like the big churches in town."
So they set small goals and ask little from their members.
One day, I was visiting in the First Baptist Church of a nearby community. In no way was it what we would call large, but it was three or four times the size of mine. The pastor and I were chatting about some program or other. He said to me, "My people won't attempt anything like that. They say, 'We're not large like the First Baptist Church of New Orleans.'"
That's when it hit me: feelings of inferiority can be found in all size churches.
I wouldn't be surprised if the members of FBC-New Orleans were excusing themselves for their inaction by saying, "We're not Bellevue in Memphis or the FBC of Dallas."
I don't know who the members of Bellevue or FBC-Dallas look at with envy. But I'll bet it's some church bigger than them somewhere.
The remedy is to put one's eyes on Jesus Christ. "Lord, what do you want us to do?" That's the best prayer one can ever pray, and it has nothing whatever to do with what another church is doing.
In that seminary pastorate, I encouraged our people to set the goal high for our annual Christmas offering for foreign missions. One day, a member told me she was chatting with a neighbor who belonged to my friend's First Baptist Church in the next community, who asked her about the size of our mission offering goal.
When she told her, the neighbor sniffed, "Why, ours is double that!"
Thankfully, my member said nothing. She could have responded, "It should be triple since your church is three times the size of ours." But she didn't, and I was pleased.
Peter said, "Lord, what about John here? What do you want him to do?" Our Lord said--and thus set a wonderful pattern for all of us for the rest of time--"What is that to you? You follow me!"
Want your church to reach people and expand and grow? Get your eyes off what others are doing. Most of them, to tell the truth, are declining at a rate so fast it can hardly be measured. You do not want to take your cues from them.
Ask the Lord, "What would you have us to do?" Then do it. 

6. No plan.
The typical, stagnant small church is small in ways other than numbers. They tend to be small in vision, in programs, in outreach, and in just about everything else.
Perhaps worst of all, they have small plans. Or no plans at all.
The church with no plan--that is, no specific direction for what they are trying to do and become--will content itself with plodding along, going through the motions of "all churches everywhere." They have Sunday School and worship services and a few committees. Once in a while, they will schedule a fellowship dinner or a revival. But ask the leadership, "What is your vision for this church?" and you will receive blank stares for an answer.
Here are two biblical instances of church leaders who knew what they were doing.
In Acts 6, when the church was disrupted by complaints from the Greek widows of being neglected in the distribution of food in favor of the Hebrew widows, the disciples called the congregation together. They said, "It is not right for us to neglect....(how they would fill in this blank reveals their plan)...in order to wait on tables." And then, as they commissioned the seven men chosen, the disciples said, "We will turn this responsibility over to them and give our attention to....(fill in the blank)."
In the first instance, the disciples saw their plan as "the word of God" and in the second as "prayer and the ministry of the word."
How do you see your ministry, pastor? What is your church's focus?
Earlier, when Peter and John were threatened by the religious authorities who warned them to stop preaching Jesus, they returned to the congregation to let them know of this development. Immediately, everyone dropped to their knees and began praying. Notice the heart of their prayer, what they requested: "Now Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to.....(what? how they finished this is how we know their plan, their chief focus)."
"...to speak your word with great boldness." (Acts 4:29)
When the Holy Spirit filled that room, the disciples "were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly." (v. 31) Clearly, that means they spoke it into the community, the world around them, and not just to one another.
When I asked a number of leaders for their take on why so many small churches do not grow, several said, "They need to focus on the two or three things they do best. Not try to be everything to everyone."
Some churches need to focus on children's ministry, others on youth or young adults, young families, or even the oldsters. (Tell me why it is when a church is filled with seniors, we look upon it as failing. It's as though white-haired people of our society don't need to be reached for the Lord.)
Some will focus on teaching, others on ministry in the community, some on jail and prison ministries, and some on music or women's or men's work.
One note of explanation: this is not to say that the church should shut down everything else to do one or two things. Rather, they will want to keep doing the basics, but throw their energies and resources, their promotions and prayers and plans, into enlarging and honing two or three ministries they feel the Lord has uniquely called them into.
7. Bad health.
It's no surprise to anyone who has spent time in more than a few churches to learn that some are unhealthy. And by that, we do not mean just because they are small, they are sick. You can be small and healthy; behold the hummingbird.
An unhealthy church is known more by what it does than by a list of characteristics and attributes. A church that runs its preachers off every year or two is unhealthy. A church that is constantly bickering is unhealthy. A church that cannot make a simple decision like choose the color of the carpet, adopt the next year's budget, or accept changes in an order of worship may be unhealthy.
So, what is a healthy church and how do we get from here to there?
Entire libraries could be filled with books written on the healthy church, and consultants abound, ready to assist congregations toward that purpose. But here it is in shorthand....
Romans 12 is God's blueprint for a healthy church. It divides into three parts: verses 1-2 call for each individual to make a personal commitment to Christ ("present your bodies as a living sacrifice"), verses 3-8 call for each one to find his/her place of service where they can use their spiritual gifts, and vs. 9 through the end of the chapter describes the relationships within a healthy, loving fellowship of believers.
Show me a congregation where everyone is committed to Jesus Christ, each one is using the God-given spiritual gifts in the Lord's service, and the fellowship is sweet and active--and I'll show you a healthy church.
8. Lousy fellowship.
This overlaps with the last point, but it deserves a spot by itself.
For my money, the best thing a church has to offer individuals and families in the community--other than the saving gospel itself--is a place they will be loved and welcomed and made part of an active, healthy family. It's what we mean by "fellowship."
There are ways to tell if the fellowship in your church is unhealthy. Here is a brief rundown.
First, regarding the visitors to your church, your the fellowship is unhealthy if:

a. Visitors are basically ignored.
b. In some places in the church, visitors are even resented.
c. No one follows up on visitors to let them know they are wanted and give information on the church.
d. There's no attempt to get people to visit your church in the first place.
Second, regarding the worship services of the church, the fellowship is probably unhealthy if:

a. Everything is orderly, but it's the same order you've used since forever.
b. The singing is lifeless and any departure from the norm is verboten. A new hymn or chorus, a different kind of musical instrument, a testimony here, an interview there, a short drama or video--no, sir. Not in our church.
c. There's no laughter, nothing spontaneous.
d. The invitation time is tacked on, lifeless, and without any response, ever.
e. The prayers are filled with platitudes and stale.
When the Old Testament prophets called on God's people to "break up the fallow ground"--Hosea 10:12 and Jeremiah 4:3--they wanted to see evidence of brokenness, a willingness to change, a desire to bear new fruit.
Fallow ground is soil that has laid unproductive for several seasons. The hard crust requires a deep turning plow to open it up and even then, the soil may require more preparatory work before it is productive.
A church with poor fellowship or essentially none is not failing to have enough socials and dinners. The church is failing in the most basic of areas of disciples: a failure to love.
Jesus said, "By this shall all men know you are my disciples, that you love one another" (John 13:35).
My observation from my own heart and nearly a half-century of ministry is that the disciple who is close to Christ loves the brethren. So a congregation that is unloving toward one another may be said to be far removed from the Lord and in a backslidden state. It's a simple deduction.
"Draw near to the Lord and He will draw near to you!" (James 4:8)
9. A state of neglect permeates the church.
Not always, but often, a dying church shows signs of its weakening condition by the disrepair of its buildings and the neglect of its appearance. The interior walls haven't been painted in years and bear the collective fingerprints of a generation of children. The carpet is threadbare, the piano's keys stick, the pulpit chairs need reupholstering, and the outside sign is so ugly it would be an improvement if someone knocked it down.
I received a vivid lesson on neglect early in my ministry when we received word that a high school student had taken his own life.
Although the family were members of another denomination, our youth minister and I called at their home to express our sympathy and offer our services. Along the way, my colleague filled me in on the family's situation. The dad was said to be having an affair, he and his wife bickered constantly, they were heavily in debt, the children were without supervision, and the brilliant son who had taken his life was rudderless.
As we parked and walked up the sidewalk, we were struck by the disarray of the yard. The grass was knee-high and clutter was everywhere.
Inside, the father calmly brushed aside our condolences. "The way I look at these things," he said, "is that they all have a way of working out for the best." I was stunned. I thought, "Sir, your child is dead. Tell me how that is going to work out for the best."
We left sadder than when we arrived.
Dying churches do not tend to their business. They let problems fester and divisions go unaddressed. Listen closely and you will hear a leader speak those infamous words: "These things have a way of working themselves out."
And so they do nothing, and the church drifts on toward the grave. No one gets saved, no one joins, people drift away, the community becomes less and less aware of the existence of that little church, and the remaining members complain that people just don't love the Lord the way they used to.
10. No prayer.
It's tempting to make a little joke here and say, "Such churches do not have a prayer," but they could if they chose to.
When King Saul was bemoaning the woes that had descended upon him as a result of his rebellion against God, one of his chief complaints was that God no longer heard his prayer. "He inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer...." (I Samuel 28:6)
Luke tells us, "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." (Luke 18:1)
Pray or quit. Those seem to be the alternatives.
Want to give your congregation a little test, pastor? Next Sunday, call for your people to meet you at the altar for a time of prayer. Do not beg them or cajole them. Just announce it, then walk there yourself, kneel and begin praying. See if anyone joins you. Notice who comes and pay close attention to who does not.
It won't tell you everything you'd like to know about your church, but it will say a lot.
A friend on Facebook requested prayer for his new ministry. When I asked what he was doing, he responded privately that in addition to pastoring his church, he is working for the state convention in his region. He said, "Almost all our churches in this part of the state are dying. We have buildings that were constructed for hundreds now running 15 or 20."
The plan, he said, is to get things in place to re-evangelize those regions as these oldline churches die off.
I hope they don't wait until those churches actually close their doors. A lifeless church can take a long time to give up the ghost.
The best approach would be for that stagnant, dying congregation to awaken and get dead serious about becoming vibrant again. This would mean taking the unprecedented step of doing anything it takes to re-establish their witness and presence in the community.
In almost every case I know personally, that is not going to happen. The leaders would rather see their church disappear from the earth than to do anything new and different.
That is as sad a sentence as I've written in a long time.
That's why the only approach most of us have ever seen work is to bring in church planters from outside and start afresh.
The leadership of the dying churches will resent it. "Why are you spending money on starting new churches when we already have churches here? You could invest a fraction of that to help bring our church back, if you were thinking straight."
Stay the course, church planters. Not only will you do a good work in your own new congregation, but you might just build a fire under that old bunch. Their resentment may awaken them to fan the flames of the dying embers of their own faith.
The pastors who arrive to begin new congregations will use innovative methods, almost always leave the suits and ties in the closet, set up guitars and drums and install screens and projectors, and come up with names for their churches that seem unchurchlike: Sojourn, Mosaic, Praiseworthy, Koinoia, Maranatha, Celebration, Vintage, and River.
God bless 'em.
But know this, church planter. A generation or two from now, if Koinonia and Sojourn and River and Celebration have not changed their methods and have become set in their ways, they too will be left behind as the ever-creating Holy Spirit seeks those who want to be new wineskins for the new things He is always up to.
Now, let us pray.
"Father, we do like our routines and ruts. Forgive us for limiting you by asking you to adapt to us instead of the other way around. Lord, in the words of the old hymn and the older Psalm, 'Wilt thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in Thee? We ask this for Jesus sake. Amen." (Psalm 85:6)  

Is Leadership Un-Biblical?

Here is a great re-post of an article by David Fitch (bi-vocational pastor at Life on the Vine and the B.R. Lindner Chair of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary.)It can be found here (http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-how-to/147575-is-leadership-un-biblical.html)

What do you think?

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There’s been much ranting and raving on the Internet about the inadequacies of leadership in the church. I must admit I recoil whenever I hear people say, “Leadership is Biblical.” For a lot of reasons, I find it erroneous to say, “Leadership is Biblical.” When I say “leadership,” I am talking about the way the term has become adopted into the vernacular of evangelical leadership conferences and books. We might need to find a new word when we are talking about what leaders do in a church if we are ever going to truly “lead” a gathering community into the Kingdom. It simply requires a skill quite a bit different than what many in the church have come to describe as “leadership.” Here are five comments on why I believe “Leadership is not Biblical.”

1.)   The word “leader” itself is generally avoided in the New Testament within the context of the church (with the notable exception of Hebrews 13:17,24). Likewise, the NT writers generally avoid using secular or Old Testament (LXX) titles for authoritative office. Instead, the New Testament uses the term diakonia (servant, service) to label people in leadership far more times than any other term. The NT writers, therefore, used a word to describe leadership in the church that contrasted violently to the current secular notions of office. The NT on this reading appears to carefully avoid the models of authority available in surrounding society for defining leadership in the church. All this suggests that using the word “leader” as has been defined by the business culture of North America is highly dubious for the church and, dare I say, “unbiblical.”

2.)   Whenever the word “leader” is used in the New Testament, it is subverted in the church so that “leadership” takes on the element of leading by character not coercion, by submission not hierarchy, and in reverence for the Lordship of Christ. See for example Heb 13:7, “Remember your leaders…consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” Wisdom, age, maturity, as well as gentleness and self control, not “lording over” someone are the signs that someone is leading. This pattern, I would argue, is present throughout the whole NT in the way the term “elder” and “overseer” are interchangeable. It reveals that for the early communities, age, wisdom, and maturity were the recognizable traits of “leadership” in the community. Even the way “leader” is supposedly translated in Romans 12:8, it is placed within a total communal relationship of the gifts where each person exerts the authority of his/her gift in submission to the others. I would argue then that LEADERSHIP IS NEVER SOMEHOW A POSITION OF AUTHORITY/SKILL PLACED SOMEHOW UNILATAERALLY ABOVE THE CONGREGATION but always in submission to the body. Once again, the word “leadership” as used in the common parlance of business appears to be unbiblical.

3.)   Jesus Himself subverted the term “leadership.” The NT was so careful with its use of the words for leadership because the NT church carried the consciousness of Christ’s words, “If any one wants to be first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all.” (Mark 9:35) “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. Because the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”(Mark 10:42-45 par Luke 22:25-27) The NT church bears the image of Christ modeling servanthood when He washed His disciples' feet (John 13: 13-17). They remember His words from Matt 23:9-11, “But you are not to be called Rabbi, for you have one teacher and you are all students, And call no one your father on earth, for you have one father, the one in heaven, and do not be called leaders, for One is your leader, the Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant; and whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (NAS) Jesus commands His disciples to refuse any titles of the secular authorities including religious (Rabbi), family (father), or group style leadership (leader). Though we may argue how to implement Jesus' commands on authority and leadership within the church, we must surely conclude that Jesus instructs the church to resist modeling its own leadership in any way on secular notions of leadership existing outside of the church.

4.)   Christian leadership is defined by the posture of submission. To the world, this is not leadership. All of this does not discount the need for leadership, just a different kind of leadership! I believe we need leaders who lead from below, allowing God in Christ through the Spirit to exalt Himself in the midst, leaders who always act out of the authority of his/her gifts as received from Christ (Eph 4:7), who exercise authority as received only in dependence upon Christ. This is the leadership of Christ. We still need this kind of leadership. In fact, we need theological leadership sufficient to guide doctrine and practice in the church (we need ordination which is recognition by the community for this gift). Yet all of these gifted ones “lead” out of submission to God in Christ by the Spirit, always offering what God is giving to the body IN SUBMISSION TO ONE ANOTHER. Dare I say, any other kind of leadership is unbiblical?

5.)   The business models of leadership will handicap us from leading into mission. This is because business style leadership works top down and often works in only already-established authority structures, because business styles of leadership work to passivize the congregation negating participation, and because business styles of leadership work well with people who already are acclimated to church and its Christendom structures of leadership. My general prejudice is that the kind of leadership most often taught in our evangelical churches/institutions is poorly suited to lead our churches into post-Christendom engagement, i.e., into Mission. It’s another reason to be cautious about traditional “leadership” language.

This will raise more questions than it answers. There are thousands of pages to be written on how the submissive (radically subordinate) leader is actually the revolutionary leader. But for now, I’m ready and willing to hear objections and ways this has played out in your own lives.

Death by Ministry by Eugene Cho

An article I found on Churchleaders.com. 

It is worth reading!

 

Several years ago, I spent several hours per week doing research (and meeting with other pastors) about pastoral health and vitality for my denomination.

I chose to spend some time doing that for selfish reasons. I was and am still learning how to take better care of myself in ministry (as evidenced by the scary picture above) – while completely acknowledging that sometimes, it’s not supposed to feel right. We all know that work…well…is supposed to be laborious. And those in ministry know that ministry in itself is difficult. There’s no way to get around it, but…
What I learned was pretty shocking and heartbreaking, but one of the conclusions I came to was that as ministry leaders, pastors, and other pursuers of God’s work, it helps to understand some of the challenges ahead and to be proactive rather than reactive.

Yesterday, I posted Part I of this post entitled, Why Is Being a Pastor So Unhealthy. The reasons are complex, and I’ll acknowledge that when one looks for “doom and gloom,” you’ll find some discouraging things. I can focus an entry purely on the joys and blessings of pastoral ministry and feel confident I can write a compelling piece. But these statistics (and stories that many of us are aware of) and our personal stories are hard to ignore.


Here’s a summary of what I learned and shared:
There are varying reports from different sources, but I believe most will agree that the ministerial profession (life as pastors) is now considered one of the most dangerous or unhealthiest professions. It’s usually rated last or second to last. Read this from a local Northwest minister, Mark, on a comment on an earlier post:

“At the first church I served, we had an insurance agent who was a member of the congregation. When I went to see him about some auto insurance needs, he said 'Hey, wanna see something that will scare the crap out of you?'…He pulled out a form that had various professions rated for their risk of giving life insurance policies to…Anyway, to make a lengthening story shorter, he showed me that clergy members were in the same category as Deep Sea Welders and Loggers as the second highest risk group to give life insurance policies to. We were behind crab fishermen but ahead of munitions workers.

It was a little disturbing to know that statistically I was gonna die due to my profession before someone who builds explosives. This was back in 1994; the statistics may be better (or worse) now.”

If you don’t believe the above comment, read some of these statistics:
Forty-eight percent of them think their work is hazardous to their family’s well being. Another 45.5% will experience burnout or depression that will make them leave their jobs. And 70% say their self-esteem is lower now than when they started their position. They have the 2nd highest divorce rate among professions. Who are they? They are pastors. Here are some more overwhelming statistics from this article.

• 80% of pastors say they have insufficient time with spouse and that ministry has a negative effect on their family.
• 40% report a serious conflict with a parishioner once a month.
• 33% say that being in ministry is an outright hazard to their family.
• 75% report they’ve had a significant stress-related crisis at least once in their ministry.
• 58% of pastors indicate that their spouse needs to work either part time or full time to supplement the family income.
• 56% of pastors’ wives say they have no close friends.
• Pastors who work fewer than 50 hrs per week are 35% more likely to be terminated.
• 40% of pastors considered leaving the pastorate in the past three months.

Feeling dizzy? Take a breath. Here are some more statistics:

• Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches.
• Fifty percent of pastors’ marriages will end in divorce.
• Eighty percent of pastors and eighty-four percent of their spouses feel unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastors.
• Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.
• Eighty percent of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years.
• Seventy percent of pastors constantly fight depression.
• Almost forty percent polled said they have had an extra-marital affair since beginning their ministry.
• Seventy percent said the only time they spend studying the Word is when they are preparing their sermons. [compiled by Darrin Patrick]

While I love being a pastor and even more, being called to be a pastor, I want folks to know how incredibly difficult it is at times to handle the complexities and stress of being a minister. Finally, at the age of 39, I feel more at peace at how to create boundaries, love my church, better care for my wife and children, support my fellow staff, handle criticism, etc. but there are times, I feel clueless and overwhelmed. I’ve been having occasional visitors from a blog started by and for pastors’ wives [couldn't find one for pastors' husbands]. Some of their comments have been difficult to read because they hit so close to home. I will not post a link to their blog here, but here are two comments:

“Oh, and the financial part is tough. We live on poverty level. I don’t know how we are going to pay all the bills sometimes, much less buy groceries. The Lord always comes through, though, and on a really tough week, someone in the church will anonymously give us a gift. We have no in between at our church. It’s either people trying to help us out (it’s all there what we make each week – in black and white), or it’s people that have this attitude - ‘Pastors are supposed to suffer and sacrifice. It’s part of the job.’ Has anyone else noticed that mentality? I don’t know where it comes from, and it is one of my biggest pet peeves. Pastors aren’t supposed to drive nice cars, have nice houses, or buy new clothes. And we are always supposed to be worried about making ends meet - I wonder if it is just half of my church that thinks that way.”

Here’s the second comment:

“Today my son approached my husband and randomly said, 'I guess you’re going back to church now.' And he wasn’t going anywhere! During seminary, he would walk around the house saying, 'Bye bye, Daddy. Bye bye, daddy!' So sad, but very true. It’s definitely a calling, isn’t it? I told my husband the other day: 'In my classes that I took to prepare me to be a minister’s wife, they told me over and over again, ‘it is the loneliest job in the world,’ but I never realized it until we were in the role…'"

While I feel solid support from my staff, my elder board, and the church as a whole, I know that many of my peers do not feel this way.

Simply, pastors are often underpaid, underappreciated, and at times, undermined.
There is strain on their marriages and families. Two other incredibly real factors that add complexities to the ministerial calling are: 1) the cultural complexity and dynamic of the 21st century and 2) the nebulous but real nature of the spiritual realm and battle. The reality is that being a pastor is not just merely a job nor should it be one. Ministry is a calling. It’s both amazing and incredibly difficult. While it isn’t my desire to overdramatize the significance of ministry, I do believe that the Evil One seeks to impede and harm the work that is to take place through ministers and pastors.
As for the “cultural complexity of the 21st century,” I think this quote captures my sentiment:

“My viewpoint tends to be more organizational, so my take on being a pastor is that it is an impossible job. Here you are asked to be the lead preacher and teacher, available for counseling sessions, leading a staff of people that can span such responsibilities as missions and janitorial, serving as the public face for your organization in the community, networking with other leaders at Christian conferences and denominational gatherings. That’s a lot of hats!…Let’s finally consider the financial issues. I don’t believe pastors are paid very well, so that’s obviously a downer. And if you are paid well, and sometimes even if you aren’t, that has its own issues, for congregants can quite easily feel they own you, since they’re paying your way. What other organization is the person at top in such an awkward financial relationship with his or her co-workers and clients?” [h/t Lee H]

My point is very simple:
Please care, pray, and love your pastors (and church staff) in your churches.
Seriously, give them a nice pay raise, more time off, regular opportunities to get away for even a day retreat to pray, buy them some dinner certificates, honor their spouses, love their children, pray for them, and regularly share your appreciation and affirmation.
Now, I know that this can easily be intended to perpetuate the victim language or mentality, but it’s a two-way street. Churches must seek to honor and care for their pastors and staff and build healthy structures to ensure such care. Similarly, pastors and their families must make choices to be holistically healthy! We must rest, Sabbath, enjoy God, love the Scriptures not simply for the sake of sermon preparations, be in deep friendships and community, exercise, work on our jump shot, continue to be a reader and learner, love and honor our spouses, nurture our children, laugh and have fun, eat healthy and drink good refreshments [use your imagination here], examine and repent of any possible addictions, and [add your contribution here].
We need to lean on God, stop our self-sufficiency, and repent of the idolatry to please all those around us. Easier said than done, but it needs to begin somewhere. Why not now?


Some good news:
Despite the intense nature of pastoral ministry, it is also immensely fulfilling. Huh? It makes total sense to me. According to a recent survey, the top five professions are clergy, physical therapists, firefighters, education administrators, and painters/sculptors:

Clergy ranked by far the most satisfied and the most generally happy of 198 occupations. Eighty-seven percent of clergy said they were “very satisfied” with their work, compared with an average 47 percent for all workers. Sixty-seven percent reported being “very happy,” compared with an average 33 percent for all workers. Jackson Carroll, Williams professor emeritus of religion and society at Duke Divinity School, found similarly high satisfaction when he studied Protestant and Catholic clergy, despite relatively modest salaries and long hours.

“They look at their occupation as a calling,” Carroll said. “A pastor does get called on to enter into some of the deepest moments of a person’s life, celebrating a birth and sitting with people at times of illness or death. There’s a lot of fulfillment.” [read the entire article]

So while pastoral ministry is at times exhausting, draining, depressing, and overwhelming, it’s also meaningful and fulfilling.

May God grant you grace, courage, and strength.
God bless you pastors. God bless your spouses and your children. May you bless your flock and may you be blessed by them. And together, may you bless the Lord as you seek to bless His creation.

OPEN LETTER to our District

Sorry for the long absence... 

For my next update I want to talk about something that is going on in our district right now. I am with the PAOC Saskatchewan district if, on the slim chance, someone is reading this blog that I do not personally know... ha! 

    

This week I sent out an email to our a few of our pastors in the district just to get their feedback on some thoughts.  Here is an edited version as the first letter had several constitutional oversights in it. 

I would love your feed back on it...

__________________

Greetings in the name of Jesus,

I would ask you to consider an idea in light of two things that happened last week (Feb 1st).  

The first was,  I read Pastor Dwight’s letter that he will not be letting his name stand for re-election as our District Superintendent.  The second was, I filled out the pre-nomination ballets for the upcoming elections, for the May 2011 District Conference

.     As I looked over the names for those who are eligible to be elected and prayerfully wondered who would take these important positions, especially the critical position of our District Superintendent, (which is the focus of this letter), I had several thoughts. I would like to share them with you, then I want to make several proposals.

1    

1.  The leadership role of the New District Superintendent (DS) is critical as we face the future of our Saskatchewan district. This person, obviously, needs to be someone with a compassionate, but clear, godly vision on how to face the trials, challenges and the opportunities that awaits for us in this great province.
2. Our constitutional nomination process, in my opinion, does need a re-look, especially with the election of the DS. As we all receive a pre-conference nomination ballot it is possible that we could have an election from the pre-nomination process.  That means that we could put a leader in place without anyone knowing what their vision or direction is for the district. Also according to our constitution, if there are several people who are nominated from the pre-election ballot and all of them, when called to be notified of this, all decline, we are back to square one. The process then goes to the district conference and it has been my experience that when we get to the district conference, as the names are announced of those who are now again eligible for role of the DS, that many stand up and remove their names from the list!.  This then leaves just a few left, who may, or many not be ready to assume such an important role.  I do not like this possibility. Also, historically, we do not know really anything that happened with the pre-nomination ballot till district conference.  
3. I feel that since our DS is now elected for four years in their first term I think we should, as a voting body, know what God has placed on their heart, before we vote at the conference.   I do not think the leading of the Holy Spirit in choosing a leader, means that we can not hear and pray over what God is saying to potential future leaders.

           So this is what I would like to propose for voting for the office of District Superintendent:

1) Could those whose names are found on the list of potential candidates, publicly declare quickly if they are unwilling to let their names stand for the position of the DS? That is only if you feel comfortable in doing this.  I feel it would help, even in the re-nomination process, our votes to not be wasted.  There is no rules that are broken by stating that they are NOT interested or don’t feel called to this position at this time.

2) After the pre-nomination process is over and, in the best case scenario, we have THREE or more people (as per our constitution) for the role; could those  be given the opportunity at the District Conference to share their vision and ideas (10 min?) for where they feel the Lord would take this district over the next fours years?  This would give all those who vote, not just those who would know them, an opportunity to make a more informed decision.  I know that when I have brought lay people as a voting delegate from our church family, they (mostly) have NO idea of who they are voting for.  How can they get a sense of the heart and the direction the person is going to go, just by seeing their name on the power point?   This would greatly help with that. I just do not think that giving opportunity to hear from the candidates would remove the Lord’s will being accomplished in the process.

I am sure there are problems with these proposals.  I have a few questions myself on how this would work.  I just want to suggest we try something different as a district in picking this important leadership position. 

I would ask the district executive to consider allowing time at our next conference, to hear from those who would have a vision and heart to take this important position IF we have the required THREE qualified candidates from the pre-nomination ballots.

The Lord is good!

Respectfully submitted,

________________________________________

What do you think?

 

"So how are things going? How many people do you have attending?"

I was having a visit with my mentor and friend Wes and we talked about this article on having a "Church Apgar".  I had read it in the 2nd last edition of LEADERSHIP magazine and I thought this is exactly what we needed to do in our circles as smaller church pastors.   Please have a read and if you think it is a good idea....lets start an "APGAR" revolution!     
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Your Church's Apgar

A new way to measure spiritual vitality

Kevin A Miller | posted 8/02/2010

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In his masterful book Better, surgeon Atul Gawande writes that in the 1950s, newborn babies in the United States faced great danger: "One in thirty still died at birth—odds that were scarcely better than they were a century before—and it wasn't clear how that could be changed."

An anesthesiologist named Virginia Apgar was appalled: "Babies who were malformed or too small or just blue and not breathing well were listed as stillborn, placed out of sight, and left to die." Apgar believed these infants could be saved, "but she had no authority to challenge the conventions. She was not an obstetrician, and she was a female in a male world. So she took a less direct but ultimately more powerful approach: she devised a score."

Apgar gave nurses a way to rate the health of babies at delivery: "Ten points meant a child born in perfect condition. Four points or less meant a blue, limp baby."

This simple score, devised by an unlikely person—she had never delivered a baby, as a doctor or even as a mother—"turned an intangible and impressionistic clinical concept—the condition of new babies—into numbers that people could collect and compare."

And doctors, being both compassionate and competitive, wanted to boost Apgar scores for their newborns. So they began giving babies oxygen or warming them. They switched from giving mothers general anesthesia to spinals or epidurals. They began using prenatal ultrasounds and fetal heart monitors. And what a change: instead of one in every thirty babies dying at birth, today it's one in every five hundred. Virginia Apgar's score is saving the lives of over 100,000 American babies every year.

We need an Apgar score for the church.

As pastors, we care deeply about the health and vitality of our congregations. But how can we grasp congregational health? To use Gawande's words, it's "an intangible and impressionistic" concept. We need a measure that's simple, clear, and life-giving.

Problems with the prevailing metric

Through most of the twentieth century, the prevailing statistic for churches was the number of members. But as younger generations no longer formed their identity in relation to institutions—political party, labor union, fraternal organization, church—membership gradually told less about a congregation's real state. A long-established downtown congregation, for example, might have hundreds on the membership rolls but only a handful in worship.

So beginning in the early 1960s, some denominations began to report on worship attendance, and by about 1975, attendance had become the most widely accepted way to measure a congregation's vitality. Go to any pastors' convention and you'll soon be asked, "How big is your church?" or more crudely, "How many are you running?"

Attendance has hung on now, for almost 50 years, with only minor tweaks. In the 1980s, as well-known congregations added Saturday night services, people began counting "weekend worship attendance." In the 1990s, as churches added video venues and multiple sites, the count expanded like a baby boomer's waistline—"weekend attendance in multiple sites and venues." In the 2000s, with the addition of web campuses, it's not considered cheating to add to your count website viewers of online services. But we're still hoping attendance will tell us something essential about the health of our congregation.

Why does attendance hang on?
First, it's simple. An usher with one bad eye can get the number for you.

Second, attendance, unlike membership, means the same thing everywhere.

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Third, it's meaningful: Size determines the size of church staff and correlates with annual giving, which is the most influential factor in a senior pastor's compensation.

Finally, size confers social status, speaking engagements, and book contracts. As C. S. Lewis pointed out, medieval people were fascinated by light, but we moderns (and even avowed postmoderns are building on modern rubble) are fascinated by size.

Size even has scriptural support. Proverbs 14:28 states an immutable law of leading human organizations: "A large population is a king's glory, but without subjects a prince is ruined." So don't expect attendance to easily yield its proud place to budget, baptisms, or blog traffic.

And yet. We can't shake the feeling that measuring a local church by weekly attendance is at best insufficient and at worst misleading. What's wrong with it?

The missionally minded question attendance's very premise: It may measure a church's ability to be attractional, but what does it say about its ability to be missional? Many leaders are calling for a radical shift, from counting how many people are in the church service, to counting how many church people are in service. Why not measure the drop in the local community's teen pregnancy rate or the number of wells dug in sub-Saharan Africa?

Isn't there something malodorous in the fact that church attendance clings closely to what Americans value—bigness and money? The radical message of Jesus flips those on their back and honors the tiny (think pearl), the hidden (think yeast), and the willing-to-decay (think grain of wheat).

Even the pastor with a dog-eared copy of The Effective Executive has to admit that attendance focuses on one activity in the Christian life (gathering together, Heb. 10:25) rather than the more-important outcome—conversion or obedience or perseverance or maturity (Matt. 28:20). Peter Drucker pointed out decades ago that "All nonprofits have one essential product: a changed human being." As much as we wish church attendance led inexorably to life change, we know that's not the case.

We need to move beyond measuring churches primarily by attendance. We need a new measure. We need an Apgar score. I'm just crazy enough to propose not just one, but two possibilties.

Virginia Apgar's score measured a baby in five ways. On each, the baby can score either 0 (low), 1 (middle), or 2 (high). To make the five measures easy to remember, some ingenious nurse arranged them so they spell Virginia Apgar's last name:

Appearance (skin color):

0 = blue all over
1 = pink body, but blue extremities
2 = pink all over

Pulse (heart rate):

0 = less than 60
1 = 60 to 100
2 = over 100

Grimace (reflex irritability):

0 = no response to stimulation
1 = grimace or feeble cry when stimulated
2 = sneeze, cough, or pulling away when stimulated

Activity (muscle tone):

0 = none
1 = some flexion (pulling in of limbs)
2 = active movement

Respiration:

0 = absent
1 = weak or irregular
2 = strong

Total the five scores (none of which is size related), and you have a clear indicator of a baby's health: 10 means a baby born in perfect health, though any score from 7 to 10 is generally normal; 4 means a blue baby needing immediate intervention.

What if we created a measure of church vitality that is just as simple? One that is profoundly biblical? One that motivates positive change, independent of size of church or surrounding conditions?

Yes, Virginia, there is a church Apgar score. Actually, here are two.

We might base a "Church Apgar Score" on Acts 2, Luke's proud snapshot of the healthy, bouncing baby church in Jerusalem (see chart above). I reflected on our congregation and gave it an Acts 2 Apgar Score of 6, maybe 7. Other leaders might rate it higher, which is fine with me. The point is not so much the score as the direction, and I think our leaders would agree that in the past few years, we've moved up, praise God.

To view the Acts 2 Church Apgar chart click here. To take this assessment online click here.

If you don't like those categories, another possibility is found in Revelation 2. This Church Apgar offers a different perspective. Here I credit my pastor friend Lee Eclov, who generally lets me pick up the tab for lunch.

He earned several lunches with his brilliant insight, which we publishedonline ("Jesus' Surprising Definition," http://bit.ly/9HpqgF).

He writes: "In the second and third chapters of John's Revelation, in a uniquely direct way, we have the Lord's assessment of health indicators for local congregations."

For a church Apgar, Revelation offers advantages: a larger sample size—seven congregations rather than one—and descriptions of not just church strengths, but also church weaknesses (which sound curiously like our own).

To view the Revelation 2 Church Apgar chart click here. To take this assessment online click here.

On this scale, I gave our church an Apgar score of 8 (but admittedly, we're not facing the kind of persecution, including martyrdom, that the early churches in Asia Minor did).

Whatever weaknesses these church Apgars may have, they have one powerful strength. They can be done quickly and readily. Like those done in delivery rooms.

Other recent church assessments, such as Natural Church Development, Church Health Assessment Tool, Transforming Church Index, and REVEAL's Spiritual Life Survey, are very helpful—if your church has the time, money, and motivation to hire a consultant and/or get people to take surveys.

Many pastors, though, need a measure that is free and simple, more complete than weekly attendance but just as easy to determine. When I assessed our congregation using these Apgars, within a minute or two I knew where to thank God and where to pray for his help and go to work.

What to do with your church's Apgar

Start by prayerfully assessing your church. Don't let your score lead you into discouragement, that occupational hazard of ministry.As my friend Dave says, "A marker of spiritual maturity is being able to use metrics without feeling undue anxiety about them." Instead, gather a small group of leaders—a church board or staff team—to discuss questions like these:

1. What Apgar score did you give our church, and why?

2. For which of these five areas should we stop right now and thank God?

3. Which of these five areas do we sense God leading us to develop first? How does our answer align with our overall sense of calling?

4. What could we do, starting now, that could boost that area by one point in the next year or two?

Each church's response will vary, though I don't see how concerted prayer could not be included.

Focusing on church attendance (alone) turns us into marketers; focusing on an Apgar score turns us into intercessors. And suddenly the "size equals value" noise begins to fade away, because raising your Apgar score one point is no easier for a megachurch than for a house church. It might be harder.

I have a dream. My dream is to go to a pastors' conference and not hear anyone say, "How many are you running?" or "How big's your church?" Instead, I overhear someone say, "How's your Apgar?" and the other pastor replies, "Oh, a 6. I'd like it to be a 7, but we've moved up from a 5 in the past two years, so I'm feeling good about that."

Call me an idealist, but the way we measure church has changed before, and it can change again.

Kevin A. Miller is assistant pastor at Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, Illinois, and publisher of Leadership.

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TAKE AN ONLINE ASSESSMENT TODAY HERE

The Solo Church Pastor and Technology

A few weeks ago I watched a Webinar (an online based seminar) on "The Transformational Small Church" by the good folks at LifeWay research.

It really was GREAT!

My friends, we are in some of the GREATEST days to be in ministry in the smaller church. Today, there is really NO reason for the solo pastor to be feel unconnected, lonely and uniformed on what God is saying to His church. With programs like Skype and instant messaging, staying connected it easier and cheaper than ever!

You know what I would like? I would like to see a monthly (bi-monthly?) web based video connection time together for instruction so we can get together, without leaving our areas of ministry so we can encourage, pray together, help each other in vision and mission, equip each other with ideas and news of what is working and what does not work in your solo, smaller church context.

My problem, I do not know how to do this. There are some web sites I have looked at like http://www.gotomeeting.com/fec/webinar and http://www.ustream.tv/

Do you have any thoughts? maybe between us all, we can learn how to do this and have a "solo pastor connection hour" once and a while.

HELP?

-K

Sex Sunday

I had a talk with a pastor friend last week (he is also in a smaller church) and he told me that a few months ago he had what he called a "Sex Sunday". They podcast their services and they have a few dozen hits each week... but on that subject.. they have had over 175 hit thus far. wow...

I know I have asked before why is it that for something that God created and said was GOOD, we as people of God most never talk about the subject of sex??

I know that those who are not Christians do so... a lot.... and often crudely. Yet for us who are in Christ... we most never talk publicly about it.

I believe that it is even tougher in smaller churches in solo pastor settings to talk about sex. Jonathan Acuff, creator and blogger of the website called Stuff Christians Like (http://stuffchristianslike.net/), wrote a great post on how Christians have wrecked sex.

He writes;
"I’d love to say Christianity has knocked it out of the park and ransomed the beauty of this gift from the world, but I’m not sure we have. In fact, I think we’ve caused our own damage in four ways:

1. Sometimes, we teach guilt, not abstinence.

I touched on this a little in the Stuff Christians Like book. Lots of our churches and youth groups teach kids for years that “Sex before marriage is bad.” And I agree with that message. I’ve seen the damages of pre-marital sex hundreds of times. The challenge though is that’s only half of the message. I wish when we taught abstinence we would say, “Sex before marriage is bad, but sex when you’re married is awesome.” Because what happens is that during your formative teenage years you hear over and over again about how bad sex before marriage is. And your head and heart shorthand that idea and just tell you that, “Sex is bad.” Then you get married, on your wedding night, you’re supposed to magically, instantly shed all your guilt and fear about sex. We’re taught guilt for years and then left on the doorsteps of our marriages to figure it all out by ourselves.

2. We have very few ways to discuss it.

Because of this site, people often send me links to Christian stuff they think is funny. Every now and then, I’ll get links to “Christian sex sites.” The sites are typically forums where Christians talk in an honest and holy way about their sex lives. Now for the majority of us, that last sentence was weird. Let’s be real, our sex lives are not something we collectively talk about a lot in Christian circles. Our finances, our parenting, our jobs, our in-laws, deep regrets from the past, we’ll touch on anything in a small group. But broach some sexual topic at your next small group and people will look at you like your F to the E to the R to the G to the I to the E. That’s off limits. It’s supposed to be beautiful and holy and loving. And yes the world is attacking it everyday in thousands of ways, but you’re supposed to discuss that on your own as a couple. Maybe you’ve had a different experience in small group but we were in one that didn’t touch on that subject for the first three years or so.

3. We write 10 books about lust for every one book about the gift of sex.

God Bless the stuff folks like xxxchurch.com are doing. Buy Breaking Free or the Samson Pirate book. I love both of those. I’m happy for all the work that’s being done to free people from the bondage of sexual addiction. But I wish that for every time I heard about the poison of lust, I heard about the perfection of love. I wish every time someone preached on the problem of sex, someone preached about the untamed awesomeness of sex. The conversation has become very one sided when it comes to Christians and sex.

4. We’ve made the crayon box pretty small.

Have you ever prayed before sex? Have you ever applied every ounce of God given creativity you have to it? Have you ever made a Christian songs sex tape? OK, that last one is impossible, Michael W. Smith just doesn’t make music like Sisqo. But seriously, I think to some degree we’ve bought the lie that the world gets to have wild, crazy sex and Christians, holy folks like us get to have black and white, two dimension sex. But what if that’s wrong? What if the God who overflows us with love and hope and mercy, wants that part of our lives to be as big and as colorful as two married people could possibly imagine?

Those are the problems, or rather some of them, but what’s the solution? What’s the answer? What’s the fix? Those are fair questions, but there’s no way I could possibly solve the sex situation in a blog post. Here though is what I hope.

I hope that every time we say sex before marriage is harmful, we’ll say “sex after marriage is neon awesome.” I hope that some well-designed, honest Christian sex site will launch. (Feel free to use the variation, “Sexy Stuff Christians Like.”)

I hope that Thomas Nelson and Zondervan and Baker and some other folks will release some wild books about the goodness of Christian sex.

Until then though, until all of those things happen, you should at least go download Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game,” the Sundays, “Wild Horses,” and Mazzy Star’s “Fade into You.” Those are all some pretty fantastic make out songs."

Great stuff!! I have even used his comments in a pre-marriage class. So smaller church pastor, do you every talk about the "S word" from the pulpit? If so how did it go? Any advice to the rest of us?
Write away!

-K

Web Page Discovery

I happened upon this web page today and thought I was full of good material. I will link it to in the links section of the blog, but I thought I would highlight today for you.

It is called 9marks. org. Find it HERE

Anything you found that would be helpful to the rest of us as solo pastors?

Comment and let us know.

-K

Look what God is doing...

I am constantly amazed at how our God works... how His Spirit moves. I believe that God is stirring the hearts of men and women, across North America, to take notice of the smaller, solo church pastor and congregation. By "taking notice" I mean that people, compelled by God's spirit, are celebrating smaller churches, encouraging, training, challenging and calling out to God for them to be vibrant and "transformational".

I have spent a lot a time this week reading, listening and learning to what many people are saying about the smaller, solo pastor church. I am so moved by how God is bring people together with the same passion and desire to see churches like mine and yours back "on mission" for the kingdom of God and for our KING....

How can all these people, who have never met, all have the same singular passion and focus?? We both know the answer to that... it is a real move of God...
Here are three examples of some ministries that are smaller, solo church targeted, that I have found as of late.

www.combnetwork.com

www.thesticks.tv

smallchurch.com

I so want our PAOC to join God on what I see what He is doing. Not to neglect the larger churches that have multi-staffed and many people often in larger centers, but to bring together like minded brothers and sisters in our PAOC family to help the smaller, solo pastor lead church (which is the vast majority of churches) to ALL be mission focused again.

I watched Ed Stetzer's webinar this past Tuesday... amazing!!! I ache with the potential that technology gives us to help, encourage, and resource each other as solo pastors in Canada. We could connect each month(s) via video and pray together, learn from each other and walk together to see each of our churches vibrant and growing again... for the glory of GOD alone.

So you know I am trying to do my part. This blog is the beginning for me.... a place to call out to you and ask for you to raise your voice that this happen. Maybe, with God's help, we can become networked like never before... sharing ideas, resources, burdens and victories with each other.... and yes I think God is in this...

Praying for you...

-K

2010.09.07 | Transformational Relationship Webinar | Ed Stetzer & LifeWay Research: SESSION NOTES....

Notes taken by Stevan Sheets | http://www.stevansheets.com | Twitter - @navets

SESSION #1 - Thomas Rainer

5 Principals –

1. The principal of L+1

L=Leader

Leader plus 1

Ask God to use ME!

2. Principal of reward

Reward the type of behavior you will begin to see

3. Principal of eating the elephant

Begin to understand the context in which transformation can take place

4. Principal of strategic relationships

Who are those in the church that when they speak, others listen.

5. Principal of a leadership team

Expanding beyond the strategic relationships

Most-often going to be a laity team.

Characteristics of the leadership team:

1. Has a compelling purpose

2. The right leader (moving them forward)

3. The right team

4. Conducive culture (adapt from ME to MISSIONAL)

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Q&A...

+ How do we discern where to BEGIN to make changes?

Rainer: start where there is the most low-hanging fruit. Where there is the most available early victories.

+ appropriate rewards?

Rainer: new scorecard. whole idea of what we count becomes the reward system. Lift up other things other than the “nickels & noses”. Missional involvement.

+ for many, the church is the “safe” place that has not changed (refuge)...how do you bring about change without sweeping the rug from under their feet?

Rainer: worst way: FORCE it. best way: bring them together and ask them the questions - maybe slow and awkward

---

What to do: (Thomas Rainer is still presenting)

Relational intentionality -

1. Principal of strategic relationships:

PRAY: “Lord, give me a love for these people.” (prayerful dependence)

2. Principal of early victories -

3. Principal of matching passions -

Every person is gifted at something - leadership job is to point them towards their passions

4. Principal of leadership modeling -

somebody is watching you (a lot more than you think)

5. Principal of intentional ownership -

you are going to do certain things within the church even if you don’t enjoy doing them

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Q&A...

+ What would you say to introverted pastors to lead as introverts?

Rainer: most introverts are introverts in casual acquaintances. The more we get to know someone, the less introverted we can be with them. Learn to be more extroverted. Sometimes, do that which is against the grain..

+ What’s the relationship between relational intentionality and spiritual formation?

Rainer: the more we develop relationships, the more they can see who we are and grow in spiritual formation

+ Is relational intentionality the same as mentoring?

Rainer: mentoring falls more in the “formality” category. RI is more ‘informal’. Mentors who don’t know they’re our mentors...

+ How would you advise a N00B to start out in Relational Intentionality?

Rainer: spend time building relationships. FOCUS on getting to know people - who they are, where they are in their situation..

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Wrap-up with Ed Stetzer:

Transformational Individuals - new life.

Transformational Churches -

Transformational Communities -

Prayerful Dependence

Prayer happens naturally out of the community of believers.

“People who go to Jesus, go to Jesus together!”

Jesus is angry when prayer is replaced by earthly activities...

Principals on prayerful dependence:

1. The proper use of his house

- As we embrace Jesus, we embrace his priorities

2. Accessibility

- prayer gives all people access to God

- TCs are places where prayer is taught as the way for everyone to connect with the one true God.

3. The response to His praying people

- Jesus invites people to invite Him into their lives through praying

- The lord wants to involve us in His divine work

Praying churches -

1. experience breakthroughs

2. have praying leaders

3. commonly experience answers to prayer

4. pray because they believe it matters if they pray

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::LUNCH BREAK::

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Second-half of The Transformational Small Church Conference (“The Exchange Live”) #smallchurch (1:30PM EST)

Small Church Panel

Pastor Castro | El Shaddai Christian Church, Brentwood, TN

http://www.elshaddaicc.org/ |

Building completely destroyed one weekend during Nashville floods

Helped church realize that the church is NOT a building, but the body of Christ.

David Gould | First Wesleyan, Nashville, TN

http://www.nashvillefirst.com/ |

Lynn Harper | Promised Land Missionary Baptist Church, Dallas, TX

feeding programs, summer camp

Brian Bullard, Community Fellowship Baptist Church, Covington, GA

http://www.baptistsites.net/cfbc/index.cfm? |

“Just this ONE”

John Racioppa | Westmoreland FBC, Westmoreland, TN

http://www.westmorelandfbc.org/ | http://mylifeasjohn.blogspot.com/

Deut 23 - God wants to be a part of the camp...

Jason Whitehurst | Music City Assembly of God, Nashville, TN

http://twitter.com/pastorjasonmcag | http://musiccityag.com/ac/

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Panel Questions:

Advantages of being in a small church?

If the pastor does it, and has at least one with him, people will follow!

“We are not a church IN the community - we are a church OF the community” (Harper)

“Partner with what is already going on!” (Gould)

“It’s not about receiving, it’s about giving.” (Castro)

What have you had to give up in order to do the important ‘work’ in your small church?

- Sunday School - put emphasis in lifegroups instead (Whitehurst)

- It’s important to see why we do what we do. Reference to “Simple Church” book. (Gould)

How do you handle the “fixers”?

- don’t discount them initially - some have righteous criticism (Whitehurst)

- keep the main thing the main thing (Gould)

How do we measure success? (Changing the scorecard)

- celebrate individuals who make minor steps! (Harper)

- when people who don’t go to our church are talking about our church (Racioppa)

---

Ed Stetzer & Mike Harland (Director, LifeWay Worship)

20 free downloads - LifeWayWorship.com CODE: smallchurch2010

Relevance vs. Reverance

Transformation Churches:

70% agree that “A sesnse of anticipation and expectation surrounds our worship services.”

75% agree that “We see evidence of God changing lives as a result of our worship services.”

67% agree that “People regularly make a decision to obey God as a result of our worship services.”

---

MIKE HARLAND’s presentation:

Worship wars? Change from discussing “style” to “purpose”...

Worship: Actively Embrace Jesus

Engaging in the First Action

- The human heart is designed to find someone or something to hold in high esteem

- God’s intention from the beginning was to hold that esteemed position in our lives

- Worship is our response to the revelation of who Jesus is.

Transformational churches...

- Place worship at the center point of their efforts

- Have such a love for God that they know worship is a manner of living not a mode of church programming. (Romans 12 - “living sacrifice = service/worship”)

“Praise is fruit of our lips. Worship is fruit of our lives.”

Worship produces obedience. Greater the revelation, the greater the obedience.

Churches that Qualify as Transformational Churches

- Are those where merely scheduling and holding a worship service is not enough

- Have a high confidence that lives will be impacted through worship

- Expecting God’s presence to be real and transformative in their worship experience

Corporate Gatherings Matter

- Taking issue with the corporate gathering of God’s people is in vogue

- Many report that worship numbers are sliding at an alarming rate

Reasons for Corporate Gatherings

- God is glorified when Christians gather together to worship Him.

- People will witness our worship and ask, “Who?”

- People will witness our worship and ask, “Where?”

What happens when we Gather?

We don’t want to gather trying to impress crowds with our tech, innovation and creativity but to passionatly worship the God who saves.

When we Gather...

- We should want more people attending worship because it is a signal of priority

- Worship serves to connect

Relevance vs Reverence

- Reducing worship to a focus on style removes God as the reason for gathering

- Transformational Churches find a way for people to avoid the debates about place, style and method

- New venues will reflect the passion and problems of existing venues.

Purpose of worship

- Transformational Churches actively engage people in worship and are led by worship leaders who value participation over performance.

The Goal of Worship

- GOAL - to move from style to purpose

Principals for focusing on purpose

- We are not called to lead worship, but to lead people into the presence of God

- Worship is a spiritual discipline that

Worship produces transformation

- Active engagement transforms people

“Transformational churches show people who Jesus is - without fog machine, rock band, projection system.” - Mike Harland

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Q&A with Mike Harland and Ed Stetzer

+ How do we do this?

Answer: look and see what we have to work with... what resources are available for us to do what we can do. (LifeWayWorship.com plug) The #1 issue small churches face is lack of musicians. DON’T sacrifice the spiritual nature of what worship leading is. Sprituality wins out over just a guy who can play guitar.

+ What does a “worship leader”/”musician” look like?

Answer: worship leader needs to be in step with pastor..

+ How do we emphasize this in the planning of our worship services?

Answer: put the revelation of the character of Jesus in the mix. Ask, “what does this say about Jesus?” (Revelation -> Response)

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MISSION - about how we show the Love of Christ in word and action... (Ed Stetzer)

“Showing and sharing the love of Christ”

Engaging the Mission

73% agree “Our church’s members understand the importance of sharing their faith story with friends.”

Transformational churches engage people in ministry within the church and mission outside the church.

- Evangelism is the natural part of life for its members

- The church has made a conscious decision that their existence is directly related to God’s mission of seeing people of seeing people reconciled to God through Christ.

- Transformational Churches were active - even aggressive - about service in the community

- TCs have a significantly higher percentage of believers who see their church engaged in deeper mission

Church Membership

- TCs have a different perspective on church membership - more than signing a card

- membership is equated with a commitment to both the church and to serve the gospel to the community.

Engaging fully in mission - the activity we should crave is advancing the gospel in the lives of unbelievers

Advancing the Gospel

- Not something you easily get over - it is something you live in.

- A cross-centered and resurrection powered life no longer lives for itself. It shouldn’t. Instead it dies daily for the new priority of the kingdom mission.

Steps to engaging God’s Mission:

1. Define Success.

- The TC Scorecard should have the heading: “Lives being transformed by the power of Christ.”

2. Prepare.

- Transformational Churches receive training to be on mission

- Too many churches rely on surface-level orientation

“What you train for, you remain focused on.”

LEADERS and the LOST (two groups we need to focus our time and energy on)

3. Providing personal leadership to believers

- the most valuable resource for the missional journey is real-life examples and real-time conversations

4. Moving into the community

- Transformational Churches build a good reputation with the city.

“If your church were suddenly to disappear from the community, would anyone notice?” OUCH.

“Church exists for God’s glory and to be a people that join Jesus on His mission.”

80/20 rule versus the 80/20 SIN issue

Get your church OUT OF THE BUILDING

BE the church, don’t GO to church.

---

Q&A...

+ What about serving at a church where most are past their “physical serve” prime?

Answer: Everybody (believers) can do something.

+ What advice - practical hints - for finding needs in community?

Answer: ask people who love the community - YOU need to know more about your community than anyone else! How? Talk to those on school boards, government officials.., talk to other churches

---

::BREAK::

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Ed Stetzer & Rick Howerton (small groups specialist)

Proximity does NOT equal “community”. Sitting near someone is not enough. Move from sitting in rows to sitting in circles! LIVING LIFE TOGETHER.

LIFE TOGETHER

- Small Groups

- Sunday School

Transformational Practice

- believers join their lives for the purpose of maturing their faith and engaging in God’s mission

Too many churches are using small groups for assimilation instead of transformation.

Using them to get people to come to church instead of BE the church.

Community in a Transformational Church

- life change happens best among friends both old and new -

- community is an activity that delivers transformation

- moves us away from a fortress mentality

- creates a safe-zone

Transformational Churches...

- put a premium on involving people in small-group communities

- place emphasis on getting new members immediately involved in small group

Vital for small group leader to invite personally - not just via a sign-up list.

“Invitation follows the conversation”

Supporting Factors to small groups success

- Smaller # of people provide a greater opportunity for personal discovery

- smaller communities are just that - communities

- best way to geniune life change through the local church

“We are going to be involved in life change - not just a weekly meeting”

5 Deliverables of smaller communities

1. Smaller communities deliver deeper relationships

2. Smaller communities deliver accountability relationships

3. Smaller communities deliver environments for spiritual growth

4. Smaller communities deliver maximum participation

5. Smaller communities deliver missional opportunities

Five Elements of a Transformational Small Group

1. Mission oriented - focus must go to joining God on his mission

2. Word-driven mentality - Word of God DRIVES us.

3. Multiplication mindset - groups must understand from day one that their purpose is to reproduce

4. Stranger Welcoming - groups must always be concerned about the empty chair

5. Kingdom focused -

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Q&A

+ Doctrinally pure?

Answer: Lots of thoughts and ideas can circle the runway, but the leader must make sure the TRUTH lands. Small group leadership is key.

+ Church of 100, suggested for # of groups?

Answer: How many adults? Divide by 10. 5-8 small groups of adults in a church of 100. Study: about 50% of the church is usually involved in small groups... “HEALTHY” is MORE THAN 50%..

+ How do you produce an effective small group ministry

Answer: teach people the REASON behind them.

“As the church gets larger, it MUST get smaller.” - emphasize small groups

+ What size is small enough to NOT have small groups?

Answer: 15 people = need two small groups

http://twitter.com/rickhowerton | http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/small-group-training

+ How do you move to this model when def of success is that “everyone knows everyone”?

Answer: ask “do you really know each other or do you know about each other?” Pastor: start teaching a series on relationship and how they look in Scripture..

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Church Assessment Instrument

Transformationalchurch.com

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Missionary Mentality (Ed Stetzer)

Asking “what do we need to know about these people”?

64% agree that what our church does as activities relate to the type of people in our community.

Many people want to go back to a “golden era”.. change way of thinking to where we are going in the future!

“Don’t turn TOOLS into RULES!” (radio, bus ministry, etc.)

Discovering a missionary mentality

- understanding context or a missionary mentality is a key concept in Transformational Churches

- Transformational Churches know, understand, and are deeply in love with their cities, communities, and people.

Where are you?

- A critical mindset shift toward a missionary mentality is from the idea that people have stories to the idea that people are stories

- We must know the stories in our places of ministry

Missionary Call to People

- TC empower and release people to live on mission, with a missionary mentality, where they are right now, at the right time, following God’s activity and obeying His assignment.

Changing the world, not MY world

- Transformational Churches demonstrate a passion for the world

- Churches who want to be transformational and missional need to keep their global focus

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Q&A...

+ Community has been burned by our church. What now?

Answer: build a new reputation. show community we’re about the business of showing Jesus’ love.

+ Church has huge emphasis on international mission instead of local.

Answer: easier for small churches to be involved globally; and don’t devalue global missions. Simultaneously about global and local! GLOCAL! Can’t outsource the mission of God!

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WHERE TO START?

Pray!!