Christmas trip

Yesterday evening my wife and I returned home from Austin, Texas where we had spent a few days visiting our son and grandson. We don't get to see them as often as we would like, but we always try to make it down there a few days before Christmas. We enjoyed some great Texas bar-b-que at Terry Black's famous bar-b-que restaurant. We go there every time we are in Austin because it is some of the best bar-b-que I've ever eaten. We go shopping and do some other things, but mostly we just hang together as family.

I often think back to previous Christmases when I was younger. Extended families got together which meant there were plenty of cousins to play with. Later, after Faye and I married, we spent part of Christmas Eve with her eight brothers and sisters and all their kids. Her brother had a nice pole barn which we cleaned up and used for the get-together. He and I would go out into the woods and cut down a large cedar tree and take it to the barn. It was so big we had to pull it behind a tractor. When we put it up we tied the top to the rafters to make sure it didn't tip over. Tables were set up, and a big feed was enjoyed by all. Afterwards, there were lot of presents to unwrap. We would then leave there and go to my parents for a much smaller celebration.

I cherish those memories because it's not possible to repeat them today. My wife's remaining siblings got together last Saturday, and my brothers and sisters will get together the Saturday after Christmas. Many members of the family won't attend because they live too far away. Just like our recent trip to Austin, we were not able to see two of our grandchildren because one is in school in Pennsylvania and another one works in Maryland. You adjust, but it's not the same as the memories I have from my childhood.

Life happens, and change is inevitable, but many Christmas traditions remain. Churches will present Christmas programs, choirs will sing anthems, live nativity scenes will demonstrate to the world what that first Christmas might have been like. Churches will see increased attendance this coming Sunday.

But, most important of all, Christmas will happen. We will be reminded that because of this babe born in a manger, there is hope in the world. Despite everything happening, we have hope because the Son of God came to earth as a babe lying in a manger. Joy is available to all who believe in Him despite the junk that may be happening in their lives. Lives can be transformed because because over 2,000 years ago a Jewish child was born in a little, insignificant village in Israel who just happened to be the Son of God.

My prayer for each of you who reads this blog is that you have experienced the transforming power of Jesus Christ in your life. You do not have to live with the guilt you feel over the things you have done wrong in your life. You do not have to live with a fear of death because you do not know what eternity holds. This Christmas season is the perfect time to ask Jesus Christ into your life to be your Lord and Savior. Allow Him to cleanse you of every wrongdoing in your life. Experience the freedom of knowing that your sins are forgiven and the joy that comes knowing that you are part of the family of God. If you do this, I can guarantee this will be the greatest Christmas you will ever experience.  

Top 10 Books for 2024 1-5

 Today I'll share the remainder of my favorite reads for 2024.

5) Ignite by Nelson Searcy. I love Searcy's passion for the church and for people. I have most of his books in my library, and I've heard him present at a leadership conference in which we were both teaching. This is an excellent book for church planters and for pastors serving churches that need to relaunch (like me). He shares the tools he used to grow his new church plant in New York into a strong, vibrant congregation. I first read this book a few years ago, and felt it would be helpful to re-read it as I have begun serving as a pastor of a church that needs to rebuild. I'm putting some of his suggestions in action.

4) Transformational Church by Ed Stetzer and Thom S. Rainer. This is another re-read in 2024. One of the missing components in many churches is discipleship. Evangelism is one side of the Great Commission coin; discipleship is the other side. Churches that see people's lives transformed by the power of God are churches that disciple their members. The authors give many helpful insights on how churches can begin to do that.

3) In Search of a Confident Faith by J. P. Moreland and Klaus Issler. This book has so many highlighted passages, underlined paragraphs and notes written in the margin I hardly know where to start writing about this book. The authors address how to deal with the doubts one may have about God and faith. They point out the differences between distractions of the head and distractions of the heart. They point out how hurts in the past can impact our beliefs now and offer some help to conquer those past hurts. This is a very good book for pastors and lay persons alike. None of us are beyond having periods of doubts in our own lives, and this book can help us address those.

2) Wide Awake by Erwin Raphael McManus. The author challenges us to stop settling in our lives and to begin to live our best lives now. He (like myself) believes that God has an amazing plan for each of our lives. Our lives can never be full until we understand what that purpose is and begin to live it. Each of us had dreams when we were younger, but as we grew up those dreams often faded away. Perhaps we need to reawaken those dreams and dare to become the people God created us to become. This book can help you do that. 

1) The Unstuck Church by Tony Morgan. Drum roll please! This is my favorite book for 2024. It must be because I read it twice in a row, and I've never done that with any book. As a region minister in our denomination for 14 years, most of the churches I worked with were stuck and didn't know what to do to get unstuck. Now that I am a pastor again, I am in a church that is stuck. Every day as I read this book I found things that I can do and things the church can do to get unstuck. The author warns the reader on the back cover that this book will offend you, and he's right. Some of the things he writes hurt, but they need to be said, and we need to listen. If your church is stuck, and research indicates that at least 80 percent of the churches in American are, then you need to read this book.

This is my list for 2024. These books spoke to my heart and were timely for my current situation. I believe they are all worthwhile reads for anyone in church leadership. I will close by mentioning that if you click on the link and order any of these books I may receive a small compensation, but this is not the reason I publish this list each year. I want others to know what I have found helpful to my life and ministry.

Top 10 Books for 2024 6-10

 Regular readers of this blog know that I average reading about 50 books each year. I just finished my 50th book for 2024, so I thought I might as well go ahead and share my top 10 reads for the year. This year I re-read a lot of books I had previously read. I also didn't read as much fiction as I had been reading. After being called to serve as pastor of North Madison Baptist Church I thought I had better retool my pastoral skills! That eliminated the Star Wars books! Anyway, here are my favorite reads 6-10.

10) The Church and the Single Mom by Jennifer Barnes Maggio. I have a burden for the single moms living in our community. According to the past census report, there are 1,700 single-parent homes in our county. I would assume at least 1,500 of them are single-moms. I am encouraging our church to begin a ministry to serve these individuals, and I admitted to them I didn't have a clue how to begin. Reading this book is helping me identify some ways we can begin to serve this population.

9) The Post-Quarantine Church by Thom S. Rainer. This was one of my re-reads. Covid hit most churches hard. People stayed away from church even when it was announced that it was safe to return. Those churches who thought they would return to normal once the pandemic ended were wrong. We now live in a new normal, and only those churches that can adjust to that new normal will thrive. Rainer points out that there are now three groups of people the church must serve: Digital-only who are unable to attend church services, Digitally-transitioning are those who are mostly connected to the church digitally but may attend occasionally; and Dual citizens who are connected to the church both through digital ministries and in person. This is a very good book for pastors and lay leaders to read who want to know how to move forward.

8) The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell. I have never published my top ten list without at least one book by Maxwell being on the list. He is a must read for anyone in a leadership position. In fact, I have his latest book on my desk which I will start reading next week. I have read the referenced book several times and heard him teach from the book. It has shaped my leadership style more than any other book or class. I only wish the book had been available earlier in my ministry.

7) I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek. This book is not an easy read but one that I found very helpful. It is a book that points out the blind faith that atheists and skeptics must have in order to sustain their rejection of God and shows how reason and logic will always point one to belief in God. I love reading apologetics, and this is one of the best to give you a reason for your faith and give you some tools you can use to share that faith with others.

6) The Deconstruction of Christianity by Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett. Deconstruction is a new term in our postmodern age. It refers to the process by which people walk away from their faith in God. Several well-known Christian authors and musicians have announced in the past few years they no longer believe in God. Countless others have made the same choice. I read this book to help me understand what is happening and to give me some tools to use if someone comes to me saying they are in the process of deconstructing. This book did not disappoint. If you have not known someone yet who is going through deconstruction of their faith, you will. This book can help you work with those individuals.

Tomorrow I'll share the final five books that made my favorite list for the year.

Character trumps vision

 Readers of this blog know that I often write about vision. Vision is the key to any successful endeavor. As a Resource Minister in our region I always began my first meeting with a pastor search team by asking for the vision of the church. Not once in 14 years could any pastor search team tell me their church's vision. I then explained that without a vision how could they know what they needed in their next pastor. If they didn't now where God was leading them, how could they know if the person they might interview was capable of taking them there. A few churches allowed me to help them discern a vison from God, but most just wanted to continue their search for a pastor. Those churches are still wandering around in the wilderness.

Vision is key, but one thing is even more important. That is the character of the leader. As Jon Gordon writes in The Power of Positive Leadership, "You can have the greatest vision and mission statement in the world and be optimistic and positive, but if you are not someone people want to follow, they are not getting on your bus. People follow the leader first and their vision second." John Maxwell says that leaders have to have the heart of the people before they can expect the people to follow them. The leader's character determines whether or not others will follow him or her.

When I began my first pastorate the youth told me they wanted to go to King's Island. When I announced at a business meeting we would be taking the youth to that amusement park it was made very clear that I wasn't taking the kids anywhere. My first business meeting as a new pastor made me think being a pastor might not have been such a great idea! Later that evening one of the lay leaders called and explained the reaction I had received from those attending. There was a history I knew nothing about that triggered the response.

Jump forward about 15 years later. Some of our members were at a piano store and asked me to join them. The store had a sale on an electronic piano that was similar, but a step above the one our pianist had in her home, and it was less expensive than she had paid for hers. I was asked what we had to do to buy the piano, and I explained they all knew the Baptist history. We need to form a committee and let them discuss it for a few months before the church votes. While they knew all that, they also knew the sale ended that day. I explained the other option was that we buy the piano. We did, I put it on my credit card, and it was delivered the following Monday. The church voted to reimburse me for the piano, and there was not a single objection to our buying it.

Why the different reactions? Over the years the congregation got to know my heart. I had earned their trust. They were willing to follow me because they knew I loved that church and would do nothing intentionally to hurt it. It was also important that I had not made the decision to buy the piano alone; the decision was made with three other trusted leaders in the church.

It takes time to model character to a congregation. They have to know first of all that you love them and want only the best for them. Once that is settled, then they become willing to follow your vision. If they determine you do not have their best interest at heart, or if your character is lacking in important areas, they will not follow you.

What to read?

 Anyone who has followed this blog for some time knows that I love to read. My goal is to read 50 books a year, and I am on track to do that again this year. The vast majority of books I read are non-fiction although during the Covid shut-down I started reading non-fiction books as well. Now that I have returned to pastoral ministry my reading is more focused on ministry and theological books. Unfortunately, this presents me with a problem.

I really miss the Lifeway bookstores. The reason I miss them is that I could go in and check out the books before I bought them. Today, I was in Louisville and stopped at a shopping center that has a Barnes and Noble bookstore. At first, I thought they were gone as well as a Whole Foods store was in the building they had previously used. As I drove through the center I realized they had moved into a smaller building on the other side of the center. When I entered I found that their religion section contained mostly popular books and offered nothing related to ministry or theology.

Most of the books I buy now come from Amazon. As I'm reading, I may find a reference to a book that seems like it would be a good one to read. When I order it I am sometimes disappointed. The book may not be what I expected it would be. Sometimes the font is so small or light that I find it difficult to read. Some books are written at such an elementary level that they offer little worthwhile, and others are written for an academic audience that makes me think the author was more interested in impressing people with his or her knowledge of big words than in offering something that would be worthwhile to the average reader. Occasionally, I find that the book is so poorly written or edited that it is almost unreadable. Several books have gone into the trash can after reading just a chapter or two. Having published books myself, I remember my editors insisting that the books were edited properly, clear in what they were saying and readable. I wonder what has changed. Of course, these problems could largely be avoided if it was possible to review the book before purchasing it, but that has become very difficult to do.

This year I have focused on re-reading some of the favorite books in my library. Fortunately, there are many! As I read them I find there are many things written in them I've forgotten or overlooked in my earlier reading. I just finished one published in 1993. It now has much more highlighting and notes written in the margin that it had after my earlier reading. Yes, some of it is outdated, but a lot of it still makes sense in 2024. I found some things I hope to introduce into the church in the coming year.

I know the brick-and-mortar bookstores are unlikely to return, especially the Christian-oriented ones, but I miss them. They provided a service to those of us in ministry that online shopping never will. Their demise is just one more thing that has disappeared from our world that this old man misses.

Finding peace in the ministry

While serving as a Region Minister in our judicatory one of the things that troubled me was the number of pastors in the churches I served who were simply waiting until they reached retirement age. The pressures of ministry had wore them out, and now they were just counting the days until they could retire. Essentially, they had given up on ministry. Some were still serving their congregations well, but others were just going through the motions. Some were obviously battling depression, but none of those pastors were willing to see a doctor and get some help. I felt sorry for the pastors and also for the churches they were serving. Those churches were not getting the kind of pastoral leadership they needed.

I can understand why some pastors feel beat down. They are serving in churches I often referred to as "widow makers." During my time as Region Minister I finally told two churches I would work with them to get healthier, but I would not recommend another pastor to them until they worked through their health issues. Not surprisingly, they were not interested in working on health issues so I never worked with them on finding a new pastor.

Fortunately, most churches are not like that. Often, in those churches, when a pastor feels overwhelmed it is self-inflicted. Most people enter the ministry wanting to impact people's live. Many of us struggle to say no to almost any request. It doesn't take long before our schedules are so full of meeting the needs of others that we have no time for self-care or for meeting the needs of our families. We begin to feel like we are in a vise. The pressure can continue to build until we feel overwhelmed.

So how do we deal with this pressure? What can we do to recapture the joy we first felt when we entered the ministry? We can start by learning to say no to some things. We do not have to touch everything in the church. We do not have to attend every meeting. We do not have to run over to someone's house when their cat stubs it's toe. We can learn that it's OK to let a phone call go to voice mail. We can learn that not everything is an emergency. 

We can learn to own our calendars. I suggest setting aside time each week for personal time. Put it on your calendar. Add some time on your calendar to spend time with your family. Have a date night with your spouse, and put it on your calendar. If someone asks to meet with you during those times just tell them you already have an appointment at that time.

Build margin in your life. If your calendar is packed full you have no time for true emergencies. That adds stress to your life. You can't control when you will need to do a funeral or deal with a crisis in your family or in someone else's family. If you have no margin, you'll be trying to do too many things at the same time. Talk about stressful!

Determine your priorities and work with those as much as possible. If you are responsible for preaching remember that Sunday comes every seven days. You must make that message a priority, and that doesn't happen if you start working on that message on Saturday night. If your church is having a special event that you are required to participate in, start early preparing for that. The week before is not the time to start. I had an instructor in Bible college who had plans drawn up four years in advance for events he was responsible for leading. I'm not suggesting anything that extreme, but I also never saw him stressed about anything. Start early planning those special events and you'll have much less stress.

There's more you can do, but if you'll start with these simple steps, you'll find ministry to be much less stressful.

Church traditions

 Unless your church is a new church startup, it has a number of traditions that have served it well over the years. Even new churches will sometimes reflect the traditions the new church planter knew in former churches. Some of these traditions serve the church well and should be maintained. Others may need to be replaced if we are to reach a new generation of people.

It's important to remember that church traditions arose because they became convenient ways of doing things when the tradition was started. Chances are, they replaced older traditions that no longer worked well in a new culture. It is even more likely that the new ways of doing things were resisted by some who wanted to continue with their older traditions. Now, the traditions that replaced the older traditions are considered sacrosanct by the current membership despite the fact they are now a hindrance to the church.

Several years ago a rural church discussed paving their parking lot. Some in the church resisted believing that the gravel parking lot was sufficient. The pastor reminded them that before the gravel was added years earlier, the parking lot was dirt. This was fine when many of the members rode buggies and horses to church, but it became a problem when most of the membership started driving cars. Who wanted to get stuck in a muddy church parking lot? Today, the expectations of people, and especially the younger people churches claim to want to reach, expect better facilities. Who wants to walk through a muddy, or snow-covered, church parking lot when they don't have to do? They don't when they shop at their favorite stores. As an added example, the pastor reminded the congregation that it had only been a few decades ago that the church replaced their outhouse with an indoor restroom. He asked if anyone wanted to return to the outhouse. The church voted to blacktop the parking lot. Over the next couple of years it had to add additional parking because their lot had filled up.

What traditions does your church have that no longer add value to the church and may be limiting your growth? I can almost guarantee your church has them. Will it be easy to eliminate them? Probably not, but it will be necessary if you are to reach a new generation of people for Jesus Christ.