The shortness of life

 Most of my childhood was spent on dairy farms. There wasn't a lot of time to play with my friends although my brothers and sisters enjoyed play time. We moved from the farm the year I entered high school (1963) and moved into town. Suddenly, there was a lot more free time. One of the things I remembered doing during the summer was meeting with friends at an empty lot near our home and playing baseball on a makeshift field. That field now houses a retirement home, but in those days it was wide open. Our games ended at dusk because there were no lights, and that was the time we were all expected to be home for supper anyway. I thought about those days when I recently read where someone reminded us that we will not realize when we have played our last game with our friends. As I read that, I realized that I do not remember a single person who played in those games nor do I remember the last time we played ball on that field.

It's just one more reminder that life is short. I've circled the sun 76 times now, and that is still a short time compared to eternity. When I was in my 20s I would have considered someone my age now as ancient. Now I prefer the word seasoned! I've lived a full life and been able to do far more than a kid growing up on dairy farms in Indiana ever dreamed of doing, but I also realize I could have done so much more. I regret some of the things I've done, but I regret even more the things I didn't do when I had the opportunity. Nothing can be done about either one, but we can also start where we are and seek new opportunities to do what needs to be done.

So many people reach a certain age and think that their lives are over. I could encourage you to Google what famous people did in their advanced years. It's an eye-opener! As long as we have breath in our bodies we have the opportunity to made a difference in the world and in the lives of people around us. Age is just a number; it's not a determinative factor of what you can do.

Jesus said He came to give us life and life more abundantly. That means that He came to offer us eternal life when this life ends, and a full life until that happens. He wants to bless us that we might be a blessing to others. See, the only way to live a fulfilling life is to live it to be a blessing to other people.

I know I have more days behind me than I have ahead of me, but I want to live those days in such a way that I can bless as many people as possible. I want to see people come to faith in Jesus Christ. I want to see people break out of bondage to sin, to debt, to addictions, to broken relationships, to shame and guilt. Those that the Son sets free is free indeed, and I want people to find freedom in Jesus Christ.

Don't let a number determine what you can do. Ask God what He would have you do, and then do it. You will find out quickly how rewarding life can be.

When change is attacked

 Several years ago a congregation in a small community was filling its sanctuary in its two worship services each Sunday. Leaders were discussing adding a third service. Before that could be done, some changes needed to happen to prepare the church for that additional service. The pastor and staff were confidant that the church would accept those changes. However, when they were presented to those attending the business meeting they were soundly rejected. The few people who attended the meeting not only voted down the changes but also offered sharp criticism at the pastor and others who were promoting them. The pastor was stunned by the anger exhibited in that meeting. A short time later this pastor, who had served in this church for over two decades, left for another church.

That meeting not only broke his spirit, it began a downward spiral in the church. Today, this church is less than half the size it was at the time of the meeting. One wonders if it will ever return to the vibrant church it once was.

As a regional minister for 14 years I saw a number of similar situations when needed change in a church was rejected. Like the previous church, not only was the change rejected, the rejection came with a lot of angry accusations, name-calling and division. Much of this was usually directed at the pastor and/or staff. When I would be called in to mediate the issues I would usually tell the pastor privately that his or her time there was probably up. In most cases, the pastor was not going to survive this rejection of his leadership.

Why do such violent attacks occur when change is suggested? Sometimes it is due to some deep pain within the congregation. In my first church I announced some plans I had made only to have those plans immediately rejected. Later that evening, in a private phone call, I learned why the people responded as they did. I had, not knowingly, opened up some old wounds that had not healed. I had not been there long enough to know the history, especially that part that had brought pain, of the church.

At other times changes are rejected because the people have grown weary of pastors who introduce changes and then leave before they are fully implemented. Such congregations often feel they are left holding the bag. I don't believe we fully understand how much pain there is in congregations who have seen continuous rapid pastor turnover. Why would such churches embrace change when they've been taught that the pastor will only be there a short while?

Of course, change is often opposed by people who fear that it will challenge their authority or position in the church. I've written extensively about church controllers in this blog and in some of my books. These people will oppose anything that might threaten them or their position in the church. They will often be the most outspoken about their opposition, and they can be quite ugly as well. 

The first two situations can be addressed by a long-term pastor. Just because a change is needed doesn't mean it's needed today. In my experience, most worth-while changes in a church took much longer to occur than I had thought. A long-term pastor builds trust in a congregation, and that trust can lead to them becoming willing to accept changes.

I had mentioned that the pastor above had been at his church for over 20 years so being long-term didn't help his situation. That's because those who most strongly opposed the changes he was proposing were church controllers. As more people were coming into the church they were fearful that they would lose their control over the church. They were determined to do anything to stop future growth, and this is what those changes would have brought. Only a handful of people showed up for that business meeting, and it was mostly the controllers. The ones who wanted change, who wanted to see the church grow, weren't there. Maybe that's what hurt the pastor the most.

 

Discontinuous change and the church

 Change has always been a part of life. Babies are born, they grow into childhood and then into teenagers and finally become adults. Factories have always found new, inventive ways of producing items to sell. I worked in a factory for 30 years and saw many changes take place during those years. We could name many other similar changes, but these are all continuous changes. These types of changes come from what has occurred before. they can be expected and managed.

Discontinuous change is completely different. it is disruptive and is not expected. It often challenges our expectations. Worse yet, such change often challenges our skill sets and knowledge. The printing press is a good example of discontinuous change. There was little reason for the average person to learn to read until the printing press made it possible for people to have Bibles and other books. A more modern example might be the Internet. The entire world was transformed when the Internet was created. This was followed by the smart phone which placed more computing power in our pockets than was used to land people on the moon.

The changes faced by today's churches are often discontinuous changes. Everything the church believed to be true about being the church is being challenged. Once upon a time the church was at the center of much of a community's life. Today, it is barely on the periphery of most people's lives. Pastors were trained to manage churches with well-developed programs that had been tested over time and proved to be useful. Denominations received annual reports from their churches to see how well their branch plants were doing. There was a large pool of pastors ready to move into those churches seeking pastors. None of this is true today.

Smaller churches find it extremely difficult to find a new pastor, and even many mid-size churches may take 2-3 years to find a new pastor. Many of the programs that had been so successful in the past have been discarded today as less than useful. A majority of people no longer find the church to be necessary for their lives. In fact, some Christians now believe that the church has been harmful to their spiritual health. Church membership and financial support have been declining for several years now in most churches. Many denominations have been forced to cut staff, sell off buildings and offer only minimum support to their churches.

It isn't that churches are not trying to overcome their challenges. Many are trying real hard, but they are still using their old tools which no longer work. We are not prepared for discontinuous change, and many in ministry today are not equipped to deal with it. We have to learn new ways of doing ministry, and this will require the efforts of every Christian, not just the pastors. As one book suggested

A congregation must become a place where members learn to function like cross-cultural missionaries rather than be a gathering place where people come to receive religious goods and services.

Because we live in a pre-Christian world, we have to begin to think and act like missionaries entering a place of ministry for the first time. We have to learn new languages. We have to learn how non-Christians think and act before we can hope to share the gospel with them. We have to become students of their culture, not to adapt to it but to respond to it with the good news of Jesus Christ.

Much more could be written, but it's enough to say that if we keep doing the same things we've been doing, we will become less and less relevant in a world filled with discontinuous change.

Books for smaller churches

In 2001 I published my first book with Baker Books. Over the next few years I published another 7 books with Beacon Hill Press (the Nazarene publishing company) and Judson Press (American Baptist). These books all focused on healthy small churches and bivocational ministry. One day I walked into a LifeWay bookstore and saw four of my books on the shelf. I have to admit that was kind of a heady experience. Since then I have self-published two books. One is on the challenges facing the church in the 21st century, and the other is a book on what I learned about running a small business (and failing). 

These books are still available on Amazon although at least one is only available as an ebook. The two I self-published are also available on Amazon as ebooks.

One denominational leader told me that the principles found in these books are applicable to any size church. I wrote them specifically for the smaller church as those churches are what I know best, and there are few resources written especially for them. The best selling book of all has been The Healthy Small Church. Not only has that book sold the most copies; it also has given me the opportunity to lead conferences and workshops for numerous denominations across the US and Canada.

Bivocational ministers are my heroes. I have served in bivocational ministry since 1981. I understand the challenges of such ministry, and I also understand the rewards that bivocational ministry brings to the church and to the pastor. I love the opportunity to encourage these servants of God and to offer encouragement to them. My books and conferences have both strived to do that.

If you think my books might be helpful, please go to Amazon, type in my name and see the various books I have listed there.

One challenge facing today's church

In 2006 The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World by Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk was published. As a Resource Minister in our region at the time, I read it hoping to find some tools I could use to help some of our churches. Frankly, I didn't really understand much of what the book was saying. This week I began re-reading it, and it is hitting home. They are saying some of the same things I've been saying to churches for the past few years. (Maybe I understood the book better than I thought!) For instance, they write

People are no longer willing to learn the internal language of the congregation. They are not shaped by loyalty to institutions and have little interest in joining groups or programs. No amount of rearranging of programs will change this. The reality is that the organizational cultures, the environments, created in congregations over several generations are no longer able to engage the changed context and its emerging generations,

Unfortunately, many of our churches fail to realize this is happening or they refuse to do anything differently to minister to a new generation. Instead, they spend time putting down new carpet, painting walls and rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while whistling a happy tune as the ship is sinking.

Pastors and lay leaders need to stop talking about what's happening in the church and discover what is happening in people's lives. Rather than simply offering programs that we used in the 1950s we need to discern what current needs are and how we can best address them. Such discovery is unlikely to happen within the walls of the church. I once met with a church board and pastor to discuss this very issue. I asked how many people in the immediate community attended their church, the answer was virtually none. I then asked what were the needs of the people in the community? The pastor looked at me and asked, "How do we find that out?" After recovering from my immediate shock I answered, "By going outside the church and asking them." He had never thought about that.

But, what happens once the church better understands the culture of the surrounding community? Here is where it really starts getting tricky. Chances are likely that what is discovered in that culture is unlike anything the church has addressed before. Pastors are trained in seminary to manage institutions, counsel, exegete Scripture, preach and do the things often associated with pastoral ministry. Most congregations have simply been taught to let the pastor lead them in the things he or she has been trained to do.

A bivocational pastor who was a school teacher once told me that the young people in his school that did not fit in any of the cliques (jock, nerd, farmer, etc.) were assuming they were gay and began to identify that way. He was at a loss of what to do. How many churches and pastors are equipped to address the growing trend of gender dysphoria that we hear so much about these days? There is not space in this post to mention the many other challenges found in today's society that the church must address if it wants to reach this generation for Jesus Christ.

I hope as I continue to read this book that I will find some answers because I too must admit that I do not have the answers to the questions I've raised. But, if we don't find some answers we will not reach this generation for the Kingdom of God and our churches will continue to become more irrelevant.

Leaders see further than others

One of the characteristics of leadership is that leaders see further than others see. Jesus cautioned people to count the cost before before beginning a project (Luke 14: 28). How can you count the cost if you cannot see the end from the beginning? Many people can't, but leaders can. Leaders can see into the future and spot potential problems that might keep their plans from coming to pass.

When I served on region staff we were asked to develop some goals for the upcoming year. The goal-setting tool I used then, and still do, includes a section that asks what challenges might keep me from achieving this goal. Before I begin a project, I want to know what might come up that will threaten my success in reaching the goal. If I can spot potential problems in advance, I can work to alleviate them  before they occur.

This same principle holds true when communicating potential change to a group of people. It's not enough to know the what and why of the change, a leader must also know what potential challenges he or she might encounter. If the leader can address people's concerns before they even express them, he or she will avoid a lot of arguments of why the change won't work.

I read recently that the vision a pastor should have for a church should exceed his time there. At my first church I had a vison for a new fellowship hall that would offer expanded ministry opportunities. I further challenged the church to build the facility without borrowing any money. They agreed to build it without incurring any debt.  Little did I know that when the subfloor was laid I would be called to another ministry position. The good news is that the church completed the building, and it was built debt-free. I was delighted when I was invited to  speak at the dedication service for the new fellowship hall.

Will the leader identify every potential twist and turn when communicating vision to others? No, but if he or she cannot identify at least a few potential challenges it's probably not a good idea to move forward. They don't understand the vision well enough to lead it, and there is too much risk they will lead the organization into trouble.

Never take worship for granted

 I am currently reading The Worship Architect by Constance M. Cherry. When our region was offering Church Alive to our churches as a process to help them grow and become healthier, Dr. Cherry was one of our presenters. She is professor emeritus of worship and pastoral ministry at Indiana Wesleyan University and an authority on Christian worship. She shares an incredible story in the book which I want to share with you. It is a story of a house church in China. She writes

Because of the necessity of worshiping in secret, the pastor left his home at 11:00 p.m. on the nights the church held worship services and walked a few hours by the light of the moon up to the mountains, where the villagers would gather in a cave with only a dim candle. They would "lip-synch" hymns that they knew from memory without uttering a sound for fear the Chinese government might discover them. After worshiping together, they would go back to their village to reach their homes before 5:00 a.m., when they would go to the field to start another day of work.

Several years ago I was part of a group of American Baptist men who went on a mission trip to Haiti. On Sunday we attended one of the Haitian churches for worship. The service began at 7:00 AM. People were asked to move from the front row so we could have their seats. The building was full with people actually sitting on the pulpit platform and others sitting in the rafters above us. About 9:00 the service ended, and as we were leaving, people were already coming in for the 10:00 service, many carrying their own chairs.

I have often thought about the difference in the approach many American Christians have towards worship and what I experienced in Haiti. As I read the account of the house church in China and how they had to worship due to fear they would be found out, it again reminded me of how nonchalantly many American Christians approach worship.

Our Constitution gives us the freedom to worship, a freedom many throughout the world do not have. This is not a freedom from worship, but a freedom to worship. According to Dr. Cherry's book, there is evidence that the early church gathered every day to worship. Some today feel they are doing God a favor if they attend church once a month. Those Christians in China literally risk their lives by gathering for worship; some of us have to decide each week if we are going to attend church services or if there is something else we want to do.

This is not intended to be a rant. I simply want us to examine our hearts. We should never take worship for granted. People risk their lives to worship God in other parts of the world. Our attitude every Sunday should be "I get to go to church and worship God today," not "I've got to go to church today and then we can do the other things we want to do."  

I want to encourage you make worship a priority in your life. This not only means attending church services each week, but also to worship God in your personal life as well. Spend time in prayer and in reading the Bible. Many of us are reading through the Bible this year as an act of worship and discipleship. I invite you to join us on this journey.