Bivocational pastors must practice good self-care

People who know my story know that I was a bivocational pastor of a small, rural church for 20 years. They also know that a few years into that ministry I was diagnosed with clinical depression. Prior to that diagnosis I had spent four years attending a Bible college, working full-time in a factory, driving 100 miles each way to attend school, pastoring the church and being a husband and father. It's a wonder the depression didn't kick in sooner than it did!

Although the church allowed me two weeks vacation each year I never took but one. I never took a Sunday off and was very poor at delegating any ministry responsibilities to anyone else. I had always said I would rather burn out than rust out, but it wasn't until the depression hit that I realized how stupid that was. Either way you are out!

I was on medication and in counseling for a year before recovering from the depression. It was a difficult year, but it was also a learning opportunity. I learned that if I didn't take care of myself there would come a time when I couldn't care for anyone else. I learned that self-care wasn't selfishness. It was stewardship of a valuable resource...me. I learned how important it was to take time for myself and my family.

After the depression ended I requested three weeks vacation and a few years after that I asked for a fourth. The church never hesitated, and I took every one of them. I found some hobbies I enjoyed doing and began to set aside time for them. I no longer felt I had to attend every church meeting. If I began to feel stressed I sought to find the stressor and address it before it created problems.

Pastors are often better at caring for others than they are in caring for themselves. This is true of both bivocational and fully-funded pastors. Most of us enter the ministry to serve people, and we often do that without considering our own well-being. Many of us have no one to talk to about our issues, our struggles, our pain. Too often we don't even talk about it to our spouses because we don't want to burden them down with our problems.

What can pastors do to practice good self-care? I addressed this in my book The Healthy Pastor: Easing the Pressures of Ministry. Let me share just a few things from that book.

Everyone needs someone to talk to. This includes pastors. Some pastors have fellow clergy with whom they can discuss some of their challenges. Others have regular appointments with therapists or pastoral counselors. I was contacted earlier this week by an individual asking if assigning chaplains to churches would be helpful. I assured him it would but suggested that in many cases it might be better to assign a chaplain to an association or a group of associations to ensure that pastors of smaller churches would have access to a chaplain. Whoever you use must be able to maintain confidentiality, they must believe in you, and they need to be able to offer spiritual direction when needed.

Secondly, pastors need to take time away from ministry. As a Resource Minister I encouraged every church I served to provide their pastor with four weeks vacation each year. That will cost them very little in actual financial cost, but it will greatly benefit their pastor and his or her family. Furthermore, I also advocated for every church to grant their pastor a three-month sabbatical every seven years. That was an even tougher sell than the four weeks vacation. As I explained to many church leaders, their pastor is on call 24/7/365. No one else in the church has that kind of expectation placed on them. Pastors need time away to stay fresh and healthy.

Of course, it does no good for the church to offer that time away from the church if the pastor doesn't take it. That was one of my problems, and I paid dearly for it. If you think the church won't survive if you're gone then you have a very poor opinion of God. When pastors told me they couldn't be away from the church too much I reminded them that cemeteries are full of indispensable people. Chances are your church existed for years before you came, and unless the Lord returns, it will continue to exist long after you're gone. Do yourself, your family and your church a favor and take time away.

Third, develop an interest outside of ministry. After recovering from my depression I bought a bass boat. My wife and I fished in bass tournaments and spent many enjoyable hours fishing in a nearby river and area lakes. After I sold my boat I bought a motorcycle, and we spent hours riding and enjoying the outdoors. One vacation we took an eight day ride to South Dakota and toured the Badlands and saw Mt. Rushmore and Sturgis. What a great vacation! Find something you will enjoy doing to get your mind off the pressures of ministry for a time.

Pastors, you are too important to the Kingdom of God to not take care of yourself. I don't ever want to go through depression again, and I can assure you that you don't either. When God called us into the ministry He also called us to be wise enough to realize that the ministry is not a sprint but a marathon. We need to be in it for the long haul, and that will only happen if we practice good self-care.

Older pastors

My Area Minister used to tell us pastors that we should be where we want to serve by the time we are 55 because it will be hard to move to another church when we get older. When I replaced him in that role I continued to tell pastors that because it is often true. Despite the problems many churches have in finding new pastors, many of them will not even consider calling an older minister to serve in that role.

While in Wal-Mart a few months ago a couple I know from one of the churches I served as Area Minister asked why I had not gone back into pastoral ministry after retiring as an AM. I jokingly responded that no one wants old ministers. The wife became very upset with my answer. She asked why churches do not tap into the experience older pastors can bring them. I couldn't answer her question and told them the 55 rule mentioned above.

In my judicatory role I worked with dozens of churches searching for pastoral leadership. They were all looking for someone young who could provide them with new ideas for ministry and who would be with them for years to come. I always tried to explain a couple of things to them. One, young pastors often enter the ministry knowing only what they were taught in seminary by professors who probably haven't changed their syllabus in years. Young pastors don't have the experience older pastors can bring to a church, and with that experience comes (usually!) wisdom. There is a lot older pastors can bring to a church that younger pastors cannot.

Please do not think I am anti-young pastors. I've met many younger pastors who are sharp and serving their churches well. I love talking to these individuals because they often have a passion for the ministry and are doing great things. I was just trying to help churches understand they should not discount a possible candidate just because of his or her birth year.

The second myth I addressed with these churches is their hope that a young pastor would be with them for many years. Depending on whose data you use, the average pastor tenure is less than four years. Actually, older pastors may stay longer just because they know their options for finding another church to serve is limited.

Is it possible that an older pastor may stay too long and become ineffective? Yes, there can come a time when an older pastor may not be able to offer needed ministry to a church. If that happens then a conversation may be necessary, but I've seen many pastors serving their churches well into their 70s who provide great ministry to those churches.

Many churches today, especially smaller and even mid-size churches, struggle to find good pastoral leadership. These churches might be wise to not automatically throw away the resumes of those older pastors who still want to serve. It might just be that God has been preparing that person his or her entire lifetime to serve your church now. It would be a shame to let that experience go to waste.

What does your church plan to do the last half of 2020?

If 2020 was a computer I think most of us would want to do a reboot. What a mess, and it's not likely to get much better since it's an election year. My question in the title isn't an easy one to answer because no one knows what the rest of the year will hold, but it's still a question church leaders need to be asking. Let me answer it the way I think I would answer it if I was still the pastor of a church.

I would begin with the mindset that a lot of people are frightened. Between the pandemic, the rioting in the streets, the escalating violence, the businesses being closed forcing people out of work, the continued gridlock in the political world due to our electing children to office, and the news media breathlessly telling us each night how the world is going to hell in a hand-basket, people are frightened.

With this in mind I would want to bring the people messages of encouragement and hope. I would want to remind them that God is still God, and nothing going on in this world is going to change that. The church is in a very unique position right now because it is the only entity that can deliver a message of hope to the people. The media certainly isn't interested in bringing messages of hope. Neither is the political world. In fact, they have no hope to offer. The church does. I have preached many sermons from 1 Peter 1:3 which reads, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." This is not a dead hope, but a living hope that is ours because Jesus Christ rose from the dead!

In that same sermon I also remind them of the words found in Romans 15: 13, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Right now you probably know a lot of people who not only want hope in their lives but also joy and peace. Well...here it is. You should note that we are to overflow with this hope. Why do we need to overflow? So we can splash some of it on those we meet who do not share our hope. People need hope, and the church is the one place that can offer it to them through the person of Jesus Christ.

The second thing I would do is to share the gospel with as many people as possible. Yes, I'm talking about evangelism, something we talk about more than we actually do. When people are in crisis they are more open to hearing the gospel, and many people are in crisis right now. This window of opportunity may not be open very long. Our nation, our world, needs God, and the church is called to bring people to Him. Let's be about the work our Lord gave us.

The third thing I would do is call the church to prayer. Like evangelism, prayer is something many of us talk about more than we do. If there was ever a time the church needs to take 2 Chronicles 7: 14 seriously, it is now. We need prayer warriors who will seek  the face of God asking Him to heal our land.

The fourth thing I would do is to help our church understand the challenges the church is going to face in the coming decade and how to effectively minister to those challenges. I've actually written a book about that very topic that I'm trying to get published, but so far I've not found a publisher or an agent interested in it. I firmly believe that ministry in the next ten years will look much different than past ministry has been, and if we try to just keep doing what we've done in the past we will fail to impact our world.

Focusing on those four things would probably be enough for the next six months!

Are we seeing the book of Revelation being fulfilled?

There are a lot of posts on social media claiming that the problems we are having in 2020 are God's warning that the book of Revelation is about to be fulfilled. I won't debate those making that claim because I can't say they are right or that they are wrong. Certainly, the world-wide pandemic, the chaos in the streets, the rejection of Christianity and God by so many, the wars and threats of wars are all spoken of in the Bible as events that will occur prior to God's judgement coming upon the world. However, we can also point to many other times in world history when such events were occurring, so I'm not prepared to say Armageddon is just around the corner or that the Rapture is about to occur. Too many have made such predictions in the past only to find that they, and their followers, were mistaken. I'm content to accept the words of Jesus when He said that this will occur at a time when we least expect it.

What I am prepared to say is that we are seeing the results of a world that has rejected God, His teachings and His Son, Jesus Christ. Our culture has denied the existence of God, the existence of absolute truth and morals, and the need for forgiveness and salvation. It has deemed the church to be irrelevant, made mockery of the moral teachings of Scripture and denied the sanctity of life. We have sown into the wind and reaped the whirlwind. As a result, our news media brings us nightly reports of violence, hatred, crimes and chaos masquerading as demands for freedom.

Freedom without morality is not freedom. It is not freedom if I can do as I please without considering the freedom of others. It is not freedom that permits one person to burn down the home or business of another. It is not freedom that allows those in authority to harm or even take the life of another without just cause nor is it freedom if one race or religion is permitted to mistreat those of another race or religion. Those who have created CHOP in Seattle built a fence and patrol it with guns, the very things these same people criticized the president for wanting to do with the border, but at the same time they denied those who have lived and worked in that area of the city their freedoms.

When we abandon the morality found in the Bible we sacrifice our freedom and our humanity. No African-American should fear the police, but neither should the police fear the public. Once again, there was violence in the larger cities in the nation this past weekend with numerous shootings and killings. No respect for life. No respect for our fellow human beings. Exactly the kind of conditions the Scripture tells us will exist in the latter days.

What can the church do in such times? We must be faithful to proclaim the Word of God inviting people to repent of their sins and to invite Christ into their lives. Furthermore, we must be faithful to hold fast to the teachings of Scripture. We cannot deny those teachings in order to appease the PC crowd or those who would stand against biblical truth and morality. We must be able to defend our faith to those who do not understand it or openly question it. We must be filled with the Holy Spirit and cover ourselves in prayer if we want to see the church come through this times of crisis. We must be willing to stand with those who are truly oppressed, and, at the same time, refuse to join with those who would seek to use this unsettled time for their own personal advantage.

In the midst of all the chaos that exists at this time it's important to remember that God is still on the throne. While the media breathlessly tells us of one crisis after another we must not forget that ultimately God's will shall be done.

Do you really want to see your church grow?

Several years ago I was working with a church on a vision discernment process. During that time I tried to explain how working towards a God-given vision could greatly benefit the church, but at the same time they need to think carefully about how that vision might impact the church. I gave them an example.

I asked this church of around 100 people if a worthy vision for the church was that they grow by 1% of their area population over the next 5 years. I was not suggesting this should be their goal but using this as an example. Because of where they were located they could easily draw from three surrounding counties. Based on the latest census report at the time that 1% would be about 450 people. I could see the smiles light up throughout the congregation.

I explained to the church that if I had suggested they should attempt to grow their church by an additional 450 people over the next five years that would probably sound impossible. However, by wording it as I did, 1% of their population over that time period, it didn't seem quite as daunting.

There were fewer smiles when I then explained some things they would need to consider if they attempted such a growth plan.

• How would this growth impact their parking and building space? Would there be enough room for all those people or would additional seating and/or services have to be added?
• Where would the teachers come from for the additional classes that would be needed? Many churches struggle to find enough teachers for their existing classes much less find more teachers for the new classes. One might say that new teachers would come from the new people, but that is only true if these are mature Christians coming from other churches, and the vision I was sharing was reaching out to unchurched individuals.
• The same question would need to be asked about lay leaders and pastoral staff. Does the church have a lay leadership pipeline in place to be constantly training new leaders? When will you add pastoral staff? You can't wait until you have 450 new people in your church before you decide you might need more leadership and pastors, but when do you bring them in?
• How will this impact the church's finances? Again, hypothetically, these are not mature tithing Christians coming into your church but persons who have not been taught biblical stewardship and who may be struggling financially anyway.
• What impact with this new growth have on your children's and youth ministries? Surely, with this large of an increase there will be more youth and children in your church. Would you be prepared for that?
• How will the church handle a shift in the balance in power between the long-time members and the new people? That may not come at first, but at some point there is going to be some tension between people wanting to see new ministries and those whose favorite response to change is "We've never done it that way before." I was in a church meeting one night when that power shift occurred, and it was not pretty.

These are enough questions. With a little effort you can come up with more for your specific church. As you can see, church growth entails more than just trying to bring more people into your church. The time to be asking these questions, and seeking solutions, is before that growth occurs. Otherwise, you may be seeing people going out the back door just as fast as they come in the front door. You need to be ready for them.

Healthy small churches

Yesterday I shared a comment from one of my books that has not sold as well as I expected. Today I want to highlight the book that has sold the most copies of any of them I've published. That book is The Healthy Small Church: Diagnosis and Treatment for the Big Issues. Not only has the book sold well, it has allowed me to be invited to lead conferences and seminars for numerous denominational groups across the US and Canada.

Judicatory leaders have bought this book for every pastor in their region. A Lutheran church contacted me requesting 90 copies to give one to each family in their church, and then invited me to preach in their church one Sunday and conduct a workshop that afternoon. A Church of the Nazarene in Michigan bought copies for each family and used it as a mid-week study working through each of the 16 chapters. I later had the opportunity to preach in their church. I've had several pastors tell me their church has used the book to study the health of their congregation. I've been richly blessed knowing how this book has impacted so many churches.

Larry Mason, a former boss, once noted that the principles shared in that book were applicable to any size church, not just small churches. He's right, but I intentionally used smaller churches as examples simply because there has not been a lot of resources written especially for them. That is beginning to change as more people are recognizing the importance of smaller churches.

There is no exact definition of a smaller church. A church of 150 people in one denomination might qualify as a small church while in a different denomination that might be a fairly large church.

What I did in that book was to list several qualities I thought were critical to the health of a church. Some of those qualities included having sound theology, a fresh vision from God for the church, transformational worship, how acceptable the church is to change and its ability to handle conflict, the importance of spiritual leadership from their pastoral and lay leaders, a sense of community, financial health, being mission minded, and involved in outreach. Each of these areas, and others, had a separate chapter that explored what health looked like for that area. The final chapter offered review questions in each of the areas for a church to use to evaluate its health

Just as a person should have a physical each year to evaluate his or her health, I encourage churches to conduct an annual evaluation of its own health using these questions as diagnostic tools. You may find that your church is pretty healthy in some areas but not as healthy in others. You then know what you need to address so your church can be as healthy as possible.

We need every church to be healthy if we are to impact our world for the Kingdom of God. I encourage you to evaluate your church to determine how healthy it is and then determine to do whatever it takes to improve in those areas that might not be as healthy as they could be.

Churches need pastors who will provide leadership

A book I wrote that never really found a market is The Healthy Community: Moving Your Church Beyond Tunnel Vision. I've not understood why this book has never sold more copies than it has because it addresses a common problem found in many churches. They suffer from tunnel vision. They have forgotten their mission. Rather than being about the work God has called them to do their focus is inward. There are a number of contributing factors to this problem which are addressed in the book. One of those factors is that too many churches have pastors who refuse to provide much needed leadership. One chapter in the book addresses the question of why many pastors do not lead.

One reason is that many pastors were never taught leadership. It is possible to graduate from some seminaries and never have a course in leadership. In fact, most pastors are taught how to manage churches, not lead them. Without sound leadership, any organization will struggle to move forward and accomplish anything of value. Fortunately, there are numerous conferences and other opportunities where a pastor can learn leadership. Both the pastors and the church would benefit if pastors who struggle with leadership would avail themselves of these opportunities.

Another reason pastors may not provide leadership is that the church will not let them lead. I worked with many pastor search committees as a judicatory minister, and virtually all of them said they wanted a pastor who would lead the church. In many cases, that was not true. Often, there were controllers in the church who prevented the pastor from providing any leadership. Any proposal that did not meet their approval was rejected. I witnessed many churches that gave veto power to a few people within the congregation. As one pastor who had lost too many battles to a handful of people told me just before he resigned, "The problem in our church is that we have too many nice people who won't stand up to the few that are not so nice." Tom Bandy once said that churches need to decide if they love the controllers in their churches more than they do their own teenagers. Pastors cannot neutralize the controllers; the congregation has to do that.

A third reason some pastors don't provide leadership is because they don't want to lead. They do not see themselves as leaders. They may be afraid of failing. In many cases, they don't want to lead because they themselves don't know where they are going. John Maxwell tells us that leaders are going somewhere, and they are able to persuade others to go with them. If the pastor isn't going anywhere, he or she cannot encourage others to follow.

It is critical in these difficult times that churches have strong, spiritual leaders as pastors. This requires discerning a fresh vision from God for the church and the willingness to pursue that vision. It also requires that the church allows the pastor to lead. As a life-long Baptist let me make a statement that may sound almost like heresy: Not every decision has to be put to a vote. One former professor of church history at a Baptist seminary wrote, "One will scan the pages of the New Testament in vain for wide evidence of majority control in church matters. . .There are, on the other hand, numerous references to the apostles meeting to discuss doctrine, apostles giving orders, and apostles overseeing congregations and the Church at large."

As I wrote in this book, "I am convinced that in the twenty-first century church we must either decide we are going to trust our leaders and God to make the decisions that will lead our churches forward, or we will miss important ministry opportunities while we wait for committees to hold one meeting after another trying to decide what to do. The world is moving too fast for the church to continue to do business as usual. If we cannot trust our leadership to make the right decisions, we probably do not have the right people in those positions, and if we cannot trust God to guide our leaders, then we have even greater problems."

Is your church ready?

A few years ago the late Ravi Zacharias and Norman Geisler edited a book written by a number of Christian thinkers titled Is Your Church Ready?: Motivating Leaders to Live an Apologetic Life. An excellent book, it highlighted the need for church leaders to do more apologetical preaching and teaching in their churches in order to help their congregations better understand and defend their faith. It is a book on my bookshelf that I have turned to more than once.

In the times in which we live one of the greatest needs in the church is for believers to understand why they believe what they claim they do believe. I wonder how many people in our churches could give a sound answer to someone who asked, "Why should I accept the Bible as true when there are so many errors in it?" What would they say if they were asked why they believe that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way one can have a relationship with God? Could they give sound, theological answers to those questions, and dozens of other questions unbelievers might ask? I'm afraid not many could.

Lately, I've thought about what I would do if I returned to pastoral ministry. The answer I've come up with is that I would focus my ministry on helping my congregation go deeper into the Scriptures than many of them have gone before. The church in America is about to face challenges it hasn't faced before. We've been on the sidelines of society for a long time, and we're about to move even further away. Called to be salt and light to the world we were to influence the world for God. Instead, we have allowed the world to penetrate the church. Many of our people do not have a Christian worldview that is informed by theological thinking, and this is the case because they have not been taught sound theology. Too many have been spoon-fed a diet of secular thinking with just enough Scripture to make it sound right and be acceptable in our PC world.

Pastors need more theology and apologetical books on their shelves and less self-help and church management books. We need to turn our offices back into studies. We need to stop entertaining our youth and begin to teach them what Christians believe and how to defend those beliefs so when they go away to college they won't come back as atheists. It's time we take the second part of the Great Commission seriously and make disciples of those who are part of our churches.

Denominations need to develop curriculum that teaches solid theology instead of providing material that offers little of substance. Years ago when I was still pastoring our church was using Sunday school material from outside our denomination. When the denomination revamped its material it asked churches to commit to it for one year. I encouraged our church to make a two-year commitment as I was sure that it would have some bugs that would need to be worked out. After the two years was up we went back to the old material we had been using. Not a single class or teacher felt the material was good enough to keep using. A few years later our denomination did away with its educational component as if education and discipleship was no longer important.

Some pastors believe they have to water down their teaching or people won't attend their churches. Studies consistently find the opposite is true. Formerly unchurched people say when they began looking for a church they were looking for one that knew what it believed and was not afraid to proclaim what it believed. Christians serious about their faith want solid biblical teaching.

I encourage you to ask yourself the question: Is your church ready to defend its faith in today's culture? Can your members stand up to the challenges they are about to face as a result of their faith? If not, what are you going to do about it?

Unintended consequences

Most decisions are made with careful planning and with a desire to improve some situation. However, despite the best of intentions, these decisions often come with unintended consequences. These are the consequences that no one saw resulting from the decision that was made. These might be positive or negative. A positive unintended consequence might be a newly developed drug that was found to have healing power for another disease that was not expected when it was being developed. An example of a negative unintended consequence might be the higher number of women and children who would fall below the poverty line when no-fault divorce laws were enacted throughout the country.

Churches can make decisions that result in unintended consequences. A clear example of this is a church that decides to build a new facility believing that "if we build it they will come." In some cases, not only do new people not come, but long-term members who opposed the new building leave the church resulting in a large debt that must be paid for by fewer people attending the church.

Jesus told us to count the cost when we are making our plans. Certainly, we need to consider any unintended consequences that might result as a result of any decisions we might make. Rushing into a decision is seldom a good idea because doing so is almost guaranteed to result in unintended consequences.

Some communities are trying to do away with their police departments. Others are attempting to take money out of police budgets. All of this is the result of recent police actions which has led to demonstrations across the country. There is no question that some of these actions were unacceptable and individuals need to be held accountable. But, does anyone really believe that eliminating the police departments is the answer to solving these kinds of problems? Can the people promoting this not see the unintended consequences that would result from eliminating police departments? Or do they have another agenda altogether? There are so many obvious negative consequences associated with doing away with police departments that it is hard to even refer to them as unintended consequences.

There are better steps that can be taken such as better screening of candidates, minority recruitment, better training, better funding, the return of regular beats where the police and individuals get to know one another better, and finding ways to connect the police to the community they serve.

When I did a study of bivocational pastors a few years ago I found that some of them were serving as police officers in their communities. There is no problem with Christians serving as police officers, and we should see more Christians seeing this as a possible life-calling. Talk about a way to impact people's lives! There could be a real opportunity for positive unintended consequences in such a calling.

Smaller churches and pastoral leadership part 2

Yesterday we began looking at the realities of calling a pastor to serve a smaller church. Our focus was on calling bivocational pastors. Today we will look at some other options.

Methodist churches have had pastors serving more than one congregation for many years. One pastor serves three churches in the area in which I live. I once led a conference for a Methodist district and preached in one of their churches on Sunday morning. That church was one of four that pastor served.

As a Baptist I have found many in my tribe do not want to share a pastor with another church. I was once asked if I would consider serving another church that was much smaller than the small church I was already serving. After speaking to our leadership I agreed if the other church was agreeable. They weren't. They wanted their own pastor. This happened years ago, and they've been without a pastor more often than they've had one. There is no reason a pastor cannot serve more than one small church. I predict we will see more of this in the future or we will see more churches closing their doors.

Another option is to allow your small church to be a satellite of a larger, nearby church. The pastor of that church would serve your church as well. Sermons would either be live via technology or be on video to be played a week later. I know many want a live person presenting the sermon, but these folks also have no problem watching a movie or a TV program. There's really no difference. The pastor would provide leadership to the church as well as preach. One big advantage to the smaller church is that they would probably have an experienced pastor serving them for an extended period of time rather than someone lacking experience who would stay a year or two before moving on.

A third option is one that many churches will not consider: calling a woman pastor. My denomination, which supports women in ministry, has many churches that will not consider a woman candidate. Other denominations will exclude one of their churches that would call a woman as pastor. It's hard to justify that from Scripture (Please don't send me your proof texts. I know them all.). I also struggle to understand this mindset when so many conservative denominations welcome women as pastors in their churches. Can so many denominations be wrong about this? To exclude women pastors is to exclude a growing percentage of the people who might be candidates for the position.

A fourth option is to select someone from your congregation to serve as pastor. I've seen this done a few times, and it worked out well. Such a person is committed to the church and is known and trusted by the members. There are training programs available to help such a person acquire basic pastoral skills and theology. One big advantage is that the person is a known commodity and is already trusted by the congregation.

A fifth option is to restructure your church into small groups with a pastor/small group leader for each group. This might entail selling your building and meeting in homes. As one church planter told me once, a church of 30 people can do the same things in homes as it can in a building. You might decide to keep your building and come together each week for fellowship and worship. The small group leaders might take turns speaking or you could use video courses to study together as a church body. There are a number of possibilities associated with this option.

Smaller churches need to rethink what they can expect from future pastors and what these persons will look like. As I wrote yesterday, it's not 1950 any more. What worked then will not work now no matter how much you might want it to. If you are flexible in your search for new pastoral leadership, you will find the person God has for your church. If not, you are going to struggle to find leadership in the future.

Smaller churches and pastoral leadership

For the past few years we have seen smaller churches struggle to find pastoral leadership. I've written about the problem several times in this blog and in some of my books. One of my responsibilities as a judicatory minister was to help churches find pastors. This became an increasingly difficult task as time went by. In talking to people doing the job I used to do I'm hearing it's even worse now.

In our area a majority of our smaller churches were served by students at a nearby seminary. Several years ago that seminary became non-supportive of our churches and many of their students would not consider serving in our churches. When that source dried up our smaller churches found it difficult to find pastors. Studies regularly find that many seminary graduates are not willing to serve in smaller churches. Bivocational pastors are often the best hope for these churches, but there are problems finding these pastors as well.

Bivocational pastors are going to come from the local area. Few people are going to move into rural Indiana from New Jersey to pastor a church of 40 people. An hour's drive is about the maximum distance that is feasible for a bivocational pastor. Many bivocational pastors lack a seminary degree, and some churches still insist on a seminary-trained pastor. The vast majority of bivocational pastors I've known have been dedicated servants of God and to the ministry He has given them. A handful I've known have been train wrecks looking for a set of tracks. Just because someone comes down the road with a cross around his neck calling himself Reverend doesn't mean you want him or her as your pastor. Calling any pastor without taking the time to check references can lead to real problems for a church.

Since it's getting more and more difficult to find good pastoral leadership for smaller churches, what's the solution? The solution is that churches are going to have to think differently about their pastors in the future. Let me talk straight about this. I don't want to make anyone angry, but it's time for some straight talk. If your small church wants pastoral leadership in the future you are going to have to be willing to be flexible. This isn't 1950 when you could expect 20-30 candidates all wanting to be your next pastor. You may be fortunate for find 2 or 3, and that could take a year or two. We are in a much different time,and finding pastors for smaller churches is only going to get more difficult in the future.

Before I retired I found that many smaller churches do not want a bivocational pastor. They still believe they can have a full-time seminary-trained pastor, pay that person $25,000 a year and believe that individual will be there forever. It's not going to happen. If you argue they shouldn't be in the ministry for the money, I would ask you when was the last time you turned down a pay raise in your chosen field? Few people go into the ministry for the money, but pastors, like everyone else, have a responsibility to provide for their families. That includes a home, safe vehicles to drive, medical care, food, education for their children and savings for retirement.

I cannot tell you how many times a pastor search committee explained to me that if the pastor grew the church they would be glad to increase his or her salary. I finally started telling those committees that it sounded like they weren't looking for a pastor, they wanted to hire a commissioned sales person. The more sales that were made (increased attendance) the more they could earn. That is not an acceptable way to look for a pastor.

Numerous studies have found that smaller churches do not suffer by having a bivocational pastor. In fact, as I pointed out in my book The Bivocational Pastor: Two Jobs, One Ministry there are numerous advantages for a church that calls a bivocational pastor. These individuals may or may not have a seminary education. While one might be preferable, such an education is not a necessity if the pastor is solid in his or her theology, is able to present good messages and is gifted in pastoral skills. Chances are good that if your church have an average attendance of 100 or so it will be led by a bivocational pastor in the near future. If your church is under 60 it's almost a given.

Tomorrow we will look at some more realities in calling a pastor for the smaller church.

Fewer people watching church services on social media

I read last week that fewer people are tuning into their church's worship services online than there were when churches first began broadcasting their services due to the pandemic. The writers of the article were not sure if this reflected normal summer church attendance patterns or if it showed that people were getting tired of the online services and being unable to attend services in person.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking with an individual who said his family were attending services at a small, rural church that was holding on-site services. He said the online services of their home church were OK for a time, but they had grown tired of them. They wanted to be with people in a worship service.

There is another factor with the online services that may impact some churches in the near future. People have had an opportunity to view numerous services. Some Sundays I've watched 3-4 different services. Yesterday I watched two services, one from my home town and one in Cleveland, OH. I've watched only a portion of some services and found that they did not appeal to me at all. In some cases it was the music, in others it was the preaching style or quality of the message, and in a few cases things just seemed odd for some reason. When this is over I wonder how many people will decide to change churches due to their finding one that seemed to be a better fit for them than the one they've been attending.

We can criticize such consumer mentality if we want, but that doesn't make it any less real. There is a reason why people attend the church they attend, and if they find one that seems to be a better fit it's very possible they will make a change. People's lives change over the years, and everybody doesn't need the same thing from a church they did when they were at a different stage of their lives. A family of three small children might choose to attend a church with a strong children's and youth ministry. When the couple turns 70 they may have different needs or the church might have changed since they began attending there, and their church is no longer a good fit for this stage in their lives.

One church leader suggested a few years ago that we were approaching a time when people might attend three different churches. They would be involved in one church for its youth ministry; they might attend a Bible study offered by another church; and they might attend the worship service of a church with a strong music or pulpit ministry. The point he was making was that the days of a family attending one church all their lives unless they moved were over. Of course, this raises a lot of interesting questions. Will they financially support all three churches? Which church, if any, will they become involved in as far as serving in some area of ministry? I'm sure you can think of other questions.

This pandemic is going to have an impact on churches just as it has had on small businesses. Many small businesses will not reopen. Others may try to reopen, but at reduced capacity they may find they can't be profitable enough to remain open. I expect to see some churches not reopen their doors. Others may reopen but find that too many of their people did not return choosing to go to other churches they discovered online. These churches will also close.

We may not know how the pandemic will impact churches until a year passes, but it's safe to say that there will be changes. If your church leadership is not talking about how your church may change in the coming months, that conversation needs to happen now. You may want to bring in someone from your denomination or a consultant to help lead this discussion. If you think that everything is going to return to normal you are apt to be sadly mistaken.