Small church leaders conference

 I had the privilege of leading three workshops at a  conference for small church pastors and leaders held in Champaign, IL this past weekend. This conference was sponsored by Northern Seminary, Judson University, the ABC of Indiana and Kentucky and the Great Rivers Region. I understand about 100 people registered for the event. They offered a number of interesting workshops and had some excellent speakers.

It continues to excite me when such conferences are held. As I told the participants in my workshops, such events did not happen when I began as a bivocational pastor in 1981. All the focus was on larger churches, and those of us serving smaller churches were mostly ignored. While that may still happen in some places today, I think most denominations have recognized that a significant number of their churches are small and unlikely to grow to become megachurches or even larger churches. They have learned the importance of providing relationships and training for the leaders of these smaller churches.

The only thing I regret about the weekend is that I wish twice as many people had registered for the conference. It was well done and offered workshops that were relevant to small church leaders. It was not expensive at all and was a good investment in both money and time.

Of course, Covid was given as one reason the registrations might have been down, and I suppose some people are still reluctant to gather in larger crowds. I doubt that was the main reason more people didn't attend. For years I have cautioned sponsors of such events to not be disappointed if there is a low turnout. In my experience, bivocational ministers tend to not attend such events. This was held on a Friday, and some would argue that they have to work Fridays. I served as a bivocational pastor for 20 years so I understand that argument. However, I also know if I wanted to take a day off work to do something I wanted to do, I took that day. I might have used a personal day or a day's vacation, but I would take the day off if I wanted to do something else.

Those of us who serve smaller churches need to stop using our jobs as an excuse to not attend training opportunities that are designed for us. I realize that we can't attend every event that is offered, but, frankly, most of them are not developed for small church leaders. Those that are should be seen as an investment in our ministries and our lives. Would you not invest a few dollars and a day of your time in something that will provide you with a lifetime of benefits?

As other opportunities present themselves I hope you'll consider making such an investment. You might leave thinking it was one of the best things you've done in a long time.

The power of thinking and choosing

I am currently reading a fascinating book by Dr. Caroline Leaf.  The author is a communication pathologist and audiologist who works in the area of cognitive neuroscience. She combines both science and Scripture in her understanding of how the brain works and the power of thinking and choosing. In the book she writes, "The process of thinking and choosing is the most powerful thing in the universe after God, and it is a phenomenal gift from God to be treasured and used properly." My first thought after reading that line was that it might be stating too much, but as I got to thinking about it I realized our thoughts and choices do lead to powerful results.

Nearly every great discovery came because someone thought it was possible and chose to pursue that belief until it became a reality. Although they might have failed numerous times to make their thoughts a reality, they chose to continue until that dream did become a reality. Of course, the same is true of those who wish to pursue evil. Adolf Hitler wanted to raise Germany back to a position of power with himself as its head, and he chose to pursue that thought until he started a world war that brought death and heartache to millions of people.

As we think about the power of thinking and choosing it should cause us to stop and consider the things we think about most. Those thoughts will shape us and those around us more than we might believe. They can lead us to success or they can cause us to fail miserably.

What are your thoughts about your family? What do you want to experience in your family? How deeply do you think about those things? What choices have you made to make those thoughts a reality?

The same questions can be asked about your career, your finances, and every other area of your life. The first step in improving any area of life is to think deeply about that area, identify the things you want most in those areas, made decisions about how to achieve them, and then choose live out those decisions.

Pastors and church leaders should ask such questions about their churches. As a denominational leader I often heard pastors and other leaders complain about things in their church, but it seemed that few of these individuals were doing anything to correct those concerns. They had never stopped long enough to think about how they might improve their church and decide upon the steps they needed to take to make those improvements happen. Guess what: failing to make a choice is a choice, and when you decide to do nothing, nothing will improve.

One final thought about this. Each of us must choose what we will do with Jesus Christ. As we think about Him and the relationship with God that only comes through Him, we have a choice to make. Do we trust Him with our lives, make Him our Lord and Savior, or do we choose to reject Him? It's a choice each of us must make, and that choice will have the greatest impact on our lives than any other choices we will ever make. 

  

The renewed mind

Romans 12: 2 challenges us to  "Do not conform to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." As I read this verse recently I considered the pattern of today's world. We live in a world that is filled with rage, prejudice, hatred, toxicity, divisions, greed, violence, pain, abuse, fear, anxiety, depression and more negative emotions than can be listed here. Christians are not immune to these negative emotions. We see this in the divisions that exist in churches and in the language Christians use against one another. Obviously, none of the things I've listed here are positive, and none of them bring value to one's life. We can also note that we are not born with any of these; these are learned as we grow up. So where do they come from?

One place is through the media and much of the so-called entertainment of today. After years of faithfully following the news every night, I have mostly quit watching. I learned that the media does not report the news; it creates the news by deciding each day, out of thousands of possible stories, which ones they will give air time. The stories they select are the ones which promotes their personal biases or ones they can spin to their advantage. There are no journalists today of the likes of Huntley and Brinkley or Walter Cronkite so I have no interest in hearing today's talking heads promoting their agendas. 

What passes as entertainment today is no better. Comedians today believe they have to be vulgar and obscene in order to be funny. Many movies are not made to entertain their audience or even to tell a good story. They are made to promote an agenda, a mindset the producers want to instill in their audiences. Music has always shaped its listeners thinking and it still does.

University campuses are another place where the negative thoughts are learned. We often hear of a professor who is accused of promoting bigotry and hatred. Occasionally, a university will take action against such a professor, but often they defend the "academic freedom" of the professor and allow him or her to continue to teach. I can only wonder why a parent would spend $50,000-100,000 a year to allow his or her child to be subjected to such mental abuse. Of course, this type of instruction doesn't only happen at the university level. We now hear of it happening even in grade schools.

These negative emotions and mindsets are also learned in too many homes. No child is born to hate another. This has to be learned, and it's often learned in the home. We are born with a happy and trusting disposition, but because of situations in too many homes, that disposition is changed into some ugly which can follow that child throughout his or her life.

Regardless of where such toxic emotions and mindsets are learned, God tells us that we do not have to be conformed to the patterns of this world. We can be transformed by the renewing of our minds. How does renewing happen?

It begins by trusting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, giving your life to Him. If you've never done that I would love to talk with you about how to do that. Just send me a message.

Secondly, it comes by meditating on biblical truth. God promised Joshua in the Old Testament that if he would meditate on the Scriptures and keep them that God would bless him in all that he did. As we read the book that goes by his name, we see that God was faithful to keep that promise. 

In Philippians 4: 8 God says to us, "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. When we meditate on these things, we will find the toxic thoughts and behaviors will slowly begin to leave us. We will find ourselves separating more and more from the world and drawing closer to God and to becoming what He created us to be. It is here that we enjoy God's greatest blessings.