Each of us will face eternity

Many people have the mistaken belief that this life is all there is. We are born, we die, and that's it. Those who believe this are seriously mistaken. Each of us are created as eternal beings. There will come a time when we will die, but that does not mean that is the end of our lives. While the body may die, the soul and spirit lives forever. The Bible speaks of both heaven and hell, and while many people might want to believe in heaven and not believe in hell, the Scriptures do not give us that option. Both are real, and the truth is that we will determine which will be our eternal home by the decisions we make in this lifetime.

Some state that if God is love as Christianity teaches that He could send no one to hell. These Universalists believe that when mankind is finally judged that a benevolent God will simply let everyone enter into heaven. If this is true, why did His Son, Jesus Christ, die on the cross? If His suffering and death had no purpose, why would He endure it?

However, they are true in one respect. God will send no one to hell. All those who find themselves in hell chose to be there. They made the decision, not God. You see, God has made it possible for all mankind to be saved from hell through the death of His Son on the cross. All who believe in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Those whose eternal destination is hell chose that for themselves by their refusal to accept God's offer of salvation. God will not force anyone to believe in Him, but gives each of us free will to choose for ourselves. God has done all He needs to do. He gave His only Son to die on a cross so our sins could be forgiven. Now, it is our decision to receive that offer of salvation by trusting in Him or by rejecting Him. Accepting Him leads to salvation; rejecting Him leads to eternal separation from God.

Each of us will choose. At a revival one year a group of young people presented a skit. One person was sitting on the back of a chair which represented someone sitting on a fence. Another person was representing Jesus Christ while a third person played the part of Satan. The Satan figure kept offering the person on the fence all kinds of incentives to follow him. The Jesus figure simply held his arms out to the side representing the cross and saying "I love you." Then the Satan figure would begin again offering numerous pleasures if the person would pick him. The Jesus figure continued to hold out his arms and repeat, "I love you." The scene repeated the third time. At that moment, the person on the fence announced his decision to remain on the fence. Satan then put his arm around the person and said, "Good, I own the fence." I almost came our of my seat! You, and every person who has ever lived, will choose whether to follow Jesus Christ or Satan, and that decision will determine your eternal destination.

What choice have you made? Have you decided to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior or are you still sitting on the fence refusing to decide? If you are on the fence, you have already decided because Satan owns the fence. 

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.

Old books and new

Years ago I read that one should read books by dead authors. The person suggested that every other book read should have been written by an author who has passed away. I don't do that, but I do occasionally read some older books that have become classics. One such book I'm reading now is Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. I read this book several years ago, and had it in my library. Some time back I gave the book to someone and recently decided to purchase another copy to re-read. I'm so glad I did.

For many years Lewis was an atheist who was eventually converted while a professor at Oxford University. This book was originally given as talks on the radio to England during WWII. Reading this book while recognizing that it was being given to people in the midst of a terrible war just adds to the impact of his words. It's no wonder it has sold millions of copies since first published. If you haven't read it, you should.

The other book I'm currently reading is quite different. When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, written by Daniel H. Pink, draws on a great deal of research in the area of timing. Rather than guessing at when is the right time to make important decisions, there is scientific evidence that demonstrates we can improve the success of those decisions by making them at the ideal time. I've found it to be a fascinating read with much that applies to many aspects of our lives.

I must mention another book I recently finished. I was stationed on board the USS Enterprise during the Vietnam war. On January 14, 1969, while qualifying to return to the Tolkin Gulf we experienced a major fire that resulted in the loss of 28 men with over 300 additional sailors wounded. Trial: Ordeal of the USS Enterprise 14 January, 1969 by Michael Joe Carlin describes what happened that day. Carlin was on the first hose team that attacked the fire and was a first-hand witness to much of what he has written. Besides his own personal experience he has done excellent research into other events of that day related to the disaster.

Because my General Quarters station was some distance from the actual explosions and fire there was much that I did not know about that day. This book filled in a lot of those gaps. I simply could not put the book down. If you were ever assigned to a flattop or served in the Navy in any capacity I think you would find this book a fascinating read.

Decision making

I just finished reading Decision Points by George W. Bush. It was an interesting look at his eight year presidency through his own eyes. He didn't attempt to cover all the events that occurred during this time but wanted to show the thinking that went behind the decisions he made. He admitted some of the decisions could have been better, and I'm sure his critics would insist most of his decisions could have been better. Regardless of how one feels about President Bush I found the book a fascinating look at how he responded to the various issues that arose during his time in office.

Leaders are required to make decisions. Many of those decisions will be tough ones. People under the leader can make the easy decisions; the toughest ones will be the ones that find the leader's desk. Some of the decisions you make will be unpopular. Some will be wrong. Some will be resisted by the people you serve.

As I wrote in yesterday's post, churches need pastors who will be leaders. They need people who won't be afraid to make the tough calls in order to move the church forward. Today's pastors need to be people who are guided by God's vision for the church they are serving and are determined to lead according to that vision. Such leadership will not always be appreciated, and in some churches it will get you fired. But, that's better than leaving the church in the same ruts it's been in for the past many decades.

The secret is learning how to make the right decision most of the time. No leader gets it right every time, but most of us can improve our average. As the decisions we make prove to be the right ones people will trust us more and give us more authority to make further choices.

Chip and Dan Heath wrote Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work to help leaders make better decisions. They suggest a four-step process for making better choices they call WRAP.

1. Widen your options. Too often we go into a situation thinking we must choose between A and B. Most of the time there are more than two alternatives, and as you seek out further options you are more likely to make the best choice.
2. Reality-test your assumptions.  It's vital that you collect information from people you trust. Too often we look only for information that confirms our biases, and this can lead to bad decisions. Some of Bush's poor decisions, like those of all in leadership, came from not having good information. We may never have all the information we want before making a decision, but the more accurate information we have the more likely our decisions will be better.
3. Attain distance before deciding. Emotions can cloud our thinking much more than we might think. When Peyton Manning was asked after winning the Super Bowl if he was going to retire he responded that he didn't want to make an emotional decision. We need to put some distance between us and the situation before making a decision.
4. Prepare to be wrong. Sometimes we are overconfident we know what the future holds. Bush admitted in his book that no one on his staff understood how serious the financial crisis was. They quickly learned that the initial steps they took to turn the economy around was insufficient. The fact is that we don't know what we don't know. You may make the best decision you can make based upon the information you have, but when new information becomes available you may have to adjust your response.

How could you use this WRAP approach in the decision-making process you use in your church?

The wisdom of elderly Christians

He had grown up during the depression and served in World War II. After returning home and becoming a Christian he and his wife began attending the church I would later pastor. He had been a deacon in that church for decades. When we began taking communion to our shut-ins he would go with me since he had known these folks for years.

We didn't always agree, especially when I would introduce a new idea that would cost the church money. The church had been on the verge of closing and struggled keeping their bills paid when I came there as pastor. This farmer remembered those days very well, so he was reluctant to spend money on things he didn't think was necessary.

Eventually, we grew enough so we could rotate our deacons as our constitution required. Any time he would rotate off he would be re-elected as an active deacon a year later when he became eligible. It was about a year after his second re-election that he came to me saying he thought he would resign as deacon. Our church was experiencing some good growth and doing new things. His concern was that due to his life experiences he would be a hindrance to all the things the church was doing. He enjoyed the new life in the church and didn't want to do anything that might hinder that.

I urged him to not resign from his leadership position. I told him the church needs to hear from those with his experiences, and we needed to hear his concerns when he felt we were going too fast or in directions that might not be wise. Fortunately, I was able to convince him and he remained serving as a leader in our church until health issues forced him to step aside.

Too many pastors, especially younger ones, don't want to hear from the older members. I certainly didn't, especially when I felt they were hindering the forward movement of the church. I especially didn't want to hear from them when they were opposing my latest, greatest idea. Looking back, I realized that their concerns often prevented us from making unwise decisions. I learned to appreciate their wisdom.

Another thing I learned to do was to talk to them when they opposed some new thing. Several area pastors told me when I went to that church that I wouldn't last there six months due to the people who ran that church. Fortunately, I learned that these were not evil people. They were people who were concerned about the future of that church in which they had invested their lives. Sometimes when I explained to them why I wanted to do certain things they became my greatest supporters, and much of our success was due to their support.

Appreciate the wisdom that your older members have. Yes, some of them are church controllers who will do all within their power to protect their position in the church, but many of them are people who love both the Lord and the church. They have experiences you may not have so you need to listen to them. Many of them have given much to your church, and they still have a lot to offer if you'll allow it.

Think like a freak

Ever since I read Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything I have been a fan of Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. I listen to their Freakonomics podcast when I'm traveling, and I just finished their book Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain. What I enjoy about what they do is that they challenge the way we often think about common occurrences and they encourage us to think about things we probably would not think about. After all, any book with a chapter title of "What Do King Solomon and David Lee Roth Have in Common?" is probably asking you to think about something you've never considered!

In Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain they explain how Takeru Kobayashi was able to not only win the hot dog eating championship at Coney Island but to blast the previous record. The record at that time was 25 1/8 hot dogs and buns; Kobayashi ate 50! He merely changed the way he thought about how to eat the hot dogs. He asked different questions which gave him a different approach to the contest. You'll have to read the book to find out more.

Too many churches are still approaching today's challenges with yesterday's thinking. We think we know the answer because those answers worked once upon a time. We try harder. We cast blame. Finally, we give up and congratulate ourselves for being the faithful remnant.

Maybe we need to ask different questions. Instead of asking why fewer people attend church today perhaps we should be asking what barriers have we created that make it hard for people to attend worship services. Rather than complaining about the decline in giving we should ask how can we help people better manage their money so they would be in a position to give more. Maybe we need to stop trying to figure out a way to make an old program work better and admit that it may be time to discard that program for a new ministry.

By the way, there's a chapter in the book on that as well. It's called "The Upside of Quitting." One section of that chapter is "You cannot solve tomorrow's problem if you won't abandon today's dud." I think this chapter, and the whole book, should be required reading for church leaders.

As you prepare your church for 2016 what questions should you be asking? Make sure they are the right questions that will lead you to answers that will make a difference in the lives of those you serve.

Are you a confident leader?

This past Sunday I visited a church whose pastor preached a message on being an authentic Christian. One of his points was that we should be confident people but not arrogant. We have all known both in our lives. While there may be a fine line between confidence and arrogance, most of us enjoy being around confident people but we try to avoid those who come across as arrogant.

Because I write and think a lot about leaders I couldn't help but think about the many pastors I've encountered in my life as I thought about the pastor's words. I've known pastors who came across as lacking confidence; I've known some who were confident in their ministries and lives, and I've known some who came across as very arrogant. Neither the arrogant nor the ones who lack confidence are people I want to spend much time with.

I could write about the qualities of those who lack confidence and those who are arrogant, but I've always heard that it's much better to spend time examining the real thing than it is to spend time studying the false. What are some of the qualities of a confident leader?

• Confident leaders understand the nature of their calling.
• Confident leaders believe in the authority of the Scriptures.
• Confident leaders preach and teach from the Scriptures and not from the latest fad or politically correct viewpoint.
• Confident leaders are not afraid to admit when they don't know the answer to questions they are asked.
• Confident leaders seek advice from spiritually mature Christians.
• Confident leaders are servant leaders, not dictators.
• Confident leaders are not afraid to make mistakes.
• Confident leaders are not afraid to make decisions.
• Confident leaders are not afraid to admit when they are wrong and will seek forgiveness from those they may have harmed.
• Confident leaders are vision casters.
• Confident leaders operate within their core values and bedrock beliefs and will not violate those for temporal gain.
• Confident leaders are not afraid of controllers and church bullies.
• Confident leaders do not seek conflict but are not afraid of it either.
• Confident leaders understand that Christ is the head of the church and they function as under shepherds.
• Confident leaders understand their spiritual gifts and strengths and seek to operate within those areas as much as possible.
• Confident leaders are not afraid to delegate to others.
• Confident leaders seek continuing education opportunities in order to become more effective leaders.
• Confident leaders do not feel they must keep seeking larger places in which to serve in order to prove their worth to the Kingdom of God.

I'm sure there are many more that could be listed, but this is enough to determine how confident we are in our leadership. How many of these listed would you say describes you and your leadership? Are you confident enough in your leadership to ask others to evaluate your leadership using the above statements?

Small church pastors must be patient.

One of my biggest challenges when I became the pastor of a small church was to learn patience. I'm the kind of person who thinks microwaves take too long. Everything should have been done yesterday. I'm not an aggressive driver, but I also don't like to get behind someone who refuses to drive the speed limit (and most of those have been set too low!).

It didn't take long for me to find that small churches tend to not run by the clock. I visited a small church recently whose worship service was scheduled to begin at 10:30. At 10:40 the pastor was still talking to people in the congregation when he suddenly asked someone for the time. No one seemed to mind. This is not unusual in smaller churches. The church I pastored did begin its worship services on time, but other activities kind of happened when they happened.

I also learned that everything worthwhile that happens in a small church takes longer than it should. Small churches often have to discuss if they are going to think about something before they ever get around to actually considering it. A decision that, in my mind, should be made in a few minutes often has to wait until the next business meeting for a committee to be formed to consider it and bring a recommendation to the next business meeting. If your church has quarterly business meetings like mine did, that decision can take six months or more just to come up for a vote.

What small church pastors must recognize is that these churches have survived for decades with this kind of decision making process and are not going to change their process just because their pastor wants them to. There is much more going on here than just making a decision. Part of this process is about protecting relationships. Everything that happens in the smaller church is about relationships.

One of the first questions that will go through people's minds when they hear a proposal for a change in the church is how will this change impact the relationships that exist in this church. If the change has the potential to negatively impact relationships in the church it is likely to be resisted.

Businesses look at proposed change and determine its impact on profits and ask about its return-on-investment. Small churches want to take the time to determine the impact a change will have on relationships. And it will take time.

Our church was preparing to build a new fellowship hall, but we needed some additional land. We had nowhere to move our septic system and couldn't build without moving it. The church is landlocked except on one side. We wanted to buy two acres off a field adjacent to our property. Because our trustees knew the farmer who owned the land, and because it was not tillable land we wanted we didn't think it would take long. It took two years, and then he would only give us an easement to move our septic system onto the property.

Why did it take so long? As I said, our trustees knew the owner. They were friends. He was reluctant to sell the land, and they did not want to push him in fear of harming their relationship with him. Even though he was not a member of our church, once again relationships became the key component in this transaction. A deal that should have been reached in a week or less took two years, but when it was over everyone was happy with the outcome.

As a small church pastor you have to learn to work within the timetable most often found in such churches. If you can't do that you probably will not have an effective ministry in a smaller church. Two things to remember from this post: relationships are key in the smaller church and everything worthwhile that happens in the small church will take longer than it should.

The problem with secrets

There is much in the news today about Hillary Clinton and her use of private e-mail accounts for official business as Secretary of State. Of course, her response to the controversy did not satisfy many Republicans and even some Democrats, so this is likely to remain as issue for some time, especially if she does announce as a presidential candidate.

Secrecy is not limited to politicians. We find it in churches as well. Before I became a pastor I served on the board of the church I was attending. Prior to my coming on the board we would see the board and the pastor go into a back room almost every Sunday after services. A few weeks later, the pastor announced his resignation. The following year I was elected to the board and was selected as secretary. One day I thought I would check the secretary's record book where all meetings were recorded and find out what was happening in those meetings. All the pages from that time period had been torn out of the secretary's book!

One of the problems with secrets is that they are often exposed, and when they are exposed bad things can happen. This is certainly true in churches that have secrets. Recently I was having a conversation with a church leader whose church is suffering for a variety of reasons, but one of those reasons is the decisions that have been made in the past and kept secret from the congregation.  As a result, this once thriving church has a serious trust issue within the congregation.

A church is no healthier than the secrets it keeps. When a congregation learns that its leadership has made decisions without informing the congregation or, even worse, taking steps to ensure the congregation does not learn about them, the church is in trouble. People are not stupid. When such secrecy is exposed the congregation then wonders what else leadership has done that they do not know about. Distrust grows and a division occurs between the congregation and its leadership leading to a very unhealthy situation.

In many cases, the leadership thinks they are doing the church a favor. Sometimes difficult issues arise that require painful decisions to be made. In such cases, leadership will sometimes want to protect the church from the pain they have endured while addressing the situation. However, those issues and the resulting decisions often are eventually revealed, and when that happens the congregation may feel betrayed. Anger and a loss of trust often follows which can impact the church for years to come.

If you are in a low trust church that has struggled with secrecy it's time to become transparent. Congregations are capable of handling much more than they are sometimes given credit. To regain a level of trust in a church confess your role, if any, in the secrets that have been kept in the church. Personal issues that require confidentiality must be respected, but all other decisions must be communicated to the congregation. At this point, you cannot over-communicate. You are trying to rebuild trust, and that cannot happen if people still believe you may be hiding something. Transparency and communication are vital.

Trust will not be regained quickly. If people feel they have been betrayed in the past, it will take time to rebuild trust. You will have to be consistent in your transparency and communication for that to happen.

Change, decision making, and emotions

Unless you are Sheldon Cooper or Spock, logic only plays a small role in the decisions you make.  We can make lists of reasons for and against a decision, but when it comes crunch time our emotions will play a large part in the final decision we make.  Chip and Dan Heath makes this point well in their excellent book Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work when they write, "When you strip away all the rational mechanics of decision making - the generation of options, the weighing of information - what's left at the core is emotions...The buck stops with emotion."

Perhaps one of the greatest of these emotions is fear.  We are afraid of making mistakes, of being wrong.  We are afraid of what others might think of us if we make one choice over another.  We are afraid that the choices we make will put us in a situation from which we cannot escape.

As many of you know, a couple of years ago I started an auction business and got my auction license.  It's funny to watch people struggling to decide whether or not to increase their bid by a couple of dollars.  I've seen people anguish over the decision to bid another five dollars on something they've already bid over a hundred dollars on.  It's obvious this is something they want, but fear takes over and prevents them from bidding.  About the time the auctioneer declares the item sold, they will raise their hand to increase their bid, but by that time it's too late.  Someone else owns it.  I think this gives them the psychological satisfying sense that they tried to buy it but waited just a split-second too long.

As I work with the churches in my area I've never had one tell me they didn't want to reach new people, or grow, or impact people's lives.  But, when you begin to talk about the changes they might have to make to accomplish any of these you can see the fear in their eyes and hear it in their words.  Logically, they want to do the things they say they want to do, but emotionally many of them cannot let go of the familiar to make the changes needed to accomplish those things.

As leaders, we make a mistake if we just focus on all the reasons why we need to move forward with the changes that are needed.  We will seldom convince others that we need to make changes with logic alone.  We must address the emotional aspects of those changes as well.  Too often we just focus on the "what" of the changes and never address the "whys."

In smaller churches, especially, the fear that is generated when talking about change centers around some basic questions.

• How will this impact the relationships that exist in their church?  In smaller churches, relationships are key to everything, and change leaders must not overlook that.
• How will this impact my role in the church?  People who have invested their lives in a church will certainly be asking this question, and their fear is that their role will change.
• Will I even still have a role in this church is we move forward with the change?  Here the above fear is intensified.

To make better decisions and to be an effective change agent we must recognize the role that emotions play.  Effectively address those emotions and you will make better decisions and will see changes occur more frequently.  Ignore the emotions and few changes will occur in your life and ministry.

What causes leaders to fail?

Over the past few months there have been numerous stories of senior pastors whose ministries did not end well.  We've read of misconduct leading to the arrest of some, moral failures resulting in forced terminations, and pastors leaving the ministry because of burn-out and/or depression.  While these situations make the headlines, the more common pastoral failures result in troubled churches that fail to enjoy productive, effective ministries.

What causes these pastoral failures?  Sometimes the pastor lacks the skill sets needed for ministry.  Such persons have not been called into the ministry by God but have entered the ministry of their own choosing.  Perhaps the minister did have the skills to serve a church of a certain size, but lacked the skills to serve in a different setting.  It may be that the minister failed to grow as a person and as a minister making his or her ministry ineffective.

However, most leadership failures are not due to a lack of skills.  They are a failure of character.    Tim Irwin provides us with a fascinating look at the failures of leadership in his book Derailed: Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership (NelsonFree).  Irwin studied six well-known leaders in the business community and sought answers as to why they failed to successfully lead the companies that hired them.  He notes that their derailments were due to a failure of character that was tied to one of four qualities:

1. Authenticity
2. Self-management
3. Humility
4. Courage

While we often look at failure as an event, Irwin found that derailment occurs over time.  It happens before the crash itself occurs as we miss warning signs that things are not right.  We ignore the feedback others might be giving us.  Our arrogance assures us that we are on the right track, and even that still, small voice inside of us cannot get us to turn aside and avoid the crash.

One of the leaders he profiles is Durk Jager who was CEO of Proctor & Gamble for only seventeen months before the board forced him to resign.  One of the failings noted in the book is that Jager pitted himself against the P&G culture creating distrust between himself and those he was leading.  In the margin of the book next to this section I've written, "Pastors who do not appreciate the history of their church and its former leaders make the same mistake."

When I speak to churches that have suffered under poor pastoral leadership I hear the same character failures Irwin found in his research.  One recent church described their last two pastors to me as dictators.  These pastors lacked the ability to manage themselves and lacked any sense of humility.  They arrogantly believed they were the pastors of that church, and it would be their way or the highway.  Significant numbers of people chose the highway and it is questionable as to whether or not this church will survive.  Other churches tell of the absence of leadership on the part of their pastor.  Pastors fail to lead due to a lack of courage.  They don't want to be responsible if something goes wrong.  What these pastors do not realize is that their lack of leadership is failure on their part that hurts the church and the community the church is called to reach far more because it keeps them stuck in the status quo.

This book was written about business leaders who failed, but the lessons learned apply to anyone in a leadership role.  Inside the dust jacket we read, "Ultimately, Derailed is not about six high profile leaders...it's about how YOU avoid derailment.  When you apply these principles about leadership and life in the upcoming pages, you will stay on track!"  I agree and believe this is a most helpful book for anyone in a church leadership position.

You don't have a problem; you have a decision to make

You don't have a problem; you have a decision to make.  I don't remember the first time I heard that, but I do remember it was at a time when I was struggling with a problem.  I wasn't very happy when I heard this because this was something I already knew, but I didn't want to make the decision.  I had put off making a decision that I knew needed to be made because I was secretly hoping the problem would take care of itself.  It didn't.  In fact, like most problems left to themselves, this one grew bigger while I hesitated doing what I knew needed to be done.  Eventually, I did make the required decision, and within a very short time things improved dramatically. 

One of the criticisms I often received as a younger leader was that I refused to make timely decisions.  You might remember that Bill Clinton was often criticized for the same thing during his first term.  His critics claimed that he required too much information before he could make a decision.  I tend to be the same way, plus I struggled with wanting to please everyone.  It took me awhile to learn that, #1 a leader will never have enough information and, #2 regardless of what I did I would never please everyone.  Leadership is about making decisions based upon the information you do have.  If you get different information later you can adjust your decision, but at least you'll be moving forward.

I often get phone calls from pastors and lay people who want to talk about problems they have in their churches.  Some of these problems have been brewing for months or longer.  Others are fairly recent.  In virtually every case they remain problems because people do not want to make tough decisions.

A woman called to complain that their pastor no longer wore suits when he preached.  She was also unhappy about the dress of some of the lay leaders.  She told me how distressed this made her feel and that going to church was becoming quite a struggle.  I asked if the majority of the congregation felt like she did or if they accepted the more casual dress of their leadership.  She admitted very few felt like she did.  At that time I told her she probably needed to find another church to attend so she could enjoy the worship experience once again. She sounded a little disappointed, and I think she was hoping I would take her side and tell the pastor he needed to start wearing suits again.  She didn't have a problem; she had to decide if she wanted to continue attending that church or to begin the search for another one.

A church board called asking to meet with me to discuss some behavior problems the church had with two families.  In our meeting they explained that these families consistently created problems that caused their newer members to leave within a short period of time.  I asked what they were going to do about it.  Stunned, they insisted they couldn't do anything.  I replied, "Then live with it."  I explained they had already told me two families were driving people from the church.  As the leaders of that church they could decide who stayed and who left.  They needed to decide if they wanted to keep dysfunctional people who had been creating problems in their church for years or if they wanted to keep the new Christians they were reaching.  At that point I left the meeting.  Over the next few weeks they confronted these families about their behavior.  Both got angry, left, and the church has continued to grow.  They just need to make a decision.

Following a business meeting to which I had been invited about two dozen members of a larger church surrounded me complaining about their church and its leadership.  One of their complaints had to do with the amount of money the church spent on youth activities.  They specifically mentioned one recent expenditure of several hundred dollars for one activity.  I then asked how many young people were coming to Christ in that church.  I already knew this church was reaching many of the youth and their families in that community.  They didn't answer.  I then told them that I knew of several churches in that area that would not spend that much money on their youth for an entire year, and that they might be happier attending one of those churches.  Most of them left that church within a few weeks.  That growing church soon replaced them and continues to grow today.

Most of the problems that exist in our churches are the result of leaders refusing to make the decisions that need to be made.  We waste too much time worrying about upsetting the controllers and others who think the church exists for them.  We fear they might leave if we make a decision that they won't agree with.  So what?  Let them leave.  I think it was Rick Warren who once wrote that God had called us to be fishers of men, not corrallers of old goats.  It's time we in church leadership become willing to make the tough decisions that will resolve many of our problems so we can concentrate on our real purpose which is to reach people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Leadership is about taking responsibility.

I find it interesting that everything that was wrong with America was President's Bush's fault when President Obama came into office and throughout his first term, and now none of our nation's problems are the President's fault.  Every day there seems to be a new problem that the President knew nothing about.  Now, I am not one who believes every problem is the fault of the President regardless of his party affiliation, nor do I believe that the President has the power to resolve every issue.  But, leadership is about taking responsibility, and our current President is unwilling to accept responsibility for the problems that threaten to engulf his administration and this nation.  He was more than willing to blame the previous adminstration for the problems he inherited but is unwilling to accept the responsibility for the ones he and his administration have created.  That is not leadership.

An article on President Harry Truman reports that "in an address at the National War College on December 19, 1952 Mr. Truman said, "You know, it's easy for the Monday morning quarterback to say what the coach should have done, after the game is over. But when the decision is up before you -- and on my desk I have a motto which says The Buck Stops Here' -- the decision has to be made." In his farewell address to the American people given in January 1953, President Truman referred to this concept very specifically in asserting that, "The President--whoever he is--has to decide. He can't pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That's his job."  In a statement to reporters who were asking why President Bush was defending Rumsfeld Bush responded, "I am the decider, and I decide what's best."  One can argue as to whether or not a decision was the best one, but it is the responsibility of the leader to make decisions and then to own them.  Most Presidents have understood this; our current one does not seem to.

The same responsibility falls to those of us in ministry leadership positions as well.  We have to seek advice from various people and search for the best possible solutions to the challenges we face, but at the end of the day it is our responsibility to make the decisions that we believe gives our churches and ministries the best opportunities to excel.  Will every decision be the right one?  I wish, but sadly they won't.  In fact, sometimes we will make some really poor decisions that can set our ministries back.  At such times the real leader will admit his or her mistake and begin to move the ministry in a different direction.

One of the things I appreciated about the church I served for 20 years was their willingness to support me even when I made poor decisions.  Believe me, in twenty years of ministry in one setting a pastor has the opportunity to make numerous bad decisions, and I took full advantage of those opportunities!  In some churches it would have been three strikes and you're out, but I was blessed to have a congregation that allowed their pastor to be imperfect.

However, I am convinced they may not have been so forgiving if I had not been willing to admit my mistakes.  Had I tried to blame others or pretend I wasn't aware of things that were happening that should have been under my watchcare our congregation would have challenged that and held me accountable...as well as they should.

As a leader you are called upon to make decisions some of which only you can make.  Some of those decisions will be great ones, and some will be really bad.  Regardless, you have to own all of them, and if you are not willing to do that you are not qualified to be a leader.

What will determine the future of your church?

Several times I had the privilege of hearing Zig Ziglar speak.  He was one of the best motivational speakers I've ever heard.  He often began his lectures by asking two questions.

1. How many of you believe that regardless of how bad your personal, family, and business lives are at this moment there are still some things you could do that would make them even worse?
2. How many of you believe that regardless of how good your personal, family, and business lives are, there are still some things you could do to improve them?

He asked those questions to help his listeners understand that they were responsible for their own futures.  While outside forces can have some impact on our lives, ultimately we are responsible for our own future.  What we will be, what we will have, and where we are five, ten, and twenty years down the road is largely dependent upon the choices we make now.  This is true of our personal lives, our family lives, and our business lives.  It is also true of our churches.

In my own workshops I often include this message, and many times someone in my audience will want to push back.  That person will insist that their church wants to grow, wants to have a greater impact on its community, and wants to be a more vibrant church, but they also insist that some outside force prevents that from happening.  A few times I have made those persons unhappy by insisting just as strongly that, while they are saying the right things, they are not willing to do what it takes to achieve them.  While most organizations, including churches, will face challenges to accomplishing their goals, the successful ones achieve them anyway.  Here is an important fact we must never forget: If you really want to achieve something, you will find a way; if you aren't committed to achieving something, you will find an excuse.  Life will provide us with many things to blame, but ultimately the final results we experience in life are due to the choices we make.

There will always be roadblocks to a successful ministry, but none of these are greater than the forces and the power available to the believer in Christ.  Romans 8: 35-39 tells us that nothing can separate us from the love of God.  Isaiah 54: 17 reminds us that no weapon formed against us shall prosper.  Jesus says in Matthew 16: 18 that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against the church.  We could refer to more Scripture, but these three alone are enough to demonstrate the forces are work within the church and the believer.  To accuse outside forces of being able to prevent our churches from fulfilling God's vision for their ministry is to discount the truth of these passages.  The fact is the only thing that can limit the ministry, and the future, of our churches is our own limited thinking. 

As I work with smaller churches I frequently hear the same complaints.  We are an older congregation.  Our people are on fixed income.  We can't attract younger families with children.  We have few resources and can't compete with the larger churches in our communities.  It's hard to find good pastors willing to serve in a church like ours.  The denomination doesn't care anything about us.  Younger people just don't have the commitment that we did at that age.

Over the next few days I'm going to challenge each of these statements in this blog.  Any of them may be true, but that does not mean they have to be limiting.  In fact, everyone of them, and any others you want to raise, can be overcome if you really want to do so.  Or, they can be a convenient excuse for you and your church to do nothing.  Either way, you will decide which it will be for you.

Be sure to check this blog tomorrow to read my response to the first complaint: we are an older congregation.  To be sure you don't miss it you may want to join the other followers of this blog.  You may also want to read my book Intentional Ministry in a Not-So-Mega Church: Becoming a Missional Community that addresses how smaller churches can have a more productive ministry in their communities.

Low trust churches

A Baptist pastor recently called me frustrated over recent events in his church.  A group within the church had worked for some time preparing a proposed change to the church constitution that would eliminate the need for the congregation to vote on every decision that had to be made.  Steps were included to ensure that people would continue to have input on major decisions, but a vote would not have to be taken for every decision.  This was especially needed since the church had already eliminated its monthly business meeting and now only had two business meetings a year.  Numerous special called business meetings had occurred to vote on issues so the church would not have to wait for the next semi-annual meeting to made a decision.  The new proposal would streamline the decision-making process in the church while ensuring that the congregation would continue to be able to vote on larger, essential items such as the calling of a pastor, the budget, and major changes that would have a large impact on the church.   A number of people who do not normally attend business meetings were there to oppose the recommendation.  The proposal failed on a tie vote.  The pastor said the church was split 50-50 when he went there and after several years of ministry it remains evenly divided.

This pastor and I had talked about the challenges he faced in this church before.  It is a divided church, and it is a church that has little trust in its leadership and in one another.  Low trust churches insist on voting on every issue simply because the people do not trust one another.  People insist on having a say on matters even though they may never have studied the issue or really know anything about it.  In one church I know the congregation is primarily made up of four families, and each of the families have to be represented on every board and committee in the church because they really do not trust one another.  They have been going to this church for years together, but there remains little trust in the church among the various families.  This lack of trust has been a major factor in each of these churches inability to experience healthy growth.

As a life-long Baptist I was raised to appreciate congregational decision-making.  For most churches it worked well for many, many years, but it is not a model that is effective today.  Things change too rapidly in the 21st century to expect a group of people attending a church business meeting to be able to make a rational vote after a 5-10 minute presentation on some matter.  Think for a moment on this scenario:  a church committee examines a particular issue for several months.  They talk with various experts to get the best advice they can find.  They explore numerous options and visit other churches to learn how they handled this issue in their churches.  They make a presentation to the congregation prior to a vote, and at the end of their presentation people who know little or nothing about the matter vote against it because the proposal doesn't fit what they expected it would be.  I've seen this happen twice in the past few years, and both times it was devastating to the churches.  I anticipate the ramifications of their decisions will cripple those churches for years to come.

The bulk of the decision making has to be handed over to the primary leaders in most congregations so decisions can be made in real time.  If you cannot trust them to make good decisions then maybe they shouldn't be leaders in your church, or it might be a sign that it's time for you to move on to another church where there are some leaders you can trust.  In a worst-case scenario it may be that you don't trust anyone to make decisions except yourself because only then can you be sure that the decisions that are made will be beneficial to you and your agenda.

As long as the church membership cannot trust their leaders to make many of the decisions that need to be made without calling for a church vote, the church will continue to experience decline.  It will be unable to make the necessary adjustments quick enough to meet the needs of this century.  A pastor trying to lead a low-trust church will find it almost impossible to do so.  Such churches prefer managers over leaders, and they are unlikely to follow a leader

It will be uncomfortable, but members of low-trust churches need to grant their leaders decision-making powers.  If that happens, the leadership needs to be very careful to make good decisions to demonstrate that they can be trusted to do so.  If these two things can happen the trust level in the church can be raised to a place where the church becomes much healthier, and that health will be reflected in the quality of ministry that occurs within the church and community.