Dealing with unrealistic expectations in ministry

 The first of the Four Spiritual Laws reads that "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life." Someone has changed that to read, "God loves you and everybody has a wonderful plan for your life." This is especially true for those us serving in ministry. Your church may have a job description for the pastor, but if you are serving in a church of 100 people there are 100 different job descriptions you are expected to meet. We seldom get into trouble for not meeting the official job description, but many pastors have got into trouble by not meeting the other 100.

In yesterday's post I addressed the need for pastors to find balance in their ministries and their personal lives. But, how does one do that with so many expectations that people have for their pastor? When some of these expectations are unrealistic it makes it even more difficult.

As a young pastor I struggled to tell anyone no. That got me in a lot of trouble. I was soon like a stray dog at a whistler's convention. I didn't know where to go or what to do next. Eventually, I became better at telling people no. I couldn't attend every event people wanted me to attend. I couldn't make every visit someone thought I should make. Some requests made no sense. Our small, rural church had a Sunday morning and evening service. About 55 attended the morning service, around 12-15 came on Sunday night. A lady asked about starting a Wednesday night service, and I told her we would not do that until the evening service attendance matched the morning attendance. She responded that we would probably never have a Wednesday night service, and I told her she was probably right.

Some readers might think that serving a church of 55 people shouldn't have been that much of a deal, but at the time I was bivocational working full-time in a factory and working on my college degree. It was a big deal if I wanted to maintain any sense of balance in my life.

Where do these unofficial job descriptions come from? Somewhere in these person's lives a minister met those expectations, and it was assumed that all ministers would in the future. Dr. Phil says that we teach people how to treat us. I believe it's true. When we agree to something that is outside the boundaries of what we should be doing we are creating expectations, not only for our future but also for the future pastors who will serve there. 

Every pastor will have people come with ideas for new ministries. They usually want the pastor to lead these ministries. What many pastors now do is to affirm the idea and suggest that since God has given them the idea for this ministry they are the best person to lead it. Our role is to equip and resource you (Eph. 4). Then ask, how can I help you get this started. You will often find that these folks will really run with this, and your church will have a new ministry that is being led by someone else.

Our challenge in many traditional churches is that the members were brought up at a time when the pastor did lead everything in the church. We have to begin to correct this wrong concept of ministry. Our role is to equip and resource, not lead everything. Our members will never become disciples if they are only expected to sit and give. We have to teach them that God has called them to do ministry, and our role is to help them in that endeavor. If we do this well, we will change the expectations that people have for the pastor and help prepare the church for a more healthy future.

Realistic expectations for pastoral ministry

2020 was a year of tremendous stress for everyone. It was certainly a challenging time for churches and their leadership. Many had to learn new technologies and new ways of doing church. Even prior to the pandemic, pastoral ministry has been considered one of the most stressful of all occupations. Much of that stress is due to the unrealistic expectations some churches have for their pastors and pastors have for themselves. If you are a pastor reading this, see if you have any of these expectations for yourself, and if you are a layperson in a church, ask yourself if your church have these expectations for the pastor.

While serving as a denominational minister I was at a dinner sitting next to the chair of a pastor search committee. She said, with what I felt was some pride in her voice, that they had been looking for a new pastor for three years without finding the right person. I responded that they needed to quit looking for someone who walks on water. Pastors are people just like anyone else. We have certain gifts and skills that God has given us, and when we work in those areas we are reasonably effective. Many of the tasks often assigned to pastors are outside of that gift-set. Although we try to fulfill those tasks we face criticism when we do not perform them well. Not only do we encounter push-back from some in the congregation for that, we can begin to feel like failures ourselves. No one can do everything well. I tell pastors to work as much as possible in the areas of your strengths and try to manage your weaknesses. Often, that management will consist of trying to delegate those tasks to others who are more gifted in those areas that the pastor is. As a side-note, the pastor they did call only stayed there 18 months. He could not live up to the expectations of the congregation.

A common complaint heard from pastor's spouses is that they feel they live in a glass fishbowl. They feel everyone is watching them and expecting them to be the perfect family. A pastor friend of mine was fired when the church learned his unmarried daughter became pregnant. The church leadership informed him of his termination while he was in the hospital recovering from an illness. Pastor's families are no different than other families. We have good times and we go through rough patches just like everyone else. Just like other families in the church, we can even have arguments on the way to the worship service. Unfortunately, our humanity does not change the expectations some in the church have that the pastor's family should be the model family for everyone else to follow. I know of one church that became upset when the pastor's young son acted up during a children's choir rehearsal. It was the topic of conversation for weeks in the church. I've said more than once that the reason pastor's kids misbehave is because they play with the deacon's kids! Most pastor's families have enough stress without having to live up to the unrealistic expectations of others.

Because of the pandemic many churches are facing financial challenges that have resulted in some pastors either having to leave the ministry to provide for their families or pursuing a bivocational role in the church. Even before the pandemic, most pastors were earning less than other professionals with similar education. I can remember when our local theater let pastors and their families attend movies free and other stores gave pastors a discount on their purchases. Those days are mostly gone. Pastors pay the same for the goods and services they buy but often with less money. For too long, some churches have subsidized their own lack of stewardship with the low salaries they paid their pastors. This needs to stop. It is unfair to the pastors and their families to expect them to live with an inadequate income that does not reflect their education and the work they do. 

All the blame for these unrealistic expectations do not fall on the church. Sometimes pastors are our own worst enemies. As Dr. Phil often says, we teach people how to treat us. Not wanting to rock the boat, or in an effort to be a people-pleaser we often do not advocate for fair treatment. We accept the criticism for things we do not do well and strive harder to them better in the future. We let people hold our families to a higher expectation than they have for other families. We let churches dictate our salaries and benefits without informing them of what we and our families need. As mature Christians we should be able to have conversations about these things.

As we begin a new year, take time to look at the expectations you have of your pastor, and pastors take a look at your own expectations. Let's develop healthier expectations and enjoy a more rewarding ministry.

Congregational expectations of bivocational pastors

This was my most popular blog post of 2019 according to the number of people who read it. I thought it might deserve repeating.

A major challenge faced by bivocational ministers is trying to meet the expectations of the congregation. Most churches have a job description for the pastor, and most pastors do not get into trouble because they do not meet fulfill that job description. They get in trouble when they do not meet the unwritten job descriptions that exist in every church. If a church has 50 people there may be 50 different expectations placed on the pastor. (I often say that in many churches there is at least one person with schizophrenic tendencies so there may be 51 different expectations. I'm only partially joking when I say that!)

Many churches are now transitioning from having a fully-funded pastor to a bivocational pastor. Such transitions often fail because of unrealistic expectations placed on the pastor. While the church may be paying a bivocational salary some within the congregation still have the expectations they had when their pastor was fully-funded, which may not have been realistic even then.

Some unrealistic expectations that some churches have for their bivocational pastor may include expecting him or her to run to the hospital or home every time someone gets sick. If the pastor has an outside job he or she may not be available to dash to the hospital. When I was pastoring our church we used an SBC program called the Deacon Family Ministry plan which assigned every family in our church to one of our deacons. That deacon became the primary contact person for those families. I was called in more critical situations, but often our deacons would be called and would visit people long before I was able to due to my work schedule.

This is in line with something I've long advocated. We have to get away from a pastoral care model to a congregational care model in our churches. This is a more biblical understanding of how we are to care for one another (Eph. 4). It requires training of both the leaders and the congregation, but when it is done right it works very well, and even more so in bivocational churches.

A second unrealistic expectation is requiring the pastor to speak two or three times a week. Many bivocational churches still expect their pastor to preach Sunday morning, Sunday evening and at a mid-week service. Those evening services may not have but 4-5 people show up, but because they were well attended in the 1950s the church still expects it. That is seldom a good use of the pastor's time. Not only does he or she have to speak each of those times, but each of those messages requires preparation time which may be 5-10 hours each. If lay people cannot lead the Sunday evening and mid-week service then it may be time to give them a proper burial. Again, when I was pastoring I preached Sunday morning and evening but refused a mid-week service.

A third unrealistic expectation is refusing to give the pastor more than a week or two of vacation each year. I served as a bivocational pastor for 20 years. It's hard work that takes a lot out of the minister and his or her family. I always advocated that a church should give their pastor four weeks vacation right from the beginning. Most churches will give two weeks and pay a supply preacher $150.00 or less while the pastor is gone. Giving the pastor two more weeks will cost the church $300.00 or less. That is a minimal cost to the church but provides the pastor and family a huge blessing. Most churches budget X amount of dollars a year for the pastor's salary, so does it really matter whether that includes the pastor being there 48 weeks or 50 weeks? If a church cannot afford $300.00 to bless their pastor in this way it probably needs to decide if it is viable that it remains open.

While I'm upsetting people I might as well go all the way! Give your bivocational pastor a three-month paid sabbatical every seven years. (I just heard jaws hit the floor.) I made this statement in a workshop I was leading a few years ago and an older woman spoke up and said that they all worked for a living and didn't get three months off with pay. I responded that none of them were on-call 24/7/365 and responsible for the eternal souls of those they served either. (She left the workshop.)

That paid sabbatical may be the best investment you will make in your church. I am convinced many pastors leave after 5-7 years, not because they feel led to, but because they are just tired. They resign from the church, rest for awhile, and then begin to look for another place in which to serve. If they had that sabbatical they could refresh themselves and their families and then return back to a church that had loved on them in this way. Virtually every study shows that growing, healthy churches are led by long-term pastors, and this may be a way to keep your pastor for a long time. I can assure you, if you expect your bivocational pastor to just keep plugging away he or she will eventually wear out and have to leave just to protect themselves.

I encourage bivocational churches to invite someone such as a DS, a judicatory leader or a consultant to lead a discussion on how a congregation and bivocational pastor can set some realistic expectation for each other. It may be one of the healthiest things your church can do.

Don't overlook the older minister in your search for a pastor

With the holidays behind us some pastors will begin to think about moving to other churches. Those with children is school often want to make that move during the summer months so their children can start the new school year out in their new school, so they will begin looking late winter and early spring. Because of the holidays many pastor search teams slowed down or even halted their search until the new year began. That means they are now ready to resume their search.

As a judicatory minister I worked with many search teams over the years. In my first meeting with them I always asked what they wanted in their next pastor. I usually knew the answer because it was pretty much the same regardless of the church. They wanted a pastor who could preach well, would visit the congregation, be involved in the community and grow the church or youth group. That may not have been what the church needed, but it was what most of them wanted. It was also often said, or at least implied, that they would like a younger pastor (with a spouse and children of course) who could bring in new ideas. I KNEW most of them did not want any new ideas being brought into the church. Often, that was why their previous pastor was no longer there, but it was the politically correct thing to say to the denominational representative.

A few times I asked the search team if they believed that younger pastors were the only ones who might have some fresh ideas for ministry. They often seemed confused by the question especially when I told them that some of the sharpest pastors I knew were older ones who had been in the ministry for years. They had been there and done that. Yes, some of them were trapped in the mindset they had been taught in seminary in the 1960s, but some of the younger ones had been taught by the same seminaries and held to that same mindset. At least some of the older ones had been around long enough to know that some things they had been taught no longer worked.

Churches do themselves a disservice when they automatically reject a minister because he or she is older or has even retired.  I know some older pastors who retired to get away from the stress of being in a dysfunctional church and couldn't find another place to serve. As one told me, his doctor said he could either retire or die from the stress his church was causing him. After he retired I was able to help him find a smaller church that he served very well as their pastor.

Smaller churches especially need to consider calling older pastors. As many of them are finding out, the pool of candidates is not a large one for them. If they are insistent on finding a young pastor whose wife can play the piano they are likely to be without a pastor for a long time.

Several years ago I was having lunch with one of my pastors when he asked me to guess how old he was. I made my guess and was stunned to learn that he was almost 20 years older than I had thought. He had more energy than some pastors I knew half his age. His mind and wit was keen and his passion for ministry was obvious. He loved his church and served them faithfully for many years after our lunch. I always enjoyed the times we met to talk about ministry

As your church looks at potential candidates do not automatically discard those who you think might be too old. When you meet with them you might be surprised to find they are exactly what your church needs for its next phase of ministry.

Congregational expectations of bivocational ministers

A major challenge faced by bivocational ministers is trying to meet the expectations of the congregation. Most churches have a job description for the pastor, and most pastors do not get into trouble because they do not meet fulfill that job description. They get in trouble when they do not meet the unwritten job descriptions that exist in every church. If a church has 50 people there may be 50 different expectations placed on the pastor. (I often say that in many churches there is at least one person with schizophrenic tendencies so there may be 51 different expectations. I'm only partially joking when I say that!)

Many churches are now transitioning from having a fully-funded pastor to a bivocational pastor. Such transitions often fail because of unrealistic expectations placed on the pastor. While the church may be paying a bivocational salary some within the congregation still have the expectations they had when their pastor was fully-funded, which may not have been realistic even then.

Some unrealistic expectations that some churches have for their bivocational pastor may include expecting him or her to run to the hospital or home every time someone gets sick. If the pastor has an outside job he or she may not be available to dash to the hospital. When I was pastoring our church we used an SBC program called the Deacon Family Ministry plan which assigned every family in our church to one of our deacons. That deacon became the primary contact person for those families. I was called in more critical situations, but often our deacons would be called and would visit people long before I was able to due to my work schedule.

This is in line with something I've long advocated. We have to get away from a pastoral care model to a congregational care model in our churches. This is a more biblical understanding of how we are to care for one another (Eph. 4). It requires training of both the leaders and the congregation, but when it is done right it works very well, and even more so in bivocational churches.

A second unrealistic expectation is requiring the pastor to speak two or three times a week. Many bivocational churches still expect their pastor to preach Sunday morning, Sunday evening and at a mid-week service. Those evening services may not have but 4-5 people show up, but because they were well attended in the 1950s the church still expects it. That is seldom a good use of the pastor's time. Not only does he or she have to speak each of those times, but each of those messages requires preparation time which may be 5-10 hours each. If lay people cannot lead the Sunday evening and mid-week service then it may be time to give them a proper burial. Again, when I was pastoring I preached Sunday morning and evening but refused a mid-week service.

A third unrealistic expectation is refusing to give the pastor more than a week or two of vacation each year. I served as a bivocational pastor for 20 years. It's hard work that takes a lot out of the minister and his or her family. I always advocated that a church should give their pastor four weeks vacation right from the beginning. Most churches will give two weeks and pay a supply preacher $150.00 or less while the pastor is gone. Giving the pastor two more weeks will cost the church $300.00 or less. That is a minimal cost to the church but provides the pastor and family a huge blessing. Most churches budget X amount of dollars a year for the pastor's salary, so does it really matter whether that includes the pastor being there 48 weeks or 50 weeks? If a church cannot afford $300.00 to bless their pastor in this way it probably needs to decide if it is viable that it remains open.

While I'm upsetting people I might as well go all the way! Give your bivocational pastor a three-month paid sabbatical every seven years. (I just heard jaws hit the floor.) I made this statement in a workshop I was leading a few years ago and an older woman spoke up and said that they all worked for a living and didn't get three months off with pay. I responded that none of them were on-call 24/7/365 and responsible for the eternal souls of those they served either. (She left the workshop.)

That paid sabbatical may be the best investment you will make in your church. I am convinced many pastors leave after 5-7 years, not because they feel led to, but because they are just tired. They resign from the church, rest for awhile, and then begin to look for another place in which to serve. If they had that sabbatical they could refresh themselves and their families and then return back to a church that had loved on them in this way. Virtually every study shows that growing, healthy churches are led by long-term pastors, and this may be a way to keep your pastor for a long time. I can assure you, if you expect your bivocational pastor to just keep plugging away he or she will eventually wear out and have to leave just to protect themselves.

I encourage bivocational churches to invite someone such as a DS, a judicatory leader or a consultant to lead a discussion on how a congregation and bivocational pastor can set some realistic expectation for each other. It may be one of the healthiest things your church can do.

Realistic expectations for smaller churches

While serving 14 years as a Resource Minister with our judicatory I had the opportunity to work with dozens of churches seeking new pastors. Many of these churches were smaller. A common problem I found in many of them was that they were still structured, and wanted to do ministry, as larger churches. Often, they were still using the same structure they had when they were larger and didn't realize that this structure would not serve them well now that they were smaller.

It is difficult to find pastors for smaller churches, and this does not look to improve any time in the near future. There are many reasons for this which I've addressed in some of my books on bivocational ministry. The one reason I want to address in this post is that these churches often have unrealistic expectations for their pastor.

Having been out of active ministry for a couple of years now I decided to look at ads churches were putting on the Internet for pastors. I found the same issue I had experienced when I tried to help smaller churches find a new pastor. Many of these churches were averaging 20-50 people in attendance, and they expected their pastor to preach on Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday evening in addition to doing all the pastoral care and administrative duties many churches expect of their pastor. Even when the ad said they were looking for a part-time pastor (their words, not mine) the job description sure didn't sound part-time.

I realize many churches still think they must have Sunday evening services and mid-week services, but if they insist on having them I would suggest having lay people lead them. It is usually not a good use of the pastor's time to have to prepare and present three messages a week in smaller churches. It also seldom adds anything to the church's ministry.

Bivocational pastors must be very conscious of how they use their time, and the time they give the church must be productive. To expect them to meet the job descriptions I referred to above is not an productive use of their time and will add very little to the overall health of the congregation. Potential pastors will avoid churches with these type of expectations.

One other thing I noticed in some of the ads concerned the salary. The ad would include something like this: "Although the church cannot afford to pay much in the way of salary, the pastor can expect his salary to increase as the church grows." I heard this more than once from search committees I worked with. My response was usually this: "So you are not really looking for a pastor. What you want is a commissioned salesperson." This response was always met with resistance, but I would point out that this is exactly how commissioned salespeople are hired. They would be paid very little, but if they brought in the business they could earn more. Search teams did not especially like me pointing this out to them, but this was the mindset they had.

Smaller churches should offer the absolute best salary package they can afford without apology. If the cash salary must be minimal, then offer additional benefits such as more time away or something else that would appeal to the candidates. Try to tailor your salary package to the candidate to make it fit well with his or her needs. Certainly, as the church grows the salary can be improved, but don't put it in those terms when you are interviewing candidates.

WII-FM

According to Wikipedia there are approximately 1,600 Christian radio stations in the United States. Some of these stations are fairly large while others are smaller, local stations. Many Christians leave their radios tuned to the favorite station to listen to the speakers and musicians they enjoy the most. However, I have found that there is one station that many Christians prefer over all others: WII-FM (What's in it for me?).

This is the station that people listen to just before they tell the pastor they are leaving for another church because "They aren't being fed here." People who decide to leave their church because they were not selected for a certain position often listen to this station before leaving. As people are presented with ideas for new ministries or possible changes in the way things are being done they often replay their favorite selections from WII-FM. Then they are ready to oppose whatever is being presented.

Somewhere these people have never been taught that it really isn't all about them, or at least it's not supposed to be. It is supposed to be about advancing the Kingdom of God. It is supposed to be about finding ways to reach people for whom Jesus died. Church was never meant to be a luxury hotel for saints; it is supposed to be a hospital for sinners. A congregation is not to call a pastor to serve them but to lead them as they use the gifts God has given them to serve others.

Maintenance-minded churches spend a lot of time listening to WII-FM. Its programs are soothing to those who are waiting for someone else to feed them and meet their every need.

Missional churches really don't spend much time listening to that station. They don't have time. These churches are too busy in the community touching people's lives where they live. Besides, they really don't buy into the programming presented on WII-FM. Something doesn't sound right. In fact, it sounds almost heretical.

By the way, it's not only individuals in churches who enjoy WII-FM. Entire churches will sometimes listen and get caught up in its philosophy. These are the churches who begin to ask themselves what their denomination is doing for them. They wonder if it's not about time to leave their denomination and join another or become independent.

I heard of one such church earlier this week. The caller thought that church had voted to withdraw from its denomination because the denomination doesn't do anything for them. I asked the caller if the church had ever requested help from the denomination to which it belonged, and he did not believe it had.

As a judicatory leader for the past 14 years this is one of my greatest frustrations. I can't speak for every leader of every denomination, but every one I've met is willing to do anything that will benefit one of their churches. The problem is that many of these churches never ask, and none of us are mind readers.

I have no way of knowing a church is involved in a conflict and needs someone to help mediate it unless someone tells me. Unless a church lets me know it is struggling trying to understand God's vision for its future, I can't help them through a process of discerning that vision. We have several good stewardship programs that can help a church's giving, but unless we know a church is interested in such a program we can't help them.

Which churches do we help? The ones who ask for such help. Which ones do we help the least? The ones who never bother to ask, and these are the ones who wonder why they remain in their denomination.

WII-FM is dangerous to both individual believers and to congregations. Buying into its philosophy will hinder the individual's spiritual growth and the growth of the church. We are not here to be served but to serve, and that is not a message you'll hear on WII-FM. Instead of asking "What's in it for me?" we should be asking "How can I help?".

What expectations have you accepted?

One of the books I'm currently reading is Instinct: The Power to Unleash Your Inborn Drive by T. D. Jakes.  Although I've only began reading it I am enjoying the insights he brings to the subject.  He makes a comment about people's expectations when he writes, "People adapt to their own expectations.  In other words, we often behave based on our perceptions more than the reality of our actual circumstances."  As I read that I realized that this describes the situations that exist in many of our churches.

Someone once commented: If you think you can or think you can't, you'll be right.  Often, what determines what we achieve is based not on reality or our circumstances but on our perceptions of what we can accomplish.  Self-limited thinking is what holds many people and churches back, not a lack of opportunities that might be before them.

A few days ago I had a post on this blog entitled "But we're just a small church."  Churches with this mindset often cannot see the opportunities for ministry they have because they've stopped looking.  In their minds, they are just a small church with such limited resources that they couldn't do anything anyway so why bother seeking out ministry opportunities?  They allow their church facility to fall into disrepair, they settle for poor leadership, both pastoral and lay, they offer outdated programs and ministries, they tolerate uninspiring worship services, all because they long ago stopped thinking they could do any better.  They adapted to their expectations of what small churches are, and those expectations became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It doesn't have to be like that.  Your church sits in the midst of a huge mission field that needs Jesus Christ.  God has placed you there so you can be the hands and feet and voice of Christ to a community that desperately needs to encounter the living Son of God.  Within your congregation are people with spiritual gifts that can be expressed in new and exciting ministries launched by your church.  Leadership can be trained and developed.  New ministries that actually touch the lives of people can be started.  Regardless of what your church has been in the past, it can have a brand new beginning and become what God has intended it to be all along.

For any of this to happen, it will require a new set of expectations on the part of your congregation.  They can no longer settle for what is but begin to look for new possibilities and believe that they can do something about those possibilities when they find them.  Your church must begin to believe that it has been placed where it is for such a time as this, and that God wants to do amazing things in and through your congregation.  You need to expect that something good is going to happen every time your doors are open and every time you represent Jesus Christ to those around you.

Expectations by themselves change nothing, but having the right expectations will provide you with the proper foundation to begin doing new things that will make a positive difference in your life, your ministry, and your community.

How can a bivocational pastor meet the preaching expectations of the church?

A regular reader of this blog recently sent me a question that challenges many bivocational ministers.  He wanted to know how he could meet the expectations of his church that he prepare and preach three sermons a week.  He is finding it challenging to do this week after week and was not sure how to address it.  My response was two-fold.

One, I think it is unrealistic for a church to expect their bivocational pastor to preach three times a week, especially when one or two of those services may have no more than 6-10 people in attendance.  Every bivocational minister is faced with the challenge of how to best use his or her time, and having to prepare and deliver three sermons each week is probably not the best way to use that time.  Many lay people have no idea how long it takes to prepare a quality sermon.  Five to ten hours per sermon is about what I spent in sermon preparation, and some messages took longer than that to develop.  That does not include the amount of time and effort spent in planning what sermons to preach.  Frankly, with three sermons it could take all the time the bivocational minister might be able to give to the church just to prepare quality messages.  When I was a pastor our church had two services on Sunday but no mid-week service.  When a few people began to ask for a mid-week service I just refused to add it to our schedule.

But, if a church insists on three services at which the pastor is expected to deliver a message there are some things that can be done to ease that pressure.  One of the things I began to do as a pastor was to preach through a book of the Bible or a lengthy section of Scripture during the summer months.  Those series usually began after Father's Day and went until I completed the book.  One year I spent about six months preaching through the book of Romans.  Another year I spent 4-5 months preaching through the Sermon on the Mount.  One year I moved the series to Sunday nights and spent the entire year preaching through the book of Revelation.  I preached through much of the NT and a couple of books in the OT doing this.

These series accomplishes several things.  One, they make sermon planning much easier.  You don't have to spend much time deciding what to preach, you just read the next section of the book and develop your message from that.  Two, it exposes your congregation to some Scriptures they may not have heard addressed from the pulpit before.  Three, it forces the preacher to not avoid the difficult passages that he or she might prefer to avoid.  That is a good discipline for all of us who stand behind the pulpit.  Fourth, it allows you to take your congregation much deeper into the Scriptures than you can when you feed them a steady diet of topical sermons.

Despite these benefits, I do not recommend that the preacher complete one book and then move to another although some pastors do that.  My fear is that people will get bored with such an approach to a preaching schedule like that.  I always liked to mix up my preaching so it included lengthy sermon series, shorter sermon series, and stand-alone topical messages.  I just felt that kept my preaching fresher and prevented me and our congregation from getting into a rut.

Preaching through books of the Bible does require the pastor to develop a good library of commentaries and Bible study books.  Over the years I've amassed a nice selection of such books.  Although I have several commentary sets, one of the things I would do is once I determined what book or section I was going to preach from I would purchase several individual commentaries for that book.  Logos and other companies also offer excellent study materials that can be used on your computer which can make large libraries available to the pastor at a fraction of the cost of buying books.  When I was a much younger pastor with a rather small library I would sometimes go to a nearby college that had a nice section of theology books and commentaries.  No one minded me using those free resources, and I was often not the only pastor there preparing my sermons.

One other thing I did occasionally was use videos on Sunday evenings.  One that was very popular with our congregation was a series that explored the nation of Israel.  Our people enjoyed seeing the sites they had read about in the Bible and learning some of the significant details of the area that was not always available just from reading the Bible.  I think there were four or six videos in that series, and that company had more than one series available.  Again, I would not do videos every week or even frequently, but using them occasionally gives the preacher a break and exposes the congregation to new information they might not get in a sermon.

Great questions can make ministry more effective

One of the things that church leaders need to learn is how to become more comfortable asking questions.  In recent months I've known pastors who found themselves in trouble with their churches, and one thing they all said to me was that they didn't realize things were as bad as they were.  That indicates to me that they were not very aware of what was happening in their churches and what people were saying.  One way to avoid that kind of surprise is by asking questions.  Ministers need to question their lay leaders, people in the pew, and even people in the community.  Although there is no single list of questions some that a minister may want to ask are

• What is your perception of how things are going here?
• What are the people saying?
• What are people in the community saying about our church?
• What are the areas of ministry I should improve?
• How effective do you believe me to as a leader?
• What do you wish I would do more of?
• What do you wish I would stop doing?

The only way asking such questions will be helpful is if you encourage people to be totally honest with you.  If they are, some of their answers may sting a little.  In fact, some of the answers may be quite painful, but if they can prevent you from being blindsided later they will spare you even greater pain later.  Once the pain eases you can begin to work on the areas that will help strengthen your ministry.

I can imagine some ministers refusing to do this out of fear that such questions will cause people to start talking and looking for areas of weakness.  Guess what...they're already talking about these things only they often aren't talking to the one person who can do something about it - you.  Believe me, they've known your weaknesses for some time.  They also have opinions about how things can improve in the church, but many of them won't share those opinions with you unless you ask.

If you're not used to asking these types of questions I would like to recommend a couple of books to help you see the value in doing so and to get some suggestions as to the type of questions you may want to ask.  One of the books has been around for a few years, but it continues to be a valuable resource: QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability at Work and in Life.  My son actually recommended this book to me a couple of years ago, and I found it to be a very helpful read.  The other book was released just a couple of months ago:   One Question: Life-Changing Answers from Today's Leading Voices by Ken Coleman.  I recently heard Coleman discuss this book on a EntreLeadership podcast and enjoyed the insights he shared from the book on that podcast.  I think you will find both of these very helpful as you begin to think about what questions might be most helpful for you to ask.

Cleaning out the study

For the past couple of weeks I've been cleaning out my bookshelves.  I don't have enough shelf space now for my books, and some were just so outdated that they really were of little value.  Some have been hard to pitch; some I really don't remember why I bought them in the first place.  This past weekend I began working on my Leadership journals.  I began my pastoral ministry in 1981, and one of the first resources I discovered was Leadership.  I devoured every issue, and I have to admit that it's been a little difficult to put them in the recycle bin.  Before doing so I am going through them and cutting out some of the best cartoons!  As I leaf through each issue I am reminded of various articles that were so helpful to me in my earlier years of ministry.  Many of them were highlighted or underlined making it easy for me to remember how much these old journals helped a young, inexperienced pastor. Looking through these old journals I have also been reminded of some of the haircut and suit styles that were popular back then, and I've chuckled as I've seen some that were similar to some of mine during that time.  These issues bring back a lot of memories, but it's time they are gone to make room for new material that is more pertinent to ministry today.

I meet a lot of pastors my age, and many younger ones too, who refuse to recognize that we are living and ministering in a different time.  Our message is timeless, but our methods are not.  I grew up attending church in the 1950s and 60s and remember many of the things we did in church then that will not work in our age.  That was a time of two-week Vacation Bible Schools and two-week revivals.  Many churches now struggle to offer even a one-week VBS, and I know of a couple that have gone to a weekend VBS.  Churches that still have revival meetings now usually offer them three or four nights, and even then it's hard to get people to attend.  That was a time when every young person in our church looked forward to going to church camp, and most camp sessions were filled to capacity.  Now, with the various activities available to young people and changing school schedules many denominations are closing their camps, and the ones that are open are struggling to draw enough young people to pay the bills.  That was also a time when Sunday night and mid-week services drew many people back to the church.  More and more churches no longer have a mid-week service and even more of them have eliminated the Sunday evening service.

That was a time of objective truth, a sense of right and wrong, and respect for the teaching of the Christian faith even by those who were not living according to those teachings.  Of course, that is not the case today.  In our postmodern society each person decides for himself or herself what is true for them, it is considered politically incorrect to say that lifestyle choices are right and wrong, and nearly everyone's religious beliefs are respected except for those of the Christian.

When I began my pastoral ministry in 1981 things in the church had not changed much from when I was growing up, but by the time I resigned the church in 2001 to accept a ministry position with our judicatory ministry had changed greatly.  Ministry had become much tougher during those twenty years as people began to look elsewhere for the answers to their spiritual questions.  The public's expectations for pastors and churches changed as well.  When I began it was common for me and others in our church to go door to door meeting people and inviting them to church activities, but by the time I resigned from the church I seldom visited even a member of our church without an appointment.  Most church growth when I began my ministry occurred through the front door as people would visit the church.  Today a growing church needs a lot of side door ministries that help connect people to the church before they ever attend a worship service.  These only scratch the surface of the changes that have occurred in the church, but they serve to make the point that we cannot depend on the strategies that were effective in an earlier time to be effective today.  Churches and pastors that refuse to adjust will see their churches continue to decline in numbers and influence.

This means that pastors and other church leaders can never stop being lifelong learners.  One important step in learning new information is un-learning old information that is no longer applicable.  That is a primary reason I am discarding some of the old books and journals that address ministry from a different perspective than exists today.  It is a way that I am symbolically un-learning information that used to be relevant but is not so today.  As I remove the old material I am also making room in my bookshelves and in my thinking for the new material I need as my ministry continues.  It's turned out to be a little bit painful process but one that is necessary to my own personal growth. 

I'm not advocating that you discard part of your library as I am, but I would challenge you to ask yourself what do you need to un-learn as you prepare for ministry in 2013 and beyond.  What old traditions are you holding onto that you know deep down are no longer effective but you are afraid to give up?  What new knowledge and/or skills do you need to learn that will help you better serve your congregation and the community your church has been called to reach?

Expectations for the pastor

Meeting expectations is always a tough thing for many pastors to do.  Although many churches have official job descriptions for the pastoral position, that only tells part of the story.  In a church of 50 people there will be 50 different job descriptions in people's minds.  If someone comes to a church from another church they will likely expect their pastor to operate much like the ones they knew in their previous church.  Even if people are still attending the church they grew up in it is likely at some point in their life there was a pastor who had a significant impact on their lives, and they will compare other pastors to that person.  Some in the church have their own agenda for what the church should be and do, and they fully expect the pastor to sign up for their agenda.  That becomes a problem when there are competing agendas in the church.

Perhaps worse that trying to meet the expectations of the members, many of us in ministry struggle to meet the expectations we place on ourselves.  The pastor who grew up in a home where he or she was told they are only as good as what they do will spend a lifetime trying to prove to their parents they were worthy of their love.  Pastors who bought into the seminary professor's insistence they must spend X number of hours in sermon preparation or they will be a disappointment to their congregation and to God will surely struggle on those weeks when those numbers of hours simply weren't available.  More than one pastor has confided to me their disappointment in their own prayer life.  Many go into the ministry believing they will be able to change the world only to find out most weeks the only thing that gets changed is the color of the suit.

I am convinced trying to meet unrealistic expectations, either imposed by others or by ourselves, is a major reason many abandon the ministry within a few years after completing seminary.  What can a minister do to reduce the stress of such expectations?  Let me simply list a few.

1. Ministers must know their areas of giftedness and strengths and work within those areas as much as possible.  While it is not possible to avoid working in areas of weakness all the time, most ministers will find ministry much more enjoyable when working in the areas where God has uniquely equipped them.  As often as possible, delegate your weaker areas to others who are better able to do them.
2. Communicate those areas of strengths and weaknesses to others, especially to your congregation, so they can assist.  I tend to not be a great detail person, and I was very fortunate to have lay people in the church I served who were. 
3. Work on your own expectations.  If you struggle with poor self-esteem it will show itself in the expectations you place on yourself.  Many times, ministers are their own worst enemy.  Ministers who need to be needed will find it hard to say no to anyone, except their own families, and that can cause a multitude of problems.

I discuss these in more detail in my book The Healthy Pastor: Easing the Pressures of Ministry.  You may want to read this book to learn more about how to deal with unrealistic expectations as well as several other stresses common to ministry.

When a church needs a bivocational pastor

Many denominational leaders are reporting the same trend: a number of their previously fully-funded churches find they must go to a bivocational pastor.  Often, the change is due to decreasing finances or rising insurance costs.  One church I serve in our judicatory made that move in 2011 and told me they could afford to pay a good salary, but they could no longer afford to provide medical insurance.  So far, the shift has worked fairly well in that church, but that is not always the case.

About a year ago I was asked to speak to a congregation that had told their pastor he would need to become bivocational or seek another place to serve.  I was to address the changes the church should expect as they made the transition.  A large number of the congregation attended the meeting and asked good questions.  The pastor had found other employment and decided to remain at the church in a bivocational role.  For several months the transition went well, but recently things are not going so well at the church.  I'll explain why in a moment.

There are at least two things that congregations must address when transitioning from having a fully-funded pastor to a bivocational pastor.  One is self-esteem.  It is not uncommon for a church to wonder what they have done wrong or why God has seemingly abandoned them when they can no longer have a fully-funded pastor.  I once spoke at a church out west whose sanctuary seated 600 people.  They now had 60 in attendance, and the morale in that church was at rock bottom.  Many in the church saw themselves as failures and could do little but speak of "the good old days."

I try to encourage churches to not see themselves as failures or to believe God has abandoned them.  God uses small churches to accomplish great things.  Rather than focusing on what they have lost these churches would do much better to focus on the new opportunities they now have.  Instead of spending the bulk of their offerings on pastoral salary and benefits these churches now often have additional money that can be used for ministry.   More resources for ministry means that more people outside the congregation can be touched and introduced to the Kingdom of God.  At every workshop I lead for bivocational ministers I remind them that the call to bivocational ministry is not a lesser nor a greater call to ministry; it is the call God has placed on their lives and is equal to every other call.  I would say the same to churches that are moving from being fully-funded to bivocational.  Your church is not less important to God and His Kingdom and becoming bivocational may mean that new ministry opportunities are about to open up.  Look for them.

The second issue deals with expectations.  Churches sometimes find it easier to move to a bivocational salary than to shift their expectations of the pastor.  It is not fair to ask the pastor to find another job to supplement his or her salary and then continue to expect the same work from the pastor.  This is the problem that occurred in the church mentioned above.  For the first few months the congregation picked up several of the responsibilities the pastor had been doing, but as the months went by that started happening less and less.  That was one of the things I cautioned the church about, and I thought they understood that when I left, but they evidently forgot.  The pastor and his wife told me the church was now expecting him to do almost everything he was doing when he was fully-funded.  I doubt he will remain at that church must longer.

One of the strengths of bivocational ministry is that church members often become more personally involved in ministry.  They understand the pastor has a job just like they do and is not available 24/7, so many of them step in and fill more ministry roles.  Actually, this is a scriptural way for the church to operate.  Eph. 4 tells us the role of the pastor is to equip the saints to do the work of ministry, and when this model is followed good things often happen.  Bivocational churches must move from a pastoral care model to a congregational care model.  The pastor may not always be available to minister to someone in need, but there is usually someone in the congregation who can do that if they understand they are called to do so just as much as the pastor.

For more on this and other aspects of bivocational ministry you may want to read The Bivocational Pastor: Two Jobs, One Ministry.

A key to making disciples

I recently had the opportunity to attend a Transformational Church Summit at Campbellsville University.  One of the leaders of the summit was Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay.  Based upon research that organization has done, the number one key to transformational discipleship is getting people to read their Bible every day.  Further research by the organization has found that only 20 percent of Christians read their Bibles daily.  A study done by another organization reported that 35 percent of born again Christians never read their Bibles, and of those who say they do, many of them admit they only read their Bibles when they attend church services.  Clearly, the church has much work to do in this area.

That work must begin by the pastors and other ministers on staff setting the example.  I recently had a phone conversation with a minister who told me he graduated from a relatively liberal seminary.  In one of his early classes the professor asked how many students had read the entire Bible.  Out of a class of about 50 students he was the only one who raised his hand.  If our clergy do not find it important to read the Scriptures we should not be surprised that many in our pews don't read them either.  Although I did not do it every year, as a pastor I often followed an annual Bible reading plan that allowed me to read the entire Bible that year as part of my devotional reading.  When I knew that would be part of my devotional practice for the year I would buy a new Bible in a translation I had not read before and use it for my reading.  I also made sure the congregation knew what I was doing, not to impress anyone with my spirituality but to encourage them to follow my example.  Many years I would issue a challenge to our congregation to make that the year they would read through the entire Bible before the end of the year.  We in pastoral leadership should not expect members of our congregations to read the Scriptures if we are not setting the right example.  And, if they are not reading the Scriptures we should not be surprised at their lack of growth as disciples.

Studies find that people often rise up to meet the expectations they are given.  This is an area in which I find many church leaders fail to challenge their people.  As Christians they should know that it is expected that they will spend time in the Bible each day and apply what they learn to every aspect of their lives.  The Bible is not a book that is to be thrown in the back seat of the car after church and not taken out again until the next Sunday.  It is the textbook for the Christian life.  It teaches us how to grow as believers and become more mature in our faith.  But none of this can happen if we are not diligently spending time reading and studying it.

Church leaders must set the example, we must establish the expectation that members of our congregations will spend time in the Word each day, and thirdly we need to present a high view of Scripture to people.  I've been in a few churches where the Bible was never read as part of the service or as a text for a sermon.  I've been in many more churches when a passage was read and then forgotten about as the pastor began to discuss some issue that didn't pertain to the passage.  I've occasionally sat in services in which a text was read and then challenged and rejected by the minister as error.

If clergy have such a low view of Scripture we can expect our congregations to have the same view.  Such people, in my opinion, have forfeited their right to serve as church leaders.  The Scriptures are the infallible Word of God given to mankind to teach us how to live and how to conduct ourselves in this life and prepare for the life to come.  The Bible is not a book about God; it is God's self-revelation of Himself to humankind so we can worship Him and trust Him.  I may misinterpret or misunderstand what the text says, but that's my fault, not God's.  It reflects my own lack of knowledge and understanding, but it doesn't change the truth of God's Word.

I often hear pastors complain about the lack of discipleship evident in the lives of their people, but one has to wonder what they are doing to address that.  Are they demonstrating by their own behavior that we need to be regularly reading and studying the Scriptures?  Are they setting the expectation before their people that they are to be reading the Bible daily?  Are they demonstrating a high view of Scripture before the people?  If the most important factor in helping people grow as disciples is to be daily reading the Bible, what are you doing to promote that in your church?

Responsibility without authority

In his excellent book Winning On Purpose: How To Organize Congregations to Succeed in Their Mission (Convergence Ebook Series) John Kaiser writes,  "When a congreation has a bureaucratic structure, either by design or default, it assigns responsibility to its pastor but divorces that responsibility from the authority needed to fulfill it.  So the formula is responsibility minus authority, and the result is an organization that may appear safe but is certainly ineffective...The pastor of this congregation fuctions merely as an employee."  There is nothing more frustrating that to be assigned responsibility but not given the authority to fulfill that responsibility.  Unfortunately, that is exactly where many pastors live.

As I meet with pastor search committees to help them find their next pastor one of the desires I nearly always hear from this committee is the church wants a pastor who will grow their church.  Six months later I see these same people standing on the brakes doing everything within their control to stop the changes that will be needed to reach new people with the Gospel.  Folks, it doesn't get any more dysfunctional than that.  Not only is it dysfunctional, it is also the definition of hypocritical.  The church says the right words but their actions are the exact opposite, and that is hypocrisy.

This does not mean that I am advocating that the pastor be given ultimate power to do whatever he or she chooses.  I am advocating that the church leadership and the pastor work together to identify the direction God wants to lead the church (See yesterday's blog post.) and move in that direction.  I also believe that the pastor must be given great authority to lead this movement of the church while remaining accountable to the leadership.  The role of the lay leaders here is to provide the parameters beyond which the pastor may not cross.  These parameters will include the core values and bedrock beliefs of the church.  With the parameters in place and a clear sense of where God is leading the church, the pastor must be free to lead and the congregation must be willing to follow.

This will often cause great discomfort for some because they have never travelled this way before nor have they submitted to any pastor's leadership.  Some may refuse to make the journey, and that is OK.  We worry too much about people who threaten to leave the church if things don't go back to how they used to be.  You want everyone to take this journey with you, but some may choose not to go.  Let them leave.  They are a hindrance to your church fulfilling the vision God has for your congregation.  God's vision always leads to life; the vision of the naysayers leads to death.  As long as the pastor is leading the church in the fulfillment of the vision the church agreed has come from God and remains within the parameters of the core values and bedrock beliefs of the church he or she must have the authority to lead. 

Periodically, the church leaders will want to evaluate the pastor's leadership in this journey.  Here is where a pastor evaluation becomes helpful.   Most pastor evaluations I have seen are extremely subjective and are not based upon vision and the purpose of the church but upon the unwritten expections each person has for the pastor.  In my opinion, such evaluations are worthless and do nothing to advance the ministry of the church.  The only helpful evaluation of the pastor's ministry will be based on previously agreed upon objectives and goals that the pastor and leadership have determined are critical for him or her to achieve if the church is to be successful.  Each of these outcomes must be measureable to ensure helpful evaluation.

It is also important that the leadership have the pastor's back during this time of transition in the church.  Critics will rise up to accuse the pastor of neglecting his or her duties.  The lay leadership must remind such critics of the primary tasks they have asked the pastor to assume.  Others in the church must step up and assume some of the maintenance tasks that too many pastors have been required to do in the past.  Changing people's expectations of the pastor meeting all their needs will not be easy but is the responsibility of the lay leadership if the pastor is to lead the church towards a fresh vision.

The churches Kaiser describes in the above quote will make up many of the 80 percent of the church in North America that are plateaued or declining.  Frankly, there is little hope of most of these churches turning this around unless they are willing to give their pastors the authority to lead them to the new place God has for them.  I encourage you to read Kaiser's book.  It really does provide an organization model to help your church succeed in its mission.

Meeting expectations

This is a journal entry of a minister as recorded in Pastors at Greater Risk written by H. B. London Jr. and Neil Wiseman.  See if it sounds familiar.

If I wanted to drive a manager in the business community up the wall, I'd make him responsible for the success of an organization but give him no authority.  I'd provide him with unclear goals, ones the organization didn't completely agree to.  I'd ask him to provide a service of ill-defined nature, apply a body of knowledge having few absolutes and staff his organization with only volunteers who donated just a few hours a week at the most.  I'd expect him to work 10 to 12 hours per day and have his work evaluated by a committee of 300 to 500 amateurs.  I'd call him a minister and make him accountable to God.

If you pastor a church you may be able to identify with this minister's thoughts.  The expectations placed on most ministers are far beyond what most people have for their profession, and the problem is that it's possible that most of the people you serve have different expectations.  In my book The Healthy Pastor: Easing the Pressures of Ministry I discuss many of these expectations and how impossible it is to meet them all.  In addition to the expectations church members have for their pastor, the minister's family also has certain expectations for their relationship with the minister.  Then, on top of all these expectations, most ministers went into the ministry with certain expectations for what ministry would look like.  Personally, I believe that one reason so many persons leave the ministry after only a few years is because of the stress related to trying to meet the various expectations that are placed on them.

What can a minister do with these expectations?  First, he or she must realize that it is impossible to meet everyone's expectations for his or her ministry.  You have to give yourself permission to accept the fact that some people will not be happy with you.  Second, it's important to identify the things about ministry that energizes you.  The areas where you are gifted will most likely be where you will find those energizers.  For me it is when I am in the pulpit or leading workshops.  I believe it is in those arenas of ministry where I can make the greatest impact on people's lives, and I am energized even as I am driving to the place where I will be speaking.  I even enjoy the study and preparation that precedes the speaking engagement.  I am very disappointed if I feel that my message did not connect with an audience.

On the other hand, I'm not nearly as upset if I disappoint people who expect me to be a great administrator.  I am not a good detail person, and I need people who can help me in that area of ministry.  I would fail miserably in any ministry in which I was expected to be a micromanager.

Churches and ministers need to be very upfront with one another about expectations and strengths and weaknesses.  I've seen too many good ministers and good churches get at odds with one another because the minister was not meeting the expectations of the church, and often those expectations were not clearly identified until the minister violated them.  The best possible time to be candid with one another is before calling the individual to pastor the church.  That is the time for the church to clearly state what the church expects of this minister, and it is the time for the minister to honestly say whether or not he or she can meet those expectations.  And here is the important part...once the church leadership defines what the church needs from the pastor it needs to support the pastor when people begin to criticize the him or her for not meeting their expectations.  If the church tells a prospective pastor that it wants him or her involved in the community to make contact with as many unchurched people as possible, don't allow someone to come along and criticize the pastor for not spending 40 hours a week in the office in case someone from the church wanted to come by to visit.  That is highly unfair, but I see it happen much too often.  For more on addressing expectations in the ministry I encourage you to read The Healthy Pastor.