What is real ministry?

I recently heard someone say that they believe real pastoral ministry is about being available any time someone needs you.  Is that what real ministry is about?  Now, I do not know this person nor anything about him, so I would not begin to judge him.  I do know he is struggling with the fact that he may have to become bivocational soon, and it would appear that he questions whether such ministry is real ministry.  Certainly, anyone who has a second job cannot be available to everyone 24/7/365, but is this what defines real ministry?  Obviously, as one who has spent a lifetime as a bivocational minister and supporting those called to such ministry I don't think so.

From Ephesians 4 I understand the role of the pastor is to equip the saints to do the work of ministry.  As a pastor my primary role is to train and equip others to minister to one another and to those outside the church.  Along with that I have a shepherding role where I am responsible to ensure the flock is cared for, but that doesn't mean I have to be available to them every moment.  There will be times when I am available, and there will be times when others will have to respond to needs.  If I have fulfilled my equipping role properly there will always be persons available to minister to the needs of the congregation.  From this, I believe churches that move from a pastoral care model to a congregational care model of ministry will be much healthier.

For much of our nation's history bivocational ministers were the norm.  As people moved west churches were built to meet the spiritual needs of the people.  Many of these were pastored by circuit riding preachers or bivocational pastors.  The circuit riders may have only been at a particular church one Sunday a month, and in his absence lay people would minister to the needs of the people.  The bivocational pastor may have been a rancher, a shopkeeper, or a teacher in the community.  He wasn't always available either, but that didn't mean the people didn't have others to help when they had needs.

This began to change in the 1950s.  At that time denominations began to emphasize the need for fully-funded pastors, and soon after that many pastors who had a second job became suspect as ministers.  Many of these would tell you they were treated as second-class citizens in denominational life, and some of those attitudes still linger among some groups although that is changing as the numbers of bivocational ministers continue to climb.  With the push towards fully-funded pastors the ministry became more professional.  Some denominations required the Master of Divinity degree for ordination, and without such ordination it became difficult to find a place to serve in some denominations.  Although I have not researched this I have a feeling that seminaries began to train their students differently about that time as well.  (If anyone knows of a study that has been done on this I would love to have that information.)  

Perhaps some would say my brief history lesson refers to a simpler time that cannot be compared to the 21st century.  Some might argue that the demands of ministry are such today that anyone trying to meet them as a bivocational minister will fail.  To that I would respond that Ephesians 4 has not changed, and our primary God-given role is still to equip others to do the work of ministry.  In recent years we have been challenged by some excellent books to return to a simpler form of church.  Perhaps we need to return to a simpler form of pastoral ministry as well.

I would make one more response to this issue.  In a large church of several hundreds or thousands the pastor is also not available to people 24/7/365.  In those churches much of the pastor's work is done with others in leadership roles who in turn leads others who leads the various ministries.  However, few would question whether or not this is pastoral ministry just because the senior pastor is not readily available to serve the members of the congregation.

Do not allow yourself to be limited by your environment

I'm currently reading John Maxwell's latest book The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential.  Yesterday I came across his caution about allowing our environment to define and limit us.  He said that if you put a pumpkin in a jug when it's only the size of a walnut it will grow to the size and shape of the jug and never get any larger.  As I read that I thought how many people I had seen who had allowed that to happen to them.  Then I thought of how many times it has happened to me in my own life.

Our friends certainly have an impact on our success in life.  If one constantly hangs out around losers that person will become like them.  If one spends much of his or her time with complainers and whiners that is what this person will become.  Some psychologists claim that the people we spend the most time with will determine as much as 95 percent of our success or failure.  That's huge, and it's the reason we need to be careful about the people we spend most of our time with.  We need to spend time with people of integrity, people who are going somewhere in life, people who encourage us and lift us up when we are down, and people who are always seeking to grow in their own lives.  If you want to grow, then spend time with others who are growing.

The mental tapes we play over and over again in our minds also impact us.  It is very difficult for anyone who was constantly told they are a loser growing up to erase that tape from their minds.  Every time they fail at something they will be reminded that they were always told they were failures and assume it must be true.  Eventually, such people often give up.  One of the most important things any person can do to grow is to record new mental tapes.  Again, being around positive people can help you do that.  It's also important to force yourself to focus on your successes as well as the things you learned from your failures.  I have found that it hurts much less to fail if I can learn a valuable lesson from the experience, and believe me I've had plenty of practice.

These mental tapes are often the result of growing up in difficult circumstances.  You may feel that others have had advantages in life you never enjoyed, and that could be true.  But that doesn't mean you have to settle for where you are now.  Becoming a mature person means taking responsibility for your own life.  You can spend forever pointing back to the disadvantages you had as a child, but that won't change a thing.  If you want a better future than your past, then you have to make that happen.  Determine what you want to do in life and go for it, and do not allow one single excuse to stand in your way.

Some bivocational ministers never grow beyond the size of the churches they serve because they can't see beyond the walls of those churches.  They compare the 35 people in their church to the church down the highway with 3,000 in attendance and decide that somehow they just don't measure up to the pastors in that church.  "If God had really called me into the ministry He would have called me to a more significant place by now," is a complaint often thought, if not spoken, by many in bivocational ministry.  Over time it becomes easy to forget the call from God you once felt for this place where you serve.  This is the place where you are to blossom and grow.  This is the place where people are trusting you to minister to them and assist them in their own spiritual development.  Comparing yourself to other pastors is a waste of time.  Focus your time and energy on your own personal growth and development.

At the same time, you don't have to limit yourself to the walls of your church.  Do you want a larger ministry?  Write a blog as I do and have a ministry with the potential to reach people around the world.  Write a book or articles for magazines that will impact people you will never meet.  Become creative and stretch yourself and your understanding of ministry, and in that process you will not be confined by your environment. 

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.

Matching the pastor and the church

One of the frustrations I have in my work with churches is the number of times that problems occur because the church and pastor are not good matches for one another.  Although this should seldom occur, it happens all too frequently.  When a good church and a good pastor are not good matches for one another both pay a price.  The church loses ministry opportunities it could have enjoyed if it had not been spending so much time trying to make a bad match work, and the pastor usually ends up leaving the church feeling as if he or she has failed in ministry.  The reason it is so frustrating to me is that in most cases it could be avoided if both parties really understood God's vision for their ministries.

In my first meeting with pastor search committees I always ask them to tell me the vision of the church.  The best response I usually get is someone reads a vision statement from a piece of paper they had in a file.  Most of the time I get blank stares until someone finally admits they don't have one.  My next question then is, "If you don't know where God is leading you as a church how do you know what ministry gifts your new pastor will need to help you get there?"  More times than I can count someone will respond that they are waiting for a new pastor to come and lead them.  Guess what?  Quite often that pastor tries to lead them where they don't want to go, and that's when denominational leaders receive a call saying the church is having problems with its pastor.  If the church has a clear understanding of the ministry God is leading them to embrace, and they share that with the candidates the potential pastors can then compare that to their ministry strengths and determine if they will be a good fit.

That often does not happen.  Too many churches can't stand to go long without a pastor and they call the first one who seems to have a good personality and can preach a decent trial sermon.  Too many pastors are so desperate to find a place to serve they are willing to take the first one that keeps them close to family, or offers a better financial package, or fits them culturally.  The church and pastor both announce to the world that God has brought them together to do ministry, and three years later it appears that God has changed His mind because they are now trying to separate from one another as quickly as possible.  And we wonder why the church in America is in the trouble it's in.

Let me conclude this post with two quotes.  The first one comes from the Bible: Without a vision the people perish.  Approximately 5,000 churches in America close their doors every year, and it is safe to say that none of them probably had any sense of vision other than survival.  God has a plan for every church.  He has a vision for every church, and a church that identifies that vision and seeks to live it out will not just survive but thrive.  That vision will engage the congregation, bring hope to people who have lost hope, and expand the Kingdom of God in ways many churches cannot imagine.  When the gifts and passions of the people are in alignment with God's vision great things will happen.  When a pastor's ministry gifts and skills are a match for that vision he or she and the church will usually enjoy a long, fruitful ministry together.

The second quote is associated with John Maxwell: Everything rises and falls on leadership.  If the pastor is not a good match for the church it is almost a certainty that the church will wander around in the wilderness confused and unable to enter into the ministry God has for it.  If the pastor is trying to lead the church one way that is in alignment with his or her gifts, and the church has a different destination in mind, there will soon be a parting of the ways.  Ministry opportunities will be lost, some forever.  It is essential that before a church begins the process of seeking a new pastor that it goes through some type of discernment process, and much prayer, to clearly identify a vision that unifies the congregation and captures the commitment of everyone in the church, and that it seeks only those persons whose spiritual giftedness and skills sets will be a good match for that vision.

Awakening

This past Saturday our Region again hosted Awakening, a ministry designed to help our smaller churches learn new ways of doing effective ministry.  We offer Awakening at three different sites throughout the Region.  This was the third of seven sessions, and it focused on helping our churches learn their core values, bedrock beliefs, and begin a visioning process.  We worked through each of these with the pastors and lay leaders who are part of the Awakening team for each church and encouraged them to return to their churches and repeat the process with the entire congregation.

If you've read my books you know how passionate I am about a church having a clear, unifying vision.  With such a vision a church is better able to minister with a sense of purpose, it can make decisions easier, it reduces conflict, it helps identify what should be included in the church budget and calendar and what things do not need to be included, it guides the pastor in his or her duties, and it encourages lay people to become more involved in ministry because the vision will have been shaped by their gifts and passions for ministry.  Despite all these, and more, advantages of having a vision most smaller churches still cannot articulate any sense of vision for their ministries.  No matter what they may claim, these churches are content to drift along with no sense of purpose and complain about the lack of anything happening in their ministries.

Any church, regardless of size, that is serious about wanting to enjoy a more effective ministry must have a God-given vision for that ministry and be willing to pursue that vision.  Vision is not something that is determined by a 51 percent majority vote nor is it something that comes about as a result of consensus.  A God-given vision must be discerned, a process that can take some time but one that is well worth it.  An important part of that discernment process is identifying the core values and bedrock beliefs of the congregation.

Why is this so important?  The core values and bedrock beliefs of any organization or individual shapes every decision they make.  This is who the organization or individual is at their very core, and to deny their core values and bedrock beliefs would be to deny their identity.  Jesus said that out of the abundance of our hearts our mouths speak.  What is on the inside will eventually appear on the outside.  The same is true of a congregation.  Any vision that a church may have must be congruent with its core values and bedrock beliefs or it will be of little value becasue it will not be a true vision for that church.

The difficulty churches often have in determining its core values and bedrock beliefs is that they often want to list what they think those values and beliefs should be.  I once had a church list "youth" as one of their core values until someone in the group challenged that by asking, "If youth is a core value in our church, why am I the only one here willing to work with the youth?  Why do you all turn me down every time I ask you to help me with a youth project?"  That led to some interesting conversations that the church needed to have but had avoided to that point.  On the other hand I had another church include "cliques" as a core value.  They recognized that it was a negative, but they also recognized it was true of their church.  I appreciated their honesty and the discussion it created.  Most of the churches I've worked with would not have been that honest.

Church pastors can lead this self-evaluation, but it is often better for someone from the outside to lead it.  There is a process I use for this evaluation that I think is very effective.  If you think this could be helpful to your church, please let me know.

Walking through life

I have to admit that I tend to be a Type-A personality.  Some would argue that should be a Type-AAA.  I seldom slow down for very long nor will you find me in one spot for a long period of time.  I prefer doing a wide variety of things during the course of most days, and I've been like this most of my life.  That's probably why being a bivocational pastor was so easy for me.  I could keep busy doing lots of different things.

Most years I struggled on vacation trying to slow down long enough to enjoy myself.  I can remember a number of vacations on the beach when I stayed wound tight as a banjo string before finally loosening up a little on Wednesday.  The vacation my wife and I enjoyed last week was different.  I never felt stressed at all and never felt like I needed to be doing something.  I played golf our first day there and never had any real desire to play again the rest of the week.  I just enjoyed spending the day with my wife sitting around the pool reading or walking the beach or driving around the community looking at the changes since our last time there.  It was really one of the most relaxing vacations I ever had.

That slower pace has continued this week as I returned to work.  Rather than running from one thing to another I've taken a slower pace.  Although I needed to get some things done today I met an individual who is dealing with some issues and needed to talk.  I gave that person time.  Soon after lunch I had a phone call from a church leader who wanted to talk about some issues at the church he attends.  We spent much more time on the phone than normal as I sensed he was feeling some pain with the things that we discussed.  We scheduled another phone call for tomorrow so he could update me on his thoughts.  A pastor called to schedule a workshop for his church for early next year and there was no sense of a need to hurry through the call to get to the next activity.  I've enjoyed this slower pace, but now I'm wondering how many times in the past I have rushed past a need to accomplish the next thing on my list.

I'm someone who enjoys a to-do list, and nothing makes me any happier than to have everything checked off at the end of the day, but could that have prevented me from seeing someone God had put in my path who needed my assistance?  I hate to admit it, but probably.  A pastor I respect once told me that the most important place he could be was where he was at, and the most important person he could talk to was the one he was with.  At the time I thought he was just trying to excuse his reputation for often being late, but now I think he understood something I didn't.  People are more important than appointments or to-do lists.

It's funny that I have preached sermons on how some of Jesus' most important events occurred as he was walking and encountering people, but I have seldom walked through life.  Somehow I never connected the point of the message with my own tendency to run through life.  It reminds me of an old Andy Griffith episode when a visiting pastor talked about people's tendency to rush through life and never stopping to enjoy it.  As Andy and Barney discuss it after Sunday lunch they remembered how the community used to enjoy a Sunday afternoon listening to the community band.  They decide to see if they can do it that again that Sunday.  They find the bandstand needs some repairs so some people begin to do that.  They also find that the old band uniforms are torn and dirty so some other people begin to repair and clean them.  The community band hasn't played together for years so they need to practice.  The entire day is spent with everybody running around trying to do something relaxing.  The finally have everything ready for the concert when the visiting minister comes by.  They invite him to stay and hear the concert, but, of course, he has to run to catch his plane for his next appointment.  Like me, the minister had a great message but failed to connect it with his own life.

It won't be easy, but I'm going to try to walk through life a little more.  I want to see if there have been some ministry opportunities I've been missing because I've been too busy to see them.  I want to take a little more time to look at what God is doing in our world.  I want to enjoy family and friends a little more than in recent years.  I want to build margin in my life so when emergencies come, and they will come, I'll be ready for them.  I want to be able to hear God when He speaks in a still, small voice as He leads me to new adventures.  What about you?

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.