Sermon planning helps ease the pressure of sermon preparation.

Take a long, hard look at your calendar.  One of the things you'll notice is that there is a Sunday in every week.  If you are a pastor that means for most of those Sundays you will need a fresh sermon to share with your congregation.  Does your church still have a Sunday evening service?  If so, you can double the number of sermons you will need to prepare for the next year.  That is a lot of messages you will deliver to mostly the same people each week which puts sermon preparation at the top of most pastor's priority lists.  I think it is one of the biggest challenges facing many pastors, and this is especially true for the bivocational pastor who often has less time for sermon preparation.  How can a pastor reduce some of the stress associated with preparing weekly sermons?

One of the best solutions I found as a pastor was to do a better job of planning my preaching schedule.  Although I have blogged about this before I believe it is a topic worth repeating simply because of the stress associated with developing a new sermon each week.  This time of the year, November-December, is when I did much of that planning. After listing each Sunday of the next quarter on paper I noted which of the Sundays were associated with special days such as Mother's Day, Easter, etc. to ensure I didn't overlook a holiday.  I would then spend some time thinking of the areas where our church needed to grow and what messages might help with that growth.  I considered any special emphases our church was having in the coming year and possible sermons that would fit those emphases.  I looked for opportunities in the calendar for sermon series that would allow me to explore a topic more thoroughly.  As we entered the summer months I developed a lengthier sermon series that would cover a book of the Bible or a significant portion of it such as the Sermon on the Mount.  That series would cover the entire summer and sometimes go into the fall months.

I tried to work one quarter ahead in my planning.  Usually, I would finish my planning with little more than a text and sermon title.  Sometimes, I would jot down some initial thoughts about a text or topic and include them with my schedule to ensure I would have them when I actually began preparing specific messages.  When I finished with one quarter I would begin on the next one.  Very seldom did I ever work out further than two quarters as I wanted to provide myself some flexibility in case things in the church changed.  I never felt locked into my sermon planning to the extent that I couldn't change a message one Sunday if I felt the need to.  Sometimes I even switched the order in which I delivered the sermons if such a switch made sense.  But, by doing this planning I felt much less pressure when it came time to prepare my sermon for the next week.

For one thing, I already knew what my main idea would be.  I didn't have to spend two days trying to decide what to preach.  That task had already been done.  I could go directly to the preparation of the message.  It gave me time to obtain any study materials I might need.  For instance, if I knew that during the summer I would be preaching through the book of Romans I would begin looking for good resources well before I needed to prepare those sermons.  Normally, unless I already had a good collection of commentaries on the book I planned to study I would purchase three or four commentaries or other study helps for that book earlier in the year.  A third benefit was that I was more attuned to any material that I might come across that would be helpful for an upcoming message.  I might find a quote in a magazine that would be perfect for sermon that was four weeks away, but I could put it in a folder now to use later.  That eliminated my spending hours trying to find that quote I remembered reading earlier.

My sermon planning was very simple and low-tech, but it helped ease a lot of the pressure I felt before I began planning my messages in advance.  For more tips on sermon planning and preparation as well as ways to reduce many of the pressures of ministry, be sure to read my book The Healthy Pastor: Easing the Pressures of Ministry.

New experiments in training clergy

The Alban Institute has an interesting article today on the role churches and judicatories are taking in training clergy.  A number of larger churches have developed training to help prepare individuals to serve in ministry roles in their churches as well as in others.  Some denominations and judicatories have developed similar training opportunities to help prepare persons called into ministry be ready to serve in a local church.  In the region in which I serve we created the Church Leadership Institute about ten years years ago to help develop our lay leaders and persons specially called to bivocational ministry for improved leadership in their churches.  It has been a successful effort.

Some may question if training clergy is not the role of seminaries, and it is a legitimate question.  The fact is, both churches and seminaries have a role to play.  Seminaries do an excellent job of preparing persons in certain areas of pastoral responsibilities.  Churches and judicatories can further develop the young clergy person in the more personal responsibilities.  Most seminary graduates will admit they were not prepared by their schools for some of the hands-on responsibilities of pastoral work.  Local training programs can focus on some of those more personal elements of pastoral ministry.

As the number of bivocational ministers continue to grow more of this localized training will become even more important.  Many of these ministers will not have the opportunity for seminary education.  They may be second career or even third career ministers.  In mid-life with growing families they simply cannot take the time for a seminary education, but they also know that God has a call on their lives that they cannot ignore.  Schools led by churches and judicatories can be the answer.  While such schools often will not provide the opportunities for some of the more advanced academic courses, they will offer good basic ministry training.  This training will serve many of our bivocational ministers very well.

As I speak with leaders from many of our denominations about the growing numbers of bivocational ministers in their churches, the issue of training often is discussed.  Many of them currently offer such training through various programs, but some do not.  Some are looking at how they can improve what they do offer.  I believe this will be one of the emphases in the future for many of our denominations, and it will be an important one if we are going to provide our churches with trained clergy.

To read the article by The Alban Institute please click here.

Why won't pastors lead?

Currently, I am aware of two churches that are having serious issues due to a lack of pastoral leadership.  It is a problem I've encountered with a number of churches since beginning judicatory work, and it never ends well for the pastor or the church.  There are a number of reasons why pastors struggle to provide the leadership their churches need, many more than we can cover in this post.  You can read more on this subject in my latest book, The Healthy Community: Moving Your Church Beyond Tunnel Vision.

The first reason we'll mention is that many pastors were never trained to lead, and, therefore, do not know how.  Most seminaries teach their students how to manage their congregations, but they don't teach them how to lead.  Managers ensure that things run smoothly, that people are generally satisfied with the service they receive, and that things are done decently and in order.  Leaders focus on the future and attempt to lead their congregations towards that future; managers are primarily concerned with the present.  Leaders have a vision they are following; managers follow a job description.  Leaders report to their boards where the church is going; managers report where they have been.  Leaders attract other leaders; managers attract followers.  Because pastors were trained to manage that is what they do, and the church remains stuck in its ruts because there is no one who can lead them out of them.

A second reason is that some pastors don't want to lead.  Quite frankly, managing is much easier.  Preach decent sermons, make sure the flock is cared for, and that is all that is required in many churches.  Leadership is risky because it can create conflict.  Not everyone will be happy with the direction a leader attempts to take them.  I find that many pastors, myself included, tend to be people-pleasers.  We don't like it when people are upset with us.  It pains us when people leave our churches due to our leadership.  Most church folks tend to be less upset when the pastor simply manages the affairs of the church, and that makes life much easier for the pastor. 

Also, some pastors don't want to lead because they have misunderstood what leadership is about.  It is not being a dictator as some have suggested.  The pastor is always a servant-leader.  We're not drill sargents barking orders to our congregation; we are persons with a vision calling others to buy in to that vision and follow it to where it takes us.  Leadership is about doing ministry with a purpose and not being content to drift from one Sunday to the next.

The third reason we'll address why more pastors don't lead is because their congregations will not allow them to do so.  In my role I work with numerous pastor search committees.  Many of them tell me they are looking for a pastor who will lead them.  These well-meaning committee members usually don't have a clue what they are asking.  In fact, at one meeting with a committee I responded to that statement with, "Are you sure about that?  Do you know what you are saying?"  I then described what a pastor who was a true leader would do if he or she came to that church.  The committee nervously looked at each other until one laughingly said that they may need to re-think that.  This is a good church in many ways, but it's history says that the last thing they want is a leader.  Many times I've seen churches say they want a leader, call a leader, and then spend all their effort standing on the brake trying to keep the church from moving forward until the pastor finally leaves out of frustration.  You can be sure the search committee will insist they still want a pastor who will lead them when they look to replace the one who left.

I am convinced that without good pastoral leadership our churches will never rise to the level of ministry they should enjoy.  It is believed that 80 percent of our churches are plateaued or declining, and I believe that a lack of pastoral leadership is responsible for much of that.  As stated above, that is not always the pastor's fault.  Some churches will destroy a pastor who attempts to lead them out of their comfort level.  However, in other situations it is the direct result of a failure of the pastor to provide the leadership he or she has been called to give.  If the church in North America is ever to make a difference it will require solid pastoral leadership.

What does the church do now that the election is over?

By a rather sizable electoral majority President Barack Obama has won re-election.  Both sides are now spinning the election results to make their side look better.  The popular vote was much closer than the electoral vote which indicates our nation is a divided nation in many aspects.  Political analysts will have much to say in the coming weeks about what this election means.  There will be much discussion about the need for bipartisan cooperation, but if the past few years are any indication it will be mostly talk and little action.  For reasons I do not understand it seems the American people prefers gridlock over forward progress.  We elect a Democratic president and Senate and a Republican House of Representatives and refuse to hold them accountable to do the work they've supposedly been elected to do.  I can think of very few incumbents in either party that deserved re-election based upon their work in the past.  In any job in the real world they would have been fired for incompetence and lack of effort, but we keep electing these people to office.  House Speaker Tip O-Neal said many years ago that all politics is local.  As long as a person in office can help someone's cousin Fred find a job and fill a few pot holes in the street he or she can remain in office to do whatever they want to do. 

Several of my Facebook friends posted today that while they did not vote for President Obama, he is their president.  They promised to pray for him, support him when they feel he is right, and criticize him when they think he is wrong.  That is their right, and I believe it is the correct thing for any Christian to do.  One of the disturbing things in this election has been the rancor in some of the posts on FB by people of both sides.  Such mean-spiritedness should not be seen in a believer.  It is fine to hold strong opinions and express those opinions, but there is no reason for some of the nasty comments I've read that came from both sides.  Scripture teaches us to respect the position of those who rule over us.  You may not agree with everything that President Obama says or does, but he is the President of the United States and as such deserves the respect that goes with that responsibility.  As a person for whom Jesus Christ gave His life, he also is due the honor and respect that we should extend to all people.  He has a challenging task ahead of him over the next four years, and the future of our nation will be impacted by how well he is able to lead.  He needs and deserves our prayers.

At the same time, we must not forget that our hope is not found in Washington DC.  There are things that the president and Congress can do, but there are many things they cannot do.  We must not look to the government for our salvation.  Quite frankly, the future of our nation is not as much in the hands of the politicians as it is in the hands of the church.  For many years much of the evangelical church ignored the political process as if it was something evil.  In more recent years the church has become more involved in politics, but it has come dangerously close to believing that government will solve our problems.  Some Christians go into a panic if their candidates are not elected to office apparently certain that Armageddon is just around the corner.

The church must not forget 2 Chronicles 7:14 - "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."  God is not saying that a nation's healing comes from it's political leaders.  The healing of America is not dependent upon the Democrats, the Republicans, or the Independents.  It's not dependent upon Supreme Court rulings or whether or not Congress passes certain laws.  It's not dependent on what the ACLU, the national media, Wall Street. or any foreign government does.  The healing of a nation is dependent upon what God's people does.  Specifically, God calls His people, the church, to repentance and prayer.

The church has much to repent from.  We have grown lazy in our efforts to reach people with the Gospel.  The fact that Christians from other countries feel called to come to America and spread the Gospel should make the church in America ashamed of its failure to evangelize our own people.  We have been willing to compromise the truth of Scripture for the sake of harmony and pluralism.  The church too often fails to extend grace to those both within and outside the body of Christ.  We still shoot our wounded, ignore our youth, beat up the ones who have been called to pastoral leadership, and rob God of our tithes and offerings.  We build monuments to our leaders and ignore the homeless, the hungry, and the poor.  We have forsaken the widows and children and sent them to the government for assistance and then wonder why they worship at the altar of Washington rather than God.  We "love everybody" as long as they look like us, talk like us, dress like us, and believe like us.  Too many of us talk about prayer more than we pray, sing more than we worship, and take more than we give.  Too many of our churches and denominations are more in competition with each other than they are with the demons of hell.  I don't know how you feel right now, but I wrote these words and find much that I need to repent from.

Such prayer of repentance will not be easy.  That's why the writer said that we first had to humble ourselves and then pray.  One church recently had a worship service where they invited a number of previous pastors back for a time of confession and restoration.  They acknowledged they had not treated many of their former pastors very well and asked them to return to ask for their forgiveness.  They made a public pronouncement of their former attitudes of pride and arrogance not only in their worship service but in advertisements they took out in the local paper. They asked the community to forgive them as well.  Following the worship service when the church asked their previous pastors for forgiveness the local paper reported it on the front page.  That required a great deal of humility on the part of this congregation, and it is the kind of humility that the church as a whole must show if it is adequately repent of its sins and seek God's healing of our land.

We must not believe that God is finished with America or that our nation cannot be restored, but we must not look for any outside agency to make that happen.  Such restoration can only be brought about by God and will only happen if God's people become serious about repenting of its sins and seeking God's face once again.

Election 2012

As many predicted, this has been a long and rough political campaign season.  Lots of accusations have been thrown by both sides.  Each had master spinners trying to make their candidates look the best on every issue.  When it comes to the candidates for president I know neither of them are as good as they say they are, and neither is as bad as the other one claims.  The past few days they have bombarded the "swing" states trying to secure enough electoral college votes to win the election.  A Facebook friend of mine predicted that one would be declared the winner and the other would challenge the results, but he wasn't sure which would be which.  According to the media the race may be close enough that my friend will be right.  I question whether there have really been that many undecided voters that required so much effort in these final days on the part of the candidates.  I've known who I was voting for months ago, and the same has been true of the vast majority of my friends.

Many years ago I learned that the best predictor of the future is the past.  I'm not a person who cares a lot about what people say they are going to do.  I am much more interested in what they've already done.  For the first time in several election cycles I didn't bother to listen to the debates.  I didn't care what either person would say they would do.  I evaluated the candidates on what they've already done when they have been in positions of responsibility.  Furthermore, I evaluated them on how closely they reflect my own values and beliefs about the issues that are most important to me.  I doubt that any candidate will ever reflect those values 100 percent which I why I look for the one who comes the closest.  These include not only my religious beliefs but also my beliefs about the importance of family, my beliefs about economics, my beliefs about national defense, as well as others.  I want to vote for those people I believe will present my grandchildren with a strong America that still offers its people the freedoms we have long held dear.

Since I became eligible to vote I have not failed to vote in a single election and that includes every primary.  While in the military I voted by absentee ballot and when at home I was usually at the polls within the first half-hour they opened.  By the time you read this post on election day I will have already cast my ballot.

I would encourage you to vote as well.  When I think of the price that has been paid to ensure the American people the privilege to vote I am appalled at the small voter turnout in most elections.  Seldom have we had two candidates that offered such contrasting choices.  Because of that this election will set the direction of our nation not only for the next four years but probably for several years to follow.

Be an informed voter.  So many people go to the polls to vote without ever actually studying the person or his or her views on the issues that should be important to every American.   An "on-the-street" interview recently broadcast showed a large number of likely voters who didn't know even the basics of our government system, the major players in our political arena, or the basic stands of the candidates.  Their vote will likely be determined by something they heard someone say that they thought they read somewhere that a candidate supposedly said about something.  It has been well said that a nation has the government it deserves, and if a nation's people elect persons to office without ever studying the issues for themselves then they have no one to blame when that nation begins to crumble around them.

Let me close by saying that no matter who wins the election, as a Christian I have an obligation to pray for that person and to respect the office he or she holds.  If you are a believer you have the same duty.  As I used to tell the church of which I was a pastor after every election, "Your candidate may or may not have won, but remember that God doesn't fly on Air Force One."  He is still the one ultimately in charge, and it is to Him that we must all look for our salvation.

Daring to think great thoughts

This past week I read a great quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes: Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.   That went into my file on "Challenging Thoughts" because it's one I plan to revisit from time to time.  How does one grow as a human being, as a spouse, as a Christian leader, as a business person?  Growth comes through the discovery of new ideas and finding ways to apply those ideas to one's life.

Charles "Tremendous" Jones is famous for saying, "Five years from now you will be pretty much the same as you are today except for two things: the books you read and the people you get close to."  I believe he is absolutely correct because these two things have the capacity to stretch your thinking as few other things in life.  I worry about people who tell me they never read.  I worry even more when I see what some people are reading!  As I visit with pastors I am often disappointed in the books they have in their libraries.  I am disappointed in both the quantity and the quality of their books and wonder what is helping them grow.

Jones also includes one's friends and associates as the other influence that helps us grow.  Last week I heard a podcast that included an interview with John Maxwell who said that if you are at the top of your class, you need to go to another class.  If you're already at the top you can't grow any more.  Get in an environment where you will be challenged and stretched.  Associate with people who have gone further than you have, who have accomplished more than you have, and who are smarter that you are.  You will learn from such people, and you will grow as a leader.

About an hour from where I live is a megachurch, Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky.  It is a good church that has done excellent ministry in that community.  When I was the bivocational pastor of a small, country church I would attend their quarterly pastor lunches they held for area pastors.  It was a time to eat lunch while listening to some of the leaders of that church share some of the needs of the community before we joined together in prayer.  Not only did I go to every one my schedule allowed, I usually took one of our lay leaders with me.  I wanted to expose them to ministry at a different level than what our church could offer.  I wasn't intimidated by that church nor was I jealous of them.  Quite frankly, I do not believe I have the leadership gifts that could lead a church like that.  But, I wanted to make sure that I, and our lay leaders, were exposed to new ways of doing ministry and new ways of thinking.  I wanted us to be stretched so we could grow in our leadership abilities and lead our church in new ministries that would impact others.

One of the podcasts I listen to when driving is by a philosopher-apologist who addresses some of the challenges to the Christian faith from his training.  I'll be honest:  There are broadcasts I don't understand half of what he's saying!  I can't even spell some of the words he uses much less know what they mean, but as I continue to listen to him I am starting to better understand his arguments.  I appreciate knowing we have people on our side who are not afraid to debate some of the new atheists who have developed such a following today especially since he wins most of those debates.  Listening to him exposes me to a depth of thinking that stretches me and helps me grow.

What are you reading that helps you think great thoughts?  Who are you spending time with that stretches you and helps your personal and professional growth?  As you look back over the past year, in what ways have you grown, and what areas do you need to work on?  As we prepare to begin a new year, what specifically will you do to grow as a person, as a Christian leader, as a spouse?

The next generation of leaders

If you read this on the post date I will be attending a youth rally to lead a workshop on "Do I Have a Future in Ministry?"  I've been excited ever since I was asked to address this particular topic because I am convinced we need to challenge more of our young people of the possibility they have a call of God on their lives.  When I was young I can remember an invitation being given at the end of every church service.  Included in that invitation was a challenge for those who had been called to Christian ministry.  Even in those churches that still offer an invitation at the end of the service I seldom hear anyone being challenged to respond to such a call.  Perhaps this is one reason we see so few young people looking at the ministry as they consider what they want to do with their lives.  No human can call someone into the ministry, but I believe those of us who are in Christian leadership have a responsibility to challenge persons we see with certain ministry gifts to pray about and consider if God has called them into the ministry.

I have yet to meet anyone in ministry today who was not approached by someone in their lives and challenged to consider such a call.  Because I avoided the call on my life I had several who issued that challenge to me.  Finally, one day as my pastor and I were traveling to a conference he confronted me with the possibility that this might be God's plan for my life, and I had to admit that I felt that it was.  Several days later he came and talked to my wife and me about the ministry, prayed with us, and offered to talk to us at any time we wanted to discuss it further.  Unfortunately, a few weeks later he announced he was leaving our church for a ministry out of state.  A few months later our church called a new pastor, and about a year after his arrival I talked to him of my previous conversations with our former pastor.  I asked if he would support the church granting me a license to preach which he did.  About a year later I was pastoring the church I would then serve for the next twenty years.

What if no one ever challenged me to consider such a call on my life?  Would I have pursued ministry?  Of course, it's impossible to say, but it's unlikely.  I was a young man with a good job and active in my church.  Most people would have been content with that, but deep down inside I knew God had called me for more than that, and having people come alongside and confirm those inner thoughts brought me to the place where I had to yield to God's call on my life.

This is what those of us in Christian leadership must do today with those people in whom we see ministry gifts at work.  Again, we are not telling them to go into the ministry; we are just confirming that we see in them the gifts they have and encouraging them to seek God's guidance if entering the ministry might be part of His plan for their lives.

I'm looking forward to my time with the young people in our Region today.  I pray that some of them might hear in my words confirmation of what God has been speaking in their spirits.  I would encourage you to begin to challenge some of the young people in your churches as well.  The Kingdom of God needs more quality leaders for its churches, and I believe the next generation of leaders are now sitting in our churches.  Let's invite them to the work.