Think twice before leaving your present place of ministry

A few weeks ago I spent some time with a pastor that was struggling with his call to the church he had served for the past several years.  A few years ago there were some in the church who wanted to remove him as their pastor, but he survived their efforts.  However, things have not been good for him since that time.  Some of the folks who wanted a new pastor found one by leaving their church, but others remained behind.  The pastor said things had not improved since that struggle, and it was evident that the situation was wearing on him.  He was seriously considering seeking a new place to serve.

I could certainly understand his feelings, but I cautioned him to think about some things before making that decision.  Perhaps if you're thinking of leaving your current ministry my suggestions to him may help you.

• Pastors never escape their problems by going to another church.  Every church has people who seem to think it is their spiritual gift to make things difficult for the pastor.  At the most, you may enjoy a brief honeymoon, but sooner or later you'll meet kinfolk of those you were trying to escape in your new church.
• Sometimes problems indicate a significant breakthrough is about to happen.  The enemy of the church can sense when something significant is about to happen and will do everything in his power to prevent it.  If you leave you may miss out on a major spiritual breakthrough in your church, and the church may miss it as well by your leaving.  Some of the worst problems we had in the church I served were followed by major breakthroughs.
• The problem you may be wanting to escape may be the one thing God wants to use to shape you for greater ministry responsibilities.  I have found that God has done most of his work on my character when I was going through situations I would have never chosen for myself.  As painful as they were at the time, they were the springboard that prepared me for greater ministry responsibilities.
• Smaller churches, especially, are used to seeing their pastors flee every time things become a little difficult.  We wonder why these churches are often resistant to change, and this is one of the reasons.  Too many times in the past they have agreed to some change, and when problems or conflict arose as a result of the change the pastor took off.  These churches need a pastor who will stay and fight the good fight to see needed changes occur in the church.
• Studies have found that a longer pastorate often leads to a more effective ministry.  In a smaller church it often takes several years for a pastor to earn the trust of the congregation necessary to provide the leadership that it needs to move forward.  Too often, these churches never have a pastor stay long enough for that to happen.  Many pastors will retire after spending 30 years in the ministry and realize they didn't have a 30 year ministry; they had 10 three year ministries, and none of them had any significant impact.
• It's OK to quit; just don't tell anyone.  As I shared with that pastor, the folks at my church had no idea how many times on Monday morning I quit as their pastor.  I just had the good sense to not tell anyone, and by the end of the week I was feeling better about the situation.  One thing a pastor does not want to do is to get mad about something and quit on the spot.  Sometimes a few days and some conversations make everything look a little different.

None of this means that there is never a good reason to seek a new place of ministry.  Obviously, there are many good reasons, but my concern is for those pastors who leave their church without a good reason.  If God called you to that place of ministry you need to make real sure he is now calling you to another place to serve before you leave.

PastorPreneur

I'm sure you recognize the title of this post as a combination between two words: pastor and entrepreneur.  I wish I had come up with that word myself, but I didn't.  It comes from a book by the same title, PastorPreneur: Pastors and Entrepreneurs Answer the Call by John Jackson.  I have an entrepreneurial spirit and feel that most bivocational pastors do as well so the title really reached out to me.  It's been a few years since I've read the book, but occasionally I'll check out some of the places I highlighted and a few of the notes I made in the margins.

The author defines a pastorpreneur as "an innovative Christian leader, a creative dreamer who is willing to take great risks in church ministry with the hope of great gain for Christ and his kingdom."  Does that define you?  I hope it does.  Jackson goes on to ask, "Are we content to remain comfortable doing ministry the way we have always done it, with some positive but limited results, knowing in our hearts that we aren't making much of a dent in our culture?  Or will we take the risk of boldly trusting God for a fresh vision, powerful strategies, and incredible results?  I believe that a fresh, Spirit-led burst of entrepreneurial activity will lead the church to greater impact that ever before."  I agree.

Unfortunately, I see too little of that entrepreneurial spirit at work in our churches today.  I believe most ministers go into ministry with such a spirit, but then lose it as they deal with the day-to-day aspects of ministry.  It is so easy for a pastor to get caught up in trying to maintain the status quo of the church.  (Someone once defined status quo as "the mess we're in."  Not a bad definition!)  How does a pastor keep the church machinery running and find the time to seek a fresh vision from God and develop a strategy for getting buy-in from the congregation?  This book addresses these challenges, but I can tell you that it's not easy.

It requires an entrepreneurial spirit, but that can be a problem as well.  Many churches don't like entrepreneurs.  These churches want a chaplain as pastor, not someone who is a risk taker, someone who too often thinks outside the box and then asks the congregation to join him or her there.  Denominational leaders are also often uncomfortable with entrepreneurial leaders.  They prefer pastors who are willing to follow the manual, march in step with the rest of the denomination, graduate from the denominational seminaries, and fill out their reports in a timely manner.  Entrepreneurs are too often people who ask questions, and some churches and denominational leaders are very uncomfortable with questions.

However, without such an entrepreneurial spirit we are unlikely to have the impact we planned to have when we entered ministry.  We may have a more comfortable ministry, but I'm not sure we were called to a comfortable ministry.  We are called to impact our culture for the Kingdom of God, and by any measurement the church in North America is not doing a great job of that.

I have always felt that most bivocational ministers are entrepreneurial by nature.  It's part of our DNA, and that is why God called us to this ministry.  Let's not allow that part of our nature to be sucked out of us by the expectations of others or by the daily demands of ministry.

Fully-funded pastors also need to maintain an entrepreneurial spirit.  Our culture is changing so rapidly today that we need to be constantly looking for new ways to do ministry.  The strategies we learned in seminary twenty years ago (five years ago?) are often going to be ineffective today, but the call to impact our communities for Christ remains the same.  PastorPreneur...that's a good way to look at the calling of today's minister.

Pastors need to cut back on the whining

For twenty years I served as a bivocational pastor of a small, rural church.  For the past 13 years I have served as a regional minister in our denomination working with dozens of churches.  I have led numerous workshops and conferences that focused on small churches and their leaders, and I have heard tales of clergy being horribly treated by members of their congregations and have seen first-hand how poorly some of my clergy friends have been treated.  Two of the books I've written focus on clergy health issues.  I am well aware of the unfairness that sometimes goes along with serving in ministry positions and the pressures ministers and their families face.

Despite all this, I still want to say that some of our clergy needs to cut back on their constant whining about how poorly they are treated and how difficult their lives are.  I hear from pastors about how underpaid they are, and many of us are underpaid compared to what others with comparable education and responsibilities earn, but did you go into the ministry thinking you would become rich?  Historically, most ministers have been underpaid.  However, I would also insist that some of that is our own fault.  Many of us are reluctant to ask for better compensation.  We don't tell our church leadership about the struggles our inadequate income causes our families.  Instead we tell one another, people who can't do anything about it.  In some situations, if we asked for higher salaries we may run the risk of being fired.  I realize that, and that is one more reason I remained bivocational!  But, I would counter that by saying that if you're fired for pointing out that the church isn't paying you a fair salary you now have the opportunity to find a position that will pay you better.  That might be better than remaining at the church and doing a slow burn over what you feel is unfair compensation.

In my position I hear from a lot of pastors who complain that people in their church oppose every change they propose.  (Believe me, I had some of their family members in the church I served as well.)  Of course they are against it.  You're suggesting change, and a large percentage of people will be against any change the first time they hear it.  In a smaller church they are afraid the change may result in the loss of people, and these are persons with whom they have gone to church for years and even decades.  They don't want to lose those relationships.  They also are not sure how your proposed changes will impact their roles in the church or if they will even have a role.  It takes time to introduce significant change into a church so that it will be accepted by most of the people, and there is an art to doing this as well.  Instead of complaining that people don't like your recommendations, learn the art of leading change and be willing to invest the time it takes for your recommendations to be accepted.

Another complaint I often hear from pastors is that they are always on call and never have any personal time.  Sorry, but that goes with the territory.  People get sick and even die at inconvenient times.  Accidents happen without being on a schedule.  That's why they are called accidents.  If you have been called to be a shepherd then you need to be there when your sheep need you.  If you want a 9-5 job you probably need to put in an application at the local factory.  BTW - I never hear pastors complain about having the freedom to attend a day event at their child's school or being able to spend a day with the spouse shopping in a nearby city while the church members are working their 9-5 jobs.  Yes, there are occasions that ministry seems to require a lot of time, but there are also those down times when we can enjoy some free time to do things with our families that others can't always do.  I've found it balances out.

Some of you will challenge me and say that you're working at the church seven days a week and you never have any free time.  Two things: that's sin and it's your fault.  The Bible talks about the Sabbath and no where in there does it say that clergy are exempt from having a Sabbath.  There came a time when I found that I was not taking a Sabbath, and I confessed that to our church and defined for them when my Sabbath would occur.  (It was Mondays.)  Believe it or not, they honored that throughout my remaining years in that church.  Also, if you are doing church work seven days a week it is your fault.  Dr. Phil is right when he says we teach people how to treat us.  If your congregation expects you to work seven days a week it's because either you or a previous minister have taught them by example to have that expectation.  Don't complain about it.  Begin to teach them that you need time to refresh yourself and your relationship with God and your family, and do it.

A final common complaint I often hear from pastors is that very few people in their churches are willing to do anything.  My advice is simple.  Ride the horses that want to run.  You can't make a dead horse run any faster by whipping it.  Instead of whining about the people who won't do anything, invest yourself in those who are willing.  You love the others and pastor them, but you have to invest yourself in the ones who are going to move the church forward.

As a pastor I spent too much time whining about things that would not change instead of focusing on the things that would make a positive difference in the life of our church and my own life as well.  I see too many other pastors making the same mistake in their own ministries.  Whining about things that won't change won't do anything but distract you from seeing the positive aspects of ministry life.  We are called to the greatest opportunity that exists.  We are invited into people's lives at a time when many of them are vulnerable and need someone to provide them with guidance and grace.  Much of what we do doesn't seem to make much difference, but there are those other times when we see people's lives radically transformed through the grace of Jesus Christ.  Those times can make all the difficult times fade away if we will just allow ourselves to focus on those positive moments that happen in and through our ministries.

That second job

One of the challenges a bivocational minister must face is choosing a career besides his or her ministry.  In recent years I've had a number of conversations with fully-funded pastors whose churches were considering asking them to become bivocational due to financial issues.  Virtually, all of them were concerned that they were not trained to do anything else.  After some discussion we were usually able to find some possible career choices for them based on their interests or their undergrad degrees, but this can be a difficult decision for one to make when he or she has only seen their calling to be church ministry.

Some of us, like my own experience, had other jobs when we entered ministry so this wasn't a big issue.  I had a very good factory job when I became a pastor, and I remained there until I was eligible for early retirement.

However, the future challenge for bivocational ministers is how will they remain employable in the secular world.  I worked for my employer for 30 years and qualified for early retirement.  Those days are virtually over.  People entering the work force today do not expect to remain at one job for 30 years and leave with a gold watch.  Many young people today think that a year in the same job is an eternity.  Even if people do remain with one company, the needs of most companies are rapidly changing, and the skills required to remain current on many jobs are changing just as rapidly.  In his fascinating book, Promote Yourself: The New Rules for Career Success, Dan Schawbel points out that one estimate is that 60 percent of new jobs by 2015 will require skills that only 20 percent of the population currently has.

Several years ago I heard Zig Ziglar warn his audience that there was no longer anything such as job security regardless of your career.  He said the challenge was to seek employment security, and the only way to do that was to be a life-long learner.  Schawbel makes the same point in his book.  To remain employable one must continually be learning new skills and become known as the go-to person in the company.

As a bivocational minister this may seem impossible.  How can we serve a church, work a second job, meet the needs of our families, have any kind of life for ourselves, and find the time to continually be learning new skills?  It's not impossible, but it's also not easy, but we really have no choice if we believe we are called to bivocational ministry.

Actually, bivocational ministers may find it easier to learn these skills than they think.  Many employers now offer classes that will teach those skills in-house.  Often, these classes are even taught during working hours.  My employer offered numerous courses that almost anyone in the company could attend, and they were all taught during working hours so it didn't require any additional time on our part.  I took many of those courses that were related to my work to improve my skill sets, and I took many that were not directly related to what I was doing at the time so I could be better prepared for something else in the future.

Some of those latter courses involved computers.  I took some introductory computer classes that began with showing us how to turn them on!  Later, I took classes on the various tools found in Microsoft Office and learned how to use them.  When I bought my first computer one of the first programs I bought was Office.  Not only did I have new skills to use at my work, but I now had new skills that made ministry much easier, and I was able to learn how to use it through classes taught by my secular employer who paid me to attend the classes.  It doesn't get much better than that!

Be sure to check with your employer to see if they offer classes or will pay for you to take courses off-site so you can learn the skills needed in the 21st century to remain employable.  You'll find that many of those skills will transfer over into your ministry enabling you to do a better job there as well.  Being a life-long learner is no longer an option if we want to remain employable in the future, and it's not an option if we want to be faithful to our call to bivocational ministry.

Creating a guest-friendly church

I heard Nelson Searcy ask one time, "Why should God send guests to your church if you are not ready to receive them?"  I thought it was one of the best questions a church could be asked.  Virtually every church, many of them smaller churches, complain about the lack of new people who visit their church, but the reality is they would not be ready to receive them if they did come.  Their lack of preparation would likely mean that the guests they will not return.

Unfortunately, many of these churches would be surprised if someone told them they were not ready to receive guests.  After all, they are the friendliest church in town!  However, I can speak from experience, having visited in many churches over the past 12 years, that these churches are not ready for new people to visit their churches.  They may be friendly to the ones they know, but they are not ready to welcome first-time guests.  What do these churches need to do to become ready?  Here are some suggestions:

• Have your doors open.  One of my pet peeves is to visit a church for the first time, find four front doors and then have to guess which one is unlocked.  Either have all of them unlocked or have the door that is open clearly marked so people don't have to try all the door handles before finding the one that opens.
• Have TRAINED greeters at the door ready to greet the people when they enter.  It's even better to have one or two outside.  These should be people with gifts of hospitality who are truly excited to see people come to church.  Besides your grounds and outside facilities, these are the persons who will often create the first impression of your church for first-time guests.  You want that impression to be good.  At the same time, don't have a gauntlet of people greeting folks.  When I have to pass by five or six greeters just to get inside the building it seems a little much.
• Post signs everywhere.  My wife wonders how I can visit a restaurant for the first time and immediately know where the bathroom is.  Easy...I look for the signs.  How will people know where your sanctuary is, where the education rooms are located, or where to find the bathrooms if you don't have signs.
• DO NOT ASK YOUR GUESTS TO IDENTIFY THEMSELVES!  I cringe every time I visit a church and hear someone ask the visitors to stand and tell everyone who they are.  That may have been OK in the 1950s, but people today prefer to remain anonymous when they visit a church for the first time.  I visited a church once and was asked to wear a name badge to let people know I was a visitor.  I refused which did not make the "greeter" very happy with me.
• If you provide pew Bibles list the page numbers of any Scripture texts you will be using in the service.  This can be a big help to your guests who may not be familiar with the Bible.  (It could be a big help for some of your members, too!)
• One of the things I did as a pastor was that I recognized the presence of guests in our service as we prepared for the offering.  After thanking them for coming, I mentioned that their presence today was their gift to us and they should not feel that they needed to give anything to the offering.  I explained that our ministry was funded by our members and regular attenders and again emphasized that they had already contributed to our church through their presence.
• If you want your guests to return, be prepared to do follow-up within a day or two.  If your church has few guests, now is the time to prepare for that follow-up.  Again, maybe the absence of guests is a sign that God doesn't think your church is ready to receive them.  Be very intentional about your follow-up.

Earlier, I mentioned Nelson Searcy.  He has written a book that I believe is the absolute best on this subject titled Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church.  If you are interested in how to be better prepared to receive guests I highly recommend this book to you.

What causes leaders to fail?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learn from your mistakes

One of the frustrations I sometimes feel in working with smaller churches is that they often repeat the mistakes they've made in the past that has got them in trouble.  There is nothing wrong with making mistakes.  Much of our learning comes from making mistakes, at least that's been true for me, but if we don't learn from our mistakes we will find ourselves continually in trouble.  We've all heard the old cliche: Insanity is believing we can keep doing the same thing over and over again and get different results.  The truth is if we keep doing the same things we've been doing we will continue to get the same results.  If the results we've been getting is not what we want, then we have to begin doing some things differently.  What are some of the mistakes smaller churches seem to repeat that leads to problems?

• Calling poor pastoral leadership.  One small church called me a few years ago asking for a reference on an individual they were considering calling as their pastor.  I suggested they not call this individual based on his ministry in previous churches.  Two different members of the church called me on two different occasions, and I gave both of them the same advice.  They called him anyway, and even though he's been gone for some time, the church is still suffering the consequences of his ministry.  Small churches need pastors who can provide healthy leadership.  They don't need chaplains nor do they need dictators.  They need pastors who have been called by God to serve their church and lead it in the vision God has set for the church.
• Lack of stewardship training.  A committee chair in one smaller church was complaining to me about the lack of funds in the church.  I asked how long it had been since the church received any training in biblical stewardship.  She asked, "What's stewardship?"  When I started to define stewardship she quickly stopped me and let me know that was not going to be discussed in their church.  This church continues to limp along financially.  We cannot preach the whole counsel of God without talking about money and what it means to be a steward of what God has given to us, but many smaller churches do not want to hear any of this.  As a result, they continue to struggle financially.
• Lack of training in general.  How long has it been since anyone in your Christian Education ministry received any training?  Are your deacons and other lay leaders regularly receiving training?  It always amazes me that the church can ask someone to serve in some position and then provide them with no training in how to effectively perform in that role.  Training should be ongoing in the church if we want our lay leaders to provide the quality of leadership our churches need.
• No vision.  I find that many smaller churches drift along from Sunday to Sunday hoping something good will happen.  Because they lack a God-given vision they do little with any sense of purpose or intentionality.   Drifting seldom leads to a successful ministry or to transformed lives.  God has a vision for your church, and one of the most important things any church can do is to identify that purpose and then direct its resources towards that purpose.

We could list many more common mistakes smaller churches often make, but this will suffice for now.  If the leadership in a church would focus on just these four issues it would dramatically improve their church and set it on a positive course for the future.