What am I reading?

People often ask what I'm reading so occasionally I like to share my current reading in this blog.

My devotional reading right now is Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream by David Platt. It has been a long time since a book has challenged me the way this book has. For many of us, our Christianity is more influenced by our culture than the Scriptures. Platt takes us back to the Scriptures and encourages us to not only believe what the Scriptures teach but to put that into practice. He then shares stories of people who are doing just that. My biggest regret is that I have not read this book sooner.

Another book I'm reading is Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance by Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Rabbi Lapin shares insights into business and financial success from the Bible and Jewish wisdom. This is not a "get-rich-quick" book nor is it one that would be promoted by the prosperity preachers. The book focuses on being a person of integrity, serving others, being faithful stewards, avoiding debt, sound planning and other strategies that leads to a successful life.

On my bookshelf right now waiting their turn is The Pastor Theologian: Resurrecting an Ancient Vision by Gerald Hiestand and Todd Wilson, Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, and Re:Vision: The Key to Transforming Your Church by Aubrey Malphurs.

Books that I've recently completed include Living the Resurrection: The Risen Christ in Everyday Life by Eugene Peterson, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin, and The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller. I enjoyed each of these books and learned from each of them. If you're looking for something to read you may want to check out these books.

Are you more focused on the past than the future?

One way a church knows it is in trouble is if it spends more time talking about its past than its future. I go into many small churches and find pictures of their congregations from back in the early to mid 1900s. I often wonder how they ever fit that many people in the building, but obviously they did. There may be as many as 200 or more lined up for the photo. Today, the church may have 30 people show up on Sunday morning, but some of them still remember those days when the place was full every week. These pictures they have hanging on their walls are almost a shrine to a better time in their church.

As I work with various churches in my current ministry role I often hear stories of those "good ole days" when the church was the center of life in their community. What I don't hear very often are the dreams of what their church can be in the future. I don't hear their vision for ministry, and that's because they don't have one. They are living in the past, trying to survive in the present, and fearful of the future.

This is not how the church of Jesus Christ is supposed to function. Your church may have had a great history, but the reason why it enjoyed a great ministry in the past is because the people had a vision for ministry. They may not have officially called it a vision, but they shared a common vision anyway. Your church began because a group of people had a vision for starting a church in your particular area, and people continued to live out that vision. They understood their purpose, and they attempted to live out that purpose as best they could.

There is no reason your church cannot enjoy an even greater future than its past. The best days of your church are not behind you, they are before you if you decide to become intentional about doing the ministry God has given you. However, that will not happen if you spend more time focusing on the past than on the future.

The best way to have a great future is to create it. Too many churches want to react to whatever the future throws at it. A much better way to approach the future is to create it as best we can, and that involves discerning a fresh vision from God for ministry and living into that vision. This allows your church to approach the future with intentionality, and such intentionality leads to more effective ministry.

Every meeting that occurs in your church should have at least one agenda item that is looking towards the future. A church should have regular times of inviting people to share their dreams of what their church might look like in in the future. Those dreams that are consistent with the vision of the church can be given legs to help make them happen. Such a church will be a much more exciting place than one that is living in its past glory.

I challenge you to begin listening to the conversations that occur in business meetings, board and committee meetings, and when small groups in your church gather. Are they talking more about the past glory of the church or are they talking about the future opportunities that exist for your church? It's OK to celebrate the past, but let's begin living in the present and preparing for the future.

Retirement

Letters went out last week officially announcing my retirement as a Resource Minister with the American Baptist Churches of Indiana and Kentucky. This is something I've considered since the first of the year and finally made the decision a couple of months ago that it was time. My retirement will be effective on December 31, 2015.

My ministry began in 1981 when I was called to be the bivocational pastor of Hebron Baptist Church near Madison, Indiana. At the time I had never heard the term "bivocational," and suddenly I was one. I served that church for twenty years until being called to my present ministry in 2001.

Over the past 34 years I've seen many changes in ministry and especially in bivocational ministry. When I began there was not the acceptance of bivocational ministry that there is now. We had few resources that had been created especially for us, and many of us felt as if our denominations had forsaken us. (I have to say that was not the case for me. I had excellent support from the leaders in the ABC/INKY.)

I wrote my first book, The Tentmaking Pastor: The Joy of Bivocational Ministry, due to the lack of resources available to us. I never dreamed it would lead to seven more books related to small church and bivocational ministry. Nor did I ever imagine I would be asked to lead workshops and conferences on the topic. This ministry God has given me has been a true blessing. Bivocational ministers are my heroes, and I've been privileged to be allowed to serve them in this way.

I will continue to minister in retirement. I've been working on two more books I plan to complete in 2016. I already have two speaking engagements scheduled for next year, one in California and the other in Indiana. If you are looking for a conference speaker for next year, please consider giving me a call. Since I love preaching so much I am hopeful to have the opportunity to fill the pulpit as often as possible.

As I've mentioned in this space before, about two years ago I started an auction business, and I will be working to build that business up in retirement. Many people have wondered why I would want to be an auctioneer, but I view it as another way to minister to people. I'll explain that in a later post.

My wife and I will celebrate our 49th anniversary later this year, and we look forward to being able to spend more time together. We also want to spend more time with our two children and seven grandchildren, none of whom live near us. It's time to make some family memories, and I am looking forward to doing that.

There's no danger of me sleeping until noon and then heading to the golf course when I retire. There are plenty of things to keep me busy, and I look forward to having the time to do them.

Doing the work of God

Smaller churches often point to their size or lack of resources as excuses for why they are not more involved in ministry. "We just don't have the people," or "We don't have the finances," are the reasons some churches give for not engaging their communities for Christ. Neither are acceptable reasons.

In Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream David Platt points out that "The plan of Christ is not dependent on having the right programs or hiring the right professionals but on building and being the right people - a community of people - who realize that we are all enabled and equipped to carry out the purpose of God for our lives."

We often have the tendency to look for a program or strategy for evangelism or discipleship. Platt is telling us that the only strategy we need is for each of us to use the gifts and passions God has already given us to touch the lives of other people. In his book he shares the stories of several individuals who are doing just that. They are not waiting for a denomination to give them the flavor of the month program. They are living their Christian faith in community with others who do not yet share that faith and impacting those lives.

Smaller churches are uniquely positioned to offer this kind of relationship to others outside the faith. Larger churches have to form small groups for relationship building; we are already a small group. Such community should come natural to us. The challenge is to be willing to invite others to be a part of the community we share, and this is sometimes a challenge for smaller churches.

The even greater challenge is often to be willing to take that community outside the church. We often still have the mindset that people need to come to us. The biblical model is that the church goes to them. I'm not talking about going door-to-door handing out tracts. I am talking about developing genuine relationships with people outside the church and finding ways to serve them.

Right now I'm thinking about a woman who is very involved in the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity in her community. She has the opportunity to build relationships with the people building the houses as well as the families who will eventually move into those houses. She's had many opportunities to share her faith within the context of those relationships.

I'm also thinking of two women who recently walked with a co-worker whose mother was in hospice. This family had no church home. These women, from different churches, was able to point the co-worker to a pastor who could conduct the funeral service when the time came and who provided great pastoral care to this family during the woman's illness. These women continue to minister to their friend in his time of grief.

How do we do the work of God? As Platt wrote, it's about being the right people, a community of people, who are willing to invest their lives in the lives of others. Any of us can do that.

Work mostly in the areas of your giftedness and talents

Last year I read Rabbi Daniel Lapin's book Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money. It was a very well written book on personal finance from a Jewish perspective. Rabbi Lapin pulled from the Old Testament, the Torah, and other Jewish writings to make the case for personal responsibility, avoiding debt, wise investing, and making wise decisions that lead to financial security.

I enjoyed that book so much I am currently reading Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance also written by Rabbi Lapin. Don't let the titles fool you. These are not "get rich quick" books that might be touted by prosperity preachers. Both books address taking responsibility for your life, living lives of moderation, developing relationships with other people, and other aspects of a successful and rewarding life written from the perspective of Jewish wisdom.

Some of what he writes would be criticized in our PC-dominated world if they didn't come from a Jewish rabbi. For instance, in the introduction to the second book he mentions the power of specialization and exchange.  He writes, "This is why you will almost never find Jews tinkering with their cars in their driveways on weekend afternoons. In the Jewish neighborhoods of most cities, you'll almost never find Jews mowing their laws. Why? Because we understand the power of specialization." He goes on to say that if he pays a mechanic to maintain his car and someone else to mow his lawn he can focus more time and energy on doing the work he does best. The mechanic wins, the lawn mowing service wins, he wins, and those he serves wins.

This sounds to me like the Pareto Principle in practice. This principle teaches that we achieve 80 percent of our results from 20 percent of our work. If we have more time to focus on those areas that produce the greatest results, we can be even more productive and effective. If we spend too much time on the 80 percent of what we do that only produces 20 percent results we seriously dampen our effectiveness and those we serve are harmed by our reduced productivity.

As I write this, my car is in the shop getting the oil changed and having an issue repaired. My mechanics can do in one hour what it would take me a half-day (or longer) to do. In that half-day I can accomplish a lot of work that I am more gifted to do. My mechanic will receive payment for his work, I will get some work done that I need to do, and the people I serve today will (hopefully) benefit from the time I'll be able to give them.

Bivocational and fully-funded pastors both often complain about the lack of time they have to accomplish everything that is expected of them. One of the reasons for that lack of time is that we often refuse to delegate some tasks to others. There are lay people in our churches who could do some of the things we do better than we can, but we never give them the opportunity.

Each of us are given certain gifts by God for the purpose of ministry. None of us have all the gifts which means we are not going to be good at everything. While we may be responsible for certain things to be done, that does not mean that we have to do them. We should assign responsibility for some tasks to others who are more gifted in those areas than we are. We are responsible to see that those things are done, but we can allow others to do them while we focus on those areas of ministry in which we are more gifted.

This will allow them to serve in the areas where they are gifted, and it will allow us additional time to work in the areas of our own giftedness. Everyone wins in such a scenario.

As I finished writing this article, my mechanic called to say my car is ready to be picked up. Win-win!

Everything rises and falls on leadership

Yesterday's blog article looked at the impact leadership has on the life of a church or other organization. Several years ago John Maxwell wrote one of the best leadership books ever written, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You (10th Anniversary Edition). If you've never read this book, you should. In the book he makes the statement, "Everything rises and falls on leadership."

This statement is in the first chapter titled "The Law of the Lid." This law says that the lid of any organization is found in its leadership. If the leaders have a leadership ability of a three, the organization can never rise above a two in effectiveness. If that lid can be raised to an eight, the organization can then rise to a seven in effectiveness. This is a powerful law that demonstrates that the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of any organization is directly related to the leadership abilities of its leaders.

I heard Maxwell speak to this before I read the book. I attended a conference he was doing to promote the book, and when he began talking about the Law of the Lid I became angry. The church I pastored was not doing well at the time. The small business we owned, and I managed, was also not doing well. I was frustrated with both and was convinced if people would just do what they were supposed to do both the church and the business would do better. Now, Maxwell is saying that these problems were my fault!

I was the leader of both organizations, and if the organizations were not doing well it was a direct reflection on my leadership. I didn't like what he was saying, and I don't think I remember him talking about the next two laws as I processed his comments on the law of the lid. I finally realized he was right. It was my fault.

If I wanted the church to do better, I had to be a better pastor and leader. If I wanted our business to do better, I had to do a better job of providing leadership to that business. I was the lid holding both organizations down.

About that same time I read another book on turning around troubled churches. The author of that book stated that it required new leadership in order to turn around a troubled church. As I wrestled with that I wondered if this was all an indication I needed to leave the church. Eventually, I decided that I could become a different pastor and learn to lead in a new way.

The next Sunday I shared with our congregation some of my frustrations with the church and my leadership. I told them that according to one author our church could not change without new leadership and how I had considered that perhaps my time there was finished. Some became concerned I was about to resign (others were hopeful!) until I told them that I had decided to be the different leader the church needed. That began a transition time as I had to learn new ways of leading and serving, but it also became a springboard from which our church began to move forward in positive ways.

The pastoral and lay leadership in every church determines the level of that church's effectiveness. If you are frustrated at how things are in your church, take a long look at the leadership you are providing. For some reason, the people are not responding to that leadership, and it is the height of arrogance to assume that they are all wrong. If your church or business is going in the wrong direction, and you can't turn that around, you have to change something in the way you are leading that church. You could be in a church that will never change regardless of what you do. In that case you may need to leave them to their dysfunction, but don't assume that until you attempt to make some changes in your leadership first.

It's all about the leadership

Yesterday I visited a church that had gone through some difficult conflict just a year earlier. During that conflict I was called to work with them to determine the source of that conflict and suggest how they could address it. As usual, there were several issues that were creating the problems, but at the root of each of them were failures of leadership, both pastoral and lay. The pastor had already resigned, and after I presented my report to the congregation one of the lay leaders also resigned and left the church.

Now the church needed to find a new pastor. An interim pastor was brought in to begin the healing process. I asked the church to not even begin a pastor search for several months to allow healing to occur which they agreed to do. Eventually, I began to work with them in their search for a new pastor.

This pastor would need to be bivocational. I suggested their next pastor also needed both ministerial training and experience. The lack of each of these in their previous two pastors were partially the reasons for their earlier problems. It took several months to find someone to meet this criteria, but God had a person prepared to become the pastor of this church, and at the right time the church discovered this person.

Since calling their new pastor I had not been back to this church. Yesterday, I decided to visit the worship service to see how things were going. The difference in that congregation was amazing.

Previously, the congregation seemed defeated. There had been little energy in the church and a lot of distrust. Yesterday, the worship was lively. People were laughing. It became obvious during different parts of the service how much they cared for one another. There was discussion about new ministries they were doing in their community.

Several people I had worked with earlier came to me after the service to say how much the church had changed for the better since calling their new pastor. One said that their healing was complete and now it was time to grow.

I often quote John Maxwell's statement that everything rises and falls on leadership. My experience in this church once again proves how true that statement is. Today, this church has a pastor who loves this congregation and proves it by both word and deed, and the congregation is returning that love. His experience and training allows him to provide solid leadership to the church, and the church is already trusting that leadership. I am excited about the future of this church.

Tomorrow I want to share from my own pastoral experience the truth of Maxwell's statement.