Learn to feed yourself

When some people leave a church they sometimes claim they are doing so because they "are not being fed." One of the duties of a pastor is to feed the congregation biblical truth so those attending can grow in their faith. Not every pastor does this well, and some do not even make the effort. Rather than preach sound biblical messages some pastors want to present a watered-down version of the Gospel to avoid offending anyone. Some pastors cannot teach the Scriptures to their people because they do not have a firm understanding of biblical truth themselves. A seminary student once admitted to me that he did not know that much about the Bible!

I am thankful for those pastors who do take seriously their responsibility to teach biblical truth each week to their congregations. These men and women spend hours each week preparing messages that will be "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." Such pastors help their listeners grow deeper in their faith and service to God.

However, it is not just the pastor's job to feed us biblical truth. Each person is called to be students of the Scriptures for themselves. We are to personally feed on the Word of God in order to grow in our faith. None of us attempts to eat one meal a week and think that will be sufficient to maintain good physical health, so why should we think that one sermon a week is enough for good spiritual health.

One of our Baptist beliefs is the priesthood of the believer. This includes many aspects of our spiritual lives, but one aspect is that we believe that we are able as individuals to study the Scriptures for ourselves, and that we have a duty to do so. No one can make the claim that they are "just a layperson" and dependent upon others to teach us all we need to know about God and our faith.

Yet, I know people who have been Christians for many years and claim to know very little about the Bible. One person who has attended the same church for decades recently admitted to me that he did not know that much about the Bible. Knowing the pastors this person has sat under I was stunned by this admission. Evidently, he has not paid much attention each week and has done virtually no personal study of the Scriptures.

Sometimes when I hear people say they left a church because they were not being fed I think of the image of a nest full of baby birds with their heads straight up in the air and their mouths open waiting for Momma bird to drop in a piece of worm. That's understandable when they are first born, but it won't be long before they will need to leave the nest and feed themselves or they will starve. As Christians we need to be feeding ourselves a solid diet of sound biblical theology, and we need to do this throughout our lives if we want to remain spiritually healthy. Challenge your pastor if he or she isn't teaching sound theology, but don't depend on others to feed you. Learn to feed yourself.

Healthy ministers live balanced lives.

Yesterday evening we returned from visiting our son and his family in Philly. It was a great time to see him and our grandchildren. My wife and I struggle sometimes seeing how quickly the grand-children are growing up. One is currently working, one is a senior in high school and has already selected her college, and the youngest is playing baseball on a travel team.

Time doesn't stand still for anyone, and it's easy to miss out on the important things in life if we permit it. With our son living in Philly and our daughter in Lexington, KY it's impossible to spend as much with them and the grandchildren as we would like, but we do make sure to take time to be with them as much as we can.

As a pastor I made sure I took the time to be involved in our kid's lives while they were growing up. My wife and I were often the only parents at Junior High track events, especially the away meets. We attended their basketball and baseball games. I coached our son's baseball team for six years when he played in the park's department program.

Years ago some denominational leaders would tell their pastors to take care of the church, and God would take care of their families. What horrible advice! When I first entered the ministry one seasoned pastor admitted his adult children seldom came around because he had never had time for them growing up, and his wife had major emotional problems that he never noticed until she told him what she was experiencing. That same pastor later faulted me for attending my daughter's Jr. high basketball games saying that the time would have been better spent doing ministry.

More than once I've explained that the church I pastored had many pastors in its history, and if the Lord tarried it would have many more. I was the only father my children had and the only husband my wife knew. If a church ever made me choose between it or being available to my family the church would lose every time. Scripture is clear that any man who does not provide for his family is worse than an infidel, and such provision includes emotional support and love as well as material goods.

This brings me back to one of my favorite topics - balance in the life of the minister. Those of us who serve in ministry must ensure that we maintain a healthy balance in each area of our lives. These areas include our relationship with God, our relationship with our families, our ministry, healthy self-care, and for bivocational ministers, our other careers. If we forsake any of these areas we will become unbalanced and unhealthy in our lives.

To help you in this area I've written The Healthy Pastor: Easing the Pressures of Ministry This book focuses on some of the common pressures of ministry and how any minister can address them. Another resource that has ministered to me in this area is Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives by Dr. Richard Swenson. One of our church's small groups led a study of this last year, and those attending told me how grateful they were that I recommended the book be taught.

Finding pastoral leadership for smaller churches

Smaller churches often struggle to find pastoral leadership when their current pastors leave. In the area in which I live many of these churches were served by students from a nearby seminary. Even though it meant that the student pastors would normally leave after graduating, there was a constant supply of new students beginning their studies. These church simply accepted the fact that they would have a new pastor every 2-3 years.

However, this seminary is no longer supportive of students serving churches outside its denomination, so this source has dried up for many smaller churches. They are forced to look elsewhere for pastoral leadership. The ones belonging to a denomination can call upon that resource, but most denominational leaders will admit that finding pastors for their smaller churches is a struggle.

Studies have found that seminary trained ministers are reluctant to serve in a smaller church. While this is unfortunate, various factors make it understandable. One major reason is the large student debt many of these ministers have after leaving seminary. The salaries many smaller churches offer could not support the minister's family and service the student loan debt.

The number of bivocational ministers is growing across denominational lines as smaller churches are beginning to call these men and women to serve as pastors. The problem here is that bivocational ministry is largely geographic. Very few people are going to move across the country to serve as the bivocational pastor of a church of 40 people. Most bivocational ministers are going to serve within about 50 miles from where they live.

So what can smaller churches do when seeking new pastoral leadership? Here are some brief suggestions.

1. Ask your denominational or judicatory representatives for assistance. They will know many of the people who might be available to serve in your church.
2.  Many churches still require a seminary education for their pastors. This needs to be reviewed as it is less and less likely smaller churches will attract such people.
3. Do not panic and take the first person who comes down the road wearing a cross around his or her neck. You are better off without a pastor than to call the wrong person.
4. Look within your congregation. Megachurches often call their pastoral staff from within their congregations, and I believe the same thing is possible in smaller churches. I worked with several churches that did that, and it worked out very well for them.
5. When calling a bivocational minister be realistic about your expectations. Bivocational does not mean the pastor works full-time for half the pay. He or she has another job and probably a family and needs to have time for both.
6. Pray and earnestly seek God. I always believe God has someone for every church, and as we seek His leadership He will bring that person to that church.

Small groups in the small church

For many decades most smaller churches looked to their Sunday school as the primary teaching arm of the church. In the early 1980s, when I was going to a Bible college, we were taught that the Sunday school was also the outreach agency of the church. I still remember the mantra that we were taught: The role of the Sunday school is to reach - teach - win - develop. Classes were structured to perform these functions, and in many churches they performed those functions well.

Today is a different story. In most churches the Sunday school is poorly attended with less than 50 percent of worship attenders involved in a Sunday school class. Evangelistic outreach is seldom done through the Sunday school program in many churches. Age-graded classes are not always found, especially in the smallest churches.

In many churches Sunday school still has an important role to fill, but it's doubtful that we'll ever return to a time when Sunday school is the primary education program of a church. Some are shocked that this is the case, but we need to remember that Sunday schools have only existed for a short period of time in the church. For most of church history the church used other formats to disciple believers.

The first century church met in homes. Evangelism was done through personal contact with unbelievers, and worship and discipleship occurred in the homes of the believers. Today we would call those small groups, and many churches are now using the small group format to provide training and fellowship for their members.

Earlier this year we began a series of small groups in the church I serve as Transitional Pastor. These groups were designed to meet for 10 weeks ending the week before Palm Sunday. Several families opened up their homes while other groups met in the church building. We allowed each small group to focus on any topic they wanted, as long as it received approval from the staff. Every proposal did receive that approval.

The small group I attended held our last meeting last night. Our small group leader was a Messianic Rabbi from Louisville who came each Wednesday evening to talk about the Jewish roots of Christianity. It was a fascinating study that could never have occurred in a Sunday school setting. We learned much about Jewish beliefs, how the Scriptures all pointed towards Jesus as the Messiah, and how to share our faith with Jewish people. It was fun and informative. The fellowship we shared during the meals prior to the study was wonderful. As I was leaving the host said they were ready to host another small group.

I have found small churches reluctant to use small groups. I guess many of them feel they are already a small group, but this format gives any church the opportunity to cover topics not normally covered in typical Sunday school material. One of our small groups this term focused on "Spiritual Parenting" which some of our young families with small children attended. I've been told it was another excellent group. Last term one of our small groups was on achieving balance in our lives, another topic much needed in our fast-paced world. These kinds of practical studies taught from a biblical perspective can be invaluable for Christians wanting to know how to incorporate their faith into their daily lives.

I would encourage churches of any size to pray about using small groups to provide training to their members. These can also be a great outreach opportunity. We've had some non-members attend our small groups because they were interested in the topic being presented. Set them up with a specific ending point so no one feels they are signing up for a life-long contract. 8-10 weeks is usually long enough, and if people are interested another short term small group can be offered. I truly believe doing this will dramatically improve the discipleship training in your church.

Intentional personal growth

Last night I watched a You Tube video of John Maxwell teaching on being intentional about personal growth. He was using material from one of his books, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential. This is a great book that I re-read every couple of years.

One of the things he said in the video that really caught my attention was that when you are intentional in the things you do, you do not accept life. You make life.

Many people today accept whatever life brings their way. We may complain about it, and even despise it, but few people do anything to change their lives. Many want the government or someone else to come in and improve their situation and may even become offended if someone suggests that they take steps to improve their own lives.

As leaders, we cannot take our people further than we have traveled. If we are not growing, we cannot grow others. Every leader must have a plan for continual growth or he or she will not remain a leader for long.

As pastors we must be intentional about improving our communication skills, our leadership skills, and our relational skills. We must be intentional about growing in our knowledge of Scripture. In my present ministry some have assumed I am simply preaching the sermons I preached while pastor at Hebron BC. Actually, I've used almost none of those messages because I've grown in my knowledge of the Scriptures. Those messages were for a different time and a different church. They are not especially applicable for today and this church. I think, I pray, the sermons I preach today are deeper and more relevant than the ones I preached 15-20 years ago.

Churches complain about not growing, but what are they intentionally doing to grow. As I've told many churches, if you could grow by doing what you've been doing, you would already be growing. Obviously, you need to do something different if you are serious about growing. Growing a church is no different than growing personally. It requires intentionality and a plan.

It also requires that you start following the plan. Perhaps the most important decision you will make about your growth is the decision to start. Nothing happens until you actually begin the process. You can dream all you want, you can plan all you want, you can pray all you want, but until you actually start nothing will happen.

Commit today to a life of personal growth. There are many programs that can assist you in that growth. Commit today to seeing growth in your church. There are also many tools to help you achieve that. Find the tools that will help you and then start using them.

Can small churches get beyond their traditions?

While serving as an Area Resource Minister I met with many pastor search teams to help them in that process. The majority of the churches in my Area were smaller churches, and many of them were looking for bivocational leadership. One of the things that often hindered their search was the expectations they had of the pastor.

Here is a common scenario. The church averages 50 people on a Sunday morning. They want a pastor who will lead worship Sunday morning, Sunday night and conduct a Wednesday night Bible study. In one such church I asked how many people attended the church on Sunday and Wednesday nights. The answer was about 8-10 which I presumed were probably the same people. I then asked if they thought this was the best use of the pastor's time or if that time could be more effectively used doing something else. They were adamant that the church would have those three services. After all, they wanted their church opened at those times in case someone decided to attend then.

I grew up in a time when churches did have those three services, and I usually attended all three even as a child. However, we no longer live in those days. I would prefer that we did, but we don't. We need to learn to minister in the environment in which we do live. Churches used to do a lot of things in the past, especially if they were much larger then than they are today, but that doesn't mean that they need to continue doing them now.

Trying to maintain dated traditions is choking the life out of many churches. Insisting on three worship times each week, insisting on age-graded Sunday school classes, insisting on certain theological degrees for their pastors, insisting that only men can provide leadership in the church, insisting that the church conducts VBS every year, insisting that we continue having revival meetings that are poorly attended are just some of the traditions that we need to question. Are they really adding value to the ministry of our church today, or do we continue to insist on them because this has been the tradition of our church?

Trying to relive the past isn't going to end well for many of our churches. What we are doing isn't working. It's time to seek a fresh vision for God for ministry in the 21st century and begin to live into that vision. If churches refuse to do that they will continue to die off while God raises up new churches that will fulfill His mission on earth.

For years I've heard smaller churches complain about the fast-growing church in town that is taking their members. The complainers are sure that these new churches must be compromising the Scriptures or doing something unethical to be growing so fast. The fact is that most of them are doing neither. They are simply trying to do ministry in a way that relates to where people are today. The very fact that God had to raise up a new church in your area says that such a church must have been needed to reach the people for whom Christ gave His life.

We can either hold tightly to the traditions of the past or we can grasp tightly to the ministry God wants to do today. Which will your church decide to do?

How can denominations resource their bivocational pastors?

A few years ago I was invited to lead my "Healthy Small Church" seminar to a gathering of bivocational ministers in a United Methodist district. This district had over 100 bivocational ministers who turned out for the event. The following year this district asked some of their pastors to serve as coaches for these bivocational ministers and invited me back to train them on bivocational ministry and coaching techniques. I thought that was a great way for a judicatory to assist their bivocational ministers.

My DMin thesis was "Coaching Bivocational Ministers for Greater Ministerial Effectiveness." The last report I received indicated that thesis has been downloaded over 2,600 times. That thesis later became the basis for my latest book The Art and Practice of Bivocational Ministry: A Pastor's Guide.

For my thesis I coached six bivocational ministers for three months to see if that would assist them with some of the issues they were facing. As in all coaching, the person being coached chose the topic he or she wanted to address during the session. In addition to the six chosen to participate in the exercise I added four additional bivocational ministers I had coached previously to the book. Each of these individuals reported the coaching helped them resolve some of the issues we addressed.

One reason coaching bivocational ministers can be effective is because of their schedules. To insist on a face to face meeting can be very difficult. However, coaching can work just as well on the phone as in person. For the project I was coaching pastors in various places in the country and one in Canada. I think only two of the ten in the book were coached in person. The other eight were done over the phone.

Another reason coaching can be helpful is that the person being coached identifies the issue he or she wants to address at that time. That way you know you are dealing with the most pressing issue the minister is facing.

A third reason coaching can be helpful is that good coaching always demands accountability. At the end of each coaching session the person being coached identifies steps he or she is willing to take towards resolving the issue before the next coaching session. At the start of the next session the coach determines if the assignment was completed and the results of that. Coaching that does not lead to action steps is not good coaching.

A fourth reason this can be a good tool for the judicatory or denomination is that the coach can deal with a lot of people in a short period of time. The coach doesn't have to drive some distance to each person. It's possible to coach several people in one day on the phone where if you had to drive to a meeting with each person you might only be able to meet with 2-3 people.

Denominational leaders should look at coaching as a way to resource their bivocational ministers. It's been proven to add value to their lives and ministries.

If you are a bivocational minister who would like a coach, feel free to private message me. I would love to talk to you about the possibilities.