Finding true value

 One of the most difficult things I have to do as an auctioneer is to tell someone that the things they have treasured have little actual value today. Many of the people I do auctions for are people who are older and moving into assisted living or a smaller home and cannot take everything with them. As we walk through their home, they tell me stories about the dresser they got from their grandmother. I often have to explain to them that the dresser didn't belong to anyone else's grandmother, and that antiques do not sell for much, at least in our area. The sentimental value they have for many of their items is far more than what they can expect them to bring at auction.

Similar things happen with those who buy "Collectibles" from television ads. One young man got angry with me when I told him the 200 or so "Collector Plates" his mother owned might bring a dollar apiece at auction. "Do you know how much she paid for them," he demanded? Yes, and I also have seen many of them sell in auctions. Here's a tip...if it says it's a collector's item, it probably isn't. Such items have little value in the secondary market, especially when sold at auction.

What does hold its value? What is a good investment? The Bible tells us "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Like someone said, you never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul. The story is told of two men who attended the funeral of a very wealthy individual known for his tightfisted ways. One asked the other, "I wonder how much he left behind?" The other man responded, "He left it all." Everything we acquire on earth is just stuff. It breaks, it gets dirty, it loses its value, and eventually, much of it ends up in a dumpster somewhere.

I've been on this rock for nearly 75 years, and the most valuable thing I possess is my relationship with God through Jesus Christ. When I leave this life, and leave all the stuff behind I've accumulated, I know that I have a heavenly home. It is there that I will be reunited with loved ones who have gone on before. It is there that I will enjoy a life without sickness, poverty, pain, hatred and any of the other things that are too prevalent in this life. Most of all, I will be in the presence of Christ who loved us enough to give His life on the cross for our sins.

I pray you are laying up treasures in heaven as well. A relationship with Christ is the most valuable thing you will ever possess because it is truly eternal. 

Confronting things that never occurred to us before

Few people in churches enjoy change. I once read that a woman upset over some changes that occurred in her church approached her pastor and said, “Reverend, if God were alive today, He would turn over in His grave at the changes in this church!”  While I doubt this actually happened, it does reflect the attitude of some within the church regarding change.

What makes change even more difficult today is the speed at which change is happening and the types of changes that are required. In his insightful book Positively Irritating John Ritner writes, "In The Age of the Unthinkable, Joshua Cooper Ramo explains that we are now in an age of discontinuous and nonlinear social change that is moving at a staggering speed. We have departed from the idea that 'our world can be reduced to simple models [and] that the real dynamics of the world make prediction nearly impossible and demand a different way of thinking.' He argues that when we experience cultural stability, it is merely 'a passing phase, as a pause in a system of incredible - and unmappable - dynamism.' In fact, he suggests, 'much of what we have to confront will be things that have never occurred to us before.'"

Ritner points to the Covid-19 pandemic as a good example of this. All of a sudden, churches could not gather for worship, and pastors became televangelists overnight. Either churches took their worship services online, or those services did not happen. Many churches, especially smaller ones, had never given any consideration to airing their services online. In fact, many of them didn't have an online presence of any kind.

Such rapid changes occurring in our world today require a different way of thinking for church leaders. The old models of pastoral ministry still being taught in many seminaries simply will not suffice. Today's pastors must think more like entrepreneurs. Dave Ramsey coined a term for the title of his book Entreleadership. An entreleader is a person who combines both entrepreneurial thinking and sound leadership practices as he or she leads their team. Entrepreneurs are bold risk takers when facing new challenges; leaders are people who do not let their ambitions and enthusiasm run away with them. When one combines these two qualities they are prepared to face the new challenges that present themselves.

However, as many a pastor will point out, the congregation must allow the pastor to be an entreleader. I've seen many congregations want to micromanage everything the pastor does. They hold him or her accountable for results, but they do not give him or her the freedom to lead. It's like telling the pastor to push down on the gas pedal while they are standing on the brake and then complaining the car isn't going anywhere.

I've been a Baptist my entire ministry. Baptists are congregationalists. In other words, the congregation makes the major decisions of the church. This is often done in a monthly business meeting after committees have discussed a particular issue, sometimes for months before presenting their recommendations to the congregation. By then, the need to respond quickly to new challenges or opportunities have long since passed. 

I will make a bold proposal, at least in the eyes of some readers. Do away with your monthly business meetings and trust the leaders in the church to make the right decisions. If you have selected a pastor because you believe he or she has been called by God to be the pastor of your church why can you not trust him or her to provide the leadership necessary? If you have selected lay leaders to lead your church why can you not trust them to work with the pastor to provide that leadership? You will find no place in the Scriptures where any decision was made by a church business meeting. You will find where decisions were made by the apostles and leaders of the churches that they then passed on to the churches. Let me be very blunt...if you do not trust your pastor and lay leaders to provide leadership, you have the wrong people in those positions or there is something wrong with you.

Change is not going to slow down. In fact, I believe it will continue to increase. Pastors today face challenges I never had to face in my pastoral ministry, and this will continue. Churches ten years from now, if the Lord tarries, will face even greater challenges, and pastors and congregations need to be equipped to be ready to face those challenges if we are to successfully impact our communities for the Kingdom of God.

The Law of the Lid

 I suppose the two books that have had the greatest influence on my life would be the Bible and John Maxwell's book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. When the book was first released Maxwell went on a tour promoting the book. I attended one of his conferences. The first law he addressed was the Law of the Lid. He said that this lid determines a person's level of effectiveness. But, not only does this law impact the individual's effectiveness, it also determines the effectiveness of any organization this person might lead.

As an example, if a leader has a leadership lid of a three, an organization or team he or she might lead can never rise above a two in effectiveness because at that point it will bump up against the lid of the leader. This is true no matter if the organization is a business, a company, a church or even a family. However, if that leader can increase his or her leadership lid up to an eight, the organization can also rise to a seven in effectiveness.

When he finished discussing this law I was upset. In fact, I never heard what he said about the next two laws. At the time I was pastoring a church and managing a small business our family owned. Neither were doing well. I had been frustrated with both believing that if the employees of the business and the members of the church would work harder we could do better. Maxwell was saying both instances were my fault. I was the leader. I became upset because I knew he was right. At that time I committed myself to grow as a leader, and years later I have never stopped trying to improve my leadership.

Two things happen when the leader has a low lid of leadership. One, he or she will only attract people with even lower levels of leadership. A person who might have a lid of a six will not come to work for a leader with a lid of a three. In a church setting, a pastor with a leadership lid of a three will not attract lay leaders with a leadership lid of a six. He or she will only attract those with lids of 2 or less. This is not the way to grow an organization.

The second thing that will happen is those already in the organization with higher leadership lids than the leader's will leave. This takes away the good leaders already in the organization, and these leaders will be replaced with persons with less leadership ability.

I have spent much of my adult life involved in the business world and the church world. I have owned two businesses since retiring from a factory job. For more than 40 years I have served in ministry, fourteen of those in judicatory leadership within our denomination. Time and again I have seen both businesses and churches call leaders with very poor leadership skills and then wonder why their organizations suffered and failed to grow.

Much of my ministry has focused on smaller churches. I have often tried to help them understand if they were to break out of their decline they needed to call healthier pastors with greater leadership gifts than they were used to. I'm not sure I was ever successful.

Here's just one example. A once thriving church called asking if I would recommend a certain pastor to serve their church. They were in the process of calling a new pastor. The previous years had seen a significant decline in their attendance. I told the caller I would not recommend that person to serve any church as he had nearly destroyed every church he had served. The following week I received another call from a different member of that church asking the same question about the same candidate. Again, I explained that they did not want this person as the pastor of their church. Of course, they called him. Within about three years the church closed its doors.

Pastors, no matter where you are on the leadership lid scale, you can improve. You can grow as a leader, and as you grow so will the church you serve. Business owners, you can also grow as a leader which will see your organization grow as well. Parents, you also can grow in your parenting skills which will improve your marriage and provide your children with growth opportunities in their own lives. Leaders must never stop growing.

Finding truth

When President Donald Trump first stated that Covid 19 came from a lab in Wuhan, China the news media among others attacked him for misleading the public and for using anti-Asian hate language. Today, The Department of Energy, the director of the FBI and other agencies have concluded that Covid 19 did in fact originate from that lab, and that China has done everything it can to prevent the investigative work that reached this conclusion.

When the pandemic began we were told that if everyone remained in place for two weeks the virus would go away. Much of the nation was shut down, but this proved to be a lie. We were told everyone had to wear a mask as that would prevent the spread of Covid 19. We were not allowed in public buildings, airports and other facilities unless we wore some type of mask, but this was later debunked when it was finally admitted that masks did little, if anything, to prevent the spread of Covid. Vaccines were rushed to the market under emergency approval that would supposedly protect one from the disease or cure those who already had it. Military personnel, doctors, nurses and others who refused the shots were fired from their positions. Then we were told the vaccines were not enough but that booster shots were also needed. Not surprisingly, many who received the vaccines and boosters continued to get Covid. President Biden has been faithful in getting the vaccines, boosters and wearing a mask. He's had Covid twice now that we know about. We have been told repeatedly to "follow the science," but it seems the science has consistently misled us.

The only things related to Covid-19 that we can know with certainty is that millions of people all over the world died from this disease. Families have suffered greatly. Some individuals and pharmaceutical companies have profited greatly.

Russell Blaylock, retired neurosurgeon, wrote a blistering paper titled "COVID UPDATE: What is the truth?, that was published in Surgical Neurological International journal. His article begins by stating:

"The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most manipulated infectious disease events in history, characterized by official lies in an unending stream lead by government bureaucracies, medical associations, medical boards, the media, and international agencies....We have witnessed a long list of unprecedented intrusions into medical practice, including attacks on medical experts, destruction of medical careers among doctors refusing to participate in killing their patients and a massive regimentation of health care, led by non-qualified individuals with enormous wealth, power and influence.

"For the first time in American history a president, governors, mayors, hospital administrators and federal bureaucrats are determining medical treatments based not on accurate scientifically based or even experience based information, but rather to force the acceptance of special forms of care and 'prevention' - including remdesivir, use of respirators and ultimately a series of essentially untested messenger RNA vaccines. For the first time in history medical treatment, protocols are not being formulated based on the experience of the physicians treating the largest number of patients successfully, but rather individuals and bureaucracies that have never treated a single patient...." (Blaylock RL. COVID UPDATE: What is the truth? Surg Neurol Int 2022;13:167.)

Actually, this post is not about Covid-19 and the lies we have been told since it first appeared on the scene. It is about truth. We live in a time where we struggle to believe anything we are told. We have been misled so often from so many people and organizations we thought we could believe that it is difficult to believe anything. Where do we find truth?

In John 17: 17 we find Jesus saying "Your word is truth." Earlier in the book of John Jesus tells His disciples, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." I believe it was Leonard Sweet who once wrote that he was asked if he believed in truth. He responded that he not only believed in truth, he knew the One who was the truth, Jesus Christ.

I have lived nearly three-quarters of a century, and I have found that the only source of truth I can consistently believe is the Bible. For over 40 years I have preached the Word of God knowing that it is true. If you are a skeptic or non-believer who insists on believing that the Bible contains errors do not bother writing me trying to convince me I am wrong. You are wasting your time. I have found it to be true time and again. And the One the Bible points to from Genesis to Revelation, Jesus Christ, is the truth personified. He is our Savior, our Redeemer, our Deliverer, the one who made it possible for us to be forgiven of our sins and be adopted into the forever family of God.

For those of you who are pastors and preachers, you have the privilege every week of proclaiming truth to your people. In a world of lies and "mis-spokes" they are hungry for the truth. Preach the Word! Without apology. It is in the Scriptures where they will find the truth.

 

Why so many new churches?

 A question I was often asked by some churches I served as their Region Minister was why there were so many new churches being built. The question was usually asked by a member of a congregation that was in decline. They couldn't understand why denominations were starting new churches rather than putting that start-up money in their existing churches. What bothered them even more was that these newer churches often seemed to be growing while their church was barely holding on.

My immediate response was that new church planting was important because new churches reach new people. The fact that many of them were growing was evidence of their ability to reach new people. Some might believe that the growth that comes in new churches is that they are taking people away from other churches, but this is often not the case. One new church pastor saw his congregation grow to about 200 people and told me that 80 percent of them were new converts to Christianity.

New churches operate without the history and traditions of existing churches. Certainly, this can be both a good thing and a bad thing. Serious errors can occur without traditions to reply upon, but many of the traditions in our churches can also be roadblocks to growth and ministry. As one of my doctoral professors pointed out to the class, every church has walls. Some are not too large, and people can still enter the church. Other churches have walls so high that new people are kept out. Many of those walls exist because of certain traditions that exist in that particular church.

New churches typically have a much simpler operating structure. Few have monthly business meetings where things may be discussed for months before a decision is made. Many have temporary committees or focus groups that address specific issues in a church and then disband when the issue is resolved. They find this is better than having several standing committees that must be filled each year and which may not add much to the church. Remember...your system is perfectly designed for the results you are seeing. Too much structure can stifle creative ministries. No structure can lead to chaos.

While this is not always true, new churches often offer worship experiences that appeal to many people. Existing churches can fall into habitual ways of worship that might appeal to their current members but is not as attractive to others. Rick Warren correctly observed several years ago that when a church selects its style of worship music it has also selected those it will attract to its services. New churches often provide a more contemporary style of worship that many find meaningful in the 21st century.

Personally, I believe God is behind the many new churches we see coming into our communities. As much as I hate to say it, many of our current churches have not done a good job of sharing the Gospel with the unchurched. When churches can go years without an adult baptism, that church has lost its God-given vision for ministry. If our current churches will not reach the present generation for Christ, God will raise up new churches to do so.

The power of prayer

 As part of my devotional reading I am reading the classic Why Revival Tarries by Leonard Ravenhill. I first read this book many years ago and have re-read it several times. The revival at Asbury University caused me to bring it out of my library and read it again. Ravenhill is definitely a preacher from the old school, and the challenges and criticisms he brings to the church is valid even though the book was first published in 1982.

One chapter in the book focuses on the prayer life of Christians and the church. Ravenhill tells us that "Satan would have us increase even in Bible knowledge...as long as we keep from prayer, which is the exercise of the instruction we have received through the Word. What use is deeper knowledge if we have shallower hearts? What use is greater standing with men if we have less standing with God?"

If you are not familiar with Leonard Ravenhill this small passage from one book will show you his ability for straight talk and his penetrating insights into the problems facing the modern church. Reading Ravenhill can be challenging and make many preachers today uncomfortable. But, at the same time,  it can also transform our ministries if we take his words seriously.

Think about what he is saying here. Satan doesn't care how much you know about the Bible as long as you are not a praying person. So much of our modern church is built around its teaching ministry. The least attended service in many churches, if they even still have them, is the prayer meeting. Churches offer various teaching opportunities; many offer few opportunities to pray and even then few people take advantage of that. The prayer meeting is normally the least attended service in the life of the church, so it's not surprising that many churches have eliminated it from its schedule.

Yet, Ravenhill insists that the devil is not concerned with how much we know about God as long as we are not a praying people. The revival that began at Asbury and has spread to other campuses and churches has much of its focus on prayer and repentance. Perhaps instead of preaching so much about the great need of revival we pastors might better focus on leading our people to pray. This will only be possible if we are first praying people ourselves.

I have often felt frustrated with my own prayer life. Reading books and blogs from other pastors tell me they have the same problem. But, how will we experience revival in our own lives if we are not praying as we are leading our churches? Are the things we do as ministers so important that we have no time for God? God forbid! How can we lead our people into a deeper prayer life if we ourselves are not praying?

Ministry without prayer is like trying to turn on a light without it being connected to a power source. Our power source is God, and we connect to Him through prayer. It is prayer that has the power to revive our churches, our nation and ourselves. Perhaps it is time for our churches to revisit the old-fashioned prayer altar that has long been neglected in many of them.

The pastor's presence

One of the things I have enjoyed in my 40+ years of serving in smaller churches is the ability to be with people. I enjoy spending 15 minutes or so before the worship service walking around the sanctuary speaking with the folks who are gathered there. It gives an opportunity to learn how things are going in their lives. This informal time allows me to joke with and laugh with individuals. One gentleman in the church I now serve apologized one morning saying that a new medicine he was taking made it difficult for him to stay awake any time he sat down,, and he might doze off during the sermon. I told him that was fine as long as he didn't share any of that medicine with the rest of the congregation. This kind of conversation enables the pastor to build relationships and connect with people on a less formal pastor-congregant level, and I believe this is important for a pastor to enjoy a successful ministry.

Any time I see guests in the service I always make a point of introducing myself and learning as much about them as time permits. Once when I was a Resource Minister in our region I visited one of my churches for their worship service. When the pastor saw me sitting there he came over to speak to me. After he walked away a gentleman sitting in front of me turned around and asked if that was the pastor. That was his first time in that church, but even though the pastor walked past him he never acknowledged him or spoke to him. 

Having never pastored a large church I suppose it might be more difficult to greet people prior to the service. Frankly, it would be hard for me to not be able to spend that time with the congregation prior to the worship service. I just believe that there are ministry opportunities available in those spontaneous conversations. If nothing else, there is the ministry of presence where you are present with that individual even for just a few minutes. Occasionally, something is said that makes me think a follow-up conversation is needed. I can call them that week and see if we need to continue our conversation.

I know how busy pastors are. I also know that many pastors do not like to have idle conversations just before the service begins as they feel it distracts them from their message. I would suggest if they are not more comfortable with their sermon than that they need more preparation time during the week. Our ministry is with people.

John Maxwell tells a story of when he was a pastor he was talking with some staff in the lobby of the church he served. One staff member walked in and went straight to his office without speaking. Maxwell followed him to his office and asked why he didn't stop to speak to everyone. The staff member replied he had a lot of work to do and didn't want to take the time to stop. Maxwell explained that people was his work. He said the staff member recognized the truth of that statement and became one of the best ministers on staff.

Pastors, please don't forget that people are your ministry. Just being present in their lives is a major aspect of your ministry. Some respond to that by saying they just are not a people person. My response to that is that if you cannot build relationships with people you should not be in pastoral ministry. Ministry is all about relationships, especially in the smaller church. You are not a CEO of a corporation. You are the under-shepherd of a group of people the Lord has entrusted to your care. Be present in their lives.