One thing a new pastor should not do

When I began as pastor in 1981 one of the first things I did was to get a list of people who had left our church over the past few years and began to call on them.  There had been some issues in the church, and each of these people left for one reason or another.  I spent many evenings listening to their reasons for leaving.  I encountered a lot of anger from some.  Despite the time I invested in trying to get these people to return to our church only one family did.  In less than a month, the mother was offended by some insignificant event, and the family left the church again.  I learned then what many church leaders now affirm: it is not a good use of the pastor's time trying to get disgruntled people to return to the church.

This is hard for some in the church to accept.  I often hear pastor search committees tell me that their numbers are down, but they feel certain than when the get a new pastor that some of the people who have left will return.  These folks often are disappointed when I tell them that the ones who have left probably won't return, and they might not even want them to.  You can't build a church on disgruntled people who are going to leave when they don't get their way.

It is possible that some might return when they hear that the church has new life and some exciting ministries happening.  These are often people a church wants to return because of the passion and gifts they bring.  From my experience these folks are few and far between.

If someone on a pastor search committee mentions that a number of people have left the church in recent years due to various issues I would recommend the prospective pastor ask if the church has the expectation that he or she spend time trying to get these people to return.  There is a very good chance that will be the expectation.  If I was interviewing with such a church I would make clear that such work would not be a good use of my time.  The people who left have turned their backs on people they probably have known for a long time.  Why would they come back because a pastor they don't know asks them to?  If they left because they were dissatisfied with things in the church what makes current members think they won't leave again the next time they don't get their way?  You can almost count on it that they will.  If the committee or church insisted that their new pastor needed to make it a priority to try to get these people to return I would take that as a sign that this is not the church for me.  I believe it was Rick Warren who wrote that we are called to be fishers of men, not corrallers of old goats.

There is much a new pastor needs to do that will produce much better long term results for a church than trying to appease a bunch of disgruntled church members who have left the church.  The new pastor needs to learn as much as possible about the people who are there, the community in which the church is located, and begin to discern where God is leading this congregation.  These are the kinds of activities in which the pastor needs to invest his or her time.

Does your church have the right leadership?

In his book Make or Break Your Church in 365 Days: A Daily Guide to Leading Effective Change Paul Borden writes, "Often a major reason that congregations are in decline or on a plateau is that the wrong people, for whatever reason, are in positions of leadership."  This sounds much like Jim Collins in his excellent book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't where he writes of the importance of having the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.  He explains why this is important.

If you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away.  The right people don't need to be tightly managed or fired up; they will be self-motivated by the inner drive to produce the best results and to be part of creating something great...If you have the wrong people, it doesn't matter whether you discover the right direction; you still won't have a great company.  Great vision without great people is irrelevant.

In a business environment it is somewhat easier to get people where they need to be.  In a church it can be more difficult especially if you are dealing with long established traditions and people who have served in their positions for many years.  A frequent issue I hear from pastors attending my seminars is the poor quality of their lay leadership who consistently blocks every effort to introduce change to the congregation.  What can a pastor do in such situations?

In my opinion, the most important thing a pastor can do to turn around a church is to cast vision.  The second most important thing is to develop leaders.  You begin with those you currently have in leadership positions.  Some of them may have excellent leadership abilities but have never been trained by those pastors who preceded you.  Such persons would respond very well to your leadership development efforts.  Others have no interest in growing as leaders.  They are positional leaders only and quite often extremely unwilling to step aside and allow others to have those positions.  These are people you love, pastor, and work around.

As I say in my seminars, you have the ride the horse that wants to run.  Identify the persons in your congregation who have leadership potential and invest in their growth.  Eventually, positional leaders will no longer be in those positions, and you will have trained leaders prepared to replace them.  When that happens you will often find your church becomes healthier and growing.

In my denominational tradition many churches have nominating committees that recommend persons to fill positions for the upcoming year.  I would prefer these committees be eliminated, but that is a post for another day.  When such a committee is utilized in the church the pastor must be involved in that selection process.  Some pastors ignore the work of that committee entirely, and in some churches they don't want the pastor to be involved.  Either is a big mistake.  Pastors will have to work with the people selected for these positions for at least the next year if not longer, and they need to try to get the best people selected.  Pastors also often know things about people that make them not good candidates for leadership positions.  Because of confidentiality issues they may not be able to reveal that to the committee, but the committee needs to trust the pastor who suggests a certain person may not be the best candidate for a particular position.

Leadership identification and development are key components of a healthy church.  Both needs to be high on the priority list of every pastor who needs to invest a significant portion of time of his or her time in these areas.  The wrong people in leadership positions will cripple your church and hinder its growth more than almost anything else.

Do you have the right people in leadership positions in your church?  Are they in the right places to best utilize their gifts and passions for ministry?  Who do you have in the leadership pipeline that are being prepared for future leadership needs your church will have?  What are you doing to intentionally help your current and future leaders develop as leaders?

The question I'm most frequently asked

The one question I am asked more than any other by bivocational ministers is how they can find the time to do everything that is required of them.  Let me begin this post by pointing to two books I've written that include chapters addressing this question in more detail:  The Bivocational Pastor: Two Jobs, One Ministry and The Healthy Pastor: Easing the Pressures of Ministry.  These chapters go into more detail than I can cover in a blog posting.

Time management is really life management.  What bivocational ministers must do is to identify the priorities in their lives and then manage their lives around those priorities.  For me it is my relationship with God, my relationship with my family, my ministry, my other job, and self-care.  These five things must be addressed and kept in balance or my life will soon begin to have problems. 

Once you've identified priorities in your life you are ready to set some goals in those areas.  What are the things you believe to be important in each of the priority areas in your life?  For example, you may feel it is important to spend more time with your spouse, so you will establish a date night.  Your goal might be to have one night a week devoted to a date with your spouse.  For your schedule it might be better if that occurs in an afternoon.  The two of you may discuss this and determine that two dates a month would be sufficient.  Establish your goal, and then get it in your schedule.  Whatever day or evening you decide will be your date night, put that in your calendar.  If anyone calls you for a meeting or asking you to do something else at that time you can tell them you already have an appointment for that time.  You don't have to tell them it's with your spouse.  In cases of genuine emergency (and you decide what is an emergency and what isn't) you may decide that has priority over your date night and agree to respond.  However, that better not happen very often, and you better reschedule that date ASAP or your spouse will soon decide that your dates are not very high on your priority list.

Leaders are readers, and bivocational ministers need to set aside time to read if they want to grow as disciples and as leaders.  Schedule time to do read.  When I was doing my doctoral work I had a lot of reading I needed to do.  I blocked off time in my calendar for reading.  I had an appointment with my books.  Now, when I find that my calendar is a little slower than usual I will set times when I am going to read.  I also keep a book in my car to read in case I'm stuck in traffic, arrive for an appointment early, or find myself dining alone in a restaurant.  I would never think of going to a doctor's office without a book to read while I'm waiting.

I've referred to my calendar a couple of times.  It's critical that you own your calendar.  You control what goes in it.  I would never give my calendar to an administrative assistant to manage for me.  There are things that my ministry requires of me and these must go into the calendar.  As a bivocational minister my other job requires certain things that must be included in the calendar.  Everything else goes in only if I decide it does, and very few things go into my calendar that do not fit in with my priorities or my goals.  Believe me, many people will want to put their agendas into your calendar that have nothing to do with your priorities or goals.  You must learn to say no to those opportunities.

This may sound rather structured and that's because it is.  Bivocational ministers really do not have a lot of time to waste doing trivial things that add nothing to their lives.  Regular readers of this blog may remember this saying from earlier posts:  You get done what you spend time doing.  If you want to achieve eight hours of television watching every day it's easy enough to do.  If you want to achieve something that makes a difference it will require a little more structure in your life.  Invest your time in the things that you have determined are most important to you, and at the end of the day you'll feel much better about how that day has gone.

What is a pastor-leader?

In the last couple of posts I've looked at the need for pastors to provide leadership to their churches.  We can list any number of things that are wrong with our churches today, but at the top of that list has to be the lack of leadership many churches are receiving from their pastors.  In fact, many of the other problems could be directly traced to that lack of leadership.  But, what we have not done is define what it means for a pastor to be a leader.  That is what I hope to do in this post.

Pastor-leaders are not dictators nor are they CEOs.  They do not lead with a "My way or the highway" attitude.  They do not threaten, manipulate, or force anyone in order to get their way.  Unfortunately, when one talks about a pastor being a strong leader this negative image is the one some people immediately think about.  It sounds too much like a cult leader, a Jim Jones type person, who everyone must follow regardless of the cost.  This is not at all what I mean when I talk about a pastor-leader.

A pastor-leader is one who is in the trenches with the people.  He or she has a vision for where God wants to lead this congregation and is willing to lead them there.  A pastor-leader knows he or she is accountable to God for the congregation he or she has been given.  The goal of a pastor-leader is to take everyone on the journey, but he or she also knows that some may refuse to go, and they cannot be allowed to prevent the others from experiencing what God has in store for them.  (Does any of this sound like Moses leading the Israelites to the Promised Land?)  This means a pastor-leader has a spine and is willing to confront those who will oppose or hinder the ministry God has given the church.   Such confrontation is not done in a mean-spirited way or without much prayer, but there will be times when a pastor-leader must take a stand and challenge the controllers and others who would sabotage the work God is doing in the church.

Pastor-leaders do not seek their vision but God's.  They are not interested in climbing the ministerial ladder of success; they are interested in fulfilling God's purpose for their lives whatever that might be.  For some, that may be serving as a bivocational pastor of a small, rural church that may struggle but offers the only hope in the community in which it serves.  Others may be called to a mega-church with thousands of persons attending services each week.  Regardless of where one is called, the pastor-leader rejoices that God has entrusted him or her with the responsibility to lead the congregation that has issued the call.  If this is not be a great place in which to serve, the pastor-leader is committed to staying there until it becomes a great place.

A pastor-leader is committed to personal growth.  Pastor-leaders are often found attending a workshop, reading a book, or enrolling in a course that will help him or her grow personally and spiritually.  Every pastor-leader I've ever known has been committed to lifelong learning.  A true leader knows he or she has much to learn, and the minute they stop learning they stop growing.

Pastor-leaders lead from the front, not from the safety of their office.  They lead by example.  They are not afraid to get their hands dirty.  If they want their congregation to win souls for Christ, they are soul winners.  If they want the members of their churches to be more involved in feeding the hungry and ministering to the physical needs of the community, they will be involved in doing that alongside their congregations.

Pastor-leaders understand the importance of equipping the saints for the work of ministry.  No military leader would think of leading troops into battle without first making sure they were trained and equipped.  However, many pastors spend more time complaining about the lack of commitment on the part of their church members than they do in equipping them so they can do ministry.  Not the pastor-leader.  He or she takes seriously the Eph. 4 mandate to equip the saints for the work of ministry.  Discipleship and lay ministry development is serious business in a church that has a pastor-leader because such a leader knows how critical these are for the personal well-being of the individuals and for the ministry effectiveness of the church.

Pastor-leaders are servant leaders.  They understand that the call to lead is a call to serve.  Again, this doesn't mean they become door mats for every disgruntled controller that calls them on the phone.  It does mean the pastor-leader develops relationships with the people.  He or she loves them unconditionally as Christ does, and the pastor-leader is not afraid to tell them of his love.  He or she admits when they are wrong and quickly extends grace to others when they fail.

No one has to wonder who is in charge of a church that has a pastor-leader.  He or she has earned the right to lead by their faithfulness in small things, their love for the people, and their love for God.  People are not afraid of a pastor-leader because they know that person always has their best interest at heart.  I once heard a pastor-leader tell of a time when some of the lay leadership questioned a decision he made.  He told them if they couldn't trust his judgment on the matter would they at least trust his heart, and at that the opposition ceased because the people knew his heart.  Even if his actions would prove wrong (they didn't), they knew that whatever he did was out of love for the church and its mission in the world.  He had earned that trust through many years of faithful service to that church.

Let me end this post where I began: our churches need strong pastoral leadership if they are ever to become what God envisioned the church would be.  Congregations that will not follow such leadership are destined to wander in the wilderness wasting God's resources and squandering the ministry opportunities that could have been theirs.  Pastors who are not willing to lead are forfeiting their calling and should immediately step down from pastoral ministry.  But, pastors must understand that it will take time to earn the right to provide strong pastoral leadership, and they must be very intentional about earning that right.  If you prove yourself trustworthy, and the church is healthy, the day will come when you will be ready to provide the kind of leadership your church needs.  When that day comes, lead.

Pastor leaders

Yesterday's post looked at the need of our churches to have leaders as pastors.  Today we want to explore this from a pastor's perspective.  As I pointed out yesterday, many churches do not really want their pastor to lead them, at least not to a point where things actually change and they become uncomfortable.  They prefer managers who can keep the church machinery running and keep conflict low.  Such churches seldom grow nor do they have much of an impact on their communities.  They are nice little "Bless me" clubs in which Christians can congregate and feel comfortable.

This is actually good news for many pastors because they don't really want to be leaders anyway.  They prefer the managerial role because that is what they were trained in seminary to do, and this is the role in which most pastors feel most comfortable.  Pastors are human too, and they don't enjoy conflict any more than do the members of their congregations.  They know that if they try to lead any significant change in their congregations that it will create conflict, so the easiest way to avoid that is to manage what's happening in the church, work hard to serve those who are already members, and remain as uncontroversial as possible.  Maintaining the status quo in most of our churches will win you the approval of their members.  Unfortunately, maintaining the status quo isn't what our churches are called to do.

If our churches maintained the status quo most of the older churches in our area would still be meeting in one-room log buildings served by a pastor who spent most of the week teaching school in that same building, farming a small farm nearby, or owning a general store in town.  The status quo would mean our churches would have hitching rails around the building, a couple of toilets behind the building, and a wood or coal stove in the middle of the building.  Assuming this doesn't describe your church then someone at some time suggested some changes to the church.  Someone took a leadership position, confronted the conflict that was sure to arise, and led the church to make needed changes.  These people refused to accept the status quo as acceptable because they recognized the status quo would not take their church where it needed to be.

According to some studies 50 percent of the population in every county in the United States, and in some counties the number is as high as 80 percent, is unchurched.  Some have walked away from the church for various reasons, but a significant percentage of that number represent people who have never invited Jesus Christ into their lives.  The status quo of most of our churches will never reach these people.  The status quo will never even identify who these people are nor consider their needs when developing the calendar and budget of the church.

The mission of your church is simple.  It is to fulfill the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.  That's it.  Those two things are all your church has to do to achieve its purpose in this world.  The vision of your church isn't so simple.  The vision of every church should be how it will accomplish this mission in its community today.  The mission remains the same for every church; the vision will be different as different ministries will be needed to impact each community.  The status quo is not acceptable because it will not allow you to achieve your mission.  It may have worked in 1950, but it will not be effective today.

Pastors, your churches need you to lead them to renew the mission God has given them and they need you to lead them in discerning a fresh vision from God as to how that mission will be achieved.  If you cannot do that because you haven't been trained as a leader, then seek that training now.  Leadership can be taught, and every person can grow as a leader.  If you cannot lead because you don't want to be a leader, you need to step away from pastoral ministry and find something else to do with your life.   The work of the church is too important for it to be limited by a pastor who is unwilling to lead.

In my next post I will examine what I mean by a pastor-leader.  You can read more about pastoral leadership in my latest book The Healthy Community: Moving Your Church Beyond Tunnel Vision.

Do churches really want a pastor to lead them?

A few months ago I met with a pastor search committee and began our conversation by asking one of the questions I always ask during our first meeting, "What does your church want in its next pastor?"  I received the answer I almost always hear from smaller churches:  "We want a pastor who will grow our church."  I responded by saying something I had never said before to a search committee:  "Really?  Are you sure about that?"  They looked at me like they couldn't believe someone would ask that question.  I then explained that if their church could be growing by doing what it's been doing it would already be growing.  Obviously, if the church was serious about wanting to grow then things would have to change.  If they wanted a pastor who could grow their church then they were saying they wanted a pastor who would come in and begin to make changes in their church and how it did things.  I asked again, "Is that what you really want?"  At that point one of them smiled at me and said they might need to talk about that some more.

I am convinced that one of the most critical things many of our churches need today is a pastor who will lead his or her congregation.  The problem is that a majority of those churches do not want a leader.  They prefer to have managers for pastors, not leaders.  And the fact is that most seminaries train pastors to be managers, not leaders.  So, the pastor can come into a church and use the training he or she has received and be appreciated by the congregation because that managerial skill is exactly what they want in their pastor.  The greater problem is that this seldom results in the church growing or having much impact on its community.

If a church does call a leader, that person is often in trouble early on when he or she learns that the church is not ready or willing to follow a leader.  Jill Hudson, in her excellent book When Better Isn't Enough: Evaluation Tools for the 21St-Century Church, writes

When churches say they desire a transformational leader, they usually have no idea what they're really asking for.  Often they mean someone who will bring just enough change to keep the pews and offering plates full.  Pastors have historically been rewarded for being effective managers, for keeping the church stable and moving.  Pastors who are transformational leaders often find they are not universally valued or praised.

Judicatory leaders like myself who work with pastor search committees and other leadership groups in churches need to begin having some bold conversations with these groups and challenge them on what they want from their pastors.  Those who insist they want a pastor to lead them need to be further challenged on how far are they willing to follow that pastor.  I recently heard a leader from one organization that hired a consultant say that before hiring that individual he made sure from everyone who reported to him that they were willing to actually do what the consultant would recommend.  The cost of hiring the consultant was too great to not put his recommendations into practice.  The same is true for churches.  Although there is little financial difference between a pastor who is a leader and one who is a manager, there is a big cost to calling a leader and then refusing to follow his or her leadership.  The cost to both the church and the pastor can be great and can last for years and even decades.

We must have pastor-leaders for our churches if we have any hope of turning around our existing churches that have plateaued or are in decline.  Managers can offer technical changes by tweaking what we've been doing, but our times require more adaptive changes, and those can only be led by leaders.  Churches that are unable to understand this and accept the kind of pastoral leadership they need will continue to remain stuck and unable to provide very effective ministries to this current and future generations.

One thing killing our small churches

Over the past couple of weeks I've had some challenging posts on this blog.  Yesterday I wrote about how churches need to address the problem of controllers.  A few days earlier my blog post was about the desire of smaller churches to develop a youth group even when there are no youth in the church.  The post about youth has been the most read and circulated post I've had in a long time.  Today, I'm sorry to say that I'm going to have yet another post that may upset some people.  I want to briefly touch on one thing that is killing many of our smaller churches, and that one thing is their buildings.

Churches have become fascinated with buildings.  Many believe "If they build it they willl come," and don't realize that isn't reality until it becomes difficult to meet the mortgage payment each month.  In recent years I've seen numerous churches build facilities they didn't need and couldn't afford, and these facilities have often had a very negative impact on the church's ability to do ministry.  They have also been an issue when the church needs to seek a new pastor or staff person.  The building consumes so much of the church's income that there is little money left for ministry or for salaries.

It has become popular for churches to build family life centers which are often little more than glorified basketball courts.  These churches are often strapped for years trying to pay off the mortgage on that FLC.  When I was pastor we could rent a local armory for a Sunday afternoon of basketball for $20.00 a day.  We didn't have to worry about utilities, insurance, upkeep, or a big mortgage payment.  We paid our $20.00 and enjoyed an afternoon playing basketball.  Some churches are able to use their FLCs for outreach programs such as Upwards Basketball, but many other churches see both their sanctuaries and FLCs sit unused five or six days a week.

I cannot remember where, but recently I read a comment that said many new church starts do very well until someone gets the idea they need a building.  At that point efforts to reach new people cease and all the focus and energy are directed to finding property.  For some reason it stops being acceptable to rent worship space from some organization once someone suggests the new church needs to own property. 

This problem is not limited to churches building facilities they cannot afford or new churches wanting to own property and have a "proper" church building.  It also involves churches that have older facilities it struggles to maintain and churches that have large facilities from a time when the congregation was much larger that it no longer needs since the congregation has declined.  In some cases the upkeep and fixed expenses of these properties consume whatever ministry money a church may have almost ensuring the church will never effectively reach the unchurched in their communities.

An organic church planter once told me that he believed a church of 30 people could do anything in a home they could do in a church building.  He's absolutely right.  I believe it is time to make this a stewardship question and ask if spending so much money on buildings is really the best way to utilize the resources God makes available to us. 

I know this will be difficult for some people to handle, but many of our smaller churches would be much better off to sell their properties, begin to meet in homes or rented facilities, and use the money they gained from the sale of their property to do ministry in their communities.  Schools, clubs, motels, and various other organizations would be delighted to offer your congregation a place to meet on Sundays for much less money than what many churches are paying to maintain their properties.  A church that made this change would then be able to be more missional as it focuses on serving the community in which Christ has placed it, and it would have the financial resources to be better able to do this.

This post does not mean that I am against church buildings or even churches building new facilities to enable it to provide better ministry.  There is certainly a place for church buildings, but that does not mean that every church must have its own building.  Many churches would find great freedom in no longer owning property and find it much easier to begin offering new ministries to people who need Christ in their lives.