Category Archives: Ministry

Church, Ministry

Church Leadership Limits

There is a broad spectrum of churches.  Some are defined by their theology, some by the worship style, some are characterized by their denominational ties, and some are simply the delegated church of a community.  At issue today is those churches that have become a mirror of a personality.  Yes, the church should be patterned after the personality and person of Christ, but not after a personality of a worship leader, pastor, or preacher.  When a single person becomes the only one making decisions when everything from the who will teach a Sunday School class to what will be sung in the worship service it is a harbinger of what could well become a cult.

To what extent should the leadership of a church control or limit the freedom of its members?

Guidelines here:

  1. The absolute authority within the church and the individual Christian is God. All other authority is subordinate.
  2. All Christians live in a society and have responsibilities to others.  Never-the-less, it is to God alone that we are primarily accountable and responsible.  It is not our families or friends or church or community or society that will be our ultimate judge.
  3. There is a tension between the encouragement to follow spiritual leaders and the individual liberty that Christians must retain in Christ.  A Christian should not allow liberty to become license or irresponsibility, but do all out of love for others.
  4. A leader must first be a servant. The leader should be the first to get his hands dirty. The leader must be the first when someone is in need.  The leader must be standing at the ready to do whatever is asked.
  5. The New Testament says little about church leaders insisting and demanding obedience from their fellow-believers.
  6. There are definite limits to the authority of church leaders.  For example, a leader does not have the right to tell people how to live their personal lives.  Christians should not accept domination, exploitation, manipulation or any kind of spiritual abuse.  In morally indifferent matters, where there is no clear statement in Scripture, everyone must be free to live according to his own conscience.  However, individual freedom should be regulated by love.
  7. The Church exists in union with God through Jesus Christ.  It consists of believers-in- community as Christ’s living body whose primary loyalty is to God through Jesus Christ, not to the leaders themselves.  It is a living organism rather than an organization.
  8. The ideal is ministry by community to achieve corporate maturity.  Ministry belongs to the whole church.  Although there was an organized leadership of elders (bishops) and deacons in the NT churches, there does not seem to be any gap between the “clergy” and the “laity”.  Rather all those with spiritual gifts, including the gift of leadership, are called to equip all believers for mature discipleship and service.
  9. The five key ministries of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher, collectively provide a healthy spiritual diet for any church, if they are held in balance (Ephesians 4:11).

 

What do you think?  Leave a comment.

Ministry, Psycolog

Giving it all away

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Let’s play a game.  The game is easy at first and it will help us with a definition.

  1. I have 100 one-dollar bills.
  2. There are five players of which I am one.
  3. Like monopoly, I pass out the money equally.
  4. How much money does each player receive?

It doesn’t take a math wizard to figure out the answer the question.  Each player now has 20 dollars. But now is where it gets a little harder.

  1. Each person in the game must give half of their money to the most deserving by whatever criteria you would like. Equality is no longer a criterion. There could be some possible outcomes:
    1. A person could think he is the most deserving and keep his 10 dollars.
    2. A person could think that friendship or popularity should make the decision.
    3. A person could see the other’s way of dispersion and try to make it fair and give to the person who did not receive anything. Trying to be fair to everyone.
    4. One player may give his 10 dollars back to me because I am the one who started giving away my money in the first place. A reward for giving.

In the first part of the game, I am expected to not cheat and give the dollars out evenly to each person.  It is expected that I am fair with my game.  It was an example of equality.  Each of the players expected the same amount of money at the beginning of the game. The requirement of equality is that everyone was treated the same.  The issue comes up when equality is no longer an absolute criterion for the next step. The second step included things like selfishness as in response (a), prejudice as in response (b), or as in response (c) where equality is attempted.

There is a food pantry at the church at which I attend.  The Pantry provides food to those who want to avail themselves of the pantry services.  The Pantry provides to everyone who comes; equality.  One of the services provided is USDA offerings.  To be a recipient of this food you must meet criteria set by the USDA.  The USDA sets a maximum income ceiling to receive this food.  They provide for low-income families only.  There is no equality in this requirement, it is a means to provide food to the most deserving.  The USDA is trying to provide a level playing field for the food insecure in our community.  This provision is not equal.  This provision is a service of equity.  The USDA is saying that families that do not have the ability or incentive or just plain bad luck there is a government program that will help them in their time of need.  This is an example of equity; that all should have a bottom line for food.

My moral center based upon God says to me I should care for the needed.  Jesus tells me in the word that I should give to the hungry.  I fully support the Pantry and what it is accomplishing. But sometimes I wonder about the difference between equality and equity.

I just read a study on the difference between equality and equity.  This study tells me that people frequently disagree about morality. There seems to be no standard morality in our society. The arguments are about which rules are valid and which are not.  There are disagreements about whether contraception is morally wrong.  There are disagreements over abortion.  There are even disagreements over the fairness of our taxation system.  Should I download music from the internet without paying for it?  So which side do I find my moral compass?  Should my decisions be made only on equality, “all the same no matter what”, or equity, “the one who needs the most”?

I would suppose that if I am the one running the game, I start out with equality, “all men are created equal” and make my decision about equity as I go along.

I need your input on this one, please leave a comment.

Ministry, Psycolog, Ramblings

I feel your pain.

I have come to know a person who told me he had little empathy.  It both shocked me and created a sense of doubt in his motives and his actions.  So, I did a little research on what empathy really means and what should be my reaction.  The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines empathy as:

1 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it

2 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also :the capacity for this

Therefore, a person has empathy if that person can understand and share the feelings of another.  Empathy is the ability to experience the feelings of another person.  It goes beyond acknowledgement of pain and suffering of others to a personal co-ownership of that pain and suffering.

So from there I had to understand the difference between sympathy and empathy.  I have used them interchangeably.

Here is a chart:

Empathy Sympathy
Understanding what others are feeling because you have experienced it yourself or can put yourself in their shoes. Acknowledging another person’s emotional hardships and providing comfort and assurance.
Personal understanding from experience of like circumstance or proportion of pain Understanding the quantity and type of pain experience of others
The ability to sense the feeling of the other person by remembering or imagining themselves in the other’s situations. The ability to measure and understand
I know it’s not easy to lose weight because I have faced the same problems myself Trying to lose weight can often feel like an uphill battle
A doctor relating with a patient because he or she has been in a similar situation or experience Doctors comforting patients or their families
Experience of emotion like the emotion of another person.
Empathy shares Sympathy expresses
I feel your pain I am sorry for your pain
Empathy is a mindset based upon personality Sympathy is a mindset based upon learning
Empathy is a talent Sympathy is a learned behavior
Empathy is exhibited in sharing Sympathy is increased by repetition

Of the two, empathy is a deeper feeling, but sympathy can be just as honest and heartfelt. However, empathy can forge a deeper and more meaningful connection, thus serving as a bridge for greater communication between individuals or between a leader and his or her followers.  Empathy most often leads to sympathy.  But sympathy alone does not lead to empathy.  This study leads me to something else; the actions that come from both empathy and sympathy: compassion.

Compassion is the action that is motivated by either empathy or sympathy. Compassion recognizes the situation and does something with it. Both sympathy and empathy imply caring for another person, but with empathy, the caring is enhanced or expanded by being able to feel the other person’s emotions.

In my study, I found a remarkable statement: The capacity to sympathize and empathize are considered vital for a sense of humanity — i.e., the ability to understand one’s fellow humans and their problems. People who lack this capacity are often classified as narcissistic, sociopathic, or in extreme cases, psychopathic.  I don’t think the person spoken of earlier needs to find a psychiatrist. But I do believe that both empathy and sympathy are vitally important to our humanity. He should try and do all he can to develop a sense of sympathy through practice. A sense of sympathy that can be exhibited in compassion with a willingness to stop and listen carefully to other situations and pain.  Sympathy is a learned behavior and empathy is personal talent. You can’t learn empathy.  You can learn to be sympathetic.

What do you think, leave a comment?

Church, Ministry, Ramblings

The CHURCH as a business?

I have seen and lived two worlds: the world of church and the world of business.  The disturbing point is when a church starts to act like a business.  This hybrid diminishes the Godly center for the external edge.  Pastors start to act like Chief Executive Officers marketing Jesus as a product. The Bible uses many colorful words to describe the church. It’s a family, a body, a fellowship, a holy people, a flock, and more.  However, it is never described as a business.

It’s not that there are no business aspects to leading a local church or denomination. Much like a family is better off when we manage our money and time more effectively, most pastors would serve Jesus, their church and their families better if we used good business principles to manage our time, energy and resources more efficiently, too.  But using wise business principles is not the same as running a church as though it was a business.

There are many things and/or attitudes that are simply wrong.

  1. A business is always about customers and sales. In too many churches, we tell our “guests” to sit back, relax and enjoy the service”, to be consumers of the heavenly juice that will be provided on que and in four-four time.  We provide the best coffee, the perfect temperature, the songs are on key, the sermon never exceeds the allotted time, and the pews are always padded.  There is little to challenge or, (heaven forbid) make our customers uncomfortable by talking about repentance and sin. While there’s a lot of finger-pointing at the rise of a consumer culture in new, seeker-friendly churches, the customer model happens in churches of all types. Big and small, old-school and new-school, high and low liturgy, denominational and nondenominational. Church members are not supposed to be passive customers. We’re supposed to be active participants in the ministry of the church.
  2. A business has a leadership hierarchy. Either the Pastor is the Chief Executive Officer with all its responsibilities and authority, or the Church Board wields this big stick. If the he pastor is seen and acts like he is the owner or manager, the membership feels restrained in doing anything without the CEO’s permission. When the pastor acts like they own the church, church members will either push back, give in, or leave.
    Conversely, if it is the board that is the ultimate business owner it is just as problematic. That form of church governing isn’t wrong (the church I pastor requires congregational approval for big decisions), but when it’s abused – as any good thing can be – the church members become more like passive investors demanding a return for their money. Board membership becomes more important than actual servanthood, pastors are afraid to take a potentially unpopular stand, and actual ministry grinds to a halt under the heavy hand of procedures and pettiness.
    Either extreme business model there is no expectation or encouragement to think outside of the stated and codified business statement. The result? Burnt out pastors and shallow members.
  3. A business is accountable only to shareholders. In every church, there is a special group of default members.  Those in this group could well be classified as shareholders.  They have been in the church since it began, they have paid their dues, they have served in every capacity possible, they have their own pew, and are the first to disapprove of any behavior that is not what they perceive to be within the norm.  They seem to hold sway over all.  Their displeasure is felt both in the offering plate and gossip. “Why does the (fill in the blank) do it my way?”
  4. Perhaps the biggest problem with these three skewed visions of the church is how we treat (or ignore) Jesus. If anyone in the church is acting like a boss, they’re crowding out the place where Jesus should be Lord. And when church members act like customers, they’re missing out on the extraordinary joy of serving Jesus.  Prayer is more important than process.  Servanthood in more important that bi-laws.  Faith is more important than fidelity to fragile feelings.

Businesses have employees and customers. The church has family members. Businesses have bosses. The church has a Lord. A head. A savior. And a king.

Comments?

Church, Ministry, Preaching

The Church and Leadership

There is a giant gap between leadership and management.  This truth is ever more important as it pertains to the church.  The main difference between a church leader and manager is that a leader has people follow them, while managers have people who work for them.  I have had personal experience with both.  The very nature of the person that would be person up front can well be defined as having one of these two styles.  The issue is there are few that would characterize themselves as leaders and in doing so their influence in making positive change is severely limited. The primal cause of this situation is the church, in its efforts to be relevant in today’s society is trying to emulate the societies norms.  Managers are good enough. Any church, no matter how large or small must find and build up leaders; managers are not enough to make a real lasting difference in the church.  It is a good thing if the person of influence holds both characteristics if leadership and management, but settling for the latter is a shame.

Leadership is about getting people to understand and believe in a vision and to work with the people to achieve visionary goals while managing is more about administering and making sure the day-to-day things are happening as they should.

I know that a plethora of materials and data exist on personality assessments and characteristics.  And I have discovered many great sources.  There is a common tread to most of them.  There are some distinctive traits that make up a strong leader.

  1. Leaders believe they are leaders: I have seen leadership become management just because of the lack of self-confidence. It is easier to minimize risk than to take one.  It is easier to do a thing right than to do the right thing.  It is easier to be reactive than proactive. It is easier to set plans around constraints, than to set direction and lead toward that direction.  Leaders have an inward confidence in what they are and what they can accomplish.
  2. Leaders make a difference through vision. Leaders have a vision, believe in that vision, and know that vision will make a positive impact. Leaders know where the church is and where the leader wants the church to be.   A leader goes out and enrolls the body in charting a path for the future. The capacity to imagine and articulate exciting future possibilities is a defining competence of a leader.   If the church can’t see a leader’s vision, there is little hope in them following. The leader must be confident in himself.  A leader must believe in leadership.
  3. Honesty & Integrity: are crucial to move people to believe you and buy in to the journey you are taking them on. What does it take for others to believe in a leader?    It has been said many times, and it bears repeating again.  In these times when even those in the church are becoming more and more cynical about leadership and institutions, it has never been a more important than the character of the leader is believable.  The church must know what the leader has committed himself to do and be.  They must know and see what the leader values.  If the leader of a church values only that the bills are paid and the grass is mowed, there is little value to the larger picture or the greater vision. Either lead by example or don’t lead at all.  Leaders have to keep their promises and become role models for their vision, values and actions.
  4. Inspiration: The church needs to be stirred. A leader no matter how well trained and gifted, no leader ever accomplished anything extraordinary without the talent and support of others. Going out on a great visionary journey without others is nothing more than walk around the block.  Leadership is a team sport and for your team to be all they can be each must understand their role in the bigger picture.   They have to be inspired in more than just a destination but are enthused by their part in the journey. Managers are all about work to be done, leaders only about leading people through vision.
  5. Trust: If you can’t do it alone and rely on others, what is needed to make the vision happen?   Trust is the social glue that holds individuals and groups together. It is directly proportional between the level of trust and influence.  A leader has to earn trust of any one is to follow.  The leader must give trust before expecting any in return. A large part of this trust is based upon honest and complete communication. Keeping the team informed of the journey, where you are, where you are heading and share any roadblocks you may encounter along the way is the best way to earn trust.
  6. Challenge: Exemplary leaders, the kind of which people want to follow, are always associated with changing the status quo. Great achievements don’t happen when things are kept the same.  Change invariable involves challenge, and challenge test everyone.  Change introduces everyone in the church to examine themselves inwardly.  It brings each member face to face with their personal level of commitment.  It forces each to dig deep into personal values and belief. Change changes everyone.  The goal of a manager is toward stability and for a leader is change.
  7. It is a matter of the heart: Leaders who love their followers are great leaders. Leaders that have empathy for follower’s pain are followed. Leaders make others feel important and are gracious in showing appreciation. Love is the motivation that energizes leaders to give so much to the vision and those following the vision.  Managers see the flock as subordinates and leaders as fellow followers of the vision. Managers are motivated by the head and a leader by the heart. The wonder of it all is that leadership, great leadership, driven by first and last by love.

What do you think?  Add a comment.

Ministry, Preaching, Sermon Illustration

Knowing of God and Knowing God

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Hank, had just graduated from college ….with Landscaping contractor’s license.  He moved to a small rural town and opened a small office, bought a new pickup truck and waited for his first job.

The first job that was offered him was to remove a stump in a farmer’s field.

Wanted to act as if he knew what he was doing when he met the farmer in the middle of the pasture and all the cows.  Dynamite was the logical choice.  After helping the farmer to move all the cows to another pasture, Hank pulled out the box of explosives.

Hank dug a small hole under the base of the very large tree just as was illustrated in his textbook he had read the night before. He knew he would have to pack it in with enough dirt to contain the blast.  He used a calculator to determine the length of the fuse.

The problem was how much to use… He had no idea….  He didn’t want the farmer to know he as an amateur so he simply guessed at the number of sticks of dynamite.  So hoping it would be enough to move the stump but not so much as to kill them all, he put in the charge with the fuse, tamped it in carefully, covered it with dirt.

The moment came with a look at the farmer and a nod he lit the fuse and ran for cover.

An eternity seemed to pass.  In the middle of faint mooing of cows in the distance and huddled down behind the farmer’s tractor, it happened.

It was a mighty blast

The stump not only moved but it was catapulted into the air fifty feet.  It did three complete revolutions and landed right in the middle of the cab of his new pickup.

In the calm that followed, in the deathly silence, the farmer turned to hank and said: “With a bit more practice you should be able land those thing in the truck bed every time.”

There is a great difference between hearing how something is done and actually doing it.

And so there is a great difference between hearing what God is like and Knowing God.

 

Church, Life, Ministry, Ramblings, Uncategorized

Passion

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Passion is what energizes life. It is the zing in our waking.  It is the empowerment to go one more time. It turns the impossible into possible. In fact, if you don’t have any passion in your life, your ministry, your church, or in your salvation, you will become boring, dull, routine, monotonous. What I am saying here is, if you don’t have passion in your life you are not living. You are existing. God made you to live a passionate life and to serve him and his people with vitality. Life with vibrancy, energy, and enthusiasm is not the exception, it is the expected norm. He wants you to have this in your life.  If you are not living on the edge of excitement you are probably just taking up space.

In John 10, Jesus said “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” God wants you to live a full life, a fulfilling life, which is the basis for a fulfilling your calling to be one of his followers. If that’s true, that’s the kind of life God meant for us to live. Life is meant to be enjoyed, not merely endured. Sadly, however, countless thousands of pastors, hundreds of thousands of Godly church members and ministry leaders are simply enduring, holding on for the ride and hoping to survive until death without blowing it too badly.

The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:9, “God, who got you started in this spiritual adventure, shares with us the life of his Son and our Master Jesus. He will never give up on you. Never forget that.” God’s will for you is to live and lead in a spiritual adventure. The life that God plans for you is not a mundane boring life. It is an adventurous life. Helen Keller once said, “Life is either a daring adventure or it’s nothing.” I often think the same should be true of our spiritual walk – it’s a daring, bold adventure, or it’s nothing.

Brent Hobbs defines passion this way:
Passion is waking up in the morning wherever you are and bounding out of bed because you know there’s something out there that you love to do, that you believe in and that you’re good at. Something that’s bigger than you are and you can hardly wait to get at it again. It’s something you’d rather be doing more than anything else. You wouldn’t give it up for money because it means more to you than money.

Ministry, Ramblings, Sermon Illustration

Decisions are never easy.

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All my decisions no matter how they were made, have not been always the best.  I have made lots of bad decisions in my life.  These decisions were made when I was young and not so young.  Some were made in the ministry, while others were made in the business world.  I have made bad decisions pertaining to my family and even in my marriage.  I have never set out to make a bad decision. My methodology of decision making changed over the years but sometimes one will raise itself up and bite me on the behind.  Some bad decisions I have made resulted in personal despair and some have even been repeated with an expectation of better results; but not very often has the result changed.

So what can I do to improve my decision making process?  How can I make them and significantly increase the quality?

In my experience, there are a few common factors that lead to me making a bad decision.

Haste is the enemy of good decisions – Some would say that the mark of a good leader is the ability to make a quick decision. We want to make the decision to overcome the anxiety of indecision.  I often find myself wanting to make a decision just to get out of the responsibility for making it. I completely understand the need for decisions in a crisis.  When the avalanche is coming your way, it is probably better to run, then to assess the percentage of survivability based on the gross weight of the mass coming in my direction.  But these avalanche decisions are far and few between. I have discovered when the potential outcome is significant, however, the more time I can give to it the less likely I am to make a mistake.  And the vast majority of conclusions should not be made ad hoc. In my experience, taking an extra moment has improved the outcomes. Learning when to wait, seek God, the counsel of others, and for better personal discernment is part of maturing, but can help us avoid some of the costlier bad decisions.

Analysis paralysis  – In as much as we have to slow down in our analysis, so also we must not be set in stone waiting for all the information to be available. Waiting on all the facts to made available slows and even stops progress. There are times when a fast decision is easy; even prudent. If I know the right answer—if it has a Biblical basis, for example, or my conscience is clearly convicted but we become reticent to implement because it would mean a lot of work.  Work for me and work for others. I’ve learned that waiting seldom makes the decision easier and often only complicates the process. There has to be a medium between not to fast and not to slow. Again, from my experience some decisions make matters worse by delaying them.

Happy People – All of the decisions I have made in the past have had people implications.  I have yet to make a decision that everyone agreed with. Management, leadership, decision making is seldom the popular position to take. People pleasing as a decision motivator rarely accomplishes matters of worth. It often makes the worst decision of the options available.

Angry Decisions – I am not a very emotion person in my senior years.  When I was younger you probably would have seen a completely different personality.  I was angry often.  I would lash out in retribution towards all that didn’t agree with me.  In my mind I could hear, “I will be a better friend than an enemy.” Often emotions were the downfall of my process. If I’m angry—or emotional in any other way—I tend to overreact or under react. Emotionally based decisions, especially immediate decisions, are often ones I tend to regret later.

Without consultation – “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.” (Proverbs 15:22). Two things here.  I have worked with committees, boards, councils, and assemblies.  True, I may have an opinion but I also must have the ability to allow others to change my mind.  “Don’t confuse me with facts, my mind has been made up,” is not a good place to be. Secondly, a part of leadership is standing alone at times, never-the-less rarely are we really alone. We should always walk in the counsel of God’s Spirit.  If it is only up to me to stand in the leadership gap and none are included or even allowed to make the decision.  I have come to the realization that God is there.

Reaction or Adhocracy – Ultimately I want to work from a plan. I work best from a script.  A set of absolutes to which I will not move.  And no matter the passion, conviction, and verbiage, there is a line I will not cross. I need to be in a place where decisions are made before before the decision is needed. We want proactive decision-making. That’s obviously not always possible, but in my experience, I’m more likely to make a bad decision when I’m reacting to a situation, rather than having thought about the scenario and my response beforehand.

Perfect Love casts out fear – We are called to walk by faith, yet fear is often a more powerful initiator. But I’ve learned, when I decide because I’m afraid to—or not to—do something, I almost always make a mistake. Following my faith gut, even when afraid, is part of leadership. And part of life.

There are probably a hundred or more different ways to make a bad decision and only a few ways to make a good decision.  But for me this is my decision making list.