Wednesday Mind Dump…

mind dump

  • I’m finally getting to this, although a little late because of the holiday on Monday.
  • We did a staycation at a hotel in Tucson with my cousin and his kids.
  • Super fun time playing in the pool and relaxing.
  • My kids told me they want to live at the resort.
  • Me too I told them. Me too.
  • It was perfect timing because of the busyness of starting the fall ministry season and getting back into they rhythm of school.
  • The last 2 weeks at Revolution have been intense topics.
  • Preaching on free will, election, God’s grace, choice, hardening hearts.
  • For me, it was exciting and difficult walking through those passages.
  • If you missed them or want to watch again, you can do so here.
  • I’m really excited about the journey Katie and I are on as we are going through the Leaders Journey with Acts 29 West.
  • It deals with a lot of leadership health, family of origin, baggage and sin patterns and how they affect you as a leader and those you lead.
  • It has been uncomfortably helpful.
  • That’s the best way to put it.
  • Two books we’ve read that have been really convicting and helpful are Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality and The Deeper Journey: The Spirituality of Discovering Your True Self.
  • I don’t know about anyone else, but the fact that football is back on is amazing.
  • I don’t follow any other sports so I love when the end of August rolls around.
  • Excited to have another local guest worship leader this Sunday at Revolution.
  • It’s been awesome to see how our team has stepped up at Revolution without a worship leader and how worship leaders throughout Tucson have been willing to come and serve our church.
  • Love it.
  • Many of you have asked if we’ll hire another worship leader. Yes.
  • When? We don’t know.
  • We want to go slow and find what our church needs right now, but also what we’ll need as we move closer to planting a church.
  • One of the things I’m most excited about at Revolution right now is the leaders group that started this morning.
  • Every year, I take 8 – 12 leaders through a training program to help them become better spiritual leaders.
  • We look at work, family, relationship with God, theology and self leadership.
  • I’ve gotten some questions from other pastors about what I do, so be waiting on a blog post coming soon.
  • The first book they read is Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity.
  • If you struggle with time management and productivity, start with that book.
  • Well, halfway through the week.
  • Almost 24 hours til real NFL football (the Broncos lose tomorrow by the way).
  • Back at it…

How to Protect Your Heart as a Pastor

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Every week when a pastor preaches, they talk about the sin that binds the people in their church, the idols they battle, the lies they easily fall into and the truth of Jesus that frees them and destroys sin and death.

Pastors by and large, struggle to apply this same medicine to their own sin.

Much of the identity and idols that pastor’s fall into reside in what happens on a Sunday morning at church. High attendance, strong giving, loud singing and it was a good day. A pastor will float through Sunday night, post about all that God did on twitter and wake up ready to charge hell on Monday morning.

Low attendance, a down week in giving, few laughs and no one sings and the pastor will go home, look at twitter and get jealous of the megachurch down the road and wake up Monday morning ready to resign and get another job.

The difference between the two examples?

The heart of the pastor.

When we started Revolution, I rode this roller coaster (and still do many weeks if I’m not careful). I was so concerned about these metrics of our church: how many people came, what did people give. Some of that is a necessity because when you are a church plant, there are weeks that if no one gives you may close down. It got so bad at one point that I would help with the offering count so I would know how much was given right after church and then I could go home knowing if it would be a good night or a bad one.

This feels silly to write, but it is the ride many pastors go on each weekend.

Here are a couple of things I’ve done to protect my heart:

  1. Stay off social media until Monday. Twitter and Facebook are great, but on Sunday it is pastor after pastor talking about the triumph of the day. I get it and love to celebrate it, but it can create a resentful spirit if you aren’t careful. Like all temptations, if you don’t engage, you are able to fight it. Also, many pastors want to see how many people tweeted their stuff, if anyone said anything about church and this can easily stroke a pastors ego.
  2. Find out the attendance and giving on Monday. If you find a lot of identity in what the attendance and giving was, wait until Monday to find out what they were. Yes, these are helpful metrics to the health of your church (along with how many people serve, are in community, become Christians and invite someone), but it doesn’t make a difference in the life of your church if you find them out on Sunday or Monday. It only matters to a pastor who finds identity in them.

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Two Things Church Planters & Networks Don’t Talk About Part 2

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I’ve been in church planting circles for almost a decade now and have watched countless church planters start with zeal only to fizzle out and quit. The reasons are many, but they come back (often) to only two things.

What is sad about these the reasons is that they are the two least talked about topics on church planting circles.

Most church planters and pastors do not quit or fail in ministry because of theological issues or leadership skills. While this happens and you can lose your job because a denomination changes its stance on something or you fail in your leadership skills, that rarely happens.

The first reason pastors and church planters fail (that is not talked about enough) has to do with leadership healthI am stunned at the number overweight pastors, run down and tired church planters. We get excited about the preaching ability of a pastor but don’t ask him if he is resting well and taking his sabbath. It matters more if a pastor can raise enough money than if he is sleeping and eating well.

The second reason pastors and church planters faith (that is not talked about enough or at least correctly) deals with the pastor’s wife. It is helpful how many church planting networks are now assessing marriages and looking at the character of a man and how he pastors his wife. I’m not talking about that, but what happens in her heart.

One thing I hear from every network I encounter is how much they care about a church planters wife. Yet, when you attend any of their meetings, conferences, boot camps (or whatever else they call them), a wife is absent. We train him and expect her to come along for the ride. We ask him about his calling and assume she’s as excited as he is. We hear him talk about vision and leadership prowess and never ask if she’s excited about attending the church that exists only in his head.

Once the church launches and he’s building a team, following up with guests and killing himself (as we saw in part 1), she is dying by herself.

I remember hearing the pastor of a fast growing church talk about his wife and what she did at the church as far as serving goes and he said, “I’m just glad she attends.” And he was serious. After the nervous laughter everything moved on and I thought, “That’s our bar? She attends.”

Sadly though, church planters, their networks and conferences and books would say it is more than that and they have a higher expectation than that, but our practices don’t back that up.

What if, the priority was placed on caring for a church planters wife, like we do for a pastor? What if we had an expectation that she was as bought in as he is? What if when we ask him how he is growing and what is he reading, we ask her the same question? What if we talked about leadership health for him and for her? What if we were impressed by how much time he gives his wife to refuel her soul as he does to refuel his own? What if we cared about connecting wives with each other as we do of having the brotherhood relate to each other?

I think a lot would change.

While affairs and pornography take down a lot of pastors, part of why it leads to that is we have not placed a high emphasis on the health and well-being of a church planters wife. We talk about the importance of marriage and staying together, but what about the importance of care

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Two Things Church Planters & Networks Don’t Talk About Part 1

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We planted Revolution Church 6 years ago. Leading up to that, I attended countless conferences, read tons of blogs and books and gathered up as much information as I possibly could. Then, we planted, joined Acts 29 (which I love), have continued to get more training and now I have the opportunity to train and coach church planters.

Sadly though, not every church planter who plants will finish. Not every couple who blazes the trail with excitement and passion with finish with excitement and passion.

Ironically, the reasons for failing, not finishing, falling out of ministry are usually the same.

What is sad about these the reasons is that they are the two least talked about topics on church planting circles.

Most church planters and pastors do not quit or fail in ministry because of theological issues or leadership skills. While this happens and you can lose your job because a denomination changes its stance on something or you fail in your leadership skills, that rarely happens.

The first reason pastors and church planters fail (that is not talked about enough) has to do with leadership health. I am stunned at the number overweight pastors, run down and tired church planters. We get excited about the preaching ability of a pastor but don’t ask him if he is resting well and taking his sabbath. It matters more if a pastor can raise enough money than if he is sleeping and eating well.

If you want a healthy church, have a healthy pastor.

This means a pastor is eating well, sleeping well, taking his vacation days, not preaching 50 Sunday’s a year.

This becomes the responsibility of the pastor as much as the church.

Here are a few things you can do as a leader:

  1. Put into your calendar your day off, preaching break and vacation. Nothing happens if it is not on your calendar. I plan the Sundays I won’t preach over a year in advance so I can work series around them, plan my vacation and so Katie and I can make our schedule work for us instead of the other way around. It is almost Christmas, you should have your summer vacation planned (even if it is a stay-cation). Figure out what Sundays are low attended Sundays and allow people to preach.
  2. Educate your church and elders about leadership health and longevity. Your elders may not understand how important leadership health is. They may also not understand how draining ministry can be. I love being a pastor, but it is a job that never ends and can be relationally, physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally draining. By simply adding the spiritual aspect of ministry, you make this job different from others and that needs to be accounted for. Explain this, tell them your plan for health and longevity, explain what you will do when you aren’t preaching and how this benefits you and the church.
  3. Train people to do what you do. When we planted Revolution, I preached 50 times the first year and 49 the second. It was a disaster. Some of that had to do with my pride but also because I had no one else. So, train other preachers. If you don’t have any, use video sermons from another pastor. Will someone get mad about this? Maybe, but that doesn’t matter.
  4. Crush the idols that keep you from healthy leadership. Pride is a reason many pastors are unhealthy and don’t rest well or eat well. Ask for help. Do some research. Admit to someone that you aren’t sleeping well, that you are using alcohol to help you sleep or taking sleeping pills and now you are addicted. Don’t hide in the shadows because eventually you will run out of steam and quit.
  5. Create a healthy culture in your staff. I get an email almost every week from a lead pastor or staff pastor asking, “How do I rest well? How do I eat well? What do I do when my lead pastor or elders want me to be available 24/7?” The culture in many churches works against healthy leadership, but also biblical principles. Jesus had no problem walking away from everything to rest and recharge. He did it at the worst and most inopportune moments as well. He was also available when people needed him. He balanced that well. If you want to be healthy, you will probably have to train your staff as well. They won’t learn it at any leadership conference or church planting boot camp sadly.

As I said at the start, there are two things that keep pastors and church planters from finishing and those two things are two of (I believe) the least talked about things in church planting circles. Leadership health is the first one, come back next week for the second one.

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How a Wife Flourishes

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The idea of roles in marriage is filled with land mines. Many people have misused and misinterpreted the beautiful verses in the Bible to make them say what they want to. Few people have actually seen healthy couples live out roles well and often have incorrect views of Biblical roles. We have visions of quiet wives who say nothing, men who dominate and abuse their families all based on Ephesians 5, completely missing the point of this passage.

In thinking about how a husband helps his wife flourish and become all that God has called her to be, here are 5 ways men often fail and how to work against these problems to create the picture described in Ephesians 5:

  1. Spiritually apathetic. This husband completely abdicates his role as the spiritual leader of his family. He often will not go to church with his wife and kids and if he does, he is very passive. Not getting involved, not praying with his wife or kids, not praying at dinner, not guiding his kids spiritually, not asking questions, not reading the Scripture to them. He lets that up to the church or his wife.
  2. Workaholic. This husband sees being a husband simply as providing for the needs of his family. While that is part of being a husband, there is more to it than making money so there is a roof over their head, clothes on their back and food on the table. This type of man is disconnected from the family in some very important ways.
  3. Dictator. This husband uses his role as a way to control and get his way, all the time. It doesn’t matter how he gets his way and it doesn’t matter what happens because he has gotten his way. He just wants his way. Often, he will use Bible verses to get it. This husband will treat his wife and kids as slaves and orders them around. Often, this will lead to physical abuse, which is nowhere near what Paul had in mind in Ephesians 5 when he called men to be the head of their house.
  4. Emotionally detached. This is the husband who is the head of the family in name only. He has nothing to do with his wife, kids. He does not lead them in any form. He simply sits by, dictating when he doesn’t like something, letting his wife take on his role and responsibility and basically do everything he is supposed to do. Emotionally, he does not know how to relate to his and kids. He does not know how to connect to his family, he is distant.
  5. Irresponsible. This is the husband who buys things without consulting his wife, makes decisions on his own and generally puts his family in financial, relational, physical and emotional danger because “He is the head of the house.” This husband sees leadership as a club to get to do what he wants.

If you are married and curious to know how your marriage is in this area, here is a simple question to ask: is the wife flourishing?

When a man fulfills the role God has called him to in marriage, his wife will flourish. She will have room to grow, there will be grace for her to deal with past hurts in her life, she will be able to use her gifts to bless her family and the world around her, she will have freedom to be who God has called her to be.

I often tell our church: Husbands should create an umbrella under which a woman is protected to become the woman God has called her to be. 

Helpful Hints from Visiting Other Churches

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I love visiting other churches. I love learning from what other churches do well, stealing ideas to improve Revolution. I love being able to worship with my wife and hear great sermons and have my heart be challenged. Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to attend some churches in Tucson and in California on vacation. Here are some things that I was reminded of for my own leadership and for Revolution:

  1. Signs matter. I’m blown away by how many churches have horrible signage. Most churches assume everyone knows where everything is: the front door, exit, bathroom, worship service, kids ministry, etc. If you think you have enough signs, you don’t. Someone should be able to pull onto your campus, walk in and find everything without having to ask for help.
  2. Say hi but don’t mob people. I’m an introvert so I don’t like the 15 people shaking my hand, hugging me or the 2-10 minute greeting time where we talk to people around us. I know some people do and if you do, you can skip this one. You should say hi to someone, but don’t mob them. They should receive a smile, a touch (handshake, high five) and a thanks for coming and we’ll see you next week. If people want more, they’ll get it. Extroverts have no problem getting more interaction at church.
  3. Show me, don’t point me. When a guest asks where something is, don’t give them directions. I remember visiting one church and we asked where the kids met and they said, “Go through the auditorium, out into the courtyard, look to the right, when you see a soccer goal, look beyond that to a modular trailer and it’s next to that.” And we started walking. We asked 5 people along the way to make sure we were heading in the right direction. Show a guest to something, don’t tell them directions or point. 
  4. Treat me like I don’t know what’s coming next, because, I don’t know what’s coming next. Tell me what’s next. Tell me how long I’ll be there, how long the service will last. Tell me what page the bible verse is on because I may not know and don’t want to feel stupid as I look for it.
  5. Preaching matters. Preaching takes up half of a service or more. Make sure it is good. It doesn’t have to be world class, but be prepared. Don’t stumble around. Make me care about what you are talking about. I don’t care simply because you stand up and preach. Tell me why I should care, speak to my heart and my head. And, tell me what to do with what you just told me. If I walk out with no clear next step, studies show I’ll probably forget everything you said by Wednesday.
  6. Worship matters. Worship is the other half of the service, make it count. I wrote a letter to worship leaders here that can explain what that means.
  7. Kids ministry matters. In today’s culture, if you want to reach families, kids matter. It needs to be safe and secure. If you don’t give me a tag for my kids, I won’t leave them with you. If my kids didn’t like it, I probably won’t be back next week. If you are a kids worker, when you say hi to a child, get down on their level and talk to them.
  8. Say thanks. This seems like a silly thing, seeing as the person who visited your church chose to, but they didn’t have to. They gave up their morning to be with you. Got the kids out of bed, got dressed and came. Tell them thanks. This might be a gift or words. Tell them to come back, let them know you hope to see them again.
  9. Make announcements shorter. Announcements are too long at most churches. Period. Make them shorter. Cut as much out as possible.

Will You Mentor Me?

mentor

Since Revolution Church is filled with people in college and their 20’s and because we’re part of Acts 29, myself and the other leaders at Revolution will often get requests to mentor someone. Either in our church or a church planter or worship leader.

This has caused me to think through, what makes an effective mentor. They are important, but I think we often set ourselves and the person we are seeking help from up for disaster.

A mentor is someone further ahead of you in an area you want to grow in. 

No one person can mentor you in every part of your life.

This is the problem we run into. We look for someone to be the end all be all for us.

When someone asks for a mentor, I explain this to them and then ask a series of questions:

  1. What is the 1 or 2 areas you want to grow in as you think about your life in the next 3, 6, 12 months? This could be finances, prayer, marriage, boundaries, health, etc.
  2. Why do you think I can help you? I want to know why they think I can help them. Not because I want to pump up my ego, but I want to know they’ve done their homework on me not just threw a dart at the wall and picked the closest person.
  3. What are you doing or have you tried to grow in this area? Often, not always, but often people seek a mentor because they are lazy. I want to know what books or blogs this person has looked at in this area. Are they actively seeking to grow in this area or just hoping to rub off success from someone. Which leads to the last part.
  4. How much time are you willing to put into this? Anything worth doing will take time. You won’t grow in your handling of finances, health, marriage, career, preaching, etc. without putting in time and effort. This is a commitment you are as the person getting mentored is making, the mentor is coming along for the ride and if I as the mentor am not convinced you are into the ride, I’m getting off.

If you are worth your salt as a leader, person or pastor, you will be asked often to mentor people. You must be selectively in who you mentor because you are giving up one of your most precious commodities as a leader, your time. If you are asking to be mentored, to succeed and have it be worthwhile for you, you need to do your homework and be willing to put in the work. There is nothing more exciting than working with a person who wants to grow in an area and helping them to grow in that area. Love seeing that happen.

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Dear Worship Leader

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Dear Worship Leader,

Because I speak every week and have done so for the last 10+ years, I’ve seen a lot of worship leaders. From camps, conferences, church services, student and college ministry, it takes all kinds. Most of them are great. Some of them, not so much. Most of them have great hearts with a desire to lead a group of people into the presence of Jesus to worship, others, not so much. I thought I’d share some thoughts as a person who preaches and worships in church on a weekly basis, sort of my viewpoint of you and some requests.

  1. It’s not about you. I know worship leaders would never say it is about them or preachers either. But sometimes, it seems like it is more about you than Jesus. We are not there to watch you worship. We are not there to see how amazing you are or how incredible your voice is or that killer drum or guitar solo you just nailed. If that’s all people talk about at the end, it failed.
  2. Talk normally. So many worship leaders when they talk between songs sound like they are trying to seductively get me out of my clothes. If your voice sounds like Barry White normally, then great. If not, talk normally. Don’t breath heavy, make weird pauses. I leaned over to Katie at one worship service recently and told her I felt like the worship leader was hitting on us. It shouldn’t feel that way.
  3. Everything you say, pray and the songs you sing teach me about God. When you pray, think through it. When you talk about asking for more of the presence of the Holy Spirit, is that possible? Or do we need to be more aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit? Make sure you know what the Father, Son and Spirit do. When you make it up on the fly, you make theological errors that we in the seats listen to and believe. After all, you’re on stage. As for lyrics, make sure they are theologically correct. Also, what does it mean to sing to the heart of Jesus? When you tell us to sing this straight to Jesus I wonder who we’ve been singing to this whole time. A lot of what is said on the latest Hillsong and Passion album sound awesome in an arena, but when there are 25 people in a church plant, we don’t want to shout to God.
  4. Pray normally. When you pray, do you say God or Jesus over and over. Dear God, we love you God. Thank you God. God, your presence is so amazing God. Oh God. If that’s how you pray, great. If not, pray normally. Sometimes people pray and I wonder how many times they will say God’s name like they might forget it. The way you pray teaches the rest of us to pray and if it doesn’t sound normal, it communicates a normal person can’t pray. Also, when you pray, I learn theology about God.
  5. Don’t repreach the sermon. There is nothing worse than preaching a sermon, one that I as the preacher have thought about for anywhere from 1 week to 8 months just to have a worship leader come up after me and on the fly repreach it in 5 minutes and make me wonder, “Why did we just sit here?” Or, when you repreach it incorrectly. I remember speaking at another church and the worship leader came up and tried to make my point, but missed it. Showing he wasn’t really listening.
  6. Your dress reflects your heart. This is for men and women. If your dress is distracting, revealing or over the top, no one is paying attention to Jesus. They are looking at you. What you wear, how low cut it is, how short your skirt is, how tight your shirt is, all reflects your heart.
  7. Don’t make us stand forever. I know people stand forever at a concert, but once you start getting to 15, 20, 25 minutes of straight standing people start checking out because it hurts. Knees, back, necks, they all start to ache.
  8. When you sing high, men stop singing. If you are a worship leader, you probably have an incredible range. That’s awesome. You can probably sing all the songs exactly as they are recorded on the CD. That’s awesome. The problem is few other people can, especially men. When you sing too high, men stop singing and check out.
  9. Explain what we are doing. Why are we standing? Why are we reading this prayer? If you want me to do something, tell me and explain it. Don’t assume I want to do the thing you want me to do. You’ve spent all week thinking about it, working on it and I just heard about it.
  10. Sing familiar songs each week. I love new songs and if you lead worship, you get tired of songs quickly. The reason? By the time you teach a song to a church, you’ve listened to it 100 times. The problem is, most people do not listen to worship music throughout the week. They don’t know the songs. So, if you teach a song and the following week don’t sing it again, we forget it.

I love worship leaders. I love that at Revolution, almost half the service is music. I want you to be great. If you don’t serve with a pastor that wants you to be as great as possible, go find a new pastor to work with. The people who show up each week show up wanting to meet Jesus and you are a big part of that. You help us encounter Jesus in a personal, emotional and logical way. I want you to be great and I don’t want anything to stand in the way of you being the worship leader God called you to be.

How to Survive Monday as a Pastor

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It’s Monday.

Which for most pastors, worship leaders, kids and student pastors, means the hardest and worst day of the week. Pastors even call it bread truck Monday because of a desire to go and drive a break truck or because they feel like they got hit by a bread truck. For a few reasons:

  1. What we do is war. In the spiritual sense. You may have had to deal with a relational battle yesterday. You prayed with people, counseled people and are carrying their burdens and weight. You have shepherded them through difficulties, wept with them, challenged them to walk away from sin and watched people destroy their lives one step at a time.
  2. You problem slept terribly on Saturday night as you thought about the day, got up early and then slept poorly on Sunday night as you were simply too tired to sleep.
  3. Leading worship, preaching, talking with people is incredible, awesome, the highlight of my week and incredibly exhausting all at the same time. You physically have nothing left after a Sunday. You probably have nothing left spiritually, emotionally or relationally to give as well.
  4. There is a good chance you woke up on Monday to a pile of emails from angry people, people leaving your church or thinking about leaving your church. You may have some fires brewing that you are wondering if you can handle. An elder that is a thorn in your side. And you are tired.

So what do you do? This happens almost every Monday. Because of this, many pastors take Monday off. If you do, that’s fine. But I feel like that is making a hard day worse. Your family doesn’t want you around if you are going to be angry, grumpy and have a short temper.

Here are few things that have helped me and my family survive Mondays:

  1. Get out of bed. Some Monday’s are great to sleep in, but I often find that getting out of bed and getting rolling is a better idea. If I stay in bed too long I feel sluggish, no matter what day it is.
  2. Know that Tuesday is coming. Most of the things that seem insurmountable on Monday look easy on Tuesday. I’m amazed at how often I get stressed about things and in 3 weeks time I have forgotten about them.
  3. Get a workout, bike ride, hike or run in. I know, you are tired and can barely move. The adrenaline from preaching is hard to deal with the older I get. I actually do yoga every Sunday morning before preaching just so I can move on Monday because the adrenaline kills me. But get going, do something active. It gets your blood moving and you are in a better mood afterwards.
  4. Take a nap. You should take a nap on Monday. You will probably have very little steam by the end of the day, so lay down.
  5. Work on your soul. Read something that speak to your soul. You preached your heart out, gave everything you had to students and kids, led worship with everything you had, now you need to feed yourself. Monday is a great time to listen to a sermon by someone else to be challenged.
  6. Don’t be around anyone that makes you angry. On Monday, you have a short fuse so do yourself and others a favor and only be around people you like. The fallout from not following this can be bad for everyone involved.
  7. Do administrative stuff. Don’t have a meeting on Monday, don’t counsel anyone. I know lots of leaders like to evaluate on Monday because it is fresh, write it down and talk about it on Tuesday. Return some emails, blog, following up with guests, new believers, those are fun and invigorating for a pastor.
  8. Serve your wife. You were probably a bear to hear at some point on Saturday or Sunday. She was a single mom on Sunday with your kids while you worked and she is just as tired as you are. I know you don’t believe me and think your job is harder, let’s say it is even. Ask how you can serve her.
  9. You have the privilege to do it again in 6 days. That may not seem like a privilege on Monday, but believe me, it is. God has chosen you to preach, lead worship, teach, counsel, shepherd, set up, greet, help kids follow Jesus, talk with students through hard situations. He chose you and uses you. So, when Monday is hard, remember, God could’ve picked someone else. And you could’ve said no. Since God called and you said yes, get back up on the horse and get ready!

And if none of those help, just watch this and remember, your life isn’t this bad. Probably.

 

One of a Pastor’s Most Important Public Tasks

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Every Sunday morning around the world, churches gather for community, equipping, communion, singing, prayers and preaching. The pastor is involved in many of these things and leads many of them.

From up front.

Yet, one of the most important tasks a pastors does is public and yet it does not happen on the stage. It happens while he is surrounded by his church, during the singing.

Why is this so important?

The pastor sets the tone for the church. The church becomes a reflection of the pastor

If you look around and see that people are not engaging in worship, there are a few reasons that is happening, but one of them is the leader is not engaging (the leaders on stage and the leader in the congregation, the pastor).

Is it that simple? No.

But I often see pastor’s looking around, not singing, checking their notes or even not in the room until it is time for them to preach.

These things communicate.

Loudly.

They tell your church, the corporate singing and prayers are not the most important thing we do, because I’m not participating. I’m not even here for it. I’m looking at my notes for the important part.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Preaching is incredibly important. Personally, half of my week is spent on preaching.

But pastor, come on. You have all week to prepare your sermon. Looking at your notes for 10 minutes right before you go up to preach is not going to make a difference.

There is another reason this matters.

This gets to the heart of the pastor and how prepared he is to worship. Is he scatter brained when he walks into church? Has he prayed his heart up so he is ready to enter the presence of God? Is he ready to be fed in worship?

I know this is hard. It is hard to connect in worship in your church as a pastor, when you are about to preach, but when you do, your sermon connects in a way it doesn’t otherwise. You are also modeling to people how to worship as many of them don’t know how to connect with God corporately. Men are wondering, why do we sing? Why do people close their eyes? Why do they raise their hands?

And worship leaders, for the sake of your men, stop singing love songs to your boyfriend Jesus.

This task of being a lead worshiper in the congregation is one of the most important tasks a pastor has on Sunday morning. It impacts things you don’t even see and sets the tone for things you wished would go better, like the response of your church.

So pastor, this Sunday. Lead from the congregation. Help get things moving. Sing loud. Raise your hands. Clap along. Help lead from off the stage.

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