Author Archives

Joshua Reich

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How to Fight Cynicism

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When you’re in your 20’s, starting in your career, life, or marriage you have dreams.

Great dreams.

Dreams that get you out of bed in the morning and that excite you.

You have dreams that propel you to do difficult things, take crazy risks, bet the farm, take jobs that don’t pay well because they are exciting and fill you with passion.

How to fight for contentment in life, marriage, and ministry.

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But something happens along the way, and you look up one day and think, “I thought I’d be somewhere different right now.”

In marriage, this happens when you thought your marriage would feel differently than it does. Assuming you’d have kids by now, that your kids would be different than they are, that my spouse would be different than they are.

What to do when your marriage isn’t like the marriage you imagined in your head.

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Our careers hit this place where we thought we would be making more, more fulfilled, more excited or at a different level in our company.

Pastors feel this when they look at your church, but it isn’t the church they imagined. The passion they once felt, the vision they once had isn’t there.

What to do when your church isn’t like the church you imagined in your head.

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Carey Nieuwhof said, “Cynicism happens not because you don’t care but because you do.”

Cynicism happens not because you don’t care but because you do. -@cnieuwhof

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The places in our lives where we become cynical are deeply personal places to us — personal hopes and dreams that we carry for our present and future.

In this place, we have to battle for contentment and fight cynicism.

One of the things we miss when we think about contentment is that our contentment in life, marriage, parenting, and leadership is not just about us but all the people connected to us. Our spouse and kids are affected by our contentment or lack thereof.

If you are a pastor, leader or boss, those that follow you are impacted by the contentment or cynicism that you feel.

We can easily beat ourselves up because of contentment and cynicism ebb and flow in life.

But how do you fight for contentment, especially if you are not naturally a positive person?

3 ways to fight cynicism.

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Get around contented people. A thankful person is a joy to be around. Get around them, listen to them. They have peace that few other people have.

Learn what leads to cynicism. If you are a church planter or pastor, cynicism comes from hearing about a larger church or hearing about a church planter who was given a building out of the blue (that’s mine). If you are a parent, it might be hearing about another family or seeing something on Instagram. Know your triggers. Know when they might hit. Hint: it will often happen when you are tired or emotionally depleted. Just be aware of that.

Be grateful for what you have. One of the practices that have helped me this past year is writing down at least three things I am thankful for each day. This has caused me to pause in my day and see how things are going well, things I can celebrate.

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The Problem of Tasks Not Getting Done

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Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard who researches creativity in business found, “Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work.”

The single most important thing for your day is making progress in meaningful work.”-Teresa Amabile

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This makes sense.

It is why we love checklists, crossing things off and that feeling of a “zero inbox.”

For many of us though, depending on what you do, this is difficult.

If you are a stay at home mom, making progress on meaningful work is challenging as laundry and dishes pile up.

If you are creative, there is always one more tweak to the design, one more thing to check out.

As a pastor, everything I do is meaningful as it relates to people and sermons (or creating content).

How to get things done.

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The problem is that you can spend 6 – 8 hours working on a sermon and only have read some commentaries and things are fuzzy in your mind.

For many of us, the day ends with a feeling of “incomplete.” We look back and think, “I know I sent out emails, had conversations, sat in meetings, but what did I accomplish?”

We look back on our day and think, “I know I sent out emails, had conversations, sat in meetings, but what did I accomplish?

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One of the things that have helped me is setting up benchmarks around my tasks and goals.

For example, if you have 50 unread emails, make a goal of getting through 25 of them.

For a sermon, instead of making my only goal completing the sermon (which every pastor knows isn’t done until you preach it), make a goal of reading X number of commentaries, clarifying your big idea, working out your introduction or conclusion.

How to break goals into smaller steps.

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Doing this helps you see significant movement on your tasks.

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The Addiction of Being Busy

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There is an addiction in our culture to being busy, to not overloading our schedules.

Some of this comes from personalities, saying we want our kids to have things we didn’t have, but many of us are afraid to miss out.

We are also afraid of the silence and stillness that comes from unaccounted for moments.

We afraid of the silence and stillness that comes from unaccounted for moments.

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Many of us are too busy, running from work, kids games and practices, church programs, exercise, eating in the car, etc. I will often hear people say, “I’d like to do ______________ (usually something that would enrich their marriage, health or relationship with God) but I just don’t have the time.” The reality is, we don’t have the time because we don’t make the time.

We don’t have the time because we don’t make the time.

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But why are we busy? Many of us are busy, work too much, run from activity to activity because we don’t want to stop. We don’t want to be with our family, spouse, alone with ourselves, with friends, whatever because we don’t want to stop. We are addicted to the adrenaline that comes from being busy.

This is a big one: we also don’t want to slow down because of what we will have to do if we slow down.

We don’t want to slow down because of what we will have to do if we slow down.

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It is easier to stay busy at work or run kids to different things than being honest with your spouse, working on issues in your heart or dealing with past hurts. Many people overwork because of the accolades they get from it. This often stems from an approval idol in their hearts. They didn’t get approval from a coach, parent or teacher at a young age, so they will try to get that approval from someone else now.

We are busy for more power, prestige, control, you name it. Pastors overwork so their church will love them, compliment them, so their church will grow. Mostly Godly reasons, but at the end of the day it is often to feed the idol in their heart.

We also tell ourselves things like, “this is just a season.” But slowly one season becomes another which becomes another.

In the long run, we think we are running after the right life, but we are missing the life right in front of us.

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The Tension of Leadership

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Leaders live in two worlds:  the one of reality, where their church or organization is, and the other is the one that is not yet, the world they are moving towards as a church.

The two worlds of leaders.

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To lead well, leaders must live where their churches are, and they must lead them to where they are going. Which means they must have a firm grasp on reality and the present, as well as where they are going. Too many pastors seem to coast into the future, not sure where they are going, not sure how they will get there.

It is easy to spend too much time in either the present or the future and miss out. You can get too far ahead of your church which means you will have a difficult time getting into the future. You can spend too much time in the present and not see a vision for where you are going and get stuck in the details of just doing church.

It is a balance. It is the tension of leadership.

Many times pastors can lead churches that no longer exist. If a church grew at one point and reached 500 but has now dropped down to 150 on a Sunday, many pastors will continue as if that church is 500.

But the church has changed now.

The reality that pastors must walk with, especially because many people in their church will think their church is still what it was.

It is crucial for a leader to pull back and get “on the balcony” of their church to see what is going on and understand where they are and where they need to go.

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5 Tips for Preaching a Great Christmas Sermon

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Thanksgiving is over, it’s almost Christmas, which means if you’re a pastor, you are working on your Christmas message.

Many pastors make the mistake of waiting too long to work on their message, trying to be too creative or just not being creative at all, to the point they’re boring.

If you’ve been in ministry for any length of time, you’ve given many Christmas sermons and series. It is hard to continue to come up with fresh material, to surprise your people or say something unexpected.

I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. I wonder if we need to “surprise” our people with something unexpected.

But this Christmas, you will have people who will walk through your door who have never been to your church (or any church). You will have men and women, boys and girls who walk through your door who are giving God one last shot. People who are skeptical, hurting, doubting, wondering if there is a God in the universe who loves and cares for them.

I say all that because there is a lot at stake at Christmas.

Christmas is the time of year where depression and anxiety reach its peak. Divorce rates double over Christmas. Please, please, please, keep these numbers, stories, and faces in front of you as you preach this Christmas.

Ready?

5 Tips for Preaching a Great Christmas Sermon

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Here are a few tips as you prepare and preach a great Christmas sermon:

Before we get to the preaching, just a quick pro tip!

1. Dress appropriately. It is incredible this still has to be said, but no matter where your church is, people tend to dress up on Christmas. People are out as families; people are meeting potential in-laws for the first time (hoping to make a great first impression), families and friends will take pictures together. So dress appropriately. Also, dress comfortably. There is nothing worse than speaking in the wrong outfit. There is also nothing worse than watching someone in a suit too big (or too small) or pulling at their collar because it is tight so make sure that whatever you’re going to wear matches, is Christmas-y and fits!

Now for more of the how-tos of preaching.

2. Understand the pain and baggage people bring with them. When people walk into your church each week, they walk in with a story, a story filled with hopes, dreams, hurt and pain. Christmas has a way of magnifying our stories.

Christmas has a way of magnifying our stories.

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Arguments that are decades old will come up, broken relationships, divorces, abuse. They will sit at tables with empty seats because of those broken relationships, bad decisions or death.

Many of the people that will sit in your church and mine did everything they could to get to your Christmas Eve service and hold it together. They are stressed, run down, tired, partied out, wondering if their kids are thankful, wondering if they will fail Christmas with their family, worrying about the next year and what it will bring.

They need a moment to catch their breath; to know you hear them; to know God hears them.

3. Tell the Christmas story. Let’s be honest; as a pastor, the Christmas story can be hard because you know it, other people know it, which makes it difficult to keep it fresh and relevant.

The Christmas story is about hope.

And right now in our world, if there’s something that people need it is hope.

If you take what I said in #2 seriously, you should be able to come up with a whole host of ways to bring hope into peoples lives.

One of the struggles I’ve had is that people walk in expecting the Christmas story and I want to surprise them. The reality is, it’s Christmas. So talk about Christmas.

4. Surprise people with the Christmas story. Going along with the previous point, there are so many ways to surprise people and tell them something about Christmas that is unexpected or they didn’t see.

You could talk about doubts people have, the importance of names and stories by walking through a genealogy, talk about God’s presence with us.

The list goes on and on.

One exercise that might be helpful is to make a list of all the questions people have about Christmas and baggage they are carrying in. Then make a list of all the things we learn about God through Christmas.

This exercise should give you years worth of Christmas sermons and series.

5. Be brief and to the point. Lastly, be brief.

While people came to church, they don’t want to spend the holiday at church.

My Christmas message is often the shortest one of the entire year.

That’s okay. People will forgive you. Your volunteers will thank you.

Remember, this sermon is just part of the marathon of your preaching ministry, not the end of it.

5 Tips for Preaching a Great Christmas Sermon

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Is God’s Will a Mystery or Obvious?

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When it comes to figuring out God’s will, we often make it incredibly difficult to figure out. We talk about it in mystical ways, heightening the sense that only a few find it. We wonder, does God have a specific will for my life? What if I miss it?

Does God have a specific will for your life?

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This happens with marriage; is there the one for me and what if I marry the wrong one?

If there’s an open door, is that God’s will? If it’s a closed door, is that God way of saying no?

We also look at people in the Bible, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Paul and see people that God used in incredible ways, but also people that God spoke to audibly and laid out his will. We see Noah getting the measurements of the ark. Abraham and Moses are told where to go. Does God still do that?

For us, we have something they didn’t have. God’s will written out in the form of God’s word. We have God’s inspired, authoritative word. Over 31,000 words that God has given to us and preserved to show us how life is to be lived.

This means a few things. I don’t think we will find a laid out plan for every aspect of our life. God will not give us all the details. What he does do is give us a framework in which to live by and make decisions.

Most people when they make decisions set out the pros and cons of a choice and then choose the way that has the most pros or the least annoying or uncomfortable cons. What if we thought about it differently? What if we looked at the framework God has given us in Scripture and asked, “Will this choice get me to where God wants me or will it hinder me?” Sometimes, the choice with the most cons will get us there.

Here are a few clues to the framework:

  • Marriage: God has told us in Ephesians 5 and Genesis 1 – 2 that there are specific roles for marriage. Men are to lead their wives and families lovingly. They are to pastor them. They are to lay their lives down as Jesus did. They are to exhibit servant leadership. God has given them responsibility and accountability for their families. Wives are to respond to their husband’s leadership and submit to them. They are to be their partners in life, their helpers, giving pushback when needed. This doesn’t mean a wife is a robot or a doormat. The Holy Spirit is called “the helper” so I don’t think this is a negative thing as we speak of it.
  • Money: Malachi 3 and 2 Corinthians 8 – 9 tells us to steward the money and possessions God entrusts to us well. We are to honor God by giving back to him a portion of what he has entrusted to us. That portion is to be sacrificial, generous, worshipful and proportional. This means we need to set this aside first and then live within the means of what is left.
  • Work: We are to work and rest. We are to live in rhythm. If we are married, 1 Timothy 5 says that a man is responsible for providing for his family, that if he doesn’t, he is worse than an unbeliever. This means we need to live within the means of what we make. Our identity is not found in our work, but our work is one way we glorify God and show what He is like through our faithful, hard work.
  • Mission: Matthew 28, Acts 1 and scores of other places that we are to live on mission. That the gospel should change us in such a way that we live our lives with the purpose of moving the gospel forward in the world in which we live. That we should live lives that are different. If you live out the passages mentioned above, do you think your life will look different from those around you?

I could go on and on. My point is that God has laid out what it means to be a follower of his, what it means to live in the freedom of the gospel, what a man, woman, dad, mom, husband, wife, child, boss, employee. What it means to date, to work, to pray, to eat, to sleep.

I believe that if we lived out what Scripture calls us to, we would find God’s will for our lives more easily and clearly.

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Links for Leaders 11/16/18

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It’s the weekend…finally.

And since it’s the weekend, it’s the perfect time to catch up on some reading. Below, you’ll find some articles I came across this week that I found helpful as a leader and parent and hope you do as well.

Recently, God has been teaching me a lot about grieving losses in life and leadership. All of us have experienced loss and come up against the limits in life, whether in a relationship, a dream, finances, health, but how we deal with them and move forward determines so much for us. Many of us get stuck. Recently, I came across a great quote that helped me understand this even more and what it takes to move forward.

Before diving into those, in case you missed them this week. Here are the top 3 posts on my blog this week that I hope you find helpful:

Now, here’s what I found helpful:

Christmas is almost here, and I hope you are preparing for it as a church. Tony Morgan’s company has helped a lot of churches, and they have two posts you should read: 3 strategies to leverage Christmas for reaching new people and three next step ideas for annual Christmas attendees. Don’t miss the opportunity of Christmas!

We’ve adopted twice, and adoption is beautiful, challenging, amazing and tragic all at once. Many times, you feel like you are fighting for the heart of your adopted child (or any child for that matter). This post from parent cue was so encouraging to me, and if you’re a parent (adoptive or not), I think it will encourage you.

I get asked a lot about the books I read and how I find good books. One way is to see what other leaders I respect are learning. Brian Dodd is always posting great books, and he lays out 19 books leaders should read ing 2019. I’ve read a few of these but look forward to diving into a few others on this list.

If you’re a pastor or been in church for any length of time, you know the drill at church, so it is easy to forget what it feels like to be a guest. The emotions a guest has the fears, the thoughts. This post from Rich Birch was so helpful to me, and a great reminder of what people feel when they walk into your church on a Sunday morning.

The holidays are almost here (I can’t believe that Thanksgiving is next week!), so it is important to decide as a family, individual, couple, what pace you will keep over the next month so that you aren’t too tired. Here are 10 great tips from parent cue.

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How to Talk About Money in Your Church

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Many church leaders struggle with talking about money in their church or loathe the offering time. However, this fear can be alleviated by making a shift in their perspective about money. The topic of money is not about money per se. The Kingdom of God and helping people to live as disciples of Christ is the true aim of money. In the words of Peter Greer, “Money is a vehicle, not the ultimate objective.”

The reality for pastors is that money is important. It is needed when it comes to ministry and money is one of the biggest struggles and stresses of the people who sit in your church.

Many pastors this time of year (or after the new year) will talk on money in a sermon. Here are 5 things to keep in mind for the next time you preach on money:

5 things to keep in mind when you preach on money.

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1. People genuinely are interested in what the Bible has to say on money. People come to your church to hear what the Bible has to say. They drove there, probably looked at your website, they drove past a sign that said church, so they are expecting for you to open the Bible and read it. I think people want to know what God thinks about a whole host of things, money included.

Why?

Because very few people have strong financial knowledge. There are so many takes on it, ideas on what you should do, how to get out of debt, where you should invest that it becomes overwhelming and then people stick their head in the sand. Telling them what the Bible has to say is incredibly helpful and refreshing to them because it says more than “you should give to the church.”

People genuinely are interested in what the Bible has to say on money.

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As well, most couples are fighting over money. Most people are laying in bed at night stressing over money. Talking about it hits them where they live and answers some of their most burning questions.

2. Get your financial house in order. Many pastors don’t talk about money because many pastors aren’t generous and don’t give. Generosity doesn’t come easy for me but preaching on what the Bible has to say about money has convicted my heart to grow in it. If a pastor doesn’t preach on money, generosity or stewardship of finances, it is usually because he isn’t doing well in those areas personally and that will affect the life of a church. Generous churches are led by generous leaders.

Generous churches are led by generous leaders.

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Be honest with your struggles if you have them. Talk about what you have learned and how God is continuing to grow you. People will resonate with that. Every time I talk about money I’ll hear people say over and over, “Thanks for being open about what is hard for you.”

3. Make sure you don’t make promises God doesn’t make. Especially with passages like Malachi 3, it is easy to make promises God doesn’t make when it comes to money. Is God faithful? Yes. Does God bless people financially when they give? Yes. Are there lots of rich people who don’t give? Yes. Are God’s blessings to us always financial reimbursement? No. This is the one area that a lot of damage has been done in terms of preaching on money.

4. Stewardship is more than money. While most pastors preach on money to get more people to give money, that isn’t the goal. The goal is to help people follow Jesus when it comes to stewardship and that includes money, but also includes how they use their time, house, car, retirement and steward their whole life.

Stewardship is more than money.

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Make sure that when you talk about stewardship, you help people understand that God’s heart is for more than their bank account, but also their calendar, relationships, and heart.

5. Give clear and helpful next steps. You should have clear next step every week that you preach but with money, it is incredibly important. Whether that is doing a 90 day giving challenge, a financial class like FPU or something else. Don’t just leave people hanging on this. Especially because as I said on point 1, people want to know how to handle money.

5 things to do the next time you preach on money.

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When to Quit Something or Let it Ride

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One of the critical jobs of every leader is problem-solving. The longer I’m a leader, the more I realize that much of my time as a leader is spent in brainstorming, making decisions or looking ahead to decisions that will be made in the future.

The struggle is that often, solving problems means taking very little information and making a decision based on that little information.

One thing that pastors seem to be notorious for is solving problems that aren’t problems. Something doesn’t go right, we start a new ministry, and no one shows up, a creative piece falls flat, a marketing tool does not bring in the people we thought, a new direction or vision is laid out, and no one is excited.

Are these problems? Potentially.

The problem is that we start to solve them before we know. One night of something not going right does not constitute a problem; it’s one night. We make changes and then when they don’t work once, we quickly make adjustments to them. Now, sometimes adjustments need to be made. Sometimes we can see things that we can tweak to make something better.

But often, we solve problems that are not problems. Let something ride a little bit before you decide it is a problem. Let it show itself a problem before fixing it. Many successes come from merely continuing down the path instead of giving up. In fact, we often quit something right before it breaks through.

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What You have to Give Up to Move Forward in Life & Relationships

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I have a confession: I like control.

A lot.

I like to stack the odds in my favor in situations. I want to know the details of things, who will be there, what we’ll eat and do. For me, it is incredibly comforting. And it’s easy to do.

This desire though, while it can be helpful in certain situations, in others it can be destructive.

Especially in the areas of relationships.

Why?

I can’t control the outcome of them.

I can’t control what someone else will do or say.

I can’t change my spouse, friends, kids or co-workers.

Yes, I can do things to help, but I can’t change them.

For many of us, this desire for control hurts us.

Our desire for control will destroy our best relationships.

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Now, before you think you are off the hook and aren’t into control, consider this.

We will control people with our silence, our passion, our drive, passive-aggressive comments, knowledge, anger, shaming, withholding, tears, anything to swing the situation into our favor.

Amazingly, it is easy to do.

And often, the people around us will let us because it is more comfortable than the alternative.

But, control not only destroys us, but it also destroys others.

To move forward in life, to start anything over or see something (or someone) flourish, we must give up control.

To move forward in life, to start anything over or someone flourish, we must give up control.

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Why would we do this?

There is a sense of peace that awaits us that we will not experience in control mode.

Many spiritual practices in Scripture center around the battle for control: submission to authorities or in relationships, prayer, fasting, giving, Sabbath to name a few.

God knows that in our heart of hearts, we love control and will do anything to have it.

The adventure of faith is stepping into uncertainty and risk.

Letting go.