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Josh Reich

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How to Know It’s Time to Leave a Ministry

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One of the things I’ve been asked a lot over the last month from pastors and friends is, “How do I know when it’s time to leave a job? To leave a ministry?”

It’s a hard question to navigate. When you are exhausted you feel like you are out of ideas. Or maybe it is really hard and you want to leave. Should you? Maybe. Maybe not. Just because something is hard, or you feel you are in over your head or dried up, doesn’t mean it is time to leave. But it could. Just because you want to have a fresh start or want to live somewhere different doesn’t mean you should move. 

How do you know if it’s time to find a new ministry job?

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And that’s the hard part.

Not to mention all the details related to moving your family, all the connections you will have to end, and the relational side of ministry. It becomes a multi-layered discussion and decision.

So, how do you know?

How do you know if you should look for a new job?

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I was talking with a mentor during a really low point several years ago. I had been contacted by several churches, all larger churches, in more prestigious places. But then, none of the doors opened, they all closed. When I was talking with him about it he told me, “Josh, you must feel pushed from somewhere and pulled to somewhere else.” He went on, “You might be pushed, but you might not be. But you are definitely not pulled somewhere yet.”

And he was right.

So, before you update your resume or start looking at job listings, ask yourself, “Do I feel pushed from here?”

How do you know?

5 ways to know you are done at your church.

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1. You feel released. This is very subjective but very important. Do you feel like God is telling you that you can leave? Not just that you want to, but God is saying, “Go.” I have had seasons where I wanted to go and God kept saying, “No.” That’s hard. But if that is the case, stop looking and ask God for endurance. Endurance was my prayer for years as God continued to work on me.

2. It is best for your family. This is important because ministry is not just your job as a pastor, but a family sport and commitment. Is your family suffering where you are? Are you far away from family? These are important things. One of the things we prayed through in this transition was asking God to lead us to a church and a place where our family would thrive.

3. You did what you set out to do. All of us have dreams when we move somewhere or start a ministry. Did you do what you set out to do? I know I didn’t, but as I reflected on my time in Tucson here’s how I framed it: I didn’t do everything I dreamed we’d do, but I also did more than I dreamed we’d do. And that’s important. You can leave with your head held high and your character intact.

4. Your passion for your city is gone. This doesn’t necessarily mean it is time for you to move on, but it might. I know I was convicted several years ago that I didn’t have the passion for my city that I needed. I began asking God to break my heart for Tucson, and he did. But your passion waning can be a sign it is time.

5. It no longer feels like home. Again, this is subjective but important. Where you live matters. The place you live is a really big deal and you need to wrestle this to the ground. Do you want to be in a city, near mountains, on a farm, near family, away from family? What makes it feel like home?

Now, some of you are in very unhealthy situations that might be harmful to you. I feel for you. The stress on our family in our final year in Tucson was intense. The anxiety was sky high in our house, we had health issues because of the situation we were in. If that is the case, talk to some trusted friends and mentors or a counselor. And that is also a sign that it is time.

That’s the push. Do you feel that push yet? If not, stay faithful, keep praying, dig into what God has for you. While you wait God will teach you things that you need to learn and show you things in your heart that you need to see. I know He did that for me as we waited for what was next. 

But once you feel that push, you need to feel a pull.

For that, stay tuned for part 2. 

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How to Interview a Church

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Over the last several months, I have been interviewing with churches as we sought our next step. I learned a lot about interviewing and the questions to ask in the process. It can be hard to ask questions. First of all, by the time you ask questions in the interview you are tired. You have answered theological and leadership questions, shared your story and what God is doing in your life and that can be emotionally draining.

So, you need to make sure you plan your questions. Don’t show up and throw out a random question or two. And don’t ask 0 questions, that is a sign you aren’t interested in the job. If you feel like you didn’t get to ask all your questions, set up a separate time for you to interview them. I spent hours asking questions of the team at Community Covenant Church in the process before making a decision.

Remember, you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you.

Remember, you are interviewing a church as much as they are interviewing you.

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Below are my favorite questions that I asked each church. This was separate from my theological and philosophical questions and separate from finding the heart of a church.

Some of my favorite interview questions.

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1. If money wasn’t an issue and the Holy Spirit answered every prayer you have for your church, what does this church look like in 5 years? I love this question because it causes the team to sit back and dream. I heard so many great answers to this question over my months of interviewing. But what you are listening for, especially if you are interviewing for a lead pastor role, is where this group of people would like their church to go. Because as the leader, they are hoping you will take them there.

Each time I listened to this answer I asked myself, do I want to go there? Do I want to be a part of that church in the future? I didn’t hear anything heretical from any church I talked to, but I did hear answers that made me think, “that sounds nice, but I don’t want to go there.” This is an incredibly clarifying question.

2. What is one thing you hope I do or change? What is one thing you hope I don’t do or change? These two go together. As a leader you will bring about change. You are supposed to. But you need to be careful about what changes you bring. As a new leader, you have a great opportunity to bring fresh eyes to a ministry, to see things in a different way. You also have a period of time (a honeymoon it’s often called) to bring about new ideas.

But you need to do them carefully.

Hearing what people hoped I would change or do was really helpful. The second question helped me to see what is off-limits, what matters to a church.

A new pastor must figure out what people do and do not want to be changed in their church.

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3. What makes an employee successful at this church? I think you need to ask this question of a lot of different people during the interview process. Here’s why: I took a job once and in the interview process I got one answer from the leadership team of the church and I got a different answer from the admins in the church. Here’s why that matters: You need to know how people will evaluate you, but you also need to know how things actually get done. Sometimes they line up and sometimes they don’t.

4. Describe someone that would not fit the culture of your church. Again, you are trying to ask open-ended questions that paint a picture. If you ask, “Tell me about your culture” you will often hear what you want to hear or what they think they should say as a church. This question will cause the team to think back to employees who didn’t make it, people who upset the DNA and “the way things are done here.”

5. Describe how a difficult leadership situation was handled. You want to find out how conflict is handled in the church. Every church has conflicts. You will have conflicts at some point with a coworker, another elder, or a family in the church. How is that handled? How is sin handled? The way past situations were handled will give you a clue as to how future situations will be handled until you are able to influence the culture. It will also tell you how they handle sin and extend grace, and what compassion in a church looks like.

6. What is your ideal pastoral family? The reason I like to phrase it this way is it causes them to tell a story. If you ask, “What are your expectations for my wife and kids?” they might try to answer it in the way you want. Yes, they still might do that. But this way, you allow them to think about what is their ideal pastoral family?

7. Why do new people come back to your church? This question helps you to see a few things: do they have new people that come to their church? Do they get information from those guests? Do they track it and utilize it? This question also helps you to see what the community around the church might think of the church.

Three final tips:

Three tips for interviewing a church.

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  • Define the words they use. Churches are very good at throwing out buzzwords like relevant, collaborative, humble, generous, etc. So when they do, ask them to define those words. For example, when a church says it is generous, ask who experiences that generosity. Is it the staff? The community around them? The church itself?
  • Find the influencer. This is not really a question you can ask but something you must discover at any church you are interviewing: Who is the biggest influencer in the church? I made the mistake once in an interview process of assuming I knew the answer to this and it bit me once I took the job. The biggest influencer is not always the person who sits at the top, has been there the longest, or has the most visible power. But every organization, church, and team resembles someone. Figuring out who that person is will be crucial to your success in a new role.
  • Get financial and attendance data. I realize that coming out of covid this can be hard and not 100% accurate, but it is important. It tells a story, that’s what data does. I interviewed with one church that described themselves as growing and healthy but then they hit covid. However, as I dug into their data it showed they grew a lot in 2016 – 2018, plateaued and started to decline in 2019 and then hit covid. When I asked what happened in 2019, they pushed back and said that was an aberration. Maybe. But it is important to hear what the church thinks its data says, what story they think it tells.

7 questions and 3 tips for your next interview with a church.

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Final thought: Know what answers you are looking for when you interview a church. They know what answers they want to hear from you. What will be a deal-breaker for you? What will cause a red flag to wave? My favorite answer, and one thing that stood out when I interviewed the team at Community Covenant, came when I asked them what would make me successful in 3 years. One of their elders said, “That your family would be glad you moved here.” When I asked that question of every other church, no one mentioned my family. That isn’t a deal breaker, but it was a big thing for me in this move. You need to know what those things are for you. 

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How to Lead When You Aren’t in Charge

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Leadership is hard. That isn’t news.

It is hard to lead people. It is hard to lead followers. It is hard to lead those under you or those who work next to you on the organizational chart (you know, the ones you can’t make do something.)

It is tough to lead those over you, to lead up.

Yet, to get anywhere in leadership, you must learn to lead up.

Why?

The person above you probably controls your budget, your salary, your benefits, and if what you want to do gets done. They can decide what you will work on, what your team will get to do, how large your team is and how much budget your team gets. The list goes on and on.

The person above you potentially controls a lot.

To accomplish what you want to accomplish at work and in your life, you need to lead them well.

So how do you lead up? Here are 3 ways to lead up and accomplish what God has called you to without losing your leadership.

Because don’t mistake this: if you don’t lead up well, you will have a hard time fulfilling your potential and reaching your goals.

If you don’t lead up well, you will have a hard time fulfilling your potential and reaching your goals.

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1. Affirm and back their vision. Right now, if you aren’t the leader at the top of the organizational chart, you are a follower. If you can’t follow well, you can’t lead well. What if you don’t support their vision? Unless it isn’t biblical, you chose to be there. It would be best if you were submissive to that. As long as it isn’t heretical, just different from what you would do, follow well. Having sat in both the first chair and the second chair of churches, it is easy to think you know what is best or how you would do it better when you aren’t the leader. The reality is, you only see what you see. So while it might seem right from your vantage point, remember, it is just that—your vantage point. You don’t know how your ideas would affect everyone. You don’t know the entire history of things or what has been tried before. You also don’t know what other leaders are working on.

2.  Be patient. Your timing is not God’s timing. I knew when I was 21 that I would one day plant a church. I didn’t know where or when, but I knew. It was when I was 29 in a state I had never set foot in before. Those 8 years were hard, sometimes painful, but they were formative. Be in the moment. Seek to learn what you can. If you aren’t in charge, relish that. Prepare for when you are. Watch. Listen. Ask questions. Seek out mentors that will help you in the future. Read books. Be ready for when God says, “Go.” The time that you are “waiting” is not wasted time but a time of preparation.

3. Risk when the time is right. If you are being a good follower, showing character and integrity, and being patient, you will know when to risk and what to risk. You will know when to push back on ideas and when to keep your mouth shut. You will also know when you should leave or stay in your role. Your boss may not be all that you want them to be, but they also may be helping you in ways you don’t know. So support them. Ask them for more leadership opportunities, give ideas, and share your dreams. But you also need to know if you should stay, as seasons in life and ministry change.

This is a timing and heart issue. I’ve watched countless guys say “Go,” and it was terrible timing for them, their families, and the church they left. Can God overcome anything and call anyone at any time? Yes. God is also wise and doesn’t always call us to the stupidest thing we could do. If you think, “Is this stupid? That must be God’s will for my life.” That is a terrible way to discern that. But lots of people equate crazy risk with stupid. Don’t put your family in a bind. Don’t put the church you are leaving in a bind. Remember, the way you leave a church is how they will remember you. They will forget everything else you did.

The way you leave one ministry is how you will start the next ministry.

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One last caveat. Not everyone is supposed to lead the team or organization. Too many people get promoted one level past their level of competency, which is heartbreaking to watch and brutal for that person to walk through. However, many of us need to learn that lesson the hard way. Be wise in that step. Pay attention to what those who love you and trust you say to you about your gifts. Don’t just listen to your “fans.” 

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Finding the Heart of a Church

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When you interview at a church, you are putting your best foot forward. You look your best, sound your best, tell all your best stories and talk about your strengths as a person and a leader. The church is doing the same thing. They are talking about their potential, what God has done, what they hope God will do, and how amazing and friendly their church is.

And this is normal.

But the reality isn’t always that way. You and the church aren’t as amazing as you sound or appear. The stories you and they tell aren’t lies; you are all just glossing over some things.

One of the things I learned over the last season as I interviewed for Pastor roles in churches around the country is how to find the heart of a church. Before you take a job and move your family (possibly across the country) it is important that you make sure your desires and the desires of the church line up. Do you have the same passions? This is different from the theology and philosophy of ministry. This is getting at that sneaky thing called fit.

So, how do you determine fit? How do you make sure that you see through the feeling you get on a call to really make sure that your heart and the heart of the church line up?

Finding the right ministry fit for you.

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Here are a few things that helped me:

1. Pay attention to the questions they ask. The questions a church asks will tell you so much. It will tell you what they think is important, what kind of pastor they are looking for and what kind of church they are. If a church asks a lot of questions about your family or marriage, they tell you about some of their expectations for you and your family. Or maybe they are talking about a wound they have because their last pastor had an issue in that area (more on that later). If they ask many theology questions that are big issues to them but aren’t to you, that is communicating something important. Pay attention to it.

The questions a search team asks you, tells you about the church.

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2. Ask about their dreams and desires as a church. One of the most important questions I think you can ask a prospective church is, “If money wasn’t a barrier and the Holy Spirit answers every one of your prayers for your church, what does it look like in 5 years?” Here’s why this question is so important: This question tells you where they are hoping their church goes, what the promised land is for their church, and as the possible next lead pastor they are hoping you will take them there. I remember talking to several churches and asking this question and thinking, “That’s a great answer, but I don’t want to go there.”

How to interview a church that is interviewing you.

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3. Determine which values are real and which ones are aspirational (and try to determine if the aspirational ones are real or just ones they think they should have.) Every church has values. Some values are real and some are ones they hope are real (aspirational), and some are ones they think they should have because they are a church. Every church values discipleship and evangelism. But not every church practices those things. Ask questions around definitions. Ask for examples. When they use buzzwords like authenticity, community, family, relevant, ask what those words mean to them and how they get played out. Every church would say generosity is important but is that generosity directed at the staff, the church, the world around the church? Who feels that generosity? This doesn’t mean you take a church off your list because of values (although it might), but values will help you see the church’s culture and how they operate.

How to determine real and aspirational values in a church.

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4. Pay attention to how they communicate. In an interview, how you communicate to a church tells the church something about you. Are you punctual? Do you get back to them in a good amount of time? The same is true for a church. I talked with one church and then didn’t hear from them for 4 weeks. When they finally got back to me about another interview, I pulled back. The lack of communication told me something about the church and how it operated. Remember, in an interview churches are putting their best foot forward, so if something feels off in an interview, there’s a good chance there is something off.

5. Listen to how they talk about their previous pastor. The way a church talks about their previous pastor is also how they might one day talk about you because you will be a previous pastor one day. But in how they talk about their previous pastor, they tell you what happened, what they are looking for, and if they have grieved the loss of that pastor and are ready to move forward. Many churches are not yet ready for a new pastor, which often leads to being an unintentional interim pastor.

5 ways to determine if a church job is a fit for you.

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Too often, potential pastors simply look at theology and philosophy of ministry. While those are very, very important, the heart of a church is how those play out, and lining up with a potential church in that way is just as important for a pastor and their family. 

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Building Your Leadership Muscles

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I remember a few years ago getting a call from a fellow church planter, and he said, “This is the first time in the history of our church that we are behind in budget; what do I do? How do I talk about giving without sounding desperate?”

If you’re a leader, you’ve had times when you felt unprepared for the moment of leadership required.

There are different leadership muscles.

There is a muscle that starts things, manages things, closes things down. There is a muscle to make a change, create a legacy, honor the past, and see the future. There is a muscle that leads through a crisis.

And something I’ve seen over this past year: there is a certain leadership muscle to lead while a church is growing and momentum is everywhere; and a different leadership muscle when it is not growing and there is no momentum.

Often, when they hit a new season or a new challenge, I think leaders can shrink from it. They can try to pull from the playbook that worked before instead of learning how to navigate a new season, a new challenge, or a new world.

Here are some things to keep in mind as you grow your leadership muscles for new challenges:

Three ways to grow your leadership muscles for the challenges ahead.

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  1. Stay humble and listen. The older we get as leaders, the easier it is to think we know it all. We’ve done things, grown things, accomplished great things, so we’ve got this. And while some of that may be true, we need to stay humble and listen. In humility we can hear others, we can hear God, but we can also hear the rumblings in our own hearts. I often think in transitions and difficulties, leaders know what to do but are afraid to do it. Staying humble and listening can help a leader have the fortitude to move forward. 
  2. Learn from anyone. Often as pastors we tend to learn only from other pastors. But as we navigate new seasons we can and should learn from anyone. This is part of humility. If we aren’t humble we can start to think we have done it all before. This might cause us to dismiss a younger staff member and their ideas. Or, we might think that the person who is questioning things “isn’t bought in” when the reality is they may see something we don’t. 
  3. Experiment. If this past year has taught us anything, it’s that we can and should experiment. Our teams and people are more ready for it than we give them credit. As we move in and out of challenges and seasons, as leaders we should get really good at saying, “We’re going to try this…” and see how it goes. 

As we develop new muscles as leaders, we also develop new muscles for our churches and teams. This is incredibly important because we need resilient teams and churches that can thrive in many environments and challenges. 

Build your leadership muscles.

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Learning to Celebrate the Unexpected

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God is Faithful signage with leaved background

There will be a staff meeting or a production meeting in many churches where we will go around the table and talked about what worked and didn’t work in a service or an event. We’ll learn from what we missed, the miscues, or things that we forgot. We’ll celebrate what worked, how God moved, the guests that came, and the taken steps.

This is all well and good and important.

But over this past year, I have been reminded of something we often miss: Celebrating the unexpected or the things that didn’t go as we planned.

In most churches, we do a good job of celebrating wins and learning from things that don’t work. But what about celebrating what God did in the things that don’t work or go as we planned. I think in covid, many of us had our plans turned upside down. Ideas we had didn’t play out the way we expected. But instead of just turning the page, what if we celebrated what God did in the unexpected? What if we looked back to see God’s hand? To see what he was up to when our plans were upended? I think it can help grow our faith and help us have some closure in some areas.

Here’s an example from my life and church.

In January of 2020, the church I planted merged with another church. In March of 2020, the world shut down because of covid, and our church went fully online. All the plans we had, all the things we had worked on and hoped to do, went out the window. Fast forward to today, that campus won’t reopen. On the one hand, we can look at that and say that it is a failure. It isn’t what we set out to do. The campuses we hoped to launch out of that campus aren’t happening on the timetable we set.

Yet, as I look back over this past year, I see God’s hand all over the place.

Pull out a journal and write down how you saw God move in the past year in unexpected ways.

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I’ve talked to countless pastors leading small to medium-sized portable churches like Revolution, and they are exhausted. Some of them have even left the ministry to take others jobs, which is heartbreaking. Some of those churches no longer exist. In many ways, that merge saved the staff and me at Revolution and kept us in ministry.

What God did was not only in me or at Revolution. The roles the staff of Revolution played at Pantano were perfect fits for us and needed, even though we didn’t know it at the time. We stepped into things that existed and didn’t exist at the time of the merge, and we went fully online as a church. We were able to experiment, learn and help move a church forward into a new hybrid church world.

If we look at a normal way of celebrating things, we can miss this.

So, pull your team together and pull out a journal and write down how you saw God move in the past year in unexpected ways.

Pull your team together and talk about how you saw God move in the past year in unexpected ways.

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The Hidden Path to Joy

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Trusting in God is a hard thing to do. But, when we do, it leads to our joy.

This might seem obvious, but we often miss out on it. We often think that trusting God will always lead to places we don’t like. Kind of like in college when we are trying to figure out God’s will and we think, “What if God calls me to the worst place or the last thing I want to do?”

One of the things I often encourage people to do who struggle to trust in God is to ask, why don’t you trust God? What keeps you from that? Is it something you think God should have done? Is it because of a past hurt or a relationship that fell apart?

Often, without realizing it, we don’t trust God not because of God but because of ourselves. Somewhere in our lives we had someone close to us who broke trust, who broke a promise, who walked out on us, and so it is hard to trust God. 

Once we can see why we don’t trust God and what keeps us from taking that step, we can deal with that.

It isn’t as simple as “just trusting God more.”

The reality, though, is all of us trust in someone or something in our lives. 

Trust leads to joy.

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We trust in people every day.

Yet, the reverse is true, and we know it to be true.

Misplaced trust does not lead to joy. 

One of the things that I find most fascinating about Habakkuk chapter 3 is how Habakkuk reminds himself of how God has moved in the past. He recalls how the nation of Israel began, how God brought the nation of Israel out of slavery in the book of Exodus and gave them the 10 commandments.

What Habakkuk is doing is reminding himself of how God has moved in the past. Often our struggle with trust is wondering if God will show up. Habakkuk is showing us, “God worked in the past, so I can trust he will work now and in the future.”

This doesn’t mean that God will work in the same way as in the past. It doesn’t mean he will work on our timetable, but we know he is at work.

You may be in a place where you need to remind yourself how God has worked in the past of your life. Maybe you need to journal or make a list of things he’s done, prayers he has answered. Maybe you need to determine why you don’t trust God, what is holding you back and how to move forward in that. What things are you placing your trust in that will ultimately let you down and take away your joy instead of giving you joy?

The hidden path to joy.

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Friday Five

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I turned 42 last week, which is hard to believe in some ways, and in other ways, I feel like my life is really just beginning.

The older I get, the more I’m reminded how precious and important each day is but not for the reasons I thought at 30. At 30, it was about building, gaining, moving up a ladder of some kind. At 42, my focus is on relationships, adding value to others, and being a great friend, dad, and husband.

I was talking to someone who I’ve known for most of my life, and he said, “It is amazing how we change and how priorities shift.” And he’s right, and that’s a good thing.

Favorite books:

Last week I finished up Winn Collier’s fabulous biography on Eugene Peterson,  A Burning in My Bones. I appreciated how raw and honest this book was. I have read several of Peterson’s books, including his memoir (which is fantastic as well). So many times, I found myself thinking, “I’m so glad Eugene Peterson struggled with this too. I’m so glad that was a battle for him as a pastor as well.” Definitely, one pastor should add to their summer reading list. 

1 book every pastor should read this summer.

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I also slowly worked my way through Pete Scazzero’s latest book, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation. I have benefitted greatly over the years from Scazzero’s writing and speaking. This book was a breath of fresh air for me to understand not only how to continue growing as an emotionally healthy disciple but also how to implement this more into the culture of a church to produce emotionally healthy disciples and leaders. This is one I will come back to again and again.

Two books every pastor should read.

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Favorite blog posts:

Jeff Haden shared on Inc.’s blog 14 Things Everyone should before turning 40 (similar to my thoughts here and here.). This list is spot-on, especially numbers 7, 10, 13, and 14. I wish I knew some of these things earlier in life, but then it takes hitting some snags and learning some of these lessons the hard way.

Jared Wilson’s blog on Pastor, Your Body Keeps the Score is right and what many pastors are experiencing. I think more and more pastors need to pay attention to their souls and their bodies. Learning to listen to it when it speaks to you, understanding the feelings you have, the tightness in your stomach, and what that is communicating to you. The implications for leaders are huge on this and also can serve as a guide for your pace and workload.

Pew Research released a fascinating new study on The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050. So many implications for pastors and churches to think through and be prepared for in the future.

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The Tensions Leaders Feel

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Leaders and pastors live with a tension that everyone experiences in life, but is different on an organizational level.

It is the tension of the in-between. Pastors lead and live in the now of the church, but also with what could be: their vision for the future and where things are going, or where they’d like them to be.

A leader has one foot in the future and one foot in the present, which creates enormous tension.

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As a leader, you walk into a room and see what is, but also what it could be. This is positive and exciting but it can also be deflating at different times. 

A leader often knows what is coming, the changes that are going to be made, the momentum that can be had because of those steps, but often has to wait. It might be waiting on a new hire, waiting for things to settle down at a church or for the summer season to end so you can get started.

As a leader, right now you are stuck with this tension. And it won’t go away. It will simply shift to something new. Six months from now you will be waiting on something different to happen.

If you aren’t careful as a pastor, this tension can rob you of the joy of leading. It can also make you miss what is happening in your church right now. 

If you aren’t careful as a pastor, the tension of leadership can rob you of the joy of pastoring.

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Here are 5 ways to survive this tension & thrive in it:

1. Enjoy where you are. This is hard for leaders because we are wired to keep moving. But, you are in a certain season, embrace it. Your church is a certain size, enjoy it. There are things a small church can do that a larger church can’t and vice versa. This is the battle of contentment for leaders and if we lose it, it will rob us of our joy. 

How to enjoy where your church is.

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2. Make sure things are in place for what is next. Many pastors, by nature, are not strong planners. They often fly by their seat, spend a lot of time focused on people and find themselves behind the curve on something. This is why it is so important to make time to work on your church, not just in it. If you are growing, do you have enough groups for people? Are you prepared to add classes for kids? What about parking spaces?

3. Start looking past what is next. At some point, you need to start preparing for what comes after what is next. Meaning, you just grew your church plant to 100 people and are on your way to 200, you need to begin thinking about what your church will be like at 400. Why? There’s a good chance you will do something at 200 to keep you from growing to 400. The same is true as people are coming back to church and you are regathering people after covid. Are you doing anything right now that can slow down momentum? Too often we simply do things and we don’t pull back to ask if they will help us or hinder us from what is next. 

4. Listen to the fears that people have. As you are making plans and getting key leaders on board for what is next, you will run into someone who is not excited about what is next and may even hold you back. This person is not the enemy, although you will think they are. They may be crucial to slowing you down (which might be good), they might be God’s way of helping you grow as a leader, or you might be God’s way of helping them grow through their fears. Each person and situation is different, but don’t disregard someone who is not as excited as you are about what is next. You should always be more excited than everyone else, you’re the leader. For me, I’ve had to learn to pay attention to the hesitancy or questions of others as they have helped me when I overlooked something or was moving too quickly. 

5. Plan for what is next. All growth means change. If your church gets larger, changes are coming. You will need to hand things off to people. Leaders who worked well in a church of 100 won’t be the leaders you need at 400 and beyond. Your schedule will be busier, which will make sermon prep, meeting with people and strategizing harder because you will need to plan better. Everything is different at each stage of your church. Many leaders blindly walk into the next season, get busier and burn out because they haven’t planned for what is next. So make sure that you are regularly pulling back to look at your top priorities as a leader and your schedule to ask, “Is this sustainable? Am I doing the right things? What do I need to pass off to others? Who do I need to develop?”

5 ways to handle tension as a leader.

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Dealing with the Expectations of Others

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Recently I gave a message on handling the expectations people place on us. We have all experienced the crushing weight of disappointing others, of letting them down. For example, it could be the expectation our parents put on us as children for grades or sports. Many of us have felt the disappointment of a spouse when we didn’t meet their expectations or from a child when we let them down. We have felt this at work where we have let down a boss or co-worker. 

All of us can look back on our childhood and remember a moment when we disappointed a coach, teacher, or parent. And for many of us, that was a shaping moment in our lives. 

This can be especially hard for leaders and pastors. We know the feeling that comes from getting an email from someone telling us they are leaving our church for this reason or that. It could be we are being unfairly compared to a past pastor, or someone shares a negative experience they had. Often when it comes to others’ expectations, it can feel like we can’t win. 

But what do we do with those feelings now? Steve Cuss, who wrote a fantastic book called Managing Leadership Anxiety, said, “We need to discern what is ours to carry, what is God’s to carry, and what is theirs to carry.”

We all carry around the expectations from our lives and the disappointments we have experienced from others. But what should we carry? What is ours? What is theirs? What is God’s to carry?

As we think about the “should’s” others place on us, I want you to think about a specific example, a specific expectation someone has placed on you, or a situation where you have felt someone’s disappointment. And as you do, I want to encourage you to walk through these questions to see what is yours to carry, what is theirs to carry, and what is God’s to carry. 

1. What is the expectation? While this might seem like an obvious question, we often skip over it. What is the actual expectation? Often in relationships, we misunderstand each other or miss meeting each other’s needs because we don’t know what the other person wants. As we saw on Sunday, Jesus went to the other town in Mark 1 after clarifying what the people and his disciples wanted.

2. Does God want you to meet it? Or can someone else (or God) meet it? Remember, in Mark 1, Jesus started with prayer. In prayer, that time with God, we begin to clarify what we are to do. As you have clarified the expectation, ask what God wants in this situation. It might not be the right time for you. 

3. Do you want to meet it? Throughout the gospels, Jesus knew what the people wanted. He knew what God wanted for him. He also knew when he didn’t want to meet their expectations and when He did want to meet their expectations. Why? He had other goals. It doesn’t make the people’s expectations wrong, just wrong for Jesus then. Some expectations that people have for us are not things we need to meet or want to meet, so knowing who God has created us and called us to be is essential. 

4. Can you meet it? This is the season and time question. Throughout Jesus’ ministry sometimes he left villages, and other times he stayed. He stopped at seemingly odd times to talk with people and heal them. Timing matters when it comes to expectations. You and I might do things today because of time available that we couldn’t do five years ago. An empty nester might have more flexibility than a mom with young kids. Sometimes people place expectations on us because they think we should handle it. However, we know what we can or can’t do, and it is crucial for us to be honest about that. 

5. If you meet it, will you keep them from meeting it? This is a hard one, especially if we love the other person. But, sometimes meeting an expectation that someone has for us keeps them from meeting it themselves; keeps God from meeting it, or maybe someone else. Everything isn’t yours to do. Sometimes our help can hinder the growth of someone else. And sometimes, if we step in, it might keep someone else from stepping in. 

6. Should God carry this? The things we know God should carry that we can’t are in the areas of change. Often in relationships, we will try to change people or meet some need to change them. That isn’t our job. That is God’s job. Some needs only God can meet. Although people may place the burden on us, sometimes it is for God to meet the need.