Category Archives: Healthy Church

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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.
5 ways a husband keeps his wife from flourishing & enjoying life (what to do about it).

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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. 

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Why You Aren’t Reaching Your Full Potential

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I’m part of the Reformed camp.

We are known for a few things: a deep love for theology, a desire to be right in that theology, and often, an unwillingness to bend and learn from people outside of our camp.

This isn’t true of everyone the Reformed camp, but it is what we are often known for.

I think the strongest leaders and the strongest churches are willing to learn from anyone. I didn’t say, they do everything they do or even agree with every part of their theology, but they learn from them.

I was asked by a new church planter in Acts 29 who my favorite preachers to listen to and he was surprised when I listed all guys who fall in the “seeker targeted” world of evangelicalism. Why? They know how to do things many in my world struggle with: making their messages relevant and calling people to action. They are also great at inspiring people.

Let me illustrate what can easily happen when we believe churches and leaders don’t learn from everyone: They look the same.

Recently, we were talking with someone that we were interviewing for a position at Revolution. When he learned that we organize our church around missional communities he said, “I can’t get on board with that, I don’t like that model.” At this point, he had no idea what our model looked like, only what he perceived it to be. He had an expectation, that we would be like every other MC model, which we aren’t.

Last year, I spoke at a church planting event that attracts thousands of planters to it. When I was talking to one of the organizers about it, he said, “I’m surprised you’re here because most people in your camp don’t come to our events.”

Why?

An unwillingness to learn from everyone.

This isn’t just the Reformed camp. This is everyone. Pastors not learning from business leaders and vice versa. Seeker churches not learning from the Reformed church or the high church. Worship leaders in attractional church not learning from missional/organic churches and vice versa.

Sadly, many pastors when they start their churches and settle into their camps seem to be above learning from outside their comfort zones. So, they read the same books they’ve always read, go to the same conferences with the same speakers who line up with them saying the things they are expected to say.

Here’s what it can look like. At Revolution, we’ve been heavily influenced by leaders like Tim Keller, Jeff Vanderstelt and Matt Chander. We’ve also been enormously blessed by Andy Stanley, Nelson Searcy and Bill Hybels.

How does this work? Two things need to happen:

  1. Humility. This is a willingness to learn from anyone, to read outside your camp and be pushed to think and be challenged. The moment you think you can’t learn from outside your camp, I’d say you’ve decided to stop being challenged and pushed and when that stops happening, you stop growing.
  2. Wisdom. This is knowing who to listen to and read. Not everyone is worth learning from. Sometimes your deeply held theological differences are worth listening to and not learning. Just because you differ on women’s roles in leadership, the purpose of preaching or worship, or how they do church doesn’t mean you can’t learn from them. The people outside of my theological camp I learn specific things from. I don’t go to Nelson Searcy for Biblical knowledge (in fact, I’ve heard him mess up bible verses in seminars), but he is a systems guru. I could listen to Bill Hybels and Andy Stanley talk for days on leadership and never grow tired (in fact, those 2 guys have had a bigger impact on my life than any other leader), but I disagree with them on a number of doctrinal issues.

As long as leaders are able to hold humility and wisdom together, they are able to grow and do great things and see God use them to their full potential because, they are learning from everyone. 

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Finding God in the Storm

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As I’m preaching through Habakkuk I’ve been overwhelmed by how hard it is to trust God.

I know that might sound weird to hear from a pastor, but it can be hard.

When life is going well I often have the feeling I don’t have to trust God because I’m tempted to think I don’t need God. Then, when life is hard or painful, I wonder why God is has left me or if he is angry at me.

Habakkuk begins by asking, “God, how do you sit idly by and do nothing about this?” If you are so powerful God, why don’t you lift a finger? Why do you allow this?

At the heart of God’s answer is God’s character. The way we answer that in our minds reveals what we believe about God.

It is easy when the clouds of life roll into to wonder why God hasn’t given us an umbrella, but He has.

God could’ve chosen any prophet to give this message to. Any number of them were available to carry this message. But God chose a man named Habakkuk, whose name means “Embrace.” I think this is one of the most crucial pieces of the book of Habakkuk and shows us God’s heart. It shows us where God is when the storms of life roll in. He is with us, embracing us. He is not far off. He is not taking a day off or having forgotten us.

Over and over in Scripture, from Joseph, to the Exodus, to David in the Psalms, Jesus in the gospels (particularly in John 11), God’s anger at the pain, death and hurt in our world.

One of the things I’ve been challenged with personally and was a challenge I gave to my church is that in a storm, to stop asking why something is happening and to begin looking for Jesus in the storm. It changes my heart and my perspective because I am asking something different of God and when I ask something different of God, I’m able to see things more clearly.

In this, I’m able to see that God is not oblivious. God is broken with us. God is embracing us.

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How to Win Men

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Every study on church and our culture largely says the same thing: Women are more likely than men to attend church, give, be involved, serve, lead, etc. Essentially, women are more willing and more likely to do anything spiritual than men.

There are a whole hosts of reasons: women are more spiritual, most pastors are not manly, churches are designed for women (this is true of a ton of churches but they won’t admit it), sermons are geared towards women, churches don’t know how to communicate to men who don’t have kids, pastors who do talk to men simply yell at them and tell them to get a job (while this might be needed I don’t think every man who walks into our churches is a lazy slob who lives at home and plays video games).

I was recently asked to join a team that helps to put events on for men in Arizona. I started to ask around about the organization because truth be told, I thought it was interesting since Revolution doesn’t have a men’s or women’s ministry. Essentially, we see our church as those.

I asked someone who knew them well what he thought of this organization and he said, “Their meetings are a bunch of talk about ideas, what they’ll do but in the end, no action.”

I looked at him and said, “So, like a men’s ministry.”

Now, before you misread this, I have nothing against men’s ministries, except for the fact that they often don’t work. They may help men who want to go to large events, or men who like to camp or men who like to read. Let’s be honest, most men’s ministries center around these 3 things. Every man isn’t into those things.

The reason that most churches are failing to reach men where they are is action.

We don’t call men to enough.

In most churches, we challenge men to show up, give a tithe check, maybe serve, get their kids there and be a presentable husband. Really? First off, a men could walk over this bar.

When the bar is too low, men wonder if it is worth their time. 

Here are 5 ways to raise the bar for men in your church:

  1. Preach to men. Most churches, the win for men is to stop looking at porn. While porn is destructive and pervasive, every man is not looking at it every day. There are more things a man struggles with or has questions about. Men in a sermon tend to want logic, clarity and action steps. Women tend to want more stories, feelings and emotions. While a sermon should strive for both, most pastors end up on one end of the spectrum and their church reflects that. I often think about men I know when I preach on a passage and try to discern questions they would have about it. When men leave a church, they tend to talk about if they were challenged to think in a new way, while women tend to talk about how they felt after a service. Not all are like this, but I’ve found this to be typical.
  2. Have a clear win. If your church doesn’t have a clear win, a clear vision, men will not sign up for it. Men want to know what is on the line, what impact something will make, why they need to show up.
  3. Show them how actions affect their legacy. Men are concerned with legacy, how things will end up, how they will be remembered. When you minister to a man, keep this in mind. Date night with his wife is not just something for today, but has an enormous affect on the marriages of his kids. Purity in his life will be passed on to his kids and grandkids. Whenever possible, show a man who what he is doing right now, good or bad, will affect his legacy.
  4. Give them clear examples worth following. One of the reasons I didn’t want to become a pastor when I was 18 was I had never met a pastor I wanted to be like. Most men look at church leaders and see people they don’t want to be like. Or, they don’t see men they would want to become. This doesn’t mean every pastor needs to drink beer or have a tattoo, but when men follow another man, they are following someone they want to emulate. Put leaders in your church, in visible places who men would want to emulate.
  5. Expect men to succeed. It is amazing to me what happens in someone’s life when we expect them to succeed or reach a goal. People pick up on our expectations and they have a way of reaching our expectations. If you expect men to lead family devotions, tell them, tell them you believe they can do it and give them resources to do it. If you expect men to reach something, tell them and help them get there. Too many churches seem to say, “We’re content if men just show up.” Or, “You should do ___” and then never give them any tools to accomplish this.

The reality for reaching men is they have a habit of becoming what we expect them to be.

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When You Want Vindication

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At some point, all of us have been hurt to the point that we want to retaliate or at the very least, make the other person feel something close to what we feel.

I remember when I was 25 and I was leaving the staff of a church in Maryland. I was young, I was hurt. I felt betrayed and I wanted other people to know it. I wanted people around me to know why I was hurt, I wanted them to feel my pain with them, but I also wanted the who hurt me to get a little bit of what I was feeling.

Then a friend pulled me aside and said to me, “Josh, whenever you tell someone what happened and why you are leaving this staff team, when you go to give them details and talk about your feelings, you need to ask yourself a simple question: why do I want this person to know?”

Honestly, I was angry with him.

I didn’t want to ask that.

The reason I wanted someone to know my feelings was because I wanted them to validate my hurt, join my side, help me push the agenda of injustice I felt or maybe even leave the church I was leaving so the leadership could feel some pain.

I would’ve said that I wanted a friend to hear me out or wanted someone to challenge my sin in the situation, but none of that was actually true.

I wanted vindication and retaliation.

This question, has now caused me to stop when I get ready to share something that happened. It gives me pause to ask what I will gain from sharing something.

There’s something else about this question. Until the motives are pure for sharing something, I have sin in my heart. 

Meaning, until I stop trying to get people onto my side of an issue, I’m sinning by trying to win or control something or I care too much about what someone else thinks.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t share things, but it means you need to ask why beforehand.

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Waiting on God

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I’m so, so excited about our next series at Revolution Church called Waiting on God as we go through the book of Habakkuk. We were not planning to do this book next and made a last minute change last week and I think it has the potential to be incredibly powerful 5 weeks as we look at why God allows bad things to happen, what do we do when God doesn’t seem to answer our prayers or is silent and how to deal with hurt, pain and abuses in our lives.

August 17: Trusting God in Your Pain (Habakkuk 1:1 – 11)
August 24: What to do While You Wait (Habakkuk 1:12 – 2:5)
August 31: God’s Power Over our Pain & Hurt (Habakkuk 2:6 – 20)
September 7: How to Have Faith While You Wait (Habakkuk 3:1 – 15)
September 14: The Wait Does End (Habakkuk 3:16 – 19)

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Stop Being Selfish

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Community is a hard and messy thing.

Many of us struggle with it because we are introverts, have been hurt by someone in the past, are selfish and want our way at all times or find it easier to just stay home and be alone with our hundreds of friends on Facebook.

Either way, we miss out.

In Galatians 6:2, the apostle Paul says that followers of Jesus are to carry each other’s burdens so they can fulfill the law of Christ.

To carry someone’s burden, to help with what weighs them down, you have to be close enough to carry it. Many of us do not have anyone close enough to help carry something. This is what I call waiting to build community when you need it. This ensures you will be alone and carry your burden by yourself. You have to build community for when you need it, not the other way around. You have to get past your fears, open yourself up to others and let them in.

What’s interesting about this verse is that Paul says it is possible to sin in two ways:

  1. You can sin by not carrying someone else’s burden when they need you to.
  2. You can sin by not allowing someone to carry your burden when you need them to.

The first one, most people would agree with. When you see someone who needs help, you should help. If you are able to help, do so. If you don’t, you are selfish and are a mean person. That one isn’t as big of an issue, although maybe that is a struggle for you because of pride and selfishness (Galatians 5:25 – 26).

The second one is what maybe catches us off guard. What if we try to do it ourself? What if we never ask for help? What if we never open ourselves up to community and the care others can give us or allow someone to carry our burden? We are sinning as much as the selfish, prideful person who won’t help. 

Why?

Both have missed community and relationships. Both of them have pride issues and think they don’t need help or others. Both lack humility.

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The Squeaky Wheel

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Pastors, you know this conversation because you’ve had it a million times. “Our church needs to have ____. Our church needs to do _____. If we had ____ more people would find Jesus.” That blank could be more classes, more groups, men’s ministry, women’s ministry, a quilting group, louder music, quieter music, more services, more kids stuff.

Here’s the problem when someone says your church should do something.

They have no idea what they want. 

Carmine Gallo said, “People don’t know what they want and, if they do, they have a hard time articulating what they truly desire.”

This is why leadership is so crucial in a church.

You can’t lead based off what people say they want or what people think they want.

Often, we don’t know the very thing that would help us get out of our predicament. We can see that to be true in our lives.

Leadership then, is the ability to move people to where they need to be, not always where they want to be.

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The Pain of Breaking the 200 Barrier

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200 barrier

Most churches in America never break through the 200 barrier, in fact, only 15% of churches break through it. Some pastors talk about it like it is the mythical unicorn. There are books, podcasts, webinars, and articles on how to break it. For years, Revolution would bump up against the 200 barrier and then go back down. We’d have seasons where we would stay above it and I thought we were through. Finally, we broke through it.

Breaking the 200 barrier isn’t a mythical thing, but does take specific steps.

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No light from heaven shone. There were no songs or angels. It just happened.

Since that moment, I’ve learned something.

Breaking through 200 hurts. A lot.

To break through 200, a lot of things in your church change and most of them are connected to the lead pastor. Teams you used to lead and meetings you used to be in, you no longer are. There is now a layer between you and someone you used to talk to every week.

If you are a planter, things your wife used to do you are now paying someone to do. People who were leaders from the moment of your church starting to get to 200 have hit their lid and are now replaced by other leaders.

This issue of control and feeling of loss looms larger than most leaders talk about. Don’t get me wrong, a growing church is exciting, but it is painful.

Here in lies why most churches don’t grow: the church and the pastor are not willing to go through the pain for it to grow.  What I mean is, people who feel connected to the pastor at 150 will often feel less connected at 200.

Churches that break the 200 barrier are willing to make room for more people.

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You will begin hearing things like, “the church doesn’t feel like a family anymore.” “I don’t know anyone at church.” “I used to have coffee with the pastor, but now I have to make an appointment.” People will lament it feels like a corporation instead of a church or that there are a bunch of new people. Pastors will have to stop micro managing and allow leaders to run with ideas. You will start to see things you don’t like in your church, the church you started. Not every pastor can handle this. Communication loops change. What used to take a phone call or a text, now takes a video, announcement or mass email. Putting together an event or work day used to take a few days of lead up now takes a few weeks to work out schedules across ministries. Where you used to know every leader and were able to put people into place of leadership roles, you now need a process to vet and check those who are leading teams. The world has changed. And this is why most churches break through 200 and settle back at 150. They don’t like the way things felt at 200. 

In addition to all this, there is another reason few pastors are willing to make the jump through 200.

Finances.

Churches that break the 200 barrier are willing to take a step of faith financially.

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It is a squeeze on a church financially to break through 200. At this point, you need to hire some more staff and you won’t have the money for it. It will stretch your budget and your faith. You will take a step that depending on where your church is could sink your ship if it goes poorly. Many pastors and churches are not willing to take this step, are unsure of how to hire correctly and so they stay stuck. In the end, this boils down to a willingness to do what it takes to become the church God has called you to become.

If you are still with me and arguing with me in your head, let me hit the last reason churches and leaders don’t break through this barrier.

Their personal lid.  Many churches or pastors simply don’t have the capacity to break this barrier. Many will say, “Then they shouldn’t. We need small churches.” There is some truth in that and some lie. We need small churches, but we need those churches to be healthy, must be discipling people and helping people find Jesus and baptize them. Some churches do this, plant more churches and never break 200. Some planters start churches well, get it to 200 and pass the baton to go and plant another church.

Churches that break the 200 barrier are led by pastors who are willing to lead and grow.

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In the end, the churches and leaders that break through 200 and go on to break 400-500 have the willingness to make the sacrifice so that a church can do more and help more people enter a relationship with Jesus so they can become who God has called them to be.

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How to Work from Home Successfully

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It is becoming more and more common to work remotely. Not only in offices, but for churches. Especially with the rise of church plants, more and more pastors find themselves working from coffee shops, their house or a shared work space.

The transition to this or starting your own business in your house can be difficult. After 7 years of working in a church office, we planted Revolution and I’ve been working from home and other places since then.

Here are 6 ways to work from home successfully:

  1. Have a designated work space. Depending on your set up, this can be hard but it is important that you have a work space. If you can have a room with a door, this is ideal but not completely necessary. I’ve had seasons where my office was a kids bedroom and that is part of it.
  2. Have a clear start and stop time. Some jobs that work remotely have this built in. I have a friend who works for a call center but does it in his house, so he has to sign in at a certain time. For others, like a pastor, this isn’t as clear. It is important define, especially if you are married and have kids, when you will start and when you will stop. This will help to prevent working more than you should and having a clear boundary.
  3. The water cooler factor. If you work in an office, interruptions are part of the day. People stopping by, you getting up to walk around. These can be helpful and intrusive. It is important that you plan for these in working from home. I try to break my day up into 90 minute increments and have a break in between that could be as simple as getting more coffee. You also need to keep this in mind as you think about how long your work day should be as your spouse probably isn’t stopping by to talk about fantasy football for 30 minutes while you work.
  4. Stay focused. It is easy to work from home and not stay focused. After all, you can see other things that need to be done and no one is looking over your shoulder telling you not to look at blogs, Facebook or the news. You must have a system to stay focused on the task at hand. One of the things I installed was Chrome Nanny and put in certain websites that are blocked during my work hours, like social media sites, to help me stay focused.
  5. Handling interruptions. Working from home, you will still have interruptions. Kids knocking on your door, your spouse asking you to do something. This is part of the flexibility of not being in an office, but you have to have a system for handling them, otherwise you won’t get any work done. There are times when my door is locked and the kids leave me alone and times when it is open and they can do schoolwork or play on my floor while I work.
  6. Disconnecting from work. If you work from home, you walk out of your home office and your home. You don’t get that 30, 60 minute commute to disconnect from work, listen to sports radio or have some silence before you connect with your family. I used to work and as soon as I was done go into family mode. This doesn’t work as I can be on edge or still thinking about work. Now, I workout, take a walk or read some sports blogs and then go into family mode. You have to learn how to make your commute happen without having a commute.
6 ways to work from home successfully.

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Working from home isn’t for everyone or for every job. Some people can’t handle the freedom that comes from not having a set start time or not having a boss look over their shoulder. We had someone on our staff team once that struggled to accomplish 30% of their job because of this, so you must be wise when deciding to work from home as it is a stewardship issue for you and your company or church.