Category Archives: Healthy Church

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Do You Love the Church You Work At?

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Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first. -Simon Sinek

The title of this blog post might seem funny to you, but do you love the church you work at? Do you love the people in your church? Are you passionate about the mission, vision, and strategy of your church?

Let me ask it another way that an older pastor asked me: Would you attend your church if you didn’t get paid to be there?

Would you attend your church if you didn’t get paid to be there?

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Too many pastors and church leaders are merely showing up to work and collecting a paycheck.

And the people around them feel it.

Imagine what our churches would be like if the people leading them were so passionate about the mission, they would do whatever it takes.

This shows up in all kinds of ways. Here are some negative ones I’ve seen:

  • Leaders are not helping or serving when things need to be done.
  • Pastors who don’t give generously to their churches.
  • Pastors and leaders not in or leading small groups.
  • Leaders who are not inviting friends to their church.

Now, I know that no church is perfect and that every pastor or board isn’t fun to work for. I know that ministry is hard and that you pour yourself out and often you feel depleted.

This isn’t so much about loving your church as it is loving being a part of your church. 

The reason this matters is not only for your soul and feeling alive as a child of God and a leader but your church feels this, and it has an enormous impact on your church and the people in it.

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It Isn’t Always a Bad Thing When People Leave Your Church

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One of the most painful parts of being a pastor or leader is losing someone. Whether it is someone who attends your church, a leader or a staff member. It is personally painful, and it is painful to the church. Even when someone leaves because God is calling them somewhere else to start a ministry or be a part of a ministry, it is painful. Also though it is painful, it isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes it is God’s way of protecting you.

When I was in seminary I was on staff at a great church, and they had given me a ton of opportunities, and I was close to the lead pastor. God had opened some doors for Katie and me, and we felt like we needed to move to a new church. The problem was that we had committed a year to the church we were at, so we told this new church that we needed to finish our time. But the feeling didn’t go away.

I remember when I went to the pastor and told him what we were feeling, but that we would stay and finish our commitment because that was important to us. He looked at me and said, “If God is calling you somewhere, that means God is calling someone to come here and take your place. Who knows, they might already be here. If you stay, not only will you miss what God is calling you to, but that person will miss what God is calling them to here.” It was one of the most kingdom-minded, eye-opening moments of my life. That conversation has shaped my leadership and how I look at the way God moves. If God is sovereign (and I believe he is), then when He calls someone away to somewhere else, he is preparing someone else to jump in.

This doesn’t make it any less painful or hard. It just changes how you look at it. It is a reminder that you are not in charge or control and that is okay.

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3 Lies Pastors Believe

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pastors

All of us believe lies in our lives and those lies shape us. Lies that we aren’t good enough, strong enough, that I owe God, that we can be in control, that God doesn’t love us, that we aren’t lovable or worthwhile.

Lies like these, shape us. And if we don’t face them, these lies will determine the stories we tell and live.

Pastor’s believe lies as well. I know that might be a shock, but it’s true.

And like lies in our personal lives, if we don’t face them, name them and see the impact they have on our lives, they will determine how we lead and what our leadership (and lives) are like.

Here are three of them:

3 lies most pastors believe.

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1. What happens at my church is because of me.

All pastor’s know this isn’t true, but we easily believe it is. You can tell by their mood after they hear how many people were at church, what the offering was like, how the kid’s ministry went. Much of what they feel about their sermon is based on what they can read on people’s face, the connection they feel or lack thereof.

If numbers are up, our moods tend to be better. If there were no technical mistakes in the service, we feel better.

This isn’t to say that excellence doesn’t matter, cause it does, but it can become a difficult idol to shake.

2. God loves me more when I preach.

I love preaching. I feel like God has gifted me to do it and I love using this gift for His glory. It is an honor. But it is easy for me to feel like God loves me more because I preach or that I feel his presence more in my life when I am preaching.

It is also easier for a pastor to replace their devotional life with sermon prep. When this happens, we aren’t filling up our bucket, but merely giving out.

It is often easier to do something for God than see what God is doing in us. 

3. If I’m not at church, it will fall apart.

As a church planter or pastor, you will battle this. Will people care about your church as much as you do? What happens if your church completely falls apart when you aren’t there? While many struggles with this, I’ve never actually heard of a church closing because a pastor was away for a week. Revolution will not fall apart if I’m not there, but like lie #1, it is easy to fall into.

The healthiest churches are the ones that a pastor can leave for a week or two and give others a chance to step up and lead.

3 lies every pastor believes

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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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When Someone Doesn’t Pull Their Weight at Work, Church or Home

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One of the realities of leadership and relationships is that someone will always do more work than the other person. When you are the person who is taken advantage of it can be hurtful. When you are the person who is taking advantage, it doesn’t feel as bad.

For many, this can be devastating in a relationship or job. The closer a person is to us, the more hurtful it is.

As I preached through the book of Nehemiah this year, I was struck by a verse in chapter 3.

Verse 5 says: The nobles, the leaders, would not lift a finger. One translation says they wouldn’t put their shoulders to the work, another says, they refused to do the work.

This verse is telling. Not everyone will do the work; some will flat out refuse it. And either stay and watch and cause problems or they’ll leave.

If you’re a pastor, you’ve had this happen as you’ve watched leaders and people come and go to your church.

They will leave for doctrinal reasons, theological disagreements. Some will go because you use too much bible or not enough. Your sermons aren’t helpful enough, or they are also useful and not deep enough. People will leave because you won’t do their ministry idea, you aren’t meeting their needs, and the list goes on and on.

We had an elder leave our church because he wanted a church that was more about him and his needs. When this happens, it is crushing because one of the jobs of an elder is to lay aside their needs and preferences to lead for the good of the body. He told me since “Revolution targets men in there 20’s and 30’s and I’m older than that, so it doesn’t make sense to stay.”

That’s refusing to do the work.

I’ve watched it happen among church planters as they go through an assessment. When they don’t pass right away or hit snags, they can choose to do the work that lays ahead or look for a shortcut.

A leader sets aside their needs and desires for the good of others, the good of the vision.

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When a leader burns out, they can choose to do the work to come back healthy and come back and lead, or they can say, “I won’t do the work.”

Why does this matter?

In the New Testament, obedience and sacrifice are linked.

In the New Testament, obedience and sacrifice are linked.

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We are more interested in glory.

But that doesn’t come first and might not even happen in this life.

As Andy Stanley said, A vision worth pursuing will demand sacrifice and risk. You will be called upon to give up the actual good for the potential best.

I love what Karen Burnett said: If you decide that what God is asking you to do with your life is just too much on you and is just a little too inconvenient, then you will never see the miracles he has for you.

I want the miracles of God, every day. But rarely do I want any inconvenience. I want the reward that comes from obedience to Jesus, but not the sacrifice that that obedience will require.

Here’s a hard reality of life, church, family, and work.

Some will refuse to do the work. Some will refuse to be a part of the vision. Some will refuse to sacrifice like you will.

You will give more than others.

You will give more than your spouse.

You will give more than your kids.

You will give more than your boss.

You will give more than your pastor.

You will give more than your board members.

If you have a vision, at some point, you will be called upon to sacrifice something for that vision. That sacrifice might be time, money, hard work, failure.

It’s okay to grieve and be upset about people who don’t do what they say they’ll do. But we don’t stay there; we have to heal and move forward.

Some will do more work than others and work harder than others.

We’re told multiple times in Nehemiah 3 that some people did their section and then another.

Did they complain? I don’t know, but they started to work on another section because they were finished with theirs.

This is one of our church’s values, to take it personally.

They didn’t finish their section and said, well we’re done, let’s wait for them.

One of our values is seeing a problem or something that needs to be done here and jumping in.

Nehemiah wants us to know that not only do some people do more work, some work harder.

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The Key to Building a Generous Church Culture

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What is the key to building a generous church culture?

Could it be:

  • Telling a compelling story?
  • Running a slick capital campaign?
  • Sharing a recent testimony?
  • Letting your church members know their gift matters?
What is the key to building a generous church culture?

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These tactics and more can motivate people in your church to give, and they may lead to a short-term boost in generosity. But any tactics you use will fail in the long run if you don’t build a culture of generosity to sustain them.  

There’s only one way you can build a generous church culture.

Zacchaeus, meet Jesus

Zacchaeus was a man of small stature (Luke 19:3), but he was also a man of great wealth (19:2).

He was despised by the people of his community. Not because he was a man of financial means, but because he presumably used his position as the chief tax collector in town to collect more money than he should have collected.

But Zacchaeus was transformed into a generous giver. He gave half of his possessions to the poor and paid back what he took from others fourfold (19:8).

How did this happen?

Jesus transformed Zacchaeus (19:3–6).

Jesus gave him a new life and a new heart (19:9–10). He led Zacchaeus to become a giver.

There’s an essential lesson in this story you need to grasp in order to unleash generosity in your church.

The foundation of generosity

The foundation of generosity is not built upon a solid campaign strategy or the pillars of the latest digital tactics. The foundation of a generous church culture is built upon leading the people in your church to Jesus.

I know this sounds trite, but hear me out.

Jesus is a giver.

He graciously gave his life for us so that we might live in him.

Like Zacchaeus, it’s when we come face-to-face with Jesus that we are transformed into generous people. This isn’t a superficial transformation or a one-time offering.

In Christ, our desire to give will in time overshadow our willingness to receive, the grasp on our belongings will become loosened, and we will be led to give joyfully from what we have.

If you want to build a generous church culture, then continue to preach the gospel and teach biblical stewardship.

Remind your church that Jesus has given them new life. Regularly let them know that Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice so that they could be forgiven from their sins, receive his perfect righteousness, and become children of God.

In time, as you preach the gospel and lead people to meet Jesus, you will see your church members respond to his generosity by being generous themselves.

Over to you

It will certainly be helpful to provide your church community with online giving and mobile giving tools, as well as following the best practices for increasing giving in your congregation. But in the words of Chris Willard and Jim Sheppard, the authors of Contagious Generosity, “Well-executed tactics fail if there is no culture of generosity to support them.”

Before you rush to embrace the latest and greatest promotional tactic, take time to prayerfully reflect on the ministry in your church and whether you are regularly preaching the gospel and leading the people in your church to meet Jesus face-to-face—just like Zacchaeus.  

Here are three questions you can ask to help you think through your ministry:

  1. How does Zaccchaeus’s story illustrate the importance of preaching the gospel?
  2. In what ways does your church do a good job of leading people to a deeper connection with Jesus?
  3. Where can your church improve in this area?

About the Author

Jesse Wisnewski is the senior content marketer at Tithe.ly. Jesse is also the founder of Stillhouse Marketing and the keeper of Copybot. He lives outside of Nashville, TN with his wife and five kids.

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Leveraging Your Parenting

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As a parent, you feel a lot of pressure.

Who your kids hang out with, their grades, future, safety, good choices, the list goes on and on.

One of the things that parents fail to realize is the power they have in their kid’s lives for good or bad.

I’ve talked before about how we are all vision casters in people’s lives, but that is seen most clearly in the lives of our kids.

You’re a vision caster for your kids.

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Recently, I was reminded of this when I was preaching on Nehemiah chapter 3.

Nehemiah 3 is a list of names, but in those names, we learn some incredibly important things.

Nehemiah 3 lists the number of people who worked on rebuilding the city wall of Jerusalem.

What we know from the New Testament is that our work matters and that it is a reflection of our worship of God.

What does this have to do with parenting?

A lot.

Our kids learn things from us because we intentionally taught them or we passively taught them something.

In Nehemiah 3, we’re told that families worked together on the wall.

If work = worship, this is crucial for families.

Work = worship.

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We pass on to our kids how to work and how to worship Jesus.

In your family, do not miss the power of worshiping together.

Singing songs together, reading your bible with your kids, your spouse. Having them in church, in our kids and student ministries, serving, using their gifts, and sitting in the service.

Recently I’ve talked to a number of church planters of young churches and hear the same thing: Parents of teenagers dropping their kids off at the young church plant and then the parents go to an older established church. I do not understand parents and kids worshiping at two completely different churches.

Parents don’t miss this, you are teaching your kids an incredibly important lesson about what you think about worship, Jesus, church, and your selfishness when you worship at different churches. They aren’t missing it.

Another thing I’ll hear from parents is a different issue: but I don’t want to push God down my kid’s throat, they aren’t that interested. Which I get.

Think for a moment, do your kids love every vegetable you make them eat? If they’re like mine they don’t, but I make them eat them. I make them try food they don’t like or aren’t excited about because it’s healthy for them or I made it for them and I’m not making a bunch of different meals. You probably do the same thing and never once do you think, “I’ll bet they’ll never eat again because I’m forcing them to eat something they hate.”

Does your child love all the homework they have to do? Math? Reading? Science? Learning a language? Yet, you make them and you don’t think, “they’ll drop out of school because I made them do their homework when they were in middle school.”

Why do we treat worship and Jesus differently?

In your family, do not underestimate the power of your words and the vision you cast for those closest to you.

As a parent you have more influence on your kids than anyone, don’t waste it.

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You as the parent spend more time with your kids than anyone and every study says you have more influence on your kids than social media, friends, marketing, and TV shows. Stop wasting it. It’s not our kids and student ministries job to grow your child spiritually, it’s yours. We’re here to help. Just like it isn’t my job to grow you spiritually. If the only time you open your bible and feed on the truths of God is with me on Sunday morning, you’ll starve.

Leveraging your parenting.

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Without Unity, Everything Crumbles

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We know unity matters.

It matters in companies, churches, teams, and relationships.

Without unity, everything crumbles.

Without unity, everything crumbles.

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While we know this, we don’t spend a lot of time on it.

We often assume it will happen and when it does happen, it will stay that way.

But, like a car, unity and alignment is something you have to pay attention to and work on.

Your car through use will go out of alignment.

Any relationship will go out of alignment. Any team will go out of alignment.

Alignment and unity only come through effort.

If you lead anything, one of your jobs is to be on the lookout for misalignment and deal with it as quickly as possible.

Not only does time bring misalignment, but also so does a crisis.

Families see this happen when unemployment hits; one child is the problem child, so all the energy gets pushed to the child who needs it. Without realizing it, parents focus on fixing that one child while the compliant kids get neglected for a season.

This happens in marriage. Both people have a vision for their future, their family, what their marriage will be like. The problem is when they have different visions. They each start working towards their goal, and you’ll hear things like, “we aren’t on the same page anymore. I don’t feel like they’re behind my goals and dreams. I don’t think they even know what’s happening in my life.”

One author said Visions thrive in an environment of unity. They die in an environment of disunity.

Visions thrive in an environment of unity. They die in an environment of disunity. -Andy Stanley

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How do you know if you have disunity or misalignment at work, church or home? Here are some ways:

  • People attempt to control rather than serve. You will start to hear about their needs and desires, no one else does what they do, as much as they do, is as essential as they are. Marriage very quickly becomes a list of what someone has done or not done, and this becomes a weapon.
  • They will manipulate people and circumstances to further than own agendas. You will start to hear about them and their friends who have issues. Disunity, criticism, is a virus that quickly grows because we are attracted to negativity.
  • They will refuse to resolve things face to face. They will avoid the people they have a problem with. They will opt to talk about you with others instead of to you.
  • They will exhibit an unwillingness to believe the best about other people on the team or in the family or the church. We live in a suspicious culture. We’ve been trained that if you don’t look out for yourself, no one will. That people are always taking advantage of you or working the system. Sometimes they are, but many times they aren’t.

One way I’ve learned to move forward it to choose trust.

One of our values as a church is to choose trust. You can choose trust or suspicion in every relationship. You do choose trust or suspicion in every relationship.

One will destroy any relationship, suspicion, or it will grow it, trust.

Right now, you have a relationship where you are choosing suspicion, and you need to choose trust. This is often, what leads us down the road of disunity and misalignment.

In choosing trust, ask: Am I believing the best about others; choosing trust over suspicion and giving the benefit of the doubt?

Am I believing the best about others; choosing trust over suspicion and giving the benefit of the doubt?

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Be the Pastor God Created You to Be

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It’s hard to be the person you’re supposed to be.

If we’re honest, the person we are, the person God is creating in us often seems mundane and ordinary. Nothing like the highlight reels we see on Instagram.

As a pastor, it is tough to be the person God has created you to be.

Be the Pastor God Created You to Be

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You can download the sermons of any other pastor (and so can your people). You wonder if you are measuring up; if you are faithful enough if you are pursuing the vision God has placed in your heart or pursuing someone else’s vision.

Compound that with voices in your church. Many of them well-meaning.

You will hear things like:

  • You need to be more visionary.
  • You need to be more shepherding.
  • You need to preach more in-depth (deeper) sermons.
  • You need to preach more topical sermons that are relevant.
  • You need to be more relational.
  • You need to be more strategic.
  • Have you ever heard of ________ [insert famous pastor]?
  • My last pastor did ____________.

And that is before you hear anything about your spouse, your kids or the direction of the church.

With all of those voices (don’t forget your taunting doubts), it is hard to be the pastor God has called and created you to be.

It took me a long time (and I’m still wrestling through it) to be comfortable with who I am.

Yes, I need to grow in my shortcomings. I need the gospel to plow through the pride in my heart.

But my church needs me to bring the gifts, talents, and strengths that God has given to me. Not the gifts, talents and strengths of the pastor down the road or the latest megachurch pastor flying up the iTunes chart.

Your church needs you to bring the gifts, talents, and strengths that God has given to you.

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That’s a hard lesson to learn and one that I wished I would’ve learned earlier.

If you don’t, you will end up chasing after people, trying to please loud people who don’t care who God has created you to be, only that you aren’t what they would like you to be.

So, be you.

God doesn’t need you to be the person down the street. He already has that one.

He needs and wants you.

That’s why He made you the way He did.