Posted on Monday, November 27, 2017

8 Ideas to Make Your Christmas Eve Service Memorable

by Joshua Reich

Christmas Eve is coming, and millions of people will walk into a church to experience something. But what will they get when they walk into your church or mine?

For many of those guests, this will be the only time they attend church this year. They are coming for all kinds of reasons. Some are searching, some were drug along by a family member, and some can’t tell you why they are there. But they are there.

What will they feel? Experience? Hear?

8 last minute tips for your Christmas Eve Service.

With that in mind, here are a few last minute tips for your church and mine:

Be you. I think many churches over blow big days and try to go all out, and then when someone comes back they are disappointed. The old saying, “What you win them on is what you keep them on,” applies greatly to Christmas Eve.

Be you. Don’t try to be a different church. If you are a small church plant of 50 people, use that to your advantage and don’t try to be the megachurch of 3,000 that puts on a huge production. Be you.

Keep it simple. The church I lead strives to be a simple church in all we do, and that extends to special services and days. We want the people who walk through our doors to experience a great service, but we also want them to know this is what it is like every other week of the year.

Be friendly. Every church thinks they are friendly and most are not. So try to be friendly. As a pastor, walk around before and after the service. Be visible. Have greeters ready at the doors and walking around saying hi and engaging guests. If you find someone who doesn’t know where to go, show them, don’t point them. Walk them to where they need to go, don’t say, “Go through that door, take two lefts and then a right and walk backwards.”

Thank people for coming. I’m blown away that churches don’t say thanks to people who show up. They didn’t have to come to your church. They could’ve stayed home, but they didn’t. Say thanks. Give them a thank you gift or verbally thank them for spending the holiday with you.

Invite them back. Again, this is something many churches don’t do or don’t do well. Tell them, “We’d love to have you back.” And make it sound great. Tell them what you are inviting them back to.

Talk about Jesus. This might seem obvious because it is Christmas, but many pastors will not talk about Jesus and miss the whole point. Tell people about Jesus, regardless of what the topic of the service is. He is why you are there.

Give them a clear next step. At the end, give them a clear next step. It might be becoming a follower of Jesus, coming back next week for that brand new series you are starting, talking to someone, or something related to the sermon. It might be giving to your Christmas offering or some other response, but have one.

Keep it short. A Christmas service should be under an hour. Period. Keep it short and simple. Thank them, invite them back, talk about Jesus, give them a clear next step and say, “Merry Christmas, I’ll see you next week!”

How to make your Christmas Eve service great!

Posted on Thursday, August 3, 2017

The Halfway Point of the Year & the Top 10 Posts of July

by Joshua Reich

It’s the middle of summer.

In Tucson, where I live, the monsoon’s are in full swing and school is back in session.

The year is more than halfway over.

Hopefully you are closer to the goals you set at the start of the year.

If not, don’t fear.

The year isn’t over and it isn’t too late to hit restart and try again.

In case you missed them, here are the top 10 posts of the month of July. Hopefully, they are encouraging to you but also help you reach the goals you have as a leader and a person. Thanks for reading!

Posted on Monday, April 3, 2017

Church Growth and the Work of God

by Joshua Reich

We know that God is the one who makes a church grow, that it isn’t on us. This is both a comfort and a problem.

It is a comfort because we can rest. We don’t have to force things, we don’t have to make something happen. It is a problem because it can make us lazy. It can make us throw up our hands and say, “Well, I just need to preach the gospel and that’s it.” This is much like the Calvinist who doesn’t share his faith because “God will get who he’s going to get”, as one pastor told me.

Those are extremes, but they are important to point out.

Yes, Jesus grows his church. God grows the seeds that are planted. The Holy Spirit draws people, and often times a church grows and God moves with no explanation.

Other times a church grows, and while the Holy Spirit did the work, there were specific things that church did and did not do.

How much are you praying? How much is your elder and staff team praying? Not only for people in your church but for people not in your church? Are you asking God for specific people you are in relationships with? Are you praying that God will send 300, 500 people to your church this Easter? How burdened is the pastor for people who don’t know Jesus? Are there any sins in your church, leadership team or your life that you need to confess that are hindering the work of God?

How much are you, as a pastor, praying for your church?

In your church and in your preaching and worship, are you exalting Jesus and making it simple for people to understand?

Many times I’ll have pastors ask me to listen to their sermons, and all I can think the whole time is that I have to have a seminary degree to understand what he is talking about. Being simple is not being shallow. Being simple is being helpful. The gospel is complex, deep and robust, but it is also so simple that my four year old can explain it to you. Our kids can draw a picture of the gospel, so our preaching should reflect that to a certain degree.

One of the ways we evaluate this in our church has to do with communion. When we move from the sermon to communion, is it an easy transition or does it feel like a hard right turn?

We’ll talk about systems in a minute, but do you have a clear vision, a clear strategy and a clear picture of what you are shooting for? For example, can you articulate in simple terms what a healthy, mature disciple looks like? Many times in our churches, we can’t. I’m sad to say, in our church we waited too long to articulate this, and it did a disservice to our people.

I think the work of God is deeply connected to our ability to clearly help our people grow. They are connected. If Jesus builds his church and the gates of hell will not prevail, what kind of people will withstand those gates?

Many times churches do not know what they are trying to build in people. They don’t know what a healthy, mature disciple looks like, so they aren’t sure what they are aiming at. For our church, we took too long to define this clearly, and I think that hurt us as a church.

Why?

Not only did it not serve our leaders and people well, we weren’t able to ask God for specific things to build into our people. It hinders the ability to focus a sermon calendar on those important discipleship aspects.

Let me leave you with an important question for churches, boards and staffs: What kind of disciples are you building? Is that what the New Testament calls us to? Do you have a clear path to accomplish that?

What kind of disciples is your church building?

Posted on Monday, March 20, 2017

Two Overlooked Parts of Church Growth

by Joshua Reich

There are many reasons one church grows and another does not.

Some of those reasons are within the control of a church and its leadership; some of those reasons are not.

Two things that are often overlooked by churches, church planters and pastors are context and timing. They are incredibly important to churches but things we often don’t talk about.

First, context. This is a mission question and one that I think a church should ask every few years. It is one that gets asked before a church is planted, but when a church is established these are hard questions to get back to and easy to forget.

Here are some questions to consider:

Who are we best suited to reach as a church?
Are we near those people?
If we are, what are we doing to reach those people?
If we aren’t, do we need to move to reach those people or change what we are doing to reach those around us?

Admittedly these are uncomfortable questions to ask as a pastor, but as a church planter you asked them easily. One of the ways a church grows is by keeping that entrepreneurial, risk taking spirit.

Who are we best suited to reach as a church? Every church and every pastor are best suited to reach someone. The way you preach, the kind of music you have, how much emphasis you put on kids’ ministry, the times of your services and your location all determine many of the people you will reach. Oftentimes you simply have to look at who attends a church, and you will see who that church is best suited to reach, because they are reaching those people.

And who you are best suited to reach as a leader and pastor and where the church you lead should meet are often wrapped up in where you grew up and the kind of environment you grew up in. Not always, but many times.

If you are struggling to figure out the answer to this question, you may simply need to look at who shows up at your church to see who you are best suited to reach.

Are we near those people? Let’s say you are best suited to reach young adults and college students. Are you near those people? Let’s say it is white collar or blue collar. Are you near those people?

The church planter of one of the churches Revolution (the church I lead) helped plant had a heart for the poorest area of the city where he grew up. Many times pastors and churches are not near the people they care the most about, feel the call to reach or want to have an influence on. So they drive past those people to get to where their church meets. That isn’t good mission work.

If we are, what are we doing to reach those people? Let’s say you live and are located as a church near the people you are best suited to reach and have a passion to reach, because you can’t reach everyone. What are you doing to reach those people? Are you reaching out in a way that makes sense to them and is relevant to them?

If we aren’t, do we need to move to reach those people or change what we are doing to reach those around us? This is an easy question before you plant and a hard question after you plant, but I think it is a crucial one to vitality in a church.

The answer to this question does not always mean you move or abandon your vision, but I think a church needs to be willing to ask it. In our area, people do not travel more than 20 minutes for church. This is a reality of traffic patterns and timing with sports and other activities. And you know, the further people get from a church, the less involved they are, the less engaged in mission they are, the less likely they are to invite people and the less likely those people are to come.

Last thing about location, do you meet in the best spot possible for who you are as a church and what you are trying to do? If you are portable, the school or place where you meet is connected to who you are as a church. We think long and hard about this when we plant, but it goes out the window after we get started.

It isn’t just context and location that matter, but timing.

Timing.

This is having an understanding of when you plant, when you grow, how that works in the life of the lead pastor, the church and the city you are in.

I always chuckle when I go to church planting conferences and a megachurch pastor stands on stage and says, “We started with no people and no money. We preached the gospel, and boom! People just showed up.” While they are trying to be inspiring, it isn’t helpful and usually not even close to accurate.

This overlooks how long a pastor has been in an area, if they’re known, if they were part of a larger church before they planted, if they were a traveling camp speaker or a well known youth worker in an organization. Did they work in a large college ministry? All of these factors work into timing.

Many times a church will get planted and not grow, and within a few years it no longer exists. A year or two after that church was planted, a new church is planted nearby, and that church finds stability, grows and becomes self-sufficient. Some of that is timing. The timing of people being ready, the timing of the church. Those are all things out of our control but are important to remember. They are not to be excuses for a church or for a pastor to say, “I was faithful and nothing happened.” But it is a reality to the question of why a church grows or doesn’t grow.

When planting a church, it is not just the call of a pastor and having funding and people, but asking the question, “Is the timing right for this church? Have there been churches planted here before? Have they succeeded or failed?” Many times a church takes off after others have closed down. This is the work of a leader understanding the “soil” in which he is seeking to plant seeds.

Posted on Monday, February 20, 2017

How to Build a Healthy Elder Team

by Joshua Reich

If there is one thing pastors know well, it is the pain that can stem from a poorly run elder team. Long meetings, arguments, back stabbing, meetings outside of the meeting, gossip, politicking. The list goes on and on.

On the other side, you hear about elder teams that care for each other, love and serve the church well, care for the pastors and their families and work together to fulfill what God has called the church to. This side of the equation is seen by many pastors as a unicorn. There are rumors, sightings and rumblings, but few actually realize it.

Those elder teams do exist, but they take specific steps to get there.

Here are seven things you must do as a pastor to build a healthy elder culture.

1. Make building a healthy elder team/culture a priority.

Too many lead pastors don’t make this a priority, and their elder team and the culture of that team shows how little effort this gets. In fact, in many churches the lead pastor has little to no say who is on the elder team, yet that team determines more about the health of the church than almost every other team.

Most pastors need to make building a healthy elder team a higher priority.

If your by-laws have a nominating committee that doesn’t include the lead pastor, change your by-laws. If you have a nominating committee for your elder team, change your by-laws and take that out. (I’ll get to that in a minute.)

For too long at our church I saw leadership development as something that would just happen because I cared about leadership, but for leaders to be developed and a culture to be built, the lead pastor must carry the flag. Don’t mistake this, a culture will be built, whether you try or not, so make building a healthy culture a priority.

Pastor, this needs to be higher on your list of priorities.

Why does this have to be a priority?

A healthy elder team brings security, health, care and development to the whole church. When the elder team knows what it is doing (and not doing), when they care for the staff and leaders well, when they are connecting to new people in the church, praying with and for the church, protecting the church, keeping them on track with the vision as well as financially and doctrinally, everyone wins.

The whole church feels the effects of a healthy or unhealthy elder team.

When this doesn’t happen, you see carnage, hurt, pain and disillusionment all over the church.

2. Know what you are looking for in an elder.

If you ask most people in a church what an elder does, you will hear a few different answers. Those answers determine what you will get in an elder team.

They should be financially and business minded. In this case, the elders act more like a board of directors simply checking and balancing things.

You will hear someone pull out 1 Peter 5 and talk about shepherding and pastoring. This team is highly relational, caring and functions to make sure the church is warm, discipled and no one falls through the cracks.

Eventually someone will pull out 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 and talk about the qualifications of an elder.

Many pastors simply look for friends to put on their elder team because they know the carnage that can happen if they have enemies on that team.

You will find whatever you are looking for in an elder, so look wisely and know ahead of time what you are looking for.

The failure of most elder teams stems from no one knowing what an elder does.

Does an elder preach? Counsel? Make budgets? Decisions? Do they shepherd everyone? Are they there to protect the pastor? Protect the church from the pastor? (I had an elder say that once.)

Again, your answer will determine what you get because you will go looking for that.

An elder is a man with character, someone who fits the qualifications of 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1 and 1 Peter 5.

An elder is a man who will protect the church, who will keep the church on mission and on track financially and doctrinally. A man who can see the whole field of the church.

An elder must be able to see the whole church.

This last part, seeing the whole field of the church, is one of the most important things to ask when considering someone to be an elder. Someone can be a great community group leader but not a good elder. Someone can be a good businessman but not a good elder. Someone might be a great volunteer in an area, but that’s the lid of their leadership. None of those are bad things. In fact, they are good things. It just means someone is not an elder.

Too many times we put the wrong people on that bus. We think, “He’s a good shepherd, so he should be an elder.” But as a church grows, shepherding isn’t the only thing an elder does. They also oversee staff and budgets (that begin to have a lot of zeros after them). Other times we think, “He’s good with numbers, but he might be a jerk.” You need to know.

3. Always be on the lookout.

You as the lead pastor are always on the lookout for great leaders for every part of your church. The moment you stop, the moment you delegate this, is the moment your church begins to suffer.

You must also have your antennae up for the guns blazing awesome guy who comes into your church and can hurt your church.

4. Start training an elder three years before they become an elder.

If you take responsibility to always be on the lookout, you will begin training an elder well before they become an elder to see if they can handle it. Give them leadership and shepherding opportunities to see how they handle them. Give them decision making responsibilities to see how it goes.

I lead a leadership development group every week with up and coming leaders in our church. Every elder in our church goes through this group. I want to see them interact with a group, argue over a case study, discuss theology, see if they’ll be on time for a meeting, if they’ll come prepared, speak up in a discussion, watch how others interact with them and see if they have the respect of the group.

This is so important, has low risk for the church but brings so much fruit.

5. Have a long process to become an elder.

Why a long process? Honestly, protection.

Three years allow you to see a man’s character, his marriage (if married), his parenting (if he has kids), his generosity and desire to live on mission. You hear him pray. You watch him serve. Read #2 again. You can’t know if you someone meets the qualifications in a month.

Three years also bring perseverance. A wolf who will destroy your church and eat the sheep won’t wait around that long; they’ll move on.

This process also helps you know if someone has what it takes to be an elder.

Now, they aren’t in a process for three years (at least not officially), but you should make someone be at your church at least two years before they become an elder. What’s the rush?

Someone should be at your church for at least 2 years before becoming an elder.

Depending on what you determine you are looking for in an elder, what they will do (and this changes some as a church grows), your process must help you see if someone can do that job. Don’t be swayed by charisma, a desire to not be alone, filling a spot or keeping a big giver. Those do not end well.

Have a longer process for an elder than you think you need.

6. Know how unique an elder is and what they do.

Elders do what no one else in the church does.

Elders do what no one else in the church does.

Yes, they serve, shepherd, pray, evangelize, give and disciple. That’s a role all Christians play.

But elders do something that is unique and builds into #7: they shepherd and care for the lead pastor and his family. This is unique.

Elders shepherd and care for the lead pastor and his family. This is unique.

Many people in the church care about the lead pastor and his family. Many people are fans of his and put him on a pedestal. Elders, though, see the man for who he is. They know him and his struggles. They know his hurts, pressures, frustrations and joys.

This doesn’t mean the lead pastor is special, only that his role is unique. Not everyone can shepherd and care for him. Most people are used to getting something from a pastor, so it is hard to think differently about the lead pastor. But it is a crucial, yet often overlooked role of elders.

When an elder team is working well and fulfills this, it brings great joy to a pastor and his family. This joy is felt throughout the church. This does not happen over night and takes training.

7. Always (almost) keep paid pastors off the elder team.

I expect some disagreement on this, but hear me out. Some churches make any paid pastor an elder. The qualifications for an elder and pastor are the same. I get it.

Here’s the dilemma.

The lead pastor leads the staff, is the boss of the staff. On an elder team, he’s one of the team. Yes, first among equals, but elders do not have power apart from the team.

It is very difficult for a student pastor or worship pastor to sit in a meeting with the lead pastor on Tuesday morning and be reviewed, be given an assignment, and then on Tuesday night sit in a meeting where they are equals in that meeting.

Are there exceptions? Yes, but less than you think. It is difficult for everyone to change the hats they wear. It is also difficult to discuss the salary and benefits of people sitting in the room.

7 ways to build a strong and healthy elder team.

Posted on Thursday, February 2, 2017

The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: Communicating God’s Word

by Joshua Reich

One of the best parts of being a pastor (or a Christian for that matter) is seeing God use you. There is nothing like using the gifts God has given to you.

Recently I’ve been sharing some of the weights and joys of being a pastor to help people who attend church understand what it is like to be a pastor and how they can support their pastor and his family, but also to encourage pastors to keep going and not give up, as so many do.

Being a pastor is unique. It isn’t harder than another job, just different.

If you’ve missed any of the weights or joys I’ve covered, you can see them here: Preaching God’s word every week, You can’t change people, God’s call on your life, Seeing life change, People under you are counting on you, God using you and What God thinks of you.

Joy #4: Communicating God’s Word

While this is a weight that pastors carry, this is also a joy.

To have the ability to open God’s Word and share it with others is a huge joy. To have people come to hear what God is saying through his Word and you is unbelievable. It is humbling, holy and scary all at the same time. For me, because teaching is one of my top gifts, I love being able to preach every week.

I love to see the way God chooses to use the work that I have put in and the time I have labored on a talk. It is something that is difficult to describe. It goes back to God using us.

For me, a sermon starts about six to eight months before I preach it. I lay out where I feel God is taking our church over the coming year and begin meditating on those passages, researching, finding articles, books and commentaries to see what others have to say on those topics. By the time I get up to preach something, I have been sitting with that topic for quite some time. To see more of how I prep a sermon, you can read that process here.

I am always blown away at how, even though we plan in advance, our church seems to be in the place where what I’m preaching on is what they need. Countless times God has shown up where we are going through what I’m preaching on. I used to be surprised.

By far this is more work, but at the same time it is so worth it. To be a part of God’s work in the world in this way makes what I do worth it.

Too many pastors, while they enjoy preaching, get lazy at it. They don’t plan ahead, they are trying to figure out Saturday night what to say instead of getting a good night’s sleep. They simply download someone else’s ideas instead of doing the hard work of figuring out what God wants to say to the church they serve. Or, they get up and say too many things instead of doing the hard work of editing.

Preaching is a weight, and according to the New Testament something you will get judged twice for. So if you preach, it is a joy as well as a weight. If it is not a joy, do something else in your church, or ask God to make preaching a joy to you.

When you see this task as a joyful weight, you finally get it. In that moment, a lot changes as a communicator. You are humbled by the opportunity, how God works but also that God will move through your prayers, confession and study. Those are never wasted in this weighty joy.

Posted on Monday, January 16, 2017

How Guests Become Regular Attenders at Your Church

by Joshua Reich

Have you had a guest come to your church and seem excited but never come back? Maybe you had a big day on Christmas, Easter or Mother’s Day (our three biggest days), only to have no return guests? Maybe as a pastor you feel, “We’ve had a lot of guests, but no one seems to be sticking.”

What’s going on?

The reality is, your church competes with a lot on a Sunday morning, and that competition is not other churches.

It is being outside, kids’ sports, sleeping in, football, errands, a slow morning, catching up, working out.

So how do you make a guest’s experience one where they return and become a regular attender?

Answer this question: Does your church environment communicate something positive?

Does your church environment communicate something positive?

When a guest shows up, here is what is running through their head:

Am I already here? Is there anyone else like me?
Were they expecting me?
How uncomfortable am I going to be?
Are they going to ask for my money?
How long will this last?
Will I have to do anything weird?
Will I feel stupid if I don’t know what to do?
Will my kids be safe?

8 things every guest at your church is asking.

If you don’t answer these questions for guests, they won’t want to return. Their defenses are too high.

Here’s a way to break through those: Create a church environment that says, “We’ve been expecting you.”

Create a church environment that says, “We’ve been expecting you.”

Here are some ways to do that:

1. Signs. The moment you think you have enough signs as a church is the moment you should buy some more signs. You can never have too many signs at your church.

A guest should be able to navigate your church without asking anyone where anything is.

A guest should be able to navigate your church without asking anyone where anything is.

I know this sounds uncaring, and you want community and want them to talk to you and let you know that they are there, but they don’t want to let you know they are there. They want to let you know they are there when they are ready to let you know that they are there.

You should have signs where the bathroom is, the auditorium, the front door (I can’t tell you how many churches I’ve been to where the door wasn’t obvious), and where kids and students meet.

2.Give them something. One of the fears that a guest has is that a church wants something from them. So, give them something. Throw them off balance. Thank them for being there. They could’ve been anywhere, but they used their time to come to your church. So thank them.

Give them a gift and don’t make them give you a name and email to get it. Just give it to them.

We have a gift bag that we give to guests with some fun things in it and some information about our church. We put them on a table that stands by itself with no one manning the table.

Remember, let guests make themselves known when they are ready to do so.

If they fill out a connection card, we send them a Starbucks gift card to say thanks again.

3. Security for kids. One of the questions a guest has relates to their kids, and this is a big deal in our culture. I’m blown away that there are still churches that do not check kids in and give a tag to parents. When you do this, your church is communicating, “We know everyone here.” That is completely unwelcoming to a guest.

You wouldn’t put your child in a childcare at a YMCA without getting a tag. Why should church be any different?

A tag communicates safety and security, which are enormous desires for parents when they arrive at church.

4. Talk directly to them in the service. Many pastors when they stand on stage seem to be oblivious to guests. They talk only to the insiders. This communicates to a guest, “We weren’t expecting you.”

When you talk to guests, you speak directly to them. You also tell your regular attenders that we expect guests to be here. You can do this in the welcome when you tell them how glad you are to have them. Invite them back at some point in the service. Also communicate how long the service will be as that is one of their main questions. In the sermon or scripture reading or singing (which might be new to them), you can say something like, “You might be new and maybe you aren’t sure that Jesus exists. Here’s something to think about.” Or, “Here’s what you can do in this moment while we sing or take communion.”

All of this communicates care and we expected you to be here.

4 ways to help a guest become a regular attender at your church.

Posted on Monday, December 12, 2016

The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: People Under You are Counting on You

by Joshua Reich

Recently I’ve been sharing some joys and weights of being a pastor. While being a pastor isn’t necessarily harder than other jobs, it is different. In fact, I cringe when a pastor says that they have the hardest job in the world, but that’s another topic.

I’ve been sharing these so that those who attend church can have a better understanding of what their pastor walks through and how to best support their pastor, but to also help pastors process what they live with and how to handle it.

To see the weights and joys I’ve already talked about, go here: Preaching God’s word every week, You can’t change people and God’s call on your life and Seeing life change.

Weight #3: People Under You Are Counting on You

While everyone has people in their lives that are counting on them, I’ve noticed a different feeling among pastors. While you have those who work for you, you have to worry about their livelihood, paying salaries and the bills of a church. You also have your board that you are a part of who oversees you.

There is also the unwritten expectations that people have in your church. These are always the most dangerous and toughest to handle.

Whether it is from their last church, what they think the Bible says about a pastor or what they saw someone on TV say or do when it comes to preaching, all of these things converge in people’s minds, and they want you to be all of these things and more. The reality is if you had your church list five things a pastor is supposed to do, you are only gifted at one or two of them. While team ministry is the biblical approach and the one that works, it doesn’t make it any easier.

Everyday a pastor ends his day with this knowledge: there is someone else I can call, someone else I can counsel, another meeting I can go to, I can write/research more of my message. There is always one more thing.

Whether this pressure actually comes from people, our own thinking, or both, it is real.

One area this bleeds into and can cause a great deal of pain is in the pastor’s family. Expectations that people have for the wife and kids of a pastor are often so overblown it is crazy. The pastor’s wife is not an employee. If she is, then she can do her job, but if she isn’t paid, she is just like everyone else in the church. I’m often asked what a pastor’s wife should do in a church. The answer: what everyone else does. She’s a follower of Jesus like everyone else is. Yes, her role is unique and different from others, but she is a follower of Jesus before she is anything else, so that shapes what she does.

One thing I’ve learned is to be very honest about expectations (as honest as I can be). I once ran into a situation where a group of leaders had an expectation for me that actually went against what the Bible calls pastors to do. This happens a lot and is very difficult to bring up.

Here are some things you can do:

1. Know who you actually answer to. What does your immediate supervisor ask of you? As long as they are on your side and feel like you are hitting the agreed upon expectations, that can save a lot of pain.

2. You need to have some clear boundaries. Too many pastors have absolutely no boundaries when it comes to their schedules, meetings, e-mails and phone calls. On my day off, on family day, the computer stays off, the phone is off and I don’t have meetings. This can bleed over into being lazy, but for me, when it is time to work, I come with my game face on and throw down. But when it is sabbath time and family time, I enjoy every moment of it.

3. Teach your church. You will also have to teach your church what a pastor does, what they are supposed to do and what the church is supposed to do. Many of the things people think a pastor should do, in reality, the church is supposed to do those things. If just the pastor did those things, we would actually rob the church of being able to use their gifts.

4. Talk with others who understand. No matter what job you have, it is helpful to spend time with others who have the same role and responsibility. Only a lawyer can really understand what it is like to be a lawyer. The same is true for pastors. Get some friends who are pastors so that you can have someone who understands what you are walking through and can give wisdom from that perspective.

5. It’s not your church anyway. At the end of the day, while this weight is real, we as pastors often make it heavier than it is supposed to be. It is not your church. Those are not your people. Yes, you are responsible and accountable, but it isn’t yours. You aren’t building it, you didn’t die for it, you didn’t rise from the dead for it. Stop acting like you did.

Posted on Wednesday, December 7, 2016

The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: Seeing Life Change

by Joshua Reich

As with any job, there are highs and lows. Being a pastor is no different. There are joys and weights, as I call them.

Recently I’ve been sharing some of those to help people who attend church understand what it is like to be a pastor and how they can support their pastor and his family, but also to encourage pastors to keep going and not give up, as so many do.

You can see the weights and joys I’ve shared already here: Preaching God’s word every week, You can’t change people and God’s call on your life.

Pastor, if you’re forgetting why you’re a pastor, here’s a reason why.

Joy #2: Seeing Life Change

All the critics, things not going as you planned them, sermons flopping, services falling apart, electronics or videos not going as planned. All of these things happen and are inevitable.

Seeing lives changed, marriages saved, singles choosing integrity, people getting out of debt, Christians being baptized, people finding God, addicts getting out of addiction.

Makes it all worth it.

I think too many pastors stay focused on the negative and never get to see lives changed. Another reason pastors and churches don’t see lives changed is because they don’t expect it, they don’t pray for it and they don’t sacrifice for it. Seeing life change is messy. It is not clean. There are no defined categories. You will have people in your church who swear (at church), who smoke (at church), who will talk about getting drunk, sleeping around and getting high (like everyone is doing it, which in their world, everyone is doing it).

To see life change you must expect it, pray for it, put up with the critics and then see God work. I love getting phone calls from people at Revolution who tell me with a huge smile, “I didn’t get drunk last night,” “I haven’t gotten high in three days,” “I haven’t looked at porn in a week.”

It never gets old.

While those might seem like small steps, and many would think, “They shouldn’t anyway” (which is true), those are big steps for the person.

I think too many times as Christians we spend so much time focusing on brokenness and sin and not enough time focusing on life change and grace. This isn’t a way of being soft on sin, but think for a minute how much time you spend focusing on God’s grace versus God’s judgment.

That focus comes through in your preaching, your counseling and your outlook on people. Do you expect God to work in someone’s life? Do you expect change to happen? Do you believe it is possible for yourself and for those you lead?

If you don’t, then you are missing out on one of the joys God has for you as a pastor.

Some encouragement for pastors today.

Posted on Monday, November 14, 2016

How to Make Sure Men Hate Your Church

by Joshua Reich

Many churches and families struggle when it comes to men attending church. Maybe you’re a pastor and you look around and don’t see a lot of men. If you do see them, they are uninvolved, not passionate about their faith and are simply taking up a seat. It’s great they are there, but you want so much more for them.

Maybe you’re a wife or a mother who wants nothing more than to see your husband or son become engaged in their faith. You want it to be more than talk or more than simply showing up. You want them to take initiative, to pray with you, pray on their own, read their Bible, anything so that it doesn’t feel like they are doing it simply to make you feel better.

I’ve written before about ways for your church to reach more men, and while there are a number of things your church can do to reach more men, there are lots of things you can do to make sure men hate your church.

With that in mind, here are some ways to make sure men hate your church, don’t engage in their faith and ultimately don’t come back:

7 ways to make men hate coming to your church.

1. Make it about women. Let’s be honest about church and spirituality. Women tend to be more open to spirituality and church than men. They tend to be more involved, take it more seriously, be more engaged in what is happening, and they are more likely to volunteer at a church. So it is easy to make church geared more towards women. When we do this without thinking about men, we communicate to them, “This isn’t for you.”

Now the answer isn’t to make church all about men so women hate it. That would be absurd and get our churches nowhere. As we’ll see in the rest of the list, there are some simple things you can change to help men stop hating your church.

2. Give them nothing to do. One way to make men hate your church is to give them nothing to do. Make them feel unneeded outside of writing a check or giving their wife and kids a ride. If that’s the extent of what they can do, they’ll check out. The answer also isn’t more serving opportunities. It is communicating how important their presence is in the church, how important it is to take their faith seriously and take that faith into their lives.

3. Don’t give them any tools. Maybe you’ve sat in a church and heard, “Men should lead their families. Men should pray with their wives and kids. Men should lead family devotions.” And then after the pastor has made every man feel guilty, he stops. No tools. No, here’s how to do it. Just do it.

Yet for most families, devotions are a train wreck. A fight to keep kids engaged and focused. They go terribly wrong more than they go even close to right. Many couples are unsure of how to pray with each other.

The last thing men need is more guilt about what they aren’t doing. They want to do those things; they just don’t know how. They need tools. Someone to show them, to walk with them, to help them.

Honestly, the best way to make men love your church is to help them with tools in their faith.

The best way to make men love your church is to help them with tools in their faith.

4. Sing songs that are too high. I’m going to step out on thin ice, but the reality is most men don’t like to sing. Think for a minute, where else do you sing in public with a group of people? It can be weird. Then when you throw in songs that get too high for men to sing or talk about how beautiful and amazing Jesus is, it starts to get uncomfortable for men, especially men who don’t follow Jesus and are guests at church.

5. Don’t expect them to succeed. This goes right along with #3, but when we don’t give men tools, we also communicate, “You think you can’t do this and so do we.” Expect men to succeed and give them a high bar.

One reason men hate church is that it isn’t worthwhile. The bar is so low. The bar in many churches is come and we’ll entertain you. Give a check once in awhile and feel good about yourself.

That isn’t succeeding and that isn’t worth getting up for.

Here’s a great example. Think of the average Mother’s Day sermons and Father’s Day sermons. Mother’s Day is about how amazing Mom is (and she is). Father’s Day is often a punch in the face to men. So men walk out hearing, “You can’t do it and we don’t believe in you.”

6. Think that all men are tough, manly men. Most men’s ministries in churches today are geared towards manly type men. Men who want to get dirty, eat lots of raw meat and go camping. And while there are a lot of those men, they aren’t the only men out there. Too many churches and pastors think all men are the same, and so they zero in on one man. It’s easy to do, and often it is done without thinking about it.

7. Only talk about a couple of sins men commit. I know one pastor that when he wants to talk about sin, he calls it “drinking and carousin’.” Many pastors, when they want to talk about men and sin, will just talk about porn. Do men struggle with porn? Yes, but so do many women. There are a bunch of other sins men commit and struggle with. Talk about those just as much. Talk about the father wound that many men carry around, the drive to succeed and the emptiness that comes from our missed opportunities. Don’t just focus on one sin.

7 reasons men hate coming to your church.