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8 Ways to Know Your Reading is Too Limited

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reading

I love books. This isn’t a secret if you’ve been around my blog for a long time. You can see what I’ve read recently here and read my book reviews here. When I meet other leaders and pastors, at some point what they are reading comes up. I get some funny looks from some guys about what I read, as I don’t always read books written by Christians or books from my theological stream. Which made me think about how many leaders limit themselves in their reading, much to their detriment.

So, here are 8 ways to know if you are limiting your reading.

  1. Every book you read is from your camp. There are a lot of crazy theological ideas out there, so you need to be wise about what you read. But the reality is though, you don’t know everything and you certainly don’t have the bible and every theological idea all figured out. I don’t either. It is good to read authors who believe differently than you so that you can be challenged. I disagree on almost every theological point with Rob Bell and Brian McLaren, but their writings have forced me to ask good theological questions and made me stronger for it. Now a short note, if you are new in your faith, this isn’t a good idea as you don’t have the foundation to question yet. If that’s you, ask your pastor or a respected Christian for some book recommendations.
  2. Every book you read has bible verses in them. You should read some books by authors and leaders who don’t follow Jesus. There are great leadership and living ideas in books that have no bible verses in them. You should read health books by people who think we evolved from monkeys. One of the reasons is to learn how to communicate, but also to see what people who walk through the doors of your church believe.
  3. Every book you read confirms what you already believe. This is similar to the first one, but if you put a book down and are not challenged in your faith or leadership, you wasted your time.
  4. You finish every book you start. I get asked a lot why I don’t write negative book reviews. Every book you review you say that you like is what I’ve been told. The reason? If I don’t like a book by p. 40, I put it down. Life is too short to read a book you don’t like or aren’t being challenged by. If it’s poorly written or boring or not challenging, it’s off the list. Don’t feel the need to finish every book you start or to read every chapter of a book, they may not all be relevant.
  5. Books don’t challenge your heart. Similar to point 3, but you should be challenged. You should find ways to improve your preaching, leadership skills or your faith, being a spouse or parent. If not, put it down. If a book does not put the magnifying glass up to your heart and life, it isn’t worth the time.
  6. You never read a novel. I love novels. I love novels about spies or lawyers in particular. Throughout the year, I stop my reading list and pick up a novel. Some of my favorite authors are Dan Brown, Daniel Silva, John Grisham and David Baldacci. Baldacci’s Camel Club series is still one of my favorites. Every pastor should read at least 1 novel a year just to give their brain a break.
  7. Every book you read is for a sermon. You should read books that have no application in a sermon. It also sometimes happens that you are reading a book that you discover something that will work in a sermon, that’s great too. If you are doing a series on marriage, you should be reading a book on money or grace just to keep growing in other areas.
  8. Every book you read is by a pastor. You should read books by CEO’s, bankers, doctors, trainers, money managers, scientists, not just pastors or speakers.

What would you add to the list to know if your reading list is too narrow?

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Be Sensitive on Mother’s Day

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Mother’s Day is a big day for most churches. While Mother’s Day is a great day to honor moms in our lives, it is also difficult for many. Most pastors’ blogs will talk about honoring women, doing baby dedications, giving out gifts to mothers, etc., on Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day is a hard day for many women in your church. For some, it reminds them of a broken relationship with their mother, of someone who is no longer there. For some, it is a reminder of the loss of a child. For some, it is a reminder that they aren’t mothers, even though their desire exists. For some, it is a reminder that they aren’t married when they want to be.

So, be sensitive.

Here are some things you can do at your church:

  • Honor all women. 
  • Acknowledge moms and the role they play. While you are being sensitive, please don’t ignore that it is Mother’s Day. It is; it’s on the calendar, and everyone knows it. You can be sensitive while acknowledging and honoring Moms.
  • If you give out a gift, give it to all women. We’ve given all women flowers in the past. This year we are doing free pictures for families, couples or groups of friends, or individuals.
  • If you want to give a gift to the moms in your church, give it to your children’s ministry to avoid drawing attention to it.
  • Encourage those who Mother’s Day is a difficult day to come forward for prayer with a leader.
  • Acknowledge that Mother’s Day is a great day for some and a hard day for others. This goes a long way in letting all women know they matter and that you see them.
  • Preach the gospel. You should do this every week, but especially on Mother’s Day. Remind women that their only hope, regardless of where they are on Mother’s Day, is Jesus.
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Communicating the Gospel to Your Kids Through Movies

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movies

I love movies. As a family, it is the same. Every week, we have family movie night. The child who had their daddy date that week gets to pick family movie night. This past week, we watched The Rise of the Guardians. 

If you haven’t seen the movie, here’s a quick synopsis:

When the evil spirit Pitch launches an assault on Earth, the Immortal Guardians team up to protect the innocence of children all around the world.

One of the ways that we’ve learned to communicate the gospel to our kids is through cultural pieces like movies and stories. Every movie and story mirrors the story of God.

In the rise of the guardians, the character pitch was thrown out of the guardians. He came back to take over, to fight them. Pitch, played the character of Satan and evil. At one point, the character of Sandman was killed. At the end of the movie, Sandman rose from the dead, and defeated Pitch when it looked hopeless for the other guardians. Sandman, in that way, was similar to Jesus.

After watching the movie, over dinner we asked our kids and talked through:

  • Who was Pitch like?
  • Why was Pitch evil?
  • What was Pitch trying to do to the kids in the movie?
  • How does Satan tempt us to sin?
  • Who was Sandman like?
  • Did Jesus rise from the dead?
  • Because Jesus rose from the dead, what does that mean for us?
  • Can we conquer sin and death the way they did in the movie?

Communicating the gospel to your kids through movies and stories takes time and practice, but it isn’t as hard as you think. Every single kids movie from Pixar to anything else has this storyline. Just look and then talk about it with your kids. A great way to apply Deuteronomy 6.

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Why Celebrating Valentine’s Day can Reveal Marital Problems

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book

Today is Valentine’s Day. Today, countless couples will spend thousands of dollars on flowers, dinner and gifts. And because it’s Valentine’s Day, they will pay more than they should.

Valentine’s Day also reveals something and it could be a problem if you are married. For couples, men will pursue their wives. They will make plans, get a babysitter, buy her a gift and make it a special night, all about her. What’s wrong with that you may ask.

Read that paragraph again and see if you see it.

A couple of years ago, Katie was talking with some other mom’s around Valentine’s Day. All the mom’s were excited about a night away from their kids, with their husband and the things he was doing for her. They asked Katie what we were doing. This year Valentine’s Day fell on a Monday and our date night is Friday. She looked at them and said, “Josh isn’t doing anything tonight for me.” They looked sad, poor girl. She looked at them and said, “He doesn’t need to, every week we have date night so I know he pursues me each week and I have his undivided attention every week.”

Silence.

What if, the energy you spent on Valentine’s Day, you spent that each week for a date night? Now, there’s no way you or I could afford what you spend to make Valentine’s Day special. What if you took that energy and money and spread it over the year?

Here’s a successful date night (at home or going out):

  • As a husband, you plan it. This communicates she’s worth your time. She feels pursued. You are able to serve her. 
  • Planning means, you know where you are eating, what you are doing and got a babysitter.
  • If it is at home, you put the kids down so she can relax.
  • Turn your phone, computer and TV off.
  • Look her in the eye and give her you undivided attention.
  • Do this each week.

If, like most married couples you choose to do this once every 52 weeks, you’ll have the marriage most married couples have (which isn’t very good).

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6 Ways to Bring the Gospel into Your Parenting

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parent

In parenting, as in all of life, the goal of what you are trying to accomplish matters. It will dictate the decisions you make, how you spend your money and time, what you emphasize and ultimately, if you succeed or fail.

Too many parents, especially those in the church, have the wrong goal. Their parenting is not unique. What does that mean? It means, if you are a follower of Jesus, you should have a different goal and parent differently from those who don’t follow Jesus. Ask this, can you accomplish the goals for parenting or your kids without Jesus? Your kids can be successful, healthy, moral, marry well, have good values, and do all of that without Jesus.

Elyse Fitzpatrick said,

“Most parents who attend church want what most of parents want for our children. Jesus or no Jesus, we just want them to obey, be polite, not curse or look at pornography, get good jobs, marry a nice person, and not get caught up in the really bad stuff. It may come as a surprise to you, but God wants much more for your children, and you should too. God wants them to get the gospel. And this means that parents are responsible to teach them about the drastic, uncontrollable nature of amazing grace.”

Paul tells parents they need to expect their kids to obey, to honor them and to respect them. Many parents do not have this expectation. Whenever I hear a parent count to their child, they communicate, I don’t expect you to listen to me the first time. When I get to 3 will suffice. As kids get older and become teenagers, many parents let their guard down and don’t expect them to speak respectfully. It is easier to let them get away with it than put up the fight. I understand the weariness of parenting, but if God gave you children, it is time to step up to the plate.

Paul ends this section by letting us in on how to raise kids that are respectful and obedient. By discipline and instruction in the Lord. Whenever he uses the phrasing he uses in vs. 4, he is speaking about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. He is calling parents to bring the gospel into their parenting, on all occasions  whenever possible.

The word for discipline, means to “nurture, educate, or train,” and the word for instruction, means “calling attention to” or “mild rebuke,” “correction,” or “warning.”

In other words, Paul is saying that the way Christian parents are to bring children up is by nurturing, correcting, and training them in the truth of or about Jesus Christ. Paul is telling parents to daily proclaim the message about Jesus to their children and to warn or rebuke them when they forget to live in the light of what Jesus had already done. He was telling them to tether every aspect of their parenting to the gospel message.

Here are 6 ways to bring the gospel into your parenting:

6 ways to bring the gospel into your parenting.

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  1. To bring the gospel to your kids, you must be changed by the gospel. If you aren’t changed by the gospel, you won’t be able to communicate the gospel to your kids. You won’t see your need for it, their need for it. You won’t see how great and mighty and all encompassing the gospel is.
  2. A culture of the gospel. Every house, family and business has a culture. A culture is how things happen without discussion. Does the gospel influence everything that you do as a family, as a parent? Does it dictate your finances, your time, rules, entertainment?
  3. Plan to bring the gospel into your home. What is your plan to teach your kids Scripture? When will you personally open the Bible? When will you do it with your kids? What will you study? For our family, we use a mixture of The New City Catechism and the Train Up questions from Revolution. Our MC uses the Train Up questions each week with the kids. We write the question and answer of the week in our kitchen and refer to it throughout the week and discuss at dinner as a family. For more on this, read Family driven faith. 
  4. Make time. The quality time argument is a myth. Your kids don’t need or want quality time, they want quantity. A big difference. Make time for daddy dates, family meal time. You may have to give up some hobbies as a parent. I haven’t golfed in 7 years. I’ll retire one day and golf then and I’ll be terrible at it. Studies show, kids who have regular meals with their parents are less likely to do drugs, smoke, have sex, run with the wrong crowd, and they get better grades.
  5. Don’t sacrifice the mission field in front of you. This argument often comes up in the discussion of a mom working. I’ve had mom’s tell me, “At work, there are so many people who don’t know Jesus, God has placed me there.” Each one who told me that then sent their kids off to have someone else raise them in daycare. What they did, while sounding noble, “living on mission at work”, they sacrificed the first mission field God gave them: their kids.
  6. Bring the gospel into conversations when your children sin. When your child sins, talk to them about it. Ask why they did that? What is controlling them? Ask your teenager why they wear that? What does that communicate about their self-image, how they believe God made them? Ask until you get an answer. Then, seek ways to bring the gospel into that. Talk about how because of Jesus we are approved, we don’t need to control things, we don’t need to be the most important. When you punish them, don’t walk away. Remind them of your love, of God’s grace and how Jesus took our punishment but there are still consequences. For more on this, read Give them grace. 
6 ways to bring the gospel into your parenting.

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Sex Doesn’t Equal Intimacy

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Whenever I talk with couples that are dating or engaged, at some point sex and intimacy will come up. When Katie and I do premarital counseling, there are 5 things a couple must agree to for me to do their wedding. One of them is that they won’t have sex from that point forward until their wedding night. Regardless of their background, regardless if they live together, regardless of where they are on their journey with Jesus.

Depending on the situation, this brings with it an interesting follow-up conversation. Many couples don’t care, they’ve already chosen to wait and have stayed with that commitment. Some are excited because while they’ve wanted to wait, the lack of accountability has made it difficult and they’ve fallen back into patterns they wanted to move away from. Others are frustrated because they don’t see a problem with sex outside of marriage.

I remember once talking with a couple who lived together. They weren’t followers of Jesus and he asked me if this was simply a way for me to put my morals onto other people. It was a fair question. Pastors are often guilty of thinking of ways simply to make people behave more godly without changing their hearts.

I told him that was not the point of this. Here’s why we ask couples to do this and what I told him:

  1. The bible does tell us to save sex for marriage (Acts 15:20; 1 Corinthians 5:1; 6:13, 18; 10:8; 2 Corinthians 12:21;Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 5:3; Colossians 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; Jude 7). The Bible promotes complete abstinence before marriage. Sex between a husband and his wife is the only form of sexual relations of which God approves (Hebrews 13:4).
  2. Sex doesn’t equal intimacy. Many in our culture think they are being intimate simply by having sex. For men, when we think of intimacy, sex is what we think of. Intimacy is much bigger than that. It involves sex, but involves be open and honest with another person, trusting them completely, not hiding from them. Willing to share our lives, our dreams, our hopes, our failures, our hurts, and pain with that person. Far too many couples think we had sex, so we must be in love. As soon as sex enters a relationship, it changes drastically. By abstaining from sex before marriage, they are able to broaden intimacy in their relationship in other ways, ways that are non-sexual.
  3. There are seasons in marriage where sex is not an option. Whether that is traveling for a job, health, children, pregnancy, time or energy. Abstaining from sex before marriage helps a couple to prepare for these moments and for the couple to learn they can trust the other. Is a man or woman able to control themselves when they aren’t having as much sex or intimacy as they’d like.
  4. It builds trust. On some level, usually for women, having sex outside of marriage is a trust issue. For men, sex is mostly physical, but for women it is mostly emotional. It involves trusting the other person. Making a commitment to abstain from sex and keeping that commitment goes a long way of building trust for a couple.

There are other reasons, but these are the top ones. After doing weddings for 7 years for numerous couples who have made this commitment and kept it, I’ve yet to have a couple tell me it was a waste of time or be angry that they made it. In fact, I’ve had almost every couple tell me this was one of the most beneficial things for them in their premarital counseling.

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10 Ways to Know if You’re Putting Your Kids Before Your Spouse

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putting your kids before your marriage

No one gets married thinking they will put their kids before their marriage, but over time without being intentional, it happens. It’s easy to do. Kids need our attention, they scream for it (literally). We also rationalize that it’s easier and the right thing to do. Or, we rationalize that we will have time for our spouse later in life, but later in life rarely comes.

Here are some ways you know if your kids are coming before your marriage:

  1. You plaster all over Facebook about how excited you are to take a date night tonight because you can’t remember the last time you had a date night.
  2. The only time you talk to your spouse during the day is for something, you don’t text or call to say “I love you” or “I was thinking of you.”
  3. You don’t touch in public, at all.
  4. Sex is fast and rare.
  5. If you sit down to talk with your spouse, the only thing you can talk about is your kids and what’s happening in their lives.
  6. You don’t have any hobbies or interests outside of your kids.
  7. Dinner is in the car several times a week.
  8. You can’t answer these questions about your spouse: What do they like to do, what is God teaching them right now, what is hurting them or stressing them out right now.
  9. Your kids don’t know what “Mom and Dad time” means.
  10. “Mom and Dad time” does not mean what it should mean. Instead it means watching TV or passing out.
  11. Here’s a bonus one: your spouse complains that the kids come before they do.

Bottom line, it’s easy to do. In fact, most parents think you should put your kids first. This is actually a lie that can destroy your family. Putting your marriage first, makes your marriage strong, which in turn makes your family stronger because of the foundation.

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A Simple Time-Management Principle

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time management

There is an incredibly simple time-management principle that has guided my decisions and how I manage my time.

While it is simple, it has far-reaching implications. Here it is:

Every time you say yes to something, say no to something else.

Every time you say yes to something, say no to something else.

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If you run a company or a church, you can’t do everything. In your family, you can’t afford everything; you can’t sign your kid up for every activity (although lots of parents try).

It’s very simple. If you say yes to something, you will have to say no to something else. I was talking with a couple recently and they were wrestling with whether or not the wife should go back to work. They have small kids, money is tight, and they said, “It would help us financially.” I told them this idea and said, “If you say yes to working, you will make money. But you are now spending less time with your kids and someone else is raising them, you are bringing stress into your life that isn’t there now because you will be home less, because of working.” I kept going but you get the idea.

THE CHOICE IS YOURS

Every weekend, every weekday we make choices about how to spend our time. When a man chooses between spending time on the golf course or at the lake with his buddies, versus with his children, he is saying yes and no to something. We might say yes to what we want to do, but at the same time, say no to investing in our kids or an important relationship.

At the end of the work day, when we decide to take work home, stay just a little bit longer as opposed to getting home, getting to the gym to get some exercise, spend time with friends. We say yes to something and no to something. By saying yes to working late and yes to more stress, we are saying no to a sustainable pace, no to spending time with friends that would relax us or help us to unwind, no to exercising so that we can be healthier.

You can’t say yes to every kind of music, dress, style, and service time. Pick one.

Pastors try to fight against this in their churches. “If we have a program for everybody, we will reach everybody,” they say. But if you shoot to reach everybody, simply you will reach nobody. You can’t say yes to every kind of music, dress, style, and service time. Pick one.

When I planted Revolution Church, I struggled with this every day. As a pastor, there are so many people to meet with. You don’t want to say no to anyone because they might leave, and you need everyone you can get, all the givers you can muster. This often leads you to running ragged, not resting well, not spending time with your family or time with Jesus. We rationalize that we’re serving people, helping them, and that next month we’ll take that Sabbath, that date night.

As a parent, it is easy to do this as we run our kids from one activity to the next in an effort to give them a well-rounded life. By doing that—by saying yes to running their kids everywhere—we are saying no to family dinners, family devotions (often), but we are saying yes to more stress in their life as a family. Many couples sacrifice their marriages for their kids, pouring their time and energy into their kids instead of their marriage as the most important relationship in the family. This is one reason why more divorces happen in year 25 than any other year of marriage now. Empty nesters don’t know each other without their kids.

HOW TO SAY YES AND NO

We say yes and no in our family. We say yes to exercising and a healthy lifestyle. I’ve shared in other places about my journey of losing 130 pounds and keeping it off. Every time we go to the gym or make a meal plan to eat a healthy diet, we are saying yes to health and longevity in life. We have to say no to sleeping in later (as I get to the gym by 6 a.m.), to late night snacks, to too many chicken wings, and to swearing off my beloved Frappuccino.

When we got married, we decided I would work and Katie would stay home. We said yes to her staying home and no to a lot of other things. Other families have nicer things or go on nicer vacations than we do because of this choice. That’s OK. When we made this choice, we knew what we were saying yes and no to.

You need to know the implications.

We say yes to spend time with certain people and no to others. Pastors feel the strain of wanting to be with people, spending time with as many people as possible. But it is simply impossible. For our family, we seek to spend time with the pastors and their wives at Revolution Church, the MC leaders I coach and those in our MC and those our MC is seeking to reach. That is what we as a family we have said yes to. This means we have said no to other things and other people.

You need to know the implications. When you say yes to something, you say no to something else, maybe multiple things, but it happens every time.

IT’S OKAY TO SAY NO

This at the end of the day is what drives many of us to say yes. We have this desire to appease people, to be comfortable, to make others like us. This is what drives so many of us to not say no and to say yes too much.

When someone asks if they can meet with me, I want to help them, I want to say yes. Often I’m able to, but many times if I say yes to that opportunity, I will say no to something else. It might be a date night with Katie, time with my kids, a nap that I need, and my sermon prep time. When we say yes to the wrong things, it is often because we want to make someone like us, approve of us, and be comfortable in a relationship.

FOCUS

This is really a question of focus. When we say yes and strategically, we live more strategically. One helpful thing for me has been to lay out my ideal week and identify what the most important things for me to accomplish each week are. This helps me to see the time I actually have available for things that pop up at the last minute, it helps me to gauge if I can say yes to those opportunities without hurting the most important things.

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4 Ways to Maintain Community

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community

There is no doubt that our culture desires community. This is why Facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest and other social media sites are so popular. We even put social in the name to emphasize how much we want community from them. The problem is that these sites bring connectivity to our lives, but not community. Those aren’t always equal. It is deceptive to the point that people think because they are connected and have 1,000 facebook friends, lots of twitter followers or instagram likes, they have community. They have connection, not necessarily community.

In Ephesians, Paul lays out what the church in Ephesus knew in their heads, but struggled to know and live out in their hearts. We easily do this with community. We know what it takes to have community, know we should have community, yet we struggle to live that out. Paul gives us 4 ways to maintain unity in relationships, whether that is a church, a missional community, a marriage or family. The interesting thing he says is not to create unity, simply maintain it (Eph. 4:3). It is given to us by Jesus through our relationship in him.

Because of this change in our lives, finding our identity in Jesus alone (Eph. 4:1), we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to maintain unity through:

  1. Humility. This is the basis of the Christian life. To follow Jesus, one must humble themselves and admit they are broken and that without Jesus, they continue this way. Relationships are destroyed because of pride. Pride elevates one person over another, elevates one agenda over another. Keeps people from serving each other. Pride keeps people from receiving help when needed. I can’t tell you how many times people have complained about their struggles and when I ask who they’ve asked for help from, they say “no one.” Pride.
  2. Gentleness. This is being caring in a relationship. Not berating someone, not bringing up history in a relationship, not reminding someone what they’ve done wrong in the past. This is caring for the other person, seeking their best, not yours. This gets into how you speak to someone. If you say something and immediately have to say, “I was just kidding” that’s sin. You weren’t kidding, there’s some truth in that statement.
  3. Patience. Community will require patience. People will let you down, intrude in your life. You can’t have a relationship and always get your way. I meet so many people who are alone and the reason is because they aren’t willing to give up what they want. Patience also requires you to allow people to grow and change. If Jesus is the basis of our relationships, then we believe He is powerful enough to not only save us and those we’re in community with, but also powerful enough to change them. Stop trying to change those around you, let Jesus do that through you.
  4. Love. Biblical love is not an emotion first. In our culture that’s all love is. This is why people tell me right before they sin, “You can’t choose who you love.” Biblically, you can. Love is an act of the will (a choice), followed by an emotion. One author said, “To love means you start loving a person and on the way to loving that person, you begin to feel that love.”

While these 4 things are incredibly basic and all of us know them. They are difficult to live out. If they are lived out, the gospel is seen clearly. Community is one of the most powerful pictures of the gospel because people in our culture do not stay in relationships long. Lasting in relationship, often is one of the best ways to show the gospel has a changed a group of people.

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Before You Criticize Your Pastor

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pastor

The longer I’m a pastor I’ve realized something about churched people. When I say a churched person, I mean someone who has been attending church for any length of time and is a follower of Jesus (pretty broad definition). Many people in this category, while they love their church and want to see God do incredible things in their city, they also have the idea that they are smarter than their pastor or at least could do his job better than he’s doing it.

Now, they may be smarter than their pastor. There are lots of people at Revolution more educated than I am and smarter in a variety of disciplines than I am. There are people who may be able to do my job better than I can, but aren’t called to it.

I’ve written about criticism and how to handle it as a leader in other posts that you can read here and here. What I want to focus on here is before you criticize your pastor,

Here are some questions you should ask yourself before criticizing your pastor (or anyone):

8 questions to ask before criticizing your pastor.

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  1. Why does this matter? At the end of the day, some of the things that bother us simply are not that important. In marriage, your spouse does all kinds of things that drive you nuts (Katie doesn’t do anything that drives me nuts but I’ve heard other people complain about their spouses). Sometimes it isn’t that big of a deal. It might be a situation where you just need to let it go.
  2. What do I hope to gain from this? What is the end result? Do you hope your pastor will say you are right and they are wrong? Do you hope to help your pastor grow or simply point out his faults? Do you want any recognition in this process?
  3. How would you feel if you didn’t criticize your pastor? What if you didn’t say anything? How would that affect your heart? Would it drive you nuts or would you forget about it?
  4. What if nothing changes? This gets to the heart for many, what if your pastor doesn’t do anything with what you say? What if they disagree with you and tell you nothing will change? How will handle that? Your answer to this question will reveal a lot of your heart and if there is sin there.
  5. Is your criticism actually from the Bible? Pastors hear all kinds of things they are doing wrong or that their church can do better. Most of the time those criticisms simply come from people who would rather things were done differently. Is your problem actually in the Bible? Is your pastor sinning?
  6. Have you talked to anyone else? If you have, you’ve already sinned and you need to repent to God and to your pastor. Don’t bounce it off someone else, don’t do a veiled prayer request.
  7. Is this consistent with my pastor’s character? Could he have just been having an off day? Many times criticism comes from things that are not who your pastor is. If your pastor consistently does the thing or sin that you see, then talk with them. It may just be that something is going on in your pastor’s life that is tough, he maybe didn’t mean anything by what he said or you may have misheard him.
  8. Am I jealous of my pastor? Maybe you want his job, the upfront attention he gets. Many people think being a pastor is easy, glamorous and fun. At times, it can be those things, but it is usually hard work. Often, criticism comes from a place of jealousy, either for their pastors job, attention, status, relationship with God, or marriage. When I meet with someone who is upset at me or Revolution, half of the meeting will be the person venting about their spouse or another area of their life that they are taking out on me or our church.
8 questions to ask before criticizing your pastor.

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At the end of the day, disagreeing with your pastor is okay. Pushing back on something you think is a sin, wrong or don’t like is okay. The problem is in how it is often done. In veiled prayer requests at a missional community, a blog post, gossiping without talking to the source. Sometimes though, you need to not say anything. Sometimes it isn’t a big deal. Sometimes you need to give your pastor the feedback you are holding on to.

You also need to be prepared for your pastor to disagree with you and do nothing about it. This is when the heart issues will pop up for you. What if you believe something is wrong or should change and your pastor does nothing with it? If it is a sin, you should talk to other elders, but let your pastor know that you think this should happen. If it isn’t a sin but is just a difference in theology or how things are done at the church, if it is a big deal for you, you should leave and find another church. Here are some things to work through and keep in mind if it gets to that point.

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