Tag Archives: bible

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One Way to Make Church Memorable

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worship

Every pastor when they write a sermon and preach it want people to remember it. Most people though forget most of what is said in a sermon. This is why it is important to have one point instead of five.

You can use visuals, video clips, readings, stories and a host of other things to make your sermon and church memorable.

One thing that we do at Revolution that helps to make church memorable is to line up the songs with the sermon. 

This seems like second nature to us, but I am amazed at how many worship leaders and preachers are not on the same page. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a worship service and the worship leader introduces a song by giving a 2 minute sermon that has nothing to do with the sermon and the point of the day.

A lot of times people will debate if preaching is the reason the church gathers on a Sunday or is it worship. I would say it’s both. If you don’t have both, you’ve failed to do something very important as the gathered church.

At Revolution, we use worship music to set up the sermon and then for the sermon to set up the response time and communion.

To make your church memorable, you have to do a few things:

  1. Decide to connect the dots for people. People come to church with their brains all over the place. They often rushed to get out the door, had a fight on the way to church, a screaming child. They are tired and stressed from the week. They fall into the chair at church exhausted and wanting to catch their breath. They need help connecting the dots. Talk about how songs connect to a sermon. In recent weeks at the end of my sermon I’ve talked about why we are doing a song that we are doing. You don’t always have to do this. But decide that you will do the work of working with your pastor or worship leader to connect the dots for your people.
  2. Plan ahead. If you want to do anything great or creative or connecting the music with the sermon, you have to plan ahead. You can’t decide on Wednesday what you will preach on this Sunday. Does the Holy Spirit change things? Yes. Two weeks ago I rewrote my sermon at 11pm on Saturday night. That isn’t a pattern for me. We plan about 15 months in advance to that the person leading worship can spend time in the passage and let the verses speak to them as they prepare a set list.
  3. Have a worship leader that cares deeply about theology. Thankfully this is becoming more and more important. In the past, being a worship leader meant you could play guitar and sing. The bar has been raised in churches, which is a good thing. Your worship leader does not have to have an M.Div. in theology, but they need to know theology, care about doctrine and be able to discern if worship songs are doctrinally correct. Some of the most popular worship songs today are theologically incorrect. And never miss this pastor: your church will often learn more about God from the songs they sing than from listening to your sermon. 
  4. Listen to the worship set while you prep your sermon. After talking through my sermon with Paul or the worship leader on Monday morning, when I get the final list, I will make a playlist for my iPod and listen to it in the car, while I am prepping my sermon or taking a run. I want the words to get into my head and my heart. This helps me connect the verses I’m preaching on to the songs we are singing, which helps to make church more memorable to someone when they leave the service.
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What People Want out of a Sermon

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sermon

Every week, if you preach, you stand before a group of people. They are all different, but they have a lot of the same needs and desires. I was asked recently what my goal of preaching is (which is another topic than this post will cover) and what I think people want out of a sermon. Whether pastors like it or not, what people want to hear is important to a sermon. You need to preach what the Bible says and what God calls you to say, but if you don’t know what people are looking for, you will struggle to communicate in a way that makes sense to them.

As I thought about it, here are some of the groups that show up at church every week and what they want out of a sermon (just a note: I’m not saying these are true or even good things, just what I see as reality):

  1. I was forced to be here. You have people in your service who were dragged to church by someone. It may be a friend, parent or spouse but they are there not because they want to be but because it keeps the peace. This person wants to not be bored. They simply want to survive church. They are counting the seconds til you are done. Not necessarily listening but sitting there with their arms folded thinking, “I’m here, impress me.” To communicate to this person, don’t be boring. Know what you are talking about. Don’t have rabbit trails. Say what you are planning to say and sit down. Make sure the beginning and ending of your sermon are solid and prepped.
  2. I know I’m broken. This person may be a follower of Jesus, this person may be exploring Jesus. This person knows something in their life is broken. It could be a sin pattern, addiction, negative emotions, a broken marriage or something else. Regardless, this person wants help. They are looking for something to fix what is ailing them. This person is incredibly open to the gospel and what Jesus can do in their lives. While the focus for them is on fixing their life and not necessarily Jesus, that is openness to Jesus because it can be directed to a biblical view.
  3. The feel good Christian. I would guess that most churches have a lot of these people. They are the ones who want to be inspired. They don’t want to be challenged to change or confront things in their life. They want to check the church box off the list and go home feeling better than when they walked in. They don’t plan on reading their Bible this week. More than likely, at least according to Jesus (Matthew 7:15 – 23), many people in this category are not Christians. This person will leave a church and say, “I didn’t get fed there.” They will decide if they liked the service if they feel inspired or if they sang songs they like and know. This person needs to be confronted with the reality of their sin and need for Jesus and need to be made to feel uncomfortable about their eternal state. This person needs the Holy Spirit in their life.
  4. The agenda Christian. This person knows a lot about the bible and can come across as a mature Christian, but they usually aren’t. This person wants you to talk about a certain topic, a lot. When you talk about that topic, you have to say what they want or else you didn’t preach it correctly. You should preach on the end times, a lot. Talk about Israel, a lot. Be political in you preaching. Everything is about the kingdom of God and their interpretation of what that means. When you present the gospel, if you don’t give the 4 spiritual laws, Romans road or their rendition of the gospel, you didn’t preach the gospel. While this person can help a pastor present things clearly and biblically, they often miss the mark in how they give feedback. Most pastors give this person an audience because they tend to be a squeaky wheel. When talking to this person, you need to lovingly listen and then firmly communicate your differences. Make changes if need be. Communicate the stance of your church and how things will not change if necessary. You may even need to help this person find a new church to attend where they will line up more in their beliefs. That’s okay as well.
  5. The mature Christian. This is the person who is a leader in your church, or growing their faith, bringing people with them, involved in a missional community, giving back to God, reading their bible during the week and praying. This person prays for their pastors. This person prepares their heart to hear a sermon, asks God to speak to them through his word when it is opened during a sermon. When convicted of sin, they repent and seek to live the life God created them to live. This person wants to grow, to be challenged.

While these are generalizations and have inherent problems with them because of that. There are also a few other categories I could’ve covered, I think these are the main ones and how to communicate to them.

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5 Lessons I Learned from Church Planting

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church planting

Church planting can be hard, exhilarating, fun and painful all at the same time. When the church I started turned 5, I wrote 5 things I had learned. I hope they help you, wherever you are in your church planting journey.

  1. Your energy (spiritual, emotional, physical, relational)  is the most important thing you can give your church and only you can control it. This may seem obvious and all of these will, but this one is crucial. Church planters tend to be driven, entrepreneurial, take the hill kind of leaders. They are also usually young which means they think they have endless amounts of energy. They eat like college freshmen and often sleep like them. The reality is, that is not sustainable. While planting is a busy season, filled with meetings, getting stuff done, making phone calls, rallying a core group, raising funds, you have to hit the pause button. No one can make you sleep. No one can make you spend time with Jesus. No one can make you exercise or eat well. No one can make sure you have friends and not just church planting friends, but real friends. If you miss this, the extent of the damage can be huge. Most guys who fail in ministry and sin will tell you that it goes back to not managing one of these areas. In 2011, I did not manage my energy well and I hit a wall. It slowed our church down, demoralized our leaders, hurt my family and it took a year to recover as a church. You as the leader set the tone. The first question I ask my leaders when I coach them is to tell me how they are doing in these 4 areas.
  2. Your family has to come first, they need to know it and so does your church. Every pastor says their wife and kids are more important than their job. We say things like, “My church can get another pastor, but my kids have one dad, my wife has one husband.” This is so prevalent that 2 recent books on pastoring: The Church Planting Wife and The Pastor’s Family actually excuse the husband’s sin in this area and say things like, “Being a pastors wife means I share my husband at night and he misses dinner or time with me.” While this happens, but when this is the pattern, it is sin. One of the things I heard Eugene Peterson say was he started to call everything he did an appointment. If someone asked him to meet and he already had a date planned with his wife, an activity with his kids, he said he had an appointment. No one questions your appointments. Talk about this from up front. In your sermons, lift up your wife and kids, don’t make them sermon illustrations of what not to do. Talk about how you date and pursue your wife, talk about spending time with your kids. You are the model to men of what it means to be a man, a father and a husband.
  3. Who you surround yourself with will determine your effectiveness. This is simple leadership, but the leaders you choose will determine the health and future of your church. This means you must know who you are, your gift mix, what you can and can’t do, what you do that brings the most glory to God. Then, you must look for leaders who complement this. If you are a strong visionary and can see the future, you must find someone who can think in steps and how to get somewhere who can see the map, not just the destination. If you love to shepherd people and want to make sure no one falls through the cracks, you’ll need a leader to remind you that sometimes people need hard gospel truth and not coddling. I read when I started Revolution that your first hire is the most important. This is so true. If you miss on your first hire, you may not make it because your church is so fragile. Don’t rush this. If someone isn’t working out, don’t wait around. Move quickly, help them find a new role, new responsibility. If they don’t like up with your vision and DNA, have the tough conversation. Everyone you start with will not finish with you and it is naive to think otherwise.
  4. Think twice your size. Too many planters simply want to get started, which is a good goal. As the church gets off the ground, they can quickly move into maintenance mode. They stop thinking ahead and the grind of preaching every week starts to set in. When before you had dream sessions, now you are having counseling sessions. Before you used to talk about the future, now you are dealing with what just happened. In this time, it is easy to stop dreaming, stop vision casting and just do. This is dangerous. At all times, as the leader, you must think twice your size. You must ask, “if we do this, will it keep us from doubling?” Or, “When we are twice our size, will we do that?”
  5. Learn from your mistakes cause you’ll make them. You’ll make mistakes. In fact, you’ll make them before you have your first core group member. That’s okay. Learn from them. When we started, we did small groups a certain way. Yet, they didn’t give us what we hoped to get, we weren’t seeing disciples made and community happen. So, 2 years into our plant, we scrapped what we were doing and started over. That was hard to admit because we had 85% of our adults in a small group. But we learned. Today, I know how to shut a ministry down. I can raise $45,000 in a month to make a big move. I know how to kill a worship service. How to start a new worship service. How to hire a leader. How to fire one. How to have tough and easy conversations. You can blow through those experiences, but I would encourage you to go through them slowly, write down what you learned and process it with someone. Lastly in this area, get a coach. Someone who is steps ahead of you in the journey. Someone you respect who can speak into your leadership and give advice and be a sounding board. It is helpful if this person is not at your church so you can be completely honest with them and not hold back.
  6. Bonus: Commit to outlast everyone, put down roots and commit to one church and city. I know I said 5, but this one is important. When you start a church it is exciting. Then the hard work starts. People stop coming, someone gets angry, shepherding sets in and it is hard work. That is why, before you start a church, commit to that church, to that city, put down roots. When we started Revolution, our prayer was and is still, that we would die in Tucson. We wanted to give our lives to one church, to one city, to one movement and out of that church, we prayed that 1 million people would follow Jesus because of it. This commitment has helped when times are the darkest, because sometimes, your calling is all you have. You will come back to it and question it and wonder if you heard God correctly. If you commit to stay, it makes difficult situations a little easier. They still hurt and are painful, but when we hit rough patches, Katie and I would look at each other and say, “We decided to outlast them, so let’s push through.”

Church planting is one of the greatest adventures you can ever take. As I look back on what God has done in the last 5 years, I am blown away. He has been faithful, protected our leaders and my family. He has made me a better husband, a better leader and a better pastor. I remember the 11 people we started with and wonder, “why did they stay?” Yet, I love all those people, even the ones who are part of other churches now (the ones who leave don’t belong to you anyway).

Today as I think towards the future and our first plant Lord willing in September 2014, I am so excited and hopeful for the future. The idea of planting our first church and seeing the beginning stages of the movement we’ve prayed for actually becoming a reality I get so excited. And I’m ready to sign up for more. On our 5th anniversary, one of our leaders who started with pulled me aside and told me, “I’m still in. I love what God has done in my life. What God is doing in the lives of others. I’m in. I’m ready, let’s take the next hill.” It is that passion that drives me and reminds me, for Revolution Church, the best is yet to come. 

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The Making of a Leader: Recognizing the Lessons & Stages of Leadership Development

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bookEvery Saturday, I review a book that I read recently. If you missed any, you can read past reviews here. This week’s book is The Making of a Leader: Recognizing the Lessons & Stages of Leadership Development by Robert Clinton.

I have had this book on my kindle for years and have heard about it from a number of leaders, but just recently got around to reading it. I actually took a group of younger leaders through it and as I was reading it, all I could think was, If I had read this sooner, I may have saved myself some leadership pain. 

In this book, Clinton lays out the stages a leader goes through to become the leader God intends them to be. He has 6 stages:

  1. Sovereign foundations: In Phase I, God providentially works foundational items into the life of the leader-to-be. Personality characteristics, experiences good and bad, and the time context will be used by God. The building blocks are there, though the structure being built may not be clearly in focus. Character traits are embedded.
  2. Inner-life Growth: In Phase II an emerging leader usually receives some kind of training. Often it is informal4 in connection with ministry. The leader-to-be learns by doing in the context of a local church or Christian organization. The basic models by which he or she learns are imitation modeling5 and informal apprenticeships,6 as well as mentoring. Sometimes it is formal training (especially if the person intends to go into full-time leadership) in a Bible school or seminary. 8 Sometimes, during the academic program, the person gets ministry experience.
  3. Ministry Maturing: In Phase III the emerging leader gets into ministry as a prime focus of life. He or she will get further training, informally through self-study growth projects or nonformally through functionally oriented workshops, etc.10 The major activities of Phase III are ministry. The training that goes on is rather incidental and often not intentional.
  4. Life Maturing: Phase IV will have this “you-minister-from-what-you-are” emphasis. During Phase IV the leader identifies and uses his or her gift-mix with power. There is mature fruitfulness. God is working through the leader using imitation modeling (Hebrews 13:7-8). That is, God uses one’s life as well as gifts to influence others. This is a period in which giftedness emerges along with priorities. One recognizes that part of God’s guidance for ministry comes through establishing ministry priorities by discerning gifts.
  5. Convergence: Phase V convergence occurs. That is, the leader is moved by God into a role that matches gift-mix, experience, temperament, etc. Geographical location is an important part of convergence. The role not only frees the leader from ministry for which there is no gift, but it also enhances and uses the best that the leader has to offer. Not many leaders experience convergence.
  6. Afterglow: Phase VI is the legacy leaders desire to leave, when they are able to bathe in what God has done.

According to Clinton, most leaders do not make it past stage 3.

The reason is simple. Young leaders when they get started, want to get started. The problem they run into is that stages 1-3 are all about the inner life of the leader. In those stages, God is working on the leader, in their heart developing them for the future. Very few books nail the inner life of a leader and help them work through what God is doing in their life without coming off as cliche, this book nails it.

I can’t recommend it enough for leaders.

Here are a few things that I highlighted:

  • Leadership is a lifetime of lessons.
  • The terms patterns, processes, and principles are foundational to understanding the analysis of a person’s life. Patterns deal with the overall framework, or the big picture, of a life. Processes deal with the ways and means used by God to move a leader along in the overall pattern. Principles deal with the identification of foundational truths within processes and patterns that have a wider application to leaders.
  • A proper, godly response allows a leader to learn the fundamental lessons God wants to teach. If the person doesn’t learn, he will usually be tested again in the same areas.
  • We minister out of what we are.
  • While all of life is used to shape us, some items in life can be tied more directly to leadership development.
  • The God-given capacity to lead has two parts: giftedness and character. Integrity is the heart of character.
  • An integrity check is a test that God uses to evaluate intentions in order to shape character.
  • There are three parts to an integrity check: the challenge to consistency with inner convictions, the response to the challenge, and the resulting expansion of ministry.
  • Because character development has many facets, there are a variety of integrity checks. This is a sampling of the many that I have identified: values (which determine convictions), temptation (which tests conviction), conflict against ministry vision (which tests faith), an alternative in guidance situations (which tests calling), persecution (which tests steadfastness), loyalty (which tests allegiance), and restitution (which tests honesty).
  • God won’t use a leader who lacks integrity.
  • God’s first priority in developing a leader is to refine his or her character.
  • A desire to please the Lord in a ministry task is a sign of maturity.
  • Leaders who have trouble submitting to authority will usually have trouble exercising spiritual authority.
  • authority insights and relational insights—rooted in the authority problem—may never be learned apart from conflict.
  • Leaders in the Ministry Maturing phase must learn to submit to authority in order to learn how to use authority properly.
  • Leadership backlash tests a leader’s perseverance, clarity of vision, and faith.
  • At the heart of leadership is communication between God and the leader.
  • Part of the development of spirituality includes what happens when a person faces isolation.
  • The qualities of love, compassion, empathy, discernment, and others are deepened. Such qualities dif ferentiate between a successful leader and a mature successful leader.
  • Leaders are often busy people. They are preoccupied with many facets of life and ministry. Often they do not notice that they are not growing, particularly in spiritual formation. God often breaks into the leader’s life at this point.
  • Isolation is one of the most effective means for maturing a leader.
  • Quality leadership does not come easily. It requires time, experience, and repeated instances of maturity processing.
  • Mature ministry flows from a mature character, formed in the graduate school of life.
  • God will vindicate spiritual authority.
  • Organizational change without ownership is treacherous.
  • All leaders operate from a ministry philosophy.
  • When God is trying to teach me a lesson, He will do so through many means. Important lessons are usually repeated.
  • In a power conflict the leader with higher power will usually win regardless of rightness of issue.
  • A person convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.
  • Leaders with good ministry philosophies usually finish well.
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8 Things to do When You Don’t Feel Like Preaching

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preaching

Let’s face it, if you are a pastor who preaches on a regular basis, you are going to wake up on a Sunday morning and not feel like preaching. In fact, you will have a Sunday morning, maybe multiple Sundays throughout your life, where preaching is the last thing you want to do.

I remember once getting a text from a pastor on a Saturday night asking me if I’d preach for him the next morning. I asked him if everything was okay as I thought some horrible tragedy had happened for him to send this kind of text. His response was, “Everything’s fine. I just don’t feel like preaching tomorrow.”

Now, pastors, let’s be honest for a moment. There are weeks you don’t feel like preaching. There are weeks you don’t feel like going to meetings, counseling someone or walking with someone through a hard time. Yet, it is part of your job.

So, if you are heading into this week or next week or next month and you don’t feel like preaching, here are some things you can do:

8 things to do when you don’t feel like preaching.

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  1. Get a good night sleep Saturday night. Most people don’t sleep well before a presentation. Saturday night for pastors can be very intense and difficult. Get to bed at a decent time. Don’t eat dessert that night. Don’t watch some violent, exciting movie. Get a good night sleep.
  2. Eat a good breakfast. Eat something with protein. This will help to give you energy to last the morning so you won’t get hungry right before you preach.
  3. Exercise. If you don’t exercise regularly, you should. Pastors are notorious for being in bad shape, which does not help them in their jobs as their energy levels get low and doesn’t allow them have longevity in ministry.  
  4. Listen to worship music. Every week when I get ready to preach I listen to a regular diet of worship music. I listen a lot to the worship set we’ll play on Sunday morning to line my message up to the messages of the songs we’ve chosen.
  5. Talk to a trusted friend. If you are struggling with a situation, talk to a friend. When I have a hard week, a hard meeting or something that distracts me in sermon prep or preparing my heart for Sunday morning, I write about it. Writing it down has a cleansing effect on me and I’m able to let go of it.
  6. Pray. Spend time in prayer. You should do this anyway, but if you don’t, start. Pray for those who God will send on Sunday morning. Ask him to break your heart for the things that are weighing them down. Ask God for a heart that can feel the pain they carry, the weights that they are dragging around. To feel the bondage they feel. Preaching is a spiritual battle and pastor’s need to sense what those attending their church are dealing with.
  7. Visual yourself preaching. Visualization is a huge part of sports and more pastors need to spend time each week visualizing Sunday morning, preaching, what it will feel like, etc. This helps me to know where to look when in a sermon, the feel of the room, etc.
  8. Remember the result of preaching has little to do with you. At the end of it all, remember that the results of preaching have very little to do with you. God uses all kinds of people to reach people. While you should hone your craft, prepare as best you can, in the end, God handles the results. Give it up to him and preach with everything you have.
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This is the End (Why Most Sermons Fail)

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book

Every week, pastors work on their sermons. They stand in front of their churches and preach (hopefully with passion). Yet, very little change happens because of those sermons. Most people leave, unchanged. If you look around the world, very little impact is being made by Christians. Most stats show that those who attend church are just as likely to live and act like those who don’t attend church.

Why is that?

I think the problem rests in the end of sermons.

Most sermons are not clear. There is not a time when a pastor clearly articulates, “because this passage is true, here is what this means for us today.” There is little challenge to change or live differently.

Put another way, most pastors fail to help people imagine what their life would be like if they applied the Bible.

Here’s what I mean: if you preach on giving, how do you help people imagine what their life would be like 1 month, 1 year from now if they applied the verses you preached on. How would their life be different?

If you preach on marriage: how do you help couples see how their marriage will be different if they applied Ephesians 5. Pastors are usually good at saying what the Bible says and being prepared in that way. But struggle with, “now what.”

Before you pray and close your Bible to end your sermon, help your people see how their life would be different if they applied your sermon.

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Two Ideas that Should Change how We Think about our Bodies, Weight Loss & Food

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food

For many of us, when we think of addictions we think of things like drugs and alcohol. In our culture, depending on your background, you may now toss pornography or sex into those categories. Yet, in most churches and among Christians, these aren’t the only addictions that plague us. And no, I’m not talking about debt and money, although those certainly are addictions that plague many people.

What I’m talking about has to do with weight loss, body image and food.

My name is Josh…and I’m addicted to food.

If you are like me, you love food. You might be one of those people who just love to snack. You always seem to have a bowl of candy on your desk, grab a bag of chips mindlessly. Sitting in front of the TV you find yourself eating something. It isn’t anything big, it isn’t a meal, but you are just always eating.

Maybe for you it is dessert. You can’t go to bed without eating dessert. It is a comfort when life seems out of control. A long day is made better with a bowl of ice cream, a piece of pie, or some chocolate.

For me, I was never much of a snacker. When my wife Katie and I would take road trips, I never really wanted snacks. But I couldn’t resist the stops we could make for a hearty meal.

There is something else we might have in common. For you, it might not be food that is a problem; it is how you feel about yourself. The constant comparison to magazine covers or TV ads, the inferiority complex you have as you compare yourself to that guy in your office, the one who can eat whatever he wants and lose a pound, the woman who always looks put together. Your sibling who always seems confident, looks great, and feels great. Kind of like an annoying commercial.

Across the board in America, there is a problem when it comes to food addiction, weight loss, stress, health and body image. Today, there are more people overweight and obese than ever before. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as many as 35.7% of adults are overweight or obese, and 17% of children (or 12.5 million) are overweight or obese. And consider this: 44% of U.S. women are on a diet, 29% of U.S. men are on a diet, 80% of U.S. women do not like how they look, and $109 million is spent in the U.S. every day on diet and weight loss products. Among those who lose weight while on a diet, 95% will regain all of the weight they lost within the first 5 years. And as far as stress, 43 percent of U.S. adults suffer adverse health effects from stress, according to an American Psychological Association (APA) study.

Is This It?

Maybe you have gotten to the place where you’ve asked, “Is this it? Is this really how life was meant to be lived?” Envying the bodies of someone else, envying the pecs, six pack abs, butt or hips of someone else?

My change began 6 years ago. There wasn’t a magic pill of any kind, I didn’t have a surgery, but things in m heart began to change, which led to things in my life changing.

I wasn’t always overweight. In fact, in college I played soccer all 4 years but when college ended, I continued to eat like I played soccer year round and then my metabolism came to a screeching halt and well, you can guess the rest. I ballooned up to almost 300 pounds. Someone looked at our wedding pictures recently and asked how much weight I lost. When I told them I lost 130 pounds, they said, “You lost a jr. higher.”

Maybe you are reading this and think, “I don’t have an eating problem. I’m not overweight, but I can’t stop looking at the bodies that others have. I starve myself to look a certain way, to feel beautiful.”

Maybe you are like a guy I had lunch with recently. He eats like he doesn’t know fruit or vegetables exist, but he doesn’t gain any weight. For him, weight is an issue others deal with, but he doesn’t view his body the way God does.

Our Bodies and the Gospel

Often, when it comes to our bodies, the only time we bring the gospel into the conversation is if we are talking about sex. This is too small. If the gospel changes everything, if the gospel one day restores all things, then our bodies, health, body image and weight loss should fit into the discussion.

Two ideas have changed how I think about food, weight loss, health, pace in life, body image and how I talk about them. The first is found in the first chapter of the Bible in Genesis 1 where it tells us that we as humans are made in the image of God. Most Christians do not believe this. How do I know? We envy other people’s images instead of celebrating our own.

The second idea is a verse that gets quoted to encourage Christians to not smoke or drink, at least, that is how the pastor of the church I grew up in used it. In 1 Corinthians 6:19 – 20 it says, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

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6 Common Struggles of Pastors

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pastors

Over the past week, I’ve been doing a series on The Sins of a Pastor. These sins are not necessarily unique, but I believe most pastors struggle with them. They are also sins that can be easily hidden, seen as spiritual things, the right thing for a pastor to do and they are often things the church or elders of the church encourage without realizing it.

If you missed any of them, here they are:

  1. Your Bible is for more than just sermon prep.
  2. Untouchable.
  3. The Pastor’s Family.
  4. Need to be needed.
  5. Letting your wife shoulder the load at home.
  6. Lazy.
6 common sins of pastors.

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The “Other” Celebrity Pastor

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celebrity pastor

There is a great line in the movie Anchorman, when Ron Burgundy introduces himself and says, “I’m kind of a big deal. People know me.” This thinking sums up the thinking of many pastors, but not always the ones you think.

Many people bemoan the rise of mega-churches and talk about the “celebrity pastor” that has come because of it. It may be true true that some pastors of larger churches have created a pastor-centralized way of doing church. They strive to be celebrities.

But I’ve also met pastors of really large churches who are incredibly humble and seek to serve those around them. Large churches do not equal celebrity pastors just like small churches do not mean the pastors are not celebrities.

Now, in a small church, celebrity can be harder to see. But it is there.

You see this when…

  1. A pastor has to be at everything. Something isn’t important if he isn’t there or if he doesn’t announce it from the stage.
  2. Everyone needs to talk to the pastor or be counseled by the pastor. Talking to another elder or leader is seen as getting passed down the line.
  3. People skip church if the pastor isn’t preaching.

This problem can be deceptive because most pastors become pastors to help people. They care deeply for people, the hurts they experience and want to help them find life in Jesus. Underneath this desire for many pastors is a need to be needed. This fuels and drives many pastors to work themselves into a position where they feel they are always needed.

Here are a few ways to know this might be you:

  1. You can’t turn your phone off at night.
  2. You worry what people say about you, your sermon, or your church on Facebook. You also feel the need to comment on everything or want to know how many likes your last status update got.
  3. You have to be at every meeting, part of every decision that is made.
  4. You don’t take time off from preaching. When you go on vacation, you’re afraid someone may like the guest speaker’s sermon more than yours.
  5. When counseling or talking to someone, you do not challenge their sin for fear you will hurt their feelings.
  6. You are the bottleneck for all decisions; they must run through your office. By doing this, you say that you are keeping everyone on the same page, but really it is because you don’t trust that the culture and DNA of your church has spread, which says more about your leadership than your followers.

Pastors are needed by their people. God designed it this way and it is a good thing.

God also designed you as a pastor to find your approval and need to be needed in Jesus. You can’t fix everything. So recognize your limitations, focus your people’s attention on Jesus, and empower others to make decisions and be leaders.

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The Sins of a Pastor || Lazy

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Pastors, like any person sin. While this may be surprising for some people as they put their pastors and their wife on a pedestal, it is true. Because of the nature of being a pastor and the life they live, their sins are often not obvious and ones that no one will ever know about. In fact, some of the most hurtful and dangerous sins are ones that a church and elders can unknowingly encourage. These sins are not in any particular order, just the order I wrote them in.

So far we’ve covered:

  1. Your Bible is for more than just sermon prep.
  2. A pastor being untouchable.
  3. The pastor’s family. 
  4. The need to be needed. 
  5. Giving away too much at home.

The sixth sin that many pastors deal with is the sin of being lazy.

Not exercising or eating well. Pastors are notoriously overweight. The reasons for this are many. Most of our meetings happen at Starbucks or over a meal. There is snack sitting around at every church function and feeding more than 4 people is hard to do in a healthy way. This may be a symptom of poor planning, bad eating habits or a lack of self-control. I speak from experience on this as I used to weigh 300 pounds.

Not making enough money. Many pastors are underpaid. This can be because the church doesn’t have the money. Or, as is often the case, the church doesn’t pay well enough. Too many elder teams still hold to a poverty theology when it comes to their pastors, as if this will teach them humility. If you think your pastor needs to learn humility, you shouldn’t have hired him in the first place. 1 Timothy 5:17-18 says: “The elders who are good leaders should be considered worthy of an ample honorarium, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, ‘Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain and, the worker is worthy of his wages.” By no means should a pastor be overly wealthy and most pastors do not go into ministry for the money, but they should be paid well. A pastor should be paid like others in his church.

Not having structure in the church to stay on task. Many pastors do not stay on task well. They struggle to close their office door and get things done. You should have times that cannot be interrupted. If you need to get out of your office to not be disturbed, do that. Go to Starbucks or work from home on your sermon. Set a time that you begin work and end work and stick to that. Decide when you are most alert and creative and do your sermon work then. For me, that is the morning. Nothing intrudes on my morning. All my meetings happen in the afternoon and evening because the elders have stated to me the most important thing I do centers on my sermon.

Here are a few ways to fight this:

  1. Make an exercise and eating plan. Find something, join a Crossfit box, make an eating plan and stick to it. Decide that you will start losing weight and eating better. One of the ways to do that when you go out is to know what you are going to eat when you go to a restaurant so you don’t even need to see the menu and the tantalizing pictures of food you shouldn’t eat. When you eat out, order first so you aren’t swayed by what others order (this has huge implications if you order after someone), try it sometime.
  2. Get accountability on that plan. Go public with your plan. If you are planning to eat a certain or exercise, tell others about it. Have them hold you accountable.
  3. Ask for a raise. If you need to make more to provide for your family, ask for it. Lead up in this area to your elders. If they are a stone wall and want to keep you humble, pray that God will change their hearts. If they stay closed off to you and you feel God has released you, look for a new job.
  4. Elders and money. If you are an elder and have the power to give a raise to a pastor, ask yourself, “How would I want this elder team to treat me and my finances if I was the pastor?” Changes the discussion when you put yourself in the position of receiving money. Bottom line for elders, one of the main reasons pastors leave churches is so they can provide better for their families. Before you get angry about that, everyone in your church switches companies for the same reason.
  5. Create structure. Have a start and end time to work. Have a to-do list, the 2-3 things you have to accomplish everyday for today to be worth it and get those 2-3 things done each day.

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