Tag Archives: christianity

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How to Invite Someone to Church

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invite someone to church

It can be awkward inviting someone to church. We have fears about the relationship changing. What if they think we’re weird, or worse think we’re just friends with them so we can invite them to church?

Yet the reason you attend a church is, somewhere along the way, someone decided to take a risk, to take a chance and invite you. They knew that everything would change if you heard about Jesus, if you saw life-changing community unfold before you and thought, “I have to invite this person to my church.”

But how do you know if it is time to take that risk? How do you do it?

First, how do you know if you should invite someone?

There are clues to listen to when you talk to someone. Andy Stanley calls these “the not cues.” When you hear a person say something like, “Things are not going well.” Or, “I’m not prepared for…” Or, “I am not from here, we just moved to the area.”

When you hear any of these, you know it is worth the risk. Often the person who says these things is searching for something. They may not think it is Jesus, but it is.

Another way is to know what your church is preaching on and finding someone who would benefit from that. Maybe your church is doing a series on marriage, and you have a friend who is struggling in their marriage. Invite them. It might be a series on apologetics, and you have a friend who loves to argue about religion or has questions about who Jesus is and why Christianity is true. Invite them.

Once you decide to take the risk, and hopefully you do, the next question is how. That is an awkward moment. I remember this past Christmas inviting a friend to church, and when they didn’t come I thought, “Great, now it’s going to be weird.” Usually it isn’t. I saw them a week later, and it was fine. Life moved on, so don’t fear. I’ll ask them again.

You can call, text, email, share a Facebook event page or talk to them. Hand them an invite card. Take them out to lunch afterward to answer questions they have or simply to hang out with them. Be sure when you bring them to introduce them to people. Especially your pastor; he’ll love to meet your friend.

Let me end with this.

You never know when a simple invite can change a life. Hopefully your life has changed because of attending your church. This is a chance to change someone’s life and eternity, to help them see the life found only in Jesus.

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How Does Your Church Make Decisions?

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decisions

Most people don’t realize it, but the one thing leaders spend the majority of their time on is decision making.

I know you think you spend a lot of time on relationships and in meetings, but when you boil leadership down, much of it is spent on decisions.

Most churches don’t have a strong decision making grid that they look through. For many churches, decisions are made based on cost, if they will lose people (or make people mad) or who thought of the idea (if it is a person with power, that gives more weight to the idea in most churches).

Facing a decision at work? Here’s how to make the right one.

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While there are some valid points to those, making decisions through that grid won’t always get your church to where God wants it or accomplish the vision God has given you.

Think of your decision making grid as the hills you are going to die on. These aren’t necessarily theological hills, because the theological hills you will die on should kill a decision before it gets too far.

This a philosophical grid.

Here are some questions to consider for your grid:

  1. As you make a decision, will how that decision affects the next generation or empty nesters be the factor that pushes it over the edge?
  2. Are the opinions of churched people or unchurched people more important?
  3. How much does money factor into the decision?
  4. How much risk are you willing to take?
  5. Who are you willing to lose?
  6. Who do you hope to gain?
A grid to help your church staff make decisions.

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5 Systems Every Church Needs

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systems

Depending on who you ask about church systems, you will either get excited looks about the potential of them and how they can help people, or you will get looks of disgust because they sound like the business world and not very shepherding.

Yet the reason many churches fail is not because of a lack of caring but a lack of intentionality.

The reason many churches fail is not because of a lack of caring but a lack of intentionality.

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They are led by pastors who are incredibly relational and shepherding but lack the organizational skills to help people grow. And that is the crucial piece of that word failure. I’m not talking about not growing but about failing to help people reach the growth in their discipleship that God has for them.

In a small church, that happens one-on-one with a pastor. As a church grows, that must begin to spread out or there will be a lid on how many people a church can disciple and help grow in their relationship with Jesus.

The answer to that dilemma: systems.

Many large churches have these systems down and do a great job at them. Sadly, many church plants need these systems but do not have them in place, so they fail to get the traction they’d like or see the growth in the lives of their people.

Here are five systems you need to have in place to not only grow as a church, but help your people grow:

5 systems every church plant needs to grow.

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1. First time guest. When a guest shows up at your church, what happens? How do you know they came? When you are smaller as a church, you know someone is a guest because you know everyone, or the guest comes dressed up and the regular attenders don’t do that. But as you grow it becomes easier for people to slip in and out. It is good to give people anonymity until they’re ready to let themselves be known to you. But when they are ready, how will they tell you? Is it a connection card? What will you do with that information? If you get a connection card this Sunday, what happens to that on Monday?

You can’t leave that to chance.

I remember hearing Rick Warren say once, “God sends people to churches who are ready for those people to come.” I believe that is true. Many churches that are growing can tell you what happens when someone walks in their doors.

“God sends people to churches who are ready for those people to come.” -Rick Warren

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We give something to a guest because we want to break down the barrier that the church wants something from them. That makes people defensive, especially men, as they are waiting for the church to ask for something. Instead we give them a gift, and then after their first time with us we send them a Starbucks gift card to say thanks. I get so many comments from second time guests who tell me they returned to our church because when they went to Starbucks, they thought of our church.

2. New believer. If someone became a Christian this Sunday in your church, what would you do? Of course you would be excited, but in that excitement do you have a plan for that person to help them grow? More than likely it would involve meeting with the pastor of the church. What if 25 people became followers of Jesus this Sunday? Now, you can’t meet with all those people. So what happens?

This is where you need a system and a plan to know what happens. Who do they talk to? Do they take a class? Do you have people in your church prepared and ready to talk with new believers?

5 systems every growing church has.

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3. First time giver. Giving can get weird in churches because it’s money and it’s private. Many pastors think it is wrong to know who gives in your church. I don’t see that anywhere in the Bible. Now if you struggle with treating bigger givers differently than those who give less, than that is something to work through, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Giving is a spiritual gift that many people in your church have, just like leadership and mercy are a spiritual gift. My hunch is that you know who has the gift of leadership, evangelism or hospitality in your church. You should know who has the gift of giving. And just as an aside, just because someone gives a lot does not make them the wealthiest people in your church, and you already know who the wealthiest people in your church are simply by going to their house and seeing their car and clothes.

In the same way that you should know who has the gift of giving in your church, you should know who gives for the first time in your church and do something with that. That is a huge step of faith on their part. Many pastors overlook that because they are always thinking about the budget and bills, and when someone gives that’s just helpful. But that person is now saying, “I want to grow in my faith. I want to hold loosely to what God has given me and trust Him. I’m bought in here to the point that I’m giving my money.” That is a huge step!

Celebrate that. Help that person continue to grow in that. They may have the gift of giving, they may not, but have a plan to help that person grow in that discipline. Giving is a crucial piece of spiritual growth and being a disciple of Jesus. Don’t let it happen by chance.

4. Community and relationships. Every church leader knows that growth happens best in the context of relationships. We preach on it and tell people that, but we fail to realize that community and moving into a small group of some kind is a huge step for people. It’s a time commitment in an already busy schedule. There is the fear of going to a house of a person they don’t know. How long will the group meet? Many groups are meeting until Jesus returns. What happens if the person goes to a group and doesn’t like it or the leader? Now it is really awkward when they see that person at church, and so many people choose to skip it all together.

These are barriers you have to get past if you want to see people enter into relationships at your church. We’ve experimented with three month small groups and told people, “You can do P90x for 90 days; try a group for 90 days.” We’ve also started to encourage people to enter a serving team first before joining a group. It is less of a commitment in their mind and still gets them shoulder to shoulder with other followers of Jesus. And serving helps you in your spiritual growth.

5. Leadership development. This last one took us the longest to develop, and because of that I believe it really stunted our health and growth as a church. Every pastor wants more leaders in his church. If you want to plant churches, you want men around you who want to plant churches. Yet many pastors simply hope those people will find their churches. If your church is near a seminary or a Bible college, that may just happen and will mask that you don’t have a plan to develop leaders.

Think about it like this: if you wanted to have 10 elder caliber leaders a year from now, how would you develop them? What would have to happen for that to occur?

If you want to plant a church two years from now and that person would come from within your church right now, how would you get that person ready? How would you find that person?

You need a leadership development system.

5 systems every church needs to be healthy.

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Like I said at the beginning, systems are often seen as bad or mechanical, so many shepherding leaders don’t use them. Systems help move people in their relationship with Jesus. Systems are crucial to the health of your church and the growth of your people.

Church systems are crucial to the health of your church and the growth of your people.

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Being a Pastor is Also a Job

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pastor

One of the things pastors and Christians talk a lot about is the calling of a pastor. While we often make that an incredibly mystical and mystifying conversation, being a pastor is more than that.

It is also a job.

Now before you get out pitchforks and torches, hear me out. I’ve said this in several circles, and the reactions are often the same. Some see this as completely heretical; others are convicted immediately as they think about it.

A pastor is a calling. Being a pastor is also a job.

Being a pastor is a calling, but it is also a job.

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A job ends. One day you will retire from your job. Your job is also something you do.

To many pastors their job never ends. They talk about dying in the pulpit, and for them their job is not something they do, but who they are.

Now to be clear, being a pastor is a calling. It is a role. It is a spiritual gift. But it is not the sum total of who I am. I am a man, a friend, a dad, a husband, a brother, a son and a neighbor.

Here’s why this is so important: Too many pastors over spiritualize their calling, which leads them to burnout, overworking and ultimately, sin. In fact, many pastors make their identities center around who they are as a pastor. I’m pastor so-and-so, which raises their level of importance.

This is also another reason why pastors take it so personally when a sermon doesn’t go well, people don’t respond to what they said, or someone is angry at a vision change. Why? Their role and personal identity are wrapped up in them. They haven’t separated the two, so when someone doesn’t respond the way they’d like, that person is rejecting them. But they aren’t. They are rejecting the message, the opportunity.

When you talk to pastors who burnout, you hear things about the needs of people, how they couldn’t say no, how they preached too much, didn’t take care of themselves, carried burdens into their sleep that they should’ve let go of.

In all this we sin, yet because we’re called we somehow give each other a pass, or at the very least talk about how hard ministry is and the suffering we endure.

Most of that, though, stems from our pride and need to be needed. We train our people in it, and they respond because it speaks to something in their hearts, a desire they have that resonates with wrapping up what we do with who we are.

While some have pushed back on this, this is a tension you have to wrestle with as a pastor. You are not as important as you think you are. You are not as needed as you think you are. And one day you will stop preaching, stop leading the meetings you lead, and someone will take your place.

It has been interesting to me watching pastors get closer to retirement and seeing the look of horror as they struggle with what is next. Many of them continue preaching and leading when they should hand those tasks off to someone else, but they don’t. They go past their effectiveness because this is their calling, without ever questioning how effective they are at their job.

Here’s another example. Many Christians trumpet the order of their priorities: God, family and job. For pastors their job is connected to God, so it is easy to see something like this: job/God, and family. It is dangerous because it is not always obvious.

Here are some ways I try to balance this tension:

  1. When someone rejects a vision, plan, strategy or sermon, do I take it personally? If so, why? Is that healthy or prideful?
  2. Do I have an overinflated view of my impact on my church?
  3. When was the last time I said no?
  4. Do I stop working at night and over the weekend? Do I stop thinking about work when I’m not working?
  5. Do I live out what I tell people they should do with their jobs: relationship with God, family, then work?
5 questions to help you be healthy as a pastor.

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How to Handle Guns Blazing Awesome Guy

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awesome

If you are a pastor you have had this experience.

You meet someone new at your church on a Sunday morning, or they email about getting together and they are excited. I mean really excited. They can’t wait to jump in. They are passionate, extroverted, seemingly gifted and they have tons of experience at other churches. They know the lingo, have read the books, have been to the conferences and have the t-shirt.

They are guns blazing awesome guy (or girl).

Your first thought is, “Where has this person been? Finally!”

Be cautious with ‘guns blazing awesome guy.’

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I get it because as a leader you want people who are excited, and guns blazing awesome guy is excited. He’s excited enough for 10 people! You can only imagine how far he can move the needle in your church and the people who will follow him, and how great it will be to have someone to shoulder the load.

All that may be true, but let me throw a caution flag.

There is a reason guns blazing awesome guy is at your church and not the church he just left. And it isn’t because of doctrine or because your church is somehow better. There is often something hidden in the background, lurking. It is this that gets so many church planters and pastors in trouble.

This is why there is so much wisdom in Paul’s advice to Timothy to not be hasty in laying on hands (1 Timothy 5:22). Move slowly. Guns blazing awesome guy may turn out to be simply awesome and great for your church, or he will move on to the next church that will elevate him into leadership quickly.

Now let me talk to the guns blazing awesome guy. The guy who is gifted, ready and maybe even mature. Not all guns blazing awesome guys are bad or sinful.

Many times you jump from church to church trying to find a spot, and the reason you have to jump from church to church has nothing to do with you and everything to do with people not seeing how awesome you are.

Slow down.

I know, I know. You are 25 and not getting any younger, and you have all these ideas and energy. Yet part of being a leader is being a follower, being under authority.

I recently talked to a pastor who was interviewing pastors for a job. He said, “One guy stands head and shoulders above the rest in talent and gifts. Yet he hasn’t been in a church for more than a year, and when he has, he didn’t volunteer anywhere, and he had no reason for that. It was ‘the leaders and the culture.'” I told him it would be a mistake to hire this guy, no matter how talented he is.

If you’re awesome, be patient instead of impatient. People will notice.

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For both the leader in charge and the guns blazing awesome guy or girl, patience is in order. This is hard for both because ironically they need each other but often have different goals.

I can tell you in my years of ministry I’ve been frustrated because people didn’t see how awesome I was when I thought it. The moments I dug into that, learned and allowed myself to be teachable were the most beneficial. When I kicked up the dirt and moved on, it brought anger, hurt and bitterness. When I’ve rushed the guns blazing awesome guy or girl into leadership because, well, they were awesome, I’ve paid a hard price for it. I’ve overlooked character issues because of how talented they were and because we needed someone in that role. I’ve also moved too slowly with someone and lost them because another opportunity came along.

This isn’t an exact science, so it won’t end like that.

This is more of a caution to explore where you are right now. You may have a guns blazing awesome leader you need to slow down the process on or put a process into place. That way it is less of a feeling and more of a science as you move them into leadership. You may need to take a step back to ask why people don’t think you are as awesome as you think you are and what God might be trying to teach you in the waiting.

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Pastor’s are Chief Vision Casters

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vision

There are a lot of things pastors have to do each week. They preach, teach, counsel, pray with, pray for, listen, fund raise, make decisions, build teams, go over budgets, look towards the future, disciple, evangelize. This list goes on and on.

Some of the things a pastor does he can and should delegate. Some things he should train others to do so they can do it either at the church or in another church one day.

Some things, regardless of gifting, he can’t give away. There is one role, that while every leader in the church does it, the pastor cannot give away.

It is a role that must be on every pastor’s job description: Chief Vision Caster.

The pastor is the Chief Vision Caster.

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Every leader in your church does this or should do this (more on that in a minute), but you are the one who starts it. You are the loudest voice.

Why?

Does this matter so much?

The answer is yes.

If you aren’t careful, your church will slowly move off course. Not theologically, but it will slowly become inward focused. It will start to become about keeping people comfortable.

You know this and know what it feels like. Vision leaks and slowly becomes blurry.

What Separates Leaders & Followers

In my opinion vision is one of the things that separates leaders and followers. Everyone can point out what needs to change, everyone has an opinion of what a church should do, who they should try to reach, what it should look like. Only a leader can take them there. Only a leader can say, “Here is where we are, there is where we should be and here’s how we’re getting there.”

A vision is a picture of a preferred future, not just a complaint about the present.

A vision is a picture of a preferred future, not just a complaint about the present.

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How to Keep Vision Clear

As I said, you can’t delegate this away. You aren’t the only vision caster in the church, but you are the chief one. You should be the clearest, and all the visions for ministries in the church are based on what the vision of the church is.

Often, though, vision becomes blurry for the leader. It can become stale; you wonder if you are reaching it, if it is worth going after. When that happens, it is blurrier for people in your church.

Remember the law of the lid: no one (outside of Jesus) will ever have a clearer vision or stronger passion for your church than you do. It is imperative you do whatever you can to keep your vision clear and white hot.

Here are some things I do:

  1. Hang around people who don’t know Jesus. This reminds you of what your church is to do. Remind yourself that you are battling for souls, not over worship styles or service times. Church becomes so petty when you forget that souls hang in the balance. Followers of Jesus become the most alive when they are living on the mission that Jesus called them on, and that includes people who don’t know Jesus. It reminds you of why you work so hard, why everything you do matters and is worthwhile.
  2. Listen to great vision casters. Not every pastor is a great vision caster, but remember, every great vision caster did not start out that way. So listen to great vision casters. Listen to men and women who cast a clear and compelling vision. You aren’t copying their vision, but it can not only teach you how to use words but it will get you excited. Your excitement for the vision is the lid of the excitement of your church, team or organization.
  3. Spend time with Jesus. This one seems obvious, but pastors need to be reminded to do what they challenge others to do. Your vision will get dim and blurry if you aren’t spending time with Jesus; if you aren’t confessing your own sin and living in the power of the cross and resurrection of the one who gave you the vision and the passion in the first place. This time will not only clarify your vision but will strengthen you for the road to accomplish that vision.
3 ways to cast a clear and compelling vision for your church.

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12 Ways to Keep the Passion Alive in Your Marriage

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Keep the passion alive in your marriage

I came across this list in Daniel Akin’s book God on Sex: The Creator’s Ideas about Love, Intimacy, and Marriage and thought it was really helpful:

12 Ways to Keep the Passion Alive in Your Marriage

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  1. Work at it. A lifetime of love and romance takes effort. Few things in life are as complicated as building and maintaining an intimate, passionate relationship. You need to work on it constantly to get through those trying periods that require extra work.
  2. Think team. When making important decisions, such as whether to work overtime or accept a transfer or promotion, ask yourself this question: What will the choice I am making do to the people I love? Talk with your mate and family. Make “we” decisions that will have the most positive impact on your marriage and your family.
  3. Be protective. Guard and separate your marriage and your family from the rest of the world. This might mean refusing to work on certain days or nights. You might turn down relatives and friends who want more of you than you have the time, energy, or wisdom to give. You might even have to say no to your children to protect time with your spouse. The kids won’t suffer if this is done occasionally and not constantly. It will actually be beneficial for everyone!
  4. Accept that good and not perfect is okay when it comes to your mate. No one is perfect other than Jesus! You married a real person who will make real mistakes. However, never be content with bad. Always aim for great, but settle for good!
  5. Share your thoughts and feelings. We have seen this one over and over. Unless you consistently communicate, signaling to your spouse where you are and getting a recognizable message in return, you will lose each other along the way. Create or protect communication-generating rituals. No matter how busy you may be, make time for each other. For example, take a night off each week, go for a walk together on a regular basis, go out to breakfast if you can’t have dinner alone, or just sit together for 30 minutes each evening simply talking, without any other distractions.
  6. Manage anger and especially contempt better. Try to break the cycle in which hostile, cynical, contemptuous attitudes fuel unpleasant emotions, leading to negative behaviors that stress each other out and create more tension. Recognize that anger signals frustration of some underlying issue. Avoid igniting feelings of anger with the judgment that you are being mistreated. Watch your non-verbal signals, such as your tone of voice, hand and arm gestures, facial expressions, and body movements. Remain seated, don’t stand or march around the room. Deal with one issue at a time. Don’t let your anger about one thing lead you into showering the other with a cascade of issues. If different topics surface during your conflict, note them to address later. Try to notice subtle signs that anger or irritation is building. If you are harboring these feelings, express them before they build too much and lead to an angry outburst. Keep focused on the problem, not persons. Don’t turn a fairly manageable problem into a catastrophe. Emphasize where you agree.
  7. Declare your devotion to each other again and again. True long-range intimacy requires repeated affirmations of commitment to your spouse. Remember: love is in both what you say and in how you act. Buy flowers. Do the dishes and take out the trash without being asked. Give an unsolicited back or foot rub. Committed couples protect the boundaries around their relationship. Share secrets with each other more than with any circle of friends and relatives.
  8. Give each other permission to change. Pay attention. If you aren’t learning something new about each other every week or two, you simply aren’t observing closely enough. You are focusing on other things more than one another. Bored couples fail to update how they view each other. They act as though the roles they assigned and assumed early in the relationship will remain forever comfortable. Remain constantly abreast of each other’s dreams, fears, goals, disappointments, hopes, regrets, wishes, and fantasies. People continue to trust those people who know them best and who love and accept them.
  9. Have fun together. Human beings usually fall in love with the ones who make them laugh, who make them feel good on the inside. They stay in love with those who make them feel safe enough to come out to play. Keep delight a priority. Put your creative energy into making yourselves joyful and producing a relationship that regularly feels like recess.
  10. Make yourself trustworthy. People come to trust the ones who affirm them. They learn to distrust those who act as if a relationship were a continual competition over who is right and who gets their way. Always act as if each of you has thoughts, impressions, and preferences that make sense, even if your opinions or needs differ. Realize your spouse’s perceptions will always contain at least some truth, maybe more than yours, and validate those truths before adding your perspective to the discussion.
  11. Forgive and forget. Don’t be too hard on each other. If your passion and love are to survive, you must learn how to forgive. Ephesians 4:32 must always be front and center. You and your spouse regularly need to wipe the slate clean so that anger doesn’t build and resentment fester. Holding on to hurts and hostility will block real intimacy. It will only assure that no matter how hard you otherwise work at it, your relationship will not grow. Do what you can to heal the wounds in a relationship, even if you did not cause them. Be compassionate about the fact that neither of you intended to hurt the other as you set out on this journey.
  12. Cherish and applaud. One of the most fundamental ingredients in the intimacy formula is cherishing each other. You need to celebrate each other’s presence. If you don’t give your spouse admiration, applause, appreciation, acknowledgement, the benefit of the doubt, encouragement, and the message that you are happy to be there with them now, where will they receive those gifts? Be generous. Be gracious. One of the most painful mistakes a couple can make is the failure to notice their own mate’s heroics. These small acts of unselfishness include taking out the trash, doing the laundry, mowing the lawn, driving the carpool, preparing the taxes, keeping track of birthdays, calling the repairman, and cleaning the bathroom, as well as hundreds of other routine labors. People are amazingly resilient if they know that they are appreciated. Work hard at noticing and celebrating daily acts of heroism by your mate.
12 Ways to Rekindle the Passion in Your Marriage

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How to Think of Blog Posts

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blog posts

I always get asked, “Where do you get your ideas for blog posts?”

Blog posts like sermon ideas, article or book ideas are everywhere. They are in conversations, quotes, questions, your devotions and prayer time.

Here are a few places I find them:

  1. A question I have or someone else has. My opinion has always been, if one person has a question, others have the same question.
  2. Conversations after a sermon or in a missional community. 
  3. Book quotes. This is a great way to get a blog post. When a book or  quote makes you think of something, write it down. Many of my posts start that way.
  4. Other blog posts. Maybe you read something that makes you want to respond because you disagree, or you think you could write it better. Go through you old posts from time to time to see if you’d update something or if you can write something that is more helpful.

If none of those work, try these ideas from Ready to Be a Thought Leader?: How to Increase Your Influence, Impact, and Success: at the end of the day or each week, could you set aside fifteen minutes to write down the highlights of what happened? What were the painful moments, the funny experiences, or the most challenging decisions you made? Here are a few more questions: What have I learned from this experience? What did I do well? What could I have done differently? Is there a universal lesson here that others could apply?

If you put these into practice, you will always have ideas for sermons, blog posts and books.

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What Kind of Preacher are You?

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preacher

There are all kinds of preachers out there. If you preach every week, you probably gravitate towards a certain style that you like to listen to and a style that you have personally. There are times that you will move in and out of styles on a weekly basis and sometimes within the same sermon, but you will by and large live within a certain style.

Which kind of preacher are you?

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Here are a few I’ve seen:

  • The prophet. This is the in your face, yelling preacher. This one is often angry and typically reformed. There are times this is necessary in a sermon and some churches need to hear this style of preaching. Sin is confronted and not sugar coated.
  • The apologist. This is often the preacher that is filled with a list of facts, data and historical information to show the truth of Christianity. They are most comfortable when they are giving a lecture that feels like a class.
  • The evangelist. This is the preacher that is always about evangelism, always about making a choice to follow Jesus.
  • The inspirer. This is the preacher that hopes you’ll leave with new information, make a change in your life, maybe even take a step to follow Jesus. You will feel good after this sermon and feel like you can do anything.
  • The comforter. When you hear a preacher like this, you just feel like you got a warm hug.
  • The storyteller. This is the preacher that has a story for everything and is always telling stories.
  • The guilt ridden. This is the preacher that when you walk out you feel like you are the most horrible person on the planet.

I’m sure there are more styles, but you get the picture.

What is interesting about each style is that they usually have parts of the Bible connected to them. The evangelist hangs in Romans or the gospels. The comforter is always in Psalms or the gospels. The prophet can’t get enough of the letters of Paul.

This matters for a pastor because each one has his sweet spot. When a pastor gets out of that, he will need to prepare differently. For me, I find preaching from the Old Testament or Paul’s letters easy to do, the gospels are a challenge for me. I have good friends who are different. What happens if a pastor isn’t careful is they will preach only what they are comfortable with, so it matters to know what your style is.

You also need to know so that you can find other communicators not like you to help you grow or bring into your church.

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How to Leave Well

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At some point, you will leave the role that you have and move onto something different. That something different might be staying at home with kids, a new job or retiring.

Often, especially in the church world, leaving well is not something that is done often. Pastors don’t know how to handle leaders who leave and when you leave, it can be difficult to navigate that moment. I’ve written before about how a church should handle a leader who leaves, but today I want to talk about what you should do when you are leaving.

  1. Your last day is all people will remember. Most people don’t believe this one, but your last day is largely what people remember about you. They remember how you treated someone or what you said. No matter how long you are at a church or what you did, the majority of what they will remember and talk about is what happened on your last day.
  2. Tell your immediate supervisor first. When you decide to leave, the first person you should tell at your church is the person you work under. If you’re the lead pastor, tell the elders. You should not tell a trusted friend before your supervisor. Your supervisor will be a large part of deciding how the transition goes, your severance if applicable and how it gets communicated. You want them on your side. Also, this helps the church to keep moving. Fast transitions work well in the business world, but church is all about relationships and that takes a little longer to work through and transition well.
  3. Tell them as soon as possible. This is dicey and many people will tell their supervisor after they decide to leave. I think that is shortsighted and shows a lack of trust. Now, my word of caution is every pastor does not think like this, but I think you should allow your supervisor to walk with you and pray with you through this transition as you seek to see if God is leading you somewhere else. While some will struggle to hear you think God might be calling you somewhere else, I think it shows kingdom mindedness if you pray through it together.
  4. Be honest, but make sure you are building up the church you are leaving. If you are leaving because of a disagreement, everyone doesn’t need to know. You won’t be inauthentic if you don’t tell the whole story. Remember, the first one, that’s all people remember. So, if you leave throwing rocks, that’s your legacy. When the announcement is made, it isn’t up to you what is said publicly.
  5. If it is not a good separation, stay above the fray. There is a desire whenever a parting happens, whether in a job or relationship, to get our side of the story out. To get people on our side. Church is notorious for this because ministry is so personal and working relationships are so personal. When someone leaves a church, whether a staff member or someone who simply attends, our first desire is for people to know why we are leaving and get people on our side. This is being divisive, not building up. This only gets at our desire for retribution, not reconciliation or moving forward.
  6. The moment you say you are leaving, it is no longer about you. Many times a staff member leaves a church and wants people to cry, be upset, talk about all they did. This is pride. The church is moving forward and so are you.
  7. Help people process. You are excited because God is moving you somewhere else or you are getting freed from a job you hated. Either way, you aren’t sad because you are leaving. Others are. They will miss you, it won’t be the same. Before you go there mentally, help them process it. Also, the people in your church will not be as upset as you are if the leaving isn’t mutual. They will not understand why you are leaving or the emotions you have about it. Don’t pull them into your sin.
  8. You might need the church or pastor you’re leaving. Often, when someone leaves a ministry, they say things they shouldn’t. This is human nature and often sinful. But remember, as you leave, you never know when your path might cross with this church or pastor or elder team. You may need them down the road. Be kind. Treat them as you would want to be treated.
8 ways to leave a job well

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In the end, leaving doesn’t have to be messy. It can be a celebration of all that God has done through a person or a ministry, and what God will continue to do in that ministry after they leave, but also what that person will do in their next ministry. Churches often fail at this because they take it so personally instead of seeing how they are working together and furthering the kingdom in different parts of a city or country together.

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