Tag Archives: God

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Take the Lid off of Your Church

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move

In every leadership book or at every leadership conference you hear the mantra, “Leaders are readers”, or “Growing leaders grow churches”, or something to that effect. In his book The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber puts it another way: “The job of the leader is to know more than you do.”

“The job of the leader is to know more than you do.” -Michael Gerber

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If you aren’t careful, though, you can put a lid on your church and its potential for growth.

Now before you email me and tell me that Jesus grows the church, he does. Yes, the Holy Spirit can and will do what the Holy Spirit does, often even when we are trying to wreck things with our pride and sin.

At the same time, there are consistent things that churches that are growing, healthy and effective do that others do not. The same goes for their leaders.

I meet a lot of pastors who unknowingly are not allowing their churches to reach their full potential because they are not reaching their full potential. For a lead pastor, eventually your church will look like you, good or bad.

As we grow, I am seeing that I need to spend more and more time learning, stretching myself, getting alone with God trying to discern what is next and not getting comfortable in what we already “know.”

Here are a few questions I am constantly going through:

  1. For Revolution to become twice the size we are now, what do I need to start doing? What do I need to stop doing? What things will keep us from getting there?
  2. If we were twice the size we are now, what things would we do differently?
  3. What things are we doing right now that need to be tweaked? What things need to go to a new level?
  4. What new leaders do we need to raise up?
  5. What leaders need to be challenged to go to a new level?

“5 questions pastors of growing churches ask themselves.

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How to Recover from Preaching

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preaching

If I got to rank what I love about my job, preaching would be in the top two. I love the prep, working through a passage, a series, thinking through how to best present an idea, and praying about those who will be there, that God would work in their lives and draw them to Himself through my meager attempts at presenting His Word.

There is a downside to this love. It is what happens after preaching. The recovery.

I remember when Katie and I met with a doctor to talk about how to handle the adrenaline that goes with preaching, the emotional, relational and spiritual drain that it can be. (I’ve heard of pastors who sleep for days after preaching because their bodies can’t handle the adrenaline.) The doctor asked, “Is it like teaching a class?” It’s different for one reason – eternities hang in the balance. I heard one pastor describe preaching as “reaching into the road to hell and pulling people back.” (I realize there are some possible theological problems with that, but you get the point.)

The crash a pastor experiences the day after preaching can be brutal. Your whole body aches, your eyes hurt, you feel as low as you have felt all week. For me, I am often so stiff that I can’t bend down to pick something up off the floor after preaching.

So what do you do?

5 ways to recover from preaching.

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  1. Manage stress. Keep the day before and after preaching as stress free as possible. Don’t have meetings; stay focused on preaching and recovering.
  2. Recharge. I do something that recharges me. Hiking, running, playing with my kids, reading a book, drinking coffee with Katie. Read something that recharges you or takes your mind off church. This can be a novel or a spiritual book that challenges your own heart and soul as a human.
  3. Encouragement. Have some people who call/text to encourage you afterward. Have elders or friends check in with you to ask how they can pray for you, encourage you and let you know that they are lifting you and your family up in prayer.
  4. Eating. Most pastors are notoriously poor eaters. What you eat before and after preaching is incredibly important. What you eat will make it easier or harder to preach, to sleep, to recover. Make sure you also drink enough water to stay hydrated.
  5. Move forward. As quickly as possible, move on to next week. Regardless of how your weekend went, good or bad, the next weekend is coming very quickly. So move on. Don’t dwell on what happened (especially if it was bad). Celebrate what God did, learn from what you did poorly, but move on.
5 things to do this Monday if you are a pastor.

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Are You an Insecure Leader?

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leader

Insecure leaders scare me.

Before I tell you why, let me tell you what an insecure leader is. An insecure leader is…

How to know if you’re an insecure leader.

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Someone who name drops. They know everyone, they know the top pastors, top worship leaders. They are always talking about who they know.

Someone whose past is greater than their present. They always talk about what they’ve done. It is always about their last ministry, church or job. The grass is greener in their past.

Someone who jumps on the latest bandwagon. They are up on the newest, greatest fad in church leadership. Each week it is a new vision for their church. This creates turbulence in a ministry because no one knows what the win is.

Someone who goes to the latest conference, reads the latest book and gets a new vision each time.

Someone who won’t stop talking about themselves. They always have a story about how great they are, why they should be on your team, how grateful Jesus should be they are a Christian and on board to build the kingdom of God. They tell story after story of their exploits.

Someone who is about building their kingdom instead of God’s. This can be difficult to detect because insecure leaders are very spiritual and manipulative. But underneath their spiritual veneer is someone who is more about people following them instead of people following Jesus.

Are you an insecure leader?

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Insecure leaders scare me because they are hard to detect. They are “wolves in sheep’s clothes.” (Matthew 7:15) They come across as together, they know the right answer, they often have a lot of biblical knowledge, but they go about things and have goals that go contrary to scripture. I often call them the guns blazing awesome guy.

So what do you do if you’re an insecure leader or you encounter one?

1. Know yourself. All of us tend to be insecure in certain areas. We struggle to believe God will use us, or we don’t want to come across as prideful about the gifts God has given to us. So we need to be honest about who we are, what we can do and what we can’t do. You aren’t insecure if you say, “I’m not as gifted at that as you are.” That’s self-awareness.

2. Have a process. One of the best ways to weed out the guns blazing awesome guy is to have a process. This process also helps to develop leaders to help them grow so they aren’t insecure. A process tells people, “You won’t be a leader here right away.” This is good for people who are unsure, to make sure they are trained. This is good for people who think they are awesome because it guards the gate.

A leadership process protects the church.

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3. Always talk to their last pastor. If a leader from another church shows up at your church singing your praises and bashing his last church, be wise. Talk to the last pastor they served with. Cover your bases.

4. Trust your gut. I could spiritualize this and say, “If the Holy Spirit tells you…”, and that might happen with someone you are considering for a leadership position. Sometimes your gut and the Holy Spirit become one and the same. Sometimes your gut is wrong, but I’m never mad when I trust my gut. If something says “wait” or “no” on someone, stick to that. You don’t always have to have a reason.

Great leaders trust their gut.

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When your Church Should Move

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church move

When it comes to real estate, the old cliche of location, location, location is king. Your location matters. There is a corner near my house that no matter what restaurant goes into that corner, it never survives. I’m sure you have something like that in your city.

The same is true for churches.

Location matters.

The location of your church is one of the most important decisions you make as a pastor.

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Not only in terms of space and what kind of ministry you can do, but what and who is around you.

If you attend or lead a church, I want you to think for a minute about where your church is located and who is around that location. The people who live there, are they old or young? Hipster or middle age? Are they wealthy, middle class, below the poverty line, or a mixture? Think in terms of nationality and ethnic backgrounds.

It is easy to overlook this as a church and keep humming along.

A good missionary, though, thinks about who is around them.

Now the second question: Who are you as a church and as a leader best suited to reach?

This is a hard question and can feel like you are picking and choosing who to reach (which you aren’t). You are simply asking who you are as a leader and who your church is.

Often God lines up who we are with where we are.

I have a friend who planted a church in a bilingual community where almost everyone lives below the poverty line. Why? He grew up in a community like that and understood the struggles. I have another friend who planted in one of the most suburban places in America. Why? He grew up in one of the most suburban places in America and understood the idols and struggles of that community.

Here is the tricky part: What if who you are best suited to reach is not where your church is?

What if who you are best suited to reach is not where your church is?

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This happens to older churches who watch a neighborhood change around them.

You have two options at this point: one, change things to reach those around you, or two, move to where those people and cultures live.

The question a leader and a church must answer is which path to take. Both can be right.

While this is something church planters and missionaries think through as they embark on their leadership, this is something churches and pastors must continually consider as their church grows and ages. This is being a good missionary as a leader, and as your city changes it will mean some changes to your church and maybe even some hard decisions.

Your church might be in the wrong location if…

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Highlights from Rethink Leadership on Momentum

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leadership

I’m at Rethink Leadership Conference in Atlanta, which has been like drinking from a fire hose of leadership wisdom. The second session was on momentum, which is always an elusive thing for a leader. Here are some highlights:

Geoff Surratt
  • We are on the cusp of a new way of doing church and that’s exciting.
  • Churches that are winning with Millennials…
    • Transparency. They don’t care about outside accountability. Millennials want to if you are the real deal.
    • Collaboration. Boomers want to know what happens at the decision making table. Gen Xers don’t just want to be in the loop, they want to be heard at the table. Millennials don’t just want to know what’s happening, they want to be a part of deciding what’s going on.
    • Learn to let Millennials lead. Our job stops being the mentor job but letting them get out in front.
    • Make failure an option.
    • They have figured out mission in a different way, they are living on mission(al). How are you on mission everyday, in everything you do?
    • Is your organization the real deal? Is there fluff going on here?
    • They learn to live in the mess, to do ministry that is messy.
Interview w/ Josh Gagnon
  • See the need and communicate the why behind the need gets people on the same boat headed in the same direction.
  • Staying consistent even when you feel like you are making no movement.
  • You gain momentum when you stay true to who you are.
  • You can find momentum in seasons on the calendar. Don’t fight the calendar, live in it, work in it.
  • People who create momentum are teachable, thrive in a culture of change and openness.
  • Momentum is killed when you do it at the wrong time with the wrong people.
Kevin Myers
  • A powerful force is the momentum of the soul of the leader, when Jesus is changing the life of the leader.
  • Keeping our calling current is critical to keeping our momentum, don’t let the fire go out.
  • Main thoughts: smoke what you’re selling. Sell what you’re smoking.
  • Questions to keep wood on the fire of my soul for momentum on the inside:
    • What’s my current word from the Lord? It’s not new, but what is God whispering to you lately.
    • What’s my current obedience to the Lord? There can be sacrifice without obedience, but there can’t be obedience without sacrifice.
    • What is my current awe before the Lord? Will I get on God’s agenda and trust Him to take care of my agenda?
  • How to move momentum as a church:
    • What’s your current territory?
    • What’s your current risk?
    • What’s your current discipline to afford the risk?
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Monday Mind Dump…

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mind dump

  • Some days after preaching you have this high that you can’t explain.
  • Some days, you feel like you trudged through the mud of a passage and came out on the other side only to see the next verse waiting for you.
  • Today, I feel like the second one.
  • If you missed yesterday on “Do good people go to heaven?” you can listen to it here.
  • Romans 1 – 3 is an amazing set of verses that sets up the amazing truths that await in the rest of Romans, but they are hard passage to preach through.
  • Grateful for a church that wants to know what the whole bible says and sit under hard passages like ones on God’s wrath and judgment.
  • Those are humbling topics.
  • Got to celebrate with someone who kept inviting someone who finally came.
  • There’s nothing better than hearing someone say, “I have prayed and asked for years and they’re coming today.”
  • It’s a reminder that every Sunday is someone’s first Sunday. 
  • Since moving to our new location I feel like we have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes of our church to strengthen our discipleship and leadership development systems.
  • Right now, our staff is working through the leadership pipeline material from lifeway.
  • Such solid stuff.
  • Can’t wait to roll this out across all our ministries this year and how it will help people move on a path to use their gifts and talents.
  • Started reading You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James K.A. Smith.
  • The book is not at all what I thought it would be about.
  • Not sure if that’s ever happened to you.
  • But I’m loving it despite that.
  • So there you go.
  • Took our kids to the fair last week.
  • Spent too much money on rides but made a ton of memories.
  • Went to see Zootopia with our kids and 4 of their friends yesterday, so yes, we took 9 kids to the movies.
  • Got some funny looks.
  • All in all, a good movie. Always interesting processing with our kids the messages of a movie and it was interesting the timeliness of the zootopia message about being anything you want to be as it relates to our culture.
  • I’m predicting some fun conversations at dinner tonight about it.
  • If you’re like me, you are excited about the NFL draft this Thursday.
  • If you’re not, you just found out the NFL draft starts on Thursday.
  • I love watching the draft.
  • Yes, I’m that guy.
  • I’ll be on a plane Thursday night so I’m hoping the airplane wifi is better than the usual airplane wifi.
  • Got a lot to do today.
  • Tons of follow up.
  • Back at it…
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In Recruiting, Don’t Say No for Someone

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recruiting

One thing I have noticed in the lives of pastors and those who are on church staff is a fear when it comes to volunteers and delegation. I understand where it comes from and appreciate it (because I used to feel the same way), but there is also a lot of danger in it and a robbing of our churches.

It goes something like this. A leader in a church has a need, a role that needs to be filled. They have someone in mind who could fill it and do it very well, but they don’t ask them. It might be because they think the person is too busy, that they will say no or that they won’t want to do it. (Most leaders normally feel this way because we assume that if we don’t like to do something every person on the planet also dislikes doing those things.)

How do you get high capacity, talented people to serve at your church?

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What happens then is the leader says no for the person without giving them a chance to say yes or no. Would that person say no? I have no idea and neither do you.

I hear from many pastors, though, who feel guilty for asking people to give their time in building the kingdom. I understand this sentiment as people are incredibly busy. But I think this also says something about our theology. If all Christians are given spiritual gifts and will one day make an account to God for how they stewarded those gifts, it is our job as leaders to help them develop those gifts and use them (Ephesians 4). When we don’t challenge people, make the big ask of them to step up, we are robbing them of becoming all that God wants them to become, and we are keeping them from using all the gifts and talents that God gave to them.

So what do you do? “Don’t ever say no for someone.”

Don’t say no for someone.

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So I started letting people tell me no instead of doing it for them. What it has done is require me to trust God more when it comes to leaders and the holes that our church has, and it has forced me to make some big asks of people and cast vision to people. But God has also had people step up in ways that I didn’t expect them to do because, “I didn’t say no for them.”

So, pick up the phone, ask that person for coffee and cast a huge vision to them and let them decide. You never what might happen.

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What Should the Culture think about Christians?

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christians

When I read through the gospels, I am blown away by the conversations Jesus had with people. There is a difference in the way Jesus talked to them and his expectations for people outside of Christianity compared with today.

It always strikes me as interesting when Christians talk about the culture, politics or current issues and are surprised when people who don’t follow Jesus act like they don’t follow Jesus.

Why are we surprised?

If Christians believe that the gospel changes us (which we do), then we should expect someone who has been changed by that truth to live and act a certain way. The New Testament writers did. That’s what all the NT letters are about, how to live and act as the body of Christ. Paul did it one way in 1 Corinthians, a different way in Philippians, and James and Peter added their own takes to it.

5 things to remember when you talk to someone you disagree with.

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Here are a couple of ideas on how to interact with the culture in light of this:

1. If you are a follower of Jesus, live like it. One of the best ways to move the gospel forward is to live like the gospel has changed you. Too many people who attend church every week do not live, think or feel any different from those who claim to not follow Jesus. As I said once in a sermon, a follower of Jesus should be obvious because they will have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22 – 23).

2. Give space for those exploring Jesus to explore. Your church, community group and missional community should be places where those who don’t know Jesus feel comfortable asking questions and exploring Jesus. You should be the kind of person those who don’t know Jesus feel comfortable being around. Too many Christians don’t know how to be friends with people who don’t know Jesus, let alone share their faith with them. Be a good friend. Be someone who can be counted on, trusted, respected. This goes a long way in sharing the gospel.

3. Have a community/life that is attractive to those who don’t know Jesus. Same thing as above. If you are a pastor, how many people who don’t know Jesus do you see coming through your doors each week? How many people are getting baptized? Following Jesus? If the answer is low, you do not have an attractive community for the gospel.

4. Lovingly confront sin. If you are around humans, you will need to learn how to lovingly confront sin. The NT calls us to do this. Over and over community is to pull people aside and confront the sin in their lives with the truth of the gospel. Christians are good at shouting about the truth but terrible at doing this in a loving way. Don’t be passive aggressive. Remember how broken you are when confronting someone, and confront them the way you would want to be confronted.

5. Lovingly confront Christians who are unloving to those who don’t know Jesus. When you hear about Christians pointing their fingers, turning up their noses, or expecting not yet Christians in your church to act like Christians, lovingly confront them. Tell them how great it is that someone felt comfortable to put their cigarette out in the parking lot; at least they are there. Roll the red carpet out for not yet Christians by teaching Christians to love.

What people should think of Christians.

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The Benefit of a Church Crisis

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church crisis

That title may startle some, the benefit of a church crisis. Nobody likes a crisis. No one likes bad news or being disappointed or being uncomfortable. We like when things work, when things are easy, when things go our way.

Yet if you are a leader, at some point you will walk through a crisis with your church.

It could be financial, you may struggle with where you are meeting, it might be relational with another leader or someone in your church. It might involve your sin or the sin of another leader. It might be that you have someone on your staff who does something stupid, and you have to pick up the pieces of that situation.

4 responses to a church crisis.

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In that moment you have some options as a leader:

1. You can run. Many pastors when they hit a crisis run from it. While no one likes conflict, relational conflict in a church can be especially painful. We put off conversations we should have, we avoid people we need to run into. Or, many pastors leave when a crisis hits. I heard one pastor say that an average church has a crisis every 18 months, and the average stay for a pastor at a church is 18 – 24 months.

Do you run from or towards a crisis?

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A crisis is where leaders have the opportunity to shine. It is the moment they are needed the most.

2. You can pretend it isn’t happening. Many people in their personal relationships act like a crisis isn’t happening. Couples pretend they aren’t hurt by the other or that they aren’t angry. Many pastors, when a crisis hits, pretend nothing is going on. Instead of looking at hard numbers (i.e., our attendance is dropping, less people are serving, less people are joining small groups, giving is going down, we aren’t seeing people come to faith), they simply keep doing business as usual.

Another sign of this is making it everyone else’s fault. The culture is hard, people aren’t dedicated anymore, no one is listening. So the blame game continues to get passed.

The reality is: numbers are your friend. Numbers may be painful and reveal some truths you don’t want to look at or want to pretend aren’t real. But numbers are your friend.

3. You can outlast the crisis. Hopefully you are picking up a theme in this post.

Leaders shine in a crisis. Leaders don’t shine when things are going well because they aren’t needed as much. They are needed, but a crisis is when it shouts for leadership.

Leaders outlast the crisis. Does this mean that people who leave aren’t leaders? I would say yes.

No one said leadership is easy; simply look through history. It is filled with people who rose to the occasion in spite of great difficulties.

A crisis is when a leader shines.

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4. You can learn from it. Never waste a crisis.

Never waste a crisis.

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As soon as possible, begin learning from the crisis:

  • Could we have seen this coming?
  • Did we do something to make this happen?
  • Did we overlook something?
  • Is there a system that is broken?
  • Did we miss something when we hired someone?
  • Did we extend ourselves too far financially?

Make no mistake, a crisis is when leaders shine. A church crisis in many ways is a wake up call to a church. It is God’s grace to a church. It causes a church and its leaders to see what is most important.

It can also cause leaders to take a step of faith they should have taken but maybe were too afraid to take. Many times in my leadership a crisis has pushed me and our church out of our comfort zone. That is hard and painful, but it’s also good.

Don’t waste a church crisis.

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Monday Mind Dump…

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mind dump

  • What a weekend.
  • I realize every pastor is supposed to say that after Easter, but it felt that way in our new space.
  • One of my favorite things this weekend was watching people who have never done the stations of the cross go through it for the first time and seeing their reaction.
  • So cool.
  • It was awesome hearing the stories of change during baptism.
  • I love that those who got baptized yesterday became Christians at our church in the last 10 weeks!
  • It was awesome kicking off our series in the book of Romans.
  • I’ve been thinking about preaching through Romans for the last several years but never felt like it was the right time.
  • With where our church is, now is the right time to walk through this book of the Bible.
  • If you missed yesterday, you can watch or listen to it here.
  • It was cool yesterday to see so many people come from GTX, the crossfit box that Katie and I go to.
  • I started reading The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert and her story is incredible.
  • I think it is easy for Christians to think about conversion in very sanitary ways, but meeting Jesus (when we are truly changed) wrecks us.
  • It’s been challenging me as I get ready to preach on the end of Romans 1 and God’s heart towards sexuality and homosexuality.
  • Those verse are bigger than homosexuality.
  • I also started reading In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin just to get a change of pace.
  • I try to read novels throughout the year just to give my brain a break and thought I’d try reading something historical for a change.
  • Katie and I watched Spotlight on Saturday night.
  • It was incredible and heartbreaking.
  • The abuse of power is gut wrenching.
  • I’m really excited for our first membership class to happen on April 16th.
  • We tried membership before at Revolution and I’m not sure we knew what we were doing, so we took it away until we could figure out how to make it more than signing a piece of paper.
  • I think it has been a missing piece at our church.
  • We’re assessing a new church planter to join Acts 29 this week in AZ.
  • Love that our network is growing in our state.
  • I also get to train some leaders in Phoenix this week on leadership and marriage.
  • Always love talking about those topics and the chance to help other leaders.
  • Well, time to get back at it…