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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The post When your Church Should Move appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

There are a lot of things pulling for a lead pastor’s time, but not everything that comes across your desk or email is something you should do. One of the hardest and most important aspects of leadership is determining what will get your time, energy and effort. And no, the answer is not everything.

While you as a lead pastor could do lots of things, there things that only you can do and things you should make sure you do every week.

Here are 4 things every lead pastor must do:

1. Work “on” the church. Working on the church is not working in the church. Working on the church involves planning, strategy, learning about new ministry paradigms, evaluating ministries, leaders, budgets and asking questions like: where are we? Where are we headed? I try to spend 3-4 hours on Monday morning in this mode. The larger your church gets, the more important this becomes. This is the time where you pull your head out of the weeds and the day to day of ministry to check how things are going. In case you are curious, lead pastor, no one else at your church is going to do this or should do this. This is the job of the lead pastor to see the whole field, not your student pastor or worship pastor. They are in charge of their ministry and can help speak into this, but only the lead pastor is supposed to think about the whole field on a church staff.
2. Care for your soul and health. Your elders probably care about your health and so does your staff, but only you can actually take care of your soul and health. This means, each week you are taking your day off. You are taking a monthly retreat day. No one else can make sure you are getting good sleep, reading your bible (not just for sermon prep), praying, confessing sin. Only you can make yourself do that. And, you can lie to people about that and for the most part, no one will know. You have to make caring for your soul a higher priority than it is.
3. Develop other leaders. You should be spending time each week pouring into other leaders. Leaders who will one day plant churches, business leaders in your church, your staff. And not just in a staff meeting, spewing information at them or calendar issues, but training them to be leaders. You should be giving them authority, responsibility, etc.
4. Plan ahead. You should always be looking ahead. Looking ahead in sermons, looking ahead for the church. Thinking about what the church will be a like year from now, 3 years from now. No one else is doing this for the whole church. Other leaders can speak into this, but the lead pastor is paid to think about this for the whole church.

As I said, there are a lot of things you can spend your time on as a lead pastor and some of the things above other leaders are doing and want to be involved in and that’s a good thing. These are 4 things though that you cannot delegate away and that you are being paid to do.

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