From Look Before You Lead: How to Discern & Shape Your Church Culture by Aubrey Malphurs.
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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:
I’ve seen it so many times and every time it breaks my heart: someone whose life is held back because of doubt.
If we are honest, all of us have doubts about Jesus. We struggle some days to believe that He can forgive us, redeem our sins, use our past for good or even that He really is who He says He is, that He is God.
What do you do with doubts?
For many people, they become their doubts, they allow their doubts to take over their lives and lead them to live in unbelief, completely missing the life God created for them to live.
Doubts keep us in the dark. Doubts keep us from experiencing freedom.
And truth be told, there is a way out of doubt.
This Sunday at Revolution Church I’ll be preaching from John 12:12 – 50 as we look at how to handle our doubts, how Jesus answers our doubts and helps us to live the life we were created to live.
A life of freedom, passion, adventure and faith.
This is a huge Sunday at Revolution if you’ve ever struggled with doubt.
Remember, we meet at 10am on Sunday mornings at 8300 E Speedway Blvd.
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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Every Tuesday morning, I review a book that I read recently. If you missed any, you can read past reviews here. This week’s book is Look Before You Lead: How to Discern & Shape Your Church Culture (kindle version) by Aubrey Malphurs.
I can’t even begin to describe how good and helpful this book is. The appendixes alone are worth the price of the book as they essentially give you Malphurs consulting toolbox.
The struggle many pastors have when it comes to leadership, making changes, preaching, leading their staff, working with volunteers is that they don’t understand the culture they work in. They are simply trying to put ideas into place, move things forward or make a difference. Until you understand the culture you have as a leader, those you lead, the world around your church and the world inside your church, you won’t be able to move anything. This book is particularly helpful for pastors about to move to a new church as Malphurs has an entire checklist of questions to ask a church board who is interviewing you. I found that extremely helpful from the other angle as it gave me questions I need to know for Revolution and questions I would ask a leader to determine if they fit our culture.
The reality is that every church is different. Every church has a different history, different set of leaders. So what works in California doesn’t work the same way in New York. In the same way that what works in one part of a city doesn’t work in another part of a city.
But what is culture? According to Malphurs, “The church’s congregational culture as the unique expression of the interaction of the church’s shared beliefs and its values, which explain its behavior in general and display its unique identity in particular.” And, “a primary responsibility of today’s strategic church leaders is to create, implement, and re-implement an organizational culture that rewards and encourages movement toward the church’s mission and vision. Every pastor must understand that to a great degree his job is to lead and manage the congregational culture, but if he doesn’t understand that culture as well as his own, he won’t be able to do the job.”
Here are a few other things that jumped out:
As I said, if you are a pastor, this is an incredibly helpful book to work through.
In talking with many people, I’m convinced one of the biggest roadblocks to faith, to living the life God created you to live (John 10:10) has to do with God’s love and accepting God as Father.
For many, this comes from their relationship with their earthly father. It is hard to see God as a good, gracious and loving Father if you experienced a father who always broke his promises, abused you, hurt you, was emotionally absent or walked out and abandoned you. Yet, in John 10, Jesus tells us a lot about God as a Father.
He tells us that he knows us (vs. 27), that his children follow him (vs. 27), that God gives his children life and that they will never perish (vs. 28), and that his children sit in the hand of God and no one or nothing will be able to snatch them out (vs. 29).
The image of sitting in the hand of God is so important. It gives us a picture of how close we as followers of Jesus are to God the Father. It shows his great care for us. It shows his protection of us. It also shows us that everything that comes our way must pass through the hand of God.
Whether sin, temptation, suffering, pain, etc. All of this must pass through the hand of God to get to us. Not all of that comes from the hand of God, but it does not catch God by surprise.
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I talked this past Sunday about the idols of the heart and what drives us to do what we do. Yesterday after breakfast, Katie pointed something out to me in Isaiah 46.
While our idols drive us and only the gospel can transform our hearts to be driven by Jesus. We also look to our idols to carry us, to give us rest, to complete us.
We look for achievement to give us rest. When we’ve accomplished enough, we’ll have enough. When we have enough school, we’ll be enough. When we’ve taken enough vacations, we’ll have enough experiences.
When we have enough power, we’ll have enough control. We’ll have enough followers, enough employees. We’ll be important and feared because we have power.
When we have enough stuff, we’ll be able to slow down and rest. We’ll be able to sit on our new deck furniture, watch our huge TV from our plush chair.
We’ll finally be able to rest, because our idols will carry us.
Except. We lose employees. This year award becomes next year’s forgotten winner. That degree becomes not enough in 5 years when someone else gets one more degree than you. That vacation next year will be a distant memory when you hear about a new place, a new resort, a new experience. That power will fade as your company gets bought out or a new boss comes in and the game changes. And stuff rots and falls apart and last years most amazing TV becomes next month’s “last season’s model.”
Our idols fail. They do not carry us. They do not give us rest.
Isaiah 46:8-9 says:
Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.
While all Christians realize the title of this blog post is true, we often forget it. Many times, we fall into the trap that says: What rescued me, what impacted me to start following Jesus will work for everyone.
Many times, this is what is underneath our passion for more modern music, deeper preaching, life on life discipleship, a women’s ministry, a men’s ministry, a singles ministry. You name it. Whatever ministry God used to save you, we often think, “If everyone experiences that, they’ll be saved.”
The reality is that everyone starts following Jesus differently.
This came up in the passage I just preached on in John 9 this past Sunday at Revolution. You can listen to it here if you haven’t already.
The Pharisees are having a hard time with Jesus healing the man born blind on the Sabbath because they don’t do it that way. They don’t think God works that way, they’ve never seen it done before (vs. 32), or they weren’t saved that way.
I’ve had this conversation so many times I’ve lost count (and every pastor can relate). It goes like this, “Pastor Josh, we need to start a __________ ministry to reach ___________. If we do, Revolution will explode.” Or, “Josh, if we just get every man to do __________” or, “If we get every woman/student/single to do ____________ they’re life will be changed.” Or, “Josh if you preached more topical sermons, more deeper sermons, longer sermons, shorter sermons more people would get saved.” Or, “Josh, if we did faster songs, slower songs, more responsive readings, more hymns, more modern songs, if it was louder, if it was quieter, people would worship more than they do.”
Now, I’m not saying those things won’t change their lives, but we show a lot of immaturity if we think God only saves people the way we were saved or the ministry we are passionate about.
Last week we got an email that our sweet Mamush had conjunctivitis, so he got eye ointment, it cleared up. This week we got another email saying that he is on a round of antibiotics for pharyngitis, which according to the internet is a sore-throat. I know that it is a small thing, but can you imagine your child not feeling well and you can do NOTHING. I wish I could have brought him home last week so that my arms could hold him while he isn’t feeling well… but my arms are too short.
In actuality, my arms are too short even for the kids under my roof. Even if I can hold them and kiss their boo-boos and tell them how much I love them, my arms are too short to save their little souls. So I do, for all of my children, the only thing that I can- I cry out to God. I don’t always pray like I want to, like my heart says I should, but that is changing and I know that a prayer can be answered if it is asked in the chaos that is my life, or in those serious times of fasting and solitude. Right now the prayers made while over my kitchen sink with the kids’ noise in the background will have to do. And I feel like God is pleased. 
(A woman waiting to be healed at the church on top of EntotoMountain; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)
I pray that He is pleased to heal Mamush of the discomfort that he is in, that his little heart does not lose hope as he waits for us to return, and that at our return he does not scorn us because he has felt abandoned by us. I pray that Nehemiah continues to meet developmental milestones and we are not burdened by the relationship with his Birth-mom and Birth-dad, but are able to extend grace and know our role. My prayer for Ashton, is that He will continue to develop into a man of character and substance. For Gavin, I pray that his spirit for adventure and attention does not distract from the calling that you have on his life, that he is able to submit that to You for Your Glory. Ava’s heart is so sweet and helpful, I pray that You would protect it from the arrows of the evil one, and that she is able to grow into a strong women, who’s confidence is not in herself, but in You. 
(Walking into the church on top of EntotoMountain; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)
This is a great place to start praying daily for your children: http://www.inspiredtoaction.com/wp-content/uploads/kat/I2A_Prayer_Calendar.pdf
If you would like to help us complete our adoption and bring Mamush home as we travel back to Ethiopia in 5-10 weeks, you can donate here. At last count, we still need to raise $5,000.
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: