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How to Make a Hard Announcement

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At some point as a leader, you will have to make a hard announcement.

It might be about letting a staff member go, layoffs, cutting a budget, killing a program or ministry, moving locations, changing service times. Anything that will disrupt the normal and what people are used to can be a hard announcement. It doesn’t even have to be a major change, it could simply be a change.

While it is difficult to do this, there are some things you can do to set yourself up to succeed and for a hard announcement to go smoothly and create momentum.

4 ways to make a hard announcement

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Here are 4 ways:

1. Be clear. Say whatever it is you need to say. Don’t beat around the busy. Don’t be mean about it, but be clear. At the end of the conversation or announcement, there should be clarity on what was communicated. There should be no questions about what moving forward looks like. When things are gray or unanswered, people create their own answers and this is when a church or team gets into trouble.

2. Be honest. Depending on the announcement and situation, you may not be able to share everything or all the details. But, you should be honest about it. Leaders often want to cloak announcements in cliche’s about how God is moving or calling, etc. People see through this. Be honest. Don’t throw anyone under the bus, but be honest. In this honesty, you should be as positive as possible. It does no good to launch an attack against the person leaving.

3. Say what everyone is thinking. Leaders need to give their people more credit than they do. Often leaders think their teams or people in their church are stupid. They wouldn’t say that, but they communicate with them like they do. If you are heading into a hard season for your church, say so. Admit, this will be hard. Admit something hurts. Admit something is not what you’d like. Don’t always feel the need to put a smile on something. Now, your level of confidence will be felt in your church but there is a difference between confidence to get through a situation and trying to put a false smile on something. Don’t be afraid to say what everyone is thinking about something. It will also validate what everyone thinking and tell them it is okay and normal to think that.

4. Everyone only remembers the last day. When a transition happens and it will, everyone will only remember the last day. I know you did so much at your church, but people will only remember the last time they saw or heard you. If you let a staff member go and they had a number of fans in the church, those fans will remember how you acted and treated them when you publicly said goodbye. Don’t be fake or false in this, but be respectful and take the high road.

When a transition happens, people remember your last day

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Being a Pastor’s Wife: “Just” a Wife & a Mom

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pastor's wife

Many churches (and pastors for that matter) do not know what to do with pastor’s wives, how to treat them, what role they play or how important they are. It is a hard role to live in and stay in. Everyone has a lot of their own expectations of what the wife of a pastor should be like, yet, they are all different.

While Revolution (and myself) has struggled just like every other church to figure this out, I believe Katie and I have figured some things out that we have put into place which will prove to be invaluable in the future. While this is not exclusive to pastors, any leader in a church and for that matter, any husband can do better in understanding their wives and how to engage them.

Over the next month, I’ll be sharing some of the things we’ve learned that I hope will be beneficial for you.

If you missed them, you can read Pastor Your Wife as Much as You Pastor Your Church, Without Her, You Fall Apart, What Role a Pastors Wife Plays in the Church and Spiritual Warfare in the Home.

I talk to many wives and Katie and I have had this conversation as well. In our culture, it is seen as a step down to be a wife and a mom (in some Christian circles it is seen as a step down if a wife works, but that’s another post for another day). I have watched people ask Katie what she does and for awhile she felt embarrassed to say she was a wife and a mom. As if someone who is a wife and a mom is incapable of doing anything else with their lives.

A stay at home mom is not just “a wife & a mom”

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Or, as someone asked me, “Why would Katie give up her dreams to be a wife and a mom?” I think that question is the crux of it all. To be a wife and a mom requires a sacrifice, a sacrifice that I do not fully understand, but do my best to fully appreciate and hold up.

A woman who pours into her husband and kids does make an enormous sacrifice. They are women who don’t simply buy into “doing whatever they want” but seeing how their gifts can be used for an eternal perspective.

How do I know that? If Katie had stayed in school and finished her math/engineering degree (another misnomer is that if you stay home you must be stupid, think again), we either don’t get married or we get married and live in Missouri while she finishes school, which means I don’t get my master’s or go on staff at the church I worked at in Maryland. This changes the complete trajectory of our lives.

There have been several times in my marriage (maybe not enough) that I’ve looked at Katie and said, “Thank you for sacrificing your dreams to be part of a dream of raising our kids for them to make in impact. Thank you for supporting me and sticking by me to get Revolution off the ground.” I always joke with Katie that her house will be bigger in heaven but I am now convinced that she will also get to live in the gated community while I live in the slums. Still in heaven but she will have to invite me over for a visit. 🙂

So, the next time you see a woman who is “just” a wife and a mom know that she is holding onto a bigger, eternal dream. That is what is driving her. Husbands, do not let anyone say your wife is “just” a wife and a mom.

And, always, always tell your wife thanks for the work she does. Without Katie, what I enjoy and love about life does not exist. That’s a perspective I don’t want to forget.

Does every pastor’s wife do this? To be a successful pastor’s wife, should you not work?

The answer is that it depends. For many, they won’t. I also don’t want it to sound like the only role a wife and mom can play is staying at home. Many, many women make a big impact while working outside the home.

One thing that makes pastoral ministry unique is that many churches want the pastor’s wife involved in ministry. For our church, we have always said a pastor’s wife should be like any other Christian woman. She should be encouraged to use her gifts, talents, be plugged into an MC and serve as she can (based on the stage of life she is in). That changes as life changes. Because ministry can be an all consuming job, it can be difficult for a pastor’s wife to work outside the home. Not impossible, but difficult.

For many pastor’s families, the need for money and security is high. Most churches think it is important keep their pastor’s poor (which is a sin on the church’s part), or a pastor has school debt and the need for extra income is there. If this is the reason for a pastor’s wife working, I think a pastor needs to educate his elders and his church about his needs, how much a pastor should get paid and move towards that. Many elders struggle with this because it is hard to gauge what to pay a pastor. One year as we were discussing raises at Revolution, an elder said we shouldn’t give anyone a raise because no one in our economy was getting raises. I pointed out, that may be true, but our church was growing, giving was going up and we were asking more and more of our staff. Elders board sometimes have to separate their situation to be a good elder and this can be hard.

In the end, finances and church staffs are a sticky situation. But one a healthy church must navigate and one a healthy pastor’s family must walk through.

The Other Side of the Coin

There is another side of this struggle that I think is true for all married women, but in particular for a pastor’s wife. Many pastor’s wives have poured their entire adult life into their husbands ministry. Helped him get through seminary, maybe helped him plant a church and possibly followed him to countless churches (since the average pastor stays at a church for 18 months). Because of this, many of her dreams, desires and talents are put on hold for the good of his ministry and what the church needs. Because of moving around, a feeling of loneliness and disconnectedness sets in, which we’ll look at in a future post.

Husbands and pastors have a responsibility to help their wife find their talents, gifts, what fires them up and help them do that. It doesn’t mean a business or work, although according to Proverbs 31 that can be a good thing. It does mean setting aside some of his passions and desires for her so that he can serve her. Many men at this point will talk about their calling and how that super cedes everything. True on one hand, debatable on the other. Your first calling is your wife and kids, and then your ministry. Many men because of being a Type A leader get this backwards and their wife feels the pain of this.

My goal with this post and all the posts in this series is to educate a church about the unique struggles that a pastors wife has. There might even be some education to a pastor about what his wife is going through as some can be oblivious to this. I also hope to create some good conversations among couples about what it looks like to have a healthy marriage and be in ministry.

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Being a Pastor’s Wife: Spiritual Warfare in the Home

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Pastor's wife

Many churches (and pastors for that matter) do not know what to do with pastor’s wives, how to treat them, what role they play or how important they are. It is a hard role to live in and stay in. Everyone has a lot of their own expectations of what the wife of a pastor should be like, yet, they are all different.

While Revolution (and myself) has struggled just like every other church to figure this out, I believe Katie and I have figured some things out that we have put into place which will prove to be invaluable in the future. While this is not exclusive to pastors, any leader in a church and for that matter, any husband can do better in understanding their wives and how to engage them.

Over the next month, I’ll be sharing some of the things we’ve learned that I hope will be beneficial for you.

If you missed them, you can read Pastor Your Wife as Much as You Pastor Your Church, Without Her, You Fall Apart and What Role a Pastors Wife Plays in the Church.

Spiritual warfare always gets mixed reactions when you bring it up. In the church I grew up in, spiritual warfare was something we believed in, but didn’t believe actually happened. We had angels in the Christmas pageant. The pastor preached on the unseen world of angels and demons, but no one actually believe it happened. I have a friend who sees spiritual warfare everywhere. There are angels and demons behind every door waiting to pounce on you. If you get sick, that is Satan.

While I am no expert on spiritual warfare, and admittedly, I’m scared to become an expert on it because I don’t want to have to use my knowledge. But since starting Revolution, I have begun to see spiritual warfare differently than I used to. I believe that both Satan and God are active in our world. I believe they move around, can take up resident in our lives, homes, work places and churches (if you don’t believe that last one, just go to a congregational business meeting).

I also believe, from my own experience, that spiritual warfare comes into your home and family. If there is a night of the week that Katie and I are going to have a fight, it is going to be Saturday night. If there is a night that our kids will decide not to sleep, it is going to be Saturday night. Now, that isn’t necessarily Satan working in our home, but our own sin nature can very easily give him a foothold into our lives.

A pastor’s wife is most likely to feel the brunt of this. I remember a pastor once saying that he sees Satan going to Eve first was a testament of how important the role of women are because Satan will go to them first. It is the same for a pastor’s wife. For this reason, while both spouses must be called to full-time ministry (if they aren’t, he shouldn’t be a pastor, but that is a post for another day), he is doing most of the work, seeing the excitement, the life change, hearing the stories. She (in our case anyway) is at home with 3 kids, changing diapers, trying to get kids to eat, take naps, not kill each other and for her to not kill them.

A pastor’s wife often feels the brunt of spiritual warfare for the pastor’s family.

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It is easy for Satan to whisper into her ear, “This isn’t worth it.” She has to fight feelings of missing out on something, on a “normal” life, of not being appreciated by her kids, husband or her husband not being appreciated for all that he does. It is easy for her to rationalize why this is not worth their lives.

If you don’t believe me, ask a pastor’s wife. You must be aware of this as a pastor and put some things in place to fight against it. As a couple and as a family, we pray for protection over our marriage, our kids and our house. We pray for the same protection for the other elders and staff at Revolution on a daily basis. We have people praying for us.

Being married to a pastor is simply inviting spiritual warfare into your life.

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We have friends who check in with us on Saturday and Sunday night to ask how we are doing and to let us know they are praying for us. I have friends who live on the east coast who pray for us when they wake up and we are still asleep on the west coast.

Pastor’s, ask your wife how she is doing. Does she feel vulnerable? Does she need to be encouraged? Be her first line of defense. Churches, lift up your leaders on a regular basis, but especially on the weekend as they prepare for what lies ahead. I had a mentor tell me that preaching was like “reaching down onto the road into hell and pulling people back.”

So yes, Satan has a lot to say about that.

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Figuring Out Who Attends Your Church

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Recently, we did a church-wide survey to get an idea of who attends our church, how they found Revolution, how involved they are and how clear our steps as a church are. I got the idea from Luke Simmons and found it to be incredibly enlightening. It is one thing to say you are reaching a certain demographic or talk about diversity and how many people have taken a next step (and how clear that next step is), it is another thing to read it in hard numbers.

After reading through the results, I’m excited to see how things change and compare over the next year(s).

Some of the things we asked about were age, how long they have attended Revolution, if they had attended a church before Revolution, their ethnicity, stage of life and what next steps they had taken at Revolution.

Here are some of the things we learned:

  1. We are reaching a younger crowd. We have said before that our target demographic is 20 – 40 year old men and currently, 75% of our church is under the age of 45. I was excited about this number for two reasons. One, it means we are reaching our goal of men who are under 40, but also to see the percentage of those over 45 was also exciting. Many younger churches lament not having older adults in their church who are mature and able to provide some stability and mentorship and to see 25% of our church being over 45 was exciting. Our church is also 46% male and 54% female. My guess has always been close to 50/50 and I hope that always continues. On top of that, 32% of our church is single.
  2. We are reaching people who haven’t attended church. 29% of those who attend Revolution did not attend a church for 3 years prior to coming to Revolution. I would love to see this number go up over the coming year and #3 tells me there is a chance it will.
  3. People are reaching out. In the past year 82% of Revolution has invited someone who does not attend church anywhere to join them at Revolution. In fact, 36% have invited at least 4+ people in the past year! This was one of the most exciting numbers on the whole survey to me.
  4. People are taking their next steps and getting connected. Over 50% of those who attend Revolution have attended a newcomer’s lunch, and over 57% are on a serving team. This is good but I would love to see this number grow. Serving means ownership and a sense of belonging. As well, 92% of our church is plugged into a missional community. I am soaking that in and loving what that means. Care, community, discipleship, living on mission in community, accountability in life.
  5. Clarity for guests. For those who have attended less than 5 times, 60% of them know what the next step for them is and they are interested in taking it. I think this is huge because often people want to take a next step but don’t know what it is. However, 18% of our guests are interested in taking the next step but don’t know what it is. This gives us something to get better at and making sure that next steps are clear all the time, not just in seasons.

While this was our first year and have only guesses to compare it to, doing this in coming years will be incredibly helpful. It is nice to see what is clear and unclear about our church, what we are doing well and areas we need to make stronger. All in all, well worthwhile.

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Being a Pastor’s Wife: What Role a Pastor’s Wife Plays in the Church

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Many churches (and pastors for that matter) do not know what to do with pastor’s wives, how to treat them, what role they play or how important they are. It is a hard role to live in and stay in. Everyone has a lot of their own expectations of what the wife of a pastor should be like, yet, they are all different.

While Revolution (and myself) has struggled just like every other church to figure this out, I believe Katie and I have figured some things out that we have put into place which will prove to be invaluable in the future. While this is not exclusive to pastors, any leader in a church and for that matter, any husband can do better in understanding their wives and how to engage them.

Over the next month, I’ll be sharing some of the things we’ve learned that I hope will be beneficial for you.

If you missed them, you can read Pastor Your Wife as Much as You Pastor Your Church and Without Her, You Fall Apart.

The other thing that too many churches do with pastor’s wives is not being sure what to do with them or how they should serve or be involved. Many churches see them as free labor. He’s here, she came with him, why not put her to work, for free. She leads the music, plays the piano, leads the kids ministry and the women’s ministry. Why? Why not.

What makes being a pastor’s wife difficult is that nowhere in scripture is there a job description. The only job description people know of for a pastors’ wife is what they saw their last pastor’s wife do. If she did it, they assume every pastor’s wife does that. The problem is that every pastor’s wife is not musical, many of them do not have upfront personalities, or have a teaching gift or have a passion for children or a women’s ministry.

One reason it is so hard to be a pastor’s wife.

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A pastor’s wife needs to be treated like the rest of the women in the church. She needs to be encouraged to find her spiritual gift and use them. Whatever that may be. And, like every other woman in the church, her first responsibility it to care for her husband and children. That is her first ministry according to Titus 2. This is something churches can get better at as well. We need to encourage and hold up the important role women play when it comes to their role as a wife and a mom. Yes, women are not just that, but we have lowered those roles so much in our culture that it is seen as a step down if that is your role. By fulfilling this role, a woman is making the biggest impact on the world because of the impact she is making on her family (particularly, her kids).

Sorry, that was a tangent.

Once, I had a conversation with a woman at Revolution and she told me all the things her pastor’s wife had done. She had recently moved to Tucson. Her problem was that Katie didn’t do these things. What she failed to recognize was that Katie was 28 and her previous pastor’s wife was 44, with only a high school senior still at home. Katie had 3 kids under 4 at home.

While, this does not give a pastor’s wife an excuse to be lazy and say, “I have 2 young kids at home so I can’t volunteer anywhere in the church.” If someone else said that in a church, we would give pushback because we are all called to serve somewhere in some capacity in the body of Christ. She does need to be selective with her time.

Every family finds themselves in different seasons. Some are busier than others. A pastor’s wife needs to be aware of the season she is in, the season her family is in and the church needs to be okay with that and respect that. As they do with the other women in the church.

Pastors, does your church see your wife as free labor, or do they treat her like other women in the church and encourage her to find a spot to serve? You need to not treat her as an employee, she is a member of your church, just like everybody else who is a member. Have you helped her discover her gifts and what she is passionate about? In case you haven’t figured it out, this might change as she grows older, which makes it fun. You get to discover something new with her, and then discover something else with her as her season in life changes.

Churches, do you treat your pastors wife with respect, but also like other women in the church? She is going through the same things all the women in the church are going through, she just gets to go through it in a more public way.

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Being a Pastor’s Wife: Without Her, You Fall Apart

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Pastor's wife

Many churches (and pastors for that matter) do not know what to do with pastor’s wives, how to treat them, what role they play or how important they are. It is a hard role to live in and stay in. Everyone has a lot of their own expectations of what the wife of a pastor should be like, yet, they are all different.

While Revolution (and myself) has struggled just like every other church to figure this out, I believe Katie and I have figured some things out that we have put into place which will prove to be invaluable in the future. While this is not exclusive to pastors, any leader in a church and for that matter, any husband can do better in understanding their wives and how to engage them.

Over the next month, I’ll be sharing some of the things we’ve learned that I hope will be beneficial for you.

If you missed it, you can read Pastor Your Wife as Much as You Pastor Your Church.

One of the difficulties is that no one knows is what a pastor’s wife does. Everyone sees him preaching, leading worship, talking with people. They are touched by what he does. Words speak to them. He led them to Christ, baptized them, did their wedding, and was there for them when they lost a parent or a child.

What makes a pastor’s wife the most important person to the pastor is what you don’t see her do. For me, I am able to do all that I do only because of what Katie does in the background. The night before preaching is especially stressful for every pastor. They are thinking about their sermon, the people who will be there, the details, the people who are mad at them, any problems that are coming up, the list goes on and on what runs through a pastor’s mind the night before preaching. On Saturday, Katie makes sure that our house is as relaxing as possible. We play with our kids, watch a movie, sit on the back porch listening to music and talking together. We do as little as possible. We don’t have any major discussions (we do that on date night, which is Friday night). The next difficult night is after preaching. A pastor thinks about the conversations, what went right, what went wrong. It is either an incredible high or a low. But the night after preaching is usually the most dramatic mood swing of the week for a pastor. They have poured everything out to help those in their church. Without Katie, I would not make it through a month’s worth of these nights.

Pastors, make sure your wife knows how important she is. It is easy for her to forget because she doesn’t see or hear everything. She just hears the bad stuff. Tell her about how what she does enables you to do what you do. How by creating a relaxing home, you are prepared to do what you do and because you do what you do and God worked someone’s life has been changed. That does not happen without her.

Pastor Without Your Wife, You Fall Apart.

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When was the last time you said, “Without you, I would not be able to do ________________?” Do you have a night (a weekly date night) set aside that honors your wife and give your undivided attention to her on this night? That means no phone, email, internet, TV. A night of relating.

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Being a Pastor’s Wife: Pastor Your Wife as Much as You Pastor Your Church

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Pastor's wife

Many churches (and pastors for that matter) do not know what to do with pastor’s wives, how to treat them, what role they play or how important they are. It is a hard role to live in and stay in. Everyone has a lot of their own expectations of what the wife of a pastor should be like, yet, they are all different.

While Revolution (and myself) has struggled just like every other church to figure this out, I believe Katie and I have figured some things out that we have put into place which will prove to be invaluable in the future. While this is not exclusive to pastors, any leader in a church and for that matter, any husband can do better in understanding their wives and how to engage them.

Over the next month, I’ll be sharing some of the things we’ve learned that I hope will be beneficial for you.

I remember when Katie and I were engaged; she met with a woman who was married to a pastor. Katie told her about our engagement, our future plans of being a pastor and starting a church. This pastor’s wife looked at Katie and told her to “run away as fast as she could.” In no uncertain terms, she told her to not marry a pastor. Now that I am a pastor, I can see why (now, let me share my completely biased opinion).

I have not held many other jobs. At 18, I knew what I wanted to do with my life and I poured everything I had into getting there. God opened many doors for me and blessed me with the opportunity to be on staff at some great churches and be around some world class leaders.

But, being a pastor is hard work. It never ends. There is always another meeting to be had, another person who needs help or someone else to counsel, there is always another book to read or a sermon to write, there is always another fire to put out, another person who needs me this minute. Simply put, being a pastor is a lifestyle job. This is the joy and curse of it. It is what I have given my life to, I will just never complete my to do list. And that is okay. What many pastors struggle with is that it is easy to serve others and help others instead of helping and serving their own family. They pour all they have into their churches and leave their families to fend for themselves. What is interesting though is that according to the qualifications of a pastor/elder in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 is that you judge a pastor/elder based on his family and how he leads them, serves them and how they work together.

3 ways help your wife become all that God has called her to be & all that she wants to be.

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Protect Her Heart 

It is easy for a pastor’s wife to get bitter. To see how her husband helps so many other people, how he listens to other people’s problems and not hers. How he can be ready to serve someone at the drop of a hat, but not pick up his clothes at home. She is left to fend for herself and her kids. What many pastors forget is that their wife and kids attend their church and not only are they pastor dad, they are a pastor to them in the same way that he is a pastor to everyone else in the church.

Because it is a lifestyle job that involves counseling, doing weddings, funerals, and being with people, you get a front row seat to everything. You see the good, the bad and the ugly (and sometimes grotesque) of people in the church. A pastor’s wife sees all of this as well. What can make this painful is when you pour into someone, help someone through a difficult patch, spend hours with someone, only to have them stab you in the back, gossip about you, take all of your available time and then tell everyone you weren’t “there for them when they needed you.”

Pastor, are you pastoring your wife? Are you making time for her? Are you helping her deal with the pains you are experiencing? As a man, it is easy to compartmentalize what is happening and you can get lost in your work, but she doesn’t have that luxury, so you need to help her. I remember one time we went through a painful experience and I got over it rather quickly, but never told Katie that I had dealt with it personally, so she kept hurting for me. One night she let me know how bothered she was by this situation and I told her, “That is over.” Not a good thing.

She will be affected by things you won’t be affected by and you need to be sensitive to those things.

Her Gifts

Another area I see many pastor’s failing in is not helping their wife find her gifts and passions. In the past year, Katie has gotten more and more into photography, which has been awesome to see. For too many years, I failed her by not helping her find her gifts and passions outside of church, and was too focused on mine.

Many pastor’s wives are not able to use their gifts because they aren’t seen as worthwhile in the church. Many people think a pastor’s wife should lead the kids ministry, sing, play piano, lead the women’s ministry or teach somewhere. Maybe she is better at discipling, she may be gifted in hospitality or she may be a talented graphic artist. Whatever it is, she should be able to use her gifts.

She should also have the freedom to take breaks like everyone else as she goes through certain seasons of life. There have been times that Katie has been heavily involved in our church and other times where she did less things because of how young our kids are. I’ve always told people, my expectation for a pastor’s wife at Revolution is that she should be like everyone else who attends our church, plugged into community, and using her gifts. Sometimes she will do a lot and sometimes she will do a little, but we’ll have the same expectation for her as anyone else, she just happens to be married to a pastor.

Help Her Grow Spiritually

Another area pastor’s can help his wife is to grow spiritually. Spiritual growth can be hard for a pastor and his family because everything about their life seems spiritual. Often, Katie and I will talk about things she wants to grow in or learn and I will put books on her kindle for her to read. Men are called to pastor his wife and what better way than making sure she is reading good books instead of garbage (which there is no end to in popular books).

Bottom line for this first post, a pastor’s wife is part of the church. They attend it, use their gifts in it, are bought in, but they can easily become bitter or feel left out. They can feel like their husband has chosen work or other people over her and her kids. Don’t do that. Protect her and her heart. Make every effort to make sure she is growing, that she has hobbies and friends so that she is able to become all that God has called her to be.

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Unexpected Seasons of Growth

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As much as I hate to admit it, as a control freak, my life is largely out of my control.

Yes, I control my reaction to things, what I think about things and how I move forward. But, I can’t control what someone else does and I certainly have no say over what God allows to enter into my life.

My summer did not go as I planned.

For some people, this is a reason to celebrate because it would mean new adventures, unexpected opportunities. The optimists in the world would dance a little dance and be on the merry way to see what will happen.

That’s not me.

What I have learned over the summer as things at church haven’t gone how I expected them, is that unexpected season often lead to greater growth. 

The optimists might be right in that the unexpected really does lead to greater opportunities.

This summer I’ve learned that when something you weren’t planning to have happened, happens, it creates opportunities.

When our worship pastor, who helped me start Revolution (he came when our church was 4 months old), when he left in June it gave me an opportunity to do some things I hadn’t thought about doing when he was here. It helped me see areas of our church that weren’t healthy, ways I was leading that weren’t as helpful to our church as they could be.

It opened up new possibilities.

Could that have happened if he stayed?

Sure.

I’m not sure I would have gone looking for it, or it would’ve presented itself otherwise.

Experiences like this create in me a more opportunistic streak. I am starting to look for ways to grow now instead of waiting for discomfort to push me into it. I’m starting to ask more questions about how to improve personally or as a church instead of waiting for a crisis to push me.

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How to Win Men

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Every study on church and our culture largely says the same thing: Women are more likely than men to attend church, give, be involved, serve, lead, etc. Essentially, women are more willing and more likely to do anything spiritual than men.

There are a whole hosts of reasons: women are more spiritual, most pastors are not manly, churches are designed for women (this is true of a ton of churches but they won’t admit it), sermons are geared towards women, churches don’t know how to communicate to men who don’t have kids, pastors who do talk to men simply yell at them and tell them to get a job (while this might be needed I don’t think every man who walks into our churches is a lazy slob who lives at home and plays video games).

I was recently asked to join a team that helps to put events on for men in Arizona. I started to ask around about the organization because truth be told, I thought it was interesting since Revolution doesn’t have a men’s or women’s ministry. Essentially, we see our church as those.

I asked someone who knew them well what he thought of this organization and he said, “Their meetings are a bunch of talk about ideas, what they’ll do but in the end, no action.”

I looked at him and said, “So, like a men’s ministry.”

Now, before you misread this, I have nothing against men’s ministries, except for the fact that they often don’t work. They may help men who want to go to large events, or men who like to camp or men who like to read. Let’s be honest, most men’s ministries center around these 3 things. Every man isn’t into those things.

The reason that most churches are failing to reach men where they are is action.

We don’t call men to enough.

In most churches, we challenge men to show up, give a tithe check, maybe serve, get their kids there and be a presentable husband. Really? First off, a men could walk over this bar.

When the bar is too low, men wonder if it is worth their time. 

Here are 5 ways to raise the bar for men in your church:

  1. Preach to men. Most churches, the win for men is to stop looking at porn. While porn is destructive and pervasive, every man is not looking at it every day. There are more things a man struggles with or has questions about. Men in a sermon tend to want logic, clarity and action steps. Women tend to want more stories, feelings and emotions. While a sermon should strive for both, most pastors end up on one end of the spectrum and their church reflects that. I often think about men I know when I preach on a passage and try to discern questions they would have about it. When men leave a church, they tend to talk about if they were challenged to think in a new way, while women tend to talk about how they felt after a service. Not all are like this, but I’ve found this to be typical.
  2. Have a clear win. If your church doesn’t have a clear win, a clear vision, men will not sign up for it. Men want to know what is on the line, what impact something will make, why they need to show up.
  3. Show them how actions affect their legacy. Men are concerned with legacy, how things will end up, how they will be remembered. When you minister to a man, keep this in mind. Date night with his wife is not just something for today, but has an enormous affect on the marriages of his kids. Purity in his life will be passed on to his kids and grandkids. Whenever possible, show a man who what he is doing right now, good or bad, will affect his legacy.
  4. Give them clear examples worth following. One of the reasons I didn’t want to become a pastor when I was 18 was I had never met a pastor I wanted to be like. Most men look at church leaders and see people they don’t want to be like. Or, they don’t see men they would want to become. This doesn’t mean every pastor needs to drink beer or have a tattoo, but when men follow another man, they are following someone they want to emulate. Put leaders in your church, in visible places who men would want to emulate.
  5. Expect men to succeed. It is amazing to me what happens in someone’s life when we expect them to succeed or reach a goal. People pick up on our expectations and they have a way of reaching our expectations. If you expect men to lead family devotions, tell them, tell them you believe they can do it and give them resources to do it. If you expect men to reach something, tell them and help them get there. Too many churches seem to say, “We’re content if men just show up.” Or, “You should do ___” and then never give them any tools to accomplish this.

The reality for reaching men is they have a habit of becoming what we expect them to be.

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7 Rules When You Meet a Pastor’s Kid

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I came across this in Barnabas Piper’s great book The Pastor’s Kid: Finding Your Own Faith and Identity, which I highly recommend.

If you attend church or meet a Pastor’s kid, here are things to keep in mind when you meet them. They’ll appreciate it:

  1. Do not ask us “What is it like to be the son or daughter of…?” How are we supposed to answer that question? Could you easily describe being the child of your parents? Remember, PKs are normal people with just a different upbringing than you. Please treat us that way. We think of our parents as parents, nothing more.
  2. Do not quote our dads to us. This is really and truly annoying because it comes across as one of two things. Either you are proving your piousness by being so aware of the utterance of the beloved pastor, or you are being condescending and holding our parents words over our heads. Neither is impressive or appreciated.
  3. Do not ask us anything personal you would not ask of anyone else. If, perchance, you have gained some knowledge of a PK through a sermon illustration or book or hearsay, it is best to keep it to yourself. To ask a question based on knowledge that you gained in an impersonal manner makes you look like either a stalker or a reporter. Both are creepy.
  4. Do not ask us anything about our dads positions on anything. “What does your dad think about …?” is a question no PK wants to answer – not about politics, the roles of women in the church, predestination, the use of drums in the worship service, spiritual gifts, race, or anything else. We have opinions and beliefs, though. And we like to converse. So you could ask us what we think, like a normal person.
  5. Do not assume you can gain audience with the pastor through us. That’s what the church secretary or the pastor’s assistant is for. Please let us be children. We usually don’t have the ability to make a meeting happen, and we almost never want to.
  6. Do not assume that we agree with all the utterances of our fathers. I know it’s hard to believe that any child could grow up and disagree with her parents, but it does happen. It is not kind or safe to assume that our parents’ positions are ours. And when you find out we don’t agree, please refrain from being shocked or offended.
  7. Get to know us. This is a good rule for anyone, but it especially pertains to PKs. Just as you want people to value your opinions, personality and character quirks, so do we. More often than not you will get a surprise. Wow, that PK actually has a sense of humor! Who knew PKs could be so fun? Wait, he said what? Leave your assumptions at the door and let us be us. You’ll probably like what you find.

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