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.

The post In Recruiting, Don’t Say No for Someone appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

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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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.

The post Being a Pastor’s Wife: What Role a Pastor’s Wife Plays in the Church appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

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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Most relational issues come down to communication, which, when it fails leads to arguments and hurt feelings. Katie and I are often asked about how to communicate with your and  how to fight well in marriage (it is possible to argue and have it be profitable to your marriage). Before you can take your communication to the next level, you have to understand what is keeping your communication from being all it could be.

Communicating well with your spouse starts with you, not your spouse.
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1. You think it’s them. Most times when a person seeks out counseling or advice concerning their marriage it is to fix their spouse. If only they did this or that. The reality is, the first reason you aren’t communicating well with your spouse has nothing to do with them, but you. Stop trying to fix them. Stop trying to change them. You can’t be the Holy Spirit to your spouse, so stop trying.
2. You have to be right. Stop trying to be right and try to see from their perspective. Things change in a relationship when you try to see what the other person is seeing. Often though, we want to be right. Because, well, we’re right.
3. You don’t listen. Many times in a discussion, instead of listening, you simply start thinking of your response to what the other person is saying. You aren’t able to engage them. The thinking is, if you don’t have a response ready the moment they stop talking, you won’t be heard. While it makes sense in our heads, it is ludicrous in a relationship. This goes back to wanting to be right instead of to understand.
4. You fail to see it from their perspective. If you don’t listen well, you will never be able to see anything from a different perspective. I am amazed at how often Katie and I see the same situation totally differently. And how often Katie is correct in her perception of something or someone. If you fail to see your spouses perspective, you might end up making a mistake.
5. You don’t know how they listen best. Couples who fight often, don’t know how their spouse likes to discuss things. This was a game changer for us. Katie likes to discuss things immediately, she is a verbal processor. I on the other hand like to process things in my head. By the time I share any idea with someone (at home or at work), I have been thinking about it for months. If Katie gives me space, we often have a better discussion. Now, sometimes I need to bite the bullet on my preference and discuss it with her. Understand how your spouse processes information and work from there.
6. You don’t know what the real issue is. This is something we’ve talked about it part 1 and part 2 of our Beautiful series. Often, when a couple has a fight, the topic they think they are fighting about is not what they are fighting about. They are fighting about what the situation reminds them of. Their spouse said something that reminds them of what their parent used to say, so they react to that. We end up punishing our spouse for what someone else did.
7. You belittle them. Want to end a conversation with your spouse, belittle them, insult them or disrespect them. Act like they don’t do enough.

7 reasons you aren’t communicating with your spouse & what to do about it.
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From time to time I’ll meet a couple. He feels like God has called him to plant a church, but she isn’t so sure. Sometimes, it is just fear on her part.

What will it look like? What will being a pastor’s wife feel like? Will my friendships change? How will this affect my kids? Where will money come from?

Many guys, because they are visionary, excitable, wanting to serve God with their whole lives either ignore these questions or simply give answers akin to, “We’ll figure it out.”

When I meet a couple, if she does not feel called to plant a church, I tell them to wait.

If a couple is truly one and if God is calling one of them to plant a church, he will make it clear to the other one that they are both called to plant. If they plant while one is still on the fence or opposed to it, disaster for them and the church awaits them.

When I say this, I get a stunned look from many guys and they reply with, “If I do that, I won’t plant. What am I supposed to do then? I’m sinning if I don’t do what God has called me to.”

Here are a few thoughts on that question that you may have right now:

1. If God has called you to plant, you’ll plant. It may not be on your timetable or how you would picture it, but it will happen. Maybe you’ll be part of a church plant, maybe you’ll actually be the planter. You may want to do it at 20, but it will happen at 40. Revolution got planted a full decade after God birthed the vision in my head. Why? I needed to grow up and get beat up in ministry so my pride was sanded down for God to properly use me. 
2. Just because you feel called to ministry doesn’t mean you are. Lots of guys want to be a pastor. They see what a pastor does on stage. Everyone is looking at them, they are in front of people, they spend time at Starbucks, have lunch meetings, read books and blogs and work one day a week. What they don’t see are the angry emails, the stress that can come from leading volunteers and staff, budget meetings, counseling sessions that go awry, and the stress and spiritual warfare that comes to a pastors’ wife and kids. You may be called to ministry, you may want to be called to ministry. That is why it is important to have a church affirm your calling.
3. Being called to ministry is something every Christian is called to. Every Christian is in ministry. Some are freed up to be pastors, some are in ministry in government, in companies or other non-profits. All Christians have spiritual gifts that they are to use. Planting and leading a church may be yours, it may not be. If it isn’t, you are not a second rate Christian.
4. Lead your wife first. If a guy wants to plant but his wife doesn’t he’ll ask me what to do. My response? Lead your wife first. She is your first disciple. If you want to know what kind of followers or disciples a man will develop, look at his wife and kids. If you can’t lead them well, if they don’t feel called to follow you into a church plant, why will others?

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