How To Pivot Your Pastoral Leadership In Uncertain Times
When times are normal, leaders inspire change. When times are disruptive, leaders provide stability.
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Leadership
Recruiting Volunteers In a Small Church
Intentional mentoring is a great way to expand your church’s capacity for effective ministry and fulfill our mandate to make disciples and equip God’s people.
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The Discipleship Mandate: Bring Mentoring Back
Small churches have a serious advantage when it comes to discipleship. If we’ll use the right tools.
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The Three Undeniable Realities Of Pastoral Ministry
Since every pastor will lead a small church for at least some time in their ministry, shouldn’t we learn how to do it well?
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Movies In Church: Use Pop Culture, But Don’t Let It Use You
“With great power comes great responsibility.”
When I wrote my last post, Uh, Pastor… Being Right Is Not an Excuse to Be Mean, I ended it with those words from the Spider-Man comics.
It is perhaps the most famous quote from superhero comics and movies (thanks to Stan Lee and Peter Parker’s uncle Ben).
Because I used that quote, I was tempted to make it the title of my post and use a photo of Spider-Man to accompany it.
Here’s why I didn’t.
The Sign On the Front Door Matters
There’s an old, true saying in leadership circles:
What you win them with is what you win them to.
I didn’t choose to attract readers to my last post with a Spider-Man quote and photo because I wasn’t interested in attracting them to Spider-Man or superheroes.
When people were done reading that post, I wanted my readers to be thinking about how pastors need to be careful with our words, so that’s what I put in the title and accompanying photo.
In today’s post, I want you to walk away thinking about how we need to be careful about how we use words and images from popular culture, so I put that in the title. And I used a photo of a little dog in an ill-fitting Spider-Man suit because I think it illustrates the point of this post well – there are some ideas that might seem cute at the time, but they don’t fit like they should.
Provide an Alternative, Not More of the Same
I have no problem using references from pop culture to illustrate truth – I used a Spider-Man quote in my last post, after all. And I’ve made multiple references to pop culture in previous posts (including quoting Keith Richards, Reality TV shows and The Big Bang Theory sitcom, among others). But I’m beginning to tire of the tendency among pastors and Christian bloggers to link so much of our speaking and writing directly from the popular culture.
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Uh, Pastor… Being Right Is Not an Excuse to Be Mean
Some pastors seem to delight in being hard and mean.
We’re in a spiritual battle! they’ll say.
Jesus used a whip and turned over tables! they’ll remind us.
OK. Yes, Jesus did that. Towards religious leaders.
But to the average person seeking help and truth? He was almost universally meek and gentle – a friend of sinners. So kind and nice that it got him in trouble at times.
Pastors have a lot of power in the church and in people’s lives. Many would argue that we often have more power than we should – and I would fully agree with that. But that is reality. A reality we need to take into account then we’re dealing with people.
In addition, there seems to be a group of pastors who are perpetually angry. They can quote chapter-and-verse for everyone else’s sins, but they’re not so good at remembering James 1:20 which reminds us that “…man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.”
As pastors, we don’t even need to be angry for our words – even true words – to hurt people unnecessarily.
Here’s an example.
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Why Doing the Right Thing Isn’t Enough for a Healthy Church
Have you been struggling to lead your church to health and strength, but can’t seem to get there?
You’re doing what you believe God is calling you to do and you’re taking wise counsel from others, but there’s very little, if any progress being made? Not just numerically. But in health, discipleship, worship and the other essentials.
This post might be for you.
There are four ways to lead:
1. Do the right thing in the right way
2. Do the right thing in the wrong way
3. Do the wrong thing in the right way
4. Do the wrong thing in the wrong way
Only one of those combinations will produce a healthy church. Let’s take a look at all four and see what happens with each one.
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Don’t Let Your Church Building Kill Your Church
The church in North America is getting smaller.
No, I don’t think we’re going to say goodbye to the megachurch any time soon – at least I hope not. By all indications, the biggest churches will become even bigger.
But, according to many church trend-watchers like Ed Stetzer, even megachurch leaders are understanding the need for multiple smaller venues instead of bigger and bigger megabuildings.
The era of the mega-church-building, even as megachurches keep growing, may be over.
This is just part of an overall societal trend towards more personalization. The one-size-fits-all era is gone.
For instance, in the last few decades we’ve gone from the big three TV networks, to hundreds of cable channels, to online TV and movie queues tailored to each person’s specific watching habits. The same has happened in radio, automobiles, musical genres, books… you name it.
I think this tendency towards smaller, bistro-style niche tastes leaves the church in North America with a choice.
Fight the tendency towards smaller and lose out, or do Small Church really well and lead the culture into a better way.
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How Pastors and Congregations See Sundays Differently – And How It Changes Everything
“Why can’t I get more people to volunteer on Sundays?”
It’s one of the most common frustrations I hear from pastors – especially pastor of Small Churches.
Over the past few years, I’ve tried to offer a few ideas to help get volunteerism up. But today, like a blow to the back of the head, it hit me why this challenge never seems to go away.
Pastors and congregations see Sundays in opposite ways. And this affects everything.
Here’s the difference.
Sunday is their day OFF!
But Sunday is the pastor’s biggest day ON!
No wonder we’re not seeing eye-to-eye.
Sunday is their Sabbath. Their day of rest and worship. But Sunday isn’t the pastor’s Sabbath. Yes, it’s a day of worship, but it’s not a day of rest. Because it’s our biggest day on, a lot of us think it needs to be our church members’ day on too.
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Never, Ever Say This To a Struggling Pastor
“If you do what I did, your church will grow.”
If you’re the pastor of a healthy, growing church, please stop saying that to struggling pastors.
Even if you’ve never said those exact words, stop implying it or assuming it. Even if you believe it. For one simple reason.
It’s not true.
It’s not that struggling pastors of struggling churches don’t want to learn from you. It sure isn’t that we don’t want our churches to grow. Of course we want our churches to grow. If we didn’t, there’d be no struggle.
The problem comes when pastors of growing, healthy churches assume that what worked for them will work in the same way everywhere else. The truth is, it won’t.
Sure, there are universal principals for church leadership and health. But there are no one-size-fits-all solutions for church growth. What worked for you won’t work for someone else – at least not on a one-for-one basis.
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