What are the priorities of a pastor in the work of the ministry?

That’s a tricky question. I’m fascinated by leadership and management principles that find their roots in the lives of Jesus, the apostles and other biblical characters.

But I also know that management comes second to theology and spirituality. That is, we are disciples before we are shepherds, and we are shepherds before we are managers in the modern sense of the word.

My own ministry is often filled with what I would term “paperwork.” I have a background in design and marketing and wrote a book about using social media in ministry, so naturally I spend a lot of time creating things, especially for the web.

I believe that it’s important for the church to put her best foot forward, so I am often driven by the details.

Occasionally, however, I find myself in need of a revival of right priorities for ministry. And when those moments come, I remind myself of the three “P’s” of ministry that need to remain in the right order.

First, Prayer Work

Acts 6 is unavoidable in any discussion about priorities in ministry. The overworked apostles, under pressure by various interest-groups within the church, needed desperately to get back to the Bible and prayer.

So they asked the church to set aside seven men to oversee the benevolence work of the church, that they might give themselves more fully to time with God.

One of my former pastors, Don Chandler, used to say that the people you preach to will know within a few weeks of hearing your preaching whether you have been with God or not.

It’s been wisely said that God is more interested in preparing the man than He is in preparing the message.

That’s why prayer must be viewed as just as important as sermon preparation. We need to mine the riches of God’s word in our study time, but not merely academically. We must go to the Word prayerfully!

Second, People Work

God calls people to preach, but the essence of preaching through a lifetime of ministry will be to make disciples.

Disciples are not made on accident. Instead they require personal attention. Though too much ministry to people may indeed rob our time with God, individual people are still more important than the little tasks that steal all of our time.

Pastors cannot possibly visit everybody. In fact, assuming that the pastor must personally know and shepherd every member of a congregation is an outdated, ineffective and even unbiblical model that restricts growth and leaves a lot of lost people lingering outside the church.

Having said that, I love what Andy Stanley says: “We should do for the one what we wish we could do for the many.”

A pastor can’t and shouldn’t try to personally shepherd and disciple everyone. The very essence of pastoral leadership is giving this ministry away to as many believers within the church as possible. But we must always be building some close relationships.

The greater part of peoplework for the pastor will be spent in disciple-making.

Bill Hull wrote an excellent book called The Disciple-Making Pastor. If Hull’s conclusions were followed to their end, the pastor would spend little time at all on mass evangelism, but rather invest himself wisely into “a few good men” and lead them to disciple others in turn.

Third, Paper Work

What often distracts me from the more important ministries is the paperwork of the ministry.

I’m including a lot under the category of “paper” that never really gets printed. Email. Texts. Social networks. Blogging. Church management software. Etc, etc.

There will be an endless stream of little tasks to be completed. The pastor could easily fill all of his time on the phone, handling the business issues of the church, and printing and folding stuff.

The hard-to-find balance here is between achieving excellence in the details without allowing the details to dominate. We can…

• Hire an assistant, real or virtual.
• Learn how to be awesome managers of time.
• Discover and develop creative volunteers.
• Delegate whole areas of ministry to staff members.

But at the end of a given week, our goal as pastors should be to say that we’ve given ourselves first and foremost to God, secondly to people, and thirdly to the paperwork.

This article originally appeared here.

Every leader I know attempts to limit a certain amount of risk when making decisions or leading change. We should attempt to have good systems, adequate resources, and even contingency or emergency plans. We don’t want to jeopardize the organization—ultimately the people—we are trying to lead.

The problem for some leaders, however, is they confuse limiting risk with attempting to eliminate risk. I’m not sure we can ever fail-proof anything completely, so it’s a futile attempt at best. The bigger problem, however, is what we end up missing out on in the process of attempting to eliminate risk. There are hidden costs involved in a leader who is overly cautious.

Here are seven hidden costs of attempting to eliminate risk:

Limited growth. Personally and corporately, without a certain amount of risk there is no potential for growth. Growth happens in environments where the potential to fail is prevalent, accepted and not scorned.

Unfulfilled dreams. Dreams are made of the seemingly impossible. The bigger the dream the greater the risk. Healthy teams and organizations have big, lofty dreams pulling them forward.

False reality. Life is a constant risk. If a leader has as a goal an attempt to eliminate it, they are essentially playing tricks with mirrors and fancy lights. They’ve created an unachievable expectation for people who follow.

Underutilized resources. “Playing it safe” may make more sense on paper. It may even feel comfortable, but often when resources are stretched is when the greatest growth potential occurs. Ask the question, “What would we do if we were forced to change and there was no money available?” It’s amazing how creative people can become.

Wasted time. The time you invest trying to eliminate risk could be used to leverage risk for a greater gain. All of us only have so much time, so leaders must be diligent stewards of it.

Expensive opportunity loss. Whenever you choose not to do something because of the risk involved, there is always a loss associated. The organization will miss out somewhere on something by not moving forward soon enough. The greatest discoveries often involve people who are willing to assume the greatest risks.

Diminished momentum. The fact is risk fuels momentum. There is something inside of most of us—especially the entrepreneurial or leader types—who thrive on achieving those things that seem impossible. When the chance of failure is high so are the components that fuel momentum.

Leader, you can never fully eliminate risk—and this is one of the hard parts of leading. The time you spend attempting to do so will take precious time from doing other things, which probably can reap higher reward. Risk is a reality to be managed not a problem to be avoided.

(This is absolutely true when leading in the church—perhaps more so, because we are to always be faith-driven. Faith always, by definition, deals with a level of the unknown.)

This article originally appeared here.

Easter is the Super Bowl of Christianity. More people come to church on Easter than any other day.

More people come to Christ on Easter than any other day. It’s the day we put forth our best effort.

Here are five suggestions for making this your best Easter service ever:

1. Dress up the décor.

Many churches buy Easter lilies for the Easter stage. Here at New Song, we ask a local nursery to donate his overgrown plants.

We’ll group these into a mound of beauty the size of two pick-up trucks. After the final service, we invite our volunteers to take them home.

2. Include a meal.

Easter guests are the hardest to assimilate. Slow them down by offering lunch afterward.

Most moms don’t really want to cook on Easter, so if you can offer them an alternative, they’ll jump on it.

We invite local restaurants and food trucks to set up in our parking lot. Add some tables, chairs and hosts, and you have the makings of a feast and a chance to get to know your guests.

3. Throw a party.

People like to party around the holidays. Provide them one by hiring in jumpies and other inflatables.

For the past three years, we’ve hosted a carnival in our atrium. It includes inflatables and also simple games where kids can win toys.

Add a cotton candy booth, popcorn and some music, and you’ve got a great excuse to invite the neighborhood.

Host this on Saturday, and guests are likely to return for church. Host this immediately before or after your services, and guests are very likely to attend your service.

4. Entice with eggs.

We know the Easter bunny has nothing to do with Jesus, but years ago I did a survey of our pre-Christian neighbors and discovered that they were far more likely to attend Easter services if their kids could participate in an Easter egg hunt there.

Our church doesn’t have a lawn area, so we promise eggs in all our promotions, but skip the hunt. Instead, we hand each child a bag of eggs (with candy enclosed) at the end of their Sunday School class.

The kids go home happy. Which means parents go home happy, too.

5. Teach on location.

Want to really impress the guests? Take a camera to Israel and film part, or all, of your sermon on location.

For a small fee, the folks at the Garden Tomb will let you in after hours. Most historic locations (except The Church of the Holy Sepulcher) will let you film on site.

Last year, I did portions of our Good Friday and Easter messages on location. People are still talking about it.

These are notes from talks given at the U.S. Capitol, Georgetown Law, George Washington University and most recently Georgetown University.

As we begin, I want to say that I’m not a political expert. I am a Christian pastor. This is important because I want to be very clear that my main intent tonight is not to move you to the left or right in your political convictions. My aim is to help all of us grow in our understanding of who Jesus is. In fact, I propose that what we think about Jesus and how we respond to Him is infinitely more important than our political convictions—though they aren’t unrelated.

Also, if I wrongly represent someone’s political views, please know that’s not my intent. None of us like to be pigeonholed, and we all know there’s a vast spectrum between the right and the left. My aim is to be fair in this discussion, so I’ll ask you to be gracious as well. This, I hope, is the beginning of a conversation that could last for the rest of our lives. I desire to grow in my understanding of these topics, and I trust you do as well. We’ll have time at the end for Q & A, so please feel free to take notes and we’ll process together after the talk.

When it comes to politics, religion or pop culture, Jesus is the kind of guy people like to be associated with. Whether it’s Justin Beiber giving Jesus a shout out at the VMAs, or Duck Dynasty guys quoting Jesus in the woods, or politicians doing commercials about their thankfulness for “the evangelicals”—people like to have Jesus on their side.

Some political or social liberals suggest that if Jesus were on the earth today, He’d be dressed in denim work clothes, teaching and modeling equality, inclusion and tolerance. After all, He’s the One who said we should “turn the other cheek” (Mt. 5:38) and “judge not lest you be judged” (Mt. 7:1-5). They suggest that because Jesus healed the sick (Mt. 12:15) and taught us to help “the least of these” (Mt. 25:40) that He’ call for free universal healthcare. They say that if He were here today He’d propose higher taxes on the rich so the poor could follow their dreams (Mt.19:21).

At the same time, some political or social conservatives have long claimed to be the ones who really know Jesus. They maintain that if He lived today, He’d be at their rallies giving orders to flip the tables of Planned Parenthood (Mt. 21:12) and calling for the government to quit oppressing people’s morality and pocketbooks. He’d be speaking out about border control (Mt. 10:5) and traditional marriage (Mt. 19:1-6) and the rights of the unborn (Mk. 12:3).

These camps often oppose each other; and both think they are right. A CNN article titled “Do you believe in a Red State Jesus or a Blue State Jesus?“ rightly said that after the election “somebody somewhere in America will fall on their knees and pray, ‘Thank you, Jesus.’ And somebody somewhere else will moan, ‘Help us, Jesus.’”

So what do you think? Would Jesus be red or blue? Would He be setting up a soup kitchen or shouting at the religious hypocrites? Was Jesus a liberal or a conservative?

To help us answer this, we’ll spend the rest of our time exploring three topics that Jesus taught about that are relevant in political discussions today. We’ll consider what Jesus taught about taxes, what He taught about the rich and the poor, and what He taught about human flourishing.

#1 – What did Jesus teach about taxes?

In the Gospel of Matthew 22:15-22, Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees (religious conservatives of His day) about whether or not people should pay taxes to Caesar, the Roman emperor. Jesus asked them to bring him a coin and asked, “Whose [inscription] is on it?” They said “Caesar,” to which Jesus famously replied, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and render to God the things that are God’s.”

What He meant by that is, because Caesar is King give him what is due him, namely taxes. Now, when Jesus says pay your taxes, He’s not talking about giving money to a government that you might fear will squander it. Rather, He’s talking about giving money to one of the most cruel and perverse government systems in the history of the world. Rome was ruthlessly oppressive to everyone under their authority.

Why would Jesus say to pay taxes to them? Because Jesus recognized government is a God-ordained institution set up to maintain order and uphold justice and righteousness in a fallen world (Gen. 9:6). Every government, good or bad, is part of God’s design, and we are to honor God by paying the taxes they require (Rom 13:1-7).

Would Jesus increase taxes on the rich or decrease taxes on the middle-class? Liberals and conservatives have their opinions, but Jesus doesn’t say. But He does say give to Cesar what is Cesar’s—and give to God what is God’s.

And here we see the masterfulness of Jesus’ teachings. He never avoided relevant social topics, but He used those discussions to point us in a different direction. While He speaks to the crowd about honoring the government, He teaches them about honoring God. God created each of us and we owe Him our love, obedience and worship. Jesus’ teaching on taxes ultimately points us to our need to give to God the worship and obedience that He deserves from us. Jesus challenged both liberals and conservatives give honor to whom honor is due, supremely God.

#2 – What did Jesus teach about the rich and the poor?

Jesus was known for His remarkable compassion toward the poor and oppressed. At the same time, He fearlessly ministered among the wealthy and powerful. And we can learn from His interactions with both groups.

In the Gospel of John ch. 5 we find Jesus making a stop by a pool in Jerusalem. This wasn’t a pool like you’d find at the Marriott, instead, this pool was a hangout for the marginalized who were blind, paralyzed and poor.

In the story, Jesus walked over to a lame man and asked, “Do you want to be healed?” The man replied that he had no one to help him, to which Jesus responded by telling him to take up his mat and walk. And the man, who had been crippled for 38 years, stood up and walked. Jesus healed him. Let’s make three observations about this story.

First, Jesus was aware of this man’s distress. This pool wasn’t in a part of town most of religious or political leaders frequented. But Jesus was there. He sought out this man and used His power to do alleviate this man’s physical distress. This kind of practical, compassionate love for broken people characterized everything Jesus did.

Second, Jesus didn’t heal everyone at the pool. Many left that day no different than when they arrived. Could Jesus have healed them all? Yes. Then why didn’t He? We don’t know. Jesus regularly left places where people needed to be healed to minister elsewhere. Was He being cruel? No, that would miss the point. Jesus’ miracles certainly aimed to help people, but they had a deeper meaning—to prove He was God’s Son who had the authority to forgive sins.

Third, Jesus taught the formerly lame man about his greatest need. “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.’” Jesus called this man to rightly consider his needs. His greatest need wasn’t a healed body, but the forgivness of his sin. Unless he repented, the physical relief he received that day would be of little consolation on the Day of Judgment.

Jesus cared about the poor and He calls His followers to do the same (Lk. 14:12-14). But physical help was given along with spiritual help. Jesus cared about relieving people’s physical suffering, but even more so He cared about relieving the eternal suffering they would face apart from His grace. And this lesson wasn’t just for the poor.

In Matthew 19:21, Jesus speaks to a man known as a rich young ruler. (This guy is everything we all desire to be. He’s rich, young, powerful.) He said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

Jesus knew this man’s heart and was keenly aware that this rich man loved his money more than God. So, Jesus told him that if was going to follow Him, he needed to surrender his love for material things so that he could gain the things of eternity. In essence, Jesus had the same message for the rich man as He did for the poor man: Allow your physical situation to awaken you to the reality that a final day of judgment is coming.

Does Jesus teach that we should help the poor and relieve their suffering? Yes! We should be generous with what we have. But as we see in our second example, Jesus challenged both the rich and the poor to not value physical or financial security at the cost of forgetting that having their sins forgiven by Jesus is our greatest need.

#3 – What did Jesus teach about human flourishing?

Our desire for fullness of life is at the heart of our culture’s conversations about the plight of fleeing refugees, the rights of women and the rights of unborn children in their womb. It is behind the call for marriage equality, and the cries for healing the racial brokenness all around us.

When politicians and educators address this topic, the focus is often on economic development, or opportunity equality, or maybe personal autonomy that gives us the right to do whatever we want without anyone telling us we are wrong. But what would Jesus say about human flourishing?

As with just about everything, Jesus came at the topic in a way we wouldn’t expect. Jesus knows all of these felt needs, but does not see them first as physical issues, but as spiritual ones. Jesus taught that true human flourishing is impossible apart from a relationship with Him. Why? Because each of us, regardless of our political leanings or cultural upbringings, are naturally alienated from God in our sin. But this is what Jesus came to save us from.

Listen to just a few of His words. In John 10:10 He said, “The thief [devil] comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” Then later in John 15.10–11″ data-version=”esv” data-purpose=”bible-reference”>John 15:10–11 He said, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love… These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Abundant life. Full joy. It is only through Jesus that we understand true human flourishing.

In Mark 8.34–35″ data-version=”esv” data-purpose=”bible-reference”>Mark 8:34–35 Jesus made this even more clear: “Calling the crowd to Him with His disciples, He said to them, ‘If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.’”

What Jesus is saying is that the quest for human flourishing, and everything else in life, must be understood and submitted to His Lordship. Human flourishing is not “I get to do what I want to do,” but rather that we get to find joy, find life, find abundant life in being freed from our sin and rightly related to God and to other people.

The way we relate to each other does not begin with our own opinions or our own desires. Rather, Jesus says that it must be filtered through and submitted to His Lordship. Jesus is King, and because of that, all His people surrender their agendas at the door. In our church we have some who will vote for Hillary, some who will vote for Trump, some who will write-in, and some who won’t vote at all. Among them, there are obviously political differences, but they love each other, and show honor toward each other. This was the same among Jesus’ disciples in His day.

It’s safe to assume that Simon (the zealot) and Matthew (the tax collector) had different political views. Both were called to follow Jesus, and both faithfully did so. How does that happen? Because Jesus’ followers know He is greater than our political differences, no matter how important they may be. And it is through relationship with Christ that we can rightly grow to learn from each other, as His teachings guide us.

In fact, I will say on a personal note that years ago, I could never have imagined how a Christian could vote for someone from a particular political party. But through conversations with brothers and sisters in Christ who are different than me, I have grown to see how they seek to honor Jesus with their lives and it has been helpful for me.

What is my conclusion about whether Jesus was a liberal or conservative? As you can imagine, trying to answer this question is like nailing Jell-o to the wall…but here’s my attempt. In one sense Jesus was neither liberal nor conservative, and in another sense Jesus was both liberal and conservative.

Jesus was neither liberal nor conservative in the way that we define them because He came proclaiming a higher reality—the kingdom of God. In John 18:36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world…for this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice.” Jesus came to orient us all not toward the right or the left, but first and foremost toward heaven.

Jesus didn’t avoid political conversations; but rather, He filtered discussions about politics (and everything else) through His commitment to honoring God the Father. By understanding this, we avoid the dangerous position that Jesus was just a moral teacher like Gandhi, Buddha or Mother Teresa, whose instruction ought be weighed as one opinion among many. We also avoid the dangerous practice of using Jesus as a poster boy for our personal agendas. When we do this, we risk taking His Name in vain and remaking Him into a god after our own image.

Jesus’ teachings exposed the sin in the hearts of everyone He encountered, regardless of which way they leaned politically or where they stood socially. He didn’t care if a free market system said it was OK to have money changers selling marked up animals in the temple, Jesus flipped their tables because it dishonored God.

Jesus came as light, shining into everyone’s darkness, regardless of who they aligned with. In fact, Jesus’ unwillingness to side with the right or the left got Him into a lot of trouble. The two religious powers in Judaism in His day were the Pharisees (ultra-conservatives) and the Sadducees (ultra-liberals). These two groups hated each other and never found common ground about anything—except that they hated Jesus. The only thing they could agree on was that they opposed Jesus and wanted to dismiss Him, and ultimately kill Him. Liberals and conservatives both opposed Jesus because He didn’t come to further their purposes. He came to call them both to repent, believe in Him and submit to His reign as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And that didn’t sit well with either side.

But Jesus didn’t just come to mess with them, He came to mess with you as well. I wonder, does Jesus make you uncomfortable by the way He calls you to turn away from your idols of comfort and enter into the lives of people who are unlike you? To touch the hand of a forgotten leper. To minister to a paralyzed man who reeks of urine. To sit down for a meal with someone of a different ethnicity or different political conviction than you to learn about their fears and hopes. I wonder how Jesus’ teaching affects you here?

Or maybe you’re made uncomfortable with some of Jesus’ commands? Perhaps you appreciate his sensitivity to the lowly, but some of His teachings make you uncomfortable, so you try to pick and choose. You like that He says “don’t judge” but dislike the whole context that instructs you to repent of your hypocrisy so that proper judgment can occur (Mt. 7:1-6). Or maybe you like how He included people from any and all backgrounds, not to affirm their lifestyles, but rather to alter them according to His will.

Naturally we all have issues with Jesus. My guess is that if Jesus and His teachings haven’t offended you at some point, then you’ve never really listened to what He has to say. Jesus was neither liberal, nor conservative.

Jesus was both liberal and conservative. If we were to sift through Jesus’ teachings, we’d certainly see ideals which both conservatives and liberals heartily affirm. While we all have many differences, there are many things we agree upon. We all, regardless of our political affiliation, value mercy. We all want to see an unbiased love of compassion, inclusion and care for the oppressed—though we’d differ on how that should be carried out. Jesus proclaimed and embodied these characteristics of mercy.

In the same way, we all, regardless of our differences, want to see justice upheld. We want to see the guilty punished, we want to see oppressed defended, we want to see the right thing done for ourselves and for those whom we care about. There is no way we can read the life of Christ and not see justice clearly displayed.

In fact, I would suggest that Jesus is the only person who ever was truly merciful and truly just at the same time. And this fact is at the heart of what Jesus came to teach and to perform. Jesus didn’t come to set up a political system or further partisan cause. He came to deal with ultimate issues. He came to deal with our hearts and our standing with God. He came to teach us about our eternal destiny.

This is the message that Christ proclaimed. He taught that all of us are made in God’s image. That’s why we all desire good things like mercy and justice and love and truth. God made us to reflect Him in that sense. The problem is that while good is reflected in us, we are all completely corrupted by sin. Whether we vote red or blue (or somewhere in between), whether our skin is black or white (or somewhere in between), whether we are rich or poor (or somewhere in between)…all of us have sinned against God and against other people.

When we die, we will be judged for all we have done. All the times we haven’t been just and haven’t been merciful. All the times we hated people who disagreed with us. We are all condemned before God, and because He is good, he will bring unfiltered, unreserved wrath on all who have sinned.

But, because God is merciful and He desires none to perish, but for all to know Him and experience His love, He sent Jesus to teach us how to be made right with Him. This is why Jesus came, to seek and save the lost—liberal and conservative alike. The Bible tells us that Jesus willingly became a human being, lived a perfect life without sin, and then willingly laid down His life on the cross so that God’s wrath might be poured out on Him. He then rose from the dead, and God now calls all people to turn from their sins and believe in Him so they will be forgiven. That is the message of Jesus and that is the message of Christianity.

So was Jesus a liberal or conservative? I’d say He is the foundation for all the good that both those camps affirm. I’d also say that both camps, and everyone in between, should hear the greater message of Christ, which is to believe in Him, have their sins forgiven and live in light of the life that is to come.

America is not the hope of the world. Government is not the hope of the world. Presidents, Kings and Princes are not the hope of this world. Jesus is the only hope for this world, and the only hope for you and me.

This article originally appeared here.