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6 Cautions About Church Growth

By
Chuck Lawless
-
communicating with the unchurched

I start this post with a caveat: I believe in the historical understanding of Church Growth, marked by evangelism that necessarily resulted in disciples in the local church. I affirm, for example, the words of church growth writers Donald McGavran and Win Arn from the 1970s: “We deceive ourselves if we believe that a person who has made a decision for Christ, who has prayed, ‘I accept Jesus Christ into my life,’ has truly become a disciple. We must make sure that he or she really follows Christ, really lives as a disciple… We do well to use the more biblical concept of disciple and to evaluate our effectiveness in that context.”[1]

On the other hand, I also think it’s wise to be aware of these cautions about church growth:

  1. It’s possible to grow a crowd, but not a church. A group of people who gather on Sunday are not automatically a New Testament church—even if the word “church” is in their name.
  2. Growth is not necessarily a sign of God’s blessing. A crowd might increase even when the gospel is not preached. Higher numbers might be the product of God’s work, but they’re not a guarantee.
  3. Growth resulting only from transferring members can be deceptive. Of course, transferring one’s membership to another congregation is exactly the right move in some cases. Churches that grow only through that means, though, are often lulled to sleep evangelistically.
  4. Even when the church is growing, evangelism without discipleship is not fully biblical church growth. Making disciples (Matt. 28:18-20) includes not only reaching nonbelievers, but also equipping believers to carry out the work of the gospel (Eph. 4:11-12).
  5. Likewise, discipleship without evangelism is not fully biblical church growth. My generation focused more on evangelism (though we didn’t do it well), to the neglect of discipleship. I fear that the young generation today is overcorrecting our omission by emphasizing discipleship to the neglect of evangelism.
  6. Church growth attendance numbers are not enough. I’m not opposed to numerical evaluation; in fact, I think we don’t ask enough numerical questions. Attendance matters, but so does the number of attenders who genuinely model Christ. And the number who share their faith and invest in believers. And the number who are growing in their spiritual disciplines and serving in the church. And the number of members we send out to take the gospel around the world. And the number of parents who are teaching their children the Word of God. And, I could go on and on… Accountability matters, and numbers are one means to move in that direction.

What are your thoughts?

This article originally appeared here.

Passion for God’s Word: Interview with Steve Green

By
Matt Brown
-
communicating with the unchurched

I have the incredible privilege of talking with Steve Green, President of Hobby Lobby on the blog today. Hobby Lobby is the largest privately owned arts and crafts retailer in the world, with nearly 750 stores, and 32,000 employees. In addition, Steve Green is the visionary behind a project I have been really excited about, Museum of the Bible. Museum of the Bible is the largest Museum in the world under construction today, and sits just 3 blocks south of the US Capitol. It will invite all people to engage with the history, narrative and impact of the Bible. It opens this fall of 2017. Aside from all of this, Steve’s family is renown for their love for the Lord, and their incredible hearts for the kingdom. I’m thrilled to share his thoughts with you today…

TELL ME THE STORY OF YOUR FAMILY’S JOURNEY WITH HOBBY LOBBY.

In 1970, my dad and mom took out a $600 loan to begin making miniature picture frames out of our home. Two years later the first Hobby Lobby store opened in a 300 square-foot space where they sold those picture frames. I got started in the family business by gluing together those miniature pictures frames when I was seven years old. Then I worked in the retail store through high school. Once I graduated, I went to work full-time in the business. Over the years, my title has changed, but I still just work for dad.

YOUR FAMILY IS MARKED BY EXTREME GENEROSITY. WHAT SET THIS IN MOTION?

My grandmother, Marie Green, was a giver. She lived out generosity in every area of life, and she taught her kids to give. Marie was constantly reminding her children of the C.T. Studd poem, “Only one life will soon be passed. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” Marie not only taught her children generosity–she lived it out. She would give even when she didn’t have much. She gave joyfully and had a love for investing in eternal things. This value was passed on to her kids. My dad, David Green, saw gospel-generosity modeled, and it still affects how he makes decisions today. At Hobby Lobby, we began company giving early on in our history. One example is when Dad felt God prompting him to give a specific amount of money to a particular mission organization. Dad thought the amount was more than he could manage. So, he divided the amount into four checks and post-dated them so that they wouldn’t all come due at once. When the missions organization received the checks, they said it was the exact amount they had prayed for–and they had prayed for it on the very day the checks had been mailed. From that experience and the ongoing joy that came from giving, our family has continued to accelerate our giving. Today we give half of our company’s profits. Dad talks about building this legacy, and this journey of generosity in his new book Giving It All Away which comes out April 25.

Rendering of the 430,000 Museum of the Bible, currently under construction, and just 3 blocks south of the US Capitol.

ONE OF THE PROJECTS ON THE FOREFRONT IS MUSEUM OF THE BIBLE. TELL US ABOUT THIS, HOW IT STARTED AND THE JOURNEY YOU’VE BEEN ON WITH IT? WHAT DO YOU HOPE PEOPLE WHO VISIT WILL EXPERIENCE?

We got started on this journey when we were asked to buy a building for a proposed museum. At the time, we didn’t get involved, but a few years later we ended up starting our own collection of Biblical artifacts. We wanted to be able to share this great collection with the world. Museum of the Bible began as a non-profit in 2010. We sent traveling exhibits all over the country and the world while we looked for a permanent home. In 2012, we found that permanent home in Washington, D.C. We purchased a building, and it is under renovation and construction today–set to open in November 2017. Washington D.C. is the museum capital of the world. Museum of the Bible is two blocks south of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and is just a twelve-minute walk from the U.S. Capitol. It is the largest museum under construction in the world, and we believe it will be the most technologically advanced as well. Biblical literacy is declining, and we want to see the Bible come back to the conversation. My desire is that through the Museum, people will learn something they didn’t know, and be inspired to engage in this remarkable book.

YOUR LIFE IS MARKED BY A SIGNIFICANT PASSION FOR GOD’S WORD. TELL US WHY YOU BELIEVE SO STRONGLY IN THE POWER OF THE BIBLE?

I believe the Bible is exactly what it claims to be–God’s Word that guides our everyday life. If we follow its principles, we will have the most fulfilled life. And it was through God’s Word that I found Jesus.

YOU’VE WRITTEN A BOOK, THE BIBLE IN AMERICA, ABOUT HOW THE BIBLE HAS DEEPLY IMPACTED AMERICAN HISTORY. SHARE SOME OF WHAT YOU’VE SEEN AND WHY THIS MATTERS.

The Bible was the most influential book for the founders of our nation. They had a biblical worldview. Our nation is built on principles found in the Bible, and as a result, it has undergirded one of the most successful nations on earth. We haven’t done everything perfectly, but this country is a great example of how the principles of this book can serve a nation well, as well as individuals. Through my book, I want to point out the significant impact the Bible has had on our country so we can better understand and appreciate the substantial impact God’s Word has made in our lives.

LAST QUESTION. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BIBLE VERSE?

Psalm 1, because this passage reiterates the call to meditate on God’s Word.

This article originally appeared here.

How to Help Your Kids Own Their Own Beliefs

By
Andrew Linder
-
communicating with the unchurched

I recently heard the story of a parent who was concerned that their teenage daughter, who used to be so obedient in listening to them, was now listening to everything her friends said by allowing them to influence her decision making.

The parents didn’t understand why, until someone wisely pointed out that their daughter didn’t change beliefs, she just changed who she was listening to. You see, those beliefs had never become her own in the first place, and as a result, she had simply mirrored the beliefs of her parents until she was influenced otherwise.

As parents, a great danger we face is in simply giving our children a knowledge of what to believe, without instilling within them a desire and passion for why to personally believe it. Our ultimate goal must be that even once our children are out from under the umbrella of our authority, the things we have instilled within them will have become a part of the fabric of their character and the very foundation of their lives.

Their faith must become personal to them.

And in order for that to happen, we must give our children opportunities to own their own faith, or else potentially abandon it forever.

So how can a parent successfully help their children own their own beliefs? Here are three important ways…

1. Don’t solve every issue or problem for them.

Our children need guidance, but sometimes we need to allow them to make their own decisions, and the resulting consequences. Whether it’s the issue of money, how to deal with friendship struggles or what to do when they’ve been wronged, our job as parents is not to solve our children’s problems, but to guide them through them. (Sadly, many parents bend over backward running to the rescue of their child’s every whimper or struggle, but to their child’s own detriment.)

This requires that we be their guide, but not always their decision maker. We must give them opportunities to make their own decisions, and learn from them.

There are times when my children want to spend their money on something I feel is foolish, so I give them guidance, and allow them to make the decision, one way or the other. Sometimes they make the right decision, and are glad that they did, and other times, they make the wrong decision, and learn to accept the consequences.

You may have heard the old Chinese proverb that says, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” This is a great parallel in parenting.

“Childhood is the university for life, so helping our children learn how to properly deal with life now helps them learn how to properly make life decisions for years to come.”  

While this is sometimes hard to watch as a parent, it’s very worth it when you keep the end result in mind—a child who is equipped to solve their own life problems both biblically and responsibly.

2. Don’t expect them to mirror everything identical to you and your preferences.

This has been a difficult one to learn and accept as our children have gotten older. There are certain things my children enjoy and preferences they have that I might not personally choose. And I’m learning that that’s OK. Yes, there are certain things that are non-negotiable, and biblical lines that should never be crossed, but then there are many things that are more a matter of different preferences than anything else.

For example…my son enjoys some types of clothing styles and hobbies that wouldn’t be my preference, but there’s nothing superior about my preferences over his. My daughter also enjoys playing the ukelele and singing like Grace VanderWaal, neither of which match my tastes. However, she’s become quite good at both.

What I’m learning is that God has gifted my children in ways that are unique to them, and very possibly ways that He can use in the future to fulfill their own personal calling. And it’s OK for them to own their own gifting and preferences to become the person God wants them to be, even when they don’t match my own.

“My job as a parent is to reproduce my values in my children, but my job is not to produce clones of me and my preferences.”  

Each of my children are uniquely created by God for a specific purpose. My job is to help them own their own beliefs as I guide them to find, follow and fulfill that purpose.

3. Teach them how to listen to the voice of God for themselves.

I believe that one of the greatest things you can ever teach your kids to do is to listen to the voice of God, and make decisions based upon the moving of His Spirit in their own hearts and lives. All too often, as Christian parents, we fall into the trap of thinking that we have to make all the decisions for our children from the time they are born until they are 18 years old and on their own. And as a result, we fail them.

We fail to prepare them for life, and we send them into the world without the proper capabilities to make wise decisions for themselves, independent from mom and dad. As parents, it is our job to put ourselves out of a job by reproducing ourselves (our faith, our values and our beliefs) in our children.

In order for that to happen, it’s very important that as soon as your children are old enough to be saved and to start facing life’s challenges, they are old enough to be given liberty to let God direct their steps and help them to make wise decisions. (Of course, this involves teaching them to pray and read God’s Word on their own.)

If your children are used to praying for themselves, receiving your guidance and personally listening to the voice of God at young ages, they are going to be more than equipped to own their own faith by making godly decisions once they’re living life on their own.

We are sadly seeing a mass exodus of young people leaving the faith of their parents, and I believe that this is often one of the main reasons why—we’ve always owned their faith, and inadvertently allowed them to simply mirror ours.

Sadly, this often only becomes all too evident, all too late, when we’re standing there watching them walk away.

I know that your heart’s desire as a parent is to help your children own their own faith. So ask yourself, of these three things, which one do I need to work on the most? And remember…

“If we never give our children opportunities to own their own faith, it’s quite possible that they never will.”

Do you agree? Disagree? Or what else would you add to this list of ways to help your kids own their own beliefs?

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This article originally appeared here.

How to Double Your Church in 3 Years (It Won’t Be Easy, but It CAN Happen)

By
Brian Jones
-
communicating with the unchurched

What I am about to share with you is the single most important church growth principle I have ever learned for Senior Pastors of churches under 1,000 in size. I call it Leadership Evangelism.

Leadership Evangelism is the process by which Senior Pastors single-handedly ignite a movement within their church that will cause it to double in size in three years or less.

Here’s a common occurrence:

A Senior Pastor leads a church that hasn’t grown in five years. Funding is tight. They have board members that don’t really get the larger vision. Their staff, if they have any staff, are underpaid, overworked and just as frustrated as their leader. The Senior Pastor has tried everything to catalyze growth—drafting a new vision statement, tweaking the worship services, starting a new outreach program, trying to get people to invite their friends—all on top of working to the point of exhaustion. Yet, nothing to date has worked.

The majority of evangelical churches in English-speaking countries around the world are in this exact same boat.

“What would you do if you were me?” some have asked.

That’s when I tell them about Leadership Evangelism, and the promise I am about to make to you.

I tell them that from 0 to 1,000, I did three things and three things only: (1) I preached the most powerful sermons I could week in and week out, (2) I personally met with 10 of the most influential people I could find in a 10-mile radius of our church building every week, and (3) I delegated everything else to volunteers and staff as they began to emerge.

Then I make them the same promise I am about to make to you:

“Barring unusual circumstances, if you’re a Senior Pastor of a church under 1,000 in size and are willing to dedicate yourself to Leadership Evangelism as I outline it, the church you serve will double in size in three years or less.”

I never make promises to anyone I coach, except this one.

I wish I could personally sit down with every Senior Pastor in our country and let them know, face to face, that they are not powerless.

They don’t have to hunker down in their office and feel depressed and frustrated.

Any Senior Pastor can lead their church to grow. Regardless of age. Regardless of education. Regardless of whether they have the gift of leadership or the gift of evangelism or whatever “gift” they think they need to have, but lack.

Five Foundational Principles for Leadership Evangelism

There are five foundational principles one must understand before the process of Leadership Evangelism will make sense.

1. The Principle of Leadership Multiplication

The principle of leadership multiplication is as follows:

  • Evangelize non-leaders and you add people to your church.
  • Evangelize leaders and you add everyone under their influence to your church.

The first effort is simple addition.

The second is multiplication.

When you add non-leaders, your church grows one person at a time (while simultaneously dealing with a near 20 percent attrition rate every single year). This explains why most churches never grow. You keep adding people, but at a slower rate than they’re leaving.

When you add leaders, your church still grows one at a time, but soon after a leader begins attending they often bring a whole row with them.

Senior Pastors have bought into the myth that only extroverts or people with the gift of evangelism bring newcomers. Not true. In my experience, leaders bring newcomers. Why? Because they are the only people in your church who have the most potential to affect wholesale change for dozens of people.

When a leader says “this is a product to buy,” the people they influence will buy it. In droves. When a leader says “this is the best little league to have your six-year-old join,” that’s where everyone in their office ends up joining. And when a leader makes it known that they’re attending your church, everyone with whom that leader has influence takes notice.

Continue

In Faith Leadership, Some Days We Walk Blindly

By
Ron Edmondson
-
communicating with the unchurched

Recently I came across a journal entry from January, 2005.

I talked about some of the goals I had for the year and my progress and lack thereof toward meeting them. I shared some current frustrations I was having in ministry. I then asked God to help me be more disciplined.

Then I read the last sentence of that day’s journal.

I wrote, “God, at 41 years of age, some days it feels that I’m not accomplishing anything.”

Wow!

Looking back at my life now, I’m sure it was a one day “pity party.” Yes, even pastors have those.

The reason I’m certain it was is because that was during a season when 11 core families were meeting regularly in our living room, preparing to launch a church. That would be our second plant, and this one would go on to be one of the fastest growing churches in the country and, even today, is accomplishing more than we ever dreamed possible for them as a church.

I don’t share this to bring attention to myself or our accomplishments. And, I wouldn’t suggest a church needs to grow at that pace to be successful. God may use you, as a leader, in completely different ways than He has ever used me. God has a unique plan for every person’s life. I share my story because it points to an important principle in ministry that is true for all of us. I’ve seen it so many times. I wish I had a journal entry for each season.

We seldom see the good God is doing through us as we are doing it.

In fact, sometimes it can be months or years after our obedience before we realize the good God was allowing us to be a part of leading.

And, I’m not sure we’d be as successful—in God’s eyes—if we did.

Walking in the unknown keeps us humble. It keeps us in prayer. And, best of all, it keeps us desperate for God’s hand to be upon us. It truly becomes His work and not our own.

Are you in the middle of a stressful season of ministry or life? Are you wondering if any of your efforts are making a difference?

I’m not suggesting you may not need some people speaking into your life. You may not be able to see the good you’re doing, but don’t falsely assume the silence of God is the approval of God either. Allow others to speak into your life. Remain teachable. Make sure you’re solid on God’s plan, but hold your own plans loosely. Others may have better ideas than you.

But, if you are striving to be obedient to God’s will as much as you know how, then stand firm. I’m praying He allows you to see some fruit—soon—from your labor, as you continue to trust Him. But, until then don’t give up! Stay tuned!

God is always up to things we can’t even imagine.

God is using you, Mighty Warrior! (Judges 6:12)

You simply are having to walk by faith. Faith walking is never for sissies, but always rewarded by God!

Great Leadership Often Starts With a Broken Heart

By
Brandon Cox
-
communicating with the unchurched

When I served as a pastor at Saddleback Church, one of the things that impressed me most about the church was a hiring requirement Pastor Rick Warren laid down:

If you haven’t been through pain, you’re not ready to be on staff at Saddleback Church.

Pastor Rick understood the power of a broken heart.

Andy Stanley understands it, too. When speaking to leaders, he often asks the question, “What breaks your heart?”

Usually, knowing what breaks your heart opens the door to knowing what you should do with your life and how you should be leading others.

Nehemiah, of the Old Testament, is considered one of the greatest models of successful leadership in history. And his story started with a question: “How’s Jerusalem?”

When the answer was “not good,” Nehemiah’s heart was broken. He records:

“When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted and prayed to the God of heaven” (Nehemiah 1:4 NLT).

Nehemiah’s burden drove him to lead the nation of Israel into a successful rebuilding campaign.

My wife, Angie, and I talk about this often. Her heart breaks for those in our community suffering with emotional and relational brokenness, so she started a counseling practice in Northwest Arkansas. My heart breaks over the spiritually lost around us, so I’m giving my life to leading Grace Hills Church.

Great leadership doesn’t start with a great education, although that is incredibly valuable. And it certainly doesn’t start with a particular position within an organization.

Great leadership often starts with a broken heart.

Drive, determination and competitiveness are valuable. Talent and charisma are great assets for leaders to possess. And relationships play a vital role in a leader’s path to success, too.

But none of those things are as powerful as a heart, broken over the condition of something and burdened to fix it and make it better.

So how do you have your heart broken?

  • Make an honest evaluation of what you see around you.
  • Listen to the truth-tellers who bear bad news.
  • Embrace reality rather than an idealistic version of the world.

We used to sing this song about the Holy Spirit and the lyrics would say,

Break me.
Melt me.
Mold me.
Fill me.

That’s an excellent plan, especially for the Christian leader—the church leader, in particular.

This past Sunday, I helped fill communion cups. And as I did, I found myself peering into each one and thinking about the person who would later pick it up and drink from it as an act of worship.

I realized that many would be celebrating communion with a sense of joy, a sense of purpose and belonging. But others would be crying out for hope and healing. They would be taking communion as a declaration of their utter dependence on the goodness of God and the saving power of Jesus.

My heart broke for those struggling with recent job losses, marital conflict and emotional issues. So I prayed. And then I preached my heart out and invited people to come and take communion. And we solemnly worshipped together, some with rejoicing and others with broken hearts.

And my prayer today is that those whose hearts are shattered by the condition of what they see around them will sense the courage to rise up and lead their tribes and their generation to action.

What breaks your heart? What burden drives you to lead?

3 Reasons Leaders Should NOT Be Too Nice

By
Ron Edmondson
-
communicating with the unchurched

I remember talking with a leader not long ago. She’s an incredibly kind and gentle person. She’s smart, hard-working and loyal. She’s a relational leader and usually brings out the best in people, so she’s had success in leadership. At the time of our conversation she was experiencing problems in a new position and asked for my help.

In talking through the specific situation, it quickly became obvious she had one weakness and it was effecting her entire team. It’s a common weakness among leaders. At times, most of us will struggle in this area.

Her weakness?

She was being too nice!

I realize this doesn’t sound like it could ever be a weakness. And it has made her well-liked in the organization. She’s incredibly popular. And she likes that. But it also had made her team less successful than it could have been. And, thankfully, she recognized it, but wasn’t sure how to fix it.

A few team members were taking advantage of her niceness by underperforming in their roles . She hadn’t challenged the problems, even though she knew she should. She was losing sleep over it, but didn’t know what to do. The relational leadership in her, which is a positive about her leadership style, was not working for these team members.

Perhaps you’ve seen this before in an organization. Maybe you’ve been on either side of this issue. If this is your situation, you have probably even thought or said things such as, “I gave them an inch and they took a mile.”

I am not suggesting one become a mean leader. It would be wrong. It certainly wouldn’t be biblical leadership. I am suggesting one become a wise leader. Wisdom learns to guide people in the direction which is best for them, the leader and the entire team or organization.

In this situation, I advised my friend to take off her “nice hat,” at least temporarily, to address the few people causing the majority of the problems that were impacting the entire team. As hard as I know it would seem at first, in the end it would be a blessing for the entire team—and my leader friend.

I have learned people accept the ‘what’ better if they first understand the ‘why’—so then I shared with her why I feel her default niceness is causing current problems for the team.

Here are three problems with being too nice as a leader:

It’s bad for the leader

The leader ends up stressing over the wrong things. Instead of focusing on the big picture, the leader is focused on a few problems with usually only a few people. The leader feels unsuccessful, even like a failure at times, as the team achieves less than desired results.

Continue

Our Most Popular Interview: Kara Powell and the #1 Reason Youth Leave the Church

By
Brian Orme
-
communicating with the unchurched

Note from the Editors:

At 33,000+ downloads (and counting), Kara Powell’s revelatory interview struck a chord with concerned church leaders. We are re-airing the interview, originally published in 2015, because the research and subsequent advice Kara shares for church leaders seeking to reverse the trend of youth leaving the church is just as relevant now as it was then.

Subscribe to the ChurchLeaders Podcast

Kara Powell is the Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI) and a faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary. As a youth ministry veteran of over 20 years, she serves as an Advisor to Youth Specialties. Named by Christianity Today as one of “50 Women You Should Know,” Kara is the author or co-author of a number of books including
Sticky Faith and Growing Young. Dr. Kara Powell uses findings from research on youth to help leaders address and reverse the trend of youth leaving the church.

Key Questions:

What has changed the most in youth ministry over the last decade?

What’s the #1 Reason this generation walks away from their faith?

What is needed to bridge that gap between the youth and the church?

How should the church approach doubt in ministering to students?

Key Quotes:

“Of all the youth group participation variables we’ve seen, being involved in intergenerational worship and relationship was one of the variables most highly coordinated to young people’s faith.”

“Almost half of all young people drift away from God and the church after they graduate.”

“Our vision is that churches and youth ministries would be the first place where young people feel like they can go with their tough questions.”

“What I wouldn’t want to see is kids saying ‘It’s on the news, they talk about it at school, I’m hearing about it on Twitter and Snapchat, but we’re not talking about it at church.’ That dichotomy is really dangerous and communicates a not-so-subtle message that the church and my faith is out of touch with the world.”

“On purpose, raise tough questions about what’s happening in our world.”

“I would rather have kids wonder their questions aloud in the context of a faith community than stifle them or wonder them with other friends who don’t share our faith.”

“It’s not doubt that is toxic, but unexpressed or unexplored doubt that is toxic.”

Mentioned in the Show:

Fuller Youth Institute

Fuller Theological Seminary

Sticky Faith

Can I Ask That?

The 5 Love Languages – Gary Chapman

UPDATE: Tim Keller Will NOT Receive Award From Princeton Seminary

By
Megan Briggs
-
communicating with the unchurched

UPDATE

President Barnes of Princeton Theological Seminary sent an update today, March 22, 2017, regarding the seminary’s controversial pick of Tim Keller for the 2017 Kuyper prize. Despite his original email communication to seminarians stating the seminary would hold to its choice of Keller, Barnes now says Keller has agreed to “graciously” honor his commitment to speak at the April 6th event, but will not receive the prize.

Barnes explains awarding the prize to Keller would “imply an endorsement” of his PCA views that women and LGBTQ folks should not be ordained. However, in the interest of allowing the seminary to encourage open dialogue between those in the broader American church and academic world, Barnes says Keller will still be delivering the address on theologian Lesslie Newbigin.

In this new statement, Barnes indicated several concerned parties expressed their viewpoints on Keller’s nomination with the seminary’s administration (both for and against the nomination). “It has been a hard conversation, but one that a theologically diverse community can handle,” Barnes concludes.

Traci Smith, whose blog on the inappropriateness of the Keller nomination circulated widely following the announcement, was very encouraged by Barnes’s statement. “Yes to academic freedom. Yes to listening to others whose opinions are different from our own (no matter how distasteful they may be.) No to giving large fancy prizes that can be confused with endorsement,” Smith writes.

Each year, Princeton Theological Seminary awards a scholar or community leader the Abraham Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Life. Along with having an auspicious title, it’s a major award—one that is to be accepted while giving an equally impressive speech. This year, Princeton has chosen Timothy Keller as the prize recipient, but some in the church are not too happy about Keller’s appointment.

Traci Smith, a minister and Princeton Seminary graduate, took to her blog to express her concerns over Keller being named for this prize. The crux of Smith’s opposition, along with hundreds of other seminarians who have re-tweeted her blog, is that Keller is a pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and therefore holds to its doctrinal views. The PCA is a more conservative Presbyterian denomination than the PC(USA), of which Princeton Theological Seminary is a flagship institution. Among their differences: The PCA does not ordain women and “excludes” LGBT folks.

Smith summarizes her opposition this way: “An institution designed to train men and women for ministry shouldn’t be awarding fancy prizes to someone who believes half the student body (or is it more than half?) has no business leading churches.”

While Smith admits she can find common ground with Keller, stating she would happily “go to the church he pastors and listen to him preach” and invite him to her church to listen to her preach. However, unless “Tim Keller is prepared to argue for the ordination of all the women students of Princeton Theological Seminary, the The Abraham Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Life” is not the prize he should be receiving.

Smith then called on the people at Princeton who named Keller to explain their choice. Apparently, more people than Smith aired their concerns with the prize pick, warranting Princeton Seminary’s president, Craig Barnes, to send seminarians an email explaining the reasoning behind the Keller choice. Barnes acknowledges the discomfort some have with Keller and the denomination he represents, considering Princeton “clearly stand[s] in prophetic opposition to the PCA and many other Christian denominations that do not extend the full exercise of Spirit filled gifts for women or those of various sexual orientations.”

His argument for the justification of the invitation, though, centers on allowing diversity of theological thought and practice to flourish at Princeton. With such diversity of thought comes invitations to controversial speakers so as not to “exclude voices within the church.”

Barnes concludes the letter asking recipients to “receive Rev. Keller in a spirit of grace and academic freedom, realizing we can listen to someone with whom many, including me, strongly disagree about this critical issue of justice.”

Keller’s name does stand out among the list of previous prize recipients, which include professors from Yale, Bard College, the University of Notre Dame, Pulitzer prize winners and congressman John Lewis.

Keller will speak on the theologian Lesslie Newbigin when he receives his prize on April 6, 2017, at Princeton.

7 Lies Most Pastors Tell

By
Carey Nieuwhof
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communicating with the unchurched

I’m a pastor and, I hate to say, I sometimes tell lies.

Don’t get me wrong, I hate lying. And I try very hard to live a life of integrity.

I’m guessing you do too. But do you ever let a lie…slip?

Pastors are under relentless pressure to be ‘on’ all the time. As a result, it’s way too easy to shade the truth in ministry.

I’m not even good at lying; my wife and kids tell me I’m a terrible liar. They can tell within seconds if I’m trying to pull one past them (practical jokes are really hard to pull off because of this).

But sometimes, as a byproduct of what I do in ministry, I say things that aren’t 100 percent true.

And I’m not sure I’m alone.

In the hopes of keeping me honest (and maybe helping non-pastors understand a pastor’s world), here are seven lies I’ve caught myself telling.

See if you have too.

1. I’m Doing Great 

That’s what I say to almost anyone who asks me how I am.

But it’s not always true.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think you should burden strangers or Sunday morning guests with the ‘real’ answer, but sometimes I’ve said this to people close to me when I haven’t been great.

The point is not to tell everyone when you’re struggling, but you do need to tell someone.

Just because you can’t tell everyone when you’re struggling doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tell anyone. If you don’t, your days in ministry are numbered.

Here’s how to be an appropriately transparent leader without oversharing.

2. There Were X Hundred (Thousand) People at the Event

There’s even a name for this—pastor math.

I have a tendency to round attendance up if I don’t watch myself.

Maybe it stems from insecurity. Or a sense of inadequacy. Or insanity. I don’t know. But I have to check myself to make sure I’m accurate.

Why do I feel the truth is inadequate?

Anytime you feel the truth is inadequate, it’s a sign God wants to drill deeper into your character.

3. It Was Awesome! 

Sometimes I’m tempted to spin events as better than they really are.

It’s a much better practice to pick out specific things that were genuinely wonderful and leave things that bothered me to a private debrief later.

And if you make it a pattern to say things were awesome when they weren’t, people know.

Fortunately for me, I’m part of a church where things are actually awesome a lot of the time. But I need to make sure my vocabulary matches the experience.

4. It Was Awful

And other times I can write something off as terrible, when the truth is that it had redeeming characteristics I’ve missed.

I have to discipline myself to call it what it really is.

Things are rarely as awesome or terrible as you tell yourself they are.

Continue

The Government Makes Policy, the Church Serves People

By
Ronnie Floyd
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communicating with the unchurched

During my 2014-2016 tenure as president of our nation’s largest body of Evangelicals, the Southern Baptist Convention, we adopted a resolution “On Refugee Ministry.”

Recognizing the global mass displacement of people—in particular the Syrian refugee crisis—and our denomination’s history of caring for the sojourner, we resolved to encourage America’s 15 million Southern Baptists to serve and minister to refugees who come to the United States.

Furthermore, we affirmed that “refugees are people loved by God, made in His image, and that Christian love should be extended to them as special objects of God’s mercy in a world that has displaced them from their homelands.”

To us, loving refugees was an unquestionable matter of Christian faith. It wasn’t about whether we agreed or not with President Obama’s policies on refugee resettlement and immigration. As Christians, we understood the ancient biblical mandate to love the foreigner in our land.

Yet, amidst these resolutions of compassion and care, we also inserted a clause asking our nation’s leaders “to implement the strictest security measures possible in the refugee screening and selection process, guarding against anyone intent on doing harm.”

Why did we do this?

The government determines who gets in the country, and the church serves those who do.

Making policies in the interest of the national welfare, especially in relation to protecting the American people, is the government’s job. Christians must honor and respect our elected officials as they do so. Yet, some Christians in recent days have treated America like a theocracy, arguing that it is the government’s job to serve refugees.

It isn’t.

It is the church’s job, and while the government might choose to serve refugees, they have no theological mandate to do so in the way the church does. It’s the government’s first job to protect our nation, and it’s the church’s job to serve the world.

The apostle Paul affirmed this. In his letter to the early Christians living in Rome, the epicenter of the Roman Empire, he said, “For government is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, because it does not carry the sword for no reason.”

Peter, a leader of the first church and one of the original followers of Jesus, goes as far as to say that submitting to government is part of God’s will for Christians in presenting a good testimony to those around them.

Even Jesus, in his unique and pithy style of teaching, instructed his disciples to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” He also reminded his disciples—perhaps especially Peter, a quick-draw zealot ready to start a rebellion at a moment’s notice—that his kingdom was “not of this world.”

Jesus, Peter and Paul were rewiring the early church’s way of thinking. In a world concerned with who are the movers and shakers, they were telling them that the church marches to the beat of a different drum. While emperors, presidents and prime ministers might change policy with the flick of a pen, the millennia-old calling of loving one’s neighbor remains as consistent today as the day Jesus first uttered those words. And this calling transcends time, language, borders and any executive order signed by any American President.

As our country faces some of the biggest changes in refugee policy in decades, it’s important for the church to remember that her mission is not contingent on what happens at the White House. Nor should the church attempt to force our Christian theology on our government.

We should always raise our voices in defense of the poor, the broken and those in need, and do everything in our power, as citizens, to urge our representatives to make compassionate decisions to ease the suffering of those fleeing violence and persecution. But we should also have humility to know our place and their place.

The government decides who gets in; the church serves those who do.

This article originally appeared here.

Seeing Leadership Potential in Everyone

By
Joel Comiskey
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communicating with the unchurched

There’s a good chance that the next leaders that emerge from your group are very different than you. It’s so easy to want to find one kind of person to lead the group or be part of the team, but the reality is that there is no one best person.

Some of the best people don’t appear to be the best. They are the weakest, fumble the most and seem the most unprepared. Sometimes we fail to see emerging leadership because we are looking for the wrong things. We often look for those who mesh with our personality but pass over those who follow a different drummer.

Samuel misjudged the Lord’s choice for the second king of Israel because he focused on height and stature: “Samuel saw Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the LORD’s anointed stands here before the LORD.’ But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart’” (1 Samuel 16:6-7).

Jesse was just as surprised that his older children were not elected. He had not even considered inviting shepherd boy David to the ceremony. But even though David was a “ruddy” young boy, “the LORD said, ‘Rise and anoint him; he is the one!’” (1 Samuel 16:11-12).

God tends to use the “ruddy young boys” that are fully committed to him. Our tendency is to hang educational nooses around budding leaders. Yet, the harvest is so plentiful and the laborers are so few that God would have us look at all leadership possibilities around us.

When you look out at your current small group and wonder, “Which of these people could lead a great small group?” the correct answer is, “All of them!” Sure, some people are more ready now. Some people need to get equipped or trained. But there is no key characteristic you should look for. Quiet people are as good at leading groups as outgoing people. People with the gift of service can lead a growing group just like people with the gift of teaching or evangelism.

Jim Egli and I have been studying this question for many years. We have both discovered in separate statistical studies that particular characteristics don’t matter. Our recent research embodied in our upcoming 2017 book Groups that Thrive: Seven Surprising Discoveries about Life-Giving Small Groups once again confirm that the things that matter are not people’s characteristics or age or season in life. What matters are several key behaviors that relate to loving God and loving others. Which people in your current group can obey the two greatest commandments, to love God with all they are and to love others like they love themselves (Mark 12:28-31)? All of them can! And this means that all of them have the potential to lead a thriving small group.

Take a moment to consider Jesus’ own recruits. His 12 closest followers appear to be incredibly unexceptional. They were a motley crew of ordinary people. But Jesus invested in them and through them ignited a movement that would reach millions, even billions of people. God wants to use your small group in a similar way if you’ll see God’s potential in each person to change the world.

In the month of March, we’ll talk about seeing everyone as a potential member of a leadership team. Here are the themes we’ll cover in March:

  • (March 05-11) Taking the next step. For many the first step is joining a cell, then participating, but why not see each one as participating on a leadership team. Some will become point people but not all.
  • (March 12-18) Obstacles to taking the next step: I can’t do it, not enough knowledge, don’t have the gift of leadership, and so forth. These myths should be debunked. Rather, people grow best when they are involved.
  • (March 19-25; due date March 17) The place of equipping in preparing new leaders, coaching in sustaining them, and vision casting during the celebration service.
  •  (March 26-April 01; due date March 24) God uses weak vessels. Often the best cell leaders are the weakest. Pride is the main hindrance to effective cell leadership.

Share here your experiences about seeing the potential in every person in the cell.

This article originally appeared here.

Should I Stay or Should I Go? How to Choose Churches

By
J.D. Greear
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communicating with the unchurched

Back in 2010, we had a short-lived series called “Ask Anything Friday.” We encouraged blog readers to submit whatever question they wanted, and Pastor J.D. would respond to one each week (ish). No subject was off-limits.

This question is one that has come up in some recent conversations quite a bit, so we thought it would be fruitful to revisit. When should a church member consider leaving a church for good?

So, selfishly I hope this one is not from a Summit member who is looking for a reason to leave. But, whoever you are, I hope this gives you some parameters. Here are two truths I’d encourage you to balance:

1. We live in a highly-consumerized, no-commitment, what’s-in-it-for-me culture.

That principle often works wondrously in the free market, but is absolutely destructive when brought into the church. If you approach your family that way, you will destroy it. If you approach your church that way, you will destroy it, too.

Paul tells the Ephesian believers to “grow up” (Eph 4:1-16), which he defines as learning to use your spiritual gift in the church, not being fed and having your needs met each week. It is infants and toddlers, not adults, whose primary concern is being fed and having their bottoms wiped by others. Ironically, some of the “seasoned” Christians who complain the most about “not getting anything out of their church” act more like toddlers than mature believers! The church is not about you.

Being fulfilled as a Christian is not about hearing spine-tingling preaching each week, but about using your spiritual gifts in the church. Take my own experience of church, for example. I rarely get to “hear” great preaching on Sunday, but I still feel fulfilled each week because I am using my spiritual gift in the church.

This is important for any church, because your church, no matter what it starts like, cannot remain perpetually “the hottest show in town.” Someone younger, cooler and flashier is right now preparing the next best thing. So, we’ll have ups and downs, cold seasons and hot ones. Thus, we need people who will commit to us because they believe in our mission and who will become a part of this family, people who will not just make contributions here, but be committed. It’s like the difference in how the chicken and the pig contribute to your eggs and sausage breakfast. The chicken makes a contribution; the pig is committed.

The Summit needs more pigs.

2. I only have one life to live, and I want to invest it where I get the most return. 

You get the greatest return on relationships when you invest yourself in one place for many years. Pastors who flit around from church to church always looking for a better deal never really have any impact, and church members who do the same don’t either. I want to plant myself in a place where my family and I are growing in the Word, in relationships and in the use of our ministry gifts over the long haul.

This matters even more to me now as a father. I want my kids to grow up in a place where they will see and experience firsthand the best community of believers I can offer to them. Gospel-centered ministry is an absolute priority; the spiritual health of my family is too important to have them in a place without it.

I also really want us to be in a place where other people are working as passionately for the mission as we are. You see, God set up the church so that our gifts would be maximized when we were using them in concert with a bunch of other people using their gifts. In other words, it is better to go to a place where others live and believe like you so that you can be part of a team than it is to try and be a “Lone Ranger Christian,” the one faithful voice in a dead church. You’ll be much more effective working side-by-side with like-minded believers than you will trying to effect change on your own. And that is especially true if you are a “lay-person.” If you are not part of the lead pastoral team, you very likely will not be able to turn the ship around.

Stay or Leave?

All that to say, I’m not sure how to give you a “litmus test” for when to stay and when to leave. I have known people who felt called by God to stay in a dying place and believe God for its resurrection and actually saw that happen. I’ve known others who tried that and, because they were not in a place where they could really effect the change they desire, “wasted” some great years in a dying organization. I’ve known others who left a dying church and went on to serve God somewhere else, and were greatly blessed in the process. And I’ve known still others who abandoned ship when they should have stayed.

If you think there’s a possibility of change, I’d say stay and make it happen. When you see that there is not, invest your life elsewhere.

Don’t be a consumer. Choose where you invest your life wisely. Sorry, that’s all I got.

Is This Why Your Sermons Are Falling Flat?

By
Charles Stone
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communicating with the unchurched

Every week in North America, pastors preach upwards of 400,000 sermons. That excludes Bible studies taught by hundreds of thousands of Sunday school teachers and small group leaders. I’ve delivered in excess of 1,500 sermons and Bible studies myself. But what difference have they made in people’s lives? Do they mostly fall flat? I suppose I won’t really know until I get to heaven. In the meantime, however, I believe I should learn everything I can to make my teaching and preaching stickier. And nothing sticks unless those who listen to us engage their brains. In this post I share insights about how brain-based preaching can help us avoid the sermons falling flat issue.

Unfortunately, many pastors seldom consider how brain processes influence learning. It’s a missing link in today’s preaching and teaching. I believe it would behoove every pastor to learn how God made our brain and how it affects learning.

In the last 20 years we’ve learned amazing new insights about how God created our brain and how it’s involved in learning. With the advent of the functional MRI (fMRI), scientists can see what brain neighborhoods activate when we think certain things, pay attention, learn and feel emotion. These new insights can pay great dividends to pastors who learn about the brain.

Sometime back I watched a webinar on making learning sticky by Dr. Grace Chang, a neuroscientist trained at U.C.L.A. She began by defining one of the two types of memory, declarative memory. Non-declarative memory is the other kind (think riding a bike: You can’t describe how you do it, you just do it).

Declarative memory, in our context, would be the kind we would want to foster when we teach. We want our listeners to be able to consciously recall the biblical content of our sermons so that the Holy Spirit can take that truth and transform their beliefs and behavior.

Dr. Chang said that three main brain processes compose declarative memory.

  1. Acquire the information (getting it in—called encoding). An example would be what you do to get your sermon into the minds of your listeners (i.e., the spoken sermon itself, visuals you use, dramas to reinforce the point).
  2. Retain the information (keeping it in—called storing). This happens when your listeners actually remember what you said instead of forgetting it when they walk out of the church.
  3. Retrieve the information (using it—called accessing). This is simply application. You want your listeners not only to remember what you said, but to apply the truth in their daily lives as well.

Brain-based preaching is an intentional process by which you consider how people’s brains process information and learn. When we keep the brain in mind, and in particular these three memory processes, I believe our sermons will become sticker and result in greater life transformation.

If you want to read a great article on brain-based learning, I recommend this one.

Next week when you finalize your sermon, take five minutes and ask yourself what you could do to incorporate each of these three brain processes in your sermon to make it sticker.

In fact, don’t wait until next week. What is one small brain-based change that immediately comes to your mind right now that could make this week’s sermon stickier?

I wrote an entire book on how insights about the brain can improve our leadership. It’s called Brain Savvy Leaders: the Science of Significant Ministry. You can get it here.

Why Christians Should Stop Saying “Everything Happens for a Reason”

By
Jarrid Wilson
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communicating with the unchurched

I can’t begin to explain how many times I’ve heard the phrase “Everything happens for a reason” growing up, especially while surrounded by many people who would consider themselves Christians or people of faith. And while I understand that this statement is mostly used to help comfort and console people who are in times of turmoil and uncertainty, I’ve had a hard time wrapping my head around the validity of its meaning.

I come from a place where I believe that not everything in life happens for a reason, but that everything that does happen can ultimately be redeemed and used by God for a purpose (Romans 8:28). These two things are quite different if you begin to unpack their meaning and understanding.

We live in a fallen world, a world full of sinful people, people who are in need of the grace of Jesus. With this being said, we have to understand that there are things in this world that are going to take place that aren’t of God, his character or his doing. He may have allowed them to happen, but he didn’t forcefully direct them. Many might disagree with my last statement depending on their theology, but I hold true to my belief that God does not have his hand in sin, darkness or anything contrary to that of good as it states in 1 John 1:5.

When someone uses the phrase “Everything happens for a reason,” what they could be saying to somebody is the following:

  1. “Your father died of Cancer for a reason.”
  2. “Your son got hit by a drunk driver for a reason.”
  3. “Your child was stillborn for a reason.”
  4. “You were abused as a child for a reason.”
  5. “You were raped or sexually assaulted for a reason.”
  6. “You are struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts for a reason.”
  7. “Your spouse cheated on you for a reason.”
  8. “Your friend was murdered for a reason.”
  9. “Your house caught on fire for a reason.”
  10. “Your friend committed suicide for a reason.”

And so on…

That’s who He is.

When you begin to really look at some of these statements for what they are, the phrase “Everything happens for a reason” seems to make a lot less sense and sound a lot more misleading. But what doesn’t change when looking at these phrases is the fact that God can bring redemption to each of them, use them for a purpose and allow the testimonies that come out of them help further his kingdom. That’s who he is. That’s what he does.

We have to be careful when using lofty statements and responses that sound good for the moment, but can actually be harmful in the long run—especially as it pertains to one’s views on God and his hand in their life. If one really believes that everything happens for a reason, then one has to also ask themselves whether or not they believe God would have his hand in circumstances and actions contrary to that of his Word and character.

—Jarrid Wilson

The 3 Things That Guarantee a Connection With Your Audience

By
Dan Scott
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communicating with the unchurched

Every person in your audience has a personal narrative.

Your life is basically a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. While there are parts of our lives we don’t choose, we do get to decide how we respond to life’s challenging moments, and that plays a major role in shaping our personal narrative.

Your personal narrative is the sum total of experiences you’ve had up to this point in your life. While others have influenced you and helped shape the person you’ve become, you own your narrative.

Knowing this, the fastest pathway to connect with any audience is to tap into the most common denominator: personal narrative.

The latest issue of Entrepreneur features fast-growing trends in business. And guess what’s big? SMALL businesses! Turns out that many small brands have figured out the secret to making a big name for themselves among massive retail stores.

What’s their secret?

Story.

Adam Elder writes, “The key is to tell seductive, inspiring (yet realistic!) stories that resonate, and to give customers what the biggest companies can’t: a sense that Yeah, we get you.”

That sense of “yeah, we get you” is not only great for small businesses, it’s also the best way for a storyteller to connect with an audience. The more you understand the personal narratives of your audience members, the greater chance you will have to engage them and connect your story to their life.

But how can one start to understand the personal narrative of the people listening?

Understand their world.

The small business in the Entrepreneur article did just this. As a camping equipment start-up, they realized that big brands like North Face and Patagonia promoted how their products had been tested in the rigors of Everest-type adventures. While many adventurers envision climbing a “fourteener,” the reality is that most people never camp more than a few hours from home. The camping equipment start-up tapped into the more “local” personal narrative and were able to compete with the big brands.

If you don’t know the world affecting your audience, do your homework:

Do you speak to kids? Watch a few hours of Disney XD. Volunteer in the lunchroom at a local elementary school where your kids attend. Read the books your kids are reading. Learn about their physical and mental development.

Do you speak to teens? Hop on social media platforms that scare you. Check out the shows and YouTube channels targeted at their demographic. Listen to the Apple Music or Spotify top 40 playlists—and don’t skip over the songs you don’t like.

Do you speak to leaders? Talk to them about their schedules. Skim a few books and listen to some podcasts in the genre. Authentically enter into their life and get to know the people you lead.

Make educated assumptions.

Even if your own family matches the demographic of your audience, we only know what people let us know. In other words, you can never fully know someone’s personal narrative. And because of that, you’re going to need to make some assumptions about their life.

If you assume statistics are as true for your ministry as they are in the world:

1 in 5 girls and 1 in 7 boys engage in self-harm
1 in 3 girls and 1 in 5 boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18
20 percent of people ages 18–49 suffer with some sort of mental illness

That means the people we serve might be going through something they’re keeping silent.

This doesn’t mean that we only target our messages to this part of our audience, but at the very least we need to acknowledge these struggles while we seek to connect with each person in the audience.

If you don’t know, ask.

I recently spoke to several groups of teenagers while on a missions trip in Costa Rica. The topic? Sex. That’s right. I had to craft a message for Costa Rican teenagers about one of the most difficult topics for any storyteller—let alone one living in a culture I knew nothing about.

So I asked questions about how this affects them, the pressures they face, and how other people have communicated this topic. I did some homework, and then I went to work building my message.

One of the worst things we can do as communicators is to craft a message or a story without considering the personal narratives of the audience members. Ask the questions before you get started. Do what it takes to help your story connect with the people listening.

In the end, you want to connect with your audience. You want the audience to experience that elusive “Yeah, they get me” moment where your story completely hits home and starts to impact their life.

In the “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories, I used to hate when I thought the story was going somewhere exciting only to find myself abruptly trapped beneath a boulder surrounded by hungry rattlesnakes and “The End” two pages later. I’d have go back, make a different choice, and continue the story to a more fulfilling end.

It’s the same struggle as a storyteller—you have to make a lot of choices—except you don’t get a do over once you’ve lost your audience. Will you simply deliver what you were handed in the way you feel comfortable? Or will you choose to do your homework so you can establish and keep a connection with your audience?

Choose to enter the adventure and tell better Bible stories that keep the story relevant in a person’s life long after they’ve finished listening.

11 Pains of Being a Pastor

By
Chuck Lawless
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communicating with the unchurched

Thirty-six years ago at this time of year, I was talking with a search committee as I considered my first local church pastorate. I was so pumped that I’m sure I was obnoxious around my family and friends. Nobody except a pastor can fully understand the excitement that comes with a first pastorate. What I didn’t know then, though, was that the pastorate often brings its own types of pain:

  1. Some marriages at which you officiate won’t make it. You pray not and work hard in premarital counseling to counter that possibility, but it happens.
  2. Some nonbelievers with whom you share the gospel won’t listen. The pain is great when nonbelievers just keep rejecting the good news.
  3. Some of the seemingly godliest people you know will fall into sin. I’ve done this work a long time, and I’m still shocked at times. The enemy leaves no one off his radar.
  4. Some church members will get mad and leave. The first time it happened in my ministry, I was defeated for weeks. It still hurts when it happens.
  5. Some spiritual heroes will let you down. No one intends for it to happen, but even our long-term heroes are still human.
  6. Some staffing situations won’t work out. That’s when you’re reminded that because you’re a leader, your decisions affect marriages and families. Letting someone go, especially in our ministry world that preaches grace, is seldom easy.
  7. Somebody related to your church may take his or her own life. I’m not sure I have ever felt so inept as when all my ministry efforts didn’t stop this kind of tragedy.
  8. Some people won’t know how to relate to you. No matter how hard you try to prove you’re a regular person, some people will be uncomfortable around their spiritual leader.
  9. Some days will be really lonely. When you’re quietly bearing the burdens of others, the weight can be heavy and the hours long.
  10. Somebody may criticize your family. Even the people we most love aren’t immune from the attacks of church members—some who genuinely mean well, but some who are just plain mean.
  11. Some of your friends may betray you. It happened to Jesus, and it can happen to us, too.

With all these pains in mind, though, guess what? I would still do it all over again. The joys of pastoring are so powerful that I’ll take the risk of these pains any day.

10 Ways You Can Use Twitter to Make a Positive Impact

By
Scott Williams
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communicating with the unchurched

Twitter continues to grow and be a major source of news and connection for millions of people. I remember in they early days when everyone thought it was no more than a fad. Twitter has definitely moved past the fad stage and you can’t turn on your radio or television without someone sharing their Twitter handle. The same is true for all print materials and other forms of advertisements.

Twitter has many great uses and one of them is the fact that it can be used to make a difference. The great thing about Twitter making a difference is that fact that it’s not Twitter at all—it’s the people. That’s right: You and I, along with everyone else that has a Twitter account, are the ones that have the ability to make a difference.

10 Ways You Can Use Twitter to Make a Positive Impact

1. Share a Quote: There is something about quotes that seem to have a profound impact on people and the way they think. Take a quote that’s somewhere in the 120 character range and the impact is elevated to an even higher level, and it’s definitely more memorable. The great thing about quotes is the fact that people love to retweet them and share them. Quotes have multiplication power, due to the fact that every quote speaks to each individual differently. Here is a recent leadership quote that I shared that will speak differently to everyone who reads it: “Leadership is based on a spiritual quality; the power to inspire, the power to inspire others to follow.” —Vince Lombardi

2. Share Scripture: It’s always great to get nuggets of the living, breathing word of God in the world of Twitter. It’s also nice to learn and connect with what other individuals, leaders, pastors and organizations are reading. Not only can I share Bible verses that I’m reading, I can read countless other Bible verses in my timeline throughout the day. In case you didn’t know, Twitter Is In The Bible.

3. Share The Good Stuff: By the good stuff, I’m referring to deals, favorites, coupons, promotions, groupons, retweet-this-win-this, things that can benefit others…  You know what I’m talking about: The Good Stuff.

4. Share Pictures: We’ve all heard the modern use of the old phrase “A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words.” That phrase stems from an article by Fred R. Barnard in Printers’ Ink, promoting the use of images that appeared on the sides of streetcars. The December 1921 issue had an ad titled “One Look Is Worth a Thousand Words.” When it comes to sharing pics on Twitter there are many photo sharing services popping up and twitter’s version of this old phrase is more like: “A picture is worth 1,000 thoughts, 1,000 views, 1,000 retweets…” The bottom line is all of the family pics, random moments, food pics, life moments, children pics, timeless moments, etc. all can impact our day in a positive way. A picture is worth more than 140 characters.

5. Share Your Thoughts: This really gets back to the Twitter basics. The original Twitter question that Twitter asked for your status update was What are you doing? It has now evolved to a more appropriate question What’s happening? Somewhere in between those two questions is the question of What are you thinking? Humans have thousands of thoughts per day and those thoughts can have and impact on our friends in the Twittersphere. Those thoughts can make you laugh, cry, shout, scream and even make you think. For instance, comedian Michael Jr. @MichaelJrComedy tweeted this recently: It’s cold at this soccer game! I know a grown man shouldn’t say this in public, but…I wish I had a snuggie. That made me laugh and smile. Yesterday, my family and I were in the car listening to an old gospel song “I’m Just a Nobody” by the Williams brothers. The entire family was singing the lyrics, laughing, worshiping, ad-libbing and having a good ol’ time. The chorus got stuck in my head, so I shared it on Twitter. Here is the chorus, “I’m just a nobody trying to tell everybody about Somebody who can save anybody!” That thought was retweeted over 100 times and counting. It’s guaranteed that the truth of those lyrics made a difference in someone’s life.

6. Share Words of Encouragement: Public words of encouragement and/or retweets with a nice message at the end can go a long way. I say “encourage and encourage often.” Encourage others and challenge those that follow you to encourage others. Encouragement is the fuel that propels you down the road of success.

7. Share Great Information: Whether it’s the latest trend, newest technology release, a great book, an inspiring Seth Godin article, a Mashable find, the latest fashion trends, questions about a product, a great place to dine in a particular city or the recent release of the College Football BCS results, Twitter is definitely one of the best places to gather and share information.

8. Share a Cause: On a daily basis, I’m either reading or sharing information about a great cause or charity. Twitter makes it simple for us to be helpful to those who are trying to reach a fundraising goal, get information out about a great cause or share information about a movement. The students at Penn State used Twitter as a tool to promote their “Blue Out” event at last season’s football game against Nebraska. The stadium was filled with blue in honor of and in order to bring awareness to the epidemic that is the abuse of children.

9. Share Breaking News: Twitter is a great source to share breaking news. You can almost guarantee that Twitter will be the first or at the latest second place for breaking news. The death of Michael Jackson was trending on Twitter before the major news outlets could even catch up. The ultimate breaking news from Twitter was from the Abbottabad man who unknowingly tweeted the raid and killing of Osama Bin Laden. His initial tweet was this: “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).” 

10. Share Your Lives: I am a huge believer in genuine face-to-face relationships; however, I have embraced the tremendous value of Twitter and social media relationships. Social media relationships are making the world smaller and smaller. This Big ol’ World is getting smaller and smaller, one tweet, comment and post at a time. It’s always important to remember the social part of the word social media. Social is defined as “the inclination to seek out or enjoy the company of others; sociable.” Twitter is a great place to share your life and connect with the lives of others.

Is Twitter Making a Positive Impact? Share your thoughts and experiences with How Twitter Can Make a Positive Impact.

No, Africa Is NOT a Country (+9 Other Common Myths)

By
Amy Medina
-
communicating with the unchurched

1. Africa is a country.

Maybe geography is a lost subject from where I come from, so let me just remind everyone that Africa is a continent. A large continent, in fact.

Perhaps it’s obvious to you that Africa is not a country, but why then do so many people say, “I took a missions trip to Africa,” or, “I sponsor a child from Africa,” instead of saying Uganda or Ghana or Tanzania?

Africa is actually an incredibly diverse continent and is made up of 54 countries. Those countries north of the Sahara tend to be more Arab, those south of the Sahara tend to be more “Bantu” (what you would traditionally picture as African), and those on the Horn (Ethiopia, Somalia, etc.) tend to be a fascinating mixture. But even then, I am being incredibly general, as there are thousands of African tribes and ethnicities that are as diverse as as a European would be from an Asian or South American.

I am going to debunk the following myths with what I have learned by living in Tanzania, since that is the country I am most familiar with. However, keep in mind that I will be speaking broadly, and knowingly countering the stereotypes about Africa with more stereotypes (albeit, hopefully more accurate stereotypes). In any culture or country, people live along a spectrum, and it’s important that we don’t ever lump an entire group (or continent) of people under any particular label. My main goal is to use what I have learned in Tanzania to change the mental picture many Westerners have of Africa.

2. Africans are all poor.

Yes, poverty is a huge problem in many African countries. (Of the 25 poorest countries in the world, only four are not African.) But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any middle-class or rich people. Even though Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world, there are many rich people here. Economic class distinctions are huge, and since the concept of equality is not valued the way it is in the West, rich people are usually treated better and with far more respect and privilege than poor people.


3. Africa is not clean.

It’s true that public areas in Tanzania are often trash-filled and untended. However, that says more about a lack of infrastructure than the character of your average Tanzanian. Tanzanian homes, vehicles and businesses tend to be very clean—much cleaner than what I have often seen in America.


4. Africans do not have access to clothes or shoes.

Maybe that was true in the past. Maybe it still is true in some war-torn countries. But in Tanzania, it is absolutely not true. Fabric is locally designed and printed and plentiful. Hundreds of tons of cast-offs from American and European thrift stores are shipped over and sold in the local markets. I buy most of our clothes here now. There is no lack of clothing—and therefore, no need for you to send over your shoes or clothing. If you are supporting an organization that needs clothes, send money instead and support the local economy.

 


5. Africans dress in rags.

I have found that Tanzanians dress far more professionally and formally than those from my home state of “casual” California—and this is regardless of their economic status. Women hardly ever wear shorts in public, and you rarely find a woman in the supermarket wearing the equivalent of yoga pants with unkempt hair. Dry cleaners and salons are everywhere, and people regularly have their clothes individually tailored. Even those who work manual labor dress professionally for the bus ride and change into work clothes when they arrive at their job. In social situations, I often feel under-dressed.


6. Africans all live in villages.

Like most of the world, Tanzania is rapidly becoming urbanized. We live in a fast-growing city of five million people, and it is predicted to reach 20 million in the next 30 years.

7. Village life would be perfect if white people weren’t messing it up.

So I’m not going to get into the complicated mess of colonialism, but let’s just say that yes, I agree that white people have done a lot of messing up in Africa (to put it mildly). But let’s not swing in the other direction and assume that village life was or is peaceful and idyllic. Of course, beauty can be found anywhere, but female circumcision, child marriages, polygamy, alcoholism, albino murders, women who walk miles to find water, illiterate children, lack of basic health care, and high infant and maternal death rates are not to be sugarcoated by some convoluted notion of the “noble savage.”

8. All Africans are black.

If all Africans are black, then all Americans are Native American. Colonialism happened on both continents. However, European diseases managed to wipe out most Native American populations, and African diseases managed to wipe out most European settlers…and the rest is history. South Africa probably has the most well-known white population, but I also have white African friends from Zimbabwe, Kenya and Tanzania, whose families have lived here for generations. There are also hundreds of thousands of Indian (Asian) families who have been East African citizens for over 100 years.

An Indian (Hindu) wedding ceremony in Tanzania.


9. Poverty is Africa’s biggest problem.

Absolutely, poverty is a huge problem. But I am convinced that worldview is a bigger problem, and specifically how that plays out in governmental corruption. Which is why sending “aid” to Africa (in its many forms) is really just sticking band-aids on a cancerous tumor…and why the gospel offers real hope.

10. Africa has been evangelized.

Northern Africa? Definitely not. Sub-Saharan Africa? Partially. There are still thousands of villages in Tanzania without a church. There are still dozens of languages in Tanzania that don’t have a Bible translation. However, it is true that Christianity has spread like wildfire throughout sub-Saharan Africa in recent decades. Unfortunately, it’s often a version of the Prosperity Gospel.

Missions has most definitely changed in Africa in recent years. Gone are the days of pith-helmet-clad white men tromping through the jungle to preach the gospel to remote villages. In fact, there are far fewer white missionaries who are engaged in church planting and evangelism. Instead, western missionaries are narrowing their focus to equipping and training Africans to do the job themselves. I don’t have statistics, but I’m quite confident there are many more African missionaries in Africa than there are western missionaries. And that’s how it should be.

This article originally appeared here.

Can Pastors and Worship Leaders Get Along?

By
Tim Spivey
-
communicating with the unchurched

Certain ministry roles have more conflict between them than others. Senior pastors and youth pastors, church administrators and youth ministers, for example. There is also sometimes significant tension between the worship leader and the one preaching Sunday. This is obviously not the case in every church, but it is in many churches.

Truth be told, I understand, but haven’t experienced it a lot. I had the unusual experience of spending nearly five years as a worship minister before entering the pulpit. I’m sure that’s helped me empathize with the trials and travails of those called to the lead God’s people in worship. It’s also given me a profound appreciation for their ministry—and I hope that comes through on a daily basis.

In my 19 years of ministry, I’ve been blessed to serve alongside two unpaid worship leaders—and two full-time worship leaders. I hired both of them within a year of my arrival at the churches I’ve served, and we have served together until either I transitioned out (Chad Higgins—who just celebrated 15 years of ministry at HOCC, I believe) or…we’re still serving together (Peter Wilson at NVC). We’ve been not only partners in ministry, but true friends.

I don’t want to leave the impression I’ve never had conflict with a worship leader. However, I have no question the degree of unity between me and the worship leaders I’ve worked with has been an enormous contributor to our church’s success over the years. God blesses unity, and ongoing tension between those leading God’s people in worship and leading them in study of His Word will impact a church—even if they keep it under wraps as best they can.

Here are some things I’ve observed over the years that have blessed my relationship with Chad and Peter. Note that many of these are attitudes, not tasks.

  1. Hire a worship leader you trust at least as much as you trust yourself to plan the service. You need to respect them musically and theologically. If you don’t trust them, you’ll meddle. If you meddle repeatedly, it won’t go well. If you find yourself needing to “guide” things all the time…you’re either a control freak, hired the wrong person or both.
  2. They know what I’m preaching well ahead of time. It is so frustrating to try to plan a service meaningfully when half of it is unknown. One of the best things I can do for Peter is let him know, clearly, where I’m hoping to head from the pulpit. He usually knows several weeks—if not months—out, fairly clearly where we are going. He’ll have a sermon title, text and “big idea.”
  3. I view us as co-preachers of sorts. As I see it, the message is 1 hour and 20 minutes long. I preach 30-40 minutes of it with words. Our church celebrates Communion each Sunday, so that is another portion preached by God’s people as they gather around the table in memory of Christ. There are also prayers and praise. It’s never always about the sermon—it is always about the message. That message is preached with music as well.
  4. Paradoxically, give the worship leader maximum latitude in planning the service. I ask the worship leader to change something maybe twice a year. I’ve only had to “tell” a worship leader to change something twice in 19 years of ministry. Both times it had to do with a significant change to the church that had been programmed into a service. It had nothing to do with the content of the service itself.
  5. Say only what it useful for building up. To them, worship feels like their sermon. Feedback is fine…but constant criticism tears down rather than building up. They need to know, more than anything, they are blessing God’s people and you believe in them. If they aren’t, or you don’t, you need to have deeper discussions. Week to week, there can be suggestions (worded wisely), but the overall conversation needs to have the tenor of partnership and respect.
  6. Realize they are not your D.J. Don’t go to them every week with, “Hey man, we need to do this song.” I do that now and then—but it’s more of an every few months thing. He can take or leave it. I trust him with it.
  7. Integrate your ministries as much as possible. At NVC, Peter does much more than pick songs and lead them on Sundays. He’s involved at a lot of different levels in what God does through NVC. I’m not suggesting you add a lot of tasks to their plate. I’m suggesting you involve them in the bloodstream of the church so they will have the same advantages you have in knowing where the church is when they plan. Don’t give them more to do. Give them more access to what’s going on. It will add seasoning and nuance to their planning. It will also help them understand your ministry better.
  8. Realize there is stress you cannot see. For most worship leaders, the most stressful part of their ministry is dealing with the criticism of the congregation and elders. Second is probably dealing with the personality divas on their team/band. Let me ask: Which of those two do most preachers get full access to? Neither—though they will often hear the criticism “from above” before the worship leader hears it. I’ve found it helpful to inquire if I sense something is going on—and often there is something going on I couldn’t see.
  9. Prepare “together.” I’ve already mentioned that our worship leader is involved in various facets of the church. One of those is sermon series concept. I reserve the right to go where I feel I must. However, I would highly recommend involving the worship leader in the creative process of planning message series. Another way we “prepare” together is through music. When the “set list” of songs for Sunday is published, I build a playlist of those songs—and they become sermon preparation music until Sunday. Those songs work their way into my soul as I prepare, and I get better where we are going that week. It helps me better take off and land the plane—but it’s more important as spiritual preparation. As we sing them on Sunday, it grafts the sermon into my soul even further as I prepare to preach. It’s a small, but big thing.
  10. Enjoy their ministry. I love watching talented ministers use their gifts to the glory of God. Enjoy it!

What might you add to this list? Any “amens” to these?

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