Category Archives: Ministry Stuff

3 Categories of Beliefs, and Why Separating Them is Important

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Beliefs. We all have them. They came from somewhere. They probably started forming in us as young children and have been strengthened through time. Or maybe they’ve changed over the years. Changing a belief or a belief system is a big deal because our minds are wired to think that our beliefs are the correct ones. It’s been said we are creatures of habit. That’s because we believe the way we do things, the way we think, is right.

3 categories of beliefs and why separating them is important GRAPHICObviously, beliefs are very significant in the church. Beliefs are the foundation of our faith. What we believe about God, Jesus, people, the Bible and the Church are of utmost importance. And, as noted, beliefs rarely change. As in the political world, our Christian beliefs, or differences in our beliefs, can be the topic of many disagreements, arguments, and even church splits. That’s why it’s wise to separate our beliefs into three different groups based on their importance. Here are three different categories of beliefs.

Die For
There are several beliefs we should be willing to die for. These are the things that are crystal clear in scripture that are of greatest significance. The nature of God. The work of Christ. The significance of the cross. Beliefs about people, sin and repentance. Beliefs about the Church and the Bible. These are the “die for” beliefs that make us Christians. Continue reading →

Book Review: Pull – Making Your Church Magnetic

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PULL by Bob FranquizOver the past 25 years, there have been many great books on how to make church better. I’ve read many of them and each one offers a unique perspective on the topics of what to do, how to do it and why do it? Bob Franquiz’s book, Pull – Making Your Church Magnetic is a great example of this kind of book.

To give a bit of historical background, there has been much debate in the past two decades on the best way to grow a healthy church. For many years the main method was the invitational approach. In this line of thinking, the “product” at your church is so important and relevant, you merely need to invite people to come and hear the message, and they will show up. And their lives will be changed. Yet more recently, there’s been a different methodology embraced by many. Some suggest an incarnational approach recognizes that people will not respond to an invitation to visit a church. So instead of inviting friends and neighbors, a believer should simply allow God to be formed in him or her, share that experience with others, and they will eventually accept Christ. Volumes have been written about this and other approaches to building God’s Church and fulfilling His Great Commission. This blog entry will not attempt to repeat that.

Additionally, phrases like “externally focused”, “missional”, and “emergent” tend to muddy the water and confuse many. But Franquiz is definitely in the attractional camp of doing church, and Pull gives many specifics on how to make church irresistible. I’ve chosen three themes in his book to point out. Continue reading →

Three Kinds of Church Staff Members

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I once heard someone say, “There are three kinds of people in the world. Those who know how to count…and those who don’t.” In fact, many divide people into three different categories. You know: Those who make things happen. Those who watch things happen. And those who say, “What happened?”

Categorizing people, while typically based on generalizations, and having the potential to lean towards stereotyping, often makes sense. It helps us simplify things. So it is with employees at your church. Here are three kinds of critical church staff people, and thoughts on how best to utilize each type.

Experts
Experts get things done. They are those extremely competent staff people who are highly trained and very skilled at what they do. If you want something done, give it to them. They tend to be a bit more task oriented than people focused, but they get the job done efficiently and professionally. They produce exceptional results. Continue reading →

5 Things To Ruthlessly Eliminate From Your Services

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In his book, Soul Keeping, author John Ortberg tells of his mentor, Dallas Willard, encouraging him to ruthlessly eliminate hurry from his life. I love the term “ruthlessly eliminate” because it’s so needed and because it’s so difficult to do. Pastors and creative teams often come up with new and exciting elements to add to worship services without giving equal attention to what to subtract. A key strategy in creating an amazing worship service is not what’s added, but what’s eliminated. Here are five things to ruthlessly eliminate from your worship services.

ruthlessly eliminate dont-symbolAwkward Pauses
I’ve visited churches where awkward pauses seemed to be the norm. They’d wait for the scripture reader to get on stage, or the choir director to get the choir on and off the platform. Often people would look to the back of the Worship Center to try to figure who was supposed to be on stage and why they weren’t there.

Make sure you have a plan. A typical Order of Service is only the first step. Prepare and follow a detailed Service Planning Sheet to eliminate awkward pauses. Make certain the key players in the service know where they’re to be, what they’re to do, and when they’re to do it.

Uncomfortable Elements
The biggest offender here is the “stand and greet your neighbor” time. Churches have been using this service element in an effort to feel like they have a “friendly” church. If your service runs over 500 attendees, it’s very uncomfortable, especially for introverted and new people. When the Pastor or Worship Leader stands up and says, “Ok everyone, please turn to your neighbor, introduce yourself and say ‘You look great today,’” he might as well say, “Stand up, turn to a complete stranger and say something awkward.”

If you’re currently using the “greet your neighbor” time, please consider new people who probably want to go unnoticed, and introverted people who like to keep to themselves. The negative aspects of this element far out-weigh the positive. Continue reading →

6 Key Areas In Which To Develop Margin

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Ever wonder why some days you seem to handle things better than other days? Why, on a Wednesday, you can deal with a particularly stressful situation, but on a Thursday that exact same situation can push you to your limits? The answer can be summed up in one word. Margin.

Margin can be defined as the space between our load and our limits. It’s the breathing room we all need in our lives. It’s the buffer between where you are on your rope, and the end of your rope. When a person has margin in their life, they can weather the storm. They can get pushed toward the end of their rope, but still have enough left at the end to hang on. But when a person is at the end of their rope, they have no margin. One little thing can push them past the edge. And they fall. Hard.

margin_4The need for creating and maintaining margin is especially true for pastors and Christian leaders. Pastor and author Wayne Cordeiro, in his book Leading On Empty, noted that serotonin (that natural, feel-good hormone) replenishes us during times of rest, and fuels us when we’re working. But if we don’t replenish ourselves, our bodies replace serotonin with adrenaline. But adrenaline was designed for emergency use only. If we run completely on adrenaline day in and day out, we will sooner or later burn out.

The solution is to maintain margin. Since maintaining margin is so critical to leading a healthy life and ministry, here are 6 key areas in which to develop and maintain margin:

Schedule
Allow for extra time in your schedule to deal with unexpected issues that may arise. When something unexpected comes up and you’re called on to deal with it, you can say “Certainly! I’ve got the time.”

Financial
Dave Ramsey and other financial planners encourage people to develop and maintain an “emergency fund” to handle unexpected bills that suddenly come up. Car repairs. Medical bills. Home maintenance. Create a savings buffer. Plan ahead for those financial burdens that come up unexpectedly.
 Continue reading →

Four Critical Details For Multisite Preaching

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The MultiSite Guy, Jim Tomberlin, recently said “The multisite movement began as a radical idea, became the cool idea and now is the mainstream idea.” Indeed, multisite is quickly becoming the new norm for growing churches. And video venues are becoming a well-defined, but often misunderstood strategy in today’s church.

Some attendees might say, “I won’t like a video venue because I want to be in the same room as the preacher.” Point well taken. Sometimes a poor video venue experience can be a turn off. But in a well done video venue, people will get past this potential road block very quickly.

multisite preaching_1I worked in an environment where the video venue experience was done so well that newcomers often wanted to chat with the Preaching Pastor after the service. The Campus Pastor would have to remind the guest that the Preaching Pastor was at a different facility, 15 miles away! The experience was so non-distracting that the newcomer had completely forgotten he was in a video venue. That’s the kind of experience we should shoot for. It takes effort, intentionality, practice, and often money, but it will be well worth it.

When it comes to creating an excellent, distraction free, video venue experience, the old adage is true: “The devil is in the details.” (Unfortunate choice of words, yet still true.) Since it’s the little things that often set poor experiences apart from great ones, here are four critical details that will make all the difference in your video venue experience. Continue reading →

Why Every Pastor Needs A Therapist

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I recently posted a blog (Got Clarity? Part 1) where I talked about the need for pastors to gain an accurate understanding of God, self and circumstance. I mentioned that in order to get an accurate understanding of yourself, it’s helpful to have a therapist. I’ll expand on that thought a bit and give two reasons why every Pastor needs a therapist.

Pastors are no different than anyone
One thing I’ve learned about Pastors – once you look past their exterior, they’re human. Pastors deal with the same emotions, fears, and insecurities as anyone. The Bible says “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?”(Jeremiah 17:9). We all need help in figuring out our heart’s motivation, navigating the storms of life, and maintaining basic mental health, even if you’re a pastor.

For example, I know of a church that holds an annual, county-wide Mental Health Summit. Every fall, over 500 mental health professionals and concerned community leaders from county agencies, local police departments, educators, and the faith community all come together to discuss mental health issues and the stigma that is often associated with them. From the turnout, it’s clear that many in our communities, including Christians and Christian leaders, can benefit from intentionally pursuing mental health.

Pastors are very different from everyone
therapy1Even though in some ways, Pastors are just like everyone else, they are very different in many, many ways. The role of Pastor is extremely unique and has many distinctive characteristics that make the job unlike any other. There’s a unique spiritual element that brings spiritual attack from the enemy. And there’s also the perceived need to be a great preacher, compassionate counselor, strong leader, wise mentor, dynamic vision caster, eloquent communicator, Biblical theologian, and frugal financial manager. That’s a lot of pressure and even though Pastors are typically very gifted, no one can do it all. Continue reading →

Got Clarity? (part 2)

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Clarity_3In my last post – Got Clarity? (part 1), – I talked about the need for clarity and gaining an accurate understanding of God, self and circumstance. Today I will address clarity of systems. Ministry systems can get bogged down due to lack of precision, so today I will focus on 3 key areas of ministry that truly need clarity.

Communications
You have a piece of important information you need to run by your superior before a monthly meeting. But it took longer than expected for you to complete. Now you find your supervisor is out of the office until after the meeting. So your project is on hold for a month until your whole team can communicate on this one item.

Sound familiar? In my 29 years of ministry, I’ve often seen poor communication systems slowing ministry progress. Solution: Intentionally formalize your communication strategy. Don’t rely on hallway conversations or last-minute emails to confirm important information. Set up a system to organize your inner-office communications. But everyone needs to participate, or it won’t work.
Continue reading →

Got Clarity? (part 1)

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2020-vision-logo-glassesA few weeks ago I got new glasses. I like the way they look. But that’s not why I bought them. My last pair was several years old and my vision had changed a lot. I was constantly taking off my old pair of glasses to see things close up. Even then, my vision was blurry at best. My new glasses have given me better than 20/20 vision. Everything is much clearer now.

Clarity is important in life too. We measure the clarity of water and we carefully examine the clarity of diamonds before we buy. Seeing clearly is important and it seems that wise leaders are always seeking greater clarity. But it’s not always easy. The Apostle Paul said that comprehending reality in this life is like seeing a blurred image in a mirror (1 Corinthians 13:12 GW).

I’ve always felt that it’s very important to have an accurate understanding of God, self and circumstance. So I want to look at these three areas and offer one simple suggestion to gain greater clarity for each.

Continue reading →

The Power of Focus

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Today I’ll look at probably the most difficult aspect of implementing a simple strategy for church health. It’s called focus. Focus is difficult because if you focus on one thing, you have to say “no” to something else. And we don’t like to say “no.” We don’t want to hurt feelings, reject ideas, or crush dreams. But many churches will remain largely ineffective until we embrace the concept of focus. So take a look at the idea of focus, by considering this simple acrostic, F.O.C.U.S.

Forsake
The power of focus is not just in what you focus on, but on what you don’t. The object of your focus should be the only thing you pay attention to. When couples pledge themselves to the other in marriage, they promise to “forsake all others,” and let their spouse be the focal point of their attention. In order to focus on someone or something, you have to forsake everyone, or everything else.

Optical
Focus is a vision word. It deals with optics, the scientific study of sight. Try this quick experiment. Hold up your finger six inches in front of your nose. Focus on it for five seconds. Now, keeping your finger there and without turning your head, focus on an object on a wall directly across the room. Now focus on your finger again.

focus_1When you were focusing on your finger, the wall on the other side of the room was technically in your field of vision, you just didn’t see it. Likewise, when you focused on the wall, you didn’t notice your finger. The point is, you see what you focus on. If you want to see clearly, focus is a non-negotiable.

Continue reading →