Category Archives: Church Leadership

When we backslide, a dozen things happen. All of them bad.

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“The way of the transgressor is hard” (Proverbs 13:15)  

What started this was a note from a fellow who took issue with something I said about the church.  He had no use for the church, he said. Every church he’d ever attended preached a shallow message, the sermons were mind-numbingly boring, and the people were dull and listless.  After venting, he wondered if I’d be interested in some essays he’d written about the church.  (Would it surprise you to know I declined?)

In our exchange, I said, “Could I tell you something that happened to me?  Even though I’ve been preaching for over half a century, at least twice during that time, I have gotten out of fellowship with the Lord.  What we call “backsliding.”

And when that happened, I noticed something surprising.  I became negative about my fellow church members and critical of the other ministers.  Then, when I humbled myself and repented, I saw them in a new light and found myself loving them. That was a fascinating thing to learn.

This was as gentle a way as I could find to tell the man that my money is on his being in rebellion against God. In his backslidden state, he is understandably down on the Lord’s people.

Backsliding.  Interesting term, isn’t it?  It says what it is, and needs little explanation.

You’re saved, you love the Lord, you’re doing well, and then you fall into sin one way or the other. Perhaps you slipped or you plunged headfirst, knowing full well what you were doing.

Now, look at you.  God seems so far away, and the closeness you once had with Him is only a distant memory.

You remember with longing when you felt so close to the Lord, so clean and pure, and so happy in Him.  You delighted in reading His word and perhaps in teaching it.  You loved gathering with the Lord’s people and singing the hymns and praying together.

But not now.

You are miserable.  You put up a false front and act like all is well. But something in your heart has died. The light has gone out.

What’s wrong?  You have fallen into sin.  The joy has disappeared, replaced by guilt and anger.

A backslidden state is a miserable place to visit but a terrible place to live.

When this happens, a hundred things take place in your life.  None of them good.  Here’s my short list of the bad things that occur when we are backslidden….

1) The rebel is holding Jesus in contempt. 

The Lord takes your rejecting Him personally. Your turning to sin is an insult.

When Israel fell away in Old Testament days, the Lord sounding like a spurned lover, said, “What fault did you find in me? What did the idols offer which I cannot give?” (cf.Jeremiah 2:5)

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The Lord told you church would have its hardships. What–you didn’t believe Him?

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“In the world you will have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

We were expecting hostility from the world.  But certainly not from the Lord’s people.

Church is where we get blindsided.

The Lord wanted His people to know what to expect.  The road ahead would be rough.  They should prepare for turbulence.

The Lord would not be bringing His children around the storms but through them.  We will not miss out on the tempest, but will ride it out with Jesus in our boat, sometimes standing at the helm and at other times, seemingly asleep and unconcerned.

The lengthy passage of Matthew 10:16-42 is the holy grail on this subject, as the Lord instructs His children on what lies ahead and what to expect.  His disciples should expect to encounter opposition, persecution, slander, defamation, and for some, even death.  So, when it comes–as it does daily to millions of His children throughout the world–no one can say they weren’t warned.

But what about the church?  Should we expect opposition and persecution there also?

Jesus said, “they will scourge you in their synagogues” (10:17), which is where the faithful were meeting to worship.

He said members of our own households–parents, siblings, offspring–would lead the opposition at times. They will “cause them to be put to death” (10:21).

He doesn’t specifically say “the church,” but surely all of the above includes it.  And that’s where the typical believer runs into a buzzsaw.

Church is where we get blindsided.

We knew opposition would come from the world.  Scripture makes this plain.  But in the church?

A pastor told me his daughter no longer goes to a church of his denomination. After seeing how leaders of his congregation treated her father and then lied about it, she wants no part of this any longer.  The wonder is that she goes to church at all.  Many PKs grow up and write the church off.  “I love Jesus,” they will tell you, “but not the church.”

I grieve at this.  But I understand it.

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Some churches are ignorant of God’s Word. And you are the new pastor.

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“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3:18).

The pastor had been called from his rural church to another part of the country. He was excited about the new challenge, as he well should have been. In a parting comment to a friend, he assessed the state of spirituality of the church members he was leaving behind:

“There is enough ignorance in this county to ignorantize the whole country.”

What happens when a pastor gets called to a church like that? A church where the members and leaders alike do not know the Word of God and have no idea of how things should be done (what Paul called “how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God”–I Timothy 3:15), or why it all matters.

A church that exists to condemn sin and sinners, that knows only slivers of Scripture, that sees ministers as slaves of the whims of the congregation, and that is ready to reject as a liberal any minister who wants the church to feed the hungry in the community, take a stand for justice, or invite in the minority neighbors.

We wish we could say such congregations are few and rare, but they aren’t.  Veteran preachers have stories of those churches, tales of run-ins with those leaders, and scars from the battles they have waged to set matters right.

–One pastor told the group of ministers meeting in his fellowship hall, “This building is actually owned by a member of the KKK. We rent it from him.”  The rest of us were naive and thought the Ku Klux Klan had died out ages ago. Here they were living among us in our own southern town.

–One lady visible in church leadership told her pastor, “I don’t know what the Bible says but I know what I believe.”

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When the cheering stops and it’s all over, what then?

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Some years back Gene Smith wrote a book about the final years of Woodrow Wilson with the intriguing title, When the Cheering Stopped.

At the end of the First World War, Wilson was the most popular man on the planet. When his presidential entourage traveled to Europe for the Versailles Conference, crowds acclaimed him everywhere. He was hotter than the Beatles or Elvis ever were. That enthusiasm lasted about a year.

Woodrow Wilson suffered a paralyzing stroke on October 3, 1919, and was incapacitated for the remaining five years of his life. His party lost in the 1920 elections. And Congress refused to ratify membership in the League of Nations, a cause dear to Wilson’s heart.

His star had ascended and flared brightly, then had burned out and fallen to the earth. One wonders what Mr. Wilson thought about during all those months in which his mind was working but little else. He had much to regret and surely must have suffered great remorse.

The Second World War, it has often been noted, resulted from the botched up job the Allies did at Versailles and over the next few years.

The question for us here is “What does a leader do when he comes to the end, hands the reins to his successor, and leaves the field? When he/she looks back and thinks of the mistakes made, the people hurt, the jobs left undone, how does one handle this?”

Sean Payton, the Super-Bowl-winning coach of the New Orleans Saints football team and now coach of the Denver football team, had something to say on this.  His book  Home Team: Coaching the Saints and New Orleans Back to Life presented Payton’s take on rebuilding his team and recapturing the hearts of the WhoDat Nation after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The problem Coach Payton faced in the days leading up to the big game was how to motivate the team and keep them focused on the job at hand. Just getting to the Super Bowl is a dream most players never realize.

And that’s the problem, Payton realized. If his team was just glad to be there, they had lost their focus. There was still one more game to be played, the biggest game of their careers.

Here’s what happened.

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How to spot a fake

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In the latter months of World War II, as the Allies were closing in on Germany, the Nazis developed a ruse that worked well for a while.

They would find German soldiers who spoke English well and dress them as Americans. They would arrange for them to be “lost” and to rejoin the Allied forces as they moved forward. Their task: to infiltrate the American troops and assassinate Generals Eisenhower and Patton.

In time, the good guys developed some tests for exposing the fakes. One German was cut down by the Americans when they saw how he was walking. He was ramrod straight whereas all our troops slouched when they walked.

Another group learned to address the soldier using “pig Latin.” If he was stymied by that, he was exposed.

And they developed questions. Two, I recall, were: Who is Betty Grable? and What position did Lou Gehrig play?

The answers were: movie star/pinup girl and first base for the Yankees. It was understood that every GI in the world would know this.

If you have been in the warfare against the forces of righteousness and the enemies of all that is good and holy for any period of time, you have come up against counterfeits and pretenders, fakes and shams.

The question is, how do you tell? And what should we do about them?

Across the world, untold millions of Christians cannot afford a Bible and have trouble feeding their families. And yet, here in this country, some preach that following Jesus is the road to great wealth. They drive expensive automobiles, live in million-dollar homes, and think nothing of investing a small fortune in clothing and jewelry. They give a pittance to missions overseas and when confronted, will drag out a few children they have assisted to silence critics.

Are they fakes? Absolutely.

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Word wrangling: the preachers’ rodeo event

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“Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers.” (II Timothy 2:14)

I’m not sure most of us preachers fully believe the scriptural command to avoid word-fights.

After all, aren’t some words worth wrangling over?

“Wrangling about words” conjures images of cowboys at the corral trying to tame a bucking theological term that won’t hold still.

It’s an interesting translation of the Greek logomacheo, with the logo meaning “word” and macheo referring to fighting.  “Wrangling” is as good a translation as any. Maybe “wrestling,” or simply “fighting over words.”  (Logomacheo is found only here in the New Testament, but the noun logomachia, found in I Timothy 6:4, is translated “disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth….”  A little free information there. )

Be that as it may, many of us preachers do love to argue about words.

Wonder why that is.

The Apostle Paul suggests the problem is our “depraved minds.”  Those old natures do enjoy a good dare, a challenge, a fight.

A pastor friend said, “When I was a young pastor, there is nothing I enjoyed more than arguing with another preacher about some issue or other.”  He grew out of it, thankfully.

Well, why shouldn’t we love a good fight over biblical words? Here are some reasons why Paul says it’s a bad idea….

–it’s useless. (2 Timothy 2:14).  That is, it settles nothing.

–it leads to the ruin of the hearers. (2:14 again)  The word “ruin” is literally catastrophe which means “destruction.”

–And, according to I Timothy 6:4-5, such wrangling leads to “envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction.”  Looks like some excellent reasons to avoid that corral and leave those mavericks to someone else.

A couple of current stories about word-wrangling which may (or may not) make the point….

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The pastor should be the host of the church service

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“…fulfill your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:5).

That morning as I had breakfast in the hotel dining room, a tall blonde lady entered the room and called out, “Good morning, everyone.” I figured she had to be the hotel manager.

She was.

Terri told me later–as I sketched her–she had been on the job just two weeks. “Before, I managed a hotel in Opelika,” a few miles down the interstate.  I complimented her on the way she greeted people. And I told her something.

I work with pastors. And I end up reminding some that they are the manager of this enterprise. They are the chief greeter. The mood-setter.

The pastor is the actual worship leader. No matter who else wears that title.

A word to the pastors among us….

You have a unique opportunity as the undershepherd of the Lord’s flock.  You are the overseer (See Acts 20:28 and I Peter 5:2-3).

This means you are in charge.

Get out there and greet people.  Be confident.  You are the daddy in the room.  Act like it. Make sure needs are being met, that your staff is on the job and carrying out their assignments, and that visitors are greeted and assisted in finding their way.

I am not suggesting you act like a boss, but rather, that you show yourself as the chief servant, here to bless everyone, make sure each person is feeling a welcome in the house of the Lord, and seeing to any questions or difficulties.

A visiting evangelist pointed something out to me.

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How to be satisfied with your church, no matter what it does.

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“What did you go out to see?” (Luke 7:25)

“What do you want me to do for you?” (Luke 18:41)

The other day during the worship service at our church, I had a revelation.

I realized something that had eluded me before.

I know the secret of people who are never dissatisfied with what goes on in their church no matter what it does.  These people are fine with everything.

They like the pastor and never complain about the programs of the church. In fact, you’ll not hear any criticism coming from their direction.

I think I’ve found their secret: They don’t require much of the church.

That’s it.  That’s their mindset.

These are my notes hastily jotted down in that worship service: “The key to surviving the upheavals in the modern church is to need less and less from your church.  That way, no matter what happens you will never be disappointed.  Will never be hurt. Will never be offended.”

This would likewise be true of one’s membership in the denomination.  Or anything else for that matter.  Even your marriage.

I’m serious.  (I know it sounds like there should be a punchline following, but this is not a joke. Stay with me here.)

Such people go to church, they sit through the service, and they may or may not connect with what’s going on down front. And since they don’t expect much, do not require anything from the service or the pastor, therefore they do not leave with an empty tank or a dissatisfied spirit.

They’re just putting in time.  Just checking it off.  “We go to church every Sunday.”

Not requiring much means not expecting much.  After all, if we expect little and that’s what we get, we’re never disappointed.

Such church members are never disappointed.

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How to solve church problems before they happen!

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The number one reason most church problems do so much damage is that the people in the know, those charged with leadership, have not anticipated these things and done the hard work necessary to head them off.

Good preparation will end most church problems before they arise.

Here are 10 rules–principles, suggestions, guideposts, lifelines, call them whatever you wish (call them anything except “laws”)–which, if implemented, can stop the next church split in its tracks and allow this healthy church to go chugging on down the tracks while the devil sits there scratching his head, wondering, “Wha’ happened?” (Old comic book image there)


1. Get your people to praying. 

Prayer is not brackets with which we open and close meetings. Prayer is not tipping our hat to the Almighty to let Him know we are aware He is eavesdropping the proceedings. Prayer is not a formality to be gotten out of the way so we can get on with the good part.

Prayer is calling on the Lord of Heaven and earth to help us, to guide us, to protect and fill and use us. Prayer is accessing Heaven’s power and God’s wisdom for earth’s work.

Once a war breaks out, it’s not too late to pray. But it almost is. It’s never too late to pray, but far better to have been earnest in our praying when matters were in hand and nothing ominous loomed on the horizon.

Prayer for believers is like weight-lifting for athletes: you do it faithfully in the inner room so when you face the opponent you are strong and ready.

This is not a one-time act by a preacher to turn his church into a prayer/powerhouse. It will require many sermons, his example, changes in the order of worship, constant teaching and reminding, and creative plans and challenging reminders for his people.

2. Update your church constitution and bylaws.

These documents are not a strait-jacket to limit the church. Not a shackle to hamper a congregation from doing what it wishes. And definitely not simply a legal document to be turned over to the lawyers in the congregation.

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Ugly behavior in the name of Jesus

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I’m remembering an incident some 15 or more years back which seems to have set the pattern for all the years (and politics) since.

President Obama’s health care plan had been passed by Congress and a lot of people were unhappy about it.

What stands out in my memory is how ugly some people were even while presumably occupying the high ground morally. (Let your mind dwell on that for a moment.)

As congressional leaders worked their way through the crowds surrounding the U.S. Capitol building–security and police were everywhere–curses were being spat in their direction by these champions of the unborn.

The gay congressman heard, “Fag!” yelled at him. The N-word was hurled at Congressman John Lewis, a hero of the Civil Rights movement if one ever existed. And we’re told that in the House of Representative itself, a congressman yelled out, “Baby killers!” to those voting for the health-care legislation.

I was in Springfield, Illinois, watching this on television from my hotel room in between worship services at one of our churches. The pastor and I were discussing the behavior of the demonstrators.

This reminded him of the time a deacon hit him in the face and “busted my tooth.”

I said, “I have to hear this story.”

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