Category Archives: Healthy church

How a small church can grow

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“It doesn’t matter to the Lord whether He saves by the few or by the many” (I Samuel 14:6).

Depending on a number of factors, growing a small church may well be  one of the more do-able things a pastor can achieve.

Those variable factors include…

–the health of the church.  You don’t want a sick church to grow; it needs to get well first!.  I once told my congregation, “There’s a good reason no one is joining this church.  I wouldn’t join it either!” I went on to explain that the Lord was not going tolet us grow until some people got their hearts right with Him.

Believe it or not, those words were inspired and the people received them well, and repented. This was followed by three years of dynamic fellowship and constant revival.

–the attitude of the congregation.  If the people are satisfied with the status quo, outsiders will not be made welcome, I’ve known Sunday School classes composed of a small cluster of best friends who felt imposed on by visitors and new members.  No one wants to go where they’re not wanted.

–and the location of the facility   A church situated five miles down an isolated road, at the end of the dead end trail, can almost certainly forget about growing.  Yes, it’s been done, but rarely.

—the will of the Father.  God may well have plans He has chosen not to reveal to us.

The great thing about pastoring a reasonably healthy, small church is you can make a big difference in a hurry.

My seminary pastorate had run 40 in attendance for years. The day that congregation called me as pastor, I overheard one man saying to another, “This little church is doing all it’s ever going to do.”  I was determined to prove him wrong.

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When the pastor exceeds his expiration date

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Of all the questions church people send my way, this may be the most difficult.

Our pastor has been here umpteen years.  He has lost his vision and his energy, and the church is dying.  The numbers are down considerably, and yet the church is located in a growing area.  We love him and are so grateful to God for his ministry over the years. But isn’t there a limit to the loyalty thing?  At what point does a pastor need to be told that his time here is up?

There are no simple or easy answers to this.  Handled wrongly, this matter can destroy a church, inflict a terminal wound to a veteran minister, and hurt his family in lasting ways.

On the one hand, the minister is there by the Lord’s doing. Paul tells us the Holy Spirit makes the pastors/elders the overseers of the church (Acts 20:28).  We do not want to casually hurt God’s servant since our Lord Jesus said, “Whoever receives you, receives me” (Matthew 10:40).  Now, we are not equating today’s pastors with Moses but throughout Israel’s wilderness wanderings, it was clear that the Lord took personally the treatment/mistreatment of His man by the people.

I think that’s still the case.  When people mistreated God’s prophets down through the ages, He interpreted that as an offense toward Himself.

So, we always want to try to honor the Lord’s servant, even if he is undeserving at this particular moment.

On the other hand.

We feel a strong devotion to the health of the Lord’s church and the need to protect it.  Anyone who is depressing the church, blocking its mission, sapping its strength, and deadening its soul needs to be dealt with, even when that happens to be the undershepherd himself.

So, what is a church to do?

Pray for wisdom. Pray for understanding to know what to do. Pray for courage to be able to do it. Pray for the pastor to get his act together.  Pray for the church leadership to be faithful and responsible. Pray for the membership as they respond to their leaders.

Pray for the Lord’s will to be done in this and everything.

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The painful putdown can be a gift in disguise

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As we sat at the breakfast table discussing memories good and bad, my Bertha said something so special I wrote it down just so I’d get it right.

We have a wagonload of memories of God’s people who have loved us and cared for us. But we also have painful memories that we wish we could edit out of our lives.  But the Holy Spirit has shown me that if He took out the pain and strife, He would also be removing the lovely things that happened during that same time. Or, that happened as a direct result of the bad event. 

It brought up a painful memory from my junior high days.  A teacher said something really harsh that forever left its mark on me. Over the years as I have sometimes reflected on that incident, my primary focus has been on the painful hurt he caused.  I’ve thought about that teacher, why he said what he did, what it meant, and how I took it.  But I realized something from what Bertha said.

He helped me.

The teacher who scarred the kid 

I was a new student in that school.  There were a hundred of us seventh-graders from across that part of the county, and that day we had been herded into the gymnasium. The band director–Mr. Keating was his name–called us to order and announced that today we would be electing class officers.

Now, for four years I’d gone to school in rural West Virginia and then we moved back to Alabama in time for my sixth grade in a two-room rural (I mean really, really rural!) school.  So, now, we would ride the bus on into the county seat of Double Springs, AL for the rest of our schooling.  Junior high and senior high classes were all held in the same building.

Of the hundred students in our class, perhaps half lived there in town. Since the rest of us were from across the county, only the town kids knew each other.  So, when class officers were chosen, they nominated people they knew.  As a result, the town kids were nominating one another. Only they were being elected.

So, I raised my hand.

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Ten biblical truths you might not want to hear

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From the beginning, the Lord’s people talk a better game than we live.

So many biblical truths look good on paper and sound great when we’re spouting them.  And yet, judging by the way we live, the Lord’s people probably do not believe the following…

One.  God sends the pastor to the church. 

Churches survey their congregation to find the kind of pastor everyone wants in the next guy.  People lobby for a candidate they like and rally against one they don’t.  And they vote on the recommendation of their committee.  And after he arrives, when some turn against him, they send him on his way.

Do we really believe God sends pastors to churches?  They are God’s undershepherds (see I Peter 5:1-4) and appointed by the Holy Spirit as overseers of the church (Acts 20:28).

Two.  God hears our prayers, cares for our needs, and answers our prayers.

In the typical congregation, what percentage of the people are serious about their prayer life?

If we believed that God hears, cares, and answers, we would be praying over every detail of our lives.  “Pray without ceasing” (I Thessalonians 5:17) would define our very existence.

Three. It is more blessed to give than to receive.

God wants His people to be givers, generous in every area of life.  As a member of the church, He wants us to be sacrificial givers.  (See I Corinthians 8:1ff).

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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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First two chapters of our book “A Healthy Church”

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(We are posting the first two chapters of our book A Healthy Church.  At the conclusion, we’ll tell how to order the book.)

CHAPTER ONE:  HOW TO SPOT A HEALTHY CHURCH IN 30 SECONDS 

Something about those children intrigued me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

For several weeks during my daily walk on the Mississippi River levee, I had been noticing three small children playing in their yard which joined the green expanse of the levee.

They seemed unusually happy and physically active, which the pastor/grandfather in me found charming.

The oldest child might have been seven or eight. There was a younger brother and a little sister.  The yard held all kinds of play equipment.

No matter how cold it was, they were out there laughing and running, jumping and hiding, having a big time.

You could hear them a block away.  They were always enjoying themselves and seemed to love one another.

“Whatever the parents are doing,” I thought, “it’s working.”

Then one day I noticed something different.  Another kid had joined them, and they had several large-wheel vehicles on top of the levee which they were riding down into the yard.  Two women sat near the house keeping an eye on them.  One was the mother, I assumed.

As I drew closer, the children coasted off the levee, all except the oldest boy.  He looked up at me and said, “Hi.  I’m Harley.”  I was so taken aback, I had to ask, “That’s your name?” It was.

I said, “Hi Harley.  My name is Mister Joe.”  He gave a big grin and said, “Hi, Mister Joe!” Then, off the levee he went.

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Scars on the pastor: It’s an occupational hazard

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“From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17).

“…I bear branded on my body the owner’s stamp of the Lord Jesus” –the Moffett translation.

“…I bear on my body the scars that mark me as a slave of Jesus” –Goodspeed.

At Mississippi State University, the Kenyan student carried horizontal scars across his face.  “Identification marks for my tribe,” he explained to me.  Wow.  Tough clan.

We were returning from the cemetery in the mortuary’s station wagon.  The director and I were chatting and perhaps could have been more observant.  We did not notice the pickup truck coming from our right and running the stop sign at 30 or 40 mph. We broadsided the truck.

My forehead broke the dashboard.

I bled and bled.  And got a ride to the hospital in the EMS van.

The emergency room people decided I had suffered no serious injuries and taped up the two gashes in my face.  At the wedding rehearsal that night, I sported a large white bandage on my forehead, just above the eyebrows. It made for some memorable wedding photos the next day.

That happened over forty years ago and I still carry the scars.  Interestingly, no one notices that they’re scars. They’re situated in the same place one might have frown marks.  But if you look closely, you can see they are scars.

I would not have those scars if I were not a minister.

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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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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 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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