When leaders are afraid to lead

“Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you….” (Jeremiah 1:8).

A friend asked, “Why is it taking our church so long to get a new pastor?”

I said, “In my opinion, your search committee is afraid.  They know that certain members of your congregation are quick to pick apart any candidate who isn’t like (a previous pastor, now in Heaven). And they don’t want to take that chance.”

What would you say if I said most leaders of our churches operate from fear?

You would wisely ask how I know and where I got such information or arrived at such a conclusion. I would have to admit that I do not know this for a fact, that it’s from observing churches and their leaders all these decades. As a pastor of six churches for forty-two years and a minister for over six decades, I am well-acquainted with the practice of operating from fear.

What “operating from fear” looks like

–Leaders operate from fear when they poll the congregation to see what they want in the next pastor, the kind of program they want, what the next building should be, or what the congregation should do about some community issue.  In almost every case, it is safe to say that the congregation does not know what it wants.  We should quit asking them.

Lead or get out of the way.

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How the preacher can sound really smart

“I speak as a fool” (2 Corinthians 11:23).

Now, the solid born-again, God-called messenger of the Lord has no wish to sound particularly smart.  True, he does not want to come across as ignorant, but he is not insecure, has nothing to prove, and is not there to impress.  He is a messenger, delivering the word of God, then getting out of the way.*

However, a less than solid preacher just might want to impress his hearers.  An insecure, insincere preacher–one working for the paycheck and seeking the prestige some people bestow on a pastor–might want to bolster his image by dressing up his presentation in some way, and could use some assistance. That’s where we come in.  We can help.

Herewith then is our list of tricks which a poor preacher might want to employ.

Tongue in cheek, of course.

One. Insert the occasional Hebrew or Greek word into your sermon.  This is not hard to do, now that we have the internet.  If you really want to sound smart, after saying, “Now, in the original, the Greek word is” whatever, then you will want to say something like “in the pluperfect aorist tense, of course.”  No one will know you have no clue what you’ve just said, but it doesn’t matter. It sounds good, and that’s the point.

Two. At least once in every sermon, say “As my seminary professor used to say…”  You’ll find great quotes on the internet to attribute to the anonymous teacher.

Three. Google Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, and find something good he said.  (He said a lot of quotable stuff, so this won’t be hard.)  In quoting him, be sure to pronounce his name correctly, otherwise the one person in the congregation who knows who he was will badmouth you and your efforts will be for nothing.

This also works for the German preachers Helmut Thelicke and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Unfortunately, it does not work for Joel Osteen or John Hagee.

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Pastors: What not to do regarding search committees

We’ve written on this website regarding pastor search committees and how they should be approached by alert pastors.  Perhaps it’s time to say a word on what not to do regarding these church leaders determined to find a new leader for their congregation no matter how many bruised and bleeding ministers they have to leave in their wake.

Just to be safe, you may wish to go ahead and plant your tongue firmly in your cheek.  While the subject is serious, my treatment of it will be only partially so.

Okay. Pastor, you’ve been invited to meet with the search committee from the First Church of Butterfly City, and you’re plenty excited.

You’ve been at your present church a number of years now and have about run out of ideas, patience, and life-savings.  A change would not only be good, it might save your life, your ministry, your marriage or all three.   In fact, your wife might start believing in God once more if you told her He was transferring you to a new church.

Now, pastor, simmer down.  Do not let yourself become too excited….

First, pastor, you must not assume anything.

–Do not assume the Butterfly committee has done its background checks.  It’s completely possible they may begin tonight’s meeting with, “And who are you again? And where are you serving?”  Assume they know very little about you.

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The best pastor is a broken man

The best kind of pastor is not one who has always had it all together.

The best shepherd of the Lord’s people is one who knows what it is to go astray and be found, to fall and be picked up, to be wounded and to heal, to sin and be forgiven.

If you have ever sat in a congregation where the pastor is without sin, where his sermons show no indication that he knows what it is to be tempted, and where no allowance is given for the human condition, then you know that is no place for a sinner like you.

As a sinner–one whose heart is a rebel, whose mind strays from the paths of righteousness more often than you would like to admit, who constantly needs to repent and receive God’s mercy–you have no business in a church made up of perfect pastors and sinless members. You stand out like an invalid at a body-building contest.

The best pastor is one who has sinned and been taken to the Lord’s woodshed for a time of discipline and chastisement. He will know how to warn the children from straying and to bind them up in love after they have learned life’s lessons the hard way.

The best pastor is one who has been in trouble and doubted and came close to slipping, but at the last minute was rescued by the hand of God. He will value the Lord’s mercy.

The best pastor is probably not the kind your pastor-search-committee is looking for. But it should be.

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Dear Pastor: Our search committee liked you. However….

There is no scriptural precedent for pastor search committees that I know of.  Yet, they are a necessary evil, if I may be permitted to say.  The alternative seems to be bishops appointing pastors or church bosses hiring them.  Both methods have been tried and found wanting.  But so has the search committee system been found to be flawed. There is no foolproof method.

“We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

These days, some churches are hiring firms to conduct the initial searching and culling for them.  If they have found this system to be an improvement over the spontaneous-committee-of-the-untrained, I haven’t heard.

Pastors eventually conclude that search committees come in all shapes and sizes, all theologies and philosophies and agendas.  Ministers learn to take what they say with quite a few grains of salt.  Committees often function like the local chamber of commerce, giving their community and church the glamour treatment to the point that even their own members wouldn’t recognize it.  They make promises they never follow through on, and ask all kinds of ridiculous questions they ignore once the questionnaire is returned.

Not all, of course.  Once in a while, a pastor discovers a gem of a committee.  I once told such a team, “The Lord is not leading me to your church, but I want all six of you in my church forever!”

Alas, those are the exceptions.

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What search committees say when they mean something else

Never volunteer for the pastor search committee unless one of two things is true: Everyone agrees that a beloved former staff member, who is now serving a church in Podunk, is going to be the next pastor, making this the easiest job ever–or, you have a death wish.

It can be the hardest, most thankless assignment you’ll ever undertake.

It can also make a world of difference for good in a church that needs just the right combination of visionary pastor, anointed preacher, competent administrator, and down-to-earth friend.

If your church is selecting such a committee, pray big time for the Lord to lead in filling the slots. Never volunteer for it.  Accept it if the Lord leads you and those making the decision.  If you are a member of such a group, then this little piece is for you.  Think of what follows as a cautionary note, exaggerated in places, attempting a little humor at times, but with much truth.

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Those game-ending questions search committees ask

What started this was something my young friend Josh said.

Josh, who grew up in my last pastorate and is now a medical student, is a veteran contestant on game shows and quiz programs. At the age of 11, he was a contestant on Jeopardy.  As a student at the University of Southern California, he hosted his own television program on the campus station.  Later he was a contestant on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? In between, he did The Wheel and several other shows.

The question that tripped him up on Millionaire went something like this: “At 7’7″, (name) is the tallest player in the NBA.  But he is slightly shorter than what portion of the Statue of Liberty?”  The choices were her right arm, her eye, the tablet she is holding, and her finger.  Using his final lifeline, Josh asked a buddy to help him, and they missed it.  Anyway….

Josh said veteran contestants (like himself) have a name for that kind of question, but perhaps he shouldn’t tell his pastor.  I said, “Come on. Give.”

“We call that a Go To Hell question.”

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Help! Our committee is taking too long to find a pastor.

A friend wrote, “What do we do when the pastor search committee is taking so long that people are leaving? Some of our leaders are panicking.”

This is not a rare phenomenon. It happens.

The typical Southern Baptist church can expect the search process to take anywhere from 6 months to a year. If the church has unusual circumstances–a terrible reputation, poor finances, a history of infighting, or several candidates in a row have turned the committee down–the process could take longer than expected.

When people start leaving the church because no pastor has been found, seizing the first preacher available and recommending him is the worst of all possible options.

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The pastor goes before a search committee

There is no established manual for search committees.

There are no laws on how these things are to be done.

The Bible has no search committees and thus no guidelines for them.

So, the result is often a mess. A hodge-podge of arrangements and a plethora of assortments.

So, lower your expectations, pastor.

And buckle your seat belt.

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Lack of integrity in a pastor is a deal-breaker

I was the student minister in a fine church many years ago.  We had a wonderful ministry. The single negative about the entire experience was the pastor. You never knew what he would do next.

Case in point. One night in a church business meeting, the pastor announced that the property the church owned, including the former pastorium, was being offered for sale. At the time, my wife and I were living in that house! And now we learn they’re selling it. This was the first we had heard of it.

That night, my wife was angry because she thought I had known about it and not told her. But that was the way this pastor worked.

Staff members were nothing to him. Just pawns to be manipulated.

I sat there listening to longtime friend Will tell of that experience from some years back and thought once again that the number one trait a staff member is looking for in his/her new pastor–employer, supervisor, and hopefully  mentor–is integrity.

Without integrity, nothing matters.

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