Category Archives: Church Leadership

The Number 1 failing of church finance committees when money is scarce

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“Prescribe and teach these things.” (I Timothy 4:11)

“Ladies and gentlemen of the church staff, we your church’s financial leaders have called  you together today to inform you of some unfortunate changes we’re going to have to make since our church’s offerings have been running low.”

That’s how the ministers on the church staff regularly learn of cuts being made in the budget, their ministries, their income, their benefits.

The church contributions are running low, so the committee looks for a place to cut.

This is how it’s done. And it has to be the worst way imaginable to deal with a financial crisis in the church.

There are several problems with this machete approach….

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How to change the culture of a church

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“I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18).

I received a note from a young pastor in another state, along with his resume’. He said, “I’d be interested in coming to your city to pastor. However, I do not want to waste my time on a congregation of self-focused, carnal and complacent church members. I feel led to pastor a church poised for growth, where the people want to reach the lost for Jesus.”

I wrote back, “That would be nice. But if we ever have such a church, you’ll have to get in line, friend.  Every pastor in the country will be clamoring to go there.”

It would be nice to serve a church made up of spiritually mature and responsive believers.  It would be heavenly not to have to lead troublesome business meetings where the deacons want to go one direction, the personnel committee another, and the congregation wanting nothing to do with either.

Most churches I know are not “poised for growth,” but are dealing with issues of one kind or other.

That’s why God has to “call” pastors to these churches. No one knowing what he is doing would voluntarily go to any of them.

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Perfectionism: The cruelest burden we place on one another

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“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect….” (Matthew 5:48)

First, let’s get the theological argument out of the way.

Let’s make this perfectly clear: God knows you are not perfect and will never be this side of Glory.

And even clearer: “God does not expect sinlessness out of you and me. He is under no illusion about us.”  See Psalm 103:14 “He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.” And Romans 3:10 “There is none righteous, no, not one.”

Got that?  The illusion of sinless perfection is all ours, my friend.

We read Matthew 5:48 and come away with the erroneous conclusion that God ordered us to be perfect, that perfect means sinlessness, and therefore we can be sinless.  But since we cannot achieve perfection–no one you know has ever pulled it off–then He has given us an impossible standard to live by, one that crushes us and frustrates us and forever disappoints Him.

The result would be that we forever live with a disgusted God and in fear of the celestial woodshed, the destiny of children who bring in failing grades.

Yuck. What kind of theology is this?  And yet, you and I know people who believe this and call themselves Bible students, serious disciples of Jesus, and even evangelists (“sharers of the good news”)..

Now, let’s drop the other shoe here…

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When church committees begin to jump the track

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“Then the chief priests and the Pharisees formed a council and said, ‘What do we do? For this man does many miracles. If we let him alone, all will believe on him” (John 11:47-48).

After watching the Lord Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, the religious leaders were faced with a choice. They could either do what the common folk were doing and worship Jesus, or not.  My friend Josh Carter, pastor in Memphis, points out what they actually did: they formed a committee.

By creating a committee, we hand off the assignment–the decision on what to do and how to do it–to a group of “others.”

Sometimes that works out.  Often it doesn’t.

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Keeping one’s word: So simple, so difficult. My story.

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“I shall come into Thy house with burnt offerings; I shall pay Thee my vows” (Psalm 66:13).

During seminary days, I served a little church on Alligator Bayou some 25 miles west of New Orleans.  We moved into an apartment in the back of the church and lived there for the next 30 months.  The Cajun culture was a new experience for this Alabama farm boy and the church proved a blessing from beginning to end.

In prayer meeting one Wednesday evening, someone asked a question about a scripture. I said, “I don’t know, but I’ll look it up and get back to you.”  Afterwards, Earl, a middle-aged member of the church, pulled me off to one side.

“The pastor before you was always promising to look up something and get back to us. But that was the last we would hear of it.  If you tell someone you’re going to get back to them, pastor, do it.”

Earl, as I was to discover, could be a little caustic in his counsel, but he was on target with this.

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What preachers want most and pray for hardest

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“My heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation” (Romans 10:1).

Nothing affirms a pastor more than seeing people come to Christ and becoming new creations. That’s why ministers whose churches are regularly baptizing new believers cannot wait to tell you about it. They’re not bragging–well, okay, most of them aren’t–but rejoicing.  It feels like, “Finally! I’m getting this right!”

Likewise, nothing weighs down a minister and makes him think he may be spinning his wheels like seeing no one responding, no lives changed. It’s days like this when he looks around for something else to do with his life–take another church, find another career, go back to seminary, something. It feels like failure.

To be sure, the Lord is always at work, doing things beneath the surface unseen by human eyes. And anyone who ventures to do anything by faith–to worship and give, to serve and preach and minister–must go into it knowing that he/she may not see the results in this lifetime, and believing that the Sovereign Lord can use the weakest vessel and the poorest voice.

And yet.

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The preacher has a sports addiction

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“Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (I Corinthians 10:31).

The way to tell you are keeping your love for sports in balance is that when your team wins, you do not become obnoxious and when it loses, you do not sink into great depression.

The number one way pastors know they’re keeping loyalty for their team in check is church members have no idea which is their favorite.

And the way you tell your love for your team has gotten way out of line is–pick one or more–a) your constant reference to it in conversation, b) your repeated reference to the game or the team in sermons, c) the displays on your office wall, d) the “stuff” in your home, e) the bumper stickers and other identifying items on your car, and f) the way you bob up or down emotionally depending on what your team did yesterday.

Pity the church whose pastor is in bondage to his love for a football team.

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

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Recently when we said on these pages that the church’s pastor search committee should not settle for second best, but hold out for the one person the Heavenly Father has in mind for the church, a friend wrote, “What do we do when the 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 to overcome, 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.

The church leadership should consider the following….

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The day the Seventh-Day Adventist came to visit.

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“Therefore, let no man act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day–things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ” (Colossians 2:16-17).

I’m not sure why some people want to fight over which day of the week to worship. Why not worship Him every day?

Let’s thank the Lord for every day of every week, praising Him that this one also is “the day He has made” and declare that “we will rejoice and be glad in it!”

But some people choose one day for special religious duties and insist that everyone else should too. Those who don’t are disobeying Scripture, disappointing God, and deserting their duty.  According to them, such backsliders are in big trouble.

People making an issue over the Sabbath need an answer.

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Great opportunity; many obstacles; where’s the door?

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“For a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries” (I Corinthians 16:9).

(See the postscript for a story illustrating this text.)

Ain’t that the way?

You spot a great opportunity, the adrenalin flows and your heart races. You seize it and begin to make plans to do this wonderful thing in a big way, when suddenly, out of the blue, you’re blindsided by opposition and adversaries.

“Dear Lord, just as soon as you send a huge opportunity with wide-open doors and no problems in my direction, I’ll be back.”

Just as soon as everyone is on board and the naysayers are all gone, as soon as my mama agrees and the vote is unanimous, and when the resources are in the bank and old Mr. Crenshaw quits fighting it, yessirree–we’ll be right there to do this thing you’ve laid on our hearts.

That’s how our heart feels. That’s the counsel our fears give.

Paul was in Ephesus and having a great ministry, one lasting several years. This work was characterized by all three facets he mentions in this verse–great opportunities, open doors, and many obstacles.

Sounds like life, doesn’t it?  Great opportunities, open doors, many obstacles. It is indeed.

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