It’s the little things about pastoring that drive ministers to early graves.

…there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches (2 Corinthians 11:28).

Pastoring God’s people can be exhausting.

Even when you do your best to serve God by ministering to His people, some are not going to give you the benefit of the doubt on anything nor forgive you for not living up to their impossible expectations.

You didn’t do it their way, weren’t there when they called, didn’t jump at their bark. They don’t like the way you comb your hair, your wife did not speak to them in the grocery, your children are just too perfect.

Such members are the exceptions, true. I say that to those who wonder why we overlook the 98 percent of healthy members and focus on the two percent who drive us batty.  It’s the two percent of drivers who are the crazies on the highways and ruin the experience for everyone else.  It’s the two percent of society who require us to maintain a standing police force to protect the citizenry.  Rat poison, they say, is 98 percent corn meal.  But that two percent will kill you.

I confess it as unworthy of a child of God that I remember these difficult moments with God’s headstrong people more than the precious times with the saints.  Perhaps it’s because the strained connections and harsh words feed into my own insecurities.  Or maybe it’s because there are so many more of the blessed times.

Even so, here are two instances from my pastoring journal that stand out…

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10 lessons on leading God’s church, all learned the hard way

Anyone who begins to pastor a church should recognize two big things:  There are lessons to be learned if you are ever to do this well, and most of them are learned the hard way.  Your scars will attest to your education.

Most of this is counter-intuitive; that is, not what one might expect.

One. Bigness is overrated.

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

Most pastors, it would appear, want to lead big churches, want to grow their church to be huge, or wish to move to a large church.  Their motives may be pure; judging motives is outside my skill set. But pastoring a big church can be the hardest thing you will ever try, and far less satisfying than one would ever think.

Small bodies can be healthy too; behold the hummingbird or the honeybee.

A friend says, “At judgement, a lot of pastors are going to wish they’d led smaller congregations.”

Two. The pastor’s lack of formal education is no excuse.

The pastor of the small church will often have less formal training and education than he would like. Not surprisingly, he sometimes feels inferior to his colleagues with their seminary degrees. I have two thoughts on that…

–It’s a mistake.  He can be as learned as they are and more if he applies himself.  Let the Lord’s preachers not be overly impressed by certificates on the wall or titles before their name.  Better the preacher who’s got it on the ball than one who’s got it on the wall!

–He can get more formal education if he decides it’s God’s will and if he is willing.  Seminaries and Bible colleges have online programs that make advanced education practical and affordable.

My dad, a coal miner and the oldest of a dozen children, had to leave school after the 7th grade and entered the mines at age 14. But he never quit learning.  He took correspondence courses and read constantly. When God took him to Heaven at almost 96 years of age, Mom had to cancel four or five magazine subscriptions he was still taking and reading.

Some of the finest preachers of God’s word had little formal theological education.

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When church committees begin to jump the track

“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.  Pastor Josh Carter 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.

A friend texted to say that her nephew, an associate pastor of a church–a young man with seminary degrees and several years of experience–had just received a visit from the congregation’s personnel committee. According to them, the minutes of the business meeting in which he had been hired several years back identifies him as a youth director, not associate pastor. Thus they are cutting his pay and hours commensurate with that position.  My friend wrote, “He has plaques on the wall from the church identifying him as associate pastor.”

Veteran pastors know precisely what’s happening here.  What it “ain’t” is a committee trying to be true to the original vision of a staff minister.  What it “is” is some folks deciding to do an end run on the pastor and trim the sails of a staff member, with the end result being to run him off.

Make no mistake. That’s what the point of this is.

Rogue committees. Maverick committees.  They are all the rage these days, it seems.

At what point, we wonder, does a small group of nice church people start to “go bad?”  Can we spot the trouble-signs in order to be prepared for their jumping the tracks?

Are there identifying and tell-tale signs to watch out for?

Here are several we have identified. You’ll think of others.

–1. The chairman says, “I thought it would be best to discuss this without the pastor (and/or staff) present.”  Now, unless they are planning a surprise party for the preacher, nothing about it is good.

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20 things a pastor can do to get past a rough time

Some power clique in the church is on your case.  Some church member is leading a movement to oust you.  The church has a history of ousting pastors every so often and it’s time, and some members are getting restless.

Or, perhaps, as the pastor, you did something wrong and it blew up in your face.  People are calling for your head.

Or, you failed to act and some cancer has gained a foothold within the congregation and your job is in jeopardy.

What to do now?

It would be foolish to try to offer a panacea here, a cure-all for what ails the church.  And I don’t mean this to be that. But here are 20 steps which many pastors can take to right the ship and set it back on track (to mix metaphors)….

1)  Don’t hesitate to apologize if you need to.

“I blew it, folks. I’m sorry.”

Apologies should be as public as the act was public.  If you did one person wrong and it’s known only to that one, go to him/her and admit what you did and ask for forgiveness.  If your mistake was churchwide, stand in the pulpit and take your medicine.

2) Don’t hesitate to seek advice from the best Christians you know.

Ideally, you already have a mentor or two, older and wiser veterans whom you call on from time to time, and whom you can call for counsel now. The advantage to your having a continuing relationship with mentors is that they will know your situation and will not require a lengthy background when you call them.

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That room in your house no one else knows about

“I’ve got a secret!”  –Popular television game show of the 1950s and 1960s, with a few attempts to revive it in later years

A man I know wrote of the secrets his family was harboring as they struggled to deal with an addictive, out-of-control relative.

“You know how the family gets ready to host a guest and the house is clean and in order and nothing out of place?  The guest is impressed.  He wishes his house could be this neat and organized with nothing out of place.”

“But what he doesn’t know is that there is one room where you have stored all the junk and clutter.  If he were to open the door to that room, he would be amazed.”

That, he said, is how things are for a family that tries to keep up an image when they are about to come apart.

They push things back into that private room, whose door they dare not open.

It’s about family secrets.

“Everyone has them,” he said.

One of our deacon families was hosting a gathering of church members. Their home was so neat and orderly.  I was amazed at the lack of clutter.  They ought to see my house, I thought.  But they had no stack of newspapers, no unread magazines lying around, no stack of books to be donated to the library or returned there.

When I asked our hostess about this, she surprised me.

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What to do when your church changes

These days in my retirement ministry, most of the churches where I’m invited to preach have these things in common….

–Few men are wearing a necktie or suit.

–The platform is covered by all kinds of musical instruments.

–Huge screens are mounted on the front walls, where the words of songs and scripture are projected.

–Some in the congregation read Scripture from their phones.

–Worship leaders often wear jeans and sneakers.

–In the announcements, you hear of mission trips to foreign countries, regardless of the size of the church.

–Fewer and fewer hymns are being sung, and when the old ones are brought out, they’re given new treatments. Mostly, though, what’s being sung in worship was written in the past twenty years..

The times, they are a-changing, friend. 

And they are not through changing either. So you youngsters should not get too attached to the present innovations.

If you cannot adapt, you may find yourself dropping out of church altogether.

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The hazardous art of predicting the future

“And it happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a certain slave-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortunetelling….” (Acts 16:16)

Some culture writers and half-serious columnists do it for fun, giving forecasts on life in the future.  Some, like meteorologists, work at it seriously to protect  lives. It helps to know the hurricane in the Caribbean may be headed our way or that the tornado season is upon us.

But then, once in a while we come upon those strange individuals who believe they are endowed with supernatural gifts of prophecy and fortune-telling.

If you are one who believes you have such a gift, I have a word for you….

Give it back.

Newsweek of January 1, 2000, reported on a prediction from 98 years earlier.  In the 1902 Atlantic Monthly, economist John Bates Clark wrote “Looking Back on the 20th Century” in which he projected himself into  the year 2000.  He concluded we would be seeing….

–strawberries the size of apples and oranges growing in Philadelphia.

–Moving sidewalks through pneumatic tubes in order to transport people

–No more slums

–War and poverty eliminated.

–A near “pot-hole free expressway of progress” for all of mankind

–Wealth evenly distributed

According to Mr. Clark, “Humanity has it made in the shade” by the start of the 21st century.

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10 ways a pastor can know he’s lazy

My friend and mentor Dr. James Richardson used to tell of a neighboring pastor who constantly griped about how busy he was.  “That was the laziest preacher on the planet,” said James.

In reflecting on over sixty years of service in the Kingdom, I suspect that what sometimes comes across as laziness is more a lack of focus.  When a minister goes through his days without a clear purpose other than reacting to everything that comes up, he will accomplish so little that he and others may see him as lazy.

Here are a few ways a minister can tell he is lazy.  (Synonyms would include apathetic, lethargic, sluggish, slothfulness.  But “lazy” communicates, doesn’t it?)

1. Procrastination. You cannot bring yourself to do the unpleasant tasks, but keep putting off the difficult tasks.

I’ve read that successful people in the business world determine to tackle the hardest, most unpleasant jobs first. They get them out of the way so they can enjoy the rest of their day.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?

That would take a self-discipline many of us lack.

2. Impatience. You will not do any ministry that is not easy or does not have an immediate payoff.

If that family down the street says they want to join my church, okay, I’ll go see them. However, if they do not go to church and show no signs of ever wanting to, and a friend suggests we call on them, the lazy pastor will beg off. He just cannot bring himself to do it.

When my daughter lived in a small New Hampshire town, one day I walked with my granddaughters to the Baptist church two blocks down the street.  I informed a staff member that the daddy had no interest in church and the mother, my daughter, was working and going to school all the time, but these children would love church. And they needed a loving congregation.  When I returned home to New Orleans, I wrote that pastor two letters.  Not only did I never get a response, no one ever reached out to my family.  I confess I find it hard to imagine how these people thought they were serving God.  In my mind, they were working for a paycheck and little else. Am I being too harsh?  Maybe so.

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What wears pastors down, ages them prematurely, and uses them up too quickly

Betrayals.  Disappointments.  Constant conflict.  Second-guessing everything you say.  Griping.

This week a pastor texted to say while he was out of town the deacons met to revise the bylaws and make the preacher answerable to them.  They conspired not to tell the pastor about this until he returned home. But someone thought he ought to know, called him, and now it’s all hit the fan.  The chairman of deacons is saying if the pastor pushes his opposition to this it will split the church and will be his fault.

You feel like banging your head against the wall. How crazy is this!

It wears preachers down.

Most church members have no clue that the constant murmuring (the KJV’s favorite word for it) among the flock is offensive to the Heavenly Father, upsetting to the good people in the congregation, and burdensome to the minister.

Moses is a great case study for us.  For forty years–think of it!–he gave faithful leadership to the people of God who, far from appreciating him, were relentless in their eroding, grinding, burdening undermining, questioning, and outright opposition.  Scripture gives a reason for this:  Throughout the flock was a group of strangers, aliens to the faith.

These people were the root of the problem.

Scripture says when they left Egypt’s slavery, a mixed multitude went up with them (Exodus 12:38).  Some translations call them “rabble.” Since the Hebrews were not the only slaves of Pharaoh, when God threw off the shackles it must have been like a massive jailbreak.  All who wanted to leave Egypt joined the Exodus.  And since this Moses fellow seemed to have a glorious destination in mind, with no other place to go, the “mixed multitude” decided to accompany the Hebrews.

This bunch became the source of a thousand headaches for Moses.

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The abrasive Christian

“The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth…” (Second Timothy 2:24-25)

In Lynne Olson’s book Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941, she has this interesting depiction of Harold Ickes, a member of FDR’s cabinet during the Second World War:

“According to T. H. Watkins, Ickes’ biographer, ‘a world without something in it to make him angry would have been incomprehensible to him.’ A disgrunted Republican senator who had been the target of one of Ickes’ verbal assaults called him ‘a common scold puffed up by high office.’ To one cabinet colleague, Ickes was ‘Washington’s tough guy.’ To another, he was the ‘president’s attack dog.’”

Olsen tells how an assistant secretary of state once refused to shake hands with Mr. Ickes and described him in his diary as “fundamentally, a louse.”

Having such an irritating person in high government office is one thing; having them in church leadership is quite another.

I’m remembering a woman had a reputation for being a strong witness for the Lord, even to the point of teaching classes on faith-sharing.

One day I called her office following up on something her boss had told me.

I was amazed by her reaction.

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