Archive for the ‘Church Chat’ Category
Over the past few months I have been asked about my opinions of Todd Bentley and what has come to be known as the Lakeland Revival by both family and complete strangers. Although I’ve been trepidatious, I’ve remained somewhat silent in my conjecture up to this point. And actually, I am not going to start now.
All I want to do is draw your attention to an article by J. Lee Grady, an editor for Charisma Magazine. He offers some challenging questions from church leaders and Christians in general who long to see the supernatural power of God at work in our nation and around the world. Here is one quote from the article that just about somes up my feelings on all that has transpired.
I blame this lack of discernment, partly, on raw zeal for God. We’re spiritually hungry—which can be a good thing. But sometimes, hungry people will eat anything.
Please click here to read the article in it’s entirety.
Well, not actually considering. In fact I am already sold on the idea of small groups. I believe very strongly that true spiritual growth comes from life experiences with people. I believe in small groups because I believe we never truly open up to a large group of people but we may in a small safe environment. Small groups are a great place to be vulnerable, open and raw. It’s also the place where you learn that you aren’t the only one struggling and gain perspective and empathy.
So that is all the stuff I do know. What I don’t know is if there is one right or wrong way to develop a small group structure. I don’t know if small groups should be study based, mission based or fellowship based. I don’t know is they should specialize in one or dabble in all three. I don’t know if we should insist on specified curriculum, let each group make it up as they go, or a combination of both.
So that is what I don’t know. Here is what I pray. I pray that everybody who considers LifePoint their home will get involved in a small group. I pray that they will establish relationships that will comfort them through hard times and challenge them to live the life Christ is calling them to. I pray that these groups will not become the destination but a launching pad for a greater walk with God. I pray I don’t screw them up.
Over the next week or so I will be sporadically posting on my thoughts and decisions concerning the future of small groups at LifePoint. Fell free to share your thoughts.
I have come to pray a prayer every morning. Sometimes out loud and sometimes it’s just floating around in the back of my mind. God, what is my part in all of this? It isn’t always a question of uncertainty. In fact it is usually a calibration or an alignment of sorts. It’s the question that always reminds me that I am not the grower.
This always leads to me trying to understand what my role actually is. This may seem obvious to everyone else but just recently God told in a very clear way, exactly what my role is. And I still got it wrong. He told me that my role as a pastor is to be a facilitator. And here is what I got out of that at first. As you read this you will see how stupid I can be at times.
I thought he meant my role was to facilitate his work. Like I would go before him and remove the barriers. I, for some odd reason, thought I would help God reach people. I know this sounds ridiculous but in the moment I thought it was crystal clear. Maybe you still think it makes sense. If so, here is what God actually meant.
My role is to facilitate people’s journey. I come before them and try to remove the barriers and distractions that commonly get between them and God. My role is to help people reach God. Do you see the difference?
The first one assumes God needs to do more to reach people when actually he has all ready completed the task. God isn’t stuck or standing by unable to reach the ones he loves. He’s right here, fully available. People just don’t see it. They are distracted with politics, social issues, imperfections, judgments, unforgiveness, false faith, and so much more. My role, in the hordes of disillusion, is to yell at the top of my lunges…Jesus is the Way!
One says let me help God get it done. The other says, Thank God, it is done.
Have you ever seen two pastors who are equally gifted and talented. Two pastors who love Christ and his church just as much as the other. Two pastors who have devoted there lives to God’s work and yet have found themselves with very different levels of success. One church is thriving while the other struggles to pay the bills much less impact people. I have and for the longest time those stories have scared me to death.
The reason it scares me so much is because I have a need to succeed. I am generally not content with just being obedient. I have to be successfully obedient. So when I hear stories like the one above I am scared to death I won’t be successful in the work. When I start thinking like this is when I am in danger of sabotaging what I and what God desires to happen. This is the point when a pastor gets responsibility confused and stops being a sower and tries to take on the role of the grower.
I have done this myself many times. I take the reigns and tell God that I will take it from here. Maybe it’s not that obvious but that is what it comes down to. It’s not that I love Christ or his church any less. I am simply over focused on the immediate while God sees the infinite. I see what we have on our plate today while God is well aware of the impact it will have into eternity.
I’ll leave the growing to God and simply trust him to make of the seeds I sow not a tree but a forrest.
As I look back over the past year I am becoming convinced ever more of something that I have always known. God builds his church…not people. People can do everything right through strategies and systems and accomplish nothing. Other people can do everything wrong according to the “status quot” and yet flourish.
The reason is very simple. God builds his church…not people. The longer I serve God the more I realize that this is true of everything when it comes to him. It is the Holy Spirit that brings people to repentance not my clever sermons. It is the power of God that changes lives not our 12 step programs. It is by Christ we are saved not by our ability to color within the lines of righteousness that other have drawn.
Somewhere we have confused the seed sower with the church grower. Do you see a difference or am I way off base? I’ll be writing about my thoughts but I would love to hear yours as well.
I love it when people from LifePoint questions what they have believed about church. Sometimes they come to these huge revelations while other times they are just slight deviations from the current path. Jenny has been doing just that over at her blog. Here are the topics she has covered.
Take some time to check them out and offer some comments.
Many people, who do not really know me, think I have it all together. I think part of me likes that. Sometimes it’s nice to be looked at as the stable one in a storm. I think it must be how Peter felt when Jesus insinuated that he was a rock (Matthew 16:16-18). “That’s right! I’m Peter…a solid rock…stable…strong. Jesus is going to build his church upon my shoulders.” But much like Peter who later proves that he doesn’t get it, we miss the real point of the passage.
When I read that passage this is what I hear.
Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are just Peter, but on that rock, that revelation, that truth that was revealed to you, on that I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. - Matthew 16:16-18 (italics are my additions)
I like being thought of as the stable, together, rock solid leader of LifePoint but the truth is I am not. I live in a world of uncertainty. I question everything. My abilities, my decisions, my qualifications. There is nothing about myself that I am really sure of except for one thing.
I am certain that God can do what needs to be done despite my deficiencies. There is a huge message of hope to me as a pastor in the above passage. I am just James, and God isn’t building his church upon my shoulders, he is building it upon the firm foundation of Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God. And his church is built daily as that revelation is dispersed among the people.
So for those of you who might not know me that well yet, when you see me as stable, strong, and rock solid…it is my certainty in Christ and not in myself.
I am well aware that everyone struggle with contentment issues. Sometimes it’s hard to be satisfied with a life that seems to be going downhill fast. I am just want to share some of my contentment struggles.
I am satisfied with my wife, my income, my apartment and my overall standard of living. I don’t have a lot but I have enough and I realize the only reason I have what I do is through God’s provision. There are however some areas where I am not so satisfied at times. I will share just a few.
- Time - I never have enough. My work takes up 50 hours a week which leaves very little time for leading a church and giving my wife all the time that she deserves. It’s frustrating when you know all the things that you need to do but then come to the realization that you can’t do it. This is sometimes multiplied when no one else sees how important those things are.
- Relationships - This is closely tied to the time issue. Because I am so busy juggling the different hats I am required to wear I rarely have time to cultivate my relationships with even my closest friends much less establish new ones. I am trying to make this a priority but it’s hard. That’s why it’s listed here as a struggle.
- Sleep - Again tied to the time issue. I have to be up a 6 am to go to work and then early evening meetings. After that it’s usually a little time with my wife. Once she goes to bed I have time to work on church projects and any personal things I want to do. So I stay up until midnight. 6 am always comes to soon.
Here is the point. As everybody knows, especially bi-vocational pastors, time is limited. We, and by that I mean I, have got to learn to make the most of the limited time that I do have and trust God to accomplish what I can not. He is usually better at it anyway. I truly believe that he lets me be a part for my benefit and not his.
So how do you deal with these struggles?
There is trend that you can follow about me right here on this blog. When I am not writing frequently it is usually because I am struggling. When I haven’t written something within a couple days it means that I am out of focus, distracted, burned out, mixed up and any number of other things. It is at these times I just feel lost.
Pastor, do you have these seasons? Church goer, do find that sometimes you pastor seems distant or disconnected? I am sure this is not an uncommon occurrence at any church or for any pastor. But I am not any pastor. I am the pastor of LifePoint. I am bi-vocational. These are my struggles.
Each Friday, at least for a little while, I will share my bi-vocational struggles. At times I will share solutions I have come up with and other times I will have no solutions whatsoever. Your suggestions and opinions are welcome and in fact desired. My desire is to process some of my struggles so that I can grow and hopefully provide encouragement for those going through similar situations. I would love to also be able to share a little bit of perspective for those who attend churches with bi-vocational pastors. Below is a list of items I will touch on over the next several weeks. If you have any other struggles that you would like discussed please comment and I will try to address them. Here is my list so far.
- Managing various roles
- Wasting days off
- Covered up by meetings & happenings
- Juggling Relationships
- Protecting the family
- Discouragement
- Building a team
- Embracing failure
These are just a few of the topics I will be looking at. Again, if you know of something that is not on my list but ought to be, please comment. Until next week…
In my previous post I shared how many times pastors and leaders follow the coolest churches and pastors on the interwebs while at times not giving enough attention to Christ our true leader. In this post I want share some things that distract me from that very thing and a few ideas on how I plan to deal with it.
- The Internet - This is one of the most effective time and focus stealers for me. I make my living working on it and then I come home I spend a great deal of time on it some more. Let me break it down for you item by item.
- Blogs - I subscribe to 86 blogs. Now granted, 22 are work related and 8 are just for fun, but that leaves a whopping 56 blogs related to pastors, churches or ministry related topics. My strategy - Cut the clutter. Most blogs of mega-church pastors are on hold. I am not saying that they are not great blogs but they are not useful to me in this particular season. There are a few that I will read that have consistently provided me with spiritual and professional encouragement. As of the writing of this post I have already cut 23 blogs from my daily reading and more cuts are coming.
- Email - I am addicted to checking my email. The strangest thing about it is I rarely ever get anything so interesting that would warrant my interest. Definitely nothing that couldn’t wait. My Strategy - I am going to pick three specific times when I will check my email. Once in the morning when I get to work, once in the afternoon at lunch and once during the evening. That’s still probably two times too many but I have to start somewhere.
- Random Projects - This is another huge category that gets me off track. I am an obsessive compulsive project driven individual with A.D.D. That means I always have to be in the middle of a project and when I am bored with that project I have to be in the middle of another project. No project = Kryptonite. I am aimless and many times unmotivated when I don’t have a specific project at hand. This is usually what drives me to the internet to read blogs and check my email incessantly. My Strategy - This one isn’t easy. I have to make a list of what is most important to my leadership and turn them into various projects that I can jump in between. Even dealing with the issue of this post has become a project. In another post I will write of the struggles of being a project driven individual.
What does all this do? It removes somethings that I have allowed to distract me from my purpose and gives me a chance to spend more time doing the things that are most important. What are these things? Time in my bible, prayer and meditation. I would say that this should be 75% of my allocated “church work” time.
