Pastoral Transitions (When Asked to Leave)

Making a change in pastoral ministry is challenging for any pastor and his family, even when they have chosen the time to make that transition. However, a staff pastor and family who are released from their present ministry and must make a transition to a new place of ministry face a different situation. Thus the question, “How should a minister respond, act, and live if he is asked to leave his pastoral ministry?”

Ministers have been released from staff ministry positions for various reasons: decreased church income, downsizing of pastoral staff, the phasing out of a particular ministry position or consolidating church ministries. Regardless of the reason(s) for ministry release, this type of transition can be traumatic to the pastor and his family. Because of the emotional, financial, spiritual, and family issues, this topic must be addressed to help ministers and their families who have been asked to transition from their church ministry. Having been through this type of transition myself as a staff pastor in the past due to pastoral change and staff downsizing, I share some insights that will help edify and support the minister and his family who are in transition.

The ministry family leaving a church may experience emotional stress, financial strain, grief, and a sense of frustration. The exiting staff pastor may question the effectiveness, value, usefulness, credibility, future, and potential of his ministry. Income may be an issue, especially if the staff pastor was the major wage earner in the family. There will also be the question of health insurance. Because health costs can be expensive, health insurance is a necessity. If a transitioning staff member lives in a church parsonage he may wonder, How long can we live here? These are just a few of the concerns that a transitioning staff pastor will be forced to address. What follows are a few suggestions that will help the transitioning pastor and family.

1. Affirm your personhood as a Christian.

God loves you. You, your ministry, and family are valuable to Him. He knew this change would take place before you were asked to make your transition. He has confidence that, with His help, you will make it and your future will still be bright. He knows this is a traumatic change that affects your life, finances, ministry, self-perceptions, spouse, and children.

2. Continue growing in your personal faith walk with God.

You will need to grow spiritually through this situation. Don’t become stuck on, Why is this happening to me? Instead ask,How can I grow through this situation and see glory brought to God?

Ten Commandments for an Associate Minister

Ten Commandments for an Associate Minister
 
One of the biggest jobs of an associate minister is to get the people to accept "you" without taking one iota from the honor and position of the senior minister.

Work constantly to get the people to look forward to your call in its own right - and not simply as a substitute for the senior minister's call.

Accept the fact that you are an associate or assistant and yet not relegate yourself, mentally, into an inferior attitude. Work in your own right.

How to Build a Team of Leaders

Whether the church you pastor is a big, thriving church or it is a growing church with twenty members it is very important to have a great team of leaders.  You may only have one other person on your team or maybe you have a hundred.  However many you may have, it's important to make sure you have the right people on board and that you are all going in the same direction.  Here are a few ways to choose the right people for your leadership team.  Remember when you start out to build your leadership team to build a team that is based on Biblical principles and characteristics.

Note:  The night before Jesus chose His twelve disciples, he continued in prayer all night.  When is the last time you prayed all night before you made a decision?

Choosing the right leadership team members.

You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit.                                             -Harry S. Truman

Are You Trained To Fail?

“Have you been trained to fail?”  You have been trained in ministry to fail if you have been taught to do the ministry rather than to train others for ministry.  I am grateful to the teachers who taught me to perform the functions of ministry:  visiting, counseling, marrying, burying, teaching, witnessing, and a host of other duties.  All are needed.  By themselves, however, they help us only to maintain, not to maximize ministry.  We can never be effective ministers until we learn what it means to be a leader and how to function as a leader.  The following are five common ingredients in growing churches:

• (1)  The pastor and the congregation understand their God-given gifts and use them in ministry.
  
• (2) The pastor’s hands-on ministry decreases and the congregation’s increases.
  
• (3) Both the quality and the quantity of ministry increase.
• (4) The pastor’s ministry influence increases as he shares ministry responsibilities with the congregation.
  
• (5) A biblical philosophy of ministry is established.  That is, leadership plus lay ministry equals growth.

How can you build a leadership team and maximize ministry in your church?  The following six steps are proven and effective.

1. Identify the leaders in the church.  Who are the influencers?  These persons may hold formal or informal positions of leadership.  They are the ones to whom others look for decisions.  Write down their names and rank them on a scale of 1 to 10 as to their leadership and influence within the church.
2. Intentionally take time to build relationships with your current and future leaders.  Do not ignore or exclude the others, but focus on developing leaders.

Storm the Gates - Part 4

John Bunyan’s book The Holy War describes the capture and re-taking of Mansoul. The gates were taken advantage of by Diabolus and his armies because they were not guarded properly. When King Shaddai decided that he was going to gain control of it again, he chose to assault the gates also. The Eye Gate and the Ear Gate were the primary ways of going back into the city. So he determined that he would have his best men to attack the Ear Gate. It literally shook while these men assaulted it. While the allegory is best understood as preaching that is being used to reason with the Ear Gate, Bunyan does an excellent job in describing the ways that it falls back to the control of King Shaddai.

The first to assault the Ear Gate was Captain Boanerges and his first assistant, Mr. Thunder. The second man to assault the gate was Captain Conviction and his first assistant, Mr. Sorrow. The third man sent in is Captain Judgment and Mr. Terror. Obviously Bunyan is describing the most effective tones of evangelistic preaching. Although all of these techniques, authority, passion, conviction, godly sorrow, judgment, and a fear of the judgment awaiting every man, it appears that much of this kind of preaching has fallen by the wayside.

Captain Judgment and Mr. Terror (knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; 2 Cor. 5:11) are dressed in red uniforms with an insignia of a burning furnace. When he stepped up to speak immediately after Captain Conviction, his words rang out.

‘O ye, the inhabitants of the town of Mansoul, that have lived so long in rebellion and acts of treason against the King Shaddai, know that we come not today to this place, in this manner, with our message of our own minds, or to revenge our own quarrel; it is the King, my Master, that hath sent us to reduce you to your obedience to him; the which if you refuse in a peaceable way to yield, we have commission to compel you thereto. And never think of yourselves, nor yet suffer the tyrant Diabolus to persuade you to think, that our King, by his power, is not able to bring you down, and to lay you under his feet; for he is the former of all things, and if he touches the mountains, they smoke. Nor will the gate of the King’s clemency stand always open; for the day that shall burn like an oven is before him; yea, it hasteth greatly, it slumbereth not.

How to Lead a Spirit-filled Worship Service

John 4:23
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

There are many worship services going on today but too many lack Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit) involvement.  The only way to lead a Spirit-filled worship service is if those doing the leading are filled with the Spirit.  Sounds basic I know, but it really is the answer to leading a true Holy Ghost inspired worship service.  Those who are involved need to have a true love for worshipping God and they need to express that while leading.  The musicians, singers and anyone on the platform leading worship should be full of the Holy Ghost themselves (John 20:22). 

Lead by example!  When you are singing songs about worship and you yourself are not worshipping, you are sending the wrong message.  As "worship leaders" we should be leaders of worship.  To lead someone is to show someone the way.  While leading worship, one should not feel constrained or bound by anything.  Outward demonstrative worship requires us doing just that…demonstrating worship!  Whatever the Lord impresses on your heart to do while leading, you should do without hesitation.

2 Corinthians 3:17
                Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

                liberty- freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.

Pray to be sensitive to the Lord's leading.  The Lord knows in each and every service, where He wants to take the congregation.  If we limit Him by not leading the way we are supposed to lead, the service goes in the wrong direction.  We should pray every service to be sensitive to His voice and that He would show us what He would have us do in that service.  Worship is not something we do for anyone else but for our Creator.  Worship is something that does not require the attention or approval of anyone else but our Lord and Savior!  We were created to worship Him.  He doesn't make or force us to do it, it is something He wants us to do from the bottom of our hearts.  He gives us the choice to worship Him or to not worship Him.

Momentum Through Raising Up Leadership

As leaders, we have all been guilty of getting excited and all fired up to start a new project.  In our excitement, we call our leadership teams together, plan it all out and set it in motion, without first answering all of the questions that need to be answered.  This is great for creating momentum, but before you begin, ask yourself and your team of leaders if you will be able to sustain everything that you start.

·     If you don't have the right people in place to make it happen, it may be that you need to refrain from starting until you have the right people trained to take on the new project.

Jesus was a great example to us in this.

Think of what God's ultimate plan was.  God was bringing into existence the New Testament plan of Salvation.  To institute this plan, He robed Himself in flesh and became the Supreme sacrifice for all sin for all of time! That was the first part of His plan.  In order for this plan to continue, Jesus needed the right people to make it happen.

In three years time, Jesus needed to have the right people trained and in place, and ready to carry on His ministry by the day He ascended into Heaven.  That is why Jesus so often said, "My hour is not yet come", or "It is not my time."  Jesus wanted to be sure that He had His disciples ready and willing to carry on His work after Calvary.  He wanted it to succeed.  It had to continue.  It must not fail!

Communicating With A Secular Audience

A crucial issue for today’s church is communication. At the heart of the Christian faith is the message of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Yet today this message is one of a multitude of messages people are bombarded with daily. Furthermore, the “audience” has changed drastically. Today, the church faces the increasingly difficult task of communicating sacred meaning to a secular audience.

Here’s a check list of things to consider when it comes to evaluating what you’re communicating today as the church amid the rising tide of secularism:

1. Keep it simple. Simplify everything from the bulletin to the sermons. You will communicate better with secular people.
   
2. Translate please. Secular people don’t understand the theological jargon we use. You can simplify Biblical terms without sacrificing their integrity.
   
3. Timing is everything. Time is the new currency. Communication must be concise. If people lose focus because of time, they lose the message.
   
4. Take nothing for granted. The average churchgoer often takes for granted the things new people may not understand. The answer? Define what terms mean.
   
5. Define non- negotiables. Some language and practices simply can’t be changed. Define the non-negotiables and then clarify their meaning.

Full Nets

Through out the years I have had many people tell me of their love of fishing. I, myself, however have never had the patience to cast a line into the water and wait for a fish to bite on to it. If I can't cast the line into the water and catch a fish within 30 seconds and then go home I can't see the fun in it.

Our fast paced and 'microwave' society appears to have the same mentality to life in general that I have to fishing. Desire for instant gratification is the norm. Whether it be business, career, or even spiritual matters, most society looks for the quick fix. 'Lose weight fast with no effort', 'Get rich quick' and similar mindsets have even worked their way into church growth seminars.

In the 5th chapter of Luke we read the account of Simon Peter and the other fishermen who had spent the entire night fishing without catching a thing. The important thing to realize with these men is that their entire living depended on their catching fish. Theirs was the day before guaranteed salaries, sick pay and profit sharing bonuses. After a disappointingly long night of hard toil they were still open to do what Jesus asked of them. The first request was easy enough, set out from shore and allow Him to speak to the crowd from their boat. (Luke 5:3). The second request ". . . launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a drought." (Luke 5:4) was more difficult to do. It required faith. They had not slept since the day before and had worked all night. No doubt they stayed awake and listened to the anointed preaching of the Rabbi. They were tired. But they believed the Lord. Though weary and discouraged, their act of faith was rewarded with a great catch.

Sometimes situations seem impossible. In the gospel of Matthew we read about such a situation. Jesus, when faced with the issue of feeding the great multitudes said to the disciples "They need not depart, give ye them to eat." (Matthew 14:16) The disciples knew that their possession of five loaves and two fish would not feed their own group, let alone the multitude that stood before them. However, with the same trust in Him that they had in the fishing boat, they offered what little was at their disposal, allowing the Creator of the universe to multiply it. Though the situation seemed impossible, their act of faith resulted in the feeding of close to twenty thousand people.