Thom S. Rainer's Blog, page 230
June 6, 2016
The Five Kinds of Churches That Must Change or Die
Change or die.
Imagine hearing those words from your physician. I hope you would be motivated to change. Eat well. Exercise. Stop smoking.
You get the picture.
Okay, I have some tough news for you who are members or leaders of about 100,000 churches in America.
Change or die.
You read that correctly. In fact, if your churches don’t make substantive changes in the next few years, your church will die.
So what churches are at risk? Instead of naming the specific churches, I have listed them in five categories. The categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Shallow roots. These churches are no longer rooted in Scripture. They have drifted from the clear teachings of the Bible to a secular or social approach to ministry, which is really not ministry at all.
Self-entitled. Another name for these churches are “country club” churches. The members demand the church serve them. They have to have things done their way, or they will leave. After all, the pay their “dues” (offerings) for their perks and privileges.
Negatively critical. The members of these churches spend more time criticizing than they do evangelizing. They are in regular conflict. Some run off pastors. They wear out pastors and staff and “good” church members.
Ignorantly idolatrous. It’s easier to get away with heresy in these churches than to make certain changes. No one can use the parlor. We can only have a certain style of music. We better not mess up my service by adding another service. In each of these cases, the members have idols, though they would deny it vociferously.
Evangelistically anemic. The Great Commission is the great omission in these churches. Church members no longer share the gospel. Maybe the pastor is not evangelistic either. There are no new Christians in the church.
Nearly one of three churches will die in the next few years. They must change. Or they will die.
I wrote Who Moved My Pulpit? to provide leaders a roadmap to lead change in their churches. I wrote out of conviction and a broken heart. I wrote it with the prayer and hope that it can be used to make a difference.
Maybe I wrote it for your church.
Maybe I wrote it for you.
Change or die.
For many of you, there is a choice.
But time is quickly running out.
Who Moved my Pulpit? Video Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMp_449aDCw
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June 5, 2016
Pray for First Baptist Church of Anna
Location: Anna, Illinois
Pastor: Les Sinks
Weekly Worship: 10:15 AM, Central
Fast Facts: FBC Anna has been blessed with a beautiful worship center and have room for growth. They are starting a soup kitchen soon,and that has energized the congregation. They are currently seeking a “community evangelist” and also in need of a part-time music person to lead a blended service. Pray that they would be able to fill these staff roles soon and that the soup kitchen would allow them to connect more with the community.
Website: AnnaFirst.org
“Pray for . . .” is the Sunday blog series at ThomRainer.com. We encourage you to pray for these churches noted every Sunday. Please feel free to comment that you are praying as well.
If you would like to have your church featured in the “Pray for…” series, fill out this information form..
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June 4, 2016
Notable Voices: June 4, 2016
20 Things I Wish I Knew Before Becoming a Pastor — Brandon Hilgemann
Number 20 makes numbers one through 19 all disappear into the ether.
3 Leadership Lessons From a Soldier I Barely Knew — Art Rainer
This post is a personal favorite for the week—one of my sons sharing what he learned from my dad.
Rethinking the Role of the Pastor — Nathan Rose
Several different roles are projected onto pastors. In this post, Nathan returns to three biblical roles for pastors.
Seven Ways to Improve Your Preaching — Kevin DeYoung
These are good reminders from a highly experienced expositor.
Pastor Through Presence — Craig Thompson
As easy as technology has made it to communicate to your congregation, sometimes your presence as pastor is even more important that your words.
Majority of American Christians Do Not Find Bible Reading and Church Attendance Essential — Chris Martin
When being grateful is twice as important to American Christians as attending a weekly worship service is, we have a problem. Chris does a fine job with the analysis of some sobering data.
The post Notable Voices: June 4, 2016 appeared first on ThomRainer.com.
June 3, 2016
Five Reasons for Failure when Leading Change – Rainer on Leadership #230
SUBSCRIBE: iTunes • RSS • Stitcher • TuneIn Radio
On today’s episode, we cover five areas where change often fails and discuss everything related to the new book, Who Moved my Pulpit?
Some highlights from today’s episode include:
Prayer should be the foundation of everything we do in the church.
A change leader needs to be in prayer and needs to enlist others to pray as well.
Prayer is not a perfunctory step in leadership.
More leaders pray well about change than communicate well about change.
You cannot over-communicate in the church.
You can’t just communicate what needs to be changed, but why and when as well.
Churches will either lead change or be changed.
The five reasons change leadership often fails are:
Not praying
Not assessing unintended consequences
Not communicating
Not dealing with people issues
Not modeling positive leadership
Episode Sponsors
Vanderbloemen Search Group is the premier pastor search firm dedicated to helping churches and ministries build great teams. They’ve helped hundreds of churches just like yours find their church staff and are uniquely geared to help you discern who God is calling to lead your church.
Find out more about Vanderbloemen Search Group by visiting WeStaffTheChurch.com.
Midwestern Seminary, located in the heart of the Midwest, is one of the fastest growing seminaries in North America and offers a fantastic array of academic programs, including multiple online and residential options at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels. Midwestern’s new 81-hour Mdiv program, online program, and doctoral program have all been recognized as some of the most innovative and affordable in the country. There has never been a better time to begin your seminary education. Midwestern Seminary trains leaders ‘For The Church.’
Visit them online at MBTS.edu/Rainer and start your ministry training today.
Feedback
If you have a question you would like answered on the show, fill out the form on the podcast page here at ThomRainer.com. If we use your question, you’ll receive a free copy of I Will.
Resources
Who Moved My Pulpit?
Autopsy of a Deceased Church
Change Leadership Kit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMp_449aDCw
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June 2, 2016
Most Common Mistakes Pastors and Church Leaders Make on Social Media
By Jonathan Howe
Earlier this year I wrote about social media mistakes that churches make. Those were quite general and involved church communications. And while there is some overlap with personal social media accounts, there are some distinct mistakes made by church leaders that are typically not made by church accounts.
Customer service rants. Too many pastors and church leaders have reputations of being keyboard warriors. Not a week goes by where I don’t see a pastor or church leader fire off a series of tweets about a customer service issue that in many cases the company can’t control. These typically amount to no more than Twitter temper tantrums. They are mostly ineffective and create a less-than-favorable impression of the pastor or church leader and the church they represent.
Theological warring. No one ever wins. No one ever changes his/her mind. But we still battle over theology through 140 characters. There is a difference in standing for truth and trying to win every fight you’re not invited to. We would be good to remember James 1:19-20 and “be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for man’s anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness” (HCSB). Unfortunately, we too often turn our anger up to 11 online, and the results are burned bridges and a damaged gospel witness.
Starting tweets with @. This is a shift in the type of mistakes that were previously listed. However this is the most common error I see on Twitter. There are reports this may soon change, but as of now, when you start a tweet with @, only the people who follow both you and whomever you mention see that tweet. So a tweet talking about Thom Rainer’s new book, Who Moved My Pulpit? , would need a punctuation mark before the @ at the beginning. Typically a period is used. Here is an example “.@ThomRainer has a great new book out on leading change in the church.” The mistake would be to omit the period at the beginning: “@ThomRainer has a great new book…”
Using a Facebook group instead of a page. Unless you need to keep information private and only within a set group (maybe for a Bible study or small group), use Facebook pages, not groups. I’ve seen student ministries, children’s ministries, and even churches with groups when they should have been using pages. For a breakdown on the differences, see this article.
Forgetting the permanence of social media. I have a whole folder of screen shots of example after example of social media mistakes. Most of them are funny typos or unfortunate word choices that just change the meaning of a tweet or post. They are harmless errors that have long since been deleted from the hosting site. But I have a copy. And I’m probably not the only one who does. Now imagine a seriously harmful tweet or picture. Think of how many people might have screen shots. You may delete the tweet or post from a website, but it will still likely exist on someone else’s hard drive.
Forgetting who is watching. I’ll readily admit that this is the mistake I make the most. Every time I tweet something, more than 4,000 people could read it. Please don’t take that as being prideful. My point is that I fall into the trap of thinking my Twittersphere consists of just me and a few of my friends. I forget about the other 3,990 people who don’t know what I’m doing at the time of the tweet or have little context for my comments. It’s easy for our tweets to be taken the wrong way when we are not precise with our words.
Retweeting compliments. There are ways to acknowledge someone who says something nice about you or your work without boasting about it. But when you retweet a compliment (even with a humble thank you), all humility is lost in the eyes of those reading. To the general public, retweeting compliments is nothing more than boasting. Even worse, when we make it a pattern of our online behavior, we become like a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal—our content becomes empty and hollow.
These seven mistakes are the ones I see (and commit) most often. What would you add?
Jonathan Howe serves as Director of Strategic Initiatives at LifeWay Christian Resources, the host and producer of Rainer on Leadership and SBC This Week, and the managing editor of LifeWayPastors.com. Jonathan writes weekly at ThomRainer.com on topics ranging from social media to websites and church communications. Connect with Jonathan on Twitter at @Jonathan_Howe.
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June 1, 2016
Fifteen Crazy Things That Happened at Funerals
As I promised in last week’s article on weddings, I have fifteen stories from pastors about funerals.
For the most part, these stories are repeated only with minor changes. The essence of the stories is unchanged. Like the stories of weddings, there were so many great submissions of funeral stories. I probably need more posts of this ilk in the future.
The pastor was preaching on the resurrection during the funeral when Siri on someone’s iPhone began to speak, “I’m sorry; I don’t understand what you just said.”
Three different pastors told us they fell in the grave.
Three different widows jumped in the grave.
The deceased’s dog died shortly after the deceased died. The family put the dead animal in the casket with her.
The family released a dove at the end of the funeral. A hawk was waiting. You know the rest of the story.
One lady gave a testimony at her deceased pastor’s funeral: “Having Jim as my pastor was like being in a love affair.”
The pastor was interrupted during the funeral and asked to adjust the deceased in the casket because she did not look perky.
The best friend of the deceased gave a eulogy sharing how he and the now deceased picked up women.
During the viewing of the deceased, a song was on continuous loop: “How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?”
The pastor was asked to pose with the urn of ashes for photos after the funeral.
The funeral home showed up with the wrong body.
This funeral had two ambulances: one to pick up a man having a heart attack; and the other to get a woman in labor.
There were two funerals close together. They finished at the same time. One funeral released doves. The other funeral had a salute with several guns. There were many dead doves.
The widow began shouting and praying for her husband to rise from the dead.
An Elvis impersonator was one of the key speakers.
I would wonder if some of these pastors were stretching the truth if I had not been in some similar situations at funerals. Life in the ministry is never dull.
Let me hear from you, particularly if you have some funeral stories to share.
The post Fifteen Crazy Things That Happened at Funerals appeared first on ThomRainer.com.
May 31, 2016
Why Relational Skills Are Critical to Leadership Success – Rainer on Leadership #229
SUBSCRIBE: iTunes • RSS • Stitcher • TuneIn Radio
On today’s podcast, we discuss a recent post on relational IQ and leadership and the importance of relational skills to effectiveness in ministry.
Some highlights from today’s episode include:
Relational IQ begins with a foundation of a vibrant prayer life.
If you have a healthy relationship with God, you’ll likely have a healthy relationship with others.
There’s nothing wrong with talking about yourself, as long as it’s not to the exclusion of everything else.
Relationships are commanded by Scripture.
A healthy sense of humor is one where you are able to laugh at itself.
The first reaction we should have to criticism or anything negative should not be defensiveness.
Just like you can always learn more cognitively, you can always learn more relationally.
The seven characteristics of relationally intelligent leaders are:
They have a vibrant prayer life.
They ask about others.
They rarely speak about themselves.
They are intentional about relationships.
They have a healthy sense of humor.
They are not usually defensive.
They constantly seek input.
Episode Sponsors
Midwestern Seminary, located in the heart of the Midwest, is one of the fastest growing seminaries in North America and offers a fantastic array of academic programs, including multiple online and residential options at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels. Midwestern’s new 81-hour Mdiv program, online program, and doctoral program have all been recognized as some of the most innovative and affordable in the country. There has never been a better time to begin your seminary education. Midwestern Seminary trains leaders ‘For The Church.’
Visit them online at MBTS.edu and start your ministry training today.
Vanderbloemen Search Group is the premier pastor search firm dedicated to helping churches and ministries build great teams. They’ve helped hundreds of churches just like yours find their church staff and are uniquely geared to help you discern who God is calling to lead your church.
Find out more about Vanderbloemen Search Group by visiting WeStaffTheChurch.com.
Feedback
If you have a question you would like answered on the show, fill out the form on the podcast page here at ThomRainer.com. If we use your question, you’ll receive a free copy of I Will.
Resources Mentioned in Today’s Podcast
For the Church in St. Louis
FTC.co
The Levity Effect
ChurchAnswers.com
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May 30, 2016
Nine Distractions That Should Not Happen to the Pastor Right Before the Sermon
In a previous post, I noted several things you should not say to the pastor right before the sermon. I was amazed at the number of responses I received. One pastor made it clear that I really had not addressed many of the major issues. It’s not just what people say, it’s other things that can happen as well.
It made me realize once again the primacy of preaching. Most pastors have put in hours of study and preparation. The sermon is critical to the life and the health of the church.
Though I included some of the distracting comments people make in this list, I have also included other distractions. Please pray that your pastor does not have to experience any one of these.
Personal and family problems. It is so difficult to be focused on the Word of God when the pastor is dealing with problems of this nature. Please pray for your pastor daily for protection from these types of challenges and problems.
Physical problems. My son, Sam, preached a sermon, then threw up and passed out. I have no idea how he made it to the conclusion of the message.
Someone who says, “I need to talk to you after the service.” Don’t say that! Can you imagine what the pastor is likely thinking the entire service?
Malfunctioning equipment. Every pastor and every church has many stories here.
Staff tension. This issue is of the same ilk as number one. Instead of family members, the tension or problem is with staff members.
Volunteers absent. “Pastor, we don’t have enough nursery workers, and the pianist has not shown up.” True story.
Unfair requests. I now have eight different stories where a pastor was asked to unclog a toilet right before the sermon. I’m not sure what to make of this pattern.
Last minute requests. I was in a church two years ago where the pastor showed me a handful of written notes. All of the notes where last minute requests for him to make announcements.
Criticism. Yes, it happens. Too many pastors are criticized right before they preach. Criticisms sting regardless. But these criticisms right before the sermon are major distractions.
I ask on a regular basis that you pray for your pastors. Could I also ask you to pray that there will be no distractions right before the sermon? It could make a huge difference in the message and in the church.
Let me hear from you.
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May 29, 2016
Pray for Restore
Location: Austin, Texas
Pastor: Zach Lambert
Weekly Worship: 10:00 AM, Central
Fast Facts: Restore is a brand new church plant in urban Austin that launched earlier this year on February 21. Their mission is to lock arms with the community to help bring restoration to individuals and neighborhoods in Austin. Restore is a place where you can be yourself, where you can ask questions, and where you won’t be pressured to conform to any stereotype. They are on a journey of restoration through Jesus Christ who loves people without prejudice or qualification. Pray for Restore as they prepare for their first baptism service later this summer. Also pray that they would continue to reach one of the fastest growing cities in America.
Website: RestoreAustin.org
“Pray for . . .” is the Sunday blog series at ThomRainer.com. We encourage you to pray for these churches noted every Sunday. Please feel free to comment that you are praying as well.
If you would like to have your church featured in the “Pray for…” series, fill out this information form..
The post Pray for Restore appeared first on ThomRainer.com.
May 28, 2016
Notable Voices: May 28, 2016
10 Misperceptions about Young Pastors — Chuck Lawless
Thanks to his role at Southeastern Seminary, Chuck has the advantage of knowing and mentoring dozens of young pastors every year. Like him, I am encouraged by the next generation of pastors coming into our churches.
How to Know When It Is Time to Leave — Mark Dance
The final point Mark mentions is important both for the health of the pastor and the church. If you leave, let your successor do the job without interference from you.
Why Every Church Should Move Toward Cultural and Racial Diversity — Sam Rainer
Our communities are becoming increasingly diverse. If our churches are to reach and reflect the community in which they are located, it only makes sense that our churches would become more diverse as well.
Six Questions Leaders Should Routinely Ask Themselves — Eric Geiger
We are almost halfway through 2016. These six questions would be good for a mid-year, personal leadership checkup. How would you answer them?
Preacher, Teacher, Sunday Entertainer? — Jordan Pickering
Jordan shares a great reminder for preachers.
10 Great Church Website Resources — Lauren Hunter
We’ve talked ad nauseam about church websites. This article lists 10 resources that can help you beautify your church website and make it easier for both guests and members to use.
The post Notable Voices: May 28, 2016 appeared first on ThomRainer.com.
