Thom S. Rainer's Blog, page 344

Notable Voices — June 27, 2013

Prop 8, DOMA, and the Christian Response — Ed Stetzer

Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling continues to dominate much of the discussion online and in the media. Ed contributed this well-reasoned article to the discussion.

 

The Introvert Pastor — Jared Wilson

I have an episode of Rainer on Leadership coming soon with Ron Edmondson on this topic, but Jared shares some good tips for introverted pastors as well in this interview.

 

5 Quick Reasons to Manuscript Your Sermons — Eric McKiddie

After my recent twitter poll about how long pastors preach, several commenters explained their reason for using a manuscript was to ensure a certain timeframe for their sermon. Eric lists some more good reasons for preaching from a manuscript.

 

7 Questions for Discouraged Pastors to Ask Themselves — Paul Tautges

Self care is important for pastors. It’s easy for pastors to get discouraged when things just aren’t going the way you’d like them to. But Paul provides a list of questions to help pastors who are feeling discouraged.

 

Reflecting on Bivocational Ministry — Philip Nation

Thousands of churches are served by bivocational pastors. This position is one of the most demanding in ministry, but can also be one of the most enriching. Philip’s reflections on his current season of ministry as a bivocational pastor provide great insight into what is required of so many pastors.

 

Church and Ministry Website Usage

The Twelve Biggest Challenges Pastors and Church Staff Face

In my latest non-scientific Twitter survey, I asked the following question of pastors and church staff: What is your biggest challenge in ministry? Here are the top twelve responses with representative quotes. I’ve taken the liberty to expand most of the quotes from their abbreviated form in Twitter.

Apathy and internal focus.  “I have been in ministry for over twenty years, and I’ve never seen church members more apathetic and internally focused.”
Staff issues. “I inherited staff from the previous pastor. It’s not a good match, but I don’t have the credibility to do anything about it.”
Leading and keeping volunteers. “It’s a fulltime job itself.”
General time constraints. “I end every week wondering why I got so little done.”
Getting buy-in from members. “I spend half my time developing a consensus from members about decisions from the mundane to the critical.”
Generational challenges. “It seems like the older generation is determined to nix any new ideas or excitement from the younger generation.”
Finances. “You can sum up our challenge in four simple words: We need more money.”
Holding on to traditions. “I wish our members would put as much effort into reaching people for Christ as they do holding on to their traditions.”
Criticism. “Some leaders in the church have appointed themselves to be my weekly critics.”
Leadership development. “We miss too many opportunities in ministry because we don’t have enough leaders ready.”
Majoring on minors. “We spent an hour in our last business conference discussing the fonts in our bulletins.”
Lack of true friends. “One of the toughest realities for me as pastor was the awareness that I have no true friends in the church.”

What is fascinating, if not discouraging, about this survey is that virtually all of the challenges noted by these pastors and staff were internal challenges. It appears that many of our churches in America are not effective conduits of the gospel because the members spend so much energy concerned about their own needs and preferences.

What do you think about this list? What would you add?

14 Tips for Time Management

By Chuck Lawless

I make no claim to an expert at time management. What I am is a seminary dean, education consultant, church consultant, and local church pastor who has been forced to learn how to budget time. Here are some time management tips that have worked for me:

Review your calendar each night. I can easily get overwhelmed if I learn my day is already full when I get to the office in the morning. To counter that tendency, I take a few minutes each night to review my schedule for the next day. That way, I can begin planning how to use my time before I ever get to the office.
Get up an hour earlier each day. Think about it – one extra hour each gives you essentially one more work day per week. Use that hour wisely, and you may find you have more free time throughout the week.
Pray as you start the day. God gives all of us the same amount of time. We need His wisdom to use that time effectively and efficiently. Consider praying briefly about each event scheduled for the day.
Do less exciting tasks first. I am by nature a procrastinator, and I typically put off the tasks I don’t want to do. When I do that, something is always hanging over my head – and I’m not as focused as I need to be on other tasks. If I do the tedious work first, though, I’m always looking forward to something I enjoy to do.
Calendar deadlines before the actual deadline. If I have an assignment due on June 1st, I set the deadline on my calendar as weeks earlier. This strategy doesn’t always eliminate the stress of meeting a deadline, but it does provide much-needed reminders of work to finish.
Move papers one time. Stacks of things to do frustrate me. The only way I know to avoid stacks is to deal with papers and documents quickly. If the paper needs filing, file it. If a signature is required, sign it. If it’s a bill, pay it. By its very nature, delay will hinder your finishing your work.
Schedule time to check email.  If I answered every email as soon as it arrives, I would complete no other assignments. My goal is to check email when I first arrive at the office, after lunch, and just before I leave.  I strive then to empty my inbox by providing brief responses or filing the email for later reference.
Take regular breaks. The break need not be long, but even a few minutes can help you re-focus your efforts. Take a walk, go to the restroom, call a friend, throw a baseball, read the paper, go outside – do somethingthat re-energizes you for the rest of the day.
Close your office door when needed. I like keeping my door open, but doing so invites drop-by (often time-consuming) visits. Give yourself permission to close the door occasionally and concentrate on a task. You’ll be more comfortable with unexpected visits if you are not behind in your work.
Limit the duration of drop-by visits by standing. If you sit with someone in your office, your body language suggests you have plenty of time to visit. Remaining standing – even going to the door and standing in the office doorway – is a simple way to say, “I’m happy to visit, but I have only a few moments.”
Limit the duration of meetings with good calendaring. Plan meetings back-to-back, and be clear about your time limitations. A simple, “Glad to see you. I have only thirty minutes before my next appointment, so let’s use our time wisely” can quickly establish your boundaries.
Use the telephone. Email is great, but it takes time to write and read multiple messages. I’ve spent too many hours clarifying emails, explaining my words, or denying perceived emotions behind a message. Most of the time, a simple phone call would have saved time.
Complete at least one task per day.  I won’t finish everything today, but I need to finish something. Doing so releases some pressure, and I’m usually more prepared then to face the next task. It’s also a good idea to thank God briefly when you finish a task.
Clean your desk every day before you leave. Finish a task, and get the work off your desk. If the work is unfinished, file it for the next day rather than leave it on the desk. Beginning the day with work already on my desk implies I’m behind before I get started.

What other time management techniques have worked for you?

Chuck Lawless currently serves as Professor of Evangelism and Missions and Dean of Graduate Studies at Southeastern Seminary.

You can connect with Dr. Lawless on both Twitter and Facebook.

Five Dangers of Unaligned Small Groups

The first time I encountered this issue was in a church consultation nearly twenty years ago. I asked the pastor to tell me what was being taught in the church’s small groups. He seemed to be nonplused in his response: “I have no idea.”  I was taken aback.

I tried a different approach. “Tell me,” I said, “how the church decides what will be taught in the small groups.” Again, I was unprepared for his response: “The church leaders have no input into what small groups teach,” he said. “We let every class decide on its own. We don’t want to be like dictators telling them what they have to do. They decide according to what’s best in their own eyes.”

So, I continued, “I guess you let anybody teach or preach anything from the pulpit on Sunday mornings?”

“Of course not,” he said with some indignation. “We are very strict about the Sunday morning preaching. If I’m not teaching, then we have someone who is closely aligned to where we are going and what we believe.”

He did not get my attempt to connect the approach of the small groups with that of the Sunday morning teaching and preaching. How can you be so concerned about one and so nonchalant about the other?

Over the years I have been surprised to find out how many church leaders have a laissez faire attitude about what is being taught in small groups and Sunday school classes. Allow me to share five dangers of this “anything goes” approach.

Because preaching is held to a higher standard, the perception becomes that the small group teaching is just not that important. The reality is that most small groups or Sunday school classes spend more time in their groups than the time they take to listen to a sermon.
The vision of the church could be distracted or derailed. When the preaching and small group teaching are not aligned, the small groups can become alternative little churches with their own vision and priorities. Unfortunately, I have seen this reality a number of times.
It opens the door for heretical teaching. I know of one church that gave no thought to the content of the teaching in the small groups. They would soon discover that one group was studying a book that denied the deity of Christ.
It takes away from the unity of the church. The preaching is headed in one direction. The small group teaching is headed in another direction, or multiple directions. There is no unity in what the church is learning or how the members are growing spiritually.
It does not allow for strategic teaching. Indeed, the contrary may be true. The teaching in the small groups can negate the strategic intent of the preaching plan of the pastor.

Leaders in churches need not be autocratic in their desire to get small group teaching aligned with the ministry of the church. It can and should be a mutually agreed upon goal to move people toward greater maturity in Christ with clear and known material.

Indeed many churches are now moving to a uniform curriculum across all ages in all small groups and Sunday school classes. I see this development as a healthy trend. The leaders are making a statement that what is taught in every group is vitally important for the spiritual health of the members and for the church as a whole.

How does your church decide what is taught in its small groups or Sunday school classes? How would you evaluate its effectiveness?

Pray for Christian Life Center

Location: Layton, Utah

Pastor: Myke Crowder

Worship Times: 9:00 & 11:00 AM (Mountain Time)

Fast Facts: Since Pastor Crowder arrived at this church in 1986, the congregation has grown from 60 to over 1,000. Half of the congregation is made up of converted Mormons. They offer a transition class that assists with the migration from Mormonism to Christianity. The church also has a K-12 school with approximately 500 students from backgrounds in Mormonism, Islam, and Buddhism. Please pray for the church as they reach adults and students for Christ.

The church will host Kelly Minter this November in a women’s conference. Pray that they will reach many for Christ through this event. Also, please pray for many members of the congregation who are active military or employed by the Hill Air force Base.

Website: www.clclayton.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.

How Much Time Do Pastors Spend Preparing a Sermon?

Most church members give little thought to the amount of time it takes a pastor to prepare each sermon. In reality, sermon preparation is a large portion of a pastor’s workweek. Unfortunately, this work is invisible to typical church members. They don’t realize the enormous amount of time it takes just to prepare one sermon.

I recently conducted an unscientific Twitter poll to ask pastors precisely how much time they spend in sermon preparation. For this question I asked for the amount of preparation time for one sermon. Many pastors must prepare more than one sermon per week, so their workload to prepare to preach is even greater.

I am pleased and appreciative for the number of responses I received. Here are the results of the poll by three-hour increments:

1 to 3 hours — 1%

4 to 6 hours — 9%

7 to 9 hours — 15%

10 to 12 hours — 22%

13 to 15 hours — 24%

16 to 18 hours — 23%

19 to 21 hours — 2%

22 to 24 hours — 0%

25 to 27 hours — 1%

28 to 30 hours — 2%

31 to 33 hours — 1%

The results were fascinating to me. Here are some key points I found in the study:

Most pastors responded with a range of hours. I took the midpoint of each range for my data.
70% of pastors’ sermon preparation time is the narrow range of 10 to 18 hours per sermon.
Keep in mind that these numbers represent sermon preparation time for just one sermon. Many pastors spend 30 or more hours in preparing messages each week.
The median time for sermon preparation in this study is 13 hours. That means that half of the respondents gave a number under 13 hours; the other half gave a number greater than 13 hours.
Most of the respondents who gave a response under 12 hours indicated they were bivocational pastors.
If the sermon was part of a series, the pastors indicated they spent even more upfront time to develop the theme and preliminary issues for the sermons to be preached.
Many of the pastors are frustrated that they don’t have more time for sermon preparation.
A number of the pastors indicated that finding consistent and uninterrupted sermon preparation time was difficult.

Most pastors have workweeks much longer than we realize because of the invisible nature of sermon preparation. As for me, the results of this poll have caused me to pray even more fervently for my pastor. His work is long. His work is never-ending. But the work he does is vitally important.

I pray that we all will remember to pray for our pastors ever day.

The Millennials — Rainer on Leadership #010

Podcast Episode #010

Subscribe via iTunes

This week, Jess Rainer joins us as we discuss Millennials, the church, and culture. As we state in the book, Millennials value education, tarry to marry, and reflect diversity. They also are a hopeful generation, a relational generation, a generation of learners, and a less religious generation. The future of the church in the 21st century will be shaped by Millennials and our response to this generation as a whole.

Listener Question

Horace asks: What are the current trends that will impact the church today that we need to focus on?

Episode Sponsor

This week’s podcast is brought to you by B&H Publishing group and the book The Millennials. The Millennials is based on 1,200 interviews with its namesakes that aim to better understand them personally, professionally, and spiritually. Chapters report intriguing how-and-why findings on family matters, their desire for diversity, Millennials and the new workplace, their attitude toward money, the media, the environment, and perhaps most tellingly, religion.

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 autographed copy of I Am a Church Member.

Resources in this Episode

The Millennials by Thom Rainer and Jess Rainer

Friday Is for Freebies: Manhood Restored

My giveaway this Friday is the Manhood Restored Leader Kit and trade book. This book, from the exciting new pastoral voice of Eric Mason, combines theological depth with practical insights, putting men in step with a gospel-centered manhood that directs them back to God’s original intent for their lives.

The Manhood Restored Leader Kit can get your group, or your entire congregation, on the same page about masculinity. The study is biblically rooted and gospel-centered. And you can be confident that each group is getting sound teaching, through the videos of Dr. Mason. Additional video features other men and their stories to help participants in the study understand they are not alone in their challenges. Manhood will always be in crisis until Jesus returns. But in Christ, men can be restored with ever increasing glory into the undefiled image of God. This six-session study leads men on a journey through masculinity, with Bible-study sessions on the problems men face, God’s solutions, and the restorations of worldview, sexuality, vision, and family.

Also included in this week’s giveaway is a signed copy of my new book I Am a Church Member. Based on an idea originally taken from this blog, I Am a Church Member discusses the attitudes and responsibilities of church members. I address in detail what congregations should really be focusing on—praying for church leaders, being a functioning member, treasuring church membership, and more.

Six chapters with these titles include study questions to guide the discussion:

I Will Be a Unifying Church Member
I Will Not Let the Church Be About My Preferences and Desires
I Will Pray for My Church Leaders
I Will Lead My Family to Be Healthy Church Members
I Will Be a Functioning Member
I Will Treasure Church Membership as a Gift

To enter the giveaway, tell us what man has had the most positive influence on your life.

The deadline to enter is midnight CDT this Saturday. We will draw one winner from the entries on Monday morning.

By entering, you acknowledge and accept the terms of the promotion.

Notable Voices – June 20, 2013

The New York Times Hides Abortion Editorial on Front Page — Joe Carter

Joe exposes the less than stellar media coverage of the recent passing of a congressional bill aiming to limit late term abortions.

 

Want to Change the World? Sponsor a Child — Bruce Wydick

This month’s cover story at Christianity Today provides hard data on the dramatic positive impact Compassion International sponsorships have on the education and welfare of children in third-world countries. In a time when many are skeptical of multimillion dollar charity organizations, Compassion continues to shine.

 

Recruitment vs. Reproduction — Philip Nation

Philip examines the difference in simply recruiting followers to work with you in ministry and creating leaders to grow ministries for the future.

 

Top 16 Worship Music Typos — Jon Acuff

One of the most popular posts here at ThomRainer.com is a list of funny bulletin bloopers. These worship music typos Jon has gathered are just as funny.

 

5 Ways that Plug-n-Playing Another Church’s Ministry Model Will Cost You Ministry Progress — Will Mancini

One of the most dangerous things a pastor or leader can do is to take what another church or group is doing and indiscriminately plug it into his context. This often results in failure, decline, and, loss. Will shares five reasons why this can be so problematic.

 

If You Love Words You’ll Love This — Barnabas Piper

These “heat maps” show what terms are used across different regions of the country for drinks, groups of people, sandwiches, and more. Some of them are fascinating.

Four Ways Churches Break Attendance Barriers

Almost anytime I mention numbers related to church life, I anticipate some responses about the value of numbers and congregations. In the 1980s, this type of discussion came primarily from more liberal churches that weren’t growing. Some of these leaders felt that declining membership and attendance was likely a sign of health. The members who really cared about the church were the ones who remained. They could make the biggest difference without the more nominal members remaining as obstacles.

Today, it is not unusual for me to hear from more conservative church leaders that declining church numbers may be a good sign because it is an indication that the numbers reflect true regenerate members. But, for the purpose of this brief article, let’s assume that attendance growth is a positive indicator. Presumably more people are hearing the gospel and being discipled when a church is growing.

It is in that context that I hear almost every week from church leaders whose churches seem stuck at some level of attendance: 100, 200, 500, 800, and so on. I even got a call a year ago from a church where the pastor was concerned that attendance was stuck at 7,000!

After 25 years of consulting and researching local congregations, I have found four common approaches churches take to break attendance barriers regardless of size. There are certainly more than four possibilities, but allow me to evaluate these four more common approaches.

1. Create new groups.

These groups may be home groups, small groups that meet in coffee houses, Sunday school classes, ministry groups, and others. Church leaders are intentional about creating groups on an ongoing basis. They typically have goals for the number of groups they start.

Evaluation: Frankly, I have seen great success with this strategy (and recently wrote about this strategy). I would speculate that as many as eight out of ten churches that strategically create new groups grow to new attendance levels. The mystery to me is why most churches don’t have this strategy.

2. Create new worship services.

A church moves from one service to two, or from two to three, or even more. The move is typically precipitated by one or more services running out of space.

Evaluation: Most of the time the new service does aid the church in breaking attendance barriers. But, keep in mind, the church was most likely growing already until it ran out of space. The new service simply takes the lid off so the church can continue to grow. I would caution a church, however, about moving to an additional worship service if it’s not already in a growth mode. The worship center can seem vacuous if one non-growing group is split into two non-growing groups.

3. Create new venues.

This principle is similar to adding worship services, but the church uses a different facility for the new service. That new facility may actually be a new campus. It may be an ethnic service meeting in the church facilities in a different room than the worship center. It may be a merged church from another location. The possibilities are many.

Evaluation: The results thus far are positive. As a church adds a new venue, there is a natural increase in attendance. The multi-campus form of this new venue is growing in use and popularity with mostly good results. We are still a few years away from being able to measure the mid-term impact of new venues on growth. I would be willing to speculate that the results will be very positive.

4. Have a major event.

The church’s strategy is to have one or more events that will create sufficient excitement for members to invite those who aren’t attending church. That event may be tied to a major holiday such as Easter, Fourth of July, or Christmas. It may be tied to a significant tradition in a church. The plan is to get people to attend who would not regularly attend.

Evaluation: I have studied a few hundred churches that use the big event as their major growth strategy, and the results are not good. Attendance tends to rise for a few weeks on and after the event, but then it settles down to previous patterns. Churches can spend a lot of money on big events, but I hardly ever see a church break an attendance barrier consistently, even with those large amounts of resources dedicated to it.

What successful approaches have you seen to break attendance barriers? What do you think of these approaches I have highlighted? Why do churches not create new groups regularly and strategically when it has proven to be the most effective method for growth and for breaking attendance barriers?