Thom S. Rainer's Blog, page 364

Friday Is for Freebies – $100 LifeWay Gift Card

This week’s freebie is a simple one—a $100 gift card to LifeWay.

To be eligible to win, answer the following question:

What are you doing for Christmas this year?

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

Notable Voices – December 20, 2012

Seven Christmas Things to do with Your Kids – Eric Geiger

Eight Ways to Play With Your Kids This Christmas – Trevin Wax

These links were so similar that I decided to just group them together. If you’re looking for things to do with your kids over the next couple of weeks while they are out of school, here are some good suggestions from Eric and Trevin.

 

We Wait Too Long to Train Our Leaders – Jack Zenger

Leadership training for employees (or ministers) is often not a focus of a company (or church) until an employee reaches a management level. This typically happens at or near the midpoint of an employee’s career. Many times it’s too late to retrain an employee. Their poor leadership habits never change and they are an ineffective leader. So why not start that leadership training earlier? That’s exactly what Jack Zengerproposes in this article.

 

Five Signs of an Up and Coming Leader – Artie Davis

If you’re going to train leaders at a younger age, you need to know how to identify young leaders. Conveniently, Arti Davis provides these five things to look for to do just that.

 

‘The Great I AM’, Not the ‘I Wish I Was’ – David Price

Anytime there is a tragedy, whether it be personal or national, the presence of God is invariably called into question. I get that. It’s a natural human response. But for those who have been redeemed, we can rest in the comfort of knowing that God is God. He is with us always— even when we cannot fully grasp or understand tragic events.

 

Let’s Rethink Our Holly-Jolly Christmas Songs – Russell Moore

Many Christmas hymns are full of rich theology. However, sometimes in our singing of them they can become rote and routine. They lose their meaning and their richness. Dr. Moore recounts a recent conversation that should remind us of the narrative tension found in our familiar carols.

 

Joy to the World – Jamie Barnes 

Jamie Barnes and Brooks Ritter recently performed this version of Joy to the World on The Exchange, Ed Stetzer’s weekly web show. This arrangement, while quite different from the original, does seem to place more emphasis on the lyrics—and not the familiar tune we all know.

The Top Seven Regrets of Pastors

I recently interviewed more than twenty pastors who had been in ministry for at least 25 years. All of these men were over 55 years old.  A few of them were retired, but most of them were still active in fulltime vocational ministry.

The interview was simple. I asked one open-ended question: “What regrets do you have about the years you have served as a pastor?” Each of the men could provide as many responses as they desired. They could make the answers succinct, or they could elaborate upon them.

Three pastors had as few as two responses; one pastor had nine. Most of the pastors noted three or four regrets. As a researcher, I typically see patterns develop in this type of subjective research. When it concluded, I was able to see seven definitive patterns, and I was able to see the frequency they occurred.

Below are the top seven regrets noted in order of frequency. I received a total of 17 different responses, but only these seven occurred with any degree of repetition. After each regret, I provide a representative direct quote from one of the interviewees.

Lack of practical training for local church ministry. “I was not prepared for 80 percent of my day-to-day ministry after I graduated from seminary. I wish I had taken time to find some resources or places where I could get practical training. I had to learn in the school of hard knocks, and it was very painful at times.”
Overly concerned about critics. “I had this naïve view that a bunch of Christians in a church would always show love toward each other. Boy was I wrong! There are some mean church members out there. My regret is that I spent way too much time and emotional energy dealing with the critics. I think of the hundreds of hours I lost focusing on critics, and it grieves me to this day.”
Failure to exercise faith. “At some point in my ministry, I started playing defense and let the status quo become my way of doing church. I was fearful of taking steps of faith, and my leadership and churches suffered as a result. Not only was I too cautious in the churches I served, I was too cautious in my own ministry. I really felt God calling me to plant a church at one point, but I was just too fearful to take that step.”
Not enough time with family. “I can’t say that people didn’t warn me. One wise pastor told me I had a mistress. When he saw my anger rising, he told me that my mistress was busyness in my church, and that my family was suffering from neglect. It hurts me to say this, but one of my adult sons is still in rebellion, and I know it is a direct result of my neglect of him when he was young.”
Failure to understand basic business and finance issues. “The first time I saw my church’s budget, I thought I was looking at a foreign language. Greek is a lot easier than finance. They sure don’t teach you basic church finance and business at seminary, and I didn’t take the initiative to educate myself. I really felt stupid in so many of the discussions about the budget or other church business issues.”
Failure to share ministry. “Let me shoot straight. I had two complexes. The first was the Superman complex. I felt like if ministry was going to be done well, I had to do it. I couldn’t ask or equip someone else to do it. My second complex was the conflict avoider complex. I was so afraid that I would get criticized if I didn’t visit Aunt Susie personally when she had an outpatient procedure that I ran myself ragged. In my second church I suffered burnout and ended up resigning.”
Failure to make friends. “I know it’s cliché, but being a pastor can be lonely. I think many pastors get in trouble because we can get so lonely. I wish I had done a better job of seeking out true friends. I know if I had made the effort, there would have been a number of pastors in town that I could have befriended. Sometimes I got so busy doing ‘stuff’ that I didn’t have time to do the things that really matter.”

So what do you think of these top seven regrets? What would you add?

Looking Ahead to 2013: What Should the Church Expect?

By Sam Rainer

If you do not make assumptions about the future, then you are not leading. Good leaders constantly assess the cultural climate. In other words, they do research. Good leaders are also willing to change their assumptions. In other words, they are flexible. Holding firm to assumptions from the Y2K era is about as relevant as giving a set of Pokemon cards to your kids this year for Christmas.

So at the end of every year, I pause to challenge my underlying assumptions of what I believe the future holds. Vision is a key to leadership, and the nature of vision requires an assumption of what will happen in the future. Therefore, you cannot lead unless you are thinking about the future.

In a recent article about Ford Motor Company, the head of their trends and futuring department revealed several assumptions about the coming year. Though Ford is trying to determine consumer demand for automobiles three years in advance, their research is valuable to the church because they are assessing global trends within sociology, economics, technology, and politics, among others.

So what trends should the church expect to help define the cultural climate of 2013? More specifically, what assumptions do people have about organizations right now? The Ford consumer environment report has a lot of commonalities with current church research. I’ve listed below a few general, qualitative assumptions for church leaders to consider.

Lack of organizational trust. The fiscal cliff, BP, News International, bank after bank, public sector or private sector—the list of examples is long. Brand trust, organizational trust, and institutional trust are all low. We’re foolish to think this lack of trust in the culture does not apply to the church. The best way to combat a general lack of organizational trust is to build a specific reputation as a trustworthy church. You may not trust car mechanics—generally—but you probably put forth effort to find one you do trust. And the way you find the trustworthy mechanic is through word-of-mouth. It’s the same with doctors. I recently spent considerable time asking people about the best doctor in a particular field. People may not trust churches organizationally as a whole, but a specific reputation as a trustworthy church spreads rapidly through word-of-mouth.

Desire for accountability in leadership. The single most neglected leadership behavior among executives is… accountability. And it’s the most neglected leadership behavior from a global perspective. It should come as no surprise that people recognize the pervasive culture of unaccountability and desire leaders who not only hold others accountable but are also willing to be held accountable. A lack of leadership accountability precipitates almost every church scandal. People desire accountability. From a biblical perspective, the church should be well-positioned to fill this desire. Ironically, many church leaders avoid it.

Fickle commitment. Gone are the days of working for a company for 50 years. People were once loyal to a single employer. Those employers once went to great lengths to take care of their employees. It just doesn’t happen anymore. Over 90 percent of millennials expect to stay at a job for less than three years. Why would we expect anything different for the church? Many reasons exist as to why people church hop, but a large driving factor is the cultural force of fickleness. A church can build commitment levels by having a culture of high expectations. When these expectations are communicated clearly and upfront, the people that commit are more likely to stick.

Intimacy within the crowd. We are quickly becoming an urban society. Big cities are getting bigger. Big churches are getting bigger. People are leaving the countryside in favor of the concrete jungle. The gravitational pull of large cities and large churches will continue for a generation, at least. But the draw of the city and the large church does not mean people eschew intimacy. In fact, the crowds of megacities and megachurches mean people are more intentional about trying to find intimacy. Healthy churches will get bigger by getting smaller. In this era of urbanization, small group settings are arguably more important now than at any point in our history. Quite simply, you will not keep people in a large worship service for long without also connecting them to a small group.

Weariness of overwhelming amounts of information. Hyperlinks, RSS feeds, and Twitter—all are great until you just get overwhelmed. Access to information is no longer a problem. Everyone is talking, and it’s posted all over the Internet hinterland. Now people just want to know who to listen to. In the overwhelming, loud complexity of our culture, the church should be a solace of simplicity and clarity. Of course, most church leaders try to make their church simple for them. Making a church simple for the people, however, is tremendously difficult and entirely complex for the leadership. As church leaders, we’ve made simple about us. It’s time we make church simple for the people.

Projecting the cultural climate ten years out is about as exact as nailing the tenth day in a ten-day forecast. But there is great value in assessing your assumptions about the direction of the culture, especially within the next year or two. Our culture is constantly changing. What people think about organizations is changing. As a leader, you must become a student of the culture to recognize these changes, and you must be flexible enough to rework your assumptions when necessary.

HT: Josh Ellis for the Ford article

Sam S. Rainer is the senior pastor of Stevens Street Baptist Church in Cookeville, TN, and president of Rainer Research. He blogs regularly at SamRainer.wordpress.com

Five Things You Should Know about Pastors’ Salaries

In many churches, the pastor’s salary is a quiet issue. There is a sense of discomfort from both the pastor and the members when the topic is broached. Such discomfort is unfortunate, however, because a number of churches will not seek every year to make certain the pastor is paid fairly.

A couple of prefatory comments are in order. First, we all know of the extreme examples of pastors living lavishly or mismanaging money. Those stories, though true, represent a small minority. Most pastors are not overpaid. And most pastors manage their limited finances well. Second, I am aware that many people are unemployed and that anyone who has a job should be grateful. That is still not a good reason to pay a pastor unfairly. As a final note, this brief article is relevant to all paid church staff, though my focus is here on the pastor.

In my 25 years of consulting and working with churches, I have discovered five common issues that are not always known by most church members. And lack of awareness of any one of these issues can have a detrimental impact on fair compensation for the pastor.

A pay or compensation package is not the same as a salary. I cringe when I hear churches state a package to be the pay for the pastor. The package includes benefits such as health insurance and expense reimbursements such as business use of the automobile. No worker in a secular company adds their benefits and expenses and calls it their pay. Anything other than the cash payment (before taxes) the pastor receives should be reported in a totally separate category.


There are many resources to find out what the fair compensation for a pastor should be. Many denominations provide their own compensation studies. But you can do an Internet search for “pastor pay” and see a plethora of resources that are available. And as a rule of thumb, you could seek to estimate what the mean income is for families in the church, and use that as a basis for compensation for the pastor. Churches that do not do their homework on pastoral compensation tend to underpay their pastors.


Many pastors request no raises but would still appreciate one. Some pastors simply don’t want to deal with a critic who might question any raise given to a pastor. Others feel extremely uncomfortable talking about money in general, and use the “no raise” request to deflect further conversation. Some think it’s just the noble thing to do. But most pastors, in reality, would appreciate a fair raise to keep up with growing expenses. Don’t accept their requests as the last word.


Many pastors are under extreme stress because they do not have adequate income to meet their financial obligations. Like anyone else who is under heavy financial burdens, a pastor can find his thoughts consumed with worry. Because he is so distracted, he naturally is less effective in his ministry. Both he and his family feel the pressure.


Some pastors leave their churches because of pay issues. You will not likely hear a pastor announce in his resignation that he is leaving because of financial pressures. The reality is that, for a number of pastors, the issue of compensation is a major push from one church to another, or from the church to a secular vocation. It’s not that the pastor is in his job for the money; it’s that the compensation for his vocation is insufficient to meet his family’s needs.

Paul wrote these words to his young protégé, Timothy, in 1 Timothy 5:17-18: “The elders who are good leaders should be considered worthy of an ample honorarium, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, ‘Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain and, the worker is worthy of his wages’” (HCSB).

It is unfortunate that the few indulgent pastors who live lavish lifestyles get most of the attention. The reality is that most of the some 400,000 pastors in America are not overpaid; indeed many are underpaid. Those are the pastors who need our attention.

Pray for First Baptist Church Moncks Corner

Location:  Moncks Corner, South Carolina

Pastor: Emerson Wiles (interim)

Weekly Worship:  8:30 AM & 11:00 AM Eastern Time

Fast Facts:   Pray for the economically challenged people in this community.  The church is providing Christmas gifts to the less fortunate during this season.  Pray also for the search committee as they continue to pursue the next pastor for their church.

Website:  www.fbcmcsc.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 your church to be featured in “Pray for . . .” contact Steve Drake, director of pastoral relations, at Steve.Drake@LifeWay.com.

Eight Negative Reasons Pastors Leave a Church

The majority of pastors move from one church to another as a sense of call. In some denominational bodies, pastors are appointed to move from church to church. Those departures are normative and, for the most part, healthy.

Unfortunately there are unhealthy reasons that cause a pastor to leave a church. The sad reality is that most of these reasons are preventable. In most cases something could be done to stop these presumably premature departures. I have taken the liberty to name the top eight negative reasons pastors leave a church. The research is more anecdotal, but the frequency with which I hear and deal with these issues makes me confident that this listing is mostly accurate. The reasons are obviously not mutually exclusive.

Discouragement and frustration over critics in the church. Over thirty times this year pastors have contacted me to let me know they resigned from their church due to weariness over critics.
Discouragement and frustration over the direction of the church. Most pastors come to a church with an eager vision and great hope. Many pastors leave a church when it becomes obvious to them that the hope will not be realized.
Moral failure. The two most common moral failures are sexual and financial. In either case safeguards were typically not in place.
Burnout. The flexibility of a pastor’s job can lead to one of two extremes: poor work ethic or workaholism. The latter inevitably leads to burnout.
Forced termination other than moral failure. Just last night I heard about a pastor who was fired because the church members determined they needed better leadership. That reason is one among many I hear more and more often.
Financial struggles. A number of churches do not take care of their pastors financially. Most are able to do so. A pastor who has to worry about paying his bills will not be an effective pastor.
Family issues. Obviously the family issues could be related to any of the reasons noted here. But a number of pastors tell me they resigned simply because the entire church experience and atmosphere were unhealthy for their family.
Departure of joy. Typically a pastor has great joy when he is called to ministry. That joy often continues during the time of training for ministry and entry into the first church. But a number of pastors for various reasons lose their joy in the real world of local church ministry.

I was tempted to list depression as a top reason a pastor leaves a church. But the often debilitating condition of depression is intertwined with any of the reasons noted above. Indeed it could be argued that many of the reasons above are interrelated.

What can we learn from these examples? First, we should pray for our pastors regularly. Second, we should seek ways to help prevent the reasons noted above. Third, we should be a friend and encourager to our pastors. They already have plenty of critics.

What would you add to my list?

Pastor to Pastor is the Saturday blog series at ThomRainer.com. Pastors and staff, if we can help in any way, contact Steve Drake, our director of pastoral relations, at  Steve.Drake@LifeWay.com . We also welcome contacts from laypersons in churches asking questions about pastors, churches, or the pastor search process.

Friday is for Freebies

Today is the final opportunity to win an autographed Christmas CD by Keith and Kristyn Getty and an accompanying Bible.

Joy – An Irish Christmas is a unique celebration of Christmas with Keith and Kristyn Getty. Last year, they recorded this exciting Christmas album combining fresh Irish interpretations of traditional carols alongside new carols written by the hymn-writing duo.

Also included is the black, genuine leather version of the HCSB Minister’s Bible. This newly designed edition is ideal for pulpit use with its large type, wide margins, and extensive ancillary notes from many of today’s top preachers and church leadership voices.

To be eligible to win, answer the following question:

What’s your favorite Christmas gift you’ve received?

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

Notable Voices – December 13, 2012

How Honest/Ethical Is Your Pastor? A New Survey – Marc Cortez

Marc shares the results of a new Gallup poll on how ethical the American public views certain professions. I have to admit, it is disheartening that only 52% of Americans see clergy as highly ethical and honest.

 

Eight Questions Every Social Media Strategy Needs to Answer – John Haydon

I have found social media to be extremely beneficial to me and to LifeWay over the past few years. As I travel and speak, my conversations with those that I meet tend to revolve around my strategy for Twitter and blogging. While everyone’s social media strategy may differ, these eight questions tend to overlap for us all.

 

11 Encouragements Young Pastors Need to Hear – Ben Reed

All three of my sons are young pastors. They would likely agree with many, if not all, of the items found on this list—as would this seasoned pastor.

 

10 Misconceptions About the New Testament Canon – Michael Kruger

As odd as it may seem, the world of academia is not immune to stretching the truth. And in certain theological circles, the stretching of interpretation is an even greater problem. So it’s always interesting to read scholars debunk myths that are passed off as truth. This blog series by Michael Kruger does just that.

 

100 Best Quotes On Leadership – Ben Terry

Every leader should bookmark this post and return to it regularly. These are great reminders of what it means to be a successful leader.

 

The Year in Pictures – The Atlantic 

A compilation of pictures from 2012. There are some stunning shots in this three-part series. And some humorous ones as well. Like this…

Rednecks and Medical Terms

I am a bona fide redneck at heart. I was born and raised in LA (lower Alabama), and I currently live in Tennessee. I love country music, boiled goobers, Bama football, and at least one cold one a day (diet coke). I was so ingrained in Southern culture as a child that I thought anything north of Birmingham was Yankee territory.

With my unashamed redneck background, I am inestimably equipped to understand and share redneck vocabulary. As you can imagine, these are not original with me; they are pervasive on the Internet. For today, I will share with you what rednecks hear when they hear a medical term. Enjoy.

Artery – the study of paintings.

Bacteria – back door to the cafeteria.

Barium – what doctors do when patients die.

Benign – what you be after you be eight.

Cat scan – searching for kitty.

Cauterize – made eye contact with her.

Colic – a sheep dog.

Coma – a punctuation mark.

Dilate – to live long.

Enema – not a friend.

Fester – quicker than someone else.

Fibula – a small lie.

Labor pain – getting hurt at work.

Morbid – a higher offer on eBay.

Nitrates – rates of pay for working at night (usually higher than day rates).

Node – I knew it.

Outpatient – a patient who fainted.

Pelvis – second cousin to Elvis.

Post operative – a mailman.

Recovery room – place to do upholstery.

Rectum – nearly killed him.

Secretion – hiding something.

Seizure – a Roman emperor.

Terminal illness – getting sick at the airport.

Tumor – one plus one more.

Urine – opposite of you’re out.