Thom S. Rainer's Blog, page 391

Awaken Conference

Today I am speaking with my son, Jess, at the Awaken Conference in Newnan, Georgia. Please pray we make much of Jesus.

When Pastors Need a Pastor

The pastor saw me walking in the hallway of the church yesterday, and he quickly stopped me for a brief chat. I knew something was wrong. He told me that his elderly father was sick, and that he was worried. Struggling to hold back tears, he said, "I'm still an eight-year-old little boy when I think of my dad. I would do anything for him."

I offered words of consolation, probably insufficient, and a promise of prayer. He then departed quickly.

You see, other people wanted to talk to him. They wanted their pastor to hear about their hurts. They wanted him to minister to them. And he did so gladly. He loves his congregation dearly. And though the pastor is hurting deeply, he does not hesitate to pour himself out for those God has called him to serve.

Shortly after he left me, he preached two more sermons. He preached with passion. He preached as a man who totally loves his church.

He did all of this even though his own heart was heavy and his emotions were raw.

After all, he is a pastor.

Looking for an Army of Pastors to Pastors

The expectations of a pastor are always high. Most are expected to omnipresent, omniscience, and always energetic and ready to serve. But these men are people with their own limitations and their own struggles. They hurt just like the rest of us, sometimes more than the rest of us.

What if every pastor had a number of people in his church who committed to be pastors to their pastor? These "pastors" would not be the same as those who have the specific call of God and the qualifications noted in 1 Timothy 3. Instead they would include a host of "regular" folks like you and me who love our pastors, and who want somehow to help them as they carry their own burdens and hurts.

A Modest Proposal

My proposal, at least for now, is very simple. I am encouraging and praying that thousands of men and women in congregations across America will commit to pray for their pastors every day. Such a time of prayer can be brief and concise. I pray for my pastor every day at the same of time with rare exception. Sometimes I pray for him for 10 minutes or more, but most of them time it's a brief prayer of just a couple of minutes.

What if we became "pastors" to our pastors by praying for these men of God every day? What if millions of Christians in churches across the world would take on this intercessory ministry for our pastors? I can only imagine how pastors would be strengthened and, thus, churches would become healthier.

Will You Join Me?

I saw this pastor as he walked away from me yesterday. I knew his burden was heavy, so I prayed to the One who is able to carry all of our burdens. I prayed that God would comfort him, his dad, and his family. And I prayed that God would give him strength to be the shepherd to rest of us.

Will you join me? Will you consider setting aside just a couple of minutes a day to pray for your pastor? Will you encourage others to do so? Will you be part of a movement of care, concern, and intercession for these men who pour out their hearts to us every day?

Feel free to make any comments, but I would especially like to hear from you who will commit to pray for your pastor. Simply say something like "I will pray." Or you might even mention your pastor by name.

Thank God for our pastors.

They pour out their lives for those they have been called to serve.

The least we can do is to pray for them a few minutes every day.

Friday is for Freebies (March 2, 2012)

I am doing something different this week with the giveaway—there will be three winners instead of one.

The first item in this week's giveaway, Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal, was the subject of my post on Tuesday. I'll be giving away a copy of the book to two different winners. The "grand prize" this week is Faith Limps, the DVD kit related to the book.

Looking for a bright spot amidst the chemotherapy routine brought on by his two-year-old son Joshua's cancer diagnosis Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal offers hope to anyone who's tired of prescriptive spirituality and would rather acknowledge and work through the difficulties of faith with some transparency. Joshua battled and beat the disease, but not before his family had to reconcile what it means to believe in God despite a broken world. His dad's personal account of that fight to survive sparks a larger discussion of how Christians must learn to walk in the light of Christ's promises despite the dark shadows of earthly pain. Indeed, it's pain that sometimes opens the door to a deeper experience with Jesus, an authentic relationship that holds steady even when life loses the comfort of normalcy.

Faith Limps: Trusting a Good God in a Broken World by Michael Kelley is a 6-session Bible study for adults that helps believers respond to suffering by confronting their questions and doubts and by placing their faith in God. The kit features two DVDs providing brief comments by author Michael Kelley for use in six group sessions, one Faith Limps member book, and one copy of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal by Michael Kelley.

In total, today's giveaway retails for nearly $80.

To be eligible to win, tell us how you've seen the healing power of God work in your life.

The deadline to enter is midnight on Saturday night.

Notable Voices (March 1, 2012)

The Trap of Availability -- Sam Rainer

Availability and accessibility are two monumentally different things for leaders. When managed correctly, one can help your organization prosper. When managed poorly, the other can burden you beyond belief.

Santorum, Stats, and Dropout Rates of Religious College Students -- Ed Stetzer

Because of a comment made on Glenn Beck's radio show last week by Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, some of the research my son Sam and I did for our book Essential Church was quoted in various news stories. Ed Stetzer provides a wrap-up of the story surrounding this.

Defined By Who We Aren't? -- Barnabas Piper

As Christians, we must sometimes take a stand against certain policies or worldviews. Unfortunately our stand against things often overshadows the stand we take for things. In this World magazine commentary, Barnabas Piper reminds us that it's what we are for that should define us, not what we are against.

The Vision Without Which People Perish -- Jared C. Wilson

"Where there is no vision, the people perish . . ." We all know the quote from Proverbs. But we misapply it so often. While it is a timeless truth, Jared Wilson wisely points out we must remember the vision is not our big idea. The vision is Jesus.

15 Small Things That Will Kill Company Morale -- Brad Lomenick

Today's work environment is different than what many of us first experienced. We must keep that in mind, and Brad Lomenick has put together an extremely helpful list of morale killers that every boss or manager needs to read.

Church Growth Circa 1984: The (Almost) Perfect Pastor

Back in 1984, books and seminars on church growth were hot. Donald McGavran had imported several of his ideas from the international mission field to America, and Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, was the hub of the church growth activity at the time. It soon became the largest seminary in the world as hundreds of students around world flocked to Pasadena to soak in the latest church growth teachings.

By the mid 1980s, C. Peter Wagner emerged as the most prominent spokesperson for the movement. His classes at Fuller were full. His seminars routinely sold out. And pastors and other church leaders devoured his books regularly.

One book in particular, Leading Your Church to Growth, became a fixture in many pastors' libraries. Indeed, it became the first book in its genre to pass 100,000 units in sales.

Wagner's books focused many of its pages on the role of a pastor. In one section of Leading Your Church to Growth, Wagner cited six "musts" for pastors to be effective. I share those six below in Wagner's own words:

The pastor must be a leader. Look for a person who is called to be out front. In this book I have attempted to describe the attributes of such a leader in great detail. But don't forget that the acid test of a leader is whether there are followers and that their decision to follow has been voluntary.

The pastor must be a person of faith. A person of faith is focused on tomorrow rather than yesterday. Setting goals comes naturally to such a leader. A pastor with faith has a high degree of assurance that he or she knows in which direction God wants the church to move in the future.

The pastor must be a possibility thinker. Gloomy pastors subject to depression and defeat are not usually growth pastors. If the candidate is overly critical, a negative thinker, and prone to bring out what is wrong rather than what is right about a given situation you have a yellow light: caution. Possibility thinkers know how to turn problems into opportunities. They usually relate well to others because they themselves have sufficiently high self-esteem.

The pastor must be a good preacher. While I know of a few growth pastors who do not handle themselves admirably in the pulpit, I would hasten to say that some pulpit committees overemphasize preaching to the extent that it is virtually the only quality they really look for. Many growth pastors are not golden-mouthed orators, but they understand the function of the pulpit in the broader context of worship, leadership, and group dynamics.

The pastor must be flexible. Church growth means constant change. Pastors who are strongly oriented toward tradition and who are uncomfortable with innovation are not growth pastors. Ask God for a person who knows when to change in the light of fresh challenges.

The pastor must be a hard worker. I have mentioned this before, but I will mention it again. I agree with Lyle Schaller when he says, "Most effective pastors share one common characteristic: each is a remarkably hard worker."

Again, remember that Wagner wrote each of those six characteristics in 1984. He admits that the list is not exhaustive, but that the six rise to the top.

How do you view his list of six "musts" nearly 30 years later? What is still relevant to pastors today? What, if any, was a passing fad that does not apply today?

C. Peter Wagner was a highly influential man, particularly among baby boomer pastors and church staff. How do you see that influence playing itself out today?

Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal

There are few times a parent hurts more than when his/her child is sick or injured and he/she can do nothing to ease the pain or suffering. The sense of helplessness that overcomes a parent can be excruciating at times. I have experienced this with my sons, and I know many of you have as well.

Wednesday Were Pretty Normal, a new book by Michael Kelley chronicles the story of his two-year old son, Joshua, and his battle with leukemia. Michael is brutally honest about the pain and doubt that overwhelmed him while he watched his son endure this trial. I want to share a section with you today which stood out to me when I read it. It's a great reminder of our value in Christ and Christ alone.

Even on the best days, I walked around with a sense of brokenness. It's like I was shattered into pieces during Joshua's treatment, and now I'm glued back together, but I can't escape the rough edges. The ill-fitting pieces. I just feel…broken. I looked for the future and felt aimless and directionless, like the pathway was somehow more dangerous than before.

Never before had I felt more like the coin Jesus described in Luke 15. It had fallen to the ground and inadvertently been swept away, lost in the cracks of the house. And it would have stayed lost if the woman who owned it had not gone to the trouble of finding it.

I was that coin. And Jesus was a great searcher, as He always is during times when we have lost our way. When the seeds of doubt, fear, and anxiety loom alongside the pathway and obstruct our view of Him. But like the woman in the story, He's not content to leave any of us in the cracks.

In Jesus' story anyone from the outside looking into the house of the searching woman would probably not join in the search because from the outside looking in they would not see the need. The coins in question were ten denari. One denarius was equivalent to a quarter of a shekel, and the shekel was about a day's wage. She loses not a shekel but a quarter of a shekel.

In light of that, it is striking the effort the woman goes to in the search. She is incredibly deliberate and is willing to turn her house upside down to find it. She lights the lamp, she sweeps in the corner, and you can almost see the people looking in the window whispering that this woman is a little bit off. After all, you can understand her being upset at dropping some money, but the amount of effort she puts forth is not equivalent to what was lost. And if those neighbors looking in didn't think she was a little crazy before, how about the fact that she calls for a party when she finds the coin? She wants to host a celebration that would undoubtedly cost more than the amount you found! She buys the hats, the streamers, the cake, the food – all to celebrate finding a sum equivalent to about seven dollars.

It's a lot of effort that leads to the inescapable conclusion: the woman highly valued what was lost. So does Jesus. His search reminds us that we are valued.

Mind you, however, that we aren't valued because we're valuable; we are valuable because we are valued by Him.

What does that search and the assignment of value have to do with shalom? It meant that even when my life felt incomplete and lost, even when circumstances were spiraling out of control, God valued me. And that brings peace. Real peace.

It brings wholeness. It brings completeness. If God values me, then I am in want for nothing else. I can live in shalom because of Him. It is as if Jesus were saying, "Please understand the value you have. Now respond by living in the freedom of wholeness."

Seven Personality Traits of Effective Leaders

Several articles and books have enumerated the leadership characteristics of effective leaders. Indeed, I have taken on that task on a few occasions in this blog. But I want to look at some traits of effective leaders from perhaps a different perspective. I want to ask the question: "Do effective leaders have common personality traits?"

As a researcher, I know I can't prove causation just by defining common personality characteristics. Nevertheless, this brief exercise might inspire some person to investigate the matter more deeply.

The Process

I looked at the biographies of 20 leaders who have been widely accepted as effective leaders. I then added five more names of leaders I know personally. The latter group does not have the recognition of the former group, but I desired to add some contemporary examples of leaders with whom I'm acquainted.

For the next step, I made a list of the personality characteristics of each person. If a personality trait showed up on a majority (13 of the 25) of the leaders, it made my list. In fact, of the seven traits, each of them was on the list a minimum of 18 of the leaders.

The Personality Traits

What then are the personality traits of effective leaders? Here are the seven I discovered in the order of frequency. I use the past tense in the seven items below since a majority of the leaders I studied were deceased.

They had intense personalities. The list included both introverts and extroverts, so intensity is not the same as an exuberant personality. Rather, these leaders had a focus and determination that was evident even if they were quiet and calm on the surface.
They had attitudes of gratitude. These leaders saw each day and each opportunity as a gift. They had the opposite of an entitlement mentality. As they rose through the ranks of their respective professions, they rarely complained or whined about their environment, pay, benefits, or lack of promotions. They were just grateful for the opportunities they had been given.
They were intensely loyal. They were loyal to the organizations, to their superiors, to those who worked for them, and to their fellow employees and co-workers. Theirs was not a blind loyalty, but it was a deep and forgiving loyalty.
They were joyous. Though their personalities were diverse, most of these leaders had a joy about them that was contagious. Some of the leaders manifest their joy with a winsome sense of humor. Others demonstrated joy by their ongoing contentment of life and its opportunities.
They were self-deprecating. These leaders had a security that allowed them to be vulnerable and self-deprecating. They did not try to hide their weaknesses or lack of knowledge; indeed they often made fun of themselves. But if they had a leadership weakness, they would constantly strive to overcome the weakness, often unashamedly asking others for help.
They were self-aware. Most of these leaders did not need an inventory or aptitude test to help them discover their weaknesses. To the contrary, they typically knew their weaknesses and, as noted above, would unashamedly let others know about their deficiencies.
They had a constructive spirit. Everyone knows leaders and other people who are constantly complaining or pointing out the problems of others. These leaders, to the contrary, had the opposite of a negative spirit; they had a constructive spirit. They encouraged and praised people; or they dealt with others' weaknesses and deficiencies in a constructive way.

The Overarching Theme

If there is an overarching theme in the personality traits of effective leaders, it is that they are secure people. They are secure in their abilities. They are secure in their relationships with others. They are even secure to some extent in their weaknesses.

Ineffective leaders tend to be more insecure. Very few of whom I am aware would have a majority of the seven traits I noted. Indeed this small exercise has given me a desire to look more in depth at how security versus insecurity plays itself out in the life of a leader. Perhaps one day I'll get to that task. Or perhaps one of you readers could pursue it as well.

It seems to be an issue worth investigating further.

Friday is for Freebies (February 24, 2012)

This week's giveaway is a great resource pack especially designed for pastors, but includes a little something for everyone even if you aren't a pastor.

The first item is an UltraThin HCSB Reference Bible. Lightweight and easy-to-read, this Bible offers the optimal combination of clarity and portability. This edition includes an introduction to each book of the Bible, full center-column references, a concordance, Words of Christ in red, a presentation page, full-color maps, and more.

Also included is the Pastor's Handbook by John Bisagno. It contains more than one hundred brief chapters of practical insight for handling real life pastoral issues and new world issues.

The final item in the collection is Bruce Ashford's new book Theology and Practice of Mission which provides a clear biblical-theological framework for understanding the church's mission to the nations. Toward that goal, the book holds three major sections: God's mission, the church's mission, and the church's mission to the nations.

This collection retails for nearly $90.

To be eligible to win, tell us what quality your pastor has that you most admire, or for those who are pastors please share a quality of a pastor you admire.

The deadline to enter is midnight on Saturday night.

Notable Voices (February 23, 2012)

Engaging Exposition named 2011 Book of the Year -- Preaching Today

Congratulations to Danny Akin, Bill Curtis, and Stephen Rummage for their book Engaging Exposition being named Book of the Year by Preaching Today in the Enhancing the Preacher's Skill category. If you are a pastor or seminary student, this book is a must have.

An Open Letter to Praise Bands -- James K.A. Smith

Open letters are typically thinly veiled verbal assualt pieces. This one however is an edifying and encouraging reminder for worship pastors and praise bands to evaluate the practice and rationale of leading worship. For those not involved directly in leading worship, please view it as a reminder of what our focus as participants in worship, not spectators, should be.

The Lie of Contextualization -- Dan DeWitt

A reminder from Dan DeWitt that our motivation and focus in ministry should be our content rather than our context. Doing so compromises both our mission and our message. He writes "Our joy is not derived from our context. If we derive our identity from our context we will quickly manipulate our message in order to increase our efficiency and success."

Does Love Win at the Cross? -- Michael Kelley

Michael Kelly examines the winners and losers at the cross. We like to say that "love won" on the hill called Mt. Calvary. In the end, however, it's better for us to say "God won."

6 Truths Learned from a Failed Presentation -- Ben Reed

Many of us have been in a situation like this. No matter what you said in your presentation, the ship was going to sink. It's important for us to learn from our mistakes, and Ben lays out six lessons he learned from a recent presentation nightmare.

Don't Underestimate Synergy in Worship Planning -- Nelson Searcy

Planning a worship service is one of the most important duties of church staff. Unfortunately its often done in a vacuum, and things just don't work best. As Nelson explains, the use of a team-planning approach can bring new inspiration, ideas, and organization if executed properly.

This Leader Needs Prayer

I am a leader. For better or worse, I am in positions of leadership.

I am called to be a leader in my family. I have been called to be the leader of LifeWay. Through my speaking, books, and other writings, I have been called to be a leader in some ways to a larger audience.

My Great Need

Just because I am in positions of leadership, it does not mean that I am a good leader. Leadership by position is not the same as leadership effectiveness. There are times I lead out of my own resources, my own strength, my own education, and my own experience. I might do okay for a season, but that type of leadership ultimately collapses on itself. I must not, I cannot, lead in my own power. I can only lead well when God is working through me.

As a leader, my great need is prayer.

My Prayer Needs

Today I met with a group of pastors. Much to my surprise, at the end of my presentation and after I responded to several questions, these men asked if they could pray for me. I was humbled, and I was grateful. I was reminded again how much I need to pray, and how much I needed prayer.

Allow me to share with you where I most need prayer as a leader. The list is not exhaustive, but it does highlight my need to be totally dependent on Him.

I pray first for wisdom, God's wisdom.I pray that I will always do what is right, not what is easiest and most expedient. I pray, in that regard, that my motives as a leader will always be pure.I pray that I will be a leader in my family first. If I am not leading my family well, I cannot expect to lead well in any other facets of my life.I pray that I will deal with criticisms well and in a godly manner. I pray that I will learn and change as a result of some criticisms, that I will discard those that have no merit, and that my leadership will not be paralyzed by any of them.I pray that I will always be honest and transparent.I pray that I will be accountable as a leader, that I will accept godly course corrections, and that I will always see accountability as a blessing and not a burden.

My Ultimate Need

The more I lead, the more I understand how much I cannot lead in my own power. If I were a great leader, I would understand that need constantly. I would grasp fully my need to be totally dependent on God.

Perhaps, then, I have identified my ultimate need: the need to depend on His strength and His power in very facet of my life and leadership.

I think I will pray more fervently for God to remind me that, apart from Him, I can do absolutely nothing.

In doing so, I will be praying for my greatest need as a leader.