Thom S. Rainer's Blog, page 64

The Difference Between Curious and Caring Pastors (And Why It’s Better to Be Caring)

Both curious and caring pastors ask about members and staff. Both curious and caring pastors inquire about those who are not acting normally. An illness, family issue, or work-related problem should raise a leader’s level of awareness about a particular individual.

Both the curious leader and the caring leader exhibit good management skills when inquiring about followers experiencing difficulties. All leaders should ask about followers. Ignorance derived from apathy is not only poor leadership, but it’s also how you become a lousy person. So what is the difference between a caring inquiry and a curious inquiry? And why is it better to be caring?

Leaders in large organizations—and leaders in churches over a couple hundred people—cannot possibly care for each individual. The issue is not whether a leader personally invests care in each person but rather the default posture and tone of that leader.

Caring leaders desire to serve followers. Curious leaders desire information about a subordinate. The difference between care and curiosity is service. The caring pastor asks about a struggling staff person to understand how better to serve him. The curious pastor asks about a staff member to understand what work she might not finish. One cares about the individual. The other is concerned about organizational output.

There is a genuine and authentic burden that caring leaders feel for followers. Curious leaders are not necessarily inauthentic, but they simply want to know what is taking place. It’s the difference between “How can I help?” and “Give me information so I can make a decision.”

Caring leaders track follower performance to help them improve. Curious leaders track follower performance to make operational decisions. I believe curiosity is a must-have leadership trait. And all leaders should maintain a high level of curiosity about their organizations. Pastors—even those with long-term tenures—must continue to ask questions. Curiosity drives creativity and informed decisions. Leaders without curiosity rarely learn from failure. Curiosity is important. And most curious leaders do care. But a caring leader, at the core, has a heightened level of concern for each individual.

Good leaders care both for the organization and the individuals in that organization. Even if leaders cannot invest care in each individual, they can still have a default posture of serving. Such is the burden of a caring leader and a caring pastor.

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12 Strange Foods Brought to Church Potlucks

Many churches still have potluck meals. Some have them once a week; others celebrate this tradition once a year at a homecoming event.

I remember them well in some of the churches where I served as pastor. One of the most challenging issues for me occurs when a church member asks me to try his or her dish. I still have nightmares about those experiences.

So, I went to social media and asked for feedback (pun intended). What are some of the strangest and weirdest dishes you have seen at church potluck meals? We had many responses. It was tough to highlight just twelve of them, but I decided to throw up, I mean throw out, these responses.

I know I left out many good and nauseating responses. These are not listed in any particular order: 

1. Alpo casserole. Yes, a church member admitted that the dog food was the “meat” in the dish.

2. Raccoon. The respondent did not indicate if the raccoon was grilled, baked, or fried. That would make a lot of difference.

3. Rattlesnake. I admit I tried that dish one time. It was both my first and last time.

4. Livermush. Everything about this word bothers me.

5. Grilled chicken feet and intestines. I like chicken. But there are some parts of the chicken I didn’t think you could eat. These two would be among them.

6. Armadillo cake. I had to read it twice. Yes, he did say “cake.”

7. Squirrel pot pie. I hope it was appropriately labeled.

8. Crow. I’ve eaten crow several times, but not literally.

9. Coconut cake brought by a lady that has an indoor white Persian cat. I have never liked coconut. This example is the clincher for me.

10. Pasta covered in Jello. Give the cook bonus points for creativity.

11. Cow hoof stew. No. Just no.

12. Possum dumplings. I wouldn’t eat possum. And I am worried about where they got the dumplings.

Thanks for letting me share a bit of levity in this article. Now, let me hear from you. Do you have any “different” potluck dishes you have seen or experienced?

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Five Reasons My Family Loves (Really!) Ministry Together

Shepherding my family and my church are intertwined. Some might advocate separating the two, but it’s impossible since my household is part of the local church. When I leave the church building, I come home to church members. The call to pastor a church is not an individual decision, but rather collective determination by a family. One of my best mentors taught a seminary class. I’ll never forget his adamant words: “If your wife ain’t called, you ain’t called.” A couple of students chuckled at his lack of academic polish. They were fools.

Our ministry became our family through the foster system. We adopted a son. We foster other children. The call to shepherd a church is a call to shepherd the community. Don’t call yourself a pastor if you’re not willing to dive into the community’s worst problems and help. And the decision to minister to our community affects my family. The community became our family when we chose to adopt and foster. We’re in this thing together, and here’s why I am grateful.

My wife and kids love the church. No shoes? No problem. My little ones are quick to kick off their flip-flops and run around barefooted in the church. Our children’s ministry builds a culture of training and equipping kids for ministry. My wife is right at home in our worship ministry and women’s ministry. She led worship during an interim search period—not out of obligation but out of joy. My church loves my family. We’ve experienced the worst of what a church can do. My wife and oldest daughter were deeply wounded by a previous church, so we’re grateful to have a church now that demonstrates the best of what a congregation can do. God moved us from horror to delight, and we know what we’ve got with West Bradenton—an amazing body of people with a genuine love for my family. Ministry compels us to sacrifice. The local church is the front line of ministry. In the battle against the spiritual forces of evil, the church is the trench. Christ’s bride is dug in, charged up, and ready to die for the freedom of souls. I relish the trench. It’s messy, at times gruesome, and the noise makes it difficult to sleep. While there is no beauty in warfare (spiritual or otherwise), the battling bride is a gorgeous organism. Despite the muck, despite the damage, and despite the fight, she remains pure, white, and righteous. She belongs to Christ. She combats for Christ. She never stops engaging in the mission of reclaiming captives of darkness. I will die fighting in the trench—for the unborn person, for the immigrant, for the widow, for my neighbors, and for every tongue, tribe, and nation. The legacy of my family must continue. My grandfather fought for civil rights in Alabama in the 1960s. He rescued sons from alcoholic fathers. My father has a national ministry but sacrifices to great degrees for the local church and really doesn’t want the details of his sacrifice known. My mother gave up a career for ministry. My wife has done the same. Her grandfather toiled in obscurity among the rolling fields of Kentucky farms, pastoring in poverty without any glory or recognition. Ministry is fun. Most days are filled with laughter and fist bumps. My family is happy. My church is happy. We have fun. After walking through a dark valley in ministry, God brought us to the place of royal palms, sunshine, and sand. I shepherd in paradise. Granted, if you scratch the surface of sunshine, you’ll find a bizzaro land of Florida crazies who need Jesus. It can be dark here, sure, but it’s also a lot of fun and certainly never boring. My family fits right in.

I want to die here: old, leathered, scarred, and exhausted. I can’t imagine approaching the throne of God unless I’m ready to collapse into the arms of Jesus. My family will help me limp to the finish line.

 

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Confessions of a Cynical Pastor

Note: We received the following story at Church Answers recently. The only changes I made were to protect the identity of the pastor. His self-awareness and prescriptions are very helpful.

I spent the last week with my family at the beach on vacation. We really enjoyed ourselves. I wished we had another week! While there, I hoped to detox from the constant pressures of the ministry, unplug from screens and social media, and just be present with my wife and kids.

After a few days of this detox, I had a troubling realization. I am jaded and self-protective toward people—strangers, church members, whatever — just people in general.

Avoiding People

I often find myself not wanting to be around people—even people I like. For example, at the beach, I didn’t want to meet new people or become friends with any of the other families at our condo that we kept running into down on the beach or by the pool. I smile and try to be polite, of course. But deep down, I sense this growing and alarming sense of fear at letting people get close to me.

On an almost subconscious level, I have come to distrust others, thinking that they’re going to end up scrutinizing me or adhering to some strange theological or political belief very passionately and holding suspicion toward me if I don’t hold the same view with the same level of fervor.

When Cynicism Hits

I have become cynical. Cynicism is the belief that people are motivated by self-interest. To be cynical is to be distrustful of human sincerity. I feel like most people are hard to please and easy to offend. Accordingly, I have learned to tread lightly. It has negatively impacted my ability to fulfill God’s call on my life to be a pastor to his people.

I shared my realization with my wife. She is always so supportive and mature. She said it was good that God was showing me these developments. Then, she asked, “What are you going to do about it?”

A Prescription for Pastoral Cynicism

So this morning, after my Bible reading, I made a list of responses to the question, How I can fight back against cynicism in my life and ministry? Here are my six responses. I would appreciate your feedback, especially if you’ve dealt with this sort of thing and have advice or resources you can share. Thanks in advance.

How can I fight back against cynicism in my life and ministry?

Pray for God’s help. Pray that God would heal my heart, forgive me of a lack of love, renew my love for my people, and give me a thick hide and a tender heart. It is a gift to see a struggle and be able to name it, admit it, confess it, and be forgiven.

Create, maintain, and regularly engage a pictorial directory of prayer of church members. And pray for my church members!

Seek help from books, articles, sermons, podcasts related to the subject.

Cultivate relationships with other pastors in which cynicism can be discussed, confessed, commiserated, and prayed about.

“Smell like the sheep”—that is, spend time with my flock. Reactive opportunities will happen, sure, but they alone are insufficient. Be proactive and create opportunities. Call them, text them, send them Facebook messages, visit them.

Regulate social media intake. Creativity should be the price of consumption. Interact. Share “likes” supportively. Don’t just be nosey, but be kind and magnanimous with the way you scroll your feeds. Be on guard against negative material. Being “in the know” on Twitter isn’t really that important, especially if it contributes to cynicism that adversely affects your love for people.

Note: Thank you, pastor, for these words of wisdom. I know many pastors who feel similarly to you. I also know you have likely helped thousands of them with these words.

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Why Do Some Churchgoers Stick with Bad Pastors?

Most pastors work hard, love their churches, and would sacrifice their lives for the people they lead. If you are reading this article for ways to get back at your pastor, then it’s likely you’re the problem, not your pastor. But there are some bad pastors out there. Why do people stay with them?

There is a romance of leadership. Most studies in leadership focus on the top roles. Many leader-centric approaches assume followers are mere recipients of leader-driven change. To romanticize leadership is to exaggerate its importance relative to followers. Leadership is extremely important, but it exists only because followers collectively interpret someone (or a group) in such a role. Romancing leadership leaves out half the relationship. Followers are just as important. Obsessing over leaders at the expense of followers leaves a gaping hole in understanding how leadership really works.

If followers have power and influence, then why might they fall prey to bad leaders? How can the leader-follower relationship break down? What makes followers susceptible to toxic leadership? Sometimes this problem results in a congregation dwindling due to an apathetic pastor. Other times the result is more tragic, in which bullying—even abuse—occurs. There are three main ways this breakdown happens. What follows is descriptive, not prescriptive. Additionally, the scope of this brief article is broader and more general than the cases of abuse. Some leaders are bad because they are lazy and selfish. Most importantly, no one should endure bullying and abuse, and any instance should be reported immediately.

Safety. Most people are not locked into a leader. You can leave a church. You can transition out of a job. You can transfer schools. People can vote out politicians and strike against companies. Most followers in our culture have the freedom to walk away. But with every increase in freedom comes a corresponding decrease in safety. If you walk away from your job, then the paycheck is no longer guaranteed. If you vote out a politician, then you risk voting in one who is worse. In short, followers stick with bad leaders because they are not willing to risk safety in order to be more free. Leaving a church can be complex, especially when you have children who find a sense of safety in the congregation.

Belonging. Ditching a bad leader may mean leaving an important community. For instance, many followers remain loyal to a professional sports team despite an unscrupulous owner or ineffective coach. Loyalty is a powerful force within a community. Belonging in a human community will often supersede leaving a group leader. It’s why some churchgoers tolerate a fruitless pastor.  It’s why cult followers do not denounce the cult after the leader falters catastrophically. Unfollowing a toxic leader is often more painful (and less important) than the sense of belonging that comes from the community over which the leader presides.

Comfort. Challenging bad leaders is uncomfortable (at best) and deadly (at worst), but many followers forget they have the power to challenge leaders. In fact, dual accountability is one of the keys to a successful leader-follower relationship. In order to challenge leaders, however, followers must let go of comfortable silence. If you are the only one to speak out, and no one joins you, then you’re left alone in a vulnerable position. Many followers are not willing to risk comfort to challenge bad leaders.

A healthy leader-follower relationship is less about an exaggerated leader romance and more about dual accountability. Accountability is what prevents pastors from becoming dictators and tyrants. Congregants need shepherds to help guide them to better places. Pastors need church members to fulfill God’s purpose for the church. The proper glue sticking followers with leaders (or congregants and pastors) is dual accountability—not safety, belonging, and comfort.

 

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Should Your Church Be Revitalized or Replanted? A Post-COVID Reality

Very few church leaders and members are opposed to their churches being revitalized.

After all, revitalization is the process of your church getting reinvigorated. Revitalization literally means “life again.” It sounds pretty basic.

The problem is that many church leaders and members really don’t want substantive changes with their revitalization. For them, revitalization is a process of tweaking and making small adjustments. Add a program or ministry here and there. But don’t change our church!

Hear me clearly: That type of revitalization will not work. Indeed, it is not revitalization at all. It is a superficial move with no lasting results.

In the post-COVID world we are entering, I see the need for many churches to replant instead of revitalizing. Let’s look at the difference between the two.

Definitions

Revitalization is the process of a church making substantive changes to move to greater health. Replanting involves closing the present church and starting a new church in its place.

The challenge is that many churches think they are in the process of revitalization, but they are not close to making the substantive changes they need to make. There is resistance to those changes. More often than not, the resistance comes from the church members. But it can come from church leaders as well.

There is a hard reality for many of those churches today. On their present path, they will close the doors. Perhaps many of the members do not see it coming, but this trend is growing in the post-COVID world. The trend began before the pandemic, but it has been accelerated and exacerbated as a result of the pandemic.

What Is Involved in Replanting?

While no two replants are identical, most of them have common characteristics. Here are a few of them: 

The existing church is legally closed, a new church is legally constituted.There is a period where there are no services at the church site. The new church lets the community know via a sign and, perhaps, local social media marketing that a new church is coming.The church changes its name. It is, after all, a new church.New leadership comes. They may or may not keep the existing leadership.The replant is treated, in many ways, like a new church plant. There is a concerted effort to get people in the community to come to this new church.There is a celebratory opening of the new church.

 The Big Challenge

For certain, I have oversimplified the replanting process for brevity. You can likely see, however, why few churches are willing to be replanted. It is an act of sacrifice and selflessness. You are willing to give up your personal preferences for the greater good of God’s glory and his Kingdom.

I have heard countless times that the church is the people, not the building. I get that. But churches must gather somewhere. And in this post-COVID and post-Christian world, we need more, not fewer, places to be lighthouses for Christ in communities.

If you have read this article and think your church will never need to be replanted, please consider the matter again. Several years ago, I wrote a book called Autopsy of a Deceased Church, where I interviewed former members of churches that had closed their doors.

There was a common theme in all the interviews. The members were in denial about the state of their respective churches until it was too late. A common refrain from these members was, “If we had only known.”

Now you know. At least you know it’s a possibility your church will close.

Be willing for your church to die so a new and healthy church can come to life.

But don’t wait until it’s too late.

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Hospitality Can’t Take a Vacation

If you’re in charge of the guest services team at your church, chances are good that you are already feeling the pinch of summer. After a year like no other – and with lowering COVID numbers and rising vaccination rates – people are ready to escape the house and the monotony of the last 15 months. 

Whether your volunteers have fled to high ground or sandy shores or Disney or Great Wolf Lodge, you may be worried that there won’t be adequate coverage to make it to September. The only problem is that while your volunteers may take some down time, your guests won’t. Their version of down time will likely be checking out your church for the first time.

So how do you balance the drought of volunteers with the influx of guests? Here are six strategies to cope:

1. Refuse to relax your standards. The easiest thing to do is to clock out of quality for the summer. Drop a team here. Do without a volunteer there. However, that leaves your guests with a less-than-ideal experience. While your overall team numbers might be down, your campus coverage shouldn’t be. As you start the summer season, continue to think from the perspective of your guests and fight for their comfort. 

2. Get on your volunteers’ schedules. True, there are some people who decide to head out for a weekend getaway at the very last minute. But for the majority of people on your team, they’ve had vacation on their schedules for months. That makes it easy for them to get their vacation on your schedule, as well. Shoot a quick email to your team and ask about the weekends they’ll be out of town. That quick memory jog will keep you from a lot of surprises later this summer.

3. Go after your one-offs. Summer is a great time to ask people to serve who normally don’t. Ask people to fill in for a couple of weekends with no pressure to do anything else. Give them an easy win – mixed with low commitment – and watch the gaps get filled in. And who knows? You might just end up with a new volunteer who didn’t know how much they loved serving others.

4. Make it a team effort. Go after your Sunday School classes and small groups and encourage them to take one Sunday out of class to serve as a team. This can be a healthy break in their normal routine and help them have an others-focus.

5. Help them beat the heat. For those who are serving, keep in mind the uncomfortable conditions they’ll endure. Send reminders to your outdoor people to bring caps and sunglasses. Provide water, Gatorade, and sunscreen. Surprise them at summer’s end with a visit from the ice cream truck. Rotate them often so they’re not in the elements too long.

6. Send them off with a smile. Do not. I repeat: do not make your vols feel guilty for taking a break. In fact, you should make sure that everyone has at least a couple of weekends off during the summer, even if they’re not traveling anywhere. We don’t do our teams any favors when we lord over them like taskmasters. Rather, push them to enjoy some Sabbath time. That’ll pay off in long-term loyalty.

This post originally appeared on dfranks.com .

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Can I Be an Effective Pastor If I Don’t Like Management?

Can I Be an Effective Pastor If I Don’t Like Management?

Pastors are not managers, at least in a corporate-business-world-publicly-traded-company-sort-of-way. But pastors are shepherds. And shepherds manage sheep.

Leading a church involves management. A church hierarchy assumes management. And most churches—even smaller congregations—are not completely flat in structure. Even at the most basic level, churches require management. Who pays the bills? When does the meeting start? Who is responsible for snow removal? Who fills the baptistery? What is our policy? Those are basic managerial questions. Most churches are more complex.

Some senior leaders in the church gravitate towards being more like a senior writer or senior analyst. These leaders are recognized for their intellectual contributions but do not have managerial oversight. Many teaching pastors have this type of role in the church. Other senior leaders prefer to manage the minutia and deal with people issues. Many executive pastors have this type of role. Most pastors, however, must both teach and execute.

The vast majority of pastoral roles include management. So, can church leaders be effective if they don’t like management? Yes, but they must compensate in these ways.

Be self-aware. One of the core problems of bad management is poor managers often do not recognize their weak managerial skills. When you’re self-aware about your weaknesses (and willing to admit them), then you’re more likely to receive help from others. No pastor can (nor should) do it all. And all pastors should be self-aware of what they can and cannot do.

Discern what to delegate. Just because you’re naturally good at doing something does not mean you are able to manage others doing the same thing. Some pastors delegate their responsibilities too quickly. Others delegate the wrong responsibilities. And some tasks should never be delegated. Delegation with discernment makes up for a lot of managerial weaknesses.

Don’t fear being the doer. Some people prefer doing tasks. Others prefer managing people who do the tasks. If you cherish a few tasks, then don’t give them up. Keep doing them. For instance, a pastor might enjoy locking the church after the evening service as an opportunity to prayer walk.  Or, if you’re an artistic type, there may be certain creative tasks that are difficult to manage. Good church leaders know what select tasks they enjoy most and keep doing them, sparing their followers the inevitable and overbearing micro-management that would accompany overseeing others doing them.

You don’t have to like management to be an effective pastor. But shepherding a congregation does involve managing others. All pastors should both teach and execute. Few master both. If you’re weaker at managing, then you can compensate through self-awareness, discernment, and doing the tasks you enjoy most.

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A Sermon Illustration to Challenge Us to Tell the Gospel

A Sermon Illustration to Challenge Us to Tell the Gospel

Billions of people around the world have little or no opportunity to hear the gospel.

Millions of people in the United States, including some who themselves have never heard the Good News, are not Christ-followers.

Some of our neighbors likely are not believers.

In many cases, some of our own family members aren’t Christians.

Lostness surrounds us, even if we don’t always view people as “sheep without a shepherd” (Matt 9:36). We may live in evangelistic apathy, but the realities of heaven and hell remain.

When I think about this truth, I’m reminded of a situation I found myself in several years ago. I was a rookie volunteer firefighter, excited every day to do something I had dreamed of doing for many years. On this particular day, our firefighting team responded to a small fire in a trailer by the road. Bales of hay were burning when we arrived.

Our team extinguished the fire, and my job then was to probe for any other hot spots or fire remaining in the hay. As I focused intently on doing that task, I failed to recognize that a small fire had erupted at my feet. In fact, I didn’t notice it until my captain said to me, “Uuhh . . . you’re standing in fire!” It seems I was so protected by my fire boots and so focused on the task that I missed the flames directly around me.

I fear I might sometimes do the same with people around me. I preach the truth of eternal damnation, but I suspect I sometimes miss people close to me who are headed toward everlasting fire. I’m so insulated in my church work and so focused on other ministry tasks that I don’t always sense the flames around me.

May God forgive me—and compel me to evangelize!

 

 

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Seven Ways to Thank Donors to the Church without Knowing Their Identities

Nonprofits that aren’t churches can have a significant advantage over churches in donor development. Almost every leader of a nonprofit that isn’t a church knows precisely what everyone gives. He or she can then thank them personally and appeal to them in the future.

But what do church leaders do if they do not have access to giving records? This issue arose on two separate occasions at our consulting and coaching forum site, Church Answers Central. I learned a lot from our members’ interactions.

 We will not address whether or not a pastor or other church leaders should have visibility to giving records. We will avoid the emotions we often get when we mention that issue. Instead, we will focus on churches where the pastor does not know individual giving amounts. Here, then, are seven ways to thank donors when you do not their identity.

1. Write a letter or email acknowledging their anonymity. Here is an example of the beginning of such a letter: “Dear faithful servant, our financial assistant informed me that you provided a recent generous financial gift to our church. Though I do not have access to giving records and identities, I want to thank you for your generosity. Our financial assistant is mailing this letter on my behalf.”

2. Write first-time givers within the first week of their donation. Of course, you can use the exact verbiage as shown above. You could change the wording “recent generous” to “first-time.” We have heard that this approach has been successful in securing ongoing financial commitments from the donor.

3. Thank the church as a whole regularly. My pastor and son, Jess Rainer, thanks the congregation every week. Instead of asking for money, he gives thanks. Many pastors use the offertory as a time to express thanksgiving.

4. Write every giver in the church twice a year. Most of the time, these letters are not personalized. While writing to thank the givers toward the end of the year is good, many church members expect that letter as a method of seeking commitment for the upcoming year. A mid-year letter can have a significant impact. Because it is typically not expected, it is received with greater appreciation.

5. Write a note to those who give to special funds. Many churches have funds for special causes, such as missions or a building campaign. While other churches have moved to a unified budget, many congregations still have focused, designated giving. These letters can also be written with an acknowledgment of the anonymity of the giver.

6. Find a way to express gratitude to those who have stopped giving while checking on them pastorally. Here is an example of a letter sent from a church’s financial assistant: “We noticed that after a long season of financial generosity, your giving habits towards the church have changed. We wanted to check in and see if everything was okay, or if something unexpected has occurred that the church can help with. You can share as much or as little as you want, but we wanted you to know how thankful we are for your financial generosity and that we care about you.”

7. Thank God for the faithfulness of those who give. Even if you cannot thank them directly, you can thank God for faithful givers. Some pastors pray a prayer of thanksgiving for their churches at least once a week. Among their specific areas of gratitude are prayers of thanksgiving for the faithful stewardship of the church members.

 A few years ago, a pastor learned that a senior adult had made a multi-million donation to the local community college. The pastor was shocked that she had that type of wealth. And he was surprised she didn’t direct any gifts to the church. He got the courage to visit her and ask her directly why she didn’t give anything to the church. Her response is telling.

 “Why, pastor, I didn’t know you really cared about people giving to the church. The president of the community college thanked me on many occasions for my donations. When it came time to give away this large amount, the college was top of mind. The president came to my home to thank me again and to work with me on this large donation.”

 Her final words were indicting: “I wished you had asked me. I just didn’t know you cared.”

 Give thanks for everything.

 And that includes those who give to your church.

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