Surviving the Future

Outcomes magazine, in a story entitled Developing Next Generation Leaders predicts that there will be a need for over 50,000 leadership roles in Non profits and churches. I'm not sure of the exact number but am confident that the need for people willing to step into positions of serving Christ on a full time basis is going to be crucial in the coming years. In my denomination the leadership is getting older and there does not seem to be very many "young" leaders in the pipeline. This concerns me and should concern any person serving within the church. If we really believe that the Church is the Hope of the world then we need to enlist and train people. How should we accomplish this?


Call them. We as leaders need to get over our apologizing, shameful and even "poor me" mentality of calling people to serve. Serving Christ in any capacity is a privilege, serving Him as your vocation is an honor. Where do we get off apologizing to people we recruit that they may not make as much money as they would in the secular market place. We're not in the secular market place and we're not trying to establish that kingdom. Whether we get "rich" or not should not be our motivation, our motivation should be the eternal. Let's boldly call the young, those looking for mid life career changes and those boomers who are ready to do something signficant with their lives.


Train them. We must utilize the experiences and resources available to us. Our colleges and universities have done adequate to good jobs providing academic and even theological foundations for those in the ministry. The weakness is that they have not accomplished the "on the job" training required to move quickly into serving as leaders. As existing leaders we have to spend time investing in these individuals, we have to replicate ourselves. We have to provide opportunities for the inexperienced to get experience AND learn from it. I'm not talking about sending Billy Ray out to the South Forty where the "old timers" beat him and his family until they can't imagine ever serving in ministry again. I'm talking about creating communities of people that respect the growth potential of new leaders, embrace them with encouragement and we as leaders are on the spot to correct and help process these individuals into stronger servants. We must provide the systems and the relationships!


Adjust our paradigm: Lastly we must adjust our paradigm, our view of accomplishing ministry and serving. The age of a Senior Pastor, Worship Pastor, Youth Pastor and Children's Pastor leading the church are fading into the past. As we move deeper into the information age, roles like graphic arts, technical communications, information services, creative communications, and finance directors may be higher paid and even stronger leadership roles than some of our "pastoral" positions. For many this is a paradigm shift. We have to recognize that our ability to remain relevant is hugely influenced by the MEANs we are communicating the message of Jesus Christ.


We HAVE to make changes, we NEED to make them soon. Are you willing to endure the personal change to make this happen? Are you willing to change how you've served to accomplish the great commision?

The Power of Friends

I made a small observation this morning as I was reading Acts. In Acts 28:15 it says "The brothers there had heard that we were coming, and they traveled as far as the forum of Appius and the Three Taverns to meet us. At the sight of these men Paul thanked God and was encouraged".

After all the trials and tough times Paul has gone through, beatings, jailed, ship wrecked it can almost be over looked that he still desired human companionship - relationship. He "thanked God AND was encouraged" that friends had traveled to see him.

I draw from this the importance of both being willing to invest in the friends that I have and recognize the friends that invest in me. To accomplish what God has set before us we must make the effort. From short communications via twitter, email, facebook to getting in the car or on an airplane and going. I really believe that when we invest we are also blessed.

Give people a reason to thank God for you.

Learning Styles

I'm a huge proponent of small groups. I believe that great relationships and discipleship can occur within them. Having said this I've recently been wondering how learning styles interact with the effectiveness of small groups? Based on my personal history of learning I have two primary means of learning. The first is from peers and networking - this can usually be construed as brainstorming and filtering through options, topics or opinions to determine which I most believe or accept.

The second means is from an authority. When I quickly and confidently want to learn something I go to an authority. This authority may be in the form of a professional, an author or someone I perceive as having extensive knowledge on the topic.

If how I learn is anywhere close to others I think I may have "stumbled" on a weakness of our small groups. People desiring a greater knowledge of Christ that learn better from an "authority" feel that their small group only meets the peer approach thus is inadequate to accomplish a level of spiritual growth desired. This path may lead to the comments frequently heard within the church as "I'm not being fed".

If this has any accuracy how do we resolve this as a church?

Spiritual Growth

It's been a while since my last post, hard to beleive it was summer and now it's almost winter. Recently I was golfing with friend of mine and in the midst of our conversation we stumbled upon the question of "what are my indicators of spiritual growth?". I thought this should be an easy question for a pastor to answer - it wasn't. a week later I'm still trying to come up with MY inidicators - something more than the rituals (yes important but are they indicators - reading the Bible, Praying...) How do I measure my Spiritual Growth?

Allow me to throw out some ideas: I monitor my family growth by increased trust, desire to be with, since of fulfillment at serving their needs AND wants. WOW, these could be the same for my relationship with Christ.

Am I trusting Him more? Is He trusting me more?
Do I desire to spend more time with Him? Do I want to pray (not feel I have to out of guilt), Do I want to read the Bible? Do I want to just spend time thinking about Him? I spend time just thinking about my kids and wife...

I get great satisfaction meeting the needs and wants of Ceri, Jimmy and Jonathan. Last week we took Jimmy and Jonathan to grandma's they were so excited they could hardly stand it - I was so thrilled because they were thrilled - I well up inside just thinking about it (I'm also loving the time with my wife and the kids at grandma's). How much joy do I generate PLEASING Christ - are my actions out of obligation, responsibility or for the sake of bringing pleasure to Him? I know Christ wants this. Why is it so hard to make this a regular measurement of my life's success?