Leadership

When God called me to plant a church almost a decade ago, I was scared, doubtful I could do it, and my wife was a little shocked and nervous, but on board to follow the Lord on this journey. One of the greatest concerns I had was my family suffering. At that point in our lives we did not have children, but it was becoming a big desire in our lives. I know planting a church would be a huge undertaking and would call us to sacrifice.

I had seen and heard the horror stories of the overworked pastor/church planter and the pain it caused in their marriage and ultimately led to the end of their ministry. I knew that was not God’s desire, so I made a commitment to myself, my family, and to God that I would give 100% to the church plant during the day, but that it would not become my new wife at night and every weekend.

I told my wife about this commitment and my life coach. My wife was a massive support each and every day and my coach kept me accountable. There were times I said no and chose to not take the speaking opportunity or the invite to something because I knew none of that mattered if I lost my family because the church would ultimately fail. Please don’t misinterpret what I am saying, there are times you need to be there, there are times you have to go at night, there are times you need to help someone, but you must empower others and fight against creating a culture needy on you. This is poor stewardship of your leadership and the development of other leaders.

Over the next six and half years, we experienced a great move of God where He incredibly blessed our church plant and God allowed us to also start a church planting network. Today, as I take inventory and look back at how God worked, I know that choosing my family at night and on the weekend was the right choice and God blessed it! The choice to stop and be with my family humbled me, which is hard for me and let God be God in my work.

Questions To Ask Yourself:

• Is there clear communication between yourself and your spouse about your schedule?
• Are you managing your time during the workday so you can be free at night?
• Are you creating a culture in the church where everyone needs you?
• Are you empowering your small groups to meet the needs of those in their group rather than a staff person meeting all those needs?
• Will the church you serve set the culture and expectations or will you create the culture that is life giving to you and your family?

I have listed some critical questions that you need to ask yourself and you must be brutally honest with yourself about the answer.  A lack of honest will lead you to make the wrong decision about revitalizing a church. If you have trouble being honest with yourself, get a trusted mentor or friend to help you answer these questions.

The reason I want to encourage you to answer these questions is because I believe many pastors lie to themselves about revitalizing a church. They convince themselves that they can turn around a church that the Apostle Paul himself could not turn around. I don’t want to see Pastors burn their time, passion, and energy trying to revitalize churches that don’t have the potential to turn around. Or churches that don’t want to turn around and like things the way they are…

This might sound brutal to some people, but we want to make sure we are not investing  our time, passion, and energy in the wrong area. If you are going to help a church find new life, then you need to be thoughtful and strategic about the churches you pour ourselves into. We each only have one life and you want to maximize your impact for the Kingdom of God while you are here on this earth. I would encourage you to pray and be honest with yourself about these questions. Of course God can do anything and turn any church around. Above all else do what God tells you to do, but maybe these questions below can help you get clarity from God.

Critical Questions To Ask Yourself

• Do you have the bandwidth?
• Do the people on your team have the ability?
• Are there more people who are willing to go forward in the future with you or more against you?
• Is the financial situation of the church in a state to revitalize?
• Are the key leaders ready and willing to take the risk?
• Will people sacrifice what it will take to reach the disengaged in the community that surrounds them?
• Will you be willing to make the hard choices that need to be made that may cost you your job?
• What are the golden calves in the church? If you kill these will they kill you?
• Who is going to coach you through this process?
• Do you have the staff team to turn things around and are they committed to you as a leader and your vision?
• Is God telling you to do this? (This trumps everything, but the previous questions might help you discern God’s call)

To be clear if God calls you to do something, He can give you what you need overcome any hurdle or challenge. The questions above are simply a tool to help you get clarity.

Early in my ministry career, I served as a church ministry intern, student pastor and college pastor. I would not trade those seven years of experience and learning for anything, I loved what I got to learn and the people I had the opportunity to serve along side. It was during those seven years of ministry that God put on my heart to plant a church and become a Lead Pastor. Now as a Lead Pastor, I realized how much harder and challenging a leadership position.

I had much repenting to do from all of the judgment that I had brought down on former Lead Pastors and co-workers that I had served with and criticized in my mind. It was in those moments that I realized how divisive I had been and how I wish I could have gone back and done things differently as a staff member on the team with those Pastors. Please if you are on ministry staff at a church, learn from my mistakes.

Over the last ten years as I have served as a Lead Pastor, it has been such an incredible journey and learning experience for me. I have had some great successes and some great failures, but one of the biggest leadership mistakes I made early on was trying to run after those who were never going to stay with me. You know who they are; they are the people you have to burn up so much time trying to convince but nothing you share is quite right. They are the ones who are always trying to make you feel like your church doesn’t offer what “their family” needs. Especially this is true for church planters who have very few staff, limited ministries, and virtually no money.

Don’t make one of the biggest leadership mistakes that I have made and continue to see pastors and leaders making. It is chasing after someone who will never buy in to your vision. When you do this you are missing the new people God is bringing who are trying to purchase the vision you are selling. Don’t be to busy trying to please people who will take you sideways and miss the people God is bringing to move you forward.

As a leader you must have a clear calling, vision, and focus or you will get eaten up by the vision stealers and never accomplish what God is calling you to do. Don’t let them steal the vision, but stay committed to God’s call in your life and go with those who are with you and those God brings who are buying into the vision God has called you to.

A few takeaways that I have learned:

• Pray for God to give you discernment on when to move on from someone
• Go with the people who are with you
• Don’t allow those who leave steal your joy
• Some people are church hoppers and will use the next pastor/church too
• Satan will try to bring vision stealers to come rob your church
• Focus your mind on things above and celebrate those who are with you
• Remind yourself of when God called you to this work and what He told you to do