When I Liked Being A Mini-Savior - Guest Post by Dave Jacobs

Russ was a coach-spiritual director who helped me navigate my transition from pastoring to full-time coaching. At least ten years my senior, Russ had been a faithful pastor for 19 years and then felt the Lord leading him out of the pastorate and into being ‘a pastor to one’ as he liked to explain it.

Ellen and I had the opportunity to attend a couple of his two-day spiritual retreats. Russ would gather 12 people at a Catholic retreat center. We’d practice silence, reflection, and have discussions about spiritual formation. One of the things I heard Russ say more than once that stuck with me over the years and has become something I use with my coaching clients to explain to them an important part of my philosophy of coaching.

Russ would say, “It’s not my job to do your thinking for you. It’s my job to help you think.”

When I was a pastor I wasn’t very good at helping people think. I was good at doing their thinking for them.

Pastors are trained and expected to be the one to go to when you have a question or predicament. I don’t know about you, but I kind of liked this. It felt good to appear to have solved someone’s problem either through my advice or by pointing them to the perfect place in the Bible. There was a bit of an ego-stroke when a member of my church would come to me and ask, “Dave, what should I do? What does the Bible say?” I didn’t see it then but I can see it now. I liked being a mini-savior. “Come unto Pastor Dave all you who are weary and heavy laden and Pastor Dave will give you rest.”

Sometimes people want the easy way out. They want someone (the pastor) to tell them what to do, what to think, what to believe. The easy way is not always the best way. It’s hard to think for yourself. Thinking takes time. Thinking takes prayer. When you think for yourself you run the risk of coming up with the wrong conclusions. It’s easier to have someone do your thinking for you.

If I could go back in time, one of the things I would change about my approach to pastoring would be to focus less on being the answer-man, the mini-savior, and more on helping people think for themselves. When my people would come to me with questions I would counter with questions of my own. My questions would be designed to help them think, help them hear, help them see what the Father was doing in their lives.

I would not avoid giving advice at all costs but I also would not enable my people to lean on me more than they should. I would want to help my people ‘grow up’ which is hard for them to do if someone else (me) is doing their thinking for them.

Thanks Russ for depositing in me, “It’s not my job to do your thinking for you. It’s my job to help you think.”

Questions for reflection:

1. How might you get better at asking questions?
2. What ‘push-back’ might you anticipate from your people when they come to you for advice but instead get from you thought-provoking questions?
3. How will you know when it’s time to give advice versus helping someone think for themselves?

This article originally appeared at: http://davejacobs.net/?p=2930&cpage
It is re-posted here with permission.

Frustrations and Joys of Church Planting

My wife and I are involved in a new church plant in Hartford, CT. Our church rents a large room on a college campus for our Sunday services. Though the church is not just for students, they do make up a large portion of the congregation.

A couple of weeks ago we were planning a special service. My co-pastor, who also happens to be my son-in-law, was going to be licensed to the ministry during the service. We had invited a number of special guests to be part of the service. We were pretty excited about it. When we arrived at our normal room to set up things before the service started, the building manager, who has been very helpful in our efforts, informed us that there had been a last minute change in plans by someone in the administration. They needed the large room we normally use to accommodate the administrator's situation. With only 30 minutes until the service began, we had to move all our stuff to a different building and quickly set it up. We had never been in the building before so no one in our congregation knew where we were. The alternative meeting location was on the third floor of a building across campus and down several maze-like hallways. The room was not set up for a service. Honestly, it seemed like the morning was going to be a disaster. People were calling and texting each other trying to figure out where to go and how to find the new location. It was highly stressful and it seemed that our plans for a big service were rapidly evaporating.

Once we got everything set up, and got the service started, we were only running ten minutes behind schedule, things were starting to look up. People kept trickling in as they began to figure out where we were at. In fact, we ended up having a record attendance that morning! The service itself went great. As we prayed over Logan to license him, all the stress seemed to melt away. In the end, God got the glory, and His Word was proclaimed during the service. But it sure was stressful along the way.

Church planting is like that. Unexpected things happen that raise stress levels. God works through them and blesses the situation anyway. Then another challenge happens, and God works through that too. It happens again and again, but each time God works through the situation and brings glory to His name. The frustrations of church planting are many, but so are the joys. The joys make it worth it.

For more devotionals like this one, consider Touching the Footprints of Jesus. 

Following Instructions

A few days ago I wrote about helping a church planter with his secular job that enables him to support his ministry role (read that post here). During that experience I also learned something important about following instructions. As you may recall from my earlier post, the church planter's secular job is to assemble movie displays for theatres. These are not simple "open the box and put the display on the wall" kind of affairs. These are "open the box and spend three hours inserting tab A into slot B while attaching strap C to holder D" kind of projects. Clearly whoever designed these displays were brilliant engineers with a flair for thinking of ways to make cardboard look like a whole city block. Since I am not an engineer, it took a while to even understand the difference between tab A and tab J and holder D and holder Z. WOW, it was complicated! But, by following the directions one step at a time, and with the help of the church planter, who had already assembled many similar displays, we got the project done. And it looked pretty good when it was finished.

There are a lot of parallels between my experience in display making and real life. Life is complicated. We do not just "open life up and set it on a shelf." In order to make life work, there are a lot of things that have to be done in the correct order and at the correct time. If we skip a step, life ends up lopsided, or looking weird. We need a set of directions for how to get through life. And it also helps if we have a friend or two who are a little more experienced in life than we are who can help us figure it out along the way.

Fortunately, life does in fact come with a set of instructions. We call it the Bible. I know many people think the Bible is out of date and no longer relevant to our post modern culture. But when I read the Bible each morning, I see people dealing with many of the very same problems that I hear about on the news each night. Financial issues, family problems, war, crime, messed up governments, churches that are doing the right thing, and churches that are doing some terrible things. Yep, all those stories and more are in the Bible. Perhaps if we started reading it, we would learn how to get our lopsided lives straightened out. And when we get involved in a church, we can find a friend or two that is a little farther a long in their life journey than we are, and they can give us some tips along the way to help us get through the rough spots.

Though life is complicated, if we follow the instructions God gave us in the Bible, and have some mature Christians friends to help us out, life can end up looking pretty good when we get to the end.

For more devotionals like this one, consider Touching the Footprints of Jesus. 

The Third Sunday of Advent - Guest Post by Bill Davis

As we celebrate the third Sunday of Advent, let us look at what many denominations call the Angel’s Candle. We remember the story of how the angels, a Heavenly host, proclaimed the good news of the birth of Christ.

 

Luke 2:9-11; “An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

 

The Angel’s Candle has become known as the Candle of Joy. We know that Christ wants us to have a life full of joy and happiness. The search for joy and happiness is one of the basic elements of human life and is found in a close relationship with God. There will always be pain and even suffering, but one goal in the Christian journey is to reach this level of joy through scripture and our walk with God. Joy in God has no end or limit. 

 

John 15:9-11; “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

 

God wants His children to be happy. He wants them full of His joy and to show this joy to others. One of the main premises of a Christian life is to be filled with His spirit and love in your heart.  As you share His love with others, it will only grow within you.

 

 

 

Bill Davis ministers through Lighthouse Ministries, speaking in churches across Anderson Country, South Carolina. He also serves as Executive Pastor of The Bridge Church, an outreach of Anderson University.

Fundraising for Church Planting - Guest Post by Nathan Cartel

I know Saturday night is not the optimum time to post a blog, but there’s a storm outside, I lost my rhythm this week due to illness, and I really want to finish out my current blog series on the hidden struggles of church planting.  So consider this a bonus blog, or an apology one.  Whatever suits your personality better.

When I started this series, I intended to end on money.  It is certainly one of the greatest struggles for me, if not other church planters.  In the first post of the series, I said one of the reasons I love my job is that I get paid to do it. The truth is that I don’t get paid very much.  I didn’t enter church planting to get rich, but there have been a few months we were downright poor.  I think I will finish out with around thirty-eight thousand dollars for my total salary and housing this year, which sound alike a lot, but I have a family of six, and that number is just above the poverty line for a family our size.  Three years ago we were below poverty levels.  People just assume churches pay their pastors.  Very few think about how that money gets to them.

Since day one I have had to fundraise for my salary.  In the early days I also had to fundraise to pay church bills, but by the grace of God those days are over.  Incrementally over the past five years my church has upped the dollar amount they pay me every year, but according to the BCNE, New England church plants take five to ten years to become self-sufficient.  Self sufficient means they can pay all their bills and their staff on their own, with no outside assistance.  Vita Nova is about two-thirds on the way to self-sufficient.  My salary is the one thing left to fundraise for.

Fundraising is an amazing and heart wrenching act.  It tests your faith as you have to depend on God each month for a pay check.  But it also tests your patience, and you have to wait on forgetful people and organizations to give the money they told you they were sending.  It tests your resolve as you talk to people about your vision and mission and what God is up to, then ask them for money.  Its tests your endurance as person after person says they will pray about it.

The worst part about fundraising, though, is asking people to give and getting a positive response with no check to follow.  They say we will partner, and then never do.  I can not tell you how many people told me they were going to give and then never did.  I assume they didn’t want to hurt my feelings in the moment, but when you are counting on money to come in that was pledged, and it doesn’t, you can get deflated really fast.

Church planting in New England is a long and expensive prospect.  That makes fundraising all the harder.  If  I were to plant a church in the Bible Belt, within two years it could potentially pay me and other staff.  The cost of living would be about half what it is in Western New England.  I could by a house in the suburbs of Cincinnati for less than a third of what a small cottage costs in Amherst.  (My friends are looking to buy in Ohio and seventy thousand will buy them a home.  My mother in law has a small Cape in Amherst and it cost her two hundred and fifty thousand dollars!)  Then there is gas prices, food prices, everything costs more in the North East.  Often people don’t understand why a salary needs to be so “high,” why so much church funds need to be raised, and why it takes so much longer to be a church and not a plant.  Funding a New England church planter can seem like a loss for the kingdom when looking only at the bottom dollar.

To continue the efforts of planting in New England a church planter needs new contacts, longer partnerships and more everything.  That makes fundraising hard.  Especially for someone who is a native New Englander with very few ties to churches I was not launched out from or planted myself.  (I do have a few, just not as many as I need.)

I love what I do, even if I don’t get paid much, but fundraising is a huge stress on a church planter that very few others think about.  Others go to work and know there will be a pay check at the end of the week.  Church planters work in faith and trust God will give them enough to survive.  That is incredibly scary but incredibly faith building.  It is an adventure and stressor every paycheck.  It stretches us and hurts us at the same time.  I don’t want to whine, but to let you all know, if you said you were going to give to someone, make sure you are consistent and honest. Their dinner may just be on the line.

*If you are wondering how you can help, I am in the process of planting a second church in Greenfield Ma.  It is a poor town with poor people.  We are a poor church plant.  We could use funds, sound gear, pipe and drape, and donations for salary.  You can visit Vita Nova’s Website orPaypal.

Theater Displays and Church Planting

There is a spiritual movement happening across America. It involves thousands of young pastors willing to leave the security of larger established churches in order to start small missional churches in homes, storefronts, college campuses and other less traditional venues. These new expressions of the church often appeal to younger generations. They tend to focus more on community outreach and service to others than on forming committees that oversee programs that merely meet the needs of church members.

We call this wonderful expression of faith "church planting." It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of faith. And to be honest, it takes a lot of money. Some young ministers are able to make connections with the right people and organizations that are able to fully fund their new missions. But a majority of church planters are unable to find all the funding in advance. They operate on faith, trusting God to provide along the way as they go. Sometimes God provides through sponsoring churches. Sometimes God provides through individuals. Sometimes God provides through jobs in secular venues. When a pastor takes a second job in a secular venue, as well as serving in the church, we call him a "bivocational" pastor because he has two vocations.

While many pastors in established churches have a negative view of bivocational ministry, church planters often embrace such a ministry as a way to interact with the community and gain "real world" experience. To be honest, bivocational ministry rarely leads to a lucrative bank account, but it does help the church planter survive financially until the church becomes strong enough to provide adequately for the pastor. In many church planting situations, it is the only avenue available for a new church planting pastor.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon helping a young church planter at his secular job. I had not planned on helping him, it was one of those things that just happened. His secular job is to set up movie displays at local theaters. He had mentioned to me previously about some of the cool displays he had built to promote various movies. Yesterday he had a particularly big project for an upcoming movie, and his wife was going to help him with it. He asked if I wanted to come along and help too. Since I had the afternoon free, I decided to join in the project. For more than two hours we sorted parts and pieces and followed pictorial instructions to create a massive 3-dimensional cardboard display to promote an upcoming children's movie.

At some point along the way I asked how much he was making to put the display together since it seemed like a lot of work. I was surprised at how little the pay was. A part of me wondered why a college educated young man with significant skills and experience would work so hard, for so little, when he could make far more on the staff of some established church back in the Bible belt. But another part of my mind knew the answer. He was doing double duty as both a pastor and a theater display installer for the sake of the Kingdom. God had called him to plant a church for young adults in the Hartford, CT area and one way God was providing the funds for it to happen was through this low paying job assembling displays. This young man saw it as a means to fulfill God's calling in his life. It says something about his commitment to the Kingdom. His small congregation may not appreciate his sacrifice, but I do, and so does the Lord. One day, when he crosses over into Glory Land, he will hear those words, "Well done thou good and faithful servant, enter into your reward." What more could a young minister long for?

Lower the Lights in Order to Raise the Voices

Yesterday I had the honor of worshipping in two different churches. Both of them are focused on reaching young adults. The two services were quite similar in nature. Both happened on college campuses. Students made up the majority of both congregations. Both churches had young pastors.

One of the services featured a portion of the service that was done by candlelight, since it had a Christmas emphasis. I noticed something remarkable when the lights were turned off in preparation for the candlelit portion of the service. The volume of the voices singing suddenly increased significantly.

Though students in both churches sang during the worship portion of the services, when the lights went off, they sang much more robustly. Perhaps the students felt more self-conscious when the lights were on, not wanting anyone to see them singing? If so, then clearly the darkness allowed them to express their musical passion more fully than they did when the lights were on. Perhaps all the other distractions in the room went away when the lights were out and they were simply able to focus more? Clearly something happened that allowed the students to focus more clearly in a dark room.

Though I do not want to read too much into one experience, perhaps this is something that we should think about in our churches. If a darker room with fewer distractions allows congregants to worship better, then we should consider lowering the lights and raising our voices to the King of Light.