real. discipleship.

Before you say “Yes”

wolverinebailey — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 00:34:08 +0000

It’s fall in Michigan and it’s job hunting season (for many in the state). This includes many college graduates looking for their first job. I can remember applying and being interviewed by the first church I worked at as youth pastor; it was an exciting time and like most everything else, there are many things that I would do differently about the entire process. There are things I would have thought about, much more prayer would have gone into the process, I wouldn’t have tried to rush things as much, and there would definitely be more questions that I would ask. In fact, most of the pastors and ministers I talk to say that a list of questions to ask the church board when you interview is extremely important when you are going through that process. To help out some of those first time ministry seekers, I have included below a post from a blog with some pretty good questions to ask of a church board. These are more questions for a lead pastor to ask but they are equally important for an associate as well.

A. What event has shaped your church most in the last ten years?

B. How would you estimate the potential for reaching the unchurched there in the future?

C. What is the seating capacity’ of your sanctuary?

D. When was the last time your church completed a building project?

E. How fast did you pay off that debt? What is the total amount of your present indebtedness?

F. What is your average weekly income? How much is that over last year ?

G. What percentage of your church families would you estimate tithe their income locally? Board?

H. What is the percentage make-up of your Sunday morning attendance
___Children ___Youth ___Young Adults ___Adults ___Middle-Aged ___Seniors

I. What is the make-up of your membership
___Children ___Youth ___Young Adults ___Adults ___Middle-Aged ___Seniors

J. What are your attendance patterns at meeting other than morning worship?

K. What is the pastoral history of your church?
Who were the pastors during the last 15-20 years?
What single sentence would you give typifying the ministry of each, and reason for their leaving?

L. Where does your church stand on the tongues issue? (Place an x on the following continuum.)
Strongly opposed ______________________________________________ strongly favor

M. What are some touchy issues with the people in your church… divorce, alcohol, tobacco, materialism, or others, which a pastor would need to use care in preaching about?

N. Describe how your pastoral selection process’ works. Will you interview only one person at a time, taking that person all the way to a vote for acceptance or rejection before initiating another interview? Or, will you interview a variety of candidates, hearing several before you decide which one to recommend? Do you plan on a “trial sermon”? Are you thinking of multiple interviews? Describe your process:

O. What kind of programs beyond worship for all ages does your church presently have in place?

P. What style of leadership typifies the desire of your church? (Place an x on the following continuum.)
Board leads <______________________________________________________>Pastor leads

Q. How would you typify the worship style of your congregation? (Place an X on the continuum)
Formal & orderly <______________________________________________>Free and informal.

R. How many people are weekly involved in organized scheduled outreach to the poor or the unchurched?

S. How many converts would you say your church has seen in the last year?

T. How would you typify the way your church treats visitors ?
Extraordinarily warm_____________________friendly_______________________________________reserved.

F. Recent special speaker who visited your church (name and telephone number)

Hopefully

II. COMMUNITY

A. Describe your community in a short paragraph (population, prominent employers, general atmosphere and attitude.

B. The church may do all of the following things, but all of them cannot take priority. What is your ranking of the following seven emphases in priority order (#1 highest, #2 next, etc.):
__Missions __Worship __Fellowship __Preaching __Evangelism __Serving ___Teaching

C. Finish this sentence… Our church is best known in this community for:

D. What do you believe to be the most pressing need in your community right now?

E. Describe the largest church in your community or surrounding area. What is it like and how are you different/similar.

F. Over the last five years or so, when people have left your church, what did they say was the reason?

G. What do you think were the primary reasons?

H. What are the five biggest changes you would like to see happen in your church?

I. How and when was your church started? By whom?

J. Who do you feel has been your most ideal pastor’? Why?

III. PASTORAL LEADERSHIP

A. What do you believe are the most important priorities for your new pastor
(#1 most important, #2 next most important, etc.)?
__Time with family __Prayer __Visitation __Preparation for preaching
__Counseling ____Administration ____Denominational/para-church work

B. What are your weekly time expectations for your new pastor?
(i.e. How many hours would you expect your pastor to spend each week in each of the following activities?)
___Time with family ___Visiting ___Counseling ___Prayer ___Preparation for preaching
___Administration ___Denominational/para-church work_

C. What provisions do you make for the pastor’s personal and professional growth?

D. How would you typify the prayer support for your present pastor?

E. What is the pastor’s financial support package and the related matters of pension, health care, life insurance etc?

F. What are the arrangements you make for a parsonage or housing allowance?

G. What is the make-up of your present staff if you have such? If not, do you plan for staff?

H. Some church boards expect to play an exceptionally strong role in the selection of assistant ministers and other staff. Others expect the senior pastor to “hire the staff.” How do you believe staff should be added to the church?

I. Do you make provisions or exceptions to the idea of the pastor’s spouse serving on the paid staff at the church?

J. Over the past fifteen years which pastor’s spouse do you believe has functioned in a most ideal way? Why?

IV. REFERENCES

A. Your current or most recent pastor (name and telephone number)

B. Immediately prior pastor (name and telephone number)

C. Prior pastor (name and telephone number)

D. Community person (someone familiar with your church, though not an attender)

E. Denominational or para-church official who knows your church (name and telephone number)

Hopefully these will help many young men and women to discern whether or not a church may be right for you. I am very grateful that both churches that I have been on staff at have had excellent church boards who have made their expectations clear. I work alongside a lead pastor who encourages and supports me and I pray that this is the case with every other associate pastor out there (though I am not naive enough to think that is the case).

Blessings!

[excerpt taken from Keith Drury and the original post can be found at http://smallchurch.com/for-pastors/should-i-leave/ ]

Camp Meeting Wrap Up

wolverinebailey — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 01:40:19 +0000

The church I am on staff at is part of the Church of the Nazarene, a Holiness denomination with churches all around the world. These churches are divided up into regions an districts – our district is the Eastern Michigan District and each year we hold a revival of sorts at our campgrounds in Howell, Michigan. This camp meeting service, as we call it, took place last week and it was an incredible time of renewal, excitement and I know that God showed up in a big way in my life, as well as many others who were there.

This year I had the awesome opportunity to direct the youth ministry taking place throughout the week. A youth pastor friend of mine spoke during the youth services, and I had a band from one of our Nazarene universities come and lead worship. This past week was a time set apart (in my mind and for my calling) for teens to grab hold of God and to grow deeper in their relationship with Him, but as is often the case, God did much more work in my own life than I could have ever expected. Every time I come to a place where I minister to teens, God meets with us and I walk away tired and exhausted from the late night games and devotions, but also filled and renewed from an awesome encounter with the Creator of the Universe.

This next week I will be taking a couple of days off to continue to renew and refresh, and I am excited about what I believe God is doing in my life, and as a result, what He is able to do through me in the ministry that He has called me to. I am so very thankful for a church and a lead pastor who believe in me and support me with not only words of encouragement, but also with time to go and pursue God’s calling as He opens doors to minister to others.

What’s Wrong with You?

wolverinebailey — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 02:23:48 +0000

I once read about a pastor who asks his staff and ministry candidates one important question on a consistent basis, and that is “tell me five things that God is changing in your life”, with the idea being that if the person could not think of just five things that God is challenging them on, that they aren’t committed enough in a relationship with God to be part of his staff. This may sound harsh, but I think he’s completely right. In the spirit of complete openness and transparency, Here are five things that God is working on in my life:

1. Patience
2. How my words affect those around me
3. Not being selfish
4. Being content with what God has given me at this stage in life
5. How I spend my money

I’m not a fan of basking and boasting about sin but I am a fan of sharing with others things that God is doing in my life, because maybe someone can be encouraged by what God is doing in my life – how He can take a messed up person and create within me a man worthy of being called a child of God. These five things have not always been something that I have been working on and one day I fully expect that some will drop off and God will add others. Just like with anything else, if we never realize our weaknesses and grow, we will stay stagnant and cease to be effective. I refuse to be ineffective - to fall short of the call to Holiness that God has placed on our lives. Not that I am anything special for answering that call, but it is God doing the work; all I’m doing is allowing Him to get in there and turn things upside down and inside out!

So what’s wrong with you? What are your five things?

Delegating

wolverinebailey — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:01:52 +0000

What do you do in your free time? If you are anything like the other church leaders (or leaders in general), you are probably rolling your eyes, chuckling, or rolling on the floor in a fit of hysteric laughter because to you, free time happens when you die. After all, isn’t that what we are taught, either in word or in action? A survey done by the Francis A. Schaeffer Institute of Church Leadership Development (www.churchleadership.org) tells us that 802 pastors surveyed (71%) report that they are burned out and battle depression beyond fatigue on a weekly and daily basis. Forget that most pastors believe that depression is a sign of weakness and can only mean that Satan is attacking them or that they are unqualified and not good enough for the task at hand. Forget that most pastors who experience depression lead terrific spiritual lives based on Scripture and that they rely on God for their solutions. We have been taught that depression is something to be cast out like a demonic spirit, instead of being dealt with like any other physical ailment.

Before we go too far down the depression rabbit trail, let’s talk about the subject of this post, and that is delegating. If you feel that you have way too much on your plate and that you are being pulled in untold multiple directions at the speed of light and that you are heading straight for burnout and failure in ministry, then I have one word that will radically change your life. Delegate. Have you ever heard of this before? For me, a Type-A personality who desires perfection and organization above health, this is a difficult thing to swallow because it requires that we sacrifice doing things “our way” and allow others to take the reigns of leadership and do it their way as God directs them. I have just a few reasons that we often fail to delegate:

1. We want things done our own way

Whether or not it’s a good or healthy thing, leaders most often want things done the way they would do them if they were the ones doing it. In other words, we can ask someone else to do something but we are very likely to either be very upset and negative about the results or even possibly go behind them and “fix” what they have done. Delegating means trusting people and equipping them to do a task; to do it right, but not necessarily the way you would do it yourself.

2. We are lazy

Delegating takes training; if we are going to ask people to help run the sound board on Sunday morning, we have to make sure they know what they are doing, which takes time – time that many in ministry simply do not have. I know it’s far easier for me to simply run the sound board during worship practice the way I know it should be run, as opposed to taking the time to train others to do it and running the risk of them not being us and not doing it the way we think it should be done. If we want people to take the reigns of ministry within the church and begin to do ministry themselves, not relying on us to keep the church running, we must help teach and instruct them on how to do that, and that takes time. It may take cutting back on programming for the time being in order to train a few folks on how to run a program that, once up and running can be done without much effort on our part as the leader and as a result, others take the ball and run with it, doing more than we ever could by ourselves. But it takes time!

3. We want the credit

In our denomination, we have yearly reports that each pastor in a certain geographical area submits to regional leadership in the denomination. In those reports are numbers, facts, and figures to help gauge the effectiveness of a church’s ministry within that year. In the last 6 years of going to these annual meetings, I almost always hear pastors take the credit for things that went well, and leave out the things that did not do so well in the last year. Why do we feel the need to take the credit for everything positive that takes place in our church and yet we don’t feel responsible when negative things happen? Delegating is allowing folks to take on the reigns of ministry and although we are responsible for overseeing and taking charge in what God has given us, we need to allow others to grab hold of what God is doing in their life and be instrumental in moving the kingdom forward. I don’t care if my church has to “fail” in the world’s eyes, a million times in an attempt to accomplish what God is leading us to do – I want to make sure that we are always moving and growing. If it means working hard to get God’s work done and never getting the credit by man, then so be it.

4. We feel responsible and guilty

God does not lay guilt trips on us; He inspires us and directs us to do things. If we feel guilty because we are equipping others to do the work of the ministry, then it is most likely because we are control freaks. I speak from experience here; often I feel “guilty” about not taking on a responsibility because I want people to see me as top gun in ministry but that should never be our goal. Instead, we need to be about equipping the saints to do the work of the church. Please do not misunderstand what I am saying here; I am not saying that we should look for people to pass off our responsibilities onto or to do the things that we don’t want to do. We have a call and a responsibility to that call and we must be diligent in the execution of ministry, but we have to realize that ultimately when it is all said and done, that we have been successful not at getting a church from 5 members to 1,000 members, or from bringing a church’s budget from $50,000 to over a million, but rather that the church is equipped for and is equipping others for ministry when we move on. Because membership rises and falls and finance is never a certainty, but whenever the people are motivated and excited about doing ministry and training others to do ministry, the Kingdom will move forward!

Bad time or Divine Appointment?

wolverinebailey — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:43:09 +0000

“Those of us who live in this window of history must consider ourselves uniquely appointed by God.”
- Erwin McManus, An Unstoppable Force

During the 1980′s, President Reagan stated that he sincerely believed that God had placed him in the position of President of the United States; just twenty years later, President George W. Bush had much the same message when asked about why he ran for office. Voters, of course scoffed at the presumed arrogance that these two men seemed to have in believing that they were the only ones ready at that point in time to take this nation where it needed to be. Politics aside, I firmly believe that God places individuals in their respective positions in order to affect the greatest good for the Kingdom.

Why is it that we only believe that ministers are called of God? A good friend of mine recently resigned his pastorate at a successful, healthy, growing and vibrant church in order to take on a position elsewhere in the denomination outside of a “church” situation. He expressed to me that many had asked him how he could feel confident in taking on this “non-pastoral” position when he knew in his heart that God had called him to preach. His response: preaching is not the only type of calling that God places on our lives. As a pastor, I know full well that God often moves us in directions that we do not foresee and that are quite often out of the scope of what we originally understood our “calling” to be. But getting back to my original question, why is it that we only believe that God calls pastors?

A small-town plant in the mid-west was destroyed years ago; this plant was the source of income for the majority of the town. After the mess was over and just as everyone was about to gather to begin cleanup, the CEO called a meeting in which he invited the entire community, along with the workers of his company. Convinced that the CEO would announce the closing of the business and imagining the worst, the community gathered one evening, depleted of energy and devoid of hope. As the boss stood up, he announced that the company would be rebuilding the plant and that in the meantime, all employees would continue to receive their paychecks and benefits. Talk about a Godsend! This CEO was, undoubtedly appointed by God to lead that company – and that town – through a very difficult season of life. He was not a preacher and did not even serve on staff at a church; he merely followed the Scriptural command to love his neighbor as himself and make himself available for God’s purpose.

The church in America (and in fact, the entire world) is in serious trouble; we live in a society that is becoming increasingly spiritual but decreasingly Christ-like; we have atheists and pluralists and postmodernists and just about every type of worldview possible, but we are devoid of real Biblical truth. I have heard some say that these are dark days for the church. I have heard pastors say that we need to abandon ship, lock up the doors and prepare for heaven. But if my heart is in tuned with what God is doing, I would have to say that I am excited to be called to live, preach, and be Christ-like in this society. I am excited about what God is going to do! If history teaches us anything, it is that out of the most destitute and helpless struggles in humanity arise the greatest outpouring of God’s Spirit on the Church. The days leading up to Pentecost weren’t exactly the easiest times to be a Christian; but once God poured out His Spirit, Christianity took off like an Arizona Wildfire, spreading across the globe and transforming our world.

The times are dire and it is not the easiest period of time to be a disciple of Christ, but you are called out to be just that – we are called out to be just that. The Church is called to be the transformational instrument by which God will pour out His Spirit upon the earth; will we accept that call?

Weekend Wrap-Up

wolverinebailey — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 03:13:57 +0000

Yesterday was another incredible day in the life of our church; it seems like every single week God continues to meet us where we are, challenge us to go further, and provide us with the necessary tools to get where He wants us to go. Pastor was gone this week and so as Associate Pastor I was responsible for making sure that things ran smoothly, and for delivering the Word of God to the people. This is not something that I take lightly; God has seen it fit to call me to preach and He always provides me with the words to say and the skills to know how to say those words. I spoke on Galatians 5 – it is here that Paul is talking to a group of Jewish Christians about not being slaves to the law, but rather having freedom in their relationship with Christ. I used this time to talk about our nation’s independence day and how our founding father’s fought hard for the freedoms that we enjoy today. In a much larger sense, Paul was waging war against slavery to the law; the Jewish Christians were intent on holding firm to the law in order to be deemed “good enough” for God, even though they had been freed from that burden by Jesus’ death and resurrection. Not only did they hold themselves to the law, but they held new Christians who were not Jews to that same law. I used this opportunity to explain that in our relationship with Christ, we have freedom; freedom from sin (to live a holy life), freedom from legalism (to not be justified by our acts but rather by our faith), and freedom to love (the greatest commandment).

I wonder – do we live in the freedom that we have been given? If we are Christians and have a relationship with Christ, then we are free. Do we then run back and, like a dog returning to its filth, once again hold ourselves to the standard of the law and judge others based on it? Or do we, like Christ, see ourselves and others through the eyes of God as broken individuals who are in desperate need of God’s grace? It does not escape me that we are free from sin as well and should not abuse the grace that we have been given, but too many times we focus on the “do’s” and “don’ts” of our faith and not so much on the loving each other as we love ourselves.

How do you see others? Through legalistic eyes, or through the eyes of the one who died so that we can have relationship with the God of the universe?

Something Stupid

wolverinebailey — Sun, 30 May 2010 03:02:14 +0000

We’ve all been there, that moment you realize you made a stupid, brainless mistake and now there is nothing that you can do to take it back or make it right. Whether it is an unkind word said to a loved one or an action taken against someone you don’t get along with, none of us are strangers to the inevitable gut wrenching feeling that makes you want to go back and figure out where it went wrong; what could you have done differently?

For me that stupid action was nothing really spiritual but had consequences nonetheless. What it has in common with these other issues that I am talking about is that it caused me to relentlessly rehash the event, play it over and over in my mind and blame myself. It is as if I am watching a movie that I know the unpleasant ending to it and I cringe knowing the mistake that is about to take place.

But what good does this do for me? It does not change the event that continues to bring me consequences; it does not help me to learn from the event and move on into a deeper maturity. No, it simply causes pain and stagnation, which is where Satan wants us to stay. Now, I am not the type of person that looks for Satan as the culprit every time my computer freezes up, but I know from experience that just as God works all things out for the good of those who love him, Satan attempts to work all things out for bad. If your computer freezes, he works on you in the form of anger issues, which could lead to not treating your neighbor as yourself.

Little things but they make a big difference! Lets commit to moving forward, allowing God to take our circumstances, our junk and our stupid mistakes, and make them into a teachable moment!