Standing to give immediate feedback

There’s a lot of ways to evaluate the effectiveness of a sermon. 

One little used way is almost immediately evident.

How did the congregation rise to their feet after the sermon?

We’re they energised?
We’re they stiff from sitting too long?

Depending upon the distance of time between the conclusion of the sermon and the start of the next song, the preacher can almost immediately gauge if they preacher for too long due to the amount of lethargy amongst the people.

When should a minister share about their past?

I’ve had an abortion.
I’ve been sexually assaulted.
I’m married to someone who has mental health challenges.
I’ve been addicted to porn.
My wife and I have endured multiple miscarriages.
I used to be an alcoholic.
One of my children died of SIDS.

Any minister who has gone through any of the above things, and a number of other examples, would be a powerful witness and advocate for those they minister to.

Except... these are the types of things we keep private.

So, when should a minister disclose things from their past which could be powerfully used? Additionally, how should they do so?

I ask because at least one of the things listed above are a part of my past. And, they have been helpful in helping others. I got through them. I can empathise with with someone going through them.

Should a minister bring their past to the surface fairly early on in their ministry placement, in a public setting, so others will be aware and can come forward if they want?

Or, does a minister keep their past close to their chest, only revealing once someone has an event which they can then disclose their connection with?

I don’t know the answer, but disclosure of some of a minister’s skeletons would help remove the ministerial veneer and open up new avenues of ministry.

You must have a plan for the orphans

Change happens.
It is inevitable.
If you’re in leadership then you need to make decisions which effect others.

Any time you decide to change something, the consequences will create orphans.

Some won’t want to adapt to the change.
Others won’t be able to, completely beyond their control, transition to the new paradigm.

However they are made, some will become orphans since they will be left out.

These leftovers of a decision to change - be it a philosophical, geographical or chronological change - must still be catered to.

Why?

Because the orphans of any decision still matter.

Chances are, to some extent, they had buy-in to the activity they were involved in. They had a history. They probably envisaged a future.

Change, even a well-thought-out positive change, rocks the world of the orphans it creates.

And, if there is no plan for those adversely effected, then the message communicated to them is either... 

You don’t matter. 
Or...
There were winners and losers. You’re the later.

So, how is this avoided?

The answer is simple.

Have a plan for the orphans.

Even if that plan is to simply sit down with each person and explain why you reached the decision you did. 

This is far better than just an announcement.

Better yet, actually have an alternative for those orphaned by your change.
This shows that they still matter and there are no losers.

Can your worship be inspired by the hottie beside you?

WARNING: The following thought may be a little controversial. And potentially creepy.

It’s not unusual that someone at the front of church might ask the congregation to look around and use their surrounds to draw inspiration for worship.

My question is...

Can you truely worship, inspired by looking at an attractive attendee of your church service, who is not your spouse?

In theory, the answer should be yes.

You can gaze upon someone attractive and genuinely thank God for their beauty. Just like a waterfall or sunset...

But, is this reality?

When we look at someone whom we find hot, is this where our mind is drawn?

I wonder, do those who give invitations to be inspired, consider the humanity around their congregation and the inspirations they may trigger?

Juggling the band:congregation ratio

The larger the church; the larger the band.

Which comes first?

Does your band expand to fit the congregation or does the congregation grow to match the band?

Furthermore, if the later is true, how large do you risk making a worship band before expected growth appears?

I’ve been in a number of congregations where the band, at times, has equalled  a quarter of those in attendance. In theory, any service with approximately twenty attendees, runs the risk of a significant proportion of band:congregation.

But, what if you have a mid-sized congregation wanting to grow?

Are you comfortable with having ten members of the band for fifty to eighty people? Between a regulation three singers, piano, drums, two guitars and bass, reaching double digits isn’t beyond comprehension.

I wonder, when do you expand, and when do you consider contracting?

With a band of 4-5, when do you expand?
With a band of 8-10, when do you reduce?

Primarily, the answers depend upon the options of musicians available and the musical quality a church leadership is desiring, not warm gobies on stage.

But, surely, a church must have a ratio when they feel that the balance between band and congregation has been thrown out of whack.

2019 Best of...

With the last 12 months involving a wedding, including two receptions - on both sides of the globe, and an increased study load, including a month-long teaching prac, again, 5e amount of blog posts decreased.

But, nonetheless, here are the gems...

Why Youth Minister Sunday hurts not helps (My most read post of the year)

Should you assure people that the game will be on after the service?

If you teach the bible you get the topics

Bi-Cultural ministry questions

What do you do if you don’t like your minister?

How unforgiveness is like a bad case of road rage (I think this was my best post all year)

Link as closely as possible when preaching

The danger of a new building

Who’s prepared to give the REAL sex talk?

How long until sex gets good?

The danger of assuming the next sentence (this is one of the most important ministry principals I’ve ever written about)

Investing instead of caring (this is the most painful post to write since it exposes my largest mistake in ministry)

What to do if your minister doesn’t like you

The simple observation which changed my entire outlook

The messages you send when you cancel a church service

Just like last year, the aim is to blog more next year which, if December is any indication, then it may be an outside chance...

Mental health problems vs challenges

Does someone have a mental health problem or a mental health challenge?

The difference is significant.

With mental health well-and-truely mainstream, the way you refer to someone’s mental health difficulty matters.

A problem is to be fixed. It has a solution. 
A challenge is to be managed. It is to be wrestled with. It is to be balanced.

I see this significance in the classroom when it comes to the way a child with mental health difficulties is catered to.

Problems are obstacles. They defeat you or you overcome them.
Challenges can be worked with and catered to.

Don’t let your church invade the local community event

Over the last few weeks both churches I’m connected with have held or contributed to local community events.

I did not go to either.

Why?

Because I do not live nearby. For both churches I live over 10 minutes away so I’m definitely not a local.

It would be odd if I attended an event for locals since I’m a geographical  outsider.

The danger some churches have, when it comes to local events, is to invade with your wider congregation.

At the core, it all depends on the nature of the event.

Is it an event BY the local community or is it an event FOR the local community.

I shouldn’t be at the later event since it’s not for me.

It’s for the members of the street.
It’s for the members of the suburb.
It’s for the members of the club or association.

On the other hand, if an event is put on by the community, then it is hosted by locals for whomever wishes to attend.

I would be welcome to attend this event.

When a church chooses to involve themselves in an event for their local community, then they should be weary of crashing it with a bunch of ring-ins. sure, they can contribute resources, or even the location, but flooding the quaint event of a few dozen locals with 50 variant congregants would be inappropriate.

At worst, they will negatively change the nature of the event, alienating their neighbours. 

Most probably, those who are there to connect with the local community will stick to themselves and shun those from the church congregation, completely negating any evangelistic undercurrent which the church may be wanting to cultivate.

The messages you send when you cancel a service

As we quickly approach the end of the year, with the crunch of Christmas now in full swing, churches and ministers will be looking ahead to the weeks after the festive season.

To be completely clear, ministers - like everyone else - deserve time off. Holidays, if you’re going to survive in ministry, are an absolute must.

But, for some churches, this absence of staff will result in the cancelation of church services, particularly in the evening. 

On some years, when Christmas and New Years are particularly close to the end of the week, then some adjustment may be more understandable. But, what about this year when the last Sunday of the year is the 29th and the first Sunday the 5th of January?

I wonder if churches are aware of the messages they may be sending if they outright cancel Sunday services.

To start, closing the doors must be advertised to avert people turning up when the service has been cancelled. Is this what you want to be displayed on your church sign? 

Furthermore, with Summer being a time when many people will be travelling and visiting different churches, is a closed door the message you want to send?

At a more concerning level, what does your closed door say to those who may be wanting to investigate Jesus, potentially inspired by Christmas? Is a closed door the evangelistic message you want to send?

The reason which bugs me the most is the message a cancelled service sends to the congregation.

You can’t do it.
We don’t trust you.

Either, those in change don’t think the members of their congregation are capable of running a church service in their absence or they don’t trust that whatever they’re congregation does will be a “good enough” job.

No matter, both are an indictment on those in ministry.

Sure, if your congregation is unusually small, immature in their faith or young, then some caveats can be made.

But, for a congregation in excess of a few dozen members, including mature faith professing adults, then the excuses to cancel are pretty thin.

Do they not also have the Holy Spirit?
Are they not also empowered with Spiritual Gifts?
Does the minister not believe in the priesthood of all believers?

Unfortunately, the question at the forefront of the minister’s mind is this...
Who will do the sermon?

Frankly, this is a small minded question.

First of all, the church service should never be all about and completely dependent upon the minister or other one person.

Second, this question is deeply uncreative. I can think of more than half a dozen options for a church service which don’t revolve around a sermon.

Focus your service around song.
Have a time of expected prayer instead of a sermon.
Do something involving the arts in response to a bible reading.
With the Sunday’s wrapping up the end of the year, do a reflective exercise looking at where God has been at work or looking forward to what you want God to do in the year ahead.
Do a group bible study.
Do a lecto divina reading of a small book of the bible.

If there absolutely must, for some reason, be a sermon then train people up to give one.
Invite someone else you come.
Watch a DVD or YouTube clip.

Whatever is decided, could a minister not plan something while they are gone? In theory, they should be absent for at least four Sundays per year while on holidays. Do they always just shut down the service because the minister is in another suburb?

Finally, these messages are amplified if only the evening service is scrapped.

What does this say to them as a congregation?

That they are less capable?
That they matter less?
That the morning is the only service worthy of having something planned for them?

I realise that I’m going pretty hard on something which many churches won’t give a lot of thought to, but, when a church considers cancelling a Sunday morning church, a lot more concern is given to the “message sent.”

The only three things a baptism requires

Over the last few years I’ve been attending a baptist church and, unsurprisingly, they like to periodically chat about baptism.

As someone who has previously written that I would have, for the sake of employment, undergone a full immersion baptism, I am now firmly of the belief that there’s no other reason I would get baptised again.

I wouldn’t do it to join a church.
Frankly, I’d put up a decent fight before doing it to get a job.

Fortunately, I feel that both the bible and the World Council of Churches are on my side.

But, as I’ve been thinking about baptism, for me, the sacrament only requires three elements.

Confession, publicity and explanation.

Baptism requires the person being baptised, amongst a group of others, to confesses faith in Jesus and the sacrament should be explained by the person doing the baptising (personally, I’d stress the connection Paul makes in Romans 6).

If these three caveats happen, then the amount of water is arbitrary, doubly so if the explanation says that the baptism is primarily symbolic of an inward transformation (which would be confessed!).

Crossing lines of commitment

Behave.

Believe.

Belong.

Some thing that these are the lines of commitment a person travels through, not necessarily in that order, when it comes to faith in Jesus and involvement with a church.

I think, when it comes to lines of commitment, they are... volunteering, praying and singing.

When someone first involves themselves in these activities, which either seem odd to the outsider of the faith or require a degree of sacrifice, then they are crossing a commitment threshold.

It’s the crossing of these invisible doorways which indicate an inward transformation. 

With these markers, amongst others, we can begin to determine their increasing level of comfort and commitment.

What the missing intro to the bible passage reveals about your church

Having paper bibles is a bit old school.

But, I still believe that it is essential that a must church provide them to their congregation.

With this being the case, a church has to do the following...

The contents page is at the front of the bible.
Psalms starts with a silent P.
There’s more than one place to find books named John.
You’ll find the reading on page xx.

If you don’t help your congregation navigate the bible then you’re sending a clear message.

We don’t expect new people.
We don’t want seekers to be involved in what we’re doing.
We don’t care if our congregation can’t use their bibles confidently.

I suspect most churches would be ashamed to say these sentences out loud... yet, with their actions they show themselves as both unwelcoming and missing an evangelistic spirit.

The simple observation which changed my entire outlook

I always sat in the front row for my school photos. This meant that I was a short kid. Even when I was in high school. Especially at an all boys school.

To be honest, puberty didn’t kick in until I was around 17. 

This didn’t help with my dating prospects nor my associated self esteem.

But I remember clearly, one afternoon when I was a young adult - let’s say around 19 - when my youth minister said something which changed my life.

No, it had nothing to do with Jesus.

Instead, he asked how tall I was, guessing that I was around six foot. 
He observed that I was the average height.

In truth, he was wrong on two counts. First of all, the average height for an Australian male is 175.6 cm, or just over 5’9”. Second, he misjudged my height by around an inch. I’m still only five-foot-eleven. 

But, significantly, he said that I wasn’t short.

I had never heard that. Ever.

If anything, being short haunted me.
It defined me.
It was what others had said.
It was what I told myself.

But, now, someone I deeply respected said the opposite.
He said I wasn’t short.

He spoke into the very place of my doubts.
He spoke into the very place of my insecurities.
He spoke against my destructive inner dialogue.

One of the tremendous roles youth groups leads have is to identify areas in the lives of young people and speak positive truths into that place.

The truth was, I was no longer short.

How many teenagers and young adults need to hear that they are not short?
That they are not a loser?
That they are not dumb?
That they have talent?
That they have hope?
That they have a positive future?

This, along with the message of the gospel, can stay with and transform the lives of young people within the groups of a church.

When you MUST advertise the sermon topic

The worst feeling in the world  A slight annoyance must be the feeling you get when hearing a sermon at your church and thinking of an absent person who would greatly benefit from your minister’s words.

Whenever a church knows they are going to do an evangelistic or apologetic  sermon (and every church should know at least a few days ahead of Sunday), and do not inform their congregation, then they are doing themselves and, more importantly, they congregants a disservice.

Why?

Because they rob their people of the opportunity to invite those whom would engage with the topic or are open to hear a clear gospel presentation.

With social media, this is an even greater disservice.

My mind spins when it thinks of all the missed opportunities churches have let slip through their fingers because they are either too shy, disorganised or lack the missional awareness to simply tell people what they can expect on Sunday.

Idolising your new Temple

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve posted, but between a month on teaching practice and exams, blogging hasn’t squeezed into my timetable. But, now I’m on university holidays...

Over the last few months my church has moved into a brand new building and its... nice.

Frankly, it’s your fairly generic new church.

But, it is brand new.

And, if you’ve been a part of the entire building process, then you’re super excited.

But, I wonder, when does the line from thankfulness to idolatry get crossed.

Gladly, the swooning over the new building has started to die down, but what would happen if my church was still swooning over the new building after three months?
What if it was mentioned at the still at the start of every service?
What if it was still a part of every prayer?

Whenever a big new initiative happens within a church there’s always a danger of idolatry.

We can make the same mistake as those in the Old Testament did with the temple. 

We can elevate the gift over the giver.

I wonder how many church leaders are aware of the danger and how many, by thanking God so profusely and repeatedly, are an instrumenti for idolatry to grow.

The surprising way I suspect Jesus spoke in tongues

Last term the small group I attend looked at the topic of spiritual gifts.

As we were talking about the gift of tongues, I wasn’t so sure where I stood about Jesus speaking in tongues.

Of course, as someone with the Holy Spirit within them, and being God incarnate, Jesus could have spoken in tongues - no matter which definition you use (be they a completely unknown language or a tongue you previously didn’t know).

The query that Jesus spoke in tongues hung with me for a few days and the internet was less than helpful. 

Often, the responses would included references to places like Mark 8:12, where Jesus just groans. 

I’m not sure this counts...

But, I think the answer lies in the previous chapter - Mark 7:34.

For, if Jesus is God incarnate then, surely, His “mother language” is a heavenly one.

Thus, a “foreign” language would be any one He spoke on earth.

So, while I suggest that Jesus did speak in tongues, they would be in the form of “ordinary” language, which could be understood by those around Him, not the inverse - a heavenly language which could be used to communicate with God.

What do you do if your minister doesn’t like you?

Some ministers are delightful.
Others can be a little jaded, even if only periodically.
Most, hopefully, are somewhere in the middle of not closer to the former.

But, no matter the disposition of your minister, what do you do if they don’t like you?

Seriously.

No matter if it’s due to a personality clash, theological differences or birthed from an event/misunderstanding in the past, no congregant has the absolute right to be adored by their minister.

And, having a minister who isn’t besotted by you isn’t a crime on their part.

While your minister shouldn’t be a jerk to you, instead caring for you as a member of the flock God has placed them over to shepherd, you don’t have to be their favourite person.

So what do you do then?

In part, if they are not your primary pastoral support, you may not need to do anything dramatic. Just be peaceable. Better yet, support the minister and serve the church just as you would otherwise.

Additionally, you could use this as a goad to evaluate yourself. Maybe your minister is seeing things which you are blind to. Maybe this minister will be a catalyst for you to change.

Alternatively, you could just seek to outlast the minister. Don’t leave the church. Don’t undermine him. Instead, cut them some slack and beware that this person, probably, won’t be your minister forever.

Of course, you could seek to gently try to change their perception about you. It may not work, but you could intentionally seek to sow encouragement and support into the life of your distant minister. With the passing of time closeness may develop.

No matter what happens, the most important thing to remember is that the ministers’ view of you doesn’t give or take from you any validation. As a Christian we find our identity, worth, value and validation from Jesus. 

Not from anyone else. Including any minister you may encounter.

Should you ever be a ministry expert?

In ministry you can be experienced.
You can be a veteran.
You can be trained.
You can be well-read.

I don’t think you can truely be an expert.

Or at least you should be weary of someone who deems themselves a ministry expert.

Why?

Because stagnation, or worse, arrogance is the danger of someone with the expert mindset.

For culturally relevant ministry is fluid.
Technology is exponentially advancing.
What worked a decade ago needs reevaluating and, often, reimagining.

Thus, everyone in ministry must always be learning.
Never should someone in ministry think that they are an expert and have learnt everything.

Do we just swap hedonism for reckless grace?

A few weeks ago I was taking about the way people validate doing what they want.

In a mass generalisation, our actions are often fed with the self-talk of “I can do what I want” - The calling card for individualist hedonism.

But, are Christians in danger of replacing this modern mantra with one equally as dangerous - “God will forgive me”?

Paul mentions this in Romans 6 where he addresses the potential for abuse of God’s grace.

When we take for granted the forgiveness of God then we will be inclined  towards sin, driven by unhelpful self-talk.

Of course, the danger is that the mantra sounds very religious and correct.

God does forgive.
If you ask Him, He will forgive.

But, driven by our sinful desire, we tend to abuse the good things God offers us and can sanctimoniously replace the “we can do whatever we want” attitude with the equally reckless “we can ultimately get away with anything.”

Investing instead of caring

The longer I’ve been out of vocational ministry the more I suspect that I wasn’t a very good youth minister.

Sure, I was efficient.
At times, I was effective.

But, I’m increasingly convinced that I wasn’t good.

One of the reasons was that I confused investment with caring.

I would invest in others.
But, all too often, I didn’t genuinely care.

I would invest in leaders.
I would invest in potential.
I would invest in talent.

But, this is not caring.

Genuine caring doesn’t hope for a return on investment.

All too often I did.

I would predominantly spend my time and energy with those who were already serving.
I would intentionally spend my time and energy to minister to those who, I thought, had the greatest ministry potential.

And, worse still, I could justify the investment.

I now write this to my shame.

I, even unintentionally, overlooked those who needed, nay deserved, to be cared for.

I wonder how many ministers mistake their investment for caring.

In part, I now recognise this because I’m not a great investment.

But, on a deeper level, I wonder how this strategic investment in pastoral energies meshes with the image of ministers as a shepherd and the church being a family.

Neither of these images are primarily concerned with a suitable return on pastoral investment.

Furthermore, for a new ministry agent or a fresh member of a congregation, when is the point determined that someone isn’t “worth” the continued investment?

Somehow, I suspect that a large number of people have walked away from a church, if not THE church, because they weren’t deemed an investment with a suitable ROI.