Ohio Ministries News & Views

Hope For the Church-Part 2: The Price the Congregation Must Pay

A week or so ago I posted an article by my friend Rev. Ray Houser which was Part 1 of a three-part series titled, Hope For the Church.  In that article he addressed the subject of the price the pastor must pay for the church to flourish and to grow.  In the article below, Ray continues his series by talking about the price the congregation must pay.  I hope you find Ray's words and thoughts helpful to you in your ministry.

Randy Spence, Director of Ministries

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Some churches are flourishing in this culture at this time, but in this very same setting the attendance in the vast majority of congregations is on a plateau or declining.  This is the second in a series of postings that offer some practical guides for declining or plateaued congregations that want to become places that change lives and their communities by making disciples.  Last time, I wrote about the price the pastor must pay; this week it’s the price the congregation must pay to restore hope for the future of the church.

        The price a congregation must pay if there is hope for the church

 1. The people must truly want new people to become part of their church family.  People in some congregations have an intense love for the folks in their church.  The church has become a second, and in some cases a first, family for them.  This is wonderful for the members, but, if that family feeling includes excluding new people, it’s dangerous for the Kingdom of God.  The church should have a family feel, but if it hopes to fulfill its great commission, it must be a family that is open to new members.  Not only must the established members welcome visitors and new members, it needs to be anxious for new folks to become part of the family.

 2. The people must be willing to make changes.  First, it is important to know for sure that the one thing that can never change is the wonderful message of the Gospel.  However, the way the message is delivered and packaged needs to be continually changed to keep it relevant to the people God wants your church to reach for Him.  Churches find it hard to change.  One of the reasons is that they find it almost impossible to stop doing what they have done before, even if a program lost its effectiveness long ago. It’s hard to start new efforts when the church calendar is cluttered with events and old programs. 

 3. The congregation pays a price by surrendering leadership to leaders, particularly the pastor. This may seem like a no-brainer to some, but it’s very hard for many congregations.  Congregations are led by various things.  Sometimes it’s the past.  Perhaps the church has had some glory days and it attempts to repeat those wonderful times by doing the same things.  The problem with that is the culture and their community keeps changing.  In other churches, a pastor once did something bad and caused the church a lot of grief, so they want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.  As a result of their distrust of anyone in the position of pastor, there is very little real leadership (by the pastor) taking place.  In other congregations, there is an influential family, or person who is the acknowledged leaders.  Too often this person or family refuses to let anything, or anyone threaten their position of power, and they see a pastor who leads as a threat.  If a congregation truly desires to get off its plateau or turn around from dying, it has to pay the price of allowing the pastor to be the real leader.

 4. The people must be willing to be trained and to work.  The pastor’s job as shepherd is to lead the church.  The job of staff is to manage the various ministries of the church.  And the role of the members of the church is to do the ministry. (Don’t believe me? Check out Ephesians 4:11-12.)  Too many congregations believe that it’s the job of the pastor and staff to do everything, but that’s not the way God planned the church.  Ask many members what ministry they do in their church and they will tell you about a committee that they’re on.  The extent of their idea of their ministry is to attend committee meetings.  My experience tells me that a great majority of committee meetings are not ministry; they are bureaucracy.  If the church is to win the world, the people need to discover their spiritual gifts, hone those gifts with training, and then actively pursue an area of ministry that requires their gifts and training.

 5. The people need to accept God’s vision for their congregation with enthusiasm.  The vision that God gives them through their pastor may well be different from what they have seen before.  The pastor will ask the church for input, but when it comes to the future of the church, the input that really counts is God’s input.  You have a say, the pastor has a say, but the vision must come from God.  The congregation that is plateaued, or declining, should expect the vision to challenge them to do something new.  Don’t make the pastor have to pull and prod you to do what God has assigned the church to do.  The pastor should lead the church like a shepherd leads sheep.  He should not have to drive the church like a cowboy drives cattle.

 6. The people must pay the price of sacrificial giving.  Increasing the influence of the church so that it can make more disciples costs money.  Church members should arrange their personal finances so that they can give 10%, and sometimes more, of their income to the church.  Also, church members need to remind themselves that when they give money to the church it is God’s.  Some want to attach strings to their gifts.  By doing so, these members are seeking to control the vision and the future of the church.  Make sure that your tithes, offerings and gifts are given to the church to be used as God sees fit.  It is sad to see a congregation unable to seize an opportunity that God has laid before it because all of its savings are designated for someone’s favorite project.  Give it to God.  Pray for the leadership of the church.  Trust God to lead the leadership.

 7. The congregation must do all it can to keep the pastor long enough to see the trajectory of the church change.  Even in the best circumstances, change takes time.  Churches that change pastors often, almost never grow, and almost always lose influence in their community.  It only takes a small minority of people in the church to dishearten a pastor and make him/her want to find somewhere else to minister.  Pastors become open to the possibility of moving because of the pain generated by unrelentingly difficult people.  Your pastor, particularly in a church that votes their pastor in, is God’s gift to the church.  He should stay until God removes him.  The congregation should do its best to make a long stay with them a pleasant prospect for the pastor and his family.  Pay him as well as you can.  Encourage him to take his vacation time.  Provide money and time for him to take training and find spiritual refreshment.  Protect him from any people associated with your congregation who somehow feel it is their duty to make life hard for the pastor.  The church should hold the pastor accountable to live a moral live, take care of his/her family, and lead the congregation to accomplish the goals that will enable it to fulfill God’s vision.  It should also love him and reward him when he/she does a good job.  Most of all, the congregation should pray for their pastor and his/her family.

    Rev. Ray Houser

 

 

 

Hope For the Church-Part 1: The Price the Pastor Must Pay

Rev. Ray Houser is a Church of God pastor and dear friend.  This summer he is writing a series of articles he is titling, Hope For the Church.  They are about the kinds of change that must take place in the local church for the church to not just survive but to be healthy and relevant in the 21st century.  He has given me permission to post his articles as a guest blogger.  In this first article Ray addresses the price the pastor must pay for the church to be healthy and to grow.  I hope you find them of benefit.

Randy Spence, Director of Ministries

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The truth is a lot of local churches in North America have a very uncertain future.  The state leader of the church group with which I am associated estimates that as many as 90% of our churches are plateaued or declining.  He is afraid that many of them are in grave danger.  Some of them can’t see it; others see it, but think that somehow it will just get better.  These congregations just keep doing things they always have and wish for better days to return, instead they of facing their problems and taking steps to overcome them.  It is tempting to give up hope on such local churches. 

I think there is a lot of hope for the church, but some things have to change for that hope to be more than a wish.  Some prices have to be paid by both the pastor and the congregation.  These are emotional as well as financial prices.  Churches need to check their priorities and make sure that they are God’s priorities for His church.  Even though it’s hard, there has to be a willingness to adopt new methods to deliver the old Gospel.  The church needs an agile organization that can adapt to opportunities.  Finally, congregations must get an idea of how they are perceived by the community they wish to win for Christ.

I’m going to deal with hope for the church in my next several blog postings.  Since he should be the key leader to get the congregation off a plateau or turn it around from a decline, I want to start with the pastor.

The Price the Pastor Must Pay if there is Hope for the Church:

Many years ago C. Peter Wagner said that the first thing a church needs if it wants to grow is a pastor who wants the church to grow and is willing to pay the price.  That’s still true.  Pastor, do you want your church to grow?  Now, don’t answer too fast.  Growing churches are a lot of work!  New people can bring messy lives into the fellowship.  Change is a challenge for long-time members.  You may have to learn some things and stretch yourself to lead a growing church.  Here is a short, non-exhaustive list of the prices a pastor has to pay to lead the church he serves off a plateau or to recover from decline:     The pastor must completely and continually yield himself to being the pastor God wants him to be.  Being God’s kind of pastor must be what your heart is set on, and what your life and ministry are built around.  Only two things can come before your commitment to God’s vision for the church: your personal relationship with God and your relationship with your family. 

1. The pastor must train himself.  Even if you have an advanced seminary degree, you may not know what you need to know to lead a church in this crucial time.  Fortunately, we live in a day when books, on-line courses, seminars, and other training opportunities abound.  Maybe what you need is to get someone who has led a turnaround church to coach you through the process.

2. Get God’s vision for the church you are serving.  It’s not as hard as it may sound. You know the outcome he wants: make disciples. To get His vision for your situation, you simply ask him, “Given my gifts and talents and the talents and gifts of our people, how can our church make disciples of people in this community?  Who should we try to reach first?  What can we do to deliver the Gospel to them in a way that is relevant to their lives and that they will accept?

3. Work hard.  You know what I mean.  A rut can be comfortable because you don’t have to dig.  If you’re leading a turnaround, you will be building some new roads.  It takes work!

4. Lead the congregation.  Don’t be satisfied with maintaining status quo.  Lead the church to fulfill the Great Commission in your local community with your ideas and your teaching.  God called you there to be the leader.  This may be news to some of the people in your church, so be prepared to deal with opposition.  Remember you are doing God’s assignment, not your own.

5.  Stay there long enough to see the vision fulfilled.  If you start making progress, other congregations will hear of it and want you to be their pastor.  Make sure you have completed God’s assignment at the church you’re now serving before you entertain a move.

                    Rev. Ray Houser

 

A Lesson in Self-Management

Many years ago I took a course in time management with Ed Dayton and Ted Engstrom of World Vision.  As a young associate in the formative years of ministry I now look back with gratitude that I was privileged to add this experience in the foundational years of my ministry.  A number of years later I was able to supplement this with some additional helps in another course on time management that helped me develop some systems for efficient and effective work.  In more recent years, however, I have come to the conclusion that what we label as "time management" is wrongly stated.  In reality none of us can manage time.  The only thing we can manage is ourselves and how we use the time we have.  The reality is that before the clock we all are equal.  We all have the same number of minutes in an hour and the same number of hours in a day.  What differentiates us is in how we use those minutes and hours.  And as I look at my life, the question I find myself asking is, "Am I investing my time or am I merely spending it?  And one reality rings true---we never get any more time.  Once gone it is forever gone.  

When I pastored in Germantown there was a much admired man in the church who told me this story about himself.  He said he had never gone to college and was in a job that required a degree if he was to advance.  He went to see an adviser at a local college who essentially reasoned with him as follows.  He said to my friend that to get a degree on a part-time basis would require from six to eight years of schooling to achieve his goal of a degree.  He reasoned that for the next eight years he could come home each night and sit in front of the television or he could sit in front of a book.  Either way he was going to spend that time doing something.  And what would he have to show for it?  If choosing to sit in front of the television, he would have eight years of TV shows.  If, on the other hand, he chose to sit in front of a book with an occasional TV show, he would have a degree.  My friend chose the degree.  He's retired now but served for a number of years on a consulting basis following his retirement as a result of getting that degree.  

When it comes to time, how are you spending it?  Are you wasting it knowing you can never get more, or are you investing your life in something that will make a difference?  At my age that question is all the more real as I realize there are more miles behind me than there are before me.  

Bob Buford in a recent blog posting shared of a course he once took called The Strategic Coach with Dan Sullivan, a man who has made a handsome living taking complex self-management ideas and converting them to simple tools.  In that course Sullivan taught them to organize their time using six words:  Free Days, Focus Days and Buffer Days.  

Focus Days.  Focus days are prime time work days.  They are the days when you need to concentrate and to get the job done.  For the pastor this would be the sermon preparation and delivery.  

Buffer Days.  Buffer days are those days for preparation, fulfilling promises, returning phone calls, answering emails, and cleaning up all those details one must tend to at some point.  As a pastor Monday was always a buffer day for me.

Free Days.  A free day is a 24 hour period of time dedicated to rest, recharging and recreation.  Another term would be the sabbath principle.  It is a time to do whatever you need to do to recharge your batteries.  The obvious antidote to burnout is the free day.   

A one word summary of all of this would be the concept of ROTATE.  We must learn to rotate our time which means that into each week we must have focus days, buffer days and free days.  

ROTATE.  How are you doing?

 

Randy Spence
Director of Ministries 

The Pastor and Self-Care---Part 2

Apparently my previous post on the pastor and self-care hit a nerve as I had several email responses from pastors and even a few laymen.  This matter of self-care seems to be an issue for many of us.  Here is what one pastor wrote in an email:

"I am so guilty!  Why is it that taking time for myself is such a hard thing to do? Something is wrong with my personality make-up. I have four weeks vacation but last year I took two.  Do I feel I have to justify myself or try to earn the respect of others?  To somehow model hard work?  How wrong can that be?  Yet guilty am I."

The truth be known, many of us could write the same confession.  I've read that pastors tend to be sicker and more stressed.  As a group pastors tend to be overweight, exercise too little, have poor dietary habits, and increasingly under treatment for things like depression.

As my friend above laments, why is taking care of ourselves such a hard thing to do? What is wrong with us?  In the hope of generating thought about the subject and perhaps some level of dialogue, let me offer several ideas of my own.  Feel free to respond with a comment below if you have other insights or even wish to disagree. Here at least is my first stab at the subject as to why pastors as a group tend to do a poor job of self-care.

Why Pastors Often Fail at Self-Care

1.  Pastors are givers.  That is, most are by nature servants and generous with their time and energy.  Pastoring is parental by nature and as so often happens with parents, they expend themselves in serving others.

2.  Pastors tend to be people pleasers.  They like to make people happy.  In and of itself that is not a bad thing until it gets out of balance and even neurotic.  Too easily one can be driven by the need to please.

3.  Pastoral ministry is open-ended.  That is, the pastor's job is never complete.  There's always one more person who needs to be visited, one more lesson or sermon to prepare, or one more meeting or activity at which the pastor feels compelled to attend.  And the larger the church, the more the demands for the pastor's time.  

4.  Pastor's have so few signs they are succeeding in their work.  If you sell something, you can measure success by the number of sales and the income produced.  If you build something, there is something you can see at the end of the day as a sign of progress.  But when you are pouring your life into people and there are few visible or measurable signs of progress, the result can sometimes be that, like my friend above, to feel we must work harder to prove our worth.

5.  People don't understand the work of the pastor.  Until you've lived in the fish bowl of the parsonage, you can't understand what it's like to be constantly under scrutiny and evaluation.  All pastors have heard the jokes about only working on Sunday and maybe Wednesday.  While most are said in genuine good humor, there are those that comes with barbs disguised as humor.  Pastors as a whole tend to be a pretty sensitive group of people so the result at times is that they feel they must work harder to prove to others they have a "real job."

6.  Pastors have had few good role models in self-care.  Many from the generation that were my mentors as a young pastor could not distinguish their love of God from their devotion to the church.  It seemed to get muddled all together.  The result was often fourteen hour work days six to seven days a week with meetings many of those nights.  I remember arguing with one such minister of that generation as he proclaimed that Sunday couldn't be considered as a work day for the pastor.  His reasoning was for the volunteers of the church it wasn't a work day.  I argued back that for the church volunteer they also weren't there six or seven days a week.  For the volunteer theirs was an act of service; for the pastor it is his job.  The result of having few good role models is that we tend to do as our models have done just as we tend to parent as our parents have parented.  Many of us have learned some bad habits as a result.  

Are there other reasons you would add?  Feel free to talk back and share with me and with the other readers your thoughts.

Randy Spence, Director of Ministries

The Pastor and Self-Care

One of my observations regarding pastors across the years is that as a group they often don't take very good care of themselves.  Too many pastors lack good self-care meaning physical, mental, social and spiritual health.  I've talked to many who pride themselves in the fact they don't take all their vacation or their days off.  As a result, many live in a perpetual state of mental, spiritual and physical fatigue.  

Recently I read a blog by Dr. Alistair Brown, president of Northern Seminary, in which he wrote, "We owe it to those we are called to serve to do good self-care so we can do well the job to which we have been called."  I must confess that the notion of doing good self-care as being for others and for the sake of our calling, was a new one for me.  Like most I thought of self-care as something we do for ourselves.  If you are wired like me, this notion takes the matter of self-care to a new level.  It is not a selfish act but an act of stewardship of our lives and the ministry to which we have been called.

Brown shares the story of Robert Murray M'Cheyne, a noted Scottish preacher greatly used by God in a revival in the early 1840s.  But he became exhausted and very sick. As he lay dying, he is quoted as saying God had given him a message to deliver and a horse with which to deliver it, but alas he had killed the horse (his own body) so he could no longer deliver the message.  He was just 29.

We who know we have a calling from God so easily allow our lives to get out of balance by working too much, exercising too little, eating the wrong things, and in general allowing too little time for self and family.  I have asked many pastors this question:  "Are you living out your calling or your drivenness?"  Work for God is more like a marathon than it is a sprint.  We owe it to others to be fit for the work we have been called to do.

Randy Spence, Director of Ministries

A Leadership Call from Martin Luther King, Jr.

Debbe Kennedy, author of "Putting Our Differences to Work", in a recent blog posting shares how in the book, "A Testament of HOPE:  The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King Jr.", edited by James M. Warrington, there appears the following address that Dr. King gave at the First Annual Institute for Non-Violence and Social Change titled, "Facing the Challenge of a New Age."  The speech was given in Montgomery, Alabama in December 1956.  I want to share what Ms Kennedy pulled out of King's speech with the modification she makes of changing the century.  This address is a profound call whispering to us from another time calling us to be a part of a new generation of leadership that masters putting our differences to work through our thinking, actions, and behavior when no one is watching.  

 

FACING THE CHALLENGE OF A NEW AGE

 
"Those of us who live in the twenty-first century are privileged to live in one of the most momentous periods of human history. It is an exciting age filled with hope. It is an age in which a new social order is being born. We stand today between two worlds---the dying old and the emerging new.

...another thing that we must do in speeding up the coming of the new age is to develop intelligent, courageous and dedicated leadership. This is one of the pressing needs of the hour. In this period of transition and growing social change, there is a dire need for leaders who calm and yet positive leaders who avoid the extremes of "hot-headedness"... The urgency of the hour calls for leaders of wise judgement and sound integrity---leaders not in love with money, but in love with justice; leaders not in love with publicity, but in love with humanity; leaders who can subject their particular egos to the greatness of the cause."

Then Dr. King goes on to paraphrase Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819-1881), a poet and novelist, this way:

God give us leaders! 
A time like this demands strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;
Leaders whom the lust of office does not kill;
Leaders whom the spoils of life cannot buy;
Leaders who possess opinions and a will;
Leader who have honor; leaders who will not lie;
Leaders who can stand before a demagogue
and damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall leaders, sun crowned, who live above the fog
in public duty and private thinking.

The call seems clear--- we need to evaluate and to strengthen our portfolio of skills to live up to the call of this new age.  Are you, as a leader, up to the challenge?  Do you hear the whispering call to step up?

 

Randy Spence, Director of Ministries

 

Leading From Your Strengths

I recently read an article by the management guru Peter Drucker titled, Managing Oneself.  Drucker contends what many others argue and that is that we work best if we focus on working in our areas of gifting and strength rather than expending our energies in trying to prop up our weaknesses.  The question thus becomes, do you know your strengths?  Drucker argues that while many of us think we do, often we are wrong.  Often it takes some outside verification to help us discover what we think should be obvious.

To this end we at Ohio Ministries are putting our greatest efforts in leadership development.  We believe that John Maxwell got it right when he said that the church rises and falls on leadership.  To this end we have several "tools" we utilize in our efforts to help pastors grow as leaders such as Coaching Clusters, a new round of which will begin in the Fall of 2011.  We do so as well through Pastoral Leadership Skills Coaching, an intense year-long process of coaching pastors through an on-line curriculum designed to help them learn to lead with greater effectiveness and efficiency.  Currently we have 15 pastors being coached.

An important place to begin is in the discovery of how God wired you.  In other words, what are your strengths?  To this end we have placed on our website (www.ohchog.org) two tools that can help you in your efforts at discovery.  The first is a free Spiritual Gifts Assessment.  You can take it on-line and get an immediate scoring.  I suggest you ask a few trusted friends to speak into your life regarding the accuracy of the results.  Do others who know you well verify what the assessment says about you?

The second tool is a personality assessment called Leading From Your Strengths.  This is an assessment designed in part by Christian psychologist John Trent that helps you discover your natural strengths.  Again you can access this tool from the Ohio Ministries site, and if you write us and ask, we can give you a coupon code that will save you $4.00 off the usual price of $26.95.  With the code the final cost is $22.91 and for that you will instantly receive the results in a 26 page document that you can print and save to your computer.  It is a great tool and I heartily recommend it.

To take this whole matter of leading from your strengths to an even higher level, Associate Director Esther Cottrell and I are certified as Level II trainers in the Leading From Your Strengths assessment and are available to work with leadership groups.  In the past we have done day long sessions with leadership boards in churches where they didn't want to just insert people into slots but in places where they can serve with effectiveness and passion.  If interested in scheduling a workshop, please write us or give us a call.

In summary, remember that we have two tools on the Ohio Ministries website that can help in your quest of discovering your strengths.  While all jobs have tasks we must perform that we are not good at or passionate about, the hoped for end is that we can find ourselves where we are in a "sweet spot" where our gifting, strengths and passions converge and we know we are where God wants us to be.

Carpe diem!

Randy Spence, Director of Ministries

Bible Reading Plans for 2011

With a new year come new opportunities as well as challenges.  In a sense it is like God has given us an opportunity to write a new chapter in our lives.  And while we can't go back and make a new start, we can start today and make a brand new end.  Our past doesn't have to equate to our future.

The advent of a new year leads many to making New Year's resolutions that will likely go by the wayside by the end of January.  In his book with the stark title of Change or Die, author Allan Deutschman says the reason our efforts at change fail is because we don't understand the elements that bring about lasting change.  He argues that lasting change comes about through three things:

1.  Relationships.  We change by relating to people who are seeking to make the same changes we are endeavoring to make. This is in part why programs like AA and Weight Watchers work for many, at least as long as they stay engaged in the program.  

2.  Reframing.  This means thinking differently.  Often this comes by receiving new information that radically changes the way we think about something.  The apostle Paul writes in Romans 12:2:  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.  In other words, think differently.

3.  Repetition.  Of course we all know what this means---developing a new habit or habits.  Is there a new habit you want to make in 2011?  What about your habit with the Word of God?  Do you have one? 

 If spending more time with the Bible is a habit you would like to create in 2011, there are many such plans available to meet numerous interests and needs.  If you want to check it out, go to Google and type in "Bible Reading Plans" and you'll be surprised at the results.  Let me name three such plans for your consideration: 

• The Discipleship Journal Plan.  This reading plan, created by NavPress, is a popular one and entails reading the Bible through in a year but for only 25 days each month allowing the opportunity to catch up if you know you may fall behind.  Each day's readings are from four areas of the Scriptures.
• The Chronological Plan.  This plan will take one through the whole Bible in a year in chronological order.  

• The M'Cheyne Plan.  This is often considered the classic plan but is pretty demanding.  In this plan you will read through the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice in a year's time.

I have each of these plans on my computer stored as pdf's and would be happy to share them with you if desired.  Just write me a note requesting one or all of them and I will happily share them.

God has given us all the opportunity to write a new chapter in our lives.  While 2011 will no doubt have for each of us our challenges, spiritually this year could be the best of our lives.  A commitment to reading the Scriptures can certainly lead us in the direction of making it so.

Carpe diem!

 

Randall Spence, Director

How to Eliminate Many Church Problems

By: Dr. Randall Spence, Ohio Ministries & Dr. Doug Talley, Indiana Ministries

Many local churches mishandle disagreement and conflict.  In a perfect world, disagreements and conflict would be resolved in a healthy manner that builds stronger relationships.  But in the church (and in many families) they are often unresolved and lead to unhealthy behaviors that cause further problems. 

One of the most common ways churches choose to address problems is to not address them.  The assumption behind this seems to be that if a problem is ignored, it will go away.  The problem with that logic is that all too often it simply isn’t true.  Problems ignored often are like placing a dead animal in the backyard.  In time they just stink. 

When churches do choose to address problems, they often do so in unhealthy ways that make matters worse.  As pastors for many years and now as state pastors, we have noticed several forms of unhealthy behavior in churches that create discord and cripple relationships.  These behaviors fuel a very unhealthy culture that in time will destroy a local congregation.

The behaviors below are like throwing gasoline on a fire.  If churches will identify these behaviors as unhealthy and address them, many church problems could be resolved in a much more effective manner.

We’ve observed that most churches have been rendered impotent partly due to expending much of their energy fighting amongst themselves rather than in expanding the Kingdom.  The enemy of the church is very successful in using conflict and disagreement to derail local congregations from their God-given mission of making more and better disciples.   Our prayer is that God will use this article to help pastors, boards, and local congregations take steps to eliminate unhealthy, destructive behaviors and seek to resolve conflict in a way that keeps the church on mission. 

Behaviors and Attitudes to Eliminate

1.  Anonymous letters/emails sent to the pastor or board.  We suggest a personal and church policy that states that anonymous communication in any form is unacceptable and will not be received.  People who have a complaint need to be willing to own their complaint before they share it.  Jesus gave us Matthew 18 for a reason:  people have a tendency to complain about people to everyone but the one they need to talk to.  Jesus’ words need to be enforced - if you have something against someone or if they have something against you, go and talk to that person. 

2.  Using “in confidence” as an excuse for complaining, gossiping and/or being critical.  You’ve heard it before:  “I need to tell you something in confidence about…”  Messages sent in such a fashion cannot be addressed or satisfactorily resolved and should be considered taboo.

3.  Going to someone in the church to complain about the pastor, a staff person or someone else.  The excuse people often use is, “But he/she (i.e. the pastor) won’t listen.”  Often the person just assumes that.  We suggest that every church needs a grievance policy for addressing concerns in a healthy and productive way and for those occasions when maybe the reality is that the pastor won’t listen.

4.  Listening to someone complain about someone else.  Listening to unwholesome conversation makes a person just as guilty as telling it.    If someone approaches you with a complaint about someone, call a time-out and ask, “Have you spoken to this person about your complaint?”  If the answer is “no,” the response should be, “I’m not going to be an accomplice.  I will, however, tell the person to expect a call from you about this concern.”  While such a response may seem bold and even rude, imagine how much unhealthy talk would be eliminated.  Always point the complainer back to the person against whom they have the complaint.

5.  Passing a petition and/or calling for a vote of confidence on the pastor.  Too often this is a bullying tactic to get rid of the pastor and, on occasion, even disguised as an attempt to give the pastor constructive criticism.  There is very rarely anything constructive about a petition or a vote of confidence.  No one – not the pastor or the church – wins in these situations.

6.  Any communication that includes the phrase “a lot of people in the church are unhappy about…”   If the person is asked who these people are, the response is often that the complainer must keep those names in confidence.  (Refer back to items 1 & 2.)   So let the person complaining know that as far as you are concerned, “a lot of people in the church” really means the person sharing the complaint.  Emotionally healthy people speak for themselves. Too often using “a lot of people in the church are unhappy about…” is nothing more than a power tactic for a few to get their way.  It just means the complainer isn’t happy and is trying to sound like he or she represents others in order to give more credence to their complaint.

7.  Saying, “I’m not being heard” when the reality is that leadership does not agree with the opinion being stated.   “I’m not being heard” often really means, “I’m not getting my way.”   People in leadership roles have the responsibility to lead.  Not everyone will like all the decisions made by pastors or lay leaders.  Once you’ve appropriately shared your opinion and the decision has been made, get on board with the decision as though it was your idea.

8.  Assuming the pastor has mishandled a situation when the person complaining doesn’t have all the information and probably shouldn’t have it.  On occasion pastors and leadership have to make decisions based on information that is not prudent to share with everyone in order to protect a person or persons.  If someone doesn’t like the decision made, it is easy to declare that the situation has been mishandled.  While our carnal side is prone to jump to conclusions and make accusations, trust is a much healthier response.

9.  Assuming the pastor’s job is easy and that you can do it just as well or better.  There is a phenomenon in some circles that we call “the preacher itch.”  This is an attitudinal disease some have who feel called to ministry but who have not pursued it.  Or, if they have, they’ve not been ‘successful’ in ministry.  The resulting attitude can tempt a person to think he/she can do the job better than the pastor.  The resulting behavior is criticism of the pastor and acting in ways that undermine that pastor’s ministry.  It’s easy to be an armchair quarterback and to second-guess every decision made when you don’t have all of the information and when you aren’t the one on the field.  Leadership is hard work.

10.  The belief that the pastor is a hired hand whose job is to serve and to please the people who pay his salary.  Herein lies one of the greatest diseases in the American church, and it largely explains why most churches are either plateaued or in decline.  In North America we have unwittingly made the church about ourselves.  In most churches the programs and the ministries are for the membership.  The expectation, even demand, is that the pastors expend all of their time and energies meeting the expectations and needs of the membership.  Friends, the mission is to those who don’t yet know Christ, and the pastor’s primary job is to lead the church in accomplishing this mission.

We encourage pastors, church staffs, and boards to discuss unhealthy behaviors and agree on how to respond to them.  You might even want to name some more that need to be eliminated.  The beginning point to changing these unwholesome and counterproductive behaviors is identifying them and the leadership agreeing to confront them when they surface.

South West Ohio District & Ohio Ministries Alignment

An historic moment in the ministry of the Church of God in Ohio took place on Tuesday, November 9 as the South West Ohio Assembly of the Church of God voted to become South West Ohio Ministries.  In doing so the district moved to align themselves directly with the vision and ministry of Ohio Ministries.  Essentially this means the district will seek to do three things.  The first is to emphasize leadership development through coaching clusters, pastoral leadership skills coaching and other ministries that will enable both laity and pastors to lead at a higher level.

The second emphasis will be congregational health.  Hopefully a team from the south west district will be trained to conduct coaching weekends (church consultations) for those congregations that want to experience turnaround or to move to the next level in their ministry.  

The final emphasis will be in Kingdom expansion through church planting and multi-site ministry (one church in multiple locations).  

The new South West Ohio Ministries will be led by a team of elders led by Pastor Mitchell Burch, senior pastor of the Towne Boulevard Church of God in Middletown. To complete the change the district also wrote and approved new bylaws that reflect this new alignment with the state ministry.  

The move towards this alignment with the state began well over a year ago when the district's leadership came to the conclusion that district ministry as it has been done in the past no longer works.  To that end they invited the leadership of Ohio Ministries to begin a series of discussions with them exploring the possibility of this alignment.  The meeting of the assembly on the 9th finalized the work of the leadership and the state in bringing the two organizations into alignment.  We anticipate a new level of effective and expanded ministry in the years ahead.

Randy Spence, Director of Ministries