Stephen C. Rice Assimilation, Church Chat, Church Consulting, Church Revitalization, Evangelism, Ministry, Worship

The Chick-fil-A Church

Original Sandwich MobileThe average church could learn a lot from Chick-fil-A. Every time I drop by our local Chick-fil-A for lunch, I have a wonderful experience. Good food, great service, fair prices! Their mission statement is simple, “Be America’s Best Quick-Service Restaurant!” The founder, Truett Cathy, may well have fulfilled that statement.

THINGS THAT CHICK-FIL-A DOES RIGHT

  • Clean and neat. The restaurant is landscaped, clean, and bright. The atmosphere makes me comfortable and relaxed from the beginning.
  • Friendly, prompt service. The employees who take my order make eye contact, smile, welcome me, and process my order perfectly.
  • Generous. Before the pandemic, condiments were available at the condiment station and I was trusted to get the amount I needed. A whole basket of delicious mints were available for the taking. (Note: I only took one.)
  • Great product. Of course, the main reason I go to the restaurant is to eat. Their food is always hot, tasty, neatly packaged, and delivered with a smile.
  • Customer-oriented. Let me tell you what happened one day when I was there. After my meal, I walked to the counter to get a refill of their delicious sweet tea. At that particular moment everyone was busy, but a gentleman who was wiping off a table saw me, stopped what he was doing, quickly came up and said, “Sir, could I get you a refill.” I really don’t think it was his job to refill my tea, but he left what he was doing to serve a customer. After I thanked him, he said, “It’s my pleasure sir.” I’m sorry, but that was just flat impressive!

I’m not going to bother trying to make an application to the church because I think the application is obvious. I repeat, the average church could learn a lot from Chick-fil-A.

For more help with assimilation, see The 3-Minute Rule.

Stephen C. Rice Church Chat, Discipleship, Ministry, Preaching, Running, Worship

3 Keys to a Successful Year

Success

“Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 3:13-14, ESV

In the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Church at Philippi, he gives us insight into his personal walk with the Lord.  You could call it a “formula for success” or as I prefer, “keys to success in our walk with the Lord.”

THREE KEYS TO SUCCESS IN 2022

1.  Release the past.  The Apostle Paul said, “….But one thing I do:  Forgetting what is behind….” (Vs. 13).  He is not saying that he actually lost memory of the past, he is saying that he put the past in the proper place–behind him!  He knew that the past can cause us to lose focus on the present and block our vision of the future.  He knew that the past can sometimes riddle us with guilt, lure us, haunt us, taunt us, rob us of intensity and passion, and even cause us to rest on our laurels.  Regardless of what we faced in 2021, let’s learn, let go, and move forward.

2.  Reach for the future.  Paul seems to say, “don’t look back, but BE SURE to look forward.”  He describes it as “…..straining toward what is ahead.”  I can remember running my first 10K race when I was 30-yrs.-old.  Because of my excitement, I started the race at a pace that was too fast for my fitness level.  As a result, my side began to hurt at mile 3 and I desperately wanted to stop and walk.  At that point, I saw my wife standing on the side of the road, so I didn’t want to quit in front of her.  Somehow, I kept plodding along and shortly after I passed the 5-mile marker, I saw the finish line about a mile away.  Something about seeing the finish line lifted my spirits and injected bounce in my step.  I finished fairly strong even though I had almost stopped to walk just a few miles earlier.  Paul seems to say that he keeps the finish line in view and it encourages him to do his best.  With the help of the Holy Spirit, let’s set some goals for 2022–spiritual goals, financial goals, vocational goals, fitness goals, nutritional goals.  Let’s “reach” for those goals day-by-day throughout this new year.

3.  Run for the prize.  What is Paul talking about when he talks about “the prize”?  We know he is not saying that we can live in such a way that we earn salvation because he just said in Vs. 9 that righteousness is “through faith in Christ.”  I believe Paul is saying that he is running for the goal of pleasing Jesus with his life and running for the satisfaction of knowing that he gave his best.  He is saying what he later says in 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  If God tarries His coming and if He allows us to live to see 2023, I pray that we will be able to say the same about the way we served the Lord in 2022.

PRAYER:  “Lord, please help us remember the lessons you taught us in 2021, but Lord, help us to release last year and not relive it.  Help us to see Your plan and goals for 2022 and strain towards them in the power of Your Holy Spirit.  Help us to cherish your divine approval as our highest prize!  Be glorified in our lives!  Amen.”

Stephen C. Rice Church Chat, Life Happens, Ministry

10 Things I Love About Being A Pastor

I have served as pastor of four Kentucky Baptist churches and as an interim pastor of several more. Here are ten things that I love about being a pastor.

10 Things I Love About Being A Pastor

1. Walking through life with people you know and love. This is not true for all pastors because some pastors are introverts, but I love people. As their pastor, church members often include you in the important moments of their lives.

2. Encouraging members when they’re going through difficult times. No one is exempt from difficulty. As a pastor, I’m called upon during difficult moments which allows me the unique privilege of encouraging church members during these moments. 

3. Preparing to preach each week. Every week as I prepare to preach God’s Word, God does a work in my life! The biggest challenge each week is figuring how to narrow down my study notes into a 25-30 minute message.

4. Working closely with fellow staff members. Serving side-by-side with a Godly church staff is a joy and a privilege.

5. Watching church children be children. Children provide lots a good laughs as well as constant reminders of what really matters. Children help to keep us young-minded!

6. Seeing people become passionate about Jesus. This is especially rewarding from a pastor’s perspective. The process of disciple-making never gets old.

7. Being passionate about Jesus. Serving as pastor helps to fuel my passion for Jesus and for His Word. Knowing that your church members look to you for spiritual guidance and strength is a strong motivator.

8. Helping a church refocus for effectiveness. Every church needs to refocus on an ongoing basis. Leading a church towards a new, more effective focus is very rewarding.

9. Leading. Churches are desperate for Godly, visionary leadership. Without question, the pastor is the KEY leader of the church.

10. Following. Leaders need to model being a good follower. In other words, they should not micro-manage their staff or those who lead ministries in the church.

Stephen C. Rice Church Chat, Church Consulting, Church Revitalization, Discipleship, Funny, Life Happens, Ministry, Preaching, Uncategorized

5 Things I Hated Doing as a Pastor

In similar posts I wrote about 6 Things I Hated Hearing as a Pastor followed by 7 Things I Loved Hearing as a Pastor. In today’s post I want to explore 5 Things I Hated DOING as a Pastor. Keep in mind that I loved being a pastor and I loved most the tasks that came along with the position, but I didn’t love everything.

5 Things I Hated Doing as a Pastor

1. Preaching on difficult topics. I preached on marriage, divorce, homosexuality, fornication, adultery, abortion, tithing, racism, prejudice, laziness, gossip, and numerous other difficult subjects, but I didn’t love doing it. As a pastor, I preferred to preach about Jesus and the encouraging passages that abound, but I knew that I was accountable to God to preach the whole Bible even when the topics were not popular or culturally acceptable.

…even when the topics were not popular or culturally acceptable.”

2. Visiting new parents in the hospital. I didn’t really hate visiting new parents, but it always felt a little awkward. I felt better visiting when the mother and the father were both present or when my wife could join me. As their pastor, I wanted to let them know that we celebrated with them on the birth of their child, but at the same time, I wanted to respect their need for privacy. As a man, I was certain that I didn’t understand everything that the new mother was going through physically and emotionally, so I wanted to give her space for rest and healing.

3. Addressing church conflict. When I faced conflict during my early years of ministry I simply prayed and hoped that it would go away. As the pastor, I began to realize that I had to lean into conflict and work towards reconciliation, but it was something that I always dreaded.

…I began to realize that I had to lean into conflict…”

4. Asking for help. In the perfect church world, all the church members would jump in and volunteer when needed. Since that rarely happened, I often had to personally ask people for help.

5. Administering church discipline. The Bible clearly teaches that there are times when church discipline is required. The purpose of discipline is to help the offender discover his sin and his need for repentance. Even when church discipline was appropriate and best, it was always very difficult.

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Stephen C. Rice Assimilation, Church Consulting, Church Revitalization, Deacon, Evangelism, Leadership, Ministry, Preaching, Uncategorized, Worship

Reboot or Rebuild the Church

When the pandemic began, most of us assumed that our churches would just bounce back to “normal” shortly after the Covid-19 restrictions lifted. Much like turning our internet modem off and then back on when we experience connection issues, we thought the church would simply “reboot.” But, a reboot has not happened and it may never happen.

LifeWay Research indicates that only 50-70% of pre-Covid attendees had returned to in-person church activities by August, 2021. According to researcher, Scott McConnell, “worship attendance is improving, but there is still a large gap between today’s in-person attendance and pre-COVID levels.” The percentage is higher when online participation is included, but those numbers are difficult to track. As we move forward, we will not be able to simply reboot; we will have to rebuild!

We will not be able to simply reboot; we will have to rebuild!

That’s easy to recognize, but how do we have a “rebuild” mindset? What does that even mean? Here are seven key elements of rebuilding.

7 Keys to Rebuild the Church

  1. Outreach. We must continue to reach out to those who have never attended our church. Many communities are growing and new prospects are moving in regularly. Even in non-growing communities, there are people who need Christ. Some of them are experiencing grief related to the pandemic and are more spiritually open than ever.
  2. In-reach. Don’t give up on members and former attendees who haven’t returned to church. Without being pushy or assigning blame, reach out to them. Help them take small steps back to church. Maintain safety measures for those who are at risk and/or have concerns related to their health.
  3. Ministry. Provide pastoral ministry to all church members. That’s fairly easy for those in attendance, but challenging for those who have not returned. If the church is small, you can print off the membership role and call a few members each day to check on them. When you call, ask if they have needs and prayer concerns. Write down what they share and pray for them over the phone. When you call them in future, check your notes and ask them about the things they shared on the last call. If the church is larger, you can share this ministry with the deacons, Sunday School teachers, or form a special phone team. A safe, personal touch matters more than ever!
  4. Assimilation. Be prepared when new people attend and others return. In addition to all the normal assimilation basics, give priority to cleanliness and safety. We will never just “go back to normal” after living through a pandemic. Masks, hand sanitizer, bleach, and personal space changes are here to stay.
  5. Creativity. Don’t pretend the pandemic is over. The truth is, long after it is over, it will not be “over.” Be creative in providing options in worship and other church ministries. Make sure that those who are extra cautious are made to feel welcome and treated with respect.
  6. Technology. Technology is not the Devil! We’ve learned so much about technology during the pandemic, and reached new people as a result. We should continue to improve and expand our use of technology, even as our in-person attendance increases.
  7. Focus. Specifically, focus on Jesus! People need Jesus! Preach Jesus! Sing about Jesus! Pray in Jesus’ name! Walk with Jesus! Love Jesus! Model Jesus! People need Jesus!

“…focus on Jesus! Preach Jesus! Sing about Jesus! Pray in Jesus’ name!…People need Jesus!”

Bonus Tip: Don’t give up!

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:9-10, ESV).