Tag: church revitalization

6 Reasons I Like Deacons

Posted in Church Chat, Church Consulting, Church Revitalization, Deacon, Leadership, Uncategorized, WorshipLeave a comment

I have served “as” a deacon and I have served “with” deacons. As a pastor I appreciated the office of deacon and the men who served in that role. Here are a few of the reasons I really like deacons:

6 Reasons I Like Deacons

1. Deacons are fellow servants. As a pastor, I was a servant of the Lord and a servant of the church. According to Acts 6, my main role as a pastor was to serve the church through preaching/teaching and prayer. Likewise, deacons are servants of the Lord and servants of the church.

2. Deacons are fellow men. I know there are exceptions where women serve as deacons, but in all the churches where I served as pastor, the deacons were all men. Men need to be around other men. We need the accountability and the example. Serving with men of God who were deacons helped to keep me on track in my spiritual walk and discipleship path. As Scripture says, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17, ESV).

Men need to be around other men.

3. Deacons are human. Even though pastors hold an important office and are held to high standards according to 1 Timothy 3, they are not perfect. They make mistakes just like everyone else. Deacons are held to the same high standards and qualifications as pastors, but they are human also.

4. Deacons are leaders. Most churches are desperate for leadership–especially servant leadership. Deacons, along with pastors, are uniquely positioned to provide much-needed servant leadership modeled after Jesus’ example in John 13.

5. Deacons are partners. Jim Henry, longtime pastor of FBC Orlando, referred to his deacons as “partners in ministry.” That is the perfect title for a deacon. No pastor or staff can carry out all the ministry needed in a local church. We need to partner together to serve God’s church.

…deacons are partners in ministry.

6. Deacons are friends. Some of my closest friends have been deacons with whom I have been privileged to serve.

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6 Truths about the Holy Spirit

Posted in Church Chat, Church Revitalization, Deacon, Discipleship, Leadership, Ministry, Preaching, WorshipLeave a comment

After serving as a pastor in Southern Baptist churches over the last quarter of a century, I find that the average Southern Baptist is largely unfamiliar with the person and work of the Holy Spirit. As a result, let’s consider six foundational truths about the Holy Spirit:

6 Foundational Truths about the Holy Spirit

  1. The Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit was there in the beginning. He was part of the Trinity as everything was created. Genesis says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:1-2).
  2. The Holy Spirit is a person. Throughout the Bible, the Holy Spirit is referred to as “He or Him.” In John 14:16-17, Jesus said, “….I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever– the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”
  3. The Holy Spirit plays a key role in salvation. (John 16:8-11)
  4. The Holy Spirit dwells in each believer. Jesus said, “….the Spirit of truth….he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17). Paul asked, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
  5. The Holy Spirit is given to us as a deposit. What a glorious truth! The Holy Spirit is God’s down payment indicating that He is good for the rest! Hallelujah! “Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Corinthians 5:5).
  6. The Holy Spirit produces fruit in the believer. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).

I personally believe that the greatest evidence that we are truly believers is the fruit of Spirit. If we have the Spirit as a deposit then we are, without a doubt, a true Christian. If we are genuine Christians who are in fellowship with God, then we will bear the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

5 Things I Hated Doing as a Pastor

Posted in Church Chat, Church Consulting, Church Revitalization, Discipleship, Funny, Life Happens, Ministry, Preaching, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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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Lead to Revitalize – Part 2 (Revitalization Series)

Posted in Assimilation, Church Chat, Church Consulting, Church Revitalization, Discipleship, Evangelism, Ministry, Preaching, WorshipLeave a comment

In the post, Lead to Revitalize – Part 1, we looked at the first 5 characteristics possessed by pastors who lead churches to experience significant revitalization and health. In this post, we will look at 5 additional characteristics. These 10 characteristics are listed in random order and all are equally important. We developed resources on this topic in our book entitled Lead to Revitalize: 15 Practices of a Revitalization Leader. 

10 CHARACTERISTICS OF A REVITALIZATION PASTOR

6.  Revitalization pastors demonstrate dependence on God.  This should not surprise anyone! The Scriptures clearly teach our need for the Holy Spirit’s power in our lives. Revitalization pastors seem to understand this fully because they consistently spend time with God in Bible reading and prayer, they often cry out to God for His blessing on the ministries of the church, and they lead the church to give God the glory when they experience a spiritual “win” as a congregation.

7.  Revitalization pastors are Lifelong Learners.  You’ve heard the saying “leaders are readers.” We would add the saying “revitalization pastors are lifelong learners.” Even those who are not avid readers find other ways to learn. They often listen to other pastor’s sermons, attend conferences, participate in state convention growth opportunities, and meet with other pastors to learn best practices.

8.  Revitalization pastors develop leaders and laborers in the church.  Revitalization pastors agree with the Apostle Paul that one of the main roles of a pastor is “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12, ESV). As a result, they develop a leadership development strategy for the church, regularly delegate ministry responsibilities to trusted people, and personally mentor a group of men in the congregation.

9.  Revitalization pastors lead the church to celebrate wins.  They celebrate wins by showing appreciation to church volunteers who serve faithfully. They sometimes ask for testimonies of where people recently saw God at work. They regularly focus on positive things that happen in the life of the church.

10.  Revitalization pastors lead the church to implement change.  Revitalization pastors spent time thoroughly explaining the reason behind a needed change and invested extra time with people who were slow to accept a needed change. They bathed proposed changes in significant prayer and resisted moving too quickly when making a major change.

Revitalization pastors come in all shapes and sizes, but they share these characteristics. There is a desperate need for Godly leadership in the local church. It is not enough for a pastor to develop a vision for revitalization, but he must LEAD the people to fulfill that vision. In many cases, it takes years to see stagnant churches become vibrant and healthy, so revitalization pastors tend to have longer tenures. Many studies show a relationship between pastoral tenure and church health.

Lead to Revitalize – Part 1 (Revitalization Series)

Posted in Assimilation, Church Chat, Church Consulting, Church Revitalization, Discipleship, Evangelism, Ministry, Preaching1 Comment

Over the past few years, the Regional Consultants of the Church Consulting and Revitalization Team and I noticed that pastors who successfully led their churches to experience revitalization possessed consistent characteristics. We developed resources on this topic and recently wrote a book entitled Lead to Revitalize: 15 Practices of a Revitalization Leader. The list only scratches the surface, but these ten characteristics stand out to us. I will detail these in a two-part blog post. Here is part one:

10 CHARACTERISTICS OF A REVITALIZATION PASTOR

1.  Revitalization pastors lean into conflict.  Some pastors avoid conflict at all costs. They may develop a brilliant, God-given vision for the future of the church, but they scrap it just as soon as one or two people are critical. Revitalization pastors do not necessarily like conflict, but they are willing to face it in order to fulfill the God-given vision.

2.  Revitalization pastors are willing to take risks. It’s risky to help a church understand that they are being ineffective. It’s rarely pleasant to confront difficult people or to seek restoration of a broken relationship, but revitalization pastors do what’s right instead of merely doing what’s easy and convenient.

3.  Revitalization pastors work hard on church relationships. As a child, most of us learned the little hand visual that accompanied the saying “here is the church, here is the steeple, open the door and here are the people.” As adults, we know that the symbolism is lacking because the church is not a building; the church IS the people. Revitalization pastors understand that building a church means building people.

4.  Revitalization pastors take the lead in evangelism. A church cannot be revitalized without reaching new people with the Gospel. A revitalization pastor places emphasis on evangelism and leads by example in this area. Methods of evangelism vary from church to church and community to community, but churches experiencing revitalization are making new converts for Christ.

5.  Revitalization pastors lead with a vision. Visions are sometimes written, sometimes spoken, and sometimes written and spoken! Revitalization pastors have a God-given vision for the church’s future and they share it regularly with the church.

For more information please contact me.

Click on image to purchase a copy of Lead to Revitalize.