MINISTERS MATTER

HOW ARE PASTORS DOING?

These questions were asked at Duke University and responded to by Ed Stetzer on the LifeWay Research blog. Enjoy!

II.    Ministry (Clergy)

1.    What role do clergy/ministerial leadership contribute to either the health or sickness of the church?

It depends on the pastor, I would think.

Most pastors tend to see their role as that of a caretaker. Most people want to be cared for. Thus, the church continues as a dispenser of religious goods and services with the clergy acting as spiritual shopkeeper--caring for needs while distributing religious services.

The end result is a disempowered laity and a co-dependent pastor.

But, there are also many bright spots where pastors have empowered, trained, and sent out men and women into mission and ministry.

2.    How do seminaries form clergy/ministers to be effective and faithful church leaders?

Again, it depends on the school, I would think.

Most seminaries don't do what most incoming church-bound seminarians think they are going to do--prepare them to be pastors. Seminaries tend not to be particularly good at making leaders who lead churches.

Since seminaries tend to be staffed by scholars, who are generally not strong congregational leaders, they provide scholarship and not leadership. This is fine--but not what most church-bound leaders are expecting.

However, I am not one who thinks that graduate education should be a checklist of ministerial functions wrapped up in course numbers: "How to Preach" 2432, "How to Lead" 8544, etc.

I think that effective seminaries will partner with churches that provide hands-on modeling and mentoring to form church leaders, while the classroom is helping to foster and biblically-shaped and theologically-driven ministry outlook. However, in my own teaching experience, I have seen few that actually do this.

Tomorrow we will look at some great church planting books.

VALUES BASED MINISTERS

Over the next eight days, I will share the eight relational values that motivate all I do in ministry. May I encourage you to develop your own value system so you too will be seen as a value based minister.

Many years ago I heard the statement that values must precede vision. That stuck with me. There is no shortage of vision in ministry today. What is often in short supply is character.

For ministers, credibility is an important value. Can we be trusted? God calls us and entrusts the gospel, ministry and people to our keeping and care. How are we handling this trust? Without credibility in ministry, little can be accomplished.

Credibility is doing the same things over and over for the right reasons. It is putting into practice those values you’ve chosen to reflect your personal behaviour in all circumstances. For a values based minister, being spiritual is more important than looking spiritual.

Real life shows that credibility takes years to build and can be lost in a moment. One day we can be on top of the world and the next the world is on top of us.

Credibility is more important to the people we lead than our credentials. People look to us in the ministry to have integrity, to be authentic, accountable and to handle temptation in a godly manner. Without values, our resistance is weak and we can mishandle the trust given to us.

Values help us deal with our own issues in a proactive manner.

The ministerial life of John Wesley included questions like the following to keep ministers accountable. We need to review them and evaluate our own lives as credible ministers.

1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am a better person than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?

2. Am I honest in all acts or words, or do I exaggerate?

3. Do I confidentially pass on to another what was told to me in confidence? Can I be trusted?

4. Am I a slave to dress, friends, work or habits?

5. Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self -justifying?

6. Did the Bible live in me today?

7. Do I give it time to speak to me each day?

8. Am I enjoying prayer?

9. When did I last speak to somebody else with the object of trying to win that person for Christ?

10. Am I making contacts with other people and using them for the Master’s Glory?

11. Do I pray about the money I spend?

12. Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?

13. Do I disobey God in anything?

14. Do I insist upon doing something for which my conscience is uneasy?

15. Am I defeated in any part of my life? Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy, or distrustful?

16. How do I spend my spare time?

17. Am I proud?

18. Do I thank God I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisee who despised the publican?

19. Is there anybody whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold resentment toward or disregard? If so, what am I doing about it?

20. Do I grumble or complain constantly?

21. Is Christ real to me?

At Mission O, Ministers Matter!

PERSONAL GROWTH FOR MINISTERS

Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting with the pastoral leadership of a nearby city. It was clear, in the midst of our sharing together, that ongoing personal growth was important for us in the ministry.

While we were called to feed the sheep that were under our care, we needed to make sure we were feeding ourselves as well. Healthy minister = healthy ministry. As I was driving home, I thought about my own life and wondered what I would do differently today.

How would I go about replenishing my own soul, not for others, but for me.

Here are some thoughts.

I would invest more time by reading great books by authors who had dared to be caring ministers rather than professional clergy. Books on prayer, fasting, Christian disciplines, as well as emotional and spiritual health. I would seek out mature leaders and ask to spend time with them over coffee. I'd listen to messages that would be more about personal growth than church growth. I would make sure that I was cross-pollinating myself within the body of Christ so I could grow in love and be stretched in my thinking. I would give some senior leaders permission to speak into my life and help me reach my personal goals. I would take at least two full days off each week to 'pastor my family' and a three-month sabbatical at five year intervals just to keep pace with and process what I was learning. I would book Joyce and I into a marital retreat each year to keep the fires of love burning and deal with issues that might otherwise go unchecked. I would get professional help to guide me in understanding the implications of my past, what I need to be doing to keep moving forward and then activate tools that could measure my ongoing progress.

I would want to evaluate the following growth points.

Am I walking as a son who enjoys intimacy with God as Father? Am I falling in love with the scriptures as I read them? Is Jesus present in my life and ministry? Is my prayer life vibrant? Am I daily surrendering myself to the Lord? Do I model holiness? Is the kingdom at work in me in righteousness, peace and joy in the Person and presence of the Holy Spirit? Am I maintaining pastoral relationships that keep me accountable, healthy and real?

In the end, I value the calling of God on my life. I want to see it continue to grow as I grow older. I acknowledge that my outer man is perishing but my inner man is being renewed everyday.

I have a vision of becoming a grey-haired man who is full of grace, wisdom and lives to invest himself in the generations that will follow.

Ephesian 4:1 reminds us to live a life that is worthy of the calling we have received. That can only be done if we are willing to nurture all that God has entrusted to our keeping and care, starting with our life in Him.

At Mission O, Ministers Matter!

INTERNATIONALS 'MEET & GREET' NIGHT

Tonight was one of those amazing moments in ministry. For the first time in the history of our city, 37 ministers, most who have immigrated to Canada from all over the world, gathered at the National House of Prayer for a 'meet and greet' night.

They were served by a small group of young women from 4MyCanada who laboured lovingly all evening. They could be seen setting up the dining room, greeting the ministers, and even hanging up their coats. These young people absolutely blessed us with their love of serving others. The team from the NHoP always amaze me with their dedication to excellence in all they do. Thanks guys!

Refreshments were ready as the guests arrived and the room was buzzing as they met one another for the first time in such a welcoming setting. There were leaders representing Canada's First Nations, Africa, South America, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Iraq and the USA. A special couple, Marc & Kim Wyatt from America, who work with immigrants, took time to share their 10 year ministry alongside immigrants in Canada. They blessed all of us with their dedication and love for people.

I hosted the evening and brought greetings on behalf of Mission O. It goes without saying that these leaders honoured our invitation and we thanked them for taking the time to come out.

I invited Rob and Fran Parker, the leaders of the NHoP to share the story of what God was doing with the teams who come from across the nation. Many of these international leaders were at the house for the first time and were overwhelmed with all that God was doing.

Pastor Jacob Afolabi, who encouraged many to attend, brought greetings and shared some of the history of previous efforts and how encouraged he was with tonight. He introduced us to Carl Nicholson and Meyer Burstein who work to help immigrants get settled in our community. They shared a little of what they do and offered their expertise to the pastors. Carl had spent alot of time at the house when it was a convent. He was delighted to be back and see it being used as a house of prayer.

We took a guided tour of the house and then settled into the upstairs prayer room for a time of listening to one another's story and heart cry for ministry. What a display of diversity as their stories were told. Our God is doing a mighty work in Ottawa and we were privileged to see and hear it from these dear men and women of God who have been brought here by Him for eternal purposes.

We concluded our time praying and blessing each other's life and ministry. That alone was worth it all. The intensity of prayer, the genuine care for one another, and wouldn't you know it, they didn't want to leave even though we ended on time.

The night wrapped up with a short time of fellowship. I am looking forward to more times with these international leaders. They are a blessing to the Body of Christ in the National Capital Region and we have much to learn from them and share together.

At Mission O, Ministers Matter!

DARE TO DREAM AGAIN!

Martin Luther King Jr. dared to dream. He dared to see something no one else thought possible. At a time of great unrest by those wanting to keep the races segregated, he declared, "I have a dream."

Dreams are what we see before others do. The bible says in the last days old men will dream dreams. H. B. London tells the story of two young preachers visiting with an elderly minister in the nursing home who told them, "A minister never achieves more than his dreams."

Where have all the dreamers in ministry gone? Have we just become professional clergy or worse CEO's? Have we just settled in to a 'what will be, will be' mode? Are we so fatalistic that we've forgotten how to live in and by faith? To dream and to believe go together.

I dare you to dream! To dream big. To agree with Mark 10:27, "With God all things are possible!" Even broken dreams can be mended.

Are you still dreaming dreams for your congregation? Dreams help us lay a foundation to launch out with fresh inspiration and a new reality. Dreams help us live more passionately. They help us shift from a can't do attitude, to a can do one. A new dream will energize you and all those around you. Go for it!

We need to dream big not small. Often our dream is only about our ministry, our church, our parish, our denomination. We have thousands outside the walls of our churches looking for help in their lives. Ask God to give you His dream to reach them.

THE DREAM OF MISSION O

Think of what it would be like if all the ministers in a given region decided to dream the Father's dream for their city? Imagine a pastoral community honouring one another, developing friendships, serving and sharing resources together.

Mission Ottawa is a dream of being workers together. We dare to dream of a city served by ministers who love each other and have joined GOD'S DREAM TEAM for the sake of all those living within the Nation's Capital.

Every congregation needs a pastor who dreams. Every pastor needs a congregation who dreams. Imagine the ministries that would come forth from a believing and dreaming community?

Hebrews 11 is a chapter that lists the dreamers of scripture. When you read it remember they faced tough times but God gave them new dreams that shaped their ministries. They accomplished, with God's help, the impossible. Scripture is full of dreamers. Dare to dream again.

C. S. Lewis said, "For broken dreams, the cure is to dream again."

At Mission O, Ministers Matter!

HAVE YOU SHOWN UP FOR TODAY?

I once heard a minister ask this question of the pastors who had gathered. Have you shown up for today? I wondered what he meant by that as many of us did. He went on to talk about living in the present.

H. B. London uses a great quote when he says, "Yesterday is a cancelled cheque, tomorrow is a promissory note but today is cash in hand. Spend it wisely."

Too often we find ourselves looking in the rear view mirror at WHAT HAPPENED. We can learn from the past but we must not 'live' there. We can also become so focused on the future that we end up simply 'dreaming' of WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN.

In both those instances we end up missing WHAT IS HAPPENING. God calls us to show up TODAY. We must live fully in the present to be effective in all we do.

As ministers, we have so many amazing opportunities around us each and every day. Society needs us now more than ever to live in the present and minister life in a dying world.

The challenges facing this generation are enormous. In politics, education, medicine, business and yes, even in the church, the once solid foundations have been shattered by corruption, instability and greed.

It seems like the earth is convulsing. Global climate changes are happening that cause catastrophic damage to life and property. Hurricanes like Katrina flooded almost 80% of the City of New Orleans. The terror attack on the World Trade Center left 3800 dead and a world-wide conflict between Islam and the West erupted. Even the security of our schools was shattered in Russia, USA and Canada. Security is crumbling.

In the midst of all this, disciples are asking important questions about how we do church in this present reality?

1. Are the people different today than in a previous generation? How biblically literate are they?
2. Do we need to speak a language they understand in order to communicate better?
3. How will they be reached? What attracts them? What repels them?
4. What is going on in the community? What is it know for? Are there major obstacles?
5. How effective is my church/denomination in doing ministry? What ministry gifts are needed?
6. Is our commitment level high enough to meet the needs of our community?
7. Is the DNA of my church mission-minded or self-preserving?
8. Did God make a mistake when He called me to be a Minister?

Today is all we have. Let us look back in order to improve today. Let us look forward by starting today.

Rather than be frustrated with the way things are, let us commit to being the change our communities need.

Have you shown up for today?

At Mission O, Ministers Matter!

Life is messy for ministers!

Thanks for your comments on my first blog. While I am seeking to encourage ministers, it is also meant to bless followers of Jesus who want to be a blessing to their minister. Your comments are encouraged.

Pastors have congregations they care about. Each week, they lead, encourage, support, train and pray for those entrusted to them. This is part of their noble calling. But, who cares for the pastor? Who ministers to the minister in his/her time of doubt, loneliness, fear and frustration?

After 30 years of local church ministry, I can say with conviction, "Ministry was never intended to be done alone."  The Father's eternal plan placed Jesus in relationship with twelve men He could walk with, talk to and live openly among. Even the biblical concept of a body shows our need of one another.

I am grateful for three pastors in our community that ensure I am not doing ministry alone. We meet each Tuesday morning for coffee and conversation. We talk about our marriages, children, our personal struggles and the messy issues we face as ministers. I especially love it when we pray for each other. I leave refreshed knowing that someone cares for my soul. We have become stretcher-bearers to each other.

For the 25 years I served as Senior Pastor at The Life Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, I want to say thank you to the Council, Leadership and Congregation for encouraging me to seek out local and national ministerial relationships. You graciously gave me the time I needed to meet with my peers in ministry. 

The Word of God gives us encouragement when things get messy. Galatians 6:9 says, "And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up."

I will be posting a series of blogs on Mission Ottawa during the month of January. These will help you understand my passion for ministers and their families. Thank you.