Leadership

One of the most dangerous aspects of success in any work of God is that it would lead to complacency. The truth is, it is easier to rejoice in a victory of the past and simply maintain going forward than it is to take continual faith-filled risks and build.

Those who serve as spiritual leaders have the joy of investing themselves in the spiritual growth of others. You prepare messages, lessons, and events, preach sermons, teach classes, and give of yourself in all the ways that contribute toward building others in spiritual growth.

Faith is seldom developed in comfortable surroundings. As long as we maintain the familiar, predictable routines of life and ministry, we only maintain our faith. But when we choose to step outside our comfort zone—in obedience to the call of God—God increases our faith. And the further out we step, the more He increases it.

In every work of God, there comes a point when a leader must ask, “Am I content to move forward in maintenance mode, or will I continue to build?” In theory, this question sounds simple. Who wouldn’t want to continue building, especially when you are co-laboring with Christ in building that which He has promised to bless?

You’ve heard it said: “Use the church to build people, not people to build the church.” Of course, building people and building a church are not mutually exclusive. Both require partnering with Christ, the Master Builder, as He builds His church and His people.

A few weeks ago, I was told that my wife and I needed to take a break and rest. At first, I hesitated, considering how busy things have been at Shawnee in recent months. But after discussing it with Amanda, we agreed that we could use a few days by ourselves.

The local church does not get to choose whether or not it will have a ministry of counseling. Churches are made up of people, and people will always be encountering situations that require biblical direction and guidance.

There are a lot of different opinions—some that can be very strong—concerning the matter of “loyalty to the pastor.” One extreme is pastor-worship and the other extreme is no loyalty to the pastor at all.

We all know there are plenty of situations in which good people differ. But why do good people differ? And how can we understand and benefit from these differences?

It’s easy to explain why we need renewal because all of us can easily identify with the all-too-familiar sense of depletion. But what do we do when we come to this point? How do we renew?

There is an inescapable principle at work in Scripture. It is prevalent from the first few chapters of Genesis to the end of Revelation. It is a principle that is applied to the greatest servants of the Lord. It is a principle that is painful and time consuming in its application, but necessary to the process of preparation that every saint greatly used of God must go through.

When Paul wrote his final letter to Timothy, he included a request for Timothy to come to him. Notice his wording: “Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me” (2 Timothy 4:9). Paul didn’t say, “Come if you get a chance.” He asked Timothy to invest focused effort—diligence—in coming.

Leadership—especially spiritual leadership—involves shepherding people. It involves connecting hearts with the life-changing truths of God’s Word. This requires a Spirit-filled leader with a heart large enough for people. It requires a leader who sees management as necessary to leadership but not defining of leadership.

I had the privilege to be saved and raised in independent Baptist churches. Having now served as the pastor of an unaffiliated Bible-based Baptist church for twenty-eight years, I’m deeply grateful for my heritage. Why? Because even though other groups do good works, the autonomous Baptists have generally believed in and practiced the ten traits below which are clearly emphasized in Scripture and are timeless in their effectiveness in local church ministry.

This year marks my twentieth year to pastor what researchers call a megachurch—a church averaging over two thousand people in weekly attendance. Statistics on pastoral tenure in churches suggest that for a pastor to remain twenty-eight years in the ministry, let alone in one church, is unusual—especially when twenty of those years are overflowing with the needs of a large congregation.

These statistics speak to the realities of stress, weariness, and emptiness that are part of serving people. But not every pastor falls by the wayside of statistics. So what is the difference between a pastor who becomes a statistic and a pastor who presses on through the struggles and completes his race still in the ministry?

The problem with myths is their sly way of embedding themselves into your assumptions. They just become part of your thinking without your realizing it. Some of the myths below are commonly-held pastoral beliefs that we pastors have held without comparing them to Scripture. Others are commonly-held beliefs that we would never give voice to, but nonetheless, we act as if we do indeed believe them.

As younger leaders engage in the ministry, they bring a set of fresh questions and concerns. Questions are healthy and good—they prove a leader is thinking. Sometimes, however, I’ve watched older preachers blow off the questions of young men, responding with a spirit of pride, feeling offended that the younger generation would dare question our practices.

It must be acknowledged that the Bible preacher will have opponents. They are the gainsayers of Luke 21. They are the haters of Matthew 10. They are the enemies that the Lord said every true disciple would have (Matthew 5:44 and Psalm 23:5). It is highly important for a faithful servant of the Lord to know how to handle the opposition. God tells us how to do this at the end of 2 Timothy 2.

If you are like me, you wake up one day and you’re thirty-five with five children, and you realize, “I am not young anymore.” I feel young. I may even look young. But I am not considered young anymore—at least not by the next generation.