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Spineless or Strong?

June 13, 2011 by Jim Meyer

It’s my sophomore year in high school.  I’m in “sex education” class.  The class is being held in a quonset hut.  There are about 25 guys and girls in the class.  And yes, I remember the teacher’s name.

She asked the class this question: “If you fell in love with someone, and you wanted to marry them, but you found out they had already had sex, would you still marry them?”

I didn’t like the question.  And I liked it even less when the teacher started going around the room and began soliciting answers from students.  24 of 25 students answered the exact same way: “Of course I would marry them, especially if I loved them.”

I was last.

Now you have to understand, I was raised in the home of a Baptist pastor, and I was taught to stand alone if necessary.  I was also taught, both at home and at church, about the importance of maintaining sexual purity before marriage and of seeking someone to marry who lived that way as well.  Over time, I had learned that when I stood alone, I usually ended up alone – and I was like any other kid my age.  I wanted to be liked and have friends – and I didn’t want to be singled out as a Christian.

But some things just can’t be helped.  Both my family and my church had taught me to live by and express my convictions, and one of my convictions was that I was going to remain a virgin and only marry a virgin as well.

So even though I never talked in class, I felt the pressure mount as the teacher went around the room.  When my turn came around to answer her question … she never asked me.  I don’t remember if the bell rang, or if God made me invisible, or if she lost her train of thought – but I never had to answer her question.

But if I had, I would have been the only person in the class to offer a differing viewpoint.  Some would have laughed at me.  Others would have ridiculed me.  Maybe a few would have respected me, I don’t know.

But I do know this: now more than ever, Jesus needs strong Christians to stand up for their faith and to stand against evil.  But too many Christians are spineless instead.

Let me contrast spineless and strong Christians in four areas:

First, strong Christians stick to revealed truth.  Unlike John Lennon, I believe in both heaven and hell.  I believe in those places not only because they’re explicitly taught in Scripture, but because Jesus taught their reality, and He is my Lord.  Both destinations are implicit in John 3:16 (“shall not perish … have eternal life”) and Matthew 7:13-14, where Jesus contrasts the broad road that leads to destruction with the narrow road that leads to life.  Then along comes Rob Bell …

Who are you going to believe: Jesus or Bell?

If you want to be cool, and go along with some of your peers, then maybe you’ll opt for Mr. Bell’s view of the afterlife.  But the classic Christian view of the afterlife hasn’t changed in 2,000 years … and while I fully believe that the words of Paul and Peter and John are inspired, Jesus’ teaching on the subject clinches it.

Spineless Christians change their beliefs depending upon the latest book they’re reading or the current Bible study they’re attending or the prevelant view in the culture.  They are still infants who are “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:13-14).  Such Christians should not be permitted to be in church leadership or to lead a group study!

But strong Christians know what they believe and why they believe it.  They read Scripture and learn theology and attend solid churches and amass libraries featuring only the best Christian scholars.  And when heresy rears its ugly head – as it’s been doing more and more – they discern error and stand up for the truth!

Second, strong Christians are proud of Jesus Christ.  I’ve never been one for advertising on bumper stickers and  t-shirts, but a lot of believers like to proclaim their faith this way, and I don’t see anything wrong with the practice.  Most of the time, they are publicly identifying themselves with Jesus, and that’s fantastic!

But other Christians seem ashamed of their faith – like the Jewish leaders in John 12:42-43.  The apostle tells us that “many even among the leaders believed in him.”  That’s great.  But … “because of the Pharisees, they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue …”  In other words, if they admitted they followed Jesus as Jews, they could be banished from their house of worship.  The synagogue was not only the center of religious life, but social life as well.  To stand up for Jesus meant that a person would be ostracized.  So most of these Jews secretly believed in Jesus but refused to publicly acknowledge Him.

Why not?

John tells us at the end of verse 43: “for they loved praise from men more than praise from God.”

Mormons stand up for their faith, as do Muslims and Jehovah’s Witnesses and even cult members.  Shouldn’t we stand up for our faith in an even greater way than those groups do?

Delirious? has long been my favorite Christian band.  I love their anthem I’m Not Ashamed.  They sing with passion and conviction:

I’m not ashamed of the gospel

I’m not ashamed of the One I love

I’m not ashamed of the gospel

I’m not ashamed of the One I love

Are you?

Strong Christians are not ashamed of the One who died and rose again for them.

Third, strong Christians stand up to church antagonists.  Instead of making this point myself, I invite you to read the following article from Dr. Lloyd Rediger.  Dr. Rediger is a pioneer in identifying and protecting pastors from individuals he calls “clergy killers.”  In fact, that’s the title of his classic 1997 book.  He wrote this article four years earlier but it’s still relevant today:

Fourth, strong Christians defeat Satan in the Lord’s power.  I finished this last point – and the entire blog – a few minutes ago, but when I did, this entire final point became completely reformatted.  In the process of trying to fix it, I lost the entire point, even though I had saved a draft already.  (Guess who is responsible?)  So I will endeavor to finish this point next time!

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Fighting Evil | 2 Comments »

Blessings on Your Church

June 10, 2011 by Jim Meyer

In my last post, I asserted that all believers want the same thing for their churches.  We all want God’s blessing, whatever that looks like.

When God is blessing a church, people come to church expectantly, everyone senses the presence of God, people value right relationships, and spiritually lost people find the Lord.

But how can a church secure that blessing, especially when it often seems elusive?

First, all the top leaders need to be walking with God.  If the pastor is walking with God, but the board chairman is not, that’s a problem.  If the youth pastor is walking with God, but the lead pastor is not, that’s an even bigger problem.  Galatians 5:16 says it well: “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”  But when the pastor, staff members, and board members are all living by the Spirit at home, at work, and at church, the Lord has already started pouring out His blessing on that church.

To me, the measure of a leader’s spirituality is his or her willingness to put aside their own personal agenda and to submit themselves to God’s agenda for their church.  When every leader is fully surrendered, the church will begin to gain an unstoppable momentum.

Back in the early 1990s, I was involved in the biggest project of my church career.  Our church sold its property and used the proceeds to begin a ministry to unchurched people.  Because the vision required divine power, every one of our leaders was completely sold out to Jesus.  Although we were tested like we’d never been tested before, we constantly sought and received divine guidance, and it paid off big time.  As tough as it was at times, I’d never trade that experience for the world.

Second, the top leaders must all support each other.  Walking with God must translate into walking alongside one another.  The board chairman must get along with the pastor, who must get along with the associate pastor, who must get along with the other staff members.  The leaders may have genuine disagreements about certain issues – that’s healthy – but they need to openly and honestly talk them through and arrive at consensus.  God longs to bless leaders who all stand together.

But when the associate pastor forms an alliance with several board members, or a couple of staff members continually undermine the pastor, God withholds His blessing from that church.  When Miriam and Aaron began to criticize Moses because of his new wife, Israel’s wilderness leadership team became fractured, and God’s people stalled until the Lord dealt with Miriam specifically.  Numbers 12:15 tells us that “the people did not move on till she was brought back.”  Division in the ranks affected progress on the ground – and it always does.

Third, the entire congregation understands and supports their unique mission.  If the pastor has one agenda for a church, several board members have a second agenda, and a faction in the church has a third agenda, God’s blessing on that church will be short-circuited.  While there are various ways for a church to discern its mission, once it has been written down and announced, God’s people need to get behind it.

When they do, it’s amazing to watch what God does!  But when there’s grumbling and complaining and internal sabotage, the fulfillment of the mission will either be slowed or stalled.

In one church I served as pastor, the congregation unanimously decided to construct a new building.  It was exciting to watch people share their input about the building and give sacrificially for its construction!  But a handful of people tried to undermine the project from within, and although they were unsuccessful, they did slow down the momentum enough to mess with our timetables.  The Lord overrode them and the building went up anyway, but every congregation seems to have its ecclesiastical saboteurs.  While the leaders may choose to listen to their ideas and feelings, the leaders cannot allow them to set the church’s agenda.

Fourth, the church makes prayer a priority.  In Christian churches today, there is little public emphasis on prayer anymore, and frankly, I don’t get it.  When the staff meets, they may share for an hour but pray for five minutes.  When the board meets, they may dispense with prayer altogether except for a quick opening and closing prayer.  When the leaders fail to take prayer seriously, it spills over into the rest of the congregation – and God will not bless that church.

Prayer is simply asking God for His intervention.  When a church fails to pray very much, they are implicitly saying, “God, we don’t need Your help at all.  We can handle things by ourselves.”  And God will let that church handle matters on their own and pull back His supernatural power.  But when the pastor and staff and board take prayer seriously, the practice has a way of becoming contagious and natural throughout the rest of the church.  I’m always cheered by how often the early church talked to God and received incredible answers.  For example, in Acts 4:29, God’s people prayed, “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.  Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

He did.

Finally, a congregation has to want God’s blessing more than anything else.  Many of us assume that if God is going to bless our church, then we’re going to grow numerically, or purchase more land, or add some staff, or have bigger offerings.  While these may be signs of God’s favor, can’t the Lord bless in other ways as well?

Sometimes relational unity is a sign of God’s blessing.  Other times accurate biblical teaching is a sign of God’s blessing.  Still other times it’s how quickly a congregation can raise money for a great need.  Proverbs 10:6 tells us that “blessings crown the head of the righteous …”

Whatever He does, and however He does it, it is crucial that from time-to-time, we stand back in our churches and marvel, “Wow, look what the Lord has done!”

When we’re confident that He’s responsible and should receive all the credit, then we know He is blessing our church.

It’s the greatest feeling in the world.

Posted in Current Church Issues | Leave a Comment »

What We All Want from Church

June 8, 2011 by Jim Meyer

When I was a pastor, there was one thing I wanted for my church more than anything else.

It wasn’t increased attendance, or above-the-budget offerings, or even mass conversions.

I wanted the blessing of God on our church.

It’s possible to manipulate people into coming to church and giving – at least for a while.  But the divine blessing cannot be manufactured by humans.  It can only come from above.

Whether they articulate it or not, most Christian pastors want the Lord to pour out His blessing upon their church.  God’s promise to His people in Ezekiel 34:26 sums this up well:

“I will bless them and the places surrounding my hill.  I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing.”

Some of us used to sing this chorus in church:

“Showers of blessing,

Showers of blessing we need,

Mercy drops ’round us are falling,

But for the showers we plead.”

What does God’s blessing look like in a local church setting?

First, the people come to church expectantly.  They aren’t forcing themselves to show up; they want to be there.  They arrive as early as they can, greet their friends in Christ, look around for guests they can minister to, and sit down early to focus upward.  They don’t cross their arms and inwardly say to their pastor, “Tell me something I’ve never heard before.”  Instead, they eagerly await the worship time and prayerfully look for God to speak to them.  I like the way Dr. Luke puts it in Acts 2:43 when he says that “everyone was filled with awe.”

Second, everyone senses the presence of God.  D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones served as the pastor of Westminster Chapel in London for decades.  He was such a great biblical expositor that I’ve read his entire eight-volume commentary on Ephesians and loved every minute.  When he came to the United States, he would visit various churches, and sometimes when a pastor would get up to preach, he’d look out at the congregation and see Dr. Lloyd-Jones sitting there – and he’d want to trade places instantly!  Lloyd-Jones was asked once what he looked for when he heard other men preach, and he said that he wanted to sense the presence of God.  What a profound answer!

When God is blessing a church, people sense His presence in the music, in the message, and in everything else.  They sense that God is present and that He that He is comfortable in that particular location.  When God appeared to Jacob at Bethel, he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.  How awesome is this place!  This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:16-17).

Third, people value right relationships.  When I was a youth pastor, I took various youth groups to retreats in mountain cabins.  As we all drove up the mountain, the group would become fractured as students insulted other students and formed exclusive cliques.  But by Saturday night, a few students would become convicted about how they were treating their peers, and they would break down and ask for forgiveness.  This made the ride down the mountain more joyful and unifying, and at least for a little while, the students would experience God’s blessing in abundance.

If only the adults could learn from the youth.

Young people aren’t very good about hiding how they really feel about anything, including the other kids in their group.  But as those young people become adults, they learn how to mask their true feelings as they interact with people they don’t like.  So it’s possible for two Christians to be cordial to each other in the church patio and turn around and verbally knife each other in the back as they drive home from worship.

Sometimes these kinds of relationships are what prevent God from blessing a church.  If we could learn the practice of keeping short accounts with each other, God’s presence would become clearer and His power would become greater in our midst.

And let me be honest here: oftentimes the greatest relational problems are buried inside the leadership of the church.  If we want God’s blessing, we have to humble ourselves and seek restoration with those with whom we serve.

Finally, spiritually lost people find the Lord.  When God is blessing a church, unbelievers come to faith in Christ in a natural way.  It’s not because the church launches an evangelism campaign, or because they hold an evangelistic crusade, but because believers are sharing their faith with their unbelieving friends and inviting them to church.  The Lord obviously blessed the first church in Jerusalem, and as the people loved God and each other, we’re told that “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47).

As a pastor, I always sensed God’s blessing when people were becoming Christians, but wondered what was wrong when we went for weeks without a single convert.

What are some of the other indications that God is blessing a church?  What have you seen?  I welcome your comments!

Next time, I’ll discuss what the leaders of a church can do to secure the Lord’s blessing.

Posted in Current Church Issues, Please Comment! | Tagged , | 2 Comments »

Antidote for a Common Virus

June 6, 2011 by Jim Meyer

My wife and I just returned from a weekend trip to Southern California for a family wedding.  Because we drove 375 miles each way, I was concerned before the trip even started about traffic jams.

I hate traffic jams.

And I hate feeling trapped.

Evidently a lot of people agree with me because, whenever traffic backs up, people start doing weird things, like driving on the shoulder, or changing lanes incessantly, or getting off at the nearest off ramp (even when it doesn’t help at all).

Fortunately, we didn’t encounter one traffic jam while driving: not leaving Phoenix at rush hour, not on Highway 60 near Riverside (always a pain), and not on Highway 91 (thank God for toll roads!).

Because traffic jams make me anxious.

Anxiety occurs everywhere you find people: in medical waiting rooms, before school exams, and yes, even in churches.

Some events that cause anxiety in a church tend to bring everyone together, like the death of a prominent leader, a national catastophe (like 9/11), or a local natural disaster.  Since we cannot prevent or manage these events, we turn to each other for comfort and support.

But other events that happen in a church raise the anxiety level, like the introduction of an unpopular change, a steady decline in attendance, or the resignation of a popular leader.  Since many churchgoers believe these events could have been avoided, they react in the following way:

They complain.

And the ones who complain the most are the ones who can handle anxiety the least.

Meet Marie.  She’s been attending your church longer than anybody can remember.  Nearly everybody views her as a sweetheart.

But life hasn’t gone well for Marie in recent years.  She’s had problems with her relationships, jobs, finances, and body.  In fact, she’s suffered a lot – and doesn’t feel she’s deserved most of her maladies.

So she lives with a high level of anxiety.  Everywhere she goes, she hopes to find peace and understanding, but it usually eludes her.

But there is one place where she usually finds comfort and rest: at church.  When she experiences the loving acceptance of God’s people, Marie relaxes and basks in the beauty of Christ’s body.

However … it doesn’t take much for Marie to become anxious, even at church.  She becomes upset when the leaders try and introduce any kind of change.  She feels pain when she doesn’t know what’s going on behind-the-scenes.  And if the pastor says the wrong thing during a message, she’s ready … to complain.

Not just to her husband, but to her friends, to her small group, and to her ministry colleagues.  Marie is a chronic complainer.  And though she has her positive traits, her complaining – if left unchecked – could destroy her church.

The Bible has a lot to say about complaining, and it can be summed up in one word: don’t.

Sometimes the Bible also calls it grumbling or murmuring.

In Numbers 14:2, we’re told that “all the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, ‘If only we had died in Egypt!  Or in this desert!'”  God’s people complained because they were afraid to enter the promised land due to the giants the scouts had seen there – and they were particularly upset with their two leaders.  (Numbers is full of stories of God’s people complaining about God, their leaders and their conditions.)

In I Corinthians 10:10, Paul warns the church at Corinth, “And do not grumble, as some of them did – and were killed by the destroying angel.”  This incident is probably the one in Numbers 16 where 14,700 Israelites died after Korah’s rebellion.

In Philippians 2:14, Paul warns the church at Philippi: “Do everything without complaining or arguing …”  Evidently this church had a problem with both practices, especially the feuding women Euodia and Syntyche (see 4:2-3).

And Jude 16 refers to false teachers who are “grumblers and faultfinders” who “follow their own evil desires” and “boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.”

You won’t find complaining commended in Scripture.  God doesn’t like it.  Why not?

First, complaining demonstrates a helpless attitude.  When I complain, I am saying, “I don’t like this situation, and I can’t do anything about it, either!”  But many times, we can do something – we just don’t want to do it.

Not long ago, my wife and I encountered an unpleasant situation at a church we were visiting.  It made us feel very anxious.  Complaining wasn’t going to make anything better.  We had two choices: leave the campus or stay and bear it.

We made a choice and stayed – and no longer felt helpless.

Second, complaining becomes contagious.  Have you ever seen a focus group on television?  At first, when the group is asked a question, the initial speakers seem respectful and positive.  But as soon as one person begins to complain, the dam breaks and others begin complaining as well.

In fact, church consultant Peter Steinke believes that complaining in a church may be compared to a virus in the body.  The virus travels through the body trying to find host cells.  If the host cell receives the virus, it replicates it and then spreads to other cells.  But if enough host cells resist the virus, it cannot spread.

We pastors are good at condemning the practice of complaining from the pulpit, but we also need to encourage those who hear complaints to resist them rather than receive them – because once a person receives a complaint, they tend to spread it to others.

This is often the point at which a church becomes unhealthy.

Third, complaining demonstrates a lack of faith in God.  There is often a permanency about complaining.  We act like life will never get better.  We say things like, “This church will never grow,” or “I can’t stand the music,” or “The pastor’s messages are getting worse and worse.”  But if God is involved, can’t the church grow?  Can’t the music get better?  Can’t the pastor start touching your heart?

For this reason, complaining factors out the Holy Spirit and factors in the flesh.  However, if we would turn our complaints into prayer, we’d see God do more and we’d gripe a whole lot less.

If you struggle with complaining, let me share four quick remedies:

First, speak directly with the person you’re unhappy with.  If you thought the pastor’s joke was tasteless, find a way to tell him, not five friends after church.  If you didn’t like that girl who was running through the worship center after the service, talk to her, not to everybody but her.

However, there is at least one exception to this rule.

If your pastor announces a policy, and you don’t agree with it, then either speak with him or those who put together the policy.  In fact, if a board created the policy, it’s perfectly acceptable to speak with the board member you know or like the most as long as you go on the record.

So if it’s a matter of personal sin, talk directly to the person who sinned.  If it’s a matter of policy, talk to any one of those who created it.

Second, talk to a friend outside the church.  There have been times when I’ve felt very strongly about an issue but (a) I wasn’t entirely sure I was seeing things right, or (b) I needed some additional perspective.  So I contacted someone who didn’t know the players and shared my concerns with that individual.  I would then incorporate as many of their suggestions as I could.  The advantage of this approach is that you’re not spreading the virus of complaining throughout your church.

Third, increase your prayer life.  Incessant complaining is often a telltale sign that a person has all but stopped praying.  If we took more of our complaints to God, we’d have fewer things to complain about with others.

Finally, learn to keep quiet.  Some people are more expressive than others, but you don’t have to give a running commentary on everything that happens to you in life – especially at church.  Just learn to muzzle your mouth as King David says (Psalm 39:1).

A few years ago, my daughter and I went to church at a famous cathedral in Scotland.  If my wife had been with me, we would have talked about the service afterwards, so I thought I’d take the same approach with my daughter.  As I started to make a comment, she assertively told me, “Dad, I don’t want to hear it!”

So I kept quiet.  (But it was killing me.)

May I encourage you to do two things about this post:

First, if complaining is a problem, take positive steps to eliminate its hold on your life.  You’ll be much more joyful – as will everyone around you.

Finally, choose not to receive other people’s complaints unless you can take action.  If you can’t, then send them to someone who can address their concerns.

If everyone in a church followed these steps, the virus of complaining would never plague us again.

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists | Leave a Comment »

Before Terminating a Pastor

June 3, 2011 by Jim Meyer

Every day, it’s the same thing.

The number one phrase that people enter into their search engine that directs them to this blog is “how to terminate a pastor.”

Yesterday, there were three phrases using the terms “terminate” and “pastor,” as well as a fourth entry: “forcing out a pastor.”

There have been days when I’ve woken up and my article called “If You Must Terminate a Pastor” has been read multiple times.  It makes me wonder if it’s been read by an entire board somewhere that’s struggling with this issue.

I’d like to offer five suggestions to church leaders before they act to force their pastor out of his position:

First, talk to your pastor about your concerns.  When my kids were growing up, if they messed up in some fashion, I corrected them immediately.  They knew what I expected and were given time to change their behavior.

A pastor should be treated in a similar manner.

I realize it’s never easy to correct a pastor, but if he’s saying or doing something wrong – or there’s something he’s neglecting to do – then a member of the governing board needs to discuss it with him as soon as possible.

Let’s say a pastor is delving too much into politics in his messages.  In all likelihood, a few people from the church will contact him and tell him they think he’s crossing a line.  This might alert the pastor to a problem, but he might ignore their opinions and plow ahead anyway.

One of the board members then has to talk with the pastor, and the sooner, the better.  If it was me, I wouldn’t wait until the next official board meeting.  Instead, I’d invite the pastor out for a meal and share my concerns with him – and I would speak only for myself, not for the rest of the board.

Many pastors would realize they’ve crossed a line and would stop injecting politics into their sermons right away.  Mission accomplished.

After a private conversation – recommended by Jesus in Matthew 18:15 – the issue should now be closed.

However, some board members just can’t bring themselves to talk to the pastor in private.  So they begin talking about the pastor to each other.  Joe has one complaint against the pastor, Bill has another, and Reed has still another.  All of a sudden, Joe’s complaint is adopted by Bill, and Bill’s is adopted by both Reed and Joe.

This is how church conflict begins: by pooling complaints.

As they do this, the board members start to believe that maybe the pastor should leave.  In fact, they find it easy to blame him for everything that is wrong with their church.

However, the pastor isn’t at fault.  He doesn’t even know about the conversations the board members are having with each other.  Because they failed to use the biblical principle of confronting him directly before involving others (Matthew 18:15), everything that happens from this moment on will largely be the responsibility of those three board members.

If a pastor messes up – and he will from time-to-time – then one person should speak with him in private without involving others.  Ideally, if there are five members on the church board, then all five should approach him separately.

Wouldn’t you like to be treated that way?

Second, be clear about the change you expect.  While pastors are gifted individuals, they are not mind readers.  If you want your pastor to change the way he does ministry, you have to define the change you want.  Don’t make him guess what you’re thinking.

I served with one board that asked me to stop wearing a suit on Sundays and dress down a bit more.  Except for funerals and weddings, I never wore a suit after that.

One board member asked me to quit putting down the Dodgers in my messages.  They were his favorite team and he felt attacked every time I did it.  I stopped.

Here’s the template: “Pastor, I’d like to ask if you’d start/stop doing _____ for this reason: _____.”

I don’t believe that such a statement should be presented as a demand but as a request.  However, unless it’s a matter of doctrine or ethics, you may have to let the pastor make up his own mind about your request.

Many years ago in my first pastorate, two deacons called on a Saturday night and asked me if they could come over and talk with me.  When they arrived, I climbed into one of their cars and heard them out.

They wanted me to give altar calls every Sunday morning.

A public invitation is when a pastor invites people to receive Christ in a church service, often by praying right where they are.

An altar call is much more public.  It’s when a person is asked to walk to the front of the church before receiving Christ, like at a Billy Graham crusdade.

I wrote my thesis in seminary on “a theological evaluation of the altar call.”  I didn’t want to start doing it because we had a church of 40 Christians with few visitors.  Since everybody was already saved, nobody was going to walk forward, even if I was Billy Graham.  Then they would judge my ministry a failture.

Besides, the practice isn’t mentioned anywhere in Scripture and comes out of the 19th century camp meetings.  It’s an option, not a necessity.

So I told them I wouldn’t do it.  (I had more guts at 27 than I do now!)  They accepted my decision – and they never brought it up again.  But I was grateful that they spoke with me about making a specific change.

Third, give the pastor time to change.  With an issue like mentioning politics in a message, the pastor should be expected to stop right away.  If he crosses a line again, then the person who initially spoke with the pastor might choose to take one or two more people with him to speak with the pastor (Matthew 18:16).

However, many pastors develop habits where it’s difficult for them to change overnight.

I was never very good at home visitation.  When I had to visit shut-ins, neither one of us enjoyed the experience very much.  When I stopped by to see newcomers who had visited our church the previous Sunday, they rarely came back.

The boomers didn’t want a pastor coming to their house.  (There were too many things to hide before he got there.)  But many in the builder generation expected that kind of personal attention from their pastor.

If I was asked to visit in homes, I could probably do it for a week or two, but since it’s unnatural for me, I’d find reasons to quit doing it as soon as possible.

It takes time for pastors to change their behavior or learn new skills.  Board members need to realize that.  Maybe the pastor’s progress could be measured on a monthly or quarterly basis.  But give him a chance to change first – and give him points for trying.

Fourth, realize your pastor is unique.  Many Christians have a favorite pastor from their past.  Maybe he led them to Christ, or baptized them, or married them, or counseled them – and he became their pastor forever.

But then he resigned or retired, and while he’s not around anymore, precious memories still linger.

There are times when a board member wants to terminate a pastor because he isn’t Pastor So-and-So from my past.  Over the years, many people have told me about their favorite pastor.  At first, I felt a little intimdated, but then I realized that it’s okay to form a special bond with a man of God.  It’s one of the primary ways God causes us to grow.

But on some level, there are people – even board members – who become upset or even angry with their current pastor because he doesn’t do things the way their favorite pastor did.  They canonize his personality and his methodology.

If this could be the case with you, I beg you: please ask God and a few loved ones around you to tell you the truth as to whether you’re being fair toward your pastor or not.

Because even if you get rid of him, that favorite pastor is not coming back.

Finally, take time to pray that your pastor changes.  Many board members come out of the business world, and prayer is not a business principle.  But prayer works wonders – even with a pastor.

Instead of persuading fellow board members to fire the pastor, why not ask the King of Kings to change him instead?

I once had a pastor who had an annoying habit.  I prayed fervently for him without talking to him about it.  He not only changed, he told the church he had changed!

That principle isn’t in Good to Great, is it?

But it is in the Bible!

Let me put this in a nutshell: before relying on business practices or playing church politics, resolve that you will handle any problems with your pastor in a biblical and spiritual manner.

If you do, the odds are good that you won’t have to terminate your pastor because he’ll respond to you in kind.

Think about it.

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Board, Conflict with the Pastor, Pastoral Termination | 9 Comments »

Afraid of Church?

June 1, 2011 by Jim Meyer

Several years ago, my former church held a social event on a Saturday evening.  We enjoyed great food, crazy games, and gondola rides on a lagoon behind the church campus.

During the event, I met a woman from the neighborhood who came from the Czech Republic.  (She wanted a boat ride but wasn’t attending the event.)  She had experienced some tragedy in her life and told me her story.  After a while, I suggested that she might visit our church sometime.  She seemed to consider the idea.

I carefully led her over to the stairs that rose up to our event center.  The closer we got, the more panic she felt.  Although I was very gentle with her, she wanted nothing to do with being inside a church.  She became extremely anxious and exited the building as quickly as she could.

She was afraid of church.

Like her, many others are also afraid of church.  Some are afraid to set foot on a church campus.  Others are afraid to enter a worship center.  Still others are afraid of Christian music.  And lots of people are afraid of preaching.

Why is this?

For starters, some people have never attended church in their lives – not for a wedding, or a funeral, or a children’s program, or a worship service.  While some people almost pride themselves on never darkening the door of a church, the very thought petrifies others.  But one day, they can’t avoid it any longer.  Their daughter is getting married, or an uncle passed away, or one of their kids has a role in the Christmas program, and the event is held at a church.  They don’t see a way out of the situation, so they go … with all their defenses up.

Is there some kind of event that you’ve never attended and it makes you nervous just thinking about it?  Maybe you’ve never attended a rap concert, or a city council meeting, or an indoor arena football game, and you have no desire to go because you don’t know what will happen if you do.  That’s understandable.

That’s how many people feel about attending any event at a church.

Next, some people have suffered traumatic experiences inside a church service.  Some churches used to exclude non-members from communion, either asking them to leave or asking them not to partake of the elements.  Feeling excluded feels unsafe to some.  On the other hand, I once attended a church service where everyone was expected to leave their pew, walk forward, and kneel around the altar – something I did not want to do.  (But I did it only because I felt coerced.)  The whole experience shook me up because I did not want to embarrass myself in front of scores of strangers who already knew what to do.

Some people don’t sing at church because they never sing anywhere else.  Other people freeze up during the greeting time, either because they want to remain anonymous or because they don’t like to shake hands with strangers.  And a lot of people hate it when a preacher yells about anything because it reminds them of an abusive stepfather or boss.

Shouldn’t such people just “get over it?”  They’d like to, but remember: while going to work is a necessity, going to church is purely optional.  And if the leaders of a church – however well-intentioned – create experiences that make people feel uncomfortable, those people may choose to stay home from church for a long, long time.

Next, some people expect that a church will be a safe place – and if it isn’t, they’ll just stop going.  I believe that a pastor who preaches from Scripture should be able to talk about any issue from the pulpit, even tough social issues like abortion or homosexuality.  However, if a pastor does it without sensitivity, he can unintentionally slash the hearts of those who feel guilty about their past conduct or those who struggle with their present behavior.  The pastor would say he’s being “faithful to the Word of God” and prophetic in his presentation, but if he condemns sin without offering grace, many people will just stop going to that church.

Because he wanted to reach unchurched people, Robert Schuller believed that a pastor shouldn’t deal with controversial issues from the pulpit, that those should best be left for classroom discussions.  But Bill Hybels, who also championed reaching unchurched people, was comfortable dealing with any and all issues, including cultural hot potatoes.  The key is to proclaim the truth while making people feel safe at the same time, because if they don’t feel safe, they won’t come back.

I am not talking about compromising the gospel or avoiding difficult topics.  Most Christians want a church to explain its position on issues from Scripture.  This adds to their knowledge and helps them explain and defend their faith in the marketplace.  For example, if a pastor never talks about abortion, how will most of his people obtain a Christian view of the practice?

But if a pastor becomes so incensed about abortion that he starts screaming and yelling, he may run off women who have secretly had an abortion even if they have already repented.

Finally, some people are afraid of God – and maybe they ought to be – and identify God and church in their mind.

Why bring all this up?

My wife and I experienced a horrible trauma 18 months ago.  The trauma was inflicted by Christian people that we loved and cared about.  We had to move to another state to start the healing process.

To be honest, we didn’t want to attend church anywhere for a while.  It felt dangerous to us.  While we did take a few Sundays off, we eventually began visiting churches, but some of them did not feel like safe places.

At the second church we visited, the pastor raised his voice about an issue, and I sensed he was addressing some critics.  But it still felt uncomfortable.  As my wife and I were walking on a sidewalk toward the parking lot, a couple tried to go around us and forced us off the sidewalk.  (That wasn’t nice.)  And let’s not even talk about how so-called Christians behave in a crowded parking lot.

Forget being seeker-sensitive – some of these churches weren’t even believer-sensitive.

You’re probably wondering, “Jim, aren’t you being nitpicky about this stuff?”

No, I’m not.  Here’s why.

There are millions of people in the United States who believe in God and who already like Jesus Christ – and yet they aren’t yet Christians.  We can blame them all we want for their unbelief, but when they do finally visit a church – maybe after years of avoiding one – what kind of experience do we give them?

We act like they’re not even there.

Maybe they’re not afraid of church as much as we are afraid of them.

A pastor friend once told me about a time that he went up after class to speak with one of his seminary professors.  My friend said, “I appreciate what you taught us: teach the sheep and love the sheep.”  The professor said, “No, I said love the sheep and teach the sheep – and in that order.”

If our churches are going to be safe places to hear a dangerous message, then we need to learn to love people before we teach them.  They need to have a positive experience from the church parking lot to the nursery to the children’s rooms to the church lobby and into the worship center.  They need to have a positive experience inside the service, from the songs to the greeting time to the offering to the message.

But I’m seeing a disturbing trend today.  Too many churches are becoming in-grown.  They don’t seem to want guests to come so they don’t expect them to come, either.  The emphasis is on spiritual formation – which is fine – but to the neglect of reaching lost people for Jesus Christ.

So when people finally do show up – and it may have taken them months to work up the courage – we simply aren’t ready for them.  Nobody greets them.  Nobody talks to them.  Nobody even notices them.

So when the service is done, they slip away as fast as they can – all the while even more determined not to go to church anywhere.

After trying a church, they’re even more afraid of church.

Many years ago, I learned this adage: most people will give a church only one chance.  If a church treats their guests well, they may be able to reach them for Jesus.  If the church neglects their guests or makes them feel unsafe, they will probably never return, and may write off Jesus and His people in the process.

It takes courageous leadership to make a church a safe place.  There are churches that do this and do it well, and they don’t compromise their message in the process.  And the leaders do their best to involve everyone in the church in reaching people for Christ.

But they have learned to love people for Jesus before they teach them about Jesus.  And in so doing, they have earned the right to be heard.

How about your church?  Is it a safe place for hurting people – even those who have experienced trauma in their lives?

If not – in the words of Jean-Luc Picard – make it so.

Posted in Church Conflict, Current Church Issues | Leave a Comment »

What’s Great About Church

May 27, 2011 by Jim Meyer

Most of the writing I do on this blog concerns pastor-church conflict issues, although I try and write more for lay people than anyone else.  By necessity, this means that I’m focused more on the dark side of the church, and it’s hard to think about that all the time.

So today, I want to shine the light on what’s great about attending a local Christian church.

While I might have missed a few, I believe that I’ve attended at least 14 different churches in my lifetime: 8 before I became a pastor and 6 afterwards.  Since I grew up in a pastor’s home – and I was in church every Sunday – a safe estimate is that I’ve attended at least 2,500 Sunday morning services, not counting Sunday evening or Wednesday night extravaganzas.

So here’s what I like about church:

First, there is a minimum of one solid hour to focus on God.  The closer we get to God, the more life comes together.  The further we get from God, the more life starts unraveling.  We all know we need to interact with our Creator more often, but the routine intrusions of life can make this challenging.

But when we attend a church service, outside intrusions are largely eliminated.  The phone doesn’t ring (okay, there are exceptions), we aren’t watching TV (although many churches now have monitors), we’ve left our favorite books at home (unless they’re on our Smart Phone), and household chores cannot be transferred to a worship center (thank God!).  While we can sleep, it’s generally discouraged, and while we can read, the Bible remains the preferred literature.

The praise and worship time, the testimonies, any video elements, the various prayers, communion, and the pastor’s message all point us in a heavenward direction.  Even for the best Christians, it’s possible to go 167 hours without looking up too often.  A worship service specializes in a vertical relationship with God – and that’s a very good thing indeed!

Second, you’re hanging around others who also love Jesus.  When I worked for McDonald’s, I was assigned primarily to the grill area.  Although I knew how to cook meat and dress the buns, my primary role was toasting the buns.  One night, while doing just that, I decided to share Christ with Matt, my co-worker who was cooking meat.  I asked him, “Hey, Matt, who is Jesus Christ to you?”  He replied, “One in a cast of thousands.”

I never followed up with him.  I didn’t know what to say after that.

There may have been Christians working at McDonald’s, but I don’t recall meeting any (except the boss’ mother Myrtle, but she wasn’t a co-worker).  So, like most of you, I was surrounded by unbelievers at work.

But when I went to church, there were believers everywhere!  In fact, we assumed you were a believer unless we heard otherwise.  While I was only at church for a few hours each week, it was relaxing and fulfilling to hang around people who believed as I did – and many of those people helped me grow in my faith.  There is nothing in the world like a concentration of Christians in one place.

Third, you make lifelong friends at church.  My first friends lived in my neighborhood.  I met the next wave at school.  And I made a host of friends through playing sports.  But I always enjoyed a deeper friendship with my church friends than any others.

When I was in ninth grade, my three best friends and I were all officers in the Honor Society.  I signed a few hundred yearbooks on the last day of school.

Three years later, on the last day of high school, I signed three yearbooks.  (And I didn’t buy my own, either.)  Why?  Because nearly all my friends were at church.

My good friend Ken invited me to his church and I stayed.  Then I eventually invited our mutual friend Steve.  I met and married Kim, and Steve met and married Janie.  While I haven’t retained all the friendships I made at that church, I have retained many of them, and they continue to enrich my life to this day.

Sixteen years ago, the church held its 40th anniversary reunion.  That night felt like a taste of heaven.  I saw friends I hadn’t seen in more than twenty years, and nobody seemed to remember the bad stuff anyone had done – we only remembered the good.  I’ll never forget one young man who was in my youth group.  He told me that I was the first man he had ever met who was both an athlete and a Christian, and that my example is what kept him following Christ.  (He was married with four kids, as I recall.)  The whole night was like that.  Where else can you find that kind of friendship?

Fourth, church is where we discover and develop our gifts.  As a kid, I read to my class at times, and had a few things I’d written read for me, but I hardly did any public speaking.  In fact, I rarely spoke up in class at all, even when I knew the answer.  But I learned to speak in church.

My first message was on the friendship between David and Jonathan.  It was on a Sunday night in July (when experimentation was permissible).  I did not study adequately for it and really didn’t know what I was doing, but one has to start somewhere, and my church provided a safe place for me to test my gift.  Fifty or so messages later, a church called me to be their pastor.  That only happened because I was allowed to practice preaching on three church families.

The same is true for so many of us who know Jesus.  We first learned to teach kids and run events and sing songs and lead groups and pray with people not at home or at school, but at church.  In the warm, safe environment of God’s people, we tried and failed and tried and failed until we found an area where we had success.  Since it’s hard to experiment in a megachurch that expects perfection, experimenting is best done in the myriad of small and medium-sized churches that dot our land.

Fifth, we are exposed to Scripture and all its wonders.  With its various complexities and ambiguities, many of us still love the Bible.  No book contains more wisdom, or power, or grace.  No book has better stories.  No book possesses such powerful lessons.  From Abraham and Esther through Peter and Paul, where can anyone find such characters in literature?

I thank God for every person who taught me the Bible.  With a few exceptions, I remember them all.  They influenced my life in countless ways.  If you want to attend seminary, you have to have one near you and pay out the nose.  But there are thousands of mini-seminaries all over the world found in local churches.

And while I appreciate every pastor who preached God’s Word, the most influential teachers are the ones who teach the toddlers and the fifth grade boys and the high school group.  They keep the kids inside the church so that the preacher can later reach them as adults.

Finally, church is the source of the greatest music in the world.  I had breakfast yesterday with a dear friend, and he mentioned that George Beverly Shea, the soloist for Billy Graham’s Crusades for so many years, just turned 102!  When he mentioned Shea’s name, I instantly started singing the song he co-wrote with Rhea Miller:

I’d rather have Jesus, than silver or gold,

I’d rather be His than have riches untold

I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands

I’d rather be led by His nail pierced hand

Than to be a king of a vast domain

Or be held in sin’s dread sway

I’d rather have Jesus than anything

This world affords today

Where did George Beverly Shea first sing that song?  In church.  Where did many of us first hear it?  In church.

It’s the same place we heard “A Mighty Fortress” and “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and “How Great Thou Art” and “Lord I Lift Your Name on High” and “Shout to the Lord” and “My Glorious” and hundreds of other great songs.  Unlike Mozart, Bach wrote his masterpieces first for church use.  And so many entertainers got their start by singing in church.  (It would be great if they would go back to church, but that’s another story.)

Those are just a few of the reasons that the local church is so great, but I’ve barely scratched the surface.

What is great about church to you?

Posted in Current Church Issues, Personal Stories, Please Comment! | Leave a Comment »

Dealing with Dysfunctional Church Leaders

May 25, 2011 by Jim Meyer

My professors never said anything about this issue when I was in seminary.  Over the years, I only recall reading one article on the topic.  And yet it’s one of the biggest sources of conflict in any church – especially for pastors.

What should a pastor do when a church leader is highly dysfunctional?

We all have our dysfunctions, don’t we?  There are areas in our lives that just don’t work.  It could be that we experienced trauma in our childhood or pain in our recent past, and we’re just not very good at handling certain issues.

Many years ago, a church I led hired a contractor to do some remodeling for us.  The contractor turned out to be a crook.  The board had to hire a lawyer.  It got nasty.

For months after that experience, if I sensed that anyone was even remotely cheating me out of money, I became very upset – even if it was just a store clerk handing me the wrong amount of change.  It took a while for me to heal, but I eventually did.  During that time period, I was dysfunctional in that one area of my life, but that didn’t mean I was unhealthy overall.

However, some people never heal from their hurts, and they in turn have a habit of hurting others.

So granted that “we all have our issues,”  how should a pastor handle a dysfunctional leader?  Notice that I didn’t say anything about a dysfunctional attendee (because everyone needs to feel safe in a church).

Instead, I’m talking about people who cannot communicate properly, have consistent problems with authority, engage in highly inappropriate behavior, and seem blind to the way others respond to them.  In a word, dysfunctional people are unpredictable.

And many of them are experts at maneuvering their way into leadership positions.

Dysfunctional people have a way of making their entire ministry dysfunctional.  Rather than advancing the cause of Christ, they cause such consternation that their overall impact damages others.

Let me give you an example.  I once supervised a staff member who could not write a coherent sentence.  This person would submit a newsletter article to me but it was such a mess I couldn’t publish it.  Someone had to rewrite it for publication, and since I served as editor, the responsibility fell to me.

For a while, I asked the staff member to do the rewriting, but his second attempts were usually no better than his first ones.  So I rewrote his article, gave it to him, asked if he wanted to change anything, and then submitted it for publication.  While this system tied me in knots, it was the best we could do at the time.

But after a while, he started to become upset with me.  Since he didn’t see anything wrong with his articles, he thought I was being way too critical – but we could not publish something that made him, his ministry, and the church look bad.

While I really liked this person, he carried that same attitude over into his ministry.  He was going to do what he desired and no one – not even his supervisor, the pastor – had the right to dictate otherwise.  Yet what was normal for him was abnormal to others.

Should I have let him remain in leadership?  While I wanted to think about his well-being, I also needed to think about all those people that he was adversely affecting.

Since I have always tended to give staff members more chances than they deserve, I let him stay until he resigned.

In another situation, I served with a woman who had a bleeding heart.  She was very intelligent but always gravitated toward wounded people.  If I yelled out to our leaders, “Let’s take the next hill for Jesus!” I’d focus on making the hill while she would stop and help the first casualty.  It’s safe to say she had the gift of mercy.

Remember when the OJ verdict came down?  It happened on a Wednesday morning.  That night, at our midweek Bible study, I made a passing comment about the verdict.  Most people were tracking with me, but this woman said, “But why did you think he was guilty when his own mother believed in him?”

After the service, this woman trapped me in the church kitchen and ranted at me for at least ten minutes.  Whatever hostility she had bottled up inside of her came pouring out.  I thought pots and pans were next.

Here’s where this gets tricky.  What was the real reason that she came unglued?

It may have been that she saw her husband or her father or her boss in me, and because she couldn’t tell them how she really felt, she unloaded on me.  Pastors are usually perceived to be safe people who won’t hurt back.

But she led an important ministry in the church.  A lot of people looked up to her.  Should I have let her stay in leadership?

She later apologized.  I forgave her.  We both moved on.  And she stayed at the church and continued in leadership.  But it wasn’t an easy call.  It never is.

Let me share a few thoughts about pastors and dysfunctional leaders:

First, sometimes a pastor inherits dysfunctional leaders from his predecessor.  Whether it’s a staff member, a board member, or a ministry team leader, a new pastor usually comes to a church with many leadership positions already filled.  Since the previous pastor chose them, these leaders sometimes feel entitled.  As time goes by, the pastor tries to determine which leaders are healthy (and effective) and which are not.  The healthy ones get to stay.  The unhealthy ones either need to be marginalized or removed – or else that entire area of ministry could go up in smoke.

Second, the pastor needs wisdom to do this well.  For example, he can wait for the ministry to go into decline and then die.  He can then bury it, wait a while, and restart it with a new leader.  Or he can offer the leader another position in the church (usually one where they can’t cause much damage).  Or he can call the leader into his office (possibly with a witness) and gently but firmly remove the person from office.  But if he does this:

Third, the pastor may face a backlash.  The dysfunctional leader probably won’t understand what the pastor is saying.  He or she may interpret the pastor’s words as personal rejection.  Then they’ll contact their friends and begin to lambast the pastor (proving his judgement right).  While every pastor wants peace in the church, allowing dysfunctional individuals to remain in leadership can ultimately lead to church wars.

I’ve had this happen so many times.  After you make your decision, you know what’s coming.  The former leader and their friends may form an unofficial coalition and mount a counterattack against the pastor, or withhold their giving, or leave the church altogether, encouraging others to join them.

If the pastor can just wait it out, the whole situation usually blows over in a couple of months.  But as these scenarios become more difficult over time, a pastor may stop making the hard calls and allow unhealthy leaders to remain – but he’ll have more problems down the road if he does.

Fourth, some people will applaud the pastor for his courage.  Many years ago, I needed to remove someone from leadership who had only been there a few months.  By doing this, I was admitting that I had made a mistake in choosing this person in the first place, but it was evident they just weren’t working out.  After I made the decision, a top leader came and asked, “What took you so long?”  It quickly dawned on me that other leaders were seeing what I was seeing and were just waiting for me to eliminate the dysfunction – and when I did, they gained new respect for my leadership.

Finally, it’s better to have no one than the wrong leader.  For the church’s first 18 years, Don Cousins served as Bill Hybels’ right-hand man at Willow Creek Church.  As the church grew into the thousands, the leadership team could not find the right person to lead their Jr. High ministry.  While they searched, many families left the church and went elsewhere, but this did not sway the leaders.  They were determined to wait until they found the right person for the job.  They believed that if they acted out of anxiety and placed the wrong person in that position, then (a) kids and families would leave anyway, (b) it would take up to a year to remove the person, (c) then they’d lose people who liked the Jr. High leader, (d) it would cost them a severance package, and (e) they’d have to engage in the whole search process over again.

In the end, they waited two years to find the right person, but it was worth it.

After a whole night in prayer, even Jesus chose a leader who didn’t work out: Judas.  If our infallible Savior selected a leader who was unhealthy, we can expect it will happen to pastors as well from time-to-time.

What are your thoughts on this issue?  I’d love to hear them!

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Please Comment! | Leave a Comment »

Who Are We Trying to Reach?

May 23, 2011 by Jim Meyer

In my mind, the biggest question facing every pastor and church leader is this one:

Who are we trying to reach?

As soon as a pastor answers that question, nearly everything else falls into place – but his problems are only beginning.

For example, if a pastor believes his church should reach men, that will impact his message themes, the kind of music the church offers, the way people dress, and a host of other decisions.

The church my wife and I have attended for the past year targets men.  They believe that if they reach a man, his wife and their children will also come to church.

So the parking lot attendants are all men.  The initial wave of greeters are men.  (The second wave includes women.)

At yesterday’s service, the pastor talked about what happens to partners after they divorce.  The video testimony during his message was given by a man.

The music style at services is primarily rock with a little pop thrown in.  The worship leaders and band members are always men.  There are always two backup vocalists – one on either side of the stage – and they are usually women.  Performance songs are sung equally by both women and men.

The pastor announced that softball leagues are beginning for the summer, and you can either play on a coed team or a men’s team.

The dress at the church is Phoenix-casual.  Many people – including men – wear shorts, some year-round.  In other words, men don’t need to get dressed up to come to church.  (That appeals to a lot of guys who never get dressed up for anything.)

When new men visit the church, they relax when they see other men everywhere.  They start thinking, “Maybe the Christian faith isn’t just for women and children after all.”

However, a lot of pastors are afraid to decide on a target group because they know such a decision is inherent with conflict.  And yet if a church tries to reach everybody, it will eventually reach nobody.  No person – or church – can be all things to all people.

Once a pastor decides on a group to target, should he announce that decision to the congregation?  It might seem like the church is excluding entire groups, especially in this politically-correct world.

So if a pastor announces the church is targeting men, some might say, “Then you obviously aren’t interested in women or children!”  And if a pastor says, “We’re trying to reach young families,” some of the seniors might complain, “Then it’s obvious you don’t care about us.”

It’s a dilemma for pastors: if you do target a particular group, then your ministry has more focus and you enhance your ability to grow – but some people also might feel excluded, which can affect their attendance, giving, and morale.

If a pastor can’t make a decision about this dilemma, then his church won’t grow until he does.

But if the pastor doesn’t handle the target thing just right, it can result in a mass exodus – or his head on a platter.

In my second pastorate, there was a couple in the church who came from the Midwest.  They had Swedish roots, and they attended that church partly because it had a Swedish background.

One Sunday morning, the couple sang an old hymn in Swedish – and they did not sing it well.  Who was their target?  People who knew Swedish.  How many people in our church knew Swedish?  Probably a handful.

I thought to myself, “These Swedish songs have to go.”  I’m not sure I ever told anybody that, but I set up a policy that insured that all song selections had to go through me before they were done in a service.

That went for any songs in French, Japanese, and Navajo, too.

But that didn’t make me popular.  In fact, the couple that sang that hymn became the worst church antagonists I had for years.  (However, they have since been surpassed.)

Then I had to discern who we were going to reach.  I settled on young families.  Why?  Because younger people are more receptive to the gospel than older people.  The older a person gets, the more resistant they become to the gospel.  God’s grace can reach down and touch anyone’s heart, but if a church truly wants to make an impact in their community, they usually target younger families.

Once a pastor and his key leaders make that decision, they need to view the entire ministry through the lens of that group.

And they need to make sure that the music style fits their target audience.

The leaders need to ask themselves, “What kind of music do young families listen to these days?”  While most younger people are pretty eclectic musically, most churches can’t produce a variety of genres at a weekend service.  So the leaders also need to ask, “What kind of music can we offer that will attract those families?”

Once that decision is reached, it may exclude the choir, the organ, and the musical saw.

The “worship wars” were fought in the 1980s as baby boomers gradually began to assume the leadership of Christian churches.  Choirs and pipe organs started to disappear.  They were replaced by guitars and keyboards.  While this trend delighted younger people, it upset many seniors.

And this once again created a real dilemma for pastors.  While seniors are often more generous and consistent in their giving, younger people tend to be more stingy and sporadic.  So if a church changes their musical presentations from a choir to a rock band overnight, that move might offend older people without necessarily attracting younger people – and the seniors might withhold their giving or take it to another church.

This is why a pastor needs to bring all the leaders along together in determining which group a church is going to reach.  Because when the outcry comes – and it will – the pastor will need all the support he can get.

Some of you might remember the musical changes that happened in the ’80s and ’90s:

*The songleader (who waved his arms to the time of the music) was replaced by a worship leader (who played guitar or keyboard).

*The organ and piano (sometimes) were replaced by several guitars, bass, and drums.

*The volume was cranked up a lot (to give the service an event feel).

*The words to the songs were transferred from the hymnbook (which caused everyone to look down when they sang) to a video screen (where everyone had to look up to see the words).

*The worship leader often introduced new songs into a service, which meant fewer hymns were sung.

*While the congregation used to sit while singing some songs, now everyone stood for every song.

*The churches whose music hit the target group grew, sometimes rapidly.  The churches that canonized their musical presentations usually remained stagnant, sometimes going into a death spiral.

(Incidentally, I love many of the old hymns.  I have a “Christian Hymns” Playlist on my iPod that includes 175 songs by artists as diverse as Amy Grant, Johnny Cash, and Michael W. Smith.  If we have a hard day, sometimes we play those songs all night.  Hymns are great as long as they aren’t done in a dirge-like style.)

Once a target group is chosen, the following questions become easier to answer:

*What time will our services start?

*How long will our services go?

*How will we structure our services?

*What kind of events will we offer our church and/or community?

*How will we follow up guests?

*What kind of lighting will we have?

*How will we invite people to receive Jesus?

Choosing a target group simplifies scores of decisions just like these for a pastor.  But the alternative is for a pastor to impose his own personal tastes onto a congregation, which some pastors do.

I love the band U2.  For years, I looked for opportunities to sing a U2 song like “40” or “Yahweh” in a service, but it never happened.  (We did manage to play “Magnificent” between services, however.)  And yet if the worship leaders didn’t like the songs, or the target group didn’t like U2, then we shouldn’t have done their songs just because I liked them.

While it might not have worked in that venue, many worship leaders where we attend now love U2, and their songs are played all the time.  (When I heard “In God’s Country,” I knew I was home.)  Playing U2 songs works at this church – but it doesn’t work everywhere.

Someday, people from every race and tribe and culture will surround Jesus’ throne, singing songs of praise directly to Him.  What a great day that will be!

While every kind of person will enter Christ’s kingdom, no church can reach everyone.  A pastor needs to prayerfully consider the group a church is best positioned to reach and then pursue them vigorously.

I’d love to hear from you.  Who is your church trying to reach?

Posted in Change and Conflict in Church, Church Conflict, Current Church Issues, Please Comment! | 2 Comments »

Remembering a Hall of Famer

May 20, 2011 by Jim Meyer

Yesterday morning, my step-father stopped by our house to do a couple of projects, and he brought with him an obituary torn out of the newspaper about the death of Harmon Killebrew.  The paper said that his funeral was going to be held this morning at the church my wife and I have been attending (Christ’s Church of the Valley) for nearly a year.

She asked me, “Why not go?”

So I did.  To be honest, I haven’t worn a dress shirt or dress slacks or dress shoes for nearly 18 months, but I did today – but I would only do that for Harmon Killebrew.

Why did he mean something to me?

When I was 13 years old, two of my friends called me on the phone and told me that they had gotten the autographs of Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford just a few hours before.  I couldn’t believe it.  I grew up collecting baseball cards and could not imagine meeting any baseball player, much less two of the all-time Yankee greats.

My friends told me they got their autographs at the Grand Hotel behind Disneyland.  It was about a three-mile drive from our house.  I didn’t know how I was going to get there, but since the Yankees were still in town, I had to go.

So my mother drove a few of us to the hotel, and when the players came out to go to the ballpark, we got their autographs – even those of Mantle and Ford.

Since the Minnesota Twins were the next team in town, the mother of one of my brother’s friends drove us to the hotel on a Saturday afternoon.  When we entered the lobby, there were three baseball cards come-to-life sitting on the couch: Bob Allison, Harmon Killebrew, and Jim Perry.  There were all cordial, but Killebrew actually talked to us.  He was relaxed, warm, and kind.

Although I don’t have the signature he gave me that day, I still retain a few that I received from him later that year.  And over the years, I saw him in various venues, including spring training, and he was always the same great guy.

So at today’s service, I wept a little.  Country singer Charlie Pride sang three songs on his guitar, including, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” and “I’ll Fly Away.”  Friends and family members shared tributes about The Killer, including a grandson who played an instrumental version of Don McLean’s “And I Love You So.”  Twins’ announcer and recent Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven shared a heartfelt tribute to Killebrew as well, finally encouraging us to give him a standing ovation.  We did.

And then our pastor spoke.  He had met Killebrew many times and stated that he had received Jesus into his life.  And our pastor presented the gospel in a brief but clear way.

Two of the great loves of my life intersected this morning: Jesus and baseball.

After the service was done, I spotted a lot of ex-ballplayers in the patio area: Don Baylor, Bert Campaneris, Tony Oliva, Fergie Jenkins, Frank Robinson, Robin Yount, and Rod Carew, as well as current Twins Joe Nathan and Justin Morneau.

All at my church!  What a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

Tony Oliva spent a long time talking to Bert Campaneris, and I wanted to talk to him for just a minute, but I didn’t want to interrupt their conversation.  Tony Oliva was named to the All-Star team in 1967, and a week or so before the game, the Twins came to town and my friend Steve and I obtained autographs from the various players, including Oliva.  Steve had the chicken pox at the time.  A few days later, Tony Oliva got the chicken pox and missed the All-Star game.  Steve was certain that he had given the chicken pox to Oliva.  I wanted to tell Oliva that story.  I’ll bet he never heard that one before!

Not long ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.  It was a relatively quiet day in the picturesque town, and I was able to wander around at my leisure.  While I’ve been in the gallery that has all the Hall of Fame plaques before, this time I wasn’t in any hurry.  It gave me the opportunity to think about those guys not just as ballplayers, but as men.

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of meeting scores of Hall of Famers.  Some have been grouches for forty years.  Some used to be nice and have morphed into grouches.  It’s tough to walk around in public, I guess, when you are constantly bothered for your signature, which has become a commodity to be sold on eBay rather than something to be treasured by a true fan.

But for some reason, Harmon Killebrew never changed.  Of the few hundred pictures displayed this morning, a good deal of them were of Killebrew signing something: for a child, for an elderly man, or for dozens of fans.  For years, I had a signed 1967 Topps baseball card of Killebrew and teammate Bob Allison up on my bulletin board.  To hold it up, I used a push pin.  That little action devalued the worth of the item, but that’s okay.  To me, it’s priceless.

Because I remember the man.  Harmon Killebrew.  Number 3.  Minnesota Twins.  573 home runs.  1969 Most Valuable Player in the American League.  And along with Brooks Robinson, Hall of Fame third baseman for the Baltimore Orioles, the two nicest superstars I ever met.

While there may be more, I only know of a handful of Hall of Famers who have professed to be followers of Jesus: Bobby Doerr, Ernie Banks, Mickey Mantle (who received Jesus in the closing days of his life), Gary Carter (who gave praise to Jesus at his induction ceremony), and Duke Snider (with whom I had a wonderful conversation about his faith more than twenty years ago).  There are a few others who have professed to be Christians who seem to have gone off track a bit – but maybe they’ve come back to the Lord.  I certainly hope so.

But it’s one thing to be a Hall of Famer on the field – it’s another to be an all-time great with people.

Harmon Killebrew was both.

I’m reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul: “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”

How about a paraphrase: “If I hit 500-foot home runs, and am recognized everywhere I go, and have been immortalized inside my profession, and made a ton of money, but I’m a selfish twit, I am nothing.”

If love is the measure, then from all I know, Harmon Killebrew was really something.

And that’s the true legacy of the man – and of every man and woman.

Mr. Killebrew – thanks for being so cool to a 13-year-old kid.  I will never ever forget you.

Posted in Personal Stories | 4 Comments »

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