Posts Tagged ‘leadership’

Apr
26
2012

Chuck Colson and Hope for the Next Generation

In January, Russell Moore wrote a provocative column entitled, “The Next Billy Graham Might Be Drunk Right Now.” It was a terrific column pushing back against some of the handwringing among evangelicals about the lack of good leadership for the future. His premise was simple: God may be in the process of raising a leader who is currently lost and enslaved to sin.

I thought of Moore’s column as I contemplated the death of Chuck Colson. Here was a man who was not originally on a trajectory to a be a spiritual leader in his generation. He was a political animal. He was lost in his sins. Like Paul, he was not a friend of Christians. And yet God did a work in his life and transformed him into someone whose ministry led millions of the incarcerated to Christ.

I imagine sometime in the 1970′s, evangelical leaders wrang their hands at the state of the culture, at the burgeoning crime problem and the filling up of America’s prisons. I’m guessing there were books written, conferences held, articles and journals written about the problem. And yet, God did His own work in allowing the horrible circumstances of Watergate, the brokeness of one political hatchet man to bring out a story so incredible in Chuck Colson’s life that it can only be explained by the grace and power of God.

This is why a continual, morose, cynical introspection on the future of the Church is really pointless. Because the future of the Church is not in our hands, but in God’s hands. Yes, we should examine the methods and practices and ideologies of our institutions. We should work hard to raise up the next generation of Christian leaders in our homes and schools and churches. But we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that tomorrow’s great Christian voice has to come from our carefully drawn plans. Because I suspect, somewhere out there, perhaps drunk, perhaps high, perhaps gay, perhaps abusive is a soul God is about to radically save. God is still in the business of meeting the lost on their road to Damascus. And He’s not in Heaven wringing His hands about the next generation.

Apr
18
2012

5 Leadership Lessons I’ve Learned in 4 Years

I’m nearing my fourth years as Senior Pastor at Gages Lake Bible Church, which means I’m just beginning. I’m still learning. John Maxwell need not fear. I won’t be dethroning him from the position of Leadership Guru anytime soon.

However, being on the job has taught me a few things about leadership, especially for young guys. Some of these lessons I’ve learned the hard way, others through the wise mentoring of older men. Here are five:

1) Young Leaders Must Resist the “push-off” model of ministry. 

In their book, Sifted, Larry Osborne, Francis Chan, and Wayne Cordeiro talk about the tendency of young leaders to get their leadership energy by “pushing off” the perceived mistakes of other ministry models. They use the example of an Olympic Swimmer, who gains forward thrust by pushing off the pool wall. For leaders, it could be their legalistic, fundamentalist background that they despise, so every decision is made through the lens of how their parents or pastors or professors “got it wrong.” Or it could be the desire to be distinct in your community, so you’re going to sell yourself as the “only” version of your ministry in town. I’ve also seen the tendency to “pendulum-swing.” So if the staff culture you left was very lax, you’re tending to enforce a more rigid culture. Or if the staff culture you left was too rigid, you’re “the grace guy.”

The problem with a “push-off” model is that the forward thrust from the pool wall eventually loses energy. You need energy to sustain you in the race. I believe this must come from your own personal walk with the Lord and your own study. I have found that God may use a negative previous environment to push us toward something better, but ultimately our leadership must be based, not on what we don’t like elsewhere, but what God is teaching us in the present.

2) Young Leaders Need Old Guys

There is a fallacy in the world that younger is better. Young leaders have charisma, vision, energy. This is good and God uses this. But there is one vital component to leadership that we young guys lack: wisdom. Wisdom born from experience. And the only place to get this is by subordinating our ego and listening to older men. This means several things. First, we need to realize that we don’t have all the answers, that we are sometimes wrong, and that perhaps the previous generation had some wise and important things to say.

Young energetic leaders tend to think that the old guys are washed up, that they are out of touch with today’s generation. And maybe some of them are, but for the most part, older, experienced pastors are fonts of spiritual wisdom. Use them. I’ve made it a practice to cultivate relationships with some experienced pastors. Why? Because they know things I just don’t know. They know the Word. They’ve made difficult choices. They’ve wrestled with the discouragements and fears that come my way.

I think every young pastor should have at least one, if not two or three older pastors who are speaking into his life. He’s woefully under-equipped if he does not.

3) We Must Die to Our Messiah Complex

If you’re a young guy in ministry, somewhere along the line you felt you were the answer to what the world needs. Or at least the answer to what your church or your community needs. But the truth is that you are not the answer. Jesus is the answer and you and me are simply humble representatives. We may have gifts and talents, but those too were created and distributed by God.

And here’s what I’ve discovered: People sense when you have too high an opinion of yourself. It creates a frustrating and chaotic leadership environment. It shuts off your ability to listen, learn, grow, and apologize. The Scripture reminds us in many places that God “resists” the proud but “gives grace” to the humble (James 4:6; 1 Peter 1:5). My friend, you and I need grace in our ministry. We don’t need God’s resistance.

The bottom line is that gospel ministry is a privilege, a stewardship. It was here long before we arrived on the planet and will be long after we are gone. I’ve learned that the sooner I get over myself, the easier and better it is for me to lead. You’ve got to die to yourself.

4) You are responsible for the culture you create

Someone once said that sons do in excess what fathers do in moderation. This is true in leadership. I recently preached through the book of James. What struck me as I studied James 3 is just how pointed this chapter is for Christian leaders. At the end of the chapter, James contrasts two different Christian cultures. One is characterized by chaos, dissension, fear, and strife. The other by peace, love, harmony, and joy. James is quick to remind us that the former is not a leadership culture that reflects Heaven, but earth. In other words, if you’re culture is constantly beset by strife, there is a leadership problem. Leaders set the tone. What we emphasize, what we celebrate, what gets us angry is what we are telling people we believe is most important.

I’ve seen this played out vividly. Faithful church members will act on those things we have told them are most important to God. So if we find that people our churches are overly legalistic, it’s not enough to say, “Well, that’s not what I meant or intended.” There’s a communication problem. They’re getting the wrong message. On the flipside, if we find people are casual about church or flippant about following God, it’s not enough to say, “People just don’t get it.” No, they do get it, we’re just delivering the wrong message.

I’m not saying a leader is responsible for every action of those who follow him. People make their own choices. But I am saying that the words we say, the emphases we make, the actions we model–have far greater impact than we realize.

5) You Must Put the Work In

There is no app, no download, no program that will enable us to circumvent hard work. Yes, we’re fueled by the Holy Spirit. Yes, our ministry is grace-driven. But God does not reward laziness. God honors hard work. This means we’ll have to study on some Saturdays when we’d rather be watching sports. We’ll have to travel to the hospital when we’d rather be reading a good book. This means we’ll need to get our hands dirty with some areas of ministry that are “not our gifting.” Good messages require lots of study and hard work. There is no shortcut. Discipleship requires time and effort and money and patience. A loving family means an investment of our best time and efforts. Prayer and Bible study require discipline.

The ministry requires late nights and sweat and toil. Paul said that he “worked harder than them all (1 Corinthians 15:10). I don’t think he was bragging, just letting people know that doing God’s work requires  . . . work. It’s not evil. It’s not belittling. Work honors God. Pastors can be workaholics, but pastors can also be lazy. We must fight both tendencies.

Key Quotes to Tweet

  • There is one vital component to leadership that we young guys lack: wisdom  Buffer
  • I've learned that the sooner I get over myself, the easier and better it is for me to lead.  Buffer
  • What we emphasize, what we celebrate, what gets us angry is what we are telling people is important  Buffer

Mar
09
2012

Friday Five: Paul Tautges

Paul Tautges is a renowned pastor and biblical counselor. He has served Immanuel Bible Church in Sheboygan, Wisconsin as pastor-teacher since 1992. His preaching and teaching ministry often takes him overseas for the equipping of national pastors for the work of church-based ministry. He is also the author of several excellent books on counseling and pastoral ministry, including Counseling One Another and Counsel Your Flock. Paul is a biblical counselor certified with the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors (NANC) and the International Association of Biblical Counselors (IABC). Counseling One Another, is a highly recommended source for Scriptural insights on the ministry of counseling and pastoral leadership.

Paul was kind enough answer a few questions for today’s Friday Five:

How did you discern your call to the ministry? Was it something that happened immediately after your conversion? 

Within a couple months after my conversion in the spring of 1984, I sensed a desire building within me for vocational ministry in some form, though I had no idea what that would look like. About two years later, I married and moved to another state to attend Bible college for the purpose of being equipped theologically and practically for ministry. It was in my second year there that the Holy Spirit narrowed down my call through involvement in my local church. The more teaching opportunities the Lord brought along, beginning very small and then leading to occasional preaching in a country pulpit, the more the people of God confirmed my internal call by their encouraging comments. As I saw the Lord working in people’s lives through my teaching of His Word He gave me an insatiable desire to preach full-time and care for one of His flocks. Twenty years ago, He led me to return to Sheboygan, Wisconsin where I’ve been pastoring Immanuel Bible Church ever since.

Your pastoral role has a special emphasis on counseling and you write extensively about it in your books and on your blog. Why is biblical counseling so important in the life of the Christian? 

Making disciples of Jesus Christ is the Great Command given to the church (Matt 28:18-20). Obedience to Christ is the very heart of the content of our marching orders. Obedient describes the product we are called to reproduce, obedient followers of the Word of God. A disciple of Jesus Christ is one who is committed to a lifelong process of growing in obedience to his Master’s commands and, by doing so, becomes like Him (Rom 8:29). Therefore, we must consciously use the terms counseling and discipleship interchangeably, or even together (discipleship counseling), in order to communicate that counseling is not the specialized ministry of a few professionals, but rather an intensely focused, personal aspect of the discipleship process for all believers. That is, it is disciple-making targeted at specific areas of a person’s life where biblical change is needed for that follower of Christ to move forward toward the goal of being fully remade into His likeness.

Many pastors, especially young guys, might feel as if they are ill-equipped to counsel some of the big issues their people face. What advice would you give them? 

Every pastor, especially the young and inexperienced, needs to maintain a teachable spirit and prayerful dependence upon the Lord. He should always be studying the Word with the intention of applying it first to his own life then to those he teaches (Ezra 7:10). He should also be steadily reading solid theological, pastoral, and biblical counseling books and journal articles, thus learning from his peers and men who have gone before him. Alongside these published mentors (authors) he should ask his church leadership to provide funding for him to attend at least one ministry conference per year, which could include the kind that emphasizes the personal ministry of the Word we call “counseling.” Additionally, if his heart desires further help and training then he should look into more counseling-specific training. A good place to start is the website of the Biblical Counseling Coalition.

Would you say that not every pastor has the skill set and gift mix to effectively counsel in all issues? And if so would you recommend he refer people to qualified, biblical counselors outside his church? 

Since “counseling” is the personal ministry of the Word to believers’ lives every pastor must counsel at some level. He is a shepherd; counseling is not an option. For a pastor to fulfill the biblical model of personal ministry laid out in Colossians 1:28, he must remain attached to people. This demands that pastors be involved in others’ lives far beyond preaching to them each Sunday, and it discourages us from keeping a distance from our people, especially from those we may consider to be “special-needs” disciples who require a large investment of time and energy. This is not to say a pastor must be an expert on every issue. The church is rich with untapped resources and he should involve others in the discipleship process. However, if these people resources do not exist in his own local church then he must be sure any outside counselors to whom he refers his members will minister to them in a way consistent with biblical beliefs. At the same time, he should also be training and equipping others in his own church to come alongside for this important ministry. It is the pastors and elders who are accountable to God to keep watch over the souls of the sheep (Heb 13:17).

Your ministry also emphasizes “counseling one another”? This is really part of discipleship isn’t it? 

Yes, everything the local church does should ultimately fall under the command to make Christ-loving, obedient disciples (Matt 28:18-20). Counseling that is truly biblical is merely an intensely focused and personal aspect of the discipleship process, whereby believers come alongside one another for three main purposes: first, to help one another to consistently apply Scriptural theology to life in order to experience victory over sin through obedience to Christ; second, by warning one another, in love, of the consequences of sinful actions; and third, by guiding one another to make consistent progress in the ongoing process of biblical change in order to become spiritually reproductive disciple-makers. Biblical counseling is helping one another, within the body of Christ, to grow to maturity in Him.

Feb
29
2012

5 Pitfalls for Young Church Leaders

I’m a young guy new at leadership, leading my church as Senior Pastor, leading my family as a husband and father of four, and leading (in some ways) as an author/writer/blogger. The world gets excited about young leadership, but quite often young leaders make mistakes because we lack the wisdom of our elders. Here are five common pitfalls I’m finding my for myself and I suspect other young leaders:

1) The Pitfall of Pride 

The Scriptures both encourage and warn about young leadership. The encouragement is for the young to not let their youth get in the way of leading (1 Timothy 4:12) and yet it also warns against appointing immature people to weighty positions because they lack experience (1 Timothy 3:6). Perhaps our biggest and most pernicious temptation is pride. We’re young, we’re full of ideas, we feel we can change the world. That’s good, but it can also be bad when it seals us off from needed rebuke, wisdom of mentors, and constructive criticism. Young leaders must be wary, very wary, of the various ways that pride disguises itself as something good.

2) The Pitfall of Wanting Fame

Notice I didn’t say the pitfall of fame. I don’t think fame is inherently wrong. I don’t think all celebrity pastors or Christian leaders are off track, as some seem to. I think God allows some to gain favor and find numerical success. But what we young leaders must die to is our desire to be famous. This can be tricky, a sort of fine line between desiring our churches or organizations or platforms to grow and pursuing popularity with reckless abandon. I’m not always sure where that line is–it maybe different for every person. I do know that we must guard and check our hearts to see if our motivations for ministry are to glorify God and serve His people or to enrich ourselves.

3) The Pitfall of Comparison

It takes a while for a leader to gain a godly confidence his life and purpose. In the meantime, there is a dangerous tendency to compare and measure ourselves against our peers. Authors obsess over their Amazon rankings and privately wonder why some others seem to have more success than they do. Pastors compare numbers with other pastors and compare their sermons with the sermons of those they admire. I’m speaking from ministry experience, but I’m sure it affects young leaders in a variety of vocations.

Comparison is deadly because it blinds us to God’s unique purpose for each individual life. So we must kill this daily.

4) The Pitfall of Anti-Establishment

Our growing up years shape us in more ways than we now, with experience in church, at home, school, and community that affect us in positive and negative ways. For many of us there is a tendency to base our leadership off of our childhood experiences. We can easily become the “not” version of that negative church/ministry/business experience. I’m seeing a lot of this in the books and blogs and sermons I hear from young leaders such as myself. Uber-contemporary pastors styles themselves as different than the stodgy fundamentalists of their youth. Super-serious reformed guys style themselves as different than the substance-less contemporary leaders of their youth. And so it goes. There is nothing wrong with coming to grips with the parts of our upbringing or past that we would like to do differently in our leadership environments, but we hurt our effectiveness by cycling everything we do through the prism of what we considered wrong. We become reactionary and imbalanced. We become a movement defined more by being against we perceive as wrong than being for what God has called us to do.

5) The Pitfall of Overstatement

There is a tendency among young leaders to think of themselves as “the movement that will finally fix everything wrong with the church.” The church is going one way but we know better and we’re leading it the other way. When we’re young we tend to see ourselves as the hero in our own story, the Gideon/David/Abraham warrior that God has sent to rescue His people. The truth is probably much more humble. Even if your book lands on the NYT bestseller list or your congregation swells in size in a few years, you’re likely just one of many God is using in this generation. That’s not to tamp down enthusiasm or drive or God-given ambition. But we must remember that our story is not our own. God is the author of our story and it is Him who is after glory. We’re really not as influential or great as we think we are. And that’s okay, because God loves us when we’re a bit broken.

Feb
15
2012

5 Ways to Pray for Your Church

A couple weeks ago I wrote a blog, How to Help Your Church. It was one of the most popular posts of this year so far, perhaps because it struck a chord with pastors and church leaders working hard to serve God’s people. Interestingly, I wrote a similar post a few years ago.

However it occurred to me that neither of those posts mentioned perhaps the best way to help your church: prayer. Perhaps this speaks to my woefully inconsistent prayer life or the tendency among leaders in my generation to rely on our own strength to do God’s work.

But I’m realizing ever more the need, my need, for God’s help in serving the church. I’m realizing the need for us to fall on our faces before the Lord. Only God can grow the church. So, as you consider how to make your church better, here are five ways to help your church:

1) Pray for your pastor. I know this is clique. I know people pray for me. But I really, really need prayer. And your pastor does too. He may not ask you for it. He may seem strong and courageous and “with it” all the time. But underneath that is a fragile, desperate soul often squeezed by the pressures of serving God’s people. So pray for faithfulness, refreshment, wisdom, creativity, humility, people skills. I never fully realized the need to pray for pastors until I actually became one.

2) Pray for the pastor’s wife. This is a tough role. There is really no template for the pastor’s wife. She’s thrust into a role that often asks more of her than she can handle. She’s the one keeping the home life somewhat normal and consistent. She’s the one holding things together when the pastor is at the bedside or meeting with someone in crisis. And sometimes the pastor’s family has their own crises that need prayer. Pray for your pastor’s wife.

3) Pray for God’s spirit to move in the hearts of people in the community. In our community, something like 85% of people are unchurched, likely unconverted. That’s a huge mission field. And it seems that with every passing day the church is becoming less of a factor in people’s lives. Pray that your church would be a lighthouse, a place where people discover the eternal truths of the gospel, where the Word would shine and the Spirit would convict hearts to repentance. Sometimes we get so program-oriented that we forget to pray for a mighty moving of the Spirit.

4) Pray for unity among God’s people. The devil loves to divide and conquer. He loves to sow seeds of strife in a church. He loves to prey on the natural, human, sinful tendencies of God’s good people. Unity has to be intentional. It’s not natural. It must be a spirit-connected thing. It’s fragile. And here’s a secret. If you are praying for church unity, you will be spending less time focusing on the hurts and faults of others that moves to destroy that unity.

5) Pray for the church staff and leadership. Don’t just pray for the pastor, as if he’s the only one who is on the frontlines, as if he’s the only important, exalted member serving your local body. He isn’t. Pray also and earnestly for the paid and volunteer staff, for the leadership team–elders, deacons, team leaders. Pray for their families, their spirituality, their faithfulness. Pray for God to enrich and refresh them and give them strength for His work.

 

Jan
17
2012

Creativity is Cool, but So is Maturity

By now you’ve read some of the dust-up online about two prominent pastors and their presentations of intimacy and marriage. Mark Driscoll and his wife Grace have written what seems to be a very raw, personal book, Real Marriage. Ed Young, Jr is launching a new preaching series/book/media blitz in which he and his wife are broadcasting live from their bed for 24 hrs on their church roof (Yes, you read that right).

I have not read Driscoll’s book and don’t intend too, though I highly respect Mark’s ministry and feel that he has been a terrific leader in advancing the gospel through church planting and leadership development. I don’t know Ed Young Jr nor have I read his latest book. He is a gifted preacher who seems to be leading many to faith in Christ.

I have read some terrific commentary on both issues. I’ve also read some snarky, arrogant triumphalist commentary and some downright unfair commentary. In my view, the two best pieces on both issues were written by Mathew Lee Andersen and Ed Stetzer.

However, a critical point I think has been missing in the discussion of evangelicals and sex and marriage is the issue of maturity. Pastors serve a vital role in their churches and communities. Besides being the person tasked with clearly teaching and preaching the Word of God, pastors are also spiritual leaders. Fairly or unfairly we are held up as examples of propriety, maturity, and grace.

I don’t know Ed Young, Jr personally nor do I know Mark Driscoll. They have ministries that far dwarf mine and likely have forgotten more about ministry and the Bible than I know. But I wonder if their actions reflect a church culture that seems to reward creativity without limits. A church culture that eschews maturity.

Maturity thinks things over and says, “I wonder if this is a good idea to put a bed on top of a roof?” or “I wonder if this is a good idea to do a provocative sex series that will intentionally offend some?” or “Is this the best idea?”

The pastor should be the adult in the room, not the juvenile. That doesn’t mean we have to go back to liesure suits and legalism. That doesn’t mean pastors have to be boring, dour, sad people (though some see this as their mission, another post for another time). But it also means there has to be lines we won’t cross with our creativity.  Call me a square or a prude, but I’m pretty sure broadcasting from a bed on a roof crosses that.

I’m in favor of church change, innovation, and contextualization. But at my funeral and on my tombstone I’d like it to be said simply, “He preached the Word of God”, not “He did crazy stunts that brought attention to his church.”

Nov
22
2011

Children as Image-bearers

I ran across this terrific article at the Gospel Driven Life blog on parenting (HT: Trevin Wax). It discusses our children as image-bearers. The author says about our kids:

They are image bear­ers.  They are crea­tures, made by God and for God.  They are given glory and honor by God.  They have inher­ent value, of greater worth than ani­mals.  How we treat the image of God is how we treat God.  The dig­nity of humans is built into the Law and the Prophets and the Gospel.  And we must see our chil­dren as image bearers.

I encourage you to go and read the whole thing, especially as this theology is worked out practically in day to day live. Click here for the rest: Parents and the Image of God | Gospel Driven Life.

Nov
21
2011

Dads Should Lead on Thanksgiving

In the last few years, the Thanksgiving holiday has slowly been redefined by overeating, crank in-laws, lots of NFL football, and early Christmas sales. Now, I enjoy all of those things (yes, even the cranky in-laws). But if we are not careful, we can allow a grand moment for worship and thanks to pass us by as we’re grabbing for the remote and more pumpkin pie. This is where I think Dads can lead their families with a bit of courage and a lot of creativity.

As the spiritual leader in the home, Dads have a job to set the tone. I’m not saying we need a five-hour sermon series on the finer points of thankfulness and the history of Squanto, but at times in the Thanksgiving holiday, Dad needs to make some right turns and steer the family toward some expressions of gratitude. This could be a throat-clearing moment at dinner when Dad puts down the turkey leg and says, “Okay, I would like everyone to go around the table and express thankfulness for some blessings they received this year.” You might even plan ahead and bring your Bible to the table and read from Habakuk 3 or 1 Thessalonians 5:18. If you own a hymnal you might crack it open to a hymn like “Come Ye Thankful People, Come” or “We Gather Together” or “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow.” You can also Google those hymns and print them out to read.

This might take a bit of foresight, but I think it’s important for a Dad to set a tone of warmth, thanksgiving, and gratitude on Thanksgiving. Especially since Dads typically approach this holiday with a bit of a sense of indulgence: overeating, lots of football, and unwillingness to engage family. We tend to allow the ladies to serve us and offer little in the way of spiritual leadership.

I’m not saying watching football is bad on Thanksgiving. I plan on watching plenty of NFL. And I love to eat turkey and all the trimmings. However, with a little effort, Dads can lead the way to recovering the original intent of the holiday.