It’s weird and fun being on the other side of local church leadership… it is making for some helpful and new insights. Through my new experiences being an attender at local churches I have been able to identify a few basic items that make a for a healthy and successful church. Of these, probably one of the most basic and controllable aspects is friendliness.
It doesn’t matter what size the church. Big or Small, it is easy to be friendly. However, most churches fail this simple test. Leaders and regular attenders are too concerned about their needs, jobs, and preparations to stop and connect relationally with people… the very people they so desire to reach and have stay at their churches.
If you attend a church or lead a church, here is something VERY SIMPLE that you can do to help your church grow (spiritually, communally, numerically)…. Take the 15 minutes before the service starts and walk/talk through the worship center. Say ‘hi’ to people. Engage them in 3-5 min. conversations. Look for faces you don’t recognize or don’t know very well (don’t talk with your regular ‘friends’). If you could just get just 2% of your congregation to lead on this level I am confident you would experience a whole new attitude in your church within 2 months.
Let me lead with — I have been both fat and a pastor. Unfortunately, no one really ever thought to tell me I was fat, although a few buddies teased me.
Stolen stat: 73% of pastors are overweight with 50% more than 30 lbs overweight.
At one point I was 230lbs. Today I am 190 on my way to 185 after 1 long year of hard work, exercise and eating real sized portions. Hold me accountable if I ever top 200lbs again.
Did a quick internet search… 2 top results; this one is worth the read, the other is apparently doing something about it.
Here is why I think most (not all) pastors get fat. You choose the priority order. My hope is that we would all strive to lead healthy lives in every area.
Pastors get fat because:
- Typically they work over 50 hours a week and leave no time or energy for being physically healthy.
- Pastors value meetings; either with people from their churches or with their staff for ‘ministry projects’… this leads to a LOT of sitting. (Pointer based on experience - learn to talk while you walk)
- Most churches have expense accounts for meetings which get used for meals. Not bad in themselves, but when combined with sitting and given that most pastors are underpaid, free meals become VERY attractive. (Pointer - order from the lunch or appetizer menu; share meals when out with your spouse)
- Physical health, exercise and ‘play’ is not seen as a spiritual value. (1 Cor. 6:19-20)
- The United States church culture is more likely to address porn as an issue than it is obesity, however, pastors struggle with both.
I get excited about coaching and developing motivated young leaders. This fall it has been fun and exciting to work with a leader that is new to our Fireproof circle. Her name is Amanda. I received a general interest email from her about bringing xxxchurch to Vancouver to work the porn show; she really felt burdened by God for this ministry through prayer, a challenging sermon from her pastor and by seeing what we do online. As far as emails go, we get a lot of them that express interest in ’serving in ministry’ with us in their community by way of either in strip clubs or in the porn conventions when they come to town. VERY often, people have no perspective based in reality about what kind of work and finances are involved in doing ministry in the areas where we operate. In fact, I have a standard reply email that quickly invites people into leading and outlines the ‘costs’ of leadership and doing the ministry. Simply put, we can not continue to expand into every city and every opportunity without local leaders and participation. It would be fair to say that 98% of the emails I send out to the ‘very passionate leaders’ who contact us never end up coming back. So I was quite surprised when I received a 2nd email from a young Canadian mother who wanted to do ministry in the Taboo show in Vancouver.
Amanda hadn’t flinched by the realities of the endeavor as I first laid them out to her. In fact, I think she had already counted the cost of doing this kind of work and was fully ready in her spirit and in her mind to press on in what she knew God was calling her to do. So through this fall it has been my pleasure to lead her in developing the team and raising the finances needed to share God’s word at the porn show in Vancouver this next week. Amanda has worked hard to communicate the vision and the need for this ministry to her campus pastor, her senior pastor, her congregation, her denomination and any christian in Canada who will listen. She has faced opposition, she has overcome resistance, she has lead in faith and, catch this… she & her husband made a $6000 down payment on her personal credit card before she ever raised a single penny. That is gutsy, and super cool. Her husband and her children are ‘all in’. In fact, all four of them have personally recruited, prayed, promoted and sacrificed for this upcoming ministry opportunity. Her kids are even sporting “Jesus loves porn stars” t-shirts when they go to church.
So this week 3 of us from staff are heading out to Vancouver to train, support, equip and encourage Amanda’s team under the xxxchurch.com umbrella. We will be at the “Jesus loves porn stars” booth handing out 1000’s of bibles, having conversations with people about Christ’s love, forgiveness and life giving relationship inside the Taboo show. At what is incredible and unique about this particular show is that we would not be there without the leadership of a young mom of two, who is eight months pregnant with her third child, that is following God’s call upon her life to be salt and light to the people of Vancouver. How incredible is it when God gets ahold of your leadership?!?!
* Please be praying for her pregnancy; I just learned today that she is very sick.
Moving to a new area and establishing new relationships has forced me to renew & re-think accountability. In Mesa I had steadily insulated myself with many levels of accountable relationships. I had professional accountable and challenging mentors. I had spiritually accountable relationships. I had friends who would hold me accountable to leading better within my family. Last year I had finally establish accountable workout partners. I don’t think there wasn’t aspect of my life where more than one person was holding me accountable consistently. Being in a new arena it has become very apparent that I have to work to establish accountability all over again. Just saying this I am sure causes some to think “what is wrong”. Nothing is ‘wrong’. BUT if you really want to grow, you shouldn’t wait for something to go wrong to then get accountable. However, that is what most people do. They get called to account AFTER they have made some fatal errors in the life and in their judgement. I HIGHLY recommend you get accountable BEFORE something goes wrong so that you can avoid the painful experiences of major life failure. Tomorrow begins a new circle of accountability — Every Thursday morning @ 5:30 a.m. I am meeting with 6 other leaders from across the nation. In addition to that I am developing face to face relationships here in Seattle. What are you doing in your life to be accountable?
Vegas (www.stripchurch.com) is going GREAT! I am very excited about the addition of Jessica who is heading up our local clubs & brothels initiatives. She is also working with our gal interns. Our prayers our that her leadership continues to flourish this summer and she will stay on a permanent staff. Check out the site — we are making lots of new headway into new territories. Going places where most Christians dare not going. Stephen who is charge of our guy interns and our strip outreaches is also doing a great job. All of the new efforts and the prayers are really starting gain some practical traction.
Also, for the next 2 weekends I will be filling in preaching for our man Dean up at Pathways. Our family attended there last weekend and the church is mostly made up of young couples with young kids — fits Dean well! I will write more about the ministry there as I fill in preaching and volunteer some with him.
Look for NEW CHURCH updates starting in Sept.-ish.
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