Tag Archives: church

One thing in ministry that is tough is not focusing entirely on what you think you need when it comes to staff.  I know moving from a team of 5 full-time staff people down to 1 working in our middle school ministry has been a tough transition over the past 6 years.  I read this article yesterday and it bothered me a bit…I think in a good way.

You’ll Never Have Enough Staff

When I was hired to join the team at Granger we had 400 people and 5 staff members. And we all did everything. I remember in those early days thinking, When we can just hire one more person, then things will be good. Or I’d visit a church with 15 or 20 staff and think, Man—must be nice to have so much money and so many staff members. Someday when we get there—life will be nice!

I’ve now been at Granger more than fifteen years. I’ve seen it grow from 400 to more than 5,000. I’ve served with a church staff team as small as 5 people and as many as 95. And we have never had enough staff. It has never been comfortable. We’ve always gone into every year wanting to hire more people than we’ve been able to. And over the past three years—we’ve actually had to reduce staff while the ministry continues to grow.

I’ve visited hundreds of other churches…and I’ve actually never talked to a pastor who thought he had enough staff. I’ve never met a team who had so much money they could hire anyone they wanted.

Whether yours is a church of a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand, if your goal is to accomplish the Great Commission, you will never have enough staff. If you think you’re the exception and you have enough staff, then you need to get a bigger dream. Are all the people within driving distance of your church already following Christ, growing in their faith, and taking steps in their spiritual journey? No? I didn’t think so. If you think you have enough staff, you may need to ask God for the perspective to see the need around you!

And you know what? Not having enough staff is a good thing. It forces us to our knees. It requires that we get really smart about the priorities of the church. It compels us toward creativity and innovation. And it makes us get serious about leveraging the time and talents of our volunteers.

I’ve been to churches in which the pastors do everything and the church members see it as their responsibility to warm the pews and “keep the pastor accountable.” Where is that in the Bible? Instead of agonizing over how to find the money to hire staff, what if you spent your time figuring out how to motivate the members to take part in the ministry. Your church may have a long and rich tradition of laziness. The pastors or leaders who preceded you may have bought into the lie that they were supposed to do everything. They may have spent their time teaching the congregation about the nuances of transubstantiation, but forgot to mention that God wants them actively involved in the lives of others. It may take months or years to transform your church into an army of volunteers that influences your community through service and love.

(the original article can be found HERE)

The Church doesn’t seem to be all that popular these days…and it happens to be the very organization I work for and might end up leading some day. I can understand why many are leaving the Church these days, heck I’ve even thought before of throwing in the towel and getting a “real” job at times.  I came across the article below and really resonate with what the guy says.

Church: Love It, Don’t Leave It

By Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck

Here’s what Bono, Oprah, and the guru speakers on PBS won’t tell you: Jesus believed in organized religion and he founded an institution. Of course, Jesus had no patience for religious hacks and self-righteous wannabes, but he was still Jewish. And as Jew, he read the Holy Book, worshiped in the synagogue, and kept Torah. He did not start a movement of latte-drinking disciples who excelled in spiritual conversations. He founded the church (Matt. 16:18) and commissioned the apostles to proclaim the good news that Israel’s Messiah had come and the sins of the world could be forgiven through his death on the cross (Matt. 28:18-20; Acts 2:14-36).

For almost two millennia, it was axiomatic that Christians, like, actually went to church (or at least told other Christians they did). From Cyprian to Calvin it was believed that for those to whom God “is Father the church may also be Mother.” But increasingly Christians are trying to get more spiritual by getting less church.

Take a spin through the religion section at your local bookstore. What you’ll find there is revealing – there are “revolutionary” books for stay at home moms, teenagers, and Christian businessmen. There are lots of manifestos. And most of the books about church are about people leaving the church to “find God.” There are lots of Kerouacian “journey” stories, and at least one book about the gospel according to Starbucks. It used to be you had to overthrow a country to be considered a revolutionary, and now, it seems, you just have to quit church and go pray in the woods.

We’ve been in the church our whole lives and are not blind to its failings. Churches can be boring, hypocritical, hurtful, and inept. The church is full of sinners. Which is kind of the point. Christians are worse than you think. Our Savior is better than you imagine.
But the church is not all about oppression and drudgery. Almost every church we know of visits old people, brings meals to new moms, supports disaster relief, and does something for the poor. We love the local church, in spite of its problems, because it’s where we go to meet God. It’s not a glorified social/country club you attend to be around people who talk and look just you do. It’s a place to hear God’s word spoken, taught and affirmed. It’s a place to sing praises to God, and a place to serve others. It’s a place to be challenged.

The church is more than plural for Christian. It is both organism and organization, a living thing comprised of a certain order, regular worship services, with doctrinal standards, institutional norms, and defined rituals. Without the institution of the church nurturing the flock and protecting the faith for two thousand years, there would be no Christianity. If Gen Xers (like us) and their friends want to be against something, start a revolution. If you want to conserve truth and grace for twenty centuries, plant a church.

We love the church because Christ loved the church. She is his bride–a harlot at times, but his bride nonetheless, being washed clean by the word of God (Eph. 5:25-26). If you are into Jesus, don’t rail on his bride. Jesus died for the church, so don’t be bothered by a little dying to self for the church’s sake. If you keep in mind that everyone there is a sinner (including yourself) and that Jesus Christ is the point and not you, your dreams, or your kids, your church experience might not be as lame as you fear.

Perhaps Christians are leaving the church because it isn’t tolerant and open-minded. But perhaps the church-leavers have their own intolerance too–intolerant of tradition, intolerant of authority, intolerant of imperfection except their own. Are you open-minded enough to give the church a chance–a chance for the church to be the church, not a coffee shop, not a mall, not a variety show, not Chuck E. Cheese, not a U2 concert, not a nature walk, but a wonderfully ordinary, blood-bought, Spirit-driven church with pastors, sermons, budgets, hymns, bad carpet and worse coffee?

The Church, because it is Christ’s church, will outlive American Idol, the NFL, and all of our grandkids. We won’t last, but the Church will. So when it comes to church, be like Jesus: love it, don’t leave it. As Saint Calloway once prophesied to the Brothers of Blues, “Jake, you get wise, you get to church.”

You can find the original article HERE from WashingtonPost.com

Kevin DeYoung is senior pastor at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan. He serves on the executive team of RCA Integrity, a renewal group within the Reformed Church of America. Ted Kluck’s work has appeared in ESPN the Magazine, Sports Spectrum Magazine, ESPN.com Page2, and several small literary journals.

I read the below article at churchrelevance.com and thought it was pretty interesting…they tend to have some good articles on ministry. Having attended and worked at a “megachurch” in the past (now 14K people attend it) I have always been a fan…mostly because of just how much God used it to form me. So yeah check it out and let me know what you think.

In the big picture, a toolbox with all hammers isn’t very effective. You can hit nails, pry, and not much more. A good toolbox has hammers, wrenches, files, and screwdrivers. It has a drill, some pliers, and plenty of other tools.

So why do so many churches try to be a hammer?

Eugene Cho of Quest Church (Seattle, WA) recently blogged about the pursuit so many churches have to be a megachurch. He states:

Megachurches only comprise 1% of the churches in North America. But then why do the majority of the conferences revolve around the megachurches and their pastors?

I think megachurches and their leaders are doing phenomenal ministry.  I really do.  But we’ve elevated this 1% as the epitome and face of a successful ministry and created a machine of conferences, publishers, books, and networks based on this very limited expression.

Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv (Edmond, OK) puts it this way:

In order to reach people that no one is reaching, you will have to do things that no one is doing. But in order to do things that no one is doing, you can’t do what everyone else is doing.

We each have a unique God-given calling, but many of us want to live the calling of  the ministers in the limelight. Likewise, each church has a unique God-given calling, but too many churches distract themselves by pursuing the calling of famous megachurches. Consider how 1 Corinthians 12 reads when substituting church terms:

The Church has many different parts, not just one part. If the house church says, “I am not a part of the Church because I am not a megachurch,” that does not make it any less a part of the Church. And if the rural church says, “I am not part of the Church because I am not a gigachurch,” would that make it any less a part of the Church? If the whole Church were a gigachurch, how would you reach rural areas? Or if the whole Church were a rural church, how would you reach urban areas?

But the Church has many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange the Church would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one Church. The gigachurch can never say to the megachurch, “I don’t need you.” The Internet church can’t say to the church plant, “I don’t need you.”

In fact, some parts of the Church that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary.

To clarify, I do think it is good to study successful churches when the principles learned are considered within the context of your church’s unique calling. And I do believe that good ministry typically grows churches. However, some of the greatest ministries have the smallest numbers. Sometimes small is needed to be effective. Sometimes huge is needed.

I recommend that you study them all. Learn from megachurches, house churches, rural churches, and the rest.

Above all else, never lose focus of staying true to your church’s purpose. If God wants you to be a hammer, be a hammer. If God wants you to be a wrench, be a wrench.

[if you choose you can read the original article HERE]