Pastors and Pain Part 6

I know, it seems as if we need a lot of help.

Pastors need to pursue Jesus - HELP US
Pastors need to be encouraged in their Call -HELP US
Pastors need you to love the Church-HELP US
Pastors need you to bring people to Church- HELP US

It seems like a lot but its not really, but there is one more way you can help us.

Respect the Pastors Time.
Know this about every Pastor.............

They all have Families
They all are busy in Ministry
They all struggle to shut work off
They all (OK many) are ADD and our brains are always at work.

Meaning the light is ALWAYS on and someone is ALWAYS home.
and we need to shut down, turn off, tune out and were not going to use LSD to do such.

What we need is help and here is how.

#1 Be Responsible - Get in a Life Group
So many believe that the Pastor is the Church and the church is the Pastor meaning that every need they have is to be directed through him. But this is not true. We have specifically designed our life groups to perform much of the work of the ministry.
Discipleship, Benevolence, Visitation, Hospitalization, Prayer is all a function of Life Groups. If you are an Owner of newlife and not a part of a Life Group you will be irresponsible in thinking that the Pastor should perform these functions for you.
Be Responsible, Get in a Life Group

#2 Be Respectful - Of his person
A Pastor should never be viewed as someone who is there at YOUR beckoned call.
He as a human needs his own time. Find out what that time is and respect it.
For me my days off are Fridays, my Jesus days (Prep days) are Saturday and Monday.
I do most of my counseling on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and business work on Thursdays.
Because of a Pastors Heart he will try and answer your phone calls at home, talk to you on his prep days, and give up his days off meaning he needs you help.
Be Respectful - of his person.

#3 Be Relational - Towards him.
Every Pastor is Human and if every TIME he meets you your NEGATIVE it will affect the way he relates to you. If every TIME he meets you your asking for HELP it will affect the way he relates to you. If every TIME he meets you your ENCOURAGING it will effect the way he relates to you.
The time you spend with him greatly impacts the way he views his work with you.
Ask yourself, when I spend time with the Pastor, how does he view me and how can I help him be encouraged by me?
He knows that there are negative times in our lives and he is OK and will do his best to encourage you. But all the time gets discouraging.
He knows that you need help and will sacrifice himself to do such, but all the time, it gets burdensome.
Every good relationship is built upon a balance of life, negative times, needy times, and
needful times (encouragement).
Be Relational -towards Him

this will make his time with you beneficial for both and will help to keep Him in the work of God.

Let Him pursue Jesus
Lift up His Call from Jesus
Love the Church the way Jesus Loves her
Bring People to Church
and Respect his time.

Do these things and you will go along way to being a blessing not only to the Pastor, but to the church.

I love you guys and can't wait for Sunday

Pastors and Pain Part 5

We have talked over the last few days about how to Help your Pastor and today is no exception. In fact this one is a big one for him.

Bring new people to church

There is nothing more exciting for a Pastor than the opportunity to share the Love of Jesus with a new face. Its not that there is anything wrong with the old faces but really our call is to find people far from God and when we have that opportunity it is so exciting. So how can you help in Bringing new people to church?

#1 Introduce them to the Pastor Personally.
He wants to know them and the best way is for YOU to personally introduce. This helps the pastor by allowing him to rely on your relationship to both of you in building a relationship with that new person.

#2 Explain the Pastor to them Personally.
Sit with them in their first sermon and help them understand who the Pastor is. It is easy to get offended at the work of God and so its important for them to know when I am serious and why, when I am joking, why we do we do. Help them know the Pastor.
and if your going to bad mouth him or excuse his behavior. Don't invite anyone as you have deeper issues that don't need to destroy the work of God.

#3 Allow the Pastor to Minister to them Personally.
Don't be jealous if the person you bring to church begins to spend time with the Pastor.
Don't be controlling of that person unless you meant to invite them to YOU and not Jesus. Let the Pastor love them his way, let the Pastor learn their needs and minister to them as he is led.

Anyone who comes to a Church will need to know the Pastor. Help him know them when you bring them.

Bring new people to Church
Love the Bride (Church)
Encourage the Pastors Call
Let the Pastor Pusue Jesus

Tomorrow is the Last one, get ready

Pastors and Pain #4

Every Pastor I meet, Loves the church he Pastors.
He lives and breaths church life.
He loves the call of the church to reach the lost.
He loves the cries in the church to heal the hurt.
He loves the Christ of the church to save mankind.

But what no Pastor loves is the Cutting of the Church. As the Bride of Christ, you hit the wife, you hit the husband and where I grew up that could get you punched.

How can I help the Pastor? Fall in Love with the very one Jesus Loves.

Be Supportive of Her. (Hebrews 10:24-25)
Be Sacrificial for Her. (Ephesians 5:25)
Be Submissive to Her. (Ephesians 1:22)

If your struggling with the church, your relationship with Jesus will be bad as well.
You can't love the husband and hate the bride and you can't know the husband and not know the bride.

It breaks my heart to see people who claim to know Jesus cut the church mainly because of what the church has done for them.

#1 It has loved them when they were not lovable.
#2 It has lived for them when they were living for themselves.
#3 It has lifted them up even when they wanted to stay down.

Imperfect as she is, she is still His bride and He loves her and would never talk about her the way some do. One day she will stand before the Lord in All her Glory and will be honored for her love, labor, and life.

This church has changed my life. I love her. I have loved her for years. We have been through a lot together. God has led us on many journeys together and Love will hold us together.

You want to help your Pastor - Love the Bride
                                                  Let Him pursue Jesus
                                                  Lift up his Call

Tomorrow we will talk about new People.

Pastors and Pain Part 3

If the first step in helping your Pastor is to help him pursue Jesus, the next is a little more personal. While his pursuit of Jesus will benefit you, the next one protects him.

If you want to help your Pastor, Encourage His call to Ministry.

There is not a day that goes by, especially Mondays, where a Pastor does not wonder if he is doing the right thing. He might have an amazing Sunday but focus on the one negitive that happened causing him to think that he should quit.

This is Satans Plan, Smite the Shepherd and the Sheep will scatter. If he can get 3,000 pastors to quit every month there is a lot of confused and scared sheep out there.

So how can you encourage a Pastors call? Let me start with what not to do.
Do not tell him he is awesome. He knows better.
Do not tell him to stick it out. He will feel trapped.
Do not take him to lunch. He will get fat.

Temporary feelings of adequacy are waisted in a Spiritual Battle. Satan will just turn your good words into pride and soon the Pastor will fall.

So how can you encourage his call.

#1 Trust His Leadership.
I am not saying "Drink the Juice" but if the Pastor has given you no reason to not believe his leadership, you have no reason not to.

The problem is some people are not trusting people and many others see things through the pain of thier past or they have thier own agendas.

I am grateful for the many people who have trusted me through some very difficult transformations though they may not have fully understood why, they can see the truth is where God is moving me to move us.

#2 Try to follow His lead.
The messages that your Pastor brings every week is one that he beleives God has led him to give to you. Don't say good message try to live it. Try to do something with what God gave him.
Nothing encourages a Pastor more than to see you applying the truths God has given Him.

#3 Talk to Him with Respect.
If the Pastor has shown evidence of Gods call in his life, you might want to be careful how you talk to him. DAvid was careful with how He dealt with the Lords man, Elisha showed the dangers of disrespect towards a man of God. The Pastors call is a special one and worthy of great respect.

He is not your buddy, though he is your friend.
He is not your puppet to manipulate, though he is moved by your needs.
He is not your stepping stone to God, though he ought to be closer to Him than you.

Every week as a Pastor seeks to Follow Jesus, he seeks others who are seeking Him too. And when we find them, we find encouragement in the call of God.

#1 Help Him Pursue Jesus
#2 Encourage him in his Call from Jesus.

Do these two things and you will help eliviate the Pain a Pastor feels.

Pastors and Pain Part II

Every Month, 3,000 Pastors leave the Ministry, meaning that every month, 3,000 churches are left shepherd less. Paul's warning becomes very real at this time when he warned the Ephesian Elders that when he leaves wolves will come to devour the flock and weirdos will rise up and try to take control of the church. (Acts 20:29-30)

This could happen to any church at any time as Satan is working over time to destroy the Shepherd. (Matt 26:31) So knowing the Pain of Pastoring, let me encourage you with five things that will keep Him strong in the Lord and Loving Life.

#1 Help Your Pastor Pursue Jesus
A Pastors job is not 9-5, it never shuts off. Not because he can't but won't. We are constantly pursuing Jesus. We want to know Him more that we can help you know Him more. We want to love Him more so that we can help you love Him more. This is a 24 hour a day process for us and if done right takes time.

But if we are doing other things we are not pursuing Jesus.

How can you help your Pastor Pursue Jesus?

Take care of the Physical work of the Church. (Acts 6:4)

The building projects.
Take care of the maintenance of the building. The broken things, the dirty things, the new things.
A building ought to represent the body, meaning that the way we show physical respect of the building is the way we show spiritual respect to the body (the church).

The body projects.
Take care of each other, minister to each other, love each other.
A healthy body is one where the whole body cares for the whole body.

This gives your Pastor time to pray and prepare messages
It allows him time to meditate on Jesus rather than mediate men.
It allows him time to study about Jesus rather than saw a board.
It allows him time to survey the community rather than steady the church.

If your Pastor is allowed to pursue Jesus every week it can only mean greater things for everyone.

Tomorrow we will talk about another way to help your Pastor but don't move forward until you do all you can to do #1.

Have an Awesome Day

Passion and Pain and Pastors

Over the last few weeks I have met with several Pastors and noticed some things that I felt were important enough to share.

#1 Every Pastor I met................Loved Jesus
#2 Every Pastor I met................Believes in His Call to Ministry
#3 Every Pastor I met................is devoted to their Church
#4 Every Pastor I met................wants to see new people come to Christ and Christians grow in Grace.
#5 Every Pastor I met................Loves their wife, Kids, friends, and family

Truth is I am encouraged by their PASSION for all of these things, but I noticed something else.

#1 Every Pastor I met...............feels as if he is failing God
#2 Every Pastor I met...............Believes He is called but questions himself
#3 Every Pastor I met...............has church problems. (people, buildings, money)
#4 Every Pastor I met...............is struggling with the hurt caused by people who leave
#5 Every Pastor I met...............is aware of the need for Family/ministry Balance, and     has to work hard to keep that balance.

Truth is I am encouraged as well by their PAIN for all these things.

It has shown me that their passion overrides their pain because they keep fighting
It has shown me that though others may have given up and fallen away they are willing to take the pain as the end goal is more important than personal discomfort.
It has shown me that there are still men out there who are willing to risk it all for the Kingdom.

Praise God for men who don't neglect their First Love
Praise God for men who believe in themselves
Praise God for men who LOVE their CHURCH
Praise God for men who care more about souls than self
Praise God for men who put their FAMILIES FIRST over others

We are blessed to have Pastors in our lives and tomorrow I will help you understand how an Owner can help their Pastor

Have a Great day and see YOU ALL TONIGHT!

Real Power

This morning I met a lady that I went to high school with. Her name is Penny. I am not sure of her beliefs but I know this, every time we meet, its a positive experience.

Her attitude is positive
Her facial expressions are positive
Her work ethic is positive

She is always helpful, always hopeful, always happy.
She loves her husband and her life.

I would trust what she says.

She makes me want to know more about her and why she is so upbeat.

How powerful is that?

This is what I would love to see in Church

Many Penny's

Helpful, Hopeful, Happy people
Who love their husbands and wives, who Love their children, who love their church, who love their life.

Trustworthy people

People who are often asked about the reason of the hope that is in them.

Lets be that church