[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]
Putting People in Their Place
Jim: Somewhere, the American church began to believe a simple but dangerous lie: “The bigger the church, the better, and more successful it is.” I’m not suggesting bigger is better or worse. However, the things leaders are willing to do to be “successful” can cause incredible hardships to themselves and those around them, as well as cause the church to become something it was never intended to be. This dangerous thought descends quickly and it looks like this—if bigger is better:
Then the church I lead is a product to be consumed.
The congregation and community are the customers.
Ergo . . .
We must produce what our customer wants if we are to be successful.
If our product isn’t enjoyed by our customers, we will soon be out of business.
With two percent of congregations in the U.S. larger than 1,000 people in Sunday morning attendance, and the pastors who lead those congregations being primarily the ones who write the books and speak at the conferences, you can see how this “bigger is better” mindset may become the focus of leaders who serve in vocational ministry. If that’s what “success” is, then the leader will feel compelled to do whatever is “working” and “successful.”
If you’ve been a senior pastor for the past few decades like John and I, you will recognize the seasons the church in America has been through trying to be successful. We have been “Purpose Driven,” “Simple,” “Traditional,” “Holy,” “Contemporary,” “As You Are,” and “Everyone is Welcome.” We have been “Justice Driven” and “Servant Evangelists.” We have followed “The Way of the Master” and “Gone to Where the Fish Swim in the Stream.” We have been “Deep Streams” and “Seeker Sensitive.”
We have tried everything that worked anywhere for anyone at any time because what we long for is the church to grow. In the end our seating capacity is bigger than ever before, but I fear our sending capacity hasn’t kept up with our numerical growth.
One of the greatest dangers you will face as a vocational minister in a local congregation will be a skewed perspective of the people who attend your church. If you see them as the as the embodiment of your success or failure, you are in many ways already doomed to fail even if you “succeed.”
The members you serve do have a proper place in your heart, in the church, and in God’s Kingdom. Putting them there is paramount to your mental health and the fruitfulness of what God has given you to steward to maturity. Listen to John as he shares just one of his stories.
John: It was a typical Monday morning. Recovering from an exhausting Sunday, I fumbled around in my office, and struggled to be productive. All hope of a quiet day quickly vanished as George walked into my office unannounced.
George (not his real name), served as a board member and worship leader. He was a generous giver, and an integral part of our church. The look on his face foreshadowed bad news— and his words confirmed it: “John, we’re leaving the church. We don’t feel like we’re being challenged enough, so we’re going somewhere else.”
I was shell-shocked. George was well-respected within the church, and for good reason. He was a gem—the kind of guy you want to clone and build the church on. Losing him (and his family) was a painful punch in the gut. George’s kids were my kids’ friends. George’s wife was my wife Laura’s friend. This one hurt instantly. I mumbled to him: “Okay, George, if that’s what you feel you need to do . . .”
As soon as he left the office, rapid-fire questions bombarded my brain. “How are we going to replace George?” “Will other people leave because he’s leaving?” “How will we make it up financially?” “What will this do to my leadership?” “God, are You trying to kill me?” Catastrophic thinking hit high gear. Here’s what I didn’t understand at that particularly frustrating moment: From a leadership and stewardship perspective, I’d put George in the wrong place.
Today, as I reflect on his departure, along with others who had exited, I realize my understanding of people’s place in God’s economy was flawed. I operated as though once a person got plugged into our church, it was a life sentence. Subconsciously, (I’m so embarrassed to admit this), I thought they belonged to me. In my mind, we were joined at the hip, and any exit by them felt like a betraying slap in the face. My inaccurate and immature perspective increased the pain level when friends I had poured time and energy into decided to bolt for another church.
So, what is the proper place for people like George? What’s a better way to view the families who attend your church? What approach will keep you more even-keeled emotionally when brothers and sisters in Christ head for “greener pastures”? How do you put people in their proper place? Here it is:
God’s people are His people, not yours
Pause for a moment and reflect on those words. God’s people are His people, not yours. They belong to Him, not you. I understand the reluctance some pastors might have accepting this idea. They may insist: “If there’s a good chance folks will leave sometime in the future, why should I pour my life into theirs?” Good question. I get it—you want to invest in men and women who will be around for a long time, and who will help achieve the mission.
A reaction of this nature makes perfect sense. But I wonder if it makes sense to God. I wonder if we have to get our minds off our corner of the vineyard, and get them wrapped around the larger, macro picture of God’s kingdom.
The people in the church we serve are not our people and never will be. They belong to God! So, we pour into them because that’s what kingdom-minded leaders do. We’re called to build the kingdom, not our kingdom.
I like baseball, but I don’t always understand baseball. The sport comes with a boatload of unwritten rules. Here’s a frightening one: If the opposing team’s pitcher plunks one of your teammates with a 98 m.p.h. fastball, your pitcher is obliged to bean one of their teammates with the baseball at a later point in the game.
Hockey has similar unwritten rules. If a large defenseman from the opposing team roughs up your star center, your toughest teammate drops the gloves later in the game to “set things in order.”
The Church is full of unwritten rules as well. One is: Once a person says, “I’m in,” they’re in—forever.” Could this unwritten rule, dancing in the subconscious minds of pastors, be multiplying our pain when members leave?
Instead of relating to your people as lifelong, long-haul attendees who by some unspoken rule are obliged to be with you until the grave, perhaps it’s healthier to think of them as seasonal. Maybe approaching the relationship with the understanding that you likely will have them for a limited amount of time, will make their departure easier to accept.
The question isn’t, how long will (or should) they stay—the question is, how will you steward the time you do have with them? In what specific ways will you make the most of the opportunity?
It’s tempting to devolve into a beggar in departure scenarios, to grovel, “I’ll change, the atmosphere will change. I’ll start preaching better! We’ll turn the music volume down! We’ll even change direction if you’ll just stay!” We, in effect, bargain with people and in doing so, set ourselves up for future trouble.
Changing the core of who we are in a desperate attempt to keep people longer than we should is a recipe for crazy. Our identity will blur. We’ll give people power over our happiness and sense of value.
We cannot be owned by God and people simultaneously. If we’re owned by people, we’ll live by their praise, die by their criticism, and ultimately be crushed by their departure. Obviously, all three results are unhealthy. In the end, your identity as a loved child of Father God will slide toward an identity swallowed up by what you do for a living.
The more you learn to work from your identity instead of for your identity, the better prepared you’ll be to process the arrival and departure of people. Perhaps you need a come-to-Jesus-moment to help you grasp one of the most important lessons a leader will ever grasp: your ministry is not your identity—your identity is rooted in an unshakable relationship with Jesus Christ.
Leading from your identity will temper your enthusiasm when attendees arrive, and lessen the sting when those you’ve discipled decide to move on. Proper identity frees you to remain true to how God has created you, to be the best version of yourself you possibly can, and to become confident enough to let the relational chips fall where they may.
At the time of a steady exodus of parishioners away from the church where we were lead pastors, I worried about what the denominational leaders would think of our attendance decline. Would their opinion of me be irreparably damaged? Would they look at me through the lens of the decline? Would it become the lasting image in their minds? No denominational leader ever said anything negative to me about our struggles, but I was over-the-top (and needlessly) fearful they did behind closed doors.
What about my pastoral colleagues? Due to our steady attendance decline, I dreaded regional events where they would pop the inevitable question: “How many are you running?” I wonder how many leaders avoid these gatherings due to fear of answering that dreaded query.
My obsession with numbers was a large contributor to the angst felt when the next couple called me and said: “Pastor, we love you, but . . .” Jim and I are not suggesting numbers are insignificant. Healthy organizations grow. Numerical goals are not inherently evil. They can produce focus. They tend to bring order to your week. Numbers can be useful measuring sticks for charting progress. The question is, which numbers matter the most?
The big change for me now as opposed to thirty years ago? Different numbers matter. Don’t misunderstand—attendance is important as an indicator, but it’s probably not the best or most reliable indicator in the 21st century. In the 1980s and 90s, attendance was the key performance benchmark for most churches. A big crowd was considered undeniable proof of organizational health.
But given today’s rollercoaster attendance patterns, Sunday morning numbers seem a less reliable barometer. The number of members attending small groups might be a better indicator of health. Service engagement can be a more dependable measuring stick. What I mean by that is the number of attendees who call your church “home,” and serve inside or outside the church. The percentage of people released into their God-given gift and passion areas is probably a better gauge of overall health.
At one church where I recently served as associate pastor, 85% of our adults and students engage in some form of service either at the church and/or outside the church. While I think 85% is healthy, I believe we could do better. We observed an unexpected pattern: The more members were involved in leading a team or working on a team, the more our attendance stabilized.
Other non-number-centric indicators of organizational health include trust, clarity, and communication. Does the leadership team trust one another enough to be vulnerable with each other? Can they admit weakness? Mistakes? Does the church have a clear vision of its future destination, along with a deadline for arriving there? How far down into the organization does this picture live? Are people and resources aligned around the destination? These indicators reveal health—or lack of health, depending on the answers to the above questions.
Fixating on Sunday morning numbers becomes dangerous when it becomes a leader’s sole focus. We walk on thin leadership ice when our sense of value rises and falls on the weekly attendance sheet. We put our character at risk when we feel or act superior to our pastoral peers because more people stroll through our doors than theirs. God forgive us for such blatant and arrogant sin.
Numbers become dangerous when we treat attendance as the primary indicator of progress instead of only one of many indicators. Attendance doesn’t capture the full picture of organizational health. Announce free pizza for next Sunday’s service, and you’ll have a big crowd—but it doesn’t mean you’re healthy.
We’re not promoting the goofy idea of growth being meaningless. Healthy things grow. Pastors who loudly insist: “Growth doesn’t matter” tend to be leading non-growing churches. Here’s what we are promoting: God sent you to your current post to be found in Him . . . for them. (Pause here and ponder the previous statement.) God didn’t send you to be found in them . . . for Him. Remember your true identity isn’t what you do for a living—it’s Who you belong to—Father God.
How do we put people in their proper place? By reminding ourselves every day they belong to God, not us. By understanding our relationship with Father God is our identity and source of value instead of our ministry. By believing He doesn’t love us more when our church grows, or less when it doesn’t. Ephesians 1:5 states: “In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His will and pleasure.” Paul links our identity to adoption as sons into Father God’s family.
We put churchgoers in their proper place when we discover our true self is found in Him, not in our calling. We’re not pastors first who happen to love God. We’re lovers of God first who happen to pastor. Grabbing on to our real identity will keep us whole, and keep our congregation properly positioned in our head.
Before you move on to chapter five, tell yourself out loud: “God’s people are His people, not mine.” Perhaps rehearsing those words every morning would benefit you.
But understand: It’s one thing to put God’s people in their proper place intellectually. It’s an important milestone to think this way—but your work is not finished. You must learn how to lead accordingly.
The rubber meets the road when people arrive at your church’s doorstep. The next chapter outlines how to behave toward people when they first show up. Before you jump into chapter five, take a moment to reflect on the questions below.
Questions to consider:
- What are a few practical ways you can put God’s people in their proper place?
- What measurements are you using today to determine the health of your church?
- Which measurements do you need to add? Subtract?
[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” text_align=”left”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” centered_text=”true” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/1″ column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][divider line_type=”Full Width Line” line_thickness=”1″ divider_color=”accent-color” animate=”yes” custom_height=”60″][nectar_btn size=”large” button_style=”regular” button_color_2=”Accent-Color” icon_family=”fontawesome” url=”https://convergecoach.com/product/putting-the-good-in-goodbye-paperback/” text=”Pre-Order Today!” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-shopping-cart”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]