A Special Call

I have a friend, Ron, who is pastor in Texas.  He has kind of a gravelly voice and I can still hear him telling me about a conversation in a new church that began in an unnerving way for him.  I think it was the way the man approached him and made eye contact.  But it ended up as a conversation of great blessing. 

The man said, “Pastor, do you know who I am?” 

Ron replied, “No.” 

“I am a man who will take a bullet for the pastor of this church.”

Now fast forward several years and I will give you a conversation as a pastor with a church member of my own.  Steve seemed very quiet to me.  Maybe he was shy or uncomfortable around church.  I couldn’t tell.  But the first words I remember hearing from Steve were, “I have a special call.  I am called to help pastors.  So whatever you need, please let me know.  Is there a way I can help you today?” 

I know that there are stories of pastors who are bulls-in-a-china-shop.  And they need love plus truth just like everyone else.  But there are also a lot of stories of pastors getting roundly criticized.  I, personally, remember an elder telling members, and doing so in front of me, "Never trust a pastor."  Well, you know how in a marriage you can sort of love yourself if you’ll love your partner deeply?  The same is true in a church.  I say, "If you love your church, love your pastor!" 

There is no pastor who’s perfect.  There’s no church member who’s perfect.  I like the small group curriculum where everyone begins by asking for forgiveness because in the course of doing real life together we’re going to offend one another.  Let’s admit the difficulties we all face in doing church together and move forward. 

Paul tells us to esteem and honor church leaders.  It is a tough job being out in front and viewed by many, many others who can be armchair quarterbacks.  So let’s watch gossip.  Let’s shovel on encouragement and prayers. 

Great Church Today

I just looked up there --  communion table set with the bread and cup, backpacks filled with tissues and pencils to be donated to kids all packed around the table's legs, the choir back from a summer break and three ladies set to lead in a special song, a butcher paper mural with the church's history ready to be drawn is furled across the front of the platform, and on it are tennis shoes filled with money to help buy school children new shoes.  Ohh, forgot to mention the 2 cents-a-meal offering for the poor and hungry.  And after we did church there in the sanctuary we were going to do church in the fellowship hall with pot-luck!  Kooky songs came with the dessert.  What a day!

An Easy Way to Give to Missions

I love to support missions.  A super easy way is to make your Amazon.com orders by going to that site by first coming here.  Amazon has a set-up where if you make a purchase on their site but got to it by going through someone else's site, they'll contribute a small percentage of the sale (2-3%) to that someone else's site.  The box on this page is dedicated to supporting missions, especially Compassion International (existing to release children from poverty in Jesus' name).  I hope you will set up a bookmark on your computer and phone so you can make your Amazon orders in a way that supports missions.  Tell your friends, too.

Which is Better?

Which is better -- Stop until I say, "Go," or Go until I say, "Stop"? 

Interestingly, negative directions can give more freedom.  So sessions and boards to pastors and directors, if these your staff are standing still waiting for your permission on an idea or instruction on what to do, good luck.  However, if you sessions and boards say to your pastors and directors, "All we ask is that you do nothing inconsistent with our purpose or immoral or illegal," you have said what not to do (the negative) and given them permission to "get going."  Life and ministry is open before you.  Be creative. 

Of course, pastors can say this to their boards or sessions.  It isn't just a one way street.  And pastors and boards or sessions can say this to members.  It's called permission giving by saying not what to do but by saying what not to do.  Go for it.

The Front of the Shoes

They say you never get another chance at a first impression.  So if you have only enough shoe polish to do either the fronts or the backs of your shoes, do the fronts.  And in any world, whether it is one meager or flush with resources, the front should be done first.  Always allocate first resources to places of central and maximal impact. 

If you are trying to sell a house, making the closets nice while leaving the grass in the front yard overgrown is just bad strategy.  Potential buyers will never get in the front door to see the nice closets if they close down on seeing the house at all because of the front yard.  Thus, realtors talk about curb appeal. 

Let's leave aside for a moment whether we allow God's house to look worse than our own and talk saying, "Hopefully not."  The Saturday morning men's breakfast in fellowship hall, as great as that may be and I certainly love the ones I go to, is auxillary in the life of a congregation.  The main event, the last thing that will remain standing in a church is the worship service.  So being concerned about the "closet" of a men's breakfast in the fellowship hall is very secondary to the front yard and curb appeal of the worship service in the sanctuary. 

How is the worship service?  Vital?  How is the worship space?  Beautiful?  This is the event and the place where most of the attenders come most of the time.  A men's breakfast in a fellowship hall may get fifteen people once a month.  Compare that to the worship -- 100+ people every week.  The point is that worship time and space impacts the most people the most regularly.  Therefore, resources should be applied there first.  Imaginative resources.  Elbow grease resources.  Financial resources. 

Now you could have the order of the worship service be stellar and the sanctuary be pristene and still have missed out on making the worship event and place as full as it could be.  We cannot overlook hospitality resources.  I cannot be "up" all the time.  I have to let my hair down sometime, someplace.  But Sunday morning worship is not that time or place.  I don't want inauthenticity.  But we all can choose our attitudes to a large extent.  Sunday morning every Christ follower's wonderful goal is to be truly hospitable person, to dole out encouragement, to smile, to thank, .... 

I have often been blessed by the guy who said to his staff member with respect to his bad attitude, "Listen, I am paying you and I can get bad attitudes for free."  Or let's say you are a policeman.  You put on the uniform.  Do you get to, while you are in the uniform, have any ol' attitude or mode of conduct you want?  I should say not.  That person lifts his whole self into a professional role.  And we who profess Christ, let's lift ourselves into a high road and high encouragement and high hospitality role for this heartbeat event for any and all churches -- the worship time and space. 

Brass Tacks

Dwindling numbers, especially when the people are aging, means dwindling resources in terms of money and energy.  At some point we get upside down and are unable to maintain the facilities or sustain programs.  We have to get more out of the number who come or we have to get more who come.  Or both.  Whatever increases our numbers maximally without increasing our expenses must be our key focus. 

Our central offering is Sunday worship.  Beyond this major weekly event we offer but a few small programs.  Our worship is quite good and the few small programs are meaningful to those who participate.  What we do have must be looked at with inviting very consciously in mind.  Anything new we attempt, either on a one time basis or a regular basis, must have the aim of increasing people who fondly affiliate with Cocoa Pres.  If it doesn't serve that purpose, don't do it and use the energy instead for something that does.  If it serves that purpose, then the engineering for the program or event must include from start to finish means of connecting with new acquaintances and following up with them.  Having, for example, a blessing of the animals service where we get new people here but do not  think through how to get their names, emails, and addresses means we lose a significant amount of the potential in that event.

So two questions – does it increase new faces here?  is it very cheap or costs nothing?  If the answer is yes, do it.  If the answer to either is no, don’t do it.   Use the energy instead for something for which the two questions get yes answers. 

Back from Vacation

I had a great time out in Texas seeing family and friends.  But it's time to get back to posting blogs! 

Last night we began VBS.  We are partnering with Celebration Tabernacle.  Since this joint effort began I have had some "wonderings."  I remember a pastor who spoke to his people about training them for a world movement.  They were in training to impact the world.  I thought, "Wow, that's cool."  On the other hand, it is hard for me genuinely speak that way.  But what I can get my arms around genuinely is speaking about impact in our local area.  That's where Celebration Tabernacle comes in. 

Cocoa Pres is at one end of Dixon and Celebration Tab is at the other end.  We are next to Walgreens and a retirement center.  They are next to 5 Hot Dogs for $5 and the future home of Brevard's Boys/Girls Club.  We are aging and white mostly.  They are younger and multi-cultural mostly.  We have been here a long time and have experienced decline.  They are relatively new and have experienced growth.

I look at us on our end and them on their end and all this around us that is our community where God has put us and I think, "Transcontinental Railroad!"  Remember?  The track was laid from west to east and also from east to west meeting up in Promontory, UT.  What if we two churches said that we were going to bring spiritual life to this street, to bring betterment of life to this street?  What if we said, "Let's dream together, resource each other, and do it"?  What does that look like 3 years from now?  So what do we tackle this year? 

Just "wonderings."