Success as a Pastor
Eugene Cho wrote an excellent article on defining success as a pastor. It is a tough tension to live in. Here are the questions he asks himself.
Relationships
- How is my relationship with the Triune God?
- How is my relationships with my wife and children? I can’t fake this. My relationship with my wife impacts so much.
- How is my relationship with my staff? I need to invest in my staff so that they in turn, can invest in others.
- How is my relationship with my church?
- How is my relationship with my neighbors and my larger city?
My three main responsibilities as a pastor:
- Teach well. Am I teaching and preaching Christ crucified? Am I preaching the whole Scripture and Gospel with clarity, conviction, and boldness? Am I directing people to the gospel?
- Lead well. Am I leading the church and our community towards our holistic vision of soul, community, justice and compassion, and global presence. Am I leading people to the gospel so that they are living out the gospel? Am I leading with transparency? Am I leading with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
- Care well. Am I caring for people? People vs Programs. Am I praying for people? Am I caring for the sick? Am I accessible? Am I reaching out to people?
And on a regular basis, I also ask myself these three questions during my heart-check walks:
- Who are you?
- Who do you serve?
- Where are you going?
(read the full article here)
(thanks Jesse for directing this to my attention)
My Resume
I'd just like to take this opportunity to direct y'all to my resume page.
It's right here: http://www.adamlehman.us/?page_id=1693
Thank you. That is all.
What I am reading.
Just off the top of my head, here are books that I'm either currently or planning on reading.
- Primal Teen by Barbara Strauch
- Linchpin by Seth Godin
- The Words of Jesus by Phyllis Tickle
- The Historical Figure of Jesus by E.P. Sanders
- The Books of the Bible
- The Alchemist by Paul Coelho
What about you? What are you reading? What do you WISH you were reading?
I can tell if you’re like Jesus
Jesus told his followers that he came to bring full, abudnant, overflowing life. He didn't bring death, legalism, rules, burden, or tyranny.
He brought life, light, hope, heaven, peace, harmony, unity, and love
He said that people would be able to tell his followers apart from others simply by their love. They'd be categorized by love.
They'd be marked by love.
You know how you can tell if a person is goth from about a mile away...
well the same goes for Jesus-types of people.
It's real obvious. There isn't a debate about whether or not they "know" Jesus. Or have "Jesus in their Heart." or have a "relationship with Jesus."
So many times we try to relegate the core issue to something other than what Jesus said it would be.
It's much, much easier to say salvation comes from a prayer, or a doctrine, or sacraments, or singing the right songs or being republican or listening to a certain pastor's podcasts.
It's not about that. It's about love. If you're not marked by love, Jesus says you're not his disciple.
That's a tough lesson. I'm typing this up, and I'm not sure I measure up to that.
Communicating the Obvious
After watching a seminar put on by Tim at SYMC, I realized a couple of things.
I get social media and texting and twitter and blogging and Facebook and emailing pretty well. I do this stuff naturally. Sending a mass text message to students isn't a strategy, it's a habit. It's .... like .... duh.
Ok, but is it like that for everyone? Is it like that for parents of students in my ministry? Is it like that for other volunteers in my ministry?
Probalbly not.
Some people need to work really hard to pull off something that comes naturally to me.
I have to work hard to pull off something that might come naturally to others.
The point is this: we've got to communicate the obvious things. The things that are second nature to us need to be taught to others.
Who To Listen To Regarding Ministry
There are lots of voices to which you must listen. Listening to the various voices existing in your ministry is critical to being a leader.
If you're a youth pastor, here is who you've got to listen to:
- your own spouse
- your own kids
- parents
- teenagers
- pastor
- elders
- other church employees
- youth ministry gurus
- other churches
- books
- others inside of your church
- those outside the church
Get the point? There are TONS of voices that will fill your ears as you're working in ministry.
Notice any voices missing from the list?
God. Jesus. Holy Spirit. Scripture.
Sometimes we have a hard time hearing God's voice. I think it's because we don't know God's voice.
We haven't been conversing enough.
Jesus said that His sheep recognize His voice. As those empowered by a congregation to lead and make decisions, we ought to be so dead-set on recognizing God's voice and God's movements that the gigantic list of voices seems to fade away.
YOU shouldn’t be where HE is…
Reading a lot of books can be hard. I've learned about great men who've had great ideas. And I want to be a great man and have great ideas NOW.
The thing is, the men I've read about and the ideas they've shared are both results of a slow, painful process called "life."
I want to talk about business like Seth Godin, have the public speaking skills of Rob Bell, the financial prowess of Dave Ramsey, the passion of Francis Chan, the church planting strategy of Neil Cole, and sell stuff like Jeffrey Gitomer.
But all of those guys took time, experience, mistakes, luck and touch decisions to get where they are.
SO I shouldn't be there yet.
I can work,
but I've GOT to be OK with the story God's got for me.
15 minutes
My father is a Campus Life director at 2 middle schools in northeast Indiana. When I was 16, he and my mom decided to sell the family business (a farm) so he could start working with teenagers full-time.
It's pretty incredible to watch your family make that kind of sacrifice and follow God's promptings in dramatic fashion. I - and my siblings - have been crazy blessed to have witnessed faith like that first hand.
Anyways, part of my dad's life includes raising support. He sends out monthly newsletters to keep those who support him - with prayers or money. In his most recent newsletter, he wrote a story that - in my opinion - completely captures the goal of youth ministry.
I share this story - like most things I've done in my life - without his permission and with full knowledge that he - out of humility - would ask that I not go on about him like this.
Just imagine the fun of a three day trip to northern Michigan with 225 middle school students! we had an amazing camp to stay at with a tubing hill, gym, rock wall, and game room. Add to that two days on teh slopes. Most people would think this would be complete chaos, and at times it may be, but if you watch closely, you can see the Lord's amazing hand at work. This is one such time on the second night after our gospel presentation.
"Hey Eric I GOT to talk to you!" yelled Kyle - an excited 6th grader - after after a full day of skiing, supper, nightly meeting and team time. I had just left my team time with the eithgth grade boys and was running to the gym when I heard his voice behind me. I was running because most of the 225 middle school studnts were all ready in teh gym waiting for the dodge ball, basketball, ping pong, and pool tournaments to start and I had the brackets to start them with me. Knowing I needed to hurry along, I hesitantly turned and asked what it was that he needed. He exclaimed, "Eric, I asked Jesus into my life tonight! I don't have a Bible and I don't know what to do now. My team time leader said I should talk to you."
All of the sudden, the 224 kids in the gym (99 sheep in the fold) seemed to vanish from my mind as I focused on this one (the 1 lost sheep).
I took Kyle into the dining hall as it was the nearest building. He told me that he prayed for forgiveness of his sins and to receive Jesus into his heart with our speaker that evening. I told him this is the begginning, the first step in a livelong adventure in trusting God. I told him about going to church and that most of all, I was so happy to be his new brother in Christ. I prayed with him and said, "Come on brother, let's go play basketball!"
I'm thankful that I cannot run fast or I may have missed this divine appointment. Also, not one student in the gym complained because the tournaments started 15 minutes late.
Just a glimpse of the opportunity we as staff get to see firsthand. Watching God stir in these young chaotic lives is an awesome sight. Thank you so much for all you do that allows this to continue to take place.
Sun Stand Still
In Joshua 10, Josh prays, "Sun, stand still...."
2 sentences later we learn that "the sun stopped in the middle of the sky.
Joshua asked God to stop the earth from rotating and - for whatever reason - God agreed.
I never pray for anything even close to stopping the sun. I've never prayed for God to interrupt the cosmos for something I was doing.
3 reasons we don't pray like this:
1.
The events that fill our time aren't important enough for us to consider asking God for crazy stuff. Think about it, Joshua was traveling the country with a massive army defeating every thing in his site in an effort to spread the fame of the Lord. His mission was life and death. His leadership would provide life or death for many others. Also, God's street cred was directly tied to Joshua's success. Joshua was all in. When you're totally invested, you're more likely to pray wacko prayers like these.
2.
In our world of reason and logic and plans and programs and strategies, we leave little room for God to stop the Sun. In fact, it'd totally throw off our plans if that happened.
3.
I think we have a hard time believing that God will do that stuff. Sometimes - for all practical purposes - we Christians might as well be agnostic. We live and pray and act and talk like God is real, but we also live and pray and act and talk like it's highly unlikely that God would intervene in our lives in God-sized ways.
the most lifeless hour of the week
I don't understand it,
but for SO SO SO many people, it seems to them that the 1 or 2 hours they're in a church building on Sundays is
the most lifeless hour
in
their
week.
What's wrong?
- Is it the people sitting in the seats?
- Is it that people sit?
- Is it the band?
- Is it the preaching?
- Is it the time of the week?
i ask for your thoughts on the subject...
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