Monday, June 10, 2013

Renewal and Rose-Colored Glasses


I'm starting to dislike the term "renewal" in the church. It seems like we've been renewing every single generation since time began. I was reading some of our church history info from the early 1900s, and they were looking to have a renewal of Spirit like they had before in the 1860s. It always implies that it was better before than it is now.
I just don't buy that. It was DIFFERENT before. But even then, the good old days were often times of "revival," meaning they were dead and needed brought back to life.
No matter what we do, we'll never make people who remember the good ol' days think we've "made it." It will never feel as perfect now as we think it felt then. The term "renewal" is becoming one that to me precedes feelings of inadequacy. No matter the new successes and new followers of Christ. In the church world, hindsight isn't 20/20. Instead, it wears rose-colored glasses.
Every generation believes theirs is the one going down the tubes and the previous ones were the last to really "get it."
What if we stopped "renewing," and started believing that we have the devil on the run? What if we went on the offensive instead of believing we have to find a way to hold together the tattered strips of our denomination? What if the previous generation of believers wasn't seen as an unattainable goal but instead as a mountain to build upon?



Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Glass Houses

One of the unique things about being a pastor is that there are some people who are rooting for you to fail. Some people have been hurt by religion, religious people, or ideologies. Whenever there is a public moral failing in a church, they flood the airways, commentaries, and message boards with words of condemnation. They shout about our hypocrisy. They mock our supposed morality. They jeer at a supposed loving and all-powerful god who allows these people to represent Him.

Unfortunately, too often, they're right. Instead of turning people back to Jesus and His church, we're creating more de-churched people. I find myself constantly cringing at the religious leaders and pastors who stumble their way onto TV as a real-life straw man to be knocked over for the entertainment of the disillusioned masses. I mourn that clergy sex abuse allegations have become commonplace front page stories. I wish the bad ones among us would either quit and find a different job or at least keep their mouths shut.

I'm looking at you, Westboro.

The worst part is, none of us in my chosen profession are immune to becoming the next headline. We all have the capacity to do something tragic. You can bust your tail for decades doing the good work of the church, and in one fell swoop, destroy it all. You can have your whole life and ministry ahead of you, put yourself in a bad place, and ruin your future. And for many, there's nothing that pleases them more than when that happens.

We live in glass houses surrounded by stones many are itching to throw.

I can't pretend to have any answers to the problem, because I can't count myself as immune. Maybe it's when you think you're immune that you become most vulnerable. I have seen too many friends and colleagues drop out of ministry, accused of wrongdoing, broken, damaged, embarrassed, and destroyed.

No one is going to start taking it easy on us. We have to figure this out.

All I know is what has worked for me. This is what has sustained me thus far.

1) Stay in communion with God. Pray, always. Read your Bible. Worship. When I get away from these things, I find myself getting vulnerable.

2) Surround yourself with good people. Never be the top of the totem pole. You need mentors. Have people watching over you. Make others responsible for keeping you accountable.

3) Rest. The greatest disease facing clergy is workaholism. Stop it. The more worn out and stressed you are, the greater your capacity to make a terrible decision.

4) Remember the devil plays chess. He is always thinking two and three steps ahead on how to get you. When we fail to realize this, that's when we wind up in terrible places, not sure how we got there. Block his moves before they have the chance to get dangerous.

5) If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Failings many times don't start as something major, but they become major when we try to cover them up. You're human, you messed up. Deal with it.

6) Watch out for one another. It's pretty easy to feel like you're on an island fighting this battle yourself. You aren't. We need one another. Call your pastor friend and ask how they are doing. Get together for coffee. Refresh each other.

We live in glass houses. And it's hard. But Jesus gave you the keys to that house for a reason. He doesn't expect people to always look in and see perfection, but he does hope that they see faithfulness, grace, and love.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Unlimited Resources

I have worked in churches of all shapes, sizes, and locations. I've done the small country church thing and the big suburban church thing. When I was at the smaller, country church, one of my feelings about  the large suburban churches that I was frankly jealous of was their seemingly unlimited resources. They could afford to do cool computer graphic stuff and videos and all sorts of things that didn't even seem like a possibility for me.

It wasn't until I got to the big suburban church that I learned the true dirty secret of where their unlimited resources came from: the internet. Yup, the same internet that I had at my small, country church was the rich well of computer graphics, videos, and set designs that had seemed so far out of reach to me before. The only difference was that these people knew how to find what they needed on the internet and make it work for their church.

Today, let me give you 4 secrets to mining the vast wealth of internet resources for your church, no matter what your size.

1. Stop reinventing the wheel. For the last 2000ish years, pastors have been preaching sermons. You might think you are coming up with a brand new slant to something from the Bible. You probably aren't. (If you are, you might want to check and make sure it's from the Bible.) Chances are, someone has already done what you are about to do. Google it! Maybe your seminary professors told you that was wrong and you should only do totally original stuff for your sermons and series. But even your original stuff probably isn't original. It's made up of stuff you learned from others and pieced together. I believe the Holy Spirit can inspire you through a Google search. You don't have to take what someone else said or did word for word, and you probably shouldn't, but there are a vast number of resources out there, and to me, it's a waste of your God-given time and energy to recreate something that's already been created.

2. Ask for stuff. One of the greatest lessons I learned working for a larger church that did make some of our own graphics and videos now and then is that these churches are usually incredibly willing to just give their stuff away for free. They created something great, they're done with it now, and they would love to see it still be put to use. If you find that a church did a series that you're going to do, give them a call and see if they have any resources that they would be willing to share. 9 times out of 10, they'll just give you the stuff they have. You just have to call them.

3. Collaborate. If you are reading this, you have access to the internet, meaning you also have access to the other people on the internet. You know, people doing the same stuff you are. Right now I'm collaborating with two other pastors on a Lenten series. We're sharing resources through dropbox. Maybe your church is in the middle of nowhere. If you've got the internet, then you have means to collaborate with other churches. You don't have to do this alone.

4.  Share your stuff. When you do come up with something original, share it with others. Add to the beautiful treasure trove that is online sermon material. It's good to be proud and protective of your own intellectual property, but there is also something wonderful about helping reach others beyond your own church with the stuff you have come up with.

What do you think? Do you share and make use of resources from other churches that you find online?

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Facebook Advertising for Churches

If you don't work at a church, this post probably will not be of any interest to you. I don't want you to feel like you wasted your time clicking this link, so here's a picture of my daughter in a rainbow afro.


Ok, now for you people who work in a church. For crying out loud, use Facebook advertising.

Can you tell when I ran my two ads?

The easiest way to advertise on Facebook is to promote a post. After you post something, click the "promote" link under your post. There are a couple of quick links to be able to promote your post for $5 or $10. It just causes your post to show up more often on relevant news feeds of your friends or friends of friends. The great thing is you only pay when the ad shows up on someone's page or they click on it, and when you reach your set limit dollar amount, the ad stops. Basically, you pay when it works.

You can play around with your ads and get even more targeted. Maybe you only want to contact people who haven't already liked your church's Facebook page but live within a ten mile radius of the church. Maybe you want to target just men or women, or maybe just people who mention "church" in their "about" section of their Facebook page. You can really target it in so that you are reaching the people you want with the info you want.

Play around with it, check it out, and see if it works for you. For me, it's been really efficient and pretty simple to figure out. And, it's way cheaper than putting ads in the paper constantly and not knowing if anyone is actually reading them. Facebook gives you the statistics to see whether or not it's working.


Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Haters Gonna Hate

This meme started a while back. The first instance of the phrase I could find was in 2000 from a 3LW song called "Playas Gon' Play." I'm sure that's in your iPod.

Since then, and with the addition of the above drawing in 2003, the phrase has taken on a life of it's own.

Haters gonna hate.

For those of you not as well versed in the hip-hop vernacular as I am, let me break it down for you. A "hater" is someone who simply cannot be happy for the success of another. They are likely jealous. And the phrase "haters gonna hate" refers to the attitude those who are successful must have, in spite of those who are against them. Frequently, musicians, celebrities, and athletes will use this phrase to describe their demeanor towards the anti-fans who ridicule them.

But then something unfortunate happened.

Everyone started thinking that as soon as someone criticized them, the critic must be a "hater."

How dare they question me! They're just jealous. I don't need them telling me how to live my life. I'm right, they're wrong. I'm going to be me. I don't need to change for anyone. I'm good the way I am. Better than them, at least. I don't need their advice, criticism, or critique.

They're just haters.

Really? Are they?

The "haters gonna hate" attitude is going to kill us, people.

Look, I'll be the first to admit I have an ego. I'm proud of who I am and what I can accomplish. And frankly, I don't always welcome criticism.

But I sure need it. I need people around me who are willing to get in my face when I mess up. I need people who care enough about me to confront me when I need to change. I cannot and will not be successful without the counsel of people I know and trust.

Too often I have failed to take critique from people who really care about me and my success in all areas of life: work, family, relationships, spiritual life, etc. I have believed myself to be wiser than I am.

I'm getting better at it. In fact, I have found the value of asking others to tell me the things that are hard to hear. I have given permission to those I trust and whose opinions I value to speak difficult truth into my life.

Confession: it still stings. But at least I know now that they aren't "haters." In fact, they love me. They value me enough to try to build me into the person God created me to be.

Maybe you feel like you're surrounded by haters. Maybe you feel like everyone is against you.

Or maybe they really love you and are trying to break through your massive ego to help you become who God created you to be.