6 Things I've Learned About Being a Pastor

Yesterday marked my 6 year anniversary as a lead pastor. Over the course of those years I've been privileged to serve as the lead pastor of two churches. I have had a huge deal of fun along the way as well as many disappointments. So today I decided to list 6 things I've learned about being a pastor. So in no particular order here we go:

1) Being a lead pastor is hard. 

Yup. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. I never understood the level of stress on the lead pastor until I became one. Being a youth pastor didn't compare. Being a worship pastor didn't compare. Being a young adult leader didn't compare. It wasn't until I was the guy responsible for the whole ship that the weight of the call became its heaviest. 

As John Maxwell says, "If you're out front you're gonna get kicked in the rear." Well if you're the lead pastor you're gonna have a sore rear!

2) It won't happen as fast as you want it to. 

A few years ago I hear pastor Craig Groeschel say, "Most of us overestimate what God wants to do in the short run of our lives and underestimate what God wants to do in the long run." What a powerful statement! Ministry is a marathon and not a sprint. Those grandiose dreams you have for your church and ministry will take longer to accomplish than you think. Along the way God will have to break you and make you into the leader capable of handling the dream. Don't give up. Don't let discouragement stop you. Enjoy the journey more than the destination. 

3) The relationships you build are more important than the stuff you do. 

Here are two important truths every lead pastor needs to remember: Your life will be drained by ministry. Your life will be enriched by healthy relationships. 

If you spend more of your time "doing ministry" than you do building relationships with others eventually it will catch up with you and I promise you won't like what you see. Us lead pastors suffer from a disease called "drivin-itis." We live for results and often sacrifice relationships on the altar of results. I promise you that the people who are in your life matter more than you realize. Don't get me wrong, the stuff you do is valuable, you are building God's Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. That's important stuff! What we have to learn along the way is that there will always be more ministry opportunities than relational opportunities and in the end when we are at our best ministerially it is a direct correlation to being in healthy, life-giving relationships. 

Slow down. Make some friends. Spend time win people outside of your church. Don't talk about church all the time. Go to a ballgame with friends. Catch a movie with another couple. Laugh. Enjoy life with people who don't always want something from you. Relationships matter. 

This is so important y'all. As the lead pastor everyone wants something from you. It is impossible to function at the level God desires without taking time so unplug from the machine and reboot with others who can let you be you. Find a handful of friends (more than likely outside of your church) who will let you be you and not "pastor you." You'll thank me later. Your spouse will thank me now!

4) Don't be scared to lead. 

Early on in my time as a lead pastor I was scared to ask people to trust my leadership. I would often sit in leadership meetings and give easily-attainable ideas and goals because I didn't want to ruffle too many feathers. After all I needed buy-in from the people. During those early days God was gracious to us and in spite of my sometimes timid leadership our church grew. The problem was we were limited in our potential because I was too scared to lead fully from where I knew we needed to go. 

One evening after a meeting with our leadership team one of our elders came to me and said, "Pastor, we really need you to lead us." At first I was somewhat offended. I thought I was leading the church. Then he explained that the value I added to our team was in knowing what steps we needed to take to reach people for Christ and if I held back because I was scared they wouldn't like what we had to do then I was limiting our effectiveness. That night I realized that I was too scared to lead in a big way. Ever since that conversation I have tried (and prayed) to lead big and not be scared to ask people for a big commitment. 

Don't be scared to navigate the course of your church where God is calling you to go. Of course you need to take into account the ideas and thoughts of others on your team. Don't dismiss the concerns of those around you, but at the end of the day you have to make progress by taking risks and leading big. I promise you that along the course of your ministry people will leave because of a decision you make. Thats the nature of our business. It hurts and it happens. However there is another byproduct of leading big...new people will show up. Don't be scared to lead. 

This means being the final voice on decisions that will cost thousands of dollars. Lead big. That ,exams being the final voice on decisions that will upset long standing members of the congregation. Lead big (Don't be a jerk about it. Make every effort to meet with them and lovingly hear their concerns as you explain why you and the team feel God directing you to change). This means being the final voice on decisions that will change the direction of the church for years to come. Lead big. 

One more thing is important for me to mention here: the guy who challenged me to lead big was younger than me. I didn't ignore his words or get offended because I was older and had more experience Han him. I knew he had my best interest in mind and he was the voice of God that evening.

5) You're gonna hurt...a lot.

We live in a broken world. We work with broken people. We are broken people. The reality is that hurting people hurt people. The nature of our business is to help restore broken and hurting people. People will look to you in the most emotionally and psychologically charged times of their lives. No other profession requires you to be the strength of entire families from birth to death. You will visit the nursery of the hospital to rejoice over the newborn baby and you will visit that same hospital to cry with the family that just lost their newborn baby. You will marry people who have been high school sweethearts for years and you will help that same couple recover from a nasty divorce. You will be there at the gravesite offering hope to those who are saying goodbye to their loved ones. You will be in the stands on Friday night when their son takes the field. You will be there at the best of times and you will be there at the worst of times. 

That's just what we do. 

What happens when our faces are associated with so many dynamics of life-change is people can often connect us with pain and sorry just as quickly as they connect us with joy and hope. 

Another dynamic at play here is the reality that you will make some mistakes along the way. You're going to preach a message that's too harsh one day and people will be hurt by your words instead of helped by your words. You're going to make an unpopular leadership decision and people will leave the church. You're going to miss an event and people will be offended. You're going to miss a hospital visit and people will get mad with you. You're going to have someone on your team make a bad decision and you are going to be blamed for it. You are going to be accused of being lazy and only working 2 hours a week. You are going to be considered too theologically liberal or too conservative or to Pentecostal or not Pentecostal enough. You are going to be constantly criticized. Your sermons will be too long for some and too short for others. You will read too many bible verses for some and not enough for others. You will have some people who love you and some who despise you. You will hear about everything going wrong and rarely hear about things that you are doing right. Your family will be under an unhealthy and unrealistic microscope. As the lead pastor you (and many times your family) are going to hurt. 

People will praise your church as "the church they've always wanted to be a part of" and then months later leave because you "aren't meeting their needs" and they're "just not getting fed." Someone will challenge your authority and persuade others to lose confidence in you. Others will tell you everywhere your sermon wasn't perfect. Some will chose to leave and start their own church and will take others with them. Some will hold you responsible for mistakes other pastors have made. Some will constantly tear down your church and your character publicly. 

As the lead pastor you are going to hurt a lot. 

It has taken me a long time to understand this truth. I pray that you don't get disillusioned by the pain. Don't give up on the dream God has placed inside of you. Let God turn your pain into fuel for your destiny. In the book Good to Great in God's Eyes Chip Ingram says, "Every great dream will be taken to the Cross." When you are experiencing pain chances are God is taking you by the Cross. Before God can get the new wine of His Spirit in your life and ministry he has to crush the grapes of your life and ministry. Learn to navigate pain with the help of God, good friends, and great balance of work and pleasure. The pain will produce a great promise. 

6) It's ALL Worth it. 

Pastor Ferrell Hardison of The Bridge Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina says, "We pastors are crazy people. We're the only people who are ready to change careers on Monday and then on Saturday night can't wait to go do it again!" He's right you know. We have been bitten by the big of God and we can't get away from the joy of serving Him and helping people. We have seen God use us to make others' lives better and we just can't give it up. 

In ministry the highs are higher than anything else and the lows are lower, but in the end it's ALL worth it. If you've been struggling with the lows of ministry life remember God has called you and He will fulfill you. Your life and your ministry matters. I know that I am grateful for you. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. You are making more of a difference than you realize. Try to take your mind off the issues and look at everything that you are doing right. One of my mentors, pastor Brett Cooper always says, "You can quit, but you've got to start over again tomorrow!" Don't give up. Your life matters and in the end it's ALL worth it. 

Mission Critical: Why the Mission of the Church is More Important Now Than Ever Before

            Recently I have been catching myself repeating one of my favorite catchy one-liners in a lot of conversations. For those of you that know me you know that I tend to enjoy a classic one-liner. They’re simple, portable truths that can stick with you after the meal is done.

            Plus they make me feel smarter than I really am which is a huge plus!

            Back to the story, I have been saying over and over again this statement: This is proof that our mission is more important than ever. That has been my tagline to a myriad of separate issues.

Someone is having marriage problems? This is proof that our mission is more important than ever. Someone else is wrestling with identity issues? This is proof that our mission is more important than ever. Someone just got a negative health scan from a doctor? This is proof that our mission is more important than ever.

You get the picture?

Honestly I haven’t been trying to flippantly respond to any particular crisis. I have simply been reminded that our mission – Pointing people to the love of God through personal relationship with Jesus Christ – is more important now than ever. It is that life-giving relationship with Christ that will ultimately sustain. Jesus came to bring healing and freedom and my job isn’t to try and overcome your issue my job is to point you to the One who already overcame.

Again, this is proof that our mission is more important than ever.

People need the love and mercy of God. Every day we encounter countless men and women who are struggling with self-worth. We are constantly bombarded with images that tell us that we aren’t good enough if we don’t live in a certain type of home or drive a certain type of vehicle. Media outlets remind us that value and worth is tied to what we own so we constantly chase our tails in an endless struggle to obtain more stuff only to find out that in the end the stuff owns us and we don’t own it.

People are committing suicide at earlier ages now than ever in history. Marriages are struggling and falling apart. Young girls are looking for love and beauty and willing to pay anything to anyone who shows her a little attention. Teenage pregnancies are on the rise. Sexting runs rampant even in children as young as middle school. We glorify films and music that objectify women and glorify sex in any way, shape, or form. We live in a generation that wasn’t satisfied with the twerk and therefore created the wall-twerk.

This is proof that our mission is more important than ever.

People need to know that there is a God who loves them and validates who they are as people apart from anything they could do to earn his acceptance. This world needs to hear that there is someone greater than they that desperately desires to be connected to them in a meaningful way not in an abusive way. Our mission – The Mission – matters and people need to be forever made whole because we rise up and get on mission.

This is proof that our mission is more important than ever.

I’m not trying to be preachy here. I’m just struck with the reality that if we don’t get fired up about our mission then we will never meet the needs of humanity that is lying – even dying – at our doorsteps. I’ve found that in the church world we would rather sing about it, talk about it, preach about it, small group about it, blog about it (myself included) than be about it. We like to do the above because it satisfies our guilt for not doing it while never actually holding our proverbial feet to the fire pushing us out of our comfort zone and actually doing what Jesus told us to do.

And in regards to our theoretical Christianity – this is proof that our mission is more important than ever. The mission has to work on us before it will work in us. If we aren’t compelled by The Mission then we need to reevaluate whether or not we have been touching The Mission. Don’t let a counterfeit mission give you empty calories focus on The Mission and leave with a full belly.

3 quick suggestions:

1.   Engage in mission everyday. That’s right. Everyday. It can be as simple as saying, “Jesus love you” or as challenging as crossing a jungle-river to share the Gospel with a local tribe of people in a remote corner of the third world. The size of the external is no indication of the size of the internal. What matters is that we are actively seeking ways to engage in mission everyday.

2.    Do Mission Together. That has actually become a rallying cry at our church. We plant the flag of mission in nearly everything we do. From Sunday morning services to small groups we are all about doing mission together. Three words: Do – Implying that we have to be active. Mission – The reason we are all here. Together – No more “Lone Ranger” stuff. We are doing this thing as a team. Jesus taught and modeled that mission is at its most successful when others are involved. He could have completed his mission alone, but he chose to take along 12 guys in a close-knit family. Let’s take a page out of Jesus’ playbook and do mission together.

3.    Pray missionally. God’s greatest desire is for his lost children to come home. We will never have more of God’s power than when we are seeking to engage in God’s mission. Peyton Jones, author of Church Zero, recently said, “Everywhere you see the power of God in the book of Acts it is in reference to people living on mission.” The truth is that when we pray missionally God begins to pour out his power in ways that we will never fully experience in other ways. Praying for God to open doors for the Gospel yield powerful times of God opening doors for the Gospel. He wants to get his message out and he wants you to be a chief brand manager. Begin to ask him to open doors for the Gospel in your life and then be ready to walk through those doors when he does!

Those are three simple suggestions to become more mission-oriented in life. There are many other suggestions and principles that many can add to this list. The important thing is that we are doing something to fully engage in the mission of God by serving those far from God and serving those close to God. To quote Nike, “Just Do It!”