Why did 80-plus men and women—including 14 senior pastors, four associate pastors, and more than 60 other church leaders—brave snow and ice to converge on Navigator headquarters on Friday, February 24? Some driving more than four hours to be there?

Dr. Neil Hudson challenges a room full of pastors and church leaders to equip their members for their scattered life outside the church.

They came because they wanted to learn how to empower Christ-followers in their churches to see their lives as meaningful and live as fruitful whole-life disciples on their daily frontlines in the world, wherever they find themselves.

Neil Hudson, author of Imagine Church: Releasing Dynamic Everyday Disciples, presented a six-hour workshop teaching and motivating these church leaders for a different perspective on church. Neil emphasized that church is not primarily a gathering place but a training and sending place. One of Neil’s key concepts was phrased in the form of a question: “How are you using the (at most) 10 weekly hours that your members spend in organized church activities to prepare them for the 110 waking hours weekly that they are living their lives in the world?” (Neil’s book, Imagine Church, is available on Amazon.)

At least one participant is already thinking about changing the language used in his church: “We need to talk with people not about, ‘How can we use you in our church?’ but, ‘How can we help in your life, your 110?’ ” Another participant said the main takeaway was that the appeal of the church ought to be that “we’re inspiring people about living missional lives right where they are.”

We weren’t just “preaching to the choir.” We were sowing new seed among people who want to be engaged in more meaningful ways and just don’t know how. One lay church leader came to me during the day and said, “I’m so glad you invited me . . . . This is all new to me.” Another participant said, “This wasn’t about motivating people to take on more church activities. Therefore, this is a more sustainable approach to ministry.”

Several participants were moved by the diagram Neil showed them about being scattered into the world. The first grouping reflects a more traditional way of defining church: We are “red dots” who pull away to be together once a week. A better way, the missional way, is to see ourselves as the church scattered out in the world—what we in NCM often define as “where we live, work, and play.” One participant commented, “I need to make sure I ‘stay red’ when I’m out in the world.”

Diagram courtesy LICC (www.LICC.org.uk)

One of the senior pastors who has already begun to implement some of the Imagine Church concepts said to Neil, “I think you should change the name of your book. It should be called ‘Reality Church.’ My church is the ‘imaginary church.’ ”

“Imaginary” is not where “Imagine Church” comes from, but I like this pastor’s heart and desire to change his church culture. We in NCM in the Rocky Mountain Region will follow up with these pastors, most of whom we invited directly, to help them implement the concepts of whole-life discipleship as Neil, as well as The Navigators, defines a disciple: “learning to live like Jesus in your context at this moment.”

One of our guests wrote: “It was a really, really great day! Time very well spent and very inspiring!”

Don Pape, publisher at NavPress met with Neil on Thursday and attended part of the workshop, said it well: “Neil is onto something and Navigator Church Ministries could instigate a revolution.” May it be so.

I just listened to a recording of a well-presented sermon from a denominational leader making the case that women should be ordained. His argument was based on the many examples of women actively teaching, preaching, or prophesying. For example:
– Philip’s four daughters (Acts 21)
– Priscilla and Aquilla (Acts 18)
– The woman at the well (John 4)
– Mary Magdalene after the resurrection (Matthew 28, Luke 24, John 20)

I won’t comment on this approach because I think it’s the wrong issue. If the question is, “Should women be in ministry?” the answer is a resounding yes, of course. So should men, and old people, and young people, and people of all nationalities, races, and ethnicities. Note that in Acts 2.3, 4, the Holy Spirit came upon “each one of them.” In Acts 4.31, “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God with boldness.” (See my blog from January 2015.)

Churches give far too much attention to ordaining people as pastors and missionaries (church-paid workers) and far too little attention (almost always no attention) to ordaining people for their ministry in everyday life.

As one person said, “I spend an hour a week teaching Sunday school and they haul me up to the front of the church to pray for me. The rest of the week I’m a full-time teacher and the church has never prayed for me. That says it all.”

This glaring omission is well-articulated by Mark Greene (whose pamphlet The Great Divide contains the above quote) and Neil Hudson of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. I strongly recommend Neil’s book Imagine Church, available on Kindle and in paperback from The Vere Institute. Mark Greene’s The Great Divide is also available from The Vere Institute. My book, Join the Adventure! has suggestions to get you started. Click on the Join the Adventure tab above.

I received the most marvelous testimony of the power of God’s word from a pastor friend of mine, Dr. Mark Johnson. On January 8, he wrote to his Baltimore congregation:

Dear Friends,

Pastor Mark

Here’s the rest of the story from my perspective, and I share it with his permission. Fast forward 20 or 30 years, and I taught a simple method for time with God to Pastor Mark and his staff at a church in Colorado Springs. At our next meeting, Mark said, “I was really excited to practice what we had learned, so I got up the next morning and sat down to read Romans with my Bible, journal, commentary, and Greek New Testament. After a couple days of this I realized that’s not what Bob asked us to do. So I put away my Greek New Testament and my commentary and worked through the process: read, reflect, respond, record. And I said to myself, ‘This is insanely simple.’”

It appears that Mark’s seminary tools had temporarily distracted him from the simplicity of taking in the God-breathed Word that he had been so excited about.

Keep it simple, folks. God wants to speak to us. And thank you, Mark, for the stunning reminder of the power of the Word. Your congregation is blessed.

PS Clicking on the method link gets you the short version of a simple method. Or, click on the Join the Adventure tab at the top of this page and order my book! I discuss time with God in detail in the middle section.

I am coming to understand that true GRIT is the essence of disciple-making: the process of helping people follow Jesus.

GRIT is an acronym. Effective disciple-making must be:

Generational
Relational
Intentional
Transformational

Jesus’ strategy with the disciples was Relational. “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4.19) “[Jesus] appointed twelve that they might be with him…” (Mark 3.13)

Jesus also was Intentional and his goal was Transformational. “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

And of course, making the disciples fishers of men was a Generational strategy. The generational piece is critical. We must teach in such a way that people can pass it on. That’s what Paul wrote to Timothy in his very last letter.

“The things you’ve heard from me commit to faithful men who shall teach others also.” (2 Timothy 2.2)

Consider Hebrews 7.23. The context is how Jesus is superior to the Old Testament priests, but here’s a simple (and, I think, slightly humorous) truth:

“There were many of those priests since death prevented them from continuing in office.”

That’s as good a reason as any to invest in the lives of others! Each of us is here for a limited time only.

GRIT helps us remember the characteristics and is itself a characteristic of the kind of effort required. Daniel Pink makes the following statement about “mastery” in his book Drive, and I think it applies well to relational disciple-making:

Mastery is a Pain. Mastery takes effort over a long period of time, is often not much fun, requires lots of mundane practice, and takes grit…The determination to work over a long period of time without seeing much short-term improvement is required. (Emphasis mine)

The problem is that we all want shortcuts. Jesus chose to work in depth with just 12 men. We want to do it faster. Can’t we just put 1,000 people in a room and lecture them for one hour a week? Can’t we just develop sure-fire materials that will get the job done? The short answer is, no, not any more than one can teach people to play the piano by taking them to concerts or giving them a book. It takes a teacher (R) who guides the student to the appropriate exercises (I) which, when practiced over time, result in skill (T). The teacher herself went through that same process (G).

Contrasting the big ineffective splash versus doing small things that really matter, Greg McKeown in Essentialism: The Deliberate Pursuit of Less writes:

Instead of trying to accomplish it all—and all at once…start small and celebrate progress. Instead of going for the big, flashy wins that don’t really matter, pursue small and simple wins in areas that are essential.

Paul has all the elements of GRIT in 2 Timothy 2.1, 2.

Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus (T). And the things you’ve heard from me among many witnesses (R), commit to faithful people (I) who will teach others also (G).

Labanizing is my word for putting off doing something that you know you need to do. It comes from the story of Abraham’s servant getting a bride for Isaac in Genesis 24. Please see the previous blog.

Another example of Labanizing occurs later in Israel’s history. The people who returned from Babylon to rebuild the temple weren’t getting it done. Then Haggai rolled in and assessed the situation:

In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest:
“Thus says the LORD of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the LORD.”
Then the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet,
“Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” (Haggai 1.1 – 4, ESV)

The people didn’t say that rebuilding the temple was a bad idea. It just wasn’t the right time. It didn’t have to be done now.

Of course they had been in country 15 – 20 years, but the time still wasn’t right apparently.

Haggai would have none of it. He told the leaders and the people:

This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says, … “Now go up into the hills, bring down timber, and rebuild my house. Then I will take pleasure in it and be honored, says the LORD.” (Haggai 1.7, 8, NLT)

“Now go up, bring down timber…” sounds hard. It will take intentional effort. They will have to stop other things they are doing. In chapter 2, as he affirms their initial efforts, Haggai challenges them to be strong and do the work.

Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the LORD. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the LORD. Work, for I am with you, declares the LORD of hosts. (Haggai 2.4)

And God blesses them for getting started (see Haggai 2.9).

Let’s make 2017 the year we quit Labanizing and get started! I have written a little book, Join the Adventure! A Practical Guide to Mission and Discipleship for Everyone. You can read about it and order it by clicking the Join the Adventure tab at the top of this page. One key idea is starting small—pushing over the ¼-inch domino that sets off a great chain reaction. And this blog is not meant to be a book promotion! There is enough information on the Join the Adventure tab to get you started whether you buy the book or not!

Let’s make our primary New Year’s Resolution: I will not Labanize!

You don’t know the word Labanize?! You probably don’t since I’m the one who invented it (as far as I know) a few years ago and haven’t published it except in an article in a church newspaper! What is Labanizing and why do I not want to do it? Please read on!

I write and speak frequently about the benefits of various spiritual disciplines such as daily time with God or the importance of being on mission, but often I encounter people who smile and nod but don’t ever get started. Many of us are like Laban in Genesis 24.

Genesis 24 contains the beautiful story of Abraham’s (unnamed) servant who undertakes a long and treacherous journey to find a wife for Abraham’s son, Isaac. It’s a story of faith, prayer, sovereignty of God, and guidance. After he encounters Rebekah, the wife-to-be, the servant tells Rebekah’s mother and Rebekah’s brother, Laban, the story of God’s leading. He concludes with:

I praised GOD, the God of my master Abraham who had led me straight to the door of my master’s family to get a wife for his son. (Genesis 24:48, MSG)

But the question is, will Rebekah’s family let her go? The servant needs to know:

“Now, tell me what you are going to do. If you plan to respond with a generous yes, tell me. But if not, tell me plainly so I can figure out what to do next.” (Genesis 24:49, MSG)

What is Laban’s response? Is he opposed to Rebekah’s returning with the servant to become a bride for Isaac? Apparently not:

Laban answered, “This is totally from GOD. We have no say in the matter, either yes or no. Rebekah is yours: Take her and go; let her be the wife of your master’s son, as GOD has made plain.” (Genesis 24:50 – 51, MSG)

So the servant prepared to do just that, but notice Laban’s reaction:

[The servant] and his men had supper and spent the night. But first thing in the morning they were up. He said, “Send me back to my master.”
[Laban] said, “Let the girl stay a while, say another ten days, and then go.” (Genesis 24:54 – 55, MSG)

Laban was all for Rebekah’s leaving as long as she didn’t have to leave now. “Why isn’t later all right? No need to rush into these things. There are preparations to be made, parties to give. We have to get used to the idea….”

It didn’t work on the servant.

He said, “Oh, don’t make me wait! GOD has worked everything out so well—send me off to my master.” (Genesis 24:56, MSG)

How about us? How often do we “Labanize”? We say, “I can see why daily time with God is a good thing, but I don’t have time right now. Maybe later.” “I know I should be involved in mission, but I really don’t have time either to do it or to learn how to do it.”

How many practices are we wildly enthusiastic about as long as we don’t have to do them now? (In addition to spiritual disciplines, diet and exercise come to mind!) How many good ideas for change do we endorse as long as they don’t have to be implemented now? What personal sacrifices are we willing to make—just not right now?

Let’s make 2017 the year we quit Labanizing and get started! I have written a little book, Join the Adventure! A Practical Guide to Mission and Discipleship for Everyone. You can read about it and order it by clicking the Join the Adventure tab at the top of this page. One key idea is starting small—pushing over the ¼-inch domino that sets off a great chain reaction. And this blog is not meant to be a book promotion! There is enough information on the Join the Adventure tab to get you started whether you buy the book or not!

I was really exercised about the last blog I wrote on pastor burnout and suggested there might be a follow-on article. I didn’t know it would take me 9 months to get to it! One of my goals for 2017 is to publish more blog articles. In the meantime, however, I have written a book! Click on Join the Adventure! at the top of this page for more information or go here to order directly from Amazon in paperback or Kindle.

I suggested in the previous article that perhaps one of the contributing factors to burnout is that pastors take on too much. They try to meet everyone’s expectations whether those expectations are biblical or not.

Then I discovered a provocative perspective on physician burnout that may apply to pastors as well.

Dr. Louis M. Profeta is an emergency physician practicing in Indianapolis. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book, The Patient in Room Nine Says He’s God. He wrote a marvelous article published October 22, 2016, on LinkedIn. When I wrote to him and told him it had some ideas I would want to use in a future book about work or in presentations about work, he gave me permission (as long as I attribute to him and send him a signed copy of the book!).

You can read Dr. Profeta’s whole article here.

Dr. Profeta told a conference of physicians and other medical providers that while what they did was important, rewarding, self-fulfilling, and made a vital contribution to society, in the end, “It’s just a job.” While that sounds demeaning of the medical profession, what he really did was elevate all professions. That’s the part I will use when I teach on work. He opens with this story:

“What do you do for a living,” the young man asked me.

“Pal, I can live a lifetime without medicine. I can only live a week without food.”

But my subject today is pastor burnout, and I wonder if this paragraph near the end of Dr. Profeta’s article applies equally to pastors as to medical professionals.

Listen, no matter how we like to hold up ourselves as the pillars of compassion, the keepers of the public well-being, we are just one profession out of countless others that keep our world moving. We are no more heroes than the social worker visiting homes in the projects, the farmer up at 4 to feed the cattle, the ironworker strapped to a beam on the 50th floor. We are no more a hero than the single mom working overnight as a custodian, trying to feed her kids. We are no more heroic than countless others who work in jobs they perhaps hate in order to care for and support the people they love.

Dr. Profeta says he’s been an ER physician for 25 years and no one in his large group has burned out because they all believe “It’s just a job.” Should pastors have such an attitude?

Some would say no. In my blog Focus with Pacing, published October 1, 2015, I quoted a pastor who said, “Fatigue is the price you pay for trying to change the world.” I believe everyone should be about changing the world, not just pastors. In fact, that’s the theme of my book, Join the Adventure! But burning ourselves out to do it is not biblical. The late well-known Bible teacher Howard (Howie) Hendricks used to talk about how pastors often declare, “I’d rather burn out than rust out!” Howie would respond: “Fine, but either way, you’re out!” Or, “The devil never takes a vacation!” To which Howie would say, “I didn’t know the devil was your role model!”

Pastors might be better served if they had the perspective another pastor friend of mine shared when thinking about “fatigue is the price you pay for trying to change the world.” He said, “We’re just ants in the colony.” I think that’s a paraphrase of, “It’s just a job.”

“Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.” (Luke 5.16) That is, he kept communion with his Father the main thing rather than his work. When the work in one place was just getting started, Jesus said, “Let’s go to the other villages as well because that’s why I was sent.” (Luke 4.42) He left people unhealed and other needs unmet because he didn’t try to meet them all. In fact, he invested heavily in a relatively small number of people rather than run around trying to do everything.

Here’s the introduction to a long article entitled, “Statistics on Pastors” by Dr. Richard J. Krejcir.

After over 18 years of researching pastoral trends and many of us being a pastor, we have found (this data is backed up by other studies) that pastors are in a dangerous occupation! We are perhaps the single most stressful and frustrating working profession, more than medical doctors, lawyers, politicians or cat groomers (hey they have claws). We found that over 70% of pastors are so stressed out and burned out that they regularly consider leaving the ministry (I only feel that way on Mondays). Thirty-five to forty percent of pastors actually do leave the ministry, most after only five years. On a personal note, out of the 12 senior pastors that I have served under directly, two have passed away, and four have left the ministry totally-that is, not only are they no longer in the pulpit, but they no longer even attend a church. And, I run into ex-pastors on a regular basis at conferences and speaking engagements; makes me wonder “what’s up with that,” as my kids would say.

I’m convinced that a large part of the problem is that the role of today’s pastor, which is, essentially, to run a “church” is not biblical. In the book Imagine Church, Mark Green is quoted to say,

“On the whole the overall mission strategy of the church worldwide is: To recruit the people of God to use some of their leisure-time to join the mission initiatives of church-paid workers.”

Last year, I heard a pastor preaching from John 21.15 – 17 (“feed my sheep”) say, “My job is to feed the sheep. Your job is to love the sheep, and one way to love the sheep is to volunteer to fill the jobs here on Sunday morning like teaching Sunday school and keeping the nursery.” As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.

Some pastors feel that all the ministry is on them, that only they can teach. One pastor told a Navigator-trained friend of mine who wanted to invest in some of the younger men in that church , “If anyone around here is going to teach the men, it’s me.” Most pastors do the lion’s share of visiting the sick, and the members contribute to that challenge by complaining if they’re visited by people in the church, but not the pastor.

When pastors and members lose sight of the fact that it’s the job of the church leaders (which includes a variety of gifted people (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers) to “equip the people to do God’s work” (Ephesians 4.11, 12), then pastors will continue to burn out.

(Possibly to be continued!)

A friend sent a link to a story from a book called Making Paper Airplanes. There’s a short video of a 6th grade class who studied aerodynamics and was then challenged to make paper airplanes and see which went the farthest. The winner was a kid who employed out-of-the-box thinking. I won’t spoil it for you–it’s a 6-minute video you can see here. It reminded me of two things I saw on TV growing up. Both represented out-of-the-box thinking, one planned by the shows’ producers and one unplanned.

The first was a show-ending challenge on Beat the Clock. A couple, wielding one stick each had to stack up three milk cartons (rectangular solids). One carton was standing up to start. Week after week, no one could stand the other two upright, pick them up and put them on top of each other in the time allotted. Finally, a couple started by knocking over the standing carton. Then they simply lined up the three cartons on the table, then stood them all upright at once. It was the “school solution,” but it was the only thing that worked. For the contestants, it required out-of-the-box thinking.

The other was on another game show, and a lady could receive up to 500 silver dollars in increments of 100 if she could lift the bucket they were in and put it on a higher shelf. The bucket was designed with a vertical handle, and the starting position was higher than a normal table. I’m sure the producers, choosing a woman, figured the most that she could lift was 200 silver dollars. The lady was a single mother and needed the money. She let all 500 silver dollars go into the bucket. When she tried to lift the bucket in the prescribed way she couldn’t. But she needed the money! So she finally realized that by putting her elbow into the bucket before grasping the vertical handle, she could lift the bucket out. The emcee mumbled, “Well done. That’s not what we had in mind!”

So winning by creative, out-of-the-box thinking is the theme.

Where do we need to apply this? Where does the church need to apply this? It seems counter-intuitive to get bigger by thinking smaller, but that’s what needs to happen. For most pastors, it’s way out-of-the-box. Instead they work on streamlining their services, making them the best they can be. Now I’m not against well-done Sunday services. I know some churches who do Sunday very well. But a good Sunday service, even the best Sunday service, won’t get the job done. Jesus had some pretty spectacular services. He fed over 5,000 people at one of them! But we’re here, following Jesus today, because he invested in 12 men only and told them to reproduce what they had experienced. A non-spectacular, and by today’s practices, an out-of-the-box ministry.

Yesterday I quoted a pastor friend of mine who described us as “ants in the colony.” It’s not my job to change the world, but it is my job to play the role God has chosen for me.

Another picture that’s coming into focus with respect to playing our role and pacing comes from The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. I haven’t quite finished it yet, and even though we know the ending, there is still excitement and suspense. Mainly, however, it’s the story of the hard work that goes into putting together an 8-man rowing crew. Each man not only has to pull his own weight (literally!), he has to do it in concert with the coxswain and the other seven rowers.

“Be strong; do the work” from 1 Chronicles 28.10, 20, and Haggai 2.4 certainly applies. It’s my job to be strong (see Ephesians 6.10 and 2 Timothy 2.1) and do the work. For example, invest in others from 2 Timothy 2.2. But Boys in the Boat reminds us of pacing as well. We are to “run with endurance” (Hebrews 12.1). In every race, the crew had to be fast and pace themselves, conserving energy so they could pass the other boats at the end, finishing strong.

I think I’m called to do the same: maintain a life rhythm of work and rest, doing my share, pulling together with others.

PS For another set of lessons from Boys in the Boat, please see this excellent article from Leadership Journal.