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WHY PASTORS
NEED COMMITTED
It became obvious that Tom is one of those ridiculously charismatic guys as soon as I shook his hand. He wanted to meet at Starbucks for coffee, which was fine with me. “A young go-getter” would probably describe Tom best. He reminded me a little of myself a couple decades ago (of course, less the charisma). Small talk came very easy for Tom, but soon the conversation turned…
“Honestly, Derek, more than anything, I guess I’m just very frustrated.”
“So you’re struggling with frustration, huh?”
“Yeah, I’ve been the youth pastor at a growing church for almost a year now and I guess I’m just about fed up with it.”
“Well, Tom, I doubt if you are the first person to be frustrated with ministry,” I smiled.
“I guess I’m just tired…tired of the constant fight.”
“Fight?”
“You know…people just aren’t committed anymore! It’s a constant uphill battle.”
“So you are fighting to get people committed?”
“I guess. For example, last month we announced that we were going to have a weekend retreat for the youth. I thought the kids would sign up and it would be this hugely successful thing, but the retreat is coming up and only 11 kids registered. It’s not uncommon to for our youth to have over 100 kids involved in our ministry, but when it comes to really being committed, only a few really ‘get it.’”
“So you think if the kids were more committed then more would show up?”
“Yeah, but kids just aren’t committed anymore.”
“Why do you think they aren’t committed?”
“You know. Sports, family, school, video games, TV…you name it. All kinds of things get in the way of God.”
“Tom, how did you go about deciding to have a retreat?”
“We have a youth leadership team. There are about five members on the team and we decided to do it a little over a month ago.”
“Who came up with the idea?”
“I was reading this Youth Ministry magazine and one of the articles was going on and on about the power of weekend youth retreats and how it would grow the youth ministry. I was very excited about it, so I brought the idea up at the youth leadership team meeting and we decided to announce it the following Sunday.”
“So you were the one who wanted the retreat?”
“No, we all decided we wanted it. It was the leadership team’s decision.”
“As the youth leader, do your team members normally support your ideas?”
“Yeah. They are a great group; they are very supportive. That’s one thing I really like about our youth ministry.”
“That they support your ideas?”
“Yeah, at least I know our leadership team is committed, even if the rest of the youth are not.”
“So when there is support for your ideas, it makes you feel like they are more committed?”
“Well, yeah. I guess so.”
“More committed to who?”
INSTITUTIONALIZED
“More committed to the ministry!”
“You mentioned earlier that your concern was that the youth weren’t committed to God? Is that the same thing?”
“I don’t know…ministry is about God.”
“Ok, let’s back up a minute. How do you know that your youth leadership team really supported your idea?”
“Because they said so! They told me they thought the idea was a great one.”
“But you mentioned that you thought your leadership team was very committed because they were very supportive. So if your youth leadership team did NOT support the ministry idea then they would not be considered…”
“Committed,” Tom said. He looked away, trying to make sense of thoughts that seemed to be fighting each other inside of his own head. “Oh my gosh. This is messy.”
“I agree. Ministry can get very messy.”
“No, I think I’ve created a mess. You see, I’ve been harping on how frustrated I am about the lack of commitment for quite a while now. And I’m sure the leadership team gets the brunt of my frustration. So the more I harp on the lack of commitment, the more they are likely to just agree with me because they don’t want me to think they are not committed.”
“This is probably why most pastors feel they need to be ‘committed’ (institutionalized),” I kidded.
Tom laughed; then continued, “So if the leadership team supports me in order to feel committed, we don’t really know what the youth are interested in do we?”
“No. You are too busy gaining support for your ideas. When you link the word ‘commitment’ in church with getting people to follow your ideas or do what you want them to do, you know you are Controlling, not Leading.”
“Ouch. Ok, that hit a little too close to home. But what now? I guess I don’t know what to do. I went to school for 6 years to learn to be a youth pastor…I’m supposed to have good ideas, that’s why they pay me. Am I supposed to NOT come up with ideas?”
NOT COMING UP WITH IDEAS
“The question isn’t whether you are supposed to come up with ideas. The question is where do the ideas come from?”
“I don’t understand.”
“The Ritz Carlton is one of the premier vacation resorts in the country. It would be a great place to have a weekend getaway. But let’s imagine the leader of the resort (the CEO) found out that only 11 people were going to stay at the resort this coming weekend. What do you think the CEO would do?”
“Turn in his resignation?” Tom chided.
“Ok, well, in this case, I think you’d be right.”
“But seriously, he’d have to find out why only 11 people were showing up.”
“How would he do that?”
“He could ask the employees what the problem was.”
“That is true…do you think they would be honest?”
“Not if THEY were the problem!”
“Correct. So then what?”
“He’d probably ask current and past customers for feedback.”
“Feedback regarding…?”
“Feedback regarding ideas on how to serve them better.”
“I agree. But wait a second…”
“What?”
“Why would the CEO ask customers how to serve them better? You know…he has an undergraduate degree from Harvard and an MBA from Wharton. Why would he have to ask the customers for ideas? That’s what he is getting paid to do!”
“I see your point. It’s really not about the leader at all is it? It’s about the people we are serving.”
“Exactly. In fact, this is exactly how Jesus did it.”
“He did?”
“Yep…
How did Jesus know how to serve the leper (Matthew 8)? Jesus listened to the leper when he asked, ‘Master, can you heal my body,’ THEN Jesus had an IDEA of how to serve him.
How did Jesus know how to serve the men walking behind him (Matthew 9)? Jesus listened to the men explain that they were blind and wanted to see and they asked, ‘Have mercy on us,’ THEN Jesus had an IDEA of how to serve them.
And sometimes Jesus specifically requested feedback and he would simply ask the people with him (Matthew 11), ‘Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion?’ and of course when the people nodded THEN Jesus came up with an incredible IDEA because now Jesus knows how to serve! Jesus says, ‘Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it.’”
“Wow. That is amazing!”
“It is…and guess what the people would do?”
“Follow!”
“Exactly, because Jesus was NOT a Controller…He was a Leader!”
A MONTH LATER…
My phone rang. It was Tom.
“Derek, you’re never gonna believe it. I went back to my youth ministry and started to listen for ideas how to serve them.“
“And.”
“What I didn’t realize was the reason nobody was showing up for the retreat was because the entire youth group planned on going to a Christian music concert that weekend. I never even heard of the band before. It was some sort of underground Christian college band at the local university.”
“And?”
“As we were talking about the concert…at first I wanted to try and get them to go to the retreat like I wanted. But then, I remembered the stories about Jesus. So I got a ton of feedback and realized they really wanted to invite their friends to this concert. And guess what?”
“What’s that?”
“We had over 200 kids go to the concert and 19 got saved!”
“Amazing.”
“It really was amazing,” replied Tom.
“That was amazing Leadership Tom!”
“I hear what you’re saying but…”
“But what?”
“It wasn’t like I was leading.”
“You were SERVING, which from God’s perspective is the only way to LEAD.”
“I bet you have a verse for that don’t ya?”
“Here you go, I think Jesus said it best…”
“Kings like to throw their weight around and people in authority like to give themselves fancy titles. It’s not going to be that way with you. Let the senior among you become like the junior; let the leader act the part of the servant…I’ve taken my place among you as the one who serves. And you’ve stuck with me through thick and thin.”
Thinking about it,
Derek
P.S. As always I want to thank all the people involved in the Lives Transforming newsletters and message. For those of you that don’t know, the stories that are told are ALL based on real life, true stories of Lives Transforming!
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