I’m
not a mega-church pastor. So take what I say with a grain of salt. I don’t
speak to tens of thousands each weekend. I speak to a faithful flock of under
200. I have stood in the same pulpit for over 800 Sundays. In that time frame
I have come to some conclusions that I know are echoed by some of my other
colleagues in ministry as well.
It
seems that our Bible Colleges have lost touch with churches like mine. You see
our basic problem is we are a church of under 200. That’s it in a nutshell. We
don’t have much to offer apparently.
We
don’t have a phone book full of ministry options for people. We don’t have
staff that equal the size of our church. We don’t have a worship band that
cranks out CD’s that we sell in our in-house bookstore.
You
see, we are who we are. And the dirty little secret is, we like it that way.
But as far as our Bible Colleges go, it would seem, we are definitely the type
of church to avoid. In fact, as horrible as this sounds, we have become very
comfortable in our own skin. You see, we don’t want to be a church led by Rick
Warren or Craig Groeschel. We just want to be who we are…warts and all.
Now
every Bible College President would probably put his hand on my shoulder and let me know
how off-base I am. He would assure me that my assessment is not an accurate
reflection of what is happening in our colleges in relationship to the church.
But I can’t shake what I am seeing and hearing.
Which
is another issue I have noticed over the years, there is an entitlement
mentality amongst our Bible College graduates that runs counter to the servant
spirit required to do practical ministry. Many of the young people entering
ministry are more focused on what the church can do for them than what they can
do for the church.
There
are so many young people graduating with a fractured focus of ministry (youth,
small group coordinator, children’s, worship, etc…) that they have adopted a “that’s
not my job” mentality and heart. Sometimes a clogged toilet just needs to be
unclogged. It could care less about your degree focus.
I
have a friend who served an area church in Iowa that decided for budgetary
concerns and a growing need with their young families that their current youth minister would need to
focus on children’s ministry as well as youth ministry. Which translated
practically into him overseeing the Jr. Church program and making sure that
children’s Sunday School classes were properly facilitated and had good
curriculum. This young man quit his job in protest rather than help pick up
slack in a needed area of ministry.
I
have had similar experiences as well. We have had young men serve as youth
minister with this very same “what’s in it for me?” mentality. And the church
is no better off.
Increasingly
this is the product that is being turned out of our Bible Colleges. I
understand much of what I have said is anecdotal but my experience keeps being
echoed in my ears from so many of my colleagues. There is a problem. And there
is a disconnect in what is needed in our churches and what our Bible Colleges
are producing in leadership for the church.
Many
of our Bible College graduates do not ask of a church: Here are my gifts, can
you use them? But they ask: Here are my needs, can you meet them?
As
I said, I am not a mega-church pastor, so I certainly am not hip, but I have
learned this in my time in ministry: If you’re too big to clean a toilet then
you’re too little to do anything else.
Some
of us need to repent of thinking too highly of ourselves. If you’re too big to
do something small then you are too small to do something big. In fact, the
smaller you are, the more room you leave for God. But I don’t know if that can
be found in any of our Bible Colleges’ current text books.
10 comments:
OUTSTANDING insights, Pastor Mike! I have been thinking similar thoughts for some time as well. The reality is that upwards of 75% of all churches in North America - and even more in the global context - average less than 200 on a given Sunday. That translates to - maybe - one staff pastor position. In fact, given that 60% of churches are less than 100 in average attendance, the vast majority of those churches will be solo ministry scenarios. And yet the schools in our denomination are cranking out people who are interested SOLELY in staff pastor positions. And even those that may be interested in solo positions are EQUIPPED to be staff pastors instead.
What is truly alarming, though, is the fact that this model is unsustainable. We will be closing massive numbers of churches over the next decade because there is no one interested in ministering a solo ministry context. And what really scares me is that I foresee the day when the church is no longer tax exempt and the megachurches these young people have been striving for are suddenly confronted with massive tax bills on their revenues and multimillion-dollar properties. The megachurch will be bankrupt and extinct practically overnight!
If we have allowed our small churches to close because we were unable to stoop to work in solo ministry contexts, and if our megachurches are shut down by the IRS, where will the Church be then? What will Christ think if we have allowed His bride to be reduced to the loudest mouthpieces, and then the mouthpieces are gagged and clamped shut?
No, we need to revisit what the New Testament church looked like. Contrary to what so many think, it was not 3,000 saved in one day and worshiping under one roof. It had nothing to do with gymnasiums and Pilates classes and Starbucks and rock concerts.
And we need to reconsider what leadership looked like in the New Testament church. Moses stopped settling all the disputes, and the apostles stopped waiting tables, true, but it wasn't because they weren't willing. In fact, even Paul - who had by far the best credentials of any of the NT ministers - demonstrated a servant heart!
I'm all about rolling up one's sleeves & just doing the work that needs to get done. But typically bible college graduates are clueless about the work loads required in ministry - especially the work loads in smaller churches. Most people would rather pay a pastor a tiny wage & expect for him to carry the load of every ministry in the church, where the volunteer list is short at best. If you want to keep your church small, Hey. All the power to you. But don't expect your pastor to work 70 hours a week & pay him $15,000 per year and call it "the sacrafice to the church"
I have seen recent bible college graduates over & over again totally taken advantage of & then burn out in only a matter of a few years. That's more of the trend I am seeing than entitled bible college graduates honestly.
I'm all about rolling up one's sleeves & just doing the work that needs to get done. But typically bible college graduates are clueless about the work loads required in ministry - especially the work loads in smaller churches. Most people would rather pay a pastor a tiny wage & expect for him to carry the load of every ministry in the church, where the volunteer list is short at best. If you want to keep your church small, Hey. All the power to you. But don't expect your pastor to work 70 hours a week & pay him $15,000 per year and call it "the sacrafice to the church"
I have seen recent bible college graduates over & over again totally taken advantage of & then burn out in only a matter of a few years. That's more of the trend I am seeing than entitled bible college graduates honestly.
I'm all about rolling up one's sleeves & just doing the work that needs to get done. But typically bible college graduates are clueless about the work loads required in ministry - especially the work loads in smaller churches. Most people would rather pay a pastor a tiny wage & expect for him to carry the load of every ministry in the church, where the volunteer list is short at best. If you want to keep your church small, Hey. All the power to you. But don't expect your pastor to work 70 hours a week & pay him $15,000 per year and call it "the sacrafice to the church"
I have seen recent bible college graduates over & over again totally taken advantage of & then burn out in only a matter of a few years. That's more of the trend I am seeing than entitled bible college graduates honestly.
@Megan...I definitely understand where you are coming from. My wife expressed similar thoughts to me this morning. I believe that is definitely an issue as well. But my focus was to address what I have seen as a trend in our colleges and their lack of understanding practical ministries. Their seems to be an infatuation with pastor stardom and giant churches. Also, in my experience, young men (mainly because I have only had experience first hand with the young men coming out of our schools) are approaching the church with an attitude that doesn't seek to serve the church. Not that any church should be excused for taking advantage of a young graduate either. But there is definitely an attitude that I have seen displayed (as have many of my colleagues) that isn't the right spirit needed to begin in ministry.
Great reply! I think the Lord will clean up his house when it comes to a point when the USA church is truly persecuted. Look at Church history and look at how rapidly the home church movement has grown the Kindgom of God because of the oppression of their government. Lord strengthen your servants that serve in small congregations and raise up strong, healthy, unselfish leaders from within the fold!
Mike,
Thank you for your message. I agree with you, so what is the answer? Do you think it would be healthy for the local church to raise up it's own leaders, but within the context of their denominational umbrella? I think it would be easier to structure a "servant leadership" mentality for anyone being trained for leadership within the church. I also think that maybe it would be healthy to have lay leadership and full time leadership train as together as much as possible. Of course you would need to have folks willing to do this, but I think it could help curb the "professional" vs "lay" mentality that exists in so many of our churches. I agree also with Meggans remarks. I have worked in full time ministry in the past. I've worked in small congregations under 300 and I've worked in congregations with weekly attendance peaking at 5000. In both circumstances, big or small, I was always asked to taken on more responsibility than what I was originally hired for. I love our Lords Church so it's easy to say yes to the needs but like she said, it burns families out and the losers end up being the family members of the staff.
You've certainly started a great conversation and I hope it continues.
@Dow I think there needs to be a paradigm shift in not only our colleges but in our churches as well. We are the ones who have fractured ministry into ways that may be more efficient to approach but is not necessarily biblical in its approach. We have youth ministers and children's ministers and worship ministers and small group ministers and so on. But we don't see such breakdowns in Scripture. What those fractures have created are turf wars in essence. Youth ministers won't do children's ministry and children's ministers won't do small group ministry and so on. With so many ministers peeing on their turf we have a church that ends up smelling like urine (pardon my crassness). I believe we need to re-embrace ministry to the whole family. For instance, when Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians. In chapter six when he said, "Children, obey your parents..." those children he was addressing were in the assembly hearing the reading of that letter. They weren't shipped off into another room to have their own specialized focus in ministry. I think we need to work at coming back towards holistic ministry and training in that manner in our colleges and in our churches.
Amen Mike. I see your point.
For some time now I have been troubled by two trends I see in the churches today. 1. the shift toward the church operating as a buinsess venture, modeled after secular business practices. 2. finding ourselves in that secular mindset within the church, the church (Christians) absorb that mindset taking it from the assembly into their lives the remaining six f=days of the week. The result? Little difference is visible between how the church operates and how the world does. Even less difference between the way Christians live life and the ways non-belivers live theirs. I believe the Word speaks clearly that Christ's followers are to stand as a light to the world, not to blend in with it. The extent to which the Bible Colleges (oh, excuse me, Bible Universities) have contributed to these trends, I have no clue, but I suspect that the desire to "serve" in the megachurch vs. the 300 and under church is born there and training toward that end is there as well.
Post a Comment