By Carey Nieuwhof: So you want to quit.

I get it.

This has been an excruciating crisis to live through and lead through.

While 25% of all workers want to quit their jobs right now, it appears  it may be even worst for church leaders. Apparently, the majority of pastors are at least thinking about it.

In this widely-shared article, Thom Rainer explains that the vast majority of pastors he and his team work with want to quit. The pandemic, division, workload, in-fighting, levels of criticism and loss of momentum in most churches is too discouraging for most pastors. Thom is right…there has never been a more discouraging season to be a leader.

I recently had a conversation with a top search firm CEO who predicted that next year will be a year of massive turnover in part, because the crisis has made people rethink their options.

I’m writing this post not to convince you to stay where you are, but to think twice before you quit.

Nobody has to stay anywhere forever.

There are good reasons to leave what you’re doing. Over my life, I’ve left fledgling careers in radio and law, exited a  denomination and most recently made another change.

After 25 years of ministry, yesterday I preached my final sermon as part of the teaching team at the church I founded, wrapping up a 5 year succession plan that completes a 25 year ministry.

But there are also bad reasons to leave.

So today, let me be your (free) counsellor/friend. Talk you off the ledge. I’ve needed that conversation more than a few times in my decades of leadership so I could finish instead of quitting.

I’ve been discouraged, defeated, exhausted and pretty much done more than once. But I never left in those seasons.

Looking back, I’m so grateful I didn’t.

So what do you want to do when you want to throw in the towel?

Here are a few things I learned about quitting for the wrong reasons, and a few things about leaving for the right ones.

1. Quitting is Different than Finishing

Quitting is easy. Finishing is hard.

Both quitting and finishing result in the same outcome: you leave. Nobody, after all, stays forever.

But quitting usually involves surrendering to the pain or letting the circumstances control your exit.

By contrast, finishing usually involves pushing through the pain to a moment or season where the circumstances move both you and the mission forward as best you can.

Leaders who quit usually surrender to impulse or unresolved pain. Leaders who finish well don’t.

As a result, leaders who finish well leave far different legacy than leaders who quit.

Quitting is easy. Finishing is hard. Leaders who finish well leave far different legacy than leaders who quit.

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

2. Your Exit Becomes Your Legacy

On that note, your exit determines the legacy you leave behind, both for the organization and for you personally.

People rarely remember how you started in an organization. They always remember how you left.

People rarely remember how you started in an organization. They always remember how you left.

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

You can erase years of great leadership in moments with a poor exit. Quitting because you’re frustrated, discouraged, defeated or exhausted rarely creates a great departure.

The way you leave becomes your legacy.

Years or decades of sincere, hard, good work can get reduced to a sentence like “Yeah, he just packed up and left town”, “He got so bitter at the end”, “She burned every bridge” or “His last year left us all scrambling”.

Ouch.

People rarely remember how you began in an organization, but they always remember how you left. The way you leave becomes your legacy.

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

3. Your Problems Follow You

You’ve probably heard the marriage advice (or given it) that all your unresolved issues follow you into your next relationship.

The same is true of leadership.

Relationally, starting over with someone new usually sounds way more promising than it is. Why? Well, you have a pretty realistic (pessimistic) view of the person you’re with which you’re apparently ready to trade in for an idealistic view of the person you want to be with.

And, you bring you with you wherever you go.

Whatever you don’t resolve now, you’ll have to resolve in the future.

The same is true in leadership. You have a very realistic view of how hard your current situation is.

But you imagine your new situation with an idealistic view point. They’ll appreciate them. They’ll do what I ask them to do. Their team won’t fight. And they’ll appreciate me.

That, of course, is also what you thought the last time.

Here’s what I’ve learned: your unresolved issues follow you wherever you go.

We went through a really painful season of leadership about 15 years ago. I wasn’t tempted to leave the church, but we were selling our house around the same time.

I was really tempted to leave the community I was living in and move to a different city nearby. We could start over again, I told myself.

But as my wife and I prayed about it, I became convicted we need to stay. We move ten minutes down the road.

Which meant we’d travel the same roads, shop in the same stories, get groceries at the same supermarket, and run into the same people we had struggled with.

It was exactly the right medicine. That forced me to look at my own failings, to see where I was wrong, and to practice forgiveness.

Escape is poor substitute for personal growth, forgiveness and change.

The challenge with quitting is that your issues and problems come with you. They didn’t quit, you did.

The challenge with quitting is that your issues and problems come with you. They didn’t quit, you did.

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

4. Running toward your future is better than running away from your past

So maybe you are called to leave (here are 7 signs it’s time to move on). Maybe your season is legitimately coming to an end.

If you can—and in a carefully discerned departure you usually have time to do this before you go— ask yourself what you’re called to next.

In my current situation, in addition to a sense that the current season was drawing to a close, that a well-executed succession plan was important for all, there was also a budding sense that a new calling or assignment was being birthed: to help leaders thrive.

One of the reasons transitions are so painful (particularly as you get older as a leader) is because all your best days feel like they’re behind you.

Find some wise counsel around you who can help you discern what’s next before you leave what’s now.

Running toward your future is a much better move than running away from your past.

Running toward your future is a much better move than running away from your past.

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

5. A Bad Season Is the Worst Time To Make A Big Decisions

So just to frame this season in context, this really is a bad moment. And it’s impacting leaders deeply.

A recent Barna survey has led Barna President David Kinnaman to conclude that the mental health of pastors has reached crisis levels.

Just look at the chart below.

In 2016, only 14% of pastors said they’re mental and emotional health was average to poor.

By April 2020, that number more than doubled, growing to 35%.

In August 2020, fully 50% of pastors now say their mental and emotional health was average to poor.

I wonder where that number will move to as the crisis continues to spiral out of control.

I know when I’m in a discouraging, difficult and depressing season, one of the first things to go is my judgment.

When I’m not in a good place mentally or spiritually, I make emotional decisions and try to back fill them with logic. Or maybe I don’t even bother trying to be logical. I just make (bad) decisions.

As a result, I’ve realized that a bad season is the worst time to make a big decision. This is true for anything from quitting your job, to leaving your spouse to (honestly) even making big financial decisions.

Never quit on a bad day.

Sure, maybe you are called to move on.

Give the decision room to breathe. Pray. Bring in wise counsel. Consult. Hire a coach. Read. Reflect. Think.

Get healthy, and if you can’t do that right now (because it will be a long journey), at least get healthy people around you to make some recommendations.

If you can, make your decision to finish up on a good day.

If it’s a bad day, stick it out or let other people make the decision with your, or if it’s really bad, have them make the decision for you.

This isn’t a good season for most leaders.

Never quit on a bad day. A bad season is the worst time to make a big decision

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

What Helps You?

I hope this helps you work through whatever you’re going through.

Hang in there my friend. Whatever you’re call to do, I’m hoping you make the decision on a good day with the right people around you.

And me and my team are cheering you on.

What do you find to be helpful when you want to quit?

What are some things you know you should definitely NOT do?

Love to hear from you in the comments.

The post So You Want to Quit… appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: So You Want to Quit…

The post So You Want to Quit… appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Source: The Unmet Emotional Needs of Pastors

The post The Unmet Emotional Needs of Pastors appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Carey Nieuwhof: Social media is changing you and me in more profound ways than any of us imagine.

Like a growing number of people, I’m increasingly concerned with how addictive tech has become, and am leaning in on the arguments that some like Roger McNamee (who has a fascinating conversation with Sam Harris here) and Tristan Harris make that social is addicting us to outrage and challenging the underpinnings of what we’ve known as civilization. If you’re interested, for a good introduction on how tech is manipulating how you think, check out this article from The Guardian.

The problem with technology is that while we’re its parent, we’re also its child. We don’t fully understand what we created.

While all that is happening, I’m also increasingly sensitive to the fact that social media is also changing how leaders lead.

Especially at the local level.

The problem with technology is that while we’re its parent, we’re also its child. We don’t fully understand what we created.Click To Tweet

Almost every leader has two audiences now: the audience we know (live local and in person) and the audience we don’t (via social).

This is true for every local church pastor and for every leader who runs anything from a local coffee shop, marketing firm, Etsy shop, right on through to 7, 8 and 9 figure companies.

It’s a strange new world, that brings with it terrific opportunities and real temptations.

The key is to know how to navigate it.

Here are 5 challenges every  local pastor and leader faces with the continued rise of social media.

Every leader has two audiences now: the people we know (live, local and in person) and the people we don’t (via social). That’s where the problems can start.Click To Tweet

1. You’ll be tempted to ignore your people in search of a bigger audience

There are two kinds of people in leadership: the people you’ve reached, and the people you hope to reach.

Like most leaders, I have a bias toward growth and expansion, and that means is really easy for me to focus on the people I hope to reach instead of the people we have reached. To be fair, that is a somewhat appropriate bias for a church leader, because the church is one of the few organizations that exists for the benefit of its non-members.

It’s also fraught with problems.

People can tell if they’re a means to an end. And people can sense if you’re using them to get to something other than them. And I promise you, that wears thin fast.

Scroll through you social feed.

It’s pretty easy to spot leaders who are trying to get noticed by a bigger audience at the expense of the audience they current serve. And listen, that’s something I check in my spirit all the time.

Here’s the truth: most leaders motivated by wanting to reach a wider audience rarely reach a wider audience.

Most leaders motivated by wanting to reach a wider audience rarely reach a wider audience.Click To Tweet

You want to know what gets you noticed?

Leaders get noticed when they do the hard work in front of them. When they love serve the people they have so well that others line up to get in. When they love and care for what they have more than they focus on they don’t have, things tend to grow.

And it’s hard to love people you ignore.

It’s hard to love people you ignore.Click To Tweet

2. You’ll spend more time with people you don’t know than with people you do

It’s great to learn from leaders you’ve never met. I do it every day.

I listen to podcasts, read books, check out blogs, watch videos and connect on social with leaders I don’t know.

It’s never been easier to spend most of your life in the online world.

But wise leaders spend more time with people they know in real life than with people they don’t know online.

When was the last time you took out a local person for breakfast, just to listen, take notes and learn?

When was the last time you asked a stay-at-home mom what her biggest challenges were, or spent some time with a drywaller who’s battling cancer?

Or met with the guy running a local real estate office rather than listening to yet another podcast out of Silicon Valley or Austin?

Social media can move you into a world where you feel like you’re constantly connected, except you’re not. Not to anyone you know. Not face to face. Not real-life to real-life.

Social media can move you into a world where you feel like you’re constantly connected, except you’re not. Not to anyone you know.Click To Tweet

3. You’ll trying to impress people you’ll never meet

If you’re on social hoping to get noticed, to pick up followers, hoping to ‘get picked’ as Seth Godin writes about, you’re signing up for a lot of frustration.

For starters, you’ll likely fall prey to imitation.  You’ll spend so much time trying to be someone else that you’ll fail to develop who you are.

You’ll kill the voice and gifting God gave you and you’ll stifle your real creativity.

Imitation is also the fastest way to kill innovation. If you spend your time trying imitate, you won’t innovate. Which again, should be a by-product of engaging the people you have.

Stop trying to impress people you don’t know. Start serving people you do know.

Imitation is the fastest way to kill innovation. If you spend your time trying imitate, you won’t innovate. Click To Tweet

4. You’ll focus more on image and less on substance

One of the crazy things social has done to us all is made us think way too much about image.

Filters and apps abound that will make you look thinner, erase wrinkles, shrink your nose or slightly expand your eyes. It’s so sad, actually.

If that’s what you want your life to be about, more power to you.

The reality is we all get older. Most of us carry a few extra pounds. And every year, I get more wrinkled.

That’s honestly not what matters most.

My rule of thumb is to dress well enough not to be distracting one way or the other: not badly enough that people want to take me shopping, and not well enough that people spend time wondering how much something cost or where I got it from.

Well known leaders like Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs made decisions to wear the same thing every day (grey T-shirt and jeans, black mock turtle neck and jeans, respectively). Albert Einstein bought several versions of the same tweed suit and wore that look every day.

Einstein reportedly said his decision to dress the same every day was so he didn’t need to think about what he was going to wear.

You know why these leaders got noticed? Nothing to do with their image. Everything to do substance.

Leaders who are focused on image tend to produce little of substance. Leaders who focus on substance find image and style really don’t matter.

Leaders who are focused on image tend to produce little of substance. Leaders who focus on substance find image and style really don’t matter. Click To Tweet

5. Your sense of success will rise and fall with likes and shares

Most of us want to be liked. I do. I’m imagining you do too.

But too often we let our sense of self-worth be determined by others, and that’s a mistake.

If you’re not careful, your sense of success will rise and fall with like and shares.

And it will cause you once again to pursue the affections of people you don’t know instead of serving the people you do.

Here’s a rule I’ve had to adopt in my own life: I want the people closest to me to the people most grateful for me.

What does it matter if some follower 1000 miles away thinks you’re awesome if your spouse or staff thinks you’re awful?

What does it matter if some follower 1000 miles away thinks you’re awesome if your spouse or staff thinks you’re awful? That’s right, it doesn’t. Click To Tweet

Exchanging the love of people you know for a bunch of social likes from people you don’t know is a sure path to longterm misery and probable failure on all fronts.

The people closest to you should be the people most grateful for you.

Leaders, the people closest to you should be the people most grateful for you.Click To Tweet

Create a Better Future

How do you find the time to process things like this? To dig deeper, to recalibrate and to lead better?

Finding time to reinvent or redirect yourself can seem impossible.

Well, maybe not. It’s very possible…and I’d love to help you get on top of your everything so you can get your life and leadership back.

If you’re trying to find the time for what matters most in life, my High Impact Leader course, is my online, on-demand course designed to help you get time, energy and priorities working in your favour.

Many leaders who have taken it are recovering 3 productive hours a day.  That’s about 1000 hours of found time each year. That’s a lot of time for what matters most.

Here are what some alumni are saying about The High Impact Leader Course”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you for providing the course again. It has absolutely made an impact in my life and family already that I can’t even describe.” – First Priority, Clayton County, North Carolina

“Carey’s course was the perfect way for our team to prepare for the new year. Our team, both collectively and individually, took a fresh look at maximizing our time and leadership gifts for the year ahead. I highly recommend this leadership development resource for you and your team.” Jeff Henderson, Gwinnett Church, Atlanta Georgia

“A lot of books and programs make big promises and cannot deliver but this is not one of them. I have read so many books and watched videos on productivity but the way you approach it and teach is helpful and has changed my work week in ministry in amazing ways.” Chris Sloan, Tanglewood Church, Kingston, North Carolina

“Just wow.  Thank you, thank you.” Dave Campbell, Invitation Church, Sioux Falls South Dakota

“A game changer.” Pam Perkins, Red Rock Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Curious? Want to beat overwhelm and have the time to reinvent yourself?

Click here to learn more or get instant access.

What are your temptations?

What are some of the temptations you feel as you wrestle with social media?

I’d love to know. Scroll down and leave a comment.

The post 5 Challenges With Being a Local Pastor (or Leader) in the Age of Social Media appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: 5 Challenges With Being a Local Pastor (or Leader) in the Age of Social Media

The post 5 Challenges With Being a Local Pastor (or Leader) in the Age of Social Media appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Carey Nieuwhof: So this isn’t an easy post to write, nor a glib one.

I’m not even sure what I’m about to write is accurate.

But once again last week, we heard of yet another mega-church pastor who isn’t in leadership anymore, this one fired by his church because of character issues.

I’m not naming names or linking to any post. If you’re plugged into church world, you probably know who I’m talking about, and if not, it’s not that hard to think of a bunch of others over the years.

Sadly, even if you read this months or years after this is published, chances are there will be yet another large church pastor who went down in flames.

The hardest part is there are just no winners. At least not in the short term. God is a God of redemption and he writes better stories than we do, but the pain of deliberate sin is something we’re best to avoid.

If there are direct victims (affairs, abuse, fraud), and sadly, often there are, their lives are devastated and their faith too often shattered or snapped. The people who were part of any movement or congregation associated with said fallen leader are crushed. The families of leaders are devastated, sometimes beyond repair.

And in the midst of it all, the unchurched gain one more reason to run in the opposite direction.

For those of us still in church leadership… think about that and let it sink in.

Bloggers and commentators who pile on to grab headlines or express outrage further destroy any hope left. I don’t want this to be that kind of a post.

And remember, for every mega-church pastor who has exited, there are probably 10 or maybe 100 smaller church pastors whose congregation and families are just as devastated. Only their stories never make the headlines.

Please hear me. I write this with a heavy heart and after a lot of reflection, introspection and prayerful consideration.

I’m far from perfect. There’s been no affair (by the grace of God) or fraud or anything worth headlines. But just talk to my family or my team. They see me on good days and bad days, and I write about the struggles of leadership as openly and candidly as I know how, as any of you who read this blog regularly or have read my latest book will realize.

So I’m not casting stones.

But I am writing so that all of us who lead anything (big or small) can look inside and notice the warning signs before it’s too late. Before yet another church loses its leader. Before yet another countless thousand people wince and say, “I told you so” or “Yeah…figures” and the collective eye roll/anger wave gets unleashed once again and more people walk away from Jesus.

Because, believe it or not, I think failure is in all of us. And yes, I think the seeds of failure are in me too. None of us are exempt.

But if you know what to look for…if you know where the danger lies, maybe, just maybe, you can finish well. Because not only are the seeds of failure in all of us, so are the seeds of finishing well.

So what’s the difference?

That’s why I’m writing this post.

Nobody who starts out in ministry sets out to fail. But all the time, people who never thought they’d fail, fail.

Every time another story breaks about a pastor who resigns, my phone lights up with texts from friends asking, “How do we make sure this doesn’t happen to us?”

A few years ago I wrote a post about the exit of two megachurch pastors…I think the observations are still true:

Most pastors aren’t fake. The struggle is real.

It’s hard to lead anything.

God uses broken people.

Even if all of that is true, still, why all the failure?

Here are some new thoughts…and some things I look for inside me in the hopes of finishing well.

The seeds of failure are in all of us. So are the seeds of finishing well.Click To Tweet

1. It Just Got Bigger Than I Could Handle

Please hear this: leading something large is not inherently bad.

Although I hear the argument all the time, I personally don’t believe there is anything inherently bad about a large church or organization.

But there is something inherently difficult in it. And to some extent, the larger something is, the harder it is.

Please know, this doesn’t mean leading a small church or venture is easy. I have led small churches. I get it. Few things in leadership are easy.

But I’ve also led some larger ministries and organizations, and the larger it is, the greater the pressure and the more there’s at stake.

I remember when our church grew past 300; my mind was blown. Now it’s five times the size.

Or look at this blog or my podcast. Honestly, 100,000 readers or listeners was inconceivable six years ago. Then millions showed up.

Nothing gets you ready for that.

It’s way too easy for your platform to outgrow your character. And that’s where all the danger lies.

There isn’t anything inherently bad about leading a large church or organization. But there is something inherently difficult in it.Click To Tweet

Add to it one more fact: you and I are not naturally made to lead thousands or millions.

It doesn’t mean you can’t do it. It just means you’ll have to grow your character faster.  Much faster.

As I outlined in Didn’t See It Coming, that has come in the form of hundreds of hours of counseling for me, some dead honest conversations, and a lot of painful personal growth. And in my case, I’m so thankful that groundwork was laid before things became bigger.

It doesn’t mean I’m off the hook. It just means God beat some things out of me that had to go before the stakes were any higher. And he continues to do that. Daily.

It’s way too easy for your platform to outgrow your character.Click To Tweet

So what can help you when things get bigger than you thought, whether that’s two hundred or two million?

Try this.

First, your platform isn’t yours. It’s God’s. It’s not your church or your organization. It’s His.

You don’t have a ministry, but God does (and out of his grace he chooses to use you).

Your life isn’t your own.  Are you allowing God’s spirit to loosen your grip on your life?

The more I remind myself of these things, the healthier I am.

Second, it’s a platform, not a pedestal. There is a world of difference between a platform and a pedestal.

Pedestals are about ego and adulation.

Platforms are designed to be shared and used for the benefit of others.

On the days I remember that, I’m a better leader because I’m a better servant. On the days I forget it, the clock starts ticking.

There is a world of difference between a platform and a pedestal. Pedestals are about ego and adulation. Platforms are designed to be shared and used for the benefit of others.Click To Tweet

2. I Created a World Where Nobody Challenged Me

So…let’s be honest…nobody likes critics.

But the bigger your organization or church becomes, the easier it becomes to surround yourself with like-minded people who won’t challenge you.

Please hear the distinction. You need like-minded people. You have to run with people who get your mission, vision and strategy. Otherwise, your organization descends into internal chaos.

But what you really need is likeminded people who can challenge you.

You need people committed to the same vision, mission and strategy you are, but who will push your thinking and who will push you.

Sure…maybe you have an accountability partner. You can spin your accountability partner. You can say it’s better at home than it is. Maybe they should ask your wife how it’s really going.

What you really need is people who have influence with you and power over you who can speak into you. Like a board and an inner circle to whom you are transparent and to whom you are truly accountable.

I realize in the age of social media, those of us at a distance might think we have a responsibility to speak truth to power or to criticize someone from afar. But I promise you, most leaders just tune out an angry person or troll 1000 miles away from, and perhaps to some extent rightly so. You don’t know them. They don’t know you.

There are also critics inside your church who intend to harm you or the mission. Learn what you can from them, but move on. They will not help you or your church long term.

But what you and I need most is people in our lives who know us inside out, who love us and as a result of that love, tell us the truth about us.

But you’ll be tempted—so tempted—to tune those people out. Don’t.

Keep them close.

Cultivate an atmosphere in which your team and those around you can tell you the truth. How you hurt them. What you’re not seeing. What you don’t realize is that they’ll be afraid to do that. You can fire them or dismiss them.

Just welcome their feedback, and encourage their critiques.

They may feel like your enemy in the moment, but I promise you they’re your best friends. They’re on the same mission as you, and they want you to win. And to help you win means they have to call your sin.

To help you win, your friends have to call your sin.Click To Tweet

The way to cultivate that is to thank those on-mission people every time they critique you. Welcome it. Tell them how much it helped you.

And if it hurts, get on your knees and talk to God about it. Ask what needs to stick and what you can discard, but for God’s sake (literally), listen.

And in the further need of transparency, a few things that have helped me.

First, give the people close to you your passwords.

My wife can look and at times does look at anything on my phone or devices. She has ALL my passwords and I let her see ANY of my conversations. DMs. The whole thing. Especially with the women I work with and talk to.

To make it even more interesting, because of the nature of my team, they have access to virtually everything in my life—all my inboxes, my passwords, my notes. So even if my wife’s not looking, they are. Everything. And that’s a wonderful thing.

Should you share that with everyone? Of course not.

But just because everybody doesn’t need to know everything, it doesn’t mean nobody does.

Give people access. And let the people who love you challenge you.

Just because everybody doesn’t need to know everything, it doesn’t mean nobody does. Click To Tweet

3. I Stayed Too Long

This isn’t a problem for everyone, but it is a problem for many of us.

I’ve been in the same church for 24 years. And you know what, we grow bored and accustomed to power. So I change it up. Regularly. That’s another story for another day.

And just over three years ago, I moved out of the Lead Pastor role and into a Founding and Teaching Pastor role at our church. Why? Because I sensed the season of me being the point leader at the church I founded was ending.

I wanted to jump before I was pushed. I wanted to leave while I was still serving the church, not when the church was serving me. I wanted to go while I was still fresh, not when everything grew so stale that everyone knew it was time for me to go except me.

By all accounts, I left early. But looking back, I think the timing was perfect.

Don Miller did an incredible interview with author Stephen Mansfield who shared 10 signs a leader is heading toward a leadership crash.

Sign #1? The leader stayed too long.

I get why leaders stay too long: it’s all you know how to do, and financially, you can’t afford to leave. But that’s such a mistake.

First of all, you’re supposed to serve the church. It’s not supposed to serve you. Secondly, I get that you’re not ready for retirement. But that’s not a tenure or honour issue: it’s a financial issue. Boards should get far better at handling financial issues as financial issues, not tenure issues. (I wrote more on why pastors stay too long and the succession crisis facing the church here.)

When I jumped out of the Lead Pastor role, I took a pay cut. It was a huge trust issue.

But I promise you, trusting God is never a bad thing. So trust God.

Leaders, you’re supposed to serve the church. It’s not supposed to serve you.Click To Tweet

4. Somewhere Along The Way, I Lost My Soul

You got into this for the right reasons. I know you did. Everybody does.

But somewhere along the way, it’s too easy to lose your soul.

How exactly does that happen? Well, it’s a subtle art.

Most leaders who sell their souls aren’t 100% on the right track one day and the next day wake up in someone else’s bed. It just doesn’t usually work that way.

Selling your soul starts with compromise.

You look at a little porn. Once. Okay, twice. Okay, a little more, and soon it’s a habit…

You flirted with her once…then again. Then you were emotionally entangled.. And then…

You started justifying your impulsiveness. If they only knew the pressure I’m under, they’d be this way too, you told yourself. And you repeated that to yourself the next day, and the next…

You swore a bit because just because you think cussing a little doesn’t mean you’re not a Christian.  But now, you internal dialogue is just so foul…

You had the one drink…then the other, then every Friday, then most days…

You blew your stack at the meeting the other day, but man they were being dumb, and you’re the leader, and you can get away with it, and…

And before you know it, a thousand little compromises left you compromised.

You’ve gotten so ugly you don’t recognize yourself in the mirror.

The challenge is several fold.

The more I see leadership as a trust, the less likely I am to use it for personal gain or to indulge my flaws.

Second, the more sensitive I become to the impact of my actions and attitude on the people closest to me, the better I lead. The gravitational pull is to to make excuses to those closest to you or find people who tolerate your weaknesses. And that’s a mistake (see #2 above).

I need to become expert at noticing the little compromises.  I don’t have to confess them to my whole team, but I need to confess to someone.  Bringing them into the light when they’re small prevents them from growing into something sinister.

The challenge in leadership is to live in a way that people closest to you become the people most grateful for you. And people become truly grateful for you when your life is characterized by humility, confession and grace.

Live in a way that people closest to you become the people most grateful for you.Click To Tweet

5. I Invested Too little Time at Home

Often—not always, but often—when you talk to leaders who are no longer in leaders, you realize that there were some serious issues in their marriage that were either neglected or never resolved.

And that can create a vicious cycle where because things aren’t going well at home, you throw yourself even harder into your work because you feel you can win there, all of which makes home go even more poorly.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe: Ultimately, everything rides on how you lead at home. 

If you’re winning at work but losing at home, you’re losing.

The stakes are high.

If you’re winning at work but losing at home, you’re losing.Click To Tweet

The difficult issues you work through in your home life will make you a wiser, stronger leader organizationally. Like many couples, my wife Toni and I have worked through some difficult seasons and (thankfully), came through to a better place.

But in my thirties, I became so consumed with work because it was honestly just easier to win at church than it was to win at home.

Why do so many leaders fall for that trap? There are at least three reasons.

There’s a clearer scoreboard at work. You can accomplish things far easier at work than you can at home.

It’s easier to earn respect at work than it is at home because you hold a title, and for senior leaders, direct a team.

You can avoid the hard conversations at home by staying later and working longer.

All of these are terrible reasons of course, but that doesn’t keep leaders from falling for them. I’ve fallen for them in different seasons too.

The challenge with home, of course, is that no one is that impressed by your title, latest progress or corner office.

But lead poorly at home for more than a season and the consequences will play out in several ways throughout your life and leadership:

You may win in ministry but lose the heart and affection of your family. Most of us have met leaders whose family is still together but deeply resents the leader’s organization.

Your leadership in ministry might be permanently stunted as unresolved character issues leak from home into your organizational leadership. Your flaws tend to eventually impact everything you lead and touch.

You might lose it all – the collapse of your family might lead to the collapse of your ministry and leadership.

See what’s at stake?

But here’s the truth.  You can’t have a great ministry and bad marriage. A bad marriage will eventually undermine a great ministry.

So if you’re struggling at home, invest more there. It will be painful at first. It may involve expensive counselling and hours (days, months…) of wading through mud. Do it.

I look at the investment I’ve made over the last 15 years in counselling, coaching, retreats and more time on my knees, and I can’t believe how much it’s paid off. Naturally, I still have a long way to go. The ancients called this process sanctification, and it’s never done. But things can get better. They really can.

Lead well at home, and you will inevitably become a better leader in your ministry or organization.

It’s just too easy to lose at home. So don’t.

You can’t have a great ministry and bad marriage. A bad marriage will obliterate a great ministry. Click To Tweet

Addendum: Four Likely Reasons Billy Graham Finished Well

The news is not all bad. There are more than a few long-time leaders who appear to be leading and finishing very well.

Billy Graham was certainly one of them.

Most people in church leadership are aware of the Billy Graham rule: never meet alone with a member of the opposite sex. And while it has its critics and limits, it’s helped many people.

Thank you to Kadi Cole who alerted me to the origin of the Billy Graham rule in her fantastic  new book, Developing Female Leaders.

As Kadi points out, the Billy Graham rule actually had four aspects. Billy and a few of his colleagues got together in 1948 in Modesto California in 1948 after seeing other evangelists become entangled in affairs, greed and running down local churches.

It consists of four rules:

Financial integrity…so that Billy Graham and his team would not raise money themselves at crusades.
Sexual integrity…so they wouldn’t fall victim to affairs or impropriety.
Respect for local churches…so they would build up local churches, rather than compete with them.
A commitment to accuracy in reporting…so they would not exaggerate how many people attended or how ‘successful’ their ministry was.

All four issues are still real issues. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

You can read Billy Graham’s own description of the Modesto Manifesto here.

Some Deeper Help

13 years ago, I burned out. By the grace of God, there are no affair, nothing that precluded me from moving forward in ministry except my loss of energy and passion.

By the grace of God, I recovered, and it’s become a passion of mine not only to thrive in life and leadership, but to help other leaders do the same.

Of course none of us have mastered this entirely and it’s an ongoing commitment, but I recently released two resources that I hope can help you.

The first is my latest book, Didn’t See It Coming, which outlines how issues like cynicism, compromise, pride, burnout and disconnection can take out leaders or stunt their potential. You can explore more or get a copy here.

The second resource is my High Impact Leader Course, where I show you how to avoid burnout, get more done at work and have more time to be fully present at home by getting time, energy and priorities working in your favour. It’s an on-line, on demand course that outlines the principles I’ve used over the last decade+ to get healthy. The course has helped thousands of leaders do the same.

You can learn more or enrol in the High Impact Leader here.

What Do You See?

I would love to hear in the comments some of the things you see in your own life that you need to watch.

Please don’t pile on leaders who are already down or take cheap shots at people or the church. I’ll delete those comments. This isn’t a place to make the problem worse.

I want this to be a place to help us all find solutions that create a better future.

So as you look inside, what seeds of failure and seeds to finish well do you see inside yourself?

Scroll down and leave a comment.

The post Some Thoughts On Why MegaChurch Pastors Keep Falling appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: Some Thoughts On Why MegaChurch Pastors Keep Falling

The post Some Thoughts On Why MegaChurch Pastors Keep Falling appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Today’s post is a guest post by Unseminary’s Rich Birch: 

Lead pastors spend a lot time in the front row of the church participating in worship services. In fact, if you’re a church leader reading this you know the double track mind that we end up having during these experiences.

On one hand we’re attempting to be engaged in what’s happening while at the same time we’re evaluating what’s going on and thinking about the feedback we’d like to give to the worship leader.For many pastors leading a church we find ourselves wishing we could strike up a conversation with the worship leader about what they “do” but it can be hard to know where to start.

Worship leaders are typically center stage every weekend as they lead the church towards a deeper relationship with Jesus. They spend their time in middle of what happens in the worship ministry and sometimes don’t have a clear picture on what’s actually happening in their area. Tension could easily develop in the relationship between the worship folks and the leadership folks and if not kept in check it might foster a rift in the church over time.

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of serving closely with some dynamic lead pastors. Whether it was Bruxy Caveyat The Meeting Houseor Carey Nieuwhofat Connexus Churchor Tim Lucas at Liquid Church, it’s been an honor to serve in a “second chair” to these leaders. In each of those churches a part of my role to was help give leadership to the service programming department. Functionally, that meant attempting to translate the vision of our Lead Pastor to the creatives and worship people. Over time, I’ve seen similar patterns in the conversations we ended up having that I wanted to share here in the hopes of stirring conversations in your church!

What conversations would lead pastors love to have with the worship leaders at their churches?

What would a lead pastor say to the worship leader if they were given the chance?

How would a lead pastor frame conversations with the creatives in their midst to help the church move forward?

Here are seven conversation starters that I could easily imagine leadpastors launching into with worship leaders!

1. What you do is really important to the life of our church

For most churches, the musical worship portion of the service is the first thing that happens every week. As a result, it sets the tone for everything else that follows. We know that first impressions really matter, so what you and your team does determines a lot.We’ve invested to make sure we have great sound, video, and lights so these first few minutes are fantastic.

In fact, the majority of our technological investments as a church are to help your team do what you do. It’s really important to us. Thanks for bringing your best to these opening moments of our services!

2. Your long-term value is in producing other worship leaders

At the core of church growth is leaders producing other leaders. We look to bring up people around us and give them the opportunity and the skills to lead. The role of leaders in the local church is to help reproduce more leaders. In fact, great leaders make more leaders, not more followers.This can be particularly difficult in your area of ministry because it often seems like worship music is built on a “rock star” model where a few super qualified people just keep drawing crowds and making fans rather than passing along leadership to others.

If we fall into that pattern in worship ministry, we limit our ability to reach more people as a church. If you, specifically, fall into that temptation, it will limit your ability to grow and expand the church. You won’t always be leading on stage at the church, but the ability to develop leaders will be something you can take with you and use in whatever you do.Your ability to produce other leaders around you will be what determines your long-term value to our church.

Great leaders make more leaders, not more followers. @richbirchClick To Tweet

3. No, I haven’t heard the latest Bethel song

Can I level with you for a minute? Most people who attend our church don’t listen to worship music outside of Sunday mornings.I know, it’s shocking. Lots of families listen to the Top 40 radio station in town or people are increasingly just streaming music that they listened to when they were kids. The problem with that for us is that they don’t necessarily know the latest worship song by Bethel or Elevation or Vertical Church or whoever we are tracking with these days.

We need to sing the songs that our community resonates with more than you are probably going to like. We might need to repeat the songs that seem to engage our community a lot more than you and your team are comfortable with.

The goal is to engage with the people who are attending our church and not to keep up with the latest songs from across the country.When we do (rarely) introduce new songs we need to do it slowly and deliberately. We need to teach people new songs and not assume they know them all. Oh, but by the way, I do like that new Bethel song! It’s great.

Worship leaders, sing the songs that resonate with our community, more than the songs you like….Click To Tweet

4. Your internal spiritual life impacts your ministry, deeply

How are things with your soul? As a worship leader you are in a particularly vulnerable spot. Having the public spotlight trained on such a private aspect of your spiritual life can do strange things to your internal spiritual life.

If your worship becomes more of a performance than an overflow of your relationship with Jesus, it will deeply impact our ministry and could do some damage to your soul. Like our teaching pastor, we need you to ensure your heart is right with Jesus. Your private spiritual disciplines will shine through in how you lead publicly. Take time to read scripture, pray, fast, journal. It’s vitally important that your heart remains soft and open to what God wants to do in your life.

We can’t set “outcome goals” around your internal spiritual life, but it really does impact the outcome of your ministry.I’ve seen worship leaders who have landed that tricky guitar solo, but it comes off stale.I’ve wondered as I’ve watched them lead if that reflects something going on in their personal relationship with Jesus. I don’t want you to be a shell of a person living in mission with Jesus; rather, I want you to be fully alive in your relationship with Him!

A public life requires a rich interior life. @richbirchClick To Tweet

5. Engaging the people in the back row is the highest priority

You know those people in the front row that are totally into what you and your team do every week? It’s not about them.

They’ll most likely be engaged with the musical worship because they are “into” worship in their personal life. Our goal is to engage those people who come in late and stand near the back of the auditoriumwith a cup of coffee in hand.Sometimes I think it might be interesting to record a video of the audience so you can see how those people are reacting (or perhaps more pointedly not reacting) to what the worship team is doing on stage.

Our church is trying to help people who are far from God connect with Him. We’ve noticed that those individuals who stand at the back of the room are often people who don’t normally attend church on a regular basis. Engaging our entire community is what we’re aiming for and it is our purpose. It means we need to think about the people at the back of the room a whole lot more. We need to consider what it will take to draw them in. We have to work to ensure that they feel like they are part of what’s happening at our church.

Worship leaders, engage the back row, not just the front row. @richbirchClick To Tweet

6. Can you finish your expense report on time this month?

Can we talk about your expense report? I know, I know, it’s not the most exciting topic. Our finance team works hard every month to ensure we have up to date records. We use these records to make informed decisions about the future of the church.I know that (most months) you don’t spend that much, but if you don’t submit your report we end up with an incomplete picture of where things are at financially.

We trust you. We know that you invest the finances of the church wisely to help us achieve our mission. When I ask you to get those spending costs in on time, it’s not that I’m expressing a sense of distrust in you and your team. I’m not trying to be a killjoy or have some sort of tight leash on you. It’s just a part of the monthly process we need to work through here at the church.

Finally, there is a bit of an undercurrent when you don’t hand them in on a regular basis where it unwittingly communicates to the finance team that you think what they do isn’t that important. I know that’s not what you want to communicate but that is the sense it suggests.As your leadership grows, you are going to have more opportunities to manage finances in your role. Taking the time to learn about the rhythms of regular financial reporting by handing these reports in on time will prepare you for more responsibility in the future.

7. I’d really love to talk. When can we chat?

Can we have a DTR? I’d love to define the relationship between us. I know that we come from different worlds. I perceive you as an artist and you perceive me a suit. But I know we are so much more than the flat stereotypes that our roles at church could push us into. It’s true that I don’t understand a lot of what you do, and I’m pretty sure the feeling might be mutual, but I want to forge a strong partnership. I love what you do for our church, and it’s an honor to serve alongside you. I’m thankful you’re on the team, and I love seeing you use your gifts and talents to serve the church.

I’d love to know how I can better help you. I’d love to grab a coffee sometime and hear what’s happening in your area. Granted, I might not be able to help with a chord progression (I’m not even entirely sure what it is!), but I would love to help with other parts of your ministry. I value learning from you because you are a clearly gifted leader and we’re a better church because you are leading here.My door is always open, and I’d be more than willing to have a conversation.

A worship leader is more than an artist and a pastor is more than a suit. @richbirchClick To Tweet

What would you add?

Are you a senior leader in a church and you have a conversation that you think we should have included in this list? Are you a worship leader and there is something that you think we missed? We’d love to hear it in the comment section below!

About the Author – Rich Birch

Rich is one of the early multi-site church pioneers in North America. He led the charge in helping The Meeting Housein Toronto to become the leading multi-site church in Canada with over 5,500+ people in 19 locations. In addition, he served on the leadership team of Connexus Churchin Ontario, a North Point Community Church Strategic Partner. He has also been a part of the lead team at Liquid Church– a 6 location multisite church serving the Manhattan facing suburbs of New Jersey. Liquid is known for its innovative approach to outreach and community impact leading to it being featured on CNN, The New York Times and Outreach Magazine.

Rich is passionate about helping churches reach more people, more quickly through excellent execution. He has a weekly blog and podcast that helps with stuff you wish they taught in seminary at www.unSeminary.com. His latest book, Church Growth Flywheel: 5 Practical Systems to Drive Growth at Your Church, is an Amazon seller and readers of Carey’s blog can get the first chapter for free at this link.

The post 7 Things Lead Pastors Wish They Could Say to Worship Leaders appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: 7 Things Lead Pastors Wish They Could Say to Worship Leaders

The post 7 Things Lead Pastors Wish They Could Say to Worship Leaders appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Source: Lies Pastors Believe

The post Lies Pastors Believe appeared first on Passion for Planting.