When ministries need to change

Many ministries have not kept up with the changes in today's world. This includes many churches but it is especially true in the mission world where I work. In many organizations radical change is needed.

A common response when faced with the need to change is to start tweaking the current paradigm. Tweaking is "fear based change." We are so afraid to rock the boat significantly that we hope we can tweak our way out of our predicament. It never works. Change requires new paradigms in how we think and new ways of delivering on our mission. Furthermore, talking change but making tweaks tells the whole staff that leadership is not truly committed to change so they can keep their heads down and continue to do what they have always done.

A similar response is that of incremental change. Going in the right direction but slowly. At the pace of change in our world today, those who move slowly will find themselves in the same place they currently are as change in our environment outpaces our ability to respond.

Another observation. Ministries are often unwilling to bring in an outside facilitator to help in the change process or to bring in new leadership from the outside. The sub culture they have created is not friendly to those coming from the outside with new ideas and new ways of thinking. This is an absolute killer of any real change because it leaves one locked into the very culture that must change if the organization is going to change. I am watching several ministry organizations right now wrestling with needed changes but until they bring in someone from outside their insular culture there is no chance that it will happen.

Often the leaders who brought an organization to where it is today cannot take it to where it needs to go tomorrow. But until boards and current leaders face that reality they will not move forward. Sometimes courageous choices need to be made and leadership or board changes need to take place if we want to re-invision the organization for its next run. Remember that while we always honor people, our stewardship of the ministry requires us to do the right thing for the ministry even if it means changes in staff. That is the real world. Do it graciously but don't be afraid to do it.

The issue of leadership courage is huge in change. Leading change is a tough business. People resist, some get nasty, change is messy, personnel changes must take place which can be hard, arrows come! It is the nature of change. Organizations that desire to change but who don't have a leader who can effectively lead the change will lose. In addition that leader must be able to articulate the new realities and vision so that people have clarity on where they are going even if they don't like the white waters of change.

If you know your organization needs significant change ask yourself these questions. Do we have clarity on what the future should look like? Do we have a leader who can take us there? Do we need to bring key staff in from the outside? Do we have the courage to let people go who no longer fit? Do we have the resolve to see this through? Are we willing to make radical paradigm shifts to get us to where we need to be?

Deep Influence and Deep Pain are Intimately Connected

For those who desire a life of influence, pain, while never invited is a gift nonetheless. Suffering develops perspective, character, forces us to focus on the important and shed the unimportant and brings us closer to a sovereign father if we respond by pressing into him. Unfortunately, there is no substitute for pain and suffering when it comes to our inner life, our relationship with Jesus and the renovation of our hearts.

Those who ask Him to help them become like Him, to give them a heart like His and to help them love as He loves are inviting suffering into their lives because that suffering is the very thing if responded to well that brings the desired result. In the New Testament, Peter, Paul and the writer of Hebrews all talk about the way that pain purifies and brings His transformation to our lives.

Think about this. When we are treated unfairly we learn what it means to trust our situation to God. When we are slandered we learn that it is God who holds our reputations in His hand. When we face serious illness we learn what it means to prioritize the elements of our lives and to shed the unimportant. When we cannot get through a day without His help and grace we learn what it means to live in His presence even hourly. When the unexpected slams into our lives and we are left reeling we learn that there is nothing more precious than our relationship with Him - when all is said and done, He is what we need.

I don't relish pain. Those who know me know that Mary Ann and I have had our share. The funny thing is that in retrospect while I never want to go through certain situations again, I can today thank God for the hard and painful gifts he brought through suffering. I can say with certainty that the contours of my heart have been irrevocably shaped in suffering and that nothing else would have sufficed. When C.S. Lewis said that pain is God's megaphone to us he was right. Thus I call it an unlikely gift but a gift nonetheless because it was God speaking to me through the pain - it was Jesus who wanted to get in touch with me in my suffering.  Pain is God's certified mail to our very souls if we will but listen.

One of my sons told me once that he thought God would really use him in a significant way. In the aftermath of that conversation I thought about the price he would pay if that were to be the case. Spiritual influence comes at a price which is why those who have suffered deeply often influence us the deepest. They have been forced to go deep with God and the quality of their hearts and lives show it well. In contrast, those who simply want a life of ease and safety may get their wish but it will be at the expense of spiritual influence they might have had. 

The wonderful truth is that when we suffer and press into God we "share in His sufferings," in the words of Paul to the Philippians. We join our savior in the suffering that He endured for the sake of His father and for ours. We never suffer alone but have a high priest who has gone before us and understands the pain we feel and the issues we face. That is the gift of the incarnation. God, who had not known the frailties of those He created, became one of the created so that He could not only redeem us but identify with us forever. Thus in all pain and suffering we live with the reality that He not only went before us but goes with us in full understanding, compassion, grace, comfort and presence.

If you are living with the reality of pain today, my prayer is that God will comfort you and that you will go deep with Him and that out of it all will come deep and abiding relationship with the Father and deep influence with those around you. And to a friend out east who is in the confluence of pain, I pray that you will be encouraged, that God will do His work and that you will emerge stronger than ever.

Investing in your staff

It is easy for leaders at all levels to become so busy with their own work that they neglect one of their fundamental responsibilities - growing their staff. For those of us who lead, staff development is not an ancillary but a primary part of our job. In fact, our ministry success is deeply wrapped up with the quality, focus and capacity of those who work under our leadership. Not only that: leading others is a stewardship and they have a right to expect that we will help them become all that they can be in the positions they are in.

This is not about micromanaging - a demotivating activity for staff. Nor is it about telling them how to do what they need to do - if one needs to do that one has the wrong staff. Rather it is about understanding the wiring of staff members and through dialogue and discussion helping them maximize their gifts strategically in the role they play.

Good leaders are exegetes of their staff. They seek to understand how each individual is wired, what motivates and demotivates them, where their strengths and weakness are, their emotional intelligence and even the shadow side of their personality (we all have one). Without a basic understanding of these elements of personality one cannot help others grow and develop. That is why staff development is a very personalized art and why leaders need to take the time to get to know those they supervise in more than a superficial way.

One of the greatest gifts we can give staff is time with them in dialogue regarding their work. There are three specific things that I look for: focus, strategy and relationships.

Focus is all about helping staff keep the main thing the main thing and not become distracted by activity. Activity does not equal results. Results come from a clear and focused set of priorities that is translated into schedule and activity. Can your staff articulate what is most important in their work and do their schedule and priorities reflect those big rocks they have articulated. Further do they have the correct big rocks? Lack of focus is one of the primary reasons for less than satisfactory results for all of us.

Second, do they have a strategy that makes sense? Is their strategy designed for addition (based around what they can do) or multiplication (getting others involved)? Does their strategy maximize the opportunity or leave things on the table? Socratic dialogue around these issues can sharpen their thinking and help them to leverage their time and efforts for the best results.

Third, how are are they doing with other staff and volunteers? Relationships are the coinage of ministry success. Helping staff grow in their ability to work with others productively, handle robust and candid discussion without defensiveness and resolve conflict and differences are non-negotiable elements of ministry success. Don't wait till there is a crisis to press into relational issues. They matter all the time.

An extended conversation around these kinds of things on a monthly basis will help you surface issues, talk through challenges, keep the focus sharp and help your staff report think more strategically. If we neglect this kind of time with direct reports we will inevitably pay for it. It is one of the best investments we can make because our ministry success is directly tied to the ministry acumen of those we lead. Make the investment monthly and you will reap the benefits in a big way.

Don't get caught in the church numbers game

What spells success for a local church? For many pastors the answer is how many attend their church. I drove by a Unitarian church with a full parking lot on Sunday. By our common definition of success they had achieved it - or the Mormon temple two blocks from my house that draws a full crowd. Seen in that light we realize that numbers are not everything and sometimes are nothing when it comes to success.

In fact, numbers may be the worst definition of success for churches and pastors. Churches do not grow indefinitely. Many pastors are not equipped to lead a large church but are wonderfully equipped to lead a small or medium size church. All of us have a leadership ceiling and internal wiring that defines the size of an organization we can effectively lead. Since God gave us that wiring we have to assume He is pretty happy with it and so should we be. One of my ministry buddies is a great preacher and the quintessential shepherd pastor. He pastors a church of around 250 and is wonderfully fulfilled in that role. His lane is not a church of 500 or larger where he would be frankly miserable. He is fulfilling his God given calling in a smaller church.

Further, the focus on numbers can easily cause us to move away from a full presentation of the gospel to embrace an attractional model of church where the goal is to attract as many people as possible and in the process to water down the emphasis on disciple making which actually demands something from those who come. There are plenty of large churches full of untransformed people which is not a New Testament definition of success. And remember that most church growth in the United States is not about new conversions but simply about people transferring from one church to another. How does that spell success?

We should also remember that many people are not enamored by large churches. They prefer a family size church where it is easier to know others, plug in and where relationships are easier to build. There are far more avenues of direct involvement possible in smaller churches than in large churches.

What we ought to really be focused on is not numbers but helping our congregation experience true spiritual transformation: Hearts transformed by grace; thinking transformed by God's word; priorities transformed to align with His word and relationships transformed by His love. Pastors often say to me, "I don't know how to do the vision thing." My answer is that ninety percent of vision in the church is simply helping people live out the Gospel in their lives, their homes, their neighborhoods and their places of work. This is true in a large church or a small church. Size is not an indicator of success - transformed people are. 

Can small churches grow? Often they do so by church planting. They may not desire to grow significantly in numbers as a congregation but all churches can grow by multiplying themselves in church planting. And there will indeed be conversion growth for any body that is focused on spiritual transformation. Get the focus right and true spiritual fruit happens - John 15. 

There are always reasons for church size - a complex set of variables that we cannot address in full here. But I would say to any pastor, the measure of your success is not in your attendance numbers as much as it is in the transformation that is taking place among your people. Even in the New Testament there were huge churches and tiny house churches and all kinds in between. While God's people grew in numbers there were still all sizes of churches and there is no reference as to numbers being the sign of success for any of them. Transformation was a sign as well as ministry engagement - see Ephesians. People coming to Christ was a sign - see the book of Acts. But church size was not.

Rather than getting caught in the numbers game, we all ought to be focused on transformed lives which leads to new people coming to Christ. And, be who you are made to be as a church whether a small neighborhood church or a mega church. The numbers don't tell the story, Gospel engagement does.

Power, Humility and Leaders

Leadership advancement must be accompanied by a parallel advancement in personal humility. This is a paradox as leadership advancement brings with it additional power, opportunities, freedom, perks and responsibilities - all of which are more likely to lead to pride than to humility which is the only antidote to the dark side effects of additional power.

Humility is not a denigration of the leadership gifts we may possess. Healthy leaders are by nature self confident, self assured and have a bank of experience and wisdom from which to draw on. Some will actually see that confidence as arrogance when in fact it is simply self assurance. Paul tells us to have an accurate read of our strengths and we need not apologize for leadership acumen. Most if not all leaders have run into people who don't like their ability to make clear directional decisions and accuse them of arrogance. Usually that reflects more on the accuser than the accused.

At the same time, leadership gifts bring with them unique personal challenges because of the power it brings. Decision making power which can be used more for our benefit than for others, influence over the careers of others, additional personal freedom with a larger "sandbox" in which to play along with less candid feedback from those around us who may choose to play to our leadership role rather than engage in robust, honest, candid discussion.

It is not unusual for leaders to lose some of their sensitivity to others as their role increases. There can be an expectation for others to serve them, agree with them, and live up to their expectations whether they are appropriate expectations or not. They can also lose the ability to listen closely and carefully - after all they are busy and distracted by many issues. In the ministry world, there is the added dimension of "spirituality" in the leadership equation where "God speaks" and leaders can use the "God's direction" to go where they desire to go. How does one argue with God?

How do leaders grow their personal humility as they are handed greater authority, power and freedom? First, while leaders are often lifted up by others with perks, titles and respect, they go deep into their own hearts, souls and lives to understand and respect the depths of their own depravity. None of us look as good on the inside as we do on the outside and leaders cultivate a high view of their own fallenness in order to not be deceived by the adulation of others. In doing so, they develop a greater understanding of their true self, vulnerabilities, need of God's grace and forgiveness and their personal understanding balances out the adulation of others.

Second, healthy leaders surround themselves with people who will be honest with them. Unhealthy leaders surround themselves with people who will play to their ego. There is a huge distinction! One of the reasons for building healthy leadership teams is that there are multiple voices that weigh in on critical decisions and robust dialogue of a group rather than the single voice of one. You can tell the nature of a leader by those he or she surrounds themselves and by how candid those individuals can be with their leader. Personally, I will never again work for a leader with whom I cannot be completely honest behind closed doors.

In fact, healthy leaders go out of their way to solicit information, opinions, feedback and advice on critical decisions. True self assurance is not intimidated by the differing opinions of others and actually desire the opposing view so that they can understand all angles and potential unintended consequences. Any leader who is intimidated by strong opinions that differ from theirs is actually an unhealthy leader. Those leaders who don't want to listen and dialogue with other strong voices are more concerned with their own ego and power then with leading well. It is about them, not about those they lead.  

Third, leadership brings with it power, options, and greater freedom. Many leaders use those perks of leadership for their own purposes. Healthy leaders use those perks to help those they lead. The power of leadership, for instance, can be used to further our own goals or it can be used to remove barriers and pave the way for our staff to be more successful. Our freedom as leaders gives us the opportunity to extend greater freedom to others, to be their advocates and to tackle the politics of the organization that they are not in a position to deal with.

Leaders do not need to apologize for the greater freedom they have because of their leadership role. They have earned it. But, the best leaders use that freedom on behalf of their teams not on behalf of themselves. They use the power of their position to serve those they lead! Power in itself is not bad. It depends on how that power and influence is used. I have been helped over the years in significant ways by those above me who could intervene on my behalf and without whom I would not be in the leadership role I am today. They used their influence to help me in situations I could not negotiate by myself.

Power and humility are two sides of the same coin for healthy leaders. If you lead, how are you doing on the balance between the two?

Boundaries matter

All of us have boundaries in our personal lives, our work and our relationships. Those boundaries are designed to keep us in moral, ethical, legal and healthy places. When we start to violate those boundaries and play with the boundary lines we are in dangerous territory.

How well we keep our boundaries is a matter of our humility. Pride says, "those boundaries don't matter for me." Humility says, "Those boundaries apply to me just like they apply to others and they are there for my own good." The human heart has endless ability to move the boundary markers in our own lives and to rationalize the decision. It is the nature of sin to think that the rules don't apply to us. It is actually narcissism - the rules don't apply to me, I am above them.

In ancient times, boundaries were marked by stones and it was a major offence to move a boundary stone: they were sacred and immovable. So it should be in our lives. The ethical and moral lines laid down in Scripture are there for our protection and represent the immovable boundary stones of a righteous God. We have other boundary stones in our workplaces that are equally immovable. The moment we start to move the stones, our hearts are in jeopardy and the deceit of pride has reared its dangerous head. God says the markers matter. The evil one says they don't - at least for us.

We ought to ask ourselves periodically if we are playing with any boundary markers in our lives. Have we moved any? Are we skating across any? Are we thinking that any of them don't apply to us? None of us is exempt from moving the markers. All of us are tempted to do so. But it never turns out well and once we have moved one it is easier to move another and another and another. The boundaries in our lives matter and the wise humbly acknowledge that they apply to them not just to others.

If any markers have been moved the smartest thing we can do is repent and put them back where they originally belonged. Boundaries matter.

The River of Marriage

When I think about marriage, my metaphor is that of the Mississippi river which runs through my city of St. Paul. Its source is Lake Itasca in Minnesota where you can literally walk across it as a small stream, stepping on a few stones. From that humble and small beginning it meanders slowly southward for 2,320 miles to the Mississippi River delta.

On its long journey, it is a watershed for nearly 40% of the United States as rivlets run into streams and streams run into rivers and those rivers run into the mighty Mississippi. By the time it reaches its termination, it is discharging between 200 and 700 thousand cubic feet of water per second into the gulf. Its start is inconspicuous to the massive force of its end where its width spans as far as the eye can see and its strength pushes fresh water far out into the gulf with enough force that for miles its contents don’t even mix with the salt water of the ocean.


While marriage is exciting and exhilarating at its start, it is but a small trickle of what it can become if its partners are willing to share the long journey of a life together. The width and depth of a marriage well lived can be seen in the relationships and influence of those who have withstood the numerous bends in the journey, some joyful, some hard and some where they simply had to hang on together in faith - not knowing what was around the next bend. Marriages that have withstood the journey carry with them the weight of thousands of accumulated streams and rivers that have added to their strength widening and deepening a relationship that seemed so strong but was but a tiny stream in comparison at its inception.


And what are those streams and rivers that flow into the marriage over the years that add to its depth and width? Every time a partner serves the other, a stream flows into their relationship. Every time forgiveness is extended a stream flows into their relationship. When they walk through tough times in faith and commitment, rivers flow into their relationship. Every act of love, service, forgiveness, and commitment adds to the flow of their marriage which over the years and around bends too numerous to count cause it to flow with strength, depth and amazing power – having influenced many along the way.


Any captain will tell you that the Mississippi is a challenging river to navigate with its constantly changing sandbars and shifting channels. Marriage is no different. What did Mary Ann and I really know when we made vows at twenty about “in sickness and in health” and for “richer or for poorer?” It is in facing those unknowns that will unexpectedly appear together and with faith in a loving God that adds strength to our marriages.


When you see a couple in their eighties with wizened faces, unsteady legs and holding arthritic hands, don’t be fooled. They may look frail but if they have taken this journey called marriage together, they have depth and wisdom and a kind of commitment that nothing can break. Like the mighty Mississippi that flows into the gulf with great strength and force, their marriage has grown exponentially from that initial trickle of a stream so many years before. And they will tell you if you ask that it was worth the effort and that their love and commitment is great and there is a deep satisfaction that they weathered the challenges that marriage inevitably brings. Their small stream of love has turned into a river, wide and deep.