Ministry Principles & Pragmatics

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I've moved the content of this blog over to a wordpress site. sorry for the mix up if you landed here!

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Don't mistake newlessness for growthlessness

Its really exciting hearing something new; that feeling of having your brain blown and being knocked off your feet as you realise how Jesus transforms your view of the world. We should always thank God for those moments, and look forward to more (Eph 2:7)

It is worth realising they can become addictive; we find ourselves searching sermons and blogs for that next "hit" of awe in the gospel like we had last time.

But a common problem is for young Christians (around uni age) who have come from basic youth groups and now have that brain-blast experience every week or so.

They begin to think that sensation is normal maturity. They think that what the normal Christian life is meant to feel like. They think having their world rocked is what it means to be spiritual. They think newness is growth.

But its not. In fact, it can be far from it.

The problem hits when they've spent 4-8 years being taught the bible, and the sermons never seems to rock their world any more, and they think they're having a "dry-patch", they think there's something wrong with their walk with God.

And that's when they've found the normal Christian life. Endurance, perseverance, trust and simple prayer in the face of hard times.

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Solve or manage? What type of tension are you dealing with?

There's only two things you can do when you face a tension; a situation when you are faced with two good things and you can't easily do both they way you'd like to.

You can either solve the tension or manage the tension.

Solving the tension means coming up with a simple solution. It usually ends with all parties agreeing they they will loose something they think is important. It often looks like a "policy" eg; "we will give twice as much to mission as we do to maturity, financially, time, effort, prayer, etc". It attempts to have the conversation once, get it all clear for everyone involved, and free people up to get it done, so they don't waste time having to keep hashing it out to see who gets what, and never getting anything done.

A tension to manage, however, is the opposite. It's about not having a policy and keeping the two principles always on the table. It means that no one is ever satisfied. It's choose to live with dissatisfaction on both sides. It's choosing to always want both sides of the tension to be perfect. It's a decision to have conversation after conversations and verge on arguments again and again. Yes, you will need to make a decision and it will fall on one side it the other, but that's just that time, next time it might fall the other way.

I reckon almost all the Christian life is a tension to manage. Now but not yet, sinners and saints, mission and maturity, work and rest, duty and awe, respect of outsiders and being a fool for Christ.

I wonder what that says about God?

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Choose how to hear people

You don't have to hear people the way they want you too. You actually get to choose what type of "thing" you're going to hear.

If someone gives you a complement, you can decide to hear it as a comment rather than flattery.

if someone criticises you, you can choose to hear it as advice to take into account.

if someone gives you an instruction or even a direct command, you can choose to hear it as a price of advice to consider.

This ability to choose what type of communication your hearing is very powerful. And like most powerful things, can be used poorly and well. Be wary of the fool who doesn't hear a rebuke and take it to heart. Long to be Christians who hear the gospel word not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God.

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Don't over-spiritualise nerves

Feeling nervous is a common thing, especially in ministry when so much of ministry is in front of people and so much of ministry is handling the word of truth. So don't over spiritualise nerves.

feeling nervous is not necessarily a sign of godliness, and not feeling nervous is not necessarily a sign of arrogance.

Don't look down on the person without nerves; rather praise God for blessing them with less anxiety. And don't look down on the person who has nerves, as they may just realise the foolishness of their human attempt to be part of a deeply spiritual event.

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Quality should be motivated by love

Some Christians just want quality for quality's sake, or they think we need to match the world around us. Some Christians are wary of quality because they think its about manipulating feelings and that its all smoke a mirrors. But the true motivation for Christians and churches doing things well is love.

Doing things with a high degree of quality is part of making sure people don't fall through the cracks. If you don't welcome people to church "well" (read "with a certain degree of quality") they won't know how to connect. If you don't run the Sunday meeting well, they won't know what's going on. If you don't ask for feedback cards or follow them up, or run evangelistic courses well, people will fall through the cracks.

But some people will say something like, "But you don't need to exert effort to make these things quality, you don't need to create quality systems and programs... The Christians at church can do a quality job just on their own. You don't need feedback cards if the individuals are just loving the new people."

Yep, and who's going to train them to do a quality job?

And who's going to oversee that, when 30% of your congregation is new? Surely they need to do a quality job?

Can you see how that same love that starts with wanting to look after people, as the number of people grow and the number of people to love grows, requires and motivates love-fuelled quality in Christian ministry?

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How girls unwittingly mis-communicate to boys

Most guys just don't have the skills or capacity to pick up on all the social cues that most girls take for granted.

(Notice I've said "most" and stop writing that comment that starts with "Well some girls/guys aren't like that".)

Most guys operate on a very limited set of social "inputs". Socially awkward guys work off an even fewer number of cues. That's why they're socially awkward - they don't meant to be, they know that they're missing something, they just don't know what. It's like they can only see in grey-scale... and some guys only have 5 shades between black and white.

Most girls, on the other hand, walk into social situations seeing all the colours of the rainbow; they notice glances, and eye-rolls from across the room. They perceive mood and other's awkwardness in a flash. They react and adjust quickly to compensate.

And that's where girls often unwittingly miscommunicate - usually while they're trying to be loving.

A guy will make them feel awkward, try and be funny, etc... and the girl will try and give signals (social cues) that she's not interested, while at the same time being polite by smiling and laughing, etc.

At which point, the guy only sees the girl smiling and laughing at his joke and has NO IDEA that there are other social cues and signals going on telling him that he's being awkward.

So, girls... you wouldn't talk to a child expecting them to "read" all those high-level social cues - that would be unloving. So in the same way, look at the guy and realise that its unloving to expect him to pick-up on those social cues too!!

Yes, I know you feel rude by not smiling and laughing... but he doesn't think it's rude (because that's what he does isn't it!?).

Don't expect socially awkward guys to operate on a level that they obviously can't operate on. Out of love for them, "dumb-down" your communication - not by using simple words, but by using simple social signals when necessary.

From a socially awkward guy, who's being trying to learn social signals and cues for years (with wonderful help and support from my wife), be kind and generous to those of us who have trouble doing something you find so easy.

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Address people's emotions before you address their questions

If someone asks you a difficult question, or a personal question, or an emotionally charged question, chances are they're not going to be listening to what you say.

Instead, all that's going to be going through their mind is... How will he deal with my feelings? How will he feel about me after I ask this question?

By asking a question, they're really putting themselves out there. So don't leave them hanging. Reflect their emotions back to them. State the feelings behind the question. E.g. "I can imagine that could have taken a lot of courage to ask that. Thank you."

Only after you've dealt with their feelings and fears have you then got the opportunity to answer their question.

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Compare Giving Income to budget, not to expenses

A budget is an agreed target for income and an agreed target for expenses. So what happens if your income is less than your expenses?

If you talk about income vs expenses, then the obvious question will be, "how are we going to lower our expenses to match income?"

But if you talk about budgeted (or target) income vs budgeted (or targeted) expenses, it slightly changes the game.

Yes, many people won't be aware of the difference, in which case you should make it clear. The income didn't fall below expenses, it fell below our agreed income target (budget). The expenses didn't creep above our income, it crept about out agreed expenses target (budget).

That way, the right question gets asked... Did we set the budget to low or too high? How will we set the target next year? What did we agree on, and what should we agree on going forward?

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Defend the weak = stop gossip

Gossip isn't simply when "other people" talk about you. That's fine. Rather, gossip is when other people talk about you in damaging ways... when they talk to other people about your intentions, your motives. Or putting it the other way around, gossip is when you talk to someone about how another person is mean/awful/untrustworthy.

You could say those things to their face, and that would be bad enough since you're attributing motives... you're assuming to know their heart (which only God can).

What makes gossip worse is that the person you're talking about isn't even there. They can't defend themselves; they have no voice, they are helpless and weak in the face of such an attack.

So defend the weak and those without a voice.

Stop other people gossiping. Ask people to stop when they start saying unkind things about someone not present.

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Is there something else?

If you're meeting up with someone, or you've been approached by someone, there's a question you need to ask pretty regularly...

"Is there something else you'd like to raise?"

"Was there anything else you wanted to chat about?"

"Is there anything else on your mind?"

Or even... "I get the feeling there's something else you'd like to chat about; what's up?"

They want to talk to you, but they feel like there's never a good moment, or opportunity. Go give them one.

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Why is it working?

Is something your running working well? Is your church growing? Are people coming along? Are people growing?

Don't be too quick to assume its your amazing programs. Don't be too quick to claim that God is blessing you specially.

Sometimes, things just work for a certain group of people. Churches grow at 5% per year because their suburb is growing at 10% per year. Maybe people just like your style. Maybe the time your running works better for people.

Don't be too quick to over-spiritualise growth. Certainly God's hand is at work, but it could just simply be through the the basic principles of the world he's created.

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You're not embarrassing, you're just surrounded by embarrassiable people

Most of the embarrassing situations you've been in have only been embarrassing because of what "you think" other people are "feeling".

In other words, it's only "assumed empathy" that makes things embarrassing. The fact you tripped up the stage is only a cause of embarrassment if you think other people will be imputing embarrassing feelings onto you. If you were totally convinced that no-one saw you, or that everyone thought you didn't trip, would you be embarrassed?

The trick to dissolving an embarrassing situation is convincing other people that you're not feeling embarrassed... to stop them feeling empathetically embarrassed on your behalf.

One way is to simply laugh it off. Another way is to tell them that your not embarrassed.

I do this with my stutter when preaching. I tell people that I'm not embarrassed about it, I make them feel at ease - not about my stutter - but about how I feel about having a stutter. Once they know that I'm really not embarrassed about it, neither are they.

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Modern-day-gifts "The Energizer"

Put some people in front of an audience, and they have to try so hard to affect the mood in the room. Shouting and jumping around will likely only cause embarrassment, rather than excitement.

Put other people in front of an audience, and all they have to do is half-a-smile... and bam! There's something electric in the room. Everyone's alert and excited. They've got some ability to inject energy into the room.

Thank you God for those people.

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Do you help people say no?

As a general rule, people who end up in Full-time paid ministry are they type of people who can either say "yes" to everything (and get it done), or they're the type of people who feel comfortable saying "no" to things that others want them to do.

If that's you, that means your weird!!!

Most people can't deal with saying "yes" everything, and most people don't feel comfortable saying "no" when asked to do something.

Now, simply stating that people should feel comfortable saying "no" misses the point. You know that, because you probably find it easier than most, or you've learnt how to do it for years.

So, understand you're different and that people probably aren't all like you. And after you thank God, help them work out whether they should be saying "no".

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Do you care about everyone?

I hope you do. We all want to care about everyone. But often we can end up only caring for the few who are loudest. We listen to the vocal minority, and end up ignoring the silent majority.

It doesn't mean the loud few are wrong; they might be right. But just because you're looking to protect a few people doesn't mean you're looking after everyone. In fact, you might be thinking of everyone in a completly wrong way...

When you think of everyone, do you mean all the adults in your church? What about all the kids? Are you somehow caring for the obvious adults, but in that very action, not caring about the unseen kids in classes?

Or maybe your "everyone" is every person in your church... but is that every person in church on Sunday? Or every person in a GrowthGroup? Who are you not caring about then?

And what about the people in your suburb? Are you so caring about the people in your church, that you're neglecting to care about the people in your community?

How would your decisions, programs, plans look different if you tried to take everyone into account, rather than just a few people?

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Why let the leaders lead?

Romans 12 says, "in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us [...] if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently"

It seems that Jesus gives certain people the ability to "lead"; and encourages them to use that gift... diligently. The word there is "do quickly, do one's best, do eagerly".

What's the principle there?

Jesus encourages the church to use spiritually-gifted people... so that tasks get done well; at their best.

Jesus seems to care about quality because he gives being gifted in doing jobs well.