How to Tell if a Visitor to Your Church Will Be Back

VISITOR: How long have you been at this church?

Visitors to a church are typically nervous, so I give them some slack. They don’t know what kind of group they are walking into, they don’t know anyone, nor how we do things. This could either be their spiritual home or another place they will run from and never return to. One never knows.

But you can learn a lot about a visitor by the questions they ask.

Visitors who ask for a doctrinal statement:
These are a dying breed and I appreciate them. They want to know what food they’ll be served. They want to know up front where we stand. It shows a certain care about the actual function of a church—teaching believers to grow in Christ. God bless visitors who care about doctrinal statements. And also, they aint coming back.

Visitors who ask about you, the pastor:
“What’s your other job?” is my favorite of these questions. It’s sort of an accusation, and if nothing else, a meant disrespect. Where did you go to seminary? How long have you been here? Where did you pastor before this? Then they will tell you about their old pastor and how great or awful he was and make comparisons for good or bad. And also, they aint coming back.

Visitors who ask about the size of the church:
Building a new building soon? Are you growing? Any new families lately? Then they will tell you about what they did in their old church that worked to bring people in and how you should try that here as if you’ve never heard of church growth ideas and live in the backwoods of spiritual ignorance and churchly incompetence. And also, they aint coming back.

Visitors who don’t ask anything:
Yeah, over the years, these are the ones most likely to come back. They don’t feel a need to interrogate, insinuate, compare, or examine. They just want a place to go. If they like it; they like it. If they don’t; they don’t. They may ask some surface questions and make conversation, but for the most part, they hold off the interrogations and seek to observe. These ones might be back.

One couple who visited our church asked for a doctrinal statement and then expressed surprise at my message, which they thought contradicted the doctrinal statement. And, in all honesty, it may have to a degree (I did not write the statement myself after all). But the wife just launched on me. She went hard after the doctrine and argued. Her husband stood quietly by. I kept looking at him here and there and he just nervously smiled.

I’ve never had a visitor quite go at me like her. I never saw them again, but I have several times prayed for that poor husband. I could tell by his looks he gave me this wasn’t the first time and he was sorry.

It was also nice that all the board members completely left me standing there alone after church with this couple. They all scattered. No man stood with me. It was me and this couple in the building. That was it. That was not cool.

I handled them the best I could and held no expectation they would be back, and they never returned. But I still pray for that poor man.

Visitors are testing the waters, as much as the waters are testing the visitors. Most visitors don’t come back. I’m always amazed at the people who stay. They were typically the ones I hardly remember their first coming. They just melt right into the group. It’s a beautiful thing to behold, and more so since it’s so rare.

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers:
for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
–Hebrews 13:2

How Failing Pastors Pray

If I had a dollar for every time I prayed for you, I’d probably pray for you more.
@FailingPastor

There is an idea floating around that if a pastor prays for you, you will be granted your request. I’m not sure where this comes from. Perhaps some sort of notion that pastors have an “in” with God more than the average layman.

People ask me to pray for them frequently. I do pray for them, but I doubt I pray for them what they want me to pray, but I do pray.

I pray that people would grow in Christ, that they would stop being distracted by earthly things and pursue spiritual growth. I pray that they would do the right thing, obey God’s Word, and deal with the consequences of doing the right thing in a wrong world. I pray for spiritual things.

I have told my church this many times. When people ask me to pray for their knee pain, I do, and I pray that through this knee pain, whether it stays or goes, it will work out to their spiritual growth. Pain can cause growth, so can the immediate cessation of pain. I can see growth happening either way. So my concern is for spiritual growth; let the knee feel how it’s supposed to in order to facilitate spiritual growth.

Yet people keep asking me to pray that pain would go away. That so-and-so would get healed. That everything would work out and they can come home soon. I continue to pray for spiritual growth and for the power of the Gospel to save souls through these things.

Continue reading “How Failing Pastors Pray” →

I Can Do All Things! Yippee!

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Except attend church regularly.”
–Christians

@FailingPastor

The majority of Christians have an unexamined faith. Most Christians believe what some person said about Christianity. Cliché and out of context biblical phrases make up most of any Christian’s doctrine.

This is a constant frustration to a pastor. Pastors attempt to teach people what the Bible says. Our job is to build people up in the faith and to preach the Word in season and out.

When people hear these sermons and then turn around and use a biblical phrase in the most unbiblical way, the pastor’s soul is sucked right out of him.

“We are more than conquerors!” Gets exclaimed, not as a pick-me-up for enduring persecution as the original phrase was intended, but as a cheerful defense of materialistic winning in life.

“All things work together for good” gets trotted out when someone loses a job and then gets hired at a place that pays more, or when their kid doesn’t make the soccer team but starts on the swim team. The original context has to do with all things working to grow the believer into Christ, which is what God thinks is good. It has nothing to do with temporal success and certainly not material gain.

The ultimate one is “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” This is used as a self-help mantra, a believe in yourself and you can do anything cheer. Jesus died on the cross so your wildest dreams would come true. Just add Jesus and material success follows! Yippee!

The original context is Philippians 4 where Paul, who is writing from prison, talks about his contentment whether external circumstances are good or bad. Why? Because with Christ, external things matter very little. I can endure any external thing, whether good or bad, because Christ strengthens me.

Teaching people how to use the Bible in context is not easy, but it’s one of our many tasks. Words mean things and the words of the Bible are not written in isolation. People need to learn the context of a phrase in a verse, a verse in a chapter, a chapter in a book, and a book in the Bible. Biblical phrases are not stand alone, apply as you wish statements. They mean definite things!

Spending energy and time over years and years teaching people how to use God’s Word, and to then consistently hear those people use verse after verse so far out of context, makes a pastor want to quit. What’s the point? Why continue?

I don’t know. What I do know is that with Christ strengthening me, I can do all things! I can even endure and persevere in the face of people who have no idea how to use the Bible! I can continue to teach, trusting that my labor is not in vain in the Lord! Whether my ministry is making any externally measurable difference or not, I can do all things through Christ!

I can even put up with people who butcher God’s word and continue to patiently teach and guide! Seriously, with Christ you can do that!

“For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate;Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.

–Titus 1:7-9

Why I Don’t Like Pastors’ Conferences

I am not at a pastor’s conference. I am at home saving money and serving the Lord.

And judging pastors at pastor’s conferences.
@FailingPastor

I don’t like pastors’ conferences. This is not because I am opposed to them, I just don’t like them. Here are the main reasons why:

1) I make very little money. If I were to pay for a trip to a pastor’s conference, that would eliminate lots of money for my family’s use. If I’m going to pay for a trip, it will be for the family. “Wouldn’t your church pay for you to go?” See, here’s the thing: the reason I have little money is because my church has little money. They are paying me as much as they can. Me taking time off, which means dumping my kids on my wife while I’m off by myself, would be selfish at this point (and that is not a complaint, it’s a fact).

2) Free resources abound. Pretty much everything ever written or said about pastoring can be found for free or little cost. I take advantage of these resources, to the extent I already know what they’re going to say anyway.

3) I’m an introvert. The main reason pastors like attending these conferences is for the camaraderie and fellowship, two things I’d rather not do! I’m just one of those people who do not get energy from being with people. It drains me. Small group hugging time gives me shivers.

4) Professional Christianity nauseates me. Hobnobbing with cool pastors who all wear the same glasses just doesn’t gear me up. Networking and comparing notes just makes me not like the church more. Sorry. I know. I have a bad attitude. Guilty. I serve in a poor church with non-suburban people. I do not feel like I fit in cool conference atmospheres. Nor will most of the jargon shared be something that would work in my church anyway.

5) Oh, the singing we’ll do. The singing in Christianity is way too much. I like music. I like singing. I think good group singing is fantastic. But give it a rest already. I just can’t do it with the singing and the worship bands and the hand lifting and the mood manipulation stuff. Been doing this a long time. It’s not my preferred form of worship. It, in fact, tends to get in the way of a worshipful feeling for me. It makes me feel like smacking people. Yes, I know, I have a bad attitude. Guilty.

Continue reading “Why I Don’t Like Pastors’ Conferences” →

Sometimes a Pastor Just Needs to Go Home

No matter how much I’m enjoying a church function, I can’t wait to go home.
@FailingPastor

I have enjoyed many church events and one-on-one meetings in my pastoral career. Relaxed, edifying, and enjoyable time together with people of like-minded faith is what church is mostly about.

But I still really like going home.

This is especially true if I had to “dress up.” Suits are the worst. Just taking off the tie is like 50 pounds being lifted off me. I take off the nice shirt and dress pants, and remove the sweaty black socks out of the sweaty dress shoes, and I could float away.

There’s nothing like coming home and putting a pair of shorts and a t-shirt on.

I’m a person who gets drained by people. Even if it’s people I love and an enjoyable activity. I still need to be alone for a while and chill. My brain needs time to reflect, process, and prepare for what’s next.

Every pastor needs a nice place to go sit and be alone. I have a nice chair in my office I read in. I have a spot by the lake across the road and some parks nearby. Nice spots I can just go and sit and be quiet and alone. I pray. I think. I even laugh at my jokes. I say witty comebacks to long over conversations.

Being alone puts energy back in me that being with others sucked out. Nothing wrong with the people; it’s just how I’m wired.

“There’s no place like home,” I happily say along with tornado-displaced Dorothy. I have no magic shoes that take me there, just sweaty dress shoes that probably can’t wait to get home either.

I can only imagine the feeling of being in my eternal home, putting off my old, sweaty tent of a body and putting on the new spiritual body. What a day of rejoicing it will be! I can’t wait to get home.

When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.
–John 6:15