You Know Your Ego Is Out of Control if . . .

Unhealthy egos have a way of choking a ministry. They inevitably turn attention toward the minister–and away from the message, away from the Body, and away from God.

But unhealthy egos don’t always recognize they’re unhealthy. So, here’s a handy pocket guide to detect a toxic ego.

You know your ego is out of control if . . .

. . . more people refer to your church by your name rather than your church’s name.

. . . your church’s website features a dramatic picture of you holding a microphone.

. . . you calculate how to inflate your image with self-deflating humor.

. . . you maintain a reserved spot in the parking lot.

. . . you direct your fans to a website named after you–billysmith.com, etc.

. . . you tweet things like, “I was humbled to see I was voted Most Popular Pastor.” (Humble people don’t cite their humility as they brag.)

. . . you convince yourself that you can handle any downsides of an oversized ego.

What ego detectors did I miss?

How to Kill a Ministry–All by Yourself

Larry loved teenagers. Everyone thought he was the perfect pick as the church’s youth minister.

But he bombed.

What happened? I remember when he came to town. He soon gathered a group of kids who connected with his personality. He spent lots of time with them, planned a full schedule of youth ministry events, and loved delivering his weekly youth talks.

He worked long hours, and had little time left for other staff or friends his own age. In fact he rarely talked with other adults. He grew to despise the kids’ parents. “They’re the problem,” he often muttered under his breath.

Eventually the youth group stopped growing. Larry couldn’t effectively minister to many more. He was tapped out. And burned out.

One day he got a call from another church looking for a youth pastor. Feeling underappreciated in his current role, he quickly accepted the new job and left town.

And the youth ministry he left behind collapsed. Overnight.

Sadly, Larry’s story is not unusual. He went into youth ministry because he loved kids and loved the Lord. He loved spending time with kids. He thought that was his job. But that’s what killed his ministry.

Larry failed to grasp his true role. As the main leader of youth ministry at his church, his real priority needed to be the selection, training and encouraging of other adults to work with the youth group. He needed to develop a team.

A team of volunteer leaders and mentors allows a ministry to multiply. And the diversity of volunteers provides kids with different personalities and temperaments with whom to relate. No one adult can effectively connect with all kinds of kids.

Prioritizing team development applies not only to youth ministers, but to all main leaders.

Jesus set the example. He didn’t attempt to build a ministry alone. He selected, trained and encouraged a dozen others to do ministry. He spent most of his time with them.

And the lasting success of his ministry was shown when he physically left. The ministry didn’t collapse. It multiplied—through an inspired team that stretches to this very day.

To the Polished, Predictable Church: Surprise Me

Surprise! It’s one of the missing ingredients in today’s church.

Most church worship services and programs have become so predictable, so varnished, so rehearsed, and so scripted that any awe of God has been squeezed out. It seems there’s no time set aside for him to act.

I’m all for good planning and preparation. But we’ve forgotten how to plan time for spiritual spontaneity.

I respect certain aspects of ritual and tradition. But I worry about Jesus’ warning in Matthew 6:7: “Don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again.”

Jesus demonstrated a flare for the unexpected. He played with surprise. While addressing a crowd he spontaneously created a teachable moment when some guys lowered a paralytic through the roof.

He turned a hillside worship into a surprise picnic with a few fish and loaves.

He unexpectedly challenged self-righteous accusers to throw the first stone.

People walked away from their encounters with Jesus chattering about his surprising, unexpected, spontaneous interactions.

When’s the last time you grabbed a friend at Starbucks and said, “You won’t believe what happened at church last weekend”?

Surprise. Awe. It’s something I’ve noticed in Christian churches in other countries I’ve visited in recent years. I remember a gathering of Cubans spontaneously breaking into unplanned songs after a remarkable and moving footwashing. The sense of God’s presence was palpable.

A few weeks ago hundreds of teenagers spontaneously moved out of a gym’s bleachers and gathered around a wooden cross during a time of pointed silence.

This week a young man told me how God jolted him into a deeper relationship with him through an unscripted, individualized prayer experiment during a Lifetree Café episode. Every week at Lifetree we build in times for God to surprise. He amazes me week after week.

George Barna reported the majority of today’s church goers say they rarely experience the presence of God during a worship service. Maybe nobody remembered to give God time and space to surprise.

Are You Deep Enough?

“Your ministry (teaching, preaching, Bible studies, curriculum, small group, etc.) isn’t deep enough.”

It’s a critique I hear from time to time. Not usually from participants. But from onlooking ministry leaders.

I’ve wondered, what do they mean by “deep”? When I’ve probed, “deep” seems to mean dense information, lots of historical detail, many Bible verses, theological complexity, and a dose of Greek.

I often wonder how today’s depth-finders would have critiqued Jesus’ ministry. Would he have passed their tests?

I suspect the depth Jesus sought was less about information and more about personal transformation. What he really craved were deep personal relationships with him and the Father.

Personal relationships—including and especially relationships with Jesus—are just that—personal. They’re not mass-produced as in a factory. Or a lecture hall.

Jesus-style depth comes when a person experiences the very presence of God, reaches deeply within, reflects, makes a personal ah-ha, and grows.

Jesus went deep with his colorful stories, with his probing questions, and with his fully engaging experiences.

Do you want a ministry that goes deep?

• Tell a good story . . . without always revealing your own spiritual interpretation.
• Ask open-ended soul-searching questions, ones that each individual must plumb deeply within to individually address.
• Involve people in captivating experiences. Wash their feet. Engage all of their senses. Allow God some space to act.

Think like a scuba divermaster. You don’t help your divers go deep by standing on the surface and spraying them with a big hose. You help them go deep when you allow them to go beneath the surface to personally discover the wonders of God’s creation.

Church Fugitives: In Their Own Words

This week in America, most people won’t step foot in a church.

What are they thinking? I mean, really. What are they thinking? Where are they and why aren’t they in church?

I’ve heard a lot of church leaders and members opine about these people and try to speak on their behalf. Then it dawned on me that the insiders may not really know the heart of the outsiders—because the insiders are inside on Sunday morning. Insulated from the outsiders.

So, I decided to step out of the inside and wander outside—on a Sunday morning. I stopped people on the street and said, “It’s Sunday morning. A lot of people are in church right now. I noticed you’re not. I’m curious why.”

I invite you to watch this video. Listen carefully to what they say.

SundayMorn-H.264 300Kbps Streaming

What did you hear? What keeps them away from church?

It’s interesting. I’ve shown this clip to many church leaders. Their responses tend to separate into two categories: 1) acceptance and eagerness to learn; or, 2) defensiveness and deflection.

Those in the first category often express sadness, sometimes surprise, a sense of love for those on the street, and a curiosity toward how they might change in order to reach these “outsiders.”

Those in the second category usually get agitated, blame the interviewees or the life factors that influence them, and look for ways to defend the church’s status quo.

What’s your response?

Why Your Church Fights Change

For years people have told me the church is one of the most change-averse entities on the planet.

Ministry people sometimes leave in frustration when their congregations beat down any proposed change. And lay people often flee from churches when they tire of the pastoral staff’s intransigence.

It doesn’t seem to matter if the change is big and important or tiny and insignificant. The change may involve worship styles or elements, staffing assignments, outreach strategies, teaching methodologies, Bible translations, furnishings, paint colors, church names, and on and on.

So, what’s the deal? Why are so many churches so resistant to change?

Churches, their leaders and members seem to be plagued with several tendencies that thwart even the healthiest kinds of change. A sampling:

Defensiveness. When gatekeepers hear critiques or suggestions for change they often instinctively bite back with a defense of the status quo, rather than a thoughtful reflection.

Denial. Some choose to ignore or deny that problems or weaknesses exist. Thus, they see no need to change.

Blame the messenger. “If people say our worship doesn’t connect, they haven’t prepared their hearts.”

Blame God. They confuse God with his church. “God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.” And, “God doesn’t need your new ideas.”

Nostalgia. For some, residual warm memories (real or imagined) of the past obscure their ability to imagine the new day.

Cowardice. Change almost always meets resistance—and confrontation. Even when convinced that change is necessary, some grow faint at the thought of conflict.

Coasting. “I know we need to change, but I have just five years left here. I’ll let the next generation deal with the change.”

Avoiding necessary change hurts the church. Clinging to old ways will only continue to deteriorate the church’s influence and effectiveness in our culture. So, how can we encourage healthy change? Here are a few suggestions.

1. Pray—for clarity, guidance and courage. Ask God how you might get in step with his desire to change hearts and move his people forward.
2. When facing necessary change, focus not on what may be lost, but on what will be gained. As a change agent, paint a positive picture of the new day and the benefits it will bring.
3. Inspire allies. Talk individually with influential people who will join you in seeing and supporting the new vision.
4. Help your people swallow big changes a bite at a time. Sometimes, a gradual approach helps change-averse people adjust and digest.
5. Have faith. Like a child. “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

The Creativity Creed

I love creativity. And today’s church needs all the creativity we can muster.

But for some, creativity has become a frilly idol. It has degenerated into a form of exhibitionism, elitism and cosmetic distraction.

Ministry celebrities promote their creative philosophies and practices in conferences, books and speeches. “The church should be the most creative entity out there,” one said. Has creativity become the goal–rather than a means to the goal?

Creativity is often explained as an antidote for boredom in the church. The experts remind us that a large percentage of Americans say they escape life’s boredom by simply staying away from church. That’s true.

But I’m afraid that exercising creativity to conquer church boredom may focus on the symptom rather than on the disease itself–the lack of an ever-present intimate relationship with the Lord.

The Exhibitionists
Some ministry leaders use creativity to draw attention and create buzz. They create sexy-sounding sermons (“The Naked Pastor,” and “Your Best Sex Ever”). Some build elaborate and costly sets as sermon series backdrops. Yes, these splashes sometimes attract public and media attention. But do they draw people closer to God?

Jesus did creative and spectacular things. But not to be splashy. In fact, he was frustrated with those who merely wanted to see a trick, but quickly fell away from him.

Though it’s possible to draw a crowd with exhibitionism, that’s not what draws people into a real relationship with the Lord.

The Elitists
For some, the pursuit of originality and creativity has become an elite religion. They insist their church must create all of its own original resources, curriculum, music, scripts, video and art. If it’s “not invented here,” it’s not allowed. Elitist “church branding” trumps ministry effectiveness. I’m convinced that some of these church leaders would create their own branded church carpets if they could figure out how.

The Cosmetic Artists
Much of today’s church creativity focuses on painting over the same old worship-hour routines, such as sermons, PowerPoint slides, and musical selections. But these are mere cosmetic coatings to the old Sunday morning formula of half lecture and half singalong.

Today’s stagnant church needs more than cosmetic creativity. It cries for something more significant.

When it comes to spreading the Word, we might compare today’s church to another time of word spreading–the era of the typewriter. This mechanical antique spread words for many years. And yes, in its later years, some manufacturers applied their creativity by adding electric models, correction tape, interchangeable type fonts, and new body colors.

But these were mere tweaks compared to the coming revolution–the advent of the word processor and the personal computer. That’s when word spreading really leaped forward.

Long before that, Jesus too leaped forward. His ministry wasn’t just creative. It was bold and transforming. He took the Word to a whole new level. The Word became flesh.

Purposeful Creativity
Today’s church needs your God-given creativity. Here are a few guidelines to empower your creatives juices to make a real difference and bring people closer to Jesus.

1. Don’t pursue ministry as a vehicle to showcase your creativity. Instead, be relentlessly driven to help others grow in their relationship with the living God.

2. Promote creativity within teams. Collaboration produces better results. And it helps to keep individual egos in check.

3. Don’t attempt to be creative just for creativity’s sake. Keep asking, “How can we best let our people experience God?”

4. Honor the work of others. Most creativity–and effectiveness–result from using and mixing ideas others have already pioneered.

5. Creatively challenge old paradigms. Must every contemporary service begin with a standing singalong? Must we always receive a “message” through a 30-minute lecture?

6. Retire the typewriter. Invent the next Word processor.

Yank Out the Pews

The physical environment of your church says more about your ministry than you may realize.

Smart people in the business world recognize the importance of “place.” Apple gets it. Starbucks get it. And McDonald’s is currently going through a billion-dollar makeover to attract and keep more customers. They’re nixing the garish colors, the steel seats and the fluorescent lighting.

USA Today spoke with brand guru Philip Graves: “The environment is a massive influence on how we behave. Change the environment, and you change how people perceive everything else.”

Today’s churches would do well to take another look at their environs. Church architectural elements that were invented hundreds of years ago remain stubbornly attached today. Case in point: pews. And other types of fixed seating.

These long rows fight against the ambiance that would help today’s people connect to God and one another. Pews are:
…uncomfortable. It’s harder to focus on God when your backside aches.
…inhospitable. You don’t build community by staring at the backs of people’s heads.
…academic. It’s all about the sage on the stage. Not built for interaction with others.
…spectator-oriented. File in, shut up, and passively listen to the professional Christians.
…inflexible. Fixed seating kills options to rearrange seating for various worship emphases.

A story of de-pewing
Even though many may see the advantages to using comfortable, movable seating, what do you do when your church is sitting on pews that have been fastened to the floor for decades? A church in my hometown has just taken the bold step to successfully de-pew its sanctuary. How did they do it?

Senior pastor Kent Hummel communicated the needed change to the congregation. “If this is God’s house, the sanctuary is the living room,” Hummel said. “There are probably only five people here who have the same living room furniture they had 30 years ago. And just like our living rooms need updating, so does God’s.”

He explained that chairs are more appealing, flexible and functional, allowing for people to occasionally circle up to discuss a biblical teaching during worship.

Hummel said those who objected to the change voiced concerns of stewardship. The old pews were paid for and they hadn’t worn out yet. So, Hummel made sure the new chairs were fully funded before the change was made. But he didn’t allow old money to override today’s ministry priorities.

So, what’s the priority at your place?

The Church's Vanishing Young Adults

Where are the young adults? Well, they’re not in church.

Today’s 18- to 29-year-olds are less inclined to attend church than earlier generations at this stage of life. But their views of the existence of God, life after death, and prayer closely resemble previous generations, according to the Pew Forum and other researchers.

“Church is difficult because young people today want to engage actively,” said New York pastor J. Lee Hill Jr. “They just want to experience God.”

They don’t find the style and approach of today’s churches a good fit. And the nature of their values will probably not change their distaste for church as they age. Take a look at some of those values.

• They don’t find institutions or hierarchical structures attractive.

• They highly value relationships.

• They find stories much more compelling than rote evangelism or apologetics.

• They learn best through conversation rather than lecture and traditional teaching.

• They are repulsed by those who “play church” and merely go through the motions of religion.

If churches wish to survive and thrive in the years ahead, they’ll need to make some fundamental changes to their ministry approaches. It will require more than mere tweaks.

In our development of Lifetree Café, we’ve worked to accommodate the needs of this new generation. And we’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon. It’s not just the Millennial generation that responds well to the values listed above. The other generations increasingly embrace ministry values that are more relational, experiential, story-based, conversational and authentic.

Are you ready to adapt to a new day?

Top 5 Church HR Abuses

Many churches cause unnecessary pain with personnel issues. And some put themselves at considerable legal risk.

Amateurish and dangerous HR actions in churches often result from two factors. First, pastors and other staff members may be trained in theology and counseling, but not in organizational leadership or employment practice. And lay leaders also often lack relevant training or experience.

Second, when confronted with questions of HR professionalism, church leaders often exhibit a dismissive, above-the-law attitude. They say, “We’re not a business.” That, unfortunately, is too often merely an excuse for human relations sloppiness.

Christian HR professionals shared with me the top 5 mistakes they’ve observed in churches’ handling of personnel issues.

1. Dangerous interview questions. Leaders and volunteer panels often grill job applicants with inappropriate questions. Laws restrict questions about a candidate’s age, family status, pregnancy, and health.

2. Failure to check a candidate’s history. Churches often forego reference checks and background checks. I’ve seen churches blissfully hire people who were terminated from previous positions for sexual harassment and other unlawful behavior.

3. Failure to establish and follow clear policies and expectations. Many staff problems can be prevented when everyone knows what’s expected. Clear job descriptions, goals, expectations and processes help establish a good working environment.

4. Failure to properly handle performance or behavior issues. Those in authority sometimes ignore staff problems or delay necessary confrontation. Other times they overreact and cause unnecessary pain. Sometimes they jump to conclusions before hearing all sides. Instead, churches need to follow progressive corrective processes, practice regular coaching, and follow Christlike leadership approaches.

5. Privacy violations. With good intentions, churches often share health information about staff, members or acquaintances, usually announced as prayer needs. But these disclosures can lead to ethical and legal problems if the named persons have not specifically granted their permission to broadcast their heath conditions.

This stuff is important. How we handle people on the inside of the ministry relates directly to the quality of our public ministry. Sadly, too many churches collapse from the inside out.

How about you? What have you seen?