Part of the ministry of the pastor is to “equip the saints to do the works of ministry, till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children…” (Ephesians 4.11-13).
Your job is to equip the saints to grow up, to be ministers, to do the works of ministry, to help people mature. But the truth is in my experience, most pastors do everything themselves. That anointing that leads them to gather people leads them to serve those people every second of every day, when trul the most loving thing to do is to equip the people to serve themselves. The Biblical model is not a one man band doing all the ministry, but rather one man equipping all to minister and creating a safe space where people can grow up and mature and become effective ministers, full equipped to doing the works of ministry.
You need to teach your church about what the Bible calls the MINISTRY OF HELPS and give people space to be put to work. Now, sometimes – and listen carefully here – the reason why some pastors do not promote others or even let them serve – is pastors can have great, big egos. I guarantee there are people in your church who are better at ushering than you, better at cleaning the church than you, better at organizing a conference than you, better at making lunch than you, better at a whole host of things. That should not threaten you, it should make you very grateful indeed. God will always send people to help in your weak areas and that is nothing to be embarrassed about. God will send you people who are strong where you are weak, and you should embrace them, equip them, and eventually employ them.
Let the people who you put in place (within reason) do the job their way and use their wisdom and grace. Let them hear God how the job should be done. Obviously they should be submissive enough to run things by you, and no one should ever usurp your authority and leadership, but don’t shove everyone on the floor just to make sure everyone knows you are the boss.
Here is the bottom line – if you do not give space for your people to serve, they will never mature, and there is seriously nothing worse in the world than a church full of immature, childish people. Have you ever been in a restaurant with a couple of children just being immature, misbehaving, screaming? Ever been stuck on a 10 hour flight with a screaming baby? Now that’s acceptable because that is not their fault, but if a Christian stays immature, that’s their fault, and as their primary feeder and leader, that can often be your fault as well.
Some pastors like their church immature because they like to be the one adult in the room, but eventually that gets boring and you need some adult company. Pastor, whatever God has called you to do, you cannot do it with a team of toddlers – so start equipping, and making space, and pushing your people to lead and serve so they can mature and eventually run departments, plant other churches, move forward and win big team battles.
One of the worst false doctrines today is given the high sounding name of ultimate reconciliation. What it means is that everyone will eventually end up in Heaven – including satan! Sometimes it is called inclusion or universalism – there are several differences in the pathways, but they all mean the same end thing – they believe everyone is going to end up in Heaven eventually. Some think some people will go to hell first, others a purgatory, others believe everyone goes straight to Heaven, but they all believe everyone ends up in Heaven.
The implication is that it does not matter how you relate to God, how you live, what you say, what you do, because no matter what you are going to Heaven when you die. A lot of this comes from the fact that our society has gone multi-cultural and people are scared to say Muhammad is not the way, Buddha is not the way, Krishna is not the way – but the only way to the Father is through Jesus Christ.
This multi-culturalism says everyone is ok, everyone is a child of God, everyone is right, everyone is saved, everyone is godly, everyone is good. And so, it leads to a toleration of all sins. Someone gets two women in the church pregnant, just let him minister in the gifts. Worship leader won’t speak to you because he is so immature, won’t listen to godly leadership, won’t read his Bible, just let him keep leading worship. There are even churches that are supporting and welcoming homosexuals into church leadership. Of course they should be loved, but love would never put someone in that situation into leadership.
The truth is everyone wants to go to Heaven, but very few people want to live Heaven on earth. The truth is that we are not all right, we are not all good, we were born in sin, we were born selfish and we need a Saviour, and there is not a list of Saviours to choose from, there is only One, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. We are not all children of God. We are all created by God, but we need to be born again to become children of God.
This truth not only needs to be believed by every pastor, it needs to be proclaimed clearly. You should be giving altar calls in your church services, you should be asking people if they have been born again, and you should be teaching and explaining what it means. People should be left in no doubt that there is only one way to God, and people should not be left in any confusion that there is only one Saviour, and that every other religion is wrong, and that there is a truth, there is a way that we are expected to live as Christians. Everyone should be aware that you believe there is a hell to shun and a Heaven to gain, and it is not automatic. It’s not by works, but it is by faith, and we should be using the words and speaking the truth that produces true faith in people.
We are not called to be neurotic perfectionists and we are not called to copy the world, but we are called to be excellent in the way we do things. For the next few posts, I want to talk about being excellent. The first way to be excellent is to bring excellent gifts.
When the Queen of Sheba went to go see King Solomon, she brought a caravan full of gifts. When the wise men went to go see King Jesus, they brought gifts upon gifts. Peter J Daniels did research that said the armed escort for the magi was over 1000 men. There was some giving done there!
Maybe you don’t have a million or two like the Queen of Sheba, but never appear before greatness empty handed. I did not turn up to Andrew Wommack’s pastor’s conference without money to give. I turned up with money to give. That’s what I am talking about.
Greatness is not so much taught as caught, but to catch it you have to be around great men. Many pastors are never around great men, because they do not know how to appear in the presence of greatness.
As pastors we should have a concern about what things look like. Many pastors and churches looks a lot like the world. And people need to realize you do not get the world to come to church by being worldly.
Others look like they have just woken up. So in that sense, some care should be taken for outward appearance.
However, Biblically speaking we have to pay much more attention on the appearance of the heart because God looks on the heart. What makes a good pastor? Heart. What makes a good elder? Heart. What makes a good worship leader? Heart. God always looks on the heart, and part of our job as pastors is to learn to look on the heart.
I’ve had people want to be elders in the church, and lead worship, and they look great on the outside, then I go on their social media, and they are smokers or drinkers, or into all kinds of things, they are railing against others and all sorts of things. That’s heart, and that is what we must be looking at!
God does not pick and choose based on appearance. He looks at the heart. God does not look for perfect hearts – or else no one would be in ministry. So God knows you are not perfect, He knows you disagree with Him sometimes, He knows you get annoyed sometimes, He knows it all.
But God knowing it all is no excuse for us as pastors not to work on our heart. Everyone who has sinned – that sin came from their heart. Satan has never forced someone to do anything, it came from the heart. No one falls into sin, they chose to sin because of their heart.
So, we need to work a little on our outward appearance. But what we really need to work on is our heart. We have to work on resisting temptation, we have to work on resisting sin. Sin starts in the heart. David’s adultery started in his heart.
But on the other side, great things start in the heart too. Dreams start in the heart. You can dream to see healings, salvations, miracles. You can use your heart to believe for mountains to move as you speak to them!
Nothing is more important to the purposes of God on earth as the local church. When we are saved, Jesus Christ of Nazareth personally picks out a local church for us to go to, and has decided a role, a place, a position, for us in that local church. We are all members of the body of Christ, and we are all different parts of that body. That teaching is found all over the Bible, especially 1 Corinthians 12, and I am not going to rehash it right now, but the truth that is essential for today’s blog is that God has put every single Christian into a local church – for His glory, not necessarily to make that person happy.
That includes you as a pastor. You do not get to pastor the church you might want to pastor. You might not get to teach what you want to teach. You might not have the people there you want to have there. The family you really like might leave, and the family you hope miss church this weekend might stay.
You have to catch a vision in your heart that the church is utterly essential. It has to be in you so others can catch it. There is a movement across the globe right now and it is utterly satanic, and sadly people from all streams of Christianity are embracing it, even the grace and faith people. It basically says that all the important things about following Christ we can do on our own, and going to church is really a bonus, a superfluous matter of our personal preference like whether we watch a film in the cinema or our own TV, or watch the football in the stadium or in the pub or at home. A lot of it stems from a real sense in our culture that no one should be accountable to anyone else. So even when some people go to church, it is because today, I believe this service is important for my personal path that I designed all by myself, rather than a deep conviction that church is essential to God’s plan for every single Christian. Many see church as a nice optional part of their very personal walk with God – and by personal I mean they designed it all by themselves to suit themselves. But the truth is that the church is the heart of God’s purpose for planet earth. The truth is that the church is the heart of God’s plan for grace to be revealed. The church is utterly essential. You cannot be church at home. You cannot be church at home even if you have a Bible, Alexa playing worship songs, and listening to your favourite Bible teacher. That will never ever lead to spiritual health.
The culture of the day is private, personal, and consumer-driven. We are not to be like that. We need to be part of a robust Christian church that we have found our place in and are planted in.
It is so important that as pastors we set the pace – what I means is that we attend the church God has placed us in. That may sound strange to you, but I know pastors who are pastoring the wrong church. They have been led to Jesus to pastor a certain church, but they took another church because of money, prestige, ease, or a host of other reasons. Do not be that pastor!
There are enough people who go to the church they feel like going and never take the time to find out where Jesus Christ of Nazareth has placed them. I know people who have chosen churches based on the race of the pastor, based on the landscaping of the building, based on nice short services, and a whole host of reasons that are nothing to do with Jesus.
We need to be where we are planted. As a pastor you need to let people know that they need to be in local church, planted where Jesus instructs them to be planted, and then model it by being where God planted you!
Even someone like Kenneth Hagin tells a story where he pastored the wrong church because the board of deacon voted him in with 100% of the vote going to him. He later found out that God does not lead by 100% votes of deacons, but God leads by the Spirit of God!
I pastored a church I was never supposed to pastor before I started Tree of Life Church because I had a godly desire to be in ministry combined with an ungodly impatience. That is a fatal combination. I have seen so many people shipwreck due to that. They go to Bible College and graduate assuming they know everything, assuming they know more than people who have been doing the ministry for decades, and they want to preach and minister, and they feel that their pastor is holding them back, so they wander from church to church looking for a church that will platform them, rather than kneeling down and asking Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, which church they should be planted in and serve.
Maybe it will take 4-5 years of serving before you are released into ministry, maybe longer. It took me a decade between graduating Bible College and being ready to start Tree of Life. Rather 10 years serving a local church and learning how church functions than 40-50 years wandering around looking for a place to minister and never finding one, getting jealous of the people who put the Lord first when it came to church, not their desire to minister or have a ministry. Trust me – I know these people, this is not just me trying to push people into being planted. I, like Paul, genuinely only desire fruit to your account.
Now when I started Tree of Life Church in 2010, there were thousands of people who never came. People stayed away by busloads! We were a small, struggling church. During that time, I started by faith on a Christian radio station across London. It cost a lot and took a lot of time, but it really helped grow our church in the early days.
Anyway, one day I got a phone call. I was still working part-time, I was earning less per month than my mortgage payment, praying in tongues just to put food on the table every week, and really not seeing any signs of growth in the church, not in numbers, not in spirituality, not in anything. The phone call was from a church of several hundred people just south of the river. Their pastor had just abandoned them to take on a larger church, and they wanted a new pastor. They wanted to pay triple what I was earning, buy me a new car, and give me a house to live in. They had heard me on radio and loved my teaching and were very keen.
I must admit I was tempted, but only for a couple of seconds, before I told them thanks but no thanks, because I know where God called me and what God called me to do. I don’t just tell people choose the right church and get plugged in, I live it.
Our society is in a mess because people do not realize the value of local churches, and this shift starts from the pastors, the shepherds of the churches. If the pastor is in the right place, the Lord of the Church, the Head of the Body will bring the right people to us and join them to us. But it starts with us being where we should be.
Now when you are the pastor, and in the right place, doing the right thing, how can you help people find their place in the church?
Constantly teach on the need to submit to the Lord and be led by the Spirit
Teach people about the value of not looking on externals but look on the heart (I will cover some of this in my next blog post on this)
Never compromise to keep someone. What do I mean by that? If someone says for example “I will stay at this church if you let me preach”, or “I will only be in the services where I am leading worship” show them the door. Swiftly. The church is not their personal sandbox, it is the body of Christ, and it is utterly essential
Don’t let your ego in the game! In your spirit, you would rather pastor the 50 people God has called to you, than 500 people who are not called to you.
Some of the things I have done in my life are just jobs – working in McDonalds, selling mobile phones, being a school teacher, working in recruitment. The job itself was not really the issue, earning money for my family was the issue. But being a pastor is not that. It is a calling. You do not need a qualification (although you should be a life-long learner), you do not need to go to Bible College first (for some people that helps them learn how to study the Word and develop faith, for others it gets in the way, puffs them up and they rely on that not God), what you need is Jesus Christ of Nazareth calling you into that role.
I was called to be a pastor by Jesus Christ the day I was born again. I had a vision of Heaven and Jesus called me by name. Trust me, on that day, when I was 15 years old, never raised Christian, never lived for anything other than myself, I was not in any way qualified at all. But here is the great truth: the people God calls, God qualifies. He takes care of the whole package. He will put His Words in your mouth, He will grace you with ability you never had.
Ability will never by itself create ministry. But if you are called, God will give you ability, and ability that comes from the grace of calling will always turn into ministry.
Now, what I want everyone to know is that Jesus Christ calls all the fivefold, and if you are called to one do not try and step into another. A lot of pastors in the UK are actually people called to be evangelists, but it is easier to get an income as a pastor and (if you have never travelled a lot you may not ever realize this but) travelling can be very tiresome, so they step into a church but have no grace to pastor. Some pastors are called to be in business, but they want some spiritual validation or maybe familial validation, so there they are preaching nonsense with no grace and no calling.
A friend of mine started a church because it seemed like a good idea, and God confronted him and told him that he was called to be an evangelist and not a pastor, and he shut the church down and stepped into a powerful ministry all over Europe. We have to follow the calling from Heaven!
Sometimes it is more sinister than just a desire to be approved by people, some people become pastors because they like to control people, they like the authority a pastor has (more in some cultures than others), or because they see it as an easy way to make money (it is not!).
Pastors above all people should be able to see these things, because you are going to be helping other people into their callings on a regular basis. You need to know the difference between an apostle and a prophet, an evangelist and a pastor, a teacher and a businessman!
And if you are called to be a pastor, realize now it is the most demanding calling there is – but there will be a great reward for obeying your heavenly calling. At our summer conference this year, Greg Fritz spoke a lot on Isaiah 1.19 which says that if you are willing and obedient you will eat the good of the land. A good pastor is both willing and obedient to serve! Some people seem willing, seem full of enthusiasm, but never seem to actually do anything. Others obey, but with an attitude that makes you wish they had not bothered. But God is looking for the willing and obedient. He was not and is not looking for the talented and educated. He was not and is not looking for the rich and famous. He is and always will be looking for the willing and obedient.
And realize this – there are many good ideas that are not your calling. People come to me regularly and say something like “we should start a primary school” or “we should start a youth ministry” or so on. But people did not call me and I will not stand before them when I die. As a pastor, you have to keep your eyes, ears and heart before Jesus and do what He envisions you to do. Don’t do what you feel or what the people say and ask God to bless it – do what God says to do with a great attitude and that will be totally and utterly blessed.
In this series of blog posts for leaders, I am writing to pastors for the next few posts. I have been pastoring and called “Pastor Ben” since 1998 when I was a student pastor at an Assemblies of God church. Since 2010, when I started the Tree of Life Church, I have planted twelve churches, raised up over twenty pastors, and I have a love for pastors that I believe is supernatural. Nothing gets under my skin more than to see pastors and local churches disrespected, especially by other ministers and ministries.
I woke up this morning realizing that if a nation is to be changed – if our nation is to be changed, it cannot be done by any other people than the pastors. Praying to change the UK is my top prayer project, and I have spent a long time today praying for pastors. Pastoring is not an easy job, it is not a job that engenders the same awe as an apostle, the same sensationalism as a prophet, the same fundraising as an evangelism, or the same respect as a Bible teacher. But it is the most important job in the world.
I believe with all of my heart that the hardest of the fivefold ministry jobs is the pastor. The apostle is concerned with two things: bringing something out of nothing and bringing order to chaos. The first is solved by developing a solid depth in the Word and the Spirit and building great faith, the second is done through wisdom and experience. The prophet is concerned with one thing: what is God saying right now in this situation. This is solved by spending time with the Lord and listening to Him and not other voices. The evangelist has two things: get out there and get people to hear the gospel and get those who have heard able and willing to share it. The teacher is concerned with making the Word accessible to people.
But the pastor has to deal with the most important and most difficult task of all. The pastor has to build the church, which is made up of people, and the pastor has to form, pray for, and love those people. All those people are different, and just when you think you have grasped it, someone does something that makes you think you do not understand people at all.
The Bible is the same every day, so teachers can go to bed and pick up exactly where they left off. During that same night, the people have developed foibles and ideas that mean that what you were doing as a pastor yesterday just won’t work any more.
Just this week, I was about to preach and I realized that my message (a great teaching, just to be honest) might have bruised someone in the church, so I adjusted. This is not me compromising the Word (if you know me, you know I would not do that), this is me taking seriously the command of Jesus to Peter: feed my lambs. A teacher never has to do that, an evangelist only has ten messages and six of them are to the lost (it’s an exaggeration, but not by much!) but the pastor has to be deep in the Word and deep into the needs and heart of the people as well.
When someone betrays an apostle, they leave his ministry and disappear. When someone betrays a teacher, they attack his teaching. When someone betrays a prophet they assault their gifting. When someone betrays an evangelist, they assault their numbers. But when someone betrays a pastor they assault his character. They go straight for the jugular and they have a flock of people ready made to spread gossip and innuendo.
So, the first thing I would say to any pastors is firstly know that you are called. Never just decide I want to be a pastor. You need to know from God, and you need some people who are pastors to affirm that call over your life. There is a grace to be a pastor, and only those Jesus Christ personally chooses to be a pastor have that grace. Pastoring with that grace can be difficult, but pastoring without it will wipe you out.
The word pastor means a shepherd. Jesus is the Great Shepherd, and our task above all is to reflect Jesus as a Shepherd to the people that gather around us. The pastor should always have the heart of a shepherd to people, and the only place they can get that heart is from the Great Shepherd Himself.
An apostle sees people as living stones to put in place, a prophet sees people as spirit beings to connect to the Holy Spirit, a teacher sees people as unrenewed minds needing to feed on the Word, an evangelist sees people as weighed down by bad news and needing the good news. A pastor sees people as sheep who need green grass and still water. As a pastor you must always see people as sheep. That is the only way to stop being cynical or discouraged. You need to see people the way Jesus does. This is a cliche, but it is true: you need the heart of a shepherd to your people.
A pastor also needs to be a very balanced ministry. A prophet can get away with not opening their Bible for a whole church service. A teacher can get away with never flowing in the gifts. But a pastor must be deep in the Word and deep in the Spirit. They must be Word based and Spirit filled, they must be Word led and Spirit led at the same time. More than any other ministry they have to guard their heart. More than any other ministry they have to lead people. More than any other ministry they have to remain faithful.
If a teacher falls, or evangelist falls, people are scandalized, but then the pastor just doesn’t invite them back to the church, and the pastor keeps the church steady. If a pastor falls, the church will be devastated, and many Christians will be damaged beyond repair – and who will soothe their pain when it is the pastor that caused it?
If you are called to be a pastor – you should be excited about that fact. Yes, I have explained that it is hard, that it is difficult, that the rewards on this earth are not what they could be, that you will be often unappreciated, often taken for granted, often overlooked for showier ministries. You will be with someone at 2am praying for them, and they will sow a seed to their favourite TV minister in gratitude. You will teach for months on a subject and they will get it when the guest speaker that you invited teaches for 45 minutes on it. You will hear the phrase “only a pastor” and be tempted to even dismiss yourself!
BUT – and this is the the big but of pastoring – you will be a co-labourer with Christ, building the church of Christ with Christ, building a community of love and grace that will support people, reach the lost, transform lives, give to world mission, support the other fivefold ministries, restore marriages, bring beauty from ashes and transform your local community and even your city.
What a task! To actually shepherd a local church under the Great Shepherd, to have responsibility to feed some of the sheep of Jesus Christ, to reflect His heart to His people and gather them and build a community that reflects the very body of Christ on earth. Pastor, you are remarkable!
And if you keep at it long enough, pastoring is the only ministry that becomes generational, and you will marry the children of people you have married, you will release into ministry people you dedicated as babies, and you will see fruit right in front of you.
So, if you are called to be a pastor, if you are a pastor, I am praying for you, that you will walk in your anointing, do everything that God has called you to do, and be a great reflection of the Great Shepherd and build a great people. I am also praying that you will do it with great joy.
Everyone loves to be told they are doing well. Great people love to be told how to do it better. Most people are actually willing to do better if you explain how them changing how they are doing something will help them win. Show people why you want a change in behaviour or attitude, and they will more often than not start making the changes.
At Heal the Nations this year, Greg Fritz kept coming back to Isaiah 1.19 which says if you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land. Obedience is a reference to what we do. Willing is not about what we do, but about attitude.
There are a lot of people around doing the right thing with the wrong attitude – and the big issue for you as a leader is that attitude is contagious. Your attitude is the most contagious. If you are doing children’s ministry sullen and sulky you are not in the church, there’s an attitude. If you are only coming to church to get noticed so that you can keep leading worship, there is an attitude.
Attitude determines altitude. If your attitude is to serve with no thought of reward, you will be orbital! If your attitude is one of a victim, one of negativity and strife, one of spite, one of rebellion, one of do as little as possible, you will crash and burn. We need to do what it takes to develop a positive attitude!
You have to do what you have to do with a positive and encouraging attitude. There are three main ways you keep your attitude the right attitude.
Keep your walk with the LORD the main thing. Spend time listening to the Word, listening to sermons, praying in tongues, reading good Christian books.
Be consistently open to growth. What are you reading to grow? What are you doing to learn? Are you in church regularly? Are you taking notes? Are you actively involved?
Hang out with people you know have good attitudes. Those attitudes are contagious. Do not spend a lot of time with people with bad attitudes, with gossips, with small-minded people, with people who see flaws not potential.
If we are obedient and not willing, we don’t gain much, but the good news is that you can be willing in an instant. Repent, change attitudes and get on with it!
Jim Collins says that one of the signs of great leaders is that they are not just interested on getting people on their bus, but interested in helping people find their right seat on the bus.
The analogy Pastor Ray Bevan used to use was of different animals. Don’t try and make owls swim or fish fly. Let the rabbits run! In other words, let people be in the place where they can get the maximum results, make the maximum contribution, for the minimum stress and minimum effort.
Don’t be afraid to move people around and try. If you get it wrong, try again. Getting people in the right place is a process and takes time. But it is essential for creating a winning team.
Don’t be afraid to set high standards for serving positions, especially if they are in the spotlight. Setting high standards shows people that the role is important. In our Dagenham church, I have recently set some higher standards for leading worship, and that means that people have risen to those standards and the worship is undoubtedly much better because of it. If you set low standards, funnily enough the better people do not volunteer – they like high standards. If you let someone lead worship who is only in church once a month and doesn’t listen online or go to a small group, the people who are on fire for Jesus are the people who don’t want to lead worship because they think you do not value it. Selah.
Many people are not personally disciplined. They have far too much to do, so volunteering at church for example is hard for them. You have to help them function in the best place for them for their own sake.
Inspiring and Challenging Dreamers 