Just for the Pastors 02: It’s More than a Job!

Pastor, what is your unique calling?

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.

Selah.

Just for the Pastors 01: You are Remarkable!

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.

Manifest Leadership 15 Tell Them How They Are Doing!

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.

Manifest Leadership 14 Have an Attitude

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!

Manifest Leadership 13 Let the Rabbits Run!

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.

WORSHIP LEADER MEANS WORSHIPPER AND LEADER!

There are two keys to being a worship leader, and the clue is in the name!

Firstly, you have to worship when no one is looking. Just getting up to play your songs and not actually spending time in the week praying, listening to the Word, reading the Word, listening to sermons, giving generously, loving people, being in a small group – that’s not worship, that’s a show. If you are not in the presence of God, how can you lead people into His presence. If you are not a worshipper, how can you lead people into worship? You can play nice songs, but that’s insufficient.

Secondly, you have to be a leader. If you get up, play your songs, then don’t join everyone to listen to the Word after, if you don’t go to conferences that do not platform you, if you do not lead the way in sexual purity, in kindness, in generosity, in passion, in serving without a platform, you are not leading, you are performing.

But if you get this right, you will be able to lead people into the presence of God, people will be healed, set free, inspired and encounter God when you lead worship. That’s the goal – to serve, and to overflow your passion that you have in private and share it in public.

If I was a worship leader in a local church I would:

1. Tithe and give above the tithe to the local church. If you don’t have the faith to do that, you don’t have the faith to lead worship.

2. I would be in a small group every week and I would be engaging with people with my talking voice, not my singing voice, not hiding behind my keyboard, guitar, or tambourine.

3. I would be regularly in meetings, online and offline, in which I am not leading worship, but either worshipping in the congregation, or following another worship leader and helping them lead. Either way I would be in the Word with my notebook.

4. I would be listening to my pastor not just in meetings. I would be on the church’s media listening to him preach two or three times a week.

5. I would be daily praying and daily spending time in the Word.

As a bonus 6 – I would never speak about my pastor behind their back, and I would not misuse my place of honour to build a platform for myself.

All of this is about honour and order, and that is what brings the glory of God into churches and services.

Manifest Leadership 12 Make the Tough Calls

I’ve often offered to my team (and my children as well, but that’s a different arena of leadership) that if there is a tough conversation to be had, that I will happily call the person and have it for them. It’s what my friend Bjorn Lutke calls being the stern grandad. He says that if the grandad is stern, then the father can be the one the person turns to.

For example, let’s say someone in the church is struggling with sexual immorality or involved in gossip, and someone in church leadership has to have a difficult conversation with them. I will nearly always volunteer to do that. Because when it is over, the pastor of that church can still have a stronger relationship with them.

Whenever you see a team that is successful and fruitful, then I can tell you 100% the leaders of that team can make the tough calls. It’s not just conversations, it’s also making difficult decisions.

You see to be fruitful, to have victory – it takes effort and energy. You cannot coast into it. Victory is always uphill of where you are, you have to put energy into getting there. We are on the back on the most successful and fruitful conference I have ever been in. It took a remarkable amount of effort and energy. I have been averaging five hours sleep a night last week. I had to raise money like I have never had to before. We decided to extend the worship and the worship team had to work like never before. We decided to put more into the children’s ministry than we ever had, and the children’s team had to work harder than ever before. But it worked, because we made the tough calls.

Leadership involves making the tough calls. If you cannot make the tough calls – like some politicians recently – you lose the ability to lead. People will not follow someone they do not believe can make the tough calls. Selah!

Manifest Leadership 11 Make Your Team Champions!

Your team – your elders, the people working for you, your volunteers, your staff, whatever form it takes – need to be enabled and empowered to influence others. Part of being a leader is learning how to empower others to lead. Put your team in places where they can solve problems for others, where they are the ones rescuing people from the fire, where they are the ones in the spotlight, where they can actually do things. Enable them to improve systems, enable them to connect to people, enable them to be continually developing and learning.

Do this and you will create a team of champions!

Manifest Leadership 10 Do the Right Thing!

If you are a leader, do the right thing no matter what. Tell the truth, keep confidence, take responsibility for your failures, love people. Do what is right no matter how you feel about it. We should not just be first in preaching, in prophesying, in singing, we should be first in doing the right thing. Leaders should be the most effective, fruitful disciples in the church.

One of the biggest failures of leadership is a failure to do the right thing. If you are a leader in a church, if you don’t tithe to that church you are doing the wrong thing. If when challenged on that, you laugh and smirk and say you want to give to better ministries, you are doing the wrong thing. If you are then asked to step down for a few months to grow a little and learn how to handle what Jesus calls the least level of faithfulness, you then raise your fists at someone and threaten them, you are doing the wrong thing.

If you are a leader, you should be turning up on time, you should be supporting the people who made you a leader, you should not be easily offended, you should be listening to the Word and sermons not just preaching yourself, you should be investing and generous, faithful in little things, honest, kind. You should be a life long learner.

When someone asks you what was the last sermon you listened to, excluding the ones where you had to be in the room, you should say the Wednesday live steam, I watched Guildford or listened to Watford, I am reading a Kenneth Hagin book at the moment, Rodney Howard Browne was in my city so I went there on an evening there wasn’t a church meeting and just got fed.

Leading involves being first. That should be evident, but it isn’t always. You should be first in doing the right thing. First in supporting, first in giving, first in encouraging words, first in loving, first in looking for tbe good in a situation not the negative, first in lifting people up, first in defending your church and pastors, first in joy, first in the Word, first in the amount of praying in tongues you do…

Ask the Lord how you can be a leader in doing the right thing today.

Manifest Leadership 09 Be the Best You!

When you do what you do well, people will want to watch. They will want to bring others to watch. This morning I was in a training course to help learn how to raise up and train church planters. Then I am off to equip leaders and ministers. When I do what I do well, people want to watch.

Part of manifest leadership is making sure you keep sharpening your saw, keep learning, keep honing your skills. There’s something very powerful when you are talking to a pastor, and they say “Well, last week, I was watching Keith Moore, or Kenneth Copeland, or whoever, and I got this revelation, does that help?” – they are still learning, still plugged in.

If you are not a lifelong learner, you are the bottleneck for your team. No one else will grow because you are holding everyone back. If you do not learn how to delegate (and develop the character to enable others to shine), then as you do everything yourself, there is an absolute limit to what you can do. Today, I was listening to Pastor Alan Morton (did you see what I did there?) and he said addition is not enough to achieve the results we need to achieve, we must have multiplication. To do that, you have to inspire people that you are capable, be continually developing yourself, and find ways to release and equip others.

If you are a leader – pastor, elder, dad, mum, worship leader, deacon, businessman, boss, prime minister – then ask yourself the following questions:

  1. When was the last time I listened to a sermon when no one else was around to see me?
  2. What is the name of the book I am in the middle of?
  3. What conferences have I been to this year?
  4. What book of the Bible are you reading right now? Did you read the Bible today?
  5. When was the last time you met someone in your field who is more spiritual than you and learned from them?
  6. Who was the last person you read a biography about (you have to read biographies of heroes of the faith)?
  7. What blogs are you reading about leadership (hint: this one is really good)?

Be honest with yourself. Don’t beat yourself up, but if the answers are none, and I can’t remember, and it was a long time ago – time to do something about it. You cannot be the bottleneck, eventually something will break, and it will probably be you. You don’t want that, I don’t want that, and Jesus doesn’t want that. Go and learn something!