Inward or outward focused church?

On www.churchleaders.com Thom Rainer has a very insightful article that because of my job as a pastor, the title caught my attention. In case you don’t know Dr. Rainer is President of Lifeway, which among other things is the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. He is also one of the premier researchers for churches of all denominations as well as prolific author. The article is entitled “10 Warning Signs of an Inwardly Obsessed Church”. So I decided I’d read the article and see where we (Eastwood Baptist in Bowling Green) are in regards to being inwardly or outwardly focused using his criteria. So here are his 10 warning signs with my comments about Eastwood after.

1. Worship wars – The direction of Eastwood worship was set before I arrived. I think maybe there was a good bit of angst as Eastwood transitioned to a more blended toward the contemporary format but our worship pastor is great about trying to blend in hymns and other styles of music.
2. Prolonged Minutia Meetings – Eastwood only has 3 standing committees (a record for Southern Baptists I believe) and 5 minute business meetings so we are doing great here.
3. Facility Focus – Rainer defines this as “One of the highest priorities in the church is the protection and preservation of rooms, furniture, and other visible parts of the church’s buildings and grounds.” While Eastwood does not meet this definition I think we need to be careful as think about a building for our Plano Campus; it would be easy to take the focus off of reaching people.
4. Program Driven – No church will ever be completely free of “programming” but the point Dr. Rainer makes is that we can’t let the program be the ends rather than the means. For instance we can’t make Bible Study Fellowship classes just about studying the bible. They have to be a door we use to reach people for Christ. Bible study fellowship classes are the means by which this is done.
5. Inwardly Focused Budget – I think we are doing great here. Eastwood was in the Top 10 Churches in the Kentucky Baptist Convention in both total gifts as well as per-capita gifts to the Co-Operative Program. About 20% of what is received this year will go to missions. I received notice last week that out of 40,000 plus SBC churches, Eastwood was in the top 50 in gifts to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American missions.
6. Inordinate Demands For Pastoral Care – Rainer defines this as having “unreasonable demands” for pastoral care. I am blessed with a great staff, which loves to minister to the people of the church.
7. Attitudes of Entitlement – From the most active to the least active I simply don’t sense this attitude of “deserving special treatment”. I’m sure not all pastors can say this, but I’m blessed here at EBC.
8. Greater Concern About Change than the Gospel – Eastwood is incredible in adapting to and embracing change. If the membership believes change will possibly produce a more effective way to reach people for Christ and disciple believers, they have willingly embraced changed in my 7 ½ years as their pastor.
9. Anger and Hostility – I told someone last week that after 7 ½ years I honestly don’t know anyone who is angry with me or the church necessarily. Oh, I’m sure there are some out there but I’ve only reached this length tenure one other time, and by then while the mood was still generally sweet, I knew who was throwing rocks and when to duck.
10. Evangelistic Apathy – Uh oh! I think this could be a major issue for Eastwood. We are strong in giving to missions and even going. Where I think we struggle is in inviting our lost, unchurched, or dechurched friends to church or even sharing the gospel with them ourselves. We have loads of guests each week but I’m not sure how many of them have intentionally been reached by our folks and how many of them are without Christ.

All in all I think we are doing great as far as keeping the focus on where it needs to be; on those outside the church. The church is the only organization that I know of that exists to a large part for those outside of the membership. Now I know some of my brothers might take issue with that statement and tell me “No, the primary purpose of the church is to make disciples and give God the glory He is due.” But I believe we have to reach people with the gospel before we can disciple them, and the more people we reach, the more the Father is glorified. Just my thoughts…

Bro Tom

"Normal" pastors

I like to read a blog by a fellow named Ron Edmondson, who Sunday was elected the new senior pastor of Immanuel Baptist church in Lexington. He really has a heart for encouraging pastors and his blog posts often reflect that. I think he uniquely understands some of the as he says “pressures, frustrations, and joys” of serving as a senior pastor because he has walked in those shoes. He recently shared a post entitled “10 ‘secrets’ about many senior pastors” that I wanted to share on my blog. While I don’t know how many pastors read my blogs I know many laymen and women do, and just maybe this will help them understand their pastor a little better. I am putting quotation marks around what he says then adding some comments of my own.

Here are 10 “secrets” about many senior pastors:
1. “Leading from this position is overwhelming at times. We know Christ is ultimately in charge, but we also know it often seems everyone looks to us to have all the answers.” While I’m not sure if this pressure is applied by others, if it’s of pastors own making, or just something inherent in the job, I do think this is very real, at least for the pastors I know.
2. “People tell the senior pastor all kinds of things about what is happening in their life or in the lives of others…many we would rather not know sometimes…and sometimes the weight of others problems we carry is enormous.” There is no way for a pastor to get around this. A large part of ministry is tending the sheep that the Lord allows you to serve. This means knowing when they stray, when they are hurt, when they are absent from the flock, etc…
3. “Most pastors walk with a degree of uncertainty, which keeps us in prayer, but also makes us question our abilities at times. It makes depression common for many senior pastors. (Need a Biblical example…see 1 Kings 19)”. I know firsthand that this is real. There are days that I question, ‘Lord, am I really equipped to do this?’ I usually get the answer that no I am not, but He in me is able to do more than I could think or ask.
4. “Many senior pastors fear the possibility of failing in their role, so they thrive on the encouragement and prayers of others.” This is not unique to pastors as I think we all need encouragement. But the weight of being a spiritual overseer of souls is enormous and encouragement always helps to lighten that load. Just today I received an email letting me know how yesterday’s message spoke to her. Little things like that are such a blessing to pastors.
5. “Sometimes we allow insecurity to cause us to become overprotective of our reputation and our position.” I believe this is tied to #4 above. Because there is this real fear of failure, whether it’s failing God or His people, insecurity has a way of creeping into the man of God’s life. Moses would be a prime example of this. God called him to a task that he didn’t think he could fulfill, and so with a fear of failure he expressed his insecurities to God.
6. “We face the same temptations and occasional spiritual dryness as everyone else. This means we need accountability, but are often afraid to seek it.” The prayers of God’s people help during these times of dryness. I think it often is acutely obvious to both pastor and people when this is going on. And when it is, the people of God praying for the man of God can help overcome this.
7. “Our spouse is sometimes the loneliest person in the church and often feels extreme pressure to live up to unrealistic expectations.” While I can’t speak directly to this having never been the “spouse of a pastor” I do know the pressures are real. I’m grateful to serve a people who have placed no expectations on my wife other than to be my wife and the mother of our kids!
8. “Loneliness can exist for all leaders and many pastors suffer from it.” In my own discussions with other pastors I believe this is true though we seldom own up to it. Many pastors have this real fear of showing any weakness in their spiritual armor. So rather than be transparent about feelings of loneliness, pastors get used to the façade of “I’m okay, thanks for asking.”
9. “We seldom know who we can trust, which is why we become guarded and appear hard to get to know. Most senior pastors have been burned by someone they once trusted.” Man is this ever true. I’m thinking of a time when a staff member (at another church) betrayed my trust just weeks after arriving at our church. This lead to my best friend in the church, a man I’d spent countless hours with at his house, our house, the golf course, etc… leaving the church over this. For several years our friendship was not what it should have been, in fact it never got back to where it was.
10. “We suspect the staff, church leaders and congregation sometimes talks about us behind our back.” This is just human nature I suppose... both to suspect that folks talk about you as well as others. I know “roasted preacher” is served often around Baptist tables on Sunday … but to be honest, when pastors get together we’ve been known to eat a little “roasted layman” on occasion (grin).

Granted, Ron makes the point that not every pastor faces all 10 of these. He also rightfully expresses how we senior pastors find great joy in our work. He makes a point at the end of his post that is worth repeating word for word … here it is: “When I share any post like this, however, I have come to expect a lecture on the need to depend on Christ for these issues, which only further demonstrates my points. Senior pastors are to fully rely on Christ’s strength, as is every other believer. This is just a reminder that we happen to also be like Elijah… ‘a man just like us’.” (James 5:17)

Dealing with doubts

Dear Church Family,

Have you ever heard something that sounded too good to be true? I’ve often responded to such things with “I’ll believe it when I see it”. An example would be these diet programs where somebody lost 200 pounds in 12 months. If you read the fine print it typically says something like “these results are not typical”. We read that stuff and doubt that it’s true. When it comes to faith and doubting in the life of the Christian, I think we all fall into one of three categories.

There are what I call the “casual believers”. They believe there is a God but they have not surrendered their life to Him. They are the Christmas, Easter believers and attenders. Then there are the “convenient believers”. They will follow Christ as long as it’s convenient. But the first time His claims of Lordship interfere with their plans, they are gone. It’s as if they leverage faith to their benefit. Finally, some are among the “committed believers”. They understand what Paul meant in Galatians 2 when He said he’d been “crucified with Christ”; for them it really is all about Him.


In John 20 we find the disciple named Thomas doubting the resurrection of the Lord. It’s not that he didn’t want to believe, he just needed to see proof before he would or could believe. So maybe you are like Thomas and struggling with doubts, what should you do? Before we look at the answer to that question let me differentiate between doubts and unbelief. Doubt literally means to be undecided or wavering between two opinions. But unbelief is a conscious decision I believe to not believe; to stand against the truth.


To deal with our doubts, first, I think we have to acknowledge the fact we have doubts. Some simply try to ignore them or pretend they aren’t there but that usually will not be sufficient for long. There are various causes or reasons we doubt. For some its intellectualism; they intellectually struggle with what they’ve been taught or believe to be true. For others its emotionalism that produces doubt. They base their faith on their feelings and when their mountain top experiences depart, so does their faith.


Secondly, after admitting our struggles with doubts, we need to turn to God for help. Have you ever considered how many “doubters” there are in the bible? Abraham and Sarah doubted the promise of a child. Moses doubted he was the right man for the job of going to Pharaoh. How many times in the gospels do we read of Jesus saying to the disciples, “Oh ye of little faith”? When we doubt the best thing we can do is be honest with God and bring our doubts to Him.


Back to John 20. Jesus could have busted on Thomas for doubting. He could have said, “I spend 3 years with you and at the first sign of real trouble you doubt?” Jesus doesn’t shame him though, He doesn’t condemn him, He simply meets him where he’s at and comforts him. Maybe what you don’t know is “doubting Thomas” became an incredible Christian taking the gospel to India and ultimately dying a martyrs death for the sake of the gospel. I’m not saying that your doubting could end up in your death for the gospel. But what I want you to see is when you give your doubts to the Lord, maybe it’s not dying for the sake of the gospel but rather living for the sake of the gospel that He calls you to. Something to ponder.