Love Jesus: The danger of exhorting people to love Jesus is that you can outsource loving Jesus to them and avoid doing it yourself. Mostly after getting it wrong a few times. And I HAVE saved myself from some heartaches by learning to listen to her earlier. I could have saved myself from some heartaches if I’d listened to her earlier on some stuff. Jill is a clinical psychologist and reads people like few others can. Jill sees them, points them out, and goes right on loving and supporting me. Commit Yourself to one No Lady: (or if you are a woman pastor who is married, then a No Man!) Lots of people see your blindspots and don’t point them out. Thank you to all of you, you know who you are, primarily because I’ve had a fight about something with you over the past few decades! I have made a point of that in the past 20-odd years of marriage and ministry and that’s been a safety check for me. And if you are a woman in pastoral ministry perhaps some “No Women”. Surround Yourself with No Men: Not “no men”, but No Men” – men who say “no” to your vanities, self-delusions and bad choices. You are a danger to those around you if you are brittle and constantly avoid brokenness. It’s the most liberating thing in the world. Yet the joy on the other side of being broken by God is realising that He builds you back up never to be brittle again. Having never been broken, a brittle leader works the angles, avoids the self-examination, gets chippy with opposition, either fears what other think, or steamrollers over the top of what others think. Broken leaders are broken down by God and built back up again, first in order to be humbled from their pride, but second, to make them safe people for the flock of Christ to be around. Because the opposite of a broken leader is not a whole leader, but a brittle leader. And then at the same time, in God’s sovereignty, I got extremely sick and ended up having major surgery and being out of action for nearly a year. God does not make leaders, he breaks leaders, and in the run up to me joining Providence God broke me – and us as a family – in two huge ways.įirst, we experienced a painful broken relationship with a church planting group we had been involved with. Be a Broken Leader Not a Brittle Leader: This has been absolutely crucial. Once again you can see Jesus’ fingerprints all over it. We’ve seen toxic things in peoples’ lives die, be killed, and something sweet and good come to life. A key verse for us this past couple of years has been “The Lord kills and brings to life”, from 1 Sam2. And when you bring Jesus to the situation, lo and behold, he keeps people, even those people for whom things looked pretty dicey. Will Jesus save people? Yep, tick that box.īut then, secondly, will Jesus keep the people he saves? He sure will! To see the transforming – the ongoing transforming – of those who were saved among us has been so encouraging.īut more than that, stay at a church long enough and difficult pastoral and spiritual issues will inevitably come to the surface. Jesus Keeps People: As a church pastor, especially in a church plant, there are two worries that seem to transcend my orthodox theology.
You know you can only take a photo holding it, shaking your head and saying “I didn’t catch this.” Jesus does all the hard work by the Holy Spirit and we’re just there to hold up the catch for the photo! Jesus Saves People: For all of our missional ideals and zeal as a church plant, the most astonishing thing is the regularity with which people with no church background just front up and say something like “I need something and I reckon Jesus is what I need.” It’s like going out in a fishing boat with all the latest gear, and then a huge tuna jumps on board. Looking back over the six (and eight) years, what have been the take-homes for me? Here’s eight in random order: Not that we ever want to feel anything other than completely dependent on the Holy Spirit, but it feels we’re not a little kid anymore. Now after a year of leadership work, and then keeping the congregation informed, we’ve appointed our extremely able associate Mark into the senior role, while I stay on staff part-time in a preaching role, along with an external evangelistic role in another organisation next year.Īnd with a policy of staffing from within and training people into part-time paid and unpaid leadership, it feels like we’re not a church plant anymore. Jill and I planted in our lounge room six years ago. Yesterday was my last official day as Senior Pastor at our church, Providence Church Midland.Īfter six years as Midland pastor and two previous years working with Providence’s city congregation, we made the change at our general meeting last night.
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