Top Ten Small-Church Pastor Challenges (part three)

In this edition of my personal reflection on the Top Ten Small Church Pastor Challenges, courtesy of LifeWay, I’m taking four all together at once:

3. Lack of commitment from members. Many pastors said they deal with apathy and indifference. Waggoner said it doesn't matter what the size of the church is, but small churches feel it more.

4. Too few workers. If the church's philosophy is that the pastor is a hired gun, the professional, it will wear the pastor out, Waggoner said. He also said most churches do not have a strategy to equip the laity for ministry.

7. Worldliness of the church. Waggoner said he saw in the survey something he called "cultural seepage."

9. Too few people. In the survey, pastors said they couldn't get things done because not enough help was available.

I lump all of these together because in my mind they all fall into the same broad category. In this category, we have problems a pastor faces which (without honest reflection on his own part) can automatically look like what he’s dealing with is unregeneracy and false conversion in the congregation.

The truth is, though, that there may be other, more mundane answers which actually put the problem right in the pastor’s lap.

For instance, a church I attended faithfully some years ago suddenly decided to make a big push to become, first, a Contagious Church ™ and then later, when nobody seemed to “catch” anything from us, it went all Purpose Driven ™. Or, it tried to, anyway.

This was at the urging and behest of the pastor. I found it difficult (to say the least) to get on board with either bandwagon. In fact, at a couple of meetings on the topics, I argued against it.

Eventually, both programs fell by the wayside due to there being too little commitment to them from the laity.

I’m quite certain my pastors at the time felt frustrated over the lack of commitment displayed by us in the whole ordeal (my wife and I in particular.) They thought we evinced a galling inability to “get onboard” with what the Spirit was doing. We showed an appalling lack of zeal for the kingdom, etc. We were worldly, lazy, careless.

Here is my conviction, after having pastored a small congregation for just over a year. I realize, that still makes me a rookie and a novice, so take this for what it’s worth: We occupy ourselves with a lot of extraneous crap in Christian churches. (I use that term soberly, meaning by it what it means: excrement, dung, and so forth.)

We act like our church won’t survive if we can’t muster up a Vacation Bible School in the Summer. Or, horrors, if we can’t field a Sunday School that is thoroughly age-segregated. I mean, what if (gasp) the teenagers have to join in with the Adult class’s Bible Study?

I’m saying this: pastors, let’s make the main thing the main thing, especially on Sundays. The church exists to worship, to teach and guard the Truth of God, to preach the Gospel faithfully, and to love each other.

Building programs, softball and bowling teams, conventions, special events and speakers, committee meetings, block parties, Summer Youth activity schedules…at some point we have to pull back and wonder just how needful any of that is, and maybe God is trying to tell us by the reaction of His people when we try so hard to press those things.

So, when you meet with “lack of commitment” to your ambitious schedule of “stuff,” step back and re-evaluate. Maybe read through the book of Acts again.

Now, having said all of that, I am personally convinced that a very large portion of our typical SBC churches is in fact unregenerate and genuinely worldly.

Happily, both these issues have the same “fix.”

Whether the problem is that you, pastor, have been sucked into focusing on extraneous crap; or that your congregation is largely unsaved, the only solution is that we must repent and believe the Gospel. We must believe it is the power of God, and we must believe this strongly enough to motivate our constant study, and attention and care given to making certain we communicate it in the most Biblical way possible, via careful and prayerful exposition of the Text.

Give the Lord no Rest

As a pastor whose soteriology is solidly Reformed, I rejoice that I can evangelize without the "pressure" of having to convert anyone. With a view of the Gospel that rightly emphasizes God's sovereignty, a "successful witnessing encounter" is one in which I was able, by grace, to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ clearly. Period. Making someone convert is not my job. That is a spiritual work that only the Spirit of God can perform. I just preach. Wow, y'know, honestly that really narrows the task down to something manageable.

But here's the rub: I still earnestly desire to see conversions. I still long to see people come to Christ in repentant faith.

Let's just be honest: I get sick of merely "planting seeds" and hoping that someday, by and by, I'll see some actual fruit.

Thus the emotional dilemma for the evangelistically-minded man: I know salvation is up to the Lord; but I am impatient to see it happen.

Now, the common way in which I and my fellow Reformed pastors have comforted ourselves and one another as we encounter this dilemma, is to say that we must turn our impatience into submission and contentment. After all, that sort of willful acquiescence to the Lord's will seems quite Biblical, and Reformed. Right?

Well, the famous giant of Christian history, George Muller, says no. Consider this quote from a preacher and pastor who knew more than we ever will about living by faith alone.

The Bible assures us that in everything we do for the Lord...our labor is not in vain. We have to guard against thinking that it does not matter whether we see present fruit or not. On the contrary, we should give the Lord no rest until we see fruit. Therefore, in persevering yet submissive prayer, we should make our requests known to God. (From his autobiography, emphasis mine.)

Muller would suggest that the line of thought we are using to comfort ourselves in our fruitlessness is the very thing we need to vigilantly struggle against. It does matter, what fruit we bear, what things happen as a result of our ministries. If none are being converted, or if we are not being persecuted as our Lord promised we would be if only we were faithful, there can be only one answer.

Let us commit ourselves to fervent, persistent, and as Muller says, still submissive prayer.

Minimising the Gospel

I am reading a book for class written by J.I. Packer entitled, The Quest for Godliness. The book is about the life and ministry of the puritans. Chapter 10 speaks to the view of the puritans on preaching the gospel. Today, people ask what the minimum amount of doctrine they can include in a gospel presentation. Packer mentions that one reason for this is the reluctance of those in our pews to learn. Most people are so entertainment driven, they don't want to be given lots of knowledge, they don't want to think, study, or pursue godly wisdom. Richard Baxter said this:

Were you but as willing to get the knowledge of God and heavenly things as you are to know how to work in your trade, you would have set yourself to it before this day and you would have spared no cost or pains till you had got it. Bit you account seven years little enough to learn your trade, and will not bestow one day in seven in diligent learning the matters of your salvation.

In the Puritan's time, people were no more willing to think about the important things as they are today. Whereas, ministers today are apt to accommodate to the apathy of learning to the human race, the Puritan's did not. They preached the full counsel of God. Notice what J.I. Packer says:

If we do not preach abou sin and God's judgement on it, we cannot prese Christ as Saviour from sin and the qeath of God. And if we are silent about these things, and preach a Christ who saves only from self and the sorrows of this world, we are not preaching the Christ of the Bible. We are in effect bearing false witness and preaching a false Christ. Out message is 'another gospel, which is not another'. Such preaching may soothe some, but it will help nobody; for a Christ who is not seen and sought as a Saviour from sin will not be found to save from self or from anything else. And imaginary Christ will not bring a real salvation; and a half-truth presented as the whole truth is complete untruth. Thus the minimising approach threatens to falsify the gospel by emptying it of doctrinal elements that are essential to it.

Friends, may we be faithful to the Scriptures and preach the full gospel. May we not do like so many and minimize and falsify the gospel, accommodating to the reluctant and itching ears of our culture.