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Threatened By (the talent) Another Minister

There’s a danger when you hire someone to work alongside you. The danger increases when they have similar responsibilities to you or they report to you. And the danger is even greater when the person is talented.

The danger: their work or they themselves get more attention than you do.

  • What happens if their talent overshadows yours?
  • What if their influence is greater than yours?
  • What if church members or staff like them better than they like you?
  • What if their work becomes a huge win for the church?

I’ve recently welcomed this threat. We’ve added an Executive Pastor to our staff. He comes with his own experiences, gifts, and skill sets. And more than that, I work with a bunch of talented and smart people. (Seemingly, when the Holy Spirit was providing gifts to those I work with, He was feeling generous. Somehow when it became my turn to receive gifts, He all the sudden became a minimalist!)

You can be threatened by those around you who are capable leaders, or you can embrace what they bring to your church and figure out how to best serve, together.

It’s the Education Minister who hires a new student minister. The student minister is not only younger, more fun, but also really Biblically astute. Does the Education Minsters celebrate this, or does he make sure the influencers in the church also know about the new guy’s shortcomings?

It’s the Music Minister who has effectively led worship for many years, but organically, a vocalist from the praise team seems to be getting the attention. His voice and worship of God are clearly impressive. How does the Music Minister react?

Many times this threat plays out in the hiring process. The hiring minister foregoes a qualified candidate because they can see how that person might out-perform or get more accolades. It’s poor Kingdom management, but it happens.

Biblically, we know how we should respond.

Theoretically, we know we’re better together, even if we feel marginalized in that pursuit.

But methodologically, we often handle it differently. And sometimes sinfully.

We try to relegate these high achievers to small work so they can’t be noticed. We don’t encourage them or brag on them in front of others. We remind others of their weaknesses. We’re constantly looking for errors they may make.

Some practical reminders for when you feel threatened by the talent around you:

  1. Pray for them.
  2. Don’t worry about image management. Let the God who put you in your position, and them in theirs, deal with how others perceive you.
  3. Get to know them really well. It’s harder to be threatened by someone you know well, and actually, perhaps like. (I’ve written about church jealousy syndrome previously).
  4. Acknowledge your weaknesses, know theirs, and then develop a plan (with them) for how you can each excel in your giftedness and mitigate each other’s weaknesses through mutual cooperation.
  5. Memorize and put into practice Ephesians 4:29 and then adhere to it when speaking about them.
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10 Ministry Books You Should Read. Want one?

In a previous post I named ten must read books for leading effectively in ministry. Now I’m giving them away. In three days I’ll  choose three winners, and those winners can choose which of the ten books they want and I’ll mail them a copy of the book.

You’re eligible to win if:

  1. You already subscribe to my weekly blog email currently (RSS)
  2. You register by noon Sunday (Sep 21) to receive blogs to your inbox

If you’re selected, I’ll email you to get your book selection and address. Hope you win and choose your “must read” wisely.

Thanks for being a reader.

p.s. Emails to your inbox are limited to new blog posts only and 2-3 other emails a year so I can understand more about my readers.

You can sign up on the right side of the page or click here. To sing up, you’re only asked for your name and email address.
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Small Church vs Big Church (size or health?)

 

This is a guest post from Karl Vaters. Karl has passion for serving churches…specifically, “small churches.” I’ve really enjoyed his writing, and help he provides church leaders. Much of his content applies to ministers no matter their church size, but he’s committed to encouraging the small church. From the New Small Church website:

Small Churches make up 80% – 90% of the known churches in the world, but are the subject of probably less than 1% of the books and blogs about how to do church ministry. Small Churches are no better and no worse than churches of any other size. But they have been the most neglected, especially when it comes to pastoral training.
New Small Church wants to help fill that gap. We exist to encourage, connect and equip innovative Small church leaders.

You’ll benefit from Karl’s thoughts on:

All things grow – but not all growth is healthy

About 200 people attend the church I pastor on a typical Sunday. It used to be 400.

It’s a better church now than it was then.

I know, pastors aren’t supposed to say things like that. We’re not even supposed to admit that things like that are possible.

But it’s true.

I’ve been pastoring my church for 22 years. When I arrived, there were about 35 people attending. They were very discouraged after going through five pastors in ten years and drifting from their high attendance of about 250 during that decade. They had debated closing the church entirely.

In my first decade of pastoring the church, we grew to a healthy 200 people or so.

Giddy with my modest success, I decided to kick things into high gear. I was going to implement all the church growth strategies I’d been reading about and break through the 200 barrier.

It worked. Within two years, we had doubled to about 400 people. But we became an unhealthy church in the process.

Before the push, I’d been working with people and within my gifting as a pastor. During the push, my attention shifted. People became numbers. Attendance mattered more than relationships. I became empty. And the church became unhealthy.

Almost none of the growth was from conversions. It was virtually all transfer growth. We weren’t discipling new believers, we were entertaining bored Christians.

Then the church started to shrink. Fast.

I don’t know how small it got down to. Because I stopped counting. But it was probably somewhere in the low 100s. Not only had we lost those we’d gained, we lost a lot of the original folks, too.

There are a lot of reasons why the church collapsed and nearly folded. But the main one was this. The pursuit of numbers made us sick. And sick things start to die.

I’m grateful that our sickness was evident in our shrinking numbers. It forced us to deal with the problems. Some churches start dying internally, but keep getting bigger externally, so they don’t see their sickness. No, not all of them. Not even most of them. But some of them. Including mine.

Through that process, I learned several painful lessons. I’m grateful for every one of them.

Here are a few:

  • A healthy small church is better than an unhealthy big church
  • Every number may be a person, but people aren’t numbers
  • All healthy things grow, but not all growth is healthy

Eventually, we corrected the downward slide. We put God’s Word and God’s people first again.

Today, we’re as healthy as any church of any size anywhere. We’re loving, outward-reaching and discipleship-oriented.

We’ve grown to 200. We may get bigger than that. We may not. Either way, we’ll stay healthy and keep growing, learning, discipling and sending.

Yes, a church can be better at 200 than at 400.

Because, bigger isn’t better. Smaller isn’t better. Only better is better.

Read more about Karl and check his out book, The Grasshopper Myth.

 

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