Category: Leadership

if you watch family guy (‘fess up, sinners) you’ll know where my title comes from. and yes, i do watch family guy.

anyway, i really don’t have a lot of hot buttons, but one thing that really grinds my gears is when people pick on pastors. even if i don’t know them. i think it has a lot to do with being a PK myself, and it is really easy for me to get defensive…

there have been a lot of news stories both nationally and locally about how some pastors “live” – and whether or not they lead lavish, luxurious lives (this post is already full of alliterations…yikes!)

so my little analytical brain started formulating and calculating “what is excess?” and “what is living extravagantly?”

let’s compare two very different scenarios. we will assume all parties are involved in vocational ministry and i am using dallas housing costs and the same percentage down and interest rates for the numbers.

scenario 1: we have a young married couple who live in a 1800 sq ft home which cost $160,000. they pay $800/month for their mortgage. that would mean that there is approximately 900 sq ft/person and the cost of living is approximately $400/person/month.

scenario 2: we have a married couple with three children who live in a 3000 sq ft home which cost $325,000. they pay $1600/month for their mortgage. that would mean there is approximately 600 sq ft/person and the cost of living is approximately $320/person/month.

Q: of the two above scenarios, who is living more extravagantly?
A: you can’t freaking tell, so stop wasting your time and move on.

SERIOUSLY. there is no way on this earth to measure that. you can look up how much a house cost and how big it is, but you can’t and won’t be the judge of whether or not a person is being god-honoring or not with their money. yes, pastors (and christians) should be (and will be held) responsible for what they have been given. but just because a pastor has a nice car, a plane, or a big house doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

maybe they live on 10% of their salary. maybe any ancillary income they have (speaking/books) goes 100% back into ministry and kingdom work. i know pastors who do all of the above. and on top of that they’re humble and don’t go around flaunting how much money they actually don’t take home.

i personally know a pastor with a plane (which the church did not pony up for) and i can tell you that plane has saved a heck of a lot of the church’s money in travel as he willingly uses it for church related things. but when most people hear “pastor so and so has a plane” their minds go immediately to how much of an extravagance that plane must be. when actually, it is the complete opposite. he flew me (for free) so I could visit some out of state friends who were coming out of a crisis. he is an extravagantly generous person.

we will never be able to judge, nor is it our job to. so please, let’s just move on to the things that matter, shall we?

so there is my annual rant. i hope you have enjoyed your stay.

ryan from next steps leadership thought it would be fun to get inside my head about church and leadership. i’m the first female they’ve interviewed and you’ll notice that i am twice as wordy as the guys. guess that whole “women talk more than men” adage is true.

anyway, if you’d like to see the interview, go here!

thanks, ryan, for the opportunity.

i have slowly been making my way through the nearly 500 page chuck colson book, being the body. yesterday, while battling a bit of a stomach bug and at the same time enjoy the amazing thunderstorm which was ripping through dallas, i sat down with mr. colson’s big green book (and a fat orange cat) and dove back in.

the topic on this particular day was evangelism. my entire life, i have felt guilty for not being an evangelist. no, not your typical big haired, super-gunked eyelashes, put-me-on-tv-and-send-me-money kind of evangelist, but the one we are always taught to be in sunday school. the one who witnesses to her friends and shares the miraculous story of how she came to christ.

for one reason, i don’t have some amazing conversion story. i was five years old. finally old enough to sit quietly in a church service with my mom and dad. they had an easter play on sunday, and i had questions. my dad led me to accept christ later that night (and tape recorded it secretly: something i’ll always treasure).

the second reason is that i’m fairly introverted. especially around people with whom i’m not familiar. when i worked in student ministry, we did a beach evangelism trip. the sole purpose was to go out on beaches and witness to those we encountered. some of the high schoolers were great at it. honestly, i was a big fat chicken and spent most of my time chasing them down or encouraging them (oh, okay, really i spent most of the time sitting on the beach reading, okay? there, i said it.)

but i still felt so guilty that i just couldn’t go out and witness.

colson brings out an interesting point in his book; one that had never crossed my mind. whereas some people are given the spiritual gift of evangelism to witness (ephesians 4:11), regardless of your spiritual gifting, we are all called to be witnesses (acts 1:8).

notice the verb changes? one is to witness. one is to be a witness.

i am no bible scholar, and at best, i will define this exposition as simple theology, so please forgive any errors. however, i think it is important to note these differences as the line between witnessing and being a witness has seemingly been very cloudy, at least to me.

the call for all belivers to be a witness is compelling. and how do we become witnesses? by loving. accepting. obeying. you may not be shouting from the rooftops or the street corners, but sometimes the adage silence speaks louder than words is true. as saint francis of assisi so directly stated, “preach the gospel at all times — if necessary, use words.”

there are several conferences going on this weekend for those of us who seem to live, eat and breathe church and leadership and creative stuff. i personally have sworn off conferences for the time being as i need to refocus where and how i get my information. but i was reading about some of the sessions at the daybreak conference (which i attended in 05) over at tim steven’s blog. pretty typical leadership conference bullet points, but this one kind of gave me that “alarmed” feeling in my spirit.

i realize i am not there, and quite possibly some of you are, so maybe the reason i am misunderstanding this statement is because it’s a bullet point taken out of context. if that is the case and someone can explain this further to me, please do.

but alone, i kind of find the content disturbing. tim noted:

This morning at the Creative Infusion Conference at Daybreak, I enjoyed a breakout session on Creative Leadership by Terry Woychowski, and executive with General Motors. Some notable quotes…

* The single most important element in your ministry is leadership. More important than worship, discipleship or missions. Because without good leadership–you can’t do any of that.

you can read the rest of the list here

i left a comment on his blog and said:

Some good stuff on leadership, but my heart kind of screeches and shoots up a thousand red flags on #1.

Maybe I am just being overly concerned with semantics but somehow I think obidience to and communion with Christ should replace the word “leadership” there.

That is why so many pastors get themselves in trouble…leadership becomes their God.

[[steps of soapbox]]

what do you think? taking this at face value, do you agree or disagree with this statement? i lovingly encourage any thoughts and opinions. i know very well that maybe i just don’t get it…but it sounds really off-base to me.

[[edit: as a result of a comment questioning the faith of Dr. Woychowski, his bio from the conference website reads:

Dr. Woychowski has been active in civic and volunteer work. He developed and led the efforts of his community?s involvement in setting up refugee camps in Albania and Kosovo during the conflict in the Balkans, making three trips to the region during that crisis. He has served his community as a paramedic and is the lead elder at his church.

in october 2006, lifeway christian resources announced that over 1300 staff members of southern baptist churches had been fired in 2006 alone. this is just one denomination and one year, so it’s not inclusive of all churches or all reasons for leaving a job (being fired or resigning or moral failure…or the ever-so-tricky “forced to resign”).

i left one southern baptist church in february 2006 after being on staff for a little over two years and now work at another southern baptist church. i can think of at least twenty (without even trying) people i know who have been fired, quit, moved to another church or left a church staff for health reasons between 2006 and 2007. max lucado himself is slowly stepping down from his responsibilities at oak hills church.

many of my good friends have been burned out by working at churches. my own father left the ministry in 1996 after being run over and pastoring four churches in ten years. early last year, i swore i’d never work in a church again because of the intense pressure (but fortunately, a couple of people were able to move me along, and although at times it seems insanely hectic, lake pointe has been such a place of healing).

i reflect today on this because in the last three weeks i have learned of a couple more of my friends who have left the ministry. my heart breaks for their hearts. for their families.

my heart is saddened by the general condition of the western church culture. there are so many health problems reported by church staff. i ended up in the hospital for a week in 2005. a friend in his early twenties who is a youth pastor developed ulcers. heart problems seem to be the norm though, with middle-aged pastors and stress (and perhaps the fact generally seaking, most churches serve junk food more often than communion?)

i cynically digress. please forgive me. i do not take the sacrament of communion in such light regard…

the sad thing is NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE ABOUT THIS UNLESS SOMEONE DOES SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

but what? seriously, what kind of example are we setting by turning ourselves into little, overworked stress balls with heart disease and ulcers? by our broken families? our broken dreams?

i dont have the answers, but i sure as heck want to talk about this.