From Justin Taylor

Before the Service

• Read the passage in advance
• Pray for the gathering
• Greet newcomers (act like you are the host)
• Think strategically about who you should sit with
• Arrive Early

During the Service

• Sing with gusto (even if you can’t sing)
• Help with logistics (if there’s a problem, help fix it)
• Don’t be distracted
• Listen carefully
• Be aware of your facial expressions (you may affect others and discourage preachers)

After the Service

• Connect newcomers with others
• Get newcomers information
• Start a conversation about the sermon
• Ask someone how they became a Christian
• Stay late

From Mike McKinley

The Sojourn servants are willing to love and serve both you and your children during this season of parenting adjustment.  They are serving in SojournKids because they desire to care for your children and so that you can attend a worship gathering without having to care for your child.  They love your child, and that is why they are serving in this ministry.  Allow us to minister to YOU so that YOU are free to worship the One, True and Living God!

The comments at the end of the post make clear the value to the parents and also the selflessness of the SojournKids servants. There is much to be learned and to model.

Sin is a heart issue that often manifests itself in external behaviors. To kill sin we must get to the heart of the matter. I have found it helpful to ask personalized gospel-centered questions to uncover the deep-rooted idolatries of my heart. Because we encounter temptation and sin in different ways, personalized questions can be very helpful in leading us to repentance and faith in Jesus.

How can we formulate these questions? Here are a few things to consider when probing the heart:

Personality Type

Are you naturally an introvert or extrovert? Do you get angry easily? Are you a Type “A” individual, constantly focused on completing your to-do list? Are you passive or shy? Knowing a person’s personality will help you penetrate their heart.

Consider someone who is a naturally strong-willed achiever. They might have the tendency to treat their spirituality in the same way. It becomes more about what they can do for Jesus than what He has already done for them.

Ask questions that are specific to their personality:

• Are you trusting in your own strength or in the strength of Jesus?
• Are you striving for God or resting in God?
• Are you fighting well against finding your worth in your work to finding your worth in Jesus?

Reccurring Outside Influences

What are the reccurring situations and circumstances that offer the most temptation? Are there people who you struggle to love? Are there times when you work late or are alone for extended periods of time?

Consider the person who has an unruly neighbor. One who is constantly nagging or creating trouble for the family. Ask questions in light of the situation:

• How are you loving “Bob” well?
• Do you see “Bob” as a problem or a person made in the image of God?
• Are you asking Jesus to grant you patience and genuine love?
• Do you know where Bob could use prayer? Have you offered to pray for him?

Tendencies Toward Sin

Where have you struggled in the past? What are the areas of habitual sin? We all have vices. Sin that gets the best of us is the sin we must fight hardest against.

Consider the man who is gluttonous. He might be fighting well, but still has a strong temptation to find fulfillment by indulging in too much food and drink.

Ask sin-specific questions that do not promote legalism:

• Are you being intoxicated with grace or with alcohol?
• Are you being satisfied with Christ or with food this week?
• What is consuming your thoughts: Food or Christ?

These questions evolve with our relationships. The more you know the men or women in your Fight Club the easier it is to prod at the heart and uncover the sin beneath the sin. Make a habit of asking one another personalized, gospel-centered questions. As you do, you will cut sin off at the root and turn to see Christ in the height of his glory!

It is important to note that just asking questions isn’t enough. Our questions must turn the corner and point others to the truth of the gospel. Only surfacing sin without bringing the hope of the Gospel produces wounded Christians. It is necessary to know your sin but only so that you can fight your sin and trust and enjoy your Savior.

From JT Caldwell at GospelCenteredDiscipleship.com

1. Consider practically if this is a good strategy. I know in our church if we skipped worship one Sunday we’d miss a lot of visitors. What if the one Sunday you’re out raking leaves is the one Sunday three non-Christian friends decide to check out your church, or the Sunday that one of your members was bringing in her non-Christian family, or the Sunday that a fringe member was going to venture back to church? Maybe you just miss these folks one week. That happens. But at least consider if the “out serving” strategy could prevent you from serving the people you are actually trying to reach.

2. Consider if there is good (or any) historical precedence for routinely canceling your worship service. Did not the apostolic church meet weekly on the first day of the week (1 Cor. 16:2), even renaming the day “the Lord’s Day” because of its unique significance (Rev. 1:10)? Not long after, Justin Martyr explained that “On the day which is called Sunday, all who live in the cities or in the countryside gather together in one place” to hear the word read and taught, communion celebrated, and prayers offered with thanksgiving. Granted, in some contexts (I’m thinking the Muslim world) Sunday worship may not be possible. But even there the Christians are still gathering for weekly worship. Given the tremendous weight of church history and apostolic example, we should have pretty good reasons for ditching the worship service in order to do something else.

3. Consider that all of life is worship, but corporate worship is still unique. Paul told the Corinthians to “do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31), but he also recognized there was something unique about the Corinthian community when they “come together as a church” (11:18). Sunday is the Lord’s Day, a day for rejoicing in the Lord’s resurrection. This calls for “worship worship” as opposed to “all of life worship.” There’s a distinction between being the church and being “in church” (1 Cor. 14:19). Six days are for work, but on only one day do we gather to worship. Think of what you are missing when you make that day for worshiping by serving others instead of being served by God in worship.

4. Consider what it may communicate when you replace services with serving. It sounds like a good idea: let’s do something for the community instead of going to church for ourselves. But ultimately we worship because God summons us to worship. It is for ourselves (see below), but it is also for God. He commands it. So why cancel it instead of something else? But why not do the soup kitchen on Saturday or pump people’s gas on Friday night? I suppose it’s possible you can have some meaningful conversations explaining why you are a Christian and not in church. But it also seems quite likely that churches replace Sunday services with Sunday serving because that’s the time they are already meeting. It’s the best time to get most of your people doing something and it doesn’t require any more time out of their week. Except for doctors, police officers and the like serving in their professions, are there really service projects the church has to do on Sunday morning?

5. Consider that corporate worship is a means of grace. Theologians have always considered the right preaching of the word and the right administration of the sacraments to be channels of divine blessing. So why rob our people of grace? Isn’t the easy removal of a weekly worship service an indication that our view of worship is too puny? We’ve come to think of Sunday morning as a few songs and a little (or long) talk. We’ve forgotten that corporate worship, however small or feeble, is a reflection of the glorious worship offered continuously by saints and angels and creatures and elders. We’ve forgotten that the Lord’s Supper and Baptism are more than rituals. They are rivulets of grace. We’ve forgotten that a sermon is not a lecture but Christ speaking to us. Why would we want to skip all this? Why would we think that shutting this down for a week is the best way to serve a needy world? We can worship God by serving our neighbors, but once a week we are called to serve our neighbors by worshiping God.

“Does this church even have a youth ministry?”

I hear this question all the time, from Mars Hill members, visitors, and people who have never set foot within our doors. And the short answer to the question is “no.” At least not what most people would consider a youth ministry.

What’s really being asked is “Does this church gather all its teenagers on Wednesday nights, have monthly lock-ins, go on summer mission trips to Mexico, and have attractional, flashy, and really expensive winter and summer retreats?” The answer is a gentle, but emphatic, “no.” Not anymore. Why? Three reasons:

1. Statistically, it isn’t working.
2. Discipleship as seen in Scripture is minimal.
3. The Holy Spirit told us to do otherwise.

The Statistics Say It All

The term “working” might be a little nebulous, but youth pastors know those stats. We know that somewhere between 60–80% of teens who are active in churches stop going altogether in their twenties. Yet many churches still cling to this model created decades ago, hoping they will be the exception.

Look at the students in your chairs. If you were convinced that six out of ten were going to leave the church once they go to college, would you stick with what you’re doing? The point of all ministry is disciple-making. Ask yourself, Youth Pastor, does that happen on a Wednesday night through your games, skits, teen worship band, videos, and 20-minute message?

Discipleship Is Crucial

A little over a year ago, it became absolutely clear that I was leading a ministry that wasn’t focused on making disciples. My leaders had a heart to disciple, but how could they in 90 minutes that were filled with programming? Any disciple-making that I or my leaders were doing was extracurricular.

We had to get into the lives of our students.

Wednesday night groups were cancelled. As opposed to everyone coming together, we broke into community groups spread throughout our region and connected by gender and geography. Suddenly, our students’ “youth group” experience was 5-10 other teenagers meeting in a home with two adult leaders wrestling through the Scriptures, bearing burdens (Galatians 6:2), confessing sins and praying for each other (James 5:16), teaching and admonishing (Colossians 3:16), and rebuking one another (2 Timothy 3:16).

Suddenly, discipleship started happening—every week.

Change as the Holy Spirit Guides You

I’ve grown sick of attractional youth ministry. These ministries eat up huge chunks of the budget, their pastors are under immense pressure, and at times, their satisfaction in Jesus varies with the number of teenagers that show up on a given Wednesday night. I know because I’ve been there.

And the Holy Spirit guided us elsewhere. I can’t overstate this point. There was real conviction when I examined the ministry that God had entrusted to me. I was restless and burdened, knowing something had to change. God confirmed this in the heart of other key leaders, several parents, and my head pastor as well when I shared the burden with them.

And so we changed. But there is no perfect youth group playbook or set of procedures to follow if you want it all to “work.” The only perfect model is to walk daily in the Spirit, to be faithful to his leading in your life as a youth pastor, and to examine the Scriptures and let them be authoritative in how you decide to build your ministry.

1. Take advantage of opportunities to be taught by others. Get the most out of books, lectures, and special speakers in seminary, because soon you’ll be be doing all the putting out with few people to put it in to you.
2. Beware of closing your heart to people.
3. Be a pastor for the whole church, not just part of it (don’t be just one group’s champion).
4. Establish your priorities at the church early and clearly. I suggest: preach, pray, and people.
5. Work hard to foster deep spiritual fellowship with your closest leaders (e.g., staff, elders, deacons).
6. Don’t try to do too much too soon. Expect change to happen very slowly. Whenever possible, work for desired change by positive reinforcement, rather than by criticism.
7. While you shouldn’t attempt too much change right away, if you are forced to make a hard change or take a tough stand, do it decisively.
8. Expect people to leave your church when you come.  Be kind when they do.  Follow up, ask why they’re leaving, pray for them, then move on. Don’t let a few folks on the way out determine the plans for the rest of the church.
9. Be personal instead of academic. A conversation is usually better than a paper.
10. Beware of technology: wasting time on power points, frittering hours away on Facebook, getting bogged down in emails, doing all your pastoral communication by email instead of phone calls or personal visits.
11. If you are good at administration, don’t do too much.  If you are bad, get someone to help you immediately.
12. Plan for prayer days.
13. Learn to think in 5 year, 1 year, 6 months, and 1 month increments.  When you start out at a church you’ll feel three months behind everyone else; you need to be six months ahead.
14. Guard your day off and don’t let your work creep into your evenings at home.  You’ll be miserable and ineffective if your life becomes a rhythm-less mush.
15. Spend more time getting to know your people and less time trying to figure out the culture of your city.
16. Remember: you are not the only special person in the church. Don’t get offended if you’re not invited to a wedding or they ask the other guy to do the baptism. It’s silly to feel threatened when congregants are closer to another staff member or lay leader than they are to you.
17. Don’t minister just to keep people happy. Don’t be the pastor who does all the counseling, all the teaching, and all the praying because “that’s what people expect” and you “don’t want to let them down.” You’ll burn yourself out, stifle the gifts of others, and keep your church smaller than it needs to be.
18. Don’t compare. There are dozens of factors that make a church successful. Many of them are out of your control–most notably, God’s sovereignty.
19. Christian maturity entails more than theological acumen. Don’t assume the dudes reading Bavinck will be the most fruitful, faithful, and effective leaders. Could be, but that’s far from certain.
20. God opposes the proud but gives grace to humble. Pray this into your soul before and after every sermon.
21. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.  Get in touch with seminary profs.  Try to get a top notch speaker in once in awhile.  Make contact with churches your respect. Build a network and learn from others.
22. Keep reading.  Please keep reading.  Boldly ask for a book allowance. The rule is not absolute, but I question a man’s call to ministry if he does not like to read.
23. Man is not justified by preaching.  Some sermons are a home run. Other times you’re lucky to bunt your way on.
24. Don’t preach your issues from seminary. I can almost guarantee no one in your church doubts the Pauline authorship of Ephesians. It says “Paul” in their Bibles so they’re good to go.
25. Sometime in your first two years, preach about prayer, evangelism, giving, and the authority of Scripture.
26. Figure out what you believe about divorce and remarriage, and figure it out soon.
27. Build consensus whenever possible, but when you have to make an unpopular decision that will be unpopular don’t insist that everyone like it. Take your lumps and move on.
28. Be comfortable in your own shoes. Preach through your own personality. Learn from, but don’t try to clone, your heroes.
29. Accept the blessings God gives (and does not give) you. Some pastors have two talents. Some of five or ten. That’s just the way it is. Don’t be jealous of those with more or look down on those with fewer.
30. Develop warm relationship with other evangelical churches in your area. Pray for these churches. Direct people to their ministries when the situation fits. Be happy for their blessings. I realized early on I didn’t really want revival unless I was fine with it starting at the church down the street.
31. Pray that the Lord won’t give you success until you don’t want it anymore.
32. Don’t assume the worst about people, even if you’re suspicions are right. Better to be a little naive than a lot cynical.
33. Make time to make friends. In the long run neither you nor your church will regret the hours invested in personal relationships with other pastors, old friends from seminary, and kindred spirits in the congregation.
34. Have low expectations for people this year and high expectations for people in five years.
35. Figure out the membership class and member care. Set the bar high for both.
36. Train and evaluate potential leaders. You can endure a lot of hardship if you feel energized and supported by your closest leaders. Ministry will be a nightmare if your leadership team lacks unity and maturity.
37. Focus on the basics.  Don’t get distracted with the church website or the newsletter layout.  The pastor who works hard at his sermons, genuinely likes people, and really loves the Lord will be used by God.
38. Don’t expect the search committee to have any clue what they’re doing.
39. Love your wife. Spend time with your kids. Be very afraid if you no longer look forward to going home at the end of the day.
40. Be generous in giving credit to others and stingy in passing around the blame.
41. Learn to ignore some comments, some controversies, and, yes, some people.
42. Never use the pulpit to settle old scores. Do use it to honor faithful saints and co-laborers.
43. Tell your congregation you love them and are glad to be their pastor.
44. What your people need most from you is your own personal holiness. People want a pastor who has been with God.
45. Keep your passions in proportion.  Not everything matters as much as everything else. Keep the gospel front and center.

Matthew 18:15-17

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

• This passage from Matthew 18 deals specifically with personal one-to-one instances of sin, but may be applied in other situations. Matthew 18: 15 to 17 contains a three step process for dealing with person-to-person conflict. Step one is to confront the person who has sinned against you and ask him to repent. If he does not repent after step one, move on to step two. Step two, take one or two other people, along with you to confront the individual about the sin against you and ask him to repent. If he does not repent after step two, move on to step three. Step three is to take the situation to the church. At Living Stones, this may be applied in one of two ways: either take it to your community group for confrontation (assuming you are in the same community group) or bring the sin and the situation to an elder who will bring it back to the elder board for a decision of how church discipline should be applied.

Why is church discipline not brought before the church as a whole?

Romans 16:17

“I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.”

• Romans 16 is dealing with individuals in the congregation who engage in two specific types of sin. The first sin is the sin of division within the church. The second sin is the sin of false doctrine in the church. These individuals are to be avoided and reported to the elders of the church for follow-up and reconciliation.

1 Corinthians 5:1-13

• First Corinthians 5:1 to 13 (too long to quote here) details a situation in the church involving gross, unrepentant sexual immorality. The specific situation had to do with an individual having sex with his father’s wife. The apostolic exhortation is immediate removal from the congregation until such a time that the individual comes to repentance. This situation is an instance of immediate removal from the church and may be applied in extreme cases.

2 Thessalonians 3:6-7, 14-15

“Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you … .If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

• 2 Thessalonians 3:6 to 7, and 14 to 15 give us a specific situation of church discipline and a timeless principle of church discipline. The situation involved disobedience to the apostolic (and now scriptural) command to work and provide for one’s family. The timeless principle to apply to modem church discipline at Living Stones is that if an individual blatantly disobeyed a scriptural command and persists in that disobedience after being urged to repent, the individual is to be disengaged that he may be ashamed. In the process, he is not to be regarded as an enemy, but continually warned as a brother. Persistence in a particular sin may require removal from the church for the purpose of repentance and restoration.

Titus 3:10-11

“As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.”

• Titus gives us a pattern of dealing with individuals in the church who stir up divisions. The individual is to be warned once and then twice and if there is no repentance the individual is to be removed from the congregation because of his potential to harm the church through division.

Hebrews 13:17

“Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

• Hebrews gives us the charge of leadership to carry out leading responsibilities which include church discipline and the congregational duty to obey and follow leadership. This exhortation is for the purpose of the leadership carrying out its duties with joy.

Galatians 6:1

“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.”

• This scripture is instructive in church discipline in terms of the heart attitude and spiritual awareness that church discipline requires. An individual should be walking in the power of the Holy Spirit and carry out the church discipline with a spirit of gentleness. As a church discipline is carried out, the individual should be in a state of constant self-evaluation in regard to the many temptations that could accompany such work.

James 5:19-20

“My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”

• James instructs us on the motivation behind church discipline. Church discipline should never be motivated out of anger, or pride, or woundedness, or self-righteousness, but rather to restore the individual to Christ and his people. The motive is love, the means is love, and the result is love that springs from the gospel.

Immanuel Church is small – growing but small. We’re about two years old and averaging around 150 people on Sunday morning. And we are involved in a church plant. Jeremy Rose is pioneering The Axis Church, another Acts 29 church, in downtown Nashville. Jeremy served with us at Immanuel the second half of 2009, and now we are committed to his new work in prayer, fellowship and money – 10% of our regular offerings. At Immanuel, we’re stoked about this.Why not wait until we’re bigger before committing to another church plant? Well, why not wait on every aspect of obedience? I don’t know about you, but I almost never feel ready to obey the Lord Jesus Christ, except in those routine areas of obedience I already have some handle on, like “Ray, read your Bible and pray each day” – and I’m not even good at them! But real obedience, new risks for the name of Christ – that’s part of the “newness of life” the Bible calls us to (Romans 6:4). If all the obedience I offer the Lord is stuff I’m already okay at, where’s the newness? What am I, what are we, doing in obedience to him that we’ve never done before and that we don’t feel entirely ready for? That’s newness. That’s our real growth. We always want to be out there on that edge. Church planting is one way to stay there. So it doesn’t matter how small or how big our church is. If we believe that church planting is a matter of obedience to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, for his greater glory in our time, then right now is when we should start taking steps toward jumping in. He will be with us.

Plus, it’s a joy to help give birth to a new church. It fills our own sails at Immanuel with a larger sense of purpose and fulfillment. Every church has a purpose. The stated purpose is almost always gospel-centered, expansive, outreaching. That’s great. But sometimes churches also have an unstated purpose, a functional purpose not in writing but in routines. The functional purpose is the pattern the members default to without thinking. And the functional purpose always wins out over the formally stated purpose. The real purpose of some churches might be something like, “Your best comfort zone now.” But it isn’t comfortable. It isn’t even alive. It’s death.

But when a church’s stated purpose and functional purpose converge as one, and that church really is reaching out in sacrifice and innovation and solid accomplishment, it’s thrilling! That church starts feeling like God’s kingdom coming and God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven. An awareness comes over that church, “Wow, by his grace we are involved! We’re not just talking big. We’re actually doing it. What a privilege!” It’s one of the ways a church’s corporate conscience and sense of responsibility ease into a settled happiness. Not complacency, but real happiness in Christ. A small church can get traction for growth when everyone can see they mean business about unselfish kingdom expansion.

We live in such a great time for church planting. Practical guidance is now available to churches of all faithful denominations and non-denominations. Ed’s blog is itself a tremendous resource. Hey brothers and sisters in churches small, medium and large, let’s go for it – now!

This article is a clarion call to church leaders to be faithful to what is clear in Scripture and to lead their people outside of the comfort of their current church body for the kingdom bounty that awaits with the planting of new churches and the conversion of the lost.

What I see from Jesus

• is that leadership is not about getting more followers. The essence of discipleship is to produce more leaders.
• Jesus has a vision for what someone can become when they know him and discipleship is his leadership development tool.

Who did Jesus disciple?

• People who needed to know the one and true God.
• those who need an up close look at the ministry of Jesus because they are the future leaders of the church

Leadership development at the Journey

The process of growing your character, knowledge, and skills in the fruit of the Spirit for the purpose of leading the church.

What your best leadership development tool?

It’s you

• With God’s word in your heart and mind
• Doing the work of a missional church through discipling others.

Developing a leadership development play with:

• a name written down of someone who you can see God using for his glory and his mission.
• identify areas they can grow in their character,
• identify things they need to know to grow into maturity as a man and a Christian,
• identify ideas for how you can share the work of ministry with them to grow their leadership skills. 

Remember how Jesus thinks about leadership:

• It’s not about gaining followers, it’s about discipling more leaders.
• It’s dreaming of what people can become when they know him.
• It’s being kingdom minded…on a mission.  “Go.”
• It’s sharing the hard work of ministry.
• Helping others grow in your knowledge and heart as they work under the control of the Holy Spirit.