Send an email every Monday morning to both he and his wife and ask them how you can specifically pray for them this week.

Simple.  Doable.  But make no mistake, very meaningful!  How do I know this?  Because 6 months ago (after pastoring my church for 6.5 years) one of our members felt led by God to take this task upon herself to pray for me and my family regularly.  She has been faithful to do so, even while out-of-town.  She sends my wife and I an email every Monday grateful for the previous Lord’s Day, then asks how she can be specifically praying for us both.  Fewer things have made my wife and I feel so cared for and ministered to than this lady’s efforts.

You might be surprised how infrequent the pastor has someone approach him and inquire how they can pray for him.   Though there are many ways you can minister to you pastor, this is one that any church member can do with a little discipline, planning, and consistency.

Therefore, I challenge you to email your pastor this Monday.  Thank him for his labor in the word and the sweet fellowship of the saints the day before he facilitated.  Then ask for specific things from both he and his wife to pray for this next week.  Trust me.   You will bless, encourage, and minister to your pastor and his wife in ways you cannot imagine.

However, when the requests come back to you…make sure you are faithful to pray

From Brian Croft at his Practical Shepherding blog. He has written two books, Visit the Sick: Ministering God’s Grace in Times of Illness
and Test, Train, Affirm, and Send Into Ministry: Recovering the Local Church’s Responsibility in the External Call. Both books are in the Ministering the Master’s Way series from Day One Christian Ministries.

Every Small Group Pastor needs to know that their Senior Pastor…

1. believes so strongly that small groups are vital to the church’s goal of transformed lives that small groups is included as one of the church’s core values
2. will be her/his advocate to the Finance Team so that there is adequate budget monies for the training and equipping of the small group coaches, leaders, and all other players on the small group team
3. requires every staff member to be in a small group and is encouraging those in the ministry they lead to be in one too
4. is in or leading a small group and talking about it when teaching and preaching
5. will consistently (at least every 30 days) remind those who are attending the worship gathering that it is vital that they join a small group and how to do so

From Rick Howerton

Great thoughts from Josh Dix on developing leaders. I’ve included some highlights

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.

From Brian Croft

• The Unchanging character of God
• The hope of the gospel – “Don’t preach the deceased into heaven, don’t preach them into hell, just preach the gospel for the people who are there.”
• A call to respond to the gospel
• Instruct those present how to grieve

GCR refers to the Great Commission Resurgence, the Southern Baptist task force that is attempting to influence a huge denomination to be more missional and have more kingdom impact. Nathan Akin recently wrote about how the church he attends is a model GCR church. Here are some highlights.

First, my church strives after the glory of God in all things with a strong emphasis on the Scriptures and Gospel-Centrality.

This works itself out in a commitment to expository preaching

In addition, this has led us to a focus on discipleship

First, there is a membership process; this comes directly out of our belief in the Baptist distinctive of “Regenerate Church Membership.”

Next, members are integrated into a small group, which is the primary means of discipleship and community in our church.

Finally, in the context of Gospel-Centrality, there is a focus on being as diverse as the community around us.

Second, our church is adamant about the primacy of the local church

Shepherd’s Training

The elders invite these men that they have identified into the 2-year program; it is not open to everyone. He is then paired with an Elder or leader in the church, along with one other trainee. This leader focuses on personal development and maturity with him. In addition, there is a focus on accountability and the character necessary for an elder. He meets with this Elder/leader every other week to go through these things and to work through memorizing the Pastoral Epistles. In addition, he also meets every other week with all those in the program and all the trainers. Each “semester” during the 2-year cycle focuses on a different aspect of pastoral ministry and leadership. The every other week meeting focuses on the portion of the Pastoral Epistles that was to be memorized that week. One of the Elders then leads through an exposition of that passage and the other elders add thoughts on the passage as well. Next, all the trainees are required to read a book for the week, examples of books read are Baxter’s “The Reformed Pastor,” Dever’s “Nine Marks of a Healthy Church,” Spurgeon’s “Lectures to My Students,” and Bonheoffer’s “Life Together.” Each week, two of the trainees deliver an oral book review of the book for that week and then ask questions of the book that the elders answer and discuss. Finally, the night ends with one of the elders lecturing on an area of pastoral ministry and then discussion of that topic among the elders and trainees. The topics range from “why we employ small groups” to “regenerate church membership.” In addition, during the semester the trainees write two position papers on topics of interest in pastoral ministries. The topics of these papers are things like, view of spiritual gifts in ministry, use of alcohol in ministry, view of divorce and remarriage, and view of church government. Finally, each trainee is to work on a ministry project in some area of church life.  The goal is to lead to the training of future elders and church planters through life on life training. This is the best way to evaluate whether a man possess the qualifications of an Elder and if they are ready to take on a role such as that.

Finally, in the focus of church primacy, my home church does church planting and missions “in house.”

This focus on the primacy of the local church does not mean that my church does not seek to be aided by the convention structures, but it means that they do not farm out missions’ work or church planting to an outside organization.

Finally, how does my church focus on missional living?

First, there is a focus on the small groups being missional. They are all to carry out community projects in our “We Love North Raleigh” campaign

Second, as has been mentioned, we focus on missional living through church planting

In addition, the church has worked hard at overseas and cross-cultural missions

Having never made pastoral visits before, and having never been visited by a pastor, it’s kind of a black box with lots of unknowns. David Murray’s overview of a “normal” pastoral visit is really helpful.

First, I prepare for visitation with prayer. I take a few minutes or so to pray for the family I am about to visit. During that time I make sure I know the names of both the adults and the children, I remind myself of what each is doing in their lives, and I make a mental note of any special needs or concerns that we had previously talked about.

Second, for the first 15 minutes or so of the visit, I try to chat to the family about what’s going on in their lives: how’s the job, the kids, school, etc. If there was some important local or national issue we might talk about that as well. Obviously, this sometimes stretches quite a bit beyond 15 minutes. And sometimes it is difficult to change the topic to something more “spiritual.” However, I like to “break the ice” in this way. I don’t think this is pragmatic or manipulative. As a pastor, I am interested in the spiritual welfare of my flock above everything else; but I am also interested in every area of their lives. I enjoy hearing about their vacations, their jobs, their schools, their friends, etc. I enjoy seeing and savoring the different personalities and characters. Often, issues arise in these conversations which we could never have predicted, taking us into the Scriptures in a very natural way (I’m always looking for opportunities to relate God’s Word to the person’s world). Usually it just helps everyone to relax a bit and makes it easier to move into more directly “spiritual” issues. I agree with the old saying, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

Sometimes I find it helpful to share a bit from my own life and family. I try to show that I have a normal family life with all its joys, worries, and sorrows. Obviously you have to be careful here. You don’t want to “let it all hang out,” and you don’t want to spend too much time talking about yourself. However, some people find it easier to open up if the pastor himself is prepared to do so.

Third, the main aim of a pastoral visit is to have a conversation about spiritual matters. Sometimes that’s very easy, as mature Christians especially will be used to pastoral visits and will probably have some spiritual questions to ask, or some spiritual topics they want to talk about. But, for the sake of this post, let’s assume that you are visiting people who are not used to spiritual conversation. How do you guide the conversation to produce a profitable discussion? Until now, I’ve never sat down and thought about what questions I ask people. But I’ve tried below to list some questions that have been helpful. It’s important to ask these questions in a friendly and natural way, rather than in an accusatory or “clipboard” way. Sometimes I find it easier to direct some of these questions to the children initially, as they often talk much more freely about spiritual matters.

• Is there anything you would like me to pray for?
• What have you been reading in your Bible? Anything that’s helped you or puzzled you?
• What do you find difficult about reading the Bible?
• What do you feel burdened about in prayer?
• Is there anything you would like to hear a sermon on? Any verses you would like explained?
• Are there any sermons that you’ve found helpful… confusing… challenging?
• What did you think about the sermon on…?
• Would you say you are going forward spiritually, or backwards?
• Are you reading any good Christian books? Is there anything you want to share from it?
• Have you found any verses that are helping you to live life and prepare for eternity?
• What gifts do you think the Lord has given you? Do you feel the church is making most use of your gifts?
• How would you describe yourself: Unsaved, saved and sure of it, or not sure?
• Do you think much about death and life after death? Do you feel prepared for that? How are you preparing?
• What is your hope of heaven? What reason will you give for being admitted there?
• What do you think of Jesus Christ?
• What would you most like to change in your life?
• What is your greatest fear?
• Are you facing any difficult challenges?
• Is there any one thing that stops you from following Christ?
• Children, what have you been learning in Sunday School?
• Do you have any questions for me?

Maybe only one question will be required to start a profitable conversation. The ultimate aim is to find out where people are spiritually, and how you can help them either to be saved, to be sanctified, or to be of more service to the church.

Fourth, finishing the visit can sometimes be difficult, especially with older and lonely people who have lots of time on their hands. You need to keep good track of the time (with unnoticed glances at a watch or clock), especially if you have another visit arranged. I usually let people know when I arrive that I have to be somewhere else at a certain time. That helps to focus the visit a bit, and also avoids people thinking you are bored with them, when you eventually have to draw the visit to a close. You can always arrange to return, if necessary.

And even if you don’t have anywhere else to go, don’t overstay your welcome. If you start to detect cues that it’s time for you to go (people obviously looking at watches, some members of the family disappearing, longer silences, etc), then go!

But not without prayer and reading of the Bible.

During the course of the conversation you should be making mental notes of matters for prayer. And in the concluding prayer, try to gather up these various pieces of information and pray about each of them – even trivial matters raised by young children. Also, try to pick a relevant chapter of Scripture to read, a chapter that speaks to their needs. Try to show how prayer and Bible reading should impact ordinary life. Maybe ask the children questions about the passage?

Fifth, pray about the visit in the car on the way home or when you get home. Maybe take notes about anything you should follow up on with a note in your diary to phone again in a few weeks. Also, maybe think about how a sermon might be able to help that family.

Here is how Brian Croft pastors his congregation by praying for and contacting each of them intentionally at least one time a month

I created a prayer guide with each member of the church broken into a 28 day chart in alphabetical order.  This is to represent the first 28 days of each month.  On day 1, I pray for those 5-6 people or families.  Then, I try to make some kind of personal contact with them that day in the form of a home visit, email, hand written card, phone call, facebook note, or text message to let them know I prayed for them on that day.  Lastly, I ask in that moment of personal contact if there is anything I can do to serve them.  For those I haven’t seen recently, I will usually call or go see them to get an update on how they are doing in general.

I repeat the same process for day 2, then day 3…all the way to day 28.  If I am faithful and consistent in this process (which I never do perfectly) I would have prayed and made contact with all those who have been entrusted in my care in one month.  Any extra days of the month I do the same thing with our missionaries and others we have sent into ministry from our church.

This became such a fruitful system to keep up with all our folks that I took it to our other pastors/elders and they began to do it also.  It became such a fruitful system for each of us as pastors that we made a chart for our members and encouraged them to pray for each other in the same way as a prayer guide for our church.  Several of the members have even adopted the model of the pastors to contact folks that day they pray for them.   It has been amazing the fruit that has come from many of our members taken this task to pray for one another seriously.

On our women’s retreat last month, one of our dear ladies in the church led our ladies in a project to take that chart and transfer it to index cards that can sit on their table a home in the form of a flip calendar.  Each morning, you just flip to the next day and you see who you are to be praying for that day.  Since putting this on the table in our home, our children now make an assertive effort to pray for those appointed for that day.

While the subheading for the recent Christianity Today interview with Francis Chan is horrible (Francis Chan says we should stop trying to make people love Jesus, and learn to rely on prayer, elders, and the Holy Spirit instead. Really, he advocated that) the interview is amazing. Chan is consistently one of the most Holy Spirit-aware, Bible-integrating speakers that I listen to. He’s consistently comparing his life and the life of his church against what he reads in God’s Word and there’s little, if any, of his interpretation that I can argue with. Here are some questions and answers from the interview

Q: So the example of the elders and leadership is more important, even in a large church, than having the right programs or preaching?

Absolutely. That is 100 percent true. There are a lot of churches with leaders that aren’t living out their faith together, and they don’t have trust. Instead they’re trying to bring transformation by creating programs. That’s why you often hear of people who say, “I love church but once I got into the leadership, the inner workings, I was so disillusioned.” That’s a terrible indictment.

Q: How can we know if our ministry is being empowered by the Spirit?

Churches that are built through our effort rather than the Spirit’s will quickly collapse when we stop pushing and prodding people along.

Now we should push, prod, and persuade men, but I’ve learned to spend a lot more time praying and asking the Spirit to move and begging God to send forth laborers.

The more you look at Scripture, the more you realize that nothing happens unless God is behind it. Jesus is building his church. I just want to be a part of that. I’ll keep doing my work, but the fruit is up to him. We can only pray, “Please, please, please let us see your Spirit at work. May it be like a mighty wind that moves us.”

Q: Cornerstone is a megachurch by definition. Is the size of the church evidence that a “wave” of the Spirit is happening?

A large gathering where everyone is singing really loud is nice, but it’s not an indication that the Spirit is at work. We don’t see that biblically. If that’s success, then we’d be spending more money on better musicians and better worship leaders. But that’s not how our elder board measures success.

In God’s eyes success is people loving each other deeply, caring for one another, digging deep in each other’s lives, sharing their possessions, and sharing the gospel in their communities. Are they fully devoted followers of Jesus? Is there transformation happening? Do they see themselves as part of something bigger than themselves—a body with a mission larger than the individual?

Our job is not to keep as many people as possible. Our job is to make sure that we’re setting a biblical pattern.

Q: But you have had people get upset and leave.

Yeah, and it’s hard. But Jesus really didn’t have a problem with turning people off if they weren’t ready for the commitment. What I see in Scripture is that’s it’s all or nothing. We are called to die to ourselves; it’s complete death, surrender.

I tell people, “It’s great that you’re checking us out and learning, and I pray that you’ll come to understand that God is good and nothing compares to him. I hope at that point you’ll give your life to Jesus and follow him.”

The commitment to follow Jesus is like marriage. It’s a lifelong commitment for better or for worse. And if someone is not ready to make that commitment, then they shouldn’t get married.

Q: How do you respond when someone walks away because they’re not ready for the commitment?

We always have to check our own hearts and make sure we communicated with them in love. Early on when people first started to leave, there wasn’t a lot of love or compassion. We sort of considered it a victory that people walked away. There was some arrogance in us, and that breaks my heart. Even now it’s always hard when a person leaves. And so we rally around each other, encourage one another, and remind each other that this is going to happen but we’ve got to keep teaching it.

Q: Do you ever get accused of being pharisaical for calling people to such a high commitment?

Oh, absolutely. The comment I get is that we’re becoming a cult because we call people to make a commitment. We define cults as communities overly committed to a belief system. By that definition Jesus would have been leading a cult. So today Mormons are willing to ride their bikes around town, Jehovah’s Witnesses will knock on doors, but as Christians we don’t have to do anything. We’ve been taught a watered-down version of following Jesus for so long that people think it’s Christianity, but it’s not biblical.

I have to be honest and say there were so many times I wanted to quit, because it is really painful when friends leave and your loudest fans become your loudest critics. It does get lonely. And it’s hard when leaders who are with you start getting attacked. I get very defensive of my leaders because I love these guys. I don’t want people to think it’s easy to lead the church into greater depth and commitment. It stinks at times. But when you look back to the Word, you realize this is the way it’s got to be, and you have peace.

“We’ve been taught a watered-down version of following Jesus for so long that people think it’s Christianity, but it’s not biblical.” That line is hitting me hard right now. Am I really willing to follow Christ, knowing that it will require complete surrender to Him? Am I really willing to commit, come what may? I feel like some recent events (the twins, financial questions, etc) have put me in a position of needing to wholly depend on Christ and be completely committed. I’m not scared of what is to come. In face I’m really excited that God has called me to Himself through Chris tand that my whole life is an opportunity to give Him His due praise and glory.

“But when we begin to see that our life is in Jesus and not success, we can pursue our expectations, however high and lofty.  We may reach them or we may not, but we are now free to try, without our success or failure ultimately saying something about us.  We don’t need to lower the bar to prop up our ego.

So today are you tempted to lower your expectations about what you want to accomplish because it will preserve your ego?  If so, then remember, it wasn’t your definition of success that is the problem, it is that you think accomplishment is what defines you.”

Thanks, Tim Dunn, for this post today. I needed to hear this. I have big dreams for a movement of the gospel in Ann Arbor (planting 25 churches in 25 years, creating a training and equipping center, etc), yet I worry about “dreaming too big”. What if I fail, and I plant nothing and no one gets equipped? If my identity is found in Jesus, then I haven’t failed. I’m still on the path God ordained for me, it’s just a different one than I thought.

From Thom Rainer, president and CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources and senior pastor of four churches.

There are no “do overs” in life and ministry. But there are always opportunities to learn, correct, and improve. So I decided to share with you seven of the key mistakes I made as a senior pastor.

1. I would spend more time in the Word and in prayer
2. I would give my family more time
3. I would spend more time sharing my faith
4. I would love the community where I lived more
5. I would lead the church to focus more on the nations
6. I would focus on critics less
7. I would accept the reality that I can’t be omnipresent

These are good words of warning as I look to plant a church.