Success as a Church Pastor?
What does that look like, what is it, is it something I want?

I have been thinking about this for sometime. The old arguments of being faithful get a little stale. So does the ‘if you have a big church’ you are succesful.
Some of my good friends are pastors of churches which run at about 300-400. Does this make them succesful Pastors? I dont think so, not if the church was running at that number when they came in.
Does a church which grows significantly in numbers under their leadership make them succesful? Not necesarily either. In fact I have seen in the past few years numerous Pastors see their churches grow significantly, but when a real analysis of the people coming in is made, it is obvious that their church is just doing church better. I am not hugely criticial of this because we should be doing church well, and we often settle for mediocricy and plain laziness. What does concern me is when we deliberatly foster a consumer mentality because it suits our aims of drawing in a big crowd.
We are not yet a church consuming society as may be the case in the US, where stories of people driving down the freeway looking for a church to attend on the Sunday, in much the same way as they look for a restaurant on Saturday night, are prevelant.

Obviously the real key to success is in spiritual fruit, and the foremost importance is mission, leading people to Christ.

Therefore as the key leader in any church, I believe the SP must have evangelism as his primary gifting and focus. Instead of this we have favoured those who are good chaplains and good politicians. The less fuss you make, the less waves you create, the longer you get to keep your job.

But even if Pastor makes evangelism his key focus, it can lead to issues as well, where a group of Pastors think it is okay to abuse and insult and hurt the congregation because of their own agendas.

Another group of people, normally not associated or responsible to anyone, think it is okay to critique and criticise while doing nothing in community. Being a part of a community is hard work, being responsible and accountable to people is hard work, putting up with each other is hard hard work. My heart aches when we stand on the sidelines doing nothing, being accountable to no on, yet feeling it is our God given right to pour brown stuff all over those who are trying.

My version of success is this, a group of people who are cared for spiritually, whose families are cared for, whose children are seen as a priority. Yet this same group of people is also cared about too much to leave them in comfort. Instead they needed to be resourced, trained and kept accountable to be missionaries in their own context.
This is in my view the hardest ministry there is, and maybe why so many good younger leaders are saying, ‘barleise’, I want out of the traditional church community type of ministry.
The problem may just well be that many of my contemporaries have also opted out, and instead focused on what is easier to do as a pastor, either giving up on the church community altogether, or focused on being a chaplain as their foremost responsibility.

What I am struggling with at the moment in my own ministry is what is the key? Specifically what is the key to seeing Aussie men come to Christ. I am talking normal Australian men. You see we have seen a number of women come to know Christ in 2005. But what about their husbands? I have this vision or God given thought, that when one of them makes a decison, and I believe I know who he is, when he finally makes his decision, this will unlock the rest of them. I know this sounds disjointed, but it is what I feel God is saying to me.

Imagine training all pre-season, being made captain of the side, and then in a rather innocuous accident, being made physically incapable of continuing.
Matthew Lloyd has just found out that his season is over for the year after a hamstring injury has turned bad.

It all came down to a vehicle accident where he wasn’t the party responsible. Once it had all been said and done it was determined that unfortunately he had sustained said injury. 

Their was an investigation and the case went to court when either driver refused to claim responsibility and blamed the other. Thankfully for Matthew, his family had already worked with a firm of Columbus Georgia Car Wreck Attorneys on a previous incident that had also moved on to this same stage. They defended him and supported him the whole way. The injury took his possibilities of continuing to shine as the star of the team for the rest of the season, but at least he wasn’t economically affected by the incident too much. For a middle class family nowadays, acquiring a vehicle is no small feat. Losing it in an accident can negatively impact their routine for quite some time as well.

Hard luck, very bad news for the Bombers, who were probably going to struggle to make much of an impact this year anyway.
Will they stick with their rotational policy, or will Hird give it another go?

Can you change the name of your newly aquired dog?
Well yes, actually you can, because we just did.
We never did like the name Scout for our new Irish Terrier, so we have decided she is now to be called Scarlett. She looks like a Scarlett, so Scarlett it is!

Scarlet seems to like the new name change, especially when accompanied by a little treat!

Rodney’s post about Randy Stonehill had me digging up some of my own classic Christian Contemporary music.

Darrell Mansfield is a blues guitarist/song writer that I became familiar with back in the late 80’s. His infectious blues rifts combined with crunchy harmonica is the perfect foil for his gospel based music. Probably his best album was “Trimmed and Burning”.
He is still producing music and in fact has a new album out.

This sunday we are looking at Peter’s transformation, just before I start my series on “Identity Theft”. So I have made up a countdown featuring some pictures of families and people, in different stages of their lives, and using Darrell’s song, ‘Never be the same’, off the album, “Get Ready”.
Here is part of the fairly simple lyrics.

“Love can be so blind when the one that you’ve been missing, has been here all the time”.

Short Biography

Back in the late 80’s mid 90’s a favourite pastime of some sections of the mainstream evangelical church was u2 bashing. I remember Christian Uni students wandering around with t-shirts which had “I’ve found what I am looking for” on the front and with “U2?” on the back. There seemed to be an implication that as a Christian you were meant to be triumphant, have it all together, know the answers. This malady is evident in some sections of Christendom today as well.

The problem with criticising U2 for their faith, and in particular all the critiques that came about because of this song, is that I don’t think people listened to the words!

” You broke the bonds
You loosed the chains
Carried the cross
And my shame
You know I believe it
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”

Has such a clear proclaimation of the good news about Jesus ever sold so many copies?

Bono and crew are sharing something we all know the be true, though we are saved, and know Jesus, we are still on this side of heaven. The Kingdom has not yet been established. Christ shouted out in triumph, “It is finished”, but at the time He was about to die on the cross, deserted by His followers!
It is this very paradox of the Christian faith that Bono has so eloquently captured in this song.

Here is the newest member of our family, ‘Scout’. Scout is a three year old Irish Terrier.
We have been praying about getting a dog, but could not afford the $1000 price tag.
My wife rang up the breeder and Scout has unfortunately just lost her pups during childbirth. She was no longer able to breed. The breeder was looking for a good home for her.
Scout was the 2006 Australian Champion for her breed!

Scout is a very welcome addition to our family, and we look foward to walks down to the park, runs along the beach, and fun for the kids.

The embarassment of riches continues at Freo with Paul Duffield, the nephew of well known West Australian sports reporter Mark, being elevated from the rookie list to the seniors at the expence of perennial hard luck story, Daniel Haines. (right Achilles tendon)

Duffield showed oustanding pre season form, and has played some great games for the Bulldogs. He has a reputation as a tough ‘inside’ footballer, and was a key reason why South Fremantle won the Grand Final. He was also a Fremantle Supporter before being drafted to the Dockers, how good is that?

If he is to come into the team this week, as Mark Harvey suggested might happen, who on earth will we drop? And what about Cook, Walker and Peake?
Can’t see Duffield coming in before those guys.