I spend far too much time in airports. Most of the time, it's a life-sucking experience. Last week, however, was the complete opposite: I fell in love with the Doha airport. The design was incredibly intentional; it was executed with beauty, grace, and purpose.
It was designed to be a common place where people from all walks of life who are doing something that is traditionally a miserable experience could layover in beauty, with the sound of waterfalls underneath it all.
The result? A remarkable sense of calm, peace, and serenity when I am typically stressed, annoyed, and reevaluating my life choices. I wish we had more public spaces like this:
After my layover in Doha, I had another 10 hours of flight time, which got me thinking about designing similar spaces in my private life. We are busy. Our lives are hectic, and we often don’t know what time zone we are currently in, making it tough to do the deep, slow work of tending to our souls. Like all of us (I hope), I find myself in seasons where I do this well, and seasons where I struggle.
Typically, in my healthier seasons, I find myself in community with those who have the freedom to ask me, “How is it with your soul…” and know enough to push through the surface answer to get through to the truth. But I am starting to learn,
I found this interesting…
Snippets of articles, videos, and other things that have gotten me thinking over the last month. These are not complete summaries but bits and pieces picked up along the way.
I’m probably the only one of us who overcomplicates things…
I think about this often when I see a doctor for something. Here was this entire profession of allergy specialists, and I saw at least a handful of them while I was trying to find a medical solution. None of them even thought about dealing with the environment. The cause of the allergy. Their entire field of view was restricted to dealing with mitigation rather than prevention.Not every problem, medical or otherwise, has a simple solution. But many problems do, and you have to be careful not to be so smart that you can't see it.
David Heinemeier Hanson, Air purifiers are a simple answer to allergies.I’ve been saying for a while that we have a pipeline issue in the church, and we are not prepared for the coming wave of retirements… Ryan Burge just took a look at this from the Assemblies of God perspective:
You see where the peak of the bars are? Yeah, it’s clergy who are between the ages of 60 and 65. In fact, the modal age (which is the age that shows up the most in the data) is 64. I think we all understand that this is not a good indicator of where things are headed unless there are a whole bunch of AG ministers in the pipeline to replace those who are going to be aging out in the next 15-20 years.
In the report, the General Secretary’s office makes this plain. The median age of a minister in 1982 was 47. In the 2023 data, it was 58 years old. Among just the subset of ministers who are ordained in the Assemblies of God it was 62 years old in 2022. To me, this should be an area of real concern for the AG. The Assemblies looks like it is poised for growth in the future. The limiting factor may be the number of leaders who are educated, equipped and ordained to lead the denomination in the years to come. There is some data that only looks at “active” ministers, which looks better - the median age of this subset was 52. But, again, not great.
Ryan Burge, Not Enough Pastors? A 'Problem' for the Assemblies of GodI sense a theme developing…
“The words we use to describe our suffering make a huge difference to how it is perceived,” O’Sullivan says. Attributing distress exclusively to internal biological pathologies (rather than, say, behavioral or spiritual responses to external stressors) may feel validating for people. It tells them their suffering is real, and often it is real.
But it may also unintentionally tell them that they have no agency over that suffering, that it is solely about chemicals and entirely separate from the state of their souls. “I fear that a view that talks too much about internal biological processes makes people passive victims of their medical disorder which takes away their control,” O’Sullivan warns. “A person who believes they are incapable behaves as if they are incapable, which provokes others to treat them as if they are incapable, and so the cycle feeds back into itself.”
Bonnie Kristian, Overdiagnosis Is a Medical Problem—and a Spiritual Problem, Too
The road ahead…
What do you see happening in the next 12 months that we need to prepare our churches for?
From Alan Wildes who serves as a Vice President at Generis.
People continue to give and give sacrificially. The key I have found in my work in the past 24 months is the more people we can actually get engaged enough to come to a live, in-person, real-time event, the more apt they are to commit to a campaign or initiative and their commitment is usually sacrificial.
What we need to prepare for is the "how" we get them engaged, not just for a generosity initiative but in ministry as a whole. I find myself not being willing to volunteer as much. I am trying to change that attitude, but it is more difficult than I thought. I am volunteering by co-leading my Sunday School class, so I am engaged there for sure. I have to read and prepare to lead discussions, and I take that very seriously. However, my leadership in my small group has waned for sure. I recently received a long list of volunteer opportunities from the guy who leads our men's ministry, and there was some good stuff on there. Either my calendar didn't work, or I was not willing to make my calendar work. I really thought that once I became an empty-nester, I would volunteer more, but I am finding that I am working more than ever, and my calendar is just as full as it was when I had smaller kids.
I don't know if it is apathy, busyness, laziness, or a combo of all. If I had to guess, I would say I am a product of the attractional model, where most of the time and energy was spent on getting people in the door and then taking care of them. In my church experience, it was a lot more about my own soul and well-being as opposed to a focus on how or why I should feel compelled to help others. So much of what our churches are doing is very inward-looking, we need to help our churches give their congregations opportunities to serve outside the walls and help others.
I feel there needs to be a shift from discipleship to servanthood. And I am not talking about serving in children's ministry or being an usher on Sunday mornings. Those are what I would define as 'expected behavior.' I feel most people will rise to the occasion if the demands and expectations are set and set high. The message of why we are serving others has to change as well. Most people are not called nor feel comfortable going out 'on the streets' and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. However, most people are willing to help someone who needs help. The message has to be to go out and be the hands and feet of Jesus and let the actions do the talking. The word "Evangelism" is most intimidating to most people, and most people (including me) do not feel called to hang out in a Starbucks or even have a conversation with my actual neighbor about Jesus and why they need Jesus.
I still believe most people are attracted to Jesus, but they are not attracted to the church. This is what we really need to be addressing.
Nugget of wisdom…
What is one way that you have learned to stay spiritually healthy while working with churches?
From Dan Nichols, founder of the Northeast Collaborative:
After serving in vocational ministry for almost 14 years now, it’s clear that emotional & mental health, self-awareness, and spiritual vitality are (sadly) some of the most underdeveloped areas of life and ministry for Christian leaders.
This is probably because those areas of life cannot be solved by taking a pill, having a meeting, or making an Amazon purchase.
As a recovering speed (of life) addict myself, I’m learning how my operating systems have been shaped by the American performance framework more than the Spirit and Scripture.
Thankfully, God’s taking me to deeper levels of growth and maturity that I want every Christian leader to experience with me…
Where the upside-down values of the Kingdom of God (rarely fitting on an Excel spreadsheet) become far more important than chasing the wind of “success” metrics formed in sand.
Psalm 37:3 defines true ministry success so well: “Trust in the Lord (Faith), and do good (Obedience). Dwell in the land (Contentment), and befriend faithfulness (Perseverance).”
What a pastor wants…
What do I need from a church consultant that most guys miss?
From Steven Knight, Lead Pastor of Turning Point Church in Bonita Springs, Florida:
I need someone who works with me collaboratively to challenge the status quo of the church and help facilitate hard conversations. This often requires initial conversations to get us on the same page before beginning larger conversations with the rest of the church leadership.
Healthy senior leaders like to be challenged so they can grow. They typically don’t like encountering major surprises in strategy sessions though, so make sure you have alignment regarding the general direction of the strategy sessions before you begin them. Then, if you can, take some of the heat off the senior leader in the room. They live with that pressure - a good consultant can help relieve that pressure, even just a little bit, by addressing some of the hard topics themselves and then letting the senior leader play a major role alongside their team in bringing solutions to the table.
This means that a good church consultant is not always the hero - they will sometimes look like Batman, and other times will look like Robin. Either way, they have the potential to make an incredible impact on the life of a church.
Where’s Matt?
Where I’m planning on being in the next 3 months, if we’re in the same place, let’s get together!
April 28-30: BGCT Discipleship Leader’s Retreat, Belton, TX
May 5-7: XP Summit, Nashville, TN
May 16-17: Converge PacWest Bienniel Meeting, Turlock, CA
May 20-22: Abide Conference, Temecula, CA
June 8-11: Southern Baptist Convention, Dallas, TX
June 10-11: Converge Mid-Atlantic Bienniel Meeting, Canfield, OH
Let’s talk!
I’d love to catch up and hear what’s going on in your life and ministry. Let’s find some time to connect.
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