Tag Archives: Jim L. Wilson

Public forums

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Communication is never one directional. While it is important to keep the congregation informed about decisions, it is equally important to solicit their feedback. In one church I served, we closed the monthly business meetings sessions with a public comments time. During this agenda item, any member of the church could give a public commendation or air a complaint. I suspect some readers are asking right now, “You did what?” Yes, we gave a time for any appropriate public comments. It never turned ugly.

A few years ago, I served Valencia Hills Community Church, a church going through a difficult time, as their transitional pastor. Their average attendance had plummeted from over a thousand to fewer than four hundred in a period of two years, including many of their staff members and founding pastor. I came in on a six-month contract to help them navigate through this season of high anxiety and uncertainty. One of the things we did in the opening months was open up feedback lines. We hosted several town-hall meetings where I listened to the concerns, hopes, and dreams of the people. Staff members took notes and I circulated a

“Did I hear you right?” questionnaire

during the weekend services where participants could provide a 1–5 scale on the questionnaire statements to enhance the feedback loop.

At first, some on the leadership team asked me not to have the meetings, thinking they could become volatile. However, I felt transparency was especially important because of the anxious environment. Please note: I did not listen and ignore what I heard. I listened, made sure I was hearing them correctly, and then considered their feedback as I led the church through the anxiety back to focusing on their mission.

Disagreement was okay. People did not have to agree with me and I did not have to agree with them. What was important was that we communicated in a respectful way and worked out a strategy for the future.

 

Pastoral Ministry in the Real World: Loving, Teaching, and Leading God’s People, © 2015 by Jim L. Wilson

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Communication is essential because it’s how we connect, share, understand, and influence others, forming the foundation for all relationships, learning, problem-solving, and career success by building trust, resolving conflicts, expressing needs, and fostering collaboration in personal, academic, and professional life. Without it, we become isolated; with it, we grow, build communities, and navigate the complexities of daily existence.

Public comments are crucial for citizen input on government rules, providing direct influence, transparency, and data for agencies to understand public concerns, needs, and potential impacts before laws are finalised, while also serving researchers as rich data for analysing public opinion and participation. For a church, it is also a good asset to come to know what people want and if they agree with how the matters are going. They help spot unintended consequences, foster deliberation, and ensure more inclusive policymaking.

For a church community, it is very important to keep the members alive, that enough work is done to communicate frequently and not just without the members making decisions beyond the heads of the believing congregation.

Real-world experiences, research, and community impacts have to be provided. A forum makes it possible for the local members of the ecclesia to advocate for action, but also to register complaints, if necessary, or learn how to get more involved in local aid of the community.

What strikes us when forums are held about the church, that many people have wrong ideas about certain denominations. Unknown is unloved.
If we explain more about the history and development of the church during a forum, plus explain why there are certain churches that distance themselves from the larger standard churches, it becomes clearer to several people what those churches stand for and why.
In this way, a lot of opposition to certain churches can often be removed.

It is always very important that discussions and exchanges of views are held in a respectful manner. Only in this way can satisfactory progress be made.

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Preceding

  1. Public Communication
  2. Philosophy hand in hand with spirituality
  3. Science, belief, denial and visibility 1
  4. Being Religious and Spiritual 5 Gnostic influences
  5. Being Religious and Spiritual 8 Spiritual, Mystic and not or well religious
  6. Framework and vehicle for Christian Scholasticism and loss of confidence
  7. Team Learning and Personal Accountability
  8. The Pastor Theologian
  9. Counterfeit Gospels

 

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Additional reading

  1. Meeting – Vergadering
  2. Parish, local church community – Parochie, plaatselijke kerkgemeenschap
  3. Church indeed critical in faith development
  4. The Ecclesia in the churchsystem
  5. Being Christian in Western Europe at the beginning of the 21st century #1
  6. What does it mean to belong to a church community
  7. Manifests for believers #5 Christian Union
  8. Illuminating our minds and watching out
  9. Personal thoughts, communication, establishing ecclesia and guest writings
  10. Expectations for obtaining certain positions in the church community
  11. Preaching as Public Speaking
  12. What part of the Body am I?
  13. United people under Christ
  14. A deconstruction journey
  15. Planting and watering in Belgium
  16. Thought for today “Being our brother’s keeper” (December 10)
  17. To find ways of Godly understanding
  18. Two synods and life in the church community
  19. 72 Synod Fathers on the topic “The vocation and mission of the family in the Church and the contemporary world”
  20. Main churches losing population share
  21. Unhappy people in empty churches
  22. Not everyone in the churches of Christ are “ungodly”
  23. As a small church needing encouragement
  24. Being religious has benefits even in this life
  25. Offering words of hope
  26. Small churches of the few Christadelphians
  27. Hypersensitive is the word that best describes me

Pastors admitting mistakes

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When pastors make mistakes, they should admit and take responsibility for them. When they do, it helps build healthy relationships between pastors and the people they serve. It can build loyalty, breed confidence, and reassure the people. Besides, it is the right thing to do.

13 He covering his transgression shall not prosper: but he confessing and forsaking, shall be compassionated. (Prov. 28:13).

Jesus never sinned.

21 For him not knowing sin, he made sin for us; that we might be the justice of God in him. (2 Cor. 5:21).

Everyone else has

23 For all have sinned, and failed of the glory of God;  (Rom. 3:23).

This fact is one place where applying Jesus’ conflict episodes in the Gospel of Mark to pastoral ministry gets tricky. People accused Jesus of wrongdoing, but he never did anything wrong. If there were twenty-six episodes of conflict in Mark’s Gospel for the perfect Saviour, how many more episodes will sinful pastors have in their ministries? Pastors create their own conflict with their bad decisions and sinful choices.

 

Pastoral Ministry in the Real World: Loving, Teaching, and Leading God’s People, © 2015 by Jim L. Wilson

Opportunities to teach being squandered

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5 For this I left thee in Crete, that thou shouldest rectify things left behind, and set elders in the city, as I directed thee:

6 If any be irreproachable, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not in accusation of licentiousness, or disorderly.

7 For a bishop must be irreproachable, as steward of God; not self-sufficient, not prone to anger, not intemperate, not a striker, not occupied in sordid gain.

8 But hospitable, a lover of good, of sound mind, just, holy, holding firm;

9 Holding firmly the faithful word according to instruction, that he may be able also to beseech in sound doctrine, and to refute those opposing. (Titus 1:5–9)

Opportunities to Teach Will Be Squandered if Pastors React to Personal Insults

Sometimes conflict gets personal, and if the conflict episodes Mark recorded in his Gospel are typical, they tend to be more personal when they are with friends. Pastors must hold their temper and be self-controlled in all situations (Titus 1:5–9), even when friends engage in personal attacks against them. Jesus ignored the personal attacks and focused on people’s potential to learn. He taught them.

 

Pastoral Ministry in the Real World: Loving, Teaching, and Leading God’s People, © 2015 by Jim L. Wilson

Life, Ministry and conflicts

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Life and Ministry is Better with Friends, Even Though Pastors Will Have Conflict with Them

Having friends in the church can create problems such as giving the appearance of favouritism or creating the possibility for betrayal; yet friends are essential to health, longevity, and spiritual vitality. Life is better with friends. While it is possible to have friends in the community and with pastoral colleagues and neighbours, the church is one of the most likely places where pastors can make friends.

The need to maintain confidentiality, keep professional and personal boundaries, and remain friendly with everyone in the church are some of the unique challenges pastors face if they have close friends in the church. Pastors should be careful in entering into such friendships, insisting their friends respect boundaries and not attempt to use the friendship as a fulcrum point of power. On the other hand, pastors must exercise care not to take advantage of their friends to advance their personal and leadership agendas. Pastors must understand that friends can disagree with them in congregational meetings and still be friends. Friends can oppose the pastor’s ideas and still be friends.

However, even assuming that all concerned are spiritually mature people who handle boundaries well, there will still be conflict. That reality should not dissuade pastors from making friends in the church any more than the inevitability of conflict with family should dissuade pastors from marrying or having children. Life is better with friends.

 

Pastoral Ministry in the Real World: Loving, Teaching, and Leading God’s People, © 2015 by Jim L. Wilson

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Preceding

 

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Additional reading

  1. Spirituality
  2. Make a plan to make friends
  3. Not to quick in Making friends
  4. Faithful Are the Wounds of a Friend
  5. Weeks with attention to love
  6. The Field is the World #4 Many who leave the church

The Medium is the message

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Communication theorist, Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “the medium is the message” to describe the effects communication media have on a message. He contended the way communicators say something is as important as what they are saying. Actually, he argued the medium was more important.

“The content or message of any particular medium has about as much importance as the stenciling on the casing of an atomic bomb.”

In a macro sense, as in the introduction of the Roman alphabet, Gutenberg press, or electronic media into culture, he argued media itself shaped the cultural environment to such an extent that the medium is more important than the words the alphabet formed, the printing press printed, or the electronic media broadcasted.

Each technological innovation rewired how people processed information and what they did with their time. The Roman alphabet, not the words it formed, reshaped thinking from pictures to words, from spatial to linear. It made changes as far as the east is from the west. Philosophers might point to Aristotle and Confucius to highlight the differences between the cultures, McLuhan would indicate that the difference began with the western adoption of the Roman letters, instead of something like the logographic Chinese characters.

The printing press made orality antiquated and flattened time. After the mid-fifteenth century, readers could easily spend their leisure time in isolation interacting with thinkers from another time and place, instead of exchanging their heritage stories in their community, resulting in a less tribalism and more individualism. McLuhan would argue that it was not the words that the press printed that made post mid-fifteenth century generations more individualistic, but that the introduction of the printing press itself caused the transformation.

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The electronic media formed a global village that blurs the lines between here and there. The world came into the living room in McLuhan’s day and into the palm of user’s hands today. While it shrinks the world into a tiny screen, it also expands the users’ world. It creates a cultural fusion where the East and West constantly churn and blend resulting in fewer distinctions, less privacy, and more awareness. McLuhan argued that it was not the words that producers broadcasted that ushered in these changes, but the electronic media itself.

Most of the time, when McLuhan used the phrase “the medium is the message” he was referring to this macro sense of how media shapes its environment and does more to influence people than the words spoken, read, or heard. However, he does make an important distinction between hot and cold mediums. Some communication mediums, such the narrative form, invoke a higher level of participation from the audience. It is a cool medium requiring the use of multiple senses and mental capacities. Other communication mediums are hot, requiring only a single sense.

 

Pastoral Ministry in the Real World: Loving, Teaching, and Leading God’s People, © 2015 by Jim L. Wilson

 

Whatever it Takes

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For some, the “whatever it takes” drive focuses on leading the organisation and accomplishing goals; for others, it is a drive to help someone regardless of the costs. While personal sacrifice (Luke 18:28–30) and dedication (Matt. 6:24) are admirable traits, they can become destructive to self, family, and ministry if not seen in context with healthy boundaries and human limitations.

28 And Peter said, Behold, we have left all, and followed thee.

29 And he said to them, Truly I say to you, That there is none who has left home, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for sake of the kingdom of God,

30 Who should not receive many fold in this time, and in life coming, eternal life. (Luke 18:28–30)

24 None can serve two lords: for either he will hate one and love the other; or hold firmly to one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Matt. 6:24)

William Carey is famous for his “whatever it takes” attitude in his mission venture to India, so much so that he is widely accepted as the father of the modern mission movement. However, he is infamous in his neglect of his family..*

In the early days, Bill Hybels built Willow Creek Community Church with a “whatever it takes” attitude. One night his wife begged him to stay home and share a meal with her. He responded,

“Kids are dying and going to hell and you want me to stay home and hold your hand?”

 The only reason anyone knows this story is that Bill and Lynn Hybels courageously shared their mistake in their early ministry so their readers would not repeat them. Hybels is not the only well-known leader who made poor priority choices in the early days of ministry.

Billy Graham has a similar story to tell about when Ruth asked him to stay home with her because she was having labour pains. She asked him to cancel his speaking engagement at a meeting in Alabama. Graham refused. That evening Ruth delivered their daughter Gigi.

In 1949, at the famous Los Angeles crusade, Ruth’s sister and brother-in-law came to the meeting. While they were together, Billy admired a child they were holding.

“Whose baby is this?”

Graham asked.**

It was Anne, his daughter. In his later years, Graham, said that if he could do it over again, he would have devoted more of his time to his family.

This is not just an issue with famous ministers. Pastor Dan is not famous at all. In fact, he is a rural pastor who looks after two small rural churches simultaneously. His daughter’s third grade teacher insisted that he accompany his wife for the annual parent teacher conference. At the conference, the teacher showed Dan a picture that his daughter drew of his family.

Dan looked at the picture and asked,

“Where am I?”

“That’s why I called you down here today,”

the teacher responded.

“I asked your daughter the same question. She said you’re never home, so she left you out of the picture.”

Dan was doing “whatever it takes” to take care of two flocks, and in the process was missing precious years of his daughter’s life that he could never replace. Pastors can delegate some things, but not all things.

In an interview with Dennis Rainey and Bob Lepine on “FamilyLife Today,” Pastor Ben Freudenburg said,

“We have become ministers because we have this great passion to care for and love people to Christ. We’ll do whatever it takes, and sometimes we get misguided and put so much energy into the work of the church that we don’t realise what we are doing to our own families and to our own lives …

 

Pastoral Ministry in the Real World: Loving, Teaching, and Leading God’s People, © 2015 by Jim L. Wilson

 

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The Brothers in Christ are convinced that we have the mission to proclaim the Good News. But that should never happen through neglect of the people around us. The family cannot be neglected at all or left behind to perform missionary duties in other remote regions.

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For us, such facts are unfortunate events that we hear much more often about evangelical preachers. It is actually outrageous for B. Graham who asked who the girl was that he did not recognise his own child.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we must show the same love as Christ and not neglect our loved ones.

Grieving spectrum

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Perhaps the greatest pain people suffer is losing a loved one. The pain is so great that those grieving cannot process the loss instantaneously; instead, they do their best to adapt and cope with their new reality through grief stages. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross lists the stages of grief as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Some have misunderstood these stages as graduated steps, as if it were possible, once leaving the anger stage, never to be angry about the loss again. In reaction to this misunderstanding, others question the value of Kübler-Ross’ stages of grief. A grief spectrum is an alternative way to understand grief. The spectrum runs from denying the loss on one end to accepting its reality on the other. Those grieving a loss will experience Kübler-Ross’ stages, but not necessarily in a pre-defined order. Grieving people will progress and regress through the spectrum over a period of years until they settle into a state of accepting the loss.

The gradations in the grieving spectrum can be adaptive strategies, which enable grieving people to cope with their losses in healthy ways. Upon hearing that a loved one is chronically ill or died, the initial response will likely be shock or denial. Sometimes, it may be a conscious choice not to believe the news, but more times than not, denial is an adaptive strategy beneath the surface to appropriate the burden of the news over time. The news is so weighty that a grieving person cannot bear all the weight in a single moment. The human spirit takes time to process losses and so people vacillate between knowing and not knowing the veracity of the news.

Along the journey to acceptance, grieving people often process their growing reality of the loss with anger. As a secondary emotion, anger gives a momentary relief from the pain of the loss and becomes an outlet to “unload” the pain on others. Just the stress of the event is enough to leave a grieving person short-tempered. However, at a deeper level, the perceived injustice of the loss exacerbates the pain and intensifies the emotional outburst. Anger can be free flowing, but it will find a target. Sometimes the anger strikes a medical professional, a family member, a pastor, or even God. The recipient of the anger is not usually the point. Anger, like denial, can be an adaptive strategy to cope with the pain. The point is that grieving people often get angry as they process their losses.

The tendency to bargain takes on intensified significance for those with religious backgrounds who understand that God loves them (1 John 4:8) and that He can do miraculous things like raise the dead (Ezek. 37:13; Luke 7:11–17; Acts 20:7–12; Acts 3:15). The Scripture is clear about what God can do. What grieving people are often unclear about is what He will do in their circumstance.

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Pastoral Ministry in the Real World: Loving, Teaching, and Leading God’s People, © 2015 by Jim L. Wilson

 

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Preceding

  1. Aligned
  3. Grief and some of its Stages
  4. God’s Comfort
  5. Is God behind all suffering here on earth
  6. I Can’t Believe That … (2) God would allow children to suffer
  7. Pain, sanctification and salvation
  8. Running away from the past

 

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Additional reading

  1. When Tragedy Strikes…
  2. Materialism, would be life, and aspirations
  3. The Dead — Where Are They? 1 Universal Inquiry
  4. The Afflictions of Christ 2 Afflictions of Christ in our flesh
  5. Through much tribulation
  6. Emotional pain and emotional deadness
  7. Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief (Our World)
  8. Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief
  9. Today’s thought “Peace, peace, when there is no peace” (July 18)
  10. The soul has no rainbow if the eyes have no tears
  11. Grief and Gratitude