Gary Lamb has a great post on ‘being secure in your calling‘….it is a must read for every church planter and for every pastor for that matter! Gary has grown so much since the days we ventured out to start [Ridge Stone Church] together and I can honestly say that guy has had more influence on this church plant than anyone else out there.
Gary has been willing to pour his life into mine from day one and whatever ‘successes’ we may say…not matter how we choose to view them…can easily be seen as a direct reflection of this guy! Great post bro! Not just saying that because you had something to say about me…I think the wisdom in the post is remarkable! Definitely something I struggle with as a guy who is doing this…in this position…for the first time ever!
Being secure in our calling is something every church planter and every pastor deals with. I don’t care if you are starting a church from scratch or pastoring one of the largest churches in America. Every pastor wonders what people think about him, every pastor wonders if he is a great leader, every pastor beats himself up at times for not feeling good enough to be the point man, every pastor wonders why God has chosen him to do this, and ever pastor wakes up some days and wants nothing to do with pastoring a church. This is something most pastors won’t talk about, but every single one of them have felt it some point in their ministry. I would be a bold-faced liar to say that thought has never crossed my mind!
What a great reminder for all of us…we ‘serve an audience of one’ and the moment we forget that is the moment when are ministries begin a nose dive towards failure. At times I struggle with so many of this issues…I don’t think people truly understand what it is like sitting on this side of the table.
Every decision you make is critiqued, every thing you do is analyzed, every aspect of you marriage is held to an outrageous standard, what you say to one staff member motivates and inspires and to another totally discourages, every decision made in the church whether you make it or not will be treated as a direct reflection of your leadership, you will lay in bed night after night with the weight of the entire organization caving in your chest, and no matter how well things are going there will always be some people that will look for an opportunity to throw you under the bus. You will pour out everything you have to help people and in a moment they will turn on you and other pastors will turn on you as well.
That’s why it is so important for us to stay focused, to stay grounded, to keep the vision in the cross hairs, and remember who we serve and who we work for. This is all about people, but it is never about pleasing people to get there. Brian Bloye told me once that you have to ‘care more about God than you care about people’…I have never forgotten that! It’s tough at times, but is is so true…there was so much wisdom in that statement.
In the early days it is very easy to be more concerned with keeping people than with sticking to the vision that God has given you for the church. This is something we have embraced from day one. Shawn Lovejoy talks about ‘being mean about your vision’…if it’s not about sticking to the vision that God has supposedly given you and never swaying from it, then what the heck have you made it about?
See the truth is you will never please everyone to begin with…as Gary said…the sooner we become secure in that fact, then the sooner you save yourself a lot of heartache and the sooner you stop wearing yourself out from chasing everyone around trying to keep them happy! Ed Young talks about how so much energy is wasted chasing the ‘little fish’ that we miss out on the ‘big fish’.
You can’t be everything to everyone, you are going to fail at times, you are going to make bad decisions, you are going to screw-up…it’s okay! Believe me I am a complete perfectionist and I just can’t accept failure, but the truth is I have already failed in several areas…it’s okay…as long as I can recognize those failures, learn from them, grow from them and get better along the way. The only way I can ever get better is to fail and screw up at times…I honestly believe you can learn more what you do/done wrong, then what you do/doing right!
Believe me I ain’t preaching to anyone…I got a ton to learn…I still trip, slip, and fall dead on my face as I try to figure this thing out too! Pastoring is stressful, you never turn it off, you have to be ‘on’ at all times…it better be something you are ready for because the moment you step-out you better be ready to step-up! Because the walls start closing in fast and you better be ready and prepared to accept the challenge or you will never make it!
I got a long way to go and I thank God that I have so many incredible leaders that have been so willing to pour out their wisdom into my life. If you don’t have people that are influencing you, challenging you, stretching you, and pouring wisdom into your life, then how do you ever expect to grow?
Who do you go to when you don’t know what your doing, who do you call when you have failed, who do you unload on, who do you ask the tough questions to, and most importantly who is asking you the tough questions? You better have someone in your life to mentor and groom you and it needs to be someone that is ahead of you in ministry.
You better have someone that plays that role in your life…you have to…or you will remain insecure and you will continuously fail because you won’t be able to grow fast enough to keep up with the demand and everything around you will suffer because of it! You have to figure out a way to lead ahead of the growth or you will be the obstacle that keeps your church from growing to another level. I don’t know about you, but I don’t ever want to to be the bottle-kneck for this church because I was too prideful to admit when I needed some help!! That’s my 2 cents at least!!
O and for the record…Gary is doing some things right too!! Revolution is still the best church I have EVER seen at truly reaching the disconnected. There is no doubt that Gary could have compromised their vision a million times and gained tons of people, but they have chosen to stay laser-focused on the vision God has given them and God is using them to seriously impact those that no one else would ever reach!!
Great stuff bro…sorry to piggyback off of your post, but you got my mind rolling! 
