"Losing the Leaders!"---Part 1.

On any given Sunday, the routine is the same:  He gets up out of bed early, makes his coffee, and sits down desperately trying to hear a word from the Lord.  He knows that soon he will have to break away from this relentless pursuit to get ready to go to work.  Go to work!  When did it become just a job?  When was it just a means to meet the needs of his family?  It didn’t start out this like this.  When he was a young man, his heart burned within him to preach the Word of God.  He was convinced that even if the past generations had not completely reached the masses, he had such a special anointing from God that he would reach them!  God had chosen him to speak the eternal truths of heaven.  He felt it!  God was going to use him to bring about a revival.  He had often fantasized about it, and how it would all play out.  Yes, other churches were ritualistic, cold and even dead; but not his church!  They would burn with a passion for Jesus and operate with the anointing of the Holy Spirit.  Then it happened!  A church was available, he went and preached, he and his young wife prayed, and God gave him his church.  He couldn’t believe it!  It was actually beginning to take form, just as he had imagined.  The first Sunday came, and the people were kind to him and patient, yes, very patient.  However, six years into his new pastorate, and he was still waiting for revival.  He’s still waiting for some type of indication that the religious traditions and “churchy” events would metamorphosis into something real, something tangible, and something powerful, but it never happened!  He needed a change!  Perhaps, as the Bible says, he was just the one who was to plant the seed and someone else was to water it.  Yes, that must be it!  So, he petitioned those over him in the Lord, and he resigned his church and took another one hundreds of miles away.  

            This was a new phase in his life and ministry; surely this would be the church where he would tap into the passion of his original call.  His wife was unhappy with him, because now she was farther away from her Mother and Father and the rest of her family.  They didn’t know anybody in this strange new city.  However, four years later, and still no great revivals!  The process begins again, and now after 21 years in ministry and five different churches, in five different cities, the passion has died.  Drudgery has taken the place of passion and joy, and just being able to meet his mortgage payment on any given month, is victory enough.  Now, here he sits, early on Sunday Morning, trying to hear from God!  But,…. Nothing!  How he wishes there was some way, some means, which he could support his family and leave the ministry.  He often fantasizes about meeting someone who recognizes his natural abilities and offers him a wonderful paying job.  Oh, he would still go to church, of course!  But he would do whatever ministry he could do, from the safety of the security of stable income and a time clock that actually turns off at the end of the day.

            Time to go!  The people are expecting him, the pastor, to give them some fresh new word from the Lord!  Not that it matters he thinks, they won’t do anything with it!  So, he gets out an old sermon he preached three years ago, gives it a new title, revamps it a little and gets dressed to deliver “God’s Word.”  As he leaves for church, he can’t help but wondering, “Where’s the power?”

·         Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout or contention in their churches. ·         Four thousand new churches begin each year, but over seven thousand churches close. ·         Fifty percent of pastors' marriages will end in divorce. ·         Eighty percent of pastors and eighty-four percent of their spouses feel unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastors. ·         Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living. ·         Eighty percent of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years. Ninety percent of pastors said their seminary or Bible school training did only a fair to poor job preparing them for ministry. ·         Eighty-five percent of pastors said their greatest problem is they are sick and tired of dealing with problem people, such as disgruntled elders, deacons, worship leaders, worship teams, board members, and associate pastors. Ninety percent said the hardest thing about ministry is dealing with uncooperative people. ·         Seventy percent of pastors feel grossly underpaid. ·         Ninety percent said the ministry was completely different than what they thought it would be before they entered the ministry. ·         Seventy percent felt God called them to pastoral ministry before their ministry began, but after three years of ministry, only fifty percent still felt called.

        This scene would seem silly if it wasn't being lived and played out all over America every week!  Pastors who started out with passion are now apathetic as they week after week, simply try to survive. In fact according to recent polls, the pastoral ministry is quickly becoming an “endangered species.”  Consider the following statistics, gathered from the web site “Life Line for Pastors.”   

What do these alarming statistics show us?  The pastoral ministry is in trouble!  Not only is it in trouble, but these statistics show us two additional problems that is just as alarming.  First, when the “heads” of the local Christian congregations are feeling so empty and devoid of passion, what is their preaching and teaching of the Word of God like?  It’s a relatively simple concept:  “If the gas tank is empty, the car isn’t going to move!”  Perhaps there is a direct correlation between the “emptiness” of the pastoral ministry and the ineffectiveness of the American Christian church.  If the pastors of our local fellowships don’t have anything to “give,” then the members of our local fellowships are receiving nothing of spiritual depth and spirituality.  The members are not challenged, because their pastor’s aren’t challenged. 

Secondly, these statistics show us something as equally alarming as the previously mentioned two issues.  This issue can be summed up in a question, in fact the question of this book.  “Where is the power?”  Simply put, if the pastor’s of local congregations are feeling burnt out and looking for an “exit” door, then how powerful can their church’s ministry be?  Since the Christian Church’s ministry is constantly involved in “power-encounters” with the flesh, the world, and most importantly, the enemy’s kingdom, without power, there can be very little effectiveness.  NO-POWER = NO-EFFECT!  And given the fact that most of our churches in America have many empty pews, and given the fact that many “outside” the church view those of us inside the church as out of touch and ineffective, then we are DESPERATELY in need of power!  We are in need of the power that was intended to be the “norm” for the Church of Jesus Christ.  However, looking at the emptiness and ineffectiveness of the Church in America as a whole, one is prompted to ask:  “Where is the power?”

Recently I have begun a kind of new hobby.  Nothing really exciting, but nonetheless, it has been kind of interesting and certainly quite telltale of what the Church of our Lord is busy doing, and more importantly, what we are NOT doing.  I have begun reading church “signs” and advertisements in newspapers and bulletin boards.  WOW!  What an education I have received in this little fascination of mine!  Most of the advertisements for the local churches around me are usually about:  Church dinners, rummage sales, music concerts, community awareness activities, special guest speakers (brought in to keep those who are already in the church, “pumped-up” and “plugged-into” the church!), etc.  Now, while there is nothing intrinsically wrong with any of these things, I have yet to see a sign advertising for community wide church repentance, or praying for healing over the things that divide the church, or a meeting to focus on unity and what we have in common (Jesus) and ignoring what we differ on.  Nope, not one sign like that!  Many churches, who have been strategically placed within our cities, are doing absolutely NOTHING in encountering the strong-holds of the enemy within those communities!  And the very saddening thing is, that if those churches DID finally encounter those true spiritual strongholds, there’s a very good chance they wouldn’t know WHAT to do, or have the POWER to do it with!  Now, this is not a “rant” against the church, there are enough within the world who are doing that!  Rather, this is an attempt at helping us within the church to see that we have a “Power Problem!”

This fact came to bear very strongly upon me a few years ago.  At that time, I felt a strong burden to have our church contact the area Christian churches within a 5-mile radius of our church.  We wrote a letter informing them that they were not alone, we were praying for them, and we were asking God to give them souls for their labor.  Basically, we were encouraging our Brothers and Sisters in the Lord within the perimeter we had established.  The first thing that shocked me was the fact that a lady in our church who works with demographics, determined that there were 256 Christian churches within a 5-mile radius of our church!  Are you hearing what I am saying?  Two hundred and fifty six churches besides our church, within a 5-mile radius in Knoxville Tennessee! 

The second thing that was a bit shocking was some of the responses we received from the pastor’s of those churches.  There were many who thanked us for our prayers and concern, and informed us on how timely this encouragement was.  However, one sticks out vividly in my mind.  The Pastor had written us to tell us that he was sitting in his office contemplating leaving the ministry because of burn out and depression, when he received our letter.  He informed us that he began to cry, and realized for the very first time, he was NOT alone!  WOW!  Such a simplistic act that had such God-timed results!  He also informed us that he would NOT be leaving the ministry.  At this news, we rejoiced!  However, as much as we rejoiced in this wonderful news, I was immediately struck with some overwhelming questions.  “If there are these many churches within a 5-mile radius within Knoxville, why were there still homeless?  Why was there still prostitution?  Why were there still hungry?  Why were there still meth dealers?  Why were there still strip clubs?”  Well, you get my point! 

The answer is quite simple, yet quite alarming.  The Church of Jesus Christ in Knoxville Tennessee, for the most part, is POWERLESS!   We have the “churchy” things down pat.  We have the “religious” things down pat.  But we do not have the “Jesus” things infused with power down pat! (end of part 1).