I think I want to start a series of posts about lessons I learned and am re-learning from 2007. There are too many to put in one post so I will do a series of them.
Faith
God called my family to go to NH to start a new church. To my hometown specifically. I did not want to go back. I actually had fought it for over a year before I gave in. It stinks to have to start over in ministry. It's like we were never pastoring.
On one side people in ministry that we were friends with now don't talk to us. Maybe because we have nothing to offer them anymore. As a pastor I found out real quick that you get preferencial treatment. But stop pastoring and it's like you don't exist anymore.
I remember one time when I was a youth pastor and I had gone to our District Ministries Conference and sat in on the pastors classes. One of my good friends was there. He was also a youth pastor and he had the same first name as the pastor with which he served. After the conference I was having a conversation with my friend and his pastor joined in. I called him by his first name and after the conversation was over he followed me to my car. Once he had me alone he told me never to call him by his name. I must call him pastor "In order for people to know who he was". He said his own family and friends called him pastor. I was shocked. But I realized some people have huge egos.
Anyway, a couple of years later I was pastoring my own church when this pastor found out I was pastoring. He started acting like we were old friends and was calling me pastor and was being all chummy with me. I thought to myself what a fake. But it was at that time I realized in the church world, you are nothing until you become a pastor. That is, in the eyes of certain people. That is why it is hard to tell sometimes if people want to be your friend because they like you or because you are the pastor.
The other side is all the new people I have met in the different churches that I have preached in who are excited for me and love my vision for Claremont. It's fun for me to see people get excited about what God is going to do. It gets them dreaming about what God can do in their churches.
It has been a mission of faith because we have to trust God for every single thing. If you have planted a church before you know the feeling you get wondering how you are going to start a church out of nothing. It is definitely faith in God.
My life verse is Phil. 3:14 - "I press on to take hold of the prize for which Christ Jesus has called me heavenward." Faith is about persevering in the midst of struggle.
These are the other lessons I will talk about in the next posts in the series.
Trust
Patience
Don't ignore the devil
Don't do business with friends
God is in control
It's about God's timing
Don't listen to the critics
Faith
God called my family to go to NH to start a new church. To my hometown specifically. I did not want to go back. I actually had fought it for over a year before I gave in. It stinks to have to start over in ministry. It's like we were never pastoring.
On one side people in ministry that we were friends with now don't talk to us. Maybe because we have nothing to offer them anymore. As a pastor I found out real quick that you get preferencial treatment. But stop pastoring and it's like you don't exist anymore.
I remember one time when I was a youth pastor and I had gone to our District Ministries Conference and sat in on the pastors classes. One of my good friends was there. He was also a youth pastor and he had the same first name as the pastor with which he served. After the conference I was having a conversation with my friend and his pastor joined in. I called him by his first name and after the conversation was over he followed me to my car. Once he had me alone he told me never to call him by his name. I must call him pastor "In order for people to know who he was". He said his own family and friends called him pastor. I was shocked. But I realized some people have huge egos.
Anyway, a couple of years later I was pastoring my own church when this pastor found out I was pastoring. He started acting like we were old friends and was calling me pastor and was being all chummy with me. I thought to myself what a fake. But it was at that time I realized in the church world, you are nothing until you become a pastor. That is, in the eyes of certain people. That is why it is hard to tell sometimes if people want to be your friend because they like you or because you are the pastor.
The other side is all the new people I have met in the different churches that I have preached in who are excited for me and love my vision for Claremont. It's fun for me to see people get excited about what God is going to do. It gets them dreaming about what God can do in their churches.
It has been a mission of faith because we have to trust God for every single thing. If you have planted a church before you know the feeling you get wondering how you are going to start a church out of nothing. It is definitely faith in God.
My life verse is Phil. 3:14 - "I press on to take hold of the prize for which Christ Jesus has called me heavenward." Faith is about persevering in the midst of struggle.
These are the other lessons I will talk about in the next posts in the series.
Trust
Patience
Don't ignore the devil
Don't do business with friends
God is in control
It's about God's timing
Don't listen to the critics
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