Today I attended a lunch for the 15 or so staff pastors at the church I work at. The lunch was held at the Lubbock Club; It’s a nice place to eat, at one of the highest places in Lubbock. The lunch was special because we had a guest speaker there, Charles Neiman, to say a few words to us as church leaders. These kind of meetings are new to me, and I really enjoyed my time.
Here are some quotes that I remember from the talk:
- “We shouldn’t put the heaviest burden of our ministry on our weakest leaders.”
- “Stop expecting an infantry of Navy Seals to run your ministry. Navy Seals are a specialty group, and were never designed to be a large force.”
- He spoke for a long time on taking down the barriers in our church that make it hard for people to become members. His church in El Paso, personally only has 1 membership class then gets these new members involved in some area of ministry ASAP. Granted, they won’t be counseling or teaching a class; but they learn and grow by finding a place to serve.
- “What in your church says ‘Not Welcome’?”
- He compared the simple business practices of Starbucks to church ministry. Starbucks makes it as easy and quick as possible to become saturated in their ‘coffee environment.’ But often times in churches, we make it almost impossible to join our church, unless you commit large amounts of time to our ministry jobs.
Overall it was a great time. And get this, the church paid for child-care so my wife could attend!
