Saturday Reading……
Just checking my RSS reader and came across Tyler Braun’s weekly Saturday post Fortuitous Bouncing. As always the posts he links to are interesting, but two of them really stuck out to me.
Up first, a post from Ben Arment on rethinking the spaces we use for church gatherings. And not just Sunday services, but what about Bible studies? Small group meetings? Instead of meeting at the “church”, why not meet in places that, while they may stretch our comfort zone, are safe for the unchurched? And hey, why not hold a church service there? Who says you can’t have a service in a pub?
Next, Jim Vining lists the top ten ways to ruin young pastors. The only thing I would add is that it isn’t the top ten ways to ruin just young pastors, but any staff members. If any of the things in Jim’s list are going on at your church, regardless of whether it’s directed at a pastor, secretary or janitor, it isn’t good. I can say I’ve personally experienced half of the list and seen others experience the other half.
The Jim Vining Post is interesting, my dad started pastoring @ 25 (someone had the guts to make him the full time lead pastor at 25…goodness) and I would say that many of these things were true for him. It seems like young pastors eventually become old pastors, so why has this been a problem for generations??
Very good point. I think in a lot of churches the older pastors and leaders look at it almost from a perspective of tenure/seniority, so they think they can do whatever they want because they paid their dues and now it's the young (insert title here)'s turn to pay his/her dues. That was one thing at the church plant I was at that we all had in common. Everyone on the launch team had been on staff at at least one church where we experienced some of the things on Vining's list, so we pledged to each other that we wouldn't treat each other or anyone else who joined later on in that way.