The friendships within your church are incredibly important. They in large part keep people connected to the church. The better connected people are, the more often they show up, the more likely they serve, the more likely they give, and the more likely they’ll invite someone else to come visit.

Which is why, I believe, the most important investment pastors can make this year behind your personal relationship with God and your family is with those within your church.

Now, that’s not to say, you need to be best friends with everyone in your church. More than likely you’re going to have a handful of people you connect really well with, and that’s perfectly fine. But keep in mind, just like you value those relationships, others inside and outside of the church desire those connections as well.

So, I want to encourage you to be more intentional about helping the people who are currently attending or who may be new to the church, to find and build friendships within the church.

It’s incredibly important.

How important?

I’m starting to believe that people value friendships within the church they attend more than they value;

1. Practical preaching/teaching they can understand and apply.
2. The style of worship music and how well it is performed.
3. How outwardly friendly the church is.
4. How safe and fun the kid’s ministry is.

I think these four things are extremely important to someone who is looking for a church to attend. It doesn’t matter if that’s a Christian family who has just moved into a new community, or if it’s a single mom who wouldn’t consider herself a Christian, but she’s looking for answers. 

They’re going to value very similar things. But above all, I believe they value a place where they have friends or can make friends.

Now, if you’re a pastor or church leader who serves in a small town community like I do, you kind of know what it’s like for everyone to know everyone else. They went to the same high school, they shop at the same grocery store, they eat at the same restaurants. 

This has both its pros and cons. The pros are obvious. Community naturally happens because you become familiar with seeing people around town. 

However, it can be really difficult for people who didn’t grow up in the town to feel included. Many people already have long-time friends, and aren’t really looking for more. Because let’s be honest, we barely have enough time to spend with the friends we currently have.

A very similar thing happens within churches. People who’ve been coming to your church for a while get connected with a group of friends, and over time they become less welcoming to those outside of that group.

So, the church may appear very friendly to those who’ve been there for years, but to a new family it may be hard to get connected. They may enjoy the church and show up for a few weeks, but if they struggle to make friends they’ll start looking elsewhere, or even worse they’ll give up on church and God altogether.

I don’t want that to happen, and I know that you don’t either, but unless you become really intentional about addressing the issue it will continue to happen.

So, what can we do?

First, you need a team approach. Get others involved. 

Can you do this by yourself? I think so, but if you’re the pastor, you have enough to worry about on Sunday mornings. 

That doesn’t mean you get a free pass here, it just means you need help.

Who should help? Find a few (2-5) people who are friendly and enjoy meeting new people. It’s great if these people are on your board, or in leadership somewhere, but that shouldn’t be a requirement.

The most important thing is that this group of people have relationships within the church, and they also enjoy engaging new people.

Once you have your team, you’re ready to give them their assignment.

1. Anytime you are at church or at a church function, you’re looking to engage people that you don’t personally know by name.
2. Have a conversation with them, and look for opportunities to connect them with someone in the church who has similar interests. For example, your daughter loves gymnastics, let me introduce you to this family whose daughter loves gymnastics. You love deer hunting, let me introduce you to Joe and show you the deer he just killed. You live by yourself with three cats, let me introduce you to the other crazy cat lady in the church.
3. Continue to connect with these people regularly, until you’ve connected them with at least three other people within the church.

That’s it. That’s all this team needs to do. And if they do it well, I believe you’ll see more people get connected and stay connected to the church. And this will ultimately help the church grow.

About the Author: Travis Stephens is the Vice-President for Church Health for General Baptist Ministries. He has been married to his wife Samantha for 16 years, and they have two daughters, Layla and Presley. They attend and serve at Strong Tower Church in Westmoreland, TN.

Let’s talk about a word that has been heard many times over the past couple of years, “burnout.” Oh, and we are not talking about taking your favorite fast car and doing some “burnouts!”

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines burnout as “exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration.”

I have been in burnout, in some form or another, for approximately the past 900 days. Pretty specific right? Well, I knew the summer of 2020 that I was no longer passionate about what I was doing and I felt very frustrated and at times lost and alone. Many things were happening in my life; family issues, health, ministry challenges and more. Oh, and burnout takes time to walk through, its not take two weeks and you are all better.  

I was pretty much done with it all, but I was so exhausted mentally that I couldn’t figure out what to do next. So, I pretty much did nothing. Our church had some pretty big changes in 2020 and I was feeling it all. We were about to start a search for a Lead Pastor and then covid entered the picture. Now as much as that caused a lot of stress, it also pushed me to do something. I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing, because it wasn’t working and I felt myself fading away….

Now, this is not about me, it’s about you: the ministry leaders at large. If you want to know the rest of my story, contact me and we can meet up for some coffee and I’ll share.

I learned quite a bit in this phase of life. I learned that I “didn’t have it all together” but I also learned to lean on some key people for guidance and overall help. I read, a lot. I read many books on burnout or anything dealing with it and deep dived into scripture.  It has been an adventure of finding my way through and I want to share a few things about what it looks like and a few tips to walk you through in finding a way through.

These come from copious amounts of notes from books and blogs read and podcasts that I listened to.

There are various thoughts and definitions of burnout, along with a variety of phases or stages offered by many experts. And when you read enough, you will see that there is quite a bit of overlap of areas, so today I want to share three stages of burnout:  Stressed, Overwhelmed, and Crispy. When I came across this, I found it very helpful and easily understandable of where I was.

Stressed looks like:

• Irritableness
• Anxiety / Worry
• High blood pressure
• Insomnia
• Loss of Appetite or Stress Eating
• Unusual heart rhythms (skipped beats, rapid pounding)
• Struggle to concentrate/forgetfulness
• Headaches

Overwhelmed looks like:

• Increased negativity
• Withdraw
• Lateness for work
• Procrastination
• Dreading returning to work
• Increased marital conflict
• Decreased sexual desire
• Social withdrawal (from friends and/or family)
• Cynicism
• Resentfulness
• Increased caffeine consumption
• Increased alcohol consumption

Crispy looks like:

• Sadness or depression
• Stomach or bowel problems
• Mental fatigue
• Physical fatigue
• Headaches
• Hopeless Discouragement
• The desire to “check out” or run away from friends, work, and perhaps even family
• Occasional thoughts about ending your life

Many of you just had a lightbulb or two go off, didn’t you? Yes, we can find ourselves in any and all of these stages throughout our lives, but when things line up in such a way that they become building blocks, well then you are walking down the path of burnout.

So, what do you do?

• Pray for and seek out a mentor. Trying to work through burnout alone, will cause more stress.
• Get a counselor.  You need to “download” to a neutral party to help guide you through emotions and behaviors, etc.
• Take time away. Reassess why you do what you are doing.
• Remember to celebrate the victories, but also grieve the losses.
• Learn to say “No,” even if you could easily say yes. You cannot do everything and you cannot be everywhere.
• Pray, REPEAT, Pray again.
• Take time for yourself. This might mean taking extended time off, don’t get caught up in who will teach, or manage the day to day, etc. You need to do this for you, your family, and the church.

I honestly believe no one is immune to burnout, but you can take the above tips and put them into practice and set in place to help lessen the chances of it happening to you or your staff. I also found guidance in these books: Didn’t See It Coming: Overcoming the Seven Greatest Challenges That No One Expects and Everyone Experiences by Carey Nieuwhof, Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture by David Murray, and The Comeback by Louie Giglio.

Remember, ministry is not about you. It’s not about how many seats you fill, how many people you say yes to or how many hospital visits you make. Don’t make it about yourself and what you think you can do. He can do so much more through us if we get out of His way! Don’t forget that you have been called to your position and this was done by our God. Ultimately we work for Him and if you are obeying Him, you are building His kingdom. But, if you are obeying self, you are building your kingdom.

About the Author: Dennis Wagner, Executive Pastor at Skyline Church. Married to his best friend, Susan, for 25 years and has been involved in ministry as a volunteer / staff for over 20 years. 

God puts words in our hearts and minds to grow us and to share. I am not a theologian. I don’t have a Ph.D in biblical study, but I took CTI classes for three years. There I learned valuable tools to help in ministry. I rely on God’s spirit, prayer, and study to gain wisdom for life and ministry.

I am nothing special.

Much like Moses, Abraham, Noah, Elijah, Ruth, three Hebrew boys, Paul, etc. who were just people who put faith in God more than anything else. That is my goal. To understand as much as possible, sure. But, to have trust and faith to receive peace from God is more important.

The truth is I cannot and will never understand it all. The Bible, God’s wisdom, humanity, life, all have mysteries and questions. Some of those questions are hard and the answers to them are even more difficult to hear.

Imagine if God told you to sacrifice your son on a mountain but didn’t tell you why. Imagine being told to pack up and go to a new place that you have never seen. Imagine taking risks as a woman to protect people and generations to come in a time where you were supposed to stay quiet.

There was fear and concern and hesitation I’m sure, but faith can defeat those feelings. Faith is more important than feelings will ever be. Jesus felt many things on the cross, I’m sure, from physical and mental pain as well as spiritual pain from bearing our sins. I’m sure Noah felt embarrassed, when building a big boat for unlikely rain. Paul felt the ways he felt were right and knew a lot about how to share truth.

Feelings will hold us down or lead us to make wrong decisions. Faith and trust in God gets things done!

Jesus asks us to put our faith in Him, which is putting our faith in God as well. We are asked to deny ourselves. That can look many different ways, for example: our priorities, luxuries, time, family or friends, work, ministry (when it’s about you more than God), ideas, opinions, feelings, lust, desires, goals, money, sleep, comfort, rest, etc. So many things can get in the way of our relationship and faith with Christ.

When we deny ourselves, we then must pick up our cross. What does that mean? For some, it’s like pulling teeth to tithe or volunteer and serve others. Maybe it’s complaining that people wear different clothing than you at church or trying to mix the way of worship to lead people to partake more. Picking up your cross is so much more than that.

It’s a way to mimic Christ. WWJD? It’s striving to practice the fruits of the Spirit. It’s being kind to and helping others. It’s selflessness! It’s making sure Christ has our heart every morning and throughout the day, more than anything else does. It’s slowing down to hear from God for your purpose in the short term and long term. It’s not always going on a foreign mission. It may be stateside missions. It may be taking someone shopping, visiting the lonely, listening to the unheard, hugging the scared, or buying for the broke.

It’s putting others first. Jesus put you first, by going to the cross. God put you first by raising Him from the grave.  We are living in a season where good enough isn’t enough. The mentality of “I did my part” is giving up on the Kingdom. God wants us to help Him build His kingdom as much as possible before it’s time to reunite it with eternity.

The American church has been in decline over the years because the church hasn’t stepped forward. “He must increase, and I must decrease’’. We lost the vision of what we were created to do and saved to be empowered to do to help build the Kingdom. We get offended or distracted. We lose trust and time by not focusing on God enough!

Good enough is complacent. There is no time to be content with the Kingdom. The Kingdom has plenty of room because of a plentiful God. The world is speeding up and moving away from Him, and we need to chase people down. Love on people and show compassion. Put down your stones and sit down to feast with them!

Faith and trust in God are what matters, even when it’s hard, even when it’s scary, and even if you don’t understand or comprehend. Worship Him through it. Praise Him through it. Look for Him in the fire. Hallelujah.

About the Author: My name is Grant Johnson and I serve as the student pastor at Halltown GB Church in Portland, TN. I have a beautiful wife Heaven and a dog and a cat. I’ve grown up around ministry my whole life and the best thing to do is stay prayerful and obedient to Christ.