Category Archives: Pastoring

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May 13, 2021

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Calling, Pastoring

Called To Stay

An Interview with Barry Cullen & Byron Beck

The average tenure of a pastor in the United States is less than 6 years. In some extraordinary cases, a pastor stays at a single church for all or much of their ministry. Such stability in ministry is not always possible or ideal, but those cases where a pastor spends 30 or 40 years in the same congregation should be celebrated for the commitment to a particular people and a particular calling. Furthermore, these pastors who are called to stay in one congregation for so long have much to teach other pastors about consistency, faithfulness, and intentional freshness in ministry. Byron Beck has been Senior Pastor of Fellowship General Baptist Church in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, since 1987. Barry Cullen has been Pastor of the Providence General Baptist Church in Providence, Kentucky, since 1988. These pastors have seen many changes in their ministry lives. Interim Executive Director Danny Dunivan interviewed them to allow them to talk about their callings and how they have been able to maintain ministry in the same congregations for so many years.

Danny: Tell us about your original sense of calling to ministry. At what moment did you realize you were called to ministry as a pastor?

Barry: I first felt the call to ministry when I was about 14. I was attending church camp, and I believed that the Lord wanted me to preach. I shared with some of the leaders about how the Lord was dealing with me. They prayed for me and encouraged me to go back home and talk to my pastor. However, by the time Sunday arrived I had convinced myself that I was too young for God to use as a preacher and I never mentioned it to my pastor. I was leading music at my home church, and I convinced myself that I was doing enough.

Several years later, at the age of 19, God began to deal with me once again, and I became very burdened. I spoke to a pastor whose opinion I greatly valued. He urged me to follow God’s leading and the next Sunday I announced my calling.

Byron: Calling to the ministry for me, was somewhat “undefined” at first. It began to stir in me about one year after my conversion. I was a senior in high school. I was being discipled through a powerful movement of the Holy Spirit in the McLeansboro First General Baptist Church in McLeansboro, Illinois, and, at the same time, a vibrant high school youth ministry in Carmi, Illinois. I was watching others do ministry and was gradually being invited to serve by people around me. There were two people in particular who saw something in me and encouraged me to listen for God’s voice and His will for my life. It eventually became a slow-growing but unmistakable calling to serve Jesus with all of my life— and, the more I moved into my calling and acted on it, the more it was confirmed for me.

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Big Day Planning for Christmas 2020
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November 17, 2020

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Church Growth, Congregrational Ministries, Pastoring

Big Day Planning for Christmas 2020

by Franklin Dumond, Director of Congregational Ministries

The principles described here are designed around planning for a Big Day. The Big Day concept has been utilized for some time now as a means to focus the energy of a congregation around a specific day. By planning at least two but no more than four of these days in a “normal” year the evangelistic efforts of the church may be channeled into specific, intentional outreach.

As the church reconfigures outreach in the new normal efforts must be made to reconnect to our communities in a safe, effective fashion.

  1. Start Early!
    Thanksgiving comes on Thursday, November 26 and Christmas will arrive on, December 25, 2020.
    How long will it take to prepare for the worship events you will schedule around Christmas?
    Advent will begin Sunday, November 29, 2020. Three Sundays in December will precede Christmas. What will you do on December 6? December 13? December 20?
    When do you need to start gathering resources?
    When will Christmas decor show up on stage and around the building?
    Should our Big Day be early in December so we might gain return visits from guests?
  2. Add a Special Feature or a Special Service.
    How many people are usually involved in leading worship on a given Sunday? Add a special feature where more people can be involved in meaningful participation and watch the visitors arrive…especially if you use the Children’s Choir and its members rehearse for a few weeks in advance!
    Children’s programming is especially popular at Christmas, but even adults can master simple drama and pantomime.
    Other special services might be scheduled on Christmas Eve.
    Many churches find that Christmas Eve-Eve (i.e.—December 23) works well for them.
    Customize your schedule to your local context.
  3. Develop specialized promotion.
    How will everyone know of the special day if you don’t tell them? How will they realize what’s going on if they only hear it once?
    Newspaper ads and yellow pages listings do little to attract the unchurched. Consider a saturation mailing. You can develop your own material, but you may want to bring in the professionals for the first time or two. Check out www.outreach.com or thumb through Outreach Magazine for suggestions. If you use this plan be sure to include the cost of both the promotion package and the postage to send the cards. The good folks at Stinson Press can also help you with similar services to blanket your area with special invitations.
    Equip your folks with an Invite Card that carries your theme graphic and an invitation to your services. Be sure service times, locations, and other pertinent information is included. Emphasize that everything will be done with safety in mind.
    • Keep in mind, however, that if you invite them you’ll want to be able to offer what you’ve promised. Make it a special day. Clean off the coat rack. Pick up the clutter. Dust the corners. Company’s comin’! Make your worship service user friendly: keep the prayer list short and focused, eliminate any announcement that does not directly impact at least half of the people present (remember small group promotion needs to be done in the small group, not in the large group setting), start on time, eliminate the dead time in the service, preach a positive message of hope and resurrection!
  4. Use the power of focus. Concentrate your effort.
    • Focus on the family connection. Research continues to show that the most effective network we have to reach people is in the family arena (see Thom Rainer’s Surprising Insights from the Unchurched). Develop a list of family members who should be part of your church with the rest of their family. Then be sure someone from the family invites them!
    • Focus on recent visitors. What has happened to those visitor cards? What has already been done with and to the folks who have visited in the last six months? Who are they? Where are they attending church now? What do you need to do to get them to attend this Easter? Mother’s Day? 4th of July Weekend? Now you’re getting the picture.
    • Focus on the larger congregation. If your church has an average attendance of 50 you probably have at least 100 people who are part of your larger congregation. The larger your church becomes the broader is its larger congregation of folks who attend infrequently but who do attend some. Keep a list for 6-12 weeks of all the folks who attend at least one of your services.
    • Focus on increasing the frequency of attendance. If they attend once in 12 weeks, work with them until they attend twice. The unchurched population in America who become churched attend church several times in the year before they come to faith in Christ and become part of His Church!
  5. Pastors set the pace, but everyone needs to get involved! If you don’t invite then your people will not invite. If you don’t share your faith then your people won’t share their faith. The unchurched who are seeking the church want brief but meaningful contact from the pastor. Develop a system that works in your location.
  6. Be user friendly! How do we create an environment where people will want to come and hang out in this Covid infected world?
    • • Focus on safety. Remind people of social distance measures that are expected and take extra precautions to ensure safety.
    • If Communion is included use the pre-packaged elements to reduce person-to-person contact.
    • Get ready for company! Encourage your people to “Park in the back. Sit in the front. Move to the middle. Speak to those around you.”
Cancel Christmas but Celebrate Advent
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November 10, 2020

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Congregrational Ministries, Leadership, Pastoring

Cancel Christmas, But Celebrate Advent

by Franklin Dumond, Director of Congregational Ministries

Long before Christmas became a commercial event that began appearing in retail outlets alongside Halloween, the church developed an approach to Christmas that made it a season of anticipation and preparation in the weeks before the holiday.

As a young pastor, I remember struggling with how to fit all the favored carols and all the special programs of Christmas into the one Sunday before December 25. That was what I remember of the Christmas celebrations in my rural home church. Then I stumbled onto Advent and learned not only the joy of anticipation and celebration but also the beauty of preparing a congregation for that special time of the year.

Advent is the season marked by the four Sundays prior to December 25, climaxing with Christmas Day and the wonderful good news, “unto you is born a Savior which is Christ the Lord.”

Many churches mark Advent by using an Advent Wreath composed of greenery and five candles. Artificial greenery is much to be preferred over live greenery, which may present a fire hazard in the later weeks of Advent. Pillar-type candles provide the safest use of candles, as only rarely do they drip or spill.

Lighting the candles one each Sunday allows children to excitedly count the Sundays before Christmas as one candle burns on the First Sunday of Advent, two on the Second Sunday of Advent, three on the Third Sunday of Advent, and four on the Fourth Sunday of Advent to remind everyone that Christmas is almost here!

Many churches will use traditional themes of Advent, but I always enjoyed using Advent to tell the Christmas story in small parts.

The four traditional advent themes for the four advent Sundays are:

  • The Candle of Hope.
  • The Candle of Peace.
  • The Candle of Love.
  • The Candle of Joy.

As a Baptist pastor, I always found telling the story of Christmas leading up to the birth of Jesus was well-received by the congregation and a special treat for the children who hurried to the Advent Wreath for the Children’s Message. Because I used a nativity set with a variety of figurines, the children could help place one or two figures in the scene each week as we explored the Christmas story.

Advent could be organized around some of these elements of the Christmas Story:

Nov. 29 First Sunday of Advent Prophets and Bethlehem
Dec. 6 Second Sunday of Advent Angels
Dec. 13 Third Sunday of Advent Shepherds
Dec. 20 Fourth Sunday of Advent Mary and Joseph

Friday, December 24, Christmas Eve, will be a good time to light the Christ Candle since very few churches have services on Christmas Day. If a Christmas week service will not be held you might consider lighting the Christ Candle at the conclusion of the worship service on December 20. (Additional details for using the Christ Candle at the Christmas Eve Service are included in the Christmas Planning Pack available by request.)

While Baptist churches do not generally celebrate Epiphany and the arrival of the Wise Men, it is easy to introduce them as a kind of epilogue on the Sunday following Christmas which will be December 26, 2020.

It’s Worth Mentioning

Even if you are not using Advent in your church it is worth using the Sundays of Advent to mention some aspect of the Christmas story. The more often Christmas is connected with the church the more often we are able to develop and reinforce a Christian worldview.

Even worship plans and sermon themes that are unrelated to Advent can be given an Advent flavor by adjusting an illustration or changing a song title. While some church leaders do not believe Christmas deserves 1/12 of the annual emphasis in a church, others who recognize the overwhelming significance of the Incarnation believe that the message of Advent cannot be restricted to just one month of the year.

Ready for the next step? Then download our e-book “2020 Christmas Planning Pack”. The 2020 Christmas Planning Pack is a Church Talk Publication designed to help stateside General Baptist leaders cope with the “new normal”.