137: Please Don’t Tell Me … “Ministry Would Be Great If It Weren’t For The People”

In this episode, Laurie answers 3 questions from our listeners:

• What are the non-negotiables in ministry?
• What are your thoughts on the phrase “I love ministry, except for the people”?
• What has been the most life-giving investment you made in yourself? How did that impact your ministry? 

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Transcript

Laurie Acker: 0:01

Hey, this is Laurie Acker, welcome to the small church ministry podcast. Hey, hey, welcome back to the small church ministry podcast. This is episode 137, a little bit of a treat today, at least for me to answer some questions that came in from all of you. So we've had a lot of interviews lately. Hopefully you caught last week's interview conversation with Carl Vader's super awesome. So please go back and catch that maybe if you're just popping in, or if you happen to miss that one for sure. But what's happening today is, a couple months ago, I asked all of you put a plea out to our audience to just drop in some questions that you'd like to hear me answer on the podcast. Got some great questions. Really great topics came in, and I'm kind of breaking them up in a few different episodes because they were really centered around some different themes. Some were a little more about ministry, philosophy, you know, things that I've learned throughout a few decades in ministry. Others were super specific outreach events, younger families, things like that. And then there were quite a few that came in around the area of church hurt or church woundedness, or, you know, dropping yourself into a church that has woundedness in the past, like that came up a bit too. And so today I'm just grouping a few of the more philosophical ministry questions together. I had so much fun really thinking about these and kind of going through my own life and my own history and ministry to say, how would I answer this today? And the fun thing for me, as I was really diving into these questions, was how I would have answered them 10 years ago or 20 years ago or 30 years ago, so different than how I would answer them today. So I'm really excited just to dive into some of these questions and just give a little perspective of where I'm at and some of the things that I believe about ministry, some of the things that we have seen in small churches being healthy and amazing and dynamic, not just from my experience in my churches that I've served in, but with all of you, you know we are inner like interrelating with 1000s of small churches on almost a daily basis. Our Facebook community has over 10,000 people in it. We've got about 30,000 people on our email list. We have 1000s that come to our conferences, and so not just my own personal experience in a few different smaller churches, but I'm constantly learning from all of you, and I just want to thank you for sharing your perspective, for emailing me when I ask questions like, what's your biggest Challenge? Because we really are all in this together, the majority of churches on the planet are under 200 that's what they used to say, and now they're really under 100 and what we're seeing right now in our current culture are more and more people are looking for smaller churches. Some people talk about like getting rid of the smoke in the mirrors, or getting rid of the show, wanting to go back to more of a community of family, feeling people are craving deeper authenticity. And as I say this, I want to say this right now. I don't have anything against larger churches, medium sized churches, huge, mega churches. I think God works in all of them, but there is something super special and very, very unique about some of our smaller churches. And also in saying that, I'm also aware that many, many small churches are unhealthy as many small churches are unhealthy as large churches are unhealthy. And you know what? God still is at work in every place, in every size, in every nation, in every village, in every town, anywhere across the planet. God is at work. So I'm diving in to answer a few questions that came in from all of you. I think today I've got three, three main ones. Yeah, just three. Okay, so if one of the questions that came in was to me, personally, somebody asked, what is non negotiable in ministry? So what's a non negotiable in ministry? Like, what can we not do without and I'm just going to add to that, I would say non negotiables in healthy ministries, or good ministries, or God honoring ministries, because we all know that there are tons of ministries out there that do things a lot of different ways. In my mind, in my experience with what I know and where I'm at, I'm going to. Give you a few non negotiables for me, in a healthy, grounded ministry. So the first one is this, the leaders continued growth in Jesus. So if you are in ministry, non negotiable to me, hands down. And number one is your continued growth, that you are always growing, that we are always growing, that I am always growing. I don't think we can have good, impactful, powerful, even healthy, ministries if we are not personally growing in Jesus, in learning, in understanding of ourself, of others, of God, our personal health, our discipleship, not just knowing Jesus and loving Him the way we always have, but being enthralled by Jesus and moving through that to new levels all the time that we are leading from growth. Now, the reason this is one of my top non negotiables in ministry is because I see the the opposite more often, and that's when leaders, including many of us listening now, me speaking now, we've all led from places before where we're just really trying to catch people up to where we are. You know what I mean? I hear this a lot. It comes in by emails. It comes in with comments at conferences. I just wish they love the Bible like I loved the Bible. I just wish they were committed to serving like I am. Committed to serving like so often we're in this position where we think we are catching people up to where we are, not that any of us would probably say that we have arrived like we all say we have room to grow right. Like that's pretty common most people, even if we believe we don't, we probably wouldn't be as arrogant to say that we have arrived right. Like most of us wouldn't blatantly say that, but we lead as if we're just catching people up to where we are, that it's our job to catch them up to where we are. And I just want to say I believe our job is to keep growing. Whatever level you think you are at, Jesus has more for us. God has more for us. The way that we love Jesus now really ought not to be the way that we love Jesus six months from now, a year from now, maybe even next week, our skills in ministry, they're not where they need to be. Yet, Scripture says we see Christ dimly, right? And only when we see Jesus face to face, right? That's when we're really going to have this veil falling. And I think that's for everything. There is more to learn, more to grow. If you think your leadership skills, your skills in working with volunteers, have arrived, I will tell you they have not. And I can tell you I have grown much, even in the past year, so different. So I really believe one, one non negotiable in ministry, is leading from continued growth. We need to be growing, and that is how we should be leading. Because when we're excited about our own growth, people catch it. They see it. When we are at a level and we're just trying to drag people up to where we are, and they're reluctant. We lose our own excitement for growth and for ministry. Okay, that's one of my non negotiables. I've got three. Another non negotiable that I believe is is like absolutely essential, is taking personal responsibility for what we're supposed to be responsible for, not for everything else, not for everyone else, but our own responsibility. Now, where this comes into play with many comments, many discussions we have in our groups, is so many of us are blaming everyone and everything, other than just taking responsibility for who we are and how we are showing up. I mentioned this at the conference, our last conference we did. I'm not sure if it was in the playback that I did on the podcast or not, so I'm just gonna bring this up again. Your success in ministry, in life, your happiness, your joy, your fulfillment. It is not dependent on the cooperation of other people. I say that again, your anything, your success, your fulfillment, your joy, in ministry, in life, it's not dependent on the cooperation of other people. To put it plainly, this means that we don't get to really say, I have to do everything I am exhausted because no one else is stepping up. Do you hear it? You are not exhausted because no one else is stepping up. You are exhausted because you're trying to do things outside of your cup. Capacity outside of your responsibility, because God didn't call us to be exhausted. Now maybe you can still be doing all the things, but maybe you need to add more, pouring in activities somewhere else, so that you're Billy being built up and being renewed, being excited again, instead of blaming them for not doing their part. Personal Responsibility means knowing where my authority and my responsibility lies and not taking on the weight of the world or the weight of your spouse or the weight of your pastor or the weight of your team members, their feelings, their joy, is also not your responsibility, nor is there spiritual growth. Okay, yes, we can inspire, yes, we can influence, yes, we can teach, yes, we can love well, but we are not responsible for their change. So non negotiables in ministry, that we are still growing, that our continued growth is happening, that we're leading from that. Number two is that we take responsibility and we quit blaming everyone and everything for the results that we feel like are ours. Knowing what's ours and what's not ours is huge. And the third non negotiable I have for in ministry is it's a little bit off the beaten track, I know, but being involved in your community, outside your church. Yes, I'm listing this as a non negotiable in ministry, knowing that many people listening right now are involved in nothing significant in their community. Now, why I believe this is a non negotiable in ministry is because of what everyone is saying. One of the top questions that gets asked in our groups, in our communities, is about outreach. How can we do better outreach to the community? How do we get them in? How do we build relationships? And everyone is spending so much time and effort and money throwing events. Now I'm not saying events aren't okay. We've seen really great events with community garage sales, with some different types of family nights with with like serving in our schools, things like that. That's great, but I want to tell you the longer term sustainable way to reach your community is actually being part of it. Shocker, being involved in your community. Now, I gotta say, I have lived a lot of my life and my church ministry, not being in my community, I thought I was kind of I was involved in the school. I had a day job. We would do outreach events at the church and do things in the community. But I want to tell you, over the past couple years, I've joined an exercise group that has nothing to do with church. It meets at the park. I love it. It's in the community. There's no church people who go with me. I also do line dancing in a couple different places. Different places, okay, um, one was with a group of older ladies, and one is with a group of a whole bunch of young people. There's no one from my church, or probably any church, at least not that I know of who are doing these things with these people. Now, what does this do? It? It helps me understand my community, being in my community, doing service, loving on people, that's not part of a church program. There really is a difference when we do things with our church as a program, that's great, but we still have our safety net. We're going with the person who put it together. We're going with other friends from church. And you know what that does? It doesn't really put us out there on an equal, I don't know, equal level, equal playing ground, just as this is just me. This is just me showing up, getting to know the person that I'm doing squats next to at the park, right when we do events in our community, there's something very different than actually being involved in our community, joining a walking club, getting involved with a kickball League. I've done that before too, going to schools and reading to children just as yourself, just as a light bearer of Jesus like this is being a light. Get out of your commute, get out of your safety net and get involved in your community. And I really do believe this is a huge non negotiable in ministry, one of the things that happens when we do these things and get outside our church bubble by ourselves into the community, is we're forced to lean on Jesus a little more than the comfort of our church community. So if you are not in your community, somewhere, sports, volunteering in a care home down the street. Uh, joining, uh, I don't know, a sip and paint club, whatever, anything. Find some place to just be with people who are outside your church. I really believe Jesus modeled this as well. So let's do what Jesus did. So those are my three non negotiables in ministry. Oh, my goodness, this took much longer than I thought. I still want to hit the next three questions. So we'll see if I do three non negotiables in ministry. To me. Number one is your continued growth, that you are leading from growth, not stagnation or not arrival. The second one is taking personal responsibility. Just quit blaming everyone or anyone for anything. Okay, just take responsibility for yourself and what God's calling you to do. And the third one is, get involved in your community alone, not just with church programs. I really, mean, I really believe this makes a difference, as we're like these little lights of Jesus all over the place, instead of as a pack. I think it's pretty, really, really powerful. Okay, second question that came in that I want to answer in this episode is, this is the question that came in quote the phrase, I love ministry except for the people. Is a common phrase I hear in the church world, one that I personally lament. That's what came in from the audience member. She asked, What are your thoughts on this quip, and what alternative, if any, would you offer? Okay, now, if you've listened to me long enough, you know I've already exposed this phrase, and how much I hate it. If it wasn't for the people, ministry would be amazing. I love ministry, except for the people. Can I just say straight up, this is not like Jesus. If you have this in your mind, in your head, in your heart, please take that to Jesus. This is not like Jesus, and it is based on a wrong understanding of ministry, hands down wrong understanding of ministry. How could you love ministry, except for the people? The people are the ministry. Ministry is people. Ministry is not programs. It is not doing. It is not coordinating. It is not planning. All those things may happen, but ministry, 100% is people, and not just serving people and doing things for them or to them, but loving people. If that phrase even is one that you believe like I would love ministry if it wasn't for the people. I just want to throw this out there. The next time you run, run into a person that annoys you, that bothers you, that you wish wasn't around, take a breath and be curious and be full of wonder at this image of Christ that is standing right before you. Maybe they're not showing themselves that way, but they are. Be full of wonder, be full of curiosity, be full of compassion, empathy. People are ministry, and I really think we need to take this seriously, that we need to learn to understand people, that we need to learn to listen better than we do listen, learn and love. Now I want you just to think of like a zoo Zookeeper. Maybe you saw the old movie We Bought a Zoo. Consider a zookeeper and what they know about the animals that they care for. Here in Tucson, we have a beautiful museum called the desert Museum. A lot of people think it's a building, if they haven't been here, the desert Museum is one of my favorite places in the entire city. It has walking trails. It is 90% outdoors. It is not a museum that you would do indoors. It is a desert like trails to see javelinas and coyotes and stingrays and snakes. Yes, I like snakes and vultures and prairie dogs and the Big Horn elks and the otters are some of my favorites. So many animals, hummingbirds, okay, this is what fills the desert Museum here in Tucson, Arizona. And I want to say the people who are in charge of caring for the black bear, for the mountain lion, for the lizards, they know those animals. They know them well. They've studied them, the psychology of lions, the psychology of hurting animals versus non, the birds that fly through the air. They have knowledge and understanding, not just of their wingspan, but of what makes them tick about where they're from, the desert Museum here in Tucson has actually brought in animals that were hurt out in the wild, almost like as a sanctuary, some of them, and like even when you go to see the beautiful Heron the bird, there's a little side on the window. I don't know what it says specifically. You, but it talks about like not scaring the bird. The bird might look excited, but you're probably scaring them, you know. And so they understand these animals that they are charged with caring for. Why in the world do we not care for people like we might care for our pet lizard, please hear this. Reptiles. Some of them need a heating rock. Some of them need a beautiful lamp above them. But if people annoy us, we just say, Get out of our face. We'll draw a boundary there. You don't belong here. How about we take a step further beyond that and actually care about the people that God puts in our presence. If you don't act right, get out of our way. No. Can you imagine that happening in a place where they care for animals? Please? Like, just do this comparison with me. They don't I have an anxious dog. I've gotten to know this anxious dog. I understand what they're doing because they're scared. Do we have the same understanding or care for people, people created in God's image, humans created in the image of God, not understanding when that when they react, there may be fear, there might be trauma, when we react and shut down. Why is that? Could we learn a little bit? Maybe? Could we learn? Do you know anybody who studied dolphins, like the language of dolphins. Do you know how much time and energy and money that has gone into understanding the beauty of dolphins and their language alone? Could we just give people the time of day? I'm not saying you need to go back to school and get a PhD, but yeah, let's understand people, let's understand attachment, let's understand trauma, let's understand wounds. Let's just understand conflict. Let's understand loving people. Let's understand empathy. Let's love people. So perhaps the person who asked that question might be like, Oh, maybe I shouldn't ask that question, because she got really passionate there. I am really passionate about this question, about that phrase. If it wasn't for people, ministry would be great, or I love ministry, except for the people. No, no, no, wrong, wrong, wrong. Please banish that phrase from your vocabulary. If anybody says it in your presence, point them to this podcast. Ministry is people. People are ministry. It's exactly why Jesus came. Jesus did not come for the easy people. Well, he did. Came for the easy people and the difficult people. But we're here for people. That's why we are on this planet. So let's, let's become a study of people. Let's become curious. Let's become detectives. Let's be inquisitive. Let's wonder why. Let's wonder how. Let's wonder how we can serve, how we can show up, how we can love people. And I'm just gonna give one last little example of this before hitting the last question of the day. Next time you're at a church meeting and you watch someone talk too much, or someone talk too little, or someone talk too loud, or someone shut down a conversation, or someone get defensive, or someone leave early, come late, stand up, cross their arms. Could you just make a study of that? Get curious, ask God, what's going on? Where is he? Why is your heart racing? Why is someone getting angry? I really believe that the more we understand people, growing in relationships, understanding one another, the better ministry gets. Jesus did not just come to save our souls. He came to give us abundant life. Abundant Life includes physical, mental, social, spiritual, relational. It includes it all, heaven on earth, now here on earth as it is in heaven. Now this world, we've got to have an understanding of this world. It really is part of the reason Jesus came. So let's understand each other. And if you want to push back on this at all, please just go back to the zoo. Example. We are worth more. We are God's kids, the person who annoys you, who may make you want to quit ministry. They're created in the image of God. Let's do better. Let's do better. Let's love people. Okay, that was question number two that came in from the audience. Question number three, is this, what has been the most life giving investment that you made in yourself, and how did that impact your ministry? Okay, so I have, I've had a couple, and I landed on this one because this question was the most life giving investment you made in yourself. How did it impact your ministry? And I have to be honest, it is ongoing, personal counseling. And I say ongoing because it is ongoing. Sometimes people say, oh, yeah, I've been to counseling. That was good. That was good. I did my turn. I went three times, maybe I went three months, you know, Hey, y'all, we got a lot more to learn than just three times in counseling. Okay, now, if you find a great counselor, fabulous, awesome, highly recommend counselors who are licensed and certified and have education and training beyond biblical counselors, I know there are some great biblical counselors out there. I actually go to one, but she also is licensed in a lot of different ways. But there are a lot of people practicing biblical counseling that have had an impact that I I'm I trust they do not intend. But sometimes that type of counseling can end up causing a lot of shame and not forward motion. So anyway, ongoing counseling has been the biggest life giving investment that I have made in myself. How has that impacted my ministry? It it's become part of my ministry. I'm not that I counsel others, but learning more about myself, how I see myself, understanding myself, 1,000% impacts how I understand others, what I'm, what I see, what I'm, what I'm learning. You know, it's kind of like I can't remember what it's called. There's a psychological term for this. Like, once you see a Ferrari, you see Ferraris everywhere. Like, like, something is in common. Like, once you see it, you start seeing it everywhere. You're like, Oh, everybody has a silver Hyundai Elantra, you know what I mean, kind of a car or something. And so once you see things in yourself, you will recognize them more elsewhere. Once you understand what empathy is or having compassion on your own failings, you start having compassion on others. Most of us on the planet have very little understanding of our own selves, our own reactions, the things that have impacted us. We tend to shove through our own emotions. We don't even pay attention to how we're feeling. That is not Jesus. Like, can I just say that that is not Jesus like to not even know how we are feeling, because God is in us. God is with us all the time, everywhere, every moment of every day, not just in our 20 minute quiet time in the morning. Or maybe you're super spiritual, and you spend an hour with Jesus every morning. Don't know. But that is not the only time God is with us. He's with us all day long, every minute, every day. So understanding ourselves and growing in that. So good, so good. Um, counseling has helped me through relational issues. Has helped me through the how I see God has helped me through understanding of myself, my own reactions, my view of the church, anger issues, depression, anxiety, learning to breathe deeper, learning to pace myself better. Sometimes people will talk about counseling, being focused on the past and coaching being focused on the future. For me, counseling is both the past and the present, the future are all kind of all in there, because as I learn about the past, I'm actually moving toward the future. When I go to my counseling sessions, I'm actually taking what's happening right now in my life, I'm not just delving into the past, but personal counseling and understanding psychology a little more about myself, has completely impacted my ministry so many ways. I'll give you the some of the tops are growing in empathy for people, growing in compassion, learning about attachment, understanding boundaries in a really new way, so beautiful, understanding trauma and that all of us have trauma from somewhere, little trauma, big trauma. Understanding how that impacts our ministry, how that impacts how we lead in ministry, how that impacts people sitting around a table in ministry, going to counseling has even grown me in areas, you know, you know, looking at children, you know, I was kind of an overachiever. So were my kids, and they got neglected a lot because of it. And understanding that. Not about myself and about my kids also are like, wow, you know, like, we got to pay attention to every child, not just the ones who are needy or the ones who are super smart, right? We gotta, we gotta pay attention to everyone. So that's the biggest life giving investment I've made in myself. And I'm just gonna tell you, counseling costs money. Counseling costs money. There are a lot of programs out there that might give some scholarships or whatever, but totally worth the investment. I've never had insurance pay for counseling. I've paid out of pocket, I think always. Yeah. So anyway, if your insurance doesn't cover counseling, neither is mine, and there you go. Counseling was one of the best things ever done for myself, and I love to normalize it for everyone else too. Um, okay, and let me just make sure. I'm just checking my notes really quick to make sure I didn't miss anything. I hit the top three questions that came in. We're going on 30 minutes, so we're about done. Yeah, okay, that's what I got. So those are my three answers ministry questions that came in from the audience. Some time in the future, we'll hit some of the other practical, more ministry focused program kind of questions that came in, and we will also be unpacking a few of the questions that came in about church hurt as well. So if you did submit a question and you're like, Wait, she didn't answer mine, I promise it's coming. But today I wanted to hit the ones that were kind of around just philosophy of ministry, doing ministry well. And as I wrap up, I just want to say doing ministry well has to do with being well. We cannot do ministry well if we are not well, in so many ways, healthy, taking responsibility, not over, stretching ourselves. I hope you heard that theme kind of throughout this we can't even love people well and be in relationship with people well, if we're not okay, and if you're not okay, it's okay to not be okay. I will share at every conference and every chance I get I have many times when I'm not okay, many times that's part of our human experience, as part of our shared human experience. And if you've been wearing the badge of honor that you are okay because the people around you are not, so you have to be okay. That is also a lie, and it also causes a break in our relationships and how people trust us or don't trust us when we are okay all the time, we're not being authentic, we're not being human. And so grace, peace, hope, love. All to you, please take a breath today. Take a beat right now, if you've got a few minutes just to breathe in some Jesus, take some time dedicate your day to him that your life, your living, your life, your living, would be a an ongoing prayer communication with God today, that you would take anything you heard in this podcast and have A communication, have a conversation with God about it and with others around you. So that's what we're about here at small church ministry, starting conversations, continuing them, being healthy in ministry, taking the focus off, how to grow a church in number and how to grow ourselves in discipleship, how to lead from growth, taking responsibility for ourselves, understanding that ministry is people. It's not all the programs, it's what Jesus modeled. So let's do ministry like Jesus. All right, until next week, be a light you.