Paul Clark

is it really just heaven or hell?

The picture above makes it pretty clear that some churches and Christians believe the central message in applying faith to life is, “avoid hell.” Jesus wasn’t afraid to talk about hell, that’s true, but I think the idea of avoiding hell misses most of the point of the New Testament. Should our message then focus only on heaven?

“Fire and brimstone may spice up doomsday prophecies, but a new study shows most people prefer to look on the bright side of afterlife.

When both heaven and hell are considered valid final destinations, researchers find the notion of eternal bliss is three times more powerful than that of eternal damnation in shaping church attendance and frequency of prayer.

The 32-country study of some 35,000 people -- Canadians among them -- concludes that in the presence of the "largest possible stakes," rewards are more persuasive than punishments.”

[See the complete article here]

The truth is that the “stick” and the “carrot” are both part of the Gospel. Let’s be honest, most of us are not giving our lives to the work of the church just to avoid hell or gain heaven. The life and message of Jesus Christ are so very attractive to the human heart that we’ve let go of some big things to advance the Kingdom of our Savior.

So it's really important that we wrestle with two things: 1) the central message of our church 2) the need to market our church without diluting our message. Came across a good article to help think it through: Marketing your church without diluting your message

connecting volunteers with opportunities

One of the great challenges in the fall is to connect people to ministry serving opportunities. I remember a great illustration from the Network video series as Bill Hybels talked about the “Fall Recruitment Wars” that go on in many churches. It was hilarious.

At Fairhaven, we stumbled on a great new approach for us that accomplished multiple goals for less money, less energy, and more “wow” factor. We called it our “Turn by Turn” guide. It’s a departure from years past, when we held elaborate Ministry Fairs.

This year, because of so much construction, we couldn’t use the outdoor areas. Our First Impressions team came up with the Turn by Turn guide. You can download it here to take a look Download Turn-by-Turn. We treated it like a travel guide to the ministries of Fairhaven Church. It was designed to be a great launch piece for our fall ministries but also to be used throughout the year as a guest piece. We had “concierge” stations placed around the church staff to answer questions or take receipt of registration forms. All in all, we liked it better that the tents and I doubt we’ll go back next year.

We had five goals:

• Keep it simple
• Make it attractive
• Provide concise descriptions
• Provide a convenient response tool
• Follow up quickly

How do you connect people to serving opportunities?

an unshakable faith

This week we launch our fall spiritual growth series (we call it our fall campaign), called “Unshakable.” We’ll have over 1,000 adults meeting in weekly small groups using a curriculum we wrote that includes brief vignettes from staff pastors and integrates the weekly sermon messages.The students and children develop their own curriculum around the same topic, so it's an all-church series.

It’s a huge undertaking, but one of the highlights of our year. Check out our website at

    www.unshakablelife.com

and feel free to contact me with questions or access to our curriculum. It’s awesome-- I can't wait!

how do you structure staff meetings?

In this space on Fridays, I'll answer questions that are being asked of me through the blog or during my conference workshops.  Got a question? 

Our Tuesday staff meetings are broken into two segments:

Fellowship and prayer time:  we gather at 9 am for coffee/donuts/bagels and for about 30 minutes, the entire staff of admins, support personnel, etc. connect with each other on a personal level.  This helps us stay relational and speaks to the high value we place on community.  After about 30 minutes, David Smith, our Senior Pastor, leads us in a season of prayer.  He's very creative in how he does that: for instance we recently broke up into groups and went to various areas of the church to pray for the ministries that were starting that particular week.  It's always a meaningful time.

Pastors & Directors Staff Meeting:  we dismiss the admins and support personnel and just the P&D staff remain.  Recently, I have been leading the staff meetings.  We use an agenda composed around three "D's".

Decision: (What decisions have been made that need to be communicated?) we communicate decisions that have been made at the Executive Team or Governing Board level regarding events, policies, calendar, ministries, etc.  It's a time to make sure the staff is informed about the decisions that have been made which will impact them in some way.

Direction: (What direction does the staff need in order to execute their ministries and meet expectations?) we communicate directions that help staff execute their ministries.  Examples would be instructions regarding adapting ministries to our construction project, direction regarding implementing  Fellowship One in the ministries, and directions for how to answer questions about some major church issue.

Discussion: (What do we need to discuss with the staff in order to get their ideas, input and buy-in?) we open the floor to discuss issue for which we need input and ideas.  We use this time to get staff ideas, allow them to be involved in processing an issue under consideration, and get them to think through an issue and its impact on their own ministry.  Some examples would be considering video venues, topics for the fall spiritual growth series, how to act like a church of 6,000 (we're only 4,000), etc.

I also include on the agenda a list of important dates coming in the next few months, and a financial section so that the staff can see, and I can explain, the context for understanding weekly giving.  The meeting lasts 30-60 minutes, depending on the agenda.

Occasionally, David will lead one of the sections because he has some vision-casting he wants to do or the issue relates to a leadership topic that he wants to speak to. 

What do you think?  Take a look at one of our agendas Download P&D Staff Meeting Aug 18.

God uses imperfect people- Samson pt. 2

[this is a long post, violating every rule of good blogging... sorry blogging gods]

Last week we looked at one subplot in the story of Samson that had to do with his identity- an identity that he lost somewhere along the way. Today, we'll look at Samson's humanity.  God uses imperfect people, and Samson is certainly an example of that.  But wouldn't his story have been sweeter had he been able to get control of his passion and his weaknesses?

Samson's humanity.  Samson isn’t listed in Heb. 11 because of his godly lifestyle or his ability to control his human passions. He’s there because of God’s sovereign work in his life in those moments when he did connect with the Spirit of God and was used by God to punish the Philistines. No, his fallen humanity is displayed in all its ugliness.

1. His stubbornness. Samson was a stubborn guy. He was raised by two godly people and most certainly understood the command not to intermarry with the Canaanites. It’s clearly stated in Exodus 34, which Samson most certainly was familiar with. No matter, when he saw a Philistine woman who attracted him, he steamrolled the warning of God not to do it and then he steamrolled his parent’s warning not to do it. I’m disappointed in his parents—his Dad could have flatly refused. He had that right in the Jewish tradition. He could have just said “no.” But you wonder if Samson’s Nazirite vow, his incredible strength, his intimidating long hair, and his apparent encounters with the Spirit of God, created a situation that made his parents unwilling to say “no.” Whenever a parent can’t say no to a child, trouble is nearby. Samson’s reaction to his parents is revealing: “Get her for me…she’s the right one for me.” In other words, I know what’s best for me, not you two. How many young people have steamrolled their parent’s objections…and then lived to regret it? Samson seems full of himself—full of his own self confidence. No humility, not a teachable, gentle spirit. He’s stubborn and willful, and his sinful nature, his human depravity is in plain sight.

2. His personal weaknesses. Everybody has weaknesses. Mine may be different from yours, but we all have them. Now I’ve met some people that act like they don’t have any, but I know that’s not true. John’s epistle says plainly that if we claim to be without sin (without personal weaknesses), we deceive ourselves. All of us struggle with sin, whether we admit it or not.

Two specific vices, two personal weakness, that seem to drive Samson: lust and revenge. Samson’s problem with lust is all over the story:Samson fell for the woman in Timnah, he goes to Gaza (a city that he had no business being in) and he sees a prostitute that he spends most of the night with, and he falls “in love” with a woman from the Valley of Sorek, Delilah, whom most scholars conclude was also a Philistine prostitute.

I doubt that Samson understood what real love was, because Samson is controlled by lust. His lust is fed by his eyes. Whatever he sees that captures his sexual passions, he wants. And he seems to be missing both sensitivity to how destructive and wrong this sin is in his life, and how better off he could be if he could just get control of his passions. Samson’s story begins and ends with his fatal addiction to lust.

Listen to the words of Proverbs 6 and catch how closely they describe Samson’s story: For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave. She gives no thought to the way of life; her paths are crooked, but she knows it not. These weren’t ugly women Samson was attracted to… I’m sure they were sweeter than honey, smoother than oil. And Samson follows his eyes straight to the grave.

Isn’t it interesting that at the end of his life, when he lost his strength and was captured by the Philistines, they put out his eyes. His eyes were the source of so many of his mistakes, and in the end, he lost them completely.

The second vice that demonstrated Samson’s fallen humanity is his thirst for revenge. Samson takes revenge on every situation that doesn’t go his way.

• When the riddle about the lion gets solved through trickery, he kills thirty Philistines and steals their clothes.
• When his wife was given to his best man because he never consummated the marriage, he burns with anger and uses the “old tie together the fox tails with torches trick” to burn down most of the Philistines crops and groves.
• The Philistines in turn burn his wife and would-be father-in-law to death, which makes Samson take revenge of a whole lot more Philistines.
• After he’s captured through by the Philistines because of his own ignorance, he asks God for one more endowment of strength so he can… READ 16:28. There’s a pattern of revenge that runs throughout the story.

How does this touch you and me? We know we all have weaknesses. In that way, we are no different than Samson. 1 Cor. 10:12 says, “let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.”

What weaknesses do you struggle with? Is it lust? Is it revenge? It is stubbornness? Is it anger—we didn’t talk about that but it’s certainly in the story. Is it disobeying or disrespecting those in authority in your life? Samson did that too. Is it ignoring the clear commandments of God in some specific way—had Samson not done that, he would avoided almost every mistake he made. Our weaknesses can either drive us to God, or separate us from God.

If we understand our own humanity—fallen nature, we can partner with God to overcome those weaknesses, then they actually become a means for wonderful grace in our lives.  Paul said in 2 Cor. 12 that his weaknesses only served to make him more dependent on God, and therefore they became a good thing. Our weaknesses can drive us to a deeper relationship with God.

• Are you spending time with God each day through the Scriptures?
• Are you talking honestly with God each day about the issues of your life?
• Are you participating in regular corporate worship?
• Are you watching for God's activity going on around you?
• Are you nurturing a tender and sensitive heart to God's people and Kingdom?

Let's not get "lost" in the work of the church...

how to approach the big buy- part 3

A big-ticket purchase is creeping up on you. The bus is breaking down. Or the server is malfunctioning. Or the phone system is obsolete. You know you’ll have to persuade the pastor, the board, maybe even the congregation, in order to make the buy...

The Congregation

1. Collect information and support beforehand, if possible. Introduce the issue to a subgroup of the congregation beforehand. This helps you uncover questions and gain support before the congregational meeting. Asking a focus group, “What questions or concerns would you have about this purchasing decision?” isn’t manipulative, it’s strategic. It helps you build consensus and tailor your presentation to answer concerns before they are voiced.

2. Lead with vision. People respond to vision. Use the power of story to explain how this purchase will impact people’s lives and extend the church’s influence in the community. Use your executive summary, prepared above, to briefly explain the issue and have all of the supporting documentation at your fingertips in case detailed questions need to be answered.

This article was published by the great people at Your Church magazine as part of their 2010 Church Buyers Guide edition.  Click here for the entire article.

how to approach the big buy- part 2

A big-ticket purchase is creeping up on you. The bus is breaking down. Or the server is malfunctioning. Or the phone system is obsolete. You know you’ll have to persuade the pastor, the board, maybe even the congregation, in order to make the buy...

The Board

1. Prepare a concise “Purchase Proposal.” Use an executive summary to present your research and timeline. Include information pertinent to your decision to purchase. Always lead with vision and values. I try to always keep in mind that the responsibility of the board is to protect donor interests, so be sure the decision can be viewed as prudent by the congregation. Anticipate questions or concerns; be sure to either include, or at least have in hand, any information needed to address those issues:

• Will they want to know the payback period? Prepare a cost-benefit analysis. The payback period on the platemaker I wanted to purchase was five to six years. That’s high for a piece of technology equipment, but I was prepared to answer that question with both quantifiable and qualitative benefits.
• Will they question the vendor choice? Have vendor references available.
• Will they have particular financing questions? Be ready to present a plan for funding and the impact on the budget. Having financials available will demonstrate that you have thought this decision through from a long-term perspective, which will weigh heavily in your favor.

Come to the meeting well-prepared and confident. Bring more supporting information than you will possibly need. “I didn’t think of that,” and “I didn’t bring that information with me,” are not good answers.

2. Pray for God’s leading through the wisdom of the board. Even after we have done everything we can do to research and solve a problem, we must trust in the leaders whom God has set before us. Separate your emotions from the decision. Pray that God would help the decision to be fully explored so that everyone can leave the meeting convinced of, and ready to explain, the path forward.

how to approach the big buy- part 1

A big-ticket purchase is creeping up on you. The bus is breaking down. Or the server is malfunctioning. Or the phone system is obsolete. You know you’ll have to persuade the pastor, the board, maybe even the congregation, in order to make the buy. The expense likely will be high, meaning the scrutiny potentially will be, too.

What steps can you take to help your church make a wise decision and ensure the process goes as smooth as possible?

Here’s a plan to help you approach key decision-makers in the best possible way:

The Pastor
1. Get the facts. Before you approach the pastor, be sure you have followed a logical decision-making process:

• Substantiate the need. Why is this purchase necessary? What problem currently exists which will be solved by this purchase? How does this purchase relate to the vision and values of the church?
• Capture the important criteria in the decision. Some of the important factors you will want to highlight regarding your purchasing decision include the cost, the funding sources, the space needs, the product’s durability, warranties, and payback.
• Document possible alternatives. Explore solutions other than just your preferred purchase. Be prepared to present alternatives. Would a lease make more sense than a purchase? Is used equipment an option?
• Establish the option that best satisfies the criteria. Make sure your solution is the most obvious choice in light of the criteria. The steps above require time and research, but the data you collect will help you prepare for the board and the congregation. I recently went through this process preparing to purchase a platemaker for our print shop. Our need was greater quality, reduced labor, and better pricing for the work we do for outside organizations. We determined that cost, quality, and financing were the important criteria. We had several alternatives we considered, but only one that satisfied all the criteria: financing the purchase of a used, yet high-quality piece of equipment.

2. Involve others, if possible. There is wisdom in many counselors (Prov. 15:22). It’s helpful if other users can substantiate the need and the recommendation.

3. Present your proposal. As you present your research, connect your solution to the vision and values of the church. The pastor is the chief keeper of the church’s vision, so establish how this purchase will support that vision. In the case of our platemaker, I connected this purchase to our value of high-quality communications materials and our vision of providing quality printing products to other churches and non-profits at affordable prices. Be sure to emphasize that you have considered other alternatives and chosen the best solution. Present a reasonable timeline for implementation—most pastors and boards do not like surprises.

4. Make sure the pastor is your ally. Do not proceed unless the pastor will support your purchasing recommendation. I’ve learned never to go into a decision-making meeting without the pastor’s full support. “If a house is divided against itself…” (Mark 3:25).

As the Executive Pastor, how do you interact with the Board?

In short?  Very carefully.  One important principle to always keep in mind is speaking with "one voice."  By that I mean that the vision, message, opinions, etc. coming from the staff to the Board have to be unified. The best way to do that is to empower the Lead Pastor with information and allow him to be the primary spokesman for virtually every issue.

In our Board meetings, I rarely speak, unless I am asked a question.  It's not that I have nothing to say, it's that I've already said it to the Pastor before the meeting ever happened.  The issues that are before the Board are things the Lead Pastor and I have discussed beforehand.  We've solidified our position and considered the spectrum of questions that could be asked.  The Lead Pastor is prepared and ready to present the issue and field the questions.  In the event a question is asked that the Lead Pastor isn't prepared for, he will defer to me, but our meetings to prep for the Board usually make that situation rare.

Therefore the Lead Pastor knows everything I know, and I take a back seat and watch him lead, which he does with great skill.  The Board needs to see the staff as the managers of the church, while they handle policy and accountability that supports the organization.  Whenever there are multiple streams of management ideas coming from the staff to the Board, the Board will feel the need to get involved in managing.  That's not healthy.

Agree?  Disagree?  Share your comments.

Have a great weekend!

don't lose your identity

I’ve recently been studying the life of Samson. Ever really consider Samson’s life? Wow, what a guy! It’s an intriguing story. Samson was born with incredible promise, yet dies bound, blind, and mocked.

…it’s a humorous story at times – tying 300 fox tails together with torches and letting them run through the dry field burning the Philistine crops. I know I’m probably not supposed to find that humorous, but somehow that seems like a funny sight.

…and it’s almost unbelievable at times. Samson’s strength allowed him to do things we could only read about in a super-hero comic book. I mean, how do you defeat 1,000 enemy soldiers with only the jawbone of a donkey in your hand? …except for the fact that it’s in the Bible and for a 1,000 reasons, we choose to believe the Bible is God’s inspired and inerrant Word. Yes, I’m an evangelical.

As in any good story, there are interesting subplots to uncover and explore. That’s what intrigued me as I studied. In several posts over the next few weeks, I’ll share a few of those subplots with you that are below the surface in the story of Samson.

The first is Samson’s identity. Samson had three great things going for him (Judges 13:1-12) that should have given him an unshakable identity:

His calling. His birth was foretold by the Angel of the Lord: a preincarnate appearance of Christ (Isa. 9:6). Samson would be called, set apart to God, from the very womb, to be a Nazarite, which meant that for a limited time (except in Samson’s case) he would observe three restrictions: 1) abstain from wine or any fermented drink, including any product made from the vine; 2) he must not come into contact with a corpse or dead body of any kind; 3) he or she must not cut their hair for the duration of the entire vow, because the long hair is the outward symbol of the inner consecration to God.

His parents. There’s every indication that Samson’s parents were godly, discerning and sensitive to God’s voice, in sharp contrast to the Israelites you read about in much of the book of Judges. They were people who were anxious to follow God’s instructions to the letter—as they demonstrated when they wanted the Lord to tell them explicitly how Samson should be raised. They would take great care in instructing Samson as he was growing up exactly what it meant to be a Nazarite, why he couldn’t drink grape juice or go near a funeral procession, or cut his hair. Manoah and his wife quickly believed the Lord’s words, as they asked exactly to whom they could direct their honor when this prophecy was completely fulfilled. They already had their eye on the outcome.

His blessing. God showed Samson incredible favor and he had every advantage as a child. Samson experienced the power of God’s Spirit as a young man—very early on the text says “the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him.” That word for stir means to disturb, to trouble… it’s an intense word…so the presence of God’s Spirit was undeniable on Samson. “He grew and the Lord blessed him.” There was a general sense of God’s favor on Samson’s life, very similar to Luke’s words describing John the Baptist and the child Jesus. Yet, Samson lost his way. He forgot who he was. As you read rest of the story, you can’t help feel that Samson let go of his identity: the identity he had being called by God from birth, the identity he had through godly parents, and the identity he had as someone uniquely blessed by God.

What’s your identity? What are the things that help to define you as a person?

• Do you find your identity in God’s calling on your life? Read Eph. 1:11.
• Do you find your identity in the people God has placed around you? I.e. your spouse, your coworkers, your Senior Pastor, your children? God places these people in our lives, not to make us happy, although that’s true, but to make us holy. These special people in our lives help anchor us—make us who we are—become part of our identity.
• Do you find your identity through those things God has done in your life to bless you, care for you, and provide for you? Yes, even when you work in the church, you can lose your way-- you can forget who you are.

What is it that anchors you?  Share your thoughts with other church executives...