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If you’re feeling overwhelmed and underequipped as a church leader, you’re not alone. With the influence of social media, changing cultural dynamics, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, today’s pastors face unique challenges. According to recent studies, today’s pastors are struggling with everything from time management to trusting God. Lifeway Research spoke with more than 1,000 pastors about their greatest needs; five were most commonly mentioned:
At RightNow Media, our core value is “The mission of the church matters.” We are here to pray for, equip, and encourage church leaders in their ministry because healthy leaders are crucial to building healthy churches.
As a busy pastor, it can be hard to find time to equip your leaders and volunteers. While digital training can’t replace in-person experiences, it is an effective tool to develop your leaders outside of face-to-face trainings. RightNow Media has a library full of Interactive Training Content you can assign to your leaders to complete when it's convenient for them. Or, click here to learn how you can create your own Interactive Content.
The following blog post will help you learn about some of the fears and doubts your leaders and volunteers may be experiencing. You can share this article with your team to encourage them!
Jesus clearly calls us to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19–20). But outreach ministry can take a backseat when we feel too busy with what’s going on inside the walls of our church.
Even if you don’t have a designated external outreach ministry, you can still foster connections with unchurched people. Read this blog post for practical ways you can begin to bridge the gap between your congregation and the unchurched.
We all want our churches to thrive, but many of our congregations struggle with attendance, recruiting volunteers, and keeping members engaged. There may be moments when you feel like one of the only people committed to the mission of your church. But no matter how you feel, God’s promises are true and he promises to never leave you or abandon you (Deuteronomy 31:6).
Read this blog post for an encouraging word on staying committed to the church even when you sense apathy in your congregation.
With the many responsibilities of shepherding others, pastors can unintentionally put their personal relationship with God on the backburner. In our desire to be self-sufficient, we often forget that we have a Father who hears our prayers and loves when we talk to him.
Reignite your passion for prayer with this practical blog post all about the gift of talking with your heavenly Father.
While church leaders often preach the need for Christian community, the perceived safety and comfort of isolation can tempt tired pastors. While it can be difficult to find people who understand the unique weight of spiritual leadership, community is worth pursuing for pastors in every stage of their ministry.
Set aside a few moments for self-reflection and to answer the questions in this blog post written specifically to pastors. Then, consider the opportunities in your life to connect with other church leaders.
It’s a challenging time to be a pastor, but current circumstances don’t nullify God’s promises. Listen to what God says through the prophet Isaiah:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and the rivers will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, and the flame will not burn you. (Isaiah 43:1–2)
No matter what difficulties you face as a church leader, God’s love for you is unwavering. His plans for you are good. His divine power has given you everything you need for a godly life (2 Peter 1:3).
If you’re a decision-maker at your organization, request a free consultation to find out how RightNow Media can equip and inspire your people.
Not a decision-maker?
Tell your pastor about RightNow Media instead.
I’d spent my whole life in stage-of-life groups with people like me—guys with similar interests and struggles. Those groups made connecting with other Christians easy, but this new group was a challenge. I felt I had little in common with the retired empty-nesters and college students in my living room. I struggled to ignore the chaos of the toddlers playing on the floor. And I had no clue how to counsel married couples.
The people in my small group watched movies I’d never heard of, inhabited various corners of social media, held opposing political views, and even had different ideas on how to live the Christian life. How was I going to lead this group, much less help them build friendships with each other across their diversity?
I was facing the big challenge of multigenerational groups: connection. Because we gravitate to people like us, diversity can feel uncomfortable. But if we stick with the tension of getting outside of our bubble, we can find the richness of the body of Christ in all of our unique gifts, experiences, and wisdom.
Every group is different, and leaders can try many strategies to help their group form good, lasting relationships. But, as the leader, you need a strategy to help people overcome feeling disconnected from other group members.
Leading a healthy small group is like gardening: we can prepare the soil and water the seeds but only God can make the seeds sprout and grow. You can’t force friendships, but you can create a place for them to grow.
Think about the times you have felt most welcome in someone else’s home—what did they do that made you feel comfortable and appreciated? You don’t have to throw a dinner party; sometimes people just need to be asked about their day. Find the person standing on their own and strike up a conversation with him or her. Or if there is a young mother in your group, think about setting aside a space for her infant to sleep or nurse. A little consideration can make everyone who visits your group to feel valued.
The people in your group have a wealth of experiences and wisdom—far beyond what you as a leader have on your own. Instead of worrying about what you need to teach, think about the questions you can ask the people in your group. What do you want to know about them? What insights do they have that would bless the rest of your group? What have they learned about God and his faithfulness
If you have a hard time thinking of good questions, that’s okay! Most RightNow Media Original series come with free study guides full of great questions so that you can worry less about preparing lessons and focus more on the people in your group.
Everyone is busy, and it can feel like a struggle to make it to small group every week. But if you want your members to share their lives with each other, you will need to spend time together outside of your small group meeting. Don’t make it too complicated—you could get coffee with one person in your group each week or coordinate group lunch after church on Sunday. The more casual interactions you have with people in your group, the faster you will build meaningful relationships with them.
Every church has different goals for their small groups, but we all share the same mission: to make disciples and build God’s kingdom on earth. And nothing brings a group together like working as a team. Talk to your group about the causes and groups of people God has called them to serve. What need can your group meet? If your group has little kids, consider partnering with a local non-profit that can be flexible in the way you serve and are open to family friendly projects. Or find a place to serve as a group in your local church—if you get stuck, ask your pastor or other group leaders for ideas.
No one wants the relationships in their group to remain shallow. Getting together week after week to talk about news, sports, or the weather is, quite frankly, boring. We want our groups to be hubs of deep community marked by friendships, support, guidance, prayer, and evangelism. But meaningful friendships don’t happen overnight. It can take months (or longer) for a group to feel like a community. Don’t get discouraged when relationships don’t progress as quickly as you would like. In time, God will weave people together in ways you had not imagined. Don’t give up.
The first few months of your small group will be the most challenging as people push through awkwardness and build friendships with one another. In my group, some of the most unexpected people—people who did not immediately click with one another—ended up best friends and were in each other’s weddings. They’ve built families alongside one another, leaning on each other’s wisdom and support.
As we unpack our nativity scenes from eleven months of storage, placing Mary next to the manger is as normal as singing Christmas carols or watching Buddy the Elf eat gum off the subway railing.
For many of us, though, Mary never leaves the manger’s side. She goes back in storage with the wise men and reappears next year. While Mary serves the miraculous and cosmic role of birthing the Messiah, she is also a faithful witness of what it looks like to model Christ’s action of mediating between God and humanity—telling others what God is like and bringing him their concerns.
You may be thinking, “Wait, isn’t Jesus the only one who mediates between God and humanity?” And that instinct would be right. I’m not talking about mediating salvation between God and people—that’s something that only Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection has accomplished. What I am saying is that, like the prophets in the Old Testament standing as a go-between by proclaiming God’s message to the people and representing the people’s requests to God, Mary shows us how to occupy the space between God and the world as a light that points people to God.
Before traveling to Bethlehem for Jesus’s birth, Mary visited her cousin, Elizabeth, who was also miraculously pregnant. Elizabeth recognized Mary’s unique role as the “mother of [her] Lord” (Luke 1:43) and pointed toward Mary’s faith that God would “fulfill what he has spoken to her” (Luke 1:45).
In response, Mary launched into her famous speech magnifying God’s character—the Magnificat. These ten verses are more than Mary simply responding to her situation with gratitude. Mary shares God’s words not only with Elizabeth but also with us as readers thousands of years later.
Many commentators say Mary’s speech falls in the genre of prophecy. In essence, a prophet served as a mediator between God and people to provide the people with revelation of who God is. Mary comments on her own “humble condition” (Luke 1:48) and how God exalts the “lowly” (Luke 1:52), like herself. By describing herself in these terms, Mary speaks to those who may similarly feel overlooked or unimportant—much like how the people of Israel likely felt at the time of Jesus’s birth. Mary says that God has “helped his servant Israel, remembering his mercy to Abraham and his descendants forever” (Luke 1:54–55) with Jesus’s birth announcement, reminding God’s people that he cares and acts on their behalf.
Through her speech, Mary stepped into the space between God and his people by proclaiming the good news that God’s “mercy is from generation to generation” (Luke 1:50) and that “he has scattered the proud . . . [and] toppled the mighty from their thrones” (Luke 1:51–52). She reminds us that God “has satisfied the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:53). Her song reads like many of the psalms in the Old Testament that proclaim the character of God to people in desperate need.
Mary models how we should be little mediators of God’s presence on earth—declaring his good news to people who need to hear it.
The beginning of Jesus’s public ministry provides a stage for Mary to stand as a type of mediator outside of the Christmas story. Before Jesus began teaching and demonstrating his identity as Israel’s Messiah, he and his disciples were invited to a wedding Mary also attended. As John writes in John 2:1–12, the wine for the wedding in Cana ran out and presented the host family with a problem.
Running out of wine at a celebration in Ancient Near Eastern culture was a social faux pas that would have brought enormous shame on the host family. Seeing this risk and interceding on behalf of the wedding party, Mary went to Jesus with a request without a question, “They don’t have any wine” (John 2:3).
Not only did Mary initiate stepping in as an in-between for the wedding party, but she also went straight to the person she knew could act, revealing her faith. She saw a need and entrusted it to the person who could meet that need.
While Jesus’s response appears harsh (his calling Mary “woman” isn’t derogatory or dismissive as he uses the same word when speaking tenderly to her on the cross in John 19:26), Jesus explained that he was hesitant because he had not begun to reveal his identity as Messiah—which Mary presumably knew—to everyone.
Instead of feeling rejected, Mary reaffirmed her faith in her son by telling the servants to do whatever Jesus told them to do. Jesus may have chosen not to act and told the servants to stand by, but Mary accepted that possibility and left the decision in Jesus’s capable hands. In doing so, she communicated an important truth not only for the servants at the wedding but also for us reading the passage today—obey God regardless of what he calls you to do. Mary advocated for people who had nowhere else to go and instructed them on how they should respond to God’s command—much like how the church operates in the world today.
Maybe it is appropriate that we think of Mary most often during the Christmas season. Christmas often calls us to act in mediatory ways.
This may be someone’s first Christmas alone, and they need to hear from you that God sees them. Perhaps this Christmas someone received bad news and needs you to advocate for them on your knees in prayer. By imitating Mary as she imitates Christ, we can be God’s ambassadors, channeling his overpowering love for them.
There’s always someone to meet with, church bathrooms to clean, a small group curriculum to plan, volunteers to train, or a sermon to write. And while all of these are good and necessary tasks in ministry, the constant pressure to do more can drive church leaders to exhaustion.
In my early ministry, I served a church plant and worked in a coffee shop to help pay my bills. The grind of building a church from the ground up while working a second job became so normal that I couldn’t even recognize how exhausted I was. Luckily, my lead pastor was a good friend who saw that I was skating near the edge of burnout. He forced me to take a sabbatical to rest. Yes, forced. I didn’t think I could leave all my pressing work undone and, in some ways, I didn’t want to.
I don’t think my experience is unusual. Far too often, pastors don’t rest because they don’t think they can. We preach about rhythms of rest and practicing the sabbath to our congregations while silently feeling like that blessing is off-limits for us. And so, we slowly march closer and closer to burnout where the quiet contemplation we typically find in rest morphs into a dire questioning of our calling. Instead of prayerfully considering what God might have for our next ten years of ministry, we secretly wonder if we should leave ministry all together.
According to Barna research, at least one in three Protestant pastors has seriously contemplated leaving ministry in the last three years. 1 More than half say they do not have the luxury of a private life.2 Less than a quarter of pastors would describe their relationships as flourishing, and less than one out of five pastors would say they are personally flourishing.3 Pastors are struggling, exhausted, and ready to leave the pulpit for a healthier lifestyle.
Between our unique cultural moment and the pressure of ministry leadership, we need to prioritize sabbaticals—extended periods of rest to spend time with God, to contemplate where he might be leading our ministry, to study, and to connect with our families and friends.
There is no singular right way for a church to practice sabbaticals, but every church should care for their leaders by offering, even mandating, that pastors take them. If you do not currently have sabbaticals in your church or are considering how you might update your current rhythm of pastoral rest, here are some parameters to consider:
It isn’t easy to slow down, especially when a lot of us are used to running on coffee and the adrenaline of immanent church deadlines. Having nothing to plan, no fires to put out, and no meetings to run can leave us feeling bored or useless. The temptation is to fill our schedule with home repair, travel, or family events. But don’t miss the unique opportunity to rest both passively and actively.
Passive rest—sleep—is essential for recovering and lowering our cortisol (the stress chemical) levels. During a sabbatical, you can not only catch up on sleep, but set a healthy sleep schedule. When you’re tired, take a nap. You need it.
Active rest is participating in hobbies, attending events, or visiting places that bring you joy. Your sabbatical gives you the space to participate in those things that always get bumped off your schedule. Make them a priority for both you and your family.
God desires a relationship with you just as much as he does with the people you preach to on Sunday mornings. Your sabbatical gives you the space to pray, read Scripture, and walk with God without any agenda. During this time, you don’t have to be a “pastor”—you are a disciple.
It is a special blessing to worship in a service that you did not plan and are not responsible for when you are used to working on Sundays. Consider attending sister churches during your sabbatical where you can worship without having to shepherd someone. If you choose to attend a different church, let your congregation know why and reach out to the pastor at the church where you will attend. Clear communication will help your church know why you are not around on Sundays and help the visiting church best serve you and your family during your sabbatical.
Like Jesus withdrawing to pray and Elijah retreating to the mountain, your time away from ministry is an opportunity to hear from God. Define a purpose for your sabbatical. God may give you a new vision for your ministry, direction for your church, or call you to start something new. Take time to intentionally listen to God about your leadership, teaching, family, your church’s direction and vision, and the way you approach ministry. You may come back from your time both rested and changed.
If a sabbatical is not on your immediate horizon, you don’t have to wait to find a healthy rhythm of work and rest. A sabbatical can give you time away from work, but if you do not correct the root issue of your burnout, you will continue to risk your longevity in ministry. Some simple practices could be creating a rule of life, practicing and protecting a sabbath day, setting a sleep schedule, or delegating tasks to others.
God loves you, pastor. You can rest, both in seasons of work and on sabbaticals.
1 BarnaGroup, The State of Pastors Vol. 2 (Ventura, CA: Barna Group, 2024), 18.
2 BarnaGroup, The State of Pastors Vol. 2, 27.
3 Barna Group, The State of Pastors Vol. 2, 33.
It’s a trite but true saying, one we would follow closely with God’s warning in Genesis 2:18, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” As church leaders, we know all about the need for Christian community. We preach it, write about it, can cite all the verses imploring and commanding Christians to engage in it . . . but few of us can escape the magnetic pull of isolation. No one is an island, but the calling to ministry often seems like a call to living alone.
Even when surrounded by staff, volunteers, and faithful church members, leaders can feel isolated. Our people don’t understand the weight of spiritual leadership. Our work is often minimized to “just getting coffee with people all day.” In addition, we have unique internal struggles that we don’t know how to deal with. We encourage people through their doubts, but don’t know where to turn with our own. We prepare sermons or lessons on confession and repentance while fearing that if we practiced what we preach, we would lose our jobs. And so, we hide, couch the truth behind Christian platitudes, and pretend to have it all together when the seams of our lives are tearing.
For a church leader, isolation can feel like the only way to make it when simply trying to stay afloat has led us to feel misunderstood, unappreciated, and unable to be ourselves. It may not be good, but it seems easier to be alone.
Let me tell you something you already know: the reason you are remaining in isolation—no matter your circumstance—is a demonic lie. Isolation will encourage your secret sins to grow, fertilize the roots of your pride, and hasten inevitable emotional and/or physical burnout. It may feel safe, but isolation will destroy you and your ministry.
Yes, you are in a unique position both professionally and spiritually, but the normal rules of Christian life apply to you in the exact same ways that they do to the people in the pews. More than that, God’s grace and love are equally available to you as they are to the greatest sinner in your Sunday service.
1. You need confession and repentance. Read James 5:13–16. What fears or concerns do you have with confessing and repenting of your sin within your church? What could you gain from turning away from your hidden sin?
2. You do not need to hide your flaws. Read 2 Corinthians 11:28–30 and 12:6–10. What strengths are you tempted to hide behind? What would it look like for you to “boast in your weakness”?
3. You need friends both in and outside of your church. Read Hebrews 3:12–13. In what ways does isolation encourage your sin? Who in and outside of your church could you meet with for regular encouragement and accountability?
You do not have to lead alone. There are countless opportunities for you to connect with other church leaders just like you.
1. Join thousands of pastors, church staff, and group leaders for RightNow Conference.
2. Connect with other pastors who use RightNow Media through the Church Leaders Facebook group. Discover weekly bonus content, best practices, and conversations with others in ministry.
3. Explore the Pastors library—it has great content for pastors and church leaders. Go through a study with other leaders or your staff to grow in Christ together.
The barriers keeping you from being fully known may feel insurmountable, but God is calling you into something far greater than your isolation could ever offer. Ministry can be a burden, but it is never meant to be carried alone. In Christ, you can look at your community and echo the words of David in Psalm 133:1, “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!”
Maybe your schedule loosens with the close of the school year, or you find yourself stressing out for what should be fun vacations. Whether summer brings deeper rest or unrest, the change in season invites us to consider engaging—or re-engaging—in spiritual practices.
Spiritual practices—also known as spiritual disciplines—mark the lives of followers of Jesus and sustain our relationship with God. Just as regular phone calls or eating dinner with loved ones build our relationship with them, spiritual disciplines strengthen our relationship with God.
Regardless of where you find yourself—stressed or relaxed—here are four spiritual practices to aid your relationship with God this summer:
Writing on prayer in Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster said, “Of all the spiritual disciplines, prayer is the most central because it ushers us into perpetual communion with the Father.” Prayer is how we talk with God. We see Jesus model prayer for us in the gospels (Luke 11:1–4) and are directed to continually pray by the apostle Paul (1 Thess. 5:17). Without prayer—much like without consistent communication with a friend or loved one—our relationship with God is distant and apathetic.
Prayer encompasses many postures: praise—expressing joy to God; thanksgiving—showing gratitude for God’s gifts and provision; confession—acknowledging our sin before God; lament—bringing our grief to God; and petition/intercession—asking God for forgiveness or to act on someone else’s behalf.
Exercise: Fixed Hour Prayer
Early Christians prayed at specific times of day to establish a rhythm of talking to God. Set a time to pray each day through the rest of the summer.
For more on prayer, visit The Prayer Practice by Practicing the Way in the RightNow Media library.
Keeping the sabbath might be the most disruptive spiritual practice in our modern age. In the Old Testament, the sabbath was the day set aside for all people to stop working and worship God. To be part of the people of God back then meant you practiced sabbath. Now, followers of Jesus are not obligated to keep the sabbath (Col. 2:16), but the principle of following God’s model of rest in Genesis 2:1–3 is woven into the very fabric of creation. Regularly practicing worshipful rest can be good for you even if it’s not required of you.
Because we live in a fast-paced, achievement-oriented culture, purposefully withdrawing from all work—not just our employment—for a set time to stop, rest, delight, and worship may be exactly what your soul longs for this summer.
Exercise: Mini-Sabbath
Setting aside an entire day to rest and enjoy God may be intimidating. Start with a small amount of time—a weekday afternoon or a Saturday morning—where you remove distractions and engage in activities that deepen your joy in God and relationships with others.
For more on the sabbath, visit The Sabbath Practice by Practicing the Way in the RightNow Media library.
In Matthew 6, Jesus assumes his followers will fast when he warns us about practicing our “righteousness in front of others” (v. 1) when we give to the poor (vv. 2–4), when we pray (vv. 5–15), and when we fast (vv. 16–18).
At its core, fasting is choosing to go without something you want or need to make room for something you want or need even more. Perhaps you choose to go without food to make room in your heart to hear God or to give the money or food you would have used to sustain your own body to sustain someone else.
Exercise: Fast with a Friend
Fasting has the potential for good, but also misuse. Because of the dangers of treating fasting like dieting or taking your heart to an unhealthy place with food, ask someone you trust if fasting is a good spiritual discipline for you to try. If they agree, invite them to walk with you as you start this practice. Consider skipping lunch once a week and spending the time you would have been eating to pray with your friend.
For more on fasting, watch The Fasting Practice by Practicing the Way in the RightNow Media library.
Solitude can be refreshing for some and a struggle for others. But Jesus demonstrated the need to spend time alone throughout his life—withdrawing to the desert to start his ministry (Matt. 4:1), retreating after a busy day of ministering (Mark 1:35), and before making monumental decisions (Luke 6:12–16). Just as Jesus needed space to hear from the Father, we need solitude to turn down the noise of our busy lives and focus on God. It may sound counter-intuitive, but the goal of solitude is not to be alone—rather solitude frees us from noise to be with God.
Exercise: Find Your Place
While we can make space to be alone with God anywhere, it can be helpful to have a designated space to retreat and sit with God. It doesn’t have to be anywhere fancy—maybe it’s your back porch, your kitchen table, or at a local park. The goal is to go to this place consistently and avoid distractions to focus your attention on God. Determine where that place is and use it for holy solitude this summer.
For more on the practice of solitude, check out The Solitude Practice by Practicing the Way in the RightNow Media library.
Have you ever found yourself leaving a Sunday worship service saying to yourself, “The worship was great—I can’t wait for next week”? Or maybe you've had the opposite reaction: “I love this church, but the worship was not my favorite . . .” No matter which situation you have found yourself in, we can all admit that we sometimes equate worship with the music we sing on a Sunday morning.
Our perspective of worship is often limited to what we experience at church. But Scripture is clear about what worship is—it extends much deeper than the songs that we sing. Worship is an intimate expression of gratitude for the mercies of God that he’s given to his people. And singing is just one aspect of how we worship. True worship happens when we live a life of sacrifice—when we worship as a lifestyle.
Paul had a strong grasp of what it meant to worship when he wrote to the Roman church. In Romans 12 Paul writes,
“Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship.”
Paul appealed to the church in Rome with the truth that worship is meant to be a sacrificial offering to God. What do we sacrifice? We sacrifice our lives to God. Sacrificing time by setting aside moments to reach out to those we care about is an expression of worship. Worship is sacrificing our money by giving consistently to the local church or covering a friend’s bill. It’s also offering our gifts and talents to help others. We’re called to live a lifestyle of worship—not setting apart portions of our week for worship but instead living in a constant state of worship knowing that every moment can be an act of service to God.
So, what does it look like to worship with our lives?
First, we worship in Spirit and in truth. In John 4:23, Jesus spoke with a Samaritan woman who would become the first evangelist of Jesus’s ministry. In this passage, John records Jesus’s words as he taught the woman how we worship. Jesus said,
“But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”
Worshiping in Spirit and truth means we are led by the Spirit and grounded in the truth of Scripture. We need the Spirit—he moves in us, teaching us to worship, maturing us, and rooting us in truth. Sacrificial worship begins with our relationship with the Spirit. But how, exactly, does he help us to worship? In Romans 12:2, Paul says,
“Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind . . .”
Worship begins with internal transformation. Renewal of the mind does not come from self-improvement or the next great self-help podcast. The Holy Spirit is the one who changes us. By his power, we experience transformation in our minds, our desires, and our actions. We worship in Spirit and truth by surrendering to the Holy Spirit and allowing him to work in our hearts. When we do so, we allow him to change us, enabling us to offer ourselves completely to God.
Second, our worship is to be holy, or set apart. Paul is not calling us to worship perfectly but rather to offer holistic worship. As Jesus’s followers, how we serve, how we give, how we love—they’re all expressions of our worship.
We can often get distracted by the ways of the world and lose sight of where we orient our worship. One example is how our minds are often slaves to any form of stimulation or entertainment. We can spend countless hours streaming Netflix or scrolling through our smartphones and, before we know it, we’ve devoted half our day to mindless consumption. But Paul reminds us that in our worship we should “not be conformed to this age.” Our devotion to God should be all-encompassing, which means we cannot let sin run rampant in our lives. Instead, we should live in a way that shows our lives belong to God.
Finally, our worship is to be pleasing to God. He wants us to offer our joys, struggles, successes, and hardships to him. We please him as we move away from self-centeredness toward God-centered lives. As we do so, we begin to see that his ways are much greater than ours. Our desires and aspirations begin to align with his. Paul comments on this transformation in Romans 12:2 by saying,
“. . . so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”
Paul says when we have a lifestyle of worship, we align with the Holy Spirit, and we know and delight in the will of God. Worship connects us to our creator; it changes us and makes us more like Christ.
So, how do we worship as a lifestyle? We live a life of sacrifice. We devote every day to God. We worship in Spirit and in truth in a manner that is holy and pleasing to God. The music we sing moves us and allows us to express praise in a unique and creative way. But music isn’t the main avenue of worship—our lives are the ultimate vehicle of worship to our savior. How do you worship? How are you devoting your life in surrender to God?
Living out our worship begins with a biblical understanding of worship. Gather your family and tune into Worship in the Word. Sing along with Christian artists Shane & Shane as they share ten beautiful, simple songs drawn directly from Scripture, providing a biblical and captivating worship experience.
In the early days, it can be thrilling to plant a church. There is so much potential, so much hope. We want to do everything we can to make our churches succeed. However, we often equate growth with success, and while we know that God is the one who builds the church, we may still feel an urgent need to manufacture momentum.
We want our churches to “get big” as quickly as possible, and for good reasons. Size creates financial stability, multiplies our impact, and lets pastors delegate responsibilities to gifted leaders. So why wouldn’t we want rapid growth and good momentum? Momentum creates excitement. Momentum turns congregations into movements. Momentum is what turns small house church planters into recognizable pastors with influence and acclaim.
But momentum can also be a poisoned chalice.
While we rush to brainstorm growth strategies, we don’t often stop to consider the costs or pitfalls of growth. Church planting is demanding work, and we can assume that once we hit one hundred, five hundred, or a thousand members then things will calm down. Only too late do we realize that the work never slows down without us intentionally hitting the brakes.
We don’t have to look far to find friends or famous pastors who have burnt out and are no longer in ministry. We can all name fellow leaders who became enamored with church size or rooted their identity in their sermon views. Those stories don’t end well.
There are good and righteous reasons for a church to grow, but when growth is our goal, God can cease to be our aim. Is growth worth the potential cost? Would you drink that cup even if it sapped the vibrancy out of your relationship with God, your family, or your church community?
For many of us, the answer would be “no.” But how can we avoid the allure and dangers of momentum?
In Hebrews 11:32–38, we find an odd pairing of saints. The first group “conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the raging of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, gained strength in weakness, became mighty in battle, and put foreign armies to flight” (CSB). The second group of saints was tortured, destitute, and misunderstood. Which group would you say was successful? According to the author of Hebrews, the answer is both. Saints are not judged by their circumstances or fates, but by their faithfulness.
Your value as a church planter is not found in your church’s size, but in being loved by God.
Your identity is not found in being a best-selling author, popular podcaster, or leadership guru, but in who God says you are. Your purpose is not to build God’s church, but to faithfully make disciples.
When faithfulness is our goal, the pressures of rapid growth look like nothing more than glittering distractions. Sermons are an opportunity to faithfully proclaim Jesus, not a platform for our personality. Leadership becomes an opportunity to serve rather than to domineer and lord over our staff and volunteers. The people in our church become our focus rather than the empty seats.
Your church’s size plays no role in your ability to be faithful.
Therefore, your church size cannot be an indicator of your success. If God does not judge your church by its appearance, why would we?
Being obedient to God will lead each of us to different outcomes. Some churches may launch with hundreds of people, while others never grow beyond a small group meeting in a living room. Both can be faithful, successful churches. God is the one who changes hearts and saves lives. He builds his church. We are servants in his house—there is no reason for us to manufacture what only he can do.
Sure, we know we’re supposed to grow as Christians and help others do the same, but spiritual growth often feels nebulous. And as church leaders, we often feel like we’ve tried every plan, Bible study, and small group to help people grow, and we wonder if anyone is actually changing.
Discipleship might not be as step-by-step as an instruction manual or as simple as directions on a map. But we do know what a disciple looks like, how disciples act and think, and what disciples create because we know Jesus. He’s our example who clarifies discipleship for us, and as his followers we seek to grow to be more like him.
On November 1–3, pastors and church leaders will gather in Dallas, TX to explore what it means to grow in Christ. As we hear from speakers like David Platt, Jennie Allen, Eric Mason, and more, we'll focus our gaze on Jesus who shows us how to be his disciples.
The gospel is clear: we were once far from God but now we belong to him. And he’s with us always through the Spirit, teaching us to be more like Jesus. As his disciples, we cling to Jesus and his gospel, trusting the Spirit to help us grow (John 13:35; Acts 1:8).
Jesus saves us into a family—the church. We grow the most when we are with other Christians. We teach each other, worship God together, and encourage each other to keep going. As Jesus’s disciples, we help each other grow (1 Cor 12:12–13; Heb 10:24–25).
Jesus commanded his followers to make disciples, and his command applies to us. Making disciples involves sharing the gospel, living in community with other Christians, and pointing others to Jesus. As Jesus’s disciples, we help other people grow (Matt 28:19–20).
As church leaders, we seek to cultivate a church that helps people become more like Jesus, encourages the community to embody his love, and launches believers to share the gospel in word and deed. Our goal is what Paul declared in Colossians 1:28 (NIV): “He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.”
Ministry leaders want their ministries to develop mature disciples, but how do we know if our methods are working? During RightNow Conference 2023, we asked Lisa Harper, Matt Chandler, and David Platt their thoughts on measuring the effectiveness of a church’s discipleship efforts. All three agree that measuring spiritual maturity is a difficult but important factor to keep track of in your church.
Boy, you've got to watch me on this one, because I hate analytics. Because if you’re not careful, it becomes perfunctory. It becomes performative. It becomes transactional. I think the best way to measure [is], “Is your personal relationship and authenticity with one another actually driving you further into the embrace of Jesus Christ?” That’s hard to measure on a graph; it’s much easier to measure in the context of relationship. Do you want to keep meeting together? Has the realness of that relationship become such an anchor in your life that you wish it was more than once a week because it’s actually become an extension of your family or the family you wish you had?
If you’re talking about normal numerics, I think it’s really hard for a local church to do that. I think that what I’m looking for at The Village Church—which is the church that I pastor—if you stumble and fall and get up and repent and run to Jesus, I think we’ve done a really good job of “gospeling.” This is a person who really has grown and matured in their faith; they’re able to endure with joy and gladness. What I was taught when I was a younger pastor is: “Are they giving?”, “Are they attending?”, “Are they in your programs?” But I think they can be in programs and not mature. Is what we are doing working in regard to their understanding of who God is and the ability the believer has to be in his presence, to be comforted by him and shaped by him regardless of life’s circumstances?
There are so many potential pitfalls there, because if we don’t have the right measurements in place, we’ll end up doing a whole lot of things Jesus hasn’t told us to do. I think of Galatians 4:19 when I think of measuring discipleship: “I labor to see Christ formed in you.” Are the people that I’m pouring my life into looking more like Jesus? And not just those people, but other people, as a result of those people’s lives, are they looking more like Jesus? I want to labor toward that end. So, I would just encourage you, more than numbers—more than a lot of different things we would think of when it comes to measuring success—look for Christlikeness in the people of the church and in people being reached through the church who are becoming more like Jesus.
The way you define the term may be different from the way others understand it, but if we desire to be good disciples or give our lives to making disciples, we need to know what we mean when we use the term. We asked some of our plenary speakers from our 2023 RightNow Conference Grow: Making Healthy Disciples to share how they define discipleship.
“So when I define discipleship—of course, we know of the verse about it in Matthew 28 and other verses—but I define discipleship as being in a lifelong apprenticeship to Jesus Christ, in which he takes you not only from spiritual death to spiritual life but from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity in gospel community.”
“According to Paul in Ephesians 3, discipleship is the Holy Spirit working in our inner being, Christ dwelling in our heart through faith. The idea of dwelling is this pervasive presence of Jesus not as a guest but as a host, as a resident in our heart to our every thought of our mind and desire of our heart, every day of the week and time of the week, that he is fully reigning and ruling as king. As he dwells pervasively in our hearts, we are formed into the image and likeness of Jesus. Just as he walked, we walk.”
“All too often discipleship becomes transactional. It becomes, ‘I am going to have someone who is younger than me in the Lord and we’re going to spend exactly ninety minutes together every Tuesday at this particular coffee shop, and I'm going through this Bible study.’ Well, that feels more dutiful, almost like studying a proposition instead of engaging with a person. God has called us to be a family, a community of ‘one anothers,’ so it has to be relational. There has to be compassion involved because if you're discipling and someone is probably making the same mistakes you made 10 years ago, you need grace for that. Then there has to be time to have some face-to-face, eye-to-eye, where you take off your dadgum Apple watch and make eye contact.”
“You have to remember that the ultimate goal is that, when a disciple has been discipled, they are making disciples. Are they on mission? Are they giving away what you've given to them? If you have a stagnant pool of people where you are pouring, and pouring, and pouring in, and no one is pouring out, that is not the way of Jesus. I don't know what that is, but it is not the way of Jesus. So it should be a constant sense that new believers are coming in, that baptisms are happening, that people are regularly encountering Jesus. Why? If they truly are being discipled and they are knowing Jesus more, then they are called. Their next step of obedience and discipleship is that they’re discipling somebody else.”
Though our definitions of “discipleship” may vary, the essence of all the answers focus on being attached to Jesus. A disciple is someone who knows Jesus personally, is committed to obeying him, becoming more like him in character, and equipping others to know and follow him as well. That is God’s call to all of us.
