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Growing beyond the tithe

6 December 2010 blogpastor Leave a comment

Growing in prayer

We talk about growing and discipleship in many aspects of Christian growth. For instance, we talk about growing in prayer. A new believer is taught that prayer is talking to God, and he is taught how to bring his needs and requests before God. Then he learns that prayer is not meant to be a mere personal shopping list. He should also intercede and pray for others. Later he learns how to pray in a group and that required him to observe how others pray in a group and he stumbles and then perfects that. Later he learns that prayer is two-way, and that he needs to listen to God too. He learns the prayer of faith and on it goes. He keeps learning and progressing and advancing.

Growing in the Word

We also talk to new believers about the Bible. He first learn its black in colour with lots of “books” with strange names inside. He distinguishes between Old Testament and New, and soon prefers the new. He learns what are gospels and epistles and the difficult to understand Revelation. He is taught to read. He goes beyond reading to memorizing and meditating. Then he is introduced to Bible study. His knowledge of the Bible and how to understand, believe and apply it increases. He senses there is progression, movement. Even as he admits to being stuck somewhere, he presses on to grow in understanding and faith.

Growing in giving?

When it comes to giving, we hardly help new believers to grow in it. Is it too embarrassing to talk about? We let the pastor do it at the Christian living course or the Sunday sermon when funds is being raised. He is taught to give the tithe or whatever the church believes in; why he is to give offerings and how it is part of worship; how he will benefit and the church and the world will benefit. However we do not encourage a growth, a progression and movement in giving. Many believers are stuck in a rut: they are giving inconsistently, or not giving at all, or meandering at the tithe. They give their tithes regularly and routinely for the last decade and have remained in that status quo. Their expenses have increased. Their standard of living has increased. They have progressed in other areas of discipleship: in prayer, in faith in the Word, in witness, in discipling others, but somehow their giving pattern has not changed one iota except the amount increasing to reflect the increments in his earnings.

Aspects of growing

As their appreciation and gratitude for God’s unconditional love and grace increases, the overflow of grace in their lives will readily be expressed in growth in many areas including giving. Giving grows as believers appreciation and experience of God’s grace grows. Giving can grow in terms of amount or percentages (Yes, why stop at the tithe?). It can grow in terms of faithfulness and consistency; in terms of how giving is a part of worship and not just a routine; in terms of our openness to hearing what the Lord desires of our giving; in terms of the sacrifice or faith involved. These are different aspects of growth in giving. Movement and progress often will bring us to a greater realm of blessing, well being, character formation, faith and intimacy with the Lord. Growing in our giving (and beyond the tithe) is an outgrowth of experiencing God’s grace that necessitates a response of faith, adjustment and planning on our part.

A model of growth in giving

An excellent example of growth in giving is Pastor Rick Warren, the pastor of Saddleback Church, the 8^th largest church in USA. Rick and Kay started tithing but sought to grow in giving by increasing the percentage by 0.5% or 1% every year till it became 30%. Then Rick became a New York Times bestselling author and his book “The Purpose Driven Life” became a runaway success which sold more than 30 million copies. Royalties from the book made them multimillionaires (if he got one dollar from each book, that would be 30 million dollars). He credits it to God fulfilling His promise to bless the giver and challenging him to a new level of stewardship. He and his wife made five decisions about their new found wealth:

1.They would not alter their lifestyle one bit. They would not buy a new home. They would not purchase a vacation home. They wouldn’t buy a Hummer, boat, or jet ski. They would keep their life exactly the same as it had been.

2.He would stop taking a salary from Saddleback Church. He now served as senior pastor for free.

3.He added up the salary from Saddleback for 25 years of ministry and paid it all back! Pastor Rick wanted to be above reproach so that he could tell the media that he worked for free and did not get rich from serving at a mega-church.

4.They set up three different foundations to help the poor and needy in the world.

5.They became reverse tithers. God brought them to the place in their lives where they were able to give away 90% and live on 10%.

This is what I call growth in giving. John Wesley would have been proud of Rick, though he’s not a Methodist.

Depressed pastors: double stigmatization

11 October 2010 blogpastor 8 Comments

There are actually Christians who believe pastors should never get depressed or burnout if they really know the Lord and have faith in Him. To them the two are contradictory. Why should that happen when the Lord is with them and they have the power of the Spirit, who by the way, brought the world into existence? They forget Elijah, David, Jeremiah and Paul. They forget pastors have feet of clay too. They are made of flesh, blood and have hormones.They go through relational conflicts and experience loss too. They may work under as difficult work environments as executives, as this article USA Today showed……..

What kind of personal pain would cause a 42-year-old pastor to abandon his family, his calling and even life itself? Members of a Baptist church here are asking that question after their pastor committed suicide in his parked car in September. Those who counsel pastors say Christian culture, especially Southern evangelicalism, creates the perfect environment for depression. Pastors suffer in silence, unwilling or unable to seek help or even talk about it. Sometimes they leave the ministry. Occasionally the result is the unthinkable.

Experts say clergy suicide is a rare outcome to a common problem. But Baptists in the Carolinas are soul-searching after a spate of suicides and suicide attempts by pastors. In addition to the September suicide of David Treadway, two others in North Carolina attempted suicide, and three in South Carolina succeeded, all in the last four years.

Being a pastor—a high-profile, high-stress job with nearly impossible expectations for success—can send one down the road to depression, according to pastoral counselors. “We set the bar so high that most pastors can’t achieve that,” said H.B. London, vice president for pastoral ministries at Focus on the Family, based in Colorado Springs, Colo. “And because most pastors are people-pleasers, they get frustrated and feel they can’t live up to that.” When pastors fail to live up to demands imposed by themselves or others they often “turn their frustration back on themselves,” leading to self-doubt and to feelings of failure and hopelessness, said Fred Smoot, executive director of Emory Clergy Care in Duluth, Georgia.

Most counselors and psychologists interviewed for this article agreed depression among clergy is at least as prevalent as in the general population. As many as 12% of men and 26% of women will experience major depression during their lifetime, according to the American Medical Association. “The likelihood is that one out of every four pastors is depressed,” said Matthew Stanford, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. But anxiety and depression in the pulpit are “markedly higher” in the last five years, said Smoot. “The current economic crisis has caused many of our pastors to go into depression.” Besides the recession’s strain on church budgets, depressed pastors increasingly report frustration over their congregations’ resistance to cultural change.

Nearly two out of three depressed people don’t seek treatment, according to studies by the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. Counselors say even fewer depressed ministers get treated because of career fears, social stigma and spiritual taboo. “Clergy do not talk about it because it violates their understanding of their faith,” said Scoggin. “They believe they are not supposed to have those kinds of thoughts.” Stanford, who studies how the Christian community deals with mental illness, said depression in Christian culture carries “a double stigmatization.” Society still places a stigma on mental illness, but Christians make it worse, he said, by “over-spiritualizing” depression and other disorders—dismissing them as a lack of faith or a sign of weakness. Polite Southern culture adds its own taboo against “talking about something as personal as your mental health,” noted Scoggin. The result is a culture of avoidance. “You can’t talk about it before it happens and you can’t talk about it after it happens,” said Monty Hale, director of pastoral ministries for the South Carolina Baptist Convention.

For pastors, treatment can come at a high price. In some settings, however, it is becoming more acceptable for clergy to get treatment. “Depression is part of the human condition,” added Scoggin. “Some people simply find ways to gracefully live with it. Like other chronic illnesses, you may not get over it.”

Experts at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary suggest that pastors can help prevent depression by engaging in intentional replenishment weekly or monthly, confiding in their spouse and seeking spiritual direction with another pastor who ministers to them. They should also establish boundaries and set realistic expectations. “Jesus did not heal everyone, even though it was within His power to do so. No one is capable of successfully ministering to every person in need,” said Drs. Sidney Bradley and Kelly Boyce with GCTS. “Pastors can also normalize the problem of depression by teaching about it. This can help people understand it, and dispel the idea that Christians are immune from depression. Research has shown that when therapy is combined with medication, there is a 90 percent successful treatment rate. Depression is very, very treatable.” (USA Today 29/10/09)

Jack Hayford at Love Singapore Pastors’ Forum

29 September 2010 blogpastor 2 Comments

Jack Hayford. That name alone should pull in quite a crowd of senior pastors and staff. Jack Hayford was the senior pastor of the Church on the Way, a Foursquare Church at Van Nuys, California. Most people would know the song he composed, Majesty, worship His Majesty. Over a hundred pastors were at Trinity @ Paya Lebar to attend the Love Singapore Pastors’ Forum. Jack Hayford talked about the need to focus on the essentials and to avoid jumping from one new methodology or model to another. Don’t go for the numbers, he says, but work on the essentials. All his years as a pastor he never had numerical targets. Its not about acquiring people but discipling the people the Lord sends. The essentials were birthed out of his experience. They are: 1) work on a discpling plan to teach and incarnate the word among the people; 2) develop the worship life of the church as it opens the people up to the Spirit’s presence and power; 3) cultivate a ministry focus, releasing people to minister outside the church building; 4) and have a prayer strategy, of which he had no time to elaborate, or I dozed off.