I Really Really Need You, Really

If you're leading people and volunteers.
please memorize these 5 words

" Manipulation is cheating, not leading"

I like starting my blogs with a relative photo to my theme but today I can not because any photo of any person or minister I'd put up would make it look like I'm pointing my finger at them. Ok I'll post myself because I've been guilty of what I speak. 

I had a music video posted the other day and one of the people who commented on it was a gentleman named Larry Broughton.   Larry who?  Exactly.  Now I don't know Larry,  but in the age of the ether and social media "sharing" not just "liking" is one of the best ways to... well.... "share" things that affect you. When folks share my posts or music, I try to look them up in my quiet time and say thanks. 

So I search out Larry and find out he's a veteran and a motivational speaker amongst other entrepreneurial things. Well on his site I see 5 words and they hit me like a 2by4 between my headlights.
They come from a book called "flashpoints" that he's written. I don't own it, but again :), we "share" it in hopes of exposing it for good.   So yea, now back to those 5 words.

I read, Manipulation is cheating, not leading, and the faces and voices of every horror story from a tear filled, wounded ex-staffer or volunteer I've ever counseled flashed by my brain. Half sweat and nausea came over me as I took a deep breath.  Wheewww, theres a trigger point in my life Jesus, let's pray about that one today huh?

So there it is, 5 words. Memorize them.  I'm done,  have a nice day..

But , if you're still reading and  if you wonder why I think this is important at the age of 58, you can read on .   I always suggest reading my blogs at the toilet where you're stuck for 15 min each day. Or on a train, plane or bus..:)  the rest of this blog is about the state of ministry and the church as it relates to those 5 words. I am honest about this so read with caution and as always, pray about everything you put between your ears.

Q:    How many people do you know, that are not serving in ministry or volunteering any longer because of burn out or improper placement to accomplish things their leaders "really, really needed" them to do?
Do you personally see any faces saying that in your past that make you sick to reflect on?

A:    I'm guessing "none" if you're the leader and you're reading this, because you will have excuses and blame shifting to justify your actions. Hey I did, we all do, get over it and GET OVER IT.

Leading is difficult.  Like parenting, it means saying and doing things (in love) for the end game.  (But what and who' s end game?) The unselfish end game that you know will have good results based upon sound biblical principles of love and esteeming others over oneself.   Parents don't usually over work, over commit, over praise, then patronize their kids to get what they want, unless they are sick and narcissistic. They look to find the gifts in their kids, and then slowly nurture them in each gifting until the child embraces it and soars, or hates it and moves on to the next "thing" that kids will do.  We embrace and guide them in their journey to do it their way and learn in the process who they really are.  That is unless we were not taught that ourselves, but were taught to manipulate others to our way for our needs and our end gain.  Terrorists do that. Cult leaders do that. That ends in a nepotistic train wreck that crosses generations over and over... I need not name famous family names, religions, cults or megalomaniacs.

To often in church and volunteer work when you have leaders who are goal driven, and not people driven, you have massive casualties and those leaders rarely see or are willing to see their errors.  "Hey, the railroads did not get built on cookies and milk".   "Hey we won didn't we? You're on a winning team",  "Hey our "fill in the blank", was built on the sweat and gifts of our good volunteers.  You have to take the hill for Jesus. God bless them one and all". 

All along the back roads of these successes are people lining the roads  who are broken and shattered. Who's faiths are lost in the hands of those whom they trusted them with . (yes) I did say that. For many have put their trust not in Jesus, but sadly in their Jesus led leader and their leaders voice and praise and  beautiful manipulations and metaphors.

As a leader have I done this in 40 years?  Yes and once is to many times,  and I have shed many tears and dollars in therapy trying to learn a better way to lead my family and those in my ever smaller circle.

Now the old leader in me would say "Yes, there are so many folks who just don't know how to say "no" . Folks who are just trying to find meaning or worth in volunteering in every dept. they are asked to serve in. All this because somehow they believe the Bible or leader tells them this is the way to live. 

My catholic friends will tell you they are the BEST volunteers.  They've been shamed since birth that faith without works is dead.. Ok honestly non of them were ever quoted scripture, they were just shamed into works,  and when they got into other mainstream religions. wheww they could  just plain out serve  a Lutheran at a potluck. (and He's also with you, don't cha know)

Ask yourself, why would someone ask a dog to pull a wagon or a horse to protect the house and yard? Manipulator:  "we have to get this done and thank you dog, for pulling this wagon, you're the only one who can do that right now and you are such a blessing to us and can you do that again tomorrow and Friday and Sunday and and it would be so awesome in helping us reach our goals.. Have I told you you are awesome? Can I buy you coffee next week?  You would be perfect for our leadership team" 

Volunteer "but i've never led anything".
Manipulator: "You are a natural leader, and we couldn't do this without you, and I'm so sorry to hear about your spouse leaving you, and your loss of job." 

Now in building a  cheap sales force for free,  you're looking for  "Studs and Duds".  Throw them the pie in the sky pitch and see who really bites.  You never know!   Really, you never know who's gonna be the stud or the dud. You just burn through them and they will die or thrive on their own.  And when they go,  you have a hand full of excuses on why they left, for it is never your fault, only "yea, but..." 

In ministry and with volunteers there are those in leadership who naturally and without thinking about it,  use these tactic's to build their teams to reach their "kingdom" goals for Jesus. Some were taught these goals by success driven mentors, but most by "seminaries of religions".  Now, I'm here to say that no one is a good teacher of anything unless they believe it.   And religions are very good at believing that they have the corner on wisdom and understanding of  the "Logos".   So with that said,  can you expect pastors to teach what they have not been told to teach and believe?  I mean don't you know there is really just "one" "real" and "intelligent" way to give a proper sermon.  ahhh,  But if  it's a "message", well, who should study and read notes when the Word says just pray and open your mouth.   ahhhh, but if it's just a homily,  then I can read one from a book cause no one knows the difference. Ahhhh but if you're on a book circuit or a traveling preacher then you can develop one good sermon a year and survive so long as media doesn't over expose that one " bring in the bacon fundraising message" for every church in "that" flow.   Now  I've just torqued off a hand full of seminarians in different "flows" with that one thought but relax I'm an equal opportunity pisserofferer at times. Sry :/
Pastors, I love you. I love the heart of a pastor. Pastors Rock!  

There are a few in my life  who have quietly helped me love and serve Jesus more than I ever could have without them and I tell stories to young people about them whenever I can. .  For some reason they wore burlap robes, not suits or bowling shirts.  Just sayin but not sayin.
But pastors,  when they are instructed to mix it with being the Kingpin, the man who's gonna build the mega church, the visionary writer, planner, administrator, leader of everything?   Kingdom failure is not an option, it becomes a reality for all the very very multi-skilled.   Very few (thankfully) are gifted enough to handle more than a couple of these roles but somehow They are trained and told that to succeed, you have to become "x"  or you're a failure. What dad would put that weight on his boy or girl.  Not my dad..  But leaders of leaders will tell your leaders what they have to accomplish in numbers to be kingdom successful at all levels based upon demographics and median incomes and populations and and and.

Again, doesn't sound like my dad.

Now, in fairness, there are a LOT of people (sheep) out there who come broken with low self esteem and lots of baggage to a ministry and throw themselves willingly into Mega Service and giving all their money away.  All with the hopes of finding friends, wealth,  meaning and value. Or they try to live out some kind of self fantasy that they never could in a regular job.  This is very true in church worship arts ministries. Great people with no real talent who's think they have great talent and will search for a church to let them in to "shine".  It is not for kingdom building, it is for self esteem building and ego.  Here is one example of the tragic results of  growth manipulation.  

Mary, the pastors sister or elders wife is on a worship team. Because there was no one in the early days, she was put there to "fill the gap" regardless of what it would someday do to Mary. 

  Now Mary is a real person with a real heart who really thinks she can sing. But down deep she knows she really can't, and is threatened every time someone with a better voice enters the scene.  This will be a bad ending for Mary when the church grows, a bad ending for a lot of worship leaders trying to fix  what never should have been.  It ends then with one leader finding an excuse why Mary finally had to go because she couldn't cut it.   She never could cut it, she never should have been there. She was used and willingly manipulated out of the need of the growth of the leader and their vision. She's now another willing casualty to her own devices and now is a bitter blame Godder. 

Maybe there is a way to engage people into a team mentality, that will teach them from the get go, that we all are replaceable in roles.  God is in the business of change, and all of us are changing.  That as we grow, we all grow and need to discover new and expanding gifts and passions for serving others.  Can we find ways to share our gifts for kingdom purposes in a balanced way that doesn't hurt self, family, spouses or children? Are you willing to serve unselfishly and be ok when you're replaced?,  or do you have to "own" it?

I can remember years ago making potential volunteers write down everything they did in an average week for an average month.  Morning to Evening had to be listed.   I was stunned and so were many people to find out there calendars were already involved in so many things that they had virtually time blocked for dates and time with "self", spouse, children and family  outside of church and all their "serving". I wouldn't let people join my teams unless they made time and found balance first.  Yea, that got some evil looks.  And if I found they didn't really have skills in my departments, I'd pray that the Holy Spirit would show them that, so they could find what their "better" skills were.   Why? Because I cared for them more than my dept.  I wanted them to go  serve in a dept. where they would thrive, and do it in a balanced way within their passions and real giftings.  And leaders creating a church experience based upon pop culture (which has positives),  has also created a monster called:

Church Shifting.....  This is the wave in America each week of people desperately moving from church to church, looking for what they want out of a church and desiring the best and latest in music, teaching, children's min., coffee bars, media, sound, lighting, video, streaming. Yes we're "streaming, strumming and striving for statistics"...  

 Church is the new spiritual country club. We've been saying it for years behind the curtain.  Our tithes are our "dues", and we expect "x" or we're gonna find another spiritual  health club or christian country club with cleaner bathrooms, more toys, "deeper" teaching, and music we like. After all we've all been taught that it's all about what I want. And who modeled that and taught that in the first place?

So we now add all the church shifting folks  who come to honestly serve as well, and they do it for all the reasons listed above, AND now you add their weekly "dues" into the equation.  Now  it's even harder to be honest and tell them the truth about anything  for fear of losing the "base". Hey what are our numbers, our forecasts, break them down to each dept. What dept's are creating the most dollars and volunteers. Who's creating the most small groups and new members, they will get the dollars and our ears. What age group is now giving the highest percentage of our support, be sure we discretely cater to them in every way possible. And if we have celebrities, or mega business owners, be sure we take them on special trips and dinners and make sure we know what they are looking for. We could never afford to lose them to church shifting even if it means using most of their own money to get them what they desire.  Hey, do you get the feeling that we are all flawed mortals in need of a Savior and mercy and grace.  Exactly, then let's ALL act like it.

I have been a minister for many years. Licenced for only 10 or so because folks asked me to marry or bury them.  I find myself wanting to be with a "body" of believers for all the reasons the Word of God asks us to desire this. That natural yearning to be hanging with like and similar believers to sharpen our iron and feel like we're not alone in a world of people who don't share our passions.   Yet at the same time a part of me wants nothing to do with church as we know it  because of the outcome of leaderships training and now retraining of people. All to believe what they were taught is the "most correct" teaching.

I keep being pushed towards  home based church models. Yes Craig but you can have a "life group" as part of your 4 walls church experience. Don't forsake the 4 walls church..  (That will be another blog another day).

People say, Craig, start a church , we will come, you are real.  My answer is always, I'm not called to start a church as we know it.  Oh mind you  i have models for one.  And names and domains and position papers and platform layouts and custom media solutions and custom streaming solutions and more. Yea for years I've had that stuff but God has not allowed me to step ahead with it. I just have to many questions and not enough answers to start. I'm a bit gun shy.  

Hey i'm the crazy one who invested 3 years and untold dollars along with the time and efforts of a lot of good "friends" to develop a one hour, 5 day a week worship program for radio with no commercial breaks, no denominational discussions, no station breaks.  (in my best DJ voice ) : Just one solid hour of prayer, live worship, communion, devotions and scripture reading with special worship guests on occasion and 60 sec faith/science shorts included.   I swore to God that I believed that people actually needed this each morning to make their days better as they went out to be the hands and feet of Christ. . I actually believed that by never asking for money on air,  or doing commercials or station breaks, that that  would be so wonderfully novel and spiritually freeing, that people would freak out and support it for what it was,  "A New Thing".    Earth to minister, breath oxygen not helium.   If you want to be on radio for an hour in any major city on any christian radio program you better have a way to raise Millions of dollars a year to pay the stations or don't even THINK about it.  Air time is big money and demands huge fundraising and ads and station breaks every so many minutes and on and on.  It takes print fundraising, phone fundraising, fundraising dinners, web advertising, partners and give aways for partners, booklets and bangles, CD's and communion cup key chains.   When i realized this was the real work behind ministry, it was shock and awe, sweat and nausea.   Hey it's just business buddy, the world is getting more technical and it takes more money to get er done. There will be winners and losers.

Not to my Dad, i'd say to myself.

So is there a solution? I think so. One for every living person. A lifetime, a journey, and adventure into finding our ways back to,  and closer to our Creator. For me it's the Trinity. The testaments. To become part of the ever growing story of  living faith from the Living Word. . Faith and trust in the unseen. The journey to the redemption story that can be embraced by every mortal, in as unique a way as we are all unique. Hmmmmm.   Threaded together by God's Holy Spirit, and trying not to be the prime color in the painting, but just a part of it. To be a brush stroke somewhere that matters to the painter, in ways I can not see, where in that painting somewhere it says, Manipulation is cheating, not leading,  so knock it off. 

And if you are a statistic of this kind of burn out from manipulation, remember it wasn't your Dads idea. He wants you whole and balanced and living "The Good Life" as much as is possible till He returns.

As Always, comments, likes and shares are welcome.

Till next time, 5 words
And never forget: