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Hey Pastor: I always thought the (ECFA) was for parachurch ministries. As your church grows the percentage of people diminishes whose confidence can be based in personal relationship. For that reason this objective, third-party accreditation—if you meet their standards—is a credible confidence boost to those who support your ministry financially.

In a growing ministry, some things can’t be assumed—they have to be carefully ensured. Management of all resources entrusted to your ministry, with��financial��integrity, is one of these issues. Thank God for a wonderful ministry like ECFA, which exists to establish the gold standard of financial integrity and organizational governance. They��grant��accreditation��only to those who meet their standards.

After 25 years in the same church, Kathy and I have seen much of what there is to see in serving the Lord. So my goal in posting occasionally on this blog is to open my heart to pastors. I am fine for others to listen in, but the goal is heart-to-heart communication with our preachers about lessons learned in the trenches of local church ministry.

A big battle for pastors is disappointment. In the early years, it often focuses on the shortcomings of others as you encounter them—but as I’ve aged, it has focused on my own most of all. Are you disappointed today? Are you standing over the outcomes of the fallenness in us all and all that comes with that? I get it, I really do.

This weekend we celebrated our 25th anniversary as a church family with over 10,000 people��in one service, on a Saturday afternoon at Boomers Stadium in Schaumburg. What song would you choose to close the service? What note of praise to punctuate God’s faithfulness through 25 years? Which singer?

Watch the video below as our own Heather Headley Musso details through song the path to perseverance, even through disappointment.

Eyes on Jesus, pastors—Jesus the One and Only. Look to Him, lean on Him, wait for Him, trust Him…and you will rejoice in Him.

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Love, love this video below from one of our young, passionate Christ followers.��Watch until the end for a fun surprise! ��.

As exciting as that story is, I find it even more praiseworthy to see how Christ has continued with Anthony, as He does with each one of us.

Disciple-making only starts at conversion. The goal is reproducing disciples—people who take what’s been given to them and invest that in others, who in turn teach others.

Whatever occupies your time this week in ministry, make sure personal direct discipleship of young believers in Jesus remains near the very top of your list.

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Jesus is the Good Shepherd—He lays down His life for the sheep. And as His child, through faith in Him, He owns you, too.��Paul makes this point even more salient: “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price�� (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

You belong to Jesus, you are his property. Everything will make more sense when you submit to his ownership in your life.

“I am the good shepherd.��I know my own and��my own know me,��just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and��I lay down my life for the sheep�� (John 10:14-15).

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I wrote this many weeks ago but didn’t post it. My jet lag woke me up early and I felt compelled to review this important obedience Christ commands and in His strength we must obey. I pray it is a timely word for pastors and church leaders under the weight of another’s words and wondering what to do. Do this . . .

“We don’t air our dirty laundry!�� In a society bent on freedom of information and journalists whose careers can catapult upward with a sudden surge of the salacious, the maxim seems a bit antiquated. “We don’t air our dirty laundry?�� Dirty Laundry? Yes! In the process of drying after a shower, slipping in and out of bed, wearing underclothing, it’s possible to mark a fabric in such a way that ��

“STOP I get your point, no more detail please!��

Were you thinking that? If yes, that’s a good sign. TMI �� is the heart cry of those who understand intuitively that too much information elevates clarity above love. You would never hang the unmentionables mentioned above in the front yard to dry as guests arrived for dinner but Christians, apparently blind to this biblical imperative, are doing so increasingly even when the laundry isn’t their own and they have no clue how the stain got there in the first place. When the issue is doctrine or method the discussion is good and a volley of ideas can be warranted if gracious, but when it’s a story of strife between sisters in Christ, it’s high time we lay low because “we don’t air our dirty laundry!�� Even when the uncouth argue ‘it’s doctrinal�� it often isn’t really. What is sold as major is often really minor, isolated in half the story and fanned into an inferno by a prideful heart seeking . . . what? Only God knows! When we feel we could shed some light on matters of relational strife masquerading as a message worthy of a wider audience, it is love, even love for our enemies, that commands our silence. Don’t you see it’s not hypocritical but loving to keep your disappointment with a brother or sister from public view? If it’s low in it’s opinion of other christians, if it’s revealing of fault you think you see in a friend or imagined foe, if the person you want to parade is a member of your family, God’s family, it is best kept private . . . so you and I must leave it alone. Why would we ever shame or embarrass our brothers and sisters �� sons and daughters of our Father before the eyes of those who follow the Father of lies?

“Why not rather suffer wrong?�� Paul says in 1Corinthians 6. What is lost on many it seems is Paul’s rationale for not publicizing your dispute with a member of God’s family. In verse 1 he says: “before the unrighteous,�� verse 4 “why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church,�� and in verse 6 “before unbelievers.�� If the breach is what Paul calls ‘a greivance��(verse 1) ‘a dispute between brothers,��(verse 5) THAT is what we don’t air in public. 1Corinthians 6:1-6

Better to be wronged than reveal by public word or post; unpleasant believer business, church disputes, or relational strife etc. We are to be known for our love, but in our fallen-ness we can fall into unloving conduct. Whether you are the cause or the affected or possibly both, don’t display on the ‘clothes line�� for all to see, disputes that reveal our depravity. Even if you have been wronged, even if someone has come at you in hurtful ways, bow in silence, commit your way to the Lord and wait for His deliverance. Be as public as you want about your own sin and relational short comings but NEVER about another’s. Hey Pastor: We don’t air our dirty laundry for the world to see. Suck up the injustice if you have to, but no retaliation, no recompense, no returning evil for evil. We are Christ-followers and Jesus laid down an awesome example on this point!

Matthew 5: 38-45 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.�� But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.�� But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.

At this point my fundamentalist upbringing would always answer: “When a man’s ministry is public, his rebuke needs to be public too.�� In the context of a local church I would agree with this. “He who sins in the presence of all, rebuke in the presence of all that others may fear,�� (1Timothy 5:20) Only Elders rebuke elders when needed and should tell it to the church in some instances to be sure. But only in the context of their own church for the sake of greater fear of God in that specific church. The Elders are in the best position to understand every facet of the facts from every angle and determine the most biblical course of action. Self appointed rebukers, with no position or authority, or even access to all the facts, should keep silent and prayerful; appealing to the appointed leaders of their church for redress of grievance. If the church leadership fails to respond that is on them. The last thing we need is fleshly ventilation of supposed soiled laundry on the front lawn of Christ’s kingdom. Follow the leadership if you can, exit with grace if you can’t, but don’t, don’t, don’t air the dirty laundry. Say no, when others demand to know. You may be less known if you avoid the publicity that comes with publicizing what should remain private, but you’ll be more like Jesus. People may assume your guilt if you don’t clear your name but don’t forfeit God’s favor by seeking to manufacture your own. Our job pastors, is not to draw a crowd but to make disciples and false accusation or mistreatment from those who called themselves your friend is an awesome opportunity to exemplify Christ to your congregation.

Have you ever noticed that the ‘new commandment�� Jesus gave about the priority of loving each other is sandwiched in the text of John 13 between Judas�� betrayal and Peter’s denial? Even where the display of relational depravity from another is most grievous it does not empower you to return the fire. With a betrayer in one ear and a selfish self-protective friend in the other, Jesus called us to love, WOW! If our most powerful kingdom weapon is the way we love each other, (John 13:35) personal grievances and relational disputes form the greatest opportunity to show forth Christ. Relational strife is NEVER permission to take to the airwaves with an air of superiority and air your dirty laundry and you will answer to God for every soul that is wounded or misled when you do. We must remember that our reputation, our personal grievance, however big it is to us, is small potatoes compared to the work of the kingdom we are negating in our misguided pursuit of . . . what? What exactly do we hope to gain by airing dirty laundry?

Hang all the love you want on the line for the world to see but keep the dirty laundry of disappointment with others out of sight. Too many times I have witnessed publicized conflict that was later resolved privately. That is 100% backwards. It is our love and reconciliation and mutual humility that is to be public and our grievances and complaints with one another’s position or practice that needs to be kept private. Hear me pastors, beware when making your point misses the point that we don’t air our dirty laundry.

Let me give some painful examples of where I and others have failed in this regard . . . wouldn’t you love to know? . . . I could get some support for my version of the facts if I pinned it up on the line for the world to see . . . NOPE! Don’t do it preacher! For the sake of Christ and His bride’s reputation, leave it with God . . . wait for His deliverance . . . we don’t air our dirty laundry!

I find this text from Psalm 37:5-12 very helpful.

Last weekend in our church, we saw many respond to the teaching on the death and resurrection of Lazarus in John 11. Seeing eternal transformation take place before your eyes—as God’s Spirit brings conviction of sin and grants repentance, and hearts yield to the desire for forgiveness, new life, the hope of resurrection—should never fail to elicit our praise to Christ alone who is worthy.

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Hebrews 6:10: For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.

It’s June, and vacation that is much needed and well deserved is just ahead for most people in ministry. This is a good time of year to pay attention to your own soul and look to the treasured Scriptures and disciplines that have sustained you thus far in your service to Christ and His church.��I am writing to encourage you today.

Every preacher has a few seldom-heard, high-impact verses. We tuck them away in our hearts, and use them in the deepest valleys with people facing the darkest of times. Some we discovered in sermon prep and have simply held on to. Others we needed ourselves in a dark night of the soul, and share, from our own experience, the comfort these Scriptures have brought us. Hebrews 6:10, written above, is such a verse for me—God’s promise not to forget, which I have to be sure I remember.

It’s not just what you have done for the Lord and His church, it is what you continue to attempt for His kingdom and His glory that God won’t forget—be sure you don’t forget that assurance either. God sees it all. He knows your weaknesses and shortcomings better than those who oppose your ministry, and He knows and rejoices over your strengths with singing that is louder than your greatest supporter.��God Himself is looking down upon your life and ministry today, fully aware of the promises He has given in His Word. He is expecting you to embrace those truths as your reality, believing His promise: “I am watching over My word to perform it�� (Jeremiah 1:12).

Be encouraged in your service to Christ, my brother or sister. All that you are doing to grow in humility and increase in Christ-likeness is seen by our Father. Every effort to be more effective, more fruitful and more God-honoring in your ministry will, in God’s time, be rewarded. Seek to be consciously aware of what drains you and limit those things to the degree you can. Pay attention to what fuels your perseverance, beyond time in the Word and prayer, and attend to those priorities in a way that blesses and balances your own soul.

I saw this video for the first time in church this past weekend, and tears rolled down my cheeks. Stories of Christ changing lives, through the ministry of our Elders/Pastors and an army of faithful servants, heightens my awareness that God Himself is at work.��This builds my faith, so I wanted to share it with you today. Be encouraged, God will not forget—and we mustn’t forget that.

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A few years ago a TV network news program did a five-night feature on evangelicals. I just had to watch and find out what they think about me and my friends. As you might guess, they totally didn’t get us. On Thursday night, they did a feature on “the role of corporal punishment in childrearing.�� Right—spanking. So they got this “expert�� on childrearing that said, “Nothing good could ever come from causing a child pain.��

Now I’m aware and sensitive to the horrors of child abuse. But step away from the excess and the evil and consider that statement in its rawest form: “Nothing good could ever come from pain.�� Really? Nothing? Like the birth of a child, or the renewal of a forest after a fire, or the signal that something is badly wrong in my health and needs to be attended to?

No good from pain? What about the salvation of mankind?

Fact: Pain is often a central part of God’s purpose in this world. God allows and even causes pain in our lives. It’s one of the tools He uses regularly to get stubborn sheep to greener pasture.

I’m fond of saying that “God’s love is not a pampering love; God’s love is a perfecting love.�� God doesn’t say, “Here, Billy. Have some more cupcakes. Take the one with the extra icing.�� That’s not God. Your grandma, maybe, but not God.

Are you saying that God spanks His children? Yes, He does. The “expert�� on the news program back-pedaled and said God only disciplined His children in the Old Testament. Well, welcome to Hebrews 12:6��“whom the Lord loves He disciplines��.

For real, God spanks His children. He lifts the paddle and applies it with force in hope that the pain will bring us to an awareness of His deeper purposes. When He saved us, He started a process that He will continue till the day we die. Salvation is just the beginning. The only reason you’re still here is because God is working on you. When His work’s done, it’s heaven for you!

Have You Forgotten?

Hebrews 12:5 asks a funny question: “Have you forgotten the exhortation . . . ?�� In other words, “Have you drawn a blank?�� “Where have you been?�� If you look in your Bible, you see that part of the verse is indented, signaling that this is a quote from the Old Testament; Proverbs 3:11, 12 to be exact. Interestingly, this is among the most frequently quoted Old Testament passages in the New Testament. Over and over, New Testament authors quote this portion of Proverbs 3. No wonder then that the author of Hebrews asked, “Have you forgotten?�� The writer is asking, “How could you not know this? This is critical information that cannot be neglected.��

And here’s the instruction: “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord�� (v. 5b). Don’t think lightly of what God is doing. Go ahead and do some heavy thinking. A contrasting word is used nearby in Hebrews 12:2 in the familiar verse, “Looking to Jesus . . . who . . . endured the cross, despising the shame.�� The word despising is an antonym in the original language for the word translated here as “regarding lightly.�� Jesus despised the shame of the cross—He didn’t regard it lightly. We can certainly be tempted toward shame in our trials, but we have Jesus�� example to help us endure.

When God moves toward you to make some changes in your conduct and character, do not be casual or indifferent about His approach. Don’t be sarcastic or blasé, As if it really mattered, or I’m getting kind of weary of this, or I don’t think God really knows my limits, or the manifold number of nonsensical ways we communicate to God that we don’t appreciate what He’s doing in our lives. He’s God! He’s a Committee of One. He doesn’t check with anybody, and He knows what He’s doing.

Don’t take His work in your life lightly. Don’t be flippant or casual or indifferent when trials come your way. If they’re not already here, they are coming.

As a pastor, I’ve seen the full scope of human hardship. No matter which part of those painful hardships is yours this moment, you cannot despise or regard lightly what the Lord is doing.

��Nor be weary when reproved by Him.�� The word reproved sometimes means “to convict.�� The tone is intense, even harsh. When the goal is character transformation, God doesn’t move toward you with kid gloves. He’s coming in hard. He’s taking it strong to the hole. You don’t have to guess that He’s around. Being reproved by Him is an intense thing; but we are not to be wearied by it as though nothing good was ahead. Over and over the Bible connects weariness and losing heart. When we are exhorted not to be weary, it is as if to say, “Don’t get down about this. God has a plan, so keep looking up and expecting something good to come from this.��

When God comes toward you with something that makes life hard, don’t get down and give up . . . because ��the Lord disciplines the one He loves.��

I am so excited about our worship department and the second live recording this Friday night for . They are such a gifted young group of artists—and we are so passionate about our adoration of Jesus Christ. We have spent many years building a worship culture, and our people will turn out in force to be part of , with 13 new original and dynamic songs of worship.

Before I was married, I heard an occasional gospel sermon that compared the earthly love of a father and son to the love God expressed in giving His only Son. As I listened, it occurred to me that the tearful, pleading preacher imagining how giving his earthly son would affect him was describing a love I didn’t then know. I have two adult sons, both effective pastors and growing preachers, and I would truly do anything for them. I know it’s not good, but I fear not that my love would fail to give what they need, but that it would give too much. I have to say I think I would hide a body for one of my sons. If they came and told me some horrific truth and that they were going down, I think I would jump from the dock and go down too, in hopes of finding a solution in the final seconds. I really wouldn’t think twice about giving whatever I could to save my son.

But that’s not what God did. God didn’t demonstrate His love for His Son by sparing Him; He gave His Son freely to demonstrate His love for us sinners. That incredible sacrifice, so counter-intuitive to how human father love works, is the engine that drives our heavenly Father’s passion to see His Son Jesus elevated in our churches. The passion of God the Father is that Jesus would receive the honor due Him in view of the church He “purchased with His own blood�� (Acts 20:28).��The love between a father and son is so powerful that in certain ways it transcends all other human love. When my sons became men, they learned that beating me in basketball and other things was not the vindication they thought it would be for their childhoods, where I never let them win. What they discovered was that as much as I liked winning, I liked it even better when they were victorious. When my sons won, their victory was my victory in an even deeper and more profound way.

God surely chose the best of human analogies to assist our understanding in this greatest of mysteries. Scripture says that it pleases the Father that all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Jesus in bodily form (Colossians 1:15-20), that Christ is the “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature�� (Hebrews 1:3), and those who spurn the Son of God are worthy of greater punishment (Hebrews 10:26-31). All that to say, we shouldn’t be surprised that God the Father shows up in power by the Holy Spirit when God the Son is unashamedly adored.

This is a blog for pastors and ministry leaders. It’s meant to be an open-hearted conversation about things pastors think and feel—hopefully a place to read and say, “Someone else experiences that, too.�� With all the feedback and constant conversation pastors hear, we can start to feel a lot of dissonance about which priority must endure. What is the one critical, consequential, non-negotiable for a ministry leader? When the noise of life and strife resound with obligation, and our capacity reads empty when the demand measures full, we need to remember what cannot be forgotten—the ‘one thing�� that matters most. Try to stay focused today; maybe this is just for you.

I know my sermons need to be strong and biblical and interesting and challenging and helpful, but that’s not the ‘one thing.�� I know I need to love and care and support and encourage and strengthen and comfort, but that’s not the ‘one thing.�� I know we can’t neglect things being ‘decently in order,�� so I must attend to managing the budget, heating the building, and paying the bills—or more likely, making sure someone is on top of those priorities. We can’t run out of paper in the office or people to staff the children’s ministry or fail to plant flowers in spring and pick up leaves in the fall. The widows cannot be neglected or any of the seniors, or the youth for that matter, but none of these are the ��one thing.�� The single parents are a high priority, as are the needs of the poor in and outside our church family. Mail must be responded to in a timely fashion, and special services need a flare of creativity to fan afresh the flame of adoration to Jesus, at Christmas, at Easter, etc.—but are any of these the ‘one thing?��

Paul told Timothy,��“Keep a close watch on how you live and on your teaching. Stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation and the salvation of those who hear you�� (1 Timothy 4:16). So in all this, I cannot neglect my own soul, my walk with Jesus, my personal sanctification, my marriage and family—all of this is very, very high priority, and the continuance of my ministry depends on it—but none of it is the ‘one thing.��

The ‘one thing�� is this: not quitting. Not getting downcast over my own shortcomings. Not getting disillusioned or drained by demanding need. Not getting tired of the repetition or thrown off by the constant variety of what we do. To be sure, we will wrestle with all of this amidst the great joy and privilege of serving Jesus Christ and His church. But never can we let any burden weigh so heavily or any pressure pound so relentlessly that we ever entertain, even at the corners of our mind, the idea of giving up. Keep serving the Lord, Pastor! Listen to others, friend and foe; learn from your mistakes; lean on God and those you trust, most and most of all. God is perfecting you, saints are praying for you, other pastors are pulling for you. Sons and daughters and someone you least expect, are all watching to see if Jesus sustains you. So whatever you do, today…this week/month…going forward …just this,��one thing��keep serving Jesus Christ and His church.

“But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”�� (Philippians 3:13b-14)