What is the Congregation's Job Description?

When a church is looking for a pastor, the leaders usually have a written job description with very clear expectations—and they require the pastor to sign-off on the job description. Such a process makes it very clear what the congregation expects from the pastor.

Fair enough.

But what about the congregation's job description?

How can we be so clear on what we expect from a pastor and so clueless about what God expects from us concerning our pastor(s).

Great news! You don't have be uniformed about what God expects from you concerning your pastor(s).

Introducing...

HOW can you use this tool?

I'm so glad you asked.

7 Ways to Use...
The Seven Biblical Ways...
God Wants YOU to Encourage Your Pastor(s)

1. Sunday School:
For seven consecutive weeks, together, read one of the Seven Biblical Ways God Wants YOU To Encourage Your Pastor(s). When prompted in the booklet, stop and take time for Bible study, discussion, prayer, and practical application.

2. Retreats: 

The Seven Biblical Ways God Want's YOU to Encourage Your Pastor(s) booklet is a great for leadership retreats and fall/winter camps.

3. Small Groups: 

For seven consecutive weeks, together, read one of the Seven Biblical Ways God Wants YOU To Encourage Your Pastor(s). When prompted in the booklet, stop and take time for Bible study, discussion, prayer, and practical application.

4. With All Ministry Leaders: 

Use the Seven Biblical Ways God Wants YOU to Encourage Your Pastor(s) to help your adult volunteer leaders and student volunteer leaders grasp and own the value encouraging their pastor(s).

5. With Your Family:

It can be as a simple and spontaneous as a 5-10 minute discussion exploring one of the Seven Biblical Ways God Wants YOU To Encourage Your Pastor(s) after dinner one night a week. If you have a long drive together, use the car time one of the ways God wants you to encourage your pastor(s). Consider doing a family night and then invite other families from your church to join you in encouraging your pastors.

6. At the Start of Meetings:

Take 15 minutes at the start of any church/ministry meeting to explore one of the Seven Biblical Ways YOU Can Encourage Your Pastor(s). Do this until you finish the booklet. This slow drip approach will maximize learning and application.

7. Discipleship Groups:
Make the Seven Biblical God Wants YOU to Encourage Your Pastor(s) the booklet for your discipleship efforts with men, women, and youth.

* For a FREE downloadable six-page PDF sample excerpt, GO HERE.

* To order this booklet, GO HERE.

* To get this on iBooks, GO HERE.

* For Kindle, Nook, and other non-printable e-readers, GO HERE.

If you're still wondering WHY you should even bother to encourage your pastor, this is especially for you.

You, Me, and Coffee Monday...

Let me encourage you and make you think ONE time a week (usually Monday morning) with a virtual Cup O' Joe with Bill in your email inbox. Two Simple Steps...

1. Go here and submit your email.

2. Check your email to confirm.

Multiplying discipleMAKERS...

[NOTE: Whenever you pray for us or support our mission, it's like you are being God's wind in our disciplemaking sails. THANK YOU! We, then, will take what you've given to us and seek to multiply discipleMAKERS in a never-ending chain of disciplemaking that will eventually outlive all of us—all for God's glory. Here's one such story.]

Bill,

I was very encouraged by our day together with you and the guys who are currently in our Disciplemaking Learning Community (DLC). Thank you for all the the effort you prayerfully put forth to find and gather willing men from whom I have learned much. I'm thankful for the many rich disciplemaking take-aways I have gleaned from studying the life of Jesus with you and them. I owe much of where I am in ministry right now thanks to your disciplemaking friendship.

I want to encourage you in your ministry with Cadre Missionaries because when I see you teach and train, it seems as though this is what you were put on the Earth to be and do. Through our disciplemaking friendship, God has given you—and will continue to give you—fruit that will last. Like you often say: "disciplemaking friendships that multiply." I love seeing it. I love being a part of it. You help me love Jesus more. Praying for you as I send this.

—Braden Nafziger (on the left in picture above)

Missionary Pastor of the Church in Goofy Ridge, IL 

Our 2020-2021 Disciplemaking Learning Community

known as The Peoria Area Leadership Community

Want more on this movement?

* Start here.

* Interested in being a part of a DLC?

* The Church at Goofy Ridge

* Disciplemaking training that comes to YOU

* Year-long Internships at the Church in Goofy Ridge 

You, Me, and Coffee Monday...

Let me encourage you and make you think ONE time a week (usually Monday morning) with a virtual Cup O' Joe with Bill in your email inbox. Two Simple Steps...

1. Go here and submit your email.

2. Check your email to confirm.

Don't Confuse Sensational with Significant

Sensational doesn't automatically mean significant.

There. I said it.

We are currently immersed in a culture of attention-seeking. Whoever gets the most likes, followers, retweets, comments, etc., wins. You, too, could be Youtube famous. And don't forget to listen to my podcast. And be sure to check out my blog. (On that last one, the irony is not lost on me.) 

Hence, all the shouting about the next new, cool, and chic thing. 

Being trendy is seductive because it's... trendy—and that which is trendy is always trending. At best, you might get to be in the flavor-of-the-month club. If not, you still get to identify with what is currently "in."

At the risk of sounding like an old, grumpy guy with his shorts hocked up to his chest screaming, "Get off my lawn!"—let me say this: I'm more than a little suspicious of anything current culture considers sensational. And that goes for current "Christian" culture too. (See here,  here, and here.)

A couple of questions to ponder and discuss:

Have we sold our souls for the "sensational" while that which is truly significant is slipping through our fingers?

Have we lost the necessary critical thinking skills needed for discerning that which is significant and that which is merely sensational?

Beware of the sensational posing as something significant.

It may just be hype.

"The empty vessel makes the greatest sound."
—Shakespeare

“…the spread of religious movements is not accomplished by dramatic events and persuasive preachers, but by ordinary followers who convert their equally anonymous friends, relatives, and neighbors.”

—Dr. Rodney Stark, The Triumph of Christianity (bold mine)

"Do not pay too much attention to fame, power, or money. Someday you will meet a person who cares for none of these, and then you'll know how poor you are."

—Rudyard Kipling

More here...
* How to be significant.
* Who is the "real" leader in a movement?
* The Paul Cone Factor
* Are you counting the right things?
* Small town church—world-wide impact
* Here's someone who gets it.

You, Me, and Coffee Monday... 
Let me encourage you and and make you think 1 stinking time a week (usually Monday morning) with a virtual Cup O' Joe with Bill in your email inbox. Two Simple Steps...

1. Go here and submit your email.
2. Go to your email and click the Feedburner confirmation link.

Are YOU Asking the Right Questions?

It's true: If we ask the wrong questions, we'll solve the wrong problems. 

For example, consider this.

Perhaps it's time to become a bit more discerning about asking questions.

Could it be that we spend a good deal of time solving the wrong questions?

Here are a series of questions I wished every Christian would dare to answer.

Are you using volunteers to build your ministry or using your ministry to build volunteers?

What if asking the right questions is everything?

Here are seven questions I dare you to wrestle with others. (I said, "I dare you.")

Here are ten questions you probably shouldn't ask (but boy it could be fun).

Here are eight more questions I wished every aspiring follower of Jesus would wrestle with their friends.

What are we calling "success" and why?

Here's a good question: How can we know when we're asking the wrong question? Love to hear your thoughts on that one. Please comment.

No Relationships = No Disciplemaking

One candle lights another only when they are brought close together.

"You can impress people from a distance, but you can only impact people up close." —Dr. Howard Hendricks

Here's why. 

Jesus-like disciplemaking is always and necessarily relational.

Here's how. 

"In the future, churches that equip Christians will eclipse churches that gather them." —Carey Nieuwhof

Start here.   

No relationships = No disciplemaking

Know relationships = Know disciplemaking

One candle lights another only when they are brought close together.

You, Me, and Coffee Monday...

Let me encourage you and make you think ONE time a week (usually Monday morning) with a virtual Cup O' Joe with Bill in your email inbox. Two Simple Steps...

1. Go here and submit your email.

2. Check your email to confirm.

Context is everything...

More on this here. 

Here's the context. What do you think Philippians 4:13 is referring to?

10 I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. 11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me. 14 Yet it was kind of you to share  my trouble. 15 And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only.16 Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again. 17 Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. 18 I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. 19 And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. 20 To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.

 

You, Me, and Coffee Monday...

Let me encourage you and make you think ONE time a week (usually Monday morning) with a virtual Cup O' Joe with Bill in your email inbox. Two Simple Steps...

1. Go here and submit your email.

2. Check your email to confirm.

Something beautiful DID happen in 2020...

While 2020 wasn't the best or easiest year of our lives, God is still good! Our beloved 19-year-old daughter was baptized out at The Ridge where she serves as a disciplemaker.

You, Me, and Coffee Monday...

Let me encourage you and make you think ONE time a week (usually Monday morning) with a virtual Cup O' Joe with Bill in your email inbox. Two Simple Steps...

1. Go here and submit your email.

2. Check your email to confirm.

If you're a praying friend, here's how you can pray for us...

Saturday 6-8 pm, February 13, 2021

One of my favorite disciplemaking friends and I will be responding to questions on the subject of disciplemaking as a way of life (like Jesus) at Trinity Church in Morton, IL.

Sunday morning,  February 14, 2021

I'll be teaching at Cornerstone Fellowship Church in Arthur, IL.

Thursday, February 18, 2020
A day-long gathering of the Women's Disciplemaking Learning Community (WDLC).

 

Sunday,  February 28, 2021

Preaching God's Word at Christian Free Lutheran Church, Wheatland, IA.

 

Sunday,  March 7, 2021

Preaching God's Word at Christian Free Lutheran Church, Wheatland, IA. 

 

Thursday, March 11, 2021
A day-long gathering of the new disciplemaking cohort known as the Peoria Area Leadership Community (PALC). This Disciplemaking Learning Community is especially for those who want to study, live, and share the disciplemaking genius of Jesus via disciplemaking friendships that multiply.

Sunday, March 14th

Preaching in the morning service at Checkrow Community Church in Avon, IL.

Thursday, March 18, 2020
A day-long gathering of the Women's Disciplemaking Learning Community (WDLC).

Thursday, April 8, 2021
A day-long gathering of the new disciplemaking cohort known as the Peoria Area Leadership Community (PALC). This Disciplemaking Learning Community is especially for those who want to study, live, and share the disciplemaking genius of Jesus via disciplemaking friendships that multiply.

 

Thursday, April 15, 2020
A day-long gathering of the Women's Disciplemaking Learning Community (WDLC).

May 5-6, 2021

I'll be working with ministry leaders in Cleveland, OH, on how to find, develop, and deploy volunteers for ministry. 

“Dear friend, you are being faithful to God when you care for the traveling teachers…. Please continue providing for such teachers in a manner that pleases God. For they are traveling for the Lord, and they accept nothing from people who are not believers. So we ourselves should support them so that we can be their partners as they teach the truth.” —3 John 5-8  

If you can help us at any level, go here.