No Longer Quiet: A Response to the Growing Evangelical Support of Trump

I can no longer keep quiet.  I’ve tried.  I’ve tried through subtle pastoral influence to challenge many of the current political assumptions of fear, prejudice, and power-mongering.  I’ve been very clear regarding my lack of support for Donald Trump from the beginning.  However, I’ve not been this vocal until now.

 

Reading through Facebook, I encountered Dr. James Dobson’s endorsement of Trump and I can no longer keep quiet.  I am burdened by the growing Evangelical pressure to support Trump.  I refuse to be bullied into submission by respected, outspoken, and influential Evangelical leaders, as though now that the Faith Advisory Committee for Trump’s campaign has spoken, all other Evangelicals need to get on board.  Ben Carson and Jerry Fallwell Jr., “I’m not buying what your selling.”  

I AM now angry.

I AM angry that somehow Evangelical leaders would attempt to script Trump as the natural choice for Christian leadership in the country.  This makes absolutely no sense.  Support him if you like, but don’t try to spiritually guilt-trip me into embracing a man whose rhetoric and positions have consistently gone against my beliefs as an Evangelical Christian. 

DO NOT try to cast Trump as the clear choice for a candidate with integrity.

 

DO NOT use your platform to bully us lesser pastors into submission and suggest that a failure to vote for Trump would be somehow a collusion with principalities of evil and darkness.  That is a blatant misuse of your platform.

DO NOT, in stating the names of those on the counsel, attempt to use their positions and names to somehow justify your decisions.  For one thing, as an Evangelical, I have SUBSTANTIAL theological disagreements with Robert Jeffress and Jerry Falwell Jr. and refuse to embrace their leadership as somehow binding on my practice of faith.

DO NOT assume that my failure to support Trump is an endorsement for Clinton.  This ridiculous suggestion made by both parties that somehow a failure to vote for their party is giving the election to the other is a tactic of fear.  That’s not how a democracy works. 

I CAN vote for a third party.  

I CAN write in a name.  

I CAN opt to vote in all sorts of elections and yet protest the presidential election because my conscience is clear that I cannot vote for either candidate. 

 

I CAN still have a say if I protest.  I have voted in nearly all elections since I was 18.  I continually vote in local and state elections.  I pay taxes.  I participate in local organizations and agencies for the improvement of our communities.  I served my country as a veteran.  I support our law enforcement and try to build bridges with those who’ve suffered the abuses of prejudice and injustice.

So DO NOT tell me that because I won’t get in line that I somehow don’t have a say going forward. 

You DO NOT get to make that call.

DO NOT use your platforms and hyperbole as a scare tactic to the masses.  It is precisely these tactics that have led us to this mess and divisiveness in the first place.  Playing on people’s fears with an “over the top” rhetoric has driven those that could have bridged the divide out of the election cycle leaving us the two most divisive voices…and YOU ARE playing right into that.  

I AM NOW ANGRY.

I will not let my congregation be controlled by the “elite Evangelicals” who have somehow found their role in scripting a future I believe stands contrary to the Kingdom of God.  I love my people too much for that.  

I WILL NOT SUPPORT either candidate for the presidency of the United States of America.  I DO so as an act of conscience and protest.  I WILL NOT BE BULLIED into a ridiculous corner by those that still want to use Jesus and the Christian faith as the baptismal waters for political agendas. 

 

I DO love my people and will continue to do so regardless who they vote for, because I AM ONE KINGDOM MINDED and it’s not Ceasar’s or any extension of power and dominance.  I WILL CONTINUE to spread the good news of the Resurrection of Jesus, the Crucifixion, and the coming Kingdom of my Lord.  

I WILL love those our systems alienate.  

I WILL stand against injustice, challenge supremacy, and question motives.

I WILL trust that God’s hand is more sturdy than the flimsy palms of any political party.  

I AM ANGRY…BUT I AM HOPEFUL!  Hopeful that followers of Jesus, no matter the outcome will stand together in pursuit of God’s vision of the redeeming and healing of all things, the embrace of the outsiders, the care of the poor and down-trodden, the feeding of the hungry, and the empowerment of creativity and hope to make a more peaceful future.  

Dr. Dobson, I HAVE respected you throughout this last 15 years of my Christian life and appreciate the great difference you’ve made.  BUT DO NOT abuse this influence and play into the fears of the people.  YOU KNOW WHO YOUR LORD IS!  YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR HOPE LAY!  DON’T put all your eggs into that tattered basket.  I have profound respect for you.  I’m glad you’ve been given a voice but please be aware that you may be scripted into a story that you will one day wish was never told. 

Respectfully,

Pastor Jeff Stark

Hopeful/Protesting Pastor

#3rdwaylife

Image Broken, Heart Broken - It Matters

Father, how your heart must break.

This morning I woke up to the anguish of more senseless death.  Immediately I felt the weight of the sorrow, the lament of loss, the confusion and frustration of others, and the impending onslaught of vitriol and anger spewing opinion after opinion about whose lives matter most.

My heart broke…it still breaks.

Yet in prayer this morning, I couldn’t get past how much sorrow this must bring you, O God.

You God, the One that has knit each and every person on this earth together in the wombs of their mothers.  You God, the One that refuses to see the color of skin, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, political agenda, ethnic origin, or the job one holds as the primary identifier of our lives, but instead chooses to see us first and foremost as your beloved children. 

How your heart must break when your children lash out against one another.

 

Now Lord, I pray you are prepared for what we will do with these stories.  We will use them.  We will use them to push already established agendas moving to demands for action without pausing for confession and lament.

 

We will use these stories as evidence of your non-existence.

Some will say, “If there is a God how could he let these kinds of things to continually happen?”

Really, Lord.  How foolish we are that we would for a second attempt to pawn these actions of death, brutality, violence, hatred, injustice, and retaliation on to you.  It’s like we’ve learned nothing from our Genesis predecessors.  We like Adam are still pushing off blame on to you as he did in the garden.  We like Cain are still refusing to be our brother’s keeper.  We are responsible.  We are responsible for the hate, fear, anger, and brutality that resides deep in the core of our hearts.

We give space for prejudice to fester.

We justify retaliation.

We incite violence in response to violence as though that is ever the answer.

We expect those that serve and defend to do so on streets filled with dangerous weapons, day after day and night after night, with little pay, little respect, and even less appreciation.

 

We seek to narrowly define our neighbors like the expert in the law in Luke 10 to ensure we call “neighbor” only those that are already most like us, who think like us, who look like us, and who act like us.  This narrow definition gives us permission to make “them” out to be the bad guys and gals.

 

Shame on us, O Lord.  This is not your fault, but our failure.  It is our failure to live into the amazingly high calling to be the Image of God.  We mar, corrupt, and pervert your image leaving you almost indistinguishable in the lives of humanity. 

Lord, some will say, “This is the sign that the end is near.”  Perhaps, I don’t know.  I know this isn’t the first time in history that you’ve witnessed your children destroy one another at alarming rates.  I’m afraid the doomsday prophet is again passing off responsibility.  The desire to escape is a failure to reckon with integrity and faithfulness with the world we live in now.

 

To hope for the end of all things simply means we don’t have to change our attitudes and actions.  It means the world can go to hell in a handbasket and at the last minute you come to swoop down and save the day, leaving us to say, “Thank God, I thought I was going to have to do something there.”

 

And yet when Jesus prayed…

“Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.” 

Something about what we do here matters. 

Our attitudes matter. 

The hate, fear, and prejudice in our hearts matter.  Our anger and hatred that produces violence and death matters.  Our inability and unwillingness to change the systemic issues of injustice in our society matters.  Our intolerance and our willingness to stereotype those with whom we disagree matters. 

The lives of the weak and defenseless matters.  The lives of those that stand in defense of the weak and defenseless matters.  The neighbor with whom we have nothing in common matters. 

The rainbow flag waving member of the LGBTQ community matters.

The man who kissed his baby girl on the forehead before leaving his house, shield fixed on his chest believing he’s making a difference for the good, unsure of the danger lurking around every corner matters.

The burqa wearing woman matters.

The hooded black teen matters.

The white family in suburbia matters.

The man who risked his life crossing the border in search of a job to support his family matters.

The suit wearing Baptist standing on the front steps of his church matters.

The mentally ill matter.  The elderly matter.  The orphan matters.  The homeless matter.

 

They all matter!  What we do matters…why?  Because it matters to you!  Because you, O God, see a world you’ve crafted with your own hands and lives you’ve molded to reflect your image run amuck and your heart breaks.  What happens here, what happens to us, what we choose to do to one another matters.

Until we deal decisively with the corruption lingering deep in our hearts, until we are willing to confess our sins, until we stop seeking someone to blame or an escape hatch to get us out of this big bad place, we will be destined to replay the history of brutality and sadness, heartache and violence.  Only once we realize that every seed of prejudice, hate, and unchecked anger planted gives rise to a society that turns on itself and devours itself, will we be positioned to make a difference.

Violence begets violence.

Prejudice begets prejudice.

Hate begets hate.

Blame passes off responsibility.

Lord, teach us to both lament and confess.  Teach us to lament that which breaks your heart, the death of all…because all matter to YOU!  Teach us to confess instead of assigning blame.  Teach us to nurture with great responsibility, sacrifice, and diligence the world as we have it now, so that, perhaps somehow your divine intentions for peace, love, and hope can be glimpsed through our actions of brother keeping and neighbor making.  

Lord have your way with us.  

Goosing My Wife: Developing a Vision for Marriage

We want to be one of those couples still goosing one another in the kitchen at 65 making our grandkids cringe with disgust.

This is my customary answer when I talk with couples in preparation for marriage.  I ask them, “What’s your preferred picture of the future?  What do you want your marriage to look like in thirty or forty years?”

See I just showed my hand a little bit there.  There’s a philosophy of life at work there.  I tend to believe that life is more meaningful if there is a picture driving our actions.  If there’s something out front of us, something that captivates our imagination, something that screams, “Yes, when we get there, this is what I want it to look like,” I believe our day to day actions tend to hold together.  Now, before you go all sentimental on me, I have a pretty strong realist vein that runs through my body.  It’s the kind of vein that says, “nothing is guaranteed.”  Right, I get that.  Any number of situations or issues could arise that makes that picture impossible.  But without a picture, I often feel as though I’m taking on life willy-nilly, with little glue that holds together my actions, words, ambitions, and relationships.

 

So I choose a picture.

And in my picture I’m goosing my wife in the kitchen at 65.  That’s my picture, what’s yours?

Now wait…

Before you answer that question, there is something you ought to know.  The moment you choose a picture, you are responsible for the work that makes that picture possible.  That means, daily, we choose actions, attitudes, and words that lend themselves to the greatest possibility of making that picture possible.  Listen, if I haven’t done the daily work of caring for my wife, loving her, making time for her, flirting with her, then by the time we get to 65 and I try to goose her, she’s liable to pop knots in my head with a skillet.

We don’t just arrive at our picture.  We lean in toward our picture by choosing to act daily in ways that make that picture possible.

Now wait…

I need to back up for a moment.

We didn’t get married with a picture in mind.  In fact, I’m not sure what we were thinking when we got married.  We were two young (21 and 22) kids, infatuated with the idea of love, steeped in Hollywood romanticism, about as far as we could be from God, and wrapped in a number of dysfunctions and addictions.   Put more simply, we had relatives taking bets at our wedding about how many months it would last.  We got 6 months from one (which we almost proved right).  For the first three years of marriage, we had no picture in mind, only survival.  We were two deeply selfish, sinful, messy, broken, people trying to navigate a path with multiple twists and turns, in the dark.  Talk about the blind leading the blind.

In those first 3 years we nearly divorced six times.

In those first 3 years we did nearly everything a couple could do to wound one another.

 

In those first 3 years two little boys were the only two threads holding together an unraveling relationship.

But then…

Jesus.

Three years into our marriage, separated by a military deployment, determined to divorce upon my return, Jesus happened.  Thousands of miles away, a month apart from one another, Jesus showed up in our lives and called us to be His followers.  Three years into our marriage, Jesus dismantled our old selves, those old nasty, broken, selfish, sinful selves and made us new creations.  And something changed!  And He was bringing us back together.

Wait don’t cue the doves and Kenny G music yet.   There was a moment in flying back from the Balkans that it hit me, “Wait, we didn’t like each other much when we weren’t Jesus followers, what makes me think we will like each other now that we are?”  But when I walked into the gym where we were to meet our families after our arrival, I saw the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen in my life.  It was the first time I’d seen my wife without the veil of sin covering my eyes.

But wait…

We had a lot of work to do.

Work.  There’s that word again.  We knew that the damage we’d done to one another wouldn’t be healed up easily.  Oh yeah, and besides being made new creations, we still lacked the resources and tools to make a strong marriage.  We were now walking in grace, a little less young, but still dumb.  We had some learning and maturing to do.

But where would we turn?

To Jesus…well of course.

But also…

To His church.

The first weekend I was home, Angie and I were determined to find a church where God was working.  She suggested the Nazarene church in Clarksville because that’s where she’d gotten saved.  Not having any idea what a Nazarene was, I reluctantly said ok.  And that’s where it started, my first weekend back from deployment.  Immediately Angie and I connected to a church family that took interest in us. 

Crazy, right?

Here was a group of people who wanted to make an investment in a couple, former alcoholics, messy, broken, bar-hopping, bouncer, party-going, still a little rough around the edges.  What were they thinking?  Ah, they were just showing us the same love and acceptance that Jesus had already shown us.  We didn’t know much about words like “Incarnation” back then, but quickly that community became the hands and feet of Jesus in our lives. 

And then…

They said, “We’ve got tools.”

And boy did they ever.

We were surrounded with love, encouragement, wisdom, and healthy examples of what a faith-filled couple looks like.  Each Thursday evening for about 6 months or more, a lay person named Earl came to our home at 9pm after our children had gone to bed and poured into our lives.  He was discipling us (we didn’t know that word either).  He talked to us about what it means to be healthy followers of Jesus and serve one another selflessly.  He began to help us understand the work required in making marriage work.

Then there were those two couples.

Remember that damage we did for three years?  Well one night that came to surface.  In that moment, we were threatened.  This thing could go either way.  Some pain, some scars aren’t healed easily or at a moment at an altar.  Sometimes they take time.  AND…community!  That night two couples were there for us.  The guys took me to a different house.  The women stayed with Angie at our house.

How long?

All night!  There they stood alongside us, wept with us, prayed us through the evening, and for the days and weeks following continually spoke into our lives.  We wouldn’t have made it through that night had it not been for the church.

That’s right, I said it.  The church saved our marriage.

 

They taught us crazy things.  You know like, “the world doesn’t revolve around either of us.”  (I still struggle with that one.)  They taught us how to communicate with one another.  They walked through the grief process of the death of both of Angie’s parents.  In fact, when Angie’s mother died three weeks after we arrived at our first Senior Pastor assignment without insurance, it was the church, Erin Church of the Nazarene, in Tennessee, that took up a secret offering to pay for the funeral expenses in full. 

They taught us about commitment and devotion.

 

I still remember driving home from church one morning when it hit me, “Angie, divorce is no longer an option.”  She said, “How can you say that?  You don’t know what might happen.”  I said, “As long as it’s not an option then we will have to live each and every day like it’s not an option.  That means if we are stuck with one another from this day forward, we better be more committed to blessing one another than being obnoxiously selfish.”

But that wasn’t all…

They taught us to be committed Jesus followers.  We learned about the necessity of prayer to guard our tongues from saying things we’d later regret.  We discovered the necessity of maintaining purity in our sexuality with one another, to protect our intimacy from outside influences.  We even learned that our marriage isn’t the end all be all.  Our marriage was caught up into something bigger than us.

It is the Kingdom of God.

Our marriage isn’t simply about our happiness.  It is about living lives that give credible witness to redemptive, reconciling, restorative Kingdom of God.  That means the picture I have isn’t simply about the picture.  It means that the daily sacrificial, selfless, humble, thoughtful, peace-making actions and words that dot the landscape of our lives give human flesh to the Kingdom of God.

 

Wait a minute.

That means…we were being shaped in our marriage to be the hands and feet of Jesus to others.  Now the church wasn’t just helping us.  We were the church giving our lives away to others. 

And then…

You know what happened as we learned new tools?  A picture started to emerge.  It was no longer a picture of survival, but instead, a picture of flourishing.  We could, because of Jesus and the impact of His church see a future.  And in that picture I was goosing my wife in the kitchen at 65.  

Show and Tell: Recovering Christian Mission

How is it that Kindergartners have managed to capture a balance that so few Christians seem to hold?  We all remember that favorite day of the week, the “Show and Tell” day in Kindergarten.  You prepared for weeks.  You knew days before what sweet little gem of a toy (authorized by your teachers and parents which made it even better) that you’d carry to the school.  You couldn’t wait to show off to your friends what you were convinced was the greatest toy EVER!  See Kindergartners get it!  You don’t just bring in the toy and set it on the shelf hoping everyone will see it.  Likewise, you don’t forget it at home and just try really hard to describe it.  No!  You bring it and you talk about it.  The two go hand in hand.  Let them see it, feel it, experience it, right?  But then tell them about it.  Ohhhh, to be more like children.

I’ve spent the last 13 years of my adult life running in multiple Christian traditions.  I call home a conservative evangelical tradition.  I’ve got an advanced degree from perhaps one of the most liberal divinity programs.  I’ve been enriched by the various voices I’ve listened to and been challenged by.  However, I find myself wanting to yell (too often I might add), “Quit telling me it’s either/or!  The Kingdom of God is both/and!” 

The Loss of Balance

There are many in Christian circles that want to suggest that the Kingdom of God is about Local Social Transformation.  They are the pioneers of social activism, racial reconciliation, economic equality, and distributive justice.  They get things done.   They start food pantries, shelters, orphanages, and social movements to challenge the powers of injustice.  They are often both socially and politically liberal (and a lot of fun to hang out with I might add).  However, the thought of “getting someone saved” makes many of them a bit nauseous.  They believe that’s the residue of a misappropriated understanding of Jesus’ gospel.  They would prefer the often attributed statement of St. Francis Assisi, “Preach the gospel always, use words if necessary.”  Though they’d tweek that a bit.  They might say, “Preach the gospel always…through what you do.  Shut up and just do it.  Quit trying to ram Jesus down their throats.  Transform communities and that will suffice.”  They are big on the “Show.”

Then there is my native tribe, the evangelicals.  We prefer a different route.  All that liberal, social transformation seems to miss the point.  Unfortunately, much of this reluctance toward the “liberal agenda” is based on a misunderstanding of the Kingdom of God and the future of all things.  Anyways, there is a tendency to believe among evangelicals that to focus on the “show” part of the equation is nothing more than gospel that feeds people but leaves them stuck in their sin.  Getting them saved is what’s important!  We are big on the “Tell.”  Evangelicals talk A LOT!  We talk A LOT about EVERYTHING!  We tend to be more conservative socially and politically (this current election season notwithstanding…we Evangelicals have lost our minds and abandoned all good sense).  We are passionate about prayer and the Word (and some are a lot of fun to hang out with because we’ve got great stories of people’s lives transformed by the power of God.)

But “show” and “tell” don’t often know how to play well with one another.  You either sit it on the shelf hoping everyone sees it or you leave it at home and try really hard to describe it.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

When we lose balance, I fear we cease to be the church that God called to give witness to His Kingdom in this world.  I believe that Gospel Saturation and Local Social Transformation were meant for one another.  I was grabbed at a recent conference by the language of Gospel Saturation.  We’ve got really good news as Christians!  It’s really good!  Our story is one of redemption and the power of God.  It’s a story that suggests that the forces of evil and darkness have been conquered by the love and power of God.  It is a story that makes space for every outside and outlier.  It’s the story of Jesus, the one who proclaimed the coming of a Kingdom where God makes right what’s wrong…and then…He invites us to join Him in that venture.  He calls us to leave behind our old lives and join Him in the New Story…by which we are “saved (or being saved)” and becoming followers of Jesus!  Gospel Saturation is courageous telling.  It’s the belief that the broken and sinful need a better story.  Why on earth would we keep that story to ourselves.  We got to tell!  We got to share!  We got to invite! 

As we…

participate in the Local Social Transformation of our communities.  We are talking about a Kingdom folks.  That’s big news.  The invitation Jesus offers is not just to fix my soul.  It’s the call to join Him as he fixes the world.  Living in the balance is the belief that Jesus has a bigger vision than just getting a few isolated souls out of hell.  He wants to remedy the hell on earth that so many live constrained by.  We might even suggest that only by participating in Local Social Transformation, by “showing” the Kingdom will people be able to hear what we seek to “tell” them.  By participating with Jesus in healing a broken world, feeding hungry people, standing against racial, social, and economic injustice gives powerful witness to the full ramifications of redemption here on earth.  This is not social activism.  This is Kingdom transformation.  We got to act!  We got to work!  We got to feed!

As we…

extend the invitation that could literally transform a life. 

The Power of Show AND Tell

The confusion of which we ought to do has left too many churches confused about their identity.  One preacher tells them to help at the soup kitchen.  Their next preacher tells them to learn methods of personal evangelism.  For preachers that lose their way, they focus too much on the administrative and organizational efforts of the church and whine incessantly because of all the obstacles preventing them from growing their little kingdoms. 

But!!  When the church recovers the both/and of “show and tell,” of Gospel Saturation and Local Social Transformation, the church becomes a powerful vessel through which the love and grace, the passion and power of God can spill out into communities.  Both/and helps the church recover its Missional Identity in this world!  It ensures that both actions and words are offered to the glory of God.  It ensures that those whose external circumstances are transformed by the generous faithful actions of God’s people also have the opportunity to have their internal circumstances transformed as they are liberated from sin’s clutches. 

We have much to learn from kindergartners.  

10 Rules for Ministry Leadership

Ministry is tricky.  It's about love, patience, tenderness and compassion, right?  Yes, absolutely.  But sometimes in ministry we actually find ourselves leading people.  In fact, for many people in ministry, they lead people often...like everyday.  That's not easy and it requires a certain kind of moxy.  It demands a certain kind of integrity.  I don't know that we often take the time to really evaluate key principles of what it means to be an effective ministry leader.

The following is a short list that I belive will help a ministry leader evaluate their capacity in leading those that they've been entrusted with.

10.)  If you break it, you own it.
This doesn't mean that if you break a piece of equipment you need to pay for it (though it might).  Actually this means that if you botch something, PLEASE have the integrity to name it.  Don't try to juke and jive to get out of it.  Raise your hand around your team and say, "That's on me.  I own it."  Chances are they already know it, but your stock goes way up as a leader if you have the courage to take responsibility.

9.)    If you don’t know it, don’t say you got it.
There are few things more frustrating for a senior leader than someone that is inexperienced always trying to ensure others, "I got it, I got it."  There is a reason that senior leader is having a conversation with you.  They can tell, "You don't got it."  Coaching is a part of leadership development but requires a teachable spirit.  If you are bound and determined to convince people you know how to do what you have no experience doing, you will be destined to repeat mistakes.  Ask questions when you don't know.  Admit weaknesses when you have them.  You will do much better on the learning curve.

8.)    If you are struggling with it, name it.
No one's life is perfect.  This tends to be one of the glaring and most unfortunate misnomers about leadership.  "I can't let people see me sweat."  We assume that ministry leadership requires us to put off a pristine persona.  NOPE!  A lack of vulnerability leads to a crash.  A strong leader finds a trusted confidant and a trusted supervisor and shares struggles.  They have the capacity to name needed intervention early rather than damage control after the fact.

7.)    If you forgot about it, don’t justify it.
Excuse my language for a moment.  We all have a "brain fart" from time to time.  It's normal.  However, when you lack the courage to name what you forgot, you force your team to spend a great deal of time navigating around your error wondering if you knew you had an error.  Likewise, don't make an excuse for why you forgot.  We all have excuses and generally few people care what they are.  Say, "It slipped my mind and I'll work to do better next time."  Then move on with your bad self.
 
6.)    If your team blows it, don’t pass off blame about it.
DON'T throw others under the bus.  You know what makes leadership hard?  At some level the responsibility lands with you.  That's why so few people want to lead.  If your team messes something up, a strong leader steps in and owns responsibility.  It doesn't mean they don't have a conversation down the road, it just means they take the first shot for their team.  Much ministry is voluteer based and the last thing volunteers need is to feel like failures.  You take a bullet for your team and you gain loyalty.

5.)    If you are frustrated about it, be careful where you complain about it.
Ministry leaders don't have the privilege of "running off at the mouth."  Unfortunately in my nearly 15 years of ministry this is often forgotten.  Peopel listen.  When you communicate your frustration with "so and so" or the other leaders or even the board, those listening will run with that, twist it, and you can quickly find yourself in a mess you never intended.  Leaders have the moxy to go directly to the person with whom they are frustrated and understand the prudence of where to speak, when, and with whom.  If you are running your mouth in the lobby, it will hit you like a truck later in your ministry.

4.)    If you start your week unsure of what you will do with it, you will waste it. 

This is specifically for pastors.  Don't go into Monday completely unsure of what you are going to get into.  Make and keep a calendar.  Block out your time.  If you have an administrator share it with them.  This ensures you have a game plan, steward your time well, and don't arrive at the end of the week wondering what on earth happened.  

3.)    If you’ve got something to say to them about it, do it, time it, be appropriate about it.

There is nothing worse than a leader that does end arounds or takes passive agressive stabs.  Both of these tactics are cowardice.  Yuck!  No, have the kind of mojo where you will take the Bible seriously about going to the person with whom you have an issue.  Don't say to others about a person what you aren't first willing to say to their face.  If those following you hear you do this they won't know if you can be trusted and if you are doing the same to them later.  

2.)    If you succeeded in it, pass off the praise to your team for it.

This is the flip side of Rule #6.  Everyone like kudos, but teams like "we win."  Leaders who are self-aggrandizing "stars" who love to see their names in lights are annoying to the teams that put them there.  Leaders pass off kudos.  True leaders don't need to be the center of the spotlight.  Instead they are like a prism that reflects the spotlight to the team that surrounded them.  

1.)    If you are passionate about it, you will be careful how you treat it. 

News flash...MINISTRY ISN'T A JOB!  It is a CALLING!  When we treat ministry like a job we are constantly worried about upward mobility, time clocks, and compensation.  Yep, that sounds like the Jesus model, right?  NOPE!  In fact, a calling is something shaped by passion.  We don't hire "ministers" we call them.  We don't merely recruit "volunteers" to plug our organizational holes, we are helping people discover their full-redemptive potential.  That means some late nights.  That means you might not get paid enough.  However, when a passion for the Kingdom usurps the calculations of job performance, amazing things can happen.  

I hope this short list helps you to evaluate your ministry effectiveness.  Are you the kind of leader people will follow?