I need more…
I’ve talked with hundreds of pastors and one comment that I have heard over and over again is “If we just had more _______ (money, leaders, members, buildings, campuses, resources) we could ________ (do more ministry, help more people, accomplish more for Christ).” It doesn’t even matter how large the church is or how significant the church budget is—I’ve heard it. Inside of larger churches, I’ve heard it in the context of specific ministries. I’ve also said it myself several times.
I truly believe what Craig often says…we have every resource we need to reach the people God has called us to reach today. If our church would have started with the resources we have today, it wouldn’t surprise me if we would have screwed it all up and wasted a ton in the process. And if we would have waited until we had enough resources to reach 25k people…we’d still be waiting.
It many cases the “need” for more paralyzes ministries. The answer to every challenge or opportunity is too often and too easily “more resources.” When we believe THE answer to growing our ministries is more resources, it creates some pretty significant theology challenges. Does money or things or marketing or technology draw people to Christ…or does God?
Here are a few questions I think we should be asking when it seems the answer is more…
- What does God want to teach us in order to entrust us with more?
- How can we better invest what we already have to get a better Kingdom return? How can we take the same resources we have and get more out of them?
- What could God accomplish with less than what we have? How can we create margin by decreasing what we’re using?
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Whew! I forget sometimes this is a leadership blog! For a minute there, I was worried. (grin)
“You have everything you need to do everything God wants you to do”, I believe Craig said this at the Leadership Summit last week…I probably also read the quote in his book “It” (great read, this post speaks to “It”)…I was touched by the recap Mark Beeson shared from Bill Hybels session (Here Am I. Send Me) last week about Mother Teresa, excellent; http://www.markbeeson.com/mark_beeson/2008/08/billy-hybels-wc.html God found Mother Theresa’s fully committed heart!
Wow Bobby, that was a shot right between the eyes, thanks for the reminder and the questions to wrestle with.
Bobby, If only I had more time, I could wrestle with those great questions you just asked.
That’s funny Craig.
This falls in place with something God has been telling me lately:
“Don’t limit me” - God
For us (a start up church) this means:
- Don’t limit the first experience to the size of our living room…move it to the backyard.
- Don’t wait for the ‘perfect time’ to setup church management software. Do it now. Be ready for a flood.
- Start making contacts at local event centers. Be ready for God to move.
Thank you for this reminder this morning! I reall needed this encouragemet. At Oasis, we constantly come up against this and seek to find creative ways to use what we have now. It encourages me to stay on track when leaders like Craig G, Bill Hybels, Chris Hodges, Dino Rizzo and so many more still face these issues.
Christian leaders should be the most creative people on the planet!
Excellent! A reminder that we all need.
GREAT stuff Bobby!
nice. more please.
What did the early church have–just themselves and the Holy Spirit. If we don’t have the Spirit of God, it doesn’t matter how many resources we have. If we do have the Spirit of God, ditto.
PS Everything else is stewardship
AWESOME QUESTIONS! Thank you so much for this! Especially the last. I think we could accomplish more by using less money on marketing and a fat building, and spending more on loving our neighbor - just sayin’
bobby, that is beautiful. thank you for the reminder.
Hey Bobby,
As a recent ARC plant….I will admit if I had a dollar for ever time I thought “what if” I’d be giving more to the Church which means we would have more….(there i go again) Seriously Bobby that is some tight stuff i love how you mentioned if you waited for the “stuff” to reach 25k you would still be waiting. I think many leaders rest in the false assurance of the future assuming to someday have enough “stuff” I’m not sure we ever feel like we have enough until God is simply are everything, He is enough! Later Bro!
I think a lot of times God is trying to teach us how to be faithful with what we already have before he blesses us with more…
Great thoughts Bobby G.
Aren’t there times when resources are just hindered?… Or is it God alone allocating resources according to our level of maturity. Aren’t there other factors involved?
we strive to live on less, so that we can give more.
We lack resourcefulness not resources, if keep looking for magic handouts from heaven how will we ever learn to be good stewards of all Christ has already given us.
Scripture states if you’re faithful with little you’ll be faithful with much yet too often in the church we want to ignore the little and go for the much before we’ve learned the lessons along the way.
We started out with 4 people,$40 and a vision.
I remember a local company here, in order to gain more revenue installed an elite system to track and to account for expenses …
It was an extremely high tech system, but it slowed production nearly 35%…. something that the leadership had not accounted for, and hurt the companies pocket book…including the expense for the accounting system…
The compnay, a multi million dollar company went bust less than a year later, because they couldn’t let the new system go…
Sometimes, we overthink, overdo, and over control, and get bogged down in our own thoughts and ways…
Kurt,
Great questions. There are clearly people in the world with a lot of resources who would appear to be less than “mature”. So you could conclude that a person can have resources regardless of whether they have been “faithful” in the past.
The focus of this post is not about how to get more resources, but rather to be guarded against seeing “more resources” as “THE” answer to our ministry challenges.
Compassionate for people. Put other peoples needs above my own. A good listener
Wants so much to be viewed as a follower for Christ.
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The CHURCH is not a corporation and the “senior pastor” is not a CEO…………sadly this is how a lot of “churches” are run today…..
Read Your Bibles people!!!! The N.T. church was not a money making machine!!!!!
The book “Pagan Christianity?” by Frank Viola and George Barna gives keen insight on how the “church” got to be a business in America and around the world….it’s quite disturbing and definitely a recommended read for everyone!!!!