Why It Feels Harder Than It Used To

Why It Feels Harder Than It Used To

Frank: Here we are with another next Sunday's summer session. Let's go. With the incredible Jim Shepard. Uh oh. Lastly, the amazing Frank Beer.

Jim: Does everybody know who you are? You always introduce me, but no. Does everybody know who you are?

Frank: I don't know. I don't know if anybody knows or cares, but it's okay. I do. I'm glad you're here with me.

Jim: That's it. That's it. Me and you. We got this together.

Frank: We got next Sunday and the last Hey, last episode. , I don't think you could have been any more clear about the hard work that pastors have got to do first if they're going to lead their people in the area of generosity.

Jim: Yeah. Well, and I think the whole idea, Frank, is that all of us have struggles. We have areas in our life where we are trying to maybe emerge from a struggle and find a victory. Yeah. Right. And I just think for me personally, if there's an area in my life that I'm struggling with, I want to identify somebody who's had a victory over that and find out, hey, what did you do to overcome this? Because the chances are really good. I mean, really good that whatever we're struggling with in our life, in our faith, in our ministry, there's somebody else who's been through this and found victory and it could be helpful.

Frank: Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's good. Jim, today uh we're talking about the shift that has seemed to take place that many pastors and leaders acknowledge that it feels maybe harder than it used to to unlock generosity to kind of guide their congregation in the area of generosity. So, we thought we'd just have a brief conversation around what that could look like today, the reality of that, where that's showing up, where that's positive, negative, how they can kind of evaluate and have that as insight this summer as they're going into the fall to lead their congregations.

Jim: Yeah. Well, you know, the shift, there's several things. First of all, I think it is and and much is written on this about pastor's mental health and it's just harder to pastor

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: Then it has been. But then you add this in there and uh there could be a number of reasons why. I think for me I'm always going to go to anytime you have something that you have not paid attention to in a long time and really been focused on resolving it. When you do go back to it, it's going to be hard at first.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: And I think for most pastors and most churches, this is an area where inattention has been the predominant reflex there, and where there's not inattention then the attention has been with a voice of transaction not transformation right which is equally unhelpful and causing issues in trying to overcome this. So in our first one we sort of tried to identify hey pastor it starts with you. We've got to help you resolve the issue within yourself. But now if you've done that then you can move on to this. Why is this so hard? and what do I need to do to get it started? Right. And so it could be either inattention or the attention I paid to it is with the wrong language. There could be some other things, but I see those two really often.

Frank: Yeah, it feels like inattention just seems to be at the top of the list. I was with a pastor just last week and we were going around, we're doing a strategy day and what a privilege to get to go sit with the church and talk through the current state of the union. fairly young church if I remember correctly and evaluate kind of where we're at, where we're going, what we've built, what God's doing, what seems to be obvious, what seems to be complicated, and then where we are going from here. So, are they ready for a major generosity initiative? We're just reflecting on it. And early in the strategy days, I love to ask the question, say, "Hey, what's your name? How long have you been here at the church? Your role? And one thing you hope to get out of today?" Okay? And now tee them up with that. Let them ponder for a second. They know the answer to the first couple questions. That last one might be a little harder. Hopefully. While they're doing that, I'll introduce myself or any team members. Give them time to think about it. Then we went around the table.

Jim: Yeah.

Frank: And at this specific table, we had I don't know, there was a dozen people in the room or so. Okay. So, it was a good good room. Some some trustees were there, senior leadership, a handful of other leaders, finance team. It was a good group. And we go all the way around. And since I started, I just turned to my left. Well, the senior pastor is on my right. So, he's going to be the last one to go, which uh I try to conrue that so that everybody just doesn't say what he said or what she said, you know? So, let's do it that way. So, we go all around. Everybody gives good insight. So, we're we're pausing a couple times to talk about things. And we get to him and he goes, "Hey, I just need to be clear to everybody in the room. This is on me." And we hadn't even started yet. He said, "I have no doubt that we're going to get on the hood, under the hood, and we're going to have many things that we need to improve on. I've not given this proper attention." To be clear, it is our responsibility. I know it's my responsibility to lead this. We've not given this attention. And I've got to figure out the right way to give it proper attention without it suddenly feel like our church has changed. And so it was so encouraging to me uh because I was getting ready to give them some information that was going to be potentially discouraging on where they were at with some things and some room for improvement and for him to say, "Hey, we've not given attention to this, but I'm in. I'm ready to lock in. I'm ready to do this. Uh we've got some work to do, so let's do it." And so I think to your point of inattentiveness, there are those that thought they've been doing good enough and then they're surprised uh that maybe we had some room for improvement in all areas.

Jim: Yeah.

Frank: And then there are others that are like, "No, we just been prioritizing other stuff or I've not wanted to deal with it and I'm ready to lock in."

Jim: So I love that conversation. And then there's this Frank. There's what I call false signals, okay? that things are actually working well. So in the transactional mindset, far too often a church will measure success based on whether we've reached our budget or not.

Frank: Oh dear. What is that? You know where I'm going.

Jim: I know where you're going. You know where I'm going.

Frank: It frustrates me so much.

Jim: We think things are going well because we hit our budget and then you and I look around and there's you know there's 57 people carrying the weight of ministry and another thousand people who are giving a little bit here and there. Now I know that seems a little bit extreme but it wouldn't be crazy for us to see that kind of a thing. And so you and I know, no, there's you're you're concealing the fact that the real issue is being masked by these false signals. We've hit a budget five years in a row. We've grown by 5% year-over-year in budget. Great. But your attendance has grown by 26%. What does that say about it? Right? And so there's false signals that indicate all is well. And here's what I want to go a little further. It has a generational component to it because I'm a boomer. I know that's probably obvious to everyone, but I'm a boomer. And then the seniors before us, we were taught well. We come out of an institutional mindset, if not not more than that, where we learn to give. And it was our responsibility. I'm not saying this is right, but we gave significantly. And you can still see that in many churches.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: That has a lot of boomers. Those boomers are carrying a disproportionate share of the weight, even acknowledging that younger families may not have the margin that older families have. I know that. But it still shouldn't be as unbalanced as it is. And so, another false signal, the weight of an older generation might be propping up the fact that you haven't disciplined your younger families. Well, yeah. And so budgets and then generational discrepancies and they conceal the fact it looks like you're doing well but underneath your discipleship is like this deep and now you've got to go tend to that.

Frank: Yeah. My fear is that we've gotten so good at budgeting and forecasting that there's very little need for discipleship in the area of generosity. And I think uh we all need to be stretched and grow in this area. I think all of us have room for improvement and need to slow down to take the time to discipline a generation and or generations in the area of generosity because there is no one else going to be held accountable for it. It is the church's responsibility and no one else's to help navigate this and help grow our people in the area of generosity. And so it's on us.

Jim: Yeah.

Frank: And so just because we've gotten really good at budgeting and really good at forecasting does not mean that we're leading our people well.

Jim: Yeah. Yeah. It's why, you know, thinking beyond that even, it's why when we do our initiatives, we always have a segment that's directed toward the students and toward the children, right? Not that their money is ever going to change anything that the church does. That's not even the point in the first place.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: We want to sew seeds of good, faithful, biblical stewardship in their lives at a point in time when they're younger and more receptive to it. Because here's what you and I know. You'll never tithe on a $100,000 until you've learned to tithe on 10.

Frank: That's right.

Jim: If you can't give a dollar when you're making $10, it'll just be more complicated for you when you make $100,000 or whatever the number is, right? Because here's what we know. Here's what you and I both know. Money more money only makes you more of what you already are.

Frank: Oh wow.

Jim: More money only makes you what you already are. More of what you already are. The greedy person becomes more greedy and the generous person becomes more generous. I've watched it over and over and over again. Money makes us more of what we already are. It's like an X-ray and it reveals what's going on inside of our heart. Which is why it's such an important discipleship issue, right? Because it's like, you know, doing a heart exam on the table with your doctor. You get a reading and your giving gives the pastor a reading. And so, you know, that's what we're when you're trying to deal with this, it's going to feel hard if you haven't been paying attention. If you've been speaking transactionally, if you've been paying more attention to false signals than real signals, you know, all of these things are going to make it harder for you to resolve, but not impossible.

Frank: That's right. That's right. We've got to have an honest review of our finances, where we're at, where giving is coming from, and understand where people are growing and not growing. We can do that by demographic. We can get a lot of data to help us take action and know where our weak areas are. So, we may not be weak everywhere. You know, my cardio is a little low right now, so I can't run very far if I don't like to run , unless a bear is chasing me. but um uh my cardio is a little light right now. My strength is fine. Okay. So in the gym, depending on what activities I'm doing, it'll show up or not show up, but if you did an overall fitness assessment, you'd see where my gaps are. The same could be true with our finances to go, okay, where are we doing really well? Where are we not doing well? And so let's just have that honest conversation because we'll see that, oh, I'm being carried over here, but I didn't realize this was such an issue. uh for example, you may uh feel like you have a lot of new givers and be tracking that. But I will say this, I have yet to see a church not consulted by Janerys. Okay. Uh so one that we've come in on that on their board reports included new givers and lapsed givers. I've never seen both in one report. so I see it afterwards and that can be a great learning to say we're doing better or not better in this area. You know, there could be room for improvement. And then we can evaluate all the given bands and demographics. There's so much data we can use to help us diagnose where we're at and where we need to to start to work. And so for me, I probably need to level up from walking a mile to starting to jog. Like I just need to start leveling up a little bit. That's an area of improvement for me. And that's a lesson for pastors. And I could crank up push-ups right now, right? So it's like, okay, what do I need to focus on? I think the same is true for pastors. So this summer is a great time to get a snapshot of where you're at. So you're not like, I just got to fix all things generosity. That's probably not true. No, you're probably not weak in every area. Maybe you are. Hopefully not. Uh but there's probably some areas in room for improvement. So what are you doing this summer? Here's my question or challenge for the summer session is to go, what are you doing this summer to better understand what's happening in your church so that you can better serve them going into the fall.

Jim: Yeah. To pay attention to the real signals.