Today's Conversation

In this podcast, Karl and Leith discuss: How small churches should think about growth and success; The particular challenges, including finances, that pastors of small churches face; What resources are available to pastors of small churches; and Why we need more — not fewer — small churches in the United States. Read a Portion of ...

Karl Vaters has been a small church pastor for 30 years. He's written about pastoring small churches in books ("The Grasshopper Myth" and "Small Church Essentials") and on Pivot, a Christianity Today blog. And, he's the founder of NewSmallChurch.com, a blog that encourages, connects and equips innovative small church pastors. In Today's Conversation, he joins Leith Anderson to share his experience and offer insight into how to pastor small churches well.

In this podcast, Karl and Leith discuss:

How small churches should think about growth and success;

The particular challenges, including finances, that pastors of small churches face;

What resources are available to pastors of small churches; and

Why we need more — not fewer — small churches in the United States.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: What are some common challenges that are particularly related to pastoring a small church?

Karl: I think the first one is discouragement. It’s very easy to feel “less than.” It’s very easy to feel you’re not having impact when so many of your peers are talking about numbers. And, when you look around on a Sunday — we often start a Sunday morning service with more people on the platform than in the seats — that can be very discouraging.

I think another one is finances. It’s just really hard to pull the money together. Most small church pastors out there are not being paid a full-time salary. They’re bi-vocational.

And then that leads to the third and maybe biggest challenge: time. Trying to be a two or three point pastor perhaps in some denominations where they are in charge of two or three churches, or even if you are just overseeing one church but having to work 40 or more hours a week at a secular job just to pay the bills.

There are a lot of pastors who do the Saturday night scramble for the Sunday morning sermon. It’s not because they’re unwise or bad planners. It’s because they have been working 40 hours a week at a secular job, spend a couple nights of the week doing Bible studies and small groups, and then Saturday night they get called to a beside or rehab for one of the church members or the family member of a church member. It’s really hard to get out of that place where you feel you are just spinning your wheels and getting it done last minute.

Those are probably the biggest challenges for small church pastors. The discouragement, the finances, and the time are really difficult burdens to get around.

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Little Hospice is Minnesota’s longest serving residential hospice, and has served about 4,000 people at the end of their lives. In this podcast, you’ll hear Bob Solheim, director of Little Hospice, and Leith Anderson, NAE president, discuss: What emotions and issues people commonly need to deal with at the end of their lives; What Christians ...

With the aging U.S. population, there are millions who are deciding about where to live and die in later life. Today's Conversation focuses on how to care for the dying — particularly through the lens of hospice care.

Little Hospice is Minnesota’s longest serving residential hospice, and has served about 4,000 people at the end of their lives. In this podcast, you'll hear Bob Solheim, director of Little Hospice, and Leith Anderson, NAE president, discuss:

What emotions and issues people commonly need to deal with at the end of their lives;

What Christians should say — or not say — to non-believing loved ones who will die soon;

How Christians should think about pain; and

What pastors and churches can do to care for those nearing the end of their earthly lives.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: What are the unhelpful things? What should family members — or churches or pastors — what should we not do?

Bob: Well, the first thing is I would never tell my loved one, “I don’t know how we’ll make it without you.” I wouldn’t put that burden on them. And I wouldn’t talk about the cost of their end of life care, and yet we hear this happening. And I wouldn’t tell them that if they don’t accept Christ that they will go to hell. There’s a lot of discussion that can be had around that, but I’ve come to believe that’s up to Christ, not us. Salvation is not in my hands, it’s in Jesus’, and I’m going to leave it to him with prayer. I wouldn’t talk about going to Hawaii next fall or tell them how exhausted you are. These are all some things that we hear. And certainly not to say anything that would make them feel like any kind of a burden in any way. I think that’s really important.

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Today's Conversation is brought to you by Belhaven University.

 

 

In Today’s Conversion podcast, which is hosted by NAE President Leith Anderson, you’ll learn: What the most common forms of mental illnesses are in the United States; How social media and Internet use impact the mental health of young people; What roles churches and medicine play in treatment; and How to address the stigma of ...

As part of a pastor's family that was affected by serious mental illness, Amy Simpson brings sensitivity and insight into how churches minister to those with mental illnesses. Her research on the topic formed the basis of her book, "Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church's Mission." Amy is also the author of "Anxious: Choosing Faith in a World of Worry" and "Blessed Are the Unsatisfied: Finding Spiritual Freedom in an Imperfect World."

In Today's Conversion podcast, which is hosted by NAE President Leith Anderson, you'll learn:

What the most common forms of mental illnesses are in the United States;

How social media and Internet use impact the mental health of young people;

What roles churches and medicine play in treatment; and

How to address the stigma of mental illness in the Church.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: In partnership with Christianity Today, you conducted a survey of 500 churches to understand what’s going on with mental health in the Church. Out of that, did you find out to what extent pastors are aware that people in the congregations are suffering from mental illnesses?

Amy: This finding actually surprised me, because based on how our churches typically respond and how much we talk about this in our churches — which is not very much — I was expecting a lower percentage of pastors to be aware of or to admit that mental illness is present within their congregation. But it was actually very high. Ninety-eight percent of pastors were aware of some kind of mental health problem existing within their own congregation. So virtually 100 percent of pastors acknowledged this is present in their churches. But at the same time, only 12.5 percent of them said that mental illness was openly discussed in a healthy way in their church. And, there were other statistics in there that showed there’s a pretty big gap between that level of awareness and the level of response — at least a healthy and productive response — so we have some work to do there.

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Today's Conversation is brought to you by Fuller Theological Seminary.

 

In this podcast, you’ll hear two seasoned ministry leaders discuss: How to start a discipleship relationship and keep it going; What the barriers and opportunities are for discipleship today; How smartphones and social media have changed the way we disciple; and How to promote discipleship in churches. Read a Portion of the Transcript Leith: I ...

Doug Nuenke leads an organization devoted to making disciples, writes and speaks on discipleship, and practices making disciples in his own life. He joins Leith Anderson in Today's Conversation podcast to share about making disciples in the 21st century.

In this podcast, you'll hear two seasoned ministry leaders discuss:

How to start a discipleship relationship and keep it going;

What the barriers and opportunities are for discipleship today;

How smartphones and social media have changed the way we disciple; and

How to promote discipleship in churches.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: I want to hear your advice to churches and pastors on how to go about discipleship. What kind of tools should they use? Should it be a program? Is it like growth groups or the Navigators 2:7 program? What’s the appropriate advice that you want to give to the average person and the average church — especially the leaders of the churches — on how to go about celebrating and experiencing discipleship within a congregation?

Doug: I’m a seminary guy and have worked at a church too, Leith. If it’s my teaching gifts or my preaching — my platform gifts — that end up being the only thing that I bring in my ministry or my church, I miss the opportunity of mobilizing the everyday people. One of the main things I think about is the “Sleeping Giant” — this idea that there are hundreds of thousands — even millions of people — that sit in our churches that are ready to be mobilized as disciple-makers. That’s the key thing: to help them.

Billy Graham is quoted saying that the first Reformation put the Bible in the hands of people, but it failed to put the ministry in the hands of the people. I think we still have time for a new Reformation where we put the ministry in the hands of the people. Curriculum and resources are important. The Navigators 2:7 series and the tested and true Design for Discipleship books are helpful. There are a lot of tools that we can use. But those tools need to be put in the hands of everyday people in our congregations, and they need to be equipped to be able to utilize them.

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If you enjoyed the program, please rate it on iTunes and write a brief review. That will help get the word out and raise the visibility of the show.

Today's Conversation is brought to you by Belhaven University.

 

 

In Today’s Conversation with Leith Anderson, Jolene Erlacher unravels the mysteries of Millennials with practical tips to engage them in ongoing ministry. In this podcast, you’ll hear an expert on generations share: Why it’s important to study Millennials in particular; What the unique challenges are for Millennials in ministry positions; How Millennials are different and ...

Millennials are the largest generation in American history. In their 20s and 30s, they are entering the workforce and ministry contexts. Are our churches and ministries adapting to their needs?

In Today’s Conversation with Leith Anderson, Jolene Erlacher unravels the mysteries of Millennials with practical tips to engage them in ongoing ministry. In this podcast, you’ll hear an expert on generations share:

Why it's important to study Millennials in particular;

What the unique challenges are for Millennials in ministry positions;

How Millennials are different and similar to Baby Boomers and other generations;

What does "post-modern natives" mean and how does their mindset differ from those of a modern mindset.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: Why is it important to study and talk about Millennials? It seems like there was a day when we were talking about Generation X and that day quickly passed, and they’ve kind of been forgotten in the difference Boomers and Millennials.

Jolene: I like to joke because I am an Xer, that we Xers just have to study Boomers and Millennials, because nobody talks about us. You’re right: It’s the size of the Baby Boomer cohort, which was the largest generation in American history previously, and then Millennials is now the largest generation in American history. So just the sheer size of those generations has dictated a lot of attention and caused a lot of things to be catered towards them because of their sheer size. So that’s one piece of it.

Another thing that we see with generational cohorts as we look throughout history is that you tend to have a dominant generation and then a less dominant generation followed by a more dominant generation. So there’s kind of this ebb and flow or pendulum swing. Howe and Strauss talk about this a lot in their generational studies. So really Xers and now Generation Z, who is the younger generation, are more of the non-dominant or less dominant generations where as Boomers and Millennials are more dominant. That’s one of the reasons.

The other thing that I think is so key for us to understand with Millennials — why Millennials really do merit the attention they get — is because our society in the last several decades, starting really with the ‘60s and ‘70s, has undergone massive cultural shifts. When we look at the scope of history, we see that every couple hundred years in a society or civilization, there’s massive cultural upheaval. If we go back a couple hundred years, we have things like the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, which propelled us out of an agrarian society into an industrial or urban society. A couple hundred years before that we had the European Renaissance, which propelled us out of the Middle Ages into the Modern Era. So we see this trend that every couple hundred years, there’s massive cultural upheaval that reorders the whole way that a society functions. Right now with Postmodernism and a lot of other things related to that, we’ve seen a massive shift in how our society functions and how we view things and our worldviews and values.

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