It\u2019s no secret that the past couple of years have been extremely difficult. Pastors (and anyone else, for that matter) can too easily slip into seasons of depression, anxiety and uncertainty. While I don\u2019t have answers to cure all of the difficult situations you may encounter, I do have three words that may help: You should quit.<\/p>\n
No, I\u2019m not saying you should turn in your resignation letter and start looking for another ministry position or start a Chick-Fil-A franchise (it\u2019s OK to admit you\u2019ve thought about this at least once). What I am<\/em> saying is you should quit doing some things as soon as possible.<\/p>\n 1. Quit measuring success by how many people are in the pews on Sunday mornings.<\/strong><\/p>\n I remember well riding the roller coaster of emotions from week to week as I\u2019d eagerly anticipate seeing how many people showed up. Over the course of several years, I finally had a very scientific observation about Sunday morning attendance.<\/p>\n Are you ready for this? Grab a pen and paper because you might want to write it down. It\u2019s that profound. Here it is: Some Sundays had higher attendance, other Sundays had lower attendance and most of the time I could find absolutely no rhyme or reason why.<\/em><\/p>\n There you go. Believe it or not, that simple realization was life-changing for me. It helped me stop (at least on most weeks) measuring the health of our church by who was (or wasn\u2019t) there on any given Sunday. Some weeks folks were out for any number of reasons and our numbers were down. Other Sundays they were present, and we had a decent crowd.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t advocate giving up counting heads on Sunday mornings, because I don\u2019t think numbers are completely unimportant. They are, however, a pretty lousy overall measurement of ministry success. So quit defining success by the numbers of people who show up. That\u2019s almost always a losing battle.<\/p>\n 2. Quit comparing your church to the one down the road.<\/strong><\/p>\n God has called you to the church you\u2019re serving. Until He calls you elsewhere, this is where He has you. Your church is made up of the people on your church membership rolls. The church down the road has different people with different sets of gifts and talents. No other church on the face of the planet has the same mix of people your church has. So, no comparison is fair. You will drive yourself crazy if you\u2019re constantly comparing your buildings, budgets, ministries, events, etc. with any other church.<\/p>\n We often can get rose-colored glasses when it comes to other churches. We know the inside-out of our own church \u2013 the good, the bad and the really, really, ugly. Most of the time we only focus on the good we see in other churches and think, \u201cWow, if only I had all that.\u201d The fact is, those comparisons most often are not based in reality. You should quit comparing your church to the one down the road.<\/p>\n 3. Quit trying to meet everyone\u2019s expectations of you.<\/strong><\/p>\n Let me let you in on a little secret that I wish I had known years ago: Sooner or later, you\u2019re going to disappoint everyone in your church. Do you know why? Because you aren\u2019t perfect. Now, that doesn\u2019t mean you disregard any and all expectations the church has for you, but you can\u2019t meet every single person\u2019s every single expectation all the time.<\/p>\n