Some keys to longevity in ministry …

I have been privileged to be a pastor for about 12 years ...

In the first church I served at, my service lasted about six years (if you include the three years I served as a student pastor). My second stretch lasted about six years. Surprisingly, my experience as a pastor is not unique. It does seem short, but statistics tell us that the average pastoral tenure lasts about 3.6 years. To state the obvious, that’s not very long, and it illustrates the unfortunate state of pastoral longevity today.

“As I listened, it became clear that prayer was for Matt the “powerhouse” of his ministry. Having a focus on prayer is vital when it comes to maintaining a long and fruitful ministry."

It was not always this way. One of my heroes of the faith, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), grew up during a time when long pastorates were the norm. His grandfather Solomon Stoddard pastored the same church for over fifty-five years. His father, Timothy Edwards, pastored the same church for over sixty years. And had he not been forced to resign from his church after (only) twenty three years, it’s safe to assume Jonathan Edwards would have served till the time of his death, just like his father and grandfather and most pastors in Puritan New England.

The relationship between pastor and church was more like a marriage than employment. In the three centuries since, the pastoral landscape has changed dramatically.

Over the past ten or so years I have gotten to know Matthew Murray. I had known of Matt for many years, but only met him personally and had the chance to really get to know him through our FCC Pastor’s retreats. Everyone knows him would say that Matt is a kind and humble man who loves Manchester United and a chat at the coffee shop. He and his wife Susan have led and pastored Engadine Congregational Church for thirty-four years. Thirty-four years! Matt first started serving in various Congregational Churches in the UK before he was ‘talent poached’ by the elders of ECC in the late 1980s to come and serve in The Shire, in the sunny shores of Southern Sydney.

A lot has changed during that time, and countless pastors (including me) have moved to other churches. Still, as I attended the farewell service on the 11th of March, I was curious for tips to longevity. While there many things that come to light in the gathering, there seemed three central themes that kept on bobbing up. Here they are:

Prayer

First, Matt is a person of prayer. As I continued to listen, it became clear that prayer was for Matt the “powerhouse” of his ministry. Having a focus on prayer is vital when it comes to maintaining a long and fruitful ministry. He also spoke to the need of every pastor to immerse himself in Scripture. While there are plenty of good titles and good authors (such as the above mentioned), there is no substitute for the word of God.

Love for others

Second, Matt truly loved others. The church on the 11th of March was packed! It was also really hot in there! When Matt was asked to describe his experience at ECC, he spoke of his love for the congregation in Engadine and their love him, as well the support of the leaders and elders over the years. He said, even after all these years, there was still a deep affection between the pastor and his people. I have been around long enough to know that this is unique, and I found Matt’s words concerning his congregation to be refreshing and encouraging.

Humility

Third, Matt exhibited humility. If you tried to look up Matt on the internet, you would find that he does not have much of a web presence at all. He does not have a blog or a Twitter account, much less a following. Matt is what we would call ‘old school,’ but I believe he is a model worth following and one that is all but lost in our day and age.

Please understand; I am not here to put Matt on a pedestal. When I asked him about doing a little write-up on him, he was very hesitant to agree, not just because he is a humble man, but because he is aware of his own sin and shortcomings. Matt doesn’t want anyone to look to him or to any other man. Rather he would have us look to Christ (Isaiah 45:22) and his power to save. As the psalmist puts it, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!” (Psalm 115:1)

Far too many pastors start off wanting to be the next John Piper or Tim Keller. It’s fine to have good models in pastoral ministry, but it is unhelpful and even detrimental to aim for ministry success from a worldly perspective.

Few pastors will spend nearly all of their ministry at one church. Obviously, Matt is unique, and I praise God for his life and ministry and the example he has given us. Many others have served well over the years, and perhaps you have heard of them and are aware of their ministries, but it is a safe bet that most are unknown to the world, except for the people and communities they serve. We can praise God for these faithful men, but if you are looking for the best model to follow, look no further than the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the ultimate ‘good shepherd’ (John 10:11) who lays his life down for the sheep. Every pastor should strive to emulate him and serve in the grace and wisdom that only he can give.

Tim

Reflections on the closing of a church …

Endings are hard ...

Perhaps you have worked through the ending of a relationship, or a job, a friendship, or even a life. It inevitably brings grief and sadness. Often we ask ourselves, what went wrong? What could we have done differently? What happens to us all, now?

Establish Church held its final gathering on the 4th of December, 2022. It was an ending that was more difficult in many ways than could have been anticipated. That being said, it was also a time of thanksgiving and praise: thanksgiving for what God has done, for the people he has drawn to life from death through the church, for the people who have grown in their love and commitment to Jesus, for those who have been trained and equipped for service in his church.

Still, the reality of failure hung heavy as we closed our doors. It was, in many ways, what made the gathering (and the days and weeks that followed) so difficult. As the hopes and dreams died, as pictures of what could have been faded away, it is hard not to think some dark thoughts. Lee, Cathra, Hope, myself and others had planned for Establish to be around for the next fifty years (or more). Our vision was that it would also provide the basis for planting and replanting other churches within our network - to provide new life, new energy and renewal to FCC churches in southern Sydney. Obviously, those things wont happen now. Or at least, they won’t happen through Establish Church. This was a death for those involved in our church, but also for our network as a whole.

"Our vision was that Establish Church would provide the basis for planting and revitalising other churches within our network - to provide new life, new energy and renewal to other FCC churches in southern Sydney. Obviously, those things wont happen now."

The close has provoked some interesting conversations within our network. I remember a conversation with an individual in the last few months that went something like this: the FCC has put X amount of dollars into Establish Church. We paid for a church but there will be nothing there. It was all a waste.

I would like to (gently) push against this thinking. Firstly, the numbers tell us that church planting is hard. Very hard. Of all church plants that launch, approximately 70% close down in the first five years. If you live past five years, you have moved past the ‘red zone.’ The stats show that it is not as simple as money + opportunity = a healthy church.

We also need to be honest about where we are as a network. 80% of our churches are below thirty people. Respectfully, these communities are also populated by people on the wrong side of eighty. Most (but not all) of those FCC churches that are larger have plateaued or are in decline. The numbers aren't great. If our network is not planting new churches, I would humbly ask, then what are we doing?

I have also heard it said that the Fellowship shouldn’t be planting churches, but revitalising existing churches. I wholeheartedly agree that we should be revitalising our existing churches, but I’d also suggest that the conversation is more complicated than this. There are only a small handful of churches whose numbers would class them as a ‘revitalising’ prospect. Most of our churches, because of their size and the average age of their members, would be classed as ‘re-pots’ or plants. In other words, the old needs to be completely replaced by something new.

In the past two months, I have been reflecting on how the language of failure is difficult in ministry. Every ministry, whether small or large, has the capacity to fail. If we were so afraid that our new youth ministry, or camp, or worship team, or mercy ministry, or whatever, might not get off the ground because it might fail, then nothing would ever happen. I would say that the FCC should be planting/repotting/revitalising a dozen new churches, not just two. Of those dozen, a number may well fail. Actually, as the numbers suggest, they will probably fail.

But that is ministry.

That is not to say that there wasn’t any mistakes at Establish Church or things that we couldn't have done better. I have a whole swag of thoughts on improvements we could have made and things we could have/should have done differently. If you want to know what they are, message me for a coffee and I'll be happy to share my thoughts! That being said, we always sought to be faithful, to preach the gospel as well as we we could every week, to be missional and reach out in our context. We thought deeply and prayed fervently about how to make Jesus known in the Shire. We sacrificed a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of sweat to make it work. That it didn’t is, quite literally, heartbreaking.

In the lead up to the close, I had a conversation with another pastor who launched a church plant around the same time that Establish Church launched. His church is in Sydney's inner-west and has now grown to around two hundred people. I’ve met him (Matt) through my wife, who actually used to work on his staff team. We were chatting about Establish and the close and I confessed I was wrestling a little with the nature of failure.

Now Matt is what many would term ‘successful.’ His church is relatively large, he is the state representative of an international church planting network, he gets asked to speak at big conferences and international events. But when I said the things I was thinking, Matt corrected me. He told me Establish wasn't a failure at all. He said that just before he planted, he had to give over the possibility of success or failure wholly to God. He told me that if he planted and failed (as he deeply feared) than this was still what God was calling him to, that even in failure he was to be a 'glorious failure.’

Perhaps this is a helpful reminder for us as a network, particularly as we think on our own 'failed' plant. Perhaps God is not calling us to neither success or failure, but instead to faithfulness. I would argue that faithfulness involves risk, that it involves exploration, that it involves backing things financially and relationally and logistically that may not work out. We see this in Jesus’ ministry, in the ministry of the early church in the book of Acts and in Paul’s own work. Much of what they did could be classed as ‘glorious failures.’

It seems to me that one of the biggest tragedies for our fellowship would not just be the closure of a church, but for us as a network to stop trying new things, simply because we fear it not working out.

This would be the biggest failure of all.

Tim

Blog Post Title Three

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Blog Post Title Four

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.