We Must Address Sin When We See It, Confess Sin When We Commit It, and Forgive Sin When Victims of It. The Greatest Threat to Your Ministry Staff In the first blog in this series, I shared about the many staff problems I had to begin addressing when I became senior pastor at First Baptist. When I began to deal with those problems, things turned ugly very quickly. Long-term staff members began to plot with others about how to damage our church. People I have known for years began to slander me to others while refusing to speak to me. Pastors and their wives posted (and still post!) messages online designed to embarrass me and damage the church they once said they loved. People who used to be my friends now root for my ministry to fail. I truly understand when people are upset over a lost...

As We Pursue Excellence Together No Person May Ignore or Reject Correction but Must Respond Positively to It Correction is Hard Anyone close to me can tell you how much I really dislike correcting people. It is one of the hardest parts of my job. But, because I am committed to regular, truthful, and loving communication, I am committed to providing correction when it is necessary. Years ago, a member of my team did something I specifically requested he not do. I hated to have a corrective conversation with him, but I knew it was necessary. I told him he was out of line. I made clear that he is always free to ask questions, to disagree, and to propose alternatives, but that it was wrong for him to be openly defiant. I made clear I never wanted to see that kind of behavior again. It was a...

Because Silence Creates Trouble We Will Communicate to Stay Ahead of Problems and to Resolve Problems Staff Problems Are Communication Problems Almost every problem you can imagine in any relationship you have traces back to some communication failure. Years ago at First Baptist, several of us in leadership trusted a staff person to work on an important set of problems with a few key people on our ministry staff. As the months passed, however, the problems were increasing, and the relational tensions were worsening. When I would ask why things were getting so much worse, this staff member would rub his face, plead ignorance, and express profound frustration over the difficulties. I suggested that it might be good to just get everyone in the room, lay the problems on the table, and develop...

The People You Work with Are More Important Than the Tasks You Are Accomplishing A Problem of Priorities One of my first meetings during my first week as Senior Pastor at First Baptist Church was with a leader on our staff who had received dozens of complaints from the people who reported to him. The complaints painted an ugly picture: He was angry, loud, accusing, forceful, and generally created a hostile work environment. Several women who reported to him were afraid to come to work. This environment is obviously unacceptable in any place of work, but especially in a church. I called a meeting with him immediately. As I raised the serious complaints, he immediately became loud, angry, and accusing. Before I knew it, he was on his feet towering over me, pointing his finger in my face, and...

A Broken Church and A Broken Team When I became Senior Pastor at First Baptist Church in Jacksonville the church was facing overwhelming challenges. Decades of decline in membership created a number of punishing financial realities, the most obvious being $90 million in financial liabilities the church had no idea how to pay. But the most challenging difficulties we faced were related to our staff. Many problems existed. For starters, the staff was far too large. Back then, we had a paid staff of over 220 people. That is more than twice the total attendance of most churches. The big problem was that this was more than double the team we needed for a church of our size. Our church was going broke paying for staff we did not need and could not afford. Another problem was the many on staff...

These appear to be the darkest of times. It is no secret that we have a mental health crisis. Week after week, we are confronted with the stories of devastation. The headlines sometimes don’t hit home, but they don’t have to. We know personal stories. We know our friends who are despairing of life itself. We see families pierced with the pains of anxiety, eating disorders, attempted suicides, and unstable emotions. Real people made in God’s image who are harming themselves and harming others. This is a darkness that can be felt across our country. In her book, Bad Therapy: Why the Kids aren’t Growing Up, Abigail Shrier acknowledges the widespread problem. She notes that “forty-two percent of the rising generation currently has a mental health diagnosis” (17). That is astonishing. The number...

“Prince William is having an affair!” “Another woman is pregnant with his baby!” “Princess Kate can’t be seen in public because William hit her!” “She is filing for divorce, and another royal marriage is ending!” Those were a few of the reports making the rounds in the last few weeks as the world was ripe with speculation about the reason why the Princess of Wales had not been seen in public for months. Those reports were widespread and viewed by millions of people all over the globe. Of course, we now know those reports are complete fabrications. The princess has announced that the reason for her retreat from public view is the discovery of cancer during her planned abdominal surgery in January. It has taken months to heal from surgery, begin cancer treatment, and explain her condition...

Part 4: We Must Have Solutions That Understand the Way Our Convention Works No Right to Fatigue During the release of the most recent update from the Abuse Reform and Implementation Task Force (ARITF), the chairman, Josh Wester, observed a sense of fatigue setting into the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in our response to sexual abuse. He warned against an attitude that desires to move along too quickly. I appreciate Pastor Wester’s service, the hard work of his committee, and his words of warning. Every pastor I talk to in the SBC agrees with them. We know we have an obligation to keep our people safe, and we are not exhausted by that obligation but invigorated by it. A Sacred Obligation Every pastor has a sacred obligation to protect the people in our churches from abuse. Our principal...

Part 3: The Southern Baptist Convention Is a Powerful Force for Good Popular to Condemn The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is going through a difficult time. Scandals, numeric decline, disgraced leaders, and bumbling responses to all the above make it unpopular to praise our convention. In times of difficulty, enemies make their voices heard. It is popular to condemn the SBC as everything from a once-great organization whose time has passed to the embodiment of evil in the contemporary religious scene. In this climate, critics score points when they paint with a broad brush of corruption and predict the end of the SBC. But this currently fashionable trend of convention condemnation is not going to end well because our convention is not condemnable. There’s a time to candidly admit our...

Part 2: Not Everyone Offering Help Is Our Friend When I was in the fourth grade, my mom celebrated Christmas by getting drunk, grabbing a gun, and chasing me and my twin brother out into the snow. The next day, we were being interviewed by social workers, and not long after that, we were moved to a different town and placed in foster care. That probably sounds reasonable. My mom’s behavior was clearly wrong and had to be addressed. It was unthinkable to leave two young boys in such an environment. What was unreasonable about the foster solution was that we had numerous family members—a dad and several grandparents—who wanted to take us. Instead, we were relocated away from the people who loved us. The foster solution was offered by people who wanted to stop our abuse but whose lack of wisdom...