Pastor Brady recently celebrated ten years of leading New Life Church as the Senior Pastor. In this episode, we looked back on the past decade and talk about the lessons learned. We hope that these lessons will apply to your ministry and will help strengthen your churches.
Along with listening to this podcast, check out this recent article from Outreach Magazine that tells the miracle stories of the last ten years at New Life Church.
Episode 009 SHOW NOTES – Ten Years, Ten Lessons
There were three things that allowed New Life to survive and thrive… we had a culture of worship, a culture of prayer, and a deep sense of community… if you have spent your time teaching the church to connect deeply with God and deeply with one another, you can weather almost any storm…
The hard thing here was winning trust… you can’t spend trust you don’t have and there’s only one way to earn trust: doing the right thing for the right reason for a long time…
There are three groups that every pastor speaks to every Sunday: the people that trust you, the people that want to trust you but with time, and the people who will not trust you no matter what you do…
Pastors need to be aware that we are facing an increasingly cynical public…
The congregation pays attention to how you treat each other… the first test of a pastor’s leadership is how he treats his team…
One of the best pieces of advice I got was that our church didn’t need a prophet but a pastor… let them heal and then they’ll follow you to the next place…
For pastors, especially of growing churches, it’s easy to get out of the rhythm of actually living with the people you’re working with… over time, pastors that choose that path will wake up one day and discover their values are not being embraced or carried out, and that they’re surrounded not by friends but by strangers…
I did not realize how much I was going to need to pray over this thing, and how much I would need spiritual fathers and mothers around me…
The most successful pastors I’ve ever been around have been those who have not lost their passion for prayer…
QUESTIONS FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAM
- How can you build the kind of culture now in your church that can withstand the storms?
- What are you doing to earn the trust of your congregation?
- Does your team reflect the sense of community and friendship you want to see across your congregation? Why or why not?