In the spirit of vulnerabilty, let me share to you the fears that your pastor face in their vocation:
1. The fear of losing their members.
2. The fear of feeling inferior.
3. The fear of being embarrassed.
THE FEAR OF LOSING THEIR MEMBERS.
There is an unspoken pressure among pastors to play the numbers game. More people in church means success. Clearly a deception from the enemy. Success cannot be measured by how many people attend your church.
I remember a season of getting sucked into the numbers game and I felt really tired of trying to hit the goal. Good thing God gave me a smackdown and reminded me that our goal is to plant the seed and He will make it grow.
LOSE SOME, GAIN MORE
Another fear is that losing people means losing more volunteers. But here is what i realized after 2 years of church – you will lose some people and you will gain some people. Stick to what you were called to do, reach the people you are called to reach. Once you become more focus on your target people – you will lose some.
Currently with our present building, we have been losing some old people in church. People 55 and above because Music Museum was built without an elevator – so a lot of old people have a hard time climbing the stairs of Music Museum. So what do we do? We refer them to other Victory Churches – Victory Ortigas is 10 minutes away, Victory Pioneer is 15 minutes away and Victory Fort is 25 minutes away. The beauty of a multi-site church. On the same breath, I know our pastors in other Victory churches refer some of their members who live in San Juan to move to Victory greenhills.
NO FEAR
Why should we remove this fear or tell your pastor to not fear:
Having this unhealthy fear of losing your members would stifle your pastor’s creativity and leadership. The fear of lising members means not challenging the status quo. It means living in your comfort zone. It means your pastor might fear to confront people in leadership who are living in sin because of fear that they might lose some. It means that your pastor would try to avoid conflict and maintain artifical harmony for the sake of survival and not growth.
2Tim. 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
I’ll blog about the two other fears. watch out for it
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