Jessica exclaimed, “How can I ever know God’s guidance for our congregation? That’s why we have a pastor — someone who is closely connected with God and can share His direction with us.”
“That’s so interesting,” Emily responded. “I truly appreciate my pastor, but ultimately, he doesn’t decide where God is leading us as a congregation. He can suggest ideas, and then we get to come together and vote on what feels right.”
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Amanda overheard their conversation and kindly asked, “Hey, would it be OK if I share how our congregation spiritually approaches seeking God’s guidance? I truly believe there’s a beautiful third way that respects God’s role, our pastor and everyone in the congregation.”
Discerning God’s leading
When Crossroads Church was launched, the congregation supported the vision and direction of its church planter, Jacob Sterling. He was a very loving and spiritually mature leader for a pastor in his early 30s.
His vision and spiritual strategic direction were inspiring and easy to understand. It was appealing, and they truly welcomed it with open hearts.
But Jacob found himself facing a rare form of cancer and had to give up his role as pastor. That left a tremendous void in the congregation. Staff and lay leadership scrambled to hold things together. Jacob was the spiritual glue who united a very diverse congregation.
In terms of vision and direction, he personified those characteristics. No one person or team of people were able to fill that void. With Jacob gone the congregation realized the vision left with him. He owned it. They followed it.
With the leadership of a wise intentional interim pastor, they embraced a new spiritual and strategic journey. They began anew to discover why God called them to launch this congregation.
What they realized through prayer and dialogue is that God was the source of vision rather than the pastor.
The pastor is often among the first, if not the first person, to be captured by God’s empowering vision. This is important because the lead pastor is the voice of God’s vision.
The pastor has more opportunities than anyone else to cast the vision to the congregation through preaching, teaching and conversations. Yet the full congregational family must engage in a prayerful discernment process to discover God’s Kingdom direction for the congregation. Those congregations who do this tend to be soaring congregations.
For the congregation
Congregations must pivot from a bounded focus on going a certain direction to a centered approach of allowing a continual spiritual discernment process to navigate their journey. This means discerning the qualities and applications of God’s empowering vision for the congregation is a process that matures as they better understand where God is leading.
The lead pastor and staff should be the initiating leaders, casting vision to clarify and provide guidance, but never the exclusive owners of vision.
Congregations should continually seek God’s leading for a shared journey rather than assuming the pastor and staff will provide the path forward.
This might seem messy, uncertain and even scary. It really is not.
Mature congregational fellowships who are soaring with faith handle it with ease as God goes before them as a cloud by day and fire by night.
EDITOR’S NOTE — George Bullard spent five decades in Baptist congregational and denominational ministry. His ministry roles included three churches, three associations, three state conventions and one national entity. He began as a columnist for TAB Media Group’s publication The Baptist Paper in 2022. Bullard now serves as a strategic thinking mentor for Christian leaders through his ForthTelling Innovation ministry. TAB Media Group published his new book “Soaring with Faith: The Difference Maker for Congregations” — available on Amazon.
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