Struggles that small Wesleyan Churches face in SC

I am living dangerously now.  Yep, you saw the title and know that this is going to be a debatable opinion.  Remember, it is my opinion.  I am not a researcher and I am not a big name.  So read it and know that these are my thoughts.

First, let me acknowledge that we serve a powerful God who can accomplish anything through those whom He desires.  If He is able to work through our small Wesleyan church too. 

Here are some possible problems.

• South Carolina is Baptist and Presbyterian country.  Yes, it is true!  We serve the same God, Jesus Christ.  Can we say it?  There is church competition.  What I mean is that there are other churches who are financially well off that can offer many different ministries to their attendees.  Child care is huge.  Professional musicians.  Great speakers.  Many different specialized ministries.  Unlike our earlier Wesleyans, when these churches build a church, they mean it!  Their facilities are beautiful and useful.  They can accomadate large amounts of people and hold community services.  In other words, they can be of a huge service to the community.  Yes, that is important. 
• There are only 48-50 Wesleyan churches in the entire state.  The good news is that we are working to fix this by planting churches.  Our brothers and sisters in other denominations have understood this for a long time.  They have been able to acheive a partnership with each other that is really awesome and this is how they take care of each other.  This is what we must do too.  Some Wesleyan churches are doing this already.  Yet again, we are small in number and time is what we will also have to work with. 
• We have had bad press in the past.  Some have called us a cult.  Pleeeezze.  People are shocked when we talk about Sanctification and when we acknowledge that we do not believe that once you are saved that you cannot lose your salvation.  Sorry.  Free will overrides that.  Now, listen.  Okay, the last is a non-issue.  Really it is.  Holiness is, and it is in the other denominations too. 
• It seems that some of our churches have hidden themselves away from the communities.  We did not want to be around sin.  Big mistake!  As a result, a lot of people that I talk to have not heard of Wesleyans and do not know where our churches are.  This is tough on advertisement. 
• Most of our facilities are outdated.  This leaves most pastors and laymen to choose between being missional or contemporary.  I would like to be both. 
• A lot of our churches are missing several generations.  This makes it tough to build strong children’s and youth ministries.  When this happens finances tend to go toward building needs and upkeep. 
• I think all churches are facing this next problem.  Because we live in the Bible belt it is a tougher assignment to get people to attend church and serve.  Consider, it is more of a social statement to attend church than to come out of a passion for Christ.  God and Sundays are those things that many take part in only on Sundays and then leave what was heard at church.   People have gotten used to the idea that God has chosen them and gives them finances which confirms that He has chosen them.  People get used to this.  Then there  really isn’t a need for God because we have the resources to take care of whatever problems might arise.  This leads to entitlement.  Yet, those who don’t have anything, anyone, or realize that God cares will come to Jesus.  But, they never hear because we are always entertaining ourselves. 
• The really most frustrating problem that we struggle with is that we cannot hire full-time youth pastors to minister to children and teens.  This is really hard to stomach because here is our future.  Man!  We can have all of the best intentions in the world.  We can dream.  We can talk.  But, nothing is going to happen until we have faith in God and sacrifice.  To get to the next step on the ladder we have to believe in God and give to God.  It has to be a united effort. 
• Southern Wesleyan helps us by being here.  This school helps us to get our name out there and put everyone at ease that we are not a cult. 

Listen, Baptists, Wesleyans, and etc.  We are all in this together.  To my fellow Wesleyans.  We have got to be more involved in our communities.  We especially have to be stepping out into the waters that only God can get us through.  We cannot please Him until we allow God to lead us into waters that we cannot navigate which will cause us to turn to Him by faith.  We must begin giving our resources to the next generations because they do not know Christ yet.  He is pursuing them in a big way.  If we do not join Him in His pursuit, then some might say that we are committing spiritual abortion.

Finding a way to be fruitful in ministry with God pt. 2

My first youth meeting was interesting.  I remember being in the basement of the church on a Wednesday night.  I placed my Bible down on a table that was donated to our church by the Mecca Historical Society; this meant that it was special.  I had one 7th grade teenage girl come.  After staring at each other for a couple of minutes, because she did not know what a youth group was and either did I, we talked and prayed. 

I finally opened the Bible and read to her.  Whew!  She must have thought I was a dork.  Don’t answer that in the comment section.  I asked questions and she just answered them with simple yes and no’s.  What was really bad was that I was getting paid $25 a week.  I felt terrible about collecting money for one youth.  I brainstormed during that meeting about what I could do to get more teens to come.  I felt like I was cool in high school, so I should be a cool youth pastor.  In other words, I should be able to come up with a great activity.  I finally came up with bowling. 

Amazingly, this girl brought a couple of friends the next week.  What is more, these teens did not know anything about the Bible.  So I began searching through the Wesleyan Publishing House Catalog.  I finally found a teen work book and bought 5 of them.  Little did I know, that one of those books would be enough.  They were simply leader’s guides.  The point is that opening the Bible was not working.  It was important to try things to make the youth meeting interesting.  I continued to experiment with different curriculum and ordered idea books.  You must do whatever it takes to figure the situation that you are in out. 

The bottom line to me is that you are being fruitful, and in my case, earning that $25 by experimenting.  In other words, if something is not working, stop and move to something else.  Don’t just give up.  Remember, God placed you there because He believes in you.  Plus, teens need people who at least try to connect with them in ways that show them that they are valued. 

Finding a way to be fruitful in ministry with God pt. 1

There are many volunteer ministers and bi-vocational ministers that might identify with my experiences. While working as a youth pastor and working another job, I was continually left asking myself how do the other guys and gals get teenagers to come? How does everyone else connect with teenagers? I asked these questions because nothing was happening for a long time. However, I should tell you that my wife and I were able to answer these questions later, and that we ended up with a fruitful ministry. Until this point, I felt like a failure and that may be God did not call me to do ministry. If you are in ministry and think like this, don’t believe it! It took about 4 years to get to a point that  I thought a successful youth ministry should look like. I have been thinking about how we went from point A to point B lately so here it is. One reason for later success was that I hung in there. There are times in our lives when we just have to be stubborn and/or tenacious. On one particular youth night, I was the only one in the youth room for 40 minutes! Finally, one teenager came in. Boy, he really got preached too; just kidding.  When something like this happens, we should seek God in prayer; but we also must LISTEN. One reason that may have led to one teen showing up that night was that I was focused, up to that point, on doing all sorts of different ministries in the church. My attention was divided in several different directions. This meant that I was not productive in any those ministries. I needed to realize that I was not the Savior, there is One better qualified for that job named Jesus. I felt that God revealed to me that if I was going to be His servant that I should focus upon being the best that I could be. Notice, I did not say being the best, but the best that I could be. In other words, reaching my potential. I must point out that I wanted to use the excuse that nobody was helping me and nobody showed me how to do it. After I went through those emotions and agonizing times of complaining, I began to read books on how to do youth ministry. Guess what? Most of those books were for people who actually had a budget. Instead, I began to read books on how to care for teenagers. Thank God for Josh McDowell. The Lord led me to “Disconnected Generation,” and instead of finding out how to raise money, God showed me how to raise teenagers up spiritually and emotionally. When you are ready to quit, God will step in if you allow Him. He will salvage a ministry when you are broken. We can remain busy doing, doing, and doing. We can find many how-to books. We can find a lot of programs. We can raise money; but it won’t work until we practice loving and caring the way God has called us to do. I will post more later on this subject.

Finding a way to be fruitful in ministry with God pt. 1

There are many volunteer ministers and bi-vocational ministers that might identify with my experiences. While working as a youth pastor and working another job, I was continually left asking myself how do the other guys and gals get teenagers to come? How does everyone else connect with teenagers? I asked these questions because nothing was happening for a long time. I should tell you that my wife and I were able to answer these questions later, and that we ended up with a fruitful ministry. Until this point, I felt like a failure and that may be God did not call me to do ministry. If you are in ministry and think this, don’t believe it! It took about 4 years to get to what I thought a successful youth ministry should look like. I have been thinking about how we went from point A to point B lately so here it is. One thing was I hung in there. There are times in our lives when we just have to be stubborn and/or tenacious. One night, I was the only one in the room for 40 minutes! Finally, one teenager came in. Boy, he really got preached too. When this happens, this when we should seek God in prayer, but also LISTEN. One thing that led to one teen showing up that night was that I was focused, up to that point, on doing all sorts of ministries in the church. My attention was divided in several different directions. This meant that I was not productive in any those directions. I needed to realize that I am not the Savior, there is One better qualified for that named Jesus. I felt that God revealed to me that if I am going to be His servant that I should focus upon being the best that I could be. Notice, I did not say being the best, but the best that I could be. In other words, reaching my potential. I must point out that I wanted to use the excuse that nobody was helping me and nobody showed me how to do it. After I went through those emotions, I began to read books on how to do youth ministry. Guess what? Most of those books are for people who actually have budget. Instead, I began to read books on how to care for teenagers. Thank God for Josh McDowell. The Lord led to “Disconnected Generation,” and instead of finding out how to raise money, God showed me how to raise teenagers up spiritually and emotionally. When you are ready to quit, God will step in if you allow Him. He will salvage a ministry when you are broken. We can run around doing, doing, and doing. We can find many how-to books. We can find a lot of programs. We can raise money; but it won’t work until we practice loving and caring the way God has called us to do. I will post more later on this subject.