What’s in this Episode?

Leading your church and team without a specified goal will lead to exhaustion, burnout, and frustration. Join Dr. R. Timothy Jones and Dick Hardy as the discuss pitfalls in casting vision, why your church needs a direction to move towards. Pastor Timothy Jones is a disciple, husband, father, author, and professor.

Sign up for the 4 Keys Masterclass: Leaders.Church/Keys

 

Read the Transcript:

Richard Hardy 0:06
Hey Friend, it’s great to be with you on this episode of The Church tips podcast. And I am so excited today to be with my friend, Timothy Jones from Louisiana, Shreveport. I’ve heard that LSU country is that right?

Timothy Jones 0:20
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Go Tigers.

Richard Hardy 0:23
Go Tigers the whole way. Well, man, well, hey, I want to jump right into our topic here today. You and I chatted here for the last few minutes. Well, by the way, I should tell people, This has been a rascal of a deal get you and I together we’ve been texting, texting back and forth and emailing and so busy schedules, but we finally made it happen. But anyway, we talked about the subject of visioneering. And what that should look like in the life of a pastor in the life of the church. So Have at it, my friend, let’s talk a little bit about visionary. And what you see in that way.

Timothy Jones 1:05
Yeah, I believe it may have been Andy Stanley, who coined that term. I’m not sure it may have been the first person that I heard use that that term, but I think it’s of the intentional work of discerning and developing a vision for your church. And I think everybody needs to take the time to do that. Yeah,

Richard Hardy 1:30
no, that’s good. Well, how does that look? I mean, you know, it’s a, it’s a cool sounding word. But how do we make practical application of that as pastors in the local church?

Timothy Jones 1:43
Well, you know, it’s like, the Bible talks about the sons of Issachar understood the times and knew what Israel should do. And let’s be honest, it is not 1955 it is not Mayberry, we cannot operate our church in a “Leave It to Beaver” world, literally, everything is changed. And to be quite frank with you, everything has changed, even in the last three years where life just became radically different from us. So nobody’s coming to church, well, nobody’s coming to my church, in a horse and and buggy. And we’re not burning kerosene lamps or for lighting, and, and to do ministry with those kinds of approaches. And that kind of mindset would definitely miss the, what I’m calling the postmodern generations.

Richard Hardy 2:42
Exactly, exactly. So a pastor sitting here listening to your talk, and he’s saying, yeah, that I agree, Timothy. I agree. I agree. So ground zero at my church. How should I be moving forward In visioneering for my local church?

Timothy Jones 3:03
Okay, first of all, don’t do it alone. Invite key leaders in your church to join you on your knees for your church.

Richard Hardy 3:16
Oh, yeah.

Timothy Jones 3:16
Spend some time in prayer seeking God. Be be very honest about where your church is, what your challenges are, what your strengths are your weaknesses. My son once said, You’ll never fix it if you never face it. And invite people once upon a time, pastors could walk in church leaders could walk into a meeting with all the right answers. That day is gone.

Richard Hardy 3:46
Right

Timothy Jones 3:46
We now have to walk into the meeting with all the right questions

Richard Hardy 3:51
Questions. Yeah, good, good.

Timothy Jones 3:53
And when you put the right questions before people, they are going to respond, they are going to get engaged, especially when you’re talking about things that they are spiritually, emotionally and mentally invested in. Every grandmother, sitting in the pews of every church, wants to see her grandchildren walking intimately with God. So when you walk into a room, and you ask, How can we engage generations that are not here? Because I know you want your grandbabies here? Yep. You are going to get some instant pastoral capital for the lack of a better, better word, because that’s exactly what she what she wants. Right?

Richard Hardy 4:54
That’s exactly right. So it seems from what you’re saying. We as pastors need to develop the skill, of questioning, of asking questions, I mean, you know, for some pastors out there that may come natural for the inquisitive types, but for others, they may say, How in the world am I going to figure that out?

Timothy Jones 5:19
Right. And the reality is, when you talk to enough people, the questions are going to are going to emerge. Let me give you let me give an example. I love the word centenarian. I love the word centenarian.

Richard Hardy 5:36
What in the world is that?

Timothy Jones 5:39
Just becauseI love the word centenarian, I’d love, once upon a time in ministry. I mean, I would have loved to have had a centenarian club in my church. Guess what nobody in my church would qualify, because I don’t have a centenary. And there’s nobody in my church and 100 years old. You understand what I’m saying? So sometimes, we are addressing something that that may need to be addressed, but may not specifically be an issue for our church, or our community. I’m in Louisiana, it would be foolish of me to write an agenda for my church to solve a Seattle problem. You understand? You know, the dynamics of New York City, and the dynamics of my local community are radically different.

Richard Hardy 6:35
Different. Yeah. Right. So in questioning your people and coming in, to really learn things, you got to know your culture, know your setting, to really be able to properly visioneer with them, they don’t it makes me wonder is this a process that you advocate to be done? I know you said don’t do it alone. Right. But that is done in a group setting a pastor and leaders? Is that really the way it all comes together?

Timothy Jones 7:19
Yes, yes, of course. And even if the pastor has some convictions and thoughts about what the church ought to be doing, when you bring people into that setting, it’s inevitable that somebody that’s going to start asking you questions, and now you are in a position to articulate whatever your convictions are? Well, Pastor, I had not thought about that, Have you have you thought about that, were actually a lot of thinking about that everything that I’ve put in front of you a lot of thinking about that. And sometimes to kind of prepare people, you can send them articles to read. I used to ask them to read books, but that’s not not going to happen. I mean, they’ll read, they’ll read a 500 page article before they read 100 page book. So So you know, send them something to kind of help them understand pretty much what’s going on and educate them. And and then make certain that your church is crystal clear about what the mission is, for your church and, and the ministry strategy for how your church serves your community. Because at the end of the day, your church is to serve your community, your career there.

Richard Hardy 8:34
Yep, exactly. Right. Exactly. Right. So when you get all done with this process, what does it look like? You know, you have this the mission statement on the wall you have? Is it that kind of thing? Or? Or is it something that gets inculcated into the, the DNA of the church or or something else? Yeah,

Timothy Jones 8:57
but what’s interesting, Richard is churches, regardless of how long it might take, churches have the privilege to design their DNA that I could not have done that. My parents had a lot to do with that I great church can design its DNA. In design, its culture. And culture happens, whether by design or by default. So am I default. What we do know is every church grows smaller and older. It’s going to get smaller and older. By default. By default, if your church did absolutely no ministry, you are still going to have funerals. If you never have a baptism, you’re going to have funeral. Yeah. So you have to have conversations and do this by design you have and it can take years to change the culture. dig in, make that commitment. And don’t worry so much about how long it might take plant seeds. Think about it. The The shade that you and I enjoy from the trees that are available to us. Those trees were planted by people long before now.

Speaker 1 8:58
Decades decades ago. Yep.

Timothy Jones 10:25
decades. Yes. So it’s, it can be discouraging, because it’s not easy to really quantify your progress. Yeah. So that can be that can be overwhelming. For us.

Richard Hardy 10:42
It really can be. This has been so good. I mean, in my mind is just kind of swirling on this thinking about all these very pieces of this. You know, if, if, if a pastor’s listen to this, and they haven’t caught anything you said, What is one thing you want them to remember of this whole conversation?

Timothy Jones 11:08
Well, your church needs a roadmap to get to where you’re going. All your leaders together, design, decide on a destination, and is and design the map to get to that destination.

Richard Hardy 11:28
And if you’ll do that, you will see Fulfilled God’s vision for your church come to play. Yes.

Timothy Jones 11:34
And then we also encourage you celebrate the wins, everywhere that takes place in your church celebrate that win.

Richard Hardy 11:45
we are notorious as pastors for not doing that. We know of good things we know of the wins, but we think everybody else does. And they don’t. Right. So you got to shout it from the house stop. And when you do, people begin to feel like, wow, things are happening to this place. And things will happen. Right?

Timothy Jones 12:06
And then then I used to have this thing about your right hand not knowing what your left hand is doing, and not talk about what you are doing. But people are going to see your ministry differently when they know that your church has invested 10s of 1000s of dollars to change the quality of life for the world around us. They need to know that. Give them something to celebrate about their church, and a reason to invest in the church that they love.

Richard Hardy 12:42
Oh my. Oh, that’s so good. That’s so good. That is so good. Any parting shots you want to make here just a final word to encourage the pastor.

Timothy Jones 12:52
pastors don’t be discouraged. Just know that every church has challenges. You’re going and when you get past these challenges, you’re going to have some new challenge challenges. Let’s call them and look at them as growth opportunities

Richard Hardy 13:10
There you go, so good. So good. pastor Timothy Jones, a good friend of mine from Shreveport, Louisiana. We are so grateful for you taking time to be with us on the church tips podcast. And friends. We’re really glad to have had you with us. You know, one of the things I always like to make sure pastors are aware of is that we at leaders.church want to invest in you. That’s why we bring you content like this to help you be better as a leader. And we’ve created for you a unique opportunity to jump into the four secrets masterclass that Jonathan and I have put together to help pastors grow and in four different areas to really be the pastor God has designed them to be and to see their church experienced the growth that God has for us. So just go to leaders.church/secrets again that’s leaders.church/secrets You click on there. It’s a free masterclass, and we’d love to spend some time with you in that way. Again, Timothy, thanks for being with us today. And friend. Thanks for taking the time to watch the podcast make it a great one today. I’d be blessed.

Jonathan Hardy 14:17
Hey, Jonathan here real quick before you go. Everything in your ministry rises and falls on your leadership. So investing in your leadership is essential to staying healthy and growing the ministry. And that’s why I want to invite you to join us inside the leaders dot church membership. This online streaming service for pastors gives you access to more than 300 videos plus training material to level up your leadership and improve your ministry skills. If you’d like to do that I want to invite you to go to leaders dot church slash booths. Again, that’s leaders dot church slash boost. Well, thanks again for joining us on the church tips podcast. We’ll look forward to seeing you next time.

---

Like this post? Sign up for our free blog updates to never miss a post. We’ll send you a FREE ebook to say “Thank You.”

YES! SIGN ME UP >>

---

Discover what pastors of growing churches do to see massive growth and how you can position your church for the greatest days ahead.

Click here to get immediate access to this free masterclass.

Subscribe & Follow:

• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
• Follow on Spotify
• Subscribe to YouTube Channel
• Subscribe on Google Podcasts
• Like us on Facebook
• Follow us on Instagram
• Follow us on Twitter

Other Resources:

• Leaders.Church
• Leaders.Church Blog
• Church University
• Take the Free 5 Day Leadership Challenge for Pastors
• Get Free Access to the 4 Secrets Masterclass

Share This Article

---