I'm only now ready to be a pastor


Over this last year, people have heard me say privately as well as in sermons, "I am only now ready to be a pastor."

Many have been perplexed hearing me say this especially since I've served as senior pastor for 17 years in two different churches, grew up as a pastor's kid, earned a Master's degree in Divinity, and served in ministry in various forms for over 30 years.

So how can it be after all this that only now I'm ready to be a pastor?

Let me explain.

In my early years as pastor, I built my ministry foundation on church growth, numbers, and what the church should look like. Part of me felt that a growing, thriving church was evidence of God's favor. The other part of me thrived on the attention and accolades a growing church brought.  

Pastors and church leaders often invest enormous amounts of time, effort, and emotion trying to make "it" happen and make the bottom line look good. 

This leads us to emulate successful pastors and ministries more than we do Jesus. We focus on methods more than the Bible and give greater attention to what the church should look like than we do spiritual discipline. Our focus on pragmatism often blinds us to the fact that we are building our churches on weak, worldly foundation.  

At the age of 27, I was called to pastor a new church, Cornerstone Fellowship. The church grew from an average Sunday attendance of 45-50 people when I first got there to over 300 within three years and was on a trajectory of exploding into being a mega church.


Cornerstone's core leadership team had a traditional approach to doing ministry--traditional worship style, committees, business meetings, etc. These leaders experienced great success in Baptist work in Hawaii prior to Cornerstone. Being a lot younger than most people at the church, my ministry philisophy was much different. 

Working through these differences was difficult at times for both me and the church.

Although I didn't recognize it at the time, God used those differences to change me and mold my character. The challenges in working together through those differences and staying unified gave us great opportunities to see God work.  

Cornerstone was a church with different ages, races, demographics, and backgrounds. As we struggled with the church's ministry philosophy and what it should look like, God continued to show that keeping the focus on Jesus mattered most. He transcends everything that has the potential to divide us to bring unity among His followers. 

Within my first two years at Cornerstone, the church grew numerically, we constructed a building and started a preschool. This probably looked good on the surface. However, had I continued in this, ministry would have destroyed me.

Outwardly, I had the right goals and said the right things about ministry, church growth, making disciples and being Jesus' witness in our community and world. But as I look back, much of my time at Cornerstone centered on the church's growth, ministry style and the battle over the church's image in attracting people--not the Gospel.  

I cringe thinking about the way I approached ministry in my early years. For example, my goal in preaching was to keep people's attention, be funny, and hope people received good life-applications. I regret not teaching deeper Biblical truths, that I neglected teaching the full counsel of God, and and that my teaching failed to be Gospel-centered. I preached a weak, watered-down version of the Gospel. In addition, although we tried to build people in Christ, that seemed secondary to filling ministry slots at the church. The list can go on and on.

In 2003, God convicted me that I needed to center everything on Jesus, build people through the Gospel, teach the Bible verse by verse, and trust that Jesus is enough. 

This began an incredible journey in ministry that continues today.

In March 2007, Julie and I stepped out in faith to start The Gathering with 12 other people. I was excited to have the freedom to lead a church in a way that reflected my DNA. As a result, I felt The Gathering would be a fast-growing, cutting edge church that would impact Hawaii.

Little did I know at the time that God was not only calling us to start a new church. He was in the process of changing me and helping me own what it meant to focus my life and ministry on Jesus--that Christ alone is sufficient above all things and produces the results.  

Growth at The Gathering has not been as fast as we had hoped. Before the church started, we seriously thought that we were going to have 200 people by our third month. After eight years, we are barely reaching 200.

However, it is the lessons that God has taught in trying to establish this church that have been very valuable in shaping me into being the pastor He wants me to be. He has also used The Gathering's journey to help shape us into being the church He wants us to be.

Here's the point. God has used the last eight years to challenge me to focus on the things that matter and to change my heart focus in ministry. This would not have happened in my life had we exploded like I thought we would.

Today, I thank God for those who have been faithful in standing with me and Julie. Our people at The Gathering have been very patient with me, allowing me the chance to grow and make mistakes. Along the way, we have all worked together to learn what it means to be a people and church centered on Jesus. We have learned to build community, love each other, serve Jesus together, and build an awesome church family. 

I love our church and its people so very much!!!

Over the last eight years at The Gathering, God has led me to understand more deeply what it means to be a Gospel-centered pastor and what it means for The Gathering to be a Gospel-centered church.

My goals for preaching have changed over the last eight years. I am now committed to teaching the Bible to help people know God as opposed to draw a crowd and have people like what I say. My heart now burns with the passion to teach God's Word in Spirit and Truth so that people can know His character, know how to live for Him, and know His full counsel. 

Where I used to see evangelism as the way to make our church bigger, God has changed me to see that evangelism starts when we have His heart for people. When we care and love people through God's heart, our natural response would be evangelism. We share Jesus and desire for people to know Him because we truly care about people and where people spend eternity. 

God has reshaped my heart for discipleship. My focus on discipleship used to center on how discipleship would build leaders who will build the church. My purpose for discipleship now is simply that people will know Christ and experience the fullness of walking in Him. Plugging people into areas of ministry has become secondary to me. What God has shown me is if people are growing in Christ, they will surrender to His voice out of obedience whenever and wherever God calls us to serve. 

Caring for people was usually tied to this question, "how will this help the church grow?" It's not that I didn't care for people because I really did. However, true Christ-centered compassion cares for people because they are broken, hurting and in need of Christ--with no strings attached. When we see people through Christ, we see people differently. We love them with the love of Christ and our primary desire is to lead individuals into a growing relationship with Jesus. 

Eight years ago, we could say we trusted God with our future because He is all powerful and in control. However, we would become restless if we felt things were not happening. In response, we would usually react in the flesh to make things happen. Today, we believe God is truly the only one who makes things happen and that we need to surrender to Him in complete obedience.

God is definitely at work in powerful ways at The Gathering. Many lives have been changed, we have seen many come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior, and we have been able to impact lives in our community and around the world.  

Centering our church on Jesus has strengthened us into becoming a healthy, Christ-centered, Spirit-filled church. We believe that God has built a strong foundation at The Gathering.  

We are excited as we look forward into the future. Our expectations are bigger than ever. Whatever future we have, whatever growth, and whatever impact we make in the community and world, we know that it is only God who does this.

Don't get me wrong, we still talk about church growth, growing our ministry, church planting, etc. However, these discussions must center on how we point people to Jesus and that He is truly calling us to do something. We believe that God wants The Gathering to be a growing church that impacts our community and world. 

The Gathering is different and I am different because of the journey God has allowed us to take the last eight years. 

Looking back, I can honestly say that only now I'm ready to be a pastor. 




Comments

  1. Thank you for your honesty and humility, James! This blog post spoke to my heart. God bless you, your family, and your ministry

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  2. I love how you are able to see how God has used all of your past experiences to help shape and mold you into the pastor that he desires you to be. May we all strive to make it all about the good news of Jesus Christ.

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  3. I thank God every day for blessing me with a Teacher that has helped me break my chains of sin through the love of Jesus. God bless the Gathering and the reflection of Jesus it brings into my heart.

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  4. Mahalo Pastor James! I will never forget the day I shared with you about taking the IG job and how I heard that one word, "Integrity!" I will always remember your look that day. Believe me when I say, I never wanted that job; didn't trust the IG system, but the biggest was me, as a person, never felt equipped. Because of your teachings at Cornerstone, I grew as a Christian and learned to step outside my illness to see who God wanted me to help. You made a huge impact on my life as my pastor. I see how God prepared me for this journey with my mom. It is hard, especially when 'Christians' act very un-Christian like, but I walk with God. Will I mess up, sure. I do it every day, but I know God walks with me. Thank you for being the pastor God needed me to have while at Cornerstone. I am so happy that you followed God's calling regards The Gathering!

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