When I started at my current church, we had just come off the mission field and were unsure of what was next for us. We stayed with my wife’s parents for a few months and attended Sarah’s home church. I became co-pastor with Sarah’s dad on September 1, 2019. He was the retired county attorney who became pastor following a church split in 2010. The church was struggling, with only a dozen people attending regularly. On my third Sunday as co-pastor, we had eight attendees and four volunteers (my wife Sarah, her parents, and myself).<\/p>\n
I started regularly preaching on the same points: the best days of the church are in the very near future, and we are called to reach the people of North Iowa who are least likely to hear the gospel. Those were the mission and vision that I believed our church needed to embody.<\/p>\n
Reading Jules Glanzer’s book The Sound of Leadership<\/em> was like returning to an old friend. While I’ve never read it before this week, Glanzer voiced lessons I’ve learned and tried to pass on to our church. This book is about leadership lessons from the missional church movement using the music analogy. Based on the diatonic scale, the notes of leadership are listen, see, learn, do, and love.[1]<\/a> \u00a0Glanzer says we “[listen], first to the voice of God and then to people.” [2]<\/a> We learn to listen to the cacophony of sounds and voices around us and identify the pitch and melody of God. Glanzer points to 5 filters to decide which voice to focus on: mission, vision, value, resources, and the Voice of One.[3]<\/a> Glanzer says we listen to the Lord, see the world as God sees it, learn from what we have heard and seen, do the work, and love others.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n Without naming them, our church used these filters. In my first few months as a pastor, we began a process of listening for God’s voice, seeing our community as God sees it, including our position in it, and asking God to teach us how to reach the people God wanted in our church. Our church sanctuary seats 199 people\u2014we had 20 on a good Sunday. I believed and preached that there were 179 people in our community that God wanted in our church that we needed to reach. God led a few of us to begin working with people in recovery from drug or alcohol addiction. That population began representing our calling to reach the people least likely to hear the gospel. While we had started building relationships, nobody from that community had come to church.<\/p>\n Then COVID hit.<\/p>\n Of all the times to become a pastor, September 2019 would not be my recommendation. COVID hit 6 months into my learning the rhythms of the church. Our state shut down worship for 6 weeks. We came back with 35 people.<\/p>\n Glanzer says, “The very nature of leadership requires a situation that needs to be addressed, a person who is called to address it, and a group of people who are willing to become equipped and inspired for the common good.” [5]<\/a> Our dying church was our situation to be addressed. I was the person God called into the position to lead, and some people in the church accepted the calling to become equipped to reach the people least likely to hear the gospel in our community.<\/p>\n COVID provided the catalyst we needed. To stick to the choir analogy, COVID was our sounding board that amplified everything. Our unhealthy habits and newfound mission were both amplified. COVID was our (my) opportunity to bring needed changes in a time of upheaval. Addressing COVID became an opportunity to organize on the mission.<\/p>\n Glanzer says the major chord of leadership is comprised of integrity, courage, and humility.[6]<\/a> By God’s grace, I feel equipped with these. As referenced above, Glanzer says we must see the world as God sees it. I had the integrity, courage, and humility to speak the truth about our church: We were dying and in need of revival, but God was not done with us, and the best days were in the very near future.<\/p>\n We are beginning to see the fruit of our efforts to learn to hear God’s voice and unify on our mission. Glanzer says a leader’s magnum opus is the leaders they raise up.[7]<\/a> My goal as a pastor is to work myself out of a job. I’ve often told my church and others not to measure me by the growth of the church I pastor but instead by the leaders I equip. Measure me on what the leaders I pour into go on to do.<\/span><\/p>\n In the next few months, we’ll name Evan our community pastor. Two years ago, he came to our church out of jail. I’ve been in an intentional discipleship relationship with him to teach him how to be a pastor. He has learned how to provide spiritual care for the church, preach, and equip others. Evan is one note in my magnum opus. I hope God writes a symphony of equipped and sent leaders with my life.<\/p>\n Glanzer says, “Leadership is being that results in doing.” [8]<\/a> In my life, I’ve tried to be the type of person who, first and foremost, embodies a dependency on God and is devoted to bringing his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. I’m fortunate that God is using me in my context in north Iowa. Our church has doubled, doubled, and nearly doubled again. I still believe the best days for our church are in the very near future. We haven’t found all 179 people that God wants here yet, but we’re closer now than when we started.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Jules Glanzer, The Sound Of Leadership: Kingdom Notes to Fine Tune Your Life and Influence<\/em> (Plano, Texas: Invite Press, 2023), 2.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Glanzer, 3.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Glanzer, 22\u201323.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Glanzer, 84\u201385.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Glanzer, 53.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Glanzer, 49.<\/p>\n