CPT 021 - Seasons in Ministry

In this episode, Steve and Jeff discuss seasons in ministry.

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Equipping and encouraging church planters everywhere.This is the Church Planting Today podcast with
Steve Chagrin and Jeff Hoagland. Usefulconversations for those aimed at winning others into
relationship with Christ. Hey, everybody, welcome to Church Playing Today. The
podcast or church planing dot Com.Church Planning dot Com is for current and

(00:23):
future church planners, existing church leaders, and those wanting to see renewal within
the local church. My name isJeff Hoagland and I am joined by my
partner in crime, Steve Schogrin.Hey man, good to be with you.
Hey, hey tv Land. Yes, so we're we are zooming in
and so we're we're looking at doinga couple of different things with these.

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You know, we can post themon Facebook or the website or convert them
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(01:11):
I am with my awesome zoom background. Yeah, I do love it.
I love the Jeff Bugland director's chairthere, Yes, custom made. Anyways,
Today's see, we're gonna be talkingabout seasons in ministry, seasons in
ministry, and I know for myself, you know, as a church planner,

(01:36):
there's been times when you know it'sit's been just an exciting season and
momentum, and then we go intothat that second phase where where we're doing
ministry. We're working in ministry,and then there's a phase where we get
tired, and then there's a phasewhere we transition out. We as church

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planners see that often, and Ibelieve that some of our denominational friends they
may transition more than say in ourcircles the non denomed slash vineyard worlds.
So let's talk about like the threestages of ministry, and I kind of

(02:20):
put them into a maybe a differentway, if you will, but I
put them like this. There's thepreparation season where you're seed sewing right and
there's expectation. And then there's thefruit bearing season where you're actually in the
trenches and doing it and you're seeingpeople come to know the Lord. And

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then there's the what we call whatI call the autumn season, transition time,
whether you're retiring, whether you're movingto a different calling in ministry or
you know, you're just passing thetorch, so to speak. So let's
start from the get goes Steve,and let's talk about that seed sowing,
that preparation season. The whole metaphorare using there is kind of like the

(03:08):
Frank Sinatra song oh is it?Oh yeah, he ends up in the
in the autumn of my life.It was a very good year. I
know, I shouldn't sing too muchhere because doyn't want me to sing the
entire time. That is true.And so if you would like the CD,
you're going to have to connect withus on Facebook and we will send

(03:29):
you the seed showgre on the liveversion. So the preparation stage is that
what you called it? Yeah,preparation seed sewing, you know, right
when especially as church planters or evenyeah pastors that are going into a church,
whether that's a new church or existingchurch, you know, there's that

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sometimes we call it a honeymoon period. But we're we're in there and we're
sowing seeds and we really have momentumand there's an expectation for for more.
Mhmm. Yeah, you know,uh, not to segue too far out
there, but we want to gowith prep we want to go with the

(04:13):
first option always and not the lastone, which I would call preparation H
further down the alphabet. So preparationA, not H. We want to
and Uh. I was in college. One of the great experiences of my
life is being an inner varsity fellowshipin college. Uh. One of the
things they do for leaders is theysay, you've got a brief time to

(04:35):
connect with people. So you gotto be constantly, always recruiting, always
developing leaders, always recruiting, alwaysdeveloping leaders. And that's not a new
idea, is you know? Foruh? Is it second Timothy to to
or first of the second Timothy todo? Uh? Paul says, uh,
you give away your life to men. Uh. Of course you met
people in general, people and whoare going to give away their lives to

(04:57):
other people. To give away thelife is to Domino, the Yeah,
the hoisters, Domino Amen application.I think that's that's preparation A. And
you know, the funny thing isis you're recruiting and so forth you're going
to be developed. One thing I'velearned a long time ago is that as
we do, we learn. Aswe do, we grow, as we
do, we get deeper and soit isn't you know, the perfect training

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first and then it comes. Butas you uh, you know, I
think go after leaders have developed them, it's going to be amazing. It's
going to be a stunning thing.Amen. Amen. And you know during
that's a great point, actually,Steve, when when you go in too,
whether it's a new church plant oryou're new at a existing church,

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you have that momentum. But fromday one you should be recruiting and so
you should be looking at i thinkinfluencers within that church if it's an existing
church, but recruiting being who whothe true leaders are and and just getting

(06:03):
them on board with the mission ofthe church. And so amen. So
that's the preparation season, if youwill. And and that's always super exciting.
You know, if you're not excitedduring this season, you just need
to find another line of work.That is the easiest time to feel excited

(06:25):
is early on. Yeah, yeah, before all the counseling and you know,
we can go on and on andput a list there, but which
brings us actually to the second seasonthat and I'm sure you know this is
not exhaustive at all, but thatthat next season would be that fruit bearing
season where you've you've been in thetrenches and you've really poured into people and

(06:46):
you're seeing folks coming to the Lord. You're you're seeing folks baptized and being
discipled and and that that's such agood season. M Yeah, it's times
we take it for granted, Ibelieve. Well, later on you figure
out that was when it was happening, you know, Yeah, you don't
realize that at the time. It'slike raising kids, you know, when

(07:09):
they get to be teenagers, you'restarting to pull your hair out like you
have apparently done. Yes, Idid, and then you start later on
you realize that was frustrated, Butthat was what life was at the time.
Amen. You know, there's arabbitic saying that goes like this,
A person is not worth listening totill they are thirty, and they are
not worth reading till they are forty. And it's an affirmation of the seasons

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of life for one thing, butpreparation as well. There's stuff going on
that goes up till thirty five.Ford, I think there's a lot to
that. Yeah. And I wrotemy first book which has sold very well
over the years, Conspiracy of kindness. And I was about thirty eight and
I'd already heard that that little expression. I thought, I'm a little too

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no, but I but then youget to the place of being fluent and
it's time to speak, time toget the message out there. Man.
Amen, Amen, I love that. And you know, I kind of
going back to what we said earlier, I think sometimes when we're in this
season, we don't realize this isa really good season. Yes, And

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it's kind of like, you know, for those of us who are parents,
you know, if your if yourchild brings home a report card and
it's all a's and then there's aC. What do we do. Do
we celebrate all the a's or dowe hone in on the C and or
the D? In question? Whywhy is that like it is, you

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know, rather than celebrate, youknow, all the winds. And so
I found myself doing that as well. You know, here we had a
church plant going on, and therewas momentum and people were super excited,
even though we were in a setupstage where we were actually having to go
out and set up chairs one hundredand remember us we rented an elementary school

(09:03):
and we had to set up onehundred and sixty five chairs every Sunday,
and for whatever reason, we feltlike we had to put a stage up.
So we did. We put astage, one hundred sixty five chairs,
a nursery, a children's church,and a cafe every Sunday. Come
right, we should have brought thechoir loft and aka the bleachers. Oh

(09:26):
next time, next time. Butyou know, during all that, when
we had momentum, I think,being you know, critical of myself and
always striving, I didn't appreciate thatseason where we had momentum. There was
always something more to do. Itwas never quite good enough. And looking

(09:48):
back, I wish I would havecelebrated more. I wish I would have
embraced people more. Oh boy,yeah, yeah, you're preaching to me
now, man. I mean Ihave this conversation daily with me and uh
it's partly with kids at our advancedages, you know, but but but
also with the ministry stuff. Youlook back and you go, God,

(10:11):
what a privilege, What a privilegeof being involved in that period launched Taco
barrel every single person. But atthe same time I missed something. I
you know, yeah, John Lennon, the John Lennon thing life is what
you are what you what happens whileyou're preparing to do something else. You've
heard that quote, perhaps, butI have. Oh but it's so good.

(10:33):
That's so good. And so we'vetalked about the preparation period, the
fruit bearing season, and then there'sthe the the autumn that that time of
transition where and again, I thinksome of our denominational friends, you know,
they they're on a a cycle ofyou know, so many years.
And I don't know if that's stillthe case, but you know, a

(10:54):
few years back they were still everyfour years or so they would they would
move on to the next location.And and you know, in some ways,
my wife and I were discussing this, it kind of keeps things fresh.
But in another sense, you neverhave enough time to actually grow some

(11:15):
roots and and actually impact and influencethe the community long term. And actually,
one of one of the things thatyou wrote about, Steve, was
that's community of kindness. You wrote, when you go into a city by
a grave site, isn't that oneof yours? And I that I have

(11:45):
several good moved around a little bitsince then, several grave sites. I'm
sorry. The point was to showthe people that you were there I remember
in this last church plant went tothe bank we were trying to build and

(12:05):
the guy saw my resume and hesays, dude, you move around every
two to three years. And soyeah, we see how the church has
grown. But let's this say you'regoing to be gone in six months,
you know, And so longevity reallydoes matter on a lot of different fronts.

(12:26):
But again that that that transition periodis really it's really tough on pastors,
especially because they poured into some folksand whether they're a being fired or
or to they just feel a callto to something else. I know,

(12:48):
for for you, Steve, youyou hand the baton off to a friend
and and they served for many manyyears there at the vineyard, and then
they handed it off to someone thatwas younger than they were. With that
in mind that they were handing itoff to the next generation, and they

(13:11):
felt like at a certain point theyweren't as effective as they could be or
should be in and so they handedit off. And I think that that's
pretty healthy. Yeah, but stillit probably hurts to hand it off.
I mean, this is your baby, you're given away. Basically, as
a church planter, I have atheory if you're a multiple church planter.

(13:37):
I guess it would call them serialplanters, right, But if you're one
of those people, there's probably onethat will stand out to you that was
your that was the most the eyeslooked like you, you know, they
had ten fingers and toes like you. And in other words, it was
the ones that you were another metaphoryou were married to, and the others

(14:00):
were children, if you will,But they weren't the one you're most deeply
ingrained with. And so when yougo to give something away at that level,
it's difficult, if even possible,for other non church planter people to
even grasp what that feels like.It's yeah, it doesn't necessarily feel bad

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all the way, but there aresome definitely some heartrending parts of it.
You know. Yeah, I'm gettinga little emotional here, and I needn't
got the umbrella or the umbrella wellno, especially you know, I know
your story, Steve, and howyou went to that city, went to
Cincinnati, and you started from nothingand really poured your life. You and

(14:43):
Jennie both just poured into the communitythere. And I think you know when
you're doing that, when you're startingfrom zero and you're going to You're not
from that area to start with,but you felt the Lord called you there,
and so you just started serving thosepeople. And as you pour into
them, of course it's just sonatural to have relationship. And then when

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when that season's over, oh mygosh, it can be devastating, you
know, because pastors typically have softhearts. Yeah, amen, go ahead,
No, I had. I hadfriends that did not understand what I
was going through when I left Cincinnati. And uh, it wasn't an abrupt

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leaving in my case, wasn't everything'shunky Dora, and then about two weeks
later you're gone. It wasn't thatat all. It was a very slow,
I must decrease thing, you know, And but yeah, it was
very difficult. So yeah, anybodywho has been through that, you know,
felt free to call us Texas whatever. We'd love to encourage you.

(15:50):
Absolutely, absolutely, And so that'sa good way for us to kind of
finish off this this podcast here isby giving some tips for the tough seasons.
Tips for tough seasons. And I'llstart us off Steve, and one
is it's going to sound so genericto two pastors, but it's it is

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important and sometimes we know the answerand we we just don't utilize it.
But my my first tip is this, go to the good book. You
know, sometimes we get so Ihate to even say it, but we
get a we get accustomed to readingfor sermon prep that we forget that this

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is this is a book with allthe answers to life. This is a
book that that is alive and canspeak to us. And so you know,
when you're going through that tough season, I want to encourage you to
go back to the book. AndI think we can in those tough seasons,
we can do one or two things. We can either run away from

(16:56):
God, run away from church,or we can run to God, run
to his church. And so anyways, that would that would be my bit
of encouragement. Yeah, here's one. Uh find a friend. And uh,
if you're a guy, you knowwhat I'm talking about, Uh,
because you probably don't have any friends, right, I'm sorry, they're tough

(17:21):
to come by. With that gettingcontroversial too far here, but uh,
you may have to adapt to adifferent a circle of people. And maybe
the friend that you need, ifyou're a pastor, would be another pastor.
Maybe not, maybe they go toyour church. Maybe they don't.
I'd prefer they didn't go to mychurch to be a really good friend,

(17:41):
because I can. I can messup a little bit. And and they're
not gonna gossip through the church ifyou will. But I'd say find a
friend. And uh, you know, I started. This sounds kind of
kind of nutty, but I Istarted a men's group when we smoke cigars.
And and in case you're offended bythat, we call it the the

(18:03):
Charles Spurgeon Cigar Group. And becauseCharles Spurgeon, the great evangelist and pasted
with the Lady ten hundreds he did. He did constant cigars anyway. Think
it's a little extreme. Pastor hesaid to it once, to be extreme.
Here's what he said about cigars.And uh. Next, you know,
just two of us, there's likefive of us, and uh and

(18:25):
and again the cigar thing was anexcuse together. It wasn't a point at
all. But they do taste niceafter a while. There you go,
there you go start something. Yeah, I love that. Amen, So
go to the good book. Findyou a friend. Amen. Oh here's
one just a little bit of advice. Don't take your frustrations to the pulpit.

(18:52):
M you know, I both spokeabout that before. You know about
the bully pulpit, and and sothis is not quite the bully pulpit per
se, but it is, youknow, taking your frustrations, your emotions
out on the sheep. You're you'rebeating the sheep, So be careful not
to do that. Remember, regardlessof what you're going through, your your

(19:15):
calling as a pastor is to loveand to disciple them. Yeah, yeah,
I've done that more than once.Where is everybody? You know?
Yeah, take to the people thatare there. You should see the opposite
of what you should do. Andnext week, by the way, there's
not only those people, but moreeven come. So I mean you can't

(19:36):
get too psyched up about one week. Yeah yeah, yeah, And sometimes
you know there there needs to besome correction. But you know, just
because I think we're going through atime of transition doesn't mean we have to
take it out on anybody. Soyeah, take the high roadmen. You

(20:00):
got another tip, Steve, Well, can I can I recommend a book?
Yes, actually a term and thena book that the term I'll introduced
is called Prime and it's by IzakaJesus and he's an Israeli. I don't
know why he spells his name thatway. You look up the word corporate

(20:21):
life Cycles. You can read somequotes out of the book, but he
talks about going through a go gophase and then if you're wise about it,
you get to what he calls prime, and you stay at prime as
long as you can. It's likesurfing away. You stay prime, prime,
prime crime, and then you candiminish and give away what you've raised
up over the years. A secondbook, again, I would say,

(20:42):
you know, look up, it'sa life Corporate Life Cycles is a stick.
Don't get it, probably. Butthe other is a book called The
Making of a Leader, Okay,and it's by Bobby Clinton or Robert Clinton.
Fuller seminary teacher for years and years. But he talked about all the
stuff Jeff, we've been talking abouttoday. It could be very help live.

(21:03):
Re read that book. There's probablyonly five or six books that I've
read more than twice, and I'mnot kind of the Bible, thank you,
but I've read that probably four orfive times, and I've given it
away and loaned it and it's beenincredibly helpful go through the phases. He
calls it an after blow. Ohokay, what do you do at the
end of it all? He goes, you enjoy what you've been developing over

(21:26):
the years, and you reflect andyou're grateful and give away blessing a man.
That's good. Oh I love that. Amen. So my last little
bit again, my advice is sosimple. Ready, this is really deep.

(21:47):
Take a break, Oh yeah,take some time. You know.
I think as pastors, church leaders, sometimes we're so gold driven, you
know, and then we get intoa little funk or we're going through a
transition, going through a season,if you will, and what we really

(22:08):
need it might not even be atransition out, you know. It could
be that we're tired and we justneed to take a break and just get
away from from church and and justrelax. You know. It's it's funny
that I know, not I won'tsay a lot, but I know a

(22:33):
few pastors who who say they can'ttake a sabbath, thinking what m yeah,
because uh, you know, tome, it's a it's almost a
test. And trust you know,he says for us to take a sabbath,
and so whatever that that day mightbe, I think we do need

(22:53):
to rest, you know, worksix if you want rest, and uh,
I just think it's healthy. It'srecharging the battery, it's sharpening the
acts, so to speak. Absolutely, in the words of a Israeli friend
of ours, he said that itliterally is a day of utter dedication to

(23:15):
to help my space out of spaceto irresponsibility. A whole day dedicated irresponsibility,
be responsible the other days of theweek. But yeah, I kind
of like that. Yeah, verycool. I like it too. Amen.
So this has been good and Ihope it's helped some folks out there
that might be in that transition processor you're getting ready to transit transition.

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And you know, like Steve saidearlier, if you are going through anything,
we understand burnout, we understand transitions, we understand seasons. So if
you need a friend, we encourageyou to reach out. Steve and I
are here for you. And sothat's what we're going to leave you with,
Guys, is just that word ofencouragement that you're not alone. Steve

(24:06):
and I we both believe in whatyou're doing. We believe that what you're
doing is making a difference. Wewant to leave you with three simple words
and that here they are ready.Keep it simple until next time. Guys,
you take care and we'll see younext time. Douglass, you've been

(24:27):
listening to the Church Planting Today podcastwith Steve Chogrin and Jeff Hookland. Be
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