Tag Archives: encouragement

How Many Pastors Did and the Reasons they Did it.

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How Many Pastors Did and the Reasons they Did it.

Recently, Jo and I heard about a situation in a local evangelical church that reminded me of a blog post I wrote in 2013. I thought it might be fitting to republish the relevant parts of that nine-year-old blog post:

Replay of an Old Blog Post
I just now read the troubling statistics about North American evangelical church pastors in Lance Witt’s 2011 book Replenish: Leading from a Healthy Soul. (Available on Amazon)

  • 1,500 pastors leave the ministry permanently each month in North America.
  • 80% of pastors and 85% of their spouses feel discouraged in their roles.
  • Over 50% of pastors are so discouraged they would leave the ministry if they could but have no way of making a living.
  • Over 50% of pastors’ wives feel that their husbands entering the ministry was the most destructive thing ever to happen to their families.
  • 71% of pastors stated they were burned out, and they battle depression beyond fatigue on a weekly and even daily basis.
  • Only one out of every ten ministers will actually retire as a minister.

(Research compiled from The Barna Group, Focus on the Family, Fuller Seminary, and the Institute of Church Leadership.)

Prevention is the Best Cure
These sad statistics would be prevented if all Christians everywhere obeyed the instructions given by the apostle Paul 2,000 years ago.

“And now, friends, we ask you to honour those leaders who work so hard for you, who have been given the responsibility of urging and guiding you along in your obedience. Overwhelm them with appreciation and love!” 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 (MSG).

Okay, here’s where you stop reading and start praying for your pastors and plan to do something to honour them and show your appreciation. At least send them an encouraging email.

Really, take the next five minutes to do for your pastor what you are thinking about right now.
                                (End of the 2013 blog post.)

Why are Pastors Quitting or Thinking about it?
More recently, two to three years ago, Barna did another survey among pastors. They reported that 42% of pastors considered quitting the ministry. They then questioned the pastors about the reasons that drove them to consider quitting the ministry.

Over half of pastors who have considered quitting full-time ministry (56%) said, 1) “the immense stress of the job” has factored into their thoughts on leaving. Beyond these general stressors, two in five pastors (43%) said, 2) “I feel lonely and isolated.”

 Three more Reasons reported by Most pastors:
3) Political divisions in the church
4) Negative effects on the pastor’s family
5) The pastor’s vision for the church conflicts with the church’s direction.

 Five Reasons reported by Fewer pastors:
1 Pastor not optimistic about the future of the church
2 Pastor not satisfied with his job.
3 Pastor feels no respect from the congregants.
4 Pastor does not feel supported by the church staff.
5 Does not feel equipped to cope with ministry demands

Replay of the Prevention
The last three lines from the old blog post are worth republishing here:
Okay, here’s where you stop reading and start praying for your pastors and plan to do something to honour them and show your appreciation. At least send them an encouraging email.
Really, take the next five minutes to do for your pastor what you are thinking about right now.

Why Should Christians Need Encouragement?

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“Working vacation” and “original copy” are oxymorons:  the words cancel each other out. “Discouraged Christian” should be an oxymoron, but it isn’t. Why?

Nine ‘Ds’ of Discouragement
We human beings are very often dejected, disappointed, depressed, dispirited, disillusioned, downcast, disenchanted, disheartened, and in the dark! No wonder the encouragement theme is so pervasive throughout the thousands of years of biblical history.

But why should Christians need encouragement? Here we are, children of a loving Father-God. We know He is Love, He is Light, He is Just and all-Knowing, all-Powerful, all-Wise, and Present everywhere. The more these truths about God soak into our minds, the more we set ourselves to live right, love others, speak kindly, make biblically sound decisions, and fill our minds with pure, uplifting thoughts.

And what is the result?
We, His children, the ones He says He loves, suffer the same sudden disasters that fall on those who live selfishly without any thought of God. We also experience deep disappointments, car accidents, killer cancers, botched surgeries, and financial failures.

In fact, the more Christians live in obedience to God and His Word, the greater the attacks of Satan. Witness, for instance, the growing antagonism the Alberta government is focusing on Christian parents right now.

Encouragement in the Bible
Before Joshua started his invasion of Canaan, God told him, “Be strong and courageous.” These words were passed on seven times to Joshua, to Moses, to the leaders, and to God’s people. David repeated the theme in the Psalms, saying, “Be of good courage.” Jesus, after telling his followers they would have lots of trouble in this world, encouraged them by saying, “But cheer up, I have overcome the world.” The apostle Paul constantly urges his readers to encourage each other.

Eight Ways to Encourage Ourselves and Others
1) It may be too soon to judge if something that happened is good or bad. We may only be halfway into God’s story of our lives.

2) When we receive comfort and encouragement in hard times, we are better able to sympathize with others and to comfort and encourage them. 1 Corinthians 1:3-4

3) Like a grower who uses a pruning knife on his vines to produce more and better fruit, so God uses persecution to purify His Church, sorting out the lukewarm, easy-believism church goers from those who are willing to pay a high price for following Christ closely. John 15:2

4) Just as Jesus suffered so mankind could be saved, so we need to suffer to bring His salvation to others. Colossians 1:24 (TLB)

5) God wants each of us to live bringing glory to Him. Some will do this by being highly successful in business or in ministry, others by quietly suffering under multiple stresses. Philippians 4:11

6) God has given every person on earth the ability to make choices. Every choice, good or bad, has consequences which affect other people, even Christians, but God works out all things for our good. Romans 8:28

7) Even if the story ends badly in this life, God is no one’s debtor. He is just and will reward suffering for Him in this life with glory in the next. 1 Peter 5:10

8) A well-known poem tells us God answers our prayers, although not always in the way we expect:

I asked for strength and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for wisdom and God gave me problems to solve.
I asked for patience and God placed me in situations where I was forced to wait.
I asked for courage and God gave me dangers to go through.
I asked for love and God gave me troubled people to help.

Encourage Ourselves in the Lord, Not in the Circumstances
We can’t help but get discouraged at times, but we don’t have to stay discouraged. We can be like David after raiders had kidnapped his own family and the families of his followers, and his own friends wanted to kill him. David “encouraged himself in the Lord” and with God’s help, went on to win a great victory. (1 Sam. 30:6)

The Surprise Visitor

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It had been more than three years since our expulsion from the Canela village. We prayed for our Canela friends and daily longed to be with them.

One Saturday evening as my family and I were sitting down to our evening meal there was a knock on our door. I got up, opened it and there, to my utter astonishment, stood Jaco, our very best Canela translation helper—nearly a thousand kilometres from his village! I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say.

“Jaco, what are you doing here? How did you get here? Come in!”

“I walked for two days. Then I caught a ride on a rice freight truck for a day. Then I got on a bus for a day and a night, and I walked some more. Now, here I am. And what’s to eat?”

“Sit down, sit down. It’s so good to see you. Here, fill your plate.”

We had a great time visiting that evening and all day Sunday. Then on Monday, after a big breakfast, I asked him,

“So, Jaco, would you like to translate some more of God’s Word.”

“Yes!”

So we sat down across from each other at my study table. I dusted off the translation manuals and other books that I hadn’t been able to use for three years. It wasn’t hard to pray and thank God for bringing Jaco. I asked God to help us translate some more of His Word. I was, of course, praying in the Canela language, and when I was done I said,

“Hamre,” meaning Done or Amen.

I opened my eyes and was about to open my mouth to start talking when I noticed Jaco still had his eyes closed. And then he started to pray.

“Hello, Great Father in the sky. This is me, Jaco, You’ll remember me. I’m one of those who just recently has turned to You, and begun to follow You.”

That’s when I began to cry.

Because after thirteen years of study, translating, praying and waiting, this was the first time I had heard there were any Canelas who had turned to God. And even though it was the first time I had ever heard a Canela pray, I could hardly wait to hear him say “Hamre” so I could ask him,

“When did this happen?”

“I have been reading those printouts of Luke and Acts every day for a long time. Then a few months ago, I was sitting in my hammock reading those papers and I asked myself,

‘Jaco, how much longer are you going to just lie here and read this stuff? When are you going to believe it and obey it?’

And I answered myself,

‘Right now.’

So I got up out of my hammock and walked out behind my house. I looked up into the sky and said,

‘Great Father in the Sky. This is me, my name is Jaco. According to those papers I have been reading, I am in a really bad relationship with You. I have not lived the way You wanted me to live. Will You please do something for me?’

And then, do you know what the Great Father did?”

“No, what did He do?” I asked.

“He adopted me into His family,” Jaco said, using the same term the Canelas used when one family adopted me as their son, and another adopted my wife as their daughter, and we became true citizens of the Canela village.

Popjes (206)I looked at Jaco, sitting across the study table from me and I thought, There sits the first Canela citizen of heaven.

“Then I went into the village,” Jaco continued, “and talked to some of my friends. They read the Great Father’s papers too and now there is a whole group of people who are following the way of Jesus.”

There had been no missionary, no evangelist or pastor in the village for three years. All there was of God was an early draft printout of a couple of Bible books. But God’s time had finally come.

He had begun to build His Church among the Canelas.

 

Just a Little Bit Pregnant

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A few months after Jo and I returned to Canada, having finished the Bible translation project among the Canela, we started worrying about the Canela believers. The rumors we heard and the sporadic notes from our Canela friends in the village were not reassuring.

We had planned for a missionary family to live in our village house and keep teaching reading and do Bible studies. But they encountered many delays. A well-funded community developer from Germany had arrived with medical personnel, teachers, and other workers. The leader kept ridiculing the Canela believers. “Why are you reading that book?” he would ask whenever he saw a Canela reading his Bible. “That’s not for you people.”

A Reassuring Visit
We calmed our worries by praying much for them but kept longing to see them again. The chance came when we returned to Brazil 18 months later to renew our permanent residency visas. During the few days we were in the village many Canelas came to tell us how they loved reading the newly translated Bible–great evidence of God’s work among them.
“I just love reading God’s Word.”
“I read it every day.”
“I read it through once right from the beginning to the end, then I read it through again, and now I am reading it for the third time.”
“People in my house are always asking me to read it to them.”
“When I read, I understand.”
“I pray the songs of King David every morning.”

crowdThe Note That Made Us Cry
The day we left a young woman handed me a note as I pushed through the crowd with a bag to put into the jeep. I glanced at it then gave it to Jo in the back of the house, saying, “This is from Jirot”, and walked out with another bag. When I came back into the house Jo was crying. “Read this” she sobbed, holding out the note. I read it and sat down with Jo and cried too.

Here is the note translated from Canela:
Hello Prejaka and Tehtikwyj, (our Canela names) Listen to my short thought. You are now going back to your children, Pjekar, Tehtyc and Kwyrxomkwyj. (our daughters) May the Maker of this earth, who also is our Maker, take care of all of us. We Canelas are always together with each other. And we, including you, will surely someday be together with each other again. To that end I surely pray for you like this:
“Good Father, look after all of us here. And my relatives, Prejaka and Tehtikwyj, who are the ones who revealed You to me, look after them, and also look after me.” Yes, that is the way I pray. Done.
Jirot

We had received many hundreds of notes ever since the Canelas learned to read and write in their own language. But this one was special since it not only contained a prayer, it also had the words “who are the ones who revealed You to me” showing deep spiritual understanding. And it was the only note we ever got that didn’t end by asking us for something.

That note was tiny evidence of a growing Church—almost insignificant. A woman who is just a tiny bit pregnant is, however, pregnant. She will give birth to a baby in due time. So also the Canela church is alive, nothing tiny or insignificant about it.

Jo and I need not have worried during those 18 months. We should have remembered that Jesus said “I will build my Church.” Not “Jack and Jo,” or “a strong denomination.” He, Himself, will build His own Church, among the Canela, and every other people group that is reading and hearing His Word in their own language. What a comfort! What a relief!

How Much Is Left to Do in the Great Commission?

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John Piper is a pastor who speaks my language!

The following is a guest blog first published in his Desiring God blog. http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/how-much-is-left-to-do-in-the-great-commission

The only statistic I can add is that of the 6,800 languages spoken in the world today, about 1,850 languages still do not have any Scripture translated into them, nor has anyone yet been assigned to start a translation program for the 200 million people who speak these languages. No church can be planted without the Seed of the Word of God in the language of the people. http://www.wycliffe.org/About/Statistics.aspx

Now here is JohnPiper:

How Much Is Left to Do in the Great Commission?

We should be dumbfounded at how doable the remaining task of world missions is. Before I show this, let’s clarify some definitions.

Missions is not the same as evangelism. Evangelism is sharing the gospel with any unbelievers, and that work will never be done till Jesus comes.

Missions, on the other hand, relates to people groups, not just people, and the number is finite and relatively stable — like the “every people, tongue, tribe, and nation” of Revelation 5:9.

So missions is crossing a culture, learning a language, and planting the church through preaching the gospel among people groups that have no churches strong enough to evangelize their group.

According to the Joshua Project (as of February 16) there are 16,598 people groups in the world. 7,165 of these are “unreached” (fewer than 2% evangelical).

Defining things somewhat differently, the research arm of the Southern Baptist International Missions Board estimates 11,310 people groups, of which 6,405 are unreached and 3,100 are “unengaged” (no evangelical mission effort to reach them is underway).

Does that number sound large to you? 3,100? These are the people groups yet to be pursued and penetrated with a missions effort. The number is, in fact, amazingly small compared to the resources available to us.

Consider these numbers from the January 2013 issue of The International Bulletin of Missionary Research (vol. 37, no. 1):

  • There are 44,000 Christian denominations in the world — 14 for every unengaged people group.
  • There are 700 million evangelical Christians in the world — 225,000 for every unengaged people group.
  • There are 4.5 million Christian congregations in the world — 1,451 congregations for every unengaged people group.
  • There are 4,900 Christian foreign mission sending agencies in the world — 1.5 agencies for every unengaged people group.

This is simply mindboggling. I am not unaware that most of these 3,100 unengaged peoples are in places and under regimes that are hostile to Christian presence. So I am not saying it will be easy to reach them. It will be very costly.

But if God would grant the passion and courage and wisdom, the remaining task is neither vague, nor enormous, nor unattainable. Would you join me in obeying Matthew 9:38, “Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest”?

And then be a radical, sacrificial goer, or a radical, sacrificial sender. Jesus has all authority to accomplish this. He promises to be with us to the end of the age as we mobilize for this. What a thrilling prospect! What a cause to live for! What a holy ambition.

Closing note from Jack: Since I failed to find a suitable photo, here’s a famous quote to illustrate John’s point, “The Church is like a man wearing a deep sea diver’s pressure suit and helmet, bravely stepping into a bathtub to pull the drain plug.”

Are You Ready to Praise God for TAKs?

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“So how much have computers speeded up the work of Bible translation?” people often ask me when they find out I’m a Wycliffe Bible translator.

I’m the right guy to ask since my wife and I started our Bible translation career by hand writing the translation, then copying it with carbons on an Underwood manual typewriter. Twenty years later, it was all on a computer, and we noticed the improvement.

The big difference, however, was not in speed but in quality. Revisions were accurate since they didn’t need to be typed out again, a process that always introduced errors. Instead of hand typing and retyping three revision drafts, we now ran a Bible book through a dozen drafts, each one just a little better than the previous. The quality went up but it still took a long time.

New Technology That Speeds Up Translation

Just a few years ago, however, a new technology was developed that really does accelerate the pace of Bible translation around the world. I’m talking about Translation Acceleration Kits, also known as TAKs, which are used by nationals translating the Bible into their own tribal languages, most of whom live in extremely isolated areas of the world.

I used to complain when my wife and I had to leave the village and drive two or three days over difficult roads to reach the translation centre in Belem where we could get our translated material checked by translation consultants. We thought we had it hard, but now I am discovering that in comparison to what some mother-tongue translators go through, we had it easy.

Whenever I travel in the USA raising funds for these TAKs my heart is stirred night after night as I watch videos of men who have literally risked their lives getting to a consultant. Some travel for fifty miles across rough seas in an open boat powered by an outboard motor. Others travel for weeks over robber infested roads, climb steep mountains, or pick their way through swamps,  carrying their precious manuscript to be checked at a translation centre.

042012_Bible Tech_set up equipFor many of them, a new day has dawned. Hundreds of teams of mother-tongue translators in remote locations in Africa, Asia and the PacificIslands have now been equipped with Translation Acceleration Kits. Even without access to electricity, phone or Internet connection, they are now communicating in real time with translation experts hundreds or even thousands of miles away via satellite connection.

So, What is a TAK?

1-1-P1030606A TAK consists of four main components. 1) a laptop computer, 2) a satellite communications terminal, both of which are powered by 3) an ordinary car battery which is kept charged through 4) a cloth based solar panel made of photovoltaic fabrics. It folds up into a small parcel and fits easily into a backpack along with the laptop computer, and the satellite modem. The unit is highly portable, and car batteries can be found anywhere in the world that vehicles can reach. A TAK costs about $3,500, another 1,000 are needed immediately.

TAKs: The Best Thing for Communication Since Planes

Bush planes and jungle pilots made a huge impact on missionaries sixty years ago when they began penetrating previously inaccessible areas of the world. I know. We saved weeks of travel time when we flew to and from the Canela village in Wycliffe’s JAARS planes. TAKs are the first major breakthrough to accelerate the pace of Bible translation in remote areas since the start of missionary aviation.

Last week I sang the praises of the NewLife app for the iPhone developed by the Gideons in Canada which puts the whole Bible with notes and helps on any iPhone for free. This week is the TAK verse of this hymn of praise.

“Thank You, Lord God of the universe, for helping Your Church to use high technology to speed Your Word to every man, woman and child on planet Earth, in their own language.”