Several years ago, Robert Fulghum wrote a bestselling book with an intriguing title: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. It talked about playing fair, putting things back where you found them… flushing. It was a fun book. Reflecting on that title, it made me think of my own leadership and role as a pastor. And how I could write a book titled: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in My First Church.
My first church was a county-seat Baptist congregation in a small town near the school where I went to seminary. It was a big church by student standards, 300 or so in attendance, and it had a staff that consisted of a part-time youth minister, a part-time worship leader, a couple of administrative assistants and a groundskeeper.
The church did not, however, have a good history with pastors.
If I recall correctly, I was going to be at least their fourth pastor in less than a decade. The pastor before me had an emotional breakdown in the pulpit. They gave him a 90-day medical sabbatical. At the end of his break, he announced he had accepted a position at a new church in Florida.
It seems he used his sabbatical well.
The pastor before him was told by a deacon – who visited the doorstep of the parsonage one night to deliver the news – that if he didn’t leave, he would make it so hard on him he’d have to.
So there I was, the young seminary kid.
And I do mean young.
“Senior” pastor?
Hardly.
I was 25 years old when I delivered my first message to that church as its leader, finding myself leading a church that left a trail of pastors’ bodies in its wake.
I served that church for just over three years. I carry many a scar from that time to this day. Yet it taught me some of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned for ministry—kindergarten kind of lessons.
4 Lessons I Learned From My First Church
1. Stand up to bullies.
Almost every playground has a bully. And there’s only one way to stop a bully: Stand up to them.
There was a certain man in the church who had terrorized pastors for years. He was big, burly and intimidating. He was also a “parking lot” manipulator—talking to people before and after services, maneuvering them to his side of things. And if there wasn’t a “side” in play, he simply sowed seeds of dissension, division and discontent. He was a master at taking control of deacon and business meetings, bringing “blindsiding” to an art form.
No one had ever confronted him about his behavior before.
I was young and stupid enough to be the first.
It worked.
