I’m a Texan, born and raised. With my Texas roots comes an insatiable taste for barbecue. To be clear, the definition of barbecue in our state is very specific. It doesn’t mean throwing hot dogs or hamburgers on a grill. It also doesn’t mean eating pulled pork that was rubbed with 15 different spices and sugars (looking at you, North Carolina). In Texas, barbecue is defined by one thing and one thing only – smoked brisket. Preparing it, smoking it, and eating it is almost a religion to us.
I’ve always loved stopping by one of the many barbecue joints in our city and ordering sliced brisket. After an hour in one of these restaurants, your clothes smell like a forest fire. For the rest of the day, anyone who shares a room with you will know where you ate lunch. But a few years ago, I decided that I didn’t just want to eat great brisket. I wanted to learn how to make it. As someone who is naturally impatient and driven, doing this is a challenge that runs against every fiber of my being.
The cook begins about 24 hours before you plan on eating it. Texas brisket is trimmed down before it’s cooked, then seasoned liberally with equal parts coarse salt and 14-grain black pepper. You let it sit in the refrigerator until about 3:00 in the morning. That’s when you wake up, light a fire fueled by post oak wood calibrated to 250 degrees, and let the brisket absorb its smoke for the next 12-15 hours.
There’s a saying that you’ll never learn to make a great brisket until you’ve made a terrible one. It requires constant attentiveness, consistency with fire management, and great discernment about what the brisket needs next in its cook. You can’t rush it. With one wrong move, you’ll destroy a half-day of work. If you succeed, you’re a hero to everyone who eats it. If you fail, you’ve lost a day of your life that you will never get back.
The discipline required in smoking has even helped me build some of the character traits needed for pastoral ministry. The process especially holds great lessons for any pastor who is cultivating change in his church. Three lessons, in particular, come to mind when pursuing change for the glory of God and the good of your people.
Change occurs slowly.
The process of smoking meat requires one critical character trait – patience. If you turn up the heat, you’ll dry out the meat and reduce the brisket’s exposure to the smoke. If you forget to let it rest for at least an hour after it has finished cooking, it will lose all its moisture at the very end. There is simply no way to smoke a great brisket without the most important ingredient – time.
The same is true of change in our churches. And yet, those in ministry are an impatient bunch. We want change and we want it yesterday. I love H.B. Charles’ admonishment to all of us who bear this trait.
It takes time to nurture a healthy congregation. A preacher can attract a big crowd in no time. But a crowd is not a church… The problem with too many young pastors is that we aim too low and try to get there too fast. Brothers, it takes time — months, years, maybe decades — to build a healthy church. [1]
Those in ministry are often too quick to forget that their people have often been in their churches much longer than them. Depending on your congregation, you may have individuals who have sat in the same pew their entire lives. Before them, their parents and grandparents had the spot. They’ve invested thousands of hours into caring for the building, keeping up with the church van, hosting smelly teenage boys in their homes for D-Now weekends, and making meals for tired parents who just brought their first child home. This is to say nothing of the compounded impact of their faithful tithing over decades or their financial sacrifices in past building campaigns.
It is unwise, even cruel, to expect people to change their entire mentality of what it means to be a church, transform the congregation’s outreach strategy, or even replace the carpet without first appreciating their sacrificial investments. If you’re struggling to change minds and build advocates for your ideas, remember that the church’s objections are rarely about theology or strategy. More often than not, they’re motivated by nostalgia. In Reclaimed Church, Bill Henard reminds new pastors, “The church sits where it is because these investors have paid a significant price. New people do not appreciate such nostalgia.” [2]
Pastor, take it slow. Be the one who shares in their nostalgia. Don’t crank up the heat because you’re not making as much progress as you’d like. Don’t discount the stake your people have in their local church. Don’t fail to appreciate their faithfulness or their sacrifices. Consider the Apostle Paul who spent 18 months with the Corinthians believers (Acts 18), letting the Word of God slowly break down their hearts and transform their lives. Imagine the urgency he must have felt when challenging their allegiance to the sex-crazed culture they had absorbed their entire lives. This is the same man who later spent three years with the Ephesians (Acts 19-20), building a biblical foundation in a church placed in a pivotal cultural location.
Likewise, give it time. Let the Word of God tenderize their hearts. Don’t dry out (or burn out) the very people God has placed under your care because you are too impatient to see the fruits of your shepherding.
Change must be earned.
Smoking a brisket requires as much energy as it does time. You can’t just set the temperature and walk away like you can with an oven. The fire needs tending. The heat must stay consistent. You’ve got to open the barrel every few hours to spritz the meat, so it retains moisture and absorbs flavor.
Likewise, change in a church doesn’t just take time. It requires sacrifice. It must be earned. Mark Vroegop writes,
“When churches don’t feel like you understand them, they view you as an alien intruder. Therefore, humility is required to learn about the church’s history. Trust is developed as you become one of them.” [3]
Before you can ever sell them on your plans for change, you must first earn the right to lead them. You do this by constantly tending to them. Listen to (and appreciate!) their stories of the church’s glory days. Make the hospital visits. Take their criticism with grace. Ask about their grandkids or their wayward nephew. Give serious consideration to their own suggestions and ideas for change. Invite them into the process. Show them you care and that you’re one of them. If you do this well, you’ll earn the right to lovingly call out doctrines that need to shift, bring an end to ministries that have lost their effectiveness, and prepare the church for future ministry.
Change is necessary.
I may love smoking a great brisket, but I really have to be in the mood for it. It’s not something I do every day. I have to block time on the calendar and make sure I can be home all day. Likewise, when you consider all the time and energy required to see healthy change take root in your congregation, it’s easy to wonder, “is it really worth it?”
Change in the local church can be exhausting. The investment isn’t insignificant. It’s far easier to maintain the status quo and go with the flow. After all, if you don’t rustle feathers or make waves, you never have to worry about taking criticism or navigating conflict. But the need for change isn’t reserved for churches in decline. In his book, Revitalize, Andrew Davis challenges pastors, “A church that stops reforming is dying.” [4] If you’re unwilling to call out doctrinal error as it creeps up, you’ll be dealing with full-blown heresy later. If you’re not willing to consistently make decisions that are strategically informed, you will have a much harder time making them when decline sets in. Ironically, the churches that struggle most with change are the ones that have spent decades complacently living without it.
Pastors are responsible for the spiritual condition of our people. In 1 Peter 5, the elders are admonished to “shepherd the flock… not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly… and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory (1 Pet. 5:2-4).” Good shepherds don’t follow their flocks off the cliff or into a pack of wolves. They lovingly guide them to security and nourishment. Likewise, good pastors don’t let their people wander in the wrong direction. They lead them to safe pastures where they can thrive together.
The call for change is peppered throughout the pastoral letters. In his encouragement to Timothy and Titus, Paul calls on his proteges to courageously guide the church. He tells them to challenge the people over their obsession for controversial topics (2 Tim. 2:14-26). He reminds Titus to call on the people to be submissive to their leaders (Ti. 3:1-11). He shows them what kinds of leaders should be directing the church, and who should be marginalized from such positions (1 Tim. 3:1-13, Ti. 5:1-16). How could these changes not be incredibly difficult for the two young leaders to implement? Likewise, you must have the nerve to make necessary changes and take on the sacrifices required to see them through.
Pull out the smoker.
Pastor, don’t be afraid to smoke up some change in your church. Like an amateur pit master, you can only make changes the right way by first making them the wrong way. Humbly admit mistakes and learn from them. But remember, there are no shortcuts. There’s no pathway to change that doesn’t require time, patience, energy, humility, risk, and nerve to see it through. It will always take longer than you’d like. Occasionally, the progress will stall. You will worry about the long-term ramifications of growth not happening like you think it should.
But consider the calling before you. As a shepherd, is there anything sweeter than presenting a vibrant, healthy local church to the Chief Shepherd? The cost of making changes may be great, but the cost of not making them is even greater.
Be courageous enough to challenge your people and humble enough to shepherd them through the challenge.
[1] H.B. Charles, On Pastoring: A Short Guide to Living, Leading, and Ministering as a Pastor, (Chicago, IL: Moody, 2016), 57, 90.
[2] Bill Henard, Reclaimed Church: How Churches Grow, Decline, and Experience Revitalization, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing, 2018), Loc. 737, Kindle Edition.
[3] “Be Wise When You Revitalize,” Mark Vroegop, accessed March 8, 2024, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/be-wise-when-you-revitalize/.
[4] Andrew Davis, Revitalize: Biblical Keys to Helping Your Church Come Alive Again, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2017), 21.
