the    sides

This is part 2 of my notes from the Beautiful Day Conference.

Steve Clifford is the Lead Pastor of Westgate Church in San Jose, CA.

When Steve got to Westgate, he simply asked 4 questions:

What do we do well?
What are we trying to do?
What are we not doing at all and why?
If Westgate burned down to the ground, would anyone outside the church care? Would it matter?

As the leaders worked through the questions, Steve consistently resisted the “filling in the blank” mentality. He wanted them to be clear on the WHY of ministry and the HOW of ministry first.

WHY we do what we do? Jesus’ church, His organization. Everything we do must be because we either…

Love God
Love One Anther - internal, inside church
Love Others - external, outside church

HOW?
Pattern of Discipleship -
Come and See
Come and Be
Come and Follow
Come and Remain

You cannot call people/organization to become something that you are not becoming individually…..and it has to start with the leadership. If they do not live with compassion as part of their everyday life, then it will be an add on program at your church instead of the fabric of how you live.

“We can not be collectively what we aren’t individually.”

The question to ask when changing the culture of a church is NOT “What do our people need” but “What do we want them to become?” If you simply have programs of outreach and compassion and don’t change the culture, you simply have “drive-by blessings”. Compassion/Outreach has to be about investing in people NOT just compassion. Relationship is key.

GE’s Thoughts:
One of the things that Steve said that encouraged me so much was the line - “I didn’t know the what - but I knew the why and the how. WHAT is something we figured out together. The WHY and HOW was given to us by scripture and it’s my prophetic responsibility to continually remind us of that.”

To me - that summed up pastoral leadership/followership. Be the prophetic voice that continues to bring people to Jesus, reminds them of Jesus, points the community to Jesus. Don’t have to have the 5 year vision/plan. Do that together but as a pastor - your core is to be the prophetic voice.