Every Leader Has a Next Step

Aug 21

3 min read

Hey Pastors and Ministry Leaders,

Ministry can be lonely…

You can be surrounded by people on Sunday and still feel like you’re carrying the weight of ministry by yourself. There are decisions that aren’t easy to make, seasons when you’re not sure what the next step should be, and moments when you simply need someone who understands to walk alongside you.

I don’t think God ever intended for us to do this alone.

That’s one of the reasons I’m so grateful for our family of churches. We are autonomous churches, each responsible before God for following His direction in our own context, but autonomy was never meant to mean isolation. We need one another.

As we’ve worked through our vision, mission, and the kind of culture we want to cultivate together, we also spent time asking a very practical question: What should our pastors and churches be able to expect from us?

We landed on a simple commitment. we call it our guarantee:

We will walk with you, encouraging you and working with you to identify and take your next step for yourself, your family, and your church.

I really love those first five words.

We will walk with you.

Notice what we aren’t promising. We aren’t promising that we’ll have all the answers. We aren’t promising a program that will solve every problem or a strategy that will work in every church. Ministry doesn’t work that way, and neither do churches.

What we are saying is that you don’t have to walk alone.

Sometimes walking with you may mean sitting across the table and listening. Sometimes it may mean helping you think through a difficult situation or connecting you with someone who has walked a similar road. Sometimes it may mean providing training, resources, or coaching. And sometimes it may simply mean celebrating what God is doing in your church or praying with you when ministry is hard.

But I also want to be careful with the word “we.”

The Northwest Baptist Convention isn’t a group of people in an office somewhere serving churches. We are the churches. The Convention is what happens when our churches choose to work together to accomplish the mission God has given us.

So when we say, “We will walk with you,” we’re talking about more than our staff. We’re talking about a family of churches, pastors, ministry leaders, associations, and others choosing to encourage, equip, and help one another take the next step.

I think that’s one of the beautiful things about cooperation. Autonomy doesn’t have to produce isolation. It gives us the freedom to voluntarily lock arms with one another for the sake of the Gospel.

And none of us has arrived.

Every leader has a next step.

Every church has a next step.

I certainly have a next step.

Our commitment is to keep walking together as we discover what those next steps are and faithfully take them.

This is also why I’m excited about this year’s Northwest Impact Offering. It’s more than an offering. It’s one of the ways our churches choose to walk together, pooling our resources to encourage leaders, equip churches, and extend God’s Kingdom across the Northwest. You should have already received some info about the offering, and you’ll be hearing more about it in the weeks ahead, but I hope you’ll begin praying about how your church might participate.

That’s the kind of Northwest Baptist Convention I want us to continue becoming. Not an organization that simply provides programs, but a family of churches that knows one another, encourages one another, learns from one another, and works together to extend God’s Kingdom throughout the Northwest.

Lisa and I are grateful to be part of this family of churches and grateful for the privilege of walking alongside you.

by Faith,