Remember staying up all night to study for the hardest seminary exam of the semester?
Maybe you simply couldn’t stay awake in class the next day, and wouldn’t you know? You missed the one lecture that would have profited you the most! Or maybe you had a professor who really knew his material, but he didn’t communicate it clearly—maybe you heard him, but you didn’t hear him. Perhaps the professor assumed that if she said something once, everybody got it…but you didn’t. Maybe you missed something because it was never taught; maybe the school did not include it in their curriculum. Another possibility is that you never attended seminary; after all, academic training doesn’t always determine whether God uses a particular instrument.
One thing is certain: Regardless of the how, there’s a distinct possibility that you could have missed something in seminary that would have been made a marked difference in your life and ministry today.
I’ve had two advantages in my ministry career—one you are likely to share with me, and one perhaps not so likely. The likely one is that, prior to going into evangelism, I pastored two churches: one just outside of Dubois, Pennsylvania, and one in Baltimore, Maryland. My tenure was short, because I served as an interim pastor for three summer months while they waited for the arrival of their new pastor. However, the education was never-ending. As I prepared to minister in churches across the country, I wanted to know what a pastor faces. God taught. I listened. I learned.
My second advantage is that I have since spoken in more than 1,000 outreaches around the world. In doing so, I’ve interacted with thousands of church leaders, and often our conversation has centered on “what we wish we had learned in seminary.” Six things consistently come up that may benefit you. You may have missed them back then; don’t miss them now.
Your strength uncontrolled will always be your weakness. It took me fifteen years in ministry before I ever learned this idea. How I wish someone would have told me sooner!
Raised on a dairy farm, I have a strong work ethic. I have seldom met anyone raised on a dairy farm who doesn’t. It’s a seven-day-a-week job. Laziness costs dearly. Cows not milked regularly become poor providers. Hay not baled today could be rained on tomorrow, making it less appetizing for the cows. The work itself is tough and demanding. In fact, it’s been the best preparation I could have ever had for ministry. I’ve never known a nine-to-five job. On top of that, I’ve been blessed with stamina—I don’t tire easily, and sometimes when I am tired, I don’t even know it.
This work ethic has contributed big-time to the growth of EvanTell. I’ve traveled extensively, booked engagements back-to-back, returned to Dallas and headed straight for the office. For the first twenty years, I didn’t even take the holidays off. Yes, I took vacation, but only after going nine months non-stop. No, I’m not bragging, because I now see the benefit of taking a day off each week to rest, recuperate, and spend time with the wife I cherish. I don’t sit at home on a sofa—that’s not me. But the break does let me come to the office refreshed and rejuvenated afterward. I am more careful than ever not to let my strength become a weakness; but I now know it could happen. Where was I in seminary when they taught this? Or was it never taught?
I have a friend who is the most sympathetic, caring person I’ve ever met. I could call him at the three o’clock in the morning, tell him I needed a friend to talk to, and he’d be there. In addition, he is extremely loyal; once you become his friend, you’re always his friend.
But, a number of years ago, his kind spirit and loyalty cost him dearly. Satan used it to his disadvantage when someone took advantage of it. Only now is he getting back on track.
What is your greatest strength? Do yourself a favor. Sit down and list today how that strength uncontrolled could become a weakness. Prepare by not letting it happen.
You don’t have to know everything. Just surround yourself with the people who do. When EvanTell’s ministry began to grow, I was more impacted by what I didn’t know than what I did. To say I felt inadequate would be an understatement. My first thought was, “If Billy Graham was here, he would know what to do. If Bill Bright was here, he’d know what to suggest. Why is James Dobson so knowledgeable, and I’m so ignorant?”
This is when the Chairman of our Board taught me what I never learned in seminary. His penetrating words were, “Larry, you don’t have to know everything. Just surround yourself with the people who do.” Next to coming to Christ and hearing my wife say “Yes” when I proposed to her, this was the most exciting moment in my life. I took the advice to heart. First, I built our staff with people who know more than I do. They are the ones who have caused the ministry to grow and even explode. We now impact more in a single week than we use to impact in a single year. On top of this, I’ve built our Board of Directors with businessmen, not clergy. I know the clergy side of ministry; I want to make sure we’re doing the things business-wise we ought to be doing. These men are the ones who have taught me how to hire and when to fire, how to set reasonable and measurable goals, how to evaluate staff, and even how to lead and how to listen.
When I graduated from seminary, I thought I was expected to know all this. I wish someone would have told me earlier I didn’t have to know it all—and couldn’t— then stressed the need to simply surround myself with the right people. Receiving that information before I received my degree would have saved me tremendous frustration, mistakes, and defeat.
Your biggest challenge will not be with the pulpit; it will be in your committee meetings. I have a pastor friend who echoes what others have: “I’d love the ministry if it were not for people.” Two things happen in the committee room that do not happen in the pulpit. One is that people answer back. You are no longer the only one speaking. And sometimes the way they answer back leaves a lot to be desired—sarcastic words, a harsh tone, or a bitter attitude. Perhaps what is said is truthful and necessary, but it was the way it is said that hurts.
Secondly, in the pulpit you are confronted with a “sea” of people. In the committee room, you are confronted with an “island” of personalities. You might be sanguine—that is, people matter above everything and “let’s all get along.” But one committee member is choleric, so conflict doesn’t bother him; in fact, he rather enjoys it. If he’s not careful, he leaves hurt people in his wake. Another one is melancholy; he pays great attention to detail but enjoys the “rut.” Doing things the same way for years bothers you greatly, but bothers him little. The rut becomes his comfort zone. Still another is phlegmatic: steady and dependable, easily liked, but resistant to sudden change.
Your challenge is getting them to think together when they don’t think alike. But seminary never prepared you for this. Weren’t your carefully prepared sermons supposed to prevent these problems? Isn’t the fact that you said something enough for people? After all, you’re the pastor! Why didn’t the professors spend more time on the conflict between Paul and Barnabus (Acts 15:36-41)?
I’ll never forget a professor saying to me, “Most of our graduates are not failing in the pulpit. They are failing in the boardroom.” I’ve observed the same while traveling to other churches. People who can explain the Scriptures well cannot always manage people well. Accepting one another’s weaknesses and playing to one another’s strengths is essential. Ideas are enhanced when they are approached by differing personalities. There is no need to feel threatened because someone thought of an idea you didn’t—that’s the strength of the body of Christ.
Seminary didn’t seem to give this necessary warning. It warned that proclaiming odd ideas in the pulpit could cause you great suffering, but it never told you that odd ideas in the committee room could actually benefit you.
You were told to present the gospel, but you were never given a method. A friend of mind works with a group of church planters. He asked them two questions. The first: “Can you define the gospel in one sentence?” They all answered, “No.” He then asked, “Do you know how to take the Bible and clearly lead a person to Christ?” Again the answer was “No.”
Call this the exception, not the norm, but many have observed (myself included) that it’s the norm not the exception.
If you gave me a dollar for every person who said to me, “Before I began using your materials, I never knew what the gospel was,” it would overtake your salary, regardless of what it is. We’ve spent years telling people something seminary never taught. The Bible is 66 books. The gospel as defined in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 is ten words: Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead. Many seminary graduates have told me, “I always knew I should preach the gospel. I just never had a clear understanding of what the gospel was.”
Furthermore, the seminary didn’t teach a method. God, with kindness I don’t deserve, has allowed me to speak in more than 60 different foreign locations and in almost every one of our states. I have not met a single person who is consistent and successful in evangelism that does not use some basic method of presenting the gospel. A method frees you up, helps you relax, and allows you to listen to every word the lost person says and even how he says it. You know how you’re going to present the gospel as the conversation unfolds. A method of presenting the gospel is not simply helpful; it’s essential.
Where, though, do most people learn a method? It is often after seminary more so then during seminary. It may have been from a parachurch organization similar to ours, or in training materials purchased by their church. But examine survey results where church leaders are asked, “How many learned the gospel and how to present it in seminary?” and you’ll find the responses alarming—and frightening.
People are more inclined to do what leaders do than what leaders say. Leadership is stressed more than ever in seminary these days. It’s also stressed that leadership is based on character. Leading as you ought to lead demands that you have the character you ought to have.
This is the point where seminary teachings may have gone quiet. You know why it is important to avoid immorality, become a person of integrity, and model transparency before your people. But because people are more apt to do what you do than what you say, your church’s outreach may have suffered as a result.
In short, if you speak about the lost, your people will speak about the lost. If you speak to the lost, your people will speak to the lost. If you have all day, I could keep you that long with other examples.
I speak at numerous friendship dinners. Sponsored by the church, they are typically held at a nearby restaurant. Non-Christians are intimidated by a church; they are not intimidated by a restaurant. We average a minimum of 40% non-Christians in attendance, and the events that fare best are those where the church leaders bring their non-Christian friends with them. Sometimes the actions of the leadership catch on so much that church members start bringing four, six, or eight of their own non-Christian friends to church at a time. Why? The church leaders do not simply talk about evangelism; they’re doing it.
I had an exciting week at a Bible college challenging and motivating students in evangelism. At the end of the week, the faculty asked if they could have a question-and-answer time with me. I gladly accepted. One question got everyone’s attention. A professor asked, “You come for a week, and our students are ready to take the world for Christ. Why don’t they respond the same way with us?” Feeling a freedom to be completely honest, I asked, “If I were to go around the room and ask how many of you have spoken to a lost person this month, how would you respond?” Heads dropped. Silence filled the room. I then said, “There is your answer. Students do what leaders do more than what leaders say. The students hear you say, ‘Reach the lost.’ They don’t see you doing it. Had my messages not been filled with my personal examples in evangelism, the response you saw would not be there. They must see you talking to the lost, not about them.”
Others understand you better than you understand yourself. Pastors are often good counselors. They help people see themselves and their problems from a different angle. Sometimes they even help people laugh at themselves. People leave your office not only with a better understanding of where they are in a particular situation, but even how they got there.
However, as good as you are at seeing others, you are often the poorest at seeing yourself. One reason is that you are too close to you. After all, you are you! Backing off and seeing yourself is not only difficult; sometimes it’s impossible.
That’s why two things are critical. One is a teachable spirit. Few people are going to tell you what you need to be told unless they sense the freedom to do so. This is one reason why Proverbs emphasizes that wise people listen. It is also essential that you surround yourself with people who care for you deeply—so deeply that they’ll tell you things about you that you could make a phenomenal difference. They tell you things about you that need to fear, not necessarily what you want to hear.
Talk to anyone who knows me, and they will tell you what a focused person I am. Whatever I am glued to at the moment, nothing else has my attention. At times, people respectfully laugh at my single-mindedness as they comment, “Larry is focused on something right now.”
Would you believe that I never knew this about myself until someone else pointed it out? In fact, when they first told me, I misunderstood. I thought they were saying I couldn’t multitask, something I have been told is one of my strengths. Then they explained that I multitask well, but whatever I am doing at the moment becomes my singular focus. This trait helps me in so many ways, but it also haunts me. (Remember what I said about your strength uncontrolled becomes your weakness.) I need to be reminded that I am going to dinner with a man whose married daughter has been diagnosed with cancer, and I must be careful to not be so focused on our evangelistic outreach that I overlook his grief. My assistant may have to remind me that a staff member is waiting for the results of a blood test. My singular focus can cause me to be glued to the project at hand and forget what was shared three days earlier.
But where in seminary were we taught that others see us better than we see ourselves? Knowing this makes you really want a few good friends—friends that will talk to you, counsel, console, warn, and teach you, as well as help you understand why you respond the way you do. They become the counselor you desperately need.
A seminary course titled as follows might have helped us: “Helping People Understand Themselves.” Where was the course, “How to Find People Who Can Help You Understand You”?
What should we do? Write a letter to seminaries across the country expressing what would have been helpful to know? This could be a good idea as long as it’s written in the right spirit—wanting to build up not tear down. More importantly, you could learn these six things now and teach them to others. A friend of mine is fond of saying, “It’s never too late to do what’s right.” I would apply this here by saying, “It’s never too late to learn now what should have been learned years ago.” After all, the past is behind you. It’s the future that’s in front of you. Walk into the future grateful you learned what you did (and what you just did). Think how exciting it will be when those you mentor and teach can learn early what you learned late. What you missed, they can catch—and they can catch it from you. What a way to turn a minus into a plus!
Dr. R Larry Moyer is an author and the founder/ CEO of EvanTell, Inc, a ministry committed to studying the Scriptures carefully and presenting the gospel clearly. He has earned degrees from Philadelphia Biblical University (B.S.) and Dallas Theological Seminary (Th.M.). In 2001, Philadelphia Biblical University awarded him the honorary Doctor of Sacred Theology degree (S.T.D). He is currently working on his Doctor of Ministry degree through Gordon-Conwell Seminary. He is a regular guest lecturer in evangelism at Dallas Theological Seminary and at Word of Life Bible Institute in New York and Florida. His several books include Dear God, I'm Ticked Off, 31 Days with the Master Fisherman, 31 Days to Living as a New Believer, and 21 Things God Never Said; he also is a contributor to Biblical Sermons edited by Dr. Haddon W. Robinson, Leadership Handbooks of Practical Theology and numerous other church leadership publications. You are invited to peruse a breadth of free or affordable materials on the resources section of the EvanTell website.
Sermon Central
