All to Him I Owe

The average church is filled with good people who have lots of opinions! I regularly receive a variety of opinions ranging from my preaching style to the setup of our auditorium. One dear lady even regularly lets me know whether my tie is fashionable or not. As a pastor wading through the multiple opinions that are present in the local church I have found the following principles helpful.

1. Opinionated people are inevitable – because they are inevitable it is important for us to develop a thick skin that enables us to receive opinions with discretion and appreciation.

2. As I receive the multiple opinions, I have to filter them through the following two questions: #1. Does this distract us from our overall mission as a church? #2. Does this negatively affect the spiritual wellfare of our congregation? My level of seriousness about the opinion is determined by the answer to those questions.

3. So, whose opinions do I give the most weight to?

• The people with the most expertise in that area.
• The people who will be most affected by this new thing or change.
• The people who represent larger groups of people within the congregation.

As much work as it takes to manage the multiple opinions that flow through a church body, I really am thankful for them. Those opinions have brought great things into this ministry. If I had the choice of people with no opinions or a congregation full of opinions I would always choose the congregation full of opinions.