Have you ever poured your heart into something, a church? It might be an event, it might be a ministry, it might be a mission, a project, and then you looked around and thought, does anyone even care that we're doing this? I mean, you plan, you pray, you prep, and it seems like only a handful of people are actually showing up. Today we're talking about how to handle those moments when your passion for God's work doesn't match that of those around you. Coming up right now, Lunch Read Today Show.
You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. Welcome to the Clearview Today Show.
We got a great conversation, something that has been user-submitted time and time and time again. People writing into the show telling us about things happening at their church. But before we get into that, we want to introduce our host, Dr. Abadan Shah, who's a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. Dr.
Shah, being a full-time pastor, this is something that comes up a lot where people are disappointed in the turnout of their events. You know, a lot of people put all this effort into something and they think that just because they care about it, the congregation ought to care about it. And usually they don't. Yeah, they're disappointed. I've been there.
Well, we were there for many years. We used to do a lot of things. We tried every kind of music imaginable. You know, I didn't grow up in America. I didn't grow up in the South.
I didn't sing Southern Gospel. I was aware of Southern Gospel music, but I wasn't, you know, I didn't grow up singing that kind of music. But when I first came to this town, And saw that our church was trying what it could. It had this choir with maybe five or six people, which was half the church. The music style was like hymnic, which is down right down the road for me, because that's how I grew up singing old hymns.
And then, um, You know, people were not engaged in worship, so we're like, we're going to do something. We're going to have. Uh uh you know, a cantata. And and people would come, maybe ten more people than usual. And I'm like, good grief, what will it take to bring people here?
And there are many different factors.
So I hope this doesn't communicate to you that if you do these three things, no worries.
Now, there are many different factors. Right. It was. For example, our church was located in a section of town where People were afraid to go after a certain time at night.
So night events were usually well attended. Then our church not really had a reputation per se, but it was more of a just people didn't think anything good came out of that church. It's just, yeah, it's a little congregation, and they will sort of survive as long as they can. Can anything good come out of Nazareth mindset? Probably a little church in North Carolina, yeah.
It's not like it was a bad church. It was just nothing going to happen there. It's done. It's seen as heyday.
So that's the kind of church we came to. And It was frustrating at first thinking, man, I'm doing all this. We're doing all this, but hardly anybody comes. Christmas services were like. Fifty people.
Wow, on a very good Christmas service, and when we saw 50, it's like, oh my goodness! They got a packed house, guys!
So over the years you learn Certain, not really tricks because God's work does not involve tricks, but you learn certain principles on what it takes. to invite people to come. And what you find out is this. The best of the best And I say that. Because there are people who'll say Now, Charles Spurgeon didn't do all that when he tried to get people.
He just preached the word, brother. You must not have read on Charles Spurgeon.
Now, Martin Luther, I mean, he one man stood up against the the the Pope and he, you know, nailed those ninety five theses to the Wittenberg door and man, next thing you know, You must not really know Martin Luther. Maybe you need to read up on him. That's a good point. You have a caricature in your mind. You think you know, but you don't know the full picture of what these men were doing.
You may have a popular understanding, but these people were great organizers. That's true. That's true. There's an art to it. Absolutely.
Absolutely. And does not for a moment take away from their faith in God, does not for a moment take away from their Prayer life that we need to ask God to bless this event. Without God, this is not going to be possible.
So, none of that is compromised. That's a great point. You know, that's like the old school or maybe like the philosophical way of looking at churches today who have like huge productions, like lots of production value. All you're seeing is the final product. Yeah.
And you're like, man, all they're doing is just worshiping genuinely. It's like, no, there's so much prep, organization, rehearsals, lighting, like meetings, all these things that go into a production like that. To make it look like that. To make it look like that. Yeah.
But, but it's kind of the same thing with pre this like, man, all he did was get up there and preach the word of God. It's like, no, he planned. He organized. He has a team. He had like, he had these things a lot.
Yeah. Since he brought up that statement, which I mentioned a few moments ago, let's talk about Spurgeon for a moment. Spurgeon was an amazing organizer. Spurgeon knew how to Drum up You know, an event. You read some of his, his, read his autobiography.
Okay. Read his biography and you will find out that he knew how to get the word out that I'm preaching on this, that I'm talking about this, and you need to be here. And the word would spread through London City and people would come. They would come across the river.
Okay, so Metropolitan Tabernacle was on the south side of the River River Thames. And so people would come from the north. Cross the river, get on a ferry boat, cross the river, come And walk. I mean, it's a walk. Yeah.
I walked. Trying to get to where the Metropolitan Tabernacle is today, right across from. This shopping mall, and you have to do some walking. And they came. People think this was just like, oh, they were just drawn.
They were just, you know, it just happenstance. The spirit led them.
Well, yes, I'm sure that that was there too, but there's also a level of organization and planning and preparation and advertising and capturing the market that these men were doing. Yeah, absolutely. They did. It wasn't just a different time where it's like, oh, well, they didn't have like Netflix in their homes or they didn't have the internet or all these things to distract. They had a lot of plays.
Yeah, they had to go to the playhouse. They had entertainment. They had things that they could have been at, but they were convicted because of, yes, the Holy Spirit, but also because of the leaders' organization and the leaders getting the word out that this is coming and you need it.
So, our listeners and viewers are at home, or they're writing, and they have had. Poorly attended event after poorly attended event.
So they're listening with bated breath. They have their notepads out, they have their notes app open, ready on their phones, ready to write down these three things. What in the world are these three principles, Dr. Shah? First things first is prayer.
If you don't pray for an event, you're trusting in your own self, in your own flesh, and that event may be successful, but it's not going to be God-given success. There you go. It's going to be successful because in the energy of the flesh, You drummed up an event and you popularized it, and a lot of people came, and there was a lot of hype. But there will not be lasting soul change. And what you want is not just hype, you want hearts to be changed.
That's right. There's a verse that I think a lot of people fall back on, which is: therefore, whether you eat and drink or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God. And I think a lot of times, even myself, I've done this, we misinterpret that and to say, okay, so don't let's stop caring about all the people who show up because I'm just going to do this for God. And the people who show up, they don't really matter. Only God matters.
But really, what you're saying is, no, I'm just, as long as I do it for the right reason, God is pleased. And all these people, it doesn't matter if they hear the gospel or not. Yeah, I think that's a cop-out. It is. Yeah.
Yeah. That's a cop-out because you haven't done your part. And your part does not mean. My part, God part. No, your part means what God has called you to do.
When we say your part, we're not for a moment saying this is where you come in and this is where God comes in. God is through and through. If it's not about Christ and it's not about. Salvation It's not about The truth then Might as well go home. How many church events do you think are happening all over America right now?
Let's say, even today. that have not been prayed for. Not even once. I mean, think about our own charge. There are a lot of times we have events, we're not praying for it.
So, I mean, it's really an indictment on our own self. I mean, as good of a church as we are at Clearview. There are times we just do the event. Do the ministry. And people come, thank God.
But did we really spend time? Really praying? One of the things we do with the theater ministry is the week before, I think it is, or the day of the show, we walk throughout the building praying. I think we need to do that even prior to that. Have two or three of these kinds of times.
Yeah, it's a great point. Yeah. It really does frame things in the right spirit. And like you said, Dr. Shaw, even if your event is successful through something that you've managed to pull off in the energy of the flesh or some support that you were able to drum up, it's not success that glorifies God.
It's not success that focuses attention where it ought to be. It focuses attention on you, which never ends well. Right. The end goal is not that you want a lot of people, that your event gets well attended. Right.
That's not the goal that we're after. The goal is a lot of people attend so that the gospel is preached to more hearts.
So that there are more lives that are transformed. That's right. That's right. Even for Christians, you know, Christians who attend, even if, like, let's say 80% of the people who are coming are already Christians, they're already saved. Lives are still being transformed every single day.
You know, Christ is making us new every day. And these events that we do, you know, if we're not. Not praying over them, we're basically like you're saying, we're trusting ourselves. We're just making sure that. Enough to make this happen.
I would say. To the people who are listening and watching, the same thing that I will say to you guys, our staff, and our church family, is plan ahead. Have a strategy meeting. Get things on the calendar. And when you see something very significant about two months out.
Begin the time of prayer. Spend Even if it's twenty minutes. Every Three weeks. or two weeks or whatever. When you get closer every week, praying for that event.
That's how everything should be done.
So getting things on the calendar. Based on what's happening in the church, it would also prevent a lot of. Miscommunications from happening, things sort of overlapping, one event overlapping another, people getting burned out, staff are worn out.
So proper strategizing, getting things on the calendar a year in advance will help you to stay sane. But it'll also help you to plan out Your prayer time.
So if a night of worship is coming, say, around Easter. Easter this year is in April. Is that correct? I think so. Yes.
So let's say Easter is coming up in April.
So sometime in February, you should begin your time of prayer for that Easter. Not a worship. Right. Or the Good Friday, whatever it is.
So, at least I would say three or four times you have come together with your praise team or with your staff or with your prayer warriors and pray for that event. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Sometimes we treat prayer as a disposable resource. It's just something like, we can't do anything else. I guess we'll just pray. Yeah. We can always just pray.
Right. Or prayer should be our first response. Yeah. Or always. Yeah.
Or it's part of the motion. You know what I mean? Like, let's open up in prayer because I'll look like a bad leader if I don't. Yeah. It's sort of like an afterthought.
Like you can tell, and I think we've all been there. Anybody who's been, they're like running around, they're plugging stuff in, they're unplugging stuff, they're taping stuff down. It's like, oh, we got to start. Let me go ahead and pray so that we can start. You know what I mean?
It's like prayer becomes the thing that we have to do before we can actually do the thing we want to do. Right. Instead of prayer being the thing that's going to make what we're doing worth doing. You know what I mean? That's right.
So once prayer has been Activated. And has Been put on the calendar leading up to the event, then I think the next step is proper planning. Why do you think so many churches fail at this? Because I think when you said, you know, you have to have meetings, you have to come together, you have to talk, a lot of people listening are like, oh gosh, I'd rather just do the thing. Why are we so averse to meeting and talking this through and planning this?
Well, not all people are averse to that. There are always some people who are like, I wish we had known that. Or when is this going to be? Why didn't nobody tell me? I didn't get any email.
I didn't get a text message.
So there'll always be those kind of things.
Now, some people. Just don't check their Emails or they face to see or fail to check the app where all the announcements are coming. That's on them. But as a rule, we should be very diligent in making sure that your people are informed. that we are making sure that Not only those who are participating are aware of this But the practice times are put out there.
Well in advance of schedule there. That, okay, so every Thursday night until the event, we're doing this. Except for this Thursday night, or that Thursday night. And then we're not going to have practice that week, or we're going to have it on Tuesday night.
Something very properly given, handed out. The more official something looks, The more Likely, people will take it seriously. That's true. So, if you're just shooting from the hip and people know you're doing that. then they'll also shoot from the hip because they feel like it's not a big deal because She's not making a big deal, or he is not treating it like a big deal.
So, why should I make it a big deal? Mm-hmm.
And sometimes you'll have some people In your in your ministry, whether it is, um an outreach ministry or a children's ministry or a worship ministry who will be very particular and they will be like very in your get on your nerves. When is this going to be?
Okay, now wait a minute.
Now, you said this over here, and it's like, ugh. Yeah. Good grief. You are making things so much more difficult than they need to be. Maybe they're teaching you something.
I think you're exactly right because I've dealt with, I've dealt, and I know we all have, but I've dealt with those people where like any, it feels like they're seeking a contradiction. Yep. You're like, okay, but you said this. You said this earlier. It's like, I know, but that's changed.
Well, the change might not be a big deal to me because I've got all these other different things, but it is a big deal for the people who are taking this seriously, which is what we want. That's something I think that God has definitely taught me and you've taught me through my time here is that. The more casual you are with people, the less they will respect the mission, what we're trying to do. And I always approached it as: okay, if people are coming and saying, hey, I can't be at rehearsal tonight, what they're looking for is an out.
So I'll give them an out and say, hey, absolutely, yeah, no problem. But what's happening is what they're getting is, this is not a huge deal. This is not important. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that I'm there.
It doesn't matter that we're doing this. It doesn't matter that, you know, I'm putting in extra work. Or it doesn't matter that John is putting in extra work or Dr. Trust putting in extra work. Or other people will be involved who will also be, you know, put out because you didn't show up.
Right. And it just, I can, I can put something else in my calendar in that spot. And on some level, we know that it's our fault because we typically will say, well, you know what? After it was poorly attended, we'll say, you know, the people who God wanted there, they were there. And it's like, yeah, I know that I didn't do this right.
And instead of just saying, yeah, I dropped the ball here, it's, I need to, I need to put it on God. I need to put it on God and say, God, you, you were happy with it because I can't imagine a world where you weren't. Yeah. Yeah. God is a God of order.
God is a God who prepares and plans. I mean, think about the coming of his Son Jesus Christ was not a random accidental event. It was very well planned out before the foundation of the world. He was the lamb slain. I mean, so think about it.
God plans? Yeah. Why don't you? Man, I'm in the moment. Just let's get it done.
Okay, that's fine. There are certain things in the moment we can get it done, but then there are a lot of things. I plan. People often will compliment me and say, I don't know how you do what you do. I don't know how you do what you do.
And if you ever see my notes. You know, on my iPhone, there is a notes app. If you ever pull it up and see, I'm constantly writing. Editing, deleting things that I need to do. Things I need to finish.
steps that I need to take or people I need to talk to. Constantly, I'm making adjustments to my notes. And altogether, let's see if I can pull up my notes right now. Altogether, I have. About 618 notes.
That's incredible. 618 notes. And they range from tasks for today, tasks for David, for Nicholas, for Ryan, for John, for Adam. I mean, the different tasks I have for different people. Regarding my sermon coming up this Sunday, there's an open.
Notes there. Then there is um b where we provide all of our first responders in our city, in our community. I have a schedule for that. I'm taking a tour overseas, leading a group of people. Yeah.
There's a note for that. I mean, I can just go on and on. There's so much. I'm writing a book review for a theological journal, there are notes for that. All this.
I'm writing a book down the road. There's a note for that. There's somebody I need to reach out to and encourage them. It's a note for that.
So how do I survive? Of course, by prayer. but also by a lot of planning. When I get up in the morning, that's the first thing I do is check my notes, see what's up. What I need to do.
Planning feels, I think, to people like it's not the spiritual option because you need to be led by the Spirit. You need to be open and available to be led by the Spirit where you need to go. And I think we've fallen into that trap that, you know, God can't work through your planning. Or the Prince of Prophets. Or it's like, okay, I'll plan it out.
But then I don't want to really involve other people, especially other leaders in the church. Because what if they point out something that I need to change?
Well, now I got to go change that. It's more work.
So I'll just plan it out and then I'll do it. But I think you said it best, Dr. Shah. When you do that, it creates confusion. It creates confusion among your congregation, but it creates confusion among your core team.
And I think one of the things, you know, we had a staff retreat in New Mexico. A few months ago. And one of the things that I really took away from that, and I think it will stay with me for the rest of my life, is that confusion is the enemy. Confusion among your team. I used to think that people didn't come to events because they just don't care or they're not passionate.
I think a lot of it is just miscommunication and confusion that's around the congregation. And so I think planning together, especially us coming together as a core staff, a core team. Creates clarity. Maybe we also fall into the trap of thinking people know what's going on in our heads. Like we know, we know the ins and outs of the event.
We know exactly what the goal is. We know exactly what we're trying to accomplish. But a lot of times, at least where I'm concerned, I haven't relayed that to anybody.
So I'm like, why aren't you doing X, Y, and Z? I didn't know you needed that done. I didn't know you wanted that done. I didn't understand what the goal was.
So, miscommunication, confusion, a lot of times, simply because we haven't relayed to people: here's the goal, here's what we're trying to accomplish, and here's the next steps.
So, so far, we talked about prayer, and then there was planning, as we've been discussing. The third thing I would say is be prudent. He said, What do you mean by be prudent? Prudent is another way of saying be wise.
Now, I could have said be wise, but then there won't be any three Ps. Three P's need to be in the pod. There you go. So be prudent. Think about The Audience Who do you want to attend?
You want, of course, your church family to come. You want people in the community to come. People are selfish.
Okay, people are self-centered. There are some people who will come because they just want to come and worship, they just want to come and enjoy that play. But the majority of the people want to go worship or enjoy that play because they have a connection with somebody. Who is on the stage? You think, well, that's the wrong reason for them to come to worship.
It should be God. You're 100% right. Mm-hmm.
They should worship just because you're worshiping God. But human nature is such that we feel a connection when there's someone of our family. Maybe it's your Son, maybe it's your daughter, maybe it's your wife, maybe it's your mom, somebody who is on that stage singing, playing an instrument. performing on that stage.
Something they're doing and they've they will Grandparents will call everybody in the neighborhood. To go and attend a play in which their granddaughter has two words. Yep. That's true. That's it.
Yep. A family will involve and invite everybody in the family because a a niece or a nephew is going to play the guitar.
So think about every event and go, Now, will this event automatically generate an audience? Because then I don't have to do anything. It's easy. Is a famous Christian Artist. Or people are going to come because of his name.
If it's a certain genre of music, people are going to come because they love that genre of music. But you're not doing any of those things. And you're saying you should come just because you love Jesus. Right, right. And.
Yeah, you can fuss at them for that. Especially like with things that aren't so different.
So, like, I can give you an example: like, things that are normal in your church, like a Sunday service.
So, at Clearview, like, we're doing a night of worship, right? We know that people can get the exact same thing on Sunday morning. It's just a longer service. It's going to be more songs, it'll be preaching.
So, it's like, okay. The the default is Well, there's nothing different. Than what I would get on Sunday.
So I can come on Sunday and still quote unquote get credit for worshiping God.
So, what's the incentive to come and participate in a night of worship? One of them that Dr. Shah is always, always very, very adamant that we do because people love it so much is to involve the children. Because when you've got kids, let's say you've got 30 children singing in a children's choir. If they're all, that's what, 60 to 80.
Family members by default, just right off the bat, not even to mention the people they'll invite. Who are already invested? They're not just attending, they're invested because their kid is part of it.
Now, somebody may say, Man, you're just using people, you're just using kids to attract parents, and grandparents, and uncles, and aunts, and nieces, and nephews. No, you're bringing people in so that You can then Make an impact in their lives with the gospel of Jesus Christ. A full room Yeah, it may give you some energy, but if The lives are just as empty when they leave. Then In time, you're going to stop doing those events. That's right.
I think that's a great clarification. It's not just about people in the seats so that we can look out and see a full room and be like, wow, great job, us. We did a good thing. It's the more people that are there, the more people that get the chance to hear the gospel. The more people that are there are the wider our net is that we can cast out so we can make the largest impact possible in people's lives.
It's like someone saying, Jesus should have just preached to his 12 that wanted to follow him. He shouldn't have used food to attract people. He did all the teachers. He used food. Absolutely.
He did. Yeah, absolutely. Come follow me, I'll make you fishers of men. He didn't say, come follow me, and I'll. Teach you how to write gospels.
Yeah. They make disciples. Yeah. Yeah. So Jesus met people where they were.
So, in your events, think about who is gonna be there. Who can be there? If it's a worship event, Involve children, and of course, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts will come if it's um. Again, some kind of a musical event, invite get students to be part of that worship. And you'll have, again, family members come up.
That's right. If it's a play, make sure it's a wide ranging audience, wide ranging cast, so that different people will come. It's simple. We look for solutions. That don't require a fundamental shift, right?
Like just post more on social media or, you know, just make your thumbnails look better or make sure that everyone, but if you don't have these fundamentals, at the end of the day, you're, you're not going to. Change the human heart. You're right. Yeah. So, yeah, definitely get your social media up and going.
Make sure your thumbnails look good. Make sure your pictures and images and little informational videos are done well. But If other things are not done right, people are going to still look at that and go, huh, okay. Yeah, they're having something at you or something. I don't know.
Okay. What's next? What are we going to eat? Yep, they won't care. And I can get up Sunday morning and just Whoop the crowd for not showing up at your event.
But honestly, I mean, be honest, I'm thinking inside, you didn't do your part. That's right. You didn't do your part.
Now I'm over here being the bad parent, you know, getting on to the kids. Yeah. But you should have. Put the right chums out there so that the fish could come. That's right.
But the chums were never put out. That's right. Absolutely. Three P's in the pod. Pray.
Prepare. Or plan. Prepare a plan. Do both. Plan and prepare.
And be prudent. That's right. Be wise. That's right. And how you implement your plan, your preparation, your strategy.
And if you've done those three things, only then do you get to add the bonus jonas, the fourth one, which is post. Did you say the bonus Jonas? Yeah. I've never heard that. Because there was a fourth Jonas brother, right?
I've never heard what? There's a fourth Jonas brother. No. Yes, there is. No, there's only three.
No, there's one that doesn't get any airtime. We're ruining the end of the episode. I've never heard this.
Someone write in and let us know with a bonus, Jonas. Never heard that.
Okay, cool. I do like that, though. You get to add the fourth one as posts. Yeah, yeah. Once you've done those.
Once you've done those three, then you get to post about your event. That's right. Guys, make sure you join us tomorrow. Same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clear View Today show.
Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And if today was the first time you've joined us, hope that it was beneficial for you and your strategy and how you implement your events. But also, we just want to tell you we love you. Thank you for joining the conversation. We hope you join us again tomorrow.
You can always reach us at 252-582-5028. The number is always active. And we'd love to pray for you or just to say hello. You can always support us financially at Abadansha.com forward slash give. That's right.
We got about 30 seconds left in the episode. The fourth Jonas Brother refers to Frankie Jonas, the youngest brother of three musicians, Kevin, Joe, and Nick. While not in the band, Frankie has been involved in the entertainment industry, voice acting appearances. And Films like Panyo and Camp Rock 2, the final jam. No one?
No way. He was in Camp Rock. No wonder. I was going to say no wonder, everybody. Nobody's ever heard of this guy.
What is Camp Rock 2?
Sorry, Frankie.
Sorry. Apologies to Frankie Jonas. Hey, Frankie, maybe, man. You know what? I was going to say that.
Imagine being the fourth Jonas brother. And the Jonas brothers is the band with three people. If you had the fourth Jonas brothers. Yeah, if you'd prayed, if you'd planned, if you'd been prudent, maybe people would know who. I'm just joking.
I'm just joking. A couple reminders for you, Clearview today. No, hey, Frankie Jonas. Clearview today is going to be on TBN Plus very soon.
So keep on the lookout for that. Cafe Sessions Volume 1 is out now. Make sure you leave us a review on iTunes or Spotify. We're blowing up on Spotify. Thank you guys.
Yeah, thank you for streaming. Keep doing that. Share it with your friends and family. Leave that review because it helps shuffle us to the top of the algorithm and helps recommend us to more people. And then don't forget the apologetics conference is coming up on March the 28th right here at Clearview Church.
Dr. Charles is going to be speaking as well as other scholars from around the world on the importance of the Byzantine text and textual criticism and how we can understand the text behind the English Bible and hold in our hands. That's right. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Cleveland State.
