By Jeff Matas, State Pastor
I’m ready for all things fall, I love everything about it (except the annual rollout of Starbuck’s pumpkin spice drinks). It’s always been my favorite season of the year. Cooler temperatures, sweatshirts and sweaters, vibrant colors in the trees, college and pro football, the NHL season begins, and Indiana Ministries’ annual meeting. IM’s annual meeting (on Monday, October 2) is always special day every fall.
A key part of Indiana Ministries vision is one that is inclusive of small churches (those that are 250 and under). We want to honor, celebrate, encourage, and equip small churches and their pastors. Often when we go to conferences, seminars, and church leadership gatherings, we hear from pastors that are leading churches that are five to ten times the size of the church we serve. They are talking about things that we can’t relate to and could never implement.
The featured speaker for this year’s annual meeting is Karl Vaters. Karl has been a pastor for over 40 years leading Cornerstone Christian Fellowship, a healthy small church in Orange County, California, where he has ministered for over 30 years with his wife, Shelley. Karl is an incredibly gifted leader, speaker and writer. I call him a unicorn for the kingdom because he is the only national leader I know of whose ministry is focused on equipping small church pastors and addressing their needs. Karl has been a featured writer and contributor for Christianity Today and Outreach Magazine. He has written four books: The Grasshopper Myth (Big Churches, Small Churches and the Small Thinking That Divides Us), Small Church Essentials (Field-Tested Principles for Leading a Healthy Congregation of Under 250), 100 Days to a Healthier Church (A Step-By-Step Guide for Pastors and Leadership Teams), and The Church Recovery Guide (How Your Congregation Can Adapt and Thrive after a Crisis).
What I love about Karl is not only his love for small churches, but that his content is applicable no matter what size church you lead. We had scheduled Karl to lead a one-day conference for Indiana pastors before the pandemic. We were finally able to get him here in April of last year and the response from pastors was incredible. After Karl led our IM conference, I noticed that the word began to spread in the Church of God. Since then, he has led conferences and retreats with the Church of God in Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, and at the national convention in Tampa. I’m glad that Karl is getting so many invitations from our tribe because he really makes an impact.
I’ve had the chance to hear him several times and came away with so many key leadership insights. Here’s just a few of the many highlights in my notes from hearing Karl.
Three essentials of a healthy, effective church:
(1) The Great Commandment, (2) The Great Commission, (3) Equipping God’s people. An unhealthy church doesn’t do any of the three, so start with the Great Commandment. Get them to love Jesus and to love and care for each other. Secondly, get them to care for lost people by focusing on the Great Commission. Get them praying for the lost. Get them engaging in the lives of lost people. Third, equip your people for God’s people. Most churches that hit the first two, but not the third have pastors and staff that are overworked and have members that are passive. Raise up leaders. Equip your people to embrace ministry, to be the body of Christ.
Adaptability:
The more things you have that define you as a church, the more vulnerable your church will be to a disruption. For example, church means meeting at a certain time, a certain day, worshipping with a certain style, at a certain place, wearing these clothes, doing these things, with people that look like me, think like me, vote like me.
If you are only united on Christ and Him crucified, only then will you weather the storms that will typically divide the church. You can’t stay united if the only thing that unites you is politics, race, and tradition.
That’s just a few of the gems on the many pages of notes that I’ve taken listening to Karl Vaters. I hope to see you at the annual meeting at Madison Park Church of God, in Anderson on Monday, October 2. Invite your leadership team and staff to hear Karl. When IM hosted Karl in April last year, Pastor Mike Snyder (The Church at Broadway Park, in Alexandria) brought his entire board and staff. They were able to spend invaluable time processing what they heard.
Fall is the best season of year for a lot of reasons, make IM’s annual meeting one of those reasons. I hope to see you there!
