This blog is adapted from the Jan. 6 episode of “Mondays with Mark on Facebook Live.” Watch the full video here.
You know, you show up for the first Sunday of the year, and it’s kinda like the last Sunday of the year. Maybe the same people there, same problems there, same challenges there. All those kinds of things.
But the first Sunday of the year also a great time to take stock of what to do in the coming year. What are we going to do different in 2025 than we did in 2024? I want to share some heartfelt insights. Some of these came from me and some from my good friend Jim Elliff.
If you were talking to me 30 years ago, when I was in my 30s, the only thing I’d be thinking of in the coming year would be how can we grow? How can we increase the number of people who are coming? Maybe how can we increase the size of our building?
I always connected success in ministry with an increase in numbers. I’m a child of the church growth movement. But as an older man looking back, I want to share with you from my heart as a pastor six things we really need to focus on in 2025.
1. A willingness to do the will of Christ, even if it doesn’t result in numerical growth. You know, the apostle Paul never once asked Timothy, “How many are you running?” When Paul writes that first letter to Timothy, he implores him to stay at Ephesus, not so he can break the 200 barrier but so he can teach sound doctrine.
The one time they did count in the New Testament, 3, 000 souls were added – and they didn’t spend the next 20 years trying to get to 3,500. Their goal was simple: to do what Christ wanted them to do, to be faithful to Christ and to His word. Whether it results in numerical growth or not is not the issue.
Jesus made it clear: “I will build my church.” And one of the things I’ve learned over my 50 years in ministry is that we cannot determine the result of our work based on the size of our congregation – even though some of our church members will judge us based on whether the church is growing numerically.
Our goal, our passion, is to be obedient to Christ in what He wants to do. He’s the one who will add to His church, not us. But we have to be willing to do the will of Jesus in our church and to be faithful to the Scripture – even if it doesn’t result in numerical growth.
Maybe some of us would trade numerical growth if we could just slack back on biblical fidelity a little bit. No, don’t do that. You’re going to be held accountable for every soul in your care, not whether you had 200 or 220 in regular worship. It’s not our job to lower the standards so everybody will feel comfortable. The cross is an offense to those who don’t know Christ and in the days to come that’s gonna be even more important than it has been.
2. We should love the world and love one another. Not love the things of the world. That’s a hard thing. As we become more affluent, as we get more things, it’s easy to love the things of this world. As we go into 2025, let’s commit to love this world and love one another. Jesus makes it clear: They will know we are Christians by the love we have for one another and the world.
Even when the world despises us, what an amazing time to show the world how that we love them anyway, to say good things about those who hate us so we stand out different.
Here’s how you love knuckleheads in the world: You love Jesus more. The more you love Jesus, the more you’ll love people. The church needs to be a place where we love the world and we love each other.
3. Church needs to be a place that exudes hope. Every time you walk into a committee meeting, every time you step into the pulpit, your face should exude hope. Don’t look around and say, “Man, we’ve got half as many as we used to have” or “Man, the building sure needs some help and, and the finances are bad.”
Those things may be true, but let me tell you what else is true: Jesus is on his throne. He’s promised to never leave you nor forsake you. And you’re going to be with him for all eternity. That is the hope. And when you walk in the pulpit, you better exude that hope because the congregation will reflect the attitude of the pastor.
I know many of us are in struggling situations. I know how hard it is. So how do you get that hope? You can’t fake it. You got to find it in the Scripture. You got to prepare your heart. You got to listen to the right songs. You got to pray. You got to listen to some good sermons. But make sure that when you walk into that room, people see the hope of the gospel all over you.
4. Make disciples, make disciples, and make more disciples. I know we always want a disciple-making program – and certainly there are some tools that can help you make disciples – but disciple making has to be your DNA as the pastor. You have to be a disciple maker.
Most of us – 95% of us – are pastoring churches of 50 or 75 or 150. And the great thing about pastoring a normative sized church like that is you can really make an impact. You personally can spend time discipling men in your church and teaching them how to disciple other men. That’ll be far more impactful in 2025 than some brand-new program we might want to put in.
Ask the Lord to help you understand how to make discipleship a priority. Talk about it on Sunday morning. Integrate the importance of discipleship it into your sermons. Share testimonies of people in your church who are engaged in discipleship. Provide opportunities for people to be in discipleship. Discipleship. Discipleship. Discipleship.
Jesus made it so abundantly clear: “Go and make disciples.” Not “Go and break the 200 barrier.”
And you know what? You don’t have to have a big church budget to make disciples. You don’t have to have a big youth choir to make disciples. You don’t have to have a new children’s ministry and a new children’s building to make disciples. You just have to make disciples.
5. A persistent and steady emphasis on the body life of the church. The church is a body and Christ is the head. So many times we make it an organization. We work so hard on the programmatic themes in the church. And certainly there’s a certain bit of organization that has to take place for it to function well.
But at the end of the day, the church is a family and we need to create an environment where people love each other as family. We need to be sharing more meals together, sharing more hurts together, sharing more joys together, having more opportunities for interact with one another.
If I were in your place, I would ask the Lord to help me in 2025 to find ways to make body life important in my church so we truly are a body of believers. Not an organization, but a family that connects to one another and is different.
The church needs to be a family, and people are so desperate for those kinds of relationships. Don’t miss that. You need to find ways for your congregation to function as a family. And a lot of that’s just going to come out of your leadership in doing that.
So ask the Lord to give you hope every day when you wake up, to help you walk in that hope, and then to love each other and love this world. Ask Him to give you a willingness to be faithful to Him and His church, even if it doesn’t result in numerical growth.
Because here’s the reality: If we do all these things, He will build His church to the size He wants it to be. Our job is to be faithful to Him.
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Published January 9, 2025
