One of my favorite professors in Bible college was a gravelly-voiced, grouchy old teddy bear, Brother Aldridge. He ruffled feathers, I know, but I loved him. One thing he taught us, looking out over his glasses, was, “Now, boys, you keep your hands off the mamas and the money.” I think that is pretty sound advice. Recently I have been thinking about pastoral accountability, and I wanted to share an overview of our own philosophy with our church: What is my plan for counseling? What are our staff guidelines? What does a pastor do on trips? Is there financial accountability? That kind of thing. If you are new here, my name is Ryan Rench, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, California.
Counseling and Youth Ministry
When I was a youth pastor here at our church, I was so blessed to have a wife who could handle all the girl drama. I had heard too many horror stories, and Brother Gaddis taught us in Bible college, “Play the dweeb.” I did not have to play the dweeb too hard; it came very naturally to me. But I wanted to guard myself in that area when I worked with teens for over ten years. Then Matt Morales preached our summer camp a couple of years ago, a super personable guy whom everybody loves. He sent me some of the guidelines they have in place at their church for his work with the teens, and I told him, “You know, I am stealing this for our youth ministries.” They were basic things. No one-on-one time with girls. He will have audio recordings for accountability in some conversations or counseling situations. He will not have a social media account, so they should not expect DMs from him on any platform. He will only do group texts, with no one-on-one texting with the young ladies of the youth group. He said high fives only, maybe handshakes, but no physical contact; he is not going to be a youth pastor who hugs all the girls, that kind of thing. As a youth pastor, my philosophy of ministry was much the same: counsel mostly from the pulpit, not one-on-one with girls. My wife did a lot of that. Still today, when I am counseling somebody, I keep the door open, and there are staff nearby. If there is a lady who needs to talk, even better than my counseling her is my wife. Ideally they receive the Word of God from the pulpit, and my wife deals with some of the practical things one-on-one. That is one area where I think Brother Aldridge was right: keep your hands off the mamas and the money.
Trips and Planning Weeks
I love that my wife is my secretary. I want her to know everything about me: my appointments, my schedule. Pretty much everything I do runs through her. We share everything at home: a shared calendar and all our finances. She is way better at that than I am, and I want it that way. On trips, I have been taking one of my kids with me each time. Not this last trip to Oklahoma; that was just a twenty-four-hour trip. I got in on Wednesday night, went to church, went to the graduation Thursday, and left right after graduation on Thursday of last week. But on most trips, like a church planting conference, I take one of my kids. I was able to take Abe to Colorado with me this year, Charlotte to Oklahoma earlier this year, and Gwen last year. I love that time with the kids, the one-on-one time. That is not a church expense; my family covers it. But we want that accountability, not just the time with family. It does not happen every time. I have another Oklahoma trip coming up in August where I will not have a kid with me, but that is just a short weekend preaching trip, and I will be with the church staff the entire time. So it is not a hard rule, but a general guideline: I want people with me when I travel. If I am alone, it is pretty much always in a public place, and people are aware of where I am the entire time I am gone. For example, last year I took a planning week, but I drove the kids up to junior camp and stayed at the hacienda at Ironwood. I saw my kids at meals and was around the campers all week, and when I was not around the campers, I was in my cabin preparing sermon series, reading, praying, and working on books, from early in the morning to late at night. On all these trips I keep a log of my time. I have shared them on Facebook before. I just love working, so those think weeks, those planning weeks, are some of my favorite weeks of the year, really. I really want them to be a help to the church, a blessing to people. So I log my time during all those planning weeks, partly just for fun, but also for accountability. Every minute of my day on those trips is logged. It is not secret; it is open to scrutiny. I have one coming up in June, when I will be helping host a conference in Phoenix, and then I will stay at the church’s missions apartment and plan my sermon schedule for the next year and work on some other books and resources to help our church. My wife is going to join me, and we will take some time together while our kids are in Indiana. We will do some hikes together and come back and have some time at home together, and then we have a family vacation planned. So the whole month of June will really be a planning month for the rest of the year. I am just saying I want to be open with my schedule and let people in. I do realize some of that is a church expense, and I want to translate any church expenses, vacation times, or planning weeks into helping our church. I do not want to do it for selfish reasons. I am so thankful for how much of a blessing you are to me personally, church, and I never want to take advantage of that.
Financial Accountability
I told our financial team (those who record the contributions, those who do the bookkeeping, and anybody else involved in our finances), “Even on book sales, when I sell books, like the ladies’ devotionals in the back and those kinds of things, I always try to err on the side of the church receiving the most benefit.” I am blessed by some basic book sales, not a ton. We are not even talking thousands; we are literally talking hundreds of sales on particular titles. But I want to give more than I get. For example, our Be Debt-Free offering came from book sales, all of our book sales. And I try to give away a lot of books personally. I am not saying that to lift myself up; I just never want it to seem as if I am only trying to get. I have always said, “I want to sell books so I can give them away.” God just keeps blessing book sales, and I want to use that for God’s glory. Again, we are not selling millions; we are talking hundreds. But for us it feels like, “Man, this is great. God is blessing.” For example, Jamie’s Joy book, her ladies’ devotional, recently crossed 402 sales, not counting the ones we printed here and gave away or sold at our church bookstore. I say that to say, look, we are not talking about tons of books, but it is exciting for us to have a little to be able to give back. So I am saying it out loud: I never want to take advantage of our church or expect that we are owed anything or make it about us. I sincerely want our church to benefit. I think financial accountability is good. Our deacons have access to our financial records. Our financial secretary is up to date to the penny, and she works with an outside bookkeeper who has full access. We want a lot of eyes on a lot of areas, and on the finances in particular, and I think that is a good thing. So there is accountability in counseling, on trips, and in the finances, and I also have meetings with pastor friends. I just recently met up with a friend at Islands Burgers, and we talked through some personal things. That was good, and I want more of that.
An Open Culture
I want a culture in our church where you are not shut down or blackballed for asking a question, where there is openness. A question may come up that I just do not know the answer to, and there may be some cluelessness. Being dumb is not the same as being nefarious. I think a lot of cynical people attribute a lot to pastors being evil, when really there is a lot on our plate, and there are some things I just do not know. I do not know a lot, so I do ask for some grace there. But please know I want to make wise decisions. I want a settled state of peace and unity in our church. Not everyone is going to be happy about every decision; I know that. With every decision I make, somebody is not happy. We are not a huge congregation, but we are big enough that not every decision is going to be accepted by everybody, and I get that. But I hope our church can at least believe that every decision we make is purposeful and intentional. We are really seeking the Lord, trying to do what is right and to bless the most people possible. So even if you disagree, I hope you do not take it personally or take offense. I will tiptoe across a lot of eggshells to try to make as many people happy as possible, and it is very hard to do. Like I said, every decision upsets somebody, but I am glad that serious upset is rare, and I never want to shut that down. I do not want a lockdown culture where you are not allowed to talk about things. I just want it to be a good, beautiful, healthy place, and thank you, church, for being that. I love our church so much, and I want to serve you the best I know how, the way God has made, equipped, and designed me. I just want to use His design the best I know how, and I think some of these accountability measures will translate into helping our whole church. So keep growing, church. I sure love you. That is all we have for today’s video. We will see you in the next one. God bless you.
