Pastor Paul Scheperle: Part 2

This is Part 2 of the Revite Pastor Spotlight: Pastor Paul Scheperle. Click here to read Part 1.

What did you learn about ministry?

First, if you give your entire life to one church, you will still be only a part of the big picture. Most churches may take 100 steady years to reach 500 in attendance. How many pastor’s careers have to be “poured out like a drink offering” to hit that milestone? Don’t get discouraged when you move forward bit by bit.

Second, the pastor’s preaching on Sunday morning is still the hub of the church community. For 2,000 years of church, Sunday preaching has been the central tool of evangelism, teaching, vision, and discipleship. Every pastor must commit to being a better orator. Take public speaking classes and study speaking. “God was pleased through the foolishness of WHAT was preached…” (1 Cor. 1:21) Notice that God was not pleased with the foolishness of HOW Jesus was preached. What the people in your church want you to do in the pulpit may be the exact thing the lost in your town will never understand or put up with. Preach to the lost and avoid the temptation to please the regulars. I felt it important to even preach on the importance of preaching so that the church understands the Biblical role of preaching in all its ways and methods.

What do you wish you would have known before coming here?

I wish I would have known it would take 10 years to get out of our old building. A pastor friend walked through our new building and said, “I am so jealous of your building.” I replied, “You would not be jealous of the last ten years.” He agreed.

What part did core values/vision and mission strategy and planning of The Journey play into your success here?

When we did a vision/mission/core values evaluation, SMD did not have a revitalization process. I don’t think the Acts 2 journey was not around either. Two important things helped me most. One, I attended a church planting boot camp, now CMN Launch. This helped me get a vision and target for our church. Second, I hired a church consultant to walk me and the board through vision, mission, and core values in the first four months of General Council status. If you are going to revitalize a church, you must realize that you are in some ways, replanting a church with no church planting support.

If you could give another pastor a piece of advice as they consider taking on a plateaued/declining church, what would it be?

Find out why the church is declining or plateaued. It may be one or two families that think they own the place. Until that is broken and they submit to a pastor’s leadership and vision, you will take a step forward and then go right back to the plateau. You have to teach people that Jesus owns the church, not the pastor, not a family and not the members. The members don’t even own the church. Legally, yes that is the way a non-profit is set up, but no one member owns a non-profit. Even more so, NO member or members own the church of the Lord. Only Jesus owns the church and if Jesus wants to change the music, discipleship plan, decoration or location, who are any of us to say no to Jesus?

What was your biggest mistake?

In 15 years I have too many to list.

What would you have done differently?

I would have been a better soul winner. If a church can’t win a single soul and keep them in a year, then that means that the pastor is not a soul winner. If a pastor is not a soul winner, is he or she really qualified to remain in the ministry?

Next, he/she may need to change something to obey the Lord and be a soul winner and keeper. Maybe they win people, but drive them away with out of order gifts of the Spirit, annoying worship methods, strange pulpit habits or odd personal habits that should be changed.

Is there one trait or list of traits that you believe are absolutely necessary for a revitalization pastor to have in order to be successful?

1. Get good at graceful confrontation
2. Get good at saying I am sorry
3. Get good at saying “no” to ideas that are off mission
4. Get good at making a budget that keeps you on mission
5. Get good at leading people to Jesus by yourself if nobody else will or will help

What was the key to seeing things turn around?

Keeping our eye on our Biblical mission and world missions. When you take over a revitalization, find out how far they are behind in missions pledges they have made. Then, do a convention in the first two or three months and pay those missionaries back. Also, get the congregation out of the building in Biblical local missions. I was not great at this. But, have a prayer walk, send out groups to pray over your town or city, have Sunday night church in the park occasionally or do Wednesday night Bible study at a restaurant so that your church is out in the world doing the mission.

What was the turning point for your church?

In 2003, a young pastor was willing to step out in faith and take a church in trouble and do it on a very small salary rather than be bi-vocational. We desperately need young smart pastors who will take the challenge to revitalize a church and put their full-time effort into the ministry and be willing to earn their paycheck by inviting people to church. Move to the town, work full-time as pastor, preach Scripture, win souls, and love people. With God’s help you will build a church that will generate a paycheck and your provision.

Is there one resource or one practice/habit you believe helped you in the process?

No there is not one resource. There are too many to list that have helped me. The most important habit is your daily devotional life.

What resource would you recommend to another pastor taking on or going through the development process?

Find resources that train missionaries and church planters. Learn from them so that you can see yourself as a missionary/pastor. I remind you that the instruction in Scripture to the young pastor is, “do the work of an evangelist.” Not a revivalist. A soul winning and disciple making evangelist. Before you start, get some church planting training. Then, if you can utilize the District revitalization process, The Journey, it will make more sense to you and you will lead through it as a strong leader for your church people.

When did you know/believe/feel like “This is going to work!”?

Know and feel? September 28^th, 2012. Everything before that was faith and hope. Faith matters and has substance, but it is also a growing and evolving thing with many points you could call punctuated equilibrium.

What is your next challenge?

Multi-site campuses in two nearby towns that we have targeted. Second, we must again hire a children’s pastor that if full-time this time with prior experience.

What’s next for you?

Stephanie and I need to raise our kids and get them through high school and the college transition. I need to keep exercising physically and growing intellectually.

Who was your champion?

Your biggest champions better be in your local church! If your only cheer leader is in the district office or your presbyter or some Bible college and Masters Commission buddies, you are in trouble. My most consistent champions for 15 years have been Tony Rowden, LeRoy Morgan, Dylan Glastetter and Bill White. Several others have also come along with them through the years and are committed to Jesus and Life Stream Church today. They have become some of my best friends.

Would you do it again?

I think we need to do what the Lord asks us to do. I worked for Phil Wannenmacher for two years. He was in his mid-sixties and said to me several times, “I wish the Lord would let me be young again so I could do it all for the Lord again!” I want to feel like that when I am hitting retirement age.

Paul and Stephanie Scheperle have been ministering to the community of Washington, Missouri since 2003 as the pastors of Life Stream Church. If you would like to learn more about their ministry, check out their Facebook page, or their Website.

Pastor Paul Scheperle: Part 1

The foundation of all ministries is the local church.

What were the conditions/circumstances when you arrived? 

The church was about 55 people in attendance. The church was 34 years old and still in the building that the section had built for it in the 60’s as a plant. Of the 55 people, no one was born in Washington, so there was a sense from me that the church had not reached a truly local person. Most of the congregation was my parent’s age. In 1992, the church attendance was around 110 in a town of 7,500. In 2003, the church had decreased while the town nearly doubled in population. The church was shrinking while the town was booming.

What did you do first?  

The first step was to listen to the stories of a group of  disheartened people. I had never served in a congregation that was shrinking. I realized that their loss was not just in attendance, but in giving to missions and tithes. These older saints were frustrated with their church, past pastors, and the district. Most of all, the people were sad because the church that their kids grew up in in the eighties and nineties, was not able to keep them engaged. The real pain in their church decline was that their kids had in many cases fallen away from God.

The second step was to change the mentality of the church.

1. Throw away unnecessary decorations.
2. Say “no” to ideas that were off mission or impossible to do with excellence in a tiny church with no kids or kids ministry.
3. Begin celebrating any time we saw a native of Washington, Missouri saved.

Do you remember what was going through your mind as your began this journey? 

Oh yes! Day one, I said to my wife, “If there are no children in this church in 12 months, we will resign and tell the district to shut it down.”

What were your initial road blocks? 

No kid’s ministries, no kids, no nursery, and no Wednesday night services. Nobody will send an offering to a project that has a history of failure. It is easier to raise funds for a new plant because there is no history, no failure yet, and no records to prove if things worked. Another big road block was being the anonymous church. As I spoke to people in town, most did not know that First Assembly of God existed, nor did they recognize our location. But, everyone knew the drive-through liquor store across the street. 305 Liquor became a very important part of inviting people to church. We called visitors 5^th time visitors, because we found in follow-up that they had visited five or six other churches before visiting us.

When you accepted this assignment, what did you envision happening as a result of your ministry here? 

When I accepted the assignment, I simply envisioned pastoring a church that would keep my family from starving. The vision for what we have become and are now, is a development. It was truly not all conceived when I accepted the assignment.

What was/is your most significant challenge in your time here? 

In 2013 we had three Sunday morning services and we were remodeling a building to relocate. That was the toughest year ever, but the best year ever. We were limited in funds, so we did the lion’s share of the building with volunteers. God really blessed us with Louis Todd, a MAPS RV leader and Tim Willard, our Business Administrator who knew how to build. For several Saturdays it was just Tim, Louis, and me verses the 26,000 square foot building.

What would you say was the key to seeing things turn around? 

Communicating a Biblical mission to the congregation with a reasonable geographic target area and saying “no” to everything that was outside the mission and target.

Did you ever feel like quitting? 

Yes. Every January for the first 10 years we were in Washington, Stephanie and I would sit down to set our annual budget and make plans. At that annual meeting we would determine each year if we could afford to stay another year. In February of 2010, I went to my dad for advice. He is not a pastor, but a good Christian. “Dad, I don’t think we will make it this year. God has placed no other church or region on my heart. If God does not provide or tell me where else to go, I think he may be asking to leave ministry for a time.” Dad just said, “Take care of your family. That is your job. I will be supportive of whatever you do to take care of them.”

Why didn’t you? 

I did not quit because there is a conviction in my heart that what the world needs most is local church pastors. The foundation of all ministries is the local church. Without local churches there is no missionary sent, no church planter supported, no Christian radio station promoted, no camps, no Christian music industry, I could go on. If you are a church planter, pray now that the Lord will raise up a pastor who will be willing to lead an imperfect, slightly troubled church like the one you have planted. Later in 2010, I received a job offer that would have more than doubled my income and had benefits. I would have had to step out of Pastoral ministry to another kind of ministry, but I could not get away from the call to lead a congregation.

What kept you going? 

Small victories that led to more small victories. Those add up over time so that we positioned ourselves to hire John Jahnke as a full-time children’s ministry associate. Sometimes my wife kept me going, other times John or our secretary Sandy Pettet kept me going. Regular prayer and devotion times kept me on track.

What have you learned about yourself in this process? 

I consider myself pretty average. But what I learned was not about me, but about God. He knows the start and the end. I may not really ever understand myself, but he knows me better than I do!

What have you learned about your church through this process?

This is the best group of people. This is the friendliest place in town. I would rather have my three kids grow up in this church with a dad that makes less money than in a big church where dad makes money but they have to witness strife. A good church can help hold a marriage together so that kids are raised and go on to do great things in school and in life. That is not only true for congregation members, but for the pastor’s family too.

Paul and Stephanie Scheperle have been ministering to the community of Washington, Missouri since 2003 as the pastors of Life Stream Church. If you would like to learn more about their ministry, check out their Facebook page, or their website.