The Church You Have (Not the One You Imagined)

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, host Todd Rhoades discusses the importance of being genuinely thankful for the church you currently serve, rather than longing for an idealized version of a church. He emphasizes that gratitude should exist in the present, recognizing the small miracles happening every day rather than just focusing on future goals. Todd encourages church leaders to embrace their current circumstances with gratitude, even amidst challenges and imperfections, and reflects on how such an approach could change their leadership perspective.• Reflection on gratitude during the Thanksgiving series.• Importance of being thankful for the current church rather than an idealized version.• Encouraging leaders to appreciate small, everyday miracles within their church.• Challenging the temptation to constantly chase after future goals.• Recognizing that current challenges do not negate God's presence in the church.• Suggested reflection questions to cultivate gratitude in leadership.

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Transcript

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Gratitude Series Finale

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hey there, welcome back to the Healthy Church Death Podcast. My name is Todd Rhodes. I'm your host and one of the co-founders over Chemistry Staffing, by the way. And today we are wrapping up our Thanksgiving series with a reality check and hopefully a breath of fresh air. All week we've been taking this whole thankfulness and gratitude thing and flipping it upside down, taking a look at some really pulling back the layers and looking at some of the things that we don't necessarily think that we should be thankful for, but we really should be. And hopefully this week has been a good time for you to take a good, honest, grateful look at the church that you're a part of, the church that you help lead, and not the one in

Thankful For The Church You Have

SPEAKER_00 0:49

your head. So I'm going to ask you something maybe a little bit uncomfortable today as we close out our series. Are you thankful for your church? Are you thankful for your church? Not the church that you used to have, not the church that you wish you had, but the church that you have today, the one that's right in front of you, because real gratitude doesn't live in fantasy and it doesn't live in the past. It grows in the current reality.

The Trap Of Future-Only Gratitude

SPEAKER_00 1:19

There's a sneaky temptation in church leadership. And if you've been a church leader for five minutes or more, you probably have already got a hunch about this, right? Here it is. You're always chasing the next version of your church, the better version, the one with more staff and fewer problems, with better volunteers, with cleaner transitions, with a healthier budget. And hey, that's all good. That's part of being a leader, right? Having vision is part of being a great leader, and it's good. But if your gratitude only exists in the future, you'll miss what God's doing right now. And if we're really honest, the church you lead today might not be where you want it to be. Matter of fact, it might even feel stuck. It might be rebuilding in a rebuilding phase after you're you've experienced some hurt in your church or your congregation. It might be filled with imperfect people who actually drive you nuts. You might have board members that are just cleaning your clock and driving you nuts. You might be working with even just half a team, or on a quarter of the budget, or getting a tenth of the credit. But regardless of all that, put all that aside. Here's the hard

Finding Grace In Small Moments

SPEAKER_00 2:33

truth. The church, the one that you have right now, is still God's church, and he's still moving in it, and he's using you to help him move in it. You might just have to look a little harder, a little closer, because we're always looking, we're always projecting into the future as leaders. And sometimes the miracle isn't in the numbers. It's in maybe the woman that quietly brings her neighbor to church each week. It's in the teenager who finally found somebody to talk to. It's this couple that stayed together after the counseling that you did. It's the volunteer that finally said yes after years of saying no. Those tiny moments where grace slipped in, most people didn't notice it. If you're not careful, you won't notice it either. It's those tiny moments that are unnoticed by most people that God notices. He does not miss them. And that, my friend, is where the gratitude lives. Okay? Not in some imaginary church that you may never actually get to lead, but in the one that God has given you in the church that you are serving in right now.

Rethinking Success And Disappointment

SPEAKER_00 3:42

I've talked with so many pastors over the years and this year in particular, pastors and staff members who just feel discouraged, not because their church is broken, sometimes because their church is broken, but not necessarily because they feel like their church is broken, but because they've built this false mental picture in their head of what success in ministry and in church leadership should look like. And then quietly, disappointment rips them and takes the place of any Thanksgiving that they could have. But when they start looking with some new eyes, some eyes of gratitude, what God is actually doing right now, a lot of times they just see it. The switch goes on. That the church is still loving and still serving and still showing up. Imperfect? Absolutely. Awkward? Definitely. But also faithful. And you know what? That's a miracle. You might be trying to fix what God is trying to bless. If you take nothing away from today other than that statement, let me repeat it, you might be trying to fix when God is trying to bless. If you're always longing for what's next, you might miss what's going on right now. And this Thanksgiving week. I want to really encourage you to stop praying for a new church and start seeing the current one that you have with new eyes. Alright, couple of reflection questions. I've been giving you some reflection questions this week, just some things to ask yourself. Today, here are the questions for you. What are three things about your church that you can genuinely

Reflection Questions And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 5:17

be thankful toward today? They don't have to be big things, they can be small things, but what are three things about the church today, this past week, this past month, that you can be genuinely thankful for? And then a follow-up question to that. How might your leadership changed change if you started from a place of gratitude instead of frustration? That's a big question for you to ponder. And I want you to ponder that over the next few days as you go into your weekend. Hopefully you've got a couple more days off here and you can take some time to be thankful, enjoy yourself, but I also want you to dig deep if you need to dig deep. If you're in a place where just nothing seems like it's really hard to find gratitude, find things that you can be grateful for. Because I'll guarantee you there are some things in your family, in your life, in your church that you can be thankful for. Sometimes you just have to look and really pray through them. All right. Hope you've had a great week with me here on the podcast. I hope that you will join me again next week. We'll be back all through the month of December and hopefully on into 2026 right here on the Healthy Church.