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Opened with Expectation and Closed in Profit
That is a good book which is opened with
expectation and closed in profit.
~ Amos Bronson Alcott ~
To really get your leaders on board with the vision that God has given you you are going to have to shape not only their thoughts but how they form them. Through the years countless books have been written on the church and what is going on inside and out. Most ministers/pastors devote a great deal of time to reading these books along with their normal Bible Study routine. Through these avenues we find inspiration and God begins birthing visions based on what hHe is revealing to us through these combinations of Scripture and teachings.
Here is the problem
Most church lay leaders are not deep in their Word much less reading other books about the church and culture so when we go to those leaders with a completed vision it is like we are talking an alien language. So in the process once the vision is developed we will go back from the beginning
1. Take your leadership into a deep study of the Scriptural foundations of what the church is and what the church should be doing. It has to all start in Scripture. As your leaderships sees you delving into Scripture and see the fundamental components of what you are leading them into their minds, eyes and hearts will be opened and they will be ready for the next step
2. Assign your leadership to read what you have read. As they read what inspired you they will start to glean terminology and methodology and see what roads you are going down this will prepare them to go even farther.
3. Discuss the readings with your team. These discussions will help you direct the ideas that are forming in your team’s minds and it will plant concepts that God has already birthed in you but in smaller form than the completed vision.
In this way once you have laid the groundwork then the vision casting will unfold with more acceptance and excitement. As you talk they will understand and identify and they will feel connected enough to support the vision. Ultimately setting up a more successful task and satisfied leadership.
Tomorrow I will identify another way we can build our leadership.
Down from the Mountain
Having just come back from an amazing weekend with our youth group it is an easy thing to get down. After all we experienced coming back down to reality is a little depressing. Most of us in the ministry recognize this as a mountaintop experience and understand the brutality of the realization that we have to exist in the real world where it seems we are in a losing battle at times.
We need to understand though that this is not unique to our time or our place. In fact we are provided with a number of instances of this very problem in the Scriptures.
Moses- Ex 32
After being on the Mount with the Lord. Moses had to return to reality and the reality was that the people of Israel were already turning their hearts away from the God that had delivered them. Can you imagine how Moses must have felt? Here he was meeting with the Lord of Lords and his people that he had sacrificed so much for were worshiping a golden calf! Talk about depressing! So then Moses has to go into leader mode and rebuke the people. Not what I would want to be doing after meeting with God.
As a minister I can relate. It seems that the moment i walk in the door after coming back from a trip I am confronted with the fact that there are people even in my own church that are more concerned with worldly matters and there own self satisfaction than the movement of God.
Elijah- 1 Kings 19
In 1 Kings 18 Elijah has this amazing victory over the evil prophets of Baal. God worked a miracle beyond anyone’s belief and Elijah was left standing as His victorious prophet. Fast forward to chapter 19 and Jezebel has threatened his life. Elijah must have been wondering why God would give him such a victory only to allow him to be killed by the same evil that he had been trying to overthrow.
Sound familiar? I think we all know of someone that has come home from a mountaintop experience to be confronted with a life crisis. Whether it be an issue with work or home, personal, material or emotional we all know of someone that has had to face a crisis.
Jesus- Lk 9:41
Yes!! Even Jesus had to face this problem. Jesus goes up and is transfigured and discusses what His death will mean. I imagine that this was an exciting conversation. To be talking about the salvation of the people He had created surely got Christ pumped. But as He came down off the mountain the first thing He was confronted with was a complaint about His disciples. His response clearly shows His concern.
Don’t you just love to have to deal with complaint’s? They are bad enough when you are not coming off a mountaintop experience but having to be dragged down when you are focused on things much higher and nobler is quite rude.
The point is the world is going to be ready to destroy our optimism and excitement but we cannot let that divert us from the course that we must take. The closeness with God always reveals to us what we need to do so we need to do it!! Now go do it…..NOW!!
UNleash Mind Dump (Part 2)
I was supposed to do this yesterday but I took the day off and spent some quality time with my wife which was much needed. I probably have never said this here but my wife ROCKS (and is hot to boot)
Ok here it goes
- God can give you a sloppy wet kiss or a big fat kick….it’s his prerogative
- If you are a pastor every week the rocks are coming…people will want to stone you
- Acts 14:8-10 Paul heals a man—- that is a Great day in ministry
- Be careful listening to the crowd. Those that deify will crucify
- Acts 14:11-19 Paul is stoned— Yeah pretty much a bad day in ministry
- Acts 14:20 Paul continues on—-Call to every pastor
- They stoned Paul…..the pastor…not any of the support staff….the Pastor
3 Rocks that are thrown
- Deception
- Pastors you do NOT have to do everything
- The Bible says those that will not work are LAZY but those who will not rest are DISOBEDIENT
- The second most abused person in the church is the Pastor’s wife
- Pastor Jesus doesn’t need you to love HIS bride he needs you to love YOURS
- Pastor you will never impress your wife with your job performance…
- Distraction
- Churches have a lot of agendas other than Jesus
- God is not green….. Kermit is
- Pastors, your people can believe in you and go to hell or believe in Jesus and be saved
- God can use us because we were barren and worthless and He could receive the most glory from us
- Pastor you will never impress your wife with your job performance…
- Discouragement
3 words to remember
- Awareness
- We make mistakes because we are unaware
- Unity
- We have too many HUGE Understandings in the church
- Lead with integrity be who God called you to be not some stereotype
- Get big vision from God stop trying to push yours
- Listen to your staff they are called to do their jobs not to have you do it for them
- Keep short accounts do not hold on to bitterness
- Make expectations clear and realistic
- Honor your staff’s time they have families too
- Passion
- If you can’t support the vision of your church get off the team
- If your pastor is disobedient then let God cut him down (that is HIS job)
- When a pastor has staff and leadership that gather around him he will be able to get up no matter what stones have hit him
PATIENCE
In today’s “give it to me now” culture, Patience is a lost art form. We want our food faster, our information faster our degrees faster and our success faster. But not only do we want it faster we always want it our way. The motto for this generation could be “give it to me my way, right away”. But the Bible tells us that patience is included in the fruit of the Spirit. That means in the course of our spiritual lives and in our journey to become closer and more like Christ that we must cultivate this virtue within ourselves. John F Newton said “Be patient enough to live one day at a time as Jesus taught us letting yesterday go and leaving tomorrow till it arrives” . These are great words of wisdom that we should take note of. But let’s not ignore the most important authority, The Bible.
Here are a few verses on Patience
Romans 8:25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience….
Colossians 3:12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
2 Thessalonians 3:5 And may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.
I want to look at a few different aspects of patience. Adel Bestavros said “Patience with others is Love, patience with Self is hope and Patience with God is faith” I think this sets up a great framework on which to look at Patience.
Patience with OTHERS is LOVE- Let’s face it everyone screws up and dissapoints at some point. As we go through life those closest to us will make mistakes. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13:4 that love is patient. When you love someone you are able to look past their faults and realize that they have possess qualities that make them worthy of your devotion. Great friendships, marriages and families are built around this idea.
Patience with SELF is HOPE – This is an area I struggle in. We all have aspirations dreams and desires for ourselves and no one likes to fail. Yet time and time again as we try to achieve what we believe we want we fall short. Whether these shortcomings are in academics, athletics, romance or in our profession it matters not everyone of us will wind up falling flat on our face. These failures take there toll on us and we can beat ourselves up. We can’t understand and begin to question our self worth. Patience gives us hope. A hope that if not today then maybe tomorrow or maybe further down the road but it will happen and can happen. Our dreams may only come to fruition with much dedication and work but the hope of another day will push us on.
Patience with GOD is FAITH- Wow…. How many times have you demanded an answer from God. Or expected God to give you what you wanted when you wanted. Yeah…. me too. But god doesn’t work on our timeline He has much greater things in mind. The hard thing for us is that He doesn’t send us a memo or share with us a PowerPoint demonstrating his 5 step plan to get us where we need to be. Rather, He asks us to trust in Him fully and wait and see. Patient faith can be one of the most excruciating things to master but it is one of the most valuable
The common thread in all of these is sacrifice. To truly practice patience you need to deny yourself. We don’t like sacrifice that is why patience is out of style. Again we want to have everything our way right away, We are self absorbed and until we learn to let that go we are in for major issues.
Someone to stand
A friend posted this on youtube this morning and I found it moving
What we have here is the vision of someone to get an eclectic group of people from around the world and unify them in one voice and one song. What is sad is that as a Christian I am convicted that we are not that unifying force. No quite the opposite it seems that we cannot stop infighting long enough to focus on our message and purpose. My friend Gman blogged about the whining of churches. This is an example of how the infighting isn’t centered inside individual churches but amongst the church worldwide. What has to be done to become unified? What could we accomplish? I certainly hope that I get to see a great revival in my lifetime. I desperately want to be part of a massive movement of God. It is so obvious that the fields are ripe for harvest. in this day and age of disenchantment and cynicism people need something to hold onto something concrete that will not fail. The only thing they will find to fill that void is the love of Christ.
Outside the Box.
Many years ago when I started college the big thing was to go into the computer industry there were all kinds of jobs out there for you (or so they said) if you only got a Computer programming or Computer engineering degree. I went for it and hated it and wasn’t very good at it ( which may be why I hated it) but it taught me some things I value.
What I liked was the fact that through programming I could tell the computer an operation to complete define the parameters to which to work in and (if coded properly) the computer would execute the operation. There was great satisfaction in seeing this accomplished even at the very basic level. But more importantly than anything I learned a very valuable lesson about God.
I have spent much time arguing with non- believers about God and His existence and inevitably I will be confronted with the “logical” and “scientific” argument against God. The laws of science and physics make it impossible for God to exist, so they say. But this always makes me snicker a bit but it shows how naive we are as humans and how we are puffed up with ignorant arrogance . You see the idea that somehow God is defined by the laws that govern our universe is the equivalent of saying that a computer programmer is defined by the laws of the program he has created.
Think about video game developers for a moment. The develop worlds and situations that play out a certain way the create boundaries in which characters cannot move past they limit items that can be interacted with. On the flip side of that they make them with abilities that exist only in the fantasy world and give them more lives than cats. But no matter how many games they create the parameters of the games do not apply to the creator because the creator exists outside the box. In Genesis 1:1 we are told that God created everything, heavens and earth. And in John we are told that all things were made by Him and without Him nothing was made. That means that God created everything we know INCLUDING the laws, or parameters, that define us. Because God is outside the box it is ludicrous to even try to make the parameters apply to Him. Job 38:4 tells us that God laid the foundations of the earth we might think in a material sense of the word but the actual laws that allow us to exist scientifically had to be created before anything could exist. Things like Space and time have no bearing on God, HE created those things to govern us. And because He is the Creator he can bend and change the rules as he sees fit, gamers call them “cheats” they are ways around the rules that developers put in the game. It is their prerogative and it is God’s as well. Video games can’t understand their developers and we can’t understand our Creator.
Ultimately this argument might not go far with non-believers but for me it helped gain perspective and it makes me grateful for a God outside the box.
What if? Part 2
- WHAT IF the early church had decided their primary responsibility was to be political, thus organizing protests against the Roman government for occupying their land?
- Thank You! Thank you! Thank you! One of my pet peeves this past year has been Christians whining about the government and talking about how bad Obama is and how we need good Christian men in power. The problem is power always corrupts and there is no one on this planet that will right the government. Abortion, prostitution, alcoholism, homosexuality and pornography will not be stopped by laws. It will be stopped when the people of God look beyond the walls of the church and begin teaching and reaching people with the message of Christ. (and I dn’t mean the “get out of HELL free card” message) I mean the message that Christ is this radical life changing experience that turns you inside out and you are never the same. This country was founded on Christian principles but it happened because there were enough people that said you know we need to live differently and those people were motivated by it. We can’t get people motivatd to show up on Sunday morning in our church why are we surprised when they don’t care about moral decay. We have been in a fight to change the world politically for decades and all we have accomplished is losing more and more ground. An example of this is played out locally, I have seen a couple who spend their days protesting abortion at a busy intersection. They cary signs that say “Stop Abortion Now” and carry baby dolls in a stroller and strapped to their chests. But I have to wonder how much change they are bringing about. It is hard for me to believe that some pro- choicer riding down the road sees them there and say to themselves ” Their right”. What if the time taken to protest was used to love on people by taking care of them, helping them sharing with them. And I don’t mean knocking on doors telling them they are going to hell but living a life that is filled with the fruits of the Spirit ( yet another coming blog post) that showed people that there was more to this world and this thing called Christianity. Then maybe people would begin to turn back to God and when we are in line with God everything else will fall into place.
What if? Part 1
Perry Noble blogged this the other day.. It hit home. So I thought it migh be good to look at these and give you my thoughts. Over the next few days I will cover each one in detail
- WHAT IF the early church had decided to simply study what Jesus said but not apply it?
- Wow what a statement can anyone say Sunday School and Discipleship Training? Heck even small groups and worship services fit this. When did we go from active proclaimers of the faith to lazy pew fillers? I heard Steven Furtick say one time that the church was full of spiritually fat Christians. That we all gatehred to consume spiritual food and gorged ourselves on God’s word when there were people all around us starving and dying of starvation. And he was right. We get so worked up about getting to know deeper theological truths and that is great if the motivation is to get closer to God but I can’t help but to believe that being closer to God means being more like God and if we are going to be more like God we are going to have a heart like God and his heart is for the Lost. That was probably a run-on sentence but I do not care. For at least a generation the church has turned a blind eye to this phenomenon and we are suffering the consequences now. Sunday morning I turned around from our front row seat with the youth and looked back and counted the empty rows. I then added all the rows with three or less people. I couldn’t see all the rows but I counted 30 rows. 30 ROWS!!! And what really gets me is not that it is our church but so MANY churches across the land that are empty on the day that we are to be rejoicing about what God has done. We have to take a LoNG look at what we are doing as churches and decide if it is for God’s glory or for something else
Uhhhh….Let me …….Pray About It.
Saw this vid on Gman’s blog
There is a line in the skit that got me because I hear it so often and it drives me up the wall. It goes a little something like this
Leader: ” Mr Smith we would like you to use the talents that we see in you to serve God”
Mr Smith: ” Hmmmm I don’t know let me pray about it”
Now certainly I want someone to seek God’s face in the course of a decision but too many times I hear this as a way to say “no” without actually saying “no”. What really gets me though is how we try to put God off. At what point in time did we decide that God didn’t have immediate answers for us? I am not saying we should rush into decisions by no means but if we are obedient followers of Christ we should
- Be in tune with the will of God
- Be willing to seize opportunities that God puts before us
- Understand our own personal limitations
If we are earnestly seeking God’s will and are honest with ourselves there is really no need to put God off. We know if we have the time to be serving or not we know if God has placed something on our heart or not. We should be willing to be honest with ourself, others and God and stop hiding behind fluff clichès.
If you are serving God and an opportunity arises and you know He is moving you towards that then the issue is not whether or not to take up the opportunity but what other role you need to give up. Many times we cling to familiarity and pet projects that God is no longer using us in and we just don’t wnat to admit it.
What is God calling you to do?
The Worship Battle
Many times I am asked my view on Worship in the church. Which style do I prefer? Why is one better than the other? so on and so forth. Honestly my position on worship will offend both sides of the traditional versus modern/ contemporary aisle. I think both have it wrong. I think worship in most churches today is so screwed that very little honor and praise comes from it. here are the issues I see
rings true in the hearts of many
- We have put style over substance
- Whenever we pick a style we often eliminate an aspect of our culture. The great music of years gone by still has relevance and still rings true in the hearts of many. If we are going to eliminate such large portions of our history and culture then we will feel shortcomings in our time together and our worship.
- We have put preference over reverence
- How many churches have pitted generations against each other over this issue? At any time do you think God was honored? No The fact of the matter is when we pick what we prefer over what is reverent and unifying is disrespectful to the very God we claim to serve.
- We have put performance over relevance
- This is the thing that bothers me the most. For years we have hired MUSIC directors in church. The number one qualifier for these men or women were that they had a degree in MUSIC we have been so concerned with the timing and the pitch and the tempo. We have become so concerned with perfection of the music that we have overlooked the perfection of the WORSHIP. Music and worship have to be understood as two different things some of the best worship leaders I know knew nothing about music beyond singing and reading a few notes. they couldn’t play and instrument well and they weren’t going to be asked to sing on a lot of albums but when they were there before the people they opened there hearts and led the people to the throne of the Father with such passion it blew me away.
The main thing the I seek, whenever I lead worship or am in worship is that in the course of the singing and the playing that the people being led get lost in the experience and connect with God in such a way that they forget there is anyone else in the room. It is in that that we should be focused and tied to.
