Church World Leadership

Prepping

As I post this, I just texted my sister who lives in Florida to see how they are doing. They currently have a hurricane barreling today them.

She said they are all prepped and bracing for the storm to come.

Let me take those thoughts and pair them with the tagline of the latest Tom Cruise movie and see what they both might have to do with leadership in church world.

The tagline of the movie goes like this, “The world is changing. Truth is vanishing. War is coming.”

Very ominous. And not very encouraging.

But think about it.

This is an accurate description of the world around us.

This reminds me of 1 Chronicles 12:32 and the men of Ishachar. They understood their times and therefore knew what to do.

What about us?

As leaders in church world, do we understand our times and what’s going on in the culture and world around us?

Or are we joining the chorus of those around us just cursing the darkness?

I don’t think cursing the darkness is God’s game plan for us or His church.

So how can we prepare for the “storm” ahead and be used by God to impact the changing world around us?

The time to prepare is not when the rain starts to fall. The time to prepare is when we see and hear God’s warnings.

And aren’t we called to be light in a dark world rather than just stand around and curse the darkness?

One clear way we can prepare is by getting in the practice of what God tells us in Ephesians 6.

In Ephesians 6:10-20, we are admonished to get our spiritual armor on. And we don’t put it on to model it or to just look nice. We put it on for protection and for action.

A clear parallel to this line of thinking can be found in 1 Corinthians 4:20 where God says, “For the kingdom of heaven is not a matter of talk, but of power.” The implication for us in this post today is it all boils down to action. What will we do to lead God’s people in light of what we know and understand is going on all around us?

So I pray this post makes you think. But more importantly, I pray this post encourages and emboldens you to rise up and take steps in your leadership for God and His glory.

Let’s interact.

Post a question or something God is leading you to do because of these thoughts. I’d love to pray for you about that.

If you have a question, I’d love to hear from you as well.

Thought for 2023

Posted on February 7, 2023 by jesusfollower38

What is one of the biggest keys to Christian leadership?

It may not surprise you, but there is a tendency to avoid doing it.

One of the biggest keys to leading others spiritually is investing time with God.

Look what the Old Testament tells us.

“…Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Sun did not leave the tent.” Exodus 33:11b

How do you follow a “superstar leader” like Moses?

You spend extra time with God.

Still not convinced?

Read over the following quote slowly.

The biggest battle you will face in life is your daily appointment with God; keep it, or every other battle will become bigger.

Ravi Zacharias

So later today or this week, set aside 10-15 minutes of extra, unhurried time to invest with God.

This is the time of year our New Year resolutions to read the Bible can fall by the wayside.

Do not let that happen. Resolve to trust God to help you with this.

Invest time with God.

If you do that tomorrow, this week, when you start stacking these times, I believe you will be glad you did.

What Do You Love?

Posted on October 26, 2021 by jesusfollower38

At our house, we have a phrase we often share with our kids…

Photo credit – Jamie Street – Unsplash.com

“We like things and love people.”

It’s short. It’s memorable. And communicates an important truth.

People are more important to us than things.

It helps communicate what we value.

What we value as Christian leaders should be based on the Bible and the life of Jesus Christ, God’s Son.

A few years ago I remember reading a post by Cary Nieuwhof about doing things for our churches that will help them and cost zero dollars.

One of these thoughts was, “Encourage your people to fall in love with your mission, not your methods.”

This is so huge because a method is a thing. The moment a thing comes before a person there is a problem. It is an even bigger problem if it comes before the God we love and serve.

Why is this principle good for us to learn and to pass on?

I think it’s advantageous for several reasons.

It helps to teach others what we value. Plus, if we don’t communicate what we value more, people will come up with values on their own.

Next, it can help save hurt and heartache down the road. As people, we have a tendency to fall in love with what we do and what we create. Again, methods, how we do ministry, are certain things for certain seasons. Plus, programs are only as good as their effectiveness in reaching people and building up people’s faith.

Another reason it’s so good is that it lines up with Jesus’ commission for His church. God could have told us more clearly how to do church. Instead, in His wisdom, He gave us freedom and latitude. Methods should also be servants to the mission, not the other way around.

I pray this post helps you as you lead others to Jesus and for Jesus.

I also trust it at least made you think more deeply and more holistically about your leadership and how you make decisions.

Are You Ready?

Posted on August 31, 2021 by jesusfollower38

I read a book a few years ago for a pastor cohort I was involved in. It was a book called Ignite by Nelson Searcy.

The principle of spiritual readiness tells us that God will never give us more than we are prepared to receive.
Nelson Searcy, Ignite, p. 134

This quote is good for a number of reasons. First, it makes us think as spiritual leaders and those whom influence others. It also has a future-oriented component that makes us lean into how today, living for God, and leading for God affects tomorrow.

This quote brings to mind at least two questions for me:

What am I getting ready for as a leader?

How do I get ready?

To answer the second one first, I think we get ready by taking steps of faith in Jesus. The future favors the prepared and very often, God sends favor and fruit to those who are living by faith. That is a biblical principle, not just a leadership principle.

Next, what I am doing today affects and sets me up as a leader for what God brings tomorrow. The Bible says in Galatians not to grow weary in well doing for we will reap a harvest in due time. Also, to paraphrase 1 Corinthians 15:58, we see that seeking to glorify God by faith in the Lord’s work today will have meaning and significance tomorrow. In other words, it won’t be in vain; it will be worth it!

I can think of at least a few ways we can be spiritually ready to receive from God.

Build trust today. Trust is arguably one of the single biggest elements in leadership and we are either making trust deposits or trust withdraws on any given day.

Plan and lean toward God’s leading. If God is speaking to you and leading you as a leader, then you need to schedule and plan around the direction He is leading. This is not rocket science. If God is leading us, His desire is for us to lead those we shepherd with love and truth.

(from a sermon series I preached called Letters to Leaders)

Since life is short and leading others is a stewardship, let’s live today leaning into and investing ourselves in being spiritually prepared for God and what He gives us.

Let’s lead well for God’s glory and God’s kingdom!!

Staying Power or Flicker Out?

Posted on July 21, 2021 by jesusfollower38

Two encouraging passages if you are following God’s plan and program as a leader:

Acts 5:33-39 and Isaiah 14:27

If God’s in it, no one can stop it.

If you aren’t about God’s kingdom, business, the Great Commission, and the Great Commandment, it won’t last.

Ministry Framework

Posted on July 7, 2020 by jesusfollower38

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about a template for ministry that I’d like to see used at every level and at every ministry within our church. This isn’t a program, but ministry values if you will.

Here is what I’ve been thinking about. We want our ministries to be EPIC:

Eternally–focused

Personal

Intentionally-initiated

Christ-centered

It seems to me, if we strive for any or all of these as we think through how we plan, promote, pull off, and follow up with things we do, we would live more like Jesus and love more like Jesus. In addition to that, we would most likely see longer-lasting impact and develop trust and discover deeper more meaningful ministry opportunities.

Whether you are a lead pastor, a worship pastor, a student pastor, or whatever level of ministry you are involved in, I think if you get the “ok” and use this framework for 8-16 months, I think you’d see some traction, some positive things, and potentially some real life change take place.

What do you think?

Healthier on the Other Side

Posted on April 29, 2020 by jesusfollower38

As church leaders, this has been both a trying and very interesting time; not to mention stretching.

I bet like me, you have found some extra time to read and ask questions. I also bet that you or others have had to learn quickly and work harder in a few significant areas to best help those you lead.

Book-DogsNose-2photo-pots-X1RQ3b6ZhUs-unsplash

Here are a few questions I asked myself and I encourage you to ask before you read on:

How can we come out the other side more focused? More missional? More relational? More committed to God’s purposes and each other?
What we need to rethink or let die?
How can our worship be better because of this?

In answering these questions, I discovered the following:

Churches need to be more creative in caring for people.

Church leaders need to push decisions down to the lowest levels.

Church leaders need to reproduce themselves because we are replaceable.

Ministry needs to happen at a “cellular” level (person-to-person).

Small groups (we call them Life Groups) are key (not indispensable, but influential).

Churches need to be nimble and have a good online “presence.”

We need to be “high touch” in a high tech world (a thought I have pondered since reading it in a book by Michael Slaughter).

Does focusing on these ideas suddenly make me an expert? No.

Was I good at these before? Not really.

Did I give them the time or attention they needed 6 months ago to help me and my church go to the next level? Probably not.

My plan, however, is to come through this situation a better leader and lead my church to a more healthy place.

In times like these, it’s important to remember that leadership is more important during times of uncertainty. That is both scary and encouraging. It is scary because we don’t know what the future holds. It is also encouraging because it requires us to lean into God more.

An unexpected result of our current situation is an increased spiritual hunger for fellowship with God and one another. Plus, I think people, in general, will lean a little more in to their trust of God and they’ll lean in, listen to, and trust you and me as Christian leaders a little more.

But be careful. The window for this will only be for a few weeks at best after a return to some sense of “normalcy.”

That means we can see this whole situation as an opportunity rather than an obstacle.

So what about you?

What are a few key things you are learning as a leader during our current trying time?

Creating Culture

Posted on February 21, 2020 by jesusfollower38

There is a lot of talk lately about creating cultures.

Let me share hear some brief biblical thoughts and a couple of analogies.

First off, we don’t have to go very far to see how the Bible mentions over-arching positive cultures. In the gospels, we see how Jesus re-directed his disciples’ thoughts toward spiritual things and even leadership. We see Jesus creating new mindsets and habits through the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), but we also see it later in passages like Matthew 20:26. Jesus directly confronts current habits and ways of thinking in Mark 10:43 when he says, “Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.” He is creating a culture of servant leaders and servant leadership.

We also see the Holy Spirit establishing a culture in the newly formed, first-century church in the book of Acts. We read many places in Acts how they prayed and sought God together and how they cared for and helped one another.

Photo by icon0.com on Pexels.com

When we think of being used by God to create a God-honoring, Jesus- and first-century church-inspired culture, we can think of it as like someone building a greenhouse. A greenhouse is an environment conducive to plants and flowers growing and thriving. A greenhouse gives them whatever they need to do just that.

Or another analogy to think of is an aquarium. An aquarium is set to best and optimal levels for fish to thrive. It often takes significant monitoring at first and constant attention, but when it gets dialed in, it requires less care and maintenance.

underwater window and a man sitting wearing hat

Photo by Ivy Son on Pexels.com

When we think of ideas like culture making in the local New Testament church, we often gloss over it because it seems too hard and too time-consuming. This is especially true in a society or a culture of microwaves, overnight shipping, and where we can get groceries delivered to our homes in a couple of hours.

From personal experience, I have been in my current church leadership role for about 7 years. I began establishing and creating a few cultural initiatives in my second year in this role. I would come back to and seek to be used by God to lead in these areas during several key times during the year. I have been praying and leading seeking to be used by God to change the culture and introduce and establish a new one.

I have just started to see early indications that some of these thoughts are taking root and starting to bear fruit. So that’s really six solid years of creating a culture and just now seeing small green leaves pop up through the soil.

That’s why I think God used Paul to encourage Timothy to have an attitude of a farmer in 2 Timothy 2:1-7. We need to have a big-picture, long-term approach to ministry. If we don’t we will settle for “quick fixes,” be discouraged, or be destined to be stuck treading water and perpetuating a cycle of dysfunction, dishonor, and detrimental spiritual outcomes.

I think in the local church we need to focus on at least three key areas to intentionally create cultures. All are self-explanatory.

Prayerful Dependence on God
Consistently and intentionally sharing the Gospel
Making Disciples
Progressive spiritual formation

Well, this post is already longer than I originally intended it to be.

Please post your thoughts or constructive comments here.

Prayer Power

Posted on December 13, 2019 by jesusfollower38

Prayer is the engine that drives the church.

: Photo Credit – Tim Mossholder

The power of prayer is not in the person who prays but in the Person being prayed to.

Some key passages regarding this are 1 Thessalonians 5:17 and James 5:16.

If we want powerful prayer lives, our active faith must continually lead us to pray and that can help our prayers be more powerful. Our faith and our prayer lives must be active and continually looking to the Father.

We like to talk about cars and how powerful they are. We even measure engines with something called horsepower. To increase horsepower there are several things you can do like increasing airflow, utilizing fuel injectors, increasing the size of the carburetor, adding a supercharger, etc.

Thinking about your church during an average week, how powerful would you say your prayers and the prayers of those within your church are?

I myself just bought two new books on praying together so I can lead myself and our church in this vital area.

How will you increase the horsepower in your prayer life and in your church’s prayer life in this upcoming year?

Leave a few best practices or steps you plan on taking.

A “Wow” Quote on the Eve of All Saints Day

Posted on October 31, 2019 by jesusfollower38

“God hates visionary dreaming. . . . It makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.”

Detrich Bonhoffer, Life Together (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2009), 27