5 Questions to Answer for Potential Church Members

April 12, 2018

Pastor, you may have a large crowd of attendees on Sunday morning—and still not have a congregation. The fact is that the crowd must become a church. People must be assimilated.

Assimilation is simply the task of moving people from an awareness of your church, to attendance at your church, and then to active membership in your church.

The Community talks about “that church.”
The Crowd talks about “this church.”
The Congregation talks about “our church.”

Members have a sense of ownership. They are contributors, not just consumers.

Because the incorporation of new members into your church does not happen automatically, you have to develop a system and structure to assimilate and keep the people you reach. At Saddleback, our system is composed of two parts.

The first part of our assimilation system is a set of questions we ask ourselves:

What does God expect from members of his church?
What do we expect from our members right now?
What kind of people already make up our congregation?
How will that change in the next five to 10 years?
What do our members value?
What are new members’ greatest needs?
What are our long-term members’ greatest needs?
How can we make membership more meaningful?
How can we ensure that members feel loved and cared for?
What do we owe our members?
What resources or services could we offer our members?
How could we add value to what we already offer?

Because your congregation has a unique history, culture and growth rate, these questions are important. The answers will determine the assimilation plan that’s best for your situation.

But you’re not the only one with questions. Prospective members have their own set!

Before people commit to joining your church, they want to know the answers to five unspoken questions:

1. Do I fit here?

This is the question of acceptance. This question is best answered by establishing affinity groups within your church so that people with similar ages, interests, problems or backgrounds can find and relate to each other. Everyone needs a niche, and small groups play a crucial role in meeting this need. You must show people that you have a place for them.

2. Does anyone want to know me?

This is the question of friendship. You can answer this question by creating opportunities for people to develop relationships within your congregation. There are an unlimited number of ways you can do this, but it takes planning. Remember, people are not looking for a friendly church as much as they are looking for friends. People deserve individual attention.

3. Am I needed?

This is the question of value. People want to make contributions with their lives. They want their lives to count. They want to feel that they matter. When you can show people that they can make a difference with their gifts and talents by joining your church, they will want to be involved. Position your church as a creative place that needs the expression of all sorts of talents and abilities, not just singers, ushers and Sunday school teachers.

4. What is the advantage of joining?

This is the question of benefit. You must be able to clearly and concisely explain the reasons and benefits of membership. Explain the biblical, practical and personal reasons for membership.

5. What is required of members?

This is the question of expectations. You must be able to explain the responsibilities of membership as clearly as you state its benefits. People have a right to know what is expected of them before they join.

3 Common Fears of Every Young Leader

Ron Edmondson

April 12, 2018

I’m convinced.

After years mentoring younger leaders, there is something all of us leaders with more experience need to know.

Every young leader shares some common fears.

Granted, I’ve mostly worked with young male leaders (and I am the parent of boys), but I suspect these fears aren’t gender exclusive.

And they aren’t talked about much—or even admitted. The pressure to perform often keeps us from admitting fear—but they are real fears.

Three fears of every young leader:

Am I good enough?

Have I got what it takes?

What happens if I fail?

Common, legitimate fears.

Do you want to make a difference in the life of a young leader? Help them answer these questions—in the affirmative.

Help them believe in themselves. Help them discover that inner strength—that God-given grace—that God-given talent—that helps them weather any storm and overcome any obstacle that may get in the way of being all God has called them to be.

Seasoned leaders, this is a great pursuit for us. Find the young leaders who need to hear our words of affirmation. Something tells me we can help build a future. And—in the process—we will leave a legacy.

John MacArthur: 4 Things You Need to Do to Stay in Ministry for the Long Haul

John MacArthur

April 12, 2018

John Fawcett is a name you may not immediately recognize. In the late 18th century, Fawcett pastored a small, poor church in Wainsgate, England, where his salary was only 25 pounds a year.

In 1773, Fawcett was invited to become the pastor of a much larger church in London. Initially, he accepted the new position. But as his belongings were being loaded for the journey, the people from his church came to bid him farewell.

The tearful goodbye was so moving that John’s wife, Mary, cried out, “John, I cannot bear to leave!” “Nor can I,” he responded. “We shall remain here with our people.” Their belongings were taken back off of the wagons, and John Fawcett remained in Wainsgate for the entirety of his 54-year ministry.

Years later, as he reflected on his decision to stay, Fawcett penned the words to his most-well-known hymn: Blest Be the Tie That Binds. The familiar words of that song resonate with the loyalty and love that characterized the pastor who wrote them.

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.
Before our Father’s throne,
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one,
Our comforts, and our cares.

Fawcett’s story illustrates the legacy of long-term commitment in pastoral ministry. In yesterday’s post, we looked at four practical suggestions for sustaining your ministry over the long haul. Today, we will consider six more:

Be thankful and be humble.

As a servant of the Chief Shepherd, you need to be grateful for the flock that Christ has entrusted to you, and regularly tell both them and the Lord of your deep gratitude. Contentment begins with confidence in God’s providence. Your church may not be as big or as financially well-off as the church down the road, but you can be content if you trust that God has sovereignly placed you exactly where He wants you to be. It also helps to always remember that, no matter your circumstances, you are unworthy of what you’ve been given.

Don’t think you deserve a bigger ministry than you have. It is grace that has placed you in such a noble calling. Learn to define success in terms of faithfulness and not in terms of popularity. The measure of your ministry is not determined by numerical growth, but by adherence to truth in life and message. While many preachers seem to work for earthly glory, godly preachers humbly labor for the glory that is yet to be given to them, in the presence of their Lord.

Two Truths for When You Don’t Feel Like Preaching

Mike Leake

April 12, 2018

“A man only preaches a sermon well to others if he has first preached it to himself. If he does not thrive on the ‘food’ he prepares, he will not be skilled at making it appetizing to others. If the Word does not dwell in power in us, it will not pass in power from us.” – John Owen (here)

If Owen is correct, then my sermon a couple of weeks ago must have been a real stinker. I was preaching on 2 Corinthians about not losing heart in the ministry God has given us. And I was preaching while deeply discouraged. As much as I tried to “thrive” on that food I was preparing for others it just wasn’t “working.” I know the problem was with me and my own heart and not the text. But I was in a pit that I couldn’t get out of. It’s been one of those seasons where the darkness feels more pervasive than the light, and I’m just hanging on until morning.

How do I preach in a time like this? How do I preach when I don’t feel like it? And am I being a big ol’ hypocrite to do so?

It’s been my experience that this feeling is what keeps a good many of people away from doing ministry. When our feelings get all busted up and we don’t feel motivated to read Scripture, pray, share the gospel or engage in ministry, we’d rather stop than keep trucking on. We know that such a thing leads to burn out. And we know that this is the land in which hypocrites thrive. It feels so pharisaical to proclaim things to others that you aren’t feeling in your heart. And so, rather than continuing to feel like a hypocrite, we disengage.

Here are a two truths that help when we don’t feel like doing the ministry God has called us to do.

1. It’s true that nobody likes dutiful roses. But it’s better than showing up empty handed.

John Piper has used a helpful illustration concerning what he calls our duty of delight. Nobody likes dutiful roses. If a husband came home and gave his wife roses and coldly explained that he was only doing his duty, then such a thing isn’t going to be received as well.

So what do I do if on a Sunday morning all I have is duty? I don’t have delight. I don’t want to preach. I don’t want to serve. I’m hurt. I’m wounded. I’m battered. I’m beaten up. My discouragement runs deep. How do I ring the door bell and give flowers of delight?

Piper is correct. The ideal would be to “serve the Lord with gladness.” In fact we are commanded to pastor out of joy instead of compulsion. But is it better to show up empty-handed? Is it better to not pastor at all, not serve the Lord at all, if I cannot do it with gladness? Or is the proper response to mourn the fact that in this moment something is broken and I’m not able to show up to the door with joyful flowers? But I still show up with flowers. I still do my duty. I still preach the word regardless of the season. I think that’s the proper response.

I am commanded to faithfully discharge my ministry no matter the season.

2. I am always preaching above my head.

There have been a few times when I’ve felt really confident in the pulpit. Those were some of the worst sermons I preached. We are never in a position to truly master God’s Word. And on this side of glory, I doubt any of us will ever really be mastered by God’s Word either. While I remain a sinner I’m always going to be preaching over my head.

On occasion we’ll feel a bit more adequate. We will feel like the glory of God isn’t so far above our heads or isn’t too far out of our reach. At other times we’ll feel the fact that we are clay pots and nothing more. Proclaiming what we hope to become isn’t hypocritical. You aren’t a hypocrite if you cannot live up to the ideal that you are hoping for. That isn’t hypocrisy, that’s humanity. Hypocrisy is when you are deliberately and deceptively preaching things that you do not believe and do not care to believe.

But preaching above your head, and preaching of that which you have not yet obtained, isn’t hypocrisy.

So knowing these truths, and a few more deeper truths about the sovereignty of God and the nature of preaching, I walk up the steps and get behind the pulpit and open my Bible and give it everything I’ve got. Some weeks that’s not much. But it’s all I’ve got. I’m confident that God delights to use a jar of clay in such a way. And on occasion the very act of preaching will spark faith and delight in my own heart. And I’ll leave the pulpit a changed man.

This article originally appeared here.

PILOT Teaching Series

Justyn Smith

April 12, 2018

Our children’s ministries physical environments tell a story. When you walk through our environments you’ll get a feeling of airport hangars, vintage travel agencies, global adventure, etc. We’re called “Go Kids” because as our pastor would say, “We’re about the GO!” One of our strategy pillars states that we want to “Be a World Changer.” This challenged us on thinking about what type of kids we want. There is so much we want to teach our kids, but what is something we can continue to revisit on an annual basis that we can integrate into who we are and our theme?

We landed on a teaching series called PILOT.

We want all our kids to become PILOTs. PILOT stands for:

Prepared—I will always be ready to serve God.
Involved—I will give God my best.
Loving—I will love God and others.
Open to God—I will be open to the ways of God.
Team Player—I will focus on the team.

Not only will this become an annual teaching for our kids, but it will become a staple of our weekly children’s ministry by us using this in our services. We will constantly remind kids that we want them to become a PILOT. This will replace our “rules” segment of the service. This helps us focus on what we want them to become instead of what we don’t want them to do—positive reinforcement!

I thought I would attach the lessons for you in case you wanted to do a similar five-week series. Plus, you can see the artwork we used and a few other special things we made up.

PILOT Lesson 1 Large Group
PILOT Lesson 1 Small Group
PILOT Lesson 2 Large Group
PILOT Lesson 2 Small Group
PILOT Lesson 3 Large Group
PILOT Lesson 2 Small Group
PILOT Lesson 4 Large Group
PILOT Lesson 4 Small Group
PILOT Lesson 5 Large Group
PILOT Lesson 5 Small Group

Placemats—Each teaching series we create a placemat that has SOAP on the back, which is what our church uses for a daily devotional life.
Pins—We give our volunteers pins throughout the year as a way of saying “thank you” and it adds some nice bling to their lanyards. Since this series and what it represents is a big deal to our ministry, we felt it warranted a pin.
Pilot Wings—On the last week of the series we handed out pilot wings to the kids to remind them they are on a daily journey to become the best PILOT they can be.

We would love to hear if this series is helpful to you in any way! Thanks for serving kids!

This article originally appeared here.

A Tribute to Mothers Who Send Their Children Into Missions

Lori Wilhite

April 12, 2018

A seismic shift occurs in the landscape of the heart of a mother whose child senses God’s calling to be a missionary. The announcement of this decision creates a displacement of emotions. Thoughts of being thousands of miles apart bring into sudden existence large gaps between pain and pride; between feelings of intense love and deep loss; between apprehension of what is ahead and anticipation of what God will do.

I sat listening in a room filled with mothers of missionaries as they shared their stories. At first their words mirrored that of most mothers whose children were grown and gone, laughing about the fingernail polish stain that remains in the carpet to this day, or the clanging noise the dryer still makes years after the rocks fell out of their little boys’ jean pockets. Each memory was tethered to a story, and each story had exponentially grown in value as the years passed.

From Smiles to Tears

As their stories shifted from past to present, smiles on their faces shifted to tears. Their tears dropped into a mixture of fresh stories and tender conversations as each mother shared her joy, pain, delight, worry and surrender concerning her child who moved to take the gospel to unreached peoples and places.

We have come a long way from mothers standing by the sea, waving goodbye as the ship departed, not knowing whether their child would ever return. Although centuries separate the mothers of yesterday from today, one commonality will never change. No matter the generation, these mothers know what it is like to hold their child’s hand while crossing a street and then to have to let that hand go so their child can cross into foreign lands.

Although I’d love to make this article a tribute to my own mother, who sent both her children and all her grandchildren overseas for a period of time, I believe she’d share the value of it being written to mothers of missionaries everywhere who share different versions of the same story: Their children were sent to be missionaries.

The Missionary Mother’s Journey

A mother of a missionary is invaluable to the movement of the kingdom of God. Her name may never be known, but she has tasted the bittersweetness of sacrifice required to make his name known.

A mother of a missionary ponders in her heart those final moments at the airport checking in more pieces of luggage than people and exchanging never-ending hugs and glances of “this is it.” She knows that no photo can summarize the unspoken depth of emotion in letting her child, and often, grandchildren, go.

A mother of a missionary holds her children tightly in her heart and loosely in her hands. She has raised her child to obey God, not knowing that radical obedience would take her child far away.

A mother of a missionary straddles the emotions of proud apprehension and anxious support. She keeps balance by fiercely clutching a confidence in her child’s calling and the certainty of God’s sovereignty.

A mother of a missionary attempts to reconcile the inner tension she feels, desiring to pray that God will send her child back home, but knowing she needs to pray God will give her child endurance to stay.

A mother of a missionary celebrates with her extended family during holidays, but she can’t wait to snuggle up with technology when that video call comes from her child overseas—even if it means she must patiently hit “call again” as “no connection” repeatedly appears on her screen.

A mother of a missionary lives in the strenuous reality that God’s will does not always equal safety. She understands that sending her child off into the unknown is not a romantic spiritual journey but an everyday battle with the forces of darkness and light.

A mother of a missionary whose child lives in a remote place struggles with the assurance that her child has given to her, that “no news is good news.”

A mother of a missionary blazes trails to the post office to send securely packaged delights and comforts from home to her child who is blazing trails around the globe.

A mother of a missionary knows the costs of surrender to participate in God’s mission. In prayer, she carries the weight of the Great Commission as her child carries his name to those who have never heard.

A mother of a missionary treasures the sincere words from others who say, “I’m praying for your child.”

Mothers of missionaries arrived on this journey from different places.

Some began this journey like Amelia Taylor, who prayed that her infant son, Hudson, would someday become a missionary. Others, like Abigail Judson, mother of Adoniram Judson, are OK with the possibility of their children going into ministry, as long as it’s nearby, but not so thrilled with the idea of missions far away. Still others join the ranks of mothers who feel they have been placed in a crucible and find it too difficult to bear.

No matter how the mother of a missionary arrived on this journey, all paths demand the same rigorous reality. While her child is learning to live in a new culture, she must learn to traverse this new landscape in her heart. She can be confident that this path she now walks is part of an eternal, grand narrative of God using people as vessels to make his name known in all the earth. Her story is part of the mission of God.

This article originally appeared here.

Is This Why Your Sermons Are Falling Flat?

Charles Stone

April 12, 2018

Every week in North America, pastors preach upwards of 400,000 sermons. That excludes Bible studies taught by hundreds of thousands of Sunday school teachers and small group leaders. I’ve delivered in excess of 1,500 sermons and Bible studies myself. But what difference have they made in people’s lives? Do they mostly fall flat? I suppose I won’t really know until I get to heaven. In the meantime, however, I believe I should learn everything I can to make my teaching and preaching stickier. And nothing sticks unless those who listen to us engage their brains. In this post I share insights about how brain-based preaching can help us avoid the sermons falling flat issue.

Unfortunately, many pastors seldom consider how brain processes influence learning. It’s a missing link in today’s preaching and teaching. I believe it would behoove every pastor to learn how God made our brain and how it affects learning.

In the last 20 years we’ve learned amazing new insights about how God created our brain and how it’s involved in learning. With the advent of the functional MRI (fMRI), scientists can see what brain neighborhoods activate when we think certain things, pay attention, learn and feel emotion. These new insights can pay great dividends to pastors who learn about the brain.

Sometime back I watched a webinar on making learning sticky by Dr. Grace Chang, a neuroscientist trained at U.C.L.A. She began by defining one of the two types of memory, declarative memory. Non-declarative memory is the other kind (think riding a bike, you can’t describe how you do it, you just do it).

Declarative memory, in our context, would be the kind we would want to foster when we teach. We want our listeners to be able to consciously recall the biblical content of our sermons so that the Holy Spirit can take that truth and transform their beliefs and behavior.

Dr. Chang said that three main brain processes compose declarative memory.

Acquire the information (getting it in, called encoding). An example would be what you do to get your sermon into the minds of your listeners (i.e., the spoken sermon itself, visuals you use, dramas to reinforce the point).
Retain the information (keeping it in, called storing). This happens when your listeners actually remember what you said instead of forgetting it when they walk out of the church.
Retrieve the information (using it, called accessing). This is simply application. You want your listeners not only to remember what you said, but to apply the truth in their daily lives as well.

Brain-based preaching is an intentional process by which you consider how people’s brains process information and learn. When we keep the brain in mind and in particular these three memory processes, I believe our sermons will become stickier and result in greater life transformation.

If you want to read a great article on brain-based learning, I recommend this one.

Next week when you finalize your sermon, take five minutes and ask yourself what you could do to incorporate each of these three brain processes in your sermon to make it stickier.

In fact, don’t wait until next week. What is one small brain-based change that immediately comes to your mind right now that could make this week’s sermon stickier?

I wrote an entire book on how insights about the brain can improve our leadership. It’s called Brain Savvy Leaders: The Science of Significant Ministry. You can get it here.

Arabs Are Looking to the Heavens to Find the Gospel

Bob Ditmer

April 12, 2018

From Syria to Iran, Palestine to Egypt, spreading the gospel is difficult. Many Middle Eastern countries refuse to admit Christian missionaries. Many who do get in face grave dangers. In many places, converting to Christianity is against the law. Even within families, showing an interest in a religion other than Islam can result in banishment or worse.

Free will might not be a reality on the ground in the Arab world, but religious pluralism is in the air…on satellite TV.

Since the mid-’90s a host of Christian television programmers have been beaming the gospel into the Arab world from outer space. And it’s getting a reaction.

In 2009, Leading The Way‘s satellite television channel, Kingdom Sat, started broadcasting into the Muslim world. It boasts 256,058 responses this year alone from viewers in the Middle East. For security reasons, LTW does not reveal the names of the viewers who contact them. Here is how their follow-up team described their interactions.

“U” from Egypt has many questions about Christianity and the Bible. He has been texting us but is afraid to meet the follow-up team. Please pray that he will see God’s love for him.”

“A” from Algeria is a convert who has been contacting us for a while. He feels lonely after his family left him because of his faith. He requested prayers for his wife to know Christ and for his protection. He wants to get baptized soon.”

“M” is a convert from Jordan who has been discipled by our follow-up teams and was baptized. She has been under pressure from her family and requested prayers to find a job outside of Jordan. Her mother has been threatening to kill her and is carefully watching her. Please lift her up in prayer.”

They also get email from those brave enough to reach out.

From Morocco – “I was a radical Muslim and I believed in jihad and killing anyone who does not follow the laws of Islam. After watching THE KINGDOM SAT…I wanted to tell you that I have decided to follow Jesus.”

From Algeria – “I accepted Christ as my Savior but I’ve never met another Christian nor attended a church… I’m so thankful I got the chance to finally talk to a Christian through your channel.”

From Iraq – “My uncle brought sheikhs to convince me to turn back to Islam, but they couldn’t win the discussion. I knew my Bible and your programs enabled me to answer their questions.”

During Easter, Kingdom Sat carried live church services and streamed them on Facebook. The programs raised questions from Muslim viewers about the cross and the resurrection of Jesus, according to Farid Garas of Kingdom Sat TV.

The Big Win in the War Against Sex Trafficking You Didn’t Hear About

Bob Ditmer

April 12, 2018

As victims of sex trafficking and family members who have lost loved ones to the industry looked on, President Donald Trump signed a bill to combat sex trafficking on Wednesday.

The law, which passed Congress with near unanimous bipartisan support, will let state law enforcement officials pursue websites that knowingly host sex trafficking content, and allow victims to sue such sites for damages.

It’s the latest action by Washington to crackdown on sex rings.

Last week, federal authorities seized the classified advertising website Backpage.com. A 93-count indictment charged several of its top officials with facilitating prostitution and revealing details about victims including minors as young as 14.

Backpage has been in the crosshairs of Congress for some time. Last year, the Senate issued a bipartisan investigative report saying that Backpage had altered ads on its site to remove evidence of human trafficking. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children claims Backpage was behind nearly three-quarters of all the public reports it received on child trafficking.

“This isn’t just about Backpage. There are hundreds of others in this space, this online marketplace,” Representative Ann Wagner, Republican of Missouri, who sponsored the bill in the House told the New York Times. “To see the impact without this legislation being signed into law yet, in terms of going after these cesspools of crime, is absolutely amazing.”

After Congress passed the bill, Craigslist, the online classifieds site, removed its “personals” section perhaps proving Rep. Wagner’s point.

Yvonne Ambrose was one of those on hand for the signing in the Oval Office. The Chicago woman lost her 16-year-old daughter, who was murdered by a man who used Backpage.com to buy her for underaged sex, according to Cleveland.com.

Through tears, she thanked President Trump for signing the bill. “It means so much to our family,” Ambrose said. “Hopefully there won’t be any more people who have to endure that pain.”

Still, the bipartisan crackdown on sex trafficking is being criticized in some quarters.

After Backpage was seized, the Women’s March group said on Twitter that the result was “an absolute crisis” for sex workers seeking safe communication with clients.

“Women’s March stands in solidarity with the sex workers’ rights movement,” a spokeswoman for the organization explained on Tuesday. “We believe a world is possible in which no one is trafficked or enslaved, and in which sex workers are not criminalized and ostracized by the state and our movements.”

And Huffpost.com called the bill “controversial” citing critics who said it conflates voluntary sex work with victims trafficked into the industry and actually makes sex workers less safe.

Carol Robles-Román disagrees. The former chief executive and president of Legal Momentum says she has documented more than three dozen news reports of people who were murdered after being listed on Backpage.

Several prominent social conservative leaders also supported the legislation, including Penny Nance, the president of Concerned Women for America, an organization of conservative Christian women with half a million members nationwide.

“The President is standing up to Silicon Valley and with victims of abuse,” Ms. Nance said. “Evangelical women see this as ‘caring for the least of these’ and strongly supported this legislation to the point that we were able to thwart efforts by big money media to sink the bill.”

Students Protest the Killing of a Fourth of Their Generation

Bob Ditmer

April 12, 2018

On Wednesday, pro-life students from hundreds of high schools and colleges across America participated in the National Pro-Life Walkout to protest abortion in the U.S. Event organizers also called for the defunding of Planned Parenthood:

“On Wednesday, April 11th, we will walk out of our classes for 17 minutes of silence and prayer. We will stand silently outside outside honoring the 10 children who will violently die during that time at a Planned Parenthood abortion facility. We will rally and demand the end of Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funded empire. We will kneel and pray for the end of legal abortion in our nation.”

The event’s website warns lawmakers that the “pro-life generation” will not stand for the killing of a fourth of their generation.

The idea began after California high school students expressed concern over a double-standard on school walkouts following the gun-control student walkout in March in response to the school shooting in Florida.

Brandon Gillespie of Rocklin High School in Sacramento, California, spearheaded the event with organizational support from Student for Life of America. He said the pro-life walkout was inspired by Juliene Benzel, his history teacher, who was put on paid administrative leave after asking if the school would allow a pro-life walkout as it did the gun-control student walkout.

Gillespie said they did not.

“They are not giving me any accommodation at all, except for the district policy of not punishing students for protesting,” he said. “That is not the accommodation that I asked for; I asked for the same accommodation as the anti-gun protest, that teachers would be flexible in their lesson planning, and also for the availability of equipment that the anti-gun protesters were allowed to use. It just confirms for me that there is a political double standard, at least in my school district.”

A Rocklin Unified School District spokesperson told CNS News that while pro-life students will not face disciplinary action for participating, the school will not officially sanction the event because it isn’t “viewpoint neutral.”

By contrast, the district claimed that the gun-control walkout qualified as a “special event” because it was a “viewpoint neutral” “remembrance activity.” However, CNS News notes that the gun walkout did advocate specific policy viewpoints, such as support for banning high-capacity magazines and opposition to concealed carry reciprocity legislation.

Rocklin High School officials told local media outlets the National Pro-Life Walkout was not a walkout but a “voluntary remembrance.”

On Monday, the Life Legal Defense Foundation sent a letter to Rocklin High School stating it was in violation of legal precedent against viewpoint discrimination, and warning that it would pursue legal action if the school attempted to hold Gillespie accountable in ways that students participating in the gun-control walkout were not.

Benzel and several of her students say there should be a bigger national conservation, not only about gun-control, but also for free speech rights. If people have the go-ahead to walk out of school for gun-control, then it’s only right that other issues, such as abortion, can get sanctioned walkout days as well.

Sponsors of the walkout included Crossroads, Family Research Council, Kansans for Life of Douglas County, Massachusetts Family Institute, Save the Storks, Oklahoma Teens for Life and Californians for Life.

10 Lessons I Have Learned After 10 Years of Pastoring

Jeremy Roberts

April 11, 2018

This month marks 10 years since I transitioned from being an intern at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, to taking the role of Senior Pastor at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Lenoir City, TN. Well…“Senior Pastor” was a funny title. There was a part-time secretary and myself on staff when I got to the church. Sixty-nine people were in attendance and I was so excited to pastor them.

Over the years, I have pastored three churches, and served as intentional interim pastor at one church. I have served small, medium, and large attendance churches. Here are 10 lessons I’ve learned over the past decade:

Saying “no” is necessary and ok.

This article is going live the week before Easter 2018. This is literally the busiest week of the year for me.

I was kindly asked by a church member to attend a dinner event one night this week. I would have loved to go, but I needed to say “no.” Every time you say “yes” to one thing, you are saying “no” to something else.

As time has progressed over these past 10 years, I’ve learned it is necessary to have a strong backbone and say “no” from time-to-time.

Most church members are really loving and nice.

Often, at pastors’ conferences, you hear this consoling spirit of “poor us” kinds of attitudes. The truth is, most church members are really sweet. All pastors have served as undershepherd to some stray sheep. We’ve all heard sheep that proverbially bleat and distract. For the most part, though, church members are loving and respectful.

Pastoring a large church doesn’t take all of your problems away. It presents different types of challenges.

I grew up in large churches, and that’s where I am most comfortable. For some reason, I used to think that if I could pastor a large church, I’d have less problems. That’s simply not the case. The challenges are just different.

Most families are more messed up than their façade indicates.

Year after year, it never ceases to amaze me how a family that seems so well-put-together is, behind the scenes, completely dysfunctional. I’ve learned over the past decade that pastors need to more intentionally teach biblical conflict resolution for the sake of saving families.

The financial struggles of churches stem from the debt load congregants are carrying.

Most church members (and Americans, for that matter) live paycheck-to-paycheck. Their debts are piling because student loan debt is awful, people think car payments are necessary (they are not…you can buy a $1,500 car and it’ll get you to work), they take trips they can’t afford and put them on a card, etc. More people need to be taught stewardship. This has become clear these last 10 years.

Porn is killing families.

Over this decade of pastoring, I’ve met with so many families falling apart due to porn. The ubiquity of cell phones has made porn more accessible. Sadly, it is not addressed often. The culture, however, addresses the need for sex all day every day.

Applicable Resource: 4 Ways for Every Family to Have Victory Over Pornography

The Internet is still the wild wild west, and churches are not even close to figuring out how to leverage it for missional impact and local church growth.

I really think we are on the verge of a revival that will stem from leveraging the Internet for Great Commission impact. However, how that is done is still a big question mark.

Applicable Resource: 5 Reasons I Believe We’re on the Verge of Worldwide Revival, Thanks to the Holy Spirit Using the Internet

Pastoral care is underrated.

At my goodbye reception for Church of the Highlands, a microphone was passed around the gym. It was so encouraging to hear how I had impacted peoples’ lives. The number one thing people kept mentioning was when I visited, called, wrote them, officiated a loved one’s funeral, etc.

I thought it’d be about the growth strategies implemented or financial stability we experienced, but when you get down to brass tacks…people want to be loved and have their pastor simply care for them.

In my short tenure (thus far) at Brushy Creek, this has continued to be proven true. Pastoral care is underrated.

You can accomplish less in a year than you want, and more in a decade than could ever be imagined.

Looking back, I have accomplished way more in my first decade of pastoring than I thought I would or could, but there was not a single year that reaped the impact I wanted. This is a life lesson to pastor with the marathon mentality.

It is hard to explain to non-pastors about the weekly grind of sermon preparation.

After preparing 500ish Sunday morning sermons, the thought of that much prayer, reading, research, writing, editing, etc., is exhausting. The only profession that gives as many “speeches” is politics, and most of those folks repeat very similar speeches at every location, plus they have speech writers.

Working on a sermon is an unending trickle from the head to the heart. I love it. It is one of my favorite things to do in life. It is also the biggest grind of my life. After 10 years of pastoring, this has become more and more apparent.

Applicable Resource: Seven Tips to Save Time During Sermon Preparation

These last 10 years have been such a blessing. I pray the next 10 (if the Lord tarries) make an even greater impact for the Lord’s Kingdom.

This article originally appeared here.

3 Warning Signs You Are Responding With Pride to a Leader’s Fall

Eric Geiger

April 11, 2018

People love to watch great and mighty buildings fall. We find it fascinating that a structure that took years to build can come down in a few seconds. Some arrive hours early for a scheduled implosion to get a good view of the devastating seconds when the building topples inward. Those who love to watch implosions cheer when they occur, and then they get in their cars and drive away until the next scheduled implosion is announced. But people are not buildings, and we should not treat their implosions the same way. As I wrote here, we should respond with prayer, grief, humility, fear, resolve and hope.

We must not respond with pride. We must not look at the fall of a leader with haughty eyes, for by doing so we welcome our own demise. Here are three warning signs you are responding with pride to a leader’s fall:

1. You actually like it.

Now, I cannot tell if people actually like the news of a leader falling. I cannot discern someone else’s motives or heart. It is hard enough to discern my own at times. But it seems, it really seems, that some like it when a ministry leader falls. If some like the news of a leader falling, perhaps it is because their position is now open. Or maybe it makes them feel stronger. Or maybe they love to say “Told you so” about someone they had expressed concern over in the past. If you secretly like the news of a leader falling, you are filled with a dangerous amount of hubris.

2. You insist this will never happen to you.

If you look at a leader’s fall and think it won’t happen to you, you should be very careful. Those are not my words. Those are from the Bible. The apostle Paul wrote to believers living in Corinth with this caution: “Whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall.” If you think it will not happen to you, it is a clear indication that you believe there is something in you, something about you, that keeps you strong. But we are not the ones who can keep ourselves from falling. Only God is able to keep us from falling.

3. You point to the leader’s theological tribe.

If you rush to point to a leader’s theological tribe as the culprit for the fall, you are simultaneously saying you are better and your tribe is immune, which is not true. Not at all. Implosions transcend theological tribe. Ministry leaders from all types of backgrounds have failed in their personal holiness. To use someone else’s fall to validate your position is pride; it’s also unloving and unhelpful.

Responding with humility is important because of what the Scripture teaches us: “Pride comes before destruction, and an arrogant spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).

This article originally appeared here.

The New Realities Your Students Are Facing

Jeremy Zach

April 11, 2018

The world is changing.

Teenage culture is always changing.

And what today’s teens are struggling with will always be changing.

It’s tough being a teen these days.

Here’s a list of a few new realities today’s teens are facing:

Cyberbullying is drastically on the rise. Somewhere between 4 percent and 25 percent of teens have been cyberbullied. Now if you work with teens, you know that more teens are being cyberbullied than 25 percent. What teen wants to publicly admit they are bullied? Not many. I would say that well over 60 percent have either been cyberbullied or are participating in the cyberbullying. Being cyberbullied means you are bullied on social networking sites, text message, email, picture/video chat and instant message.

Decrease in adult support. One of the biggest development needs for today’s teens is that they need more healthy, trusted and caring loving adults in their life. The ongoing adult support and guidance offered for today’s teens is on a big downward slope. Dr. Comer, Professor of Child Psychiatry at Yale University, commented that this decline in adult support is a huge crisis in our country.

Exposure to porn earlier. With 12 percent of all websites on the Internet being pornographic and 2.5 billion emails per day pornographic in nature—that is 8 percent of all emails—I think it is safe to say all kids have seen or looked at porn. Studies have found that the average kid first saw porn at age 11. It’s imperative that youth ministries talk about porn to students and parents. Most Christian parents are in denial that their son or daughter has seen porn.

9 Marks of an Unhealthy Church

Kevin DeYoung

April 11, 2018

Thanks to Mark Dever, many of us have become well acquainted with the 9 Marks of a Healthy Church. While these were never meant to be the last word on everything a church should be or do, the nine marks have been helpful in reminding Christians (and pastors especially) of the necessary substance we often forget in an age fixated on style. In one sense, the nine signs of an unhealthy church could simply be the opposite of all that makes for a healthy church, so that unhealthy churches ignore membership and discipline and expository preaching and all the rest.

But the signs of an unhealthy church are not always so obvious. It’s possible for your church to teach and understand all the right things and still be a terribly unhealthy place. No doubt, there are dozens of indicators that a church has become dysfunctional and diseased. But let’s limit ourselves to nine.

Signs of an Unhealthy Church

Here are nine marks that your church—even one that believes the Bible, preaches the gospel and embraces good ecclesiology—may be unhealthy.

1. The more peripheral the sermon topic, the more excited the people become. One of the things I’ve always loved about University Reformed Church is that the sermons they love most are the ones that deal with the most central themes of the Bible. They love to hear about sin and salvation, about the glory of God, about providence, about Christ and the cross. It’s not that they never hear (or dislike) sermons on the end times or social issues or financial stewardship or marriage or parenting, but they seem most passionate about the messages that major on guilt, grace and gratitude. I’m concerned when a congregation gets tired of hearing about the Trinity, the atonement, the new birth or the resurrection and wants to hear another long series on handling stress or the 70 weeks in Daniel.

2. The church staff does not enjoy coming to work. Every job has its ups and downs. Every office will have tension from time to time. But lay leaders should take note when staff members seem sullen, unhappy and have to drag themselves to church every day. Do the members of your church staff like to be around each other? Do they ever talk to each other as friends in the fellowship hall? Do you ever see them laughing together? If no, this is one of the signs of an unhealthy church. There may be burnout afoot, or conflict, or something worse.

3. The pastor and his wife do not get along. I’m not talking about the regular tiffs and periodic tough times every couple endures. I’m talking about a marriage that has grown cold and loveless, a relationship that is perfunctory and lacking in passion. Every church should have some mechanism in place to ask the pastor and his wife how their marriage is going (or not). Churches can survive a lot of conflict, but rarely will they be healthy, happy places if the pastor and his wife are quietly (or loudly) unhealthy and unhappy.

4. Almost no one knows where the money goes. Churches handle their finances in different ways. As churches get bigger it can be harder, or even unwise, for everyone in the church to have a say in the allocation of every dollar. And yet, when it comes to finances, erring on the side of transparency is rarely a bad idea. At the very least, there must be more than a small group of people who know (and have a say) in where the money goes. Don’t make the pastor’s salary a matter of national security.

5. The leadership team never changes or always changes. Both are warning signs. On the one hand, churches become ingrown when there is never any new blood among the leaders. If your elders, deacons, trustees, small group leaders, Sunday school teachers, VBS coordinators and worship team members are the same now as they were during the Reagan administration, you have a problem. Maybe the old leaders are power hungry, maybe no one is being trained up, maybe no one new has come to your church in 20 years. All are big problems. On the other hand, if the elders are never interested in serving another term, and the staff members never stick around more than a couple years, and the volunteers only volunteer once, the culture of your church may be too confining, too full of conflict or too unforgiving of honest mistakes.

6. No one is ever raised up from the church for pastoral ministry or sent from the church into missionary service. Good preaching inspires young men to preach. Clarity about the gospel stirs up men and women to share the gospel with those who have not heard. Smaller churches may not send out workers every year, but the congregation that almost never produces pastors and missionaries is almost always showing clear signs of an unhealthy church.

7. There is a bottle neck in decision making. This may be the congregation’s fault. Some church members insist on approving every decision, from staff hiring to the time of the worship service to the proverbial color of the carpet. If everyone has to vote on every decision, your church will never be bigger than the number of people who can knowledgeably vote on every decision (which is pretty small). The bottle neck can all be the pastor’s fault. In some churches nothing happens without the pastor’s personal approval and direct oversight—a sure-fire recipe for turf wars, stunted growth and the driving away of gifted leaders.

Feed Them! 7 Volunteer Food Ideas

Corinne Noble

April 11, 2018

I am a huge foodie! I LOVE TO EAT! In fact, I’m reasonably certain that they missed a sixth love language: food. Food is my love language! I love to be fed and to feed others. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one out there. I have found that volunteers tend to show up more often and are definitely motivated by food. I am a strong believer that there should be good food at all meetings, parties, events, services, small groups or any other time you get people together. With that being said, here are some different ways I use food/drinks to motivate volunteers and show them I appreciate their hard work.

1. Breakfast (when they serve)

It’s hard getting volunteers to show up on Sunday mornings, especially if they have kids or are attending/serving in multiple services. It’s even harder remembering to grab something to eat in the chaos of trying to get everyone out the door. That’s why I believe in offering breakfast for our volunteers and their kids. It doesn’t have to be a huge pancake breakfast every Sunday. We switch things up by offering different options each week. We might buy donuts or bagels at a nice place once a month. The other weeks breakfast is low key. You can offer pop tarts, granola bars, protein bars, cereal bars and on occasion fruit. Think easy, cheap, and won’t go bad in one week. It doesn’t have to break the bank, and it will take one more thing off your volunteers’ plates on Sunday mornings.

2. Meeting Food

Meetings are well…meetings. They can be boring at times and people will try to avoid coming. I believe meetings should have the best food you can afford. I try to avoid the over-used option of pizza if at all possible. Sometimes, I can afford to spring for something a little more expensive and I purchase catering from a local restaurant or a chain restaurant. Look into the restaurants around your church/home and you will be surprised that the catering menu is affordable at some of them. If I can’t afford to buy the food, I make it or find someone who will.

3. Cook it/Bake it

I actually love cooking and baking so this is an easy option for me. I have made pastas, soups, chilis, nacho bars and other cheap options for food and people loved it. I have found that people really like homemade desserts. I almost always make homemade cookies or other desserts for meetings and other volunteer events. I even make tubs of Christmas cookies for my volunteers most years and they ask for them every year. If you aren’t a cook or baker, find the people in your church who are and ask them to help! Chances are you will find someone who loves it and will be more than willing to help you out.

4. Allergy-friendly Options

In today’s world, everyone seems to be allergic to something. It’s a real bummer when it comes to food, but it doesn’t mean you can’t offer it. We have several people on our volunteer team with allergies. I make an effort to always have something available that they can eat. It really means a lot to them when you think of them and provide something so they can still be a part.

5. Events

We know that kids’ ministry has a lot of events! We need a lot of volunteers to staff those events to make them successful. At events, I try to offer free dinner/breakfast for volunteers. If the food is really kid-friendly and not something adults would enjoy, I buy food just for them. If it is an over-night event, I’ll make a coffee run for all my volunteers. Sometimes it comes out of my pocket because it’s not in the budget and I’m OK with that. I love blessing my volunteers.

6. Take them out

Make a point of taking at least a couple volunteers to coffee each month. You could even invite them and their whole family over for a meal at your house. Take time to invest individually in your volunteers and you will see them even more committed to serving in your ministry.

7. Gift Cards

Who doesn’t love an unexpected gift card? It doesn’t have to be a lot either. Find out what your volunteers love to eat/drink and purchase a $5 or $10 gift card for them. I like to give a gift card to a volunteer when they serve more than usual or really take ownership of a piece of the ministry or event. You can probably work a couple small gift cards into your budget each month, and it will mean a lot to your volunteers when they receive one.

We will never be able to fully repay our volunteers for the time, love and energy they put into serving our kids, but a little food will go a long way in showing them we care.

What am I missing? Is there a food option or other incentive you provide for your volunteers that they have loved?

This article originally appeared here.

Bill Hybels’ Accusers Are Not Ready to Move On

Megan Briggs

April 11, 2018

Bill Hybels' Accusers — Ianphilpot at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Following Bill Hybels’ announcement that he would be resigning from his position at Willow Creek months before his previously intended retirement date in October, Nancy Beach, one of the former leaders at Willow Creek who has accused Hybels of sexual misconduct, says despite Hybels’ announcement, the church (both “Willow and beyond”) is not ready to move on.

“The goal for me was never connected to Bill resigning. The goal is to usher in the truth, to reveal an abuse of power that spans over 30 years, with women who are scarred and in some cases, terrified to come forward,” Beach writes in a post on her blog titled “Why We Can’t Move On”.

Beach is one of two former leaders at Willow who came forward with accusations against Hybels. Beach and Vonda Dyer told their stories to the Chicago Tribune, which broke the story of a years-long investigation to the general public just last month. Now Beach and Dyer have both written about Willow Creek’s responses to the allegations becoming public on personal blogs.

Nancy Beach Responds

Beach emphasized the need for the church to continue hearing the truth. “There can be no healing until the truth is all brought into the light,” she writes. According to Beach, “there’s more to come,” and she admonishes those paying attention not to “ignore the voices of these women or they will be abused all over again.”

Beach takes issue with the way Hybels announced his resignation last night. “I heard no confession of deceit or admission of guilt for sexual misconduct. For the church and its leaders to move on there must be full ownership of what was sinful and flawed in the process. Only then can we hope for healing and restoration, for light to come from the darkness,” she writes.

Vonda Dyer Responds

On April 8, 2018, Dyer published a post to her blog in response to the Chicago Tribune article. She outlines in more detail the account she gave the Tribune reporters. Dyer also says, “In July of last year, I became aware for the first time that many of the situations I had encountered with Bill had also occurred with other women spanning more than 30 years.”

Dyer claims in addition to kissing her and making sexual comments about her, Hybels also displayed similar flirtatious behavior with other women on staff. She confronted Hybels about his flirtatious behavior with five women in particular in 2000. A couple years after the confrontation, Dyer says she was asked to move to a different department and then eventually fired. “I was given the opportunity to write a resignation letter that painted the situation as my choice to leave. I was required to have it approved by HR, which I did,” Dyer writes. She also claims a Willow Creek team member visited her in Texas a couple years after her firing and confessed she had been involved in “a plot to remove me [Dyer] from her position.”

John Ortberg Responds

Following the Tribune article, the leadership at Willow Creek held two “family meetings” to explain the situation to the congregation. The content of those meetings recapped the steps the elder board of the church took once they found out about the accusations roughly four years ago. Pam Orr, the head of the elder board, insists the elders took every step necessary to investigate the allegations and believe Hybels to be cleared of the accusations.

However, there are those who believe the investigation was mishandled. John Ortberg, who became aware of an alleged affair between Hybels and an unidentified woman, wrote about his concerns in a post to his blog. Essentially, Ortberg’s concerns rest on what he believes was not a truly independent investigation, which is what the elder board of Willow Creek claim to have facilitated through the use of a third party lawyer. Ortberg says the firm chosen to conduct the investigation was on retainer by the leadership of Willow Creek and cannot be considered “independent.” The unidentified woman who disclosed the alleged affair later retracted her story.

Betty Schmidt Responds

Betty Schmidt served as an elder at Willow Creek for over 30 years. She was on the elder board during the investigation period. On April 10, 2018, Schmidt published a blog post saying her words concerning Dyer’s accusations against Hybels have “been mishandled by the Willow Creek Elders in two ‘Family Meetings’ held on March 23 and April 2, 2018.” Schmidt points to an FAQ document Willow Creek published (which has since been taken down) about the investigation that she claims misquotes her testimony.

Schmidt includes the statement in question from Willow Creek’s FAQ page:

During the meeting, Betty Schmidt was asked if, over the course of her 30 years on the Elder Board, she had ever heard any allegations of this type brought against Bill. She replied “not an inkling.” She then remembered that one time a woman came forward and claimed to have kissed Bill, but Betty couldn’t recall the woman’s name. When the current Elders asked Betty if the previous Elder Board had discussed this claim with Bill at the time, Betty said no, that the woman was embarrassed for her actions and had asked that the issue not be discussed with Bill. However, recently Betty brought a different version of the story to the Chicago Tribune. She identified the woman as Vonda Dyer, a former Willow Creek staff member.”

Then she refutes five points of the statement in particular:

1. I did not say I never had an inkling about whether allegations of misconduct had ever been brought against Bill. It’s precisely because I had such concerns (which went beyond an ‘inkling’) that I wanted to meet with the elders in the first place.

2. I didn’t ‘suddenly’ remember Vonda’s story; that story was a primary reason I asked to talk with the elders. I didn’t say that I couldn’t recall the woman’s name. I knew it was Vonda Dyer. It is not credible to think I could have forgotten.

3. I did not say that the woman (Vonda) “claimed to have kissed Bill.” Vonda did not initiate the kiss. Bill did. This is what Vonda told me. This is what I told the elders.

4. I did not say that “the woman was embarrassed for her actions and had asked that the issue not be discussed with Bill.” I would never have said that because I knew the truth. The reason I did not bring it to the elder board at the time Vonda shared it with me is because she asked me not to, believing she had handled it according to Matthew 18:15 by discussing it with Bill directly the following morning. I agreed with her assessment and honored her request.

5. I did not change my story when interviewed by the Chicago Tribune. Vonda’s story as printed in the Tribune is fully consistent with how I heard it almost 20 years ago.

One thing is prevalent in the responses from Beach, Dyer, Ortberg and Schmidt, and that is the consensus that women’s voices need to be heard. Schmidt writes, “Women need to know that if they muster the courage to tell their stories, church leadership will listen with compassion and fairness. That has not happened here. Yet. I hope and pray it will.”

Further Reading on this subject can be found here:

Bill Hybels Announces Resignation, Cites ‘harmful accusations’

UPDATE: John Ortberg Responds to Bill Hybels Accusations

Baby Gets Second Chance at Life Thanks to Baby Box

Bob Ditmer

April 11, 2018

For the second time in five months, an infant was left in a baby box at a volunteer fire station near Michigan City, Indiana.

Lt. Chuck Kohler of the Coolspring Township Volunteer Fire Department, said everything worked as it is supposed to and he was on scene tending to the baby less than a minute after receiving a page at 7:05 p.m. Sunday that the box’s alarms had been triggered.

The baby appeared healthy and was taken to an area hospital to be cared for. The infant’s umbilical cord was still attached. “Baby Grace,” as firefighters have dubbed the child, was placed in the custody of the Indiana Department of Child Services. Firefighters declined to provide the gender, age or other details about the child.

“I don’t think there’s a word for the emotion,” Kohler said during a news conference Monday at the fire station.

“I was happy, ecstatic to hear the crying, to know the baby is breathing,” Kohler said. “It was exciting, an adrenaline rush that this is really happening.”

Last November, Chief Mick Pawlik found a newborn baby girl in the station’s box, which was installed almost two years ago. The girl, who firefighters dubbed “Baby Hope,” is with a family that’s going through the adoption process.

All 50 states have Safe Haven laws that designate locations where mothers can anonymously leave a child with staff that can provide immediate care. Depending on the state, designated safe haven locations may include health care clinics, police stations, fire stations, emergency medical technicians, churches and other “safe” places a state deems acceptable. As of last year, 3,317 babies have been surrendered at safe havens nationwide.

But only Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio have baby boxes where an infant can be left in no one’s immediate care. Baby boxes are safety incubators that resemble night deposit boxes at bank buildings. A person surrendering a child can place the baby in the box by opening a door on the outside of the safe haven, laying the baby on a heated mattress, closing the door and leaving.

The box isn’t without controversy because the infants are left alone, but the box is heated and secure, and opening it from the outside of the station triggers the department’s pager system. The alarm is how Lt. Kohler was able to arrive so quickly.

The only other baby box in Indiana is at a fire station near Fort Wayne. It’s the same station where Monica Kelsey was given up by her mother as a newborn and where she is now a firefighter. She’s also the founder of Safe Haven Baby Boxes.

“There are some moms that will go to the hospital. There are some moms that will walk into this fire station and hand that child over,” said Kelsey. “But we also know that there are some moms that don’t want their faces seen and this box is the reason why it’s working.”

As a dad of five, Kohler says he wants to thank baby Grace’s parents for placing the infant somewhere safe.

“We don’t know the situation, but to make this choice, to be strong enough to make this choice, is wonderful,” said Kohler.

Bill Hybels Announces Resignation, Cites ‘Harmful Accusations’

Megan Briggs

April 11, 2018

Bill Hybels, founder and leader of Willow Creek Church in South Barrington, Illinois, announced he is accelerating the date of planned retirement from October of this year to today. He made the announcement at a family meeting for Willow Creek members on April 10, 2018.

“I have decided to accelerate my planned retirement date from October of this year to tonight.” In addition to stepping down from leading the church, he has also “decided to step out of my usual teaching and hosting roles at the upcoming Global Leadership Summit.”

Hybels said the news of the allegations of sexual misconduct that broke in the Chicago Tribune recently lead to this decision. Hybels maintains the accusations against him are false, and while he believes the congregation of Willow Creek has accepted his testimony on the matter, “some in the wider Christian community continue to be confused and conflicted.” This confusion is distracting the leadership team of Willow Creek from being able to focus fully on the work of the ministry.

While Hybels maintains he did not commit the actions he is accused of committing, he said this time has lent itself to self-reflection. He shared three things he regrets doing.

First, my first response to some of these recent accusations was anger. I confess to feeling very angry these last few weeks as I watched harmful accusations fly around without accountability. I felt attacked and knew that my loved ones and this church family would be affected. I sincerely wish my initial response had been one of listening and humble reflection. If I could go back, I would have chosen to listen first, and then to seek to learn and understand. I apologize for a response that was defensive, instead of one that invited conversation and learning.

Secondly, I realize now that in certain settings and circumstances in the past I communicated things that were perceived in ways I did not intend, at times making people feel uncomfortable. I was blind to this dynamic for far too long. For that I’m very sorry.

Thirdly, I too often placed myself in situations that would have been far wiser to avoid. I was, at times, naive about the dynamics those situations created. I’m sorry for the lack of wisdom on my part. I commit to never putting myself in similar situations in the future.

Moving forward, Hybels reiterated the original plan to have Heather Larson and Steve Carter replace him. “Heather and Steve have been functioning in their new roles since last October,” Hybels explains and although they were officially going to take over as Lead Pastor and Lead Teaching Pastor, respectively, in October, they will instead be taking over sooner. As far as the Willow Creek Association and the Global Leadership Summit is concerned, Hybels said CEO Tom DeVries and Board Chair Dick DeVos “will continue to expand the reach and impact of the Global Summit all over the world.”

As far as what the immediate future holds for Hybels himself, he said he has employed wise counselors, friends and family members to help him through a time of “humble reflection” as he steps down from his leadership position. After this time of reflection, however, Hybels intends to rejoin the congregation he started. “Willow will always be my home church,” Hybels said.

Pam Orr, the head of the elder board of Willow Creek, also addressed the congregation last night.

Over the past few weeks, the Elders have been in the process of carefully discerning next steps in regard to new information that surfaced in the media. Over the weekend, Bill informed the Elders of his decision to move up the date of his retirement. Although we are deeply saddened, for so many reasons, by the circumstances surrounding the end of Bill’s tenure, we accept and see the wisdom in his decision. We thank God that He uses ordinary people to do His good work. And we are grateful that Bill listened to God’s call on his life and served the church, and God’s Kingdom, for the last 42 years.

Heather Larson, the new Lead Pastor, had a message specifically for the women in the congregation.

I know many of you are confused or frustrated. Some of the language you have heard in the media does not resonate with your experience or what you know to be true of our church. I want to assure you we can at the same time respect someone’s story and stand up for our own. You are strong. You have your own voice.

Larson also articulated the leadership is “radically committed to a healthy environment where we can work and serve together… We will continue to build a strong and healthy culture where all of us, women and men, are fully able to live out the potential of who God has created us to be.”

10 Signs We Might Think We Are More Important Than We Are

Chuck Lawless

April 10, 2018

To be honest, I don’t know any leaders who don’t struggle at some point with ego. The problem is that ego is like a trickle of water—what starts out small erodes the surface a bit, grows in volume and creates a problem before we ever recognize it is happening. Here are some signs of a growing ego, to which we’re all susceptible (beginning with me…):

We quietly weave our achievements into conversations. We don’t want to make a show of ourselves, but we don’t want anyone to miss what we’ve done, either.
We tweet about our accomplishments. Even a tweet that starts out as thanksgiving to God can be a backhanded way to brag.
We get angry when we’re not invited to significant meetings. It’s hard for us to fathom why we wouldn’t be included; after all, we have much to offer.
We drop names whenever possible. The names we drop may be someone we’ve met only once, but no one else needs to know that minor detail.
We initiate “useful” relationships with others we think are important. Not only do we want to be associated with them, but we also view them as a means to meet others.
We talk more about ourselves than others when we pray. Our requests are often self-centered, and they precede our requests for others.
We’re seldom wrong. Even when it seems that we are, we have an explanation that protects our ego.
We’re quick to point out the faults of others. Name any person we know, and we can come up with at least one weakness we’ve seen.
We don’t listen to our spouse’s critique. We ignore even the person who loves us most.
We already have a plan to climb the ministry ladder. Wise planning makes sense, but some of us are already planning ways to arrive on the mountain of celebrity.

Use this list to evaluate your own life. Press hard to be faithful to God, and seek His blessing to help grow the kingdom—but be ever aware of these warning signs.

This article originally appeared here.

How to Be a Christian Entrepreneur

Russ McGuire

April 10, 2018

Over the past few months, I’ve introduced the concept of a “startup” and we’ve discussed why the church should really care about startups. We’ve developed this definition for our discussion: A startup is a new venture working to solve a problem where the solution is not obvious and success is not guaranteed. We learned that the Lean Startup methodology introduces the scientific method into the new venture process, with multiple hypothesis-test-observe-refine iterations, and we discussed how we can implement this in our ministries (and our businesses.) This month, I want to talk about the person doing this — what does it mean to be a Christian Entrepreneur?

What is an Entrepreneur?

In my previous articles, I’ve used the phrase “startup” quite a bit and we even developed a good working definition that can be used whether starting a new venture in business or in ministry, but we haven’t used the word “entrepreneur.” What does that big word mean, and how does it apply to what we’ve been talking about?

According to Merriam-Webster.com, an entrepreneur is “a person who starts a business and is willing to risk loss in order to make money.” In other words, an entrepreneur is a person who starts a startup. Of course, the definition that Merriam-Webster uses works great if you’re starting a for-profit business, but just as we had to modify our definition of “startup” to encompass ministry startups as well as business ones, I think it’s worthwhile to do the same for “entrepreneur.” I propose that we broaden the definition to say “an entrepreneur is a person who starts a new venture and is willing to risk a loss in order to achieve the objective.”

What is a “Christian” entrepreneur?

Hopefully you can get a sense from that definition of an entrepreneur of how we might be “all in” when we’re pursuing the cause of Christ, but I think it’s helpful for us to explicitly think about what might be different about a Christian entrepreneur in contrast to an unbelieving entrepreneur, whether we’re involved in ministry or business.

Some would argue that the word Christian works much better as a noun than as an adjective, and I agree there’s some wisdom in that claim. If you’re in that camp, then I think it helps if we start by thinking about the term “Christian entrepreneur” as if there were a comma between the two words, so, for example, I might say: “I want to be a Christian, entrepreneur” — I want to be successful in my calling as a Christian and in my calling as an entrepreneur.

I’m going to look very briefly at what it means to be a Christian, and when I’m done, I’m hoping that you’ll see and believe that the comma we’ve temporarily inserted there can’t act like a brick wall separating how we act as a Christian from how we act as an entrepreneur. No, in reality, what the comma should be is more like a lens, applying what it means for us to be a Christian on what it means to be an entrepreneur. I say that now, even though you may not yet agree with me so that as you read what follows, you’ll have in mind both what it means to be a Christian independent of anything else in our lives and how being a Christian might impact the way in which we act as an entrepreneur.

So, what does it mean to be a Christian? God has given us the Bible to answer that question. The entire book speaks to that topic, but especially the New Testament Epistles teach us how to live as redeemed believers in Christ living in a fallen world.

As a very simple example, I’d like to briefly look at three verses from Colossians: “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Colossians 3:15- 17). I think a very simple summary of these three verses is that we are commanded to do three things.

First, we are commanded to “let the peace of God rule in your hearts” — in other words, the peace of God, which comes through the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, to those who believe in His name, is to rule in us. When the unruly passions (described earlier in Colossians 3) rise up in our lives, we are to put them off and put on the love of Christ, living our lives in a way that demonstrates the peace that we have through repentance and reconciliation with God. In other words, the way we live our lives should be different from how the lost around us live their lives, and I believe the way we operate our businesses will also be different.

Second, we are commanded to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” — in other words, the Word of God is to live in us, as a master over our lives. We must spend time in the Bible and seek the wisdom of God from Biblical teaching, Godly counsel, and even being encouraged in the Biblical truths reflected in hymns and spiritual songs. Although this commandment comes second in the list, it is a prerequisite for the first commandment, as God’s Word informs us in how the peace of God should rule in our lives. As Christians, all of our decisions in life (and in our business) must be approached prayerfully and seeking the wisdom and will of God as revealed in His Word.

Third, we are to let the name of the Lord Jesus be glorified in all that we do. We must be thankful for God’s grace and blessings in our lives (and our businesses), acknowledging that He is the source of all good things, and desiring to please Him, to glorify Him, and to proclaim Him to the lost world around us. As a Christian, our driving motivation is different from the world’s. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to operate a profitable business, but we can’t let our desire for profits rule how we run our business. Instead, we must seek to glorify God in all that we do, including in operating our businesses with excellence.

With that as a foundation, I propose this definition: A Christian Entrepreneur is a person, driven to glorify God in all he does, and ruled by the Word of God, who starts a new venture and is willing to risk a loss in order to achieve the success of the venture.

1. Do I fit here?

2. Does anyone want to know me?

3. Am I needed?

4. What is the advantage of joining?

5. What is required of members?

Three fears of every young leader:

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Mothers of missionaries arrived on this journey from different places.

1. You actually like it.

2. You insist this will never happen to you.

3. You point to the leader’s theological tribe.

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1. Breakfast (when they serve)

2. Meeting Food

3. Cook it/Bake it

4. Allergy-friendly Options

5. Events

6. Take them out

7. Gift Cards

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