Newsletters
Home Blog Page 1175

10 Best Practices of Super-Healthy Leaders

By
Carey Nieuwhof
-
communicating with the unchurched

What do you need to become a super healthy leader over the long haul?

Too many leaders get discouraged, drained and defeated over the long haul in leadership. None of them set out to end up that way, but without careful attention to important disciplines, it happens.

That question can seem difficult to answer until you realize that leaders who do well in the long run all seem to adopt common habits and practices that help them thrive, not just survive, in leadership.

After two decades in church leadership (with a few more to come…I hope!), here are 10 things that leaders who are thriving these days almost always have in common and almost always have in abundance.

And, conversely, leaders who are missing most of these generally don’t survive in our changing culture.

The good news is you can thrive—not just survive—in today’s church culture if you pursue the right things.

If you want to get better as a leader, make sure you get to Rethink Leadership in Atlanta April 26-28. I’ll be speaking at it along with Bob Goff, Jon Acuff, Reggie Joiner, Les McKeown, Nicole Baker Fulgham, Brad Lomenick, Dan Reiland, Jeff Henderson, Darius Wise, Kara Powell and many more.

There are just a few tickets left…so hurry before it sells out.

On that note, I’m giving away two tickets to RL17, and the winners will get also get coffee with me backstage at the event.

Here’s how to win.

  • Register for the event today.
  • Leave a comment on this blog post, telling me you’re coming and what you’d love to pick my brain on over coffee.
  • We’ll refund the registration fee to our winner.

Already registered? Just leave a comment on this post with what you want you’d like to pick my brain on over coffee. We’ll choose one previous registrant as a winner, refund your admission and invite you to coffee.

Your comment below is your entry ballot in the contest. Comment to win!

Now…here are 10 best practices I see super healthy leaders embrace.

1. Cultivate a Few Great Friends With Whom You Can Be 100 Percent Honest

Ministry is hard. Isolation makes it much harder.

When you’re transitioning a church (and these days, we’re ALL transitioning churches because change is so rapid), it’s important you have a trustworthy few with whom you can be 100 percent honest.

You can’t publicly or even privately complain about the situation you’re facing with the people you’re leading. It’s bad leadership.

You do need a few people who understand your situation and who can empathize, pray with you and correct you (you’re not always right and your attitude needs adjusting from time to time).

In this respect, I usually find I connect best with peers who hold a similar position and responsibility in another city. They get what I’m struggling with, and I can play the same role for them.

2. Relationships With Leaders Who Are One or Two Steps Ahead

Having a few friends with whom you can be 100 percent honest is different than finding a few leaders who are one or two steps ahead of you.

The first group functions as friends and colleagues, the second as mentors.

You don’t have to piggy back your leadership on someone famous. Too many leaders hold out for that opportunity to be mentored by Andy Stanley or Perry Noble, and decide they can’t settle for anything less.

Guess what? That will probably never happen. (It was also one of the reasons I started my leadership podcast, so you could be mentored by leaders like Andy, Perry and Craig Groeschel, even virtually. Best of all, it’s free).

But nothing is stopping you from finding a pastor or church leader who is just one or two steps ahead of you. Maybe you’re trying to break the 200 attendance barrier and he’s got a church of 300. Ask to go for lunch and come with great questions and an open notebook.

Maybe you’re looking to handle more volunteers than you’ve ever handled? Find the ministry leader who’s handling twice the number you are and ask her for lunch. You’ll learn a ton.

Mentors are closer than you think and more accessible than you think.

3. Spend Meaningful Time With People Who Give You Energy

This group isn’t necessarily people with whom you can be 100 percent honest. They’re not even mentors. It’s different.

This group is about people you personally find energizing.

I frequently ask ministry leaders, “When was the last time you went out for dinner with a couple who left you feeling completely energized and replenished?”

The blank looks and the looks of shock and disappointment on leaders’ faces tells the story.

We don’t do this nearly enough.

Ministry is giving. And because ministry is giving, it can be draining.

Your leadership is like a bank account. You can only give so much without becoming overdrawn. Be overdrawn long enough and you go bankrupt.

Go find some friends who energize you. Then, hang out!

4.  A Bullet-Proof Devotional Routine

You got into ministry because you love Jesus. But far too many leaders fall out of love with Christ while in ministry.

Why is that?

As Bill Hybels has famously pointed out, too often we let doing the work of Christ destroy the work of Christ within us.

The best way I know how to keep your passion for Christ fresh and alive is to develop a bullet-proof devotional routine.

By bullet-proof, I mean it needs to work at home and when you’re on the road, when you’re busy and when you’re on vacation, when you’re at your most stressed and when you’re at your most relaxed.

I outline mine here.

5. Exceptional Clarity Around How and When to Say No

The enemy of great leadership is not lack of opportunity; it’s the overabundance of opportunity.

The more successful you become, the more opportunity you will have. At first, your temptation is to say yes to everything. After all, you’ve waited your whole life for a crack at some things.

But saying yes to something good means you’ve likely said no to something potentially great.

Doing a few things extremely well always trumps doing many things adequately.

If you’re struggling with how to say no (and most of us are), here are some guidelines I use.

6. Regularly Scheduled Work-on-It Time

The problem with most of our jobs is that they are largely reactive unless you decide they won’t be.

You can spend an entire day answering emails, responding to messages and attending meetings you didn’t call only to hit 6:00 p.m. and realize you didn’t move the mission forward one iota.

Long term, this will kill your ministry.

Realize that in a post-Christian culture, momentum doesn’t come naturally.

The most effective leaders always budget significant blocks of time to work on their ministry, not just in it.

Here are seven work-on-it things you should start budgeting more time for starting this week if you want to be effective.

7. A Diversified Learning Menu

The challenge for many of us in church leadership is that we listen to the same voices over and over again.

You become a fan of a certain preacher, a certain theologian, and you read and listen to only them.

I find I often learn the most from people who are least like me.

Sometimes the answers to your problem lie outside your discipline, not within it.

8. A Great Marriage or Healthy Personal Life

It’s hard to lead well at work and at home. Usually one suffers at the expense of the other.

You either use your best energy at work and have none left for home…

or you use all your energy on your personal life and have little left for work.

As a result, married leaders who excel at work often end up with a less than ideal family life, and single people who pour their heart into their ministry end up with a much reduced personal life. (I wrote about what I’ve learned in my marriage here.)

Neither is a great scenario.

If you pour the level of intentionality into your life that you pour into your leadership, you will have a better life.

9. A Hobby That Takes Your Mind Off Things

One of the challenges of leadership in ministry is that it requires both your mind and your heart. And the great leaders always throw their heart and mind fully into it.

Which means it can be hard to turn things off when it’s time to go home.

I talk to too many leaders who just can’t seem to turn it off.

Which is why having a hobby or something else that takes your mind off of work is one of the best things you can do.

What works? Anything that will take your mind off of your day job. That can be cycling, cooking, wood working, hiking, art or watching a movie. Anything that gives your mind a break.

10. Enough Financial Margin

If there’s one thing the future will require, it’s more sacrifice.

This seems a bit tough in an era in which many church staff are underpaid and many are bi-vocational.

But developing financial margin is critical. Having no margin severely limits how you can respond to the opportunities in front of you.

I think more of this margin will be required in the future than in the past as church budgets struggle and as governments inevitably take away tax savings from churches and church staff.

The bottom line is this: The more margin you have, the more opportunities you can seize.

The less margin you have (as a person or as a church), the more those opportunities will pass you by.

Enter to Win Admission to Rethink Leadership

I’d love to hear from anyone heading to Rethink Leadership 2017 in the comments.

Tell me what you’d love to talk about when we meet one on one, and we’ll draw two winners.

This article originally appeared here.

The Highest Compliment Pastors Can Give

By
Joe McKeever
-
communicating with the unchurched

“But Paul chose Silas and departed, being committed by the brethren to the grace of the Lord” (Acts 15:40).

“Tom, I need your help.”

“Ed, can you drop whatever you’re doing and meet me this morning?”

“Roger, I’ve got a tough visit to make and was wondering if you could go with me.”

Pastors don’t ask just anyone for this.

A preacher friend tells of the call he received in the wee hours of the night.

“A woman in the church was waving a gun around and threatening her family. In recent weeks, we had been trying to help her with certain problems. As I headed out the door for her house, I dialed the number for a deacon friend.

“When he answered, I said something like, ‘Bob, I just had a call that there is trouble at the Swearheart’s home and I’m going there now.’ Bob said, ‘I’m on my way.’”

The pastor told me, “He did not say, ‘What do you want me to do?’ ‘Is there anything I can do?’ Or ‘I’ll be praying.’ He said, ‘I’m on my way.’”

“That,” he said, “is a real deacon.”

That little incident says worlds about that particular man and why the pastor values him so much.

That pastor had his choice from two dozen active deacons, yet he called that one. I never asked his reasons, but he had them, I’m sure. They surely would have involved compassion, maturity and courage.

The highest compliment the pastor could give was to dial that brother first when a crisis occurred.

I told recently of a Wednesday night some years ago when a woman to whom we’d been ministering asked if the church could arrange to move her and her three children to a new apartment that very night. Otherwise, she would lose her deposit.

That very night. And it was already 8 o’clock, near the end of what had been a busy day.

Whew. Crisis time.

If we were going to do this, I had to act quickly before our people left the church building.

I walked to the still-open microphone and called out, “Jim Parrie, I need to see you now. Jim Smith. Marcus Bouler. Wesley Bouler,” and some others.

That night, a dozen of us moved that woman and her three children from her old apartment to another.

The highest compliment a pastor can give is for them to be the one he calls on first.

Paul gave the highest compliment to a fellow named Onesiphorus. Here’s the story…

Paul was in prison in Rome. Most believers shied away from him, fearing that if they showed up at the Mamartime Prison, their cover would be blown and they would be outed as Christ-followers. Perhaps they felt that if it happened in the course of their daily lives and there was no help for it, then that was one thing. But to willingly put themselves in harm’s way—to draw a target on their own back—was something else entirely. So, they left Paul in the prison. He wrote to Timothy in Ephesus, “You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes.”

Everyone except Onesiphorus. Paul continued,

“The Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chains, but when he was in Rome, he eagerly searched for me, and found me—the Lord grant to him to find mercy from the Lord on that day—and you know very well what services he rendered at Ephesus” (Second Timothy 1:15-18).

Some people do not wait to see what is safe, what will be easy, which action would be convenient or “on their way,” but even go out of their way to do the right thing, no matter the cost or the difficulty.

Paul had no hesitation in mentioning such people. They were his champions.

Scripture mentions some of these people in the amazing Hebrews 11. At one point, the writer interrupts himself (herself?) to exclaim, “Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God!” (Hebrews 11:16).

When both God and the pastor consider you their champions, it doesn’t get any better than that.

This article originally appeared here.

How to Bridge the Gap With Your Creatives

By
Beth Colletti
-
communicating with the unchurched

Welcome back, everybody, and thanks for tuning in today for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we have Ben Stapley, the creative pastor at Liquid Church in New Jersey.

Liquid Church started 10 years ago in the northeast of New Jersey. They currently have six campuses and about 2,500 people in the weekend services. While the teaching pastors are concerned about the content of the message, the creative pastor is concerned about the actual communication of that message to the congregation and how to do that well. There can be some tension in that because you have two different values rubbing against each other.

Ben is here with us today to talk about how to bridge the gap between the executive and creative sides of church ministry.

• Creatives love Jesus as well. A lot of times creatives can be seen as this group that is only focused on the artsy part of things. Administratively-oriented leaders need to remember that the creative leaders don’t love Jesus any less than they do. And vice versa! This is an important foundation that needs to be set in place before moving onward.

• Give them an opportunity to fail. Be willing to let the creative leaders experiment and even fail in some attempts. This may not be best in the Sunday morning service during the sermon, but they need a chance to take these leaps in ideas because their best work will come out of this risk-taking. If creatives think it’s not OK to try, and fail, then they will hold back in their work and become tense under the pressure to only bring ideas that are guaranteed to succeed. That doesn’t mean that the creative leaders should be able to do something new without the executive leaders’ approval or feedback, but it also means that as the executive leader, you allow your creatives the chance to bring in new ideas and go forward with them.

• Evaluate the idea on the merit, not the originator. Sometimes it can be intimidating for the creatives to bring new ideas before the executive leaders, so create opportunities to do it anonymously if needed. One idea Ben offers is to have a Google document set up where everyone can add an idea without any names attached to it. Then at the next staff meeting everyone evaluates each idea based solely on the merit, not on the person who submitted it.

• Encourage creatives to do things on the side. A creative mind doesn’t turn off and on at certain times of the day; it’s always thinking of ideas and possibilities. Don’t restrict your creatives to only doing projects on site and only for the church. This narrows the creativity of that mind and the quality of the ideas they produce. In other words, allow your creatives to have other creative outlets on the side, such as wedding photography, selling paintings or freelance design. Don’t restrict it because you think it will interfere with the work they produce for the church. Within reasonable boundaries, these activities can increase the creativity of what they bring to the church and expose them to new possibilities.

• Allow other activities, but set some boundaries. Along with encouraging other work on the side, do set some reasonable boundaries with your creatives. If they aren’t producing quality work for the church, outside freelance work may not be the best for them to pursue. Encourage your creatives to excel in the work of the church before trying to excel elsewhere. Also within work hours, the creatives should be working on church ideas and not on their side work.

• Give particular praise. Everyone thrives on praise, especially creatives. If they don’t hear feedback on their work, they can feel ignored or not appreciated in what they do. But don’t just give them praise, give them particular praise. General praise can be seen as just a pat on the back without really paying attention to what was done. So give particular praise on the parts in which the creative really excelled and let them know that you are paying attention to what they do.

• Have a consistent review process. Liquid Church has four criteria for how they give feedback. The first is praise on what was done well. The second is to give suggestions for new additions, but allow the creative to use those ideas if they want. The third is requests. Let the creatives know what you liked, but also what you didn’t like and what you would like changed. There is a difference between suggestions and requests. A suggestion is an idea that the creative could do if they like it, but a request is something that should be done right away. The fourth is notes. Ben explains that an example of this would be to say, “I like what you did here, but in the future could you make sure the boom mic isn’t in the shot?” As in, “It’s good at this point, but in the future could you keep this in mind?”

You can learn more about Liquid Church at their website www.LiquidChurch.com. You can get in touch with Ben at bens@liquidchurch.com or at www.BenStapley.info.

‘Generational Sins’ Pushes the Envelope With Profanity and Grit

By
Megan Briggs
-
communicating with the unchurched

A new faith-based film set to be released later this year, Generational Sins, takes a raw look at abuse, forgiveness and the gritty details of walking out one’s salvation. While the film is already drawing flack for its use of profanity, the producers are making no apologies for their realistic portrayal of the thread of brokenness in a family line.

“The movie won’t do well if it’s advertised as faith-based,” Movieguide editor Tom Snyder told The Hollywood Reporter.

The film follows two adult brothers who acquiesce to their mother’s dying wish to revisit their childhood home and mend their relationships with their abusive, alcoholic father. In addition to swearing, the movie contains scenes of characters drinking, smoking and dancing in clubs. Not exactly family-friendly imagery, which is the quality that attracts a lot of people to most faith-based films.

According to Movieguide, which reviews movies from a Christian perspective, movies without profanity gross more than movies with profanity (an average of $61.4 million and $34.1 million respectively, on the domestic market).

Director Spencer Folmar summarizes the intention behind the film this way: “Our closets are full of skeletons that have been there for decades…maybe even centuries. There has to be some impetus for change in the bloodline to create a shift from darkness to light. This film aims to illuminate this difficult process in a very real, gritty, winsome and original way.”

Generational Sins certainly takes a more raw look at life compared to other faith-based films that have come out recently, like God’s Not Dead 2 and The Case for Christ.

Producer Thurman Mason told Fox News, “The secular world cannot relate to on-screen faith-based characters who have been so sterilized that they never curse, make bad decisions or engage in bad behavior like the majority of folks—Christian or not—in the real world.” Hence, his push to include themes and language in his film that a lot of Christian families may take issue with.

It’s uncertain how Generational Sins will perform in the box-office, but one thing the film has done already is brought the conversation about Christianity’s ability to address hard questions of faith to a broader, secular audience.

“We’re not shying away from anything,” says Mason. “We live in an R-rated world, and covering up the darkness won’t bring it into the light.”

Dear Teenager, Are You Buying the 5 Terrible Lies That Can Lead to Suicide?

By
Greg Stier
-
communicating with the unchurched

I remember having my heart broken as a teenager. As I drove down the street in my 1966 Ford Fairlane I pushed the pedal down and let my 289 V8 powered car accelerate to an unsafe speed. With tears flowing down my cheeks I wondered down deep in my soul how she would feel if I just jerked the steering wheel into the telephone pole just ahead…and died.

My foot came off of the gas pedal and my tears eventually stopped flowing. My accelerated heartbeat soon came back down to a normal rate of thumping. But it made me realize, even as a teenager, how a painful situation combined with an impulsive action could destroy a young life in an instant.

After 25+ years of working with teenagers I’m convinced that suicidal thoughts among young people are NOT uncommon. The surge of hormones combined with an extreme sense of self-awareness and a thirst for social status/acceptance combine to form a dangerous elixir. Add to this mix the reality of cyber-bullying, sexting and all the dangers of social media and the potential for teen suicide accelerates like a V8 engine.

Last week I wrote a blog called 13 Reasons Why…suicide is the worst option, based on the wildly successful (and extremely controversial) book and Netflix series, Thirteen Reasons Why. It’s all about why a teenager girl committed suicide…13 reasons why. It was the most liked, read and responded to blog I’ve written in awhile so I thought another article on teen suicide would be helpful.

If you’re a teenager struggling with suicidal thoughts, I encourage you to talk to your parent and/or youth leader. Get some help right away. Life is a team sport and you need others to help you navigate through this.

With this as a backdrop here are five dangerous lies that can lead to teen suicide:

1.  “Nobody understands what I’m going through.”

Even if it was true that no human being understands what you’re going through, Jesus does. His ministry began with a 40-day onslaught of temptation from Satan himself in a Judean desert. It continued with him being verbally attacked, bullied and threatened. His ministry culminated with unimaginable torture and a gruesome crucifixion. I think it’s safe to say that nobody who has ever lived had as horrible of a death as Jesus did.

There’s nothing we are going through that he cannot relate to on the deepest level. Quite literally he feels our pain.

As Hebrews 4:15,16 reminds us, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.“

Jesus understands what you are going through. He feels your pain and he is shedding tears along with you.

2.  “Nobody can help me.”

Maybe you feel isolated and alone. Maybe you come from a broken and/or dysfunctional family and it’s easy for you to believe that there is no help to be found.

But you don’t have to be alone. There is human help to be found (churches, youth groups, teachers, coaches, counselors, suicide prevention organizations, etc.) and there is divine help to be found.

Psalm 121 is nicknamed “A Psalm of Ascents.” The Old Testament Jews quoted it as they ascended up the Wadi Qelt on their way to one of the three annual religious festivals in Jerusalem. It reminded them, as they marched up this tiny, dangerous trail, that God was with them. In the midst of wild animals, the threats of robbers and the dangerous cliff right next to this long trail, God was with them.

This Psalm reminded the Israelites to lift their eyes toward Jerusalem. This beautiful city, stationed at the top of a mountain, was where every Jew in the “ascent” was marching toward. This city was where the Ark of the Covenant was kept in the temple. This Ark represented the presence of God himself.

This Psalm is a powerful reminder to all of us that we are not alone…even in the midst of our own personal dark and dangerous wilderness. It reminds us that, as we keep our eyes on heaven, The New Jerusalem, we can know that our great God will protect us from the dangers all around.

“I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you—the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.The Lord will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” Psalm 121

God can (and wants to) help you.

3.  “Everybody hates me.”

It may feel like it but it’s not true. The Maker of heaven and earth loves you…and so do more people than you might think. But even if nobody else truly did, God does.

In Romans 5:8 the Apostle Paul wrote these powerful words, “But God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

God loved us so much that he crushed his one and only Son to be in a relationship with us. And he did it without asking us to clean up our act first. He gave us his best (his own Son) when we were at our worst.

That’s how much you are loved!

4. “I am worthless.”

No you are not. You were created in the image of God himself. You can say these words along with King David in Psalm 139:13,14, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

God made you. He handcrafted you in your mother’s womb. It may not feel like it right now, but you are a customized creation of God and you have immense value.

Someone once said, “The value of something is determined by the price someone is willing to pay for it.” Jesus was willing to shed his own blood so that he could redeem you. You and I were sold as captives to sin but Jesus purchased us out of this slavery with the blood he shed on the cross for our sins. God redeemed us from slavery and adopted us into his family (Galatians 4:4-7).

You are of immense value to God and he has a very specific purpose for you to accomplish on earth. Don’t cut short your life because of a suicide lie. Discover that purpose and walk in it.

5.  “I can never be forgiven for what I’ve done.”

Perhaps you’ve done something that you never think God can forgive you for. Or maybe something’s been done to you and, although you are a victim of someone else’s sin, you feel full of shame. Regardless of the situation there is hope in Jesus!

Colossians 2:13,14 tells us, “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”

All your sins and all my sins are nailed to the cross of Christ. When we simply put our trust in him we are forgiven, once and for all, for every sin we ever committed and ever will commit. 

Colossians 2:15 puts an exclamation point on this passage, “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

Satan has been armed with the club on shame with which he has beat us down. Maybe the same comes from your sin. Maybe the shame comes from a sin that has been done to you. In either case, the last act of Jesus on the cross was knocking the club of shame Satan held out of his hands.

Satan has been disarmed and now he has been shamed by the cross. His power has been broken and your victory has been secured through Christ. 

So stop buying the lies and choose to believe the truth of the Gospel of Jesus!

If this is good news to you then join us on September 23 for Dare 2 Share Live. We are praying and pushing to rally, inspire and train 50,000 teenagers in 50+ cities across the nation to share the good news with both strangers and friends. It’s time to get this message of hope out to everyone. Join us!

This article originally appeared here.

Cell Phone Privacy In Marriage: Give Spouse Full Access

By
Dave Willis
-
communicating with the unchurched

Should their be cell phone privacy in marriage? I recently received a message through my Facebook page from a wife struggling with a very common issue in modern marriages. To paraphrase her message, she said, “My husband always has his cell phone with him. Sometimes, he even sleeps with it in his pocket. He never wants me looking at it. I’m afraid he’s communicating with other women or hiding something else, but I don’t want to snoop or make things awkward by demanding to look at his phone. He gets so defensive when I mention it. I’m heartbroken, but I feel stuck, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to make the situation better. Should I check his phone? I’m afraid of what I would find! Am I being overly sensitive or is he the one who is out of bounds?”

Here’s my response…

Over the years, my wife, Ashley, and I have interacted with countless married couples, and a trend we’ve discovered is that the way a couple handles their cell phones and cell phone privacy, reveals a great deal about the overall health of their marriage. Let me explain…

Cell Phone Privacy in Marriage: Give Spouse Full Access

When a spouse is defensive or secretive about his/her phone, it’s usually a symptom of some kind of unhealthy behavior. It’s not always infidelity, though inappropriate interactions with the opposite sex are certainly common among people who keep passwords from their spouse. When you don’t give your spouse full access to your phone, you’re essentially saying, “I’m not giving you full access to myself. There are secrets I don’t want to tell you, behaviors I don’t want to reveal to you or activities I don’t want to share with you.”

Here’s another HUGE reason why transparency and trust matter so much in marriage…

You might pridefully believe that you have the right to keep secrets from your spouse, but any form of deception or secrecy in a marriage is toxic. The healthiest couples value transparency over personal privacy. When a spouse operates in secrecy, it creates distrust and disunity in the marriage. This goes against the very definition of marriage. As a Christian, I believe that marriage was God’s idea and His timeless instructions for the sacred covenant is still the best plan. The Bible tells us that the first married couple was “naked and they felt no shame.”

This simple verse in Genesis reveals the power of a “Naked Marriage.” It’s a bond of complete transparency and trust with nakedness (physically, emotionally and spiritually) with nothing to hide from each other. It’s the kind of intimacy we all long for but it takes courage and vulnerability to achieve it. Secrecy is the enemy of intimacy. Every healthy relationship is built on a foundation of honesty and trust.

Here’s how to take the next step and build more transparency and trust in your marriage…

As it relates to your smart phone, you can start building this kind of intimacy and transparency by taking the “Secret Free Guarantee” in your marriage. It’s a pledge of total transparency including shared passwords and nothing to hide from each other. My wife knows the passwords to every device and account I own, because if it’s “mine,” she owns it too! Giving her total access to my phone and not having cell phone privacy is one of seven “rules” I follow to promote transparency and prevent infidelity in my marriage.

So, if you’ve truly got nothing to hide from your spouse, give him/her the security and comfort of knowing that they have full access to your phone (and everything else). Don’t make him/her have to ask. Be proactive about promoting transparency in your marriage. If you’re hiding something, get it out in the open. A painful truth is always better than a hidden lie. Your marriage is more important than your cell phone privacy.

For more tools to help you build a rock-solid marriage, check out my bestselling book The Seven Laws of Love by clicking here.

This article originally appeared here.

3 Ways Spouses Can Support Each Other in Ministry

By
Vanessa Myers
-
communicating with the unchurched

Do you think your husband would like to serve on a committee?

I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that question, but I asked my husband anyway.

He looked at me and said, “I already serve on a committee. It’s the ‘I support the Children’s Director (my wife) committee.’”  

And that is one reason I love my husband.

If you are married and you work in the ministry, then one important part of your ministry is your spouse. I could not do what I do in the church without the support of my husband. After thinking about all my husband does for me, I have thought of three ways spouses can support their husbands/wives in ministry:

1. He/She listens to your cares and concerns and is willing to pitch in and help when needed.

My husband supports me by loving me, listening when I need to talk about church stuff, taking care of dinner on nights I’m gone, helping clean the house when I might be working late, and, most importantly, caring for our kids while I go to night meetings, retreats, workshops and conferences.

2. He/She has a desire to obey God.

Another thing I love about my husband is his desire to obey God. If God calls me to something then my husband always says that God will also call him. Isn’t that so true?

When we moved to my current place of work, five years ago, he wasn’t willing to move. He was content and happy and not wanting to uproot our family and move. But, he prayed and the Lord opened his heart and allowed him to see that we were supposed to move and I was to take this new job. I love that his heart longs to do God’s will.

3. He/She supports YOU in your ministry.

My husband doesn’t do anything else in the church because he doesn’t feel called to it. He feels called to support me, and that, my friends, is the biggest job ever.

I pray that you have the support of your spouse as you serve God in the ministry; it’s such an important job. If you do, take time right now and thank God for him/her.

This article originally appeared here.

Rise Up: Choosing Faith Over Fear in Christian Ministry

 

Don’t miss Vanessa Myers’ new book Rise Up: Choosing Faith Over Fear in Christian Ministry. 

Do You Have to Go to Church to Worship God?

By
Jennifer Brogdon
-
do you have to go to church to worship God
Adobestock #472035112

Perhaps a pastor painted a poor picture of pastors for you. Maybe a church staffer didn’t elevate your ministry the way you thought it deserved. Did a fellow member rebuke you harshly instead of with gentleness and in love? Cultural Christians and their hypocrisy, possibly, have made you sick over the years. Or is it that members, your friends, left your church, and it no longer has the same homey feel? No matter whose fault it was (it could have been yours), the local church burned you like a finger that touched a hot stove. You touched it, experienced hurt in being part of a church, and now you have no desire to come near your church or any church ever again. It scarred too deep. You agree with Donald Miller and believe you don’t need to go to church to worship God[i], so you resorted to your couch—or the woods or perhaps Starbucks—for “church.” You vowed not to be part of a church again—at least not one that notices when you slip through the door. Do you have to go to church to worship God?

Do You Have to Go to Church to Worship God?

Go Back to Church

Although I empathize with your pain and recoil, I encourage you to go back to church. In this article, we will consider together how the word church is used in Bible. Don’t just slip through the megachurch’s doors with the hope of distancing yourself and preventing any future burns. Instead, visit a local church you intend to join, and then, join a church that holds to the biblical standard outlined briefly in this article.

11 Ways to Value Children and Small Groups

By
Andrew Mason
-
communicating with the unchurched

One of the most common excuses I hear from people for not being able to attend or host a small group is, “I don’t know what to do with my children.” This particular issue, although it requires a little bit of thought, should not be used as excuse to disengage from small group community.

Biblical disciples are formed in biblical community. Children are a blessing from God, not a deal-breaker for your own spiritual formation. At first, the childcare issue can look like an obstacle to being involved in groups. However, like many dynamics in our life, it is another key opportunity for us to ask ourselves, “Do we really believe we need to be plugged into biblical community?” If the answer is a resounding, “yes,” (and I hope that it is) then our attention and energy shifts away from waiving the white flag towards focusing on practical solutions.

As a Small Groups Pastor, I’ve always tried to identify groups in our church directory that are “kid-friendly” so parents know what their options are but this is only the first step.

Allow me to share 11 Ways to Value Children and Small Groups…

1. Design an intergenerational small group.

There are many churches that have successfully integrated children and adults into their small group model. By planning out the group time with the children in mind, the small group meeting IS the solution for the children that show up with their parents.

If you’ve never been a part of a group like this, I would highly recommend using pre-written material that has already been field-tested and published the first time you undertake such a group. Trying to figure it out on your own has the potential to be a discouraging process on the front end.

One book I would encourage you to check out would be Shouting in the Temple by Lorna Jenkins. One of our SGC forum members actually wrote a review of the book and posted it on our forum recently (click here to check out that review).

2. Include them in an opening segment of the small group meeting.

Affirm the children’s place in the group by involving them at the beginning of the meeting. You could open with an icebreaker question that is tailored toward the ages of the children that are present. You could play a short game and/or open with a praise and worship song that they can participate in. The more you can make them feel a part of the group, the more they will value it too.

3. Offer an activity in another area for the children.

The resources available in the home of the meeting will determine which activities you can offer. If the home is able to have a room with toys for the kids to play with that can be a fun option. Providing a movie for them is probably the simplest option or a combination of the two.

If the home has a backyard and/or basketball hoop, they can also be fun options for the children.

4. Rotate supervision of the children each week.

Instead of putting the burden of supervision on one adult or on the spouse of the group host, organize a rotation schedule among the members of the group. Volunteering once to watch the children during a group meeting is a digestible service for a person to commit to as part of the spiritual community.

5. Trade childcare with another small group.*

If your group meets on Sunday night and you know of another group that meets on Wednesday night, offer to watch their children for their group time in return for them to do the same for your group. This can also be setup on a rotation between the members of the two groups. This removes the onus of financial cost.

6. High school students from the church can provide childcare as a ministry project.*

As a former youth pastor, I met many teenagers who had a heart for children. By partnering with the youth ministry, childcare for groups can be designated as a ministry project for the youth leaders. This allows for a young person to use their gifts to serve the body of the Christ. Check your state laws to ensure your church has no legal liability.

7. Arrange for babysitting as a group.

If there are a handful of families in the group with children, everyone could chip in resources to provide for a babysitter. Dividing up the cost is much easier than paying it alone.

8. Aim not to have more than two to three families with kids at one group.

Make sure you are realistic about the limitations of the location where the group is meeting. Based on the available space in the home, you may want to limit how many children you can have for a group (two to three families is just an arbitrary number; it obviously depends on your own situation). While it is no fun to turn a family away, it is better to have a group meeting than to not to do it all from a fear of being overwhelmed. If we can spread the families out over a number of groups it becomes much easier to organize all the details.

9. Have each family arrange for their own babysitter.

Sometimes this is the best a small group host can offer and that’s OK.

10. Offer windows of time at the church where childcare will be provided.

If a church can commit to a block of time when it can provide childcare, it creates one more option for people to consider hosting or attending a small group.

11. Reimburse people for childcare expenses at a pre-determined rate.**

This might not be an option for every church, but North Point Community Church concluded that it was cheaper for them to reimburse their people for childcare than to build more classrooms on their property. Practically speaking, North Point provides a reimbursement form for people to fill out.

Childcare will continue to be a potential barrier for people who aren’t acclimated to the routine of small group life. It’s important not to ignore the issue, and provide the necessary solutions.

Do you have any more ideas to add to this list? Comments? Feedback? Feel free to leave them below…

¹Steve Gladen, Small Groups With Purpose (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2011) 149-150.

²Andy Stanley and Bill Wilits, Creating Community (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2004) 168.

This article originally appeared here.

8 Reasons Church Conflicts Turn Into Raging Fires

By
Chuck Lawless
-
communicating with the unchurched

As a pastor, I sometimes felt like I spent all my time putting out fires in the church. It might have been right for me to deal with the fires, but I seldom caught the fire before it started burning more brightly than I wanted. Here’s why the fires of church conflict often burn out of control quickly:

  1. Church leaders have too little training in resolving conflict. What we have learned, we’ve often learned the hard way: in the middle of a conflict, and then primarily through our failures.
  2. We face a supernatural enemy who delights in conflict. From the Garden of Eden, Satan has sought to turn followers of God against other followers. He’s sly—and viciously and quickly divisive.
  3. Kindling for conflict sometimes lies all over the congregation. That’s what happens when internal conflicts smolder throughout the church. Each “conflict” may be small, but the combination of many conflicts creates ready-made fuel.
  4. Nobody’s paying attention to sparks. I’m amazed by how many leaders are caught off guard when their congregation erupts in flames. That usually means the leaders are too disconnected from their people.
  5. Some church members specialize in fueling fires. We’ve probably all met them in a church somewhere. They delight in creating conflict and spreading gossip, sometimes deceitfully so under the guise of “prayer requests.”
  6. Undiscipled people aren’t equipped to deal with potential fires. They’re still babies in Christ—and babies don’t recognize the danger of fires. Actually, somebody must rescue them, or they’ll get burned, too.
  7. Some congregations have a history of fires. They’ve almost burned down in conflict so many times before that fires have become the norm. When a fire’s always burning, it doesn’t take much to become a conflagration.
  8. Everything’s dry. The preaching is boring. Evangelism isn’t happening. The worship music puts people to sleep. Nobody’s talking about missions. Young people are nowhere to be found. When everything’s dry, one small spark can quickly consume it all.

Any reasons you would add to this list?

This article originally appeared here.

Faith-Healing Related Deaths of Children Begs the Question: Where Do We Draw the Line on Religious Liberties?

By
Megan Briggs
-
communicating with the unchurched

The state of Idaho has the highest rate of child mortality due to faith-related medical neglect in the nation. Three religious groups, in particular, are seen as the main contributing factor in Idaho’s alarming child death statistics. Their misguided theology begs the question of where our freedom-loving nation should draw the line when it comes to religious liberties.

The three groups—the Followers of Christ, the Church of the Firstborn and the Christian Science Church—all believe that healing for a disease or malady should be sought through prayer and seeking God alone, and not from medicine. An article on idahochildren.org breaks down the statistics on deaths in the state from 2002 to 2013. The broader population has an average of 3 percent of their deaths being children or still births. In contrast, in the Peaceful Valley Cemetry, which is under the control of the Followers of Christ, gravestones give witness to 35 percent of deaths being children or still births.

In 1972, Idaho put into practice religious exceptions to their laws on criminal injury to children. While these religious groups built communities in Oregon and Idaho, when Oregon revised its laws in 2011, removing religious belief as a defense for homicide, most of the groups’ members moved to Idaho to continue to practice their strange sect of Christianity.

These groups are no strangers to an incredulous public eye, with articles written by the Portland-based Oregonian and news channels covering the horrific details of the child abuse and neglect that occur behind the closed doors of these communities.

When KATU reporters investigated the deaths of several children in these communities, they unearthed some disheartening information. Take the case of 14-year-old Rocky Sevy, whose parents refused to seek medical treatment for his pneumonia. When asked why they refused, Dan Sevy said he didn’t want to talk about it. However, Sevy, who has become somewhat of a public face of faith-healing groups, offered this statement:

“What I will talk to you about is the law. I would like to remind you this country was founded on religious freedom, and on freedom in general. I would like to say, I picture freedom as a full object. It’s not like you take ‘a’ freedom away. It’s that you chip at the entire thing. Freedom is freedom. Whenever you try to restrict any one person, then you’re chipping away at freedom. Yours and mine… All I see is an aggressive campaign against Christianity in general, it’s amazing to me in this day and age where Muslims get soft pedaled and Christians are under attack. It just blows my mind.”

There is even quite a bit of information you can find on social media. One former member of the Followers of Christ has started a Facebook page called Silent Cries the Faces of Religious Abuse to remember the victims of medical neglect.

Yesterday, the Hollywood Reporter published an article announcing the making of a documentary on the group. According to the article, “the film will depict Idaho’s political and ideological struggle over religious shield laws.” The documentary will utilize interviews with active and former members of the Followers of Christ, members of law enforcement, and activists from Oregon and Idaho, who have tirelessly been working to provide some legal support for the children raised in groups such as these. Sevy and his appeal to Idaho’s state legislature to protect his right to refuse medical service will be one of the main focuses of the film.

A large part of what has been allowed to go on in Idaho is due to a state’s right to govern itself by its own laws. In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled against this practice of parents subjecting their children to extreme acts of “faith” such as these. The ruling on the Prince v. Massachusetts case states: “Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion when they can make that choice for themselves.”

In light of the executive order Trump just signed and his outspoken push for religious liberties, one must ask: Where do we draw the line? It’s true we believe everyone should be free to worship as they see fit, but what about when that worship puts other, more vulnerable people at risk? When does a freedom-loving nation draw a line and who determines where that line should be drawn?

Creative and Spirit-Empowered Small Group Outreach

By
Mark Speeter
-
communicating with the unchurched

There are many biblical ways small groups around the world are effectively reaching the lost. Here are a few ways our Antioch Lifegroups have done fruitful outreach:

  • Party Evangelism – Lifegroups throw fun, clean parties in the homes or the city, and invite their friends.
  • Service Evangelism – Lifegroups band together to serve a need in the community, looking for opportunities to serve alongside other non-church people (Matt 5:16).
  • Strategic Lifegroup Location Evangelism – For a season, host a Lifegroup at someone’s house who has a network of unchurched friends and invite them (Luke 19:1-10).
  • Creative Evangelism – Mark 2 shows us a group that did whatever it took to get their friends to Jesus. Write down names, and think together and come with up creative ideas to do “whatever it takes” short of sin to get people saved and connected!

All these have been fruitful, but this last one has been crucial for us:

Spirit-Empowered Outreaches – While most growth happens through reaching relational networks, Lifegroup members get transformed by learning to be bold and Spirit-led with strangers. As we look at scripture, we see ordinary men and women boldly proclaiming the gospel and seeing extraordinary fruit by the Spirit’s power. We try to set a culture where being Spirit-led is part of a daily walk with Jesus. Therefore, just as Jesus empowered His disciples for ministry (Acts 1:8) and led them to the harvest (John 21:6, Acts 8:29), so as we walk with Jesus, He will do the same through us. Here is how that will play out in a Lifegroup night:

Pre-Outreach:

  • Short equipping – We believe every Christian should know how to clearly preach the gospel, yet most don’t. Therefore, we seek to train every member in a simple tool like Billy Graham’s “Steps to Peace With God.”
  • Worship and wait upon the Lord – Worship to connect with God and calm anxiety. After some songs, we will ask the Spirit to give us things to look for and then we write it down. For example: color (orange), name (Frank), item (umbrella and dog). Below is how that might play out.

Outreach:

  • Word of knowledge: Something specific we couldn’t have known. For example, last week on an outreach, some church members got the name “Julio.” Within an hour, they met Julio, and he and his son both got saved.
  • Healing – As we do outreach, we ask if they have pain we can pray for. This last week, some church members prayed for a guy with chronic knee pain, and after getting healed, he gave his life to Jesus!
  • Prophecy – God wants to speak unity over people (1 Cor. 14:3).
  • Highlight – As you go, the Spirit may cause someone to “stand out” to you.
  • Gospel – We always accompany God’s power with the actual preaching of the gospel, and then knitting people into the life of the church.

Post-Outreach: Celebrate and debrief

Our Lifegroups will regularly do these outreaches, and it sets Lifegroup members free from fear and shows them that God really does show up when we take risks!

This article originally appeared here.

5 Ways to Make Worship Family Friendly in Your Church

By
Lori Grasty
-
communicating with the unchurched

I have heard many stories from parents about the churches they never went back to. Stories range from the lead pastors waiting to continue a sermon until a special needs child (who belched) was removed for the sanctuary, to parents being asked to leave a church while quietly (and painfully) going through a divorce.

If you are committed to walking alongside families in all messy stages of life, here are some ways to do this and to communicate your philosophy as well.

5 Ways to Make Worship Family Friendly in Your Church

1. Create a “kids in worship” space

Give children a place to sit and allow for them to be a part of family worship. I hear from a handful of families that they don’t want another program that pulls their family in different directions. Allow for a space that allows for kids to learn and engage, while doing it alongside the members of their family.

2. Communicate your acceptance

We often spend a lot of time communicating our expectations to kids. Consider if it’s appropriate to communicate your acceptance of kids in worship to your congregation. Notes in a bulletin and on announcement slides can share that kids are welcome in worship and ways to connect with a child. Not only does this welcome new and hesitant parents but also sets the expectation and reminds us that children are a the future of our church and not an inconvenience.

3. Involve kids in volunteer roles

Using kids to read scripture, sing with the praise team, act out a prepared skit, serve as an usher or at a communion station are both great experiences for families and kids. It helps them to develop a culture of community and serving and shows children that they are an important part of the faith community. Partnerships with mentors and other volunteer leaders provide a unique relationship to help their faith foundation grow. It also gives responsibility, ownership, and a great conversation and learning topic to discuss as a family.

4. Make a connection

Connect with families and find out what their challenges are. Are they looking to meet people? Do they need help with a special needs child? Often families are overly involved but they have come to your church for a reason. Start a conversation to get to know them and how you can grow together and support their family.

5. Be inclusive

I continue to be surprised at the expectations that people believe church to have for them. Often when I find myself surrounded by certain challenges, I find that is the best time to address it. There are abundant resources for divorce support groups, early parenting, special needs and more. If you find a handful of people that aren’t able to engage in the mainstream programming that your church offers, accept that as an opportunity to explore what alternatives you can embrace to support their life situation. Advertising and offering these support groups during your service shows that welcome and embraces these life challenges.

How do you engage children in worship to support families?

This article originally appeared here.

How to Teach With Visuals

By
Brian Berry
-
communicating with the unchurched

I confess, I have become a bit of a prop guy when teaching or preaching. In fact, if you count pictures on a projector as a prop, I’d say there’s close to a 95 percent chance that there will be a prop somewhere in my teaching. If you fly me in to teach, I’ll probably bring my own props as well as ask you to pick some up whatever I could not carry or was too bulky to bring.

Last weekend I gave five different talks at a middle school winter camp over a span of three and a half days and had a prop of some kind in each talk. In fact, on the fifth and final talk, I decided to ditch my planned “new message” and simply do a response to the previous four messages. Since I had used so many visuals and teaching props in my previous messages, all I had to do was hold up the prop and ask, “What was this all about?” This lead to a remarkable response where all over the room of over 500 middle school students, hands were shooting up to tell me what the answer was. They could literally tell me almost word-for-word my stories, illustrations, scripture that I used and even the “so what” point. I really think without the visuals, this would have been all but impossible.
Simply put, using props and visuals always helps make the illustration or story I’m telling more memorable. It really helps those who are visual learners and rarely hinders those who aren’t. It is a no-brainer win if you ask me.
As an example, one illustration I used this past weekend was one with chocolate milk that I learned in college. It’s so easy to use and so powerful. Here’s how it works:
  1. Take a regular milk and pour it into a clear glass. Tell them this is their life. (If your crowd is big, feel free to use a vase or other large cylinder that can be seen from farther away.)
  2. Then take Hershey’s chocolate syrup and pour it in. Tell them the syrup represents Jesus. (You can have fun with Jesus being brown skinned or sweet tasting or just full of goodness if you want.) But the point I make is this: A lot of people claim to have Jesus in their life…and they might not even be wrong.
  3. Then point out the pile of chocolate syrup in the bottom and draw the analogy that the problem isn’t that they have no Jesus in them, it’s that you have to look in the right place to see or taste Him.
  4. I show them that if I cover up the chocolate syrup pile that forms in the bottom of the glass, then no one can tell if there’s chocolate in it or not. The same is true of a lot of “Christians.” They don’t look or taste like they have Jesus in them in about 95 percent of the environments they’re in.
  5. So I then tell them that if we want to have God in every piece of our lives, then we each have to stir up some stuff and at which point I use a spoon to stir up the chocolate.

This is a perfect illustration of the filling of the Holy Spirit and never ceases to prove powerful every time I use it. But without the visuals, it’s so much less impactful. I could explain it, but seeing it live is 100x better. It just is.

So…if you want to up your influence in your communication, and especially if you work with teens…let me encourage you to start using props. To that end, here’s a series of questions that might be worth processing as you prepare for your next teaching:
1. Is there a way that I can enhance this story with a visual? For example, if I’m going to tell a basketball illustration, would it be good to have a basketball in my hand?
2. If I don’t have a physical object to represent or use, can I get a picture instead?
3. Can I use a brief video to make the point?
4. Can I give one object in my lesson to everyone? Can a visual move my audience from observing to doing something? If so, what should I tell them to do with it or how can we use it in this talk?
5. Can I use one visual in various ways throughout my talk instead of just one time for one point?
6. Can I use a drawing board, white board or flip chart to enhance this talk?
7. Is my visual a distraction or a help? Should this visual be used to spark curiosity throughout my talk or should I reveal it from behind a curtain or box later in the message?
This article originally appeared here.

Your Kingdom Awaits

By
Paul David Tripp
-
communicating with the unchurched

I live in Philadelphia, and a few miles outside the city limits is the King of Prussia Mall. This complex contains more dedicated retail space than any other shopping mall in the United States!

A few years ago, the mall had a marketing slogan: “Your Kingdom Awaits.”

Whoever came up with the phrase was a brilliant theologian and deeply understood the condition of the human heart.

Since the beginning of time, the lie of the Enemy has been this: Ultimate joy and satisfaction is found when you build your own kingdom.

In the Garden, Adam and Eve believed that they were able to build a greater and more satisfying kingdom than the Kingdom of God.

When the Serpent said, “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:5), he was inviting them to a false existence where they could be most high and rule unchallenged.

Every day, just like with that mall slogan, you and I are invited to build our own kingdom. But we can’t blame the retailers and advertising agencies. It’s only ever first because of the sin inside of us that we are attracted to the evil outside of us.

So where are we at risk of building our kingdoms in the situations, locations and relationships of everyday life?

Let’s open the Bible to find a few examples. Remember, “these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did” (1 Corinthians 10:6).

1. Pleasure and Comfort: In Numbers 11, the Israelites were willing to sacrifice their freedom for slavery, because in Egypt, they at least had “meat, fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic” (11:5).

I love how much of the glory of God in creation is edible, and it’s not sinful to enjoy comfort. But beware. Chasing momentary, physical pleasure in an attempt to build our own kingdom will always lead to slavery and bondage.

2. Schedule and Organization: In Exodus 32, the Israelites built a golden calf in an act of heinous idolatry. Why? One of the reasons was because “Moses delayed to come down from the mountain” (32:1).

I’m a very task-oriented person, and organization and time management is important in God’s Kingdom. But beware. Allowing the schedule of our lives to become a dominating idol can lead to foolish acts of worship.

3. Position and Power: In Luke 22, Jesus is sitting with his disciples and instituting the New Covenant. What could be more significant than this moment? Yet “a dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest” (22:24).

God wisely created structures of leadership and has gifted people in different ways. But beware. Our status can rise to such a level of selfish significance that we’re blind to beautiful Kingdom of God moments.

4. Affirmation and Approval: In Galatians 2, Paul recounts the story of when Peter allowed his fear of man (2:12) to alter the message of gospel, which he was called to be a spokesperson for.

We should strive to be respected and loved by others. But beware. Our concern over what others think of us can quickly shape our actions and words more so than the transcendent glories of the gospel.

Let me say it again: Pleasure, comfort, schedule, organization, position, power, affirmation and approval are not unimportant in the Kingdom of God.

But beware. All too often, these things can become the driving motivation in our lives, and the foundation on which we build our own personal kingdoms.

Today, let’s pray and ask for protection: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

God bless,

Paul Tripp

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

  1. What physical pleasures do you enjoy? How can you give God the glory through your enjoyment?
  2. What does your schedule reveal about what is most important to you? Where may God be calling you to rearrange your time to serve him more?
  3. How can you use your position and power today to build the Kingdom of God and influence others for Christ’s glory?
  4. In what ways have your words or actions been shaped by fear of man in the past week or month? Where do you need to live for the approval of God above all?

This resource is from Paul Tripp Ministries. For additional resources, visit www.paultripp.com. Used with permission.

The First Step to Being a Great Pastor

By
Brandon Cox
-
communicating with the unchurched

I want to be a great pastor. I make no apology for that. It’s an ambition. I want to lead and shepherd well. I want to preach and communicate effectively. I want to develop leaders and cast vision and build a great staff. So where should I start?

Level zero.

One of my favorite lines from the original Kung Fu Panda is when Po shows up at the dojo to begin his training and tells Master Shifu, “Let’s just start at level zero.” Shifu explains that there is no such thing, but gives Po a chance to prove his most basic skill of punching one of those wobbly inflatable toys. It doesn’t go well, and after Po returns to Shifu’s feet, beaten, bruised and burned by all the equipment he accidentally stumbled through, Shifu pats him on the head and softly declares, “There is now a level zero.” Here’s the clip, in case you need a break from politics.

That’s me!! Sometimes, I just need to get back to level zero. What’s level zero, for pastors and church leaders? What is it that we need to put into practice before we begin doing anything else? What is it that, regardless of our knowledge, our talent and our charisma, we cannot or at least should not lead without?

The first step in being a great pastor is to walk with God. 

I’m not speaking of “walking with God” in mystical terms, like Eddie Murphy’s white-robed-guru character in Holy Man. And I’m also not in any way promoting the kind of atmosphere that appears in some circles where the clergy are revered as existing on some separate plane closer to God than everyone else.

What I’m saying is that we who lead must first be led. We need to come to God like clueless children with wide-eyed wonder and spend time wandering through the heavenlies hearing from God in prayer, through his Word, as his Holy Spirit imparts life to us. As 1 Chronicles 16:11 instructs, “Search for the LORD and for his strength; continually seek him.” (NLT)

You can lead without depending on God. You can build great organizations all by yourself. People do it every day. But being a great pastor is more than being a great strategist or a great communicator or a great writer. Being a great pastor is a matter of shepherding people, caring deeply for their souls, drenching yourself with divine truth and wringing yourself out week after week with a word from the Lord for the broken.

In seasons where my quiet time has been neglected, I grow infatuated with all the wrong pictures of success while also growing colder in my feelings toward other people. My relationships suffer—starting with self and home and spreading to the flock.

But when I’ve sat at the feet of God, being humbled and shaped and encouraged by his truth…when I’ve laid my soul bare before him, owning my sin and submitting to suffering…when I’ve cast all my cares and anxieties upon him and have elevated him in my vision above all else, then I am ready to preach. Then I am ready to lead.

Level zero.

If you haven’t been training there lately, clear your calendar—at least the next hour—and open your Bible. Ask God to show you something. Tell him about all of your potential distractions and your recent failures and then lean into his presence and his grace.

Greatness lies ahead of you! But greatness may not look the way you expected, and it won’t arrive through the means you would devise on your own.

5 Keys for Leaders Who Want Respect

By
Brian Dodd
-
communicating with the unchurched

A popular saying in today’s urban dictionary is “Game recognizes game.” Let me give you some examples. One of the reasons it is so important guys who want to date girls meet the father first is because guys can’t fool guys. You see, game recognizes game. One of the advantages to hiring from within is you can’t fool people who have already done it themselves. Game recognizes game. And if you are involved in athletic competition, players can’t fool players. Game recognizes game.

I recently came across a quote by Larry Bird which proves this point. If you are unfamiliar with Bird, he was the iconic small forward of the Boston Celtics during the 1980s. Bird was a three-time MVP, 12-time All-Star, three-time NBA champion and member of the legendary 1992 Gold Medal-Winning Dream Team. Larry Bird had serious game and was highly respected.

Bird said the following about the subject of respect:

The following are Five Things Leaders Who Want Respect Should Read and Understand we learn from Larry Bird:

  • Leaders Wanting Respect Sacrifice Themselves for Others – “Leadership is diving for a loose ball.”
  • Leaders Wanting Respect Create Shared Experiences – “getting the crowd involved”
  • Leaders Wanting Respect Bring Out the Best in Others – “getting other players involved”
  • Leaders Wanting Respect Show Perseverance and Resilience – “It’s being able to take it as well as dish it out.”
  • Leaders Wanting Respect Must First Earn Respect – “That’s the only way you’re going to get respect from the players.”

What is one thing you learned from Bird that will make you a more respected leader?

This article originally appeared here.

That Lady who Has a Bible Verse…for Everything

By
Megan Briggs
-
communicating with the unchurched

If you have ever attended a variety of churches, you have probably witnessed the fact that churches can have the same type of characters in all of them.  You know who they are.. the guy that falls asleep during every sermon.. the person who makes church business meetings feel like a battle royale.. and of course.. the lady who has a Bible verse for literally everything.  John Crist, a popular Christian humorist, imagines in this recent video what this lady would be like on a shopping trip. Welcome to these funny sound bites:

Dillard’s is having a sale… man directs his steps but the Lord directs his path.

Excuse me! This is fashion now? Well, lean not on your own understanding.

Spencer’s Gifts.. nope! Guard your heart.

Finish Line? Oh yes.. run the race that is set before you.

30% off.. well God works all things together for good.

Oh look at these shoes.. run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint.

Uh no thank you.. I don’t need any skin care samples because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

There’s Starbucks.. oh yes.. there are streams in the desert.

Look at these watches… for such a time as this.

Look at all this baggage.. no thank you because I have laid all my burdens at the cross.

Oh I just love this bedding.. all who are weary He will give you rest.

These are beautiful knives.. as iron sharpens iron.

Apple Computers? I don’t think so.. that comes right from original sin.. only Microsoft products for me.

Ahh Lulemon.. but He will not tempt with more than you can handle.

Zales! Absolutely not.. my treasure is in heaven.

Payless is having a sale… lead me not into temptation.

Auntie Anne’s Pretzels.. judge all you want to whoever wants to cast the first stone

Oh I love this hat.. anyone who is in Christ is a brand new creation.

I will dwell in the Nestle Toll House of the Lord all of the days of my life.

Religious Hate Crimes on the Rise: Justice Department Testimonies Cite Inflammatory Election Campaign Rhetoric as Contributor

By
Megan Briggs
-
Hate Crimes
Eric Treene, Special Counsel For Religious Discrimination, Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 2, 2017, before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on responses to the increase in religious hate crimes. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

On May 2, 2017, a committee assembled to present information to the Justice Department concerning the growing threat hate crimes represent in the United States. The conclusion of key witnesses and experts points to the lingering effects of the incredibly divisive election we endured last year.

The committee was ordered by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, with the intention of studying the issue of hate crimes, particularly how law enforcement can better investigate and document them. The conclusion to be drawn from the information presented is clear: Hate crimes are on the rise, and factors such as the divisive rhetoric used by the Trump administration—both during the campaign and after taking office—are not helping. Additionally, everyone seems to agree that the first step in combating this rise is to be open and honest about what is happening.

As is usual in Justice Department hearings, both a republican and democratic representative make statements at the beginning of the hearing.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) cited things like the bomb threats to Jewish community centers, the arson and vandalism of mosques, murders of people that look Muslim or Sikh, and crimes against immigrants as examples of hate crimes currently on the public’s radar. While republican Senator Chuck Grassley’s statement also acknowledged the problem with hate crimes, Leahy actually called out the Trump administration’s influence on the spike in crimes.

“I have made it clear over the past many months that statements by this president and from his senior officials alarm and trouble me. I remain concerned by the hateful beliefs and conspiracy theories espoused by White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, the President’s national security aide Sebastian Gorka, and others within this administration,” Leahy said.

This sentiment was echoed by Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), whose words were reported by PBS Newshour: “It’s no accident that there is a rise in hate crimes, because we’re in an environment where the president targets Muslims with his language.”

Eric Treene represented the Justice Department’s special counsel for religious discrimination. Treene summarized the statistics gleaned by the FBI and the Bureau of Justice. There has been a 23 percent rise in hate crimes against people based on their religion, “including a 67 percent rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes and a 9 percent rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes” from 2014 to 2015. Treene made note of the fact that the number of law enforcement agencies engaged in collecting data on hate crimes rose from 11,690 in 2000 to 14,997 in 2015. However, the data reports the overall number of hate crimes has declined, when crimes based on race, ethnicity and sexual orientation are included with religion-based crimes. While these other subcategories of hate crimes have decreased slightly, religion-based incidents have actually increased.

Data collection is a point Treene spent a little bit of time unpacking. He explained these first statistics were provided by the FBI, and they rely on voluntary reporting by state and local law enforcement agencies. Thus, they are “only as accurate as the identification and reporting processes that law enforcement agencies put into place and implement with all of their officers.” In contrast, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) gets its information from polling households each year. Treene says the BJS numbers suggest the incidence of hate crimes may actually be increasing, where the FBI data suggests they are decreasing overall. The conclusion to be draw from this discrepancy is that hate crimes are on the rise, but may not be reported to authorities.

One of the key witnesses involved in the hearing, Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League, cited the election as driving a higher rate of incidents. Speaking specifically of crimes against Jewish communities, Greenblatt said, “Nearly 30 percent of all incidents (369) occurred in November and December 2016, spiking immediately after the election. Our Audit includes 34 incidents linked directly to the election.” Greenblatt said white-supremacists, other anti-Semites and bigots were emboldened by the divisive election campaign language which featured “anti-Muslim rhetoric and anti-semiotic dog whistles.”

Danita Gupta, the incoming President & CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights says the problem with hate crimes isn’t strictly with those we typically see targeted. She gave examples of South Asians in particular who were targeted on the false perception that they were Muslim.

The general consensus of all those giving testimony can best be summarized by the words of Dr. Pabhjot Singh, a medical doctor and the victim of multiple hate crimes: “We cannot address what we do not know.” Dr. Singh offered two suggestions to abate the rise of hate crimes: to make the reporting of hate crimes mandatory and to hold politicians accountable for their inflammatory words. Chief Will Johnson, of the Arlington Police department, confirmed Singh’s words, at least regarding reporting, by saying “one of the greatest barriers to confronting and overcoming hate violence on national, state and local levels has been the lack of firm statistical data on the incidence and nature of those crimes.”

Despite being seen as a big contributor to the rising problem with hate crimes, President Trump has said some encouraging things on the topic. In his first address to congress on February 28, 2017, the president said that “while we may be a Nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms.”

Mark Batterson: How Jesus Modeled Manhood

By
Jason Daye
-
communicating with the unchurched

Mark Batterson serves as lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, DC. NCC is focused on reaching emerging generations and meets in theaters throughout the DC metro area. NCC also owns and operates the largest coffeehouse on Capitol Hill. Mark holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from Regent University and is the New York Times bestselling author of 11 books, including The Circle Maker and his newest release, Play the Man. Mark is married to Lora and they live on Capitol Hill with their three children: Parker, Summer, and Josiah.

Key Questions:

How did you come to the seven virtues of manhood you’ve laid out in your book?

How have we missed the mark on how Jesus modeled manhood?

What advice do you have for fathers with children still in their homes? Grown and out of the house already?

What practical ideas do you have for pastors seeking to equip the men in their churches to be men?

Key Quotes:

“Thank God for youth pastors, but it’s not their job to disciple my kid. That’s my job as a father.”

“I define tough love as letting seven-inch spikes go through your hands and your feet. It’s willing to sacrifice your life for someone else. Jesus sets the example; he is the ultimate tough guy, if you will.”

“Most pastors have more vision for their church than they do for their family.”

“God created us male and female for a reason, and I think those differences ought to be celebrated. But we live in a culture where there’s almost a blurring of the line or a little bit of confusion.”

“I want to be famous in my home, and to me success is when those who know you best respect you most.”

“There was a physical toughness and a mental toughness to the person of Jesus.”

“If the church doesn’t have enough vision, I’ll tell you what happens: We create problems to keep us busy.”

“What I’m calling for is a holy use of testosterone.”

“I think we try to tame people in the name of Christ because it’s safer, it’s easier.”

“Jesus basically spent three years hiking, camping, and fishing with 12 guys.”

“Don’t just be a father—be a spiritual father.”

Mentioned in the Show:

Play the Man: Becoming the Man God Created You to Be

Mark Batterson: Advancing God’s Kingdom and Helping Your People Chase Bigger Dreams

1...1,1741,1751,176...1,211Page 1,175 of 1,211
855,266FansLike

New Articles

New Podcasts

Joby Martin

Joby Martin: What Happens When Pastors Finally Understand Grace

Jessica Mouser -
Joby Martin joins “The Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast” to discuss what happens when a church leader has truly been run over by the “grace train" and understands the profound love and grace of God.
Jennie Allen

Best of 2024—Jennie Allen: Why Church Leaders Need To Pay Attention...

Jon Acuff

Best of 2024: Jon Acuff—How To Pursue Success Without Destroying Your...

Libin Abraham

Libin Abraham on God’s Surprising Job Description for the Pastor

ChurchLeaders.com is dedicated to resourcing, informing, and connecting a community of church leaders for greater Kingdom impact worldwide.
Contact us: support@churchleaders.com

Company

Trending

Popular Categories

© ChurchLeaders