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Why Followers (Not Leaders) Will Be Celebrated in Heaven

By
James Emery White
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communicating with the unchurched

I was challenged by a recent series of articles and blogs on the tiredness of leadership conversations at the expense of the importance of followership conversations. The repeated point was that we don’t need another “Five Marks of Effective Leaders” talk or blog as much as we need the more overlooked “Five Marks of Effective Followers.”

They’re right.

Because effective followers are everything.

While I believe in the importance of leadership, followership is grossly overlooked, if not looked down upon. We’ve made the term derogatory, and elevated the ideal of leadership as the pinnacle of success.

Who wants to say, “My great gift is following?” It’s as if you’re saying, “My great gift is to serve someone with a gift.”

This mindset ignores three very important truths:

First, that no one can be an effective leader until they first learn how to follow. Leadership is truly subordinate to following. So instead of saying, “Everything rises and falls on leadership,” perhaps the deeper truth is, “Everything rises and falls on followership.” A 1988 Harvard Business Review article defined a good follower as “being committed to a purpose, principle or person outside themselves” and being “courageous, honest and credible.” Sounds an awful lot like what we hope for in a leader. So unless we first learn to follow, we can never learn to lead.

Second, the heart of the Christ life is not leading—it’s following. The clarion call of Jesus to all who would listen was, “Follow me!” So only those who excel in following are truly excelling in the Christ life. If to live is Christ and to die is gain, then to live is to follow far more than it is to lead.

Finally, Jesus also made it clear that the greatest among us are those who serve others (Mt. 28:11). Repeat: greatest. We have such a short-sighted view of things in this world even within the Christian community. We highlight the speakers and authors, megachurch pastors and television evangelists.

In truth, those among these ranks will rank very little in eternity.

Who will be celebrated in heaven? Who will be so close to the throne that the likes of someone like me will barely catch a glimpse of them because they will be so near the throne I will barely be able to cast my eyes toward their splendor?

The followers.

The ones marked by humility.

The ones who have a towel draped over their arm and a water basin by their side, ready to wash whatever feet need washing. And more than likely in a room where no one sees and no one will ever know.

Yet they keep washing.

My name is often solely associated with Mecklenburg Community Church. It’s absurd. In heaven, I will be the least associated with it. The ones who will be honored for the lives it has changed, the marriages it has restored, the families it has strengthened, the poor and hungry and homeless and widowed and orphaned it has served…

…will not be the leaders.

It will be the followers.

So, as Susan Cain titled her piece in the New York Times, “Not Leadership Material? Good. The World Needs Followers.”

Yes, it does.

But in truth, the church has a better nomenclature to offer than “leaders” or “followers.”

It’s “ministers.” And every Christian is one. Some might have the ministry of leadership but that is far from the only ministry, much less most important.

Every member of a church is a minister.

The role of a pastor/leader? To serve the ministry of the members. To unleash the ministry of the members. To equip the ministry of the members.

So here’s a paradigm shift:

Followers are so important that the role of the leader is to…

…serve them.

This article originally appeared here.

How Many Asks Is Too Many?

By
Dan Reiland
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communicating with the unchurched

It’s possible that you’re asking too much from your congregation. This often backfires and results in an even lower participation level.

You may need to ask your congregation for less.

If you ask for less, you are more likely to get a greater response.

It is necessary to cast big vision and make priority asks and challenges.

But too many asks often results in one big “no.”

Your congregation may suffer from “request fatigue.”

You can wear your people out by making endless asks, even though you may not have the response you want. It’s a psychological thing. The process of hearing you ask for “multiple somethings” (sign-up, give, attend, serve, etc.) every Sunday causes the perception of being asked to do too much, and therefore people resist saying yes to anything.

A list like this is not uncommon:

  • Sunday morning church and Sunday night church
  • Wednesday night Bible study, prayer meeting or other church services
  • Participation in a ministry
  • A Small Group—sometimes two!
  • Bring canned goods for the hungry
  • Give blood
  • A capital stewardship banquet or church fundraiser
  • Attend a special meeting to listen to a missionary tell their story
  • Support the student camp fundraiser
  • A special training class in evangelism and discipleship
  • Invite a friend to church
  • And take that friend to lunch after church

When you ask for too much, three things often occur:

  1. You dilute the significance of the important things by asking for “everything.”
  2. You unintentionally overwhelm the people, causing them to get frustrated, feel defeated and sometimes guilty. Their way of coping is to become inconsistent or choose to do nothing.
  3. You lessen your leadership influence by communicating a lack of focus and clear direction by too many asks.

It’s not always an issue of commitment from your congregation; it’s sometimes an issue of strategic intentionality on the part of leadership.

  1. Is your vision clear and compelling?
  2. Are you encouraging your congregation?
  3. Are you developing your leaders?
  4. Do you have a narrow and focused list of ministries?

It’s true that not everyone in your church is a mature believer, but people are willing to make commitments. They do all the time outside the church.

A culture that is much busier than just 10 years ago, and one in which regular attendance is no longer the accepted norm.

Attendance patterns are changing, attending church four times a month is no longer the norm.

It was only 10-15 years ago that the maximum for “intentional asks” was three things a week—church, small group and serving. That was among highly strategic churches.

Today church leaders tend to look at participation over the course of a month. For example, a committed person might attend church two to three times during a month, attend small group about two to three times in a month and serve twice in a month.

Yes, your leaders do more. Leaders always do more, give more and serve more. They make up your top 20 percent. The context of this post is about the 80 percent.

I understand the pressures you face, and I’m suggesting that you may be increasing your pressures by asking for too much.

None of us have all the answers, and there is no magic formula, but I can recommend a helpful approach to making a plan that fits your church.

1) Be crystal clear on your vision among your leaders.

What is at the core of your mission? What do you truly want to accomplish?

Do your leaders know?

Resist leaning into (unintentionally or on purpose) merely being successful at managing lots of good programs. Get laser focused on only the things that produce the greatest life change. Get lean!

2) Determine the irreducible minimum required within your ministry strategy to lead people to personal life change.

It’s true that less is more! Busyness does not equal godliness. We want to help people live better lives, not busier lives. We want to help our people chase God, not merely have more stuff to do.

I’ve been leading in the local church for a long time. I know there is much to do. But we can do our best to lean out our ministries and make only the important asks.

3) Keep announcements during your church service to a minimum.

Again, there is no formula, but more than three on a Sunday is pushing it.

We’re all tempted to make a “gazillion” announcements. It’s easy to do. But it’s not only a bad idea; it will receive counterproductive results. The people will just tune you out. Make tough and strategic decisions to announce only the top priority things each week.

Here’s a practical tip. You can sometimes add one “announcement’ (hopefully vision based) inside the sermon. Such as, an encouragement to sign up for small groups connected to a story that fits the scripture text of the message.

4) Develop a spirit of grace and encouragement toward your people.

It’s easy to get frustrated as a leader and assume that your congregation is not following Jesus as they should. Sometimes that’s true, but adopting that mindset doesn’t help.

A better approach is to believe the best and keep encouraging. It’s better to focus on what you can do to lead in such a way that your congregation wants to take the next steps in their faith journey.

This article originally appeared here.

Number of Teens and Children Admitted to Hospital Due to Suicide Attempts Doubled in Last 10 Years

By
Megan Briggs
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communicating with the unchurched

With the release of the controversial 13 Reasons Why show on Netflix, our nation’s collective attention seems to be on teen suicide once again. New research indicates the number of teens and younger children being hospitalized for suicidal thoughts or attempts has doubled in the last 10 years.

The study is called “Trends in Suicidality and Serious Self-Harm for Children 5-17 Years at 32 U.S. Children’s Hospitals, 2008-2015” and will be presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting on Sunday, May 7, 2017. As the title indicates, the research was gleaned from 32 children’s hospitals across the U.S. between the years 2008 and 2015. Over this period, the rates of children discharged from the hospital with a diagnosis of suicidality or serious self-harm rose from 0.67 percent in 2008 to 1.79 percent in 2015.

The research noted some interesting trends that parents, children’s ministers and youth pastors alike should take into consideration as they minister to these age categories.

Kids are more likely to attempt suicide in the spring and fall

The lowest percentage of suicidality occurs in the summer months of June-August, while the highest percentage occurs during the spring (March-May) and fall (September-November). While the press release on the research findings does not suggest why this may be, we can add our own hypotheses here: Perhaps these times of year represent the times kids feel the most stress—the beginning or end of a school year. An article on kidshealth.org says teens interviewed after attempting suicide say they “did it because they were trying to escape from a situation that seemed impossible to deal with or to get relief from really bad thoughts or feelings.”

Dr. Gregory Plemmons, the researcher who will be presenting the study at the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting, told CNN that while the research didn’t set out to answer why kids are attempting suicide at an increased rate, he did offer a theory as to why suicide attempts lessen in the summer months: “We know that school’s a stress just like a job is a stress, so it may just be that removal of that situation allows some kids to cope a little bit better.”

The largest increase was seen in teen girls

Plemmons also told CNN that at the beginning of the study in 2008, girls represented 60 percent of the children hospitalized for suicidal thoughts or attempts. By 2015, they represented 66 percent. A comparable study done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that actual suicides had tripled in girls ages 10 to 14 between the years 1999 and 2014.

Again Plemmons offers a theory on this: Girls are going through puberty at earlier ages than they ever have in history, and “puberty in itself is a risk factor for suicide.”

The study certainly warrants more research to be conducted along similar lines. While the show 13 Reasons Why has gained a lot of press, psychologists and counselors are blowing the whistle on it for its graphic portrayal of a teen committing suicide. According to a statement by the National Association of School Psychologists, the reason the show is dangerous is because “research shows that exposure to another person’s suicide, or to graphic or sensationalized accounts of death, can be one of the many risk factors that youth struggling with mental health conditions cite as a reason they contemplate or attempt suicide.”

For those of us in ministry to teens and children, this information is alarming. By all accounts, suicidal thoughts, attempts and successful suicides are on the rise. Please be diligent with the kids you minister to. Experts cite the following symptoms to look for in children: depression, lack of joy, problems concentrating and attempting to withdraw from other people.

How to Help Parents Set Good Boundaries for Their Kids

By
Jonathan McKee
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communicating with the unchurched

“My 16-year-old wants Instagram and I won’t let her have it. Is that bad?”

It was an honest question from a mom after one of my recent parent workshops.

“Why don’t you let her have Instagram?” I asked.

“Well…it’s social media, and that’s bad…right?” She replied indecisively.

“When she’s 18 and she goes off to college, do you think she’ll get it?”

“Yeah. Absolutely.”

I decided to respond with a rhetorical question: “And then she’ll have to navigate the world of social media on her own?”

This mom isn’t alone. Parenting the smartphone generation isn’t easy. We want to protect them from many of the potential dangers that truly exist, but the question we need to ask is, “Will they ever learn if I keep making all the decisions for them?”

Where will your kids adopt their values from, our bonding time with them, or our boundaries we impose?

Think about it. It’s probably the biggest question Christian parents struggle with today—raising kids in the truth when they’re surrounded by lies. And the go-to response for many panic-stricken parents is to “tighten the grip” to protect their kids. Tighten up on the boundaries.

One problem: It doesn’t work.

No, I’m not telling you to let your kids do whatever they want. Far from it. I’m just emphasizing two truths:

1. We can’t protect our kids from everything!

We can buy every porn filter, phone monitoring software, router based filtering systems…or even ban our kids from all entertainment media! But if they have friends, play sports or go to school (yes, even Christian schools)…they will be exposed to enticing imagery and ideas. All the parental controls in the world aren’t substitutes for conversations about truth.

2. Our kids glean more from our conversations than they do from our rules.

Which do you think has a bigger impact on our kids’ lives? Our banning them from using Instagram, or our conversation where we asked them:

“When it comes to posting pics, what kind of pics do you think come back to harm young people today?”

Here’s the scary truth about the boundaries many of today’s parents impose on their kids. They think rules and restrictions allow them to parent in autopilot mode. Newsflash. There is no autopilot in parenting. Parenting takes a lot of work.

It’s waaaaaaaay easier to just tell our kids “no R-rated movies, but PG-13 is OK,” than to have a conversation where we ask, “Do you think you should watch this?”

Conversations are where our kids glean wisdom and values.

And here’s the kicker. When I surveyed hundreds of parents for my new book, If I Had a Parenting Do Over, asking them about their biggest parenting regret…the overwhelming majority said it was in the area of bonding. Less than 2 percent of parents said they wished they had imposed more boundaries.

Don’t underestimate the impact of bonding.

For more about this struggle, take a peek at the brand new article I just posted on our TheSource4Parents.com “Parenting Help” page, Bonding or Boundaries: Which do you lean toward?

Jonathan McKee is the president of The Source for Youth Ministry, is the author of over 20 books including the brand new If I Had a Parenting Do Over, 52 Ways to Connect with Your Smartphone Obsessed Kid; Sex Matters; The Amazon Best Seller – The Guy’s Guide to God, Girls and the Phone in Your Pocket; and youth ministry books like Ministry By Teenagers; Connect; and the 10-Minute Talks series. He has over 20 years youth ministry experience and speaks to parents and leaders worldwide, all while providing free resources for youth workers and parents on his websites, TheSource4YM.com and TheSource4Parents.com. You can follow Jonathan on his blog, getting a regular dose of youth culture and parenting help. Jonathan, his wife, Lori, and their three kids live in California.

This article originally appeared here.

Hundred of Churches Will Close Down This Week: 9 Urgent Changes We Must Make

By
Thom Rainer
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communicating with the unchurched

It broke my heart.

Another church closed. This church had unbelievable potential. Indeed, it had its own “glory days,” but only for a season. But, 10 years ago, few would have predicted this church’s closure. Today, it is but another statistic in the ecclesiastical graveyard.

I know. We don’t compromise doctrine. I know. We must never say we will change God’s Word.

But many of our congregations must change. They must change or they will die.

I call these churches “the urgent church.” Time is of the essence. If changes do not happen soon, very soon, these churches will die. The pace of congregational death is accelerating.

What, then, are some of the key changes churches must make? Allow me to give you a fair warning. None of them are easy. Indeed, they are only possible in God’s power. Here are nine of them:

  1. We must stop bemoaning the death of cultural Christianity. Such whining does us no good. Easy growth is simply not a reality for many churches. People no longer come to a church because they believe they must do so to be culturally accepted. The next time a church member says, “They know where we are; they can come here if they want to,” rebuke him. Great Commission Christianity is about going; it’s not “y’all come.”
  2. We must cease seeing the church as a place of comfort and stability in the midst of rapid change. Certainly, God’s truth is unchanging. So we do find comfort and stability in that reality. But don’t look to your church not to change methods, approaches and human-made traditions. Indeed, we must learn to be uncomfortable in the world if we are to make a difference. “We’ve never done it that way before,” is a death declaration.
  3. We must abandon the entitlement mentality. Your church is not a country club where you pay dues to get your perks and privileges. It is a gospel outpost where you are to put yourself last. Don’t seek to get your way with the music, temperature and length of sermons. Here is a simple guideline: Be willing to die for the sake of the gospel. That’s the opposite of the entitlement mentality.
  4. We must start doing.  Most of us like the idea of evangelism more than we like doing evangelism. Try a simple prayer and ask God to give you gospel opportunities. You may be surprised how He will use you.
  5. We must stop using biblical words in unbiblical ways. “Discipleship” does not mean caretaking. “Fellowship” does not mean entertainment.
  6. We must stop focusing on minors. Satan must delight when a church spends six months wrangling over a bylaw change. That’s six months of gospel negligence.
  7. We must stop shooting our own. This tragedy is related to the entitlement mentality. If we don’t get our way, we will go after the pastor, the staff member or the church member who has a different perspective than our own. We will even go after their families. Don’t let bullies and perpetual critics control the church. Don’t shoot our own. It’s not friendly fire.
  8. We must stop wasting time in unproductive meetings, committees and business sessions. Wouldn’t it be nice if every church member could only ask one question or make one comment in a meeting for every time he or she has shared his or her faith the past week?
  9. We must become houses of prayer. Stated simply, we are doing too much in our own power. We are really busy, but we are not doing the business of God.

Around 200 churches will close this week, maybe more. The pace will accelerate unless our congregations make some dramatic changes. The need is urgent.

Hear me well, church leaders and church members. For many of your churches the choice is simple: change or die.

Time is running out. Please, for the sake of the gospel, forsake yourself and make the changes in God’s power.

This article originally appeared here.

7 Things Every Leader Should Banish Starting Today

By
Carey Nieuwhof
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communicating with the unchurched

As a leader, there are things you do every day.

Some help—others, not so much.

I’ve found that as I’ve grown as a leader, I’ve regularly had to change how I think, how I lead and even what I say.

Fortunately, there are hacks you can learn along the way that will help you get better faster.

Speaking of learning, I’m so excited to be at Rethink Leadership and Orange Conference this week (April 26-28, 2017).

If you’re around, drop by and say hello. Over 7,500 of us are gathering to get sharper as leaders, to pray together, to encourage each other and to move the mission forward. And leadership expert Brian Dodd will be live blogging the entire event. Follow along here as sessions go live.

The Orange Conference also has a live stream you can follow here (starting Wednesday night).

What follows are seven things you can easily banish as a leader starting today. Eliminating all of them or most of them will give you immediate traction.

1. Intentions

Your kids aren’t going to remember your intentions. Neither will your wife or your church. The people who count on you only ever see your actions.

Which likely means no one’s going to stand next to your casket or urn and say “He wished he was nicer” or “He had always hoped to be more strategic” or “She really wanted to overcome her fear.”

Legacies never get built on intentions. They’re built on action.

So get over your intentions and start acting.

2. Words That Start With “Some”

If you want to get nothing meaningful done, just use words that start with “some” a lot. Like in every conversation or meeting you’re in.

What ‘some’ words? Well…

Somebody

Someday

Sometime

Something

These words end up sounding like this: Somebody should do something about that sometime someday.

Guaranteed zero action happens. Ever.

Leadership is not simply talk. In fact, talking about doing something again and again is not leadership, it’s delusion.

There’s only one ‘some’ word I can think of that I like, and that’s somehow.

Somehow can be an amazing word when you’re up against an impossible task and someone asks you, “How on earth will we do this?” and you reply, “I don’t know. But somehow we’ll figure it out.”

Now that’s awesome.

But someone somewhere sometimes means no-one nowhere ever. Trust me.

3. Unnecessary Meetings

The value of meetings once you get beyond the creative process, or meetings to nail down a few executional details, or meetings to connect for a check-in to sync up the team, is pretty low.

For the most part, meetings are the enemy of work.

Far too many leaders waste their lives in meetings. Instead of doing what they’re called to do, they meet about what they’re supposed to be doing.

Dreams can be born in meetings, but far more often, dreams die in meetings.

Meetings are the enemy of work. Do your work instead.

4. Fear

Fear is the thief of hope. It kills leadership. It murders courage.

Way too many leaders I know live in fear.

The difference between effective leaders and ineffective leaders is simple: All leaders feel fear. The effective ones push past it.

So what’s the antidote to fear?

While there are a few, believe it or not, I think one of the antidotes to fear is the fear the right thing.

If you’re going to be afraid, I suggest you fear this:

Be afraid of never accomplishing your mission.

That will give you courage, or at least determination. And that, in turn, will grow your faith.

5. The Desire to Be Liked

Leadership requires you to take people to destinations they would not go without your leadership.

Stop for a moment and, if you would, re-read that sentence.

Do you see the challenge?

Leadership is inherently difficult because it requires a leader to take people where they don’t naturally want to go.

So you have a choice as a leader.

You can focus on leading people, or focus on being liked.

When you focus on being liked, you will instinctively try to please the people you’re leading. And when you do, you will become confused.

Pleasing people is inherently confusing because people don’t agree. One person wants it one way. Another wants it another way.

And soon, you’re bending over backward to make everyone happy, which of course means that in the end, you will end up making no one happy, including yourself. It’s actually a recipe for misery for everyone.

It’s also a recipe for inertia.

If you focus on being liked, you’ll never lead. You will never have the courage to do what needs to be done.

6. Selfishness

Ambition can be a good thing. It’s great to have hopes and dreams for your mission.

But selfish ambition is a different creature.

Ambition kills servants of God and turns them into servants of themselves.

Enough said.

7. Blaming Others

It’s so easy to blame everyone else and everything else for your lack of progress as a leader.

If you want to keep not making progress, keep blaming others.

The opposite of blame is responsibility. If you think about the leaders you admire most, they’re probably the most responsible leaders you know.

Great leaders never assign blame. Instead, they assume responsibility.

What About You?

Those are seven things I check myself on regularly.

What about you? What would you add to the list?

This article originally appeared here.

5 Reasons Your Church Needs to Do (at Least) Two Services Every Sunday!

By
Rich Birch
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communicating with the unchurched

“The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.” –Jesus (Luke 10:2)

It is a fact that doing one service every Sunday is easier than doing two. There are a lot of complexities involved in duplicating your ministry and eking out how to execute across multiple services in a day. However, prevailing churches make a conscious choice to offer multiple services every Sunday to their community. Why?

One of the common traits of growing churches is that they all have at least two services on a Sunday if not many more. It is so common that it makes it easy to overlook that one of the dividing lines between churches that make an impact and that don’t is the number of services they offer on a weekend. Typically, churches with a greater impact have multiple services while churches on the decline have just one.

Why is this the case? Below are five reasons why prevailing churches choose to have multiple services every weekend. If your church hasn’t made the jump, these are some of the reasons you should!

• Attend One | Serve One — At the core of all the churches that make an impact are thriving volunteer leaders fired up to make an impact in their city. Prevailing church leaders constantly look for ways to inculcate more people into service rather than trying to figure out how to do a service with as few people as possible. When you have multiple services on a Sunday morning, it gives your volunteers the opportunity to attend both the services as well as serve during another time slot. This removes a major barrier that people have to volunteer at a church with only a single service on a Sunday morning. It also has a reverse effect by communicating to volunteers that they are valued as a member of the church.

• Multiplication Instinct — Healthy things grow and multiply. Multiplying your services in the same location is a step toward further multiplication down the road. Some church leaders resist adding new services because they feel overwhelmed with the task of finding new volunteers. However, recruiting and training new team members are at the core of what a church should do in order to make an impact in their community. Of course it’s not easy, but it is healthy and necessary for the life of the church by motivating a group of people to be committed to the life of the church. By not adding more services on a Sunday morning, one is limiting the opportunities for people in your church to join in the life of the church. When services are not added to the church, there is a decline in the growth opportunities for those attending the church!

• An Honest Reason — Can we keep it real for a second? We all say that every service we do is done with excellence and care. However, typically the first service on any given weekend has a few kinks to be worked out. This applies to your church as well as the largest “brand name churches” in the country. I attended the first service of a “super mega large church” recently and it was obvious that the band’s lead singer did not know the lyrics to the opening song. Having multiple services gives you the opportunity to work out some of the kinks before guests arrive for later services. In an ideal world, these problems are solved in the rehearsal itself, but sometimes they are not. There is something about the intensity of the guests actually being in the room that gives us a heightened sense of clarity about how the services should roll out. Having only one service every Sunday results in a service that is not 100 percent perfect. I wish that wasn’t true…but it is.

• More Options — People’s lives are complex and difficult, therefore, it is not possible for everyone to attend the singular service at a certain time in your church. If the timings are moved around even by an hour, more people in the community might be available to be a part of the good things happening in the church. By sticking with only one service time, you are adding a limitation on the time people can connect with your church. In an era of “on demand” everything, it appears to be a total disconnect to not offer more options for those willing to connect with your church. I have seen this work successfully when a church adds new service times and they grow as they open up new times for people which they can actually attend.

• It’s Not About Us — When you listen carefully to what we say when we stay with just one service in our churches, it usually is about some form of selfishness. We’re smart enough to not articulate it in those terms plainly, but when you carefully try to understand what the people who want to stay with one service mean, it is that they would rather not put in the extra time, effort and energy into making a second (or third!) service a reality. This is a dead end for your church and your leadership. God wants to bless those churches that aren’t inwardly focused. Pushing through the pain of multiplication is at the core of expressing to people that it is all about the people we’re trying to connect with. The aim of adding an additional service is to reach new people rather than keep the people who are already with us. The essence is selfless and I believe that’s a part of what God uses in the community in order to draw more people toward Him!

This article originally appeared here.

Should Wives Ever Be Jealous?

By
Caroline Newheiser
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communicating with the unchurched

The Bible clearly teaches that one type of jealousy is a sinful desire of the flesh which is set against the Spirit. It is in the list of works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-21. James 3:16 says that jealousy brings disorder and every vile practice. So should a wife be jealous? No, she should avoid this type of jealousy.

But the Bible teaches another jealousy. A wife should be jealous for her husband in the same way as God is jealous for his people. In the Old Testament he describes himself as a jealous God when he demands exclusive worship in the Second Commandment. His claim on the children of Israel is based on his choice and his deliverance (Exodus 20:2).

The bride of Christ (the church) has been chosen and delivered through Christ’s death on the cross because of his love for her (Ephesians 5:25-32). This profound mystery shares some qualities that are seen in earthly marriages. It is exclusive and is to be jealously guarded and defended due to the holy picture it presents to the world.

How does a wife show this sanctified jealousy?

1. She desires her husband’s heart. Deeply personal conversations with a female are hers and hers alone. “My beloved is mine, and I am his,” says the wife in Song of Solomon 2:16. She strives to develop a deeper relationship with her husband. She seeks advice from an older woman on how to love her husband (Titus 2:4). The wife who is jealous for her husband’s attention patiently lets her husband know when she is feeling neglected.

2. She is zealous for her husband’s development as a spiritual leader. She praises small steps without negatively comparing him to others. She gives constructive criticism as needed, but with gentleness (Galatians 6:1). This woman desires to learn and sees him as a resource for answering her spiritual questions (1 Corinthians 14:35).

3. She is vigilant to maintain her role as a helper for her husband (Genesis 2:18). Her speech is full of knowledge and wisdom. She is a wise counselor for her husband (Proverbs 31:26). She knows she is a fellow heir of the promises and is willing to share her spiritual knowledge.

4. She diligently guards her marriage. She works alongside her husband to set up practical safeguards that help protect their sacred bond. Song of Solomon 2:15 exhorts the beloved to “catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards.” For some examples, this might mean a mutual agreement to copy one another on emails or an agreement not to participate in a business trip or even a meal alone with someone of the opposite sex.

5. She has a right to demand that her husband’s body and sexual thoughts belong to her. She brooks no rivals. She jealousy guards against the “forbidden woman” described in Proverbs. She protects her husband from exclusive relationships with women who might be cause for temptation. This might mean getting help if her husband struggles with pornography.

6. She is jealous for her husband’s reputation. She has a holy zeal for his honor and will honor him before others (Proverbs 12:4). She is careful with how she speaks about him to others. Those who know her realize how much she respects her husband (Ephesians 5:33). As a result, her husband trusts her (Proverbs 31:11).

7. She guards the marriage bed, which is holy (Hebrews 13:4) and strives to bring joy to her husband (Proverbs 5:18-19). This woman remembers that God pronounced marriage “very good” and that he smiles on lovers (Song of Solomon 5:1c).

8. She is watchful over her tongue and wisely encourages him (Proverbs 14:1, Ephesians 4:29). Her speech is discerning, judicious and gracious (Proverbs 16:21-24).

9. She perseveres when she is sinned against. She follows the Lord’s instruction to speak to her spouse about the issue. She uses gentleness as she seeks to restore him. She follows the steps given in Matthew 18:16-17 to get further help if she needs it.

10. She maintains hope for her marriage. She persists even if she is married to an unbeliever (1 Corinthians 7:13), because she remembers that God can work in her marriage (1 Corinthians 7:16; 1 Peter 3:1-6).

11. She is protective of her own heart. She finds comfort knowing that she belongs to the Lord, who is jealous for her love (Exodus 34:14). She will cultivate her relationship with her God. She lives for her Maker, who is a husband to her (Isaiah 54:5).

“Set me as a seal upon your hearts, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD” (Song of Solomon 8:6).

Join the Conversation

How have you sought to be a wife who is jealous for her marriage? What advice could you offer to those who counsel wives or engaged women?

This article originally appeared on the Biblical Counseling Coalition site.

Breaking News: Preachers, You Are Not the Story

By
H.B. Charles, Jr.
-
communicating with the unchurched

I am a news junkie. Or, I used to be. I now find it painfully difficult to watch the news.

It seems the news no longer reports the news. Anchors or hosts now make an announcement, usually under the banner of breaking news. Someone explains the announcement in less than 60 seconds, usually with a graphic or clip that points to a conclusion. Then a panel discusses what we just heard…or didn’t hear. These panelists are clearly partisans, who argue for their political affiliation no matter what. The discussions regularly turn into arguments, with multiple people yelling at the same time. It’s a mess!

So I decided it might be better to read the news sites, rather than watching the news shows. But that is no better. The 24-hour news websites basically serve as promotional sites for the anchors and panelists of the news shows.

As you scroll the news channel websites, you’ll find articles about the latest rant by someone who was supposed to be reporting the news. It is not about what the government official said or did, for instance. It is about what the reporter said to or about the government official.

I really can’t take it anymore. I wish we could go back to a time when journalists reported the news, rather than trying make news. Because too many news people want to break news (almost at any cost), we no longer learn what’s going on in our communities, nation and world by watching the news. In fact, it may be making us dumber.

After watching a few minutes of a news telecast, I find myself turning the channel in frustration, grumbling to the reporter on the screen, “You are not the story!”

Unfortunately, many of us who stand in the pulpit need this reminder just as much as those who sit at the news desk. Christian ministers are charged to preach the word (2 Timothy 4:1-2). The Lord commands it. The truth demands it. The hearers need it. Yet there is always the danger of inserting ourselves into the sermon—by our content or delivery—so that the message is obscured.

People should not leave the sermon having learned more about the preacher than Christ. When we stand to preach the word, we should prayerfully whisper to ourselves, “You are not the story.”

The Apostle Paul wrote, “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4:5). The Lord Jesus Christ is the one we proclaim. We are only bondservants for Jesus’ sake. As servants of the word, it is our sacred duty to deliver the divine message. It is not our message. We do not have editorial authority over the message. And the message is not about us. The question is never, “Can he preach?” It is always, “What does he preach?”

On one occasion, some Greeks join the crowds of worshipers in Jerusalem for one of the annual Jewish feasts. They approached Philip, who they rightly assumed was a follower of Christ. And they had one simple request, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” (John 12:20).

This is the desperate request of everyone who sits before us as we preach, if they recognize it or not. Their eternal souls need news from a network in glory. Don’t report fake news. While you may never have a primetime anchor spot, present the gospel news faithfully and clearly every time you stand to preach. Stay out of the news! You are not the story. “Him we proclaim,” Paul testifies, “warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:28).

This article originally appeared here.

Trump Uses National Day of Prayer to Launch Religious Freedom Executive Order

By
Megan Briggs
-
communicating with the unchurched

Most of President Trump’s evangelical advisory board flew into Washington D.C. last night, May 3, 2017, for a special dinner with the president. On the eve of the National Day of Prayer, the group celebrated what Trump has accomplished for conservative evangelicals in his short time in office.

Today, May 4, 2017, Trump adds another achievement to his list: an executive order that curtails the Johnson Amendment and is designed to protect religious freedom.

In the Rose Garden of the White House, with religious leaders such as Rabbi Heir, Pastor Paula White, Pastor Jack Graham and Cardinal Wuerl with him on the platform, Trump ceremoniously signed the order.

Before the signing, Mike Pence offered a few words about the significance of the National Day of Prayer and the fact that it was being celebrated in the Rose Garden of the White House. Every president since its inception has observed the National Day of Prayer, however not every president has done so in the Rose Garden. This comment was a veiled jab at Obama, who did not host any public events at the White House related to the National Day of Prayer during his time in office. This sentiment was echoed in Trump’s speech, who said to the group of religious leaders gathered: “It was looking like you’d never get here, folks, but you got here.” Pence concluded his speech by pointing to the current president’s intention to “reaffirm the vital role that institutions and people of faith play in our national life.”

Next Trump took the mic and gave a brief speech that highlighted the significance of his winning the election and thus his ability to help protect the religious freedoms of America. “We’re a nation of believers. Faith is deeply embedded into the history of our country,” Trump said. He pointed to the fact that he had three leaders from three very different faith traditions on the platform with him. “Not only are we a nation of faith; we are a nation of tolerance,” the president said. Further, we are “blessed to live in a nation that honors the freedom of worship.” In light of this freedom, the president expressed his intention to “not allow people of faith to be bullied, targeted or silenced anymore.”

“Freedom is not a gift from government. Freedom is a gift from God,” Trump said.

Trump took the opportunity to announce that his first foreign trip will take him to Saudi Arabia, Israel and then Rome. This is a significant trip where he will be talking with other world leaders who are concerned about fighting terrorism.

Turning his attention to the executive order he was about to sign, Trump explained that the Johnson Amendment, which was established in 1954, held the threat of “crippling financial punishment” that is “very, very unfair” over religious leaders’ heads. “No one should be censoring sermons or targeting pastors,” Trump said. He referenced the African American church’s involvement in the civil rights movement as an example of how the church has affected social change in our nation. America has a “noble tradition of change from the church and progress from the pew,” Trump said.

In an apparently impromptu move, Trump called a couple of the Little Sisters of the Poor onto the platform and congratulated their recent victory in a lawsuit concerning their organization’s right to deny Obamacare-mandated contraceptive coverage to their employees.

Following his speech, Trump moved over to a desk on the platform to sign the executive order.

In February, a leaked copy of the proposed executive order, titled “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom,” made its way to The Nation. The draft has been under scrutiny since the leak, with critics calling it “sweeping” and potentially in violation of the First Amendment.

Essentially, the order directs the IRS to “exercise maximum enforcement discretion to alleviate the burden of the Johnson Amendment,” which prohibits organizations labeled 501(c)3 non-profits from doing things like endorsing or opposing political candidates.

The final draft of the order is called “Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty” and is a little less “sweeping” than the original draft.

The signing of this executive order represents the fulfillment of a promise Trump made during his National Prayer Breakfast speech on February 2, 2017. In this speech, Trump said, “I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution. I will do that.”

Are You Preventing Your Church From Growing?

By
Josh Reich
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communicating with the unchurched

Recently I had a conversation with my leadership coach, and he made the comment, “Josh, Revolution has the ability to grow past 600 in the next five years, but the question is, do you have the capacity for that? Are you willing to do what it takes to make that happen?”

Now, we all know that God is the one who grows a church, but often that church is healthy and growing because of the character, quality and capacity of the lead pastor and leaders.

First, do you have the desire for your church to grow and be healthy? Do you have the desire to see your people become more like Jesus? Many pastors have a desire for a crowd, but that is different. Having a desire to see your people grow in holiness, passion for God and for their neighbor will shape your leadership and preaching.

While desire matters, or I should say rightly placed desire, that alone won’t grow a church.

It will take effort, work, time and sacrifice.

This will be seen in the time you put into prayer, sermon prep, personal growth as a leader, what you are willing to sacrifice in terms of comfort or even what you’d like your job to be. Some of that sacrifice comes in the day to day of meeting with people, of shepherding and walking with them. Being willing to be a pastor and not a rock star preacher.

Hustle is a popular word in entrepreneuring circles and one that needs to get some airtime in pastoring circles. Not in an effort to burn out, but in an effort to work hard for something that matters.

Mike Myatt, in his book Hacking Leadership: The 11 Gaps Every Business Needs to Close and the Secrets to Closing Them Quickly, says, “The difference between good and great often comes down to discipline.”

Are you disciplined in how you spend your time, how you spend your money, what you eat, how much sleep you get? Do you determine who you will spend your time with and who you won’t? All of those things determine your leadership capacity. They determine the energy levels you have, the spiritual reserves you have to pull from when leading and pastoring and the kind of leader you are at home and at work.

When every minute is accounted for and given a name, things get done and less time is wasted.

This doesn’t mean you need to be fanatical, but you have 24 hours in a day, a short life ahead of you and a shorter ministry time, so use it wisely. Honor God with it.

This article originally appeared here.

From an Older Minister to a Younger One (Part 2)

By
Michael Catt
-
communicating with the unchurched

As I get older, I find myself wondering why we have more men answering the call to ministry, church planting and missions, and yet we are going backward in the American church. Our baptisms are down, and the lack of spiritual power is evident. Most of our churches only grow by stealing other church members or by Christians relocating. There is very little evangelism of the lost and least. With all our resources, programs, technology, styles and options, we can’t seem to penetrate the darkness.

Let me give you my humble and accurate opinion, which I highly respect (my friend Ron Dunn gave me that line). If you aren’t learning, you aren’t growing. How do we learn? By being teachable.

For nearly 15 years, I’ve been privileged to lead a conference called ReFRESH® at Sherwood and around the country. We’ve been in every region of the country. At the time of this writing, we have done nearly 40 conferences. Each time, the demographics concern me. We work very hard to try to make the conference applicable across racial, denominational and generational lines.

I’m always looking for a fresh face who “has the message. “It’s one thing to be a communicator; it’s another thing to have a life message that reflects what you’re preaching. I’m very grateful for several young church planters who are part of our team. I love their heart for prayer, revival and the Spirit-filled life.

What concerns me are some of the reasons I get from some younger guys as to why they don’t come or aren’t interested.
– Revival seems so out of date.
– The program looks like a bunch of old guys.
– I’m not into things like revival and awakening. These terms are for an older generation.
– I just need a program to show me how to grow the church.

I could go on, but you get the point. Let me tell you what’s behind those statements: a total lack of understanding about revival. Much of this could be because of lack of exposure or a misinterpretation of what these terms mean in a historical context. If you study the history of revivals, they have, by and large, started with students and young adults. But you’ve got to know what it is to want it.

As a word of personal testimony, I’ve discovered I rarely learned anything from other guys my age when I was starting in ministry. I was making the same dumb mistakes they were making. It wasn’t until I started asking for time with older men like Vance Havner, Ron Dunn, Manley Beasley, Jimmy Draper, Warren Wiersbe, Lehman Strauss and Tom Elliff that I saw how far I needed to go and how much I needed to learn. I needed older, wiser men to speak into my life, men who exemplified the power of God on their lives and ministry. Not men with better methods, but better men. The key reason we need older and wiser people in our lives is because they are older and wiser.

If you are younger than I am, let me ask you a question: Who do you listen to? Your peers? While they have wisdom, they mostly share the same experiences you’ve had. Do you ever read John Piper or Tim Keller? They are older men. Do you read Spurgeon? He’s dead! Many of the leading movers and shakers in evangelical Christianity are older: Chuck Swindoll, Charles Stanley, Jim Cymbala, John MacArthur, Tony Evans…all older and still making an impact for the gospel.

At the same time, tragically, many of the new voices have stumbled and fallen. They sold books, promoted their conferences, were platform “rock stars,” built huge churches, but have fallen into sin, embarrassed their church and family, and given the gospel a black eye. Yes, that has happened far too often in my generation as well, but the ones left standing have valid and viable voices that need to be heard and heeded.

Again let me say, in our conferences and often in our church, we use several young (or younger) church planters who “get it “when it comes to revival, awakening, desperation, the need to be a praying church and the need for total dependence on the Holy Spirit. I love these guys because they don’t fit the formula; they go with God. Many of these men help keep me young in my thinking. They stretch me to stay fresh and keep climbing.

The problem with just wanting programs on church growth is we often don’t talk about church health. If your church is not healthy, the growth will be from shallow soil and the “worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches” will ultimately lead to a carnal church of self-centered believers.

I’ve attended multiple conferences where the speakers are much younger than me. There are many younger men I really, really like. They aren’t full of fluff; they have meat on their bones. They aren’t trying to impress; they are pleading for deeper commitment.

I’ve also attended conferences and been around some younger (and older) men who were more concerned about the green room than the prayer room. They were more interested in “their time” than the moving of the Spirit of God. Far too often, young and old can act like they are celebrities instead of servants. We are either obsessed with hip or holy. Rarely do those two blend well. If you are only interested in speaking, you rarely have anything to say to the audience. This celebrity mentality is killing the Spirit of Christ who called us to be servants, not celebrities.

During the days of the Jesus movement, there were several powerful voices that impacted that culture. The movement was largely driven by former drug addicts, prostitutes and hippies. Yet the men that were at the forefront were men like Chuck Smith (a pastor from California), Bill Bright with Campus Crusade and Billy Graham. All men old enough to be these kids’ dads. These men and others had a voice in my generation because they were genuine. They genuinely cared about this wave of young people being swept into the kingdom. They were deeply concerned about the church that seemed resistant to this influx of unconventional believers with long hair, t-shirts and bell bottom jeans.

Whether we are young or old, we need to stop this idea that I can’t listen to someone of a different age. If you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, you should be a lifelong learner. I want to see us get to the point where our hearts are one, our purpose is one and our passion is one. Of course, that requires a sweeping move of the Holy Spirit in revival and an atmosphere of prayer and a humility that is strangely lacking today.

This article originally appeared here.

Why Community Matters for Worship

By
Manuel Luz
-
communicating with the unchurched

There’s nothing like jamming in a jazz trio, especially when the players are good and the band plays tight. There is an immediacy in every moment of every song. Every groove percolates. Every solo is an adventure. Every song is a work of art.

But it’s not easy. First, you need players who really know how to listen. Jazz is, by definition, an art of improvisation. There is a risk, a freshness, a now, to every moment, like walking on a high wire. At any given moment, with any given note, you can fall right off. But when you are with real players who listen—really listen—then you can take chances with your solo, play outside, take risks. You are free to express, to invent, to create. And they will back you up, musically encouraging you and challenging you in the safety of “the band.” The best drummer I ever had the honor of playing with had such great musicality that every solo I took always sounded better, not because of me, but because of him.

There is also great dynamic range when you have players who listen. Songs crescendo and decrescendo, ebbing and flowing from verse to verse, solo to solo, as everyone in the band flies in formation, implicitly feeling the subtleties of intensity.

You also need players who are selfless. When you are with selfless players, everyone can take turns soloing.  There is a mutual respect and submission to one another, as each person takes their solo. There is an appreciation for each person as their solo—their personal interpretation of the song—is quietly acknowledged and celebrated with a nod or a smile. There is forgiveness when you make mistakes, and in the immediacy of that moment, there is recovery, reinstatement, grace and then the music goes on. And in the applause that follows a well-played tune, there is the knowledge that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

And you need players who are passionate. Jazz without passion is elevator music. Like the guy in the tuxedo at the Ramada Inn playing sequenced Jobim. I used to play in a Dixieland band in college (one of the skeletons in my closet). I played in it a lot, and actually (believe it or not) enjoyed it. But to tell you the truth, I didn’t like listening to it very much. Dixie music just seemed like so many middle-aged white people playing at Main Street, U.S.A. Until I went to Bourbon Street, New Orleans.

In my previous life as an engineer, I was assigned to a feasibility study on the Space Shuttle, and I found myself on a business trip to Martin Marietta in Michoud. While I was there, I had the opportunity to sight-see at the famous Bourbon Street in New Orleans. After dinner, we went to Preservation Hall, an old, dilapidated building with holes in the planked floor. In this dimly lit venue, a half dozen older black gentlemen sat on stage, playing the most soulful music I had ever heard. It was emotive, mournful, moving. It was as if each person in the band was not just playing the music—they had lived it. That’s when I understood, for the first time, what Dixieland music was really about.

Here is the thing: I haven’t been talking about jazz. To state the obvious, the jazz trio is a metaphor for biblical community. In true biblical community, there are all of these components—selflessness, dialogue, grace, mutual submission, synergy, improvisation and shared passion. It is necessary—even commanded—in order to play the music that is the healthy, functional church. The church, the Bride of Christ, is intended to birth the music that cares for the lost, loves the world, makes disciples and worships the Living God. It is an improvised symphony, alive and breathing, bathed in the mystery and wonder of our shared journey with Him.

The biblical church isn’t a building or an institution. Sure, there are church buildings and there exists the institution of the church, both of which are apparent necessities. But the church is, first and foremost, a community of Christ-following sinners who love God, love people and live under His reign, His Kingdom.

The church, for all of its faults and foibles, is the Bride of Christ. And when it plays its music, it is the hope of the world. It was designed that way. And when it works right, there is nothing more beautiful and compelling.

This is a short excerpt from Chapter 3 of Imagine That: Discovering Your Unique Role as a Christian Artist (Moody Publishers). 

Check out Manuel’s new book here.
This article originally appeared here.

Why Preachers Should Stop Talking About God

By
David Prince
-
communicating with the unchurched

The Bible begins with the divine king of the universe preaching his word. The entire cosmos exists and is sustained only by the Word of God (Gen 1, Ps 33:6-9, 148:5-6, Heb 1:3, 2 Pet 3:5). John Woodhouse asserts, “At the very moment of the world’s inception, we see the kind of relationship that God will have with his creation. As he brings the world into being, God’s point of contact with his creation is his Word.”1 God chose to create and act through his word as the mark of his sovereign, kingly authority over the cosmos.2 John Frame, regarding God’s speaking, notes, “This communication is essential to God’s nature. He is, among all his other attributes, a speaking God.”3

The beginning of John’s Gospel presents Jesus Christ as the eternal “Word” through whom all things were created, who appeared in human flesh as the living, acting, speaking Word of God (John 1:1-14).4 Hughes Oliphant Old explains,

One might even go so far as to say that according to the prologue of the Gospel of John, Jesus is God’s sermon to us preached in the living out of a human life. It is to this sermon, then, that all our sermons witness; it is this sermon that all our preaching unfolds and interprets.5

Vern Poythress notes the relationship between Genesis 1 and John 1,

The utterances of God spoken in Genesis are themselves the manifestation and expression of God in his triunity. In particular, they are the manifestation and action of the second person of the Trinity. None of the utterances in its particularity and specificity exhausts the eternal Word, since other utterances occur besides. But each utterance is fully divine. Each constitutes one of the specific unfolding of the eternal Word through whom all things came to be (Col 1:16; 1 Cor 8:6; Heb 1:2).6

J.I. Packer writes that the Scripture itself “may truly be described as God preaching.”7 Zack Eswine writes,

Everything changes when, standing at the bend in the road, a preacher realizes that the Bible he holds in his hands is the collected sermons of God. The fact that God speaks sets him apart from all other deities. He proclaims a Triune speech to the world: God the Father speaks (Gen. 1:3).”8

Every Christian preacher who steps before the people of God to proclaim God’s Word is positioned at the apex of kingdom warfare. Timothy Ward bemoans contemporary reticence to apply the astounding implications of the biblical witness regarding the nature of God’s word to the contemporary task of preaching his word in the church:

Yet, despite the modern nervousness about identifying the sermon with the word of God, throughout the New Testament it is simply assumed that what the disciples preach really is to be identified with God speaking… To claim that one’s own human speech about Christ crucified really is God speaking, and that the Holy Spirit comes in power through one’s apparently weak speech, seems to run dangerously close to blasphemy. Yet that is clearly the pattern for the extension of the gospel after Pentecost that Christ and the apostles established. Fraught with dangers and temptations though it is, it is simply given to us as our pattern of ministry… The New Testament precedent is simply that the preacher can preach and must preach, fearful and trembling because he has been given the privilege of speaking God’s words and has no power to determine the result of his preaching, but is not so fearful that he loses his resolve to know and proclaim Christ and him crucified… In light of this, what the faithful preacher does, and what the Holy Spirit does with Scripture through him, is best described as a contemporary re-enactment of the speech act that the Spirit performed in the original authoring of the text.9

Jason J. Stellman notes that in faithful preaching the hearers do not simply hear the preacher, they hear Christ,

In fact, Paul insists that when the saints hear Christ preached, they are actually hearing Christ Himself (Rom. 10:14, NASB; Eph. 2:17), a point made powerfully in the Second Helvetic Confession, which states that ‘the preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God.’ Personal ‘quiet time,’ therefore, can never replace the regular hearing of the gospel preached in the context of the local church, for it is here that God addresses His people in a unique and powerful way.”10

I fear that too often we think of our preaching as merely standing before the congregation talking about God, rather than as participating in God’s own preaching. Darrell Johnson helpfully explains,

For it turns out that as we preach, we participate in Jesus’ preaching of his Father; in the preaching moment, Jesus himself is pointing to and revealing his Father. And as we preach, we participate in the Father’s preaching of his Son; in the preaching moment, the Father himself is pointing to and revealing his Son: ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased’ (Mt 3:17); ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!’ (Mt 17:5). And as we preach, we participate in the Holy Spirit’s preaching of Jesus; in the preaching moment, The Spirit is pointing to Jesus, bearing his own witness to Jesus, and doing so in a way that brings conviction and faith (Jn 16:8-15). We participate in a divine work, in a trinitarian work, the end results of which are not on our shoulders.11

John Stott powerfully summarizes, “In the ideal sermon it is the Word itself which speaks, or rather God in and through His Word.”12). Only a man with a blood-earnest commitment to the word of God and its unique power belongs in the pulpit.

  1. John Woodhouse, “The Preacher and the Living Word,” in When God’s Voice is Heard: The Power of Preaching, ed. Christopher Green and David Jackman (Leicester: InterVarsity, 1995), 47.
  2. Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from Genesis: Foundations for Expository Sermons (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 55.
  3. John Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2010), 48.
  4. Timothy Ward, Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 68.
  5. Hughes Oliphant Old, The Biblical Period, vol. 1 of The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 155.
  6. Vern S. Poythress, “The Supremacy of God in Interpretation” (classroom lecture notes, Westminster Theological Seminary, photocopy).
  7. James I. Packer, Truth and Power: The Place of Scripture in the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1996), 163.
  8. Zack Eswine, Preaching to a Post-Everything World: Crafting Biblical Sermons that Connect with Our Culture (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 103.
  9. Ward. Words of Life, 158-59, 162. See also Jason J. Stellman, Dual Citizens: Worship and Life between the Already and the Not Yet (Orlando: Reformation Trust, 2009), 13.
  10. Jason J. Stellman, Dual Citizens: Worship and Life between the Already and the Not Yet (Orlando: Reformation Trust, 2009), 13.
  11. Darrell W. Johnson, The Glory of Preaching: Participating in God’s Transformation of the World (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 12-13.
  12. John R. W. Stott, The Preacher’s Portrait (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 30.

This article originally appeared here.

The Number One Reason People Resist Change

By
Ron Edmondson
-
communicating with the unchurched

After years of leading change, I’ve discovered some things about the process. One of those discoveries is change will face resistance. All change.

Surprised by this revelation? Not if you’ve actually ever led change.

If the change has any value someone will not agree—at least initially. It’s almost human nature at work.

There is something in all of us, which initially resists change we didn’t initiate.

And, in addition to this, I’ve discovered the most common reason change is resisted. I mean the biggest, number one reason people rebel against change.

If there were one big reason, would it be helpful to know?

Understanding this can help a leader navigate through change. Ignoring it makes the process of change miserable for everyone—and often keeps the change process from being effective.

What’s the most common reason change is resisted?

It’s an emotion people feel. An emotion.

They may not even be able to describe what they are feeling, but the emotion is more powerful at the time than the excitement the change may bring.

And, it may not even be the emotions we naturally think. We assume anger, confusion or fear. And, while those are often true emotions of change, in my observation those aren’t the most common or at least initial emotions.

There is one that comes first and impacts all the others.

What is the most common emotion that causes resistance to change?

A sense of loss

There you have it—and must understand it. People emotionally feel a sense of loss in the process of change.

Have you ever felt like you were losing or had lost something?

How did you react? Didn’t you try to hold on to whatever you were losing? Did your blood pressure rise a bit? Did you “feel” something?

That’s what people feel in the initial days of change. It’s not usually a good feeling emotion.

And, translate that sense of loss into the organizational context.

Loss of power
Loss of comfort
Loss of control
Loss of information
Loss of familiarity
Loss of tradition
Loss of stability

These aren’t always rational emotions. They are often perceived as bigger than they really are.

But, they are real emotions to the person experiencing the emotion of loss.

It doesn’t even matter if people know the change is needed. Emotions are not dictated by reality. But, because change is change—their emotions are based on some truth. Things are changing.

So, they feel they are losing something in the change and it causes them to resist the change.

I have found, as a leader, if I understand what people are struggling with I’m better prepared to lead them through it. Some people are never going to get on board with the change, but many times people just need someone to at least acknowledge their sense of loss. It doesn’t eliminate the emotion, but genuine empathy allows me to keep leading.

The great news from my pastor/leader friends is you already know how to assist people dealing with a sense of loss.

When a leader discounts or ignores a person’s emotions, the resistance becomes more intense, because the emotions become more intense. This is actually when some of those other emotions—like anger—are often added. The process of change is then stalled and sometimes even derailed.

Leader, are you paying attention to the emotions of change?

This article originally appeared here.

Join the National Day of Prayer

By
Megan Briggs
-
communicating with the unchurched

Only God could have created and sustained our free nation. Throughout American history, He has inspired and responded to the fervent prayers of His people.  On this National Day of Prayer 2017, as we intercede for our nation, it is encouraging to remember how God has answered prayer at critical times in our history:

  • Christopher Columbus wrote in his diary that he was guided by the Holy Spirit as he sought direction to find the New World.
  • The pilgrims of the Mayflower fasted and prayed for the relief of the unrelenting drought threatening their lives. The gracious and speedy answer from God saved their lives during the early years of the Plymouth Plantation.
  • A national day of prayer was called for by the first Continental Congress in 1775.
  • Our nation nearly disintegrated when the debate over our Constitution came to a standstill. In response, Benjamin Franklin called the Continental Congress to prayer. Within two days, the Congress produced the final draft of the world’s longest standing constitution.
  • A young Colonial officer and man of prayer, George Washington, miraculously survived many battles (even one where his jacket had 4 bullet holes and his horse was shot out from under him two times) and later became the first President of the United States of America.
  • In 1863, when our nation was split and broken during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln called for a national day of humiliation, prayer and fasting. The nation was preserved.
  • In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a national radio broadcast asked Americans to join him in prayer on D-Day, when the Allies invaded Normandy.
  • In 1952, President Harry S. Truman recognized the need for the nation to pray by signing into law the National Day of Prayer.
  • In 1988, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed the National Day of Prayer to be on the first Thursday of May.

Prayer has played an undeniable and critical role in our nation! It is of paramount importance for our leaders to continue this great tradition.  The National Day of Prayer 2017 reminds us of the urgent need to pray.

Regardless of our political positions or spiritual traditions, we agree that our government leaders are not perfect.  We know this with great confidence, not because of what we have read in the press, but because the Scriptures say that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  Our leaders, just like us, are imperfect men and women in need of Divine guidance. As a result of their power and position, our leaders need even more concerted and effective prayer. There is a constant temptation for leaders in government to amass power and replace reliance upon God with the reliance upon our State.  This creates an environment that erodes the religious freedoms afforded to us by Nature’s God, who creates all with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Just as a syrup maker boils down the raw syrup to clarify and intensify the flavor, on this day we must clarify and intensify our prayers for leaders who have a sinful nature and for our free government that could elevate its importance above the individual and the Church.

We must specifically pray:

  1. The Church would lead our nation in righteousness.  Righteousness exalts a nation—it was never the role of government to define righteousness for us.
  2. Our nation would understand that all of us are accountable for our collective actions, in light of God’s promise in Micah: I will take vengeance in anger and wrath on the nations that have not obeyed me. (Mic. 5:15)
  3. We would submit to God’s design for our government, found in Isaiah 33:22: For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, and the Lord is our King, it is he who saves. Government was created by God as one of three central institutions (in addition to the Church and marriage) He established to care for his creation.
  4. God would raise up humble leaders who understand where we can find enough wisdom to solve any problem our nation might face—the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure. (Is. 33:6)

The theme of this 66th National Day of Prayer is “Hear us, forgive us and heal us.”  We must pray for the supremacy and the effectiveness of the Church to lead our nation and our nation’s leaders. We must renounce spiritual nationalism which rests on the hope that our government will usher in God’s kingdom. Rather, we must remember that it was the First Great Awakening of the Church that produced the first leaders for our nation.  It was not the other way around–our government will not usher in the next great awakening.

Our spiritual freedom, and perhaps the world’s spiritual freedom as well, rest upon our prayers for our nation.  Christians have been the world’s leaders for spiritual freedom and have brought hope to countless millions who pray for our nation so that they might have some benefit in their own.  Across the world, anti-Semitism, religiously-motivated terrorism, and religious discrimination are on the rise.  It is our responsibility as Christians in this nation to fight, on our knees, for our religious freedoms here so that these freedoms would flourish abroad as well.

Please join me in fervent prayer on this special day.  Our Creator, Yhwh, can change the course of nations.  He invites us join him in creating history through prayer.  It is a Divine opportunity we cannot miss.

This article originally appeared here on Intercessors for America.

Carolyn Custis James: Helping Men and Women Embrace a Blessed Alliance Based on Biblical Understanding

By
Jason Daye
-
communicating with the unchurched

Carolyn Custis James thinks deeply about what it means to be a female follower of Jesus in a postmodern world. She travels extensively both in the US and abroad as a speaker for churches, conferences, colleges, theological seminaries, and other Christian organizations. She is an adjunct professor at Biblical Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, as well as being on the board of the Institute for Bible Reading. In addition to writing several books including Malestrom, Half the Church, and The Gospel of Ruth, Carolyn is a regular contributor to blogs such as Missio Alliance and the Huffington Post/Religion.

Key Questions:

What is a male-female blessed alliance?

Are we as a society moving closer or further away from a biblical understanding of manhood and womanhood?

What can we learn from Genesis 1 and 2 about God’s original intention for gender and image-bearing?

Key Quotes:

“[In Genesis 1 and 2, God’s] not making any distinctions between them—saying now this is his job and that’s her job.”

“It is a Kingdom strategy…when [God’s] sons and daughters join forces and work together.”

“Both of us would say we have done more because of the other person than we ever would have done on our own.”

“After the 2008 financial crash, financial experts were saying ‘Would we be in this mess if it had been Lehman Brothers and Sisters?’ And not because women are better, but because different decisions get made when you get the whole, broader perspective of both male and female points of view.”

“When we come to the Scripture as western Americans, we are coming to a book that is not an American book and it is not a western book. And if that isn’t our starting point—if we just lunge into biblical interpretation and never leave our shores, never understand how that world worked, we will miss the meaning of the text.”

“We’ve assumed that patriarchy is the divinely approved system; although we’ve thrown out slavery and we’ve thrown out polygamy…Patriarchy is not the message of the Bible, it is the backdrop to the Bible’s message.”

“What happened at the fall was the destruction of the relationship between humanity and our creator, and the destruction of the relationship between male and female.”

“When Jesus came, he said he came to bring a Kingdom that is not of this world. So I think we should be looking for something that’s very different than what we’re willing to settle for.”

“The changes in the world that are so unsettling right now are also opportunities to ask new questions and bigger questions.”

“To ‘image’ somebody you don’t know is not possible; it’s something we’re supposed to work at.”

“The battle that God was calling humanity to before the fall meant engaging the enemy, meant the struggle of the life of faith.”

Mentioned in the Show:

Malestrom

Half the Church

The Gospel of Ruth

Twitter: @carolynezer

carolyncustisjames.com

From an Older Minister to a Younger One (Part 1)

By
Michael Catt
-
communicating with the unchurched

I’m a Baby Boomer. I’ve lived through the birth of rock-and-roll, the Jesus Movement, hippie culture, the invention of color television, the birth of FM radio, records, cassettes, CDs, MP3s and satellite radio. I was around before the Internet and cell phones. My grandparents had a party line, and growing up all our phones had cords.

I learned to drive with a stick shift, we didn’t have seat belts and the dashboard was metal. We didn’t use car seats, and we didn’t lock our doors at night. The streets were fairly safe for kids to play in, and we knew our neighbors. Most of us went to the same kind of church our parents and grandparents attended. We all sang hymns, but I was around when choruses started showing up in church, mainly because of the Jesus Movement.

The Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, the birth of the drug culture, teenage rebellion, and the catastrophic change in attitudes in our land about social, moral and ethical issues. I’ve lived through 12 presidents, and our family has established residence and served churches in seven states.

All that being said, I think I’ve learned a few things. I’ve been around the block a few times and learned from the Word, my experiences, my mistakes and my mentors. I’m now in my seventh decade, and I’m still learning.

Most of what I’ve learned in life, I’ve learned from people older than me. Most of the books that have profoundly impacted my life have been written by people older than me. Most of the sermons that have challenged me to the core have been preached by people older than me. As I’ve gotten older, that fact has somewhat changed, but it still is prevalent. Most of the time in life, we learn from people who have been down the road farther than we have.

While my generation rebelled against our parents, many of us have come to realize that our parents weren’t as stupid as we thought they were. They had wisdom; we just had some form of limited knowledge. They fought for their freedoms; we took ours to excess. While a person can mature physically and have many birthdays, it doesn’t guarantee they are wise or worth listening to.

As I continue to pastor and speak in various conferences around the country, I am increasingly concerned about the lack of young leaders present. It seems the “me first” mentality has also impacted the ministry. What I’m about to say is a very general statement, but it needs to be said. You don’t have to agree with it, but you should contemplate if it contains elements of truth before you write it off. The divide is real. Very few older pastors know or invest in a younger pastor. Very few younger pastors seek out an older pastor for wisdom and guidance.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard guys younger than me express their disinterest or even disdain for older pastors. Apparently, there is a disease going around that infects people and causes them to think, “Nothing significant happened before I was born.” Many in the younger generation of preachers seem to be disinterested in anything that isn’t related to them or their events, ministry, demographic, likes or dislikes. Again, that’s a general statement. It doesn’t mean it’s true of all, but it’s true of too many.

I say that because of what the greatest preacher I ever met said to me when I was in my early 30s. When I met Vance Havner, he was preaching a revival in my home church. It was youth night…he was 72 years old at the time. He rocked my world. He called sin, sin. He didn’t try to be politically correct. He meant what he said, and said what he meant. He made people uncomfortable who had gotten too comfortable in their pews or in their own skin. He didn’t pull any punches, and he didn’t soften the blows. He made demands because the Bible demands our life, our love and our all.

One day I was visiting with Dr. Havner in his living room. He was in his mid-80s at the time and had mentored me, encouraged me, rebuked me, written to me and helped me for 15 years. I started telling him all I was doing for God. I wanted him to be impressed with where I was serving, what I was doing and trying to tell him, and how I thought God was using me. I felt I was building a good case at that moment.

I was sitting on the couch, and he was sitting in his rocking chair. He leaned forward, put his hand on my right arm and said, “Now son, I’ve been young and I’ve been old. You’ve just been young. Why don’t you be quiet and listen to me for a while?” It was a moment I’ve never forgotten. It’s one I’d like to have myself with a bunch of young preachers I know…and a few older ones as well.

The first man who profoundly influenced my life was my youth minister, James Miller. He believed in me, but never let me off easy. He embraced the Jesus Movement as it began to sweep across the land and led his youth group to embrace it as well. I am eternally indebted to a man who was older than me. How many of us owe the direction of our spiritual lives to a children’s pastor or youth pastor who took us under their wing?

James has always referred to me as one of his “Timothys.” I get that analogy. Timothy was, in a sense, Paul’s “preacher kid.” It’s possible that Timothy’s father was already dead, and Paul became like a father to him. Paul was certainly old enough to be Timothy’s father. He was probably in his teens when Paul came to Lystra. Timothy quickly became someone that Paul had his eyes on. I still love to talk to James, who is now in his late 70s and still has a fire in his belly for revival and awakening.

Regarding their relationship, one writer noted, “No doubt, Paul could sense as an older preacher the promise of tomorrow in the life of the younger man whom he invited to join the missionary party.” Paul entrusted Timothy with great responsibilities in evangelism, representing him before churches, and ultimately pastoring. His loyalty earned Paul’s trust. Paul’s last word was for Timothy. When Paul wrote the letter we know as 2 Timothy, it was a word to encourage his young protégé to be worthy of his heritage of faith.

Young ministers need someone to invest in them. It begins with the younger having a teachable spirit and the older having a watchful eye. If you are young in the ministry, find someone who is older, wiser and more experienced. They may not be in your field or be interested in all the things you are interested in, but they have wisdom to impart.

This article originally appeared here.

If Persecution Was Legal Would You Still Be a Christian?

By
Dr. Josh Buice
-
communicating with the unchurched

For the majority of the world, to become a Christian is at best a difficult life, and in many cases it’s life threatening. Jesus not only gave His disciples a commission, but He likewise warned them of the danger that was ahead. Suppose that open persecution was legalized in your city, would you still be a Christian? Before you begin a response to me regarding the fine points of theology, I want you to know that I’ve crafted the question in a specific way on purpose. Would your fear of man override your fear of God? Would your love for prosperity and peace be more valuable than the treasure of Christ?

Christianity and Persecution

It may come as a shock, but each year thousands of Christians are losing their lives because of their relationship to Jesus Christ. Some statistics report as many as 100,000 per year die for their faith in Christ. Other statistics report numbers as low as 7,000-8,000. No matter what number is right, the point is clear, it’s not a safe world for Christians. What if you were arrested and imprisoned simply for having a Bible app on your phone or for attending worship on Sunday? Would you continue in your faith or would you save your life by denying Christ?

In many cases in the United States, a little rain or a better opportunity that’s presented in form of recreation will keep families away from the gathered church for worship. That’s the current climate beneath the umbrella of prosperity and freedom. What if you lived beneath the intense pressures of Christian persecution, as many do around the world? Would you still be a Christian? If the fear of death or the love of pleasure is of greater value than the treasure of Christ, you never possessed real Christianity in the first place. If you choose the world over Jesus, your faith is false (1 John 2:19).

John 15:19—If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Real Christians Suffer Persecution

Christians are called to suffer, and to suffer for the proper reasons. Jesus promised that His followers would suffer persecution (Luke 21:17). At one point, Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:10). Not only did Jesus promise persecution for His followers, but He encouraged them to be persecuted for righteousness’ sake.

It is possible for real Christians to suffer persecution for the wrong reasons. Experiencing persecution for foolish choices or for sinful motives is not the same as suffering for righteousness’ sake. Jesus understood the difference as did the apostles (1 Peter 3:1). Christians can suffer for making poor choices that lead to suffering when it’s not absolutely necessary. We must be reminded that there are hills worthy of death, but not all hills are as valuable as others.

When Peter and the other apostles were arrested for preaching Christ, they were beaten and charged not to preach in the name of Christ again. The word “beat” used in Acts 5:40 means “strike or whip as to take off the skin.” This was a severe warning as opposed to death, which is what the religious leaders wanted to do to them. However, Peter and the apostles were resolved to continue preaching Christ. They feared God more than men.

The fear of death or severe punishment often reveals false Christians. In the 1970s, an illegal Bible study was being conducted in Asia. When Communist officials discovered the meeting, they sent soldiers to shut it down. The soldiers burst into the room, and confronted the pastor and small congregation. They demanded the pastor to hand over his Bible. The solider threw it on the ground and then stated that they could all leave, under one condition. Each member had to spit on the Bible, which the solider called a “book of lies.” As they called on individuals to come forward, they spat upon the Bible as directed and they were immediately released. When a young teenager was called upon, she approached the Word of God, knelt down and wiped off the Bible with her dress. The Communist solider put his pistol to her head and pulled the trigger.

Consider the words of Christ, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28). For that very reason, the inner circle of Christ all suffered and most of them were killed for their faith. Many others would die for their faith following the days of the apostles—including men like Polycarp. Sinclair Ferguson writes:

Christians are persecuted for the sake of righteousness because of their loyalty to Christ. Real loyalty to Him creates friction in the hearts of those who pay Him only lip service. Loyalty arouses their consciences, and leaves them with only two alternatives: follow Christ, or silence Him. Often their only way of silencing Christ is by silencing His servants. Persecution, in subtle or less subtle forms, is the result. [1]

When John Rogers finished his translation work and had the Matthew Bible printed and distributed, he was later arrested for his views on the Lord’s Supper. When he refused to accept the doctrine of the Roman Catholic mass (the doctrine of transubstantiation), he was burned at the stake in 1555 in front of his entire family and others in the streets. Real Christians are prepared to suffer and die for their faith, but false Christians renounce Christ out of their fear of man and the prospect of pain.

The initial question was purposely crafted in a way to make you think. If persecution was legal, would you still be a Christian? All true Christians continue to the end, even beneath the pressures of persecution. As Justin Martyr famously stated, “They can kill us, but they can’t hurt us.” Is your Christianity shallow, weak and false? In an evangelical climate where sports can actually compete with Jesus, the local church is placed down the list of priorities, and doctrine is downplayed—do we expect such professing Christians to die for their faith?

Would you be a Christian if persecution was legal?

Luke 9:24—For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

  1. Sinclair Ferguson, The Sermon on the Mount, (Carlisle PA: Banner of Truth, 1997), 41.
  2. For more information on the persecution of Christians worldwide, visit Persecution.com.

This article originally appeared here.

Lesson Idea: Joseph’s Journey to Egypt Game (Chutes and Ladders)

By
Lindsey Whitney
-
communicating with the unchurched

In Children’s Church, we were finishing up a study on Joseph and I wanted to give the kids a fun way to review all we had learned so far. Based on the game of Chutes and Ladders, I construction a giant game board using a giant roll of kraft paper (I buy mine at Uline). I colored in the spaces with crayons. As you can see, the board spread across about four classroom tables, so it made a big impact when the kids walked in.

Joseph's Journey to Egypt

For Joseph, I used a Bible figure (I think from the Tru curriculum). I printed him out, laminated him and stuck him in some sticky tack. Kids used the dice to roll a number and then took turns moving Joseph across the board.

Joseph's Journey to Egypt

Each square had a coordinating note card (I decided not to write directly on the board so that we could use the board again later for other accounts).

Joseph's Journey to Egypt

Just like in Chutes and Ladders, the negative events in Joseph’s life would send him spiraling down a slide while the positive events would send him climbing up a ladder. For each roll of the dice, I would read a short passage from Genesis and then give directions on how to move our friend Joseph.

Joseph's Journey to Egypt

At some point, the kids had to crawl on the tables to move Joseph—which, of course, they found delightful. It was a great way to finish up some learning and further illustrate how life is filled with ups and downs for all of us.

What About You?

How do you review lessons with kids? I’d love to hear about it!

This article originally appeared here.

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