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Bring Scripture to Life For Your Entire Church

By
Liz Botts
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“We think we know what suffering is,” says Jim Duran, lead pastor of The River Community Church in Ventura, California. “We think we know what going without is. And I don’t think we had a clue.”

Discipling Christians to love each other like Jesus does—wholly, without holding anything back—is hard.

And yet it’s all right there in Matthew 25—the key to loving others like Jesus. It’s feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, caring for the sick, the stranger, and the imprisoned. And whatever we do for “the least of these brothers and sisters of mine,” Jesus tells us, we do for Him. Often, that takes developing empathy first.

It’s a challenge for most pastors to find a way to inspire church members to develop a heart for those outside their communities. As followers of Jesus, it’s difficult for many of us to think about giving away our time or attention to strangers when we’ve already packed our days full with our own families and our church community. There is often little room for the Spirit to move us in quiet ways. To prompt us into actions that move us away from the familiar and the comfortable. To venture out into the thick of the struggles all around us—to love others, tangibly, like Jesus.

But what if there were a way to bring Scripture to life for the people in your church? A practical way to “hit the pause button” each night for a week, sharing experiences at home that help them catch a glimpse of the pains of hunger, the discomfort of dirty clothes, and the many needs of the world? To get everyone, from kids to young adults to seniors, excited to dive in and share God’s love with others by putting their faith into action?

When Pastor Duran first heard about Matthew 25 Challenge from a World Vision representative, he was hesitant. Like most pastors, he was busy. His church was already involved in the community and had several ministries going on. But a video revealing the plight of children in extreme poverty around the world struck a chord with Jim. He thought about the needs of the community that his church wasn’t addressing. And he thought about the people in his congregation who weren’t serving yet in any capacity. That’s when he decided that bringing World Vision’s Matthew 25 Challenge could be an incredible opportunity to activate his church.

“This would be something that we could actually do together,” Jim remembers thinking. “The whole church could actually do this. And so, I was inspired.”

The Matthew 25 Challenge introduces congregations to practical ways to gain new perspective together, as families. Simple daily challenges encourage people to step into the shoes of our vulnerable brothers and sisters around the world—a taste of what it’s like for people who are hungry, thirsty, and in need.

Jim found easy tasks like sleeping on the floor to be more eye-opening than he’d anticipated: “My wife went, ‘Okay, I’m going to take the couch and you can lay out, but I’ll be here with you.’ So I realized we’re not as tough as we think we are. We don’t really understand what these people go through on a daily basis.”

The Matthew 25 Challenge not only creates an opportunity for good conversation about the stuff that matters, it sparks change. It strengthens and connects families. It engages them outside of Sunday mornings. And it creates a culture of generosity in the church.

This weeklong discipleship experience is easily accessible to everyone in your church. Each day, text messages sent right to your phone deliver the daily challenges. But even more, they share compelling stories that engage and bring to light the reality many families around the world face.

The week’s challenges include:

Monday — skip lunch
Tuesday — drink only water
Wednesday — sleep on the floor
Thursday — wear the same clothes you wore the day before
Friday — reach out to someone

“I’d recommend this to any pastor to bring their church in, to get them all involved and excited about doing this challenge,” Jim says. “It brings unity to the church.”

Jim was moved as he watched his church family transform. People became intentional about reading the Bible as a family, giving financially, praying together for their community, and stepping out in ministry. The shared experiences inspired them to feel sincere empathy and love—not only for neighbors, but for strangers, too—and even more, it moved them to respond.

The moment with the most impact: when his church gathered on Saturday morning at the end of the week to pray together.

“Because of the Matthew 25 Challenge—because of the involvement of everybody in the church, we had 10 times as many people on that prayer walk than we ever had at the Saturday morning prayer meeting,” Jim says. “And we walked our city, we prayed over our city. We ended up in front of city hall praying over the city officials, asking for wisdom … It was actually so impacting that our team looked at me and said, ‘We have to do this again.’”

This unique experience can help you disciple your congregation and open their eyes to the importance of acting out their faith. It can help them understand that when they care for others and meet their needs, they’re not only showing compassion and love to God’s children, they’re also serving Jesus.

What if something as simple as sleeping on the floor could bring about transformation in your church, and transformation for our brothers and sisters around the world? Are you willing to see? Sign up for the Matthew 25 Challenge and disciple your church in a fresh, engaging way that compels hearts to act. Because we can all afford to love more like Jesus.

Learn more about the Matthew 25 Challenge today.

Chan and Zacharias: Expository Preaching Is the ‘Most Powerful Way’ to Show People Jesus

By
Jessica Lea
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Editor’s Note: After the publishing of this article, an independent investigation found allegations implicating Ravi Zacharias of sexual abuse to be credible. Prior to this report, ChurchLeaders had published multiple articles about Ravi Zacharias and his ministry. Although our editorial team believes his work still has value since it involved articulating the truths of God’s Word, we would be remiss not to disclose the painful truth of Mr. Zacharias’ personal actions that have come to light following his death. For further reading, please see:
Sexting, Spiritual Abuse, Rape: Devastating Full Report on Ravi Zacharias Released
The Story Behind the Ravi Zacharias Allegations (Part 1): Lawsuits, NDAs, and Email Threads
The Story Behind the Ravi Zacharias Allegations (Part 2): ‘Cursory’ Investigations and More Accusations

Ravi Zacharias and Francis Chan believe that if church leaders are going to help the next generation build a genuine faith instead of walking away from it, it’s crucial that pastors prioritize expository preaching. At the same time, it is just as essential for leaders to communicate truth in love and with compassion.

“We are not answering a question, we are answering a questioner,” said Zacharias. “Our challenge is to make them realize that while our worldview may be different, the imperative of our worldview is to love those who oppose and love those who stand against us.”

Don’t Neglect the Word

During a Q&A session at the recent 2019 Church Leaders Conference, Zacharias and Chan answered a series of questions. One came from a pastor in the audience who quoted statistics showing it’s becoming unusual for those in younger generations to accept Jesus’ divinity. The man asked what he could do as a pastor to help young people believe in Jesus as the Son of God instead of seeing Him merely as a moral teacher.

Zacharias responded that “in our preaching one way or the other, we have to be bringing in the teachings of Jesus and why those teachings are true and why He is indeed who He claims to be.” Something worth remembering is that even Jesus’ closest followers had trouble grasping His identity and purpose. As an example, Zacharias brought up Matthew 16 where Peter says to Jesus: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus praises Peter and tells him he is the rock on which Jesus will build His church. But immediately after that, Peter fails by rebuking Jesus for saying He will go to the cross. To this Jesus responds, “Get behind me, Satan!”

Zacharias said, “Even those who recognized His deity had a difficulty in understanding the total message and the mission.” Peter was also present during Jesus’ transfiguration. Even though he saw Jesus revealed in all His glory, he still didn’t “get it.” He wanted to stay there on the mountaintop.

However, later in 1 Peter 3, Peter exhorts believers to set Christ apart as Lord in their hearts and to be prepared to give an answer for the hope they have. This shows, said Zacharias, that even though Peter had incredible experiences with Jesus, he did not rely on those experiences for his faith, but instead relied on God’s word. Zacharias concluded, “Expository preaching is the most powerful way to present who Jesus Christ really is.”

Chan agreed and emphasized that we need to remember it is the Holy Spirit who enables people to believe. In the Matthew 16 passage, when Jesus praises Peter, He says God is the one who revealed the truth to him. As pastors preach, they need to recognize that God is the true author of faith. Chan said, “Apologetics has its place and then there’s a stopping point to it and we go, ‘Oh God, please, please.’” It’s also helpful to remember it’s not natural for people to accept that Jesus is divine. So, said Chan, we need to plead with God that He will bring about that belief in people. And we can take comfort from Jesus’ promise that His sheep will hear His voice and respond to Him.

Love Must Lead

Both Chan and Zacharias highlighted the importance of kindness and compassion as believers speak the truth. Zacharias noted that when people challenge our beliefs in a way that is intimidating, it can be tempting for us to lose our tempers and “fight back.” But instead, we must communicate that we love and care about people, not only in how we answer but also in how available we are to answer. If we cannot treat people with kindness, there is no point trying to tell them about the good news of the gospel. Something Zacharias’s mother used to say is, “Once you’ve cut off a person’s nose, there’s no point giving them a rose to smell.”

Chan stressed that as Jesus’ followers, we are to be known by our love for one another, adding, “This is where we’re losing it.” He described how significant it was for him to feel loved by Zacharias when he first met him. Chan said that he is not an apologist, and until he met Zacharias, it was totally foreign to him to feel accepted by a Christian scholar, instead of feeling like he fell short because of his lack of knowledge. As Christians, he said, we need to ask ourselves what we are doing to pursue loving one another the way that Jesus wants us to love.

It’s Worth Watching the Rest

Zacharias and Chan had a number of other insights regarding the challenges facing the church, such as the difficulty of pursuing Christ in an affluent culture and the problem of disunity among believers. It could be, said Zacharias at one point, that “the greatest need for the hour is that we be one in our belief and in our passion and in our propagation.”

What do you think?

Nick and Tori Foles Articulate the Pain of Miscarriage

By
Megan Briggs
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Nick Foles, the NFL quarterback who took the Philadelphia Eagles to a Superbowl victory in 2018 and who is also training to be a pastor, had a sad announcement for his fans recently. Foles announced he and his wife, Tori, lost a baby to miscarriage over the Memorial Day weekend.

“As several of you knew, we were about 15 weeks pregnant with our 2nd baby. Early Sunday morning after a rough couple days fighting a ‘virus’ of some sort, I went into sudden labor and knew something was wrong,” Tori wrote in a post on Instagram.

Tori Foles Speaks Candidly of Pain on Instagram

Tori wrote about how she had to go through labor and deliver the baby she had just miscarried. “To fully labor and deliver and even see our baby boy was a pretty devastating process,” she said. After a trip to the hospital, Tori found out she had contracted an infection of pneumonia in the blood, which doctors believe caused the miscarriage.

The couple relied on support from friends who happened to be visiting from Pennsylvania. Philadelphia Eagles quarterbacks coach Press Taylor and his wife, Brooklyn, were with the Foles family when the miscarriage took place. Tori expressed her thanks to the Taylors by saying, “God knew we needed you.”

Foles will be playing for the Jacksonville Jaguars this upcoming season. Yahoo Sports reports that Foles missed the voluntary off-season training the Jaguars had scheduled this week in order to take care of Tori. He cited personal reasons for missing the training, but must have told coach Doug Marrone more, since the coach announced the team’s “thoughts and prayers” were with the Foles family.

Tori and Nick Rely on Faith

The Foles have one young daughter and were looking forward to being parents to another child, but they are able to see God’s hand in this loss. Tori wrote, “Emotions go back and forth from immense and overwhelming sadness, confusion and anger to a firm belief that God has this fully in his hands and will use this for good.”

Tori explained the experience has instilled a new sense of compassion in them for other couples who have endured miscarriages.

We’ve endured some unique challenges as a couple so far, but never quite knew what something like this felt like and now we do. We have so much compassion and sensitivity to those who have gone through a miscarriage at any point and in any circumstance. We know they all happen very differently.

Foles wrote about the incident on Twitter, pointing people to the story on Tori’s Instagram account. “We are grateful for all the love, support and prayers,” he wrote. He also included a Scripture reference: 2 Corinthians 12:9.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

The pain of miscarriage can be devastating, and understandably, some couples choose not to talk about it. The Foles both have a wide following of fans, though, and they are not shy about their faith in God. Perhaps they saw an opportunity to point grieving couples to the hope of Christ and communicate that there is nothing wrong with expressing grief. 

Pastor Reached in, Prayed for Van Crash Victims When He Couldn’t Free Them

By
Stephanie Martin
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While greeting people at his church before a revival meeting Tuesday evening, Joseph Fields heard a loud boom and then saw a tipped-over, smoking van near the parking lot. The pastor of Mount Zion Church in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, ran to offer assistance but couldn’t budge the van doors. So he reached in to extend prayer. “The window was broken and I reached in and held two ladies’ hands and prayed for them,” he says.

Later Fields learned that four people—choir members from Shiloh Baptist Church in nearby Blackstone, who were coming to sing at the revival—hadn’t survived. “At the time I was doing all that praying, I’m going to tell you the God’s truth, I didn’t know that anyone had passed,” says the 74-year-old Vietnam veteran. “I was shocked when they said four [had] passed on the scene. I was literally shocked.”

Fields, who’s been the pastor of Mount Zion for 44 years, says, “This is like waking up from a nightmare.”

Shiloh Baptist Church Van Was Turning Into Lot

Police say the Shiloh van was turning into the Mount Zion parking lot when it was rear-ended by a pickup truck loaded with metal. Four people in the van, including a 36-year-old mother of a 9-month-old baby, were killed, and the other seven passengers were injured.

Charges are pending against the driver, who tried to assist van passengers despite being injured himself. “He has to now—for the rest of his life—live with this,” says Fields. “I pray for him, his family. He’s going to really need some support.”

Other choir members from Shiloh, riding in another vehicle, witnessed the impact. One, Lafayette Dickens, says, “It was going to be a routine church program, because we sing at different churches all the time…but I guess the good Lord had other ideas.” Dickens, a deacon at Shiloh, says the congregation is in “absolute shock,” adding, “We’ve never dealt with anything like this.”

Local Churches Serve as “extended family”

The crash occurred on the first night of a three-day revival event. Services continued Wednesday, as about 60 people gathered to sing and pray. A vigil for the victims is scheduled for Thursday evening.

In that area of central Virginia, says Blackstone native LaTiscia Fowlkes, local churches consider themselves “extended family to each other.”

Billy Coleburn, mayor of Blackstone, says, “The people we lost and the people who were injured were the cream of the crop. Good God-fearing people who left their church on Tuesday night here in Blackstone and went 20 miles down the road to spread the good Word to another church.” Of the victims, Coleburn says, “Their lives on this earth were taken doing something glorifying [God’s] name. There is no doubt where they are today, no doubt at all.”

Angela Dickens, an associate minister at Shiloh, says, “We’re just trying to pick up the pieces. We know that God is good. We know that he is in control. We know there are some things you just can’t explain. We’re literally heartbroken.”

Is Your Church Healthy? Part 1: Engaged

By
Chris Swain
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Every week I have the opportunity to record a podcast, Making Disciples with Robby Gallaty, with Pastor Robby. When we record, we spend a few moments considering the content, and then we dive into the topic. We record this way because we want to deliver a high level of authenticity rather than a canned spiel. We also have a lot of fun trying to catch each other off guard with questions and comments, and this is a challenge we relish. Typically, all goes well, but on one occasion, I was not prepared. The podcast was focused on minimizing tech and social media to focus more on being a present and effective parent, spouse, co-worker and minister. Pastor Robby asked me a question about how we are so distracted by our use of tech. I didn’t catch the question because, ironically, I was scrolling through my phone looking for the ad content for the podcast. He was able to turn this moment into a perfect illustration in real-time. I was embarrassed but happy to contribute.

Is Your Church Healthy? Part 1: Engaged

What happened at that moment was that I was not engaged in the podcast conversation while simultaneously being engaged with something distracting—my phone. This is clearly an issue in our day-to-day lives filled with social media and constantly living “on.” There is also a way we can gauge the health of our church through engagement. Not attendance or involvement in our activities and programs, but engagement with the Word. As we have mentioned numerous times before, according to a decade of research, Lifeway determined that Bible engagement is the primary indicator of spiritual growth.

I don’t know many people who push back on this research, but many have asked, “What is Bible engagement?” This is an important question. Gauging the health of your church will depend upon your understanding of what Bible engagement means. First of all, Bible engagement is not merely Bible reading. And yet, we must not make engagement out to be so complicated that no one understands how to do it. Bible engagement is reading and then acting upon what you have read; it is the combination of intake and outflow. We cannot claim to have engaged in God’s Word if we have simply read words on a page. But Bible engagement certainly starts with that consistent habit.

So how do you know if your people are engaging with God’s Word? It is easier to gauge attendance, or perhaps, ask people to raise a hand if they have been reading. But can we truly gauge effectiveness without a process in place to hold our people accountable? The difficult truth about gauging the health of your church is that there must be an effective process that provides a track for accountability. Sadly, most churches do not have this track. At Replicate, we believe the best method for high accountability is through discipleship groups. This is where we can really see engagement take place. And because it is a process, we can gauge the outcome. Whether or not you have discipleship groups, you can assess Bible engagement. By examining your group’s (Sunday school, home groups, etc.) ministry, you can create some lead measures to drive Bible engagement and then assess these measures. For example, you may begin asking your group leaders to have the group discuss what they have read the previous week and how they have applied it to their lives. This simple question will help your leaders determine how engaged your people are in the Word. While this is a simple step, it will help you begin to think about effectively equipping your people to engage the Word.

When we ask whether or not our church is healthy, we must determine if our people are engaging with God’s Word. Since Bible engagement is the primary determinant of whether or not our people are growing spiritually, it is of utmost importance that we get this right. Think of some lead measures, implement discipleship groups, and/or determine ways you can help your people engage with God’s Word to become a more healthy church.

This article originally appeared here.

5 Ideas to Consider About Faith and Preteens

By
Dan Scott
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You might think it would be easy to transition kids from talking about Bible stories to talking about faith as they enter their preteen years (9-12). But as they grow and develop, abstract thinking makes the topics trickier and conversations stickier. Here are five developmentally appropriate realities to keep in mind when talking about faith to preteens:

Fewer kids have a background in Scripture.

How we talk about the Bible needs to be both foundational and exploratory. If kids don’t have a reason to believe that this book matters, simply sharing stories might not be enough. You need to lay a foundation of why the content of the Bible matters to people both inside and outside the faith. How you communicate should be exploratory to capture the imaginations of kids. This will be helpful for those who are ready to grow in their understanding of scripture.

Often we want kids during the preteen years to go deeper, but we need to understand that deeper learning can happen regardless of how much you know. Deeper learning is the ability to take an idea from one setting and use it successfully in a different setting. With that in mind, even kids who are new to faith can start understanding how what they’re learning on Sunday translates to the rest of their week.

Faith is abstract, and preteens are (still) primarily concrete thinkers.

Preteens are caught in between concrete and abstract thinking. Some of them are great at it, while others will struggle to understand abstract ideas about faith. As they move from concrete to abstract, they will start having lots of questions about faith. The answers we give them and the words we use can either add clarity or cause confusion.

Remember it’s less about YOUR answer and more about THEIR process of discovering an answer for themselves. Know your audience and choose your words with them in mind. Don’t go into more detail than you need to answer a question. And, “I don’t know” can be the best answer. When you admit that you don’t know something, you model a true journey of faith. We’ll never know everything there is about God. If we could know everything, God wouldn’t be God. Allow what you don’t know to prompt further exploration and self-discovery.

Most preteens still need a concrete experience in order to understand abstract ideas. Don’t default to discussion questions because it’s easy. Conversations about abstract ideas can be difficult for kids unless the question is based on a concrete experience.

Faith is connected to personal identity. 

As this generation struggles to find themselves, it’s important to help preteens see themselves as God sees them: deeply loved and worth saving.

Whenever we talk about sin and salvation, we tend to focus on how bad we are, all the wrong we do, or how much we mess up. For kids who are hyper-focused on what people think of them, if we put too much focus on the bad, that may become the default of how they view themselves.

We should always start any discussion on sin and salvation with the reminder that the Bible starts in Genesis 1 and not Genesis 3. Remind kids that they are created in God’s image for a unique purpose. And while they are no longer perfect, God loves them enough to do whatever it takes to make relationship with Him a reality.

For the preteens still in the concrete thinking stage, be careful with the words you use to help kids understand sin. Don’t equate sin with mistakes. Kids might unnecessarily think that getting a problem wrong on a math worksheet or losing a game is a sin. Those are most often mistakes that are simply part of the learning process.

The Preteen Phase is one of many faith environments at your church. 

Each family ministry environment at your church needs to understand where their department fits into the end in mind you have for an emerging adult leaving your church when they graduate.

Have on-going conversations as ministry departments where you discuss how you will talk with students about faith. These should include how you talk about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, sin, salvation, spiritual gifts, etc. at every age and stage of a child’s journey throughout your church.

When we create the right environments, kids will be drawn to return week after week for the long haul. Let each phase do what it can do best and help kids build toward your goal for them as an adult.

Faith should be championed in the home.

Even though kids need multiple adults in their life that champion their faith journey, parents are still the primary influence in a child’s life. Preteen parents are feeling an urgency as they know the inevitable “pulling away” will start to happen in the near future.

All parents want to be good parents, they may not know where to start. Parents also want to pass along as much information as possible while they still have time. Make it easy for parents to connect with your church. Find out how/where your parents like to receive their information and use that avenue. Don’t make them have to search for information. Equip parents with the tools they need to pass on faith and prompt them to have the important conversations they’ll need to have during the preteen years.

Remember, faith development is a long-game. You’ll never pass on everything a kid can know about God in an hour of programming. It takes a long-term relationship with trusted leaders who will walk alongside these kids as they grow up. Create a unique preteen environment in your church where these sorts of relationships can thrive.

If you don’t know where to start, check out Caught in Between: Engage Your Preteens Before They Check Out for practical steps for how you can create a dynamic preteen ministry in your church.

This article originally appeared here.

Summer and Small Groups: 4 Keys to Family Connections

By
Chris Surratt
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Summer and Small Groups: 4 Keys to Family Connections

For a lot of us, summer means more time with family. Kids are home from school and family vacations are the norm. We also tend to have a bit more margin than during the hectic other seasons. As small group leaders, that extra time spent with family should also include our group members. Your small group should be looked at as a family, not a function. With a function, we can take breaks and come back to it when we feel like it. With family, there is no such thing as extended breaks.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take a break from hosting weekly group meetings. Hosting a Bible study every week (or even bi-weekly) can be grueling, so you deserve to take a breather for a couple of months. However, there are many ways to stay connected to our “family” during the summer months without having them at our house every Tuesday night.

1. Have fun!

Go to a ballgame. Celebrate the Fourth of July fireworks together. Get together for a picnic. Race cars at an amusement park. We can sometimes suck all of the fun out of group life, and summer is a great time to put it back in.

2. Go on a short-term missions trip together.

Nothing bonds a group better than being on mission together. The trip does not have to be international—there are massive needs in communities all around us. Partner with an organization that is already making a difference in that community and take your group on a weekend missions trip.

3. Serve a local missions organization.

There are food pantries, youth centers and other missional organizations in almost every community. Pick out a Saturday in June or July to serve as a group. If it’s a great experience with an organization making a real difference, commit to an ongoing relationship.

4. Do an online study.

Choose a video-enhanced study on smallgroup.com. But instead of meeting together every week for the discussion, set up a Facebook group page to go through it online. Your group members can watch the video on their own, and then post comments on the page. A great study to try this summer would be “Making Space” by Jeff Vanderstelt.

By getting creative and thinking outside of the box, your group family can still stay engaged in community this summer.

This article originally appeared here.

Replacing a Long-Term Leader

By
Evan Doyle
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Replacing a long-term leader is rarely easy. Especially, if you’re the one replacing the person everyone is used to.

If you’re the new guy, you’ll be compared to the previous leader. Everything from your leadership style, personality, to the way you communicate will be stacked up against the previous leader. While this may not seem fair, it is completely normal.

Most people adjust, adapt and get comfortable over time with leadership. It’s not necessarily that what you’re doing as the new guy is bad, it’s just different. Different isn’t always easy. Different means uncomfortable.

A year ago, I was the one replacing a long-term leader. I’ve learned some things through this transition.

Here Are Five Tips for Successfully Replacing a Long-Term Leader as the New Guy:

1. Conversations Are Better Than Rumors

If you’re the new guy, decide right now that you’re going to talk about things. Plan on having conversations. Realize that giving others the opportunity to ask questions and share their feelings about you is better than them sharing them with others.

If you stay secluded and avoid difficult conversations, people will form their own opinions and share them with others about who you are and why you’re there. Having healthy conversations will help ensure that the narrative is healthy and that rumors are avoided.

You need to understand the people that are there have been there longer than you and have made contributions that you haven’t, value these people. Conversation is the only way for building a bridge between what they’ve done and where you want to go next.

2. Build Trust Instead of Walls

What is trust? Ultimately, trust is confidence. People may trust that you’re not a bad person, or that you have good morals, but they’re also asking, “Can I follow you as a leader?” “Will you let me down if I put my confidence in you to lead?”

I’ve heard it described this way: Trust equals consistency over time. Therefore, you need to be patient and understanding that building trust is a process. If you’re insecure as the new leader, you’ll demand trust immediately and become frustrated when people don’t convey trust.

If trust equals consistency over time, you must do what you say you’re going to do, repeatedly. The quicker trust is established the faster progress can be made and everything can continue moving in the right direction.

3. Questions Lead to Understanding

I know, I know, you have vision. You see the areas to improve. There are changes that you want to make… And believe it or not, people want to hear about them. But, they want to be heard too.

Carey Nieuwhof put it this way, “When you listen first and speak second, people are far more interested in what you have to say.”

Questions can be scary though.

What are they going to ask?
How will they respond?

When someone honestly answers a question, they are revealing what they think and how they feel. As leaders, we want to know these things.

Insecure leaders are afraid of these answers and of being asked questions. They confuse being asked a question with being questioned.

To understand what people are thinking you must ask them.

Asking questions gives you the opportunity to see things from another perspective. While what you’re saying makes sense to you, it may be taken the wrong way by someone else. Maybe you’re coming across differently than you think. Very few people will approach you to tell you when you’re doing this. Therefore, you need to start a habit of asking questions during this transitional time to ensure that both sides are understanding each other.

4. Process Helps Ensure Stability

A process is a series of steps taken to achieve a desired outcome. One of the things you and those you are now leading need is stability.

We have a saying at the church where I pastor, Change is our friend. We try to always remain open to change and to avoid becoming too comfortable with things the way they are. However, when changes are made questions naturally arise. Why? How come? What’s the reason?

Most of the time things seem to be working fine the way they are. People get comfortable and used to things working a certain way. Therefore, when change happens it disrupts what has become normal. Having a process behind the change will help you to provide answers to people’s questions. Using a process can guide you in decisions, help you to understand why decisions were made, and how the change is going to help.

Defining a process for how your church or team is going to move forward while replacing a long-term leader provides security and helps people feel safe in unstable times.

5. Don’t Take Preferences Personally

To illustrate what I mean, I need to ask you some questions:

What’s your favorite ice cream?
What toppings do you like on your pizza?
Who’s your favorite communicator?

My point is, what you like and prefer is probably different than me.

Not everyone is going to like you. Most people will be kind to you. Some will become your biggest fans. Others will prefer some things about the other leader or pastor.

When you’re replacing the long-term leader, you will probably hear things like:

He did things this way…
Her personality was like…
His preaching has a way of speaking to me…

All of this is normal and OK.

Everyone has preferences and so do you.

The differences between you and the other leader are not determining factors if you and the new congregation can work together. The determining factor is if you’re willing to get to know each other.

Are you willing to try?
Will you work to stay positive?
Can you stay open to having conversations?
Are you willing to see things from someone else’s perspective?

Some people are not willing; you need to let them walk. Love them. Pray for them. Be there for them if they come back, but understand some people are not willing or wanting to work together.

If you take other people’s preferences as a personal insult, you’ll begin to harbor unhealthy thoughts about yourself and them. This will halt progress. You’ll feel paralyzed. And, carry a chip on your shoulder.

You’ll feel tempted to put the previous leader down to make yourself look better. Always choose to honor the other leader. Take the high road.

The other temptation will be to feel less than because you’re not the other person.

Both are wrong and unnecessary. Both traps can be avoided if you’re intentional to remind yourself that preferences are not personal.

God has uniquely gifted you to lead.

You are where you are for a reason. You’ll always have room to improve but always trust that God will give you everything you need to lead.

If you’re replacing a long-term leader, hang in there. Apply these tips and encourage your people that the best days are ahead.

This article originally appeared here.

What It Means to Love Jesus

By
Joe McKeever
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“If you love me…” (John 14:15)

We do love the Lord, right? We would love to express our love to Him in His own love language, right?

We love Him because He first loved us, right? (That’s I John 4:19.)

The question then is “How exactly do we express our love to Him?” With flowers and candy? With huge gifts? Quick prayers before bedtime? Maybe if I’m baptized and join the right church? Should I tithe? Should I read the Bible through? Go to Sunday School?

What does He want? What would make Jesus feel loved?

The Old Testament answer to the question…

The prophet Micah was wrestling with this very question when he asked, “With what shall I come before the Lord? And bow myself before the High God?”

That is to say, “What possible thing could I do on earth that would please God in Heaven?”

How can pitiful earthlings ever possibly do anything that would please the Creator and Lord of the universe, He who owns it all in the first place?

Micah considers some possibilities: “Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings? Perhaps with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or ten thousand rivers of oil?”

Or, if you want to get pagan about it, “Shall I give my firstborn for my transgressions? The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

Child sacrifice was considered by God the most abominable of all sins. Scripture refers to this as a sacrifice to the god Molech, and when Israelites do it Heaven itself is horrified. God says, “which I did not command or speak, nor did it come into my mind” (Jeremiah 19:5). The very idea!

Then, Micah answered his own question: “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:6-8).

Nothing wrong with that. It’s a great statement, as attested by the large number of t-shirts that statement adorns even now.

The United Methodist Church’s Reformation Has Begun

By
Megan Briggs
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In February, the United Methodist Church decided to take an official stand for traditional marriage by adopting the Traditional Plan. The Plan, among other things, does not allow “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy and does not permit a UMC-affiliated church to perform same-sex weddings. The denomination’s leaders have waited with bated breath to see how progressive churches in the UMC would respond. A recent conference of progressive UMC leaders suggests a sizable number of them are going to stay and attempt to reform the denomination from the inside out, and some are willing to violate the denomination’s Book of Discipline in the process.

“We are going to look at resisting, staying and living into a better, brighter way forward for the United Methodist Church regardless of what the Book of Discipline says,” Adam Hamilton, senior pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, said.

The Resistance Movement Forming in the United Methodist Church

For many U.S. Methodists, the decision that came about from the General Conference was “not OK” as Hamilton puts it. Progressives in the church see the Traditional Plan, which opted to keep the Book of Discipline’s traditional language concerning LGBTQ issues, as akin to treating these people as “second class people.” Those who attended the conference see resisting the Traditional Plan as a way to “resist evil, injustice and oppression in all forms and toward all people.” At a press conference discussing what the group had decided upon, Ginger Gaines-Cirelli of Foundry UMC in Washington D.C. said they are committed to building a church “which affirms full participation of all ages, nations, races, classes, cultures, gender identities, sexual orientations and abilities.”

Gaines-Cirelli and Hamilton are both on the “convening team” of UMCNext, which is the name of the conference that was hosted at Church of the Resurrection. There are 17 people on this loosely-structured team of leaders and their goal is to facilitate discussion among those churches in the UMC who find the Traditional Plan unpalatable.

Will Those Who Resist Violate the Book of Discipline?

The group is divided between two options: reforming the church from within or leaving the church to reform from without. Hamilton described the situation as being similar to the Protestant Reformation with groups representing a more Martin-Luther approach of leaving and starting something new and other groups representing a Council-of-Trent approach to bring about change from the inside. The 600+ attendees of the conference, however, agreed that reformation needs to happen.

Gaines-Cirelli articulated that UMCNext was not rushing to choose one of the two options. “We, at this stage, are not trying to say that there’s one path,” she explained. In fact, the conversation at the conference made it clear that there may even be more than two options to resistance. The group is open to further conversation.

A question arose about whether resistance would mean violating the Book of Discipline, the instruction of which concerning LGBTQ issues in the church is due to take effect January 1, 2020. “People will have to decide how they will participate” in resistance, explained Junius Dotson, the General Secretary of Discipleship. For some churches, resistance will mean violating the Book of Discipline. For others, resistance might take a more subtle form, such as displaying a banner that says “We Are a Welcoming Church” or perhaps something more blatant.  

Another question arose about how the group (which was comprised of leaders from U.S. churches) planned to involve the global church. Considering it was mostly the Central Conference of the UMC that was responsible for tipping the scales in favor of the Traditional Plan at the General Conference, this was a tough question. Hamilton assured the group there are already conversations happening with European leaders and even some meetings coming up with bishops and members of the Central Conference coming up in July.

Hamilton mentioned the General Conference shook a lot of “centrists” who had been sitting on the fence or who had been silent on the issue of LGBTQ inclusion. Identifying as a centrist himself, Hamilton believes the decision at the conference caused many to choose a side and vocalize it.

The particularly difficult position many UMC churches in the U.S. face is what to tell the people in their congregations who started attending their churches before the General Conference decision and now face the question of whether or not they’re welcome anymore. “Many of our churches have families, LGBTQ families—children, we have couples that are married, raising children in the churches,” Hamilton says. The question of what to do with already-ordained gay clergy also comes to mind. 

DJ del Rosario, a convening team member, thanked those church members for sticking with the UMC. Rosario wanted to make sure LGBTQ individuals in the UMC know “we are better because of you, not despite you.”

One of the Oldest Christian Communities Facing Extinction, Archbishop Warns

By
Jessica Lea
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In a recent speech in London, the Rt Rev Bashar Warda pleaded with Western civil and religious leaders not to remain passive about the circumstances of Christians in Iraq. Warda, who is the Archbishop of Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, says that Iraqi Christians are facing extinction.

“Argue as you will, but extinction is coming, and what then will anyone say?” asked Warda. “That we were made extinct by natural disaster, or gentle migration? That the ISIS attacks were unexpected, and we were taken by surprise?…Or will the truth emerge after our disappearance: that we were persistently and steadily eliminated over the course of 1,400 years by a belief system which allowed for regular and recurring cycles of violence against us.”

‘No Abstract Matter’

Speaking at a discussion organized by the think tank Civitas, Warda described Christianity in Iraq as “one of the oldest churches, if not the oldest church in the world” and said that it was “perilously close to extinction.” Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were around 1.5 million Christians in the country. Now, said Warda, there are perhaps fewer than 250,000. While the most immediate reason for this is attacks from ISIS (known in Arabic as Daesh), Warda maintains that ISIS is merely the latest perpetrator of the violence that has been ongoing against Iraqi Christians for the past 1,400 years.

Warda called on Western leaders to recognize what extremist Islamic groups are doing to Christians and other minorities in the Middle East, emphasizing the need for honesty: “Understanding what has happened in Iraq means being truthful about the nature and purpose of Christian civil order. It means being truthful about the nature and purpose of the laws of Islam. It means being truthful about what happens when these two come together in one place.”

While this is an uncomfortable topic for people living in a peaceful country, Warda said, “for Iraqi Christians this is no abstract matter.”

Differing Views of Humanity

One of Warda’s key points was that Christianity promotes a system that inherently views all people, whatever their background or beliefs, as equal. But inequality is an inherent characteristic of Islam, he said, whether or not it is promoting violence at a specific time. Warda observed that during the “Golden Age” of Iraq, Christians and Muslims lived in peace with one another and experienced a period of cultural flourishing. However, he argued, peace only existed because the Islamic rulers at the time decided to tolerate minorities: “Fundamentally, in the eyes of Islam, Christians are not equal…we are only to be tolerated or not tolerated, depending upon the intensity of the prevailing Jihadi spirit.” 

Warda warned that ISIS’s demise has not meant the demise of inequality. “The defeat of Daesh has not seen the defeat of the idea of the re-establishment of the Caliphate,” he said. “This has re-awoken and is now firmly implanted in minds throughout the Muslim world. And with this idea of the Caliphate there comes all the formal historical structures of intentional inequality and discrimination against non-Muslims.” And inequality, Warda maintained, inevitably leads to violence.

Not a Rhetorical Question

With this being the reality, Warda challenged, “How will you in the West react to this? My question to you is not rhetorical. The religious minorities of the Middle East want to know the answer. Will you continue to condone this never-ending, organised persecution against us? When the next wave of violence begins to hit us, will anyone on your campuses hold demonstrations and carry signs that say, ‘We are all Christians’?”

Warda then issued a specific call to action. First, he repeated the need for Western leaders to be truthful and not to see the situation “in stretched attempts at historical relativism, which diminishes, or more honestly, insults, the reality of our suffering.”

Next, he urged political leaders to promote equal treatment for all minorities in the Middle East. He asked that leaders would have the humility to recognize the damage their policies have done up to this point. These policies, he said, “have been almost universally wrong, based on fundamentally flawed assessments of the Iraqi people and situation” and have resulted in the deaths of “hundreds of thousands of innocent people.”

Lastly, Warda asked for material support, but for that support to be strategic. He said that while the British government has given generous amounts of tax money to the UN and third-party NGOs on behalf of Iraq, he believes that money has been largely ineffective: “To date, not one single penny of it, and not one single penny from the EU or the USA or any other major donor, has been offered to the schools, university or hospital of my arch-diocese. I cannot say where it goes, but most assuredly it is not seen in any of the projects that have the greatest chance of bringing diverse Iraqi groups together in peace.”

Warda closed his speech with these words imploring honesty and action: “We Christians are a people of Hope. But facing the end also brings us clarity, and with it the courage to finally speak the truth. Our hope to remain in our ancient homeland now rests on the ability of ourselves, our oppressors, and the world to acknowledge these truths… Please join us: name the truths and call-out the pretences.”

John Townsend: Pastors Have Needs and That’s a Good Thing

By
Jason Daye
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Dr. John Townsend is a leadership consultant and psychologist. He has written or co-written over 30 books, selling 10 million copies. John is the founder of the Townsend Leadership Program and the Townsend Institute for Leadership and Counseling. He speaks regularly on leadership and success. He and his wife Barbi live in Newport Beach, California, and have two sons, Ricky and Benny.

Key Questions for Dr. John Townsend

– How can pastors balance the calling of self-sacrifice and their own needs?

– What kinds of relationships do your typical pastors run into consistently?

– What are the “relational nutrients” pastors need?

Key Quotes from Dr. John Townsend

“Neuroscience is basically catching up with what the Bible’s been saying all along about [leadership, performance, and optimization].”

“One of the things you find out in the Bible is that needs are a good thing…you need to need.”

“In life, and especially in leadership, there are the people who are the gains and the people who are the drains.”

“There are seven types of people every leader encounters: coaches, comrades, casuals, colleagues, care, chronics, and contaminants.”

“People who don’t have long-term nurturing relationships where people are giving back to them, have more relationship problems, more career problems, more psychological and emotional problems, more medical problems, and a higher rate of mortality.”

“Just like our body needs bio-nutrients, our brains need relational nutrients.”

“Are you bottom-heavy? Have you got a lot of ‘chronics’, and a lot of ‘care’, and a lot of ‘contaminants’, and is that sapping your energy and your productivity for your vision in life?”

“Who’s mentoring you? Who has expertise in church growth, spiritual growth, organizational growth, emotional health, financial health, family, workout, whatever…We all need coaches and mentors and guides.”

“Every leader has got to build their ‘comrade’ life team.”

“The moth comes to the flame. Leaders have a flame, they have energy, they have vision, they have wisdom. It’s not their fault they’re attracted to you, it’s our fault that we let too many of them in.”

Mentioned in the Show:

People Fuel
People Fuel in a Box (coming soon)
DrTownsend.com
4 Quadrants of Relational Nutrients Card
Genesis 2
Ecclesiastes 4
Matthew 26
2 Corinthians 6
1 Peter 4:10
Proverbs 24:3

Other Ways to Listen to this Podcast:

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10 Common Pastoral Care Questions

By
Thom Rainer
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Most pastors are amazing. I am honored to serve them, and my appreciation for pastors grows every day.

For example, I recently conducted a social media survey where I asked pastors to share their most common pastoral care challenges. The volume of responses was huge, a very impressive number. But even more impressive were the stories of love and concern these pastors have for their congregations. They want to care for them. They want the best for them. They want to help ease their pains.

10 Common Pastoral Care Questions

So, for the most part, the challenges are not the members themselves, but the capacity to meet all the pastoral needs members have. Here are how the pastors expressed 10 of their greatest pastoral care challenges.

  1. Time. The pastoral care needs are always greater than the time available to meet those needs. A number of pastors expressed the tensions of meeting the needs of their own families while trying to meet the needs of the church members.
  2. Expectations. It doesn’t take a new pastor long to discover you can’t meet all the expectations of church members for pastoral care. Pastors always disappoint someone. They typically get criticized for not meeting needs. It is a burden and frustration for these church leaders.
  3. Emotional fatigue. Pastors see a lot of emotional, physical, mental and spiritual needs. They see the deepest pains and the direst situations. They are often unable to detach from the hurt they see almost every day.
  4. The fix-it syndrome. Many pastors are fixers by nature and personality. But many pastoral care situations defy fixing, at least in the short-term. Pastors, as a consequence, feel both frustrated and hopeless.
  5. Dealing with toxic members. One pastor told me that half his week is spent dealing with toxic church members and the church members hurt by the toxic people. Pastoral care of this nature has little reward to it.
  6. Aging congregations. To be clear, no pastor said anything negative about the pastoral needs of older adults. Their challenge is the increasing number of needs as members age. Many of the pastors are serving congregations where over three-fourths of the active members are 70 and older.
  7. Communication failures. Pastors are sometimes expected to be omniscient. They will obviously miss a hospital visit if they don’t know the person is in the hospital. When one pastor was confronted for missing a visit due to his own lack of knowledge, the church member responded, “Well, you should have known.” Sigh.
  8. Pastor-only pastoral care. Some church members still believe pastors are supposed to do all the pastoral care ministry. The infamous sentence is repeated too often, “That’s what we pay the pastor to do.” Many pastors would like to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry, but those saints will have nothing of the kind.
  9. Hospital visits. Depending on the demographic context, some pastors have to spend most of the day for a single hospital visit. One pastor shared that most of his members go to a hospital in a city almost two hours away. He lamented how little time he had for sermon preparation because he was in the car so much going to the hospital.
  10. The special situation of the bi-vocational pastors. These challenges are exacerbated when the pastor is bi-vocational. Most churches are willing to pay a pastor part-time pay while expecting full-time work.

I love pastors. I love their hearts. I love how they love their churches. Next time you see your pastors involved in some aspect of pastoral care, let them know how much you appreciate them. Many often don’t hear such words of affirmation and encouragement. Your words can make a huge difference to those who serve us so well.

This article originally appeared here.

Music Vs. Sermon: Worship Music Does More Than Set the Table

By
David Manner
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Music Vs. Sermon: Worship Music Does More Than Set the Table

Setting the table in baseball jargon is when a utility hitter walks or gets a base hit so the power hitter that follows him in the line-up can potentially bring everyone home.

Setting the table for a meal is when eating utensils are put in place so everyone will be ready to eat when the food is served.

So setting the table means laying the groundwork for something more substantial to follow.

Some believe the purpose of our worship service music is just to set the table. But the goal of our service music isn’t just to prepare our hearts for something else. It’s not the undercard before the main event. It isn’t the warm-up band before the headliner. So it doesn’t just set the table for the sermon.

Paul exhorted the saints at Colossae to let the word of Christ dwell in them richly by teaching and admonishing each other through psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. It doesn’t sound like Paul thought its only purpose was as the supporting cast.

Teaching proclaims or makes something known by precept, example and experience. It exhorts, instructs, exposits and applies. And it communicates to us and through us.

Admonition urges us not just to hear but do. It reproves, advises and counsels in order to correct our thinking. It encourages us to right what is wrong in order to redirect our attitudes and motives.

The worship songs we sing encourage us to reflect and respond to biblical text; they speak the gospel; they are sung with theological integrity; they encourage us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength; they challenge us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves and they exhort us to action. So the theology we are singing can’t be seen an appetizer before the main course if it’s supposed to teach and admonish us to be doers and not just hearers.

Our worship songs won’t be seen as just table setters as long as they continue to quicken the conscience through the holiness of God, feed the mind with the truth of God, purge the imagination by the beauty of God, open the heart to the love of God and devote the will to the purpose of God.[1]

[1] Adapted from a quote by William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury 1942-44.

This article originally appeared here.

Six Traits of the Best Small Group Hosts

By
Brandon Cox
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Six Traits of the Best Small Group Hosts

Some churches raise the bar when it comes to recruiting small group leaders. You need to be a member for X amount of time, well versed in the church’s doctrinal statement, agree to a lifestyle covenant, etc. The more qualified the leader, the stronger the group will be…or so goes conventional wisdom. But is that really true?

My friend Ron Wilbur, one of Saddleback’s Small Groups Pastors, once told me I’d probably make a terrible small group leader. It wasn’t that he was trying to discourage me. Ron taught me something valuable when he said, “Your tendency will be to teach and answer all the questions, and you’ll kill the discussion and short-circuit the relationship-building process.” Now that I lead a small group in my home, I have to agree with Ron. If I’m not careful and intentional, I’ll be the bottleneck that holds my group back from being a healthy micro-community.

So if we’re not looking for long-term members and Bible scholars, who makes the best group hosts? Most commonly, new believers in Christ, but I would expand that criteria to include anyone with these key characteristics.

The Best Hosts Are Facilitators, Not Lecturers

I’m all for one-to-many communication, and I think preaching is getting sidelined a bit too much in our modern obsession with one-on-one discipleship. But a small group isn’t the arena for a lecture, it’s a conversation in a circle of chairs where everyone asks questions and everyone speaks up. Good hosts understand the power of leaving good questions unanswered and throwing them back into the ring.

The Best Hosts Include People Far From God

Rather than seeing a small group as a holy huddle or a gathering of the frozen chosen, great hosts remind themselves and their group that we have a common mission to accomplish—including everyone in God’s family so they can encounter Christ in an atmosphere where they are accepted by friends.

The Best Hosts Are Fellow Students, Not Experts

Small group leaders who facilitate growth in their groups don’t have all the answers, and don’t try to appear to have all the answers. Instead, they are fellow discoverers who participate in the group’s journey into greater knowledge and spiritual depth. How then are we to protect groups from doctrinal errors spread by well-meaning new believers? We trust the pastors, to whom the assignment of guarding the flock was given, to mentor leaders to a more thorough knowledge of biblical truth.

The Best Hosts SPEAK Human

Instead of speaking Christianese, they speak human. My pastor gave me an acronym to remember a basic approach to human conversation…

S – What’s your story?

P – What’s your passion?

E – How can I encourage you?

A – Ask, what can I do to help you?

K – Who do you know that I should know?

The Best Hosts Don’t Have It All Together

Not only do they not have it all together, but they’re willing to be open and honest about not having it all together. Life change only happens as masks are removed.

The Best Hosts Dream of Multiplying

Great small group hosts realize that group time is not just a social hour or a Bible class. It’s a time when God’s people get together to do life together, and to live missionally together. So the host is always looking around the group and asking, “Who can I pour into next so that we can send out a leader to launch another group?”

The world around us is not impressed when we’ve amassed knowledge without living differently as a result. But as long as Christians are impressed with the same, we’ll never create a small group culture conducive to involving the surrounding world in the conversation. The best small group hosts love Jesus and love people, but are also real enough to relate to people and build genuine friendships.

I’m not the best small group host. But perhaps you’ve got what it takes? There’s only one way to know. Go start a group.

This article originally appeared here.

How Christian Entrepreneurs Are Going to Change the World

By
Brandon Cox
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Christian entrepreneurs are going to change the world.

In Christian church history, there have been periods of time when the church has really created a strict dividing line between clergy and laity; that is, between professional priests, pastors and ministers versus all of the “ordinary” members who are not called to a particular church office. I hope that we lose that because every Christian is a servant, a minister.

Some people are called to lead the church in a vocational capacity, but all of us are called to expand God’s kingdom together and all of us are ministers in the workplace.

We serve other people wherever we go, not just at church on Sunday.

We also shouldn’t compartmentalize our faith. Most of us believe that we go to school for our education, to work for our money, and to church for our religion. But faith doesn’t work that way. It affects everything. When I submit my life to Jesus as King, he takes over as King of everything. So you need to live an integrated, whole life.

This issue matters deeply to me, and it’s highly relevant, because God has put people in all kinds of positions of influence within society. In fact, he positions each and every one of us where we are to impact other people. He didn’t ask any of us to be an island unto ourselves, or to not have influence, or to not affect the world or the culture around us. I don’t believe he called us to isolate and withdraw and live life behind a wall and barricade ourselves off from the non-Christian world around us.

Personally, I feel strongly led to support and serve people in two particular positions of influence: pastors and entrepreneurs.

More pastors need to think in entrepreneurial ways.

I highly respect those who subscribe to the school of thought that there should be nothing professional about Christian ministry. I understand where you’re coming from. I’ve read John Piper’s book Brothers, We Are Not Professionals. It’s a great book. It reminds us that we’re not just here to analyze markets and produce numbers. I completely agree.

I also believe, however, that entrepreneurship is essentially a matter of being creative, and we can reflect the glory of God when we get creative.

Pastors need to ask themselves entrepreneurial questions, like:

  • Am I thinking outside of my comfort zone and what’s familiar?
  • Am I willing to venture into new territory, take risks, try new things, get creative?
  • Am I willing to adapt my communication styles to the culture around me?

Related Reading: I wrote a blog post about 7 Ways Pastors Should Think Like Entrepreneurs

I also believe that Christian entrepreneurs who are not working in the “church” space should think more ministerially. If you’re successful in business, if you lead people, if you start things, if you earn money, if you influence your community or your culture in the business world, then you ought to be seeking ways to serve other people and to share your faith with people in loving ways.

In the New Testament, we see Paul talking about being a tentmaker—being bivocational. We think of bivocationalism today as a necessary evil—something some pastors have to do because their churches are too small to pay them a full-time salary. Certainly there are those cases, and thank God for the men and women willing to serve in that role!

But I think we should begin to make room for a kind of bivocationism where we encourage pastors and church leaders to be entrepreneurial and to filter into the marketplace alongside everyone else in creative ways, while still faithfully remaining committed to church leadership as a primary calling.

This matters because society’s foundations tend to rest on seven major pillars, and the church is only one of them. Like dominoes, if you can move these seven pillars of society, then you can move society in a new direction.

The seven pillars of society are:

  1. Government and politics
  2. Media—the Internet, news, television, etc.
  3. Arts and entertainment
  4. Business and marketplace
  5. Education, both primary and secondary
  6. Religion—the church and other houses of worship
  7. Family

The idea is  that if we can influence several of those pillars—government, media, arts, business, education, religion and family—then we can tip all of society in a certain direction.

We think about ministry as taking place within the church, but that’s just one pillar, and it leaves the other six out. We need to be thinking about ministry as being spread across all areas of life.

God’s Kingdom is very subversive. Ed Stetzer wrote a book some years back called Subversive Kingdom. I would pair it right with Scot McKnight’s book, The King Jesus Gospel. Those two books really frame well my own viewpoints of what the Kingdom is.

The Kingdom of God is not of this world. It’s not one of the seven pillars. Religion is humanly established. It’s organized. It’s regulated. There are rituals or things that we manage from a human perspective, but God’s Kingdom, the Bible says, is within you. It’s invisible. It’s basically the rule and reign of Jesus. Not everybody that says, “I follow Jesus” is part of the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God operates on different principles than the kingdoms of the world around us. The Kingdom of God operates in the principle of purposeful, willing servitude toward other people. The subversive Kingdom is the idea that God’s Kingdom does not come in and dominate people, or culture, or any of those seven pillars of society. Rather, the Kingdom of God subversively springs up here and there within those different realms.

God has called us to move as agents of his Kingdom and serve and influence the marketplace.

The church tends to lag behind. Whatever the world around us creates, we recreate 15 years later and 85 percent as well. You see this in Christian film. You see it in Christian entertainment. We often give a free pass to very poor quality because we figure, “Well, this is the Christian version. It’s not supposed to be as good.” We just lag behind, and we wait for the marketplace to tell us what to do.

We need Christians to step into a leadership role—not a domineering leadership role, but instead as servants who contribute to the flourishing of humanity.

Let me give you four ways we need Christian entrepreneurs to show up and be present…

1. We need people who will live out a Christlike ethic in the marketplace.

In other words, we need people who will live and serve and do business the way Jesus might do business. I’m not suggesting that Jesus would do business. I’m just saying that Jesus came up with ideas like going the second mile for people, taking the high road, being brutally committed to honesty and authenticity and charity.

All of that originated in the mind of God and in the mind of Jesus, and so businesses that are committed to solid ethics, to honesty, to truth, to generosity, to charity stand out in an age of corporate corruption and greed.

2. We need people who will serve others in Jesus’ name in the marketplace.

Zig Ziglar was very successful and became very wealthy by the end of his life and yet still managed to be, even though he was a motivational speaker and a great salesman, very humble and very Christlike in his life.

Zig used to say, “You’ll have everything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.”

So we need servant-hearted, generous leaders who will elevate others.

3. We need people who will create wealth from the marketplace to support missions.

When I hear about Bill Gates, Warren Buffett or so many others who have made millions or billions of dollars and then have established foundations and trusts in their name whereby they can continue to distribute money through charitable causes throughout the years to come, I think that’s awesome! I think we ought to celebrate that, and I think we ought to duplicate that, [as] Christians.

If we really have a desire to eradicate AIDS and other diseases, to improve education, to tackle issues like poverty and healthcare around the world, and if we really want to plant churches, raise up leaders and share the Gospel everywhere that we possibly can, then we need to be creating wealth from the marketplace that can be given to missions.

4. We need people to be creative thought leaders in the marketplace.

This goes back to the idea that we shouldn’t just sit around and wait for the world to invent everything. Christians should feel the freedom to be innovative.

Innovators change the direction of society. When you think about the most influential people in history, so many of them were innovators. We know who Gutenberg was because he invented the printing press, and out of the printing press came all of the books and libraries and the bookstores that we know today.

Christians ought to be right in the middle of shaping the culture around us. We shouldn’t be afraid of science, psychology and other various disciplines, but instead, fully engaging and being creative thought leaders in our marketplaces. This kind of engagement will make for better communities.

Here are four next steps for you to take in light of this challenge…

1. We need to get over our limiting beliefs.

I talked about our limiting beliefs in the last episode. Our limiting beliefs hold us back.

I just could never do anything great.

I’m not supposed to be earning money.

I shouldn’t be thinking about my potential.

My platform doesn’t/shouldn’t matter.

2. We need to cut through the stigma surrounding success and wealth.

We need to move beyond the stigma surrounding entrepreneurship. This is not about getting rich quickly, or having tons of money so we can go on a permanent vacation and never work again. Where’s the influence in that?

But entrepreneurial acumen, when cultivated properly, contributes something very valuable to the culture.

3. We have to overcome our fear.

We’re not risk takers by nature. I don’t believe in taking dumb risks, but we do have to get over our fear of taking any risk at all. We have to be willing sometimes to step outside of our comfort zone and try new things and venture in a new territory. We have to get over our fear.

4. We have to think about the potential.

We need to think about what society could look like if Christians felt empowered to apply their faith in every facet of life. What would it look like for Christianity to influence the world around us?

Christian entrepreneurs, let’s go change the world together, OK?

This article originally appeared here.

 

Digital Natives and Why It’s Impossible to Do Ministry Where Your Students Live

By
Benjamin Kerns
-
thank you notes for children’s ministry volunteers

Digital Natives and Why It’s Impossible to Do Ministry Where Your Students Live

Remember the good old days?

Back in the 1970s Young Life dramatically changed how the church has done student ministry. With two key foundations, go where students are and earn the right to be heard, countless teenagers have come to know and love Jesus! The church was a little slow on the uptake, but by the time I started doing youth ministry in the late ’90s those values had become the bedrock of church based student ministry as well.

Twenty years later youth ministry has really taken it on the chin. We have declining numbers for programmatic ministry, there doesn’t seem to be a consensus as to an effective model, and there seems to be less and less money for staff. It may seem like the sky is falling, and it is, but not for the reasons stated above.

The reason for alarm is that even with all the challenge in front of those incredible people called to love students right into the family of God, it has become next to impossible to do the one thing most of us have been called to do. To make contact with students, meet them where they are, and earn the right to be heard as we love them and point them toward Jesus.

You are no longer welcome in their world!

The brutal reality is that as adults, we are no longer welcome nor can we really find the spaces where students are so we can do contact work and build a friendship. There are no longer common sporting events, band concerts, skate parks, coffee shops, arcades, fro-yo shops, you name it. No longer can an adult who loves kids show up in a space where kids are and build relationship with them.

For all the right reasons, some of that contact work was shut down because some adults abused their positions of power and took advantage of students, and/or developed inappropriate relationships and friendships with minors. For these reasons, I am glad that the barriers are higher and our students are protected. I am glad that my kids, who are now teenagers, are more protected from predatory adults. This is an ugly factor, but it is factor number one.

The second is the technological world our students live in. As the world has changed and every student in your ministry has a smartphone and multiple social media accounts to manage, and a variety of texting options, their real life is no longer happening in front of you. What you see, the interaction you see, the conversations you have, are now the facade. Their real life is in the cloud.

The reverse used to be true and we could simply ask our kids to put their phones away and they could slip back to the flesh and bones world we call home. But that is no longer the case. Their flesh and blood interactions are the things they tolerate and have to manage so they can get back to their real life, their life in the cloud.

This life in the cloud is not for you. You are not a native to this world, and you are not really invited. Texting a kid or liking an Instagram is being a spectator in their world, but that does not make you a fellow traveler in it. And in this new reality, how are adults, youth workers, supposed to connect with kids, make contact, build relationship and earn the right to be heard.

This is the $1,000,000 question.

Are you prepared to be a true cross-cultural missionary in an unexplored context?

As adults, we know that humans need real human interaction and they need to connect with God to fully live the abundant life we were designed to have. The total lack of human connection has to be a large factor in the exponential rise in anxiety, depression and suicide.

The church, student ministries, have never been needed more. Adults who will see kids and love them unconditionally right where they are at are in short supply.

You are a cross-cultural missionary in a mission field that nobody understands and where nobody has gone before. You, as a faithful youth worker, are a pioneer. So treat your calling and your ministry as a pioneer, as an outpost.

Quit doing hospice work to a dying model of ministry and be innovative, share your thoughts and findings, and teach the church how to be the church in this new world.

Good Luck!!

This article originally appeared here.

Lessons of Prayer—Both Positive and Negative

By
Dr. Josh Buice
-
thank you notes for children’s ministry volunteers

In Acts 12, we find a very important scene of a persecuted church and a praying church. It was the persecution that precipitated the prayer—and what happens in this record of church history is vitally important regarding the practice of prayer within our local church today.

It has been said of prayer by Charles Spurgeon, “Prayer girds human weakness with divine strength, turns human folly into heavenly wisdom, and gives to troubled mortals the peace of God. We know not what prayer can do.” Prayer is of great importance in the Christian journey! We see prayer in both the Old and New Testaments—and prayer is a privilege we enjoy, not a task we must do. One of the most neglected forms of worship is the faithful practice of prayer. This is not true of just the individual believer—but also of the church as a whole. Far too often, the prayers of the gathered church are shallow, short and more horizontal than vertical in nature. We have much to learn about prayer.

At the beginning of Acts 12, we find that Herod was persecuting Christians. He had killed John, the brother of James, with a sword. He was violently persecuting the church—and during this outburst of violence upon God’s people, Peter was arrested and imprisoned. It was likely that Herod was planning to use Peter as an example by killing him as well. However, something very interesting happened.

The Church Gathered for Prayer

We are living in days where prayer meetings are becoming a thing of the past. Unfortunately, the prayer meeting should be central to the life of the church. Apparently, as persecution was heating up against God’s people—the church gathered for prayer. They didn’t turn to social media for prayer nor did they just pray with a few random friends. They gathered as a church specifically for prayer (Acts 12:5, 12). It would do us well to notice that the church had gathered to pray late in the evening or they prayed until it was very late. We derive this from the text as Peter was already asleep between two soldiers when the angel appeared to him (Acts 12:6). This is critically important to see and a pattern to follow. How much more healthy would our churches be today if we gathered as a church for prayer?

Today, the church will gather for all sorts of reasons—many of which center on some sort of entertainment factor. Yes, even religious gatherings can be centered on entertainment. This comes in form of singing, special preachers for special services, and other special events including athletics and more. It’s a sad testimony of our day when prayer meetings are being canceled or are so poorly attended that leaders are considering canceling them altogether. The church received the Holy Spirit as they were gathered in the upper room praying. Here in Acts 12, the church was gathered together for prayer. We need to pray together and for one another. That’s the testimony of the church from the beginning. A healthy church will be a praying church.

Did the Church Refuse to Believe God Would Answer?

While we can learn much from the how the early church gathered for prayer, we can likewise learn some patterns to avoid—such as the one found in this very section. As the church gathered for the purpose of prayer and as they lifted up their voices to God for their brother Peter who was imprisoned—little did they know that God dispatched an angel to the cell of Peter who woke him up and miraculously delivered him from the heavily guarded cell. As they prayed—Peter was leaving the prison under the shadow of night and by nothing short of a miraculous intervention and deliverance.

When Peter arrived at the home of Mary—the mother of John Mark—where the church was praying, he knocked and a servant girl named Rhoda gave the report that Peter was at the gate. They didn’t believe the report. In fact, they went as far as to say, “You are out of your mind” (Acts 12:15). The insisted that if anything, it was the “angel” or “spirit” of Peter. In short, they refused to believe that God had heard their prayers and had delivered Peter out of prison safely. They chose to believe the worst—that Peter had been killed. Suddenly, they were reunited with Peter and their doubts were overcome by the reality of God’s answered prayer.

It was George Muller who said, “I have joyfully dedicated my whole life to the object of exemplifying how much may be accomplished by prayer and faith.” In commenting on this passage, Thomas Watson said, “The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer that fetched the angel.” We can learn both how to pray and how not to pray by reading Acts 12. Be encouraged to pray and trust the Lord who not only hears the cries of his people but answers our prayers in accordance with his perfect will for his eternal glory.

This article originally appeared here.

How to Pray According to Your Enneagram Personality

By
Charles Stone
-
thank you notes for children’s ministry volunteers

Prayer isn’t the easiest thing we do.

Life is full and finding time and the words to say and the words to hear can be challenging. Yet, a very popular personality tool, called the Enneagram, can give us some insight on prayer. Today’s post is by my friend Ryan Lui, an accredited practitioner of the Enneagram.

According to the Enneagram, there are nine personalities categorized primarily by an overarching fixation in life. If God is the answer to all our desires and problems, then the Enneagram can help guide our prayer life efficiently and fruitfully toward him.

Here is a quick description of each Enneagram type’s problem fixation and their prayer focus.

Ones desire goodness in themselves, others and the world, and are fixated on what’s wrong (in themselves, others and the world). The focus of the One’s prayer will be serenity: accepting what they cannot change and lifting it up to God.

Twos desire love of self, others and God. They are fixated on the needs of others and the world and burdened by the perceived responsibility to solve them all. The focus of the Two’s prayer will be humility: accepting their own finiteness and trusting God’s infinite power to save.

Threes desire the recognition of others and are fixated on the need to meet and exceed the perceived expectations of others. The focus of the Three’s prayer will be integrity: taking off their mask, embracing authenticity and living for an audience of one.

Fours desire perfection in beauty and are fixated on what is missing in their life and the world. The focus of the Four’s prayer will be gratitude: recognizing the many and rich blessings of God in their life and in the world.

Fives desire understanding and are fixated on their lack of resources and abilities. The focus of the Five’s prayer is non-attachment: detaching themselves from the finiteness of their understanding and embracing God’s ability to appear and provide.

Sixes desire stability and are fixated on the possibilities of failure and danger. The focus of the Six’s prayer is courage: stepping onto the waters, recognizing God’s call to trust and walk in faith in Him.

Sevens desire experience and are fixated on the future at the expense of the present. The focus of the Seven’s prayer is sobriety: experiencing God in the mundane and ordinariness of the here and now.

Eights desire autonomy and are fixated on controlling as much of their life as possible. The Eight’s focus in prayer is innocence: acknowledging and embracing their emotional needs to God as their loving Father.

Nines desire peace and are fixated on the aversion of conflict and burdened by their frequent avoidance of necessary conflict toward worthy endeavors. The Nine’s focus in prayer is participation: taking up Christ’s yoke together, walking and working together toward growth and fruitfulness.

Although we would all benefit from prayerfully reflecting on all of the these fixations and focuses, it’s helpful to be more mindful of the specific area that has often pervaded our own life and to purposefully invite God into it as our ultimate hope and salvation.

Ryan is Pastor of Life Groups at Tenth Church, Vancouver, B.C. He is the author of Being is Greater Than Doing. You can download Ryan’s 60+ page eBook on the Enneagram, The Nine Kinds of Christians, and other resources for life at ryanlui.com.

Worship Pastor > Worship Leader: The Difference is Caring for People

By
Mike O’Brien
-
thank you notes for children’s ministry volunteers

There are song leaders and there are worship leaders. There are worship leaders and there are worship pastors. Regardless of your specific title, I want to zoom in a bit this month on some approaches we can think about in regards to pastoring our worship community better and better. Some of this will come very naturally; the work of a worship pastor is a never-ending work in progress. We do play a role in shepherding those from the church at large, but I want to speak to the team that is serving right alongside you.

Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.  Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality (Romans 12:10-13)

At this point in my ministry experience, I see the worship stage as the center of the world. It’s not central for reasons of pride or music-centric ambitions, rather it’s primary in my mind because this is where I naturally do the work of discipleship. Musicians and techs under our care are being formed and shaped through the hours, weeks, and years of serving together. When you pastor your team skillfully, you are making disciples, and this is the work of the Kingdom!

Here are some practical ways I encourage you to think about in your ministry:

People Over (and Before) Production 
I love to produce awe-inspiring, over-the-top, pastor-pleasing weekend experiences. Ironically, for years I did this while stepping on the very people I was serving alongside. Over time I’ve learned to welcome and embrace every soul that enters into our rehearsal space. I try to take time before the music begins to give space for people to share and be present to one another. From that foundation of care, we make the music.

Seamless and Consistent Administration 
To quote a friend and mentor, Randy McCoy, “BAD administration hurts people.” One of the most loving things we can do for our teams is to have clean and consistent communication. Timely scheduling, song prep, emails, and texts all speak the language of care. Let people know what is expected of them and what they can expect from you. Over time these faithful structures will build trust, and your team will grow.

Never Stop Saying Thank You 
Sending encouraging texts/emails/cards before, during, and after services can be the fuel for a life-giving worship team environment.  Look for little and varied ways to say “thank you.” A little post-it note on a music stand/soundboard, a bottle of water, a backstage station for hot tea, or a social media shout-out can and will move mountains relationally and organizationally.

Never Stop Learning 
A thriving worship community will be, at its core, a learning community. Both newbies and “pros” will always be exploring new ways to be enriched and challenged. Part of your job as a worship pastor is encouraging everyone to have opportunities for growth. If most of the people on your stage have a “been there, done that” mentality it will create a sense of entitlement and cynicism. We all have something we can be learning. Has it all become just a little too easy? How are you growing as [a] leader?  Who are you encouraging to risk, stepping up and out? Who are [you] training to go even beyond you?

Vineyard School of Worship 
Consider attending one of our training events in 2019. Our Rise Worship Bootcamp is for ages 12 to 18, and our Summer Session is for ages 18 to 35. We are currently developing an all-ages Worship Leader Intensive. Also, mark your calendars for our next Sound and Song Summits. Go to vsow.org to learn more.

 

 

My name is Mike O’Brien and I am passionate about teaching and mentoring worship leaders and teams. My calling is to use my experience as a producer, worship leader, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist to come alongside musicians, helping them more fully worship God with their instrument and lives. Find out more about how I can help your worship leaders and teams HERE.

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