Archive for May, 2009
16 Questions That Will Help Us Make It In Ministry! May 19, 2009
The book that inspires my philosophy of leadership the most is God’s Word. It is consistent. It never changes and will always lead me in the right direction.
Recently in reading through Matthew 10 God absolutely rocked my world and caused me to wrestle with 16 questions I believe that are outlined in this chapter. In this series of blog posts I want to share them with you. Everyone of us are going to wrestle with our leadership gifting and potential at some point in our life/ministry…and Jesus spoke about this very directly to His disciples.
1. Am I Called?
In Matthew 10.1 it says “He called His twelve disciples.”
One of the things that I am discovering that if our ministry is a calling we will hang in there no matter how bad things get. However, if our ministry is a job at some point we will deem the cost being too high and we will walk away. The question I constantly ask people in ministry is, “Are you doing what you do because of passion or a paycheck? You can’t stop a person with passion…but one who performs for a paycheck has their eyes on the wrong prize and doesn’t mind throwing in the towel!”
One of the most fascinating leaders in the New Testament is the Apostle Paul. When I look at some of the things he went through compared to some of the things I go through I often think I have no right to complain. Paul was beaten, made fun of, whipped and even lost His life but he never quit because he always went back to His calling. (Compared to what he endured…our lives are pretty easy.)
Are you called? If so hang in there He’s got great plans for you.
A Conversation…Not A Conference May 18, 2009
Pastors…youth pastors…children’s pastors – mark you calendar for Thursday, August 13th and make plans to join us for “One,” a one day conversation that will cover the importance of youth and children’s ministry, the lessons we’ve learned in the journey, why it is necessary for a healthy relationship to exist between the senior pastor and these areas and quite a few other things as well.
Here’s the deal about this “conversation.” (Let me hit the “whats” and then talk about the “whys!”)
- The “conversation” is limited to the first 100 people that sign up…we’re keeping it small on purpose.
- (Sign ups will open up on Monday, June 1st.)
- It cost $100 per person to attend.
- There MUST be at least two people per church attend…and one of them MUST BE the senior pastor, the other MUST be either from the childrens team or youth team (doesn’t matter whether they are paid or a volunteer.)
- This “conference” will have no music, no production…we will begin with a teaching time for everyone by me…THEN I will do a Q & A with the leaders from our youth and children’s team…THEN we will have lunch (included)…THEN we will have round table discussion that will be broken up with your specific group of interest (youth, children’s, senior pastor), then we will have a final discussion/Q & A with the audience asking myself and our ministry leaders questions.
Now…let me explain the thought pattern as to why we are doing it this way…
First of all…we really wanted to be able to pour into every church and ministry leader that attends, thus the reason for keeping it small.
AND…the reason the senior pastor MUST attend is because I do not want to set a youth or children’s team up to not succeed. There are too many churches today where the senior pastor and the youth and children’s teams seem to be working against one another…not WITH one another.
I am a FIRM believer that a strong youth and children’s ministry is ESSENTIAL for a church to be healthy!
AND…I HATE IT when people say, “the youth/children are the church of tomorrow.” BULL CRAP…they are the church of TODAY!!! One of the reasons the church is losing them in droves is because we think they will be there “tomorrow” for us to reach…but the time is NOW!!!
Senior pastors and youth and children’s teams need to work as “ONE!” We are all on the same team…and it should always be our passion to complete one another instead of competing with one another.
SO…the senior pastor MUST attend…no exceptions will be made. Because…youth and children’s ministry can’t just be a youth and children’s thing…it must be championed by the Senior Pastor.
So…we’ve set aside the day (Thursday, August 13th) for this…and are really looking forward to pouring into ministry leaders.
Once again…sign ups will open up on Monday, June 1st…and once the first 100 spaces are gone…they’re gone. It is first come, first serve.
Senior Pastors…let me challenge you to LEAD THE WAY ON THIS!!! Don’t wait on your team members to come to you and beg you to attend! LEAD!!!
Our youth and children’s teams are absolutely pumped about getting to spend some time with all who are able to attend…and I can’t wait to be in this environment either. I believe God is setting the church up so that the next generation can see Him do things that we only DREAM of!!!
Sunday Night Reflections May 17, 2009
My brain is FRIED…but I will try to wrap up some of the thoughts FLYING through me head…
- AMAZING day at NewSpring Church…people were absolutely FIRED up about the next step of our vision.
- Heck, it was an amazing weekend…yesterday we baptized over 500 people…and have baptized 1,405 people since October. God is doing some unbelievable things…more about that in a bit…
- A dude who watches the web campus flew from Oklahoma to Greenville yesterday to be baptized…THAT IS AWESOME!!!
- Six people received Christ in Florence today!!!
- Sometimes in life we have to face opposition to truly discover God’s omnipotence!!!
- AND…sometimes we must face the “impossible” before He truly becomes visible.
- When we reach times of desperation we are more likely to seek revelation!!!
- God is ALWAYS setting His church up for a WIN…we’ve just got to be willing to listen to His voice and do what He says.
- I know there were people at church today who feel like “the brook has gone dry” in their lives…my advice…hold on to Philippians 1:6 and don’t give up on the God that has never given up on you!!!
- It’s always easy to believe “God reigns” when someone else is experiencing problems…it’s a lot tougher to believe it when we are experiencing them!
- If you haven’t heard yet…it’s about a 95% done deal that we are going to lose the building that our Greenville campus currently meets in.
- Why? We signed a sub lease with BI-LO, they declared bankruptcy…which impacted our lease situation in a huge way.
- So…it looks like within the next few weeks we are going to have to vacate the building.
- What God has done at our Greenville campus is amazing…we’ve seen over 500 salvations, over 500 baptisms…and had a record attendance of over 3,000 and have being doing church there less than a year!!!
- We’ve basically out grown the building…so…
- We began searching for other options…and Howard Frist, our Greenville campus pastor, has found us a location to meet in that will seat up to 3,000 people per worship service. (Our current building can sit up to 1,100!)
- This is going to allow us to reach THOUSANDS of more people for Jesus!!!
- God has ALWAYS had a plan…and when we shut up and seek Him He will reveal it!!! (Jeremiah 29:13)
- God wants HIS church to reach more people…and He’s BLOWING MY MIND with the doors HE has opened for us during this time.
- SO…Greenville campus is about to be a “portable campus,” load in/load out type stuff…and SO MANY PEOPLE signed up today to be a part of those teams!
- Yes, I am going to preach a sermon one day entitled, “God Kills People!”
- And yes, I am also going to preach a sermon one day entitled, “God hates your stupid Christian bumper sticker!!!”
One more thing before I head to bed…
- I think God is up to something HUGE right now!
- I’ve talked with quite a few pastors this past week or so that are seeing Him move in their churches in amazing ways. Record numbers of people showing up, receiving Christ and being baptized.
- I believe we are on the verge of another Great Awakening!
- I believe we are about to see God do something in the church unlike we have never seen before!
- I believe we are seeing more and more pastors make a return to preaching JESUS…and because of it lives are being changed…
- AND…when lifechange happens in a church…that church become unstoppable!!!
- NewSpring…hold on to your fork…the best is yet to come! I believe our best days are ahead of us…and if we will continue to see HIS face there is literally NO LIMIT to what He can do in HIS church!
DANG IT…I was sleepy when I began typing this…now I am PUMPED UP! WOO HOO!!!!!
Four Points Of Attack (Part Four) – Your Ministry Methods May 15, 2009
#4 – Your Ministry Methods
People are GOING to question how you do things…no matter how you do them. (BTW…they questioned the ministry methods of Jesus! I would say if people aren’t asking questions and getting offended then you are not being like Christ!)
(A little more on the above thought—Jesus was ALWAYS healing on the Sabbath, which was considered to be a “sin” in that society. Think about that…there were people who actually accused Jesus of sin because His ministry methods didn’t match up with their personal preferences. Hmmmm.)
- If you preach line by line, verse by verse then some people are going to prefer that you be more of a topical teacher.
- If you preach topical messages some people will scream that you need to exegete the text!
- If you use “secular” music then some people will scream you are “loving the world.”
- If you use all “Christian” music then some people will scream that you are not relating to people outside of the church.
- If you dress up then some people will say that you make them feel uncomfortable because they don’t really have any “church clothes.”
- If you wear jeans and a T-shirt then some will say that “you aren’t giving God your best!”
What I am saying is this…there is NO WAY that a ministry leader can please every single person coming in the doors! I once told a pastor, “You could stand at the back of your church this Sunday and give away $100 bills and SOMEONE would hate you for it!”
What you’ve GOT to do is figure out God’s unique calling on your life…and then DO IT with no apologies. If you and I are not being true to the call God has placed on our lives then we are basically slapping His grace in the face and saying to Him by our actions, “People’s opinions are more important than Yours!”
(I once heard Craig Groeschel say, “Becoming obsessed with what people think about me is the quickest way to forget what God thinks about me.”)
Peter had a calling to reach the Jews…Paul had a call to reach the Gentiles…so their ministry styles looked different while their goals were the same.
In the Christian world we allow our difference to divide us rather than develop us—sad.
How can the Lord called you to preach? What has He told you about the music style in your church? How has He told you to staff the church?
These questions MUST be answered because, if you don’t answer them…someone will. AND then you will find yourself being a church that, in and effort to please everyone, reaches no one!
Your ministry style WILL be questioned…but the ULTIMATE One who we answer to is Jesus. It is His church…His ministry…and HE will ask the final set of questions one day!
Be who HE called you to be! Do ministry how HE called you to do it. You just can’t go wrong this way!
Four Points Of Attack (Part Three) – Your Leadership Style May 14, 2009
Area #3 – Your Leadership Style
I am a student of growing churches! I don’t care what denomination they are, where they are located or what the architecture looks like…if people are being reached for the Kingdom I want to see what is going on.
I’ve crawled on a lot of planes and made tons of phone calls and the one thing that I’ve discovered is that hardly ANY of these churches are similar in leadership styles.
Now let me be VERY clear—GODLY LEADERSHIP is ESSENTIAL for a church to have a Kingdom impact! (Look at what happened to the nation of Israel in the book of Judges when they didn’t have godly leadership!)
BUT…I believe each church must wrestle with the Scriptures and personalities that are present and allow the Lord to show them the best way to structure for maximum effectiveness.
Jesus addressed seven different churches in Revelation 2-3…and He addressed each one of them differently! He didn’t say, “here is an org chart for all of you guys, here are some titles for key staff members and here are some books to read on leadership development…”
NOW…what HE did establish with EACH church is that THE CHURCH IS HIS…but He also addressed each unique issue the church was facing and then walked them through how to deal with it…
And I believe He’s still doing the same thing today!
NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO LEAD THE CHURCH BETTER THAN JESUS! After all…it is HIS. (ANY leadership structure HAS to recognize this or the church will become impotent!!!)
And…when you establish how the church is led…people will always point to another model that “is working” somewhere else. What I’ve learned in that situation is to not try to tear the other model down (unless it’s leading a church into the ground) but rather confidently explain that we have set things up the way we feel Jesus has led us to do so.
That explanation works for some…and not so much for others. BUT…at the end of the day the leader(s) need to know they have set things up the way Jesus has led; after all, we will be held accountable for it! (Hebrews 13:17)
One Prayer…God Is May 13, 2009
Last year the Lord used Craig Groeschel to initiate something that had never been done in church world before…the idea of hundreds of churches coming together and rallying around a series of messages that promoted unity and attempted to unleash the potential that each church has to make a significant Kingdom impact…
It was called “One Prayer.”
And this year it is happening again…and the theme of the series is, “God Is…”
I am writing this post to encourage pastors and church leaders to get involved in this…five reasons why…
#1 – The church coming together for a common purpose is NEVER a bad thing!!! We accomplish so much more when we work with each other and not against one another. It’s time we stopped competing with each other and began completing each other!!!
#2 – It’s FREE! NO ONE is making money off of this thing!!! Seriously…go to the website and see for yourself. It’s not some sort of “pay a fee and you will see” type of deal!
#3 – It is a great chance to expose your church to some incredible teaching…and for you to catch your breath. AND…you select the teaching you want your church to see…the teaches/message are not dictated to you.
#4 – The resources, the graphics, EVERYTHING…is available at the One Prayer site…FOR FREE! (I know I said that earlier…but I promise there is NOT a catch. I love Craig’s heart in this…it’s all about enlarging God’s Kingdom!!!)
#5 – Spending several weeks looking at the divine attributes of who God really is PUMPS ME UP! This is NOT a bad thing at all!
Church leaders…if you are not signed up…I would encourage you to at least go to the website and check it out and join in so the world can see the potential of the local church when we rally together and unite like Jesus wants us to do!
Four Points Of Attack (Part 2) – Your Doctrine May 13, 2009
Area #2 – Your Doctrine
Most people who come into your church will say that they want you to teach from the Bible…but often times what they really mean is that they want you to teach from the way THEY see the Bible…AND from the translation they prefer as well!
We are told in Scripture to watch our life and doctrine closely (I Timothy 4:16). We are told that teachers will be judged more strictly (James 3:1). God takes HIS Word seriously…and so should we (Revelation 22:18-19)!!!
However, WE CANNOT teach another person’s theological convictions as our own. We MUST study the Scriptures, seek wise counsel, pray, read and then OWN what we teach. (I Peter 3:15)
UNDERSTANDING that when we do—there are going to be people who disagree with what we teach. Which is OK…as long as we know that we are making every effort to be as theologically sound as we can be. AND…we’ve got to understand as well that godly men and women who really love Jesus have been on both sides of most major theological arguments.
One of the things I often tell the people at NewSpring Church is that I will not lead them astray when it comes to theology or food! We take doctrine seriously…every message we prepare takes hours to shape…and then I gather godly men and women around me who diligently search the Scriptures and hold me accountable on the doctrine that is being taught.
(We’ve had some very lively theological conversations in the meetings I mentioned in the above paragraph!)
We’ve GOT to take what we teach people seriously…WITH the understanding that no matter how much time we put into the message there will always be people who disagree with what we say.
BUT…that is cool because when people do question us it gives us a chance to either KNOW what we believe OR go back and research to see if our convictions are OWNED by us…or just a cool concept we heard on a podcast.