Your Journey Blog

Quiet Thoughts for Driven Leaders - ReEngaged

Fours years ago I picked up the book, "Talking with God" by François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fenelon (to this day I still cannot pronounce his name correctly)!  I affectionately call him the "French Guy."  Since then I have read everything I could find that is still in print.  His mentoring letters have had a profound impact on my life, touching my heart and providing me with perspective.  Three years ago I wrote 50 devotional thoughts and shared them in a weekly e-newsletter.  I still get emails and comments from people of how God used those thoughts to shape their souls and bring encouragement to their hearts.

Over the summer I want to ReEngage this old saint and share with you some of his penetrating words that have caused the driven leader in me to quiet my heart in the presence of Jesus and reflect on all I do and say. Years ago I remember a leader saying God does not want driven leaders, He wants drawn leaders. God does not want leaders who are driven by their own internal need to achieve but leaders drawn into God's work out of a profound sense of God's presence in their life. My prayer for you is that God will draw you into a deeper sense of His presence and power in your life as you carry forth His missional purposes into this broken world.

Fenelon's Thoughts:

"Whosoever, therefore, with a single heart shall direct his attention upwards to God, and purify himself from all inordinate love or dislike of any created thing, shall be the most fit to receive grace, and worthy of the gift of devotion." (Meditations On The Heart Of God)

"When we take time for one simple moment of inner recollection and yielding ourselves to God, we see and hear more than the intellectual reasoning of all humanity put together. When we hush our desires and thoughts and turn our attention away from outward things, we enter into the light. And then it is that we discover God reigning on the throne of his kingdom-inside us." (Meditations On The Heart Of God)

Jesus' Word

"Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes." Matthew 6:33-34 (The Message)

An Intro Video of Servant Evangelism - Steve Sjogren.

Here is a brief introduction of Servant Evangelism by Steve Sjogren.  I highly recommend all church planters show this video during their launch team formation and as an introduction to their monthly servant evangelism outreaches after their launch.  You can purchase the full presentation for $10.00 - Introduction to Servant Evangelism

Ten Reasons to Embrace Servant Evangelism

Steve Sjogren offers ten practical reasons for using Servant Evangelism in your church: 

1. It opens doors into the heart of your community.
2. It develops a doable ministry in your church.
3. It creates an opportunity for the church to "get involved."
4. It allows a few to touch many.
5. It gives practical tips for public considerations.
6. It is simple, non-aggressive and inexpensive.
7. It doesn't require extensive training.
8. It offers many evangelism and outreach strategies.
9. It nurtures team efforts and team-centeredness.
10. It is a lot of fun!  (HT)

I would add the following:

1. It promotes an incarnational spirit of evangelism. Getting people out of the building and onto the streets. John 20:21
2. It helps to identify the "men and women of peace" in our communities. Luke 10:5-6
3. It reinforces the gospel in the life of the participants.Philemon6
4. It shines a light in a dark world. Matthew 5:14-16
5. It is easily delegated to lay leadership. Professionals are not needed!
6. It promotes the values of kindness, generosity and servanthood.
7. It leverages permission based marketing.
8. It unleashes outreach creativity with the church.  Ideas are limitless.
9. It provide an avenue for "Research & Development" in the local church.
10. It fills peoples buckets through a positive emotional experience.

Sowings Seeds through Servant Evangelism

Small things done with great love will change the world!  This is the motto of Servant Evangelism developed and popularized by Steve Sjogren through his book Conspiracy of Kindness, his website and newsletters.

Steve Sjogren is a church planting leader who has planted churches in Europe and throughout the U.S. primarily through the use and development of Servant Evangelism.  He launched Vineyard Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1985 with 37 people which grew to over 6000 in average attendance.

"What makes this story unusual is that this happened in Cincinnati, Ohio --- a city that has long been known for its in-your-face unfriendliness! Mark Twain spent a good deal of time in this city on the Ohio River and often commented about how rude people were. When this church was launched, Cincinnati was ranked as the third most unfriendly city in America. After serving about 12 million people over those fifteen years the tone of the city literally changed and that change had made a permanent impact on the city in innumerable ways. Servant Evangelism connects people to people in a natural, easy, low-risk, high grace way." (HT)

Steve is now in the process of launching their fifth church on the east side of Tampa called Coastlands Tampa

Here are five ways they I encourage church planters to use Servant Evangelism in their new churches:

1. Never do it alone.  Always have somebody with you as this is a great opportunity to virus someone with an evangelistic spirit and to develop a Servant Evangelism champion in your new church.  Never doing it alone will also help you set the evangelistic DNA in your church that will move beyond launch and be embodied in the life of your church.  New churches can get established really quickly and experience evangelistic entropy.
2. Choose high volume inexpensive activities.  Remember, you are sowing evangelistic seeds, the more seeds you sow the more opportunities you will have to find receptive hearts.   If you were to do a free car wash how many cars could you wash in 4 hours...maybe 35-50?  If you were to give people free coffee and hot chocolate how many cups could you give out in a couple of hours...50-100?  Here are some of the high volume SE projects that will enable you to touch 1000 people or more in 3-4 hours.   Lollipop/Blow Pops, Hand Cleaning Towelettes, Candy Give Away, Popsicles, Flower Seeds, etc. These project could be done for less than $200-300 and touch more than 1000 people!
3. Plan them before a Preview Service or Big Sunday.  Sow these evangelistic seeds the Saturday before a high impact outreach service.  This will create more buzz in your community for your new church.
4. Always use a Connection Card.  The connection card is the difference between Community Service and Servant Evangelism.  Community Service is simply loving your community in the name of Jesus.  Servant Evangelism is earning the right to extend an invitation through a connection card.  On one side you tell people they are loved and on the other side you tell them who you are by giving information on your church or an upcoming special worship service.
5. Have fun doing it!  Creating positive emotional experiences for your people is key for them to re-engage in this type of evangelistic activities.  It is also key to being effective in your connections with strangers.  There is nothing more attractive than a group of authentic, loving people who are having fun and serving with joy in their hearts.  Steve likes to say, "That where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is fun!"

Over 15 years Steve led his church to sow 12 million evangelistic touches into their community...no wonder it grew to over 6000 in attendance!  How many evangelistic touches are you sowing into your community each year?  If you are not reaping an evangelistic harvest you are probably not sowing enough evangelistic seeds or touches.

"Denatured Church" - Gilbert Bilezikian

Gilbert Bilezikian offers insights into why the church in America is moving so slowly and why mega churches are having little impact on our culture.  Here are a few of his thoughts:

The church is "denatured" through...individualism

“But the church in the West is being overtaken by individualism, which entails increased material pursuits, so you can afford to be self-sufficient. Strong anti-community forces are at work. Family life is practically non-existent as we are pulled away in different directions.”

The church is "denatured" through...embracing the values of culture 

“The bane of the church is that it becomes worldly. Instead of imparting the Word and becoming an agent of change, it adopts the values of the world and integrates them into its structures and life."

The church is "denatured" through...an over reliance on corporate tactics

“The biggest problem is the definition of its leadership structures. There are very clear directives in the New Testament for how the church is to be constituted, on the basis of community, which implies congregational participation, consensual decision-making, accountability of leaders to the congregation. Leadership should not be directive but developmental.”

However, Mr. Bilezikian says the church has discarded these directives and replaced them with worldly models of leadership, such as those found in corporate business. So we find the pastor as CEO. “We even adopt the language, for example, calling them senior pastors. Where does that come from?”

He says today’s highly hierarchical models of leadership smack of government, military or political administrations and they result in the Church becoming institutionalized.

“Instead of being a movement, it becomes an establishment. This is not new, of course - it started when the Roman Emperor Constantine established Christianity as the state religion.” 

Read the complete interview

How are you working to keep your church from being denatured?