Your Journey Blog

Hunger for God Seminar by John Piper

New Resource available by Desiring God.   

At 5 hour seminar by John Piper on his classic work " A Hunger for God"

• Hunger for God (Session 1)
• Hunger for God (Session 2)
• Hunger for God (Session 3)

Download the Notes from the Seminar

“The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie.
It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for
heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not
the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we
drink in every night.” ― John Piper

“The supremacy of God in all things is the great reward we long for in fasting. His supremacy in our own affections and in all our life-choices. His supremacy in the purity of the church. His supremacy in the salvation of the lost. His supremacy in the establishing of righteousness and justice. And his supremacy for the joy of all peoples in the evangelization of the world.” ― John Piper

Related articles

David Brainerd's Fasting Testimony

Bill Bright's Fasting Testimony

Do Not Stuff Your Soul with the Small Things

3 Ways to Call Leaders to Increase Their Spiritual Conversations

This series of posts is dedicated to giving you ideas to help you, your team and your church in developing a plan for increasing your spiritual conversations this year.

1. Own it as the leader.

2. Expand the effectiveness of your staff.

3. Call your leaders into the mission.

Are your board meetings filled with a burning passion to see every man, women and child reached with the gospel in your community?

Three ways to call your leaders to engage in more spiritual conversations:

First, reinforce the vision of your church.  Calling your leaders to the mission of Jesus should be what permeates your every leadership meeting in the church; business meetings, elders meetings, deacon meetings. finance meetings, youth meetings, children's ministry meetings, worship practices, etc.  Everyone leading those meetings should lead them in a way that reinforces the vision to reach the community with the gospel of Jesus, not just to maintain their ministry area.

Second, create a sense of urgency.  If your leaders have no sense of urgency they will never seize the evangelistic opportunities that God gives them. 

How does one create an ongoing sense of urgency among their leaders? 

John Kotter in his book, A Sense of Urgency, describes five ways we can create a sense of true urgency every day:

• Purge and Delegate – Don’t let an overcrowded calendar slow you down; purge low-priority items, don’t get distracted, and learn to delegate.
• Move with Speed – Respond quickly to people’s calls, requests and emails. Never end meetings without clarity about who will do what and when.
• Speak with Passion – Talk to others with feeling so others catch the urgency and passion of your message.
• Match Words and Deeds – Don’t just talk about something and then not do it yourself; be real and be an example to others.
• Let Them All See It – Be visible as often as possible to as many people as possible. Let them see your sense of urgency.

Third, make sure every leader can share the gospel in a compelling manner.

Assumptions kill evangelism!  Thinking a person that is in leadership knows how to share the gospel effectively is a big mistake.  Continual training and retraining of leaders is imperative.

 "Helping to fulfill the Great Commission is the single most important task of the Church. Therefore, developing evangelistic leadership to carry out that mission should be a top priority." - Bill Bright

Four Take-Aways:

• Equip your leaders in how to reinforce the vision of mission through every level of the church.
• Model the urgent reality of the harvest (John 4:35) in all you do.
• At every leadership meeting ask the following question: Who can we pray for in your life that needs Jesus?
• Schedule an evangelistic training opportunity just for your leaders & staff.

Additional Resources 

Next Post: Train 1/3 of your church evangelism this year.

Related articles

How Will You Increase Your Spiritual Conversations in 2013?

Increase Your Spiritual Conversations - Gary Rohrmayer

3 Ways to Increase The Spiritual Conversations of Your Team

Free Download - "Hunger For God" by John Piper

In my humble opinion this is and will continue to be the classic text on the subject of fasting for my generation and generations to come.

About the Book

There is an appetite for God. And it can be awakened. I invite you to turn from the dulling effects of food and the dangers of idolatry, and to say with some simple fast: "This much, O God, I want you."

Our appetites dictate the direction of our lives--whether it be the cravings of our stomachs, the passionate desire for possessions or power, or the longings of our spirits for God. But for the Christian, the hunger for anything besides God can be an arch-enemy. While our hunger for God--and Him alone--is the only thing that will bring victory.

Do you have that hunger for Him? As John Piper puts it: "If we don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because we have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Our soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great." If we are full of what the world offers, then perhaps a fast might express, or even increase, our soul's appetite for God.

Between the dangers of self-denial and self-indulgence is this path of pleasant pain called fasting. It is the path John Piper invites you to travel in this book. For when God is the supreme hunger of your heart, He will be supreme in everything. And when you are most satisfied in Him, He will be most glorified in you.  HT

Download Here

Listen to the Sermons that gave birth to this book.

Related articles

Bill Bright's Fasting Testimony

Why Should You Enter a Spiritual Fast?

David Brainerd's Fasting Testimony

Essential Skills for Missional Leaders - Part 3

What are the essential skills needed for being a missional leader?

The first skill is that of empowering others.  They know how to spot, raise up, disciple, coach and mentor others into the mission of God.  The second skill deals with sustaining those relationships..The third skill revolves around getting groups of people doing mission together.

3. Creating ministry teams.

Teamwork is essential to achieving God's missional purposes.  One man  said, "It is not biblical to think of ministering alone." Jesus modeled  ministering to large crowds (Matthew 7:28) along with ministering within a small unit or a team where more intimacy and authenticity was  cultivated. (Luke 6:12-16)   Paul went out on mission endeavors with a  ministry partner and a ministry apprentice. (Acts 13:1-5; 16:1)  The  early church launched large (Acts 2:41) and at the same time grew small  as they met in homes sharing their lives together. (Acts 2:46)  There  are no Lone Rangers in Christianity. By the way, didn't the Lone Ranger have Tonto on his side?

Missional leaders know that their church will only grow as large as its capacity to provide ongoing care through a network of small groups and  ministry teams. They understand that their church's impact will only  extend to the point that they are continually developing shepherd leaders to lead, care and mobilize these little platoons for mission. They have  experienced the power of seeing mentoring relationships spring out of  the smaller settings of ministry. They have seen these small groups adopted a family in need and minister to them with personal care.  They know that these groups are not just an add-on or just another program  in the church but the very health center of the church.

Missional leaders see the great opportunities that small groups promise  but they also see the great pitfalls that they can bring. This is why they spend hours training, coaching and encouraging leaders.  This is why they start with great care, manage them with close supervision and continually remind them that they are not church huddles but missional communities.

Questions for Reflection:

• Is it easier for you to do ministry alone?
• Who could shadow you in your ministry?
• What do you look for in a team leader or smail group leader?
• Who are the ministry apprentices that you are mentoring?
• Do your small groups focus more like mission points or shepherding circles?
• What are you doing to deal with that tension?

Next Post: Designing & developing healthy church systems.

Excerpt from NextSteps for Leading a Missional Church

Bill Bright's Fasting Testimony

Bill Bright the passionate leader of Campus Crusade (CRU) had a power experience with God in the late 1990's specifically around this area of fasting.  Read his fasting testimony and allow God to speak to you through it.

"I believe the power of fasting as it relates to prayer is the spiritual atomic bomb that our Lord has given us to destroy the strongholds of evil and usher in a great revival and spiritual harvest around the world.

Increasingly I have been gripped with a growing sense of urgency to call upon God to send revival to our beloved country. In the spring and summer of 1994, I had a growing conviction that God wanted me to fast and pray for forty days for revival in America and for the fulfillment of the Great Commission in obedience to our Lord's command.

At first I questioned, "Is this truly God's call for me?" Forty days was a long time to go without solid food. But with each passing day, His call grew stronger and more clear. Finally, I was convinced. God was calling me to fast, and He would not make such a call without a specific reason or purpose. With this conviction, I entered my fast with excitement and expectancy mounting in my heart, praying, "Lord, what do you want me to do?"

I believe such a long fast was a sovereign call of God because of the magnitude of the sins of America and of the Church. The Lord impressed that upon my heart, as well as the urgent need to help accelerate the fulfillment of the Great Commission in this generation.

As I began my fast, I was not sure I could continue for forty days. But my confidence was in the Lord to help me. Each day His presence encouraged me to continue. The longer I fasted, the more I sensed the presence of the Lord. The Holy Spirit refreshed my soul and spirit, and I experienced the joy of the Lord as seldom before. Biblical truths leaped at me from the pages of God's Word. My faith soared as I humbled myself and cried out to God and rejoiced in His presence.

This proved to be the most important forty days of my life. As I waited upon the Lord, the Holy Spirit gave me the assurance that America and much of the world will, before the end of the year 2000, experience a great spiritual awakening. This divine visit from heaven will kindle the greatest spiritual harvest in the history of the Church. But before God comes in revival power, the Holy Spirit will call millions of God's people to repent, fast, and pray in the spirit of 2 Chronicles 7:14: "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

The scope of this revival depends on how believers in America and the rest of the world respond to this call. I have spent fifty years studying God's Word and listening to His voice, and His message could not have been more clear."  HT

For more on this subject download Bill Bright's 7 Basic Steps to Successful Fasting and Prayer

Download 7_Basic_Steps_to_Successful_Fasting_and_Prayer

Free Paper on the Life-Cycle of a Local Church

One of the people I read a lot on the subject of church health is George Bullard. Bullard offers an excellent paper entitled The Life Cycle and Stages of Congregational Development.  In the paper he offers details on each of the 10 stages in the life of a congregation:

1. Birth
2. Infancy
3. Childhood
4. Adolescence
5. Adulthood
6. Maturity
7. Empty Nest
8. Retirement
9. Old Age
10. Death

Along with the description of each of these stages he offers practical guidance on the passages churches need to embrace to move from stage to stage successfully.

Who should read this paper?

• Every church planter who wants to build a church that will out last them.
• Every pastor entering into a new ministry environment.
• Every leadership board in a local church seeking to be a healthy congregation.
• Every coach who is assisting planters or pastors in their ministry.
• Every denominational, associational or network leader.

Download Stages_of_church_life_bullard 

From more resources visit George Bullard's Blog       

Ten Characteristics of a Spiritually Plateaued Leader

One of the reasons a leader tends not to finish well is that they plateau.  A plateau is when you level off for a long time, too long of a time that you begin to experience a decline in your effectiveness, repeated spiritual defeats and the subtle decaying of one's soul.

In Neil Cole's book Organic Leadership, he addresses 10 Reasons Why Leaders Plateau,  each of them serves us well as leaders. They are like warning lights calling attention to the potential trouble that will lead to us being stalled out in the harvest.

1. A spiritually plateaued leader avoids relationships of personal accountability. These leaders are removed from people. They have a degree of separateness that keeps them unaccountable to anyone. Often Christendom has reinforced such a separation and tried to justify it as biblical, to the detriment of the church, the world, and especially the leader.

2. A spiritually plateaued leader rarely applies the truths of God's Word to him or herself personally. Many Christian leaders have pursued education and have become experts on the Bible, thus believing they have no more to learn. These leaders no longer read the Word for insight into their own lives, but rather apply it to the problems others have. They read the Bible only to find solutions to other people's issues rather than with their own needs in mind.

3. A spiritually plateaued leader has replaced his or her joy, peace, and love with envy and resentment.
People cannot simply manufacture godliness by modifying their behavior to conform to Christ's ideals. The fruit of God's Spirit, seen in every aspect of our lives, is evidence of our redeemed character, not the works we force ourselves to perform to demonstrate our religious behavior. Where the Spirit is not in control, the fruit is not evident, and no amount of hard work can make it so. Leaders who are no longer growing in their pursuit of the Lord cannot display the fruit of the Spirit and often exhibit instead sour religious attitudes. It's amazing how these ugly ways of thinking, when enough leaders display them, are accepted as the norm.

4. A spiritually plateaued leader frequently looks for greener pastures in other places. Often Christian leaders blame their church or organization for the lack of fruitfulness in their ministry. They attribute the success others have to the luck of landing in the right place at the right time. Leaders who think like this are always looking to move to a better place where their ministry will be truly appreciated and the success they deserve will finally come. This means that many pastors move frequently from one church to the next looking for success.

5. A spiritually plateaued leader finds faults in others more often than in self. The leaders find introspection difficult and rarely evaluate themselves, though they are often busy evaluating everyone else. They "find the speck in their brother's eye but do not notice the plank protruding from their own" (Matthew 7:3).

6. A spiritually plateaued leader is burned-out from lots of busyness that has been substituted for simple intimacy with Christ. Spiritually plateaued leaders are exhausted because they are usually deceived into thinking that more effort and more activity are ways to gain closer access and blessing from God. This is a devastating lie from hell itself. There is no substitute for intimacy with Christ. More activity will never satisfy our deep need to connect with God and usually prevents us from having the intimacy we so desperately require... While carrying out religious busyness may grant us a sense of importance, it does not renew our hearts with joy and purpose. Instead it robs us of the strength we need.

7. A spiritually plateaued leader compromises on ethical principles once held dear. It is not uncommon to find such leaders have fallen deep into patterns of hidden sin. Using grace and liberty as excuses, they continue to function publicly without regret or remorse, while behind closed doors they carry out sinful practices...

8. A spiritually plateaued leader stays within safe areas of expertise rather than branching out into new learning endeavors. This sort of leader wants to be seen as an expert rather than a learner and therefore has no intention of exploring new fields or gaining new understanding... The idea of learning something new is scary because it implies that the leader does not have the expertise that has been part of his or her identity.

9. A spiritually plateaued leader is unable to acknowledge the wisdom of others. This leader talks more often than listens, is uninterested in what others have to say, and is easily offended if someone contradicts his or her idea. It is almost impossible to tell this person anything new.

10. A spiritually plateaued leader has reduced the Christian life to a routine. The plateaued leader is in a kind of holding pattern and is not moving forward in his or her walk with Christ. For this person life is a routine, trying to live the Christian life in the right Christian way. It is a static existence of maintaining what is, rather than developing anything new. It is a life of a few dos and many don'ts.

Reflective Questions

• Which one on this list is a flashing warning light in your soul?
• Who in your life would you feel safe in discussing this issue?
• How does the gospel work itself out in this area of your life?  (Titus 2:11-14)
• How are you keeping the leaders around you off their own plateau?
• What is happening around you (family, friends, church, organization) because of this plateau?

“If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”  Bruce Lee

 

Free Finishing Well Download - Dr Robert Clinton

Dr Robert Clinton's Biblical Leadership Commentaries are a must read for every pastor, elder and spiritual leader.

The following free download covers the daunting task of finishing well. In his introduction Clinton writes,

"A repeated reading of the Bible with a focus on leadership reveals four crucial observations fraught
with leadership implications:

• Observation 1. Few leaders finish well.
• Observation 2. Leadership is difficult.
• Observation 3. God's enabling presence is the essential ingredient of successful leadership.
• Observation 4. Spiritual leadership can make a difference.

And what is true of Biblical leaders is equally true of historical and contemporary leaders. It is the first
observation to which this article speaks. Identifying the fact that few leaders finish well was a breakthrough warning for me. This led to further study. Why do few leaders finish well? What stops them? What helps them? What does it mean to finish well? This article identifies six characteristics of those finishing well."

Six Characteristics of Leaders who Finish Well.

• Characteristic 1 - They maintain a personal vibrant relationship with God right up to the end.
• Characteristic 2 - They maintain a learning posture and can learn from various kinds of sources—life especially.
• Characteristic 3 - They manifest Christ-likeness in character as evidenced by the fruit of the Spirit in their lives.
• Characteristic 4 - Truth is lived out in their lives so that convictions and promises of God are seen to
  be real.
• Characteristic 5 - They leave behind one or more ultimate contributions.
• Characteristic 6 - They walk with a growing awareness of a sense of destiny and see some or all of it
  fulfilled.

Six Major Barriers Identified to Finishing Well

• Barrier 1. Finances—their Use And Abuse
• Barrier 2. Power—its Abuse
• Barrier 3. Pride--which Leads To Downfall
• Barrier 4. Sex--illicit Relationships
• Barrier 5. FAMILY--Critical Issues
• Barrier 6. Plateauing.

Five Factors That Enhance Finishing Well

• Enhancement 1. Perspective.
• Enhancement 2. Renewal.
• Enhancement 3. Disciplines.
• Enhancement 4. Learning Posture.
• Enhancement 5. Mentoring.

Download 3FinishWellArticles

These articles by Dr. J. Robert Clinton comes from the Clinton Biblical Leadership Commentary. This commentary is available from the Clinton Resources.

Five Reasons for Doing a Natural Church Development Survey

How can the Natural Church Development Survey help your church? 

1. The survey will close the gap between lay leaders and pastoral staff.

Pastors who are sold out to the cause of Christ think about ministry 24/7.  How much time do your committed lay leaders think about ministry in the local church?  As a lay person in my church I now know the answer to that question.  Not as much as the pastor thinks!  This alone can cause a gap of misunderstanding.  What the pastor feels are the needs of the church are not necessarily what the congregation perceives.  NCD Survey is a great way to close that gap of misunderstanding and bring more harmony and health into the church constructively.

I can't tell you how many times pastors have said, "My staff and I thought we knew what the weak systems were in our church but we were completely caught off guard by the results.  If we had gone in our own direction we would have wasted so much time, created confusion and addressed only our felts needs as staff and not the real needs of the congregation."

2. The survey will help you identify the weak system that needs to be addressed in your ministry from the perspective of your key leaders.

I am a big proponent of systems theory.  Too often we think we have a people problem but we really have a systems problem. I define church systems as reproducible and interconnected processes by which the church actualizes its values and achieves its mission.

I believe every healthy church values leadership, evangelism, spiritual formation, service, loving relationships and small groups. So the question is, do you have a reproducible and interconnected process that:

• empowers leaders into the harvest?
• insures inspirational worship gatherings?
• encourages evangelism throughout the community?
• stimulates spiritual passion in every believer?
• promotes healthy relationships in your community of faith?
• connects people in healthy small groups?
• deploys people into ministry?
• builds organizational health?

The Natural Church Development Survey will help pinpoint the underdeveloped system that needs attention. Thus it gives you a starting point in your strategic planning process.

3. The survey reveals the real morale and needs of your key leaders and influencers in the church.

The quality side of ministry is so soft and subjective because it is based on peoples attitudes, feelings and perspectives. The NCD Survey can give you a true read on the morale of your key leaders.  For a church that scores a total average score in the 50s it has an above average morale.  For the church that scores below 50 they have a below average morale.  In my work the highest score I have seen is 77...not only is this church one of the fastest growing churches in our region but also has a high level of optimism that fuels the growth.

From this sample profile we see that the key leaders and influencers in the church feel that the church is a great place to be with an average score of 57, this is an above average health score which means that the quality of the services are in a healthy range.  They might be experiencing some level of numerical growth but probably plateaued and are facing a growth barrier. NCD International reports that a church whose average score is 65 or over above is experiencing numerical growth.

What else can we learn from this snapshot?

Areas of Strengths: We see here that the leaders felt their church has a strong worship experience, high level of relational harmony, great sense of spiritual passion and good systems and structures. 

Areas for Focus: Here we see that the leadership system needs to be developed more fully.  What your leaders are communicating through this score is a need to be empowered for ministry, spiritual development, better delegation, clearer goals, stronger communication within the leadership structure, and more support in their ministries through coaching.

Quality growth is measured by the attitudes, feelings and perspectives of your key leaders towards the programs, people and progress of the church.

4. The survey provides a measurable process for improving the quality of your ministry.

There are two ways to measure the health of your church.

1) Quantitative Growth is built around key numbers and thier percentages.

• New Visitor Ratio: How many new visitors do you need in an average month to grow your church?
• Baptism Ratio: What is a healthy percentage between the average worship attendance and the number of baptisms annually?
• Giving Ratio: What is a healthy dollar amount given per person on an average Sunday?
• Serving Ratio: What is a healthy percentage of average attenders and those engaged in a ministry?
• Small Group Ratio: What is a healthy percentage of those attending on an average weekend and those engaged in a small group?
• Membership Ratio: What is a healthy percentage of those attending on an average weekend and those who are committed members?
• Leadership Ratio: How many new leaders are added to your leadership community annually?

2) Qualitative Growth is measured through the attitudes, feelings and perspectives towards people, programs and the progress of the church.

In doing the NCD Survey every year you can see the measurable results of your teams work in improving that weak area of your ministry and how that affects all the other ministry areas.  Here is an example of one church's journey.

This church put significant energy in improving the structures or systems which resulted in a increase of 14 points.  They improved the overall quality of the ministry by 20 points.  Meaning, they significantly raised the morale of its leaders.  Six out of the eight areas had a positive growth.  Only two areas slipped in quality which could be interpreted as people feeling that there was too much focus on structures and systems that spiritual formation and relationships took a hit.   In addressing their new area of focus, which is need-oriented evangelism, they will need to give attention to the "how to" by strengthening that area with a greater sensitivity to relationships and a deeper dependence on God in the process.

Doing repeated surveys will not only help you raise the quality of your ministry but it will also help you in tackling it in a more constructive and sensitive way.

5. The survey helps the pastor and leaders think of ministry in terms of process.

In his letter to the church in Ephesus Paul wrote, "So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."  (Ephesians 4:12-14)

When Paul speaks of equipping he is talking about a training process.  A process that the KJV refers to as perfecting the saints for ministry.  NCD helps the church think though and answer the following questions:

1. What is our process for multiplying leaders throughout the church?
2. What is our process for equipping people in evangelism?
3. What is our process for stimulating spiritual formation in our new believers and faithful followers?
4. What is our process for promoting healthy relationships throughout the church?
5. What is our process for launching small groups?
6. What is our process for deploying people into ministry and service?
7. What is our process for insuring that our worship services are inspirational?

Bonus Reason for Embracing NCD

Most churches have a weakness that they tend to ignore; they want to grow further in the area of their strengths.

To say "build on your strengths" as a universal rule is misleading. A church must build on its strengths and deal with its weaknesses. No church can do without any of those eight quality areas.

A church's weak area may be evangelism, for example. If they are good in prayer, they tend to go on with prayer. But they should direct more spiritual energy towards evangelism.

It's like a human body. If you have problems with your heart and need surgery, the doctor cannot say, "You have a nice voice. Focus on singing." You need heart surgery first. Then you can build on your strengths. Building up your weak points is the only healthy rule.  HT

To learn how to get started with Natural Church Development and enjoy the May Discount choose one of the following options.

NCD Starter Package

NCD Advance Package

 

The Making of a Leader J. Robert Clinton - Free Summary Download

No other leadership book has impacted my life like J. Robert Clinton's The Making of A Leader

Robert Clinton identifies the patterns God uses to develop a leader. By studying the lives of hundreds of historical, biblical, and contemporary leaders, Clinton has determined the six stages of leadership development, and he establishes checkpoints to clarify where you are in the process. God’s major work in leaders is not developing fruitfullness through them, but working IN them. Ministry flows from what’s inside a leader.

This summary will help you in the following ways:

1. Identify those with leadership characteristics
2. Direct the development of maturing leaders
3. Recognize where you are in the development process
4. Counsel those who are experiencing periods of trial or frustration.  HT

 Download the summary here: Download The_Making_Of_A_Leader_-J_Robert_Clinton