Your Journey Blog

Quiet Thoughts for Driven Leaders-Devotion

Quieting my heart, my mind and my soul takes so much effort sometimes that it is wearying. But devotion is more than devotions...it is an all encompassing endeavor. Let Fenelon's thoughts mentor you this week.

Fenelon's Thoughts on Devotion to God:

The devotion that makes us holy and devotes us entirely to God consists in doing all that God wants, and in accomplishing everything he desires from us, in every place and in every circumstance he places us.

Perfect devotion requires us not only to do the will of God, but to do it with love. God loves for us to give to Him joyfully. In everything he tells us to do, he always asks for our heart. Such a Master is worthy of our joyful service.

Our devotion to God must never stop. We must put it into practice everywhere-in things we do not like, in things that disturb us, in things that go against our point of view, our inclinations, our plans. True devotion holds us ready to give God everything-our well-being, our fortune, our time, our freedom, our life, and our reputation. To be willing to give of ourselves in this way, and to accept the consequences, is to be truly devout.

But since the will of God is often hidden from us, there is still one more step of renunciation and of death to self to be taken. It consists in accomplishing God's will through obedience-yes, blind obedience, but wise in its blindness. This is a condition that is required of every person. The most enlightened man or woman, the person who is the most gifted in calling others to God and the most capable of leading others to him must also be led.

Jesus' Words on Devotion:

"If any of you wants to be my follower," he told them, "you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me. If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will find true life. And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process? Is anything worth more than your soul?" Mark 8:34-37 (New Living Translation)

Ed Young Jr & Church Pirates

Alot of buzz is being generated through this video post.  Tell me what you think and I will share my thoughts next week.
 

Developing a Sowing Mentality-Part 1

Why is it that some missional leaders see growth in their church every year?  Why is it that some can crash through growth barrier after growth barrier?  There are multiple issues around this subject but one thing rings true in every leader I know who hasn’t settled on a plateau.  Each of these leaders possesses what I like to call a “sowing mentality.”  They are constantly and liberally sowing seeds to uncover receptive hearts to the gospel.  It may often come about through increasing their ability to get into more spiritual conversations, loving their community with incarnational service, engaging people through random acts of kindness or saturating their community with captivating marketing images.  These leaders do whatever it takes to discover those who possess that “good soil” Jesus spoke about which will produce a yield a hundred fold.

King Solomon offers some wisdom on the subject of sowing in the book of Ecclesiastes, "Sow your seed in the morning and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well." (Ecclesiastes 11:6)  This verse speaks volumes to those who are serious about making connections with those who are disconnected from your people and know nothing about your church.

1. Those with a “sowing mentality” know it is a 24 hour job. "Sow your seed in the morning and at evening let not your hands be idle...”

Sowing is a “morning and evening” job.  Missional leaders understand the God’s redemptive flow is never turned off.  As one leader put it, “leaders understand that the opportunity monitor is never off.” Missional leaders realize that opportunities abound all around them all the time and frequently when it isn’t convenient. I have become a fan of the television show “24” in recent days.  I am always amazed what Jack Bauer can accomplish in a twenty-four hour period! 

Can you think of a DAY that changed the life of your church? The day for me was July 17, 1991. It happened after 2 ½ years of sowing seeds into the community and we had planned and prepared for a Friend’s Day in the middle of the summer.  At the being of the summer we were averaging 65 people…by the fall we averaged 165!  We saw more people cross the line of faith that year than in the previous 2 years. A year later we broke the 200 hundred barrier!  We reaped a harvest though constantly and creatively sowing seeds into our community.

2. Those with a “sowing mentality” know that it involves hard work, "…let not your hands be idle…”

Missional leadership is not for the faint of heart. It is for those who are willing to roll up their sleeves and push themselves out in the harvest field.  It is for those who resist idleness.  One thing I am grateful for in my childhood is that my father, who was raised on a farm, imparted to me a farmer’s mentality towards work.  Farming is a 24/7 job.  Idleness is not in the vocabulary of a farmer as well as a successful church planters  I heard Darrin Patrick say at a recent church planting conference that many young church planters enter church planting out of a sense of laziness because they are tired of a senior leader holding them accountable for their performance and results. These are the guys the start churches that never grow over 65.

At first I was taken back by the observation but as a coach I see too many young leaders and those new to full-time ministry struggle with the issue of time management and putting in a hard days work!  Time gets wasted and squandered resulting in lost opportunities.  The lack of diligence in planning, preparing and cultivating your community is one of the key factors to an ineffective outreach. The old writer Sam Ewig said it best, “Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.” 

Stay tuned for upcoming "Developing a Sowing Mentality, Part 2"

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.

Sowing Seeds of Love Into Your Community

Sowing seeds of Christ's incarnational love into your community is a key characteristic of a missional church.  NorthBridge Church in Antioch, IL, at their one year anniversary banquet, raised $17,000.00 to give into their community and cast the vision for three other churches to simply love a local struggling school district by turning a useless, old school building into a functional classroom.  Here is the newspaper article on the project: Download NorthBridge School Article.pdf

A few take aways:

1) There are hurting organizations in your community.  Open your eyes and ears to see and hear the hurting.

2) Ask people how you can help them.  Don't tell them what you want to do.

3) Don't do it alone.  Involve the larger body of Christ.

4) Love them unconditionally in the name of Jesus.

5) New churches can make a big difference!

Learnings From the Pew Forum Research

George Bullard is offering weekly leadership insights from the new research on U.S. Religious Landscape Survey 2008 from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life at www.pewforum.org

Each learning is coupled with specific implications for leaders of churches and leaders of denominations.

Learning # 1 - "Despite predictions the United States would follow Europe's path towards widespread secularization, the U.S. population remains highly religious in its beliefs and practices, and religion continues to play a prominent role in American public life." HT:Bullard

Learning # 2 - "More that one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion--or no religion at all. If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, roughly 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether."  HT: Bullard

Learning # 3 - "The survey finds that the number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children. Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion." HT: Bullard

Learning # 4 - "The United States is on the verge of becoming a minority Protestant country; the number of Americans who report that they are members of Protestant denominations now stands at barely 51%. Moreover, the Protestant population is characterized by significant internal diversity and fragmentation, encompassing hundreds of different denominations loosely groups around three fairly distinct religious traditions--evangelical Protestant churches (26.3% of the overall adult population), mainline Protestant churches (18.1%) and historically black Protestant churches (6.9%)."  HT: Bullard

Storyline Church Nashville

Jer Dunlap has a cool video idea for this Easter as he builds his launch team in Nashville.

The Principle of Sowing and Reaping

When we started this evangelistic journey back in May we took a close look at the Three Spheres of Outreach which included: 1) The leader and the people they connect with during the week, 2) The church and those within their sphere of influence, 3) The unconnected, those who know nothing about the church and are disconnected with your people.

In each of these spheres we developed Three Strategies of Outreach, 1) The leader sets the standard through modeling, 2) The leader equips the church to reach into their relational spheres, 3) The church learns how to sow evangelistic seeds into the masses of unconnected people in their community.

One of the foundational principles of scripture is the principle of sowing and reaping.  We see this first in the life of Isaac (Genesis 26:12). He sowed, planted and reaped a hundredfold of crop because of God's blessing.  Farmers understand this principle in a very practical way, the more seed you plant, the more you will reap at harvest time.  The Apostle Paul in addressing the need for generosity in the life of the Corinthian church wrote, "Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously will also reap generously." (II Corinthians 9:6) So my question to you, as it pertains to evangelism, is: How many evangelistic touches are you sowing into the masses of people who are unconnected with your church? The evangelistic fruitfulness of your church is directly related to the amount of evangelistic seeds you are sowing into your community.

Here are four ways to evangelisticly touch the unconnected in your community:

1. Community Service: Simply serving your community and displaying the love of Christ without overtly making an invitation to attend your church.
2. Servant Evangelism: Earning the right to make an invitation to your church through random acts of kindness.
3. Sharing Your Facilities With Your Community: How many people go in and out of your facility in a given week?  Treating your facility like a community center is one way to sow evangelistic seeds to the unconnected in your community.
4. Marketing Your Church's Message Through the Various Media Opportunities in Your Community: Every church has a marketing strategy, the only difference is that some are better than others.

Yet, the quantity of seed is only part of the equation, there also needs to be a concern about the quality of the seed. Read Hosea 10:12-13. If you sow righteousness you will reap love, if you sow wickedness you will reap evil.  With very stern words the Apostle Paul writes, "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from the nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life." (Galatians 6:7)  In relation to evangelism, here is the question to be answered: How would you rate the quality of the evangelistic seeds you are casting in your community? 

1. Community Service: Is the quality and consistency of your community service something that reflects the beauty of Christ?
2. Servant Evangelism: Is the quality of your random acts of kindness received as a nuisance or a pleasant surprise?
3. Sharing Your Facilities: Do your facilities reflect a sense of care or are they run down?
4. Marketing: What type of first impression does your signage, website and promotional materials evoke?

Over the next few months we will take a close at how to increase the quantity and quality of the evangelistic seeds you are sowing into your community.

Solomon wrote these words, "Sow your seed in the morning and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well." (Ecclesiastes 11:6)