Your Journey Blog

Quiet Thoughts for Driven Leaders-Patience

PATIENCE!That word gnaws at the core of every driven leader. Leaders are doers! Leaders are achievers! Leaders are conquerors! But spiritual leaders are restful. Spiritual leaders are confident in God's sovereign power! Spiritual leaders are conquered by the Conqueror! Today let Fenelon's thoughts feed your impatient soul and quiet your restless heart.

Fenelon's Thoughts on Patience:

"The soul deserts its very nature when it becomes impatient. When it submits without complaint, it takes possession of itself in peace and comes into possession of God. To become impatient is to want what we do not have, and not to want what we do have. In so doing, the soul is handed over to its passions, and neither reasoning nor faith can hold it back, so troubled is it. Such weakness! Such swerving away from the right path!"

 

"Peace on this earth consists in accepting the things that are contrary to our desires, not in being exempted from suffering them, nor in being delivered from all temptations."

God's Word on Patience

"The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride."   

"Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools."  Ecclesiastes 7:8-9 NIV

Developing a Sowing Mentality-Part 2

Last month was Part 1 of "Sowing Mentality."  Below is a recap of that introduction, followed by Part 2.

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 and reaping 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.

SOWING MENTALITY

Part 2

3. Those with a “sowing mentality” embrace the mysterious work of God, “…for you do not know which will succeed…”

There is a sense of mystery to the work of God. In the parable of the sower, you get the idea from Jesus that the sower was really concerned with scattering the seed and not so much as to where the seed landed. He trusted God for the fruit.  His job was to get the seed out and to get it out liberally no matter what it cost.  I remember our first Easter Service in our church plant. We had $1050.00 in the bank and spent $1000.00 of it on an Easter Mailer of 5000 post cards.  The result of this mailer was we had our highest attendance, cultivated very receptive contacts who became converts along with attracting some significant families who became ministry partners.  I remember thinking that that $1000.00 would not have made any difference if I just kept it in the bank.

Sowing seeds in faith and prayerfully trusting God to work miraculously through your efforts is essential.  Scattering seed without watering with faith, fertilizing with prayer and cultivating it with hard work will be like casting seed to the wind…fruitless.

4. Those with a “sowing mentality” are not particular about methods, “…whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well…”

In my experience too many church leaders get stuck or inebriated with a particular style of evangelism. Yet leaders with a sowing mentality understand it is never an “either/or” proposition but more of a “both/and” conviction. Equipping your people through a highly relational and incarnational style of evangelism is the first place to start but it does not rule out doing a systematic visitation or follow up process that is built on the connections with your public worship service. Equipping your people to be includers and inviters does not nullify the use of social networking, various types of marketing and branding your vision and image throughout your city. The old revivalist Leonard Ravenhill said, "Any method of evangelism will work if God is in it." 

Developing a sowing mentality is a life or death proposition for any church.  For a new church, if you are not sowing evangelistic seeds in your community, you will die a quick death filled with indefensible excuses.  For an older church, it will be a slow and painful death, built on harmful rationalizations. Both are equally tragic and embarrassing to the Lord of the Harvest.  Are you reaping what you have sown? 

Quiet Thoughts for Driven Leaders - Success

Success is the drug of the driven leader. We all want to be successful in every area of life. We all push ourselves and those around us to succeed. And yet, when success becomes success for success' sake, it has more to do with self than with God. Today, let Fenelon's thoughts challenge what motivates you to succeed.

Fenelon's Thoughts on Success:

"I resolve not to become keenly excited about anything, because it is dangerous to want to appropriate God's work to ourselves. If we do that, then we do God's work in our own strength; we turn good into bad and we allow pride to take over. And then we become flushed with the pursuit of success. We conceal our illusion by using the pretext of seeking God's glory."

"O God, give me the grace to be faithful in my actions, but indifferent to success. The only thing I ought to be concerned with is to desire your will and to quietly meditate on you-even in the midst of busy times. It is up to you to crown my feeble actions with such fruit as is pleasing to you-and none at all, if that is what you find best for me."

Jesus' Words on Success:

"...Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!" Matthew 25:23  NIV 

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.
 

"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?

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

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)

Lessons From An Old Quarterback

My son Dan and I are still dealing with the reality the Old # 4 won't be dressing up in the Green and Gold next year.  Many a blogger has been posting all sorts of responses to the announcement of Favre's retirement.  Mark Wilson's post caught my eye.  Mark is a pastor in the northwoods of Wisconsin... where everyone wears the the Green and Gold and has a Packer Room in their basement.  He does an excellent job bringing into prespective some of the great leadership qualities Brett Favre displayed when he took the field.

Here are his sentimental observations:

1) He Showed up to Play Every Sunday. Regardless of what was happening in his life (i.e. his father's death and his wife's cancer), he still found a way to get to the game on time.

2) He Played Through the Hurts.  I've watched just about every Packer game since Favre's debut. I've seen him clobbered, hammered, hamstrung, smashed, and boggled. Yet, Brett kept getting back on his feet again. Remember the year when he played half a season with a broken thumb? Somehow, the desire for victory was far greater than the physical pain.

3) He Took Risks and Made Plenty of Mistakes.  Not only does he hold the career touchdown record, he holds the interception record as well. You can't win big by playing it safe. Consider the turtle, who makes no progress until he sticks his neck out. Brett stuck his neck out all the time. On countless occasions, I've seen him do something crazy, and yelled, "NO!! NO!! DON'T DO THAT!!" But then, it's the crazy passes, completed as touchdowns which will go down in history as the greatest and most memorable.

4) After He Blew It, He Shook it Off. Nothing could rattle his confidence. On the next set of downs after an interception, he'd throw deep (and crazy) again. Favre didn't allow failure to be final and always believed that setbacks are supposed to be followed by come-backs. He never blamed others for his mistakes, and always took responsibility for losses on the field.

5) He Inspired the Team.  Brett always had a good word of encouragement for the younger guys around him. I remember when Ryan Longwell, as a rookie kicker, muffed an easy field goal against the Eagles, and lost the game. The crowd booed. Favre went over to his dejected teammate and said, "Hey, don't worry about it. It's not your fault. We lost this thing together."

6) He Kept Smiling. The thing I appreciated most about Brett Favre was his enthusiasm and love for football. Most of the time, he really enjoyed himself and was glad to be there (There were a few exceptions, such as the ice bowl in Chicago, but normally, he'd grin for at least three quarters, anyhow!) Brett's lighthearted spirit was contagious. Win or lose, it was still a good game.

7) He Didn't Quit Until the Clock Ran Out.  Many players give up when the tide turns against them, but not Brett Favre! He played his heart out every second of every down in the game. Perhaps that's why he led his team to so many last second comeback victories.

These are great principles for every spiritual leader to embody as we enter into our field of play...God's harvest field.  Thanks Mark!  Your post made my day.

The American Church in Crisis

My friend, Dave Olson, just released a groundbreaking book entitled: The American Church in Crisis. Order Here

There are many that believe that the American church has been lulled asleep by its own press and endless activities to build itself up.  Dave Olson, with his relentless pursuit of truth, offers a wake-up call to a church that has fallen asleep.  The American Church in Crisis offers a clarion call to all followers of Jesus to reexamine our motives, methods and mission.  In my humble opinion, this will be the most quoted book in the next 5 years.

Here is a brief summary:

Attendance at American churches is less than half of what the polls report, according to David Olson, director of the American Church Research Project. The American Church in Crisis presents groundbreaking research that offers a more accurate picture of the actual state of the American church at both the national and local levels. The American Church in Crisis delivers unexpected and original insights into both the challenges the church faces and the solutions that will enable the American church to thrive again. Based on the largest-ever research study of American church attendance, yearly data from more than 200,000 individual Christian churches was collected from 1990 - 2006. This unique research base led the author to discover trends and patterns in the American church that were previously unknown.

The American Church in Crisis answers the questions church leaders are asking: Why are these trends occurring? What can our church do to reverse its pattern of decline and decay? How can we make the gospel story come alive again to new generations? How must Christian leaders change their values, habits, and priorities for the American church to grow in health and influence? By following a four-step process of observation, evaluation, introspection and action, readers will find hope in the possibility of God rebuilding and restoring his church.

The American Church in Crisis offers sidebars, charts, maps, and graphs to give a visual overview of key information. Questions for reflection and discussion help congregations and church leaders take these valuable insights and information, and apply them to their unique situations. Readers will find a richly textured mosaic, with stories of both optimism and challenge. The American Church in Crisis confirms hunches, explodes myths, and offers a clear path toward a brighter future.

Outreach vs. Withreach: What is the Difference?

Here is a short list of an interesting chart comparing the differences between a Withreach mindset vs a Outreach mindset along with the declining and emerging influences on our culture.

Declining in Influence – Emerging in Influence

Outreach – Withreach

Confrontational – Incarnational

Monologue – Conversation

Superiority – Humility

Church speak – Human voice

Target segmented group – Create holistic community

Image of community – Authentic community

What would Jesus do? – What is Jesus doing?

Check out the complete description of withreach at www.withreach.com