The Peril of Sheep Diseases

The word sheep is mentioned exactly 187 times from Genesis to Revelation.
New Ungers Bible Dictionary tells us that the term Sheep can mean several things in the Hebrew….

SHEEP
1. young sheep, a lamb, Heb. keseb.
2. A flock of sheep (rendered "flock," the most frequent word thus rendered, Heb. 'son.
3. ne of a flock, a single though sometimes used collectively (Jer 50:17), Heb. seh.
4. ny four-footed tame animal accustomed to graze, but always a sheep in the NT Grk. Probaton....

Small Groups - The Individual

The individual in America is an emotional mess, with wounds and scars that alcohol, drugs and psychologists cannot heal. The Church is this person's only hope. However, in the traditional church setting, the individual is not always wholly ministered to. Many people have needs that cannot be completely met in the traditional church service. If a silent poll were taken in the average church, I believe we would be surprised to hear what some people would say concerning their personal, spiritual and emotional needs being met.

In the Small Group setting, the individual has an opportunity to not only be ministered to, but to minister to others. The Bible does tell us to "edify one another". A true family unit is developed when adult members share in the responsibility of preparing food for fellowship times, praying & worshiping together, caring for the children of the group, and hosting meetings in one another's homes.

Take Time For What Matters Most

Understand the value of your time. In the corporate world, managers are encouraged to assess the actual dollar value of their time. This helps the person and their staff understand that time equals money. As much as the church is not focused on money as the corporate world is, a minister should understand that his time is very valuable and it is limited.

Invest your time wisely. Understand that you only have so much time to invest in a given ministry, project or person. Make the best use of it. Don’t allow distractions or other people’s agendas to keep you from staying on track. A minister should be allowed the same courtesy as any other professional when it comes to his time.....

Borrowing Comfort From The Past

So many times we are told to step out of our past when it seems to hold us hostage with details of failure, mistakes, and setbacks. I have often had to challenge my past with various Truths and dismantle the Structure Of Defeat it had erected in my heart and mind. It is so easy to look back to whatever you see and feel, and build our future out of those things. Today, I want to do something much better with our past: Look deeply at it and Borrow Comfort And Help.

When David had to face the man Goliath, he had to reach into yesterday and vividly recall just how good God had been to him regarding a lion and bear. Knowing in himself it was not his ability alone that won the victory, but the Lord had been with him. The God who had worked in and for him would show Himself the very same now, showing us he had received comfort and strength from his past. Getting the good from our past, I think, requires a greater deal of effort than recalling bad things, for the negative just seems to show up, but good has to be reached for. Of course our enemy loves to flash our past errors on the screen of our soul, but the Holy Ghost delights to use our past to bring honor to God.

Samson also used the past to get some help from when he had killed a lion and, after awhile, Bees had used the animal to build a place for some fresh honey. By taking time to taste honey from a past victory, he, too, had been helped by his past. I just wonder how many dead lions and honey spots are all over our yesterdays just waiting for us to both visit and extract help from?

Storm the Gates - Part 2

In The Holy War by John Bunyan we find that for Prince Emmanuel to take back the city of Mansoul, he will go through the same gates that Diabolus took advantage of. In the first part, there were a listing of four of the captains and their first lieutenants who were assigned to go after the gates. From the analogy that Bunyan uses, these four men were preachers who were specifically going to gain a foothold in the Ear Gate.

The first captain is Captain Boanerges along with aide, Mr. Thunder. They all wore black and the insignia on their uniforms was three lightning bolts. They led a company of ten thousand men. Obviously, Bunyan gets his word picture from the description of James and John who were referred to as the Sons of Thunder by the Lord. They were men who appealed to the authority aspect of ministry.....

Are You Trained To Fail?

“Have you been trained to fail?”  You have been trained in ministry to fail if you have been taught to do the ministry rather than to train others for ministry.  I am grateful to the teachers who taught me to perform the functions of ministry:  visiting, counseling, marrying, burying, teaching, witnessing, and a host of other duties.  All are needed.  By themselves, however, they help us only to maintain, not to maximize ministry.  We can never be effective ministers until we learn what it means to be a leader and how to function as a leader.  

The following are five common ingredients in growing churches:

1. The pastor and the congregation understand their God-given gifts and use them in ministry.
2. The pastor’s hands-on ministry decreases and the congregation’s increases.
3. Both the quality and the quantity of ministry increase.
4. The pastor’s ministry influence increases as he shares ministry responsibilities with the congregation.
5. A biblical philosophy of ministry is established.  That is, leadership plus lay ministry equals growth.

How can you build a leadership team and maximize ministry in your church?  The following six steps are proven and effective:

1. Identify the leaders in the church.  Who are the influencers?  These persons may hold formal or informal positions of leadership.  They are the ones to whom others look for decisions.  Write down their names and rank them on a scale of 1 to 10 as to their leadership and influence within the church.
2. Intentionally take time to build relationships with your current and future leaders.  Do not ignore or exclude the others, but focus on developing leaders.

Be A Man!

"A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just" (Proverbs 13:22). 

"Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be burdensome to you: for I seek not yours, but you: for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children" (II Corinthians 12:14).

"Be a Man!" When we were boys, my brother Rick would say this to me after he slugged me and made cry. Brothers can be the best of friends and they can also be very cruel to one another. Rick was 6 years older than I was and without a father in our home at the time, he was the only male role-model in our home and at times, quite the bully.

Be a man. Wow! What volumes of pain and suffering in this world would be avoided if the husbands, fathers and leaders of our world would truly be men. To be a man, has been my personal quest since I was very young. I wasn't quite sure as a boy, what a man was, but something in my heart and mind told me that to be a man was something honorable and good. 

Coming from a dysfunctional family, my understanding of the role of a man has been blurred to say the least. Looking back at my childhood, I realize that the example of a good man was never shown to me. In my early years of being a father, I realized this when I began feeling and expressing a father's love to my children. It was then that I realized that I had never truly been the benefactor of such caring, protective love. Painful memories flooded my mind often as I would compare the careful love my children received from my wife and I, with the careless and even abusive treatment my bothers, sisters and I received at the hands of our parents.

It was at this point in my life, that I realized I was more a true man than anyone in my family had ever modeled before me. No parent, grandparent, or uncle had shown me what it was to be a man. Their own dysfunctional upbringings had so marred their lives that they were incapable of it. I also realized that I had a Heavenly Father who had been and was my example....

A Few Good Things To Know About People

1. Showing your compassionate and caring nature will aid you in forging successful relationships.
2. When you extinguish hope, you create desperation.
3. Remember that your followers generally want to believe that what they do is their own idea and, more importantly, that it genuinely makes a difference.
4. If you practice dictatorial leadership, you prepare yourself to be dictated to.
5. Delegate responsibility and authority by empowering people to act on their own.
6. When you make it to the top, turn and reach down for the person behind you.
7. You must be consistently fair and decent in both the business and personal side of life.
8. Never add the weight of your character to a charge against a person without knowing it to be true.
9. Never crush a man out, thereby making him and his friends permanent enemies of your organization...

Ten Commandments for an Associate Minister

1. One of the biggest jobs of an associate minister is to get the people to accept "you" without taking one iota from the honor and position of the senior minister.
2. Work constantly to get the people to look forward to your call in its own right - and not simply as a substitute for the senior minister's call......