A Word To The Next Generation Of Leaders

"Being a young, next-gen leader is a difficult calling."

You think differently than your more conventional colleagues. YOU CHALLENGE, REINVENT, AND MIX IT UP. You buck traditional models of leadership and you're constantly on the hunt for new ones. Many of your peers and elders in the ministry may not understand your calling.

Keep in mind a few things...

• It's important to see where other men have been. It is easy to stand on the sidelines and critique other people’s ministries. Keep in mind, you have not walked in their shoes or been where they have been.
  
  The mistake that too many young ministers makes is to assume to have superior knowledge over an elder in the ministry who has struggled to make something happen. If you honor those men and women who have tilled the ground before you, God will give you the fruit of their labors.
  
  
• Your greatest asset as a leader will be your mentors. Every Man or Woman of God is a product of the ministers who have invested themselves into their ministries. There is nothing new under the sun and you are not unique from those who have mentored your life. For good or bad, the Pastors and Mentors of your life have touched your ministry. You have been affected by each of them. You have learned things to do and things not to do in your ministry by observing them. Your love and honor to them will determine the level of respect and honor that will be given to your own ministry.

• Stay close to someone more experienced. We learn from those who are able to teach us. If you surround your ministry with people who are less experienced or knowledgeable than yourself, you will become “dumbed-down”. Find some ministers who are heavily involved in the areas of ministry that you feel called to work and begin to glean from them. These men and women are usually very open to teaching a younger minister the ropes.
  
  

Bi-vocational Ministry Insights

Bi-vocational ministry is an essential weave in the fabric of the church today. It is a common and yet very misunderstood form of ministry, and often even by those involved in it.

The term “bi-vocational” infers that a person has two vocations. If a pastor or minister is bi-vocational it indicates he or she has another source of income beyond the church. 

The term “bi-vocational” does not mean “part time”. One may be receiving a partial salary, but in reality he is still a full-time pastor or minister. Perhaps the best way to define a pastor who receives all of his income from a church is “fully funded”, not “full-time”.

In today’s challenging economy many individuals choose the role of bi-vocational ministry over a fully funded one. If you are one of those I assure you that you are not on an island alone. It is important that you accept your bi-vocational role, as a valid form of ministry, but also that you understand its potential limitations.

Home Friendship Groups - My Passion

Home Friendship Groups (Cell ministry), are gaining greater and greater interest as we hear the success stories from those who have ventured into this ministry. The largest and fastest growing churches in the world are churches with HFG's.

10 years ago, the Lord began to speak to me about a model of ministry that to my knowledge, no one was doing at that time. (little did I know) Often, I would look over the congregation and notice people who were faithful to church services, but because of a lack of available positions in the church or their inability to find their own personal ministry, they weren't doing much for the Lord. I also noticed that many visitors and new converts were coming into the church and going right back out since they had no one to befriend or disciple them. As much as these churches had great evangelistic efforts, there was no clear cut program or ministry that was designed for the purpose of retaining new converts.

A short time later, my wife and I began a new church in Chesterton, IN. Within a year, I became very frustrated. I was attempting to model this young church's government and ministry after the larger well established, management driven churches I had been a part of. About that time, I began to hear about Cell ministry. I even found some books which told of the tremendous success of Yonggi Cho's church in Seoul, Korea and Rick Warren's church in Saddleback, CA, as well as several others.

It wasn't long before the Lord directed me to Pastor Anthony Tamel's church in Oak Creek WI. I attended their New Wineskins seminar and wept as they showed me that God was changing my paradigm for church evangelism and discipleship.

With their help and training, we soon brought HFG's to our small church in Chesterton and watched as the Lord transformed peoples lives to both disciple and become discipled through HFG's.

After 6 years of pastoring the church in Chesterton, I began to feel the Lord direct me to turn the church over to the man who assisted me. With that, I heard God tell me to not take another church right away. I felt that the Lord was directing me to make myself available to help teach and train other churches, in the area of Home Friendship Groups.

After discussing this burden with two area Pastors of larger churches, they both asked me to come there and help them train their leaders and raise up HFG's in their church. Both churches now have young, successful HFG ministries.

I have spoken at several churches on the subject of HFG's and have worked very closely with other pastors who have or are in the process of raising up HFG's in their local church.

Home Friendship Groups are very much like early Apostolic evangelism. It's entirely more reflective of true Apostolic ministry than most of today's church structure that is management driven at best.

The Dark Side of Spiritual Abuse -- Part 2

To give a little history as to how some of the heavy-handed authoritative traits came into play among pastors you have to trace back to the charismatic movement. Out of the charismatic movement there was the evolving of a concept called “shepherding.” 

The Latter Rain movement actually had its earliest beginnings in the late 1800’s and was born out of the Methodist and Holiness camp-meeting environment. It would continue to generate momentum and experience growth during the post-World War II years and be much encouraged by the Charismatic movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Marked by extreme excess and abuse of the gifts of the Spirit, this activity led to the production of “prophets” who had little use for personal holiness and consecration. After a while it appeared that they only had a desire for their own personal kingdoms to grow.

As time went by these intruders became susceptible to moral and ethical failures. The subsequent fallout from their failures caused many who followed them to be led astray by their repulsive actions. In an effort to recover from these shenanigans a group of leaders came together and formed what was called “The Shepherding Movement.” Bob Mumford, Derek Prince, Charles Simpson, and Don Basham were the primary founders of this loosely formed organization who determined that its sole purpose would be to form a system of personal accountability. Later a fifth leader, Ern Baxter would be added to make up what was referred to as the “Fort Lauderdale Five.”

They decided that their work would be modeled after the pattern of Paul mentoring his sons in the faith, Timothy and Titus. They would work toward building a system of accountability that would form deeper relationships among pastors, ministry development at all levels, and ethical standards with emphasis on moral and financial dealings.

The whole system worked with the idea that anyone who came into the church needed a“shepherd.” After witnessing the moral collapse of several prominent men, this seemed to be a good and necessary thing. Who could object to the need for spiritual leadership and accountability? It became very heavy on authority and control in a manner that even simple decisions of daily living had to be monitored and approved by the pastor/leader of local congregations.

As an example, the leader would have to make the final decisions on car purchases, home mortgages, and job opportunities. In some cases, the “shepherd” would designate who young men and young women would marry to the degree that the marriages were arranged and carried through. The “shepherd” would have almost complete control over the personal finances. The parishioners would bring their paychecks to him and he would cash them and take his cut which was oftentimes more than 10% and give them the remainder. So as you can see the role of the pastor changed into an extreme form of authoritative control.

Some of the characteristics of the Shepherding system are as follow:

• Discipleship only takes place when one is committed to the group, cell ministry, and its leader.

• The only hope of salvation is extreme devotion to the shepherd of the group. This indicates the leader has more power to save than does Jesus Christ.

• Jesus Christ does not work directly in the life of the follower but rather He works through a system of delegated authority that flows down from the shepherd. You are to submit to this man as you would submit to God.

• Our relationship with God is not primary but rather it works in tandem with the power of a shepherd who has total control over the present, material world we live in.

• Our obedience

25 Questions To Ask Before Making Major Decisions

Not every question in this list will help you in every situation. This is simply a check list to help you keep from overlooking important considerations before confirming and carrying out major decisions.

1. At it's essence - in one sentence - what is the decision I'm really facing? What is the bottom, bottom line?
2. Am I dealing with a cause or a symptom? A means or an end?
3. Am I thinking about this situation with a clear head or am I fatigued to the point that I shouldn't be making any major decisions.
4. What would the ideal solution be in this situation?
5. Should I seek outside counsel in making this decision?
6. What are the hidden agendas that are pushing for a decision in this situation? Why do we or they want a change? What is the source of the emotional fuel that is driving this decision?
   
7. If I had to decide in the next two minutes - what decision would I make and why?
8. What decision would I expect each of my three most respected advisors to favor in this situation?

We Were Here!

As you look through history, you find remnants of people who preached and believed the Apostolic doctrine. Whether in parts or in whole, the Acts 2:38 message has been found throughout history. Consider the countless, precious people who gave their lives in defense of the Apostolic message. People who suffered the death of martyrdom unnoticed. Praying saints who never did see their world come to Christ. Men and women who held on to the promises of God's Word, in a day and place when it would cost them their lives.

Being Pentecostal is popular today. Even a good Catholic friend of mine recently told me that their services are becoming more Charismatic. I'm not sure what he meant by that, but I guess he was trying to say, that they were embracing the Spirit of worshipfound in Pentecost.

However, time has a way of erasing things. The tide of generations coming and going, dull and even erase people, governments and religions. Why, if we didn't dig into the earth in the deserts, we wouldn't even know that some civilizations ever existed. Whole nations have been erased from the earth without anyone even noticing that they were there. People who were once proud and who ruled large kingdoms are only remembered in small bits of history if at all.

What will be said of our generation should the Lord tarry 500 more years? Now, I'm with most of you on this one. I believe the Lord is coming back very soon. However, we do not know this for sure. What will future generations remember about us? What will be in the history books of the future about us?

I don't believe there has ever been a brighter day for the Church. We are living on a planet with over 6 billion people living on it. If there ever was a day in which God wanted to give a great revival, I believe today is that day. However, we should ask ourselves, are we looking forward? Are we considering the effect of all that we are doing for the Lord, on future people. What will they say about us? Will they remember us?

Some time ago, I read a book about the Nazi concentration camps from World War II. The story was about a little Jewish girl who was too small to work for the Nazis, and had somehow escaped being shot for being too young. It was often their practice to kill someone if they could not work. So, this little girl lived her life through much of the war and many of the concentration camps.

Money Matters - Basic Causes Of Financial Difficulties

Most people have problems with finances, but they just don’t know why.

According to the latest surveys, over one-half of all families in America are presently experiencing financial difficulties.  And the real truth is many do not seem to know why they are having these difficulties.  If these type problems are so common, then it would be important to understand the reasons they exist.

The following is a listing of some reasons of financial difficulties.  This listing can be a means of educating oneself in these most critical areas.

1. Failure to follow scriptural principles.  The Bible is full of guidelines regarding financial principles.  In fact, one half of all parables and one out of six verses in the New Testament deal with stewardship.  Get the Bible and start an in-depth study of the guidelines and principles in the Word of God.
2. Failure to identify priorities.  A person and family must identify their priorities if they are ever going to be successful in their financial life.
3. Failure to discipline.  This horrible word causes people more problems than anything else in the world.  Discipline must be exercised in every phase of a person’s life and in the world of finances it is critical.
4. Failure to establish goals.  A person who has no goal is a person without direction.  A person without direction is going nowhere.  A person must establish the financial goal for themselves if they ever want to arrive at a successful financial position in life.
5. Failure to control spending.  A written control is necessary to control impulsive spending.  Limits must be established and kept.
6. Failure to establish a budget.  A budget is not a nervous breakdown on paper.  It is a clear guideline of where your money comes from and where it goes.  Do not negate the importance of a written budget…it is vital to anyone’s financial success.

How soon do you...

How soon do you begin training people in leadership positions.  Well, let me ask you – how long do you wait to help a baby walk?  Until they learn to do it on their own?  No, early in their development, you take them by the hands, lift them up, steady them and one step at a time you help them learn balance, endurance and strength.  If you wait until a person is already involved in leadership to use them, they may have gotten their leadership skills from a source such as the corporate world where the same values are not shared in the church.  Start working with people early.  Trust them.  Some will fail and embarrass you.  Others will succeed and astound you.

How soon do you use them in leadership positions?  Generally before you feel they are 100% ready.  There is always a need for leadership help in the church.  You will find that as soon as you begin raising up a person in the church for a position, God will begin raising up a position in the church for a person.  The reason many churches do not have certain ministries in their churches is not because the needs are not there for those ministries, it is because there are not people ready to lead those ministries.

How soon do you move someone out of a ministry?  As soon as you have another ministry to advance that person to and someone to take their place.  Never leave someone in a position for years if that person has the ability to excel into another office or ministry in the church.

Developing A Growing Church

Pastor Ray Johnson of the Denham Springs Pentecostal Church shares the characteristics of a growing church.

1. There are specific, reasonable and attainable growth goals that have been developed. A pastor must see, believe it and work for it!
   
2. There is powerful Bible-based preaching and teaching, anointed singing, vibrant worship, fervent praying, and generous giving.
   
3. There is consistent visitation and follow-up on visitors.
   
4. The pastor recognizes and releases the gifts and callings among the congregation. These gifts include the gifts of teachers, helpers, prophecy, exhortation, ruling, etc.
   
5. The organization, coordination, and emphasis of the basic departments - Sunday School, Youth, Outreach, Music, New Convert Care - is always on soul-winning and discipleship.