How To Stay Focused

In a world of constant distractions, learning to achieve and sustain a laser-like focus on your priorities gives you an enormous competitive advantage in the marketplace – as well as enormous benefits to your personal life. If keeping your focus has never been harder, the payoffs have never been better. How do you achieve laser-like concentration? I’m going to share with you seven principles of achieving and sustaining an intense, productive and energizing focus.

1. Keep the Big Picture in Mind. To successfully sustain you focus, you must first have a big-picture view of your goals and priorities, and a clear vision of what you hope to accomplish. After all, achieving an intense and sustained focus is not an end in itself, but a powerful means of achieving your long-term goals. The clearer, and more specific and more vividly you visualize the big picture of what you hope to accomplish, the more successfully you can focus on the means of achieving it.
   
2. Set Goals That Excite You. One characteristic shared by virtually every highly successful person is that they had big dreams and specific goals. The higher you aim, the higher you’ll go – even if you fail to hit your target. And if you shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you’ll still land among the stars.
   
3. Be Mindful. By targeting your attention with laser-beam accuracy to the matter at hand, you are literally unable to entertain destructive thoughts. Concentrating on the present reality eliminates fear of future possibilities. In this way, being mindful not only increases your effectiveness, it enhances your peace of mind.
   
4. Track Your Progress. When you see the advances you have made, it is easier to concentrate on covering the ground that remains. Tracking your past progress enables you to enter unfamiliar terrain with the confidence that comes from success and experience. Some strategies that will help enable you to monitor and accelerate your progress include setting deadlines, taking time for re-evaluation and allowing for adjustments.
   

Why People Give To Nonprofit Organizations

The following are the results of a poll given by the Barna Research Group.  It may shed some light as to why people give.  Remember people give their time and talents for similar reasons they give their money to the church or other organizations.

They have a great reputation for being reliable and trustworthy.

Accuracy of this description.  (continue for each question)

Very                 Somewhat        Not too            Not at all

66%                 27%                 2%                   4%

You feel good about yourself when you know that you have helped others.

59%                 31%                 5%                   6%

The organization is involved in a type of work that is of greatest interest to you.

54%                 35%                 4%                   4%

You have seen or studied the work of the organization firsthand and know they’re trustworthy.

49%                 36%                 4%                   9%

Get Rid of Stinking Thinking

 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:  (Philippians 2:5)

"You can think your way to failure and unhappiness, but you can also think your way to success and happiness.  The world in which you live is not primarily determined by outward conditions and circumstances but by the thoughts that habitually occupy your mind."                                                                                                                                                                     -Norman Vincent Peale

Marcus Aurelius said,  "A man's life is what his thoughts make of it."

It has been said that the wisest man who ever lived in America was Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Sage of Concord.  Emerson declared,  "A man is what he thinks about all day long."

If you think you can have revival, you can.

You get what you preach.  If you are preaching revival and believe with all of your heart that revival will come, it will come.  It will come with God's timing, and He is bound by His word.  And His word says that He hears us when we pray.  If we are seeking for His will and are sincerely seeking revival for our church and community, it will come.  We have to believe!

            "But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle,     because the             harvest is come."  (Mark 4:29)

If you think your church will grow, it will.

If you are praying for your church to grow, it will.  If you plant the seed of faith, and water it with prayers and fasting, the church is destined to grow.  It is the will of God for the church to grow.  This is His church and He wants it to succeed.  We have to get our thinking right, get our attitudes straightened up and get on board with what God has in store for us.  Rick Warren, in his book A Purpose Driven Church, tells us to not ask the question "Why is the church not growing," but to ask,  "What is causing the church to not grow."  Whenever we get our thinking on the right path, the church will begin to grow and mature.  Paul wrote to the church at Corinth,

       "I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase."  (1 Cor. 3:6)

Money Matters - Christian Expectations

Too often people are afraid to budget because it seems to be more trouble than it is worth.  However, a budget is not a nervous breakdown on paper.  It is an organized and systematic manner of controlling income and expenses so a person can recognize danger areas in their financial life before they happen.

Too many Christians find themselves in financial hardship.  Why?  We belong to the body of Christ and we have God on our side.  If heaven is his throne, the earth his footstool; if He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, then why are his children struggling and finding it difficult to “get by” in this affluent society?

The secret to getting ahead is not from “have luck in the stock market” or “making that once in a life time investment” or even in “receiving an inheritance from a wealthy family member”.  It is defined as time!

All the investments and inheritances one can attain will not be the solution if you don’t take the time to plan and protect.  People must take the time to discipline themselves to have a written plan that will provide the guidelines of scheduling money in and out of the home, thus providing a means of protection from financial disaster.

A Christian should expect their finances to be in better shape than that of the average person in the world.  Christians have the backing of the God of glory and His Word!  One of the first things a Christian should do is take the time to investigate the scriptures concerning their financial situation.  Notice some scriptures that give us guidelines for planning, preparation, and protection of finances.

How to Lead a Spirit-filled Worship Service

John 4:23
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

There are many worship services going on today but too many lack Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit) involvement.  The only way to lead a Spirit-filled worship service is if those doing the leading are filled with the Spirit.  Sounds basic I know, but it really is the answer to leading a true Holy Ghost inspired worship service.  Those who are involved need to have a true love for worshipping God and they need to express that while leading.  The musicians, singers and anyone on the platform leading worship should be full of the Holy Ghost themselves (John 20:22). 

Lead by example!  When you are singing songs about worship and you yourself are not worshipping, you are sending the wrong message.  As "worship leaders" we should be leaders of worship.  To lead someone is to show someone the way.  While leading worship, one should not feel constrained or bound by anything.  Outward demonstrative worship requires us doing just that…demonstrating worship!  Whatever the Lord impresses on your heart to do while leading, you should do without hesitation.

2 Corinthians 3:17
                Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

                liberty- freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.

Pray to be sensitive to the Lord's leading.  The Lord knows in each and every service, where He wants to take the congregation.  If we limit Him by not leading the way we are supposed to lead, the service goes in the wrong direction.  We should pray every service to be sensitive to His voice and that He would show us what He would have us do in that service.  Worship is not something we do for anyone else but for our Creator.  Worship is something that does not require the attention or approval of anyone else but our Lord and Savior!  We were created to worship Him.  He doesn't make or force us to do it, it is something He wants us to do from the bottom of our hearts.  He gives us the choice to worship Him or to not worship Him.

Momentum Through Raising Up Leadership

As leaders, we have all been guilty of getting excited and all fired up to start a new project.  In our excitement, we call our leadership teams together, plan it all out and set it in motion, without first answering all of the questions that need to be answered.  This is great for creating momentum, but before you begin, ask yourself and your team of leaders if you will be able to sustain everything that you start.

·     If you don't have the right people in place to make it happen, it may be that you need to refrain from starting until you have the right people trained to take on the new project.

Jesus was a great example to us in this.

Think of what God's ultimate plan was.  God was bringing into existence the New Testament plan of Salvation.  To institute this plan, He robed Himself in flesh and became the Supreme sacrifice for all sin for all of time! That was the first part of His plan.  In order for this plan to continue, Jesus needed the right people to make it happen.

In three years time, Jesus needed to have the right people trained and in place, and ready to carry on His ministry by the day He ascended into Heaven.  That is why Jesus so often said, "My hour is not yet come", or "It is not my time."  Jesus wanted to be sure that He had His disciples ready and willing to carry on His work after Calvary.  He wanted it to succeed.  It had to continue.  It must not fail!

The Value of Biographical Preaching

The proper definition of biographical preaching is;

The method of preaching that expounds a Bible character, based on careful exegesis, to deduce the principles that regulated his or her life and to apply the principles to the modern listener. A simpler definition is; Biographical preaching is preaching that provides a biography of the life of a person from scripture and draws a moral lesson or message from that story.

It is essential to understand that all preaching in its most basic of forms is (or at least ought to be) expository in nature. By that I mean that every scripture you share in a sermon should be exposed and expounded upon. Even when only one verse is used in a topical sermon, there is a degree of exposition that takes place.  In the same sense, biographical preaching is a type of expository preaching. You are telling the story of an individual rather than the story of a chapter or a book. Instead of exposing a passage of scripture, you are exposing the life of a person in scripture. Your text may include several passages of scripture about the character.

Do You Need A Mentor?

Leadership is a complex issue in the 21^st Century. Christian leaders at every level in business, church, school, and at home are faced with numerous challenges. A common feeling is that of being overwhelmed. 

Christian leaders face difficulty and uncertainty every day. The world is changing rapidly. The political, economical, and social pressures are encroaching more and more into everyone’s daily lives. Although leaders face the same challenges as everyone else, they have the added burden of trying to have answers for others as well.

Ask Yourself a Few Simple Questions

As a leader:

·        Who do you turn to for guidance, advice, and instruction?

·        Who can you trust not only in their advice, but also in confidentiality?

·        Who already knows what you need to know and is willing to share their knowledge with you?

·        Who equips you to meet challenges when you do not yet know what tomorrow’s challenges even are yet?

·        How do you know if you are lacking the skills required to lead and succeed in the 21^st Century?

·        Are other leaders outpacing you? 

·        Are you facing new and more complex challenges that you never faced before?

·        Are you struggling with the challenge of developing leaders around you?

If so you need a mentor.

Tired Of The Results You Are Seeing?

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  If you are not pleased with the results you are seeing in a given ministry or program, make a change.

Positive change requires vision.  Vision is always needed to begin a new ministry or program, but it is also needed to continue it.  We too often allow vision to guide us to begin something, but then leave vision out of the picture when growth or decrease begin to happen.  It will take constant vision casting to cause a given ministry to continue to have growth.

Change it up!  It is in our nature to try to find a norm or comfort zone.  However, when people find these, they begin to relax.  Once they relax, it is very hard if possible at all to re-motivate them.  One pastor told me he will throw a hammer through a wall before he allows people to think that change is not happening in the church.  Constant change is exciting!

Change only what needs changing.  Don’t get in the way of progress.  Allow those areas and people who are having success to continue without interference.  There are always areas of the church that need help.  Only make changes there.  If modifications are to be made in an area of the church that is doing well, make sure they are small modifications that will not offend those who are causing progress.