10 Ways To Use This Newsletter

The Newsletter of Preachit.org is written specifically for you and your Ministry team.  We have prayed over our articles and sincerely hope that they help you in every way possible.  We pray that each article you read, ministers to you and encourages you to keep doing the awesome Work of God.  May God continue to bless you as you bless His kingdom. 

Below are some ways to use this tool for your benefit.  This is not a complete list as you can add to it as you see fit and how it fits your Ministry team.  These are just some suggestions to get you started.  Thank you for taking the time to read the PreachIt.org Newsletter and may it enrich your ministry.

1. Teach Your Leadership Team.

2. Put the articles in Your Church's Bulletin.

3. Print out the PDF format and save them for sermon thoughts.

10 Traits To Identify A Promising Person

Identifying that next leader is not easy.  You must often times select a few prospects and begin to work with them waiting for the cream to rise to the top.  While you are mentoring and waiting for maturity, here are a few things to begin to look for.

Leadership in the past. The best predictor of the future is the past.  Is this a person who has worked well on a team previously?  Maybe, they needed a break and stepped aside for rest, but are now able to get back on board.

The capacity to create or catch vision. When I talk to people about the future, I want their eyes to light up. I want them to ask the right questions.  When you are sharing your vision with people do they get excited along with you?  Do they offer suggestions that spur your imagination further?  When you find someone who is able to catch the same vision as you, you have found someone that you can entrust much of the responsibility with.  They will have a similar passion for the work as you yourself would.

A constructive spirit of discontent. Some people would call this criticism, but there's a big difference in being constructively discontent and being critical. The unscratchable itch is always in the leader.  These people are a bit hard to sift from the genuine critics, but when you do you may have found a diamond in the rough.  Just because they are questioning a few things does not mean they are not on your side.  Give them an opportunity to help make a needed change and you may have found a great friend 

Practical Ideas. Not everybody with practical ideas is a leader, of course, but leaders seem to be able to identify which are and which aren't.  A person's experience will often times lend practical ideas.  When someone offers an idea that is helpful, it may be that they have been involved in a project much like what you are facing which will make them a helpful candidate for your ministry team.

A willingness to take responsibility. Leaders will bear work, for the feeling of contributing to other people is what leadership is all about. When you find a person who is willing to take responsibility for not only the ministry you have given them, but also the success of it, you have found pure gold.  These are people to build upon.  The ministry is dependent on individuals who are willing to take responsibility.

A completion factor. In the military, it is called "completed staff work." The half-cooked meal isn't what you want. Someone who competes what they have set out to do is invaluable.  When looking for leadership that will help you move your church forward, look for people who finish what they start, no matter how small or trivial the task is.

The Work Of The Connector

In his book, The Turning Point, Malcolm Gladwell describes the work of the connector.  The connectors he explains are important to social epidemics.  The reason why a new restaurant would become the new hotspot in the community might well depend a great deal on the work of the connector.  You see, a connector is the person in the market place who tells all their friends about the great deal they just got at Wall Mart.  Or the fantastic food they ate at a new restaurant.  Every church has connectors in them.

I have identified my wife as being a connector.  Should Natalie find a bargain at say Wall Mart, she will immediately call her mother and sister on the phone and them about the great deal and why they should head over to Wall Mart as soon as they get off work.   My wife is a connector.  She loves telling people about everything from the newest restaurant, to the store who has a sale on paper napkins.

My life was changed by a connector.  I was 17 years old when I came into contact with this person.  95% of the relationships I have today are a direct result of this one connector in my life.  Mike was his name.  Had this person never told me about and invited me to his church, I never would have met most of the people who I now know as my close friends and colleagues.  He was not a preacher.  He was a connector.

Something excited him about his church and he could not help himself to share it with someone else.  Mike is not an orator.  He is not a teacher of God’s word.  But he connected me to the people who would eventually change my life. 

We all have had the work of a connector in our lives.  They introduced us to the church.  They introduced us to our spouse.  They told us the kind of car we should buy.  They work behind the scenes to promote projects, products and agendas and they do it every day without pay or recognition.  You might say it’s their personality.  I would say it’s more of an obsession with some people.

My wife can’t help herself.  She has to share her good fortune.  I have told her in the past to keep some bargains to herself.  Like the beautiful new dress she just got off a clearance rack for a few bucks.  I tell her let people think you paid a little something for it, but no, she has to tell the world where they can get the same deal.  She loves to be the connector.

After A Really Really Really Bad Day

Ever had one? One of those days where you wish you would have stayed in bed? I had one last week. Well, actually I had two of them in a row. My boy Jeremy had just gotten the cast off his arm from the break he received when he fell out of the tree 2 months ago. So, Thursday evening, we decided to take our dirt bikes out and go riding. We had ridden about an hour when Jer flipped his bike on a jump and it landed on his foot, thus breaking it. So to the house we go to get a few things before we head to the emergency room. Before we leave the house though, we should let Molly out. Molly is our 5 pound Maltese. The baby of the family. She is almost ready to come into the house when the neighbors dog comes over and mauls her. She wasn't hurt badly, only bruised and frightened, but we don't have time to comfort her because Jeremy is needing to go get X- rays. This has turned out to be a very bad day.

I wake up Friday morning, thinking, O. K. the worst is behind us. It's a brand new day, right?! Wrong. All I did was turn my head and sneeze. That's all. But now my neck has gone into a spasm and the vertebrae are out and I can't move my neck in any direction more than an inch without causing excruciating pain. So I lay on the bed for an hour. Unable to move. (6 days, and 2 chiropractor appointments later, I'm still in pain.) Boy this is starting out to be a bad day. Unable to get an appointment with a chiropractor, I suffered though a very painful day at the computer, with set back after set back on site development. Finally after a long, frustrating, painful day, my wife and I (still suffering) go to bed hoping tomorrow will be better.

Two hours later the phone rings. It's Kristi, our 17 year old. She was driving back from church camp, a 2.5 hour drive from Indianapolis and fell asleep at the wheel. All she could tell us was that she was in a wreck. She didn't know where she was at and the car is totaled. We asked her if anyone had stopped to help her. "No". "Do you see any road signs?" Frantic and in shock, she replied in tears, "No, I don't know where I'm at." I cannot tell you how fearful my wife and I were. Not only were we not able to tell the police where she was, but we really did not know her condition since she was in shock and unable to tell us very much.

Guessing her time of departure and the approximate distance in the trip, I called the State Police and told them the situation and to look for her on Route 65 between Rensselaer and Lowe, about a 60 mile stretch. Amazingly the phone rings 10 minutes later and the fire department has found her 1 mile off the exit ramp from Rensselaer To our relief she is bruised, but ok. God really had his hand on her. She hit the guardrail at around 65 MPH, completely destroying the guardrail and totaled out the car.

But God is good isn't He! At the end of a second very bad day, I got to hold my baby girl in my arms and thank God for keeping her from certain death. Holding her, I realized that by all rights, we should be in a hospital room seeing the worst.

We can complain about the neck spasms, dog fights, broken bones, and bad days at the office, but when it's all over we really just need to stop and thank the Lord for breath. Thank Him for our children. Thank Him for a job, any job. We would complain about the old junk car that we are driving, but we need to notice the old lady walking home from the grocery store with bags in her arms and a long walk ahead of her. How blessed we really are.

A Pure Heart

Matthew 5: Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

“Pure” as it is used here in the original Greek is katharos. Katharos is pronounced Kath-ar-os. It means of uncertain Affinity; clean (literally or figuratively): clean, clear, pure.

Jesus declared to the people that day that if someone was capable of having, keeping or obtaining a pure heart, that they would see God someday.

It is the desire of every believer that, one day, they would see God.

However, the enemy of our souls has a desire too. His desire is to keep us from seeing God. Both in this world and in the next. His attempt is to cause us to lose our pure hearts.

One thing that I have found to be universal amongst new converts/believers is the pure heart that the Lord gives to them.

As newborn babes in Christ, their hearts are open to receive anything that the church has to offer them. They trust the ministry and they trust their newfound church family.

Their hearts are pure. Their motives are pure. Their intensions are pure. They are simply thankful to be saved and are happy and content to be a part of the Family of God.

These people are the source of revival in the church. They are usually the ones who bring new people to the church. They tell all their family and friends about what the Lord has done for them. They are not afraid or ashamed to declare their Love for God or what He has done for them.

What makes these people so important to a community’s infiltration of the Gospel?

What makes these people so valuable to the growth and continuance of a church in a given city?

Their pure heart.

• A heart that is pure is capable of loving someone who is unlovable.
• A heart that is pure is able to look beyond a person’s faults and see their potential greatness.
• A heart that is pure has no selfish motives. It only wants to bless those around it.

It labors for the Lord because it loves the Lord and the people who surround their life.

This person is not perfect. They are still human. They still make mistakes. They still sin. But Jesus said that because their motives were correct and their heart was pure, that they shall see God.

So it seems paramount that a believer in Jesus Christ should seek to have and maintain a pure heart.

Jesus said in Matthew 11:29, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest for your souls.”

The Dark Side of Spiritual Abuse - Part 4

Leadership seems to be the buzzword of our times. Bookstores now have multiple rows upon rows of books concerning this particular subject. Some of the content is very good and can help a person to hone their management skills and work toward becoming self-disciplined in a manner that will prove good for the organization that they are serving. I personally have benefited from some of the secular leadership books that I have read over the years. Despite all of these necessary and good resources only a small, in fact, microscopic amount of these books address spiritual issues in the life of the leader.

There aren’t any spiritual leadership concepts given in the books that Jim Collins has written. Patrick Lencioni does not address the spiritual side of a man who wants to build a Fortune 500 company. Peter Drucker’s works have almost elevated him posthumously to an exalted messiah among the leadership gurus of the last century. If we are not careful, there can be a tendency to think that we can build a church the same way that Steve Jobs made Apple successful. Once a spiritual leader buys into that particular idea that he can build a spiritual church with the same techniques that a profit-driven company is built, he deceives himself and he will create spiritual mayhem with the sheep he is meant to feed.

Spiritually abusive leaders are often very ambitious and driven toward success. It is important to understand the motives that drive men in spiritual leadership because our motives say much about our true intentions. Gary McIntosh in his book, Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership, identifies five types of leadership styles that lead toward tendencies to be spiritually abusive. The compulsive leader is characterized by being status conscious, looking for reassurance and approval from those in authority. He will have a tendency to try to control activities and keep order at all times doing this by being an extreme workaholic. They can be excessively moralistic, conscientious, and judgmental. He may have an angry and rebellious attitude but will repress his true feelings and hold in the anger and resentment. When these dark emotions turn on the church, the atmosphere immediately turns into one of control and extreme authoritarianism.

There are certain traits that usually show up in the preaching style of a compulsive leader. He will frequently be a gifted and charismatic speaker but has the tendency to minimize any impact of the Scriptures unless they are going to serve his own agenda. He will also be the hero of all of his stories and listeners will be “amazed” at his feats in personal outreach/evangelism, prayer schedule, and devotion to the Scriptures. He may even say something like this; “I am God’s appointed authority in your life. If you oppose me you’re opposing God.” He will almost have the capacity to turn himself into a rock star for a lack of a better description. He leads people to follow him instead of the Lord.

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.

Leadership Defined

“You know you are a leader if you look behind you and people are following you.”  There are many leaders who have people following them, but the leader is not leading them anywhere.

All too often, the leader himself is not being led. It is a shame when a leader is unwilling or unable to be led of the Holy Spirit. It is a tremendous loss of potential to the Kingdom. As well, those who want to follow that leader become discouraged as their willingness to be led turns to disillusionment.

A leader who refuses to move in the direction God would lead him lacks the courage to see beyond the obstacles in his way. Someone who’s intent is to wait until circumstances are perfect before he moves forward, will never move. There will always be some obstacle between where you are and where you want to be. Moses and the Children of Israel are the perfect examples of people who had a clear vision of where they felt God was leading them. They found that there were going to be many walled cities and giants they were going to have to face before they arrived at their place of promise.

Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the willingness to face your fear and move forward in spite of the uncertainty or risk.

How Many Will Follow?

Here is a question every leader of people asks himself/herself at one time or another.

When Jesus looked out over the masses who followed him, I wonder if He asked himself this same question. As He counted, in His mind, the healings and considered all who he helped, I wonder if he pondered how many would come after him.

Of course they would follow him to the next miracle. They would follow Him to the next free dinner. They would be there to hear him preach again, but would they follow him all the way to the cross.

People are fickle. Have you noticed this? It doesn't take much to turn their heads. You can spend all your energy helping them and teaching them, but when something/someone flashier comes along, off they go

It's no wonder we are likened to sheep in the scriptures. Sheep are wanderers. If the shepherd is not watchful, his sheep will simply wander off. They don't mean to leave the shepherd really. They just found a patch of grass that is greener and so off they go.

I look at the ministry of Jesus and I am dumfounded at the throngs of people he could gather. So many on the sea shore that he would have to launch out on a boat to talk to them. Thousands were there the day he multiplied the little boys lunch. They pressed against him. They cried out to him from the edges of the crowds. They climbed into trees to see him. They tore the roof off of houses to get to where He was at. Yet I believe he had one question in His mind every time he saw them press in. "How many will follow?"

Each time you get in front of the group you minister to, do you ask yourself this question? How many will follow me? How many will live the way I teach? How many will stay strong to the faith? How many will be saved?