Conducting a Spiritual Audit

Twelve questions to keep your personal accounts in order.

1. Am I content with who I am becoming? Every day I get one day closer to who I will ultimately be. Am I satisfied with who this will be?
2. Am I becoming less religious and more spiritual? The difference: I can control religion, while spirituality controls me.
3. Does my family recognize the authenticity of my spirituality? If I am growing spiritually, my family will recognize it.
4. Do I have a flow-through philosophy? As a Christian I am to let the blessings flow through me to others.
5. Do I have a quiet center to my life? There is an important difference between the fast track and the frantic track. Peace is the evidence of God.
6. Have I defined my unique ministry? Unless you know the things you can do uniquely well, you end up doing many mediocre things just to please others.
7. Is my prayer life improving? One test is: Do my decisions have prayer as an integral part, or do I make decisions out of my desires and then pray?

Leadership: To Train Or Not To Train

A popular saying states, "A church that fails to plan is a church that plans to fail." I would like to rephrase that, "A church that fails to train its leaders is a church that trains its leaders to fail."

Since the pastor cannot do it all alone, training leaders is a must. It is imperative that every church have a plan to train existing and future leaders. Leaders are not born, they are developed through mentoring, training and hands on experience.

Leaders must have a clear mental and spiritual picture of their goals. The Bible calls this vision.

Prov 29:18

18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

Without vision, people have no direction or focus and are easily confused and distracted. Without vision, ministries will fail and people will become discouraged and move on. Your leaders must know the vision, see the vision, understand the vision and believe in the vision. They must be trained in how to accomplish the vision. Then they must be consistently encouraged to fulfill the vision.

The Top Ten Leadership Principles of Jesus

1.              Learn that leadership is servanthood. Servanthood begins with security. Jesus knew His position and was willing to not flaunt it. Jesus knew His calling and was willing to be faithful to it. Jesus knew His future and was willing to submit to it.

2.              Let your purpose prioritize your life. Because Jesus developed priorities based upon His purpose:

•        He successfully dealt with distractions.
•        He wisely responded to personal rejection. 
•        He willingly suffered pain.

3.              Live the life before you lead others. Jesus never begged anyone to believe in Him. He knew that integrity cannot be proven; it must be discerned. He never wasted time with critics. He kept His attention on His goal. He stayed focused.

4.              Walk slowly through the crowd. Leadership impact is drawn not from official position, but from authentic relationships. (John 4:5-30, 8:1-11) "You will never possess what you are unwilling to pursue." Jesus knew this.

5.              Replenish yourself. Life is demanding. People are demanding. The more you succeed, the more you lead, the more people will demand of you. Replenishing yourself requires your attention. Faith walks out when fatigue walks in.

Building a Team: What to Look for in Potential Leaders

It is critically important who you surround yourself with. The men and women you choose to help you reach your goals will make or break you. Here's a few things to look for in potential leaders. 

1. Look for people who can make things happen.

Most of the time, you have to take people at their word. The fortunate aspect to this is when you do hire them, you know within a few days, sometimes hours, if they can make things happen or not. At that time you can make the necessary decision.

This application is not always possible in ministry, but the advice is still the same; Watch what people do more than listening to what they say. Actions always speak louder than words. People that make things happen seldom make excuses. Instead they create their own opportunities when none might have existed.

2. Look for people who can influence others.

A person's ability to make things happen is directly related to their ability to lead people. This is called influence. Whether a church ministry leader or a construction crew leader, a leader must be able to influence and persuade people.

When you are selecting a potential leader, don't just look at the person, but look at all of the people that person influences. The more people they influence, the greater leadership potential they have.

Here is a good question to ask; What kind of people do they influence? Do they influence other leaders? Or do they influence followers? A person who can influence leaders has much greater potential than a person who can only influence followers.

Influence also includes how they treat people. Do they respect people? Do they have a genuine love for people? Do they treat people right?

3. Look for people who can equip others.

It is one thing to persuade and influence others. It is another thing to equip them with the necessary tools and training to succeed. Most of the people in your church will need to be trained and equipped in order to succeed. If the leaders you choose cannot equip and empower their followers, then they will ultimately be standing alone at the end of the day.

Investing The Talents

Investing The Talents

The following is an article being shared with the Indiana Trumpet.  You might want to place it in your weekly bulletin or in a place where your members can read it. 

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Mt 25 14-30

Mat 25:14  For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.

Mat 25:15  And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey...

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This often misunderstood passage of scripture is a key parable for real revival.  Revival and growth can only come when we understand and implement the simple factors spoken of here.

The man traveling into a far country is Jesus Christ.  His servants are the Pastors of churches and the talents are the saints of the churches.   When Jesus placed a shepherd in the church, he was doing more than placing someone there who would watch over the souls of the church.  He was also placing someone there who would lead that group of people into personal and numerical growth (Revival).

This parable was not written to the saints, it was written to the Pastors of the churches.  As a saint, this is important for me to understand as it allows me to comprehend the burden and psyche of my Pastor. 

Every Pastor is under a great burden for the souls of not only those who attend the local church, but also for the souls of those people in the community who do not attend.   This burden does not leave a Pastor day or night, the entire time he Pastor’s a particular church.  Those who do not understand this burden will usually misunderstand the actions and decisions of their Pastor. 

Notice in the parable the Lord gave us, the servant/Pastor pays a great price if he does not invest his Lord’s talents/saints wisely.  Saints will wonder why their Pastor is pushing so hard to begin a new program or simply encourage the church to get involved in evangelism.  They will grumble and complain because he has asked them to consider a new ministry the church is capable of implementing.  Yet, regardless of their lack of cooperation, the Pastor is still under the directive to cause every talent/saint in the church to become involved. 

Notice what happened to the servant who buried his talent in the ground.  His labor was to hide his talents.  This Pastor simply preached to the “Us 4 and no more crowd”.  He was satisfied with a lack of growth and had grown weary of trying to get the church to become involved in soul winning.  So he stopped trying.  He just kept the same old crowd.  His burden for the community died and his church had no increase.  With this mindset, this servant purchased a harsh judgment.

Strategies For Discipleship

Good leaders motivate, mobilize, direct and resource people to fulfill a vision.  Our Lord knew well how to do all of these with His own disciples.

For too many years we have viewed the Pastor of the church as the sole supplier of edification in the church and as a result, he has little time to develop other leaders around him. 

Whether you are the president of a corporation, the quarterback of a football team, a general in an army or a pastor of a church, it is important to realize the value of having a team around you who support  and who work to carry out your vision.  Without this, your desire to carry your church into a new dimension of revival may never take place.  It will never become a reality as you alone do not have the resources or human ability to do it by yourself.   God’s will for your ministry is bigger than you alone.  You are going to need a team around you to help you get the job done.

Take the quarterback for instance.  His goal is to get the ball from one end of the field to the other.  He can run the ball.  He can throw the ball.  He can probably even kick the ball a bit, but he has a problem.  There are several obstacles on the other side of the line of scrimmage who are just waiting for that ball to move so they can come and take it a way from him. 

His problem is not that he does not know what to do.  It’s not that he does not know how to do it.  His problem is that he cannot do it alone.  It’s impossible.  He needs a team around him who will block for him.  He needs people who he can hand the ball off to once in a while.  There needs to be someone on his team who he can throw the ball to and trust that that person will do all he can to run it through a defensive line of huge, strong, mean, people who do not want the ball to get past them.  Most importantly, he needs blockers.  These fellas will systematically put themselves in harms way to protect the quarterback.  Because if the quarterback is in any way hurt or removed from the game due to injury, the game is over for his team. 

You see the quarterback is not the fastest.  He is not the strongest.  He is not the most agile.  He is however, the one calling the plays.  He is the one who knows what it’s going to take to get the ball to the other end of the field.  The quarterback does not make the touchdowns, he puts the ball in the hands of the ones who will.

Many pastors have thought for too long that they alone are the quarterback, the running back, the blockers and the entire defensive line.  For this reason, their churches are too often stuck at the line of scrimmage with no means of advancing toward the desired goal. 

Don’ts For Preachers

1. Don’t live beyond your income.

2. Don’t be a stingy person.

3. Don’t preach your doubts.

4. Don’t preach so much against things but preach principles.

5. Don’t be tempted on any occasion not to preach your best.

6. Don’t be looking for a larger field or another call.

7. Don’t be a pessimist.

8. Don’t deal in off-color stories.

9. Don’t lose your temper in public.

10. Don’t overlook the Bible when looking for preaching texts.

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.

Money Matters - Why A Budget?

A budget is the tool provided in accounting terms that gives us the proper indication of how we stand in our finances.  Too often people refuse to prepare a budget because it seems cumbersome and boring.  A budget can be implemented in most homes but give only 1-2 hours per month.  That is not much time to have a clear indication as to where you stand financially.  Not only will a budget give you a picture of where you stand, it will help you organize your bill paying so you don’t get behind and have to pay late fees, and it will show you the debt you have so you can pay it off systematically. 

A budget is a guide that tells you whether you are going in the right direction so that you can expect to meet your financial goals.  You may have goals and dreams but if you do not set us guidelines for reaching them and you do not measure your progress periodically, you may end up going so far in the wrong direction you can never get out of financial difficulty.

• A budget lets you control your money instead of your money controlling you.
• A budget lets you control your spending habits.
• A budget allows you to save in a systematic manner.
• A budget allows you to meet your goals.
• A budget will tell you if you are living within your means.