Thinking Big - For a Change

One definition of insanity is to believe that you can keep doing what you’ve been doing and get different results.  We want revival.  We want growth in our churches and we think that it is somehow going to miraculously happen by the methods and programs we have used unsuccessfully for the past 20 years.  We think that because we did have “some” growth using manmade antiquated methods, that we are definitely on the right track. 

Someone once said , “It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place.  If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.”  I’m not so sure you have to run twice as fast to get somewhere else.  All you have to do is change the direction you are heading.  Many of us are “running as fast as we can and yet, we find ourselves stuck in the same place”.  Some of us are trying as hard as we can try.  We are working very very hard and yet at the end of the day, our efforts for the Kingdom are rewarded only minimally.  Why is that? .........

Guard The Gates - Part 3

Continuing this series on Guarding the Gates, which in concept really speaks of guarding the mind, we come to the third thing that can help you. In review, the first thing to do to guard the gates is to be given to study and the second thing is a minister has to be given to prayer. The third guard that you can put at the gate is a quest for personal holiness and godliness....

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....

The Principle of Momentum

Why Shouldn’t We Succeed?

• God wants you to succeed in ministry!
• God desires that you experience great revival in your church and ministry!
• God has guaranteed that the church will prevail! 

The powerful force of excitement and energy in the Church doesn’t have to stop or slow down. You CAN maintain Ministry Momentum.

David Church and I have set out to build a resource together that would challenge what most people think about church leadership and keeping the momentum going when things start to fade, and people lose interest.....

Two Prophets, Two Messages

Every so often while reading the Bible, I get flashbacks to my years in Sunday School. Most of those flashbacks come from the 'memory verses' I had to memorize each week for Sunday School. It never ceases to amaze me that thirty years later those verses are still stored somewhere in my memory.

Recently, while reading the book of Jeremiah, I had one of those flashbacks and it led to a deeper study of this story.

You will probably recognize these words just as I did;

Jeremiah 29:11-13

11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

12 Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.

13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

What a powerful verse this has been to me and to many others over the years.

Imagine comforting and powerful this must have been for Judah to hear. Judah had been taken captive by Babylon. They had no future. Their land, their possessions and their children had been stripped from them. They thought God had abandoned them. They thought God was done with them. Then, the prophet Jeremiah brings this promise of hope and deliverance....

How to Prepare a Message

Are You Backsliding?

Here's a question we would almost never ask somebody. And what an incredible question it is. "Are You Backsliding?" It's not a question to condemn. It's a question to ponder. As ministers of the gospel, some would never want to ask their congregations this question as it might offend. How many however, might still be saved today if only someone would have asked them this simple question while there was still time to correct their path?

We ask people all the time, "Are you ok?" "Is everything alright?" And why not? We are genuinely concerned about the welfare of the other person. True concern however, causes one to ask the deeper questions. It forces us to enter into a conversation on uneasy ground. Barbara Walters is renown because of her ability to ask interviewees the probing questions that often times bring those she interviews to tears. They never expected her to ask "That" question.

We oftentimes don't like to ask the hard questions. We rarely enter into conversation with someone where we don't feel comfortable. Yet, here is the place where a person is most vulnerable. Here is a place where they are searching for answers. Here is a place where they often times feel lost. Hard questions demand hard answers. Hard answers lead to a right way of living.

A person who is "off track" seldom realizes it before it is too late. Recently, the news has read like this...

Aug 6 - A hiker fell to his death from a cliff near a waterfall in the Angeles Forest in Eaton Canyon early Saturday, the second fatality in the...

Aug 1 - A 26 year old woman fell to her death Sunday while descending from the summit of Half Dome within Yosemite National Park.

July 27 - A Hiker fell to his death in Buckskin Gulch.

July 19 - A hiker died on Monday morning after sliding between 50 and 100 feet on a steep snow field along the Grinnell Glacier Trail.

June 25 - Officials say that a woman fell to her death while hiking on Mount Evans Saturday.

Why does it work in other churches, but not in our church?

One question we often hear is "Why does it work in other churches, but not in our church?" We recently came across these five reasons: 

1. One church may be in a small rural community where it is easy to develop close personal relationships.  Another may be in a big city where shallow impersonal relationships are the standard.  (In the country they all wave to each other – even to strangers.  In the metro areas, they don’t speak to one another even when they walk abreast on the streets.
2. One town may have a growing populating while another may have a shrinking population.  Industry is brining people into one area and as a result the pews seem to fill up all by themselves.  Factory shutdowns may be causing another town to be losing its population, hence it looks like the church is not doing a good job since it too is shrinking......

The Three Longest Words in the Bible

When we submit to God's will for our lives, and put our hand in His hand, He does the leading.  And sometimes before we get to the place that He has called us to go, he brings us to another place to teach us valuable lessons.  To show us that whenever we do get to where He's leading us that He will be able to sustain us.  He calls us to a certain city.  He calls us to a certain country.  He calls us to a certain ministry.  We know that He has called us and we even know where He has called us to.  We know that He has plans for us.  But it's taking a little long to come to pass.  We know that blessings are in store.  He has promised us certain things.  They just haven't come to pass yet.  We know that we are supposed  to wait on the promises of the Lord.  But we get antsy.  We start questioning God.  Am I really called to this place?  Am I still in the will of God?  What am I doing here?  How much longer?  How long are you going to have me stay here Lord?.....