Working As A Team

At a Midwestern Fair, spectators gathered for an old fashioned horse pull. The Grand-champion horse pulled a sled with 4,500 pounds on it. The runner up was close, with a 4,400 pound pull. Some of the men wondered what the two horses would pull if hitched together. Separately they totaled nearly 9,000 pounds, but when hitched and working together as a team, they pulled a total weight of over 12,000 pounds.

Herein lies the value of team work. There is some kind of energy that is exchanged when someone feels that there is someone working with them.

I read somewhere a while back of a ward in a particular hospital for premature babies. In one case there was an infant who was several months premature. The mother and father had abandoned the baby at the hospital and it looked as though the child would die. The doctors and nurses did everything they could to care for it, but in all that they did, it grew weaker. In a last ditch effort, one nurse had the idea to place another healthier infant in the same bed as the weak infant. She made sure that the two children were close and touching at all times. Immediately upon feeling the touch of the stronger infant, the weaker one's heart rate began to get stronger and stronger. After several days of touching and being touched by the stronger infant, the preemie became stronger and soon was able to eat on it's own and became healthy.

As leaders, I believe it is paramount that we understand the value of the existent and potential leaders around us. Moses was a man who tried to do everything by himself. He was someone who felt that if God called him to a task, then God would give him the supernatural strength to complete the task. Moses also found out that he was wrong in his assumption.

Moses' father in-law on the other hand, was someone who saw untapped leadership resources everywhere he looked. So, he suggested that Moses find, recruit and train other leaders to assist him in his leadership responsibilities. Once Moses did this, he was not only able to sleep at night, but the needs of Israel were met.

Jesus hardly started His ministry before he chose out 12 men to train in leadership. He understood multiplication instead of addition. Rather than build the church on one man's shoulders, he chose to build it on 13. His and 12 others. As a result of this, when His own life and ministry was ending, 11 others were just beginning. The beauty of the situation was that not one of them detracted from his own ministry, but rather added to it.

Accountability – who needs it?

Accountability – “The quality or state of being accountable. – Webster’s dictionary

• Accountability is a binding relationship that develops growth, moral and ethical excellence.
• Accountability is not support therapy an opportunity to allow for excuses.
• When a person becomes accountable to another, they make themselves accountable to someone other than themselves.

Why should we consider becoming accountable to someone else?

• We cannot stand without accountability.  1 Cor 10:12
• Every man/woman should make themselves accountable to at least:
• God
• Their spouse
• Their family
• Those they lead
• Those leaders above them
• At least one other person who could be considered their spiritual mentor.

We are all accountable whether we know it or not.  People are watching us day and night.  They are looking to see if we are who we say we are.  They base their trust and confidence in us according to the level of truth they see in our lives.  If they do not consider our lives to be worthy of their confidence or trust, then our ministry will have no effect on their lives. 

Accountability keeps us from moral and spiritual failure.
Proverbs 27:17  Iron sharpeneth iron: so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” 
Having someone to be accountable to keeps us from ourselves.  Realizing that someone else will judge our actions causes us to “consider our ways”. 

7 Things to Consider When Asked to “Lead the Service”

All too often the people who lead the service mislead it.  These good people whom the Pastor has asked to help out in the service many times serve to cause frustration and confusion in a church service.

Leading a service properly can bring about a move of God that can break every yoke in the service.  Leading it improperly can cause people to go home more bound than they were when they came. 

Every element of the service should prepare the way for the next.  The end result of the service is the move of God in the alter.  When you get in the way of the progression, you kill the potential of what could happen.

Here are a few things to consider when asked to “Lead the service”. 

Keep it moving.  Don’t allow for delays or “dead air” places in the services.  In radio, “dead air” is when you hear silence.  It is also when the producer did his job wrong and did not prepare for those seconds of the day.  It is during this time that many people will change the channel or turn off their radio.  You don’t want this happening in the church service.  “No Dead Air!”

Do not continually comment.  If you are introducing the various singers and elements of the service don’t comment each time on the last person who sang or spoke.  Just introduce the next part of the service.

Be prepared.  Have a written outline of how the service will run.  This way you will not forget any part or aspect of the service.  (Forgetting to have the children’s choir sing when they have practiced all week will get a lot of people upset at you.)

Don’t ramble.  Recently I attended a service where the person who led the service in the Pastor’s leave, killed it with his constant rambling.  He actually spoke more than the preacher did.  He thought he was funny with his jokes and spiritual with his “little messages”.  Needless to say, the congregation did not pay much attention to the preacher when he was finally introduced, since they already heard plenty of oratory from the person leading the service.  I love preaching, but I have to admit, the guy leading this service wore me out.

As A Man Thinketh

I have so many titles for this article running through my head. "Stinking Thinking". "As A Man Thinketh In His Heart". "You Are What You Think". "So Go The Thoughts, So Go The Man". Let me start by asking you a few questions.

1. Are you totally discouraged right now?
   
2. Do you feel overwhelmed?
   
3. Is your mental thought process completely shut down?
   
4. Do you feel trapped?

I have a friend who consistently responds “I’m happy and blessed” when I ask him how he is doing. Now I like this guy, I really do. But, sometimes, I just want to say “get real" when he tells me that. I don’t know, maybe he really is happy all the time. I guess it’s possible. Anything is possible right?!

I’m going to get blasted over this article. I’m going to get tons of emails from the "Happy All The Time Crowd". They’re going to tell me I’ve gone off the deep end. They will let me know that the Christian should always be happy. It’s our right. It’s our obligation. We should always have this enormous smile that tells everyone around us that we are HAPPY.

Christians are not allowed to get bummed out. Christians, especially Christian ministers are definitely not allowed to sink to the cloud of discouragement. A minister should never allow himself to get to a place of feeling down. Right?

Sounds good doesn’t it. But in the real world that’s a bunch of baloney. Just ask the old Prophet of God. One minute he’s killing off 500 false prophets, and wishing he could die the next.

You might agree with me that most preachers are emotional people. Now some people out there are not real emotional, but most of the preachers I know are people who allow emotion to guide them. Now that’s not a bad thing. I’m convinced that the Lord has a hard time using people who are hard to move emotionally. This is why he anointed David to be king when he was only a boy. God said of David, “He’s after my heart”. Other words, he’s a person who is able to touch me with his emotion. Without emotion, David would be led of his own ideas and agenda. But, since he was a person whose heart could be touched, God said, “I’ll use him in ways he never imagined he could be used.”

Emotion is a good thing. We need to be emotional! God is emotional. Look what the scriptures tell us about him.

• He gets angry.
• He gets jealous.
• He laughs.
• He’s emotional!

We, being created in his image are allowed the same privilege of being emotional.

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. 

Utilizing Kingdom Resources

Jesus died for the sins of the world. He did not die for most, several or some. He died for all. When He suffered on the cross, He did not have only a few hundred or a few thousand on His mind. What held Him to that tree was every single man, woman, boy and girl who would ever live on this planet. Is our own directive the same?  

How many churches would be quite satisfied if they could just reach a few hundred from their community.  Think about it, if your church directly affected 300-500 souls on a weekly basis, would you be satisfied? I would. For a while any way.

We've got to stop thinking small. Jesus did not think small. The scripture does not speak small. This gospel was given that every single person ever conceived could have a relationship with Him. For too long the Church’s growth has been limited by our small thinking.

There are well over 6 billion people on this planet today. Some would say that God will add to the church in His time. That growth will happen when He wills it to happen. Jesus proved his commitment and desire to see every person in your city saved when he suffered that horrific beating and the cruel death of the cross.

Revival has nothing to do with God’s will for it to happen. He has proven His will. It has everything to do with our putting ourselves in a position to allow it to happen and to receive and maintain it when it comes.

Knowledge Will Increase!

Over the holiday season, I took my family shopping in Chicago. As we were heading home to Indiana, it was dark and you could see the lights of the city. As we topped the Skyway (a very high bridge), I looked out and viewed a sea of rows of lights from the street lights below. Thousands and thousands of illuminating beams of light in every direction. As I drove along viewing the endless rows of lights that make up the Chicago skyline, I couldn't help think about a man by the name of Thomas Edison. He's the guy who thought up the light bulb. Without him, we would still be in the stone age with regards to much of the technological breakthroughs of this century. As I thought about Mr. Edison, I couldn't help wishing he was there with me right then to see the spectacle of light that came from his dream.

Over 10,000 failed experiments went into the first light bulb being created. People all around him, inventors and investors alike said he was mad, even insane.

• He believed in something no one else believed in.
  
• He saw something no one else saw.
  
• The light bulb!

You can buy them for around a quarter today. Imagine, a world without the light bulb. I could go on and on telling of all the inventions and advancement which came as a result of that one human hair dipped in carbon and encased in vacuumed glass.

It's hard for us to imagine a world without cars, computers, airplanes, Palm Pilots or light bulbs. However think with me for a minute. For thousands of years, the best mode of transportation was the horse. From the beginning of time the very best thing the human mind could come up with was a saddle to put on that poor beast of burden. They thought they really came up with something when a guy from England came up with something called the stirrup to keep a rider from falling off.

This last century has been filled with incredible advancements which we credit to the superior minds of our century. However, I'm not so sure we should give the credit so vainly to our selves. Yes, the Wright brothers really had something with that small glider. Yes, Henry Ford had a great idea with that assembly line. But, let's not be so foolish as to think that the medical, technological, manufacturing, farming, space exploration advancements have come from the human mind.

Momentum - Allowing God To Move Consistently

This series of articles are dedicated to those individuals who would struggle to maintain the momentum of God's workings in the church.  

 Definition
Latin centum, movement, from *movimentum, from mov re, to move. See meu - in Indo-European Roots

 a property of a moving body that the body has by virtue of its mass and motion and that is equal to the product of the body's mass and velocity; broadly : a property of a moving body that determines the length of time required to bring it to rest when under the action of a constant force

 n 1: an impelling force or strength; "the car's momentum carried it off the road" [syn: impulse] 2: the product of a body's mass and its velocity; "the momentum of the particles was deduced from meteoritic velocities"

Momentum is very hard to create.  The larger the object, the harder it is to move.  Depending on how much energy is needed to move it and the amount of time that energy can be applied decides how much momentum can be generated.

Building momentum in the church is not easy. 

It takes: 

• Commitment
• Sacrifice
• A constant Investment Of Time 
• An Endless Amount Of Energy  

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.