Momentum - Leading the song service

Don't slow it down to fit your expectation of what the service should be doing. 

It doesn't have to be a fast song, just don't let it be a dead one. 

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Leadership's Limitations

In this unpredictable and changing world, the one thing we can always control is the way we think. While we have little control over circumstances or the actions of others, we can control our reactions to them. And anyone can learn how to think more positively and operate with a better attitude, regardless of circumstances, temperament, or intellect. To begin thinking more positively and leading your people to do the same, follow these guidelines:

Act like the person you wish to become.
To start thinking positively, begin by acting positively. Most of us wait until we feel like taking action, but that’s going about it backwards. Instead, by putting our desires into action, we can establish a habit of thinking positively – and this results in a positive attitude.

Cultivate a Consistent Positive Attitude.
To reap a successful harvest, a farmer doesn’t plant seeds and then just expect them to grow on their own. He must continually water, weed, fertilize and nurture the growing plants if he wants them to reach maturity. Likewise, if we want a successful life, we need to spend time everyday nurturing our attitude. Focus on the positive and successful. Don’t feed the weeds.

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How To Outline A Sermon

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Reducing Organizational Costs

 

The fundamental purpose for organization is to coordinate a system of talents, resources, and operating structure toward the purpose of attaining a shared corporate vision.

It must be understood that in the pursuit of a vision an organization can be either a benefit or a detriment. In its purest form organization is merely a tool to achieve a specified purpose. Since it is merely a tool the organization can be changed or modified at any time. If it is achieving its purpose then simply improve it as needed along the journey. If it is hindering the purpose one must always remember that as a tool it can be modified or redesigned at any time in order to fulfill its essential role in vision attainment. Simply stated, organization can be a blessing or a curse, an enabler or a hindrance.

One of the stark contrasts between God and man is that God always organizes by creating organisms, and man organizes to create organizations. Since an organization is a tool and is organized by man it can never be allowed to take on the form of a holy thing.

The perfect Biblical illustration occurs when the children of Israel were being plagued and bitten by fiery serpents and dying. Numbers 21:7-9 says:

7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD that He take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 8 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live." 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

NKJV

God allowed the structure of the brass serpent to fulfill a designated purpose. However, after the purpose was fulfilled, the people should have destroyed the brass serpent, but they did not. Later it became a curse to them, because when Hezekiah began to purge the kingdom of idolatry the Bible says in 2 Kings 18:4:

KJV4 He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.

Anytime an organizational tool becomes elevated to the role of a holy thing it then becomes an idol. Organizational idolatry is as real as any other form of idolatry. Once the tool has fulfilled its useful purpose and intent and is no longer relevant it must be discarded. Otherwise the tendency of people is to elevate it and reverence it beyond its original intent. 

Normally an organization begins when a small group of people unite around a common and shared vision. As success occurs, support positions and processes are put in place to forward the progress and maintain momentum. However there is a great risk in growing the organization, because there can come a point in which it cost more time and resources to maintain the organizational system than is expended on pressing toward its vision and purpose. At this point the organization begins to atrophy. At best it becomes stagnant and unresponsive to change as a slow but inevitable death begins to overtake it.

The only way to offset this is to keep the organization relevant, fresh and flexible. One way of doing this is to continually focus on minimizing absolutely all non-essential operating costs of the organization. There are several layers that must be considered when reducing operating costs.

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Connecting With People

If you desire for people to follow you, you have to connect with them.  The catalyst of your relationship with them at any level may very well have to be a result of your constant effort to associate with them. An unbeliever’s only basis for coming into the knowledge of truth may well be his relationship with his teacher/preacher. 

Connect with them on a personal level.  Find out what it is that interests them and try to find a common interest.  Get to know them personally.  Visit their home.  Invite them to yours.  Go places with them.  Let them know you care for them on more than a Pastoral level.  If they consider you to be their friend, they will support you much more than if you are only an authority to them.

Connect with them on a professional level.  If he is a doctor, read a few books on the latest surgery procedures.  If he coaches football, learn a bit about the game.  If she is a teacher, talk education with her. 

Connect with them in your preaching.  Personalize your preaching.  Major newspapers write their articles on the 6th grade educational level.  Hence they are able to reach a broader audience than if they wrote them on the college level where most people may not understand certain wording.  Bring bible stories and situations into present day circumstances.  Touch home once in a while.

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They Shall Mount Up With Wings

This often-used scripture has always challenged the believer, for most want to be able to live up above the earthly arena of life. The one key is written; They that wait, they that serve the Lord with life and lips will surely learn the art of mounting up. I read an article about birds that stated, "The hearts of birds are heavier in proportion than the hearts of man or other animals." The reason given was, the more the body works, the greater the demand on the heart, which causes it to become heavier. Birds are very hard working creatures and so should the believer be.

A lofty life lived on spiritual wings requires an enlarged heart, which means constant fellowship with God Himself. If we are to live in the Heavenlies, to arise we must ask God to give us a bigger heart. Our desires must be for Spiritual things and only a heart after God will allow that.

In Psalm 119:32, the writer shouts, "I will run in the way of thy commandments, when thou shall enlarge my heart!"

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A Few Good Things To Know About People

• Showing your compassionate and caring nature will aid you in forging successful relationships. 

• When you extinguish hope, you create desperation.

• Remember that your followers generally want to believe that what they do is their own idea and, more importantly, that it genuinely makes a difference.

• If you practice dictatorial leadership, you prepare yourself to be dictated to.

• Delegate responsibility and authority by empowering people to act on their own.

• When you make it to the top, turn and reach down for the person behind you.

• You must be consistently fair and decent in both the business and personal side of life.

• Never add the weight of your character to a charge against a person without knowing it to be true.

• Never crush a man out, thereby making him and his friends permanent enemies of your organization.

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Steps That Will Get You Unstuck.

It's not unusual to feel stuck, trapped, and unable to move from a situation you feel is stifling. Actually, it's part of life and growth. But getting "stuck in" and "growing through" situations are different. Here are some ways to shift from one to the other.

• Step back and ask yourself what's really going on. When you're caught up in the stuff of everyday life, it's easy to lose objectivity. It's good to set aside a little time each day to challenge the obviousness of what seems to be going on. Is there a lesson to be learned that you are missing? Might that setback really be a step forward? Will things really turn out as badly as you think they will?

• Consider whether what's happening has happened before. Is this a unique situation or is it just another example in different garb, of an issue you've failed to confront before? If it's the latter, maybe now's the time to solve it and move on. 

• Assume that present events and circumstances may be less of a "problem" than parts of a larger "process." There's a fair case to be made for the notion that, in this life, all is process rather than result. In other words, what this life is really about is growth and learning. Viewed in this light, where you're heading is not as important as how you choose to get there.

• Ask yourself what you can do next. It's the small steps that lead to successful journeys. Don't get sucked in by the suggestion that you've got to solve it all today.

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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.

In the first message on this study, I mentioned the fact that when a man gives himself to disciplined and sanctified study, the stretching of the mind will directly affect the growth of the soul. Simply by nature of the study, the exposure to things in the Scriptures and the accompanying books the minister has available to him, we begin to understand how holy God is and how important it is for us to have acclimate it into our lives.

Holiness is important because of the nature of the work that a preacher must do. Never will I forget the story that was told in the very first class when I begin RN school in March 1985 that was told of Lewis Semmelweis. He was the guy who was laughed at because he outrageously claimed that dirty physicians’ hands were responsible for the death of the mothers who were dying from childbed fever. He was certain that the germs that were unseen were the culprits that were literally killing these young mothers.

I would be so bold as to assert that if my hands, heart, soul, and mind are not clean it will have some measure of impact on the congregation that I serve. In my mind, this ought to place a greater sense of responsibility on all men who bear the vessels of the Lord and they must be clean (Isaiah 52:11)! I also believe that for those who are quibbling about standards of holiness and are attempting to accuse those who are ardent adherents of a separated life of living in a condition of holiness that perhaps your vision has been clouded by the mists of worldliness that are so prevalent in our generation. We wouldn’t dare want a surgeon to operate on us if he had just come in from working in his garden and therefore a minister who has no real cleanliness of holiness about him shouldn’t be operating in the pulpit.

Jude uses strong words when he tells us that we will have to contend for the faith, which was once delivered to the saints. The faith is that dogma of doctrine that defines how to get into the church, who the church is and where it is to go. All of these components of the faith, while intricate, are very simply carried out by a man whose gates (mind) have been guarded by holiness. Jude when he spoke of the nature of this faith he also clearly stated that we have no right to modify it but the risk of it being altered escalated when there was a unholy alliance with “certain men” who managed to creep in “unawares.” Doctrinal purity and commitment to holiness will require vigilance on the part of clean men who have allowed personal holiness to be a guard at the gate.

The question may come about as to how are we giving ourselves to personal holiness? There are some points to remember in this quest for holiness. First, a man has to understand that he is only fit to preach if he has a clean life. I am drawn over and over to the writings of Paul to his sons in the faith, Timothy and Titus, and routinely he uses words to describe the character of those qualified to minister. I am going to give you a list of words that is not all inclusive from the ESV that Paul used and these are from 1 Timothy (you can glean many other nuggets if you browse through the other two P.E.’s): 

 

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