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Tag: discipleship (Page 17 of 23)

A needed reform

July 27, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Reform seems to be the latest craze in our culture. There have been cries from every corner of society calling for a reform of how we do what we do. We’ve largely been doing life the same way for years, decades even! It seems we’ve been living by the old adage that states if it isn’t broke don’t fix it. But what happens when the system is broken and we don’t realize it? What happens when we’ve missed the boat and don’t even know that we’re standing on a bridge that doesn’t really have a purpose anymore?

Now I’m not going to tackle all of the societal things that need fixing, because that would be pointless, too time consuming, and honestly likely divisive. But I would like to take a look at one part of culture and be honest about where some change is needed and why. Some of you are going to agree and others will disagree, and frankly that’s your right.

My grandfather used to say that our world is going to hell in a hand basket and his self prescribed fix was to go back to a better time. He thought that our best times were behind us. He thought that the previous way of doing things was the only way to do things. It seems that many in our world have a very similar approach. We either cling to the way they were or the way they are and aren’t willing to see life for what it could be.

This post is intended to spur some thought and conversation with you and those around you about who we are and who we’re called to be. Because I truly believe that by and large we are not living the lives we’ve been called to live.

In my estimation the institutional church is doing this very thing – clinging to a way of doing things that is largely ineffective because it was designed for a different time. Now before you get your pants in a bunch and go all he’s a heretic on me, read on and I’ll try to explain.

What I’m NOT saying

I know that some of you have formed your opinions already because you heard something that I didn’t say, so let me clear that one up right now. I did NOT say we need to change the message. The message is the only thing we know is right. If we’re teaching the message of the bible, then we’re standing on solid footing. I’m not saying that we need to bail on all of our traditions and deny our past. That would be just as dangerous as trying to erase history because we don’t like what it said or represented. We’ll just end up falling back into old habits if we do that.

The Problem

So the problem, as I see it, is that we’re clinging to systems and ways of doing things that fit a time that no longer exists. We’re living as though the Blue Laws still exist. For those of you unaware of Blue Laws, it was when many activities and businesses were not allowed to be opened on Sundays. Basically, church was the only thing to do on Sundays which is why nearly all of church activities happen on Sundays even to this day!

But that’s just not the case anymore. Hardly anything is closed on Sundays, yet Sunday is the day when most of our work and service happens in the church. What’s worse is the church is grinding her teeth complaining that culture is moving away from what we have to offer. We grumble that we need to go back to a simpler time when Sundays were sacred. What if Sunday isn’t the problem or the answer? What if this whole idea of a day of rest isn’t tied to Sunday or even Saturday but tied to whatever day you can find to rest on a regular basis?

It’s not just the day of the week that we struggle with either. We have largely been clinging to methods of learning and teaching that are quite old school. Much of our Sunday programming revolves around lecturing at a learner. But is this the best approach? Is this even a biblical approach?

Finally, our focus has moved from mission to maintenance. I’m part of a church body that in my mind has a great foundation of belief. I willingly ascribe to this identity of what I believe and how it impacts my understanding of life. But what happens when the confessional identity becomes the point over the mission of the kingdom? What happens when making people look like us becomes more important that helping people see the reality of who Jesus is? What happens when, as a church body, we’re more concerned with butts in seats in our membership classes than lives transformed by the gospel as individuals connect with one another on mission in their daily lives?

What happens? Simple – the institution gets off course and loses ground. The message gets disregarded because it doesn’t match up to the new perceived mission of self preservation.

I have to be honest here I’m getting a bit frustrated as I look into the world and hear well meaning Christians talk about the church as if the church is there to serve her members. Since when is the church about those on the inside? Since when did the church lose her identity like this? If you’re part of a church and you’re concerned more about what you gain from it personally than you are taking the truths learned into the world and sharing them those around you, then perhaps a reformation is needed in you as well.

The Reformation that happened in the 1500s was about reforming the people’s mindset of being part of the church. The reformation that’s needed today is about reforming the church’s mindset on what it means to be on mission. If you wnat to know what the chruch should be about, then read Jesus’ own words. I came to seek and to save the lost. (Luke 19:10) Then in John 14 Jesus says, the things I do you also shall do. If we’re supposed to be about what Jesus was about, and Jesus was about seeking those far from God and introducing them to God, then why do we care more about introducing them to church than to Jesus?

The church doesn’t save people. The church SHOULD be pointing people to the only source of salvation, namely Jesus. While there is only one way to the Father and that’s through Jesus, the institutional church that’s bent on membership more than mission isn’t the only way to Jesus.

It’s time for a reformation. Not in someone else. Not in someone else’s church tradition. The reformation needs to start in you and in me.

I Miss Clouds

July 21, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I had the chance to drive to Cleveland today to attend a meeting. The drive was nothing spectacular by any means, but I did notice something while I was driving. There weren’t any clouds. Or if there were I couldn’t see them. And honestly I miss clouds. I know that sounds strange and I assure you that I never was the kind of guy to lay in the grass imagining that the clouds looked like unicorns or something like that. To me that’s nonsense! But there is something strangely comforting about clouds. 

You see clouds are reminders of so many wonderful things. They’re reminders that we’re cared for and loved. They serve as reminders of promises woven into the very fabric of our lives and so often we don’t even see it. 

On my drive north the clouds were buried behind the layer of hanging smoke that has blanketed much of the skyline recently. The wildfires burning in the west have caused this heavy shield preventing the fullness of the sun to shine through and putting a translucent layer beneath the clouds. 

While some may think this idea is a tad silly I find there to be something special about clouds. Seeing the white puffy clouds freely floating around the crisp blue sky is a bit comforting to me. Knowing that the clouds floating above me are in some form or fashion visible to people I care about who are not near me is a great reminder of how vastly connected we are in this world. Even when we’re far apart and wanting to distance ourselves from everyone in life, we can’t escape the reality that we all are connected no matter how far we run or how much distance is between us. 

In addition to this reality, clouds also serve a purpose in scripture. If you remember anything from the Old Testament, you might recall the presence of God being found in clouds. God went before the Israelite people in the form of clouds by day and his presence filled the temple in the form of a cloud. 

Maybe clouds don’t mean anything to you, but to me they’re great reminders about God’s presence in our lives and our connection to one another. Sometimes these reminders are found in the simplest things. 

Eternal Pendulum

July 19, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Living in Central Ohio something most parents will do at least once in their children’s younger years is go to COSI. COSI stands for Center of Science and Industry. It’s one of those cool hands on museums for children (children of all ages)! When you walk into the main entry of COSI, you’re met by a huge pendulum. Well at least you used to be, admittedly I haven’t been there for years but it used to be there.

The pendulum was a super cool focal point when you first enter the facility. The pendulum from my understanding swings continually and never stops. This is due in large part to the length of the cable, weight and symmetry of the bob at the end of the cable, and an electromagnet near the top of the cable. The pendulum will swing back and forth continuously day and night. The really cool part is that when the earth rotates around its axis, the pendulum stays swinging in the same plane. So while it looks like the pendulum is rotating, really the earth is rotating under the pendulum.

At any rate, the pendulum is smooth in its transition back and forth. The cycle is unbroken. Forward, backward, forward, backward. The rhythm is soothing and somehow comforting in its stability and predictability.

Now I want you to try to imagine your life kind of like that pendulum. Imagine for a minute the cycles that your life goes through. There are cycles in our lives that repeat themselves over and over again. These cycles can be called a lot of different things and they apply to just about every scenario in which we find ourselves. There are work – rest cycles, or peace – chaos cycles, health – illness, energy – exhaustion cycles. Each of these will run back and forth on the pendulum of life.

The challenge for us as we swing through these cycles, aside from not getting sick from the back and forth, is to cherish each position along the swing of the pendulum. There are generally four things that happen along this pendulum. We go from rest to change to growth to great productivity. The more we fight this naturally swinging pendulum the shorter the gap between our work and our rest. The more we fight living out our calling as followers of Christ in our given stations in life, the more we’ll settle for mindless work that simply drains us.

The more we fight our times of rest, the less restful they become. The more we just do busy work because we feel we should be doing something, the less fulfilling it is and the more tired it makes us. The sweet spot in life is when we can rest while we’re working. We’ve narrowed the view of rest to the point that it becomes impossible to anything other than sit with our butt in the sand at the beach or curled up to a good book on a rainy day.

But when we truly find the pendulum balance in life, we quickly realize that rest can actually be found in doing the work we were called to do. We can work through our rest and rest in our work. There will be times when we need to pull away and rest and times when we need to sink ourselves into a task to accomplish it. But the majority of the time we can maintain a perfect swing through life finding rest in the purposeful work we’ve been created to do.

So cherish the swing. Be like a kid again and swing from rest to work making stops at change and growth along the way. Change is good. Growth is good but neither are easy. We need to be diligent in our working and intentional about our resting to get the most out of the change and growth portions of our swinging pendulum.

Enjoy swinging my friends. It’s the only way to live.

Losing Ground

July 14, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Hold the line! I can hear this echoed in movie after movie. Whether Braveheart or one of the Marvel movies, hold the line is a reference to battle where everyone stays put and does not let anything through. Hold the line can by and large be seen as a defensive methodology. But simply holding the line is never the end goal. At jsut the right time, advancement is key. No military worth its weight will simply hold the line. They’ll advance. They’ll overtake. They’ll move forward and slowly, methodically, effectively overtake the enemy’s advancements.

Unfortunately it seems the church has for many years now taken a hold the line approach to ministry. We’ve grown largely comfortable simply holding the line. We’ve circled our wagons to protect the weaker ones in our gathering. We’ve protected our buildings and our programs, our staff and our families. But is that really the right way? Is that even biblical?

If we’re at all honest with ourselves, it will be very clear that Jesus never said Hold the line. He never said protect your buildings and programs. He never said cower in fear because you might lose your job or hurt someone’s feelings by telling them what you believe. Holding the line should not be our plan. It wasn’t Jesus’ plan and it certainly should not be ours either.

By simply holding the line we’ve given up a significant part of our identity as church. There are some in church-topia who are called evangelical. An evangelical church is one that identifies with the commission of Jesus to share the gospel. It’s kind of where we get our idea of evangelism. You can see how the two words are very similar. But when we circle our wagons and hold these biblical truths to ourselves, we lose this evangelical portion of our identity.

Jesus wasn’t joking when he said that he came to seek and to save the lost. This wasn’t a derogatory claim about people who saw life differently. It was an honest assessment that without Christ who is the way you are left without a way, therefore you are lost when it comes to eternal salvation. I don’t want to get all end of the world, book of revelation on you here but we’re living in a time that is unlike anything we’ve experienced before. Sure there are similarities to previous generations but due to population density and technology advancements, we’re moving faster than ever. And that movement is largely away from the way.

So the longer we try to hold the line the more ground we’re going to lose. The evangelical church across the country and likely around the world, is losing credibility. We’re losing ground because we stopped doing what was inherent to our DNA. An evangelical church is to be about the gospel, but the church today is more concerned with tradition, politics, social justice matters, buildings, programs, styles of music and dress code than the gospel. None of these things are wrong and the church definitely needs to take a stand in some of these arenas, but we must never step off of our primary identity as proclaimers of the gospel.

The gospel, for those of you that don’t know, is the truth that there is no other way to salvation than through Jesus Christ. It’s the harsh, for some, reality that Jesus lived, died and rose and went through what we deserved. The gospel is that on our own we can do good things like help our neighbor with their lawn but we’ll never do anything of lasting value in someone’s life. The gospel is that Jesus did for you what you could never do for yourself and that apart from him we all are lost.

If the church today wants to be relevant in society. If we want to have credibility in our communities, then we need to get back to who we are at our core. We must step back onto the Bible as our sole source and norm for all that we teach and confess. We must stop circling our wagons. The time to stop holding the line is now. We must advance into this world with the power of the gospel, the life-changing, sinner freeing, eternity unlocking gospel.

If you don’t know this gospel message, then by all means reach out. I’d love to share it with you! If you do know this gospel message, then who are you going to share it with today (not tomorrow but today)! The world is in desperate need of what you have to offer. It’s time to release the line. The time is now!

Does Jesus Really Matter

May 18, 2021 / / 0 Comments
Life Church - Evangel Assembly - What difference does faith make for you? How does trusting God change your situation? Share your story... | Facebook

Some will have an answer to this question before even reading this post and some won’t read this because they think they already know the answer. But I believe there is more to believing in Jesus than many of us really think.

As Christians we focus on one aspect of being a Jesus follower and kind of, mostly neglect the rest of what it means to follow him. We package Jesus into a nice and tidy box that only impacts the future and really leaves him void of any influence on our lives today.

Now let’s be clear. Did Jesus die and rise to secure our future? Yes he absolute did. The bible is very clear about this. But not just the bible attests to the manhood of Jesus and to the burial place of Jesus. There are also accounts of many who were not Jesus followers who attest to His resurrection appearances after he was buried. So the person and work of Jesus very much has to do with our future. But there’s so much more.

I need to be clear. A Jesus that only impacts me when I’m dead is really not of much use to me now. I mean if we as Christians or even more so as pastors only care about the future lives of the people with whom we interract then we’ve missed a huge part of the life of Jesus. He was very much about the here and now. Jesus wanted to see lives changed now not just in one future day in heaven.

So does Jesus really matter? Yeah for our eternity but also for several other areas of our lives. When we believe in Jesus as more than just a good guy and more than just an heavenly Pez dispenser we can see that so much of who Jesus was and what the Bible promises is about our lives today.

He listens intently to our voice.

Some days it can feel like we’re talking to people who just aren’t listening. And it can be frustrating to say the very least. One thing that we have when we believe in Jesus is an assurance that he’s listening. Now I know it’s not exactly the same as having someone sitting down drinking coffee with you but there is a comfort in knowing that the God of hte universe is listening in on your thoughts and concerns.

He acts too.

Not only does God listen in on your thoughts and concerns, but he also acts. Not just acts in some arbitrary way either. He acts in your best interest. The cool part is that God knows the things you need before you ask them. And he can see a much bigger picture than you’re able to see. We get all wrapped up in turning red lights to green and getting closer parking spots when he knows the accident that’s about to happen and the driver that won’t be watching where she’s going. So just like the assurance that he listens we can be certain that he also answers prayers in the way we most need them answered.

We are just different.

When we gather on Sundays for worship and pray and sit with other believers we realize quickly that we don’t see life the same way the world sees it. We are just not part of what the world would call normal. And that’s ok to be honest. We don’t need to be like everyone else. We are not of this world. We’re of God. It’s a powerful reality when you think about it. We have our identity wrapped up in who God is not how much money we make or how successful we are.

These are just a few of the things that we can claim as people who believe in Jesus. These are just a few of the things we can cling to as men and women walking through life together under the cross. Jesus changed our future but he also cares about our present too. That’s really important to remember.

Do you really know what love means?

April 21, 2021 / / 0 Comments

One of my least favorite words in teh human language is the word love. I can’t stand it. People throw it around like it’s just another word. We say we love our spouse then we love pizza and then we love our truck or sports team or friend. But do we really love those things? Is it love or like?

The cool thing about other languages is that they have multiple words that can be used in place of love that help you better understand what someone is talking about. This week I talked about the different words for love. We discussed family or relational love, intimate love, friend love, and a love we all want to have but honestly can’t and that’s unconditional or limitless love.

Now before I send you off to check out the talk on the different kinds of love it’s important to understand why this was our focus. You see there are some who will make you question love. In our relationships people tend to say one thing and do a different thing which makes love go out of focus to put it mildly.

But there are some churches and chruch traditions that will call into question God’s love for you based on what’s happening in the world, how good or not good of a person you are, or how you practice your Jesus life by going to church and stuff like that. So let me be very clear –

If you are part of a church tradition that causes you to question God’s love for you, then you are not in a Biblical church.

There’s no more simple way to put it. God is the one who loves you unconditionally. God is the one who cares for you without boundaries. His love is not based on your love for him or your practicing your faith life. God doesn’t need you to be a good person for him to love you. He just does. You can believe it or not but that doesn’t change his love either. This is so very important and foundational to our understanding of who God is and how we live our lives. Check out the video below.

Or here’s just the audio.

Interruption or Disruption

March 2, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Ok so let me just throw this out there. I am 100% totally and completely over what covid has done to the lives of so many people. We’ve all been impacted by either the virus or the way it was handled. Some have tragically lost their lives due to complications of the illness. Others were slowed down for a time because they got it. Still others lost jobs, homes, loved ones, livelihoods, and the ability to just function in normal life.

I’ve heard so many times I want things to go back to normal. But do we really? I mean do we really want life to just magically snap back into place like a rubber band after being stretched. If we really just one day snap back to life as it was in 2019, what was the purpose of all of the struggle of 2020? If we just go back to the glory days of the past, then we essentially wasted what looks to be close to two years of our lives. No one wants to waste their life away!

So I want to encourage you to see this portion of life not simply as an interruption to your normal routine but as a disruption to the flow of how things were. An interruption is temporary and allows things to return to how they were previously. It’s like a blip on a radar then it’s gone. A disruption is a roadblock that forces us to take a different path. Sometimes a disruption can be negative but other times it can breathe new life into a situation.

Are there things about this whole new way of living that aren’t convenient or even good for that matter? Absolutely! Masks and distance are not how God created us. We were created to live in community. So much of communication is nonverbal and masks completely mess that up! I’ve had to repeat myself more times than I care to admit because someone can’t hear my clearly through a mask. Distance is not healthy either. Isolation easily leads to depression and can be deadly. The suicide rates are skyrocketing not just in our country but around the world.

I guess when we look at this way of living as an interruption we just want to get it over and go back to our comfort zone. But that’s just a tad selfish if you ask me. If our lives are more about what make us comfortable than what makes life better for others, then we have our priorities all screwed up.

But if we look at the past year or so as a disruption, we’re allowed to look back and learn form the past so that we can be more intentional moving forward. Intentional. That’s a power word. The focus of intentionality is that we live our lives with an intended purpose. Going back to the way things were means our purpose was already fulfilled, but that’s just not true. Living for the past gets us nowhere and it’s exhausting.

Do you find yourself more anxious, upset, tired or irritable than normal? Chances are you’re longing for the past. You’re trying to run down the up escalator. It’s exhausting to try to fight every day for something over which you have no control. Don’t give up. But change perspective. Be intentional about your day. Look at the person you are called to be. Chances are the disruptions of the past 12 months have very little impact on the person God created you to be. It’s time to pivot and make the necessary adjustments to serve those around you best.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins says that the greatest enemy of great is good. We settle for good all the time. Good isn’t bad. It’s good afterall. But is there something better than good waiting right around the corner? Is the good thing of yesterday that we want back, keeping us from the great thing we can experience tomorrow?

I’ve done a lot of thinking about this lately. As a pastor I look at what this disruption has brought about. I’ve met so many new people through this time that I never would have met had we not been in this mess. I’ve connected with new faces at church. I’ve had conversations with people at the gym that I’ve never talked to before. We’ve expanded our reach albeit virtually to many more than we ever would have. The way we were doing things before was good. I do miss seeing some of the people around church that we haven’t seen in months. And one day I hope they’re back again!

But I also see the countless opportunities that God has given me by making me slow down and spend more intentional time with family. Reorganize my calendar to better reflect my priorities. Value the expressions on people’s faces that I often took for granted. There are so many great things that I have learned through this pandemic by just changing perspective.

So while I want some things to change, I don’t want them to go back to normal because normal isn’t the life we’re supposed to life!

Looking Back Doesn’t Move You Forward

March 1, 2021 / / 0 Comments

When I was child I had a telescope. I put it in my window and looked up at the stars. I positioned the tripod on my tall dresser and pointed the one end out the window and up at the sky. I positioned my eye close to the smaller end and looked up at the stars. I was amazed at how close things were! When used properly a telescope is a truly amazing tool!

But one day for grins and giggles I turned it around and looked at the stars backwards. I rotated the telescope 360 degrees and looked again. The stars were unrecognizable. They were smaller than without a telescope. When used properly the telescope can really help us gain a healthy perspective on space but when turned around it’s pretty much pointless.

The same is true for how we view events in life. It’s easy to use the events in our lives as turn around points and reflect on how things used to be. But that’s no more healthy than using a telescope backwards. Here’s an example…

The year 2020 probably caught you off guard a bit. Going into the year we were all doing the corny Perfect Vision in 2020 or seeing clearly in 2020, but then February and March hit. To say that March came in like a lion would be an understatement! All of our plans for Easter and summer were pretty much trash by the end of March.

Many people in my circle took time to throw pity parties of how things used to be, myself included. We looked at Easter plans and VBS plans and all the thought and effort that went into preplanning much of our calendar year. So it was healthy to reflect for a second. Pausing to regain focus is never a bad thing. For us that lasted for about 3-4 weeks. We temporarily canceled all of our plans for the foreseeable future. No egg hunt, no vacation bible school, no in person worship, no gatherings, no family get togethers, no vacations and the list went on and on.

After we pumped the breaks on all of our plans and took a few weeks to catch our breath, we came to the conclusion that we might be doing this whole thing all wrong. We were looking at the way things were currently and complaining about the inconvenience of it all. We were dreaming about the good old days of four weeks ago. We were using the telescope to look backward.

We weren’t looking forward to life as we now know it. We couldn’t get past the inconvenience of the new hurdles. We longed for better days, but for so many better days looked a lot like the good ole days of the past. But that’s just not productive.

Now don’t get me wrong. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with remembering and celebrating the events of the past. There’s nothing wrong with learning from mistakes and changing our approach to life. But we can’t keep looking over our shoulder at how life used to be. You don’t drive that way. You don’t walk that way. You don’t look through a telescope that way. You can’t do life that way either.

So we quickly and without much notice, took a hard and abrupt turn. We planted our foot firm on what we knew was non-negotiable in our area of life. We know family was important and community was critical. We knew that there had to be a way to use this moment in life to establish a new set of rhythms. While we didn’t know exactly what the future held, and for that matter still don’t have a clue, we knew we had to stop looking backward and start looking forward.

As you go through life changing and traumatic moments, take time to pause for healing. But don’t stay paused for too long. Use the trauma, the set back, the interruption as a means to help you reevaluate what’s in front of you. Don’t look through the lens of the best days are behind us or getting back to how we used to do it. Use the disruption to truly change course and set a new path to get you to an even better promised future.

Have We Been Doing It Wrong?

February 23, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Have you ever had one of those moments when you realized you were using a tool the wrong way? Or maybe you had a board upside down when you were building a bookcase? Starting a project or a program only to realize you’ve been doing it the wrong way is beyond aggravating.

When we become comfortable with using something, even when it’s not the most efficient or effective way to use it, it’s really hard to change our approach and relearn how to use it properly. Today I want to think through a common process that we may be doing all wrong. Admittedly this realization comes from my role as a pastor but is very much transferrable on many processes.

In the church world, we focus on something we call discipleship. This is the process of being transformed into the image of Christ for the sake of others. The idea is what can we do at the macro (church wide) level that will have an impact on the members as a whole thereby leading them into a deeper relationship with Jesus. The approach we take is very much a silver bullet approach.

So many churches and pastors don’t really know what to do, so attempting a church-wide program is appealing. The programs are often well thought out and very much worthwhile but the results are lackluster at best. It’s like pouring a ton of effort into something and what comes out is more like a slow trickle. What gives! Why does this program not seem to be working the way we wanted it to work?

Think of this approach like a funnel. You pour lots in the top of the funnel but the bottom is narrower and less comes out? We pour so much effort into the process. We spread ourselves thin in an effort to reach every single person and be available all the time.

But what comes out of it is not the return we had predicted! For all that is fed into the top end of this funnel it’s easy to have the effort overflow and not make it completely through the funnel.

I mean have you ever used a funnel and not paid close enough attention? It can be messy to say the least and destructive at worst. The problem is, along the way the effort meets resistance. As the funnel narrows less and less of what goes in can actually make it through.

The programs we establish and programs we start are wide necked and get a lot of traction at first. Everyone wants to be part of the easy part represented by the wide open top. But fewer and fewer people want to be squeezed through the small opening at the bottom so they fall out the top.

So if that’s not the best way then what is? What happens when we flip the system on its head? Simply turn the funnel over.

In this new approach, you will invest heavily in a smaller group. But these people get a lot of your time and attention. You will spend considerable time with them. You will meet with them regularly. You will invest heavily into these key people. They’re not better than anyone else. They’re not stronger or even favorites. They’re just people who are willing to grow and learn and be changed through the process.

As a pastor it’s best to look to the example of Jesus when talking about discipleship because well he did it and told us to do it as well. Jesus called twelve guys to come and follow him. Then of the twelve, he called 3 to be part of an inner circle. He invested a great deal in these three men. The cool part about investing in these men was that they turned around and invested the same with in other followers. So when Jesus reached three people very intentionally, he was able to use their extended reach to connect with even more people.

Think about it. If you put water in the little end of a funnel, when it comes out the wider end it will fall everywhere hitting much more area. The same is true in our discipleship approaches. If we would follow Jesus’ lead and invest intentionally in a few people, we might end up getting a little different kind of result.

So who are your three? Who are the people you can drop everything to go serve? Who are the ones with whom you can walk and help grow through this process of discipleship?

Only Do What Only You Can Do

February 17, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Those of us with control issues really have a hard time with this one but let’s be honest sometimes we waste time doing what someone else is equally, if not more qualified to do. I heard this line a while ago at a conference and it has just stuck with me. I think it was from Andy Stanley, but can’t be totally certain. All I know is it’s not my original thought, because I’m not quite this witty or intelligent.

Only do what only you can do.

The phrase at face value seems a little bit obvious. But when we really think about it, how much time do we spend doing what other people are way more suited to do? What’s worse is when we do the things that others are capable of doing, we often short change those people to whom we’re called to serve. Enough of the abstract here’s a quick example.

I’m a husband and a dad. And to be totally honest, I’m not all that great at either some days. And if I were to honestly evaluate the moments when I’m less effective at either of these roles, I’d find that I am doing things that are not my primary role. That means sometimes I let my job come before my primary role as a dad or husband. Sometimes I let my passions come in the way of the things that are most important. Only I can be the husband to my wife and the dad to my kids. Only I can do these things right now and if I don’t then they are neglected.

So what are you doing that you’re not really the most gifted at doing? When we free ourselves from the things we can do to do the things we’re really supposed to do, we allow for greater success in those areas.

Another principle that dovetails nicely here comes from the book Good to Great. The line goes something like good is the enemy of great. We have to be careful not to hear that these things we’re doing are bad because they’re not bad at all. Actually on the contrary, many, if not most, of these extra things are good and very much worthwhile. But when we only do the good things, we prevent ourselves from doing the great things.

So the long and short is this. Do what you can do. The good and the great things that God established for you to do. Empower others to do the rest. Give away things that will help others feel that sense of accomplishment. When we delegate not only the task but also the authority for an area of our work, we multiply our effectiveness.

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