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Tag: discipleship (Page 7 of 21)

Another Perspective

February 6, 2024 / / 1 Comment

Life can seem so unfair can’t it? I mean your best friend has a boyfriend when you can’t seem to even land a date. Your neighbor drives a new car every year and you can’t even afford to put gas in yours. Your coworker gets the promotion you’ve been working so hard to achieve. It just seems like everyone else gets what you’re after and it’s just not fair. You have illness after illness and people around you are always healthy.

When we compare ourselves to everyone else, or anyone else, life just seems unfair. But sometimes it’s hard not to compare. People love to post their instagram lives for the world to see. No one posts the bad stuff. Perfectly posed. Lighting is staged. Tummy sucked in. Standing on a box to look taller because everyone knows you’re short (ok maybe that would be me if I actually cared enough to post pictures of myself!) I mean does she always dress like that? Are his muscles always that defined or is the lighting just right in that pic? Comparison is a terrible enemy that can lead us to a place of brokenness and despair. 

I want to introduce a different way of seeing things. It’s not easy and it’s something that I am working on myself. Instead of asking why can’t I have this thing or be like that person, try asking what if it’s just not my time? What if my time is yet to come? 

The idea behind it’s not your time is that even though someone else gets the blessing or the good day that you have been praying for, working toward, and expecting for years, your time is coming.

Maybe it’s a job that you have applied for but didn’t get. Maybe it’s a significant other that you have been trying everything you can to find. And everyone around you seems to be married and you can’t even land a steady date. Maybe it’s having a little bit of extra cash to go out on the weekend with your friends and you can barely scrape two nickels together. Whatever it is maybe it’s not your time. Maybe your time is coming.

I know that doesn’t take away the sting of not having it. I know it doesn’t make today any easier, but when you realize that it’s not about your timing or your plans, it does make moving forward a little easier. 

And lest anyone think I haven’t had my “it’s not your time” moments, please come talk to me sometime. I will gladly share with you the plethora of moments that things didn’t go the way I had planned and I wondered the same thing you’re asking right now. 

So does life seem unfair? Yeah it sure does! I know that some days are going to be far worse than others. But when we shift our focus to a realization that my time is still coming, things tend to look different.

Here’s an exercise I do to keep me focused when life seems a tad unfair. Take a deep breath and look at your own life. Really look at it. Not looking at what you don’t have but what you do have. Make a list, even if only mentally, of the things you have in your life today that you didn’t 1, 3, or 5 years ago. They are examples of the it’s not my time principle in action. Three years ago it wasn’t your time to have those things but here you are enjoying them. 

Again, I’m fully aware it’s not going to make a husband magically appear to your non-dating doorstep or a million dollars appear in your empty bank account, but it will shift your mind from scarcity to abundance.

It’s not your time, but imagine how great it will be when your time finally arrives! That will be a day to celebrate for sure! 

Peace

January 31, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Something that everyone longs for in life is peace. We think about it when wars are waged around the world. We think about it when our child enlist in military service. We think about it when we’re bullied on the playground or picked on at work for not being like everyone else. We want peace when our life is a chaotic mess.

The pursuit of peace is something that drives many of us into despair because we’re looking in the wrong places. When we long for peace, and we turn over every rock in the garden trying to find peace looking for it in someway that we can grasp with our own hands, we find it a lot like trying to grab a fist full of water. Unfortunately, that’s not how peace works.

Before we go too much further here, we probably should understand what piece is, and what it is not. Peace is not an absence of war or a place where there is no conflict. Peace, in the way we are using it here, is more of an internal calm, even in the midst of turmoil and struggle. It’s the realization that things are going to work out for the good, even though all evidence appears to the contrary.

While I have to admit, it would be great to live in a world where there is no struggle or pain. We also have to realize that simply is not a reality. There is pain and struggle all over the place in our world. There is fear and apprehension, anxiety and worry all around us. Peace is an internal thing that allows us to navigate life even in the midst of these challenging situations, but where do we find it? How do we grab peace and make it define our present situation?

That’s the hard part because peace is not something we find by looking for it. I know that sounds kind of hopeless, but it’s the truth. We just can’t find peace by securing a bigger bully to help us when life is hard. We don’t find peace by amassing large amounts of money or power or prestige. Peace is a natural byproduct of a right set of relationships.

Throughout the Bible we’re told to trust God. For some people this is an easier task than for others. But the more we can trust God, the more peace we naturally have in life. I know that sounds kind of odd and pretty churchy, but it just is the way it is. When we are willing to give up control of our lives, we actually find greater peace. Trusting in God to function in his role as God allows us a greater peace than trying to earn, win or struggle for peace.

Look, if we’re going to boil this down to one simple thought, it’s that you won’t find peace by looking for it. You find peace only by surrendering.

You’re NO Better

January 29, 2024 / / 1 Comment

One thing I see a lot of in the world is a unnecessary division between the church and the world. It’s pretty heartbreaking actually. A huge part of the problem is how the church has handled matters we disagree with over time. I’ve said for years that the world knows the church more by what it’s against than what it’s for.

We, and yes I include myself in this assessment, have spent far too much time with fingers pointing condemning, or at least speaking down about how people live their lives. That action is terrible. This lifestyle is wrong. They’re in an unholy place. How dare they do that action to that person. And the list goes on.

Before we get too far down the road here, it’s important to make sure you don’t hear something that’s not being said. I’m in no way saying we can’t differentiate between right and wrong. I’m also not saying we can’t call out a wrong when we see it. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it, and that’s the point of this week’s post.

Last week we asked the question why is the world the way it is. This week we turn the coin over and instead of looking at the world, we address the church. Paul does this really well in Romans 2. While looking at the world at the end of chapter one, he then turns and essentially says but you’re no better.

Ouch! That one hurts a bit. We’re no better. It was directed to the Jewish Christians and the Roman Christians of Paul’s day, but that message is transferrable to the 21st Century Christian Church as well. We’re no better.

Paul says in the first few verses of chapter two, and I’m paraphrasing here, How can you judge the world when you’re not following the rules yourself? That puts you in a really bad place to put it mildly. You can’t judge the world, then do the same, or similar, thing that you just condemned!

How about that one! We condemn the movements in the world around sexual preference, while not condemning the man who gives significantly to the church for having an affair. We look the other way when someone wins the lottery and gives the proceeds to the church, but frown upon people who gamble. We say abortion is wrong, but speak ill of our neighbor and call them derogatory names just because they look different.

You see the point of the whole thing here is that we know better. We don’t have an excuse either. If the world doesn’t have an excuse because God revealed himself in all of creation, then we don’t have any excuse either because we have God revealed to us in his Word. Significantly more clear evidence of God’s power and grace yet we ignore it so we don’t have to do the hard task of loving someone caught in a mess.

Paul will say numerous times in a variety of ways that all mankind has sinned and all mankind is therefore under the same judgment. If all sinned and if the wages of sin (all sin) is death, then all deserve death for the sins they’ve committed. Not just the people who’ve done the big things, whatever those big things are.

Look I get it. It’s hard to see things the way the Bible talks about it. Everyone is on the same playing field. Everyone is on level ground and just because I go to church doesn’t make me any better than someone who doesn’t. This is a huge misconception in the world.

The devil knows he can’t take a believer out of God’s hands. He can’t change their salvation as it were. But he can sterilize them and make them not live like they’ve received the grace needed to change their entire life.

Paul here is driving to the understanding that whether we’re in the church or outside the church, we’re guilty of missing the mark when it comes to fulfilling the law. If all sin and all fall short of the glory of God, and if the wages of all sin is death, then that means the death of Jesus can be applied to everyone. Unfortunately not everyone wants Jesus’ life and death applied to them. Some want to DIY their salvation. Some think they can do it themselves. And this is what leaves the world in such a messed up place.

When the church tries to look down its nose at the world around it just because they look and act different, it sterilizes the faith of the church. And when the church is sterile, it can’t grow and flourish.

Paul is addressing the church in Rome but I think he’s talking about us today as well. We’re without excuse when we condemn someone else and do a very similar thing. We’re without excuse when we rely on the grace of God but don’t give it to those around us. We’re without excuse when we beg God for mercy but don’t show it to others.

The point is we’re no better. But we’re all in need of God’s grace and lucky for us, while we were still messed up in our sins Jesus died for us…all of us.

Stages of Faith

January 26, 2024 / / 1 Comment

Now admittedly the title of this post will likely mean some won’t even read it. Maybe you’re not a person with a church home and think there’s no way this will mean anything to you. Well if you’re still here, I’d like you to just keep going because while this is going to reference faith in God, there are some transferrable elements here to any belief structure.

There’s a book titled The Critical Journey where you can get more details on these stages. I’ll do my best to offer a very high level summary of my findings on these stages and how they apply to our lives today.

Submission

The book calls the first stage Recognition of God, but I want to go with a slightly different name. The idea is that in this stage you recognize you’re not in control of your life. There’s something or someone out there who’s guiding your life through. Some call it the universe which to me is a tad sci-fi. I call it God, and the way he does it is through the work of what the Bible calls the Holy Spirit.

In the first stage, we surrender or submit our lives to God. We acknowledge there are things we don’t know and things we can’t control. We recognize that God ultimately has our best interests at heart. We still live our lives. Not much externally will change here but inside there’s at least an acknowledgment that something is different.

Learning

The second stage is called Life of Discipleship and focuses on the growth of learning that takes place. As we have this recognition that God exists and is untimely for us, we then turn to learning more about who he is and how he functions. The Bible calls this discipleship, which is what the book uses as well.

The idea here is that the ways of God start to become more ingrained in who you are and how you live. The character is God is something you look for around you. Your learning is sinking in and shaping how you see the world around you. The transition to the next step then becomes easy the more you learn.

Achievement

The third stage of faith is when the submission and learning become doing. This is the Productive Life stage. There are things on the outside that start to change a little. We shift our time around to be in worship on Sundays. We set aside some of our household budget to give to the local church. We try to cuss less. You know all those things that happen when you’re not living your life just please yourself.

This stage is marked by outward expressions of our faith. We’re definitely not there yet as the saying goes, but we’re letting the learning start to chisel away the rough edges of our lives.

Reflection

There’s generally a time when we’ve done a lot of learning and started to become more active at church when we feel a need for something more. This is the Inward Journey stage.

Here we spend time meditating, praying, reflecting and wanting more than just surface level stuff. Sunday morning worship is great but we long for something more. We recognize that we need to take the Sunday morning event and move it into our relationships and darkest corners of our lives. There’s generally time spent in counseling to help dig deep into our inner lives to see what really makes us tick and how this whole faith thing will make a difference beyond an hour a week.

Journey

Sometime during the reflection stage and before we get to the Outward Journey stage we’re going to hit a wall. This is the place where the chaos of life hits us square between the eyes. It generally happens with a conflict or significant loss. The wall is found in an unexpected divorce, job loss, major conflict with friends. It happens when life is upside down and inside out. As we navigate the wall in front of us, the reflection stage will either loop us back to the beginning or propel us on a journey of outward expression of faith.

This fifth stage is all about living out in a very intentional way the elements of our faith that are critical. For Christians, this is changing the motivations of hearts to love. We often will continue to do what we’ve been doing, but now it’s for a different reason. Our motives become pure in light of the inner faith journey we’ve been through. We’re not perfected in love and we still struggle, but the fifth stage is really all about intentionally walking in the faith we claim.

Love

The sixth and final stage the book proposes is really living a life of love. That phrase is a bit sappy sounding but it’s not really all touchy feely, crying and hugging kind of love. The highest level of faith development is when the love for Christ and love for neighbor propel all of what we say and do.

Of course there will still be hiccups along the way. Of course we’ll falter and even fail in this process. The overarching idea however is that we have arrived at a place where the message of God’s love and mercy has been so internalized and applied to our relationships and struggles that it just oozes out of us everywhere we go.

Unfortunately, many people or perhaps even most people never make it past stage three. They get stuck in the achievements of faith section. They volunteer at church and show up for worship. They sing or perform or help on teams, but their level of faith is never really internalized or lived out in real time.

There will be some who make it to stage four but this and the wall associated with it normally serves as a strong roadblock to going further. Perhaps knowing the stages will be helpful in progressing through the cycle. Maybe if we know there can be more than just knowing God and his teachings then we’ll long to find a way to do that and it will shape how we live.

Wherever you are on the cycle, there’s always room to grow and mature. There’s always another step in the journey. Where are you?

Forgiveness

January 25, 2024 / / 0 Comments

A super powerful word in the life of the Christian and a word we all should know very well is where we’ll focus today.

Forgiveness.

To forgive doesn’t mean you have to say it’s ok. As a matter of fact, when you forgive someone, you’re saying it’s not ok but you’re willing to not hold it against the relationship. It means that you’re willing to move past the moment, hurt, wrong so that you can heal. Admittedly, forgiveness requires some form of acknowledgment of wrong. Without any form of acknowledgment, it’s hard to offer forgiveness. In church-world, we call that confession. Confessing or admitting the wrong we did is the first step in this process.

There’s a lesson we’ve taught our children about forgiveness that I believe is important for just about everyone. I’ve taught it to every church I’ve served. Forgiveness must flow freely. When someone apologizes or says they’re sorry, the thing you should work toward immediately is forgiveness. It’s good for the person who apologized but it’s also good for you.

When we forgive someone, we free ourselves of the burden of that pain. When we get to a place of forgiveness we are able to bring healing. But all too often forgiveness is withheld. Maybe it’s withheld accidentally because we don’t think it’s really all that important. Let me assure you, it is very important. When someone apologizes or admits a wrong, the one thing they need is forgiveness. Unfortunately, there are times when withholding forgiveness isn’t unintentional. Sometimes it’s done on purpose.

We hold forgiveness to make sure the other person is really sorry. Or maybe to teach them a lesson. We withhold forgiveness because they really hurt us and it just seems right to make them suffer. We refuse to offer those three simple words I forgive you because we’re still hurt. But forgiveness doesn’t mean we’re not hurt. It means we forgive them. It means we’re willing to work on the relationship, through the struggle, even in the painful moments.

Forgiveness is massively important. And to think anything less is likely a reason why forgiveness isn’t a free flowing concept in our lives today.

I’m sure glad Jesus didn’t handle forgiveness with me the same way we handle it with those around us. I’m sure glad he didn’t wait until I had the right heart or asked the right way, or you fill in the blank, before he offered me forgiveness. The beauty of who Jesus is and who he calls us to be is freely forgiven and forgiving people.

The Bible says that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. This is what makes forgiveness so amazing! It was ours long before we deserved it (not that we even deserve it now). It was earned for us before we asked for it. A plan was set in motion to forgive me and you before we even committed the wrong.

We read that when we come to God and ask for forgiveness, he grants it. Fully. Freely. Forever. Every single time. He removes those wrongs as far as the east is from the west as the Psalmist tells us. There are countless ways we see the Bible tell us about forgiveness, but all of them have the same message. We confess. He forgives. It’s the easiest formula out there.

So from whom do you need to hear those words? And perhaps a better question is who do you need to say them to?

Forgiveness is earned but not by you or me. It was earned by Jesus. And it’s his forgiveness that gives us a model for ours.

Cynicism

January 24, 2024 / / 0 Comments

For starters this is one of those words the never looks right to me when I type it. It seems all weird and no spelling actually feels right. So I have to rely on the cool squiggly red line underneath to help me out.

Cynicism is a pretty dangerous thing. To be cynical is to doubt the reality of something. Here are a few different ways to look at cynicism.

One definition correlates cynicism with skepticism. The idea that someone is always up to something contrary to what they say. Someone with ulterior motives would be another way to put it.

In a book titled A Praying Life the author says that cynicism is to be distant, leading to a creeping deadness that destroys the spirit. The book goes on to say that cynicism leaves us doubting and unable to dream. The idea here is that when we become cynical to life, we shut down our hearts and kind of just go through the motions unable to see the reality that’s right in front of us.

C.S. Lewis says that cynicism is seeing through something. He then goes on to say, You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.

Do you get what C.S. Lewis is saying here? He’s essentially saying where does cynicism end. When you try to see through one thing only to find yourself trying to see through the next and the next as well, you see nothing. Eventually, everything is something else and you don’t know what’s real and what’s false.

This word cynicism comes out of a study of Isaiah 29 as I prepare for a bible study I’m leading. While he doesn’t use the word specifically, this is what he’s talking about. He’s talking about dullness or dryness of faith and life. Isaiah is basically telling the people that they’ve been so cynical of the things of faith that now they don’t even see what God is up to because they’re essentially looking through it.

If we take the word cynical as our word of the day this week, we need to wrestle with where it’s found its way into our daily lives. Where have you been overly cynical? Where has cynicism made life around you so transparent that you can’t even see what’s right there in front of you?

Is it your job? Making you think that nothing you can do is good enough for your boss. Perhaps it’s in your marriage? He’ll never really love me the way I need to be loved. She’ll never trust me again. Maybe it’s in your other relationships? Everyone’s out to get me. No one trusts me. I’m not worth anything. What about your worship? Just going through the motions without a second thought. Your heart isn’t really in it so you’re just faking it til you make it.

Whatever area your cynicism has crept in, you need to deal with it. And there are two things needed to deal with cynicism in life: truth and direction. Both are necessary but we can’t have the direction without first seeing the truth.

Cynicism is like a pair of glasses that cause us to look through the moment at the intentions. And if we’re being honest, the intentions we see aren’t the real intentions but rather ones our cynical minds have made up. This is because cynicism brings a disconnect between our head and our heart.

When we are submerged in the truth of a given scenario, it’s like someone takes those crazy x-ray glasses off. Now instead of seeing assumed motives, we’re able to see the words on the page. We’re able to hear the real voice on the other end of the phone. We’re able to see the actions for what they really are and not for something we formulated in our heads. The only way to do this is to remove the glasses by putting on new glasses of the truth.

Like a bad prescription changes how we see the world around us, so also a cynical lens negatively impacts how we see life. The lenses of truth are put back on when we surround ourselves with people who have the truth. We need to be able to listen to hard things. Be challenged. We need to be honest with ourselves and those around us. And when we do, the truth will shift our eyesight from seeing through something to seeing something through it.

After we change out our glasses to ones filled with truth, we need to look in the direction the truth is pointing us. Now that we’re able to see a little more clearly, we can see what’s in front of us and what’s on the other side of the window C.S. Lewis referred to in his quote.

As we navigate the challenge of cynicism in our lives, we are forced to deal with our own demons. Cynicism isn’t someone else’s problem. You can’t call out cynicism in someone else. You have to see it in you. Take an honest look. Where have you been cynical? What truth have you missed by looking through it to see something that isn’t even there? What direction are you supposed to be going that you didn’t even know existed because you looked through the road map by your cynical thinking?

Innovation Is Not The Enemy Of Tradition

January 23, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Something a lot of people may not know about me is that I’m a huge fan of tradition. I grew up in a historic church that was steeped in tradition. There was so much tradition that they often got stuck in the we’ve never done it that way loop. But there is a tremendous importance to recognizing the accomplishments of the past, the foundations of our identity, the parts and pieces of our history that got us to where we are and that still hold us together.

When people look at how I lead and the things that happen as part of the church I serve, many think that I am anti-tradition. But there’s a false dichotomy that’s often drawn in many circles. It says if you’re willing to try new things, then you must hate the traditions that got us here.

I think this is an absolutely ludicrous way of thinking, but it seems to be where some people are in life. Do it differently and you’ve abandoned the past. New is the enemy of old. Innovation is the killer of tradition. I just don’t get that assumption. But then again it seems to be an assumption and we all know how the saying goes with regard to assumptions.

Innovation doesn’t have to be the enemy of tradition.

Before a change is made or a new thing is started, it’s important to take the time to evaluate what history is behind the current situation. I’m a pastor so a lot of my illustrations come from that world. Here’s one I see a lot.

I talk to a lot of pastors who ask how to reach their community. We talk about different strategies for impacting the neighborhoods around their church building. We talk about starting new ministries, planting new churches, and pivoting to find a creative or innovative way to connect with people not yet connected. But before we make plans on the new thing, we have to take time to celebrate the history.

The parts of our past that got us to where we are today are things we need to recognize and celebrate. We need to champion our history. It doesn’t matter if that history is 10 years or 175 years, it all matters. History is history.

I will often talk about the man who served as pastor before I arrived at the church I currently serve. If he had not been there before me and done the wonderful job he did, I couldn’t be where I am today. If your organization, or if your past, didn’t go through the things it went through, you wouldn’t be where you are either.

Tradition and Innovation don’t have to be enemies. They need to respect each other. They need to build off of each other. When we let our tradition shape our innovation and our innovation celebrate our traditions, we set ourselves up for a thriving future as an organization.

It Just Takes One

January 15, 2024 / / 0 Comments

As we continue to walk through the book of Romans, we pause for four simple verses that are jam packed with power. If you’ve been in the church world for any length of time, I sure hope you’ve at least heard part of this. Here are the verses on which we’re focusing this week.

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.  So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.  For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” – Romans 1:14-17

These four verses can be summed up with just three simple words. Ashamed. Eager. Obligated.

Ashamed

Paul says he’s not ashamed of the gospel. For him to state that he’s not ashamed, asserts that there will be some that are in fact ashamed of the Gospel. So this kind of begs the question, why would someone be ashamed of the gospel if it’s the good news of God?

Well, the point of the gospel is the undeserved grace of God for us. That means we don’t earn it and that’s kind of an unpopular opinion in a world that’s focused on achievement and self promotion. So when the gospel says that we can’t but God did for us, that’s kind of a shameful thing if you think your good actions get you to heaven.

Another aspect of the gospel that can cause some people shame is how it all works. If you know the story of the Bible, you’ll know that the essence of the gospel is that Jesus died a pretty horrible death in our place. That means he got punished for something we did! And that can honestly make some people a bit ashamed. Either ashamed because they didn’t have the power to do it themselves, or ashamed because of the horrific nature of the Roman torture that Jesus endured to show his love for us. Both can really lead to a feeling of being ashamed.

Eager

When we settle in on the fact that this wonderful message of the gospel is something about which we have no need to be ashamed, then there is almost an eagerness in us to share it.

Think of it like finding a cure for cancer. If you found a cure for an ailment that was life threatening to millions of people around the world, you’d probably be eager to share that with as many people as you could! The same is true for the gospel. No it doesn’t stop cancer or lessen the intensity of earthquakes and tornadoes. But it does bring a cure of sorts to a totally different problem.

The gospel is a demonstration of our salvation. Jesus died so we don’t have to die like that, and then rose so we could live in the promise of heaven. But there’s more to it even than that.

The gospel actually addresses some of the deepest longings of our hearts. Acceptance. Belonging. Worth. Value. Identity. Purpose. Calling. All these are part of the message of the Gospel. When we really understand the gospel and are unashamed by its meaning, then we have an eagerness to share it with as many people as we can find!

Obligated

This one will strike some people a little odd. Some might even think this isn’t right. But the wonderful free nature of the gospel when understood correctly obligates us to share it.

The word obligated can also been seen like the word debt. We are indebted to the gospel. We don’t owe anything for our salvation. That’s not the point. The point of this obligation or indebtedness is that we were given something that is for us and for someone else. Think of it like this.

You receive a donation for the local Ronald McDonald House Charity. It’s a sizable stack of cash. Someone gives you $100,000 in cash to deliver to the charity. It’s for them. You don’t owe the person who gave it to you a penny. But you do owe the charity that $100,000.

The gospel is similar. By not being ashamed of the gospel, we’ve already received the gift for ourselves. When we really get what it means, we essentially deposit that gift for ourselves. But the point of the gospel isn’t just that we deposit it into our account. The point of the deposit of the gospel is that we give it to those around us because it’s just as much for them as it is for us. We’re obligated then by the gospel to hand it out to those for whom it’s intended. Which if you didn’t know, is everyone!

This week I’ll end with a bit of a challenge. We talk about large events and getting the world to know the message of the gospel. But what if we started with just one person. I mean the person living next door to you. Or the one in the cubicle across the hallway. Maybe it’s a classmate or person at the gym. You pick because the point is it only takes one.

Let’s say 5 people would take this idea seriously about sharing the gospel intentionally through the context of a relationship. Let’s say those 5 people each found one person. Walked with that one person to an understanding of the Gospel and by the end of a year those 5 people had doubled to 10. Then let’s pretend those 10 did the same thing. The next year you’d have 20. If we did this for 15 cycles, those initial 5 people who were unashamed, eager and obligated by the gospel would become 163,840 people in just 15 years time. But if they did it for 30 years, that original 5 would become 5,368,709,120 people.

And it all happens when 5 people who were unashamed, eager and obligated by the gospel call found one person each and become totally sold out on the message of the gospel in which they believed.

It just takes one!

Needy?

January 12, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I learned a lesson when I was selling cars that I believe is transferrable to just about every other field. Never make a significant and permanent decision as a result of a huge need.

Ok so that’s a tad vague so let me put some skin on that skeleton. In the car sales world, the easiest person to sell a car to was the one who came in saying My car just died and if I don’t get something today, I won’t be able to make it to work tomorrow!

Yep that actually happened. More than once! You know what that does to the sales person? There is a huge flashing neon sign above that person indicating they are a for sure sale. And it meant they were no longer in a position to negotiate on price much at all because they needed to buy more than I needed to sell.

The transferrable principle I try to live by is to never make a decision, or hire someone, when you’re feeling desperate and needy. The more needy we are, the more likely we will choose someone for what they can do instead of for the character and skill set they bring to the table. And this can be very dangerous!

Imagine for a minute that you need to hire someone to fill a critical role in your organization. You just fired half of your sales team because they weren’t performing and now you need to bring on more sales reps to handle the traffic that you know will be coming. A critical role in your business was just vacated by someone who left for another company or was removed for unethical practices. This can even be the case with volunteer teams when we just look for warm bodies instead of people who epitomize the character and values of our organization.

When we make a massive decision, like bringing someone onto the team, in the midst of a tremendous sense of desperation, it almost always ends really…really badly!

A better approach that I’ve found works fairly well in both the nonprofit landscape and even in for profit entities with which I’ve worked is to fill the gap for an intentionally temporary season. This means you might hire a sales person for a 3 month probationary period. Bring in the interim CEO to manage your growing company. Appoint an interim to fill the position at your nonprofit or ministry team.

When we make these massive shifts out of a sense of desperation, we often are so clouded by the need that we can’t see the reality in front of us. If the rest of the team is strong, then even a critical loss can be managed for a short duration of time by the rest of your competent staff.

Take a breath. Slow down. Look for a potential short term solution to give yourself a little room to make a clear headed decision.

Cracks in Concrete

January 9, 2024 / / 2 Comments

The church I pastor has a group that meets a couple times a month called Bible and Brew. We meet in a local pub, have a beverage of choice, share life stories, and talk about faith. Every time we get together I’m reminded how important this type of group really is, and it has nothing to do with the beverages!

This particular night one of the guys started us with the question, What does God want from us. Now that’s kind of a loaded question. And I’ll admit, it took every fiber of my being to not go all pastor on the group and try to answer the question. You see that’s the joy of this group. Generally the questions have no real answers, at least nothing that would be always right in every situation. Kind of like what does God want from us, there are hundreds of answers that all could apply perfectly.

As the discussion unfolded however, there was a theme that was starting to come into picture a little more clearly. In a world that is divided, how are we supposed to live. We talked about how political structures divide. We talked about how media has a tendency to sensualize everything only polarizing the divided landscape around us. What does God want from us?

It’s a pretty cool thought actually. When the world around us is divided and broken, how is the church supposed to act? The kind of obvious answer that came out of things was to not be divided. But how does that work?

We looked at passages like Hebrews 10 where the writer says do not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing. Ok so one way we stay undivided is to be together. The more together we experience, the less chance of cracks to come into our lives.

One image we sat on for a bit was the image of concrete. I have a concrete driveway. And as great as a concrete driveway is, there are some issues with concrete. One thing is pretty much certain. Concrete cracks. You’re pretty much not going to stop it from happening. They can put control joints in, you know those fancy lines in sidewalks and cuts in larger slabs. Those are intended not to prevent concrete from cracking but to stop cracks when they happen.

I made a bit of a mistake this year and didn’t fill the cracks in my driveway before winter. If you’re not aware, the little cracks in concrete, if left untreated, will eventually fill with water and in freezing temperatures as the water expands so will the crack. A tiny crack in concrete, if not taken care of immediately can result in some serious damage.

Ok back to the discussion of what does God want from us. I think if we look all over the place in the Bible, we’ll see a very common theme. Unity is kind of a big deal to Jesus. In Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer from John 17, Jesus says that they may be one as we are one. Oneness must be a huge thing. Jesus was kind of wrapping up his entire ministry and he did it by praying for unity in the body of Christ. What does God want from us?

If Jesus prayed for the church to be unified, then I’m pretty sure that’s what God wants from us and for us today. Our discussion was all over the map about unity, not uniformity but unity. We’re not all supposed to be the same or think the same but our purpose and identity is supposed to be tied to the same thing – the gospel. We used illustrations of tractor pulls and locomotives, teams of horses and mathematics lessons.

The long and short was that division isn’t math that God does. He’s not about dividing people. One of the first sermons I preached at the church I now serve was about a wedge. The principle of a wedge is that just the tiniest point of the wedge is all that’s needed to weaken the overall integrity of something. And just like that concrete sidewalk, if a crack is left unattended it can be devastating.

So what is it that unites us? Our common confession is the key. The thing that unites us isn’t a can’t we all just get along mindset, it’s not the sport team we cheer to victory, it’s not the political systems with which we align ourselves. The thing that unites us is the gospel. When the gospel isn’t the focus, when our attention shifts from the power and importance of the gospel, we run a strong risk of cracks popping up in the concrete of our lives.

What does God want? If the answer is unity, then we have to also admit that just like in concrete cracks happen in our daily lives as well. So what do we do when cracks show up? Well, we patch them. Seal them. Watch them closely over time. The same is true for all of us around the table that night. When disunity comes into play in our lives, we need to patch it with the gospel. We need to come back to who we are and what we’re called to be.

If the one thing God wants for us is unity, then we can be certain that coming to him is the best place to find that unity when a crack is discovered. Maybe it’s time to take a closer look at the driveway and patch up some of those cracks so that we may be one just as God is one.

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