Spiritual Leadership (Part 2)

Servant leadership requires the practice of certain disciplines. These disciplines are key elements of "abiding in Christ." They are progressive in nature as set forth below:

-Humility before Him.
-Seeking Him.
-Loving Him.
-Serving Him.
-Exalting Him.
-Accountability to Him.

The key characteristic of servant leadership is "humility". Why? Because, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble" according to James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5). What is pride? Pride is simply the belief that I can do anything for God without His involvement. On the other hand, humility is the belief that "apart from Him, I can do nothing" as we read in John 15:5. In a nutshell, it's the heartfelt belief that I cannot do anything that reflects His works, love, and brings Him great glory without God working it through me. 

The degree of our "abiding in Him" is dependent upon the depth of our understanding of who the vine is and who we as branches are. In other words, the more we understand "who He is" and "who we are in Him", the more we can "abide in Him." The degree of our "abiding in Him" is dependent upon the depth of our understanding of His love, power, grace, faithfulness, mercy, compassion, patience, peace, and joy. Likewise, the degree of our "abiding in Him" is dependent upon the depth of our understanding of who we are in Christ and what He has bestowed upon us. The greater the depth of our understanding of these things, the greater will be the depth of our "abiding in Him."
Obviously, the beginning point for "abiding in Him" is seeking Him. Hebrews 11:6 vividly demonstrates this principle: "Without faith it's impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. "

The next discipline is loving Him. The Scriptures make it clear that our love for God is demonstrated by our obedience in John 14:15, 23-24; John 15:10; and 1 John 5:3. An obedience problem with God is really a love problem with God. If we are to be Christ-led, we must be willing to obey regardless of the cost. Obedience consists of three components:

(1) Acting or speaking when the Lord indicates, not before and not after.

(2) Understanding that partial obedience is disobedience.

(3) Do what He desire without grumbling, complaining, or whining.

Spiritual Leadership (Part 1)

Jesus Christ is the greatest example of spiritual leadership for us to follow today. When most people think of leadership they think of an employer closely supervising his employees, making sure all the work gets done. These aspects can be part of leadership, but they are not the true essence of spiritual leadership.

Spiritual leadership is the exact opposite of what most people think. Spiritual leadership is servant leadership. Jesus Christ Himself taught us in Matthew 20:28, "just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Jesus was most definitely a leader. He was the leader of the twelve disciples and a much greater group of followers beyond them according to Luke 10:1-17. Jesus did not lead by giving out orders or by supervising. Jesus led by being a servant and serving alongside of His followers.

Spiritual leadership involves humbling yourself and doing the tasks that no one else wants to do. In Jesus' time, the act of washing feet was to be assigned to the lowest of servants. However, at the last supper, Jesus humbled Himself and washed the disciples' feet. Afterwards he declared in John 13:12-17, "Do you understand what I have done for you? ... You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." 

-Spiritual leadership, with a spirit of humility and service, will cause people to follow you because they want to, not because they have to. Genuine humility and spiritual leadership is attractive. People want to follow a person who serves alongside them and sets an example for them. Perhaps the Apostle Paul sums it up best in 1 Corinthians 11:1, "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ."

-Spiritual leadership requires humility. Humility is the attitude that puts others ahead of you and considers others more important than yourself. It was said of Moses, the leader of over one million Israelites in Number 12:3, "Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth." Thinking too highly of yourself prevents you from genuinely caring for others. Humility enables you to serve others wholeheartedly and thereby set an example that others will follow.

-Spiritual leadership also demands integrity. People do not want to follow a person they do not respect. Speaking to servants, Ephesians 6:6-8 reads, "Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free."

-Spiritual leadership demands honesty. People are repulsed by a person they cannot trust to tell the truth. Proverbs 16:13 teaches us, "Kings take pleasure in honest lips; they value a man who speaks the truth."

Jesus began His ministry with twelve disciples. Once He finished training them to be servant leaders, He set them loose on the world. On their first day of ministry, over 3,000 people believed the message about Jesus in Acts 2:41. A few years later it was said of the disciples in Acts 17:6, "These who have turned the world upside down have come here too." The results of Jesus' leadership can be seen today in the hundreds of millions of people who call themselves Christians - followers of Christ.

How can you develop spiritual leadership in your life?

a. First, pray to God for wisdom on how you can become a spiritual leader-James 1:5.

b. Second, ask God to change your heart and to develop the character qualities in you that are required for spiritual leadership-1 Corinthians 3:4-7; Galatians 5:22-23.

c. Third, rely on the power of God to give you the strength you need to exhibit spiritual leadership in your life. Philippians 4:13 declares, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength."

What happened to Truth?

I am so tired of people listening to rumors and innuendos and then making speculation. I've heard that one of our area churches is worried because a former pastor may start another church nearby. I've heard that I've forced people to leave our church because they didn't agree with my philosophy of ministry. I've heard more gossip about other situations other than me and mine in the past week and for the first time in awhile don't feel I've got a target on my back.

Let me say this to every person reading this and please get this straight-Truth is the only thing that matters. Not what I say about somebody or you say about somebody, unless you can put truth to the matter. But guess what? Truth really doesn't matter to most people anymore. They want the juicy stuff and usually the truth doesn't have much juice.

What is truth?
-Truth is what you have infallible evidence for in making a declaration.

-Truth is not what you always see with the naked eye or hear in whispered conversations. It is what is exposed out of darkness and brought into the light by proof.

-Truth is not wild speculation brought on because of jealousy or fear on the accusers' part. It is reality that is backed by fact.

-Truth is not your opinion in a letter or behind a telephone receiver, it is a face to face confrontation of level-headed individuals, not hot-headed freaks.

Jesus said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

If we spent more time finding out truth before we speak, then things would not affect us so badly because nobody would be using deceit against us. Wouldn't that change the world just a bit?

So if you can't speak the truth, just simply be quiet and let God do what He wants to do about it. Man has already proven he would rather believe a lie than the truth-but God is different. Give Him a chance and you will find out what happened to truth. It's never gone anywhere-you just haven't been looking for it!

Kids Understand Love

Since a very long time ago, people have searched for the meaning of love. But even the great philosophers, with their profound definitions, could not fully touch its true essence. In a survey of 4-8 year olds, kids share their views on love. But what do little kids know about love?

Read on and be surprised that despite their young and innocent minds, kids already have a simple but deep grasp of that four-letter word.

1. "Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other."
2. "Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs."
3. "Love is when someone hurts you. And you get so mad but you don't yell at him because you know it would hurt his feelings."
4. "Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."
5. "Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday."
6. "Love is if you hold hands and sit beside each other in the cafeteria. That means you're in love. Otherwise, you can sit across from each other and be okay."
7. "Love is when mommy sees daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redbird."
8. "I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones."
9. "When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you."
10. "You can break love, but it won't die."

For Goodness Sakes-Leave Tebow Alone!

I am so tired of the Tebow bashing in the media, from some of his new Jet team members, and by the Jets fans in general. I was listening on satellite radio this morning and heard more junk said about the man than I can stand. Let me go on record again about how stupid people will look when he wins the starting job and takes the Jets (Yuk! Not a Jet fan!) to the Super Bowl in the next few years. Folks in Miami and Jacksonville are going to continue to look like losers because even with new ownership they still think like losers. Oh yes, and all the experts are going to be scratching their heads saying to themselves, "Man, we're we wrong or what!"

Again, I guess I'm the only one that remembers what was said about Steve Young in his first and second year in the league. Regardless of what people say today about his Hall of Fame career he may have been worse than Tim in his early years. Tampa Bay gave up on Steve and said he would never be a successful NFL quarterback just like the Broncos did on Tim. But thankfully a coach like Bill Walsh saw something in him that others didn't, coached him up, and the rest is history. I'm not sure if Rex Ryan can do that, but we will see.

I wrote a blog about all this before last season because the comparisons between the two in their early years is rather unique. 

-The mechanics for both early their careers are about the same, along with all of the skeptics that doubted them. The difference is in Tebow's second pro year he wins a division and goes to the playoffs. It took Steve about 4.

-The intangibles that both Young and Tebow have made them winners throughout their careers in football. And guess what-Tebow will be a winner again even with the NYJ!

-The press nearly devoured Bill Walsh and the 49ers when they traded for Young just like they are doing the management and coaching staff of the Jets for the past two days.

-Every skeptic in the book has come out against Tim for his faith, his passing ability, and his clean lifestyle. Very few have backed him for his work ethic and desire to get better as an NFL player. It just seems like so many are waiting for a scandal to attack him that they are on the verge of creating one.

So listen closely-please just leave Tim Tebow alone. He is a Christian and has the right to be so because the last time I checked this was still America. If he were a Muslim or he were Jewish the backlash wouldn't be nearly so loud, and if you read this blog you know that is true. If he was an alcoholic, drug user, or womanizer it would accepted and okay because he was an NFL player. Yet because he uses his platform as an opportunity to testify of his faith he is unjustly and unfairly criticised by those who disagree with his beliefs.

If you will let him he can become the pro quarterback he desires to be. It's going to be much harder in Jet country than it would have been in Denver, because of the pressure of the media, but I believe in Tim. I know he can do what many seem to think he can't- be a successful starter in the NFL and win a Super Bowl. If Steve Young can do it so can Tim Tebow. Just shut up and give him a chance!

Can The Church Ever Be The Church Again (Part 6)

I watched a movie not to long ago that had a very frightening scene in it. It involved a pack of wolves and one turned on the alpha male, who was the leader of the pack. He quickly lost his battle to the alpha male and was mortally wounded. As he limped off, I watched in horror as the whole pack chased him down and ended his life. Piece by piece they tore into him until he was dead. A pititful sight and a horrible end to such a beautiful creature that just moments before was one of their own.

The church is supposed to be a place where the sick can be healed, the lost found, and the wounded restored. We do pretty good with the first two, but man, we don't do very good with the last one. I have seen the church kill it's wounded more in the past few years with no remorse whatsoever. We seem to be the only organization that does something like that while shedding no tears.

What has happened to us?

Everyone bears scars from wounds of the past. Even though God forgives our past and gives us a new lease on life, sometimes those wounds begin to fester again. The old habits, temptations, and sins grab ahold of us and pull us down. The devil throws something in our path on a weak day and we just cannot overcome it. It's in those moments that some of the greatest men in the scripture were glad for a loving and forgiving God.

Let's be truthful with one another. When we do something wrong we need to correct our mistakes and go forward. If we are in spiritual leadership and have a spiritual failure we need to submit to those in authority over us in the Lord for discipline and direction. We have to face the responsibility of our actions and deal with the consequences. Yet, we also must deal with a brother or sister who has a failure in a scriptural way. If we don't we are subjecting ourselves to the same possibilities that happened to them happening to us.

Paul said in Galatians 6:1, "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted."

The Message Bible says, "Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day's out."

1 John 5:16, 17 says, "If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death."

I believe if the church is ever going to reach the heights we once did we must become an example of the restoration process and not the demolition business.

Can The Church Ever Be The Church Again (Part 5)

What made the Church of God special when I was growing up and in my early ministry was the loyalty people had to their church. No matter what happened good or bad they stood committed to their church. They didn't question every little detail or try to find a reason to leave. They stood firmly on the fact that this was the church God had placed them in. If things got bad they would pray and seek the Lord for the proper changes to be made. They didn't fuss or pack up and leave, but they trusted that God would bring something good out of a bad situation.

When the Charismatic movement began it opened up a whole new generation to the power of Pentecost, but in doing so somehow created an atmosphere based more on the personality of the church rather than the person of Christ. Most Mega-Churches today are tied to an individual or a series of events that draws a crowd and becomes the in-thing to do. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, because many of these churches have reached far more people than I will ever reach. However, it has created a system of who can do this better or who can offer this to the public. Basically, what ever is new that brings people in is what is going to be done regardless of the cost or the effort.

In doing this the individual churches seem to have lost their own personal identity. What happened was people from many different church backgrounds congregated together and formed these ministries. Again, there's nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that instead of trying something new and refreshing, they tried to maintain their identities from their previous church experience and mesh them all together with the new ideas and projects. In doing so, personal satisfaction became more important to the individual rather than what was the best for the church family. I believe this is what lead many Xer's and their offspring to begin the process of putting church secondary and their personal spiritual responsibility at an all time low. That plus the fact that many churches overbuilt, overspent, and many under created ways to bring people together and develop that sense of loyalty that the church once enjoyed.

The lack of  loyalty from the Xer's and the Mill's to most Pentecostal churches and their heritage dates back 25 + years. Why?

(1) Many of them never received basic Biblical training because since the mid-80's forward Sunday School for many has become an out-dated method of training and discipleship. Maybe it was an unprepared teacher or one that was boring. Maybe it was someone that used that time to downplay everything the Pastor was trying to do in the church. For some reason the majority of Xer's started skipping it and so now the Millennials don't have the fundamental teaching that many of us got (like it or not) in Sunday School. Even today, in the church I pastor, we only have three small Sunday School classes because there were more standing in the foyer during Sunday School time than there were in class. That's the way it was when I got here and it seems to be the same way in most other churches. Those who have strong Sunday School programs ought to be thankful and make sure they continue to work.

(2) The small-group meetings seemed to be the way to go for most churches. These were created with the hopes of building friendships and fellowship by meeting in one another's homes like they did in Acts 2. Well, for some they have been successful and have served the purpose well, but for others they have not. In fact, I have heard and read horror stories that have come again from untrained folks trying to organize and run these programs. Sadly enough, for every successful ministry formed from small groups, you read about another that has caused division and discord in the body. Many of the Xer's remembered more good about the churches they grew up in than they did bad. Yet when some of these small group ministries went bad it revived other memories about what folks did to hurt the church or the pastor in the past. So again the devil presented a plan to divert their loyalty from something good into something negative.

(3) We all know the Xer's are in personal debt more than any previous generation and it has affected the way they give to the church. I have always disliked fund-raising events to pay the bills of the church and have expressed that from the pulpit. In one church I pastored the WM's wanted to have an invisible cake sale. ?????? I said just ask the people to give you a donation rather than me get up in the pulpit and try and sell invisible cakes. My personal opinion is that if everyone would just pay their tithes regularly every need of the church could be met. Then any fund raising done could be to help the needy, the homeless, and the hungry. However, due to that debt the Xer's have, the church is suffering today because it depends mostly on retired folks to foot the bills.

One more thing-if you don't tithe you don't have a right to vote or to tell the church how to spend it's money. If you're not committed enough  to give, it's really none of your business.

I could rant and rave on several more issues, but the bottom line is the Xer's

Sadly, I must confess that some people I have dealt with from that generation, who had great potential, were not committed to the church and I lost them to another house of worship. I usually got the blame for their decision to leave, but these Xer's did not support the church regularly and wanted to tell everybody else what to do or be in leadership. Guess what-it doesn't work that way.

I do believe that loyalty must be restored if the church is going to be the church again. The question is, How can we bring it back into this generation?