Thursday, May 5, 2011
God is more interested in who I am becoming as a leader than what I do
At a great staff meeting yesterday, one of our staff shared this quote with our team as the statement that captivated her at a recent conference. It captivated me as well and brought to mind an article that I had just read in NavPress's online Discipleship Journal. It helps shape us to become the people God wants us to be as we lead.
Whether you and I are paid or unpaid staff, this article by Scott Morton confronts us and challenges us to raise the integrity of our leadership. Here are his eight questions:
1) Does my behavior match my teaching?
2) Do I lay heavy loads on my followers?
3) Am I trying to impress people?
4) Do I delight when my pupils surpass me?
5) Am I molding people in my image or Christ's?
6) Am I majoring on the majors?
7) Am I keeping up appearances to cover indulgence?
8) Do I consider myself superior to others?
Here is the complete article.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Osama bin Laden's death and conflicting emotions
Since the news broke last night about Osama bin Laden's death, I've experienced conflicting emotions.
said,
Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?"
Friday, April 29, 2011
Exponential - Main Session 5 - Matt Chandler
We need to be sure that we remember that other men and other women have gone before us and faithful carried the gospel forward for 2000 years before us.
The only reason we can have this dream, the only reason you are in this room, is that somebody dreamed this dream before you.
The book you hold in your hand thousands of people gave their lives. We likely won’t face death because they did.
Let the text grab you a bit before you run out with Jesus flag and get yourself killed and His name dishonored.
John says, In the beginning was the word (logos) and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. John used Greek language to engage the Greeks.
Paul in Acts 13 talks of Israel in the desert, quotes from Torah, from the Prophets, all in one text. Paul then also engages in Athens and with Pagans and doesn’t use the Jewish scriptures at all. He uses Athenian poetry and secular prophets. This will blow the minds of fundamentalists. You’ve got in the text, Paul and John contextualizing the gospel.
It’s messy, it’s not clean. We’re all on slippery slopes.
There isn’t any doctrine that doesn’t create issues that have to be addressed.
This isn’t new, it’s just our turn.
Paul doesn’t want John Mark, Barnabas is all mercy, so they split over philosophy and not theology but the gospel spreads. We need to quit judging one another in 5 minute sound bites on YouTube.
But Paul calls out people by name in public letters in scripture.
Let’s just shut up. We disagree. We do things that others don’t like. Let’s get past it and ask, “are we on the same team?” Do we both believe in essential doctrine?
Hebrews 12:1
Let’s not judge success the way we evangelicals judge success, look at the results of the list in Hebrews 11. But growth is also fruit.
Listen to the Spirit, proclaim the gospel, it works.
Vs. 1 - Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.
Apparently there are things that hinder us that are not necessarily sin.
Comfort is not a bad thing, unless…
Safety is not a bad thing, unless…
Money is not a bad thing, unless…
unless they own you.
TV, sleep, food, etc.
What are the hindrances that are robbing me of joy in Jesus Christ?
Are you godly? This is a question that has to be answered.
How’s your home?
Are you in the word?
Are you godly, because sin will choke you out and publicly ridicule the name of our God?
Some of you figured out in youth group that by saying the right things publicly, people honored you, and you found your place and how to behave in it and you started playing the game.
You may not be saved…you may be good…but you may not be saved.
Vs. 1 cont. - And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
God allows our wounds sometimes to protect us from ourselves.
You are not the next Billy Graham, or the next Rick Warren.
Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
God’s affection for me is not about my performance but is rooted solely in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Vs. 2 - fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
Looking to Jesus because he is the founder and perfecter of our faith.
God started looking for me, I didn’t go looking for it. Jesus was the pioneer, he started it, I didn’t.
God allowed my cancer. He didn’t cause but he allowed it.
He did so to keep me deeply tied to him.
Discipline isn’t that we’ve done bad.
Those of us 35 and up were disciplined (spanked, anyone could hit us). Those 35 and under had to go in a corner and think about it.
Thorn was to keep us from an evil spirit that tormented us.
We’re going to make mistakes, the cross tells us that we’re going to make a lot mistakes.
God knows we’re going to fail. The glory of God is not that he uses you in your awesome. The glory of God is that he uses you in your frailty. Please do not celebrate yourself or other messengers.
In your Bible, Moses dies. It’s a verse long.
Joshua dies. It’s a verse long.
It’s important that we’re wired into Jesus who…
2 For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
If you don’t find your assurance in Jesus, you are going to find it somewhere.
We can play the game. We know when to raise our hands during the song. We know what to say. We are fine when someone asks. We’re not looking to the cross. When we’re looking to the cross we can easily admit that we need help and we get it.
We’ve been set free to pursue Jesus.
The more you understand the cross, the more you understand that God is not in love with the future you. It’s for you now that Christ died. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Has the cross scorned the shame?
What the devil meant for destruction has now become a brag in the grace of God. Where else can that happen? Where people with a disgraceful past can brag about what God has done in them.
It’s our time to play.
Back wherever your from, there is a man at work who is miserable. He hates his life and has accomplished his dreams. He hates his wife, his kids are miserable. But because you heed the word of God and follow the Spirit’s direction, he’ll heed the gospel and accept God’s grace and will be worshipping God by the time we gather next year.
Or you’ll think I’m talking with someone else and you can continue walking in sinfulness and ignoring God’s work of the cross in your life.
It is our turn.
Main Session 5 – Closing - Jo Saxton
weare3dm.com
5000+ MC’s, 6 continents, 750 church plants in the last 3 years.
The one thing you need to know from these experiences?
Discipleship is at the heart of all we do. If we make disciples, we always get the church. If we focus on building the church, we will rarely get disciples.
What is your plan for making disciples?
Does your plan work?
We don’t have a leadership problem primarily?
We don’t have a missional problem primarily?
We do have a discipleship problem. We struggle to make disciples who make disciples. Who live like Jesus, doing what he did.
Jesus invited his disciples into covenant relationship but also sent them out with Kingdom responsibility.
3DM – leaders invite people into their missional community (huddles).
Discipleship according to Jesus model is threefold:
Information -> Imitation -> Innovation
Information – teaching is an important part but only one part of how Jesus does discipleship
Imitation – Rabbis weren’t just about information but would give access to their lives so their disciples could see how they lived their lives. 1 Corinthians 11:1. Does our plan for discipleship include imitation? Rather than our huddles just being inside, we were invited into mission along with our leaders. They invited us into Kingdom responsibility. Are we prepared to open our lives for others to imitate? Do we have the time? Will we allow the access? Does anyone want your life?
Innovation – Jesus told them that they would do greater things. (I’m sure they didn’t believe him). But Peter preached on Pentecost and 3000 were baptized. They helped launch and lead the church. They taught, they shepherded, they healed, they poured into lives, and invited people into covenant relationships and Kingdom responsibility.
Discipleship is making disciples who make disciples who make disciples.
God is still doing this today.
What did God say to you this week? Was it the city? Was it the 60% who are not being reached by an attractional church alone?
Make disciples and go. Make disciples who make disciples who make disciples.
What we’ll find if we’ll go to the broken and to the lost, is that they will huddle around our kitchen tables.
The world is waiting for us. They may not recognize it, they may not feel it, but it is their hunger.
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:16-20
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Main Session 4 - On the Verge: Do It - Matt Carter
Ephesians 4:11-13 – So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
God has gifted you so that you would equip the people of God.
If the church of America is declining, then pay attention to this verse.
Ephesians 4:16 - From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
When the whole church is doing its part, it grows and builds itself up.
The current attractional model of church is incomplete.
The book Transformation by Bob Roberts. What if, in attempt to reach America for Christ, that we were going to start 1000 megachurches in 10 years. (That wouldn’t do it, we just did that.) God is using this but it is not working at penetrating the lostness of this country.
I’m also sensing a growing sense of restlessness in the laity of the American church.
18-30 year olds are not wired like our parents generation. They are not okay with sitting on the sidelines of ministry or doing tasks to keep the machine running. They are hardwired to be a part of something bigger than themselves. They are hemorrhaging from the church because our churches haven’t figured that out yet.
Our motto has been “come to us.” And for those who did, that’s where it stopped.
We’ve placed the onus of mission on paid clergy and missionaries and the person in the pew wonders why the Christianity they see in the book of Acts is so different than the Christianity I see in my church. They began to wonder why they don’t get to use the power of the Holy Spirit that they were supposed to receive upon their conversion.
If 3000 more people come through our doors, then not much changes in the city of Austin. What if, instead of spending all this money to get people to come to our church, we spend a bunch of money and time to get 3000 people to leave our church. To equip them and release them to mission and ministry and then the whole city could change.
Jesus’ strategy was not to build a megachurch. He had the crowds at times but at the height of his popularity he looked at the crowd and said something so radical most left. Then he poured his life into equipping 12 and 72 to send them out on mission, to release them empowered with the Holy Spirit and the resurrection.
Is it possible to do both?
To attract people by the dozens, hundreds, and thousands AND also to release people by the dozens, hundreds and thousands. It is possible to be attractional and missional.
How did we make this transition into missional communities?
Trained, challenged, and equipped small group leaders who in turn, trained, challenged, and equipped their groups. To come together and live on mission for God and the church.
1) Change the definition of success. Our small group leaders who used to simply gather in people from the main service, and had community, studied the Bible and encouraged life change must move beyond that. To find the place of lostness, deep need in our community and invest yourselves on mission into bringing care, love, peace, and healing to that place. There is no better place to find community and have your life be transformed than in a group on mission.
2) Train small group leaders like you would train a missionary. You can’t train them like a Bible study leader. You have to train them to be able to feed themselves. Train them theologically, missional practice so that if God calls them to be released and lead their own church, they are equipped and we applaud it.
3) We have raised the bar for what it looks like for a missional community to engage in. We want them to know that the sky is the limit. Your people are capable of more than you would ever dream they are capable of. They have the Spirit’s power and the power of the resurrection inside of them.
Your people are more hungry to be used by God than you and I will ever know.
Main Session 4 - On the Verge: Do It - Ed Stetzer
Will put notes on my blog tomorrow because I’ll talk fast.
We’ll see momentum rooted in the mission of God.
As the Father has sent me, so send I you.
God
-Source
-God has a mission
-God desires to be glorified to make himself known
God is on a mission
-started in creation
-God sends the Son
-God sends the Spirit
God’s mission has a church.
You don’t need to find a mission, God already has a mission for you to join.
Kingdom
-Reign of God
God sends the Son to establish the Kingdom
Jesus establishes this Kingdom by:
-Saving – the gospel proclamation
- defeats sin and death
- redeems a people through forgiveness of sin
- we do it because he has done it.
-Serving – Gospel demonstration - Luke 4 – Jesus’ mission statement
- Sending – Gospel promulgation – Great Commission
- Kingdom births the church in its wake
Church
Partners with, joins Jesus on His mission
-Saving – gospel proclamation
-Serving – gospel demonstration
-Sending – gospel promulgation
God sends the Spirit to:
-empower the church
-gathers the church
-scatters the church
The church is not the center of God’s plan but it is central to God’s plan.
The Missional Manifesto – themissionalmanifesto.net
World
Context
The church is sent into the world
-joins Jesus’ mission
-sign/instrument of Kingdom
- ambassadors – we do it for and with the King
- have the keys to the Kingdom – entryway through gospel
- no gates will hold it back
- “I will be with you always to the end of the age.”
God’s Glory
-Glorified
-Church is redeemed for God’s glory
-Mission is completed for God’s glory
-All things restored for God’s glory
Most of our efforts and strategies are located between the Church and the World parts of God’s Mission. We need to keep in mind overall picture of God’s mission.
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