Ephesians 5:4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.

What would it look like if I ONLY spoke words of gratitude the Sunday through Saturday (one week) of Thanksgiving. If I went so far as to look at a pile of laundered clothes that awaits my folding and putting up, a job I normally hate, and instead think and speak out loud, “God, thank you for these clothes, for providing covering.”  When my kids are arguing with one another, “God thank you that they have voices that work and you are shaping them towards independence of Piper and me, give them reliance on you.”  If every time next week I see a person, I tell them why I am thankful to God they are in my life.

What would that week look like and feel like. I am going to try my best. I will post my successes (by God’s grace) and failures (by my own flesh) next week as time allows.

Care to join me?

I have said 51% of any leaders job is raising up other leaders. How do we do that? 1. Most importantly, pray for workers for the harvest. 2. Secondly with the [decision space] concept.

When we have a potential leader we need to create a space for them in which they are completely authorized and resourced to make a decision. At first that space will be incredibly small, even an “either this or that” option. For example, I might need something designed by a layperson. I can tell the volunteer designer, here is the template and you are free to change this color or that one picture. Here are the resources you have available. I then tell them, “Here is why we do it this way.” This last statement is vital because it gets them to start thinking with values and purposes of the organization, more on this to come.

The next time I give them a project their [ - decision space - ] should grow. They should be given slightly broader boundaries to make decisions of what to do, when to do it, and how to apply their given resources, with me providing coaching and continuing to give the “why” behind it all. And so on and so on.

Soon they will have grown into a [- - - - decision space - - - - -] where they are making major decisions on what to do, when to do it and how many resources to bear, as they now start raising up new leaders under them by providing these new leaders small [decision space] and multiplying the process. You will rarely have to bang your ahead against the wall on their decisions because they understand why you make the decisions you do and were grown in leadership. Though they might not approach a solution exactly like you would (which is actually healthy), the result will line up with the overall vision because they understand the WHY of it all. Soon you will have a team of solid leaders.

How can you give every person under your leadership a bit more [decision space] this week?

I see churches all the time that are small yet they try to play big ball (huge marketing campaigns, etc) when their strengths are relational community and viral word of mouth. It is okay to be who you are (even though we get caught in the ridiculous pastor’s trap of “how many are you running?” to fill our need for status). A great article on why you can play small ball and win here.

Example: Stop doing arena anthem arrangements or programming like you have 3,000 people and start doing some acoustic, intimate type stuff and be who you are.

Nehemiah went from cupbearer (which, by the way, was a very “cush insider” job) to construction manager to governor. Talk about distinct phases.

Just because God has called you to a specific role doesn’t mean you are to stay in it forever. There are seasons for everything. Sometimes He will call you to narrow your role and other times He will move you to a totally different function or role–often to keep you trusting in Him. When we get in trouble is when you confuse method with mission. God generally calls us to a life mission and the method or role we play can change dramatically. Often we sense our calling is primarily to a certain method or role and we get inflexible and box ourselves, and God, into a presupposition of the same ol’ same ol’.

Example: Phil Vischer used the method of Veggie Tales to accomplish his life mission of reaching people creatively with the hope of God. Veggie Tales came crashing down but he wasn’t devastated or out of the game because he still had his life mission. The method was just going to change.

How open are you to God saying, “You life mission is the same but how you go about it is going to be totally different than how you approached it in the past?” Will you step out or say, “No thanks, God, I like being a cupbearer. It is what I know, I am good at it, and most importantly it is certain and safe for me.” How open are you?

A leader is one who can persuade others to embrace and pursue the leader’s God given purpose and take it as their own (ex. rebuilding the city). As Harry Truman expressed, “It is the the leader’s business to get other people to do what they do not want to initially do and get  them to like doing it.” One is only a leader if one is actually followed, just as if one is a teacher only if someone learns something from him; so to be a leader one has to motivate others. But one must balance that with the danger of becoming a dictator. The way to avoid dictatorship, J.I. Packer says, is to have a deep pastoral commitment to the people you lead. Nehemiah consciously shouldered the people’s well-being, even stopping work on building the walls to help the poor among the workers.

A strong analysis of the strength of Bezos’ apology for how Amazon wrongly deleted books off of people’s Kindles. Everyone in leadership will have to apologize from time to time. This gives great insight on how to do it well.

Another great principle was taught to me by a mentor Dave Guion.

Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Rom 12:15

If someone is wounded or defensive, don’t make all your counter arguments for how you were right and be highly defensive. They will not be listening to you at that point anyway. A perfect example was modeled by Dave:

We were doing an huge student ministry event in the Alamodome featuring headline artist and communicators. Dave and I were charged with running a portion of the event before the show where youth bands got to play on two side stages before the main part of the event started. Friday night went off almost hitch free and we even image magnified the bands onto the jumbotrons. Saturday morning the second group of bands were supposed to play but the major network video switcher guys had been given the main event start and not the youth band start times. So though the bands played, they were not image magnified onto the giant screens. A student’s dad, perhaps not a Christ follower, approached the leadership of the event irrate who passed it onto us and asked us to meet with him. We had never legally promised to video or image magnify any of this and I knew it and Dave knew it.

When we met the dad in the corridor steam was coming out of his ears and his face reddened as he threatened suit. David lived out the mourn with those who mourn principal. He didn’t say, “Sir, those kids last night got lucky that the camera guys happened to be here and were willing to do pre-roll work. Your kid was fortunate enough to get selected so you should be grateful.” Instead, I watched David say, “_____, there is nothing more that I would have liked than for you to have the experience of watching your son on the large screen. I realize you were looking forward to that and we were looking forward to it, too. We tried our hardest to make it happen up to the very last minute, but unfortunately we couldn’t. I want you to know if somehow they were rolling tape, we will do our best to get you a copy of your son’s performance. I don’t know if they were, but I will do everything in my power to make it happen.” The situation was instantly diffused and the guy was saying, “Listen guys, I am sorry I came on so strong. It’s just that I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time and we had friends and relatives come……I appreciate all that you were doing.”

When we try to not be defensive and mourn with those who mourn, the walls come down. The principle works equally well if something was totally your fault.  A short-lesson that David Guion modelled for me so well that I have never forgotten. In fact, God has given the opportunity to practice it several times in the last few weeks….usually because of something that was my fault…ha!

Click here to see if you have bought into the customer base lie instead of community. “More people isn’t necesarrily good or bad unless you are serving bad koolaid, its just more” vs. “everything healthy grows” debate is one that constantly happens in my head if I am completely honest. And you?

Check out some great stories…baptism-transformation-stories-may-2009

We have an online form by which people can submit a baptism story of transformation.
We then edit and read the story right before they get baptized in one of our quarterly Sunday morning Baptism services. We do it IN a service to model for our members (1) the effect of sharing does lead to people accepting Christ and (2) as a testimony to unbelievers and or believers who have not yet obeyed the command to be baptized.

Spoke to the 18-30 year college and career groups in Pennsylvania at an Arabic Christian Conference. Here is what I learned from them.

• Arabs are some of the most loving and social people I have ever met. They had a deep love for one another and I instantly felt a part of the family. Once you are in, you are in!
• They love to do relationship as they stayed up late each night in joyous fellowship.
• Several of them feel disenfranchised by the American Church and its “Israel is always right” belief. I heard stories of women who were in labor in sight of a hospital but stopped at a checkpoint 100 yards away and forced to give labor without medical aid. This saddened me.
• There are Arabs who are passionate Christ followers. I knew this, of course, but it was fascinating to tell a couple of people on the plane flying home where I had been as they said, “I didn’t know any Arabic people were Christians.” This saddened me that they are stereotyped so.
• “Figs are the center of the universe” haha…an inside joke they shared.

Thank you God for giving me the opportunity to be able to meet and minister with this great group of people.

Two unbelievable tools by Puritans Watson (Free) and Brooks ($4 at Monergism, can’t beat that).

We have misunderstood repentance and relegated its use to street corner preachers with megaphones and cardboard signs. As I have read the Puritans on this, I realize this mistaken jettison and how far we have come from a Biblical view of this spiritual action. We tend to live in the shadow of repentance, merely saying, “Yeah, Yeah, I’m sorry God, forgive me,” or living under the mountain of sin because we have for so long put off repentance that we turn to see an Everest that causes us such fear and trepidation that we fail to even to begin to scale it. In the coming days, I’ll be putting up some reflections on these Puritan works as God drops some knowledge and wisdom on me.

Good News. Repentance is not a human effort but a spiritual grace given by God. Acts 5: 31God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

• When is the last time you repented? Is it a daily action?
  
• Do you have any time specifically for repentance built into your acts of worship?

Heading out to speak to a group of  about 200 Arab and Palestinian Christians in their 20-30’s this week. Yes, there is such a thing though many  American Christians who are “United for Israel” often forget we too have brothers and sisters who are Arabic. God loves Israel and He EQUALLY loves Arabs and Palestinians. I remember a service at NorthWood where a Palestinian Pastor came over and Bob washed his feet in front of 2,000 people in our service and the man wept. He had just come from a conference where he was invited to speak where a “love offering” was taken to buy Israel a tank (talk about adulterating that word “love’). Finally in this act of foot washing, he said he didn’t feel disenfranchised by his own brothers and sisters in the West.

I believe every tongue, tribe, and nation are to worship God and the Holy Priesthood, Chosen Nation of the Church should foster this with anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord be they Egyptian, Iraqi, Palestinian or Jew.

Interesting article on how sound scares scrawny people sooner. Maybe if you have a player who consistently plays on top the beat the solution is to buy them french fries and a big steak.

We hosted two Vietnamese artists at NorthWood, Nguyen Minh Son and Lam Duc Manh.  They displayed and sold at NorthWood last Sunday and this weekend then moved to Art in the Square at Southlake Town Center hosted by NorthWood/GVI volunteers. These two guys are good friends now along with our GVI staff who were here from Hanoi to translate. They got great coverage in the Fort Worth Star Telegram which generated a lot of booth traffic. It is great to see how the Kingdom of God runs on the rails of relationships. It is also great to see bridges built in friendship to countries that were formerly enemies. God’s grace is good.

You can read the Star Telegram article here.