Over the last few months, I’ve marked a number of tweets as “favorites.” Periodically, I’ll blog some of my favorite favorites—statements that inspire and challenge me—starting with these (copied-and-pasted here in their original format) …
A Twitter stream featuring quotes from my favorite devotional writer, Oswald Chambers …
Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led.
Never allow a feeling that was awakened in you on the mountaintop to evaporate.
One of the main reasons I went all out in the Health Flex HealthMiles Challenge was simply to see what I could do and to put myself to the (physical and mental) test. Going all out every day required me to push through some challenges along the way, including …
Getting up 29 mornings between 5:00 and 6:00 and walking 10,000 in about 75 minutes (more or less).
Staying on track every day by constantly monitoring my progress and making sure I was on target. It was at least as much of a mental test as a physical one.
Working through occasional pain.
Four days devoted to the trip to Washington D.C, including at least 6 hours total travel time on Sunday and Wednesday as well as several hours of sitting Monday through Wednesday morning.
Life is like that. There will always be obstacles and challenges. We need determination to stick it out. It’s a discipline. We need to develop the discipline of determination, the ability to stick to it.
It’s wise to practice determination in the smaller things so that when we encounter the bigger things, we’ll have the determination to stick it out and to keep moving forward!
Question: Where do you need to develop the discipline of determination?
One of the statements that has shaped me the most came out of one of the three required courses, “Theology of Ministry,” taught by Dr. Stephen Seamands (author of Wounds That Heal, among others).
I have entered into the ministry of Jesus, to the Father, through the Holy Spirit, on behalf of the world.
It’s a great statement. It’s both humbling — it’s God’s ministry, ultimately — and motivating. It’s been a great reminder over the course of the last six years!
(Incidentally, I think the fact that this statement is so memorable/impacting, speaks to the importance of “sticky statements”; see One-Point Preaching for more on sticky statements.)
Picking up where we left off five months ago (due to parental leaves), our Covenant Groups resumed last night (see Simple Church 1.0).
Our Covenant Groups (a requirement of our ordination process) are discussing Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger’s book, Simple Church. Since we had only read chapter one for our September 2009 meeting, we basically started over and covered the first two chapters this time. At this rate, we should be able to get through the book by the time we’re ordained! We meet every other month until ordination in June 2011.
The premise of the book (which grew out of an extensive research project) is that, “simple churches are growing and vibrant” (14).
Here are some quotes from the first two chapters that stand out to me …
To have a simple church, leaders must ensure that everything their church does fits together to produce life change. They must design a simple process that pulls everything together, a simple process that moves people toward spiritual maturity. (26)
To have a simple church, you must design a simple discipleship process. This process must be clear. It must move people toward maturity. It must be integrated fully into your church, and you must get rid of the clutter around it. (26)
Chapter two presents case studies of two different churches — a simple church and a complicated church. As expected, the simple church was the growing church. We’re reading chapter three for our next meeting (in April), but because this book has huge implications for our current work work with Five Practices, especially Intentional Faith Development, I’m reading ahead — and there’s lots of good stuff, which I’ll write about later.
A few sections of the book can be read online at Google Books.
New Year’s is one of my favorite times of the year, and the week between Christmas and New Year’s — the last week of the calendar year — tends to be a time of reflection (looking back) and refocusing (looking ahead).
And the fact that it’s our first week back after family leaves, makes it even more of an important time for reflecting and refocusing.
When I do the work of reflecting and refocusing, I begin with Scripture. As it relates to leadership/ministry, two passage always come to mind …
Acts 6.1-7 — Early church leaders had reached a point where they were being distracted from their primary task. As they refocused their leadership, they recommitted themselves to prayer and teaching the Word.
Ephesians 4.11-13 — The Apostle Paul states that the purpose of church leaders is to equip people to do God’s work.
Ultimately, the primary task of pastors and church leaders is transformation. As United Methodists, we’ve said that that’s our mission as a church, too:
The mission of The United Methodist Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world!
If the mission of the church is transformation, it makes sense that the leaders’ primary task is to equip the church for the work of transformation.
But it’s easy for us — the church and its leaders — to get distracted, isn’t it? Problem is, the things that distract us are often good things. In Acts 6, it was a food distribution program. Yes, the food distribution program needed to continue, but fortunately for the church, they found a better way.
Today, similar good things can also distract church leaders from their primary task. While these ministries must continue and even grow, we too must find a better way. Incidentally, the food distribution program grew when church leaders handed the ministry off to capable people who could more fully devote their time and attention to the ministry. There’s an important lesson here!
One of the areas I am refocusing on this week (something that I’ve been wanting to refocus on for a while) is preaching, or more specifically, sermon preparation. Since preaching (teaching, equipping) is part of my primary task, and because it’s easy to get distracted by the “tyranny of the urgent,” preparation is something that constantly needs attention and focus.
I’ll try to write more about this later in the week as I continue to reflect, refocus, and put into practice what I’m thinking.
As we’ve written about before recently, we’re enjoying involving our kids (mainly Ethan, at this point) in our mission giving. We usually do some extra giving at the end of the year and one of our favorite year-end projects is Heifer.
To work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth.
Using Heifer’s online catalog, you can give the gift of various animals, from a flock of chicks or ducks ($20), to a goat ($120), or even a heifer ($500). You can also give a share of an animal if you choose to give less than the full amount.
Today, I connected my laptop to the TV and Ethan (wearing his backpack, at the time) helped us choose some gifts.
In the days and weeks leading up to our first trip to Korea — and to becoming parents — we wrote about the kind of culture we wanted to create in our home and family life. Part of that included Shaping a Servant Culture.
To help our children become servants and givers, we want to let them share in opportunities of blessing others. And one of the ways we like to do that is Operation Christmas Child, an annual outreach of Samaritan’s Purse. Last year was Ethan’s first year to participate in Operation Christmas Child. This year, Sarah got to watch. Next year, she’ll be ready to jump in, as well.
A nice new development this year is the ability to track where your shoe boxes go. By making an online donation (to cover the $7/box shipping cost) through EZ Give, you get a label with a bar code, which is used to track the destination of your shoe boxes. The traditional method is to include your donation with your shoe box.
Well, we would be interested in hearing how you have involved — or are involving — your children in mission and/or giving in the comments below.
Several years ago, the “Herding Cats” commercial (for EDS) caught my attention as a great description of leadership. The one-minute commercal is jam-packed with language and imagery about leadership and mission.
Here’s the commercial, with the complete transcript below.
Transcript:
This man right here is my great grandfather. He’s the first cat herder in our family.
Herdin’ cats … don’t let anybody tell you it’s easy.
Anybody can herd cattle. Holdin’ together ten thousand half-wild shorthairs, well, that’s another thing altogether.
Being a cat herder is probably about the toughest thing I think I’ve ever done.
I got this one this morning, right here. And if you look at his face … it’s just ripped to shreds, you know?
You see the movies, you hear the stories. It’s … I’m livin’ a dream. … Not everyone can do what we do.
I wouldn’t do nothin’ else.
It ain’t an easy job. But when you bring a herd into town, and you ain’t lost a one of ‘em, ain’t a feelin’ like it in the world.
I haven’t thought about this commercial in a while, but I remembered it the morning before our recent covenant group meeting. We showed the commercial to open out group meeting. In the context of Simple Church, it communicates that while the mission is simple (that is, it’s known, “bringing a herd into town”), it’s NOT easy.
But it’s worth it. There “ain’t a feelin’ like it in the world!”
Tennent writes (emphasis and paragraph breaks added for readability) …
Jerusalem and Athens are symbolic of one of the key shifts in theological education today. Like Tertullian, many of us would prefer to proclaim the gospel – symbolically speaking – from the security and stability of the Temple Mount of Jerusalem. Many of us yearn for a time to return to when God’s word was more-widely acknowledged and respected. We remember a day when our culture enjoyed far greater stability.
However, most all of us realize that we can no longer prepare ministers with this as our primary paradigm. Instead, we are called to be faithful to the gospel in the midst of the raucous, pluralistic, experimental, skeptical environment of “Mars Hill of Athens.” The Apostle Paul proclaimed the gospel not from the Temple Mount of Jerusalem, but from Mars Hill of Athens.
Traditionally, seminary education prepared men and women to occupy places of cultural and religious stability. Graduates were sent to communities where a large percentage of the people either attended church or gave assent to the broad contours of the Christian world-view. Many of the ethical parameters of the Judeo-Christian world-view were widely embraced.
Today, this kind of Christendom arrangement has collapsed. We are no longer in Jerusalem. We are in Athens. We are no longer on the Temple Mount, but on Mars Hill. This means that we must prepare men and women for a different kind of engagement in the Western World.
Our society represents a more profoundly-missional context than anything we have previously imagined. Seminaries which have specialized in preparing pastors and teachers need to also prepare evangelists and church planters. We need a more robust theological and missional training for our students than ever before.
Tennent is addressing theological education for pastors, but the point is, our (Western) world has changed before our eyes. We must be prepared to communicate the message of Jesus Christ in a culture that is less receptive than ever. We must be prepared to preach in Athens!
I recently heard that the United States is currently the fifth largest mission field in the world (third in the English speaking world), which is discussed in this article at umc.org.
That’s an incredible statement! People in the U.S. have as much (or more) access to the gospel of Jesus Christ than in other nations and yet there are so many people who are not following Christ.
As I noted last January , the UMC has named starting new churches as a goal in response to this current reality. This effort aims to “equip 1,000 church planters to start 650 new congregations” by 2012. These churches, in turn, would commit to beginning new churches within their first ten years of existence.
I think this is a great goal. Starting new churches is a necessary move. But it’s also important, of course, that established churches get involved in the mission of reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Both strategies are challenging, but both are needed in helping us make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world!
We meet every other month until ordination in June 2011.
