Eight Ways to Develop Young Leaders

Monday is for Discussion

Terry Ivy, a friend with a fantastic ministry training church planters via the internet in India, wrote a great post titled What Kind of Leaders are We Creating?  Recently, I have had some opportunity to reflect on both his post and my response to it through some men that I’m mentoring. 

I’m convinced that pride is at the heart of this issue. But it’s not just the pride of the younger guys; its the pride of we older, more seasoned veterans of the Kingdom. I have seen guys dig in their heels and refuse to learn from a brother who they deemed less than them. Both younger guys and older guys are not immune. It’s epidemic in the body of Christ.

How do we prevent it? Maybe this is a start:

1. Be ruthless on our own pride. Kill it at every opportunity.
2. Cultivate listening ears in our own soul. We need to model what we want young leaders to become.
3. Be patient. Young leaders don’t need to be corrected on every stupid decision they make. Sometimes, the only way to learn is to fail first. Be there to pick them up when they fall.
4. Be gentle but firm when the window of humility opens up in their heart.
5. Ask more questions. Let them discover the path.
6. Give them new opportunities or encourage them to new, bold steps after failure. 
7. Let them know we haven’t given up on them and believe that God is going to use them mightily for his glory.
8. Keep pointing them to the cross and the glory of Christ. The cross, the cross, the cross slices through our pride and produces all good things.

If we want to produce better leaders we have to be better leaders and that means walking closer to The Leader, our Master, the one we call Lord and Savior, Redeemer and yes, Friend.

Question:  
Add to my list. How do we conquer the insidious serpent of pride so that the men we lead, young and old, have a model of how to conquer the same serpent for the glory of God and the joy of all?

Marty Schoenleber, Jr. is the founding pastor of one church, the interim pastor of another and the church planting trainer/mentor of over 200 other church planting pastors. He is adjunct professor of Church Planting at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and has taught Preaching at the International School of Theology, and Evangelism at Moody Graduate School of Theology. He is also the Director of the Saint John’s Pastoral Center, a pastoral care and retreat center located in a growing number of Bed and Breakfast houses across the mid-west. His latest book is Picking a President: Or Any Other Elected Official (CrossBooks, [late May 2012]). To enjoy a free subscription to his blog, log-on to www.chosenrebel.wordpress.com, where you can post your comments, view past blogs in our archive and read the latest reflections on church planting, Biblical Expositions and musings about church, culture and spiritual formation. Follow Pastor Marty on twitter @1Chosenrebel4JC.

 

A Challenge to Christians Related to Conservation

Monday Discussion

Water Science Photo Gallery
All of Earth’s Water in a Single Sphere

“This picture shows the size of a sphere that would contain all of Earth’s water in comparison to the size of the Earth. The blue sphere sitting on the United States, reaching from about Salt Lake City, Utah to Topeka, Kansas, has a diameter of about 860 miles (about 1,385 kilometers), with a volume of about 332,500,000 cubic miles (1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers).”

Credit: Illustration by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (©; Howard Perlman, USGS. Data source: Igor Shiklomanov’s chapter “World fresh water resources” in Peter H. Gleick (editor), 1993, Water in Crisis: A Guide to the World’s Fresh Water Resources (Oxford University Press, New York). Source: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/2010/gallery/global-water-volume.html

All the water in the oceans, in every lake, river, stream, all the water in every person, and the water in the atmosphere, even the water in your tomato plants and pets is contained in that blue dot. That’s it. Our lives exist in a precarious balance on this earth that our good God has provided for us.

Question:
What is a disciple’s responsibility related to conservation of resources on the gift God has given?

Marty Schoenleber, Jr. is the founding pastor of one church, the interim pastor of another and the church planting trainer/mentor of over 200 other church planting pastors. He is adjunct professor of Church Planting at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and has taught Preaching at the International School of Theology, and Evangelism at Moody Graduate School of Theology. He is also the Director of the Saint John’s Pastoral Center, a pastoral care and retreat center located in a growing number of Bed and Breakfast houses across the mid-west. His latest book is Picking a President: Or Any Other Elected Official (CrossBooks, [late May 2012]). To enjoy a free subscription to his blog, log-on to www.chosenrebel.wordpress.com, where you can post your comments, view past blogs in our archive and read the latest reflections on church planting, Biblical Expositions and musings about church, culture and spiritual formation. Follow Pastor Marty on twitter @1Chosenrebel4JC.

 

Give three ways house churches might help penetrate our growing post-Christian culture.

Monday is for Discussion

This is a discussion, I started over on LinkedIn. I thought it might be helpful to bring both it and the start of the discussion thread over here to the blog.

Russell Wimberly • House churches will not penetrate anything if they are not evangelistic/missional minded. This is the prevailing problem with house churches. I would dare to say that this is one of the differences between a house church and a glorified bible study.

Marty Schoenleber • Amen. No church that is not engaged in the mission of God to redeem lost people and expand his Kingdom will ever penetrate our culture in any meaningful way.

Tommy McElwrath • What “house” churches open the door for is …

1) an ever increasing focus on community/fellowship

2) allows for a greater in depth discipleship process (that tends to get put on the back burner in larger congregations, this is based on what I have seen in four different churches) and

3) I believe it actually has a great potential for growth because of the intimate proximity and allowance for greater development of relations. I agree completely that If a group is not missional minded, meaning they are not concerned with reaching the lost and glorifying God, then there is not hope, but if they ARE concerned and their focus is on expanding the Kingdom of God, then investing in just one or two individuals would have a great impact.

So there is the beginning thread.

Can you give three ways house churches might help penetrate our growing post-Christian culture?

 

Pastor, Don’t Throw that Benediction Away

Monday is for Discussion

Yesterday, I ended the Lord’s Supper Celebration Week services at Trinity Church in Watseka IL, with a benediction from 2 Corinthians 13:11-12.

“Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss.” (ESV)

Nearly the final words in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, this simple benediction reveals much about the apostle’s heart for the Church. Here’s just a few thoughts:

• 

  Artist: Rembrandt Van Rijn

  Joy—-Paul desires–commands–the people of God to rejoice in the gospel.

• Reconciliation—-Paul exhorts the saints to aim at harmony in relationships within the church.
• Comfort-—Paul’s expectation is that the people of God would be a comfort to one another in the trials of life.
• Agreement—-Paul returns to his reconciliation theme. Agreement,takes work, it doesn’t just happen. We have to work at it with diligence. .
• Live in Peace—-”peaceableness” should be a high priority for the people of God. We follow the Prince of Peace, we have been forgiven and we should be a radically forgiving people.

And there is a huge payoff for living this way, for cultivating this quality of life, for refusing to let petty grievances and disagreements from stealing our joy and keeping us from reaching into one another’s lives with comfort and compassion. When we live this way the promise of God’s word through Paul is “the God of love and peace will be with” us.

The presence of God!

Pastor, don’t throw these benedictions away. Exposit them. Teach them. Use them. Help your people understand them so they can live them. for the glory of Christ.

 

Christians Have Pickled Themselves in the American Dream

Monday is for Discussion

The churches of America are weak, spiritually anemic, prayerless, biblically illiterate, apathetic about personal holiness and unengaged with their neighbors at any meaningful level. Are there exceptions. Of course. But the stark reality is that we are almost irrelevant in effecting change of our culture toward godliness despite our numbers. We need to ask the question, “Why?”

My Take: We have pickled our spirit’s in the American Dream rather than the Kingdom of God. We have immersed our hearts in entertainment rather than the worship of Christ. We have saturated our minds with trivia rather than Scripture. And we have abandoned the pursuit of the lost for a selfish preoccupation with our own comfort and preferences.

Ten Ways American Christians Demonstrate They are More American than Christian

1. They are more likely to live for their security, convenience, and comfort than the sacrifices necessary to take up their cross daily and follow Christ. (See six posts starting here.)
2. Their lives would be more disrupted by taking away their cell phone (or ipod, ipad, or computer) than if you took away their Bible.
3. They more likely prayed more often and more fervently for the demise of Obamacare than they prayed for President Obama himself.
4. Like their non-Christian neighbors, they don’t know the names of their five closest neighbors despite the fact that their Master sent them to reach the lost.
5. They aren’t tormented by sin.
6. They aren’t intoxicated with the greatness of Christ.
7. They are more comfortable pursuing the American Dream then they are in pursuing “a cross-bought and cross-shaped” lifestyle.
8. We live like our most important citizenship is in the United States rather than the Kingdom of Heaven.
9. Our progress toward holiness is impotent compared to the resources available to help us.
10. We spend little time, effort or money clothing the naked, visiting the sick, or those who are in prison. (Matthew 25:36) even though the One we call Lord commanded us to do so. 

Repentance and revival not political action and anger are the only hope for our country. Will you join me in praying for it?

 

Seven Principles of Compassion from Marvin Olasky

Monday Musing

I am busy editing a book today and have no time to write something new. So here is a great article by Marvin Olasky that I found some time ago at Kairos Journal and was waiting for an opportunity to pass on. Today is the day! Enjoy working out your compassionate expression of the gospel in the good works to which He calls you today (see Ephesians 2:10).

Seven Principles of Compassion—Marvin Olasky (1950 – )

Marvin Olasky, professor of journalism at the University of Texas, became well known in Washington when every Republican freshman in the 1994 House of Representatives received a copy of his book, The Tragedy of American Compassion.¹ In this work and in its sequel, Renewing American Compassion, Olasky argued that private citizens do a better job of caring for their neighbors than government programs do. In the following “Pledge to Action,” he described seven principles of effective compassion. This is commonsense guidance too often missing today.

• Principle #1: Affiliation (Connect With Families and Community)
  Today, before creating new antipoverty programs or contributing to a private charity, we too must ask, Does it work through families, neighbors, and religious or community organizations? . . . When homeless shelters simply hand out food, clothing, housing without asking hard questions, they run the risk of enabling an addiction while furthering the alienation at its root.²
• Principle #2: Bonding (Help One-By-One)
  Today, when a boy is growing up without that combination of love and discipline that only a father can provide, a volunteer at a Big Brother program can show him a different model of manhood . . .³
• Principle #3: Categorization (Treat Different Problems Differently)
  The individualized approach of effective compassion recognizes that two persons in exactly the same material circumstances but with different histories, abilities, and values may need different treatment—ranging from material help to new skills to a spiritual challenge and a push. Historically, this approach is one that produced results. Those who were orphaned, elderly, or disabled received aid. Jobless adults who were “able and willing to work” received help in job finding. And “those who prefer to live on alms” and those of “confirmed intemperance” were not entitled to material assistance.⁴
• Principle #4: Discernment (Give Responsibly)
  Today, lack of discernment in helping the poor is rapidly producing an anticompassion backlash, as the better-off, unable to distinguish between the truly needy and freeloaders, have an excuse to give to neither . . . we must help wisely—giving with our heads as well as our hearts.⁵
• Principle #5: Employment (Demand Work)
  Historically, practitioners of effective compassion have recognized simple rules of supply and demand: if individuals are paid not to work, unemployment multiplies, chronic poverty sets in, and generations of young people grow up without seeing work as a natural and essential part of life.⁶
• Principle #6: Freedom (Reduce Barriers to Compassion and Enterprise)
  Regulations designed to protect workers on the job, for example, increasingly make employers reluctant to hire those with drug backgrounds or other indications of potential instability. Small businessmen who desire to be compassionate in their hiring need to be free to take on workers without clean records; they need to be able to do drug testing and to fire workers (without legal or financial repercussions) during an initial trial period if they misbehave.⁷
• Principle #7: God (Reliance on the Creator and His Providence)
  Some people think of poverty fighting like they think of dinner table discussions: it is a violation of etiquette to emphasize the importance of religious beliefs. But the facts leave us no choice: successful antipoverty work, past and present, has allowed the poor to earn authentic self-esteem not by offering easy, feel-good praise, but by pointing them to God.⁸

Footnotes:

1	Marvin Olasky, The Tragedy of American Compassion (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 1992).
2	Marvin Olasky, Renewing American Compassion (New York: The Free Press, 1996), 153-154.
3	Ibid., 155.
4	Ibid., 156.
5	Ibid., 158.
6	Ibid., 159.
7	Ibid., 161.
8	Ibid.

 

“I Can’t Change the World, I’m Amusing Myself to Death”

There was an “intentional withness” to Jesus’ discipleship pattern. He called them to himself that he might send them out to preach. They were going to observe something in him and from him and they were going to be sent out to do similar kinds of things (Cf. Luke 10) The apostle Paul seems to have developed his missionary band in a similar fashion.

For more:  “I Can’t Change the World, I’m Amusing Myself to Death”.

 

Resurrection Day +1

Monday Discussion

We live in the age of the resurrection. We have always lived in the age of the resurrection, but like the disciples who forgot that Jesus said he would rise from the dead, we too quickly forget that 

the fact of …
the knowledge about …
the belief in …

… the resurrection ought to dominate our vision of the world. The resurrection proves that sin and death have been conquered by the Lord of Life. The resurrection proves that our faith in not in vain (1 Cor. 15:12-20). The resurrection proves that Jesus can and will keep every promise he ever made (John 14:1-6). The resurrection proves that Jesus was and therefore is, exactly who he said he was (John 2:13-19) and had the authority to do everything he did. 

The things that he would have us be urgent about–seeking the lost (Luke 19:10; John 20:21; Luke 10:2), feeding his sheep (John 21:15-19), serving one another (John 13:12-19), loving each other (13:31-35).

Living passionately for and like Jesus is how the fact of the resurrection ought to shape our lives and vision everyday. Let’s live that way for the glory of our king and joy of all people.  

 

Transforming the Arts for the Glory of God

Monday Discussion

Yesterday was the beginning of the last week of the life of the Savior before he laid down his life as a sacrifice for sin and rose three days later to announce to the world that sin and death had been conquered. It is a a great time to remember the wonder of the gospel but also to reflect on the influences that are robbing the culture of the gospel message. The following three paragraphs are from a ministry that specializes in trying to reach Hollywood.

“The PEW RESEARCH CENTER’S FORUM on Religion and Public Life polled registrants for the Third Lausanne Congress to gain their perceptions of the most significant threats to the future of the evangelical movement. The top four perceived threats cited were the influence of secularism (71%), the influence of consumerism (67%), sex and violence in pop culture (59%), and the influence of Islam (47%).

Stunning by its absence on the list was the influence of media. Media influence is clearly behind the increase of secularism, the rise of consumerism, and the prevalence of sex and violence in pop culture–but these are more symptoms than causes. The often-invisible engine behind them is the body of people who control and program the media. It is the world view, values, and agendas of this relatively small group of media gatekeepers that create three of the top four biggest threats to the future of the Gospel and its carriers.

Unless the Church strikes at the heart of the problem by building bridges of love and trust with these gatekeepers to share the Good News, nothing will change. Changed lives equal changed content.”
[Source: Master Media. The Mediator, Spring 2012]

Question: 

What are some ways that we can encourage our best and brightest young minds to make the transformation of Hollywood and the Arts for the glory of God, their life’s work?

 

Every Church Needs to Change: how to get there from here

Whether Ninety or One Year Old, Every Church Needs to Change

I’ve been thinking of writing this post since last Thursday. It occurred to me on Saturday, that with the exception of #8, all of these would apply to any church, of any size, and any age. Even #8 could apply to younger churches.

The discussion was prompted by a seminar participant at a recent Dynamic Church Planting International training in Wisconsin. A pastor of a 90 year-old-church set in patterns of thinking and methodology that weighed it down from effective ministry, but the task to change the paradigm seemed enormous. “How do you help a 90 year old church make the transition from maintenance to multiplication?”

It was a great question and a significant discussion ensued.

Here’s the summary of that discussion in a bulleted list with some added commentary by yours truly.

1. Pray. (Every solution starts with prayer)
2. Teach. (“You teach your way out of every problem.” –Rick Warren)
3. Find “Claude.” (This one is based on an old John Maxwell story. Find the men and women who are the opinion moderators in the church. Love them. Respect them. Hear them.)
4. Facing Resistance? Back people into the word of God. (Move from personal decisions to biblical decisions.)
5. Be patient. (Old paradigms don’t die easily. Give it time. We tend to overestimate what we can do on a year, but underestimate what we can do in five.)
6. Don’t denigrate, celebrate. (Be careful to not denigrate the past. Sometimes, without any intentionality, what we communicate when we suggest change is that the old way was bad, or unbiblical, or stupid, or short sighted, or … That’s not what we mean to communicate but that is the perception. Combat this perception by celebrating the past victories and then do number 7 …)
7. Challenge the church to move from glory to glory.  (With patience [#5 above], build a vision of moving from the glory of the past accomplishments of the churches to a future of new accomplishments and glories for Christ.)
8. Challenge the church to “Be a Sarah.” (Challenge them, like Abraham’s Sarah, to give birth to new churches, new ministries with the new opportunities of a new generation.)