Monday, August 31, 2009

Spiritual Leadership: The REAL Focus of Christ's Church

I apologize for being so silent here lately. It seems that sometimes time gets away from you and some of your passions get put on hold for a while as other important matters need to be taken care of. With that said and done, let's move on to more pressing matters: Spiritual Leadership in the Church and the FOCUS they are supposed to bring.

It is the responsibility of spiritual leaders to keep the REAL focus of the church the MAIN THING. Jesus taught: "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits." Matthew 7:15-16 (NASB95)

Jesus also taught: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always , even to the end of the age." Matt 28:19-20

I was sad to hear recently of a large church that was experiencing some troubled times because giving was reduced a considerable amount "due to the economy". I beg to differ on that item, but let's move on. The pastor led out to cut the budget just as a business would do immediately, and took measures to release some staff members from the church. The issue was that the staff members were all part of the mission efforts the church was involved in. Church planting leaders, chaplains, youth missionary reaching inner city youth, etc. The pastor's reasoning came forth in months after this great staff reduction: he wanted the church to look at building a new sanctuary. Well, know that the budget had been cut, there was room to add more to the building fund, and he wanted to be the pastor to build a grand sanctuary.

I read in the Great Commission above the four verbs: GO, MAKE, BAPTIZE, TEACH!! Yes, a spiritual leader can come in and destroy a congregation as a "wolf in sheeps' clothing." Jesus says we will know them by their fruits. They lead the church to the WRONG FOCUS. These inwardly ravenous wolf gives a resume and dresses nice!! Take a look at their resume and see their background and ask the tough questions. I have heard of pastoral candidates refusing background checks, credit checks, and even saying, "I can't go there for that amount of money...you need to offer me more." Are they really called out and wanting to submit to God's will and lead God's people or do they just need a job? And churches are so desperate to have a spiritual leader, they call him to the church to find out in a few short months, they made a mistake.

GO, MAKE, BAPTIZE, and TEACH is the REAL focus of the Lord's church. Spiritual growth, NOT physical growth. I'm sorry to break this to you all: MAKING and TEACHING is a process of leading someone in spiritual growth....molding and shaping them into the disciple God wants them to be. That is what spiritual leaders are supposed to do: to lead people to God's agenda, not their own. I have to make sure I put this in front of the church constantly to keep the focus. It is like steering a large ship with this great wheel. Currents can take you in a different direction if you are not careful, obstacles will be in your way, and you will get tired of steering. But this Commission is important.....Jesus is calling us to do it...faithfully!!!!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Spiritual Leadership and Personal Breakthrough

Ladies and Gentlemen; as I am continually on a personal spiritual pilgrimage seeking more understanding about God, Jesus and Holy Spirit and my relationship with Him it is without a doubt that God places resources in my path to help me grow. You never know what it might be!! This time, it the book SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP by Richard and Henry Blackaby.

First, I want to tell you that a few years ago I had the opportunity to hear Henry Blackaby speak at Oklahoma Baptist University's chapel service one day. The Holy Spirit is truly with this man as h shared what God was doing and how we, as believers, need to go to where God is at work. As a young Christian many years ago, one of my first mentoring experiences was using the Experiencing God material and it was a huge impact in my life. Then, as I surrendered to ministry, I went through Called and Accountable with some close brothers in Christ and that opened my eyes to how one is called to serve and how one should maintain a close relationship with the Lord always while we lead those in His Church. It squashed many doubts and answered many questions that I had about stepping into ministry according to the Scriptures.

The personal breakthrough this past week was in the area of vision. In the chapter on A Leader's Vision, one of the Blackaby's made the statement: "The world functions by vision. But God does not ask His followers to operate by vision. God's people live by REVELATION. Proverbs 29:18 is one of the most misinterpreted Scriptures in leadership and I have heard and read this many times. The popular translation is, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." (KJV) A more accurate translation in the Hebrew is "Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint." There is a significant difference between revelation and vision.

Vision is something that people produce, revelation is something that people receive. Leaders can dream up a vision, but they cannot discover God's will. God must reveal it. The secular world ignores God's will, so nonbelievers are left with one alternative - to project their own vision. For Christians, God alone sets the agenda."

Brian's thought and small amount of wisdom: Our job as spiritual leaders is to lead God's people towards His will and agenda. That's it!! We are to get believers to realize that following your own vision is not what God wants. He wants us to follow His plan. Why would Jesus say many times to "Follow Me" (Luke 9:23) if that wasn't His plan. So that is what we are to do and the main quality in our lives as spiritual leaders is to lead by EXAMPLE. That is what Christ did, and leaders, that is what we should focus our lives on. Yes, we will stumble at times but only when we take our focus off of Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.

If someone does not want to move to God's agenda, then we acknowledge that the seed has been spread and move on. Not everyone will understand God's revelation and some will even work against it. Partly because they are not converted or may be converted and not fully understanding the Holy Spirit's role in their life. They will be greatly disturbed by NOT following God's will. If they are numb to the disturbance, then they have grieved the work of the Holy Spirit and my friends, the Bible says that this is the unpardonable sin......spoken from the lips of Jesus. Time is short, our lives go by in an instance. We need to quit playing "church" and playing games with God's Word by reading and not living by it.

So, where is your focus??