Book Review: Designed To Lead

There's a new book out that EVERY church leader needs to read. Eric Geiger & Kevin Peck recently released Designed To Lead in the hopes of helping the local church fulfill the incredible potential it has for developing leaders. After all, no other group has a more urgent or permanent mission than the church, but let's face it most churches are not raising up leaders who impact the world for the sake of that incredible mission to make Jesus known.

In Designed To Lead we're reminded not only of the incredible mission we have as believers but also of the necessity to raise up leaders in order to further that mission not just in our church ministries but in our schools, homes, & businesses. The church should be developing & deploying gospel leaders who impact every facet of our world. Geiger & Peck do a great job of outlining what a church who consistently develops & deploys leaders looks like. The crux of the book revolves around the principles of Conviction, Culture, & Constructs. Without all three of these principles in place, a congregation will not develop & deploy leaders for God's glory in the church & in the community. At best leaders will arise accidentally, but the Church is called to be intentional in all that it does.

One final piece I'd like to highlight is for those who shrink back at the idea of the local church being a leadership development machine & feel that it sounds too much like business jargon. At the end of Designed To Lead there is an appendix that reminds us that Jesus' relationship with His disciples was built on Jesus' desire to develop them & deploy them for the advancing of the Gospel & for making disciples. Discipleship & leadership are inextricably linked. Jesus developed disciples/leaders who made more disciples/leaders who made it possible for people like us to hear the Gospel & be changed by it.

Designed To Lead is an essential tool for your church's or ministry's toolbox. Pastors, work through this book with your entire leadership team, both staff & volunteer. Work with your existing leaders to take the principles found in Designed To Lead in order to create a culture of gospel fueled leadership development in your church. Then work together to create a pipeline for identifying, developing, & deploying leaders in your church who will glorify Jesus, advance the Gospel, & make disciples in their homes, their communities, & their church.

Feast or Famine?

“The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for want of His Presence.” -A.W. Tower

This weekend we continued our series "I Am" as one of our deacons shared a message from John 6 as Jesus says, "I am the bread of life..." As we examined the passage & its implications, I thought of this quote. The world is dying in its sin and too many have never heard the message of the Gospel from the Church. At the same time, too many congregations are dying and closing their doors because they've forgotten the message & ministry of the Gospel.

As Jesus invited people to come and feed on the Bread of Life. He not only promised that this Bread would give them life, real spiritual life, but He also showed Himself to be the sustainer of that life. He is the Source & the Sustainer. The Gospel is what bring us to life in Christ, & it's the Gospel that transforms us to live as Christ. But somehow too many of us have forgotten this. So our salvation becomes an event rather than a way of life. The Gospel becomes something that happened to us at a particular moment rather than the very life blood of our existent. And along the way, in a very slow, subtle, unintentional way, we forget the Gospel. As Jesus said in Revelation 2, we forget our first love. As we forget our first love, we also forget to do what we did at first, namely pursue Jesus & pursue the lost. So in the end we not only neglect the Gospel, we end up neglecting the Great Commission.

As a result, the world begins to starve for the knowledge of God because the vehicle for that message of God's loving, gracious pursuit of sinners has been starving for God's presence. When we stop walking in the Gospel, it won't be long before we stop sharing the Gospel. 

"Consistently & Faithfully Following Jesus Means 

Continually & Faithfully Feasting On Jesus."

How are we supposed to feed on Jesus? Let me share a couple of verses to guide us. John 1:17 says that "the Word became flesh & dwelt among us." The eternal, preexistent Word of God, the very Word of creation, the very Word of revelation, put on flesh & lived among us, & His name was Jesus. So again, how do we feed on Jesus? We feed on Jesus by feeding on the Word because He is the Word. Then what? Well, let's consider what Ezekiel 3:1 says. In this verse God commands His prophet to eat the word & then speak the word. Sound familiar? It should. As believers we consume the Bread of Life, Jesus. He gives us life & salvation. As we experience the work of Christ, we're moved to advance that Good News of life, hope, & salvation in Christ. We consume the Word, then we speak the Word so that Jesus is magnified & lives are saved. If we want the world to have knowledge of God & therefore live, we must feast on Christ & His word so that we're moved by the Gospel to advance the Gospel. 

So let me ask you, are you in a season of feast or famine? If you're feasting, is it leading to action? Are you eating the word & speaking the word? If you're in a season of famine, come back to the table. Jesus has invited you to come & dine so that you will never have to hunger or thirst again.

The Friday Five

This week's Friday Five focuses exclusively on things that would be valuable for the Church. I've listed some music & other resources here to encourage & instruct church members & church leaders as they seek to know Christ & make Him known.

1. Music: Grace Alone by The Modern Post. This is a nice little EP from a Seattle based group led by Dustin Kensrue. The songs are great with deep, rich lyrics & a cool, modern sound. They do a great job reworking classic hymns while also offering great original content.
2. Blog: Vanderbloemen Search Group. Vanderbloemen is one of the premier ministry search firms in America. William & his team provide great resources for churches who are looking to fill a staff role as well as actually partnering with the church in the search process. June is Pastor Search Month at Vanderbloemen. The folks at their blog have already loaded the blog with some great posts about the dynamics of a search process. If your church is in a search process, it would be well worth the search team's time to check out the blog. If not, it would be wise to bookmark these posts because eventually, your church will be looking to fill a staff position & these resources & insight will be at your fingertips.
   
3. Book: Reclaiming Glory. This is a new book from John Mark Clifton. John Mark is a church replanting & revitalization specialist with the North American Mission Board. He is working with other church leaders to do something about the alarming rate of church decline & deaths. His new book forces us to wrestle with the question, "What about a dying church brings glory to God?" The answer is obvious: nothing. Therefore, what are we going to do about the thousands of churches at death's door? In the book he shares some great insights gleaned not only from his own, hands on experience, but form the stories of other leaders who are doing the work of replanting & revitalizing churches.
4. Quote: "Men's ideas of the wrath to come may be judged of by the earnestness with which they exhort others to fly from it." J.C. Ryle
5. Follow: NAMB_SBC on Instagram. This gives us a great glimpse into what the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention is doing to further the Gospel through church planting, church revitalization, & equipping believers to live life on mission.

Get The Church Outside The Church

This past Sunday our church did something way out of the norm. We didn't "have church." Instead, we were the church. We intentionally shut down our typical Sunday schedule & programs in order to host a Memorial Day Weekend Block Party. We promoted it throughout our community. We encouraged & equipped our people to invite friends, neighbors, or co-workers through social media & old fashioned invitations. Our goal was to build bridges with our community & sow Gospel seeds in the hearts of our neighbors.

Needless to say, this was probably very uncomfortable for some of our members & attenders. After all, Sunday is when we go to church & worship. However, what we wanted to remind everyone of is the fact that on this Sunday we were going to worship through serving & evangelizing our community. If we say we want to be known for loving our community & being #ForToccoa, shouldn't that be reflected in our schedule, even our Sunday schedule?

This outreach event allowed us to connect with people who wouldn't come to a worship service at 10:45am. In fact, we were able to connect to one young man who literally would have never crossed our path were it not for this event. This young man recently took ownership of a local convenience store. As he drove by our property, he saw everything that was going on at the block party. He grabbed some donuts from his store & came by to drop them off for us as a nice gesture from a new business owner. However, as God would have it, he dropped by just as we were sharing the Gospel. He stayed & listened intently. He then responded to the message by sharing with me that he was raised Hindu but that he really wanted to learn more about who Jesus is & that he thought he needed to come to church to find out. That's where we were able to share with him that our next message series is called "I Am" & it's Jesus talking about Himself, telling us who He is. 

This young man would have most likely never set foot on our property or had a conversation with the pastor were it not for the church's willingness to get outside the church's building. He would have possibly never heard the Gospel & had it stir something in his soul. Churches are often worried about what it will cost to do something really different. Churches should be worried about what it will cost if they don't do something different. Are our comforts, traditions, & conveniences really worth withholding the Gospel from our neighbors? Today is a different day. Many non-believers will no longer just show up in our sanctuaries on Sunday. That means we need to get out of the sanctuary & hit the battlefield. There are souls to save, lives to change, & seeds to sow. 

How can you & your church get outside the church in order to advance the Gospel?

Your Plans Aren't Great Enough

In our current series, "Family Matters", we're heading into the last few messages that focus on parenting. To kick that group of messages off, we looked at the fact that pretty much every parent has hopes, dreams, & plans for their kids, & there's nothing wrong with that. 

However, if we're not careful we'll dream dreams & make plans without including God in the process. As a result, we're in danger of not setting the bar of expectation too high for our kids, but of setting the wrong bar for them altogether. The worst thing we can do for our kids is to teach them to be successful without teaching them to be faithful.

In 1st Samuel 16 we find God sending his prophet Samuel out on a mission to anoint the next king of Israel. Those of us who've spent a few weeks in Sunday School know this is going to be David, yet when Samuel gets to Jesse's house & begins to meet the family, none of the sons are God's man. So Samuel had to ask what had to feel like a weird question, "Do you have any other sons?" Jesse's response tells us a lot about the expectations that Jesse & that ancient culture had placed on David. Jesse's response was pretty much, "Oh yeah, I've got another son, but he's the youngest, & he's just a shepherd." Basically, everyone in David's family & in culture in general would have assumed that David wasn't worth inviting to the party. It turns out, however, that David was the guest of honor for the party. Everybody had plans for David: his dad, his brothers, his culture, but God had plans as well. As parents, we should take note of that. Even though culture had predetermined David's future, God had another plan.

"God's Plans May Not Match Your Plans

    But Are Always Greater Than Your Plans."

Do your plans, hopes, & dreams for your children take God's plans into account? Are your plans broad enough & great enough to include what God might want to do in & through the life of your child? We must teach children that being successful starts with being faithful. Otherwise, they'll pursue being successful at the expense of being faithful. It was that faithful heart of David that God wanted to do great things through. Cultivate that same kind of heart in your kids, & God's plans will dwarf even your greatest hopes & dreams for your child because He will take whatever they do & use it for eternal, kingdom significance.

The Friday Five

This week's Friday Five features leads off with a nod to one of my musical heroes & includes an important read & resource for Christians all over our nation. I hope you enjoy this week's Friday Five.

1. Music: "Hey Jude" by Wilson Pickett. I'm still shocked at how many people don't know about this song. Yes, they know the song; after all, it is a Beatles classic. However, not too long after the Fab Four released it, the legendary soul singer took it on after being encouraged by a long haired hippie guitar player to record it. That long haired hippie was Duane Allman, one of the all time great guitar players. At this time the Allman Brothers Band had not been formed, & Duane was in Muscle Shoals, AL trying to get session work at the legendary Fame Studios. Pickett & Allman's partnership on "Hey Jude" made the song a hit again, & most people recognize Duane's closing guitar solo & the corresponding riff beginning at 2:44 as the beginning of southern rock. 
2. Quote: "We want just enough Jesus to make us acceptable but not enough Jesus to make us fanatical." Bryan Loritts
3. Article/Post: Living On Mission To Reach The Lost. This is a great little article from the North American Mission Board that reminds church members that ALL Christians have a missionary call on their life. In fact, we live in on of the most unreached nations on earth. We just assume otherwise because there are so many church buildings. If we're going to reach our nation, we will have to reach our cities, & if we're going to reach our cities, then we'll have to reach our neighborhoods & workplaces. That means WE are going to have to see ourselves as Great Commission agents & embrace that role so that others see the hope & power of the Gospel in our lives.
4. Podcast: Rainer On Leadership. Them Rainer is the president & CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources. Each week Dr. Rainer provides excellent content not just for pastors but for church members as well. Dr. Rainer often provides great insights for both ministry leaders and church members to consider & gets discussion started through his podcast & blog. It's definitely worth your time.
   
5. Nerd Corner: My friends & family know I'm a guitar junkie. If money were no object, I'd blow a lot of it on guitars. I'm the classic guitar guy who always has one more to add to the collection & "it's the last one I'll ever need..." until of course I see another cool one. With all that said, if you're a guitar junkie too or if you just appreciate fine craftsmanship, follow Gibson Guitars on Instagram. Sure, it may make you wrestle with the temptation to covet, but the price tag on those beauties will usually cure the need pretty quickly.

Adopted By The King

This weekend we began a new series at Zebulon to celebrate Easter. This new series is called "Family Matters," & over the next few weeks we want to talk about things that are important to families because families are important. However, we don't want it to just be a list of tips & techniques to be a better spouse, parent, child, etc. Instead we want to demonstrate how embracing the truth of the Gospel & living the Gospel life will transform every part of your life, including your family.

So we began our series with the issue that matters most to us & our families. Before our families can be all that we want them to be & all that they could be, we first have to be a part of God's family. And the good news of the Gospel is that in Christ we're not only offered the gift of salvation we're also invited to accept the gift of a new identity.

"In Christ, God Doesn't Just Accept Us. He Adopts Us."

Romans 8 is one of the most beautiful chapters in all of Scripture, & in verse 15 Paul tells us that when we accept the truth of the Gospel, not only are we forgiven but we receive what Paul calls "the Spirit of adoption." It means that we are brought into God's family with full rights. It means we become co-heirs with Christ to the Kingdom of God. It means that our old identity is gone. Our old debts...gone. Our old obligations...gone. Instead Paul tells us in verse 12 that we have an obligation, but it's not a slavish obligation. It's an obligation to our Father, & it's an obligation to our family. It means we have a responsibility to be about what our Father would be about, namely loving & reaching the lost & making disciples out of sinners.

In Christ, we've been adopted by the King of the universe. We've been made sons & daughters of the Most High God through the life, death, & resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yes, when we turn to Christ in faith, trusting Him alone to save us, our sins are forgiven, & we are justified before God. However, in addition to that, we also are brought into a new family with all the rights, privileges, & responsibilities that come with it. Now that's Good News.

What Makes A Church Big?

Some people love big churches. Others can't stand them. Those that love big churches point out how a big church can offer more programs & events. Those that don't like the idea of a big church point out how once a church gets to a certain size, you lose that sense of "everybody knows everybody." What if the things we use to define & judge big churches aren't really what makes a church big? What if attendance or number of programs really has very little to do with whether a particular church is really big? What if a church of 100 in attendance were actually a big church? And what if a church of 10,000 in attendance were actually miles away from being a big church? What if it's not just the "big churches" that can have a big impact or a big ministry footprint? What if big has less to do with the size of our congregation & more to do with our vision of the Gospel?

"You Don't Need To Be A Big Church To Have A Big Footprint.

You Just Need To Serve A Big God & Have A Big Vision."

Big as the world defines it, & usually as the Christian sub-culture defines it, is all about numbers. It's about the number of people in attendance & dollars in the bank. However, that's not big. A big church is a church that leaves a big impact wherever it goes for the Gospel. It's a group of people who seize their opportunities to have a Gospel influence at their jobs, in their neighborhoods, & yes, even to the ends of the earth. It's been said that the true measure of a church isn't its seating capacity but its sending capacity, & that truth hasn't changed. A church of 100 that mobilizes those believers to advance the Gospel & make disciples is a bigger church than the one that simply draws 1000 to a service. In Revelation 3, Jesus speaks to a church in the ancient city of Philadelphia who on the surface doesn't look very strong, but they are faithful. As a result, Jesus says He has opened a door for them to be a Gospel influence in the world. They're not "big". They're not impressive, but their faithfulness makes them far more fruitful than a church that may be bigger & more impressive on the surface.

Here's the tension for us church folks though. If you're that church of 100 who is mobilizing people for ministry, you probably won't be a church of 100 for very long. After all you're reaching people with the Gospel & inviting them to connect to God's Church as they learn to follow Jesus. That means we have to hold on to our programs, ministries, structures, methods, & buildings with a loose grip so that those we've reached with the Gospel can come on board & find their place in the Body & in the mission. We're not calling people to follow our church or our way of doing ministry. We're calling them to follow Christ. If our vision & mission can be contained by our methods & our traditions, then our mission is too small. The mission of advancing the Gospel is bigger than all of our churches & all of our models & methods. 

So let's strive to be big churches, but not big by the world's standards. Instead let's pursue big by Scripture's standard. A big church is a faithful church, & a faithful church will be fruitful. What's a faithful church look like. First, according to Revelation 3 it's faithful to Jesus' word. Broadly that means being faithful to Scripture, but more specifically it means being faithful to the Gospel. Secondly, it means not denying Jesus' name. It means standing boldly for Jesus & putting all things aside in order to serve Him, know Him, & make Him known. When we do that our ministry footprint can become bigger than our ministry facilities. When we do that being a big church take on a whole new meaning.

Moving The Immovable

Mission & vision have been big time buzz words among church leaders for years, & in recent years these concepts have trickled down into the language of church members & attenders as well. Mission & vision are the things that help us move people, & we've all heard some pretty good stories about the church being just about immovable. However, it's not just the church. All people tend to want to settle into a comfortable rut. Mission & vision are the things that we hope will create & sustain momentum. Mission & vision are the things that help an organization or ministry know who they are, where they're going, & what they're doing. However, if we're not careful they also can become idols.

When mission & vision statements & strategies & processes become the true trademark of the church, we're in danger of elevating them to a place that's unhealthy, unhelpful, & most importantly unbiblical. Too often we think that we can move our ministries & move our people with mission & vision, but in the church it can be a little more nuanced than that. We can craft incredible vision statements. We can build strategies & processes that if implemented, will undoubtedly lead us where we want to go. But when dealing with the church, there is something else that absolutely cannot be left behind or overlooked. In fact, it has to move our people, our ministries, & us as leaders more than our clever cliches about mission & vision. 

That one thing is the Gospel. When leading a church or ministry, this has to be the foundation, & you can't assume that foundation is there. To start with mission & vision without the solid & consistent backdrop of the Gospel is to put the cart before the horse. Sure, you want to reach the lost & make disciples. Yes, you have an incredible strategy to lead people into greater faith in Jesus. However, if you & those you lead are not first moved by the power of the Gospel, you will experience a powerful truth about ministry leadership.

"No Amount Of Mission & Vision Will Move A People 

Who Are Unmoved By The Gospel."

Lately I've been spending a lot of time looking at Jesus' words to the seven churches in Revelation 2 & 3. So many of them had gone off the tracks in one way or another. For some it was bad doctrine, for others it was the temptation to drift back toward religious pursuit of God rather than resting in the Gospel. In each case, Jesus calls the church to repentance. He doesn't call them to greater organizational alignment. He calls them to remember the Gospel & hold fast to it, & if they do that, they'll be confronted with their need to repent of whatever has gotten them off track. Some of these churches looked pretty good on the outside. They appeared to have it all together. However, they had drifted away from the Gospel, & the key to getting things right wasn't to remind the church of its mission & vision. First, they had to be reminded of & moved again by the life changing message of the Gospel. 

So whether you're leading a thriving, growing ministry, or planting a new church in a difficult area, or taking on a church in need of revival & revitalization, work on casting mission & vision to your congregation, build the process necessary to lead people into greater faithfulness, but first & foremost, preach the Gospel. If we lose sight of the Gospel, the mission begins to fall on deaf ears. If we've forgotten the power of the Gospel in our own life, we will not sense the urgency to experience it fresh & anew as we grow or to invite others to experience it for themselves. Before we will be moved by our mission, we must first be moved by the Gospel.

Complain, Compromise, Or Confront?

Recently our church has been digging into Jesus' words to the seven churches in Revelation 2 & 3. One of the reasons why these passages are so important & so practical right now to the church in America is that these churches were living in the middle of a very hostile culture. Being the church in the 1st century Roman Empire was not easy. Pretty much no matter where you lived in the empire, you & your church were going to be under pressure & would probably face persecution of some kind. As Jesus speaks to these churches, He's talking to them about what they need to do in order to be a faithful effective witness even in the midst of a hostile culture. In America our culture is becoming increasingly hostile to faithful Christianity. This however is a new development for most of us. Until recent years, for the most part the church & the culture agree on some basics of right & wrong, good & evil. There was never total agreement, but in general biblical values, ethics, & principles translated to our culture. Those days are long gone. That's why Revelation 2 & 3 are some of the most relevant passages for the church to look at. In these 2 chapters we run into many of the problems that plague churches & threaten their ability to effectively advance the Gospel & make disciples. However, we also see what needs to happen in order for congregations to right the ship & become faithful witnesses to their world again.

We have so much more in common with the past than we realize. Then, like now, there was the temptation to engage culture in one of two extremes: complain or compromise. The complaining church walls itself off from the world, points their fingers, & complain about how bad the culture is, how hopeless it is. The irony however is that in their pursuit to "remain pure", they've actually walled themselves off from the very people they're called to reach. They've also unintentionally denied the power of the Gospel. After all, to think that anyone is "too lost" for the Gospel denies the Gospel's power. The other extreme is to compromise. The compromising church worries about "being on the right side of history." The compromising church is more focused on cultural tolerance than faithfulness to Christ. Therefore, it becomes easy for that congregation to begin to mix a little bit of our culture's values in with biblical teaching. They may even do all of this in the name of reaching the lost. After all, didn't Jesus hang out with sinners? Yes, He did, but there's a big difference between going where they are & doing what they do. In all of Jesus' encounters with sinners, no one ever accused Him of sin. The worst they could do was try to make him guilty by association. 

Jesus was tolerant of sinners, but not in the way that we define tolerance in 2015. Jesus' tolerance refused to condemn the sinner & instead compassionately confronted the sinner & invited the sinner to follow Him. That's the kind of tolerance the church should exercise today. In Revelation 2 in His words to the church in Thyatira, Jesus makes it clear that He cannot tolerate a church that is more tolerant than He is. We're called to follow His cue. not the world's.

"Culture Doesn't Need A Church Who Complains Or Compromises. 

It Needs A Church Who Courageously & Compassionately
Confronts It With The Gospel."

The church that either sits back & complains about the culture or who compromises to the culture actually robs the culture of the Gospel. Compromise dilutes the power of the Gospel because compromise always leads us away from its transforming power. Complaining does no good at all because it subtly tells the world, "You're too far gone." If the Gospel you believe in is too weak to save the worst sinner you know, it's probably too weak to save you as well. We have a message that has unimaginable power to raise the dead & transform sinners to saints. If you've really experienced the Gospel's power, you know there is no one that God could not save. So we can't afford to turn our church buildings into bunkers where we talk about the good ol' days & complain about the culture, & we can't afford to check Jesus at the door of our churches so that we can be more appealing to the culture. Neither of those approaches requires any faith or courage. It's time for us to be courageous enough to contradict our culture by compassionately confronting it with the hope of the Gospel. We have three paths to choose: complaining, compromising, or compassionately confronting. Which will you choose? Which will your congregation choose?

The Death Of Church-Wide Ministry

There's an issue that many churches face that's reached epidemic proportions. For one reason or another, too many congregations have become islands within their communities. The community has changed, but the church hasn't. Usually that also means the congregation has fallen behind in actually engaging & 

ministering to its immediate community.

Each week members & attenders drive in from other parts of town to worship, study, & serve. Then we drive back to our neighborhoods while the neighborhood around the church becomes increasingly neglected by the church. This almost never happens intentionally. It's usually the result of not knowing what to do as things change & usually change rapidly. However, the end result is a congregation that becomes more & more obsessed with themselves rather than the mission to reach those far from God. That's a recipe for disaster: the community is abandoned by the church & the church slowly begins to die.

"Churches Need To Replace Church-Wide Ministry 

With Community-Wide Ministry."

The only cure for what ails the church that finds itself in this or a similar situation is a radical shift back to mission focus instead of me focus. Everything a local congregation does should seek to serve not just its membership but its neighborhood. Our family ministries shouldn't simply serve our families. They should serve the families of our community. Our student ministries can't just serve our teenagers. They need to engage with & serve the teenagers in our churches' neighborhood. Our benevolence ministries can't simply be about feeding & clothing the less fortunate. They have to be about seeking to feed & clothe the lost with Christ. All of our ministries need to become radically Gospel-saturated. Every penny we spend should have a Gospel focus, whether that be a direct Gospel focused outreach or the clear equipping of the church for Gospel ministry to the congregation's community.

Many churches in America are in desperate need of revitalization. They're sick. Some of them are dying. Many of those struggling churches find themselves in the situation of being in the middle of a neighborhood they aren't serving or reaching. Attendance is declining. Giving is down. So we begin to try to figure out how we can salvage things. Meanwhile, the answer is literally all around the church. Perhaps the reason why our congregations are struggling is because we've abandoned many of our communities. A radical return to the mission is in order. It's time for our congregations to recognize our communities are our mission field. To ignore them is to ignore Jesus' call to His church & to deprive our neighborhoods of the hope found in the Gospel. Let's get rid of church-wide ministry & replace it with community-wide ministry.