Life Here and There

Our church votes on things. I’m not seriously calling for the abolition of voting among churches, just a severe reduction in the practice. I’m a strong believer in the autonomy of the local church, but I’m the first to admit, I don’t like Baptist “business.”

I was once the Pastor of a church in central Arkansas that had battled years of political scheming and the resulting resentment. We once moved an old metal desk out of the auditorium into a side room and I got in huge trouble because the moving of the desk wasn’t voted on! On the basis of this and dozens of other frustrating experiences, here are some reasons I think we should vote not to vote on so much stuff…

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I love being a Pastor. I’m passionate about preaching. I am humbled that God has called me to shepherd a flock of His choosing. And I especially love the fuel that fires me up – the Word of God and what it has to say about whom I am.

One of my favorite passages on the subject is Paul’s gut-wrenching goodbye to the Epehsian elders who met him at the island port city of Miletus. It’s recorded in Acts 20:17-38. I’ve been reading it afresh today and have discovered a pattern of ministry I hadn’t spotted before…

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There’s a really great blog about leadership and ministry written by Scott Williams called Big Is the New Small. I’ve written an article as a guest blogger there that you might be interested in reading:

The Upside of the Downside of Leadership

I recently posted some thoughts about what discipleship looks like and that article was really the product of a recent men’s Bible study at Bethel. Every Tuesday a bunch of men get up and get to church by 6:15 a.m. for a pre-workday Bible study.

We opened the year with an open discussion about the meaning of discipleship and I found it highly encouraging. I wanted to pass along the audio in case you’d missed it, are interested in coming, or just need some inspiration about discipleship and men.

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There was a recent study that suggested that power increases “moral hypocrisy.” That giving a person power makes that person feel entitled and causes a disconnect in their judgment. It also says that those in high-power positions tend to judge morality of others while not practicing what they preach.

As if everyone NOT in power practices what they preach.

Though I don’t agree completely with the study I will say this: character is a necessity in leadership.

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There are at least two significant ways I’ve changed my approach to my weekly schedule (the second of which I’ll write about very soon). One of those major shifts is that I now purposely cram things together in my week.

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I love church planters and I love cutting edge, innovative ministry. I’m encouraged by the growth of a kind of Christianity that calls us back to the New Testament model of worship and ministry as we head into the turbulent waters of this next decade. But I’m concerned with what I perceive sometimes to be youthful arrogance, and this concern includes myself.

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John R. Rice often described biblical theology as “profundity wrapped in simplicity.” This is one of those truths that is both deeply profound, and wonderfully simple. If you want friends… (wait for it) be friendly!

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My father-in-law has often said that “an excuse is just a lie stuffed in the skin of a reason.” That’s a good definition. I have a tendency to make excuses sometimes, and I’m guessing you struggle with it sometimes yourself.

For those in leadership, we tend to be especially good at making excuses for why we can’t go to the next level, take the next step, or seize the next opportunity.

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Last year we bought a Nintento Wii and then later, a Wii Fit thingie designed to utterly humiliate me! It sighs when I step on the scale, mocks me for not showing up in xx# of days, and loves to point out how many Yoga moves I can’t do because… I’m inflexible!

But in leadership, I’m quite the opposite. I love and respond to flexibility. What I mean by that is, I love the freedom of trying things and failing, and knowing that failure is ultimately okay. I remember Rick Warren once saying that for everything Saddleback Church had succeeded in doing, there were twenty experiments at which they had failed.

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