Wisdom

Wisdom is the ability to see life events from God's perspective, and the skill to act accordingly.

It is very important for us to be looking for God in every situation we face in our church planting experience. We ascribe meaning to every significant event of our day. The meaning we ascribe determines how we feel about the event and how we respond to the event. If we can begin to see God's hand in our daily and weekly activities we will be able to maintain the focus that we need to press ahead toward our vision.

The problem each of us faces is that we see life through a filter. This filter has been created by our past experiences and interpretations of those experiences. We can easily miss God when we see current challenges through filters of past disappointments which shaped false beliefs about ourselves and God.

God is at work. Keep your eyes open for Him. Learn to see every event from His perspective. He has purposes in every thing we are going through. Don't miss Him!

Unexpected Events in Church Planting

It has been many years now, but just prior to my first church plant, my father came to know the Lord. To be honest, this was an incredible answer to years and years of prayer. It was a tremendous blessing to be launching my new church and to be able to talk about it with my new Christian father. There were so many blessings surrounding that experience that I can't begin to describe them here.

It was after the launch of my church, but during the first year, that my father discovered he had cancer, and soon died. It was a tremendous gift from God to get to have conversations and connections with Dad on a spiritual level that year. However, he had only been a Christian for a few years before his death. It seemed so premature, in some ways unfair. But God is always just and faithful.

A few months before his passing, my dad confided in me that he struggled with tremendous guilt over the life that he lived prior to coming to faith. As we reach adults with the gospel we discover that this is not uncommon. The scripture that the Holy Spirit led me to and that we read together was Psalm 103:8-13. You may find this helpful for yourself and for those new believers you are discipling:

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.

These words gave my father hope and peace as he faced eternity. They give me that same hope and peace today. Church planting brings many surprises and unexpected events. I hope we can learn to see God's hand in every part of it, and that we can give this kind of hope and peace to a vast world that does not yet know our compassionate Heavenly Father.

Overcome Fear; Accomplish Something Extraordinary

“The history of the human race is the history of ordinary people who have overcome their fears and accomplished extraordinary things.”-Brian Tracy

Are you worrying or experiencing fear on a regular basis? Don’t forget that 95% of fears never materialize. Here is a thought for applying FEAR as an acronym:

False Expectations Appearing Real.

Worrying accomplishes absolutely nothing! In any situation, just face the worst case scenario, accept it, and then improve upon it. Don’t let this limiting emotion called fear hold you back!


Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Phil 4:6-7

Looking for the Kingdom

Jim Peterson and Mike Shamy in their excellent book The Insider, state:

God is at work, creating....He is creating a people, an eternal people! He is gathering them out of every nation and from every generation - to present them to his Son as "a bride beautifully dressed for her husband." What an astonishing metaphor for an even more astonishing work! ... If that is what God is doing, if in these days he is creating such a people, should we not expect to see signs of this activity all around us every day? ... We need to train our eyes to see the kingdom of God.

I couldn't agree more! I have spent a lot of my recent years training churches and church planters how to analyze (exegete) their culture. We need to know the community and the people we're trying to reach. But we must also learn to look for evidence of God's kingdom in our midst.

I believe that Jesus wants us to be instruments of His kingdom. He taught us to pray "Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." I believe that He specifically wants us to look for evidence of His kingdom as well as be channels of His kingdom. As we pray and do the works that Jesus did we will become channels, and the end result will be that there is an increasing evidence of His kingdom on earth.

How will we know? The answer is "His will is being done," in the lives of individuals and in the community. Are you a part of His creative activity? He is redeeming individuals and transforming communities. Let's be looking for the kingdom. It is manifest now in part, and we are His channels. But one day, He will return and it will be evident in full!

Agents of the Kingdom

Acts 1:3 tells us how Jesus prepared His disciples to start the very first church. It says that he schooled them for 40 days on the Kingdom of God. That's right. Jesus knew that if His disciples could capture His heart and vision for the Kingdom, once empowered by the Holy Spirit, they would turn the world upside down (Acts 17:6).

It has been my growing conviction that Western churches, for the most part, have not been having the kind of transformational impact on society that they could (and should) have. I believe that this is due (in large part) to our lack of understanding about the Kingdom of God.

As believers and as churches we are agents of the Kingdom. To be "missional" is to understand and act on our Kingdom calling. It would be good for everyone of us to spend 40 days really "schooling" ourselves on the Kingdom of God. Sources I would recommend to help us gain fresh insight into the Scriptures are Ladd, Bright, Tolstoy, Glasser, and Willard.

Over the past few years our teams have interviewed many non-churched people in cities where we have been supporting church planting. What we have found is that the non-churched population (for the most part) do not see the church adding any value to society. They often view the church as a "taker" rather than a "giver" to the city. For the most part we are not viewed as "salt" and "light." Rather we are a non-factor or worse, a nuisance.

I want to encourage every new church to see themselves as agents of the Kingdom, bringing blessing and hope to the city! (Jeremiah 29)

Are We Making Disciples?

I love working with church planters and seeing new missional initiatives started! However, I continue to be concerned about the quality of disciples we are making.

Barna has been challenging us for years to address this. The most recent Reveal research has challenged the assumption that participation in church programs result in spiritual maturity. Our standard methods for making disciples do not seem to produce the results we want - nothing near what Jesus calls us to! My fear is that our new churches often replicate the same methods.

Our mission is to make disciples. But what does a disciple look like in Western culture (our context)? Jesus calls us to radical obedience. He really does intend for us to live the way he lived. He said "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father." (Jn 14:12)

I hope that every church planting leader will give serious thought to this! You have the opportunity to do something new and different. You have the opportunity to create a system that will produce missional disciples. Think it through carefully and measure your results. Be ruthless about this! If you need help, get a coach. Don't take this lightly - this IS our mission!

The Global Warming Myth

A few years ago when the Global Warming scare was just picking up steam I read an article by a professor at Texas A&M University that directly challenged this idea. I was stunned when I read the article because I had already "drank the koolaid" and begun to believe all the media hype about global warming. After that I began to examine this a little more carefully.

Having been a pilot now for 35 years I am accustomed to talking personally with flight briefers and meterologists - sometimes several times a week. Every meterologist I've approached the subject with has questioned the reality of global warming. Recently I have discovered that there are many highly accomplished and recognized meterologists who serously question global warming. Most recently I've discovered that even meterologist John Coleman, the founder of the Weather Channel, is adamantly challenging this current thinking.

Why is this conversation important to church planters? Because most of the church planters I talk to have also "drank the koolaid." Recently I read two different books related to the subject of discipleship that were propogating the scare! Politicians speak of global warming as if it is a foregone conclusion. Many pastors are doing the same. (There is even a bill in congress this week calling for a "Global Warming Tax.")

Please don't misunderstand me and start throwing stones - I believe very strongly that we are called to be stewards of creation and that we will answer to God for how we steward planet earth. I would just like to encourage everyone to THINK, and to not just buy the media hype and the PC wave. Our stewardship responsibility requires it!

A good resource to give you a more balanced perspective is Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor by Dr. Roy Spencer. Dr. Spencer serves as the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) flying on NASA's Aqua satellite. He is also the co-developer of the original satellite method for precise monitoring of global temperatures from Earth-orbiting satellites.

However, please know that he is just one of many scientists who are calling for a more honest debate on this subject. As Christian leaders, let's be informed and thoughtful about this subject! Let's lead our society in honest, critical, right thinking.