Every so often I have to stop and take stock of my spiritual development. I have to ask myself the hard question, “How have I grown spiritually?” If we don’t examine our growth every once in a while, we may find ourselves loosing ground and not even knowing it. Am I becoming more like Jesus? Or more like my old self? It is always easier to see the faults and short comings in others but we are slow to look in the mirror. God help all of us to stop, take stock, ask the hard questions, and make the necessary adjustments so that we can be more like Jesus.
Failure is not an option…
By klyphmac On December 4th, 2008 in Church Growth, Church Life, Growth, Leadership, Life, Personal Stories /
…It is a necesity!
Sadly we think that failure is not an option, when it is really a necessity. If we are afraid to fail we will be afraid to even try new things. Life, ministry, almost everything involves a level of risk, taking a chance, getting out there in the scary places. It has been said, “if we aren’t failing, we aren’t trying.” That is all too true. I think many times we fail our way to success.
I’ve made many blunder as a public speaker. When I was first starting out I was scared of looking bad, until that fateful day that I got up to preach and said everything I had to in 2 minutes and then paced back and forth saying “praise God, Amen, Glory to God” for the next 20 minutes. CRASH AND BURN BABY!!!! I am at the point now that I have embarrassed myself enough times to try anything when I am speaking. This has freed me to be more creative and more bold. It took a lot of failures, really bad messages, and vocal gaffs to get to this point. I’ve failed my way to a level of success as a communicator.
We have taken stabs at different events that didn’t work. Classes that didn’t work. Programs that didn’t work. As a result we have a better handle on what does work in our local context. I call that a win. As John Maxwell says “we have been failing forward.” In the last 6 year as the lead pastor @ Lighthouse I have had many miss steps but each one has become a stepping stone to greater growth ad success for the church.
How about you? Have you been failing forward? Or do you feel that failure is not an option and you won’t even try until your sure you will get it right?
This was a very interesting post that Tony Morgan form Newspring Church posted on his blog.
Differences Between Big and Small Churches?
Sep212008 Filed under: Other Stuff Author: tony
Baylor University released a survey last week that summarized research on spiritual issues in the U.S. The results may surprise you. Among other things, they researched big churches and found some interesting results.
“Their members are also younger, they share their faith more with strangers, and they perform more volunteer work than do members of small churches”
“There are many critics who think the megachurches thrive on people who enjoy dramatic Sunday services with fine music but don’t wish to become very ‘religious’ on a day-to-day basis – that the megachurch appeal is a mile wide and an inch deep,” said “What Americans Really Believe,” a companion book to the survey.
“But it is not true. Those who belong to megachurches display as high a level of personal commitment as do those who attend small congregations.”
Rodney Stark, the co-director of Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, added, “Apparently they are preaching Jesus and that’s why they get so big.”
Check out the rest of the Washington Times article. There are other spiritual topics that the survey addressed that certainly deserve attention.
Ok here is the final installment of this set of posts. As a member/partner we agree to
1-Protect the Unity of Lihthouse
2-Share the Responsibility of Lighthouse
3-Serve the Ministry of Lighthouse
and 4th and finally I will Support the Testimony of Lighthouse Assembly this is done by:
- attending faithfully
- living a Godly life
- by giving regularly
Supporting the church is more than lip service.
You cannot protect the unity, share the responsiblity, or serve the ministry if you do not attend regularly! You have to be here to be a part of what is going on!
If you fail to live a Godly life you undermine your credibility to protect unity, share the responsibility, & serve the ministry! If you fail to live right it does not matter what you do!
By giving regularly you are saving I am part of this family and I help to pay the bills. We do our very best to keep our monthly expenses down and direct as much money toward ministry as possible. If our partners fail to give we are limited in what we are able to do. God provides for Lighthouse by providing for you. Every member/partner must Support the Testimony by supporting the church financially.
Being a member/partner of Lighthouse is not a causal thing, it is not spectator sport, it is a team effort, and as “each part does its own special work, the body become healthy, growing and full of love” (Eph 4:16)
God has been doing great things in our church because of members/partners like you. Remain faithful and let’s take more ground for the Kingdom of God!
Yesterday we talked about the first part of what it means to be a member/partner of Lighthouse Assembly and today we are looking at part 2:
2. I will share the RESPONSIBILITYof my church
- By praying for its growth
- By inviting the unchurched to attend
- By warmly welcoming those who visit
In every healthy family each member has a role and responsibility, the church is no different. As members of this family we all share in the responisiblity of church.
So what are we as members responsible to do?
-Each member should pray daily for the church that it will be “healthy and growing and full of love” (Ephesians 4:16)
-Each member should be investing their lives in their friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc and when the Lord open the door INVITE them to attend Lighthouse.
***Side note: IF you are a member/partner of Lighthouse that means the church has made a difference in your life and you agree with what we are trying to accomplish for the glory of God. If that is the case you should want others to experience the life change that you have expereinced in Jesus Christ. So if Lighthouse is where you are growing and being feed you should want others to expereince it as well. IF not why are you a member of Lighthouse? Fare question!
-Each member should warm and welcoming to ALL who visit!!! You never know will walk through the door on any given Sunday, this may be their first time in church EVER or it may be the LAST TIME they will ever come back to any church. How we treat people really matters! We need to be warm and welcoming of everyone who walks through our doors. See them as Jesus sees them.
The responsibility of every member is to pray for health and growth, invite people, and be warm & welcoming to all who attend.
Are you doing your part?
Here are some great thoughts from Perry Noble of Newsprings Church in Anderson SC. He was able to spend sometime this past week with Rick Warren and some other ministry leaders and these are some of Perry’s reflections coming out of these meetings.
#1 – A vision has to be primarily about passion and not programming.
#2 – People get passionate about something that changes their life. In order for people to become passionate about church–life change MUST be taking place there.
#3 – It is awesome to be a part of something that is so big that it will fail unless God shows up.
#4 – The church was AND IS God’s idea for reaching the world.
#5 – We MUST believe that God wants to do a great thing in our church!
#6 – It does not take “professionals” to do ministry; in fact, every revival/reformation that has ever happened took place FIRST among the peasants and “common folk” and NOT the religious elite!
#7 – Big vision must always be accompanied by small strategy–step by step is how a long journey happens.
#8 – The church has been called to shake the world.
#9 – The church doesn’t need to move ahead–we need to go back 2000 years to the first 300 years of our existence and focus on being a
movement and NOT a monument!
#10 – Rick said that Billy Graham once told him in regards to responding to critics, “Rick, when you wrestle with a pig both of you get dirty but only one of you will enjoy it!”
Those of you that are part of the Lighthouse Team, tell me you thoughts. How do these reflections challenge you? Where are we weak? Where are we strong?
If you are anything like me you love books. I love them, have to buy them and then try to get through them all. My office is loaded with them, in fact most people make the comment “Wow, you have a lot of books” whenever they walk in for the first time. I think I have a problem, I have 6-8 books going at any one time, it is really sad. I can’t walk into Barnes and Noble and not buy a book. This is very ironic because I never used to read, and now I can’t stop myself.
Anyway my problem is to many books not enough time. And what happen a lot times is I buy a book that looks like it will contain tons of great info only to find it full of fluff. Well I came across an amazing resource, www.summary.com . For $120 a year they will send you 30 book summaries in audio and print formats. The books are more on the business side, so if you want to read books on leadership, management, marketing, etc this will save you time and money. Each audio summary is about 20 minutes and can be downloaded as an MP3. Plus you get access to previous summaries that you can pick up for a few bucks.
I love this service, some of this years titles are John Maxwell’s 360 Leader; Good to Great, Purple Cow, The Art of The Start. So If you want to save time and money check it out. As a very satisfied customer I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this service.
They have a free sample available, The 8th Habit by Covey, so check it out and see if it works for you. Let me know if you try it and like it.
I am a music lover, and I am very band loyal. If I’m into a band I buy up everything they have done, I’m just that way. One band that I have been a fan of for a long time is Switchfoot. I love their sound, I love their style, I love their message, and I love their authenticity. I have had the chance to see them in concert half a dozen different times, when they were an unknown opening act, when they were breaking out in the Christian music world, and just as they were breaking out on secular radio. I have had the privilege to meet them a few times along the way and the one thing that struck me was their honesty and authenticity.
The have a song titled “Learning To Breathe” and as you can see that is also the title of the is blog. It is a great song, if you have never heard it get it of I-Tunes or pick it up where ever you buy music. The Chorus of the song goes:
“I’m learning to breathe
I’m learning to crawl
I’m finding that You and
You alone can break my fall
I’m living again, awake and alive
I’m dying to breathe in these abundant skies”
Breathing is something that is supposed to come naturally, but Spiritually speaking we fight God, we resist His grace and mercy, we resist His hands that try to lift our burdens, we resist the air that He provides. We so often try do it all in our own strength and we find ourselves face down. So I confess to you that I am still learning to breathe, learning to crawl, still finding that Christ alone can break my fall, finding that only in Him am I awake and alive, I am desperate to breathe in the air of His abundant grace, mercy, comfort, wisdom, and strength.
What should come so nature still takes work. Fighting the battle to overcome own selfishness and stupidity, fighting to overcome the sinful nature, but I’m not giving up and I hope that you won’t give up either. I hope you’ll visit the blog again and again and learn to breathe with me as I share my struggles, my thoughts, my growing pains, etc. My hope is that we will learn to depend on Christ and in turn breathe naturally, but until then we’re LEARNING TO BREATHE.
