Our life of faith and discipleship is about more than just a personal and private faith. Jesus is not satisfied with being Lord of our individual lives. He also wants to be Lord of us. As we seek to give Jesus increasing lordship of our lives, we discover this cannot be fully realized until Jesus is Lord of how we live life with one another.
The scandal of declaring Jesus as Lord is not a confession that there is only one god. Rather, it is the confession that in light of all possible gods, saviors, or lords of our life and informers of our identity, we choose Jesus and Jesus alone.
“We engage not only with ideas and propositions, but principally through dialogue with people in the context of relationships. As those who participate in the ministry of reconciliation, we are always speaking with someone whom God loves, not at them.”
I work with a lot of churches, church networks, and denominations. The vantage point of this is the opportunity to see trends and the movement of the spirit of God in the body of Christ at large. On the whole, this vantage point is overwhelmingly encouraging, with the occasional point of discouragement. One point of…
In Part 1 of this series, I talked a little bit about the difficulties of the calling of being a pastor when you’re not a people person. Specifically, about how it requires you to push into weakness, learn things that will be uncomfortable and foreign, all the while expecting the Holy Spirit to show up. But specifically, I need to lean into that for the good of the congregation and for the good of my own spiritual growth. I don’t get a pass on this.
So what do you do when you feel called to this, but don’t seem to have all of the innate, God-given skills that others have and are further deepened through the power Holy Spirit?
Who are your heroes? Or if you don’t have one, what would you be looking for in a hero? What are the qualities you admire in a leader?
Buildings, budgets and bigshots are the movement killers to the reproduction of churches, leaders and disciples. Salaries, rents/mortgages, equipment, advertising the list of expenses is long. Even with the tax breaks allowed to churches we are struggling to make ends meet. In today’s turbulent times many in church are feeling the resources drying up. Recently I was in a pastor’s meeting and many were wondering how their churches would continue. Some were selling their facilities just for survival. We will see more and more of this in the coming year.
Survival is one thing, but reaching a city is quite another.
Here’s all the sessions the 100M team is doing at Exponential. If you’re coming early, make sure to sign up for our Pre-Conference. Lastly, our entire team will be hanging out at our booth all day long doing free coaching and consultations. Make sure to stop by! Register for Exponential here.
As someone who helps lead a local church, and as someone who regularly coaches pastors wanting to learn how to lean into this whole ‘missional’ thing, one of the most frequent questions I hear is, “How do I start a Missional Community?”