Lead Well

Are you the best in the world?  It seems like a lofty goal, but think about it.  Is it impossible?  Before we answer if this is impossible, we first must ask this question:  "What is 'best in the world'?"  The world is the place you live in, the materials and resources you have access to, the services that are available.  For instance my best adviser for children's ministry may live in Louisiana or Georgia, but since I live in Florida it doesn't matter.  They are not available for regular face to face meetings.  So the best adviser for me lives here in my town.  He is the best in the world.  Another example Pat's Cheesesteak in downtown Philadelphia may have the best cheesesteak in the world, but they don't deliver to Clearwater, FL so I'm out of luck.  The best in the world means the best  in your circumstance, your surroundings with your set of resources.  Are you doing the best or are you just settling for mediocre?...

Do you remember your grandparents names?  Your great grandparents?  Your great great grandparents?  I would dare say many don't know that far back unless they've done some ancestry work and made a family tree.  But even if you do know their names, do you know what they looked like? Sounded like? Acted like? Smelled like?  For many of us it's impossible.  These people were dead and buried years before we were born. The point?  Our life is short.  Very short, and unless you do something spectacular like becoming the President of the United States or become an A list movie star people will not remember you 50 years after you die.  Sure they might have a name and picture, and with today's technology, probably some video, but will they really know who you are? God knows.  He knew you before you were born.  He will remember you long after you left this earth. But we aren't the main character in the story are we?  No.  Jesus ...

Lately I have been digging in modern evangelical ideas through podcasts, blogs, and books, and it has been eye opening to how the church is changing.  I can feel it.  Maybe this is the way Jesus really wanted the church to be.  Something greater, something that has more meaning.  Something that will make an impact in the community and not just on the congregants in the church.  Shouldn't the church be more outward focused than inward focused? Rob Bell asks the question:  "If your local church all of sudden left, would your community be grieved?"  Would your community even notice?  I'm not saying the people who go to your church.  I'm talking about the people who live across the street and we don't even know their names. Jesus said that true religion is this:  Take care of the widows and orphans.  God's law constantly says that we are to take care of the poor. I am attaching a link to an ABC news video on the face of American E...

In the Bible the disciples ask Jesus how we should pray.  Jesus then gives us a model by which we are to follow.  This is historically known as the Lord's Prayer. In the prayer, there is a line that says your Kingdom come your will be done.  What that line means is "God whatever you want to happen let it happen."  Too frequently we get caught up in doing what we think is right.  We lose sight of what God wants.  We do our agenda instead of His. We then have to ask ourselves are we really following Christ or are we just doing what we think he wants, or even worse what we want to do?  Every day we need to focus on the Lord, and set our own wants and fears aside and trust Him.  As Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane "Not my will, but yours." It's difficult, I know, but whoever said being a disciple for Christ would be easy?

Recently I've been reading The Life of Christ by Ralph Riggs.  It's an old textbook from Global university and has a pretty good survey of Jesus' life and ministry. Riggs made an observation in Jesus early ministry that I think we can all be reminded. But first a little background.  During the time of Christ, the Sabbath had become much more than just a day of rest.  The rabbinical law and traditions had so construed the meaning of rest that most of the Jewish population of the day spent the Sabbath either in guilt for breaking a law or in paranoia of breaking one.  Jesus realized this and decided to set the record straight.  You can read the story in Matthew 5:1-14 .  He went down to the pool of Bethesda and healed a man.  Not a bad thing; actually a very good thing.  However Jesus decided to do this on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees, the ruling religious leaders of the time were appalled.  How dare Jesus do work on the Sabbath it is a ...

Recently, I was listening to an interview with Francis Chan, author of Crazy Love and Forgotten God .  In the interview there was one line that stuck out and made me think.  He was telling a story of a couple in their sixties that have 6 foster children.  Now the world would say that's nuts!  Why wouldn't they just enjoy retirement and keep the money, energy, and time for themselves.  Here's the line:  It's crazy unless there is a resurrection. Because Jesus came and lived on this earth, died for our sins, and then was raised from the dead as the savior of the world, what may seem crazy makes perfect sense when we are trying to be more like Jesus.  Think about it.  Jesus said that the kingdom of God belongs to children.  James 1:27 says "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." Another point.  Look at ...

Many believe that we must get bigger in order to compete with the world, but is bigger going to serve our people effectively?  Maybe instead we should focus on getting better and then become bigger out of necessity.  Let's put the systems and people in place first.  Let's build a foundation, a good solid foundation on which we can build.  We may have limited resources, but are we doing the best we can with what God has given us?