All posts tagged: church

2012’s Top Churches to watch in America/ Part 1

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At the end of January, every church in my denomination receives an annual church questionnaire. This questionnaire helps my denomination to study conversion or new birth experiences, baptism, weekly attendance, growth rates, scope of influence, church planting efforts etc… to see if we are successful in building God’s kingdom. If you study or research churches, you know that everybody relies heavily on the above metrics to determine successful or failing churches. And everybody knows that this is not necessarily a perfect way to measure churches. That’s because, “sometimes exceptional churches have humble results in terms of size, growth, and influence while sometimes unhealthy churches know all the right formulas to give the appearance of spiritual success.” However, “these matrices are our most reliable, efficient, and accurate way to gauge churches in research studies.” – please look for the lists in the next posts… but let say this in closing – 1. It is important for every church leader to learn from other churches 2. It is important to use one’s time wisely when studying other churches …

Teachability

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Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands get guidance Psalm 3:5 Learn and maintain a Teachable Attitude The great value that the book of proverbs seeks to instill in a person is the value of a teachable spirit; the willingness to learn and grow in wisdom no matter how far long a person already is. Louis L’Amour said, The more one learns the more he understands his ignorance. I am simply an ignorant man, trying to lessen his ignorance. Are you willing to grow? Are you willing to be stretched beyond where you are. Is there still room for improvement in your life or do you think you are too smart?  Are you willing to learn new things? Are you willing to listen and learn from people who may not hold to your school of thought, philosophy or even your religious beliefs? There is always room in our lives to learn something new. The smartest people in the world are those who still have room in their lives to learn from others. They …

The secret of the Scarecrow

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The Secret of the Scarecrow! I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word harvest it makes me happy. I don’t know much about farming but I am crazy about harvest – am crazy about the outcome of seed sowing. Don’t bore me to death about fertilizers, and watering and pruning and keeping out the weeds; just tell me when it’s time to pluck that peach, slice that mango or roast the corn. Just tell me about the harvest. In the bible I am aware though, that one has to work hard or invest time and energy to reap a harvest. The bible say that there is time for everything – a time to plant and a time to harvest (Ecclesiastes 3:2). That God makes everything beautiful in His time (Ecclesiastes 3:11). In other words it is in God’s plan to make you productive in every sphere of your life. For the pastor he wants effectiveness in his personal, spiritual, vocational life. For the business man/woman He has planned success and productivity. For the student He wants you …

Divert daily, withdraw weekly, abandon annually…

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It is good to work. But! Work is a great thing! I thank God for the opportunity to work. For He himself worked (Gen. 1:1). And He said that if we don’t work we won’t eat 2 Thess. 3:10). But the thing with work is that it can turn one into a workaholic. Therefore, we need to recognize that though God has ordained work for us, we must emulate his example – “he rested on the 7th day” (Gen. 2:2). Somebody once said, “work and no play makes jack a dull boy.” Actually it is a proverb –  and it means that without time off from work, a person becomes both bored and boring. So I took a little vacation this week – a week of complete rest and I am so thankful to the Lord for the opportunity to do this. I feel refreshed and energize for the weeks ahead. During my time away, I read a few articles and magazines – here is an excerpt of somethings I learned about recognizing and handling burnout: Preventing burnout” Having determined …

Too good to be true!

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The Romanticized ideals of Perfection Successful pastors and church organizations almost always seem cooler from a distance. But the closer you get to the pastor or the church organization, the easier it is to see all their flaws, blemishes, and failures. I am not talking about immoral or sinful behaviors. If you find yourself under such leadership it is more than okay to flee. I’m talking about things like leadership styles and flaws, relationship hiccups, poor conflict management skills, bad choices in the little things of life, etc… Usually people begin to flip out big time when their expectations of a pastor or a church organization doesn’t measure up with their romanticized ideals. They begin to become negative, slanderous, disrespectful, arrogant, rude and sometimes rebellious. A Personal Illustration For me, it happened when I was young and on a church staff. I didn’t know better, and I soon started flipping out when I began to see some things that I kind of disagree with. Every time we had a staff meeting somebody in the group will say …

This is rest – This is repose

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When we read the stories about the Israelites and their disobedience to God and His judgements against them, we sometimes think – how can they make the same mistakes over and over again. But we fail to realize that we are no different. God says this is the way walk ye in it and we say “excuse me”  this is my way and I am going to walk just where I want. Well, we may not say it quite bluntly, but we do exactly what we want. Just like the Israelites we know that our safety, security, deliverance, peace and rest depend upon our total obedience and allegiance to the Lord, yet for the same reasons they chose to ignore God we choose to do the same. Consequently, we reap the fruits of disobedience. In the same way God warned  them by his Prophets that their safety and security, their deliverance from their present calamities and from the apprehensions of still greater approaching, depended wholly on their trust in God, their faith and obedience; he does the same for us – …