Church Leadership

A Little Understanding – God’s Way or My Way

I hate choices. Okay, that isn’t totally correct. I hate choices that have an upside and a downside; I find it hard to make up my mind. I’ve been told it is a woman’s prerogative to change her mind, so why does a guy like me have so much trouble making up his mind? My theory is this “woman’s prerogative” observation was made by a man watching his wife shopping for clothes or shoes or both. The fact he was willing to say it out loud leads me to believe that he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the drawer. He was probably the same man who when asked by his wife during the shopping trip, “Do these pants make me look fat?” answered, “I don’t think it has anything to do with the pants.” Not being a medical doctor or psychologist does not exclude me from stating with 99.5% certainty: men can be indecisive (and fat) too.

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A Little Understanding – Love Upwards

We, as Christ followers, aren’t so good at loving God fully and completely. If we aren’t so good at it, then the collective of Christ followers must suffer from the same flaw. Did you know that loving God completely is actually part of our nature? God created us that way, and until a piece of fruit and a slithering tempter altered the path of history, that’s the way it was. God created human beings different from other beings. Humans are created in the image of God and are able to think and make choices. Inside this creation was the longing to be tied to God. Outside of it was the sense that…

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A Little Understanding – The Footings

People often ask, “Why does life suck?” For those who find the language offensive, please forgive me, but it wouldn’t be a quote if I tried to soften it. Pastors may use more carefully chosen words, replacing the offensive ones and reworking the question this way: “Why is everything a struggle at my church?” I would never go as far as to say the solution to life sucking or a struggling church is Proverbs 3:5-6, but I can say the solution to navigating through these times is not in your hands, your strength, or how you understand things. The solution lies in letting God take over, and He will plot the course. He will carry the weight. “He will make your paths straight.”

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A Little Knowledge – What We See Becomes What We Know

Many personal growth, church growth, and outreach how-to books and motivational sermons are “mirrors,” or to bring it back around to the building metaphor, pictures of the décor. They address the appearance. This isn’t a bad thing. Appearance will go a long way when it comes to enticing people to visit your church or ask about your faith. What people see demonstrates the commitment, enthusiasm, and passion of Christ followers.

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Joy

Boy, I struggled with this Advent theme! I feel… I guess I should stop there because I have already started off on the wrong foot. Joy is not a feeling. Joy is supposed to be a constant. Joy is not influenced by situations but rather situations should be influenced by joy with one notable exception. Joy should grow stronger as we recognize that God has a plan no matter what situation we go through. Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve, when it comes to me and joy. Often I allow my feelings to bury my joy, even deplete it. Joy shouldn’t be influenced by situations but if Satan has his way, joy is all but eliminated or at least forgotten/overlooked when life doesn’t go the way we had hoped…

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Love

What does love mean? I am lost in a sea of ideas most of which end up suggesting that I benefit from love. I cannot argue against this idea. Whether I apply a worldly/cultural definition or a biblical one, love always benefits me. That being said, true love in its purest biblical form doesn’t set out to benefit the one who practices it. When one sets out to love like God loves, one must accept that the benefit comes from obedience to the calling of God to love one another. When we love like God does if we expect it to benefit us by making us feel good, we will soon become jaded and withdraw from this practice. Loving like God loves more often than not, hurts…

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