Tag Archives: Leader

What got you here, won’t get you there!

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Too many of us think we have what we need to get us where we need to go. I think that the person who is really committed to growth in any area of their lives needs to adopt the posture of a learner. Leaders are learners. The moment you stop learning, you stop leading.

The information you are currently operating out of might be satisfactory for your past but what about for your future? Do you think you’ve arrived or are you still hungry to learn something new? When was the last time you learnt something for the first time? Some of us are so familiar with the ruts of our past that we have become content to live in them. It’s time to get out of the rut.

Change is challenging for all of us but God deals in the business of change. If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come. To go from here to there requires change, adjustment and flexibility. Growth of any kind is a stretch but the rewards are significant. Growth is a process, not an event.

Just because you’ve got the degree, had the experience and bought the T-shirt doesn’t mean you are equipped to travel the next leg of your journey. There are times and places ahead that demand your preparation. Position yourself now for your tomorrow and you will have the peace, strength and faith you need to step into it.

The Oracle!

Follow the Leader!

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John 5:19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”

I don’t know if you have ever played follow the leader but when I was in the Police Academy in 2000, I was in a physical training session where for 2.5hrs my entire squad had to play follow the leader. The instructor took us through a series of gruelling exercises and drills that we were required to follow. The only way we could follow his lead was if we watched closely and heard attentively.

This is a great practical insight into leadership. Followers take their cue from the leader. As goes the leader, so goes the followers. You reproduce who you are. It’s a law built into creation (Genesis 1). You can only reproduce after your own kind. This should cause you to take your example in leadership more seriously but it should also challenge you to ask the question, ‘Am I following THE leader?’

I’m not talking about your boss, pastor, parent or spouse. I’m talking about Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:15-20 gives us one of the most exhaustive and exalting reflections on Jesus Christ, that exists in the entire bible. V18 reads, ‘He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.’

As we consider the life of Jesus, we read in John 5:19, that he played follow the leader for 3.5 years of his ministry. Jesus said, ‘I only ever do that which I see my Father doing.’ Jesus knew that it’s not what you do that matters but what you do out of what the Father reveals to you to do. Most people I know are very busy doing a number of things that seem very important to them and possibly to others but I often wonder how much of what we do is really fuelled by a revelation from Gods heart and mind, rather than something that’s just culturally expected of us?

Even the Son of God recognised that by himself, he could do nothing. Jesus was completely reliant on his relationship with his Father and the power of the Holy Spirit at work in him and through him. Jesus only did what he saw the Father doing, which means, he had a close and intimate relationship with his Father, to actually observe and hear what his Father desired. As a result, Jesus could actually mirror his Father and authentically reflect the Father’s mind, will and intention for any given situation. Jesus took the game of follow the leader to a whole new level.

One of the most important questions you could ever ask God every moment of each day is, ‘Father, what are you saying and doing right now?’ God’s heart, mind, will and intention will be revealed to those who knock on the door of his heart and ask this simple, yet profound question.. continually. It’s time to start following the leader of our souls, Jesus Christ.

Grace & Truth

Will the Real Leader Please Stand Up!

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There is a lack of strong, healthy and Christ-centered leadership across the church, let alone across society. Romans 12:6,8 says, “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: the one who leads, with zeal.”

I don’t think there is a lack of strong, healthy, Christ-centered leaders because God has stopped gifting or calling people to lead but I think that there is a lack of intentionality in our church culture’s and in existing leaders to embrace, strong, healthy and Christ-centered leadership.

We need existing leaders to step up and take responsibility not only for their own leadership but for the development of future leaders. If you aren’t investing into anyone as a leader, quite simply, you’re not a leader. Leadership by position, knowledge or talent alone doesn’t imply leadership is being exercised. There is a leadership vacuum in our society because people have equated leadership with position, perks and power rather than humility, capacity and sacrifice. Leaders move people from where they are to where they need to be or in a Christian sense, “where God wants them to be.”

Let me tell you, if anything significant happens anywhere in any tribe, it will be because of a catalytic change agent who leads the charge and makes something happen. Leaders, get clear on what you want and more importantly what God wants and start to lead the church, ministry or organization accordingly. Leaders, we need you!

Grace!

Being a Pastor is Complex!

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After reflecting on my growing up years as a pastor’s kid and now with 12 years of pastoral ministry experience myself, I have concluded that being called to pastor a local church is incredibly complex. Mind you, this is not a new revelation but the reality of this truth keeps on hitting home regularly.

There are so many variables at work in pastoring a church. The local church is a volunteer based organism filled with people from a multitude of backgrounds and perspectives, all with their own unique wrestles and challenges. As a pastor you can’t make people do anything, and yet God has entrusted you with the responsibility to shepherd, feed and lead people into the full stature and image of Christ, who often don’t want to go where God is calling them because of the pull of the sinful nature. At the same time you don’t have the leverage of $ to assert your authority and when you do ask for people to give faithfully to the creator of the universe, it’s met with all sorts of skepticism and suspicion. You are expected to change the world and everyone in it with limited practical resources at hand and when anyone has one of life’s deep questions to ask, of course, the pastor is going to be able to answer it perfectly because they have spent the last 25 years studying just to answer that one question.

As a result of all this complexity, my dependence on God is growing daily and I know that God has asked me to plant and lead a church, as much for my own sanctification, as for the fulfillment of the Great Commission. I know more than I did 12 years ago but I need God more each day than ever before.

Planting a church from scratch adds to the complexity. I never wanted to plant a church but in God’s sovereignty he called me to this work and it has been both a privilege and a painful experience to answer that call. Over the last, nearly 6 years we have seen Activate grow from 13 people meeting together in a lounge room to now over 400 people connecting with our wider church community every week, complete with a much larger budget, a 400 seat auditorium, offices, meeting rooms, guest lounge, kids city facilities, cafe, and op shop as well as extensive missional activity in the wider community, including feeding the homeless, life groups, activate academy, gender based ministries and the list goes on.

Pastors deal with all sorts of expectations from people, from God and from themselves. Some of these expectations are real and some are simply perceived. At times you feel like you have to be all things to all people from counsellor to fund-raiser to wedding planner to professional mourner to career advisor to worship leader to administrator to teacher to evangelist to wise sage to mentor to business guru to everybody’s best friend and the complexity compounds. Coupled with this are the personal issues in your own heart you wrestle with daily and the dreams and desires you have for your own personal future.

How should we respond to this? So glad you asked.

Begin with the Bible, not your feelings! Passages like 1 Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-9, Ephesians 4:11-16, 2 Timothy 4:1-8, Hebrews 12:1-3, 1 Peter 5:1-4, Matthew 20:20-28, Philippians 2:1-11 are foundational to a biblical understanding of the pastor’s role and vision for local church ministry.

God never called you to be the Messiah! This job has already been covered by Jesus. You haven’t been asked to die on a cross to reconcile man back to God. Jesus was and his work is now finished. This truth helps you keep the burden of responsibility in check.

God is Sovereign! This grand truth helps me sleep at night when I end a day with doubts, uncertainties and loose ends. I believe that God’s sovereignty are the bookends of life and ministry and as a result, I stay mildly sane. I planted, we are all watering but God gives the growth.

Do what God has called you to do, not what everyone else expects you to do! You will lose the plot if you try to be all things to all people to gain their approval and favor. Enough said.

Enjoy the journey, not just the outcome! Pastors love results. We get a spiritual high when the dashboard comes in and all the stats are heading north but are you enjoying the journey or just enduring it?

Create a healthy release valve! Exercise, friends, movies, dates nights, hobbies and holidays are all important aspects of life that need to be incorporated within your weekly, monthly and annual rhythm.

Keep loving God and people! Ministry is about connecting people to Jesus and Jesus to people. Don’t get distracted from the main thing – the GOSPEL works!

Grace!

What is in your hand?

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Exodus 4:2 “The Lord said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?” He said, ‘A staff.’”

When God came to Moses and called him to deliver Israel from Egypt, Moses came up with a long list of reasons why God had called the wrong man. But God didn’t retreat from his call but simply asked Moses to consider what was in his hand.

When God calls you, he doesn’t begin with what you haven’t got, he begins right where you are with what is in your hand. Often we can feel overwhelmed by our inadequacies and what we lack rather than be looking at what is right in front of us. As a pastor of a growing church, I often find myself looking at the gap between the need and what we have to meet the need, be it people, leaders, ministry, resources, etc. I had such a moment the other day and God reminded me again, ‘Everything you need is right in front of you, you just need to use what is in your hand.’

Leaders, the resources, people, opportunities you need to breakthrough to the next level are already in your hands, you just need to look beyond the obvious, like Moses needed to (a staff) and see the potential of what God can do with the little you already have. Pastors, the money, people, ministry and opportunities are all before you but you need to use what is already in your hand. Stop looking at what you just lost or what you don’t have and see what God has already put into your sphere of influence.

God will begin right where you are. God called Moses to deliver a nation but it all began with what was in Moses’ hand. Don’t be discouraged by the challenges before you. God can perform the miraculous if you will faithfully use what he has put in your hand and better still, entrust into His hands what he has put into yours and he can multiply it and use it for his glory.

Insight!