We hear a lot about momentum in ministry. But do we really understand what we’re hearing? To really harness the power of something, you must understand it. To harness the power of wind for sailing, you must understand principles about how a sail works. In the same way, in order to harness the power of momentum, we must first understand what it is.
I have experienced momentum in my ministry, only to let it slip away and vanish. I didn’t harness it because I didn’t understand it. Yet even though I didn’t understand it, I could “feel” it. I know you know the “feeling” of momentum too; it’s tangible.
When a sports team begins to score points and make up the deficit – they have momentum. And everyone – players, coaches, and fans – can feel it. When your ministry team experiences a big win, there is a sense of momentum. You can “feel” it. But what are we really feeling? What is momentum?
The Philippines, my home, was ravaged yesterday by the worst typhoon (hurricane) to ever make landfall. Ever. It was an significant event in history. It’s also a significant event Biblically.
My house was not damaged by the storm – we live in Manila which was out of the direct path. But I have seen, heard, and felt the impact to the Philippines. I have experienced the chaos that the storm caused. In a similar way, you did too. You saw the news reports, the satellite images, the Twitter trends. We are all aware of the impact of storms like this.
There have been other recent weather related events, in the Philippines and elsewhere, that have caused the world to pay attention. Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Sandy, the tsunami in Japan, the recent earthquake in the Philippines, and now Typhoon Haiyan. And that’s not all of the major events recently, just a handpicked few.
So what is the biblical meaning? Is there a reason that events like this are taking place?
This is an excerpt from a book manuscript I am currently working on. The book is about how we have redefined church in the last few decades, in some ways to its detriment. This passage deals with the topic of evangelism and discipleship coexisting in a ministry. It can be done, should be done, but there must be balance. There are numerous opinions on this topic. This is mine.
There must be a balance between evangelism and discipleship. Sometimes, maybe oftentimes, these two can be experienced simultaneously. For example, it is certainly possible for a witnessing opportunity to act as a discipleship lesson, as the discipler models for the disciple how to share their faith effectively. There are certainly other examples.But sometimes these two are mutually exclusive by nature.
In a church, evangelism and discipleship should each be consistently done, yet not so exclusively as to the detriment of the other. There should be balance.
There must be balance in our content. I believe that every sermon should carry the gospel in some form – because the gospel permeates everything we believe. But I don’t believe that every sermon or Bible study can have as its lone subject the gospel. This is what Paul meant when he wrote that we should move on from the basic teachings about salvation and on to deeper things . This is discipleship. If every sermon is focused only on the basic facts of salvation, it would be to the detriment of the believer’s discipleship. On the other hand, if every message from the church is about deeper Christian life and truth, it would be to the detriment of the lost who are present. There should be a balance in content.
There must be balance in our chronology. Balance must be present on a weekly basis as well as a seasonal or yearly basis. This is why homiletics is so important in the life of a pastor or pastoral team. A pastor must understand first how to prepare each individual sermon with this balance in place – so that the Christians are fed and the lost are convicted. Sometimes the message will speak to one group more heavily than the other, but both should receive something from that week. Likewise, planning out the sermons for the season or even the year is also a crucial task. True, it helps the pastor and other ministries (media, drama, small groups) prepare in advance for the coming week’s topics. But there is a more important reason to plan out sermons or series well in advance. Doing so will ensure that the church strikes a healthy balance between evangelism and discipleship on a monthly, seasonal, or yearly basis. And by doing this, the church leadership can be sure that they are maintaining the church’s focus on the lost while also building that focus on the foundation of growing Christians. Failure to build this balanced foundation ministry-wide results in a church that is all but ready to crumble.
Is your ministry a balanced one? How do you maintain balance?
Podium Cue is an iPad app that helps speakers organize their main points for effective presentations. Designed by Pastor Ron Hudson (@ronhudson) for just this purpose, I have found the app to be very useful. If you do public speaking of any kind – especially preaching – this may be the app for you.
3 reasons to consider using this app are:
It will force you to be familiar with your topic
The app is designed to use “big picture” thoughts, not detailed paragraphs. In fact, you can’t put a lot of words on each “slide”. If you need your entire sermon or speech in front of you, this isn’t for you. Some speakers (myself included) actually speak better without a manuscript in front of us. We work to know the material well, and only need road “markers” to guide us to our final destination. By not being tempted to “read” from the manuscript, we speak more from the heart in the moment. For a preacher, this is a powerful opportunity for God to move through you.
It is much more effective than glancing at a page of notes
If you are like me, you highlight or bold or mark the next point you want to make on your page of notes. And if you’re like me, sometimes during your speaking, you have to scan, re-scan, and scan again to finally find that next point. It’s just hard to do sometimes. That’s one more thing for you to worry about, as if public speaking isn’t challenging enough. Podium Cue eliminates all of this “searching” while giving a speech.
It will make your life that much easier I unashamedly acknowledge that I love this app because it’s cool. But it’s cool because it’s simple, goes wherever I do, and takes less effort than a notebook or multiple printed pages might. In short, it solves a common problem in an up-to-date, simple way. It will make your speeches, and therefore your life, much simpler.
I use Podium Cue now whenever I speak. It has replaced my highlighted Microsoft Word document (including an electronic version). I highly recommend my readers check it out.
The Philippines recently experienced a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that was devastating for the area of Bohol where it was centered. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million. Watch this video and see how suddenly things can change:
I have been jolted a few times by earthquakes myself, in California and in the Philippines, and it is a very unnerving experience. But watching this collapse unnerved me in a different way. Here are some things I was reminded of:
1 – Church buildings are important historically, not eternally.
There is a difference. What we think of as so important now culturally, nationally, and historically will one day be no more. Think of that. The Bible says that heaven and earth will one day pass away, and God will fold them up like a coat (Hebrews 1:12). So, in reality, every historical building that you see will one day be gone. That should give us an eternal perspective.
2 – The church is made of people, not bricks and stone.
No doubt, there are many distraught people over the collapse of this centuries old church. Likewise, we mourn and are discouraged when old church buildings in our towns are converted into houses, restaurants, and bars. But are we concerned about the building, or the fact that there are no worshipers filling it? That’s the question.
3 – We should be more shocked about falling numbers of disciples than a falling bell tower.
When I first saw the video above, I let out an audible “wow”. It just came out. The sight of something like that in real life is shocking. But we should be more emotionally and spiritually moved by the fact that people around us every day are rejecting Christ. We should be more impacted by declining discipleship than by a crumbling building. Are we? Are you? Am I?
Please don’t misunderstand this post. My heart is in the Philippines. I do hurt for the people impacted, and I am sorry that this historic structure collapsed. But my point is still valid: the building is not important eternally; the people are. In our churches, we are often more impacted by a change in the physical environment around us (new worship center construction, renovated nursery area) than we are by life change in the people around us. It shouldn’t be that way.
Question: What about you? Do you find yourself more impacted by a change in environments or a change in a life? What do you think about my assertions above? Leave a comment below.
We are most ineffective in sharing our faith when we forget the 2 essential ingredients: grace and truth.
And pastors, this includes forgetting from the pulpit.
Some of us tend to be heavy on the grace side, using “Jesus loves you” as our talking point of choice, but not really mentioning the sins that are so prevalent and need to be dealt with. Or at the least, mentioning them as a side note. Others of us preach repentance to dirty, rotten sinners without so much as a hint of God’s love for them.
Neither bias is right. Neither is biblical. There must be a balance.
The Bible says that Jesus was “full of grace and truth” – He was not lacking in either department. Nor was he skewed one way or another. (John 1:14)
I teach personal evangelism to our freshman students here in Metro Manila. I use the example of a coin when teaching them how to share the gospel. On one side, you have the “good news” – the fact that Jesus gave Himself for us. That’s grace. On the other side of the coin, you have the need for repentance. That’s truth. And like a coin with two sides, the availability of grace and the fact that sinners must repent cannot be separated. They should – they must – both be present. In fact, like a coin, you cannot have one side without the other.
I contend that all of us (myself included) stray to one side or the other at times. Maybe it’s our personalities, maybe it’s our training. But we all at some point forget to emphasize grace, or we come very close to leaving out truth.
So what is the solution? The good news is that we can ask the Holy Spirit to help us stay more balanced – to be more like Jesus. Jesus was full of grace and truth. He wants you to be the same way, and He will help you get there.
If you are a Christian from the Western world – you don’t deal with a lot of physical suffering for Christ. You certainly don’t deal with martyrdom. I think that’s a good thing. Good, but not certain.
I keep a book open in my office (see the picture above). It’s called Martyr’s Mirror and it recounts Christian suffering throughout history. Think Foxe’s Book of Martyr’s on steroids.
I keep the book always in view to remind me that most believers in the past have not enjoyed the freedoms we do today. Many of them paid the ultimate price for their faith. It also sobers me to consider whether my faith is strong enough to endure such a thing.
Here’s one entry as an example: “A. D. 1067, there was a God-fearing man, whose name was Henry, and whom the Romish historian calls a stranger, perhaps because he was obliged to live secretly or as a stranger among the Romanists. It is stated of him, that he preached the Gospel of Christ in the uttermost parts of Sweden, and that he was apprehended for this cause and beheaded for the name of Christ.”
It does us good to remember that our freedoms are not a given, and there may possibly come a time when Christ demands of us the ultimate sacrifice.
Note: If you’d like to read more entries from Martyr’s Mirror, click here.
If you want to buy a copy click here: http://amzn.to/He40It
When an orchestra plays, everyone assumes that the conductor is controlling the tempo and rhythm (possibly even the conductor himself). But the dirty little secret of an orchestra is that the drummer or percussion section really controls the rhythm. As long as the drummer is paying attention and willfully following the conductor, all is well. But If the drummer decides to speed up during a live performance, guess what? Everyone else speeds up too – even the conductor. Short of stopping the piece and starting over, the drummer has even the leader of the orchestra at his will. If you play an instrument, you know this to be true.
The percussionist drives the orchestra.
In much the same way, theologians – the thought leaders of the Christian world – drive our churches. They uncover the Biblical principles and mandates that apply to our lives and current world situation. They influence our pastors, missionaries, seminary professors, and Sunday School teachers. They write books and other materials discussing their findings and thoughts, and in doing so influence the action oriented leaders who take those ideas and apply them each week.
The sermon you will hear (or preach!) this Sunday is most likely influenced by the thoughts and conclusions of one or more theologians. As your pastor (or you!) prepares the message, he consults books, commentaries, and articles dealing with the subject he is addressing. He brings forward the quiet thoughts of the theologian.
Theologians are not some obscure people existing only in the back rooms of giant seminary libraries, up all hours of the night discussing with the walls the things of God. Theologians – past and present – influence your daily life more than you know. Many of them are obscure to most people. Their names are not on bulletins or billboards. They are not recognizable by even the most studious believers. And yet, in their quiet ministry, their voice is heard louder than even those that stand and speak.
In most areas of occupation, there are thinkers and doers. Neither is more necessary than the other, and yet each depends on the other. The thinker must have the doer to implement his ideas; the doer requires the thinker’s thoughts to give him a task or direction.
The football coach dreams up incredible offensive schemes, yet he requires the players to run them. The offensive players are ready to engage the defense and move the ball – but they need a good game plan to work together effectively. Each is reliant on the other to accomplish their goals, and neither is more or less important than the other.
So it is with ministry.
I have observed this facet of the ministry world: there are thinkers and there are doers.
There are those who make clear the guidelines, provoke thought, and spur ideas. And there are those who implement them to great spiritual gains. Men like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, C. S. Lewis, and Francis Schaeffer were all thought leaders of their time – the ones who thought valiant thoughts concerning the things of God. But with their noses in books and journals and their minds wading in theological depths, they had less time for action on these subjects than they might have hoped.
But the doers caught their ideas, and ran with them.
In my opinion, we need both types of leaders in our churches today – and Christianity as a whole – thought leaders and action leaders. We must have those who continually drive us closer to God through sound theology and biblical methods. We must also have action leaders who transform these doctrines into application – with boldness and vision leading and inspiring us to live them out daily.
This division in roles does not excuse a person from both thinking and doing together. Both should be done by all believers. But certainly, God has made some to spend more time on one facet than another. And together, it is a beautiful partnership.
As an introvert, I find myself drawn towards times of pensiveness, quiet reflection, and theological reasoning. This is not to say I don’t take action (I do), but that I do take much pleasure in thinking thoughts that drive methodology.
We should be thankful for the introverts and extroverts in the church world. Both are necessary for biblical success.
This week I turn 30 years old. That’s 6 5’s, 10 3’s, or 30 1’s depending on how you look it. However, you view it – well, it’s more than 29.
I have been reflecting on my past and future, and I’ve determined 2 things about my next 30 years (and beyond Lord willing!):
I want people to see Jesus in my person and my path.
1) My Person
My words, deeds, character, relationships – who I am. I want people to see Jesus there, everyday; for those that know me today, in the present.
2) My Path
The legacy I leave behind – my path. I want people to look down my road and see Jesus walking beside me, guiding me, helping me; for those that remember or hear of me then, in the future.
