the reluctant leader

Thanksgiving '09 Top Ten List

Thanksgiving. America's national day of gluttony. And football. And family reunions.
I'm visiting the family - brothers & sisters, in-laws, cousins - at the Murrell family lake house in Mississippi.

Here’s my 2009 top ten Thanksgiving Day list:
 
1.   My Lord & Savior, Jesus Christ
2.   My wife
3.   My 3 sons
4.   My parents - both deceased
5.   My friends all over the world - mostly alive
6.   My home churches - Victory-Manila, Bethel-Nashville
7.   My job - Every Nation Churches & Ministries
8.   My U.S. passport
9.   My Philippine Permanent Resident card
10. My 1200GS - finally!
 
What are you most thankful for?

A Simple Job Description for All Christians

The Christian life is not as complicated as most preachers make is sound. It’s actually quite simple.

QUESTION:
What’s a Christian supposed to do?

ANSWER:
Honor God. Make disciples.

Let me explain.

Honor God means that we live to please Him. Not ourselves. Not our parents. Not our peers. Please Him and Him alone. Living to please Him is not just a Sunday thing. It’s an all week thing. At home. At work. On campus. With our time. With our money. With our minds. With our bodies. In our relationships. All the time. Everywhere.

Make disciples means we follow Jesus & carry the cross, we help others follow Jesus & carry the cross, and we follow him in community with other cross-carrying followers.

 There. I hope that helps simplify your life.

Everything God Does is Relational & Redemptive

I read the whole book of Ezekiel on my recent Manila to Nashville flight. I also watched a couple of forgettable movies. As usual, I didn’t sleep – never been able to seep on planes.
 
Here are some of my notes from Ezekiel, from 40,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean:
 
1. Open heavens, visions of God, word of the Lord, hand of God, brilliant light, supernatural fire, lightening from heaven, glowing metal… and that’s just the first 4 verses of Ezekiel.

2. The phrase “then they will know I am the Lord” – or something like it - appears over 65 times in Ezekiel. The basic message of Ezekiel is that everything God does, from blessing to judgment, is SO WE WILL KNOW HIM AS LORD. In other words, everything he does is ultimately relational and redemptive.

3. God wants to “recapture the hearts” of his people who have deserted him for idols. (Ez14:5) Is your heart captive, or wild? Is your heart pursuing God, or idols? God wants your heart!

4. We all know that Sodom was a wicked place, but why? “This was the sin of Sodom: she did not help the poor and needy.” (Ez16:49) If helping the poor is the standard, then there are a lot of wicked people in our churches today.
 
5. God is concerned about how his leaders treat weak, sick, injured, stray and lost sheep. (Ez34:4)

6. Seems like every time Ezekiel “fell under the power” in the presence of God, that God immediately told him to stand up. I guess falling down is OK, as long as we get up and move on right away. (Ez1:28,2:1 and Ez3:23,24)

7. Wealth and beauty can cause hearts to be proud. And a proud heart is not really a good thing. (Ez28:5,17)
 
If you are interested in further study of point #2, here are few of the 65+ verses about knowing God as Lord:
Ez6:13,14
Ez7:4,9,27
Ez12:15,16
Ez14:8
Ez28:23,26
Ez29:5,6,8,16
Ez30:26
Ez36:11,37,38
Ez38:23

How to Make Good Ministry Decisions

Leaders make decisions. Lots of them. Some good. Some bad. The best decisions are value based.
 
The worst ministry decisions are based on:
         - random open doors
         - the latest get-big-quick scheme
         - what worked for someone else
         - how much it costs (just because it’s cheap, does not mean it is a good decision)
 
The following 4 questions help our Victory leaders make good decisions:
 
1.   Does it help us ENGAGE our culture and our community?
2.   Does it help us ESTABLISH spiritual foundations?
3.   Does it help us EQUIP all believers to minister?
4.   Does it help us EMPOWER all disciples to make disciples?
 
No matter if the decision is big or small, no matter if it effects the whole church or one department, no matter if it requires millions or hundreds of pesos – all good decisions run through this grid. Bad decisions don’t. 
 
How do you make decisions?
 
NOTE: All of my astute blog readers realize from the above that good decisions are those that help us MAKE DISCIPLES.

Suffering for Christ: Radical or Reasonable?

I had a cup of coffee this weekend with a friend who suffered in a Middle Eastern prison for six months. His crime: following Christ. Oh yea, and he led hundreds of Muslims to Christ in a nation where that is illegal.
 
He spoke of his suffering as a “gift” from God.
 
If someone gave me the “gift of suffering” I’d probably say, “no thanks, already have one” - or I’d re-gift it to that person who writes critical comments on my blog.
 
My friend never once complained about his suffering. To him, it was just part of following Jesus and carrying a cross - nothing radical, unusual or unexpected.
 
I’ve heard preachers challenge people to “make a RADICAL COMMITMENT” to Christ.
 
Why do we think the willingness to lay it all on the altar is RADICAL?
 
Real followers of Christ have offered their all as living sacrifices for thousands of years. The Bible presents this as the normal Christian life. But we call it radical, the turf of a few special chosen ones. For the rest of us, as long as we show up at church a couple of times a month and drop a dollar in the offering we think we're in the game.
 
Here’s a one-sentence summary of my sermon yesterday at Victory-Fort:
IN VIEW OF ALL GOD DID FOR US, GIVING OUR ALL IS REASONABLE, NOT RADICAL.
 
“I beseech you therefore, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your REASONABLE service.” – Romans 12:1 (English Revised Version)

I want to challenge all of you to a reasonable commitment to Christ - which means everything all the time forever.