God-Centered, Bible-Saturated Leadership
John Knight recounts being drawn in by false teaching and almost becoming a false teacher himself. It was the God-centered, Bible-saturated, Spirit-filled leadership of his pastors, Knight explains, that helped him to correct his course:
Younger pastors should realize that God will bring issues into your churches of which you have no experience and of which there are few resources from a God-centered perspective. Disability is one of those issues. What families like mine need from you, more than anything, is that you remember Jesus alone is the source of your hope. The greatest help you can provide is to keep us in the Bible and show us your own affections for God and his word, even when the passages are hard to understand. Show us your passion to submit to God’s revelation gladly.
When you are saturated in the Bible, that subtle, non-biblical voice someone like me may inadvertently bring into your church will be felt. When felt, you can move up next to it, seek to understand it, and respond to it in loving ways, with wisdom that God will provide. Your God-centered leadership can guide such a false-teacher-in-training away from that which would kill him and others. Maybe you’ll have to endure some harsh and unkind words in response. Or maybe God will use your firm, gentle, courageous engagement to turn a false teacher into a passionate lover of God and his word.
Desire and Calling
Jeremy Writebol offers a wise word of caution regarding desire and calling to ministry:
Desire can be a tricky thing, mainly because the real objects of our desire can be hidden behind something else. For example, I may desire the respect and adoration and accolades that come with preaching heart-hitting, Biblically sound messages. But that doesn’t mean I desire to be engaged in the work of the ministry. It just means I want people to respect and affirm me. We have to drill down deep within our motives to find what sits and the root of why we long for what we do.
Though desire should accompany one’s calling to eldership, to have desire doesn’t necessarily mean that one has been called.
Psalm 139:23–24 was a helpful passage to memorize, pray through, and meditate upon as I wrestled with my own desire and calling:
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
Easter: The Superbowl of the Church World?
I wrote the following for a post that appeared on the 2 Pillars Church blog yesterday.
On Easter, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. A friend of mine calls Easter Sunday the “Superbowl of the church world.”
As with all metaphors, you can’t apply too much pressure or it will inevitably break. That said, the Superbowl reference does a decent job of illustrating the significance of Easter Sunday in a way that is easy to understand.
Superbowl Sunday is the most anticipated, most popular, and most-watched sporting event in the United States—by a long shot. The NFL season is a long road that leads to this single destination.
Similarly, Easter is the most significant, most anticipated day in the church world.
But why?
Surely Easter baskets can’t hold a candle to Christmas trees loaded with presents! So, what makes the Easter celebration of Jesus’ resurrection so significant?
The Resurrection Is a Miraculous Event
My ninth grade biology teacher began our first day of class by directing our attention to a dead frog floating in a jar of formaldehyde. He promised an automatic “A” to anyone who was able to bring the amphibian back to life.
As you have surely guessed, none of us collected on his offer that year. We all had to earn our grade the old fashioned way.
You see, despite all our medical breakthroughs and scientific advancements, humanity hasn’t managed to find an answer to the problem of death. As the saying goes, nothing is certain but death and taxes. Death is the inevitable, inescapable fate that awaits us all.
This is precisely what makes the resurrection of Jesus so extraordinary and miraculous. Following his crucifixion, Jesus was dead. Lifeless. Just like that frog in the jar in my ninth grade biology class.
The story doesn’t end there, however.
Jesus rose again! He rose in victory over death. This resurrection wasn’t metaphorical or figurative. It isn’t a fairy tale we tell our kids. It was actual. It was physical. It happened. Jesus defeated death.
The Resurrection Is Foundational to the Christian Faith
Not only was the resurrection a miraculous event, but it is also foundational to the Christian faith. In the Bible, the Apostle Paul explains:
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:12–14)
Paul is saying here, among other things, that if Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead, then the Christian faith is in vain. It’s worthless. In other words, if you’re a skeptic looking for the most effective way to undermine the Christian faith, then the resurrection is your point of attack. If Christ wasn’t raised from the dead, then Christianity crumbles.
So, on Easter Sunday Christians are celebrating the very event that defines and upholds their faith.
The Resurrection Is Essential for the Christian Life
The resurrection isn’t merely significant for the Christian faith in general, however, but also for the Christian life in particular.
By faith in Jesus, one is united with Him in His resurrection. Jesus’ victory over death and the grave becomes our victory over death and the grave. Jesus victory over sin and Satan becomes our victory over sin and Satan.
This victory allows the Christian to turn from the sin that once enslaved her and walk in joyful obedience to Jesus. It also gives the Christian hope—a hope that will not disappoint. This hope is the ultimate and eternal answer to the universal problem of death. Through faith in Jesus, we look forward to eternal life in Heaven with Him.
Jesus Is Risen
This Sunday at 10:00AM, 2 Pillars Church will be gathering to celebrate the miraculous resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s going to be a party!
Not a Christian? That’s okay.
If you would like to hear more about Jesus, His resurrection, and what it could mean for you, then I invite you to join us.
Jesus is risen. He is risen indeed!
What’s So “Good” About Good Friday?
Todd Bumgarner on What’s So “Good” About Good Friday?:
When Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday, he put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Having come and having lived the perfect life, he died the perfect death, in our place for our sin. It was the sacrifice to end all sacrifices and he did it for us.
Read the entire post on the 2 Pillars blog.
Link List for April 16th, 2014
Applr — Social iOS App Discovery
“Applr is the best way to discover new apps using your friends’ recommendations.”
Field Notes Planner System | Simple Ideas and Thoughts
Create a planner/organizer using 5 Field Notes notebooks. Interesting idea.
Organizing and Disabling TextExpander Snippets | Macdrifter
Organize your TextExpander snippets for use on your Mac, iOS devices, or specific applications.
Deckset for Mac: Turn your notes into beautiful presentations
Deckset creates slides from a simple Markdown file.
Swipe — simple, easy, interactive presentations.
Swipe, like Deckset, is a tool for creating slides. It supports various file formats, including Markdown, PDF, Keynote, images, and more.
How To Use The Foolscap Method To Move The Right Things Forward | Productivityist
Steven Pressfield on boiling down your idea for that book, organization, or project to notes on a single piece of foolscap.
Converge Church Planter Assessment — Days 2 and 3
Well, we made it. Days 2 and 3 of the Converge Planter Assessment are in the bag and our portion of the process is officially over. Here my “quick and dirty” recap:
- Days 2 and 3 were very different from day 1. While day 1 focused solely on individuals (presentations, etc.), the last two days consisted of a number of team and group activities as wells as interviews with the candidates and their spouses.
- One group activity put all candidates and spouses, eighteen in total, in a single group. This project was the most challenging by a long shot, but it was also the most fun. I joked with another candidate that one thing has become clear to me over the week—God is not calling the eighteen of us to plant a church together.
- Overall, we were much more relaxed and felt less pressure.
- We welcomed more opportunities to interact with the other couples going through assessment as well as the assessors.
- We received a binder full of results from three personality and leadership profiles we took before the assessment. This was one of my favorite elements of the assessment process! I’ll be spending much more time with this in the days and weeks to come.
Our day ended at around 3:00 PM yesterday. We prayed over the assessors before they spent the rest of the day and evening discussing the candidates. Ultimately, they will arrive at a decision to either recommend or not recommend each one of us for church planting.
We sit for our exit interview in a little under two hours. We’ll receive their decision for us then. Pray that our identity would be rooted in Christ and that our hearts would be content and filled with joy, regardless of what we hear.