Natl. Youth Leaders Conference – preacher vs. christian
I had the opportunity this week to attend Jeanne Mayo’s National Youth Leaders Conference in Dallas. There were over 2000 people registered for this conference. The line up of speakers and presenters was incredible. I had the priviledge of sitting and listening to such speakers as Ed Young Jr, Judah Smith, Josh McDowell, Chris Hill and the list goes on and on. Each session was filled with wisdom, insight and heart felt pleas. We had a great 2 1/2 days at this conference.
But out of everything that was shared over these past few days, one statement that sticks out in my mind was when Jeanne Mayo said, ”Many of us make much better preachers than we do Christians”. Those words have rung in my head over and over again. How many times have I given advice, counsel and yet not lived how I tell others to live. I believe that for most preachers, that has been true in some way, shape or fasion. But that’s not the ministry I want to have. That’s not the type of preacher I want to be.
I do want to be a good preacher. I want to be a preacher that can effectively deliver a word from God. So yes, I do want to be a good preacher…but I want to be a great Christian. Those words that Jeanne spoke have been an alarm to my spirit and to my heart. To those of us who have the great priviledge and responsibility of preaching God’s word, may we never become “professional pulpiteers” but may we all become genuine and authentic lovers of God and may our words and messages flow out of that intimacy with Him.
Leadership Retreat!!!
I just got back home from an incredible day and a half retreat with the greatest leadership team in San Antonio. The leadership team from our church traveled to Spicewood, TX where we came together to share, learn, grow, be challenged and just have a blast with eachother. We were able to do all of that and more. One of the great moments that we shared was a time where we let down our hair and had a great time doing Karaoke. Some sang well, others not so well; but all had fun.
We invited a great man of God to come and just pour into our lives and challenge us to be all that God intends for us to be. For me, the most impacting moment of the entire retreat was when Pastor Carlos Ramos, our guest speaker, asked all of us to find two people and to go to them and ask them these questions: 1) What are some of my strenghts? 2) What are some of my weaknesses? I have to admit that I was a little intimidated to go up to people and ask them what they thought some of my weaknesses were. But we have such a great leadership team that people were able to trust eachother and know that what was being said was being said in love and with respect. What an eye opening experience. We were able to see ourselves through someone else’s eyes and it revealed areas where we need to improve and correct. 
There were also a select group of ladies that decided to play a practical joke on me and cover the door handle to my room with toothpase and shampoo. I have to admit, they got me good. But let me just say to my sisters in Christ, “This Means WAR!!!”
To all of the leadership team of Bethesda, I want to say thank you for all you do. You are an incredible group of people who genuinely love God and love His people. There will never be a way to repay you for all you do, but I know that you do it as unto the Lord. It is truly an honor to serve the Lord and to serve our church along side each and every one of you. To our pastors, thank you for loving and valueing your leaders enough to invest in us and to allow us to be ministered to and challenged in our lives and in our ministries. I love you Bethesda and I am convinced that the Best Is Yet To Come!
From Visitation To Habitation
There is no doubt that there are moments/seasons when God begins to really deal with an individual or church. There are often seasons where it seems as if God is visiting us in a special way. As a matter of fact, we often use those exact words in moments of blessing or in times where the presence of God is being felt and sensed in an unusual way during times of prayer and corporate worship. You will often hear pastors or worship leaders or other people say, “God is visiting us!” But as I have contemplated these words, I have become convinced that as great as a visitation from God is, it is not his will to only visit us but He desires to make us His habitation.
In scripture we find that God visited this planet, through His son Jesus Christ. He was sent with a great mission and this mission had many aspects. He was to reveal the Father to humanity. He was to reveal what true love is. He was to show us how to live for God and serve as our ultimate example. He was to redeem us and reconcile us to the father. But there was another aspect to Christ’s mission that we often overlook. John 16:7 says, “But I tell you the truth: it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” Jesus himself said that it was better for us that he leave so that the Holy Spirit would come.
Christ was on earth for only 33 years. And out of those 33 years only 31/2 of those years were spent in public ministry. This was only a visitation. God visited this planet through His son. But it was only a visitation. What does all this mean? One aspect of why Christ visited earth was to prepare the way for the Holy Spirit and the work that He does. Not that the Holy Spirit was greater than Christ (for they are both God) but through the Holy Spirit the limitations that Christ had because of his human nature would now be removed. Christ was limited to being at one place at a given time. Now the Holy Spirit would not be limited by space or time. He is everywhere at every time. Christ could only visit people. Such as the time that He visited Mary and Martha, Zacchaeus, Lazarus, the woman at the well, and countless others. These people’s lives were completely transformed by a visit from God the Son. Imagine what would happen when God the Spirit would come not to visit them, but to dwell within them.
John 14:16-17 – “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him for he lives with you and will be in you.”
How did Christ prepare the way for the Holy Spirit? Christ left his word and his example. Now the Holy Spirit would take that word and bring conviction to the hearts of unbelievers (Jn. 16:8). Now the Holy Spirit would remind us of everything that Christ said and would teach us all things (Jn. 14:26). Christ told us and showed us how to serve God and live for Him, now the Holy Spirit would empower and enable us to do it (Acts 1:8). In the same way that Christ’s visitation to this world and to individuals during his earthly ministry prepared the way for the Spirit’s habitation, so those special moments of visitation in your life are to prepare you for a greater relationship with God and the habitation of His Spirit in you. But beware. We must not allow what happened to God’s people, the Jews, during His last visitation to happen to us during this visitation.
Christ in His word declares that He came for the Jew first, then for the gentile. In other words the purpose for His visitation was primarily for the Jewish people. But something happened. While Jesus visited with them, they did not realize the hour of thier visitiation (Lk. 19:44). Ultimately, the Jewish people as a whole have missed out on the habitation of God’s Spirit in thier lives all because they failed to realize, recognize, honor and respond to Christ’s visitaion. We must not allow this to happen to us. We must acknowledge that we have been in the presence of the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, sovereign and eternal God. We must honor Him and worship Him in the manner in which He’s worthy of. We must respond to His call and move at His command. For if we fail to do these things, it will be said of us, “God was not able to make Robert his habitation for he knew not the time of his visitation.”
I have made up my mind. I will not be swayed. I choose to allow God to make my life, my heart, my family, my ministry and my church His habitation.
A Neighboring Church
One evening this week, I decided to pay a visit to one of our neighboring churches. I had never visited this particular church before but have heard great reports of what God is doing with this congregation, so I decided to attend their midweek service and to just sit in and worship with them. What follows are some thoughts that were sparked as a result of this visit.
1. Ministerial Ethics - It was a struggle for me to even decide to visit this church. You see, traditionally it is often viewed as bad ministerial ethics for one minister or pastor to visit another church without some form of official invitation from that church. In years past and in the minds of many older ministers, this is a threatening move. According to them, “this pastor may be coming to recruit our people to his church or they are coming as spies to see what we’re doing.” To me, this mentality is outdated and ridiculous. But because I know that some have this view, I struggled with the thought of whether I should visit this church or not. Ultimately, I chose to rise above such idiotic and immature thinking and I chose to not allow this mentality to rob me of the blessing and experience of visiting our neighboring church. While I admit part of the reason for my visit was to observe what other churches are doing and how they operate, I would never “recruit” someone away from their church. I refuse to be bound to “OLD SCHOOL” ways of thinking.
2. Spirit Check – As I joined in the beautiful service that was being held, I immediately saw some elements in this church that caught my attention. The church had a very contemporary and appealing look to it. There was incredible lighting, audio and visual equipment. The asthetics of the church were very impressive. The praise and worship was lively, passionate and musically appealing to the ears. As I began to observe these wonderful elements and characteristics of this church, I started to feel something happening that I did not like. I started to feel myself becoming jealous of what they had. It was as if I began to feel threatened by some of the strengths that they possess. I began to pray but instead of rebuking or binding, I began to thank God for what he was doing in this church and for what He had blessed them with. As I began to thank God and praise Him for his work in this church, I sincerly rejoiced for them. It was definitely a spirit check for me.
3. Not All Strengths – As I observed many of their strenghts, like all churches, there were some weaknesses as well. In the hour and a half or so that I was there, with the exception of the pastor who I personally know, only one person came to shake my hand, welcome me or even attempt to speak to me. This one person came, shook my hand, said God bless you, then turned and walked away. There was really no attempt to get to know me or to inquire if it was my first time visiting. I share this particular weakness, not to ridicule or speak badly of this church, but to honestly admit that I have been guilty of this weakness as well as are many churches. I left that service with a renewed committment to greet and to speak to as many people as I possibly can in our services. I pray that this experience will help me to better myself in welcoming both our regular attendees and our guests and to make them feel at home.
Well, these are just a few thoughts that were sparked as I visted this great church. I’m curious, what have you observed as you’ve visited other churches? What things, both positive and negative, did you come away with as a result of visiting a church other than your home church?
The Kind of Church I Want
As many may know, I currently serve at a fantastic church as the youth pastor of a great group of teenagers and I assist our pastor in the ministry to our entire congregation. I know that God has called me in to His ministry and that my specific calling is to be a pastor. Knowing this, I understand that one day God will move me and transition me to a church where I will serve as a senior pastor. When that day will come I do not know but we stay sensitive and ready to obey at His command. In understanding my calling and in understanding both my current assignment and my future one, one of the things that I have learned to do is to pray for the people that I currently minister to but I also pray for those that God will call me to in the future. I pray for the individuals and for the families that one day I will pastor. One day, as I was praying along these lines, I sensed that God was challenging me. He was challenging me to dream and to envision what my future church would look like. He was challenging me to write down the vision so that I could begin to pray for certain charactersitics and traits that this church will have. As I took time to meditate, pray and to search the scriptures I discovered 4 major characterisitics that I want my church to have. What follows is my vision for the church that I will one day pastor.
The Kind of Church I Want
An INTERCEDING church: To plead on another’s behalf.
I John 5:14-15; Ephesians 6:12
- We are a church that seeks the face of God to know him intimately and to hear him clearly.
- We are a church that goes before the Father and pleads on behalf of the needs of our church family, our community, our nation and the world.
- We are a church that is engaged in spiritual warfare and that will experience victory because of our persistence and tenacity in prayer.
An INTERNATIONAL church: Extending across or transcending national boundaries
Matthew 28:19-20; Revelation 5:9
- We are a church that is aware of the need to evangelize the nations of the world.
- We are a church that is committed to evangelizing every nation through the giving of our finances, time and strength.
- We are a church that reaches out to and openly welcomes every race and ethnicity so that the nations of the world are represented in our church family.
An INNOVATIVE church: being or producing something like nothing done or experienced or created before; ahead of the times.
1 Corinthians 9:22; Luke 14:23
- We are a church that endeavors to find any way possible to communicate the word of God and to demonstrate the love of God to our world.
- We are a church that seeks practical and creative ways to meet the needs of people.
- We are a church that serves as a model of 21st century ministry methods while uncompromising the age old message of the gospel.
An INTEGRATED church: combining or coordinating separate elements so as to provide a harmonious, interrelated whole.
I Corinthians 12:12; Ephesians 4:3-6
- We are a church of many members that come together to form one body, one army, one family.
- We are a church united in worship, in service and in fellowship.
- We are a church that genuinely cares for and encourages each other in every aspect of our lives.
I’m curious to know, what elements or characteristics would you like to see in a church?
Is It Really That Easy?
Today was a pretty cool day. In our morning church services we had a celebration service. A little over 2 months ago, the different ministries of our church were challenged to Show Some Love. Four different teams comprised of various ministries of our church teamed up and were each given $250 dollars of seed money to work with. They were to raise more funds, and to somehow come together to show some love. One of our teams completely renovated the home a very nice but needy family in our community. Another team had a special day at a local nursing home where they literally gave makeovers to some of the residents and treated them to a special day. Yet another team held a community wide school supplies giveaway at our local mall and 502 children were blessed with free school supplies. And our final team went to an area childrens Hospital and blessed the children and their families with a great day and with various gifts.
So today in our morning services we celebrated what these teams were able to accomplish. Each presented the videos of their events and a few people gave testimonies of what they experienced as they served and reached out to others in need. Just before we were about to dismiss, I went up and just shared an experience that I had recently had and what God showed me about that experience. As a matter of fact, I shared the story that I posted previously on this blog entitled “A Captured Heart”. I just spoke for about 5 minutes, but then I just felt the need to give somebody an opportunity to give their heart to Jesus. I even struggled with it from the pulpit because I thought to myself, “I didn’t even preach. I just spoke some words to encourage them.” But I just sensed the urge to give the invitation for someone to meet Christ. As I gave the call and invitation for someone to come and surrender their heart to Jesus, to my amazement about 10 people responded. As I saw them walking down the isles to the altar, I couldn’t help but think, “Is it really that easy?” I mean, I hadn’t preached, I hadn’t really tried to convince them, I didn’t even tell a joke or scream and yell or anything. I had just encouraged them and then just gave them an opportunity. That was it.
But it really was that easy! The next time you are hanging out with a friend or speaking with a co-woker, don’t feel like you need to preach, argue, convince or pursuade. Just encourage them, love them and give them an opportunity to meet Christ. It really is that easy!
