Halloween is coming up…
Halloween is coming up, and Christians seem quite divided. One camp says to have nothing to do with “Satan’s Holiday” And, they have a point! The other side says, “Lets not let Satan have it, we can use this time to reach people for Jesus Christ!” And they also have a point. So how does “You are the light of the world” blend with “Light has no fellowship with darkness”? Here is one guys opinion for the mix. If what you are doing is truly shedding light, then there is no more darkness and so there is no fellowship with the darkness. But if what you are doing is trying to turn the light down so far that it almost blends into the darkness, then that isn’t what God called us to do. Let your light shine brightly so that all can see. Light seems brighter in darkness, so let it shine!
Business and Christianity
I am not a business person, a Spanish teacher by trade, so selling some of that furniture I mentioned in an earlier post has been a new challenge in my life. Joy of making a sale is part of it, but also the people who promise you they will come, who then don’t show up remind me that patience is a virtue. God has a perfect plan for all of us, but often, we promise to follow it, but then when the going gets tough, we don’t. I have to remember that more important than selling a couch or wardrobe is that the people I deal with see the love of Jesus in my life and actions when they deal with me. Yes, I want to get them a great deal on some used furniture, but it is more important that they have a great place to stay for eternity, than a soft place to sit while they watch TV in their living room.
Movement Creates Momentum
Something in motion is easy to keep in motion compared to getting a stuck object moving. Welcome back to basic physics. That goes for churches and businesses too. Today, I was talking with a man who owns a consignment shop in the town of Dacusville, SC. He was moving out to a new shop in Powdersville. In chatting, he mentioned that his first few months in the Dacusville location he had done very well, but then business dropped off. However, once he started loading up his stuff to move it to Powdersville, he had had lots of people stop by to see what was going on. Moving locations isn’t the issue, it is the movement itself. Notice that people stopped when they saw movement going on. In the church world, if your church isn’t growing, try doing something…anything, outside the walls of your building. People will see movement at your church and that will cause them to, at very least, notice you are there! What you do isn’t the great issue to put this principle into action, it is that you do something! Something as simple as a church wide yardsale will create activity and draw attention. Have fun and get moving!
New Hobbies
A couple months ago, my wife and I decided to go to an estate auction for a fun date. We rarely do “dinner and a movie” so we are always looking for something new. We had a great time at the auction, and found something we really enjoy doing together in the process. She has an incredible eye for a great deal, so the downside is that our house now has way too much furniture in it! (If you need some piece of furniture and live near Pickens, SC contact me and I am sure we can pass on one of those great deals to you.) This post has absolutely nothing to do with church leadership, just wanted to share a little of my life with you. Have an awesome day!
Change
Talked with a lady yesterday who owns an antique store in Asheville, NC. I asked her about her business mostly because there isn’t a single wall in my house that doesn’t have a piece of furniture in front of it and the thought has crossed my mind to dabble in the used furniture/antiques business. She shared that in the “hayday” of the 80′s, anything that was over 10 years old would sell. Then along came ebay and changed the landscape of the business. Suddenly, instead of searching for months to find just the right piece, people could look it up and have half a dozen examples of the piece they are looking for. When I asked her if she has adapted her business to the changes in the market, her answer surprised me. She said that she had…but then her explaination of how she had changes was that she is now in less locations. She downsized her operation. There are still plenty of people out there who don’t use a computer or the internet, or are scared to make purchases over the web…so she can probably stay in business for a few more years doing things the way she has always done it.
Are we as a church reaching out in new ways to meet people by engaging the new culture we meet today, or are we downsizing to find those who are still being marketed to in the old ways? Jesus Christ is still the most incredible and powerful “product” ever marketed. HE does all the work of changing people’s lives! All HE asks us to do is introduce people to Him! How are we making those introductions? Is it in a way that is going to make people want to meet Jesus, or will they think, “With an intro like that, I hope He never comes near me.”? Think about it.
Resident, invited guest or interloper?
I spent the morning at the Vanderbilt’s house a little south of Asheville. I don’t know them, I am not a friend of their’s or a distant cousin invited in for the holiday. My wife and I paid about $80 for the chance to enter the house. Once inside though, it was painfully clear that we were not residents of the home, we weren’t even servants or invited guests. We were a neccesary evil. The home, with its 100,000+ square feet has become too big even for the riches of the Vanderbilt family to keep up with expenses. Due to the pressure to keep up the house, they let commoners enter for a price. Not all of the house is open of course, and even the parts you can see are not really open, interlopers are kept from truly enjoying any of the house safely on the other side of nice velvet ropes that clearly keep you separated from the richness of the house if you aren’t part of the invited group.
Is Jesus a resident, invited guest or interloper in your life? Is He invited into all the rooms? Can He read the books of your mind’s library without your having to hide some away in a locked case? He wants to be a resident, one who has refrigerator rights. Do we have rooms we don’t want Him to see? Or only partially see? Or is Jesus just a means to an end…we think that if we let Him in a little bit, then life will be great, we will still be able to make our house payment, and other bills because He will provide, yet we want to keep Him at a distance, not really letting Him into our lives. He wants to be a part of your life 100%, not just let in the door for a quick guided tour that only shows Him the cool stuff.
Climbing over fences…
I have a 5 month old puppy, Mac, who has now on multiple occasions proven that she likes living in her fenced in area. Boundaries make her feel safe. She will go out running with me, but then when we get back, she rushes into her area like she misses home. A couple days ago, my wife Casper noticed that Mac was chewing on the window. (The pen is right up against the house.) So we decided that she needed to go on a tie-out, out in the yard away from the window. Last night was the first night for Mac on her brand new tie-out. This morning, when I got up, Mac was right back in her favorite morning spot…sitting on top of her dog house looking in the kitchen window…inside her pen, with the gate locked behind her. Casper and I both laughed and cringed at the same time…she had jumped over the fence and then gotten her collar off.
Mac is just like many Christians, when God asks us to get out of our box. We like our comfortable boundaries that we have set up. Our traditions and ways of doing things make sense to us…we like it there. Then if we do get out of our comfort zone, as soon as something scares us, we go running back into our pen. Leading a church outside the box is tough, though like in the case of Mac, that is where the fresh water and food are, in the same way, that is where the sinner is to be found and shown the love of Jesus Christ. Oh, and in case you are wondering, I moved the tie-out so that she can’t get back over her fence again…or at least I think so. We shall see come tomorrow morning.
Jealousy issues?
In first Samual 18: 7-9 we have a sad bit of scripture.
7 As they danced, they sang:
“Saul has slain his thousands,
and David his tens of thousands.”
8 Saul was very angry; this refrain galled him. “They have credited David with tens of thousands,” he thought, “but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?” 9 And from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David.
This got me to thinking this morning. Both men were called by God almighty to be kings. What happened? It isn’t that David was perfect and Saul wasn’t…both men sinned against man and against God at points in their reign. Saul let jealousy get the better of him. That is what got me thinking about how that applies to pastors and leaders in the church. Unless you are David Yonggi Cho, then someone else has a bigger church than you do. I am sure even he has some things that he thinks other churches do better. It is great to learn from those who God has blessed with wisdom and talent to spread the gospel in amazing ways. It isn’t ok to be like Saul and “keep a jealous eye” on our brother in Christ who is working to take Jesus to as many people as he is able. We see from the example of Saul, that God didn’t continue to bless his kingdom once he began to be jealous of David and think that he deserved to be in his position. None of us deserve to be anything. God annoints some of us as leaders, just remember that we are still followers of HIM! Do what God has annointed YOU to do to the very best of the ability that HE has given you. Enjoy the Davids in your life; learn from them and cheer them on as they help you to defeat the real enemy.
Are you replaceable?
Are you replaceable? As a pastor or leader, are you working to replace yourself? It is easy to feel like we are the only one who can do our job as well as we can do it. We must constantly fight that urge while training and empowering others to take our place. You don’t need a carbon copy of yourself, but others do need to be able to take over your job if something happens to you or prevents you from doing so. Maybe it takes a dozen volunteers to replace one you, but they can still do it in a pinch…are they ready? Take the time to show people how to do what you do. Some call this mentoring, some call it coaching, I just call it being a good leader.
Miracles happening today!
There seems to be a rift in Christianity between those who believe that the Holy Spirit is alive and well and doing incredible things today in the world and those who believe that the Holy Spirit went on vacation sometime after the first century and no longer does anything except help people find Jesus. Not that pulling people to Jesus is to be cast aside, that is an incredible miracle in and of itself. It seems to me that if we believe that “With God all things are possible.”(Matt 19:26) and that “if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move.”(Matt 17:20) then how can we relegate the Holy Spirit of God to not doing miracles in people’s lives? We serve an incredible, awesome God! He is capable of healing, raising people from the dead, saving people, multiplying food or other resources, restoring minds… Does that mean that HE will do those things? Even Jesus was hindered from doing miracles when he was in a town with no faith. Are we in America that town? (I know that many who read this are not in America, but that is where I am writing from.) It isn’t signs and wonders that I am praying for, but I am praying to see a faith grow in myself and others that will rely completely on the incredible power of God rather than on our own power.
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