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3 Things I’ve learned about preaching…

In part 3 of this series, I want to talk abut perhaps the most important thing I’ve ever learned about preaching, and that is the fact that:

3. Preaching is empty without passion and authority.

Passion comes from spending enough time with the Scriptures I’m teaching on that God has captured ME through them FIRST. Passion comes from an urgency of knowing that THIS MESSAGE might be the message that brings someone to faith in Christ. Passion comes from a moving of the holy Spirit in my life in such a way that I can not HELP but raise my voice to some extent when I talk about what he has laid on my heart. Passion comes from my own emotion. Passion comes with my own confessions and willingness to become vulnerable as the preacher on the platform. Passion comes from understanding that everyone in the crowd that day has showed up HOPING that the preacher possess some answer, some hope, some level of intimacy with God that they do not currently possess!

Authority comes with understanding that I AM GOD’S  MESSENGER to the church.  He has called me to speak for Him. He as asked me to be the spiritual leader.  He has commanded me to care for the flock that He’s given me. He has celled me as and Elder to be able to teach, and as I do, to allow my life to preach on a daily basis. He has called me to live above reproach, so that I can speak with moral authority when I preach. He has called me to model the way. He has called me to speak with boldness and authority and to love for the applause of Him, not the applause of men.  he has called me to preach in such a way that people are impressed by HIM,  not ME.  He has called me to rebuke, encourage, and lift people up with good teaching. He has anointed me, ordained me, and given me the privilege and power to proclaim His Good News. I need to preach like I believe  He has!

I can say all the right things and make all the correct interpretations, be funny, be impressive, be loud, and be engaging. However, if I have not preached with passion and authority, I have failed?  A sermon without passion and authority is like  coke without the fizz.  These days as I am finishing up prep work for a message, I ask myself: “Where’s the fizz?” Where’s the heart? Where’s the urgency? Transparency? Challenge?  Emotion? Call?  Pastors, let’s PLEASE covenant together that we will preach without passion and authority! It may be our greatest opportunity in ministry to worship Him!

Doing everything we can to shine our lights…

This is my car. The first one done. However…

Hopefully you are about to see A TON of these around metro Atlanta!

Mountain Lakers, get it done!

 

Egypt 09 Pastors Conference clips…

3 things I’ve learned about preaching (pt. 2)…

In my previous post on what I’ve learned about preaching, I discussed the fact that preaching is not the most important gift. Today, however, I want to contrast that with the second most important thing I’ve learned about preaching, and that is that:

2. Preaching must be viewed as one of the most important things I do.  

While I do NOT think preaching is THE most important element of church leadership, it IS ONE of the most important elements of church leadership, and I can not relegate it to something I squeeze into my schedule when the tyranny of the urgent slows down. I’ve mentioned before here that I do not believe that preaching is my greatest spiritual gift. I believe leadership is. However, I believe preaching is EXTREMELY important! God has called me as a Senior Pastor to preach His Word and preach it well:  “Preach the word of God. Be persistent, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching.” 2Timothy 4:2 (NLT).

God has also reminded me time and time again through His people that He HAS called me and gifted me to preach His word, and I need to be faithful to that call and gifting. Anyone will tell you that while I may not be the best preacher in the world, God has given me an uncanny ability to GROW in my preaching ability over the years. When I look back to my sermons 10 years ago when I started Mountain Lake, I writhe in pain! However, this just means I can look back and SEE my growth as a preacher. Everyone on our Ministry Team will tell you also that this has not happened by mistake. I WORK HARD AT PREACHING.  Below are just a few thoughts on my preaching work ethic, my priority of preaching, and my desire for preaching excellence. These things have enabled me to “fan into flame” my preaching gift:

• I blocked my mornings off years ago for preparing to teach. I meet with NO ONE in my church in the mornings. Sorry, but while my mind is fresh, I need to give my best to be with God and receive His messages for my church! 
• I spend 20-30 hrs every week preparing to teach, including time on the weekends and Sunday mornings when I get up.
• Early Sunday morning every week, I walk around in my Study and say the msg OUT LOUD  at least four times to myself. God works through this audible learning time to connect ideas bouncing around in my head and connect transitions. Every week, some of my best thoughts for my sermons come during this time!
• Every week, I meet with at least two other pastors and talk about what I sense God is laying on my heart and ask for input. I can’t remember a time I got up and preached  that someone had not given me input before I preached it. 
• I ask for my wife’s input. She’s a genius, knows our church,  and she listens to God. She also knows me better than anyone on the planet.
• I allow critique and feedback on my sermon every Monday at 1PM by a group of people on   my Ministry Team.  During this time, it’s open season on the preacher. This process is sometimes painful, but the log time product is always better because of it!
• I try NOT to preach more than 70% of the time. Here are some reasons for that:
• My preaching will be better down the stretch if have ample weeks of the year when I allow God to speak to me w/o the urgency of preaching that Sunday!
• NOT teaching on a given week allows me to look ahead to what “good teaching” looks like in the future for our church. Our church preaching calendar currently runs 6-9 mos. ahead because of this.
• SITTING in the congregation of the church when I’m not teaching gives me priceless data about my own church and the preaching there.
• I don’t want to build this church around my preaching personality
• I want to raise up other preachers.

Suffice to say, preaching IS one of the most important things I do. It IS one of the most important gifts in the church.  I must “fan into flame” the gift He’s given me and commit to delivering “good teaching” on a consistent manner to my church. To this I am committed. Pastors, are you?

All about my Egypt Trip…

By now, many of you KNOW that I have been in Egypt for the past week. Our church, along with Hope Church in Las Vegas, hosted a Pastors/Leaders church two hours outside of Cairo. We had nearly 300 pastors, leaders, and discipleship school students participate! It rocked!  I preached twice (w/ an interpreter, of course); then we had high level volunteers lead workshops on: spiritual leadership; experiencing God; and small groups!

Suffice to say, God showed up BIG TIME. If you’ve been praying for peace on earth, let me just tell you: I have seen first hand: God is answering your prayers! I also met Pastor/Leaders who ARE thinking outside the box and getting it DONE when it comes to shining the light of the Gospel to people in Egypt!

I met:

• A man 26 yrs old who has planted 70 house churches in the last  three years. He does this by sending two people into an an unreached community DAILY to build relationships with Muslims there. 
• A man who is a Retired General of the Egyptian police who has now given his life to Christ! At eth conference, he and his wife pulled me aside to tell me that they believed God had spoken to them at the conference and called them into vocational ministry!
• A man who pastors a Baptist Church of 150 people, but also has planted 9 new churches in unreached villages! He is raising up men in his church, sending them to seminary and and then placing them in unreached communities as a seed for a new church!
• A man who runs a small business development school for the sheer purpose of training Christian men on how to start a business in a new area so they can build relationships with Muslims and share Christ.  They have had 75 men graduate from the school and 8 churches have sprung up as people have come to know Christ in these communities!

God is bringing peace on earth to parts of the the Middle East! People ARE finding PEACE with God through Jesus and then spreading the Gospel, and He is using Mountain Lake to be part of it!  He using us to build up the church and come alongside the church planting movement that’s just beginning to explode  in the Middle East in both Egypt and Iran! Praise God! Stay tuned here for a few more Egypt thoughts…and video!

3 things I’ve learned about preaching (pt.1)…

I have been preaching now in churches for close to 15 years. Preaching is a spiritual gift. I believe God gave me the gift of speaking. However,  it’s been a gift that I have needed to fan into flame over the years.  I’ve learned a TON about preaching and its place in my life and the church. Above all, I’ve learned three primary things about preaching:

1. Preaching is not the most important gift. 

We know this, don’t we? God tells us through His Word that all spiritual gifts are NOT equal. Some are more important than others (see 1, 2 Corinthians, among other letters). The apostle Paul actually said that LOVE was the most important gift. I was hanging out with a Pastor who pastors a church near a seminary in Kentucky, and he said.  to me: “The problem with so many of these seminary students is that they love to teach, but they do NOT love people.” WOW. What a tragedy. Someone’s gotten it backwards. I would love to say that my testimony would be that I love people BETTER than I preach. If that is said about me, I am getting it right! 

Pastors, I know of GREAT churches who have average communicators, and I know of non growing churches who have GREAT preachers. However, I do NOT know of any GREAT churches where the Pastor is not a gifted leader who loves people well, especially, his staff and leaders. Pastors, preaching is not the most important gift. Love is. If people know you love them, they will listen to you. If you just love to preach and are looking for a platform to preach, don’t become a Sr. Pastor. Pastors: as the chief overseers, our primary responsibility is to care the flock of God entrusted to us ( 1 Peter 5:2). Preaching IS one way we do that. It simply should NOT be the ONLY way!

I work HARD at preaching. Harder than just about anyone I know. Preaching is one of the most important things I do. But I’ve learned it’s not the MOST important.  Loving leadership is.

The primary role of a shepherd is to be out in front of the sheep leading them.  The sheep can not follow a shepherd if he is not out in front of them and close enough to hear his voice? For many of us, even if we are out front, many of us are too far out in front trying to change the world, that we leave our sheep behind! God forbid!

Pastors, are you out in front of the sheep? Are you leading?

Are you modeling the way? If so, have you gotten so far AHEAD of your sheep that they aren’t listening any more?

Are you loving the sheep? Caring for the flock? OTHER THAN preaching?

I’ll share about the  two other things I’ve learned about preaching next. Stay tuned.

Are you a cookie cutter church?

As churches, we don’t create the vision for our churches. We discover it. From God.  As church leaders, to discover  God’s vision, however, means we have to search and listen for God’s clear voice regarding His distinct vision for the church we lead.  This is why, by the way, I get a little concerned by some of the current trends I see among many new churches in ripping THEIR vision statements off other church’s websites or trendy pastors’ blog sites!

I have seen too many “cookie cutter” vision statements lately on new church plants’ websites and blogs.  You know what a cookie cutter does, right? A cookie cutter makes the next cookie look just like the last one. That works well for Christmas cookies, but not well for church planting! Church planter: Does your church look just like every other church plant? If so, why are you planting it?  Why not just join theirs? 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against Pastors learning from one another and even rubbing off on one another.  My fear is simply that many of us are not willing to do the “hard  work” these days of being still and patient for long enough to receive God’s vision for our churches!  If we’re getting our vision for our church from another church, then we’re getting it from the wrong place! Visions come from God, not another church!

Many of us as Pastors could use this Holiday Season to get away from the busyness and the grind (and even our people) for a little while to GET WITH GOD and DISCOVER HIS UNIQUE VISION FOR OUR CHURCH!  While we cut cookies this year, let’s commit NOT to be a cookie cutter church this next year!

By the way, Will Mancini, author of Church Unique will be speaking at our  churchplanters.com conference  Feb 22-23: “Velocity”. He’ll be talking about HOW we as a church can discover, communicate, and implement the unique vision God wants us to have. Get registered now! 

Building and Leading A Team…

Today in our church planter’s coaching network, we’re going to be talking about Building and Leading Teams. Here are just a few snippets and thoughts we will discuss today:

• Leadership requires as much courage as it does ability.
• The #1 characteristic of a leader is her/her ability to build & lead a team.
• because teams are made up of humans, most teams are inherently dysfunctional.
• Most teams members are NOT honest with each other the way they should be.
• Building and Leading a Team is painfully difficult. It’s easier NOT to build a team.
• Most teams are afraid to REALLY hold each other accountable.
• Team members who are really close to one another will sometimes be afraid to rock the boat of friendship to be completely honest with each other.
• Learning to select the RIGHT team members is the starting point.
• Selecting the right team also mean deselecting the WRONG team members.
• Leading a team requires tons of courageous conversations and tough calls.
• We can not lead a team without clarity and buy- in.
• If we’re not reviewing our team, we’re being unfair to them.
• Every team member must be held accountable for results.
• Do you know what you’re looking for in your next hire? Not in terms of position, but in terms of character, chemistry, and core competencies?
• The opposite of a team? A Staff. How can we function as a team instead of a staff?
• Fun is a key component to every team.
• A good team requires GREAT communication.
• A good team requires GREAT chemistry.
• Most organizations are one “fire” and them one “hire” away from explosive growth.
• As the leader, do YOU have a job description for yourself?
• My job as the leader? :LEAD the Team!
• Here’s what a leader does: Shares the vision; Enables others; Encourages the Heart; Models the Way.

By the way, I’ll be leading a breakout on this subject at our churchplanters.com 2010 Conference “Velocity”: Feb 22-23, 2010. Just one of many practical breakouts offered by practitioners at our conference! Get registered now! $99 thru the rest of this month!

Becoming a Creative Leader…

I laughed out loud today when I noticed that someone had added me to a Twitter list they had created called “Creative Leaders.”  The fact that any human being considered me for that category still astounds me! However, to be honest, I DO consider myself to be a highly creative person!  It hasn’t always been this way.

When I started Mountain Lake Church almost ten years ago, I would’ve told you that I didn’t have a creative muscle in my body! OK, maybe one.   However, hundreds of hours of creative and brainstorming meetings later,  I’m proud to say that God has helped me become a highly creative leader! EVERY week, God uses me  these days to bring fresh, creative  ideas to our church, our Ministry Team, and our Worship Services.  I’m still not the most creative leader in the world, but my growth in this area gives me confidence about what God can do in this area of my life in the future!

So the other day I asked myself the question: “How? How have I become a more creative leader over time?  Here are a few things I put down that  that have fueled my passion and growth in this area:

• Creative muscle is just like any muscle: It doesn’t grow unless its stretched!
• Creativity is hard work for just about anyone! that’s why most people aren’t creative!
• Creativity often requires time alone.
• Creativity often simply requires staying in the room long enough.
• Change of place + Change of pace = Change.
• Creativity is strengthened by a team. 
• Creativity is  a spiritual pursuit. Creativity is expressing part of the image and personality of God in and through my life! God is a creative God!
• Creativity breeds creativity. If you want to be creative, get around other creative people as often as possible.
• The creative PROCESS can be draining. The product is always better because of it.
• For tenured leaders, creativity is the fuel that keeps the passion for the mission alive!

How are you growing as a creative leader?

By the way, my friend Ed Young, Jr. will be speaking on “Creative Velocity” at our upcoming churchplanters.com conference , Feb 22-23, at our church!  Ed understands the important of a creative, redemptive imagination when it comes to the weekend, but also the weekday! Get registered now!

Building THE Kingdom, not OUR Kingdom…

The last 24 hrs have been unbelievable! Yesterday we started a new Pastor’s coaching network with pastors from all over the Southeast,  and spent an entire day investing into them, giving them permission to plant and lead churches that change the way people think about church. Here are the guys: some of the sharpest around!

Greg Bearss, Lake Pointe Lutheran Church: Hot Springs, AR

Chris Goins, a2 Church: Birmingham,AL

Paul Peterson, New Life Church: Rock Hill, SC

Jeffrey Hickman, LifeSong Church: Lyman, SC

Ken Joslin, Life Church:  Gainesville, GA

Matt Adair, C2 Church: Watkinsville, GA

Howard Koepka, Eagle Pointe Church: Acworth, GA

Kevin Bullock, Reality Church: Carrollton , GA

The greatest news is that impacting God’s Kingdom doesn’t end there for us! Right now, we have a team headed to Turkey to train pastors who have a desire to start and lead churches all across Europe and the Middle East.  In December, I’ll lead another trip to Egypt where we will have 200-300 pastors in the annual Church planting conference we host there now!

Today I also got to hang out with  a church planter from Amsterdam, Holland: Sebastiaan van Wessem (pictured below), pastor of  thousand hills international church and founder of Europe Advance, a church planting network founded out of his church plant (sound familiar?), that is  catalyzing collaboration among planters and churches across Europe, and starting new sites and churches!

Mountain Lakers, I want you to know that it’s my heart for our church to keep building, not the “Mountain Lake Kingdom,” even thought I want to reach and minister to thousands in our own backyard!  I just don’t want us to forget that the Kingdom of God is bigger than one community, city, state or even nation! I want all of us to keep before us God’s desire to impact His Kingdom everywhere: OUR Jerusalem (community) ,Judea (state), Samaria (region), and to the ends of the earth! It is my honor as pastor of this church to be allowed to invest in, and build HIS Kingdom!  I hope you;re just as honored to be a part of what God is doing in and through us together!