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Category Archives: Staff

3 Guiding Principles to Live On Mission

14 May

Catalyst_logoA couple of weeks ago, I attended the Catalyst conference in Dallas, Texas with four other members of the church staff of VALLEY Christian Church. While there, we heard some incredibly challenging, insightful and thought provoking messages. Below are some of my notes from a lab given by Matt Carter, pastor of The Austin Stone Community Church.

1. To be an effective missional leader you have to call people to be more in love with their savior than their mission.
“If you love your mission more than you love your Savior,  your Savior will say “I’m not going to be there anymore”. (See Revelation 2:1-5)

2. As a missional leader, you’re the one who moves people with the urgency of the Great Commission.

3. A missional leader is someone who leads their people to be an agent of transformation in whatever context they are in.

There are 4  kinds of churches today:

1. Against the city
2. In the city
3. With the city
4. For the city (Charles H. Spurgeon)

If your church closed its doors today, would your city grieve?

Recast the vision every year. Air war & ground war.

Give people more than a handout but a hand up!

Vision bleeds (will wear out & fade over time), if passion for Jesus is not 1st priority!

I’m still enjoying “chewing” on much of what we heard and experienced at Catalyst. Maybe I’ll post some more notes from this great conference in the days/weeks to come.

 
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Posted by on May 14, 2013 in Leadership, Preaching, Staff

 

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Time To Recharge!

29 Apr

CatalystTomorrow, I’m headed out to Dallas for the Catalyst Conference with four other members of the staff of VALLEY Christian Church (Josh, Brossia, Nnamdi Oparanozie, Andy Sileno & Tommy Niblack). It will probably be hard to sleep tonight because I am so excited! Sometimes, it’s important to get away as a staff and take time to recharge our batteries and receive, instead of giving all the time. This is something we try to do on an annual basis, and all the staff members are encouraged to attend similar conferences in their particular area of ministry to continue to learn and develop.

Take a look at the line-up of speakers we’ll hear from over the next few days, there’s is no doubt we’ll be fired up when we see everyone in church this Sunday:

Andy Stanley, Emmitt Smith, Lysa TerKeurst, Dave Ramsey, Craig Groeschel, Dr. Brene Brown, Erwin McManus, Mark Driscoll, Louie Giglio, Reggie Joiner, Amenda Brown Owen, Jon Acuff (just to name a few)

Please keep us in your prayers; for a great time of recharging and refreshing. We look forward to seeing everyone in the VALLEY Family on Sunday!

 
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Posted by on April 29, 2013 in Staff

 

The Single Most Significant Decision

20 Feb

ATTITUDEA friend recently shared these simple words by Charles R. Swindoll with me and I thought they were just too good to not pass along:

He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but he who walks wisely will be delivered.
Proverbs 28:26

“This may shock you, but I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude.

It is more important than my past, my education, my bankroll, my successes or failures, fame or pain, what other people think of me or say about me, my circumstances, or my position.

Attitude . . . keeps me going or cripples my progress. It alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope.

When my attitudes are right, there’s no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme, no challenge too great for me.

Yet, we must admit that we spend more of our time concentrating and fretting over the things that can’t be changed in life than we do giving attention to the one thing that can, our choice of attitude.”

 
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Posted by on February 20, 2013 in Coaching, culture, Devotions, Family, Leadership, Marriage, Parenting, Preaching, relationships, Staff

 

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Relational Capital

12 Feb

Relational_ResurgenceTemplate2Found this excellent article on The Resurgence today. Well worth the read for every pastor and church leader!

13 Ways To Grow Relational Capital

 
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Posted by on February 12, 2013 in Church Growth, Leadership, Staff

 

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You – Shut Your Mouth

27 Jul

Here’s an awesome blog post from James MacDonald for Christian leaders of every kind:

“A complex issue for ministry leaders is how to process the incredible amount of feedback that comes from so many sources, both in and outside the church. It falls into some basic levels, regardless of the source:

  •  General input (random and one time)
  •  Persistent input (continuous on many topics, not always negative)
  •  Irreconcilable disagreement without sin (Paul and Barnabas)
  •  Constructive criticism (always negative, but goal is helping)
  •  Destructive criticism (always negative, with goal to wound)
  •  Harsh unjust criticism (intended to tear down)
  •  Personal attack and character assassination (intended to destroy)

The further what you’re facing is down that list, the more this article is intended to guide you. Part of the puzzle in processing feedback requires evaluation of the person who brings it (let’s save that for another post).”

Read the rest of this insightful article chock-full of Biblical wisdom HERE!

 
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Posted by on July 27, 2012 in Leadership, relationships, Staff

 

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Cultivating the Work of the Inner Life – Tim Keller

03 Jul

Tim Keller brilliantly explains the necessity of a Christian leader (Pastor) to cultivate the inner life:

“All the causes of either visible or pending failure stem from a failure to cultivate the inner life. Look at the list of the causes of fruitlessness. They are the results of failing to know ourselves, failing to believe the gospel, and forgetting the truth of God’s word. Thus, we must cultivate the work of the inner life.

It’s important to begin by saying that often ministry failures can be traced to a lack of true calling to the ministry–which is a subject for another article. Apart from that foundational flaw, however, most ministry failure stems from a neglect of the inner life and communion with God. Secondary problems, such as a minister’s insufficient training or misguided approach, usually do not become full-fledged failures unless they are accompanied with–and thus magnified many times over–by failures of inner life and character.

So while it may create problems if a young minister imposes an inappropriate model on a church, it probably won’t be disastrous unless he begins to interpret opposition as a threat to his identity of a successful minister, in which case he would respond with insecurity and drive people out needlessly.

Christian leadership is mobilizing God’s gifts to accomplish God’s goals in God’s way. Leadership involves developing our strengths in order to articulate the vision, persuade people to follow, and keep them all working together.

We must beware of identifying with our ministry and making it an extension of ourselves. Until we see this, we may be successful in the short term but may begin to see the telltale signs of fruitlessness: cowardice, hypocrisy, indulgence. We are clashing our cymbals, and the results are the noise of hurt feelings, a critical spirit, consuming anxiety, and persistent joylessness in our work.

As we have seen, engaging in Christian ministry will make you a much better person or a much worse person than you would have been otherwise. You will not remain static; you will be growing and changing. And thus, the question of “How am I doing?” does not have to be a pestering plumb line but can serve as a personal reminder to pursue godliness, cultivate fruitfulness, work diligently, trust completely, and preach confidently.”

 
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Posted by on July 3, 2012 in Leadership, Preaching, Staff, Uncategorized

 

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Where The Rubber Meets The Road

27 Jun

“I’ve never met a mature Christian, only maturing Christians.” -Bill Hanks

Jesus gave his followers a mission that he expected each of us to take seriously and to accomplish:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Matthew 28:19-20a

With the mission our Lord has given us in mind, here are a few practical thoughts on discipleship:

1. Discipleship is where the “rubber meets the road” for a Christian.

2. Discipleship is what Pastors and church leaders must ALWAYS see as the goal and focus of the churches they lead.

3. Discipleship is a process that must be intentional, life giving and transforming.

4. Discipleship is not a class or book or agreeing to a set of beliefs, but rather a lifelong journey, walking side-by-side with other Christians and allowing the Holy Spirit to change and transform us into who God has truly created us to be.

5. Discipleship happens best in the local church with other committed Christ-followers “doing life” together.

Many of these thoughts flow from evaluating how well we are making disciples at VALLEY Christian Church. We’re discovering simple and practical ways to become more effective in our transformational discipleship journey together. I can’t wait to share what we’re learning with the whole VALLEY Family at the end of this summer.

Oh, did I mention, discipleship is EXCITING!

 
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Posted by on June 27, 2012 in Leadership, Preaching, relationships, Staff

 

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Time to Make That Change

22 Jun

Change is never easy for people. However, a good leader knows that change is in incredible tool to increase Kingdom fruit and effectiveness (see John 15:2). Previous blog posts have explained the behind the scenes reorganization we’re going through at VALLEY Christian Church this summer (HERE). As we’re beginning to make some prayerful, God given, conclusions about the future direction of our church (for the next five years), the time now starts to communicate changes to all the leadership and ultimately, the whole church family. In my opinion, this is where many leaders/pastors make huge mistakes and actually jeopardize their future plans before they even get off the ground. Here is an approach for communicating change that I learned several years ago. It has helped me immensely in leading through changing times.

1. Meet with smaller groups of influencers first (and walk them through steps 2-5).

2. Explain the current ministry system

3. Explain the challenges the current ministry system creates

4. Explain your vision for where you want to take the ministry and how the new ministry system will make that vision a reality.

5. Explain the advantages of the approach.

Take this approach about 20x with smaller groups of people before ever thinking about sharing the changes with the whole church. By using this approach, when the time comes to “go public” with the new plans, about 80% of the church will already be on-board, nodding their heads and ready to start!

 
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Posted by on June 22, 2012 in Church Growth, Coaching, Leadership, Staff

 

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Shepherd or Hireling?

21 Jun

Thursdays are meeting days for the staff of VALLEY Christian Church. It’s the day we spend about 3-4 hours in planning and strategizing each week. Today was one of those amazing days. I find my heart so thankful for the team of pastors in our church. Their heart for Jesus and for his people is truly humbling to witness.

After our meetings, I’ve been able to spend some time reflecting and listening to some other Christian leaders discuss the difference between a shepherd or a hireling in the church (read some for yourself HERE, HERE, and HERE). Listening to these leaders has brought me back once again to the heart of the men and women on staff that are truly SHEPHERDS at VALLEY!

Thanks so much, Susie, Josh, Nnamdi, Karen and Bob (Tommy and Jasmine too). You each bless and enrich my life every day as we serve Christ side-by-side.

 
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Posted by on June 21, 2012 in Church Growth, Leadership, relationships, Staff

 

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The Best Book I’ve Read In The Last 10 Years

18 Jun

It’s been said, “If you want to be a leader, you’ve got to be a reader”. That being said, The Explicit Gospel is the best book I’ve read in the last 10 years (and I read 10-15 a year). Matt Chandler does an excellent job instructing and reminding Christians what the Gospel is really all about. I highly recommend The Explicit Gospel for every Christian and especially every pastor in America!

 
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Posted by on June 18, 2012 in culture, Leadership, Preaching, Staff

 

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