Mess into a Message

I received a text message from someone and they used the word "mess" to mean message. I thought they meant mess - like, "I made a mess of this." When I showed concern in my reply over the "mess" they immediately corrected the mistake and said they meant "message" (which I coached them to shorten to msg next time). It all changed from negative to positive.

Not meaning to be over-spiritual about this; isn't that what God is always doing? He takes our mess and turns it into a message. God's business is taking the crud of our lives and turning it into that which is miraculous. Turns our losses into wins.

God is in the recycling business. In fact, God has no trash cans! Live with that hope.

Isaiah 61:3

To all who mourn in Israel,
he will give a crown of beauty for ashes,
a joyous blessing instead of mourning,
festive praise instead of despair.

Tiger Woods

I read an article regarding Tiger's troubles and thought it was well done. The author focuses on the fact that the world's best golfer needs to look deep within himself for the answers he is looking for.

If you are interested: http://www.jsonline.com/sports/golf/79271622.html

Grace and Peace.

Expect a Miracle

Oral Roberts died today. He was 91. The evangelist, university founder and harbinger of the faith healing movement died of complications with pneumonia.

Controversy has swirled around the man for many years. He did not help himself when he essentially threatened his supporters that "God would take him home" if he did not raise $8 million.

Yet he leaves a legacy of faith. A statement that he always used that should be a mindset mainstay for every follower of Jesus is: Expect a Miracle. Because we serve an omnipotent God, we can expect the impossible to give way because of faith!

Another great slogan that is said to have been on his desk was: Make No Small Plans Here.

A great pioneer in the faith is gone. May God give comfort to his family and friends.

Expect a miracle!

Leadership Philosphies

I was asked this week about my leadership philosophies. My reply was that I have two that are guiding me of late.

1. Any of us should be able to speak for all of us. As it relates to ECC, all of our staff should be unified on issues of the existence and purpose of our organization that any one of us should be able to speak for the whole organization. The key to this is staying on message and declaring it over and over again. Communicate and then communicate more. When you feel like everyone gets it, say it again.

2. Get others to follow you off a cliff. This is not a suicidal mission, it is a missional passion. Believe in what you are doing that you get others to join with you as you pursue a crazy dream that only happens if God helps. When the flames start to burn, leaders will lead the way with those that partner with them to get things done long after everyone else has gone home to enjoy a quiet evening.

Other philosophies that have guided me:

- How a leader leads is always changing. How you lead today should be different from 5 or 10 years ago.

- You gain influence by giving away authority. Most people want power through authority. Most want to be the one making all the decisions. If you give away authority, your power will shift to influence.

Be a leader!

A Troubled Church

Perry Noble, a senior pastor in SC has a blog about leadership. Here is a recent post regarding 15 Signs That a Church is in Trouble.

Good stuff.

#1 – When excuses are made about the way things are instead of embracing a willingness to roll up the sleeves and fix the problem.

#2 – When the church becomes content with merely receiving people that come rather than actually going out and finding them…in other words, they lose their passion for evangelism!

#3 – The focus of the church is to build a great church (complete with the pastors picture…and his wife’s…on everything) and not the Kingdom of God.

#4 – The leadership begins to settle for the natural rather than rely on the supernatural.

#5 – The church begins to view success/failure in regards to how they are viewed in the church world rather than whether or not they are actually fulfilling the Great Commission!

#6 – The leaders within the church cease to be coachable.

#7 – There is a loss of a sense of urgency! (Hell is no longer hot, sin is no longer wrong and the cross is no longer important!)

#8 – Scripture isn’t central in every decision that is made!

#9 – The church is reactive rather than proactive.

#10 – The people in the church lose sight of the next generation and refuse to fund ministry simply because they don’t understand “those young people.”

#11 – The goal of the church is to simply maintain the way things are…to NOT rock the boat and/or upset anyone…especially the big givers!

#12 – The church is no longer willing to take steps of faith because “there is just too much to lose.”

#13 – The church simply does not care about the obvious and immediate needs that exist in the community.

#14 – The people learn how to depend on one man to minister to everyone rather than everyone embracing their role in the body, thus allowing the body to care for itself.

#15 – When the leaders/staff refuse to go the extra mile in leading and serving because of how “inconvenient” doing so would be.

This past Friday night, Joni, Dawson and I, along with another family, went to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle. The musical has been performed for decades. This was my first live experience of this particular account of the Biblical story of Joseph. If you have never seen it, it is a remarkable production having only a handful of spoken words. Even the narrator sings her part. I think that part of it made it an endurance test for my 11 year old.

As stated, the musical is a biography of the life of Joseph from Genesis 37-50 written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. It is very entertaining with bright colors, a variety of musical styles and frequent humor. There is an obvious deletion of any reference to God from beginning to end.

I surmise that it was intended to be both entertaining and inspiring. The theme song is "Any Dream Will Do" that you hear at the very beginning and again at the end. It is a song that chronicles the life of Joseph. My thinking is that it was designed to leave you with a sense that whatever your dream is, it will do for you what Joseph's dreams did - lead to a life of fulfillment. Yet, as entertaining as it was, it fell empty in the inspiration department for me because it left out the most important portion of Joseph's life - his relationship with God. It takes out the very foundation of the story. Joseph's dreams were God-given. His ability to interpret dreams was God-given (Genesis 41:16).

So it is for me. My life and my plans and my story falls flat without the Spirit behind it. Whatever I do or accomplish today or tomorrow or throughout life will only be meaningful and inspirational if it points away from me and toward God!

I recommend Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat as a great show. But it will not change your life because is has deliberately taken out the Life Changer - God.

I Left My Heart In...

I recently read an amazing story about David Livingstone. He was born in 1813 in Scotland and died in 1873 in Zambia, Africa. He was an extraordinary man with a heart for God and others. His adventuresome spirit took him to places few if any had seen up to that time. His skill with medicine gave him a doorway to ministry. He was the first medical missionary to Central Africa.

Toward the end of his life, he lost contact with the outside world for about 6 years.Henry Morton Stanley, a newspaper employee sent to find him by the New York Herald newspaper in 1869, found Livingstone in the town of Ujiji in October of 1871. He greeted him with the now famous words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" to which he responded, "Yes, and I feel thankful that I am here to welcome you."

In less than two years Livingstone would die of malaria and dysentery. After his death, Britain wanted the tribe in Zambia to return the body of their countryman for a proper burial. At first the tribe refused. Eventually they sent his body back, but without the heart. They placed a note on his body that said, "You can have his body, but his heart belongs in Africa." Livingstone's heartless body is buried at Westminster Abbey in London.

Today there is a statue of Livingstone at the place where they buried his heart.

Question: If your heart were to be buried at the place you loved most, where would that be?