Yet once the Spirit-led leader is hired, that person is placed within an organizational structure, otherwise known as an institution, which has policies, procedures, and plans that are supposed to be helpful. In fact, institution means an organization founded to help people do something together (rather than separately) for a religious, educational, professional, or social purpose. All churches and specialized ministries are institutions.

Institutions and Institutionalism

Now, I have to acknowledge that the word institution has a bad rap. As soon as it is said, one thinks of a stodgy old organization that is set in its ways and resistant to change. But that is not the way an institution has to be. Stodginess, being settled in one’s ways, and resistance to change don’t define institutions, but institutionalism.

Institutionalism arises when maintaining the organization itself becomes the primary object for a group within the organization. For them, the idea of what the organization is becomes what the organization was at a moment that is now frozen in time, and then bad things happen:

• Form takes precedence over substance
• The servant becomes the master
• The tail wags the dog
• The organization that once served the mission has displaced that mission

Institutions and organizations are good things. As Carl Dudley wrote, “Organization puts ideas on wheels, translates faith into action, and enables our vision or ministry to become tangible reality.”¹ There is no reason why an institution should necessarily inhibit charismatic ministry. And yet much conflict, particularly in local churches, occurs when Spirit-led ministry runs up against entrenched institutionalism. When the institution takes precedence over its mission, institutionalism has inhibited the charismatic work of the Holy Spirit.

The problem from a leadership perspective is that, once a Spirit-led leader is hired, the stage is set for conflict with the powerful force of institutionalism. The Spirit-led leader could find resistance coming from any or all of the board, the staff, or the donors. Any of these persons could be predisposed to revel in the fresh work of the Spirit today (charismatic ministry), or to trust in the time-tested ways of the ministry’s institutional life (institutionalism).

The Solution

The solution is to recognize that people suffering from institutionalism have lost sight of how God works and what the purpose of the organization truly is. My own observation is that those people have displaced Christ at the centre of the ministry with their own personal preferences for the ministry. In other words, the ministry is now serving them as opposed to the mission. They may still be actively engaged in mission, may be significant donors and volunteers, but only in so far as how the mission is conducted suits their own preferences.

We all need to acknowledge that Christ and his mission for our ministry come first, and our personal preferences come much lower in priority. The welfare of the community within the organization ranks in-between.

The board and leadership need to help people understand this. Discipleship programs should include teaching about the place of individual preferences in the life of the church. When everyone keeps Christ at the centre, we will all get along. We’ll not be self-centred and will be much more charitable towards others. We will be more willing to follow the Holy Spirit wherever he leads us.

The Spirit’s Leadership

The primary correction for institutionalism, a fixation on the past, is to focus on the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church today. So here are some thoughts to help you teach your community about the role of the Spirit and, consequently, to be more receptive to Spirit-led leadership.

The Holy Spirit Continues Jesus’ Ministry

Luke says his gospel concerns only what Jesus “began to do and teach,”² and yet his gospel and its sequel, Acts, show that Jesus’ time on earth came to an end shortly after the close of the gospel when he ascended into heaven. So how does Jesus continue to do and teach?  Luke makes it clear that Jesus continues to work through the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit Helps Us Adapt

According to the lexicons, the Hebrew and Greek words for the Holy Spirit mean “invisibility, movement, power, and life” and convey the idea of “God in action.” We live in an ever-changing world, so when we know that the creative and dynamic Spirit of God is actively guiding the church to meet new challenges, we should expect change and development to be the result. While the church’s mission does not change and the gospel of Jesus Christ does not change, how the church conducts its mission certainly can and does change.

The changes brought about by the Holy Spirit help the church address current conditions and are not changes that we humans can control. All we can do is acknowledge that the church and its various ministries belong to God and are his to do with as he pleases. The Holy Spirit therefore has primacy over the church, its methods and its structures, and we must accept his leadership.

The Spirit Prevents Decay

As often happens as organizations age, we get attached to the structure and the methods already in use and then, as it has been so eloquently said, the “encrustations of time . . . come to be valued as the most distinctive feature of the organization.”³ The organization fossilizes and declines.

We must keep our focus on God and remember that the church exists for a reason. It’s been well said that, “There is church because there is mission, not vice versa.”⁴ Mission comes before organization, therefore organizations (institutions) can be adapted to support the mission.

The Trinity and Institutions

A Trinitarian view of the church helps us see the continuing work of Christ through the Spirit to accomplish the Father’s purposes, giving the church a dynamic quality that prevents fossilization.

Where the Spirit is at work, things happen. The people of God should be solidly grounded in the historical, incarnational ministry of Christ, but also open to the continuing, fresh, dynamic work of the Spirit.

Surprise!

There will always be an element of surprise as we discern where the Spirit is and how he is leading us. We must be careful to not make the Spirit fit our preconceived notions of how things should be!

Spirit-led leaders and the institutions they lead will always be highly compatible when everyone is focused on Christ and his mission and sees the organization simply as a helpful means to fulfill Christ’s mission.

Key Thought: A Spirit-led ministry uses its institutional structure to accomplish its mission.

The post Spirit-Led Leaders and Institutional Life appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
John 10:1-4 (NASB)

Christ’s Call to Ministry

I love hearing ministry leaders tell their stories about how Christ called them into vocational ministry.

Every story is unique. No two are alike.

Every story is very personal.

And no one ever forgets their call story.

They treasure it!

Christ the Great Shepherd

The Initial Call to Ministry

When Jesus Christ enters the sheep pen, he knows all his sheep individually. He even knows them by name. And they know his voice. You’ve probably had the same experience I’ve had. You hear someone talking but can’t see them, and yet by their voice you know exactly who they are. As I read these verses, I can’t help but imagine that when the shepherd speaks, the sheep’s’ ears perk up, they turn their heads toward the voice, and they listen intently. And when the shepherd calls them out of the pen, they follow.

As Christian ministry leaders, Jesus called each one of us from the pen to go out through the gate and enter into vocational ministry.

Many of us were probably quite attentive to his voice at that time because many transitions come when we are in crisis or upset, and are looking for direction:

• It may be that we are unsettled in what we are currently doing, restless and needing a change.
• Perhaps we’re finishing up a seminary degree and anxious to find a place to serve.
• Maybe our world has turned upside-down and we are in crisis. Everything is changing and we need to find a way forward.
• Or it could just be an opportunity comes your way, and you wonder what to do about it.

In all these scenarios, we end up searching for what God wants of us. And thus we are particularly attentive to his voice at the time when we first come into ministry leadership. And we probably stay attentive for at least a while, earnestly seeking to discern what God wants us to do.

The Continuing Call While in Ministry

But as we mature in our leadership roles, we may find ourselves growing in confidence of our own abilities, and we may lose the sense of dependence on God, and gradually his voice grows dim as we focus on doing our very best for God based on our own self-reliance.

Yet once the sheep have left the pen following behind the shepherd, the shepherd doesn’t stop talking with his sheep. The shepherd walks ahead of them, still talking with them, and they continue to follow wherever the shepherd leads.

However far you have come in ministry since your initial call, Jesus is still going ahead of you and keeps calling you to follow him. We must continue to listen to his voice just as intently, just as closely, as we did when he first called us to ministry, because he knows the good works that he has in store for us to do, and he doesn’t leave us to guess what they are. If you continue to listen to our Great Shepherd’s voice just as earnestly as you did at the beginning of your ministry, you will be led to all that he has in store for you. And having heard Christ’s continuing call, respond to it just as eagerly as you did his initial call.

Blessing

Now [may] the God of peace,… the great Shepherd of the sheep … Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Hebrews 13:20

Key Thought: The Good Shepherd’s call to ministry becomes his guidance in ministry.

The post The Shepherd’s Voice appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

From the previous post, we know that anyone wanting to influence culture must be partly outside the mainstream of that culture. That is, they must be counter-cultural in some way in order to have something new to contribute.

So if the church wants to influence culture, it must maintain its own cultural distinctiveness in thought and deed. Fortunately, Christians have three aids to help us do this: our theology, the Holy Spirit, and the church itself.

Theology: A Strong Foundation

Christian theology gives us a very distinctive understanding of the world and how it works. For example, our theology of the human person gives us a very high view of human life, seeing humanity as the pinnacle of God’s creation. We have a lot to say to society about life itself and our relationships with each other because we believe:

• Male and female, we are created in God’s image
• We were made a little lower than God, and crowned with glory and majesty
• We all stand as equals before God. Even our political rulers stand equally with us under God.
• Life is a gift from God, who knows people even before they are born (eg., Psa 139:13-16, Isa 49:1, Gal 1:15)
• The termination of a life is abhorrent to God

If we don’t know what we believe, we will inevitably lose our distinctiveness and become just like our culture, such as by adopting secular attitudes about power and status. This is why Christians need theological vitality. It gives us a strong foundation.

The Holy Spirit: Our Creative Guide

Having a strong theological foundation is great, but then the question becomes “What do we do with our theology?” Fortunately, Christians are not left to our own devices to figure out how to apply our theology to present day circumstances. We have the Holy Spirit as our guide.The Holy Spirit is the reason why our Bible is not just an historical record, but is a living book that speaks freshly to us today.

When we reflect on our theology and our culture, it is vital that we do so through the correct lens. If we think about theology from within existing culture, we could read it the way we want to read it. But the Holy Spirit helps us do our theological reflection from God’s perspective, and then decide what action to take. If society is moving towards God’s eschatological future, then we support it. If it isn’t, then we critique it and offer a better way.

In the case of how society thinks about human life, the Greco-Roman culture in the first century was quite at odds with the Christian perspective. In distinction to the high view of life taken by Christians, the non-Christian culture had a very low view of human life; it was cheap and expendable.

The perception of all human beings as equal, and equally valuable, as persons worthy of respect and equal treatment before the law, is a relatively rare and recent achievement in human history. The concept that women, children, racial minorities, immigrants, refugees and the poor are to be treated not only equally but with special concern because of their frequent marginalization and vulnerability is a central biblical teaching rarely actualized in public life.

Glen Stassen & David Gushee in Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context

Here are a couple of examples of what the early Christians challenged in their society based on their theology of the human person and how the Spirit led them to assess their culture.

Infanticide

Infanticide was common in Rome and Greece (and also in China, Japan, Brazil, Africa, and among the Inuit).¹ It was so common in ancient Greece that it was blamed for its population decline. Children were left exposed outside or thrown into rivers and left to die, and no one had a moral problem with it.

Christians alone stood firmly against the killing of babies because it was murder, because Jesus gave them importance by saying they should not be hindered in coming to him, and because children are seen as a blessing throughout Scripture.

Subjugation of Women

Greek and Roman women had essentially no rights and no freedom. Plutarch wrote that Greek men keep their wives “under lock and key.” The average Athenian woman had the social status of a slave. Greek girls were not educated and throughout her entire life, a female was not allowed to speak in public at all. Neither were Roman women. When some Roman women entered the Forum (which they were not allowed to enter) to protest and ask for a law to be repealed (breaking convention by speaking in public), Cato asked, “Could you not have asked your own husbands the same thing at home?”²

A Roman girl grew up under patria potestas, a law that gave the man who led a household complete control over all members of his household (including the power of life and death). A woman could not own property, receive any inheritance, or have any freedom until the male head of her household died.

A Christian who is not spiritually sensitive may not be able to discern the Spirit’s leading in how to assess society against Christian theology. This is why I’ve also said that all Christians must have spiritual vitality. If we can’t sense the Spirit’s leading, we’re basically on our own to decide what we think is the appropriate interpretation and application of theology.

The Church: A Community in Action

When Christians understand their theology and discern what the Spirit has to say about culture in light of that theology, it is time to take action. In terms of infanticide and the place of women in society, there was nothing to affirm, so the church had to take action to move society closer to God’s ideal. Here’s what they did.

Child Abandonment

In the ancient writings of the church, infanticide was soundly condemned. Within fifty years or so of becoming a legal religion, Christians were able to persuade the Roman emperor to outlaw infanticide. Until that time, children who were not directly killed by their parents were usually exposed or thrown into a river, and Christians rescued them and adopted them as their own.

Subjugation of Women

To improve the lot of women, the church modeled what their role in society should be. The resulting effect of the church on the status of women was revolutionary. The church gave women the only opportunity they had to hold leadership roles and be socially active outside the family home. Female leaders in the church are frequently mentioned in the New Testament, including among them Col 4:15, 1 Cor 16:19, and Rom 16:1-3.

Women were evangelists and missionaries, and they were a significant factor in the early church’s spiritual and numerical growth. An early church father, Chrysostom, writing in the late 300s, wrote “The women of those days were more spirited than men.” Historian W.E.H. Lecky wrote “In the ages of persecution female figures occupy many of the foremost places and ranks of martyrdom.” Another historian wrote “Christendom dare not forget that it was primarily the female sex that for the greater part brought about its rapid growth. It was the evangelistic zeal of women in the early years of the church, and later, which won the weak and the mighty.”³

Christianity was responsible for the repeal of the patria potestas law in 374. Women no longer needed their father’s permission to marry (and whom to marry), they held substantially the same property rights as their husbands, and the veil was done away with. This is why women flocked to the ancient church. It was liberating!

Challenge

The early church is a great example for us today. It knew its theology, discerned the Spirit’s leadership, and then put their ideas into action to demonstrate Christian values at work for the good of the marginalized, the oppressed, and in fact for all members of their society.

Given the many issues which challenge our society today, which ones are you most passionate about? Which ones relate closest to your ministry’s mission? What part might you or your ministry play in helping our society move a little closer to God’s ideal?

Key Thought: An authentic Christian faith leads to social improvement ideas.

The post The Church as a Change Agent appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

A Warning

In a nutshell, Miller (a 30-year Southern Baptist pastor and a theology professor) claims that the Western church has adapted so much to culture that it has been sapped of its vitality and influence. We’ve lost the mystery and the power of our faith. It’s hard, he writes, to distinguish between church and culture.

Some of the specific underlying causes of the problem are:

• Our desire to be big
• Our tendency to have a program for everything
• Our willingness to trade intimacy for anonymity

Miller doesn’t hold out much hope for denominations and local churches as they currently are. In this, I think he is overly pessimistic.

A Solution

However, in spite of his pessimism, he does call for a renewed vital faith at the personal level, which he believes will ultimately hit the ‘reset’ button on the church and birth something new, replacing existing churches.

My one disagreement with Miller is that I don’t believe God would write off existing churches. If pastors and congregations are off-mission, causing all the problems that Miller documents, the Holy Spirit can change anyone who is willing to be changed. He can birth new vision, new priorities, new understanding, new commitment, new passion, that will revitalize our churches.

Miller’s call for a renewed personal, vital faith is what I found really exciting and motivating! A vital faith is a living faith. And when people of no faith see people with a living faith that is working powerfully in their lives, they will want to investigate it because it is very attractive. People with vibrant faith are the best evangelists you could wish for.

There are two building blocks for a vital faith that will help Christians maintain the distinctive difference between church and culture, and that will give them the ability to discern God’s direction in their lives. They are:

1. Theological vitality, and
2. Spiritual vitality

Christians who are mature in these two areas will stand out in sharp relief from our culture and they will be the core of healthy, flourishing churches.

Part of the reason I found vitality exciting is because my own denomination (PAOC) rolled out a 2020 Initiative a couple of years ago, and it is based on three vitalities: Theological, Spiritual, and Missional. It’s always nice to see confirmation of something birthed through discernment. Some of the examples I give below come from the reflection given to these two vitalities by the PAOC.

Theological Vitality

A good question to ask is “Where is my congregation theologically?”

Theology is the bedrock we stand on.You want to be sure your congregation is growing in their knowledge of Christian beliefs. This comes across as rather trite, but it is true nevertheless and it warrants our focused attention. Helping people grow in theological understanding is not just another worthy goal. It is central to equipping the saints for the work of service.

When I pastored a small church, I realized that the theological depth of the congregation was not actually that deep. So preaching on theological topics became one of the core themes of my time there with the content very deliberately planned a year at a time to give them a full-orbed understanding of God.

But there’s much more to theological vitality than just knowledge. People who have theological vitality:

• know how to engage Scripture in a way that informs their daily life. The don’t just give intellectual assent to the Bible, they live by it. They read the Bible as a historical document detailing God’s self-revelation to us, but they read it as more than that. They also read it as a living document through which the Holy Spirit speaks to us now.
• understand the big picture of who God is and how we fit into his plans. They know that their purpose as a Christian demands an outward focus.
• know God and his ways well enough that they do not fall for whatever some author or speaker says. They can test it.
• are well-rounded in their life, majoring on the majors of our faith. They don’t obsess over minor topics of interest.
• are able to pass on the faith to others so that they too are theologically vital.

Vanishing evangelicals are like chameleons because their lives look pretty much like anybody else’s life and they just blend in with the crowd. When people understand who God is, the claim he has on their lives, and how he wants to work through them, “Sunday Christians” become “Sunday-to-Sunday Christians.” No one who knows them would ever be surprised to discover they are a Christian because they see evidence of their faith at work every day in them. They live their faith, they don’t just talk about it. Their attitudes, behaviours, goals, everything about them, line up with their faith. Our faith is meaningless if our lives don’t model authentic Christlikeness.

Pastors have the great privilege and opportunity to design a church that intentionally develops every member into a theologically literate Christian. Sermons, Sunday School classes, and small groups can all study the major doctrines and key theological ideas of our faith along with how to apply them. There are lots of study materials and curricula with titles like Foundations of the Faith that you could use. Make theological development a major focus of your church.

Spiritual Vitality

When I went to Tyndale Seminary in 2001, I thought I was already a mature Christian. After all, wasn’t that why God was calling me to prepare for full-time ministry? How naive! Did I ever learn a thing or two in the fall of 2001 when I took a course called Foundations of Christian Spirituality!!

I thought until then that the way to discern God’s direction was to think wisely, think biblically, and then make godly plans and pray for his blessing. That course taught me that there are spiritual practices that can help me discern God’s specific direction to me, and to discern it at the start of the process (ie., I’m not asking God to bless my plans!). It changed my life. I’ve blogged about some of these practices in my series Hearing God Speak.

Since I took that course, these traditional spiritual practices have become much more mainstream among evangelicals. What the practices have done for me is make my experience of God direct and personal. I have evidence in my own life of his reality and it does not depend on any faith-buttressing support from government, culture, or even my church. Those experiences are the only reason I have the job I have today. They have given me guidance and led to new initiatives at CCCC. My spiritual experiences reinforce my trust in God and give me a solid basis for my assurance that God is very real and very interested in me as a person.

How rich are the spiritual experiences of people in your church? Ask yourself, “Where is my congregation in terms of their spiritual practices?“

People with spiritual vitality:

• know intimacy with God through prayer and engagement with his Word.
• are actively engaged in Spirit-empowered, Christ-honouring living.
• demonstrate the adventure of living “naturally supernatural.”
• mentor others in a Spirit-filled life.

You can preach about how to discern God (and should), but ultimately you will need to give your congregation the experience of doing the spiritual practices. Have a series of classes in which you teach Lectio Divina, experience an extended time of silence, practice journaling, and so on.

Some resources that might help you prepare sermons or classes are:

• Space for God: The Study and Practice of Spirituality and Prayer
  by Don Postema
• Prayer
  by Richard Foster
• Streams of Living Water: Essential Practices from the Six Great Traditions of Christian Faith
  by Richard Foster
• Protestant Spiritual Traditions:
  by Frank Senn
• Christian Spirituality: An Introduction
  by Alister McGrath

These books are ones I personally own and can vouch for, but I notice that some of them are now quite expensive. I suggest for the expensive ones that you see who the authors are and see if they’ve written anything newer. You can also look up the topics and search for books that are more reasonably priced.

When I pastored that small church, I figured it was my job to bring the people to God in order to experience his presence, and especially to help them discern his leadership. One of the most interesting things we did was explore different forms of worship services from different Protestant traditions, drawing on their respective resources (hymns, prayers etc) to hold a complete service. It was wonderful to see people finding new ways of experiencing God.

The congregation was small enough and trusting enough that they allowed me to do that. At the time, I couldn’t imagine doing this level of experimentation in a bigger church! But with the right preparation and teaching, who knows?

If you can help your congregation enrich their spirituality so they experience God afresh, you won’t have to stir them up to do good works, God will do that for you! Your part as their pastor is to train them (just as you were probably trained in seminary) in the spiritual disciplines and practices that will help them ‘hear’ God.

Teach your congregation how to have a direct experience of God and then watch and be amazed.

Vital Christians

More than ever, Christians need to know the theology of their faith and have rich spiritual lives as they directly experience God. People living like that will never be mistaken for anyone but a Christ-follower. Unlike a chameleon, your congregation will stand out from its surroundings!

Key Thought: Congregations should exemplify the key distinctives of Christian spirituality and life.

“The book, The Vanishing Evangelical, has been provided courtesy of Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available now at your favourite bookseller.”

The post Pastors! Where Is Your Congregation? appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

The third threat to our corporate witness is self-centredness. This is closely related individualism, but whereas individualism is about maximizing one’s personal rights, self-centredness is about attitude, specifically that “It’s all about me!” No one would ever admit to holding this attitude of course, but when people think:

• “I am irreplaceable and this place would fall apart without me,” or
• “The credit for that should have come to me,” or
• “I need to be in control of this,”

they are making it perfectly clear that, yes, it is all about them.

The main problem with self-centredness, from an organizational perspective, is that self-centred employees feel ownership of some aspect of the ministry. The employee who refuses to share knowledge, refuses to cross-train someone in their job, or who improperly acts like they have a veto, becomes a stumbling block to organizational faithfulness to Christ. How can an organization be faithful to Christ when an employee claims a trump card of ownership over some part of the organization?

Negative Consequences

When an employee thinks it’s all about them, they have a pretty tight grip on their part of the ministry that can cause problems:

• They suffer anxiety as they live in fear of losing control, which means losing their security. They fight desperately to hold on to what they have and become very controlling and manipulative, both harmful to team dynamics and a poor witness to Christ.
• They become prideful as they think of the ministry and its accomplishments as theirs. They puff themselves up and take credit all to themselves that should properly go to the team and to God, and, yes, some even to them too.
• They bear too much of a burden for the ministry and can easily burn themselves out. When they think everything depends on them, they have no one else to turn to because, after all, its their job to have all the answers!
• They engage in political behaviour, office politics, that encourages gossip and innuendo. They plant seeds of doubt about other staff, in order to protect themselves. They jockey for position, creating a competitive spirit on the team. They suck the joy out of the workplace. I remember one office I worked in that was intimidated by the behaviour of one particularly strong and opinionated individual, and the first day after the person left was the first day I ever heard laughter in that office! Sometimes you don’t realize what a chilling effect one person can have until they are gone!
• Perhaps worst of all, they stifle everyone else and shut down creativity, because they forcefully champion their own ideas.  Not much group discernment happens on a team of self-centred people! 

The Truth

The truth that overcomes self-centredness is that we belong to Christ, and so do our ministries. They are not ours! That means we are stewards working for an owner.

Jesus Christ is the greatest owner possible and, with his unlimited resources, he takes responsibility for his possessions.

Being a steward, you do not bear final responsibility for the ministry you lead. It is not all up to you! This liberating thought frees you to offer Christ

• your very best work,
• your highest commitment,
• every ounce of your strength,

and then allows you to stop struggling and rest, knowing that even with all that you have to offer, Jesus still has even more to offer back to you to help the ministry out. You have the most stupendous partner in ministry you could ever hope for!

Back in the 90s I was a deacon at my church. About ten years before, a pastoral moral failure devastated the leadership. I was just a young man in the congregation when that happened, but now that I was on the board with some of the deacons from that time, I saw the deep suspicion of all things pastoral that they still had. Each year, the board elections left the board divided 5-4 one way or the other between those who were suspicious of pastors and those who weren’t. The church was stymied into an impasse at the board level. It was an awful time for me as I anguished over this state of affairs.

One night at a prayer service I felt particularly burdened by the problem,

and then suddenly…

“And then suddenly…” I love that phrase when it relates to God showing up in our lives!!!!

…I spoke out words that I believe Jesus gave me to speak to myself on his behalf:

“This is NOT your church, this is MY church. I will look after MY church.”

What a release that was. Of course! This is Christ’s church, not mine. He is responsible for it and, as his possession, he will take care of it. I shouldn’t usurp Christ’s responsibilities! Let him look after his possession. Trust him to look after his possession. I just had to do my part as a deacon.

That is the beauty of this truth that we belong to Christ. If you and I care for the treasures we display on our mantels, how much more Jesus cares for your ministry, which after all is not your ministry but his!

Benefits of Being a Steward

Being a steward and not an owner has several benefits:

• As a steward, I can go to the Owner with a problem and get some help. There are resources beyond me that can be brought to bear on the ministry.
• I can focus on mission accomplishment instead of satisfying my own needs.
• I can let go of my grip on the ministry because someone else is already holding on to it.
• I can relax a bit and enjoy my work a whole lot more!

When a whole team thinks like stewards, you have the making of a great work environment because everyone has the primary role of serving.

 Building a Sense of Stewardship

As a leader, you should do everything you can to promote the idea that all employees are stewards.

•  Try to eliminate ‘my’ from your vocabulary with respect to the ministry you lead. I have a terrible time with this, but it is not my ministry, my board, or my staff. When I say it, I don’t mean it from an ownership perspective, just that I’m referring to the particular ministry, board, and staff that I’m associated with. However, now that I’m thinking about it I’ll do my best to refer to CCCC, the CCCC board, and the CCCC staff.
• Even if you founded the ministry you work for, recognize that you are not its owner. And if, like me, you were hired to lead an existing ministry, it was not given to you. In both cases we only have custody of ‘our’ ministries for a period of time to steward on behalf of their real Owner, and then we give them over to someone else who will do the same. So think about creating a succession plan to replace yourself. This shouldn’t be threatening to you. After all, if you are not the senior leader, you can’t be promoted if you don’t have a plan to replace yourself. If you are the senior leader, you don’t normally choose your successor (the board will do that) but you should always have at least have one credible candidate for interim leader. Thinking about replacing yourself helps you lessen your sense of ownership of the ministry. My post, Emergency Succession Planning, may help you think this through.
• Demonstrate that you, as the senior leader, are under higher authority.
  • Ask the board to give you a formal annual performance review. (It is surprising how many senior leaders do not get a performance review.)
  • Ask them to challenge you and ask probing questions. Put yourself under their scrutiny.
• If your board is stacked with your hand-picked favourite people, stop doing that. You really need an independent board, so let the board recruit directors. They should consult with the senior leader to ensure they are not recruiting people who would be damaging to the ministry (on the premise that the senior leader knows church members, donors, people in the community, better than the directors do).
• Finally, get serious about group discernment. How do you know what the Owner wants you to do unless you consult with him. When team members take part in discerning God’s will together, there will be a very strong sense of stewardship.

Please feel free to contribute any ideas you have for building within a ministry team the sense of belonging to Christ.

The post Ministries as Christ’s Possessions appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

The second threat to our corporate witness is careerism, in which career advancement is a person’s chief aim in life. Making the most of your gifts and talents for service to God is good stewardship, but it becomes a problem when people are consumed with personal advancement. The more that ministry staff obsess over advancing themselves, the less authentic our corporate witness will be, because God often wants us to do something for someone else’s benefit, not ours. In fact, he wants us to love sacrificially and unconditionally, and this may impact our careers.

Have you ever felt a sales person had no interest in your welfare, just their commission? You can tell when they genuinely want to help you and when they see dollar signs instead of you.

“Oh, that looks so beautiful on you!”

“You deserve the best!”

If that degree of self-interest comes out in a ministry employee, it disheartens everyone else who wants and expects ministry staff to be passionate about their mission more than themselves.

I talked with a church secretary a few weeks ago and she couldn’t stop singing the praises for her church, her board, and her pastor. She was so exuberantly enthusiastic as she told me how she just loves coming to work as a church secretary because it is so fulfilling to be doing important work every day for God. I loved her passion for her job and her commitment to it. Does she make her church attractive to me? You bet! And if I didn’t already know Christ and she told me about him, I would pay serious attention because of her passion.

In fact, if you feel the same way about your ministry workplace as this secretary does about hers, please make a comment as an encouragement to others.

Ministries don’t have careers, but they do have a corporate existence that they’d like to maximize and sustain into the future. This makes it possible that ministries could behave in similar ways as careerist individuals, and have similar negative effects on their own corporate witness and on the welfare of the community of Christian ministries.

Negatives of Careerism

When most employees are working for a cause, careerist employees can have some negative effects on the ministry and its team:

• They tend to focus on themselves rather than on mission, which for them is a means to an end, not something they are passionately engaged in as an end worthy in itself. Their dampened enthusiasm for the mission could be a drag on everyone else’s motivation.
• Their loyalty is to themselves, so their employment relationship is transactional. They are invested in the ministry they work for only to the extent that it helps their career.
• A person who is in it for themselves can’t help but give out signals to teammates that they are not all in it together. Team spirit will suffer when someone is more concerned with their own welfare rather than the team’s welfare. They are unlikely to sacrifice for the benefit of the team.

The Truth

This threat can be overcome with the truth that your ministry is called by Christ to do something great for him. And that means we have a high calling worthy of our greatest aspirations! Replace careerism with response to a call. It makes a big difference whether you focus on what you do as a means of furthering your career or as a means of accomplishing a mission you passionately believe in.

At CCCC, for example, we are not called to provide information and services, we are called to equip Christian ministries as organizations so they can do what God has called them to do. We do that by providing information and services, but we are working for something much more important — the accomplishment of our members’ missions. Your mission! The church’s mission! I want people working at CCCC who are jazzed by that! I want people who are passionate about the mission, who are sold out on making it happen! I know you want the same for your ministry too.

Whether someone feels called to vocational ministry or to secular work, when they know they are serving God in the place he wants them to be, they don’t have a career, they have a calling. And that makes all the difference because, as Paul says, we are working for the One who called us, Jesus Christ.

All Christians share a general call to serve Christ. In the absence of a personal call to a specific ministry or task, they have the freedom to discern for themselves where and how to fulfill their general call. What’s important is that they know they are fulfilling God’s call to service in what they are doing. They are pursuing God first and career second. They engage with mission because it is how they serve God.

Some Christians also have a strong personal call. This is my experience. As I wrote in Discerning Your Call, I knew from my preteen years that someday God wanted me to serve the church, something I didn’t know how to do, so I did not pursue it.

But on May 25th 2001, I asked God a question while driving home from an early morning prayer meeting, “Why have you given me so much vision for my church, for my clients, for everyone around me and nothing for me?” The answer was so clear that I pulled over to the side of the road in shock. I knew instantly that God had given me a call and that the call was still valid this many years later! I didn’t know what ministry God wanted me to do, but I did know I’d have to prepare for it, so I went home and told my wife I was going to go to seminary. She instantly agreed without reservation (now that’s confirmation!).

My personal call is to serve the church, and CCCC lets me do that. Does that affect how I see my job? Absolutely it does!

Benefits

The benefits of having a sense of call, whether a general call or a particular call, are significant.

• We will have great passion for our work because it is more than a job, it is a calling. My self-identity includes my call, so my job is part of my self-identity.
• Our work has great meaning and is very fulfilling because it is a call.
• Our sense of team will be heightened as we work with people who have an equal call to the ministry and together we become part of something bigger than ourselves, a ministry serving God’s mission.
• We will work with excellence because that is what our high calling demands of us.

Special Warning to Employers

It is all too easy to abuse someone’s sense of call. We can pay too little because we know they believe God wants them doing this, and after all, aren’t we as Christians called to a sacrificial lifestyle? Not quite! As an employer, you are caring for God’s sheep and you will be held to account for the level of care you gave. Pay the worker the wages that are due. Be fair. Christian workplaces should be the best workplaces. You are a workplace, not a workhouse!

I don’t want someone working at CCCC because they can make more money here than anywhere else. I want them here because they believe in our mission. But I do want to be able to stand before God and the public and say that we paid fair wages to everyone. Not too low, and not too high.

So don’t abuse your staff’s sense of call.

Building a Shared Call

Here’s what you can do to prevent careerism from hampering your ministry:

• When interviewing people, ask:
  • Why do you want to work with us?
  • What has God been doing in your life in the last three months?
  • How does this particular job fit with your career aspirations?
• Constantly talk with staff about how the work you do ties into the church’s mission
  • Keep the vision in sight, not the activity. For example, you might
    • Provide meals (activity) to relieve hunger (immediate outcome) so that everyone experiences God’s provision (long term outcome) and ultimately is able to be the whole person God made them to be (vision).
    • Provide church services (activity) so people can praise God and learn from the Word (immediate outcomes) so that they become mature believers (long term outcome) and become the image of Christ (vision).
• Bring theological discernment into your decision process, and encourage theological reflection at leadership and staff meetings.
• Encourage people to talk about how they feel about what they do. What makes them feel significant? Fulfilled? In a mission-driven organization, this should bring out stories that are a springboard to talk about God’s call on the organization.
• Talk with staff about how God is leading them now. God may be laying something on their heart that relates to your corporate call.
• For an organization, you could think of your vision, End statement, or Social Value Proposition, as a call. What is the end good you are working to achieve? Keep that in mind as your call and it will lift you up to the greater purpose you are serving.

The post Organizational Calling appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

Servant leadership is probably the most talked about leadership model of our generation. It’s a term coined by Robert Greenleaf, a man who said he was always informed by the Judeo-Christian ethic and who (at mid-life) became a Quaker. He felt, though, that servant leadership has universal application.¹

Servant leadership is well accepted in the corporate world where its benefits include closer contact with customers (because of decentralized decision-making), avoidance of greed-based behaviours (because the interests of all stakeholders are considered), and better innovation (due to its focus on empathy and listening that lead to greater open-mindedness).

But servant leadership particularly resonates with Christians leaders because of Jesus’ example and sayings:

• Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Mat 20:26-28
• But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant. For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves. Luke 22:26-27

Jesus as a Model of Servant Leadership

Jesus’ most dramatic teaching of servant leadership occurs when he washes his disciples’ feet (John 13:1-17). If ministry leaders want to be servant leaders, should they act like domestic servants in imitation of Jesus? Should they serve coffee for the staff? At the end of the day, do servant leaders become valets, bringing cars to the door for their staff? No. A leader may do acts of service just as any person might do for another, but this is thoughtful kindness, not servant leadership. Jesus’ point was much bigger than this. We need to understand his teaching methodology to get it.

Jesus used hyperbole as a teaching tool. When he told people to pluck out their eyes and cut off their hands and feet (Mark 9:43-47), he didn’t mean that they should literally go and do so. He was reinforcing the point of how serious sin is: it is better to live eternally in heaven and suffer a disability in this temporary life than it is to go to hell forever in exchange for the short-lived pleasures of sin.

Furthermore, he didn’t promise to wash the disciples’ feet every time they entered a room. It was a single act of hyperbole to teach a lesson, contrasting the ways of God’s kingdom and human kingdoms. In God’s kingdom, rulers rule for the welfare of the people, not their own.

Thinking that having his feet washed by Jesus would actually accomplish something, Peter wanted to be completely bathed to get more of whatever benefit washing provided. By taking Jesus’ symbolic act literally, he missed the point. At least he had a good heart!

Christian Leaders Serve Jesus Christ

Christian leaders, like all Christians, serve Jesus. Jesus likewise served his Father. Recognizing this, Henry and Richard Blackaby wrote in Spiritual Leadership: Moving People on to God’s Agenda that we should not dream up what we can do for God, but ask God what he has already planned for us to do (Eph 2:10).²

Christian leaders must therefore be spiritually sensitive to receive God’s leading. If you’d like to learn more about attuning yourself to God, a great guide is Space for God: The Study and Practice of Spirituality and Prayer. I also have a series “Hearing God Speak.”

Christian service includes not only what we do, but also how we do it, so Christian leaders serve Christ by working on godly goals in godly ways.

Christian Leaders Serve Their Ministry’s Mission

Ministry leaders must dedicate their leadership to the organization’s mission, which is the ministry’s raison d’être. Leaders serve the mission by gathering people and resources to work together on it. They:

• lead people in group discernment
• challenge people to be and do their best
• keep the mission in front of their teams
• watch for mission drift and keep the ministry on course

Christian Leaders Serve Their Boards

Boards are the guardians of their organization’s mission, values and risk tolerances. They may do more than that, but all boards have these three primary responsibilities:

• governing what a ministry does
• defining its character traits
• deciding when the ends do, or do not, justify the means

They also hire, oversee, and terminate the senior leader, so the senior leader is a servant of the board.

Senior leaders serve their boards by following their directions and policies, and accomplishing their goals.

Christian Leaders Serve Their Beneficiaries

We, the people of God, exist because God wants us to be a light to the world through whom all peoples will be blessed, so ministry leaders serve their ministry’s beneficiaries first by understanding them and their circumstances, and then by working for their welfare.

Christian Leaders Serve Their Organizations

Finally, leaders serve their organizations through excellent leadership by:

• pursuing their own personal and professional development
• modeling what the ministry values
• caring for the organization’s health, including the professional development of its staff and volunteers

Leaders must always be thinking about what is best for the organization – for its viability, performance, and reputation.

Servant Leadership Attitudes

Servant leadership is not just about doing, it is also about a way of thinking. It is about recognizing a higher authority than one’s self, and acknowledging that the goal of leadership is to benefit others. Here are some of the essential attitudes that support servant leadership.

Humility: Christian leaders realize they are serving in their leadership role not by right or by merit, but by the grace and call of God, which is jointly discerned by the leader and those who are in authority over the leader.

Gratitude: There is a healthy sense of wonder that comes with being appointed to a position of leadership, a wonder that keeps the focus on service and away from self. Leadership is never about the leader, but about the mission. When a leader makes it about the person, or allows others to make it about the person, the leader has strayed from true Christian leadership. Christian leaders serve with an attitude of gratitude (thanks to Zig Ziglar for coining such a memorable phrase!). They are thankful for the opportunity to serve and for the confidence that others have placed in them. Here’s a great post on having an attitude of gratitude that is well worth reading, especially if you are working on a Saturday (like I am right now!).

Sober Self-Assessment: Examining one’s own performance is a way of acknowledging accountability for service given to another. A leader might assess:

• Motives – what is driving me? Would I be willing to admit my deepest motives in public?
• Effect on other people – How do other people experience my leadership?
• Feelings – What causes me joy or hurt? Is it appropriate?
• Ego – I know I need a healthy ego, but are my ego needs driving my leadership behaviour?

Exaltation: Rather than drawing attention to themselves, Christian leaders exalt Jesus by pointing to him and giving him the glory for the work of the ministry

Servant Leadership Metaphors

There are some great biblical metaphors (other than servant) that leaders would do well to reflect on. Each conveys an aspect of servant leadership. I’ll let you have the fun of exploring these on your own. They include:

• Shepherd (compare John 10:11-15 with Ezekiel 34)
• Steward (eg., Titus 1:7-8)
• Mother (I Thessalonians 2:7-8)
• Father (I Thessalonians 2:11-12)

Leading While Serving

Leaders are supposed to get results, and some leaders may worry that servant leadership will jeopardize their ability to do that. Not to worry. Servant leadership is leadership for the benefit of others, not a specific leadership process. For example, Jesus, James, and Paul were all servant leaders, and yet each used a different decision-making process.

• Jesus didn’t recruit a group of disciples to problem solve how to get Israel to fulfill its purpose. He knew what had to happen and where they should go, and even when the disciples objected (for instance, going to Judea in John 11:1-16), Jesus went ahead and led them where he knew they should go.
• James led the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 allowing everyone to give their opinions. He then made the decision by himself for the Council and gave his reasons for it.
• Paul had a vision in Acts 16 which he presented to his team, and together they agreed on its interpretation.

Whichever way leaders choose to lead, if they do it in a godly way for the welfare of others, they can be servant leaders. Now it must be said that normally leaders will want to include as many people as possible in their leadership deliberations because it is so beneficial for everyone. It:

• draws on the wisdom of the group
• contributes to each member’s professional development
• improves buy-in to the decisions that are made
• allows team members to make better decisions in their own realm of responsibility because they have the big picture

Consulting with team members does not preclude giving them instructions. Consulting and directing are complementary activities.

The best example I can give of consultation followed by direction is the leadership process used by the Devil’s Brigade. This was an elite joint Canadian-American World War Two commando force in which my uncle, Graham Neilson, was a 1st Lieutenant. (He served in the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Regiment of the First Special Service Force, the official name of “The Devil’s Brigade.”)

When a mission was being planned, everyone contributed to the planning. The best ideas, no matter whose they were, floated to the top and a consensus was reached. But once the plan was put into action, the highly disciplined team instantly followed every command from the leaders.

Conclusion

Servant leaders find great joy working towards something much bigger than themselves. They are passionate about using their gifts and capabilities for the benefit of the world around them, and they draw others to that same mission, creating an organization in which all staff who are similarly motivated can find fulfillment.

The post Servant Leaders: Whom Do They Serve? appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

I’ve heard many Christians who aren’t in leadership say the same thing, and it always used to evoke the same, unspoken, response from me: “Oh really?” That is, until I began to discern God’s voice myself. Now my unspoken response is, “Let’s test and see if it really is of God.”

I’m now of the opinion that we should be hearing “God told me” more often than we do. My caveat is to be careful not to put words into God’s mouth. Don’t over-interpret what you heard. Make a clear distinction between the actual message you receive and what you intend to do about it. For instance, I once felt the Lord say that CCCC should be accessible to every ministry, not just the ones that can afford the membership fee. That was from God. I felt a Web membership would satisfy the accessibility that God desired, but how the Web membership works was actually designed by the leadership team. I made it clear that accessibility was mandated by God, the Web membership was just my idea for consideration.

The assumption is that anyone leading a Christian ministry is being led by God. The question for leaders is, “How does God lead us?” Since it is hard to lead without any form of communication, we should expect God to lead by finding ways to ‘talk’ with us.

A secondary question is, “Does God actually speak?” This question  arises because of the shorthand way that most people use to refer to God’s communication methods. I’ve not yet heard of anyone who would say they heard an audible voice, although that is possible. Some have experienced a vivid thought within their heads and described it as an internal voice, but not a real voice. Others have ‘heard’ God speaking through other people, a Bible verse, or a dream, or intuition or by journaling. It’s just easier to say “God told me” rather than go through the technical details of how you came to understand God’s message.

The two ways God ‘speaks’ to us are:

1. Through the Bible
2. By the Holy Spirit

The Bible

We have one sure communication from God that is undoubted, and that is the Bible. We can read the Bible for historical information and for theology, but we can also read it to learn about God’s plans and his character. Scripture tells us what God is up to and how he goes about it. We learn about his character, his values and his priorities. Knowing these will help us think more like God and less like ourselves. We’ll lead our ministries with a more godly character and we’ll know better how to make our plans and decisions.

The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit gives life to the church today and resides in each and every believer as our Counsellor. Shouldn’t we therefore expect the Spirit to be communicating with us in some way? That’s part of his mission. Well, the Spirit does speak in many ways, including feelings, circumstances, visions, dreams, inspired thoughts and so forth. I’ve detailed a number of different ways in this series on “Hearing God speak” that you should find helpful.

God Told Me

However, I’ve just finished a book that I think does a pretty good job at explaining how God speaks to people. The complete title is God Told Me: Who to Marry, Where to Work, Which Car to Buy…And I’m Pretty Sure I’m Not Crazy: Learning to listen for guidance from God. The author, Jim Samra, is not a crazy person. He is senior pastor of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, MI. His academic credentials include a Master of Theology degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Oxford University in New Testament Theology. So he’s no slouch!!

His main point is that God doesn’t speak to us these days about moral choices, because he’s already made that clear in Scripture. He doesn’t need to tell you if you should steal or not! (I might quibble with this – I believe the Holy Spirit does stimulate your conscience.) However when we need specific, explicit guidance from God on non-moral issues, Samra says we should expect to hear from him.

If hearing God is a novel concept for you, or if you think you’ve never heard God speak, you’ll find this book very helpful. I believe every Christian should be able to discern God’s ‘voice’ and this book is an easy read that gives you both a theological foundation for divine communication and practical advice for how to participate in conversing with God.

Samra presents a good biblical case as to why we should ask God for guidance. He then tells about the many ways God speaks, and how we can distinguish his voice from all others. After that, he gets down to the nuts and bolts of preparing to listen, actively listening, lessons he’s learned and when you should and shouldn’t tell others about what God has revealed to you.

The one area I wish Samra had spent more time on is interpreting dreams. I’ve had a seminary course that included this topic, but I’ve yet to find anything written (that is credible) on how dreams from God should be identified and then interpreted. There is room for a book on this topic. Otherwise, Samra covers the ground well.

God leads his people by communicating with them. He didn’t just leave us a note about what to do, but he finds ways to talk with us each day about current events. Hearing what he is saying should be a basic competency of anyone on a ministry’s leadership team. My previous posts in this series and this book should help you develop your listening-to-God skills.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God…”
James 1:5

“Book has been provided courtesy of Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available now at your favourite bookseller.”

The post “God told me…” appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Could the way our ministries do strategic planning quench the Holy Spirit? Should a Christian ministry make plans at all if it wants to be Spirit-led? A brief study of Paul’s second missionary trip will provide the answer.

Paul’s Example

Paul’s first missionary trip, which was initiated by the Holy Spirit, was very fruitful due to the many churches he planted in Asia. Good leadership and good strategic planning would dictate a return trip to ensure the churches were growing as they should, to further strengthen them, and then to build on the evangelism success of the first missionary trip by going deeper into Asia. This is what Paul intended to do (Acts 15:36). He left Antioch after his church commended him to God with this mission in mind (v. 40).

Significantly, although the Holy Spirit gave specific instructions for the first trip, Luke makes no mention that Paul received any direction from the Holy Spirit for this trip. While not wanting to read too much into the omission, we must recognize that Luke chose to tell the story of Paul’s second missionary journey in a way that leads readers to think that Paul’s plans were simply the result of good planning. But the omission need not be taken as a negative assessment of Paul’s plan. There is no foreshadowing of trouble at all. Luke could have written, “But he failed to consult the Lord” to alert his readers to what was to come (e.g., see Joshua 9:14), but he didn’t. It seems Paul was going about his business, using his intellect, and doing what he should be doing in the normal course of ministry. It’s quite apparent that Luke wanted us to experience the Holy Spirit pretty much as Paul did so the lesson would be all the more forceful for us today.

After visiting the churches, Paul tries to venture further into Asia, but each time discerns the Spirit withholding his permission. The frustration of Paul’s Asian plans mounts until finally, in a dramatic vision, the Spirit reveals to Paul what his mission trip is really about and calls him to Macedonia in Europe. By blocking Paul from going deeper into Asia, the Holy Spirit was gradually corralling him into a port city from which he could easily embark on a ship to the place he wanted Paul to go. Paul must have been grateful that this time God used a ship to transport Paul’s team and not, as he did with Jonah, a great fish! But then, Paul wasn’t running from his call; he was earnestly pursuing it.

Paul’s team wasted no time in getting on board with the new mission. Luke records in 16:10 that “After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.” And thus, the church was planted in Europe.

Luke wants his readers to know that when the Spirit gave clear direction to Paul to start out on an entirely new mission, Paul immediately followed the Spirit’s direction, just as we should today.

Human Purpose vs. Divine Purpose

Robert Tannehill wrote a brilliant narrative analysis of Luke-Acts. In Volume Two: The Acts Of The Apostles,he wrote that:

The narrator shows a keen interest in the dialogue between human purpose and divine purpose, indicating that Jesus’ witnesses, too, must patiently endure the frustration of their own plans in order to discover the opportunity that God holds open. This opportunity may not be the next logical step by human calculation.

While God expects us to use our intellect to make good decisions and plans, we must always be sensitive to the possibility that on a particular matter, God may have other ideas that don’t make sense to us. This is when we need to trust God and follow his lead.

In his two-volume book, Luke-Acts, Luke shows very clearly what following God’s leadership looks like. The Gospel of Luke shows the Holy Spirit guiding Jesus at every step of the way and continuing to guide the church in Acts. But more than just guidance, God’s abrupt interruption of human plans is a central theme in Acts. Just as the Spirit interrupted Paul’s planned visit to Asia, so he interrupted Peter’s planned visits to the Jewish church in diaspora (Acts 10:10-20) and directed and even moved Philip to the places he needed him (Acts 8:26-40). God has a history of disrupting human plans, as King David experienced when he planned to build God’s Temple but God reduced his role to that of a fundraiser for the project (still, it was a highly important role that made it possible for his son to build the Temple).

Luke’s history of the ancient church is unambiguous: God’s plans were not what the apostles had in mind. But to the benefit of the entire church throughout the ages ever since, the apostles set aside their own plans and followed God.

God’s Leadership

From a planning perspective, Luke’s essential point is that it is the Lord who directs Christian missions through his Spirit. In fact, it’s been said the book of Acts should really be called “Acts of the Holy Spirit,” not “Acts of the Apostles” ¹ because the book tells the continuing story of what Jesus only “began to do” in the Gospel of Luke. Luke’s theology is that Jesus continues his ministry by working through the Spirit in us today.

Acts is a manual for how the church, both local churches and all other ministries, should faithfully go about its work as a Spirit-led church. Luke’s purpose is to encourage and inspire us to follow the Spirit as we continue to fulfil the church’s mission. Remember, we can’t plan our way into the great and marvelous things God has already planned for us to do.

Spirit-Friendly Ministry Plans

But it is not all bad news for planning. Planning is very useful and much good comes from it. God blessed Paul’s plan to revisit the churches he founded in several ways: Paul’s planned second missionary journey led him to Timothy, who joined his team; he strengthened the churches he had planted; and he saw many converts added in those areas (Acts 16:1–5). Even Jesus endorsed the value of planning in Luke 14:28–32. However, planning just can’t, on its own, get all the results that God desires to achieve through us.

The best way to plan is to use human reasoning and wisdom in conjunction with the leadership of the Spirit. We need to steep our planning in the practices of spiritual discernment and apply the best of human intellect to what we discern. If there isn’t any specific guidance from the Spirit, we can follow our plans while continuing to listen to the Spirit. Let’s hold our plans lightly and be ready for God to disrupt them. Since such disruptions are not the usual experience, we can go ahead as planned but stay ready to switch gears when the Spirit calls.

My Experience

I have had to learn this lesson in my own life. In my previous role as a corporate leadership trainer, I was an enthusiastic supporter of strategic planning, goal setting, and performance reviews based on measurable objectives. My enthusiasm for all that changed, however, when I received my own very unexpected call ‘out of the blue’ from God to prepare for something new. Believe me, no plan of mine had that call from God in it! The Spirit did not reveal what the preparation was for, and I was challenged to trust God, give up my work, and become a full-time student again in mid-life without knowing what the goal was, where I was headed, or what God had in mind. All I knew was that I had to go to seminary.

Halfway through my second year, due to some difficult circumstances I felt abandoned by God and, at my age, despaired of ever having gainful employment again. I dropped back into planning mode and ‘helped’ God by putting my resume out for work at various Christian ministries. In the midst of one interview, the Holy Spirit said, “This is not what this is all about. Withdraw your applications.”

The Spirit reminded me, “If my ways are not your ways, and if my thoughts are so much higher than yours that you can’t even conceive the depth and breadth of my thoughts, then the best your puny little plans² can do is frustrate what I want to do through you. Stop planning and let me lead!” A vision of me being blindfolded and holding on to God’s shirtsleeve was very vivid and God’s intent was quite clear: “When I take a step, you can take a step.” And that is how I have lived my life ever since.

Through that experience, I learned first-hand of God’s ability to orchestrate things so you end up doing something far more significant than you ever could have planned to do on your own. Just before God told me to withdraw my job applications, I had submitted my resume to CCCC. Both my wife and my pastor saw the job ad for my present position and encouraged me to apply because they thought I was a perfect fit for the job. When I was told to withdraw my applications, I had not yet had any response from CCCC. I asked God about this particular application, and the Spirit let me know that I should leave this application alone. “If they call, you can go. If they ask, you can answer. But you can’t do anything proactive,” the Spirit said. “Just sit back and watch what I can do.” At just the right time, a time orchestrated by God, I was ready for work when CCCC published the job ad. The rest is history. After 20 years at CCCC (2023), I am still as fresh and as vital as the day I was hired and even more passionate about our mission

I still plan today, but my plans are default plans — plans that I will follow should nothing better come up. My promise to the CCCC board is to do my best to stay sensitive and receptive to the Spirit’s guidance each and every day.

Key Thought: A planning process must honour the leadership of the Spirit. Follow God, not the plan.

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I am using the term “hear God’s voice” in this post even though I have never heard an audible voice. What I mean is that God speaks in many ways, and ‘hearing’ God means discerning his thoughts. He can ‘speak’ to you through a dream, intuition, an inner voice, a flash of insight from nowhere, someone else saying something that you know is from God, discerning the meaning of circumstances and so forth.

Ways to Hear God

Here are some thoughts about how you can better discern God’s voice.

• This is obvious, but if you want to hear from God you have to stop talking and start listening. This means quiet time, without any distractions if possible. I find that even having reflective music in the background can be distracting, so I often am in complete silence. Once a year I do a one week spiritual retreat on my own devoted to my leadership of CCCC, and I set aside a couple days throughout the year for deep reflection, meditation and listening. But those are special times of intense listening. Listening to God should be a daily activity, actually a constant activity, and since complete silence is usually not possible, I have learned to quiet myself in the midst of distraction and open myself to God’s thoughts.
  1.  Frank Laubach wrote about unceasing prayer and how even on a busy streetcar he could silence himself before God.  I’ll put a couple of quotes of his at the bottom of this post.  A chapter from one of his books was given out in a course at Tyndale, but I don’t recall which book it came from. I’ve not read it, but Prayer, the Mightiest Force in the World: Thoughts for an Atomic Age sounds like the likely source.
  2. Distractions are not necessarily bad, sometimes they bring to your attention something God wants you to think about.  Maybe the best way to think about silence is that it is your silence that is required.  It’s really hard to stop all the sounds that are around you, although you can seek out a quiet place if you want.
  3. Unceasing prayer does not mean talking to God all the time because it includes listening.  What I strive for is a continuous awareness of God and his agenda so that his mission and character permeate everything I do as a leader.  But, like Paul, I have to say “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Phil 3:12).
• Set aside time for God just as you set aside time for family and friends. It seems that the really deep thoughts I’ve had from God have come after an extended time. I certainly have heard God speak in various ways after only a few minutes of silence, sometimes virtually immediately, and sometimes he just interrupts my thoughts completely unexpectedly, but I know the most dramatic experience I have ever had with God came after almost an hour of continuously praising God in silence while meditating on his nature. I wasn’t actually listening at the time, which made the experience all the more powerful. Regardless of how much time you can spend, the main thing is to be receptive to God.
• Study Scripture to know it inside and out. That way you come to know God’s mind (as much as we can know it) and can learn to incorporate God’s ways into your leadership in real-time, as opposed to reflecting on a situation later. Also, study the biblical leaders to see the good, the bad and the ugly. That will help you understand what God expects of you as a ministry leader. I feel a tremendous amount of responsibility as a ministry leader to model Christ’s character and to do the Lord’s will. Knowing that I am still a work in process means that I am continually examining myself against God’s standards for his leaders and that feeds in to my personal development plan. You know, sometimes other people even help me see the areas that are “opportunities for growth!” The absolute best book I have read on Christian leadership is the one I reviewed in Shepherds After My Own Heart by Tim Laniak. Tim’s theological work is excellent!
• I find the most effective way to hear from God is to ask him a direct question and then be silent and wait for a response. Sometimes you might just say “Lord, speak to me about whatever I need to hear,” but I also will give God a direct question I want an answer to. Don’t just think about your question. It seems that when I formulate a specific question and ask it (almost always silently), I get a response! Just thinking about an issue without formulating a question isn’t effective, for me at least. Merely thinking about an issue means all I have is a vague notion of a question I would like to ask God someday, but I haven’t actually asked it for real until I’ve said it either out loud or in my head. I know he knows my thoughts, but I think for me at least, he wants a direct question because then I will know he is responding.
• Ask your questions before you make your plans. Don’t ask God to bless your plans, but ask God for his plans. His ways are not our ways and we can’t even conceive the depths of his mind, so even the very best of our puny plans does nothing but frustrate what God would like to do through us. The Lord broke me of planning ten years ago, and life has never been better! I do think ahead of course, and when the Lord lays out a direction, I do make plans, but I hold to them lightly, knowing that the Lord may provide something better at any time. My plans are just default plans that the Lord is free to interrupt whenever he wants.
• Reflect on your experiences. Keeping a journal or at least taking time to review your day/week/month/life is essential to understanding the events taking place in your life. Events are neutral until you interpret them and give them meaning. While writing this blog over the course of a few days, I attended church where Pastor Darren Ethier gave an excellent sermon on the power of storytelling, making just this very point. Was an event positive or negative? That depends on what you draw out of it. Since we know that God can redeem every circumstance, give him a chance to do so by reflecting on your circumstances. It is while reflecting on life that I come to see the trends, the longer term undercurrents and the deeper truths I need to know. That’s when I tend to get flashes of insight from God. (I always ask the Holy Spirit to guide my thoughts when I do reflection.)

Learning to Hear God Speak

It used to be that when people said “The Lord told me…”, my response (kept to myself of course) was, “Oh yeah, sure!!” First, I was very, very skeptical of their claims, and second, I always was afraid of mistaking my voice for God’s voice, so of course I never heard from God. But then about 1993 I asked God, “Please teach me to distinguish your voice from mine” and I started to have some pretty amazing experiences. Let me just say that over perhaps about five years, the Lord caused things to happen so that he could say, “That was me!” and I knew that anything else was me talking to myself. And of course he was training me so that on May 25, 2001 when I asked, “God, why do you give me all this vision for my family, my church and others, but no vision for myself?” I was equipped and ready to receive the most direct response from God that I have ever received!! That question changed my life. Suffice it to say, two weeks later I was registered at Tyndale Seminary and three weeks after that I started my first classes and became, at 44, a full-time student. And I’ve never looked back!

To help you, I have written on this blog about some aspects of hearing God speak. I wrote about dreams, about designing a spiritual retreat, about developing intimacy with God, about how your personal spirituality affects the public (your staff for example), and about discerning your call. Richard Foster wrote a good introduction to the contemplative life in Streams Of Living Water and a practical book on discerning God’s voice is Listening Prayer: Learning to Hear God’s Voice and Keep a Prayer Journal by Leanne Payne. It’s been some years since I read this book, but I recall it was pretty good. And of course, the one book that stands out above all others for guiding you into a more intimate relationship with God is Space for God: The Study and Practice of Spirituality and Prayer.

Frank Laubach wrote in 1930,

For the past few days I have been experimenting in a more complete surrender than ever before. I am taking by deliberate act of will, enough time from each hour to give God much thought. Yesterday and today I have made a new adventure, which is not easy to express. I am feeling God in each movement, by an act of will—willing that He shall direct these fingers that now strike this typewriter—willing that He shall pour through my steps as I walk—willing that He shall direct my words as I speak, and my very jaws as I eat! You will object to this intense introspection. Do not try it, unless you feel unsatisfied with your own relationship with God, but at least allow me to realize all the leadership of God I can.

A few days later, Laubach wrote something that, in each word, resonates with my experience over the past ten years:

I feel simply carried along each hour, doing my part in a plan which is far beyond myself. This sense of cooperation with God in the little things is what astonishes me. I seem to have to make sure of only one thing now, and every other thing “takes care of itself,” or I prefer to say what is more true, God takes care of all the rest. My part is to live in this hour in continuous inner conversation with God and in perfect responsiveness to His will. To make this hour gloriously rich. This seems to be all I need to think about.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 – Pray without ceasing.

Amen.

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