As we celebrate our country’s 150^th year, many of us have reflected on our national history. One of the lenses through which you can look at the history of Canada is the lens of partnership. Partnerships between diverse communities have helped secure and shape our nation since before it was even founded.

That theme of partnership is also an important one in the history of Northwest Baptist Seminary. The Seminary was born out of a deep partnership with a local group of churches and that partnership continued through a war-related service disruption and multiple relocations. At different times, NBS has also formed strong partnerships with other schools, such as the one we currently share with three other seminaries to form ACTS Seminaries and ACTS’ own partnership with Trinity Western University.

However, it has always been clear to NBS that, without our partnership with our local churches, we would not exist. This fact has perhaps never been clearer than it has over the last few years. In 2010, the leadership of our local group of churches (the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptists in BC and the Yukon – or Fellowship Pacific) approached us to say that our traditional seminary model was not consistently producing graduates who could effectively lead local churches, we knew we had to do something different. Together with Fellowship Pacific, we decided to reverse engineer theological education and create the Immerse program. Beginning with the end in mind will almost always require a dramatic rethink of any institutional structure. And that is certainly true of our Immerse program.

Prospective students share during orientation led by our partner Fellowship Pacific staff

Rather than conferring a degree upon completion of the set amount of credits, Immerse students graduate with their fully accredited Masters of Divinity (M.Div) degree only when they have demonstrated mastery in 27 Ministry Leadership Outcomes crucial to being an effective leader in the church. Rather than having a group of instructors whom you may not know personally, Immerse students are coached through the program by three hands-on mentors: a ministry mentor usually from their local church, an academic mentor representing the Seminary and a network mentor representing the Fellowship. Rather than stepping out of the church for the duration of a degree, Immerse students work entirely within their ministry context for the entire program. Together, these aspects of the program provide mentored mastery in context – ensuring that students grow exactly where they need to, alongside quality, invested mentors, while being involved in effective ministry.

Immerse is driven by mentor-student relationships

Beyond the program itself, this model of theological education ensures that the training of leaders for the church is a true partnership between the seminary, our denomination and local churches.

We are so pleased to have been able to partner meaningfully in the development and launch of the Immerse program with Fellowship Pacific and to be beginning to partner with other regions across Canada as well. The development of Immerse was part of a larger renewing of partnerships between churches in our denomination. Together we committed to experimenting with a focus on working together to leverage our collective strengths. That vision has now been officially implemented as part of our ethos – largely thanks to the success we saw from it of which the Immerse program was no small part.

An Immerse student meets with his academic and ministry mentors

Immerse is also broadening the exposure of our Seminary in the landscape of theological education as it is the first program based off of the Context Based Theological Education (CBTE) model. Every week we receive requests to meet with a new organization wanting to hear more about how they can begin to implement some of what we are doing. Through these contacts, we are beginning to build partnerships with other organizations, not just other Seminaries but church planting networks, Bible translation groups, denominations, Fellows programs and even individual churches.

Not all of these groups are looking to create a graduate degree program, but they are looking to be able to harness the power of mentoring to help develop leaders in their ministry context. To date we have formal partnerships with 12 different organizations and are seeing the pace of new partnerships grow exponentially as we seek to serve the larger body of Christ through these new partners.

Graduation ceremony for the first ever graduate from a context-based theological education program in North America

Last year, we graduated our first student through the program. By September, we anticipate we will have graduated 12 students in 3 different countries with that number quickly rising as our other partners begin to bring students to graduation as well. To date, each of these early graduates have already found full-time roles in local places of ministry, showing that the program is succeeding at producing high-quality graduates who are able to lead the church and ensuring that the future of our churches will be in good hands.

This charity has been certified by the Canadian Council of Christian Charities. Charities that display our Seal of Accountability demonstrate ongoing compliance with high standards of financial and organizational integrity. To find out more about this charity or other Certified charities, visit giveconfidently.ca.

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Christians working in vocational ministry, unlike other Christians who do not, run the risk of professionalizing their spirituality, acting as though their Christian life is fully lived out through their work.

But consider this:

• Studying the Bible to write sermons or articles isn’t the same as soaking in Scripture and allowing the Spirit to speak deep into your soul.
• Evangelizing strangers in a ministry program isn’t the same as being Christ to your neighbour.
• Leading a prayer group isn’t the same as praying privately as the Lord leads you.

If the only time you pray, study or do any other Christian practice is to fulfill work responsibilities, you will inevitably dry up spiritually. You will lose the vital relationship with God that you once had. Some indicators that your personal spiritual life is drying up include:

• Feeling like you are just going through the motions. As Dave Blundell writes in Professionally Religious, “We professionally religious can go a long time talking about Him without talking with Him. We can spend weeks speaking for Him without speaking to Him.”
• Thinking of yourself as a fraud, hoping not to be discovered.
• Reading this post and feeling convicted that this applies to you.

If you have professionalized your spirituality, the correction is to come back to a personal spirituality of divine intimacy. Someone with a living, vibrant Christian spirituality will have a rich experience of God quite apart from the relationship they have due to their work or calling. Remember, God wants a relationship with you, the whole you, and not just the part of you who plays the role of ministry leader. The best answer to the question, “Who are you?” is not “I am the pastor of ABC Church” but “I am God’s creation, made in his image and redeemed by his Son, Jesus Christ.” You are a person before you are an employee.

So it is vital to your long term success in ministry that you take care of your faith life. Keeping your soul tender towards God and attentive to his leading is your top priority. Let’s look at some ways you can keep your spirituality healthy and vibrant.

Types of Christian Spirituality

Christianity has many different types of spirituality which appeal to different people. If you want to start paying more attention to caring for your spiritual life, begin by finding which type of spirituality feels most meaningful to you. You’ll likely identify with more than one.

Richard Foster has six different streams of spirituality which he reviews in his book Streams of Living Water:

1. The Contemplative Tradition: Discovering the Prayer-Filled Life
2. The Holiness Tradition: Discovering the Virtuous Life
3. The Charismatic Tradition: Discovering the Spirit-Empowered Life
4. The Social Justice Tradition: Discovering the Compassionate Life
5. The Evangelical Tradition: Discovering the Word-Centred Life
6. The Incarnational Tradition: Discovering the Sacramental Life

While I can identify with all six, the contemplative and charismatic traditions resonate most deeply with me, and they are the ones I turn to most often. Which ones do you connect with most readily? God is a God of great diversity. He has a spirituality for everyone. Read Foster’s book to see how you can further deepen and enrich your life in those traditions.

In Protestant Spiritual Traditions, seven authors explore Christian spirituality based on the major theological and historical divisions of Protestantism. They examine spirituality from seven traditions:

1. Lutheran
2. Reformed
3. Anabaptist
4. Anglican
5. Puritan
6. Pietist
7. Methodist

You may find new ways to experience the spirituality of your own part of Protestantism, or you may find some spiritual practices to borrow from the others. (Notably absent from this book is Pentecostal spirituality. Pentecostals and charismatics may find the Pietist tradition the closest fit – or look for a book on Pentecostal spirituality.)

Finally, another resource to help you find spiritual practices and resources is Christian Spirituality: An Introduction by Alastair McGrath. It seems rather expensive on Amazon, so perhaps you could borrow it from a library, find it cheaper on other websites, or look for an alternative book. It is an excellent overview of Christian spirituality based on theology, biblical imagery and metaphors, and the writings of theologians from the Early Church Fathers to the present day.

Other soul-care resources include a ministry called Soul Care and anything by Ruth Haley Barton.

Helps for Healthy Christian Spirituality

Spiritual Direction

Spiritual direction isn’t really direction. No one is going to give you direction or even advice. However, a spiritual director is someone who will meet with you over time to help you deepen your relationship with God. They may give you some help with discernment, prayer, or just a fresh way of thinking. They’ll probably suggest some helpful resources. Every session is different because it all depends on where you are at. The Tyndale Association of Spiritual Directors has a good introduction to spiritual direction.

Spiritual direction can be very powerful if you are either not very experienced at Christian spiritual practices or if you need to discern God’s leadership. I made good use of spiritual direction when trying to discern whether God wanted me to be a pastor in a church or the leader of CCCC. The director never told me what he thought God was saying, but he did give me a lot of help:

• I was concerned that I might make a mistake and miss God’s perfect will for me. He gave me this life-changing (and liberating) thought: “Maybe God is offering you two options, both equally pleasing to Himself, and now He has the fun of watching you make the decision!“
• He suggested I go out into the forest for three or four hours of silence and solitude, and play through two scenarios: 1) I’m a church pastor and Jesus walks into my office, and 2) I’m the head of CCCC and Jesus walks into my office. What would be said in the two conversations? Well, I only got through the first one and I had my clear answer!! Here I am at CCCC for thirteen years now!

Tyndale Seminary has a list of qualified spiritual directors across Canada.

Guided Retreat

In another post, I discussed how to design your own personal retreat. But instead of doing a self-guided retreat, another option is to take a guided retreat. If you do a private guided retreat, you will be the only person doing what you’re doing (but others will be at the retreat centre doing their own retreats too). The retreat centre will provide you with a spiritual director. The other option is a guided group retreat. You are still at a retreat centre and have a spiritual director, but a group retreat normally has a program or a theme to it. There will be times of silence and solitude, but there will also be times of teaching and discussion.

Probably the most famous guided retreat is the Ignatian Way offered by the Jesuits, who are quite accommodating to non-Catholics who want the experience.  There are also Anglican retreat centres such as two which I’ve checked out: the Society of Saint John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Abbey House in Glastonbury, England. And then there are retreat centres with counselors (as opposed to spiritual directors) such as The Sabbath House in the Smoky Mountains or the Focus on the Family retreat centres for clergy here in Canada. I have done a couple of guided group retreats, and they have always been very fruitful for me.

Revisit Meaningful Places

A less formal way of caring for your spirituality is to revisit some places that have special meaning for you. This is what Israel was doing as it traveled through the desert to reach the Promised Land – creating physical memorials to the great things which God had done for them. If they returned, or if others came behind them, they would come across the memorial and be reminded of God’s goodness.

As we go through life, we experience God in many ways just as Israel did, and while we don’t build stone memorials, often a particular place may serve as a physical reminder of that significant spiritual time or experience. Of course God is everywhere, and we don’t make idols of anything, such as a place, but you might find it refreshing and nourishing to go back to some location that has spiritual significance for you, and draw from your past experience to have a fresh encounter with God.

I find it a very moving experience to return to the church that was my home church until my marriage. It was at that church that I experienced the majesty and glory of God. I felt his bigness. I felt deeply loved by him as his little child, even as a teenager. In my church of the last 36 years (I’ve only ever been a member of two churches), I experience God as a friend who walks beside me. As an adult, I have a much greater sense of his leadership each and every day. Going back to my first church is always a healthy reminder of the fullness of God. He’s both majestic and intimate.

Visit Different Churches

One summer, as a family, we took the summer off from our various responsibilities at church and we went and visited all kinds of churches: Coptic, Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Mennonite, and so on, The whole family enjoyed seeing how other Christians do church. The friendliest had to be the Coptic church. During the service, a robed deacon left the altar area and came right down to sit with us and explain the service and what everyone was doing. It turned out that the men got together every Saturday night to bake the Communion bread. After the service, families could come and take an unused loaf home. We couldn’t take Communion, but they invited us to take some bread!

By visiting different church services, you can experience God in different ways. I especially find the Anglican liturgy (using Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer) very meaningful. The language is extraordinarily beautiful and it just seems worthy of God. It’s the linguistic equivalent of dressing up to go to church! When I experience the liturgy, I feel lost in the wonder of God and bursting with a fresh appreciation for Christ’s sacrifice on my behalf. I don’t pray to God in Cranmer’s English on my own, or wouldn’t want to pray this way at every service, but as an added dimension of spirituality, it does my soul good. In fact, this summer I was in England, and attended all three morning services at Westminster Abbey, just to get my fill of this beautiful liturgy!

Courses

For the more intellectually minded believer, you may find taking an academic course good for the soul. My wife and I love to learn and will be applying to attend Oxford University’s Theology Summer School next year. In Canada, Regent College offers a summer school for lay people, and there may be others.

Many Bible colleges and seminaries will allow people to audit courses through the year. You pay a reduced fee, but you don’t have to do any assignments or take any tests. You simply get to sit in the classroom and participate like any other student. It’s a great way to deepen your knowledge of God.

There are plenty of online courses you can take as well.

Something I’ve done from time to time is check the syllabus for a course I’m interested in but haven’t got time to take. I want to see what the textbooks are. This way I have a list of books to read that I know will be good because a professor has vetted them.

Sabbath Rest

Of course, the first thing you should do if you want to care for your spirituality is to take a day of Sabbath rest each week. God’s command to rest predates the Mosaic Law and so is a continuing command. I must admit I struggle not doing any CCCC work on Sunday, but I am trying! When you think about it, if you don’t take Sabbath rest, and especially if you tend to work evenings as well, you have a pretty unbalanced life. Sabbath rest, like a vacation, is good for your family and friends, and allows you to stay fresh to fulfill your ministry responsibilities.

I’d really like to hear from you what you do to “care for your soul”. What do you find is restorative? What practices invigorate your spiritual life? Please share in the comments below.

May God richly bless you with greater intimacy and spiritual vitality as you take care to feed your soul!

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The fourth threat to corporate witness is the most serious because, if it overpowers the culture of the ministry, it will leave you bereft of the most important way of communicating with your ministry’s owner. This biggest threat of all is the privatization of faith.

We are being conditioned by our society that faith does not belong in the public realm. People of faith are told to keep their faith in their places of worship and homes, to hide it away. Even Jesus said we should hide in our “prayer closets” when we pray, so as not to make a show of our prayers. But Jesus wasn’t saying that we should not have group prayer!! He was contrasting two ways of praying to make a point. Don’t take it too far.

The result is that a surprising number of Christians are not comfortable with group spirituality, sometimes even in church! We are especially not comfortable, it seems to me, with silence in a group situation, one of the central practices in group discernment. Sure we can pray at the start of a meeting that God will guide our minds and the discussion and be with us, but why not then take time together to listen together?

Paul talks about putting on the full armour of God. Yet when we do not engage in group discernment it is as though we take off our armour, lay down our weapons, and then walk into battle! We’ve needlessly neglected to make use of the greatest resource Christ gave us — his Spirit, our counselor and guide.

Negative Consequences

You know you have a problem with group spirituality when people treat the opening devotional and prayer time of a meeting as not the real meeting, but just an optional preliminary. Although the meeting starts at 7:00, some will arrive at 7:30 — in time for when the ‘real’ meeting starts.

The problem when people keep their faith private is that:

• Group prayer becomes a perfunctory exercise, consisting only of petitions and no listening.
• Discussion is limited to the ‘practical’ things and never ventures into a theological discussion to set context or to guide discussion.
• Without faith in the foreground, the work of the ministry is reduced to simply good deeds or need fulfillment.
• If people are embarrassed to share their spirituality with their teammates, how can they share it as a public witness?
• Something that God wants to tell us may not be heard, because it is often in the shared discernment process that a team discerns God’s leading.

The Truth

Privatization of faith can be overcome by the truth that we have the Holy Spirit among us, and that as a group we have divine guidance.

God wants us to know his mind. He wants us to have conversation with him! This truth does not just give corporate life a spiritual dimension, it fills it with a vibrant, living faith!

We need to become aware of the constant presence of God in our lives. We are the people through whom God works in this world! How can we possibly work together as a group unless we are listening to God as a group?

Building Group Spirituality

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:16 that we have the mind of Christ. We have his mind by learning to think like him and by listening to his Spirit. It’s a fact that God wants to communicate with us, but it is not always our experience that we hear him. Pastor Manoonsak at Jai Samarn church in Bangkok, said in a sermon that when people ask why God doesn’t speak to them they are asking the wrong question. The real question is, “Why am I not listening when God is speaking?”

I’ve learned that:

• If we do not expect God to speak to us, we will not likely hear him speak.
• If we do not expect the Spirit to be active today, we will not see what he is doing.

Therefore if you want to discern God’s leadership, either individually or corporately, you must expect to find him. God says he will be found, and if we ask for wisdom, he will give it to us.

I admit that it used to really bother me when someone said “God told me.” it always evoked the same, unspoken, response from me: “Oh really?” 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. He was training me so that on May 25, 2001 when I asked God a direct question, I was equipped and ready to receive the most direct response from God that I have ever received!! That question changed my life.

Here’s what you can do to build your group discernment skills:

• There is a great little book called Practicing Discernment Together that you could read together. The CCCC board read and discussed this book earlier this year. It’s the best introduction to group discernment that I know of. Another book that I have ordered but not yet read is Pursuing God’s Will Together: A Discernment Practice for Leadership Groups by Ruth Haley Barton. If it is as good as her other books, it will be excellent.
• Have a professor from a seminary come and teach your staff some discernment practices. I had Dr. David Sherbino from Tyndale Seminary come and do a half day experiential spiritual retreat for all CCCC staff.
• Take your leadership team off-site to a more relaxed environment for a spiritual retreat. I did this with our leadership team and we made very good progress on some strategy work.
• Build extra time into your meetings for a spiritual exercise. When the leadership team began work on what became our strategy map, we set aside time to do lectio divina, and to leisurely debrief.
• Work through my blog series Hearing God Speak.
• Ask questions that will stimulate discernment, such as:
  • “Let’s think about this issue keeping God’s character in mind and see what insights we get.”
  • “Which doctrines pertain to this issue, and do they cast any light on what we should do?”

In Conclusion

In this series I have covered the four major threats to your corporate spiritual witness: individualism, careerism, self-centredness, and privatization of faith. Each of these is absolutely antithetical to our Christian faith and will severely impair our ability to be an authentic Christian witness through our corporate life.

By overcoming these threats with the four great truths: we are the body of Christ, we have a high calling, we belong to Christ, and we have the Holy Spirit, we will be a fully functioning Christian ministry that can, through our corporate life, be an authentic Christian witness that:

• points to God,
• manifests his character, and
• models his kingdom on earth.

May God bless you and your ministry as you seek to be true to his ways in all that you do.

The post Organizational Spirituality appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

Since this blog is called “Christian Leadership Reflections“, I will recognize these 10 years by sharing the most important lesson God has taught me about my own leadership in that time.

But there are lots of other experienced ministry leaders who have learned lessons from their leadership, so I asked a few and, as a treat, they will share the most important lessons that God taught them too. It’s a lot less stressful to learn from others than to learn for yourself, so here are some lessons that others have paid the price to learn.

John Pellowe, CEO of Canadian Council of Christian Charities, Elmira ON

Every human being has areas in which we are still growing to be Christlike, but as a senior leader these areas have enormous potential to hurt you and the people you lead. The Bible says that God considers those in leadership over his people as his shepherds, representing him, and that one day we will each account for the way we led the people he entrusted to our care. As God’s shepherds, there is a public aspect to everything we do and say, and even think.

For as he thinks within himself, so he is.
Proverbs 23:7

With that in mind, over the course of 10 years of leadership there have been times when I have been irritated, frustrated, and impatient. These normal human emotions can be positive, and fuel a leader’s drive to change the world for the better. But when dealing with people entrusted to your care, the same traits can be negative.

So a ministry leader’s personal thresholds for feeling negative emotions and how those emotions are handled are very significant. Ministry leaders must channel negative feelings into positive action as soon as possible to deal with the issues and not let them fester. That action always includes deep, spiritual self-reflection to allow the Spirit to do his work in the leader. It also almost always involves taking positive steps to coach people or improve systems.

The question the Lord has impressed upon me (which I’ve written about in When a leader prays… is:

If Jesus were to return now for a few years to serve as an employee at CCCC, would he be able to say of my leadership, “John reminds me of myself?”

Lesson learned: Be Christ to your staff.

William Fietje, former President of Associated Gospel Churches, Burlington ON

I know what anxiety is. Several times early on in our ministry overseas I was faced with deep feelings of anxiety on the edge of burn out. Looking back two decades later it was simply my own anxiety about not being able to control all of our situations in the midst of chaos. This would produce in me a response to work harder and to expend much more energy. Though I had faith in God I was working in the flesh and not by faith. I had to learn that faith meant trusting God to accomplish all things including, and maybe especially, those things over which I had no real control.

I was especially concerned that we would not have the right people to lead or that we would lose people who were highly effective. Early on I experienced anxiety by not trusting God to supply all of our needs which meant people as well as provisions.

Every time we lost someone I experienced God answer our prayers far above all that we could hope for. In watching God provide the leadership of our organization I grew to trust Him and not me. I learned to live not just in faith but also by faith.

The greatest lesson I have learned as a leader is that God does know the end from the beginning. When we live by faith and not just in faith we can relax knowing that as we do our small bit it is actually God our Father who brings just the right people at just the right time to accomplish just what he wants. Anxiety is now something I talk to others about. Yes I still feel it lurking down deep but, leading by faith is what has overcome its, at times, crippling effect.

Lesson Learned: Lead by faith.

Wendy Lowe, Executive Director of Calgary Pregnancy Care Centre, Calgary AB

Leaders count the cost. Sometimes we miscalculate who is paying the price. I had an unhappy employee who reported directly to me. Most of her unhappiness had little to do with her work in our ministry and a lot to do with her own personal life and circumstances. As a leader of a faith-based ministry that believes in community, I decided to extend a great deal of grace to this individual as she worked on her life circumstances and occasionally behaved badly with me in her work. I could take the bad behavior; I was willing to pay the price.

In our organization we place a high value on dealing directly with each other and work hard at holding each other accountable to a no gossip approach to interpersonal relationships. When this challenging employee eventually transitioned in her life in a positive way, I felt quite proud of the sacrifice I had made that had helped this individual. The pride didn’t last long when, over time, stories began to emerge quite innocently about how much other members of my team had had to endure with this co-worker. I had power with this individual and the worst of what I had to deal with was minor in comparison to some of the behaviors colleagues had endured.

In an effort to extend grace I had actually created what amounted to a borderline hostile work environment. An over-emphasis on stomping out gossip meant as a leader I had messed up the balance on open and constructive communication. The team I was responsible for had paid far too high a price, one that I believed I alone was paying.

Lesson Learned: Leadership priorities may have unintended negative effects.

Laurie Cook, CEO of World Relief Canada, Markham ON

I am very tempted to say that the most valuable leadership lesson for me was the realization that it was my responsibility to take out the trash and do the dishes. (Hence the term chief “Cook” and bottle washer). Although this sounds as if I am referring to servant leadership, for me it has been so much more. For me successful leadership has come primarily from building relationships. I learned that success came from earning people’s respect through relationship building and honouring. The door is always open and I will drop almost anything to make time for them. I will go to their cubicle and ask about their family and openly share my own phobias and anxieties. I’m sure you get the drift.

But how can you put so much emphasis on relationship when the leader is the one with the final decision? As in any community there is a division of activity. Of course as CEO I have things I am accountable for and will make decisions on but there are also things that a program officer or director of finance is accountable for and I would never decide on.

The key is to live the conviction and demonstrate it at all costs.

And by the way I’m serious about the trash and any other menial task that I can do that allows staff to do their job better. A new employee recently said on her second day on the job that she was beginning to wonder whether or not I really was the CEO because each of her first two mornings she saw me under a desk somewhere fixing something!

Lesson Learned: Honour relationships.

Bev Carrick, former Executive Director of Cause Canada, Canmore AB

In my role as Executive Director, I am responsible for ensuring that our ministry has all the resources necessary to carry out its mission. These resources include capable, dedicated staff, financial support for international programs, training, and tools such as computers and vehicles. This is no small task!!

Although God has demonstrated His incredible faithfulness year after year, I still slip into worry mode from time to time… I have learned one valuable lesson, however; more often than not, we already possess everything we need! Often, for example, we may not recognize these assets because they are in a different form than we are expecting. We forget about a particularly skilled volunteer who is waiting to be asked to assist our team. Sometimes all its takes is a simple phone call to a faithful donor before he or she enthusiastically offers much-needed funds. It could also be that we need to remember a neglected piece of equipment in storage that we can restore to usefulness.

I am reminded of the Biblical story of the feeding of the 5,000 when Jesus asks His disciples what food they have already collected. It is critically important that we take a full inventory of all of our assets – the resources God has already given us – and thank Him profoundly for these gifts. We need to think creatively about how to overcome the obstacles we face and remember to use the assets entrusted to us by God. It is only then that we, as leaders, can go boldly forward in faith.

Lesson Learned: Build on our God-given assets.

Glenn Smith, Executive Director of Christian Direction, Montreal QC

This request for the most important lesson learned is rather timely as I have just completed 30 years as the Executive Director of Christian Direction in Montréal. If you had told me in 1983 that I would still be leading the organization in 2013, I would never have believed it!

I have been very fortunate to serve under an excellent Board of Directors who practices great governance. They have demanded accountability and sponsored some audacious dreams. They have also provided three sabbaticals to renew myself spiritually, to spend extended time with my family and to develop new ideas. Our staff over these three decades has been amazing. I have learned to lead and to serve – I made plenty of mistakes but God’s grace has kept us growing as colleagues and friends. I’ve worked with some of the most creative practitioners you can imagine. We haven’t been afraid to take risks or to fail. We tried some things that didn’t work.

But my greatest learning has actually become part of my personal mission – think biblically, live spiritually and act contextually. It has not always been straightforward how to pursue God’s mission in urban Québec. But I have been forced constantly by the Spirit to go back to the texts and to listen to the Spirit in the Holy Scriptures. This has shaped me to be alive in the Spirit and very tuned in to the Creator in every dimension of life, especially in my relationships. That has prompted us to act locally in a way that reflects the triune God in all that is the city.

Oh how I wished that I had learned those things earlier in life!

Lesson Learned: Think biblically, live spiritually, and act contextually.

Grant Morrison, VP and Executive Director of Canada of Avant Ministries, Winnipeg MB

As I look back on over 30 years of leading people in both profit and not-for-profit organizations one of the most significant things I have learned is that it is impossible to please people all the time.

This has not been an easy lesson because as a rather sensitive person with perhaps a degree of “approval addiction” I do not enjoy conflict but have discovered that it is inevitable. It is not a question of “if” it will occur but rather how you will handle it when it does.

Every leader is called upon to make difficult decisions but my experience has been that even if a decision I have made has resulted in disappointment or even anger, the way I respond to those reactions is extremely important. A leader whose attitude is marked by humility and compassion combined with behaviour that is consistent and fair will go a long way toward calming troubled “organizational waters”.

Leaders who would be godly need to have Paul’s words to the Philippians (2:3 NIV) “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves…” etched into their memories or at least posted someplace where it is seen many times each day.

Lesson Learned: Lead from a place of humility.

Asking for Advice

I wasn’t sure if anyone would be willing to share a lesson they had learned through experience, but I only asked a few people and I got some great lessons from them. This has implications for you because three things that I’ve discovered over the years are:

1. People like being helpful.
2. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
3. We assume too often that people won’t have time for us.

When I was 27 years old, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go into corporate planning, venture capital, or commercial banking as a next step. I had no connections, no one to introduce me, to anyone in any of these fields. So I picked up the phone (that’s a phrase I still use a lot – “Why not pick up the phone and call…”) and called a few people and as a result I had lunch with the VP Corporate Planning for Dow Chemical, I think the president or a vp of the Trillium Foundation, the president of a subsidiary of an American corporate bank in Toronto and a number of other interesting people. I got great career advice and learned a lot.

More recently, on my sabbatical, I held 63 meetings in 11 countries with people who had never heard of me or CCCC. A number of them came from cold calls, and for some I could use the name of their Canadian counterparts as a reference. All of them were gracious and helpful. You just have to ask.

I say all this to encourage Christian leaders of any age to not be afraid to ask someone for advice, or to be a mentor, or for permission to talk from time to time. As I’ve written elsewhere, it’s lonely at the top only if you want it to be lonely. So pick up the phone and call, or send an email or whatever. Make connections. You’ll probably be surprised how many people are willing to give you some time.

The post What God Has Taught Me About My Own Leadership appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

Spiritual Discernment

John told me he never experienced the more spectacular ways God uses to communicate (such as dreams, inner voices, etc.). Instead, he lived his life and made his decisions based on other ways God uses:

• Human judgment based on the gift of reasoning that God has blessed us with
• Consideration of present circumstances and opportunities
• Signs from other people
• Simply doing what is right, all the time

If anyone feels like a second-class Christian because they haven’t had the more mystical experiences that someone else has had, they should take comfort that those are not the only ways that God communicates. Most often, he guides us through what appear to be very ordinary means. In fact, I sometimes think that the more spectacular guidance from God is reserved for those who are too dull to discern God’s voice the more ordinary ways. At least, I have experienced it that way some times, such as when he led me to stop being so planful.

I remember a preacher who, as an illustration, said that someone was walking down the street and God came up from behind and whacked him with a big stick, knocking him flat on the ground. When he recovered, he complained to God, “Why did you have to hit me?” And God replied, “Well, I whispered in your ear a few steps ago to stop, and you didn’t hear me. Then I tapped you on the shoulder to get your attention so I could tell you to stop, and you disregarded me. I tried blocking your way, but you kept walking forward. You were about to get hit by a truck if you crossed the street, so I had to knock you down to save you.”

John always heard the whispers. He didn’t need the spectacular “whack” from God! Pastor John was a very practical and reasonable man who made his decisions based on his knowledge of God and his God-given capacity to think and reason. It never led him wrong. You can do the same. As a leader, be alert to God’s activity in the ordinary course of your life. You should expect him to be hard at work in the world, talking with you all the while.

Leadership Aspirations

John never tried to advance himself. His ambition was to do nothing else but to serve God. As I’ve recounted in his conversion story, he never applied to pastor a church. In every case, the church invited him to come based solely on his what they knew of him. John did not lay out a career path for himself. He did not think about how to move to a larger church. He simply did what God had called him to do, wherever that was. He stayed where he was until others (orchestrated by God) came and led him to a new church.

I’ve worked with people who have a career plan all mapped out, with deadlines for promotions and such, and it is clear to everyone in their work area that they are invested in themselves and are essentially using the current job as a stepping stone to something better.

I’m not against moving up and having some ambition, but if your focus is your career, rather than your service in God’s call, watch out! Everyone and everything around you could become nothing more than a means to an end, and everyone will feel it.

Because John relied on the Lord to initiate all his moves, he could stay focused on the congregation he was presently serving, giving them his full attention. He was very moved by how people from previous churches kept up with him over the years.

In July, he told me about a woman from one of the churches who for more than forty-five years had called him on every birthday to wish him well. That kind of relationship is only built when people are truly present with others in the moment.

God does raise people up and lead them from one experience to another, but it is God who makes change happen. When you think it is time for a change, make sure it is of God. A couple of questions to ask yourself are:

1. Am I running away from anything? (God may have you in the midst of major personal or spiritual growth.)
2. What do other mature believers think about my potential choices? (Your own judgment may be impaired for any number of reasons.)
3. What is my real motivation? (Be honest with yourself!)

Honour Your Elders

In addition to those two reflections, there are two more that can benefit anyone.

Over the thirty-one years I knew John, I did my best to respect and honour him for the fine man that he was. Others did too. For more than 25 years, several widows from the church helped him care for his wife Irene as she suffered from Alzheimer’s, did his laundry and generally helped him out. The last time I saw John, these women were putting his laundry away as I entered his room. What a testimony to honouring the elderly!

In Leviticus 19, the Lord commands Israel saying, “Each of you must respect your mother and father” and “Stand up in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God.” It is important that we not cast the elderly aside. I and many others learned a lot from John. He told me stories from his experiences in the 1930s and 40s that helped me understand the present much better. When someone has seen it all before and shares with you, you have a much broader perspective from which to view the fads, crises and happenings of today.

A Life Well Lived

Finally, it was really great to see a life come to a close that was well lived and unblemished. John Richardson had no regrets. That is inspiring! Make it your ambition to live a life worthy of your Saviour.

I’d like to close by letting John have the last word. Here he is at 100, singing, with his daughter and son on the platform, the song “I Don’t Regret a Mile.” Enjoy.

The post Rev. John H. Richardson: Lessons from a Centenarian 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.”

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The authors of The Ascent of a Leader report some striking research that is a reality check for leaders who become complacent about their leadership. I’ve added my own two cents’ worth in italics and included links to posts I’ve written on the topics. Here’s the paragraph:

“After having conducted extensive research, Dr. J. Robert Clinton, professor of leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary, believes that more than 70 percent of leaders do not finish well. He bases this startling statistic on six criteria, gleaned from common traits among leaders who do not finish well according to their self-analysis, the analysis of their peers and followers, or the teachings of their professed religion.

• First, leaders who do not finish well lose their learning posture. They stop listening and growing.
  • You should be continually re-inventing yourself. I’ve now been through two contract renewals at CCCC and each time I have asked the board to advise me on what kind of leadership is required for the next five years so that I can determine “Am I already that leader, can I become that leader or do they need another leader?” Here’s a post on how to stay fresh as a leader. Learning and growing requires you to admit that you don’t know everything and you are not yet perfect. That requires humility, so be humble! Check for blind spots and admit you may not always be right. A great way to begin learning and growing is to write a case study about a situation you are experiencing right now!
• Second, the attractiveness of their character wanes.
  • This is due to the old adage I’ve just written about: that power is a corrupting influence on character.
• Third, they stop living by their convictions.
  • It is crucial that action lines up with words. You must put your espoused theology into action. If you don’t think you have enough theological training for leadership, then consider taking some courses.
• Fourth, they fail to leave behind ultimate contributions.
  • Step back and think about how your contribution will be perceived a century later. Your contribution should be to leave a strong, healthy ministry adaptable enough that it will be capable of continuing its mission as the uncertain future unfolds.
• Fifth, they stop walking in an awareness of their influence and destiny.
  • I’ve written that a leader’s character is contagious. The team around you will gradually become like you, for good or ill, so be careful what your behaviour is teaching others. Also, once you have discerned your call, think about what you want the legacy of your leadership to be. 
• Finally, leaders who finish poorly lose their once vibrant relationship with God.
  • I’ve written about how a leader can maintain an intimate, vital relationship with God. You must be aware of the public consequences of your personal spirituality and you should take a personal spiritual retreat at least annually.  If you’ve lost your sense of intimacy with God, perhaps this post will help you out.

Take care of these issues, and you should expect to finish your ministry career well and enjoy seeing significant fruit from your labours.

The post The Impediments to Finishing Well appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

“People lack trust in leaders because of the poor character demonstrated by so many leaders. My interviews with 6,000 Christian leaders show that one of the greatest struggles they have is demonstrating godly wisdom. The issue is how worldly wisdom aligns with godly wisdom and how to discern the difference.”

I quickly wrote the quote down because it is exactly the reason why I write this blog. My purpose is to help Christians who are leaders become more authentically Christian in their leadership practices. I don’t think it is that hard to figure out a Christian approach to leadership, but it does take time to reflect on your faith and your work and how they intersect. That’s why I call this blog Christian Leadership Reflections. By sharing my own reflections, I hope to help you with yours.

Human Wisdom

Human wisdom is developed from a human perspective without any reference to God or his ways. It is often positioned as the opposite of godly wisdom, as if the two were diametrically opposed to each other. In this paradigm, human is bad and godly is good. But it is not as simple as that:

• If we believe that God created our universe with certain rules for how it works, then we can study it and learn about it.
• And if God gave us the ability to think, to discover and to create new knowledge, then we should do so.

It is inevitable that, quite apart from God’s revelation, humans will work out some knowledge and wisdom about how things work, or the way things are, that is right and aligns with God’s design or his ways. Don’t be surprised when this happens because it is simply the result of the orderly ways of God.

But sometimes we get it wrong and develop ideas that are not in alignment with God’s ways. This happens because our values are not in alignment with God’s or we have forgotten to leave room for God. Most often it is just a case of someone who doesn’t know God and doesn’t know any better, but sometimes a person develops something with evil intent such as when a con artist develops a con game based on understanding our (fallen) human nature.

Human wisdom, therefore, is not like godly wisdom. Godly wisdom is always 100% right. Human wisdom has a range, from downright ungodly to wisdom that unintentionally aligns with God’s ways. For example, people with no awareness of God can still do good deeds because they believe it is the right thing to do.

The issue isn’t that human wisdom is the opposite of godly wisdom, but that even at its very best it is incomplete without godly wisdom. On a continuum from foolishness/ignorance to godly wisdom, human wisdom can be anywhere from 100% wrong to being 100% right (about the topic at hand). If human wisdom meets godly standards, then feel free to use it.

Godly or human? Discerning the Difference

So when it comes to Christian leadership, there is much human wisdom we can draw upon to understand group dynamics, organizational theory, governance, motivation, planning and so forth. There are many very good secular writers whose models and advice are just fine for Christian ministries. But we must be careful to discern where human leadership wisdom is deficient and falls too far short of godly wisdom to be able to use with integrity. And that is why a Christian leader needs to take time to reflect on his or her leadership practices.

How to distinguish the difference? How to tell if a secular leadership technique is appropriate for a Christian to use? Here’s some advice from a great little book:

“From a Christian point of view, it is only when the direction and the method are in line with God’s purposes, character, and ways of operating that godly leadership takes place.”
(Reviewing Leadership by Robert Banks and Bernice Ledbetter)

That is how you tell. Ask the question, Does this align with God’s purposes, character and ways of operating? This is why I say it is helpful if at least one of your ministry’s senior leaders has formal theological education. It is not good enough to just find a verse here or there to justify something. In this context, verses are little thoughts, and you need BIG thoughts. You need to know not just the verses, but taken as a whole, what does Scripture say about God and his ways? What’s the big theological picture? You also need a vibrant personal relationship with God in which you submit to and then experience his leadership. You will get to know pretty quickly how to assess opportunities or methods for suitability.

Here are some illustrations that may help:

• In a commissioned sales environment, sales managers are trained to motivate their staff by appealing to their self-interest and greed. They have them develop vision boards – pictures of all the good things in life they want to have or experience. Looking at these every day motivates them to sell more. Since when would God have us motivate people by appealing to their greed or self-interest? What relationship does this build between the salesperson and the customer? Instead of truly helping customers, the salesperson has objectified them into a means to an end, an end in the best interest of the salesperson, not the client! Does the technique work? I guess so. Is it godly? No. This style of management cannot be introduced into a Christian workplace.
• Traditional strategic planning is based on analyzing the past to predict the future. To ensure the plan is achieved, staff are evaluated based on achieving goals that support the plan. Where does this leave room for God to do something new? When God told Paul to go to Europe, Paul went. He didn’t say, “I’ll do it on to my next mission trip” or even worse, “I’ll have to work it into my next 5 year plan.” The Holy Spirit blows where he will, and we have to stay nimble and flexible to respond quickly to his leading. Traditional strategic plan also relies heavily on setting your strategy based on distinguishing yourself from a competitor, but God wants you focused on what he has called you to do. In traditional strategic planning, your strategic options are limited by your SWOT analysis. Since when has God been restrained by your weakness? I’ve written more about this in Strategic Planning for Christian ministries. Strategic planning can be done, but be careful to design the process to include God!

Questions to Ask

So when I am confronted with a new leadership technique, I look for the aspects of it that need to be tested against God’s purposes, character or ways of being by asking:

1. What is this advice or method based upon? What assumptions does it make? Why does it ‘work’?
2. How would this affect the way I relate to another person or group?
3. Why does this appeal to me? What emotion or motivation makes this solution desirable? Does the appeal call upon something in me that runs counter to the fruit of the Spirit?
4. How does it maintain or contribute to my status as “a holy vessel, consecrated to God” and to our ministry’s representation of what life in the kingdom of God looks like?

Then compare your answers to what you know of God. Be wise. Be discerning. Take time to reflect.

The post From Human Wisdom to Godly Wisdom appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

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.

The post “Why doesn’t God speak to me?” appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

A Christian leader isn’t really a leader but a person who follows Christ (the real leader) closely and organizes others to do the same. Developing intimacy with God and knowing his heart is the essence of Christian leadership. The Bible is very explicit about how important intimacy with God is for his leaders.

Without Divine Intimacy…

With his army fleeing, King Saul felt as leader that he needed to do something. He needed to make a sacrifice to God. The prophet Samuel scheduled a sacrifice, but when it appeared Samuel wasn’t coming, Saul offered the sacrifice himself. Just as he was finishing, Samuel arrived. “You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the LORD’s command”
(1 Samuel 13:13-14).

This is the danger of letting your personal spiritual life with God coast along, of not giving it top priority over everything else. Saul wanted to do a good thing (seek the LORD’s favour), but he was doing it the wrong way – the king was no priest and had no right to offer the sacrifice. Had he been intimate with the LORD he would have known what to do and what not do. The fact is, I have no right to lead anything that is done in the name of Christ if I am not being directed by Christ!

I serve CCCC in the power of the Holy Spirit and in the name of Christ to accomplish the portion of God’s mission that our ministry works on. I’m sure you do the same for your ministry. And while I expect all the staff at CCCC to do exactly the same too, I am quite aware of the higher standard of accountability that leaders have for their obedience to God. The prophets have a lot to say about this!

I do my best to practice what I preach, and I have left a ministry leadership role when it became clear I would be doing it in my own strength and power. During my first two years at CCCC, I was also pastor of a small church that had suffered a lot of discouragement and the District wanted me to do four things there as its (part-time) pastor. I loved providing pastoral care for people and I had no lack of vision for what I as their pastor was to do for them. But near the end of my second year, I was praying about which of several priorities should be the focus of my preaching for the next year when the Lord told me my time there was up. I was shocked to say the least! I wanted to stay and I told the Lord so. His response was sobering. “John, you have done everything I wanted you to do there. Well done! I am pleased. You can stay if you want, but from now on you will be on your own.” Oh my goodness! Pastor a church without the Holy Spirit? I couldn’t even begin to imagine that. God obviously had someone else in mind for whatever would come next for this church, and I dared not get in the way. I resigned and helped them link up with a nearby church that provided a pastor.

The Blessings of Divine Intimacy

The positive consequences of being intimate with the Triune God include:

• Leaders will be working on things the Lord obviously wants to bless, so they will see more fruit from their ministries
• By putting God’s agenda ahead of their own, there will be much less temptation to run the ministry for their own benefit (reminder – it’s all about God, not the leader)
• Leaders will have a healthier self-image as they acknowledge their reliance on God and don’t take all the credit themselves
• There will be less of a burden for the ministry because it is Christ’s ministry, not theirs, and Christ will look after his own ministries. Only own what is yours to own! Here I must share from my own experience the crushing burden of bearing too much concern for a ministry.
  • Back in the 90s I was a deacon and there were things that were causing significant problems in the church. I felt as a deacon it was my responsibility to fix them. Finally, during a prayer meeting I was overwhelmed with the situation and in despair, when I suddenly found myself crying out over and over again a prophetic word from Jesus. He said through me, “This is MY church, and I will look after MY church. This is not your church, and it is not your problem.” I realized that Jesus is quite competent to do what he wants to do. While I needed to fulfill the responsibility of being a deacon, I had to let Jesus fulfill his responsibility as the owner. Jesus will take care of his own and he only asks me to play the part he has assigned to me.

The first act of leadership is to be intimate with God all the time. I’ve written a few suggestions in another post about how to maintain intimacy with God, and in yet another post I wrote about how to hold a personal spiritual retreat.

May you truly be able to say with Paul, “But we have the mind of Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:16)  Blessings!

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