Got Passion?

I am spending this beautiful, sunshiny day with my nose in the Bible. I really desire nothing else. There are many activities going on everywhere but I have little interest in any of them. Life gets busy but this weekend my wife and I intentionally chose to relax. We will go to church tomorrow and then visit our grandson and his parents, but that is it for this 3 day weekend. How refreshing and much needed.

I am reading and studying the book of Nehemiah. I love the book and I can so identify with the man. Apart from Jesus he may have inspired and taught me more than any other man in the Bible. I relate to him so easily. I believe he might be misunderstood in many ways (pretty sure I am too) and I believe some of his strengths and weaknesses are similar to some of mine. (I say that in true humility)

Nehemiah had a rough edge. He was obviously a very passionate, upfront kind of guy who liked to do it more so than to be it. He was most happy when he was focusing all his energy into a project. When people are very focused and very passionate and leading a charge they are often found scary or intimidating. Especially when their zeal or passion leads them to speak or act in a way that is excessively bold. I believe a man of any other way would not have been able to accomplish the task that God had set in Nehemiah's heart. What many see as a flaw I see as a strength. I like bold leaders. No soft mamsy-pamsy stuff! Passion is what drove Jesus to the cross for me. Therefore, I am driven by my passion for what he did for me. In chapter 13 verses 21 and 25, Nehemiah's passion turns to anger, but I believe it to be righteous anger. When Nehemiah says he will lay hands on you he wasn't talking about praying! He is full of passion for one thing. He only sees one thing, he is swallowed up in one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing and that one thing is to please God. It doesn't matter if he lives or dies- if he has health or sickness- if he is rich or he is poor- if he pleases men or offends them- if he is thought wise or foolish- if he gets honor or shame- for all that he doesn't care. He burns for one thing and that is to please God and to further his glory. I now prepare to set myself on fire so others can watch me burn with that same fire that consumed Nehemiah.

I will gladly follow men like Nehemiah or Gregory Peck. This is my kind of leadership. God's church could use a few good men like this I believe.

Yeah, what he said!

These are not my words but I liked them so much I stole them from Dave Kraft and Mars Hill Church to share with you.

Passion Builders & Stealers

Dave Kraft

Leadership Development Pastor at Mars Hill Church

Those Who Fuel Or Drain Us

Allow me to take a stab at defining certain kinds of people, and how they can either further our vision and passion or stop it dead in its tracks. I am thankful for the writings of Gordon McDonald upon which some of these thoughts are based.

1. People who fuel our passion.
   These are our mentors and role models; they are people we can spend time with or whose writing, thinking, and speaking expands and deepens our passion and purpose in life. Someone has observed that what we are tomorrow will be a result of the people we meet and the books we read today. I believe that with all my heart.
2. People who catch our passion.
   These are the teachable and the moldable; they are the people who are hungry for God and hungry to make their lives count. They want to grow, to learn, and to see God at work in their lives. They will take what we give and pass it along to others, multiplying our investment many times over.
3. People who enjoy our passion.
   Most people we know fall into this category. On the one hand, they don’t take a great deal from us, but then neither do they add a great deal. It’s easy to spend a lot of time with these “nice people.” They are fun and easy to be with.
4. People who drain our passion.
   This is where the major energy leaks can occur. These are the needy people, the people that struggle, or the people who demand hours and hours of our energy, but don’t often seem to profit from it. Yet, they keep returning with the same problems and want more of us. They are often the squeaky wheels that get the most, if not all, of the oil of our passion.

The Need Is Not The Call

As a leader, I want to make sure that I am spending most of my time with those in category 1 and 2, and to be careful and prayerful about allowing too much time with those in 3 and 4. With God’s help, I want to be proactive, not reactive. Those in categories 3 and 4 can, and more than likely will, take most of my time if I am not careful.

Nice people are easy and enjoyable to be with, and draining people are so needy that it is easy to allow the lion’s share of time to go to them. This is not to say that “nice and needy” people are not important or should not be loved. However, as a wise person once said, “The need is not the call.”

A Strategy of Investment

To prevent “energy leaks,” I need to determine what good things I am not going to do. It is an issue of the strategy of investment, not the value of people. As leaders, we should be keenly aware of the fact that our energy is finite and can be depleted. We must guard that spiritual energy (passion) and prayerfully dispense it, not portion it out as first-come, first-serve.

Gordon McDonald confessed that at one point in his ministry he was spending most, if not all, of his time with the “nice and needy” people and had little time left over for those who fueled and caught his passion. He thought he was where he was most needed, but realized it was an “error of great magnitude.”

A prayer of mine for years has been based on Jeremiah 42:3: “[Pray] that the Lord your God may show us the way we should go, and the thing that we should do.” As a leader, is your passion growing and being strategically invested, or have you developed some slow leaks?

SAD BUT TRUE

So many look to present day leaders for wisdom, vision and direction. That's cool, but I seem to find that many great leaders of the past have had all this present day stuff figured out along time ago. It applied then and it still applies today.

(Ummm...obviously Jesus is the greatest, first and foremost because He is God. He is above all and is actually the answer to it all. This post could/should end right there but I will continue.)

I wonder if Hybles, Warren, Stanley, Noble, Bell, Driscoll and the likes will be remembered for their wisdom and impact on Christianity and The Kingdom of God compared to the likes of Wesley, Tozer, Bonhoeffer, Lewis, Calvin, Spurgeon, and Edwards?

The following excerpt is from a book written in 1981 by a woman born in 1914. If her husband's question and their conclusion rang true 29 years ago, how much more so does it today? So sad, yet so true from my perspective.

“‘Edith, I wonder what would happen to most churches and Christian work if we awakened tomorrow, and everything concerning the reality and work of the Holy Spirit, and everything concerning prayer, were removed from the Bible. I don’t mean just ignored, but actually cut out – disappeared. I wonder how much difference it would make?’ We concluded it would not make much difference in many board meetings, committee meetings, decisions and activities.”

Edith Schaeffer, "The Tapestry".

More from the leaders that inspire me and that I most respect coming daily this week.

Help Me Out

I'm confused.

What is the difference between speaking, teaching, and preaching in the context of a church building on a Sunday morning?

Are they the same thing? Can you accomplish all three at the same time? Are there certain qualifications that have to be met and accepted before you can be considered qualified to do any of these? If so, what are they? Is it a calling from God that is required? Just an invitation? Just a desire? A passion? A gift? Or do you need degrees and pedigrees?

Some people have come up to me and said, "I hear you are speaking", others have commented that they heard, "I was teaching" and others have said I was going to be "preaching". Well heck, one person even said I would be giving a "talk" but they failed to say that I would be "talking" and for that I'm thankful.

"Preaching" sends chills down my spine. It makes me think of the old baptist preacher, preaching hellfire and brimstone. You know, cramming condemnation down my throat and making me feel like I am the Antichrist.

"Teaching" makes me think of my boring English teacher. She was constantly trying to keep my attention while attempting to teach me about stuff that she knew very well, but I could really have cared less about. Stuff like Shakespeare, speling "punctuation; reading and righting.

"Speaking" makes me think of someone who speaks because they HAVE to say something, but not necessarily because they have something to say.

"Talking" just reminds me of chatter or noise. People who like to listen to themselves talk.

All four scare me a bit.

Oh yeah...do you deliver a sermon, a message, or give a lecture, a speech, or a talk? Is it really delivered or given if it's not received or accepted?

Who am I and what am I doing? Better yet, do I really want to be that or do that? I don't believe I do. No preacher, no teacher, no speaker and no talker. No thanks. No disrespect to those that do it and do it well. You're all needed. Well the preacher and the teacher anyway.

Maybe my perspective is just tainted. Maybe I am not any of those or maybe I am or have been all of those at one time or another. Maybe it just doesn't matter. Maybe it just is what it is, I don't know.

Maybe I'm a herald.

herald n. 1. A person who proclaims important news; a crier or messenger. 2. A person or thing that announces or gives indication of something to come.

I like that description. Proclaim, announce, and usher in. Oh yeah, that's it. That's cool.

But can't a preacher, a teacher, a speaker, or a talker do that too? What are the qualifications and do I meet them?

I think I will just be me and ask Jesus to pour out of my heart and words. I think I'm qualified to do that. Call it what you want but please give me your insight.

Just Rope, Throw, & Brand 'Em

I love old westerns. I grew up watching "Gunsmoke", "The Big Valley", "Bonanza", "The Rifleman" and "Wild Wild West". There was something about them that made me want to be a cowboy. No not like a Kid Rock cowboy but a cattle driving, gun slinging cowboy. I think the theme songs had as much to do with my desire as the actual show did. I knew them all and I sang them often. Something struck me today that made me start to sing them in my head, but I couldn't remember all the words. It started to drive me nuts so I went in search of the forgotten lyrics. As I listened to the theme song of the old western show "Rawhide", it struck something inside of me. It made me think of many a church in today's society.




Keep movin, movin, movin. Though they’re disapprovin keep them doggies movin Rawhide!
Don’t try to understand ‘em, just rope, throw, and brand ‘em. Soon we’ll be living high and wide.
My hearts calculatin. My true love will be waitin, Be waitin at the end of my ride.

Move ‘em on, head ‘em up. Head ‘em up, move ‘em on. Move ‘em on, head ‘em up Rawhide
Count ‘em out, ride ‘em in. Ride ‘em in, count ‘em out. Count ‘em out, ride ‘em in Rawhide!

If You Are Or Want To Be A Spiritual Leader- PLEASE READ THIS!

POWERFUL words from Reggie McNeal. This is taken from his book "A Work Of The Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders. I know this is lengthy but take some time and read it slowly. LISTEN to the wisdom in Reggie's words. I think he nailed it here! (Please excuse the messed up spacing. I'm to lazy to type it all by hand and I'm not techy enough to figure it out I guess)

Leaders often neglect communion more than any other heart-shaping arena. Many spiritual leaders seem oblivious to the battle that actually targets them. Perhaps they see the arsenal of weapons arrayed at them as benign. The leader often appropriates them, accommodating their deployment in self-destruction.

Fax machines, e-mail, telephones, beepers, an overcommitted schedule, the press of
people's needs, program concerns, ministry agenda-these are the tools of mass
destruction for spiritual leaders. Their development and deployment proceed often
without inspection. They threaten to shut down the spiritual leader's communion with
God. Once that happens, the leader's effectiveness is destroyed. The leader becomes a
casualty of a struggle that is as old as humanity-the drowning out of eternity by the
screams of temporal concerns.

A small neglect of God occasioned by an unanticipated spate of unusually consuming
problems signals the beginning of a skirmish. God-time yields to "more pressing"
concerns. The leader's communication line with the commander begins to register static. In response, the leader sometimes does exactly the wrong thing. Instead of repairing communication by altering the busy schedule to make time for God, the leader compensates for the lack of divine guidance by increasing chat time with the established network. The only approval that satisfies, the "well-done" of the Commander-in-Chief, is set aside to curry favor from ministry constituents. Ministry efforts increase. So does the static. Episodic interruptions in the communication lines to God give way to a routine neglect. The leader goes off-line with headquarters.

Out of touch with command, the leader begins to operate from the memory of previous
orders and directives. As time goes on, these seem increasingly unrelated to more
immediate issues. Activity replaces productivity. Genuine missional enthusiasm and
purpose give way to maintenance and routine, with an accompanying loss of joy and a
rise in self-doubt.

Leaders who continue to act in this way become cut off from genuine divine intervention on their behalf. They begin to rely on their own diminishing reserves of spiritual firepower. Their activity becomes sustained either by adrenaline or perfunctory performance rather than the Spirit. They bank on their talents, their smarts, their relationship skills, and their position to cover their basic failure at the critical core function of their call. That function is to reflect God's heart to God's people. This cannot be done apart from a leader's firsthand knowledge of God's heart. This knowledge does not derive from historical encounters in a leader's past; it springs from a vibrant, up-to date walk with the Almighty.

Devoid of a growing, personal, dynamic relationship with God, spiritual leaders become casualties. Some are removed from battle, too wounded to go on. Some remain engaged but are missing in action. Others desert, going AWOL on God and his people. Perhaps the worst scenario is the tragic figure of a spiritual corpse going through ministry rituals like the zombies of science fiction horror movies. However, this is real, painfully real. No amount of promise or talent or intelligence can ultimately shield the spiritual leader from some variation of this fate if communion with God is neglected.

Communion lies at the center of heart-shaping. Through communion, the leader learns
the lessons of God's activity in the other subplots. The examining and distilling of life experience occurs here. Through communion, the leader secures the relationship with the Heart Maker and Heart Shaper. In communion, the leader strengthens the spiritual foundation that will support total leadership effectiveness.

Lack of attention to this essential aspect of heart-shaping explains many spiritual
leadership heart ailments. Anemic communion creates shallow leadership, the kind of
leadership informed only by methods and style without substance. "Pop leadership"
practices knee-jerk reactions, adopts the latest fads, uses "with it" vocabulary. However, without a real center this leadership is hollow at the core. It implodes, collapsing in on the leader, who frantically and frenetically tries to stave it off by paying too much attention to the props and not enough attention to the story itself.

"Faux leadership" can be explained, in part, by a lack of communion. Fake leadership
comes in several distinct styles. In American culture, leadership often parades as
charisma. It often manipulates and exploits to maintain its power. Spiritual leaders who mimic this kind of leadership do so because they fail to submit their leadership to the surgical knife of intimate communion with God. With false leadership, it is all about the leader and not those served. The leader's agenda. The leader's vision. The leader's passions. The leader's goals. People play a role in helping the leader get to where the leader wants to go. People are not served. They are used.

These statements may seem too harsh. Unfortunately, I have seen too many wasted lives, too much pretension, and too much lost opportunity to pull punches. On the other hand, I have witnessed powerful spiritual leaders who attend to communion with God. They have a sense of presence that comes from only One source.

The noncommuning leader can hardly be a servant. Voluntary servanthood requires an
intact self at the center. This self has to be developed in communion with its Creator. The power and mystery of Incarnation lies in its willful act of self-emptying. As we have seen, Jesus could stay on task with this constant servanthood only through vibrant communion with the Father.

A spiritual leader practicing communion leads from a solid, integrative sense of purpose. The vision of God's preferred future both for the leader and for those in the leadership constellation gives direction and meaning. This vision for the future grows out of time spent with the One who has already been there.