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do you feel like you are on an emotional roller coaster?

Some days you feel like Jesus is going to plant the greatest church in the history of the church through you.

Some days you feel like your massive inadequacies are going sink the church plant like the Titanic.

May your fear, inadequacies, and lack of resources cause to fall into the arms of the One who is your courage, who is your adequacies, and who is unlimited in His resources, Jesus.

While preparing a future sermon series, while listening to Google Play, I came across the song “Bullet” by Mat Kearney.

Let these words inspire you.

Yesterday I was sitting recalling reminiscing
Trying to remember whenever there was nobody listening
Before the hugging and the kissing, the booing and the hissing
All I had was just a vision, all I had was my ambition
Your love without condition kept me swinging when I’m missing
My eyes upton the prize kept me striving for the mission
When I was down for the count, falling out of the commission
I can hear your voice now screaming out, ‘son, listen’
Get on up, don’t give up, though you struck opposition
Time to buck all that stuff, find out what’s your condition
Like a pull in my soul, like keys in my ignition
Call you all my commission, my love and my vision

In my forthcoming book, Limitless Life: You Are More Than Your Past When God Holds Your Future, I share reflections of how Transformation Church was planted.  Click here to check it out.

Marinate on that,

Pastor Derwin

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

to watch the rest of the sermon click here

In this epic story, Sméagol kills a friend for a special ring that had been made by the Dark Lord Soran.  This ring had the power to control all other rings.

As Sméagol embraces the ring and its cunning allure, he is transformed over time into the tortured, disfigured soul named Gollum.

Pastor, may we be ever so careful not to be deceived by the allure of the “ring”… power, control, fame, money. When we allow the “ring” to seduce and deceive us, we become tortured, disfigured souls.  We will find ourselves doing things that we would have never imagined we would do.  We will get hurt. Our families will get hurt. The people we lead will get hurt. And worst of all, the glory of God will be diminished in our lives.

Following are 5 signs that we are in danger of being allured by the “ring” and 5 ways to guard your heart.

(1) We are in danger when we surround ourselves with people who are impressed with us.

People who are impressed us with will rarely, if ever, tell us “No.”  They will rarely, if ever challenge us.  In essence, our inner circle is formed by “Yes” men and women. As someone said, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

To guard my heart, I God has blessed me with a confident, capable leaders with whom I can lead, be lead by, and who will tell me “No” and challenge me often.

(2) We are in danger when we find we only have time to meet with people of influence or wealth.

In essence, we are saying, “I only have time for people who can influence and finance the vision.”  This is a form of spiritual prostitution and very un-Jesus like.

Don’t get me wrong, Jesus has called me to lead and serve a fast growing, large church. And as much as I’d like to, I simply meet with everyone.  That’s why we’ve developed the Transformation Church Care and Counseling Team of which I’m a part. Each month, I make sure my schedule has slots open for care and counsel to “whomever.”

I guard my heart by being accessible.

(3)  We are in danger when we think we our staff, servant leaders and community of believers belong to us.

We say words like “my staff” or “my church.”

NO! We lead and serve Jesus’ church. And the staff is Jesus’ staff, which we have the privilege of blessing and being blessed by as journey towards maturity in Christ together.

To guard my heart, I am thoughtful to say “our staff,” “our church.”

(4) We are in danger when we are no longer approachable and no longer interact with the congregation.

Instead of being a shepherd, we act more like a CEO of business called church.

If I hear another pastor say, “Ministry would be great if it wasn’t for the people,” I may go Evangelism Linebacker on him.  “Ministry is the people.”

To guard my heart, I love people. I shake hands and hug people after just about every service. I have the honor to care for and counsel people. I have the honor of going on hospital visits. I’m a shepherd; I want to smell like the sheep I’m called to connect with and care for.

(5) We are in danger when we think people exist to serve only us.

To guard my heart, I want to embody Jesus’ leadership model as displayed in John 13 when Jesus put on a servant’s towel and washed the feet of disciples.

Pastor / Church Planter, our influence on people’s lives is much greater than we realize.  May we walk closely to the Father of Love.  May Jesus be our greatest treasure and may the unlimited riches of HIS grace be sufficient.  And may the Holy Spirit’s presence and power in our lives keep us faithful.

Marinate on that,

Pastor Derwin

Click here to view the embedded video.

to view the rest of the sermon click here

If you’re a rookie church planter or a veteran pastor, I strongly recommend that you join us at Exponential West.

In this blog post, I’m presenting 8 Reasons why discipleship is such a struggle in the American Church context and offer 8 Remedies to counter the struggle. This list was birthed out of the soil of my own life and pastoral ministry in the trenches with ethnically and socio-economically diverse people.

DEFINING DISCIPLESHIP

Here’s one of the ways that I define discipleship:

“Discipleship is not knowing more information about Jesus, but knowing Jesus and being transformed into His image through the constant exposure of the Gospel of grace in the context of a local church. His life and mission becomes ours as we live by faith in Him in the everydayness of life by the Spirit’s power.”

8 REASONS and 8 REMEDIES

REASON 1: We have a discipleship problem because we divorce people from the story of God–which is Eternity, Creation, The Fall, Redemption, and Restoration.

REMEDY 1: We must teach people to see themselves in God’s redemptive story or they will develop a customer mentality and futilely attempt to place God in their story. (1 Peter 2:9-10)

REASON 2: We have a discipleship problem because we teach unknowingly, or knowingly, the Homogenous Unit Principle. This produces a theology of comfort, disunity, and consumerism.

REMEDY 2: We must teach people that Jesus creates one new people, a multi-ethnic, blood-bought community that is on mission with Him. (Ephesians 2:14-3:1-13)

REASON 3: We have a discipleship problem because we teach people that “church” is somewhere you go on the weekend, instead of the identity of God’s people “on the go” with Jesus.

REMEDY 3: We must recapture the essence of God’s people gathering on the weekend, and scattering them during the week as missionaries into their spheres of influence. (Matthew 28:18-20)

REASON 4: We have a discipleship problem because we fail to realize that our UNION LIFE with Jesus is the Source, Significance and Strength of our lives as Kingdom of God citizens.

REMEDY 4: We must teach people that Jesus has made us alive with His life (Regeneration), declared us to be His very righteousness (Justification), has forever forgiven us and made us perfect in Him (Propitiation), has made us God’s friends (Reconciliation), that Jesus has purchased our freedom (Redemption), is growing us into His image by the Holy Spirit’s power (Sanctification), and in one future day will give us resurrection bodies in the New Heavens and Earth (glorification).  (Romans 8:30)

REASON 5: We have a discipleship problem because we WRONGLY think sanctification is the basis of our justification.

REMEDY 5: We must teach people that the basis of their sanctification is justification. (Romans 5:17-18)

REASON 6: We have a discipleship problem because for some reason, we divorce discipleship from worship and evangelism.

REMEDY 6: We must teach people that discipleship is accelerated when we see all of life as worship and worship moves us to evangelism.  (Romans 12:1-8)

REASON 7: We have a discipleship problem because we wrongly believe the Gospel is just for the unbeliever and not for the believer also.

REMEDY 7: The same Gospel that justifies the sinner also sanctifies and glorifies the saint.

REASON 8: We have a discipleship problem because we think the Gospel is just soteriology only, and not that Jesus is establishing His Kingship.

REMEDY 8: Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension are about Him defeating sin, death, and evil and establishing His Kingship over all of creation.  And by His grace, He extends His union life to humanity and gives us everything we need to extend our King’s kingdom through the lives of His people, the church.

 In my forthcoming book, Limitless Life: You Are More Than Your Past When God Has Your Future, I have attempted to address and provide solutions to our discipleship crisis.  CLICK HERE to learn more about Limitless Life.

Marinate on that,

Pastor Derwin

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health, mature Christ-followers engage and attempt to manage and resolve conflict through the unlimited resources of the Gospel of Grace.

Of all the communities on the face of the earth, the Church of Jesus Christ should be the most equipped and effective community to live out conflict resolution.

Here are 5 Practical Ways To Manage and Resolve Conflict.  I want to thank Help Guide for this great chart -

Unhealthy Responses To Conflict:

An inability to recognize and respond to the things that matter to the other person.

Explosive, angry, hurtful, and resentful reactions.

The withdrawal of love, resulting in rejection, isolation, shaming, and fear of abandonment.

An inability to compromise or see the other person’s side.

The fear and avoidance of conflict; the expectation of bad outcomes.

Healthy Responses To Conflict:

The capacity to recognize and respond to the things that matter to the other person.

Calm, non-defensive, and respectful reactions.

A readiness to forgive and forget, and to move past the conflict without holding resentments or anger.

The ability to seek compromise and avoid punishing.

A belief that facing conflict head on is the best thing for both sides.

Our Capacity To Resolve Conflict Is Rooted In The Gospel of Grace.

“For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.”  Ephesians 2:14-16 ESV

Because we have peace with God through Christ, we can attempt to make peace with those we are engaged in conflict.

We love God by loving people in the midst of conflict.

Church, may we teach the world how to manage and resolve conflict.

Marinate on that,

Pastor Derwin

Click here to view the embedded video.

To watch the rest of the sermon click here