Sunday December 13
Sunday December 20
Thurs. December 24
Christmas Eve Service Times: 3:00 4:30 6:00
Get here at 3!!!
I have been preaching now in churches for close to 15 years. Preaching is a spiritual gift. I believe God gave me the gift of speaking. However, it’s been a gift that I have needed to fan into flame over the years. I’ve learned a TON about preaching and its place in my life and the church. Above all, I’ve learned three primary things about preaching:
1. Preaching is not the most important gift.
We know this, don’t we? God tells us through His Word that all spiritual gifts are NOT equal. Some are more important than others (see 1, 2 Corinthians, among other letters). The apostle Paul actually said that LOVE was the most important gift. I was hanging out with a Pastor who pastors a church near a seminary in Kentucky, and he said. to me: “The problem with so many of these seminary students is that they love to teach, but they do NOT love people.” WOW. What a tragedy. Someone’s gotten it backwards. I would love to say that my testimony would be that I love people BETTER than I preach. If that is said about me, I am getting it right!
Pastors, I know of GREAT churches who have average communicators, and I know of non growing churches who have GREAT preachers. However, I do NOT know of any GREAT churches where the Pastor is not a gifted leader who loves people well, especially, his staff and leaders. Pastors, preaching is not the most important gift. Love is. If people know you love them, they will listen to you. If you just love to preach and are looking for a platform to preach, don’t become a Sr. Pastor. Pastors: as the chief overseers, our primary responsibility is to care the flock of God entrusted to us ( 1 Peter 5:2). Preaching IS one way we do that. It simply should NOT be the ONLY way!
I work HARD at preaching. Harder than just about anyone I know. Preaching is one of the most important things I do. But I’ve learned it’s not the MOST important. Loving leadership is.
The primary role of a shepherd is to be out in front of the sheep leading them. The sheep can not follow a shepherd if he is not out in front of them and close enough to hear his voice? For many of us, even if we are out front, many of us are too far out in front trying to change the world, that we leave our sheep behind! God forbid!
Pastors, are you out in front of the sheep? Are you leading?
Are you modeling the way? If so, have you gotten so far AHEAD of your sheep that they aren’t listening any more?
Are you loving the sheep? Caring for the flock? OTHER THAN preaching?
I’ll share about the two other things I’ve learned about preaching next. Stay tuned.
Well, it was Thanksgiving weekend, and kids have been out of school since Friday before last, so I didn’t know what to expect this weekend at mountain Lake…but it was awesome! We actually had a great attendance for a Holiday weekend! I really do believe that people wanted to come BACK for Pt. II of our “When God is NOT Great” series, based on the obscure book of Habakkuk.
Here are a few reflections on the weekend:
Sunday December 13
Sunday December 20
Thurs. December 24
Christmas Eve Service Times: 3:00 4:30 6:00
Get here at 3!!!
This morning I made a list of things I’m thankful to God for. Here’s what I wrote:
Father I’m thankful for:
The messages are always here, but I just wanted to make sure no one missed this one. Get still. Allow God to speak to you!
As churches, we don’t create the vision for our churches. We discover it. From God. As church leaders, to discover God’s vision, however, means we have to search and listen for God’s clear voice regarding His distinct vision for the church we lead. This is why, by the way, I get a little concerned by some of the current trends I see among many new churches in ripping THEIR vision statements off other church’s websites or trendy pastors’ blog sites!
I have seen too many “cookie cutter” vision statements lately on new church plants’ websites and blogs. You know what a cookie cutter does, right? A cookie cutter makes the next cookie look just like the last one. That works well for Christmas cookies, but not well for church planting! Church planter: Does your church look just like every other church plant? If so, why are you planting it? Why not just join theirs?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against Pastors learning from one another and even rubbing off on one another. My fear is simply that many of us are not willing to do the “hard work” these days of being still and patient for long enough to receive God’s vision for our churches! If we’re getting our vision for our church from another church, then we’re getting it from the wrong place! Visions come from God, not another church!
Many of us as Pastors could use this Holiday Season to get away from the busyness and the grind (and even our people) for a little while to GET WITH GOD and DISCOVER HIS UNIQUE VISION FOR OUR CHURCH! While we cut cookies this year, let’s commit NOT to be a cookie cutter church this next year!
By the way, Will Mancini, author of Church Unique will be speaking at our churchplanters.com conference Feb 22-23: “Velocity”. He’ll be talking about HOW we as a church can discover, communicate, and implement the unique vision God wants us to have. Get registered now!