As I’ve been talking about making a move and being active towards what God has planned for us to do, the topic of “what am I supposed to do specifically” comes up.  Along with that, if you’re a Christ-follower, you’re also drawn into this discussion of “what is your spiritual gift”? “All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.” (1 Cor. 12:11 NIV)

I won’t be able to discuss all the areas of spiritual gifts in this one post, but I do want to explore in this post the question of “Why do I have to ‘discover’ my spiritual gift if God gave it to me to help the church?” That’s a good question, because one would think that if God would just tell us what our gifts are, then we could just get busy and get things accomplished! Can I get an amen?

Yet, here are some suggestions why I believe we must discover them:

1. You will learn what your spiritual gift is NOT, and so you’ll appreciate and honor those who do and can in those other areas.

2. You’ll learn to still draw upon God by faith, rather than on your ‘own’ power to accomplish His purpose.

3. You’ll get more passionate about using your gift, rather than it just being a job that you know you must now fill.

4. You’ll be more willing to work on other things as well such as Evangelism, Wisdom, Leadership, Discipleship, Faith, Prayer, Giving, Mercy rather than saying “well, that’s not my gift so I can’t.”

What are other reasons why God would desire us to discover our spiritual gifts?

NLT 2 Timothy 1:6 “This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you.”

“Fan into flames” comes from a Greek word that is only used here in the entire New Testament.  Outside of Scripture it describes “rousing a horse” or the process of which fire embers are rekindled back into flame.

Paul, the apostle, understands what discouragement and disappointment and failed expectations and depression is like.  Reading his personal letter to Timothy reveals a lot of that.  But there is also this other side of Paul.  Paul that is of passion and focus and determination and sincerity and a sense of divine purpose.

Paul makes it very clear to Timothy that God has a divine purpose for all of us.  He has given every Christ-follower a gift to be used to help spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.  EVERY BELIEVER HAS A GIFT FROM GOD BECAUSE HE HAS A PURPOSE FOR OUR LIVES!

The problem is that we have allowed life and circumstances and personal gain and youthful lusts and other people to cause us to let our flame die down.  Often times, it happens slowly and unknowingly.  I believe that is what was true in my life.

I heard a great preacher say that the number one thing we can do is to “encourage ourselves.”  I don’t think this is the same as those self-help, talk in the mirror kind of things.  This is that kind of “encouraging” that comes from reading God’s Word, spending time with Him, and embracing the truth that God has given every believer a gift that He desires for us to use in a powerful way to accomplish His purpose in our lives for His Kingdom.  There’s nothing more reassuring than knowing what God wants you to do and then chasing after it.

What is your spiritual gift? I’d love to blog about this and how you can fan into flames your spiritual gift!

I once had a boss say I was like swiss cheese.  He meant that I was always taking perfectly good cheese and put holes in it.  It was another way of saying “you’ve got a lot of excuses.”  I’ve lived most of my life with excuses.  I embraced excuses.  I called it “being real” or coming to grips of “reality.”  Some saw me as a guy with a “good level head.”

The truth is I really wasn’t living by faith or believing the God of the universe cared enough to make something happen.  The truth is that I cared more about what people would think than believing it was possible with God and then hard work on my end.

During vacation a few weeks ago, I determined to try to break that mold for myself.  You can read about it here.  And the truth is that it hasn’t been easy and it’s hard to not let discouragement get me down.

I’ve also been noticing more and more people talk about excuses or say how they really don’t expect things to be very well done or attended.  And I think they are right.  It will never be well done or attended greatly when we go into it expecting holes and keeping our expectations down.

We shouldn’t put high expectations on what people can do because then we are trusting people and trying to seek their approval.  But we should expect God to do what can do.  I definitely believe that I have been a wall, or caused a fumble, or slapped the hand of God from doing some amazing things in the past.

I’ve always lived in the world of swiss cheese and low expectations. But I have a feeling and a belief that it’s not suppose to be this way.

Ever been there?

I was in on a quick conversation yesterday at church.  A father was looking at our church for his teenager to attend.  His comment was something like “yeah, because my teen doesn’t want to hang out with his parents, so I need to find a different church that he can attend away from us.”  Fortunately, the response from the other person was “no, that’s not it, your teen wants to hang out with you, just in different environments.”

And that is the key!  The tough balance as a parent is to not swing the pendulum to either extreme.  Parents shouldn’t hover over their teen so as to maintain complete control.  The teen needs opportunities and situations to explore their independence or interdependence on God to develop good habits in decision making.  Maintaining that kind of control over your teenage son or daughter might create more of a rebellious spirit than you bargained for.  Just as well, parents shouldn’t respond in the opposite direction and allow their teen to “explore” life without the wisdom and direction of a parent.  Certain bad decisions have real consequences that could alter the direction and destination for your teenager’s future.

The trick is to find environments where the teen can “feel comfortable being and expressing themselves, where they can work through and overcome the problems they confront together, and where they can take advantage of exciting opportunities before them.”

A couple of ideas would include:

1) Pick and allow the people you trust to also speak truth and grace into their lives (grandparents are a great tool as well as the church or even another parent).

2) Create places and times to hang out one-on-one to talk and share openly and honestly without judgment.  Sometimes it’s a quiet place and others times it’s just to have fun.

3) Be authentic about your worries and concerns and ask for ways from your teen to be reassured as their parent when they live out more and more of their interdependence.  And then still hold them accountable to their promises.

What other suggestions would you add as a parent of a teen?

Your teenager really does want you around, just differently.

Just finished the book “Wild Goose Chase” by Mark Batterson.  Mark is the pastor of National Community Church in Washington DC.  And in this book, he describes what life could and should look like if/when we as Christians follow the Holy Spirit as a Wild Goose versus a Caged Goose.

I decided to read it while on vacation.  And to be honest, I questioned my role as a pastor, my role in ministry, everything.  The question for me was “Am I really willing to live adventurously for God? Am I willing to continue to experience failures and challenges and dangers for the sake of chasing the Wild Goose?”

In a previous post, you can see that I decided to go for the Wild Goose and I’m here to let you know that I’m scared to do so.  But it’s certain things Mark said, that really sets in on me.  For example:

There is nothing remotely passive about being part of the Kingdom of God. We are called to forcefully advance the cause of Christ. Faithfulness is not holding the fort.  Faithfulness is storming the gates of hell (p. 149).

“As my friend Craig Groeschel, pastor of LifeChurch.tv, says, ‘The difference between where you are and where God wants you to be may be the painful decision you refuse to make’ (p. 156).

“We turn our responsibilities into excuses. And that is when our responsibilities actually become a form of irresponsibility.  Our responsibilities become the cage that keeps us from chasing the Wild Goose.  And the only way out is responsible irresponsibility” (p. 18).

Well, no one said it was going to be easy and this book is full of story after story of people chasing the Wild Goose and seeing where it went.  Pray for me as we give it another go!

In the church leadership pastor world, I see this interesting trend among “young” leaders.  It started with my generation with good intention, but has left the younger generation, I believe, thinking this is the way to do it.  It’s called planting churches.

I know there’s a lot of good reasons to plant or start a church.  I know there’s a lot of reasons why starting a church is more appealing.  I know that some older pastors are too tied into their generation to partner with the young leaders to help them reach their generation.  And I know there are a lot of egos, both old AND the young, that cause new churches to start.

But I have to wonder what it’s going to look like in the next 10 to 15 years?  There are these beautiful places of worship closing doors and new church plants looking for a place to meet.  I believe older churches have to stop being a historical museum and be strong enough to embrace, learn from and mentor a younger leader.  I believe younger leaders should embrace the blood, sweat, tears and wisdom of the previous generation and not be so quick to throw the good out with the bad.  But maybe that’s just too much work.

I remember being a “bagger” in the supermarket during college and aspiring one day to be a manager.  When that one day came and I was a manager, I remember sometimes wishing I could go back and be that bagger who just works and has no major responsibilities.

That’s how it is when you try to do good, be moral, and live a life for God as a fully devoted follower of Christ.  You eventually can get “tired of doing good” and sometimes you wish you can just live your life the way you want, without any major responsibilities.

For some reason or another, doing good can make us weary.  Maybe we try to do too much, too quick.  There’s a million reasons why. I don’t know. But I know that it is so common that Paul the apostle tells the church in Galatia “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up (6:9).”

There are three things I believe we must do to get out of that desire to being “tired in doing good”:

1. Recognize that the sin we would rather do will cause destruction.

Before verse 9 Paul talks about this reaping and sowing principle.  See God is just and fair and shows no favoritism. Your sin, just like everyone else’s, has consequences.  If you sow sin, you reap destruction.  That’s the rule of thumb. It’s not an easy position to take, but we have to recognize that no matter how pleasing the sin looks, it’s only going to be pleasing for a short time (Hebrews 11:25).

2. Recognize that there is good news heading your way.

Right in verse 9 Paul tells us that good news will be seen due to that reaping and sowing principle.  Just like sin will lead to destruction, so will doing good be returned with a harvest!  It’s that kind of focus and attention that we need to have.  Moses is noted as having faith because “He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time (Heb. 11:25).”  Doing good is a CHOICE, and our choices have consequences/rewards.  We may have to accept some hard responsibility when doing the good if we want to see the reward. But it will come!

3. Start close at home.

Paul follows this thought with this practical advice: “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (v. 10).  We don’t have to look very far to find someone to do good for.  They are usually right at our door in our local church.  Start there.  The friendship and common support each of us through this will be enough to do good for more people right under our noses.  I also know that this is especially essential for our missionaries and people living in distant lands, working alone.  They may be far, but they are the family of believers who should always be apart of our doing good.  I think this verse really describes what that feels like when we do: Proverbs 25:25  “Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land.”

When I was about 10, I thought someone who was 25 was like really old and mature.  Then I became 25.

When I was 25, I thought someone who was 40 was like mature and wise and had life figured out.  I’m going to be 34 next month and I know a lot of people who are 40 and well…you know.

The truth is that no one has everything figured out no matter their age.  All 60 and 70 year people struggle with decision making, saying the right thing, not gossiping, etc. as well.

And yet we still think there are such people out there. We think pastors should be.  We think there are these wise old people sitting on mountain tops to give us the glimpse into life that solves all complexities.

It’s something that I need to embrace.  I’m not every going to figure it all out and that’s okay.  It’s okay to have my stupidity known.

But the question is: can YOU handle the truth when I show it?

Lets be real about the numbers when it comes to so many churches in any area. Just think about it. No burger place thinks it can really succeed when there are so many other choices in the area without totally crushing the competition (by really getting loyal customers to make the switch while at the same time gaining a few more new ones.) So what could we expect from a town like the one I mentioned last post?

This town has about 28,000 people.  There are approximately 90 churches and places of worship bent towards “Christianity.”  That divides up to about 311 per church. Oh yeah, not everyone is a Christian or attends church.  According to a parable used by Jesus in Luke 8, only a few of even the seeds sown will continue to produce fruit.  So lets just say 1/5 of them are these really good fruit-producing Christ-followers (that’s about the national average for just church attendance so I’m being generous), that leaves just about 62 to a church.  Now if these 62 tithe 10% of their average income which is $35,000 of this town, it would leave an average income for the church of $217,000 for the year. Now believe me when I say that $217,000 is pretty generous for a small church to work with.

What do you think about this? Sounds like it would be better if the churches got together and combined their influences and I say yes on certain levels.  But if this was actually true, that you could find 62 good fruit-producing Christ-followers in every church, that would be enough to knock the socks off the town.  Jesus says in that same parable that those few good fruit-producing followers could produce a crop some hundred times more than what was even sown to begin with! That’s amazing.

An old time revival preacher by the name of John Wesley once said “Give me 100 preachers, who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God and I care not a straw whether they be clergy or lay, such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of God upon the earth.”

Sometimes the numbers don’t make sense, but that’s why God is supernatural.