We must change the scorecard in our churches for success from great services & large gatherings, to a deep transformational discipleship for every single person in our church.
It is God’s time for the church to redo her scorecard for success
#ehdiscipleship
The coronavirus pandemic & the outrage over racial injustice have exposed us as the church in uncomfortable ways.
We must change the scorecard for success from great services & large gatherings, to a deep transformational discipleship for every single person in our church.
The world honors the successful, those who are high-impact players who are big and aggressive to make their mark. Jesus says those who inherit the earth are the meek - the unaggressive, the broken, the grief-stricken, the dependent who cannot live without God's intervention.
One clear invitation from God to us in these days is a movement away from a focus on large, carefully curated worship services to a return to flexible, more New Testament, decentralized model of church focused on the messy work of disciple-making.
Remember: the things people applaud in your life are the very things that will wreck your soul.
Do more, bigger, better, faster is found in the devil's ministry (See desert temptations), not Jesus'.
Pay attention to your triggers & negative reactions this week.They are not obstacles/interrupting, but holy ground where God is revealing our unhealed wounds & unconscious fears. He's inviting us to be still, to listen,to let Jesus into the deep places of our icebergs/interiors.
The power of God is unseemly and strange.
- Strength comes from weakness
- In inability is striking capability
- The last are first
- The poor are rich
- The weak are blessed
Maybe we can drop our bullet-proof vests and say "I was wrong, I'm sad, I don't know, I need help."
6 discernment questions to ask for 2020:
1. What's God doing in the world that captures your imagination?
2. Who are you?
3. What stage of life are you in?
4. What's your context/circumstances?
5. What moments of deep pain have formed u?
6. Name what you're afraid of.
The overall health of any church or ministry depends primarily on the emotional and spiritual health of its leadership.
In fact, the key to successful spiritual leadership has more to do w/ the leader’s internal life than with the leader’s expertise, gifts, or experience.
Pay attention to your triggers and negative reactions. They're not obstacles interrupting your work, but holy ground where God seeks to free us from our unhealed wounds and fears - if we take the time to be still, to listen and to let Jesus in.
#ehrelationshipscourse
It takes a while to see that the things people applaud in your life are often the things that will wreck your soul. Bigger, better, faster might be found in the devil's playbook. But small, slow, and the cross were surely in Jesus’ (see Matt. 4).
As people step into greater leadership responsibility, unresolved issues in their inner lives are inevitably exposed. Immaturity rooted in unresolved issues from their histories reveal themselves. We may wish leaders arrive on our doorsteps maturely formed. But it rarely happens.
The next time someone says to you "You must be so busy....," say "I'm not busy, just limited."
Let's eliminate the word "busy" from being a descriptor of our lives, and live into the relaxed, centered life of Jesus in our leadership.
After years of pondering why a shallow discipleship marks so much of the church around the world, I’ve concluded that there are 4 beneath the surface failures that keep people from becoming spiritually mature.
One of the main enemies in Christian communities is the desire to be prominent, the quest for some type of status in order to stand out.
Jesus says: "Whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."
#ehdiscipleship
The next time someone says to you: "You must be so busy....," consider saying: "I'm not busy, just limited."
Let's eliminate the word "busy" from being a descriptor of our lives, and live into a relaxed, anchored life in Jesus.
#ehdiscipleship
Eugene Peterson said it best:
"Busyness is the enemy of spirituality. It is essentially laziness. It is doing the easy thing instead of the hard thing. It is taking charge." (2)
I'm now in the final days of writing the 1st full draft "Emotionally Healthy Discipleship," a book I started in March 2019. When I began, I wrote this 1-sentence definition of an emotionally healthy disciple.
It didn't make the book , but I like it. Might you offer any feedback?
I'm always looking for a quick fix, an easy way. But discipleship is long, dirty, hard. It was for Jesus w/ the 12. So it will be for us.
It will always involve the labor pangs of childbirth, as Paul says, because this is about deep formation, not superficial behavioral change.
Unhealthy leaders do more activity FOR God than their relationship WITH God can sustain.
If we fail to recognize that who we are on the inside informs every aspect of our leadership, we damage ourselves and those we lead.
The Pharisees took a full baptismal bath every morning & when returning after being in public w/ people. The problem was their zeal hurt people, leading to a critical spirit and unkindness. A zeal for God w/out deep gentleness towards people misses God.
#ehdiscipleship
In this
#Coronavirusoutbreak
I'm:
1. Wondering what the Holy Spirit is up to
2. Waiting on the Lord AND taking precautions
3. Paying attention to my fears (on a scale of 1-10 mild to severe)
4. Holding regular family mtgs w/ 6 of us in 1 house
5. Creating structure to my days
4 Factors Impacting the Church Today
• Covid-19
• Political polarization in the church
• Moral failures of high-profile leaders
• A next generation, Gen. Z (born 1995-2009) & Gen. Alpha (born 2010-2024) who need mentoring beyond what we currently offer.
Your additions?
Remember: the things people applaud in your life are the very things that will wreck your soul. Do more, bigger, better, faster is found in the devil's ministry (See desert temptations), not Jesus.
Malcolm Muggeridge profiled Mother Teresa’s work among the dying in Calcutta. Statistically, he admitted, she did not accomplish much by rescuing stragglers from the streets, but then concluded with the statement, “But, then, Christianity is not a statistical view of life”
When Peter asks Jesus: "If I’m going to suffer & have hard things happen to me, then what about John?" Jesus says, "Don't worry about him. You, follow me."
One of the most crippling temptations for us is to compare and envy others. God has a unique role and dream for each of us.
I spent much of my Christian life telling God what to do. It didn’t work out well. The transition to a prayer life of surrender of our plans and will to His is among the greatest in the Christian life. But it often takes a lot of failure, disappointment, and loss to get us there.
I join many honoring Tim on this sad day of his departure. We planted our churches only 1 year apart in NYC in the late 80's. For years we enjoyed a fun day together traveling upstate to teach on leadership. A great servant/pastor/thinker-w/ impeccable integrity. Thank you Tim!!
Today I turned 65. If I had known my 60’s would be such a fantastic season, I would have tried to get here earlier! Very grateful to God for the gift of good health — along w/ Geri’s.
Consider taking extra days between Christmas & New Year as a sabbatical-listening, delighting, resting your phys/emot/spiritual soil. Prayerfully offer your 2019 "goals" to Him for revisions.
Sabbath is a 24 hr. day & principle of embracing God's larger rhythms
#listen
#sabbath
Some people have 25 years of experience. Others have 1 year of experience 25 times.
Maturity, and discipleship in general, requires humility, reflection, and ability to self-confront.
Why does power corrupt so easily:
#HenriNouwen
offers insight:
Power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life. Jesus asks, Do you love me?
One clear invitation from God to us these days is a movement away from a focus on large, carefully curated services and events to a return to a more New Testament, decentralized model of church focused on the messy work of disciple-making.
In 2050, 72% of Christians will live in Africa, Asia+Latin America. By 2050 non-Latino whites will be only a small subset of Christians. What might God be saying (shouting) to us in North America + Europe vía this revolution?
#philipjenkins
As pastors, we get into trouble, not because we forget we are pastors, but because we forget we are humans—with weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and severe limits.
Self-care, as you lead, is the most loving thing you can do for those around you.
#EHDiscipleship
In writing the book, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, over the last 2 years, I finally defined exactly what an “emotionally healthy disciple” is and looks like. Here it is.
What makes an emotionally mature Christian? What might you add to this list?
Since it is not possible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature, this is a critically important question - especially in these tumultuous days.
4 Facts about God
1. God’s purposes unhurried and unstoppable.
2. Patience is the very nature of God.
3. The fall of Adam and Eve was marked by human impatience.
4. Patience is a distinctive sign of the Christian.
#AlanKreider
Why are we all in such a rush?
One warning sign of an unhealthy spirituality is to be chronically overextended - having too much to do in too little time, saying yes to new opportunities before prayerfully discerning God’s will, and doing for Jesus w/out an anchored life of being w/ Him.
#ehdiscipleship
#slow
Satan inspires w/ greatness. ("Turn stones to bread, I’ll give you the world, Avoid suffering, Turn back from the hard way. Do something sensational, Do people think you're great?”)
Jesus invites us to give up whole idea of being great entirely, to abandon any quest for status.
How do we do church when we can no longer gather corporately on weekends for worship?
We refocus our energy, not on attractive worship services (rejecting the Western fixation w/ #'s) & follow Jesus in investing in the slow work of making spiritually mature disciples & leaders.
We must change the scorecard for success from counting the numbers in great services and large gatherings, to a deep transformational discipleship and the leaders we are developing
The desert fathers and mothers (3rd-5th centuries) believed the 3 greatest enemies of the inner journey were:
-- hurry
-- crowds, and
-- noise.
Things haven’t changed much.
#ehdiscipleship
Good leadership is slow, requiring time and focus. As Jesus showed us during his short, earthly life -- there will never be a substitute for life-on-life discipling of people.
#ehdiscipleship
When we have way more external activity in our life than our inner life with God can sustain, it leads to all kinds of trouble in our everyday life.
#ehdiscipleship
America’s pastors are getting older. 25 years ago,the median age of pastors was 44 years old. Today the median age is 54. Study conclusion: There is the prospect of a “massive leadership shortage in the coming decades” in the church.
@BarnaGroup
#sobering
#wakeupcall
The last 19 months has revealed that even though people worship & listen to sermons. And yet, their transformation in Christ remains a thin veneer on a life yet to be touched beneath the surface. There is no getting around the slow, hard work of Jesus discipling the 12.
One great gift we can give the world is to become emotionally healthy adults that love well. That takes the power of God and a commitment to be equipped to break with unhealthy, destructive relational patterns from our family of origin.
We equate “doing for” God with “being with” him. They are not the same. I can do things for a person without a relationship with them.
The Christian journey is a life of ever-deepening trust in God developed through ongoing stages of friendship.
Staying focused on Jesus' slow, life-on-life, messy, kingdom strategy of developing a few people is difficult. It requires saying no to the world's intoxicating view of a successful leader.
#ehdiscipleship
One person said to me: “I was a Christian for 22 years, but actually I was a one-year old Christian 22 times. I just kept doing the same things over and over again.”Most people in our churches are consumers+not growing into mothers and fathers in the faith.
#ehdiscipleship
Instead of highlighting "The Fastest Growing Churches," let's highlight The "Slowest Growing Churches," those that help us most to slow down & pay attention to God, ourselves & others. Jesus himself said: "Only 1 thing is needful."
#ehdiscipleship
Emotionally unhealthy leaders do more activity for God than their relationship with God can sustain.
If we fail to recognize that who we are on the inside informs every aspect of our leadership, we will do damage to ourselves and to those we lead.
#ehdiscipleship
Failure to pay attention to our interior life (i.e. our thoughts, feelings, motives) along with a failure to slow down to listen to God (e.g. silence, Scripture, etc) leads to a self deception that religious activity equals spiritual maturity.
#ehdiscipleship
#KingSaul
The 4 Reasons for the Shallow Discipleship in our Churches:
- We are more active for God than our inner life can sustain.
- We disconnect emotional health and spiritual maturity.
- We ignore the riches of the larger, historical church.
- We define success wrongly.
The degree to which you grieve your own losses is the degree to which you are a compassionate person
#Nouwen
If you can’t feel your own losses, you won’t be able to feel the sadness others. Your un-grieved losses accumulated like little stones in your heart, weighing it down
At Xmas let's remember Jesus special care for broken reeds (not polished ones) & smoldering wicks (not glowing flames). He's a gentle Savior of failures. May we rest in our weakness & receive his quiet love for ourselves 1st, letting go of our violent perfectionism to ourselves.
This may be one of the greatest shifts we need to make today--moving from a preference for size, numbers, standardization, and scalability to Jesus' upside down strategy of focusing on the few.
Imagine the church prioritizing this kind of life-on-life, slow discipleship?
Striving to be a “good Christian”without growing in genuine love for people different than us, being busy chasing spiritual insights without the inner solitude to be present w/ others and ourselves, may make us popular in church but lousy human beings.
We measure the 100 fasting growing churches or largest churches. How about we begin to measure, and applaud, the churches best at emotional connection (i.e. who love like Jesus)?
The most loving thing you can do for those around you is to slow down to be with Jesus. Why? If we skimp on our inner work, our outer work will suffer as well.
#Palmer
Sadly, most people in our churches are stuck. As 1 person said: “I was a Christian for 22 years. But instead of being a 22 year-old Christian, I was a 1 year-old Christian 22 times. I just kept doing the same things over and over again.”
#ehdiscipleship
Jesus rejects the sensational, spectacular, speedy ministries offered by Satan. He goes to an un-strategic place, heals the sick, preaches to the poor, & chooses a few shaky disciples, not seeming to do much to change evil structures.
Lesson: Follow Jesus; he won't follow you.
I marvel at how many speakers lead as if discipleship takes place mainly through sermons.
That's like going to a nursery, spraying the babies with milk, and claiming we fed them.
Bonhoeffer said it well: Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.
The more deeply we are connected to God and His love, the less we need the approval of others and can live out our unrepeatable, God-given life. Jesus models this for us -saying no to other people's expectations and following the voice of His Father.
#ehdiscipleship
A frightening truth is we can sometimes ignore our God-given limits and end up doing God’s work without God. In fact, he often speaks more clearly through our limits than our gifts and potential.
You've bought into the myth that when you're waiting you’re doing nothing. You’re doing the most important something there is. You’re allowing your soul to grow up. If you can’t be still & wait, you can’t become what God created you to be
#SueMonkKidd
Good words for flourishing
We mistakenly believe embracing our grief will slow us down and hinder us in achieving God’s mission in the world. Actually, the opposite is true. Embracing our losses, God’s way, actually advances his mission.
The degree to which we take care of ourselves --embracing our physical, emotional, spiritual limitations-- is the degree to which we will be able to love others well.
Why? when rested, fed & healthy, we're not thinking of our depletions & can offer ourselves out of a full self.
When we define success wrongly, our best energies will be invested in things like cutting-edge weekend services, cultivating our brand & preparing captivating messages Little is leftover for discipleship, especially when it produces what appears to be such a small & slow return
My spiritual life dramatically shifted when I allowed myself to be a human being, to feel, and to integrate my emotional world with my relationship with Jesus. My prayer life, discernment of God’s will, and leadership were never the same.
When we're over-scheduled, we're often undernourished.
What do we do?
1. Take a deep breath. Be still.
2. List everything in front of you.
3. Discern God's priorities in your limits.
4. Say no to the rest of the list.
#ehdiscipleship
As we return to gathering in person, let's do the hard work of changing the scorecard for success from great services & large gatherings, to deep transformational discipleship for every single person on our team and in our ministry.
God is serious about getting our attention.
One clear invitation from God to us in this long, hard year of Covid-19 is a move away from focusing on large, carefully curated worship services to a more flexible, more New Testament, decentralized church model focused on the messy work of disciple-making.
10 hard lessons from 21 years of mistakes and failures. Finished Part 2 this week and will be released tomorrow
#EHLeader
#podcast
. So glad to be looking back and not be in the midst of them. Who said growing older is not a great gift?!
Grieving is painful, but it is more painful not to grieve. It enables us to heal what we cannot change, leading to spiritual depth, an unclogged soul, and a more compassionate, broken posture towards the world.
#ehdiscipleship
Regardless of our resources, Jesus purposely leads us to situations where we're overwhelmed w/ massive need & our inadequacy. Why? to teach us to trust Him, humbly offering to Him our few loaves/fish, to teach us wisdom. He's the Reality behind all reality & He is risen indeed!
One of the most destructive myths alive in the Christian community today is the belief that smoothing over disagreements or “sweeping them under the rug” is part of what it means to follow Jesus.
Jesus left strategic Judea to travel north to Galilee. God is no more respecter of places than he is of people. Wherever God has you is very significant. Sometimes, when we think too strategically we miss Him and his work
Deep things happen in out-of-the way, unimpressive places
Living out of a centered self is not the same as being self-centered.
A centered self requires being rested, saying enough no's so I am spiritually, emotionally & physically full. Then I offer a full self to others. Accepting our limits makes real love possible.
#ehdiscipleship
You can go to church for 20 yrs and listen to the gospel and still do life in unhealthy ways. That requires the hard work of Discipleship. You cannot change what u are unaware of.
Waiting on Jesus, even when it appears too late, is a core mark of a disciple.
He waited till Lazarus was dead 4 days (Rabbi's taught the soul lingered 3, but on the 4th it left permanently). His promise: Trust me & u will see the wonder of the resurrection
Jesus is never late
One clear invitation from God to us these days is a movement away from a focus on large, carefully curated services and events to a return to a more New Testament, decentralized model of the church focused on the messy work of disciple-making.
Perfectionism is striving for the absence of our humanity rather than being okay with our imperfections and flaws.
It isolates us from ourselves, others and God.
Repeat after me: "It is human to make mistakes, and I am human."
#sabbath
#grace
Our confidence is not in our love for Jesus, which is fragile, fickle, and limited, but in His love for us which is unbreakable, faithful, and without conditions.