This year I have been challenging our church (Fountain of Life - Phoenix, AZ) to Be Intentional in all we do, especially when it comes to staying on mission. You cannot be a follower of Christ and divorce yourself from His commission to make disciples of the nations. As I frequently say to the people at FLI, "The Great Commission is not Optional." Yet while most followers of Christ understand this, they get overwhelmed somehow thinking that it is solely their responsibility or their church's responsibility to carry it out. (Insert deep breath here and relax). It's not. Watch what Paul said to a 1st century group of Christ-followers at Corinth.
1 Cor 3:5
What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe — as the Lord has assigned to each his task. (NIV)
That word "assigned" is used over 400 times in the New Testament and carries a significant weight in this context. While it has a wide variety of applications, here it refers to something that has been given and entrusted to you to administrate or steward or take care of. Paul is saying "look, Apollos and I are simply carrying out an assigned task from God to serve you and in that assignment we became channels, we became tools to bring you to faith in Christ."
Each of us carries this same assignment from God to be intentional about serving people and letting God use us to draw people to Him. We need to intentionally ask God to show us how to carry out our unique assignment and when we are all carrying out our assigned tasks and leveraging them for Kingdom Impact, the great commission will be fulfilled.
The question to ask yourself is: How can you leverage your assigned task for Kingdom Impact?
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Pentecostal ADHD?
Yesterday I got into an intersting email discussion with some colleagues about the attention span of a congregation, specifically a Pentecostal/Charismatic one. In 2009, former Presidential Advisor David Gergen was inteviewed by Bill Hybels at Willow Creek's Leadership Summit and stated that the most effective speeches were 15-20 minutes in length. He further stated that if a speaker goes beyond the 30-35 minute mark, 75% of the listeners have checked out. When it comes to preaching, does the same principle apply?
Pentecostal Preachers in general tend to go well beyond the 35 minute mark. If Gergen's assessment is true, the question we have to ask ourselves is this: "Do our congregations check out after 35 minutes or do they suffer from Pentecostal ADHD and need Holy Spirit ridilin to get through our oratories? After 20 years of this, I think it's the former.
Here's my take on why we preach too long: Preachers fear not having enough material when the reality is we tend to pack too much into a single message. I'm guilty of this and I have preached in series ever since my wife told me several years ago after a Sunday morning, "That was a great series you preached today."
I was trained to believe that preparation was key (and it is). Further, the more prepared you were the less likely a congregation would be able to sniff out an unprepared message. But I believe in our quest to be good preachers we have failed to become good communicators of truth. In our passion to move an audience emotionally we have at times lacked the communication skill to motivate them to practical action. If a message leaves a listener feeling good at noon Sunday and marveling about how great the message was but it doesn't translate to practical action at 8:00 AM Monday morning, we have not done our job. When I listen back to my own podcasts (something we should always do) I always pick out 10 minutes of fat I could have easily trimmed and the message would have been just as effective.
Old habits die hard but I am up to the challenge to make sure I effectively communicate truth.
What do you say?
Pentecostal Preachers in general tend to go well beyond the 35 minute mark. If Gergen's assessment is true, the question we have to ask ourselves is this: "Do our congregations check out after 35 minutes or do they suffer from Pentecostal ADHD and need Holy Spirit ridilin to get through our oratories? After 20 years of this, I think it's the former.
Here's my take on why we preach too long: Preachers fear not having enough material when the reality is we tend to pack too much into a single message. I'm guilty of this and I have preached in series ever since my wife told me several years ago after a Sunday morning, "That was a great series you preached today."
I was trained to believe that preparation was key (and it is). Further, the more prepared you were the less likely a congregation would be able to sniff out an unprepared message. But I believe in our quest to be good preachers we have failed to become good communicators of truth. In our passion to move an audience emotionally we have at times lacked the communication skill to motivate them to practical action. If a message leaves a listener feeling good at noon Sunday and marveling about how great the message was but it doesn't translate to practical action at 8:00 AM Monday morning, we have not done our job. When I listen back to my own podcasts (something we should always do) I always pick out 10 minutes of fat I could have easily trimmed and the message would have been just as effective.
Old habits die hard but I am up to the challenge to make sure I effectively communicate truth.
What do you say?
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Snowed in And Unplugged
I am in Happy Jack, AZ this weekend with my wife's family celebrating my father-in-law's 70th birthday. About 25 miles somewhere south of here, AT & T has service. That simply means I have no connection to the world via my smartphone. My kids quickly point out that if we had Verizon we would have service. It's a tired argument with me. I'm not switching.
I was finally able to wrestle my sister-in-law's laptop and wireless aircard away from the kids and get after it. Situations like this make you realize how depedent we are on technology to stay connected with the world. Yet there has been something peaceful about this weekend. No constant barrage of text messages or email. Yet we are having very meaningful family connection as the snow falls in north central AZ.
By the time many of you read this you will realize I didn't make it to church today. While I miss my congregation, I am still fulfilling the vision of the house by making meaningful connections. Snowed in and unplugged isn't so bad after all.
I was finally able to wrestle my sister-in-law's laptop and wireless aircard away from the kids and get after it. Situations like this make you realize how depedent we are on technology to stay connected with the world. Yet there has been something peaceful about this weekend. No constant barrage of text messages or email. Yet we are having very meaningful family connection as the snow falls in north central AZ.
By the time many of you read this you will realize I didn't make it to church today. While I miss my congregation, I am still fulfilling the vision of the house by making meaningful connections. Snowed in and unplugged isn't so bad after all.
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