Leading By Example

Here is a clip from the ABC News show "Nightline" from this past Tuesday evening. They were doing a segment titled "Faith Matters" and chose to feature one of my favorite churches and pastors in America. Mars Hill Church is located in Seattle WA. and is lead by Pastor Mark Driscoll. Say what you want about his style, which I happen to like, Mark has got to be one of the best Bible teachers and church leaders out their. To find out more about Pastor Mark and Mars Hill Church, check out his blog or visit the churches website.

Head Control

Last week I was in a ministry meeting at church. It was one of those meetings that lasts all day and until it's over you don't really know how it's going to turn out. For this post the content of this meeting is not important, but a phrase that was mentioned has had me thinking all week. The guy who was heading up our meeting had mentioned that he had been wrestling with some things that had to to with the ministry and that's what got me thinking.
All through middle and high school, from November to March, I wrestled. OK, here is where you can make fun of the uniforms but if you do I guess you were just not man enough to wear them.
There are many fundamentals when it comes to wrestling but there was one that was taught and then always pounded into our heads, sometimes literally. It was that whenever you were on your feet you always wanted to gain control of your opponents head. You did this by "locking up" and grabbing the back of your opponents head. From this position you had a few options open to you. You can either snap their head down to the mat, slap the back of their head with the palm of your hand, or grab at the base of their head and pull them where you wanted them to go. The first two options are mostly for intimidation and to throw them off their game. The third option is used to set yourself up for another move so that you can take them down.If you control your opponents head, then you control their direction.
A good leader will always have control over his ministry. He'll have a vision of where he wants to take it and a plan to take him and his team to the place where God wants them to end up.
Are you wrestling with something or someone in ministry? Have you allowed it or them to take control? If so, stop it! As the leader you need to lead, that's why God put you in the position your in. On the other hand, maybe your wrestling with God.
When wrestling with God everything changes. We need to allow him to have control so that he can lead where he wants us to go. We can't control God but we can control how much we allow God to have control of over our life. When you give God the control you'll find out he has some pretty sweet moves!

Be aware of the what in the road!?

If your saying, "Is that an elephant lying dead in the road" then you you be correct. I found this story on the Fox News web site, and thought it was just amazing. You can read the whole story here. Then it got me thinking, this elephant in the road is sometimes like how we find the sin in our lives. We're going along in life, things seems to be going just fine, then WHAM! We run head on into a sin that we know shouldn't be there, and actually we wouldn't even expect it to be there but it's there and it has to be dealt with! I'll be honest, I've had this problem and for me it was pride. I never really thought of myself as being prideful, but then WHAM! It hit like a ton of bricks, and I didn't realize I was dealing with this sin until it showed up rather unexpectedly.
As a youth leader at my church, and this would apply to any leader, pride is something that has to always be kept in check. We can never have an attitude that we have arrived or know it all because of the size church we lead, number of people we've lead to Christ, conferences we're asked to speak at etc.
What we should have and need is confidence. In the book of Acts when the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit they began preaching and teaching the gospel with boldness. Of course this is the same Holy Spirit we're filled with today when we give our life to Christ, or Christ saves us (if your a Calvinist). Either way where filled with the Holy Spirit and given the boldness to preach the gospel.
The only leader that's ever come along and can think he has arrived is Jesus. Yet pride nor any other sin never entered his life. He preached and taught with boldness and confidence but it was always wrapped with with humility.
What about you, is there a sin in your life that you need to take care of? It's good examine yourself from time to time.If we are at least aware of the fact we have certain sin problem, we can take the necessary steps to avoid hitting it. A sin problem can quickly turn into a huge sin problem, then WHAM! On a positive note however, with Jesus' help all sin can eventually become roadkill.