52 Quotes for This Generation of Church Leaders

Brad Lomenick leads Catalyst, a movement comprised of a series of more than ten annual church leader training events across the United States involving tens of thousands of church leaders. He posted recently "52 Quotes for This Generation of Church Leaders." Here are seven of my favorites:

• A lot of us as leaders are willing to allow our team members to make decisions, but want to step in as soon as we see something done differently than we would do. Don’t make that mistake. It is totally demoralizing to your team.
• Four things poison a team faster than anything else: arrogance, lack of communication, “me-first” vs. “we-first,” and jealousy/cynicism.
• What pastors can learn from business leaders: (a) Collaboration (b) Excellence (c) Execution.
• What business leaders can learn from pastors: (a) Relationships first (b) Income for greater purposes (c) Leadership.
• Ultimately, we create a culture of trust by trusting, and trusting more, and trusting even more.
• I would much rather have a horse I have to hold back versus a horse I have to spur to get going.
• Love people until they ask why.

Want more? Go here.

Great Church People

A long time ago, Ron Edmondson posted this on his blog. I came across it recently. It's worth sharing.

Obviously, God builds the church, but He uses people to build it. What kind of people does God use to build a great church? As a pastor, I have noticed some trends among church people who help move the church forward. The following is a list of characteristics of those type of people. Not everyone will have every quality, but it’s the combination of each of them in people that builds a great church.

Great church people:

1. Support the pastor and the church.

1 Corinthians 16:10‑11 When Timothy comes, treat him with respect. He is doing the Lord’s work, just as I am. Don’t let anyone despise him.

A pastor is always looking for someone he can feel is his friend. Great church people are that friend.

2. Are encouragers in the church.

1 Thessalonians 5:11 So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.

Great church people are a part of the solution, not a part of the problem. They look for ways to help, invite their friends and neighbors, and help without having their arms twisted.

3. Don’t think everything is about them!

Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to the disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me.”

Did you know everything may not go your way? Great church people are willing to allow the best to be done for the church even when it goes against their own desires.

4. Think outside the walls of the church. They think external not internal.

Acts 1:8 But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me every where‑‑in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Some churches are hard to tell apart from a Country Club. Great church people don’t encourage that kind of church!

5. Maintain a friendly church.

2 John 6 Love means doing what God has commanded us, and he has commanded us to love one another, just as you heard from the beginning.

Great church people make sure visitors never stand around long with no one to talk to.

6. Believe and love God’s Word.

Joshua 1:8 Study this Book of the Law continually. Meditate on it day and night so you may be sure to obey all that is written in it. Only then will you succeed.

Great church people let the Bible be their guide.

7. Grow in prayer.

Ephesians 6:18 Pray at all times and on every occasion in the power of the Holy Spirit. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all Christians everywhere.

Great church people pray rather than worry.

8. Build on faith.

Hebrews 10:38 And a righteous person will live by faith.

Great church people are willing to walk by faith even with bold moves as God leads.

9. Put God’s will first.

Mark 3:35 “Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

Great church people put God’s will ahead of everything other agenda.

10. Enjoy meeting with God regularly.

Amos 4:12 says, “Prepare to meet your God,”

Great church people look expectantly for opportunities to worship God and experience Him with other believers.

I’m so thankful to be in a church with so many who make this list easy to write.

Walking with Hagar

JoAnn Streeter Shade chose one of the more shadowy but compelling characters of the Bible for her excellent book, The Other Woman (Exploring the Story of Hagar), a "book for women about hearing and seeing God." From the first pages, the author builds a strong case for Sarah's servant and Abraham's concubine as a character with much to say, even these four thousand years after her story ended:

For starters, Hagar is a gutsy woman who dared run away from an abusive situation, a listening woman who was willing to obey God even when it made no sense, and a seeking woman who named God. As the loser in a one-sided battle seemingly marked by envy and greed, the Egyptian slave-woman Hagar encounters God not once, but twice.

In this well-written book, Major Shade (an officer in The Salvation Army) takes the reader on a memorable and meaningful journey, drawing helpful lessons from Hagar's story--sometimes mining gold out of a short phrase or a single word. She touches on a vast range of subjects, from abuse and pregnancy and revenge to single parenting, abandonment, grief, and more. Some of the chapters ended much too soon or suddenly, I thought, but each chapter offered sparkling insight and application, like chapter twelve's focus on the angel of the Lord's words to Hagar at a well between Kadesh and Bered:

The God who seeks and finds is also the God who stays involved with his people. When the messenger of God speaks, he does two things. He names Hagar, and he defines her by the role she fills in the household of Abraham.

The angel of the Lord knew her name. That is so encouraging to me. God knew the name of an Egyptian slave-woman. God knows the name of every child that was killed in the typhoon and tsunami and every child who wanders the streets of Calcutta, begging for food. He knows my name and your name. And he knows the names of the unnamed, those the narrator doesn't identify throughout the Bible, such as the Levite's concubine, the woman at the well, and the widow who gave her last cents in the temple. Each one has a name, known to God.

There is much to take away from this book--and not for women only. Any seeking soul, any student of the Bible, anyone who is craving hope and encouragement, will profit from it. As Shade writes,

If God redeems the desert places for Hagar and for Sarah, for Isaac and for Ishmael, then we can have hope. Because if God can work in their lives, he can redeem my desert places, both the deserts I am forced into and the deserts I willingly choose.

Major Shade's The Other Woman will delight and inform--perhaps even transform--anyone who takes the journey.

The Other Woman can be purchased for $12.95 via email (use.trade@use.salvationarmy.org) or by calling toll free in the USA (888) 488-4882.

Church of the Week: Ben Ezra Synagogue, Cairo, Egypt

Last week here on the Desperate Pastor Blog, I featured one of the churches we visited in Cairo (but in which we were not permitted to take photos), the Church of the Holy Family (see the Hither & Yon blog entries here and here for accounts of some of the places we couldn't photograph on our most recent Holy Land/Egypt trip).

This week, I thought I'd feature the first ever synagogue as "Church of the Week." The famous Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo was originally a Christian church, which the Coptic Christians of Cairo had to sell to the Jews in 882 AD in order to pay the annual taxes imposed by the Muslim rulers of the time. The church was purchased by Abraham Ben Ezra, who came from Jerusalem during the reign of Ahmed Ibn Tulun, for twenty thousand dinars.

No Greater Joy

I have no greater joy than to [see] that my children are walking in the truth (3 John 1:4).

That's my son leading worship tonight at the mic in the center, and my daughter-in-law on the left (in front of the drum stage, under the vertical bank of lights). My daughter was on coffee duty, and my son-in-law in the sound booth. And that is the normal state of affairs at "The Third" on Sunday evenings. No greater joy.

The Quarantined Christian Life

From a few days ago, a great post, entitled "The Christian Parallel Universe," at the Gospel Driven Blog. He nails a phenomenon that (it is not too strong to say) has disgusted me for some time. And it is one that, I believe, we pastors and church leaders have encouraged:

I like certain forms of science fiction. OK, I admit it, I am a Trekkie. One of my favorite episodes of Star Trek explored the possibility of parallel universes. Quite to my pleasure, the new TV series Fringe does the same. They imagine that there could be various quantum realities and we breached the wall between them.

Well, I have news for them. I think there are parallel universes. At least, it seems that way to my eyes.

What I mean is that Christians in the USA seem to have created a universe parallel to the secular one.

There are more obvious versions of this -- the Christian Yellow Pages being foremost in my mind -- but there are subtle versions too. Think of all the ways we have devised to "Christianize" every conceivable form of human relationship in education, commerce, diet, and exercise. There are Christian food co-ops! Christian exercise videos. The list is long.

While I certainly do not deny the right to free association, I do have one question: is this what Jesus called us to? I believe he prayed explicitly in John 17 that we would NOT be taken out of the world. I believe Paul wrote these words:

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. (1 Corinthians 5:9-10 ESV)

Well, I think Paul would be quite shocked that we have managed to do exactly that -- we have "gone out of this world" -- at least in practice, if not in body. We have created a parallel Christian universe.

But the problem is more subtle than that. As I listen to friends speak of their work or their neighborhoods or their schools or their kids sports -- it is almost always in the context where they note who the Christians are in those places ("My son is in little league, and his coach is a Christian"). They do so with a sense of relief or with greater confidence in the safety of their kids or with some sense of the magic of influence the coach will have over others. It is even better if the coach is a former professional athlete who is a Christian.

I would also observe that for some it seems desirable for Christians to work and play alongside of people who are not in Christ and somehow manage to avoid too much intersecting of their lives with them. In other words, some would avoid any breaches between these parallel worlds. It would never occur to them to engage their colleagues world and life.

Granted I am stereotyping, and there are many many exceptions. There are traditions in the evangelical world that are not so world-detached. But this stereotype is based on years of data collection. Generally, I think mainstream evangelical USA Christians are uncomfortable with associations with unbelievers that are too close, too personal. Generally, we are afraid that simply being with them will have some corrupting influence. So we create a parallel universe. We have effectively done what Paul thought impossible -- we have gone out of the world.

I sometimes think that we live in fear and call it wisdom. But we live in fear -- fear of the negative influences of the world. We live as though we have far more to fear from the "world" than they have to fear from us. We carry with us the Good News of Jesus the crucified and risen. The explanation of that news changes people; it removes them from the kindgom of darkness and brings them into Jesus kingdom. It is far more a threat to their way of life than they are to us.

We live in unbelief and call it moral separation. We live in unbelief, and actually deceive ourselves into thinking that we can create a parallel universe and thereby escape the corruptions that are in the world. We are not confident in this message and its power in us and its power toward others.

Now, of course I am aware of our vulnerability, and of course I am aware of the care of my children, and of course I am aware of all the arguments that can be marshalled for caution and safety and the rest -- but I am pressing for the other side. I am doing so because the Gospel calls us.

We follow the One who was a friend of sinners, who took on flesh and blood as he entered a world in which there was nothing but defilement. He came down into this world, in association with people ruined by sin and living in sin in all its various forms, he lived in the same universe, not a parallel one. He was a friend of sinners and lived in purity at the same time. And he has sent us into this present age with the same mission -- to be the people of God in the midst of this world, not to isolate ourselves from the people of this world.

God wants believers to have confidence in the Gospel and to pass this on to our children to as well. I am simply asking -- are we confident? are we imparting confidence to our children or teach them to live quarantined lives? Are we living in invisible hazmat suits? in a parallel universe?