Leading or Manipulating?“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” Thomas Merton

I see one of the greatest temptations of leadership is…manipulation. Sometimes we don’t fully understand the meaning of this word. We think we would never “manipulate” anyone. Rather, we call it our “gift of persuasion”, strong leadership, ability to cast the vision or good pastoring. I think we need to understand that the Bible equates manipulation with WITCHCRAFT! That is tough. We never want to be guilty of using witchcraft on those we lead. Just a of couple ideas on how to tell the difference between manipulating & leading…You are manipulating and not leading if: 

1. You get defensive when someone doesn’t agree with you. 
2. You withhold attention, affection or praise because they aren’t doing it your way.
3. You speak negatively about them to someone else hoping they will “pull them in.”
4. You “strong arm” them in conversation, forcing your agenda.
5. You aren’t willing to really listen.
6. You have to play the “listen, I’m the leader” card, to get your way!
7. You avoid the person that doesn’t follow “the right way.”
8. You pray about your idea in a group with the person present, in a way that would make them feel “dumped on.”

Leaders, godly loving leaders, would NEVER manipulate those they lead. Listen closely, if you are leading by listening to God, (that’s the only way you should be leading) what you are putting forth, isn’t even your idea! Don’t you think God can persuade people to follow HIS PLAN? You do your job and lead in love as God has led you and let God worry about those who disagree with His plan. It makes leading a lot less stressful. GUARANTEED!

This is a mental outline you can use to keep you on track in your thinking as you wake up everyday deciding to follow Jesus.   It is the way I conceive of “What it means to be a Christian:”

I am seeking to be the cooperative friend of Jesus—following Jesus as his apprentice, that I can be an ambassador of the Kingdom

To live a consistent life of creative goodness—I practice the presence so that I can be alert to the people and events of my life. If I am not present and alert, I cannot be an agent of good.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit—it is the Spirit that enables all the above. He gives the character to care about others, the gifts, the power and the authority to actually serve others in practical ways.

For the sake of others: none of this is to be done for the sake of mere personal piety. God created humans, and later Israel and the church to join with him in creative care for his creation.

Those four simple thoughts are my mental framework for daily life. They are the practices associated with thirty years of believing Bible stuff. To live those bullet points out in the rhythms and routines of my actual life, I feel the constant need to apprentice myself to Jesus through the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. To get to a Christianity that is beyond belief, I find myself using this process over and over and over again as a rule for Christian spirituality:

Belief –> Transformation –> Practices –> Deeper Belief That Only Practices Can Bring –> Deeper Needs For Transformation –> More Effective, More Life-Giving Practices.

Can you picture such a rhythm for your life? If you can visualize it, give it try.

And let me know how it goes!

When we assume that our way of doing ministry is best:

• We stop learning from others.
• We rarely try something new.
• We quickly see faults in new ideas rather than seeing opportunities.

To reach people no one is reaching, we have to do things no one is doing.

If you think the way everyone else is thinking, you’ll do what everyone is doing.

It is time to let go of old assumptions about how to reach people.

What assumptions about church and ministry are you shedding?

exerpts from Craig Groschel

I starred at this the other night and realized this is often how we understand God.  We know God is this or that but don’t go as far to believe in his character as the power in our relationship with him and to the world.   There is a full measure of God available to us (Eph. 3:19) which means we’re not meant to pick and choose how we’ll fit God in our life.  We’re wired to know God which means we can discover more about God as “Counselor”, more about God as ”Comforter”, more about God as “Provider”.  And the list goes on.   The fullness of God living in us is always within our grasp.   But just like the picture, over time our understanding of who God is becomes wilted and we strain to fully know him and ultimately trust him.  It is in the midst of stressful news that we’ll need to call on God as our provider.  At the moment a conversation needs Godly wisdom you’ll need confidence to know God’s counsel is trustworthy.  Do you know and trust the complete love of God revealed in his charater.  I need the fullness of God…I feel incomplete without it…how about you?  Contrary to popular belief,  a little bit of God does not go a long way.  Rather, the fullness of God is experienced as we dig deep into his character.

Observe:  From all appearances at the surface Ananias and his wife Sapphira were typical believers who gave a portion of their income to the church.  But there is way more to the story.  Peter confronted them with lying as their commitment to bring a portion of money to the church was held back.  There appears to me a lot more going on in the story than what were told.  Peter acknowledges, “even after you sold it, you could have used the money any way you wanted (vs4)”.   Their commitment to bring an offering was met with greed, selfishness and ultimate deception as verse one says “they agreed to keep back a portion for themselves”. 

Application: The deception of Anannias and his wife went to deepest places.  They thought they were fooling the others and they likely had no idea they were lying to God.  We serve an audience of one.   Our presence of mind should always be “the fear of the Lord can and should guide my next decision”.  Anannias and Sapphira lost touch with that reality.  This is the ultimate deception because when we believe we can fool others we’ve forgotten we’re not fooling God.  Take time now and ask yourself  has the fear of the Lord been suppressed in your life?  Is your decision making process taking into account that God sees and knows everything you do?  Don’t allow another moment to go by before you back away from any deception you might have in your life.  Confess what you know is wrong and even ask God to show you deception in your heart that you’re unaware of right now. 

Prayer: God, show yourself strong in my life.  May I fear you at all times and may that fear influence all my decisions.

Reggie on the Missional Church

• Until we see the church as a who and not a what, we will be stuck and will not become missional.
• Missional definition: “The people of God partnering with God in his redemptive mission in the world” 
• The church in the NT is never smaller than a city. 
• The church doesn’t have a mission, the mission of God has a church. 
• A great question to engage people- “How can I ask God to bless you today?” 
• God created us to cut us in on the deal of world redemption.
• We are tired of the thinking, “If we fix the church we will be able to impact the world.” 
• In discussing the joy, surprise and new openness of someone who goes on a short-term mission trip, Reggie asks, “What if we saw our whole life as a mission trip.”  

What phrase(s) catches your attention?  Do your dreams and pursuits in life align with God’s activity through the church?  If you’re reading this I pray this week that you would see your life in context to what God is doing, because he wants you to join him.

Welcome to our church! …
[Pick your fair warning:]

Our sermons run an hour plus and our pews aren’t padded: You do the math.

We work our volunteers to death. Then grumble when they want a break.

Drums are evil.

Our Sunday morning service is a major production. Sit back and enjoy the show.

Our people probably won’t talk to you until you volunteer for something and even then don’t hold your breath.

We pay lip service to social justice.

We stand up and sit down a lot, so try to keep up, OK?

Our sermons have more movie clips than Bible quotes.

You’re going to get lost in our sprawling campus. Bring a map or hire a guide.

We believe homosexuality is…

The only diversity you’ll find here is in our stock photography.

We’re so heavenly minded that we’re no earthly good.

We plan more social events than Bible studies.

Nothing ever starts on time at our church.

Our pastor is a minor celebrity with an ego to match.

We think the role of women in leadership is…

We’re really old.

Churchese spoken here. Translators are not available.

We’re good people but we’re going to judge you.

Our children’s ministry is an after thought.

We hug.

On Sunday morning you’ll never/always see an altar call.

Our people talk more gossip than gospel.

We lift up our hands and get a little crazy when we worship. It’s going to freak you out.

That’s how we’ve always done it is how we’ll always do it.

 What about your church? If you had to give fair warning to a visitor, what would your church say? They may be honest, embarrassing or nothing to apologize for, but visitors should know. They’ll find out eventually.

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Let’s get our head around the idea that prayerful, responsible risk should be a spiritual discipline for us.  Seeing risk as a spiritual discipline means our failures can be rightly understood and used by God to turn us into his instruments.  Let’s not continue to live believing reading our Bibles, praying, and regular worship attendence is sufficient to follow Christ.    There is an ”ask” in your relationship with Jesus in the form of a risk because God’s intention is for you to grow.  Let’s not be afraid of risk and failure.  When it’s done by faith growth is inevitable.  Don’t know the risk God wants you to take…take the risk and him, bet you’ll find out.