Category Archives: Discipleship

Personal Transformation

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Read 2 Corinthians 3:18

How does transformation actually occur? Many of us long for it but do we actually know how it happens. After years of discipling and counselling people through the process of transformation, I believe it happens best in 3 spheres.

Call to Personal Obedience – Often we are quick to try and resolve external circumstances rather than dealing with root causes. This is merely a band-aid attempt to deal with symptoms rather than the underlying issue in our hearts. Proverbs 4:23 says, ‘Guard your heart, for out of it flow the springs of life.’ Change is more than a white-knuckled attempt to take responsibility for external circumstances. A complete change of heart is required. One of the first steps to a change of heart is answering the call to obey the Scriptures and the leading of the Holy Spirit in our personal relationship with God.

Call to living in a community of grace and truth – This is where the church comes in. A healthy church isn’t just marked by acceptance and affirmation but accountability. Jesus came not just in grace but in truth (Jn 1:14). Grace only isn’t complete without truth. We must speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15). It’s only when we confront the truth about ourselves in a grace filled environment that change is made possible.

Call to a lifestyle of reflection – This third sphere is characterised by daily spiritual disciplines. These include prayer, fasting, solitude, worship, bible study, reading, silence and journalling. Guard against compartmentalising your spiritual life from the rest of your life. A Grecian mechanistic worldview isolates reflection to a ‘quiet time’ but God is central to everything in life, not peripheral to the busyness of our lives. Do you have a prayer time or a life of prayer? There’s a big difference.

All 3 of these transformation spheres need to be held in tension with each other for deep personal change to occur. To the degree we are personally transformed will be the degree to which those we serve are transformed.

Grace!

Overcoming Insecurity!

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Insecurity! Everyone of us suffer from it at some point in our lives, whether we acknowledge it or not. Unfortunately, it’s rooted in our fallen nature and begins to surface in childhood. Many adults still have an insecure child in them due to a significant emotional trauma in their past.

Insecurity is like a heavy ball and chain weighing you down and disrupting your relationships with others. Insecurity is a feeling of unease and vulnerability due to a perception of feeling threatened in some way. Insecurity is a lack of deep understanding and confidence in our personal value and a lack of security in our personal identity.

A classic example of insecurity is King Saul (1 Samuel 9:21). From the very beginning Saul suffered from deep insecurity and it undermined his relationships and calling.

Symptoms of insecurity include:

1. Withdrawal and isolation from others.
2. An overly controlling personality.
3. Constant aggressive behavior.
4. Constant avoidance of confrontation.
5. Over-compensatory behavior
6. Defensive mechanisms towards others.
7. Mask wearing.

The downward spiral of insecurity looks like:

- Comparison to others
- Compensation of behavior
- Competition of others
- Compulsive behavior
- Condemnation of oneself
- Control the outcome

As you look at how insecurity manifests itself, we conclude it’s simply unhealthy because it drives us toward doing all sorts of things that are unnatural to how God designed us or what he thinks about us. Insecurity limits our self-authenticity because we are constantly living according to what we think other people think of us.

What’s the remedy? Identify where your insecurity surfaced in your life. What was the identifiable triggers of it? Repent and ask God to help you become a more secure person. Renew your ideas about your identity in the Scriptures. Celebrate and become comfortable in your own skin, including your gifts and unique qualities. Affirm others but don’t compare yourself to them. Welcome compliments and affirm the people around you.

Insecurity is a fruit of our fallen nature but in Christ we can grow to learn a new pattern of thinking about ourselves and others that’s both helpful and God-glorifying (2 Cor 5:17).

Grace!

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Less is More

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Life seems to constantly creep towards complexity. It doesn’t matter how well intentioned you are, each new day brings with it new opportunities to be distracted from what’s most important.

I’ve observed that most people have a passion for doing 1-2 things but tend to never get around to actually doing what they love because of other competing demands or distractions. We must confront the brutal facts about our lives and realize we can only do so much. The size of our impact is connected more to our concentration on doing the one thing that’s most important than doing eleven different things average.

Less is More

Here are 6 ideas to help you do more by doing less:

1. Minimality = keep it simple: It’s not about the hours you put in but what you put into those hours. Focus is about making disciplined choices about what to take off the plate and what to leave on it. The secret of concentration is elimination.

2. Intentionality = keep it missional: Ask yourself ‘what’s my mission and am I doing it?’ keep the main thing, the main thing.

3. Reality = keep it real: Say goodbye to impression management and say hello to the brutal facts. Be authentic and real with God, yourself and people.

4. Multility = keep it cellular: Ask, ‘What if…?’ Important question if you are going to keep growing. How can you expand the one thing you are on about exponentially?

5. Velocity = keep it moving: Live with a sense of urgency. Time is short and now is the time to act. Move from idea to implementation quickly.

6. Scalability = keep it expanding: Leverage the strength of others around you by having an ‘arrows out’ theology that keeps people moving out to do more of the one thing that’s most important rather than boxed in to what’s least important.

Grace!

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Narrow the Focus!

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The eagle that chases two rabbits at one time will catch neither.

All of us at some point feel overwhelmed by the demands of life that we feel like we are being buried under a pile of stuff. I encourage you to embrace the philosophy of ‘Less is More’.

Imagine a river a mile wide but an inch deep. The water is so shallow I would let my 4 year old splash around in it but imagine you narrowed the mouth of that same river to one hundred meters wide with the same amount of water surging through it. The power of the current would be that strong, you wouldn’t be able to cross over it let alone splash around in it.

Too many of us approach life a mile wide and an inch deep. Our focus ends up being diffused across too many areas, rather than in what’s most important. Focus on less, rather than more and you’ll increase the impact.

Divide your life into 4 categories of Time:

  1. Rest time = 1 full day to focus on re-energizing your body, mind and spirit.
  2. Results time = Full or half days devoted to the mission critical things in your job.
  3. Response time = Full or half days devoted to responding to and following up stuff.
  4. Refocus time = 1-2hrs weekly, half a day per month, 1 retreat each year to refocus.

Become discontent with juggling everything and break your workload into these 4 categories of time. Focus on 1 kind of activity at a time and don’t multi-task and mix them up. Prayerfully determine what your main things are and schedule them into sizable chunks of time. Less is More is the key to making an impact but still having a life!

Grace!

Come out of the closet!

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There will be no surprise confessions today but simply a call to come out of the closet with the gifts that God has given to you. Stop hiding them away and use them.

The manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. (1 Corinthians 12:7)

Your gifts and talents are not given to you for private admiration but public demonstration. The Greek word for manifestation is (phanerosis) and it means revelation or manifestation. When we use our gifts publicly to serve others, we are revealing or manifesting the presence and power of God to the world around us.

Spiritual gifts aren’t God giving something external to himself, like you would give a present to someone at Christmas time. Spiritual gifts are God himself manifesting an aspect of his presence through your life. God manifests himself through us in a variety of ways and we are to celebrate the unique way God has wired us up.

Unfortunately, the western church has privatized God. We have made faith in God a private matter. Rubbish… The gospel is meant to be heard and God’s power is meant to be witnessed to (Acts 1:8). Stop being a secret agent for God and start being the city on a hill God has called you to be. The church is the Spirit’s public. You are the mouth, hands and feet of the Holy Spirit sent to the world.

Grace!

We are in a War!

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Ephesians 6:12 “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers of darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

I’ve been quite unwell the last 10 days and as I dragged myself from the bed this morning to go one of my scorching runs to revive my body (I think I might have killed it instead), I was reminded once again, that every day of our lives, on this planet, we are in a war.

Just stop and think about the resistance you feel, even at this present moment, towards yourself or against something you are working towards. Satan, sin and death has been conquered by Jesus death and resurrection but the mark of fallenness permeates every aspect of this world and relentlessly wars against us.

  1. We are in a war against sin – Our flesh doesn’t do what we want it to do and rather does what we don’t want it to do because of our brokenness.
  2. We are in a war for our health – Sickness and disease attacks our bodies constantly and trying to maintain a healthy body is like facing a UFC fighter in the octagon.
  3. We are in a war for our minds – The battlefield is often won or lost in the mind. There are so many distracting ideas competing for our attention, that we are so easily misled. We need a constant renewal of our thinking to conform to God’s thoughts and ways.
  4. We are in a war for people’s souls – The stakes are huge. People’s lives hang in the balance. Preacher, you aren’t just a communicator, you are a weapon in the hands of God, finely tuned to make war with your words. Load your cannons and fire!
  5. We are in a war for truth – Never, and I mean never, has there ever been a time, where God’s truth is under attack as it is today, both inside and outside the church. “Preach the word, in season and out of season, for the day is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but will heap up for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.” (2 Tim 4:2-3)
I want to encourage you to ‘lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet’. (Hebrews 12:12) I know you may feel like, no one cares, and that life is just too hard but you have not been left to fight this battle by yourself. Jesus said, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matt 28:20)
God has not left you defenseless but in fact, has made available for you weapons of warfare, that are not carnal but are mighty to the pulling down of strongholds. If you have downed your tools, then pick them back up again, compose yourself and run back into the fray of the front line of whatever it is God has called you to do.

Grace!

Dealing with moral failure on your team!

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Unfortunately, I have had too much experience in dealing with team members who have made foolish decisions that have disqualified them, at least, temporarily from ministry.

Let me give you a snapshot of the basic details.

Scenario 1 – When I was a youth pastor, I had my senior pastor walk through my office door, with a very disturbed look on his face, alerting me to the fact that my high schools ministry director (married with 2 kids) had unfortunately been having sex with one of his ministry team members (new Christian) on and off for several months. At this news I burst into tears and spent the next few months trying to lead a ministry bleeding from the fallout of this devastating news.

Scenario 2 – Soon after we planted Activate Church I found out my worship director had been frequenting Melbourne’s night clubs, getting drunk and having sex with girls. When I confronted him about his behavior, he lied to me about his extra-curricular activities and then proceeded to arrange for his parents to come around to my house and complain about how we handled his exit.

Scenario 3 – One of my spiritual sons and close ministry colleagues, had wrestled with porn consumption sporadically since he was a young teenager. After 8 years of ministry together, he unfortunately responded to ministry pressure by downloading porn frequently to the point it became an habitual addiction. Without going into all the details (for privacy reasons) when I challenged him, he lied to me and tried to cover up how serious it was. Post the encounter, I can remember walking into the church auditorium, calling my wife and bursting into tears.

Although the 3rd scenario was the most painful of the three because of the relationship forged over many years, I’m pleased to say, my brother has responded brilliantly and his marriage and family life is better than it has ever been. He has been completely restored. I can’t say the same for the first two.

What lessons have I learnt from these events that I can pass on to you?

  1. You are not an exception - Don’t think for one minute that any one of these scenarios and worse can’t happen to you. You’re a fool if you think, your ministry will never have to face one of these scenarios. I pray you will never have to experience the pain of walking out the conflict involved in moral failures but it’s quite possible, that one day, you may have to. Get prepared now.
  2. Don’t respond to the moral failure alone – Get help and get it quick. You should already have more seasoned campaigners around you, speaking into your life on speed dial, that you can call at a moment’s notice. In all three scenarios I was on the phone within minutes of discovering the news and asking lots of questions with pen and pad handy.
  3. Confidentiality is critical - To whom you talk to about the issue at hand will make or break your response to it. Leverage your influence by talking to the most important people involved, including key governance people (elders, point leaders, etc). Practice the ripple effect by communicating only essential information to those who need to know and then spread the net wider as needed. Don’t stand up on Sunday and tell everyone what’s happening without, taking the key people with you on the journey.
  4. Practice Matthew 18:15-17 (Enough said)
  5. Confront the issue with truth and grace – Both are needed, not just one of them. Some people drop the hammer down with bucket loads of truth and very little grace. Others drip with grace and the issue never gets out into the open and dealt with. You need to speak the truth in love and be gracious in the tone and application of the consequences.
  6. People who fail morally do need time out from their ministry – Don’t persist with the person in the hope they’ll reform with time and your great efforts. If they have made foolish moral decisions, they are disqualified, at least temporarily. Taking time out from ministry to grow in character and rebuild trust in relationships is never a waste of time but the most important currency of ministry life. Depending on the moral failure and the person’s role, they may need 3-12 months or more.
  7. If possible, stay in close proximity to the person once they exit the ministry - One of the worst things you could do is abandon them and keep your distance. I understand in some scenarios, this is necessary, but not in most. Make phone calls, organize times to connect and follow through with the restoration process, if they’ll let you.
  8. Pray for them regularly – Don’t just administrate the consequences but pray for God to intervene in the situation and bring reconciliation to all parties involved.
  9. Set an example for the church – You’re the leader, so lead. Don’t gossip, back stab or whine.  Be clear and forthright when confronted with questions but don’t divulge all the details at the destruction of the restoration process. People are looking to you for leadership, especially, during times of pressure and crisis.
  10. Keep your eyes on Jesus – Don’t beat yourself up and don’t get cynical at God, ministry and people. Even Jesus had Judas who betrayed him. Moral failure on your team can happen to anyone of us. Keep your head in the word, your mouth praying and your heart tender to what the Spirit of God wants to teach you through these events.

Grace!

The Curse of Youthfulness!

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I planted Activate Church in April 2006 with a core group of young, passionate and visionary young people. We had energy and drive but very little material resources. We had passion and vision but only a little wisdom. We had faith and were willing to sacrifice but we lacked the seasoned perspective of more experienced campaigners around us.

We grew quite quickly, by God’s grace but we also expended a ton of energy. Sometimes, we discussed things and wrestled with issues that really were more of a distraction, than it was a help. Since then, I’ve become very focused on making sure that my energy and the energy of the team around me is directed to what’s most important. It’s the leader’s job to work out what’s most important, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Growing up a pastors kid and spending several years on staff at a number of churches, I thought I had the goods to get the job done but little did I know there is a big difference between being a member of a team and being the point leader of the team. There is a drafting effect when you are working in the slipstream of a point leader that does make it easier, but the moment you take the lead position, the weight and wind resistance increases exponentially. There was a definite weight-shift that took place when I took the lead pastor role and it only compounds the further you go and grow.

Youthful enthusiasm brings energy and momentum to any organization, especially a church. At Activate we have a 6pm service Sunday nights that has more than doubled in the last 12 months and with it has come new Christians hungry for the word and passionate in their worship of Jesus. I value youthful enthusiasm but I have come to appreciate the wise sages around me who have given very helpful advice at much-needed times.

I’ve come to learn that wisdom trumps enthusiasm. Passion, energy, drive and enthusiasm needs the focus of wisdom to direct it to the right target. Not only do we need to bring wise and experienced campaigners around us but we also need to grow in wisdom ourselves. Wisdom comes from 3 primary sources:

  1. Fear of God (Proverbs 1:7) – Until you fear God and weigh most heavily in your life, you will remain an undisciplined fool.
  2. Wise Counsel (Proverbs 15:22) – Point leaders need the right information from the right people at the right time. Your job is to build a team of the right people around you, who can not only do their jobs but give you the counsel you need, when you need it.
  3. Applied Experience – It isn’t enough to just have an experience, you need to apply it to your life by reflecting and possibly journaling on what you have learnt from the pain or success of the experience. Some people live the same experience 50 years in a row and never learn from it. Don’t be that person. Learn, don’t make the same mistake twice and grow.

The curse of youthfulness is impetuosity and to be honest I had buckets full of it. On the one hand, I had an action orientation that lends itself towards quick results but sometimes, only temporary results. Our generation wants everything done yesterday. In fact I don’t know any leader who doesn’t want things moving more quickly. However, wisdom gives you the needed discernment and perspective to help make the best use of the opportunity that’s presented before you.

Impetuosity moves quickly but spends energy unnecessarily. Leader, you aren’t just called to make any old thing happen, you’re called to make a specific thing happen and to steward what God has entrusted to you. This requires both capacity and wisdom.

We must obey the biblical exhortation to proclaim to the coming generation the glory of God (Psalm 78) but we must also exercise wisdom in how we lead ourselves and the young people around us into God’s purposes for the future well-being of the church.

Grace!

Christians Response to Homosexual Marriage Part 5!

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In this final blog, I’m going to give a summary of what I have written previously and bring this topic to a conclusion (See Parts 1-4 for context).

Genesis 1:26-28 tells us that we have been created in the image of God. We aren’t animals who can’t control our sexual desires or preferences but image bearers made in the likeness of God, male and female, he created us.

We can’t start talking about homosexual marriage by talking about homosexual marriage. We need to consider the BIG picture issue (Genesis 1-2, Psalm 24:1, 72:19) of why God created the universe. Every atom, molecule, creature and person was made for the glory of God. Every question about life must come back to how God’s glory is made visible in creation. The right order of things in God’s creation will be the order that most demonstrates God’s glory. God made us male and female and complimentary partners and this is the order that brings God most glory.

We aren’t self-defining creatures, nor autonomous moral agents but fully accountable to God as his creation. Evolutionary theory is destructive because it minimizes morality to a social construct that simply serves for the reproduction of the human race rather than a universal principle found in the personhood of God. It’s interesting how we will relax on morals when it comes to sexual preferences of 2 consenting adults, but if an old mans sexual preference is fondling little kids, then its amazing how moralistic we all become. How can you hold to a moral position on child molestation and tell an old man his particular sexual preference is wrong, if you don’t think that a moral framework applies to your own sexual preferences? It’s inconsistent.

We can never talk about sex without talking about marriage. Fire is great in the fireplace but dangerous outside of it and the same is for sex outside of the context of marriage. Sex makes sense only within the context of marriage between a man and a woman. Sex outside of marriage and God’s order is an insult to the creators design and the height of human arrogance. Human sinfulness is displayed in our demand for autonomy, for our rights and rejection of God’s moral law. The marriage union between a man and a woman is spiritually, emotionally, physically and anatomically glorious to God.

How we approach any issue is determined by how we read the bible. To hear a lecturer say, that because there’s only 11 scriptures in the bible on homosexuality, and that these 11 verses are insufficient to build a case against homosexuality, is utterly ridiculous. You’d be hard pressed to find 1 verse on child molestation and yet we acknowledge the sinfulness of the desire and action. I recently read a theological paper from a local church pastor, acknowledging that, “Any Christians response to homosexuality must draw its basis from the bible”, however, he then proceeds to question every Pauline text suggesting, “The question remains as to whether Paul’s teaching in Romans allows for committed, mutual, loving homosexual relationships”.

What a load of crap! Albert Mohler says, “If the bible doesn’t speak clearly to the issue of homosexuality, it doesn’t speak clearly to anything.” (Romans 1:19-28, 1 Cor 6:9-11, Jude 7) To justify homosexuality biblically, you have to do interpretive gymnastics to justify what is explicit and uncompromising, that is, homosexual desire and practice is sin.

We must stay dependent on the authority of Scripture because the fallen human mind is supremely capable of infinite rationalization.

We must understand the doctrine of sin and Christ’s victory over it. Secular culture says, “You were born this way, so embrace your identity and press for full rights as a normalization of your lifestyle.” Gods Word says, “You were born totally deprave (Romans 3:10-26) and whether your preference is heterosexual or homosexual you all must repent of our sin and turn towards God.”

Homosexuals must repent of their sin, like everyone else. God’s grace will always provide what his grace requires of us. God’s grace will bring a re-ordering of affections and priorities in our hearts and minds, even if the residue of temptation causes us to walk with a limp for the rest of our lives (1 Cor 10:13 answers this issue). Homosexuals are not a class of persons who are beyond the grace of God to change their lives.

We must love homosexuals more than homosexuals love homosexuality. Too many people have reduced their identity to their sexual preference. This is called idolatry! Sexuality is an important part of life but only one aspect of it. We weren’t created for sexual pleasure as the meaning of life but for relationship with God. Our love must be tenacious enough to love people more than they love their sin. Homosexuality is not a special category of human sinfulness outside of God’s grace.

In conclusion, the church must engage in compassionate truth-telling and celebrate what brings glory to God above all. We must love homosexuals so much that we refuse to accept the very concept of homosexual marriage. Normalizing homosexual behaviour through redefining marriage will take sin to a new level and institutionalize idolatry to the point that God’s truth will be suppressed. Marriage between a husband and wife as a norm declares the glory of God in the most holy way. The creation mandate of marriage (Gen 2) stands as a monument to the only right ordering of human relationships. If we normalize sexual misbehavior, we have to de-normalize marriage.

For the church, marriage isn’t up for political or cultural debate, it’s a theological and spiritual issue that goes to the core of humanity. Marriage isn’t an invention of our culture, it’s the invention of God.

Grace!


God and Body Image!

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We are a body image conscious culture. We are bombarded everyday with images and ideas highlighting the importance of a persons image.

According to Sir Wiki, “Body image refers to a person’s perception of the aesthetics and sexual attractiveness of his or her own body.” The phrase was first created by Austrian psychoanalyst Paul Schilder in his seminal work in 1935. Our personal experiences, personality and cultural forces all contribute to shaping the way we think about ourselves.

Body image has become a god to many westerners, due to the sexualization of our culture. We go to extreme lengths to look a certain way and act a certain way for our sense of significance and for the notice of others or both.

As I read the bible, I don’t see God having a problem with people looking after their bodies or wearing fashionable clothing but I do see a problem when we have made our own image more important to us than being made in the image of God himself and thus worshipping him.

Romans 1:22-25 perfectly describes the current state of our culture.

“Claiming to be wise, they become fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God, for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”

How much of your time is taken up with thinking, dreaming and working towards the ideal image of yourself? Have you exchanged worship of God’s glory for your own glory? How is this working for you? Are you joy-filled or discontent?

A person’s identity must be found in Christ and Christ alone. Genesis 1-2 outlines that every male and female on the planet has been made in the image of God. We have been created to worship God and steward what God gives to us, which includes our bodies, clothing, possessions and money.

Jesus made himself of no reputation but abandoned himself to the Father’s pleasure and will. What image are you trying to portray to others? Leave the pretenses behind and just pursue God. God is more than capable of helping you find your identity in him and not in the cultural forces around you.

Grace!