Modern Ministry!

Video of Our Worship Band: "God Undefeatable"

2011-11-21T10:15:00.003-06:00

One of my churches worship bands is leading worship at a retreat in a couple of months. So we decided to record a song and record a video for it. Three of my hobbies are playing guitar, audio recording, and video editing. So I love doing little projects like this.

The end result came out very much on the better side of my expectations.

The song is called "God Undefeatable," and it's by Aaron Ivey from Austin Stone. You can hear his version here: http://austinstoneworship.com/

Here is our video

NaNoWriMo...time to write a book...

2011-11-07T08:47:00.004-06:00

November is national novel writing month. I'm not sure exactly what NoNoWriMo is, but it's not a competition. It's more of a challenge to write 50,000 words in November. So people around the world are attempting to write a novel this month.

I don't want to write a novel, but I've had an idea for a book on my experiences during my first 3 years of ministry. I had the idea actually before I started. The original idea was to write a journal of my daily feelings and issues which came up, and to see if it could be published anonymously. ...I didn't do that.

But the idea for a book on what you experience during your first few years of ministry still fascinates me.

The idea behind the book is that every book on ministry is written by a famous pastor or speaker at a mega-church who's experience is extremely detached from what most people are going to experience. Or they're written by people who are 20 years removed from their first few years of ministry.

So what if there was a book written by someone in a entirely ordinary context...writing about what the experience is like.

I don't know that anyone will ever read it, but I think writing is a good exercise for reflection on life. Most of my writing energy is going to this project this month. So my blogging will be a bit thin this month.

Favorite Blogs of the Week

2011-11-04T10:08:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd make a habit of sharing my favorite blogs of the week on Fridays.

Five Things I've Learned in Public Speaking - Ron Edmondson - All five are very good

The Right & Wrong Questions for Figuring Out God's Plan for Your Life - Steven Furtick - Gives a fresh perspective on a familiar question

Steve Jobs & Apple - Brilliant 60 Minutes Interview - Big is the New Small - Steve Job's bio using interviews with Jobs which were recorded for his biography

Where Good Ideas Come From - Video

2011-11-02T11:29:00.000-05:00

This video inspired the blog posted earlier today.

Creativity, Ideas, and Slow Thought

2011-11-02T07:23:00.001-05:00

We live in an interesting time.

Creativity usually doesn't involve having truly fresh ideas. It involves coming up with fresh new ways to integrate multiple ideas in a new and unique way. This requires time of deep thought and access to knew ideas.

This leads to why this is an interesting time.

We've never had more access to other peoples ideas
We've never been more distracted by other peoples ideas

I heard someone mention a book which discussed how the internet is changing how our minds work. We're so used to reading articles and immediately clicking away to a new thought that our brains re-wire themselves to more efficiently function in this manner. Thus, they become accustomed to skipping away from deep thought.

This KILLS creativity.

We have incredible new opportunities to be creative. It just requires intentional work on our part.

We need to take time for deep, slow thought
We need to control the distractions in our life
We need to be intentional about what is filling our minds

People Aren't Getting Dumber

2011-10-31T09:17:00.000-05:00

It seems like I frequently hear that people are getting dumber. I understand why. The number of people with shallow thought and dumb behavior is staggering.

I wonder if the issue is peoples intelligence dropping or

is their attention going too many directions?

I've heard people point out that John Calvin wrote Institutes when he was 26 years old and observe that 26 year olds aren't thinking and writing at that level any longer. That's entirely true. However, what else was he going to do with his time? Where else would his mental energy go?

Did he learn to drive a car?
Did he learn to operate a computer?
Did he have to deal with the IRS?
Did he have cable TV?
Did he have access to the internet?
Did he ever have to go to Walmart and sort through 50 options just to buy tissue paper?

People aren't getting dumber, people are more distracted. We all have to be generalists just to navigate our remarkably complex world. We're constantly bombarded by choices.

We have more options for entertainment than ever before, which distracts us from deep thought and productivity.
We have access to limitless information which forces us to sort through a far more complex world.
We have countless choices to make just to do simple things.

All of this comes at consequences. It's very difficult to excel at one thing when you have to be good at countless things just to navigate the world.

Dan Cathy & Seth Godin Discuss Writing and Leadership

2011-10-28T11:01:00.002-05:00

Saw this over at Big is the New Small

Seth Godin talks about the value of daily recording your thoughts and why people get writers block.

"Practical, Engaging, and Relevant?"

2011-10-28T09:48:00.000-05:00

I've been writing responses to a blog by Kevin DeYoung over the last week. Not as a rebuttal, but more simply using his words as a spring board for my thoughts.

"What do buzz words like practical, engaging, and relevant actually mean? Is not the gospel of Christ crucified supremely relevant all by itself? Or is “relevant” another way of saying “new” (which may or not be a step in the right direction)?"

- Kevin DeYoung http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2011/10/19/listening-to-and-questioning-the-seeker-church

If I were to give definitions to these terms, I would say...

PRACTICAL - Teaching which people can act on

In simple terms, practical teaching is teaching which the audience knows how to put into action. I don't think the preacher needs to change what they teach to make sure it's practical. The teacher needs to discover what the truth they are teaching has to do with how people are living.

The holiness of God changes on a practical level how I live.

The sovereignty of God changes how I live daily.

Practical teaching is teaching which takes theoretical ideas and explains how the affect every day life.

ENGAGING - Teaching which keeps the audiences attention

Since we're dealing with preaching, being engaging means you're keeping their attention. There are many ways to keep peoples attention. I would argue that if your communication isn't engaging the person receiving it, you aren't really communicating.

RELEVANT - Teaching which connects with the audience where they're at

Being relevant gets a bad reputation becomes some people have compromised content for the sake of being relevant. Instead of discovering how a truth is relevant, they look at the lives of the people and simply preach about what they're currently dealing with.

I would argue that all biblical truth is relevant (though not equally relevant) for life today. Part of the communicators job is the show the audience how the truth connects to their life.

Preachers don't create relevance, we reveal relevance.
People think doctrine is irrelevant because they've only seen it taught poorly or intellectually.

Power of Music

2011-10-27T05:53:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday I was at a church reunion dinner for the 25th anniversary of the church I grew up at. They gathered as many people as possible who attended the church in the early 90s (the church was 200 people in 1989 and probably 2000 or more by 2000).

For the event they even got the old band back together and sang a whole bunch of old songs. Around the middle of "Shine Jesus Shine" I realized I wasn't reading the words off the screen. I knew all the words to the song. I like most people haven't heard that song in 7 years. I'm pretty sure the last time I heard it was at a ground breaking service for my churches in building in 2004. I remember them playing it then because it struck me as an ancient song I hadn't heard in years back then...but I knew all the words.

Afterwards several other people told me they were surprised to realize they knew the words to ALL the songs.

Music really is a powerful tool which stirs ours emotions and engages our minds. I might not recall but a handful of sermons from the 90s but I remember dozens of songs.

The lyrics of our songs really are what people will remember from our ministries.

Quick Reads to Improve Communication

2011-10-26T10:25:00.002-05:00

Here are a couple of blogs I read today which I found simple yet helpful on communication and originality. Both have applications for preaching.

A Guaranteed Way to Improve All Communication by Ron Edmondson

Originality is Overrated by Steven Furtick

Move From Where They Are to Where They Should Be

2011-10-24T11:59:00.001-05:00

Last week I mentioned reading a blog by Kevin DeYoung, where he talked about what he's learned from the current generation of seeker churches and his criticisms. The article got me thinking about ministry a bit. In places I disagreed with him and other places I thought he had some great insights.

This comment on preaching/communication stuck out to me.

***DISCLAIMER - His blog was a book review of a book I haven't read. I'm evaluating the statement from the blog without knowing exactly what the book said. I'm writing not at all to criticize but only to use his thoughts as a spring board for my thoughts. ***

"We are told, instead, to communicate the Bible through the door of our listener’s interests–which can be a good strategy except for when the audience doesn’t have the right interests. Good preaching doesn’t just accept existing categories; it creates new ones." - Kevin DeYoung

If I'm understanding him correctly, he is saying that we can only communicate through people's interests if they have the correct interests. I think I would totally disagree with that idea. I don't think that using someones current interests as a starting point is the same thing as "accepting existing categories." Likewise there are ways to communicate through someones interests which is a critique of their current interests.

When I'm communicating a truth, I try to start where the people are at and move them to where they should be.

Why is it that every teenager girl has read the Twilight saga?
Why are grown men studying statistics about college boys wearing big pads tackling each other?
Why do underdog stories continue to stir the emotions of people?
Why do successful men with high paying jobs continue to make choices which compromise their families for the sake of their careers?

People have wrong interests because they're seeking satisfaction in their wrong places. Most of the most powerful sermons I've preached have involved getting people to examine why they are seeking satisfaction in all the wrong places, and then offering scriptures answers to the gap in their soul. No matter how perverse their interests, they are going to that place for a reason. Follow the path of that reason, and you'll discover something which has a biblical source.

When you approach truth this way you do three things:

1) Help people discover something about themselves

2) Help people to evaluate their motives and interests

3) Teach truth in a way which is intellectual and emotional

Everything We Do Teaches

2011-10-21T12:50:00.002-05:00

Everything we do teaches.

Our actions and words communicate what we value. The things we don't say or do communicates our priorities. For the people who we are leading/shepherding, our very lives provide a target for what their lives should look like.

With that in mind, are you a good target?

Do you do all the things you should be doing?
Do you use your words the way you should use your words?
Are you avoiding the things you should avoid?

If someone were to look at your life and attempt to discern your values from your actions, what would they say you value?

What does your life teach?

Other Blogs: Adventures in Mommydom

2011-10-21T05:41:00.000-05:00

My sister has a blog on life, kids, and home-schooling. She's actually been consistent for the last several years, and therefore, she has about 300 times as many followers as me. I make an appearance in a story or pictures about once per month.

Adventures in Mommydom

Visitors From Rome

2011-10-20T08:50:00.000-05:00

I'm by no means a history buff, but I am fascinated by certain aspects of history. In particular I'm always interested to learn how small mundane events in the past shaped the future. I love hearing the testimonies of famous theologians who's stories involve their parents coming to faith and living fairly unremarkable lives. The person who led them to faith most likely had no idea that their spiritual heritage changed millions of lives. Their small act of obedience was used in huge ways.

This leads me to a verse which I find absolutely fascinating.

Romans 2
¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome

I don't think I've heard anyone else emphasize this particular verse (maybe I have but I just don't recall). All it really does is list groups of people who appeared on the day of Pentecost.

What's fascinating to me is that most likely they were part of the group of people who were saved that day, and then after they returned to their home they started a church in Rome. Then 25 to 30 years later, their church received Paul's letter to the Romans. Within time the church most likely started by these visitors from Rome would become the center for Christianity, and shape Christianity for all history.

All of this assumes that the church in Rome was started by these visitors from Rome. The point remains even if they didn't start the church. What if it wasn't them, and we have absolutely no idea who started the church which shaped all of Christianity? Best case scenario all we know is that they were at Pentecost.

Why do I write about all of this?

Because their story is one of the most inspirational stories I have ever heard (or in this case not heard). Most of us aren't going to be the next Billy Graham. We're not going to lead churches with 10,000 people. We're not going to be on TV. We're not going to write a book. We're not going to be remembered throughout history.

However, our spiritual legacy will last for eternity. Our small acts of faithfulness (which will be forgotten in history) will be used to do immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine.

Somewhere Between Seeker 2.0 and Young & Reformed

2011-10-19T13:02:00.003-05:00

Following the theme of the video I posted earlier, I was reading a blog by Kevin DeYoung earlier today where he (a young and reformed pastor) evaluates a book from the more of the seeker 2.0 movement. It's an interesting read, and I'd encourage you to read it.

I continually seem to find myself stuck between the seeker 2.0 movement, and the young & reformed crowd.

I appreciate the creativity, concern for the lost, and the contextualization of the breed of seeker churches. I, however, really don't like the continued lack of emphasis on strong discipleship and virtually exclusive topical preaching. On the flip side, I greatly appreciate the teaching which is coming out of the young and reformed crowd.

I've started writing a few blogs surrounding some thoughts which came to me while reading Kevin's blog. Most of them seem to be trying to find a middle ground between the two camps. I should post those in the next few days or next week.

The Elephant Room: Furtick Vs. Chandler

2011-10-19T07:24:00.000-05:00

This clip is by no means fresh or new (particularly since I first saw it on some else's blog 6 months ago), but I loved the idea of the Elephant Room. If you didn't hear about the Elephant Room, it was a pastor "conference" where instead of having the speakers giving a lecture, two pastors/leaders were put against one another on a subject where they disagreed. The line up was very close to being tailored made for me.

As you will see in this clip, they put Steven Furtick and Matt Chandler against one another (which is like a dream match up for me). I appreciate the creativity, professionalism, and audacious faith of Furtick's church. On the flip side, I love Chandler for his clear, relevant, engaging, and expository teaching. I am to be a mix of the two.

So watching the two of them debate one another on their differences and faults is like a dream come true. Here's a clip. I think I bought the DVD set based off of the strength of this clip alone.

Give Away Responsibility

2011-10-18T08:30:00.000-05:00

I know this isn't a new concept. It's not even a lesson I've recently learned. However, it's a lesson I've only recently started to put into action.

Most leaders have a natural tendency to want to do everything so that they can control everything and make sure it is up to their standards (at least this is how I function). If you're in-charge of a smaller organization, there's probably a good chance that you probably can do a lot of responsibilities better than anyone else. In the short term, it may even be easier, but in the long run it's very bad for you and the organization.

Reasons to Give Away Responsibilities:

1) You can't do everything at the same time at the same skill level and with the same precision that a group of people can do that same set of taste (though you may be better at individual tasks)

2) You rob other people of an opportunity to serve and grow

3) When people serve they feel they have ownership of the organization

4) When people are given responsibility in the organization, they feel responsible for the success of the organization (obviously)

5) It provides an opportunity to train up the next generation of leaders

6) It provides an opportunity to spend time with your people

7) When you do everything, you steal time from your unique skill sets to give time to tasks which anyone can do. Only do what only you can do!

8) It enables you to do few things with excellence as opposed to many things adequately.

Am I the Only One...

2011-10-17T04:08:00.000-05:00

...who constantly plans far ahead but still doesn't finish until the last minute

By now I really feel like I do a good job of thinking well in advance and making places. Still, I constantly feel like I don't' finish anything until the very last minute. It doesn't matter how much time I have, I can't finish until very late in the game.

This applies to sermon preparation, event planning, event setup, weekly services, everything. I never feel like I'm done early.

Preaching Techniques - What's the Opposite?

2011-10-14T06:52:00.000-05:00

Often times when teaching/preaching I'll find myself getting stuck. I understand the text and ideas, but I'm not sure how to get a room full of 14-18 year olds to care about it. When that happens, I often ask myself, "What's the opposite?" If someone were to completely ignore this principle, what would it look like? How do we ignore this truth? What do we believe instead?

The opposite principle is simple, people don't connect with the truth because they believe something contrary or all they see around them is the opposite. Therefore, you start with this misunderstanding, demonstrate it's faults, and then reveal a better way to do things.

Some questions I ask:

What does culture believe about this subject?
What lie do we embrace instead of this truth?
How do we do the opposite of this passage?

Power of Words

2011-10-13T07:27:00.000-05:00

I'm constantly fascinated by the power of words. Simple sentences said to us can shape our entire view of ourselves for our entire lives. Words never said to us can shape who we are.

The strangest part is that the people who's words have hurt and shaped us probably have no idea what their words have done. The more painful idea is that I have no idea who my words have crushed.

There's the equally powerful idea that we don't know who our words have significantly encouraged.

I'm not naturally an encourager, so I often have to make deliberate effort to try and use my words to encourage. I know I want to be someone who draws out the potential in others and encourages them to be who they're called to be. That requires using words intentionally.

Proverbs 18:21
The tongue has the power of life and death,
and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Focused Thinking

2011-10-12T07:58:00.000-05:00

Of all the ways of thinking, focused thinking is one of the most difficult forms of thinking in modern times. Modern technology has made everyone a “master” of multi-tasking, but terrible at focusing.

Smart phones have made things exponentially worse. You have instant access to limitless information and relational connectivity in your pocket. And every time a new piece of information is available, a notification appears on your screen.

Over the last three years of being a pastor I think I’ve become increasingly worse at focused thinking. Naturally when you’re a pastor, you have to juggle many roles and responsibilities. I used to be able to just sit down and focus on one huge project and push through until it was done.

When I started at my church, the student ministry didn’t have a webpage. At the time I believed we NEEDED a webpage. So without really knowing HTML, I sat down and forced through until I had a webpage I liked. It had a decent look, full content, and it was live.

The idea of sitting and just forcing through until a project is finished seems like a foreign concept now. Everything needs a plan and scheduled time. I sit and expect emails, which I feel I have to respond to immediately.

ACTION STEPS:

· Close my email when I’m not checking it
Turn off the internet when working on a project which will take time
· Schedule blocks of time to focus on individual projects

How Successful People Think

2011-10-11T07:55:00.000-05:00

I’ve started reading “How Successful People Think” by John Maxwell. It’s one of those half sized books which you can easily read in a plane ride. So when I say I started it, I mean I’m half way through it.

In the book he lists 11 ways people think, and suggests that successful people learn to integrate all 11 ways of thinking.

I thought there would be great value in evaluating myself and which areas I’m weak or could easily make improvement.

11 Ways to Think:

1. Big Picture Thinking
2. Focused Thinking
3. Creative Thinking
4. Realistic Thinking
5. Strategic Thinking
6. Possibility Thinking
7. Reflective Thinking
8. Question Popular Thinking
9. Benefit from Shared Thinking
10. Practice Unselfish Thinking
11. Rely on Bottom-Line Thinking

Preaching: Clarity

2011-10-07T10:30:00.003-05:00

Clarity is all about bridging a gap!

Teaching is about bridging the gap between the audience's current understanding or knowledge of the subject matter, and the new ideas/applications you're presenting.

This gap exists in all teaching, but the gap is especially difficult in preaching.

The Bible has several unique difficulties:

Cultural - It was written 2,000 to 3,000 years ago in the Near Middle East.
Translation - It was written in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic.
Big Picture - Most people don't understand the larger story of scripture. Therefore, to some extent everything is understood outsider of the greater context
Preconceived Notions - Since Christianity is common in our culture, people hear a sermon with preconceived notions about the subject. They interpret and misinterpret what you say based on these notions.

The role of the preacher is to find a way to sort through all of these difficulties and bring clarity to the new content and ideas.

Listen to Others

One of the reasons I frequently listen to other preachers when developing a sermon is that I want to know how they articulate ideas. A well crafted phrases is not only memorable but gives new insight and clarity.

The danger of poor clarity is misunderstanding

When we do a poor job of being clear, people leave confused and with misunderstandings. Sometimes this is fairly harmless, but other times you can send people down the entirely wrong path theologically.

The Good News

While we need to strive for clarity, we're not all alone.

John 16

¹² “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. ¹³ But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. ¹⁴ He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. ¹⁵ All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

Preaching: Content

2011-10-05T06:54:00.006-05:00

One of the tricky parts about teaching the Bible or preaching is that to do it effectively you need to be able to CLEARLY communicate biblical CONTENT in a way that CONNECTS with the listener. There's sort of this unspoken assumption that, if you're a good Christian communicator, you're good at pulling truth from scripture, studying, and generating content. The reality is that they're two different skill sets.

Some people are great at exegesis (interpreting scripture by pulling meaning from the text), studying, reading, and putting concepts together. Other people aren't.

The problem is that preaching isn't preaching without biblical content.

Without Content Preaching Becomes...

Motivational Speaking
Stand Up Comedy
Moralistic Therapeutic Deism
Moralism (treating Bible stories like Aesop's Fables, with a moral to the story)
Heresy

It's not wrong to teach concepts besides scripture, but it's not preaching. Also, if you're an engaging and clear speaker, but lack Biblical content, people won't necessarily know what you're teaching isn't scripture. In children's ministries in particular, I've seen curriculum which completely misses the entire point of Bible teaching (teaching what passages were originally intended to say).

The C's of Preaching

2011-10-03T09:37:00.004-05:00

Every summer, I hire college students to be my interns, and I always make my male interns teach at least one time. Since they typically haven't taught before, I attempt to teach them how to teach. As part of that effort, I tried to come up with as simple of an understanding of the parts of preaching as I could.

I'm not typically into alliteration, but in this case, it seemed to work. This week, I'll be writing about each of these individually.

CONTENT

At the foundation of preaching/teaching is the content. This is raw biblical information, theories, principles, etc. This involves the preacher/teacher correctly understand and interpret scripture. Depending on the nature of the sermon, it may involve exegesis, studying theology, or correcting integrating various principles or doctrines.

The "content" is all about the teacher having something biblical which they correctly understand.

CLEAR

This point involves the teacher presenting biblical truths which make them clear for the intended audience. The entire purpose of teaching is to bridge the gap between where the listener currently is at, and where you want them to be.

Clarity is all about taking raw biblical data and presenting it in a way that the audience understand and apply it.

CONNECT

Connecting is all about the relationship between the teacher and listener. Is the audience paying attention to the communicator? Countless factors can interfere with connection between the teacher and the listener. Some of them involve the way the information is communicated. Some of it relates to the environment. Sometimes, it involves the listener not caring about the content.

If the lister isn't paying attention and connecting with the teacher, there's no point in communicating.

Pictures of My Sermon Prep Notes

2011-09-30T10:40:00.007-05:00

James McDonald recently made a blog post where he talked about his process for making preaching notes. He then showed a picture of his preaching notes. The picture picture looked like scribblings of one of my teenagers. I couldn't make a single thing out, but it works for him.

Yesterday, I wrote about my process for creating sermons. Here are pictures of my mechanical layout, lesson plan (as I call it), and post-it notes in my Bible.

The first picture is of my mechanical layout. You'll notice writing, arrows, and highlighting. You probably can't make anything out on the low quality image, but if you could (and if you listened to my sermon), you'd see the sermon follows the points on the mechanical layout pretty well.

Picture number two is of my lesson plan. Notice there is lots of white space, bullet points, and varied text sizes. This is to make sure I can read it if I don't have time to memorize my sermon.

Last picture is of what my Bible looks like on the average Sunday morning. My post it notes typically just contain one or two word statements. It's just intended to remind me of a point.

Preparing Sermons is Messy: My Process (Kind Of)

2011-09-29T09:38:00.004-05:00

I've asked other people how they prepare their messages, and they can almost never give a good answer. I've read famous pastors attempting to write about how they prepare messages, and they can barely articulate it.

Now that I've been preaching/teaching weekly for 3 years, I can say it's true.

Rarely do any two messages come together in the exact same process
No matter how much I prepare and work in advance, I'm always making last minute changes
I don't think I could walk you through the process I go through

...but I'll kind of try.

When I preach in big church, I'm typically assigned a passage or theme. For the ones where I'm assigned a theme, it's such a crazy and complex process, I don't think I could even remember how I do it. This is somewhat what I do when I preach in big church:

1) Read the passage in several translations & see what jumps out

2) Create a mechanical layout of the text in word

3) Handwrite ideas, connections, and observations on the mechanical layout

4) Put together a very rough outline

5) Around this time, I try to discover a major theme in the text which resonates with me (assuming it will then resonate with others) - that theme becomes the basis for what I select to emphasize & the flow of the sermon

6) At this point, I start to read all the commentaries and resource books I have available to me on the passage

7) Throughout this entire process, I have a file open which is creatively titled "Ideas," in which I write down all the ideas I have. These really are random files. I'll start writing wording down. I'll put full blog posts I've read. I'll list off sermons I've heard that touch on the passage or theme. I'll paste quotes from commentaries. I'll copy and past information from past sermons I've taught. Anything that might go in the sermon, or help me to come up with how to communicate goes in the file. These files are often 10 pages long or more.

8) Around this time, I'll search to see if any of the pastors I frequently listen to have taught on the passage. I'll see how they handled the passage, and how they communicated it clearly and creatively.

9) Finally, I start taking all of the pieces and forming my preaching document. My files are far more than an outline, but not really a word for word manuscript. The document is designed to be highly readable for me while I'm preaching. I use every trick I have to make everything stick out (size, boldness, indention, alignment, color, bullet points). I'm not very good at reading. So I have to use every trick I have to help me see where I'm at. This process also helps me to visualize my points and discover what is most important. This is important since I try to memorize my sermons. A 45 minute sermon is usually 8 to 10 pages in this format.

10) Once I've done all of this, I start going back through the document to find (1) unclear points, (2) overly dry sections, (3) rabbit trails, (4) extra information, (5) missing information, and (6) awkward flow. Then, I start moving things around, cutting, and adding stuff. This is the part where I can tweak for a LONG time.

11) The morning of the sermon, I do a full run through of the sermon to myself, taking notes on where things are unclear, slow, or awkward.

12) I make final tweaks

13) By this time, I'll have it pretty close to memorized. I put post-it notes in my Bible with the points I think I'll forget. This process normally takes me up until when the service starts.

Throughout the process, I think of the people who will be in the room who I know will need this message. I pray that God would open them up to His Word. Sometimes, I'll even go in the worship space and pray over the chairs; for the people who will sit in them.

Thinking of Returning to Blogging

2011-09-28T15:52:00.003-05:00

I haven't really done much blogging over the last year and half. This has been a mostly intentional.

I enjoy writing. I enjoy using writing as a method of processing life and ministry. Likewise, I think there's great benefit to thinking through ministry in a setting where there's no pressure.

However, I don't like the idea of using a blog to make myself or my ministry look better or more spiritual than it actually is. I also don't want to treat myself like an expert, when I am not. I'm still learning how to do ministry in my context. I really don't want to be better at writing about ministry than I am at doing ministry.

All that to say, I'm hoping to start blogging regularly again, and I'm not sure what that will look like. I think it would be fascinating for Sean 2011 to critique the writings of Sean 2008. Maybe critique isn't the right word, but it would be interesting to see how my perspective has changed over the last 3 years.

Review of Rob Bell's "Love Wins"

2011-03-09T10:19:00.004-06:00

...that is not written by me. An online buddy of mine on another blog (Blogging Theologically) got an advanced copy of Rob Bell's latest book.

If you haven't heard about "Love Wins," here is the trailer.

Obviously, from the trailer, it appears that Rob Bell is about endorse Christian universalism.

Well does he? Read by a review over at Blogging Theologically.

Books

2010-09-28T20:52:00.000-05:00

Books I Recommend

God has Planned Something Better for Us

2010-05-21T07:50:00.001-05:00

Hebrews 11 is often called, "The Hall of Fame of Faith." It lists person after person of great faith. It lists off most of the people we learned about in Sunday school, who we're taught to emulate.

I've lived most of my life longing to have as much faith as the people listed in this chapter. There's just one problem:

Hebrews 11

38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. 39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. 40 God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

God has planned something better for us. If we're merely aiming to be as good as the people in scripture, we're aiming too low. God has something better in mind.

We need to adjust our expectations not to match what we see around us, but to what God can do with us.

Perry Nobles Interview on Leadership

2010-05-08T07:34:00.001-05:00

Catalyst Voices - Perry Noble from Catalyst on Vimeo.

People Who Influence How I Do Ministry - Andy Stanley

2010-05-03T08:12:00.002-05:00

I love Andy Stanley's leadership podcast. I think Andy Stanley is an incredible communicator. He has an amazing ability to make everything he says seem obvious. I rarely hear him say something which sounds exceptionally deep. Instead, I usually leave thinking to myself, "Why didn't I think of that?" Some people might think that's a bad thing. It seems like a great thing to me.

I'm not a huge fan of his preaching (though it's all very engaging) because he leans further toward "felt needs" than I'm comfortable with (and he's too negative on verse by verse preaching). However, I could listen to his leadership talks over and over. I've literally listened to almost all of his leadership podcasts 3 or 4 times, and downloaded almost all of his talks from the Drive Conferences.

His leadership talks have helped me think through organizational leadership.

Andy Stanley Resources:

Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast

Northpoint Store

Practically Speaking - Seven 30 minute discussions about his seven practices of effective ministry.

Helpful Books:

Seven Practices of Effective Ministry

The Principle of the Path

The Next Generation Leader

Communicating for a Change

Andy Stanley - Elements from Catalyst on Vimeo.

Andy Stanley and Craig Groeschel on Momentum

2010-05-01T07:29:00.002-05:00

Catalyst One Day_Craig Groeschel on Momentum from Catalyst on Vimeo.

Catalyst One Day_Andy Stanley on Momentum from Catalyst on Vimeo.

Personality Test Week - DISC Test Results

2010-04-27T07:15:00.000-05:00

This is the first time I've taken a DISC test. Besides a few points the results were pretty accurate. One of the most interesting things to me is that the DISC test tells me I'm an extrovert, but the Myers Briggs tells me I'm strongly introverted.

Concluder

General Characteristics

· Natural leader and spokesperson
· High Ego Strength
· Influential and Motivating
· High Energy, Extroverted; Optimistic

Value To Team

· Bottom-line organizer
· High Energy; Spurs Activity
· Can Multi-task Easily
· Decisive and great in crisis

Possible Weaknesses

· May be overly aggressive
· Attitude that can be potentially argumentative
· Impatient with others
· Attempts too much at once

Motivated by

· Being able to direct and pioneer
· Power and authority to take risks and make decisions
· Freedom from routine and mundane tasks
· Changing environments in which to work

My Ideal Environment

· A competitive environment with rewards
· Non-routine, challenging tasks and activities
· Being able to delegate details to others
· Freedom from controls, supervision, and details
· Personal evaluation based on my results, not my methods

Remember, a Concluder may want:

· Authority, varied activities, prestige, freedom, assignments promoting growth, opportunity for advancement

Forceful and direct, Sean tends to be a strong individualist. He is forward-looking, progressive and competes to attain goals. Sean is curious and has a wide range of interests. He is logical, incisive and critical in his problem solving. Many times he will come up with the imaginative and unusual. Sean has good leadership abilities. He may appear to be cold or blunt because his task-orientation tends to overtake his people-orientation. Sean places high standards on himself and can appear to be critical when these standards are not met. Sean also places high standards on the people that surround him, and expects perfection. He seeks authority and challenging assignments.

Sean can have a very strong impact on people and can motivate others to achieve goals. Because of these characteristics, he needs to be sensitive to the people around him. His high-risk, adventurous spirit moves him through life at a fast pace while making things happen in the lives of the people around him! Others may see Sean as opinionated, and he will challenge others' opinions.

Sean tends to be short-tempered, especially when he feels someone is taking advantage of him. He thrives on activity and a consistently forward moving environment. Patience does not come easily to him. Sean may put himself in the position of being affected by other people's actions because he wants to be involved in everything going on around him. Sean may want to take charge of problems that are out of his area of responsibility and may be irritated when others do not share his sense of urgency. Sean is constantly thinking about what to move on to next that is new and exciting.

CREATING

You like to use your creativity to perfect basic concepts that other team members develop. You can oversee and help keep accountability in areas that others may compromise.

Personality Test Week - Myers-Briggs - INTJ/P

2010-04-26T07:58:00.004-05:00

I love detailed personality tests. I've been a fan of the Myers-Briggs ever since I first took it as an adult (I took it as a teen, but didn't understand myself enough to get good results).

For the past five or so years I've been a very consistent INT, but I've never consistently been a J or a P. It's always a very slight leaning towards one or the other.

INTJ
Have original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals. Quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. When committed, organize a job and carry it through. Skeptical and independent, have high standards of competence and performance – for themselves and others.

INTP
Seek to develop logical explanations for everything that interests them. Theoretical and abstract, interested more in ideas than in social interaction. Quiet, contained, flexible, and adaptable. Have unusual ability to focus in depth to solve problems in their area of interest. Skeptical, sometimes critical, always analytical.

Perry Nobles on Why We Don't Do What We're Called to Do

2010-04-24T07:17:00.001-05:00

Perry Noble // Catalyst West '09 from Catalyst on Vimeo.

Thoughts From My First Year as Pastor #3 - The Hardest Criticisms Come When Doing the Right Things

2010-04-20T10:59:00.003-05:00

The hardest criticisms I've taken ministry came at times when I was doing what I was supposed to do.

Some of the reasons for this are pretty obvious:

You expect criticism when you make a bad decision
You expect criticism when you do something wrong
You don't expect criticism when you're make wise decisions and following God's commands.

When I've made decisions which I knew were controversial and took criticism, it didn't feel good, but it didn't stick with me. However, unexpected criticism which came out of the blue has stuck with me far more.

Ministry is one place where you will be criticized heavily if you do all the right things.

These are my best guesses as to why:

When you're doing God's work, you'll face spiritual warfare
Hurt people hurt people, and you deal with lots of hurt people in ministry
1 Corinthians 1:18 - For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
2 Timothy 3:12 - In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,

Steven Furtick spoke on something similar to this at the Nine's online conference. He didn't address criticism so much as disappointment in spite of doing what you're called to do.

Thoughts From My First Year as Pastor #2 - Doing Ministry is Harder than Discussing Ministry

2010-04-14T07:40:00.000-05:00

Everyone thinks they have all the answers until they have to start making decisions.

It's easy to sit on the sidelines (or even be in the game), and criticize what others are doing. However, when you're the person making decisions which affect the lives others, it's hard. It's hard to make decisions where you're spending the hard earned money of others.

If I look back over what I've done over the last year and half, I've noticed I've started making much safer decisions. Perhaps some of it is maturity, but I fear some of it is that I've learned which decisions will get pushback. Therefore, I may be avoiding decisions which will get pushback.

I've sat on message boards criticizing other ministries. I've sat around late at night with friends criticizing the churches and ministries I've attended. Now that I'm the person making decisions that people sit around discussing, I think I'm far more humble when discussing other ministries.

If I'm experiencing this as a student ministry pastor at a fairly small church, I can only imagine what it's like being the lead pastor at a much larger church.

Thoughts From My First Year as Pastor #1 - Ministry isn't as Easy as I Thought

2010-04-13T07:34:00.002-05:00

A week or so ago I celebrated (well I didn't really do anything to celebrate it but you get the idea) my first year as a student ministry pastor. Without going too far into detail, it's been a year full of highs and lows. This year has had far more "church drama" than the previous 20 years. At the same time, it's been full of ministries highs and life change. It's demanded that I grow up very fast, and learn some hard lessons the hard way.

Lesson #1 - Ministry isn't as easy as I thought

Growth isn't as easy as I thought
Sustainable ministry isn't as easy as I thought
Discipleship isn't as easy as I thought
Dealing with criticism isn't as easy as I thought
Working with a budget isn't as easy as I thought
Sticking to a ministry plan isn't as easy as I thought
Consistently partnering with parents isn't as easy as I thought
Earning good credibility with parents and students isn't as easy as I thought
Teaching the same group of people for over a year isn't as easy as I thought
Taking time off isn't as easy as I thought
Structuring a ministry isn't as easy as I thought
Staffing a ministry isn't as easy as I thought
Doing what matters most isn't as easy as I thought
Sticking to your purpose isn't as easy as I thought
Sustaining momentum isn't as easy as I thought
Providing opportunities for people to serve isn't as easy as I thought
Getting students to serve isn't as easy as I thought
Keeping spiritually fresh while serving in ministry isn't as easy as I thought
Finding time to read isn't as easy as I thought
Doing ministry and keeping up a blog isn't as easy as I thought

Easter Thoughts

2010-04-07T08:45:00.000-05:00

Big Things:

6 people indicated they put their faith in Christ
Worship had the largest attendance of our churches history
No one showed up to heckle the pastor (more on this below)

Viral Website Spread In an Unexpected Way

For Easter Sunday we started a questions series. To help promote the series, we started a viral website where people could submit their questions. We hadn't received very many questions during the first two weeks the site was up (by that I mean we'd received 8).

Then I checked the website Saturday night and there were a bunch of new questions. So I copied the new questions into a word document, and it was 68 pages of questions. In total we'd received 591 questions (some of them multiple paragraphs) in the previous 2 days.

As it turns out, a local atheist found out about the website, and posted the link on an atheism website. So the questions we received were a mix of great, angry, and inflammatory questions. On the message board some people were talking about showing up Easter Sunday to heckle the pastor. I'm not sure if it would be awesome or awful if that happened.

I guess I should have known that a viral website could go in an unpredictable direction. That is definitely what it did.

Is God Giving Your Church Grace?

2010-03-24T13:37:00.000-05:00

We constantly hear about God's grace for sinners, but we don't hear about God pouring his grace onto churches.

2 Corinthians 8

1And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. 2Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. 3For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, 4they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints.

God poured his grace on their churches, and this caused them to be generous and and overflow with joy during a time of trials and poverty. His grace transformed the culture of an entire church.

How much time are we spending pleading with God to pour his grace on our churches?

Audacious Grace

2010-03-23T12:19:00.003-05:00

There are some passages of the Bible I don't understand why they're not preached or memorized or mentioned more often.

Case in point. I preached for the whole congregation (I do this roughly once every two months) this past Sunday on grace. You don't want to mess up a sermon on grace, so I did substantially more study/reading for this sermon than I do most. During my study one verse just absolutely jumped out at me.

2 Corinthians 9:8
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

As I read that verse I kept thinking to myself, "How did I miss that?" The Bible is packed full of dense verses, but I can't think of many verses packed with so much encouragement.

Just stop and think about this:

God is able to make ALL grace ABOUND to you

...in ALL THINGS
...at ALL TIMES
...having ALL that you NEED

YOU WILL ABOUND in EVERY good WORK

This verse is a game changer. It removes all excuses for living a mediocre, safe life. There's no excuse for anxiety or timidity. There's no reason to fall to addictions.

In every situation, in all things, at all times, we have ALL THE GRACE WE NEED for EVERY GOOD WORK.

Study Before Stealing

2010-03-12T11:35:00.000-06:00

I feel a bit embarrassed to write this post. It's a bit of a confession, and I feel like I'm stating obvious stuff which people have been stating for years.

Preaching is most powerful when you simply study and preach the text.

I've been preaching/teaching for about 6 years now. However, during the first five years the longest I preached week to week in a single location was 12 weeks. Since coming to my current church, I've had to preach every week for the last 75 weeks, and since I'm in charge of the middle and high school, I frequently have to prepare two messages. Of course, like every other pastor, I do far more than simply teach.

So like most others I've turned to aids to help:

Curriculum
Commentaries
Books
Other preachers

Of course, turning to these for help isn't a bad thing, but what I've found myself doing recently is turning to these resources before I turn to scripture.

This realization came to me today as I was preparing a message on a specific text. Before I did even some basic study techniques, I turned to a John Piper sermon text. I just barely skimmed the text when it occurred to me,

"Why am I turning to John Piper before the Bible when preparing to teach the Bible?"

When I went back and turned to the text, things started to come alive. An even more message than I was planning started to emerge simply by using what was in the text.

This confession is just as much for me as it is for anyone else.

Isaiah 55:11 (New International Version)

¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Pay Attention to Good Leadership

2010-03-10T12:12:00.001-06:00

If yesterday was about learning from bad leadership, today is all about learning from good leadership.

Hopefully you've had the pleasure of serving underneath a good leader. Normally they do things which just pop out as good practices. They do things which seem so obvious that you wonder why everyone doesn't do the same.

One of the first student pastors I served with was great about articulating the mission and strategy of the ministry. Everything was so well stated that everyone knew what they were supposed to be doing all of the time. Some of the volunteers in the ministry had 20 years of student ministry experience, but they viewed his ministry as the most organized ministry they'd ever served under.

Since I can recognize his actions as good leadership, it would be foolish for me to ignore what he did. If his actions helped a team of people to feel empowered and strive for a common goal, I need to learn from his success.

Who are the good leaders around you?

Who is the best boss you've ever had?

What can you learn from them?

Pay Attention to Bad Leadership

2010-03-09T10:12:00.000-06:00

It's been a busy season of ministry the past three months. I've been stretched in many ways, and I discovered many areas where I need to grow. I'm hoping to get back into the discipline of blogging this month.

We've almost all had at least one terrible boss; someone we had to follow, but we certainly didn't respect. You've probably also seen good leaders make some bad choices. We've all been in groups where people treated us like we were worthless, useless, and have nothing to add to the conversation.

If we've all experienced bad leadership, then we all have a list of things we should never do. If you've felt the pain and consequences of poor leadership and management, why would you want to inflict that pain on others?

The first time I was put into a leadership position (a management position at a Chik-Fil-A), I was instructed on how to perform the tasks I was assigned, but I was given no instruction on leading people. I wasn't trained on how to be successful at my position. It was extremely frustrating to be given so much responsibility, but not be told what to do with it. Because of that experience, I never want to be a leader who gives people responsibilities without helping them be successful at the same time.

Pay attention when you see bad leadership so you don't inflict that same leadership on others.

Big Change Requires Big Change

2010-01-04T14:08:00.002-06:00

As obvious as that sounds, the lazy side of each of us which wants instant gratification constantly tries to tell us otherwise.

Look at the promises in every weight loss ad.

8 minute abs
Perfect body in 6 weeks without pills, dieting, or extreme workouts
Wear these shoes and your legs will be "toned"
Take this pill and lose 30 pounds in a month

We all know that these promises are absurd, but people still buy these products every single day. I recently read that supplements are a $22 billion dollar industry. We love the idea of small change leading to big change, but it's simply not reality.

Where am I going with this?

We do the same thing thing with leadership. We want big positive changes for our organizations, but we're only willing to make small changes to what we're doing.

How many times has this happened...

I read a book or hearing a talk on leadership
I like the author/speakers ideas and want to implement them

Therefore,

I find the easiest applications they suggest
And pat myself on the back for what I'm already doing which line up with the author/speakers philosophy

Then I wonder why "applying" their principles hasn't made a significant difference. Small change only led to a small change.

I suspect I'm not alone in this. If you compare the number of books and conferences on church leadership to the number of dysfunctional, ineffective, and inward focused churches, it would seem many others are trying to get big change with a small change. Most people think they're the exception.

Big change requires big change.

Being in Leadership Changes Your Perspective

2009-12-09T12:30:00.002-06:00

I've only been a pastor for a little over six months, but I can already sense a large change in my perspective on the way I perceive other ministries.

To give you a little background, in my early to mid-20's I was one of those guys that spent hours on online message boards debating theology, ministry, and many other ivory tower issues. During that time I was slowly getting more and more plugged into my local church. Without hesitation I would argue that those years wrestling through those issues helped me to grow spiritually and prepared me for ministry. At the same time, I can only imagine how critical 22 year old me would be of my current ministry.

Looking back at 22 year old me, it was very strange to think of all the black and white convictions I had as an uneducated, low level volunteer who wasn't giving regularly, responsible for anything substantial, or attempting to understand why people did things different than my ideal Utopian church.

I think the key difference between 22 year old internet me and 28 year old pastor me is that: internet me looked at issues independent of one another and pastor me looks at issues in the context of the whole ministry.

When I was the internet guy, I had strong convictions about worship music (I still have strong convictions about worship music). I would argue with people about how man-centered so many songs were, and how we should never sing them ever again. I think some of those songs have made their way into rotation in my current student ministry. I'm sure some of that is due to my views softening a bit, but really, in and of myself, I wouldn't choose those songs.

What changed? In the past I evaluated worship music based off of the songs. My highest value was making sure the song met certain lyrical standards I had. Now when I look at our worship ministry, my primary concern is the people on stage and the people in the audience. Because of that I still value singing songs with more meaty content (because our songs teach), but I also value equipping and empowering the next generation of leaders. If I'm slowly allowing our student leaders to make decisions, sometimes they're going to make decisions I don't like.

Random Insights:

Being able to preach one good sermon in your life does not mean you can write and preach multiple good sermons each week
Planning out a preaching calendar is a different skill set than writing a sermon
I don't have nearly as much confidence in my "great" ideas when these ideas start touching actual lives. When my decisions affect lives, I start asking for some advice and turning to people.
Words hurt. The criticisms I wrote 5 years ago would hurt the people I was writing about. If I found someone writing similar criticisms about me, that would carry a HUGE emotional toll on me. That

I still have criticisms of other ministries, but I think I'm coming from a more understanding position.

Elevation Worship - Download Their Latest CD for Free Today

2009-12-08T11:47:00.002-06:00

The guys over at Elevation Worship are giving away their latest CD for free on their blog, but the offer is for today only.

http://elevation-worship.com/blog/?p=1112

They're also giving away a free Christmas EP.

http://elevation-worship.com/blog/?p=1066

When We Dont' Live Out His Mission, We Create Our Own

2009-12-06T12:31:00.002-06:00

One thing I'm becoming more and more convinced of is that people have a desire to be a part of something significant, and when they aren't apart of God's mission, they turn to ego and self-centered desires to be great.

The college student who spends day and night attempted to build up his World of Warcraft character or advance in Call of Duty IV is looking for significance. He's created his own mission.

What's the appeal of the Twilight novels? It's a fantasy world in which in a normal girl discovers that she's significant, unique, and special because the perfect guy (or vampire) for some reason chooses her...then a werewolf does too.

Mini-Man Made Missions

Making more money than your neighbor
World of Warcraft
GPA Wars
Football Fans (some teams have some of the largest cults in the world)
Theology Police / Heretic Hunters
Obsessing Over Politics
Womanizing
Obsessing Over Attendance
Obsessing Over Looks
Fighting to be Popular

Strange Inspiration

2009-12-05T14:41:00.002-06:00

I've been having a hard time developing my next preaching series (which starts tomorrow). I wanted a Jesus series with just a bit of Christmas. I've several pages of ideas, but nothing felt right. I did the rounds looking to see what others have done, but nothing hit me. I turned to theology books and skimmed my stack of books of Jesus, but nothing kept.

Then this morning I took a bath with a stack of books (which I'd already looked through), and suddenly the talks started to fall together. It was nearly immediate that verses started to pop into my head. The themes and illustrations just seemed to fall into place.

It's so strange the way you can struggle for weeks together a message, and then it just comes together in 15 minutes. This isn't the first time this has happened.

Seven Personality Traits of Effective Leaders...Why Aren't I Effective?

2009-12-03T12:33:00.003-06:00

This list comes from www.buildingchurchleaders.com

1) Loyal
2) Joyous and Fun
3) Hard Working
4) Self-Aware
5) Self-Starter / Take Initiative
6) Love People
7) Tenacious / Never Give Up

Their article defines these traits and tells you how to grow in this area.

In general, I think I possess most of these traits, but at the same time, I'm frequently an ineffective leader. I possess all of these traits sometimes, but I don't possess all of these traits all of the time and in all areas of life.

So if this list is accurate (it matches my experience but it's by no means infallible), then you can normally trace failures in leadership to some failure to live out one or more of these traits.

In that case, you can use this list as a test to see where you're failing as a leader in certain areas and determine how to improve.

How Can I Be More Effective as a Leader

1) Who am I not being loyal to? Who do I need to rebuild trust with?

2) Where am I grumbling and complaining? In what area has the joy disappeared?

3) In what areas am I not working hard? Where am I being lazy? Am I working hard at too many things therefore I'm not working hard at any one thing? What responsibilities do I need to give away?

4) What are my blind spots? Where am I not giving myself enough credit? Who can I talk to that will give me a good perspective of myself?

5) Where am I not taking initiative? Where am I waiting for others to act before I'm going to act?

6) Who do I need to learn to love? Who am I merely tolerating?

7) Where have I given up?

These tests really aren't limited to ministry or business. If you applied these questions to your family and home life it would radically revolutionize your family dynamics.

Avoiding Burnout: Part II

2009-11-30T12:01:00.000-06:00

06) Take Time Off

Taking a Sunday off can make a huge difference. I normally start worrying about an upcoming Sunday on Monday. It's a week long process of preparation.

This might just be me, but taking a week off normally removes two weeks of stress. I'm not stress the first week because I won't be taking the stage. Then I'm not worried the second week because I've had an additional week to prepare.

One of the main reasons you need to take time off is to avoid getting addicted to adrenaline. I read a blog post by a guy named Clayton King about the affects of preaching on pastors. In order to function under that much stress, their bodies start pumping out adrenaline and endorphins. If there's multiple services, they keep pumping for hours upon hours. Add onto that that many/most ministers down large amounts of coffee or energy drinks in the morning. The effects of massive amounts of hormones and stimulants don't go away when they step off the stage. It takes a day or two for all of it to clear out. When I read that blog post it was a breathe of fresh air to me. I finally knew why I was so jacked up Sunday nights and all day Monday.

Your body needs a break from that kind of mess.

07) Regularly Do Something Fun with the People in Your Ministry

In ministry you're usually on a time crunch. So when you show up to do ministry with your team you're consumed by work. There's no time to build relationships or enjoy each others company. If that's the case, you can find yourself surrounded by people you only know on a work level, and probably have had some conflict with.

Having fun will help you build relationships.

08) Drastically Change Things Up

Most people don't get excited about doing the same thing over and over and over again.

Repetition leads to boredom
Boredom kills motivation
Lack of motivation leads to burnout

Doing something new or different gives people something to get excited about and rally behind. I'd much rather work extra hard to do something new and exciting than to do less work that is more repetitious.

09) Get Lots of Sleep and Eat Properly

To put it simply, when you don't eat or sleep properly, it affects your mood and energy level. You can have great spiritual discipline, but if you have an unhealthy lifestyle you'll be a wreck for biological reasons.

10) Leave & Go Somewhere Healthy

I should put a disclaimer on this one. This is a drastic last step for if you're at a church which is extremely unhealthy.

I've heard horror stories of churches with insanely unrealistic expectations for a few people, and absolutely no expectations for anyone else. Those are toxic environments not only for the minister but for their family.

If the people you report to have unrealistic expectations and don't back you up, burnout is virtually inevitable. If you're at a church which will use you until you're dead, you should probably leave.

Matt Chandler Video Interview on "Christian Hollywood" and Burnout

2009-11-29T12:16:00.000-06:00

Matt Chandler interviewed by Dustin Neeley from http://cp4us.org/

Matt Chandler Video Interview on Planting, Preaching, and Leading

2009-11-28T12:09:00.000-06:00

Matt Chandler interviewed by Dustin Neeley from http://cp4us.org/

Avoiding Burnout: Part I

2009-11-27T11:58:00.001-06:00

Someone on a message board I post on asked about avoiding burnout. This was my response. Part II will be posted on Monday.

01) Remember the Mission

With the weekly grind of ministry it's easy to lose focus of the mission and to become inward focused. You start thinking about how much work you're doing and lose focus of the people you're trying to minister to.

You need to find new and fresh ways to constantly remind yourself of why you're doing what you're doing and who you're trying to reach.

It's easy to get burned out if your goal on Sundays becomes, "I'm going to do everything in my power to avoid any conflict or criticism." That's not motivating for anyone.

However, it's much easier to stay motivated and refreshed when your ministering to serve a great and merciful God and to help hurting and broken people in need of the Savior.

I try to remind myself of those two things everytime I take the stage.

02) Remember Past Encouragement & Changed Lives (Keep a Folder)

I have a folder where I try to put a copy of every encouraging letter I've received. Likewise, I try to keep track of the lives changed by my ministry.

When a dry spell hits and there isn't much encouragement and there's lots of criticism...I open up that folder.

Most ministries are more effective long term, but in the weekly grind we normally only see the short term. Remembering the past can help remind you of the big picture.

03) Remember We're All Sinners

When I start getting frustrated with the people around me, I have to remind myself that they're a sinner...and so am I. And their sinfulness is one of the reasons that we do what we do.

04) Remember God's Promises & Who You are in Christ

In the moment we can start to forget that it's not all about our abilities. Anytime I'm feeling overwhelmed, I turn back to certain passages which remind me that it's not about me, it's about Christ in me.

05) Spend Time With God (Only & with the Team)

This is an obvious one, but it's also easy to forget. It's easy to skip or skimp on because there isn't usually a one to one correlation between time with God and something getting done. Some people claim that when they spend time in the Word in the morning it drastically changes the mood and outcome of their day. I can't say that that is my experience. It's happened, but it's not a one to one correlation.

Therefore, when life gets busy, it's easy to skimp in this area.

This is extremely dangerous because you're doing something deeply spiritual without doing the work to be spiritually refreshed. That leads to ministering in the flesh which is a great way to jump on the fast track to burnout.

Quick Preaching Tips From Groeschel, Nobles, Stanley, and Driscoll

2009-11-26T12:13:00.001-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

Less is More by Craig Groeschel

"As communicators, we can become emotionally attached to information others simply don’t care about. Find those areas and cut them."

How to Prepare a Message by Perry Nobles

"One of the greatest problems I believe the church has is that we are answering the questions that no one is asking."
"The best thing we can do as a communicator is communicate what God is setting our hearts on fire with because then we don’t have to produce the passion– God produces the passion inside of us."

Questions to Ask by Andy Stanley

What do I want them to know?
Why do I want them to know it?
What do I want them to do?
Why do I want them to do it?

Reflections on Preaching by Mark Driscoll

"I will simply say to all the young preachers that preaching is like driving a clutch; it takes a long time to do well if you live through the practice...The difficulty of coming up with fresh insights combined with the difficulty of finding my own voice and speaking with clarity, candor, and confidence, not to mention some comedy, took hundreds of sermons to even begin to overcome regularly.
"Too often the principles of Scripture are preached when the images and word pictures are far more impacting and memorable... I find that sermons are memorable if the images in the Scriptures can be drilled into the imaginations of people."

Questions to Ask by Mark Driscoll

What does Scripture say?
What does Scripture mean?
Why do we resist this truth?
Why does this matter?
How is Jesus the hero?

Good Idea/Bad Idea - Invite All Your Friends

2009-11-25T17:04:00.000-06:00

I'm figuring out that some of my best ideas have had some of the most unexpected bad consequences. Here's another one I've learned.

Good Idea: Invite All Your Friends

Gives students ownership
Gives students a mission
Provides a way for students to spread the gospel
Provides an immediate relational connection for visitors
Grows your ministry

One of the best ways to grow a ministry is to get your people excited about what is going. It gives them an easy way to invite their friends to join the community of believers.

Bad Idea: Invite All Your Friends

Students getting excited and inviting their friends is a good thing, but what happens when they invite all of their friends before the ministry is ready to handle a huge influx of visitors? What happens if they do invite all their friends?

More people can show up than you can connect
You can run out of chairs and room space
What is a good program for one size is a very bad if too many people show up
Lack of volunteers
If the quality doesn't increase then visitors have a bad first impression

Our church is in a small suburb of Austin, Tx where there is literally nothing to do once football season ends. Therefore, over the summer our ministry grew extremely rapidly simply because we were doing something interesting. Students got excited about something new and different, and therefore, they invited their friends.

We had one week were we nearly doubled in size. That would have been good except for the fact that the quality didn't increase...it drastically decreased. We were completely unprepared. We didn't have a plan to connect the visitors. Many of them had a bad first impression due to our sloppiness. It was bad.

It was great that everyone invited their friends. The problem was that we weren't prepared for that surge of attendance.

Good Idea/Bad Idea - Build the Ministry Based On Your Stengths

2009-11-24T16:13:00.002-06:00

I've recently started to realize that some of my best ideas are also some of my worst ideas. They start as good ideas, but they end up as bad ideas.

Good Idea: Build Your Ministry Around Your Strengths

One of the easiest ways to quickly improve your ministry is to base it around your strengths. As the leader you're going to be the top worker. Therefore, it makes sense that the ministry is tailored around what you can do well.

Benefits:

Higher quality
Takes less time and energy
Easier to get passionate about
You can train others

It simply makes sense to do what you're good at...or in other words, "work what you got."

Bad Idea: Build Your Ministry Around Your Strengths

If the goal of your ministry is to create an unsustainable, cult of personality where you're doing all the work, this is a really good idea. But most ministries don't have that goal.

Problems:

It assumes you're doing all the work...and then forces you to do all the work
It creates a scenario where it's difficult to hand off work because you're probably better at doing the work than the person you're handing it off to
You're the expert on everything, so you have to train everyone...which makes you more likely to not pass it off
You become the bottle neck for the ministry
You worry about details you should hand off to a volunteer

I'm very much writing this blog based off of experience. I built my high school ministry around several strengths of mine, and we experienced quick success because of it. It was easy to over-work myself when the ministry was still new and a novelty. But that level of excitement isn't sustainable or healthy.

For that matter, I don't want a ministry which is all about my doing all the work. I want a ministry which empowers and equips people to use natural and spiritual gifts and to be who God wants them to be.

I haven't decided whether this idea is more good or bad.

Abandoned Vision - Building on Past Vision

2009-11-23T12:38:00.002-06:00

When speaking on vision Andy Stanley has repeatedly asked this question,

What problem does your vision solve?

If your vision solves a question no one is asking, you're going to become out-dated and irrelevant quickly. I frequently see chuches advertising themselves with statements like, "You can wear blue jeans" or "Come check out our rock'n band." The problem with those ads is that they're answering questions that fewer and fewer people are asking. Back in the 70's and 80's when the American church was trying to figure out what to do with rock music, those would have been good ads. However, today churches which let you wear jeans and have a band are a dime a dozen these days.

The underlying vision of these churches isn't bad (they want to reach non-traditional people with the gospel), but in these ads they're communicating this message by answering a question that few are asking. It's solving a problem which we already have a solution and everyone knows we have a solution. No one is sitting around asking, "When will a church appear which has a rock band and lets me wear jeans? When a church like that appears, I'm going back!"

So, how do you build on the past...keep asking the question, "What problem does our vision/mission/organization solve?"

If the problem you're solving has ceased to exist, it's time for the mission to end.

If the problem still exists, then the question becomes, "In our current context, what is the best way to solve the problem we exist to solve?"

In the church that means we keep asking, "What specific obstacles are keeping people from the gospel today?"

The book unChristian lays some of those out for us. According to their research, the unchurched view us as...

* antihomosexual
* judgmental
* hypocritical
* old-fashioned
* too political
* out of touch with reality
* insensitive to others
* boring

Those are some broad ways in which we're perceived poorly. What are the specifics of your environment?

We know what the obstacles to the gospel are. We know what we need to do. What we need are nww and innovative solutions to problems of our contenporary culture.

Questions I'm Asking Myself These Days?

2009-11-19T11:09:00.000-06:00

Where do I want my ministry to be when I'm 30...40...50...60?

I heard an interview with Rick Warren on the Catalyst podcast this past week. I don't even recall what he said, but it caused me to realize that I've got all sorts of ideas for where I want to be professionally. But I haven't spent much time thinking about what I want God to do in the people I'm ministering to.

It's causing me to think a lot.

"What would you be willing to attempt for God if you knew you could not fail?" - Perry Nobles

I'm currently in the process of writing my ministry plans for next year. So my mind is in brain storm mode. This question from Perry Nobles really got me thinking about the things I'm scared to attempt.

Really, if I'm moving in a God-ward direction, then God has my back.

What can I contribute to the Kingdom as a whole? - Craig Groeschel

I probably should adjust this question to read more like this...

"What can I contribute to the Kingdom as a whole...which doesn't make me look awesome?"

I'm great at finding ways to manipulate the godly things I do into thinly veiled vanity projects. The tricky part about contributing to the whole kingdom is that then the whole kingdom can look at me and make much of me. My ego likes that idea, but the Holy Spirit in me is telling me to fight that.

So how can I make significant contributions to the Kingdom in ways which bring no praise to me?

Who is no one reaching in my city? What would it take to reach them?

I'm frequently confronted with the thought that there are unreached people at the Taco Bell I eat at multiple times each week. The city I work in only has one high school, and it only has 900 students. I could literally print off a list of their names and go down the list asking, "What would it take to reach (fill in the blank)?"

I currently have 40-65 students showing up to my weekly worship gathering. If I partner with the Baptist church down the road our joint group would be around 100 students. That's over 10% of the people at the high school. If they were living on a mission reaching the high school would be entirely tangible.

Scoring Your Sermon: Music & Sermon Prep

2009-11-16T13:21:00.003-06:00

Recently I've been experimenting with listening to different kinds of music while preparing my sermons.

I try to have strong emotional themes in my sermons which resonate with the experiences of the people listening. But too often sermon prep time involves me sitting in an office with a big stack of books...not exactly an emotional setting. Therefore, I started trying to imagine what would it look like to score my sermon. I ask myself, "What music matches the emotional tone I'm going for with the sermon?"

My latest series is called Healer. It's filled with themes of redemption and life change. Each week ends with someone's testimony being shared. Thus I've been listening to a lot of epic music which builds tension and releases.

My recent playlists include lots of:

This Will Destroy You
Explosions in the Sky
John Williams music

Over the summer I did a worship series, so naturally I had lots of worship music in my playlist.

Paul's Vision: Building a New Foundation

2009-11-10T10:05:00.002-06:00

I ended my last blog with...What if we spent all of that energy building on the past rather than reacting to it.

Today, I'm going to go switch personalities and argue the opposite. And like before, this is really me processing ideas in written form.

While abandoning vision prematurely can be bad, consider Paul's statements about his own personal calling.

Romans 15

20 It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation. 21 Rather, as it is written: "Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand."

Paul's personal ambition was to preach to the unknown and not build on the foundation of the past. But what were the conditions under which he said this?

1) He's preaching where the gospel is not known. So there was no foundation to build on.

2) He's leaving elder's to build on the foundation he lays

3) He's writing letters to the churches and make frequent returns to check on their progress

So what does it look like for us today?

1) We start from a new foundation when reaching out to a new audience (contextualize)

2) We must establish biblical leadership and build up new leaders

3) We need accountability and encouragement

Unfinished Vision

2009-11-06T11:02:00.003-06:00

I've had this thought in my head for awhile...

What if the reason the church isn't making a substantial impact in our culture is that every generation abandons the vision and mission of the previous generation in favor of a new vision.

Certainly we need to re-evaluate, re-phrase, and re-strategize as time passes and culture changes, but that's different from abandoning a vision. I wonder if perhaps we're not re-evaluating enough.

It seems like this is a pattern (of course, I'm only 27 and I'm not old enough to have seen one of these cycles in real life...take it with a grain of salt):

Young, energized, entrepreneurial leader is unsatisfied with the status quo
Therefore, he casts new vision for what church can be and plants a new kind of church
Young leader is wildly successful in his 30's through 40's
After 20 years the benefits and consequences of this new model start to become obvious.
A new young, energized, entrepreneurial leader is unsatisfied with the status quo...

What if instead of starting a new mission, vision, strategy, etc. each generation, what if we fine reformed and tweaked the ideas of the past.

Here's a gross generalization (I'm about to pretend I'm speaking about other people but I'm really writing about myself and I give myself a nice title)

Young, visionary leaders tend to be...

1) Creative
2) Energized
3) Highly motivated
4) Frustrated with the status quo
5) Critical of the past
6) They think they've got solutions to the previous generations problems
7) Looking to make their unique mark on the world

What if we spent all of that energy building on the past rather than reacting to it

New Teaching Strategy - Forming a Grid for What to Teach

2009-11-05T14:56:00.006-06:00

I'm in the process of revamping my ministry. We have some solid programs going and the preaching is good at our worship gatherings. Our music ministry is doing well. We've even experienced significant growth and have gained a reputation in the community very quickly.

What we don't have is strategy, direction, and vision.

I have ideas in my head for where we're going. Things aren't random. However, any strategies I have are stored in my head where no one else has access to them. So this last week has been a long process of attempting to articulate and form these ideas in concise, accurate, memorable, and transferable forms.

The part where I'm getting stuck is attempting to define what I want our students to look like when they graduate. Probably the most popular model over the last 8 years has been Andy Stanley's "Seven Checkpoints." It's very nicely packaged. It probably contains everything I want it to contain, but I I've never really liked it. A couple of the checkpoints are too broad so they turn into catch all drawers, and a couple are too specific so they feel less important or like they should be a sub-category of another checkpoint. I'm also not a fan of using a checklist as the running illustration for your teaching strategy...too many negative connotations.

I'm trying to imagine what would a strategy look like which was based off the idea of calling out a students potential as a uniquely created in the image of God who has been bought with the ultimate price and empowered and sealed with the Holy Spirit. What should that person look like when they graduate high school? What higher state are we calling our students to strive for?

Here are the questions I keep asking myself:

What are the most important ideas students needs to know?
What do students need to be doing?
What relationships do students need to have?
What do I NOT want my students to look like?
When am I most proud of my students?
What ideas do I return to and teach the most?
What do pastors who are older and wiser than me view as most important?
What did I fail to learn as a teenager?
What truths, disciplines, relationships, or activities have most positively (or negatively) altered my spiritual walk?

The other issue I'm struggling with is how to communicate this grid so these ideas stick. Here are some principles and ideas I'm wrestling with as a I formulate my ideas.

Is it too complicated?
Is it simplified to the point of distortion?
Is it memorable?
Is it transferable?
What is missing?
What can be left out?
Are there too many points?
Is the grid itself intriguing and inspiring (a checklist is not)?

Whenever I figure out my grid, I'm sure I'll post it here.

Deistic Church Growth

2009-11-04T10:08:00.002-06:00

Pastors (and by pastors I'm speaking of myself) have a weird obsession with what other PEOPLE did to grow their church.

We have a disconnect between our theology (trusting in God to grow our ministries) and practices (turning to books, blogs, and conferences to grow our ministries). Just think about the questions we ask when a ministry experiences rapid growth:

"What's your secret?"
"What are you doing to grow your church?"
"What do you suggest doing?"
"What advise would you give on how to grow a church?"

The underlying assumption is pretty obvious, we assume that the growth happened because of something they did. We assume there is some natural and reproducible explanation for their success. That leads to a scary place where we believe in God, but we don't believe He's involved with His Bride. I'm slightly terrified of the idea that we can sit down and give a natural non-miraculous explanation for everything going on in the church in United States.

If we really believe there is a God who is actively involved in this world who empowers His people with His Holy Spirit and has sent them on a mission to make disciples, why do we spend so much time trying to figure out what other men are doing?

We have far too much faith in ourselves and far too little faith in God.

Vision Requires Intentionality

2009-11-03T17:00:00.002-06:00

I've been at my current church for over a year, but I'm just now starting to work on defining the mission, vision, systems, structures, and roles for our ministry. My first six months I was only an intern and my second six months the church was in crisis mode. I've been so busy doing church that I haven't stopped to think about this stuff (which is slightly ironic because I write this leadership blog and read primarily leadership books, and would anyone that these are the basics of a good organization). When it came to do some leadership training a week or so ago I realized that I haven't articulated any of these basic ideas which are in my head.

One of my first ministry mentors was gifted in this area. Everything's purpose was clearly defined. Since I really appreciated and valued that, I assumed I was doing it too (which is a really bizarre thing to assume since it was about me).

It's starting to hit me...vision requires intentionality

It's far easier to...

...do business as usual
...focus on weekly tasks
...bogged down in details
...keep a system with no direction or accountability...

...than it is carve out time in your schedule to develop a vision, cast the vision, and apply that vision to every single ministry, program, responsibility, and volunteer in your organization.

Well, it's easier in the short run. In the long wrong it leads to more work, discouragement, confusion, volunteer problems, and lack of results.

Vision requires intentionality, but the payoff is efficiency, momentum, inspiration, etc.

Questions Every Pastor Needs to Consider: A Quick Look at Haggai

2009-10-31T10:48:00.000-05:00

A couple days ago a fellow pastor and friend wrote a series of questions he came up with after reading Haggai. Almost all of his questions hit close to home.

Ramblings From Shock: A Quick Look at Haggai

These ones hit me the most:

Is my productivity level not matching up with the work I am putting in because God is disciplining me as a result of prioritizing building my kingdom over God’s?
Have I put my comfort, pleasure, status, etc. as a higher priority than God and His agenda?
Do I believe that God is with me because of His faithfulness despite my unfaithfulness?
How is the gospel shaping me and being the source of restoration in all of these challenges?

Online Conference

2009-10-29T12:29:00.003-05:00

I don't want to repeat what's been said many times before, but the internet has changed everything.

One interesting new phenomena is experiences conferences quasi-live via twitter.

I read a blog a couple days ago by Will Mancini titled
Why You Should Attend Conferences Using Twitter. He suggests that following a conference via Twitter is a more desirable experience than simply watching a conference DVD even though there's less content. Having followed a couple of conferences on Twitter, I know what he means.

I found the article while reading Tweets from Elevation Church's Impart Conference a couple of days ago. Even though I'm 1,400 miles away from the conference, I felt connected to it via twitter. I didn't choose to interact with any of the Tweets, but simply reading their Tweets enables you to share the emotions of the person in the audience. With a DVD you get the content without the energy or community.

Dysfunctional Pastors By Craig Groeschel

2009-10-24T12:52:00.000-05:00

Here's fives types of dysfunctional pastors by Craig Groeschel. It's a bit sad reading his points, I'm kind of all of these.

Insecure Pastors

We might not believe we are a good teacher, leader, or “people person.”
If our ministry isn’t growing like someone else’s we might wonder what is wrong with us.

Angry Pastors

Hesitant Pastors

"The unwillingness to make the hard decisions."
"Second guessing the decisions you do make."
"Avoiding change"

Prideful Pastors

Spiritual - "My theology is better than yours"
Performance - "My ministry is better than yours"
Self Sufficient - " I can handle it"

Defensive Pastors

Trying to justify your leadership publicly.
Criticizing anyone who does ministry differently.
Writing defensively on your blog.
Thinking people are out to “get you” when most aren’t.

The Chemistry Inside of a Pastor's Body by Clayton King

2009-10-18T14:11:00.000-05:00

This past week Clayton King wrote an amazing blog about the bodies chemical response to stress, and the consequences of all these chemicals being released so frequently.

Read it HERE

Highlights:

The body becomes addicted to "endorphins and adrenaline" over time. Your body craves them once it has become accustomed to having them. Pastors require more of them because we live in situations constantly that no one else can experience that require adrenaline;...We don’t even know it, but our adrenaline levels are through the roof most of the time. When they do come down, we feel depressed and discouraged and we need more. Some guys just preach again, others run or work out, and a few do crazy things to get it, like have affairs, embezzle money, or look at porn.

Adrenaline (and endorphins) can poison the body. Like any good thing, too much is a bad thing. These chemicals linger in the body long after secreted and have to be processed and metabolized, leaving residual effects. Some guys don’t process them well or at all. Adrenaline becomes toxic when we don’t give the body proper time to metabolize the chemicals after they are released; i.e. we don’t rest after a big day and get right back to the work that creates more adrenaline while the body is still trying to clean out and process what’s still in it.

16 Signs that a Leader Has Lost His Mind By Perry Nobles

2009-10-17T16:35:00.000-05:00

I probably would have called it, "16 Signs that a Leader is Being an Idiot," but Perry's title works too.

Read here.

How Perry Nobles Prepares Message

2009-10-16T08:08:00.000-05:00

Last week Perry Nobles wrote a series of blogs summarizing his seven steps of sermon preparation. Of course, no one's sermon preparation is actually that refined and streamlined into 7 steps. But it's a good reminder of what needs to be done with each sermon.

Summary:

1) Get a word from the Word

2) Listen to other communicators

3) Find your best time and place to prepare

4) Organize a creative process

Content
Creativity

5) Work ahead...get 2 or 3 weeks ahead on your sermon preparation

6) Pay attention to culture

7) Inward promotion works best

Read It:

Preaching: Outline "The Journey"

2009-10-14T14:08:00.001-05:00

With the journey you need to make sure that your audience is going along with you. Therefore, all along the way you have to point to how your audience is like the person in the story.

During the introduction the audience should feel a connection to the main character.
During the body they should feel like you're giving them the answer to their problem
During the conclusion they should feel inspired by the character's transformation

To take them on a successful journey, you need to ask a couple of questions:

Where are they now?
Where do you want them to be?
How do they get there?
What obstacles will they face along the way?

A basic sermon outline stripped to it's bones would look like this.

Introduction:

Introduce a person who is dealing with a sin, not obedient to God, or not living out their potential

Body:

Study the appropriate scriptures which if the scripture was applied the persons life would be obtain it's potential
Reveal how that person applied the truth

Conclusion:

Reveal the outcome of the person applying the truth
Inspire the audience by casting a vision for what could happen in their lives if they applied the truth

Of course, with this format, you don't want it to feel like a formula or a template. You want it to feel like a journey.

Preaching: Take Them on "The Journey"

2009-10-13T13:41:00.001-05:00

I'm speaking at a retreat this weekend. That's had me thinking about what do I do when I want to write a special occasion sermon. I put hours upon hours into all of my sermons. I think about them weeks/months in advance. I never wing it. But what are the added elements I add to the mix when a special sermon arrives.

One of the techniques I've used in many of my strongest sermon is "The Journey." The journey is exactly what it sounds like. You take your audience on an emotional journey through someone's life. I'll find a powerful story from scripture, my life, or that I've heard, and I'll spread it across the entire sermon.

I'll normally look at the entire sermon in light of Freytag's analysis of the dramatic structure(I had to look that up on Wikipedia). The entire sermon is your truth applied. The introduction/exposition shows where the person is at and what they're missing. The rising actions are the obstacles which stop us from applying the truth. The climax is when the truth is applied. And the denouement is what happens when the truth is applied.

The idea is to engage and inspire the congregation not by propositions and mere intellectual facts, but by showing them what the scriptures look like lived out. It brings the passage to life by saturating it in real-life stories. In Bible college they referred to these types of stories as "truth applied."

Normally, when I make an intentional effort to treat a sermon as a journey, I'll also map out the emotional journey I want the audience to take. I'll work the illustrations so that the sermon is filled with emotional twists and turns with transitions between them all.

Suggestions:

When preaching a passage: Ask yourself, "What story from my life, from scripture, or that I've heard demonstrates this passage applied or lived out?"
How does this story need to be told to have the greatest emotional impact?

New Ed Stetzer Research on Pastors

2009-10-12T07:54:00.001-05:00

Ed Stetzer just released some new findings on pastors which are actually optimistic. I've read some George Barna statistics which made me think I need to start taking depressants and listening to The Cure in the dark to obtain the same emotional state as the majority of pastors.

Instead of painting pastors as drained out, over-worked, depressed, hypocrites; the study shows them as men who feel they're fulfilling God's calling for their lives.

Summary of Points:

Pastors still believe in their church
Pastors are developing in developing leaders, but the church may not be doing a good job of this
Pastors feel they're fulfilling their calling
Pastors and churches are changing

Read it Here

Seven Ways to Catch Your Breathe by Perry Nobles

2009-10-11T14:21:00.000-05:00

Read it here: Seven Ways to Catch Your Breathe

Here are his seven. He elaborates on each.

#1 – You’ve GOT To Rest…and Make No Apologies For Doing So!

#2 – Find A Hobby!

#3 – Get A Journal!

#4 – Have A Date Night With Your Spouse WITHOUT The Telephone!

#5 – Take A Season Of Rest Every Year.

#6 – Focus on God’s Sovereingty And Not Your Ability.

#7 – Have Someone You Can Spill Your Guts Out To…Other Than Your Spouse!

How to Connect People?

2009-10-10T13:40:00.001-05:00

Sorry I haven't updated much this week. I've been home sick. This next week isn't looking much better. I'm speaking at a retreat next weekend.

Sometimes you read a good article, and put it down thinking, "That was good." Other times you read an article and think, "Wow, that answers all of my questions."

The crew at access.elevationchurch.org mostly write articles which fall into the latter category. They've written a good amount on assimilation. Here are three articles which answered my questions and were very helpful for improving our systems.

Part 1 - Hand to Hand Assimilation

Part 2 - Keeping Up With Growth

Part 3 - Assimilation Systems to Get us to 2,000 and Beyond

Leadership is Lonely by Mark Driscoll

2009-10-04T11:19:00.000-05:00

Mark Driscoll recently wrote on how leadership is lonely. I can't say I relate to everything he says, but perhaps that's merely a sign of what's to come.

Leadership is Lonely

People Pleasing Pastors By Craig Groeschel

2009-10-03T07:03:00.000-05:00

A couple of years ago Craig Groeschel ran a series on people pleasing pastors. It's a good read.

I'm Addicted: People Pleasing

The Pastor's People Pleasing Traps

Who's First? - People or God

The People Pleasing Pastor

Characteristics of People Pleasing Pastor

Today Was a Good Day! I Needed Today!

2009-10-03T00:09:00.005-05:00

Today was remarkably refreshing and much needed day. And the strange part is that I didn't wake up this morning expecting today to be a good day. In general it was a pretty casual, stress free day. So I didn't even notice it was a good day until about 10 minutes ago.

As of recently I've been feeling the drain of ministry and life. The last six months have been a roller coaster ride of highs and lows of so many different kinds. And the pace of life and ministry hasn't let up at all since I became a pastor last March. Just a few days ago I was commenting to my accountability partner that I feel like I'm running more and more on empty.

Then somewhat out of the blue today appeared. I guess I should have known it was going to be a good day, but it turned out better than expected.

Rather than go into too much detail, I thought I'd just list some reasons why today was a good day.

I attended the Spur Leadership Conference - It didn't really teach me too many completely new ideas so much as remind me of all the things I've been forgetting recently.
I purchased my ticket for Spur Leadership Conference 2010 at 50% off
Heard Steven Furtick preach live and left inspired to awaken the potential in those around me.
Despite a bad case of introversion, I spoke with a couple of people at Spur Leadership.
Kem Meyer (one of the speakers at the conference) took a picture of my right shoulder and posted it on Twitter...well she was taking a picture of General Tommy Franks and my shoulder appears in the corner. I have an immature giddiness for that kind of thing.
I attended a Song of Solomon Conference w/Mark Driscoll
I got some unexpected encouragement
Through a round about way, I discovered that there are people out there, whom I respect and admire, that actually read this blog
I got to hang out with a fun married couple...and get hyper and weird after the conference ended. I don't think I've had that much fun doing nothing in a long time
I got to hang out with a friend who was in town for the Song of Solomon conference
I got to shake Mark Driscoll's hand and have a brief and meaningless conversation. It was very surreal. I've spent so much time watching his sermons...for the first time when I was talking to the screen the screen talked back...and the screen to choose to talk back at the moment where I was tired, hyper, goofy, and juiced up on a MONSTER!

Spur Leadership Conference Notes: Day 2

2009-10-02T13:56:00.002-05:00

I'm not going to lie. I went to the Spur Leadership Conference for three reasons

1) It was in Austin

2) It was a leadership conference for $99

3) Steven Furtick

Elevation Church and Steven Furtick are probably have the largest influence on how I run my high school ministry theexchangehutto.com. That's partially because they're style of ministry resonates with me, and partially because they're my good luck charm (wait...can pastors say things like that?) I visited Elevation Church back in May, and I decided to implement a few of their ideas with my high school group...our group LITERALLY doubled in size the following week. Less than a month later we doubled in size a second time. And we've maintained those numbers for the last 3 months.

It's impossible to pinpoint the exact cause of our sudden success, but it did come immediately after visiting his church. So I feel their ministry has a been an incredible blessing to our ministry and they'll probably never know it. Anyway....

Session VII - Steven Furtick - Pastor of Elevation Church

Furtick's Blog

The Story of Elevation Church

Proverbs 29:18 Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law.

“I’m scared of the thought that my life might pass me by without God doing something great with my life.” - From "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire" by Jim Cymbala

Random Thoughts:

Speak to peoples potential rather than what you don't want them to be
Embrace an audacious vision for my life and call it out of the people around me
You never know when you're going to say a sentence which will ignite the potential within someone
If no one has laughed at your vision lately it's not a vision it's a daydream
The difference between a vision and a daydream is the audacity to act

Session VIII - Les Csorba - Former Special Assistant to the President of the US

1) Turn Your Leadership Upside Down - Servant Leadership

A leaders obsession is his followers
Are you interested in results or right?

2) Build Trust by Trusting Others - Trustworthy Leadership

You don't build trust by micro-managing
You build trust by letting go and allowing people to fail

3) Self-Awareness Builds Real Vision - Visionary Leadership

Random Thoughts on the Best Leaders:

High Self-Awareness
More Ambitious for the Company than for Themself
Empathetic and Caring
Manage the Privileges of Leadership
Truth Others
Reproduce
They Overcome Adversity

Session IX - General Tommy Franks - Four Star General, Commander-in-Chief, United States Central Command

Random Thoughts on Leadership:

All absolutes take place within a context
We're born only responsible for ourselves. Eventually we become responsible for others. Part of growing up is realizing being responsible for others is more important than being responsible for self.
Nothing that's good comes without a price
Some decisions make no difference. Others will change the direction of your entire life

"Why can't we just have a cookie?"

Spur Leadership Conference Notes: Day 1 Part 2

2009-10-02T08:00:00.000-05:00

Session II - Kem Meyer - Communications Director @ Granger Community Church

Kem's Blog

Kem's Twitter

Check Your Ego

Who should work harder: us or our customers?
Do I care more about what I'm saying or who I'm saying it to?
Do I care more about what I'm doing or who I'm doing it for?

Get an Image Consultant

Sometimes the picture we draw isn't what people are seeing

Keep It Simple

If you want to maximize the response, minimize the options
If you don't understand it internally, people won't understand it externally
What is more important: Getting the word out or getting through?

Session IV - Steve Price - VP of Human Resources at Dell

Four Characteristics of a Great Leader

1) Leaders Know that Winning Matters

w/o winning we lose hope
How can we differentiate ourselves?

2) Leaders are Deliberate in Building the Goodwill of the People

Each person is a different lock in need of a different key

3) Leaders Have Clarity of Purpose

What is your leadership purpose?

4) Finish Strong

Session VI - Roy Spence - CEO of The Purpose Institute, Advisor to former presidents

Random Thoughts:

Never ever give in...at that moment is when the tides will turn
Stop chasing the closed door and go after the open door
Be kinder than needed today because you don't know who will need it
You better be in the business of making peoples lives better
I basically like people who like me
Everyone wants to be leader...few people want the hurt that goes with leadership
We're at our best when we fight for right...we're at our worst when we fight for ego

Job #1 - Cast the Purpose of Your Organization

Job #2 - Protect Your People

Job #3 - Remember the Golden Rule

Job #4 - Fess Up When You Mess Up

Job #5 - Dump the Garbage Daily

Spur Leadership Conference Notes: Day 1 Part 1

2009-10-01T18:22:00.003-05:00

Today I attended the Spur Leadership Conference. Here's the best of my notes!

Session I - Mac Richard - Pastor of Lake Hills Church of Austin

Mac's Blog

Mac on Twitter

Living the Leadership Dream

Stage I - Conception - Dream - Vision

Who's Next?

Explorers - People willing to go and figure it out
Early Adopters - People who join you while you're figuring it out

Beware Of

Mal-Discontent - People who are always upset about something and who drift from place to place

Stage II - Childhood - Measure the Dream

Who's Next?

Mentors - People who can help develop you and give you the skills to make your dream a reality
Managers - People who can deal with details, but who can also see the big picture

Beware Of:

Bean Counters - People who only see the current reality and the bottom like. They don't see the big picture, and therefore tend to be negative because they don't see potential.

Stage III - Adolescence - Developing the Dream

Who's Next?

Community Organizers:
Navigators: Team members holding the team accountable and who keep the team moving towards the vision
Strength and Conditioning Coaches

Stage IV - Adulthood - Realizing the Dream

Who's Next?

Truth-Tellers: Affirm and refute you

Stage V - Reproduction - Inspire New Dreamers

Who's Next?

Successors
Disciples

Random Thoughts:

"We're all making it up as we go along"
"There is no accountability without community"
"If you want influence, serve someone"
"What is the one thing that makes the difference? Leaders don't quite."

DISCLAIMER: Back in May I wrote a series of blogs about why I'm generally fairly lukewarm about conferences. Regardless, I still have a budget designated towards continued education, and that generally means conferences. Spur Conference just happened to be here in town.

25 Lessons From My First 6 Months as a Pastor - Part 2

2009-09-29T09:33:00.001-05:00

06) Authenticity Goes a Long Way

People aren't interested in a pretend super-Christian with all the answers. Paul didn't pretend to be a super-Christian. He confessed his struggles openly (Romans 7).

Attempting to be a super-Christian puts unneeded stress on you. I don't need to worry about being someone I'm not.

07) Rest is a Good Idea

I used to be proud of myself for my ability to keep pushing and pushing when things got busy. That strategy worked during college and with ministry internships because I only had to push for a few months. Afterwards it was vacation time.

In full-time ministry the pace never lets up. You can't sustain a rest-free pace indefinitely.

I have to be intentional about stopping working
I have to be intentional about planning time with my wife
I have to be intentional about planning for and spreading out vacations
I have to keep an eye on my state physically, relationally, and emotionally to know when to take time off

08) It's Hard to Rest When You're the Leader

Since the work never ends and the pace never slows down, my brain doesn't ever want to shut down.

I always have access to my email (via phone)
I'm always thinking through ministry ideas and my next talk
I'm always pushing to get ahead...though it never happens
I want to work when I get home
I work on Saturdays
I work on my days off

Some of this is because I'm motivated and energized by work. It's also because as the point person for so many things, I feel obligated to keep working.

Rest used to be something I just did. Now rest is a conscience choice.

09) People Who are Older and Wiser than Me are Wiser than Me

For some reason around age 18 I started to think I had all the answers. As it turns out, I don't have all the answers. And there are lot of people with a great deal of wisdom. I've learned to spot these people and listen to them.

10) Bible College Only Prepares You for 5% of What You Do in Ministry

Bible college did a good job of teaching me how to study and apply the Bible. That's a very important part of my job. Unfortunately it's nowhere near my entire job

It didn't teach me to...

Perform a wedding
Form ministry systems
Use photoshop
Design a webpage
Council a student
Deal with a conflict and criticism
Plan a small, medium, large, or gigantic event
Promote an event

...the list goes on and on.

About

2009-09-28T20:48:00.000-05:00

My name is Sean Chandler. I'm the associate pastor at Hutto Bible Church in Hutto, Texas. I work with teenagers, and have a passion for preaching. I enjoy thinking through ministry in writing.

I've been married to my wife Jennifer since December 2006. We have 3 dogs.

25 Lessons From My First 6 Months as a Pastor - Part 1

2009-09-28T09:32:00.001-05:00

I've been involved in church ministry for the past six years, but I only became a pastor six months ago. It's been a wild ride ever since. It seemed fitting to share what I've learned in my first six months as a pastor.

01) I Can't Do Everything I Want to Do

I'm an idea person. I come up with ideas. I like other peoples ideas. I like brainstorming ideas. Unfortunately, I can't do all of my ideas. I can't even do all of my good ideas.

As the intern or random member of the congregation, I always had 10 ideas for how to solve all of the churches problems. Now that I'm in leadership, I've started to realize that solving problems isn't as simple as having an idea.

Some ideas just aren't doable.

You don't have the time
You don't have a volunteer to delegate to
You don't have the money
The idea works in isolation, but it competes with other ministries in reality
The timing is wrong
The schedule is too busy
The facilities don't work out

02) I Have to Trust Others With Responsibility

My tendency is to want to do everything. If I'm responsible for the outcome, I want to be in control through the process.

There are several problems with this.

I can do everything...for a little while, but it's not sustainable
I can do everything...but the quality drops on everything
I can do everything...but I'll over-work myself
I can do everything...but I'll rob others of their opportunity to serve and grow
I can do everything...but I'll limit the ministry to my abilities and bandwidth

This is actually a lesson I've really learned over the last month. The ministry had strong initial success, but then it hit a plateau as I reached my capacity.

03) It's Hard to Trust People

One of the reasons I'm struggling to hand off responsibilities is that it's hard to trust people.

04) Great Praise Comes With Greatest Criticism

This has been a painful lesson to learn. When I was just an intern, I was protected from most criticism or I didn't do anything substantial enough to receive criticism. However, as a pastor I quickly learned the joys and difficulties of success.

Every time a ministry has been successful or interesting enough to distinguish itself and receive praise, it's followed closely by criticism of equal magnitude. Sometimes it's been deserved. Other times it's over misunderstandings and differences of opinion. And considering what's at stake in regards to ministry, it's understandable that people would have strong opinions.

Just be ready, the greater your success, the greater the criticism.

05) I'm Not the Star

This one is hard one to learn because it requires humility. In ministry, it should be one of the first and most obvious lessons. But sin makes us stupid and we start to get some really dumb ideas.

Steven Furtick on How He Plans Picks and Plans Out Sermon Series

2009-09-27T12:16:00.000-05:00

This is a video blog by Steven Furtick on how he plots out his sermon series.

http://www.stevenfurtick.com/elevation/how-we-develop-sermon-series/

More Things I Didn't Learn in Bible College

2009-09-26T14:19:00.006-05:00

1) How to Perform a Wedding

2) What to Do at a Hospital Visit

3) How to Baptize Someone

4) The Unique Churchy Vocabulary People Bring From Their Various Backgrounds

5) How to Budget, Write Ministry Plans, Develop a Schedule...well, really anything administrative

...some of these are sillier than others. However, in retrospect, it seems very peculiar that our training centers for pastors don't teach you how to perform weddings, pastoral roles, or baptisms. It's also strange they don't teach much on administrative stuff even though modern day churches are jam packed with administrative stuff.

I feel I was well prepared for my teaching ministry (of course I did major in Bible teaching), but most everything else I've learned from books, blogs, mp3s, internships, and by trial and error.

Preaching Techniques by Craig Groeschel

2009-09-26T12:17:00.001-05:00

This is a series of blogs Craig Groeschel did awhile ago on preaching techniques.

The Question

The Pause

The Visual

"When preparing a message, ask how I can show instead of just tell."

The Surprise

Personality Pattern Assessment

2009-09-23T12:08:00.000-05:00

Ever since I first took a personality test which had accurate results, I've been fascinated by them. I find they give me insight into my natural strengths and weaknesses. Often I'll feel empowered simply by reading a paragraph seems to describe me.

Here's one I took today: personality pattern assessment.

It's about half accurate and half off the way. Anyway, here it is.

Innovative

You come up with a lot of ideas; if one doesn't work out, there's always another waiting in the wings. You often have interesting solutions to difficult problems. You're practically a one-person brainstorming session.

You are less interested changing the world than in dealing with things as they are. Unlike those who spend all their time trying to solve problems, you prefer to zero in on things that work and stick with them.

Organized

You like to think a task through before you embark on it. If it's the slightest bit complicated, you make a list (even if it's only in your mind) and methodically work your way through it. When you have a goal in mind, you're not satisfied until you reach it.

You are not one of those people who ignore the details, and you don't understand how anyone can get anything accomplished without thoughtful planning ahead of time.

Passionate

You are in touch with your emotions, and sometimes you react before you think. The good news: you don't tamp down your feelings. The bad news: you sometimes say or do things that you later wish you could take back.

You do not live your life on an even keel; you do not go for long periods without experiencing some mood swings.

Introspective

You like your own company; you're a very interesting person. Tracking your own mental processes, knowing what you're thinking and why you do what you do, is important to you. Often, what's going on in your mind is more compelling than what's going on outside. For the most part, those with a high score on the "introspective" trait enjoy reading, taking long walks, learning new things, and other solitary activities.

You are not someone who is constantly looking to be among a group of friends; you never feel bored when you are by yourself.

Competent

You strive to master everything you undertake. You tend to learn quickly and do not shy away from challenges.

You are not a "que sera sera" type of person, nor do you go easy on yourself when attempting to master a new skill or get a job done.

Intellectual

You are thoughtful, rational, and comfortable in the world of ideas. People find you interesting to talk to. You're the living embodiment of the saying "You learn something new every day." In general, those with a high score on the "intellectual" trait are employed in such fields as teaching and research, and are enthusiastic about reading, foreign films, and classical music.

You do not avoid abstract conversation, experimenting with new ideas, or studying new things. It bores you to stick to the straight and narrow of what you already know.

Assertive

You behave in a confident and forceful manner, take charge of the situation, raise your hand in class, stand up for what you think is right, and lead others. Among those who have a high score on the "assertive" trait, many have jobs in which they are valued for their organizational skills as well as their talent for supervising others.

You are not interested in fading into the woodwork, leaving everything to fate, taking more time than necessary to accomplish a task, or avoiding confrontation.

Accessible

You're comfortable expressing yourself in words and actions, with no self-censorship. You believe that if someone doesn't like what they see it's not your problem, but theirs. A high score on the "accessible" trait suggests that you have a lot of friends, socialize often, and enjoy rap/hip-hop music.

You don't see the need to keep your thoughts to yourself, or to have a zone of privacy that encompasses only yourself and a small circle of friends and relatives.

Abrasive

You are accustomed to rubbing people the wrong way; it's simply what happens when you express your opinions. In your opinion, there's nothing wrong with being controversial.

You don't have a "live and let live" attitude when it comes to other people whose opinions clash with yours; you see no reason to give the benefit of the doubt to someone who is just plain wrong.

Creative

You are good at solving problems, coming up with original ideas, and seeing connections between things, connections that most other people miss. People with a high score on the "creative" trait often are employed in such fields as finance and scientific research, and enjoy avant garde and classical music as well as literary fiction and scholarly non-fiction.

You do not shun abstractions and concepts in favor of the concrete and tangible.

Preaching 101: Remember and Forget

2009-09-22T07:28:00.000-05:00

It would be nice if I could claim that I always have pure motives when I preach, and I'm not swayed by self-ambition or a desire to please people. However, the reality is that I'm as easily swayed by selfish desires as anyone else...and so are you.

Therefore, you have to be intentional about stopping yourself from preaching for selfish gain or to please people.

Forget Your Pride:

We all know that our goal in ministry isn't to impress people with our skills. However, it's so easy to fall into the pattern of preaching to impress. It's so easy to change your sermon to avoid doing anything which would drive people off.

When you preach for the sake of pride, you aren't preaching to minister to hurting people or make God look great; you're preaching to make you look great.

Forget Your Critics:

If you're doing anything of significance, you'll soon be hit with criticism (whether it's deserved or not). Don't preach to satisfy critics. One of the easiest ways to sideline your ministry is to give in to the loudest critic.

If you start preaching to satisfy critics, the goal of your ministry changes from "Glorifying God" or "Teaching the Word" (however, you state your goal) to "Speaking for 30-40 minutes without offending anyone" or "Speaking for 30 minutes without getting any criticism." I don't know of anyone who's gone into ministry so they can work hard to avoid receiving criticism.

This isn't to say you should ignore all criticisms. When someone who loves you and believes in your ministry raises a valid criticism, LISTEN! But you don't want to give in to every person who's got something negative to say.

Remember the Audience:

Yesterday's blog was all about this point. Every time you preach, you need to remember all that is at stake for your audience.

You have the message which saves marriages
You have the message which removes addictions
You have the message which removes guilt
You have the message which saves souls

Remember that when you preach.

Remember God:

People get nervous before preaching all the time. It's normally for prideful reason. They' thinking about the people in the room. They're not thinking about how God is listening.

Are you scared you're going to handle the Word accurately?
Are you scared of what God thinks?
Are you truly preaching to glorify God?
Are you preaching to please God?

Preaching 101: Remember the Stakes

2009-09-21T16:15:00.000-05:00

There's always a reason to lose focus of why you're doing what you're doing.

You're nervous
You're busy
You've been doing this a long time
You're doing it because you have to
You're tired

However, there's no good excuse for losing focus when dealing with the Word of God. The stakes are too high to forget the reason why you're preaching.

Remember the stakes:

There is a Heaven and a Hell and everyone hearing you preach is headed in one direction or the other. You're preaching the message which saves souls.
You are preaching to an audience who is addicted to sin. You're preaching the only message which can save them.
You are preaching to people who are about to make decisions which will affect the rest of their life. The messages you preach can and will alter the decisions they make.
There are prodigals who have packed their bags and chosen to abandon the church listening to you preach. This could be the last sermon they ever hear.
There are non-Christians (whether they know it or not) hearing you preach. This could be the first, last, or only time they hear the gospel.

Never preach with reminding yourself of the stakes. Preaching isn't just a job a responsibility, a waste of time, or a good moral lessons. Eternity is on the line.

Four Ways to Deal With a Critic by Perry Nobles

2009-09-20T13:32:00.000-05:00

I was reading some older Perry Nobles blogs this past week and came across one on critics. He makes a point to distinguish between constructive criticism or genuine concern and criticism.

Four Ways to Deal With a Critic

"Craig Groeschel once said that the quickest way to forget what God thinks about me is to obsess with what others think about me." - Perry Nobles

Fifteen Things Perry Nobles Wishes Someone Would Have Told Him

2009-09-19T12:39:00.000-05:00

Bible colleges and seminaries around the country need to start offering a course titled "Things I Didn't Learn When I Went to Seminary." Seminary will train you answer 1,000s of questions which no one will ever ask you, but it also fails to prepare you for certain fairly universal experiences in ministry.

Perry Nobles wrote a blog recently about 15 things he wishes someone would have told him.

Fifteen Things Perry Nobles Wishes Someone Would Have Told Him

Preaching 101: Listen to this Talk By Francis Chan

2009-09-18T10:27:00.000-05:00

Break Out with Francis Chan: Communicating God's Word

Unfortunately I don't know of anywhere where you can find this talk for free, but you can buy it for $1.99 at the 268 Store.

My natural bent is towards highly practical, how-to type books, articles, and talks about preaching. I'm looking for ways to make me a better communicator. It's not to say I don't care about the heart, but I've heard too many talks which over-sell the immediate out-come of preaching with a pure heart. I'm normally looking for advise on how to keep an audience engaged, while handling the word accurately, and getting people to apply the Word. Hearing anecdotes about famous preachers of the past who spent 20 hours in pray before each sermon makes me feel less spiritual, but it doesn't help me much. The reality is that you can become a very popular preacher without doing anything to prepare your heart. However, it's unlikely God will choose to bless a ministry like that with eternal results, and you're extremely likely to eventually have a severe moral failure.

With all that stated, I was driving in my car listening to this talk by Francis Chan, and it convicted me of my own flesh based sermon preparation. This sermon pretty well lays out most of the universal struggles of gifted preachers, and offers a solution to how to combat it.

If you're not a preacher and want to know what preachers struggle with weekly (or daily), this sermon will give you a look into the heart of preachers. Well, I can't speak for anyone except Francis and myself, but I suspect we're not alone.

If you're starting out preaching, it's a great place to go to learn to prepare your heart and fight doing ministry in the flesh or for prideful reasons.

Outline:

1) Am I More Concerned About What God Thinks or What People Think?

2) Do I Truly Love These People?

1 Corinthians 13

¹If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

3) Am I Handing This Passage Accurately?

2 Timothy 2

¹⁵Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.

4) Am Trusting the Holy Spirit or My Own Cleverness to Communicate God's Word?

1 Corinthians 1

¹⁷For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

5) Have I Applied This Truth to My Life?

Revelation 3

¹"To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

6) Does this Sermon Make God or Me Look Good?

Preaching 101: The Big Idea: Crafting a Sermon Around Your Big Idea

2009-09-17T14:31:00.000-05:00

If you're just starting out preaching, this can be one of the simplest and easiest templates you can use.

Introduction:

The point of your introduction is to engage the audience while creating tension. By the end of the introduction you want to create a situation where the audience WANTS to hear your big idea.

How can you engage the audience while pointing towards your big idea?
How do you get them to ask the question your big idea answers?
How can you get the audience to be desperate to hear your big idea?

Transition:

State the big idea

Body Part 1 - Explain the Big Idea:

Go to where scripture teaches the big idea and teach the passage. Teach any background and historical information which helps explain the big idea. However, avoid any background information which simply bogs down the message in useless details. At this point you must throughly and accurately build a biblical case for the big idea (hopefully the big idea came from the passage and not you searching for your idea in scripture).

Body Part II - Apply the Big Idea:

Once the big idea has been explained, you need to give specific examples of what this passage means for the audience or what the audience should do because of the big idea. The more specific the better.

Things to Consider

What are they struggling with? How does the big idea offer hope?
Where do they spend the majority of their time (family, school, work, etc.)? How can they apply the big idea in that place?
How does the big idea offer hope to their life?
What changes should they make because of the big idea?

Conclusion:

For your conclusion you want to paint a picture of what could happen if each person actually lived out the big idea. Your job is to motivate the listener to act.

Preaching 101: The Big Idea: Finding the Big Idea

2009-09-16T09:12:00.000-05:00

Many books have been written which endorse picking a big idea. Haddon Robinson the author of one of the definitive books on expository preaching endorses picking a big idea. Andy Stanley wrote an entire book about picking a big idea and centering your entire message around that one idea. Blogger/pastor Dave Ferguson actually wrote a book called "The Big Idea: Focus the Message/Multiply the Impact."

Why does everyone endorse picking a big idea? It works, it's a great template, and makes for consistent messages.

The Passage States the Big Idea:

Yesterday, I preached on James 1:22-25. The clear message of the passage is that we need to be doers of the word and not just hearers. In this case, the big idea is easy to discover. This tends to be the case with the Proverbs and the epistles.

If the passage clearly states the big idea, don't go searching for a hidden meaning!

The Passage Does Not State the Big Idea:

Historic narrative usually does not state the big idea. Therefore, you need to do a little digging. Here's a greatly simplified version of the method I learned at Bible college (Columbia International University)...sorry for the alliteration.

*DISCLAIMER: While this method works for the majority of historic narrative, it does not work for all*

First off, you need to discern the following elements from the passage.

Context - What is the setup of the story? What leads to the choice the characters must make?

Choice - What is the choice the characters make? Do they choose obedience or disobedience?

Consequence - What is the result of their choice (good or bad)?

Second, form a one sentence summary of the passage which clearly states all the three elements. These sentences often break grammatical rules.

For example (and please excuse the example)

[Context] In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were commanded not to eat the fruit, but [Choice] they chose to eat the fruit anyway; therefore [Consequence] God kicked them out of the garden of Eden and mankind fell into sin.

Third, rewrite your summary statement without the time bound elements. This will give you the primary principle of the passage.

[Context] When God gives a command, but [Choice] we choice to disobey it, [Consequence] their are severe consequences.

Fourth, rewrite your timeless principle in a catchier form.

Breaking God's command's will break your life! [sorry for the cheesiness]

These two methods won't give you the skills to come up with a big idea from any passage of scripture, but they do give you the skills to write enough lessons that you'll start to figure out how to discern big ideas on your own.

Hope

2009-09-15T17:02:00.003-05:00

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give, you hope and a future.

These words weren't uttered to Judah during a prosperous time.

The Babylonians are about to take over
The will be kidnapped from their land
Their civilization is about to be burned to the ground

God's promise to his people wasn't that their lives would be easy, free from heartache, and prosperous in the worldly sense. At the same time, the passage says that God has a plan for them and it's to proser them, not to harm them. To understand what God is doing here, we need a radical shift in perspective.

Perhaps..

...the setbacks you're facing

...the criticism you're taking

...the relationships you're losing

...the "failures" you're experiencing

...ARE God prospering you, but you're missing it because you're still defining prosper based off of the world's definition.

What if all the pain you've faced was part of God's plan to make you who he knew you could be?

Preaching 101 - Fill the Bucket

2009-09-15T14:17:00.000-05:00

I originally conceived of this blog as a preaching/teaching blog. It's one of my passions. So I plan to start writing on it more regularly.

I've started to work with some of my interns and volunteers trying to help them be better teachers. This is my attempt to start writing down my primer on preaching.

Fill the Bucket

One of the most helpful ways to improve your preaching is to systematically record ideas as they come to you. I've heard other preachers call this, "Filling buckets."

I try to always have at least the next two months planned for my teaching schedule. Beyond that, I keep running files on sermon series ideas. Anytime I come across an idea or illustration I write it down in an file cleverly titled, "Ideas." I start with an idea file for a sermon series, and then when I start the series I divide it up into individual idea files for each sermon.

Random Ideas on How to Fill Buckets:

Always have a rough plan for what you'll be teaching on for the next two months
Write down every idea that comes to you
Keep a file which archives all of your illustrations
When starting a new series, spend 20 minutes brainstorming ideas
Find a fellow preacher/teacher to meet with regularly to bounce ideas off of
Find a group of non-teachers to bounce ideas off of
Form a creativity team