Posts Tagged ‘22 Days of Prayer’
22 Days Redux
We just spent 22 days of prayer, I took a few days off of the blog as well.
So what next?
Listen.
The Thursday after the 22 Days I was walking my kids to class and one of their teachers grabbed me in a semi-panic. “We need 50 volunteers for next Friday’s School Fair. Do you think your church could help?”
“Yes.”
I got in the car on the way to the office and reality started to hit me…how in the world am I going to get 50 people at our church to volunteer on a Friday night that we already have a lock-in planned at a school that none of their kids go to? There’s no way this is going to happen.
So last Sunday at the start of the sermon, I just asked our church.
First, I got an email from a dear lady in our church that read thusly…
I am excited about WHBC’s opportunity to serve at the elementary school. Here we are praying for the direction in what God wants us to do (22 days of prayer) … and the door is wide open to step in and start serving a school in our community.
As of 8.30 this morning…we only need 8 more people.
A Spontaneous Beautiful Day.
Over the next week, we’re going to be gathering responses from folks to see what God revealed to them during the 22 days.
22 Days: Leadership 3
2 minutes of prayer @ 2pm for 22 Days
Servant Leadership is the model but that is not all of the story. Another aspect of leadership we need to wrestle with is our gifting. How has God wired you? What talents are at your disposal? And you can’t say none because that’s a lie. Everyone has something to bring, something to give. Everyone. That’s the essence of the story of Jesus – from the woman at the well, tax collectors, zealots, and prostitutes – no matter who you are or what you’ve done, you have value and you’re needed in the Body of Christ.
How do you figure out your gift? There are some surveys out there but nothing beats experience. Just start trying stuff. You’ll discover a few things during that process. You’ll figure out what you’re not good at, you’ll figure out what you love but maybe need some training, you’ll find out things you never knew. So overall it’s a win-win-win all the way around.
Tomorrow: Matching that gift with passion
22 Days: Leadership 2
2 minutes @ 2pm for 22 days
Like we said yesterday, Jesus’ style of leadership starts with followership…serving. Hence the term ‘servant leadership.’
The best example of servant leadership in scripture is in John 13. Jesus washes the disciples feet. Couple of things pop in the story concerning servant leadership.
1. Jesus had all authority in heaven…and chose to wash feet with that authority. Any authority or leadership in the Body must/should force us to serve first and foremost.
2. Servant leadership is about pointing people to Jesus and his mission/purpose, not giving them necessarily what they want. Peter’s interaction with Jesus shows us this in spades. He first tells Jesus no, you can’t wash me. Jesus corrects him – if I don’t wash you, you’re not going to be a part of what I’m doing. Then Peter goes the other direction of all in. Jesus agains tells him – that’s not what you need either.
This one is huge and people get confused on this point. Jesus isn’t here to serve us what we want or what we think we need. He’s here to serve us in terms of what God wants and what He needs. What that means on a practical level is at times hearing “No” from God and others.
It’s also freeing to understand that from a ‘leader’s’ point of view. My goal then as a pastor is not to be a Customer Service Rep to the congregation, at their beck and call, giving them what they want. My goal is to be the chief listener to the Spirit, being and doing what He wants for us all. Not everyone that shows up at church has this as their goal…and that’s okay. But it sets up opportunities for us to say to each – “No. What about this instead? Could Jesus want this instead?”
As followers of Jesus, we’re here to serve Him, His mission, and His purpose. Not ours.
More tomorrow.
22 Days of Prayer: Leadership
For the background, you can read here.
2 minutes @ 2pm for 22 days
This week – leadership. When we talk about leadership, we really mean followership. We want to be able to say the same words as Paul – follow me as I follow Christ. So any leadership starts first with following Jesus. No exceptions.
So we start with questions – how am I following Jesus? At work? At home? At school? Are there places in my world I don’t follow Jesus in? What does it mean to follow Jesus? What does a growing follower of Jesus look like? If I wanted to start following Jesus, what steps would I take? Where do I start? How do I continue?
There is a small group of us wrestling with these questions. We don’t have hard pressed answers right now. We’re still wrestling with some concepts but this week, I’ll unpack some of what we’ve discovered as you do the same here.
For today – leadership starts with following. The first question is – who are you following? If it’s not Jesus, then who or what? Why not Jesus? What do you think following Jesus looks like for you?
22 Days: Stewardship 3
2 minutes a day at 2 pm for 22 days…Pray for Western Hills.
The elephant in the room…
I don’t know of too many pastors that like speaking about money. (At least good ones.) I used to cringe at the thought of talking about money from up front. I mean, what’s the point? God doesn’t need your money or mine.
Yet, there is more written about money in Scripture than any other topic. It’s not even close how much money is talked about in the Bible. So if God owns the cattle of a thousand hills, why the focus? It didn’t hit me until recently – it’s not about God that God tells us to give our money. It’s about us. God tells us to give our money away so we don’t become greedy and idolaters. It’s the biggest competitor for the worship of Jesus.
I used to apologize and let people off the hook in giving to the church. I used to feel real awkward in asking for money for the church. Until I became a part of church that sought out to bless people. When we started to adopt schools and invest in foreign missionaries that are blessing their communities, when we started giving away food and money to people below the poverty line – a light bulb went off. There is no better place to give your money than to a church that is doing these kinds of things. Even if you don’t follow Jesus.
The good news for Western Hills is we already have a foundation in this kind of thinking. Our community Easter egg hunt, our mission work, the Topeka Food Pantry, we take an offering every time we do communion and give all that money away to people who need it. I know other places where helping like this takes an act of congress, a huge reluctance. Not true here.
But we have limits, and there are times we have to say ‘no.’ It’s a ‘no’ because of man-hours and money. I’m learning very quickly my limits in terms of time. I’m 4 weeks out on appointments for the most part. That’s ridiculous, honestly. The money issue is not necessarily our weekly giving but rather our debt. It’s $6,000 a month we send to the bank instead of spending on ministry.
The good news – we’ve only got $106,000 left on the debt. The bad news – we’ve got $106,000 on the debt. I’m praying that God removes that debt over the next month.
In the meantime…we keep plowing forward. Next week: leadership.
22 Days: Stewardship 2
2 minutes a day at 2 pm for 22 days…Pray for Western Hills.
We defined it yesterday, let me finish the arc today with a couple of things.
How does it speak to our questions? (See here for questions)
Doesn’t take a genius to see the connection but I do want to point out a couple of things. We’ve got leaders who are incredibly gifted but are serving in the wrong slot. They’ve told me this already. They saw a need, rushed to fill the need even though they have a passion and gifting for something completely different.
But that’s not being a good steward, is it? What that means is that some ministry is missing them or doesn’t even exist because they aren’t there. It could also mean that we are doing some things that we aren’t called/designed to do. Scary questions to ask and think through…but vital ones if we are serious about the value of stewardship. May mean saying no to some things so we can say yes to others. Being good stewards means we serve out calling, giftedness, and passion not just to fill a slot.
Tomorrow…the elephant in the room.
22 Days: Stewardship
2 minutes a day at 2 pm for 22 days…Pray for Western Hills.
What does stewardship mean?
Stewardship is one of those words that I wished we had a substitute for but we don’t. Any other word we try to use falls short. In most church settings, “stewardship” means money. That honestly short changes that word. We’re guilty of it as well…our “Stewardship” Team is really our finance team. Everyone ought to be stewards, good stewards. Not everyone needs to serve on the Finance Team…but I digress.
For us, stewardship is asking the question of how are we investing our TIME, our TALENTS, and TREASURE. (Yeah, I know…the alliteration police called and they want their “T’s” back.)
When I say “WE†I mean two things. I mean individually – you and me. How do YOU invest your time, your talent, and your treasure. I also mean “WE” as in “US,” Western Hills. How do WE invest our time, our talent, and our treasure.
Where ever you spend the most time, energy, and money – that is what you value most. Look at you calendar and your checkbook. That is what matters to you. Does it match up with the heart of God? And the church needs to answer that question as well. Where does it budget? What does a church ask of her volunteers?
I was at a national youth pastors conference when Doug Fields asked us – “If you could tell your volunteers how to spend 10 hours of their week, how would you tell them to spend it?” Of course, we all said disciple, hang, and invest relationally in teens. He then just zinged us all by saying – “Then just do that. Quit making them prepare lessons, run meetings, or do your errands. Set your volunteers up to hang and relate to students.” It stuck with me forever. It speaks to this issue.
The next point I’d make is this – it’s not just about money but it includes money. It’s a total package question – time, giftedness, and money. If one of those three aren’t lining up, then we’re less than whole in our worship.
Tomorrow, I’ll unpack how stewardship speaks to our questions.
22 Days
You don’t think of 22 days being that long of a time period. It’s less than a month but long for a trip. How many consecutive 22 days have really mattered?
We started 22 days of prayer at Western Hills this past Sunday. Here’s the bulk of how I unpacked it:
There is much good happening. A potentially brutally hard transition has gone well. Our family feels loved and couldn’t have asked for this move to gone any better. We’ve seen people start their journey with Jesus, wounds starting to heal, worship is packed, and there is an overall feeling of “Yea, God.”
We’re growing, we’re talking about the right things – worship, doing life together, figuring out how to bless our community – we’re asking the right questions. It’s all good, right?
It’s mostly good. One of the side-effects of growth is that it reveals what your work areas are very clearly. Here are some of the things I’m noticing as we grow…
Where is our safe place for the lost to investigate Jesus….so they can become worshippers?
Where and how do we move our worshippers into living life connected, together?
Where and how do we grow new believers in Christ to point where they act compassionately towards their world? Their community?
Where do people get front row care for their soul?
Where can a young married couple go to get some help for their marriage? Where do our out of high school, not yet married crew go to figure out their faith? What about new parents help in raising their kids? Unmarried college aged singles to grow and serve in their faith? Where can new families – no matter what age they are, what season of life they are in – connect with other families?
Where & how do we develop & deepen believers to leaders that advance the mission of God at WH?
What tools and characteristics do these leaders, these growing followers of Jesus have?
What vehicles do we have to bless the community?
How are we mobilizing our people to bless and impact the community?
On a more personal level, how long can I run at this pace? Can one pastor do all of this?
When and where and how do we start tackling these questions?
If we are going to bless our community, we’re going to have to answer these questions. And there is probably 1 of 3 reactions you’re having right now.
Reaction 1: Cue the Monty Python clip — Run away, run away…it’s a huge killer rabbit with huge fangs. Too big, too much work, too many obstacles, to many issues…just punt. We know that’s not a real option, even if we feel that way at times.
Reaction 2: Defensive. You’re trying to figure out how we’ve answered that in the past or how these aren’t the right questions or “What about this program, or this ministry.†Before we get to defensive, here’s my gentle push… If what we are doing is really working, why are we still asking these questions? Are we producing leaders who lead others to act compassionately and do life together? Are we reproducing spiritual leaders who care for the souls of others?
Reaction 3: This is the one I’m tempted the most to do…ACTION PLANS!!! Let’s make some charts, have some meetings, form some committees to start new programs. Let’s get this group of people right here and start the “Safe Place For People To Investigate Jesus Team.†The SPFPTIJ Team. They are going to start a SPFPTIJ Ministry with a program for every one of these questions.
But maybe there’s a the 4th Reaction option to us:
Seek God’s Face. Seek God’s Face.
Don’t do anything…yet. Don’t panic, don’t defend, don’t act…just seek God’s face. And listen. Just be still, know that He is God. That’s what I’m inviting you to do with us for the next 22 days. Seek God’s Face. There are 22 days between now and April 19th.
Here’s the challenge – will you spend 2 minutes a day at 2 pm for the next 22 days seeking God’s face about these questions.
Where do we start?
Fortunately, Western Hills has already answered this. As God would have it, even before I came on the scene, this church believed there were three key areas that needed to be addressed and focused on for the year 2009. Prayer, stewardship, and leadership.
Each of these values speaks to our questions and for the next 22 days, we’re going to pray through these lenses about our questions. I’ll unpack each one of these values. What does it mean? How does it speak to our list of questions? How are we going to pray through it? This week is Stewardship.