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God’s Will is Right in Front of You

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Many times in Christian circles, we make God’s will into this mysterious thing that we are out looking for, hoping against hope that we’ll find it.

Yet, I don’t think it is a game God is playing with us. His will for our lives and our world is not a game of hide and seek.

It is right in front of us.

God’s Will is Right in Front of You

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Over and over in Scripture, we are told what God calls us to.

It starts in Matthew 28, known as the great commission where he tells his disciples: Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.

What has he commanded us?

A simple way to figure out God’s will for your life.

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A few examples are to make Jesus first in our lives, loving our neighbor, if you are married we are given clear instructions in 1 Peter 3 and Ephesians 5. Same goes for parenting.

You see the commands of Jesus in the sermon on the mount where he lays out his vision of the kingdom in Matthew 5 – 7.

But, and here’s where we get off track, I want a specific plan for my life.

Oftentimes, when I’ve had someone tell me that, I’ll ask them if they’ve tried all the things I listed above.

The answer is almost always no.

I’ve done the same thing.

But what if, what if that is how we stumble into God’s will for our lives?

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3 Questions to Ask About Your Critics

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Criticism is a fact of life and leadership.

Thom Rainer said, “If you are not being criticized, you are not leading.”

If you are not being criticized, you are not leading. -Thom Rainer

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While some leaders enjoy criticism, most do not. There is also the question of, should you listen to your critics? I mean, if they are against you, can they show you anything?

The to those questions is, maybe and yes.

The reality is, you can’t not listen to your critics because you hear them. You can’t drown out their voices because they exist.

While there are many questions, you should ask of your critics to discern if you should listen to them. Here are three questions I’ve found helpful:

3 surprising questions to ask of your critics.

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1. What does this person stand to lose if my vision gets fulfilled? The reason criticism happens is you are proposing a change. That’s what leadership, vision, and direction do. They change things. They push the status quo. When you have a goal or dream, you are saying something needs to be different.

It’s interesting in the book of Nehemiah, that as he is rebuilding the wall, his most prominent critics stand to lose the most. For your critics, it could be financial, influence, a change in a relationship, but as a leader, when you experience criticism, you must figure out what that person is losing or stands to lose. Almost always, not always, but almost always they stand to lose something, so they are criticizing to keep things as they are.

Why?

People don’t like to lose what they have. People don’t want to lose the comfort of something. Now, this doesn’t make you as a leader right or make your vision right, but it is an essential piece of information.

2. Does this person care about me and want the best for me? Picture this, someone gives you feedback or criticism and then says, “I’m only telling you this because I love you.” That might be true, but that’s also why there are two parts to this question. Does the person who is criticizing me care/love me and want the best for me? Wanting the best for someone is different than wanting them to succeed.

Asking if they want the best for me questions if they are in my corner and if they have a vested interest in me or the things I care about accomplishing. Many of your critics do not have a vested interest in something. If you’re a pastor, think about the number of critics you have had that have left your church. They didn’t have a vested interest in that; they just wanted to complain. If they had a vested interest, they would stay to work through the difficulty to see something great come about in your church.

Now, this doesn’t mean you don’t’ listen to someone; it just means how much weight you give to it.

3. Is this person projecting any of their fears, failures or story onto me? This last one is important because much of the criticism you get comes from the stories of the person giving the criticism. Whether it is a fear they have, a failure they’ve experienced or the narrative fo their family of origin. You can’t always discern this, but if you can, you can at least have a conversation with the critic about what the issue is. Often, the problem is not what they are criticizing, and often, they are not angry at you.

I remember taking a counseling class and the teacher said, “when people get angry at the church, often there is an authority figure in their life (boss, spouse, parent) that they are angry at, but they can’t do anything about it or feel powerless, so they take their anger and hurt out on the closest authroity figure, which is the church or the pastor.” This has proven correct time and again. Each time I meet with someone who is leaving our church, half the meeting is about a relationship in their life they are angry about or feel powerless to do anything about. The church is just getting the brunt of it. This is an excellent opportunity for you to pastor someone if they are open to it.

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3 Lessons in Church Planting

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I was asked by someone recently about 2-3 things I’ve learned about church planting since we launched our church. I think there’s a lot of lessons to be discovered. In fact, I feel like right now I’m being stretched as a leader and pastor in a way I haven’t been in a while and that’s a good thing.

3 church planting lessons.

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1. Decide what it will take to last. When you start a church, a marriage or a business, you start with the intention of finishing. Again and again, I’ve seen it not last for people.

For church planters, sometimes their churches didn’t last, so they found a different job. Some got caught in failing morally; pride took them down, their church fired them.

Lasting isn’t just a matter of morals or not sinning or getting caught with your pants down. It also means you need to build a church that will last, that has a strong foundation of leaders. It means making a solid team and knowing that who you put around you will determine how far you go.

It also means making a plan with your spouse about what it will take to serve joyfully side by side for decades. It involves determining how to keep your soul fresh and alive with the passion you had when you started as that will wane over the years.

From an energy perspective, this will go down and the way you ran the race as a 27-year-old will be different at 37 and 47 and 57. You must learn this early on and choose to be wise when it comes to food, exercise, and sleep.

Also realize, you will retire as a pastor. This point will help you prioritize relationships and know how best to spend your time.

2. Know that not everyone will finish with you. One of the most painful realities of life is the loss of relationships. It becomes even more pronounced in a church.

I have tried numerous times to explain to someone the pain a pastor feels when someone leaves their church, but there is not a comparison I’ve been able to make.

There is something deeply felt when you spend time with someone in a hospital, weeping at a funeral, walking with them through cancer, parenting or marriage difficulties and then have them meet with you (or not at all) and say, “we’re leaving because this church isn’t meeting our needs.”

This makes what I said in point 1 so important. This is when you will cling to the calling God placed on your life.

It also means that your spouse needs to understand the road ahead. One of the things that have been the hardest for Katie is facing the hurt when someone leaves our church, meets with me but says nothing to Katie.

You will feel discarded.

If you’ve read your New Testament, this shouldn’t surprise you, but it will still hurt.

You will also have elders and staff members you will have to fire or ask to step down. Sometimes that will be for obvious moral or theological sins, and sometimes it will be a judgment call. No matter how blatant or not apparent, you will lay awake at night replaying conversations. Your soul will ache when you tell someone they no longer have a job. You will know the pain of betrayal as people who loved that person leave, as that person goes down the road and starts a new church.

That is why friendships will be so crucial to your health, whether they are other pastors or people inside/outside of your church. They will bring normalcy to your life and a listening ear when you need it.

3. Hold your methods loosely. What you plant your church doing, how you do church, that will change. I know you don’t think it will, but it will. Candles and incense, cover songs, lights and haze, dialogical preaching, small groups, missional communities, long series, short series, all these things will work and excite you for a time.

Never say, “We’ll do this forever.” You probably won’t.

And that’s okay.

Notice, this doesn’t have anything to do with theology or the message you preach, how you do church. Hold that loosely. What works today and reaches people will not in 3 years and that’s okay. Cultures shift and so do people, so churches must adapt how they reach people.

There is a passion and maybe even a naivety when you start a church, and in many ways, that’s a good thing. You don’t know the road ahead, much like when you have your first child. There is so much hope, so many dreams, and passion at the beginning. It is natural the longer you are in church planting to lose this, to forget this, but stay fresh and close to Jesus so that you will finish the race He has given to you.

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One Reason You Don’t Reach Your Goals

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Depending on your personality or how you were brought up, you probably fall into one of two camps when it comes to your life and goals. You either plan everything out, taking away every possible surprise, thinking through every worst case scenario so that you are prepared for whatever life throws at you. Or, you fly by the seat of your pants.

Are You a Planner?

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If you still aren’t sure which one you are (or if you think, I’m both), imagine this scenario: You get in the passenger seat of a friend’s car and have no idea where you are going. How long does it take you to get stressed out? Some of you have hives just from the thought.

One isn’t necessarily right or wrong in all situations.

The reality is, we all have goals. We all have hopes and dreams for our lives and those around us.

I’ve been reading through Proverbs recently, and I’ve been blown away by how many verses talk about planning and thinking ahead or getting advice from others. Here are just a few:

  • Where there is no guidance, the people fall; but in abundance of counselors, there is victory. -Proverbs 11:14
  • A wise man thinks ahead; a fool doesn’t, and even brags about it. -Proverbs 13:16
  • Without consultation, plans are frustrated, but with many counselors, they succeed. -Proverbs 15:22
  • Make plans by seeking advice; if you wage war, obtain guidance. -Proverbs 20:18
  • The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty. -Proverbs 21:5
  • A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. -Proverbs 22:3
  • Get the facts at any price, and hold on tightly to all the good sense you can get. -Proverbs 23:23
  • Any enterprise is built by wise planning, becomes strong through common sense, and profits wonderfully by keeping abreast of the facts. -Proverbs 24:3-4

Is it possible to plan God out of your life and future? Yes, and lots of people do it. We can make too many plans, think through every possibility so that we don’t need God’s guidance and power.

It is also possible to miss the work God wants to do because of poor planning.

Opportunities are missed because a budget wasn’t put together or stuck to. We miss out on opportunities or dreams because we didn’t have the money to take advantage of something or say yes to something.

Many marriages and relationships grow stale because we start going through the motions instead of planning the way we used to when we dated.

A wise person goes to God, has a plan, works from a plan, is willing to modify that plan as life unfolds. A wise person never walks into a situation unsure about what to do. They also live with the awareness that they may have to pivot when things don’t go as expected.

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3 Tips for Preaching the Book of Daniel

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I just wrapped up a series on the book of Daniel. You can see the sermons and resources here.

Because I get asked a lot by pastors about sermon prep, putting a series together, making the Bible relevant, I thought I’d share three tips to preaching the book of Daniel.

Why?

The book of Daniel is not one that many pastors preach through. In researching it, I found most people who preach through Daniel stop at chapter 6. I’ll be honest; it’s tempting to do. The first six chapters are filled with narrative, extraordinary faith, prayer, and God doing incredible miracles. The last six chapters are filled with visions, revelations, images that are debated and a lot of head scratching.

1. The book is about God, not Daniel, the end times or your church. Yes, the book of Daniel has a lot about the end of the world (especially if you are a dispensationalist), but spending your time on this does a disservice to the book and your church.

The word king or kingdom is used over 150 times in the book of Daniel. That is the theme, that is the battleground of the book. While it’s tempting to focus on Daniel and his life and faith are an essential part of the book, the book is about God and his power. The book is about the temptation to worship something or someone other than God.

2. Don’t get stuck in the weeds. Daniel, like the book of Revelation, is filled with a lot of images. These images are fascinating, confusing and debated. One of the things we decided at the beginning is that we wouldn’t get into the timeline debate that centers on Daniel. You can see how we handled chapter 9 (which is one of the most hotly debated passages in the Bible).

Are there people in your church who want to debate the end of the world, when Jesus returns, who the anti-Christ is? Yes. What we asked was: What are these passages trying to tell us? For us, they came back to who God is and what His character is, so we focused on that. What do these passages tell us about God, because that is what God was communicating with Daniel?

3. Tell people about God’s character and power. Preaching through Daniel, especially when you talk about the lion’s den and furnace, for those who are skeptical about God, these are passages that make you scratch your head. I had multiple conversations with people wrestling with, “Do you believe that happened?”

These passages, the images in the visions and dreams are about the power of God and his character, who He is.

Your church needs to hear those things, and it is an excellent opportunity to show the relevance of them.

Many sermons today, and I’m all for this, are based on felt needs and speak to what the people in your church are struggling with and walking through in their lives. Focusing on who God is, while not a question they are asking, is the question they need answering and is the hope to what men and women are struggling with when they walk into church.

This power not only catalyzed the faith of Daniel but can do the same thing for your church.

One of the most significant examples of this is how much Daniel prayed in the book. While I was preparing for the series, I missed this, but as I was preaching through it, it stood out boldly in the book.

Several times we’re told, “Daniel prayed as was his habit” (or something similar to that). That’s important. When Daniel came up against struggles and power, he prayed to a God he trusted and had the power to save him.

Daniel is a book every pastor should preach through. It is so relevant to our day and age as we struggle to live out our faith in a culture that is opposed to it. It is a book that reminds us of the God we serve and the power He has.

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232 Leadership Quotes from the 2018 Leadership Summit

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit. To capture what I’m learning and to help you grow as a leader, I always share my notes from each session, so be sure to check back after each session and bookmark them for future use.

Below, you will find all the posts from all the sessions I attended this year. Thanks for reading along!

  1. 32 Leadership Quotes from Craig Groeschel on what it means to be a leader people love to follow.
  2. 16 Leadership Quotes from Angela Ahrendts on how empathy is an essential quality to great leadership.
  3. 14 Leadership Quotes from Juliet Funt on legacy.
  4. 20 Leadership Quotes from Strive Masiyiwa on what it means to be a leader who perseveres to fight for the future of our world.
  5. 11 Leadership Quotes from T.D. Jakes.
  6. 26 Leadership Quotes from Carla Harris on how to achieve your potential and become the leader you were created to be.
  7. 10 Leadership Quotes from Danny Meyer on creating a customer-focused culture, which churches can always grow in.
  8. 23 Leadership Quotes from Danielle Strickland on men and women in the workplace (and church) and looked at the challenges associated with power dynamics in organizational culture.
  9. 21 Leadership Quotes from John Maxwell on how to maximize your impact as a high-character leader in our world today.
  10. 12 Leadership Quotes from Rasmus Ankersen on the mindset cultivated by successful brands to create sustainable success in our organizations.
  11. 8 Leadership Quotes from David Livermore on how leaders can relate effectively to diverse situations.
  12. 16 Leadership Quotes from Sheila Heen on how to navigate difficult conversations on our teams.
  13. 23 Leadership Quotes from Erwin McManus on what it means to lead a life that matters and how great leaders intentionally build the future.
  14. My 5 biggest takeaways from the summit.

 

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5 Biggest Personal Takeaways from the Leadership Summit

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit. This year, there is a shadow hanging over the summit as I outlined here, but I’m still trusting that it will have some incredibly helpful content, just like in past years. To capture what I’m learning and to help you grow as a leader, I shared my notes from each session, which you can read here. I wanted to share some of the biggest personal takeaways I had. If you haven’t already, I would encourage you if you attended the summit to process your learnings with your team and use that as a way forward for your team.

  1. Leaders need a heart to care. This is the difference between me centered leadership and you centered leadership. Leaders need to notice people and let them know they matter. To thank people for what they do. This is hard for me as I want to get things done and can easily run through tasks.
  2. Leaders should ask what would I want to hear from others. It is so important to understand what people feel from you. This was a big theme in the first session. I love this question, what would I want people to say to me? Often, leaders struggle to know how to complement or celebrate people, but asking this question is a great place to start.
  3. Think bigger. T.D. Jakes’s session on vision was my favorite session. The longer you are in a church or an organization, it is difficult to think big or have a big vision. It’s easy to get lost in the details of work. There are now more people counting on you, not just your family but also a staff whose livelihoods depend on you and your company. But vision is crucial. It is what gives you purpose and what excites those who follow you. I can’t wait to dive into Jakes’s new book Soar. 
  4. Not all data is the same. Rasmus Ankersen talked about soccer in Europe and how all data and stats are not the same. For churches, this is huge. For churches, there are numbers and things that are happening that are more important than other things. There are also things that tell you more things than other things. He talked about one of the big problems for companies is outcome bias which is good results are always the result of superior decision making.
  5. Fear. Erwin McManus’s talk was the talk of the summit. His idea that we are terrified that we will never become all that we could be spoke so powerfully to me. This is the battle for all of us, but especially leaders.
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2018 Leadership Summit – 23 Leadership Quotes from Erwin McManus

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit. This year, there is a shadow hanging over the summit as I outlined here, but I’m still trusting that it will have some incredibly helpful content, just like in past years. To capture what I’m learning and to help you grow as a leader, I always share my notes from each session, so be sure to check back after each session and bookmark them for future use.

The second session of the second day featured a talk by Erwin McManus. He looked at what it means to lead a life that matters and how great leaders intentionally build the future.

The following are some takeaways:

  1. The greatest battles we fight are within ourselves.
  2. We are afraid that we have something inside of us that will never be actualized.
  3. We’re haunted that we might never live up to what is inside of us.
  4. We know our life is supposed to matter and were scared it won’t.
  5. If you put your life in God’s hand, it will go further than you could ever go on your own.
  6. I’m amazed at how many people need permission to get started but no one needs permission to quit.
  7. You need to treat every moment and day as sacred and essential.
  8. Your freedom is on the other side of your fears. 
  9. The things of God can only be accessed if you will step through your fears.
  10. If you don’t deal with the paralyzing fear, you will never reach where you supposed to be.
  11. So many of us only have the structure to lead when the world is at peace and things are easy.
  12. Your greatness is on the other side of your pain. 
  13. What you fear has mastery over your life.
  14. What you fear establishes the boundaries of your freedom.
  15. A lot of think our pain is the boundary of our limitations. Our pain is the boundary of our greatness.
  16. We need to learn how to walk in our pain.
  17. If you aren’t alive before death, you will be afraid of death.
  18. For many people, their pain will define them.
  19. Your future is on the other side of your failures. 
  20. People always want to define us by our worst moments.
  21. God does not define you by your worst moments, he defines you by His best moments.
  22. We want God to meet us in our faith but He meets us in our faithfulness. 
  23. Your faith doesn’t make life easier, your faith makes you stronger.
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2018 Leadership Summit – 16 Leadership Quotes from Sheila Heen

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit. This year, there is a shadow hanging over the summit as I outlined here, but I’m still trusting that it will have some incredibly helpful content, just like in past years. To capture what I’m learning and to help you grow as a leader, I always share my notes from each session, so be sure to check back after each session and bookmark them for future use.

The first session of the second day featured a talk by Sheila Heen, who is the Founder of the Triad Consulting Group and on the Faculty of the Harvard Law School. Her talk focused on a process to navigate difficult conversations on our teams.

The following are some takeaways:

  1. To the extent that you have difficult conversations as a leader, it says that you care a lot about what you are doing and having the most significant impact you can and that you care a lot about the people you are doing it with.
  2. In difficult conversations, we have to look beyond what we’re saying and look at what is in our internal voice and what we’re feeling.
  3. Difficult conversations are when our internal voice is turned up too loudly.
  4. People’s internal voices are pre-occupied with predictable things every time.
  5. Every difficult conversation has the same underlying structure.
  6. The story in our head is driven by key questions: who’s right (What feels safe, what I can defend)? Who’s fault is it (the fault tells us who the problem is)? Why is the other person acting this way (what are their intentions, why are they being so difficult)?
  7. The more frustrated we are about the other person, the more likely we are to tell a negative story and think that something is wrong with them.
  8. By the time something becomes a difficult conversation, we have a business problem and how we each feel treated by the other.
  9. The deeper problem (how we treat each other) will come up another time.
  10. Identity is the story we tell about who we are and what the situation suggests about us: am I competent, am I worthy of love and respect?
  11. The first step to a difficult conversation is changing the story you’re telling in your head.
  12. Instead of asking who’s right, ask what we think this conversation is about.
  13. Instead of asking who’s fault is it, ask what did we do to contribute to this situation.
  14. Contribution can be reasonable things to do, they just didn’t help.
  15. Instead of asking why are they acting this way, to separate intentions from the impact.
  16. To influence other people, be open to influence yourself.
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2018 Leadership Summit – 8 Leadership Quotes from David Livermore

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit. This year, there is a shadow hanging over the summit as I outlined here, but I’m still trusting that it will have some incredibly helpful content, just like in past years. To capture what I’m learning and to help you grow as a leader, I always share my notes from each session, so be sure to check back after each session and bookmark them for future use.

The first session of the second day featured a talk by David Livermore. He’s the President of the Cultural Intelligence Center and a Best-selling Author. He shared research on how leaders can relate effectively to diverse situations. It was fascinating.

The following are some takeaways:

  1. It is our mistakes that help us improve as leaders far more than our successes.
  2. Cultural intelligence is the ability to work effectively together when people are from different cultural backgrounds.
  3. The number one characteristic of a culturally intelligent leader is their curiosity.
  4. Culturally intelligent leaders understand what makes people different.
  5. Leaders should fight against the fear to learn from others.
  6. Leaders need to channel their curiosity and what they’re learning and turn that into a strategy.
  7. Leaders need to understand the culture they’re from and how adaptable their culture at their company is to people outside of their culture.
  8. Diversity has the potential to lead to innovation and growth, but only if the leaders have a high cultural intelligence.