Tag Archives: bible

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Can You Trust God?

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trust

A common question that people ask is, “How do I know I can trust God?”

We talk about how to trust God when life falls apart, when the bottom falls out of a relationship, when we hit hard financial times or we get a phone call we didn’t expect.

What about just trusting God each day, whether things are good or bad?

There are promises all over the Bible about God, His character, what He will do and will not do. But how do you know those are real and will not fail?

That’s the question the apostle Paul is seeking to answer at the beginning of Romans 9.

Trusting in God is a hard thing to do, but when we do, it leads to our joy.

One of the things I often encourage people to do who struggle to trust in God is to ask themselves why they don’t trust God. What keeps you from that? Is it something you think God should have done? Is it because of a past hurt or a relationship that fell apart?

Often without realizing it, we don’t trust God not because of God but because of ourselves.

Once we are able to see why we don’t trust God and what keeps us from taking that step, we are able to deal with that.

It isn’t as simple as “just trusting God more.”

The reality, though, is all of us trust in someone or something in our lives.

We trust in people everyday.

Yet the reverse is true, and we know it to be true.

Misplaced trust does not lead to joy.

One of the things that I find most fascinating about Habakkuk chapter 3 is how Habakkuk reminds himself of how God has moved in the past. He recalls how the nation of Israel began, how God brought the nation of Israel out of slavery in the book of Exodus and gave them the 10 Commandments.

What Habakkuk is doing is reminding himself of how God has moved in the past. Often our struggle is with trusting that God will show up. Habakkuk is showing us, “God worked in the past, so I can trust He will work now and in the future.”

This doesn’t mean that God will work in the same way as the past. It doesn’t mean He will work on our timetable, but we do know He is at work.

You may be in a place where you need to remind yourself of how God has worked in the past of your life. Maybe you need to journal or make a list of things He’s done, prayers He has answered. Maybe you need to determine why you don’t trust God, what is holding you back and how to move forward in that. What things are you placing your trust in that will ultimately let you down and take away your joy instead of giving you joy?

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Wednesday Mind Dump…

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mind dump

  • I feel like I’m still playing catch up from 2 weeks ago.
  • Katie, me and our 5 kids flew to Boston to see my cousin get married on Cape Cod.
  • It was beautiful, breezy, sunny.
  • It was awesome seeing family and horrible flying through 3 time zones.
  • Last week, the Acts 29 Arizona pastors and their staffs got to spend time on a zoom call with Larry Osborne and talk about leadership development, small groups, discipleship and breaking growth barriers.
  • So enlightening.
  • Sunday was one of those days that pastors know well.
  • We’ve been going through Romans this year at Revolution and Sunday we got to Romans 9.
  • I love theology, but trying to explain Romans 9 in a relevant way to someone who has know idea about calvinism, free will or predestination.
  • I ended up preaching 2 different sermons between our 2 services.
  • Not really a good thing but it happened.
  • Here’s what pastors know well: your feelings on how church went rarely line up with how church went. 
  • Some of the books I’ve enjoyed in prepping for Romans 9 have been Chosen for Life: The Case for Divine Election, PROOF: Finding Freedom through the Intoxicating Joy of Irresistible Grace and for the theological beatniks, The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23.
  • I’m reminded that your church really likes it when you tackle hard topics.
  • Unchurched people especially because they have no idea this is in the Bible.
  • So ready for football to start this weekend.
  • I let my 2 oldest boys create a fantasy team this year.
  • They couldn’t believe how excited they were about drafting their team.
  • According to Yahoo, I won the draft and got the highest grade (even though I didn’t draft a defense).
  • So you know I’ll go 2-14 this year.
  • People often ask what books me and our leaders are reading.
  • Here’s one we’re about to start: The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals.
  • Really excited about it.
  • Our entire team loved his talk at the leadership summit.
  • I have my pastors covenant group meeting today.
  • Honestly, at first I was skeptical about joining, but it has been a huge blessing to me.
  • I meet once a month with 4 older pastors, I think I’m 20 – 25 years younger than all of them.
  • Pastors need other pastors to confide in, pray with and share ministry with.
  • Got to celebrate my Mom’s 60th birthday last night.
  • She’ll be embarrassed when she reads this that I told you, but we’ll keep it between us.
  • I love being able to watch my kids interact with and laugh with my parents.
  • Time to get back at it…
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How to Recruit and keep the Best Volunteers

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volunteers

If you get a group of pastors or church leaders together and ask them about their biggest challenges, volunteers and leaders will come up. The idea of recruiting volunteers is overwhelming and difficult at times. There never seems to be enough people, and the ones who are serving are often tired and feel like they are the only ones serving.

In light of that, there are some crucial things to keep in mind as you invite people to use their gifts and talents at your church and keep them engaged in those roles. Note, the words you use are incredibly important.

5 ways to recruit and keep the best volunteers.

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1. Know who you are and what you need around you. Many times we are simply looking for a warm body, and no one wants to sign up for a role that anyone can do. When you are inviting people to use their gifts, you need to know if they fit who you are, the team you have in place and the role you are inviting them into. This means as a leader you need to know your personality, strengths and weaknesses so you can effectively build around you. You need to know the makeup of people already on your team, what kind of personalities they have and what is missing. You also need to know what kind of people you need on your team.

2. Don’t say no for anyone. This is easier to do than you would think. We have a need or opening, and we have in mind the perfect person. But they are busy, so we don’t ask. Yes they are busy, but that doesn’t matter. Don’t say no for anyone. Let them say no. Remember, if you don’t ask you rob them of an opportunity. Who knows, they might say yes.

3. The most high capacity and talented people are busy. This is a truth that took me awhile to figure out. The most talented and high capacity people in your church are probably busy, but that’s because they are high capacity and talented people. Notice, I didn’t say they were doing too much, I just said they were busy. They do a lot because they are talented and have a higher capacity than other people. Just like #2, these are the people you want but won’t say anything to. Don’t. Ask them.

4. Don’t be afraid to ask. Hopefully you are picking up on a theme of what it takes to get the right people on your team at your church. Ask.

Remember: People don’t sign up to volunteer because of a big announcement; they say yes because someone asked them.

People volunteer because someone asked them.

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We have this idea in churches that if we show enough videos, make enough pleas from the stage, guilt and shame, then maybe people will sign up. But you don’t want those people. They won’t stay, and then you’ll have people on your team that don’t fit and don’t want to be there because they signed up because they felt bad.

Now I’m not saying you don’t use announcements, but they aren’t as affective to building your team as you often think they are. They help make a need get on someone’s radar.

But the people you want are the people you need to ask.

I said this to a room full of volunteers at our church once and got some pushback. Then I asked everyone to raise their hand who served on their team because of a stage announcement and who served because they were asked by someone. Over 90% served because someone asked them.

5. Why you do something is more important than what you do. This is how you get people on your team and keep people on your team.

When most team leaders invite someone to join their team, they talk about what they’ll do, how they’ll do it, expectations, etc. Those are all well and good.

But people only serve and stay because of why you do something.

In fact, this is one of the biggest reasons volunteers burnout and quit; they don’t remember why they are doing something.

Volunteers burnout and quit when they don’t remember why they are doing something.

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One thing I do every week is pull every volunteer at our church together and remind them in just a few minutes why we are doing something. That it will be someone’s first day at church today, and we need to be ready for that. I also thank them for what they do and how hard they work.

One of the biggest reasons volunteers quit: No one has thanked them recently.

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When was the last time you did something nice for your team? When was the last time you said thanks to them?

5 ways to recruit and keep the best volunteers.

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What to do When You Can’t Stop doing Something

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stop

We all have things about ourselves that we hate; things we do, things we think, things we feel and things in our past. We spend a lot of energy trying to change these things. We hope that something will be different tomorrow. Maybe we’ll magically stop looking at porn, stop being so desperate for love, stop feeling lonely, stop saying things at the wrong moment. Maybe that memory will finally go away.

So, we read our Bibles.

Struggling with sin is the normal Christian experience. Not because we don’t have power over sin, we do have power because of the work of Jesus on the cross in our place and rising from the dead. We have the power through the Holy Spirit to battle our sin and win, but we often lose.

What do you do when you keep doing what you hate?

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In Romans 7, we see this struggle in Paul. Tim Keller lays this out as to why this is the present Christian experience:

  • In the beginning of chapter 7, Paul is talking in the past tense, in verse 14 he changes to the present tense.
  • In  7 – 13, Paul talks about sin killing him, he’s dead, but in verse 14 Paul begins talking about an ongoing struggle with sin. He is fighting sin, struggling but refuses to surrender.
  • In  18 Paul says “I know that nothing good dwells in me.” Those who don’t know Jesus are unaware of being lost and sinful. Without Jesus, we think we can save ourselves or are good on our own.
  • In  22 Paul says, “I delight in God’s law.” If you don’t know Jesus, you can’t delight in God’s law.
  • Keller concludes, “Often we repent of past sin and think it’s done, but God wants to show us how to hate it when the seeds come up again.”

To move forward in freedom, it is important to name, to confess, those things you do that you hate. Those struggles you battle with. To admit what dwells in you. Often we have an inflated view of our goodness, but to experience grace we must understand the depths of our brokenness. Otherwise, what do we need God’s grace and forgiveness for?

I think the process Paul walks through in this passage is instructive for us as we hate our sin:

How to hate your sin and run from it.

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  1. Do you hate your sin?
  2. Are you willing to fight your sin? To put things into place to win the battle against sin? This might mean you stop going to places, get rid of something, stop spending time with that person.
  3. Do you know how lost you are apart from the grace of Jesus?
  4. Do you delight in the law of God?
4 questions to help you fight your sin.

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Longings, Desires & When I’m Letdown

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desires

Often times it is hard to know what our longings mean. They can be sinful and good. They can reveal things about us, past hurts, pain, things we hope and dream for the future. They can be hard to trust, and they can also reveal who we really are, who we wish to become, and sometimes the people we wish to leave behind.

Our longings, though, also reveal deep within us what God has in store for us.

Our longings can reveal deep within us what God has in store for us.

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Our longings are a reminder that God has something more, something different; that our bodies and our world are broken and not how God intended them to be.

G.K. Chesterton, who lived in the early 1900’s, is believed to have said, “A man knocking on the door of a brothel is knocking for God.”

Our lives reveal a longing.

This week let me give you a challenge as you think about your longings and what they reveal about you. Here are some questions to ask:

5 questions to ask about your desires and longings to see if they line up with God’s will.

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1. What do you most want out of life? Out of this week and month? Many of us do not spend enough time thinking about what we want out of life. These desires, as we’ll see in a minute, not only reveal a lot about us, but they can also be from God. He created desires in us, desires for relationships, for joy, for hobbies and for the place we live.

2. What would truly make you happy in life? This begins to get to the heart of our desires. Does it have to do with relationships, housing, a trip, hobbies, a career, your body? Again, right now don’t judge if it is sinful or not. Simply list out the desire you have.

3. Is that a sinful desire? This is the moment we begin to evaluate our desires and what they show us. Is that desire selfish, for my glory, about my wants? Is it destructive to others? Does it serve me or God? Is this desire all encompassing in my life right now? Does it drive me like an addiction?

Are all your desires and longings a sin?

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4. What do I do if it is a sin? Many of our desires are sins that we need to handle, confess and bring before God. Our desires also reveal our need for God and His grace in our lives. The desires you are convicted of, confess those to God. Confess those sins where you need to, and ask God to change your desires if need be. But don’t hold on to them; bring them to the cross.

5. What do I do if it isn’t a sin? Not all desires are bad. In fact, many of the greatest things people have done for God have been borne out of desire. Those are things that bring passion to our lives and joy that are from God. They are also God’s good gifts. It is good to enjoy a good meal with friends. It is destructive to make that an idol our lives revolve around.

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Horst Schulze on “Creating an Organization of Excellence & Efficiency” from the Leadership Summit 2016

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leadership

I’m at the leadership summit with the team from Revolution Church. This is by far the best leadership conference of the year. This is my 13th summit and every year, God stretches me and challenges me. So much wisdom and inspiration wrapped up into two days. I always blog my notes, so if you can’t attend or missed something, I’ve got you covered.

Horst Schulze is the President of Ritz-Carlton, so he has a lot of wisdom that churches can learn from as it relates to guest services and be excellent.

Here are some takeaways:

  • It doesn’t matter what your business is, the guest wants to be happy, you want the guest to return.
  • You have to know what segment you are in so you know what that segment wants.
  • If you don’t know who your customer is and what they want, you will not be able to reach them and keep them.
  • To be successful, you must produce it better than the competition.
  • You have to be more efficient and sufficient than the competition.
  • No matter what our business is or what our market is, part of what you have to be excellent in is hospitality.
  • The guest wants 3 things: that the product is perfect, that you serve them timely and that you care (personal attention).
  • Personal attention drives customer satisfaction more than anything else.
Personal attention drives customer satisfaction more than anything else.

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  • Efficiency and sufficiency doesn’t come from management but from leadership.
  • Leadership involves people and implies going somewhere.
  • The first day is the most crucial day for a new volunteer or employee in your church.
The first day is the most crucial day for a new volunteer or employee in your church.

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  • Efficiency is not cost cutting. Cost cutting is killing your business and killing your brand.
  • Eliminate work that is wasted effort and doesn’t add value.
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Leadership Illusions w/ Bill Hybels, Henry Cloud & Shauna Niequest

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leadership

I’m at the leadership summit with the team from Revolution Church. This is by far the best leadership conference of the year. This is my 13th summit and every year, God stretches me and challenges me. So much wisdom and inspiration wrapped up into two days. I always blog my notes, so if you can’t attend or missed something, I’ve got you covered.

Here are some takeaways from the session with Bill Hybels, Henry Cloud and Shauna Niequest:

  • There is a blindspot in many leaders when it comes to self-reflection and hitting the pause button.

Illusion #1

  • You can increase speed in your life and simultaneously keep your soul heading in the same direction and same rate of your speed.
  • If God is pleased with your leadership, he gives you bigger problems to solve.
  • If we aren’t careful, as we increase speed, we lose touch with our soul. Our connection with God gets distant the faster we go.
  • To last in leadership, we must slow the speed periodically and raise the effort we put into our soul.
To last in leadership, we must slow the speed periodically and raise the effort we put into our soul. @BillHybels

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  • Reflection: Is the speed you run, is it sustainable? Does your soul need more attention?

Illusion #2

  • Part of what it takes to keep your head on straight is the power of the other.
  • The factor that drives everything in your leadership and life is who are you connected to?
The factor that drives everything in your leadership and life is who are you connected to? @DrHenryCloud

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  • Your brain stops working if you are not connected.

4 Corners of Connection

  1. No connection. You are alone.
  2. Bad connection. People are with you, but feel disconnected from your marriage, team or boss.
  3. Good connection. Corner #3 is a fake good, a pseudo good. It relieves the pain of isolation but we often connect with a substance that makes us feel good.
  4. Real connection. To connect with someone, you need to let someone know what your needs are. You must know your needs.

Reflection: What corner do you find yourself in most often? What prohibit you from getting to corner 4?

Illusion #3

  • Another illusion for a leader is achievement. We try to hit marks, attain things, grow something.
  • Everything is not an opportunity to succeed and fail.
  • Many leaders live in the place of exhaustion and isolation.

Reflection: How satisfied are you in life? Is the hustle worth it? Where are you not satisfied?

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John Maxwell on “The One Thing to Get Right” from the Leadership Summit 2016

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leadership

I’m at the leadership summit with the team from Revolution Church. This is by far the best leadership conference of the year. This is my 13th summit and every year, God stretches me and challenges me. So much wisdom and inspiration wrapped up into two days. I always blog my notes, so if you can’t attend or missed something, I’ve got you covered.

I was so excited when I saw that John Maxwell was going to be speaking at the summit. He has so much wisdom and insights into leadership (and is the king of one liners!). His talk was based on his new book Intentional Living: Choosing a Life That Matters.

Here are some takeaways:

  • The return is amazing when you pour into leaders.
  • Leaders add value to people.
Leaders add value to people. @JohnCMaxwell

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  • Everything rises and falls on leadership. Leaders lift.
  • Before a leader can lead anyone, you have to find the person.
  • To turn something around, you have to become very intentional.
To turn something around, you have to become very intentional. @JohnCMaxwell

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  • Leaders add value to people.
  • Adding value to people is the core of leadership.
Are you adding value to people or are you wanting people to add value to you? @JohnCMaxwell

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  • There is a thin line between motivating people and manipulating people.
  • There are 3 questions followers ask leaders: Do you like me? Can you help me? Can I trust you?
  • People are asking will this leader add value to my life?
  • Everything worthwhile is uphill all the way.
  • The problem: people have uphill hopes and downhill habits. 
The problem: people have uphill hopes and downhill habits. @JohnCMaxwell

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  • The only way to make the change you need to change is to be intentional.
  • There is no thing like accidental achievement.
  • Intentional living is deliberate.
  • Selfishness and significance are incompatible.
Selfishness and significance are incompatible. @JohnCMaxwell

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  • The problem is people don’t need their life, they accept their life.
  • Christ followers have to ask if they are going to spend their life connecting with people or correcting people.
5 ways to add value to people everyday.

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5 Things to do Everyday to Add Value to People

  1. To add value to people you must value people.
  2. To add value to people you have to think of ways to add value to people. Who am I going to see today and how can I add value to them?
  3. To add value to people you have to look for ways to add value to people.
  4. To add value to people, you must go from knowing to doing. Ask at the end of the day, did I add value to people today?
  5. To add value to people you must encourage others to add value to people.
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Alan Mulally on “The Art of Working Together” from the Leadership Summit 2016

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leadership

I’m at the leadership summit with the team from Revolution Church. This is by far the best leadership conference of the year. This is my 13th summit and every year, God stretches me and challenges me. So much wisdom and inspiration wrapped up into two days. I always blog my notes, so if you can’t attend or missed something, I’ve got you covered.

Session 2 was with Alan Mullaly where he talked about The Art of Working Together.

Here are some takeaways:

Working together principles and practices

  • People first.
  • Everyone is included.
  • Compelling vision, comprehensive strategy and relentless implementation.
  • Clear performance goals.
  • One plan.
  • Facts and data are important.
  • Everyone knows the plan, the status, and areas that need special attention.
  • Propose a plan, positive, “find-a-way” attitude.
  • Respect, listen, help and appreciate each other.
  • Emotional resilience – trust the process.
  • Have fun – enjoy the journey and each other.
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How to be Thankful as a Leader

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thankful

Most of the time on blogs like mine or other leadership and ministry blogs you read about how tough ministry is, how difficult people can be and how hard it is to be a leader. All those things are true.

At the same time, if you are a leader, especially if you are a pastor, you have a lot to be thankful for. At the same time, as a follower of Jesus, growing in your thankfulness is a sign of your faith but also of your maturity. I know for me, when I am pessimistic, only seeing what isn’t working or how things aren’t what I want them to be, it makes me a poor leader, a poor husband and father, and honestly, a poor human.

So I sat down in the middle of a pity party, when things didn’t go how I wanted them to go at church and someone was mad at me, and wrote out things I should be thankful for. For you this list might be different, but here’s what came to mind for me:

How to be thankful as a pastor.

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1. My church still exists. This might seem like a weird one, but on a weekly basis I hear about another church that closed their doors. When we moved to Tucson and started Revolution church, there was a window of three years where over 20 churches were planted in Tucson (of which we were one), and only three of those are still going (of which we are one). Why? That’s God’s grace towards us.

The fact that your church exists is a sign of God’s grace towards you.

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2. I get to use my gifts. Most pastors overlook this gift. If you ask most people what their gifts, talents and passions are, they don’t know. They don’t know how God has wired them, the talents they have, how their family of origin and story have gone into making them who they are and the passions they have, but many pastors do. They get out of bed with a burning passion to see something happen for God. That isn’t a small thing.

If you know why you are on this earth, you are in the minority.

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3. My marriage. If you’re a pastor, your wife deserves more credit than you do. She endures more than you do. I know, I know. Your life is so hard as a leader, the stress, the pain, the emotional side of ministry. I get it. Yet it is nowhere near as difficult as the role your wife plays. While you can bury yourself in work and ministry as a way of letting off steam, she doesn’t have that opportunity. She endures more than you do, and you should tell her thanks. She takes the brunt of your emotional roller coaster, she walks on egg shells around you sometimes, she hears people talk behind your back, she sees the glares you don’t see, she hears what things are said about your kids that you don’t hear, she worries about you in ways you don’t understand. And yet she has stuck with you. She is your biggest cheerleader, your biggest prayer warrior.

A pastor’s wife often endures more than a pastor does.

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Protect your wife to your church. Speak highly of her always, on stage and off. I talk about Katie in such a way that I want to communicate, if you speak badly about my wife, stab her in the back, you get papa bear, and you don’t want that. Too many pastors are weak when it comes to their wives and how they defend them in their church. Sadly, you have to do this because people can be mean.

4. My kids. The same goes for your kids. It is hard being a pastor’s kid. Way harder than being a pastor, so don’t put it in the same category. Don’t put more pressure on them than is already on them. When someone says in disbelief, “I can’t believe your kid jumped off the stage and over the communion table” (true story in the Reich family), shake your head, laugh and say, “What did you expect a five year old boy to do? Did he clear the table?” He did and didn’t get hurt.

I am my biggest protector of my kids. I want them to enjoy being kids. I want them to enjoy being a pastor’s kid as much as they can. When people try to put something on them that I think is unfair, I fight to take that expectation away.

5. My team. I’m thankful for my team. Most leaders are visionary, hard driving, goal setting people, which makes us difficult to be around and be friends with. The fact that people endure you as a leader is something to be thankful for. They help you, mold you and make things better. Sadly, most leaders don’t like their teams, which is the fault of the leader. You get what you allow or create.

6. I’m not 300 pounds anymore. I’m thankful for my health. When we started our church I weighed almost 300 pounds, and in the first 18 months I lost 130 pounds and have kept it off. I know it sounds silly to be thankful for your health and very cliche, but if you’re healthy, that’s a gift from God. Not everyone is.

7. God loves me. Lastly, if you are a follower of Jesus, God loves you, and because of His love for you He sent his Son Jesus to die in your place so that you could have a relationship with Him. Never get far from this truth and reality as a pastor.

7 things I’m thankful for as a pastor. What are you thankful for?

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But what do you do when it is hard to be thankful and ministry is hard? That happens.

One thing that was helpful was something I came across in Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth, where the author said to give yourself 24 hours to mope, throw a pity party and then get back on the horse and lead.