Category: Leading through the Church

One of the most frequently neglected aspects of prayer for many of us is listening. I’ve often thought how strange it would seem to someone if we walked up to them, engaged in a conversation, asked them some advice about a certain challenge we were facing and then walked away. Yet, that’s exactly what I have done so often in my times of prayer with the Lord. I have engaged Him in a conversation, then told Him about a major challenge I was facing personally or in my leadership at the church, asked Him what to do and then walked away, thinking I had just engaged in a “quality” prayer time with Him.

How strange is that? I just asked the God of the universe for His help and then walked away without waiting to see what He had to say on the matter. Recognizing this as a weakness in my daily times of prayer, I committed some time ago to always include a specific time of listening when I pray. The amount of time varies. For a while I would invest at least 1/3 of the total time in prayer in listening. Right now, I’m using a variation of Dr. Dick Eastman’s “Hour That Changes the World” model of prayer, which has twelve elements, listening being one of them, so my listening time is about 10-15% of the time I’m investing in prayer. The key is: I’m listening.

Yesterday during my time of listening, God offered a phrase concerning our upcoming series: Living in the Spirit, which will be a five-week message series in June and the first week of July. The phrase was brief, but helpful–Deeper not Weirder. As I pondered the phrase throughout the day yesterday, and this morning, I kept saying, “Yes!” After all, when it comes to the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church universal we find everything from a basic non-acknowledgement the Holy Spirit is still working to a radical weirdness that scares most of us. I wouldn’t say God was calling me to “balance” when it comes to the Holy Spirit, but that as we present the messages we are to focus on a deeper relationship with God in our lives through the ongoing presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

Listening isn’t easy for me, but it always has some important result. Many times I don’t hear or receive anything other than the sense of God being with me. That’s enough when it happens, because it reminds me God is with me. At other times, God has given me the seed of a message or teaching, or a prompt to visit a person or an affirmation of a direction I was already heading, or a command to stop going in a specific direction. In my entire life, God has spoken to me in an audible voice only a couple times. He has spoken clearly to me many times. The key commonality in those times is: I was listening.

I remember many years ago when I was driving home from a leadership conference led by John Windber. All day long he had been saying, “God told me…” “God directed me…” “God guided me…” I was reflecting on all the times he had made such statements through the day, and I said, “God, why don’t you talk to me like that?”

As clearly as God has ever told me anything, He said, “Because you don’t listen.” Whoa. That set me back. I realized it was far too true. I was so “busy” doing the Lord’s work, that I often shot up prayers throughout the day, and then went and did something about whatever it was I had just asked the Lord for wisdom, guidance or help. Seldom did I stop to listen.

In that moment I said, “Okay, I’m listening now.” In the next five minutes or so, God gave me three specific instructions. Each of them related to a man who was part of the church I was serving at the time. It was nearly 10:00 pm, but I drove to his house. When I knocked on the door, and he came to answer it, I told him this was going to sound strange, but that God had given me three messages to give to him. As I spoke the messages–all of which have happened over the years–the man started crying. He told me he had been angry at God and that although everyone thought he was a believer, he had never trusted Jesus as his Savior and Lord. He committed his life to Jesus in that moment, and has served him faithfully ever since.

You would think that would have been enough to cause me to invest time every day listening to God, but it wasn’t. I have invested a good deal of time in listening over the years, but the answers have seldom been so immediate, clear and compelling. Recently, I realized once again that as a leader of a large and growing church, the most pressing need in my life is to be listening to the God who put me in the position. I need to stop and listen daily. Thankfully, God is extremely patient and has been honoring my renewed commitment to listen, by guiding me more and more.

Where are you when it comes to listening in prayer? Are you intentional about listening to God when you pray? Do you turn to Him in exasperation at times and ask, “Why don’t you speak to me like you do ________?” Do you even believe God is still speaking or is there to speak? These are vital questions, and how we answer them will determine how close our relationship and union with God becomes. After all, it’s tough to have a one-way relationship. Take a moment sometime today, or more than a moment and listen.  God is still speaking…

Here’s to leading better by listening to God when we pray–today!

On Friday, I focused on the power of prayer and mentioned that Dr. Dick Eastman’s book, The Hour That Changes The World has been impacting my prayer life significantly. I’m finding that one of Dr. Eastman’s recommendations that is impacting me the most is “waiting” on the Lord. Dr. Eastman recommends we start our prayer time with praise, which is something I have done ever since I was a teenager and learned the “ACTS” model of prayer, which is an acronym for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. He then calls us to “wait” on the Lord.

Waiting on the Lord is just that. We wait. We let God know we are available, that we aren’t going anywhere, that we are investing this time with Him. Dr. Eastman points out this is not “listening” prayer. It isn’t a time when we intentionally call on God to speak to us, or listen for what He has to say to us. Of course, if God wants to speak to us during this time of waiting, that’s great. The point is to pause and make sure we know that God is first in our lives.

I’ve been finding this aspect of prayer extremely powerful and refreshing. As I tell God I’m waiting on Him, that I have nothing more important in that moment, or in my day for that matter, than waiting before Him, waiting on Him, something has happened each day–I have realized nothing is more important in my life than God. My schedule is not more important than He. No other relationship is more important than He. In those moments of waiting if my mind wanders to the tasks of the day, I simply say, “God, thank you that you are more important than any of that. I’m waiting on you.”

The difference those few minutes of waiting on God each day over the past  week is vastly disproportionate to the time invested. It has set the tone for each day. It has literally made me realize God’s presence is more important to me than anything. The freedom of experiencing that has been powerful. At other times throughout the day, when life gets hectic, I’ll remember, “God has this.” It’s a moment of waiting on Him once again. It may seem counterintuitive to pause and wait on God in order to be more effective in getting things done, and that isn’t the primary reason for doing it, but this past week has been more productive in the tasks that matter than many.

If you already include waiting in your times of prayer, praise God. If you don’t, I encourage you to add it. The first couple of days I did it, to pause and wait seemed a little awkward. Now, I look forward to it, because it focuses me on the most important one in my life–God, and lets Him know He’s in charge today, and I’m waiting, pausing, to remember that. He already knows!

Here’s to leading better by waiting on the Lord–today!

I woke up quite early this morning, finding myself eager to get to prayer. I’ve been implementing much of Dr. Dick Eastman’s recommendation from his book The Hour That Changes the World: A Practical Plan for Personal Prayer this week, along with ideas from John Eldridge’s book Moving Mountains: Praying with Passion, Confidence and Authority along with my own decades-long process for praying and I’ve found a “secret”: Coming to prayer with expectance and making it the first, and most important priority of my day is powerful. Some of you just thought, “Duh!”

It’s true there’s nothing new about the power of putting God first, and investing the first hour of the day with Him being transformational. It’s just that actually doing it isn’t always my reality. All too often I get up and have to “finish up” something from the day before, such as a blog post I forgot to write, or the end of a message that’s due that day, or any of a dozen other important tasks. By the time I do whatever it is that “had” to be done, and turn to prayer, my remaining time is less than an hour. It’s impossible to participate in “the hour that changes the world,” when you only have 37 minutes. Please understand, it isn’t about whether it’s an hour or 37 minutes or 5 minutes for that matter. It’s about the priority.

Decades ago, I heard Rick Warren say, “The best time to tune your instrument is before the concert begins.” He wasn’t talking about concerts. He was talking about prayer. I know some of us aren’t morning people, but I am a morning person. It’s usually dark when I get out of bed. I have no excuse for not putting God first in my day, and when I do the day is always a more effective day. It isn’t something that happens occasionally. It always happens. So why am I telling you thing? Because some of you are like me. You know how important it is to start your day in prayer, but… But you have so much to do. But you slept in. But…. The truth is we will always have so much to do if we’re leaders. That’s why we’re leaders.

In my prayer time this morning, God showed me the importance of extending my time of intercession. In fact, during the time I had a powerful sense of the actual warfare in which we’re engaged. I “saw” the darkness we’re battling and sensed the coldness of it. Then as I prayed and called on God and His warriors breakthrough came. I’ve experienced that before, but most often it has been in Cuba or China, not in my basement. What was the difference? The practical difference was I started the day by opening God’s word and then turning to prayer. It wasn’t 15 or 20 minutes. It was an hour. I didn’t use all of Dr. Eastman’s 12 components of prayer, but I started with prayer, waiting, and confession as he recommends. Then I called on the Lord to fill me with the Holy Spirit and then turned to intercession. That’s when I experienced the intensity of the struggle, and God’s power to overcome it.

While today is my Sabbath, and I won’t be doing my usual work, I’m better prepared to lean into this day of rest and renewal than in a long time.  I’m already looking forward to tomorrow’s time of prayer, and am also planning to commit some extended time in praying throughout the day today.

What is your level of intentionality in prayer right now? Is it the first priority of your day, or if you’re a night person, do you have an intentional time when you pray? I’m hearing more and more folks tell me, “I pray throughout the day. God is always with me.”  While I agree with the sentiment, I sometimes wonder whether praying throughout the day isn’t a way of saying, “My prayers are general, and I don’t focus on God specifically at any point in the day.” I too, think about God and call on Him throughout the day. I’m learning how important that is to my health and growth as Jesus’ follower. This morning I was reminded, that while that is good, starting the day in focused prayer is a powerful aspect of praying throughout the day. If it’s part of your daily routine, praise God. If it isn’t, you may find it worth doing.

Here’s to leading better by giving God the best part of our day–today!

When I was a young pastor serving in Cincinnati, Ohio, one of our elders introduced me to the concept of “thinking like a fish.” The elder’s name was Mert, and Mert was off work for an extended period of time while waiting for a kidney transplant. One of Mert’s favorite pass times was fishing.  Every now and then, Mert would call me and say, “Chris, you need to go fishing.” He was usually right, because I had the tendency to work way too much and not take time off.

On one of our fishing trips, we ended up in Mert’s bass boat floating down a lazy river in the state of Indiana. All the sudden Mert stopped the boat, threw out the anchor, changed lures and said, “Watch this as he gently cast the lure to a particular spot in the river, which was on the shady side of a large rock. No sooner had the lure hit the water than a large fish hit the lure. After a brief and pleasant struggle with the fish, Mert had it beside the boat. I reached into the water with a net and pulled out a beauty. I was amazed. I asked, “How did you know that fish would be right there?

Mert, smiled broadly and said, “If you want to catch a fish, you have to think like a fish.” Mert knew that on a sunny afternoon, it would be likely a fish would be on the shady side of the rock. The rock also stopped the current, meaning the fish could stay there without effort. I thought about Mert’s comment the rest of the afternoon, and then it hit me. Mert’s comment about thinking like a fish was exactly what the Apostle Paul did when he was sharing Jesus with people. In 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 we read: ¹⁹For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. ²⁰To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. ²¹To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. ²²To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. ²³I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (ESV) 

Paul adapted what he said, how he said it, the content of the message, perhaps even the language he used to speak according to the type of “fish” he was trying to catch. While the message was the same with Jews and Gentiles, the presentation was different. How often do we think like the fish we’re attempting to catch when we’re sharing the gospel? Obviously, as with all analogies at some point there is breakdown, but I’ve found over the years, when I’m telling folks about Jesus, or responding to questions I’ve been asked about Him, the way I respond depends on the person asking the questions. I’m glad we have the Apostle Paul’s example, because it keeps us from thinking there’s a one-size-fits-all approach to sharing Jesus with others.

As church leaders we often find ourselves in positions where we’re meeting new people, or working with multiple different types of people. The key is to remember while our message is vital, sometimes it is the “lure” we use that makes all the difference. Having earned two seminary degrees, it would be easy for me to use a certain type of language that is appropriate in the seminary setting, but not as much in everyday conversation. One of our professors reminded us if we were always talking over everybody’s head, it might not be a sign of our brilliance. Rather he said we may simply be poor marksmen.

As you go about the task of leading, how often do you consider the person you are leading, her perspective, his background, the type of sports they like, the news channel they watch? Paul told us “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.” One of the most important tools in our leadership, then, must be a willingness to care enough about others to find out from where they are coming, so we may show them Jesus’ truth and love in a manner that will help them receive Him. Just remember Mert’s admonition and “think like a fish!”

Here’s to leading better by thinking like a fish–today!

New Life hosted the South East Asia Prayer Center’s Spring Bible Conference on Friday and Saturday (April 21-22). The keynote speaker was Dr. Dick Eastman, president of Every Home for Christ. If you’ve never heard of EHC, through their ministry the gospel is presented in more than 290,000 homes around the world every day through their ministry. I found that statistic amazing. Anyway, one of the most important takeaways from Dr. Eastman’s talks for me was this truth: when we take the good news of Jesus anywhere we need to take both intercessory prayer warriors and evangelists. This may be obvious to many of you who are reading, but it was an aha moment for me.

My primary spiritual gifting is as an evangelist. I have always found it challenging to invest more than minutes in intercessory prayer at any one time. I have gladly invested hours in talking with someone about Jesus, or listening to their situations in order to know how to best help them through Jesus’ presence in their lives. I have learned to “think like a fish” that is to meet a person where he or she is to best know how to share the gospel with them. (More about thinking like a fish on Wednesday.)

The challenge for me has been investing the time in intercessory prayer in order to create the spiritual environment for such sharing to have the maximum impact. Dr. Eastman reminded us that we need a team when we’re sharing the gospel. That team needs to consist of at least an intercessor and an evangelist, because the work needs to be happening simultaneously. Those may not have been his exact words, but that’s what I took away from his talk. The key for me was the realization that some folks find it as easy to intercede in prayer as I find it to share the good news, and many of them I know do not find it as easy to share the good news as to pray. Of course each of us is called to pray for others and bear witness, but as we all have different gifts given by the one Spirit, we are going to have a tendency toward either witness or prayer.

This idea helped me realize the many applications of it. For example, this weekend when we gathered all the volunteers for our time of pre-service prayer, I asked them as they were standing in the parking lot, or greeting people, or serving refreshments, or providing security to pray for those who would come who didn’t yet know Jesus. I asked them to lift them before the Lord, to open their hearts to receive salvation. I reminded them, my message will nearly always call people to respond to Jesus’ offer of salvation, and their prayers will help provide the spiritual environment for a favorable response.

If you’ve been marrying evangelism and intercession in your leadership, praise God. If you haven’t, I hope this instruction from Dr. Eastman helps you. It will change the way I think of mission teams, prayer walking in our local community, how we prepare and carry out ministries and more. I’m grateful to Dr. Eastman for sharing this insight and pray it will either encourage you, because you’ve already been doing it, or challenge you to consider it.

Here’s to leading better by developing teams for interceding and evangelizing–today! (And into the future!)

This week we’ve been considering the idea of moving from a “shepherd” model of leadership to a “rancher” model when it comes to serving as the pastor of a church. In doing so, we’ve also consider the biblical mandate for multiplying ourselves. Today, let’s ask ourselves one practical question: How are we going to reach the most people in the place God has placed us?

The short answer to that question must be to multiply ourselves. If you see that statement and say, “But I’m a ‘solo’ pastor. I don’t have any staff, and the people I serve expect me to meet all the pastoral needs around here.” I understand. (When I say I understand, let me underline I have learned in nearly thirty-three years of pastoral ministry not to say, “I understand,” unless I have been in the situation. When someone’s spouse dies, for example, and I make a pastoral visit, I would never say, “I understand”, because I have never lost my spouse.)

The reason I understand is I grew up in a church where the pastor didn’t have any staff, and was expected to do the “pastoral” work of the church. I have also observed many churches with that type of mindset, and have consulted in a couple. The model is rather typical in America, even today. While this extreme model of the pastor doing “all” of the ministry in the church is rare, variations of it are typical.

So, how does one multiply oneself in that situation? The first practical reality is you will have to teach and train people to understand and live a biblical model of care. Ephesians 4:12 and following is a great place to start. Start with the church board. Start with a group of folks who have demonstrated a desire to do something in the church. Show them Jesus has given gifts to the church, which are leaders: apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastors and teachers to equip the saints (that’s them!) for the work of ministry.

Until you and I and those God has called us to lead understand the pastor’s role is to equip people for ministry and the people’s role is to do the ministry, we will always be “solo” pastors. This reality changes as a church lives out Ephesians 4:12 in scale, but the principle remains the same. The key is for us as leaders to believe the passage at every level, not just in our heads, but in our hearts and lives as well. I have talked with pastors who don’t believe the people can do ministry, and others who don’t believe the people will do the ministry. Neither statement is biblical.

One more extremely helpful and practical point for today: I have often heard pastors say, “Our people won’t….” The statement is completed with give, join small groups, go on missions trips, and a host of other actions. I have even said it myself. A number of years ago, I heard Craig Groeschel say, “When we say, ‘Our people won’t…’ what we really mean is ‘We haven’t taught our people to…'” That makes all the difference. As long as we put the onus on our people, they won’t change but when we realize as leaders it is our task to discern how to help people see the truth and then live into it, we can make an impact on whatever the situation may be. After all, we can’t change other people, only God can do that. We can let God change us and then influence others to see how the change will be a blessing to them. At the end of the day leadership is influence, and the most practical way to influence others to change for their benefit is to let God influence change in us first.

Here’s to leading better by letting God change the way we think, understand His plans for us and act on them, so we may influence others in the same direction–today! (and for a long time to come, because this will take time.)

One of the questions that comes up from time to time when we talk about serving as “ranchers” instead of “shepherds” as we lead our churches is:  “Is the idea of multiplying ourselves biblical? After all, didn’t Jesus call Himself the Good Shepherd?” The answer to those questions is, “Yes! Jesus did call Himself the Good Shepherd, and He laid down His life for the sheep. And Jesus called us to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them everything He commanded them.” In order to do that we must multiply ourselves.

In addition, we find three different words used for church leaders in the New Testament: pastors/shepherds, overseers/bishops, and elders. We find passages where all three concepts are put together to refer to one group of leaders, as when the Apostle Paul gave his final instructions to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20. He calls them overseers, elders and tells them to watch over the sheep God has entrusted to them, which is the function of a shepherd.  Therefore, there is nothing inherently biblical about restricting ourselves to the idea of one pastor who watches over one small flock of sheep.

Much of the church structure we see in the various churches across the world have little to do with biblical mandate. For example the hierarchical structures of the catholic and episcopal churches reflects the overseer aspect of church leadership, but not necessarily the pastoral, and certainly not the elder role.  The elder-driven models of the Presbyterian and Reformed traditions actually have the pastor serving “under” them in many case, while even when the pastor is an “equal” he or she is often charged with doing most of the ministry.

The point is not to debate models of church polity, but simply to say in the early church which grew rapidly, the Apostle Paul multiplied himself many times, and charged Timothy to do the same in the local church he served. The idea of multiplying ourselves is seen most clearly in Ephesians 4 where the Apostle Paul reminds us that Jesus gave the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry. That means every saint, every Christian is to carry out the work of ministry, which is an obvious multiplication model.

Many reasons can be given for the average church in America to have 89 adult members (The number comes from recent Barna research.), but one of the primary reasons is that’s about the leadership capacity of a local church using the shepherd model of ministry. Again, my goal is not to advocate for larger or smaller churches, only to advocate for biblical leadership models that give us the greatest opportunity to carry out the Great Commission. I hope wherever you are on the spectrum of leadership,  that you will take the time to stop to reflect on whether how you are leading is giving your church the best opportunity to reach the most people with the Good News of Jesus. As I mentioned on Monday, whether we think as a shepherd or a rancher will have a great deal of impact on the  number of people we can reach in Jesus’ name.

Here’s to leading better by multiplying our impact among the saints–today!

I’m working my way through How To Break Growth Barriers, Revise Your Role, Release Your People, and Capture Overlooked Opportunities for Your Church, by Carl F. George and Warren Bird (which may be the longest book title I’ve ever seen.), and wanted to pass along the key question from the book: Are you thinking like a shepherd or a rancher when it comes to your leadership? The point of the question is shepherds think in terms of individual “sheep” reached, while ranchers organize groups of other cowboys to systematically herd the “cows.”

When we respond as shepherds as leaders, we think that we are the ones who must make all the pastoral visits, teach all the classes, preach all the sermons, and in short do the ministry. This has been a common model for pastoral leadership in America for centuries, which may be the best explanation for the average church in America having less than 100 people. After all, if the pastor is the shepherd of all the people, then he or she can only handle caring for 50-100 people. There are exceptions, when a pastor is particularly gifted, or possesses uncommon stamina, but over time leading people and caring for people is both a time intensive and energy intensive endeavor. At some point the pastor who thinks and serve as a shepherd will either burn out or throw in the towel on doing what the church was created to do: make disciples of all the nations.

I am not saying that every church ought to be a mega church. I am simply agreeing with George and Bird’s assessment that the shepherd model of ministry has inherent limitations, because one shepherd can only care for so many sheep. Without adding or multiplying the impact of one’s leadership one will hit an inevitable lid with regard to caring for people in Jesus’ name, and extending God’s Kingdom through making disciples.

The rancher model, on the other hand recognizes that the task is to care for the most people possible. The methods may change from one rancher to the next, but the key is the rancher sees the goal of reaching the most possible people with the Good News of Jesus, helping them become disciples (through other people in addition to himself or herself), and then helping the to care for one another and make other disciples. The rancher’s mentality, according to George and Bird, is that of a medical team who comes on the scened of a massive natural disaster and must decide how to care best for the multitude of people impacted by it. They can each start to treat one person at a time, which will certainly save some, and will give the medics a sense of accomplishment until the drop from exhaustion. On the other hand the medics could help those who are already in the best condition, train them to help care for those who are hurting, and equip some to address the infrastructure that will keep disease from spreading, such as the water and sewer systems, and in general work from the big picture back to the individual.

Ranchers see the big picture, while shepherds tend to be so caught up in caring they may never see it. Again, I’m not saying more or bigger is better, except in so far as reaching more people makes more sense if the goal is to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations. We must be strategic if that is our goal, because the world is big and the population is multiplying. While it’s true that no single church or leader is going to reach the whole world, each church can live within the realities of its context and determine the best way to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission most effectively.

So, which are you as a church leader a shepherd or a rancher? Is your tendency to move from one person’s crisis to another putting out the fires and keeping as many plates spinning as possible? Are you more strategic in that you recognize when you equip more people in every area of church ministry according to their giftedness and skills the body will be healthier and healthy things tend to grow? As I have so often written, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” while the statement isn’t biblical, it has helped me over and over again through the years to stop and take stock of where I am, of the methods I’m using, and of the bigger picture. When I do those things, I can recall my mission, which never changes, but can change my methods and my own focus in order to make the greatest possible impact for God’s Kingdom.

Here’s to leading better, by determining whether to lead as a shepherd or a rancher and than taking steps to lead boldly in that direction–today!

On Monday I wrote that today we would look at the most important question Church leaders can ask. The question comes from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Andy Stanley is the first person I heard ask the question. In fact, he’s written a book about it. The question is based on Ephesians 5:15-16: Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of time, because the days are evil. Do you see the question embedded in the statements? Here it is: What is the wise thing to do?

As leaders we make dozens if not hundreds of decisions every day. The best way to lead and lead with success and significance is to choose the wise thing every time. Can we always know the wise thing to do? Not with 100% assurance, but we can choose wisely far more often than we sometimes do, if we pause to ask ourselves the question before we make a decision. Is this the wise thing to do? The question can be asked in every area of life, and can lead to more effective leadership in each of those areas.

For example, the next time you’re deciding what to have for breakfast, if you ask, “Is it wise for me to eat several donuts and a Pepsi?” If you’re thinking, “That’s crazy! Who would eat several donuts and a Pepsi for breakfast?” I did. When I was in my early twenties and was doing carpentry work six days a week, I often had a regular breakfast of eggs and bacon or cereal and fruit, but later in the morning, I’d have donuts and a Pepsi at the local store.  It wasn’t the wisest choice I ever made and I made it multiple times. These days I have green smoothies five mornings a week and eggs, bacon and fruit on the weekends. That’s a much wiser choice over the long haul.

What does that have to do with being an effective leader? Everything. After all, when we eat wisely we feel better, live healthier and potentially longer. In my experience, being healthy, alive and feeling well generally leads to more effective leadership.

Moving to a much more serious side of things, the next time you’re making a decision about whether to implement a change to your worship services, small groups, or pastoral care, instead of asking, “Will this work better?” or “Will this attract more people?” Ask, “Is this the wise thing to do?” Or “Is this wiser than what we’re doing now? Most churches are looking for ways to be more effective these days, or at least we ought to be. After all, what we’re doing is the most important task there is: sharing the Good News of Jesus with those who haven’t received it, and helping those who have to grow into maturity as followers of Jesus. As Church leaders the decision we make have eternal consequences, because as we remind ourselves frequently at New Life: The decisions we make now matter for eternity

We are constantly tweaking our existing ministries and asking ourselves whether they are still advancing our mission, which is to share, grow and live the new life of Jesus Christ with the world–one person at a time. As Andy Stanley and many others have said, “We need to marry our mission and date our methods. It is wise to ask ourselves whether our methods are effective on a regular basis. We make it a practice to evaluate everything we do and to ask ourselves whether there’s a better (read wiser) way to do it. We do a lot of reading, watching and listening, because we know the Bible is our guidebook for life, and many other resources have taken its principles and developed wise ways to apply them for the context of 21st century America.

Many churches either don’t ask or have stopped asking the question, “What is the wise thing to do?” for a lot of reasons. Perhaps the way it’s always been done is so ingrained that to question it is considered sacrilegious. Maybe things are already good enough and if it isn’t broken why should we fix it? Maybe someone has donated a piece of furniture and to stop using it or to use it differently would be considered ungrateful or would cause conflict. Many times doing the wise thing stirs the pot, and results in conflict. The key is to do the wise thing anyway, because over time doing the wise thing more and more brings health and vitality to a local church, and over time healthy things grow.

As you read these posts you may wonder whether my goal is to provide “church growth” pointers. I’m certainly not opposed to that, because I do believe healthy things grow, but my bigger concern is to help church leaders lead effectively, and produce healthy church cultures, because that is the long-term means of glorifying God and advancing His Kingdom. While I invest most of my time thinking about how to do the next wise thing for New Life, my heart is always for Jesus’ Church to be healthy and growing, because I want everyone to know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. That job is too big for any person, or any local church. It’s all of our job together.

So, what is the next wise decision for you as a leader of the church where you serve? What is the most important next wise decision? Do you need to get training in an area where you are inexperienced? Do you need to change a system or a program? Take some time right now to consider prayerfully what the three most important areas are where you need to make wise decisions, or even where you need to gather more information so you can choose wisely. Remember, prayer is the starting point, but at some point you’ll need to choose wisely and then do something. That’s what leadership means, actually developing a plan and seeing it be implemented in the life of the church you serve, or in the particular area of the church where you serve.

Here’s to leading better by taking the time to make the next wise choice or choices–today!