Ever wondered if you should actually be listening to a particular influence (writer, TV show, blog, etc...)? Was faced with this today and God called this to mind from James 3...
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
James 3:17
Is it...
...pure or tainted?
...ultimately peace-loving or divisive?
...considerate to others or rude to them? (not does it tell others they are wrong, that's not being rude, and sometimes it's the most considerate thing to do)
...submissive to authority (God) or demanding for itself?
...merciful or unforgiving?
...impartial or one-sided?
...sincere or manipulative?
What fruit seems to spring from it? (solution or separation, unity or useless conflict, insults or insight).
If it doesn't pass the test, then you can probably get along without it. Also, any wisdom that you feel led to give to others should follow that rule, too.
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
A realization
Today, I had a realization of how blessed I've been in my Christian life. When I was in college, I was a part of the Baptist Student Union as a freshman, but as it happens so much, my sophomore year I chose to head out and try some new things and I joined a popular fraternity on campus (we were #1...seriously, it was great!). While my plan was to kind of do my own thing, sort of flexing my rebellion a bit (well, it wasn't a conscious plan, I was just doing it), God had other plans and he took that opportunity to introduce me to being discipled.
Two guys, Chris Sanders and Sam Bowdoin, joined the fraternity in my pledge class, but they didn't join because my fraternity was so awesome, but because, get this...there weren't any Christians in it. It wasn't what you think...they didn't hate Christians, they were Christians and were taking the whole "missional" thing WAY too serious, about 20 years before missional was a mainstream Christian term. I guess I was doing a great job of not following Christ, because I guess Sam took my lifestyle, with some periodic conviction, because Christ was still trying to coach me through my stupidity, as a sign that I was "lost but questioning"...yeah, that's what I looked like. When I was ready, Sam invited me to come to his room and learn about Christ through that CO discipling tool the Blue Book. Anyway, God used that to right my ship and ended up with me going to Summer Beach Project, where I was discipled by a guy at my school for the summer named Patrick Sharp, who ended up discipling me when I got back to college. I sort of put discipling people on the backburner until I got to Seminary, where I poured my life into a lot of youth and college guys, mainly in a band or those dabbling in worship leading, then I met my wife, Katye.
Katye had had a lot of people pour into her life, from some great SS teachers (who are still discipling ladies today) and then being introduced by her sister to Jerry and Marilyn Fine, who have been voracious disciplers of men and women one on one for the last 40 years or longer (that's another history lesson from there). Jerry and Marilyn had discipled as regular church members for years, and after a while, their job was just getting in the way of their purpose, so they sold their business in the 80s and started just travelling around the world staying places with people for months at a time, discipling people to disciple others. Katye's sister was also greatly affected, a discipling great-great grandmother a few times over herself (Daphne married the Fines' son, Don, who's an awesome Christian minister as well).
Katye introduced me to the Fines and their discipleship system of "One on One with God" (http://www.1on1withgod.org/) I so loved the whole point, being to get you and God and the Word together...that's it, no devo material, you and God and the Bible...all you need to get wisdom from God.
Katye and I have always discipled people, informally and formally, pouring our lives into people everywhere we've been. My greatest thrill in ministry really isn't someone just accepting Christ and praying the prayer...for me, and I don't think I've ever shared this before, it's actually kind of a let-down in some way for me. Growing up with all the mass invitations of "close your eyes and raise your hand" and "easy-believism" of my youth, I've seen SOOOOOOO many people pray the prayer and then walk away from Christ...speaking at youth camps or as an evangelist, you go to the same camps or churches and the same kids keep walking forward at times. I'm kind of ashamed to admit that, but the thing that I began to understand that saved me from ridiculing myself, is that what really gets me going is seeing someone not only accept Christ, but then begin to live in the Word, to be around them as they share the first things they heard from God alone while they read...when they first prayed for something and saw God come through...when they started changing patterns/goals/rhythms of their lives, because what they were doing just wasn't consistent with God's Word/way. Those are the moments I live for... And today, I just realized why...that's what I was always made to live for, because Jesus never commanded me to make converts to get folks to pray the prayer. I think I finally realized that I don't have to feel guilty about that because what I get pumped about is someone becoming a disciple, a follower, not a member or an associate or an attender, but a disciple...all those things matter, but when I meet with someone and they go "yeah, I read John and here's what I just kept hearing all through that book: _______ "...and you know they aren't bs'ing you, because they are citing place after place, because you can't just fast talk your way out of that....then they say "I started to handle ______ this way, because Jesus said so." That's awesome.
Anyway, this week, at Exponential, I hit that realization, which was freeing and guilt-relieving, but on the other side, Exponential was both humbling and scary. The theme of the conference was "DiscipleShift" and it was all about changing the scorecard of our lives and churches by how we raise up disciples, not how big our offerings are or our attendance is, because disciples are the goal, the others are just things we sometimes pass on the way. As speaker after speaker laid out basically what I've been exposed to most of my Christian life, I had to "thank God" for all the blessing of the people who lived the mission and tried to get me to actually get that me being a disciple wasn't enough for Jesus in my life...I had to be about advancing others past just being a convert on an assocational report, but to actually walking with Jesus and teaching others to do the same. Any other finish line is a fake one that pulls up short, for me. It was humbling to think back past Sam to people like Chip Seagle, a high school football coach who took me and Craig Long to a conference in Montgomery, AL to learn about Christ and other things like that...people like Terry Hawkins, Woody Wood (who tried to teach me the Greek language as a 12 year old -- seriously), Bobby Long, Leslie Thompson and so many more that tried to challenge me in the faith...I'm so blessed, and I haven't done enough to justify the investment that God has exposed me to as a believer, it's really sad on my part and I'm kind of ashamed, even though I've been doing this, I haven't done enough.
At the same time, Exponential was scary....as I listened to those speakers basically say things I've been hearing since college as a way of life, I heard the crowds go "ooh" and "ahh" like they'd never thought of that before. I'm not trying to be backhandedly arrogant, because I'm a product of a system, not a prodigy or anything, but it's scary to think that people are on the edge of going to another state or city to plant churches and they are just now seem to be having their eyes opened to just pouring into the guy next to you...I'm glad the speakers spoke and I'm excited for the theme of the conference, because I was encouraged...it was like God was saying, "Yeah, that's what I want, keep doing that and do it harder...invest there.", but I'm also glad they talked because there were a lot of people who needed to be introduced to this, to change the scorecard, the way we measure success...not by simply attracting people who like to go to Bible studies, dinners and a weekend show, but by how are we actually doing on the last command of Christ before He left..."making disciples" and teaching them how to actually live following Christ.
Two guys, Chris Sanders and Sam Bowdoin, joined the fraternity in my pledge class, but they didn't join because my fraternity was so awesome, but because, get this...there weren't any Christians in it. It wasn't what you think...they didn't hate Christians, they were Christians and were taking the whole "missional" thing WAY too serious, about 20 years before missional was a mainstream Christian term. I guess I was doing a great job of not following Christ, because I guess Sam took my lifestyle, with some periodic conviction, because Christ was still trying to coach me through my stupidity, as a sign that I was "lost but questioning"...yeah, that's what I looked like. When I was ready, Sam invited me to come to his room and learn about Christ through that CO discipling tool the Blue Book. Anyway, God used that to right my ship and ended up with me going to Summer Beach Project, where I was discipled by a guy at my school for the summer named Patrick Sharp, who ended up discipling me when I got back to college. I sort of put discipling people on the backburner until I got to Seminary, where I poured my life into a lot of youth and college guys, mainly in a band or those dabbling in worship leading, then I met my wife, Katye.
Katye had had a lot of people pour into her life, from some great SS teachers (who are still discipling ladies today) and then being introduced by her sister to Jerry and Marilyn Fine, who have been voracious disciplers of men and women one on one for the last 40 years or longer (that's another history lesson from there). Jerry and Marilyn had discipled as regular church members for years, and after a while, their job was just getting in the way of their purpose, so they sold their business in the 80s and started just travelling around the world staying places with people for months at a time, discipling people to disciple others. Katye's sister was also greatly affected, a discipling great-great grandmother a few times over herself (Daphne married the Fines' son, Don, who's an awesome Christian minister as well).
Katye introduced me to the Fines and their discipleship system of "One on One with God" (http://www.1on1withgod.org/) I so loved the whole point, being to get you and God and the Word together...that's it, no devo material, you and God and the Bible...all you need to get wisdom from God.
Katye and I have always discipled people, informally and formally, pouring our lives into people everywhere we've been. My greatest thrill in ministry really isn't someone just accepting Christ and praying the prayer...for me, and I don't think I've ever shared this before, it's actually kind of a let-down in some way for me. Growing up with all the mass invitations of "close your eyes and raise your hand" and "easy-believism" of my youth, I've seen SOOOOOOO many people pray the prayer and then walk away from Christ...speaking at youth camps or as an evangelist, you go to the same camps or churches and the same kids keep walking forward at times. I'm kind of ashamed to admit that, but the thing that I began to understand that saved me from ridiculing myself, is that what really gets me going is seeing someone not only accept Christ, but then begin to live in the Word, to be around them as they share the first things they heard from God alone while they read...when they first prayed for something and saw God come through...when they started changing patterns/goals/rhythms of their lives, because what they were doing just wasn't consistent with God's Word/way. Those are the moments I live for... And today, I just realized why...that's what I was always made to live for, because Jesus never commanded me to make converts to get folks to pray the prayer. I think I finally realized that I don't have to feel guilty about that because what I get pumped about is someone becoming a disciple, a follower, not a member or an associate or an attender, but a disciple...all those things matter, but when I meet with someone and they go "yeah, I read John and here's what I just kept hearing all through that book: _______ "...and you know they aren't bs'ing you, because they are citing place after place, because you can't just fast talk your way out of that....then they say "I started to handle ______ this way, because Jesus said so." That's awesome.
Anyway, this week, at Exponential, I hit that realization, which was freeing and guilt-relieving, but on the other side, Exponential was both humbling and scary. The theme of the conference was "DiscipleShift" and it was all about changing the scorecard of our lives and churches by how we raise up disciples, not how big our offerings are or our attendance is, because disciples are the goal, the others are just things we sometimes pass on the way. As speaker after speaker laid out basically what I've been exposed to most of my Christian life, I had to "thank God" for all the blessing of the people who lived the mission and tried to get me to actually get that me being a disciple wasn't enough for Jesus in my life...I had to be about advancing others past just being a convert on an assocational report, but to actually walking with Jesus and teaching others to do the same. Any other finish line is a fake one that pulls up short, for me. It was humbling to think back past Sam to people like Chip Seagle, a high school football coach who took me and Craig Long to a conference in Montgomery, AL to learn about Christ and other things like that...people like Terry Hawkins, Woody Wood (who tried to teach me the Greek language as a 12 year old -- seriously), Bobby Long, Leslie Thompson and so many more that tried to challenge me in the faith...I'm so blessed, and I haven't done enough to justify the investment that God has exposed me to as a believer, it's really sad on my part and I'm kind of ashamed, even though I've been doing this, I haven't done enough.
At the same time, Exponential was scary....as I listened to those speakers basically say things I've been hearing since college as a way of life, I heard the crowds go "ooh" and "ahh" like they'd never thought of that before. I'm not trying to be backhandedly arrogant, because I'm a product of a system, not a prodigy or anything, but it's scary to think that people are on the edge of going to another state or city to plant churches and they are just now seem to be having their eyes opened to just pouring into the guy next to you...I'm glad the speakers spoke and I'm excited for the theme of the conference, because I was encouraged...it was like God was saying, "Yeah, that's what I want, keep doing that and do it harder...invest there.", but I'm also glad they talked because there were a lot of people who needed to be introduced to this, to change the scorecard, the way we measure success...not by simply attracting people who like to go to Bible studies, dinners and a weekend show, but by how are we actually doing on the last command of Christ before He left..."making disciples" and teaching them how to actually live following Christ.
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