Habits of the Heart: Using Technology for the Good of Your Soul

ISSUE 20 / NOV_DEC 2018

GLEN BERTEAU / CAREY NIEUWHOF / HEATHER ZEMPEL

HABITS OF THE TECH-WISE HEART USING TECHNOLOGY FOR THE GOOD OF YOUR SOUL

Leading Your Team Through Setbacks Taking a Stand Against Marijuana How to Increase Year-End Giving

JOHN 1

The First Disciples 35 The following day John was again standing w 36 As Jesus walked by, John looked at him and is the Lamb of God!” 37 When John’s two discip lowed Jesus.

38 Jesus looked around and saw them fol want?” he asked them.

They replied, “Rabbi” (which means “Tea staying?”

39 “Come and see,” said.

The Filament Bible is a beautifully simple print Bible, perfect for undistracted reading.

When you he want to It was about four dig deeper, its pages also link seamlessly to your phone or tablet. Simply scanwhen the page using theynumber went with himthe to the place where h Filament app, and you’re instantly connected to a world of study material, devotionals, visuals, remained interactive with him the rest of the day.

40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one o videos, and more—all centered around the page you are reading. what John said and then followed Jesus. 41 A brother, Simon, and told him, “We have foun means “Christ”*).

42 Then Andrew brought Simon to meet Jes Simon, Jesus 2said, “Your name is Simon, son be called Cephas” (which means “Peter”*).

1 Download the free Filament: Gospel of John 43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galile app from the App Store or Google Play said to him, “Come, follow me.” 44 Philip was f 2 Scan the page number shown here by tapping 1718 and Peter’s hometown. the button 45 Philip went to look for Nathanael and tol 3 Explore everything Filament has to offer the very person Moses* and the prophets wr Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.”

46 “Nazareth!” exclaimed Nathanael. “Can learn more at from Nazareth?” filamentbible.com “Come and see for yourself,” Philip replied 47 As they approached, Jesus said, “Now her rael—a man of complete integrity.”

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JOHN 1

JOHN 2

The First Disciples The following day John was again standing with two of his disciples.

36 As Jesus walked by, John looked at him and declared, “Look! There is the Lamb of God!” 37 When John’s two disciples heard this, they fol‑ lowed Jesus.

38 Jesus looked around and saw them following. “What do you want?” he asked them.

They replied, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”

39 “Come and see,” he said. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when they went with him to the place where he was staying, and they remained with him the rest of the day.

40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of these men who heard went to find his what John said and then followed Jesus. 41 Andrew brother, Simon, and told him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means “Christ”*).

42 Then Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus. Looking intently at Simon, Jesus said, “Your name is Simon, son of John—but you will be called Cephas” (which means “Peter”*).

43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Come, follow me.” 44 Philip was from Bethsaida, Andrew and Peter’s hometown.

45 Philip went to look for Nathanael and told him, “We have found the very person Moses* and the prophets wrote about! His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.”

46 “Nazareth!” exclaimed Nathanael. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

“Come and see for yourself,” Philip replied.

47 As they approached, Jesus said, “Now here is a genuine son of Is‑ rael—a man of complete integrity.”

48 “How do you know about me?” Nathanael asked.

Jesus replied, “I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you.”

49 Then Nathanael exclaimed, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God— the King of Israel!”

50 Jesus asked him, “Do you believe this just because I told you I had seen you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.”

51 Then he said, “I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth.*” 35

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Jesus Clears the Temple 13 It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration, so Jesus went to Jerusalem. 14 In the Temple area he saw merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices; he also saw dealers at tables exchanging foreign money. 15 Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out of the Temple. He drove out the sheep and cattle, scattered the money changers’ coins over the floor, and turned over their tables. 16 Then, going over to the people who sold doves, he told them, “Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”

17 Then his disciples remembered this prophecy from the Scriptures: “Passion for God’s house will consume me.”* 18 But the Jewish leaders demanded, “What are you doing? If God gave you authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it.”

19 “All right,” Jesus replied. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

20 “What!” they exclaimed. “It has taken forty‑six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild it in three days?” 21 But when Jesus said “this temple,” he meant his own body. 22 After he was raised from the

1:41 Messiah (a Hebrew term) and Christ (a Greek term) both mean “anointed one.” 1:42 The names Cephas (from Aramaic) and Peter (from Greek) both mean “rock.” 1:45 Greek Moses in the law. 1:51 Greek going up and down on the Son of Man; see Gen 28:10‑17. “Son of Man” is a title Jesus used for himself.

43_John_Filament_Sampler.indd 1718

The Wedding at Cana The next day* there was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration. 3 The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus’ mother told him, “They have no more wine.”

4 “Dear woman, that’s not our problem,” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.”

5 But his mother told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

6 Standing nearby were six stone water jars, used for Jewish ceremo‑ nial washing. Each could hold twenty to thirty gallons.* 7 Jesus told the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” When the jars had been filled, 8 he said, “Now dip some out, and take it to the master of ceremonies.” So the servants followed his instructions.

9 When the master of ceremonies tasted the water that was now wine, not knowing where it had come from (though, of course, the servants knew), he called the bridegroom over. 10 “A host always serves the best wine first,” he said. “Then, when everyone has had a lot to drink, he brings out the less expensive wine. But you have kept the best until now!”

11 This miraculous sign at Cana in Galilee was the first time Jesus revealed his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

12 After the wedding he went to Capernaum for a few days with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples.

2:1 Greek On the third day; see 1:35, 43. 2:6 Greek 2 or 3 measures [75 to 113 liters]. 2:17 Or “Concern for God’s house will be my undoing.” Ps 69:9.

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MAGAZINE

THE SHAPE OF LEADERSHIP INFLUENCE MAGAZINE

S U B S C R I P T I O N S

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Influence magazine is published by Influence Resources.

Publisher: Douglas E. Clay Executive Director, Influence Resources: Chris Railey Executive Editor: George P. Wood Managing Editor: Rick Knoth Senior Editor: John Davidson Assistant Editor: Christina Quick Contributing Editor: Chris Colvin Designer: Steve Lopez Advertising Coordinator: Ron Kopczick

CONTRIBUTORS Jason Bell, Glen Berteau, Stephen Blandino, Mark Brewer, Chris Colvin, Justin Earley, Chad Graham, Doug Green, Nona Jones, David Lindell, Michael Nelson, Cary Nieuwhof, Darin Poli, Christina Quick, Chris Railey, Phil Steiger, John Van Pay, Rodney Wardwell, George P. Wood, Heather Zempel

S P E C I A L T H A N K S Douglas E. Clay, Alton Garrison, Donna L. Barrett, Rick DuBose, Greg Mundis, Malcolm Burleigh

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Send address changes to Influence magazine: 1445 N. Boonville Avenue Springfield, MO 65802-1894

CONTENTS COLUMNS

ISSUE_20/NOV_DEC 2018

8 If You Ask Me R E F L E C T I O N S O N L E A D E R S H I P

Hope for a Hostile World

10 Get Set L E A D E R S I M PA C T I N G T H E C H U R C H A N D C U LT U R E

National Black Fellowship — A Movement of Hope 4 Questions With Michael Nelson

p12

12 Like a Leader TOOLS FOR PERSONAL AND CONGREGATIONAL GROWTH

• Live: The Myth of Balance

• Think: The Transparent Leader

• Learn: From Social Media to Social Ministry: Facebook for Churches

p14 p20 20 Playbook S T R AT E G I E S F O R E F F E C T I V E M I N I S T R Y

• Build: Leading Your Team Through Setbacks

• Know: Taking a Stand Against Marijuana

• Invest: How to Increase Your Year-End Giving

30 Perspectives O N E I S S U E , T W O P E R S P E C T I V E S O N M AT T E R S A F F E C T I N G T O D AY ’ S C H U R C H

Should Churches Target a Defined Demographic as a Strategy for Growth?

4

p32

32 HABITS OF THE TECH-WISE HEART

FEATURES

Using technology for the good of your soul.

42 FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH

p42

Why pastoral leadership needs both.

52 FROM ATTENDANCE TO ENGAGEMENT

Seven ways to help churchgoers become passionate champions of the mission.

61 Multipliers

p52

LEADERS LEVERAGING THEIR GIFTS FOR GOD’S KINGDOM

Multiplication by Discipleship

• Heather Zempel: Intentional Discipleship

• John Van Pay: Strategic Small Groups

• Mark Brewer: Intimate Discipleship

• Jason Bell: Discipleship and Evangelism Go Hand in Hand

70 Make It Count AN EIGHT-WEEK STUDY FOR LEADERSHIP TEAMS

The Role of the Holy Spirit in Leadership: 8 Insights on Leadership From the Book of Acts

p61

80 The Final Note Silent Night

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DISCIPLESHIP FOR ALL Give new believers answers and next steps they need.

From 3 Years to Middle School

Written for an adult leader to read with a child, ages 9–12.

(Also available in Spanish.)

Visit MyHealthyChurch.com/NowWhat to shop now.

A N S W E RS AG E S

GREAT FOR • • • • •

Camps and outreaches Altar calls New believers classes One-on-one mentoring And more!

Share the importance of the Holy Spirit with curious believers.

Written for an adult leader to read with a child, ages 9–12.

(Also available in Spanish.)

1.855.642.2011 • MyHealthyChurch.com

IF YOU ASK ME

Reflections on leadership

Hope for a Hostile World Three principles have the potential to create unity in a cynical world.

Chris Railey, D.Min., is executive director of Influence Resources and senior director of leadership and church development ministries for The General Council of the Assemblies of God, U.S.A.

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s if we needed a reminder, the last few months have once again revealed the depth of division and hostility in our nation. There is so much pain, hurt and unhealthy discourse seemingly at every turn. We’re programmed to pick a team and choose sides and shout down the opposition. We’re an increasingly angry people.

In his speech on the Senate floor in the wake of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska called out in both political parties what is becoming normative in the larger culture as well: blind tribalism.

It’s a tendency to malign, perpetuate group think, attack and tear down those in another group. Tribalism is a threat to our nation, and it’s also a threat to the Church. Our nation needs healing from our divisive, polarizing and tribalistic tendencies. So does the Church.

As spiritual leaders in a hostile world, what do we do? I confess, at times I want to throw up my hands and ask, “What’s the point?”

But as the first verse most of us ever memorized says, “For God so loved the world … .”

It’s not an option to give up on what God loves so much, to abandon what the apostle Paul called the “ministry of reconciliation.” As I’ve processed recently how to make a difference in this culture of hostility, offense and anger, I’m reminded of three principles that have the potential to create unity in a cynical world.

1. The power of words. In general, we underestimate the impact of our words. It’s not just the words we speak; it’s also the words we type, and all the creative ways we can disseminate them through the use of technology and social platforms. A kind and encouraging word is becoming so rare. Against the backdrop of society, we don’t fully understand how positive and healing our well-placed words can be. A commitment to speak life over and into people and places is one of our greatest

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assets in building trust, unity and hope.

2. The gift of time. In the busyness of our lives, time is a commodity we don’t like to give away. We can be generous with our money, but selfish with our time. The only way to break down tribalism, whether in our nation or in the Church, is to spend time with people from a different tribe. This was the whole point of the Incarnation: that only through personal presence can real relationship and reconciliation be possible. Giving time to seek understanding and build relationship is rarely convenient but often powerful and healing.

3. The benefit of the doubt. We just don’t do this much anymore. To give the benefit of the doubt is to believe the best about someone, to assume pure motives until proven otherwise.

Even as Christians, we often do the opposite.

To assume the worst about people and foster cynicism is just not becoming for followers of Christ. We can do better. We have to do better, and give the world an alternative to our tribalistic society.

In this issue of Influence, you’ll find articles to challenge and equip you to make a positive difference in your community and the world.

In our cover story, Justin Earley makes the case for exchanging some screen time for face-to-face time with others and time on our faces before God. Glen Berteau reminds us that if we hope to change hearts, we must do more than just speak the truth. We must present the gospel with tears of compassion in our eyes, the Incarnate Christ in our hearts, and a full measure of both grace and truth in every word. Finally, Carey Nieuwhof explains why advancing the mission of the Church isn’t about increasing attendance numbers as much as engaging members to wholeheartedly follow Jesus.

In this season of hope, we must remember that God is with us. His love crosses boundaries of division and brings people together as members of His adopted family. May this issue of Influence magazine provide encouragement and inspiration as you take the message of reconciliation to a world that desperately needs to hear it.

GET SET

Leaders Impacting the Church and Culture

4 QUESTIONS WITH MICHAEL NELSON

National Black Fellowship — A Movement of Hope

Since 2012, Michael Nelson, pastor of The House of Peace (AG) in Jacksonville, Florida, has served as president of the National Black Fellowship of the Assemblies of God. Following six years of leadership to NBF, Rev. Nelson resigned his position effective October 1, 2018.

Walter Harvey, pastor of Parklawn Assembly of God in Milwaukee, was named the new president of NBF. He will build on the success NBF experienced under Rev. Nelson’s tenure.

In this Get Set, we celebrate Rev. Nelson’s service and accomplishments as outgoing president of NBF.

INFLUENCE: What is the purpose of the National Black Fellowship, and what is its strategic vision?

MICHAEL NELSON: National Black Fellowship is a 10

movement of hope that is helping to transform communities by developing and deploying African-American leaders, planting and revitalizing churches, advancing biblical justice, and restoring families.

NBF’s strategic vision centers around eight initiatives that enable us to do the things I just mentioned. Among other things, we want to increase the number of African-American churches by 20 percent in the AG. We’re doing this by targeting the 25 largest urban centers in America and providing leadership to both revitalize and plant churches in those communities.

We are also recruiting, equipping and deploying leaders. And we are engaging the next generation of leaders and providing them ministry opportunities.

The National Black Fellowship believes the presence of thriving Assemblies of God churches in at-risk communities will lead to redemption lift. We don’t miscalculate the complexity of the problems that plague our great urban metropolises, nor do we underestimate the ability of our God to use those who are His to address systemic maladies that infest our cities.

Under Walter Harvey’s leadership, NBF will continue to impact urban America by forming partnerships across our Movement that will enable the AG to reap a portion of the immeasurable harvest waiting for us in urban America.

How does advancing biblical justice help build the Kingdom?

When African-Americans are healed, they will be used to heal the nations. The world needs the voice of the Church to speak to issues of injustice, prejudice and unfairness from a strong, consistent biblical position.

What are the ongoing struggles of African-Americans in the U.S.?

African-Americans still face a litany of problems in the 21st century: mass incarceration, gang violence, poverty, drugs, education, single-parent households, unemployment, racial disparity, etc. The statistical data for blacks in urban America is, at best, heartbreaking, but there is hope even in the face of these overwhelming odds.

How is NBF making a difference in the Assemblies of God? When I became president, one of the first things the Holy Spirit said to me was, “Bring the family together.” Revelation 7:9 talks about “every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne.”

We are creating diversity in the AG by making sure people of color have a place at the table in the Assemblies of God — not just as adherents, but also in a leadership capacity across our Fellowship. NBF sponsored a resolution to add an African-American to the Executive Presbytery. We are helping some districts implement resolutions to include black ministers in leadership. We are bringing more African-Americans into the AG as credential holders and church planters. We are working with World Missions to help more African-Americans become missionaries around the world. We have helped recruit African-American authors and writers for AG publications and books.

We have also diversified our NBF REACH conferences. Nearly 30 percent of the more than 300-plus attending this year’s conference in Cincinnati were Caucasian or another ethnicity.

“We are creating diversity in the AG by making sure people of color have a place at the table — not just as adherents, but also in a leadership capacity across our Fellowship.”

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LIVE LIKE A LEADER

The Myth of Balance DAVID LINDELL

If balance isn’t the lens we should be looking through, what is?

David Lindell is West Campus pastor at James River Church (AG) in Springfield, Missouri.

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f you are in leadership in any church or ministry organization, regardless of size, you have experienced the strain of obligations pulling you in multiple directions at once. You have people to care for, projects to finish, content to create, problems to solve, events to plan, positions to fill, reports to write, vision to cast, leaders to develop … and that’s just what you need to get done today. You also have a date with your spouse, a parent-teacher conference, your son’s football game, a pet to take to the vet — oh, and the faucet is leaking.

At times, it can seem like the call of ministry and the needs of your family are at odds.

Many will tell you that the issue is balance, a tranquility-inducing buzzword that so many of us pursue. If only we could achieve more balance, things wouldn’t be this hard. If only we could keep everything in its proper place.

Yet, the quest for balance often leads to more frustration. Frustration comes in the form of the unexpected and inconvenient realities of life. Just when you felt like things were starting to arrive at your preferred equilibrium, something comes along and shakes it all up. So, instead of balance breeding peace, it ends up producing resentment.

Why don’t they understand that I need my space? Why am I am always the one they call?

When can I meet my needs? People expect too much. It’s not fair!

It’s not that balance shoulders all the blame for this slow burn toward disillusionment, but when balance is the guide and the goal, it inevitably brings the opposite of the peace we expect. There are just too many opportunities

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for the scales to get out of whack. So, if balance isn’t the lens we should be looking through, what is?

Throughout Scripture, God reminds us to look at life through the lens of seasons — times He appoints for a particular purpose.

We should choose our words by the season.

“To make an apt answer is a joy to a man, and a word in season, how good it is!” (Proverbs 15:23, ESV). God’s provision comes in just the right season. “You give them their food in due season” (Psalm 145:15, ESV). The fulfillment of God’s plan happens through the progression of the seasons. “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9, ESV).

In fact, the writer of Ecclesiastes says that everything in your life will fall into a specific season, an appointed time. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

Whatever is happening in your life right now is a season. If you are pursuing a degree, that’s a season. If you have two kids in diapers, that’s a season. If you have three teenagers under one roof, that’s a season. If you are starting a new ministry, that’s a season. If you are training up new team members, that’s a season.

Life is full of seasons, and every season holds both opportunities and challenges.

Instead of metering out your time and compartmentalizing your priorities, recognize that seasons come, and seasons go.

So, if things are crazy and it’s hard to catch your breath, recognize it’s just a season.

Accept the challenge, seize the opportunity, and enjoy the ride.

THINK LIKE A LEADER

The Transparent Leader DOUG GREEN

Healthy, effective ministry is built upon appropriate openness to God and others.

Doug Green is lead pastor of North Hills Church (AG) in Brea, California.

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hould you be transparent? Let people see the real you?

Personal transparency is absolutely necessary, especially among the members of this current generation. They want what’s real, not phony piety or pretentious perfection. Here’s the frank truth: Healthy, effective church leaders practice open and transparent honesty before God and others.

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Before God King David writes, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23–24).

There’s no better leadership prayer. Before God, you must be completely transparent. Tell Him everything. Giving God open access to secrets is vital for Spirit-empowered leaders.

He knows all about you before you utter a word.

And in spite of what He already knows, He loves you. Your honesty is for your sake, not His. Transparency access: full.

Before Trusted Loved Ones Leaders need private transparent relationships with their spouses and a few trusted friends. As recorded in Scripture, David and Jonathan had a deep and vulnerable friendship. Upon the news of Jonathan’s death, David tore his clothes and wept bitterly, saying, “I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women” (2 Samuel 1:26).

Davids need Jonathans. Frequent, honest access cultivates a profound demonstration of love and confidence. Transparency is the window allowing others to see who you are.

And when they really know you — the good, the bad, and the ugly — and still love you, you’ll know it’s authentic. Experiencing that kind of love helps you lead with health.

Transparency access: full.

Before Those You Lead Although it is unwise to share your most intimate thoughts indiscriminately with a crowd, it is important, with discretion, to remain vulnerable and honest with the people you lead.

In his second letter to the Corinthian church, the apostle Paul does not gloss over the hard topics; he is appropriately candid. He lets the church see his pain and weakness. It is a model for all Christian leaders: We lead with a combination of resurrection power and the weakness of suffering. Paul writes, “We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you” (2 Corinthians 6:11).

When you stand before those you lead, let them into your life, but be prudent in so doing.

Transparency access: appropriate.

Before the Online World In the age of social media, when people post anything and everything for the world to see, a wise leader will steer clear of sharing private details for public consumption. In other words, you shouldn’t display your private laundry for the world to read. Jesus said, “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces” (Matthew 7:6).

It’s not bold to hide behind a screen and post what you cannot say in person. It’s harmful. Invite a trusted friend to audit your public disclosure, especially when you feel tempted to vent in the name of transparency. Remember: Humility is attractive, but a lack of discretion is destructive.

Transparency access: guarded.

Final Verdict So, should you be transparent? Let people see the real you?

Yes — astutely, but yes!

LEARN LIKE A LEADER Resources for You and Your Team

With 3 in 4 Americans on Facebook, the potential for ministry is limitless.

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here are thousands of churches and millions of professing Christians across the U.S. But while more megachurches seem to emerge every year, surveys reveal that fewer Americans report believing in God. As greater numbers of congregations appear on the “fastest-growing churches in America” lists, more and more cities are becoming less and less “churched.”

So, Houston, we have a problem.

More than 70 percent of Americans 18 and older identify as Christian, and 53 percent say religion is “very important” in their lives, according to Pew Research Center. Yet only 36 percent of U.S. adults attend services weekly.

By some estimates, 2 in 3 churches are declining or plateauing in attendance. As physical attendance stagnates and deteriorates, there are more than 30,000 Google searches each month using the phrase “church online.”

From these data points, we can draw a few important conclusions: 1. The Church has become an aquarium.

Jesus called His disciples to fish for people.

However, many of today’s churches aren’t growing. Rather than catching new fish, they’re simply moving fish from one tank to another.

2. The Church has left the building. Many people who claim faith aren’t showing up to a building for services.

3. Church is no longer a place. People are actively searching online for a digital community of faith that doesn’t require them to get in a car and drive to an address.

With 3 in 4 Americans on Facebook, the potential for ministry is limitless. However, most church leaders around the country are using Facebook for just one purpose: posting content about the church.

Think of your Facebook presence like a house. Your page is your front porch. It’s where people can learn about you in a superficial, noncommittal way, passively consuming your content. To do ministry, however, you have to move people from your front porch to your

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From Social Media to Social Ministry: Facebook for Churches NONA JONES living room — and that’s what a Facebook group does. Of 200 million Facebook groups serving more than 1 billion people, less than 2 percent are faith-based and almost none are connected with a church. The potential is vast.

You should approach a Facebook group launch for your church with as much forethought as launching a new physical location. Think of your Facebook group as your online church campus. There will be real people in your campus who have real needs, so the first key to success will be identifying an online campus pastor. This person should have a heart for people, as well as proficiency in leveraging social media for ministry. Resist the tendency to delegate your Facebook campus to your social media or communications team. Unlike your Facebook page or your Instagram gallery, people in your online campus will need a leader to shepherd them.

Secure the URL you want, and set the group to “secret” as the privacy setting. There are three privacy settings for groups: public, closed and secret. While you build out the group, keep it secret to ensure people don’t discover it before you’re ready to launch. Set the group type to “social learning” to unlock the Facebook units feature that will enable you to create structured, customized learning modules for the community. These learning modules can be great tools for discipling and ensuring people are growing in their faith together. After setting up the basics of the community, you can personalize it with a color scheme that matches your church brand colors and add a cover photo. If you have a page, your group cover photo should be

• On Wednesday, post “How can we pray for

different enough to distinguish it.

As a next step, draft a set of group rules to affirm the expectations of community membership and also explain who you are and why you created the community. Your Facebook campus will have a number of tools you can use to engage with members. And, unlike a church building, there are no space or time limits. You will have 168 hours available for weekly ministry. Here are some ideas for using that time: • On Monday, host a “Monday Night Live” with the lead pastor to discuss the weekend sermon and take questions.

• On Tuesday, feature a community member’s faith journey.

you?” Announce that you will go live in the community that evening for prayer.

• On Thursday, host a “Watch Party” in the community featuring a Christian movie or church video content.

• On Friday, feature a ministry leader, and discuss opportunities for getting involved.

When ready to launch your group, change the privacy setting to “closed,” and link the group to your page. You can also create a “Visit Group” button on your page that will take people to your campus. Kick-start your group’s growth and build enthusiasm with an official campus launch event during weekend services.

Carve out time during the service to walk people through joining the group on their phones.

As people join the group, encourage them to invite their friends to connect. You can also invite people by email address. This is a great way to reconnect with people who may have stopped attending.

God has given us the tools of social media to build His kingdom through social ministry.

Facebook groups will enable you to build a church unconstrained by walls. Remember: Church isn’t a place; it’s a people.

Nona Jones leads Global Faith-Based Partnerships at Facebook.

She also founded and leads eChurch Partners, a social ministry firm helping local churches, denominations and Christcentered organizations leverage the power of Facebook to build digital church communities.

Learn more about her at NonaJones.com.

BOOKS

CHRISTIANS IN THE AGE OF OUTRAGE R E V I E W E D B Y G E O R G E P. W O O D ccording to James 1:20, “anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.” Even a cursory survey of social media feeds reveals a simmering outrage waiting to boil over. I’d like to say that American Christians on social media are better than non-Christians, but I can’t. They each seem locked into a vicious cycle, with the outrage of one matched by the counter-outrage of the other.

This vicious cycle has got to stop, and Christians are the ones who need to lead the way in stopping it. If, as Lesslie Newbigin said, the Church is “the hermeneutic of the gospel,” then our unrighteous anger may lead people away from God, giving

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BOOKS BOOK REVIEWED Ed Stetzer, Christians in the Age of Outrage: How to Bring Our Best When the World Is At Its Worst (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Momentum, 2018).

Him a bad reputation in the process. You can be outraged or you can fulfill the Great Commission. You can’t do both.

Ed Stetzer’s Christians in the Age of Outrage is a tract for our times. It identifies the causes of our culture of outrage, exposes the lies that deepen our outrage, and outlines a missional strategy moving forward. As Stetzer puts it memorably, “Instead of outrage, engage.”

Let’s focus on that missional strategy. Stetzer writes: “Christians can counteract the outrage in their lives and this world by being intentional about developing a Christ-centered worldview, living as God’s ambassadors, loving others in a winsome way, and engaging thoughtfully with others, both online and face to face.” Notice the progression: First we deal with our own anger, then we deal with the world’s.

I found Stetzer’s “Principles of Digital Discipleship” particularly helpful, given the

RECOMMENDED READING

By Influence Magazine

LEADERSHIP IN TURBULENT TIMES Doris Kearns Goodwin (Simon & Schuster) Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Leadership in Turbulent Times provides case studies of four U.S. presidents leading at critical junctures in their administrations: Abraham Lincoln and transformational leadership, Theodore Roosevelt and crisis management, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and turnaround leadership, and Lyndon Johnson and visionary leadership. “There, at their formidable best, when guided by a sense of moral purpose,” she writes, “they were able to channel their ambitions and summon their talents to enlarge the opportunities and lives of others.”

This insightful book offers a timely reminder that the best way to study leadership is to study leaders in action.

DIDN’T SEE IT COMING Carey Nieuwhof (WaterBrook) Didn’t See It Coming examines seven challenges “no one expects and everyone experiences”: cynicism, compromise, disconnection, irrelevance, pride, burnout, and emptiness.

Carey Nieuwhof didn’t write this book for Christian leaders

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outsized role that social media play in fomenting our culture of outrage. They are: 1. Remember that everyone is watching.

2. Choose investment over consumption.

3. See people, not avatars.

4. Make grace the default mode.

5. Resist the urge to fight every battle.

6. Value authority over freedom.

Regarding that last point, Stetzer writes: “Just because we can say something doesn’t mean we should. There are ways of confronting abuses of power, and I am certainly not condoning a mindless obedience. But Christians need to understand that the best place for difficult conversations is usually not online.”

I highly recommend Christians in the Age of Outrage and its author. To see how he consistently lives out these principles online, follow @EdStetzer on major social media.

specifically, but it is relevant to them nonetheless. He explains why these challenges arise and how to overcome them. “Simply put, self-awareness coupled with a close walk with God will [help you see it coming every time],” he writes. “When you are intimately in touch with your own emotions and inclinations and deeply knowledgeable about the ways of God, you’ll have a much greater chance of seeing it — whatever it is.”

HIGH IMPACT TEAMS Lance Witt (Baker Books) Ministry is a team sport. Too often, however, ministry teams don’t play to their full potential. “The best teams are both healthy and high performing,” writes Lance Witt. “They focus on relationship and results.” To help ministry teams achieve their potential, Witt outlines a Christian approach to ownership, self-leadership, productivity, relationship, conflict resolution, and culture. If you’ve played on a high-impact ministry team, this book will explain why that team worked well. If you haven’t played on such a team, it will explain how to up your team’s game. Either way, High Impact Teams is insightful and practical.

PLAYBOOK BUILD

Good leaders weather adversity, but great leaders use setbacks to propel their teams forward and find success.

Leading Your Team Through Setbacks R O D N EY W. WA R DW E L L I I ne thing that’s inevitable in leadership is that you will face setbacks. Goals sometimes go unmet.

A Sunday service is flat. Growth doesn’t happen like you hoped. An outreach flops.

People around you make poor choices. And as the leader, you must realize that people are looking to you for direction during these moments. They are watching your reactions and listening closely to your every word. They will follow the example

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you model, doing exactly what you do. Why? Because you are their leader.

I’ve been in leadership long enough to know that good leaders can weather adversity, but great leaders can use setbacks to propel their teams forward and find success.

Keep It in Perspective

Setbacks are often setups for great comebacks! So, how do we lead our teams through moments of failure? As the lead pastor of a young church plant, I have faced plenty of challenges and disappointments. I have found that how I help my team navigate failure is almost as important as whether we win or fall short. Here are three keys to leading a team forward, even in the face of adversity: 1. See people on your team as people and not just cogs in your ministry machine. It’s easy to become so focused on a task that we forget our team members are human. Our staff recently read Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute. This book reminds readers to see people as more than just a means to an end. People on our teams are more than workers who help us accomplish tasks. They are people with passions, emotions and dreams. Remembering this should change the way we treat them.

When your team faces a setback, it affects every member. However, someone on the team likely feels the weight of that defeat more than the rest. Perhaps that person spearheaded the effort. Or maybe the issue directly affects his or her department. We must recognize these dynamics and foster a work environment that will help everyone on the team heal and move forward.

2. Remember it’s your job to relieve the tension from a team member whose efforts come up short. It’s not healthy to pile on more pressure. I’m not saying we shouldn’t hold people accountable for their mistakes.

There is definitely a time and a place for that.

However, human nature and our insecurity often push us to keep reminding someone they failed the team and to constantly hang it over their heads.

The leader sets the tone. The team learns what is appropriate by watching what the leader allows or doesn’t allow. In almost 20 years of ministry and working with teams, I have not found anyone who could work well in an environment where people fear their leader. I think it’s almost impossible to thrive on a team where you are afraid to fail. If the leader constantly holds people’s feet to the fire, the team will never be able to take risks because everyone will be too worried about the consequences and confrontations failure would bring.

It’s up to us as leaders to remove the pressure of failing and to help our team understand that while failure isn’t fun, it also isn’t final. We have to help those following us see that setbacks are normal, because they are.

It’s what you do with the setbacks when they happen that really matters.

3. Something we often tell our team is that we allow failure, as long as you are willing to talk about it. The real difficulty comes when we’re too embarrassed to deal with it. Failure can hurt our pride and cause us to limp off by ourselves like a wounded animal. That’s what the enemy wants. After all, 1 Peter 5:8 tells us the devil is like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. He wants to capitalize on our weaknesses to defeat us! On our own, we are no match for him. But something powerful happens when we come together, bearing one another’s burdens and encouraging one another in faith.

It’s up to us as leaders to remove the pressure of failing and to help our team understand that while failure isn’t fun, it also isn’t final.

Keep Learning

Failure is one of life’s greatest teachers. Every week in our staff meeting, we not only celebrate our church’s wins, but we also openly discuss our failures, our mistakes, and the things we could be doing better. Every person on the team owns both the mission and the mistakes, and we are all determined and committed to become better together.

I truly believe that if we, as leaders, can learn to steer our teams through times of setback, God will use our imperfect efforts to accomplish more than we ever imagined.

Rodney W. Wardwell II is the Bricktown Campus pastor for The Bridge (AG) in Oklahoma City.

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PLAYBOOK KNOW

Taking a Stand Against Marijuana CHAD GRAHAM and PHIL STEIGER

As the nation goes to pot, pastors must speak the truth in love.

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f you took a five-minute walk from the front door of many churches in Colorado and then picked up a rock and threw it, you would hit a marijuana shop.

If you picked up that rock and threw it again, you would hit the next shop. And on you could go for several miles.

This is only a slight exaggeration. Since the legalization of medical, and then

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recreational, marijuana in Colorado, the industry has grown like … a weed. Arguments in favor of its usage are often aggressive, and sometimes make use of religious language: “God made it,” “It’s natural,” “It’s medical,” “It’s harmless.” Dealing with this in a church is a complex task — in part because there isn’t a single verse of Scripture that settles the debate, and the people in our pews have very

aims to inspire, challenge and resource the entire spectrum of leadership, from lead pastor to lead volunteer. Check out our print, digital, and social media resources.

Web: influencemagazine.com Downloads: influencemagazine.com/downloads Back issues: influencemagazine.com/issues Podcast: Google Play Music, iTunes, Spotify Facebook: @ theinfluencemag Twitter: @theinfluencemag

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few theological and ethical tools with which to process the issue.

Pastors must equip themselves to approach this topic in a biblically faithful way. We are responsible to God to speak out as spiritual leaders, and not just political pundits. Marijuana may be legal in only a few states, but this changing landscape has become the foundation for a national conversation. How do we respond?

We believe it is important to understand what marijuana is and how destructive it can be. This gives us tools to talk about how marijuana use can be dishonoring to God and harmful for the individual.

Marijuana refers to the dried flowers, leaves, stems and seeds from the plant Cannabis sativa or Cannabis indica. Marijuana contains THC, a chemical compound that acts on specific brain cell receptors. Introducing THC into the body overactivates parts of the brain that contain the highest number of these receptors, producing the “high” that marijuana users experience. Modern strands of cannabis contain more THC, as weaker strands have been genetically exterminated.

Marijuana sold in dispensaries today is much different, specifically in terms of THC count, than the marijuana sold on the street in the 1960s and ’70s.

Research on frequent and prolonged marijuana use is still developing, but the initial findings suggest the drug is not without serious consequences. Those consequences seem to be most severe in the young adult population. In 2015, more than 11 million young adults aged 18 to 25 had used marijuana in the past year. A study conducted at Duke University showed that people who started smoking marijuana heavily in their Chad Graham teens and had an ongoing marijuana use is pastor of University disorder (addiction) lost an average of eight Assembly in IQ points from age 13 to 38. Two indepenColorado Springs, Colorado.

dent studies showed that between 9 and 30

percent of those who use marijuana may Phil Steiger develop some degree of use disorder. Accordis pastor of Living Hope ing to one study, “People who begin using Church (AG), also in marijuana before age 18 are four to seven Colorado Springs.

This issue is not going away, and chances are people in our pews are wondering how to deal with it as followers of Jesus Christ.

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times more likely than adults to develop a marijuana disorder.”

The intoxication that comes from marijuana use is similar to drunkenness in that the user experiences altered senses, changes in mood, impaired body movement, difficulty solving problems, and impaired memory. The major difference between marijuana and alcohol use is the speed at which marijuana users experience the impairments of intoxication, depending on the THC count of the product consumed.

The Bible has many prohibitions against drunkenness or intoxication that we believe also apply in principle to marijuana intoxication. Texts like Galatians 5:19–21 make it clear that drunkenness is an “act of the flesh” and is not of the Spirit. Paul warns that, “Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (verse 21). Ephesians 5:17–18 speaks to the foolishness of intoxication, cautioning that drunkenness “leads to debauchery.”

With such destructive effects — lowered IQ, addiction, altered brain states, and spiritual peril — pastors cannot condone marijuana use.

This is a straightforward, but important, position for Christians to articulate. The drug on the streets today is far more intoxicating than it was 50 years ago. It alters minds and destroys lives, which means we can apply biblical injunctions against drunkenness when arguing against its use. If we want people to flourish as the Creator intended, we must counsel them not to use marijuana.

This issue is not going away, and chances are people in our pews are wondering how to deal with it as followers of Jesus Christ. As the push for legalization grows, we will feel the pressure to accept an alleged cultural consensus, but that should not be how we decide what is honoring to Christ and good for His people. We want to be pastors who are able to see the issue clearly and translate it through a biblically sound set of reasons for our beliefs.

And we want our churches to be salt and light on an issue that will profoundly affect the next generation.

CHURCH BUILDING 101 WEBINAR THE TOOLS YOU WON’T GET IN SCHOOL Whether your church is renovating, expanding, or building new, let our expert team at Visioneering do the heavy lifting. Gleaned from over 15 years of experience, we’ll share key insights on accomplishing your building goals and simplifying the process—so you can keep doing the ministry you were made for.

REGISTER FOR THE FREE WEBINAR ON SIMPLIFYING YOUR CHURCH-BUILD AT

VISIONEERINGSTUDIOS.COM/WEBINAR

PLAYBOOK INVEST

How To Increase Your Year-End Giving DARIN POLI

How to take your church’s year-end giving from being really good to being really great.

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few years ago, Rob Ketterling (our lead pastor) and I had a discussion about year-end giving. Our previous year’s December giving was our strongest ever, but we asked the questions: How could we do year-end giving better? How could we raise even more resources to impact the

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world? How could we fuel the vision faster?

The bottom line for River Valley Church was that our year-end giving was really good, but we wanted it to become great!

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins shares that one of the biggest and most difficult steps is taking a good company, organization or team to that next level. Most people enjoy good. Most people feel somewhat successful with good.

Often, good draws recognition from others. On the other hand, great requires new thinking.

Great puts more pressure on the leaders. True, great often requires more work and additional learning, but it can also mean greater effectiveness, greater impact and greater strides toward fulfilling a big vision.

This realization led us to make several strategic moves:

When the right thing is driving the “why,” these will never be at odds with each other.

Darin Poli is executive pastor of River Valley Church in Minneapolis, where he works with all campuses, as well as Global Project, Kingdom Builders and River Valley Network.

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• Our biggest move was to start our year-

end giving focus in October. We realized the traditional route of waiting until early December was not the most effective.

• We researched several great parachurch ministries and nonprofits. We found we could learn some amazing and practical insights from them, because they already had well-thought-out plans and strategies in place to maximize their year-end giving. We became determined to learn from others.

• We began intentionally thanking our church and key donors for their giving.

We utilize handwritten thank you cards, videos, print pieces and emails, in addition to weekend platform recognition.

Our pastoral and leadership teams are active in helping us in this effort.

• Beginning in mid-October through November, we communicate “impact updates.” We become more focused on sharing the exciting results of changed lives. People want to see and hear the impact their giving is making, so we utilize compelling high-quality video stories to show the results of their giving.

• We save four or five exciting projects (think: orphans, child sponsorship, Teen Challenge, expanded kids space, etc.) for the fourth quarter. We fund missionaries and missions all year, but we always hold a few key projects for year-end presentation. There are many other ministries and nonprofits reaching out to our church members with exciting and heart-touching opportunities. We want our people to know their local church has exciting and heart-touching opportunities too!

• Our emails and social media posts all include links for quick and easy giving. So simple, yet important! Speed of access and ease of giving continue to become more important.

• Every year, the second weekend of November is Miracle Offering Weekend at River Valley. We dedicate the entire

weekend services to Global Missions, local church expansion (new campuses, new church plants), and future Christian leaders. We announce it for three weeks leading up to the date. It’s the one time each year we call people forward to give their tithes and Kingdom Builders offerings. We explain to our guests what’s happening so they won’t feel uncomfortable. Miracle Offering weekend is high passion, high challenge, high “heart,” and high engagement. Our offering total on this weekend is often five times what is typical.

• We also plan a Share the Goal Day. This day speaks specifically of our “beyond the tithe” giving (Kingdom Builders).

We have an annual goal we share with the church in January, but in early November we share our goal for the last two months. We have found our church responds positively to a target that is tied to vision and need. We give a very specific goal of what needs to be raised over the final eight weeks of the year.

Increasing year-end giving is something most pastors and ministry leaders desire to do well, but we must always keep the “why” front and center. The “why” is not larger budgets and savings accounts, giving recognition, or finishing the year in the black. It’s that we want to reach more people faster, we care about the community and the world, we passionately desire to do our best to fulfill the Great Commission, and we firmly believe the Church has amazing potential! When pastors and leaders have the “why” firmly planted in their hearts, they can lead with authenticity and strength. We teach obedient giving (tithe) first and generous giving second. When the right thing is driving the “why,” these will never be at odds with each other.

Seeing how our church has responded over the last few years has been truly amazing. Our heart to reach the community and world has increased. Unity is strong. People are so excited that we are changing the world together!

PERSPECTIVES

One Issue, Two Perspectives on Matters Affecting Today’s Church

Should Churches Target a Defined Demographic as a Strategy for Growth?

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rowing a healthy church requires character in leadership and commitment to a vision. It also requires a concrete strategy. Without a well-thought-out and executed plan, churches will stagnate. But when you put action to your vision, you immediately increase your chances for success.

As a church growth strategy, and specifically as it relates to church planting, targeting a defined demographic is a valid tool. In fact, if you use it correctly, it can be the best thing you ever do. You will be able to create a base of volunteers and leaders and scale your approach for future growth.

Think about who you naturally attract to Christ. That may be a group who looks a lot like you — one who thinks and acts the way you do, with similar taste and style. But it may be another group altogether. Regardless, it is a wise use of the personality and giftings God has given you. When you target your efforts in one direction, you’re leaning in to how God created you individually for His work.

A church that targets a specific demographic is not ignoring the needs of others; it is simply focusing on specific needs directly.

Every church has a limited budget and finite resources. You make decisions all the time on what to do and what not to do. You must base those decisions on some sort of criteria. Why not be strategic with those resources and use them for growth?

Your target demographic does not have to relate to income, race and gender, family makeup or educational background. If

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you live near a capital city, for instance, your target may be politicians and government workers. If your church is near a military base, you might focus on service members and their specific needs. If you have a rural church, you could find ways to attract farmers and ranchers.

The one common denominator of any target demographic, though, should be a heart that is open to God. Who nearby is the most receptive to evangelism? Begin with them.

As you grow your base of volunteers and disciple makers, you’ll be ready to expand your target audience.

As you read the Book of Acts, this was exactly Paul’s approach, especially in his earliest missionary journeys. Entering a new city, Paul would first go to the synagogue and speak to fellow Jews, hoping to win some to Christ. Then, Paul would expand his target audience to Gentiles and pagans. This proved incredibly successful for him, and it still works today.

God has placed you in a specific geographical area. Leverage that positioning, and lean in to your strengths to grow where you are planted. He has a reason for putting you there, and spiritual wisdom can guide you to strengthen and grow the church in your area.

What’s the best fit for your congregation? With so many churches of different shapes and sizes, there are a multitude of strategies from which to choose. One way to implement church growth is to shape your church’s ministry to reach a specific audience.

In this issue’s Perspectives, we look at whether a church should target a defined demographic, such as a specific age group, and leverage it as a church growth strategy at the risk of alienating or ostracizing others. That may mean going all in on one particular characteristic of your surrounding area. Or it may mean shaping service times, locations and elements to reach a specific subgroup.

This column presents two perspectives on that issue. Leaders have debated the church growth movement pretty consistently since its inception about 50 years ago. What follows is not a definitive answer to the question at hand, but it does provide some guidance. If you’ve ever thought about targeting a specific demographic for outreach, we hope this discussion will help you decide what’s right for your church.

Targeting a specific demographic as a strategy for church growth is problematic. It can create needless obstacles for any church wanting to have an open door. If you say you are interested in ministering to any and all people, shaping your ministry to fit just one group is contradictory.

People who are not the aim of your reach efforts will feel left out or overlooked. For instance, if you decide that your congregation will be a “family church,” focusing on children’s ministry, marriage sermon series, and small groups for couples, then singles will feel unwanted. Creating a youthful vibe that only interests millennials will make older people feel unneeded or unwanted. In targeting one group, you’ve eliminated any space for other groups.

This is one of the worst unintended consequences of the church growth movement.

Many have written solid critiques of the movement and have much to say about other consequences. The most grievous is the contextualization of the gospel. And focusing on one demographic to the exclusion of others can lead down that same slippery slope.

When you direct your ministries toward one group, you run the risk of forcing every message into a one-size-fits-all box. You base every

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decision on that one demographic you’re trying to reach. You adapt your sermon applications to fit a perceived felt need, rather than letting the Word of God speak for itself and leaving space for application to every life situation.

There is a difference between reflecting your immediate community and targeting a specific demographic. Ultimately, your congregation will likely start to resemble the makeup of the surrounding neighborhoods. If they are homogenous, then your church will probably be the same.

When you are living in a diverse area, though, it takes multiple approaches to attract people from different backgrounds.

A well-balanced approach in your advertising, worship style and presentation, with an intentional effort to attract all people in your community, will lead to a healthier church that reflects God’s plan for the salvation of all people in all nations. Why wouldn’t you want to cast your net as far as you can?

God is the One who ultimately brings people into His family. The Spirit and the bride invite “whoever desires” to come to Christ (Revelation 22:17, NKJV). When you focus on worshipping Jesus and sharing His message, He will call all types of people to your church, regardless of your targeted marketing efforts.

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HABITS OF THE TECH-WISE HEART USING TECHNOLOGY FOR THE GOOD OF YOUR SOUL. JUSTIN EARLEY

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A BOUT ON E-THIR D OF U.S. ADULTS SAY T H EY WOULD PA N IC IF TH EI R PHON E STOPPED WOR K IN G.

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eonardo da Vinci began painting tiny brushstrokes on a piece of poplar wood in 1503. It took 14 years and hundreds of thousands of brushstrokes for that piece of poplar wood to become the “Mona Lisa.”

Experts are still X-raying this masterpiece to figure out how da Vinci painted brushstrokes smaller than the head of a pin.

Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham on a bet with his publisher that he couldn’t write a book with only 50 unique words.

He not only won the bet, he wrote a children’s classic.

What do the “Mona Lisa,” Green Eggs and Ham, and our habits of technology have in common? It’s this: Some of the most profound and enduring things in life are the products of tiny acts of persistence and self-imposed limitations.

Our lives bear the marks of thousands of little habits.

Recent research suggests that nearly 40 percent of our daily actions aren’t really choices. They are just habits.

Little pin dots in your life you never notice — until they aggregate over time.

Habits are the things we do over and over without ever thinking about them. We never notice them, but because these habits are the tiny strokes that make up

the very thing that is shaping vast portions of who we are.

This is true across the leadership spectrum.

Ministers hope to change people but end up spending more time posting on Facebook than meeting with mentees. Newcomers to church are seeking changed lives but end up finding they are too busy for a small group (even though they manage to fit in about 10 hours of Netflix a week). We are terribly concerned about the impacts of an increasingly secular culture, but the smartphone is discipling more Americans than secularism ever will, because the smartphone inhabits the world of habit.

Here’s the point: If we want to be people who are becoming more like Jesus in our love for God and neighbor, we must pay close attention to the pattern of technology habits occurring in the background of our lives. Because our habits of technology are discipling us.

How Habits Converted a Missionary

This is true of many of us; our hearts are in one place, but our habits are in another. But it is never long before one follows the other. the painting of our lives, we are a product of our habits.

They form who we are.

Nowhere is this more important than in our habits of technology.

Our unconscious interaction with technology now occupies enormous amounts of our time and ever-widening spheres of our lives. We pay very little attention to

I fell upon this wisdom (emphasis on the word “fell�) rather spectacularly after making a career transition to become a corporate lawyer.

I was a missionary in Northern Asia until a dramatic moment changed my calling. That day, within the same five minutes, I saw four illegal things happen on a street in a major urban city: a black-market theft, a drug deal, prostitution and a political protest. You can guess which one resulted in an immediate arrest. It was the day I realized that institutions of law and economics shape moral outcomes, and I decided I wanted to be a missionary to that. I wanted to work to bring the gospel of Jesus to bear on the institutions of culture. So, the next week I began applying to law and business schools.

As I worked my way through law school, I did so with a deep sense of calling. I would have gotten an A+ in articulating what God was calling me to do, but I would have gotten an F in how I should go about it. This is true of many of us; our hearts are in one place, but our habits are in another. But it is never long before one follows the other.

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Looking back on my time in law school and the beginning of my law career, I now see that my habits of work and technology were just the same as all the other top law school students. They weren’t forming me into someone who was on a mission. They were deforming me into someone who thought he had no limits.

The lack of limits around technology were especially important. Here are some examples of my habits at that time: • Check my work emails in bed, as soon as my eyes open. (I didn’t want to disappoint anyone in the office by making them wait. I needed their approval to feel good about myself. This habit was training me to look to work, instead of God, for love.)

• Always keep my phone alerts on and in sight while I work. (I worried that to miss a news alert would mean I wasn’t engaged with the world. This habit was training me to think that the most urgent thing was the most important thing.)

• Always accept a new opportunity or project. (My knee-jerk reaction was always to say “yes.” This habit was training me to think that my future depended entirely on my choices, not God’s direction, so I could never cut off options.)

Here’s the point: Like most Americans, I never thought about any of this as a “spiritual” part of life. I just swam in the waters of the cultural stream. I didn’t realize all these habits were shaping my soul until it was too late.

Early in my career, I collapsed. I suddenly began to have inexplicable panic attacks and terrible insomnia. I began relying on sleeping pills just to try to turn off my mind. I hit my low point one night when my wife handed me some dishes to put away, and I looked at her and said, “I don’t know where these go.” My mind was falling apart. I knew in my head the gospel of peace, but my heart was somewhere entirely different. How unfortunately ironic that it was the missionary who became converted — to the lifestyle of a medicating lawyer.

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MOR E THA N HA LF OF FAC EB OOK USER S C HEC K IN SEV ER A L TIMES A DAY.

The gospel says God loves us no matter what we do. It’s hard to believe that when every day our hearts are looking for signs of love on a screen.

The Heart Follows the Habits

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I thought long and hard about what was happening to me.

During this time, my wife and some dear friends stayed really close to help me figure this out. Together, we began to wonder whether my habits were forming my life more than the things I was saying to myself and others.

I have a high level of respect for words and worldviews, which is why I think it took me longer than most to realize you can say all the right things about what you believe, but true belief forms as a result of not only what you say but what you act out. Your daily rituals say as much or more about what your heart really believes than your mouth does. This is what Jesus meant when He said, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Matthew 15:8).

Our hearts aren’t just a product of our words. When our words and our habits drift apart, our heart is in the middle getting tugged one way or the other. Most times, as in my case, the heart follows the habits because habits are where the real worship is happening.

I never really considered that my habits were spiritual disciplines of the worship of something. I never heard a Sunday School lesson on daily schedules and habits of technology, so I thought they were neutral. As it turns out, these things were little odes of worship to the idol of myself — ways of worshipping my own idol of busyness because it made me feel important. In the end, as the Psalmist says, those who make and trust in idols will become like them (Psalm 115:8). I eventually became the chaos of my habits.

When I was at my low point, my wife and my friends worked with me on a daily and weekly pattern of new habits that pointed me in the direction of purpose instead

OF U THE IF T STO

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of chaos. At the time, it was just one more thing to try — alongside counseling and medication.

In the end, it was the only thing that worked. The impact was extraordinary. I had no idea how much these little habits were forming my soul in such deep ways.

New Habits for Technology

All of these new habits were small, but like da Vinci with his “Mona Lisa,” I found that doing small things over and over began to create a masterpiece of renewal. Many of them limited the ways I was using technology. But like Dr. Seuss with Green Eggs and Ham, I discovered that great things can come from limitations.

Most importantly, adopting these habits made me slowly realize how much of my life I was living out as a slave to technology. I found that small disciplines in the end led to enormous freedom.

I am now convinced that every Christian in America needs to reconsider their habits of technology, and I’m writing a book on some ways to do that. Below are four of the habits that have helped me a lot. Two of them are daily habits, and two are weekly habits.

Daily Habit 1: Scripture Before Phone

Before my anxiety collapse, I started each day in a morning ritual of work emails from bed. When my eyes opened, the first thing I asked was, “What do I need to do today?” This is an incredibly formative habit. Most of us — because of the smartphone — now wake up thinking about what we need to do to justify our existence in the world, and that forms what we believe about ourselves.

But the gospel says we don’t need to earn love; God loves us no matter what we do. It’s hard to believe that when every day our hearts are looking for signs of love on a screen.

It might not be work emails for you. For a lot of people, it’s waking up to social media. We lay in bed for a couple of minutes every morning, browsing other people’s lives or

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What is the gospel except that Jesus knows us fully but loves us anyway? What is a friend except someone who knows you fully and says, “I’m sticking around anyway”? checking on our “likes” or “retweets.” Or maybe it’s news: We wake up checking in on what’s wrong with the world and what’s worth being angry about.

Beginning the day with these rituals may have tiny impacts on our time, but they have massive impacts on our hearts.

After my anxiety collapse, I began a new habit: I promised myself I wouldn’t look at my phone until after I read Scripture. Unlike work emails, Scripture is telling me that Christ’s work — not my work — justifies me. Unlike the morning news, Scripture is telling me because of Jesus, things are going to be OK, and I can be at peace today.

Unlike social media, Scripture is telling me that God loves me even when I don’t have it all together.

MORE THA N 40 PER C EN T OF 1 8- TO 34-YEA R -OLDS IN T H E U.S. FEEL A DDICTED TO THEIR DEV IC ES. How to start: For most people, this is a small but radical shift. Even if you use your phone as your alarm clock, turn it off and spend the first 15 minutes of the morning without it. In that space, start simple. Just read a Psalm. If you have more time, spend an hour in study — but without your phone around.

Beginning the day in Scripture rather than on your phone is a small habit, and it takes a couple of weeks to establish the new routine, but there is no more important spiritual discipline for the brave new world of technology.

Weekly Habit 1: One Hour of Face-to-Face Conversation With a Friend

One of the most touted concerns of our current engagement with technology is what it is doing to our relationships. Sherry Turkle brought this debate to the forefront with her 2001 book Alone Together, and the concern has only intensified. Just this year, the University of Virginia released a report that began with, “You may suspect this instinctively, but we’ve got the hard research to back it up … .”

Sure enough, their findings that the presence of phones at dinner tables with friends or on family trips diminished the happiness and meaningfulness of the experience. We are forgetting how to have real relationships.

We know from the biblical story that God designed us to enjoy real relationships with other people. Adam, after all, was lonely in the Garden of Eden (even though he was with God) until God gave him Eve. This is because God made Adam that way! God created us in His image — the image of a communal, triune God. He designed us for friendship.

The habit of insisting on one hour a week of meaningful, uninterrupted, face-to-face conversation is one way to recover the building blocks of friendship through habit. It is also one way to build a gospel practice into our regular weekly rhythm. What is the gospel except that Jesus knows us fully but loves us anyway? What is a friend except someone who knows you fully and says, “I’m sticking around anyway”? True Christian friendships not only become the pillars of church community, but they also become one way we embody

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the truth of the gospel to each other, week after week.

How to start: This habit comes in many forms, from weekend evenings on the back porch to early mornings of coffee, but it is the idea of recovering conversation as a norm that is the desperately needed antidote to the modern epidemic of busied loneliness. My friend Steve and I have a standing coffee meeting every Thursday morning.

If there’s someone in your life you always wish to see more, ask that person to try this habit with you for a month. If you’re in a small group, try breaking down in pairs or in threes and meeting one morning every week for a month.

Start with just asking one another some questions or sharing stories, and let conversation grow from there.

Daily Habit 2: Turn off Your Phone for One Hour a Day

Presence is at the heart of the biblical story. God made us to live in His presence, and the problem of sin is that it separated us from the presence of God. Jesus saves us by absolving us of our sin so that we can once again enter the presence of God. This is the promise of heaven: God’s continual, uninterrupted presence. God made us for presence.

The problem of phones is not simply distraction, which is a problem of the mind. The problem of the smartphone is the problem of presence, which is a problem of the soul.

One of the ways our phones have convinced us that we can transcend our limits is that we now — by habit — try to talk to multiple people at once. We try to be multiple places at once. Of course, the result of trying to be so many places at once is that we end up nowhere at all.

Committing to turn off our phone for one hour a day is a great way to turn presence into a habit. This might be applicable to work, where you turn off your phone to focus on a problem and create the space to think of creative solutions. This could be with family, where you turn off the phone to recover the beauty of slow, uninterrupted presence with one another.

This has enormous application to our prayer and

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meditation lives. Reading the Bible on our phones, or reading the Bible with our phones sitting on the table, is very different than studying and praying with the phone off and away. There is a kind of presence that can only come by removing the threat of distraction, and this kind of presence is at the heart of spiritual disciplines.

How to start: Try turning off your phone the hour you end the workday. If that’s dinner time, leave your phone off and upstairs so you can be fully present at the table. If that’s the evening, leave your phone on the key table and spend an hour doing something else. Try this for at least two weeks straight. Whether it is for relationships or silence, turning off our phones as a habit clears the way for the presence God designed us to experience.

Weekly Habit 2: Curate Media to Four Hours a Week or Less

There may be no more important modern battle of spiritual formation to fight than to push back on how the constant stream of media is forming the regular American — the regular Christian included. Media is now the great cultural assimilator.

Nothing shapes us like stories. No Sunday School lesson will ever have the power of a well-told story to shape our vision of what the good life is. Stories tap into who we are because they tap into the fact that we live in a larger story, where good and evil really are fighting, and

The problem of the smartphone is the problem of presence, which is a problem of the soul. where the hero Jesus really will save the day.

Many of the stories we encounter are either specifically designed to provide a different vision of the good life, or to get us to watch more stories. The reason so many stories come at us now — from news to advertisements to television series — is that they make money. Marketers and news stations know the best way to capture our attention is to start telling a story. Like dogs to a tennis ball, suddenly we’re unable to think about anything else but seeing where that story goes.

There is enormous incentive just to keep us watching, but there are also enormous consequences for us.

Notice I’m not framing the habit here as “limiting” media intake to four hours a week. It is “curating” media intake. In fact, if I am honest, the four-hour part is arbitrary. The point is not that less is more, per se. The point is that we are now in the habit of watching anything from anywhere, anytime, without regard to how that kind of life shapes us into sedentary consumers.

But limits produce wonderful things. When you have to choose your media from a limited selection, you tend to pick carefully, and with purpose.

How to start: Pick an hour limit that is an appropriate challenge for you, and commit to trying it for a month. Pay attention to what you pick and why. Media can be restful, but it can be lazy. It might be community creating, or it might be isolating. It might be needless violence, or it might be opening your eyes to an area of brokenness in the world. But at least now, by choosing and curating, you are paying attention to what is forming you.

The habit of curating media is a way for Christians to resist — as Paul said in Romans 12:2 — conforming to the pattern of this world, so they can instead allow God to

transform them by the renewing of their minds. Formation is at stake in the constant stream of media. And without curation, without getting our minds involved in what we carefully choose to watch, we will simply assimilate; we will conform.

Limits Will Set You Free

As the story goes, Dr. Seuss never collected on the bet.

Of course, the book went on to sell more than 8 million copies, so he didn’t really need the money. Something extraordinary came out of an arbitrary limitation.

When I write or talk about habits as the engine of spiritual formation, people often ask whether these kinds of habits are overwhelming or constricting. I tell them, “Here is what’s overwhelming: doing nothing. Here is what is enslaving: not thinking about how you use technology.”

Conforming to the usual pattern of modern technological habits virtually guarantees the lingering sense of loneliness, the persistent fog of depression, the unexplainable anxiety, and the crushing sense that you have no time, that you are just busy. What is exhausting is living with unexamined habits. What is enslaving is living like you have no limits.

But Jesus’ burden is light. He is the good Master. Yes, it takes work to create new habits. But when those habits push you toward becoming more like Jesus, they become the limits that set you free.

Justin W. Earley earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and now practices business law in Richmond, Virginia. His book on formational habits, The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction, is forthcoming with InterVarsity Press in February 2019. You can learn more about Earley’s principles for cultivating a formational set of habits at thecommonrule.org.

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Full of Grace and Truth Why pastoral leadership needs both.

GLEN BERTEAU

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very ministry will have ups and downs. We rejoice in successes and trudge through the hardships. But the most difficult job any pastor has is dealing with a fellow minister who falls, especially one under his or her care. Confronting sin and caring about each person like Jesus did is absolutely essential.

If we are going to do ministry like Jesus did ministry, we need to understand the Incarnation properly. That entire concept is so rich and so important, but I believe it hinges on one verse: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

The last part of that verse should be where every pastor sets the bar. Are you ministering in a way that is full of grace and truth? You may ask, “Is truth more important, or is grace more important?” The answer is both. It’s like asking, “Which is more important: the right or left wing of an airplane?” If you don’t have both, I’m not going to trust you enough to get on the plane.

We don’t need pastors who say, “Well, I’m a grace pastor. That’s how I operate.” Or on the other side say, “I minister in truth; I’ll let others handle the grace.” We must have both, operating simultaneously and to the full.

I think we all understand the concepts of “grace” and “truth.” What I think is more difficult for us to grasp is how they work together. You need to know that Jesus was not half grace and half truth. He was full of both.

Grace and Truth From the Beginning

Before I got saved, I had two college football teammates who were preachers’ kids. They both told me about Jesus.

The first teammate was all about the truth. He would say, “Glen, you’re going to hell, and you need to straighten your life out. You need to ask God to forgive your sins.” He was telling me the truth, but I didn’t really receive it. Why? Because he didn’t share it with grace. It was condemning, and who was he to judge me?

But the other teammate told me the same truth, with grace. He explained my purpose and told me my life has meaning. The bottom line is, he would speak truth with tears in his eyes. He shared hard words, wrapped in compassion.

Who wants to hear truth spoken in judgment? To a

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stubborn and prideful person, truth without grace comes across as cold and callous. Tell people the truth. People who are hurting need someone who cares about their pain, about their soul, and about their life. The truth may not feel good, but it’s good for them. But they will only receive it when you tell it with grace.

When I did get saved, I thought, I don’t want to be like that first teammate. I want to be like the second one, who

told me the truth but also told me he cared. That’s the kind of Christian I’ve wanted to be, and that’s the type of pastor I’ve attempted to be as well.

Confronting and Caring

Some pastors lean in to confrontation and correcting and figure someone else can pull the slack on the grace side.

Others go to the opposite extreme. They just want to show

love, forgetting that sometimes it needs to be tough love.

Instead of trying to be one or the other, pastors need to do both. In a lot of ways, it’s like raising a child. If you are a parent who lavishes nothing but grace on your children, I would ask you, “How do you raise your children without speaking truth?” I don’t know whether you can raise a child just on grace, or whether you can raise a child just on truth with no love. Because even little

Jesus was not half grace and half truth.

He was full of both.

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children respond better to truth when we follow it with affirmation and affection.

Jesus was personal with His disciples, and it showed.

Peter denied Jesus, and Jesus extended grace to him and loved on him. Why was that? Because Peter was broken. Peter was not prideful when Jesus approached him that last time. Jesus went ahead and spoke to him out of grace, not correcting him, because Peter already knew he was wrong.

Everything Jesus spoke was true, but it was full of grace as well. Whenever I’m in a difficult ministry position in pastoring, I have to forget about everything I would feel and ask, What would Jesus do in this situation? When people are broken, when they understand what they’ve done and are truly repentant, who are we to keep reminding them of their faults? We’re here to restore them, to bring them back to health.

Pastors may have a hard time setting grace and truth into motion, taking on that responsibility. But it’s a calling on your life. It’s not just about the rewards but the discipline as well. You’re the leader of the church. Everything really falls upon you. The way you lead and the way you discipline sets a tone and an atmosphere throughout your entire ministry.

If you see a cancer in the midst of your church, as a pastor it’s up to you to address it. Do you have the backbone to go ahead and remove it? If you do what’s right, with the right spirit — not trying to destroy people in their errors but seeking to restore them — you are leading toward health instead of letting the devil have his way.

The way you lead and the way you discipline sets a tone and an atmosphere throughout your entire ministry.

Creating a Culture of Grace and Truth

As a pastor, you will deal with sin, mistakes, messes and brokenness. Your staff will not be immune to the attacks of the devil, either. So, you need to be ready to deal with these situations when they arise. How do you handle ministerial restoration from a position of grace and truth?

There are five practices I try to follow.

1. Willingness to take ownership. When something goes wrong, I must first check to see whether it was my fault. This is a matter of self-reflection. When a person causes a problem, acts in disobedience, or simply drops the ball, did I equip that person as much as he or she needed to do that position? Or did I just throw that person out there?

Too often we’ve not taught our people. We’ve put them in a position before they were ready. We may even be sending them out to fail. As a senior pastor, it is my

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responsibility to train people to do the work of ministry.

2. Honesty in personal struggles. Showing grace and truth also requires a level of authenticity on my part. I cannot be afraid to share my own struggles. My authenticity will open the door for others to reveal their struggles to me or someone else.

firing them. That’s not open communication, and it’s definitely not grace and truth. It’s fear and punishment.

4. Accountability. When we have a ministerial failure on our staff, we get together in a staff meeting and discuss it. That person will have a chance to admit the wrongdoing and show repentance. And I’ll assign to that person a couple of my pastors, usually older pastors. I’ll say, “You are now accountable to them. If you don’t feel you can come to me, you can go to them and talk.”

5. Sabbath. This is a big part of how we shape a culture of grace and truth. People who are overworked often forget to extend grace to themselves. They have goals they’re striving toward. They feel driven to accomplish them, because they believe there will be judgment if they don’t.

So, I’ll step in and say, “You’ve been working hard enough.

You need a break. Take a day off. Go on a vacation.”

A sabbath’s rest will provide balance, keeping them anchored in both grace and truth.

Where Grace and Truth Can Take Us

3. Open communication. Your staff needs to know they can trust you and confide in you without fear of punishment. I’ve heard from staff members of other churches who told their pastor, “I want you to pray for me because I feel like God may be moving me to another level of ministry, maybe to another church.” The pastor responded by

Over the years, God has given me opportunity to see restoration. I’ve seen it with ministers on our staff who have messed up, made some bad mistakes, and fallen into sin.

And I’ve also been a part of bringing ministers through restoration who fell while on staff at other churches.

That whole process teaches you something about the grace and truth Jesus exhibited. And when you operate in those things — not one at a time, or one and not the other — you will experience what it means to truly follow our Lord.

I recall one instance where a pastor on our staff committed adultery. He came into our staff meeting, crying, and said, “I’ve sinned. I’ve just sinned.”

I let him talk to our staff, to admit his faults and repent of his sins. And when he finished talking, our whole staff got up and went over and hugged him. They stood around him, holding him up.

Now tell me what kind of restoration that is. The devil wants to beat you down and say, “Everybody’s going to hate you. Look at you. You think you’re something, but you can’t even practice what you preach. You’re useless!

You’re done!”

But every person at that meeting said, “No, the devil is a liar. We love you, we are here for you, and we will help you through this.”

From the first day he admitted his sin, no one pushed him away or made him feel less than. We only loved him.

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We have to understand that the devil is tormenting those who are caught in sin. And the biggest source of pain is the lie the devil is trying to convince them of: that they are worthless. But the truth is God still has a plan for them.

So, grace wraps arms around them and loves them. The truth comes in when they repent, and the grace comes in when we accept them.

I will go out of my way with those people who have fallen, who have messed up, sinned and repented, because I know the devil is going out of his way to tear them down, call them names, and convince them they

are beyond the reach of God’s grace. I’ll tell them that I still believe in them and that God is not done with them.

This doesn’t mean there are no consequences for their actions or that they will continue to be a part of our staff.

Especially when sexual sin is involved, our first concern is caring for any victims and keeping our congregation safe. But we are also in the business of restoring sinners to a right relationship with God, and that requires full measures of grace and truth.

Ministering in grace and truth means that we are not just correcting, but we are also healing. Truth can

Truth can cut away sin from people’s lives as a surgeon removes a tumor, while grace is the bandage that wraps the incision site.

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If we stop short after correcting and rebuking, we only condemn. But when we also encourage, we are ministering fully like Jesus did.

cut away sin from people’s lives as a surgeon removes a tumor, while grace is the bandage that wraps the incision site. In 2 Timothy 4:2, Paul counseled Timothy on how to be a great pastor by telling him to “correct, rebuke and encourage.” When we see sin, we correct and rebuke it.

We explain why it’s wrong, what it leads to, and how to

avoid it. But we must also provide comfort and encouragement, healing their wounds with words of grace. If we stop short after correcting and rebuking, we only condemn. But when we also encourage, we are ministering fully like Jesus did.

Before I got saved, I had heard of Jesus and even read about Him in a book. But when I saw Jesus with my own eyes, through another young man who was willing to be grace and truth to me, I wanted to give my whole life to Him. I want to be that type of person. I want to show the world who Jesus is, not just by proclaiming words of truth but by living out grace through my life.

Glen Berteau is the senior pastor of The House Modesto in Modesto, California.

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FROM ATTENDANCE TO ENGAGEMENT Seven ways to help churchgoers become passionate champions of the mission.

CAREY NIEUWHOF

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n an era of declining church attendance, how do you grow your church and advance your mission? Well, one key is this: You turn ordinary attenders into passionate champions of the mission.

For too long, too many North American Christians have thought that sitting passively in the back row to get fed is what’s required of them, or that the main goal of finding a church is to attend one you “like.”

The goal of any Christian should never be to find a church you like and sit in the back row. The goal should be to fully engage the mission.

The current approach to church during our lifetime has largely been driven by getting people to attend. The idea is this: Get them in the door, and then hopefully at some point they’ll engage in the mission. That’s a bad strategy that’s failing miserably. And it’s a bit unbiblical to boot.

Not convinced? Flip back to the Gospels. Jesus never said, “Attend me.” He said, “Come follow me” (Matthew 4:19). The only reason you would follow Jesus (in Jesus’ day) is because you were either intrigued by who He is and what He did, or because you had come to believe that He is who He said He is. In other words, you were engaged.

You didn’t attend Jesus. You followed Him. A similar dynamic emerged in the first-century Church. Early Christians didn’t attend church. They were the Church.

If you look back at the genesis of the Jesus movement, the idea of attendance as a hallmark would have been completely foreign. You only attended because you were engaged. Period.

Back to our day. Think about it: Engaged people are passionate people. They know what the mission is. They serve in it. They live it out. They’re passionate enough about it to invite their friends.

Over the long-term in a church, you can accomplish more with 300 engaged Christians than with 3,000 disengaged attenders. The disengaged group will dwindle.

The 300 engaged Christians will advance the mission and never stay the same. Yes, only God can bring growth. But He uses people who are engaged to do it.

So if you were going to drive engagement at your church, how would you do it? I’d like to propose seven ways.

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1. Challenge People to Serve

People who serve in the mission are people who are engaged in the mission. I know this is near heresy in some circles, but encouraging people to volunteer may be more important than encouraging them to join a group.

At Connexus Church, where I serve, we’re finding that our healthiest people are not those who are in groups; they’re those who serve. People who serve (as a rule) get the mission. They’re on mission. And they love the mission.

Our goal is to get everyone into a group, but only doing a group can feed into a self-centered agenda in the same way sitting in the back row and not engaging the mission is a bit of a selfish approach to church for a longtime Christian.

Groups can be about you, whereas serving is almost never about you. I still think everyone should be in a group, but if joining a group is all you do as a Christian, it can feed into the consumer frenzy that is North American culture.

2. Provide a Clear Path Toward Involvement

The challenge for many people who participate in a congregation is that they don’t know what to do to get involved. Church websites can be fuzzy about next steps.

So can church leaders.

Often during services, we list 12 things people can do to get more engaged in their faith and in the mission. Faced with too many choices, most people choose nothing. The clearer and simpler the path is toward engagement, the more people will travel it.

At Connexus, we reorganized our lobby a few years ago, ditching the “Welcome Desk” for two simple kiosks. Now, we have a “New Here” kiosk for new guests. And we have a “Next Steps” kiosk with trained guest services people who act a bit like concierges, helping people discover which next step is best for them (such as baptism, serving, joining a group, attending our Starting Point sessions, etc.).

At every level, we try to take away the confusion and simply help people engage. We also try to make our language from the front clear and direct.

3. Focus All Programs Around Your Mission

Years ago, we dumped a program-based model of church (if you can dream it, we’ll do it) for a much simpler model.

Why? In part, because when you give people too many choices, people choose nothing. But we also changed it because we realized that what people are involved in becomes the mission. So, if you have lots of off-mission programs (like the Quilting Club or the Men Who Eat Bear Meat Fellowship), you will have a hard time focusing people on what you really want them to do. They’ll be passionate about their ministries, but not the ministry. And that’s the problem. Too many Christians get passionate about their mission, not the mission.

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Early Christians didn’t attend church.

They were the Church.

If you want people to be passionate about the central mission of your church, only do programming that directly advances the central mission. When you say “no” to a hundred other missions, you say “yes” to the most important mission.

4. Make It Uncomfortable to Stay Disengaged

People eventually conform to expectations. Tell a child he’ll never amount to anything, and he’ll likely give up on the dream of college. Tell a child she can persevere and accomplish the tasks ahead of her, and she likely will. People both rise and descend to our level of expectations.

The same is true of congregations. When you don’t expect people to do more than attend your church, don’t be surprised if all they do is attend your church. Craft a culture through your words, issuing calls to action on Sundays and in all your communications. Expect people to serve, join a group, bring a friend and give generously.

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5. Preach Action, Not Knowledge

Preachers have this incredible 20- to 40-minute window with which to speak into people’s lives every week. You can use it to give people information, or you can use it to call people to action. The second is far better.

Not that you need to hammer people every week. But with your words, you can make it clear that the goal of the Christian faith isn’t to know something, but to do something with what you know.

If you continue to talk about how to get involved and join the mission, providing clear action steps and opportunities to do so, eventually more people will engage. If you don’t, they won’t.

So do it.

6. Try Using Active Language

We’ve had a simple model of church at Connexus since we started, but right now we’re changing the language of engagement from more passive language to active language.

Here’s the background. For years, we used these four single words to explain our simple model of ministry and call people to action: • Connect (for groups) • Serve (to volunteer) • Invite (to invite a friend) • Give (to donate) Recently, we unveiled new language to convey the same steps. We’ve added a fifth step because we’re seeing so many unchurched people, and we’re moving to more active language designed to drive action and engagement: • Become a Christian (new) • Join the Mission (formerly “Serve”) • Bring a Friend (formerly “Invite”) • Choose Community (formerly “Connect”) • Give Generously (formerly “Give”) The idea is that these phrases roll off the tongue more naturally and paint a clearer outcome toward deeper engagement with the mission than the old language did.

We imagine a day when hundreds more people become Christians, join the mission, bring friends, choose community and give generously. That kind of action changes cities. Whatever language you use, make sure it conveys the outcome you long for.

7. Reward Progress

However you define increased engagement, reward it whenever you see it. How can you do this?

Celebrate it publicly. Sometimes church leaders are great at asking but not at reporting back afterward. If you ask for volunteers and you get 75 new ones, make a point of celebrating it the next weekend. Tell some stories. Shoot some video. Thank people. Ditto when people give generously, or bring a friend, or when 100 new people join community groups. Pretend it’s baptism Sunday … and celebrate.

Affirm it privately. When you see people jump in, thank them. Mention it when you talk to them in the foyer.

Thank them in the next email you send them. Mail them a handwritten thank you card.

Celebrate with your key leaders. Senior leaders can easily fall into the trap of rewarding attendance, not engagement. To increase engagement, start celebrating how many people signed up rather than how many people showed up.

When you talk about steps and celebrate as people take them, great things happen in your organization. Staff

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The goal of the Christian faith isn’t to know something, but to do something with what you know. and key volunteers need to know when they’re winning.

Help them see it. As Andy Stanley has said so many times, “What you celebrate gets repeated.”

Go Drive Engagement

Imagine dozens or hundreds of people at your church fully engaged in the mission. They’re serving, giving, bringing friends, participating in community and moving the mission forward.

It’s only a matter of time until an engaged church becomes a growing church. Imagine what might happen in your community if a growing church begins to see person after person and family after family find faith in Christ.

That’s worth the entire price of change you’ll pay to get there. So get going. Start engaging people, and you’ll see the mission expand.

Carey Nieuwhof is a former lawyer and founding pastor of Connexus Church (three locations in Barrie, Orillia, and Midland, Ontario, Canada). He’s the author of several best-selling books, including Didn’t See It Coming: Overcoming the 7 Greatest Challenges That No One Expects and Everyone Experiences.

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MULTIPLIERS Leaders Leveraging Their Gifts for God’s Kingdom

MULTIPLICATION BY DISCIPLESHIP

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aking disciples is the sole emphasis of the Great Commission. And after those final words Jesus gave His disciples in Matthew 28, you read how they responded in the opening chapters of the Book of Acts. Discipleship didn’t happen as the result of massive crusades or strategic evangelism. Those have their place, of course, but discipleship happens in the context of relationship, which we see throughout the Book of Acts.

We are presenting in this issue four multipliers who are replicating the Book of Acts model in their own spheres of influence.

Read here how God is using them in powerful ways. Their stories may even inspire you to implement their strategies in your own discipleship ministry.

Heather Zempel is helping each ministry department at National Community Church in Washington, D.C., create disciples by leveraging strategic growth environments. The church’s unique setting gives it the opportunity to impact a large audience who is hungry for more. As you’ll see, the church engages people where they are to reach one goal: help them grow closer to Christ. And it’s working!

John Van Pay decided to go all in on discipleship at Gateway Fellowship Church in San Antonio. That means focusing on small groups as a front door to Jesus and the church. Right from the start, the leadership team founded Gateway Fellowship on small groups. And today, they are the main mechanisms for ensuring growth and discipleship at all levels.

Mark Brewer at Oaks Church in Red Oak, Texas, wants everyone to know that discipleship is key to a multiplying church. Just ask anyone on the Oaks staff what’s the most important job, and you’ll hear the same answer: making disciples. By modeling this from the top down, the church is empowering each member to be disciple makers in a unique way.

Jason Bell is finding new ways to make disciples through Chi Alpha at Sam Houston State University. By focusing on intentional relationships, he shows how discipleship can be a powerful evangelism tool. If we include people in the process of discipleship in natural ways even before they make a decision to follow Jesus, their faith is even stronger.

Chris Colvin is a contributing editor to Influence magazine and specializes in sermon research for pastors and churches. He lives in Springfield, Missouri, with his wife and two children.

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MULTIPLIERS

Intentional Discipleship A CONVERSATION WITH HEATHER ZEMPEL

“Growing people grow people.”

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eather Zempel, discipleship pastor at National Community Church (AG), comes to ministry from a unique background and perspective. A degree in biological engineering and a career as a policy consultant led her to Washington, D.C. NCC, in the heart of the capital, finds itself in a unique position as well.

“Many of our attenders are either college students or involved in politics” Zempel says.

“They may only be a part of the church for two years.”

The team at NCC has used that uniqueness as leverage to create disciples.

“We look for places where people are showing up, and then infuse those places with discipleship,” Zempel says.

The church calls these places, which range from baby dedications to classroom experiences, strategic growth environments.

Leaders find ways to use these environments for intentional discipleship — such as putting a five-day devotional into the hands of individuals pursuing baptism. This resource walks people through the fundamentals of baptism and provides a step-by-step guide to reading Scripture and developing a devotional life.

Another environment that has been critical to disciple making is a tool known as the story course. Divided into three sessions, the course takes new believers and mature leaders through the Bible, explaining how individual books fit together. It’s a way to address any gaps in biblical literacy while also giving recent converts a head start in their faith.

Although the story course is mostly content, it leads to tighter connections later.

“It’s conversations, not content, that help shape people,” Zempel says.

Along with strategic growth environments are strategic steps, like missions trips.

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“Those can be the most fertile environments for discipleship,” Zempel says.

Before, during and even after a missions trip, members are praying, reading and serving together.

“Our discipleship team works closely with all areas of ministry to make sure discipleship is happening during these steps,” she says.

One step that quite a few at NCC are taking is the Protégé Program, a pathway development for full-time ministry that Zempel started in 2008. Some graduates of the yearlong program stay on the team at NCC, while many go on to other churches.

“It’s a full-immersion experience,” Zempel says. “We consider it a full-time position. We place them on a ministry team, where they are given a mentor and significant responsibilities.”

The priority is to shape character.

“Our motto is, ‘Be led, and go lead,’” Zempel says.

This principle of leading while receiving discipleship is crucial to NCC’s success in its unique environment.

“I think there’s a lot of overlap between leadership development and discipleship,” Zempel says. “In D.C., we see a lot of leaders who have great leadership skills but may not be great disciples. They know how to make a decision, but they may not know how to hear the voice of God.” Every leader needs to learn to lead themselves. And with that comes the desire to disciple others. As Zempel can attest, “Growing people grow people.”

MULTIPLIERS

Strategic Small Groups A Q & A W I T H J O H N V A N P AY John Van Pay is lead pastor of Gateway Fellowship Church, in San Antonio. From the start, this church plant has had a strong vision for small groups. As one of the fastest-growing churches in the country, Gateway Fellowship Church continues that model in ways that multiply disciples.

“As a church grows, especially quickly, there has to be a healthy leadership structure to support that. “

INFLUENCE: What is the role of discipleship

in multiplication?

VAN PAY: From Jesus and through a biblical first-century lens, there must be a common understanding of what is discipleship. Every pastor will say discipleship is important, but what does the Bible teach us about becoming a disciple?

Jesus was part of a small group. He was in relationship. He spent three years pouring into His disciples and equipping them.

When He told them to go make disciples, their response was, “OK, I’ll just do what Jesus did with me.”

So, they met in small groups, in homes, praying and breaking bread together.

As a pastor, and for every person on our staff, we must model discipleship. We need to make disciples, but also we need to equip others to make disciples. And for us, the system is the same that Jesus used: small groups.

How do you create an environment where small groups are a priority?

We must be intentional about it, and for us it’s the heart and culture of our church. It’s how we started, and as we grow, we continue meeting in homes. It is just part of who we are.

We keep it very simple. We focus on small groups and our weekly worship service.

That’s it. We do that in adults, students and children. Sometimes we’ve made church so

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complex that discipleship can’t happen. We have to say “no” to some good things to make sure the main thing happens.

As a church grows, what barriers have you found to keeping your small groups flourishing?

As a church grows, especially quickly, there has to be a healthy leadership structure to support that. Recruitment and retention are important, of course. But you also need to support the leaders you have.

Every five small-group leaders have a coach they report to who supports them. Each coach has led a small group in the past, and many still do. Every five coaches have a head coach over them, and every five head coaches have a lead coach. This structure means that every person along the pipeline is leading people and being led by someone.

What role do small groups play in ongoing evangelism?

Our goal for small groups is for 100 percent of our church to belong to a small group. So, we are training our small-group leaders to go door-to-door, be friends first, invite people to their homes, and then let their small group become a front door to the church.

What God does in us, He will do through us.

Healthy things grow, and one sign of growth is to reproduce. When you have a healthy small group that is full of people loving the Lord, each other and the lost, they will see their friends come to Christ.

MULTIPLIERS

Intimate Discipleship A C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H M A R K B R E W E R Mark Brewer is executive pastor of Oaks Church (AG) in Red Oak, Texas.

“The only way to know if people are obeying is if we have an intimate relationship with them.”

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aks Church has been the only place of worship Mark Brewer has called home.

“I got saved here, moved into a Sunday School class here, was called into ministry here,” he says. “It’s the only place I’ve known.”

Brewer and lead pastor Scott Wilson have been together for 30 years.

“It’s Scott’s job to lead the vision; it’s my job to drive it,” Brewer says. “He gives the why and what; I take care of the how and when.”

That combination of pastor and executive pastor has led to multiplication — and now, it’s key to their great discipleship strategy.

The church’s overall strategy for discipleship is more clear now than ever. And it’s all about moving from “arm’s length” to “armpit” relationships.

“In Matthew 28, Jesus gave us our orders,” Brewer says. “The Western Church got the teaching part down. That’s the arm’s-length relationship. We’ve never been better from the pulpit, online and podcasts.”

What was missing was something that could help with the obedience part of the Great Commission.

“The only way to know if people are obeying is if we have an intimate relationship with them,” Brewer says.

That led to the metaphor of an armpit to describe the kind of close relationship discipleship requires.

“The No. 1 responsibility of each staff position is to make disciples,” Brewer says. “That goes for worship leaders and children’s ministry, youth to senior citizens, and even operations and finances.

Everyone is on notice.”

How do you create an environment where

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discipleship comes naturally? Brewer says it takes modeling and intentionality. In other words, people can do it if they see someone else doing it. So he and Wilson recently modeled the steps on Sunday mornings during a sermon series on discipleship.

Showing examples of specific situations and how to overcome hurdles gives everyone a better grasp on how to disciple. It also lets them in on the responsibility of it.

“At Oaks Church, we love to say that no one walks alone,” Brewer says. “When we give an altar call, we live that out.”

During the weekly call for salvation, leaders encourage everyone in the audience to ask those seated next to them whether they want to go forward to receive Christ. The response doesn’t happen alone. It happens together.

Those simple connections are what make discipleship possible. Brewer explains that when you shrink things down to the simplest element, people can absorb it. That Sunday morning experience can transform into an eight-week discipleship process as the person who leads someone to the altar then walks beside that new convert in his or her first weeks of faith.

Brewer compares getting people into a discipleship pathway to a parent caring for a newborn.

“If the newborns have a good first 90 days, they have a real shot at long-term health,” he says.

And you can’t do that by keeping someone at arm’s length. You have to get closer than that, as close as under their arm.

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MULTIPLIERS

Discipleship and Evangelism Go Hand in Hand A Q&A WITH JASON BELL Jason Bell is Chi Alpha director at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.

“The heart of discipleship is taking responsibility for what is dear to God.”

INFLUENCE: How did you get involved in Chi Alpha leadership?

BELL: I came to Sam Houston State University as a student in 1996 to study finance and never thought about getting into the ministry.

I told my twin brother years before, “I love Jesus, and I’ll give to the Church, but I’m not cut out for ministry.”

Well, after four years, I found out I was.

As a student, I was in a dorm that was pretty spiritually dark, but I found out I could be a light and influence on those who lived there.

When a fellow student, who I invited to Chi Alpha, got saved, he told me, “Thank you. This has forever changed my life.”

I thought of no better return on investment, so I left my studies in finance behind.

What is the role of discipleship within Chi Alpha where you are?

We are hungry and thirsty to make disciples.

What God does in us He wants to do through us. And the heart of discipleship is taking responsibility for what is dear to God. As a staff, we take that responsibility seriously, so we share it with those we lead.

Matthew 28:19 says to make disciples, not converts. When we first meet students on campus, when they show up for school, they may be new to us, but we have to make them feel like part of the family. So, we get interested in what they’re interested in, but there’s no transition from those conversations into faith conversations. It’s all the same conversation. If you love God, you’ll know His attributes and talk about them all the time.

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Does that mean discipleship and evangelism go hand in hand?

Absolutely. I don’t think you can divide those two things; they both need to happen together.

Our large group meetings average 800 people. Students come not because they heard about it but because a leader brought them.

Our leaders go out, meet people, and develop relationships, and then bring them to Christ.

That’s really the formula for discipleship.

We have roughly 200 small groups that range from four to six people in each group.

That’s over 1,000 people — and roughly half of them are unsaved. We are all in it together.

How does the discipleship process work within your small groups?

We spell it out in three ways. First, do students have a real devotional life? In other words, what are they reading that helps them learn to love God? Next, are they experiencing real relationships? That means having friendships where they don’t just eat pizza, but they feed each other from those shared devotional lives. And third, are students taking real responsibility? As leaders, we try to create a passion to keep doing this, and our students are picking up on it.

MAKE IT COUNT An Eight-Week Study for Leadership Teams

The Role of the Holy Spirit in Leadership:

8 INSIGHTS ON LEADERSHIP FROM THE BOOK OF ACTS STEPHEN BLANDINO

WHAT IS MAKE IT COUNT?

Week after week, you invest time and energy into making every Sunday count. But you also have to think about staff meetings, board meetings, and meetings with key volunteers and other church leaders.

Juggling so many meetings can seem overwhelming, especially as you think about developing the leaders around you. Effective leaders are continually looking for great leadership content they can use to develop and mentor other leaders. Make It Count is a powerful, little tool to help you accomplish just that.

Each Make It Count lesson is easily adaptable for individual or group discussion, allowing for personal application and reflection among your ministry leaders and lead volunteers. The lessons are useful as devotionals in board and staff meetings and in departmental meetings with your lead volunteers. Studying and growing together is

key to building strong and healthy relationships with your team members, and it is a necessary component to building growing, flourishing churches. These lessons can help you make each moment count as you lead and develop the leaders around you.

The following eight, easy-to-use lessons on The Role of the Holy Spirit in Leadership: 8 Insights on Leadership Blandino From the Book of Acts are written by Stephen Blandino, lead pastor of 7 City Church (AG) in Fort Worth, Texas (7citychurch.com). He planted 7 City Church in 2012 in a thriving cultural arts district near downtown Fort Worth. Stephen blogs regularly at stephenblandino.com and is the author of several books, including Do Good Works, Creating Your Church’s Culture, and GO! Starting a Personal Growth Revolution.

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hroughout Scripture, we see the work of the Holy Spirit. He was active in creation, and He spoke through the prophets of the Old Testament.

Jesus promised He would comfort and counsel, and on the Day of Pentecost, 120 received the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Throughout the Book of Acts, we see the extraordinary works He did in the Early Church and through the apostles.

The Holy Spirit’s activity and influence is undeniable, and His presence and empowerment in the lives of Jesus’ followers are essential. But there’s one area in which we often fail to consider the Holy Spirit’s influence. What is the role of the Holy Spirit in leadership?

The Holy Spirit’s presence and influence in your day-to-day leadership can make an extraordinary difference. In the Book of Acts, we see how the Holy Spirit worked in some of the most practical leadership issues.

That’s the focus of this edition of Make It

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HOW TO USE MAKE IT COUNT

We are pleased to offer the Make It Count Discussion Guide in a downloadable PDF, available through the “Downloads” button on Influencemagazine.com. Each lesson in the PDF

Count. We will explore the following eight ways in which the Holy Spirit is involved in leadership: • The Holy Spirit Shapes Leadership Development • The Holy Spirit Empowers Leaders With Boldness • The Holy Spirit Gives Leaders Wisdom • The Holy Spirit Provides Strength in Leadership Storms • The Holy Spirit Prompts Leaders to Have Strategic Conversations • The Holy Spirit Guides Leaders • The Holy Spirit Helps Leaders Resolve Conflicts • The Holy Spirit Gives Courage to Lead out of Your Comfort Zone Author Francis Chan observed, “We all have to answer the question: Do I want to lead or be led by the Spirit?”

Before you read and discuss each lesson, why not start with a simple prayer: “Holy Spirit, lead my leadership.”

Make It Count Discussion Guide is divided into a Leader’s page and Team Member’s page. The Leader’s page corresponds directly to the material in this print issue of the magazine.

We encourage you to print multiple copies of the PDF Discussion Guide from Influencemagazine.com for all your ministry leaders and the team members they lead in your church or organization.

You will notice that key words and concepts are underlined in each lesson on the Leader’s page. These underlined words and phrases correspond to the blank spaces found on the team member lesson pages. Team members can fill in the blanks as you progress through each lesson’s material.

We trust these lessons will help you make each moment count as you lead and develop the leaders around you.

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MAKE IT COUNT Study

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8 Insights on Leadership From the Book of Acts

The Holy Spirit Shapes Leadership Development Assess: When you’re building a team or hiring staff, how much do you lean on the Holy Spirit for guidance?

Insights and Ideas

here are lots of questions, assessments and interviews you can use to help you make wise decisions regarding staff and volunteer recruitment. Taking your time is crucial, and developing a well-formed selection process is essential. In most cases, the wrong recruit will delay, diminish or even derail progress. But it’s easy in this recruitment process to overlook another powerful influence: the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus spent an entire night in prayer before selecting His apostles (Luke 6:12–16). He needed the Spirit to guide and direct one of the most important decisions He would ever make. As you read Acts, you discover that the Holy Spirit is still interested in helping us build highly effective and empowered teams. He guides leadership development in three ways: 1. Leadership qualification. In the Early Church, widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. The apostles’ response to this need was to “choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:3–4). In this passage, a certain dimension of the Holy Spirit’s presence in a person’s life was one qualifier for leadership.

2. Leadership selection. In Acts 20, we see how the Holy Spirit had an active role in leadership selection. Paul said to the elders of the Church at Ephesus, “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).

3. Leadership assignment. Each leader has a God-given role or task where they can make the greatest difference. In Acts 13, there were a number of prophets and teachers at the church in Antioch, including Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen and Saul. These leaders received specific tasks to fulfill. Acts 13:2–5 says, “While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.”

The Holy Spirit commissioned these two leaders to an assignment of boldly proclaiming God’s Word in Salamis.

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Reflect and Discuss

1. In what way should the Holy Spirit be at work in someone’s life before that person assumes a leadership role?

2. How can we lean on the Holy Spirit for wisdom and direction during the leadership selection process?

3. How has the Holy Spirit guided the ministry assignments you’ve had up to now? How can we encourage Spirit-guided assignments when delegating responsibility to team members?

Apply

It’s easy to overlook the Holy Spirit’s role in leadership selection and development. Look at your process for staff or volunteer recruitment. Identify a specific way you could welcome the Holy Spirit’s influence into that process.

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8 Insights on Leadership From the Book of Acts

The Holy Spirit Empowers Leaders With Boldness Team Review: What idea did you come up with to welcome the Holy Spirit’s influence in your leadership development process?

Assess: When have you needed boldness the most in your leadership journey?

Insights and Ideas

he leadership terrain always comes with challenges and opposition. Somebody won’t like what you’re trying to accomplish — and often, those are defining moments for a leader. Will you back down in fear, or boldly advance toward the mission God called you to pursue?

This was exactly the situation Peter and John faced when they healed a lame man. They drew quite a bit of attention for this miracle, which led to questioning from the Sanhedrin: “By what power or what name did you do this?” (Acts 4:7). Verse 8 begins with these words, “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit … .”

In the verses that follow, Peter gives a bold, unapologetic response, testifying that Jesus Christ, “whom you crucified,” did this. He then declares that salvation comes through Jesus alone. How did these religious leaders respond? Verse 13 says, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” The Holy Spirit gave Peter and John the courage they needed in the moment.

The Sanhedrin threatened Peter and John, insisting they no longer preach in Jesus’ name. Again, boldness won the day when Peter said, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19–20).

More threats followed, but Peter and John were unrelenting. They reported what happened to the believers, and then raised their voices together in prayer. Most of us would have prayed for protection; Peter and John prayed for more boldness. “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness” (Acts 4:29).

When they finished praying, they were filled with the Holy Spirit and did exactly that — Peter and John “spoke the word of God boldly” (Acts 4:31).

Panic should never hijack your purpose. When you are questioned, threatened, or surrounded by fear, let the Holy Spirit give you courage to advance your calling. The Lord has entrusted you with a mission, and too much is at stake to let fear undermine it. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you the boldness necessary to lead into the future.

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Reflect and Discuss

1. What are the most difficult aspects of leadership?

2. How has the Holy Spirit emboldened you during one of these difficult seasons?

3. In what area do you need the Holy Spirit to give you boldness today?

Apply

Take a few minutes — personally or as a team — to pray for the Holy Spirit to give you the boldness to lead well in your current circumstances. Leadership is tough, but the Holy Spirit gives us the courage to lead in the face of opposition.

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8 Insights on Leadership From the Book of Acts

The Holy Spirit Gives Leaders Wisdom Team Review: How has the Holy Spirit given you boldness to lead in the last week?

Assess: When was a time the Holy Spirit gave you wisdom for a situation that helped you make a better leadership decision?

Insights and Ideas

isdom is one of the greatest gifts a leader can possess. The truth is, wise responses keep you from adding new problems to your existing problems.

In Acts 6, Stephen performed miracles among the people and, as a result, faced opposition from members of the synagogue. These religious leaders began to argue with Stephen, “But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke” (Act 6:10).

The purpose of wisdom isn’t to silence your critics so you can elevate your ego. God gives us wisdom so we can do what is right, just and fair. Proverbs 1:1–3 says, “The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel: for gaining wisdom and instruction; for understanding words of insight; for receiving instruction in prudent behavior, doing what is right and just and fair.”

There will be plenty of opportunities in leadership where it’s easier to take shortcuts than to do what is right. There will be temptations to leverage influence for your own personal gain rather than doing what is just and fair. In these moments, the Holy Spirit gives us the wisdom to lead with honor and integrity.

As leaders, it is essential that we pray for wisdom daily. In 1 Kings 3:5, God appears to Solomon in a dream and says, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”

If God made you that kind of offer, how would you fill in the blank check? Recognizing the enormous responsibility before him and the lack of experience that accompanied his youthfulness, Solomon made a bold request: “So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” (1 Kings 3:9).

God was so pleased with Solomon’s request that He threw in a bonus: wealth and honor.

Wisdom should be a leader’s number one prayer request because it’s the answer to many of our prayers yet to be prayed. How? Wisdom is like a doorway to long-term solutions rather than short-term relief. For example, a leader can ask God for the money to pay a pressing bill, or he can ask God for the wisdom to build an organization that is financially sustainable. A leader can ask God to provide volunteers to make it through another Sunday, or she can ask God for the wisdom to recruit and empower a high-performance, highly committed team. Neither prayer is wrong, but wisdom leads to long-term solutions.

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Reflect and Discuss

1. Do you believe asking for wisdom is the best prayer a leader can pray? Why or why not?

2. How often do you pray for wisdom? What does this reveal about your dependence on the Holy Spirit?

3. In what area of your leadership do you need wisdom right now?

Apply

Make it a practice each day to pray this simple one-sentence prayer: “God, fill me with the wisdom and knowledge of Your perfect will, and give me the courage to do it.”

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8 Insights on Leadership From the Book of Acts

The Holy Spirit Provides Strength in Leadership Storms Team Review: What difference have you noticed since praying daily for wisdom?

Assess: Can you think of a time when the Holy Spirit gave you strength in the middle of a crisis or a challenging leadership situation?

Insights and Ideas

eadership is not for the faint of heart. You will face criticism, challenges, accusations and ridicule. You will experience hardship and make many difficult decisions. I hate to sound pessimistic, but pain is often your companion in leadership.

Navigating this leadership terrain requires strength beyond yourself. The apostle Paul said, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being” (Ephesians 3:16). No matter how great your talent is, you need the inner strength the Spirit provides.

The Early Church and its leaders faced persecution, trials and storms. However, the Holy Spirit wasn’t absent in their pain. In fact, the Holy Spirit provides strength in two ways when leadership storms rage.

1. The Holy Spirit is present. Stephen’s accusers stoned him for his faith in Jesus. There’s nothing comforting about that reality except for one thing — the Holy Spirit was with Him. Acts 7:55–56 says, “But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’” At that point, the people rushed Stephen and began to stone him. As they did, Stephen prayed, “‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he fell asleep” (Acts 7:59–60).

God didn’t abandon Stephen in his most desperate moment. In fact, the Holy Spirit gave Stephen strength to remain faithful to Jesus in persecution, and to forgive his accusers.

2. The Holy Spirit encourages. The church undoubtedly faced opposition and persecution, but the Lord also gave relief. Acts 9:31 says, “Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.”

Is leadership tough? Absolutely! But we are not alone. The Holy Spirit is present and brings comfort, peace and encouragement to help us in our greatest time of need. Don’t let your current leadership storms overshadow your ability to see the Holy Spirit at work within you and around you.

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Reflect and Discuss

1. How have you experienced the Holy Spirit’s presence and encouragement during a leadership trial?

2 During leadership storms, the Holy Spirit often wants to do a work in us, not just in our circumstances. Can you give an example of when the Holy Spirit used your difficulties to shape and form your character?

3. How can you keep the Holy Spirit’s work in focus whenever you face a storm?

Apply

One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is encouragement (Romans 12:8). Use this gift by sharing a word of encouragement with a member of your team who is currently facing a leadership storm.

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8 Insights on Leadership From the Book of Acts

The Holy Spirit Prompts Leaders to Have Strategic Conversations Team Review: Who is going through a leadership storm you were able to encourage this

week?

Assess: When has the Holy Spirit prompted you to speak to someone about a specific issue, need or situation? What was the outcome of that prompting?

Insights and Ideas

here are times in leadership when the Holy Spirit will prompt you to say something to someone at a strategic moment. Sometimes it’s a word of encouragement for someone who’s hurting. Other times it’s a conversation that proves pivotal in a strategic decision.

And sometimes it’s the opportunity to share your faith with someone who hasn’t heard the good news. That was the case for Philip.

In Acts 8, an angel told Philip to go down a road toward Gaza. Along the way, the Holy Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it” (Acts 8:29). In the chariot was an Ethiopian eunuch who was reading the Book of Isaiah. That prompting led to a strategic conversation where Philip asked the man if he understood what he was reading. Verse 35 says, “Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.”

Leadership is time consuming. The need to formulate strategies, build teams, meet with leaders, write sermons and serve the people God has entrusted to your care is all-consuming. These tasks are important, even essential to leadership. However, if we’re not careful, our pace can silence the Spirit’s promptings. It’s not so much that the Spirit has stopped talking, but rather that we’re too busy to listen. When we fail to engage in Spirit-prompted conversations, we miss three opportunities.

1. Opportunities for ministry. The Holy Spirit often prompts us to engage in conversations that result in people being ministered to in their time of need. By listening to the Spirit, we participate in important ministry moments.

2. Opportunities to experience a miracle. Sometimes when the Holy Spirit prompts us to pray for someone, it becomes the catalyst for their miracle. Other times, God prompts us to engage in a conversation that leads to a miracle for us. I once engaged in a conversation with a man after a Sunday service who asked about a specific ministry staffing need. That week, he mailed us a check to pay the entire first year’s salary for us to hire a new staff member.

Had that conversation never happened, the miracle would never have occurred.

3. Opportunities for expanded momentum. There are times when the Holy Spirit strategically guides us to conversations with other leaders. Those conversations provide the wisdom, insight, influence, or resources to catalyze expanded ministry and infuse fresh momentum.

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Reflect and Discuss

1. Can you share a time when the Holy Spirit prompted you to engage in a conversation that resulted in ministry, a miracle, or expanded momentum?

2. What are the biggest reasons we miss or ignore the Holy Spirit’s promptings to engage in strategic conversations?

3. What could you do to slow your pace and become more sensitive to the Spirit’s promptings?

Apply

With whom has the Holy Spirit been prompting you to have a conversation? Take a moment to schedule that meeting now.

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8 Insights on Leadership From the Book of Acts

The Holy Spirit Guides Leaders Team Review: With whom did the Holy Spirit prompt you to have a conversation? How did God use that conversation in your life, or in the other person’s life?

Assess: When was a time the Holy Spirit provided clear guidance and direction to you?

Insights and Ideas

eaders have the responsibility of providing clear direction to teams and the entire church. Too much is at stake to allow our own opinions, preferences or selfishness to cloud the direction our churches and organizations need, which is why the Holy Spirit’s guidance is so important. In the Book of Acts, we see two ways the Holy Spirit provided guidance for leaders.

1. The Holy Spirit gives discernment. In Acts 13, the Holy Spirit told the prophets and teachers in Antioch to set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work of ministry. These leaders commissioned them in prayer, and Barnabas and Saul headed for Cyprus to preach the gospel. While in Cyprus, they met Elymas the sorcerer, who opposed Barnabas and Saul and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. According to verses 9–11, “Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, ‘You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.’”

Elymas immediately went blind, and the proconsul placed his faith in Christ.

There are times when leaders need to be able to discern motives, opposition and intentions. In these moments, the Holy Spirit guides us by providing discernment to know what to do, when to do it and how to proceed.

2. The Holy Spirit gives direction. The Holy Spirit guides us by providing direction when we need it most. We see this play out when Paul and his companions traveled through the region of Phrygia and Galatia. Acts 16:6 says that Paul was “kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia.” And when they tried to enter Bithynia, “the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to” (Acts 16:7). That night, Paul had a vision of a man from Macedonia begging Paul to come and help. Acts 16:10 says, “After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”

The Holy Spirit was clearly involved in directing Paul and his companions in the mission of the gospel.

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Reflect and Discuss

1. How have you experienced the Holy Spirit’s discernment or direction in your life?

2. What are common ways in which the Holy Spirit provides direction to you?

3. In what leadership issue do you need the Holy Spirit’s guidance today?

Apply

Identify the three biggest areas where your team needs direction and discernment. Take a few minutes to pray together over those areas. As you pray, ask your team members what they sense the Holy Spirit is saying regarding each of these areas.

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8 Insights on Leadership From the Book of Acts

The Holy Spirit Helps Leaders Resolve Conflicts Team Review: How have you implemented the Holy Spirit’s direction since our last meeting?

Assess: What does it look like for the Holy Spirit to help us resolve conflicts in leadership?

Insights and Ideas

n Acts 15, a conflict arose in the Church when some Jews insisted that non-Jewish people couldn’t receive salvation without circumcision. After considerable discussion of the issue, the church leaders finally reached a conclusion.

They drafted a letter with this message and sent it to Antioch: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things” (Acts 15:28–29).

The fact that they said, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” indicates that the Holy Spirit was active in the proper management of this conflict. How did these church leaders resolve the conflict with the Spirit’s influence on the situation? They took six conflict resolution steps: 1. Hear both sides of the story. The apostles and elders heard Paul and Barnabas share how God used them to see the Gentiles converted, while the other believers argued that the Gentiles should be circumcised and required to obey the Law (Acts 15:2–5).

2. Engage in discussion. The apostles and elders took time to discuss the matter (Acts 15:6–7).

3. Present the facts and remain sensitive to what God is doing. After much discussion, Peter addressed the crowd by drawing their attention to the facts — God was working among the Gentiles, as affirmed by their baptism in the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:7–11).

4. Provide supporting evidence. Paul and Barnabas shared about the miraculous signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. Then, James quoted the prophets to confirm the work of the Spirit among the Gentiles (Acts 15:12–18).

5. Based on the facts, articulate a responsible solution. James said, “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath” (Acts 15:19–21). The solution was based on the facts, without ignoring the Gentiles’ responsibilities.

6. Put together a communication strategy that brings clarification. After articulating the solution, the apostles and elders put together a team to deliver a letter to the Gentile believers that communicated the solution (Acts 15:22–35).

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Reflect and Discuss 1. What is a leadership conflict you currently need to resolve?

2. Which of the six strategies have you not been embracing in conflict resolution?

3. What would allow you to say, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” in your conflict resolution?

Apply

Take the six steps from Acts 15, and apply them to a leadership conflict you are facing. Be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading in the process.

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8 Insights on Leadership From the Book of Acts

The Holy Spirit Gives Courage to Lead Out of Your Comfort Zone Team Review: How has your conflict resolution progressed since our last meeting?

Assess: When was a time the Holy Spirit led you to take a step outside of your comfort

zone?

Insights and Ideas

eaders don’t have visions of sameness. They envision bold new futures that meet needs, solve problems and change lives. But getting to a new destination requires the courage to step out of your comfort zone.

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The journey from A to B is not easy because it requires us to make changes that arouse uncertainty and fear. For the leader, making these changes and stepping into the unknown requires continual courage.

When Paul went to Jerusalem, he understood the necessity of courage, and the challenge of stepping outside of his comfort zone. Acts 20:22–24 says, “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me — the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.”

From this passage, we discover three realities that awaited Paul outside his comfort zone: 1. Uncertainty. First, Paul articulated the uncertainy he was facing. He said he was heading to Jerusalem, “not knowing what will happen to me there.” Leadership often involves uncertainty, but if the Holy Spirit is guiding us, we can rest in the assurance we are in His perfect will. The Spirit “compelled” Paul to go.

2. Hardship. Paul was a realist. He understood that prison and hardships were awaiting him outside of his comfort zone. He didn’t deny the inevitable, but he also didn’t let it become a megaphone that would drown out the Holy Spirit’s voice. He simply listened to the Spirit’s warning, and then stepped out in obedience.

3. Mission. Despite the uncertainty and hardship, because he knew the Holy Spirit was leading him, Paul was able to keep his eye on the mission at hand: “testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” He understood that uncertainty and hardship were not the only things waiting for him outside of his comfort zone. His God-given mission was waiting for him as well. That’s what made it all worthwhile.

Without the Holy Spirit’s prompting, you’ll find yourself confined to comfort without ever realizing significance.

Reflect and Discuss

1. What’s the most significant thing that has ever happened to you because of your willingness to step outside of your comfort zone?

2. What uncertainty and hardship was (or is) awaiting you outside of your comfort zone?

3. What mission will not be fulfilled if you don’t step outside of your comfort zone?

Apply

We all enjoy our comforts, but is it really worth it to exchange the greater mission just to be comfortable? Ask the Holy Spirit to burn His mission so deeply into your heart that you cannot remain in your comfortable routines. Then take your first step of obedience.

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THE FINAL NOTE the soul are nothing new. Men and women in Scripture, from Elijah and Jeremiah to Naomi and David, suffered intense inner turmoil.

Emotional pain is common to the human experience. So, why do we often avert our eyes when the pain becomes deep, prolonged, disruptive and inexplicable? At any given time, about 8 percent of Americans aged 20 and older suffer from major depression, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet a majority of adolescents and adults with severe symptoms don’t seek professional help. Nearly half of pastors have struggled with depression while in ministry, Barna reports. Nevertheless, churches are often silent on mental health issues.

Silent Night

CHRISTINA QUICK

Nearly half of pastors have struggled with depression while in ministry.

Churches are often silent on mental health issues.

ews of Andrew Stoecklein’s suicide last August made headlines across the country. The 30-year-old left behind a wife, three young children — and the evangelical megachurch he pastored in Chino, California.

It’s a shocking story. But perhaps it shouldn’t be. After all, we live in a fallen world, where even church leaders are vulnerable to human struggles, both physical and mental. Battles of

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It’s time to end the stigma. In this season of joyous celebration, some in your congregation are likely hurting. Perhaps you are struggling, or you know someone who is. Don’t put off seeking help, or having difficult conversations with those who may need intervention. Maybe you’ve walked that dark road in the past. Don’t shy away from sharing your testimony.

The Incarnation reminds us that Jesus came not only to give eternal life, but to “bind up the brokenhearted” and lift the “spirit of despair” (Isaiah 61:1,3). He penetrates the darkness of silent nights with good news for all people. So let us speak up, reach out, bear one another’s burdens, and declare the name of the One who heals and restores.

FOR HELP, CALL:

Christina Quick is assistant editor of Influence magazine.

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National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255

AG Help Line for Ministers 1-800-867-4011

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NEW EASY TO READ

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