RADAR, BUCKETS, CHUNKS, and MARINATE.

Rob Bell is the Teaching Pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan. He is a speaker, author, and the creator of the Nooma visual presentations. Rob is a very interesting person – creative, arty, humble and insightful. He also has some excellent tips on sermon preparation and how to be always on the look out for insights well ahead of when we preach them. He uses four words to describe his process: RADAR, BUCKETS, CHUNKS, and MARINATE.

Let me unpack those for you ...

RADAR
As communicators of God's Word we need to have our spiritual radar on all the time. Preaching preparation is not something we set aside for a specific day each week. We need to be listening to God's promptings ALL the time - while talking to people, while driving down the street, while watching the news, while reading the Bible ... all the time. God can turn an ordinary place into a sacred place, just like he did for Jacob sleeping out in a desert area (Gen.28:10-17). The truth is that God is everywhere and he is speaking all the time. Are we tuned in? How easily we can miss God at work all around us at each moment of the day. Preaching preparation is be a lifestyle. Wake up and get your radar on!

BUCKETS
We need a way to capture these thoughts and ideas as we receive them. Write down whatever moves you. You might choose to use a paper notepad or in a Word file on your computer. But create a heap of buckets to record your insights. If you don't, you'll forget them.

CHUNKS
Over time, some of your individual thoughts and ideas will start to connect together with similar thoughts and ideas to form 'chunks'. A fragment starts to form part of a larger story. It could be a Bible verse, a thought from a TV advertisement, something someone said to you, or a reflection you had - all on a similar topic. Begin to chunk them together. They become the foundation for entire messages or segments of messages.

MARINATE
The best meat is marinated! It's tender and tasty. In the same way, the best messages are ones that you have been marinating in your spirit for a while (even for months), not something you threw together on Saturday evening. Ensure that the message is part of you and that it's something you're living out. Allow the Word to become flesh in you. You can't fake this or do it quickly. Allow God's words to become your words. Your teaching will drip with depth and anointing. You will know it and so will those who listen.
As we take time to hear from God, then deliver His message with creativity and passion, His Spirit will use our words to bring about positive change in people's lives. Go for it!

Seven Keys to Discovering Your Destiny

Seven Keys to Discovering Your Destiny
1. Understand Grace.
II Peter 3:18 tells us to grow in grace. Grace itself does not grow. We grow in grace.
If we fail to understand grace, we try to earn favor with God. End up in mere religious works. Entrapped. We must come to the understanding of how much God really loves us and forgives us.
Heb. 13:9 says that our hearts must be established by grace.

2. Develop Faith.
Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. The more Word we have in us, the more faith we will have. Faith must be developed.
*Read the Word. *Believe the Word. *Speak the Word. *Act on the Word.

3. Be a Jesus Person.
John 15 - Develop a strong, personal, intimate relationship with Jesus not just a Sunday morning, congregational kind of relationship.
"I want to be a Jesus Person, not a miracle person. Not a healing person. Not a worship person. Not a tongues person."

4. Forget the past and forgive.
Isa. 43:18-19 tells us to forget the former things. You can't go forward if you are always looking in your rear view mirror.

5. Be quick to obey the Holy Spirit.
If we don't obey quickly, the enemy comes in to steal the Word. (like in the parable of the sower). We must obey quickly because the devil will try to come and convince you that it was only you, not God.God has a school of obedience. The first way we learn to obey is in the area of giving. God uses those who are in obedience in tithing and giving. We learn to hear His voice and obey.

6. Be teachable and submitted.
Matt 8:6 -10. Amount of power you have in the Spirit realm will be related to your submission. We must be submitted, humble and willing to learn.

7. Live your life with passion and eternal perspective.
God wants your whole heart! Be on FIRE for Him!

Faith, Hope and Love

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13vs 13

The core of an Apostolic movement is: Faith, Hope and Love.

Our communities of faith must:
Live by Faith (defined by risk and sacrifice)
Be known by Love
Be a voice of Hope

Altars to God or Monuments to yourself?

Excellent post from Pastor Mark Batterson,its a ripper

This morning I'm doing a session at the Evolve Conference titled The Secure Leader. I'm going to use Saul as a case study in insecurity. Two verses represent two defining moments in his life.
I'm going to use Saul as a case study in insecurity.

Two verses represent two defining moments in his life."I Samuel 14:35: "And Saul built an altar to God; the first one he had ever built." So far so good. Saul is building altars to God. But fast-forward one chapter.

I Samuel 15:12 says, "Saul went up to Carmel to build a monument to himself." Somewhere between those two verses, Saul stopped building altars to God and started building monuments to himself. "There is a fine line between Thy Kingdom Come and My Kingdom Come. At some point, it was no longer about God. It was about Saul."

Here are seven habits of secure leaders:
"1) Don't play the comparison game. "No one wins! Comparison either leads to pride or jealousy!"

2) Success isn't numbers"
Saul got caught up in the numbers game. And David had better stats. Listen, if my children grow up to love God and everything else falls apart I'm successful. But if NCC grows to 50,000 people and I sell 10,000,000 books it means nothing if my family falls apart. Jesus was successful because he poured his life into twelve people!"

3) Celebrate your failures.
"Insecure people are afraid of failing. Secure people laugh at themselves. They celebrate failure because it accentuates what God can do inspite of us!"

4) Don't panic"
Saul panics when his men start scattering so he makes a sacrifice instead of waiting for Samuel. Insecure people get nervous. They give up. Secure leaders hang in there no matter what."

5) Don't get defensive
How you handle criticism will make you or break you. You need tough skin and a soft heart. If you're insecure your defense mechanisms will get the best of you. So instead of leading out of imagination you'll lead out of insecurity.

6) Surround yourself with the right people"Who was Saul's greatest asset? David. But if you are insecure, your greatest asset will become your greatest threat. And it will short-circuit your ability to surround yourself with a great team. And it will limit your influence.

"7) Keep building altars to God"
God often uses us at our point of insecurity because then He gets all the credit. I pray for the favor of God as much as anything else because I want God to do things for me that I cannot do for myself. And every time we experience God's blessing we need to build an altar. The blessings of God either turn into pride or praise. Are you building altars to God or monuments to yourself?"

Four Rules of Preaching

Sorry about the lack of blogging over the last week ,I havent been to well.
On the positive side I was able to have a little bit of time surfing the Blogging World

Found this article on preaching form Dunstan Bells blog site

About two years ago I heard Chris Hill share TD Jakes' four rules of preaching - here's an exert...

1. Study Yourself Full
Know absolutely everything you can about the text you’re speaking on

- when was this text written
- why was it written
- who wrote it
- who was it written to

Look at the text from the perspective of every person and object. For example: If preaching on Job, don’t just be Job, be his wife, be his friends, be the boil!

When approaching a text, don’t speak from what you’ve heard others say about that text.
Know the text so well that you can live it

2 Timothy 2:15
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

It only takes one person to stand up and ask a question at the end of your sermon; if you don’t know the answer your credibility is gone.

Study one hour for every five minutes you plan to speak
- i.e. 30 minute sermon, 6 hours study text

2. Think Yourself Clear

Once you have gathered your information/revelation of the text, you must think your way through it logically
Points are the skeleton of your sermon upon which you layer the muscle (revelation)
A sermon with no points is pointless; a sermon with too many points is a porcupine and nobody can handle it
It’s often difficult to communicate with your mouth what you hear in your heart, therefore say your sermon out loud before you come to preach it

3. Pray Yourself Hot

> Prayer burns you hot with passion
> Prayer gets the sermon from your head to your heart
> Prayer gives you a burden for the people
> If I’m not red hot about it before I speak, I have not prayed enough
> Pray for one hour for every five minutes you plan to speak

4. Let Yourself Go

> We have a generation that is looking for people to keep it real. One of the characteristics of a postmodern generation is that they want things real.

> "Preacher, don’t cover up, smile, and pretend that your life is perfect. If you’re perfect, I don’t want to listen to you because my life is not perfect and I cannot relate to you."

> Any speaker you enjoy shows you that they are a real person
> Only when you’re transparent will the light of Jesus shine through you.

> Preaching is the process of unzipping yourself and letting people see your guts. Let people see your raw emotions, let them see that you have highs and lows.

> When you get up to speak, let everything that’s burning inside of you come out and don’t worry about how you look or what people are thinking.

> When you have diligently studied your text, given your sermon structure, and prayed yourself hot, only then can you let yourself go

The "Tyrany of Busyness"

I was reading my good mate Clive Smits Blog on "busyness".

I really appreciated what he had to say.
I believe part of what makes a great leader is that you are able to survey the horision ,and make nessecary changes before you are forced to.
So thanks Clive for the heads up and for watching my back

I also wanted to add a few things to..


If you get busy ,skip your devotions.
Signed Satan

Some peoples definition of life balance is rushing from place to place in moderation

I try to live by the motto. "The key to living a fulfilled life is to foucus on the things that are really important and to disregard everything else".

The best way to spend your life is to invest it in the things that are going to outlast you .
When everything is a manageable pace its easy to see these things ,but the tyrony of '"busyness" is that it so often clouds over the obvious.

We have to work hard to stop that happening. I love this story

The Big Rocks

One day an expert in time management was speaking to a group business students and, to drive home a point, used an illustration those students will never forget. As he stood in front of the group of high powered over achievers he said, "Okay, time for a quiz."
Then he pulled out a one-gallon, wide mouthed Mason jar and set it on the table in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar.
When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, "Is this jar full?"
Everyone in the class said, "Yes."

Then he said, "Really?" He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the space between the big rocks. Then he asked the group once more, "Is the jar full?"
By this time the class was on to him. "Probably not," one of them answered.
"Good!" he replied. He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, "Is this jar full?"
"No!" the class shouted. Once again he said, "Good."

Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked at the class and asked, "What is the point of this illustration?"
One eager beaver raised his hand and said, "The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard you can always fit some more things in it!"
"No," the speaker replied, "that's not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is: If you don't put the big rocks in first, you'll never get them in at all."

What are the 'big rocks' in your life?
Your relatinship with God? Your husband or wife? Your children? Your loved ones? Your health? Your education? Your dreams? A worthy cause? Teaching or mentoring others? Doing things that you love? Time for yourself?

Remember to put these BIG ROCKS in first or you'll never get them in at all. If you sweat the little stuff (the gravel, the sand) then you'll fill your life with little things you worry about that don't really matter, and you'll never have the real quality time you need to spend on the big, important stuff (the big rocks).

So, tonight, or in the morning, when you are reflecting on this short story, ask yourself this question: What are the 'big rocks' in my life? Then, put those in your jar first.

Love it

This is a quote from Ravi Zacharias that has huge implications for evangelism in the emerging culture.

"We must learn to find the back door to people’s hearts because the front door is heavily guarded."