Progress

This is a picture of two men installing and setting solid steel pillars in concrete to stop vehicles from parking on the pavement outside a sports bar in downtown some yet-to-be identified place. They are cleaning up at the end of the day.

Do you notice anything wrong with this Photo??
How long did it take you to realise ?

Got me thinking how often I’m so focused on my tasks that I forget to look up and around...evaluate my progress in the context of my surroundings.

When it comes to progress, how can we really tell if we are leaning in towards the purposes of God,or are we leaning out ?

Busyness can be an attraction ,but its also a very good distraction.

What things to you have in place in your life to make sure you and Jesus are interested in the same things ?

Making Vision Stick-Andy Stanley

“Vision is a mental picture of what could be, fuelled by passion that this should be.” Vision always begins as a burden.

5 Things That Help Make Vision Stick

1. State It Simply
Memorable is portable. If you’re going to have vision that sticks it has to be portable and memorable.
People in our church aren’t asking stupid questions, they’re just telling us that we’re doing a poor job communicating our vision.
What is the vision of your church?
If you’re vision is going to stick, it has to be really, really, really portable & memorable.
What’s the one sentence job description for everyone in your organization?

2. Cast It Convincingly
Components of Good Vision (Nehemiah 2)
1. Define the problem.
2. Offer a solution.
3. Explain Why & Why now?

Your vision needs to be the solution to a problem.

1. What must be done in the environment you find yourself in?
2. What would go undone if your organization ceased to exist?
3. Smart businesses have crafted themselves as a solution to a problem.

Explain Why & Why Now?
1. What makes this the time to do something new in that community?
2. The ‘Why’ & the ‘Why Now?’ is where the passion comes in.

3. Repeat It Regularly
Look at the rhythm/cycles of your organization.
1. Spend the time when the most people are there to vision cast.
2. Discover those moments that are most important to cast vision and build it into your regular systems.
Vision doesn’t stick, vision leaks.

4. Celebrate It Systematically
When you catch somebody living out the vision the way you anticipated, you need to celebrate them – Celebrate the Win.
Stories do more to clarify & illustrate vision than anything else.
Are you missing opportunities to showcase the wins in your church?

5. Embrace It Personally & Publicly
Anytime you can illustrate personally your vision, you need to do it because your people need to see that you are embracing the vision personally

Dare you!!

Who is game enough to pray this ?

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

-Fransiscan prayer quoted by Craig Groeshel at Leadership Summit 08

Be Holy For I Am The Lord

Leviticus 20:7 Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD

I want to talk about something that should be the natural way of life for every Christian, but is rarely seen today, and that is how to live godly lives in this ungodly world.

Let me make this clear, I love the church. I have been a Christian for 15 years and have missed 3 Sundays. When our family go away on holiday the first thing we do is look up the churches in the phone book to find one to go to. So this is not a dig at the church by looking at a current problem .Its to try and facilitate discussion around potential solutions.

I have been wrestling with this issue over the last few weeks, in the light of the recent moral and spiritual misadventures of two prominent Christian leaders.

What have we learnt from this tragedy? What are we doing in our lives, and the lives we lead to avoid this happening?

I grieve for the body of Christ when this happens .No one wins, people are hurt, angry, disappointed, and the name of Jesus is treaded in mud. Yes people can be and are restored, healed, forgiven and do go on in life.

For the record I have prayed, am praying and will continue to pray for all involved.

But that’s not the biggest reason I am grieving, the biggest reason I am grieving is because when ever something like this happens why is the church so quick to go into damage control rather than preventative control. Why do we take the position of the ambulance at the bottom of the hill rather than be the gate at the top.

I have heard messages on how to handle failure; How Jesus restores broken and fallen people. Great theology .Grace is God .Grace is the Bible. But we take Grace to the extreme when we try so hard to justify sin, and justify why we behave in a certain way.

Wouldn’t it make sense to not only show us how to mop up the mess but also how to avoid the disaster

I want to hear how to overcome sin, not just how to respond when we are overcome by sin

The Bible is not only a repair book for those that have fallen it’s a prepare book for those that want to live victorious

God says we can be HOLY .We CAN be victorious over the flesh.
ARE we pursuing this? Do WE believe this?

In many of our churches today, we're not taught anything at all about the separated life unto godliness and holiness. In fact, if someone preaches holiness, they're labelled a "legalist."

What we now find as a result, is many people who name the name of Christ, just go on living in their sin proclaiming that they really know Him, and that God understands why they do the things they do, and there'll be no price to pay for their sin.

One writer said "Many so-called Christians are so far from holy living, that they virtually have contests to see who can come closest to the pit of sin without falling in." It's sad that many times in this politically correct age, we give them a politically correct gospel filled with pop-psychology, and think we're doing the will of God, when in reality we're taking them by the hand and walking with them down the road that leads to hell.

God is looking for a people who are not interested in pleasing anyone but Him. We as Christians are responsible for this generation, to show them the truth not only in what we say, but more importantly, by how we live.

I will leave you with a quote from D M Moody

A holy life will make the deepest impression. Lighthouses blow no horns, they just shine.

Turning Vision into reality

Got a real treat for you today an interview with John C. Maxwell And Ron F. McManus about Turning Vision Into Reality. Enjoy

Hudson Taylor on Prayer

Do not have your concert first, and then tune your instrument afterwards. Begin the day with the Word of God and prayer, and get first of all into harmony with Him.”

Since the days of Pentecost, has the whole church ever put aside every other work and waited upon Him for ten days, that the Spirit’s power might be manifested? We give too much attention to method and machinery and resources, and too little to the source of power."

"The power of prayer has never been tried to its full capacity in any church. If we want to see mighty wonders of divine grace and power wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let the whole Church answer God's standing challenged; "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knows not."

"You must go forward on your knees.""

All God’s giants have been weak men, who did great things for God because they believed that God would be with them."

“The branch of the vine does not worry, and toil, and rush here to seek for sunshine, and there to find rain. No; it rests in union and communion with the vine; and at the right time, and in the right way, is the right fruit found on it. Let us so abide in the Lord Jesus.”

"In Shansi I found Chinese Christians who were accustomed to spend time in fasting and prayer. They recognized that this fasting, which so many dislike, which requires faith in God, since it makes one feel weak and poorly, is really a Divinely appointed means of grace. Perhaps the greatest hindrance to our work is our own imagined strength; and in fasting we learn what poor, weak creatures we are-dependent on a meal of meat for the little strength which we are so apt to lean upon."

"I have found that there are three stages in every great work of God: first, it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done."

Quotes on prayer

We waste most of our time trying to get God to do something He has already done—or praying for God to do something He told us to do. --Jacquelyn K. Heasley

The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men…Men of prayer." --E. M. Bounds

Notice, we never pray for folks we gossip about, and we never gossip about the folk for whom we pray! For prayer is a great deterrent. --Leonard Ravenhill

Of all the things Christ wants for us, loving Him and focusing our attention on Him are the most important.~ Charles Stanley

No one is a firmer believer in the power of prayer than the devil; not that he practices it, but he suffers from it. ~Guy H. King

We must move from asking God to take care of the things that are breaking our hearts, to praying about the things that are breaking His heart. ~Margaret Gibb

Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness." Martin Luther.

I would rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach.” Charles Spurgeon

Before we can pray, "Lord, Thy King dom come," we must be willing to pray, "My Kingdom go." ~Alan Redpath

One should never initiate anything that he cannot saturate with prayer."

What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use— men of prayer, men mighty in prayer" E.M. Bounds

"Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work." Oswald Chambers.

"There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer." A.T. Pierson

Prayer is not getting man's will done in heaven, but getting God's will done on earth. It is not overcoming God's reluctance but laying hold of God's willingness."

The greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, buy unoffered prayer."F.B. Meyer

Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended upon man."Francis J. Spellman

God shapes the world by prayer. The prayers of God’s saints are the capitol stock of heaven by which God carries on His great work upon the earth.E.M. Bounds