Archive for the ‘ Evaluation ’ Category

Have You Been A Christian Too Long?

Recently, I have been wondering if I have been a Christian too long.  After all, I have been in church my entire life, a Christian for 23 years, preaching for 17 years, and in full-time vocational ministry for over 10 years.  Perhaps I have been a Christian too long.

The reason that I have asked myself this question is not because I want to abandon my faith.  In fact, I love Jesus more today than I ever have.  And I love communicating the timeless truths of the Bible to people’s current circumstances more today than at any point in my life.  I’ve just realized that it is possible that I have been a Christian so long that I have forgotten what it is like not to be a Christian.  It is possible that I have forgotten what it is like to be on the outside of the Christian faith looking in.  It is possible that I’ve forgotten what it is like to struggle with the issues of life, death, and eternity.  It is possible that I have forgetten what it is like for someone who shows up at church on Sunday for the first time.  All these things are dangers for me because I have been a Christian so long.

You may not think this is that big of a deal.  But I think it is a huge deal.  Simply because I believe that the church is here to help people take the next step in their relationship with Jesus.  This includes people who are outside the Christian faith. How can we effectively help people who are outside the faith take their next step toward a relationship with Jesus if we only see the world through our Christian eyes?  How can we communicate the good news of Jesus to someone outside the faith if we don’t understand their worldview?

The traditional approach to reaching those outside the Christian faith has been to use fear, guilt, and ridicule to try to “convert” them.   However, these approaches are neither effective nor Biblical.  You can’t scare people into a relationship with Jesus.  You can’t guilt people into a relationship with Jesus.  And you definitely can’t ridicule someone into a relationship with Jesus.

The only way to effectively help a person who is outside the Christian faith take the next step toward a relationship with Jesus is to meet them where they are and lovingly walk with them through all of their doubts and questions and to show them with your life what a relationship with Jesus looks like.

Have you been a Christian too long?

2011
06/22
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Just A Thought…

Statistics show that approximately 25% of all baptisms in Southern Baptist Churches occur as a result of Vacation Bible School. This statistic is used to hype the importance of VBS in local churches. But what does this statistic say about the weekly ministry environments that our churches create? Does the fact that ¼ of our baptisms come from a one week period of time each summer indicate that there is a problem with our weekly ministry environments?

I’m not knocking VBS. I just want to submit to you that this statistic should greatly disturb those of us who are responsible for the weekly ministry environments in our churches. This statistic should cause us to re-evaluate what we are doing in our weekly children, student, and adult environments. What can we change to make them more effective? What can we do to make them more engaging? What can we do to make them irresistible and life-changing?

Here are three key questions that I have learned to ask:

*Is the physical ENVIRONMENT appealing to your target audience?

*Is the CONTENT that you are presenting perceived as helpful to your target audience?

*Is the PRESENTATION of your content engaging to your target audience?

2011
06/16
CATEGORY
Church
Communication
Direction
Evaluation
Leadership
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Lies of the Devil

I don’t know about you, but I hate being lied to.  I would rather watch the Lifetime Channel for three days straight while sitting in a room piled full of dirty diapers than to be lied to.  That is how bad I hate being lied to.

There are basically two reasons why being lied to is so devastating and so destructive.  First of all, when you find out that someone has lied to you, you lose trust in that person.  All of a sudden, you begin to question everything that person has ever said.  You wonder what other things have they lied to you about.  And from that point on, you have a difficult time trusting anything that person says.  Lies destroy your ability to trust.

The second reason that lies are so devastating and so destructive is that lies are basically false information.  And when we are making decisions in life we take into account all the information that we have available, and then we make our decision.  When someone gives us false information, we are likely to make a poor decision that will ultimately lead us to an undesirable outcome.  Lies are basically false information that causes us to make poor decisions that lead to undesirable outcomes.

 LIES

FALSE INFORMATION  >  POOR DECISION  >  UNDESIREABLE OUTCOME

 Being lied to is like receiving bad directions to someone’s house.  If you had no idea where I lived and I told you that the directions to my house were to start out on George Wallace Dr. by Troy University, head toward Charles Henderson High School.  Take a right on Elm St., Turn left on Butter and Egg Road, and keep going until you see a water tower on your right, and after you pass the water tower take the first dirt road to the right and we are the fifth house on the right.  If I told you that those were the directions to my house, that would be a lie and you would never arrive at my house using that information.  You would not end up where you planned on ending up.  You see, the false information that I gave you would lead you to make poor decisions, that would not get you to your desired destination.

Lies can lead us to places that we never intended to go.  Lies can lead us to make terrible decisions.  Decisions that cause us tremendous amounts of embarrassment, guilt, pain, shame, and regret.  That is why it is so important for you to surround yourself with people that you can trust and that tell the truth.

But despite how careful you are in your relationships, there will always be one person in your life that will lie to you.  There will always be someone that will try to mislead you.  And that person is the devil.  The Bible says this in John 8:44:

He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  –John 8:44

When most of us think about the devil, we think about this scary red creature with horns and a pitchfork.  We see him as the source of evil.  Someone that we hope to never see face to face.  But the truth is that what most of us don’t realize about the devil is that his primary weapon is deception.  His specialty is lying.  Because Satan knows that if he can confuse or twist the truth, he can control our decisions and ultimately the outcome of our lives.

My question for you today is this: “What lies are you believing?”  Is it possible that you are making decisions today based on a lie?  Is it possible that you are heading toward disaster because you don’t know the truth?  If so, I would like to submit to you that there is one source of truth, and that is God’s Word.  The only way to recognize a lie is by knowing the truth.  So my challenge for you is to begin to immerse yourself in the truth of God’s Word.  To read it and apply it.  To choose to believe that God’s Word is the truth and anything or anyone that contradicts it is a liar.  If you will do that, you will be able to recognize and reject the lies of the devil.

2011
06/08
CATEGORY
Direction
Evaluation
GOD
Guidance
Jesus
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Truth
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Great Questions

One thing that I have learned over the past few years is that asking the right questions is a vital part of leadership.  Great leaders ask great questions.  If you want to be a great parent you need to learn to ask the right questions.  If you want to have a great marriage you must learn to ask the right questions.  If you want to be a great business leader you must learn to ask the right questions.  If you want to handle money wisely you must learn to ask the right questions.

I am convinced that in so many areas of our lives we are simply asking the wrong questions.  And common sense tells us that if we are asking the wrong questions, there is no way that we will ever arrive at the right answers.

With that being said, I would like to share with you what I believe are a few great questions.

1.) Where is this heading? We make the mistake of judging the health of a relationship by where it is right now.  But the truth is, you never judge the health of a relationship by where it is now, but rather by the direction it is heading.  All relationships are heading somewhere.  Your marriage is heading somewhere.  Your relationship with your teenager is heading somewhere.  Your relationship with God is heading somewhere.  This not only applies to relationships.  It also applies to your finances.  What direction are your finances heading.  The bible says, “the prudent (wise) see danger and take refuge, but the simple (unwise) keep going and suffer for it”. That means that we should look ahead and act before all of your options become bad options.

2.) What’s in my heart? From an early age we are taught to monitor our behavior.  Remember your mom saying, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”.  It is all about behavior modification.  Jesus, on the other hand, said to “guard your heart”.  Jesus said, “out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks”. What is in our heart is affecting all of our relationships and all of our decisions. If we simply go through life trying to filter what we say and do, we will never deal with the root of our problem.  It’s like cutting off a weed at ground level.  It is a temporary solution.  You must kill the root of the weed or it will just keep growing back.  In the same way, we must deal with our heart and not simply our behavior.  What’s in your heart today? Greed, Anger, Lust, Jealousy, Worry, etc…

3.) Am I part of the problem or part of the solution? We like to blame other people.  It is always someone else’s fault.  The thought rarely crosses our mind that “we might be apart of the problem”. Last year we saw a perfect example of this played out at Charles Henderson High School.  It was the first year that students were required to wear uniforms.  And needless to say there was a lot of drama the first few days of the school year.  There were several parents that showed up ranting and raving about their child being sent home or being sent to the office for not obeying the new dress code.  These same parents wonder why their child has problems obeying them.  Could it be that these same parents have unknowingly taught their children to rebel against authority because they themselves rebel against authority?  Could they be part of the problem?  Could you be partly to blame for the problems that you are currently complaining about?

2009
08/26
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Mission & Strategy

BarnVision copyThis month marks my 8th year in full-time ministry. Six of those years have been serving at Hephzibah. Before I went into full-time ministry, I also spent several years volunteering in different ministry environments. One thing that I have often complained about over the years as I have served under different leaders and in different ministries was the lack of vision. Most of the leaders and ministries had really long mission statements that nobody could ever remember. They were just words on a page. Most of the time it just seemed like we were all aimlessly busy trying to keep up with other ministries and attempting to keep the congregation happy. Rarely was there a sense that everyone was on the same page or that we were making any real progress.
Recently, I realized that although I know what my vision for our student ministry is, our students did not and our student team had a vague idea at best. I had become a leader of a ministry that had failed to cast a clear and compelling vision to the people that I led. So I spent a few weeks re-examining and re-wording our mission statement and strategy. I wanted to make it simple and memorable. Then we spent 4 Wednesday Nights casting the vision for our student ministry. This is what we came up with.

Mission: To help people take the NEXT STEP in their relationship with Jesus…

Strategy: …by creating irresistible environments where people can experience
Intimacy with God, Community with Insiders, and Influence with Outsiders.

We realized that we are all on a spiritual journey. We also realized that everyone always has a next step in their relationship with Jesus. We came to the conclusion that we want to partner with people. That we want to come along side them and help them figure out what their next step is and then help them take that next step. After all, isn’t that how you make disciples of Jesus?
The next step was to figure out how we were going to accomplish this. It quickly became obvious that we can’t make people want to take the next step in their relationship with Jesus. But we can create irresistible environments that allow the Holy Spirit to work in people’s lives. We can’t make people trust Jesus as their Savior, but we can create environments that allow them to ask the questions that are keeping them from taking that next step of putting their faith in Jesus. We can’t make people get baptized, but we can create environments that help them understand why their next step is baptism. We can’t make people read their Bible, but we can create environments that show them the importance of reading the Bible for themselves and how to navigate the Bible on their own. Simply put, we can create environments that people can come to and experience an engaging presentation filled with helpful information in an environment that they feel comfortable in.
Next we decided that there were 3 vital relationships that we all need to experience in our lives. First and foremost, we all need to experience intimacy with God. Every person needs to understand that God knows everything about them, and still is pursuing a relationship with them. That while we were still sinners, Jesus died for our sins. Secondly, we need to experience community with insiders/other Christians. A relationship with Jesus is personal but it was never intended to be private. We need to have other Christians in our life that are further along spiritually that are pouring into our lives. We also need to be pouring into the lives of other Christians what has been poured into us. Thirdly, we need to experience influence with outsiders/people who don’t have a relationship with Jesus. We must constantly we aware that there are other’s who need to experience the love of Jesus. God has not called us to isolate ourselves from the world. He has called us to invade and influence the world with His truth and love.
The bottom line is that if it is not helping people take their next step in their relationship with Jesus, we don’t need to waste our time, energy, and resources on it.

2009
05/29
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Leadership: “Don’t Be That Couch” by Andy Stanley

stanley_250w_tnThese are some notes I took from Andy Stanley’s talk at Catalyst One Day. I hope they are helpful.

Introduction:
Programs should be an answer to a question or meet a need.

I. Whereas programming begins as an answer to a question, over time it becomes part of organizational CULTURE.

A. As culture changes, many of the questions remain the same, but the answers DON’T.
B. The tendency is to institutionalize our answers.
C. If we institutionalize an answer, the day will come when it is no longer an ANSWER.

II. We must continue to be more committed to our mission than to our PROGRAMMING or our MODEL.

A. Over time, sustaining the model can become the MISSION.
B. Over time, the model can work AGAINST the mission.

III. Points of Discussion

A. What have we fallen in love with that’s really not as effective as it used to be?

B. Where are we manufacturing energy?

“If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what would he or she do? Why shouldn’t we walk out the door, come back in, and o it ourselves?” –Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove

C. What are our organizational ASSUMPTIONS?

Leaders must bring the underlying assumptions that drive company strategy into line with changes in the external environment.

The assumptions a team has held the longest or the most deeply are the likeliest to be its undoing. Some beliefs have come to appear so obvious that they are off limits for debate.

2009
03/04
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Leadership: “Busting Barriers with Mindset Changes” by Craig Groeschel

spkr_cgroeschel_lgThese are some notes that I took from Craig Groeschel’s talk at Catalyst One Day. I hope they are helpful.

1. Think differently about your church CULTURE.

“You must model it before they do it”

*We think, our people won’t ___________________. (what is it that you think your church won’t do? Serve, Give, Volunteer, etc…)
*The problem is that WE haven’t LED them to ______________________. (what is it that you think your church won’t do? Serve, Give, Volunteer, etc…)

2. Think differently about PROGRAMMING.

“What are you doing that you need to quit doing?”

*We think we have to do MORE to reach more.
*We can actually reach MORE by doing LESS.

3. Think differently about the MISSION.

*We think we can’t hurt someone’s FEELINGS.
*We can’t allow someone to hold back the MISSION of the church.

4. Think differently about people LEAVING the church.

*We think we can’t let anyone LEAVE.
*We can actually GROW when people leave.

5. Think differently about LIMITATIONS

“Innovation is often born out of Limitation”

*We think we CAN’T because we don’t
*We CAN because we don’t

Three Assignments:

1. Find someone one or two steps ahead of you and learn how they THINK. Most want to learn what they DO –not how they THINK.

2. Identify one WRONG mindset and ask God to renew your mind with TRUTH.

3. Identify one PAINFUL decision you’ve been avoiding and commit to make the decision no matter what the short-term PAIN.

2009
03/04
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ReThinking Church

It has been over 12 years since I accepted God’s call for me to dedicate my life to full-time ministry. 6 years of that has been spent as a full-time Associate Pastor/Student Pastor. I consider myself to have the greatest job in the world. One of the reasons that I continue to serve in a local church is because I am convinced that God desires to use the local church to impact our culture. However, I must admit that I have always struggled with this question: If we (the church) have the most life-changing message in the world, why aren’t most churches thriving? And if we really believe that everyone spends eternity somewhere, why aren’t we doing everything in our power to try and figure out how we can impact our culture for Christ. I have heard church people and church leaders BLAME lost people for not coming to our church services, and BLAME Hollywood for corrupting our children, and BLAME church members for not being “committed” enough. There always seems to be “someone else” to BLAME. What I have realized is that a lot of the blame can be placed on the church. Not just on the leaders of the church but on every member of our churches. I am convinced that the Church has actually stood in the way of people coming to Christ. We have hid behind our traditions and personal preferences for so long that we have lost sight of our Mission. This is not a new problem. In Acts 11 we find that traditions and personal preferences were standing in the way of people coming to Christ. The sad fact about this occurrence in Acts 11 is that it happened only a few weeks after Jesus ascended back into Heaven. It only took the Church a few weeks to start messing things up. It took several of the Disciples standing up and saying: “listen, your traditions, personal preferences, and opinions are keeping people from turning to Jesus”. I believe that the church in America finds itself in the same position that the early church found itself in back in Acts 11. I feel that a part of my purpose in ministry is to call believers to RETHINK the way we do church. I am passionate about making everything that we do at church relevant and simple. I am not talking about watering down the bible or changing our message. I am simply talking about RETHINKING our METHODS of communicating the truth of the Bible to a lost world. I believe we should RETHINK our communication style, RETHINK our style of worship, and RETHINK the look and feel of our church environments. We have bought into the lie that there is only one way to teach and preach the Bible, only one appropriate worship style, and only one way that a church can look. I’m not saying that the way that most churches “do church” is wrong. I am simply saying there is a better way. I realize that my comments and ideas on church occasionally turn people against me. However, there is too much at stake to sit quietly by and watch my generation give up on church and eventually on God. My honest opinion is that the church has failed my generation. The message that the church in America has sent my generation is that if you can’t worship this way, learn this way, or grow closer to God this way then tough. The church has made it DIFFICULT for this generation to come to God. All because of traditions and personal preferences. The way that we do church is NOT SACRED. The message that the church has IS SACRED. The Bible gives guidelines for the church but it never says you must use only this kind of music, this kind of communication style, or your church must look this way. God gives us the freedom to adapt our METHODS (not our MESSAGE) to reach our culture. I invite you to join me on this journey as we RETHINK CHURCH. I welcome your comments, positive or negative: jeremy.davis@charter.net or 566-6477.

2008
02/14
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