LIVING ON THE EDGE

Over the past several months I have been doing a study of Acts and then sharing it with our men on Saturday morning. I have to admit, it is messing with my mind.  Acts is radically changing the way I think about church growth and church in general.

One day last week, I had a conversation with one of our church members and he asked me, “Why do some churches grow and others seem to struggle. We have a dynamic speaker and our music is great. So why aren’t we growing exponentially?” I tried to answer using all the right church growth slogans and methods and cliché’s but all my answers seemed so “programmed”.

When you look at the early church leaders and all they went through to get the church off the ground and yet still have thousands join the church on one Sunday, you can only draw one conclusion-MUST BE A GOD THING.

Those poor fellows didn’t have the opp to attend every church growth seminar and learn from the those who have the secret formula for church growth or the opp to pay thousands of dollars to attend their denominations greatest seminaries or even have an opp to spend some one on one time with a guy who “GETS IT”.

No. These poor ordinary uneducated men and women who decided to go on a WILD GOOSE CHASE, had only one thing going for them-they were filled with the Holy Spirit and received power to speak the salvation message with boldness.

So, after years of doing it MY WAY, (Thanks Frank) I have made the choice that this old, poor ordinary uneducated guy is going ask God to forgive me of my past failures and cleanse me of all my wrong doing and then to fill me with His spirit.

If that formula was good enough for the early church leaders, I’m going to give it a shot and even if the results are not the same concerning church growth, I know in my heart it is still the best formula for my personal growth.

Just a thought.

We can learn a lot from the shortest man in the bible. NE-HI-MIAH was a great man and a great leader. I was just kidding about being the shortest man but when it comes to leading, he was a leader of leaders.

As leaders, whether a pastor, dad, husband or boss we have the opp to influence a lot of people and how we lead and the qualities we posses will, I believe dictate our effectiveness with those we are trying to lead.

Over the years I have tried and most often failed at these qualities but never the less they are still leadership qualities that are found in our man Nehemiah that we as leaders should and can perfect to be better influencers.

1.  Compassion.  Nehemiah was a compassionate man.  He cared about people.  Everything he did was motivated by love for God and people.

2.  Contemplation.  Nehemiah was a man who thought deeply. He prayed deeply.  He spent much time alone with God.

3. Cheerfullness.  He maintained a positive attitude in spite of the fact that he was constantly under criticism, constantly being attacked, constantly being opposed on everything he did while he was rebuilding the wall.

4.  Concentration.  Nehemiah knew how to concentrate.  He knew how to set a goal and focus and say this is what we’re going to get done whether anything else gets done or not.

5.  Creativity.  Nehemiah was a very creative person.  He knew how to solve problems with creative things because he obviously didn’t have all the resources at his disposal.

6.  Courage. Nehemiah demonstrated this quality from the beginning when he approached the King with his passion and vision to rebuild the wall.

7.  Clear conscious.  Nehemiah was a man of integrity.  He walked blamelessly before people and before the Lord.

8.  Conviction. Nehemiah believed very strongly that God had called him to this job and nothing could stop him.

If you and I want to be a better leader, pastor, dad, husband then these are qualities we need to build into our lives in order to be more effective.