Saturday Links

Some links for your weekend reading:

How to Be On Mission in the City

1. Get grounded in the gospel
2. Learn your city's story
3. Engage in the life of the city
4. Discern your city’s idols
5. Retell your city’s story with the gospel

Open Up!

If we are a family of missionary servants, surely we’ll need to do more than meet once a week for a Bible study or just hang out together! Here are the things I’ve called my Missional Community to “open up” in order to be on mission.

Expectant vs. Reactionary Churches

Is your church more expectant or reactionary? Review these characteristics to see where your church is.

The Myth of Endless Growth

I’ve always been told that if a business or church isn’t growing, something must be terribly wrong. After all, healthy things always multiply and grow.

But frankly, that’s hogwash. It’s based on idealistic and wishful thinking. It’s a leadership urban legend. And a dangerous one at that.

Are you still working on your sermon Saturday night?

Many of the pastors that I interact with are frustrated that they are working on their sermons well into the weekend. If this is you consider applying the following principles to help you recapture your Saturdays.

What is the Gospel?

As you can see the word gospel is mentioned throughout scripture in various ways and in various settings. Yet, the question still remains, “What is the gospel?”

Twelve Ways to Prepare Your Children for Times of Doubt

1. Let them know that it is not abnormal to experience doubt.
2. Share with them some of the doubts you struggle with.
3. Help them prioritize their faith now.
4. Facilitate a love of Christian heroes.
5. Allow for a great deal of mystery.
6. Ask the difficult questions.
7. Make sure they know the heritage of their faith through church history.
8. Continually teach your children an apologetic defense of the faith.
9. Take your child on a missions trip.
10. Give them a chance not to believe.
11. Prepare them for suffering.
12. Teach them to take care of their bodies.

The Litmus Test of Genuine Christianity

James provides a short, two-item checklist: (1) love—helping those in need, and (2) holiness—separating from worldly influence. These two traits summarize the practical outworking of a life changed by the gospel.

Tragic Worship

Tragedy as a form of art and of entertainment highlighted death, and death is central to true Christian worship.

Daily Slogging in the Power of the Spirit of God

I am not impressed by young pastors who seem too eager to publish books and speak at big events and get noticed. They are doing the work of the Lord, and that’s good. But what impresses me is my dad’s daily slogging, year after year, in the power of the Spirit, with no big-deal-ness as the payoff.

Saturday Links

Five Great Needs Among God's People

Recently I have been introduced to the ministry of Bakht Singh of India. He died in 2000. Following his conversion to Christ he learned to live and walk by faith. Most of his ministry was done in India. However, he traveled the world as an evangelist and prophet for the Gospel.

During his first visit to America in 1969 he wrote of his observations. He sensed five great needs among God’s people in the USA.

The Top Mistakes I Make in Preaching

I imagine that I’m probably not the only preacher who makes some of these mistakes with regularity, so I thought I’d share them here in case my list ends up helping any of you brothers who are working on preaching evaluation / improvement as well.

Ten Signs of Hope for a Declining Church

1. The leader is preaching the Bible.
2. Somebody is praying.
3. Leaders are willing to face the truth.
4. The leader takes responsibility for growth.
5. The leader still has a vision for growth.
6. Somebody is evangelizing.
7. The leader is investing in someone else.
8. The church is still reaching out to the community.
9. Somebody has a global vision.
10. Leaders refuse to give up.

7 Leadership Paradigms Needed for Church Growth

1. Lead with leaders
2. Prioritize your time
3. Never waste energy
4. Embrace change
5. Make hard decisions
6. Build healthy teams
7. Refuel often

Discipleship as Network

The entire church, when using their gifts for the building up of the Body of Christ, is a network of relationships that produces disciples.

Every Entrepreneur's Least Favorite Question

This applies to pastors too.

You're asked that simple question that often feels like the hardest one:

"How are things going?"

Are you a Church Planting Failure?

Church planters, whose churches do not survive, often feel like complete failures and fear that they might never be effective again in ministry leadership. But this is not the truth.

Five Questions to Discern Ministry Idolatry

How can you tell if you are prone to committing ministry idolatry? Here are five questions I have been considering.

Your Language Matters

Our language can easily isolate or train people to believe God is calling them to set aside one day or evening instead of setting aside their entire lives. We don’t want to confuse those two!

Stop Hustling and Get Your Life Back

I’m adopting a ruthless anti-frantic policy. I’m done with frantic. The new baseline for me: will saying yes to this require me to live in a frantic way?

Saturday Links

Proud vs. Broken People

Most of the Christian books, sermons and theological material that my father gave me as a boy failed to catch my attention; but, for some reason, I’ve never forgotten Nancy Demoss’ chart contrasting proud/broken people. I need this more today as a husband, father, pastor and friend than when I was young.

The Secular Salvation Story

We are all telling a story, living by a story, evangelizing a story. One story is ancient and rugged. The other modern and banal. One confronts. The other caresses. One truly saves. The other falsely succors. Choose your story wisely. For one starts grim, but ends in life. The other looks cheery and ends in death.

What if Life Was Complex?

What, I wonder, if the conservative evangelical church world came to be dominated by a symbiotic network of high profile and charismatic leaders, media organisations, and big conferences?

21 Skills of Great Preachers

After listening to preachers of many different denominations and having been a preacher for over sixty years, I find the following observations by Keith Drury to be particularly cogent. According to him, these are the twenty-one skills of great preachers.

Why it doesn't matter if people don't remember your sermons

We need to pray that our preaching would be effective and not so much that it would be memorable.

What is Church Planting to You?

Church planting. What is it to you? Make sure you know before you go.

Avoiding Three Big Church Planting Mistakes

1. Planting for the Wrong Reasons
2. Planters who are Not Teachable
3. Planters who Plant Churches in their Heads

Can a Dying Church Find Life? Six Radical Steps to “Yes”

1. A leader must rise and be willing to lead the church toward radical transformation regardless of the personal costs to him.
2. A significant group in the church must admit that they are desperate for help.
3. That same group must confess guilt.
4. The group must have an utter, desperate, and prayerful dependence on God.
5. The church must be willing to storm the community with love.
6. The church must relinquish control.

The Deep Immersion Approach to Deep Work

Notice, this immersion approach to deep work is different than the more common approach of integrating a couple hours of deep work into most days of your schedule, which we can call the chain approach, in honor of Seinfeld’s “don’t break the chain” advice

Saturday Links

My Identity in Jesus

So who does God say we are? Join me and many others in standing on these truths about our identity in Jesus. Post it at home and in your office. Pass it along to friends. Dwell on these verses of who you are. And when we come to know who we are as He says we are, we will become truly unshakeable.

We’d love for you to pass along this PDF to anybody you think it might encourage. Download it here.

Church Identity: How Your Church Must Not Be Unique

In terms of the foundation of our faith, your church—as part of the Church—must not be unique.

Church Identity: How Your Church Must Be Unique

While the foundation of a church must not be unique, the culture and ministry practice must be for at least three reasons.

Four Reasons Most Churches Aren't Breakout Churches

1. Lack of leadership development
2. Unbiblical understanding of church membership
3. Unclear purpose
4. Lack of outward focus

5 Tools Needed to Reach Today's Teens

1. Knowledge about the canonization of Scripture
2. Developed theology of sexuality, particularly homosexuality
3. Ability to teach the Bible in the greater context of redemptive history
4. Theological, not only moral, understanding of sin
5. Understand adoption as an element of salvation

I do drugs. What would Jesus say about that?

Many who question the gospel need to know how it applies to them in their current situation. Behind the challenging question is a heart in need of applicable truth.

Hope for timid evangelists

But here’s the good news—God’s Word offers much hope for timid evangelists like me, especially in the gospel of Luke. Here are five truths we can embrace.

Four Lies About Introverts

I've discovered some subtle and not-so-subtle assumptions I'd unwittingly latched onto over time.

1. Extroversion is the biblical ideal.
2. Introverts don't like people.
3. Solitude is selfish and indulgent.
4. Introversion is incompatible with teaching and leadership gifts.

7 False Assumptions Made About Introverts

1. I’m shy
2. I need more courage
3. I’ve got nothing to say
4. I’m dumb
5. I am arrogant or don’t like you
6. I need you to talk for me
7. I need to change, mature, grow as a person or leader

3 Questions That Can Help You Avoid Leadership Blind Spots

1. What am I doing that’s not helping our mission?
2. What do I need to do to make sure you feel comfortable telling me what you see?
3. How can I help make it better?

Is the News Marking Us Dumb?

What do we expect to gain by spending an hour or two a day keeping up with the latest headlines?

What Happens When You Really Disconnect

The key to being more fully absorbed is to regularly and fully disconnect.

Saturday Links

Cultivate Gospel Conversations by Listening

Listen for patterns. Listen for underlying causes. Listen for regrets. Listen as through a stethoscope to identify the particular malady to which the good news of Jesus would bring healing.

Just Keep Sowing, Just Keep Sowing

We have no idea how God is using our labors to draw a person to himself. We usually are not the best judges of the results of our ministry.

Your Church is Closer to Planting than You Probably Think

Whenever we remove much of the hype, quantitative expectations, and North American cultural expressions of church planting, we come to recognize that church planting is not very glamorous. It involves small steps. It is about making disciples from out of the harvest and teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded. If your people can do this, then by God’s grace, your church can plant churches. . . . many churches.

What to Say to “All-Religions-Are-Basically-the-Same” Dude

One of your fears can be calmed. You don’t have to know all religions to respond to this guy. You just have to know the one absolutely unique gospel.

7 Paradigms of the “New Normal” in Church Leadership

1. We must do more with less
2. We have to think outside the walls
3. Church is an opinion, not a trusted source
4. People trust their friends…more than the church
5. Easter is for church people
6. Regular attendance is semi-regular
7. Loyalty has dwindled

5 Ways Pastors Spiritually Benefit From Preaching Expository Sermons

The celebration and joy of preaching God’s word will return to you when you remember the blessings that God has in store for preachers who give themselves wholly to the task of expository preaching. What are those blessings? Here is a list of five.

Pulpit Cooking Options

1. Fast Food Preaching
2. Home Delivered Fast Food
3. Home Delivered Fast Food Stolen
4. Thrown Together Left-Overs
5. Good Food Disconnected
6. One Favourite Recipe
7. Good Ingredients Cooked the Wrong Way
8. Good Ingredients Cooked the Right Way
9. The Fast Feast
10. Non-gourmet home cooked healthy meal

Why Pastors Quit

I would suggest that the reasons below are the greatest struggles to perseverance in the ministry (though you are welcome to add others in the comments). As we consider each, I want to offer a little encouragement to young pastors and aspiring seminarians.

Let's Be Social: Social Media for New Churches

Our very own Tim Cox recently shared some tips and general strategy on how to thoughtfully approach social media and content creation as a church plant.

3 Lies Porn Tells You

1. That was the last time.
2. You can stop anytime you want.
3. Confessing your struggle will cost you too much.