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The Holy Season for Celebrating His Coming is Here
The Advent season for celebrating Christ’s coming is nearly here. To make sure I had the meaning of Advent and its dates correct, I went to the dictionary where I found:
“ad-vent (ad vent) n. 1. a coming into place, view, or being; arrival: the advent of the holiday season. 2. (usually cap.) the coming of Christ into the world. 3. (cap.) the period beginning four Sundays before Christmas, observed in commemoration of the coming of Christ into the world. ”
To get ready to make the most of this beautiful and holy season in your church, I propose that you consider the following ideas:
• Save room for Christmas preaching. Children’s Christmas programs are wonderful, special and sometimes inspiring. Rejoice in them and thank those who make them possible. But don ’t miss the hush of whom Christmas is about in the rush. Never underestimate how important it is for your people to hear you preach on the great themes of Christ ’s first coming. Find a fresh word from God and preach it with passionate anointing. In the process, you will give your people one of the most precious of all Christmas gifts –Christmas is about Christ.
• Get your heart ready for Christmas preaching. To do that, I suggest you make a “jot list” of the three or four key Christmas scripture passages and meditate on them over and over as you ask God to direct your Advent preaching. A “jot list” can be as simple as a photocopy of a passage that you can mark, highlight, carry in your pocket or think over when you stop for a cup of coffee.
The point is to hear the story anew and to discover fine points in a passage that you have never seen before. The secret of experiencing the greatest benefit from this process is to make sure you can read the type size and that it is spaced so you can scribble your thoughts in wide margins. I like to use my Bible software to produce a triple-spaced, one-column copy of the Christmas passages and carry them with me. Then when I discover a new idea, I jot it in the wide margins.
I took such a jot list with me to a long committee meeting recently, and when the meeting became frustratingly repetitive, I read the passage over and over and scratched possible sermon outlines in the margin of the sheet.
• Preach great Christmas themes. Advent is about Christ coming into the world. Please, no fluff on subjects like “How Not to Spend Too Much at Christmas” or “Does God Believe in Christmas Trees?” Themes like these, however, will put your people into the real meaning of Advent: “He Saves His People from Their Sins,” “His Name Is Immanuel,” “Behold-Tidings of Great Joy,” “The Surprises of the First Christmas,” “Gifts of the Three Wise Men,” “Thy Servant Can Depart in Peace” or “The Holy Songs of Christmas.”
• Preach with a joyful Christmas spirit. Avoid dealing with marginal issues. Perhaps every believer is shocked to see a manger scene where the Christ Child looks like Santa, but the great themes of Christmas are too big and too noble to preach your disappointment and scorn about the minutiae.
• Enrich the variety of your Christmas preaching. Ask a fellow pastor for insight. Ask your favorite ministerial mentor, coach or colleague what his/her favorite Christmas preaching themes have been. Sometimes in these conversations you will get a one sentence pearl of wisdom that will lead you to the best Christmas sermons you have ever preached.
If your Christmas reservoir has run dry, spend a morning with three or four other pastors and ask them to share their insights about Advent preaching. The miracles of the first Christmas will fire your imagination and spirit.
— NBW
Taking the Dread Out of Problem Solving
Every step of progress involves confronting some sort of problem. We need to get over our fear of problems and develop skills for solving them.
Asking good questions is the first step in problem solving. Once you understand the problem, try these ideas for finding good solutions:
1. Evidence. What evidence do you have that a problem exists? Because of your closeness to so many details of the church ’s ministry, you, along with other colleagues in ministry, are sometimes overly sensitive to the possibility of problems.
2. Define problem. Define the problem in a precise, short, accurate sentence. This effort provides focus and focus often provides direction for solving a problem.
3. Involve those who know the issues. In your search for a solution, consult persons closest to problem. Leaders in their middle fifties should not be expected or even be asked to solve problems in the church ’s teen ministry. Neither should young adult board members presume to tell golden-agers how to do their ministry.
4. Ask for constructive, possible solutions. List each possible solution with its strengths and liabilities on a board or a legal pad. Having had a part, even a small a part, in formulating a solution often helps people offer their support, trust and perhaps their financial support.
5. Apply the 5 Ws to problem. Who, what, why, where, and when. This process in developing possible solutions often works like a lost key opens a rusty old lock.
6. Get all the available evidence. At the beginning; often decisions have to be made without all the facts being available.
7. Choose the best solution. Be sure to get ownership from needed persons. Tie your solution as close as possible to mission.
— Administration, p. 120, (MCS)
A Grace-Full Leader: Developing Your Heart to be an Effective Christian Leader
In Grace-Full Leadership: Understanding the Heart of a Christian Leader, Dr. John Bowling, Olivet Nazarene University President and a grace-full leader himself, lists qualities and traits of such a leader. How do you and members of your ministry team compare to the qualities in the list? Try designing a personal evaluation sheet you can use to grade yourself on these traits. If you feel comfortable with that exercise you might show your leaders how you did and why. After everyone has been given opportunity to evaluate themselves, you can lead a discussion on what traits seem strongest among your team members. Note--the positive approach gives you opportunity to highlight the traits that you as leader think are the most important and keeps the discussion constructive.
The Qualities of a Grace-Full Leader
A grace-full leader:
• is more concerned with spirit than style
• is covenantal rather than contractual
• views people as ends—not means
• recognizes the changeable from the changeless
• seeks significance, not just success
• is responsive as well as responsible
• is high-touch
• maximizes influence and minimizes authority
• is passionate
• focuses primarily on the body, not the head
A grace-full leader also:
• understands accountability
• interacts rather than reacts
• follows his or her “knows”
• is willing to follow as well as lead
• maintains his or her balance
• has double-vision
• ”goes deep”
• is a skilled meteorologist
• anticipates through planning, pathfinding, planting and prospecting
• takes care |
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Vol. 2, No. 21
In This Issue
• The Holy Season is Here!
• Taking the Dread out of Problem Solving
• Developing a Generous Church
• A Grace-Full Leader
ISI – a practice of ministry component of the Soul Care ministry of Clergy Development, USA/Canada Mission/Evangelism Department of the Church of the Nazarene,
Daniel Copp, director.
Developed and edited by
Dan Whitney and Neil Wiseman
Visit the Clergy Development website
by clicking here.
To unsubscribe, please click here.
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Developing a Generous Church
Here are some random thoughts to stimulate your thinking about ways to develop a generous church.
• Spiritual connection. Jesus made it clear that there is a close connection between people’s wallets and their spiritual condition. That makes teaching on stewardship a serious pastoral issue.
• Focus on faith-raising rather than fundraising. Forrest Reinhardt said of Saddleback Community Church, “We believe God is primarily interested in growing our faith, not getting our money. We also believe that if the first happens, the second will naturally follow. ” (Leadership, Fall 2002, p. 37)
• Check what the Scriptures say about stewardship. About once a year take time to read thoroughly everything the Bible says about money. Put it on your calendar or you might forget.
• Preach past people’s sensitivity about money—yours and theirs. Some pastors mistakenly make stewardship preaching all about giving to the church. Try expanding your preaching to encourage people to get out of debt, to refrain from extravagant consumerism, to learn contentment with what they have and to apply what the Bible teaches about generosity to their lives.
• Inspirational Giving. Many people enjoy giving to a specific need, cause or person. Giving goes up when contributors see what their giving helps accomplish.
• Recognize income sources. Many people have more than one income source. The three most common sources are: 1) Regular wage income; 2) investment income on accumulations like property appreciation or tax sheltered annuities; 3) inherited funds. The last two pockets are seldom mentioned or challenged in church finance.
• Debunk the myth. More money spent equals greater effectiveness.
• Lead the way. Get and keep your own stewardship house in order. Insist that lay leaders do the same. Members and friends in the congregation will often follow what they see church leaders do.
• Need a model sermon on stewardship? Check 2 Corinthians 8:1-9: they gave willingly, they gave beyond their ability, they gave enthusiastically and they gave their best.
— NBW |
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Desire nothing so much as that which exercises and increases
the spirit and life of Christ in your soul,
and to have everything within you changed
into the character and spirit of the holy Jesus.
— Andrew Murray |
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Christ in you is the hope of the world!
May His transforming grace be evident in your life, now and always!
Neil and Dan |
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