The power of thinking and choosing

I am currently reading a fascinating book by Dr. Caroline Leaf.  The author is a communication pathologist and audiologist who works in the area of cognitive neuroscience. She combines both science and Scripture in her understanding of how the brain works and the power of thinking and choosing. In the book she writes, "The process of thinking and choosing is the most powerful thing in the universe after God, and it is a phenomenal gift from God to be treasured and used properly." My first thought after reading that line was that it might be stating too much, but as I got to thinking about it I realized our thoughts and choices do lead to powerful results.

Nearly every great discovery came because someone thought it was possible and chose to pursue that belief until it became a reality. Although they might have failed numerous times to make their thoughts a reality, they chose to continue until that dream did become a reality. Of course, the same is true of those who wish to pursue evil. Adolf Hitler wanted to raise Germany back to a position of power with himself as its head, and he chose to pursue that thought until he started a world war that brought death and heartache to millions of people.

As we think about the power of thinking and choosing it should cause us to stop and consider the things we think about most. Those thoughts will shape us and those around us more than we might believe. They can lead us to success or they can cause us to fail miserably.

What are your thoughts about your family? What do you want to experience in your family? How deeply do you think about those things? What choices have you made to make those thoughts a reality?

The same questions can be asked about your career, your finances, and every other area of your life. The first step in improving any area of life is to think deeply about that area, identify the things you want most in those areas, made decisions about how to achieve them, and then choose live out those decisions.

Pastors and church leaders should ask such questions about their churches. As a denominational leader I often heard pastors and other leaders complain about things in their church, but it seemed that few of these individuals were doing anything to correct those concerns. They had never stopped long enough to think about how they might improve their church and decide upon the steps they needed to take to make those improvements happen. Guess what: failing to make a choice is a choice, and when you decide to do nothing, nothing will improve.

One final thought about this. Each of us must choose what we will do with Jesus Christ. As we think about Him and the relationship with God that only comes through Him, we have a choice to make. Do we trust Him with our lives, make Him our Lord and Savior, or do we choose to reject Him? It's a choice each of us must make, and that choice will have the greatest impact on our lives than any other choices we will ever make. 

  

Just follow the directions

I just finished another online auction this week. It was another great auction with many local buyers, and we are shipping items all over America. This is the second auction in a row that saw someone drive a long ways to pick up their winnings that were not shippable. We had a man drive from Missouri to our auction center in Indiana to pick up the items he won. In our last auction we had a buyer drive from Texas to our auction center!

These online auctions are fun, but there is one thing that troubles me at every auction: people who don't read the information that clearly states the terms of the sale. Every auction clearly, in several places, gives the day, time and location for people to pick up their winning items, and yet there are 7-8 people in every auction who call or send an email asking when they can pick up their items and where are we located. We explain clearly that we do not have their credit card information on file and people can pay by check, cash or credit when they pick up their items. Still, in every sale there will be several who tell us they assume we automatically charged their card when they won the bid. Numerous times in the listing it explains that pick up is on Wednesday, the day after the sale closes, but on Tuesday night after the sale people will start sending emails explaining they can't pick up their items on Tuesday because they will be out of state or have an appointment to have their dog groomed or some other excuse. That means we have to work around their items in our small auction center while setting up for the next sale. It gets quite frustrating.

Of course, it's not just auction buyers who fail to read the terms of the sale. A lot of Christians never bother to read the Bible, or if they do read it they somehow believe it doesn't apply to them. There is no better guidebook for helping people understand how to live their lives, but many of us feel like we can ignore it and never suffer any consequences. If a preacher dares to proclaim, "Thus sayeth the Lord...." there's a good chance he or she won't be around next week. Prophets were not very popular in biblical times; they are less popular today.

How long has it been since you've engaged in serious Bible study? The Bible is not a book of theory. It doesn't contain suggestions that might help you live a better life. This is a guidebook given to us by God and designed to help us live the life He intends. We don't get to pick and choose what parts of the Bible we'll follow and which parts we'll ignore and not experience any consequences. I'll be the first to admit some of the things the Bible tells us we are to do can be difficult, but if we'll just follow the directions we will find life will become much better.

The consequences of our choices

One of the privileges we have living in America is that we have the freedom to make choices about how we live our lives. We are free to marry the person we want to marry. We are free to do with our money what we want (after taxes of course). We can choose  the types of careers we want, where we want to live, and how we relate to other people. What we cannot do is avoid the consequences of those choices, and every choice does have consequences.

During my seven decades I have observed a lot of successful people. I realize there are many ways to define success, but I am talking about people who are genuinely happy, enjoy good relationships with other people, are financially secure, have an enjoyable career and seem to enjoy life. They may not have the biggest house in the city or drive the fanciest car or have the perfect body or wealth beyond compare, but I don't consider these things to be true measures of success anyway.
I have also observed a lot of people who are very frustrated with life. They are always broke, their marriages are struggling as are their children. They hate their jobs, where they live and pretty much everything about their lives.

The difference between the two groups of people is often very easy to spot. Those who are successful have taken responsibility for their lives. Many successful people I know have had to overcome difficult odds. They may not have been raised in the best of circumstances or received the best education. They often worked minimum wage jobs to support themselves and their families, but they found ways to advance their careers. They would do whatever it took to overcome the challenges the past may have held for them because they were determined that they would not let the past determine their future.

Those who are not very happy with their lives also made choices. Many of them chose to be "perpetual victims." They always have someone or something else to blame for their problems. They complain they never had a chance; the deck is stacked against them; the little man never gets ahead. Nothing is ever their fault. They refuse to ever accept responsibility for their current circumstances.
Both groups of people made a choice. One group chose to take responsibility for their lives; the other group chose to blame others for their problems. Consequences followed each choice.

Of course, one of the primary choices we each have to make is whether or not we will accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of our lives. In this case, there is no choosing not to choose. Anyone who makes that choice has chosen to turn away from God. I urge each of you who reads this, if you've never invited Christ into your life, do so today. You will find that it is the greatest decision you will ever make!

No matter where you are today in your life, it can get better. If your life is good, it can become great. If your life isn't what you wish it was, it can improve. You just have to make the changes necessary for it to get better. The choice is yours.

What will your church do when the Builder generation is gone?

I recently preached a message to a church that looked at 12 trends that are impacting the church today and will continue to do so for the near future. One of those trends is the disappearance of the Builder Generation. This was the WWII generation, the one Tom Brokaw called The Greatest Generation in the book by the same title. These men and women returned home from the war and built much of what we see today. They built great companies, successful businesses, schools, and churches. They joined organizations in which they gave their time, talents and treasure. This generation is rapidly dying off or moving into much less active lifestyles.

Their absence is affecting many organizations. Veterans organizations continually decrease in size as younger veterans are less inclined to join them. Other service organizations such as Rotary, Lion's Club, Moose, etc. are seeing the same decline in membership. Churches are not exempt from the decline in both attendance and giving. In another ten years few of the Builder Generation will still be here, and those who are will be much less active than they are today. What will your church do when that happens?

One state denomination hired a consultant to visit their churches to discuss this situation. He told me that few churches are aware of the problems they are facing when that generation is gone, and some pastors do not want to admit it will be a potential problem in their churches. It will be.

When the Builder Generation found a church they wanted to attend they became a member of that church. They were active in the church often serving in several roles. They gave their tithes and offerings to the church in which they were a member. They showed up on work days, outreach events and every revival the church held. They attended Sunday school, Brotherhood or Mission Circle meetings, and were often present not only on Sunday morning but that evening as well. Many of them attended the mid-week service. Finally, they brought their children with them. None of these are necessarily true of the generations that have followed them.

Because the Builder Generation brought their children (the Boomer Generation) to church we grew up with at least some concept of what God, Christianity and faith was all about. Many of us may have strayed from the faith in our early adult years, but many of us also came back to the church and to the faith in later years. But, many of us did not come back with the same level of commitment our parents had. We may have joined the church, but many of us were not nearly as active in it as our parents. We were also less insistent that our children attend with us so many of them had little exposure to biblical teaching. Partly as a result of that, and the culture changes that have occurred in the past few decades, the generations after the Boomers are even less involved in church life.

As a denominational minister for 14 years I attended many churches. There was often a large gap in generations present for the worship services. The Builder Generation was there, a few Boomers and the grandchildren of the Builders who had brought them. Those pastors of whom I spoke earlier either are blind or have their heads in the sand if they do not see that.

Many small churches today are operating on the money given to them by the Builder Generation over the past years. Their current offerings are not enough to keep the church open and support any kind of effective ministry. Because many pastors have been told they cannot preach on money the younger generations have no concept of stewardship, tithing or financially supporting the church in any way. Positions in the church often go unfilled because there are so few people willing to make a commitment to the church.

I could go on and on about the problems facing the local church when the Builder Generation is gone. The question church leaders need to be asking is what are they going to do about it? Frankly, I think many smaller churches will have no choice but to close their doors if they do not become proactive now. That does not have to happen, but it's important that church leaders begin to talk about this and decide how they can best address the situation before it becomes a more serious problem.

Overcoming regrets

A few days ago I mentioned I was currently reading Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals by Michael Hyatt. Yesterday I read the chapter on regrets. Hyatt referred to a study that found the top six regrets people had concerned education, career, romance, parenting, self-improvement, and leisure. I have regrets in some of these areas, but my biggest regret is that I didn't have Jesus Christ earlier in my life.

I was in my late 20s when I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior. How I wish I had done so sooner. I can tell you the last 40 years have been much better than the first 30, and it's because of how God has worked in my life and the opportunities He has given me.

There comes a time in all our lives when we look back and evaluate the various decisions we made. I would imagine most people regret some of their decisions made earlier in their lives. However, regret does not have to be a negative. The author points out some positives that can come from regrets. One of those positives is that our regrets can move us to do something about the decisions we regret having made.

Maybe you regret ignoring your family while trying to climb the corporate ladder. Although you cannot go back in time, you can commit to spending more time with your family now and throughout the remainder of your life. Perhaps you regret choosing a certain career when you would now rather be doing something else. A lot of people make new mid-life career choices. I know a former teacher who went back to school to earn a law degree and another individual who decided to go to medical school after spending several years in another career to become a medical doctor.

Many Christians look back over their lives and regret not having spent more time studying the Scriptures or being more involved in ministry. Some regret the lives they've lived knowing their life choices were not pleasing to the Lord. Again, you can't undo the past, but you can determine that things will be different from this time forward.

Regrets can point the way to a better life if they force you to commit to better choices, and this is how you overcome your regrets. The author points out two other positives that can come from your regrets, so I continue to highly recommend the book to you.

Do you really want to improve?

Yesterday evening I read an interesting statement that said if a person really wanted to improve himself or herself that person would already be making the necessary changes. We often talk about wanting to exercise more, eat healthier, lose weight, quit a habit, start a new hobby, learn a new skill, etc., but we never take the first step towards achieving any of the changes we claim we want to make. This is an indication we don't really want to change; we just want to talk like we want to change.

What's true of individuals is true of churches as well. Almost any church will tell you they want to grow, but they never do. The reason for that is they never take the first step towards anything that would encourage growth in their church. They may not be pleased with the size of their church, but they are more displeased with changing anything that might them uncomfortable.

This past Sunday I preached a sermon on "The Consequences of Our Choices." In that message I stated that their church is today what they decided 5 years ago, 10 years ago, and even 20 years ago they wanted it to be." Now, I'm sure nobody made a motion in a business meeting to keep the size of the church at its current level, but decisions made in those meetings impacted the size of the church today. I also told them that their church will be 5 years from now, 10 years from now, and 20 years from now what they decide today they want it to be. Choices have consequences. Decisions impact directions.

Towards the end of my time as a regional minister I was working with a pastor search committee of a small church. I always asked those committees what they wanted in their next pastor. The answer I got that evening was the same I often received, "We want a pastor who will grow our church." That evening I responded with a statement I had never made to a previous search committee. I said, "Are you sure about that? You do know that if you could grow your church by doing what you've been doing you would already be growing. So, are you telling me you want a new pastor who will come in here and change everything so you can grow?" The chair of the committee smiled and said that they might want to reconsider their answer to my earlier question.

No matter where you are in life, you can make changes to improve yourself. No matter the condition of your church, you can make changes to improve the way you do ministry. That is...if you really want to improve.

You notice the things you're looking for

A few weeks ago I read The Noticer: Sometimes, all a person needs is a little perspective by Andy Andrews. It tells the story of a drifter who sees things that others miss. As he talks with people going through various problems he reminds them that sometimes all that is needed is a "little perspective."

The first person the drifter talked to was a young man named Andy who was struggling with his life. In one of their early encounters he brought Andy a meal which they ate on the beach where Andy was living. The meal consisted of sardines and Vienna sausages. During their conversation he asked Andy what he was eating and where. Andy replied he was eating sardines and Vienna sausages in the sand. When they finished their conversation the drifter told Andy that maybe that was what Andy was eating, but he had dined on surf and turf with an ocean view! It's all about perspective. He then reminded Andy that "Whatever you focus upon, increases."

What a powerful reminder! It's so easy to grow critical about our churches, our families, our businesses, and our lives in general. I've certainly had times when everything I focused on was negative, and the more I focused on the negative the more negative I became.

As a judicatory minister working with numerous pastors I met many who seemed to hate the churches they served. Some of these pastors never had a positive thing to say about their church or their ministries. I wondered why they stayed in the ministry if it made them that miserable. Such ministers seemed to change churches fairly often, I assume thinking they would eventually find one they liked, but it seldom happened. They would not be long in their new church before they found things to complain about in that church.

There were times during my pastoral ministry when I became frustrated with our church. We all do. But, each of us have the option of focusing on the negative things happening in our churches or focusing on the positive things. I once coached a bivocational pastor who was very frustrated that things were not moving forward faster in his church than they were. He was ready to leave until I reminded him of all the positive things he had told me about the church. Even though he had told me about the positive things, he had forgotten them as his focus had drifted to some negative things that had occurred recently.

If you look for negative things, you'll find them regardless of what you do for a living. However, the same thing is true of positive things. You will find what you are looking for, and those things will increase.

The next time you become frustrated with some aspect of your life step back and begin to look for the positive things about that aspect. I bet if you look for them you'll find them, and when you do it will begin to change the way you look at it. Sometimes all you need is a little perspective. This book can help you get that perspective.

Don't forsake your calling

This week I came across a powerful statement that I had to highlight in the book I was reading. I normally read with a highlighter in one hand, but the significance of this is that, although I am over half done reading this book, this is the first thing I've marked.

 The statement is this: "We all exchange each day of life for something, and it is a prostitution of life to exchange it for something unworthy of our potential and our calling."

How many people do you know drifting through life living far below their potential? How often have you felt you were doing the same thing? I know I've felt that way at times. When leaders drift, the organizations they lead drift as well. When pastors drift so do their churches.

Each of us have been given gifts to be used in serving others. Each of us have a calling on our lives. So often we think of a calling as something that just applies to ministers and missionaries, but the truth is that every person has a God-given calling. As God told Jeremiah, even before Jeremiah was born God had a purpose for his life. The same is true for you and me.

Every day we get to make choices. Among those choices is whether or not we are going to live into that God-given purpose or drift along doing something far less.

I've retired twice now, and my wife likes to point out that neither of them really took. The problem is that I see too much that I can still do and enjoy doing. I know the gifts God has given me, and when I see opportunities to use those gifts I have to do so.

I enjoy playing golf, and in fact I am playing golf later this week with a couple of friends. I enjoy fishing and have owned a couple of bass boats in the past.  I dearly love sitting on the beach and watching the waves. But, the thought of doing nothing but playing golf and fishing and sitting on the beach makes me tremble. It may sound wonderful, but that is not God's calling on my life.

We each have a set number of days on this earth. Only God knows that number. You may be like me and have more years behind you than before you. Or, you may be a young person really just getting started out in life. Determine to live every day to your full potential and in a way that honors God. The best way to honor God with your life is to fulfill the calling He has for you.

When things don't go as planned

Last week our plans were to travel to the Philadelphia area where our son and his family lives. My wife and I left home at the time we had planned. As we were leaving a light snow was falling. A couple of hours later the snow was getting heavier. We saw a number of vehicles off the road including one semi that was laying on its side. It had caught fire. We were almost involved in two accidents ourselves. I kept slowing down due to the amount of traffic and the dangerous conditions. When we got to Wheeling, WV we decided to spend the night.

I called our son and told him of the weather. He advised me that he would have turned around and went back home and suggested we do the same. Later that night he sent me a text saying their weather was going to be just as bad or worse later in the week, and we would be driving back in that when we returned home. I started watching the weather reports and didn't like what I was hearing. The next morning we made the decision that for once we would be smart and head back home before more bad weather arrived.

 As we started back the next morning I wasn't feeling very well. By the time we got back home I was sick with a bad head cold. As I write this I'm still not feeling well, but I think I have improved. It was definitely not the week we had planned.

We were looking forward to spending time with family last week, but that didn't happen. To say we are disappointed would be a major understatement!

I sometimes wonder how often God is disappointed when I fail to live up to His plans for my life. Scripture is clear that even before we were born God knew the plans He had for us. However, He also created us with a free will that allows us to make choices, and sometimes those choices go counter to the plans He has for us.

He could have eliminated that by making us robots, but He didn't do that. He created us as free moral agents with the ability to choose for ourselves the paths we will travel. I have often chosen a path for myself that was not in line with His purpose for my life. I have made choices that have brought pain and problems in my life and the lives of others I care for. We all have.

The good news is that our God is a God of grace, and when we repent of those wrong choices He is willing to forgive us and help us get back on the right path. Very often that means that we can still fulfill the purposes for which we were created. Failure doesn't have to be final.

Although we didn't get to see our son and his family before Christmas, we will go back soon after Christmas and spend a few days with them. When we do, this failed trip will be all but forgotten and we'll enjoy the time we do spend with them. Of course, we'll check the weather a little closer before we start out again!

Your life can change in 2017

I know we still have the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons ahead of us, but it's not too early to be thinking about 2017 and how your life can change in the coming year. I hope one of your goals for each year is to grow spiritually, emotionally, physically, and mentally every year. We never get so old or mature that we cannot grow so growth should be on everyone's list of goals for the coming year.

Spiritual growth is most important. If you are not a Christian spiritual growth begins by inviting Jesus Christ into your life as your Lord and Savior. If you are a Christian then you should seek to grow deeper in your walk with God. Daily Bible reading and study is a must. No one can grow spiritually without spending time in the Scriptures. Daily prayer is also important, and not just over your meals or before you go to bed. We need to get in the habit of praying all through the day if we want to grow spiritually.

Healthy relationships with other people is one key to emotional growth. We need positive people in our lives who will encourage us to achieve all our goals and who will lift us up when we get down. We need people who will laugh with us and cry with us and who will love us unconditionally. Men often struggle the most developing such relationships, but they are essential to everyone if we want to enjoy emotional health.

We all know what we need to do to grow physically. We need to eat right, exercise more, and get sufficient sleep. The problem is many of us fail to do one or more of these things even though we know we need to. These are the areas most likely to be found on many people's New Year's resolutions, and they are often the first resolutions to be broken. Rather than making a resolution it might be better to set realistic goals in this area and work to achieve them.

Finally, we come to mental growth. This might come through learning a new skill or developing a new hobby. It certainly will include reading good books. According to research, 28 percent of Americans did not read a book in 2015. The median number of books read by individuals was four. However, highly successful people read between one to two books per week! When Warren Buffet began his investing career he read between 600-1,000 pages per day. Even today, this multi-billionaire spends 80 percent of each day reading. Mark Cuban reads three hours a day. One very effective minister says he reads about 100 books a year.

It doesn't matter where you are in any of these areas of your life today. You can improve in 2017, and that improvement will begin when you set goals to grow in each of these four areas. Unless you intentionally plan to grow, you probably won't, and you will be the same person at the end of 2017 as you are today. It's your choice, but it's always in your best interest to be steadily growing in each of these areas.

You can't solve problems with the same people who created them

Many people today are calling for term limits for those in political office. Some running for office state they are in favor of term limits. Of course, the ones saying that are not currently in office. To think that a politician holding office is going to vote in favor of anything that will limit his or her term in office is naive at best.

However, what many people do not realize is that we already have term limits. They are called elections. Every two and four years we have the opportunity to vote out of office those who are not serving this nation well. The problem is that too many of us do not vote, and too many who do vote do not do so intelligently.

For years Jay Leno did a "man-on-the-street" interview with people he met and asked them various questions. These questions often focused on political issues facing the country. Sometimes the questions were on significant historical events. It was incredible to see the complete lack of knowledge displayed by most of those he interviewed. Today, Jesse Waters does something similar for Fox News, and the results are the same. We have a lot of uninformed voters who make decisions based on the spin and outright lies that come from both political parties. Tell enough lies often enough and the uninformed person will believe them and vote accordingly.

Tip O'Neil served many years as the Speaker of the House. One of his favorite quotes was that all politics is local. What he meant was that if you got the potholes fixed and helped someone's cousin back home find a job, you could do anything in Washington you wanted and still get re-elected. It was true then, and it's still true today.

This year we are faced with a crucial vote that will have a significant impact on our nation. I think both parties wish they had a different candidate representing them. I doubt that there have ever been two candidates for the presidency with trust and likability levels as low as these two, but these are the choices we have. Since I do not care for either candidate, I have to look at the platforms they are standing on and asking which one do I believe will be better for this country in the long run. I have to look at the types of persons each candidate would probably select for the Supreme Court (and the next President could possibly appoint 2-4 judges), and decide which one would more likely select a judge who will uphold the Constitution and not attempt to rewrite it. These are the factors that will determine which candidate I will vote for in a few weeks.

We also must not forget the congressional races either. I doubt that Congress has ever had a lower approval rate than our current Congress. Given that reality, and the fact that it has done nothing for the past several years, why would we re-elect any sitting Congress person? In my opinion, with very few exceptions, there are none who deserve to be returned to office. You cannot solve problems with the same people who created them. We the voters have the power of term limits in our hands if we vote and do so intelligently. If we do neither, then we have no right to complain about the representation we get.

By the way, this is true as well in the church. When a church is struggling it's important to look at the leadership to determine their role in the problems. If a church has an ineffective pastor, a church board that refuses to lead, controllers who hold the church hostage or a congregation that refuses to change, it's time to make leadership changes. No organization can rise any higher than its leadership, and if the leadership is the lid preventing the organization from rising higher it's time to change the leadership.

I've talked with many pastors who have said their boards refuse to do anything to help the church move forward in a positive direction. I've also met with church boards who have said the same about their pastors. You will not solve problems with the people who have created the problems. Something has to change, and until it does the church will remain stuck and ineffective.

Abandoning the faith

A few weeks ago I shared that I had began re-reading some of the older books in my library as part of my devotional reading. This week I began reading Life Looks Up by Charles B. Templeton. Written in 1955 it is as current as today as it describes many of the issues facing mankind. What makes this book even more interesting is that just two years after its publication Templeton walked away from the Christian faith and declared himself to be agnostic.

He had began his ministry as an evangelist a decade earlier and became good friends with Billy Graham. Some believed that Templeton would have an even greater impact for the Kingdom of God than Graham, but after serving as an evangelist for a decade he left it all.

I do not know all the details behind his decision. I'm sure it's been written about elsewhere, but I really haven't probed into it. It does appear that one primary factor was that he decided he could not longer believe the Bible. He described in his last book a conversation he had with Billy Graham after he abandoned the faith. He insisted to Graham that no one could honestly believe the creation story in the Bible. I suppose once he made that determination it followed that he would question everything else written in the Scriptures.

Graham responded that although he certainly could not explain everything in the Scriptures, including the creation story, that he had chosen to believe them as the written Word of God. Of course, that belief in the Bible is what made his preaching so powerful and anointed.

When one begins to doubt the truth of God's Word it becomes easy to question everything about the Christian faith. There is a reason the enemy has fought throughout the ages to keep the Scriptures away from people. When that failed his next strategy was to get people to doubt them. "Has God said..." was his approach in the Garden of Eden and continues to be one of his most effective methods of keeping people from a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

It is critical that we settle in our minds once and for all what we believe about the Bible. If it is nothing more than the writings of men trying to explain their sense of a deity then we are free to believe whatever we want. However, if we believe that the Bible was written by persons inspired by the Holy Spirit and contains the very Word of God, then we need to respond accordingly.

We are free to choose how we want to think about the Scriptures, but we are not free to avoid the consequences of that choice. And there is a consequence, an eternal one. Graham made his choice and so did Templeton, and time will tell which one made the right choice. As for me, I have chosen to believe the Bible to be the infallible Word of God. It is what I preach and it impacts the way I try to live my life. I pray you will make the same choice.

You will choose today what your church will be five years from now

I often like to tell churches that they are today what they decided five years ago, ten years ago, and even twenty years ago what they would be. I doubt that people thought the decisions they were making back then would continue to impact their church years into the future, but they often do. There are consequences to the choices we make, both positive and negative, that can have long-term effects on our churches.

We can't do anything about the decisions made in the past, but we can be cautious about the decisions we make today because those decisions will impact what our churches will be in the future. Our churches will be five years from now, ten years from now and even twenty years from now what we determine today they will be. That determination will come from the decisions we make today.

If we want our church to be a strong, healthy church in the future what are some choices we need to make now? There are many including

• We must stand on the authority of the Scriptures. Too many churches have abandoned biblical authority and replaced it with man's philosophy. Some believe if we weaken biblical teaching we will be seen more favorable by the unchurched. Actually, studies have shown that is not true. Even if it was true, we still must not compromise the Word of God.
• We need to call strong leaders as pastors and be willing to follow those leaders. Many smaller churches want to call chaplains to serve the needs of the congregation and make sure they are comfortable rather than calling a leader who can lead the church into serving its community.
• We must understand that the Great Commission and Great Commandment make up the mission of the church. These make up the purpose of the church, and a congregation that is not seeking to fulfill both is a church in name only.
• We must be vision-driven. That vision will differ for each church and will describe how your church will fulfill the mission today in your community. Every decision made by the church must be congruent with that vision.
• We must call spiritual men and women to serve in lay leadership positions in the church. We cannot afford to ask people to serve in leadership based on their seniority in the church or their last name.
• We must not allow controllers to continue to run our churches for the benefit of themselves and their families. These people are killing our churches and must be confronted. If they will not change, they need to be removed from all positions of leadership.
• We must become serious about discipleship. We have long associated discipleship with education, but education is only part of it. Discipleship comes from combining education with experience. Churches need to find opportunities for their people to serve others.

What might a church look like five years from now if it focused on doing just these seven things? What might such a church look like in twenty years? Now, read each of these from a negative perspective. If a church decided to do just the opposite of what is written here what would it look like? See, the choices you make today will determine what your church will look like in the future. Choose wisely.

Decision making

I just finished reading Decision Points by George W. Bush. It was an interesting look at his eight year presidency through his own eyes. He didn't attempt to cover all the events that occurred during this time but wanted to show the thinking that went behind the decisions he made. He admitted some of the decisions could have been better, and I'm sure his critics would insist most of his decisions could have been better. Regardless of how one feels about President Bush I found the book a fascinating look at how he responded to the various issues that arose during his time in office.

Leaders are required to make decisions. Many of those decisions will be tough ones. People under the leader can make the easy decisions; the toughest ones will be the ones that find the leader's desk. Some of the decisions you make will be unpopular. Some will be wrong. Some will be resisted by the people you serve.

As I wrote in yesterday's post, churches need pastors who will be leaders. They need people who won't be afraid to make the tough calls in order to move the church forward. Today's pastors need to be people who are guided by God's vision for the church they are serving and are determined to lead according to that vision. Such leadership will not always be appreciated, and in some churches it will get you fired. But, that's better than leaving the church in the same ruts it's been in for the past many decades.

The secret is learning how to make the right decision most of the time. No leader gets it right every time, but most of us can improve our average. As the decisions we make prove to be the right ones people will trust us more and give us more authority to make further choices.

Chip and Dan Heath wrote Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work to help leaders make better decisions. They suggest a four-step process for making better choices they call WRAP.

1. Widen your options. Too often we go into a situation thinking we must choose between A and B. Most of the time there are more than two alternatives, and as you seek out further options you are more likely to make the best choice.
2. Reality-test your assumptions.  It's vital that you collect information from people you trust. Too often we look only for information that confirms our biases, and this can lead to bad decisions. Some of Bush's poor decisions, like those of all in leadership, came from not having good information. We may never have all the information we want before making a decision, but the more accurate information we have the more likely our decisions will be better.
3. Attain distance before deciding. Emotions can cloud our thinking much more than we might think. When Peyton Manning was asked after winning the Super Bowl if he was going to retire he responded that he didn't want to make an emotional decision. We need to put some distance between us and the situation before making a decision.
4. Prepare to be wrong. Sometimes we are overconfident we know what the future holds. Bush admitted in his book that no one on his staff understood how serious the financial crisis was. They quickly learned that the initial steps they took to turn the economy around was insufficient. The fact is that we don't know what we don't know. You may make the best decision you can make based upon the information you have, but when new information becomes available you may have to adjust your response.

How could you use this WRAP approach in the decision-making process you use in your church?

It's time we find true leaders

Agree with him or not, people have to admit that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had a major impact on our nation during his time on the bench. His death set off an immediate firestorm among politicians on both sides of the aisle. Liberals want one of the most liberal Presidents our nation has ever had to appoint someone to fill Scalia's vacancy in hopes of reversing the 5-4 majority the conservatives have had for the past few years. Conservatives insist with an election coming up that the new president should have the opportunity to name someone to that seat. Of course, they are hoping the new president will be a conservative and that he or she will name another conservative to the position. There is no doubt that this vacancy will have an impact on both President Obama's final year in office and the presidential race. We are likely in for a rough time over this issue.

As I watched politicians from both parties preen before the news cameras to plead their case I thought that this is what is wrong with America today. It's no wonder that the approval rating for Congress is only 11%. There's no leadership there. People elect individuals to represent them and to do what's best for the country, but once they arrive in Washington it's all about their own petty interests and that of their financial backers. Nothing can be done for the good of the nation because these clowns want to run for the cameras and spout off  sound bites instead of sitting down like adults and discussing how to best govern for the good of the nation.

I have to admit that I have not watched any of the primary debates which is unlike me. I have watched the highlights (lowlights) that have appeared on the news. It's like watching a day care center with all the screaming and finger-pointing. When I think of the many great statesmen around when this country was founded I have to wonder where such persons are today. They are certainly absent from this presidential race.

Unfortunately, I see the same scenario played out in many churches. Pastors and lay leaders who lack any sense of a God-given vision for the future of the church cannot lead the church forward. Leaders who put themselves and their agendas before the good of the church are strangling many churches. Church business meetings that ensure the status quo of the church rather than embracing needed change guarantee the eventual demise of the church.

The church, like our nation, is facing serious challenges today, and those challenges cannot be met by continuing to operate like nothing has changed or that nothing is wrong. We need men and women who understand the issues and are willing to think seriously about them. Leaders are needed who will put the good of the church before their own preferences and comfort. We need to learn to work together if we are serious about advancing the Kingdom of God and transforming our culture.

Until we elect men and women who love this nation more than their Super Pacs and their own prominence and are willing to govern for the good of the nation we can expect America to continue its downward spiral. Until we select spiritual leaders to serve as the pastors and lay leaders in our churches who love God and His vision for the church more than their own comfort and position we can expect the church to continue to become more irrelevant to our culture. In both cases, ladies and gentlemen, the choice is ours.

You are what you choose to be

I often tell churches that they are today what they decided they would be 5, 10, and even 20 years ago. Decisions they made in the past have determined what they would become. There is little we can do about those past choices, but we are free to begin making new choices. It's important that we do that because our churches will be five years from now, ten years from now, and even twenty years from now what we decide today to make them.

Every choice a church makes has a ripple effect in the years to come. Churches that choose not to engage their communities with the Gospel can expect to grow smaller in the years to come. A church that decides to not develop an effective discipleship program can expect to see the people within their congregations become more immature and worldly. Churches that choose to mistreat their pastors can expect in the years to come that they will have trouble attracting good pastors to serve there. Churches that choose to allow controllers to run the church will find good leaders will abandon them, and they will earn such a poor reputation in the community that they will have little to no influence.

Of course, positive choices will result in good consequences. When you see strong, growing churches you can be sure that it is the result of good choices those churches made in the past.

I've often worked with small churches who offered many excuses for why they were small or unable to grow. Now, there are legitimate reasons a church might be small, but in many cases the excuses they gave were just that, excuses. Very rarely did a church say their problems were the result of choices they had made in the past. Even rarer were the churches that wanted help to start making better decisions.

In Dt. 30: 19 Moses tells the Israelites that God "has set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live." This is a good message to the church today. Before us is life and death, blessing and cursing, and we get to choose which we will receive. The choice is ours.

Maybe your church is not in a good place right now. Can you identify the past choices that may have led to the present situation your church finds itself in? It might be helpful to know, but there's really nothing you can do about those choices now except to not duplicate them in the future.

What's more important is where your church wants to be a few years down the road. Once you have determined that vision you can begin to identify the choices you need to make that will make that vision possible. Every choice your church confronts needs to be filtered through that vision. You just continually ask, "If we make this choice will it lead us closer to the vision we believe God has given us for this church?" Trust me, it will make your choices much easier to make when you use this filter. Choose life for your church.

Manage your time as a bivocational minister

There are so many things that demand the time of a bivocational minister, and its easy to lose track of the more important things to attend to lesser things that scream for our attention. Early in my years as a bivocational pastor I tended to focus on the squeaky wheel and failed to make sure I addressed all the important areas of my life. It ended up costing me dearly.

There are five areas of life a bivocational minister must ensure to keep in balance.

1. God
2. Family
3. Church
4. Work
5. Self

If any of these are ignored while too much focus in given to others it will cause your life to become unbalanced. The neglected areas will suffer, and eventually it will bring pain in your life.

We often talk about time management, but time management is really all about life management. When I address this in my seminars I talk about the importance of setting priorities in life. Priorities flow out of the vision you have for your life. What do you want to accomplish in life? What means the most to you? Where do you want to be in five years? What do you want your family relationships to look like? What vision do you have for your church and ministry? Where do you want to be financially, physically, and spiritually?

Achieving the vision you may have for your life seldom happens accidentally. It requires that you are intentional in each of these various areas, and the way to achieve that intentionality is to determine priorities for each of them. Those priorities should then be reflected in your planning calendar and your personal budget.

For example, clergy families sometimes suffer when ministry continuously takes priority over family activities. More than one pastor has been divorced because the spouse could not compete with the pastor's mistress, the church. You'll notice that family is listed above ahead of church, and this is done because I intentionally made the decision that I would not sacrifice my family on the altar of ministerial success. Since family was one of my priorities, how did that show up in my planning?

During my pastoral ministry my wife and I had a date set aside for every Friday evening. We would go out for a nice dinner, maybe do some shopping or something else, and grab a Starbucks for the ride back home. It was normally nothing elaborate, but the nice thing is that we went to a city an hour from our home. Sometimes the best part of the evening was the two hour drive we had on those dates when we could talk without fear of interruption. (This means you turn your cell phone off!) We also did other things together that we both enjoyed, but this Friday date was sacred to us. To ensure nothing interfered, her name was in my planning calendar so if anyone asked me to do something on Friday evenings I could legitimately tell them I had a previous appointment.

Both our children were involved in school sports, and we rarely missed any of their events. As soon as their sports schedules came out I put the dates down in my calendar and planned around them. Sometimes at an away track meet we might be the only parents from our school in attendance, but we were there.

You can manage your time only if you learn to manage your life. You might have to say no to some things that will interfere with your priorities. But, if you've not determined those priorities, others will determine them for you, and you may not be happy with the priorities they choose for you. Develop a personal vision for your life and determine the priorities you will need to achieve that vision. You'll find your life will be better balanced and much more enjoyable.

The atheists respond

In yesterday's post I asked why atheists spend so much time trying to disprove the existence of a God they don't believe in. That post generated more Twitter comments than any post I've ever written. Most of the comments were negative ones from various atheists, and most of them contained personal attacks on me. I was called an idiot, a village idiot, and other similar comments. Included in the personal attacks were demands that theists provide objective evidence that God exists.

I found the level of personal attacks interesting. I've posted nearly 17,000 tweets on Twitter and never once been personally attacked for any of them until this one. Obviously, I hit a nerve! The personal attacks did not bother me. As I've told people recently, once you become medicare-eligible you really don't care what people think of you! This is especially true of those you don't know and are unlikely to ever meet.

I did click on a couple of the people who responded to that post and found that they attack anyone who challenges atheism. It seems they often make derogatory comments about the person advocating for God, demand evidences that God exists, and then accuse the person of running off instead of providing such proof.

First of all, it's a little difficult to prove the existence of God in a 140-character tweet. Personally, I quit debating people on social media a long time ago, and I refuse to engage in any conversation with people who make personal attacks on those with whom they disagree. This is not only true of atheists but other Christians as well. Some of the nastiest people I've seen on social media are Christians, and I refuse to respond to their comments as well.

From looking at the Twitter accounts of some of those who attacked my post, it appears they really aren't interested in anyone providing evidences of God. If they were, they could read any number of excellent apologists such as William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, Gary Habermas, or Ravi Zacharias. These individuals do an excellent job of responding to the various challenges many atheists have towards theism.

To be fair, many atheists are sincerely seeking answers to their questions regarding the existence of God. They are willing to engage in serious debate without resorting to personal attacks. I also have to admit that too often when they look to the church for the answers they seek they are disappointed. As one whose previous ministry required me to be in different churches almost every week I will admit that it would have been difficult to have found evidences of God in some of them.

One of my favorite books continues to be Jim and Casper Go to Church: Frank Conversation about Faith, Churches, and Well-Meaning Christians. It is a true story of Jim, a Christian, who paid Casper, an atheist, to attend church with him every Sunday for several weeks. Casper was willing to believe in God if he could find sufficient evidence to prove God's existence during this experiment. They attended some of the best-known churches in America, but in the end Casper was not convinced. As the subtitle states, the book contains frank conversations between Jim and Casper about their experiences in these different churches and why Casper never found the proofs of God's existence in any of them.

The book provides a powerful indictment against the church and its failure to address the concerns of both those who do not believe in God as well as its own members. We should not be surprised that so many Christians are also abandoning the church and seeking other ways to experience God that go deeper than a commitment to attend a 60 minute service each week.

There are those churches who understand the spiritual concerns of people today and are intentionally addressing those concerns. May their tribe increase and include all churches.

I'm sure I'll get hammered again for this post, but that's OK. I don't hate atheists, even those who attack those of us who believe in God. I do feel sorry for them because they are missing out on the blessing of having God in their lives. And I pray that one day they will realize that only God can fill the void they feel in their lives.

Starting a new year

When I was a pastor I always enjoyed the start of a new year. I felt like the church and I had a fresh, clean page on which we could begin our work. Previous weeks had been spent on goal setting and sermon planning, and I was always ready to get started when January 1 rolled around.

Some people suggest spending time at the first of the year reflecting back over the past year. This gives you an opportunity to look at what worked and what didn't. I think such reflection is good, but I always wanted to do at the end of the year as part of my goal setting process. I wanted to enter the new year looking forward, not backwards.

Let me share some things I have found helpful. Perhaps you will want to use some of them as you get your year off on the right foot.

• I wanted a new devotional plan for the new year. Sometimes that included reading devotional books although I often found them lacking depth. It often included reading through the Bible in a year which is an excellent discipline. In the years I did that I would purchase a new Bible in a translation I had not yet read. A couple of years I did some in-depth study of a book of the Bible as part of my devotions by reading through various commentaries and other Bible study aids. Whatever plan you choose make sure you are doing something intentional to grow as a Christian.
• Prior to January 1 I planned out my sermons for at least the first quarter of the year. This allowed me more time for sermon preparation rather than spending valuable time trying to decide what to preach each week. It also ensured that I had the resources I needed to prepare those messages. Plus, it gave the church the added benefit of allowing our music leaders time to develop a worship service that fit in well with the message.
• Our church provided me with an annual book allowance. Our annual business meeting was held the second week of the year at which time we approved the budget. At the end of that meeting I already had an order form filled out for several books I wanted which I gave to our treasurer to mail in with the check. I usually spent about half of my annual budget in that initial order, but it ensured that I had the resources I needed for the sermons I planned to preach as well as other books I wanted to read.
• Controlling your calendar is vital if you want to control your life. I would spend time filling in essential meetings such as board meetings, business meetings, and other events that occurred at regular times. Once that was done, my wife and could discuss when we wanted to take vacations or short trips and get those on the calendar. I learned the hard way that if these things are not on the calendar other things will find their way on there making it difficult to find a good time to get away. I also put our date night down each week and guarded it as well. You will not enjoy balance in your life if you do not plan for it.
• As I've written elsewhere, goal setting is important to me, and if one wants to accomplish those goals it's important to begin from day one. Starting January 1 I would begin tracking the Key Result Areas I had identified as necessary if I wanted to achieve my goals for the year. As a bivocational minister it's too hard to play catch-up at anything. It's always easier to stay ahead.

These are some of the things I did to help get my new year off to a good start. There are many things in life we cannot control so it's important to focus on those that we can. If you will be intentional about how you approach the new year you will likely to find it much more productive and enjoyable than if you just drift through the year.

A missionary mindset

In yesterday's post I addressed the entitlement mindset that runs rampant in today's society. We also looked at how that same mindset impacts our churches in a negative way and prevents us from fulfilling our mission in the world. Today, I want to look at the mindset that should be seen in our churches.

We spend a lot of time focusing on church membership. Churches are concerned that people are not willing to join their churches as members. This is really the wrong thing to worry about.

Church membership is all about rights and privileges. If I am a member of the country club I can go there and play golf or use their pool or tennis courts. I can attend dinners and parties there because I am a member, and with membership comes privileges.

As a church member I am entitled to certain privileges. I may get free weddings for my children or a free funeral when I die. I can pick out the styles of music we'll have in our services and when those services will begin. I get to vote on things that happen in the church because I'm a member, and with membership comes privileges.

Is it not time to stop seeing ourselves a merely church members and begin to see ourselves as missionaries? Scripture teaches that the Holy Spirit has given gifts to every believer to be used in ministry, but many church members are not involved in any ministry that uses their gifts.

No matter how gifted your pastor is, he or she can only be in one place at one time doing one thing. What if your church had 50 people who saw themselves as ministers? Now, you would have 50 people in 50 places doing 50 things. Would you rather grow your church by addition (1+1) or by multiplication (50X1)? I am full agreement with the individual who said that our baptism was our ordination into ministry. It's time that every Christian develop a missionary mindset and abandon the entitlement mindset.

Along with that, we need to stop seeing our churches as merely churches and begin seeing them as mission stations that have been placed in the midst of a rapidly emerging pagan culture. Our society is rapidly growing worse as it abandons the biblical foundations upon which it was founded. The church has been called to be salt and light in the midst of darkness, and we now live in a very dark time that is only going to get darker. If we are going to ever have an impact on the 21st century we are going to have to become missional in our thinking, and that is going to be a much different mindset that many of our churches now have.

I believe God is now raising up an body of believers and churches that will have this missionary mindset. Those who want to continue in their entitlement thinking will fade away into insignificance until finally "Ichabod" is written above their door. Each of us can choose which mindset we will have.