email: love it or hate it

I love email: instant communication with people across the globe with quick responses, virtually instant information and quick decisions.

But email has an ugly side too. And there are four things that I really find tough and unhelpful about the means of communication:

Email is easily open to misinterpretation with much of our communication coming through non-verbal body means. Tone of voice, facial expression and subtle physical posture changes are all missed, and so is much of the substance of our communication. Be careful what you write and how you write it. Too often others misconstrue what we mean and the proverbial hits the fan.

Email is also permanent. Once it is out there it's there, you cant get it back and the permanence of what you have written can come back to haunt you. Just this week I said some things in a mail that where not helpful and almost certainly even sinful. It's out there now and cannot ever be erased, taken back and undone an neither can the pain it caused. Some years ago when I was an engineer a message I posted on an internet forum about a product that had not met sales-pitch promises was traced back the firm for which I worked and cost the firm some serious money...doh!

The third thing I really don't like about email is that it is too quick. A letter is slower to write, it forces our thinking to slow down and be more deliberate. It gives us room to choose our words and thoughts carefully. Most importantly you have to put a letter in an envelope and fill in an address....with email a slip of a finger and someone who should never have received a mail gets it in all it's unfortunate truth.

Fourthly letters almost always used to garner a response. Email has become like junk mail and I often find myself ignoring mails for days and even weeks much to the frustration of people who want to get some response from me. Email allows me to be lazy in my communication and distanced from people. I've resolved to do more telephoning now...it's more personal and powerful and it's a dialogue not a simple monologue which leads to better communication.

Love it or hate it: email has changed the way the world works and for a church like ours where we have no central office and lay elders who work 9-5 jobs it has an extraordinarily valuable tool. But it has it's shortcomings and its dangers.

Most importantly there is the person sitting behind the keyboard who is able to prove their stupidity in perpetuity with the click of a mouse...be careful lest you be recorded a fool in posterity!

John Piper's South Africa messages

For those that missed him here is what he preached in Johannesburg, for those that saw him in Cape Town but like me only went for one night, the audio for the final message (preached in JHB) is available off that link too.

There is also a link to some leaders teaching that Piper did too.

Lies and statistics

Statistics can be misconstrued and abused to make them say things they really don't. Kevin DeYoung comments on some statistics regarding teenage sexuality

Grace - Tullian Tchividjian

Tullian's article on grace reminds us that it is this that separates our faith from other religions.

Walking through a Graveyard

I've been reading a book by Bill Bryson called "At Home" in it he makes the point that before the modern generation 1/4 of children died before their first birthday and about half made it to 5 years old. Life really is transient and sometimes terrifyingly short. The psalmist writes: "As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments." Psalm 103:15-18 ESV

Here is a great article by John Ortberg reminding us that life is really short and when we realize it we will live differently. Walking through a Graveyard | LeadershipJournal.net

Gospel powered ministry

I love ministry, but ministry is hard work at points. Anyone who has lead a home group, taught some unruly teenagers, tried to get the gospel into the heart of young children, lead a team of volunteers or preached a sermon will know this. Ministry has the ability to suck our guts out if we do it with our strength.

Whilst we are trying to win people to the gospel, sometime we loose sight of the gospel for us. Our ministry becomes bad news for us, and ultimately it will then become bad news for others too. Here are some thoughts:

1. Remind yourself of how the gospel shaped you. Sometime we can get so involved in helping others understand the gospel that we forget and minimize its effect in our life. Nothing will excite someone about Jesus more than someone who themselves is excited by the fact that Jesus saved them!
2. Don't neglect your spiritual disciplines: prayer, studying scripture, silence, reflection. These are the means by which Jesus puts the fuel back into our tanks and these are values you want to instill in those you lead. Monkey see monkey do - be a good monkey (for Jesus fame of course! :)
3. Know your strengths. Know what you do well and what energizes you and do those things so that you will be most effective. At every opportunity pass on what you have learned, and what you are gifted with to others. Great leaders help those under them to become better at what they do, so mentor those who work alongside you so that they may be the best they can be.
4. Know your weaknesses. Know what you don't do well and draw others in to pick up where you will drop things. Say 'no' when you know that you will not be able to complete the task well, rather under promise and over deliver that over promise and under deliver. It is also worth working harder on the things you are weak at so that they are less of a hindrance and sometimes by God's grace they become strengths.
5. Remember that this is always about Jesus! Ministry is getting people to know your best friend and to make him theirs. That's a joy to do when we love Jesus with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

All theology and no application?

So in one of the talks at the Global Leadership Summit Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Community Church and highly respected in the field of leadership, said this in jest: "What do you call someone who is all theology and no application? Presbyterian!" grrrrrr!

But this got me thinking. It's great to help people understand the truth about God BUT it has to be shared in a way that helps them apply that truth - the application is what helps us to KNOW God and not just KNOW ABOUT God.

It's great to talk about the Trinity, but how do we apply that truth? Well God the Father is the transcendent person of God, Jesus the compassionate person of God and the Holy Spirit is the present person of God. Immediately we can see how God meets all our needs for himself so that he may be glorified in us.

Truth: Jesus was raised from the dead.

Application: we will also be resurrected and will spend eternity with him so live like children of God's eternal kingdom.

Truth: God is magnificent, glorious and holy.

Application: we live for him in everything that we do - all for His Glory!

Truth: People are made in the image of God.

Application: all people are valuable in God's eyes and we treat them as such.

Truth: The Bible is the inspired word of God.

Application: Read it!! that you might know the mind of Christ, the will of the Father and the power of the Spirit.

Truth: There will be a judgment.

Application. Come to Jesus and be saved from your sin. Then be part of God's saving as many others as you can!

The point of the Bible is to lead us to God revealed as Father, Son and Spirit SO THAT we'd live in this world for his Glory. Without the application the truth simply becomes a bit of knowledge but it does not affect the world, it does not become part of Jesus redeeming work. It remains simply a seed instead of the harvest God desires it to be.

Habitat for humanity house build

Our team finished the habitat house on Friday - they built, from the ground up, a house in just 3 days - well done to Francois, Shaun and all the volunteers who helped make this home a reality! This is one of the best things we do each year and next year my vision is that we build two houses - all for Jesus fame!
Everyone who I spoke to on the team enjoyed the time they spent in Mfuleni. It's given them a deeper perspective of life in South Africa, and I speak for myslef that it makes me grateful that I have as much as I have.

Good to great

I am at the global leadership summit. It is a great oppourtunity for leaders to grow.

Jim Collins lists these characteristics of teams on the way up:
1 acknowledge the sometimes unpleasant facts
2 bring data, evidence and facts to the discussion
3 leaders have a high questions to statements ratio, pushing and challenging others
4 each member credits others and enjoys respect and admiration of peers
5 teams conduct autopsies without blame gaining wisdom from experiences
6 team members unify behind decisions even if they did not agree with the decision

Poor teams - teams on the way down:
1 hide the facts
2 opinions are voiced without data and facts
3 leaders make more statements than questions avoiding critical input
4 team members seek their own credit and are not respected by others
5 teams seek to blame seeking culprits rather than wisdom
6 team members acquiesce to a decision but undermine it afterwards

Food for thought...how are we doing?...make some comments in the blog page

Roundup and some book recommendations

John Piper has written a new book called Think about engaging our minds for Jesus glory. Piper is one of the most humble Godly men I have heard and he writes profoundly well. He is also in Cape Town next week.

Scott McKnight is a great writer, blogger and author, his new book One.Life will be out shortly and if it is like any of his other stuff like Blue Parakeet which is in our library it will be worth getting.

Frederick Gaiser has a very good book out about Healing in the Bible. This is always a contentious issue and the book aims to expose what the scriptures actually say...it has some great reviews from respected authors.

Jonathan Parnell has a great post about 7 questions we should ask before we teach the scriptures as preachers, teachers and leaders.

For those who engage the science faith debate (as we all should in some ways) will know that there is a lot of rhetoric and not much grace (even from those who claim to follow Jesus the King of grace) BioLogos is a forum to discuss these things and there are some great video resources to provoke some thought and to get you reflecting on the majesty of God and his awesome creation and of course the $64 000 question: was it six literal days or not?

Evening service

Our experimental evening service kicked off this week with about 40 people and we started our study of the book of Romans and we got a whopping 7 verses in! There is so much of value in Romans that it is worth unpacking as Paul explains the richness of Christ Jesus and the gospel message to save us for Jesus glory.

I really want to strongly encourage all the leaders to make an effort to come to these services, it will help you grow in your faith and lead those under your care with greater effectiveness. This is especially important for those who are ministering at KidsChurch as you miss out on teaching on Sunday mornings. Please remember that all my sermons are available on the website for download.

Please remember all these communications are on my blog and I am more than happy that you send the link to others who may be interested. I’d prefer it if you subscribed to the blog and I have added the means to do that. Many of you have already done this, if you have not please do this here: you can subscribe directly by clicking here You will get the same postings via email, but they will come directly from my blog and it makes things simpler, easier to manage and I will be stopping the direct mails shortly. I can see who has subscribed and I really need to you to do this so that all the church leadership is up to speed with information moving around.

Habitat for Humanity

Our team on site has been doing some great work as we build a house over three weekends...actually two because they have worked so fast not much is going to be left to do on the 23rd. The house we're building is in Mfuleni and here is how far our team got on day 1.

Awesome stuff!! - working up a sweat for Jesus fame!

Psalm 8

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

Spiral galaxy M104 the sombrero galaxy taken by the Hubble space telescope. It is about 30 million light years away from us and contains several billion stars. In many ways it is not that different from our Milky Way galaxy. (click on the image to view full size)

And on a mote of dust orbiting an insignificant star called the Sun the savior Jesus died for us...

Youth ministry?

After spending many years leading teenagers in the church I found this article at The Resurgence really interesting. Whilst I think good has come out of all the programming and youth groups that I have been part of I am not convinced that much real long term faith growth has been accomplished in many of the teenagers.

In our current setup we have a teenagers bible study for the dozen or so teenagers we have at our church. I reckon we do more meaty work there in a month than would be achieved in a year of other programming. We hit the scriptures and some deep theological issues hard. They ask tough questions we debate the answers and in it I believe, Jesus is glorified and little by little these awesome young teenagers are growing in maturity of faith!

The challenge is to get leaders in churches out of the ‘that is the way it is done’ mentality. That’s tough to do. I know. I was one of them and it has taken me a long time to fully realize that many of the models that worked (or didn’t) in previous generations need to be rethought.

My hope is that we’d be immensely creative, Spirit led and Jesus honouring so that we’d produce fully devoted followers of Jesus. That means getting out the box, rubbing a few stuck-in-the-mud folks up the wrong way – but ultimately it will mean doing what Jesus wants us to do: to glorify him in all that we do by living our faith out daily and helping others to do the same!

Military Leadership vs Jesus leadership

I am currently reading a great book by Jon Krakauer on Pat Tillman it is a moving and sad read as one follows the cover up that the US government perpetrated in friendly fire deaths.

But what got me thinking was how tough, narrow minded and abusive military leadership often is. Orders are given and there is an expectation of blind following. This often lead to mistakes being made and lives being lost. Sadly this kind of leadership is rampant in the church too.

Jesus on the other hand lead with a servant attitude, strongly, firmly and truthfully but He did so by lifting others up with him rather than ordering them to get his will done. He did not expect subservience, but even calls us his fellow workers! What an awesome leader and example to us. Jesus encouraged the guys around him to get on track with him and to seek God’s glory without forcing or coercing them – man I hope we as leaders get to live out that kind of leadership in His church!

Kindle

OK so I have had an Amazon Kindle for some weeks now and I thought it would be helpful to post a review for those who might be interested. I have one word to describe it:

AWESOMENESS!!!

I love the device. The screen using e-ink technology is very readable in broad daylight and is much softer on the eyes than a normal LCD screen as found on other devices like the iPad. Buying books is phenomenally easy and the device I have is the entry level one with wifi only connectivity. The upgrade has 3G (cellphone network) as well which is better if you travel lots. Purchasing is directly from Amazon and delivery is within a week directly to your door.

Books are much cheaper too. Recently I purchased Wayne Grudem’s Systematic theology – around R460 locally in paperback and only $30 on the Kindle which is about 50% less, the device will pay for itself in a year at the rate I read books (3 – 4 per month). There are around 650000 books available and a purchase takes about 30 seconds before it is readable on the Kindle. The device can hold around 3000 books and keeps your place in each book. I have already purchased about 20 books and read 5 of them J

Whilst I still love paper books I think this is the way of the future and I have found the transition very easy and I will probably use the device more and more. Marisa is so convinced she just bought one too!