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Making 21st Century gods Irrelevant

By Stephen Blandino on March 5, 2012 in Church, Culture, Personal Growth with 0 Comments

Most people in society would quickly deny that they worship a false god. While we may not worship statues, many other possessions and practices have captured our hearts in a posture of worship. It doesn’t take long for money, jobs, hobbies, fame, reputation, and stuff to sit on the throne of our hearts.

So what would happen if we made these “gods” irrelevant? I’m not saying that we don’t need money, or that we should quit our jobs, or that it’s a sin to have a hobby. And I’m not suggesting that your reputation is pointless or that it’s wrong to have material possessions. I’m simply asking, “What would happen if our love and commitment to Christ dethroned our 21st century gods and transformed how people view the Christ we serve?” Regi Campbell, author of Mentor Like Jesus, captured this really well when he wrote:

About 350 years after Christ, the Roman emperor Julian (AD 332-363) wanted to reinstitute faithfulness to the pagan religions of Rome but struggled because Christians were doing such good things for people, even strangers, that they rendered the Roman gods irrelevant.

Wouldn’t it be cool to render the pagan gods of the twenty-first century irrelevant by having millions of Christ followers become so genuine in their faith that they changed the world with their kindness, mercy, and generosity?

What in your life has become a god? What is preventing your faith in Christ from transforming all of who you are and mobilizing you to make a difference in the world? As Rick Warren observed, “The church has amputated its hands and its feet, and all that’s left is its mouth.” It’s time that the beauty of the risen Christ make our 21st century gods irrelevant.

 

Look: How God Calls People

By Stephen Blandino on February 14, 2012 in Church, Culture, Leadership, Personal Growth with 0 Comments

When people talk about the “call” of God, sometimes it’s with a bit of mystery. In fact, sometimes it’s outright bizarre. But the idea of “calling” is found throughout Scripture. God calls people to tasks, projects, ministry, countries, roles, fields, and industries. Because calling originates with God, He’s big enough to determine the subject of your calling. The question is: how does God call people?

In Exodus 3, we read about Moses’ burning bush experience. Something grabbed me about the issue of God’s calling when I read this passage:

“God saw that he had stopped to look. God called to him from out of the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’” (Exodus 3:4)

I believe this verse reveals an important aspect of calling. Too often we expect God to knock us off our feet with an undeniable calling. In fact, most of us would admit that if we had a burning bush experience, we’d be able to hear God speak to us just fine. But notice what this verse says: “God saw that he [Moses] had stopped to look.” It was only after Moses stopped to look that God began to speak.

Sometimes I wonder if we miss God’s call because we don’t stop to look first. We’re so hurried with our busy schedules that we don’t stop to see where God is already at work. God might want to call you to serve the underprivileged, but He’s waiting for you to stop and look and those in your community who are struggling in poverty. God might want to call you to serve your local church, but He’s waiting for you to stop and look at the needs in your church. God might want to call you to run for a political office, but He’s waiting for you to stop and look at the needs of those you would serve.

I’ve said this before…Calling and vision is often birthed out of a need. But unless you stop to look at the need, the calling may never come and the vision may never form. If you’re wondering why God’s not speaking to you, perhaps He’s waiting for you to “look.”

 

College Students’ Commitment to End Modern-Day Slavery

By Stephen Blandino on January 6, 2012 in Culture with 0 Comments

Louie Giglio’s Passion City Church just hosted the Passion 2012 Conference. Drawing 42,000 college students, this amazing event for 18-25 year olds is inspiring young leaders to make their lives count. And this generation is taking action. During the four-day conference, students gave $2.6 million to help end modern-day slavery. Take a look at their story.

10 Ways to Adopt Public Schools in Your Community

By Stephen Blandino on December 20, 2011 in Church, Culture with 0 Comments

Three years ago Christ Church made a strategic decision to adopt a public school in Fort Worth, Texas. Since that time, we’ve adopted one high school and one elementary school. When we made this decision, we had no idea the impact God would allow us to have. Today I sat down with one of our pastors who has been instrumental in driving this initiative. Here are ten ways we adopted public schools and specific ideas you can employ to impact a school in your community.

1. Listen, Focus, and Act with the Right Attitude - Churches and leaders must approach their adopt-a-school efforts with one pure-hearted motive: “We’re here to serve…no strings attached.” Any other attitude will backfire. The key is to LISTEN carefully to the primary needs expressed by the administration, teachers, and students. Once you listen, strategically FOCUS your time, volunteers, and resources on the needs you’re best equipped to meet. With clear focus, ACT with excellence. Over the past three years, we’ve invested tens of thousands of dollars to help two campuses. We can’t meet every need, but we’ve built a tremendous amount of goodwill and helped many teachers and students.

2. Bless Teachers and Students - Teachers often have a thankless job and many students today are living in dysfunctional home environments. To brighten everyone’s day, we’ve served countless breakfasts and lunches to teachers and student groups. In addition, we’ve provided teachers and administrators with Christmas gifts as a simple expression of thanks.

3. Open Your Facilities - Each year we host dozens of school events and activities in our facilities free of charge. Whether it’s teacher training, principal training, choir concerts, special programs, ESL classes, Fish Camp, end of year celebrations, AP testing, or specific student groups, we work hard to accommodate many of the school’s activities. With school budget cuts, many of these activities would be limited or non-existent because they do not have a cost effective place to meet. This year alone we’ve had over 3,000 principals, teachers, students, and parents on our campus…some on multiple occasions.

4. Sponsor Opportunities That Broaden Horizons - For the last two years, we’ve helped the high school we’ve adopted by sponsoring a college trip for juniors. The trip includes visits to a couple of college campuses to encourage students to expand their horizons and pursue their college dreams.

5. Fund Dreams and Initiatives - When one of our pastors heard that the school’s basketball scoreboard wasn’t working, he found a coach and told him we would like to pay to have it fixed. The coach was moved to tears and said, “You would do that for us?” We’ve had the opportunity to fund drill team and track team travel expenses, and sponsor a student government trip to their annual convention. And, just last Sunday, we honored an elderly couple in our congregation who have blazed a path of faithful commitment to Christ. This couple loves to read and throughout their lives have blessed many people with books. So, in their honor, we committed $5,000 to fund the completion of book purchases for a library at a local public elementary school. Acts like these make dreams come true for students and teachers and build goodwill with the campus.

6. Mobilize Volunteers - Many times volunteers have helped with landscaping, hanging bulletin boards, washing windows, and cleaning the campus. On one occasion, we mobilized nearly 100 members from small groups to serve the campus as a Saturday morning service project. On another occasion, we labeled all of the textbooks for a new elementary school and help teachers set up their classrooms.

7. Pay Attention to Personal Needs - Sometimes it’s easy to forget that each teacher and student has a personal story. While we cannot change every person’s life, we can do for one what we wish we could do for all. When a teacher from the school was burglarized, we gave them a gift card to help replace items that were stolen from her home. In addition, just last week, a member of our congregation, after learning of the tragic murder of one student’s mother, stepped forward to help that student make her dreams of going to college a reality. Listen to the personal needs of teachers and students and then do for one what you wish you could do for all.

8. Partner with School Programs - The high school we’ve adopted offers a program that helps potential first-generation college students pursue a college education. The program prepares students with note taking and study skills, helps with college applications, and much more. We’ve partnered with this program by providing supplies, hosting meetings, and connecting students with adults who care.

9. Host School Assemblies & Outreach Opportunities - Earlier this year we conducted two daytime school assemblies for 1,400 students. Because of the time and resources invested in the school, these students heard a positive anti-drug message. In addition, that night, 430 students and leaders came to an after school rally on our campus where 111 students made commitments to Christ.

10. Pray for the Campus - We regularly highlight our adopt-a-school efforts and encourage people to pray. Whether it’s personally adopting a student in prayer or focusing on the school during a corporate prayer gathering, we recognize that prayer is essential to impacting our local schools.

The needs on local school campuses are too much for one person, or one church, to solve alone. But what could happen if we all worked together to invest in administrators, teachers, and students? God has given you and your church gifts, abilities, resources, and ideas that can make a difference. The question is, what will you do with them to serve a campus in need?

Question: What other ideas do you have to impact a local school? 

 

Microsoft’s Vision of Productivity Technology

By Stephen Blandino on November 1, 2011 in Culture, Miscellaneous with 0 Comments

Microsoft is envisioning technology that will help people become more productive at work, home, and on the go. Check out this amazing video Microsoft released last week. It’s their vision of future productivity.

Why Leadership Development is Critical to the Great Commission

By Stephen Blandino on October 14, 2011 in Church, Culture, Leadership with 0 Comments

I’m pretty passionate about the development of leaders. If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, that statement comes as no surprise. But one reason for my passion is because I believe to my core that leadership development is crucial to the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

I just returned from a week of ministry in Gabon, Africa. Gabon is located on the equator along the west coast of Africa. During my visit, I spent three days training a group of 25 pastors. I was humbled by the gracious response of these leaders. During these rare instances when they have the opportunity to receive training, they’re like dry sponges absorbing desperately needed water. What we take for granted in America—the leadership books, training, conferences, and coaching opportunities–simply do not exist in many parts of our world. But my real purpose for going to Gabon was to meet with a group of pastors and national ministry leaders to discuss the need for a Bible College in that area to train future church leaders. Why Gabon?

Within the particular denomination I met with, I discovered they have roughly 100 churches throughout the country of Gabon. However, they only have 50 pastors. That means each of these pastors is essentially leading two churches because there simply are not enough pastors available to serve. And of these 50 pastors, only 20 of them have had any kind of training.

As I spent time with these pastors, it became increasingly clear why the development of leaders is so crucial to the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Without leaders and leadership development:

  • New churches are not planted
  • Existing churches are under-served
  • People groups are not reached and the spread of the Gospel is limited
  • The discipleship gap widens
  • Basic Christian theology is almost non-existent
  • Servant-leadership is replaced by dictatorial leadership styles
  • Growth barriers are not broken
  • Church conflict is managed poorly
  • Ineffective ministry strategies are employed for lack of knowledge
  • Existing leaders experience burnout

Leaders are catalysts for change. The intentional development of leaders advances the work of the Kingdom and puts the Great Commission in reach. Pray for Africa. Pray for leaders. And the next time you wonder if leadership development in your ministry context is worth all of the time, energy, and resources…remember Gabon. And remember that the Great Commission hangs in the balance.

15 Insights From Catalyst Dallas

By Stephen Blandino on May 14, 2011 in Church, Culture, Leadership, Organizations, Personal Growth with 0 Comments

I’ve spent the last 3 days at the Catalyst Conference in Dallas. Catalyst is such a great event loaded with great leadership teaching, fantastic worship, inspiring stories from culture-shaping leaders, and hilarious creativity. This year’s theme was “Take Courage.” Here are a few of my favorite takeaways from the event:

1.   A single act of courage is often the tipping point for something extraordinary to happen - Pastor Andy Stanley shared this thought in the opening session and then described three faces of courage:

  • Courage to stay when it would be easier to go.
  • Courage to leave when it would be easier to stay.
  • Courage to ask for help, when it would be easier to pretend that everything is okay.

Stanley observed that you never know what hangs in the balance when God says to stay while others say to go or when God says to go when it would be easier to stay. He said the only thing we should fear is waking up one day and being outside of God’s will.

2.  Our response to fear is either to seek to be safer or seek to be braver - Gary Haugen from the International Justice Mission made this observation and then observed that we want to know with certainty the path to take, how much it will cost, and be assured that it will be successful. Haugen says, “You can experience your power safely or God’s power dangerously.”

3. Creative Idea + Organization & Execution + Community Forces + Leadership Capability = Making Ideas Happen - Scott Belsky, CEO of Behance, shared this formula as a process to turn great ideas into reality.

4. We are living somebody else’s to do list. Don’t surrender to reactionary workflow - This was another great insight by Scott Belsky. He observed that most leaders live in reactionary mode and abandon the essential practice of finding quiet spaces to think and reflect. This practice helps us be proactive.

5.  You can’t equate the blessed life with the safe life. The purpose of life is not to arrive at death safely - Christine Caine, founder of the A21 Campaign, shared this principle as she championed the cause of justice.  Christine works relentless to see slaves freed.

6. Compassion is never compassion until you roll up your sleeves, cross the street, and show compassion - Another great insight from Christine Caine.

7.  Joseph’s power was not about being powerful. It was about saving lives - This quote from Donald Miller as he shared about the life of Joseph was a great reminder of the purpose of leadership, power, and influence.

8. If you’re not dead, you’re not done - These are Craig Groeschel’s words of encouragement to the older generation followed by a challenge to invest in young leaders by delegating responsibility, not just tasks.

9. You can’t speed up maturity…it takes time - Craig made this challenge to the younger generation, reminding them of the importance of maturity and faithfulness.

10. You overestimate what God wants to do in the short run and grossly underestimate what God wants to do in the long run - This was another challenge Craig Groeschel made to the younger generation.

11. If you want to be over, learn to be under with integrity - This was Groeschel’s challenge to the young generation. He also reminded the audience of Andy Stanley’s words to leaders serving under a senior leader: “Honor publicly results in influence privately.” By honoring your leader publicly, you’ll gain influence with them in one-on-one meetings.

12. Admit your failures - Although this sounds like an obvious lesson, Scott Harrison, CEO of Charity: Water, used it to powerfully illustrate the value of transparency in leadership. Scott gave an example of drilling for water and the effort failing. They posted the video to their donors and didn’t try to candy coat the failure (even though 95% of the time they are successful). This transparency has only deepened respect from donors for the organization.

13. Do you teach your people that sin is an external activity or a state of the heart? Do you train people to attack the root or the branches? - These were questions Pastor Matt Chandler posed followed by the challenge that, “Most people don’t deal violently with sin.”

14. Your fully exploited strengths are of far greater value to your organization than your marginally improved weaknesses - Pastor Andy Stanley shared these words in his closing session. Some of his ideas included:

  • The less you do, the more you accomplish
  • The less you do, the more you enable others to accomplish
  • Only do what only you can do
  • Great achievers are not well-rounded. They are men and women who play to their strengths and delegate their weaknesses. Don’t focus on being well-rounded; focus on developing a well-rounded organization.
  • Your weakness is somebody else’s opportunity
  • Stress is often related to WHAT you are doing not HOW MUCH you are doing. Your sweet spot gives you energy.

15.  Get in the habit of saying to your team, “I’ll let you decide that.” This is the greatest way to develop leaders - Andy Stanley noted that when the organization’s key leader makes all the decisions, they become the bottleneck to leadership development.

Those are my 15 insights gleaned from this year’s Catalyst Conference in Dallas.

Question: What insights could you add to the lessons above? If you attended Catalyst, what lessons would you add?

 

Influencing the Future

By Stephen Blandino on March 31, 2011 in Church, Culture, Leadership, Organizations with 0 Comments

Churches tend to lag behind when it comes to innovation. Pastors are usually so focused on “Sunday’s Coming” that they forget the future is already here. As a result, churches spend most of their time living in the past, planning for today, and completely missing tomorrow.

But what if you could actually shape the future. What if, rather than living in reaction mode, you actually created the future. Irene Sanders, innovator and author of Strategic Thinking and the New Science, observes, “The key to influencing the future is to apply your thinking and planning resources NOW to emerging conditions, issues, and opportunities.” Doing so requires a blend of insight about the present and foresight about the future.

Insight comes from studying the issue or problem at hand, understanding your church’s history, knowing the assumptions that shape why and how you do ministry, and reading and learning outside of your field. This aggressive learning posture prepares you to see and seize the future.

Foresight is all about identifying your emerging initial conditions. I know that’s a mouthful so let me make it as plain as I can with application to a local church. Identifying your emerging initial conditions is about seeing the changes that are bubbling below the surface of your church that could have a radical impact on how you do ministry. These conditions are usually not easily visible. They could be emerging changes in the community where you serve, emerging technologies, economic shifts, growing needs, or any number of issues. Sanders says, “These are things which  may seem small now, but if any one of them mushroomed overnight it could have a dramatic impact on the future of your business.”

Continue Reading…

A Visual Picture of Calling

By Stephen Blandino on August 30, 2010 in Culture with 0 Comments

Yesterday I posted “Why Calling Isn’t Just for Pastors.” I was recently introduced to a fantastic video by The Fund for Theological Education that provides a clear snapshot of calling from a biblical perspective.  The video combines the idea of vocation, calling, talents, abilities, passions, and roles. It’s worth your time. Enjoy!



Vocation 101: What Do You Mean by Vocation? from FTE on Vimeo.

Why "Calling" Isn’t Just for Pastors

By Stephen Blandino on August 28, 2010 in Culture with 0 Comments

In church world, pastors often promote a sincere yet misguided idea that to be “called into the ministry” is the highest way to serve God. In fact, if you ever went to church camp as a teenager, you might have even heard a speaker give an altar call for people who felt “called.” So here’s my question: How come these speakers rarely or never gave an “invitation” for people who were called to serve God in business, media, education, politics, and any other number of roles? 

Let’s be honest. Most pastors would say, “Well sure God calls people to be in business. But it’s so they can be a witness and fund the kingdom.” While there’s truth to that statement, I would suggest that it’s extremely shortsighted. Calling is about so much more than funding someone else’s “ministry.” And while sharing Christ with others is very important, calling doesn’t stop there. Needless to say, there’s a lot of confusion about calling.

Authors Darrow Miller and Stan Guthrie observe that millions of believers operate from a worldview in which Christians fall into an ancient Greek dichotomy dividing the universe into the spiritual realm and the physical realm. This “sacred/secular” divide presents a skewed interpretation of Scripture. Bob Reccord and Randy Singer, authors of Made to Count, assert that the sacred and secular are nothing more than man-made distinctions. Instead, man is called to redeem all of culture…what Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey call, “The Cultural Commission.” Colson and Pearcey refer to the cultural commision as “the call to create a culture under the lordship of Christ…Our job is not only to build up the church but also to build a society to the glory of God.”

Os Hillman, author of The 9 to 5 Window observes that of Jesus’ 132 public appearances, all but ten were in the marketplace while 45 of His 52 parables had a workplace context. In the book of Acts, there were 40 miracles or divine encounters–39 of which occurred in the workplace. 

Here’s the point I want you to get: When leaders restrict “calling” to the church world, they diminish the biblical idea of calling and remove the power of the Gospel to redeem the marketplace and culture. Calling isn’t just for pastors–YOU are called. Perhaps Gene Edward Veith, Jr. says it best in God at Work: “‘The priesthood of all believers’ did not make everyone into church workers; rather, it turned every kind of work into a sacred calling.”

Consider the very term “vocation.” Vocation comes from the Latin word for “calling.” What we consider a job to pay the bills is actually much more than that. And in case you think that business, politics, media, banking, social services, education, engineering, art, or construction can’t be a “holy” calling, then who (or what) makes the call sacred? The call is sacred because of who it comes from not what it’s to. The source of the call, not the function of the call, is what makes the call sacred . A Holy God cannot produce unholy callings. And doesn’t God have the authority to call anyone He chooses to whatever vocation He chooses?

Scripture is clear: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10).  The “good works” you do may be different from the good works I do. But those works–although different–were prepared in advance for us to do. We are called and were created to do them. Other passages also reiterate calling (Romans 8:28, Romans 13:1-6, Colossians 3:23-24, John 14:14-18, Exodus 31:1-11, Exodus 35:30-35, 36:1). 

So how do you view calling? And what has God called you to? 
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