Follow Me

We had a wonderful time listening to one of our teaching Pastor's this last week-in. Part of the message had to do with servant leadership and the responsibility that they have to lead people to a whole, healthy please were they can flourish. The words "follow me" might not be to familiar to us, but the words mentors is.

I found an article by Lynn Anderson from www.heartlight.org . . and I incurage you read it below.

Ralph raised his hand in the middle of my presentation on mentors and challenged, "where is the word mentor used in the Bible." Admittedly, the word mentor does not appear in the Bible. It actually comes from Greek mythology, and has been popularized in our time by Erik Erikson. And cultural anthropologists tell us that almost every society has had "elders" of some kind. Whether they be tribal chieftains, village head-men, clan leaders or family patriarchs most every social unit across history and around the globe has clearly recognized adult role-models or Wisdom Figures. These are generally older, more experienced, stronger members of the group to whom the younger look for identity. However, until recently this role is conspicuously absent from modern American culture, at least in formal social structures. Nevertheless, informally, sometimes even subconsciously, we long for mentors. We seem to do better when they are in our lives. Plus this warning: when we don't find positive mentors, by default negative ones usually find us!

So spiritual mentors are extremely important in our spiritual development. And Biblical. No, Ralph, the word mentor is not in the Bible. But the concept is written all over the New Testament in the ministry of Jesus and of the apostles as well as in instructions for the rest of us.

Mentoring in the church is unique, however, because here the mentor models more than style or vision. Rather this is spiritual leadership - even life-style and faith formation. With this kind of leadership, Jesus stood aggressive, competitive and controlling human leadership on its head. He said, "Who ever would be great among you must be your servant." (Matthew 2:25-28) And, "The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."(Mark 10:45)

This, of course, means that spiritual leaders are to be identified in a radically different way and upon different criterion than leaders are usually recognized in other arenas: business, military, politics, athletics. Spiritual leaders are not necessarily to be admired on the basis of their business administration skills or their entrepreneurial leadership, but because of their shepherd hearts! Their servant life-style. Churches must not yield to the temptation to appoint leaders simply because they are men of high energy who "get things done," but because peace exudes from the center of all they do. Biblical leaders do their shepherding by mentoring.

God has written the mentor concept into human nature and that is why the concept is written into the Bible.

"Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ. "Jesus made his leadership style clear! He led out so that we can follow. He said, "If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." (Mt. 16:24-26 NIV) When he cut our marching orders he said, "Go...teach.... baptize....(then) teach them to observe all I have commanded you." In other words, "go lead people to Christ and help shape Christ-like life-styles."

Paul the apostle also, spelled out mentoring as his leadership model very simply. "Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ." (I Cor. 11:1) "Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me "put it into practice." (Phil. 4:9) In other words, "let me mentor you. Let me be your role model."

He reminds new Christians at Thessalonica to "follow our example." (I Thes. 3:6) And Paul said, "we have made ourselves a model for you to follow." (v.9) Example! Teach! Model! These are all facets of mentoring which is an indispensable tool in developing fully devoted followers of Jesus and in transmitting the faith from one generation to the next.

Not only Jesus and the apostles, but elders as well do their work by mentoring. Peter charges flatly, "be examples to the flock." (I Pet. 5:4) And Paul explains to the elders at Ephesus, "You know how I lived the whole time I was with you"(Acts 20:17) and "In everything I did I showed you that by this kind of work we must help the weak." (v.35) In other words, Paul is telling the elders, "I showed you, now you show them." Bluntly: If a Christian leader is not mentoring someone, to that degree he or she is not living up to his or her calling.

Of course, God has filled the body of Christ with many potential mentors, besides those who are named as elders, or shepherds. And the official church leaders cannot personally meet all the mentoring needs of every Ted and Sally, Sue and Jerry and Jim. However, church leaders will automatically be mentors because, like it or not, people will look to them for spiritual leadership. They are "examples to the flock." Further, leaders of the church are charged to "help the weak and encourage the timid" and to "serve and care for the flock." And while it may not be possible for shepherds to personally, intentionally, hands-on mentor each sheep that needs mentored, they along with other church leaders are to help these needy sheep find godly mentors. To provide for the mentoring needs of their local community of faith, the leaders must be intentional, continually expanding the circle of mentors by "equipping others" to mentor.

However, whether or not the leaders of my church are mentoring me, I am called to be a mentor and to find mentors. You too. Again, let me challenge you to develop your GGTW list (Guys and Gals To Watch). Be intentional. Move in beside someone and build your life into theirs. And be intentional about finding mentors. Pull in beside spiritually exciting and mature persons that you admire and ask them to help you find a mentor. Who knows, that person may actually become the mentor you need.

Lord give The Chapel more servant leadres.

Have an awesome day.

David

The Good Samaritian

This Sunday our church dove into the story of the Good Samaritan. This story told by Jesus to a lawyer of the law I would say is known by more non-christians then most other stoires told by Christ. It might have to do with the fact that there are many people in this world that love to help others who are in Crisis. Think about it, a death in the family, the lost of a home to a fire or a the dreded sickness that starts with the letter "C". Beleiver or not, people gerneally responses in kind to crises.

But giving the context of the story and the back and forth diologe between Christ and the Lawyer, I think only one thing was being said and only one group of people God was calling out. So, what was the one thing and the one Group?

Well, simply said, He was calling out all beleivers to fullfull their directive from God to "Get R done" when it comes to helping people in crises.

This parable tells us that when we start with the law, we will never arrive at grace. But when we start with grace, we may well find that the law of love gets fulfilled simply and solely because of the kind of people we became after the grace of God lifted us up out of the ditch where our sin and the devil had left us to die.

Later in the New Testament, reflecting on his own conversion to faith in Jesus as Lord, the apostle Paul will say that the law brings death. That surely would have been the case for the man in the ditch in Luke 10. The law would have killed him, would have left him for dead no less than the thugs who mugged him in the first place. But grace saved him. Like a Samaritan stranger who shows up from out of nowhere, so grace always comes from out of a clear blue sky as a sheerly unexpected, undeserved gift.

We need that grace because if we are honest, we confess that on our own we tend to be pretty unloving a lot of the time. So how wonderful it is that, as it turns out, the only way to love God and neighbor is through the very same grace that also forgives our countless failures of love. But the more you get forgiven for being unloving, the more loving you want to be in return. So our question is not the lawyer's question of "What must I do to be saved?" Our question is "What did Jesus do to save us?" If you can get a good answer to that question, you won't need to hear Jesus say, "Go and do likewise." Grace will so fill you with love that you will want to go and do as Jesus did. You won't have to. You will want to.

Windows 2010 Pt. 4

This Sunday we finished up our serious outlining the future for the Chapel. The message was pretty clear today, the leaders we want at The Chapel are not Serve-Me leaders but Servant Leaders.

How can one most easily differentiate a Serve-ME Leader from a Servant Leader? Autocratic leadership rather than leadership by example is often the telltale evidence that a leader is not following in the footsteps of Jesus. If the leader emphasizes his mandate rather than his example, beware: worldly leadership is afoot!
Why is leadership by mandate rather than by example such a reliable indicator of the quality of leadership? Because it reveals a key characteristic, which differentiates a Servant-Me from a Servant Leader: the motives of the leader.

Although the differences between Servant Leadership and Serve-ME Leadership may be less obvious externally, their internal motives are worlds-apart.

The Serve-ME Leader prefers to lead by mandate rather than example because serving by example involves two actions which the Serve-ME Leader wants to avoid at all costs, which are; leaders and followers are all on level ground and secondly, servant leaders get their hands dirty.

Another difference in motivation between the Serve-ME leader and the Servant Leader is found in the focus of his interest.

The Servant Leader is concerned with the well being of others. In contrast, the Serve-ME Leader uses others to enhance his own well-being.

Another difference between Servant Leadership and Serve-ME Leadership is found in how the leader interacts with those under his influence.

The Serve-ME Leader seeks to control others in an attempt to manipulate the outcome of events. In contrast, the Servant Leader trusts that God owns the results of his actions. Therefore, he can rest in whatever destination God has in mind.

Since I’m on a roll, let me give you one more difference between servant leaders and serve-me leaders.

How about the difference between the Servant Leader and Serve-ME Leader as it proteins to the distance between the leader and those he leads. The Serve-ME Leader has a vested interest in maintaining a separation between himself and those he leads. This distance is established and reinforced in order to keep himself on a different, higher plane than those he leads. On the other hand, Servant Leader has grown beyond the need to control those he leads. Because he is focused on their well-being, his relationship with them cultivates trust and intimacy. This, in turn, becomes the basis of open communication producing an atmosphere of well-being and peace.

I think this last point is an important one for me, why, because I’m a relationship dude. I love people, and a distance between myself and the ones I serve has to be close or I would die.

Servant Leadership, so important and so needed in our churches today.

Windows 2010 Pt. 3

Well, we continued our journey through our 2010 goals and we landed on the topic of being a servant.

The Bible gives us a clue what kind of servant we need to be when it said, "if you want to be great in God's kingdom, learn to be the servant of all".

I'm so glad that he said that we needed to learn, because servanthood doesn't come easy. Why is it that we are so filled with self when it comes to the life's we live.

But really if you think about it, the lives that God intended for us is quite the contrary to the way that most people think. But can we really have a servant that is filled with self. I don't think so, but then again, self seems to many times derail the very nature of servanthood.

Lord, let me learn more about me, so I can reduce the me, to help the we.

David