First: wow. If ever you needed a reason why reading through the New Testament should be done like a slow stroll through a garden, these few verses are it! You can “stop and smell the roses” on any of these thoughts, evaluating yourself against the truths that lie within, and spend days in prayerful meditation, and still have more to learn the next time you read through a passage of scripture like this.  Comment on this below and share what part of this passage you find the most encouraging or challenging.

There’s one truth in these verses I’ll touch on to get us started:

Have you ever sat through a Sunday sermon and thought Okay, I’ve heard this before? As the pastor talked you mentally checked out a bit, but you listened enough to confirm, yep, I know this. You have a level of knowledge with the scriptural truth being presented: you recognize it.  And perhaps because you recognize it you stop there, sure that you know this already.  But do you really? Do you know this truth, or do you recognize this truth?  Is the difference important?

On a recent reading through James, God knocked me upside the head with a realization: There are biblical truths that I think I know, but that I only recognize, that I don’t really know. In this passage of James and continuing into chapter two we are challenged to a different level of knowing.  An intimate and experiential level of knowing God’s truth.

[23] For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. [24] For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.  (James 1:23-24 ESV)

I know what I look like. When walking by a mirror I recognize it’s me. But do I really see myself and my imperfections? Do I see something that needs my attention, and once seeing, do I do something about it?

It’s one thing to read Galatians 5:22 and recognize “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” It’s something better to know and be able to describe the meaning of this nine-fold fruit of the Holy Spirit, from memory.  Still it is something much more profound to have these virtues growing in increasing power as you (aided by the Spirit) are a doer of them. This is an intimate, experiential knowing of God’s truth.

So what do you think?  What else is meaningful to you about James 1:19-27?

James 1: 1-8

If you haven’t already, download the Reading Through James reading plan.

Reading through the first chapter of James one of the realities that stood out to me is the generosity of God regardless of outward appearances.

Count it all joy, my brothers,  when you meet trials of many kinds…

At a first read this verse may sound nothing to you like a description of a good and generous God. Perhaps you read “trial” and filter the rest of this verse through a negative mindset. This is natural for us, but it need not be. We hear trial and think of something negative, painful, or perhaps being accused of a crime.  Throw all of that out, and read with me the next few verses with some italicized words for emphasis.

…you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Wow.  I mean, really!  What a wonderful promise of a gift of tremendous value. God is saying– behind our tests and trials– He will work out our character. If you’re like me you’ve found yourself asking God for some character traits before: you’ve prayed for patience, or for peace, or self-control. Well, for better or worse, God is happy to grant these requests, but it isn’t usually with a zap, “there you go” kind of answer.  But here is a description of one way God does give us his character: through “trials of various kinds.”

Wouldn’t you like to be the kind of person described here? Steadfast? Perfect and complete? Lacking in nothing? A quick thought on “perfect” here. The concept is not that we become sinless and perfect like Jesus in this life, but rather we are developed into whole and mature believers.

Are you in the midst of a trial? If so, know that God will be happy to use it to develop you. And if you aren’t sure how in the world he’s going to do that, or what you should do in the midst of your trial, then verse 5 has a great truth for you too:

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him.

Today we introduced a series titled “Pivotal: a fresh approach to spiritual growth.”  Each week will be inspired by a section of the New Testament book James. To maximize your growth during this series we are inviting you to join us as we study through and blog about the book of James.  If you do, you’ll read through the book two times over the next four weeks. Here’s the calendar we will follow, and I encourage you to join us:

Download James Reading Plan

Also, we will be blogging daily our thoughts on the daily reading.  Jump in and comment and share what God has challenged you on as you are reading.  I look forward to hearing how God speaks to you all through his Word!

Want to listen to the Harvest U- Leader Cast? Download the mp3.  You can also download this blog in pdf form to read or print: download pdf.

Increasing leadership is essential to increasing ministry reach.

According to John Maxwell “everything rises and falls on leadership.” While it’s easy to attack “everything”, “always”, and “never” statements; there’s truth behind the statement. The quality and the quantity of leaders in a church will limit the number of people God will reach and grow through its ministry.  If we believe that God is calling us to reach and disciple an increasing number of people through our ministry, then we must also understand that we need to increase the number and quality of leaders in our organization.

The question is where do those leaders come from? Our answer is that, by and large, leaders of a church should be raised up from within the church.  With this in mind we realize that our best pool of potential leaders are those that are already serving in a ministry at Harvest. Apprenticing leaders is a great solution to the need for expanding leadership.

Develop an apprentice for yourself.

Learn to spot a leader on your team.

• Leaders exhibit initiative.
• Leaders are self-sufficient in their role– the kind of person who takes things off your plate, not adds to it.
• Leaders have influence over others. If someone is a leader, people will follow. Spot those volunteers that are already a leader without the title. At Harvest we believe that leadership is recognized not appointed.
• Leaders need to be good followers too. It’s important that your apprentice have great buy-in to the vision.
• Leaders see ways things could work better. This is not the same as someone who grumbles about problems. Leaders have an ability to see how a problem might be remedied.

Apprentice your replacement by following three steps:  Show and Explain, Observe and Coach, Release and Evaluate

Show & Explain: In this step your apprentice observes what you do in your role and you teach them the ins and outs of your job.

By systematic in what you explain while avoiding information overload. You want to give your apprentice a thorough understanding of the job, but realize that he won’t be able to learn or understand it all until he gets time to try to practice doing the job as well.

Focus on the Values– the heart and the why of what you do.  Help your apprentice understand and connect to the WHY.  Strong leaders are driven by values. If your apprentice knows what your ministry team is trying to accomplish and why, they can begin to understand and properly place the specific tasks that they are supposed to fulfill.  Think of it like trying to organize a library of books.  The individual books are the tasks you do as the ministry team leader.  The first thing your apprentice needs before they try to organize all of the books (or tasks) of your ministry library is a way to organize them– like bookshelves.  The bookshelves are the goals and the values of your ministry.  The bookshelves are concepts like: on the tech team we value excellence because our goal is to help people connect with and worship God.  Anything less than our best isn’t cool. Or another bookshelf for a tech team might be We want to empower a tech team volunteer to own their role. These Bookshelves give the structure, or the why to tasks.  This way tasks are connected to a WHY.  So tasks like running through all videos prior to service, or running the slides with the band during practice, can be connected to the WHY bookshelf of our goal is to help people connect with and worship God.  Anything less than our best isn’t cool.

Observe & Coach: Now that you’ve explained the role you should give deliberate opportunities for your apprentice to wear your shoes with you. By allowing someone to practice your role with your help you provide a safe way for her to get her feet wet.  You’re like a coach in that your apprentice is on the court playing while you’re actively involved from the bench.  You can call a time out any time to offer advice or redirect.  Like a coach, however, you’re letting your apprentice take control of the ball.

• Help your apprentice remember the tasks that have to be completed, and reinforce the why along the way as well.
• After the “game”, evaluate the performance.  An important piece to the Observe & Coach step is providing immediate, constructive feedback to your apprentice.  Share what he did well, then areas that can be improved, and reinforce the positive again.  Be sure to allow for 2-way discussion so you can learn what you need to do different as a coach.  You shouldn’t do all the talking.

Release and Evaluate: When you and your apprentice are comfortable enough you should move on to step three: Release and Evaluate.  I say comfortable enough because no one’s every totally ready.  You need to know when it’s time to push your  apprentice-chick out of the nest and let her fly.  This step is different from the last in one main way.  You are gone.  Let your apprentice lead, alone. After each opportunity that your apprentice has had to run with your job on his own, help him evaluate and process his performance.

The Harvest U- Leader Cast is a resource to those that would like to grow in their ability to lead.  Some of the topics will relate to the specific skills needed by leaders of church ministry teams.  Many will have larger implications to leadership in any situation.  Those that are in leadership at Harvest will be encouraged to digest and apply the material from the Leader Cast, but our hope is that many others will find the material rewarding as well.  That said, enjoy episode 1 of the Harvest U- Leader Cast!   -Micah Hutchison, Executive Pastor

Want to listen to the Harvest U- Leader Cast? Download the mp3.  You can also download this blog in pdf form to read or print: download pdf

How to Quit Like a Winner (part 1)

The way you quit like a winner is by building a replacement culture. Regardless of the leadership or volunteer position you are serving in at Harvest, there’s at least one job description you share in common with everyone else: work yourself out of a job. If that statement seems a little off to you, good. In the next several minutes I’ll explain.

If you’ve served in a ministry position for any length of time you’ve probably noticed that there always seems to be more good that could be done if only there were more people involved. It makes sense why Jesus encouraged said to his disciples “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2 ESV). It’s natural for those serving in a ministry to assume that it is the job of their team leader to recruit new members. Likewise, it’s common for team leaders to look to the pastoral staff to fill their recruiting needs as well. I propose a different approach: every team member and leader should try to work him or herself out of a job by recruiting, mentoring, and training someone else to take their place.
This LeaderCast will give you a few keys to reproducing yourself as a leader and teaching your ministry team members to do the same.

Build a replacement culture:

Teach your team members to “shoulder tap.” Shoulder tapping means personally inviting someone you know to serve with you in your ministry. We are wired for ministry. God has gifted all Christians with assets to do ministry, and they and the Church miss out as long as those gifts are not put to use. Shoulder tapping acknowledges that people want to make a difference with their lives, and they want deep relational connections too. Serving in ministry allows opportunities for both. Help your team members see that they have connection with people that you and the pastoral staff do not, and it’s possible no one will invite them if they do not.

Empower your volunteers to be recruiters and trainers. In addition to inviting people into your ministry, do your team members feel empowered to train others in their positions? Have you ever had someone on your team tell you something like this: Hey, I’ll be out of town for a couple weeks this month, but it’s no problem. I’ve been working with John for the past few weeks. I’ve shown him everything I do, and let him run things on his own the past couple weeks. This week I’ve just been hanging back making sure he’s got it all down. He’ll be covering for me while I’m gone. In fact, I was thinking, since John has my job down and really likes it I wanted to see if there’s anything different that you need help with that I could take off your plate? Sound like a pipe dream? Maybe not once your team grasps how to quit like a winner.

Some Do’s for building a replacement culture on your ministry team:

• Take the initiative. Take the initiative to challenge your team members to shoulder tap. Take the initiative to recruit others yourself. I know, I just said it’s your goal to teach your team members to be recruiters, but you should be modeling this skill to your team.
• Challenge team members regularly and specifically to recruit. Maybe give a specific goal that is stated in their orientation and training that as a volunteer I will attempt to recruit one other volunteer to join me in this ministry.
• Redirect recruiting misconceptions. When your team members bring up the people needs on the team in a way that tags you as the leader, sensitively redirect them to keep ownership of the need. For example, when a volunteer trys to “tag” you with the need to recruit more help in a specific area, make it a team issue by bringing your teams attention to the need and encouraging them to think of people they know that they could invite to join the team.
• Think wide. Encourage your team members to be open to appropriate people outside of your church that they can tap the shoulders of as well.
• Celebrate! Be sure to celebrate the wins when team members follow through and shoulder tap someone new into your team.

Next Week:

Stay tuned for episode 2 of Harvest U-Leader Cast. I’ll take this discussion further for you as a leader.   Are you preparing to quit like a winner in your leadership role? Next week I’ll show you why every leader needs an apprentice.

Want to listen to the Harvest U- Leader Cast? Download the mp3.  Also, download this blog in pdf form to read or print: download pdf.