“God has revealed so many glorious contradictions in the lives and conduct of genuine Christian believers…”

• The Christian is dead and yet he lives forever. 
• The Christian saves his own life by losing it, and he is in danger of losing it by trying to save it. 
• the Christian is strongest when he is weakest and weakest when he is strongest.
• The Christian is in least danger when he is fearful and trusting God and in the most danger when he feels the most self-confident.
• The Christian actually has the most when he is giving away the most

Lord, help me be a glorious contradiction to this world. 

http://www.cmalliance.org/devotions/tozer?id=235 

“You dream. You plan. You reach. There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. There will be mistakes. But with hard work, with belief, with confidence and trust in yourself and those around you, there are no limits”

– Michael Phelps

Didn’t get to attend the Pipeline Conference last year, but have wore out a highlighter going through the feature book by Eric Geiger and Kevin Peck called Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development. The thesis of the book is that the church should be a great catalyst of developing leaders in every sphere of life. Geiger and Peck lay out the theological case for leadership development in the church and also make practical steps to get started very accessible for churches of every size. Exposed is our lack of true leadership development in the church and our dependence on a professional class instead of God’s power through God’s people with clergy being equippers. Must read for church planters who must multiply leaders and set a course for maximum impact for years to come. Here are ten of my favorite quotes from Designed to Lead:

• The Church is uniquely set apart to develop and deploy leaders for the glory of God and the advancement of the gospel.
• The full extent of discipleship is the development of disciples who are able to lead and develop others, not merely people who gather for worship once a week.
• True leaders are servants who die to themselves so others may flourish.
• The Christian life is not about trying daily, but dying daily.
• The Church has been designed to possess a holy rhythm of gathering people to scatter that more may be gathered.
• It is not first the work of our hands that pleases the Lord, but the condition of our hearts.
• The Church is not a Christian club, weekly group counseling session, or weekend pick-me-up. Your local church is the beautiful bridge of King Jesus!
• People will follow your example before they follow your vision.
• Church leaders must confidently invite people to serve, knowing that the opportunities to serve provide moments where development occurs.
• Our churches don’t need spiritual travel agents who promote journeys they don’t take. We need tour guides who set a wise direction, take the journey with the people, and live all that they are inviting the people to live. 

A few more posts coming from this book in coming weeks. More info and some resources on the book at DesignedtoLead.com. Also, check out and follow Eric Geiger’s Blog for other great leadership resources.

Prayer is co-operation with God. It is the purest exercise of the faculties God has given us—an exercise that links these faculties with the Maker to work out the intentions He had in mind in their creation. Prayer is aligning ourselves with the purposes of God…

Prayer is commitment. We don’t merely co-operate with God with certain things held back within… We, the total person, co-operate. This means that co-operation equals commitment. Prayer means that the total you is praying… Your whole being reaches out to God, and God … reaches down to you…

Prayer is communion. Prayer is a means, but often it is an end in itself… There are times when your own wants and the needs of others drop away and you want just to look on His face and tell Him how much you love Him…

Prayer is commission. Out of the quietness with God, power is generated that turns the spiritual machinery of the world. When you pray, you begin to feel the sense of being sent, that the divine compulsion is upon you.

… E. Stanley Jones in Growing Spiritually. Via CQOTD

JR Woodward’s and Dan White Jr.’s book The Church as Movement: Starting and Sustaining Missional-Incarnational Communities is well worth reading for church planters or leaders pursuing missional, incarnational movement. Great info and ideas on starting and sustaining missional communities. Also, goes into great detail on the APEST modes of church leadership – Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Shepherds, Teachers. Also, great information on the spiritual maturity as it relates to missional communities and deep relationships around discipleship. Would be great for a core group or launch team utilizing missional communities as a strategy to go through. Would also be good for a church wanting to get back to a missional, community driven focus to go through. Want be shelving this one anytime soon. Good tool to keep handy as we look to make disciples and catalyze a movement. Lots of good resources, worksheets, etc. at churchasmovement.com.

Wore through a highlighter reading this book, but here’s a few of my favorite highlights:

1. Jesus’ main message centered on the kingdom of God and his primary way of creating movement was confiding in the three, training the Twelve and mobilizing the seventy.
2. We must die to our self, our infatuation with speed and size, and devote ourselves to the work of making disciples, training the few.
3. Movement is about developing structures and systems that catapult people into mission.
4. the church as movement values shared leadership, sustainability and faithfulness, leaving fruitfulness to God.
5. the church as movement focuses on the “small” grassroots work of developing a discipleship core that builds a missional community together.
6. The church is not the church if it is not moving deeper into the brokenness of our world.
7. The key element to the spontaneous expansion of the church is simplicity.
8. Movement requires reproducibility. What we are multiplying should be reproducible by just about everyone.
9. We must remember that faithfulness is our part, and fruitfulness is God’s. He can choose to move as slow or fast as he desires.
10. Skill is not the first thing that qualifies leaders in the missional church; character is.
11. Personality is great, but a sustainable movement is not built on it. Movements are built on character.
12. Conflict in relating with others in community often hints at things we haven’t paid attention to in our own soul.
13. We discover much about ourselves as we move outward on mission. Our fears, our insecurities, our hypocrisies, our apathies and our chaos is revealed as we attempt to live a missional life.
14. Discipleship is a move toward accountability and vulnerability to learn and practice the way of Jesus on mission.
15. Discipleship involves heart , mind and body learning, not just the transfer of information and beliefs.
16. Discipleship cannot be consumed; we must participate in it.
17. Mission is much more than a weekend project; it is an incarnational pursuit to be faithfully present to God’s in-breaking kingdom in the ordinariness of life.
18. the church is not a building, a weekly gathering or a program, but a people God has called out of the world and sent back into the world to redeem and renew the world.
19. This is the essence of the church: a people who find their identity in the arms of God (communion), rallied around tables welcoming each other (community) and sent out into the world with serving hands (co-mission).
20. The church cannot storm the gates of hell by gathering around consumer needs. A shared life and the shared story that Jesus is King are its rallying points.

“I was all the time tugging and carrying water. But now I have a river that carries me.”

D.L. Moody

“But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”

‭‭Jesus, John‬ ‭4:14‬ ‭NLT‬‬ – http://bible.com/116/jhn.4.14.nlt

• Constantly feeling the tension of the ropes reminds us of our great need for his strength.
• Finding ourselves thirsty, reminds us to give up on anything that promises refreshment.
• Spring up, O well within. Carry me.

How close is my church to being a multiplying church? What markers to I need to aim for if I desire for my church or network to multiply? Jimmy Scroggins and Steve Wright share a great list of 10 markers or characteristics of a Multiplying Movement in their great book Turning Everyday Conversations into Gospel Conversations. Here’s the list in the form of 10 questions to Gauge multiplication:

1. How are we expanding the vision to share the gospel for our people?
2. How are we encouraging focused prayer for evangelism?
3. Are we providing simple and reproducible gospeling tools?
4. Is there an abundance of gospel seed sowing?
5. Are we training our people to share the gospel frequently and regulary?
6. Are new believers rapid to obey and go make disciples in their networks?
7. Are we seeing generational growth patterned after 2 Timothy 2:2?
8. How are we holding each other accountable to sharing the gospel?
9. How are we celebrating stories of obedience in gospel sharing?
10. How are we multiplying churches through our new disciples?

Challenging list, but some simple starting points for any church.

>> Expand the vision. The authors give the challenge of considering “how many new disciples would you need to turn back the lostness in your immediate area by just 1 percent?” In my community, The Association of Religious Data Archives says there are 116,018 unaffiliated individuals, that are not part of any church or religious body. So to just focus on these would mean, we’d need to reach 1,160 people! Need big vision to accomplish this!

>> Begin to Pray. “Prayer aligns our hearts with God’s heart for the lost.” Great tools like BlessEveryHome.com can be used for strategic prayer across your community. Also, devising a way for people to write down their lost friends pray for regularly.

>> Provide tools and training. “A commitment to frequent, intentional training is the key factor that distinguishes a multiplying movement from one of fast addition.” How are you training people to share the gospel? Lots of tools available like One on One: Evangelism Made Simple through the Louisiana Baptist Convention, the 3 Circles Life Conversation Guide through the North American Mission Board. Books like Turning Everyday Conversations into Gospel Conversations, Sharing Jesus Without Freaking Out by Alvin Reid, and Tell Someone by Greg Laurie. Lot’s of simple ways to provide training.

Turning Everyday Conversations Into Gospel Conversations is also a good How To book for Christians, presenting the 3-Circles method of sharing the Gospel. Check it out and maybe buy a box for your small group or church resource center.

Here’s a few other great quotes from the book:

• The North American church needs more believers actively engaging their neighbors and coworkers in gospel conversations.
• It’s not enough to preach the gospel only on Sunday. It’s not enough for a handful of seminary trained individuals to tell several hundred people the good news once a week.
• every follower of Jesus should be intentionally discipling at least one person.
• How do we know when someone is ready to hear and genuinely respond to the gospel? The fact is we really never know what God is doing in someone’s heart. We need to have frequent, intentional gospel conversations and then allow the gospel to be the filter.
• What fueled the exponential and explosive growth of Christianity in the first century was how ordinary people spoke of the gospel to everyone they knew.
• Christ followers are lifelong repenters who need to rehearse the gospel daily.
• If our golf swing is worth practicing, then certainly our gospel sharing is as well.
• Multiplying movements ignite when new believers are immediately trained, discipled, and released to win and disciple those who far from God.

“The Gospel came to you because it was heading to someone else. God never intended for your salvation to be an end, but a beginning. God saved you to be a conduit through whom His glorious, life changing gospel would flow to others. You are a link in a chain….”

Robby Gallaty, in Growing Up: Becoming a Disciple Who Makes Disciples

“The Christian church with all its faults is the greatest serving institution on earth. It has many critics, but no rivals in the work of human redemption… No other institution has done anything like it—none whatever. The fact that the church has been able to survive the dead weight of a large proportion of its membership unconverted is a proof of its essential soundness and vitality. A minority of converted people keep its soul alive.”

E. Stanley Jones, Conversion