Your Small Group Must Be a “NO SPIN” Zone

By Rick Howerton

 

“Spin” is a dangerous thing as it misleads and keeps you from knowing the real truth, but it happens in small groups all the time.

With the 24-hour news cycle, politics and politicians are sounding off ad nausea. And when they are sounding off, I find myself asking this question … “What is the truth?” It seems like the news media has teams of people who do nothing but inform us when a candidate is telling the complete truth and when they are not. Candidates and their teams use “spin” when making statements to the press, in speeches, and when asked direct questions, leaving all of us screaming … “What is the real truth!?”
One person defined spin as, “To provide an interpretation of (a statement or event, for example), especially in a way meant to sway public opinion.” My definition would be more like, “Half truths or all out lies that keep us from finding out what really happened or what you’re really thinking or believe.”
Some techniques of spin are (as seen in Wikipedia):

• Selectively presenting facts and quotes that support one’s position. That is, giving half of the story so that the real story is never exposed. Some people call this “cherry picking.”
• Non-denial denial – a statement that seems direct, clearcut and unambiguous at first hearing, but when carefully parsed is revealed not to be a denial at all, and is thus not untruthful. It is a case in which words that are literally true are used to convey a false impression. As in the infamous statement made by Bill Clinton when he was physically involved with Monica Lewinsky. He announced, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” It later transpired that the truth of the statement hinged on Clinton’s use of a narrow legal definition of “sexual relations” which had been agreed upon for the purposes of the case—that sex is defined in many legal codes as a person making physical contact with another person’s sex organs. While they had been physical in many other ways, he hadn’t made contact with her most intimate parts.
• Phrasing in a way that assumes unproven truths
• Euphemisms to disguise or promote one’s agenda

Spin has become so much a part of our culture that Bill O’Reilly, host of The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News has, as part of his show, “The No Spin Zone,” a segment of the show when Mr. O’Reilly allows no spin and will drive hard to get to the truth if anyone tries to spin the facts.
Spin is a dangerous thing as it misleads and keeps you from knowing the real truth. But it happens in small groups all the time (especially in men’s accountability groups) and is very, very dangerous because, when someone is caught “spinning” the trust factor in group is greatly diminished.
Small Groups must be no spin zones. Leaders, here are a few tips that may make your group a “No Spin Zone.”

1. Create an environment of grace. Remind the group consistently that God always forgives and then tell how and when He has forgiven you.
2. Model complete honesty yourself.
3. When you catch yourself “spinning” immediately say, “Okay, okay, let me tell you the whole story.” Then do it. You’ll be respected for it.
4. Ask group members to tell the last 10 percent. Bill Hybels once did a talk in which he stated that many people give 90 percent of the story but don’t tell the last 10 percent, the parts that make them look bad or reveal who they really are.
5. After a group member divulges something that seems contrived or misleading, say, “Is that what really happened?” with a voice inflection that would lead the group member to think you were awestruck by the story. You’ll give them a chance to clean up the spin they’ve just dumped if they care to do so.
6. Praise group members when they are so transparent it causes the cringe factor to fill the room. In most environments the cringe factor is sensed at the moment someone tells all. As you praise those who tell all others will note that this is honorable and appropriate.

Small group leader … If you can make your small group a No Spin Zone, you’ll create an environment where people can be set free.
“…confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” James 5:16  

Rick has one passion... To see “a biblical small group within walking distance of every person on the planet making disciples that make disciples.” He is presently the Small Group and Discipleship Specialist at LifeWay Church Resources. Rick has authored or co-authored multiple books, studies, and leader training resources. Rick’s varied ministry experiences as a collegiate pastor, small group pastor, teaching pastor, full-time trainer and church consultant, as well as having been a successful church planter gives him a perspective of church life that is all-encompassing and multi-dimensional. Rick is a highly sought after speaker and trainer speaking at or leading training in about forty settings annually. More from Rick Howerton or visit Rick at http://biblestudyinsider.com/

Report from Tajikistan with thanks to all who pray and who give!

Peace be to you and blessings!

The Lord is blessing us as the President made a decree where the ID documents\passports are to be given without any obstacles to the orphans and orphanage graduates.  We started compiling papers for those who need the IDs.

Girls are doing well, working at bakery, washing dishes or babysitting. 

We started breeding pigeons in ObiGarm.

Farhod serves at around 10 families that recieve them, Tajiks, also there are 14 families in Regar where we hold meetings.  Many have converted to Jesus, and there are 11 families in Rogun,  3 families in Yavan,  16 in Dushanbe, and in 2 high security prison there are gatherings of 35-40 brothers. 

Pray about it all, we pray that Steve comes. The team is working and Jesus is blessing us as we work to provide for the ministry, trying to learn things to teach others, to bring the Gospel by word and deed. God willing we will develop the mobile bee farm even better. We work with people in the village where the farm is at right now.

Pray for complete healing of my son. A lot of difficulties, but Jesus knows them all. 

Pray about the kids in the mercy home as there are many difficulties, but the Lord is helping. Hoping to raise them as I have been a street kid myself. 

Blessings, Sergey

Shocking Beliefs of D.L. Moody

May 25, 2015 by Frank Viola 6 Comments

“God never gives us discernment in order that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.” 
~ Oswald Chambers
If you’re new to the “Shocking Beliefs” series, I’ll open this post by quoting from the preface to the first installment on the Shocking Beliefs of C.S. Lewis.
This explains why – precisely – I’m producing this series.

A well-known Christian author whom I greatly respect encouraged me to begin a series on the shocking beliefs of some of the great Christians who have impacted church history.

Every follower of Jesus is a rough draft. Over time, the great Editor – the Holy Spirit – shapes our lives and views. But until we see the Lord and “know even as we are known,” we’re are in process.

This is also true for those Christians who have gone before us.

Therefore, one of the mistakes that we must guard against is to dismiss a person’s entire contribution because they may hold (or have held) to ideas that we find hard to stomach.

Speaking personally, if I demanded that a person’s views on every subject under the sun be identical to mine as a condition to be helped by them, then if I had met myself 20 years ago, I’d have to disfellowship myself!

The truth is, my views on some topics have changed over the years.

And so have yours.

Point: we are all in process. None of us gets everything right all the time. That stands true for every Christian who has ever breathed oxygen.

So my purpose in highlighting some of “the shocking beliefs” of those upon whose shoulders we all stand is not to burn these folks in effigy. Nor is it to dismiss their positive contribution to church history.

Rather, it’s to demonstrate that even though they may have held to views that would raise the eyebrows of most evangelicals today, that doesn’t overturn nor negate the valuable ideas they contributed to the body of Christ.

Unfortunately, many evangelicals are quick to discount — and even damn — their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ over alleged doctrinal trespasses, even if those same brothers and sisters hold to the historical orthodox creeds (Apostle’s Creed, Nicene Creed, etc.). Such discounting and damning can always be avoided and it serves no one on the Kingdom side of the aisle.

When diversity within orthodoxy is encountered, grace should be extended. Just as we would want grace extended to us, seeing that none of us sees perfectly (Matthew 7:12).

The words of Paul of Tarsus contain thunder and lightning for us all, “Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete . . .” (1 Corinthians 13:9, NLT).

Today, we’ll be looking at some of the surprising and controversial beliefs of D.L. Moody.

In many respects, D.L. Moody is one of my favorite movers-and-shakers in church history.
He — along with A.W. Tozer, Charles Spurgeon, G. Campbell Morgan — was a powerful witness to God’s sod-turning penchant for greatly using people who didn’t have formal theological educations.
In Moody’s case, he was poorly educated across the board. Yet the hand of God was undeniably upon him.
Interestingly, the first time Moody applied to be a member of a local church, he was denied because he failed an oral exam on Christian doctrine!
Moody ministered to the soldiers in the Civil War. President Lincoln visited his Sunday School, and President Grant attended one of his revival meetings.
He was famously nicknamed “Crazy Moody,” and it’s reported that he reached 100 million people with the gospel, in a day when televangelists, radio preachers, and Al Gore (the Internet, ahem) didn’t exist.
If you’ve ever heard the statement, “God hates sin, but loves the sinner,” that’s been ascribed to Moody. Here are three other Moodyisms:

“Character is what a man is in the dark.”

“If there had been a committee appointed, Noah’s ark would never have been built.”

And my favorite one of all,

“Some men grow smaller and smaller on an intimate acquaintance; but my experience is that the more and more you know of Christ, the larger He becomes.”

Armed with a 5th grade education, noted as a horrible speller with a poor vocabulary, and void of any theological training, Moody founded several schools. In addition, a Bible college and publishing house which still exist were both named after him. Rather surprising given how poorly educated he was.
Moody was essentially a “lay-evangelist.” He wasn’t an ordained minister nor a theologian or scholar. In fact, observers got the impression that he was little more than a “country bumpkin.” Yet he was incredibly effective in reaching people with the gospel of Christ.
Another thing that impresses me about Moody was his heart for the poor. When he began his ministry in the Chicago slums (called “Little Hell” because of its danger), Moody was barely into his 20s. He had a heart for “the lest, the last, and the lost,” spending all of his savings to help the indigent, even risking harm to himself.
NOW HOLSTER YOUR WEAPONS AND READ THIS BEFORE PROCEEDING: The following beliefs aren’t shocking to me necessarily. They were, however, surprising and disturbing to many evangelical Christian’s during Moody’s day. And they will trouble some evangelicals today.
The Blog Manager tells me that if you post a comment that says (with chest thrown outward), “I don’t find any of these to be shocking!,” your comment will be deleted. We’ve already covered this in the above statement; so there’s no need for you to tell the world what we already know.
All told, here are some beliefs that Moody held that were shocking in his time, some of which will unsettle some evangelicals today.
1. Moody seldom preached on hell. This was shocking in a day when 18th-19th century Revivalists and evangelists made “hell” a major point in their preaching. When Moody caught criticism for this, his response was, “A great many people say I don’t preach on the terrors of religion. I don’t want to — don’t want to scare men into the kingdom of God.” Because the love of God broke his own heart, Moody opted to preach God’s love and avoid the subject of hell in most of his sermons.
2. Moody believed that Jesus would take the church away from the earth before He comes in judgment. Moody was the first famous premillenialist in North American history. It is not clear, however, if he ascribed to the tight dispensationalism of a secret rapture followed by a seven-year Tribulation, an idea spawned by John Nelson Darby in the mid 1800s.
However, Moody did believe that the Christ would take the bride out of the world to the place He had prepared for her before He came in judgment. This of course sounds like Darby’s secret rapture theory, but Moody was not precise about the details, so we cannot be sure of his exact views on the subject.
Nevertheless, many who regard Moody to be a “hero” in the faith today reject the idea that Jesus will remove His bride from the earth before He comes in judgment as well rejecting premillenialism.
3. Moody embraced the Christian evolutionist Henry Drummond as being “the most Christ-like man I ever knew.” Such an “endorsement” was shocking in Moody’s day. And it will certainly raise the ire of those Christians who damn other believers with the “guilt-by-association” card today.
Moody was viciously attacked as a “heretic” simply because he allowed Drummond to speak at some of his Christian conferences. And there’s good reason to believe that he lost sizeable financial support as a result.
Drummond was written off by many Christians because he believed that God created humans through the mechanism of evolution. Moody rejected evolutionary theory, but that didn’t dissuade him from befriending and endorsing Henry Drummond. Nor did it dissuade others from condemning Moody with the same vitriol that they leveled against Drummond. (Regrettably, this sort of thing still happens today in the Christian world.)
4. Moody didn’t exclude women from ministry and even permitted them to preach from the pulpit. Again, a shocker for his time. And in the minds of contemporary “Complementarians” who believe women should be muzzled (I mean excluded) from ministering to men, what Moody believed about this is considered “unbiblical.”
5. Moody didn’t believe in making doctrine an issue. For this reason, both Calvinists and Arminians claimed him on the one hand, but they were infuriated him on other other.
The Arminians had running fits over his “once in grace, always in grace” view and Calvinists had apoplexy over his emphasis on human responsibility, faith-is-a-choice view, and his belief in the universal provision of salvation.
According to Moody, “I don’t try to reconcile God’s sovereignty and man’s free agency.” That statement didn’t endear him to either Calvinists or Arminians.
6. Moody believed in interdenominational ecumenicism. This also disturbed hardcore Calvinists and Arminians.
Moody embraced the “liberal” causes of social reform, church unity, and ecumenism, but he also embraced the “conservative” causes of premillenialism in evangelistic efforts (believing that the world was a sinking ship, and Christians were obligated to rescue as many as possible before the ship sank).
Moody was seen as a bridge between conservatives and liberals, combining issues that polarized both sides. (Parenthetically, this is why one of the reasons why I love Moody so much. See my 20 Reasons Why the Christian Left and the Christian Right Won’t Adopt Me).
This quote by Moody captures his heart on the matter:

“Talk not of this sect and that sect, of this party and that party, but solely and exclusively of the great comprehensive cause of Christ … There should be one faith, one mind, one spirit – and in this city let us … actualize this glorious truth … Let us contend for Christ only … May the Spirit of God may give us one mind and one spirit to glorify His holy name.”

Moody quickly learned, however, that transcending the hardcore left and the hardcore right is a dangerous place in which to live because both sides take dead aim at you!
7. Moody found some of the Catholic mystics to be helpful. This one would have gotten him roasted over a slow spit by some Christian groups today. In his One Thousand and One Thoughts from My Library, Moody cites 225 authors. And they include the Christian mystics Madame Guyon and Madame Swetchine.
8. Moody believed all Ten Commandments were binding on Christians with penalties for violators, and he criticized preachers for not emphasizing them enough. What makes this surprising is that he criticized his mentor Charles Spurgeon on these very grounds saying,

“I do not remember ever to have heard a sermon preached on the commandments. I have an index of two thousand five hundred sermons preached by Spurgeon, and not one of them selects its text from the first seventeen verses of Exodus 20. The people must be made to understand that the Ten Commandments are still binding, and that there is a penalty attached to their violation. We do not want a gospel of mere sentiment. The Sermon on the Mount did not blot out the Ten Commandments.”

Many Christians today are divided over the role of the Law of Moses in the life of the Christian. And still more believe that the Sabbath command was fulfilled in Christ, feeling that Christians aren’t obligated to keep Saturday (which is the Sabbath) holy.
On the other hand, Moody believed that a countless number of “careless Christians” will get to heaven by “the skin of their teeth.” On this score, he wrote,

“Moreover, it seems highly probable; indeed I think it is clearly taught by Scripture, that a great many careless Christians will get into heaven. There will be a great many who will get in by the skin of their teeth, or as Lot was saved from Sodom, so as by fire. They will barely get in, but there will be no crown of rejoicing. But everybody is not going to rush into heaven. There are a great many who won’t be there.”

WARNING: The Blog Manager who moderates comments appreciates D.L. Moody. Therefore, if anyone wields accusations like “D.L. Moody is the mouthpiece of Satan” and other such sentiments, our beloved Blog Manager says he won’t approve the comment.
So to the both of you who found this post on the Web somewhere and are starting to march toward the comments box with pitch forks, blow torches, and blunt objects in order to delegitimize, castigate, or marginalize Lewis beyond repair, your remark will vanish into the electricity after he hits the DELETE key.
In addition, the Blog Manager says that those of you who repeat what’s already stated in the blue note at the top — that some will not find this list to be shocking or surprising (especially non-evangelicals), he will not approve the comment. He wants to keep the comments thread uncluttered to focus on this singular question.
Can you add any other surprising or controversial beliefs that Moody held? If so, please provide a source also. Note that we’re not interested in behaviors, but beliefs.
Other Posts in the Series with More to Come
Shocking Beliefs of John Calvin
Shocking Beliefs of Jonathan Edwards
Shocking Beliefs of John Wesley
Shocking Beliefs of C.S. Lewis

Subscribe to the blog (scroll down) so you don’t miss the next installment of the series.
SOURCES

D.L. Moody – A Life by Kevin Belmonte

Dwight L. Moody: American Evangelist by James Findlay

The Life of Dwight L. Moody by William Moody

The Wit and Wisdom of D.L. Moody by Stanley and Patricia Gundry

D.L. Moody: A Worker in Souls by Gamaliel Bradford

The Incredible Cover Up by Dave MacPherson

Christian History, Issue 25, Vol. IX, No. 1

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The one habit that every effective leader must cultivate

The one habit that every effective leader must cultivate
May 24, 2015

Because we are working with people, there will be many setbacks and discouragements and disappointments.  Even Jesus experienced this.  "From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him."      Jn. 6:66

In addition, the Enemy especially targets leaders.  (Example from war… snipers are taught to look for officer insignia to determine their primary targets.)  If the Enemy can take out the leader, the group/church often struggles or dies.  The flock (group) is scattered.

In light of these difficulties, there is one habit above all others that an effective small group (house church, etc.) leader must cultivate.  This is the foundation for everything else.  The cultivation of this habit is our focus for the first month (June) of Leader 101.  Take a look...
 

http://www.lk10.com/leader-101-lesson-one-june/

Spiritual maturity

Spiritual Maturity: 5 Signs You DON’T Have It

By Carey Nieuwhof

 

Often what we call spiritual maturity … isn’t.

The issue of spiritual maturity seems to provoke one of the super strange conversations in the North American and Western church today.

Here’s the bizarre part: Some Christians end up criticizing other Christians for not being “deep” enough or committed enough to be “real” Christians. (The fact that this may not sound bizarre to you is, in itself, evidence of how bizarre this has gotten.)
There is apparently a certain subset of Christian who have maturity figured out, and the rest of us, well, not so much.
And yet often, what we call spiritual maturity…isn’t. In fact, at least five of the common claims we make about having spiritual maturity actually show you lack it.

This Is What The Conversation Sounds Like

So, to be clear, how exactly does this issue surface in conversation?
In leadership circles, the dialogue often starts with a question such as, “What are you doing to disciple your people?” (emphasis on disciple, often said with a deeper voice than normal) or a dismissive statement like “So you’re attracting people, but then what?”
And it’s almost always said condescendingly, as though some people own the maturity franchise and enjoy watching other fellow-Christ followers squirm while they try to come up with answers that will only show how immature they really are.
I’ve been on the receiving end of that conversation many many times, because, well, our church reaches a lot of people who ordinarily don’t show up at church.

5 Signs of Spiritual Maturity … That Actually Show You Lack It

Before I outline the list, please know I’m not claiming to be “mature.” I’m not even claiming I understand the issue entirely. I’m just saying there’s something broken in our dialogue and in our characterization of spiritual maturity.
As for me personally, I would hope I’m maturing, but have I arrived? Not a chance.
Discipleship is an organic, life-long process. It has something to do with what the ancients called “sanctification.” The process of becoming more and more holy, a term, which stripped from it’s strangeness, simply means to be “set apart.” Basically, it means you’re different than you were. And that process continues until you die. I’ve outlined a few of the markers of more authentic spiritual maturity in this post, and again here.
In the meantime, if you want to keep growing, here are five signs that pass for spiritual maturity in our culture that probably show you lack it.

1. Pride in How Much Bible You Know

Since when was it a good thing to be proud of how much Bible you know, and to look down on people who don’t know?
As Paul points out, knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Clearly he knew what he was talking about.
Some Christians strut their biblical knowledge like it was an accomplishment. That’s so wrong. 
I won my share of sword drills (remember those?) when I was a kid, and I take time to read and study the Scriptures pretty much every day, but as far as I can tell I’m supposed to use that knowledge to function as a bridge to people, not as a barricade showing everyone else how righteous I am. Because, incidentally, last time I checked I wasn’t that righteous.
Use the bible as a bridge to the culture, not as a barricade against it. To do otherwise puts us on the same ground as another religious group Jesus had strong views against. (Here’s a list of the Top 10 Things Pharisees Say Today.)
And it was never about what you know or don’t know, but about what God knows and who God loves.

2. Truth Without Grace

In a similar vein, being all about truth is a problem, as well.
I love how John phrases the arrival of Jesus: that Jesus came filled with truth and grace.
One of the things I love most about Jesus is that truth is never separated from grace, and grace is never separated from truth. He was always grace-filled as he spoke what is true … in that the truth is always designed to lead toward grace.
Yet someone “mature” people feel it’s okay to land on one side of the equation. I’m a truth person, we tell people. No … maybe you’re just a jerk. (And I say this as a guy who leans on the truth side of the equation.)
Whenever I am tempted to speak truth, I always have to come before God to ensure it is equally motivated by grace.
Could you imagine if we all did?

3. Grace Without Truth

The opposite of course is also true. In the same way truth isn’t truth without grace, grace isn’t grace when separated from truth. Some “mature” people on the other side of the theological spectrum avoid the truth side of the equation as though love floats with no backbone.
No, grace has a backbone. We nailed it to the cross.
You cannot separate grace from truth any more than you can separate truth from grace. It is an incredibly difficult line to find, but we must find it. Grace without truth isn’t maturity any more than truth without grace is truth. Clearly, we need a Saviour on this issue. And it’s a good thing for us He embodies both.

4. Harshness Toward Outsiders While Cutting Insiders Slack

Many people who consider themselves spiritually mature love to talk about how awful the world is. And it is pretty terrible. Pick a headline almost any day. It’s awful. God identified that as early as Genesis 6 (and if you take our theology seriously, he always knew it would be this way, which is a little mind-bending if you think about it). The passage from Genesis is worth quoting:
The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.  So the Lord  was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart.
So what did God do? He started again. What followed was an ark and a rainbow.
And ultimately God’s decision on his heartbreak was addressed in Jesus who came, as our favourite but often totally-missed-the-point verse tells us, God so loves the world and gave himself up for it not to condemn it but to save it.
So why do so many Christians behave like God hated the world? Because the world is corrupt and sins, is the answer we hear back. But the truth of the matter, Christian, is that you are corrupt and you sin. But instead, we rail against the world’s sins as though it shouldn’t be sinning while cutting ourselves tons of slack on our moral failures.
What would happen if we started talking about church sins like gossip, gluttony, division and faction with the same conviction we use to talk about sexual sin?
I wrote about that in more detail here. (Perry Noble also wrote an great blog about why we turn a blind eye to a church sin like obesity but rail on about homosexuality.)
So … what if the church started to take its own sin more seriously than we take the world’s sin? I think that’s what we’re supposed to do.
Finally, if you’re still not convinced, study Jesus. You will discover he extended invitations to notorious sinners and outsiders, and reserved his harshest words for the religious people of his day.
We simply have it backwards. If God so loved the world, who decided we shouldn’t?
And if you were trying to win people to open their lives to a loving God, why do you think leading with judgment is a great strategy? Very few people get judged into life change. Many get loved into it.

5. Telling People You’re Mature

This one mystifies me.
I’ve had more than a few people pull me aside over the years and ask, “So what do you do for spiritually mature people like me?”
Stand back while people like you part the Red Sea, I guess.
Telling people you’re mature is like telling people you’re wise … it’s kind of proof you’re not. The most mature people, in my view, also tend to be the most humble. If you’re strutting your maturity, it’s pretty clear you’ve got some growing to do.

What Do You Think?

I hope you can hear that this is borne not just out of frustration, but also out of love for God, for the church and for the world.
I’d love to see the conversation about spiritual maturity become more healthy.  As I’ve shared here, I think the church today is getting discipleship wrong. I’ve also argued we need a different kind of maturity in the church.
What have you seen?
What are some false markers of maturity?  

Carey Nieuwhof is Lead Pastor of Connexus Church north of Toronto, Canada, blogs at www.careynieuwhof.com and is host of The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast available for free on iTunes. More from Carey Nieuwhof or visit Carey at http://careynieuwhof.com

For such a time as this

For such a time as this
May 22, 201

I'm reposting a blog from my friend, Felicity Dale, below.  She says something I've been feeling for quite a while.  See what you think.

For some time, I have wondered why the Lord has placed an emphasis on small groups meeting in homes. (According to a survey by the Pew Forum in 2009, nine percent of Protestants in the USA “hold services” in  homes.)

In other nations, the rise of house churches is often in response to persecution. But here? In Christian America?

Esther was married to King Ahasuerus (probably King Xerxes I) “for such a time as this.” She saved her people.

As I survey the Christian landscape, and look at what is going on politically, I wonder if the Lord has been behind the simple/organic/housechurch movement “for such a time as this.” It would only take one act of Congress, for example, removing the tax exempt status of churches, for some building-based churches to find themselves fighting for survival.  Or what would be the impact of a couple of terrorist attacks in church buildings? Or some strategically planned law-suits aimed against Evangelical convictions?

Thankfully, God knows the end from the beginning.

If Felicity is correct, it seems to me that now is the time to prepare.  Now is the time to get trained.  Now is the time to get connected with other leaders.

This is exactly the reason we have created Leader 101.  Is it time for this to become a priority in your life?  Check it out... http://www.lk10.com/lk10-school/leader-101/ 

To sign up for Felicity's blog, go here:  http://simplychurch.com/

Yielding Always

“Whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”
LUKE 14:27

Embracing the Cross is not a once-and-for-all act, but a daily attitude of knowing our insufficiency in order to know the sufficiency of Christ. Jesus asks us to take up the Cross “daily” (Luke 9:23) and Paul said “I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31). Since we daily meet with temptations, tests and trials, so we must daily affirm and reaffirm who we are in Christ: the crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, ascended and seated Branches of the crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, ascended, and seated Vine.
As disciples we take up the Cross daily, which means we are always in a state of surrender and submission to the Lord Jesus, constantly forsaking our own way for His Way. This moment-by-moment yielding to Him is summed up in this saying: “Not I, but Christ” (Galatians 2:20).
Source: Embrace the Cross by Chip Brogden