Leadership Lessons from Numbers 12

One of the trends sweeping its way across U.S. cities concerns pets. A couple of hundred dollar bills will get you another friend who will respond when called by name, and who will accompany you on walks around town. If you’re lucky, this friend may provide enough milk for a morning meal. Planning Commissions must decide: limit acceptable pets to cats, dogs, and goldfish, or let the trendsetters have their way by allowing miniature goats in urban areas.

On one side of the debate are people who classify miniature goats as livestock. They hear these animals go, “baa;” they see them eating hay; and, they smell new odors when they are around. They do the math, accessing everything they learned as a child, and conclude that miniature goats are livestock. However, on the other side of the debate are people who don’t see miniature goats as any different than dogs: they follow kids around the yard, they’re friendly, and they fetch balls. Read the rest of this entry »

Go therefore and make church attendees?

While I have not read Wright’s forthcoming book, Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites …and Other Lies You’ve Been Told, I would like to share a few thoughts in response to the beliefnet.com blog post, “Male Church Attendance: Bradley Wright” dated March 8, 2010.

Yes, it’s great that men are attending church. But, we cannot use official census data on male church attendance to diagnose the efficacy of accomplishing the great commission. Keep in mind that Jesus’ command was not, “Go therefore and make church attendees…”

Jesus said, “Make disciples.” The church, of course, exists to make disciples of men and women. Determining if the church is accomplishing that mission takes more than calculating the male to female ratio in church pews. Sure, credible research requires empirical data. Any scientist who cares about religion would be hard-pressed not to play with available church attendance numbers. However, I too would caution against drawing important conclusions from church attendance data alone, especially when addressing the issue of male discipleship. Let’s not go back to serving donuts in the church just because attendance data looks good. Rather, let’s keep calling men to die to self and lead. Read the rest of this entry »

The God-Preacher

One of the greatest fears of any preacher is capturing people’s praise rather than directing it to God. That is, instead of pointing people to the glory of God, the preacher runs the risk of pointing people to himself. His tan, muscles, jokes, fashion, friends, intellect, past success, all of it has the potential of interfering with his message and destroying the spiritual power of the sermon.

A recent experience has caused me to think about the importance of pointing people to God, not me. While what I heard was nothing new, it saddened me in a new way. It happened a few weeks ago as I shared dinner with Christian people. As I ate,
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Learning from Wal-Mart Churches

Wal-Mart churches kill their competition. They move into towns and suck the life-blood out of established churches. They attract leaders and people with deep pockets. They conduct worship services in new schools or clean movie theaters. Their creativity and excellence generates a buzz that attracts swarms of worshippers. They grow exponentially overnight while other churches lose one family after another.

When Wal-Mart church moves to town, the religious community changes. The home church loses key families and Sunday morning worship fizzles into a pastry party. The small church Read the rest of this entry »