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3 Leadership Principles I Wish I Could Ignore

Posted on June 25, 2011 by johnmarkum

Three simple principles have been bugging me lately in regards to being a church leader. Frankly, I wish these three principles were not true. I would like to find some savvy book from another more successful church leader or business person that will coddle my anxiety and tell me I’m wrong about this. Unfortunately, nearly all of my research and experience (not to mention what the Bible teaches) has lead to be even more sure of the following three points:

Nothing grows without change.
All change is painful.
The greater the change, the greater the pain.

Everything that grows changes. If it doesn’t, it becomes stationary and stagnant. And dies. Of course, not all change is good change. Something changing could mean that it is dying. Your heart rate going down, for instance, would be an example of bad change. But when drastic change becomes necessary for survival, we must choose to embrace the pain of change or lose ground:

A cancer patient accepts the chemo, or suffers the onslaught of the disease.
A businessman adjusts his product and services, or loses his marketability.
A married couple seeks counseling, or goes through the bitter agony of divorce.
A church shifts from doing ministry “like it’s always been”, or fails to reach a changing world.

I see these principles taking place in every single church I’ve ever known. Churches who have embraced change stay relevant to a shifting culture, but do so with great care and pain. Good people who have always been there still walk away. Internal and external pressures arise. And yet the church grows in number and closer to God at the same time. Marriages are healed. Families restored. People far from God awakened with life in Christ. The church becomes more equipped to reach their full potential in Christ. And they realize that no change they make will ever be the silver bullet. They will always be faced with new opportunities and challenges.

Other churches go to the extreme of imitating the world. Their change is usually a bad change, and they suffer the consequences of compromise. Sure, more people may come, but not usually. Because even the world is looking for something different than the world. And when they do get more people, they simply have a crowd, not a church. It almost never lasts.

Yet others still refusing to accept change have clung to a preference of what church used to be. They produce no new ideas. They focus on preserving their church rather than change their world. Gradually, many fall into complete irrelevance. Their baptismal waters are as stagnant as their vision.

I’ve made an observation that I wish I could ignore. Every season of growth in our church is marked by a season of personal pain for me. When I pray for God to expand our influence, to bring us more people far from God, to see more lives changed by the Gospel, I do so realizing that such a prayer will cost me. Because as much as I would like, I cannot avoid the pain of change. And neither can you.

And yet we should still ask God for it. Because it requires faith to step out into the pain of change. And God has already promised His grace to sustain us through it.

While growth only comes with pain, we get to see God move in new, incredible ways. God is bigger than my comfort zone. And He’s bigger than our greatest obstacles. And He’s bigger than the pain of change.

2 Timothy 2:3 “Endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”

Blessings,

John

God took my lollipop!

Posted on June 24, 2011 by johnmarkum

My kids like lollipops. But not nearly as much as they love ice cream. And that only makes sense. No kid in their right mind would ever pick a lollipop over ice cream. I remember one occasion when Emilee, my 5 year old, had helped herself to a sucker from a bag of candy after dinner. I had already headed toward the fridge to get her an ice cream fudge pop for finishing her food, but I was not going to let her have both. Before presenting her with the ice cream, I insisted that she give me back the sucker she taken (without permission, by the way). I had to convince her that I had something better for her before she trusted me enough to give up her sucker.

I find that we are often the same way as my 5 year. We will hold onto what we have now, instead of letting go and trusting God to deliver something better for us. It happens all the time:

– A single person stays in a dead end relationship from fear of being alone. They miss out on someone more equally yoked.

– A married couple gets themselves tied up in debt. They miss the opportunity to invest in the kingdom of God.

– A student stays with the same bad influences and tries to pretend they’re not pulling him down. He misses the chance to have true friends.

– An alcoholic refuses to accept that his drinking is out of control. He misses out on his family, friends, career, and finances.

Isn’t it ridiculous when I refuse to let God take my lollipop, because I think He doesn’t have something better for me?!? God has always cared more about me than I have for myself. As long as I fill my hands with my insignificant, fickle infatuations, God will not fill them with His much richer blessings. Allow God to remove the things from your life that are keeping you from experiencing all that He has for you.

Only by trusting God to remove the comfortable and familiar do we have the chance to see how much better of a provider He is to us than we are to ourselves.

“‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,’ says the Lord, ‘thoughts of good, and not evil. Of hope and a future.'” Jeremiah 29:11

“So that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:7

Blessings,

John

“A 13:13 Moment”

Posted on June 23, 2011 by johnmarkum

Below is a post made by Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church, Charlotte, NC. I read this today and couldn’t help but pass it along to my blog viewers. I hope everyone in my church would embrace the principle of this post.

“You acted foolishly,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if only you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.”
1 Samuel 13:13

It’s a moment you never want to have.
A 13:13 moment.
The moment you realize just what you could have had, if only you had…

What a scary verse this is. Besides the fact that you have a double instance of a bad number (13:13), the thought expressed in it should rattle us to our core. When most people talk about the consequences of sin or disobeying a specific instruction of God, they usually focus on the negative consequences that actively happen to us as a result.

You sleep around, you could get an STD or get pregnant.
You cut a corner at work, you could lose your job.
You ignore God’s calling, you could end up in the wrong career.

Those are definitely bad, but there’s an even scarier thought to consider. And that’s the unprecedented blessing of God you missed out on because you weren’t willing to obey.

The levels of influence you could have had.
The marriage you could have had.
The life you could have had.

I never want to have a 13:13 moment. I never want to hear God say:
If you had been generous, I would have…
If you had not settled, I would have…
If you had stepped out in faith, I would have…
If you had…I would have…

And you don’t either. The last thing you want your life to become is a cautionary tale of what could have been. Whatever God is asking of you, believe me, it’s not about what He wants from you. It’s what He wants for you.

And you can have it, if only you will…