Inspiring and Challenging Dreamers

Paul’s Standards for Leader 03: Faithful Children

We are continuing our series on the standards Paul set for leaders in Titus 1. It’s a challenging series, but Paul was a challenging person when it came to church leadership. He expected people to be above suspicion, to be faithful to their marriage and here we add another family based expectation: faithful children.

It is clear if you read that phrase in several different Bible translations that the translators are struggling to decide whether the Greek means “faithful children” as per the KJV, or “children who believe” as per NIV and ESV. The issue is the Greek word “pista” can mean believing in the sense of having Christian faith, but it can equally mean someone who is reliable or obedient. The commentaries are split about half and half. I lean with children who are believers as Paul uses pistis in every other instance in Timothy and Titus to mean a believer in Christ.

Now why is this important for a church leader? A church leader is someone that is leading people. A deacon in charge of teas and coffees is still leading people – showing them how to love and serve, helping those who turn up late, even sometimes imposing discipline. In a small group Bible study, it’s the same thing. Now, if someone is a parent, we already have a picture of how they would do this.

Your household is a picture of how well you lead. How well you discipline. How well you train. How well you govern others. If someone’s children are out of control, don’t have any respect for others, then it’s a very good idea not to put that person in charge of adults.

(Now before I go any further, let me correct an error I have encountered by saying that no one should be ever disqualified from church leadership because of what their adult children believe or do. Salvation is an individual choice, and no father can force their adult children to believe and receive the gospel and live for Christ. Being an adult is about being free to make your own choices. We are talking about the children who are living at home and part of the household, so really up until they leave home.)

So when someone has children living at home, they are reflection of that person’s leadership skills. I was a youth pastor for many years before starting the Tree of Life Family, and I saw many parents disengage with their teenagers, and to me that means that person is too busy in their life to ever be in church leadership. I’ve seen other parents far too harsh with their children for it to be a good idea at that time to trust them with the care of adults.

We had a lady in our Dagenham church, she was very keen to be in leadership in the church. She had a job where she ran conferences and wanted to help us run our conferences. In terms of capability she was definitely capable. But her son was utterly disengaged from church and Christianity. He was about 15, so still living at home, still a child, and so that matters when appointing leaders. I spoke to her about how whether she prays with her son, whether she reads the Word with him, and suggested a plan for family devotions. She said that she did not believe that was her job, but it was the church’s job. She asked what the church did for youth.

At that time we had a youth group on Friday, but he didn’t want to go, so she wouldn’t make him (even though I’m sure she made him go to school five days a week!). So she insisted we start a youth group on Sundays. I said if he goes to a youth group Sunday morning he will miss the sermon. I told the mum I spend hours every week writing my sermons and pointed out the large number of teenagers who every week are in the service notebooks open, listening, learning, who come and ask me questions afterwards and are growing in Christ. She said he didn’t like that.

When she described the youth group she wanted on Sunday morning, she didn’t want us to disciple her son, more like let him play the PlayStation on Sundays so she could go to church and have a break from him. Needless to say I did not ask her to be in leadership, and she left the church and actually found a church that took all the teenagers away from the Sunday worship and sermon and miracles and let them play on PlayStations and watch movies!

No one is a perfect parent. No one gets it right every hour of every day, but there must be signs that the parents is putting life and energy into discipling their children and raising them in the faith. If you insist your teenagers go to the dentist, and shower, and go to school, you can insist they go to church. You step back when they are teens and “let them decide”, you are making a choice that will bite you in the back, and you are showing that you are not ready to lead other adults in a Christian setting.

Paul is not saying that every pastor’s child as adults must be on fire for Jesus, they are adults and you are not forever responsible for your adult child’s decisions. Paul is also not saying that your family has to be Stepford Wives, perfect every moment of every day. But Paul is saying that if you want to be in church leadership, you should be reflecting your future church leadership and ministry in your family – children who are disciplined, a household that is in order and full of peace and grace and love.

Selah.

Paul’s Standards for Leaders 02: A One Woman Man!

After laying the foundation that part of our role as leaders is to be blameless, to live a life where accusations do not stick, to care for others in our lifestyle, Paul immediately jumps to male-female relationships. I believe more church leaders, whether deacons, small group leaders, or national level leaders, have lost their credibility, their reputation, their influence, their ministry for missing this and messing up here than anywhere else. I’m sure anyone reading this is thinking of some major leader in the body of Christ who has forfeited their ministry for some form of sexual immorality. Some scandal that was both shocking and the ripples went far. But it can happen in a small group as well, it can happen with the deacon in charge of the tea rota as well!

Now in the King James Bible, Paul says “the husband of one wife” (Titus 1.6) which immediately opens up the question – can a man who is divorced be a pastor, can a man who remarried be a pastor, does this verse mean that only men can be pastors? Without taking this all to pieces and going off track, no that’s not what Paul was saying at all. What the literal Greek says is a “one woman man”. You see I have met married men who are not a one woman man, I have met married men who have one wife, but more than one woman. That’s going to disqualify you from Christian leadership.

Right now in the church, there are many issues regarding the LGBTQ+ movement, and how the church should respond, and I praise God that many Christians and many preachers are raising a bold call to state that all of these behaviours are sinful and against God’s plan. But to be honest, it is not often that people in the church are engaged in these behaviours, even though it does happen. But on the other hand, it is fairly common that people who are living together and unmarried come to church. That’s great – I want everyone to feel welcome in church, I want everyone to belong. But being part of the community is not being in leadership. We need to let our churches know that God has standards and Paul enforces those standards in church leadership.

For leaders, the divine principles go back to Genesis, sex is for marriage, marriage is for life, and marriage is one (biological) male and one (biological) female. We cannot appoint a leader who is not committed to this standard. We cannot allow them to influence others. The Bible does not say slowly and gently walk away from sexual immorality, it says flee! Run at top speed in the opposite direction (1 Cor. 6.18). We are expected to obey this! It’s New Covenant!

Why is Paul so strong on this behaviour? Because it can destroy churches! It can destroy communities! It can destroy marriages! It can destroy lives! As a pastor, I have had to deal with far too many situations where this kind of behaviour is so destructive and has hurt so many people.

Imagine a man in the church, he is a great man, outgoing, friendly, enthusiastic, a great communicator. But you also notice he is a bit of a flirt. He says things that could be taken more than one way, he has a special smile for the ladies. You like him and think he would be a good leader, and in terms of personality and gifts, he probably would. But because in his heart, whether is married or not, he is not a one-woman man, you have just given him a reason and excuse to call the ladies in the evening, to have them come round his house, to spend time with them, to help them with their chores, and to misuse his position.

As a side note, I am very wary of any man who feels he has a ministry to women, especially to young or vulnerable women. Several times in my life, some man has attempted to tell me he has a ministry to young ladies, or abused ladies, and I have shut that down straight away. Paul actually tells us in Titus 2 that the older women should teach the younger women – so that’s how that should work!

Now with all of these the past is the past, and if it has been repented of, and someone has left something in the rear view mirror, we do not have the right to get out of our car and grab it and pick it up again. But like Paul told Titus, do not appoint elders, bishops, leaders who are not one women men! It will never end well.

If you are married, the best way to embrace Paul’s wisdom here is positively. Obviously, don’t have an affair, don’t chat up other ladies, don’t watch films of other women naked on your phone, don’t have an AI girlfriend, don’t be messaging ladies late at night.

But what about making sure you are a one woman man? Go and make your wife the one-woman of your life. Go and be the man to your one woman!

Go and buy her some flowers, some jewellery, take her out on a date this week, go and get dancing lessons together, lock yourself in the bedroom for a few hours, whatever you need to do. And pray together, discuss your future vision together, serve in the local church together, value each other. Love your wife the way Christ loves the church. Aren’t you glad that Christ loves the church and isn’t about to leave us for the local mosque or Hindu temple! He is committed to us! 1 Peter 3.7 says “Husbands, be considerate as you live with your wives” – consider means to think. Think about your wife, what would make her happy – go and do that! Be a one woman man! Focus on that one woman and treat her like your queen!

I don’t believe that Paul here is not assuming that women have to watch themselves too. For one-woman man, read one-man woman and act accordingly. And no, you don’t have an Aunty ministry to the young men!

The greatest leaders in the church are often those who are married and celebrate their wife and people see they have a good marriage and godly seed – that is a very attractive force, and helps you influence people powerfully.

P.S. Sometimes as men, we struggle to spot if someone is a one woman-man or not. Ask your wife, she will know. Women normally pick up on this fairly rapidly. Now, you cannot go to someone and say “I will not make you a deacon because my wife has a feeling”, but you don’t have to appoint them either, you can wait and nothing is ever lost waiting before appointing a leader. Selah.

Paul’s Standards for Leaders 01: Blameless

You know one of the greatest distortions of the glorious message of grace is that there should be no standards for offices of leadership in the body of Christ. That we just pick based on smiles and talent.

Worship leaders who don’t read their Bibles or ever listen to sermons. People taking the offering who don’t tithe! Ushers who don’t listen to what they are told and do it their way rather than the way they have been instructed. Small group leaders who are building their own little empire rather than building the kingdom of God and submitting to their pastors and bringing people into unity with the vision and culture of the local church. All of that will actually keep people from Heaven!

We are the only Jesus that some people will ever see and if we are turning people off from the kingdom, that has eternal consequences. And if pastors allow people to do that, that has both eternal consequences and immeditate consequences for their church.

That’s why Paul – the great apostle of grace – as an apostle – told both Timothy and Titus (both pastors he raised up and appointed) to put requirements in place for their elders. By reading through those requirements and studying them, we find out what God Himself, in the age of grace, expected from all leaders.

In Titus, Paul doesn’t get beyond his greeting before starting to impose standards on leaders. According to Paul, these standards for leaders is called putting the church in order (Titus 1.5), and a church in order grows, and a church out of order does not. We need to reach our nation and the only way to do that is to have order in the church, and the only way to do that is standards for leaders that are enforced by the pastors. Churches will get stuck around 40-50 people unless pastors are prepared to impose standards on their leaders – or else everything hinges on the pastor, and that won’t grow much!

Paul then lists a long list of standards, the first one being that all elders must be blameless. I believe that these standards are supposed to be held by all leaders, all deacons, all elders, all pastors and all leaders, and a failure to hold to them is to fail to understand grace, honour, prosperity, promotion and the entire walk we have with God, and the awesome responsibility we have before God and before the church!

The first standard in this list in Titus is blameless (Titus 1.6).

A leader in the kingdom of God should be blameless. In the Greek the word is “anegkletos” – without egkletos. Egkletos means be able to be accused. Part of being a leader is carrying yourself in such a way that if someone accuses you of something, that people just dismiss it – they say “no way, not them, you are barking up the wrong tree there”. That’s what the word “blameless” means.

I studied Acts 19 for my doctorate, and Paul is accused in that of causing a whole host of problems, but he tells the people boldly – you can say what you like but there is no cause (Acts 19.40). It’s the same word! There’s nothing you can stay that will stick, because I know how I have lived! Paul practised what he preached – he told Timothy and Titus to ensure all their leaders were blameless and he told the crowds in Ephesus that he was blameless. There’s no reason to accuse him of anything because he was careful how he lives.

We need to live aware that there is an enemy that hates us and seeks to discredit us and destroy our reputation. You make coarse jokes – people think you are a coarse person. You get accused of coarseness, it can be hard for people to dismiss that accusation. You are not blameless.

You give single ladies lifts home in your car – people think you are a ladies man. You need to do things to ensure people do not have a reason to come against your reputation.

You drink a glass or two of wine, and someone accuses you of being drunk – you will find it easier to defend yourself if you never drink alcohol. Why do you think Proverbs tells us alcohol is not for kings! (Proverbs 31.4). We are too important to be accused of drinking too much!

Since my first pastoral placement in the late 90s, I have been accused of being stand offish with people, not huggy, not demonstrative, curt with women. My response is always absolutely! Because I will not put myself in a position where I can be accused of anything immoral, my reputation as an apostolic leader and what God is calling me into is far, far too important to ever put myself in a position where I am too free and friendly with people and an accusation sticks. No way!

Now in the spirit, we are totally blameless before God (that’s in Romans 8.33, and it’s a beautiful truth – God has made us utterly and totally righteous, and it’s the same word, same author, so Paul knew what he was saying) – but this is not talking about the spirit realm, because the church of the Lord Jesus Christ does not exist just in Heaven, but on earth, and on earth there are people who are keen to judge us and hassle us and accuse us and throw mud at us.

James 3.1 actually says that if we become a teacher in the church, we will be judged more strictly. That doesn’t mean God will judge us more strictly, it means the people around us will. We need to be very careful how we conduct ourselves in this world. The more your ministry grows, the more people are watching you and the more circumspect you need to be. You need to care about the impression you give to others.

There are types of behaviour that makes mud stick to you, and types of behaviour that means the mud just slides off, that you become Teflon! That’s what blameless means – when satan throws mud at you, it just slides off.

The international evangelist Billy Graham, in 1948, made a series of rules for himself and the staff of his ministry that men and women should never under any circumstances be alone together unless they are married, whether in a bar, a car, or even a lift. Straight from his ministry handbook: “A man should not travel, meet, or eat alone with a woman”. Billy Graham never got in a car with just him and another woman. These rules have come back into the public eye with former Vice President Mike Pence keeping to the same standard.

You might say, well I think that is extreme, but Billy Graham was in ministry 76 years with no hint of a scandal. Talk about extreme – that’s an extremely long time to have a scandal free ministry and finish well! That’s a great thing. That’s teflon, that’s blameless! That’s what it means. That’s the key.

It means being careful in the way you deal with people, it means being aware of the people around us, it means being kind to those who don’t know us and making it easier for them to trust us. It means being open at time with things that you would rather not be open against. It means people who are leading you, like your pastor, trust that if they give you an instruction you will be trying to follow it as close as possible, not trying to do as little as possible their way and do as much as possible your own way.

Now sometimes when I talk about this, people come to me and tell me about sins in their past that they feel brings them blame – no – if you have repented and restored your reputation, then you are back to being blameless. People know that people change, and most people celebrate a changed life and although it can take time to rebuilt the trust and reputation, nearly every sinful action and attitude can be dealt with and people can – especially with good leadership – come back to a place of blamelessness!

I mean remember who wrote Titus – the murderer of Stephen! But he took the time to patiently, with Barnabas’s help – build a reputation so the churches trusted him and he became Teflon. However you have been living up until now, you can make changes and become blameless!

I don’t know about you, but I truly want to be used of God to impact my generation. So I spend time allowing the Lord to speak to me and show me areas in which maybe some other people might blame me if I was accused of something. In those cases, I resolve to alter – by His grace – my behaviour and attitudes. I suggest you all make the same commitment today.

This is the starting point of developing the standards of leadership because it is the starting point of Paul’s list to Titus for leaders, specifically for small group leaders and church leaders.

There’s not much point of going on if we do not genuinely care how our behaviour and attitudes affect others and realize the need for a reputation to be an effective leader. Sort this and step up! Become a candidate for God to use you in a powerful way leading others.

Selah!

Leader Lead Yourself 06: The Basketful of Fragments

I have been teaching and training you how to lead yourself for a while now – and I have some thoughts that I am not right now able to make a whole blog post from, so I put them all in this last one on this subject. I called it basketful of fragments – all the leftover bread from the feeding of the 5000. I believe all of these points will feed you and make you a better leader.

Here are 12 truths you need to know as a leader:

You are not immortal. One day you will die. What you are leading will go on without you, so you might as well start delegating now.
You are not immune. Others were doing better than you, closer to God than you, sweeter than you, but they fell and went splat. Do not consider that this could never happen to you. If you think you are standing firm, be careful you do not fall (1 Cor. 10.12). Do not be casual about waning fire, spending less time in prayer, giving less to the church, listening to the Word less. Do not let “a little offense” live in your heart, deal with it. Your heart can be deceptive, you can seek leadership for the wrong reasons, your character will be attacked, you can become a hypocrite!
You are not indispensable. The church managed to grow and reach every nation of the world for 2000 years before you were even born, and it will keep going changing the world after you are gone. This should also be an antidote to the excessive busy-ness some leaders have.
You are not superior. Other people are just as valuable as you, do not be heartless, do not become a leader made of stone. Do not isolate yourself from the laity, from first time guests, from the immature, from the foolish. Get your hands dirty! If you are a pastor, you should smell of sheep.
You are not saved by plans. It’s good to plan, I mean really good to plan, it’s a superpower, but sometimes the best laid plans just don’t go to plan. Sometimes, a plan doesn’t come together. Be flexible – especially when it comes to the leading of the Spirit! Formality cannot be an excuse for intimacy.
You are not self-made. John Maxwell says that one of the worst things that can happen to any leader is what he calls “Leadership Alzheimer’s” when you as a leader forget where you came from, forget who nurtured you, who promoted you, who platformed you, who help you, who mentored you. You should be honouring those people all the time. Just text them today and say “Thanks for being such a strong influence on my life, I couldn’t have done it without you!” It’s life-changing! Never stop acknowledging the debt you owe others.
You are not in competition with others. Your focus is not titles, not glory and not perks. Your focus is obedience to the Living God.
You are not a hypocrite. Stop living different at home from in the pulpit, from in the Living Church, from in the boardroom.
You are not called to right the wrongs of those above you. Gossip, backbiting and grumbling are the hallmarks of cowards, not leaders.
You are not to idolize those above you. That’s going too far the other way. They are human too. If you idolize someone you will use them to try and get ahead rather than learn from them. That’s a powerful truth that requires you to think.
You do not need resources. Stop hoarding, stop thinking a new sound system, or new lighting system, or new venue will change things. If it’s not working now, it won’t work then. If it’s not working here, it won’t work there. Get it working, build the people, listen to the Lord, walk in faith! Build bridges not storehouses!
You cannot make a brand-new start. You do not have a time machine. But you can start from now and make a brand-new end!

Character is so essential to leadership that Paul told Timothy not to even appoint a small-group leader who lacked character! Work on yours! Leaders, lead yourself!

Leader Lead Yourself 05: Margin

The lesson I am going to teach you today is one that took me a long time to grasp was important and a while to get good at now, but I am getting much better at it nowadays, and I absolutely see how important it is now. I call this margin, other people may have the same principle but give it a different name.

In the early days, I lived my life and did my ministry without margin. What do I mean? I would fly to America, land on Monday, drive to Andrew Wommack’s pastor’s conference, get there Monday evening, which in my bodyclock was 4am, and force myself to listen to Andrew that night, and then spend Tuesday to Friday in meeting after meeting, taking notes, thinking about how to apply what I am learning to the church, getting up early to pastor people by text and phone, then I would fly back late Saturday night, land in Heathrow 6am-ish Sunday morning, drive back to Dagenham, and preach that Sunday morning.

I used to have something going on every moment of every day, I would literally go to a restaurant near my house, sit there all day and meet someone at 9am, 10am, 11am, have lunch with someone at 12noon, meet someone 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, go from pastoral encounter to pastoral encounter. And to be honest, I was proud – in the right and wrong senses of the word – in my ability to manage my time. And I believe in being productive and I believe in good time management. I would go weeks and weeks without a day off, and often collapse in exhaustion. I was convinced if I could keep up an intense schedule, plan properly, work hard enough and long enough and intensely enough, I could actually get all the kingdom work done. Then I could have a day off because everything would be done, all our pastors would be perfectly discipled and all our systems would be in place, and all our people would be on fire and healed and emotionally healed and helped.

I am embarrassed by how long it took me to realize that I was literally doing MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and failing every time. And above all I was failing my wife and family, because I didn’t really schedule time for them.

There is a law of business called Parkinson’s law. It says “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”. I won’t say more about it, you can google it and find some interesting information about it – but what it means for you as a leader, especially as a ministry leader such as a pastor – YOU HAVE TO MAKE MARGINS IN YOUR LIFE – they will not happen by accident.

So I presume you have a written or online TO DO list and calendar. If you don’t, your church will never grow above around fifty. That’s a simple truth. I presume you use it. Now, what you need to do to create margin is deliberately block out areas. You cannot keep burning the candle at both ends, and if you do – then you aren’t burning as bright as you think you are.

Listen – activity is not fruitfulness. Activity can be a heavy yoke, and it is a very poor substitute for intimacy. So when I wake up in the morning now, I don’t even have the church phone in my room. I put on the Bible app on my personal phone, or listen to a podcast, or do something to build my soul while I wash and get ready for the day. Then, before I action anything, I spend normally about two hours praying in tongues, studying the Word, reading good Christian literature (right now, I read a chapter of Christ the Healer, a chapter of an Andrew Wommack book and a chapter of a Jerry Savelle book, I may read more, but I do not read less). If you call me in that two hour period, I am not answering. That is creating margin.

Margin is not just for your private devotional life as well, it is also for resting. It is also for taking Amanda out on a date, it is also about spending time with my children (and now grandchildren). It is also about putting my feet up and watching an episode of Star Trek, or going to the gym, or whatever.

Even though I know everything I say about activity and rest, and the need for a Sabbath, my personality is such that I need to constantly watch myself for this. It’s interesting that Ashley and Carlie did not feel led by the Lord to create a go on mission fund for me or a go to a conference fund for me, but a holiday fund! Creating margin is not easy when I love working so much, love what I do, thrive on getting things done, thrive on putting systems in place, but I have realized the more responsibility God gives me to leader more and more people, and lead more and more leaders, the more vital it is that I have margin in my life.

Let me tell you two things I have learned about margins that help me so much – firstly, margin gives me creativity. There is always more than one way to skin a cat, and sometimes I get caught up in – let’s get it done this way – and having a rest, just reading a police procedural, just going to the gym and lifting some heavy weights, just a walk – that opens my mind to better ideas, to know how to handle some people better, to develop my ability to work outside of the box. Some of the best ideas I have had have come from doing nothing – I had to get quiet.

This week, I arrived at a lunch with someone at the wrong time, I arrived 90 minutes early, it was entirely my mistake, and it was a thirty minute drive so going home was a bit foolish. So I found a place to just sit and relax, I didn’t open my phone and start going through my emails, I just played a computer game and started relaxing. During that moment, I felt it was really important that I write a book on every Scripture in the New Testament that refers to the gospel so that the church knows exactly what the gospel is. The idea came so strong because I had (accidentally in this case) created a little margin in my life. I wrote down the idea and in the next couple of weeks will revisit it and start writing. That’s one of the powers of margin, it gets you out of a rut, and let’s your subconscious think about things without you constantly running your conscious mind on full power.

Secondly, margin makes you reflective. I am not good at reflecting, I like doing. But if all we do is do and we never think about what we do, what we do will never get better, and our leadership ability will get stuck. That’s why I write these blogs, to make you reflect on yourself as a leader.

Every pastor that has quit Tree of Life Church it has been the same reason – they just kept giving out and giving out – and I tried to help them, but they stopped coming to our conferences, stopped listening to me on Wednesdays, stopped coming to our pastors meeting. All of those are actually margin for your life! As a leader you need that margin!

Remember as a man thinks in his heart – that’s who he is. If you are so busy, you are all do do do, and never think think think, then you will never be more than who you are. Unless you can think bigger and think more and spend time thinking – thinking is like all your muscles in your body – use it or lose it – I am not talking about a minute here and a few seconds in the shower (whenever someone tells me – God spoke to me in the shower, I know God is short of places where that person is not on their phone, not doing, not exhausting themselves with activity). I am talking about making space in your life.

If you are always running from one thing to another, you will never be a better thinker and you will stay the same. Reading is a very important part of this, I read at least a book a week – I read fiction to relax, but I read a lot of non-fiction, mainly Christian, but also books on leadership and so on. All of that happens in the margin, I have to stop doing to think. And when I think, who I am in my heart grows, and I grow.

Please, hear my heart in this, take time this week to have margins. PUT IT IN YOUR DIARY. I know when I am praying tomorrow, that time is already booked in my diary, I know when I am going to the gym, that time is already booked out. I will listen to a podcast walking to the gym and to George Pearsons at the gym. It’s all margin. If I worked from dusk to dawn, I would not be growing, the Tree would not be growing, our debts would never be paid off, our lives would not be where they are, our freedom would not be manifest.

Selah.

Leader Lead Yourself 04: The Pareto Principle

One of the most important business principles that I believe every single pastor and ministry leader should be aware of is called the Pareto Principle. It’s a key into helping you set priorities and being a more effective leader of people. It’s definitely a principle I used in many different situations. It may take a while for it to click, but when it does, it will help you make better decisions and be a better leader.

The principle was discovered by an Italian, Vilfredo Pareto, hence the name, when he realized in every nation 80% of the land is owned by 20% of the people, so you may know it by its other name: the 80/20 rule. It’s a very valuable concept, so pay attention!

80 percent of what you produce comes from 20 percent of what you put in

For example, if you run a shop, whether a tiny little shop or a giant shop, 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your customers. If you are a computer programmer, 20% of the errors will take 80% of the time to fix. If you are an employer 20% of your employers will achieve 80% of the growth and results.

What Does This Mean for Ministry Leaders and Pastors?

20% of the time gets 80% of the work done.

20% of the people in your church take up 80% of your time

20% of the book contains 80% of what you need to read

20% of the sermon will give 80% of the impact

20% of people in your church give 80% of the offerings

20% of people in your church do 80% of the serving

And when you have a bring and share, 20% of the people will eat 80% of the food!

Why this is so, I honestly don’t know, but the more this is studies, this proportion covers anything. As a leader you need to understand this so you can make better choices!

Let’s say today you have a to-do list with ten things on it. 2 of those things will produce 80% of the impact to your congregation. 8 of them will only produce 20% impact. So, work out what the two are and do them well. Maybe some of the 8 you can delegate, or even never do at all.

Focus on the 20% of people in your church who are progressing the church and getting work done and investing in the church. Take them out for lunch after church rather than the clowns that cause 80% of the problems!

Let’s say you have a church of fifty people. That means there are ten people in that church who carry it. They are making the difference! They are the superstars, they are the champions of your church. It also means that there ten people causing all the problems and need all the time and attention. The ten superstars won’t feel they need anything from you because they are superstars, but the truth is you need to invest in them.

Here’s the key – spend 80% of your time with people with the ten superstars – if you have money to spend, spend it on them! If they are working in a position in the church, let them know about the Pareto Principle and encourage them to spend 80% of their time in their 20% zone! However many people are in your church 20% of them are the top people and you need to invest in them. This will make or break your church!

Pray about this because it has huge implications for the way we do ministry and do church. It will determine whether your church culture is progressive or regressive.

The more time we spend in the 20% that produces 80% of the results, the easier our lives will be.

Leader Lead Yourself 03: Ask Yourself the Hard Questions

Something that has helped me as a leader is that I have developed over the years the skill of being hard on myself and soft on others. You see if you want to be the leader you have to set standards for yourself that you do not set on others. You don’t perceive others as lesser than you, we are Christians and we love others, but we don’t expect others to life as driven as us. This skill helps me develop the ability to influence and lead others well. I want every leader to ask themselves these questions, and be hard on yourself – force yourself to develop the attitudes, habits and skills to enable you to grow as a leader. Do not thing you can just wing it, you cannot!

Are you growing? You will never be an effective leader unless you are growing. This week one evening I will be doing a session of a 6-week course where I am learning about healthy churches. Just sitting there with my notebook and learning from others. On Friday, I am flying to Ireland for one day to hear a preacher preach two sessions. I’ll fly back Saturday and be back in church Sunday, that’s how much learning means to me. You know so many people want to be in leaders but they don’t want to be ahead of others. Do you realize how crazy that idea is. You have to grow! Another way of asking this question is are you teachable? What are you learning? Who are you learning from? When leaders stop being in meetings where they are learners, I am very concerned indeed because their leadership is now on the decline.
Is your growth so far credible to others? People will not follow you if they don’t believe you. People will never accept the message if the messenger is not credible. If you are not loyal to people, if you are not obviously being led by others, if you don’t have an energy and fruitfulness in your life, people will not follow you. People follow me when I talk about health because I know healing, I can prove it. I understand prosperity and have been growing in it and it’s a lot of fun. I can preach on child rearing because my children have turned out well. Now, things do not have to be perfect, but people need to see something they will follow. If not, work on these things. Many leaders need to work on their marriage – make it a marriage others want.
Do people want what you have? Then they will follow you. I know people who come to our church who don’t believe what we might call the grace message, but they want their children to grow up like my children. There’s something right there. I was and still continually looking at how I have raised my children, and how I relate to them adult to adult. I am still reading books, listening to others, getting advice from those who have gone before. Keep maturing and developing, and what you have increases and then you will lead more effectively.
Are you winning in the places you want to lead people? How can you lead people into financial freedom if you don’t tithe? How could you lead people to honour you if you don’t honour your pastor? How could you lead people to speak well when you do not plan and prepare and just wing it? How could you lead people into prayer if you never pray? You have to win in the areas you want to lead others too! Do you know I am very happy to teach people how to study the Bible, how to have a great marriage, how to preach a sermon? Do you know I am not happy to ever teach someone how to have a singing ministry? Or how to do the tech in a church? I will not give you advice in those areas because I am not a winner there. No one wants to hear what I have to say on decorating, because I am not a winner there. You must be a winner in the areas you are leading others.
Are you wasting time with people? As a pastor, for example, we are pressured to spend time with people, but a lot of that time can just be spinning wheels. You need to not spend time, but invest time with people. Time is money – it is for investing not spending. I cannot work any harder than I do right now. It’s that simple. So I won’t spend time with just anyone – I am not interested in some BBQ where everyone is having drinks and no one is caring about Christ, I am not interested in spending time, I want to invest it. Of course, we need to relax, but we need to be careful when we think we are doing a good job when we are just spending time with people. If people are not honouring you, listening to your wisdom, and growing and getting better spending time with you, you are generally spending time, not investing it.
Are you authentic? don’t pretend you have all the answers, don’t pretend you have won all the battles. Have some humility and integrity. Let people know you are still developing, thank the people you are learning from.
Do you have success stories that extend beyond you? I love it when people get born again in our church in Dagenham when I preach and when I share the gospel. I love it when I pray for people and they are healed. I love it more when a pastor who came to our church a little lost, a little tired, a little burned out, and through our ministry and the grace of God, they are now a pastor, and then they preach and someone is saved and healed, that’s a better success story. Do you have success stories that extend beyond your own touch and hands? Do the people you lead have success stories? That’s a hard question to ask, but when you realize how important this question is – it’s the greatest reward any leader will ever have.

If your answers are no to any of these questions, don’t beat yourself up – deal with it as a leader would, get the information you need and learn and develop.

Selah.

Leader Lead Yourself 02: The Main Skill of Leadership is Setting Priorities

I studied Computing Science at university before starting Bible College, and for a brief while I wrote code for ATM machines. After Bible College, I worked for minimum wage at a fast-food restaurant, then I sold mobile phones, then I worked in recruitment, then I worked as a teacher, then I went back to recruitment, then I was a postman before becoming a full-time pastor in 2012.

The one thing in common with all those jobs is that I did not set my own agenda and did not choose my own priorities. The company I worked for that paid my salary chose and decided what was important to me. In some of those jobs I was promoted to leadership roles – and here is what made leadership a thing – as you become a leader you have to set priorities. I would go as far to say that the number one skill of leadership is the ability to set priorities.

Now this series is called leader lead yourself, and I would say, the number one skill of setting priorities is the skill of setting priorities for yourself. I have to for Tree of Life Family choose what I spend time on, what is important. I have to ensure the urgent does not tyrannize the important, and the only way to do that is to develop the ability to prioritise. You only have so much life, energy and time, and you must give it to where it will produce fruit.

The three things that I always determine are vitally important are:

Self-Development. You cannot delegate self-development. On the basic level, if you wanted to lose twenty pounds, no one else can do your dieting and exercise for you, it is impossible. If you want to learn, you have to read. If you want a strong relationship with God, you have to pray. If you want to lead effectively, you have to learn. It’s that simple. You must prioritise self-development. This includes your prayer time, your Bible study, your reading. I am always at a minimum of two conferences a year where I am not teaching or preaching or running – why? Because self-development matters. If we do not grow, what we are leading will not grow.
Non-Repeatable Tasks. Preaching on Sunday is non-repeatable, I cannot preach the same message each week. Paying the pension scheme is repeatable, it is the same numbers every month, only changing when we add new staff or give someone a pay rise. It is something I can delegate. I cannot delegate non-repeatable tasks so I have to invest my time into those. For me, preparing messages is the priority of my life besides my self-development.
Good Ground. When I preach on Sunday, I am sowing seed to all the different soils, but I like to spend time in the week focusing on the good ground – developing leaders and pastors and elders and so on. At the end of the day, right now I am in the position where I am leading leaders and if I do not invest in helping and serving and developing them, then the Tree of Life Family will come crashing into the ground, and we do not want that.

You have to learn to set priorities for yourself. You have to prioritise self-development, you have to prioritise things that only you can do, and you have to prioritise developing people who are good ground. These principles work in ministry, but they will work in a family, they will work in you being a good husband or good parent, they will work in the office.

As you progress in leadership, you will move away from asking the question what does my boss want, which if you have a boss is a very important question indeed. I was the fourth pastor of a church for a few years, and I followed my senior pastor’s vision and systems to the letter, which is a big part of the reason why I am here today doing what I am doing. But as you move from being faithful to another’s to being faithful with that which is yours, you have to ask what is giving me the return, what is the good ground for me, where is the grace for me. You have a super power that if you do it, it will just lead to a greater return than if others do it – we call that finding your lane. If you don’t know what that is for you yet, you need to be faithful where you are and start praying for revelation and opportunities!

Selah.

Leader Lead Yourself 01: Deal with Blind Spots!

If you cannot lead yourself, everything in your life is going to be hard. It amazes me how many people want to go into ministry to effectively lead others in how to live their lives and their own lives are far from being orderly. This is a new series on how to lead yourself to more effectively lead others.

Of course, no one has to be perfect to be in ministry, but you should be able to lead yourself. Many of the challenges you face in your life are not due to others but the way you lead yourself.

Even when someone has been a leader for a long time, it is hard to lead yourself because you are so comfortable with yourself; you make excuses for yourself; you are blind to your problems because they are so close to home. Also, we often give ourselves the benefit of the doubt that we do not give to others. We certainly judge others by their actions and judge ourselves by our “heart” unless we are very careful indeed.

The most important thing you can do to lead yourself well is deal with your blind spots!

We all have blind spots, but as leaders, because we influence people, we have to be very careful indeed as yours will become the blind spots of others. One of things that brings us into leadership is our ability to focus well, and a skill at solving a particular type of problem. But if all we then talk about is that problem, we preach the same one sermon over and over, we solve every problem with the same tool then we have blind spots.

If you think you are always right, you definitely have blind spots! Jesus Himself said we can actually be trying to take the speck out of someone else’s eye while we have an entire plank in our own eye. Seems Jesus was very aware that as leaders we could have blind spots. We trust our insight without spending enough time with Jesus and with older, wiser, mentors that we get our eyes sorted.

David sinned in a way that would cost any 21st century pastor their entire career. He slept with a woman who was not his wife, then murdered her husband when he impregnated her! He couldn’t see it was a problem. Then Nathan, very wisely, told David a story about a man who stole another man’s lamb, and David was furious at how badly this hypothetical man behaved – then David realized it was him. Nathan was exceptionally wise in this approach, and later David named one of his sons after him.

How do we end up with blind spots? Several ways, but a main way is we hear the Word and then don’t do it (James 1.23). It says that if we do this, we deceive ourselves. That’s the Bible phrase for a blind spot – self-deception. We need to spend time with Jesus and the Word, the mirror of the Word is what helps restore our sight, and the Spirit convinces us of sin, righteousness and judgment.

You will not get out of blind spots by trying hard, you need to be humble and let others correct your vision. You cannot operate on your own eyes! God will bring the right people into your life, and also do operations Himself – God can be trusted to keep your vision clear but you need to learn how to listen to others, admit you can be wrong, and let our blind spots become open doors to growing in Christ,

Selah.

Leadership and Prayer 05 Prayer and Revelation

One of the things that happens when we spend time in prayer is revelation. Kenneth Hagin said that the Lord has prepared treasures of wisdom for the church that they do not know because they do not pray.

1 Cor 2.9 says:

⁹But as it is written:

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

Many people quote this verse to make God’s will, and God’s wisdom a mystery, something we will finally find out about when we get to Heaven. But those people need to keep reading and find out the Spirit is there to reveal God’s will to us:

¹⁰But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. ¹¹For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. ¹²Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

Paul is not talking about God keeping His treasures secret, but rather that we cannot know them in the natural, but need to be in the spirit. When we are in the spirit, praying in the Spirit, living in a place of prayer and humility, the Holy Spirit will give us a revelation. The same Holy Spirit who explained the plan of redemption to Paul will explain the Scripture to us, explain God’s will and plan to us, give us ideas to solve problems, and much much more. But we need to pray in tongues to get into that place of receiving.

Suddenly information comes. Sometimes it comes when you are praying in tongues, other times it comes in the next worship time you are in, or through the next sermon you hear. Sometimes it comes just as you are falling asleep or waking up. But trust me – when you pray in tongues, revelation comes.

At the beginning of this year, I was praying in tongues for a few hours. I suddenly had a desire to plant a church in Liverpool. I had no natural reason, desire or plans for that. The only person I know in Liverpool was a pastor, and that was it. Yet, I took steps, we are now having introductory meetings in Liverpool and they are going exceptionally well. Glory to God – He revealed the treasures not by eyes, not by ears, but by the Spirit.

What is God keen to reveal to you, but you are dipping in and out of prayer, and not remaining in place to get those treasures?