Author Archives: Tree of Life Church

Jesus said very clearly that whatever you want people to do to you, you should do also to them (Matthew 7.12). The Passion Translation reads: be careful to treat others in the same way you’d want them to treat you. That is a standard of character that we all should be keeping to as anContinue reading “Character Matters 05 The Golden Rule”

You need to be honest to have character, and you need to start off by being honest with yourself. The hardest people to pastor and lead are the people who are lying to themselves. We have had to deal with leaders before who are not honest with themselves, and it always comes out, they stopContinue reading “Character for Leaders 04 Be Honest!”

There has been a sort of understanding across the world that character is just for your personal life. It’s got nothing to do with ministry, business or politics. But that’s absolute rubbish. A lot of the crisis in business today is a crisis of credibility due to a crisis of character. Students are cheating inContinue reading “Character for Leaders 03 Character Matters Everywhere”

So many people think a win is measured in numbers and finances! Now we love more people coming to Tree of Life because we know we disciple them. We love having more money because we spend it on advancing the kingdom. But all the people and money in the world won’t matter if we doContinue reading “Character for Leaders 02 There is No Victory Without Character”

A lot of people are fed up of leaders for one reason – their lack of character. Politicians lie and break the very rules they make. Business CEOs are dishonest and deal without ethics. Sportsmen cheat, paying judges, taking illegal substances, and so on – not to mention their character off the pitch or field!Continue reading “Character for Leaders 01 Leaders Need More Character”

Last week we looked at leadership lessons from Noah, today we skip forward to a remarkable leader, Abraham. He started the Jewish nation and religion, and was a man of remarkable faith in God. He took a long time to get to the point where He fully trusted God, but eventually He found out youContinue reading “Biblical Leaders 02: Abraham”

The Bible is full of examples of great leaders. People who made a difference in the lives of others, who influenced people, who changed lives, communities, and nations. But when we start with Noah we start with a man who changed the world. Without Noah, you would not even be here right now. No humanContinue reading “Biblical Leaders 01: Noah”

Over the last few weeks, we have looked at a particular type of actor you may find in your church (or business or ministry, etc). We have looked at people who are pretending to be your friend, and we have called this kind of pretending over-familiarity. We found out that this kind of pretending, aContinue reading “Dealing With Actors 07: Breaking Over-Familiarity”

In our last two posts, we shared the dangers of over-familiarity. Over-familiarity is when someone acts like they are your friend, that they are intimate with you, but they only know surface things about you. Because of this, their friendship does not have the appropriate level of respect. An attitude like that stopped Jesus workingContinue reading “Dealing With Actors 06: Spotting Over-Familiarity”

As a pastor or other leader, you have to recognize that certain groups of people are more vulnerable to over-familiarity. and help those people. Some people have a much greater tendency to over-familiar. There are five groups you need to be careful with, because none of us want to be in a place where weContinue reading “Dealing with Actors 05: Who is Most Vulnerable to Familiarity”