Author Archives: Tree of Life Church

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”

Some people will actually act like your friends when they are not your friends. They will pretend to you and to others that you and them are really close, even intimate, when they barely understand you and your heart and why you do what you do. Over-familiarity is when you act like you are soContinue reading “Dealing with Actors 04: Over-Familiarity – Acting Like You are Friends”

One of the problems of actors in the church is this – you will make a promise or do a deal or make an appointment that you will eventually regret. Once I appointed a married couple to be elders, and I found out later that they were actors. They pretended to believe things they didContinue reading “Dealing with Actors 03: A Deal You Might Regret”

I ended our last post by quoting Romans 12.9, the verse that was the driving force behind all my teaching and preaching in 2022, our year of unfeigned love. It says “let love be without hypocrisy”. The Greek word here means to act, and it literally means someone who is under a mask, as inContinue reading “Dealing with Actors 02: Seeing Behind the Mask”