Andrew Carnegie said “any idea held in the mind and emphasized, whether feared or revered will at once begin to clothe itself”. In other words what you think is what will manifest. If you are afraid of something like Job, it will come upon you. If you are desiring something in faith, it will come upon you. We need to dream big dreams.
I have a dream right now of running a family of one hundred churches in the UK and other churches across Europe, Africa and Asia. As I dream it, it is coming upon me. Our TV ministry is now available in well over 100 nations. We are seeing miracles on a regular basis, and I am in very high demand as a conference speaker. All of that is what I dreamed first. The picture was inside my mind, and now it is coming upon me. I am a long way away from my goals, but I act like I am there, and in my dreams I am there.
You need dreams that involve you going where you have never been. Now, I once heard Steve Jobs say you cannot connect the dots when you dream, you can only connect them after. In other words, dream big and stop worrying about how you are going to get there. You look back and see the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ when you start to get there.
When I started dreaming of five churches, I was also dreaming of five pastors. I didn’t even know five pastors – well I did probably know five, but not five who liked me, and certainly not five who would be willing to work for me! I look back now at the team of pastors that have been assembled in the Tree family and how they have been assembled, it’s genius. I could never have joined the dots looking forward, but now I can.
Listen carefully – STOP TRYING TO JOIN THE DOTS LOOKING FORWARD. You are not smart enough and not wise enough and not creative enough to see what God is about to do.
YOUR JOB IS TO DREAM – YOUR JOB IS TO HOLD THE IMAGE THAT YOU KNOW IS YOUR GOD-GIVEN DESTINY BEFORE YOU – then as the dream comes upon you, you will see how God did it.
Let’s look at it on a micro-level, let’s say you are in church this Sunday, you have already tithed this month and the offering bucket is being passed around, so you open your wallet or purse and get a fiver out to put in the bucket, and the Lord says “I want to get £1000 to you this month, give £100 in the offering”. You obey the LORD and give the £100 and now you are expecting the £1000. Your job is to see the £1000, not plan how it will come.
EVERY SECOND YOU PLAN HOW THE MONEY IS COMING – maybe God will tell Ben to give it to me, maybe God will tell my neighbour to give it to me, maybe God will tell this person to give it to me – every second you spend scheming in your mind HOW, every second you spend trying to join the dots is a second you are not dreaming. YOU ARE JOINING THE DOTS NOT HOLDING THE PICTURE IN YOUR MIND. That is not going to make anything come upon you.
Stop trying to work out how, stay with the whole picture in your mind and focus on it until it matters to you and sparks joy and life in you – and everything, and everyone you need, will turn up when you need it or them, but not before. God’s right on time!
I define willpower as the ability to still imagine the promises of God no matter what your circumstances or senses or feelings say.
Every leader, especially leaders in the body of Christ, should be eager for increase, for abundance, for more. Not because you want more money – or even a bigger ministry – but because you want to grow. Trust me running a church of 5 does not need you to be as big as a church of 50. Pastoring pastors needs you to be bigger. Believing for 100000 pounds needs you to be bigger than believing for 1000 pounds. Growth on the inside produces growth on the outside and growth on the outside forces growth on the inside. It’s a beautiful and brilliant circle and it is one we all need to be on the inside of!
To do this, you must put some grit in your imagination. You need to dream big and hold on tight to those dreams. You need imagination with grit in. You need to start at the end not the beginning. Do not look around and let your circumstances tell you what to dream. Look at the dream. ALL MIRACLES START AT THE END. You imagine the END. You dream the end until the end motivates you, inspires you, fills you with love and peace and joy. You get to that place then it will absolutely come to pass. This is where most pastors fail. They stop dreaming before it comes to pass.
People say live in the moment, but what we need to do is bring the future into the moment. Dream the future right now. I am in meetings right now about adding over 100k a year to our budget, and I know that is not enough and that is not the size that God wants Tree of Life to end up at. We have a huge destiny, and it’s my job to hold it in my dreams and act like it is so now. In the last two months, we have paid for the first month’s TV bills of two ministries starting on TV. Why wouldn’t we do that? We are a huge ministry in my imagination. We are stepping up all the time to reach the dream I have been holding onto in my head for years! That is how ministry should work.
Now other people (including other leaders, sadly) will think you are crazy. But that’s none of your business. Most people who think I am crazy think it because they cannot grasp why I am progressing – the answer is because I am doing things the Bible way and have some grit in my imagination. I think maybe only 1 in 20 pastors are doing the same, sadly. Success is 5% how you do things, and 95% your ability to use your imagination to expect good to come your way.
The world programmes us to be average, but we are not! We are born again, we are beloved of God, we are revivalists, we are apsotles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers! We are the children of the living God – let’s dream big and hold on to our dreams.
Listen – it’s time to dream big. If you only have goals you KNOW HOW TO DO – you are wrong. You are dreaming too small. Dreams should be big enough to unlock the power of God inside you. I was speaking to a man a couple of weeks ago believing God for a new car, and it was the same car he was driving, just newer. It was the same dream from seven years ago when he bought the car he had now. He hadn’t grown or stretched his dreams! I know pastors whose only dream is to survive! That is not a big dream, and you should repent of dreaming that small. God doesn’t care what car you drive, but He cares you learn how to dream big, and a car is a great place to start your dream.
Other people dream “if that person helps me, and if this person sees me and invites me to preach, and that happens, I might be able to do this”. Their dreams are dependent on earthly circumstances and other people. That is not a big enough dream. If your dream is standing on one person’s platform, your dream is tiny. If your dream is to teach at the Bible College you went to without going anywhere before teaching, your dream is miniscule.
What we need are dreams that you have no idea how they could possibly happen. I mean they are entirely a mystery to your peanut brain and you need spiritual power t o walk in them. Beyond anything you have ever done, but you want to do them. You so want to do them. The house you want, the job you want, the ministry you want, the influence you want. All done in love and peace and joy. Things you have no idea how to do, you don’t have the money, the time, you don’t have the power to make it happen – but it is a dream, and it is in your imagination. If you can hold a dream like that in your information and want it so much that it develops a grit inside it – then that is your spirit speaking and you need to yield to it and watch it manifest. Your spiritual self is perfect and limitless, you need to hold that in your imagination until it moves you forward.
Yesterday God spoke a new dream to me, one I have never seen before, but it immediately resonated with me. Within 24 hours I was sitting in front of the man who can make it happen telling me how much he wanted to help make it happen. That is the power I am talking about. I will share it all with you when it happens, and it will!
Selah selah selah!
Job said the thing I greatly feared came upon me. He used his imagination to attract evil into his life. We can reverse this principle and say “the thing I desired and dreamed and expected is come upon me”. Selah.
Jesus is the biggest thinker in the world. The plan of salvation is bigger than any single human could ever think. We need to tune into Jesus. When I was young, we never had mobile phones, we had one phone in our house and it was in the hallway attached to the wall. I shared that phone with my parents, my brother and my sister. Often you would answer the phone to find someone wanting to talk to someone else. The call was not for them.
Now over the years, the phone has transformed. We all have our own phone – our own frequency. We can all tune into our own calls. God had this idea long before we did – He speaks to all of us individually, giving us all dreams that are unique to us. The way you lead will not be the way I lead, the way you confront people, build systems, correct, inspire, challenge, encourage will not be the same as me. Every leader is unique. We are similar to others and less similar to other others, but no two leaders are the same. We can learn from others, there are enough similarities for that, but ultimately to walk in a great big dream you have to tune into Jesus and your personal frequency. You need to hang up on all other calls and answer His call!
Now your mind has a unique number, like your phone does. It’s able to receive from the Lord, but the way you answer the call is the way you think. If you are thinking small thoughts you will not be answering the call of the Lord, you will not be hearing God. You need to think big thoughts. While covid went on and lockdown went on, my biggest concern was not for people’s health or their employment. No, my biggest concern was that the whole situation would affect the way people think, it would make them think small, anxious, doubtful, unChristlike thoughts and disconnect their souls from the living God and therefore from their dreams and destiny.
The pandemic and lockdown is sad, but it has not slowed me or Tree of Life down at all. Why? Because I don’t think on it. What I dream about is who I am. Everything I need is coming my way. My needs will all be met by His riches in glory. I am the head and not the tail. As long as those thoughts swirl around my heart and soul, that is what will manifest in my life. The greatest danger of this age is a danger of limited thinking. We must as leaders help people think big – but that starts with us. You must believe that you are going to have your needs met. If you need it, it will come to you. That is the way God works. If you don’t see that, do not panic, but rather be patient, and keep the line open for God to speak to you. The bigger you dream, the easier it is for you to connect to God.
You need to have some grit in your imagination. If you are a true leader in Christ and called by Christ, I know something about you – you want more than you have right now. You want to do something big for the kingdom. That dream is from Christ. I want more money, not because I am carnal and materialistic but because I want to influence more people. I want to dream bigger not because I have an ego but because I am one with infinite intelligence Himself, Jesus “the Brain” Christ. If you grasp what I am saying, keep working at dreaming bigger. Keep going, keep dreaming. Keep feeding your dreams. And you will start to hear God speak.
Selah. We will continue this thought on grit in your imagination next week. Right now I am off to Guildford to see some miracles! DREAM BIG!
Most people do not think for themselves. I spend my life helping people think big, and what I find is that most small thoughts come from someone else. Most people get their thinking from their parents, their pastors, their peers – they do not stop ever and think about thinking and think about how and why they think in certain ways.
Deep inside your mind, a lot of your thinking is done at a reflexive level – often called your subconscious. You think and act before you have ever even thought about what you are thinking. Your mind spends most of its life on automatic mode, and you need to deliberately think about how you think.
Your mind is like mud. It doesn’t really do much, it simply responds to what you plant inside it. If you plant a certain seed in mud, that will be the only harvest you get. If you want to have a great, big life, you need to stop thinking small thoughts and having small dreams. You need to stop thinking you are small, thinking you are incapable, think that you are this or that. Like mud, your mind does not determine what is good or bad, it just takes the seed and creates a harvest. You have to stop sowing bad seed over and over and start thinking big thoughts and sow better seeds.
The starting point for this is that you need to take responsibility for your own thinking. You need to think about what kind of house you want to live in. A lot of people have never done that. They have never thought about where they would like to live, how much they would like to earn, what kind of people they want to be friends with. Most people have never written the answers to these things down in any detail. They have never once used their own imagination to plant good seeds of their future. And they have never ever used repetition to plant that idea over and over to plant that idea deep in their mind to grow the harvest of that life.
You are a leader, you need to control your imagination and mind. You need to think for yourself, you need to programme your mind yourself.
The best way to develop your mind is writing. Writing causes thinking, thinking causes images. That is how you plant seed in your mind. Over and over you choose to think about the future you want. THIS IS ESSENTIAL. You must write and think and dream. You must create images for your mind to think on. You dream your life then you live your life. We are dreaming our future. We must learn to do this by ourself!
This is how God designed you to operate, and so many people never change their thinking. When you dream, the universe must bow to your God-given dominion and manifest your dream. It’s that simple. The dream must be expressed. BUT YOU NEED TO DREAM YOUR DREAMS FROM YOUR SPIRIT, not what society and family have imposed on you. You must spend the time doing this.
A principle of science is that nothing is created or destroyed. All energy is just converted from one form to another. That is how God designed our universe. All the power to create your dreams is inside you – you just need to think differently. The only thing you need to do is change the way you think. As a leader this is imperative you learn this skill and learn how to show others how to do this.
Again – the first step is not thinking by default. Stop and think about what kind of life you want, what kind of walk with God, what kind of ministry you want, what kind of health and wealth you want, how you want to be. God has put dreams inside your spirit you need to let into your mind. Your mind works like a mobile phone – any thought can call you but you choose which ones you answer!
Right now there is a pandemic going on – it will not affect me at all. Right now there is a lockdown affecting some people’s finances – it will not affect mine at all. Because I don’t let the media tell me what to think. I choose what to think. I don’t think they way most other pastors think because I choose what to think. I am not about to start disobeying the law, but I am working with higher laws and everything I dream is going to manifest in my life. Be patient and keep sowing the seeds until the harvest comes!
I will continue to write about dreaming and thinking big until you start to get it. Love you all!
I am the founder of a first generational church planting movement called the Tree of Life Family. We have in the last ten years planted eight churches and are about to plant another two. Before I started I assumed incorrectly my major hurdle would be raising the finances. That’s not true – the hardest and most challenging part of my job is raising leaders. The hardest part of pastoring is raising leaders, the hardest part of leading is raising more leaders and developing leaders. That is the truth.
And I see a huge mistake that many pastors make, and when I outline it I think some people will disagree with me, but I have the experience to know what I am talking about.
For any church or business to grow and be healthy, it is essential that the main leaders can relate to many different types of people, but they must focus their time on the potential leaders of the future, the brilliant people, not the broken people. Most leaders, across the board, spend most of their time with the broken people, and that creates a regressive church culture, exhausted the leaders and creates a bottle neck that blocks the whole organization from growing. You cannot focus on the squeaky wheels.
I know many pastors who have spend their lives investing in broken people – loving the hurting, accomodating the offended, investing in those with trauma and those who are the most immature. Often their wives are doing the same, and the truth is that women often feel the burden of this more than men.
When you are dealing with broken people, you have to spend time showing them their identity, showing them that their past is not their identity but their identity is found in the love of Christ and His redemptive work for them. That is what defines people. That is how you help broken people. But the problem is broken people do not invest time in themselves. They miss church Sunday to get you to call Monday, when you have preached a powerful message to help them ground themselves in Christ. If you chase them you will always be chasing them.
The problem is that broken people are many steps away from being leaders, but often assume they are further along than they are. They lack the leadersip and management skills to even manage themselves, so they cannot lead others. So you now have a church that lacks leaders, and attracts broken people.
But worse than that, the pastor who is investing his life in broken people is now running on fumes, exhausted, tired, frustrated, and not making much progress. They want help, but cannot disconnect from the broken long enough to invest their lives in the brilliant and promote the brilliant.
The whole church knows that pastor veers to the broken, so the church as a whole tends to brokenness, not brilliance and the whole culture is pulling backwards, not progressing. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see pastors make.
If you miss church Sunday, I will not respond to your emergency Monday. You created that emergency by refusing to be with the people of God worshipping, praising, listening to the Word, investing in people. You are broken, and I will invest in you as much as you invest in yourself, but what I must do is invest in the brilliant so we have other leaders who can help you.
I have told pastors to do the same, but they have a sense of compassion that sadly is not helpful, and it is not godly compassion rather human-basd pity, and it means that the church never develops.
Moses tried to lead this way, and invest in the broken, and his father-in-law Jethro showed him a better way (Exodus 18.13-27). You may be the chief shepherd like Moses, so your job is to reproduce shepherds not pour out your life unto death.
I love what Jethro says in verse 18, “You are not able to do it alone”. We are not able to do it alone – no leader can do it alone, raise up a team, find the brilliant people, invest in them and build a team – then you can definitely help more broken people.
The brilliant people Moses had to invest in were:
able (they were competent)
feared God (they had a good walk with God)
trustworthy (they had character)
hated a bribe (they had financial integrity)
Pastor, leader, I beseech you – invest in the people in your church with competence, character, capability, compatibility with your dream and financial integrity. They are brilliant people and you can raise them up to lead tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands – imagine how many more people you could feed then!
Broken people demand your time and you are going to have to say “No” to them so you have your time and energy to invest in the brilliant people. They won’t come and demand your time, they are nice people who respect you are busy, you will have to make time for them and invest in them. If you think because they are ok and brilliant you can just leave them alone, you are making a huge mistake that will cripple and stifle your church growth and development so much.
Making this change is not easy, you have to discipline yourself, you have to do things deliberately, but it is essential you make this change – so much matters on this!
John Maxwell says the worst leaders are those who are full of mercy, because they find it hard to say no to someone, to hurt someone, to offend someone, to cause conflict. One of the keys to leadership is if you are naturally merciful, is be so careful who you spend time with and why. Be in charge of who you spend time with and do not be afraid to put rules on broken people like:
If you don’t come Sunday, I will not call you Monday
If you do not do the homework I set, I will not visit you again until you do
These sort of principles will change your life and enable you to invest and promote the brilliant. You have two choices – do it all yourself and limit your life to your strength, your time and your capacity, or invest in the brilliant and with a team do things you could never do on your own.
You are not that good to do it alone, you are not the Lone Ranger, you are not capable of fulfilling your destiny with no one raised up. Start investing in brilliant people. Find the right people and work with them!
Choose to invest your time in the brilliant. There are a lot of broken people in your church, people who grew up without a father, people who have been hurt and abused, but running around trying to help them all will not change the maximum number of lives. It will also burn you out. A lot of pastors quit – but if you invest in the brilliant, you will avoid burn out and have a team that supports you.
Jesus had his disciples, they were not perfect, but they were capable and they were always listening, learning and developing. They did not skip out and miss the Sermon on the Mount because they are offended. They got over things and walked forward. They were a team and that ultimately made the ministry a joy not a burden.
Don’t promote too quickly, interview again and again, if in doubt, leave it until another day, do not get conned by fast talkers and nice people. We must have the right people on the bus, and in the right seats. This takes time, and you need to learn this skill.
You cannot plant a church, build a church, build a leadership team, raise up leaders or help people dream big unless you accept the fact that you will have conflict if you do so.
A lot of leaders value a fake harmony over difficult constructive useful conflict that is difficult but essential for growth and progress. Harry Truman was the first to say if you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen – but as Christian leaders we are called to be in the kitchen, we are called to be in the place where we are helping people, we are called to speak the truth in love – we are NOT called to be so loving we never speak the truth, or so truthful we never love. We must have both – truth and love.
Sometimes as leaders we want to be more loving than Jesus, more helpful than Jesus and kinder than Jesus! And you can’t, it’s impossible. Without doing things that may create conflict, you cannot be a leader. I am not talking about being pushy and harsh with people, I am talking about not wanting everyone to get along so badly, and be a big happy family so much, we cannot suggest ideas, change things, progress and be fruitful. If you hate conflict so much you never say “no” to anyone, you are in the wrong place in your heart. Move! Learn how to say no!
Leadership can be stressful, it can be hard – to lead people you have to say “no” to them on occasion, it’s not easy, but it is essential. I have met Christian leaders who avoid conflict so much, they even lie to their people to stop them getting upset. That’s not right. I have on occasion instructed a pastor or elder to stop something in their group, and one one occasion, a pastor resigned rather than say no to a false prophet in their church! We cannot let that happen. We cannot replace the peace of the Lord and the leadership of the Spirit with a false harmony based on letting everyone do what they want. You must get used to the heat – to be in leadership there will often be conflict.
Leaders need boldness and courage. I have seen this in the church, I have seen it in business – leaders who could not confront and lost everything. All their plans are based on avoiding conflict. We need a big of toughness, a rough, real, authentic love that chooses truth over artificial and fake peace.
Now, let me confess, I have done this on occasion, I have had a few cowardly moments and they have always cost me dearly. I may have a few more in the future, but my goal is not to confront everyone for everything, but it is to grow myself and the people entrusted to me properly and if that means conflict, it means conflict. I think some people reading this need to make the same commitment – we will deal with conflict authentically, in love, honestly and kindly, sensitively but also strongly. You need what one preacher once called “the courage to collide”. Do not swerve off the right path to avoid someone! Do not back down, be strong when you have to be.
Also, you need to be humble – sometimes you cause conflict, sometimes I do. Own up to it and make it right.
Another quick tip is this – correct in private, praise in public. Never confront in public, never correct on social media – go to the person privately and follow Matthew 18. Do not correct someone in a church service!
Don’t replace difficult conflict with artificial harmony. Remember Luke 6.26, woe to you when all people speak well of you. When someone really likes one of my team, a pastor or elder, and they are ambivalent or antagonistic to me, that is a warning sign to me that my leader is not discipled enough to resemble me enough to also irritate that person. Selah.
Be bold, be strong, be kind – but be authentic and loving enough to confront and deal with issues when necessary. Maybe there is someone in your church or your small group or your department no one has ever confronted and needs to be faced down head on. I heard of a church last week that is both proud and excited that they let everyone in the church speak whenever they want and say whatever they want. I guarantee no-one in that church is growing, because there is no “NO”. We need to be able to say “NO” in love, but confidently and with a gentle strength. Selah.
I was reading Mark 4 today, it’s a passage I go back to over and over. The sower sows the Word. And today, I saw something that I had never seen before. Something that I realized was true a long time ago from experience, but something I had never realized was in the Word!
It is this: preaching is a gamble. When I get up on a Sunday morning, when I go live on a Wednesday night, when I travel to a church as a guest speaker – even writing a blog like this, there are four different possible reactions:
The Pavement Reaction. Which is actually no reaction! Someone can be in church, hear a powerful message on forgiveness and still be just as bitter as when they walked in. Not an ounce of difference! Just as prickly, just as easily offended as before the seed is cast at them!
The Rocky Reaction. They get really excited about the message, they find you and tell you the message was the greatest ever, they are so passionate about what you said and the Scriptures you used, but in 48 hours it is like they never heard it at all. Their troubles caused them to forget the Word. Often they blame you for the Word not working, they can even start to hate you.
The Weeds Reaction. The Word starts to work in them, but ultimately “life” gets in the way, and the cares of the world and getting ahead in life, and keeping up with the Jones, and family and friends, and tiling the bathroom – all stops them keeping moving forward with God.
The Harvest Reaction. This is someone who hears the Word, keeps coming, becomes consistent, faithful, mature – you know they will be at church, you know they will keep short accounts with God and people, you know they will grow. They produce 30, 60 and 100 fold – they become leaders, champions, healed, blessed, they manifest favour. It’s a joy to pastor them.
Now here is what I realized today, I have zero control on how the Word is going to be received. I throw the Word to everyone and I have no idea. People surprise me. Sometimes people get offended who I thought would never get offended! Sometimes people get distracted by the most petty of worldly things that I never thought would let the Word inside them get choked. Sometimes people leave church for reasons that seem just foolish and immature, and they never go to church again, and it’s a shock. But also, sometimes people forgive and grow who I never thought would grasp the Word, people start to live for God from the most unlikely of backgrounds. The Word has the power to change anyone who will listen to it and deal with the rocks and weeds in their heart.
It’s a gamble every time you preach, but you preach your heart out, you sow the seed in every heart, you expect everyone to come to a point of being good ground, you realize that without fail some of the seed you sow will most definitely come to good ground, most definitely change lives and produce harvest. Then you leave the response to the people and their hearts, and let them decide what kind of soil they want to be, without trying to dominate, manipulate or intimidate them.
You are making a difference every time you preach – but you do not get to choose whose live you make the difference in. If you deal the cards often enough you will eventually get Aces. But you don’t get to decide where or when, so keep dealing – keep scattering the seed of the Word, keep speaking life, keep preaching truth. Don’t get upset when sometimes you roll a double one and someone doesn’t get it, love them and keep preaching, take another roll of the dice, take another go.
Keep speaking life, keep sharing the truths. Do not quit. Some sermons will be received better than others, some weeks you will “win” more than others, but keep going. If one in four produces 30 or 60 or 100 times return, if you keep going, eventually you will end up growing your church and ministry.
One of the things I see so many leaders to is try and hold onto all the money and hold it as tight as they can. When they have nothing they can cope, but when money comes in, they start to trust in the money over trusting in God.
It is time for every single pastor in the UK to become bold with money. Stop being frugal, stop being tight, stop being tight, stop being afraid and be bold. Spend some money. Give away a lot of money. Do something bold with your money.
The people did not invest in your church and your ministry for you to have a savings account and get a penny or two interest. They invested in you as a visionary and dreamer and they expect you to take that money and change the world. Launch out!
If you are not accused of being stupid, careless or foolish with money you have not yet been bold enough. You have to decide you want to grow the church, you want to have fresh vision, you want to fuel giant big dreams. Stop playing it safe with money. Give big to world mission, give big salaries to people, hold a great big conference, invest in an international speaker.
I am not saying take a stupid risk, you as a leader should be able to discern, but if you have to choose between taking no risk and taking too big a risk – aim at falling on the side of too big a risk.
When your life is over your biggest regrets will be the chances you did not take. I know in the UK pastors are more guilty of sinning by what they do not do, not what they are doing! We need to step out. The reason so many churches in the UK are not growing, not increasing, not discipling is that they are afraid of taking faith risks. They are afraid of trusting God. They want big safe margins in the bank, they want big fat savings accounts.
At the beginning of this year, I emptied out our savings account paying for two big crusades in Tanzania. I do not regret that. In May, I gave £10000 to Andrew Wommack Ministries from our account. I do not regret that.
For our annual summer conference in 2022 I have paid for a venue twice the size of any venue we have hired before. I do not regret that. I once paid £35000 just to hold one Sunday service! I do not regret that for one minute.
Never ever let the pocketbook take more importance than the people, never let the cash matter more than the congregation, never let the money matter more than the mission.
Get on your face before God and admit that you are too stupid to decide what to spend and what to give, find out what He wants you to do and do it without question. I am so tired of hearing guest speakers tell me “I wouldn’t have made budget for this trip without you”, or horror stories of how cheap and nasty their accommodation was, or going to preach in places myself in venues that are leaking, smelly and cheap. I am tired of seeing such amateur leaflets and weak situations. I am so fed up of people thinking a hundred pounds is a lot of money in church.
I think we need to radically change our approach. Give big, spend big, do big, dream big. Take great big offerings, and never be afraid, embarrassed or unready to receive an offering.
The bottom line is not how much money you have in the bank, it’s how many people you disciple, reach, help, encourage, lift up, save, heal, and love. That is the bottom line, nothing else.
A war is on in the churches in the UK right now – and the outcome needs to be without fail that we are bold with money, that we are bold in our giving, our spending, in our investing in people. In excellence.
There’s nothing wrong with saving, but do not trust it – there is an easy and small step from saving to hoarding. We must not be frugal, we must not become misers. We must not violate what Paul has taught us in 1 Tim. 6 to enjoy our money! And the greatest joy of money is using it to change lives.
Peter Drucker said that being efficient is doing things right, but to be effective you need to do the right things. So many churches are doing tiny things right when we need to be doing great big things.
TAKE RISKS with MONEY! Trust God. And if you are in a church, it’s not your job to protect the people from the spending of the ministers. It’s not your job to stop giving big, dreaming big and spending big happening in the church. You are not there to make sure the leaders have tiny little British visions. You want a church like that, go plant one. Do not join a growing, daring, loving church and try and reduce them down to your level of your immaturity.
I have seen several churches where one or two people have tried to hold the pastor hostage and stop them having faith and advancing the kingdom and taking the gospel to the nation. If that is you, get up in front of the people, share your vision and make the people excited to give and excited for you to spend, and if a couple of people keep holding you back, you may have to ask them to leave.
Listen, as someone who has planted eight churches in 11 years, pays for a dozen venues a month, has staff, has one of the largest TV ministries in the UK, and spend a lot of money – it is always better to raise more money than cut back spending on gospel advancement.
Now, of course, you need processes, you need to fund your vision, you need to save too, you need to not be lurching from crisis to crisis, and then have to lay off someone or cut back in a terrible way. You need to be handle seasons (you might need an open ear for a seven thin cows), but at the same time you need to be bold and strong and stop being a Scrooge. We must be full of faith when it comes to money. We must stop being miserly.
We must never be in a position where we cannot spend money to reach and disciple people. It breaks my heart when a conference is cancelled due to funding, or a conference cancels its ministry to the most precious people of all, children, due to lack of funding. It’s not a lack of funding, it is a lack of faith. It is a lack of respect for the Lord and His goodness.
Frugality in the things of the kingdom is ugly, presumptuous, and is holding back revival in our nation. I hope I have said this strongly enough. Pay money to learn how to raise money if you need. I am not talking about secular, ungodly, sleazy ways of fundraising, I am talking about being bold, building a donor base and learning how to lead people into the freedom and joy of tithing and giving generously to your church.
I think we need to go right back to basics and realize the Lord Himself is our provider! We belong to Jesus, He called us and He will provide when we are in a place called there. Get there and expect the ravens to come. Trust me – God’s dream for your life, your church, your ministry is bigger than yours. Start to trust. You need to set the example in your church and give generously personally and from the church fund. You need to stop arguing over pennies and start giving big! The way to balance saving, income, giving, spending is to save big, receive big, give big and spend big. Don’t spend on a credit card, but while you are waiting for more money dream big.
The truth is that being miserly and frugal is actually materialism. It is because you love money, you spend more than you need on things you don’t need and don’t spend on the kingdom. You save and save because you cannot handle in any way not having money or trusting the Lord.
Be bold! Make sure you are giving to other ministries to advance the gospel across the world, in places not where you are. Make sure you are investing in your church and dreaming big.
Is being busy the new religion of the modern age I wonder. We are moving so fast now – faster than ever before. There is so much to do! But what should our priorities be as Christian leaders – not doing, but rather thinking, dreaming, praying, listening, resting, planning.
We need to ensure that as leaders we are not moving so faster and doing so much that we miss out on dreaming big dreams, we miss out on fellowshipping with the Lord and walking with Him.
Right now we are going through a huge experiment as the human race. Never before have we been so connected – online – and that competes with our prayer life and our dreaming times. We rarely take the time to think about a situation from more than one angle!
Now one of the reasons we are so busy as Christian leaders is that we have good hearts – we want to help people, we want to be there for the people who need us, we want to go above and beyond people’s expectations. And then there is the bad example of lazy leaders which go to unfruitfulness.
However, being over-busy is just as bad as being under-busy! Sometimes we can do so much we never press pause and think – is this the best way to do this, is this the best way to achieve this, what will the future be like, does God want me to do this? THE BIG QUESTIONS are being pushed out because we are too busy to think and dream! That is a huge mistake many leaders make. They can be brilliant at the day to day, but to lead you need to have a dream of a better future. Nothing is more important to a leader than a dream of a better future. Nothing.
The problem is that a lot of Christian leaders were appointed to lead because they made good Marthas – they got the house tidy, they got the dinner ready, they got the Bible study notes photocopied (or uploaded and shared now), they got the job done. And the Martha inside us can be a bit noisy when we say – right now the most important thing is sitting at the feet of Jesus. As we sit at His feet, we start to think of all the things that must be done – that we must do. The reason we do not stay in His presence long enough to be transformed, to be inspired, to be directed and led from Heaven is not because we are too busy and that is just how it is – it is because deep down we do not prioritize this.
We think not doing the urgent and immediate will hurt others. No – not spending enough time with the Lord, enough time dreaming, enough time planning and developing strategies – will be what hurts others. Get this right in your mind. If you do not have a dream of a better future, your people will pick up on it and immediately being around you will demoralize them, not inspire them. Because you did not take the time to dream. You will not encourage others to set goals and dream, because you do not dream. This is vital we take the time to dream. Ultimately people will lose respect in your leadership if you do not have a dream.
You have to learn the skills of dreaming, receiving a dream from the Lord, dreaming big, letting the right people know the dream, communicating the dream, and inspiring people with the dream, and motivating people to share the dream. But you cannot do any of this without the dream.
If someone cannot create a vision for the future in the people – they are not a leader. That is stark, but true. This is the essential trait of leaders and we must take the time to dream. If all we deal with is what we can see and what is right now visible and in front of us, we are managing not leading, and we are not operating in faith.
Many churches, many ministries, are sadly over-managed and under-led. Ask the average person in the church or ministry what the dream is – and they will not have a clue. They do not have a bigger picture for a better future and that is a reflection on leadership.
I think everyone who becomes a pastor should be given a microscope and a telescope. The microscope to see things close up as they really are, but the telescope to see things that are far away! We need to have a telescope heart – things that are far away are coming, let’s get ready.
At our church in Dagenham, we have developed – because we are a kind and loving people – a habit of singing happy birthday to people and giving them cake on their birthday. The problem is now on average we have 3-4 birthdays every single week. And the church is growing. Time for a change, I have to get my telescope out and say – this won’t work for a church of 1000, time to shift gears. That’s a small example, but it is the kind of thing I am consistently doing – seeing the future, preparing people for leadership, preparing people for a bigger role. Because I am a leader. And because I set aside, in the middle of my business – and I am busier than most pastors – time to spend with the Lord, to communicate with Him, to listen to Him. I take the time to dream.
What to me is the sign of a good leader is an obsession with the future. We need to be dreaming of a better future – we need that divine restlessness in our hearts – how can it be better? What can change for the better… when you spend time with the Lord, you cannot help living like this.
The number one complaint people have about their last church when they come to Tree of Life is not about doctrine or grace, or anything on those lines, no they tell me “our church had no vision for the future, and people just drift away”. We cannot just focus on today, we must dream of a better tomorrow and take the time to do that.
I am writing this blog post in Albania, and it has been such a joy to be with Shayne Holesgrove – he has a huge dream for a better tomorrow, and it is bearing fruit. He takes the time to find out what God wants for his churches, ministries and groups. It is enjoyable to talk to him because this is the level of the communication.
Listen, I love doing things, I identify with Martha. I love checking things off on a list, I love getting things done, I love doing. I have to discipline myself to sit at His feet and hear from His heart what He wants me to do on planet earth. I have to be still and know that He is God, and so do you. Your primary responsibility as a Christian leader is to hear God speak. What does God want to do with you, through you and in you to make a better future? Are you Noah or Nehemiah? Are you Moses or Joshua? Are you Paul or Timothy today?
Do what needs to be done today, of course. But not at the expense of what needs to be done for tomorrow. Put dream time into your schedule, turn your phone onto airplane mode and dream big. Sit at His feet and watch things change for the better.
Isn’t it interesting that the Bible says that the fear of God is the start of wisdom but the fear of man is a trap (Proverbs 29.25). You cannot do both. You could equally say the fear of man is the end of all wisdom – trying to please everyone is dumb, and it is a dumb thing that sadly many leaders do.
Every single church in the world has people come who try and bully the pastor. They try and make the pastor feel guilty, feel afraid of them, try and make him keep them happy. That’s not the job of a pastor, or any leader. My job as a pastor is to keep God happy, I am truly dancing for an audience of one.
The larger a church gets, the harder it is. I remember being a youth pastor of a church of hundreds, I had to report to the senior pastor, I had to report to the board, the children pushed me to please them and keep them happy, the parents wanted things done a different way from all of those groups of people. The volunteers who worked for me had a different opinion on what made them happy and what I was expected to do. To live to please all of them would have been madness, and if I tried it ministry would become a burden not a joy.
The way to handle this is to spend more time alone with the Lord. Spend time finding out His will for your life and how He wants you to handle situations. You need to develop a spine that means you can tell someone in your church – no, that’s not how this is going to play out, this is not what is going to happen next, and your suggestion is not going to be followed. Godly people will understand!
You cannot serve two masters, so make Jesus your master and serve Him. There is only room for Him as the Lord of your life. You need to stop asking yourself “but what will (insert person or people here) think if I do that!”. You need to learn how to fear the Lord and honour Him above the voices and opinions of others. Either the fear of God will eradicate your fear of man, or your fear of man will stop you fearing God. You need to learn how to be motivated by Jesus only.
It’s easy to say, but it does require humility, devotion, tenacity, a thick-skin and some wisdom! It takes boldness to say something to a church or have a difficult conversation with someone difficult that might cause them to leave – and take a friend or two, and all their money with them! But we must be bold. We must do what the Lord says, and we must do it regardless. There will be persecution in this life – all those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. We are here to serve Jesus and speak truth, not be as popular as possible. Paul said if I am trying to get men to approve of me, I would not be approved by God (Gal. 1.10).
I have had rich people make threats to me, I have had people refuse to tithe unless they were allowed in the band, I have had people tell me how unloving I was not to give them the pulpit and promote them, I have had more than my fair share of people making sure I know that my behaviour, my attitude, my actions are not pleasing to them, but I am not living for them, I am living for Jesus. I know what God has called me to do, what kind of church Tree of Life is supposed to be and I will take a very firm stand for that. It has cost me a lot, but the reward is always greater than the cost.
You cannot keep everyone happy and do what Jesus wants you to do – choose Jesus! Choose the Word. It is a real temptation because deep down we all liked being liked! It is hard to be constantly disrespected so we need to keep close to the Lord and know we are doing what He respects to stand. Spending time with the Lord makes us bold.
Some of you need to get set free from the opinions of others, and stop living in fear of their opinions and ask Jesus for the grace to hear His voice and His point of view above the noise of others. And be willing to be unpopular if it is doing His will His way.
Inspiring and Challenging Dreamers 