Inspiring and Challenging Dreamers

Pastors are not the only ministers who behave badly – sometimes guest speakers do too. I have in the ten years I have been running the Tree of Life Family had guest speakers bring their own buckets and receive their own sneaky little offering, preach messages I told them not to preach, lied about other ministers to gain prominence, used my platform to correct my own ministers! So yes, sometimes they behave badly. Sometimes they are awesome in the pulpit, but outside they are difficult, make awkward requests (I mean utterly beyond the realm of reason) and are rude and ungainly. Now please – I don’t think the majority of guest speakers are like this, but some of you reading this will get invited somewhere at some point, so learn how to behave and make it as easy as possible for your host pastor!

We want you to be like the apostle Paul, a great travelling minister going to churches and bringing life and peace and revelation. We want you to be a blessing to every host pastor you visit, being of aware that you an ambassador of the kingdom of God!

• Respect the church you have been invited to and the pastor who invited you. Say something nice about them – compliment the worship band, the choir, the pastor, the building. Compliment the people for coming. Do not get up there and say “hey, our worship band is bigger than your whole church”, do not criticize anything publicly. Now you have all heard of stories of big name speakers going into a church and saying something like “never sing that song again, it’s not faith, it’s not grace, it’s not good” – you are not them – don’t do that!
• Don’t patronize the host pastor – you are not his spiritual superior, don’t bless him or give him a word unless you have that mentor relationship don’t do that.
• DO NOT (notice the big capitals) invite yourself anywhere! There is nothing more off-putting to pastors than pushy people pushing for their pulpit. If you start off by being pushy, all pastors think you will be pushy when you are there. It is really off-putting.
• Do not go where you think the money is. Do not demand money. Freely you have given, freely give (Matthew 10.8), so do not set a minimum honorarium! You are not a motivational speaker, you are a minister of the gospel.
• Do not misuse your invite. I had a situation a while ago, a minister I knew asked if I would take a mission team from the USA to come to our church for a short-term mission. We have done similar things before with churches and Bible Colleges, but I had zero peace about this, like a scratching inside me. I know how to be led by the Spirit, so I checked it out. Turned out it was a church in the US planning to plant a church in London – and they were going to use this mission trip as a way of meeting our people to invite them to their new church they were planting. That is a hidden agenda, it is abusive, it is disingenuous! Do not be that person! Someone inviting you to their platform is a good thing, they are doing a good thing for you, and you are repaying evil for good which Biblically is something you should not do (Proverbs 17.13).
• Make sure you have permission to:
  • Ask for partners. Never ask for partners without the host pastors permission. EVER!
  • Plug your para-church organization. For example, a Bible College or a mission trip. Never ever plug those things, putting people to leave a local church for a season, without explicit permission from the pastor.
  • Raise an offering. Most pastors will want to raise the offering for you. Never raise an offering without permission.
• It is not wrong to ensure you are treated well, but do it graciously! It is fine to let people know what your expenses will be, especially if you do not know the church. I know visiting speakers who have travelled hundreds of miles, ministered 6 or 7 times in a weekend, and paid for their own hotel and expenses, and got under £100 in offerings. That wasn’t a small church that did that either. It is important to have those discussions up front. As a pastor, I always ask the question “Is there anything that you want to let me know you need when you come”. I like to pay for everything – hotel, food, etc. upfront and in some cases we even give our guest speakers some spending money.
  • Now, often if speakers fly from America, and they travel a lot – then they will have airmiles, favourite airlines and also it is often considerably cheaper to book from America. In those cases, I often ask the speaker if it is ok that they book their flights, and we reimburse them. Sometimes we will ask them to find flights and then purchase them.
• Do not self-promote! The pastor has probably spent years building a congregation, feeding them week after week – they wouldn’t exist to have a guest speaker without that pastor! The pastor has no doubt promoted you and been favourable about you. Just being a guest speaker means people have more faith in you, less familiarity, more expectations of your ministry. Do not try and outshine the pastor or put them down for your own ego issues!
• Flow with the conference you have been invited to. Most conferences have a theme – don’t cross it, don’t try and do something different. If you have been invited to do a miracle service, do it and bring some miracles. If you have been asked to teach in a day session, don’t turn it into a miracle service. There is one evangelist I will never invite back because he cannot flow with anyone else or any other service. All the best to him, but I like conferences where we walk in step with each other.
• Do not build relationships with people from the church behind the pastor’s back. That is outrageous. If you are invited to a family of churches, do not build relationships with the other pastors behind the senior pastors back. Treat the invitee as the mayor of that area, do not go there without his permission, do not contact the people from there without his permission.
• Promote the host ministry, not your ministry. Let the Lord promote you! When you have finished preaching and ministering, the church you visited should be better off because of it, not divided, not struggling. The pastor should not have to address your strange teaching or odd behaviour or overly controlling comments If people feel hated, or condemned, you haven’t done your job. You are there to uplift that church.
• You can judge whether you did a good job very easily – if you never get an invite back, you didn’t.
• Finally, invite the people who invite you to your ministry. You are not the only one with revelations! Invite them too!

And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee (1 Cor. 12.21 KJV)

One of the places you are going to have to relate to other ministers is when you invite them to come and minister at one of your churches or conferences. As much as you can, build a good relationship with guest speakers, loving and honouring them. Firstly, you need guest speakers! You cannot equip the church all by yourself. Secondly, guest speakers speak to each other. If you treat one of them badly, you will suddenly find no one wants to come and speak for you! Some people ask me why I have such great guest speakers. Well, I never really know why they come in the first place, but I do know why they come back, and this is why:

Guest speakers are just that – guests. And we need to treat them like honoured guests and honour them during their time with us.

• Invite them to a meeting you know people will attend. Do not invite a guest speaker to a early morning prayer meeting or youth service! Invite them to the big service! If they are coming to your conference, give them the best session of the conference!
• Be there – unless you absolutely cannot be there. If you are building a new relationship with the guest speaker, be there even if you absolutely cannot be there!
• Introduce the speaker yourself, do not delegate that task. Ever.
• Find out how your guest wants to be introduced. They are the guest, treat them like one. If they prefer “Prophet Smith”, don’t get up and introduce “Pastor Smith”.
• Find out how to pronounce their name properly (this is something I am terrible at, growing up in Scotland has given me a very strange grasp of how names are pronounced).
• Use the proper and correct name of their church and/ or ministry.
• You will not be able to get on well with all guest speakers. Some of them genuinely do not like people, some of them just do not like you. Some will be your new best friends, others will not. Some ministers just will never come to you no matter how much you invite them. None of this is a problem. Start to work out what speakers you like and appreciate and ask your pastors and elders which speakers they would have back – the answers might surprise you. Now don’t just go by what they say, but you should listen and know what they think.
• If the guest speaker is senior to you – older than you, more experienced in ministry than you, has a larger ministry than you then give them freedom to minister. Do not call them forward for you to minister over them. A lot of young immature “prophets” love to make a name for themselves and link themselves to larger ministries by giving them a prophetic word. No, let the Bible stand that the lesser is blessed by the greater (Hebrews 7.7). If you are in the presence of a great minister, shut your mouth and listen and learn.
• Avoid inter-church politics. There can be rivalry in the town, and don’t invite a speaker to cause grief to another pastor. We had a minister contact us with a very powerful healing ministry who wanted to come to us, but we found out that another local church had just ended the relationship with them. This speaker actually asked me to go to the car park of the other church and leaflet the cars. I refused, I will not deliberately cause strife! Don’t join a ministerial gang in your area – cliques of ministers who go around attacking others!
• Some guest speakers are far from perfect. John wrote about a man called Diotrephes who loved to have pre-eminence. Some guest speakers want to be honoured far above their station. They insist on the best restaurants, the best offerings. You will soon notice their lobbying for lordship over you, pre-eminence over you, they will not be serving you or your people. They are dictators building their ministry out of your people. If you are uncomfortable, do not let the minister appeal for partners or attempt to draw people away from you. Stand up for your people! Sometimes you need to be gracious during the event, then make a note – that one is not getting invited back. Sometimes it is like the X-Factor, you never know what someone is really like until you see them off-stage. Then you know, do not invite back!
• If the guest speaker is junior to you, with a smaller ministry, less experience and so on, then show them some respect. Don’t call them “son” or “junior”, give them a decent respectable offering and make sure you use their title if that is their preference. Make sure your church know that you are backing this person! If they mess up, generally it’s less because they are trying to lord it over you and more because of inexperience in discretion, in handling money and so on. Do not correct them in public, have a quiet word with them in private.
• Always follow up when someone comes: thank them in person, and give them an honorarium that is generous for your church size. If you have to save up a few weeks or months to invite someone, do it. I have over and over, and I get the best guest speakers in the world.
• Welcome the guest speaker from their point of entry. If they are coming from overseas meet them at the airport. Do not expect someone to make their own way from around a foreign nation! Never ever do that. That’s terrible advice. Do not send a junior minister to meet someone, you make sure they are met by someone of the same level and ilk. If they are the senior pastor, you as the senior pastor of the inviting church go and pick them up. Hire a decent car if you have to, do not drive them around in a banger with the windows missing! If you have to delegate, delegate to the most important person in your ministry.
• Often I have actually driven a guest speaker to the next location as the pastor has not realized how important it is to come and get them. If they are preaching somewhere else, I will go and listen to them in a context where I am not the pastor, then drive them back to our church. You learn a lot driving some speakers around (some just want to sit and rest, be mindful of that) and besides it is just good manners. Do not delegate that to someone who works in admin or a volunteer!
• In the church, have a seat so that the visiting speaker is going to sit near you. Keep an eye on them so the more “flaky” Christians do not dominate their time after the service.
• If the visiting minister has brought his wife, family, or other staff, publically identify them and acknowledge them. Never disregard anyone’s associate – what if they end up being the next Elisha!
• Treat the visiting pastor’s wife well. For goodness sake, she is a very important person. Even if only because she will be the one deciding if her husband comes back to your church!
• Give your guest speaker time! Do not invite someone from overseas who flies 8 hours to your church to speak for 15 minutes. Get a grip! Give them an hour!
• When you introduce your guest speaker – be excited. Do not introduce them as the next apostle Paul or any other flattery, but just genuine excitement about them, and let the church know you are excited to be there and listen. I often hold up my notebook when I introduce a guest speaker and let my people know I am going to be sitting down and taking notes today. That helps them take this very seriously.
• Be clear and direct with your guest speakers. If you want them to make an altar call, tell them. If they wrote a great book and you want them to speak on it, ask them. One of our best online guest speaker sessions this year of lockdown was Bob Yandian speaking on end-times. I was listening to him preach to his people on end-times and I asked him directly “would you be willing to share some of this with our people” and he was happy to. There is nothing wrong with doing that, and it helps guest speakers to know they are genuinely helping your people. Do not surprise your guest! Let them know everything in advance, let them know they will be taken care of. If a minister likes a topic well enough to write a whole book on it, trust me they will normally enjoy speaking about it.
• Get them a box of treats for their room. Find out what they like and make sure it is there for them.
• Discuss finances and other requirements beforehand! You need to know how much money they expect, you need to know how they expect to arrive at your meeting and leave your meeting, you need to know what kind of accommodation they expect. If you are a smaller church, let the speaker know, let them know honestly what you can afford, and let the speaker make a decision whether to come anyway or not. Be upfront, honest and direct.
• Expenses may surprise you – it is expensive to travel and speak. When I travel to Europe for example, I might fly fairly cheaply, but I may have to get an Uber to the airport for a very early flight, even spend a night at the airport hotel to be there early enough. I know ministers who have flown to the UK, travelled around churches and Bible Colleges and not made enough to fly back without using their ministry savings. That is a very bad reflection of our nation! I never want a minister to return from the UK with more debt!
• A good honorarium should include both expenses covered and a blessing for the minister. They should be more blessed from coming to you than if they didn’t! Take into account the rank and seniority of the minister, their relationship with you, and so on. Ministers who are fathers to you personally should be especially honoured. Also, let the honorarium take into account the number of days a person ministers. A gift for a single Sunday morning should not be the same as a four or five day conference! Give the offering in person, and to the correct person in person by the senior pastor.
• You should not take a long time to get that money to the person. I know churches that just completely forgot to give! We had a situation once where a cheque written to an American ministry took over three months to clear, so now I do not write cheques, I use PayPal or BACS internationally. I want them to have that money before they even get on the plane! It is decent to give them a Thank You card too!
• Do not leave the visiting speaker at the mercy of your least dignified people! Escort them from the meeting and help them yourself to get to where they are going next.

(My next post will put the shoe on the other foot and give keys to be a good guest speaker).

The eye cannot tell the hand I don’t need you! And we, as pastors, are placed in towns and cities with other pastors. They don’t go to your church, they don’t think like you think, they have different ideas than you, your church doesn’t look like their church. Sometimes people who you rely on walk out of your church into theirs! Sometimes people they rely on walk out of their church into yours!

We need to be cordial with these people, and not be pastors behaving badly regarding other pastors. I am not saying all these other pastors will or even can be your best friends, you are unique and doing your thing. In fact, I tend to stay away from local pastor’s gatherings for several reasons:

• It is not a good use of my time. Those kind of meetings rarely generate useful ideas or plans to help do what the Lord has called me to do.
• Often there is a lot of conflict in those meetings, pastors can despise other pastors, disregard them, and they are always wary of the new kid on the block! They want to suss you out, and it’s not a nice experience.
• You get to avoid a whole bunch of interchurch politics.
• You get to spend time before God and finding out what God wants you to do rather than copying others!
• A lot of times these gatherings are run under the banner of a control freak of a pastor who thinks all churches in the town are really accountable to him and should do things his way, sometimes even asking for money from the other churches in town!

You are a unique individual and if you are called to your town, then you do not need anyone else to approve or validate your call. If you are part of a movement or denomination, you should be drawing from there more than anywhere else. They opened the door for your ministry and you must honour that and never forget that, not someone who just happens to be closer!

There is a case for these meetings, if you can get the input and ideas of others and learn more about your city from pastors, but this rarely happens, I hate to say. However, we still need to be delicate when it comes to relating to local ministers. We need to not be the badly behaving pastors in our town and we can do that in several ways:

• Never ever use your pulpit to speak evil of any minister or churc hin your town. If you speak about them, remember what Nana used to say: if you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t say anything. Remember what Paul used to say to a pastor: speak evil of no man (Titus 3.2)
• If you need to deal with a practise or teaching in another church that is infecting your church, one that is not encouraging people to walk in victory, is not Biblical or just plain bizarre, address the issue and compare it to the Bible, there is no need to name names.
• Do not mock or make jokes about other churches or ministers in your church, it will be taken the wrong way by someone.

You need to be like David – don’t kill Saul! If you kill Saul, that’s how other people will treat you. If you get down in the mud for others, they will get down in the mud for you. David acted terribly as king – he failed so badly, and impregnated Bathsheda, murdered Uriah, but hie men never thought “kill him and take the kingship” – why? Because he built that into them. If you never get dirty with others, you build it into your culture and if you fall in the mud your people will not kick you while you are down.

Now as a pastor you must expose your people to other ministry gifts, you must invite evangelists, prophets, teachers to your church to equip your people. Never be insecure, you are still the pastor, you are still the father of the house, but people need the full fivefold to help them grow. Here are some things about guest ministers you must realize:

• If you are not confident in another minister coming and not sure what they might say or do, do not invite them. Do not let people use your church to start a church near them. We had a group of missionaries want to come to our church to do a short-term mission, and someone asked if I would take them. This person was not normally keen on our church and my radar went off, and I did some research, turns out the missionaries wanted to start a church in London and lacked both the integrity to tell us honestly their purpose and not try and rip our church apart to build theirs. So that did not happen! Do not invite anyone who is looking to build their mailing list from your people!
• Respect your visiting ministers. I will do a whole blog post on this in the future, it’s so important. So many churches and ministries do not have a clue how to respect visiting ministers, and it is tragic. Invite them with honour, treat them with honour when they are with you and give them an honourarium that is full of honour!

Hope this helps you all!

Sometimes pastors have to go to church when you are not preaching or leading. If you are a travelling minister you have to go to church when you are not travelling, or you are setting a terrible example to people. In these situations I have seen some terrible behaviour from people, who are just terrible guests! In a conference, you should be in the sessions you are not speaking in if you can, and you should be behaving during that time.

So, here are some guidelines for leaders going to services they are maybe not leading, so we can help build the church and behave in the house of God.

• Turn up on time. That is basic respect, you are showing that you regard the other minister and the other service as important. It amazes me that as soon as someone gets a little experience in ministry, they suddenly disrespect other ministers, rocking up half-way through the worship, making a scene when they come in, even talking during the sermon. That’s not behaving well. And people notice and people talk!
• Dress appropriately for where you are going. Different churches have different dress codes. They are really formal but if you do not follow them you stand out. I am a jeans and shirt kind of person, but if I go to a jacket and tie kind of church, I will dust off the jacket and put it on. I don’t want to stand out in the church, I don’t want to call attention to myself, I want to enjoy the worship, the Word and the ministration.
• Take part in the service. I mean you get involved in the worship, you lift your hands and you clap and you join in. When the preacher is preaching, get your amen in, receive the Word with eagerness.
• Bring your Bible and notebook. Take notes even if you know the subject. Encourage the preacher. Do not go to sleep during the service!
• Don’t get up and walk out during the service.
• Do not be aloof, be part of what is going on.
• The Bible tells preachers not to be afraid of people’s faces (Jer. 1.8). Don’t give the preacher a face to be afraid of. Don’t sit there and give your north wind face to the preacher!
• If you are asked to minister unexpectedly during a service you are attending:
  • Do not suddenly change the purpose and direction of the meeting.
  • Keep to the time limit you have been given rigidly without fail.
  • This is where arriving on time and being part of the service helps, because you then have a feel for the flow of the service. If you do not have a feel for the flow, you are not going to be able to flow with the service.

We had a guest speaker at one of our churches a number of years ago. They preached a good message and people were blessed. The next Sunday this same guest speaker was on social media with pictures of themselves walking on a beach. They posted some critical remarks about “stupid Christians” (their words) who feel they should be in church every week, when you can walk on a beach and meet God. Think about that – the same Christians who came to hear them preach first week were good and holy, but they come the second week when the guest speaker is not there, faithful, servant, loyal saints who set up the meeting, made teas and coffees, ushered, played in the band are now stupid. Why? Because the guest speaker clearly only valued their ministry rather than God’s kingdom. They were incapable of going to church, sitting down and learning something. That is someone who has not and will not be invited back!

I have had to take ministers out for lunch and say “do not do that in my church”, “don’t talk all the way through the sermon”, “don’t hand out your prayer letters to people leaving the church”, “don’t grab the mic and suddenly turn a teaching service into a healing meeting”, “don’t preach 1 hour when I asked you to speak 10 minutes”, “don’t attack my people from the pulpit”. Why? Because sadly not every minister knows how to behave in church. We can do better.

Having just finished the series on thriving in the battle, I was praying about what to say to all you wonderful leaders and pastors and I heard one word in my spirit very gently spoke: behave! We as leaders must behave! What chaos has happened in the world, how many people have given up on the Lord, how many churches have died prematurely, how many marriages have failed because pastors have not behaved? We who are in Christian leadership should behave like it is so.

Paul wrote a letter to the pastor of the thriving church in Ephesus and said “you must know how to behave yourself in the house of God” (1 Tim. 3.15). All pastors should know how to behave in the church! If you don’t know, no one will. Pastoring is hard work and there is a temptation to take short cuts – with money, with relationships, with information. There is pressure on pastors, but we can stand those pressures and behave. And as leaders we need to behave circumspectly, what for someone else is just a bit of foolishness, can lead to people failing to understand what we stand for. Little foxes can spoil the vines! (Song of Songs 2.15).

When Jesus called the apostles, His primary calling for them was not to raise the dead, plant a church and do great meetings. No – it was to be with Him (Mark 3.14). Why did they have to spend time with Him? A whole host of reasons – but one of them was to learn how to behave! We need to be with Jesus to learn how to behave like Jesus! Ministry is hard work and a lot of pressure, but we still have to behave.

And we must as ministers never stop learning, never stop growing, never stop developing our character! Learning does not stop when we get the job or graduate Bible College, we need to keep learning. One of the best ways to learn is to have Pauls in your life – ministers with proven track records of behaving. I have learned so much from men like Dave Duell, Greg Mohr, Robert Maasbach, and they have helped me learn how to behave in the house of the Lord.

How can we behave in the house of the Lord? There are definite Biblical principles we can follow to help us behave, there are also other principles which might not be straight out of the Bible but will help us stay safe and keep wise and keep our ministries pure and upright. I don’t have all the answers but I have some, and such as I have I will give to you.

1. In any church, there can only be one head. So every time you plant a new church aim to quickly and clearly appoint a pastor and let everyone know who that pastor is. I have seen people try and run a church by committee and it is a dreadful thing. The head has the eyes – it has the vision, but it also feels the pain when any part of the body is in pain. The head of the church must be the head of the church and be confident that he or she is the head of the church.
2. The head must raise up a team and train them. The more people in the team the more can be produced and the more fruitful the ministry can be. However, you must be careful to only appoint people who are credible, capable and compatible. Anyone who cannot receive your instructions should not be appointed a leader. Anyone who thinks they are indispensable should not be appointed a leader.
3. Never be a weak leader, someone will come along and take advantage of you. This is true in any church in the world – if the pastor is not strong and leading clearly, someone else is. It’s that simple. You let people know that you are the head and you know it. You set the pace, and do not let anyone dominate you or take advantage of you hesitating and being cowardly.
4. Let everyone in your team (I mean associate pastors, assistants, elders, deacons, ushers – everyone who serves is team) know what you expect from them. Never have a hidden agenda, pastor, let people know what you want and where you are going! Let them know what kind of church you intend to pastor.
5. Praise in public, correct in private.
6. Always take the blame, you are the leader. 100% of the blame. Somehow it is your fauilt and it is your job to put it right.
7. Never ever complain about any of your team. Ever.
8. Give your team opportunities. See yourself as the coach of a winning team and let others make the plays! Even the important things!
9. When you are with your team, do not treat them as servants, but as friends. That’s how Jesus did it.
10. Eat with your team every chance you get (see Matthew 26.26)

The truth is that although there are many times that war is essential to protect what we love and walk in victory, battles always have a cost. Jesus Himself said that before you go to war – before you engage in a battle, pick a fight, confront someone – there will always be a cost (Luke 14.31-32). Sometimes this is unavoidable, and many times the cost of battle will be less than the cost of ignoring a problem or a disloyal person or a satanic vulnerable. But there are other times when the best way to win is not to fight.

It is not a good idea to engage in a fight you cannot win. Sometimes people go into a church to try and change it from the bottom up – that is impossible, it is rebellion, it will rip a church apart, cause you to be mistrusted and kill your ministry. It is a lazy way to do ministry, and the cost of doing that will always be more than the reward.

There are times, and part of being a great leader, is being able to recognize these times – when the best thing to do is win without fighting. Too many people think a retreat or a surrender is always a sign of weakness, but sometimes it is a sign of wisdom, strength and remarkable character.

It take a lot of grace and humility to not fight – sometimes an enemy is too big or strong and it is best to step back. We need to be grown ups in the house – have you noticed that children love to get the toys out, but it takes a grown up to put them away? Anyone can start a fight, but it takes maturity and skill to avoid a fight. You have to pick your battles. If you pick your battles carefully you will win!

Here are some battles you can avoid:

• Do not employ someone who is not suited for the job, that is going to lead to a war down the road that you cannot win.
• Do not appoint someone as a leader who you do not trust or haven’t seen tested
• Flee youthful lusts (2 Tim. 2.22). It is not a sign of strength to hang out with your girlfriend or boyfriend alone in your dorm room, alone in your car, and so on, and spend time doing things that are going to excite your body. It is not a sign of weakness to avoid that battle, it is a sign of wisdom and maturity. Lust is a strong and powerful enemy, and either staying apart or getting married is probably smarter than fighting lust everyday.
• Don’t hang around people with death in their words then go and fight those words all night and all day. Stop listening to them!
• Don’t cast your pearls before swine and then try and convince those pigs that those pearls are worth something. Pigs don’t think anything is worthwhile if they cannot stuff it in their faces.
• Don’t try and change a stranger’s point of view. I get letters from TV viewers telling me to embrace their pet doctrines – I don’t know them, I don’t respect them, it’s a waste of pen and paper. If you have a great revelation, produce some fruit and get fruitful and learn how to grow in that and then you will have a place to share it.

Get good advice before you start a war! Listen to other people who have been in your situation, have a mentor, listen to CDs and DVDs, learn some history. The battle is not to the biggest but to the one who knows the most. David’s knowledge about covenant and the history of his nation meant Goliath’s size and experience were meaningless! What do you know about your covenant? About your history? These things matter! What do you think about you and your calling? What do you know about the Word of God? Why can a human beat a lion – because the battle goes to the people who know the most, not the biggest teeth.

I had a situation a few years ago where one of our pastors was going a different direction from the Tree of Life Family, I could have come in as the big boss and started a fight. I would have won the fight, I am in charge and so on, so I would have won, but it would have cost me a lot of credibility, it would have injured people in the church, it would have hurt people to watch that fight even. That would have been a fight I could not afford to get into. So, I could not do nothing, I could not start a fight, so I started to pray about a third option, a wise man’s option, a grown up option.

So I sat down with the pastor and offered him the church. The whole church, offered to pay the rent for six months, and support it financially while he was the pastor. Obviously, he couldn’t call it Tree of Life but he could keep pastoring and ministering and I wouldn’t be responsible for his words or actions. I made that offer, and the pastor decided he wanted to step back and we put another pastor in the church, and it is still growing and thriving. Sometimes we need to press pause and find a third option! Pray for wisdom for yourself!

In every battle, there is information that if known by the enemy, could change the outcome of that battle. It is important that, while still maintaining an open and honest culture, we do not give our enemies the bullets to shoot us with. It’s not about being secretive, it’s about being careful and keeping private things private.

I have always been a very open person and that has occasionally got me into trouble, as I have given information to disloyal people who used that information to attack me and try and destroy me. You need to make sure that information that is vital to battle-succcess is not handed out to people who will just use it to destroy you.

Now as Christians, you might tell me – look, Ben, having secrets sounds a little unbiblical, a little immoral, that doesn’t sound right at all! And I hear you – there is a great value in being open, honest and having integrity.

However, telling some people some information is not open, not honest and not integrity, it is just gossip, it is giving away state secrets, it is giving people who want to shoot you bullets.

Jesus Christ deliberately withheld information from the Pharisees. He taught in parables to make sure certain people were not aware of what he was saying. The Pharisees in the end murdered Jesus in cold-blood, they were enemies, they should not have been told everything! When a war is going on, there are definite reasons for not giving all the information to all the people all the time.

Certain people are looking to use information to hurt you and hinder your ministry and obstruct your church. You do not owe them information, you do not have to tell them anything. I have people regularly email me who have maybe seen me on Tree of Life TV once, or used to go to the church, demanding to know what I think about A, B, or C. I am not going to tell them my opinions – that is called casting your pearls before swine. If they want to know they can turn up at the Tree and listen to me preach!

Let me say it again: when there are people who want to destroy you, you do not have to tell all the people all the information all the time. Secrets are not evil, in fact the Bible says the exact opposite.

There are three things which according to the Bible if you do not keep secret, you are a fool, a moron, a stupid person. Here they are:

1. All Your Opinions
   
   A fool utters all his mind, but a wise man keeps it in until afterward (Proverbs 29.11)
   
   You see you might have some opinions on a topic that taken out of context will cause people to attack you or despise you or think less of you. You do not have to give your opinion on anything! There are issues that are irrelevant to the good news that divide your church, if you start sharing those regularly, you could divide your church on something that does not matter.
   
   Not that long ago there was a Christian book that I could see was dividing the church, people had very strong views one way and the other about the content of this book. Some thought it was virtually word for word from heaven, others thought it was from hell. I deliberately have not read it, have no opinion on it, and haven’t spoke about it. Why? I am not a fool, it won’t help anyone get to still waters or green grass. Better to keep that private. Someone will use it against me.
   
   I don’t recommend TV programmes or films, because someone will watch a movie I recommend – and there will be a small scene that is inappropriate that I just missed out on or forgot about, and suddenly, I am recommending my church watch unsuitable scenes! You do not have to tell everyone all your mind all the time! It is not smart to do that.
   
   When the Black Lives Matter protests were happening in London, I did not make a comment for three weeks, because I was only to comment on it in the context of the gospel. And what, in terms of me as a pastor discipling people, concerns me about both sides of the rhetoric in this subject area, is people are cursing themselves and speaking negatively over their own future, and words have so much power, we much learn to speak carefully and positively about our future. I had people who have left our church wanted me to say certain things – why? To shoot me down. I do not have to reveal my whole mind. You being a great disciple of Jesus does not depend on it.
   
   
2. All Your Revelations
   
   Paul saw heaven, and heard things he could not share with people. I have no idea what he encountered, he didn’t share it, but you do not have to share with people all your revelations all the time. Paul actually says that it was unlawful to share what he had heard. Sometimes I am preaching in a church that does not understand grace, and I cannot choke them, that would be against the law of love – so I give people a spoonful of grace and faith, and help feed them. We do not have to share all the revelations all the time. Did you know the Father is keeping a big revelation from Jesus? (read Mark 13.32 if you don’t believe me). The Father has a revelation that will change the world, but He hasn’t told a single human, a single angel and not even Jesus! That’s staggering. Some things are not only permissible to keep secret, it is better to keep them secret.
   
   
3. Other People’s Failings
   
   We are not gossips, and we should not be talking about others behind their back – even if it is true! People who gossip about your failings in private are disloyal to you and will destroy your church. I am not talking about earth shattering church destroying sins, but your humanity, your weaknesses, your infirmities should be kept quiet by those around you.
   
   I like to say it like this, using the analogy of a restaurant: some conversations should only happen in the kitchen.
   
   Loose lips can sink ships. Make sure the ship of your church is not one of them!

Saul was a terrible king for a number of reasons, but one of those reasons is that he did not deal with the Amalekites with a stubborn ruthlessness. He spared the king and the best of the sheep and the oxen (1 Sam. 15.8-9). The Amalekites were evil and harassed and attacked Israel for years, they attacked them in the wilderness, in the promised land – everywhere. God had given Saul a very clear instruction – wipe out the Amalekites. Saul only partially obeyed.

God was not impressed that Saul only partially obeyed. He lost that battle, because he was kind to satan. We cannot be kind to satan, we have to be ruthless with satan. Now in the New Covenant, we must be kind to people, but there are times to even be ruthless with people and insist they shape up or leave your church or business or organization.

But at no time can we be kind to satan! I have seen pastors lose their churches because they have been kind to satan. I have seen pastors see their church ripped in two because they were being kind to disloyal, wicked people. They show mercy to people who have not changed and show no fruit of repentance and let them assault their church over and over. Some pastors are desperate to be even kinder than God is!

God was not kind to the Amalekites – they were trying to rip his people about and hurt them, and God was not going to put up with that. Satan is not about to be kind to you – he will rip your church apart, he will find your weakness and exploit that, he will lie about you, he will be happy to hit you at your weakest, most tired and most vulnerable. Satan will do anything to make you do what he wants.

You are making a huge mistake if you are trying to be kind to satan! And yet, it happens often. Let me give you, as a leader, three scenarios in which you are being kind to satan:

1. Men leaders, you are being too kind to satan when you are not ruthless with the way you relate to the opposite sex. Do not leave traces of certain relationships in your life. If a woman even hints at being inappropriate with you, do not give them a second chance. They can be counselled by someone else. I mean no texting, no WhatsApping, no calling them, no Facebooking them, no going out for lunch with them. Be wise, there is a war on for you! Satan wants to destroy you! Do not be gentle with women like that. Do not be kind. I was once working at a church and some of my team (women) complained to the senior pastor and said “I was standoffish”. He wisely said “That’s a good thing, a worse thing would be he was not standoffish”.
2. Do not be kind to satan by platforming your accusers. Oh there will always be people who accuse you, but do not platform them. Remove them as elders, take them off the rota, do not let them receive an offering, do not let them have access to your corporate social media accounts.
3. When people leave your church offended and attack you as they leave, do not let them just walk back through the door as though nothing has happened. They will come back and rip you apart from within, they are bored at the lack of damage they can cause from outside, they are annoyed people are loyal to you and love you, and they think that coming back in will be the best way to attack you. Do not bring them back on staff, back into leadership, back into anything. Move really really slowly and watch the fruit. If they complain about it, you let them know that you are protecting your people.
4. Do not trust people who have a habit of lying to you. I am not saying be unkind to the person, but you do not have to trust what they say. That is being kinder than Jesus!

Pray about every situation, every situation is different and when people fall they should be restored, but when people suddenly join satan’s team, you will have to be ruthless – you will have to be strong, you will have to stand for truth and stand for what you through the grace of God have built.

Most of you reading this will be familiar with what is probably Joshua’s biggest mistake as a general and leader. If not, you can read it in Joshua 9. Essentially the Gibeonites deceived Joshua into thinking they did not live in the promised land and make a peace treaty with him based on deception. They pretended to be Joshua’s friends when in reality they were his enemies.

I have seen whole churches fail because the lead pastor could not tell the difference between a friend and an enemy. Joshua was deceived because he did not do a little bit of praying and a little bit of thinking, and therefore had no discernment on an issue in which he should have had discernment on. You must pray about the people around you. I am not saying create a culture of fear and suspicion, I am just saying before embarking on a major project with anyone or putting a responsibility on someone, you as a leader should be discerning.

Many people do not tell the truth to leaders. I was talking to a pastor friend of mine a few months ago – he was not part of Tree, he is the senior pastor of several churches like I am, and I knew one of his leaders was being deceitful because that leader had contacted me and said some things that were clearly wrong. The other pastor said to me “they never acted like that to me” – and they didn’t, because he was the leader and sometimes people lie to leaders! Sometimes people deceive leaders to gain favour and position, and we need to be aware of that. I know someone who got a job with a major ministry because of a CV that had blatant outright lies on it! These things do happen, we need to be diligent!

Lies are the most surefire sign that someone is working with satan. Jesus told us that satan is a liar and the father of lies (John 8.44) and when there are lies in any church or organization, satan will always have a place in that church or organization. When there is deception and lies, there satan is, causing trouble! If you are a pastor, a leader, an elder, be very very careful about telling lies – you step into satan’s fatherhood when you do!

It is a tragedy to see how many pastors and travelling ministries lie. I went to a meeting with a American minister in London, and the room seated 5000. Although the room was mainly full, it was not packed full, and not utterly full. What a surprise I had when I read the man’s prayer letter the following month to find that there were 15000 people crammed into the room every single night, and every night at least 5000 people were getting born again. That is just a total lie. There was no truth in that statement at all. That man is siding with the father of lies by allowing that to be printed!

So, the first category of people that you must discern to win every battle is you – discern when and where you are tempted to lie and deceive, and deal with your heart. Ensure lying and deception are not part of your ministry.

The second category of people that you must discern to win your battles is those close to you. Again, do not become the next Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher, but just be aware sometimes an innocent face hides a guilty heart. Be aware if someone tells you something that you know not to be true. The Bible does not have soft, kind, sweet words for those who lie. Some people are experts at lying, and just because they go to church, that doesn’t change things. I have known pastors who can look you in the eye and tell you something that is utterly not true. I had a pastor recently tell me another minister had asked him personally to check up on me, and I said “really, shall I call him and ask him?”, and it turned out to be a lie that was made up so that minister could get some information from me that he wanted. Expert liars are difficult even for the trained to detect. All politicians can lie to a certain degree, Hitler’s lies caused millions to die. His chief of staff, Hess, said that if you tell a big enough lie frequently enough people will believe it.

Why did the Germans invade Poland? Because Hitler lied and told the German people over and over again that Poland was about to invade. The average German soldier thought he was acting in self-defence because he was lied to over and over. Hitler told the Germans that Britain was looking to invade, and that they must be attacked, he just made things up.

Today, in the UK, the media tell all sorts of lies, the BBC deliberately stirring up police investigations of innocent figures like Cliff Richard to deflect questions from their ignoring the clear danger of the evil Jimmy Saville. If you get your facts from the secular media, you are one of the most deceived people there can be!

We have to be discerning if we want to win the war and make disciples of all nations.

Here are some warning signs that as a pastor you should listen to and contemplate before appointing someone to leadership:

• They expect others to behave in ways they do not. To assume they are immune from the same expectations as others, they have lied to themselves and are probably fairly good at lying.
• They do not want any accountability. They do not want you to look out for them or confront them ever.
• They have favourites and it is obvious to everyone
• They are saying one thing to some people, and something else to others
• They are not making disciples. They are not investing themselves into people.
• They will try and make you feel guilty.
• They are vague about things they should be specific on

And what can you do about it as a leader, if someone lies to you:

1. Keep your heart clean. Don’t take it personally, get angry, get carnal. You should deal with it, but not until you understand this has impacted you and you are acting as a pastor, not as a furious wronged person!
2. Speak directly and clearly to the person who has lied. Now, you do not want to attack the person, but you want to address the behaviour. Focus on the person, not the behaviour. “What you have said here, does not match what you have said to this person, and does not help our church walk in love and transparency with each other” is better than “you are a liar!”. If you say someone is a liar, you will put their back up. If you confront the behaviour and explain you expected better, you are walking in love, expecting and hoping the best. Your goal should be a resolution at this point.
3. Do something to back up your words. Speak to someone first – pastors should never shoot the gun until you have tried to talk someone down! Now, here is the truth you should know – the person may accept your words but then get upset at the action. But you cannot allow someone who is lying to run a small group, for example. They need a time off to heal and change and fall in love with the truth. That action may really upset someone, but you need to be firm as well as kind.
4. Make Sure Everything that is Redemptive. Your goal is to have the situation in the rear view mirror as soon as possible. If the person accepts your words and actions, move forward. Do not get emotionally attached, and learn to forgive. People may have to do things to rebuild trust, but as a spiritual leader your job is always to restore people (Gal. 6.1).

I hope this post helps you, and again – I am not interested in creating a culture of suspicion, just making sure you use your discernment and win plenty of battles and lead your church into victory and making disciples and changing the world.

I am sure all of you know that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. One of the times in which we cannot afford to be unstable in all our ways is when we are facing conflict and trying to get the Word of God out to the nations!

If you are a leader, you are going to have to take decisions. One of the reasons we are not seeing mega-churches in the UK is that some pastors seem to find it really difficult to make decisions. You must learn how to make decisions and then do it – make some decisions.

It is not easy having an indecisive leader. Now I am not saying be impatient, no a good decision should take time – find out the relevant information, consult with the relevant people, discuss the implications with those who will face them. When the right time comes you will, as a leader, have to make your mind up.

Now why is it British people (and others) find it hard to make decisions.

1. We are historically a practical people – but that means a lot of inertia when it comes to taking steps forward. We often have not thought things through and then cannot decide because our plans are uninformed.
2. We are afraid of upsetting people. Whatever direction you steer, someone will wish you had turned the other way. You need to have a revelation that you are going somewhere, so stop being double minded and steer somewhere. What are you going to do, hit the brakes in the middle of the M25? That’s foolish. You might as well go somewhere you are leading!

In war, not committing to a decision and being double minded can kill you. Hitler lost WWII because he was incapable of making decisions. Hitler invaded Poland in the 1st Sept 1939, and England then sent armies to France to help fight Germany. But after beating Poland so quickly, Germany invaded Belgium and Holland. The Germans were easily able to beat the English and pushed them right back to the sea at Dunkirk. The British Army was now trapped, and was about to be wiped out and Hitler would have won Europe.

Thankfully, that is not what happened. A miracle, on the par of the Red Sea parting, happened. Hitler did not make a decision, his armies asked to attack, but Hitler could not decide. He didn’t know whether to wipe out the British Army or not. While he was making his mind up, the entire army was rescued and escaped across the sea. Where eventually they re-attacked and defeated Hitler. That cost Germany the whole of the second world war.

I believe that the confusion surrounding Hitler’s indecision that day was supernatural, and from God. But I also believe the indecision among pastors today is also supernatural, but from satan. I have had pastors come to me and told me their assistant pastor has impregnated three ladies in the church, and what is my advice? They need to fire the assistant. I have had pastors tell me about how certain people in their church are holding the whole church to ransom, blackmailing the pastor, stealing money from the church, and a host of other things – they need to be decisively removed from the church.

I had to make the decision last month to remove someone from the church. This person had acted in a way that was hurting people in the church, disrupting services, and giving false prophetic words that were confusing. They also had started to try and disciple people in the church and divide the church, telling people that I was not spiritual for a number of reasons.

This was not a decision I made lightly, I prayed, I sought the wisdom of pastor friends and mentors, I spoke to several people in the church, I even spoke to the previous pastor. I fasted and prayed. I then contacted the person on three occasions asking them to change their behaviour, pointing out the behaviour I needed to see change for that person to stay at the church. Finally, when they said “I will do whatever I think God wants, and I will ignore any instructions from you and any leader in the church”, I knew I had to make a decision, our church would be healthier and safer without this person, so I removed them from the church., Was I concerned what people thought? Yes! Would I rather be pragmatic and just let it play itself out? Yes! But I am the leader, it is my job to lead people to safe ground and I had to make a decision. Listen to me leaders – a disloyal, rebellious person is an emergency and you must make a decision. As an African once told me, the best place to kill a snake is when it is an egg. I was aware if I did not take this chance to deal with this situation, it would grow and become harder to deal with.

I know people who have had the chance to enter the ministry and did not take it, and it gets harder to then make that decision. They sit down next to me at conferences and say “I was called to plant a church in such and such a year”, I say “that’s awesome, how is the church doing”, oh I never did it. Why not? They could not make a decision. Pastor, your church can grow if you make good decisions!

2010 was not the best time for me to start a church, it wasn’t convenient, I was on a great rise on my career, earning good money, but I made a decision. If I hadn’t started Tree of Life when I did, I would have missed so many opportunities. I certainly could not have started it today if I had not done it then. Make a decision, do what God calls you to do. Break that satanic confusion and reach out in faith!

If you are the leader, take the wheel! Pray, fast, study, listen to godly mentors, then make a decision. Do not be double minded.