Inspiring and Challenging Dreamers

#wednesdaywisdom

I promised you that we would give you a simple instruction on Wednesdays that if you put it into place in your life would bring you closer to making your dreams come true. 

And here is our first piece of Wednesday Wisdom for you: take good notes.

The Bible tells us that those who wait on the Lord shall be made strong again. We read that “wait” as in wait for a bus and just did nothing hoping one day our strength to walk in our dreams would magically return, like the number 62 bus.

But that didn’t happen because we read the verse wrong, it actually means “wait” as in wait on a table. And what is the first thing you associate with a waiter or waitress: a notepad.

To be a success in life you must write things down! It’s that simple. Studies show that if you write down your dreams you are now ten to fifteen times more likely to see them come to pass. If you keep a food diary, you will lose weight. There is a power in writing things down.

Here are some of the things you should be writing down and reviewing regularly:

1. Your dreams and goals
2. Sermon notes from church on Sunday
3. To Do lists
4. Instructions from your boss
5. Notes from inspirational books and CDs
6. Lessons you have learned

Here are some things you should definitely consider writing

1. A food diary, especially if you need to lose weight
2. Things that make you laugh
3. Things that make you think
4. Recipes
5. What you would do if money was no object

Learn to become a note taker. Don’t be the waiter who tries to do it all from memory and forgets it all.

When you take notes, you free your mind up from the task of memory and release it to be more creative. You know you won’t forget your assignment because you wrote it down and can look it up again. 

Finally three simple tips to take good notes:

1. Write clearly! You want to come back to this.
2. Buy a good note book. Your pastor is sharing life-changing information and you are writing on the back of a receipt? No way… Buy a decent notepad, spend some money on that thing.
3. Date your notes and at the top write down the purpose of the notes. This will help immensely when coming back to review them.

1. HUMILITY – you have to assume that you are not the only one who knows what is going on, in fact, you realize that there are people who know more than you
2. COMPANIONSHIP – what we do as ministers leaves us very lonely.  Having someone who we are like mentor and love us helps us no end, especially when what we are saying is controversial or radical
3. OUR WIVES.  Ministers live in two realms – they are supernatural beings and natural beings.  When you are married to someone they see you being supernatural and see you being natural too.  It concerns our wives when they realize all this glory is in a very cracked and earthy vessel. Especially when you consider that women are twice removed from the earth, being made from Adam’s rib.  When you fellowship with spiritual fathers, and the woman sees that they too carry glory in cracked vessels, your marriage improves as that fear of being found out for being a earthy vessel melts away.
4. HUMOUR.  It’s great to be around someone who sees the world the same way you do, it means you have similar senses of humour.  Life is hard, humour is precious.
5. GOOD GROUND.  You know that spiritual father of yours who loves you, promotes you, encourages you, challenges you.  They are good ground – give to them today!

I had the joy of hearing Kenneth Hagin Jr about twenty years ago, and he told about how he was discouraged as a young Bible College student because all the churches he went to preach in complained he sounded like his father. His dad laughed and pointed out that you should absolutely should sound like your father!

I love that, you should sound like your father! And in ministry, God has provided for us 10,000 teachers but very few fathers, and it is good that you sound like your father. If you call a preacher your spiritual father then you should sound like them! You should be in alignment with them!  God has provided you with a few fathers – maybe one or two or three.  Your job is to recognize them, find them and grow up like them!

And I think that preachers are much healthier when they are part of the kingdom of God and have spiritual fathers. Timothy had Paul as a spiritual father, and the church at Ephesus was healthier for it.

Now I am not talking about joining some sort of hierarchy, I am not talking about paying $250 a month to call someone your spiritual father – I thought fathers took care of their children?! I am talking about having a relationship with someone through listening to them, learning from them, being discipled and moulded by them so you do not have to re-invent the wheel for yourself and that you do not have to make some dumb mistakes.

At the moment I have just heard a preacher I know tell an audience that he is a rare special preacher chosen for the last end times move.  Trust me that will only lead to error, and having a spiritual father or two or three would be a lot more healthy. The truth is all preachers are special, and we all have a destiny, let’s stop comparing ourselves with others and compare with Jesus! Compared to Jesus we all have a way to go in purity, in heart-love, in wisdom and so on!

Do you want to be a great teacher in the body of Christ? There are loads around, find one you like and follow and learn and grow and be discipled and be fathers. You want to pastor a great church, there are many great churches out there – find the men who pastor them and learn from them!

Thoughts of being special and unique often keep people away from meeting mentors who will father them and raise them up into a great ministry. It’s pride. That’s what it is.

I have never met a man great in ministry who did not have a spiritual father or two – people who sowed into their life and inspired them, challenged them, and rebuked them! Never.

Every great evangelist has a great evangelist they are like. Every great pastor, every great teacher. Your greatest victories come from the people who you associate with and learn from and get DNA from.

Why does having a spiritual father in your life produce so much power?

1. You are instantly humble. You are admitting you don’t know it all, and you are not God’s next great thing with no respect or honour to those who have gone before
2. You cannot boast any more, you are just grateful for those who have impacted your life – you know without their voice you would be nowhere!
3. You are going to be part of a generational link, because after what you have received there is no way you are not going to pass it onto the next generation.

It multiplies the impact of ministry on the world.  You need a spiritual father or two or three!

 

 

It’s a known rule of thumb that old golfers never win. And it’s borne out over time with statistics and so on. It’s not a rule that can never be broken, but it is amazing how often it is the young golfer that wins.

Now that doesn’t make sense does it? Surely the winner should be tbe golfer who has putted more, chipped more, knows the course better, has more experience. We are not talking about old golfers so old they can’t move the ball across the fairway!

So why does the younger golfer win?  What makes him take a stroke or two less than the older golfer?

The simple answer is inexperience. The older golfer knows the shot is difficult, knows what could go wrong if he takes the chance, and it makes him careful, cautious – it makes him play it safe. And the younger man who doesn’t have the experience has a go, and more often than not makes it. And overall, wins the game.

The younger player is ignorant of the dangers, or is just simply reckless and wild. That is why he wins.

What to win? Be more child-like. Take the shot, play the game, take the chances.

DO SAY “This church is lovely, I enjoyed the worship and the choir, your pastor is a great guy, thanks for inviting me”

DON’T SAY “My youth choir is bigger than your entire church! What are you doing?”

DO SAY “You have a great pastor in this church, you should commit to this church”

DON’T SAY “I am about to call your pastor out and prophesy over him”, because the subtext is “I am a great man of God, I am superior to your pastor”. Now, if you are the head of the network, or a spiritual father to the pastor, that’s different.

DO SAY “Thanks for having me”

DON’T SAY “I look forward to you all inviting me back”

DO SAY (in private to the pastor) “My airfare was £X, my travel was £X”

DON’T SAY “Time for me to receive my own offering everyone, dig deep!”

DO SAY “Your church has a conference coming up, you should go, it will be good”

DON’T SAY “My church has a conference coming up, you should go, it will be good”

DO SAY “Your church has a Bible College, that’s a good idea if you want to get to know the Word more”

DON’T SAY “My church has a Bible College that’s a good idea if you want to get to know the Word more”

DO SAY “I really appreciate being here today”

DON’T SAY “It’s a good thing I am here, you need me”

DO SAY “I’m off home now”

DON’T SAY “I’m planting a church across the road, you are all welcome this Sunday”

DO SAY “Let me encourage you with Word”

DON’T SAY “Let me correct you with the Word”

DO SAY “I can’t wait to invite your pastor to minister for me soon”

DON’T SAY “I can’t wait for your pastor to invite me again soon”

 

 

1. Bring Your Bible!  Then you can read what is being read from and ensure it is in your Bible.  It helps you learn and grow.
2. Say “amen” and encourage your preacher – in appropriate moments!
3. Participate in the worship, don’t spectate!  Lift your hands, clap and shout.  Dance!
4. Arrive on time!
5. Leave late.  Have a cup of tea,  chat to people, make some friends.  Take someone back to your house for lunch.
6. Be aware of new people. Help them find their feet, answer their questions, love them!
7. Say thanks to your pastor afterwards – it really does make a difference, I promise!

One of the most powerful lessons in David’s history is when he was face to face with King Saul discussing David going to fight Goliath. Saul wants David to go fight in his armour, and David refuses saying:

I cannot go with these, I haven’t tested them – 1 Sam. 17.38

This is a great leadership principle – don’t go with what you haven’t tested already! It’s amazing how many leaders will appoint a new, shiny external candidate and ignore the tried and tested people they have who have already proved their loyalty and wisdom over and over and over. I’ve had people storm out of the church because their degree or background was worth less to me than the loyalty and the faithfulness of the person I promoted over them. Their reaction verified my decision!

I made a decision a while back I will never appoint a pastor externally – if you can’t be with the Tree of Life and be fed, you don’t get to join the feeding team. That way we test people before we rely on them!

• Don’t rely on a pastor you haven’t tested. It’s amazing how many people have left churches with pastors they know and know well, and gone off to end up nothing and nowhere. That’s bizarre behaviour, and it means you will lose a fight or two! If David hadn’t been able to say “I’m only off to war with what I know” Goliath would have knocked him too the moon!
• Don’t enter business with people you haven’t tested. Again, this is more common in church because we don’t act wise sometimes. As Jesus said the children of the world can be wiser than us, especially where money is concerned, and the world knows that a fool and his cash are easily parted. Don’t do it. Test people – look for their track record. Don’t enter business into a field where you haven’t proven it works.
• Don’t marry someone you haven’t tested. Men – I am talking to you. You act all Christian and wise, then some girl blinks at you, and you don’t care about who she has been with, her past record, her prayer life, it all goes out the window. Don’t be a fool!  A mysterious personality should not be attractive to you – it should be a warning sign. Take the time to find out!

I am very much like David in this regard. I want to know if what I am being taught and the tools I am being given work. When someone tells me how to pastor my church I want to see their church first, or what they are saying is just theory.  When their church is twenty sad people, I don’t want their advice. When one of my sons is being taught “this is how you take a funeral service”, and the advice to me didn’t make any sense, I said to him “how many funerals has the teacher done” – or the advice isn’t tested.

When another son was being taught to live in a council house for the rest of his life at uni, I told him “did you ask the person teaching this where they lived?”.  You have to test things. When someone tells me that, as they did today, that the Christian life is best lived going to 3 or 4 conferences a year and not going to local church on a weekly basis, I wanted to ask a few questions about his marriage and his children and his peace of mind because I wanted to see if this was tested.

Listen – this sounds a little facetious, but this is serious. Entering into business, your spiritual life, who you marry – all of these are vitally important things. And all of these things have giants in the way!  Huge ugly ferocious giants. And if you are serious about beating these Goliaths, please do not go out and fight them in a way you haven’t tested. I don’t want you to be smooshed into paste, I want you to win. Learn this lesson!

No matter what you do in life – if you are successful certain people will hate you. In fact, the more you lead people into life, into wisdom, the more your ministry and life sets captives free the more people will hate you and the more obvious their hate will be.

David is starting to have a bit of confidence that in God he can defeat Goliath, and his brother finds out and instantly becomes a hater:

²⁸ And Eliab his eldest brother heard when he spake unto the men; and Eliab’s anger was kindled against David, and he said, Why camest thou down hither? and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart; for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle. ²⁹ And David said, What have I now done? Is there not a cause?³⁰ And he turned from him toward another, and spake after the same manner: and the people answered him again after the former manner. (1 Samuel 17.28-30, KJV)

David was persecuted by his own family – and that is sadly not unusual for people who are leaders in the world, let alone the body of Christ. Eliab, clearly intimidated by David’s faith, starts to rip him apart just when he was about to face Goliath.

Listen – there are some people who will never, ever have any confidence in you and your ability to succeed.  They want to tear you apart, criticize you, attack you, make you feel small and put you down.

And how do we handle these people?  There are two ditches we can fall into, and I have fallen into both in my lifetime:

• We can fall into the ditch of letting them get under our skin, we start to see ourselves through their eyes rather than God’s eyes, and we start to see ourselves as arrogant, as a failure, as this and that.  Then we just give up on our dreams.
• Or, we can fall into the ditch of seeing these people as our enemy, and taking the stone meant for Goliath and sinking it into their heads. No – these people are our family, our church and we do not attack our own, no matter how negative and faithless and disrespectful they are to us.

So what is the correct path, avoiding these ditches – it can be seen in David’s perfect reaction to Eliab – “he turned from him”. The only way to deal with haters is to walk on.  It’s that simple. It is a skill, and it is not easy, but all of us need to learn to walk on from the people who hate us.

There are many people who have many evil thoughts about me. The more our ministry grows, the more people there are who have these thoughts. There are people who in their houses will gladly gossip and slander me. They hate me in their hearts, even though on the outside they can profess to love me and love Tree of Life.  Now these people are the minority, but I am letting you they exist, because when your haters come I want you to know you are in good company.

You need to have radar for the hypocritical haters – and walk away. Learn to fellowship with the people who believe in you, who are on your side, and who flow with you. Don’t fight to fellowship with people who don’t care about you and your dreams.

Some churches have struggled because they don’t respect businessmen, other churches have struggled because they don’t respect evangelists or prophets, or whatever. Attend a church where you can be in ministry and not despised! Some churches will never respect poor people, and don’t welcome them.

Some churches in London will never promote people from a certain culture, background, tribe or whatever. I love our church, we have over thirty nationalities every weekend, and our leadership team is remarkably diverse – married, single, black, white, old, young – it’s all in there.  We love people!  Some of our pastors are salaried, others are volunteers and both are vital to a healthy church!

When people are judging your heart, and thinking they know why you are doing what you are doing, never get into an argument with them, and never let their words define you – rather walk away and find someone else.  There will be someone else. Trust me – I have so many people who appreciate me, love me, would take a bullet for me. People I would never have met if I was still fighting or fleeing from Eliab. Just walk on, and expect the next person to be better.

Selah!