Inspiring and Challenging Dreamers

A big part of our culture in Tree of Life Church is building a church full of the nations.  Now if you are in a village in the middle of Kenya, then it is going to be impossible for you to build a multi-ethnic church; but if you are in London and you are building or part of a church that is only one tribe, one tongue and one people then you have no heavenly vision at all.

It disturbs me so much that so many Christians go to churches that 100% match their culture.  This is for three main reasons:

• We need as great a diversity in the body of Christ as possible.  When you get a splinter in your foot, you can’t get it out with the other foot: but when Christians have a problem, they go to people just like them – same nation, same gender, same age.  No you need a range of people who have wisdom and experiences that you don’t have.
• Unless you regularly meet people from outside your culture, your cultural norms are never challenged.  The truth is that in the UK and across the world the white church has problems, the black church has problems – but when we worship together we can learn from each other and build something strong and kingdom minded, not culturally minded.
• I wonder what will happen to these people in heaven.  I’ve had people leave Tree of Life because it is too black, because it isn’t black enough (their words not mine) and I wonder how they will get on in heaven because it is every tongue, every tribe and every nation!  Let’s try and do some heaven on earth – let’s meet up with people across our nationality.

A lot of people ask how to do what we are doing – building churches that welcome people from all nations.  The simple truth is that I just said we would do it, prayed for it and believed it and praise God it has happened.  Looking back, and looking at maintaining what has happened I believe we have 3 keys that we need to know:

1. Build everything on the kingdom – not nationality.  Your nationality and culture has some great things and some bad things.  That’s the truth no matter where you are from.  This means you will offend some people.  You will hear people tell me that you are going against their nation, their culture – you will hear offended people furious with you as they hold their traditions so dear.  But it will be worth it as you are building something that is truly Biblical.
2. Celebrate every culture.  We have leaders and elders that represent our church and our city.  We have a broad mix of ages, cultures and backgrounds.  Why?  We celebrate every culture.  No culture is perfect, but they all have something to contribute and teach us
3. Create a climate of humility.  The way you always have done it isn’t always best!  We have to show people that although their cultures are to be celebrated, they are not always right, and it is good to realize that.  Let other people teach you how they pray, how they fast, how they fellowship, how they minister, and be willing to submit everything to the Word.

We live in a strange church age.  We live in an age where the Pentecostals and charismatics shy away from the Holy Spirit.  They deny tongues, they relegate healing to a secret back room in the service.  Or in other churches, the gifts are limited (restricted?) to the full time super-anointed clergy where the laity are supposed to hear God via the priests.

Neither is a Biblical model, and neither is – or ever will be – the culture of Tree of Life Church.

Last Sunday – which was Easter Sunday – we turned up to our church to find out projector was not working properly.  We had no words, no videos, no high fluting multi-media.  I told the worship band we are going to have to do this without words.  I got up and told the church we are going to have to worship without the screen today.

We started singing in the Spirit, singing in tongues, singing songs from the Spirit of God.  Someone got up and sung a song in the Spirit, someone got up and sung the interpretation.  The presence of God was so strong that I could barely stand.  The atmosphere was thick with the glory of God.

It will always be our culture in Tree of Life that we flow in the Spirit, that we flow in the gifts of the Spirit, that everyone will be encouraged to be filled with the Spirit and flow in His gifts and goodness and grace.  The gifts are not for the clergy, they are for the body.

Obviously when you have 150 people meeting in a room, it’s hard to let everyone have a chance to move in the gifts.  Even harder when we start hitting the numbers we are dreaming off in Dagenham and other places.  That’s why we are so committed to our small groups in the church.  So we can get to know each other, worship together, study together but also so we can minister supernaturally to one another.

So how do you build a culture that is full of the Spirit?  That’s a big question, and one of the hardest we have to answer for a number of reasons – one, a lot of people are nervous about the Holy Spirit because of bad experiences; two, not all that glitters is gold – not everything that says it is the Spirit of God is!  We have had more than our fair share of false prophetic words, condemning messages and people trying to resurrect Old Testament ideas and drag them into the better New Covenant; and thirdly, because some people just don’t want to be in a church environment where the Spirit flows.  They like being in control themselves.  I don’t get that third one personally – when the singing began last Sunday, I knew I wasn’t in control anymore, God was, and I loved it.  He is the best leader, the best Shepherd, the best King!

So we have to ensure that we are policing the spiritual without being so heavy handed that no one is prepared to step out and give it a go!  We have to focus on small groups, we have to teach the Word and teach about the gifts and the love, and the goodness of God.

We line all our utterances, supernatural and natural, against three lynch pins:

1.  Does it sound like Jesus.  If you have seen Jesus you have seen the Father.  If a word comes forth that we cannot imagine Jesus saying, then we are concerned.
2. Does it sound like the crucifixion and resurrection has happened.  A lot of prophetic seems to forget about the cross.  We want the cross and resurrection to be the heart of our supernatural ministry.  It is complete, it is finished, it is done!
3. Does it sound like the Bible.  The Bible is the Word of God, and we want to keep to the Bible. We want to ensure that we rightly divide the Word though, and don’t bring obsolete covenant ideas into the better covenant.  We might not all agree on how it should be divided, but I think we should be all aware that it needs to be divided, and it is still the sole written basis for our faith.

We also need to distinguish between weakness and wickedness.  A new person, who genuinely loves the Lord, gives their first prophecy, and it starts off powerful and in the Spirit but they don’t know when to end, and it ends flat in the flesh.  That’s just weakness of the human, I wouldn’t even correct that publicly, I would simply love that person and maybe in private say “Learn to end well”.

But a lady who has come from another church (this situation happened to us recently), but still goes to your house group, gets up and prophesies death on our church, prophesies that we are all ignoring the Lord and that the Lord will judge us severely unless we follow her.  That is wicked.  It is manipulation, it is intimidation.  It is control, it is witchcraft.  It is taking the Lord’s name in vain.  It needed to be publicly and clearly stopped and exposed.  And it was.  And the lady left our fellowship.

But even with situations like these to deal with, having the gifts is ALWAYS better than not having them.  Learn to create a culture where there is a fullness of the Spirit, not an emptiness.

One of the things I heard again at the leadership conference I went to in Hull was to remember the importance and power of culture.  Dreams and visions are great – we need to set a destination, but we also have to let people know how to do what they should to to be part of who we are.  We cannot afford to lose our corporate identity.

If the senior leaders of a church, a movement, a group do not set the culture – others will.  And the people who will are the offended, the brash, the ungodly, the pain-filled and the divisive.  It’s hard work to keep setting culture but it has to be done.  You have to continually tell people what is expected and how you behave.  You have to celebrate the heroes of your culture – people who embody what you are and your corporate culture.

I want to try and do two things at once in this series on culture.  One I want to write about why culture is important and teach about how to build a culture, and secondly I want to let people know about our culture at Tree of Life and why it is important to us.  At the Tree we have 7 cultural maxims that underpin who we are.  It means that in a fit of carnality we still have something that is Spirit-inspired to confine and help us!

Our first cultural maxim is “Full of the Word, Full of the Spirit, Full of the Nations, Filled with Love”.  That is the four pillars of our church.  They are there to define us.  So when it comes to inviting guest speakers we ask if they line up with our maxim.  There are certain speakers I will never invite to the Tree – they are not bad, they are good speakers, but they don’t help us build our culture.

Culture is what protects a church from splits, culture is what makes church a happy place to be, culture is what stops us being offended.  It is such a powerful force.  And the first statement about our church is FULL OF THE WORD.

So we are deliberately building a church that is full of the Word of God.  So our preaching is central on a Sunday, the Word is central in our Living Churches, we have two conferences a year for hearing the Word, we support and give to Bible Colleges, and have our own internal Bible School.  The Word is so important – it is vital to us living by faith and knowing God.

Now there are voices in the church that don’t want to be a church full of the Word.  They might not express that like that, but their actions and values bely that.  They want the preaching to be shorter.  They won’t attend the conferences.  They never open their Bibles on their own time.  They do not want to be full of the Word.  They won’t ever believe the Word over their experience – if they feel sick, they live sick; if they feel offended, they live offended.  It’s just their feelings and experiences, and never faith.

Now what do you do when people come and their culture is not your culture.  This is the key point of today’s post.

Firstly, of course it will be the case.  Why?  Because they are new.  You cannot expect someone to develop instantly what you have spent years learning.  Bible College students sometimes struggle with this – they spend three years studying the Word and getting revelation, then they get frustrated that people don’t get it after they have preached one sermon!  So be patient.  Work with people where they are.

Secondly, on the other hand, we cannot mollycoddle people.  Our job is to equip the saints, and feed the sheep – not herd the goats!  Our ministry is to make disciples.  We have to inspire and challenge people.  We have to be non-negotiable.

So imagine after church someone comes to you (that’s a good thing, it’s when they go to everyone else that you have problems – but that’s a lesson for another post) and says “I think you preach a bit long on Sundays”.  They may coach it in different ways “A few people said that you preach a bit long on Sundays”, “You would keep attention more with a shorter message” or whatever.

So what do you do?  You have to empathise with them, you have to understand they are still finding out that the best way to live is FULL OF THE WORD.  Show grace and be kind.

But secondly, you don’t change.  You keep preaching the Word.  You keep standing up for the Word. You put a stake in the ground and you make a disciple.  You explain why the Word is so important and you stick to your guns.  You are the leader.  You cannot allow other people to sew their cotton patches on your silk vision. You cannot come down to their level, you can only reach down and pull them up to yours.

If you don’t know what culture you are building, stop what you are doing and start to dream about what kind of people who want to lead and want to pastor.  You then have to articulate what kind of culture you want.  Then you have to pray and look at how to implement and develop and protect that culture.

It’s the same process Jesus did with the disciples.  They wanted to call down fire from heaven, and Jesus says “You don’t know what spirit you are of”.  They had a great idea, but it wasn’t a God-idea, it wasn’t going to build the kind of church Jesus wanted to build.  There are times as a pastor, you have to say “You don’t know what spirit you are of”.  And lovingly and firmly show them the way forward.

More as we move forward!

In His love,
Ben

Just had the awesome privilege from being at a senior pastor’s conference hosted by Jarrod Cooper.

There was a lot of information and inspiration at the conference, and all the speakers brought good messages.

But the most powerful message for me was brought by Ken Gott, who I haven’t heard preach for nearly twenty years.

Here are 5 awesome lessons I picked up this week.

5.  Always do everything on the basis of prayer, not admin.  The hub of many churches is admin, when it needs to be prayer

4.  If you don’t climb the mountain and spend time with God, you will end up giving the people a false god.  Moses climbed the mountain to hear from God, Aaron stayed with the people, was swayed by the people and ended up offering the people a false god.

3. We must stop learning to live with broken walls and rebuild them.  No one living in Jerusalem rebuilt the walls as they were used to it, the had learned to live with the brokenness.  God doesn’t want us to live with a broken life, in a broken church in a broken nation.  He wants to rebuild.

2.  We have to stop living in the realm of compromise.  God created black and white, man made all the greys.  We have to learn to be hot not lukewarm.

1.  It’s alright to wear the robes of royalty, we are kings.  But like David we take the kingly robes off and worship in just the ephod, as a priest and child.  When we worship, take all the leadership skills, all the wisdom, all the achievements off, and just worship.  It’s OK to be more undignified than this!

I am currently in Rome at a conference for pastors and leaders across Europe.  One of the speakers is Juan Caron, pastor of Passion for Christ Church in Madrid.

This church has over 2000 members and last year baptized over 600 new converts.  I have had the honour of hearing the man minister and meet with him this week, and he is the real deal.

Here are 5 lessons he has taught me this week:

5. Never go to war alongside people who are not from your house.  Abraham went to fight with his own servants, not anyone else’s.  We have to raise up our warriors and leaders from within.  Pastor Juan only promotes his leaders from within and that has clearly saved him a lot of issues and problems.  I am taking this on board, I can see the wisdom in this.

4. God will always bring you the people you need, but not ready… you have to get them ready.  When David needed an army, God brought him people who were depressed and in debt.  But because of David’s leadership they got happy and out of debt, they became mighty men.  Ask the Lord to bring you mighty men but don’t be surprised if you need faith to recognize them.

3.  Be what you are.  Don’t try and be someone else.  Pastor Juan has really blessed me with his confidence in who God has made him and how God has prepared him.  He isn’t trying to be anyone else or copy them, but knows who he is in Christ.

2.  The need to fight.  Their church has faced non stop opposition,  persecution and hatred but he relishes the challenge.  That Spirit of faith is essential to achieve anything in the kingdom.

1. The importance of prayer.  Pastor Juan does not let a day go by with out spending at least two hours in prayer.  We cannot afford in these times to neglect our communication with heaven.

We have been speaking about spiritual fathers in the church for the last few weeks, and it has been beneficial teaching.  One thing I find is that many people in the church are wondering why there are so few fathers in the body of Christ.  Many people have the heart’s cry “where are the fathers?”

That’s not my experience.  When I have needed a spiritual father, they have *always* manifest.  Always.  Without a fail.  I have some of the greatest men of God in the world take time out of their busy schedules to ask me how I am doing and speak life and wisdom into my life.  Now I don’t have many fathers, just a few – like Paul promised – but they are there, and they do love me like a father and I have always been fathered since my early days as a Christian.

So – what is going on here?  I spent a lot of time a few years ago asking God about it.  A lot of people seem very envious of me and the favour I have experienced, and I am not upset about that, I just want everyone to have the great experience of having great spiritual fathers that I have had.

And after praying and fasting and seeking the wisdom of the Lord, it became so obvious and clear to me that the problem isn’t that there is a lack of fathers.  The problem is a lack of sons!

Let me say this in a different way to help you grasp what I am saying:

Most Christians behave like they are vice-presidents in a cut throat business, rather than sons in the house of God.

Most Christians don’t act like sons.  So they cannot attract a spiritual father.  It’s not that there is a lack of fathers, there is a lack of sons!

If you need a spiritual father to speak into your life, to help you develop, to help you move forward, then you need to learn how to behave like a son.

We will talk about this in the next few weeks, but today you need to consider yourself and your ways.  If you do not have people in your life fathering you and nurturing you, you have failed to act in a way to draw them and recognize them and honour them.  Only what you honour can bring life to you.

Here is a quick check list for you to think about:

1.  How long do I hang around?  It takes time to build a father-son relationship, and church hoppers don’t have that time.  They get upset at every little thing, storm off and find a new place.  They never behave like sons, and never draw a father to them.  Stability is your first key.  Go where the Lord says and don’t let people talk you out of it.
2. Do you keep your mouth shut?  If you want to be in someone’s family, you don’t talk about them outside of the family.  A lot of people have no access to my life any more because they do not honour my privacy.
3. Do you match heart and mouth?  Jesus told the Pharisees that their hearts and mouths were mismatched.  I’ve seen many people like that today.  Their mouths speak a good game, but they don’t live it.
4. Can you even handle someone speaking into your life?  A lot of people won’t take good advice.  I remember one guy who wanted me to help him in ministry but would not listen to a word I said.  I can’t help someone like that!  Then he accused me of being unable to communicate.  One day I pray he will find out how to listen to someone and get helped into a great ministry.

Like I said, we will continue this discussion in the coming weeks, but right now realize its not a father issue – the issue is are you a son?  Are you behaving like a son?

Grace and peace,

Ben

 

Sometimes someone will introduce you to evils.  Some of you would never have known the evil, wicked, selfish things that you know about if someone else hadn’t brought that to birth in you!  Some people have baptized others into sin, selfishness, gossip, criticism, fornication, adultery and lying.

Beware of these people.  Do not take on their DNA!

 

For though ye have ten thousands instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel  (1 Cor. 4.15)

When it comes to physical fathers, you get one and that’s that.  So when it comes to spiritual fathers it can be expected that the process is the same, but often it is not.  Often there is a relay of fathers.  My first spiritual fathers: the person who led me to the Lord, the person who got me baptized in the Holy Spirit, the person who taught me how to share my faith – I don’t see any of them anymore.  We have just grown apart.  For a season they were a loud, significant voice in my life, now they are not.

God’s will and plan is that your first spiritual father is your physical father.  But often your physical father, even if he is a great dad, cannot lead you forward spiritually and disciple you to be the man of God you dream of being.  In a way, there is a relay of spiritual fathers, passing the baton of your life and ministry along from one to the other.  God always has someone to father you if you want it!

Often one of the early fathers in the relay is your pastor.  And you have to recognize if that is the case.  Out of the 10000 teachers in your life, you have to discern which 2 or 3 are the fathers!  Which ones care for all of you, which ministry has a wide range reach on your life that seems spookily accurate?  Which ministry seems to be reading your emails?  Which ministry brings love and compassion to your heart and your dreams?

Here are some people who might be your spiritual father for part of the relay:

• The person who led you to the Lord!
• The person who got you baptised in the Holy Spirit
• The person who taught you about the integrity of God’s Word
• The person who birthed you into ministry
• The father of your church
  • The father of a church is the person who brought that church into existence.
• The father of your movement/ denomination
  • You have to realize the people who birth a movement are special.  Sons might do more ministry but are still not the fathers.
  • Kenneth Hagin is seen as the father of the faith movement for example.
  • I love great healing evangelists and great pastors, but I love the fathers more

Moses fathered Joshua.  Joshua did a better job than Moses and took the Israelites where Moses could not.  Elijah fathered Elisha, and Elisha did far, far more miracles than Elijah.  But Joshua and Elisha had no successors – they were greater ministries, but they weren’t fathers!

But when Jesus appeared on the mount of transfiguration, He didn’t appear with Joshua and Elisha.  He appeared with Moses and Elijah.  Fathers are special to Jesus!

Don’t think because your ministry is greater than someone that you are a greater than your father!  All you have done as a son and daughter is build on the foundation of a father, and honour your father – it will bring life.

 

 

 

 

I was about to send this out as an email to my pastors, as it is something I think all of us have been through even in the short space we have been in 2016.  And it’s not something that is nice to handle, it feels bad and it hurts, but we have to keep going.  But as I was writing the email, I felt pastors outside of our network need to hear this, so I am blogging it.  Please feel free to share with anyone who you feel needs to hear this.

Let me explain what I mean about getting punched by Rocky, then let me explain why it hurts, then let me explain how to still stand and keep going.  These is real pastoring here people, and it is where the rubber hits the road!

WHO IS ROCKY?

I don’t mean Rocky Balboa!  When I am talking about rocky people, I am actually referring to the rocky ground that Jesus talks about in the parable of the sower:

Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seeds sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow.  (Matthew 13.5)

Sometimes when we preach, certain people stand out.  They grab the Word like starving men, they cheer, they Amen, they start to seek you out and they look amazing.  You start to think that these people have genuine leadership potential and you start to promote them or think about promoting them.  They are great people to be around, they love the Word you preach and they are sprouting quickly – things are moving fast.

Pastoring is not a job where things normally move quickly.  It’s more like sculpting – chipping away at a block of stone over months, years, decades until it stops looking like a heavy block and starts looking like a human being.  Change is a process and we are part of that process, and it’s hard work that takes a long time and a lot of resilience and faithfulness and loyalty to your people.  So when people spring up you get excited, you appreciate those people.

However, Jesus tells us rather somberly that these people only sprang up because their soil was shallow.  When the disciples asked Jesus what he was talking about he explained:

²⁰ The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. ²¹ But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God’s word. (Matthew 13.20-21, NLT)

Sometimes the people who jump the highest and shout the loudest about God’s Word and how wonderful the church is, and how helpful you are, and how great the Tree is – those people have no root.  Rather the people who are taking a long time to grow, are taking it all in, are thinking deeply, are renewing their mind, prospering their soul and growing without all the drama.

I call these people “Rocky” people because the soil of their heart is rocky.  Nothing grows for long, nothing lasts with them.  And like Rocky from the famous films – when they are against you, it feels like a punch in the face.  Suddenly out of nowhere this person who loved you, loved the church, loved what was happening is upset and offended and annoyed and aggressive.  It feels like a sucker punch!

Read these verses again in the New American Standard Version:

²⁰ The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; ²¹ yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the ^[j]word, immediately he falls away. (Matthew 13.20-21, NASB)

Rocky people are people whose minds are full of rocks.  The seed of the Word can get into  some parts of their mind, but other parts are totally off-bounds.  They have parts of their mind that they will never expose to God’s Word, never change, and never deal with.  That’s their problem.

So at first they look like they love the Word.  In fact, it looks like they love the Word more than anyone.  But eventually over time, one of two things will happen.  Firstly, affliction; and secondly, persecution.  And let’s face it – you cannot be a Christian long without one of those two things happening.

The word affliction in the Greek is thlipsis.  It is literally translated pressure or to be pushed hard.  The fact is that to be a Christian, at times you will be pushed hard.  The church won’t sing the songs you want, the pastor won’t be available on the day you want, not everyone will like you, someone who you don’t like will be given a leadership position, the church will grow, someone won’t say hello to you, someone will be mean to you, you won’t get your own way.  For most of us, we deal with this, we accept it, we grow up, we suck it up, we praise God in the dungeon, we follow God through the storm, we guard our hearts and let not our hearts be troubled (John 14.1).  However Rocky can’t do that because all the rocks in his head stop the Word from working.  So all the shouting and yelling at how awesome God is and you are and church, instantly becomes shouting and yelling at you about how awful you are and how bad church is, and how wrong everything is.

You don’t know how to deal with it for two reasons – firstly, you don’t expect that because you have been through equal, and if you are a pastor – probably greater – thlipsis than they have.  You’ve been pushed by the best of them and you have learned how to deal with it.  You can’t understand why someone else isn’t dealing with it and letting themselves get so annoyed and offended by things that you know you would deal with.

Secondly, this response to not getting their own way and the Christian life suddenly requiring some pushing and some fighting and some loving and some living and some hard work is immediately.  The NASB says immediately and the word in the Greek means instantly.  Suddenly Dr Jekyll becomes Mr Hyde, instantly Bruce Banner becomes the Hulk, immediately it is the full moon and your friend, your cheerleader, suddenly becomes a werewolf and starts trying to eat you alive!

The second thing that causes this instant and evil transformation is what the NASB calls persecution, and in the Greek is the word diōgmos, which means to be put down or picked on.  Again, whenever the Christian life requires these people to respond, whenever it isn’t a beautiful bunch of rose petals, whenever anything happens that makes them unhappy, these people transform.  What happens to them is that they fall away – suddenly they are not in church, they are not in the house church, they unsubscribe from the email list, they can’t even sit in the same room as you.

The KJV says “when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended” (Matt. 13.21, KJV).  It’s interesting that the word “fall away” in the NASB is translated “offended ” in the KJV, because the two things are the same.  Offended is the heart attitude, and fall away is exactly what happens.  The person is annoyed, upset, angry, frustrated because life is hard and they don’t know how to handle that, so they get annoyed at you and blame you rather than take responsibility for themselves.

And as the pastors of these people, as the people who have loved them, helped them, opened doors for them, sat with them, invested in them, dreamed with them: it feels like Stallone has given us his best right hook.

WHY IT HURTS?

Why does it hurt so much?  The main reason it hurts is because it disappoints us, literally.  The word “disappoint” means to miss an appointment or to break an appointment – to “dis”-appoint someone.  When these people were in our churches saying “Amen”, when the Word was causing things to spring up – we had appointments in our mind for these people, because we are good pastors and want the best for people.  We had them picked out for eldership, for children’s ministry, to plant churches, to go on missions, to change the world with our love, our time, our money and our resources – and we were happy to imagine it.

And then we are suddenly being attacked by the people we were dreaming of raising up.  We are suddenly being ripped apart for reasons that to us look trivial, and silly, and foolish.

We feel the pain of confusion as we cannot understand how suddenly they turned on us.  We feel the hurt of disappointment as we have to dream different, look around for new people to walk into those places, as we have to let go of ideas and plans we had because the bricks we were going to build with get up and walk.

Finally, we feel the pain of despair as we assume that these people are deep down reasonable and deep down love the Word, and as we talk to them one-to-one, man-to-man, adult-to-adult, we feel them slipping away as they respond with increasingly childish and foolish comments and remarks.  We want to restore them to what they were, but the realization slowly and painfully dawns on us: they never were that in the first place.

HOW TO KEEP GOING!

This is the important part of this article.  I know how hard this pain is, I have been there, so I am going to give you 5 keys to help you keep going.  I don’t have keys to stop it hurting, but I have some keys to help it stop knocking you out!  I thought I would make the 5 keys spell ROCKY – Realize This is Not Unexpected, Other People Are Awesome, Cut the Strings Quickly, Keep Your Heart Pure, You Must Shake the Dust Off Your Feet.

1. Realize that this is not something Jesus didn’t expect.  He told you all about it and taught it to all his disciples.  There will always be people with giant big rocks in their head who look awesome when they start with you, but who someday – the first day following Jesus looks hard – will get offended, betray you and fall far, far away.  This is not something that is happening to you, it is something that has been happening for 2000 years and will keep happening until Jesus returns.
2. Other People Are Awesome.  So the person you thought would open up your first church plant is gone.  The person you thought would run the teas and coffees has run away.  The person you thought would change the praise and worship has changed.  So, keep dreaming the big dreams for the church.  Keep imagining those things.  You will find that it’s not the screamers and shouters, or those who make big gestures that you build on.  It’s the plodders.  It’s those who are always there, who tithe, who listen, who think, who keep going.  NEVER let the betrayal of one colour how you feel about the many.  Repeat to yourself right now: OTHER PEOPLE ARE AWESOME.  Keep saying it until you start to accept it.
3. Cut the Strings Quickly.  The problem with bitterness is that it is highly contagious.  People murmur and spread their hurts and their gossip.  They can’t help it.  I know the Bible says a few things about this, but these people have giant rocks in their head and areas they will not let the Word sink in.  If the Word benefits them, they take it. If it for once makes their live harder or forces them to change, then they won’t listen.  It sounds harsh, but listen to my experience: if they offer to leave, let them leave.  Push them a little if you have to.
4. Keep Your Heart Pure.  It can be difficult to deal with someone who hates you, who has fallen away, who has given up on dreams, who has let you down, who has immediately changed from springing up to springing down.  You have to keep your heart pure.  Love the Lord.  Worship Him.  Walk in grace!  Sing a happy song.  Read 1 John.  Speak to a peer about it all.  Get prayer.  Do what it takes not to let this get you down, grind you down.  That’s the devil’s long term plan – not to get one person offended, but to grind your heart down and cause you so much pain the church suffers.  Don’t let it!
5. You Must Shake the Dust Off Your Feet.  Tell the top leaders in the church what has happened.  Let them know.  Then tell the rest of the church that they are amazing people who God loves and who have contributed a lot to the church, thank God for them and tell the people that we are moving on.  And move on.  Make the changes, appoint the right people to cover their roles, celebrate the plodders.  Something has happened – what Jesus has expected and predicted in His Book, and it has happened to every pastor I know.  So get up and move forward.  Let’s do this thing!

I really hope this helps you deal with a punch from Rocky.  Sometimes it feels like you are going rope-a-dope against Foreman, but you can google how that ended up!  You are more than a conqueror and there are plenty more fish in the sea!

The kingdom of God is always going to have people who will not remove the rocks in their head.  Rocky-headed people who will not let the Word of God impact their whole life.  They look like amazing people until listening to, believing and living the Word becomes hard work.  Then they fall apart, get offended and fall away.

So, don’t let it get you down, pick yourself up, have a party and move on.  We have a world to win, a nation to change and a church to build!

Love you all,

Benjamin

In your life, God will send a number of fathers to you into your life.  Now there is a divine principle that is keyed into the fabric of the universe.  It is so powerful it found its way into the Ten Commandments, and is quoted by Paul in the New Covenant:

Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise.  That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth – Ephesians 6.2-3

So honouring your father leads to you living long and living well on planet earth.  Or to put in another way: who you honour brings life to you.  It amazes me that people try and live their life without honouring others and wonder why life never seems to operate correctly.

The first father you have, that everyone has is their natural, biological father.  You must receive your father as your father, not as an old man who doesn’t have a clue!  Honour your father!  But your father is to bring you life and father you and raise you as a man, it is not often he is the right person to raise you into your ministry, so God brings you spiritual fathers too.

Among the hundreds and thousands of teachers we have in the churches (1 Cor. 4.15), it is up to you to discern and recognize the father or fathers God is bringing you.  Fathers are the ones who are concerned about your whole life.  Their input goes beyond what you say, they care for you and all of you.  Their relationship with you will seem almost spooky as they minister into every area of your life.

Now many people mistake 1 Cor. 4.15, it doesn’t say “ONE” father, it says “NOT MANY” fathers.  But you need to recognize them, it’s your job!  Everything that comes from the Lord has to be recognized to be honoured!

When you start to realize a certain man is not just teaching you the Word but he is giving life to every part of your life and ministry, you need to realize the wonderful and precious gift the Lord has brought across your path.

Do not make the mistake of receiving a father as a teacher.  You do this if you only receive part of their ministry to you, and don’t let them speak into your entire life.  Right now I am seeing a few people shipwrecked because they have made some really silly, foolish decisions and it is breaking my heart.  I said “Lord, these people are Tree people – they come to the church, they hear my preaching, they know me, how can they have done things this foolish?”  And I came to realize God brought me into their life as their father to shape their entire life, but they only ever saw me as the preacher.  Their failure to recognize me as their father has cost them dearly.  I don’t know if other people will open the doors I was building for them, I don’t know if other people will help them get out of the mud they have walked into.  My heart is breaking, but I can’t do that recognizing for them.

I have done my task – I have recognized the fathers God has brought my way.  One of my fathers in the Lord is Robert Maasbach, I chase him, I travel to him, I change my entire diary to spend time in his presence.  One hour with him has solved me problems costing thousands of pounds.  One hour with him has given me wisdom on hiring staff, on pastoring, on transitioning, on fathering, on being a good husband.  He hasn’t just taught me a good message, he has supplied life to me that has made me a great husband and father and pastor.  But what was the connection that supplied that life to me?  Honour.  I go to him.  When recently I sowed money into his church for that wisdom and life, he said none of the other pastors he is mentoring has ever done that.  Honour is often spelled C-A-S-H, I can tell you!  The son has to do the recognizing and the honouring, then life comes.

There are many instructors in the church and I will learn one thing from them, one set of CDs or DVDs just jumps out at me, one book I just have to read, and it teaches me and helps me and feeds me and gives me revelation.  But my spiritual fathers – I listen to everything they say, I read every book they have, I let them speak into my entire life.

This week I recognized another man as a spiritual father.  I hadn’t seen it before, maybe it wasn’t even the case before, but I changed my entire schedule to hear him speak and I felt a relationship form.  I don’t know this man, I have never met him in person, but as I started to discern, I gave a large gift to his ministry, I started to honour him like never before, I bought the few books of his that I don’t have and started to meditate on them.  I am doing the honour part, so I know the life part will come soon.

I know I operate as spiritual father to a number of people – you can’t plant a church successfully unless you do.  But here is a lesson for some of you ministers and church planters – you cannot force fathering on anyone, you cannot make someone recognize the awesome gift of grace that you are to them.  You just have to love and nurture, and if they fail to recognize, they will have to deal with that.

But everyone reading this, open your eyes.  Spiritual fathers come from God and you have a few.  Not many, but a few.  But you have to recognize them to honour them, and you have to honour them to get the life from them.  Ask God to open your eyes today.