Inspiring and Challenging Dreamers

I am not ashamed of the gospel.  I am not ashamed of the truth of the gospel.  I am not ashamed of what I do.

I’m not a success coach or life coach, though I value those people and I will bring success to your life. 

I am not a TV evangelist although I am on TV and believe we need many more people who understand grace and faith on TV, and I will be expanding our TV ministry.

I am not a hireling.  You won’t see me flutter off to the US because the money is better there or the moral standard for preachers is more lax there.  Though I love America with all my heart.

I am not a compromiser.  You won’t see me living on a different continent to my wife for decades claiming it is God’s will.  Nor will I take out a super injunction against my wife to hide a life of deceit.  My first wife is my last wife, for better or worse. 

I am not interested in the obsessions of the charismatic media.  I will not get a guest speaker just because they are cool or will drag a crowd.a long, but I only invite people to the Tree who I genuinely believe will inspire and challenge you.

I’m not interested in the latest Christian worship song, I am interested in the songs that build you up and encourage you. 

Our services are not rock concerts and they are not seeker friendly, that are Spirit led and crafted to set you free.

Tree of Life is not a concert, not a performance, not a show, not an attempt to be cool.  It is a church, an assembly of believers gathered in love for love.

I am not a motivational speaker, though I will motivate you.  I am not a star or celebrity, and I won’t let you call me Pastor like a title.

I am an apostle.  I am a pastor.  It isn’t my title, it is my job.  I am here to equip you to minister, to set you free from captivity, to inspire you to dream big and to challenge you to live the dream.

I am going to plant a network of churches over Europe so no one has to drive more than one-hour to reach a Tree of Life Church.  I am going to disciple a million people in the UK and help them be the best Christian they ever could be, beyond all they can ask or imagine.  I am going to train and raise up a thousand pastors who fear no one but God, hate nothing but sin and who dream huge dreams.

I will pastor Tree of Life Dagenham and it will be a model church for all of Europe, we will build a headquarters in Dagenham that will be training and loving people all over the world.   Our preaching and music will cover the globe.  Already there isn’t a moment where someone isn’t listening to me preach somewhere in the world.  The music ministry and song writing of our church is already sublime, but you haven’t seen nothing yet.

We will get a building in Dagenham that is ours 24-7 where we will pastor London, teach Europe and reach the world.

We will be a church full of the Word, full of the Spirit, full of the nations and full of love.  You can choose to be part of it, or you can sit on the sidelines and throw stones, either way it will happen.

One of the Scriptures you won’t find in a memory box or on a fridge magnet is:

Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before.

1 Thess. 4.11

Yet one of the most important things we can do as Christians is mind our own business.  We have a lot of people in many churches who are not so much busy but busybodies.  Poking their nose where it doesn’t belong and causing mischief. 

It generally leads to manipulation and bullying.  The fruit of the spirit isn’t other control, it’s self control!  We are not called to workout everyone else’s salvation, but to work out our salvation.

As a pastor one of the areas in which you need great wisdom is in knowing what is your business and what is not.  If it is your business, then get involved and do what needs to be done.  If it is not your business, shut your mouth.

Here are three clues to what is your business and what is not:

1. What you originate is your business.  The children that you originate you should be raising!  How other children are raised is not your business.  The churches you plant you can rule over, the ones you didn’t you can’t. 

What is happening in the church down the road is none of your business – don’t preach on it in the pulpit, don’t comment on it.  If you are asked point out you don’t pastor there. 

Train your department heads to take care of their departments and not try and run other departments.  Train your elders to disciple their people and not get involved in other small groups.  Train people to not get offended that you do not gossip over what is none of their business.

2. What you pay for you are responsible for.  I once was holding some healing meetings and a man came who wanted to pray for people.  I didn’t let him and he got very angry and upset at me, even cursing me and praying for me to get sick.  I told him when he hires the hall then he can pray for who he wants.  If you are the one paying the bills then you are in charge.

A caveat is that when people give to a church they are not paying they are giving.  Being a big giver does not give you the right to run the church, offering time isn’t a bill you pay it is a seed you sow.  If you don’t die to your gift when you give it and think it is a way to run the church you will never have a harvest on it.

If you are not paying the bills, it is not your baby, it is not your business – get your nose out and mind your own business!

3. What you are faithful to is your business.  I used to be in a church with an AGM where you could vote on who would run the church.  The problem was people turned up at that meeting who never attended the church, never served, never cleaned, never helped with children’s ministry, never given a penny.  But they voted on what the church would do.

Thankfully the pastor there had the sense to change that situation, but many people were offended and upset because they liked getting involved in business that they didn’t have to be faithful to.

No, what you are faithful to is your domain.

Take the time to work out what your business is and mind it.  And if it’s not your business, don’t mind.  And train your people in the same way.

5.  Pastors have to be thorough in their teaching, realizing there are ditches on both sides of the road and we need to help people steer a course forward.

4.  Celebrate the victories and gifts of other people.  You need each other.

3.  It is up to pastors to teach people the purpose of government.

2.  The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to us to change the world.  The supreme purpose of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is to bring people from death to life.

1.  A little generosity to someone in a strange land means a great deal.

I am actually blogging from inside a plane.  The plane has its own wifi!  I have headphones in and I’m watching X-Men, Amanda is sitting next to me and watching a period drama.  In under four hours we will be in Chicago to catch our connection to Denver. It’s been a remarkably pleasant flight with no turbulence or issues. 

As I am sitting here, I am thinking about the whole aeroplane experience, having been on a few this year and intending to fly at least twice more before 2015.  As someone who is used to making my own decisions, plot my own course and generally get my own way, flying is a very different experience.  You sit where you are told, you wait until they are ready to fly, you eat what you are given, and you don’t get a vote on destination once airborne. 

Why would any adult subject themselves to this treatment?  Why would they subject themselves so willingly to another person, and pay a lot of money to do so?  The answer is remarkably simple: the pilot of the aeroplane has a set of skills that means only he can get me where I need to be.  I can’t do it myself I need him to take me.  As long as I need him to get to where I need to be, I have to listen carefully to him, and give up my individual freedom to be part of something bigger than myself to access the pilots skill and wisdom because I have a destination.

The application to us as leaders is huge.  Firstly, to get people to follow you you must have a destination, you must have a place they want, even need to go to.  Right now I follow the workout and eating advice of someone  because I want to get to a certain place health wise.  I have three mentors whose advice on church leadership and planting I follow because I need to get somewhere.  People follow me because I am leading them to a great destination.  Secondly, if you have wisdom to get somewhere don’t ever let your vision be a democracy.  A lot of people join someone because of a need to get somewhere but on the journey, selfishness, impatience, frustration and pride kick in and, although ignorant, start insisting things be done a certain way.  Don’t let people sew their cotton patches into your silk vision.  If you have spent years training to be the pilot, and you know you can do it through your experience and your passion, don’t hand the joystick over to anyone else.

Finally, if you do want to be better than you are, if you want to go further than you have ever gone, reach destinations you never could on your own, you will have to learn to develop the character to be part of something bigger than yourself and learn to shut up and listen to the pilot.  In an age where people want their democratic rights, where people think the church should be run by committee, where schools give votes to children and politicians put popularity over principles, learn to develop the necessary character to remain somewhere, to be a small part of a big wheel, to lay down your opinions to get to where you need to be.  If you find a good pilot, board, sit down, listen well and don’t jump out until you have completed the journey.

Yoda is over nine hundred years old and was the ruler of an ancient group of Jedi.  An accomplished fighter and leader, he has a great deal of wisdom.  Here is some of the things I have learned from this little green dude:

1.  Don’t attempt something – do it

To achieve anything in life you have to already see that you can do it.  Those who think they can and those who think they cannot are both right.  Decide in your heart that you can succeed, and don’t try to do it, just do it!

2.  Don’t be afraid to change games!

We used to live on a hill, and my little brother could get some amazing speed on his little tricycle.  He used to race the cars going past.  He never ever beat one, no matter how fast his legs would pedal.  His problem wasn’t pedalling harder – it was he needed a better vehicle.

So many people are pedalling as hard as they can when they need a new approach, a new job, a new relationship, a new location, a new strategy.  It’s not about working hard, it’s about getting the job done!

3. Stop worrying about what might happen!

In John 14, while talking about the importance of faith, Jesus suddenly tells his disciples he has a place prepared for them in heaven.  That used to amaze me until I realized that a heavenly mind is the best environment for faith because it destroys all fear.  You have six months to live from cancer?  That means I will be with Jesus in six months!  You are going to live under a bridge?  Well after a billion years living in a mansion I don’t think I care.

Realizing that it will all work out in heaven causes you to let go of the worries and concerns of earthly things, let’s you rejoice and let’s you believe God without fear contaminating that faith.

4. Fear is the root of all evil

God has not given you or me a spirit of fear and we must resist fear with every breath in our body.  Jesus told Jairus four simple words “No fear, only believe”.  We need to adopt the same mantra no matter what happens in our life.  Fear only empowers the devil, faith only releases the power of God.  Resist fear!

5. Unlearning is as important as learning – and find a quiet space!

We have a lot of nonsense in our minds.  Religion, tradition and culture have taught us a lot of things.  To change a baby’s nappy, the first step is to get rid of the old nappy and clean up the stinky stuff.  To change your thinking, the first step is to get rid of the old thoughts and clean up the stinky stuff between your ears!

To truly do this, you need to find a place of stillness.  A place where you can rest and be silent.  A place where you can take the time to dream, to think, to ponder, to think, to unthink, to rethink.  Angry people do not make good decisions!  Find a place of calm and spend time there.

True leadership involves doing and modelling what you expect others to do.  Too many leaders – and sadly this includes church pastors – do not get involved with what they want people to do.  They don’t witness, don’t pray, only study the Word to prepare a sermon and so on and so forth.  Some don’t even turn up for their own church services until it’s time for the preaching.

Get out of it!  Get your hands dirty, get involved, visit someone, pray for someone, share the gospel with someone.  You will get more respect from your people and have more fun too!

Life is comprised of decisions.  Successful people are people who have made good decisions.  Unsuccessful people are people who have made bad decisions.

You are where you are today because of the decisions you have made.  If your life is a mess, it is because you have made poor decisions.

As leaders, don’t blame the people you lead for the results you are getting.  Those results are the fruit of the decisions you made.  The better decisions you make, the more that you will see your leadership skills improve.

To walk into the destiny God has for you, to enjoy life, to get out of debt, to improve your health, to improve your marriage – you need to make good decisions.

Now there are two problems with making good decisions:

1.  Knowing what decision to make
2. Making the right decision when we know what it is

Now, I know people who are in the first realm – they genuinely don’t know what to do.  Sorry if that is you, but I’m not writing this post to help you.  My advice is to pray to God for wisdom (James 1.5) and to seek counsel.  But I have found more people are in the second boat – they know what is the right thing to do, but they don’t make right decisions.

If you are 100lb overweight, then you are not ignorant of what you need to do to improve the quality of your life – eat less, eat right, exercise more.  If you and your wife are constantly rowing, then you don’t need counsel to know act with kindness, forgive, be romantic, show grace.  If you are failing financially, you need to budget effectively, long term plan, find extra work, find better work.  None of these things are obscure – in fact, the solution to most problems is normally painstakingly obvious.

So what we need to do as leaders is be in a position to help people who know what to do but don’t seem to want to do it.  People normally blame these sort of things on willpower – I wanted to not eat the extra slice of cake, but I didn’t have the willpower; I tried being nice to my husband, but I didn’t have the willpower, I wanted to get up and run but I didn’t have the willpower, I know I didn’t need another pair of shoes but I didn’t have the willpower.

As leaders as well, we often blame our bad decisions on a lack of willpower.  I didn’t have the mental strength to confront person X when they interrupted the meeting; I didn’t have the willpower to deal with such and such head on.

Let me set you free today – these decisions have absolutely nothing to do with willpower.   Trying to summon up mental strength to do something difficult will always fail.  You can’t give up smoking that way, you can’t give up biscuits that way, you cannot give up spineless leadership that way either!

These decisions are not based on willpower but on priorities.  Our priorities determine our decisions, not our willpower.

If you want to weigh less, then weighing less has to become a higher priority than eating the cake.  If you want to give up smoking, all the benefits of giving up smoking have to become more of a priority than that next cigarette.  If you want to confront someone who is destroying your business or church through their attitudes and through their negativity and criticism, then a church or business free from internal competition and strife needs to be a higher priority than keeping someone around who just adds to your headcount or whatever other benefit they bring.

The problem isn’t willpower.  It’s priorities.  People who miss church when the message was going to set them free and help them, so they could watch the football. Their problem isn’t willpower, it’s wrong priorities.  We are one day away from our annual summer conference and some people are telling me: well, I might be there.

That’s not a function of willpower, but of priorities.  The conference isn’t that important to them.  There is no might about being at work, about going out with their friends, about their hobbies and interested – but there is a maybe about God’s Word because of their priorities.

How do we get our lives on track to where they need to be?  We need to determine and work out our personal priorities.  Somewhere high should be the Word of God, our relationship with God and local church – the only thing on earth being built by Jesus himself.  In terms of our life, we need to work out our priorities by realizing who God has designed us to be and what we are doing in our future.  God doesn’t want you to die at 55, and nor do you – so realizing that will make exercising and quitting smoking a priority in your life.

We need to think forward to develop good priorities, the further forward we can think and dream, the more potent our priorities become and the better our decisions become.

So take some time today to consider and imagine where you want to be next year, next five years, next ten years, next twenty years.  Let that image determine and set your priorities.

And if you need three months’ worth of spiritual growth in four days, turn up tomorrow at Heal the Nations (www.healthenations.net) and have a great four days with us listening to the best grace teachers in the United Kingdom.

Both the baker and the cupbearer had displeased their King, their patron and employer. They had both failed to meet his expectations in such a severe way that the only possibility he had was to throw them both in jail.

Yet, after time to cool down and reflect, the Pharoah killed the baker and restored the cupbearer to his original place.

Why such a radical difference of end result for these two men? Is it possible that the difference stems from their different roles.

A baker has one job… To ensure that their employer gets fresh, healthy food.

A cupbearer had one job… To ensure that their employer gets fresh, healthy food.

But they do the job in very different ways. A baker makes the food and concentrates on the food. A cupbearer eats the food before the king and shows the king the personal effect of the food on his life before passing the food onto the king.

Many pastors and leaders provide good food for their people. They are great feeders, preaching great messages, selecting great teachers, using great curriculums. They are bakers.

But if that is all you are, if you mess up – and one day you will, people will discard you, you will be dead to them.

But if you eat the food yourself, in front of the people. If they see you working things out too, if you do not just merely share your food and teaching, but share your life, and take the risk out of dinner for them. Well, if you do these things they may get mad at you every so often, but they will allow you back into your life.

It’s actually really easy to get good food in the body of Christ today, in fact I’d dare say there is too much teaching available, certainly you could never listen to it all or give it all due care and attention. It’s easy to find another baker.

It’s hard to find someone who will share their lives with you, take risks for you, fellowship with you, and let you see the effects of your dinner on them before you even get near it. You don’t throw people like that under a bus.

Leaders, pastors – don’t just feed your people, tend to them. It is a key to longevity.

One of the things that happens a lot is that people as Christians are told “judge not”.  It’s like a mantra.  The whole world has embraced it now – we must not judge.

Now if you take that to logical extremes it’s absurd!  There are two pieces of meat, one is rotten and smells, the other is awesome looking.  Don’t judge, eat both of them!  No – you would never do that.  We all make judgments when we buy clothes, buy food, eat food, buy a new house, a new car.  We have to judge to make decisions.  All judging is is simply looking at the evidence and making a preference or decision.

Now, it is clear from the Bible that there are times we are supposed to judge, and times we are not supposed to judge.

In Matthew 7.1-5. Jesus says don’t judge the speck in someone else’s eye when we have a plank in our eye.

So there is one situation is when it is wrong to judge – when what is going on in your life is worse than what is going on in their life.  It’s strange that when our lives are a mess we immediately want to rip someone else’s life apart to make ourselves feel better.  I’ve met cocaine addicts who feel good about themselves because “at least it’s not heroin”.  We fail so we try and pull people down with us.  We try and blow other people’s candles out to make our light shine brighter.

It’s amazing how as a pastor I can be with a couple whose marriage is falling apart, they are on the verge of divorce, he is secretly drinking, she is overeating and they are both depressed.  Yet, they will storm out of the church because they disagreed with some minor side point I made on the end-times!  No – when you have a plank in your eye and you need help, that’s when you don’t judge.  You don’t go to criticize, you go to get a lifeline.

If you are drowning, don’t refuse the lifeline because the person throwing it is smoking, or drinking, or black, or white, or too old, or too young, or all the other stupid reasons we discriminate against people.  You need the lifeline – you have a plank in your eye.  If you need help, get it.  Don’t leave church over minutia when church is helping put your life back together.

It has been really hard for me recently, as a few people have stopped attending our church and I saw their Facebook pages – not filled with hatred for the church, but just missing life.  Where they used to talk about love, about victory, about joy, about healings and miracles they were seeing – now it’s just life.  Here’s what is going on a work today, here is my lunch.  Whatever.  It’s just missing that life.  They left church because they made a judgement on a speck, when they need someone to help remove the plank from their eye.  They ran away from our lifeline because we didn’t meet their requirements but they are drowning.  I only hope they find someone else and by then are so desperate they won’t care that the next church has also got a speck or two!

When you have a plank in your eye, stop looking for specks, stop looking for reasons to judge and get annoyed, and get the help you need.

It’s not a surprise to people who know me that I love the new Marvel films.  Me and my boys were in the cinema watching Age of Ultron as it came out 1 minute past midnight!

Now as a film, it’s about a team of heroes who are changing the world – but they are still learning themselves.  Here are seven leadership lessons from the film (watch out, there may be spoilers ahead!)

1. Celebrate the Victories

The film starts right in the middle of the action with the Avengers taking down a Hydra base.  When they have completed their mission successfully, it’s right back to Stark Tower to party and celebrate.  Celebrating victories is important – especially when the long-term mission is an ongoing task.  So, in church life you might have a vision for a 3000-strong church – celebrate the day you make 50, 100, 200, 500.  Celebrate the healing, celebrate the marriage that is saved, celebrate each success.

It is a tribute to Josh Weadon’s story telling that I could have just watched the Avengers party for the whole film, the characters and the way they interacted was priceless.  If you are running a team – it cannot just be about work.  Yes good leadership must always be about results but it must equally be about relationships too – and one of the best ways to build healthy relationships is to celebrate together.

2. Language!

There is a scene where Tony Stark / Iron Man lets loose with a four-letter word, and Captain America – raised in the 1930s – calls him on it with the one word “Language!”.  It then becomes a running joke in the film, but the point is still made. Profanity is invariably unnecessary.  We are seeing a change in this nation, and in the Western world, where it is seen as cool to swear.  Pastors are swearing from the pulpits to charge up a message and to “wake their church up”.  In the short term it may have that positive effect, but the long terms effects will negative.  You cheapen something by adding profanity to it, you are not adding something of value.

3. Secrecy is trouble

The protagonist of the film, Ultron, is created by Tony Stark.  In secret.  Telling only Bruce Banner / the Hulk, Tony starts and finishes his project without the awareness of the rest of the team.  His intentions were good – but his personality blinded him from seeing any ramifications from his actions.

Listen carefully. whenever you are doing something in secret from the team, there is a potential of danger.  That’s why we have teams.  That’s why we function better with other people around us.  You don’t have to tell everyone everything, but you do have to tell someone.  Make sure you have someones around you!  And don’t keep secrets from them!

4. Learn to think 3-dimensionally.

Sometimes things go right, sometimes they go amazingly right, sometimes things go wrong.  If you learn to think like that, then you can be prepared.  The Scarlet Witch at one point in the film touches the Hulk and sends him on a rampage throughout the city.  But Tony Stark has been thinking about different possibilities, and has a Hulkbuster suit of armour ready for this kind of situation.

I’m not saying wallow in the problems, think negatively or assume failure.  I’m just saying having a back up plan is never a bad idea and is good leadership.

5. Disagreement is not Dissolution

The Avengers have a bit of a barney in this film.  When everyone finds out Tony Stark invented the bad guy, and why, there is a definite argument.  The Avengers have different ideas, different perspectives, different philosophies.  But the disagreement in the team is not the dissolution of the team.  A disagreement on how to raise your children is not the end of your marriage.

A disagreement on how church should be run does not mean you throw your dummy out of the pram, walk out the door and are never seen again.  A disagreement on the way the team is run, or who is promoted, should not mean the team is ripped apart.

The Avengers all had this – they were able to look at the big picture and work out the real goal.  Their real goal was to save the world, which meant they in humility could lay down their agendas, their plans, their goals and their philosophies to get the job done.  The church in this nation desperately needs some people like this.  Save us from deacon’s meetings where there is a 3 hour argument on the colour of the new church carpet, elders who only tithe if they are leading worship, people who hold churches to ransom because they can’t see the big picture.  Like the Avengers, the church is here to save the world.  Let’s get with the bigger picture and work together!

6. Not Everyone will Appreciate You

In one scene, the city is in danger, so Iron Man summons an army of robots to help defend the people and save them.  The reaction was not one of appreciation, rather the people attacked the Iron Legion and told them to go away.

I am sure every leader has been in a similar situation (barring the robots!) – you offer help, you know you can help, you have the resources to help – but it just isn’t appreciated, it isn’t welcome.  That’s just how it is sadly, and all you can do is shake the dust off your feet and move on.  You cannot help people who don’t think they have a problem, you cannot help people who think their problem is unsolvable, and you cannot help people who think you are their problem.  Invest your energy on those you can help, and don’t stay awake all night about those you reject your help and reject you.

7. “Our Job is If”

Tony Stark gives in my mind the finest quote in the whole film: “our job is if”.  As leaders our job is “if”.  What if.  We need to be the dreamers of impossible dreams, those who see things differently.

The truth is the world is a mess.  We can’t solve all the problems, but there are some problems we can solve.  We have to take the time to question, reflect and challenge the way things have always been done.  In my last post, I said that leaders have to reflect everyday.  We have to ask the big questions. We have to consider and bring out the “if”

If things could be different

If we could inspire people on a bigger scale

If we could create something worth owning and worth fighting for

If we could do church as it’s meant to be done, not how it’s always been done

If we could lay down our agendas and genuinely love and support one another

If we could stop sweeping stuff under the carpet and deal with it

If we could overcome this obstacle.

Take some time today to figure out and dream some IFs.  Our job is if.