7. What It’s Going To Take – THE SERENDIPITOUS CHURCH

7. What It’s Going To Take –

THE SERENDIPITOUS CHURCH

In recent times the Church (I use Church when referring to the universal/worldwide
Church, and the word church when referring to a local church) has come under intense scrutiny and condemnation for its various scandals involving sexual abuses and financial misappropriations. To make matters worse, rather than the Church’s prophets leading the condemnation, it has largely fallen to secular agencies such as the media and the justice system to highlight these atrocious misrepresentations of Christ. And to make matters even worst, the Church has too often denied its guilt and defended those responsible. Is it wonder now that the Church is held in such contempt by mainstream culture? Is anyone actually surprised at the failure of what many church leaders were arguing for (the sanctity of marriage with time-honoured arguments) against such aberrations of marriage, such as ‘same-sex marriage’ or ‘polygamous marriage’, when other church leaders were divorcing their wives or being exposed as adulterers? Is there any hope for the Church to become who Christ died to build? Yes.

So that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Ephesians 5:27

THE BODY OF CHRIST

For all its shortcomings, the Church is still the body of Christ, His bride! It is estimated that there are around two billion people around the word who identify as Christians. The fact that many, and perhaps its – most, of these people do not understand the Christianity they profess only reinforces the need for the churches to nurture, teach, and train these people. In this sense, there is an urgent need for a revival of sorts where those who profess to be Christians are truly converted to Christ! 

The body of Christ comes in a many varieties and shapes. Over the past century with increasing urbanisation of the globe where the populations of cities have increased dramatically, there has arisen a new church trend known as the mega-churches. A mega-church is defined as a church with “a sustained average weekly attendance of 2,000 persons or more in its worship services, counting all adults and children at all its worship locations” (Hartford Institute for Religion Research, http://hirr.hartsem.edu/megachurch/definition.html). In the USA, the average mega-church attendance is 3696 people over a weekend. In 1990, the USA had 350 mega-churches. By the year 2000, there were 600 mega-churches. By 2015 there were 1650 mega-churches. The largest mega-church in ’America averages 60,000 attendees a weekend. (For a list of the world’s largest mega-churches go to research of Dr. Warren Bird.) 

Curiously, with the phenomenal rise of mega-churches, the average number of Americans attending church generally has dropped dramatically over the same 40 years. According to churchleaders.com, there were around 39% of Americans attending church at least 3 Sundays out of 8 around 40 years ago – whereas by 2018, there were only 18% of Americans attending church at the same rate. With the rise of mega-churches there has generally been the demise of existing smaller nearby churches (which helps to also explain the dramatic increase in attendance of mega-churches). Yet, in smaller, more rural, areas, local churches are often surprisingly still quite healthy.

How will the body of Christ look into the future? This depends almost entirely on one factor…

IT STARTS WITH A CHURCH’S PASTORAL LEADERSHIP

The one common trait of all growing churches, whether they be a city mega-church, or a country church, is the calibre of its leadership. It doesn’t matter if the leader is full-time, part-time, or bi-vocational. It doesn’t particularly matter if they are seminary trained or not. What matters is their competence, resilience, passion (Rom. 12:11), giftedness, and determination. Consider the Apostle Paul. There were times when he was full-time (enabled by the missions support of other churches, Phil. 4:14-15, 1Cor. 9:6) and other times when he was bi-vocational (when he served as a tent-maker to support his apostolic ministry, Acts 18:3; 1Cor. 4:12). What made Paul, and the churches he planted, successful, was that he focussed on Christ (Phil 3:9-10) and the Word of God (1Tim. 4:13) and was led by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:13-14). 

And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. 
Acts 16:6-7

Added to this, Paul understood that Christ’s Church was multi-faceted. While he evangelised to pioneer churches, he never lost sight of the need to help these churches become evangelising churches. In order for this to happen effectively, he worked at ensuring their elders and deacons were well-grounded in God’s Word and sound doctrine. He set strict guidelines for godly conduct for those in the congregations and insisted that elders and deacons were the ones who set the highest example of what this looked like.

¶ The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? 
First Timothy 3:1-5

While some people teach and promote the idea that the Church only exists to evangelise, the Biblical revelation is that its existence is multi-faceted with evangelism being one of its God ordained facets. It is also called to care, console, correct, teach, train, educate, worship, prophesy, heal, pray, inspire, feed, clothe, marry, bury, to name just a few. Added to these mandates is the realisation that God calls churches into being with unique opportunities and talents for reaching a particular people or bearing witness for Christ and His Testimony in a spiritually dark place. For example, the ministry of (Nathan) Burl Cain in Angola, Louisiana (West Feliciana Parish, north of Baton Rouge). Burl was appointed as a the Warden of the Louisiana State Penitentiary in January 1995 and served there until 2016 (when he retired at the age of 74). 

Louisiana State Penitentiary is the largest maximum-security prison in the United States. Many of the inmates are serving life sentences and will never be released. A devout Christian, Cain encouraged a spiritual atmosphere in the prison to build a culture of morality and to help inmates serve their time. Under his leadership, violent incidents decreased markedly among the inmate population of more than 5,000.

Cain improved relations with the media, and allowed several documentaries to be filmed at the prison during his tenure. He said that he wanted people outside to see the lives of the men and understand them. He established positive incentives, including a television station so that all prisoners could see some programs. He supported the newsmagazine and radio. The Angola Prison Rodeo, football, and prize fights, are all filmed by TV crews. The latter two activities were started under Cain. On the other side, he worked to increase compassion, establishing a prison-run hospice program in 1997. The changes which he brought about at the prison are detailed in the 2005 book Cain’s Redemption: A Story of Hope and Transformation in America’s Bloodiest Prison by Dennis Shere. In 2008, Cain became the longest-serving warden in the history of Angola.
Source: Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burl_Cain

The ministry of Burl Cain at Angola Prison resulted in the transformation of thousands of ‘lifers’. Eight inmate churches were planted in the prison, as well as a Theological Seminary. As with every other effective church in the world, it was the leadership of Burl Cain which God was able to use to bring about the redemption of Angola Prison. 

If the Church today is to have any hope of being the agents of Christ’s hope to the world we must at least get this foundational principle for church leadership right! Sadly, there are some churches where elders and deacons are appointed because they are popular or generous rather than because they are called and qualified.

¶ Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.First Timothy 3:8-13

The pastoral leader of a church is called by God to care for those He places in their charge. They do not do this because it is a job. They do not this because they couldn’t find a better job. They do not do this because of their own psychological neediness to be needed or affirmed. They do not this because to ‘grow their ministry’. They do this because they are called by God to gather and shepherd His sheep. This involves paying a price. It means staying and standing in the face of opposition and adversity. It may mean sleeplessness, impoverishment, or poor health. And they do it gladly and willingly.

He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
John 10:12-13

A PROPHETIC CHURCH

Prophecy is not merely limited to predicting. In fact, Biblical prophecy was mostly about reminding. In our church’s 8 year journey through the book of Jeremiah I continually pointed out that Jeremiah was repeatedly reminding God’s people of God’s Word. To be sure, God used Jeremiah to foretell that the Babylonians would be God’s instrument of judgment upon them, but even this was on the basis of what Moses had already warned centuries earlier as recorded in Deuteronomy 28 (particularly verse 36). Today, we are in a very similar situation to Jeremiah where people have largely forgotten what God has long ago said. Our society is playing a very dangerous game with its various social experiments. Ironically these are being done in the name of being ‘progressive’, when in fact, it is actually regressive since several ancient civilisations did similar things which ultimately led to their overthrow and downfall. 

If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.
First Timothy 3:15

One of the most unloving things any church can do is to ignore the cultural self-harm of its society. Christians stand against sexual misconduct not only because our Creator forbids it, but also because it injures those who deceive themselves by entertaining it. Professor Nancy Pearcey powerfully makes this case in her book, Love Thy Body. For a pastoral leader of a church to remain silent while those they are called to reach, and care for, are legislating for the right to harm themselves and each other, is a violation of the second greatest commandment (Matt. 22:39). 

It is not political for a pastor to criticise or oppose a government’s proposed legislative agenda. It is love. It is also their prophetic responsibility for the office to which God has called them. This is why more pastors must write to politicians and legislators expressing reasoned concerns about legislation dressed up in soft buzz words like – ‘equality’, ‘dignity’, ‘compassion’, ‘health’, ‘reproductive’, ‘justice’, ‘fairness’, and ‘right’ – which are in fact concealing a deadly and harmful poison concocted from an attempt to legitimatise: abuse, misuse, and even murder! 

Too many pastors are afraid to use their pulpits to pastor their people! Congregations need pastoring when it comes to understanding God’s view of the sacredness of life, the sacredness of sexuality, the sacredness of marriage, and the sacredness of Scripture. The story of Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood Clinic Director, is one marked by the tragic fact that although she was raised in a church, she never once heard abortion addressed from her church’s pulpit. Before Abby came to see firsthand what abortion truly was, she had overseen 20,000 abortions in her clinic. She is now a Pro-Life campaigner whose story became a best-selling book and more recently was depicted in the movie, Unplanned. 

The fear of man lays a snare,
  but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.
Proverbs 29:25

Recently polling in America among young Evangelicals shows that they have become less committed to the inerrancy of Scripture because in their minds it is now outdated about its views of sexuality. While this is concerning and even alarming, it is sadly not surprising when many pastors refuse to openly explain what the Bible teaches about sexual purity and why it teaches it!

But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.
Revelation 2:14

A SERENDIPITOUS CHURCH

Serendipity means unexpected, surprising, fortuitous. This is exactly what I am calling the Church and each church, to be! The grace that we have for the world is exactly what it is needed by this mixed up, broken, dysfunctional world. Even though the world scorns us, as Christ said they would, we still persist in loving them and proclaiming the grace that can redeem them in the midst of their brokenness. The Church is always at its finest when it best presents the healing grace of Christ with acts of serendipity. A great example of this today is the work of Dr. Kent and Ruth Hodge in northern Nigeria, our missions partners there, who up until recently have been labouring in an extremely dangerous part of the world blighted by radical Islamists. Kent and Ruth have reached out to the Islamic leaders in the surrounding villages to their College by offering medical assistance, and vocational educational for the young people of these villages. He recently wrote-

Bringing the poorest Muslims and Christians together to form relationships, providing both with educational opportunities, vocational skills, paying school fees for destitute orphans, whose Muslim and Christian parents killed each other, helping forsaken Christian and Muslim widows… all goes a long way to breaking down enmity, atoning for community bitterness, providing hope that changes behaviour, and sharing Christ where once the door was shut. These are the kind of responses that are needed, rather than complaints about the faults of others. These are the things we and others are doing, reaching thousands, which studies and our own experiences show work. If we don’t want Christians persecuted, then this is what needs to be done.
 
THIS is Jesus’ response to terrorism, from any source.

A world where 1% percent of the population own 50% of the world’s wealth, wealth safely tucked away, while 10.5 million kids, just in Nigeria alone, are out of school because their damaged families can’t afford school fees, points us to the underlying issues that are at the heart of our problem. The fact that a school is cheaper to build than the cost of one bomb dropped from a drone, must say a lot about the world we live in. This must impact us.

I recently heard a professor of Philosophical Theology describe the message of the Church, as entrusted in the Gospel – the Scriptures – as, “high comedy”! I was shocked to hear such irreverence from such an eminent professor of a respected Seminary – until he explained what ‘high comedy’ was. We live in a world where the only comedy we experience is low comedy. He explained that ‘comedy’ originally meant unexpected. He went on to explain that “high comedy” meant ‘something so surprising and unexpected it was shocking‘. He declared that this was indeed what the Gospel was! The God who created us had been betrayed us, and even though He warned us what the penalty for doing this was, we defiantly resisted Him and His plea – and despite this, He gave up everything to rescue us and adopt us as His privileged children for all eternity! High comedy indeed! Serendipity indeed!

A CHURCH FOR EVERYONE

One of the most pleasing things about what God has been doing in our church lately is how He has been diversifying it. One of the challenges that all churches are facing at the moment, and we are particularly struggling with, is helping people to realise the priority Christ has placed on gathering together to worship together, to heed  together, to pray together, to minister to one another, to be pastored together, to reach out together, to pool our time, talent, and treasure together, so that the whole body of Christ is built up and together makes Christ beautiful in the eyes of the world. As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Screwtape Letters, if the devil was serious about undermining the cause of Christ, the first thing he would do is to distract believers from assembling together. It will be a sure sign of the church’s battle-readiness when most of its soldiers are not AWOL and make assembling together each Sunday a sacred priority. It will be then, that the Church of the Living God may well become who Christ died to build and we may get a glimpse of heaven on earth – especially the bit mentioned in Revelation 7:9!  

Pastor Andrew

The Problem With Doubling

THE PROBLEM WITH DOUBLING

In the world of ‘doubles’ we might think of The Two Ronnies, Woodford and Woodbridge, Laurel and Hardy, the Bryan Brothers. We might think of those unsung movie stuntmen who double for the stars in their action movies. We may even imagine the lure of gambling and its enticement to double your money with just one throw of the dice. But none of these are the type of doubling that we must now consider.

Have you ever had so much to do that you’ve found yourself wishing you could be in two places at once? Imagine having the power to double ourselves. Perhaps you might like to have another you – not to be in two places at once – but simply to get through everything on your To-Do List before their deadlines? 

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LIVING DOUBLE iS TROUBLE

I have met people who have a double! Despite the alluring appeal of having a double to be in two places at one time or to get twice as much done, these people are cursed by having a double! Initially they welcome the idea of their double, but over time they discover that having a double creates trouble. If you haven’t yet met anyone leading a double life, when you do you may discover just how troublesome it can be. These people are one person to a particular group of people and another person entirely to another group of people. Their trouble begins when they encounter representatives from both groups at the same time. It’s not undercover agents who must carefully manage this. Not that long ago I was indirectly involved in trying to deal with a situation where a pastor had been leading a double-life. One of his lives was spent in Australia where he was married and pastored a missions-minded church. This church welcomed the opportunity to reach out around the globe and take the Gospel to people otherwise ignorant of it. They largely did this by releasing their pastor to travel to these South East Asian countries to undertake teaching and training. The reports of his effectiveness and success bolstered their enthusiasm for further overseas involvement. What they didn’t know was that the pastor led another life. Because living a double-life is so troublesome, trouble has a way of gate-crashing these people’s other lives at the most inconvenient time. And for this pastor it did. And it was ugly. A lot of people were badly hurt.

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DOUBLE MINDED

We can be in “two minds” about something and not be “double-minded”. I’m often in two minds about things when there is a decision to make. This simply means that when things are boiled down to two different directions I can often see merit in both options. But to be “double-minded” is to wilfully choose to believe two incompatible ideas.

he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. . . Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
James 1:8, 4:8

Over the past few years I have quietly helped several people who had been living double lives. This kind of help is built on two things: trust and grace. The trust these people have given me has been the result of consistency, discretion, and honesty. For a double-minded person to be helped requires someone they can trust. Secondly, it requires a broader understanding of the grace of God. Many people only see God’s grace as if it was His turning a blind-eye to their sin. But God’s grace is never that! God’s grace is His enabling and provision for what we could not do or have by our own effort. Understanding God’s grace this way means we can begin to see what the Reformers distinguished as God’s extraordinary grace and God’s common grace. Sometimes God will miraculously intervene into a situation (“extraordinary grace”), but usually God will respond to those who call upon Him for help by enabling them to do what they could not do in their own strength or with their own resources. This is His “common” grace. In every instance of a person who has been living a double life, there are people who have been hurt. While this hurt cannot be undone, there are measures that can be taken to begin to heal it. For the double-lifer this path to healing their hurt ones is called the road to integrity.

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THE SINGLE LANED ROAD TO INTEGRITY

May integrity and honesty protect me,  for I put my hope in you. 
Psalm 25:21

Integrity comes from the word integer. An integer is a whole number (rather than a fraction). To be a person of integrity means to be a whole person (rather than a fraction of one person and a fraction of another). A person of integrity is someone who is who they are no matter who they are with. Who they are in private is who they are in public. A person of integrity knows who they are, what they are good at (and what they are not), how to apologise when they have hurt someone, and how to listen to those who have something to say to them. 

To become who you were created to be and to discover your life’s purposeand the right way to live, is only possible by following Christ and His teaching. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis – A person cannot claim that Christ was a good man and a great teacher and then ignore Him and what He taught! This is one of the worst kind of double-lives! For someone to present themselves as a Christian and yet live as if they are not, is for them, to live a double life. In the words of Jesus, this is living a lukewarm life (Revelation 3:20). And to the Lukewarm, Jesus speaks with tenderness and gravity. His tenderness is heard in His appeal, “I would rather have you be hot.”  Those who live ‘hot’ for Christ are passionate, devoted, committed to Jesus and His Word, ways, and will. This is living the Christian life with integrity. Amazingly, Jesus says He would rather have people be ‘cold’ rather than ‘lukewarm’. Those who are cold toward Christ does not misrepresent Him to the world, but those who are lukewarm do. This is where we hear the gravity of Christ to those who claim to be His followers yet don’t live like it. Jesus warns of a particularly dire eternal consequence for the lukewarm who are living a double life.

Living with one foot in the world and one foot in the Kingdom of Christ is a horrible double life. Such a person can’t truly enjoy the world because they know that sin is not just breaking God’s Law – it’s breaking God’s heart! Neither can such a person enjoy their relationship with Jesus, His people, or His Word. It is my prayer that everyone in our church will find their greatest joy in being with Christ in prayer, worship, Scripture, fellowship, and reflection. The spiritual heat generated by such grace-enabled followers of Christ attracts the cold-hearted to the soul-warming Saviour. And for those who are living spiritually double-lives, especially for those are young, I pray that you might open your heart to God’s love, light, life and lordship to discover for yourself that the Christ-hot life is far more beautiful than the cold or lukewarm double life.

Amen.

JESUS IS NOT INCREDIBLE

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 14:6

The One we follow expects people to follow us. This gives Christianity a leadership culture. If you are a follower of Christ, you must be leader. Whenever the Church is at its strongest it is because it is led well. Because leadership is a part of the fabric of Christianity and the Church that Christ is building, His followers will display Christ-like leadership in their homes, their schools, their clubs, their workplaces, and the marketplace. Christ's leadership shows us that it is not about how many are following, but how they are led that matters. As great as The Christ's leadership was and is, He is most definitely not an incredible leader!

¶ But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. 
Acts 2:14 [This verse highlights the remarkable transformation in Peter by Christ] 

Jesus is deservedly considered the greatest leader ever. His leadership was so attractive it commanded the highest loyalty from the least likely. It produced leaders who were bold, daring and courageous from people who were shy, uncertain, and unreliable. There was something about Jesus of Nazareth's leadership that was irresistibly attractive and inviting. If you watch Jesus lead you will be informed about how to be a better father, mother, student, employer, manager, or employee. This is not an exhaustive list, but note the following leadership traits of Jesus and consider how they apply to you.

Humble 

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
Philippians 2:5-7

In his book, HUMILITAS, Dr. John Dickson gives a great definition for humility and an even greater example of it. Humilty, he says, is withholding your power for the good of others. And he offers the following illustration-

Three young men hopped on a bus in Detroit in the 1930s and tried to pick a fight with a lone man sitting at the back of the vehicle. They insulted him. He didn't respond. They turned up the heat of the insults. He said nothing. Eventually, the stranger stood up. He was bigger than they had estimated from his seated position - much bigger. He reached into his pocket, handed them his business card and walked off the bus and then on his way. As the bus drove on the young men gathered around the card to read the words: Joe Louis. Boxer. They had just tried to pick a fight with the man who would be Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World from 1937 to 1949, the number one boxer of all time, according to the International Boxing Research Organization (second on the list is Muhammad Ali). They apparently said of Louis that he could knock out a horse with one punch. I struggle to think how he got that reputation, but the point is simple. Here is a man of immense power and skill, capable of defending his honour with a single, devastating blow. Yet he chooses to forgo his status and hold his power for others - in this case, for some very fortunate young men.
John Dickson, Humilitas, pages 26-27 

Jesus was the epitome of humble. He withheld His infinite power for the good of others. He didn't promote Himself or seek His own glory - even though He is the only person who deserves it! If you are a person who is easily and often offended, you have a humility deficiency problem. By following Christ with the daily prayer, Lord have Your way in my life. Make me into the person You want me to be, you will find the path to strength is down not up. A humble leader is a servant-leader.

Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and He is the judge.
John 8:50

Missional

¶ When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
Luke 9:51

Leaders have a destination in mind. Parents as leaders have the destination of developing character, competency and chemistry in their children that shapes them into well-equipped ambassadors for Christ. Pastors have a destination in mind for those they lead that looks like fully-devoted, humble, responsible, Biblically-informed, followers of Christ who know how to serve each other and lead others closer to Christ. Christ's leadership was focused on His mission. Ours should be too.

Authentic

Jesus didn't have a public face, then another face that was His non-public face. He was authentic when in sight and when He was out of sight. In the past few weeks over 400 pastors have been exposed as adulterers when the Ashley Madison ("Life is short. Have an affair") adultery website was hacked and made public by the hackers. Some very high profile 'pro-marriage' church leaders have now been shamed and disgraced. They were not authentic leaders. (They obviously didn't grow up in homes where their mothers repeatedly quoted Numbers 32:23 to them!)

Your best chance of having any parental leadership sway with your kids is to be authentic. Do you tell them to clean up their room as they hop into your pig-sty of a car? Being authentic involves walking the talk not just talking the talk. If I'm not spending time daily with God then my pastoral authenticity is a sham if I am telling you to spend time daily with God. Jesus calls His followers to follow Him - not perfectly (although that's the goal) - but authentically. 

¶ Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."
Matthew 16:24

Diligent

Diligence means with great care and persistence. Leadership is a marathon and a regular series of sprints (not just one sprint). It costs to be diligent. It costs sleep. It costs leisure. It costs social time. It costs financially. It costs me-time. It involves giving of oneself. Nehemiah is one of the greatest examples of a diligent leader. Have a read through his book and you can only admire his achievements and the diligence that enabled him to accomplish them. 

As humble, missional, authentic and diligent as Jesus was as a leader, He was not an incredible leader. Thus, the final aspect of this brief survey of Christ's leadership deals with His credibility.

Credible

To be credible is to be trustworthy, honest, reliable, believable. When someone describes you as unbelievable they are not complimenting you! When someone describes you as incredible they are insulting you. Incredible means cannot be trusted, cannot be believed, cannot be relied upon. It is the opposite of credible. Jesus was not an incredible leader - He was a credible leader. And while we live in a generation with many incredible leaders, it is our time to shine as Christ's light bearers in a dark world by learning from Jesus how to be credible leaders. 

Father, help us to lead like Jesus. Help us to learn how to follow Him more closely so that we can have others follow us more closely. Help us to care for those we lead. Help us to be humble, missional, authentic, diligent and credible. Help us to do those things that enable us to be so. As we spend time with You prayerfully in Your Word each day. And may Your Word instruct us, empower us, and guide us to be the leaders You want us to be in our homes, schools, work, businesses, and clubs, we pray, in Jesus' Name,
Amen.

Ps. Andrew