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Top Posts For April 2014

Another month has come and gone, and it seems like the year is flying by already. As a youth minister, this time of year signaled the beginning of the busy season. As a lead minister, the busy season never seems to stop. I am taking steps to slow down and simply my life in order to make more room for Christ.

April 2014 Word Picture from Wordle.net

The past month has been a packed one for my family and for my church. We hosted Creation Truth Foundation at the beginning of the month, and the week went very well. That even came in the middle of a sermon series that looked at a series of Portraits of Christ in the New Testament, and fit right in, describing Jesus as Creator.

Easter weekend was also an incredible time. It was our first Easter with our new church, and we loved the celebration with our church family.

May brings much more with it than just flowers. My oldest daughter will celebrate a birthday this month, and with Mother’s Day and a few other family events, May promises to be great.

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4 Keys To Spiritual Health

Recently, I started an ongoing series of posts called Establishing Spiritual Disciplines. In this series, I’m looking at several key disciplines that you and I need to develop in our lives if we want to grow spiritually. These are individual disciplines, but the same holds true for church growth as well: If you want your church to grow, there must be certain healthy key characteristics present. If they aren’t there, the options are simple; either you grow these in your church, or you don’t grow at all.

Stethoscope

Church growth is a funny animal. It seems like everyone is an expert and every book you read has a different strategy for success. In order for the church to grow, quite simply, the individuals in the church must be growing. But that’s only a part of it, too. There are things that must be in place at a corporate level as well.

Every other “expert” has an opinion on what those things are, and they may list a dozen different ideas, all of which are different from the next expert’s advice. Even so, I think there are a few essential keys that must be present in the life of the church, just as they are in the life of the individual, if you want to see some significant growth.

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Coffee Break – 04.28.2014

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Coffee Or Tea? – I’m a coffee drinker, but I enjoy a good tea once in a while too. My favorite is a green tea blend called Boulder Blues from The Next Page bookstore in Frisco, Colorado. Looking at this map, though, tea is an unknown delicacy in the US, while coffee is scarce in Asia.

When Big Cities Turn Off Their Lights – I’ve always wondered what it might be like to live in a time before there was electricity. What does God’s creation look like without all of our light pollution? This series of photographs explores that idea. They are pretty cool looking images.

How To Shoot Slow Motion Video With An iPhone 5s – As a hobbyist photographer, I’ve found that one of my most widely used tools is the camera on my iPhone. They’ve come a long way, and there is a lot you can do with one, including capturing some great slow-mo footage.

The Preacher’s Cheat Sheet – This has been incredibly helpful for me as I plan a weekly message for a wide variety of listeners.

You Can’t Claim A Promise – I’ve always been a bit uncomfortable with the phrase “claim that promise for yourself.” I’d never really stopped to examine why, but it always left me feeling like something was missing in that statement. Barnabas Piper gives some good thoughts on this.

A Subtle, But Powerful Way To Love Your Spouse – My wife always speaks well of me, even when I don’t deserve it. She does a great job of loving me in a very powerful way. My prayer is that she finds me as encouraging to her. This article takes that thought and runs with it.

I have learned to use the word impossible with the greatest of caution. – Wernher von Braun

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Memorize Scripture: 2 Timothy 2:22-24

Paul moves into his final illustration of the chapter with this week’s passage, the image of a servant. First, however, he addresses Timothy’s youthfulness and encourages him to stand strong in the face of temptation.

Take a look for yourself in 2 Timothy 2:22-24:

2 Timothy 2:22-24

If you look closely, you’ll see that these few verses are laid out in a pattern. Paul instructs Timothy to avoid certain things, and then he encourages him to pursue the opposite. He then does the same pattern again, giving Timothy something to avoid and then to pursue.

Paul probably used this structure to help remind Timothy of his instructions. And, once we see the pattern, it helps us remember as well. It’s in the final part of this passage that Paul introduces the imagery of the servant.

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Book Review – How High Will You Climb? By John C. Maxwell

How High Will You Climb?I’ve always been a fan of John Maxwell’s leadership books. Some of the earliest books I read to develop my leadership skills for ministry were Maxwell’s books Developing The Leader Within You and Developing The Leaders Around You. Right along with those two was a book by Maxwell that had a significant impact on my life. It was called The Winning Attitude. It was given to me shortly after I began serving in ministry, and sparked my appetite for books in the leadership genre.

Maxwell’s newest book, How High Will You Climb? is an abridgment of The Winning Attitude. And it was extremely helpful to read it again. While a lot of the book was updated and revised to make it applicable in an increasingly changing culture, the core premises of the original book remain: Your success or failure is determined by your attitude. Cultivating the right attitude is key to seeing yourself grow in almost every area of life.

Maxwell compares the idea of developing the right attitude to flying an airplane. A plane must also keep the right attitude in order to stay aloft. To much change in almost any direction will present a dangerous predicament for the pilot. The same is true for your personal attitude. In order to maintain evenness and stability in your life, no matter if that is personal or professional, family or work, you must maintain the the proper attitude. Getting things out of alignment in this are will create a serious imbalance in every area of life.

What I love best about this book, and the original version, is that it harkens back to Maxwell’s days as a pastor in a church, before he became the head of an organization focused on leadership development. What that means is that this book has much more of a ministry focus to it than a lot of Maxwell’s more recent books. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since his focus is developing leadership skills in both the ministry and in the marketplace. But with a heavier emphasis on biblical themes and personalities, this book is more appropriate to my current position than many of the others. I found that very appealing.

Since the book is a revision of an earlier book, many people may have an issue with that as they read How High Will You Climb? I did not. I frequently reread meaningful books and articles, and find as much to help me in the second or third reading as in the first. However, if you prefer not to read things again, be forewarned.

I enjoyed How High Will You Climb? as much as I enjoyed The Winning Attitude. Reading it again after so many years brought new things to my attention, and served to refresh my mind on other key points in developing my attitude. I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of this book and read it for yourself. Your attitude will benefit from it, as will your family, your job and almost every other area of your life.

Have you read any other books by John Maxwell? Which ones are your favorites? You can leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

If you are interested in reading How High Will You Climb?, by John C. Maxwell, you can purchase it at Amazon.com in print or for Kindle. Or you can purchase the original book, The Winning Attitude.

Disclosure of Material Connection:
I received this book free from Harper Collins Christian Publishing as part of their BookLook Bloggers review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Also, some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links”. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.“

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Coffee Break – 04.21.2014

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Keep Calm And Brew On – The perfect cup of coffee may seem to be elusive, but it’s not as difficult to achieve as most people think. In fact, if you know what to do, you can get an incredible cup of coffee almost every time you brew. This post explains several methods that can help you in your quest.

8 Brilliant Scientific Screw-ups – Have you ever wonder where certain things were discovered or invented? It seems that not everything was intentional. This post gives eight examples of things that were discovered by accident.

How The Secret Police Tracked My Childhood – Eastern Europe during much of the twentieth century was a dangerous place to live. This article from the BBC News describes the story of one family from Romania, who lived in protest of their government.

3 Ways To Recognize Bad Stats – I’ve been told that 87.3% of all statistics are completely made up. What that may be tongue in cheek, the reality is that many of the statistics that get thrown around, about almost anything, aren’t completely accurate. Ed Stetzer gives three tips on how to recognize bad stats.

When Evangelism Is Like Baseball – A lot of the Christians I know get discouraged and give up on evangelism, because they don’t seem to be effective at it. But the goal of sharing your faith may not be to hit it out of the park every time like some steroid-pumped superstar. What if it’s more like hitting a series of singles and just getting on base consistently? That wins baseball games, and it might just be an effective strategy in winning people to Christ.

7 Tips For A Happy Christian Marriage – I am always watching for ways to improve and maintain my marriage. No matter what anyone may try to tell you, developing a wonderful marriage takes effort and work. Here are seven tips from a couple who made it more than six decades so far.

Nothing is so embarrassing as watching someone do something that you said could not be done. – Sam Ewing