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Owning My Place in Church with Integrity
To finish our January series, “Stronger Me, Stronger Church”, I want to talk about a fundamental part of church life: integrity. Integrity could be described as wholeness of character. It is being who you say you are at all times, regardless of whether you are being watched or not. Merriam Webster defines integrity as firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values: incorruptibility. Being a person of integrity means that your yes is a yes and your no is a no, regardless of circumstances. Jesus put it this way: “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.”…
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Learning to Receive Feedback and Offer Forgiveness
Welcome to part three of the mini series “Stronger Me, Stronger Church”. Today we will talk about feedback. Some months back I heard of a consulting group that visited organizations and taught people to give better feedback. After years, they noticed that while it helped, it wasn’t fully successful. So they shifted their approach, and began teaching people not to give better feedback, but how to better receive feedback. They saw more positive changes in the organizations they helped when they created this shift. I want to say that in this article I talk about feedback that is given with a mostly well-intentioned heart and in a relatively healthy environment.…
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What’s the Difference Between Being Discipled and Becoming a Discipler?
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” – Matthew 28:19, NIV Followers of Jesus are called to make disciples, not followers. There is a key difference here that I want to highlight in part two of our series, “Stronger Me, Stronger Church.” What Did the Original Disciples Do? First, let’s examine what Jesus’s disciples actually did. In Jewish culture, it was customary for men of different trades to take on apprentices. These apprentices would study under their master and learn to do the same work the master did. Similarly, Rabbis (or teachers…
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What Are You Expecting From Your Church?
Aligning My Expectations People walk into a church for various reasons. Some are seeking answers, truth, hope, or healing. Others are there out of curiosity, habit, or religious duty. A few walk in desperately hungry for God. However a person may come, most of them have one thing in common: expectations. When people cross that door, they come with an idea of what church should look like or be. This works until they’ve been crossing that door for years. No matter what their expectations were at first, later on they will dictate whether they are thriving church members, or bitter and critical seat warmers. The Importance of Aligning Our Expectations…
