A Checklist For Growth

March 5, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

Take just a moment to read these words from the Apostle Peter—

So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with Him. …Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…. (2 Peter 3:14, 17-18)

How do I know I’m looking forward and growing? Here’s a checklist that needs to be reviewed regularly:

  • checklistDo I spend more time repairing my past, or preparing for my future?
  • Is growth hard and rewarding work?
  • Do even the littlest of sins disturb me, rob me of peace, and send me quickly to confession and repentance?
  • Do I filter all my reading, studying and learning through the standard of Scripture?
  • Is my faith stronger now than it was last year?
  • Am I exhibiting more Christ-like characteristics—grace, forgiveness, patience—now than I was last year?
  • Am I thrilled to learn more about Jesus?
  • Am I more reliant on the Holy Spirit now than I have been in the past? Do I converse with Him more frequently?
  • Would those closest to me say that I am becoming more like Jesus?

Growth is not automatic; this is especially true for spiritual growth. Growth must be intentional or it will not happen. I want to keep going forward in Christ!

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Love Is… (part 3)

February 25, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

Love Is… worsheet 3True love—or the Greek word agape—is a hard-working verb. It’s not mushy. It’s not puppy love. It’s not even romantic. It’s a love that is determined to love another no matter what! It’s the kind of love God extended toward us when we weren’t doing anything worthy of His love, and it’s the kind of love Jesus told we as us His disciples would be known for.

We just wrapped up a series called Loving The Unloveable where we explored what the Bible says about how we are to live out this agape love, especially to those who seem “unloveable.” We went through a list of 15 facets of this love spelled out in 1 Corinthians 13.

You can read about the first five facets by clicking here.

You can read about the second set of attributes by clicking here.

Here are the final five—

Love is protecting

  • The King James Version says love bears all things. So we need to ask, “What does love bear?”
  • The Greek word means: “protecting by covering with silence.”
  • In other words, we bear with the insults of an unloveable/unloving person by refusing to talk about them in a negative way.
  • Agape doesn’t talk about people (unless it’s a conversation with God); agape only talks lovingly to people. Agape protects their reputation.

Love is trusting

  • Love has a high confidence in success. Not my success, but God’s success. So we keep believing for a breakthrough; keep trusting God to accomplish something; keep doing our part in pointing out the best (or the best that is yet to be) in others.

Love is hopeful 

  • The Amplified Bible says: love’s hopes are fadeless under all circumstances.
  • So we work now, but we are always looking forward to the future with joy and full confidence.
  • Think about a farmer: After he plants the seed, he doesn’t see it any more. But his outlook remains hopeful. So he waters a seed he cannot see. He fertilizes a seed he cannot see. He works the ground for a seed he cannot see.
  • Our acts of love may be planting a seed, or fertilizing, or watering. Every part is vital; no part can be skipped. And we remain hopeful of a harvest.
  • Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)

Love is persevering

  • I love the Greek definition: “enduring through every circumstance without ever weakening.”
  • Never let your love waver. Keep on being patient, and kind, and forgiving, and all of the other characteristics of agape listed in 1 Corinthians 13. All of them are irreplaceable and effective! 

Love is maturing

  • Love continues to grow up.
  • Agape is creative, never stagnant or stuck in a rut. Agape finds new ways to express itself.

Here’s where the real test comes in: How will you apply these attributes of love to someone in your life? More specifically: to someone you think is “unloveable”?

I know you have someone in your life that you think is unloveable. With that person’s face clearly in mind, how will you fill in the blanks:

  1. I can protect their reputation by…
  2. I believe God is working in this…
  3. I need to not give up in this area…
  4. I must remember this…
  5. I can how my love more maturely by…

If you would like a downloadable PDF of this worksheet, click here -–> Love Is… worsheet 3

If you would like to download the previous worksheets, click here and here.

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What Is Successful Church Ministry?

June 1, 2012 — Craig T. Owens

I like to keep asking this question: How do you know if your church is successful? Or if we want to personalize it: Pastor, how do you know your ministry is successful?

The Apostle Paul uses two words to help answer these questions: Quality and Faithfulness.

But each one’s work will be shown for what it is; the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire—the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. (1 Corinthians 3:13)

Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. (1 Corinthians 4:2)

Two important questions for us to ask ourselves:

  • Am I doing quality work?
  • Am I faithfully doing my work?

To help answer those questions, I like this thought from Leonard Sweet’s book I Am A Follower:

“The most important metrics we must rely on, the crucial ‘deliverables’ we can present, must focus on the newly formed lives of the disciples we are making, the followers who are following Christ into a place of serving Him by serving others. The most important measure of our faithfulness to Christ must be the extent of transformation into the living image of Christ Himself. …

The quantifiable fruit of our church is not found in the number of people we can gather on a weekly basis. What counts is what is happening in the lives of those who have gathered. …It is quite possible to have a ‘successful’ life—and a ‘successful’ church—without God. But it is absolutely impossible to have a truly fruitful one.”

Again, Paul’s advice here is invaluable:

My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes…. (1 Corinthians 4:4, 5)

Pastor, you need to ask the questions about “success.” But they should be questions framed around your quality and faithfulness of work as revealed to you by the Holy Spirit, not by some “expert” or anyone else.

I’m interested in your input: how do you ask/answer these questions about ministry success? (By the way, if you’re interested in exploring this further, I framed this question a different way in this post.)

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Thursdays With Oswald—In Christ I Can

May 17, 2012 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

In Christ I Can

     We are made sons and daughters of God through the Atonement and we have a tremendous dignity to maintain; we have no business to bow our necks to any yoke saving the yoke of the Lord Jesus Christ [Matthew 11:28-30].

     …Every detail of our physical life is to be absolutely under the control of the new disposition which God planted in us by means of identification with Jesus Christ, and we shall no longer be allowed to murmur “can’t.” There is no such word as “can’t” in a Christian’s vocabulary if he is rightly related to God; there is only one word and that is “I can.” 

From Biblical Psychology

Sometimes Christians are known more for what we’re against than what we’re for. I think Oswald Chambers would say that is because we don’t really understand the full power of the Atonement.

We can better understand that word by saying it “at one-ment.” We have been made one with Christ. You hear this in Jesus’ prayer for us in John 17, “I in them and You in Me, in order that they may become one and perfectly united, that the world may know and [definitely] recognize that You sent Me and that You have loved them [even] as You have loved Me.”

When we are in this sort of relationship, we don’t even say can’t to sin. Instead we say I can live a holy life because of Christ in me!

As Paul said, we can say:

I CAN do everything through Christ Who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:13)

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What Is “Success” For A Church?

May 11, 2012 — Craig T. Owens

“How’s it going,” a fellow pastor asked me. “How’s your church doing?”

If you’re a pastor, you probably get asked this often. How do you answer this question? Do you tell them what your attendance was on Sunday morning? Or about the newest program you’ve started?

When you look in the mirror and ask yourself, “How’s it going,” is your answer related to nickels and noses (offerings and attendance)? Is it how many people complimented your last sermon?

Listen to these sobering words —

Worldliness is not the trap that most endangers us as Christian workers; nor is it sin. The trap we fall into is extravagantly desiring spiritual success; that is, success measured by, and patterned after, the form set by this religious age in which we now live. 

…We have a commercialized view— we count how many souls have been saved and sanctified, we thank God, and then we think everything is all right. (Oswald Chambers)

We need to be very careful about how we define “success” in a church setting. Let’s use Jesus as our example:

  • How big was His congregation? Twelve men. One betrayed Him, and the others denied Him. Even after being raised from the dead (!) there were only 120 people in the upper room.
  • How much money did His church have? Not even enough to buy a grave site for the Messiah.
  • What did people think of His sermons? Some of His sermons made people so mad they wanted to stone Him. And after one sermon the Bible says: From this time many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him (John 6:66).

Maybe “success” in the church is:

  • People being reconciled to God. Remembering that “our work is not to save souls, but to disciple them” (Chambers).
  • Seeing disengaged people becoming actively involved in engaging others with the Gospel.
  • “Never seek[ing] after anything other than the approval of God” (Chambers).
  • To say with Jesus, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18,19).

These are just some of my thoughts. Now it’s your turn. I’d love to read your comments: What else should be on this list? How would you define “success” in the church?

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Was Your Church Successful?

October 24, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

These thoughts are especially for my fellow pastors (although I think they pertain to anyone who attended a church this weekend).

So… how successful was your church gathering this weekend?

Was it successful because lots of people were there? Or because the pastor preached a good sermon? Or maybe the offering was better than usual? Or because you could feel something special as the worship team sang and played their instruments?

How about these measures —

“The great business of the church is not our number by addition, but by grace, by growing up in Christ.” (John Owen)

“The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of. Our attention would have been on God.” (C.S. Lewis )

“Revival is the church getting back to ‘normal.’” (A.W. Tozer)

If you’ve got other ideas about what defines church “success,” please share them in the comments.

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Me, Myself & Bob (book review)

April 14, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

As a parent of young children, I really appreciated the biblical values delivered in a fun way through so many VeggieTales videos. Now I’m really appreciating the wisdom of VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer in his book Me, Myself & Bob.

Written in the same witty style that made the VeggieTales videos so engaging, Me, Myself & Bob leads us through the meteoric rise and sudden collapse of Big Idea Productions. We read about the passion that drove the start of this incredible vision, and how — as the Bible says – zeal without a foundation of wisdom is a  dangerous thing.

With such candor, Phil shares about the vision and talents God gave him to do something so groundbreaking, how others caught that vision and jumped on board to help, and then how the company sort of took on a life of its own and how corporate executives took this highly successful business in a direction Phil never imagined.

This book is more like a business strategy book told as Phil Vischer’s autobiography. From the business board room to the family living room, there are valuable lessons to be learned from the rise and fall of VeggieTales. So whether you’re a fan of Bob the Tomato & Larry the Cucumber, an entrepreneur, or a parent, you will find something to love about Me, Myself & Bob.

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How The Mighty Fall (book review)

April 7, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

This is the third in the series of books from Dr. Jim Collins: Built To Last, Good To Great, and now How The Mighty Fall. This is a book that Dr. Collins wished he didn’t have to write, as he uncovers the markers that contributed to the failure of once-great companies.

If you are a frequent reader of my blog, you’re probably wondering why I’m reading/reviewing a business book. The answer is simple: the principles Jim Collins uncovers in his books are rock-solid principles of success and failure, regardless of the organization in which they are practiced or ignored. In all three of his books, I have mined so many great truths to apply to my personal life, as well as the organizations I lead.

Read the rest of this entry »

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No Such Thing As Overnight Success

December 15, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

Although to the outsider it sometimes appears that way, success does not happen overnight. So much work and preparation and study is done unnoticed by others.

Likewise, there is no such thing as an overnight failure. So much work and preparation and study was left undone, which is also usually unnoticed by others.

Both public success and public failure are the culmination of years of private decisions. Every single day I am either preparing for success or preparing for failure.

The battles are being won or lost before I even take the field. It’s the everyday private practice that determines the game day public performance.

I have to pay careful attention to the “little things” in private everyday, if I hope to successfully handle the “big things” in public someday.

The heights of great men reached and kept,
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upwards in the night. – Henry W. Longfellow

 

What are you doing to prepare today?

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Little By Little

November 17, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

I’ve found a great group of guys to play basketball with in Cedar Springs. I love early morning basketball, because I feel like it gets my day started right.

I have been playing with this group for a little over two months. Prior to this, I hadn’t played full-court basketball in quite awhile, so when I started up again, it was amazing how quickly I was out of breath … and how many turnovers I had … and how off my shot was. Just a few months of not playing, and everything deteriorated.

But I hung in there. And yesterday it dawned on me, “Hey, I can run a little longer before I get winded. And my shot is getting a little better too.”

I didn’t see a dramatic overnight improvement. In fact, I only see real improvement if I compare my game in mid-November with my game in mid-September.

This is an important concept to remember in anything we do: little by little keep moving forward. The little steps you take everyday add up.

  • Start with just 5 minutes of exercise, and slowly increase it.
  • Read a book for just a few minutes each day, then a few minutes more.
  • Pray for a couple of minutes before you go to bed tonight, then a couple minutes more.
  • Quit smoking for just an afternoon, then try an hour or two more.

Little by little you are increasing your capacity to do greater things. Don’t try for cold turkey or overnight success or immediate results. Little by little will help you get there.

Ready? What little thing can you do today?

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