1.  Fear
Fear is a healthy understanding that we are not God.  We will never be God and this is a good thing.  No matter how great you think you are there will be a day when all of your skills, talent and ability will be worthless.  On that day a God that is greater than us will clearly be a good thing.

2.  Hope in His steadfast love
There is a lot of stuff that we can put our hope in.  Ourselves, our families, our jobs, our bank accounts, our property and possessions, our hobbies, our religion… All of these things as good as they are will let us down someday.  Only His steadfast love will never leave us.

This is not what Jesus had in mind.  After dying on the cross and coming back to life Jesus was ready and willing to put Peter back in the game.  Not only was Peter back in the game, Peter became one of the key players in Gods plan to save the world.

Not many of this would have reacted to Peter like this, but I guess that is the difference between us and God.  God understands grace.  God doesnt see things the same way as us.  I dont know about you, but I am sure glad that even though I fall short, God still chooses to give me a second chance.

People will always let us down, it is up to us to continue to choose to believe that God has a plan for these people.

¹⁷ The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. ¹⁸ Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” ¹⁹ Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”  John 21:17-18

The challenge is remembering that this success really has little to do with us and a lot to do with God.  Despite our brilliant strategies and ministry skills God is the one who should and needs to get the credit.  God is the one who has given us the skills and abilities.  God is the one who deserves glory.

Although this might seem like an obvious thought, if you are anything like me you forget this on a regular basis.

Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God,  2 Cor 3:5

“you must decide whether you want control or growth.  Exponential growth by its very nature is uncontrollable.”

I think most people if asked would say that they are not people who control.  The true test of control comes when you have to let go of stuff that you are in control of.  Most times we dont even realize we are controlling something until we have to give up that control.

As leaders we need to always be looking for areas where we can release control so that we can experience growth.  here are some questions for thought.

-do i need to know everything that is happening in the organization?
-do i feel like no one can do the job as good as I can?
-do people in the organization grab the ball and run with ideas or do i need to be in every meeting?
-is there one central table that controls all of the decisions?
-are ideas other than mine praised and welcomed or are they criticized and shut down?
-are ideas shut down because “we already tried that and it didnt work”?
-are meetings dominated by one guy at the top with great ideas or are ideas birthed on a grass roots level without the input of the top leader?

This is all i got for now.  I might add or take away from these questions, but it does help me to gauge how much control i am leading with.

on communicating vision…  ”leaders need to communicate vision until they are absolutely sick of saying it, then at that point the communication has only begun”

I am sure Jack said this much better that I did, but you get the point.  For some of us our vision changes so often we dont even get a chance to say it until we are sick.  For others of us we have so many visions we never get sick of saying the same thing because there are so many things to say.  Some of our visions are stated in a 10 page document so confusing you need a seminary degree to understand it.  I dont know about you, but I definitely have made all of these mistakes.

here are a few questions to think about
-can it be said in one word?
-is there one vision that is repeated EVERY week in your church?
-if a new person walked through the doors are they guaranteed to hear it?
-how many times has the vision changed in the past 5 years?
-have you had to say no to other things to protect this vision?  (if not you probably changed when you should have stayed the course)
-has your vision been so clear it has caused people to leave your church?
-do you have metrics centered around your vision to measure growth?
-if asked would people besides the staff be able to state the vision in one word?

loved this thought from the Accidental Missionary.  Most leaders are smart enough to come up with some great strategies, but the majority of these leaders are not patient enough to create the culture needed to see these strategies succeed.

the question that remains then is how can we create a culture?  here are some of my thoughts:

1.  do it.  I have to learn to model the culture personally.  I have to go out and make disciples.  I have to take individuals through essentials.  I have to recruit people into encounter weekend.

2.  talk about consistently.  our methods needs to be talked about at every meeting and to every person.  people have to hear us asking the same questions over and over again.

-have you done essentials?

-have you been through an encounter weekend?

-are you in a small group?

3.  learn to say no.  practically every day there are opportunities of a lifetime to make the church magically grow.  most leaders jump on these opportunities of a lifetime and jump off of the focus to make disciples.  if the opportunity is not helping every member to make disciples dont do it.  events dont make disciples.

4.  trust.  a culture of discipleship is more than a few pastor making disciples.  this is going to mean trusting people to make disciples.  even though they might make more mistakes than disciples I have to learn to trust anyways.  are people in the church honored that they get an opportunity or are they burdened that they have to do something?  if the answer is the later maybe we took to long to trust people.

I am sure there is a lot more to creating a discipleship culture, but this should keep me busy for a few years.

For the first time I attended one of these conferences as a dad.  In a world where I am usually working during church meetings it was a nice change of pace to be able to sit in the back with this guy.  Within a few years Benaiah will need to be with his peers in kids church, but as for EN2010 he got to stay with us.  I may have not taken as many notes as I usually do, but for this year it is ok.

here are some of my lessons from EN2010:
-My number 1 priority besides Jesus is my wife, and if I can help her out I need to
-My number 2 priority is Benaiah and ministry can not come in the way of this very important priority
-even though it is a lot of work sometimes I am blessed to have a amazing wife and a terrific son.
-I pray that even though I am called to full time ministry, my kids will have a choice.  I pray that we can live a “normal” life that is not centered around church meetings.

this is why good leaders know how to breathe.  good leaders know GODS church does not need me to survive.  if we step back for a week or 2 Gods plans will continue and His church wont fall apart.

As obvious as this sounds I definitely for get this constantly and need to remind myself who is really in charge.

This is a picture from our seats at a padres game last week in our attempt to BREATHE.

It was super hard to keep on living a Holy life.  I struggle to this day making daily decisions to live a life that chases after Christ.  Anyone can claim to love Jesus.  It is difficult to walk with Christ in Holiness.  One way that the bible instructs us to live a Holy life is to “set our hearts on things above”

This idea of setting my heart on things above challenged me to look at the things in my life that consume my time. Often times it is not the things that stir my affections for Jesus that fill my schedule.   Here is a list of things that push me toward being Christ minded and not Dane minded.

-reading
-praying
-dating the wife
-time with my son
-spending time with those far from Christ
-world missions
-exercise
-giving money away
-helping people get stuff done

these are all earthly things, but for me these things stir my affections toward Jesus.  These things drive me to remember and recognize the unreal thing that Jesus did for me on the Cross.

what are the things that stir your affections toward Jesus?  are these things a part of your daily and weekly routine?

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. ²Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
Colossians 3:1-2