Author: Jeffrey Bush

What Great Teachers do Differently

By Todd Whitaker

 

Great teachers focus on expectations. Other teachers focus on rules. The least effective teachers focus on the consequences of breaking the rules.

The key is to set expectations and then establish relationships so that students want to meet these expectations.

Effective teachers understand that what matters is not whether student leaves the office mad, but how the student behaves in the future.

I believe that what I am saying is important, and of course I want my audience to give me their full attention – but it’s my job to gain, and to keep, their attention. If I’m not doing that, I need to change my approach.

If the students are not focused, great teachers ask what they themselves can do differently.

The main variable in a classroom is not the students. The main variable is the teacher.

Effective teachers treat everyone with respect, every day.

Great teachers understand the power of praise.

You don’t have to like the students; you just have to act as if you like them.

Our behaviors are much more obvious than our beliefs.

Learning how to praise maybe a challenge for many of us. As teachers, we find it all too easy to spend our time looking for what is wrong, pointing out errors, and focusing on mistakes. However, an effective teacher looks for opportunities to find people doing things right and knows how to praise those people so they’ll keep on doing things right.

Every time I praise someone, at least two people feel better – and one of them is me.

Whether we are aware of it or not, our behavior sets the tone.

If we have great credibility and good relationships, students work to please us. Students come to class each day wanting and expecting us to set the tone.

if our attitude shows we want to be there, our students will reflect that positive energy back to us.

We are very fortunate to work in education; sometimes we just forget how blessed we are. But consistently filtering out the negatives that don’t matter and sharing a positive attitude, we can create a much more successful setting. Consciously or unconsciously, we decide the tone of our classrooms and of our school.

One of the things I noticed about the best teachers is that they sell them engage in the behaviors that cause harm to students. They don’t make cutting remarks or issue smart retorts. They don’t run students down or embarrass them in front of their peers. Quite the opposite: the best teachers consistently complement and praise students.

The best teachers have high expectations for others, but much higher expectations for themselves. The best educators work hard to keep the relationships in good repair – to avoid personal hurt and to repair any possible damage – and others notice.

We can never be sarcastic or demeaning in our tone of voice or body language.

Focus on prevention, not punishment.

Effective teachers reinforce these behaviors; they also take advantage of teachable moments to help other students build the skill of repairing.

Great teachers have an incredible ability to ignore. This doesn’t mean they are oblivious – great teachers are aware of almost everything that happens in their classrooms. Nor does it mean that they have vast reserves of patience (although that helps). Rather, it reflects their mastery of the situations that arise daily in the life of schools. They know how easily one or two students can disrupt the flow of learning, but they also know when to go with the flow, went to take a stand, and how to quell minor disturbances without further distracting others.

Great teachers have learned from experience which issues demand immediate attention and which will wait for a more teachable moment.

A great teacher resembles the master chef who can keep a busy kitchen cooking along in the midst of what looks like chaos to the uninformed. The great teacher has the ability to ignore trivial disturbances and the ability to respond to inappropriate behavior without escalating the situation. The great teacher has the ability to pay attention to students, to recognize and praise their achievements, and the ability to overlook minor errors. It’s a fast-paced and delicate balancing act; The great teacher has mastered this is essential skill.

One hallmark of great teachers is that in their classrooms, very little happens at random. Great teachers have a plan and purpose for everything they do. If things don’t work out the way they had envisioned, they reflect on what they could have done differently and adjust their plans accordingly.

The teacher who needs to prove, over and over, who is in charge of the classroom is wasting precious energy on a losing battle. Great teachers do not try to prove who is in charge in their classrooms; everyone knows.

Great teachers find a way to keep every student in gear and moving forward.

It’s important not to put any student in the position of being seen as the teachers pet. They may lose respect for, and even resent, the one singled out for special treatment.

Nurture the superstar students you have, and work to cultivate others.

Make it cool to care. I wanted everyone – every student, every teacher, each staff member, all the parents – to think it was cool to care.

The real challenge, and the real accomplishment, is to get all the students to care about what happens in the classroom. Once we achieve that, anything is possible. Until we achieve that, any obstacle can seem insurmountable.

Preparing students for life, this is what teaching is all about.

Touch the heart, then teach the child.

Until we connect with them emotionally, we may never be able to connect with their minds. Great educators understand the behaviors and beliefs are tied to the emotion, and they understand the power of emotion to jumpstart change.

The legacies we build last far beyond our years. Students care about great teachers because they know great teachers care about them.

The teacher is the filter for whatever happens in the classroom.

The quality of the teachers determines the quality of the school.

Success comes from people, not programs.

Being a teacher is an amazing profession. It is challenging, dynamic, energizing, and draining – but most of all, it is rewarding. Our impact extends far beyond anything we can imagine. We know that our students talk about us; so do our colleagues, and so do the people throughout our community. We can decide what we want those conversations to be like.

Here to Serve,

Jeff Bush

Today’s All-Star Mission Churches

by Tom Telford

 

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church, the glory of God is the ultimate goal of the church.

Missions is pen-ultimate; worship is ultimate.

Isaiah 12:4; Ecclesiastes 3:11

III John 6 – there’s a big difference between a church that has missionaries in a church that sends missionaries. These missionaries should be grown and identified by the church.

I often tell young people that if they are called to stay in America, then they need to ask themselves where in the world they need to go to find more worshipers for God’s glory.

Philippians 4:10–19 and I Corinthians 8:1–15 – Genuine missionary care.

Ways to help missionaries: communication. Hospitality. Prayer. Small groups. Short-term teams. Special field visits. Pastors visits. Accountability. Retreats – tuneup spiritually. Individual lies care – make Missionary feel loved and remembered.

A quarterly report – update from missionaries. Four categories: personal spiritual information. Interpersonal and family information. Ministry information. Praise and prayer request.

Some must in church for missions: it’s a must that you share everything. It’s a must that you take care of your own. It’s a must that the church to do missions education – teens missions conference in children’s missions conference – three missions conference at the same time. It’s a must that the church family show hospitality to missionaries. It’s an absolute must that the pastor be the key. It’s a must that missionaries report. It’s a must that all missionaries have access to the pastor and spend planned time with him when they are home. It’s a must that the missionaries art listened to. The must that missionaries be properly prepared in the personal life. It’s a must that missionaries be sent out in teams.

Ideas for mobilizing kids for missions: start a missions library for kids. Use the missions P word – (purpose, Power, people, people moving, passport to the world, preparation, possessions, projects, partnership, proclamation). Launch missions prayer for kids. Start a monthly mention missions emphasis in Sunday school, children’s church, or midweek boys and girls program.

I remember speaking one afternoon to a large gathering of retired and senior missionaries. I asked them to tell us that what age they felt the call of God to become a missionary. The typical age was eight years old!

What kind of an impact would happen around the world if everyone of our thousands of churches would send out just one missionary from their congregation.

The pastor is the leader and promoter. Every member is asked to consider short-term missions trip opportunities. The churches annual international missions festival energizes leadership. Church member ownership is encouraged.

Mobilization of the American church is the most strategic thing we can do admissions. – Ralph Winter

Send us people with initiative, who can carry themselves and others too; such as need to be carried hamper the work and weaken those who should be spending their strength for the heathen. Weaklings should be nursed at home! If any have jealousy, pride, or talebearing traits lurking about them, do not send them, nor any who are prone to criticize. Send only Pauls and Timothys; men who are full of zeal, holiness and power. All others are hindrances. If you send us ten such men the work will be done. Quantity is nothing; quality is what matters.– by C.T. Studd written from the Congo.

Criteria for an all star missions Church:

1. The church must have an outward focus and strategy.

2. At least 30% of the churches budget must go to missions.

3. The church must have enough ongoing training program for missionary candidates.

4. Missions education must be integrated into all the program of the church.

5. The church must send its own people.

6. The church must be concerned about and pray for the lost.

7. The church must have a pastor who leads them in vision and outreach.

8. The church must be interested in helping other churches in missions.

9. The church must have a strong evangelism program and it’s community.

Missions is a matter of life and death for the local church. – Dr. Robert Torrey

If we spent less time recruiting and more time training, there would be less failure on the field. There is a high-cost in not sending the right people.

The Way to Wealth

Benjamin Franklin

 

All quotes by Benjamin Franklin

• We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly.

• God helps those who help themselves

• If you love life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of

• The sleeping fox catches no poultry

• Lost time is never found again

• He who rises late must trot all day

• Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

• There are no gains without pains

• At the working man’s house, hunger looks in, but dares not enter

• Industry pays debts, while despair increases them

• Plough deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and keep

• Never leave till tomorrow what you can do today

• The cat in gloves catch no mice

• Little strokes fell great oakes

• Since you are not sure of a minute, do not throw away an hour

• A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two different things

• Keep your shop and your shop will keep you

• The eye of the master will do more work than both hands

• If you want a faithful servant, and one that you like – serve yourself

• A fat kitchen makes a lean will

• If you want to be wealthy, think of saving as well as earning

• What maintanes one vice would bring up two children

• Beward of little expenses; A small lead will sink a great ship

• Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them

• Buy what you do not need, and soon you will sell your neccessities

• It is foolish to lay out money in a purchase of repentance

• Silks and satins and scarlets and velvets put out the kitchen fire

• A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees

• Always taking out of the pot, and never putting in, one soon comes to the bottom

• If you want to know the value of money, go and try to borrow some

• Pride is as loud a beggar as need

• It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it

• Pride that dines on vanity sups on contempt

• Think what you do when you run into debt; you give to another power over your liberty

• The second vice is lying, the first is running into debt

• It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright

• Creditors have better memories than debtors

• Rather go to bed supperless, than rise in debt

• Experience keeps an expensive school, but fools will learn in no other

• Those who will not be counseled, cannot be helped

The Spiritual Leader

By Paul Chappell

 

• All ministry begins with the heart.

• Your fruit and faithfulness in the ministry will only be as effective for the Lord as your heart is right with the Lord.

• Leadership is influence. When God entrusted you with the call to lead, He entrusted you with the influence for Him.

• The calling of a pastor is a SPECIAL calling. The calling of a pastor is a SACRIFICIAL calling.

• There is no softer pillow than a clear conscience.

• “Some people dream of worthy accomplishments while others stay awake and do them.” Dr. Alan Zimmerman

• You must first bring your own life and habits into order before you can lead others to do the same.

• Good leaders are good forgivers (Eph 4:32; II Tim 4:16)

• God’s Word contains five commands in the NT regarding the Holy Spirit:

• Quench not the Spirit – I Thes 5:19
• Grieve not the Spirit – Ef 4:30
• Walk in the Spirit – Gal 5:16, 25
• Pray in the Spirit – Judas 20
• Be filled with the Spirit – Ef 5:18

• “How we live our lives is more important than how long we live our lives.” F.B. Meyer

• Your character is what makes you a leader worth following

• “When you have influence, people follow you. When you have respect, they keep following you.” Unknown

• What gets scheduled gets done! And if something doesn’t show up in your schedule, then I guarantee you, it is not a priority, no matter how “warm and fuzzy” you feel about it.

• A growing church is always in transition.

• Spiritual leadership begins with who we are not what we do or what we say.

• A soulwinning church will grow, but growth is not the goal. I challenge you to make God your goal, not growth. The reason you should desire to lead your church in soulwinning is obedience, not growth. For many years, God has allowed the Lancaster Baptist Church to grow every single year, yet if the church did not grow next year, we would not change the foundation of soulwinning.

• When God calls a man to lead in a local church, He is calling him to assume several roles, and one of them is an overseer.  Your oversight is as much a part of your calling as your preaching.

• One preacher said, “Preach the gospel…and if necessary, use words.”

• “The branch that bears the most fruit bows lowest to the ground.” F.B. Meyer

• God doesn’t call the qualified, but He does qualify the called.

• In book Less is More Leadership, Pastor Dale Burke wrote, “The pastor must spend time doing his best stuff, not just stuff.” The best stuff you can do, as a spiritual leader, is to study the Word of God, pray, and prepare biblical messages for your church family. Nothing will help the church more than the time you spend in study and prayer.

• The leader’s role as an administrator is about elinsting, training, delegating, and working with a team

• Be sure that His preeminence is your highest goal in overseeing His church.

• In book Less is More Leadership, Pastor Dale Burke says that pastors must have rest time, results time, response time, and refocus time.

• Neglect does not solve problems, it just makes them worse. Spirit-filled administrators discern the problems and resolve them while they are still hatching!

• Don’t let your church ever become a place where it is difficult to find a place to serve God.

• The sign of a great leader is finding the right place for people. Placing the right people into the right positions equals the multiplication of ministry.

• Mobilization means to prepare and organize troops for active service

• “Here lies a man who knew how to enlist in his service better men than himself.” Andrew Carnegie

• Have good peripheral vision, and write down reminders constantly

• Establish Christian service reports for all of your paid and volunteer staff and for your deacons, and then review these reports personally.

• Have regular staff meetings. A good leader is always preapring for his next staff meeting. Below is a short formula for a successful team meeting:

• Meet weekly
• Talk informally
• Share burndens and prayer requests
• Pray
• Talk through your prepared agenda
• Allow others to raise questions or issues
• Close in prayer

• I often invite new men to join me for men’s prayer each Saturday evening. This meeting provides a good mentoring opportunity. Get into the trenches of mentoring and discipleship. Disciples are made, not born, and mentoring happens because of availability, hospitality, and approachability. May god help you to start this habit now, and may you never stop!

• When you understand your belief and stand, teach these biblically, repeat them frequently, and then patiently nurture people along.

• Mediocrity breeds indifference, but quality attracts!

• No one enjoys confrontation, but everyone benefits from the courageous leader who spiritually confront for the purpose of resolution.

• I believe that structuring ministry and confronting problems are two of the greatest weakness of spiritual leaders in ministry today. If you can learn these skills early in the life of your church, you will grow a healthier church!

• Vision always attracts critics.

• George Barna in his book “A Fish our of Water” speaks of 6 phases of organizational growth:

• Phase 1 – CONCEPTION – pastor planting or re-establishing a church

• Phase 2 – INFANCY – infants require sustenance and physical production. Will require personal sacrifice and much labor.

• Phase 3 – EXPANSION – church supports pastor and staff and now needs to delegate authority. Pastor is now a team leader/builder and church needs more operational leadership. Key is to find, recruit and mentor co-laborers, both paid and volunteers.

• Phase 4 – BALANCE – church should desire to grow and remain here, where church continues growing at a reasonable pace. Continual training and evaluation is constantly being made. During this time, the vision and purpose are central to all that is happening, and the systems and structure facilitate consistency and stability throughout the ministry.

• Phase 5 – STAGNATION – where ministry becomes comfortable, complacent, fat, lazy, and loses vision. Vision is still real, but the passion is lacking. Both pastor and church stop taking risks, building, dreaming, and pressing forward with intensity.

• Phase 6 – DISABILITY – original vision is a distant memory. The organization is all but dead and has lost its purpose and focus.

• The church is a living organism – God designed it for growth. The focus should be on the health of the church, not the growth of it.

• The Barrier of Unfruitfulness

How long has it been since you really analyzed what all the “activity” is producing?

Is your church producing saved souls? New disciples? Mature Christians? A visionary church family? A revival of godliness and distinctive Christian living? Or is it merely a lot of busyness to fill time?

John 15:8 – God desires for you to bear fruit. You may be doing the wrong things, or you may be doing the right things the wrong way.

It’s almost like getting your tire stuck in the mud – the engine is revving; the tire is spinning; all the motion is in place; but the vehicle isn’t moving. What do you do? You step out, evaluate the situation, and figure out a way to get some traction so you can move forward.

• Clearly identify ministry classifications – lack of clarity. What is the ministry trying to accomplish? Does the team understand the function and purpose? Is the structure in place for it to function fruitfully?

• Clearly identify accountability mechanisms – Define what you expect. You must insect what you expect. Have a system of accountability when you regularly review your staff’s Christian service involvement.

• Institute annual evaluations – Have you ever had an evaluation with the individuals on your staff? Have you ever had an personal review with every ministry in your church? Establish a system of reviewing your ministry – both your staff and your program.

• Realign responsibility from – restructuring. The key is communication. When the leader communicates to his staff clearly and positively, a true team will arise to the prospect of accomplishing more together for Christ. Help your team set aside personal insecurities and “personal turf” so that the whole church can become more fruitful for the Lord.

• Add new staff

• The Barrier of Spiritual Lethargy

Lethargy is experienced when you are doing everything you can do, but it is being done in your own power, not God’s.

• The Barrier of Stagnation

Stagnation means “to cease to flow or move”.

I am not for creating change just for the sake of change, but sometimes fresh vision brings change that “increases the circulation of the body.” It gets something that was stagnant moving once again. Just as exercise causes your body to increase circulation, grow in health, and be safe from sickness, so the exercise of faith and forward motion causes a church family to break through the barrier of stagnation.

• The Barrier of Limited Structure

Like a plant in a small pot, you will sometimes feel that your church has great potential “if only…”

First, you do the best you can with what you have.

Second, you begin to pray for God’s provision and direction.

Third, you prepare your heart for some new step of faith and prepare your church family for it as well.

• “Dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of”. Benjamin Franklin. Ephesians 5:16 reminds us to “redeem the time”.

• Time is a gift from God. Time is life, and when we waste time, we waste life.

• Well-planned time is essential in accomplishing any project or task. At the end of life, your ministry will be the summation of what you did with the time that God gave you. Failing to plan is planning to fail!

• Begin constantly and deliberately thinking six to twelve months in advance.

• It’s very difficult to lead with joy and passion when you’re not one-hundred-percent sure where to go!

• If you’re too busy to plan, you’re too busy! Planning is what puts added value into tomorrow. Redeeming the time is about looking ahead and allocating purpose and priorities before it’s too late.

• One of the most valuable gifts you can give your staff or church family is clear direction and a well-defined plan. You can only give this if you first receive it from the Lord. Your team will embrace this direction with anticipation; God will delight to bless your faith; and your new year will exceed your expectations! Spencer Johnson wrote in The Present, “Once you haber prepared for the future, you can enjoy the present.”

• Preaching is not powerful or life-changing unless it is thoroughly filled with the Word of God.

• “To love to preach is one thing. To love those to whom you preach is another.” No conocido

• “The Bible is not the Sword of the preacher, it is the Sword of the Spirit.” No conocido

• Your preaching must reach believers and unbelievers alike.

• The primary goal of a church service is that people experience God because when they experience Him, they will be convicted; they will respond to Him; and their lives will never be the same.

• H.B. London shared the following statistics in his boo “Pastors at Greater Risk”: Ninety percent of pastors worked more than forty-six hours per week. Eighty-one percent of pastors said that they had insufficient time with their wives and families. Eighty percent believed their families were adversely affected by ministry. Seventy-five percent reported significant stress-related illnesses. And seventy percent had financial problems. Considering the drop-out rate for ministry and marriage, there’s no doubt that the enemy is winning some victories in this area. It would be a mistake to “blame the ministry” for these struggles. Though they are perhaps unique to ministry in some respect, they are not the fault of ministry. God does not call us to lose our marriages and families.

• Fulfilling your life call in ministry should be beneficial to your life commitment in marriage – challenges should not be blamed on ministry.

• Seven guidelines for Christian Romance

• Keep a clean slate through forgiveness.
• Maintain commitment – no flirting, no fantasies.
• Serve your spouse.
• Think about your spouse
• Pamper your spouse.
• Affirm your spouse.
• Surprise your spouse.

• Ministry and family should not conflict, but rather complement.

• Author Ed Cole said, “You don’t drown by falling in the water, you drown by staying there.”

• Many ministry couples have unwittingly turned their children away from the service of the Lord simply because of their unwise expressions of frustrations, burdens, and turmoil.

• It’s time that children growing up in ministry environments see a renewed love, joy, and passion in their parents.

• Ministry is a delight! It is a privilege. Our children must sense it in us and hear it frequently from us. For every sacrifice you have made to be in ministry, there are a hundred blessings. Have you considered them? Have you rehearsed them in the ears of your children? Perhaps they could repeat your complaints, but could they recall your blessings?

• Complaining parents raise indifferent children.

• Let your children see and experience regularly your overjoyed satisfaction in serving Christ. Magnify the blessings in their minds and minimize the sacrifices. Herald even the sacrifices as a privlige to give and serve. Let them see the joy to be found in serving Jesus Christ. Let them grow up sensing that ministry is the best way to live. Who wouldn’t want that life?!

• One of a spiritual leader’s most serious and important responsibilities is that of equipping and developing other spiritual leaders for the work.

• “It is only as we develop others around us that we permanently succeed.” John Maxwell

• Secular leaders “do things right”, but spiritual leaders “do the right thing”.

• Your vision will motivate people, but your plan will mobilize them.

• A dream without a plan is a wish – Dr. Larry McKain

• Equipping is not merely dumping responsibility on the next available body. It is training a leader how to do the work.

• Maturity does not come with age, it comes with the acceptance of responsibility – Ed Cole

• Keys to successful delegation

• Mentor and teach before you delegate
• Give clearly identifiable duties
• Verbalize confidence in the person
• Give them authority to get the job done
• Establish budget limits if applicable
• Allow them room to fail and learn from mistakes
• Set predetermined checkpoints for evaluation
• Praise them and give credit for a job well done.

• People will not respect what you do not inspect. If you do not oversee that which you have given away, then you are not fulfilling your leadership role.

• To add to your church, raise up followers, but to multiply, raise up spiritual leaders.

• Breakthrough Ministry – ministry that breaks through barriers to new growth and new levels of effectiveness – from book Less is More Leadership by Dale Burke:

• When we hurt enough that we have to
• When we learn enough that we want to
• When we receive enough that we are able to

• Often it is not our position that turns people off, so much as our disposition.

• Teach people what you believe before you teach them how to behave. Our behavior should always flow from our belief.

• Godliness is first a condition of the heart, then a reflection in the life.

• In general, the church family will only grow to the lowest example of the staff.

• The leader must set the standard. It must be biblical; it must be modeled; and it should be upheld by leadership.

• All leaders have strengths and weaknesses, and a wise spiritual leader will hire with these qualities in mind. There seem to be three types of pastors: the preaching pastor, the administrating pastor, and the shepherding pastor.

• One of the greatest responsibilities of the senior pastor is to identify, recruit, and challenge a leadership team and a staff around him.

• A

• I Cor 12:4-6 – diversities of gifts… differences of administrations, … diversities of operations

• It is easier to hire the right person than relieve the wrong person. Be patient to wait upon the Lord and have a perfect peace of God

• Recruits constantly, recruit ethically, recruit prayerfully, recruit strategically, recruit servant leaders (goal is more important than the role), recruit carefully (Can this person add people to the ministry? Can he administrate effectively? Can he teach for life change?)

• “Leaders know the way, go the way, and show the way to go” – author not known

• develop the staff in these five basic words:

• Model – Philip 4:9
• Mold
• Move – transfer responsibilities. A growing church and a growing staff are always in transition.
• Mend
• Motivate – help people reach their full potential, catch them doing something right.

• An aging staff will relate better to older members, newer younger staff will better relate to the next generation, etc.

• He always calls His people forward. He commands us to occupy until He comes (Lu 19:13). He tells us to press toward the mark (Philip 3:14) and to fight the good fight of faith (I Tim 6:12).

• Peter Drucker said, “The test of an organization is not genius. It is its capacity to make common people achieve uncommon performance.”

• Spurgeon said, “The secret of all ministerial success lies in prevalence at the Mercy Seat”.

• Take the specific vision that God places on your heart and put it on paper. Define it, describe it, develop it. Turn it into a plan of action with concrete, measurable timelines and goals.

• Develop a complete picture of your vision – one that you and others can understand, embrace, and act upon. If you don’t, the vision will remain conceptual instead of concrete – and concepts are like good intentions, they’re useless without action. Perter Drucker said, “Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.”

• God’s people are inspired to be a part of something great. Everybody desires to be a part of something bigger than himself.

• “Today’s churches are either risk-taking, care-taking, or under-taking.” author not known

• Helen Keller said, “The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.”

• Spiritual leaders lead from a platform of grace, but fleshly leaders push their own agenda.

• There is a difference between guild and conviction. Guild brings condemnation and shame. Conviction leads to repentance and growth. Guild is often the result of a leader trying to manufacture conviction.

• Shepherds don’t beat sheep, they lead them.

• It’s not wise to lead from the “poor me” platform.

• God’s people should not be intimidated by their spiritual leader.

• God’s grace creates a joyful, sweet, willing-hearted disposition. When people serve God out of guild, they ultimately resent the leader and possibly even the Christian life! When they serve Him out of grace, they willingly, joyfully, and selflessly continue in the faithfulness. “Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (II Tim 2:1)

• If men serve God in your church, let it be because they were motivated by His grace and not by your good charm.

• “The qualifications of a pastor are to have the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child, and the hide of a rhinoceros.” – author not known

• “Treat both criticism and praise like bubble-gum – chew on it a bit, but don’t swallow it!” – author not known

• “When you’re small they’ll dismiss you. When you’re growing they’ll criticize you, and when you are large they will resent you. So ignore them and go on with what God has you to do.” – author not known

• “A bulldog could whip a skunk at any time, but it’s not worth the fight.” – Chinese proverb

• Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto!

• If you quit, your critics win, and much is lost for the cause of Christ. Don’t let petty people determine your destiny. God planned even your enemies and they are serving His purposes in your life.

• A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor. Suffering truly qualifies and equips you for the ministry.

• “You’re friends don’t need an explanation, and your enemies won’t believe you anyway.” Dr. Monroe Parker

• A spiritual leader has responsibility and authority with accountability.

• Mature Christian givers are not motivated by guilt, pressure or sad pictures. They are motivated by the grace of God.

• One sign of a healthy church is that people who have left feel as though they can come back.

• When the Lord leades you into a crisis, listen very carefully to what He is teaching you.

• G. Campbell Morgan said of a young preacher boy, “He is a very good preacher, and when he has suffered, he will be a great preacher!”

• A young boy carried the cocoon of a moth into his house to watch the fascinating events that would take place when the moth emerged. When the moth finally started to breat out of his cocoon, the boy noticed how very hard the moth had to struggle. The process was very slow. In an effort to help, the boy reached down and widened the opening of the cocoon. Soon the moth was out of his prison. But as the boy watched, the wings remained shriveled. Something was wrong. What the boy had not realized was that the struggle to get out of the cocoon was essential for the moth’s muscle system to develop. In a misguided effort to relieve a struggle, the boy had crippled the future of this creature.

• Your most powerful message is you in the valley!

• Often the only difference between a thriving ministry and a dying one is not the presence of problems but the way they are handled!

• Servant leaders truly feel that their role is to help other people to reach their potential. They are willing to take a risk. They want to make a difference in the lives of people, and they want to help others be successful. A huge part of this process is intervention – being willing to address what isn’t right, and correct it in love.

The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking

By Dale Carnegie

• Business, social and personal satisfaction depend heavily upon our ability to communicate clearly to others what we are, what we desire, and what we believe in.

• When Julius Caesar sailed over the channel from gall and landed with his legions and what is now England, what did he do to ensure the success of his army? A very clever thing: he halted his soldiers on the chocolates of Dover; and, looking down over the waves 200 feet below, this already tongues of fire consume every ship in which they had crossed. And enemies country, with the last link with the continent gone, the last means of retreat burned, there was but one thing left to do for them to do: to advance, to conquer. That is precisely what they did.

• If you want to develop confidence, why not do the one thing that will give you security as a speaker? Perfect love, wrote the apostle John, casteth out fear. So does perfect preparation. Daniel Webster said he would as soon think of appearing before an audience half closed as have prepared.

• Abe Lincoln once said: I don’t like to hear a cut and dried sermon. When I hear man preach, I like to see him act as if you were fighting bees. Lincoln said he wanted to hear speaker cut loose and get excited.

• You must sell yourself on the importance of your subject. You must have the attitude that has inspired all truly great percentages of history – a belief in your cause.

• Joy yourself up to your full height and look your audience straight in the eyes, and begin to talk as confidently as if everyone of them owed you money.

• Almost every man is frightened when he goes into action, but that the course to follow is for the man to keep such a grip on himself that he can act just as if you were not frightened. After this is kept up long enough, it changes from pretense to reality.

• Speaking effectively the quick and easy way

• Speak about something you earned the right to talk about through experience or study
  • Tell us what life has taught you
    • Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep attention of their listeners.
    • Speak of what life has taught you and I will be your devoted listener.
    • I’ve never heard of boring talk when the speaker related what life has taught him.
  • Look for topics and your background
    • How do you find topics? By dipping into your memory and searching your background for this those significant aspects of your life that made a vivid impression to you.
    • Most of us are interested in the way other people met and overcame obstacles and the environment in which they are reared.
    • Illustrations and examples from your early years.
    • But how can you be sure anyone will be interested in what happened to you when you’re young? There’s one test. If something standup Italy and your memory after many years of gone by, that almost guarantees that it will be of interest to an audience.
    • A real life picture of almost anyone’s life – if told modestly – is almost surefire material.
    • Your natural enthusiasm for your particular hobby will help get this topic across to any audience.
    • Unusual experiences. These are experiences that make the best kind of speech material.
    • Beliefs and convictions. Audiences do not relish a talk filled with generalizations. Please don’t consider the casual reading of a newspaper articles Fisher preparation to talk on these topics. If you know little more about a subject than the people in your audience, it is best to avoid it. On the other hand, if you have devoted years of study to some subject, it is undoubtedly a topic that is made to order for you. By all means, use it.
• Be sure you are excited about your subject
  • The only way to gauge the interest value subject was to ask yourself how interested you are in it.
• Be eager to share your talk with listeners
  • Three factors in every speaking situation: the speaker, the speech for the message, and audience.
  • The speaker must make his listeners feel that what he has to say is important to them.

• Prepare your talk with authority on the topic you have chosen: what do you believe this? When did I ever see this point exemplified in real life? What precisely Mike trying to prove? Exactly how did that happen?

• Assembly hundred thoughts around your team, then discard 90.

• The two examples the finest method I know to make an idea clear, interesting, and persuasive. Usually, are you several examples to support each major point.

• How can we cut acquire this most important technique of using illustrative material? Five ways of doing this: humanize, personalize, specify, dramatize, and visualize.

• Humanize your talk
  • The average speech would be far more appealing if it were rich with human-interest stories.
  • The richest source of such human interest material is your own background.
  • Personal story speakers tell are the suriest means of holding attention; don’t neglect them.
• Personalize your talk by using names
  • Usernames or use fictitious names
  • Nothing adds more realism to a story the names.
  • Imagine a story whose hero has no name.
  • If you talk is full of names and personal pronouns you can be sure of high listenability, for you will have the priceless ingredients of human interest in your speech.
• Be specific – fill your talk with detail
  • Use the 5-W formula every reporter follows when he writes a new story: answer the questions when? Where? Who? What? And why?
• Dramatize your talk by using dialogue
• Visualize by demonstrating what you’re talking about
  • Psychologists tell us that more than 85% of our knowledge comes to us through visual impressions. Public speaking, too, is a visual as well as auditory art.
  • When the best ways to enrich a talk with detail as to incorporate visual demonstration into it. You might spend hours just telling me how to swing a golf club, and I might be bored by it. But get up and show me what you do when you drive a ball down the fairway and I am all eyes and ears. Likewise, if you describe the air erratic maneuvers of an airplane with your arms and shoulders, I am more intent on the outcome of your brush with death.
  • Visual details makes talks memorable
  • It is a good idea to ask yourself, how can I put some visual detail to my talk? Then proceed to demonstrate, for, as the ancient Chinese observed, one picture is worth 10,000 words.

• The speaker who is easy to listen to is the one who sets images floating before your eyes.

• Paint mental pictures that stand out sharp and clear

• The greatest writers – Homer, Dante, Shakespeare – are effective largely because they deal in particulars and report the details that matter. Their words call up pictures.

• Finalizing the talk

• Choose subjects you Ernest about.

• Almost all speakers wonder whether the topic chosen will interested audience. There’s only one way to make sure that they will be interested: stoke the fires of your enthusiasm for the subject and you will have no difficulty holding the interest of a group of people.
• Richard Washburn Child, a former American Ambassador to Italy, was once asked the secret of his success as an interesting writer. He replied: I am so excited about life that I cannot keep still. I just have to tell people about it. One cannot keep from being enthralled with a speaker or writer like that.
• I always rely on the speaker to supply the enthusiasm and interest.
• You cannot help us succeed if you choose the right topic for you. One area of topic is surefire: talk about your convictions!
• The greatest appeals and history of eloquence of all been made out of the depths of someone’s deep convictions and feelings.
• Learn more and more about what you can now consider a pretty good topic. The more you know about something the more earnest and excitedly enthusiastic you will become.

• Relive the feelings you have about your topic
  • The third person approach will not make much of an impression on your audience.
  • The more you relive the scene you’re describing, or re-create the emotions you fell originally, the more vividly you will express yourself.
  • Show your listeners how eager you are to talk about your subject, and you will hold their attention.
• Act in earnest
  • When you walk before your audience to speak, do so with an air of anticipation.
  • The spring in your walk gives the audience the feeling that you have something you are eager to talk about.

• Successful communication depends upon how well the speaker can make his talk a part of the listeners and the listeners a part of the talk.

• Here are some rules that will help you build up a strong feeling of rapport with your listeners:

• Talk in terms of your listeners interest
  • Dr. Conwell made a point of working his lecture plenty of local allusions and examples.
  • His audiences were interested because his talks concern them, their interests, and their problems.
  • A linkage with what your hearers
  • He made him feel that his talk was no mimeographed copy – it was freshly created for them.
  • People are selfish, they are interested chiefly in themselves.
  • Visualize them as eager to hear what you have to say – as long as it applies to them.
• Give honest, sincere appreciation
  • Show your appreciation for something they have done that is worthy of praise, and you win a passport into the heart.
  • This often require some research on your part
• Identify yourself with the audience
  • The first words you a letter, indicate some direct relationship with the group you’re addressing.
  • Another way to open the lines of communication is use the names of people in the audience.
• Make your audience a partner in your talk
  • One of my favorite methods of getting audience participation is simply to ask questions and get into get responses. I like to get the audience on his feet, repeating a sentence after me, or answering my questions by raising their hands.
  • Have your listeners vote on something, or invite them to help you solve a problem.
• Play yourself down
  • One of the best ways for a speaker to endear himself to an audience is to play himself down.
  • The surest way to antagonize an audience is to indicate that you consider yourself to be above them. The slightest hint of braggadocio’s fatal. On the other hand, modesty inspires confidence and goodwill. You could be modest without being apologetic. Your audience will like and respect you for suggesting your limitations as long as you show you are determined to do your best

• There are four major goals in the purpose of a talk

• To persuade or get action.
• To inform.
• To impress and convince.
• To entertain.

• Audiences are not interested in apologies or excuses, real or simulated. They want action

• It is the story, for example, that prepares the way for the desired action.

• Give your example, an incident from your life – psychologists say we learned two ways: one, by the law of exercise, in which he sears of similar incidents lead to a change of our behavioral patterns; and two, by the law of effect, in which a single event maybe so startling as to cause a change in our conduct.

• Build your example bought a single personal experience
• Start your talk with a detail of your example – catch attention at once.
  • Once upon a time are the magic words that open the floodgates of a child’s imagination. With the same human interest approach you can captivate the minds of your listeners with your first words.
• Fill your example with relevant detail
  • Answer the questions who? When? Where? What? And why?
  • You must stimulate the visual imagination of your listeners by painting word pictures
• Relive your experience as you relates it – the speaker should relive the experience is describing

• State the point, what you want the audience to do

• Make the point brief and specific – people will do only what they clearly understand
• Make the point easy for listeners to do
• State the point with force and conviction

• Make your meeting clear when you set out to inform your listeners

• Language is the principal conveyor of understanding, and so we must learn to use it, not currently but discriminatingly

• Arrange your ideas and sequence – logical sequence based on time, space, or special topics. Past, present, future

• Turning fact into a picture

• Pick out the least intelligent looking person in the audience is try to make that person interested in your argument. Center talk on some small boy or girl present with their parents.

• Think is wise men do, but speak of the common people do. Aristotle

• Use visual aids

• the nerves that lead from the eye to the brain are many times larger than those leading from the ear; and science tells us that we give 25 times as much attention to I suggestion as we do to your suggestions.
• One seeing, says an old Japanese proverb, is better than 100 times telling about.
• I early found that in dealing with man, a picture was worth more than anything I could say.

• We must first be convinced before we attempt to convince others.

• The more yeses we can, at the very outset, induce, the more likely we are to succeed in capturing the attention for our ultimate proposal.

• My way of opening in winning an argument, confided Lincoln, is to first find a common ground of agreement. Lincoln found it even when he was discussing the highly inflammable subject of slavery. For the first half-hour, declared the mirror, a neutral paper reporting one of his talks, his opponents would agree with every word he uttered. From that point he began them off, little by little, until it seemed as if he had got them all into his fold.

• Speak with contagious enthusiasm

• I say contagious, for enthusiasm is just that.
• When your aim is to convince, remember it is more productive to stir emotions than to arouse thoughts.
• If you would impress an audience, be impressed yourself. Your spirit, shining through your eyes, radiating through your voice, and proclaiming itself through your manner, will communicate itself to your audience.
• Every time you speak, and especially when you’re about purpose is to convince, what you do determines the attitude of your listeners. If you are lukewarm, so will they be; if you are flippant and antagonistic, so will baby. When the congregation falls asleep, wrote Henry Ward Beecher, there’s only one thing to do; provide the usher with a sharp stick and have him prod the preacher.

• Show respect and affection for your audience

• Every human being has an inner sense of worth, of importance, of dignity. Wound that up and you have lost that person forever. So when you love and respect the person you build him up and, accordingly, he loves it seems you.

• Begin in a friendly way. Since pride is such a fundamental explosive characteristic of human nature, would be the part of wisdom to get a man’s pride working for us, instead of against us?

• Get into an example immediately – why? For three reasons:

• You will free yourself at once of the necessity to think hard about your next sentence, for experiences are easily recounted even in an impromptu situation.
• You will get into the swing of speaking, and your first moment jitters will fly away, giving you the opportunity to warm up to your subject matter.
• You will enlist the attention of your audience at once. As pointed out earlier, the incident example is a surefire method of capturing attention immediately.

The rapport thus established between speaker and audience is the key to all successful speaking – begin with an example

• Speak with animation of force

• As has been said several times before in this book, if you speak with energy and forcefulness, your external animation will have a beneficial effect upon your mental process. Have you ever watched a man in a conversational group who suddenly begins to gesture as he speaks? Soon he is talking fluently, sometimes brilliantly, and he begins to attract a group of eager listeners.

• Don’t talk impromptu – given impromptu talk

• Be ready to condense your ideas into a few words. When the time comes, see what you have in mind as plain as you can. Give them briefly, and sit down

• There are only four ways in which we have contact with the world: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.
• The biggest stumbling block, of course, is stiffness, not only of the physical, but of the mental as well.

• It is not so much just what you say is how you say it.

• A young man ought to get that idea about himself; he should look for the single spark of individuality that makes him different from other folks, and develop that for all he is worth.

• Do not attempt to force yourself any mold thereby lose your distinctiveness.

• An introduction on to sell the topic to the audience and the speaker. Do these things in the briefest amount of time possible

• Here’s some suggestions to help you make a well-organized beach of introduction:

• Thoroughly prepare what you’re going to say
  • Even though the introductory talk is short, hardly ever exceeding one minute, it demands careful preparation.
  • It centers around three items: the subject of the speakers talk, his qualifications to speak on that subject, and his name.
• Fold T – I – S formula. T stands for topic. I stands for important. S stands for speaker.
• Be enthusiastic
• Be warmly sincere
• Thoroughly prepare the talk of presentation
• Express your sincere feelings in the talk of acceptance

• A talk as a voyage with purpose, and it must be charted.

• Get interesting opening, something that will seize favorable attention immediately
• Begin your talk with an incident, example.

• A story of your experience hooks attention
• I know of no more compelling method of opening a talk then by the use of a story.
• No stalling. No warm-up statements. By launching directly into an incident, you can make it easy to capture the audiences attention.

• Aroused suspense
  • Arouse curiosity and hold suspense
  • Creating suspense is a surefire method of getting your listeners interested.
• State interesting fact
  • Establishes contact with the listener because it jars the mind.
  • It is a kind of shocked to make that a list attention by using the unexpected to focus attention on the subject matter of the talk.
  • If you want to interest your listeners, don’t begin with an introduction. Begin by leaping right into the heart of your story.
• Ask for a show of hands
  • The ice is broken. You, the speaker, Ortiz, and so the audience.
• Promise to tell the audience how they can get something they want
  • The promise type of opener is sure to get attention because it goes straight to the self-interest of the audience.
• Using exhibit

• Avoid getting unfavorable attention

• Do not open with an apology
  • Lack of preparation or lack of ability.
  • Suggesting that you did not think worth preparing for.
  • No, we don’t want to hear your apologies; we want to be informed and interested – to be interested
• Avoid the funny story opening

• Support your main ideas

• Use statistics – mere numbers and amounts, taken by themselves, are never very impressive. They have to be illustrated; they ought, if possible, to be put in terms of our experiences.
• Use the testimony of experts
• Use analogies
• Use a demonstration with her without an exhibit

• Appeal for action

• The close is really the most strategic point in a talk, what one says last, the final words left ringing in the ears when one ceases – these are likely to be remembered longest.
• How do you go about bringing your talk to the climatic clothes? Here are a few suggestions some:
  • Summarize – first tell them what you’re going to tell them; then tell them; then tell them what you’ve told them.
  • Ask for action
    • Ask them to do something specific
    • Ask the audience for some response that is within their power to give
    • Make it as easy as you can for your audience to act on your appeal

• One time young man who aspired to study law, wrote to Lincoln for advice. Lincoln replied: if you are resolutely determined to make a longer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already… Always bear in mind that you own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.

The Prayer of Jabez

By Bruce Wilkinson

I Chronicles 4

9 – And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow.

10 – And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.

 

• “Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed” – vs. 10

He prayed for himself – it is not selfish, we are supposed to

He prayed with urgency, said “indeed”

Prov 10:22

Matthew 7:7

James 4:2

 

• “and enlarge my coast” – vs. 10

Surely I was born for more than this

All you Lord have given me, take it and enlarge it

Ask Lord to add to, favor my relationships and influence and multiply for His glory

God give me more ministry for You

This is the appointment from the Lord

My willingness and weakness + God’s will and supernatural power = my expanding territory.

When start asking God earnestly for more influence and opportunity to honor Him, He will send people and opportunities my way.

 

• “and that thine hand might be with me” – vs. 10

Now that God is blessing me, I must realize that if He doesn’t have His hand on me, sustain me, I can not continue.

I must realize that I can not do it alone – and as He blesses me, it will be obvious and I will begin to think that I can not do it alone, that is a good thing.

II Corinthians 3:5-6

“hand of the Lord” – Joshua 4:24; Isaiah 59:1; Acts 11:21; Matthew 28:19-20

That He fills me (same as His hand upon me) – Acts 1:8; 4:13; 5:29; 7:51; 9:27; 4:23-31; 2:42-47; Ephesians 3:19, 16

II Chronicles 16:9

 

• “and that thou wouldest keep me from evil”

doesn’t say keep me through evil but from evil.

Success brings with it great opportunities for failure – many great men have fallen

Matthew 6:13

Learn not to depend on my wisdom, experience or feelings – pray He keeps me from evil.

Colossians 2:13, 15

 

• “Jabez was more honourable than his brethren” – vs. 9

More important what God thinks than what man or I think, its no credit for  myself

I need God with me now

 

• “And God granted him that which he requested” – vs. 10

Make this prayer part of your daily fabric

Not a prayer that will change things, rather what you believe

The Passion for Souls

By Oswald J. Smith

 

Every church should spend more on missions than it spends on itself.  That is only logical.  If we believe that world evangelization comes first, then we should invest more money in the regions beyond than we use for ourselves here at home.

Mt. 6:33 – But seek ye first the kingdom of God (the extension of God’s kingdom world-wide).  Seek His kingdom first and all the rest will be added unto you.  His program never fails

We teach the children to give for themselves.  From the time thy are five or six years of age, they are taught to give systematically.  Then when they grow up we have no trouble with them.  They have learned how to give.

The work of missions is far too important to hand over to any one organization.  It belongs to the whole church, and when everyone catches the vision and everyone does something, then our goal is reached and our budget met.  Our motto is, “Every Christian a missionary.”  It is the work of the whole church

World-wide evangelism is too important to be put in a budget.  You will have to pull it out of the budget and put it on the platform where the people can see it.

All you have to do, you see, is to give the whole church the vision and when each one becomes a systematic giver, the problem is solved.

It is no light thing to be a watchman.  “His blood will I require at thine hand.” The Supreme Task of the Church is the Evangelization of the World.  What are you going to do about it?

Compassion is not pity.  Compassion is love in action.  Are we moved with compassion?  If we are we will do something about it.

What are you going to do?  Either you must go yourself or else you must send someone in your place, and woe to you if you do nothing.  God’s orders must be obeyed, His commands carried out, and there is no way to evade the issue.

When you have seen the vision, you cannot be satisfied doing anything else.  The urge will come upon you, you have seen the vision.  “This is what I exist for. I am a pastor second; I am a missionary first. I must do all I can to find and send a substitute.”

The Next Towns –

Christ:  “I must preach in the next towns for therefore am I sent.”  He was ever mindful of “the other sheep.”

Paul:  “the regions beyond”.  He, too, realized that the Gospel had to be taken to “all the world.”

There are churches, hundreds of them, that have become mere social clubs, and if the Church of Jesus Christ does not awaken and give the Gospel to the whole world, what happened to Africa will happen here.  The light that shines farthest, shines brightest nearest home.”

The field is the world.  Why not complete the work in the homeland before going to the foreign field?

Why did David Livingstone leave Scotland and go to Africa

Why did William Carey leave England and go to India

Why did Judson leave America and go to Burma

Why did the Apostle Paul leave for Europe before Palestine had heard the Gospel

There is only one answer and the answer is what is found in the Bible: “the field is the world”

The example of the Bible

The example of Christians in the past like mentioned before as well as Peter, John, Paul, etc

The example of the world – the tobacco firms are already sending their missionaries into foreign world.  They want new markets and they are wiser than we are, for that after all, is God’s plan and we would do well to emulate them.  It has never been God’s will that we should remain at home until the work here is finished

Are you sad that you are still a heathen or are you glad that Paul left his home, that someone gave you the Word as well.

Some churches do not even go fifty-fifty.  They do not send as much to the foreign field as they spend on themselves

Why should everyone hear the Gospel twice before everyone has heard it once?

Why the haste? Why the hurry? Why not take our time? Why not do it later? Why must it be done now? Because it is now or never. The harvest will not wait. There ma be another, but this harvest will be lost, and lost forever.

This means that the one and most important work of the Church is to give the Gospel to the whole wide world in the shortest possible time.

When Juese left His disciples, nearly two thousand years ago now, He gave them but one task; namely, world evangelization.  I can imagine Him talking to them something like this: “I am going to leave you and I will be gone for a long time.  While I am absent, I want you to do just one thing. Give this Gospel of Mine to the entire world.  See that every nation, tongue and tribe hears it.”  As a matter of fact we have done everything else except the one and only thing He told us to do. But the one and only thing that He did tell us to do is the one and only thing that we have left undone.  We have not given the Gospel to the entire world.  We have not carried out His orders.

There are 626 tribes in New Guinea, 521 in the South Sea Islands, 350 in Africa, 300 in South America, 200 in Australia (Aborigines), 100 in India, 60 in Indo-China and 60 in the Philippines.  Hence, at least 2,000 tribes are still waiting in the darkness and midnight gloom for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

But how are they to be reached? Only by the young people of our churches, our Bible Schools and our Seminaries.  It is the young who can go.

The world must be evangelized. Our only hope is in the young people. Unless they go, the job will never be done for no one else can do it.  God is calling the young. The youth of our country must respond.

We are to work both fields – both the home and foreign, together (Acts 1:8)

I would rather spend money any day on the publications of foreign booklets than on those in the English language.

What would you do if you should see ten men lifting a log and if nine were on one end and one on the other? Where would you help? Why on the one end where the one was lifting, would you not? Need I say more? It is the foreign field that needs our help most.

Three different groups – senders, prayers, goers – all three are necessary

This then is the most important task of the moment – to finish the unfinished task

It is not what a man has in his head, but what he has in his heart, that counts.

It is the study of the Bible that is most important.  All other subjects are of secondary importance.  God forbid that we should lose the vision.

A Christian worker should never become a hermit

A Christian must not only be a student, but always active in service

Missionaries are God-made.

Mass evangelism is God’s most effective method even in foreign lands.

Acts 14:21 – wherever he went, “he preached and taught”

We all want to do His Will and we know that there is nothing nearer to His heart than the evangelization of the world.

God will be no man’s debtor.  “Give, and it shall be given unto you.” You cant’ beat God giving. “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that witholdeth more tha is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.  The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.”

You just cannot get away from it.  It is one of the unchangeable laws of God.  You square with God and God will square with you.  You give to God in days of prosperity and God will give to you in days of depression.  You withhold from God in days of prosperity and God will withhold from you in days of depression.  If you faithfully give to God you will never find yourself in the bread-line.  Just why it works like that I do not know, but I know it does.

You are either laying up treasure in Heaven or upon earth. Everything you have you must ultimately lose.  Everything you invest in the souls of men, you will save. You are going to enter Heaven either a pauper, having sent nothing on ahead, or as one who is to receive an inheritance, made possible by contributions laid up while still upon earth.

Are you in the bucket brigade or are you merely a spectator

Have you given yourself? Have you given your children?  Have you given your prayers? Have you given your money? Have you given anything? What have you done for those in darkness and midnight gloom?

Will there be anyone who will recognize you except a few of your own relatives and friends or will there be a man from China, etc who will thank you for making it possible so that one can go tell him about Jesus

God never told sinners to come to us, He told us to go to them

The truths of the Bible do not need to be defended; they only need to be proclaimed

Proverbs 24:11-12 – if thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death;….

The evangelist is like the doctor, he brings the baby into the world, but no one would ever expect the doctor to remain and take care of the child.  That is the follow-up work which must be done by the parents.

Evangelism will fill any church. I have proved it again and again and it will fill it week after week and year after year.

I cannot, for the life of me, nderstand how any minister can be satisfied to preach a Gospel sermon and then pronounce the benediction and go home without ever giving the people to whom he has preached, an opportunity of accepting Christ as Saviour there and then. A lawyer is out for a verdict and a minister should be as well, for God has promised fruit and it is the privilege of the minister to reap as well as to sow.

But it is not very long, if God’s people have been set on fire, before the children of satan will gather around the fire.  Nothing attracts like fire.  So it is with revival.  When the church is truly aflame, the world will see it and be attracted by it.  The Psalmist cried, “wilt thou not revive us again.”

Is it not true that God does more in a few weeks during days of revival than in years through the ordinary channels of church work?

For when the church ceases to evangelize, it will fossilize

Today’s Christians think it nothing to forsake the Lord’s house – they are casting a vote to close the church for the summer months, for as soon as everyone does it, the church will have to close its doors

Is 58:13-14

Two farmers – one takes a look at his fields and sys to himself, “I would like to have a crop this year.  However, it is none of my business. There is nothing I can do about it,” and with that he goes into his house, sits down in front of the open greate fire and prays for a crop.  The other farmer says, “I , too, would like to have a crop this year and there is a great deal fro me to do.  I am sure I can have one if I do my part.”  He goes to work. He ploughs the ground. He harrows and rolls it and then he plants the see and after he has done all that he knows is necessary, he then looks to God to send the sunshine and the rain and with perfect confidence, looks forward to the days of harvest.

If then revival depends upon us, if we must meet the conditions, if we must pay the price, then what are the conditions, what is the price that must be paid?

It is because there is so little travail today that there are so few souls saved.  Finney took a pray-er, Father Nash – and when Finney was preaching, Father Nash was praying; William Bramwell agonized for some thirty-six hours in a sand pit without food, for the souls of men. All God’s servants, right down through the centuries, have travailed in prayer.  Those who know how to travail, know what I am talking about, for soul travail is part of the price that must be paid for revival.

The five subjects to preach on in revival – sin, salvation, heaven, hell, judgement.

The Master Plan of Evangelism

By Robert E. Coleman

 

A very good book that speaks of how the Lord did ministry is The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert E. Coleman. You can buy the book online about everywhere. I encourage you to get this small book and read it… and re-read it. I have noted a few of great nuggets this book gave:

Merely because we are busy, or even skilled, doing something does not necessarily mean that we are getting anything accomplished. The question must always be asked: Is it worth doing? And does it get the job done?

Men were His (Jesus’) method. His concern was not with programs to reach the multitudes, but with men whom the multitudes would follow. Remarkable as it may seem, Jesus started to gather these men before He ever organized an evangelistic campaign or even preached a sermon in public. Men were to be His method of winning the world to God.

There is no evidence of haste in the selection of these disciples; just determination.

Though He did what He could to help the multitudes, He had to devote Himself primarily to a few men, rather than the masses, in order that the masses could at last be saved. This was the genius of His strategy.

It will mean raising up trained leadership “for the work of ministering” with the pastor (Ephesians 4:12). A few people so dedicated in time will shake the world for God. Victory is never won by the multitudes.

It is necessary if any permanent leadership is to be trained.

Everything that is done with the few is for the salvation of the multitudes.

This, of course, puts a priority on winning and training those already in responsible positions of leadership. But if we can’t begin at the top, then let us begin where we are and train a few of the lowly to become the great. And let us remember, too, that one does not have to have the prestige of the world in order to be greatly used in the Kingdom of God. Anyone who is willing to follow Christ can become a mighty influence upon the world providing, of course, this person has the proper training himself.

It will be slow, tedious, painful and probably unnoticed by men at first, but the end result will be glorious, even if we don’t live to see it. Seen this way, though, it becomes a big decision in the ministry. One must decide where he wants his ministry to count—in the momentary applause of popular recognition or in the reproduction of this life in a few chosen men who will carry on his work after he has gone. Really it is a question of which generation we are living for.

Having called his men, Jesus made it a practice to be with them. This was the essence of His training program—just letting His disciples follow Him.

One living sermon is worth a hundred explanations.

 

Here to Serve,

Jeff Bush