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Passion Point

LifeChurch.tv : swerve has a post today relating to your passion point and then drifting from it and losing your passion for leading your small group. It begs the question, what is your passion point? Are you following it or have you been led another bureaucratic direction...in your faith or professionally.

...are you following your Hedgehog Concept...being the best at what you can be the best...

Here is the post...

Guest Blog - Stay Connected to Your Source (Kruckenberg)

Let me introduce you to Brian Kruckenberg, affectionately known as Kruck. Kruck is in charge of LifeGroups/Missions in Phoenix at the Mesa Campus.

He writes…

I’ve had some conversations lately with leaders of small groups about their struggles with keeping their LifeGroups effective. Many told me that while their groups once were actively engaged in study, prayer and service, they had become apathetic.

There are many factors that can contribute to group apathy, but one I’ve found most common comes from drifting away from the leader’s passion point. Leaders set the tone for the people they lead and when they become disconnected from their source of passion, their groups begin to atrophy and slowly die.

If a group is struggling I always ask the leader what fueled their desire to lead in the beginning. In nearly every case, the leader discovered that the group had strayed from its original purpose for beginning, which was the leader’s source of passion.

As leaders we have to stay connected to our passion point. Drift from it and the people you lead will shrivel up and eventually leave. But, if you stay connected to it and lead with passion, you will draw people who will follow you with the same level of intensity. In the immortal words of John Wesley, “When you set yourself on fire, people love to come and see you burn.”

Give It To Me Straight

Seth Godin recently posted this on his blog, which in many ways relates to the growth of megachurches in our society.

Almost everything that happens before you fly on a plane is not as it seems. In order to deal with anxiety, the airlines put on a show. The show is getting old and the lies are starting to show. Here's some snips from an Economist article (hat tip to the Freaknomics blog):

“GOOD morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are delighted to welcome you aboard Veritas Airways, the airline that tells it like it is. Please ensure that your seat belt is fastened, your seat back is upright and your tray-table is stowed. At Veritas Airways, your safety is our first priority. Actually, that is not quite true: if it were, our seats would be rear-facing, like those in military aircraft, since they are safer in the event of an emergency landing. But then hardly anybody would buy our tickets and we would go bust.

Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero. This aircraft is equipped with inflatable slides that detach to form life rafts, not that it makes any difference. Please remove high-heeled shoes before using the slides. We might as well add that space helmets and anti-gravity belts should also be removed, since even to mention the use of the slides as rafts is to enter the realm of science fiction.

Please switch off all mobile phones, since they can interfere with the aircraft’s navigation systems. At least, that’s what you’ve always been told. The real reason to switch them off is because they interfere with mobile networks on the ground, but somehow that doesn’t sound quite so good. On most flights a few mobile phones are left on by mistake, so if they were really dangerous we would not allow them on board at all, if you think about it..."

In many respects I see a parallel to the revolution of emerging churches. They are breaking down the traditions and barriers that we were programmed to believe for years, enabling churchgoers to worship freely.

They are giving it to us in a straight, unfiltered manner that engages us to want more.

Reconciliation

I was reading in Hosea this week and was struck by one particular piece of scripture....Hosea 3

Hosea was called to reconcile with his wife...an adulteress, a prostitute! It made me meditate and ask God if I had a relationship like that in my life...one where I just let it go because it was too tough...too much baggage...because it was too big for me.

God reconciled us to Himself through a perfect sacrifice...what sacrifice are you waiting on for reconciliation with someone...who is the prostitute in your life?

I think God's best is that forgiveness and perhaps even reconciliation is not ours to withhold.

Do You Serve Yourself or Others?

Great post from Seth Godin yesterday entitled Where Do You Park?

Here is what Seth had to say:

The manager of the Chase bank in Pleasantville parks right out front. Her branch is on a quiet street with parking meters available for customers to use. Figure there's perhaps a dozen spaces convenient enough to make it worth going to the bank... if they're full, keep on driving, because there's always another bank coming up soon.

And yet, the manager parks right out front (in fact, I saw her move her car from two spaces away to an even closer spot today). She has four or five people working in the branch, so if they follow her lead, that's half the spaces.

Of course, it's a far bigger issue than parking spaces. It's about eating lunch with your employees, handing out free samples to customers instead of your friends or answering the phone yourself when customer service gets backed up.

I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that there are really only two attitudes that people bring to work with them. Either they park right out front, or they park down the street in order to send a signal to their staff, their customers and themselves.

Take a look at the parking lot on Sunday morning. Are members taking the first available spot, or leaving those for guests? You could learn a lot about the heart of a church by where they park.

Speed Kills

Not too long ago, I posed this question to our Lifegroup. Is speeding while driving a sin, and if so, does this recurring sin separate me from God? Even though I knew the answer was yes, I was holding out that someone had discovered a loophole.

Romans 13:1 “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.”

So I made a commitment to stop speeding. The first couple of days I went no faster than the speed limit. Then I told myself it was okay to speed if I was passing someone, as long as I returned to the speed limit afterward. By the next week I had decided it was okay to go only five miles over the limit. Within a few weeks I was back to my old habits.

Don’t we do this with God sometimes? We make a "commitment" to stop doing something and stick to it for a couple days, and then we bargain with him? Or maybe we come up with excuse why we must continue our behavior, and then eventually we are right back where we started.

Faith Data Points

Here are some of the best concepts...faith points...I have read recently.

• You can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right
• The biggest regrets of your life will not be your mistakes but the chances you didn’t take
• Something is holding all this together
• Everyone ends up somewhere but few people end up somewhere on purpose
• One of the dimensions of living the way of Christ, besides living a life of love, forgiveness, and service, is embracing the spirituality of downward mobility
• We have to grow beyond a Sunday school faith
• Celebration is rejoicing in the giver even when He comes empty-handed
• In the way of God, thoughts count for little, love is everything
• Hell is full of forgiven people
• Is your faith a wall of bricks…each doctrine a brick…remove/question one brick and the wall wobbles…collapses

What are some of the most inspiring thoughts you have read or are meditating on lately...