There are a few things I know about connecting unconnected people. And let me tell you something. While there are definitely exceptions to just about every rule … if you can think of examples counter to these five, you are thinking of exceptions. Build your ministry off the rule and not the exception.
I’ve said many times that unconnected people are one tough thing away from not being at your church. Loss of a job. Divorce or separation. A devastating diagnosis. A child in trouble.
Here are five more things you need to know about connecting unconnected people: 1.Unconnected people have different appetites and rarely respond to menu items that appeal to the core and committed. If you’re finding it hard to connect beyond the usual suspects, you might need to take a careful look at the topics of studies you’re offering. See also, How to Choose Curriculum That Launches Groups and Does Your Topic Connect With Your True Customer. 2. Unconnected people are wary of long commitments. When you promote a short-term study that’s 13 weeks (Financial Peace, Experiencing God, some Beth Moore studies), you need to know that unconnected people hear “lifetime commitment.” What’s the right length? I’ve found that six weeks is just about ideal. Lyman Coleman has said many times that six weeks is short enough to commit to and long enough to help people begin to feel connected. Lyman’s right. 3. Unconnected people respond to test-drives and putting toes-in-the-water. In addition to offering shorter short-term opportunities, making it clear that it’s “just a test-drive” helps unconnected people feel more comfortable putting their toe in the water. If they know they can have a taste and opt out if it’s not for them, they’ll be much more likely to give it a try. Language is so important. The power of the right words cannot be overstated. 4. Unconnected people connect easiest when the first step out of the auditorium is familiar. Listen to very many new attendees at your church and you’ll often learn that just getting up the nerve to come to a weekend service was a real challenge. I’ve talked with many who’ve told me they drove by many times before they ever pulled into the parking lot. I’ve had a number tell me they made it to the parking lot more than once and couldn’t get out of their cars. Want these same people to join a small group? Better give them a way to attend an on-campus study or small group connection as their first step. See also, How to Calm an Unconnected Person’s Second Greatest Fear. 5. Unconnected people attend less frequently than connected people. Have a connecting opportunity coming up? If you want unconnected people to hear about it, you better keep in mind that promoting the event several weeks in a row is essential.
ArchBishop M. E. Idahosa visits Rivers State with an Apostolic mandate for you!
Date - 5th February, 2017 Venue - Sharks Stadium, Moscow road, Port Harcourt, Time - 1am. DON'T MISS THIS! MARK YOUR CALENDAR. GOD IS SET TO VISIT HIS PEOPLE. DON'T BE LEFT OUT.
Buses will be available at designated locations across Rivers State. All locations shall be uploaded here with contacts for reservations.
Do you ever think about the ramifications of “constant connectivity” with our devices? Do your kids? I’m actually writing a book on it right now. That’s probably why I found this video so intriguing…and a great resource as well. In fact, I’d show this incredibly insightful little video to today’s young people at youth group, at church or even at home after a family meal. Then if time is short, I’d ask one question:
“Is he right?” Tons of application here, especially in the area of relationships and our own struggles with self-esteem. But I would argue there is great spiritual application as well. After all, Simon began the talk discussing how today’s young people get everything they want and they’re “still not happy because there’s a missing piece.” Hmmmmmm. Some possible discussion questions: What is one thing he said in this video that “popped” or grabbed your attention?
Give an example of something he described that you have personally observed.
Is there anything he said you disagreed with? Why? What are some ways you see people using social media, not to post the way they really are?
How do you typically feel after looking through everyone else’s social media posts? When do you find your phone becoming a distraction? What does it distract you from?
He said today’s young people don’t have the coping mechanisms to deal with stress so they turn to their phones. What do you turn to when life is stressful? Is there a change you may want to consider with how you use your phone? What is one thing you could do this week to focus on the people in the room at any given moment?
God’s commandments are perfectly clear in what they say and, broadly, in what they require. Yet implementing those commandments in practical ways and in the nitty-gritty of life can pose a challenge. It can take thought, prayer, creativity. This is exactly the case with the fifth commandment—“honor your father and your mother”—and especially so for adult children. Young children honor their parents through their obedience, but what about adults? How do we honor our parents in ways that are fitting? I’ve taken a long time to get to this point in my series The Commandment We Forgot, and this has been deliberate. Our tendency is to skip over foundational matters to get straight to the practical stuff. Just give me the list of things to do and I’ll do them! But the deepest change to ourselves as well as the most appropriate honor to our parents will come when we first ensure we understand God’s commandment—what it means, why he gives it, why it matters so much. I trust you’ve tracked with me through the previous articles and if you’ve done that, you’re now ready to consider practical ways in which you can honor your parents. Honor to Whom Honor Is Due In a previous article I pointed out that honoring parents is a form of honoring all authority, including God himself. As Tim Keller says, “It’s respect for parents that is the basis for every other kind of respect and every other kind of authority.” I have pointed out as well that there is no ending point to this commandment—we are to honor our parents in childhood and adulthood, for we owe them a debt of honor that never ends. What is the honor God means for us to give our parents? I am going to offer six broad suggestions, though certainly we could come up with many more. I will warn in advance: In every case there will be temptations to say, “Yes, but you don’t know my parents. You don’t know who they are or what they did to me.” I understand that in some cases showing honor may be difficult or very nearly impossible, and in our next article we will discuss some hard cases. But for now, let’s simply consider some practical ways in which we can display honor to our parents. Forgive Them Perhaps the most important way we can honor our parents is to forgive them. The fact is, there are no perfect parents. All parents have fallen far short of their children’s expectations and, in all likelihood, even their own expectations. Our parents have sinned against us. They have made unwise decisions, they have had unrealistic expectations, they have said and done things that have left us deeply wounded. For that reason, many children enter adulthood controlled by anger and bitterness. They find themselves unable to move past their parents’ mistakes or their parents’ sin. We can best honor our parents by forgiving our parents. And this is actually possible, for we serve and imitate a forgiving Savior. In the Bible we see Jesus’ willingness to forgive the ones who had wounded him. In the very moment the nails were driven into his flesh, he cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Standing at the foot of the cross and considering such a Savior, who are we to withhold forgiveness from our parents? We honor our parents by extending grace and forgiveness to them. Speak Well of Them Another way we can honor our parents is to speak well of them, to refuse to speak evil of them. We live at a time when it is considered noble to air our grievances, when it is considered therapeutic to air our dirty laundry. We think little of telling the world exactly what we think of our governors, our bosses, our parents. Yet the Bible warns us that we owe honor and respect to all of the authorities God has placed over us (Romans 13:7). It warns us that our words have the power to extend honor or dishonor. We cannot miss that in the Old Testament the penalty for cursing parents is the same as the penalty for assaulting them (Exodus 21:15-17, Leviticus 20:9), for the root sin is the same. To curse parents or to strike parents is to violate the fifth commandment as well as the sixth.
We need to speak well of our parents. We need to speak well of them while they are alive and speak well of them after they have died, to speak well of them to our siblings, to our spouses, to our children. We need to speak well of them to our churches and communities, modeling a counter-cultural kind of honor and respect that has long since gone missing in too many contexts. Christian, speak well of your parents and refuse to speak evil of them.
Esteem Them Publicly and Privately A third way to show honor to parents is to give them esteem both privately and publicly. In a powerful sermon on the fifth commandment Tim Keller encourages children to “respect their [parents’] need to see themselves in you.” Parents long to see how they have impacted their children, how their children are a reflection of their strengths, their values. “You don’t realize how important it is to give them credit where you can. You don’t realize how critical it is just to say, ‘You know, everything I really ever learned about saving money I learned from you.’ To say, ‘You know, Dad, that was one thing you always taught me that I really, really appreciated’.” These are simple measures but ones that bring great joy and honor to our parents.
We can give such esteem privately in one-on-one conversation or we can do this publicly, perhaps through speeches or sermons or even conversations around holiday feasts. Dennis Rainey goes so far as to call children to write a formal tribute to their parents, to present it to them and to read it aloud in their presence. We can honor our parents by esteeming our parents.
Seek Their Wisdom
We honor our parents when we seek their wisdom through life’s twists and turns. The Bible constantly associates youth with folly and age with wisdom (Proverbs 20:29, Job 12:12) and tells us that those who have lived longer lives have generally accumulated greater wisdom. We do well, then, to lean on them for understanding, to seek their input when faced with major decisions. In some cultures this is expected and in some it is eschewed. But either way, it honors our parents when we seek their help, even if in the end we cannot or must not heed it. Support Them We can also honor our parents by supporting them. I am not yet speaking of financial support, but other forms of love and care. I think of David at a particularly low point in his life, weighed down by cares and attacked by enemies. In this context he cried out to God and said, “Do not cast me off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent” (Psalm 71:9). David feared the combination of age and isolation, of being old and alone. So too do our elderly parents. When we are young we gain strength and long for independence. Our parents raise us to be strong and free! But there is a trade-off here, a passing of the baton, for as our parents age they become feeble, they begin to lose their independence (Ecclesiastes 12:1-8). We honor our parents by giving them the assurance that we will not forsake them in their old age. Just as they cared for us, we will care for them. This is our responsibility and it ought to be our joy.
At a time when millions of elderly adults are living alone, consigned to nursing homes and hospitals, cared for by professionals rather than family members, Christians have the opportunity to display special honor. Kent Hughes says that even if parents have no financial needs, “there is still a Christian obligation for hands-on, loving care. Nurses may be employed, but there must be more—the care cannot be done by proxy. Emotional neglect and abandonment is not an option, for such conduct ‘is worse than an unbeliever.’” Provide for Them
Finally, we can honor our parents by providing for them financially. In 1 Timothy 5 we find Paul telling Timothy how to honor widows within the church. As he provides instruction, he gives two important principles: Children are to make some return to their parents (4) and Christians who will not provide for family members are behaving worse than unbelievers (8). Commentators are nearly unanimous in extending these principles to children and their elderly parents. What is unremarkable in some cultures is controversial in others, including my own. Stott points out that “African and Asian cultures, which have developed the extended in place of the nuclear family, are a standing rebuke to the West in this matter.”
When children are young, God expects parents to provide for them (2 Corinthians 12:14). But, according to Stott, “when parents grow old and feeble, it is then that roles and responsibilities are reversed.” Hughes says, “Christian sons and daughters are responsible for the [financial] care of widows and, as the text expands it, of their helpless parents and grandparents.” William Barcley says much the same: “The raising of children requires tremendous sacrifice and it is only right that children make sacrifices for parents in return.” We might also consider Mark 7:9-13 and Jesus’ harsh rebuke of the Pharisees for their refusal to care for their parents.
Perhaps no form of honor more deeply cuts against the Western grain than this one. But it’s clear: The Bible calls Christians to take special responsibility for providing for their family members. This command applies equally to the parents of young children and the children of elderly parents. Conclusion
God calls every child of every age to show honor to our parents, to refuse to dishonor our parents. He calls us to honor them as the outflow of honoring him. He calls us to be people who respect his sovereignty by respecting the parents he saw fit to give us. In what ways is God calling you to show honor to your parents?
The Church is the most magnificent concept ever created. It has survived persistent abuse, horrifying persecution and widespread neglect. Yet despite its faults (due to our sinfulness), it is still God’s chosen instrument of blessing and has been for 2,000 years. The Church will last for eternity, and because it is God’s instrument for ministry here on Earth, it is truly the greatest force on the face of the Earth. That’s why I believe tackling the world’s biggest problems—the giants of spiritual lostness, egocentric leadership, poverty, disease and ignorance—can only be done through the Church.
The Church has eight distinct advantages over the efforts of business and government: 1. The Church provides for the largest participation. Most people have no idea how many Christians there are in the world: More than 2 billion people claim to be followers of Jesus Christ. That’s one third of the world’s population! The Church has about a billion more people than the entire nation of China.
For example, close to 100 million people in the United States went to church this past weekend. That’s more people than will attend sporting events in the United States throughout this year. The Church is the largest force for good in the world. Nothing else even comes close. 2. The Church provides for the widest distribution. The Church is everywhere in the world. There are villages that have little else, but they do have a church. You could visit millions of villages around the world that don’t have a school, a clinic, a hospital, a fire department or a post office. They don’t have any businesses. But they do have a church. The Church is more widely spread—more widely distributed—than any business franchise in the world.
Consider this: The Red Cross noted that 90 percent of the meals they served to victims of Hurricane Katrina were actually cooked by Southern Baptist churches. Many churches were able to jump into action faster than the government agencies or the Red Cross. Why? The Church is literally everywhere, and Christians who could provide help to the Gulf Coast communicated with Christians in need of help so relief could be sent immediately.
3. The Church provides the longest continuation. The Church has been around for 2,000 years. We’re not a fly-by-night operation. The Church has a track record that spans centuries: Malicious leaders have tried to destroy it, hostile groups have persecuted it and skeptics have scoffed at it. Nevertheless, God’s Church is bigger now than ever before in history.
Why? Because it’s the Church that Jesus established, and it is indestructible. The Bible calls the Church an unshakable kingdom. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus says, “I will build my Church and all the powers of hell will not conquer it” (NLT). All the powers of hell—in other words, no hurricane, no earthquake, no tsunami, no famine, no pandemic, no army will ever conquer the Church established by Jesus Christ. 4. The Church provides the fastest expansion. Did you know that every day 60,000 new people come to believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? By the end of today, thousands of new churches will be started throughout the world, and that will happen tomorrow and the next day and the next.
In one country that is closed to traditional Christian missions, more than 60,000 house churches have been started in one province by the work of lay people, no different from the people who fill your church sanctuary every weekend.
Why is fast expansion important? If you’ve got a problem that’s growing at a rapid rate, then you need a solution that will grow even more rapidly. For instance, HIV/AIDS is growing at an incredibly fast rate in the world. Yet thank God the Church is outgrowing the disease, so more and more believers can help minister to those with HIV/AIDS.
If we’re going to tackle global giants like poverty, disease or illiteracy, then we must be part of something that’s growing faster than the problem. The Church is doing just that! 5. The Church provides the highest motivation. Why do any of us do what we do in ministry? It’s not to make money, not to make a name for ourselves and not for duty to our nation. We do it out of love. Jesus stated it as the Great Commandment: Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. We wouldn’t do the hard work required to tackle these global giants for money, for fame or for anything else. It just wouldn’t be worth it; we’d quit before the end.
We’re motivated to keep at the hard work of ministry because we love God, and our love for God compels us to love other people. It is love that never gives up; it is love that keeps moving forward despite the appearance of impossible odds; and it is love that outlasts any problem. 6. The Church provides the strongest authorization. God authorized the Church to take on global giants, such as spiritual lostness, egocentric leadership, poverty, disease and ignorance. With God’s authorization, the outcome is guaranteed to be successful.
When you know that God has authorized you to do something, you don’t worry about failure because God doesn’t sponsor flops. If God says we’re going to do it, it’s going to happen. It is inevitable. In fact, the Bible teaches that God will give us his power to complete the task. This is God’s way—ordinary people empowered by his Spirit. 7. The Church provides the simplest administration. The Church is organized in such a way that we can network faster and with less bureaucracy than most governmental agencies or even well-meaning charities. For instance, the organizational structure at Saddleback, which is based on the New Testament model, holds that every member is a minister. Each person in our church family is encouraged to use his or her own SHAPE (Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, Experiences) to do what God has called him or her to do. There is no bureaucracy or hierarchy. There isn’t a single committee, and the process doesn’t require a long list of approvals.
The old wineskin of command and control won’t work well in the 21st century. The organization of the future is the “network.” And there’s no better worldwide network than the Church, where every member is a minister and empowered to do what God wants done.
Consider it this way—tens of millions of Christians in millions of small groups that are part of churches around the world can take on the global giants with no other authority than that given from Jesus Christ. In other words, we have God’s permission and we have God’s command to do it. There is no need to seek permission from anyone else. 8. The Church provides for God’s conclusion. Since we believe the Bible is God’s Word, we already know the end of history. Jesus said in Matthew 24:14, “The good news about God’s Kingdom will be preached in all the world to every nation, and then the end will come” (NCV). It is inevitable and unavoidable.
When you consider these eight advantages, think about the exponential explosion of ministry when millions upon millions of small groups in millions upon millions of churches organize in such a way that each person can do their part in attacking the five global giants. What do you think could happen if God’s people prayed against these global giants, prepared for action against these giants and then moved through faith to tackle these giants?
We may look at these problems and think, “These are too big! How could we possibly solve them?”
But with God, nothing is impossible—and if we all work together as his Church, we’ll see these giants fall just as Goliath fell when faced with David’s obedience to God.
Pastor, it is a great privilege and an awesome responsibility to lead a local church. God wouldn’t have placed you where you are if he didn’t believe you could handle the task before you. You play a vital role in tackling these global giants. It is my privilege to co-labor with you.
There’s plenty of books, websites and leadership resources that talk about the importance of encouragement. As Goethe said in 1768, “Instruction does much, but encouragement everything.” So rather than say more about why you need to be an encourager, let me give you a brief but powerful example of something I personally experienced:
Some time ago, our team was called into a major, national media ministry because they were struggling with a declining response to their television program. For years, their financial support had dropped, and it had been nearly a decade since they’d been in the black. They had simply not adjusted to a changing culture, and needed a wakeup call on how the digital revolution had changed the world.
I t took months of hard work and consulting with the ministry, but in less than a year—and after nearly a decade in the red—we helped them turn things around. Obviously it was a team effort between us and their in-house media, donor development and leadership teams that ensured the ministry would continue to impact the world.
At a meeting shortly after, I made it a point to congratulate the ministry team, and tell them what a great job they had done. I followed up with personal emails to encourage them that they were now on the right track, and it had been a wonderful experience working with them.
Time went by and our Cooke Pictures team went on to other projects.
Then, unexpectedly at Christmas a couple of years later, I received a Christmas card with a note from a leader on their donor development team. Here’s an short excerpt from that note:
“I wanted to thank you in writing for an email you sent to me congratulating our team for helping turn the revenue from the ministry’s long downturn. You were the only person who acknowledged this accomplishment, of which you played a vital part. Our entire team was grateful for your kind words and observations. You added an exclamation on my many years of service! I will always be grateful that God allowed our paths to cross.”
Think about that. At a major, national media ministry, I was apparently “the only person who acknowledged this accomplishment.” It meant enough that years later, she sent me a note.
Leaders: When was the last time you congratulated your team? When was the last time you noticed great work? It’s not just an emotional touchy-feely thing. A study by Bersin revealed that companies that “excel at employee recognition” are 12 times more likely to enjoy strong business results.
It’s time to be grateful for the people around you at every level. Take some time today to “tour the factory floor” and tell people how much they are appreciated. Believe me, I don’t need research to tell me that it makes a difference.
Leaders or team members: What’s been your experience with appreciation? (Or lack thereof?)
