Leadership Margin
By David Branker
Much has been written about creating margin; having the needed margin in your finances, margin in your time, and margin in your personal energy. This has everything to do with stewarding your life well, so that you have created the space needed to respond to the God opportunities, and to the people in your life. Without margin we can become slaves to debt, to burnout, and not be able to respond to the unexpected. This is as true personally as it is organizationally. Have you considered lately whether you have created enough “leadership margin” in your ministry or organization? Here are some questions to help with that assessment:
- Do you have enough capacity so that key leaders can take a break to refresh when needed, or does that only happen when they have become burnt out?
- Are leaders leading at the right level? In other words, should someone else be sharing part of the load, part of the burden of ministry?
- Do you have new leaders (especially next generation leaders) being constantly developed?
- Are there enough leaders available to steward the new opportunities God wants to release to you and your ministry?
Leadership margin can only be created through intentionality. Every organization must have a clear and simple process to develop leaders and ensure it runs two and three levels deep. At Celebration Church, we are strengthening our leadership pipeline to do just that. We want to create enough leadership capacity to steward what God wants us to bring to the world. You can find out more about this initiative at leadsync.org.
David Branker
Dealing With Pain
By Stovall Weems
During these last few weeks, since my last post on dealing with pain in leadership and ministry, I’ve been preaching a series entitled “Suffer Well”. As I said in my last post, “Pain can be your best friend or your worst enemy – it all depends on how you respond to it”.
I was preparing to continue in this same thread with some more blog posts about this topic, but I just really feel that trying to unpack it in a blog is not going to do it justice. I really encourage you to listen to this series online, or subscribe to the podcast.
If we learn how to deal with pain properly, we can grow from it, and still experience the joy and peace of God even in the midst of great adversity. I go into this in great detail in the messages – check them out and stay tuned, because I’m continuing in this series this weekend with “the fiery trials of life”.
I also want to let you know that there are some incredible things in store for this Fall at Celebration Church. I’ll be sharing more on vision and general information including updates on my book release, our new campus initiatives, leadership and just so much more.
2010 has been incredible so far and it’s about to get even better!
Stovall
Your Pain Is Not In Vain
By Stovall Weems
Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to be doing some leadership posts about dealing with pain in leadership and ministry.
In leadership, pain can be your greatest friend or your worst enemy – it all depends on how you respond to it. Pain has been such a valuable friend to me over the years – it has driven me to my knees and has been a catalyst where I have seen the faithfulness of God over and over again. It has strengthened my faith and has sharpened my calling. As a leader I have learned the importance of suffering well. What I mean by that is trusting God and glorifying Him with a Christ-like attitude regardless of the battles we are fighting or the disappointments we are experiencing. In 1 Peter 1:6 the bible defines pain as grief, distress or heaviness. Every leader experiences this type of pain. I’m talking about the emotional and mental distress that every leader faces when pursuing his or her God-given vision. Over the next few weeks, we will be discussing how God uses our pain to His advantage.
Just know that God can use our pain to birth something great in us and many times disappointment (the seed of all pain) is the very thing that God uses as a catalyst to move us to the next level. Remember, you can’t have a testimony without a test. So don’t waste your pain. Your pain is not in vain. Suffer well! (1 Peter 4:19)
Stovall
Pay Now or Pay Later
By Stovall Weems
Last night on our Daystar television program (Tues 11PM EST) I spoke about the joy of discipline. Without discipline it is impossible to live life intentionally. Today I have been thinking and am reminded about how true and crucial discipline is in our walk with God. Faithfulness requires discipline. You can either pay now with discipline or you can pay later with regret. Either way you pay. So let’s pay now so we can enjoy the blessings of glorifying God with our lives.
View our TV Schedule.
Watch the latest show.
Stovall
The Christian Atheist
By Stovall Weems
Our great friend Pastor Craig Groeschel from Lifechurch.tv recently released his new book called “The Christian Atheist”. The Christian Atheist is available for purchase at the Resource Center at Celebration Church or you can order online. This book is great and I highly recommend that you get this in your hands. This is a must-read!
Take a quick look at The Christian Atheist.
Stovall
Voices – Part 4
By Stovall Weems
The Voice of Failure
We all fail. Failure is part of life. But the voice of failure can be very damaging if we listen to it. Yes, failure does have a voice, a very loud one. I am not just talking about a mistake, but speaking here to more of a mindset of somehow you have missed God or an opportunity to see your hopes and dreams come to pass. The voice of failure says that because of something that has happened or something that has not happened yet, we will miss out on our dreams or hopes for the future. People are most susceptible to the voice of failure when they are not sure of their calling and what God has gifted them to do. It is easy to compare yourself with others who seem to be excelling in areas that you would like to excel at, and then just believe it won’t happen for you because it hasn’t happened for you yet. Or you have made a mistake and just can’t seem to get past it yet. The key word here is yet. This is what I have learned about God and how he opens doors for people and propels them in life. The first thing is you have to learn to be you. Find your purpose. As soon as you answer the question why you are here the quicker God moves you forward in the plan He has for you. Mistakes and failure are not a problem at all for God and He will use those for good if you are patient, don’t give up on your hopes and dreams and keep seeking Him. (Romans 8:28)
When Jesus supernaturally fed the 5000, he blessed and broke the bread. It is only when we are blessed and broken that we can truly feed people with the life of God within us. We are all blessed, but to really see God’s dream for us come to pass, and for us to be truly promoted, we will also have to be broken. Because God’s dream for us always involves us feeding His life to others, this is always the process. When God is in the process of breaking us, we can sometimes mistake that as failure or that we have missed God. You have not missed God, you are just in the process of getting broken so He can promote you and use you mightily. When you listen to God’s voice and not the voice of failure, you will hear Him speaking purpose and comfort to you. If you are suffering then suffer well for His glory. God is preparing you for the life you have always dreamed of. His gifts and calling are irrevocable (Romans 11:29). Let patience have its work, so you will be perfect and complete, lacking nothing (James 1:2). Your time will come, and when it does everyone will see how God has demonstrated His power in you!
Stovall
XXX has gone AAA
By Stovall Weems
I believe this weekend will be one of the most powerful series ever here at Celebration Church.
Men, women and even our children are under a relentless “porn storm” in our nation. The statistics are mind boggling (as you will see). XXX has now gone AAA. Hard core pornography is now completely affordable, completely accessible, and allows people to be totally anonymous- a trifecta of destruction.
Is there hope? Absolutely! God is going to birth freedom in His people like never before! My prayer is that in and through this series of messages, God will forever change all who listen. Get ready for an amazing weekend as we kick off the series “Porneia”.
Stovall
Voices, Part 3
By Stovall Weems
The Voice of Success
Luke 4:42-43
Unless you learn to consistently get alone with God and hear the voice of your Heavenly Father, you might end up saying “yes” to the good, but you will miss what is God.
When you miss what is God, you miss the very purpose for why you were sent. Your ministry might look very successful on the outside. But on the inside – staleness and stagnation have already begun. If you are not on the edge with God today, you are missing the very purpose for your life for this season. Only God can speak to your purpose. The crowd speaks to need and success, but God speaks to why you are here and He speaks directly to your calling.
I think many times we think we are hearing from God because our ministries are working well or they are getting lots of recognition. This is exactly how we fall into the success trap. We start trusting in our successes and how they got the church or ministry to a certain place. If we are not careful, we can set our ministries and spiritual lives on “success auto-pilot”. We begin to think our services, programming, and church culture are going to keep advancing God’s kingdom simply because they are done with excellence, are life giving and have worked so well in the past. If we do this, we lose our edge and we will inevitably settle for what used to be God instead of what is currently God.
This is how Jesus was able to keep moving forward and moving past what seemed to be incredible, successful ministry – with loads more opportunity in almost every town. He understood His purpose and why He was sent. He never settled down as a healing evangelist or got side tracked from His mission. At almost every critical juncture, you will see Jesus withdrawing Himself to pray and then coming back with new, fresh directives. Whether it was going to a different town, calling the disciples, or walking on water, Jesus understood the importance of staying true to your purpose while following God in each season.
If we are not consistent in finding solitude with God, we will not stay fresh and in our greatest anointing. Let me repeat this to pastors and preachers: If we are not consistent in finding solitude with God it is impossible to stay fresh and walk in a greater anointing. Freshness and anointing are by-products from intimacy with Christ. There is no substitute.
Stovall
Kingdom Sweat Campaign
By Stovall Weems
21 days of pouring yourself out….
March 21 – April 11
Pray everyday for at least 3 people you know to come to church on Easter weekend and commit/recommit their lives to Christ.
Invite those people to Easter services several times leading up to Easter weekend. If they will not come invite someone else! Don’t give up!! Use our easy e-vite and your favorite social network.
Fast with us on Wednesday, March 31 until Good Friday, April 2. During this fast we will be praying for the people you are praying for and inviting as well as a great harvest for Christ on Easter. This fast will end with communion at our Good Friday worship service at 7pm at Midtown.
Bring the people you invited on Easter if necessary or you can or at least plan to meet them at the front door of the church. Remember there are also special Easter service options – you can also really help advance the Kingdom by choosing to come to our Saturday night or Sunday night services.
Follow-up with the people you brought to church and make every effort to get them back to church the next weekend. It will be easy once you see the series we are kicking-off the weekend after Easter!
Celebrate with water baptism immediately following the Sunday 6pm service at the Midtown campus on Sunday April 11. Water baptism will follow the last service at all of our campuses on April 11. If you or any of the people you brought to Easter service needs to be baptized this is it. Many people will dedicate their lives to Jesus Easter weekend so this water baptism the very next Sunday is very important!
Give to advance the Kingdom of God in our community. More than 800,000 people in our city are lost, far from God and do not attend church. Turn in your imagine pledge card by next weekend March 28 or fill out a pledge card online.
You can do it! Let’s advance the Kingdom of God this Easter season! Let’s let Jesus know we are with Him! It’s only 21 days of your life that could make a difference of eternity for someone else!
Stovall
All Access 2010 Conference
By Stovall Weems
Check out this promo for All Access 2010!
Register today at www.allaccess2010.com
http://www.vimeo.com/9108404
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