Power In Health

There is power in health. How many times have you seen people that had wealth and fame but would trade them all in for health? What good is all the money or influence in the world if you do not have health to enjoy or use it? I believe that God wants us to be healthy. I also believe that God wants our church to be healthy. God worked this principle into creation. If a tree is healthy, it will naturally produce fruit. I live in Florida and many people have citrus trees in their yards. If the tree is healthy, there is plenty of fruit for everyone in the family and baskets to give away every year. Sometimes it can be a pain. A healthy tree will produce so much fruit that you constantly have to pick them up out of your yard. It’s a natural law. Healthy things produce. The same is true in the church. If we can get the church healthy, we can expect it to be productive. What constitutes a healthy church? There is no simple answer to this question. It can be as complex as discerning what makes a human body healthy. I would like to offer a few ideas:
* A healthy church is a growing church.
* A healthy church is an active church.
* A healthy church is a loving church.
* A healthy church is an evangelistic church.
* A healthy church is a benevolent church.
* A healthy church is a passionate church.
* A healthy church is a connecting church.

Redefining Success

I think it is a mistake to equate success with numbers only. Don’t get me wrong, more people, money, property, buildings are good, but do they insure health and productivity? Jesus spoke a lot about productivity. In John 15 He said: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful ... Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” I have found that there are three principles of productivity. The Lord, I trust, showed me this as I was preparing Connecting Points for my church. These three principles are embraced in and enhanced by Connecting Points. They are the principles of health, intentionality, and alignment. Here is what I felt as though the Lord showed me. If we hope for productivity we must be healthy, intentional, and in alignment. The principle of health says very simply: “things that are healthy produce and grow”. The principle of intentionality points out that unless we know where we are going it is unlikely that we will get there. The principle of alignment reveals the power in the unified thrust of everyone moving in the same direction at the same time. If this is true, we can more accurately define success in terms of growth, productivity, and health. Do you agree?

Embracing Productive Change

Sometimes we must change in order to be productive. Change is never easy. In some cases, it is necessary—no change, no increased productivity. Some time back, I felt as though the Lord spoke quite specifically. There were two major changes that needed to take place in my church. First, if we were going to be more productive, we would have to become less event oriented and more ministry oriented. It occurred to me that most people had limited their concept of ministry to the church sponsored events. I realized that if we were to go through the church calendar and remove the major all-church events, the perception among the people would be that there is no ministry happening. This had to change. Ministry would have to be redefined in the hearts of the people, much like it had been redefined in my heart. We will always have the large events, but they can no longer be the main emphasis of ministry. The emphasis of ministry must be in the lives of our people. We want to be in a place that if we were to do away with all major events (which we won’t) people would say “there is ministry happening in and through our church.” Connecting Points affects this change. We would become less event-oriented and more ministry-oriented. The second change had to do with me. We, as a church, must become less pastor-centered and more people-centered. Ouch! It was sad but true. I did not intend for this to happen, but it had. I had worked to become a strong leader, and had unintentionally built ministries that, for the most part, were dependent upon me. Don’t get me wrong. The leader must lead. The problem was that the people had grown so dependent on me that they almost equated my participation with success. I realized, in hind sight, that the programs I got behind and attended were always well attended and deemed a success. On the other hand, if I did not personally push it or attend, it was moderately successful. If the pastor visited the hospital everyone was happy. If a church member came to visit, it was as if there was no visit at all. You can see how limiting this was. Unless I changed this mentality we would forever be limited to my personal abilities and availabilities. My vision goes far beyond that. This too had to be changed. In relation to ministry we must get the focus off of me and on the people. This is where ministry must take place. It cannot be the private domain of the pastor and his staff. The people! They are the deal! We must become less-pastor centered and more people-centered. Now this is embracing productive change.

The Principle Of Productivity

In John 15:8 Jesus said: “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (NIV) Here our Lord points to the principle of productivity. God is glorified when we are productive. Every believer should produce fruit. I believe God wants us to produce “much fruit.” A few years ago the Lord challenged me to become more fruitful. Don’t get me wrong, we already had wonderful ministries in our church. It was not as though we were accomplishing nothing. Many good things were happening in the lives of people and in our church. The change that took place in us was in my perspective. I could no longer be satisfied with status quo. I felt an overwhelming desire to be productive. I realized that this was our time, and we could not just stand by and do nothing. In some respects I felt like a young wife must feel when she has a desire to produce a family. I began to ask God to make us more effective in what He had called us to do. I found myself with the desire to have accomplished something significant for our Lord and in His kingdom before I go to heaven. It became a driving force. I thought about it all the time. It sent me to my knees. It was what I prayed about all the time. The desire to be productive became an unquenchable fire. From that day until this my prayer has been that God will help me be more productive for Him every year than the year before. May God help us all stand before Him having produced “much fruit”.

The Harvest Is Worth The Risk

Remember the story in the Bible about the four lepers. It was about nine hundred years before Christ was born in the days of Elisha. Samaria was besieged by the Arameans. Everyone in the city was starving and things got so bad that some resorted to cannibalism. Just outside the city walls were four lepers. They too were starving, but unlike everyone else, they dared to take a risk. They chose to go into the enemy’s camp where there was abundance. Listen to their reasoning, “Why should we sit here waiting to die?” they asked each other. “We will starve if we stay here, and we will starve if we go back into the city. So we might as well go out and surrender to the Aramean army. If they let us live, so much the better. But if they kill us, we would have died anyway” II Kings 7:3-4 (NLT). The story ends with a miracle. When they dared to take a risk, God stepped in. Instead of hearing the footsteps of four lepers, the Arameans heard the thunder of a great army and fled leaving everything of value behind. The lepers enjoyed the spoils, and the city was saved all because four men dared to take a risk. Listen to what they said, “Why should we sit here waiting to die?” The principle is nothing ventured; nothing gained. Too many churches are dying because no one will dare to take a risk. Connecting Points declares we will not sit here until we die! There is abundance outside the church walls! Let’s go out there and connect with people so we can connect them to God and to us! When it becomes obvious status quo is producing nothing, it is time to take a risk.

Let's Do Something

In order to be effective in reaching people, we must purpose to do something. We must grow so sick of the status quo we can no longer just stand by and watch what others are doing. This is how we differentiate between compassion and concern. We can be concerned about something and do nothing. It is possible to watch Sally Strothers on TV pleading for relief for starving children and just shake our heads and say “isn’t that awful” if we are only concerned. Compassion, on the other hand, demands action. Compassion will always cause us to act. It was compassion that caused Christ to heal and help those He came into contact with. It was compassion that caused Him to cry out at Gethsemane, “Thy will be done!” It was compassion that caused Him to go to the cross. He was not just concerned about our sinful state, He had compassion for us. Thank God! When we purpose in our heart to do something we are, like Christ, moving with compassion. In one sense we could say that compassion mandates risk. We must dare to take a risk. Many never purpose to produce because of plain old fear. There is no room for fear in church leadership. It is time for us to square our shoulders and step out into the water of God’s purpose. We can never accomplish anything for the kingdom if we never go anywhere. The harvest is worth the risk. So come on. Let’s do something for our Lord!

A Passion To Produce

Reaping a harvest begins as a challenge in the heart of the farmer. The challenge is to overcome the obstacles to producing a harvest. This takes passion. Once he develops a passion to produce a harvest he must reproduce that passion in the hearts of all who help him. This is the job of the church leader. We are supposed to be going out and making disciples. This must become our passion. Not making more money. Not gaining popularity. We must be passionate about what God is passionate about. He is passionate about connecting with people. We are passionate about connecting people with Him. We develop and fuel this passion by properly handling the challenge. If we do not do this we are in danger of becoming just another negative, cynical, irrelevant church leader. We cannot expect a harvest if we fall into this all too familiar trap. There are three ways to miss-handle our challenge. First, we can play the blame game: It is my board’s fault, if they would only support me. It’s the people, if they would only get behind me. Listen! The work is too important. The time is to short. We do not have the time to blame anyone including ourselves. This is our hour. We must move ahead. The second trap is rationalizing away the challenge. “This is not my problem.” “Reaching out is for leaders far more charismatic and effervescent than we are.” “My people are to set in their ways to embrace change.” The excuses can go on and on “ad-nausem.” Rationalizing only tends to paralyze us into complacency. Apathy is the great destroyer of progress. We cannot afford to rationalize. Thirdly, we can make the mistake of allowing the challenge to cause us to grow weary and give up. We cannot expect a harvest if we give in. We must develop a passion to produce!