Tag Archives: transformation

Leaders and Transformation: The Place of a Rule of Life

Two weeks ago, I reviewed with our New Life Fellowship pastoral staff team our “Rule of Life.” First drawn up in 2007, it has been the abiding document to order our life together for over five years. I read through the document paragraph by paragraph, giving history, context, and theology around important sections. Our new staff asked many very good questions. I walked away convinced, more than ever, of how important, and powerful, this tool is for each church leadership team. How can we lead others to transformation in Christ if we are not experiencing transformation ourselves? I share this document with you with the hope and prayer you will consider thinking through some of these issues for yourself and your leadership team. I invite you to read the entire Pastoral Staff Rule of Life on our website. I am including here a few paragraphs that are particularly significant. NLF Pastoral Staff Rule of. Read more.

EHL Conference -Opening Talk on the Leader's Marriage

This is the a segment of the opening talk Geri and I gave at our Pastor’s/Leader’s Marriage Pre-conference yesterday around a biblical theology of Marriage and Leadership. Beginning with our inadequate theology of marriage and leadership, we expound on the truth that as goes the leader’s marriage, so goes the church. It was our most recent attempt to present clearly this radical biblical paradigm that Scripture calls us to lead others out of our marriage. Enjoy. How might such a truth transform our churches and culture?

What are the Foundational Values of Your Leadership Team?

I recently finished Ruth Haley Barton’s Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry (IVP,2008). I enjoyed it thoroughly and found a number of valuable insights for my own leadership at New Life. I recommend it to you. One unique insight was to clearly articulate the values of your leadership team as you enter into challenging, difficult discussions. The following is my first draft for our NLF staff team (Her team’s can be found on pp.176-178 of her book). 1. Personal Spiritual Transformation – We consistently labor to maintain balance in our lives as leaders, ensuring that we have time for prayer, rest, healthy relationships (play) and work. Our rhythms are our first work and foundational for both our lives and leadership. 2. Community – We are a microcosm of the larger New Life and seek to maintain and build unity in our relationships as Christ did with the Twelve. While the work itself can easily distract us away. Read more.

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Pastor/Leader Life Cycle

I just completed an Updated/Expanded version of The Emotionally Healthy Church that is to be released in February, 2010. So this led me to quite a bit of reflection on what is the process for pastors and leaders to engage EHS, especially now that 30+ churches (as of last spring) have finished the Church-wide initiative. 1. Begin the Journey The most important thing we can do is to engage the message in our own lives, and to apply personally the powerful biblical themes explored in this book. Begin reading Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (Nelson, 2006) and/or The Emotionally Healthy Church (Zondervan, 2003 and 2010). Remember, we lead out of who we are. 2. Introduce to Leadership (EHS in Small Group) Gather a small group of your key leaders around The Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Workbook (Willow Creek Publishing, 2009) and begin providing an experience for your leaders to “go beneath the tip-of-the-iceberg” in. Read more.

An Invitation

The Holy Spirit has created, I believe, a holy discontent with our contemporary spiritual formation models that are not changing lives deeply. Without genuine, authentic testimonies of people profoundly transformed by Jesus Christ, our mission, strategies and plans will ultimately fall short. Let me begin by affirming: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst (1 Tim.1:15). This being said, I remain passionate as you might be, that the church be transformed into all Jesus Christ has called her to be. In the past few years, a growing number of pastors, leaders and others have reached out to us in their efforts to live out a radical discipleship paradigm that remains solidly evangelical and missional, while at the same time, integrates the riches of contemplative spirituality and emotional health. I seek to do this in my context at New Life Fellowship Church in Queens, NYC with people from. Read more.

The Reveal Study and Transformation

I just finished reading the Reveal study that was released by the WCA in August 2007. I was personally challenged by their courage to ask the question in a brutally honest fashion about whether we are really transforming lives in the church. Few of us as pastors and leaders have that kind of guts to actually look at the hard data. We owe Willow Creek a debt of gratitude for modeling characterand good leadership for us. Some of their insights very helpful. For example, the study revealed that increased involvement in church activities does not equal increased love or maturity in God. The connection between church activity and spiritual growth appears to be limited. 25% of people in our churches are stalled. People (80,000 surveyed) showed their top 3 needs were to understand the Bible in depth, get help for their emotional needs and help developing relationships that encourage accountability (from p. 38 Follow Me). There is a. Read more.

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