Month: February 2019

Episode 054: Tithing

In this episode we sit down about the spiritual discipline of tithing. Is it still a valid New Testament practice? What does the Scripture teach? How should we talk about it?

 

 

Tithing is the beginning point of generosity not the end point… when people argue with me about tithing, they’re never arguing because they want to give more… they’re looking for a reason not to give…

 

Tithing for me revealed motives that were deep in my heart… it revealed my fear of losing money or not having enough… tithing unsettled and stretched me and made me more disciplined…

 

In Acts, when the Spirit is poured out, people get radical with their generosity… tithing is fulfilled and heightened in the New Testament, it is not done away with…

 

The reason that a lot of people aren’t tithing is that they are living off of more than 100% of their income… you have to learn to live on less…

 

Now of course when people walk through crisis, for that there is grace… in fact, that’s why the rest of us should be tithing—to take care of those people!

 

Sometimes the way that we’ve talked about tithing is transactional… it’s about the person to person interaction with God, and we’ve lost the communal aspect of tithing…

 

The problem with many people is that when they start making $75k or more is they lose contact with the poor… when you lose contact, you lose compassion… tithing keeps us connected to the plight of the poor…

 

One of my own measurements personally with giving is, “Can I pray the prayer: Give us this day our daily bread?” with authenticity… if I can’t pray that prayer and mean it, I’m not being generous enough…

 

Giving to the church is a different kind of giving… it is worshipful and therefore undesignated… there’s a sense in which it is an openhanded gift, where we are saying to God, “I am yours…”

 

If everyone at New Life Church tithed, we could just about solve the problem of homeless, single moms in El Paso County… that’s what drives me to talk about this…

 

Where a lot of pastors fall short is that we don’t tell people where the money is spent… we need to let people know how their collective giving does collective good…

 

Episode 053: The Why’s and How’s of Global Engagement

In this episode we sit down to talk about how the local church can responsibly and wisely enter into a robust engagement with the work of God’s Spirit around the world.

 

 

The mission of God has been a global story from the beginning… the trick that happens with any local church is that it’s easy to be insular…

 

A little perspective is sometimes what we need… we can often get lulled into a comfort where we’re surprised when bad things happen… we need the global for the gift of perspective…

 

Oftentimes when we go global, we think that we need to go preach, but I think it’s better to go and listen… the problem with the American church is that we go in as saviors and superheroes and we tend to do a very bad job of listening…

 

Missionaries often arrive with some “capital” into situations where people are devoid of it… the problem is that it teaches them to see us as a pile of cash… and it teaches us to see them as poor and needy… the Jesus way is emptying ourselves enough to really enter into relationship…

 

Partnerships are what we are looking for… friendships and partnerships sustain themselves… one of the sobering things we heard in Guatemala and Honduras was that pastors there felt abandon by American churches…

 

Countries are not changed by three-day trips, but by long term strategies based on trust and relationships…

 

My greater goal is to change my church here… to bring transformation to the hearts of my people at New Life… I want to change attitude, narrative, and perspective… the political climate is full of vitriol… we had pastors with tears in their eyes pleading with me to help Americans see them as people of hope and potential…

 

There are times when I’m in moments with folks overseas and I am saying to these brothers and sisters, “You are leading the way…” it is the third world showing the first world how to follow Jesus with all their heart, soul, mind and strength…

 

The global south is the church with the oil in their lamps… you see their reckless abandon and passion for Jesus… their zeal for prayer and for the poor… they have oil that we need… for us not to go harms US in the long term…

Episode 052: Leading From The Middle

In this episode we discuss the opportunities and challenges of leading “from the middle” of an organization. How do we become catalysts for health, creativity, and even vision when we don’t occupy the so-called “first chair”?

 

 

There’s a whole band of leadership that takes place “from the middle” where we are leading “upward” to those we report to, “downward” to those under our charge, and “laterally” among peers on the org. chart… we can be agents of change in that space…

 

We believe that vision can come from different places in the organization… Pastor Brady has prepared the way for that… it requires a leader who is willing to do that, to extent the trust, and people who can be trusted…

 

A lot of the work of leading from the middle is the work of translation… you have to be able to relay the feeling on the ground upward, but you also have to be able to take the 35,000 foot view and translate it downward…

 

I want to always remind the leader above me that I know they are in charge so that they never have to wonder about it… there’s a deference that we need to show…

 

Give the leader above you a document that they can edit… propose something, come open-handed, and let the leader above you make a good decision…

 

When no one is trying to win at the other’s expense, everything is fine… it takes all the fear out of the room…

 

Brady has created opportunities for us to practice our craft, giving us covering without always imposing… he’s given us space to practice and fail and has wisdom right there when we need it…

 

The goal on a team is not consensus, the goal is collaboration… for that to happen, everyone needs a voice… if they can weigh in, they can buy in…

 

Don’t squander the opportunity while you’re waiting for the first chair… are you pouting as we wait, or are you actually leading as though this is the place Jesus has planted you, and doing it with everything in you…?

 

And don’t assume that you actually want the first chair… as long as the Lord asks you to wait, wait…

Episode 051: A Culture of Life

In light of the recent abortion legislation passed in New York, we sat down to talk about what it looks like for the Church to not only preach but also work for a culture of life.

 

 

It seems like there’s been a great battle for women’s rights, and there have been great advances… but to associate the abortion law with women’s health is difficult for many people because we believe that life begins at conception…

 

In the name of fighting for more rights, we’ve dropped the conversation about what our responsibility is to these creatures who have been made in God’s image…

 

I want my daughter to have access to every possible health benefit that she can get… there’s not one thing I would withhold from her for the sake of her health… but because we have a different view of when life begins, we can’t back away… babies in the womb are precious in the sight of the Lord…

 

The One that we come to church and worship on Sunday mornings was the product of a difficult pregnancy… Christians are hard people to convince that life isn’t sacred in the womb… it is a theological conversation…

 

Women don’t often see the Church as a place where they can receive compassion and grace… we should be outraged at violence against children… however, when women come to us, we need to receive them, listen to them, and help them…

 

The Church has to go to extravagant lengths to welcome these women into our midst, being empathetic, kind, and compassionate, and offering real solutions…

 

People need to turn their zeal from outrage to outreach… and you’d be surprised at how many churches are quietly and effectively reaching women at this moment of crisis in their lives…

 

Politics do matter… we shouldn’t be partisan, but we should be political… laws matter, and unjust laws will hurt our community like just ones will help people thrive…

 

For all of us, we should contact our state and national legislators and tell them we believe in the sanctity of life and that we are here to help… if you come in combatively, you won’t get invited to the meetings you need to be invited to in order to make a difference…

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