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It struck me that God has done more than I could have possibly imagined in so short a time, and that I am in awe of the fact he would allow me to serve him like this. I’m blessed beyond words, and grateful for the men and women I am privileged to lead. May God’s grace abound all the more, and his kingdom continue to expand in Austin!

It seems to me that our preaching has a 3-fold reach in regards to focus and application. It seems that each message has an individual application in how we view God, a community application that explains to the body how this message affects the local church they sit in and informs the strategy or theology of their vision and then finally how it affects the way Christians live in and engage a secular society that doesn’t agree with them.

Go give it a read and chime in here!

As I’ve been thinking on discipleship for the last few weeks, it naturally has been provoking thoughts of leadership.  I’m going to start a new series with my philosophy and practice of leadership and leadership development, especially within the church.

Service

The foundation on leadership is very simply service.  Godly leadership is very simply a selfless act, and a desire not for positional leadership, but of sacrificial living.

• Matthew 20:26-28
• Matthew 23:11-12
• Luke 9:46-48
• Philippians 2:1-11

These Scriptures are abundantly clear that first and foremost, leadership is about loving and serving Christ and His people.

Vision is useless unless it is done in service to others to the glory of God. Strategy is worthless if you are failing to love and serve people.  Leadership is hollow if you are not leading toward Christ and his calling to sacrificial, Spirit-led obedience.

I find I am more prone to desiring the position of leadership, rather than being a leader.  What about you?

To over-simplify, the insight is that church leaders tend to be prophets, priests, or kings. Prophets love to proclaim the word of God and dream about where God is leading the church. Kings love to put systems in place to make it happen. Priests make sure that everyone is cared for and feels God’s love along the way.

Understanding your church leadership in light of those strengths (and attending weaknesses) can help you identify blind-spots and make good decisions about staffing and new leaders. I have found this really helpful as our church incorporates new elders and thinks through how we can do things better.

This concept, although not limited to simply to leadership, has been a great tool to help people understand what they naturally gravitate toward in leadership.  I’d also recommend that you take a look at Drew Goodmanson’s material here.

via Church Matters: The 9Marks Blog

Happy Independence Day!

I’m celebrating by performing a wedding ceremony this evening, followed by a great night of fireworks in the neighborhood (fireworks are legal in our neck of suburbia…it’s like Beirut on the 4th in Wells Branch).

On another note, Chris Tomlin’s rendition of Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone) has been playing in my head all day long, and I am thankful for the work God has done in me to set me free.

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
~Galatians 5:1

May we no longer be subject to sin, but experience the grace of Christ which truly sets us free on this Independence Day.

Below are some links for those who are interested in College Ministry:

• Exploring College Ministry – Benson Hines writes his observations and thoughts on college ministry after 2 years worth of research.
• College Ministry Thoughts – Chuck Bomar posts some good research that is useful as you think through ministering to a specific demographic.
• Campus Church Networks – There are some good resources here for thinking through missional communities on campuses.
• The Values of Generation Y – This was a good post exploring some research and its implications on college ministry from Rhett Smith.
• City Campus Ministry – Resources from the College Ministry of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City.
• Harvard Business Review – An encouragement for students to take a year doing something unassociated with their future career.

As always, you can find out what’s going on with The Austin Stone College Ministry at our blog.

Benson Hines has a great discussion about integration of college ministry relative to mission here.

This has been a consistent struggle for us in the College Ministry at The Austin Stone, but definitely one that has yielded great fruit in ministry.  To summarize where we have landed, we:

1. Deliberately integrate our weekly worship service, and will NOT begin a separate service just for college students.
2. Provide specific environments and a few events aimed at assimilating college students, including a worship service on campus once per semester (Austin Stone on Campus audio and review).
3. Deliberately integrate students into ministry opportunities that serve the church and serve our city.  Any opportunity that exists in open for any college student to participate, and we encourage students in that direction.
4. We contextualize our missional community structure to mobilize students onto campus, and therefore have a separate ministry that is under the leadership of our overall missional community structure, but operates relatively independently.
5. We have both integration and separation in our equipping ministry and global missions ministry.  There are specific opportunities just for students that equip and mobilize based on their schedule and life stage, but also students are welcome to engage in any of our other course/seminar/training environments and global mission opportunities.

There is never a perfect answer, but this has been an effective solution that affords opportunities for students to connect with people outside their lifestage, but also keep them invested in their mission field.

• Part 1 – Foundations of Discipleship
• Part 2 – Practice of Discipleship
• Part 3 – Process of Discipleship 1
• Part 4 – Process of Discipleship 2
• Part 5 – Tools I Use

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing through my discipleship philosophy, and hope it has been beneficial to you as a reader.  It has certainly provoked a number of good thoughts and given me ideas for organizing and implementing discipleship relationships into the future.  If you have any questions or would like access to any resources I have, just shoot me an email.

I wanted to take a quick timeout and say thanks for reading this blog!

I’d encourage you, if you haven’t already, to subscribe to my RSS feed or subscribe by email.

If you have no idea what an RSS feed is, you can find more here.  If you’re looking for a good feed reader, I recommend Google Reader.

We will now return to your regularly scheduled program…