Relationships in work are always the key to opening the door towards success or destruction.  Get too close and the level of work can take a back seat.  Someone might think they can get too much more for less because of the relationship. Get too close and it could ruin a marriage and a family.

But stay too far and mistrust and selfishness takes the driver’s seat.  Each side can have this feeling that the other one is out to get them. Stay too far and the common understanding of how each are important to the task tends to fly out the window.  One begins to believe they are the important part and deserves ___________.

Knowing we’re all on the team together goes a long way.  At Fellowship Church, we’ve placed a high importance on our team leaders.  Team leaders, for us, are those working with Ministry Directors whom work with the Senior Pastors.  Ministry Directors oversee a specific area of ministry like Family Ministries, Life Groups, Sunday Morning, Web Campus, and First Impressions.  Team Leaders are the field specialists so to speak.  I believe these team leaders are a key towards success or destruction.  They truly are the go-between from the rest of the volunteers/attendees to the pastors.

We ask that leaders are prepared to provide maximum energy, maximum help, and maximum effort.  They need to be excited about, promote and participate in the church culture.  They need to build relationships with team volunteers.  They need to seek ways to ensure the team of volunteers succeed.  They help train the volunteers.  And because they are doing the tasks week in and week out, they know better than anyone better and new ways to accomplish the ministry.  They then accomplish all these things with their respective Directors.

The team leaders and directors need to have a good working relationship for this all to work.  And the directors and senior pastors need to have a good working relationship as well for this all to work.

It’s not a perfect system and it’s not without issues.  It certainly isn’t a way to separate people from the pastors.  It’s goal is to allow the pastors more time and ability to meet the needs of the congregation. It allows us all to have better working relationships, which leads to success.  And success for us is connecting and leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. When we fail, they fail; and when they fail, we fail as well.

In the land of unseen church, there are magical people, who do magical things, who need no food and have everything they need because of their magical pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  In some sense, this is how I thought pastors were when I was a teenager in our youth ministry.  Many people, if we’re honest with ourselves, think similarly now.  It’s not because we’re stupid, it’s just because we just don’t know.

Even before I became a pastor myself, I didn’t really know what pastors do all week, and isn’t it true that we often only expect that they “perform” and “feed” the congregation their spiritual food for the week on this one day, Sunday?  But pastors know that getting fed once a week just isn’t enough for themselves.  That’s why there are small groups, bible studies, online messages, books, phone calls, lunch meetings, emails, facebook and anything else that can grab our attention for Jesus.  Feeding the congregation their spiritual food takes a lot of preparation in gathering the food, studying the food, knowing all there is to know about the food, knowing all there is to know about the audience eating the food, so that during the cooking and final presentation, all the bodies will be prepared to do every good work for God.

How does that happen? Well, pastors have to eat too. Pastors have to feed themselves by allowing themselves to be fed by other pastors, people in the church, books, the bible, and by listening to God.  I listen regularly to other pastors like Craig Groeschel of Lifechurch.tv, Andy Stanley of North Point Community Church, Perry Noble of Newspring Church, Francis Chan of Cornerstone Church and Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church.  I try to hold myself accountable to a bible reading plan (for me, it’s reading the bible through in a 3 yr plan).  I use resources like youversion.com, Logos Bible software, and BibleWorks to study the bible. Check out my page on the books that I’m reading.  I’m also part of a great life group that meets on Wednesdays.  I also have a few relationships with guys and my leaders that I try to get in connection with on a weekly basis who challenge me to keep it all in a real perspective.  And of course, you can’t overlook a good relationship with a wife who is growing in her faith as well to help keep the balance even stronger.

Obviously it seems like it takes a lot more work than first thought to not only lead a body of believers, but also to grow in their own personal relationship with God.  Maybe, just maybe, all of us need to find ways to eat more often.  Not to minimize or let the pastor off easy, but for our sake of our growth toward a healthy spiritual walk, do everything you can to supplement the diet.

Paul in the New Testament tells us that all christians are “members of one body” and that when one suffers, we all should suffer with them as well as when one rejoices, we all should rejoice with them.  I saw this graphic this week from Persecution.com.  It shows 52 countries that Christians are persecuted or at least spread of the gospel comes with consequences.  Check out their site. Find ways to pray for and support the Christians in these countries.

In Sex, Lies and Religion, Randy Elrod gains my attention by asking “Have you ever had an experience with God that exceeds your most wild and fulfilling sexual moment? If the answer is no, you are not alone.”

I’d have to admit that for most of the first half of the book, I was lost as to where Randy was truly going.  I thought maybe he was saying that without having real sensual sex, one could not understand true intimacy with God. This might be a problem with singles who should believe that sex outside of marriage is sinful.

The book was in part a history of the lies that culture and religion have created that bends the truth about sex.  It was in part a description of how to have good sex.  It was in part a theology of seeing the body as important as the soul and the injustice religion and culture have put on the value of the senses and the body.  Throughout the book, he interweaves sex physically and spiritually with your mate and with God.  He says that our desires for sex is our desire for God. I felt that it was written from the assumption that the reader is a Christian married person and only mentions briefly what singles are to do.

In the end, the book was more about how sexual lies affect more than our sex lives, they show up in what we believe about God and visa versa.  Ultimately, the intimacy that is lacking in the marriage is also probably lacking with Him.  The last 40 some pages, in my opinion, would have served great at the beginning of the book.

The book has a lot of material and concepts in which 134 pages cannot do justice to the thought. For more on the book’s ideas, check out http://www.sexliesandreligion.com

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from cre:ate 2.0 Publishing to read and post a review on my site. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html<http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> >  “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

When you’re young you dream about the future in education, love, money, career, fun.

When you’re a business executive you dream about the future growth and profit of the company.

When you’re an evil scientist you dream of world domination.

We all dream of what could be and should be.

But

1). It doesn’t mean that everyone is going to buy into your dream.

Joseph in the Old Testament had a dream that his brothers and his father would be ruled by him.  This dream caused his brothers to hate him and ultimately sell him as a slave for 30 pieces of silver.

2). There are going to be people that want to change the course of your dream with their dream.

Joseph was a finely built and good looking man (kinda like myself, ha) and his master’s wife kept trying to get him to have sex with her.  He refused. One day she created a lie to her husband that Joseph tried to have sex with her to get back at him for not fulfilling her dream.  This sent Joseph to prison.

3). Not everyone is going to continue buying into your dream even if they first do.

Joseph helped interpret a dream of a cup bearer in the Egyptian prison.  He was excited over the good news of the dream and promised to help get Joseph out of prison, but once he was out, he forgot about Joseph.

It’s awesome to dream and put your dreams to action, but beware of the hardships that are going to come when you dare to dream.