God resists the proud – who are the proud? The proud are not just the arrogant ones that think of themselves as superior to others. The proud are not just the ones who brag on what they can do or what they have. The proud are not just the unsaved. The Biblical definition of being proud would be anyone who relies on self to do what they can do in their own strength and understanding, by their own resources and abilities, and through their own connections and influence. Being proud is trying to find position with God based on disciplined behavior. Being proud is being self-sufficient. Being proud is being in control.

The opposite of being proud is being humble. The Biblical definition of being humble is choosing to yield to God and pursuing His ways. Being humble is surrendering to His lordship as the authority in a loving relationship. Being humble is relying on God – His strength, His resources, His influence.

The Bible says that God gives His grace to the humble, His grace being His more-than-enough sufficiency for anything that we need. God’s grace is His redemption, placing us in position with Him based on His sacrifice, not our works. His grace is His Presence in personal relationship with us. His grace is God abundantly resourcing what we need by His supply. His grace is His power and His ability to do more than what is required. His grace is more than enough, more than sufficient. His grace is His gift.

The Bible also says that God resists the proud. To resist means to oppose or to abstain from. God withhold Himself from a close relationship with the proud, even the believer who refuses to surrender. God will withhold His grace from the proud, His ability to help, even the Christian who refuses to yield. People that have to be in control, even Christians, are people that are found working against God. People that rely on their intellect are people that are found resisting God’s plans and God’s Spirit; however, people that lay aside their ideas and pursue what God wants and the way He wants it done, are people that God will grace.

You can attract God into your life. You can be like a magnet, drawing Him closer to you. His power is available to you. His resources, His direction, His wisdom, His peace – everything that He is, that He has and that He can do is for those who surrender to His love and authority.

Application: Check your surrender. Are you striving on your own in any area? If so, turn it over to God now and watch what He will do!

One of the signs of a mature Christian is that they have an internal compass. In other words they have the ability to judge themselves. Think about it. A young toddler does not have the ability to judge himself. He doesn’t know that it’s wrong to throw his toy truck at his sister.

“For if we would judge ourselves we should not be judged.” I Corinthians 11:31

The key to spiritual growth is the ability to do self-examination.

About fifteen years ago I was asking the Lord about some things I had in my heart for ministry that were not coming to pass. I was hoping the Lord would say something like, “In a few weeks someone is going to give you a million dollars and you will be able to accomplish your vision,” but that is not how He responded.

This is what He said to me. “If you don’t judge yourself in your weight and diet you will not see your vision come to pass.” I had to make some major changes in my lifestyle because my weight was having a negative effect on my life and my ministry.

Self-examination is the key to personal growth, but it is also the key to church growth.

Growing churches have differing theologies, worship programs and building designs, but one thing all growing churches have in common is the ability to do self-examination. The reverse is also true. When large churches reach the point where they think they have arrived and they stop evaluating themselves they stop growing. The leaders who do the greatest harm to the church are the ones who think they have arrived.

My dad, who was an investment broker, said this to his customers when they were considering investing in a particular stock. “A company is either on its way up, or on its way down. Which way do you think this company is headed?”

The same thing is true about churches. A church is either on its way up or on it’s way down. The question is not, “Are you a small church or a mega church?”  The question is, “Which way are you headed – up or down?”

There is no such thing as maintenance mode. Maintenance mode is really just a slow death. You are either growing or you are dying. If you are dying the only way to stop the bleeding is to be honest with yourself.

Are you open to change? If you don’t change you can become extinct.

A few years ago, I was listening to a tape by Bob Yandian, pastor of Grace Fellowship in Tulsa, OK.  One day Bob received a phone call from an elder of an independent church that Bob had attended as a child. The elder informed Bob that they were closing the doors on the church and he was looking for another church to donate the building to. When Pastor Bob entered the church building it was like walking into a time warp. The church had the same furniture, carpet and décor that it had forty years earlier. The pastor’s guitar was on the platform just like he remembered as a child. The only people left in the church were the five elders who were all in their 70’s and 80’s. Bob looked at his staff and said, “This is not going to be our future! We are going to change.”

The truth is the world is always changing because each generation changes it. Our challenge is to connect people, who are always changing with a God who never changes. We don’t change our message, but we change our methods. If we package an eternal message in an old wrapper it seems like an old message. If we refuse to change we will lose a generation.

How do I do this self-evaluation thing? I’m glad you asked.

Ask somebody to take some time and walk around your church on Sunday morning and look at things from the visitor’s point of view. This should be someone who does not attend your church, but someone who is new. News flash! All of your growth is going to come from people who do not currently attend your church.

Better yet, hire a church growth consultant who will give you some honest feedback. I have been consulting with churches for the past year. I am finding it is hard to give people honest feedback, but I don’t feel like I am being a good employee unless I do. One advantage with hiring a church growth consultant is that the risk is low, if he doesn’t attend your church. In other words you don’t have to follow his or her suggestions if God is not leading you that way.

Here are some steps to take when evaluating your church:

1)    Write down all the things that you feel your church does really well. This is important because there are some things you don’t need to change.

2)    Decide ahead of time what is not negotiable.

3)    Do an anonymous survey of a sampling of your congregation. (You will not get honest feedback if this is not anonymous.) Ask them to grade you church programs. Admittedly this is hard to do, but it is necessary.

4)    Take a look at what other churches are doing. Get outside of you click.

5)    Evaluate yourself in the following areas:

• Preaching
• Worship
• Kids Ministry
• Youth Ministry
• Building Décor
• Parking Lot
• Bathrooms
• Signage
• Lobby & Hallways
• Feel of the Church
• How easy is it to volunteer
• Do I have enough leaders?
• What happens when I go on vacation?

A willingness to change helps bring new people in. It says to them that you are prepared for their visit and that you are thinking about things from their prospective.

I accepted the pastorate of a small church in Sarnia, Ontario several years ago. The Nursery had not been in use for years so Deb and I cleaned it up, painted the walls and put in new carpet. Some people asked “Why are you doing all this work when we don’t have any babies in the church?” My response was “Company is coming and we need to get ready.”

New people will be visiting your church this week. Are you prepared for them?

You can contact Mark at Mark@SuperChurch.com or 800-798-4872

Receiving blessings from God can easily become an interest of the Christian. After all, who doesn’t like to receive a blessing? Who doesn’t like to see the Lord working on our behalf? It’s a great feeling to receive a gift. Receiving a gift is receiving from God’s grace. It’s over and above what we have worked for or attained in our own strength.

There is another aspect of grace that God wants to interest us in, and that is the grace to give. The concept is the same – God wants us to lean on Him to go over and above what we could do with our own ability and our own resources. He wants us to rely on His grace, His strength and His supply, to have something to give to someone else.

The heart of God is love, and His love is gracious; His love is generous. We are His children; we are like our Father when we desire to show generosity to someone else. Generosity expresses the compassionate love of God to another person that God loves.

A believer who desires to give is a believer that God will resource to give. A believer who desires to give is a person who trusts God to not only meet their need, but also to use them to meet the needs of someone else. Our interest in being a giver, when it is based on God’s grace, is focused on seeing another person blessed. Don’t wait until you are overflowing with blessing before you become a vessel of God’s grace to bless someone else.

We are like God when His love is ruling our hearts, compelling us to be a blessing to someone else instead of focusing on how we can be blessed ourselves. Our faith opens up our heart to become a wider pipeline to both give and receive God’s grace. Our faith causes us to be open-handed instead of closed-fist. The more open we are, the more liberal and free God’s grace flows through us. The person who matures in their faith is believing God to operate through them with His abundant, over-the-top grace. A person of faith isn’t relying on their own supply to give. They are relying on God’s grace for His supply to flow through them. It is better to give than it is to receive.

Application: According to II Corinthians 9:10, even the seed we have to give is from God. Ask God for seed to sow. God will provide a way for you to become a conduit of His generous love and grace.

We all faced circumstances when we woke up this morning. Some circumstances we created, some were created for us and other circumstances happened because of the world we live in. Some of our situations are favorable and smile on us, but some circumstances are unfavorable and need to be overcome. Unfavorable circumstances can seem to be small or they can feel monumental.

Here is the good news about God and His grace – God is bigger than any circumstance that we will ever face and His grace supplies more than what is needed to either bring change in a circumstance or to live abundantly through an unfavorable situation. His grace supplies what we lack. His grace gives strength in our weakness. His grace takes us over and above and beyond our ability. His grace is greater!

Are you facing loneliness, depression? God is bigger than that!

Are you facing hurts, offense? God is bigger than that!

Are you facing sickness, disability, death? God is bigger than that!

Are you facing fear, shame or guilt? God is bigger than that!

Are you facing lack, loss, grief? God is bigger than that!

Are you facing divorce or separation? God is bigger than that!

Are you facing temptation, addiction, failure? God is bigger than that!

Whatever you are facing, our God is bigger. Our God is greater. Our God is stronger. Our God is higher. There is nothing incurable, unforgiveable, untouchable, or impossible for God! There is nothing too bent that God cannot straighten. There is nothing too far gone that God cannot reach it. If we think of God in limits, then we are trying to put our God-size God inside a man-size box.

God did not purpose for us to do life on our own in our natural strength. We were meant to live in partnership with a spiritual Father, experiencing His supernatural ability gracing our lives. He is Almighty God and we are His children. He is here, as our Father, to do what we cannot do on our own. Allow God to be big in your life. Allow God to do what He can do because of who He is and because of the love that He has for us.

Application: Ask yourself, “Is there anything I am trying to do apart from God? If there is, I encourage you to invite God into your circumstance, accepting His willingness and ability to demonstrate His love and His power for you. Give Him every area of your life and enjoy knowing Him.

Romans 8:26 “… the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

Prayer changes things. If it didn’t, then Jesus wouldn’t have asked us to pray and to believe for results. However, we don’t always know how we should pray. Romans 8:26 tells us that we are limited in what we know, so the Holy Spirit, who knows the mind of God, helps us to pray beyond our understanding (I Corinthians 2:11).

The Holy Spirit does this in a couple of different ways. There are times when He reveals to us what we are to pray. There are other times when we don’t need to know, so He can help us bypass our understanding. He does this by giving us the ability to pray out words in another language that we don’t know. It is referred to as “speaking in tongues” or “praying in the Spirit.” We read about this in the book of Acts and in other New Testament books.

I Corinthians 14:14 “For if a pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.”

I Corinthians 14:2 “For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries.”

The purpose for praying beyond our understanding is to operate in a grace to go beyond what we know. Our prayers are effective because of the grace the Holy Spirit supplies to us to pray the purpose of God as we yield to Him. When we pray out God’s purpose, breakthroughs happen, situations change and lives are transformed!

There are also times in prayer when we might feel that we’ve run out of words to say to express how we feel. It seems as if our tongue is tied. When we yield to the Holy Spirit, we can pray or sing in worship to the Lord in an unknown language. He gives our heart expression and we experience a marvelous encounter with God!

Application: There are two ways to speak in tongues mentioned in I Corinthians 14. One is public and one is private. Not everyone experiences giving a message in tongues publicly, but the private and personal use of tongues is for every believer. If you have not had this experience, ask the Lord to give you the grace to pray beyond your understanding.

Every church has a unique DNA. We’re all called to develop Christ followers, but how that is done varies from church to church. Each church’s culture and DNA is downloaded from God to the senior pastors. They’ve been entrusted with a huge responsibility, and they need our support to do the big, hairy, audacious thing that God has called them to do.

This is my third year in the role of executive pastor, “vision carrier” as I see it. (In fact, I describe myself that way on my Twitter profile.) Our senior pastor casts the vision, and I’m responsible to give the vision arms and legs—to make sure everything we do reflects who we say we are. My job is not to tell my senior pastors how to run the church. Instead, it’s to support them as they execute the God-given vision in the way they believe He is asking them to do it.

For example, I can confidently say Freedom House is most known for two things in our community. First is healthy relationships. We believe that because God exists in community (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) and we have been created in His image, then we too were created to be in community and do life together in a healthy way. We follow the Matthew 18 model, and while it can be hard and uncomfortable to be honest and real, we believe there’s no substitute for truly healthy, authentic relationships. It’s why we do the hard work to develop them. We’re also known for excellence. The word average does not compute on our team! We believe “good enough” is the enemy of “best.” If God gave His best to us, then we’re responsible to always give our best service to Him.

These values are important to our senior pastors, so they became important to me. And as I carry that vision to our entire staff and leadership, it has become important to them as well.

Anytime I hear church staff members imply that they could “do it better” if they were in charge, my response is always, “But you’re not in charge! You won’t have to give account for this ministry; your senior pastors will.”

The church staff is the army going into battle together with our senior pastors every day. We’re the defense system there to guard what God has entrusted to the senior pastors (and by extension to us). If we don’t share the senior pastors’ commitment, then our priorities are in competition. There’s an old saying: If you chase two rabbits, both will escape. If you try to focus on competing priorities, you’ll accomplish nothing. Ultimately everybody loses. Those of us who serve as staff members in the church will make our senior leaders’ lives so much easier once we understand that our job is to carry the vision.

That doesn’t mean the staff or I are “yes men.” My senior pastors and I don’t always agree on everything, and we’ve had our share of heated discussions. But I do my best to express my opinion in a respectful and honoring way. I never try to get my way for the sake of getting my way; rather, I try to bring a different perspective for the good of the organization. It’s not about me winning or getting my way; it’s about the church as a whole winning; it’s about the vision winning.

In particular, one of my senior pastors and I are polar opposites. Our personalities naturally clash, and in the early years our differences had the potential to be a huge divider for us. Our instinct was to dismiss one another, and I for one was tempted to walk away from God’s calling because of what was, in the grand scheme of things, a small personality difference (despite how big it seemed).

We had a choice to make: we could walk away from each other and never deal with our differences, or we could look at them as an opportunity for both of us to grow. Thankfully we chose the second option! Instead of holding our differences against each other, we chose to see them as complements to ourselves: Where I’m weak, she’s strong; where she’s weak, I have strengths to offer. We’re a good complement to each other, and each of our unique gifts has played a role in what Freedom House has become.  Accepting and even employing our differences has helped us do ministry and life together in ways neither of us could have imagined.

As I walk in the shoes of the executive pastor, I feel like I win when the vision wins. When I see our culture healthy and thriving—when leaders demonstrate our core values in their actions and conversations with others; when volunteers go the extra mile because they understand that’s just how we do what we do; when staff members allow their differences to drive them toward growth—then I feel I’ve done my job well. I’ve given legs to the vision and heart of my senior pastors, and those legs are moving the vision forward to accomplish what God has called us to do.

I’ve had a lot of time to learn my pastors’ heart, and I’ve found it’s essential to vision-carrying. Knowing their heart means knowing what’s important to them, then doing everything you can to make sure that’s what is being done. Their heart adds life to the vision, and knowing the pastors’ heart will make carrying the vision that much simpler. The best advice I could offer any church staff person: Learn your pastors’ heart! Once you know their heart do all you can to make sure their heart and the vision is being expressed in your church. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did and your church will be the better for it.

Follow Makeda Pennycooke on Twitter: @makeda619

Ephesians 2:10 says that we are created for good works when God did a work in us. God took what was dead and made us alive. He took what was headed for judgment and liberated us into His freedom.  God took us from slavery to sin and placed us in a right standing position with Him. God took us in our mess and made us a masterpiece of His righteousness. We are the workmanship of God in Christ Jesus! God makes beautiful things.

God has chosen to work together with us. He loves us. He wants to do life together with us. He wants to use us as vessels that He can demonstrate His glory in and through. When the world looks at us, God wants them to see what His power has done in us and what His power can do through us.

Ephesians 2:8, 9 show us that His generous grace is available to the one who will receive it by faith. Our faith is our yielded heart to allow God to move through us. God will not force Himself on us or through us; He is looking for those who will surrender to His working. As His workmanship, we have been created for good works.

What are the good works that we are to do together with God? Jesus said in John 14:12 that we would do His works, and greater works, because He would send us the Holy Spirit to live within us. Jesus reached the lost, served the weak, healed the sick, delivered the bound, fed the hungry, gave rest to the weary, and met the needs of the poor. Jesus is our example. He told us that everything He did, He did because the Father instructed Him to do it. Jesus yielded His life in faith to the grace of God and the supply of the Holy Spirit. We are to do the same – to lay our life down so that God’s glory can be revealed through us.

We are containers of the glory of God and miracles are products of the supply of the Spirit – God’s grace. We have limits, but God’s grace is limitless. There is nothing that God cannot do through a heart that is surrendered to His power.

Application: If we promote ourselves, we restrict what God will do. If we withdraw ourselves, we hinder what God will do. God has chosen you to perform His will today by making yourself available to do His works.

We can’t compare our relationship with God to any human relationship that we’ve experienced. It’s like a marriage, but so much more. It’s like a parent/child relationship, but so much more. When we know God, we find ourselves whole, satisfied, and at rest in the binding, intertwining, and continual connection with His Person. God doesn’t want to be part of our life; God is our life.

When we experience God, we also experience God’s grace, not only for eternal life, but also for what we are to do or become or possess in this life. We were never meant to do life apart from God in our own strength. Grace describes the desire and the ability of God to share Himself with the world, including who He is, what He has, and what He can do. God knows that men and women need Him, and His love causes Him to want to meet the needs of those who will turn to Him.

Grace is only understood when a relationship with God is experienced. Only dependent, active faith experiences the supply, strength and glory of God’s grace. Living in grace is living in reliance upon God. In Judges 7 we read about the life of Gideon. Gideon did not have confidence in himself, but he did have confidence in God. Gideon would not move in his own strength, but he would go if he knew that God was the one calling and sending him. God was looking for a life He could shine through. When Gideon was to go to war against their enemy, they were already outnumbered 4 to 1. God whittled their army down so that they were 450 to 1. This is what God said: Judges 7:2 “… The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.” God wanted to be seen through Israel. God wants to be seen through you.

God’s grace will take us beyond what we can do, but what God wants to do, He wants to do together with us. The people God chooses are people who will put their faith in Him. They are people who know God’s love and love God. They are people who want God to be known for who He is.

Application: I Corinthians 1:27-28 tell us that God will choose the weak so that His strength can be seen. However strong we think we are, God is stronger. God wants to express His love and His power to us and through us so the world will know Him. Trust God to do something bigger than you.

Grace is the God-factor that not only completes who we are, but also takes us above and beyond what we could ever do on our own.

In Ephesians 3:20 there are two words that have been translated as exceedingly abundantly in one translation (NKJV). It has also been translated immeasurably more (NIV), infinitely more (NLT), as well as more plenteous, far more and much more. The Amplified version translates it like this, “superabundantly, far over and above.” All these words describe God’s grace, His ability and His willingness to take us above and over and beyond what we can do.

Both words in the original language come from a root word meaning “over, above and beyond.” The second word means superabundant, excessive, overflowing, surplus, superfluous, extremely more, over and above, profuse, extraordinary, above the ordinary, more than sufficient. This word is also found in John 10:10 where Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

When we put these two words together it is like saying that God is more than more than enough! We do not want to limit God. His grace is able to take us over, above and beyond anything that we could ever do. He is able to do more than what we could ask for. He is able to do more than we could ever think, dream, hope, pray, desire or imagine. More! God’s grace is about more. God’s grace is about going beyond us. God’s grace is going beyond our ability, beyond our resources, beyond our strength, beyond our knowledge, beyond our strategies, beyond our goodness with His goodness, His plans, His understanding, His power, His provision, and His ability. Do we know who our God is? Do we know that this amazing God wants to work on our behalf? Do we know that this infinite Creator wants to do more than meet our needs, to fulfill us, to satisfy us – God wants to pour His grace on us so that it overflows! Our God is more than more than enough!

God’s grace is literally beyond me. God is bigger than me, much, much bigger. All He wants is for me to trust Him enough to let Him be my God. All He wants is for me to stop living independently of Him, and to find life in reliance upon Him as my God, my Creator, my Father. His grace is His desire to love me with all that He is, all that He has, and all He can do.

Application: Let go and let God. Is there an area where you feel that you are lacking? Ask God to reveal His grace and to go beyond you.

Honestly, this has happened to me many times throughout my 25 years of church leadership. There have been some Sundays (and Saturdays and Wednesdays) that I find myself participating on the outside — nodding along to the message and  raising my hands in worship — but on the inside, I am as disconnected as I can be. I am going through the motions, but my heart isn’t in it. I find myself distracted and restless, and maybe even a little discouraged. But I plow on, because, well, serving God is my job! When that thought enters my head, I know it’s time to do some soul searching.

Personally, I know I am getting close to the “God is my job” mindset, when:

• I find myself mindlessly going through the motions during service, but my mind is in a different place (making my to do list, planning my calendar, reading twitter on the front row when I’m supposed to be following along in YouVersion).
• I lose my interest in meeting new people.
• I want to come as late as I can and leave as early as I can after service.
• I start seeing actual ministry as an interruption to the tasks I need to get done.
• I enjoy video announcements more than worship.
• I listen to the sermon for other people rather than for myself.
• I get picky about the song list.
• I focus more on how the service is being done than on the presence of God.

Serving God should never become a job to us. As spiritual leaders, we must to fight every day to keep the fire of God alive in our hearts. When I find myself slipping into a “God is my job” attitude, this is what I do to get back on track:

• Do a health check:
  • Am I being consistent in my spiritual disciplines? (Prayer, bible study, giving, and periodic fasting)
  • Am I guarding the gateways to my soul? (My eyes and ears — what I watch and listen to has an impact on your attitude)
  • Am I practicing thankfulness? (Our default as humans is to be ungrateful and negative. We have to be intentional about cultivating thankfulness and positivity in our minds.)
• Hit the reset button on my identity: Remember this, before you are a pastor, pastor’s wife, church staff, or lay leader, you are first and foremost a child of God. He has entrusted you with responsibility and a calling, but at the end of the day, He still calls you “son” or “daughter.” there is no pretense with God. He sees through all of it, so get real with Him.
• Hit the reset button on my church experience: Even though you may have a service role at church, you still need to be able to experience God’s presence. Whatever opportunity you have to pray, worship, or participate in the service, make it count. Don’t merely go through the motions.

You can learn more about Kerri Weems by visiting these links:

www.celebration.org
www.kerriweems.com
www.shineinc.org
www.facebook.com/kerri.weems
www.twitter.com/KerriWeems