If you don't find yourself in a compelling story you'll be captured by a lesser one.

Are You a Catalyst?

February 27, 2012 by 4 Comments
Mountain top

The Mountain.

Suppose you are the leader of a group of people. Your first leadership challenge is guiding your people to a nearby valley. The only obstacle is a large, treacherous mountain that stands between you and your destination.

Unfortunately, only the strongest, most active and able-bodied will be able to cross over the mountain. There is no way around, and the mountain is tall and dangerous. If the young and weak attempt this climb they will surely turn back, or worse yet, die.

What do you do? You cannot abandon half of your people but you also cannot ask them to do what they are unable to do.

Suppose you cut a tunnel through the mountain. Now, the remaining people in your group are able pass through to the valley. The tunnel has provided an easier route but the mountain still stands tall and impassable for many.  The mountain wasn’t lowered. The obstacle itself wasn’t eliminated. But an alternative route was found – one that takes less energy to pass through.

This is the work of a catalyst.

(I understand that digging a tunnel through a large mountain like above is not desireable, nor is it possible, but it works for the sake of the illustration.)

The Mandate.

Chemistry was one of my least favorite classes but the process of catalysis always intrigued me.

A catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction that would otherwise have taken much longer to happen or, under the circumstances, would never have happened.

Many would never have crossed that mountain. Some would have died trying. Because of the catalyst (creating a tunnel) you were able to lead your entire group to the destination.

There are many catalysts but the most powerful and active catalysts on the face of the earth are humans. God created us to be catalysts: change-makers, image-bearers, creators, subduers, multipliers, order-makers. It was a our Creation mandate from our Creator, “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill the earth! Take Charge! Be responsible! Create order out of chaos! Be like Me!”

Yes, you are a catalyst.

But, are you operating as one.

The Godly.

The chemical characteristics of a catalyst are fascinating to me:

  • Catalysis: the rate of change in a chemical reaction due the participation of a catalyst.
  • Positive Catalyst: a catalyst that encourages/speeds up the reaction
  • Negative Catalyst: a catalyst that discourages/slows down the reaction
  • Promoters: substances or conditions that increase the activity of catalysts (the right environment, temperature, water, etc.)
  • Inhibitors: substances or conditions that decrease the activity of catalysts (the wrong environment, temperature extremes, etc.)
  • Poisons: substances or conditions that kill the activity of catalysts.
  • Interesting Fact: A catalyst is never consumed by the reaction in which it is participating. Therefore, it may participate in multiple chemical reactions over and over and over.  It enters the reaction as a by-product and remains a by-product. The result of the chemical reaction isn’t the catalyst, but a product of the catalyst’s encouragement/involvement.

Now, take those characteristics and translate them into how Godly catalysts operate:

  • Catalysis: the rate of improvement, growth, or healthy movement in a community due the participation of a catalyst.
  • Positive Catalyst: a catalyst that encourages/speeds up the growth of a community
  • Negative Catalyst: a catalyst that discourages/slows down the growth of a community
  • Promoters: factors or conditions that increase the activity of catalysts (dependency on God, Holy Spirit, prayer, encouragement, Scripture, worship, etc.)
  • Inhibitors: substances or conditions that decrease the activity of catalysts (independence from God, discouragement, sin, complacency, doubt, control, etc.)
  • Poisons: factors or conditions that kill the activity of catalysts.
  • Interesting Fact: A catalyst isn’t consumed during the work of the ministry in which it is participating. Therefore, it is freed up to participate over and over and over without being burned out.  It uniquely serves, encourages, equips, and empowers others in the community in a natural way (Eph 4). The result of a healthy community isn’t the promotion of the catalyst, but a Godly product of the catalyst’s encouragement and involvement.

The Commission.

The thought of being a Godly catalyst could be daunting. Digging tunnels through mountains is not easy work. Empowering, equipping, and encouraging the people in your community is not easy either. But don’t let the inhibitors and poisons kill your passion and creativity by causing you to doubt your mandate as a catalyst.

Godly effort is not possible without Godly power and Jesus tells the doubters that they have that power in Him and through Him:

When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:17-20)

As a disciple you’ve been commissioned as a catalyst for the gospel. All Christians are catalysts, and catalysts are conduits for God’s work. The only things required for you to be a catalyst are faith and availability.

Be faithful. Be available.

Are you responding to the mandate to be a catalyst? In what ways have you seen a catalyst in action?

 

 

Filed Under: Community, Faith Tagged With: , , , , ,

Full-Time, Full-Time Ministry

February 23, 2012 by 18 Comments

The Calling.

The calling in my life has always been clear.

There has never been a doubt that God called me to be in full-time ministry. However, I always thought my ministry included having a full-time job in the business world.

On March 1st, though, I am stepping out of my employment as a quality engineer at a electronics manufacturer and will be going full-time in full-time ministry with my church.

Over the past two years I’ve felt God preparing me for something big and I kept asking, “What is it God? What are you preparing me for? Where do you want me, where do you want my family? Where are you leading us?”

A lot of things were changing and stirring inside of me. I started writing a lot and wondering whether or not God wanted me to be a writer. I started questioning whether or not God wanted me to quit my job and be self-employed. Ultimately, I realized God was strengthening my already existing passion for full-time ministry.

Usually when a person feels a clear call to full-time ministry the logical next step is to put together a resume of sorts, look for church communities that are hiring, and pray for God to open up an opportunity. That wasn’t what God was telling me to do.

I have been fully invested in my local church community, Mosaic NEO, for the past six and a half years. The calling to serve at Mosaic is not what God wants to change. What I realized is that God wasn’t calling me into something new but He was calling out of something. God was asking me to surrender and trust in Him.  

God was calling me out of my job and I’ve never been more certain about anything in my life.

The next chapter.

The community of Mosaic has been operating for more than six years with only one full-time staff person, our lead pastor. Because the community has grown over the years and our staff hasn’t we’ve felt the growing pains in many different ways. Just a few of those pains were felt in the areas of:

  • Leadership development
  • Discipleship
  • Administration/Organization
  • Accountability

This next chapter of my life will be centered around equipping, empowering, and unleashing the community of Mosaic in these areas and more. I am excited for what God is going to do in and through our community with the advancement of His kingdom. Having a front row seat to what God is doing in people’s lives is what excites me the most.

God’s people must not only believe in the love and grace of God, but also be armed with God’s love and grace. I am ready to surrender to Him in the arming of His people.

The prayer of my heart.

It is difficult to write about myself and what I’m doing because the desire of my heart is for God’s glory to be on display. The prayer of my heart for my small little community in northeast Ohio is the same prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesians.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

- Ephesians 3:14-21

What is God preparing you for? What is the calling of your life? Are you doing it?

Filed Under: Church, Family, Mosaic Tagged With: , ,

Trading it all in for $50 a month

February 15, 2012 by 10 Comments
50dollars_1

In 1961 a young, tired, weary-striken man stood in an unemployment line.

He had nothing to eat and nothing to bring home to his pregnant wife. He believed God was going to provide, but even more, he believed in those who committed to stand behind him financially as he and his wife settled as missionaries on the Texas-Mexico border. If only he know how far behind them they were going to stand. He hadn’t heard from any of them in weeks and their initial support had run out.

With no other options, Allen found himself standing in line waiting for a hand out.

Allen was able to work as a butcher. It was the work God had blessed him with prior to leaving for the mission field. And, it was his only marketable skill that allowed him to sign up for unemployment.

Fifty dollars a month—that’s what they offered him.

However, In order to receive the unemployment money he had to sign an agreement to take a job as a butcher if one became available. Allen trusted in God’s provision, but couldn’t figure out how He was going to provide food for him and his pregnant wife. By signing the agreement to take the next available job he would be disobeying what he felt God was calling him to do—to be a missionary. God had called him to minister to the poor and the hungry in Mexico as a missionary and he couldn’t do that working as a butcher.

If a job comes available, he thought, I just won’t accept it. But that would by lying.

Desperate, hungry, and with no hope he signed the agreement—for fifty dollars.

Allen set off from the unemployment office to the nearby grocery store to get what he and his wife needed. Standing in the aisle looking at orange juice a familiar voice entered his head, “You fool. You just traded all I could do for you away for fifty dollars a month.”

Did I really just trade it all in for a petty fifty dollars, he thought. Is my faith only worth fifty dollars?

Immediately he ran back to the unemployment office. The women working there thought he was crazy, and maybe he was, but if being crazy meant trusting in God he didn’t want to be sane.

He handed the money back.

Allen chose trusting God over taking the fifty dollars. He chose to fall back into the arms of the Father in desperation, but full of trust. Can the poor and hungry minister to the poor and hungry? They sure can.

Allen and his wife continued ministering to the poor and hungry on the Texas-Mexico border that very day and many more to come.

God provided for them that week through an anonymous supporter. Then, God provided for them every year thereafter for forty-nine straight years. Forty-nine years of ministry and it all started with surrender.

To this day, Allen still can’t believe he was going to trade it all away for fifty dollars a month.

______________________________________________

This is a true story of my friend, Allen, who is now 74 years old and lives here in northeast Ohio. His life is full of stories like this one. I hope by the time I’m 74 I have as much faith as this man had at the age of 23.

Allen would want me to tell you that above all else God wants to use simplified vesssels to write into the story of His kingdom. Being a simplified vessel starts with surrender and trust.

Are you living a story of surrender and trust?

Filed Under: Faith, Story-Formed, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Our Family Rules

February 13, 2012 by 5 Comments
Family Rules

What are some of your family rules? 

Filed Under: Family, Gospel Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Parable of the Life-Saving Station

February 6, 2012 by 7 Comments

I re-post this parable at least once a year. It is a compelling picture of what can happen to a church community when it focuses solely on its comfortable existence rather than its God-give mission to rescue the lost.

____________________________________________________

On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude little life-saving station. The building was just a hut and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea. Ships often smashed up against the rocks and many were tossed overboard with no hope. With no thought for themselves the members of the life-saving station went out day or night tirelessly searching for the lost.

Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station, so much so that it became famous. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding areas, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time, money, and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews were trained. The little life-saving station grew.

Some of the new members of the life-saving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and so poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea.

They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in an enlarged building. Now the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they re-decorated it beautifully and furnished it as a sort of club. The members began to hang out there frequently and enjoy their new club.

Less of the members were now interested in going to sea on life-saving missions, so they hired life boat crews to do this work.

The mission of life-saving was still given lip-service but most were too busy or lacked the necessary commitment to take part in the life-saving activities personally.

About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat loads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people.

They were dirty and sick. Some of them were different and spoke a strange language. The beautiful new club quickly became dirty and full of those who needed help. The property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s life-saving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal activities of the club. But some members insisted that life-saving was their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station, not a club. The devote life-saving members were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own life-saving station down the coast.

So they did.

As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. They evolved into a club and yet another life-saving station was founded down the coast.

If you visit this seacoast today you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters, but now most of the people drown.

- adapted material from Brent Hunter, Personal Evangelism 101, with permission
 
____________________________________________________
 
When a community operates as it should biblically, it will without a doubt attract many. Yet, we must constantly resist the urge to turn inward with the desire to simply meet the needs of our “members.” The Church is the only group, community, or organization (for lack of  a better word) on the face of the earth that exists exclusively for the benefits of its non-members.
 
If you are looking for a church community don’t ask , “What do they have to offer?” That’s what I ask when I’m looking for a gym membership.
 
And, If you are a church leader never ask yourself, “What should we offer our memebers?”
 
The question you should be asking is, “Does this church community understand the Great Commission?”
 
If so, then you will see a vibrant, healthy, community that is both attractive to the world and attracted to the world.
 
Filed Under: Church, Community, Discipleship Tagged With: , , , , ,