The Power of Love

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8.35-39)

Our church’s missional statement for the past two years has been “Don’t go to church; be the church.” Both as a group of Christians and as individuals, we encourage one another daily to live in a way that glorifies God and blesses others. This year we chose two words to amplify the missional statement above. They are simple: Love deeply.

Jesus said that the first and greatest commandment (Matthew 22.37) is to love God with everything you are. That’s a surprise to some and requires a heart adjustment for all. We can’t please God by doing good things. We please God through faith (Hebrews 11.6) in Christ and loving Him. True love will result in our doing good things. (John 14.15)

Some of you reading this may shake your head and think, but I want something deeper. I’ve heard you say this before… Sorry. I ain’t got nothing deeper. This is good news! God loves us so much that He sent His Son. Whoever believes, repents and loves deeply will glorify God and bless others. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. Period.

How does the challenge to love deeply – both God and others – impact your life and require adjustments?

Review: Sticky Teams

Larry Osborne is pastor of North Coast Church, a megachurch, by anyone’s definition. I read his book Sticky Church some time back, and when someone sent me Sticky Teams as a result of seeing it on my Amazon Wishlist, I was grateful.

Loved that it was concise, to the point and not wordy. It was also very short on scriptural references. Osborne does use scripture and biblical situations, but he mainly speaks from his earned experience as a leader of a large church for the past 20+ years. I wanted to include that observation for those you who might get distracted by the paucity of verse references in the book.

He deals with essential, practical issues of church leadership that will effect unity if you don’t have a plan. Things like budgeting, letting go of a loved, but ineffective staff person, how to clarify roles among staff and other boards, and whether or not your church is developing leaders for the future.

It would be well worth the time to buy copies of this book for your staff and primary leadership teams and then have 2-3 meetings discussing through the short questions provided in the back.

One helpful thought is simply how to share vision/information/plans with your teams or congregations. Typically, a leader will have dreamed and thought about a needed change for quite a while before presenting it. However, when it comes time for presentation, it meets with initial resistance that can perturb an unwise leader.

Norman points out, “When information is presented to close to a decision-making process, most people will view it as a lobbying effort, not as a training exercise.” In other words, give your people permission to think and make the change journey with you. Don’t spring stuff on them. He includes two chapters on introducing change that will be extremely helpful for you.

Intensely practical, and if even a portion of the book is implemented in your leadership structure, I know you’ll be further toward having a unified and healthy team than you are now.