Jentezen Franklin to Minister on Live TBN Television Special

Pastor Jentezen Franklin, Pastor of Free Chapel (church) in Gainsville, GA, and Executive Council Member of the Church of God (Cleveland, TN), will be hosting the TBN television program live, Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 6:00 PM EST.

Everyone is invited to attend the worship service at TBN's Atlanta Studios at 1550 Agape Way, Decatur, GA. For further information or directions, contact Mary Jo Castro at 404-288-1156.

Pentecostal Press Leaders Meet

The Church of God (Pathway Press) and the Church of God of Prophecy (White Wing Publishing) jointly hosted the biannual meeting of the International Pentecostal Press Association Board of Directors on Monday and Tuesday, November 17-18, 2008. The Monday morning session was held at the Church of God International Offices, with greetings from Bishop Mark Williams, assistant general overseer, representing General Overseer Raymond F. Culpepper. The afternoon session was hosted by the Church of God of Prophecy International Offices. Tours were conducted of the headquarters of both hosting organizations.

On Tuesday morning, the delegates met at the Church of God of Prophecy International Offices, were greeted by General Overseer Randall Howard, and then made an excursion to rural Monroe County, Tennessee and Cherokee County, North Carolina, where they visited many historic sites shared by both Cleveland-based organizations. Sites visited included Barney Creek, where the Church of God formed as the Christian Union in 1886, the Shearer Schoolhouse site where the Holy Spirit baptism was first received by the group in 1896, the J. C. Murphy Home, where the first General Assembly was held in 1906, Fields of the Wood, and the grave of Richard G. Spurling, Jr., in Turtletown, Tennessee. Tour guides were Paul Holt, Heritage Ministries director for the Church of God of Prophecy, and Dr. James M. Beaty, retired missionary, historian, and professor at Lee University and the Church of God Theological Seminary.

The International Pentecostal Press Association is a fellowship of editors and writers from various Pentecostal denominations throughout the world, and receives its spiritual covering from the Pentecostal World Conference. The board of directors members are: Ken Horn, president (Assemblies of God); Clyde Hughes, first vice president (International Pentecostal Church of Christ); Virginia Chatham, second vice president (Church of God of Prophecy) Shirley Spencer, Secretary-Treasurer (International Pentecostal Holiness Church); and James E. Cossey, member at large (Church of God). The next meeting of the board of directors will be in March 2009 in Eugene, Oregon in conjunction with the annual meetings of the Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches in North America (PCCNA) and the Society for Pentecostal Studies.

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The Art of Forgiveness

Having a great deal of experience with offenses, being deeply hurt by heroes and fellow-laborers, the question always comes up; when do we confront and when do we overlook? My natural response to to confront. As a "fixer," I am immediately tempted to fix the situation. However, many times a still small voice encourages me to just overlook people and go on. When should we do which?

To answer this question, I am going to follow, roughly at least, the logic Chris Brauns uses in his excellent book Unpacking Forgiveness (I highly reccomend it).

1. Examine Yourself

Before you do anything else, you will want to examine yourself. You will want to see if there is some log in your eye that you have missed in all the fixation on the speck in your neighbor's eye (Matthew 7:3-5). You will want to examine your motives to determine why it is that you may desire confrontation (or perhaps why you desire to avoid confrontation). Are you angry and seeking revenge? Do you harbor a grudge against the person and feel like you can only ease this burden by telling him of his offense against you? Will you only feel better after you inflict guilt upon him? As you focus on your own sin and on your motives, you may find that the desire to pursue confrontation fades in the light of God's holiness and in the darkness of ungodly motives.

2. Examine Yourself Again: Are You Right?

You have now established that your motives are pure and that you are not overlooking a similar sin in your own life. Now you will want to examine yourself to ensure that you are right in this matter. Have you looked for Scriptural principles to determine if you have truly been sinned against? Is there clear violation of a Scriptural principle here, or are you dealing with a gray area? If you find that this is a gray area where there is no clear definition of right or wrong, it may well be best to simply put the matter aside.

3. Determine the Importance

If you have passed through the first two filters and still believe this is an issue worthy of confrontation, you will want to consider just how important a matter this is. Are we dealing here with a matter of preference or a matter of objective right and wrong? Is this an issue that will have long-term ramifications or something that will not much matter one way or the other? Are you making dogma out of personal preference? If, upon examination, you determine that this matter is not of great importance or that it is more about preference than anything else, just let it go.

4. Look for Patterns

There are times that we sin in a way that is out of character for us. For example, you may be consistently punctual but then, one day, show up late for an important meeting. In such a case it would probably not be worth my while addressing this offense. However, if you are constantly showing up late for even the most important meetings, this may be a matter I should address with you. It may still not be an area of sin (perhaps traffic is wildly unpredictable or you have a young child who is waking you up all night long, making it difficult for you to spring out of bed). Either way, we often do better to confront patterns of sin or offense than isolated incidents (though, obviously, with more egregious offenses we may need to confront them immediately).

5. Be Sensitive

Before approaching the person who has offended you, ensure that you are being sensitive to his or her unique situation. There may be stresses or strains in that person's life that are causing him or her to act out in ways that are atypical. In such a situation you are not excusing the person's sin but, rather, understanding that difficult times can cause even the finest Christian to act out in ways that are unusual for him. Adding the burden of confrontation may not be the wise or sensitive thing to do at that moment.

6. Seek Counsel

It may be valuable to seek the counsel of other mature Christians before pursuing confrontation. You will want to ensure that this is not simply an opportunity to gossip and vent, after which you will feel better and let the matter drop. But discreetly seeking wise counsel may be a very good way of "error-checking" your assessment of the previous steps.

If, after such an assessment of your own heart, the offender, and the offense, you still feel confrontation is necessary, you will want to pursue forgiveness and reconciliation in the way Jesus outlines in Matthew 18.

However, far more often than not, I think you will find it is wise to let the matter go. And here you will need to release your pride and outrage. You will need to be willing to let the matter well and truly drop, not telling others about it and not letting it fill your mind and outrage your heart. It is the glory of a man to overlook an offense; it is a foolish and prideful man who feels every little offense is worthy of confrontation.

[from "Culture Shift" by Dr. Albert Mohler]

Momentum

(By Andy Stanley)

- Momentum = forward motion fueled by a series of wins.
- In the business world, a company that doesn’t have momentum takes quick action.
- In the church world, we put up with lack of momentum for a long time as long as we can still pay the bills.
- In the church world, momentum is not the norm. It is very disruptive, unsettling and uncomfortable.
- If you have momentum and you don’t know why — you are one stupid decision away from killing it.
- If you lack momentum, you need to understand why.
- Anything new creates momentum.
- Momentum is never triggered by tweaking something old. It is triggered by introducing something new.
- Complexity kills momentum. The process of tearing down complexity is painful, but must be done.

[from LeadingSmart by Tim Stevens]

The Impact of Hope in Strategic Plan Implementation

I had the privilege to work with several colleagues on an instrument to measure hope in organizations. It is published in the inaugural edition of the International Leadership Journal housed at Thomas Edison State College. The article is entitled: "An Instrument to Measure the Impact of Hope in Strategic Plan Implementation." by Bruce Winston, Corné Bekker, Karen Cerff, Doug Eames, Martha Helland and Delicia Garnes.

Abstract

This research study presents a 13-item instrument to measure the level of hope in employees relative to their belief in the positive outcome of strategic plans. The singlefactor scale has a Cronbach alpha of .912. The premise of the research is that people may be unwilling to invest time and effort into the implementation of strategic plans if they do not have hope/faith in the success of the plans. Theoretical support comes from Vroom’s expectancy theory, means efficacy theory, Porter’s value chain, and Snyder’s hope theory. The practical application of this study lies in the notion that it may be beneficial for leaders to understand the level of employees’ hope in the success of strategic plans before implementing those plans.

For the full paper see: http://www.tesc.edu/5947.php

[from Inner Reflections on Leadership by Corné J. Bekker]

University of Alabama Teams With Cottondale Community Church

After the single largest purchase from the West Alabama Food Bank in its history, students from the University of Alabama and volunteers at Cottondale Community Church have been working frantically under the leadership of Pastor Ron Martin nearly all week for the first “CARE Day” at the church Saturday.

Denise Cleveland, the research administrator for the UA social work school, a graduate student herself and also a native of the unincorporated Cottondale area east of Tuscaloosa, Alabama said the university’s Center for Community Based Partnership provided a grant for several teams of grad students to initiate projects in various parts of Tuscaloosa County.

Before the class settled on the food drive, the class organized a community meeting attended by State Rep. Gerald Allen, a Cottondale member of the Alabama House of Representatives, County Commissioner Gary Youngblood and representatives from area churches and businesses including Pastor Ron Martin of Cottondale Community Church.

“We went over a lot of problems that the community has, like roads and sewers,” Holden said. “But we knew there was nothing we could do about sewers, so we settled on partnering with the Cottondale Community Food Pantry.”

The two-month old food pantry, a project of Pastor Ron Martin’s Cottondale Community Church, had just gotten off the ground, he said, and has served about 20 families.

“But we knew the need was much greater,” he said. “And the social work class was a perfect fit.”
By the time the students had fanned out in the community, getting donations from businesses and churches as diverse as Food World, Catfish County restaurant, Cottondale First Methodist Church, the local VFW post and even the Oasis bar, $3,500 had been raised. Most of it went to purchase discount food from the West Alabama Food Bank.

“We are expecting at least 100 families and people to show up, based on what the church has told us and the flyers we have put up all over the Cottondale area as well as the outreach the churches and social agencies have done,” Cleveland said. “For some of the families who have young children, we also have ‘CARE packages’ that include things like diapers, toothbrushes and toiletry items.”

CARE Day will end at noon, but since it is anticipated that only a fraction of the food items will be dispersed, the church’s food pantry should find its shelves well stocked for the future when people in the community find themselves in need.

“Part of our class assignment was to help create something sustainable,” Holden said. “Not to just do something and not come back. And we think getting all these various business, churches and agencies involved with the project will do that.”

Pastor Martin, whose church has about 120 members, agrees.

“This is really going to be a tremendous boost,” he said. “We started out our food pantry real small, mostly because our church is not that large,” he said. “So when the students came to us with the offer to help it was something we just couldn’t pass up.

“This will probably quadruple what we had on hand even after Saturday and it will certainly help us to continue our pantry and even expand the number of people we can serve.”

Jesus as Agent of Change: Transformational and Authentic Leadership in John

Leadership is preemptive to the reality of human existence. Leading change is one of the most important, and still difficult, aspects of leadership. This paper utilizes a socio-rhetorical analysis of the twenty-first chapter in John’s gospel to explore the Johannine figure of Jesus as an agent of change and guidance. The data is extracted using the inner textual aspect of the model, which does not consider the translation of the words used in a context, rather the placement of the words to derive communication intent. The data is then compiled using two different, yet similar, models for change. First, is the Gestalt model for a cycle of experience. Second, is the still popular force field model postulated by Kurt Lewin in the 1950s, which defines behavior as a function perception experience. The textual data also supports that Christ’s function, as an agent of change, is representative of two emerging trends of leadership theory: transformational and authentic. Bass and Steidlmeier argue that truly transformational leaders are grounded by moral foundations, and that lasting change is representative of the moral development of the followers. The data presents practical implications that effective change agents, such as Jesus, also exist among the elusively high stages of moral development.

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Vision Casting

Six Steps to cast your vision:

1. Go somewhere alone to think it through. I recommend you spend an entire day without a phone. Just God, you, a pen and pad and your Bible. Worship for a while and let the creative juices flow.

This is the best method I know for goal setting and vision definition. You can't rush your destiny! Psalm 46:10, "Be still and know that I am God!"

2. After you set your goals, get a team of trusted confidants around you and get their input. See if they catch the vision with you. If they do, everyone else will catch it too. If they don't, keep working on it. They will help you fine tune it.

Proverbs 15:22 "Without counsel , plans go awry, But in the multitude of counselors they are established."

3. Sell it to your leaders first! If your leaders don't by it, it will not live past the first month. If they buy into it, the vision will last as long as you keep speaking it into the atmosphere.

Proverbs 18:21 "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit."

4. Pick a theme to sell the vision. If you can build a sermon series around it, your momentum will increase tremendously.

5. Find creative ways to drive your point home!

Here are some ideas:
- Play video clips from movies, GodTube, Wingclips or Sermon Spice.
- Do dramas, skits and human videos.
- Special music from the music department.
- Use props and/or pictures in your sermons.
- Ask the children's department to do a special presentation.
- Think of a way to make your messages memorable and engage the congregation.

6. Don't let it die. You have to keep speaking it out and giving it life until it lives. A vision starts out as a dream and a great idea. It's like a child. You have to feed it, nourish it and give it time to grow. Sometimes it gets sick and you have to make it well. When it grows up, it becomes a REALITY.

The most common mistakes pastors make is preaching ONE sermon and calling it a vision.
Ask every ministry in your church to do something that will enhance the vision. It takes time for a vision to catch on, but once it does, look out.

Habakkuk 2:2 "Write the vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry."

Now the vision is plain and someone can RUN WITH IT!

[By Brian Cutshall]

Pastoral Leadership

The following are pastoral leadership quotes from Pastor Dwight Mason, lead pastor at New Pointe Community Church in Dover, Ohio, a large and growing congregation of around 3,000 people.

- Nothing happens without leadership.
- There is nothing more powerful than an example.
- If there is no one leading, then everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes.
- Most problems can be traced to a lack of competent leadership.
- It is always easier to blame others rather than take responsibility.
- We teach what we know, but we reproduce who we are.
- If you don’t like your church, take a look at who you are.
- It’s amazing to me how many people leading churches don’t like people.
- When we are driven to perform or please, we become controlling and we don’t lead well.
- My value is not because I’m a pastor. My value is because I’m a child of God.
- This book rocked my world: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero.
- You are as sick as your secrets. You don’t need to tell everyone, you just need to tell somebody.

Connecticut Supreme Court Legalizes Gay Marriage

The Associated Press has reported that a judge cleared the way today for gay marriage to begin Wednesday in Connecticut, a victory for advocates stung by California's referendum that banned same-sex unions in that state.

Couples immediately marched to New Haven City Hall to get marriage licenses, and less than two hours after the final court hearing, Peg Oliveira and Jennifer Vickery were married in a brief ceremony next to New Haven City Hall.

"I feel so happy," said Vickery, a 44-year-old attorney who has a 3-month-old baby with Oliveira. "It's so much more emotional than I expected."

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on October 10 that same-sex couples have the right to wed rather than accept a civil union law designed to give them the same rights as married couples.

Connecticut and Massachusetts have legalized gay marriage so far. The unions were legal in California until a statewide referendum to ban gay marriage narrowly passed last week. The vote has sparked protests and several lawsuits asking that state's Supreme Court to overturn the prohibition.

What Lies Ahead For America?

How long will it be until the following happens in America?

- Same sex marriage - legalized
- No more “See you at the pole” now illegal
- Boy Scouts disband rather than accept homosexuals
- Elementary schools include compulsory gender identity classes
- No more religious broadcasting
- Doctors who don’t offer artificial insemination for lesbians are fined
- Churches cannot legally refuse to host homosexual weddings
- Open homosexuality in the military
- No more churches renting school facilities
- No more Campus Crusade or Intervarsity
- No more pledge of allegiance in public schools
- Nurses cannot refuse to be involved with abortions
- FCC drops obsene language and nudity regulations from broadcast television
- Porn openly displayed in public stores for sale
- Illegal to privately own a gun in 8 states
- Home schooling has been severely restricted
- Terrorist bombs have exploded in four US cities
- Government now provides all healthcare
- People older than 80 have no access to healthcare or hospitals
- Restrictions on Christian books
- Prosecution of Bush Administration employees

What do you think? Click "comments" below.

Lack of Effective Strategic Planning Hinders Small Churches

Small churches often get most of the equation right when it comes to making progress, but the one major mistake they make is poor planning, according to a recent study.

An overwhelming majority of pastors of small churches (94 percent) say they see the need and problems in their community that the church has been called to address, and eight out of 10 say they share with their congregation a clear and compelling picture of what God is calling their church to look like in several years, LifeWay Research's latest study shows.

But 67 percent of pastors of small churches say they are frustrated with how slow progress is being made at their churches.

"The effectiveness of local church ministry often is jeopardized by poor organization," diagnosed Scott McConnell, associate director of LifeWay Research. "Understanding God’s calling and the context of the church is important, but leadership requires knowing where you are, knowing where you need to go and knowing how to get there. Most pastors of small churches actively pursue the first two, but many struggle with the third."

LifeWay surveyed 350 Southern Baptist pastors of congregation that average fewer than 100 in primary worship attendance.

Many pastors openly admitted that they do not know how to lead their churches to achieve their goal.

Only 29 percent of pastors of small churches strongly agreed that they had a clear plan to transform their churches into what God wanted them to be.

But a significantly higher number of pastors expressed confusion about their plan and the problems along the way. Forty-four percent of the surveyed pastors agreed (somewhat or strongly) that they often do not understand why things do not work out, while 30 percent agreed that they are confused about where they should invest their own time and effort.
The survey revealed that although 70 percent of the pastors said their church budget was enough to fund current objectives, 40 percent agreed that their church rarely has time to reflect and plan properly.

For instance, two-thirds of the small churches rarely change the person in charge of certain work or responsibilities. And less than six in ten churches regularly review methods and results of events and programs.

"The survey clearly indicates that smaller-membership churches need to stop and evaluate what they are doing and who is doing it," McConnell said. "Leaders need to develop effective plans for carrying out the work God has called their churches to do."

He added, "Pastors who candidly assess their own strengths and weaknesses can surround themselves with leaders who have the talents that they lack.

"Each local church should seek out and utilize members gifted in organizing people and processes while still encouraging each other to desire the greater gifts of faith, hope, and love."

[from The Christian Post RSS Feed by Jennifer Riley]

How will the economy impact Church Planting in America?

Will funding come to an end?

How will mission churches bring in new revenue streams?

Will all church planters become bi-vocational?

Existing church offerings are down. This may limit their ability to fund new church plants.

Numerous people have been laid-off that were once church staff.

Attendance at Church Planting conferences are down sharply, which may be a sign of the inability to afford the cost to attend or in a decrease the number of plants.

How does this new economic reality change the way churches are planted? Are church planters moving to more organic and decentralized models? Will more church doors close, consolidating Christians into larger churches?

What do you think? Click "comments" below.

God Bless Our Veterans