Don't be just a hearer, be a doer

OK, I have had it with my weight. So this last week at Church I held up a book called "6 day Body Makeover." I shared with the church, "Lets pretend that the church came to me and said, “Hey Pastor Chuck, you keep talking about getting fit and losing weight, well we bought you this book, body for life, and we are going to give you 6 months off to go and read this book and get into shape. I said let me think about it, OK lets do it. I leave, there is great anticipation. 6 months later I come back and not only have not gotten in shape and lost weight, but I actually gained weight. How would you feel about that? You would say, "Hey, we gave you this time off why didn’t you read the book. I said, "I did read the book, the exercises looked really fun and the food meals look really tasty. I read it, but I didn’t apply it. I came home on Sunday and decided that I was not just going to be a hearer or just a reader but I as going to a doer. I was going to apply what I know what is right to do.

So, I have started my weight loss journey. I just wanted to go on record. My goal is 10% of my current weight. I would like to do this by Easter. I know it is aggressive, but I am desperate. Pray for me, cheer me on, tell me to put down the In and OUt burger. Here I go. I thought I would let you know.

10 TIPS TO BETTER FAMILY TIME

10 Tips to better Family Time

Parents and their children are spending less time interacting with each other. As a result, many children are getting less personal love and attention than their parents did. American Demographics reported that parents today spend roughly 40 percent less time with their children than did parents a generation ago. To help families stay connected, below is a list of helpful family time tips. Keep in mind, quantity and quality time is important when choosing activities. So build memories around exciting events by keeping your family time creative and enjoyable. Print out the following tips as daily reminders.

1 Eat together & listen to each other Most children today don't know the meaning of a family dinnertime. Yet the communication and unity built during this set-ting is integral to a healthy family life. Sharing a meal together allows the opportunity to talk about each other's lives. This is a time for parents to listen, as well as to give advice and encouragement. Attentive listening conveys a message that a person is really interested in another. It also imparts a sense of worth and helps develop trust. Therefore, listening is a critical link in successful parenting.

2 Read often It's important for parents to read to their children. The latest research indicates that reading to your children cultivates an interest for knowledge and stimulates language development. It also increases their attention spans and helps them become more curious. Look for books that your child would enjoy reading. After reading, ask questions about the content.

3 Do chores together Part of what goes on in the home is the development of teamwork. Functional family life depends on the contribution of everyone. Assigning chores is the most productive way of teaching responsibility and accountability to your children. Doing chores with your child will help foster good communication skills.

4 Help with schoolwork A great way to spend quality time with children and light a fire of learning is to help children with their schoolwork. A parent's eagerness to help will cause a child to become more interested in school thus improving his or her grades. Regular trips to the library for school projects are an inexpensive and enjoyable way to spend time with children. Helping should begin with an understanding that children are responsible for homework. Parents are there to help their child get organized and to encourage them when they get stuck.

5 Start a hobby or project Choose a fun activity that your child is interested in. Activities like cooking, crafts, fishing or biking will make great hobbies that can open the door to exciting family time. Once a child learns a new recipe or is able to cast a lure accurately, let him or her take the lead with your supervision.

6 Play games New technology has made video games more prevalent. As a result, many children are spending long hours in front of the TV playing computer programs. Parents should find creative ways to spark an interest in family-oriented contests such as board games or card games. This will give parents additional time to talk and nurture their relationship.

7 Plan a family outing Sometimes getting out of the house is important. Hop in the family car and go for a drive. Prepare a picnic lunch and visit a local park. Take time to play catch or ride a bike. A stroll in the woods will help parents interact with their children. Also, a visit to the zoo or museum will spark a child's enthusiasm and lead to lengthy discussions.

8 Encourage athletic activities It is vital for children to exercise. Sports not only strengthen the body, but also build character and determination. Whether it's a father pitching a baseball to a son or a mother and daughter nature walking, finding time for athletic events is important for a child's emotional and physical development. This is a great opportunity for a family to interact.

9 Create a Family Time calendar Since many parents have hectic schedules, time with children often becomes a low priority whether intended or not. Post a calendar on the refrigerator and have parents and children pencil in special events. Knowing when you're going to meet may also help you think of creative activities. Commit to keeping this schedule free from interruptions.

10 Pray together & attend a house of worship Nothing is more special than taking a few minutes each day to pray with a child before bedtime. By explaining the purpose behind prayer, children will learn the importance of faith as the foundation for the family. Also, when parents go to religious services, they instill in their children a reverence for God. Churches can also offer invaluable support to families.

Reading Your Gauges

READING YOUR GAUGES

For almost all of the eigh­teen years I have served in ministry, I have mon­i­tored myself closely in two areas, con­tin­u­ally check­ing two gauges on the dash­board of my life. Until recently, I thought that was enough.

First, I kept an eye on the spir­i­tual gauge, ask­ing myself, How am I doing spir­i­tu­ally? Apart from Christ I can do noth­ing. I know that. I don’t want my life’s efforts to be burned up because they were done merely through human effort, clever tac­tics, or gim­mickry. I am gripped by the fact that I must oper­ate in the power of the Holy Spirit.

To keep my spir­i­tual gauge where it needs to be, I have com­mit­ted myself to the spir­i­tual dis­ci­plines: jour­nal­ing, fasting, solitude, sac­ri­fice, study, and oth­ers. Like many Chris­tians before me, I have dis­cov­ered that these dis­ci­plines clar­ify spir­i­tual issues and pump a high-​​octane fuel, pro­vid­ing inten­sity and strength for ministry.

Even though the pace of min­istry has dra­mat­i­cally quick­ened in the past few years, I hon­estly don’t think I often mis­read my spir­i­tual gauges. Look­ing at my life’s dash­board, I can tell when I am spir­i­tu­ally half full, three-​​quarters full, or, some­times, full.

When I’m full spir­i­tu­ally, I can look at my life and hon­estly say I love Jesus Christ and I’m attend­ing to my spir­i­tual dis­ci­plines and keep­ing myself open to the lead­ing of Christ. When I’m spir­i­tu­ally full, I don’t need to apol­o­gize for my motives. I can truly say: “I’m not in min­istry because it gives me strokes. I’m excited about the fruit being borne through the min­istry of Wil­low Creek.”

Sec­ond, I have mon­i­tored the phys­i­cal gauge—How am I doing phys­i­cally? I know that if I push my body too hard, over time I will expe­ri­ence a phys­i­cal break­down or psy­cho­so­matic com­pli­ca­tions asso­ci­ated with high stress.

If I don’t exer­cise, eat prop­erly, and rest, I will offer the Lord only about two-​​thirds of the energy I have the poten­tial of giv­ing. The Holy Spirit tugs at me to be wholly available—mind, soul, and body—for the work to which he has called me. Con­se­quently, I have com­mit­ted myself to the phys­i­cal dis­ci­plines of run­ning and weight lift­ing. I closely watch what I eat. And I receive reg­u­lar med­ical check-​​ups.

The Near Crash

Since these spir­i­tual and phys­i­cal gauges—the only two on my dashboard—have con­sis­tently sig­naled “go,” I have pushed myself as hard and fast as pos­si­ble. But recently a dif­fer­ent part of my engine began to misfire.

While prepar­ing for a par­tic­u­larly dif­fi­cult series of sermons, the mes­sage that week wouldn’t come together. No mat­ter how hard I tried, no ideas seemed worth say­ing. Sud­denly I found myself sob­bing with my head on my desk.

I’ve always been more ana­lytic than emo­tional, so when I stopped cry­ing, I said to myself, “I don’t think that was nat­ural.” Peo­ple who know my ratio­nal bent laugh when I tell them that. Indi­vid­u­als more aware of their feel­ings might have known what was wrong, but I didn’t.

All I knew was, Something’s not right with me, and I don’t even have time now to think about it. I’ll have to jour­nal about this tomor­row. I forced my thoughts back to the ser­mon and man­aged to put some­thing together for the ser­vice. But the next morn­ing as I wrote in my jour­nal I considered, Am I falling apart in some area spir­i­tu­ally? My gauges said no. My prac­tice of the dis­ci­plines seemed reg­u­lar, and I didn’t sense a spir­i­tual malaise. Phys­i­cally, am I weak or tired? No, I felt fit.

I con­cluded that maybe this was my mid-​​life cri­sis, a phase I would sim­ply have to endure. But four or five sim­i­lar inci­dents in the next few weeks con­tin­ued sig­nal­ing that my anx­i­ety and frus­tra­tion could not be ignored.

Then I noticed I was feel­ing vulnerable—extremely temptable—in areas where I hadn’t felt vul­ner­a­ble for a long time. And the idea of con­tin­u­ing on in min­istry seemed noth­ing but a tremen­dous bur­den. Where had the joy gone? I couldn’t bear the thought of twenty more years of this.

Maybe God is call­ing me to a dif­fer­ent kind of work, I thought. Maybe he’s get­ting my atten­tion by these break­downs in order to lead me to a dif­fer­ent min­istry. Maybe I should start another church or go back into a career in the marketplace.

At that time, the church was decid­ing whether to take on a major build­ing expan­sion, which inten­si­fied my feel­ings. I knew that if we moved ahead, it would be uncon­scionable for me to leave the senior pas­torate until the expan­sion was com­plete. Yet when I looked hon­estly at whether I wanted to sign up for another three or four years, the answer scared me. It was a big fat no.

You don’t feel like it any­more? I asked myself in disbelief. You want to bail out? What is hap­pen­ing to you? Maybe I did need a change of call­ing.
What­ever it was, I was astounded that I could be com­ing apart, because I put so much stock in the spir­i­tual and phys­i­cal gauges, and nei­ther of them was indi­cat­ing any problem.

After a Christ­mas vaca­tion that didn’t change my feel­ings, I began to seri­ously inspect my life. After talk­ing with some respected peo­ple, I learned that I had over­looked an impor­tant gauge. The spir­i­tual and phys­i­cal aspects of life were impor­tant, but I had failed to con­sider another area essen­tial to healthy ministry—emotional strength.

I was so emo­tion­ally depleted I couldn’t even dis­cern the activ­ity or the call of God on my life. I needed a third gauge on the dash­board of my life.
Through­out a given week of min­istry, I slowly began to real­ize, cer­tain activ­i­ties drain my emo­tional reser­voir. I now call these expe­ri­ences IMA’s—Intensive Min­istry Activities.

An IMA may be a con­fronta­tion, an intense coun­sel­ing ses­sion, an exhaust­ing teach­ing ses­sion, or a board meet­ing about sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial deci­sions. Prepar­ing and deliv­er­ing a mes­sage on a sen­si­tive topic, which requires exten­sive research and thought, for instance, wears me down.

An IMA may be a con­fronta­tion, an intense coun­sel­ing ses­sion, an exhaust­ing teach­ing ses­sion, or a board meet­ing about sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial deci­sions. Prepar­ing and deliv­er­ing a mes­sage on a sen­si­tive topic, which requires exten­sive research and thought, for instance, wears me down.

The com­mon denom­i­na­tor of these activ­i­ties is that they sap you, even in only a few hours. Every leader con­stantly takes on IMA’s. I didn’t realize, however, that I could gauge the degree of their impact on me. As a result, I was obliv­i­ous to the intense drain I was experiencing.

For exam­ple, many times while dri­ving home from church, I would feel thin in my spirit. Sens­ing some­thing wrong, I would exam­ine my two trusted gauges.

In the spir­i­tual area, I’d scru­ti­nize myself: Did you give out the Word of God as best you knew how? Did you pray? Did you fast? Did you pre­pare? Were you accu­rate? Did the elders affirm the message?

If that gauge read nor­mal, I would pro­ceed to the phys­i­cal area: Have you kept to your diet? Yes. Have you been work­ing out? Yes. I must be okay. Buck up, Bill. But some­thing was wrong. I needed that third gauge—an emo­tional monitor—to deter­mine my min­istry fit­ness.
Often we attribute our dis­cour­age­ment to spir­i­tual weakness. We berate our­selves: “I’m a bad Chris­t­ian,” or “I’m a lousy disciple.”

And some­times our prob­lem does sig­nal that we are not rightly con­nected to Christ. Yet some prob­lems in min­istry stem not from spir­i­tual lapses but from emo­tional emptiness.

Read­ing the Emo­tional Gauge

I have now com­mit­ted myself to installing an emo­tional gauge in the cen­ter of my dash­board and learn­ing how to read it. I take respon­si­bil­ity to man­age the emo­tional reser­voir in my life.

When my cri­sis hit, I didn’t real­ize my reser­voir was depleted until I (1) began to feel vul­ner­a­ble morally, (2) found myself get­ting short and testy with peo­ple, and (3) felt a desire to get out of God’s work. Sud­denly I knew the tank was nearly dry.

Now my goal is to mon­i­tor my emo­tional resources so I don’t reach that point. What sig­nals do I look for? If I drive away from a min­istry activ­ity and say, “It would be fine if I never did that again,” that’s a warn­ing sig­nal. Some­thing is wrong when I look at peo­ple as inter­rup­tions or see min­istry as a chore.

Another indi­ca­tor: on the way home, do I con­sciously hope Lynne isn’t hav­ing a prob­lem and my kids don’t want any­thing from me? That’s a sign I don’t have enough left to give. When I hope that the pre­cious peo­ple in my life can exist with­out me, that’s a sign of real trouble.

A third check for me is how I approach the spir­i­tual dis­ci­plines. I jour­nal and write my prayers. For months I found myself say­ing, day after day, “I don’t have the energy to do this.” I jour­naled any­way, but more mechan­i­cally than authen­ti­cally. I dis­like myself when my Chris­tian­ity is on autopilot.

Each per­son has to find the warn­ing sig­nals for his or her own life. But after an intense min­istry activ­ity, it helps to ask some ques­tions of your­self: Am I out of gas emo­tion­ally? Can I not stand the thought of relat­ing to peo­ple right now? Do I feel the urge to take a long walk with no des­ti­na­tion in mind? Am l feel­ing the need to go home, put on music, and let the Lord recharge my emotional batteries?

Recharg­ing the Emo­tional Reserves

My next dis­cov­ery was humil­i­at­ing. I found that when my emo­tional fuel was low, I couldn’t do an Indy pit stop and get a fast refill. Replen­ish­ing emo­tional strength takes time—usually more time than it took to drain.

The best anal­ogy I can offer is a car bat­tery. If you sit in a park­ing lot and run all your car’s accessories—radio, headlights, heater, horn, rear defog­ger, power windows—you can prob­a­bly sap that bat­tery in about ten min­utes. After that mas­sive drain, sup­pose you then take the bat­tery to a ser­vice sta­tion and say, “I’d like this bat­tery charged. I’ll be back to pick it up in ten minutes.”

What would they tell you? “No, we’re going to put the bat­teryvon our overnight charger. It’s going to take seven or eight hours to bring it all the way back up.” It has to be recharged slowly or else the bat­tery will be damaged. A slow, con­sis­tent charge is the best way to bring a bat­tery back to full power. Like­wise, to prop­erly recu­per­ate from an emo­tion­ally drain­ing activ­ity takes time.

When I first learned I couldn’t get a quick emo­tional recharge, I shared my frus­tra­tion about that with another pas­tor friend. He said, “Bill, you have found a rule you’re not an excep­tion to. You can fast and study the Scrip­tures and lift weights and do what­ever you want, but there’s no short­cut to rebuild­ing your­self emo­tion­ally. A mas­sive drain requires a slow and steady recharge.”

That dis­cour­aged me. I looked at my aver­age week, and almost every day had an intense min­istry activity—preparing a mes­sage, deliv­er­ing a mes­sage, meet­ing with elders, or mak­ing some tough deci­sion. I would find lit­tle snatches of refresh­ment dur­ing the week, but I fin­ished most weeks with an emo­tional deficit. Then my fam­ily wanted me to have some fun and excit­ing things planned for them, but I was totally depleted. I’m going to over­load the cir­cuitry, I said to myself. One day I’m going to find myself in the prover­bial fetal position.

It has been hum­bling to take an accu­rate, hon­est read­ing of my emo­tional gauges. When I see my emo­tional gauge is read­ing low, I take time to recharge. Some peo­ple recharge by run­ning, oth­ers by tak­ing a bath, oth­ers by read­ing, oth­ers by lis­ten­ing to music. Usu­ally it means doing some­thing totally unre­lated to ministry—golfing, motorcycling, wood­carv­ing. The impor­tant thing is to build a min­istry sched­ule that allows ade­quate time for emo­tional recharging.

Return­ing to Your Gift Areas

I’ve learned a sec­ond thing about main­tain­ing emo­tional resources for min­istry. The use of your major spir­i­tual gift breathes life back into you. When you have iden­ti­fied your spir­i­tual gifts and use them under the direc­tion of Jesus Christ, you make a dif­fer­ence. You feel the affir­ma­tion of God, and many times you feel more ener­gized after ser­vice than before.

I think of when Jesus had that impor­tant con­ver­sa­tion with the woman at the well. The Twelve came back from buy­ing food and said: “Jesus, you must be fam­ished. We had lunch, and you’ve just worked through your lunch hour.” Jesus responded: “I’ve had a meal. I had food you’re not aware of. I was used by my Father to con­nect with a woman who was in trou­ble.” Jesus found that doing what the Father had called him to do was utterly fulfilling.

Con­versely, serv­ing out­side your gift area tends to drain you. If I were asked to sing or assist with account­ing, it would be a long hike uphill. I wouldn’t feel the affir­ma­tion of the Spirit, because I wouldn’t be serv­ing as I have been gifted and called to serve. This is why many peo­ple bail out of var­i­ous types of Chris­t­ian ser­vice: they aren’t in the right yoke.

The prin­ci­ple is self-​​evident, but unwit­tingly I had allowed myself to be pulled away from using my strongest gifts.

About the time Wil­low Creek was founded, I con­ducted an hon­est analy­sis of my spir­i­tual gifts. My top gift was lead­er­ship. My sec­ond gift was evan­ge­lism. Down the list were teach­ing and administration.

I imme­di­ately asked two peo­ple with well-​​developed teach­ing gifts to be pri­mary teach­ers for the new con­gre­ga­tion. God had given me a teach­ing gift, but it was far enough down the list that I had to work very hard at teaching—harder than a gifted teacher does.

Both peo­ple declined to teach, how­ever, and we had already set our start­ing date. I remem­ber think­ing, Okay, God, I’ll start as pri­mary teacher, but I’m doing it reluc­tantly. Please bring a teacher and let me lead and evan­ge­lize as you have gifted and called me to do.

Recently, when I hit emo­tional bot­tom, I decided to do another gift analy­sis. The results were exactly the same as eigh­teen years before: lead­er­ship and evan­ge­lism above teach­ing and admin­is­tra­tion. But as I thought about my weekly respon­si­bil­i­ties, I real­ized I was using teach­ing as though it were my top gift. Sel­dom was I devot­ing time to lead­er­ship or evangelism.

I have talked with well-​​respected teach­ers across the country, and I have never had one tell me that it takes him more than five to ten hours to pre­pare a ser­mon. They have strong teach­ing gifts, so it comes nat­u­rally and quickly to them. If I, on the other hand, don’t devote twenty hours to a mes­sage, I’m embar­rassed by the result. I was will­ing to put in those hours, but slowly and surely, the time demand squeezed out oppor­tu­ni­ties to use my gifts in lead­er­ship and evangelism.

In order to ade­quately pre­pare my mes­sages, I had del­e­gated away almost all lead­er­ship respon­si­bil­i­ties. And too often in elder or staff meet­ings, I was men­tally pre­oc­cu­pied with my next mes­sage. My life became con­sumed by the use of my teach­ing gift, which wasn’t my most fruit­ful or ful­fill­ing min­istry. Yet peo­ple kept say­ing, “Great mes­sage, Bill,” and I wrong­fully allowed their affir­ma­tion to thwart my bet­ter judgment.

Since real­iz­ing this, we have imple­mented a team-​​teaching approach at Wil­low Creek. It has been well received by the con­gre­ga­tion and has allowed me to pro­vide stronger lead­er­ship in sev­eral areas. It would be dif­fi­cult for me to describe how much more ful­filled I’m feel­ing these days.

I have also found new oppor­tu­ni­ties for evan­ge­lism. Recently I met with three guys at an air­port. One is a Chris­t­ian, and the other two are his best friends, whom he is try­ing to lead to Christ. As we talked, I could feel the Holy Spirit at work. After our con­ver­sa­tion ended, I ran to my gate, and I almost started crying. I love doing this, I thought. This is such a big part of who I am. I used to lead peo­ple to Christ, but I’ve been prepar­ing so many mes­sages in the past five years that I’ve for­got­ten how thrilling it is to share Christ infor­mally with lost people.

If I’m using a third– or fourth-​​level gift a lot, I shouldn’t be sur­prised if I don’t feel emo­tional energy for min­istry. We oper­ate with more energy when we’re able to exer­cise our pri­mary gifts. God knew what he was doing as he dis­trib­uted gifts for ser­vice. As we min­is­ter in a way that is con­sis­tent with the way God made us, we will find new pas­sion for ministry.

Bal­anc­ing the Eter­nal and the Earthly

Finally, becom­ing emo­tion­ally depleted re-​​taught me a les­son I had learned but for­got­ten. I learned the hard way that a Chris­t­ian leader has to strike a del­i­cate bal­ance between involve­ment in the eter­nal and involve­ment in the mun­dane. The daily things of life pro­vide needed coun­ter­weight to time­less truths.

When we started the church in 1975, I had dis­cre­tionary time that I used to race motor­cy­cles, fly a plane, golf, and ski. I had rela­tion­ships out­side the con­gre­ga­tion and inter­ests other than the church.

Since that time, the needs of the church inex­orably squeezed out these earthly pur­suits. I became con­sumed with the eter­nal. I’m an early riser, so from 5:30 in the morn­ing until I crash at 10:30 at night, barely one moment of time is not related to some­thing eter­nal. I don’t exer­cise at the YMCA any­more; I work out on equip­ment in my base­ment. While I’m cycling I read the­o­log­i­cal jour­nals. When I pump weights, I lis­ten to tapes or think of illus­tra­tions for a mes­sage. The eter­nal co-​​opted the daily routines.

In Jesus’ day, peo­ple approached life dif­fer­ently. In the Bible, after Jesus min­is­ters or deliv­ers an impor­tant dis­course, usu­ally you’ll find a phrase like this: “Then Jesus and the dis­ci­ples went from Judea into Galilee.” Those small phrases are highly sig­nif­i­cant. Such jour­neys were usu­ally many miles long, and most of the time Jesus and his dis­ci­ples walked. You don’t take a multi-​​mile walk over a lunch break.

What hap­pens on a long walk? Guys tell a few jokes, stop and rest awhile, pick some fruit and drink some water, take a siesta in the after­noon, and then keep going. All this time, emo­tional reserves are being replen­ished, and the del­i­cate bal­ance between the eter­nal and the mun­dane is being restored.
It’s a dif­fer­ent world today, and I wasn’t prop­erly aware of the changes. Put car phones and fax machines and jet air­planes into the sys­tem, and sud­denly the nat­u­rally forced times for the mundane disappear.

Recently I made a com­mit­ment to speak in north­ern Michi­gan. Later the per­son who invited me called back and asked, ”Can you give two talks while you’re here?” I agreed. He called back sev­eral weeks later and said, “Bill, we need you to give three talks while you’re here, and if you could meet with some of our peo­ple for break­fast, that would be great, too.”

“How am I going to get there in time?” I asked. ”We’ll send a plane for you.” Not too long after that call, another per­son called me from Texas. ”Bill,” he said, “I’m in deep weeds. I’ve got a thou­sand col­lege kids com­ing, and the speaker we had lined up bailed out. Most of these kids have read your book Too Busy Not to Pray, and we built the whole thing around your book. Could you help us out?”

“When is it?” I asked. He told me, and I said, “I don’t think that’s going to work, because I’m going to be in north­ern Michi­gan that morning.” He asked, “How are you get­ting there?” ”This guy’s send­ing a plane,” I said. He said, “Well, could you call the guy and see if the plane could bring you down here?”

The result was that I got on a plane at 7:00 on a Fri­day morn­ing and flew to north­ern Michi­gan, met with the lead­ers, gave three talks, and had a meet­ing over lunch. Then I got back in the plane and flew all the way to south­ern Texas, with a per­son pump­ing me for infor­ma­tion most of the time. I met with another set of lead­ers over din­ner, gave two talks, got back on the plane, and arrived home at 1 A.M. Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Then I preached Sat­ur­day evening and twice on Sun­day morning.

The point is that spir­i­tu­ally, I was fine—I had main­tained my dis­ci­plines and was striv­ing to obey Christ. Phys­i­cally, I held up fine—it wasn’t like run­ning a marathon. But I was totally depleted emotionally. I was fill­ing my life chock full of eter­nal opportunities.

What’s wrong with that? Besides the emo­tional drain, I real­ized two other hid­den costs of such a ministry-​​centered lifestyle.

First, if you are con­cerned only with spir­i­tual activ­i­ties, you tend to lose sight of the hope­less­ness of peo­ple apart from Christ. You’re never in their world.
Sec­ond, you lose your won­der of the church, of sal­va­tion, and of being part of the work of God. You can over­load on eter­nal tasks to the point that you no longer appre­ci­ate their glories.

I should have known this, because what has saved my min­istry are my sum­mer study breaks. Dur­ing those weeks away, in between study­ing, I jog or sail, often with non-​​believers. That’s when I feel a renewed com­pas­sion for them, for I see afresh the hope­less­ness and self-​​destructiveness of life out­side of Christ. Dur­ing these breaks I also start miss­ing wor­ship at our church, and I begin crav­ing rela­tion­ships with the staff and elders.

Hav­ing enough of the mun­dane in my life makes me see the futil­ity of the world and the won­der and delights of the Chris­t­ian life. I can­not con­tinue to work sev­enty– and eighty-​​hour weeks for many rea­sons, not the least of which is that they don’t allow enough time to be away from the church so that I love it when I come to it.

Know­ing this, I have renewed my com­mit­ment to inte­grate into my life more activ­i­ties that are not church related. I’m golf­ing more. I recently enrolled in a for­mula rac­ing school and learned to drive race cars. This past sum­mer I learned how to bare­foot ski. I want to fly air­planes. If I don’t sched­ule these things—if I wait till my cal­en­dar opens up—they don’t happen.

In Chris­t­ian min­istry the needs of peo­ple are endless. At a cer­tain point I have to tell myself, Bill, you had bet­ter wake up to the fact that you’re not going to get all your work done. It will be there tomor­row. I’m deter­min­ing to live a healthy life so that I can offer more than a few short years of fren­zied activity.

My goal is to mon­i­tor my spir­i­tual, phys­i­cal, and emo­tional resources so that I can min­is­ter, by God’s grace, for a lifetime.

I often think of Billy Gra­ham, who has been a high-​​integrity leader for the cause of Jesus Christ for forty-​​five years. He’s hum­ble, pure-hearted, and self-​​effacing, and every day he draws on the suf­fi­ciency of Christ.

It was a pen­e­trat­ing thought for me to think, What if God wants to elon­gate my min­istry? If God does’ t change his call in my life, can I con­tinue to live at my cur­rent pace for another twenty years? I knew I couldn’t.

I’m con­vinced God wants us to live so as to fin­ish the race we’ve started. That’s the chal­lenge of every Chris­t­ian leader. And mon­i­tor­ing all three gauges— spir­i­tual, phys­i­cal, and emotional—plays an impor­tant part in our longevity.

WE ARE DESIGNED TO SERVE

Serving Haiti

I think there is something inside all of us that desires to make a difference. We get caught up into our own lives and worries and stresses but when something like Haiti hits, it seems like there is something inside of us that wants to do something. People who have never thought of giving money, are giving money to this horrible disaster. People who would normally plan their crusie ship vacations are wanting to plan a mission trip to help out these wonderful people who have been so devastated by nature. I believe God has shaped us for doing good for others. Jesus said it, "Love God and love others."

My 11 year old daughter came to me and said, "Dad, I feel like I need to do something for the people in Haiti." I said, "Well, what do you want to do?" She said, "I can make bracelets and sell them and give all the money to World Vision." I said, "Go for it." Last Monday, on MLK weekend, she and a friend made the Haiti bracelets and set up shop by a local Starbucks and sold $145.00 worth of bracelets to go to aid people in Haiti." That night I asked her, "Why did you feel like you wanted to do what you did today?" She said, "I felt moved to do it."

I believe we were designed to make a difference and serve. I guess the question is, Who are you serving today? Maybe allow God to move in your heart to look outside yourself and to get in the game and serve. When you do, you may feel burdened and broken over the hurt and disaster, but who know that may just be the sign that you are really living and that you are really human.

Christ First,
Pastor Chuck

Haiti

Haiti

I received this from World Vision last night. Please pass the news on. If there was ever a time for us to be the hands and feet of Jesus this is the time. Bless you. Pastor Chuck

Dear Pastor Chuck,

Because of your past generosity, I am writing to enlist the help of your church with an urgent need.

You have already heard about the devastation caused by the 7.0 earthquake that rocked Haiti Tuesday. Even before the earthquake, conditions there for many of the island’s citizens could only be described as desperate. Now, millions are homeless, hundreds of thousands are missing, injured or feared dead. World Vision has been in Haiti for 31 years, with 363 staff members serving more than 300,000 people. While full reports from the field are only now coming in, the good news is, World Vision is already mobilized responding to immediate needs. [Photo]


Your Church is Needed
Immediate help is needed from U.S. Churches to support this massive relief effort. World Vision is distributing emergency supplies including food, water, blankets and tents in order to provide immediate aid to children and families left homeless and vulnerable by the earthquake.

How Can You Help?
As you know, during a crisis of this magnitude, we must respond wisely, providing what is needed at each response phase appropriately. Right now your church can play a critical role by:

Praying
Please pray for the following immediate needs: The health and well-being of quake survivors. The reunion of families. Provision for physical, emotional and spiritual needs. Strength and success of first-responders.

Offering
Please join with thousands of churches across the country this Sunday by taking a special offering to support first response & survival efforts in Haiti.

Mobilize
Communicate to your congregation, church network and community about the crisis and encourage them to join you in responding to the need in Haiti.

Resources for Your Church
World Vision Church Engagement is committed to providing you with real-time information as it is available and the resources you need to empower your churches response effort including a bulletin insert, response card, Haiti fact sheet, PowerPoint, photos and more.

This crisis is bigger than any of us but together we can make a significant impact even in the face of this devastation. Thank you for your partnership to save lives and ease suffering in the name of Jesus.

In Him,
Rich Stearns
President, World Vision U.S.

P.S. We commit to updating you as often as new information and developments are available. Check www.worldvisionchurches.org for resources and updates.

It's Time to Blog

Hey everyone,
My heart is aching for the tragedy in Haiti. Please join me and pray for that already hurting country. It you are wondering what to do... Covenant World Relief is an excellent resource to help in these kinds of horrific disasters. Just click COVCHURCH.org and you go to Covenant World Relief.

Pray Hard