One of the principles that I learned was this: What I can do, depends on the messages that I allow, to get through to my heart.

We all start in life with a clean slate and as soon as we begin thinking and relating, the slate is written on. Every interaction with authority figures and peers establishes more messages on our slate. By the age of six certain behaviours have been discouraged, others developed. Words that are spoken over us enter our spirits and the more they are repeated or agreed with, the stronger the impressions become.

I have worked with many teams and individuals over the years. All have had incredible potential to influence their world. Some succeeded very well and others have fall short. Why is that? If I was able to come up with the answer, I would probably be a very wealthy man! However there are influences upon us that have a significant impact and so it’s important to be aware of them.

What influences our development? Well all kinds of things from family background, education, positive and negative experiences, opportunities, mentoring, self discipline, motivation, teachability, hearing God, the love and encouragement of others, certain beliefs or a passion in our heart for something. Take a moment to think about what influences you have experienced that have brought you to the place you are in right now………………………..
Let’s take a look at a few biblical characters and what influences they came under and what the results were.

Joseph: He had a dream from God that was locked away in his heart. A passion, that one day he would be ruler. He was born to quite a dysfunctional family. He was a favourite of his father, which was a point of dissention for his brothers. Right from the word go, everything was against him. His brothers tried to kill him but fortunately for Joseph, slave traders came along at the right time and he was saved. His new master treated him well but his master’s wife took a fancy to him and he was thrown into prison for sexual harassment. His friend in jail, the cupbearer, forgot him, even when he promised to bring his case to the king. In each situation, Joseph made the most of his circumstances, learned lessons and didn’t allow bitterness to eat up his soul. Then, one day God provided the opportunity. Joseph interprets the dream of Pharaoh when none of his advisors were successful. He gave glory to God and as a result was offered the role of prime minister.

Moses: He was born to a Hebrew family, and after weaning was sent to live in the palace of Pharoah, learn a new language, experience new customs and live out a different faith. He would have received a good education but also lacked the comfort and encouragement of his own family. In learning of his escape from the sword of Pharaoh, it would have certainly been easy for bitterness and anger to creep in. In fact, as he became adult, he was tested as he witnessed the Egyptian task masters being cruel to the Israelites (his own people). One day his anger did get the better of him and it ended with the killing of the Egyptian task master. As news spread, he had to flee for his life into the desert and in so doing, gave up his inheritance as a ruler in Egypt and his calling of helping his own people to freedom. That is until one day, God spoke to him. This was his wake up call, reminding him that he had a destiny; to bring his people out of slavery. He tried to push the calling away but his excuses were weak and he finally submitted to God.

Moses was obviously the right person for the job, he had the right education, the right languages and the right knowledge of pharaoh’s courts and the customs of the Egyptians. Why did he develop as a leader so well? He had no mentor, no friends, no reputation among his people and to top it off, he had achieved nothing. The Israelites would have looked at him as a pagan murderer who had become a loser in the desert.

David: He was the youngest in his family, thought of as an illegitimate son and cast out of the recognised family, to look after the sheep. Being separated from his other brothers, he spent most of his time alone in the fields with his sheep, writing music and poetry. His Dad didn’t even consider him a son when Samuel, the most reputable figure in Israel at the time, came to visit. David had received no education, had no friends, had no achievements to speak of except saving his sheep from a lion and a bear. He did however, have a trust in God. That day when Samuel visited, he was summoned and received an anointing from God as oil was poured over his head. As soon as it was over, back he went to his lonely life of looking after sheep.

The pivotal day that changed his whole future took place some time later. David was taking provisions to his brothers and he turned up at the battle front just as Goliath was taunting the army of Israel. David was indignant – why was no one fighting this Philistine? His brothers put him down for even talking about the situation and sharing his opinions, but this didn’t deter David. Somewhere from deep in his heart there was a passion for God to stand up for righteousness and to be the break through person. We know the story! Saul hears the gossip and summons David to his tent. The king gives David his opportunity of influencing his world and he takes it.

Samson: It all started when an angel pronounces the birth of a special child. He was born to a godly family and his parents sought to raise him in the ways of God, following the strict rules of the Nazarites. Samson had an encounter with God and received a calling to deliver Israel from the Philistines. He had mentors, education and enjoyed the support and encouragement of a good family. All was looking good for Samson. He was a powerful man with supernatural strength. However, he made a decision that brought an anger and passion to kill and avenge. Was this God’s will? Israel was in slavery and all he did was make the philistines mad. He seemed to have passion for women and making a show of his strength rather than glorifying the God he was suppose to serve. He used a God given gift for his own devises. He had all the potential in the world but threw it away.

Judas: He was educated, politically minded and motivated, was attracted to Jesus and started to follow him, was picked to be on of the twelve. He walked with Jesus, preached the kingdom of God, cast out demons and healed the sick. He had a passion for changing the world and gave it all his energy. He like some or all the other apostles thought Jesus was going to overthrow the Romans but he went a step further and wanted to set the stage for Jesus to really do something. But it all went wildly wrong. He hadn’t understood God’s interests.

The last two characters, Samson and Judas had perhaps more natural potential than the others. They had more education and supportive background perhaps. But their passion wasn’t focussed on what God had in mind. They thought they knew better. The bible calls it pride.
Moses didn’t see his passion realised by his skilful manoeuvrings. David didn’t become king by a carefully crafted election strategy. Joseph didn’t become prime minister through his education and popularity. No, there was a God card in all of these examples that we mustn’t forget.

What about your passion? Is it submitted to God? The principle is this: ‘God speaks – we obey.’ We aren’t supposed to tweak our instructions, or wait around until we completely understand, or add our own ingredients. No, simply obey what he says.
Like Joseph, Moses and David may my first passion be to be quick to obey God. Then to seek to fulfil the passion he puts in my heart to the best of my ability.

“All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity— all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.”

What an amazing time of history – the start of the early church, when things were multiplying at an incredible rate and community life was rich, deep and very meaningful.

Ever experienced community like that? The challenge came to the early church when Ananias and Sapphira decided they wanted to look good in the community and gave money to the apostles to use but lied about the amount they had given. No longer were there pure motives of sacrifice, generosity and love for one another. Something ugly had emerged and it had the potential of polluting this fresh expression of community.

Of course there are so many different types of community, but in this letter, I am thinking more about the quality of relationships, rather than the community setting itself. Let’s take a look at some aspects of community life:

What we often call community is actually a working group. This is where a bunch of individuals come together on the basis of a task to be performed. There are no expectations of closeness of relationships (from the leaders anyway). People join to fulfill the vision that has been shared and the whole purpose is to see the goal accomplished. Communication is generally about the task that you are involved with and there can be very good working relationships established. It’s only when you have left the group, that you realise the relationships you had experienced were “working relationships”, because you have no further communication happening. Conflicts between people do happen in this setting, but the focus is on task and so individuals generally live with them or if they feel too hurt, they leave.

What does a real community look and feel like? A real community is: a safe place, with a positive atmosphere, where the presence of God dwells, with an opportunity for depth of relationship, where you can make mistakes, share your opinions freely, be totally honest with each other, relax, have fun, forgive, support, encourage and affirm one another, have conflicts but work them through in a healthy process, receive vision and have ownership of it as a group… and on and on the list could go.

Paul encouraged the believers in Ephesus to live in community in such a way to “Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.” Ephesians 4:2-3

When friction occurs in community, there are two theories. The first theory believes that, “time heals and so you do nothing.” The second theory believes that any outstanding issue needs to be followed through until reconciliation takes place. Ephesians 4:26 commands us to: “not let the sun go down on your wrath.” Galatians 6:1 encourages “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently.” Matthew 5:23 instructs us that “If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right.” So although it seems very clear what we are to do, we often fall into the “do nothing” approach.

Pseudo community! Scott Peck shone a spotlight on the difference between participating in genuine community and experiencing what he called “pseudo community”. He said, “If community involves serving, being, celebrating, forgiving, then most relationships are constantly devolving into pseudo community.” In Pseudo community we tolerate too much. We make excuses why we don’t follow the biblical commands. We find ourselves not quite telling the truth, not quite trusting, not so thoughtful towards each other that we know we could be. We do figure of eights around delicate issues, we accommodate each other, we make sure we don’t upset the applecart or make waves and settle for calm and harmony. Survey’s have shown that up to 1 in 3 feel they are settling for pseudo community!

The real issue here is that we are calling something community but not functioning with relationships as a high goal and therefore living something else. People have joined the community with certain expectations of closeness, and living out the one another’s of scripture and when they don’t happen, there is a growing dissatisfaction and frustration that things aren’t going as they could do.

What is needed is a dose of humility and vulnerability and a reality call that says, “This is where we are at. This is where we want to go. Let’s move towards it.” In this way we are able to live in integrity, knowing we are not perfect, have not arrived, but are moving towards a vision of unity and community.

The tunnel of chaos. Between pseudo and genuine community lies a tunnel of chaos. Someone has blown the whistle and said, ‘as far as I can tell, we’re not experiencing real community’. Things have now got messy, awkward, sometimes scary and difficult to deal with. Now that the truth is out, we have to do something about it. Having aired the situation, at first it feels worse. The truth is sometimes hard to handle.

Salvador Dali has a painting called “Civil war”, where a body is fighting itself. It is very ugly and even grotesque. It hardly looks like a body at all. The various parts of the body aren’t responding to one another and functioning together but in conflict together. It’s possible for our relationships, in a similar way, to get pulled out of shape and to become dysfunctional. The way through this messy time is to come back to the vision of genuine community and recognise how far the community has drifted away from the biblical picture of unity.

Time is required, but all it needs is for someone take the risk of confessing their failings, their short comings and their sorrow over what has taken place. Others often will then follow. Things begin to be put right in relationships. Repentance starts to flow, apologies are given and there is a movement towards forgiving and affirming one another. The road to genuine community has begun.

I am reminded of the first community my wife and I began soon after we were married. I spoke about it some months back in a previous letter on pioneering. We had an incredible mix of people, many of us dysfunctional and working all kinds of issues through. However, there were real relationships emerging and God was touching our lives. Amidst all the difficulties we had to face, we had the joy of having a taste of real community.

Transforming community. The real goal is to become a people who together have an influence. As Jesus said in John 13, “This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” This kind of community sees each member growing in relationship and finding room for their gifts to function effectively. The community has an impact. Synergy is taking place. People are enjoying life. They have conflicts but walk them through. They live in reality and bring an encouragement and accountability for everyone to continue to develop.
So back to our starting verses in Acts 2 – “they enjoyed the goodwill of all the people. Each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.”
So how is your community? Where are you on the graph? Pray and ask the Lord what you are to do, to see a move towards being more of a transforming community.

1. I was day dreaming the other day during worship and suddenly felt the gaze of someone’s eyes on me.  As quick as lightning, I re-engaged and started mouthing the words to the song again.  Not that I was immediately worshipping but at least it looked like I was.  I sometimes pray in tongues and give a reassuring um or yeah, to prayers being prayed, that somehow makes me feel that bit more spiritual.  I’ve even put an offering in the basket just because it’s expected and not because it’s an act of worship.  Whenever I’m following a ‘rule’ or fulfilling an expected behaviour just to make me look good, I’ve fallen into the mould of the Pharisee.

Then the Lord said to him, Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.  ⁴⁰ You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also?  ⁴¹ But give what is inside the dish to the poor, and everything will be clean for you. 

2. I travel a lot to many countries every year but there’s certain YWAM bases I go to where I enjoy some special treatment.  I get picked up at the airport instead of having to use buses, trains and taxis (which I don’t especially like!).  I often get little gifts and always have drinks offered at any time of the day.  Some could see it as perks or living with some status because of my role.  The temptation comes when I wish I could be treated like that all the time.

⁴² Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practised the latter without leaving the former undone.

3. I have always been very responsible.  It’s way up there on my “strengthfinder” list.  If a job needs doing, I will stay up all hours to finish it.  If I commit to something, I follow through with it.  All sounds good, but if you push a strength too far, it becomes a weakness.  Responsibility can become workaholism – where what I do, becomes an extension of who I am.  As a leader, others watch me and some may perhaps feel this is a godly example and follow me down a workaholic path.

⁴³ Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the market-places.

4. In my earlier years, I liked everything fitting into boxes and having clear categories and systems.  For that to happen, as the base got larger and new operating locations emerged, I needed to set policies.  If you’re not careful, more and more guidelines are set for every eventuality and you have started down the road of control.  Responsibilities, roles and  burdens are laid on people and soon the ‘system’ controls.  Flexibility is gone, personal attention is lost, and dialogue becomes a dream.

⁴⁴ Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it.  ⁴⁵ One of the experts in the law answered him, Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.  ⁴⁶ Jesus replied, And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.

 5. Being English has its strengths and drawbacks.  If I didn’t travel out of the country, I wouldn’t see the national spirit so clearly.  Living in Scotland for 26 years and now in Spain for the last 5 years, I see only too clearly the negative traits of my culture.  Arrogance probably being number one.  It’s only as I read history and visit the nations that my forefathers exploited, that I begin to cringe at what my culture has done in the world through the ‘empire’.  Do I repent?  Am I aware of the injustice and arrogant leaders of the past who were English?  When I stand unmoved and oblivious I hold a Pharisaical attitude.

⁴⁷ Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them.  ⁴⁸ So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs.  ⁴⁹ Because of this, God in his wisdom said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.’  ⁵⁰ Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, ⁵¹ from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all.

6. When asked, “How are you?” my response is often, “fine”.  “OK”.  When I came into YWAM, I had my theology together.  I could debate well.  I had years of experience in open-air evangelism and using apologetics with my classmates at school.  I was always ready for a discussion.  I was a typical judgemental, reformed thinking Brit, who thought he was right, had all the answers and basically believed he had it together.  When comparing with other cultures, I considered my own culture superior.  When comparing with other church traditions, they went off track in a number of areas.  When comparing lifestyles, I was trying to follow God’s way!  In other words – A Pharisee.

⁵² Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.

I don’t know how many times I have read those woes of scripture.  I have to confess sadly, that for so many of those readings, I applied it to others and not myself.  A teachable heart is always open to being convicted and recognises that there’s always things to learn.  We never arrive but as long as we are living we are on the journey!  As we read scripture, let’s read it with an open heart, ready for the Holy Spirit to whisper in our ear and reveal those blind spots and bring revelation for growth.

I am reminded that whenever I am tempted to point a finger at others, there are three fingers pointing back at myself.  As Jesus says – beware of the Pharisees, especially the one that has the same name as me!

I have three vehicles that need to go through an ITV (the Spanish road test for cars to ensure they are road worthy). After 10 years, when things begin to go wrong with vehicles, the test has to be performed every year. Because we tend to drive old vehicles, it’s with fear and trembling that I book up the tests and take them in each year, guessing that there will always be work that needs to be attended to. If I fail to do this and get stopped by the police I have to pay a hefty fine and can’t continue to drive. So guess what? I go to the work of getting those vehicles sorted.

Imagine if our bodies had a dashboard. There was a gauge for speed or pace of life, oil or blood pressure, petrol or energy, temperature or stress level and all kinds of warning lights that told us our spiritual, mental, physical and emotional condition!

Let’s think about medical check ups for a moment. This may be a generalisation but men in particular are not good with medical check ups. It’s a known fact that many cases of cancer are not treated because the man may feel an abnormality but doesn’t do anything about it. Perhaps it’s his fear of doctors, his hope that by doing nothing it will go away, his busyness or a host of other excuses, but the fact is, he often doesn’t go for check ups. It’s getting the right balance from ignoring the pain or the problem to becoming a hypochondriac and going to the doctor or taking a pill for every feeling or suggestion of something being wrong.

Some time ago, Ken McGreavy, a very dear friend and mentor, who passed away just last year gave me a spiritual audit. It comprised simply of five questions from the life of Adam that basically gave me a spiritual check up. They got me thinking, so I adapted and expanded on those questions.

God asked Adam, “Where are you?” He didn’t ask because he didn’t know the answer but because it was a personal check up or audit time for Adam.

How is your walking? Scripture encourages us to live by faith, walk in the spirit and walk in a way worthy of the Lord. Are we walking in fear or faith? If we are afraid, we will be hiding from God’s presence. God said, “You are free to eat of all the trees of the garden…” The serpent then asks, “Did God say? ….” He focuses on the areas of restriction or negativity. Satan loves to challenge the goodness of God. In the Old Testament we hear over 300 times that God is good, of which 80 are found in Genesis. Scripture tells us that God shines a lamp for our feet and a light to our path, in order for us to walk confidently. We are warned in Psalm 1 not to walk in the counsel of the ungodly but to walk circumspectly and in the fear of the Lord.

I spend a lot of time in airports and often watch people. You can tell so much from the way a person walks. There’s an arrogant swagger walk, an insecure tentative walk, a depressed slow walk, a relaxed calm walk and so on. Who we are on the inside, is lived on the outside, in how we carry ourselves and the way we walk. Oh that we could take each step in faith, where our foot treads claim the ground and walk in step with the Father.

How is your listening? God was calling but Adam had selective hearing. He wasn’t ready to hear what God had to say. What’s our view of God? Why would we not want to hear God? Doesn’t he love us, want our best, know better than us what’s good for us and have a far greater perspective? The list of benefits could go on. Do I listen more than I talk? Do I take special time each day to put my thoughts aside and give special attention to the creator of the universe and see if there is some wisdom for me?

Why did the enemy choose Eve and not Adam? The commandment was given to Adam before Eve was created. Therefore Eve had second hand knowledge. The devil has an advantage on us if we get revelation and knowledge second hand. Are you a first hand knower because you spend time with God to hear Him personally? God wants us to hear his voice not an echo. Adam did not know the difference between the voice of Eve and the voice of the serpent. Jesus on the other hand knew the serpent was speaking even though it was coming through Peter. Let’s not just learn to hear his voice, but look forward to hearing it and pursue times to listen in.

How is your relating? Adam wasn’t having a good day. He had rehearsed his defense already. The problem was the woman he’d been given. If only she hadn’t suggested eating the forbidden fruit, everything would be fine. He and Eve were into blame shifting. Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent and the serpent didn’t have a leg to stand on! He had never been good at confrontation – he was a high C personality after all – how else could he have had the discipline to name and categorise all those animals and plants! He had never been in the wrong, so why should it start now! He still had to learn that rather than blame, he was to be bless? He was to turn criticism into prayer. Pray blessing until his spirit was sweet.

How is your repenting? Adam had never had to repent in the past, so this was a totally new situation. Besides it wasn’t all his fault. Why should he say sorry when it’s more the other person’s problem. Do we own up or cover up. We do a fig leaf job where God does a fur coat job. Many of us haven’t developed a habit of repenting and so it feels awkward and difficult. Why is it we want to cover up and hide so badly? We find failure, mistakes and blind spots too hard to own up to. We are scared of openness, transparency and vulnerability. We get overcome by shame and stop short of repenting. The problem is that repenting is the biblical way of getting free. And in fact when we are open about our lacks and failures, people can trust us all the more. We become more like Jesus in the process and develop a humble attitude. The wonderful thing is that when we repent, our Father does not remember what the Blood of Jesus covers.

What about your choosing? Adam chose sin in the midst of paradise. In Timothy it says that, “Adam was not deceived”, he pleased another person rather than God. He had clear truth in front of him. He knew what the Lord had said in black and white. Knowledge however, doesn’t equal godliness. Obedience equals godliness. We face choices daily and the more we have Christ living within us, the more we will live holy lives. The more Christ-like we are, the more we will respond as Christ does. Our experiences day to day are to teach us obedience. Even Jesus learned obedience through the things he suffered. How much more must we? So we need to choose carefully. Choosing and acting creates habits and we want to establish a godly, blameless, holy lifestyle.
Here’s 20 questions for you. Not exhaustive in any way but challenging questions that I have asked myself.

When was the last time that I:-
- humbled myself, apologized, took the blame or said, “I am so sorry”
- deeply repented to the Lord, recognised my sin and asked forgiveness
- asked for feedback on my leadership, received criticism and listened
- read a good book and put what I learned into practice
- set clear smart goals for growth in the next season of my life
- affirmed those that I work with, in who they are and what they do
- experienced a belly laugh and could hardly stop
- shared in a vulnerable way by communicating some of my struggles
- cried in front of people because what I was sharing touched my passion or pain
- dreamed of the future and could see what God has in store for me
- prayed and interceded until it hurt
- worshipped the Lord and felt if I reached out that I’d touch him
- felt the anointing of the Holy Spirit as I ministered to others
- experienced real peace with God, myself and others
- shared the word of the Lord with my team, friends and community
- prophesied over my spouse, friends and team
- shared the gospel with someone and prayed for them
- had a creative idea and acted on it
- was extravagantly generous
- was competitive in giving honour

Stephen Olford, an American pastor and conference speaker, many years ago said, “My brothers, I am weary of celebrity religion. I have had my share of honours, but when I die, unless my family can say, ‘There is something of God in the man,’ then I will have failed.”

Remember the poor guy who fell out of the window while listening to Paul preach in Acts 20:9. He went to sleep as Paul went on and on, fell to his death and had to be resurrected! Paul obviously had a capacity to preach for a long time. If you have been in meetings in the past with Joy Dawson you will know she had an anointing for long meetings too! Have you looked at a day in the life of Jesus? He was up early to spend time with his Father, preaching to the multitudes, healing the sick and casting out demons, creating a miracle for lunch, mending the roof of his home after the guy on the stretcher was lowered down, feasting with the tax collectors or Pharisees and then down to Bethel for a quick hello to Lazarus, Martha and Mary. Seriously though, Jesus must have had a high energy to travel, preach, minister and juggle so many relationships. A guy like Abraham however seemed to have much more time on his hands and years go by as he lives his nomadic life.

Growth: I was praying for someone recently and had a vivid picture of them lying on an operating table and the surgeon was about to use his scalpel. The procedure being undertaken was the enlargement of the person’s spirit. A hard crust was being removed and the spirit was being freed up to grow and develop to its full potential. The after care involved regular exercising of the spirit, to enable it to establish new muscles, grow strong and develop greater stamina.

When it comes to our ‘spirits’ there is no limitation to the possible growth. Is that the same for leadership development growth? Perhaps not! Of course all of us have unrealised potential but it’s also important for us to recognise our limitations (a topic we were looking at last month). Limitations aren’t the same as staying in our comfort zones. Comfort zones always need to be pushed through and left behind, but there comes a point where we hit the ceiling of our leadership calling, gifting and scope of influence and can be promoted to a ‘place of incompetence’. What does that mean? It’s being promoted to a place beyond our abilities and calling in God where we are no longer effective and functioning in our anointing. We can simply be encouraged to step up to a role that we are not equipped to fulfil or allow our ambition and ego to get in the way of what God actually has in mind for us. So capacity is important to understand in our growth development.

Gifts: I have never been one for titles or putting letters after my name and so it is with care that I bring up the issue of the gifts listed in Ephesians 4 – for instance the apostle and prophet. I will be talking of the apostolic gift or prophetic gift rather than the office of an apostle or prophet.
People don’t fit into boxes, have you noticed that? We can take all kinds of personality tests and can even come out with the same personality type as someone else but when we compare ourselves, we are still very different. Looking at the working of these gifts in our lives is similar. Several of us can have the same apostolic gift and yet be so different in the way we function with our gifting. Look at the apostles Barnabas, Paul, James and Peter. How different they were in their personality, approach and calling. Barnabas known as the son of encouragement, Paul the apostle to the gentiles, a pioneer and preacher, James who led the church in Jerusalem and Peter, the apostle to the Jews, also an evangelist and preacher.

Paul was an apostolic leader launching churches in different cultures and multiplying people on his team but probably more comfortable with a smaller team keeping on the move. James on the other hand was the leader of the Jerusalem church which was growing exponentially and required a breadth of gifting as ministries grew but he stayed in one place and happy to lead a large team and huge church of individuals.

I often teach about the four main gifts needed in a leadership team. These same four giftings are shared in the GLT outcomes paper for leadership teams: visionary (apostolic); spiritual (prophetic); relational (pastoral); operational (administrative). Through my experience with leadership teams, I recognise that most YWAM leaders have an aptitude to teach, as this gift is held in high esteem and so it doesn’t need to be singled out. The evangelistic gift is often one that doesn’t fit too well with attending of meetings but fortunately the leaders that we need in the leadership teams often have the apostolic gift as well. So the three gifts of apostolic, prophetic and pastoral plus the implementing gift of the operational tend to be key for the full functioning of the team.

As leaders we need an aptitude to develop and use all these gifts. It’s like asking if you are a visionary leader. To lead we all need vision. However there are different capacities of vision and some will have this as a major and the other gifts as minor.

Capacity of gifting: For each of these gifts we can place ourselves on a continuum of low to high capacity. For instance the visionary or apostolic gift has huge variations. The apostolic gift can be seen in someone like Loren Cunningham, launching a worldwide movement like YWAM or Dale Koffman with a ministry like Kings Kids. The same apostolic gift is also seen in launching a pioneer team into a city to establish an evangelism team. It involves creating something where nothing as yet exists. Being apostolic means implementing something new. The same gift but different capacities.

Whenever a team, base, nation or region is passed on to new leadership, the size of the ministry often tends to settle at the capacity of the new leader. Of course as this leader develops to their potential, the size and or depth can grow significantly.

Some years ago a gifted apostolic leader developed a vision for a national work. It focused on church planting which was a real need. All the staff and leadership meetings were geared up to strategise and set goals to see the establishment of a new movement in church planting. It was a good vision but the problem was that it didn’t embrace all that we were called to in YWAM. We believe in church planting but are called to evangelism, training and mercy ministries as three major strands of focus. The church planting vision narrowed the work so that some working in other ministries were no longer valued and didn’t feel a part of the future.

The General apostolic gift: The apostolic gift can be categorised by breadth or depth of gifting. Where the leader develops a breadth of ministry, meaning a wide embrace of many types of ministries, I refer to this leader as a “general apostolic gifting.” This type of leader opens all kinds of doors and isn’t strong on boundaries of a certain type of vision.

If you are looking at a multi-faceted base, national or regional leadership team, a general apostolic leader needs to be a member, otherwise the vision shrinks. The general apostolic leader often without effort, dreams big dreams and has big visions, which usually take us beyond the realm of what we can possibly do without great faith and trust in God.

The Specialised apostolic gift: The leader of depth of gifting focuses into a specific ministry and seeks to develop it to its full potential. I call this a specialised apostolic leader. They would have a heart for a particular project or to develop a specific training school or focus on a specific ministry. If you are called as a specialised apostolic leader and are given a role where a general leader is needed, the vision tends to shrink to the more specific vision. This is an example of a different capacity of gift. On the other hand a specialised leader with capacity for general vision, trains in the specific ministry and can be promoted to a more general role where they see lots of specific ministries released.

Obviously within the general and specialised gifting there are also different capacities. You may have a heart for pioneering DTS’s and that’s what you are called to do. Overseeing a staff of 10 or 12 is as much as you desire. Someone else steps up to overseeing DTS development in a base or region and the sphere of influence increases. Or it may be you step up again to an international multiplication. It all depends on calling and capacity. So it’s important to know yourself!

Prophetic, Pastoral & Operational gifts: We could look at each of the other gifts in a similar way. The prophetic gift comes in all shapes and sizes. The general prophetic leader works alongside the general apostolic leader and speaks into the breadth of ministry. Their words of encouragement and insight will be broad in scope and minister to the wide body. The specialised gift is more focused in a particular team or for particular individuals.

It is similar with the pastoral gift. A general pastoral gift is able to embrace the people in a nation or region and oversee a network of pastoral leaders and give input and advice. The specialised gift is more limited for a certain number of people on the team.

The general operational gift oversees larger structures and systems, while the more specific, deals with more detailed administrative and organisational processes in a team or ministry.

We usually train for general leadership in specialised leadership roles. So it’s important to watch for the signs of a general calling. For example: the general leader is happier with more variety, accepts a little expertise, a little or lot of chaos and wants to do new things before the previous vision has been established.

When you begin to feel stressed, feel that the final responsibility is not sitting with you so well or wish there weren’t quite so many things going on, you have probably reached or gone a little beyond your capacity. Although being put in a stressful situation has the potential of stretching us, it can also break us! So work at matching your capacity, situation and strength for optimum effectiveness and fulfilment.

There are a number of tests and indicators that can be used to identify strengths. A popular one is strengthfinder, which is put out by the ‘gallop organisation.’ You can fill out the questionnaire on line and it identifies your five major strengths in how you function and interact with the world as an individual. Mine would include words like Maximiser: I like to take a vision, work on it, develop it and tweak it so that it becomes the best it can be. Achiever: For me this means that every day, even on days off, I have a need to accomplish something. Arranger: l love to arrange things – give me a whole host of items to put in a suitcase, topics and issues for a conference, possibilities for a project and I will organise and arrange them so that it all works together. It is taking the complex and chaos and bringing order. Learner: I love learning – give me input! Without it I dry up. Focus: I have the ability to focus and see what’s important, gear my energies and attention to see something come about that requires concentration. Its helpful to know what you can do and the strengths you bring to the team. Do the test yourself and discover more about yourself. http://www.strengthsfinder.com/home.aspx

When I was a national leader in Scotland back in the 80’s, I was part of the UK leadership team. Lynn Green was chairing the team at the time and I received so much encouragement from being there. In 1990 he invited me to take on this UK role. In response my question was, “What strengths are you looking for?” As I compared myself to Lynn I realised I was very different in makeup and gifting. I continued to say, “I’m not a charismatic leader, I’m not a good orator, I’m not a wild visionary leader but I can build team and facilitate visionary development.” To cut a long story short I got the job. We need to know what we can do and what we can’t do.

Staffing by strength: One day Jesus stepped into Peter’s boat and rocked his world. Peter was a fisherman, who knew his trade well. Peter had experienced a fruitless night of fishing and Jesus asked him to launch out into the deep water once again. Having swallowed his pride, Peter set out and experienced an amazing catch of fish. Jesus turned to Peter and said, “I will make you a fisher of men.” Jesus saw Peter’s strength of gathering people and his gift of verbal communication and prophetically called him forth into his ministry of being a leader and evangelist. He had all kinds of weaknesses and needed discipleship but Jesus looked at his strengths first.
Barnabas needed a co-worker and thought of Saul, who was known as a murderer, a trouble-maker and one who’d stirred up the crowds even as a new believer and had to be smuggled out of the city. Saul was outspoken and some found him very difficult to handle. This was the guy that came to

Barnabas’s mind but he chose to think of his strengths: single-minded, courageous, visionary, verbally articulate and very passionate for the growth of the church. So he recruited him and worked on his weaknesses as they went.

How do we see ourselves? How do we see others? Do we see the potential and strengths? Or do others weaknesses disqualify them in our eyes?

To identify my strengths, it may help to answer the following questions: How have others encouraged me in my leadership? What comes easily to me in my leadership roles? What aspect of leadership do I enjoy? What do I gravitate to in my leadership? Where do I experience an anointing in my leadership?

2. Weaknesses – we all have them: We don’t usually look for tests to discover our weaknesses but tests we take to reveal strengths, personality, and gifting also show by implication what you are not so good at. Here is a challenge for you: Take a few minutes and write down 5 strengths and 5 weaknesses that you are very aware of right now.

Don’t read on until you have thought of some strengths and weaknesses! So stop and think.

Which came easier? Hmmm. Does that tell you anything?

It’s important that we are aware of weaknesses and we do need to work on them but not to the extent that our strengths aren’t progressing. There is a need to bring damage control to our lives so that our weaknesses aren’t hurting anyone, ourselves included. However it is important to note that our strengths pushed to an extreme become weaknesses.
- Decisiveness becomes impatient or unilateral decision making
- Getting things done becomes insensitive to others
- Caution becomes road blocking
- Enthusiasm becomes manipulation
- Loyalty and support become conformity
- Orderliness becomes perfectionism
So its good to remember that our strengths need to be linked with the strengths of others, so our strength doesn’t move into weakness.

Staffing our weakness: Let’s observe those who have strengths in the area of our own weaknesses and then invite them to join us. When I took on the leadership of YWAM Scotland, the first person I looked for was someone who was more pastoral than I was. The leader who I recruited and worked with me in this role was such a complement to me. It was like he had a sign on his forehead, “Come and pour out your heart to me” because that’s what people did. I also needed others who were more detailed than I was and who could plan projects, organise finances, generally administrate the work and establish management structures.

There are different kinds of weakness in personality. For instance in Myers Briggs, the way we perceive or experience the world is called either “sensing” or “intuition”. The way we decide is called, ‘thinking’ or ‘feeling’. In Myers Briggs theory these four traits are put into an order of strength in each personality known as dominant, auxiliary, tertiary and inferior. If your dominant is ‘thinking’, your inferior will be ‘feeling’. These inferior areas or weaknesses are seen as areas that need growth. Maturity means therefore that we can respond in all four functions in the appropriate way, depending on what is required.

3. Limitations – we all have them: We might aspire to be a superman or superwoman but unfortunately we are limited to be mere mortals. Even in our areas of strength, we have certain capacities and if we’re not sure where that boundary line is, we can be in danger. In a leadership team meeting some years ago, the question was asked, ‘How are you doing generally in life and relationships?” The response given was ‘I’m fine’. Everyone was fine, including me. A few weeks later one of the leaders had to take 6 months out of ministry, due to burn out. So what was going on when that question was being asked? Was the leader lying? No, he was just not aware of his limitations.

The other day I was talking to a friend and I mentioned that I hadn’t been sleeping well. He asked further questions, which drew out the fact that I was in an extremely busy season, with a number of the hats I wear converging at the same time. This meant it was a more stressful season for me than normal. The difficulty is that stress isn’t always felt initially. It creeps up on us. Only when we list down the issues that we are carrying do we begin to understand and have an awareness of what is going on and then perhaps feel the stress a little more. So in response to this revelation of the amount of stress I was under, I wrote a prayer of release to pray daily. I recognised that I actively need to let go of trying to control everything and find solutions. I had reached my limit – the danger point. I needed to know my capacity.
These are some questions I can ask myself: How many balls can I juggle in the air at any one time? How many relationships can I maintain? How much time away is manageable and is there grace for? How many hats or roles can I wear in any season? How much time can I serve in my ‘minor’ area of ministry without being released into my ‘major’ area? When we know our limitations, it’s up to us to create the boundary lines and keep to them.

4. Blind spots – we all have them: I was driving along the main road in town last week when a driver pulled out right in front of me. We both slammed on the brakes and he apologised profusely. Somehow I was in his blind spot and he hadn’t seen me coming. Blind spots are dangerous and life threatening. When you are driving, looking in the side mirror to see if anything is coming just isn’t good enough. We need to turn our heads and look clearly over our shoulder to see the full view of the road. Often when backing out I need someone in the back seat to let me know if it’s clear to go. In order to overcome our blind spots, we need others help and feedback. Fortunately others can often see where we are blind! The problem is that our cultures often don’t encourage feedback and so without asking and pressing for input we don’t receive it.

I was recently watching ‘American idol’ on TV. It is a programme where a team of experts in singing and performance, audition acts to appear on the show. It was so embarrassing. The poor guy auditioning was tone deaf and couldn’t sing in tune but he was so pumped up and believed he was the best thing going. His family was also there watching and cheering him on. I guess you’d have to call this a deaf spot!

Here’s a challenge for you. What blind spots have been pointed out or have you discovered over this last year? Here are a few that I have become aware of (of course there are others that I am still blind to – that’s why I need people close to me to point them out in a loving way):
- As an introvert, everything is sorted in my head and I think I have communicated clearly but feedback tells me that I haven’t!
- I have a limited vocabulary of emotional intelligence. I feel good, bad or ugly – which means I have blind spots in terms of labelling my personal expression of emotion and understanding the emotions of others.
- I am generally over optimistic in terms of what I believe I can squeeze into a week sometimes with negative results.
- Sometimes I am not aware of how stressed I am and it often takes someone else to point out that I need to take a break or slow down. (something that I don’t really like doing!)

So here are four dimensions that make up who we are – strengths, weaknesses, limitations and blind spots. The more we grow in understanding of these dimensions, the greater will be our ability to work effectively in team. The more aware we are of these four areas, the more we can maximise strengths, choose jobs that are fulfilling, staff our weaknesses, live with less stress, and generally be a better leader.

Happy discoveries.

Stephe

At the age of fifteen, I remember responding to a missions call, along with perhaps a hundred others and feeling this draw to being a missionary and heading off to who knows where.  I was willing to go.  Perhaps the most important things at the heart of a pioneer is that willingness to do anything and go anywhere in obedience to God.  Whether that meant to speak on the streets of my local town, where we had an open air every Saturday (how scary that was!), or head off to another country to share the gospel.  While at university I came into contact with YWAM and again had that sense of being drawn.  I wrote off for the DTS application and within all the documentation was a ‘death on the field’ form that had to be signed.  This wasn’t a little holiday to see some of the world.  It struck me that this meant commitment to perhaps not come back!  The next few years after DTS initiated me into being a pioneer and the joy of starting all kinds of ministries.

Lesson 1: Be willing to go anywhere and do anything when God calls, no matter what the cost.

First stop was Canada, where I got married and moved into a little rented apartment and looked for a job.  After 3 months as a couple, we began to feel that the normal 9-5 wasn’t for us.  We were visiting Rite’s parents when we found out about a property that was empty just down the road.  It was an old people’s home with beautiful grounds, industrial kitchen, big lounges and 17 bedrooms.  Our pioneer hearts came alive.  We had been thinking about our YWAM experience and wondered, ‘wouldn’t it be great to establish a discipleship community here in Canada.’  We were youth leaders in the local church at the time and had all these kids who really needed a lot of discipleship and help.  So with an excitement in our hearts we went off to the owners and offered a ridiculously cheap monthly rental to start a community.  To our surprise, the owner agreed and said we could move in straight away.  We couldn’t believe it!  We had prayed and got excited but here we were on the verge of a whole new adventure.  ‘Is pioneering always this easy,’ we asked?  So we moved in.  We shared the vision with the youth group and expected them to be totally in support and excited about the whole project but to our surprise none were interested.  Whoops!

Lesson 2: Check out the felt needs and do some research before jumping in the deep end.

However God did start sending people our way.  It just wasn’t the kind of people we had in mind.  The unemployed, alcoholics, single parents with nowhere to go, couples with marriage problems and more. We were on a steep learning curve and quickly emerging from our sheltered life-styles.   We called the ministry the ‘house of Judah’ meaning the house of praise.    The only thing I really felt somewhat confident to do was to lead worship, so that’s what I did.  I was no counsellor, pastor or evangelist, but I had a love to worship.  We had little wisdom but we trusted God to bring change in the lives of those he brought to us and he surely did.  We worshipped together and opened up evenings to the community and God’s presence came down.

Lesson 3: God uses the weak and foolish things and if we bring what we have he’ll use it for his glory and touch people’s lives.

We were getting worn out.  I was working a full time job and Rite my new wife was cooking and looking after everyone and everything in the house during the day.  I’d come home from a hard day’s work to hear the daily news.  It wasn’t perhaps like the ordinary newly wed’s homecoming – “I’ve had lunch with mum, been to the shopping mall, picked out paint for the guest room…”  No it was more like, “I rescued Charlie (8 year old boy living with us) who was playing with a bear cub on the lawn, the local ranger said if the bear isn’t harming anyone then leave him be, our single mum tried to commit suicide but is doing ok now and the foster agency asked if a girl could stay with us as its her last chance before being sent to the young offenders jail.”  Welcome home dear.  (all true)
God was gracious though and sent some helpers to join us who were more ‘together’ and brought some stability to the community.  Despite the dysfunction in so many lives and our naivety and lack of experience, we saw a community of around 25 very different people emerge over the next couple of months and amazingly begin to love one another.

Lesson 4:  Persevere through the crazy days and you will grow in character and learn important lessons.

Things were beginning to take shape. We’d learned some lesson of praying over our guests, encouraging them to participate in the work around the house, creating a welcoming spirit and developed in the general running of the house.  Just as we were beginning to get comfortable, the enemy tried to trip us up.
One day a church phoned up and asked if we could interview a certain guy to see if we would take him on.  They said he was being discipled but needed further help and they weren’t able to provide it for him.  So we agreed to meet and the day came.  As the door bell rung, we went to greet the visitors only to find the guy standing there alone with his suitcase.  ‘Where’s you pastor,’ I asked.  ‘Oh he’s gone,’ was the reply, ‘he told me I could move in here with you guys.’  What do you do in these circumstances?  I had a gut feeling this wasn’t good but chose to believe the best.  The next months were like a nightmare unfolding as it came out that this guy had a history of paedophilia.  What was worse was the knowledge that he had been pursuing kids in our community.  We were overwhelmed and shocked that such a thing could happen.  Of course he was asked to leave but not without difficulty and the atmosphere was strained for some time to come as people tried to work through the trauma.  We recognised how important spiritual discernment is in the life of a community.

Lesson 5:  Following every initial step or commitment comes opposition and a test.

We lived in a small apartment within the community, with its own small living room and bedroom.  Often times we wanted some privacy and so we would put a sign on the door, ‘knock only if it’s a matter of life or death.’  Of course there was constant knocking, as every issue became one of life or death.  So we soon realised that there would be no peace unless we created some space outside of the community.  So during the week we would escape to a coffee shop where we could talk and share without interruption.  However we also felt the need for some weekends off, so we delegated responsibility to a few of the more together people and one weekend a month we hit the road.  We stayed in cheap hotels and saw the sights in British Columbia and were able to catch our breath, and enjoy our marriage together.  We still have fond memories of those weekends away.  Those were wonderful times that refreshed us and enabled us to be ready for the next adventure.

Lesson 6: Delegate and take a needed break.

Thinking back to our YWAM days, we remembered the short summer outreaches that we’d been on and thought, ‘why don’t we do a summer outreach and take teams into Vancouver to do evangelism.’  Brochures were printed, the programme organised and recruiting started.  Six weeks later no one had responded to the literature and the vision we had shared.  There wasn’t one phone call, not one slight interest – even from our youth group.  We were stunned.  So with some disappointment we cancelled the summer outreach plan.
It’s so easy to assume and presume.  As we checked out our process, we realised how little prayer we’d put into it.  We copied a model we’d seen but hadn’t really received the word of the Lord.  What an important lesson early on in our pioneering experience this was, although a little embarrassing.

Lesson 7: The flesh act.  Running with a good idea not a God idea is bound to fail.

After a year at the house of Judah, having had many people through our doors, many lessons learned and positive fruit taking place in people’s lives, we received a letter from Lynn Green, the leader of YWAM England.  He asked us if we would like to come back to England and join staff.  We read the letter and knew immediately in our spirits that this was our next step.  Amazingly within a month, everyone in the community had plans to move on; some getting married, others to ywam and others to their own homes.  It had been an intense leadership-training year for us and our spiritual muscles had been stretched, our trust in God to bring about the miraculous had also been challenged and we had an excitement that the pioneering adventure was just really beginning.

Lesson 8:  Know when your season is up but remember, God often gives us just enough information for the next step.

We responded to Lynn’s letter and shared that we would love to come back to YWAM.  His reply let us know that YWAM England was fully staffed but Scotland needed staff for 4 months and following the time there we could join him in England.  We talked and prayed and felt we could do anything for 4 months and off we went to bonnie Scotland.  Having been there for 3 months, God spoke to us about putting our roots down.  One day in the staff meeting we shared that we felt God was speaking to us to commit ourselves for the next 3 years.  We wondered if we had made the right decision as we saw the shock on people’s faces!  But yes it was right and having put down our roots, God had the opportunity of doing some more needed work in our lives.
The next years continued to be years of pioneering.  First in establishing a café in town, then a mobile team, an urban team, a rehabilitation centre and then on to become the national leader for Scotland.  The pioneering hasn’t stopped.  We stayed in Scotland 26 years and now have been in Spain for the last 4 years.   The interesting thing is that those initial lessons from 1979-80 have been such foundations for each pioneering situation we have been in.   Why not create your own list of lessons from the pioneering that you have experienced.  Your stories and principles will bring such an encouragement into other people’s lives.

Til next month.

Stephe

Of course there are all kinds of Sabbath:
1. Daily. If you are “living life abundantly” as Jesus wants us to, then life will be busy. That’s why we need time apart each day to keep our spirit’s in tune with the Lord and keep our priorities right. Many Christians take time in the morning for devotions – a time to read the bible, pray and listen for what God has to say to them. This is a wonderful habit. However there are many ways of going about keeping our relationship with God hot. One person shared with me that they set their watch to chime on the hour and they take a few minutes to pray. Others take time after lunch for reflective 10/15 minutes. Perhaps you take a nap as part of that reflection time! As I have a dog that needs walking, I often take her our just before bed at night and spend a few minutes debriefing the day. Whatever the method – take time, plan and take those Sabbath moments.

2. Weekly. The classic use of Sabbath is for a day each week. The 4th commandment in the bible instructs us: Exodus 20:8 ““Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” The tradition for the first century Christians was to celebrate the resurrection day of Christ – the 1st day of the week. Most Christians have set apart Sunday as a day of rest and a time to go to church, worship and receive teaching. For those involved in giving out on Sunday, their own personal Sabbath may be on a Monday instead, where they can be refreshed themselves. We all need a day to regroup, to retreat from the normal work and get in touch with our souls and spirits if we have been rushing ahead!

For me growing up, Sunday was a different day. We always had church in the morning, and invited back people for the traditional Sunday lunch. Sunday afternoon was for a quite walk, or read, followed by church in the evening and a youth event at someone’s house to finish the day. We had a fast from TV and generally more of a family oriented time together. Some might consider it legalistic but looking back we didn’t know any different and I think it was actually helpful for us. Anyway, it is important that you establish your own traditions that help you to relax, be refreshed, reflect on the week and be strengthened for the week ahead.

Exodus 31:12-13 “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the LORD, who makes you holy.”

3. Monthly. Many of the Christian celebrations are being turned into secular holidays. So it’s not happy Christmas but happy holidays, Easter becomes spring break and so it goes on. Our yearly calendar has many celebrations with holidays attached. Living in Spain over these last few years makes me realise that the Spanish know how to celebrate. Although Spain has become secular, they continue with their religious holidays and there seems to be lots of them spread across the year. What about you and me? Do we make the most of these Sabbaths in our year to rest, refresh and reflect? Whether it’s Christmas, new year, Easter, Pentecost, Harvest festival/thanksgiving, plus many more if you are from a catholic or orthodox tradition, these special days can bring space into our busy diaries. How about doing something special every month, going somewhere new, doing something different to break yourself out of the mould. This kind of Sabbath needs more planning but it well worth it.

4. Yearly. Depending on your job and the culture you are from, you will have from 2 weeks to perhaps 6 weeks a year for holidays. These breaks need even more planning. Sometimes getting out of our normal schedule, with its routine can really mess us up if we are not careful. We stay up later, get up later and our normal devotional life and rhythm go out the window with the effect that our breaks aren’t always helpful. As Hebrews 4 shares, there is a paradox – “labour to enter into rest”. We almost have to work harder to take a break and really be blessed by it! So in a holiday think about body, soul and spirit and see how relationships will be built in the process.

5. 7th year Sabbatical.

Exodus 23:10-11 ““For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, but during the seventh year let the land lie unploughed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what is left. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.”
I am not one who subscribes to a formula or taking a year off every 7 but I know some who do and love it. However often the span of time we have in a particular role is from 7-10 years and so in between roles its good to have some kind of transition or sabbatical. My rhythm in ministry, growing up with a family and jobs to juggle has been to take 4 weeks in Canada every other year to catch up with family, then every 7 years or so to receive some kind of input from a training programme of some kind. If you are in full time Christian work there is a need to think about an extended break to evaluate whether you are where God wants you to be, what you have been doing and how effective it has been, how you are utilising your gifts, how you and the family are being fulfilled, etc. etc. In order to do this well you generally need to get away somewhere so that you have no responsibilities. We need time away to process and find our next direction and passion. This isn’t an overnight process and takes weeks and months.
Here are some of the things to think about:

• Time for training input of some kind. It’s not simply a time to let go of responsibilities for a season but to be enriched, having your mind stimulated and challenged. So think about the right kind of input that will be a blessing and help you to develop in the new season.
• Debrief the previous season. This often needs an objective person to help in asking the right questions. Some of these questions will be hard questions that deal with failures as well as successes, weaknesses as well as strengths and struggles and frustrations as well as joys. It often takes a few weeks to just unwind before you can really have the energy for this exercise so don’t jump into it too quickly.
• Building relationship with God. Hopefully you have experienced a Sabbath each week and so are not in a situation of burn out. However, a longer focused sabbatical gives the opportunity of going deeper with God in areas that are difficult during the normal day to day life. Make the most of this and be thinking of specific goals of development that you want to explore. It may include some specific areas of study, spiritual disciplines, or dealing with particular strongholds, lies or baggage that you know you have been carrying. Having someone who is available to ministry to you is of great value here.
• Building relationship as a couple if you are married, and as a family if you have one. You need time to catch up, so develop a rhythm if you don’t have one already, that helps you have lots of communication and time in all sorts of activities with your spouse. Read together, pray together and take time to develop specific areas that need life in your relationship.
• Rest for body and soul. This is a time to focus on feeding your body and soul. Not simply good food but looking after our body and soul in the best possible way. This will include exercise, healthy food, possible changes of diet, emotional releases, enjoyable activities, developing new hobbies and doing things you have always wanted to do.
• Building relationships with family, home church, friends back at home. This takes time especially if you haven’t been home for a while. You can be on a different wavelength, have very different agendas and find you don’t have so much in common. Need time to connect, relax together and establish new foundations.
• Take a stack of books that you want to read but haven’t had the time. Ask others what books they have enjoyed and can recommend. One for sabbatical itself would be “The rest of God” by Mark Buchanan.
• Create some boundaries for emails. Some work-emails still need to be received in order to keep you in the loop, but it’s good to keep them to an absolute minimum. Some work colleagues are actually friends too so you don’t want to cut them off. Wisdom is necessary to know how to come to balance here.
• Fund raising. Take some relational time to build your team and raise finance as necessary.
• Vision for the next season – time to wait on God for fresh direction, development of ministry, change of roles, delegation with the role, movement to different sphere of influence. Time of praying with others for feedback, support and prophetic encouragement.
Here is an example of a plan of a YWAM couple on their sabbatical:
1. Leadership Audit. My wife’s company has offered to do a 360C audit on my leadership in the last 10 years. This exercise will evaluate how I lead and areas of development. The company director will have a coaching time with me. This leadership report will allow me to interact with anyone to dialog with me further as I reflect this journey with the Lord.
2. Spiritual alignment. After talking with leaders, our family will be spending one month with a 24/7 prayer ministry. I felt that this is crucial as we spend time in an environment of worship and prayer to hear God and to allow Him to align, refresh and recharge.
3. Input. After the prayer ministry, we will go to do a Summer Term in a bible school. I am considering signing up for a Diploma and possibly do a long distance learning.
4. Prayer. After this, we will take all these processes and input into a place of prayer and giving God the space to crystallize what He wants to say.

I would encourage you to take time to make plans for how you are going to enjoy the Sabbath in your life, whether it’s daily, weekly, monthly, yearly or every seven years.

I have just read the Genesis story again and marvelled at God’s creativity and attention to every detail.  What a wonderful world he has given us. After being busy for 6 days, he rests on the 7^th.  Have you ever asked the question, why?  This is God we are talking about.  Why does he have to rest?  He has all the resources he will ever need or want at his disposal.  He never gets tired or sick or has need of a break to see his family and friends back home, or take time to raise finance.  Yet he takes a Sabbath to rest.  What does he do?  Well, he reflects on what he has done in the previous 6 days.  He evaluates and comes to the conclusion his work was very good.   In that act, he has modelled something for us that we need to take note of.

I don’t know about you, but I like projects.  I like an assignment with a beginning and an end, a clear goal and a good team to see it become reality.  The problem comes when one project moves into the next and life becomes one ongoing project with no time to pause.  Pausing is good for the soul.  My wife and I have just had a few weeks with no debriefing and issues easily mount up.  We have to sit down, talk and listen to one another and recognise what is happening so we can move on with greater clarity and understanding.

It reminds me of the missionary travelling in Africa. The first few days they made good progress and were ahead of schedule.  However the next day the African guides wouldn’t budge.  Their comment was that they needed to wait for their souls to catch up as they had been travelling too fast.   Do we go so fast that we don’t have time to meditate on what has taken place? Do we go through days, weeks and months without having time to debrief?  Events, experiences, and life in general desperately need to be talked and thought through, whether it’s good or not so good.  We need a debrief each day, week, month and year.  Sometimes it’s simply having a friend to talk with.  But that act of talking about it can bring some understanding, resolve and closure.  It’s good to think through and evaluate what went well and what could have been done better?  We grow in wisdom as we reflect on the lessons we have learned as we go through each experience.

So back to the question: Do you need a Sabbath?  There are some binary questions below with the opportunity of you giving a yes or no answer.  If you answer several with a “NO”, then perhaps you aren’t thinking seriously enough about Sabbath.

Do you regularly stop to ask yourself how things are going and evaluate progress?

Do you take time to reflect and identify lessons learned from your recent experiences?

Are you dealing with past issues before jumping into thoughts and ideas for the future?

Are you taking time to hear God convict you of sin in your life?

Is there a passion stirring and growing in your heart?

Are you aware of what the Lord is saying to you in this season?

Are there guiding scriptures that seem to be key for you right now?

Of course there are all kinds of Sabbath:

1. Daily. If you are “living life abundantly” as Jesus wants us to, then life will be busy.  That’s why we need time apart each day to keep our spirit’s in tune with the Lord and keep our priorities right.  Many Christians take time in the morning for devotions – a time to read the bible, pray and listen for what God has to say to them.  This is a wonderful habit.  However there are many ways of going about keeping our relationship with God hot.  One person shared with me that they set their watch to chime on the hour and they take a few minutes to pray.  Others take time after lunch for reflective 10/15 minutes.  Perhaps you take a nap as part of that reflection time!  As I have a dog that needs walking, I often take her our just before bed at night and spend a few minutes debriefing the day. Whatever the method – take time, plan and take those Sabbath moments.

2. Weekly.  The classic use of Sabbath is for a day each week.  The 4^th commandment in the bible instructs us: Exodus 20:8 ““Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” The tradition for the first century Christians was to celebrate the resurrection day of Christ – the 1^st day of the week. Most Christians have set apart Sunday as a day of rest and a time to go to church, worship and receive teaching.  For those involved in giving out on Sunday, their own personal Sabbath may be on a Monday instead, where they can be refreshed themselves.  We all need a day to regroup, to retreat from the normal work and get in touch with our souls and spirits if we have been rushing ahead!

For me growing up, Sunday was a different day.  We always had church in the morning, and invited back people for the traditional Sunday lunch.  Sunday afternoon was for a quite walk, or read, followed by church in the evening and a youth event at someone’s house to finish the day.  We had a fast from TV and generally more of a family oriented time together.  Some might consider it legalistic but looking back we didn’t know any different and I think it was actually helpful for us.  Anyway, it is important that you establish your own traditions that help you to relax, be refreshed, reflect on the week and be strengthened for the week ahead.

Exodus 31:12-13 “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the LORD, who makes you holy.”

3. Monthly.   Many of the Christian celebrations are being turned into secular holidays.  So it’s not happy Christmas but happy holidays, Easter becomes spring break and so it goes on.  Our yearly calendar has many celebrations with holidays attached.  Living in Spain over these last few years makes me realise that the Spanish know how to celebrate.  Although Spain has become secular, they continue with their religious holidays and there seems to be lots of them spread across the year.  What about you and me?  Do we make the most of these Sabbaths in our year to rest, refresh and reflect?  Whether it’s Christmas, new year, Easter, Pentecost, Harvest festival/thanksgiving, plus many more if you are from a catholic or orthodox tradition, these special days can bring space into our busy diaries.  How about doing something special every month, going somewhere new, doing something different to break yourself out of the mould. This kind of Sabbath needs more planning but it well worth it.

4. Yearly. Depending on your job and the culture you are from, you will have from 2 weeks to perhaps 6 weeks a year for holidays.  These breaks need even more planning.  Sometimes getting out of our normal schedule, with its routine can really mess us up if we are not careful.  We stay up later, get up later and our normal devotional life and rhythm go out the window with the effect that our breaks aren’t always helpful.  As Hebrews 4 shares, there is a paradox – “labour to enter into rest”.  We almost have to work harder to take a break and really be blessed by it!  So in a holiday think about body, soul and spirit and see how relationships will be built in the process.

5. 7^th year Sabbatical.

Exodus 23:10-11 ““For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, but during the seventh year let the land lie unploughed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what is left. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.”

I am not one who subscribes to a formula or taking a year off every 7 but I know some who do and love it.  However often the span of time we have in a particular role is from 7-10 years and so in between roles its good to have some kind of transition or sabbatical.  My rhythm in ministry, growing up with a family and jobs to juggle has been to take 4 weeks in Canada every other year to catch up with family, then every 7 years or so to receive some kind of input from a training programme of some kind.  If you are in full time Christian work there is a need to think about an extended break to evaluate whether you are where God wants you to be, what you have been doing and how effective it has been, how you are utilising your gifts, how you and the family are being fulfilled, etc. etc.  In order to do this well you generally need to get away somewhere so that you have no responsibilities. We need time away to process and find our next direction and passion.  This isn’t an overnight process and takes weeks and months.

Here are some of the things to think about:

• Time for training input of some kind.  It’s not simply a time to let go of responsibilities for a season but to be enriched, having your mind stimulated and challenged.  So think about the right kind of input that will be a blessing and help you to develop in the new season.
• Debrief the previous season.  This often needs an objective person to help in asking the right questions.  Some of these questions will be hard questions that deal with failures as well as successes, weaknesses as well as strengths and struggles and frustrations as well as joys.  It often takes a few weeks to just unwind before you can really have the energy for this exercise so don’t jump into it too quickly.
• Building relationship with God.  Hopefully you have experienced a Sabbath each week and so are not in a situation of burn out.  However, a longer focused sabbatical gives the opportunity of going deeper with God in areas that are difficult during the normal day to day life.  Make the most of this and be thinking of specific goals of development that you want to explore.  It may include some specific areas of study, spiritual disciplines, or dealing with particular strongholds, lies or baggage that you know you have been carrying.  Having someone who is available to ministry to you is of great value here.
• Building relationship as a couple if you are married, and as a family if you have one.  You need time to catch up, so develop a rhythm if you don’t have one already, that helps you have lots of communication and time in all sorts of activities with your spouse.  Read together, pray together and take time to develop specific areas that need life in your relationship.
• Rest for body and soul.  This is a time to focus on feeding your body and soul.  Not simply good food but looking after our body and soul in the best possible way.  This will include exercise, healthy food, possible changes of diet, emotional releases, enjoyable activities, developing new hobbies and doing things you have always wanted to do.
• Building relationships with family, home church, friends back at home.  This takes time especially if you haven’t been home for a while.  You can be on a different wavelength, have very different agendas and find you don’t have so much in common.  Need time to connect, relax together and establish new foundations.
• Take a stack of books that you want to read but haven’t had the time.  Ask others what books they have enjoyed and can recommend.  One for sabbatical itself would be “The rest of God” by Mark Buchanan.
• Create some boundaries for emails.  Some work-emails still need to be received in order to keep you in the loop, but it’s good to keep them to an absolute minimum.  Some work colleagues are actually friends too so you don’t want to cut them off.  Wisdom is necessary to know how to come to balance here.
• Fund raising.  Take some relational time to build your team and raise finance as necessary.
• Vision for the next season – time to wait on God for fresh direction, development of ministry, change of roles, delegation with the role, movement to different sphere of influence.  Time of praying with others for feedback, support and prophetic encouragement.

Here is an example of a plan of a YWAM couple on their sabbatical:

1. Leadership Audit. My wife’s company has offered to do a 360C audit on my leadership in the last 10 years.  This exercise will evaluate how I lead and areas of development.  The company director will have a coaching time with me.  This leadership report will allow me to interact with anyone to dialog with me further as I reflect this journey with the Lord.

2. Spiritual alignment.  After talking with leaders, our family will be spending one month with a 24/7 prayer ministry.  I felt that this is crucial as we spend time in an environment of worship and prayer to hear God and to allow Him to align, refresh and recharge.

3. Input.  After the prayer ministry, we will go to do a Summer Term in a bible school.  I am considering signing up for a Diploma and possibly do a long distance learning.

4. Prayer.  After this, we will take all these processes and input into a place of prayer and giving God the space to crystallize what He wants to say.

I would encourage you to take time to make plans for how you are going to enjoy the Sabbath in your life, whether it’s daily, weekly, monthly, yearly or every seven years.

Just look at the last five decades in history.  It seems from a brief look that there are trends, mind-sets, ways of life and culture that change over each decade.

1960’s – YWAM started in this decade and along with others began a new wave of missionary activity.  This decade known for its counter culture and social revolution, also known as the swinging 60’s became an era of irresponsible excess and flamboyance and the emergence of the hippies.  The Berlin wall was built, the 1^st man walked on the moon and the first heart transplant took place.  JFK and Martin Luther were assassinated and Mandela was sentenced to life in prison.  There was radical change in Africa as 32 countries gained independence from their European colonial rulers.  Marilyn Monroe was found dead, the Beatles become popular and Star trek and Sesame Street TV shows began.  Films: James Bond, spaghetti westerns, Dr Shivago, Breakfast at Tiffany’s,

1970’s – YWAM starts training courses, which multiply quickly.  Hippies are still around until the middle of the decade. Technology develops with the introduction of the VCR, the pocket calculator and Sony’s walkman.  In the U.S., the Watergate scandal begins, abortion is legalized and they pull out of Vietnam.  Economic growth is slowed by the oil crisis.  Tangshan earthquake kills 240,000. Elvis is found dead and we hear of the Jonestown massacre.  Margaret Thatcher becomes 1^st woman prime minister in UK and Mother Theresa is awarded the Nobel peace prize.   Films include: love story, disaster movies like the towering inferno, the Poseidon adventure and Earthquake; Clockwork orange, the Godfather, Jaws and the first Star Wars.

1980’s – YWAM worked on project 223 to minister in every nation of the world.  John Lennon was assassinated.  DNA was first used to convict criminals and a new plague is identified as Aids. The 1^st personal computers are launched. A hole in the ozone layer is discovered and we experience the Chernobyl nuclear accident.  Developing countries across the world faced economic and social difficulties as they suffered from multiple debt crises.  Ethiopia witnessed widespread famine and one of the remembered fund raising efforts was the Live Aid concert of 85.  Major civil discontent and violence occurred in the Middle East, including the Iran-Iraq war, the ongoing Soviet-Afgan war, teh 1982 Lebanon war, the bombing of Libya in 1986 and the first Intifada in the Gaza strip and the West Bank.  Berlin wall falls. Classic films are produced like E.T., the V and VI in the star wars trilogy, Indiana Jones and back to the future.

1990’s – YWAM engaged unreached peoples and saw frontier missions come to the fore.  The Berlin wall fell in 89 and following was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war. PC’s entered middle class homes resulting in the rise to prominence of the internet which grows exponentially.  This also increased economic productivity and personal wealth increased among the major developed nations.  The decade saw the end of modernity and the emergence of post-modernity.  Operation Desert Storm is launched and Hong Kong is returned to China.  Princess Dianna dies, the Euro appears and we see the emergence of 2G mobile phones moving from bricks to small hand held units!  Films like: Jurassic Park, Toy story, the Matrix, men in black, Forrest Gump and Titanic (the most successful film ever)  There is panic over potential problems for all the computers in the world as we enter the new millennium!

2000’s – YWAM introduced Project 4K and changed the way we look at the world.  Globalization continues with the internet being one of the prime contributors.  A new way of life emerges with buying and selling online, researching and learning about anything and social networking through interfaces like face book changed the way we communicate. We see the rise of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups leading to the occupying of Afghanistan and the war on terror.  The EU saw further integration and expansion in Europe.  The environment became a key issue.  Films like: Lord of the rings, Harry Potter, Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Passion of Christ and Avatar.

Are you convinced yet?  Each decade has such a contrast.  So if we can see it objectively in the recent decades we have just lived through, it’s probably happening in our lives as well.  The problem is, we live with ourselves 24/7 and so don’t always notice the changes taking place.

If you have read “the making of a leader” by Robert Clinton, and taken time to draw out your timeline, then you have probably thought in terms of decades of your own life already.  Here is a very rough outline of the decades:

Sovereign Foundations: Formation years.  Understanding authority, love and trust

00’s – a time of hopefully being cared for, nurtured and developed in the home environment. It includes the first experience of school and learning, being under authority figures and hopefully having lots of fun activities.

10’s –  a time of education and learning, becoming an adult, beginning to understand decisions have consequences and making mistakes, growing in identity and understanding who you are.

Discipleship Training/inner life: Learning years.  Growing in character and commitment

20’s – a time of growing up, no longer a teenager with all the emotional ups and downs, looking to explore a little or a lot, starting to think about what to do and where to go, looking at careers and calling, a season of romance and often meeting the woman or man of their dreams

Ministry development: Contributing years.  Using gifts and leadership skills

30’s – potentially a time management nightmare, with pressures from a young family and a focus on work or ministry, getting established in specific roles, understand more of who you are and how you function in gifts and relationships

40’s – the first birthday in this decade is a milestone, a pivotal mid life reflective moment and decisions are made to continue in what you are doing or move to something new and perhaps completely different,

Wilderness development/life maturing: Evaluating years. Persevering and intimacy

50’s – the sandwich decade where you are often caring for aging parents or kids who are now young adults needing support in their development, at a point in work or ministry where there is much wisdom and expertise but feeling the pressure to develop the younger generation and wondering whether there is still a place for you, still lots of energy and vision and can accomplish much, the emphasis begins to move towards influence roles rather than direct line responsibility,

Convergence anointing: Investing years.  Calling and gifting working together

60’s – a time where the world is thinking of retiring and slowing down, although the priests of the bible retired from the active roles at 50 they continued their eldering roles until their death, this isn’t a time to settle down but to impart out to others, an opportunity of being influential without the final responsibility, mentoring, fathering, ministering, training, imparting and blessing others, it’s a focus on relationships,

70’s – a time to invest carefully with the energy and time you have available, these finishing years can be so fruitful,

Look at your own decades – what has happened in your life?  What characterises each decade?  Write some words that sum up the decades in your life.

In 10 years we have generally left our mark on the role we have performed.  If we continue we will tend to do more of the same – that’s not necessarily bad but if the younger generation is to rise, they need to take responsibility.  It is important not to work ourselves OUT of a job, but work ourselves INTO new jobs.  If you’re a pioneer at heart, keep pioneering like Caleb.  If you’re a prophetic intercessor like the apostle John, take as much solitude and time out to hear from God and then use the platforms that God gives to share and impart what God has given, if you’re a teacher like Paul, keep teaching by travelling, sharing one to one in prison or writing, if you’re an evangelist, you never run out of people to reach, if you’re a pastor, people will beat a path to your door and so you will never be out of a job either.  As a parent its good to remember that every 10 years there is a different kind of input that your child needs.  If you continue to relate to a son of 18 like you did at 8, life isn’t going to be smooth for either of you.  Similarly in relating with friends or spouses – every season of life requires a different approach and style that needs to change.   The question is, are we aware of how we need to change?

After 10 years doing anything, its time for a major reflection and evaluation so that you can clarify what the next 10 years may hold for you.   Here are some questions that may be helpful:

-       What am I passionate about?  What am I doing that I am not passionate about?  Is passion missing and do I need to seek the Lord to get re-fired up?

-       Am I on track with life goals and ambitions?  What are the words from the Lord that I have received over the years?  What is the sense of destiny that I carry in my heart?  What dreams are left undone right now?

-       What are the priorities in my personal, relational and ministry life right now?  What am I giving time and energy to?  What needs to change?

-       How long have I been in my ministry role and how long should I stay in it?  How could it change?  What are developmental possibilities?

-       Who am I training, influencing and mentoring?

-       How am I plateauing? What risks do I need to take to step into the next season?

-       Where am I to be rooted?

Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

What will this decade hold for you?