Humbled by God's Love

I admit that I had a hard time getting my head around "self-control" as a fruit of the Spirit... Why wasn't it called "Spirit-control" anyway, if it was from the Holy Spirit? Then there was "Deception"... Was that really my problem? Do I tell lies? Maybe it is self-deception?

Christian Schwarz's definition talks about "Disciplined Love", "consistency" and "having power over yourself". His summary definition: "Self-control means sobriety and moderation in all areas of life. It's always targeted at achieving a specific goal". I gather the goal is to "serve other people better".

It is in the red (Truth) section, so relates to steadfastness and reliability. 

Now I don't know about you but to me this seemed just as fuzzy as some of the definitions of love that the book rails against. What did all this have to do with love?

It all looked too hard until last Sabbath afternoon when I decided to open the 3 Colors of Love book after several months. It opened to page 60, "1 Corinthians 13 and the spiritual color wheel" (wheel is the picture above).

Christian states in the first sentence that "Paul made it crystal clear... that even the most committed life is worth nothing without the fruit of the Spirit". I summarised it as: If my motive is not Love, any spiritual accomplishment is nothing. 

Then to test how strongly my life is driven by love, I took Christian's challenge of making my own personal version of 1 Corinthians 13:1.

So I sat down and wrote out a list of all the dreams and hopes I have, all the plans and all the projects that I'm working on. Then to each one I added a kicker, like Paul did.

It looked like this, in the only example I'm willing to share:

If I through NCD, helped Toronto church become so strong and healthy that we had have multiple sermons and plant another church to fit everyone in, if I'm not motivated by love for the church members and love for the lost, then it is worthless, pointless egomania.

And so on through all my dreams (there are four other big ones).

It was a God-moment. I sat back in my seat at the realisation of my great lack of love, my lostness and my total inability to do anything about it all.

I saw that all my busy-ness was a cover for my problems. I'm doing all these things for myself. I saw the depth of my sin and knew I was in a deep hole.

Suddenly my dreams looked unattractive and, to tell the truth, I just didn't want them any more. 

That probably sounds dramatic but that was the way it happened.

Suddenly I'm praying earnestly for God's love, because I just don't have it. I want to love Him with all my heart and soul. And I want to love people too.

The next morning I prayed earnestly before my Bible reading and God came through. My OT chapters included Deuteronomy 13:3-5,9. 

Wow did that hit home! My "dreams" were a test of my love for God and I had to be the first to strike the first blow.

Now I'm memorising Deut. 13:4 because, like all the commandments, it is a promise that I will be able to follow God and fear Him etc. because He has the power to do it. Now this is my aim, not all the other stuff.

I want to find out exactly what Self-control is and stop the deception. Time to start letting the Spirit love through me.

3 Colors of Love

Now it is time to get personal...
NCD provides tools for assessing and improving the health of the church but it also has tools for looking at our personal spiritual health and one of the best is in Christian Schwarz's book, "The 3 Colors of Love", with the Fruit of the Spirit Test.

The book's basic premise is that "the" fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 is love. The other eight "fruit" mentioned are parts of love. Like the NCD survey, the Fruit of the Spirit Test finds the "minimum factor", the area in my life where I am blocking the Holy Spirit's work, i.e. the way I am most unloving.

And that brings me to the second premise of the book; the biggest problem thwarting God's blessing in both the church and in my life, is lack of love. So by letting the Spirit flower and fruit in the particular part of "love" that I lack, I will become more healthy spiritually (and so will my church).

I'm not going into detail but I want to share my Fruit of the Spirit Test results then report how I'm going at letting the Spirit work.

I did the test on December 15, 2012 (I'll tell you in the next post, why I put off working on it).

I am 55 years of age, male, a Seventh-day Adventist Australian.

Fruit of the Spirit Profile
(the higher the value, the better)
   Name of the fruit, Profile Value
1. Gentleness 104
2. Patience       103
3. Peace           99
4. Goodness       96
5. Kindness        96
6. Faithfulness 82
7. Joy              82
8. Self-control 79


Color Area Profile
Justice (Green)         267.2
Truth (Red) 221.8
Grace (Blue) 261.6

To sum up:
My minimum love value is Self-control.
My weakest area of love is Truth.
So these are the areas to "work on" so I can "grow in love".

Some reflections:
All the scores down to Kindness are grouped around average, 100, then the dropoff to around 80, which is the bottom 2.5%. Pretty dramatic!
Self-control, joy and faithfulness make up most of the Truth area. So no wonder it is lowest.
I neglect Truth so have a tendency to Deception. This is where I am most unloving.
I lack the primary virtue of Trustworthiness
By overemphasising Justice and Grace I have become Anarchic and Hypocritical.

Pray for the Spirit

Last time we learned that, to be filled with the Holy Spirit, the followers of Christ first step was to be always praising and blessing God.

Apparently, from Scripture, they only took one other step! Luke continues his story in Acts 1 where Jesus explains more fully that the "promise of the Father" is the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5,8). Then, after Jesus' ascension, Luke states that "All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer"(Acts 1:14). The rest of the chapter is an example of how they prayed for a practical ministry problem, and God led to its resolution.

Prayer and praise are the only things we know, for sure, that Christ's followers were doing as "they were all together in one place" (Acts 2:1) on the day of Pentecost.

But what does prayer have to do with my assertion that Christian Contentment is the first step to receiving the Holy Spirit fully?

Jeremiah Burroughs believes that Christian Contentment "is opposed to murmuring and repining at the hand of God, as the discontented Israelites often did. If we cannot bear this either in our children or servants, much less can God bear it in us." Then after exclaiming, "What evil God sees in the vexing and fretting of my heart, and murmuring and repining of my spirit!" he goes on to detail "The Evils of a Murmuring Spirit":

The sixth evil in a murmuring spirit is, by murmuring you undo your prayers, for it is exceedingly contrary to the prayer that you make to God. When you come to pray to God, you acknowledge his sovereignty over you, you come there to profess yourselves to be at God's disposal. What do you pray for, unless you acknowledge that you are at his disposal? Unless you will stand, as it were, at his disposal never come to petition him. If you will come to petition him and yet will be your own carver you go contrary to your prayers, to come as if you would beg your bread at your Father's gates every day, and yet you must do what you list: this is the undoing of the prayers of a Christian.

The Father answered the disciple's prayer for the Holy Spirit at Pentecost because they were submitted to Him. Their contentment-based prayer and praise led them into full dependence on that great effective structure that brings spiritual life to Christ's church.

Do you see how contentment fits with the quote that started this section?

He who loves Christ the most will do the greatest amount of good. There is no limit to the usefulness of one who, by putting self aside, makes room for the working of the Holy Spirit upon his heart, and lives a life wholly consecrated to God. If men will endure the necessary discipline, without complaining or fainting by the way, God will teach them hour by hour, and day by day. He longs to reveal His grace. If His people will remove the obstructions, He will pour forth the waters of salvation in abundant streams through the human channels. If men in humble life were encouraged to do all the good they could do, if restraining hands were not laid upon them to repress their zeal, there would be a hundred workers for Christ where now there is one. - The Desire of Ages pp 250,251

My question is; What structures do we have at Toronto that help us "learn to be content", content in prayer, content in praise? Only if we let God teach us those first steps, God can answer our prayers and the Holy Spirit's power will light up Toronto church and our neighborhood.

Better than Heaven

The foolish virgins were not foolish because they were waiting, they were foolish because they were content with "enough already" and didn't take the steps they could while they were waiting.

Are you waiting for more of the Holy Spirit? The wise girls took steps to "learn" how to be "more content". They knew that in Christ's kingdom, the person who has the most gets even more Luke 8:18. We'll join them in stepping onto the bridge to more of the Spirit.

Let's look at the steps that disciples took up to Pentecost, the prototype of being filled with the Spirit.

Please read Luke 24:45-53.

To sum up Jesus says, "Your job is proclaim Me all over the world (including Toronto), but before you start you need to change your clothes. Be clothed with power (and the Holy Spirit)."

Then He was carried to heaven. They were carried away too, with joy and praise.

So what steps did they take while waiting to be filled with the Holy Spirit: Continually praising God. Thats it (at least here in Luke, they did do something else, but we'll look at that next week). The formula is simple; if you want the power of the Spirit, praise God.

Does contentment have anything to do with praising God?

Jeremiah Burroughs says, "a contented heart is always praising and blessing God."
Let's put it in context:

What is Heaven, but the rest and quiet of a man's spirit; that is the special thing that makes the life of Heaven, there is rest and joy, and satisfaction in God. So it is in a contented spirit: there is rest and joy and satisfaction in God. In Heaven there is singing praises to God; a contented heart is always praising and blessing God. You have Heaven while you are on earth when you have a contented spirit; yea, in some regards it is better than Heaven.

How is that, you will say? There is a kind of honor that God has in it, and an excellence that he does not have in Heaven, and it is this:

In Heaven there is no overcoming of temptations. They are not put to any trials by afflictions. In Heaven they have exercise of grace, but they have nothing but encouragement to it, and indeed the grace of those who are there is perfect, and in that they excel us. But there is nothing to cross their grace, they have no trials at all to tempt them to do contrary; whereas for a man or woman to be in the midst of afflictions, temptations and troubles, and yet to have grace exercised, and to be satisfied in God and Christ and in the Word and promises in the midst of all they suffer: this may seem to be an honor that God receives from us, that he does not have from the angels and saints in Heaven.

Is it so much for one who is in Heaven, who has nothing but good from God, has nothing to try him, no temptations; is it so much for such a one to be praising and blessing God, as for the poor soul who is in the midst of trials and temptations and afflictions and troubles? For this soul to go on praying, and blessing, and serving God, I say, is an excellence that you do not find in Heaven, and God will not have this kind of glory from you in Heaven.

If we want more of the Holy Spirit, if we want to stand firmly on God's Effective Structures, we must praise God. By being content in Christ, we are always praising and blessing God, better than we will in heaven.

Photo Source

Enough Already!

How do we cross the bridge from self-sufficiency to dependence on God's Holy Spirit? How do we put "self aside (and make) room for the working of the Holy Spirit"?

The next few posts will look at the first steps onto the bridges we need to cross to continue our journey to church health, which in our case means, a church with Effective Structures.

These first steps are decisions we make individually, as well as a church. These decisions determine whether we stay in our rickety, ineffectiveness structures or travel on the effective, mighty structures set up by God Himself.

The first decision connects us to the Holy Spirit.

A contented heart is what allows the Holy Spirit to be effective in our lives. Contentment is, I believe, that connection.

Over the summer holiday, I read the old Puritan Classic, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, the writer, Jeremiah Burroughs says "Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition."

Our initial decision to find contentment ONLY in God, in every condition, is just the beginning; we will learn to be more and more content. Even the Apostle Paul, wasn't naturally content; he had to learn to be content (Philippians 4:11-13), and Christ through His Spirit, will teach us the same lesson. 

Contentment in God, prepares us for even more blessings and more of the Spirit. As self-sufficiency is pushed aside, the Spirit works more strongly in our lives. Burroughs calls contentment "a compound of grace" because almost all the fruit of the Spirit are "compounded in it".

Still, the first lesson, and maybe the hardest, is to decide to start being content just where we are right now. We need to realise that, if we have asked for the Holy Spirit, then we already "have" as much of the Spirit as God can safely give us.

So how much of the Spirit and of Jesus do we have? The Hebrews are told in 13:5,6, "...be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say,
“The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear;
what can man do to me?”

What a reason to be content. We indeed have "enough already!"

Photo source: Ian Waldie/Getty Images

The Holy Spirit

The third great "Effective Structure", that God set up to restore this earth, is the Holy Spirit. It is God's way of connecting the first structure, the Word made flesh (Jesus), to the second structure, His church. The spirit applies the vast and precious blessings of Christ to our individual and church life.

In our little metaphor, if the church is the lamp and the Word made flesh is the oil in the lamp, then the Holy Spirit is the lighted wick. (see the picture above)

Our God is a consuming fire (Heb 12:29) and Jesus is the true light, which gives light to everyone (John 1:9), so when the Holy Spirit effectively links the church to Christ, we become the light of the world (Matt 5:14).

A healthy church glows brightly with the power and presence of Christ through His Holy Spirit. Natural Church Development simply measures the strength of the church's connection to Jesus though the Holy Spirit. The minimum factor is the area of church life where the Spirit is given the least access.

So, unlike the first Effective Structure where God acted unilaterally, without input from us, except our great need, the third structure involves not just God's promise and gift (Luke 24:49, Acts 1:4, 2:33) but our reception of it. It is possible to quench the Spirit (1 Thess 5:19).

The Father longs to give us the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:11-13) but the third great Structure is Effective only when we remove the obstructions, when we love Christ and allow the Spirit to work.

He who loves Christ the most will do the greatest amount of good. There is no limit to the usefulness of one who, by putting self aside, makes room for the working of the Holy Spirit upon his heart, and lives a life wholly consecrated to God. If men will endure the necessary discipline, without complaining or fainting by the way, God will teach them hour by hour, and day by day. He longs to reveal His grace. If His people will remove the obstructions, He will pour forth the waters of salvation in abundant streams through the human channels. If men in humble life were encouraged to do all the good they could do, if restraining hands were not laid upon them to repress their zeal, there would be a hundred workers for Christ where now there is one. - The Desire of Ages pp 250,251

"Without complaining"... The foolish young women (unhealthy churches) made the complaint "Give us some of your oil, our lamps are going out." But the wise answered, saying, "Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves."(Matt 25:8,9)

To be ready for God's kingdom, to be a healthy Christian, and a healthy church, we must, individually, have "enough" of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Next week's Blessings is entitled "Enough Already!".

The Church

You and me, together, at Toronto church. That's the second Effective Structure God established to restore this lost world. Pretty amazing isn't it!

When Jesus commissioned His church (remember that is you and me) He gave us all the authority we need to go all over the world (including Toronto) making disciples, baptising and teaching (Matthew 28:18-20). He expects us to do the job so well that it will glorify the Father... forever (Ephesians 3:20,21)!

To do such a big job and make Jesus really happy, each person at Toronto has to have "be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind." being helpful and humble.(Philippians 2:2,3). How is that achieved? By "having this mind among (us), which is yours in Christ Jesus." (Phil 2:5).

The first paragraph of Mrs White's "The Acts of the Apostles", from the chapter entitled "God's Purpose for His Church", is:

The church is God's appointed agency for the salvation of men. It was organized for service, and its mission is to carry the gospel to the world. From the beginning it has been God's plan that through His church shall be reflected to the world His fullness and His sufficiency. The members of the church, those whom He has called out of darkness into His marvelous light, are to show forth His glory. The church is the repository of the riches of the grace of Christ; and through the church will eventually be made manifest, even to "the principalities and powers in heavenly places," the final and full display of the love of God. Ephesians 3:10.

So there it is... our little church, is the second Effective Principle God has set up to carry the gospel to Toronto.

If we return to the analogy, from last time, of Jesus, the Word made flesh, being the oil in the lamp, then the church is the actual lamp itself, the "jars of clay", "earthen vessels" that the power of God, not ours, is displayed. (2 Corinthians 4:7).

Next time we look at the third structure.

The Word was Made Flesh

The opening 3 paragraphs from the "History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century" by J. H. Merle d'Aubigné (1794-1872)

The enfeebled world was tottering on its foundations when Christianity appeared. The national religions which had satisfied the parents, no longer proved sufficient for their children. The new generations could not repose contented within the ancient forms. The gods of every nation, when transported to Rome, there lost their oracles, as the nations themselves had there lost their liberty. Brought face to face in the Capitol, they had destroyed each other, and their divinity had vanished. A great void was occasioned in the religion of the world.

A kind of deism, destitute alike of spirit and of life, floated for a time above the abyss in which the vigorous superstitions of antiquity had been engulfed. But like all negative creeds, it had no power to reconstruct. National prepossessions disappeared with the fall of the national gods. The various kingdoms melted one into the other. In Europe, Asia, and Africa , there was but one vast empire, and the human race began to feel its universality and unity.

Then the Word was made flesh.

Please read that again... out loud.

Good news isn't it! (Well written too)

The coming of the Messiah, the Son of God, as our Saviour is wonderful news indeed. Worth thinking about. Worth singing about! Especially at Christmas.

The Word becoming flesh is the first of the three great Effective Structures that God set up to restore fallen humanity. But like the whole "Effective Structures" thing we often miss the point.

We have great "Structures" in the Adventist church. From the General Conference up to the North New South Wales Conference, up to Toronto Seventh-day Adventist Church, and finally the peak, you and me, we have a powerful structure that can complete God's will for our part the big world.

Our tithing and offering system, along with with our effective financial committee and treasurers, allows us to put on programs and run ministries for our children, our oldies and the public.

I'm on the nominating committee at present and can only be amazed at all the positions that are filled by talented, dedicated volunteers year after year.

Let me make it clear: Toronto SDA church has great STRUCTURES! I wouldn't want to see any of them change. But what makes them EFFECTIVE?... only the presence of Jesus Christ!

Like the young women in Matthew 25, we have our lamps, shiny, fine structures, well made, well maintained year-after-year, but without oil they are useless and certainly not effective. Neither is the church without Christ.

Now "the Word was made flesh" for many reasons: to be our Substitute, our Surety, our Kinsman-Redeemer, our Justification, our High Priest, our King and more... and He also became flesh to demonstrate what a Godly human life looked like. He became an example of an effective human.

The first chapter of "The Ministry of Healing" is entitled "Our Example". Here are the first three paragraphs. Read them to see what His mission was and how effectively he achieved it.

Our Lord Jesus Christ came to this world as the unwearied servant of man's necessity. He "took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses," that He might minister to every need of humanity. Matthew 8:17. The burden of disease and wretchedness and sin He came to remove. It was His mission to bring to men complete restoration; He came to give them health and peace and perfection of character.

Varied were the circumstances and needs of those who besought His aid, and none who came to Him went away unhelped. From Him flowed a stream of healing power, and in body and mind and soul men were made whole.

The Saviour's work was not restricted to any time or place. His compassion knew no limit. On so large a scale did He conduct His work of healing and teaching that there was no building in Palestine large enough to receive the multitudes that thronged to Him. On the green hill slopes of Galilee, in the thoroughfares of travel, by the seashore, in the synagogues, and in every other place where the sick could be brought to Him, was to be found His hospital. In every city, every town, every village, through which He passed, He laid His hands upon the afflicted ones and healed them. Wherever there were hearts ready to receive His message, He comforted them with the assurance of their heavenly Father's love. All day He ministered to those who came to Him; in the evening He gave attention to such as through the day must toil to earn a pittance for the support of their families.

Jesus wants to become flesh here at Toronto. He wants to fill the void. He wants to lighten the darkness. He wants to minister to every need and bring us all to "complete restoration". He wants to live in Toronto church and make it look something like what we read here.

Next week we look at the second effective structure that God set up to bring about "complete restoration" of this world. What do you think it might be?

Effective Structures in Eden

What did God set up in Eden to effectively grow His relationship with humans, strengthen their fellowship and support their ministry?

I can think of three things:

1. Marriage
2. Sabbath
3. Walks together in the "cool of the day"

Marriage, and family as the children arrived, obviously strengthened fellowship.

God's intention in providing marriage and family was made plain when he talked about Abraham being chosen "in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him" (Gen 18:19)

And what had God spoken him? ... "(I)n you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (Gen 12:3). One family, well conducted, blesses not just the family members but every other family in the world. That's effective!

A family conducted along Eden's lines is a powerful fellowship tool.

Family also improve its members relationship with God in family worship times and on Sabbath. And of course marriage was essential for the "be fruitful and multiply" part of human ministry.(Gen. 1:28)

The Sabbath seems, on the face of it, mainly to strengthen human relationships with God as they spend 24 hours with their Creator. A day when God is the main focus of our minds and speech is still a wonderful tonic to our relationship with him. 

Family was also a focus of the Sabbath hours, so fellowship grew as well.

The walks in the cool of the day must have been glorious as Adam and Eve showed off their day's efforts in the garden and in ruling the animal kingdom. Like the proud "parent", the Lord would have joined their excitement and encouraged their plans to "fill the earth and subdue it"... whatever great things that meant (Gen. 1:28).

So these walks were the way that God effectively supported Adam and Eve's work and ministry in the world.

God set up some incredibly effective structures to grow His "church" in Eden. Next week we will begin to look at the structures He set up to return His church to the Eden state.

Effective Structures - Revisited

How are we going at understanding "Effective Structures". I was asked to explain the concept just last week... and I'd forgotten one of the 3 main points!

Time for some brushing up.

Our church has structures, which is good... but are they effective?

Effective Structures assist the church to grow in 3 areas:

1. They help people experience God.
2. They strengthen fellowship
3. They support ministry to the church and Toronto.

To be effective, any department, program or position in our church must assist in one or more of these areas.

Think about your involvement at Toronto. Are you strengthening fellowship, supporting ministry and helping people experience God? I hope you are... but as Effective Structures is the weakest part of Toronto church, there are probably some areas where you could do better.

Keep this at the back of your mind over the next few weeks as I take you through some of God's Effective Structures.

40 Days

As a lead-up to our "Daniel, the man and his prophecies" seminar we are going through the 40 Days Devotional, designed to strengthen your relationship with Christ and enable you to lead others to Him. The book ($10.95 from the ABC), with the daily readings and instructions, was used by one of the Re-Claim groups because one of the aims of the 40 days is to pray for specific people who we would love to have return (or come) to Toronto church. Aims of the 40 Days are for participants to:

• experience personal spiritual revival
• strengthen their daily devotional habits
• personally reach out to 5 interests in community

It is designed to combine personal revival, corporate church revival with evangelistic outreach.40 Days ticks many of the boxes of an Effective Structure. It helps people experience Jesus and supports ministry to the church and community. But it also strengthens our fellowship because the 40 Days are best done with a prayer partner and combined with a mid-week prayer meeting.If you would like to participate here are the steps:

1. Contact me by replying to this email and state if you want to buy a book and we will get a copy for you.
2. Think of a prayer partner. Someone who you can easily contact each day for a time of prayer.
3. Contact your prayer partner to encourage them to order a book as well.
4. Join or, better still, host a mid-week prayer meeting where we will be debriefing what we have learned the previous week and pray for those on our lists and for the effectiveness of our church's outreach.
   We plan to have a Wednesday night meeting at church and, if we find appropriate places, in the Cooranbong, Maitland and Cessnock areas.
5. If you feel impressed to offer your home, or know of a place suitable, for a prayer meeting please reply to this email.
6. Ask God to show you who you should be praying for.

Principles of Quality Coaching

Quality coaching at least doubles your fruitfulness. - Bob Logan (author of Coaching 101)

Coaching answers these questions:

• Where am I?


• Where do I (and God) go next?


• How will I get there?

The 3 Rules of Coaching:

1. Don't give advice.


2. Don't tell people what they can discover on their own.


3. Don't fix their problems for them.

The 3 Rules Re-stated:

1. The person being coached does the work.


2. The person being coached does the work.


3. The person being coached does the work.

The Coaching Process
is the flexible application of these 5 principles:

• Relate - establish coaching relationship and agenda


• Reflect - Discover and explore key issues


• Refocus - Determine priorities and action steps


• Resource - Provide support and encouragement


• Review - Evaluate, celebrate and revise plans

We will look at only one part today

Relate
The 'relationship' gives coaching its power.

We relate by:

1. Listening


2. Asking good, open-ended questions
   

Rules of listening:

• RESPECT


• Focus - undivided attention


• Summarise - reflect without interpreting, evaluating, guiding or projecting feelings


• Invite - ask for more


• Unpack - their ideas are more valuable than mine.


• Clarify - "So far I'm hearing you say ... Is that correct?

Open-Ended Questions:

• Not "yes" or "no" answers


• It is an advantage not to have all the answers. Don't be the expert.


• Follow the Spirit's leading. Ask, when you feel impressed, even the 'strange' question.

Here are the 'Good Questions' we ask at the start of the relationship:
(You can answer these for Sabbath afternoon:)

• What is your deepest passion? What really satisfies and fulfills you?


• What energises you? What drains your energy?


• What legacy do you want to leave? What do you want to be remembered for?


• What are your strengths? What are your gifts?


• What's one thing you'd like to change about yourself?
  

Coaching

(another Effective Structure)

Coaching is not about telling others what to do, but helping people discover for themselves what God is calling them to do. It is the process of coming alongside a person or team to help them discover God's agenda for their life and ministry, and then cooperating with the Holy Spirit to see that agenda become a reality.
The North American Division (SDA) Evangelism Institute

A coach helps someone else succeed. Bob Logan (author of Coaching 101 - our textbook) says that success is "Find out what God wants you to do, and do it"

Coaching is one of the Effective Structures we are building to support you in ministry.

What Coaching Isn't

• Telling others what to do


• Mentoring


• Being the expert
  

What Coaching Is

• Listening


• Asking good questions to help people sort things out in their mind


• Let them come to their own conclusion


• Encouraging them to do what they come up with.
  

Why Coach?

• It keeps people focused on what is important


• It is fun. There is serious joy in working with God to achieve things in this world.


• It works. People actually get things done. As a coached leader said "I get more done as a result of one one hour coaching conversation than in a year of meetings."
  

My experience is pretty limited but this week I was sitting in the staff room eating my lunch and reading Coaching 101 (what else?) and not really hearing two staff complaining about how their jobs were getting so hard.

When one of them left to have a cigarette and the other turned to me and continued complaining. I tried to ignore her but realised (well duh...) here was a "coaching opportunity". So reluctantly closing my book, I turned to my ditzy blonde friend and asked one of the "good questions" (We'll work through the list of questions, the starting questions are all in Coaching 101). Here is a summary of the conversation:

"So what would you rather be doing at work?"
She stopped and thought and answered.
"Have you ever done that?"
Ditzy Blonde "Yes, last week I did ...."
"Why do you think you enjoyed it so much?"
DB "I guess because I had more control and I could use my enthusiasm for ..."
"So what would you need to do to get more of this?"
DB "Well... I could get my boss to ... and I could ..."
(I then made my first statement)
"I think you should... (slightly rephrased her last answer)."

Her workmate had finished her cigarette and came back in about then, at which my friend enthused "Hey you know what, Bruce and I have been having a great talk and I reckon if we ... Thanks Bruce, that was really good advice!"

I hurried back to work before I got another "client" and before DB realised that I had, in fact, not given her any "advice" at all. The agenda, goals and action plans were all hers.

That was coaching, and it was fun. Much more fun than I expected.

We will be starting training soon. How involved will it be? Bob Logan says that you can start as an effective coach after only three hours of training. So 3 hours training,, spread over 2 Sabbath afternoons, is coming up and with all the resources around Coaching 101, many of you will make great coaches.

(Un)Surprisingly Effective

(from now on, every blog post will have a picture of an Effective Structure)

I'm chuffed. This is deeply, satisfyingly wonderful.

One of the privileges of being involved in NCD, and particularly NCD at Toronto, is getting a first-hand, front-seat view of God at work. (Now don't tell anyone else... they will think we are big-noting ourselves, because Toronto seems to be one of God's favourite places, He turns up every time we get together, He seems to love Toronto folk)

On Monday night, at Cameron Johnston's Stress Seminar I saw Toronto church members in action. It wasn't until tonight that I realised what was happening.

Remember that our mission statement is...to represent Christ to all members of our community. And remember my questions from several weeks ago...

1. What does "represent Christ" mean?


2. What do we have to DO to "represent Christ"?


3. What do we have to BE to "represent Christ"?


4. And lastly, how successful are we at representing Christ right now?

One of the jobs I set for myself on Monday night was to talk to every attendee from "our community". It turned out that four women came from our community. During the break I tried to chat with them, but some member beat me to every single one. Then after the program the same thing happened. So I didn't even talk to one visitor!

So to answer those questions:

We represent Christ when we are friendly to people from our community.

I believe that you already "represent Christ". That's what I saw on Monday night and at all the other functions at Toronto... people being friendly. It seems almost natural, but there are lots of places where this isn't so. God has made His people at Toronto supernaturally friendly. It is part of our luncheons, in our Sabbath School, at Project G... all over the place.

So to answer that last question: I believe that you are already successful at representing Christ right now... Surprisingly effective actually. Well maybe I shouldn't be surprised, after all God has been at work here, with just as much power and grace as He is in overseas missions, big evangelistic campaigns, radical church plants and ADRA projects.

Jesus lives at Toronto because you are here... and I'm chuffed.

Structures To Reach "Our Community"

(from now on, every blog post will have a picture of an Effective Structure)

The Vision Statement of the Toronto Seventh-day Adventist Church is
to represent Christ to all members of our community.

Last time I asked you what it means to "represent Christ", today I'm going to move on to the meaning of "our community".

Our first Core Value define our community as "every person living between Rathmines and Fennell Bay", which sounds about right to me.

For a few moments, think about the people you know in this area. Try to imagine each one and what exactly you "represent" to them. When they think of you, how do they feel? What do they think about your religion, your church, your Jesus?

Still on "our community"...Do the people you know here have needs? What are they? What are you doing to help meet those needs? A major part of Jesus' ministry was meeting people's needs, if we are to "represent" Him, as in our vision statement, we will act like He did.

Another aspect... Do you know many people in the area? If you don't know many, how are you going to meet some more? What can you do that will bring you in touch with them? Once again Jesus is our lead here when he mingled with people to get to know them.

Toronto church has thought of a simple way to help you meet local people and meet their needs. As you have noticed, there is a Stress Seminar coming up followed by a Depression Recovery Program. We have a Creative Vegetarian Cooking and a Daniel prophecy seminar in the pipeline as well. The youth are planning another Project G.

These are not just a jumble of programs put on by the church. They are opportunities for you to invite people, especially people from Rathmines to Fennell Bay, along to the program that best meets their need. They are the vanguard of the "Effective Structure" we are trying to build into Toronto church.

Your part in the process of "reaching every person" in our community is simple...
1. Invite the most stressed person you know, to come along with you to "Cooling Down the Stress Soup" on May 30. Or invite someone you know who has depression to an orientation night for the Depression Recovery Program on June 6 or 14.
2. If you don't know anyone who is depressed or stressed bring your Toronto friends and come anyway.
3. If you don't have any friends (depressed, stressed or otherwise) from the Toronto area, come along on these nights to meet some of the people in "our community" and get to know them better.

Give it a go. You might enjoy it, I am.

To Represent Christ?

The Vision Statement of the Toronto Seventh-day Adventist Church is to represent Christ to all members of our community.

1. What does "represent Christ" mean?


2. What do we have to DO to "represent Christ"?


3. What do we have to BE to "represent Christ"?


4. And lastly, how successful are we at representing Christ right now? Are you happy with how the church represents Christ? Are you happy with how you represent Christ?

I'd really like you to think about these questions. If this vision statement is going to inspire and give direction to our church, we need to know what it means.

Sorry, I'm not going to give you my attempts at answering those questions until next week. Think about them in the meantime. That's hard work, I know. Pray about them. Talk to me about them. Talk to each other.

Representing Christ is the centre of what we say we are here for. Doing a good job at this determines whether we win or lose.

I'd love your thoughts.

Our Vision Statement

Effective Structures require that "we know what we're building" (to quote Scott Thompson at the NCD presentation on April 9). That's another way of saying that we need to have a vision.

I had forgotten we had a Vision Statement for our church. Maybe you had too. So here it is. The statement was made in May 2005. You will be hearing a lot more about this.

Vision Statement

The Vision Statement of the Toronto Seventh-day Adventist Church is to represent Christ to all members of our community.

The Mission Statement of the Toronto Seventh-day Adventist Church is to be a community of committed members, who will foster spiritual growth in a vibrant Church, embracing all age groups.

Core Values

1. Reach every person living between Rathmines and Fennell Bay with the good news about Jesus.
2. Promote passionate spirituality through prayer and Bible study.
3. All members to be involved in small group ministry.
4. Preachers to be relevant to all age groups.
5. Demonstrate honesty in beliefs and opinions.
6. Encourage each person to recognise and develop his/her Spiritual Gifts.
7. Recognise and nurture our youth to take an active part in the mission of the Church.

Some questions:
Do you like this vision?
Can you see where you fit in the vision?
Does it help you set priorities?
Does it provide guidelines for making decisions?
Is it exciting and motivating?
Have we left anything out?
Should we delete anything?

First Steps

Now that we know our Minimum Factors (Effective Structures and Empowering Leadership) what are we going to do about them?

We have decided to start by:

1. Emphasising that we are all ministers
2. Helping you find your ministry
3. Supporting you in your ministry

We are all Ministers

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 1 Peter 2:9

If you are a member of Toronto church then you are a Minister, a priest of God. You have been called out of darkness to proclaim the excellence of Christ.

Finding your Ministry

We plan to run several "Find your Spiritual Gifts" Sabbath afternoons, but this is only the beginning of your finding your ministry.

To truly find the SHAPE of your ministry you need to know your:

• Spiritual Gifts
• Heart
• Abilities
• Personality
• Experience

This will take longer than one Sabbath afternoon so we propose that once you find your Spiritual Gifts you will meet in small groups during the week for about four weeks to determine your SHAPE and have a clear idea of why God chose to give you to Toronto and what sort of ministry you should be doing.

If you want to continue to meet in small groups, that is wonderful. We would love to have more 'holistic' small groups.

Supporting you in your Ministry

We will do this by Coaching and Small Groups. Where will all the needed Coaches and Small Group Leaders come from?

From the results of the SHAPE-finding small groups we will invite people whose ministries and gifts indicate they would be good Coaches or Group Leaders to training for these tasks.

The youth have already done basic Group Leader training in just 4 hours. There is similar Coaching training available.

What is coaching? Put simply, "Helping people succeed".

Coaching is achieved by:

• Finding out what God wants you to do,
• Helping you do it

A coach will help you succeed in your ministry by:

• Helping you refine your goals. Set your focus
• Helping you set priorities and take action, Keep your focus
• Helping to anticipate and overcome problems. Refine the focus
• Providing support and encouragement
• Helping you evaluate and celebrate progress
• Helping you revise your plans when needed.

2011 Survey Results

Summary of Toronto SDA church's progress and life (January 2011)

	Our Maximum Factors	Our Minimum Factors
Overall Tendency	Faith	Service
Health Characteristics	Need-oriented Evangelism	Effective Structures, Empowering Leadership
Themes	reconciliation prayer welcoming	intimacy vision learning (discipling)

Explanation:

Our Overall Tendency (in terms of Fellowship, Service and Faith, the 3 main domains of church life) is towards Faith rather than Service, with Fellowship in between. This means that we enjoy our own experience with God in prayer, Bible and worship. We are introverted and keep our experience of the living God to ourselves. We don't share it much within fellowship and rarely share it evangelistically outside the church.
Our Maximum Health Characteristic, like most SDA churches, is Need-oriented Evangelism. Our evangelism meets people's needs. This is good.

Our Minimum Health Characteristics are Effective Structures and Empowering Leadership. This means that leaders at Toronto are not so good at:

• Explaining our goals
• Concern for member's experience and journey with Jesus
• Strengthening fellowship
• Training and equipping members for service and ministry
• Helping people find their ministry
• Encouraging people in their service and ministry
• Supporting and collaborating with members as they carry out their ministry to the Toronto community

To summarise our Health Characteristics:

• Our structures are less effective at supporting the members' ministries
• We are no better at empowering members for ministry

However, this is not all bad! It presents a tremendous challenge because these are just the area where:

• The SDA church in NNSW is weakest - so needs the most help
• The area where the Holy Spirit is working most strongly, TODAY
• We have the tools (through Ellen White's writings) to meet this challenge
• We have the power (through Jesus' presence) to meet this challenge
• We have the people (our members) to meet this challenge
• The Themes tell us what comes naturally to Toronto church, and what doesn't.
  

We are naturally:

Reconciling

we don't have many disagreements and when we do we resolve them quickly. We trust our Bible and each other.

Prayerful

usually by ourselves

Welcoming

to new people

We are NOT naturally good at:

Intimacy

sharing our experiences within church or finding support from the church to get through our personal problems

Vision

goals are unclear. As individuals, as leaders and as a church we seem to be drifting comfortably along.

Learning

we aren't being trained for our present church duties or led to find what God wants us to do. The church is not encouraging spiritual growth or discipleship.

Other good things compared to last survey (not in the table above):

• Our church growth in health and numbers is much more sustainable.
• We are as healthy as an average Australian church.
• We are much more healthy than we were 3 years ago
• Our church services are more inspiring
• Our relationships are more loving

Thus ends our Summary of Survey Results - 2011.

Some definitions:

Natural Church Development

a long-term strategic process to progressively improve the health of our church, with the most effective use of our limited time, energy and resources.

NCD Survey

of 30 involved church members that gives an accurate, up-to-date snapshot of our church's health by revealing trends, deep issues and a clear overview of the church. The survey measures the quality characteristics.

Quality Characteristics

the 8 critical characteristics found in every healthy, growing church:

Empowering Leadership - are the leaders focused on equipping believers for ministry?

Gift-based Ministry - are tasks distributed according to gifting?

Passionate Spirituality - Is the spiritual life of members characterised by passion?

Effective (Functional) Structures - Do the various structures support church growth?

Inspiring Worship Services - Is worship service helping us experience God?

Holistic Small Groups - Do small groups address the life issues of members?

Need-oriented Evangelism - Are evangelistic activities related to actual needs?

Loving Relationships - Are relationships in the church Christ-like?

The adjective is the vital ingredient, not the noun. The NCD survey measures the adjective, so, for example, it looks at how well leaders "empower" members, not at their leadership skills.
Measured by points standardised by country (our score is compared to all other Australian churches of all denominations).
It is possible to score less than 0 and greater than 100.

Empowering Leadership

1. Explains what needs to be done
   
2. Motivates people to find the role Jesus wants them to fulfill in His body.
3. Liberates people to fulfill that role

Effective Structures:

1. Help people Experience Jesus
2. Strengthen Fellowship of believers
3. Support members as they Minister to their church and community

NCD Average

the average of the point score of all the Quality Characteristics. The 'average church' has an NCD average of 50 points. (Ours is 48.6. It was 48.7 in 2010 and 31.9 in 2008)

Minimum Factor

the lowest (ie. the weakest, least developed) Quality Characteristics. (Ours are Empowering Leadership and Effective Structures. Last year was Inspiring Worship Service and Empowering Leadership in 2008).
It shows where the church:

• Cannot see Christ clearly
• Is blocking the Holy Spirit
• Needs help

NCD Strategy

Improve church health by focusing on improving the Minimum Factor. This:

• Maximises potential growth
• Uses energy and resources most effectively
• Liberates leaders by simplifying what they need to do for growth
• Gives solid input into developing values and vision.

Min-Max difference

the difference between the highest and lowest point score. Less than 15 is good, 15-30 is concerning. A lower differences mean that growth in health and numbers is more sustainable. (Ours is 11, down from 17 in 2010 and 18 in 2008)

Red Sea Worship

This Australia Day morning, I read the beginnings of another nation, Israel, at the Red Sea. It's found in Exodus 14-16
The part I liked was in chapter 15: (NLT)

1 Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord:

"I will sing to the Lord,

for he has triumphed gloriously;

he has hurled both horse and rider
into the sea.

2 The Lord is my strength and my song;

he has given me victory.

This is my God, and I will praise him -

my father's God, and I will exalt him!

3 The Lord is a warrior;

Yahweh is his name!..."

and later...

20 Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine and led all the women as they played their tambourines and danced. 21 And Miriam sang this song:

"Sing to the Lord,

for he has triumphed gloriously;

he has hurled both horse and rider

into the sea."

These people knew how to worship! And they had good reason to worship as well.

But what about you? What areas of your life have you seen God at work in? What have you got to sing and dance about?

In her excellent book, Silent Savior: Daring to Believe He's Still There, A.J. Gregory quotes Frederick Buechner's wisdom... Asked what he'd say to someone searching for God, he responds: 'Pay attention. Listen to your life, and what's going on around you.' And above all this: 'What brings tears to your eyes?'

What brings tears to your eyes? Are you paying attention? We have lots to worship God for.