ministry – PAOLOPUNZALAN.COM

iPHONE LEADER or SAMSUNG TEAM?

Recently, Forbes magazine and other tech magazines report that iPhone loyalty has gone down.

I’m no technology expert nor a leadership guru but I do have an observation I’d like to make.

This is the mistake we often make. When we build an organization around one leader, what happens when that charismatic, amazing, remarkable leader is gone?

But when we build an organization with dozens of amazing nameless leaders, the organization continues to grow without the one celebrity leader.

I realize that there are many reasons why an organization can take a downturn. But this is a major one.

This can be true with cellphone companies as it is true with ministries and churches.

That’s what we see in the book of Acts. The gospel continued to advance with ordinary people in the frontlines.

When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)

Listen to what Jim Collins says in his book, Good to Great…

“…Our problem lies in the fact that our culture has fallen in love with the idea of the celebrity CEO. Charismatic egotists who swoop in to save companies grace the covers of major magazines because they are much more interesting to read and write about … This fuels the mistaken belief held by many directors that a high-profile, larger-than-life leader is required to make a company great. We keep putting people into positions of power who lack the inclination to become Level 5 leaders, and that is one key reason why so few companies ever make a sustained and verifiable shift from good to great.”

Ultimately, especially in a spiritual organization, there’s only one hero – JESUS.

Something to think about …

Something to remember…

BEING A PASTOR IS A STRANGE THING

BEING A PASTOR IS A STRANGE THING by Julian Freeman

We proclaim a message with the power of God to change people, but we can’t even change ourselves. We call others to perfection, as Jesus did, but our lives are full of imperfection.

We must shepherd like the Shepherd though we’re just one of the sheep.

We seek to make Christ increase (though he’s invisible to human eyes) as we seek to decrease (though we stand in plain view week-by-week).

We say numbers don’t matter, but long for many to be saved. We labour to grow the church, even though we realize each soul increases our accountability before God.

We try to express the Infinite and Eternal in 45 minutes or less; obviously we fail, so we try again next week.

We spend our lives studying a book that we’ll never fully grasp and we labour to explain it to a people who can’t understand apart from the work of a third party. The more we study, the more certain we become of the wisdom of God and our own foolishness; and yet we must preach on.

We are told that not many should be teachers and that there will be stricter judgement for those who are, and yet, we cannot fight off the compulsion to preach.

We call people to something they can’t do, with an authority that is not our own, and then at the end of our lives we give an account to God for the souls we pastored.

We are called to toil in the word of God and in prayer; yet there is nothing our enemy opposes more actively.

We work to build a community where people are connected, while occupying an office filled with temptations to isolation.

We preach a gospel of joy, but preachers are hard pressed with temptations to depression.

We must preach with passion but pastor with patience. We must be gentle with the sheep and fierce with the wolves. And we must somehow discern the difference.

We must plead with people to repent and believe all the while knowing that it is God who must save. We plead with God in prayer until our wills align with his. We must earnestly seek the presence of the Spirit, knowing full well that he moves where he pleases.

We must labour with all of our strength but never, ever trust it.

We are paid to satisfactorily do a job that never ends: When have I studied enough? When have I prayed enough? When have I mentored enough? When have I counselled enough? We who are never finished are called to lead others to rest in the finished work of Jesus.

Ultimately we labour and long for results that we can never achieve. Being a pastor is a lifelong journey to a place of utter dependence.

This is strange work, being a pastor. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

(taken from http://www.churchleaders.com)

3 MAJOR DECISIONS YOU’LL NEED TO MAKE

I tucked my kids to bed tonight.

We usually have devotions before they go to bed.

Our topic tonight was making major decisions.

I told them that in life, they will be making 3 major ones.

These are the 3 that I told them.

1. WHO WILL YOU SERVE?

Will you serve Jesus, self or the devil?

Joshua challenged God’s people, “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve … But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24:15).

This is the first and most important decision you’ll ever make.

And this is one decision you cannot keep putting off. Remember, not deciding is a decision. You’ve decided not to accept Him into your life. We are either for Him or against Him. There’s no middle ground.

2. HOW WILL YOU SERVE?

I told my kids that they will have to make a decision how they’ll serve Jesus.

It doesn’t necessarily mean being in full-time ministry as a pastor or a missionary because you can serve Him wherever you are – in athletics, the arts, banking, insurance industry… as in WHEREVER.

Serving Him is not a matter of location but posture of the heart.

3. WITH WHOM WILL YOU SERVE HIM?

I told them that this will be a million years from now. Haha!

But I did say that they will get married one day and making this decision of with whom they’ll serve Jesus with is a critical one.

So I laid my hands on them and prayed for their future spouses – that as early as now, God would prepare the person they’ll spend the rest of their lives with as much as God is preparing them too.

But again, that will still be a million years from now.

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A BIG PROBLEM

You might remember this line from the movie Apollo 13. The space craft was in the verge of disaster and so were the lives of the astronauts inside it.

It was in this framework that Dr. Howard Hendricks mentioned the problem in leadership we have in the church.

There is a lack of leadership in the church that eventually spills out into society.

The greater problem he presents is that unfortunately, we have people who are in positions of leadership yet one thing is lacking – CALLING.

Houston, we really have BIG problem.

Dear leaders, this is a moment for us to assess why we are where we are today. If we are in ministry today because we don’t have anything else to do or we feel stuck because we thought this is what we were supposed to do and realized we while be somewhere else, then something has to change.

We need to ask ourselves certain questions.

1. Do I remember a specific moment when God clearly spoke to me about His call in my life?

I don’t mean an audible voice like with Moses and the burning bush. I mean a real sensing in your heart that you just know it was God who was speaking to you.

Career is what you’re paid to do. Calling is what you’re made to do.

2. Do I still have the fire as I used to have?

Passion is hard to explain yet easy to spot. You just know.

Bill Wilson once said, “If people don’t know what your passion is, then you probably don’t have one.”

3. Do I know where I’m headed?

No one really knows exactly. Abraham left Ur without really fully knowing where he was going. However, there was a sense of direction and confidence that I am going the right way.

Vision. Passion. Direction.

If we have none of that, then we need to go back to Houston for some recalibration.

SIGN POSTS BEFORE A CRASH

I had the privilege of listening to Stephen Mansfield as he spoke to Victory pastors all over the Metro. His message was on the Signposts in the looming crash of a leader.

Here they are my notes on that talk.

1. View of authority became isolated.

They begin to set themselves apart. They isolate themselves.
The beginning of isolation starts from view of authority.

2. Lost connection with friends

Trusted friendships of transparency.
Your fans will get you killed. Your fans will overlook your mistakes.
Accountability groups don’t work. Walk closely with other men.

3. Relationship with God became mechanical.

No passion. No heart transformation.
We trade our relationship with Jesus for ministry.

4. Lost the poetry of what they get to do.

Heart becomes cold. Moral decline follows.

5. Having no fun.

Men need beyond work. Life after work.
Planned of distraction.
Rest. Family time. Planned distraction.
Lack of manly release can be translated to another I’m not supposed to be with.

6. Schedule had become a tyrant.

Leads to resentment
Leads to burn out.
Leads to secret time. Then moral failure.
No reason why we can’t be happily busy.

7. Men and women exchange roles.

Women are more superior in all ares except in Abstract thought and aggression.

8. The home life is opposition or demand.

Wife is the ball in chain. The dragon lady.
When this sets in, destruction looms.

9. Defining episodes from the past.

Nixon: abused in high school came up during watergate scandal.
The soul has a memory like an elephant.

10. Ministry had to be perpetuated at all costs.

The ministry on the pedestal.
Ministry becomes one of your ‘kids’.

WHOSE SON ARE YOU?

I asked one of my sons last night, “Do you feel people expect more from you because you are a pastor’s son?”

He said, “Not really.”

“Great!”, I said.

Throughout the years of my kids growing up, my wife and I have been very deliberate to make sure our kids understand that they don’t have to act a certain way because they’re parents are in full-time ministry. However, people can still fall in the trap of looking at our kids and expect that they have to be the most behaved, well mannered, ‘perfect’, ‘di nakakabasag pinggan’ type of kids.

We consistently check that and ask our kids.

At the end of our conversation, I told him, “You do what you gotta do because you love Jesus not because you are my son.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I do what I gotta do because I am God’s son, not because I’m a pastor’s son.”

I think he hit the nail on the head.

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:12)

WHO’S QUALIFIED?

I spoke to a guy the other day who asked for some insight regarding his situation.

He is in full time ministry. He is very fruitful in what he does. He honors God and loves his wife and kids.

He asked me for some insight because he was told by some people that he is not fit to be in ministry. Reason? Because of his past.

I asked him when it happened. He said it was way before He met Christ.

I asked him another question, “Are you in sin today?” His reply was an emphatic “no.”

“Is there anything in your life now that would disqualify you from ministry?”

“None.”

Unfortunately, we can become more unforgiving than God sometimes. Where God has shown grace, we tend to underscore the law.

If this were the case, then the apostle Paul himself wouldn’t be qualified because of his track record – a murderer!

Neither would King David – an adulterer.

Neither would be Peter for he betrayed his Master.

Neither would be Abraham for he was a liar.

Neither would be Jacob for he was a cheat and a deceiver.

Neither would I.

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. (Gal. 6:14-15)

ONE OF THE SADDEST VERSES IN THE BIBLE

As I was reading this morning, I read a verse that would seem to me to be one of the saddest verses in the Bible.

Samuel was one of the greatest prophets during the Old Testament. He served as Israel’s judge for many years (1 Samuel 7:15-17). In fact, he was the one who anointed Israel’s first King.

He had so many accomplishments as the nation’s judge and prophet.

However…

“… his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.” (1 Samuel 8:3)

I cannot exchange ministry success with failure in the home. It won’t be right to sacrifice family in the altar of success. I cannot. We should not. There’s just no comparison.

I told our staff yesterday at Victory Fort that as a pastor, I am not indispensable. There are lots who can replace me with what I do for the church – better, smarter and more gifted guys. But as a husband and father, there’s just no replacement. My kids will only have one dad. If the time comes that I’ll have to choose between my family and the church (which I hope will never come), I’m outta here.

You guys know me. I’m a ‘whatever-it-takes’ kind of guy. I will do whatever it takes to advance the kingdom of God. But between ministry success and family, there’s really just no competition at all.