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Holding together restlessness and optimism

Piper has a great section in his Marks of a Spiritual Leader  where he holds together two vital biblical leadership virtues: 1. RESTLESS Spiritual leaders have a holy discontentment with the status quo. Non-leaders have inertia that causes them to settle in and makes them very hard to move off of dead center. Leaders have a hankering to change, to move, to reach out, to grow, and to take a group or an institution to new dimensions of ministry. They have the spirit of Paul, who said in Philippians 3:13, “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Leaders are always very goal-oriented people. God’s history of redemption is not finished. The church is shot through with imperfections, lost sheep are still not in the fold, needs of every sort in the world are unmet, sin infects the saints. It is un...
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Matt Perman on Management and Leadership

These are quotes from the What's Best Next Toolkit ( mobi file ) - a free resource of online extra chapters and articles that accompanies Matt Perman's must read book “Leadership is not about you. It is about serving others, building them up, and making them more effective. “if you keep trying to do the sorts of things you did as an individual contributor, you simply won’t have time to lead at all.” “Now, the leaders should sometimes, frequently even, pitch in directly by working along side the people on his or her team. But this shouldn’t be the main thing the leader does. He needs to be setting direction, looking out ahead, and aligning people.” “Leadership in the pastoral role is practiced primarily  through  the ministry of the word and prayer.” “every week or so, review the org chart and reflect what actions you can proactively take to keep things going in the right direction, or to help make someone more effective, and so forth.” “There is a significa...
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What's Next? Consider Christ

 What’s next? Surely there can only be one answer. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil. 1:21) Paul didn’t know what was next for him as he wrote the letter to the Philippians. He had resolved that continuing on this earth to work for people’s progress and joy in the faith was most necessary (Phil. 1:24-25 - notice there that he's considering others and considering need ) but he knew that there were two alternatives – life and death (Phil. 1:20-23). Whatever was next for Paul, it was consumed, defined, filled by knowing Christ, having Christ, being found in Christ.  What’s next? CHRIST! Christ the radiance of the glory of God Christ crowned with glory and honour Christ our rescuer who has smashed the devil and freed us from slavery Christ our high priest who carries us on his heart into the presence of God Christ our great warrior king Christ who wraps us in his righteous robe Christ our hiding place from the flood of judgment Christ our close brother Christ ...
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What's Next? Consider others

  Other-centredness is a big theme in the letter to the Philippians. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ (Phil. 1:8-10) The 'you' and 'yours' are all plural. Paul is saying that as your love as a community abounds more and more you will be able to discern as a community what’s best next . Working out what is best next is not a solo thing. It happens in community. So as you explore gospel work: Seek the wisdom of your church family and leadership; Fully involve your spouse and children in the journey (if you have them) – they need to be on board from the beginning and all through; Listen carefully to family members and honour your parents (even if they are not Christians). And just as love drives good decision making, so love also sh...
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What's Next? Consider the range of training possibilities

It has always been important to be trained in gospel work. Priscilla and Aquilla mentored Apollos and corrected his doctrine (Acts 18:26). Barnabas and Paul practiced a form of ministry ‘apprenticeship’, taking a succession of ‘ministry trainees’ along with them on their missionary church planting journeys. In particular we've talked before about Paul's mentoring of Timothy (Phil. 2:22 and 1 & 2 Tim). Doing a ministry traineeship year or two would certainly be something to strongly consider if you haven’t already done one.  Be aware that across the UK there is a variation between different ministry trainee programmes, with the proportions of practical service, mentoring, formal training and opportunities for Word ministry differing considerably. In addition, there are a wide range of theological and ministry training options now available – some online, some residential, some full-time, some part-time. In fact we live in an age of amazing opportunities to access excellent...
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What's Next? Consider the range of places and needs

On the one hand we need to be wary of the desire to strategise a life of ‘maximal effectiveness’ which is not in our power (as Christopher Ash cautions in Workers for the Harvest Field ). We simply do not know where we will be most effective. Gospel love and gospel ministry are often wonderfully unstrategic. God has regularly chosen the small, weak, foolish things to shame the big, strong, wise things and in the history of revival often chosen unexpected places as bridgeheads. In many ways it doesn’t matter where we concentrate our energies. There is gospel need everywhere. Often it will be right in front of us.  On the other hand, there is a clearly centripetal, outgoing, to-the-ends-of-the-earth dynamic to gospel mission (Matt. 24:14; 28:19; Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8). Jesus considered the global harvest (Matt. 9:37-38) and calls his disciples to, “Look at the fields” (John 4:35). There are clearly some places with particularly dire gospel need – unreached, excluded or ravaged by fals...
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What's Next? Consider the range of gospel work roles

We all want to be concerned for the advance of the gospel, supporting gospel work, taking opportunities to share the word of life. But there are also some who are specially approved and appointed for gospel work, those like the people Paul calls his ‘co-workers’ or ‘fellow workers’: Timothy has proved himself …in the work of the gospel (Phil. 2:22) Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent (Phil. 2:25) I ask you, my yokefellow, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers (Phil. 4:3) These ‘fellow workers’ are those who have devoted themselves to gospel work (giving it a large proportion of their time) and, crucially, they are those who are recognised by the churches for their hard work, courage, doctrinal soundness and competence in gospel ministry. These ' gospel workers ' are not doing all the gospel ministry (that is for al...
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