We’ve almost hit the 4 week mark in this 6 week leadership training school, and I have taken in more information than I know what to do with! I signed up hoping to gain knowledge on how to become a great, effective and successful leader. I wanted to learn from the failures and successes of experienced leaders that know what its like to take on life as a missionary.
Hearing all of Darlene Cunningham’s stories about how God has always been faithful, He always provides and never leaves our side, this gave me hope, and strengthened my faith. She showed me that the impossible is possible when we obey God and allow Him to lead us.
David Hamilton taught me the importance of getting to know God for who He truly is. Not because of who people tell me He is, but for who I know Him to be from my own personal relationship and fellowship with Him. David inspired me to dig deep into the word and allow God to speak revelation into my heart, that I didn’t just hear from someone else but I heard God speaking to me directly.
Last week listening to all of Tim Elmore’s Habitudes has helped me gain wisdom on how to effectively communicate in a way that is clear and beneficial to everyone I am communicating with. The example of the Iceberg showed me how important it is to build character. “If who is ok then what is going to be fine” is a quote Tim stated. If our character is in line with the example the Lord has provided for us with His own life, then whatever we are doing and whatever our daily life is asking of us is going to be just fine because we know who we are. Building our character is having self discipline, emotional security, core values, and knowing our personal Identity. When I allow God to show me who He says I am, and I truly know who I am then I become bold!
All of these experienced leaders are sharing what being a leader has looked like for them, weather or not it is through a success or a failure, they know what it is like to be a leader. I have no idea what it is like to be a leader, especially not a leader of missions! I have no experience!
This week during Dean Sherman’s lectures I have come to realize I got it all backwards. It is not about having a leadership position. It is not about being DTS staff and having that position as a leader so I can finally start my ministry. The bible teaches us that we are a ministry. We ourselves are the ministry. It is not a corporation, it is a gift that the Lord has given us, we have been chosen by God and He has gifted us with a specific ministry.
“Validation in our ministry and our gifting come from the Lord.” Once we discover what our ministry is and accept that gift the Lord has chosen us to have, then being a leader becomes so much more simple. When we accept the ministry gifting God has granted then there is no one who can stop our ministry because we will always have it. Each ministry we have as members of the body of Christ is a vital part of the body. No one is more important than the other because they are all needed to function correctly. Dean made a good point that if this is the case if no part is more important than the other then why do we think some people don’t have a part to play? Why do we automatically pick out the people we think to have the most potential based on their talent and charisma? Some people have position but leadership is not position. “Position is never the measurement of your ministry. Position will come and go but that wont have anything to do with your ministry.”
What is Ministry?
Ministry is two things: 1. A choice to serve out of a motivation of love and 2. A flow of the Holy Spirit through you, released by faith and obedience to meet the needs of people.
Ministry is to serve, therefore a minister is a servant. Jesus was a servant, he humbled himself and served everyone around Him. It is important to look to Jesus as our ultimate example of a servant because He did it perfectly! If we are not serving than we are not ministering. Even people we know who are unsaved who do not have the Holy Spirit living inside of them can serve. It is only until there is a God factor in our serving that it becomes true christian ministry.
Something that hit me so hard is when Dean said, “The better you get at what you do the more deliberate the choice to depend on God is.” It is so true! Once we finally find our ministry gifting it will become simple to lead, therefore because God has created us and chosen us for a specific ministry that means He has given us all that we need to be effective in that ministry. As we walk this out it will be easy to become dependent on ourselves, and try to do everything in our own strength. This is not how God wants it to be. God wants us to have child like faith, that means just like a child depends on his/her parent for everything, we must also depend on our Heavenly Father for everything! Even if we can do it on our own. This is where we need to humble ourselves and be deliberate about depending on the Lord, leaning on His understanding and not our own, always being led by the Holy Spirit. It is easy after having experience to just think we can do everything on our own because we have now done whatever it is multiple times, but this is not depending on the Lord.
John 8:28 “So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the son of man then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the father has taught me.”
John 5:12 “Jesus gave them this answer, “Very truly I tell you the Son can do nothing by himself he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”
1 Corinthians 2:4-5 “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with demonstration of the Spirits’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom but on God’s power.”
1 Corinthians 12:6 “There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone is the sam God at work.”
This literally is just a sliver of what I have been learning in the past couple of weeks. Each day there is more and more to take in, and processing it all is always a challenge. It has gotten overwhelming at times, because it seem like there is a never ending amount of things to fix, and get better at in my life. God has been so good to me, continuously reminding me who he is. He loves me. Its so easy to forget but literally all these things all this stuff that seems impossible to attain is all for my good, He is teaching me all of this for the good of me, for my benefit.
What a blessing it is that God has chosen me to be a ministry gift for Him! How cool is it that I get to spend my time teaching people about Jesus! How incredible is it that i’ve been given a specific gift in order to spread the Love of Jesus to those who have no clue what they are missing out on! I am so honored to be privileged with such an amazing job!
Hearing all of Darlene Cunningham’s stories about how God has always been faithful, He always provides and never leaves our side, this gave me hope, and strengthened my faith. She showed me that the impossible is possible when we obey God and allow Him to lead us.
David Hamilton taught me the importance of getting to know God for who He truly is. Not because of who people tell me He is, but for who I know Him to be from my own personal relationship and fellowship with Him. David inspired me to dig deep into the word and allow God to speak revelation into my heart, that I didn’t just hear from someone else but I heard God speaking to me directly.
Last week listening to all of Tim Elmore’s Habitudes has helped me gain wisdom on how to effectively communicate in a way that is clear and beneficial to everyone I am communicating with. The example of the Iceberg showed me how important it is to build character. “If who is ok then what is going to be fine” is a quote Tim stated. If our character is in line with the example the Lord has provided for us with His own life, then whatever we are doing and whatever our daily life is asking of us is going to be just fine because we know who we are. Building our character is having self discipline, emotional security, core values, and knowing our personal Identity. When I allow God to show me who He says I am, and I truly know who I am then I become bold!
All of these experienced leaders are sharing what being a leader has looked like for them, weather or not it is through a success or a failure, they know what it is like to be a leader. I have no idea what it is like to be a leader, especially not a leader of missions! I have no experience!
This week during Dean Sherman’s lectures I have come to realize I got it all backwards. It is not about having a leadership position. It is not about being DTS staff and having that position as a leader so I can finally start my ministry. The bible teaches us that we are a ministry. We ourselves are the ministry. It is not a corporation, it is a gift that the Lord has given us, we have been chosen by God and He has gifted us with a specific ministry.
“Validation in our ministry and our gifting come from the Lord.” Once we discover what our ministry is and accept that gift the Lord has chosen us to have, then being a leader becomes so much more simple. When we accept the ministry gifting God has granted then there is no one who can stop our ministry because we will always have it. Each ministry we have as members of the body of Christ is a vital part of the body. No one is more important than the other because they are all needed to function correctly. Dean made a good point that if this is the case if no part is more important than the other then why do we think some people don’t have a part to play? Why do we automatically pick out the people we think to have the most potential based on their talent and charisma? Some people have position but leadership is not position. “Position is never the measurement of your ministry. Position will come and go but that wont have anything to do with your ministry.”
What is Ministry?
Ministry is two things: 1. A choice to serve out of a motivation of love and 2. A flow of the Holy Spirit through you, released by faith and obedience to meet the needs of people.
Ministry is to serve, therefore a minister is a servant. Jesus was a servant, he humbled himself and served everyone around Him. It is important to look to Jesus as our ultimate example of a servant because He did it perfectly! If we are not serving than we are not ministering. Even people we know who are unsaved who do not have the Holy Spirit living inside of them can serve. It is only until there is a God factor in our serving that it becomes true christian ministry.
Something that hit me so hard is when Dean said, “The better you get at what you do the more deliberate the choice to depend on God is.” It is so true! Once we finally find our ministry gifting it will become simple to lead, therefore because God has created us and chosen us for a specific ministry that means He has given us all that we need to be effective in that ministry. As we walk this out it will be easy to become dependent on ourselves, and try to do everything in our own strength. This is not how God wants it to be. God wants us to have child like faith, that means just like a child depends on his/her parent for everything, we must also depend on our Heavenly Father for everything! Even if we can do it on our own. This is where we need to humble ourselves and be deliberate about depending on the Lord, leaning on His understanding and not our own, always being led by the Holy Spirit. It is easy after having experience to just think we can do everything on our own because we have now done whatever it is multiple times, but this is not depending on the Lord.
John 8:28 “So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the son of man then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the father has taught me.”
John 5:12 “Jesus gave them this answer, “Very truly I tell you the Son can do nothing by himself he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”
1 Corinthians 2:4-5 “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with demonstration of the Spirits’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom but on God’s power.”
1 Corinthians 12:6 “There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone is the sam God at work.”
This literally is just a sliver of what I have been learning in the past couple of weeks. Each day there is more and more to take in, and processing it all is always a challenge. It has gotten overwhelming at times, because it seem like there is a never ending amount of things to fix, and get better at in my life. God has been so good to me, continuously reminding me who he is. He loves me. Its so easy to forget but literally all these things all this stuff that seems impossible to attain is all for my good, He is teaching me all of this for the good of me, for my benefit.
What a blessing it is that God has chosen me to be a ministry gift for Him! How cool is it that I get to spend my time teaching people about Jesus! How incredible is it that i’ve been given a specific gift in order to spread the Love of Jesus to those who have no clue what they are missing out on! I am so honored to be privileged with such an amazing job!