Leadership Summit Review

Making and maintaining good soil is everything for making beauty grow.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3, “…we are God’s co-workers…”
God causes the growth. You don’t.
We don’t have to fix or change people. That’s God’s job.
Our job is the soil. The environment in which God can cause growth in people.

Are you willing to get your hands dirty?

“People come to church kinda messy.”

John reviewed several stories. Each was the story of a person who came to Gateway with loads of problems and troubles: Atheism. Alcohol abuse. Homosexuality.

The emerging global culture  requires that we get our hands dirty, cultivating the soil as necessary. We are to help people become the Body of Christ. To do that, what will our ministry look like?  It’ll look like the ministry of Jesus.

Jesus was hanging out with messy people. The religious leaders didn’t like messy people. That’s why they complained. In Matthew 9 they asked about it. Jesus replied, “I’ve not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”  They were playing religious games. Jesus came for messy broken people who recognized they need God’s help.

What if our hands are not dirty? Are we accomplishing His Mission if we don’t have messy people around us who are in the process of becoming His church?  Am I leading more like Jesus, or more like the Pharisees?

1. We must cultivate the soil with grace-giving acceptance.
   People have to experience that – from us – to believe it.  
   Grace says, “Come as you are.”  That is good news for all people.
   
   But, many people do not experience Grace-giving acceptance from Christians.
   
   Here is a great illustration. 
   John said, “Imagine you found a painting worth millions of dollars.  Would you treat it like mud? No!  You’d treat it like the precious and valuable painting it is.  You wouldn’t even try to clean it yourself.  You’d take to a master who could clean it and reveal the value for all to see!”
   
   The Pharisees saw mud. 
   What do you see?
   
   Grace gets leeched out of the soil of this world.
   
   We need to move barriers so people can experience grace.  That’s what the early church had to do.  Some of the early church leaders wanted to keep people out of the church until they could prove they could do right (live right).  Acts 15:10. “…neither we, nor our ancestors could bear…”
   
   So, what are the potential barriers to grace, that we need to move.  This is what Paul did in Acts 17 when he build bridges from their idol worship to the grace of God. Get your hands dirty. Get involved. 
   
   John was asked by a neighbor, “Does your church teach you to love other people?”
   “Sure.”
   “How do you feel about gays?”
   “Why?”
   “I just could never attend a church that teaches people to hate other people.”
   
   John said, “I’ve been asked two questions more than any others.”
   I’ve been asked (1) “How do you feel about gays?” and (2) “How do you feel about other religions?”
   How we answer those questions either smacks of law and Pharisees, or grace.
   
   These are the predominant questions of the culture.
   
   How we answer is critical. Your answer can slam the door shut for any further conversation about Jesus.  We must be wise as serpants.
   
   You can read my book, “No Perfect People Allowed” for more on how I would answer these two questions.
2. We must answer with authentic and honest community.
   
   The source of all human problems is broken relationship: with God and others.
   So, we need soil that restores connection with God and others.
   
   James 5:16 “Confess…and pray for each other so we can be healed.”  Grace allows us to bring our struggles and temptations so we help each other.  When we model that, and teach it, we become healing agents for each other.
   
   People are calling out “the masterpiece” under the “mud.”
   
   John told the story of a woman who was high on LSD at a Rock Concert when she met God. She came to Gateway (after eleven years in yoga, meditation and retreats). She joined a mother’s group. She prayed. “God, I’ll give you 30 days. If this is what you want of me, come. I started reading the Bible. I couldn’t get enough of it. I kept giving God 30 day extensions. After eleven years of searching, there has been a change in me that’s hard to describe.”
   
   
   

Some of you are thinking, “What if they never change?” 
Then you’ll be like Jesus. Didn’t He invite Judas?  And he didn’t’ change.

One other way we must cultivate the soil is constant connection with God’s Spirit.

Read John 13-17.  Jesus knew changing and growing was difficult. He made it graphic for us.  He reaches down and picks up a vine. He says, “I’m like this vine. You are like this branch. All you have to do to bear much fruit is stay connected to me. Remain in me. Apart from me you can do nothing.”
Think about that leaders.
If we don’t lead people to do this one thing…stay connected to Jesus…we can do nothing!

Grace was given so we could connect with God and stay connect forever.

Paul says so in Romans 7 & 8.  “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.   …   Those who live in accordance with the spirit have their minds set on the things of God….”

Stay connected. 
Fruit happens.

Spiritual growth is so simple it’s scandalous. A child can do it.

Self-centeredness tries to over-run God-centeredness.  Spiritual development is helping other people do “this one thing” together.

When I’ve learned to stay connect, it is a wonderful thing.

God challenged me to call the people to an experiment. “Have people stay in a posture of radical responsiveness to His Will and talk constantly to God.”  We called it the “60:60 Experiment.”  For those who did it, they found the experience remarkable.

Willing to radically respond to nudges and promptings to do God’s will.  “Man is it hard.”  So, you have to be on the foundation of Grace, and in community saturated with grace.

John 7:17 is where Jesus says, “If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out…”

One simple thing: STAY connected, in the context of authentic community…and that CHANGES people!

Are you willing to get your hands dirty? Tilling the soil with grace and authentic community? If so, God will cause growth; it’ll be messy, but it’ll be beautiful.