Keeping Right Things in the Right Place

https://jdsimcoe.medium.com/advent-luxe-2020-5306692a050b

A prayer I wrote using quotes from chapter 4 - Balance - of Paul Tripp's Lead:12 Gospel Principles for Leadership In the Church

Lord, God, the one who alone is worthy of our worship,

Help me find important what you find important.  Help me trust you for what you know I need, not what I think I need.  May my treasure be what you treasure, God.  

Lord, help me not exchange your glory for the glory of the things you created.  I don't want the good things you have given to become the rulings things.  I pray that I would not work longer, try harder, control more, delegate less, and take more credit, in my attempts to get from ministry what it is not meant to provide

May the leadership communities I am and will be part of always consider and regularly discuss the question of balance in the lives of its leaders.  I pray these communities would have God in his rightful place and people and things are in their appropriate places in our thoughts, desires, and actions.  Help us remember the appropriate place of authority, money, power, position, gifts, marriage, children, theological insight, and biblical literacy.

God, thank you that Jesus' first act of restoration was to restore our relationship with God.  Because of this great truth help me and the leadership communities I am part of to put everything in its right place. 

Amen. 

"What is balance?  It is everything in its right place doing what it was meant to do."  (87)

"What is important to God isn't always important to us.  What God knows is needful for us isn't always needful to us.  What God says we should treasure, at street level we don't always treasure."  (88)

"Idolatry is when the glory of God the Creator is exchanged for the glory of the created thing."  (89)

"In ministry good things become ruling things."  (89)

Leaders are tempted to look to ministry to provide for them what it was never intended to provide.  Leadership position, power, respect, acclaim, and success begin to take on more weight in our hearts than they should ever take."  (90)

"In the fear of not getting things we think we need, we work longer, try harder, control more, delegate less, and take more credit.  Good godly habits get left behind in our ministry drivenness.  Necessary relationships are not properly maintained.  Private worship becomes perfunctory, if not abandoned altogether."  (90)

"A spiritually healthy leadership community should be always considering and regularly discussing the question of balance in the lives of its leaders."  (91)

"It is only when God is in his rightful place in my heart that people and things are in their appropriate place in my thoughts, desires, and actions."  (95)

We've seen shocking materialism; abuse of authority; misuse of God's money; love of power and position; the use of gifts, power, and position to seduce and misuse others; the hiding of wrongs; the building of cults of personality; broken marriages; angry children; beaten-down fellow leaders; unwillingness to submit to counsel, confrontation, and loving discipline; using theological insight and biblical literacy to defend what should not be defended; etc."  (95)

"[Jesus] first act of restoration was to restore us to God, because it is only when God has his rightful weight in our hearts that everything else is appropriately weighted." (98)

God-Given Limits

https://jdsimcoe.medium.com/advent-luxe-2020-5306692a050b

A prayer I wrote using quotes from chapter 3 - Limits - of Paul Tripp's Lead:12 Gospel Principles for Leadership In the Church

Lord, God, our creator,

You have created me with limits.  Help me understand that I cannot do more than I can realistically and healthily do.

God, you don't send us out on our own.  Where you send us, you also go.  I am thankful for this fact.  Help me live in this truth.

As I prayerfully think about the idea of limits and the ministry you have for us, I want the ministry community you have for us to know not to idolize domineering leaders who fail to recognize the limits of their gifts, who disrespect the God-given gifts of fellow leaders, and who have been allowed to think that they are smart, gifted and strong in ways they are not

Lord, I don't want to be surrounded by ministry clones.  Help me surround myself with leaders who have gifts that I do not have and strengths I don't have.  

Lord, help me not fall into the trap of pride and harsh criticism.  I want to develop a leadership community that recognizes God-given gifts and works to establish a ministry culture of respectful appreciation and joyful cooperation.

Lord, I must say no to the passions of my body so that I can do what you have called me to do.

Search my heart, help me recognize, understand, and confess the idols of my heart that interfere with the discipline you have called me to and your grace makes possible.

God, I know there are areas I need to grow in, especially during this time of ministry searching.

Where we are serving, I pray the leaders would see their ongoing need for confrontation, gospel comfort, and love and encouragement to deal with the old self.

Amen! 

"In ministry, it is tempting to try to do more than you can realistically and healthily do."  (72)

"We do not have to fear our limits because God doesn't send us out on our own; where he sends us, he goes to."  (73)

"Every leader needs to rely on the contributions of other leaders who are smart in ways that he isn't."  (74)

"Ministry must always be done in humble, respectful, and submissive community because the gift God has given us come to us with built-in limits."  (74)

"I would be silly and proud to dominate every discussion and make every decision and assign every task."  (74)

"One of the reasons the ministry leadership community is broken is that we have idolized domineering leaders who fail to recognize the limits of their gifts, who disrespect the God-given gifts of fellow leaders, and who have been allowed to think that they are smart, gifted, and strong in ways they are not." (74)

"Pride in one's own giftedness coupled with devaluing the gifts of others is a recipe for leadership disaster."  (75)

"Humble leaders surround themselves not with ministry clones but with leaders who have gifts that they do not and are therefore smart in ways they are not and strong in areas they are weak."  (75)

"Being given a gift tells me about me in that I am not self-sufficient but rather needy and dependent.  It tells me I have no ability to do God's work without God's gifts."  (75)

"My giftedness doesn't make me worthy of human deference, affirmation, or submission, because my gift doesn't point to me but to the one who has given it to me."  (75)

'Because of the public nature of your gifts, you will suffer dangerous adulation and harsh criticism."  (76)

"A leadership community that humbly recognizes the limits of God-given gifts will establish a ministry culture of respectful appreciation, and joyful cooperation."  (77)

"As a leader, you simply cannot ignore the limits placed on you by this plan and maintain spiritual and relational health and a life of long-term ministry effectiveness."  (77)

"When you unwittingly deny God-given limits of time, you assign more ministry work than a leader can do without shrinking the amount of time he can invest in other vital and unavoidable areas of calling and responsibility."  (79)

"So more ministry means the leader spends less than the needed time investing in his marriage, parenting his children, fellowshipping with his church family, and serving his neighbors."  (79)

"We have to resist a "try harder, do more" leadership culture that results in unrealistic expectations, achievement idolatry, and a whole basket of bad fruit."  (79)

"Physical health must be part of the conversation and the shared responsibility of every member of the leadership community."  (81)

"In order to finish the race and not be disqualified, we all must say no to passions of the body so that we can run the ministry or leadership race we have been called to run.  Bringing our body under subjection doesn't begin with diet and exercise, but with searching for and confessing idols of the heart that interfere with the discipline to which we have been called and which grace makes possible.  YOu see, the stewardship of our physical body is not an addition to our gospel ministry; it is a significant part of it."  (81)

"Perhaps many of us are tired all the time not because of the rigorous demands of ministry but because of the lack of rigorous physical exercise in our normal routine.  It is my love for my Savior and his gospel that causes me to eat with discipline.  It is my love for the gospel that makes me get up and go to the gym or get on my road bike morning after morning."  (82)

"No matter how long we've been in ministry leadership, no matter how well trained, no matter theologically mature, we are all still in need of future spiritual development."  (83)

"Every leader needs to be the object of ongoing discipleship, every leader needs at moments to be confronted, every leader needs the comforts of the gospel, every leader needs help to see what he would not see on his own, and every leader needs to be granted the love and encouragement to deal with the artifacts of the old self that are still within him."  (84)

Tool of Gods Grace

A prayer I wrote using quotes from chapter 2 - Gospel - of Paul Tripp's Lead:12 Gospel Principles for Leadership In the Church  

Lord, the one who saves,

Use me as a tool of grace in people's lives.  And as you do that, help me see the importance others play in my life and spiritual growth.

I pray that the ministry you have for me and my family would challenge me and stretch me.  Remind me that ministry is not about my comfort and predictability.  In these challenges, I will be weak and needy.  Help me embrace my weakness and your strength, God.  I also pray that Trinity and the ministry we will go to will embrace their weakness and your strength.  Lord, use me to help them grow.

Lord, I desire to help a church look at its leadership, mission, community, and methodology in light of the life-changing truth of the gospel.  This will not happen perfectly but every church needs to get better at doing/living/working with the Gospel at the forefront.  May the church that we are at grow in confidence in the Gospel and a commitment to one another.

God, may the church we are a part of be a place where leaders and members can confess their sin to you and one another and then continue to grow in their personal holiness.

May I and other leaders show a maturity that goes beyond worldly understanding and humility, points to Jesus and leads to gospel productivity and long-term spiritual health.

As the gospel makes us into the individuals and the community you want us to be.  Grow in us patience and a willingness to wait on you.

You alone are worthy and deserving of all the glory.  God, as we continue this ministry search, I pray that you would help Trinity Baptist Church, the church we are currently attending, and the church we will go to grow in the gospel.

Amen.

If you have given yourself to building people, you have accepted the call to suffer for the sake of the Gospel.  Leadership in the church is not comfortable and predictable.  It's not a safe place to look for your identity and inner security.  (53)

There should be no more powerful influence on leadership formation, community, and methodology than the Gospel of God's grace. (54)

Gatherings are not just for the purpose of financial, missional, and strategic planning but to nurture gospel confidence and commitment to one another.  (56)

Fear of looking weak and needy will rob us of the help we need for spiritual health. (57)

If we are afraid to confess sin before what should be the most spiritual mature community in the church, we are sadly living in a state of functional gospel amnesia, no matter how robust our theological grasp of the gospel is.  (58)

The long term health and gospel productivity of a church or ministry leadership community are directly related to the humility of the members of the community.  (59)

Leader pride produces personality cults, while leader humility stimulates the worship of God. (60)

Willingness to wait with patient hearts is a clear sign that your leadership community has been and is being shaped by the gospel.  (62)

Gospel encouragement is a defense against the ever-present danger of the pride in accomplishment because it puts credit where credit is due, at the feel of the Savior.  (62)