Pastor Steven Furtick

Archive for the ‘Best Practices’ Category

Make a Big Deal About It!

| Best Practices, Personal Development

If you saw how much effort we put into celebrating special occasions (like our upcoming 3 year anniversary) at Elevation, you might think we’re a little silly.
We have multiple parties, worship services, and other activities planned around our anniversary this week, this weekend, and continuing on through the first part of next week-at a staff, volunteer, and church-wide level.
And at first glance, I can see how all this may seem like a misappropriation of energy and effort.  After all, doesn’t a growing, thriving, mission-centric church have more important things to do?

I feel the same way sometimes when I read through all of the required feasts and festivals God prescribed for Israel in the Old Testament.
Didn’t they have more important things to do?  Doesn’t the celebration and remembrance get a little excessive?
Apparently God didn’t think so.  He commanded that His children commemorate His extravagant deliverance in an extravagant and intentional way.

The Pharisees found fault with the extravagant demonstration of appreciation initiated by a sinful woman in Luke 7:36-50.
Jesus commended her expression of love as appropriate and fitting…
“he who has been forgiven much loves much”.

It might not always be convenient-or efficient-to stop and make a big deal about the things God has done, but it’s Biblical and worthwhile.

When God changes a life in your church, make a big deal about it!
When someone on your team hits a grand slam, make a big deal about it!
When your one of your kids makes significant progress, make a big deal about it!

When we fail to celebrate what God did for us yesterday, on what grounds do we expect Him to bless us today?

Never go to war where there are no spoils

| Best Practices, Personal Development

I’m sure you’ve heard that before, or something like it. The idea is that the intensity of your pursuit should never exceed the value of the corresponding reward. More simply, don’t waste time fighting battles that don’t matter in the overall scheme of things. But let’s get to a few practical applications of this advice.

-I want to avoid defending myself to people who don’t care to understand me, and don’t have my best interest at heart. I’ll likely never change their opinion about me, and even if I do, what have I gained?

-I’m learning to care less about being right all the time. All of us who are addicted to the drug of being right know to well how much emotional energy and mental bandwidth is expended in the process, and how short lived the high actually is.

-I’m trying to prune more of the fruitless activity out of my life. I want to spend the bulk of my time doing things that enable me for my calling, fulfill my calling, and refresh me for my calling. I want to leave the other stuff alone.

I’m sure you can think of many more implications of this idea.
Bottom line: Make sure there’s a pot of gold at the end of any rainbow you’re currently chasing. If there isn’t, you’ve got better things to do.

Biblical reference: Matthew 7:6

You Asked… Audio Blog Edition

| Audio Blogs, Best Practices, Q & A

This week’s installment of the audio blog is taking a left turn and we’re going to tackle a new topic. We’ve hit Elevation Church Best Practices for the last 6 weeks, so this week’s new approach will have more of a Q and A flavor. We made the open call last week for future blog topics and the response was ridiculous. Questions about just about everything under the sun came in.

We took one of those questions, hit it hard, gave our perspective on what it meant to us, and you end up with “You Asked…Audio Blog Edition.”

Give yourself about 15 minutes to make it through, but you’ll be glad you did. Enjoy.