Pastor Steven Furtick

Archive for the ‘Leadership’ Category

Bonus Tracks: The Prodigy in Me

| Leadership, Spiritual Growth

This past weekend we kicked off a new series called The Prodigy in Me. It’s all about the greatness and potential that exists inside of every believer because of the unlimited greatness of the God that is in us.

Usually the Bonus Tracks on the blog include teaching I wasn’t able to get to or extrapolate on because of time. In this case, I have a burden on my heart for preachers that relates to the subject of the series.

I believe we have two problems in our time when it comes to preaching. Both are equally real. Both are equally serious. Both relate to who we are apart from and in Jesus.

First, when preaching to those who are far from God, we vastly underestimate how hopeless the human condition is apart from Christ. We jump to their potential in Christ when they’re not even in Christ yet. We tell people, “You can do it, you can make it,” when in fact the point of the gospel is, you can’t do it. You can’t make it. Sin is real. Hell is real. You need a Savior. So give your life to Jesus. Not just to 613 ways to have a better life.

But then once they’ve given their lives to God, we have another problem. When it comes to building up Christians, we vastly underestimate the potential of people in Christ. A lot of dumb preachers have done nothing but tell us how awful we are. We’re dirty, rotten, filthy sinners. Make no mistake, that’s what we were, but Jesus died so that what we were could become what He is.

So both are true.
Without Jesus, I’m wretched. But with Him, I’m whole.
Apart from Jesus, I can do nothing. In Him, I can do anything.

Pastors, don’t ever be afraid to offend people with the truth of what they are apart from Jesus. But also don’t ever be afraid to encourage people with the truth of what they can be now that they’ve been reconciled with Him.

Separated from Jesus, I’m a prodigal. In Him, and with Him in me, I’m a prodigy.

Resource of the Day: You can catch this past weekend’s sermon right now at the Elevation Experience, playing every hour on the hour.

Simple and Obvious

| Leadership

Simple and obvious leadership tip for you today. But it’s one that I’ve seen pay big dividends over the years.

If you’ve ever watched an infomercial, you know that it says to call their phone number over and over again. The TV personality says it repeatedly. They flash it on the screen multiple times.

It seems repetitive, almost to the point of being obnoxious. But they’re just trying to make it simple for people. Obvious. And they do it for two simple reasons: 1) people need them to, and 2) it works. Otherwise they wouldn’t do it.

I think every church should adopt the same strategy. Obviously I don’t mean flashing numbers repeatedly on the screen. But we do need to make the simple things simple. The obvious things obvious. Because we should never overestimate the ability of people, including ourselves, to miss the simple and the obvious.

Here’s a few ways this works at Elevation:
Every week we tell our first time guests that they’re our VIPs.
Every week we tell everyone to stop by an orange tent to get involved.
We encourage people to give all the time.
We encourage people to get in groups all the time.

In a different way every week and every time. But the same basic, clear messages every week and every time

Is it repetitive? Maybe.
Does it make the obvious things obvious? Definitely.

And those are just the nuts and bolts of a church. Imagine how much more important it is when we’re talking about things like the Gospel. Or the vision of the church. Yet many churches only communicate those things a couple of times per year.

This might seem like a simple and obvious tip to a lot of you. Why even blog it?

Because we’re no better than our audience. Even the simple and obvious leadership principles need to be made simple and obvious, and repeated over and over again to leaders like you and me.

Resource of the Day: Even Jesus had to repeat Himself for people to get the message. If He had to, none of us are above it. For more on this idea, especially as it relates to casting vision, check out this blog post from this past Fall: Say it Again.

We Cannot Help Speaking

| Leadership, Ministry Perspective, Spiritual Growth

I updated my Twitter profile a couple of days ago. In addition to “Pastor of Elevation Church. Author of Sun Stand Still,” I added:
WARNING: Acts 4:20.

Of course I’m referring to Peter and John’s response to the demand of the Jewish leaders for them to stop preaching the gospel:
We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.

I love that. They had seen God do things so amazing, it would be a crime not say to something about it. It makes me feel OK when I tweet 100s of times after 1000s of people get baptized. Or when I call an hour-long staff meeting just to celebrate after we’ve seen God come through for us in a special way.

I’ve made up my mind to always err on the side of going overboard in giving public praise for what God is doing in the lives of the people at Elevation. And in my own life, too. For three main reasons.

First, He’s simply worthy of it.

Second, as I’ve said before, what you fail to honor will eventually leave your life. If I fail to celebrate what God did yesterday, how can I expect Him to bless me tomorrow?

And third, when we celebrate life change publicly, it will become the goal of more people personally. When we promote transformation and steps of faith as the norm, they will actually become the norm.

Never be ashamed to boldly and publically celebrate the great things God is doing around you.

Flood Twitter feeds.
Call staff meetings where you do nothing but tell stories.
Never stop speaking about what you have seen or heard.

It’s good to go overboard when God blesses you in an overboard way.

Lead Like Jesus

| Leadership

You often hear people talk about how we need to lead like Jesus. I completely agree.

But what many people usually seem to mean by this is simply that we need to be extra nice. Not be too blunt or harsh. Or too demanding. Or put people in situations that overly stretch them.

In other words, leading like Jesus means leading like Mr. Rogers.

I don’t know if you’ve read the gospels, but that’s not how Jesus led. I recently did a quick read-through of Mark and noticed a trend in Jesus’ leadership:
Jesus was a tough, demanding leader to follow. He was always stirring something up, pushing the disciples past their limits, even coming across rude and reckless sometimes.

I mean, think about the fact that for the disciples’ first mission in Mark 6, Jesus he tells them to teach and cast out demons, even though there’s no indication they had ever done it. And then He doesn’t even equip them very well: they only get a staff. No bread, no bag, no money. That’s like your pastor coming up to you and saying “I want you to build me a new campus in 30 days. You’ve got no money, no volunteers to start with. No place to meet yet. I’m preaching there live the first weekend it’s open. Good luck.”

Or how about all the times when the disciples would say stupid things, ask dumb questions, or they just didn’t get it. And Jesus, instead of being sweet with them, would just call them out. Like in Mark 7 when the disciples don’t understand a parable, and Jesus replies, “are you so dull?”

What about in Mark 1:16-20 when Jesus tells Peter, Andrew, James, and John to leave their livelihood to follow Him. Or Mark 1:40-42 when Jesus touches a leper in front of the disciples, which would have been like injecting yourself with AIDS in our day. Or Mark 2:13-17 when Jesus goes to a party with sinners and the disciples have to do PR control with the Pharisees.

That’s just scratching the surface in Mark. And I didn’t even get to the other gospels.

Don’t get me wrong, leading like Jesus doesn’t mean you have to lead like a jerk. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m just saying that Jesus knew some things about leadership we all need to learn.

Leadership isn’t letting people stay comfortable. Leadership isn’t being easy on your team. Leadership isn’t speaking in nice generalities and letting crap go by without calling people on it. Leadership isn’t about not putting your people in tough circumstances where they’re going to have to think on their feet.

Leadership isn’t about those things because then you’re not actually leading your people anywhere but where they’ve always been. You’re letting their potential remain dormant. And you’re not serving them. You’re setting them up for failure. Or even worse, successful mediocrity.

Don’t be afraid to expect the best from your people. And don’t be afraid to put them in difficult situations that are going to bring the best out of them.

In short, don’t lead like Mr. Rogers. Lead like Jesus.