Monday Thoughts (on Tuesday)

• Since our August month of abiding, I've been out of my rhythm in terms of weekly speaking. I see how a rhythm helps with communication. I felt "off" on Sunday. It happens. I really love speaking and love the challenge of getting better.
• Really challenged the way we see Church yesterday. In the west, the way we see Church is typically like a fortress. We want everyone to come into the fortress, we might send out raiding parties to get new people into the fortress, but we've basically failed to see that living thusly leaves massive territory completely in our enemy's hands. I think Mike Breen is right. Satan has made a pact with the Western Church. He'll let the church get as large as it wants in the fortress model as long as we take no new territory.
• Conservative stats say 60% of America does not attend fortress, I mean church, on Sunday.
• Theological proviso here: This does not mean God is not present or working in that 60%. It means we are not present or working in that 60%. And for some reason, God chooses to do the majority of his work of setting people free through people.
• I'm an ENTP on the Myers-Briggs inventory, which means I have to fight, fight, fight to do things the same way again and again. (I'd drive home a different way every day if I could) This is important because systems that allow leadership to expand and grow require doing the same thing over and over again. The apostle Paul said it: I die daily.
• To lead means to be heavily involved in your own sanctification, which means painfully facing your shortcomings everyday.
• My job description: growing leaders who are like Jesus.
• Leaders are measured by the number of leaders they produce, not the number of followers they have.
• My Huskers are back. Go Big Red!
• Been wrestling with the implications of a word given to me at the Senior Pastor's retreat a couple weeks ago: "Your first sermon is your marriage. Your second sermon is your family. Your third sermon is what you say on Sunday." Painfully, I don't think I've had the order right. I'm thinking differently so I can live differently.