Posted in September 2010 …

Sep 25 2010
Christianity, Church, leadership, Uncategorized

More thinking about thinking (2) Paul Scanlon ALC 2

We have to control and manage the inner world.

Parable of the weeds Matt 24.
‘All by itself’

Your heart keeps growing stuff while you’re asleep. That believing heart doesn’t sleep when your head/ brain does.
‘I slept but my heart was awake.’

The soil does its work automatically.
If you go to sleep fearful/angry/restless, you’ll grow that more. The heart keeps growing whatever is in there. It’s made that way – to grow whatever you put in, ‘awake or asleep.’

Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. That’s true for everyone. That’s why some unbelievers build a better life with common sense than we do with supposed revealed wisdom.

GOOD IN- GOOD OUT.
Gods not choosing your input – you are.

The heart is NOT a leader but a follower. It follows whatever you put in.
EG it follows your treasure. It grows what you treasure. It’s not going to tell you what to sow. It’s not your heart’s job to question, ‘Are you sure we want to grow weeds?’

Above all else guard the HEART (not head) for from it flow the issues of life.

cf Stockdale Paradox. (Good to Great, Jim Collins). The optimists died first. Those who pinned their hopes on a particular moment battled so much disappointment. He said he realised he had to confront the most brutal facts of his reality, yet still have hope.

Cf Psalm 105:18 – Speaks of iron entering Joseph’s soul while in shackles.
He was innocent – but retained a great attitude in jail. Because of this he ran the jail! He cared for the prisoners around him, interpreted their dreams. he knew..

THIS WILL END WELL – I JUST DON’T KNOW WHEN.

So when he ends up in front of Pharaoh, ‘I believe you can…’ He says, ‘No, it’s not me – GOD can…’ He hasn’t got bitter inside. He became Prime Minister not because of his gifts, because of the dream interpretation – but because he had the character of a PM.

Then he presented a 14 year economic plan (learned in prison?). He never claimed greatness, he let it go when offered him – but ended up getting it anyway. He refused the promotion so God gave it him anyway.

cf David.
He was put down all his childhood. When he takes the cheese to them they put him down again so he turns his back to them and asks another… Saul tries to bring him down. The only way to retain positive attitude in a negative environment is to listen to the non-audible inner speaking of your own belief system.

We speak to a person at 300 words a minute
We self talk 1300 words a minute.
Don’t believe that? Try to listen to yourself talking to you while someone else is talking to you!

Self talk is RAPID on the inside. You are talking to you now 4 times faster than a preacher is preaching at them.

So, what you are saying to you about what’s being said to you will govern the outcome. your voice to you is the strongest voice to you. As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.

Prov 1:32 – the prosperity of fools will destroy him.
(Prosperous externally but foolish internally).

You can confess God’s favour on your life 300 words a minute but it doesn’t land because 1300 words a minute its saying negativity – and winning. Internal and external realities.

You can only change you, you can’t change or believe for others. Don’t waste your life trying to get others on board who don’t want it, Jesus never tried that.

Finally…
all babies do is TAKE. They cry, scream, eat.
Never say thank you or give you a card.
Yet you would lay down your life for that kid.
Your value is NOT in what you do!

Miracles are not for the deserving but the BELIEVING.
If anyone deserved miracles it was the Pharisees – lived good lives etc. But it’s not a gospel of works and striving.

Sep 23 2010
Uncategorized

Paul Scanlon ALC Network Day. ‘Thinking about thinking.’

Romans 10;10. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

We misunderstand the heart here. It means the CORE of your being. It’s not emotional or physical. The inner you. Your programming.

There can be genetic predispositions, but your cells are not what governs your life. You can end up in a victim mentality if you think you are controlled like that. Your cells actually respond to YOU! How you view life. So it’s possible to say, ‘You can have a change in your life’ without even necessarily a change in your circumstances.

Your belief systems are in place by the age of eight. How many things were formed in you in your most formative years? Whether you’re optimistic or stingy or funny or intense or insecure, structured, how you view other ethnicities, or authority – are determined up to age 8 – unless we challenge them.

Some people come to your church first time and hate it. They let you know what they didn’t like. The person who sat in the next chair loved it. That has nothing to do with us, its to do with the belief system with those people came in with. In our nation people don’t have the church-going culture some other nations have.

The way people enter our buildings is not governed today – is not about today. The things I like and don’t like came in with me. You will find evidence to underline what you thought, real or imagined.

God loves you, and everyone else has a great plan for your life.

People are unwilling to adapt, because our ways, our styles are sacred and it’s become all about us, and we’ve made things really matter to us that don’t matter at all to God. And that limits the amount of people we can reach.

cf the 1950s, 12 million Painting by numbers sets were sold. It was massive! But people were not necessarily creative, because someone told them, ‘this number must be orange.’

Jesus questioned the status quo of ‘Why is 8 always orange?’ He’s still doing this. Most things can be reinvented BETTER. But you’ll lose some people if you put yellow in 8…

Proverbs tells us about a stingy man who appears to be generous, but on the inside he’s not generous. A stingy man is eager to get rich and is unaware that poverty awaits him.

Because in his heart he has a fundamental system that s not in line with his head. You can change your mind many times, but changing your belief system is different.

Do we really mean it when we pray that broken people will come along. Do we mean it? We show that when they turn up?

We don’t want to deal with the smelly fish.
We want to clean the fish before we catch them. Or to clean themselves first.
We have assumed that faith and belief are the same thing – they are not.
Faith is the manifestation of what you’re believing for.

We have all heard the name and claim it version of faith, yet many of those who subscribe to it have broken lives and are broke. You can’t have faith for something you have a flawed belief system about.

Rather than diet again and again, change your belief about food.
What was the thought about race, about money, about food – from 0 to 8, in your background, growing up.

You can be told in many ways that God loves you, but if you don’t know that IN YOUR HEART…You can only know the love that you believe in.

Your subconscious mind is running all kinds of things in you without cognitive thought. Your inner core of believing is fixed – for good reason. It can be changed just like that. Like a church culture can’t be changed by going to one conference and copying someone else. We try to bolt new things onto old things that haven’t been tackled and it doesn’t work.

Peter had three years 24/7 with Jesus and yet on many levels didn’t get it. We shouldn’t assume that we do. Then when Jesus is gone, he’s standing and preaching like he gets it. As he’s speaking though from Joel about the promise being for everyone, he has a problem with Gentiles. He remained so fixed on this Paul that had to confront him on it. He doesn’t socialise with non-jews. It’s there from his youth! Paul understood that Peter had an inclusive theology but an exclusive practise. We can have the language of reaching all, and kid ourselves.

God had to tell him over and over, ‘Don’t call anyone i love unclean.’ Has to take him to the enemy’s house! Then he says, ‘I NOW realise…that God does not show favouritism..’

NOW? You were three years with Jesus!

He had been exclusive all that time because he had faith for exclusive love, but not belief for it. In the 1940s there was a Hollywood boulevard restaurant/club called the Magic Castle. Magicians from all over the world. They had a great Cary Grant lookalike on the door. Nobody knew… it was really him. He was going out with a someone there.

People walked right past him because they didn’t expect to see him THERE. He was there but nobody saw him/ asked for his autograph. Their belief system didn’t allow them to see him.

Jesus was the Cary Grant of his day… they didn’t expect God to be there and then where he was/ who he was.

We can be seeking the breakthrough and not know it’s THERE!

The church were fervently praying for Peter to be released, AS he was knocking on their door! 2 Lessons?

God will never open for you what you can do for yourself.
It’s such a big thing (for us) we thin, ‘God can’t have answered THAT easily.’

Only 2 in 3 million of the children of Israel were able to change their slave mindset and possess the land. They preferred the comfort of bondage.

Changing your MIND is not enough, change, ‘WHY do we think like that?’

Sep 23 2010
Church, leadership, Uncategorized

Charlotte Gambill – THE BIG LIFE at ALC Network Day

Great first talk at ALC Network Day. I’m blogging live on this stuff so it’s not as tidy as I usually like…but EVERY leader needs to get hold of this!

The BIG life

We can be surrounded by smallness in the UK.

2 Cor 6: 1-10 (Msg) Companions as we are in this work with you, we beg you, please don’t squander one bit of this marvelous life God has given us. God reminds us,
   I heard your call in the nick of time;
   The day you needed me, I was there to help.
Well, now is the right time to listen, the day to be helped. Don’t put it off; don’t frustrate God’s work by showing up late, throwing a question mark over everything we’re doing. Our work as God’s servants gets validated—or not—in the details. People are watching us as we stay at our post, alertly, unswervingly . . . in hard times, tough times, bad times; when we’re beaten up, jailed, and mobbed; working hard, working late, working without eating; with pure heart, clear head, steady hand; in gentleness, holiness, and honest love; when we’re telling the truth, and when God’s showing his power; when we’re doing our best setting things right; when we’re praised, and when we’re blamed; slandered, and honored; true to our word, though distrusted; ignored by the world, but recognized by God; terrifically alive, though rumored to be dead; beaten within an inch of our lives, but refusing to die; immersed in tears, yet always filled with deep joy; living on handouts, yet enriching many; having nothing, having it all.
 11-13Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!

We have to live more openly and expansively. It’s about INTERNAL size. How expansive are you living? Inside your own life is the perimeters. We see small people acheive big things when the bigness is inside them.

Jonathan – had the opportunity to serve under Saul & David.

one was small in stature but huge on the inside. The other was the other way round. He ended up dying on the battlefield of the guy who was small on the inside.

Working on your internal bigness.

Are you making a mark or is life marring you?

We live hard lives – as Paul did, but he still challenges you to not shrink on the inside. However big you are inside will determine the bigness of what God does through you.

What we decide to be will decide what our churches will be.

Cain had a great opportunity – to mark a moment and do something significant. But he became marred, trapped by comparison. The enemy will speak to your smallness and feed you thoughts to close you down.

He brought his offering, but Abel brought the fat offerings.
His smallness grew on the inside. the smallest things can do that to us.
The Lord said you can change this – just do what’s right!

God spoke to Cain: “Why this tantrum? Why the sulking? If you do well, won’t you be accepted? And if you don’t do well, sin is lying in wait for you, ready to pounce; it’s out to get you, you’ve got to master it.”

His punishment? Isolation. He was MARKED – marred, for life. You can end up a restless wanderer, losing your way, half asleep – in the land of Nod.
If they’d just forgiven, got over it… they wouldn’t have ended up there.
His kids ended up living there too – because what you are is what you’ll lead.
what’s inside you will restrict what you do.

God has called us to MAKE A MARK – to reshape the geography of our nation! If you don’t make a mark you’ll be unremarkable. Something has to happen!

3 Marks to make

Trademark.
God wires us all with a trademark, FIND IT. What do you bring that is unique, significant through you? (Some people have a trademark of negativity that shrinks them all the time!). Thomas trademark? Doubt! Jesus was in the business of helping them find their trademark. Peter – you’re going to be a rock. Solomon – wisdom. David – servant leader. cf X Factor – There are lots of talented performers, but what makes them stand out? There are lots of great preachers, but what makes you stand out?
What’s that worship team’s trademark? Nelson Mandela, trademark – forgiveness. Mother Teresa, trademark – love. Paul’s trademark WAS persecution. But in Gal 1:13 he describes being marked from birth and how he got his trademark…. he worked on the inside for a long time – and changed the trademark…
Benchmark.
A lot of people don’t set benchmarks because they don’t want stretch-marks. We have to see some things and say, ‘that’s not all right.’ Set a level. That’s what leaders do. You say, ‘NO MORE’ to the best they can do… that’s no good. We can’t be frightened to confront mediocrity. Job said to his ‘comforters’ – ‘I’ve had enough of listening to you?’ Its not about money, it’s about a spirit.
Hallmark.
That’s what shows purity, the King’s stamp of approval. A hallmarked vessel indicates God’s choice. 2 Tim 2 – In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. 21If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.

The smallness you feel is internal. The only person who can fix that is you.

We don’t need any more marred leaders marring people.

Tagged , ,
Sep 20 2010
4 Comments
Bible, Christianity, Church, Faith, Jesus, leadership, Manchester, Prayer, Religion, REVIVAL, Uncategorized

WE DO NOT HAVE COCKROACHES!

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”

I’ll admit to a certain amount of frustration at times from various books I read, even the odd conference – here it is….

Try to grow a church and people say, ‘Oh you’re all about the numbers.’
As if the numbers weren’t people.

People like your kids, your neighbours, your friends.
Don’t you want them to come to Jesus too?

I talked in church yesterday about how Jesus refused the numbers game when at the beginning of John 4 the Pharisees started comparing his growth stats with John the Baptists’ – how he went to a lone broken woman in an unexpected place on the margins, because the kingdom of heaven does not usually advance by crowds but one life at a time. (In fact through that one woman’s story revival hit the town!).

But sometimes lack of relevance or connectedness to ordinary people – evangelistic ineffectiveness – is applauded as a sign of faithfulness rather than a cause of concern or a need to change and try something different.

Being ‘attractional‘ has been made a dirty word in some church settings, and I don’t get that. How about ‘A city set on a hill cannot be hidden?’

Will doing/ being/ leading church better help or hinder that?

I know being the light of the world is not all about having a big lighting rig or the best sound systems etc. (but I’d rather the sound etc. be as good as it can be with what we’ve got).

What are you doing to help?
More important:
What are you doing to hinder?

Are you praying/serving/encouraging/helping church get better?
Or are you getting bitter?

Or shall I talk about batter….
Because there’s a chip shop just opened near us here in Didsbury.

So what? Well people queue up outside this chippy, in the rain, without brollies if needs be. Long queues. For fish and chips. They’ll be queuing now, I bet.
Something fishy about that?

Well you know there are good chippies and bad ones.
They are just being the very best they can be.

It’s no good just opening a chippy and hoping (or even praying) people will come. They might stumble in once, but if the service or food or hospitality is awful, they’ll not come back.

Bad Examples?

Bad Practices: The town I lived in when in Devon, the local chinese – the owner threatened an environmental health inspector with a cleaver. I didn’t want to go to that chippy!

Bad ‘Advertising;’ I once saw a curry house on Oldham Road that had a cardboard sign in the window; ‘WE DO NOT HAVE COCKROACHES.’ Didn’t make me want to find out for myself to be honest. Sometimes – even with the best intentions – we shoot ourselves in the foot.

The new chip shop in Didsbury village must be doing something right, (chip shop evangelists?)! So much so, I’m going to try it tonight too, to see what’s remarkable about it – and so it goes, and grows.

Somebody is doing something RIGHT there – something different. Others in that industry who are wise and humble can learn from them.

Could churches learn something too? About something much more important.

They’re not content to just ‘be faithful’ to gather around the fryer and know that they have had fellowship making fish and chips again- they actually want to feed people!

They’re not happy to occasionally have a regular customer come back once a week or once a month and have their chip need met. They want hungry people to come to COD! To have the peas that passes understanding.

I bet if you meet the owners and employees, they’ll be passionate, knowledgeable, excited and friendly. They want a fish and chip revival!

I think we can learn something from this, and we should – if we’re going to be the light of the world that attracts people to Jesus.

Extra salt please!

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