Encouraged by ‘In search of Timothy’ by Tony Cooke. The idea of supportive leaders. The need for great ‘followership’ 4 commitments: devoted to God, church, your calling & the leader of the church The church is God’s plan A There is no plan B! Be loyal, have a good attitude, growth oriented. How well do I back up the leadership? Beware of ‘staff infection’ – spreading the negative. Know who you work for. Moses’ brother Aaron was supposed to be a representative spokesman for Moses. But when the pressure came on, Ex 32:1 – Aaron could have spoken up for Moses but instead he tried to please the people. He knew exactly what Moses was doing & could have said it. Instead he was weak, and 3000 died because of that. There are consequences – Keep your Aaron! 2 Tim 1:1-2 Dave has been at Ivy 36 years! He’s totally up for the next stage of growth. We need to be ready for the growth God is going to build here next. Generations need to mix up in discipleship too.
Don’t Tell Me What Your Idea Is
Reading a great book ‘Anything You Want,’ by the founder of CD Baby, Derek Sivas. He talks about how while we place great value on ideas, even the greatest idea is pretty worthless without DOING something about them. Execution trumps ideas every time. Here’s his explanation of that: AWFUL IDEA = -1 WEAK IDEA = 1 SO-SO IDEA = 5 GOOD IDEA = 10 GREAT IDEA = 15 BRILLIANT IDEA = 20 ——– ——— NO EXECUTION = £1 WEAK EXECUTION = £1000 SO-SO EXECUTION = £10,000 GOOD EXECUTION = £100,000 GREAT EXECUTION = £1,000,000 BRILLIANT EXECUTION = £10,000,000 To make a difference, you need to multiply the two. Execution is the great multiplier. He finishes by saying, “That’s why I don’t want to hear people’s ideas. I’m not interested until I see their execution.”
Want to be more persuasive?
95% of the other books on Persuasion rip off this seminal work by Cialdini. Save yourself the time by watching the video and if you like it, get the book. It’s phenomenal. P.S. If you’re a waiter – you have to watch this one!
What NOT to do when God is silent! (Mike Starkey at Ivy MCR)
Mike Starkey – Saul and the Witch of Endor 1 Sam 28 Let’s find a very difficult passage dealing with issues like divine guidance, mental illness, spiritualism, failure of leadership and the silence of God in the face of desperate situations. Ah, here’s one. In the week Mike was praying and asking God, ‘Where are you at work in this nation?’ And then he pulled up outside a house, and the first sign that said ‘Ivy Cottage.’ Then there was another prayer time in the week and he asked the same question, and went to his office and there was a note from a B& B. ‘Ivy House.’ He once asked God in the supermarket, ‘What kind of minister do you want me to be?’ And a bag of salad had written on it, ‘Washed and ready to serve.’ God can of course communicate in all kinds of ways. Primarily scripture but also maybe through dreams, discernment, etc. But there can be times when we long to hear from God, and the heavens are silent. […]
Matty Hawthorne ‘Goliath’s sword’
> Matty works jointly for Ivy, leading our Sharston congregation, and for > the Message > > Our church has desperate people visiting; > Hurt or a hurter > Helpless! > What will they find? Raised eyebrows or open hands? > > David was a desperate man, a wanted man. > Sleeping with one eye open > On the run from Saul > 6 times he tried to kill him… > But where does he go? > > He goes to church > For sanctuary. > To Ahimilech – the priest > 1 Sam 21 > > Desperate David resorts to lying for self protection > (Vs 2) > He wants food! > But all the priest has is ‘holy bread’ – only the priest should eat it. > Dilemma. > Should he keep the law and ignore the need? > > David reassures him, with more of the desperate lies desperate people tell. > The priest decided that a higher call than the law was an empty stomach > > David lies over and over here in his desperation. […]
Writing, Stories and Your Brain (infographic)
Fire carriers – Rachel Hickson at the Message Prayer day
What are Fire Carriers? People who carry presence, passion and power Lk 3:16 We are meant to be baptised with the Holy Spirit and with fire! Fire and water mix in God’s economy. Stay wet – monastic And on fire – mission When dry people carry fire it’s dangerous. But we get wet and put our feet on Britain’s dry ground. Isaiah 44:3 This is not just for us, it’s for our descendents. Wet people burn! If we are dry and we burn we get burnt out. Some people are scary for all the wrong reasons. So stay wet in the presence of God 1 Kings 18:33-38 The prophets of Baal were the new spirituality. They set up a dry altar. Prayed to the God of fire. Elijah says – wet it again and again. Let the water overflow. It’s seriously wet! Because you have serious challenges and God wants to put some serious fire on you. Fire that touches you touches everything around you. Are you a fire carrier? It’s great to touch the dry ground – but we […]
Eric Delve at Ivy Manchester
Grace has become a theological abstract that we argue about. Grace is basically the generosity of God wanting to bless you. Don’t live in the kingdom of grace AND fear. ‘God has to love me, but really I deserve to be punished.’ Sin is nothing compared to the power of grace. The vast majority of us though are not perfect. So what do we do with those who mess up? One act of grace deals with it all! So you really ARE forgiven. And if we really got that – we’d be a lot easier on ourselves and everyone else. If we get the abundance of grace, then we can REIGN in life. When sin abounds, grace hyper-abounds. Sin is like dog poo on your shoe! No point ignoring it, it will start to stink and everyone around you will notice. Imagine you have that shoe under Victoria Falls. That’s hyper abounding grace. So because of that – we are FREE! When we say to ourselves we are not worthy it’s because we have an idol not God. Because the […]
Dream Of A Coming Revival
Anyone who knows my wife Zoe well will know over the years she has a great prophetic gift in dreams, really insightful and occasionally scary! The wonderful thing is how they come true in detail. It’s no exaggeration to say that every major move in our life has been foretold in a dream she’s documented. So the other night she had a dream – about a move of GOD that’s coming our way. This ties in with an increasing excitement I have been feeling, many reporting a palpable sense of the presence of God last Sunday in our service at Kingsway, a number of miraculous answers to prayer here at Ivy recently; and reports from various sites I’m connected to of outpourings in various churches. It seems the spiritual temperature is being turned up! Here’s Zoe’s dream, from her notes. The bits in brackets are my explanatory notes. I was with a few others (women friends/prayer partners) were in an upstairs room – when a storm was coming up outside. I told someone there how bad it looked but they […]
Bill Hybels – Muddle Of The Middle
Bill Hybels – GLS: The Muddle Of The Middle He has talked before about Moving People from Here to There You’re a leader to move people toward a preferred future. Don’t just focus on THERE FIRST build the reasons why we can’t stay HERE Then people are ready to move THERE. So, along the journey from here to there – when is the vision most vulnerable? In the MIDDLE. When you’re half way there, that’s when you can get real problems. You haven’t got the impetus of the start off, and you can’t see the finish line. God has to carry us through the tough times in the middle. So – be very careful in the middle. The middle of your ministry life is the toughest part. Don’t you want to finish? To finish as strong as can be? To leave everything stronger than when you started. Remember what a privilege it is to be a leader. Yes there’s a price to pay. BUT… We are among the privileged few in all the world. Thanks be to God. It is […]