Bruce Frank

In case you missed it, this video from Jefferson Bethke is a great reminder of some of the Biblical truths we recently studied about marriage in our teaching series “The Five”.

⊗ Get overly preoccupied with a few knuckleheads.
See (Proverbs 26:4-5).   James MacDonald has a great recent blog about this.

⊗ Stop growing and learning.
Cruise control is great for the car but terrible for leadership.  When the leader stops developing, his/her organization will soon follow.  The summary for the book of Proverbs could be “get wisdom, you’ll need it!”  (Proverbs 1:5)

⊗ Take your eye off the ball.
It is very easy to lose the focus on your mission, especially if you are experiencing some ‘success.’

⊗ Think you can make everyone happy.
I don’t mean to act arrogant and obnoxious.  Just realize as a leader you will always have some detractors.  (Galatians 1:10)

⊗ Ignore a problem.
If you ignore the problem it will simply grow and hurt the trust people have in you as a leader.  Pray and take godly action.  David had to go fight Goliath, not talk about it.

⊗ Be careless who you take counsel from.
See (1 Kings 12:1-16)

⊗ Do it all yourself.
You must equip others. (Ephesians 4:11-12)  As has been said, “Good leaders have a lot of followers.  Great leaders build a lot of leaders.”

⊗ Ignore the “inside work” of character development in pursuit of the necessary outside work.

⊗ Think too highly of yourself.
(2 Corinthians 4:7)

I recently read The Reason for God by Timothy Keller.  Keller is the pastor of the Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.  Redeemer has about 6,000 regular attendees and is planting churches in large cities throughout the world.

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time.  It is a book I would give to a spiritual skeptic or to an established Christian student.  The book addresses the frequent questions that skeptics, and even strong believers, have about religion.  To the skeptic he explains how the belief in the Christian God of the Bible is a rational and reasoned one.  To the believer he gives a concise, yet well-researched platform on which to stand their ground against a skeptical audience.

Keller addresses such dominant questions like ‘How could a good God allow suffering?’; ‘How can a loving God send people to Hell?’; ‘Why have so many wars been fought in the name of God?’; and many more.

1 Peter 3:15 tells us to be able to give a reasonable answer to a reasonable question.  This book is helpful in doing just that!