We had studied 2 Timothy 3:14-17 about the reliability and relevance of God’s Word.  Jesus said, “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word out of the mouth of God.”

A simple tool to use as you read and study God’s Word this week is the acronym M E A L.

M     Meet with the Lord

Get a Bible open in front of you and ask God to talk to you.  Read with a teachable spirit.  Get a friend to hold you accountable this week.

E     Examine the Text

What do you see?  Is it focused around a person?  Is that a good or bad example?  Is there a promise to claim?  A duty to perform?

A     Apply What You Read

This crucial step is simply asking the question, “So what?”  Most of our people are using 2 Timothy as their scripture focus.  So an example of application might be as you are reading the first chapter and you read 1:7-8 about not being ashamed, God brings to your mind that you are often intimidated at work by a person who ridicules your faith.  God gives you a promise to hold onto (v. 7), and a command to obey (v. 8).

L     List What God Shows You

This is where – either in a journal or your Bible – you write down some of the application and prayer requests.

Three books I mentioned for further study about God’s Word are:

1. Has God Spoken? by Hank Hanegraaff
2. Living By the Book by Howard and William Hendricks
3. God Wrote a Book by James Macdonald

If you took 7/30 Challenge, I would love to hear how it’s going and what God is showing you!

• The average American spends 60 hours/month online
• 1 in every 9 people on earth has a Facebook account
• YouTube has 490 million unique users who visit every month
• People upload 3,000 images to Flicker every minute
• 10-20% of affairs begin on the internet
• Twitter has 200 million registered accounts and receives about 110 million tweets a day
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s third largest country

Some facets of leadership never change (like character, courage, vision, etc.).  But today’s leader needs to recognize that social media is changing the landscape.  No organization has an inherent communication advantage anymore.  If leaders don’t embrace the multiple facets of social media, they will get left behind.

If you are a leader of a Christian organization, see the Internet and social media as a mission field.  If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.

As a Christian leader, here are a few suggestions:

1. Utilize at least one form of social media in your personal ministry efforts.
2. Provide value to people, don’t just use it as advertising.
3. Don’t get political.  When you endorse or slam a politician, you instantly close a door to reach those people who hold opposite views with you.  (This doesn’t mean you can’t express Biblical positions.)  You are first and foremost a citizen of heaven and an ambassador for Christ.

The Great Commission does not exclude social media; it includes it.  How is your organization responding?

⊗ 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)

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!

We were not sure what to expect but were incredibly happy when the room was completely full before the 11:00 service began. I was proud of our people as they gave up their seats for our first time guests. All in all, 987 people were at our East launch, with over 6,300 total at both campuses. The vast majority at the East launch were from the Eastern communities we were trying to reach with the launch. Although we are new to the multi-site model, here are five quick things I like about the strategy.

1. It takes the church to the people, rather than asking them to drive long distances to the church. When our East small groups launch in a few weeks, they will be in homes in that area. As my friend J.D. Greear says, “Stay where you are; serve where you live; be the church in your community.”

2. It helps focus on the Great Commission of making disciples of all nations beginning in your backyard of “Jerusalem.” (Matthew 28:19, Acts 1:8)

3. It can help change your community with the gospel. (Acts 5:42, Matthew 21:10)

4. It is a lot less expensive than building a bigger building and often more successful than a church plant. (90% success rate of multi-site)

5. It raises up new leaders. Four out of five multi-sites report an increase in lay leadership development. Sending out leaders – we sent 170 from our Arden campus to East Camps to be a volunteer army. It was also cool to se e the rapid leadership development of the three pastors who have been preparing for the launch and are now out at East.

Just a few thoughts. Below are a couple of pictures from East. Thanks for the prayers, and can’t wait till this Sunday!

Bruce

Can’t wait to look at God’s Word in the weeks ahead in the teaching series The 5, starting this Sunday at Biltmore.

• What do you think are your top 5 relationships?
• What is the biggest relational challenge?
• What is your # 1 relational question?