BECOMING A SUCCESSFUL CHRISTIAN PART 1

Welcome again to my blog,

My purpose here is to glorify God by helping you to discover yourself, build you, train and impact you with the necessary information that will change your life, finances, career, relationships, business, ministry and family; to make of you a success before God and man through proven Biblical and life principles.

Today, I want us to start a series I titled Becoming A Successful Christian to help those who are just accepting and getting to know Christ and understand their way to stand in the Chrsitain race.

Lets us begin our lesson from the beginning of accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior:

You have made the great decision to live for Christ. From this day forward the whole direction and purpose of your life is changed. Heaven is your destination. You are now a person of destiny; as long as the stars of heaven shine, as long as God above lives, so you will live.

When a person accepts Christ, he usually has a deep desire in his heart to be a real Christian. The question is, how can this be done? It is the purpose of this little book to help new converts in this most important step of their lives.

Becoming a Christian is the most wonderful thing that will ever happen in your life. There are many joys and satisfactions awaiting you as you go along in your Christian experience. Nevertheless, we must be frank; being a Christian will not always be easy. There will be problems, temptations and trials you never expected to come your way.

Christ has promised He would never leave nor forsake you. Always remember this. It is a proven fact. Therefore, set your course resolutely ahead. Resolve that you will never turn back, and regardless of what happens, you are going all the way with Christ. You will surely reach your goal with that determination.

A Christian Never Looks Back

Jesus said, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back (to the thing behind) is fit for the Kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). In other words, a person of indecision never gets very far. In battling between two opinions, one loses the power of initiative and sows the seeds of his own defeat. Once you have made a decision for Christ, to look back is dangerous.

Keep Your Eyes On Christ

A Christian is one who has put his trust wholly in God. Young converts sometimes fail to do this. Too often they get their eyes on people, and when others do not come up to their expectations, they are disappointed. We need to understand from the beginning that human beings are subject to mistakes. Peter, who was one of Jesus Christ’s closest friends and followers, denied he was ever acquainted with Christ. If you had witnessed Peter when he denied Christ, would you have stumbled over it? Some have lost their experience with God by stumbling over the blunders of others. Peter made the most serious mistake he could ever have made. Yet, in time, he became one of the greatest saints. We must not get our eyes on people or their mistakes. Instead, we should be thankful that God is so forgiving and long-suffering.

Therefore, put your whole faith in Christ from the very beginning. Although people may fail, Christ will never fail.

In becoming a Christian, you enter a race. As the Apostle Paul said, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run your race that you may lay hold of the prize and make it yours” (1 Corinthians 9:24 Amplified).

And again, “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,” but to the one who is faithful and obeys the rules.

Take A Public Stand For Christ

There is, of course, the proper time for all things; nevertheless, do not be slow to let others know you are a Christian. In this way you establish your true relationship with them from the start. The chances are they will respect you for your stand, and when they feel the need of spiritual help, it is likely they will turn to you.

Join A Spiritual Church

You may have been told, and rightly so, that salvation is more than joining a church. Many people who have never been converted are members of a church. Nevertheless, it is important after one has made his decision for Christ, he should begin to attend a spiritual church on a regular basis. Join with other Christians in carrying the load from the beginning. Lend your influence for Christ and what is right. Also, each Christian should do his part by serving within the church, supporting the pastor in prayer and doing whatever God has called and equipped him to do.

There is another important reason for joining a church. People are like sheep – defenseless when left alone. Sheep separated from the main flock are subject to an attack from the enemy. Wolves are on the prowl for straying sheep. Especially, a young convert must stay with the flock. Within the church he has a measure of safety and protection. Remember what the Bible says on this subject, “Not forsaking or neglecting to assemble together [as believers], as is the habit of some people, but admonishing – warning, urging and encouraging – one another, and all the more faithfully as you see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25 Amplified).

God will keep you safe in His arms of love in Jesus name!

Thanks,

Join me again tomorrow for the continuation

John Olanrewaju

Pastor, Author, Poet, Creativity, Business, Relationship, Career & Life Coach

Feel free to give your comment, suggestions and questions.

Thank you

BARRIER AGAINST CHURCH GROWTH

Another lovely morning to you,

My purpose here is to glorify God by helping you to discover yourself, build you, train and impact you with the necessary information that will change your life, finances, career, relationships, business, ministry and family; to make of you a success before God and man through proven Biblical and life principles.

Let’s talk about common barriers that keep churches from growing. These are barriers you will have to address, particularly if you want your church to continue to grow after doing a campaign, such as 3, 4, 7 or 40 Days in the Word.

Remember that a church becomes healthy by removing the barriers and balancing the purposes.  

There are 10 common barriers that keep our churches from growing. They are:

1) Members won’t bring their friends to church;

2) People fear that growth will ruin the fellowship; and

3) Churches are driven by tradition rather than the purposes of God.

4) Churches are trying to appeal to everybody. If you ask the typical church, “Who are you trying to reach?” they will answer “everybody.” That sounds good, and it’s biblical, but the fact is, no church can be everything to everybody. The moment you determine what style of church you’re going to be, you determine whom you’re best going to reach. Can you imagine a radio station that played techno one minute and classical the next? What kind of audience would they have? None! You have to define your target. Start by asking three questions:

Who is like me? You can best reach people like you. What’s the likelihood of farmers reaching a group of scientists? Or a community of military personnel reaching a community of peacekeepers? The first question people ask when they visit your church is not a theological one. The first question they ask is, “Is there anyone else here like me?”

Who is already in our church? Whoever you want to reach, you need to put those kinds of people onstage in your service. If you want to reach families, make children visible.

Who makes up the community around us? If you find that people in your church are not like those in your community, you have two options: Keep doing what you’re doing, but do it better. There is still a possibility for limited growth. Or, you might look at relocating. I once helped three or four churches make a move at the same time, one African-American, one Hispanic, one Asian, and one Anglo. In one weekend, to better reach their changing communities, they all switched buildings! At Saddleback, we speak over 70 languages among us. But we didn’t get there overnight; we built it one target at a time.

5) Churches are program-oriented rather than process-oriented. Program-oriented means you build your church on a Sunday School program, a women’s program, a children’s program, a singles program, and so on. There’s nothing wrong with programs, but you don’t build your church on programs. You build it on the process of bringing people in (evangelism), building them up in Christ (discipleship), teaching them how to do service (ministry), sending them out (mission), and all for the glory of God (worship). Saddleback has been doing this for 32 years; the process has never changed.

When someone asks, “What are you going to do next year?” I don’t wonder what program we’re going to do or not going to do. We look first at our process and ask how we can better bring people in, build them up, teach them how to serve, send them out, and all for the glory of God. We use a baseball diamond as a visual, and, using it, everyone in our church can explain our process. If people don’t have a track to run on, they don’t feel like they’re making progress. Once you have a process, then you build your programs around it.

6) Churches focus on meetings rather than ministry. Jesus didn’t say, “I have come that you might have meetings.” When you measure your church solely on attendance, you know that you’re making this mistake. Attendance is an important qualifier, but it’s not the most important one. Focusing on meetings creates a passive church. We don’t need more meetings; we need to meet more needs. I believe a lot of churches can cut half their meetings, and they will be healthier for it. If I have a sharp individual who comes to church, the last thing I want to do is stick him on a committee and turn him into a bureaucrat. I want him serving in ministry.

The difference between meetings and ministry is that meetings discuss what other people should be doing, and ministry just goes out and does it. You have to turn every member into a minister.

7) Churches have teaching without application. Interpretation without application is abortion. You are aborting the text, because the Bible was not given to increase our knowledge, but to change our lives. Focus on obedience in your message. Take the Word and make it come alive.

8) The congregation doesn’t trust their leaders. Everything you do as a leader is built on trust. If you lose their trust, you may as well resign. It takes years to build trust, but you can lose it in an instant. You must build credibility to earn the right to lead. When you go to a bank to ask for a loan, the first thing they do is check your credit. If you are creditable, then you are worthy of the bank’s trust. People are doing a credit check on your leadership every second of your life. You build trust by loving people and liking people. How do you get people to like you? Like them!

The more you trust your people and show your vulnerability, the more they’re going to trust you. We actually help people more through our weaknesses than our strengths. If I share my strengths with you, it doesn’t help people. But if I share my weaknesses and how God came through in spite of them, it encourages people to keep going. You get people to trust you more by authentic and humble leadership.

9) The Church is being killed by legalism. Many churches are more interested in keeping rules rather than relationships. Jesus always chose relationships over rules. People mattered more than keeping the Sabbath. There is a difference between acceptance and approval. Jesus accepts me completely, but he doesn’t approve of everything I do. Acceptance doesn’t mean approval, but it does mean love.

10) Churches are structured for control rather than growth. This is a big issue, one that we’ll have to come back to next week.

Thank you for learning with me here:

God will teach you more and more on church growth in Jesus name!

Join me her again tomorrow for another biblical inspired lesson.

John Olanrewaju

Pastor, Author, Poet, Creativity, Business, Career, Ministry & Life Coach

Feel free to give your comment, suggestions and questions.

STRUCTURING YOUR CHURCH FOR GROWTH

 

A lovely day to you today,

Just want to help you in becoming all that God wants for you and your ministry or endeavor in life. 

Let's learn together please:

To keep on growing and don’t get it into plateau? I believe there are ten essentials you must focus on as you structure your church.

You must develop an unshakable conviction about growth.

First and foremost, you need to settle on the idea that God wants his church to grow. And he doesn’t want it to stop growing!

You don’t ever need to apologize for wanting your church to grow. God wants his church to grow; it’s his will and his command. The reason churches must grow is because people are going to hell without Jesus Christ. As long as there is one person within driving distance of your church that does not know Jesus Christ, you must keep growing.

You must change the primary role of the pastor from minister to leader.

You can grow a church to 300 with pastoral skills or ministry skills, but growing beyond 300 will require leadership skills. As a leader, you must learn to communicate your vision in very personal and practical ways. You must also learn to motivate your church through your messages, and understand that it’s easier to motivate a group than it is to motivate individuals.

A leader also equips others for ministry. Otherwise, you’ll burn out and the church won’t grow. An expanding ministry also demands you learn how to raise money. Those who write the agenda must underwrite the agenda, and you must learn to manage your time. Effective leaders know where their time goes.

You must organize around the gifts of your people.

The team God gives you will show you how to structure. Organizing around the gifts of your people will allow the church to focus on ministry, not maintenance. A gifts-based ministry encourages teamwork. It also makes better use of the talent around you (and why do you think God brought this talent into your church?).

Building your structure on the gifts and talents within the church promotes creativity and allows for spontaneous growth. Ministries bubble up, rather than waiting on a board meeting to dissect every possibility. And decision-making becomes more efficient while the structure grows more stable.

You must budget according to your purposes and priorities.

Obviously the budget of the church shows the priorities and the direction of the church. I’d suggest you take the budget items and ask of each item, “Which purpose does this fit under?” This will help your people visualize what you’re trying to do, and what you’re doing with God’s money.

You must add staff on purpose.

Build your staff by first adding generalists and then specialists. First, you want to add people who can do lots of things because you’re only going to have one. Then as you go down the road, you can add more and more specialists.

When do you want to add staff? As soon as you can … immediately, if at all possible. You want to build as many volunteers as quickly as you can and also add staff as quickly as you can. Anytime you add a staff member, that’s a faith step and allows the church to grow to the next level.

You must offer multiple services.

Obviously to expand the structure, you will have to multiply, and to multiply, you have to offer multiple services. Why? Because more hooks in the water mean you can catch more fish.

At what point should you add a new service? I would say when you can have at least 75-100 people in that service. If you’re trying to reach new people, you have to have a large enough crowd so that the new people who just walked in don’t feel like everybody’s looking at them.

You must create affinity groups to enhance community.

The more affinity groups you have, the more ways you have to connect with people. You want to avoid your church becoming a single-cell amoeba, so deliberately structure your church so it won’t become one big group that doesn’t reach out to other people.

You must intentionally break through attendance barriers with big days.

Crowds attract crowds! People like to be around crowds. When you have big, special days – maybe Easter, maybe a Friend Day – there’s something about seeing an extra 100 people (or an extra 1,000) that expands your congregation’s vision. They see what the church can be, and they see what it can look like. These special days help the church to see itself as bigger and growing and vibrant.

Now you know this is coming (Ha!), but this seems like a good time to mention again how a special 3, 7 or 40 Days emphasis could energize your church.

You must add surplus seating space and parking.

When it comes to building a facility, most churches build too little and too soon. And then the shoe begins to tell the foot how big it can get! You want to build as big as you can, which means having more than enough seating and more than enough parking. Sometimes that means you’ll have to wait to build until you can build big enough. Just don't limit yourself by building too early.

You must continually evaluate your progress.

Take a regular and honest look at what is going on in your church (and where your church is going). If you try to study everything you’ll end up with the paralysis of analysis, so decide to track three or four significant numbers, such as attendance or small groups.

Then compare the numbers of where you are now with where you’ve come from and where you want to be. Don’t compare yourself with a church down the road. Frankly, that won’t help evaluate the health of your own church.

Finally, decide on a standard for measuring the health of your church and shoot for it. The process is constant; you may hit the mark you’ve set today, but tomorrow is a new day. Continually evaluate your progress and make the necessary adjustments to grow healthy while growing larger.

It is well!

God will keep on increasing you more and more in Jesus name!

Thanks,

Join me again tomorrow.

John Olanrewaju

Pastor, Author, Poet, Creativity, Business, Relationship, Career & Life Coach

Feel free to give your comment, suggestions and questions.

Coming Soon

You Are Invited to:

The Set Time Prayer Conference

Theme:

Restructuring The Breaches

On

Saturday 17th June 2017

By

9:00AM

At:

Kelvines Spice, Alagbole B/Stop,

Alagbole Akute Road, Akute

Host:

Pastor John Olanrewaju

And other anointed ministers of the gospel.

Enquiries:

08028607952

STEPS TO EXCELLENCE IN MINISTRY PART 5

Welcome again today,

I hope you are good and able?

My purpose here is to glorify God by helping you to discover yourself, build you, train and impact you with the necessary information that will change your life, finances, career, relationships, business, ministry and family; to make of you a success before God and man through proven Biblical truths, prayers and life principles.

Let us move on in our learning:

You must commit Yourself to a Life of Prayer

Prayer   is   the   foundation   for   success   in   every Christian   endeavor.   Jesus   is   your   example.   Did   you ever   notice   how   often   the   Bible   mentions   that   He withdrew   to   a   lonely   place   to   pray?  And   in   the morning,   rising   up   a   great   while   before   day,   he   went out,   and   departed   into   a   solitary   place,   and   there prayed (Mark 1:35). And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all   night   in   prayer   to   God (Luke   6:12). These are   just two of many instances recorded in the Gospels.

Jesus   was   in  continual   communication  with   God through   prayer.   He   spent   hours   every   day   separated from   the   people,   fellowshipping   with   His   heavenly Father.  If   He   had   a   need   for   preparation   through prayer,   how   much   more   should   we?  In   fact,   such foundation   and   preparation   is   the   only   thing   that   will keep us together when we are faced with a situation that requires   a   great   deal   of   faith.   Even   the   apostles   chose deacons   to   assist   them  in   their   duties,  saying,  It   is   not reason   that   we  should   leave   the   word  of   God...But  we will   give   ourselves   continually   to   prayer,   and   to   the ministry of the word (Acts6:2,4).

If you have taken the time to saturate your heart with the   Word   of   God   to   the   extent   that   you   are   single-minded  on   His  Word,  your   thinking   will  no   longer   be influenced   by  fear.   You   will  stop   wailing  and   begging God   for   the   power   to   do   the   job.   You  will  realize   that the anointing which ye have received  of him abideth in you (1 John 2:27). All you  will have to do is open your mouth, For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh  (Matt.   12:34).   The   Word   will   be   what's   in your heart in abundance so that's what will come out.

When   a  mother   brings   her   little   baby   to   you whom Satan has maimed, twisted and blinded, you will know  what  to   do. You  won't   offer  a   lame   excuse   like, "Well,   you know, sometimes we  just don't  understand why these things happen. Sometimes  we  just have no answer."  If  that is your response, then go hide behind a desk some place! Shuffle papers and organize bake sales and soft ball matches against the church down the street! God will heal that baby if you have the courage to stand  up  to  the   devil.  That   kind of confidence only comes from a personal knowledge of God through time spent in prayer and fellowship with Him.

Once a woman brought a little baby to me in a meeting; Its  tiny  feet were so badly   twisted that the toes on each foot touched   the backs  of  its legs.   The  mother  was  looking   to   me  to do something about  it.   In  a  situation   like   that   you  need  to be in close contact with the Father.

When she handed me her little baby, I started to pray. It was so tiny that both feet fit in the palm of my hand. I said, "Father, in the name of Jesus...."  That's as far as I got, and I felt those little feet turn around in my hand.

I would rather be anointed of God for five minutes than to have a gold fence built around the entire state of Nigeria with my name on every brick. It is the greatest thing on earth. The hours of prayer and communion with God are worth the results they bring.

The demonstration of God's power in your ministry is proof of your personal fellowship with Him. You cannot have one without the other.

God will keep you safe in His arms of love in Jesus name!

Thank you for being with me here,

Join me again next time for the continuation

John Olanrewaju

Pastor, Author, Poet, Creativity, Business, Ministry & Life Coach

Feel free to give your comment, suggestions and questions, or send to: wordoffirebibleministry@ yahoo.com

+2348028607952