Deuteronomy.1:9-18

"The Appointment of Leaders"

In Moses' first great speech in Deuteronomy (chapter 1-3) he echoes God's call and heart for growth, advancement and increase for the nation of Israel, God's chosen people, by reviewing the nations history. Out of this emerge 9 verses where Moses reveals his heart and modus operandi in terms of governing the people and some interesting perspectives jump out at us. Below are some initial ones that may help shape our modern day journey of shepherding, leading and governing.

***“You are too heavy a burden for me to carry alone”***
-Here Moses shows his trump card: his humility in leadership. Getting to the place where you know that the buck can no longer stop with you. Making sure that you are not the bottle-neck. Where you’ve allowed the role of a shepherd to have significant weight in your life (“burden”). If you haven't recognized your significant need for team, I'd suggest you havent embraced the significance of the "burden". The word “burden” used here not necessarily in the negative context. Moses is not saying it’s a burden he wants to give up, but he’s saying that it’s a burden too precious to him that he cannot do it alone.

***“The Lord your God has increased your numbers so that today you are as many as the stars in the sky”***
-Understanding that growth and increase are the very fabric and essence of God’s character. It is not just a man made desire in leaders hearts. This is God’s heart! And he brings it about! Increase is a sovereign work of God, not man orchestrated (“...but God brings the growth”)
-Understanding the Abrahamic significance in this statement (“the stars in the sky” Genesis 15:5) Moses had a heart that understood the context in which he lead out of. He wasn’t an isolated leader. He wasn’t on his own mission. He was building in accordance with the prophetic promises that God had given the people of Israel. That’s what gave him confidence to lead not
out of sense of false bravado, but rather out of humility, because God had ordained this and further increase.

***“May the Lord, the God of your fathers, increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promised”***
-The burden didn’t intimidate him to shrink back and resort to what was comfortable. Leadership is embracing growth and the “burdens” it brings as a blessing not a frustration. He allowed God to set the ceiling on the growth not their strategies or their present capacities or situations.

***“But how can I bear your burdens and your disputes all by myself?”***
-humble enough to admit to his capacity without letting that set the agenda or the limitation.

-Admitting to your need for team is not a sign of weakness but of strength.

***“Choose some wise, respected and understanding men from each of your tribes and I will set them over you”***
-choose burden bearers, not burden identifiers. Those who can tell you where there is a lack or a need in your leadership set-up are a dime a dozen. But what is needed are those who will carry and share the burden with you and not just merely point it out.

***“So I took the leading men of your tribes, wise and respected men, and appointed them to have authority over you- as commanders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens and as tribal
officers”***
Moses was a man who understood capacity. He was able to determine others capacities because he had been humble enough to determine and admit to his own. Determine your own capacity and that of those who share your burdens and it will hold off burnout, frustration and miscommunication when it comes to expectations.

Tozer's Prayer

"Save me from the error of judging a church by it's size, it's popularity or the amount of it's yearly offering. Help me to remember that I am a prophet-
not a promoter,
not a religious manager,
but a prophet!
Let me never become a slave to crowds. Heal my soul of carnal ambitions and deliver me from the itch for publicity.

Save me from bondage to things. Let me not waste my days puttering around the house. Lay your terror upon me, O God, and DRIVE ME TO THE PLACE OF PRAYER WHERE I WRESTLE WITH PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS AND RULERS OF THE DARKNESS OF THIS WORLD.
Deliver me from over-eating and late sleeping. Teach me self-discipline so that I may be a good soldier of Christ Jesus...

And now, O Lord of Heaven and earth. I consecrate my remaining days to you; let them be many or few, as you will. Let me stand before the great or minister to the poor and lowly; that choice is not mine, and i wouldn't influence it if i could. I am your servant
TO
DO
YOUR
WILL.
and that will is sweeter to me than position or riches or fame and I choose it above all things on earth or in heaven."

A Prayer of AW Tozer...

...and now a prayer of mine

Marks of a successful ministry

On the backdrop of the numerous leadership failings that dogged Saul as King comes this one haunting verse tucked at the end of chapter thirteen in 1. Samuel:

1.Sam.13:22
"So on the day of the battle not a soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or spear in his hand; only Saul and his son Jonathan had them"

With the Philistines military dominance over Israel unquestioned, coupled
with them having outposts in several key surrounding, the Israelite situation
was precarious at best and yet the pursuit of arming their military somehow
seemed not to make it to the top of the agenda. In war-time no matter what
obstacles are in your way, I would imagine that weaponary must be attained for your army at what ever cost! But on reflection of this embarrassing verse, it clearly had managed to slip the leadership's priority list.

In our context where military agenda's have been swopped with establishing the Kingdom of God through local church advancement, the need for the people to be equipped has not changed one bit!

The job of leaders, of whatever capacity, is to EQUIP the army of God!

Our primary job as leaders is not to host good meetings or have "successful" Sunday and mid-week meetings. Nor is it to ensure great worship times, have the hottest marketing strategies, have our sermons go viral or to have "the best coffee around". Our job, responsibility and priority is to equip our people so that "ON THE DAY OF BATTLE" they will have the sword and the spear in their hands!

Eph.4:12 spells it out even clearer...

"...to prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up..."

Are our wounded outnumbering our fighting fit? Are our counseling rooms fuller than our leadership trainings? Are our meetings more often "need" based over "commission" based?

Just thinking. Just asking the tough questions. Just wanting to be equipped.

Welcome to Zimbabwe

A couple weeks ago I had the privilege to head back to the country north of the Limpopo where I was born and raised up until half way through my teenage years. This was the second time I was going “home” in the last 8 and a half years since the Phillips family traded in the working out of ever increasing prices for ever decreasing amounts of supplies for the more stable South African rand (purely a move made out of fear that our lack of simple mathematic skills would cost us dearly in the everyday routine of adding some more zeroes to the exchange rate).

But almost a decade on, my heart was filled with huge measures of excitement as the plane landed in Harare, with me an older skinnier twenty something year old carrying a new currency and a renewed love for the people and church of Zimbabwe.

The week long visit had two purposes. Number one on the agenda was to speak at a week long A.C.E (Christian education system) convention where hundreds of high school aged students along with their teachers and parents came together from all parts of the country to have their annual week of sporting, musical, dramatic and academic competition. My role was to preach each night at the evening rallies.

The second reason was to continue in building relationships with men like Rob Chifokoyo (pictured here) who runs a non-profit called Dare2Serve which we partnered with to run a conference that ministered to several hundred people in Harare last year and who is presently in the process of implementing our model of Swop Shop which has worked so successfully here.

I also spent some time with various people from an incredible local church there called The Base who we are hoping to be linking and partnering with more and more into the future. The six months in between my first and second visit to this church has seen it move into their new building and almost double in congregation size. This local church is not merely surviving in the testing times they find themselves in, but absolutely thriving! They have decided to believe God and to trust Him for not just a safe, neat congregation and not even just their suburb or city. This is a church whose mission statement and heartbeat is “to be a gateway to the nations!” Any people who have set their hearts on a heavenly kingdom and are pursuing the width and breadth of the Call like they are will always catch my attention...and the favour of the Holy Spirit for that matter!

Check these links out, start praying and saving and join us later this year in Zimbabwe as we too aim to be a people who pursue the nations, the broken and the lost (your and my inheritance) with people of similar hearts! I believe our future lies with people like these...and this is just the beginning!

Dare2Serve: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dare2Serve/234595256603066

The Base Church: http://www.facebook.com/#!/TheBaseChurch

"One Man" Part One

Ezekiel.22:30

"I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but

I

found
none."

Psalm.106:23

"So he said he would destroy them--had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him to keep his wrath from destroying them."

1. "His chosen one"

We have been chosen and appointed as God's agents of change for such a time as this. In the broad spectrum of eternity, God in his wisdom apportioned this moment in history to be my time to stand in the gap. The Wesley brothers, Charles Finney, Billy Graham had their allotment. But God hand-picked me specifically to be born and live in THIS exact time period of all creation. I have been chosen, crafted and equipped to stand in the breach and this is MY time. I am armed and dangerous.

2. "Stood in the breach"

He's made His choice, now I must make mine. When He looks for a man, will He find me willing to risk reputation, to risk earthly treasure, to risk fame, to risk what is entitled to me in order to gain the prize?

3. "before Him"

Moses could stand up to Pharoah because he had fallen flat before the Burning Bush. Our authority (or lack there of) comes not from which Kings or Presidents we have (or don't have) access to. It is found solely in who we have bowed our knees to.

The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in and by the man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him. I will try my utmost to be that man. -D.L. Moody

The Power of The Gospel #2

The Gospel in 1 Peter:

1. The PAST is forgiven
(2:24) "He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his words you have been healed"
(3:18) "For Christ died for sins once for all, te righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God"

2. The PRESENT is protected
(1:5) "...who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of salvation..."
and motivated (4:2) "As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God"

3. The FUTURE is assured
(1:4) "...and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade- kept in heaven for you..."
(1:7) "These have come so that your faith- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire- may prove genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed."

The power of The Gospel

The Gospel addresses 3 elements head on:

1. The penalty AND the power of sin
-not only does the cross address the legal transaction of exchanging death as the wages of sin for eternal life but it also strips sin of it’s power over us. We are no longer just at the mercy of sin, but Christ’s cross empowers us to walk free from the snare of sin here on earth. If you only believe you will be free of sin when you die, then death is your saviour!


2. The accusation of the law
-the bony accusing finger of the law that seems to always be pointed in our direction addressing all our flaws and short-comings was silenced that day on Calvary’s hill. As Christ yelled out, “it is finished!” all requirements of the law were fulfilled on our behalf! The Law which is powerless to save us but which had shown us our desperate need for a saviour had completed it’s task as Jesus became our new standard and we received his righteousness.

3. The power and dominion of darkness
-In the garden, the first Adam gave satan the very dominion and authority God had given to us. In a desert in the fourth chapters of Matthew and Luke, the final Adam, Jesus, met up with the
very same temptations but this time the result was entirley different. And the cross and subsequent resurrection sealed satan’s fate as Christ made a public spectacle totally disarming and embarrasing them!

The Gospel does not contain power, but it is the power of God! We need no other secret wisdom, the great mystery is Christ and Him crucified, and then living in me! The Gospel is not elementary or just the entry point, nor is it just a ticket to heaven. Signs and wonders follow it when it is preached and lived with conviction. God, give us a greater understanding of the fullness of your glorious Gospel!