The emphasis in “Men’s Leadership Class” is, you don’t get better by trying harder, you get better by training. Training is a process that is is guided by routines and habit development like training for any sport. We have basic practices or disciplines that we build into our lives as a routine or habit by accountability with friends who are pursuing the same goals as disciples of Jesus. The first of these disciplines is Bible reading, memorization, and study, the second is prayer, private , corporate, and with our wife, the third is seeking wisdom, and the fourth is worship.

Worship is a little difficult to set a goal for because it isn’t as definitive as Bible reading or prayer. In “Men’s Leadership Class” we define this discipline as becoming a person who rejoices about everything and grumbles and complains about nothing. The foundation would be praising and thanking God for all of His blessings to us starting with the fact that we exist, we think, we feel, we are a unique person created in God’s image by His sovereign choice. Then moving to the fact that He saved us from our sins, and that we get to live forever and ever with Him with incomprehensible joy, wow, how did that happen? A key part of the discipline of worship is rejoicing in the midst of trials because we understand that God is using them to shape and mold our character to be like His so that when we move into eternity we will be like Him so that He can enjoy fellowshipping with us and we with Him. Another motto of the class is “Character is not created in us by God in a moment of time, it is developed in us by trials over time”. But the problem is that the trials don’t produce godly character if we complain and grumble and feel sorry for ourselves, so we learn how to “consider it all joy” even if we don’t feel like it.

Another motto of the class is, “We will never do better privately in the disciplines than we do corporately”. We are part of the “Body of Christ” and learning to live our life in an interdependent relationship with others in our church family is crucial to steady growth as a disciple of Jesus. In our country one of the plaques of the church is the independent, I can do it by myself, I don’t need you attitude that most have. God didn’t create us capable of growth and accomplishment independent of others. All that to say if we are going to become a positive, rejoicing, never complaining kind of person we must worship well corporately when we gather as a church family. Most men worship poorly because of their pride, self consciousness, and worry about what people will think so they sing softly or not at all. Singing is a major emphasis in the Bible as how we are to worship God, especially in a corporate setting. If we worship well corporately we will worship well all day long, and all week long.

The first of 7 goals in the 8 month Leadership class for men that I teach each year is that they would all “Faithfully practice the basic disciplines of the Christian life”. In the various books and teachings on this subject up to 31 disciplines have been listed, but I emphasize just 7 in the class. The first is Bible reading, the second is prayer, and the third is “Seeking Wisdom”.

Proverbs 2:2-6 “Make your ear attentive to wisdom, Incline your heart to understanding; For if you cry for discernment, Lift your voice for understanding; If you seek her as silver And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will discern the fear of the Lord And discover the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.”

One of the motto’s of the class is “leaders are readers”. Over the years I have collected books that are very good in content for men, and they are “readable”, that is they are written in such a way that they hold your attention. I have about 20 copies of a dozen different titles of books that I loan to the guys to read, the requirement for the class is 25 pages each week, but most of them end up reading more.

Another requirement for the class is listening to one sermon a week “On line” or from a CD on leadership. There are many excellent ones by John Maxwell, Andy Stanley, Bill Hybels, and others. I encourage the guys to listen to good teaching whenever they are doing something like mowing the lawn, working on the house, etc. Another motto of the class is “When you are sitting read, when you are moving listen”.

One other emphasis that I make repeatedly is “seek wisdom from wise people”. Look around and find those people that are successful at what you want to be successful at. Raising godly kids, have a good marriage, doing well financially, in good shape and healthy, or whatever skill or character trait that you want to acquire. Find a person doing well in that area, invite them to lunch or breakfast, have good questions written down, take good notes as they talk, and pay for the meal. Most men don’t ever do that because of their pride, but those who do are following a major Biblical teaching and will be blessed by God and will grow, learn, become successful themselves, and become very usable for God.

Proverbs 3:13-15. How blessed is the man who finds wisdom. And the man who gains understanding. For her profit is better than the profit of silver. And her gain better than fine gold. She is more precious than jewels; And nothing you desire compares with her.

I have 7 goals for my Leadership Class men. The first goal is that each man would totally see the importance of the seven basic disciplines of the Christian life, and would be committed to daily doing each one of them. Most books written about the disciplines have many more than 7, but I have found that too many disciplines tend to overwhelm them, confuse, and demotivate them. The first discipline is to read the Bible everyday and get them to commit to reading using a plan that would get them through the Bible at least once through in a year, and that they would rarely miss a day in this important and foundational discipline. Also they would become guys who spend time every day memorizing key Bible verses and passages and learn the discipline of “setting ” their mind on those verses memorized and meditating on them as a key discipline to changing their behavior. Along with the reading and memorizing they would also learn to study the Bible in depth using good techniques and good tools, and writing down their conclusions.

A second basic discipline that is taught is to spend time with God in prayer each and every day, and that they would learn to use a prayer journal with many names of people written down that they are committed to praying for, both saved and unsaved. The minimum goal would be 15 minutes every day. Also that each guy would faithfully attend a corporate prayer time once each week at JBC. A major push in the class to get every married man praying with his wife at least 3 times each week, and that he as the spiritual leader would initiate when they prayed together, and he would lead well and make sure that it happened. “Much prayer = much blessing; little prayer = little blessing; no prayer =no blessing.

More tomorrow

Over the last 42 years of pastoring at JBC my favorite part has been teaching my “Men’s Leadership Class”. It is a class of about a dozen guys that meet with me weekly for 9 months with class lectures from me, reading assignments from good books, scripture memorization assignments, writing assignments, and group accountability for those assignments. At the end of the 9 month class each man gives a 15 minute sermon in a regular church service as their graduation exercise. I schedule 3 guys per service until they have all spoken, and they are easily my favorite services of the year. Tonight in our Saturday evening service 3 men spoke and there will be three more in each of the two services tomorrow. The 3 tonight did amazingly well and I expect that tomorrow will be equally as good. It has been so long ago I can’t even remember what prompted me to start that very first class, but I did, and it was pretty basic and bare bones, after all I was just off of the farm and I didn’t know very much to teach. But I kept reading the Bible, reading good books, going to seminars, going to graduate school, and gradually learning the principles of living life God’s way. As I learned new truth, I wrote it down as simply and as understandably as I could, then I would teach it to my “Men’s Leadership Class”. It wasn’t hard to tell from the reaction of the guys in my class if I had accomplished my goal of making the truth practical, understandable, and motivational. When it was obvious to me that my lesson was as clear as mud, I reworked it and eventually got it to the point where when I taught it I saw guys looking back at me with “bright eyes”, that expression and look that said, “I get it”. In over 40 years of teaching the class there are literally several hundred men in our church who have graduated from the class. These are the men who are giving leadership to much of the ministry happening at JBC. They initiate and start new ministries, they do this without supervision, they do it faithfully, they think creatively how to make it better and more effective, and a key component is that they pursue and maintain the unity and love in our church which is crucial to God’s blessing us. Over the years certain motto’s have arisen which we picked up in the various leadership books we have read that describe what “Leadership Class” is all about. “Leadership is Influence”, “All leadership is earned, never demanded”, “Everything rises and falls on the quality of the leadership”, “You can’t lead others until you can lead yourself”, “God loves to give His authority to people who are faithful”, “When you have God’s authority leadership is easy, when you don’t have His authority leadership is impossible”, and there are dozens of others. This year I started a ladies class, and it has turned out super enjoyable for me, and I am feeling much more confident that I can actually teach ladies successfully. This year was a pilot class and I learned a lot that I will incorporate into next years class and I will keep adjusting the content and the method until I get it fine tuned. I have 7 clear goals for the “Men’s Class”, and I will share them tomorrow. I am still working on what my goals are for the ladies class, and I aim to have them done by the time the next class starts this Fall.

I rarely ever say I am tired, especially never write it, because it only makes it worse, and fussing easily becomes a bad habit, but with that said, I am really tired tonight. This week was our “Five Days of Prayer” where we pray from 5 to 10 am and 5 to 10 pm each day, and I got up at 4:15 am every morning this week except one morning when I forgot to set the alarm and woke up at 4:55 am. When I got home in the evening, by the time I get my bicycle riding done, and the other things on my daily list finished it was usually midnight or after. I did get in a nap a couple of days, but we had grand kids at our house most of the week and it was a busy and noisy place. I am looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning for as long as I feel like it.

Even though it was a full week, it was a very enjoyable week with all of the prayer time with a bunch of very passionate and committed prayers. Though I am really looking forward to the long sleep in morning, it is sad to see the “Five Days of Prayer” over. For me there was a very strong sense of God’s presence in the prayer room that seemed to get stronger each day that we prayed. I am not real big on feelings and impressions because they can be imagined and manufactured by our flesh, but in these last five days the sense of God’s presence was about as real as it gets for me. With that presence comes a deep peace and joy that transcends experience and circumstances.

Another result of the daily joy and peace that filled me was a very strong desire to be done with this life and head off to eternity and get my new body. I plan on living to the max every day God gives me and to accomplish as much as I possibly can in the time I have left, but this old body is getting so achy I wouldn’t mind at all if my time to head home was sooner than later. But enough whining, tomorrow is going to be a good day.

We live in the day of super hype. Advertisers make out the goods that they sell to be almost magic in what they are capable of doing. We live in a day when technology can make anything look like anything they want to make it look like. I am pretty sure that they could take a picture of me, doctor it up using technology, and make me look handsome. Almost everyone knows this, but still many people buy the hyped product just in case it really lives up to its billing, which it never does. There is stuff to guarantee that you catch more fish, lose weight, get ripped, up your IQ, get rich, run fast, and on the list goes. Most of the hype is so oversold that it is absurd and ridiculous, but still the masses fall for it, and spend good money on “magic”. The devil and his demons are always doing this with what we believe to be true. 1 Timothy 4:1-2 says, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons”. Do you want to be duped, fooled, sold a bill of goods, made to look like a fool? There is this spirit in me that does not want anyone, especially the devil to fool me, get me to believe something to be true that is not. The problem with the “doctrine of demons” is that if you buy into it, it will influence your behavior. The lies of the devil control our culture, they are everywhere, so if you go against them you ate not simply just going against the absurd falsehoods of the “Kingdom of Darkness” , you are going against all of society around you. But that is the way it is, the day of super hype, magic formulas, easy and quick success. Be wise, be cautious, always take the narrow hard way, read the Bible everyday, pray, get lots of good counsel.

Most of the promises and blessings of God are conditional, not automatic or a birthright of every person who says they believe in God. One of the really great blessings of God is supernatural strength to live life successfully. Many believers think that they have access to God’s strength in their lives simply because they are a Christian, but there are a lot of very wimpy Christians who walk around claiming Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me,” as their life verse. I used to watch Pop Eye the Sailer Man when I was a kid, it was one of my favorites. Usually Pop Eye’s girl friend Olive Oil would get in a jam caused by Pluto, Pop Eye’s enemy, and he would be beating the stuffings out of Pop Eye when he would pop out a can of spinach and eat the whole can in a single gulp, and become amazingly strong and whip Pluto and save the day. I still like spinach today, but my love for spinach came as a result of my worship of Pop Eye the Sailer Man as a 8 year old kid. Pop Eye’s strength was conditional, it required spinach. An example of of a conditional statement in scripture is found in 1 Timothy 1:12. “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful”. The “because” is the link between the blessing and the condition. God looked at the life of the Apostle Paul and considered him faithful, therefore he strengthened him. A major condition to be strengthened by God supernaturally is obedience. Just a tiny step in the direction of proactively obeying God results in a massive outpouring of God’s strength into our lives. When I was in High School growing up on our family dairy, one of the nasty jobs was to bury any cows that died. We didn’t have a lot of extra money so any digging to be done was with a hand shovel, and it seemed like I got most of the assignments. When I would dig a hole by hand with a shovel to bury a dead cow, I dug it just barely deep enough to cover the big, bloated bag of guts. One such cow rotted away leaving a bunch of very stinky “soup” in the bottom of the hole. When I walked over the grave of this decomposed cow I fell through the thin crust of dirt into this very stinky “soup”. I was so overwhelmed by the smell that I was sure I had fallen into hell!!! I managed to climb out of the hole, but I was covered with the remains of this dead cow, and the smell hung onto my skin for days. I remember the first time I dug a hole with a backhoe, the power was amazing. But I still had to operate this powerful machine. I made the decision and moved the levers and the result was a massive hydraulically powered shovel scooping dirt a hundred times faster than if I did it with a hand shovel, and a thousand times easier. Let me say it again, “a simple step in the direction of obeying God results in Him giving us His strength”.

When I get home in the evening, the first thing I do is ride my stationary bike for an hour or more, and I read while I am doing it though tonight I watched part of the Trail Blazer game instead. After I get done on the bike I go into our bedroom and sit in my recliner and read, pray, and write for a couple hours before going to bed. Occasionally I have a little snack while I am sitting there, and I have to admit there isn’t much that I enjoy more than a snack while sitting in my recliner at 11:00 pm. I know it isn’t healthy to eat that late at night, and that it goes right to fat, but I enjoy it anyway. Patty today bought me some of that really good licorice in the bulk food section at WinCo, and when I sat down in my chair there was five pieces sitting on the bookshelf next to my chair, wow, what a wonderful wife!!! I ate them really slow, one little nibble at a time, dragging out the pleasure as long as I could, and with every little nibble saying, “thank you Lord” for small pleasures in life. Then after thinking about it for awhile, I said, “Thank You Lord that such simple things give me such great pleasure”! That in itself is a great gift to have.

We started one of JBC’s “Five Days of Prayer” events this morning. We pray from 5 to 10 am and 5 to 10 pm, Monday through Friday. People from the church come and go during the 5 hours in the morning and in the evening as well, but there is usually always about 25 people together in the prayer room each hour. One person prays at a time, loud enough for everybody in the room to hear clearly, and everyone else prays along with him silently, agreeing together with the person praying in their heart.

I usually pray about 40 of the 50 hours during the five days. I don’t do it because I am super spiritual, but because it is always such a special time that is incredibly enjoyable because of the special sense I have of God’s presence. There are certain activities that increase my faith tremendously, my faith in the existence of God, my faith that he loves me and has a plan for my life, my faith that He hears and answers my prayers, and my faith that I can do anything that is His will for me, and my time spent praying during these five days is the most powerful of all the activities that I do that increases my faith.

Yesterday I wrote about how I often use the illustration of a dairy farmer always milking the cows and never even considering missing at doing that chore twice every day, it never enters his mind, as an illustration of serious Christians faithfully practicing the basic disciplines of the Christian life, such as Bible reading and prayer,  every day, every day, every day.

I was in Whittier, California this last week doing a seminar for pastors and Christian workers, and I used that illustration. I could tell by the expressions on the listeners faces  that it wasn’t really a great illustration for people who lived in a large city in Southern California, so I quickly changed it to a person with a serious disease faithfully taking medication for that  disease as my illustration. The second one seemed to make more more sense to them.

I was reminded of a personal law of life that I have, and remind myself of regularly.  That law is, “The burden of clear communication taking place between two people lies squarely on the speaker, and a teacher is 100% responsible for the understanding and retention of the material taught in the mind of the student.”

In Colossians 4:3–4  Paul says, “pray for us that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned; that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak. ”

I teach various size classes 8 times each week at Jefferson Baptist Church, and some in other churches and places as well. Each week I study, write, and pray diligently that I will be able to make the Word of God clear and understandable,  and that those I teach would be highly motivated to put into practice the truth and principles that I teach. Often those I am teaching don’t get it, drift off from listening, and don’t seem very interested or excited about the material I am teaching. My first impulse is to get irritated at them, but then I remind myself of my personal law  that I am responsible. Some might think that the responsibility ought to be shared, but the moment I give any of it away I am less motivated than I could be to study hard, write with focus, and to agonize in my prayers for those I will teach.

I love this guarantee given by the Apostle Paul to Timothy, his pastor in training  in 1 Timothy 4:16 “Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure spiritual growth both for yourself and for those who hear you.”

Now that is a guarantee worth taking responsibility for.