Leadership is influence. Influence is when we cause change in another person’s life and/or character, or cause change in an organization, or even have enough influence to cause change in a culture or people group. Great leaders influence to such a degree that the change they cause lasts for eternity. Great leaders who cause significant and lasting change don’t do so because they connect effectively with people, but because they connect effectively with God, prompting Him to create the change. Powerful influence is supernatural, it is the authority of God being given to a person who uses it wisely to move and motivate others to significant accomplishment and growth.

There are character traits in a person that moves God to give His authority to them causing them to be a strong leader. Faithfulness is a key one; “This one thing does God require of His servants, that they be found faithful”, “You have been faithful in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things”, and “God considered me faithful, putting me into ministry”.

A close second and complimentary character trait that God loves and blesses is endurance; “Run the race with endurance that is set before you”, “In due time you will reap if you don’t quit”, and “let endurance have it’s perfect result”.

Endurance and faithfulness work together to produce a person of high character that God uses and blesses to influence many others for His purposes. Eugene Peterson’s book, “A long Obedience in the Same Direction” is a great description of a person of great and lasting influence, a true leader for God.

A faithful person who runs the race with endurance, perseverance, and passion becomes that person because they do what they do in obedience to the Lord, desiring to please Him, seeking strength from Him.

In 1989 I had been pastoring JBC for 13 years, and I was burnt out, worn out, discouraged, depressed, and ready to quit. I had found 2 different dairies that had attractive herdsman position jobs open, and I was writing my resume sure that I would get one or the other of the jobs. I felt like a total failure as a pastor, and I was disgusted at myself for thinking that I could successfully pastor a church, and subsequently wasting 13 years of my life. In February of 1989 the late Joe Aldrich, president of Multnomah Bible College wrote a letter to most of the pastors in the greater Salem area. In the letter he quoted a recent study about the church in the USA which said that Oregon was the least churched state of all 50 and that Marion and Lynn counties were in the list of the 5 counties that were least churched in Oregon. He suggested that the pastors in the greater Salem area should get together and pray for several days with no agenda for God to work in our State and ultimately in our country.

So we did, 63 pastors prayed together for 8 to 10 hours for 3 days that God would work in our lives individually, that he would work in out respective churches, in the State of Oregon, and in our entire country. The experience was life changing for me as I made prayer the key discipline and activity of my life and ministry after that. My life changed drastically and so did JBC. I made a commitment that I would pastor JBC until I died no matter how bad it got, and that I would survive by spending time with the infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent God of the universe in Prayer every day.

I am here at the prayer summit in Cannon Beach, Oregon now for my 30th time in a row with no misses since it’s beginning. I come each year expecting to experience God in a new and novel way, and I come away from the 3 days with a fresh commitment to prayer. Especially a strong commitment to pray for each and every person at JBC at least once each week. This discipline that I started in 1989 has made a huge difference in my life and in the life of our church. Every year here at the beach I remake that original commitment, goal, and vow to pray however many hours a day it will take to cover each person with God’s grace.

When God created the world and everything in it, He ended each day with an inspection of His work and a declaration, “It is good”! It is impossible to comprehend the number of choices God processed as He decided what everything would look like, how it would function, and how it all fit together. The creativity of all the universe is staggering. On a much smaller scale each one of us has his life to use up, his character to develop, his goals and dreams to accomplish. When I get to the end of a week like tonight, I think about all that I have done, what I have done that was good, wise, and blessed others, what I did that I should have replaced with something else. At end of some weeks I feel really good about the choices, activities, and results and I declare to myself, “Now, that was a good week”. It is sort of like an artist stepping back and looking at his painting, and thinking, “now that looks very good”. The key for me to get to the end of a week with a great sense of victory in my life and the work I have accomplished is to choose to do what matters most every day all day long. The number of choices available to us in this day and age is incredible and the result for many is a lot of wrong choices or decision paralysis. The decision making process creates great stress for many as they agonize over what should I do. The single most important grid for shorting through the options for me is the question, “does it contribute to the accomplishment of my goals”. If it doesn’t I chuck it even if it is a really good thing, because you can only do so much so decide ahead of time what that will be and express it in the form of a goal and stay focused on it. The result is a lot of really good weeks.

It is so fun to watch people who have obviously practiced for hundreds if not thousands of hours, perform. They have perfected their various skills to near perfection. The hours and hours of practice, strength training, and eating just the perfect foods takes immense amounts of self-control, what is the motivation behind it all? We all know the answer to that, to win the gold medal in front of the world. As I watched I thought I should put forth that much discipline, effort, hard work, and sacrifice to living the Christian life, to growing to be like Jesus in character, and to bearing much fruit for God. The Apostle Paul says they are motivated by the hope of winning a prize that won’t last, that is in a year no one will remember who who won what, but the awards we receive at the “judgment Seat of Christ” will last forever. Why don’t more believers put out that kind of effort and discipline? Why don’t I? I think the key is a fuller understanding of “The Judgment Seat of Christ”, and then a faith that it will happen, and that the rewards received are real and worth the sacrifice. Is the effort worth it?

Yesterday I wrote in my blog that choosing to fast was like choosing to run a marathon, you know it is going to be in the super hard category, but you choose to do it anyway, and then I went on to write that choosing to fast was much harder than choosing to run a marathon. I reread yesterday’s blog today and as I read that part about the marathons I thought, “really?, you haven’t done any running whatsoever for 5 years-what’s with that?” My defensive response to myself was, “with the onset of Parkinson’s running became painful and hard, so I quit!” The side of me that started this conversation, the weird, crazy and B-HAG side said, “You quit!! you wimp!! You are always telling everyone to do the hard thing, and then you quit!!” Then my sane, intelligent, reasonable, and wimpy side said, “OK, OK, get off my back, I will do it”. So I wrote a new goal to run the Portland Marathon on October 7th, and then I got on the tread mill after riding my bike for an hour and ran/walked for 20 minutes. It was pretty slow going averaging 4 mph or 15 minute miles. Most people can walk faster than that. Oh well, I gotta start somewhere, and I did start. I like my highly intelligent, wimpy side better than my weird and crazy side, for sure!

I ended my fast at the end of 8 days instead of 10. I will do 10 next time. There several reasons why I ended early including, “I am a wimp”, but the main one was I was doing good except when I walked very far, today I was getting dizzy whenever I walked. Tomorrow I am going to the Portland Sportsman’s show, which I haven’t missed since I was 15 years old. There is non-stop walking for about 4 hours in that, so I decided to eat a bowl of high fiber cereal and a little bit of rice tonight. Now as I sit in my recliner writing this I feel really good! The challenge of fasting was a good one for me, and I am planning on regular times of fasting in the days ahead. In the 8 days I lost 15 pounds and I will try to keep it off, and then lose some more next time which will be the middle of March before Easter. The fasting didn’t change anything about my Parkinson’s, but I tried to lower my medication starting the 3rd day of fasting, but I had lots of problems when I did so I went back to my normal. I do feel like the five days of,prayer was especially good for me this time, feeling a real sense of God’s presence most of the time, and I attribute that to my fasting. I am sure my self-control level went up, and it will go even higher the next time, that is a big plus for me. Fasting is like choosing to run a marathon, you do it because it is a challenge and because it is good for you. I have run 5 marathons and this 8 days of fasting took more effort, self-control, and determination not to quit than than any of the marathons came close to doing. On the next one I will let you know early so you can join me even for a day

I am fasting with water only and some coffee for ten days. I have never done a total fast for ten days so this was a new challenge. So far I feel good, no weakness, or bouts of nauseousness which is common. I rode my stationary bike for an hour tonight, and didn’t feel any more tired than normal. I have written about 5 reasons I chose to do this fast, and today I realized there was a 6th reason which is very significant for me. I hadn’t identified it as a motive because I had included it with the quest for greater self-control motive, but it really does stand alone as a growing motive in the choices I make.

In the Old Testament the sin that God hated most was idolatry, worshiping something else besides the one true God. The first of the “Ten Commandments” is “Thou shall have no other God’s besides Me”. In the United States we are more sophisticated than to worship a wood carving covered in gold, or the sun. I believe that the number one idol in the U.S. is the god of comfort. We generally as a culture have been brainwashed into believing that life ought to be comfortable with few problems or trials if any, and if we do have trials we question God’s love for us and sometimes even His existence. The motto of our day is “It’s so hard”, and we even say it with a Country Music nasally twang!

According to the Bible God purposely made life hard, full of trials and problems so that we would grow in character, character that we will take with us into eternity, but the trials of life produce no growth in the person who grumbles and complains and says “It’s so hard”.

So I believe it is good to choose to do something that is hard periodically, just because it is hard, so that we learn to manage hard, to overcome hard, to learn that joy doesn’t come from comfort, it comes from hard, the only thing that comes from comfort and easy is boredom.

I am half way now on my 10 day fast and it is going pretty good. I am not feeling any ill affects, and I toad my stationary bike for an hour tonight.

The first reason I am doing this is to increase my prayer power with God. The second reason is to grow in self-control. The third reason is to possibly experience some health benefits. The fourth reason is to be a model and an encouragement to others who might want to try this for the same reasons.

The fifth reason is to lose some weight, and so far I have lost 16 lbs.

I am fasting with water only for 10 days, and I am just finishing day 4 and I am feeling fine, and I even rode my stationary bike for an hour while watching the Super Bowl, wow, what a game that was. I have 5 motives for choosing to do this fast.

The first reason is that our “Five Days of Prayer” at Jefferson Baptist Church, starts tomorrow, and I will be praying about 8 hours each day with people from our church. We are praying specifically for the mission works that we have started and the missionaries that we support around the world. Fasting in conjunction with prayer increases my prayer power with God, and I want to see many, many people around the world come to have a personal relationship with Jesus so they can live with Him forever. Fasting is one of my least favorite things to do in all of life, but if people are changed forever it seems a small price to pay.

My second motive is that I want to grow in character to become more and more like Jesus. Self-control is a major character trait that is a key to growing more mature every day. Self-control grows like our muscles grow stronger, exercising and adding a little more weight on the bar each time we do it. The resistance of the weights that our muscles push against makes us stronger, and in the same way if I do things periodically like fasting that requires a huge amount of self-control, and if I can make the 10 days without cheating when everyone has gone to bed, I will have grown in self-control. If I can grow even a little bit in controlling what I think, what I speak out of my mouth, and the impulsiveness of some of my choices this 10 days without food will be worth it.

The third reason is to promote better health of my physical body. I have read several books that have listed significant health benefits to an extended fast with no food. It is so much more enjoyable living life feeling good and strong as apposed to being tired and aching all day. This is an experiment to see what does improve, but if there is any noticeable improvement in my health I will be highly motivated to make this a regular part of my life.

Reason number 4 wasn’t a reason when I started but has become one as I have discussed my fast with people who are interested and concerned about this adventure of sorts that I am attempting. As a Pastor I want to model right living for people that I have influence with. I am far from perfect, but the journey and the attempt to grow faithfully as a person in godly character and maturity is a choice that we all make daily, and I want to be a motivation for many others to make the effort to become a better person every day that they live. A number of people are fasting with me and a much larger number are thinking about fasting for even one or two meals as they follow what I am doing. Who wouldn’t want more motivation to pray and more power when they do pray, who wouldn’t want more self-control, and who wouldn’t want better health.

I started a water only fast February 1st and I plan on continuing it until the end of February 10th, unless I get to wimpy before then. I have three major motives, actually I have now identified five reasons why I am doing this.

The first reason is to increase my power in praying. I want to change people and the world through my praying to God on their behalf, and when we are willing to sacrifice , even as small as going without food God works more and changes more because of the time I spend praying.

The second reason is that the self-control level that I presently have in me will grow stronger as I fight with my flesh in choosing not to feed it.

The third reason is to pursue better health. I have read much of late on the health benefits of fasting, and there are many. I have a number of significant health issues as most people at 70 years of age do, and I wouldn’t mind being able to take more control of those if possible through the discipline and practice of fasting.

I am drinking lots of water and sleeping a little bit more, but so far going good.