Any real change in the church is lead by a change in the desire, appetites, expectations and fervency of the Christians.

The time has come for the vessel to be changed.
The time has come for Christians to change.

It’s time for the church to exalt Jesus Christ as the only Lord and Savior, and without a need for political correctness.

It’s time for the church to function more as a missions agency than as a management agency.

It’s time for the church to confront the culture of the day more than a church that reflects the culture of the day.

It’s time for the church to drive out demons and heal the sick, and not just say these are metaphors.
It is time for the church to say what we will do and do what we say.

It is time.

I have always wanted to be one of those… Great Men of Faith.

But I don’t know if I will ever qualify.

I would love to be able to say…

“It was MY great faith that helped my family grow.”

“It was MY great faith that has lead to the growth of the ministry.”

“It was MY great faith that lead to the wonderful church growth and financial blessings.”

“It was My…..” and so it goes on.

But I can’t.

If I am a great anything, I am a great worrier, doubter, second guesser.

I am the sort of guy who will go where angels fear to treat, then panic madly, curl in a fetal position and plead for mercy and intervention!
I have come to realize that all of these things, these wonderful great and marvelous things, have happened, not due to me, but in spite of me.

That my whole life speaks of the greatness and faithfulness of God, not the greatness and the faithfulness of John.

If at the end of my days, people look past me and all that we have seen happen and marvel and say….”There is no way that he did this… he just wasn’t that clever/prayerful/full of faith etc, etc, etc.”  Then I will grin my way to eternity.

I know who I am. I am NOT a great man of faith, but I am a man who is loved by a great and faithful God.

I could never hope for more, ask for more, wish for more or pray for more, because He does exceedingly abundantly more than I could ever hope, dream or think.

And that friend, brings me great comfort.

I believe that Christian people - but not the church -should get involved in politics and in social affairs. You cannot Christianize the world. The kingdom task of the church is to save men from the wrath to come by bringing them to Christ.

I would have thought that preachers would understand that at this time, with the condition of the modern world that our urgent message should be, ‘Flee from the wrath to come!’ You see I believe that the end times will be more like the time of the Great Flood than like anything else we have every seen. A generation so in love with evil, so hell bend on narcissistic behavior that all restraint will be cast aside.

Our preaching should always have an edge of urgency to it. There needs to be one service a week that is dedicated to the winning of the lost and to the demonstration of the power of the Holy Ghost. The most important chapter in the Bible today from the standpoint of modern preaching is 1Corinthians 2. Without the demonstration of the Spirit’s power, all theology leads to nothing. We must have Truth and we must have Spirit.

A theology that uses the concepts of dispensations to justify a lack of manifestation of Spiritual power, is a theology that is false and exists solely because someone (and at times whole denominations) insisted upon bring their perception of God down to the level of there experience, instead of seeking God until there experience is lifted to the level of their theology.

…or it could be entitled, The Death of Personal Responsibility.

Or I would rather lie than tell the truth and be held accountable.

There have been two things that have happened in the last three weeks.

First I ordered a new laptop from my local Apple Store. Apple shipped the wrong computer from China. It took a week to get here. I took it back into the store; they said they would have to return it before they could ship the correct one. However, they couldn’t do it because it was Apple’s fault, not theirs, so we would have to go through ‘corporate’ not ‘retail’. Also, it really wasn’t ‘retails’ problem but ‘corporates’ and seeing that we spend so much with them, ‘retail’ would see what it could do. All that is well and good, inconvenient, but understandable.

We have it sorted, please just bring in the computer Mr. King. Okay, I did that.

Then I get the phone call ‘Well we can’t help you. It is corporates problems not ours. We discussed how the store took my money; they sold me the product… etc., etc. No go. I would Mr. King if it wasn’t a special order that we had to do through corporate. But you took my money, you placed the order.

Yes but we had to do it through ‘Corporate‘.

But you took the order in the store, with me standing there. Yes, but we had to send the order to the head office.

Bottom line… somehow it was my fault because I gave them money and ordered a computer. Or it was ‘Corporates’ fault because they are ‘Corporate‘ and live far, far away, that whatever the reason it had to be someone else’s problem. Bottom line, I am without my computer, out $3000 and it is my fault???

Second incident.

I took a 100 year old briefcase into a cobbler, leather work place in Grapevine, Texas. I met with the owner personally. Told him of the family heirloom, gave him the history. He assured me of his expertise in doing such things, been doing it 30 years, his father had done it etc., etc.

Picked it up yesterday. It was terrible. What they did to that case was horrible. Ripped out lining over a hundreds old. Patched it with scrap leather, blue marker pen all over the inside flap and covered with boot polish.

I told him I was very disappointed. I pointed out how this was not what we had discussed and how I felt he had destroyed the case. His response was that I had no idea of what I was talking about he had been doing it 30 years, etc., etc. How dare I use such emotive language as terrible and destroyed, and would I please give him a second chance. I said no.

I personally think he got one of the teenagers or trainees in there to do it and they had messed it up completely and he was now faced with a manifestation of his leadership.

His response at being held accountable was, “So you are one of those guys that only gives someone one chance, you won’t even bring it back it for me to fix?” My answer was, I suppose I am just one of those guys. He had a chance and ruined something of great value, I certainly wasn’t going to entrust him with a second to destroy it completely.
You only ever get one chance to make a first impression.

In both cases there was an opportunity to excel. Not only was it ignored, the resulting issues were a lack of attention to detail and it had to be someone else’s fault.

Both of these people were either Senior Management or a business owner, not underlings or trainees.

I know that in both cases people either lied or misrepresented what had happened so as to avoid the consequence of their actions. The owner made it an issue of money, the fact is I would have paid 5 times what I did to get a job well done!

I know that with what we do at both church and International Men’s Network we strive for excellence or are in pursuit of it in every aspect of what we do.

Excellence has nothing to do with size, money or even training. It is an attitude that drives a person. That regardless of what the rest of the world accepts, they will accept nothing less that 110% from themselves. Why? Because this is my reputation and my opportunity to shine and I will rise above mediocrity and be brilliant. I will take responsibility for my actions and even the actions of others and in each incident I will learn and I will excel where others do not. In the process I will give permission to people to be great despite their circumstances, not small because of their circumstances. I will insist that my staff and my congregation develop the same mindset, why? Because to be the best at what we do with what we have is the least we can give back to God and the community we serve.