-Anthony Trask

Barnett prayed that each pastor here would receive the Multiplication Anointing for their churches.

Barnett asks us to ‘Live a life that is full of need‘, because it is the will of God to live a life that is full of the right kind of need.

Need is not only the evil that we portray it to be. There is a bad need, a need that comes out of greed, but this is not the need Barnett is speaking of.

Here a four need statements Barnett made:

1. You need more of the right kind of need.

We need supply. If we didn’t need the supply, then we wouldn’t need. God has supply for us to reach million of lost        people and we need it.

2.The bigger the need, the bigger the supply.

The need is huge now. The fields are ripe for harvest and the supply for that is huge! That’s why God is providing for      churches who see that need.

3. God knows your need.

He has supply in waiting for you and you may not know it. Some of that supply is in ‘seed-form’ right now.

4. Know what your need is.

-You need to find a need and fill it.

-How can I get the attention of God?

Create a need for people that they didn’t know they had, supply it, and make them addicted to it.

-Learn to be a better sower

Sewing into other ministries so that you will see that God is your supply.

Barnett beautifully declared a Word He received from the Lord: “If you will reach people that no one else wants, I will give you the people that everyone else needs“. Today famous people and influential people (Chris Tucker and the Pussycat Doll’s Nicole Scherzinger for example) are receiving Christ at his son Matthew Barnett’s church Angeles Temple (The  Dream Center) in Los Angeles

Barnett recalled how a minister from South America came and prayed that him and his son would receive a multiplication anointing from the Lord. Barnett said that they had both received it and it has been manifested through their church.

He then called anyone who wanted to receive the multiplication anointing to come up to be prayed over and the alter was filled with hundreds, if not over a thousand, ministers who wanted to receive this anointing from the Spirit- including myself and it was AWESOME!

Craig’s message was essentially titled: “A Leader’s Constant Companion: Pain“. Here are some notes from his session:

The Gospel tells us that we should step into the same pain that Jesus went through for us.

Learn to hurt with integrity, passion and consider it in honor.

The difference between where you are and where God wants you to be could be the pain you’re unwilling to endure. (Wow!)

Using 2 Cor 11:23-24, Groeschel calls us to remember what Paul and others endured for the Gospel. Paul’s conclusion in this passage, despite all of the atrocities he had suffered (being beat, stoned, whipped, shipwrecked etc…), was that his greatest suffering was the daily burden of his concern for the churches.

The potential within yourself is related to the pain that you’re willing to endure.

Groeschel offers us three things we need in our ministry:

1. An increasing your pain threshold-

We will suffer the pain of unjustified pressure and criticism.

Some people say,” the higher the level (of power) the more the devil (attacks you will receive).

The media will attack you, the world will attack you, but Christians will attack you more than everyone else! (So True!)

We often think,” Don’t criticize my ministry!” But if you’re not being criticized you’re not preaching the Gospel! If you’re not hurting, youre not leading!

And the quickest way to forgot about what God thinks about you is to be concerned with what others think about you.

If an annoying person in your town is making your life miserable, then you are doing someth’n (right)!

So don’t worry when you’re criticized, worry when you are not.

2. Increase Our Threshold For Making Painful Decisions

If you are a church planter, the first year of your church will hold some of the hardest decisions you’ve ever made.

Some people may have a volunteer or staff person in the way of what they are doing  because they are not in the right spot for them- which means that they are not in the right spot for your church.

You may even have to remove your best friend from the ministry at your church- decisions will be hard!

The ‘spanking’ phrase “It will hurt you me than it hurts you”, is true in these situations because you will have to live with the hurt feelings you have caused with your decision- I have learned this already.

‘ Look at the decision that you have to make, recognize that it’s going to hurt, and do it’ was Craig’s plea to the crowd.

3. Increase Your Ability to Endure the Pruning In Your Own Life

God may have to do something in you before He can do something through you.

Sometimes this means just taking credit for your mistakes or something you’ve been involved in that’s failed. If you take credit for the decline today; one day you can take credit for the increase.

Craig says,”It’s the things that no one sees that get you to the places that everyone wants.”- That’s Good! All about integrity and private difficult decisions.

Be grateful that you get to experience a little bit of pain because Christ suffered so much for us.

Surratt opened up with this random, but important fact: Be slow to label something as good or bad because you don’t know the future.

About pastoring a flock as a pastor Surratt says,”Sheep are rabid and have a taste for shepherds“.

Galatians 6:9- Don’t get tired of doing what is good.

Two Things That Make You Tired In Ministry:

1. Comparison

Don’t compare yourself to other ministers. Consider that God has made you the way you are for a reason.

2. Conflict

How To Avoid Conflict In Ministry

1. Don’t let a few vocal critics hijack the vision of your church.

The music is not up for sale at your church! (Wow!!!) How you do (or don’t) operate in the gifts of the Spirit is not up to your members.

Surratt said that Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, says not to listen to what the customer has to say because the customer will always default to their past experiences. Cuban says it’s the       job of the entreupenuer to create new experiences and to give the customer what they want not what they think they want.

2. There is a Difference Between Good Questions and a Good Spirit

Don’t be afraid of questions asked by people with a good spirit.

What issues are so sacred that we can’t talk about them.

3. Decide Which Hills You Are Willing To Die On

The Three Hills List

-Preferances

-Convictions

-Essentials

Only die on the essentials list.

With your essential list, realize…

Large lists tend to head towards legalism and produce small churches.

Small lists tend to be messy, result in larger, more effective, and empowering churches.

Watch out for the “Conviction Creep”: When Convictions try to creep into the essentials.

If your church is built on anything other than the Gospel (i.e. if it’s built on Convictions and Preferences, or if Essentials List is too big); you limit who you can reach.

This post was supposed to be ‘live-blogged’, but there’s no WiFi in the building it’s being held at (lol). So I am posting a few minutes after the session is over.

This session is more of a panel of Next Gen Pastors sharing ideas and references.  I literally cannot see them from the side that I am sitting at so I am not sure who is speaking but I will write down whaat I am gleaning from this App.

Story of a Youth Ministry in New York:

Youth ministry was non- existent in NY City in 1986 and he (?) started one with 18 kids and within a year there were hundreds of students attending the youth services. Students began to drop off their knives, guns, and gang colors in a box because they were getting saved and the box grew to 400 lbs. Hundreds of kids later, students were lining up around the block to get into a church. Moody once said that you don’t have advertized a fire.

Students Need the Holy Spirit’s Power in Their Youth Ministry:

Students want to and need to experience the presence of God- more than a great message and even more than relationships.

Students live with everything, but have nothing to live for. We can’t fire with fire when it comes to youth ministry. We need to fight it with major power (the Holy Spirit).

In next gen ministry, we are not expecting kids’ heart to change; we are expecting a heart transplant from the Holy Spirit.

The Humiliation of Youth Ministry:

In youth ministry, we won’t get famous, have our name in lights, or have an international ministry- we’re doing it for young people.

Internships:

Churches should be more interested in what people can actually do, rather than the piece of paper behind their desk.

The more students that leaders lead, the more students they will lead.

Determining topics to teach young people in Next Gen ministry:

There is a trend to combine HS and MS ministry because the students are dealing with the same things (media-wise).

When a student is done with youth ministry what do you want them to know?

-Healthy relationships

-Wise decisions

-Biblical foundations

-Etc…

You should have your series planned for out in advance, but be willing to pause it for a while if something comes up (suicide, crisis natural disaster, etc…). If the Spirit of God is moving, you go with that.

Counseling:

Kids are dealing with BIG issues! Meet with them but refer them to Christ-based counseling. Find counselors in your community that you can work with. Possibly offer to subsidize the cost for those you refer.

How to keep the youth ministry and the overall church ministry unified and not separated:

Follow the vision of your local pastor

The Pastor must have a passion for the next generation

The Sunday service should be similar to the youth service so that the youth are not shocked and don’t leave the church when they graduate.

Youth Pastors should sell the vision of the pastor and Sunday Church to the youth group.

Pastors should keep the next generation in front of the congregation.

Tell the adults in the church that the old have always sacrificed

Transfuse the DNA of Christ into the next generation but also the DNA of the Church and its pastor.

Have the youth ministry speak on the same topics as big church.

How to reach different cultures:

Authenticity transcends culture.

What you see on the stage, that’s what you get in the pew. Put multicultural representation on your stage. (Genesis, Jacob and Laban’s flocks- Wow!)

How do you get the Senior Pastor to recognize the needs of the Student Ministry?

Have the youth ministry show respect, recognize, and serve the needs of the church and the senior pastor and they will see your needs.

Media Ideas for Student Ministry:

Youth Bytes

Weems’ message was entitled “Kingdom Sweat“. The rest of this post will be notes from message.

Preaching the Kingdom of God is the rule and reign of Jesus Christ. It should be our primary passion and purpose of pastors to advance God’s Kingdom. Preaching is different than simply preaching, as preaching exhorts people and teaching teaches people.

Weems taught from Acts 19 where Paul works hard for the advancement of the Kingdom and as a result many supernatural events were taking place in Ephesus. The supernatural is in the sweat. And if you’re not experiencing the supernatural it’s possible that you are not partaking in Kingdom Sweat. Kingdom Sweat comes for your passion for God and His Kingdom, ministry sweat is just working hard. Paul was compelled by the love of Christ.

People speak to you from need, but God speaks to you from calling and purpose (Luke 4:42-44). And as a minister, if you listen to the voice of your personal ambitions, approval, or other people who speak into your life what is not the calling and purpose of God, then you will become burnt out and quit. God cares more about your integrity than your image.

If you don’t fulfill the purpose of God for YOUR life, no one will!

When you are sweating for the Kingdom unusual miracles happen. You are unusual and your church should be unusual and should have unusual miracles taking place within it. People may not be able to always see your Kingdom sweat, but they can sure smell it. Hope is the evidence of things not seen!

Jesus Sweated (I know, it’s not proper English but let’s roll with it- it’s Stovall’s message not mine) for Us.

If Jesus sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane for us, can’t e begin to sweat with passion and fire for Him so that the supernatural will begin to take place within our churches.

This was the most impassioned and POWERFUL message of the conference so far- I was very moved!

]]> http://anthonytrask.com/2010/04/29/all-access-2010-day-three-session-two-with-stovall-weems/feed/ 0 http://anthonytrask.com/2010/04/29/all-access-2010-day-three-session-one-with-chris-hodges/ http://anthonytrask.com/2010/04/29/all-access-2010-day-three-session-one-with-chris-hodges/#comments Fri, 30 Apr 2010 04:33:10 +0000 Anthony http://anthonytrask.com/?p=601 Pastor Chris Hodges of Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, Alabama opened up day three of the Association of Related Churches conference All Access 2010 with some extreme honesty, humility, and love for the pastors in attendance. He woke up with a few days ago with three phrases on his mind that he believes were from the Spirit of God that the pastors at the conference are feeling:

1. Everything I’m Doing Is Just Useless

2. I’m Wore Out and Tired

Burnout comes when you think that the things you are doing aren’t working.

3. Discouraged

He then prayed for the pastors who are struggling with these thoughts.

Hodges brought a message with the title, “It’s All About The Numbers”

He said people are saying that it’s not all about the numbers, but they’re wrong. It is because we (the Church) are the hope of the world.

Three Thoughts on ‘Being All About the Numbers’:

1. Grow Yourself First

It’s not about how you do your services as much as how the work of the Spirit is being done in you.

2. Grow for the Right Reasons

Not for ego’s sake, but for the Kingdom.

3. Grow

Pastor Dino Rizzo of the host church Healing Place Church was this evening’s speaker. He opened his talk by bragging about walking into a a youth pastor role of a group with 1,200 students and six weeks later transforming it into a group of 80 students- OUCH! That’s humility.

The subject of Rizzo’s talk, at a pastor’s conference all about church planting and growth, was Stay Small:

Scriptures referenced in the beginning of the message were: 1 Samuel 15:17, Luke 19:17, Micah 5:2, Matthew 15:34, and James 3:4 all related to small things being used by God.

The Scripture that Dino camped on for the message was Zechariah 4:10 which states,”Do not despise these small beginnings.”

Pastor Rizzo recounted how Healing Place Church was started small on a Wednesday night with 12 people with a 8′ stage and a bathroom 8 rows back from the pulpit with no insulation in the walls- so everyone knew what was going on back there. He stated that they never had fast growth, but slow-steady growth for 17 years, despite being a horrible speaker in the early years.

In the early years he went to a church-growth conference by himself and was so in awe of what the huge church had going for it that he despised his small beginnings. Rizzo: “Comparison is acid to your soul.” He was worried that they would never grow after seeing the opulence of the conference’s host church.

We have big things today (aviation, Walmart, McDonald’s, cell phones, etc…) because of one person’s small beginnings; their dream and their unwillingness to give up on it. Dino declared that nothing starts big: it starts with one seed, one idea, one dream, one death, one song, one book, one blog, etc…

Celebrate your small beginnings, don’t despise them!

Even if we are on the list of America’s hundred largest churches we are still small, because what we do and who we do it for is SO big.

Rizzo’s twenty-year ministry  advice for this crowd: “Stay Small, Keep Him Big” because if you stay small and He is big, then He will anoint you.

Rizzo stated that his church is small even though they had 12,000 people in attendance on Easter Sunday because that number is only 2.80% of their parish’s population, .0038% of the US population, and only .00018% of the world’s population. There’s so much room to grow bigger.

Dino said that all of ‘these’ churches are just small churches who are being used by a big God to do big things. And once we celebrate our small beginnings, then will God be able to make us grow.

Don’t apologize for preaching God’s Word

Don’t apologize for preaching on giving

You don’t when you preach on prayer or grace- those are to help people- so is giving.

Don’t apologize for preaching God’s Word about money

If we don’t teach people about money, who will?

If you preach on prayer, people will pray more. If you teach on worship people will worship more. If you preach on giving, people will give more.

Money either has the spirit of the world on it or the spirit of God (if it’s been tithed on) on it.

There are consequences for not serving God in the Bible- curses.

There are consequences of obeying God- blessings.

Mammon (the worldly spirit of money) promises everything that only God can give: if you had more money then you would be more happy, etc….

Jesus never said the answer to someone’s problems is money.

Don’t apologize for preaching God’s Word on tithing

People think it’s under the Law- but that doesn’t make them disobey the Law about murder or theft.

Tithing existed before the Law and with Grace Jesus enables us to a higher standard

Tithing is a ‘type of Jesus’ because He was first born and first fruits.

The clean has to be sacrificed to make the unclean clean.

Jesus is God the Father’s tithe- He was the clean that was sacrificed first to make us (the unclean) clean.

Giving ten percent after you pay all of your bills is not tithing.

Cain’s offering was not acceptable because it was fruit not first fruits.

Don’t apologize for giving God’s Word about giving

Giving is different than tithing because tithing isn’t giving, it’s returning and it goes to the local church.

You can’t designate your tithe (to a missions fund or a building fund) because it is not yours to designate.

Tithing is the training wheels of giving.

The wicked servant in the parable of the ten talents was wicked because He only gave to God what was already His instead of giving Him even more- offerings.

Matthew 7:1-2

Judge not, that you be not judged….

The main topic in the passage is judging.

‘Give and it will come back to you’ is not about money, it’s about giving and giving from the spirit of your heart.

If you give judgment you will get judgment back.

Give money and you will get money back- but it’s not the motive for giving (I’m not sold on this principle of getting money by giving it. We will be blessed for sure, just not sure its financially or even in this life. But from personal experience I’ve learned that when I give, I am always provided for in crazy ways.)

God doesn’t want us to get “getting”, He wants us to get “giving”.

‘Jesus’ is the subject of the Bible and ‘giving’ is the verb.

You’re here today because Jesus gave to you.

We gladly give to God because we used to have nothing.

Because we weren’t always saved and because God delivered us from sin we gladly give to God the first fruits of all we earn.

Man! To be honest, I am so honored to tithe. It’s very difficult sometimes and my priorities are not always right, but I love tithing. I definitely was moved to start giving instead of only tithing and to start tithing immediately after receiving pay.

She opened by recounting a trip to Haiti where poor people were thrilled to come to church to worship and give of what little they had. When a nine year-old girl, who had received much needed food and clothing from church, was asked why she enjoyed coming to church so much, she said she came because of the presence of God.

Shirer said,” People want to hear God’s voice and feel His miraculous power” when they come to church. People attend church for an infiltration of God’s presence in their lives.

She taught that people have HEARD about God and they come to your church to EXPERIENCE Him because there’s a hole in people’s hearts and they want it to be filled.

Shirer went on to do some serious preaching about how all of these different people, groups, governments, and schools of thought try to explain Jesus away, but cannot. She then declared boldly that “Oprah cannot explain Jesus away!” And because Priscilla happens to be an African American woman, this seemed to give what she had just said some serious clout and the crowd literally went crazy with that statement in its context!

Shirer said over and over again that people are after the manifest precense of God! And her prayer is that when people walk into a church that they fall to their knees because of this manifest presence. She hopes that when a worship ministry team begins to lead in worship that they would not have o coax the crowd because the crowd would already be so aware of God in their midst that they would automatically start worshiping Him.

Priscilla also warned that the presence is not guarantied- because often times we forget to invite Jesus to be the star of the program. She told us not to assume that the manifest presence of God will be there just because it’s the church.

She said that people need to amend their ways to in order receive the presence of God. She used John 11 to unfold an interesting point that Jesus sometimes will move in the opposite direction of your church because you are trying to kill Him (His presence) and instead will sometimes go the opposite direction of your church to meet with people who are willing to worship and serve Him (Mary, Martha, and Lazarus).

Shirer says that it’s better to be a magnet of the presence of God than to be a magnet of people. She stated that we need to let the Holy Spirit do more talking than us; that people don’t need pastors and speakers, they need the presence!

She wrapped up these ideas by saying that Jesus would rather be around a few who are expecting His presence than a crowd who has their own agenda and who is waiting for the next thing on it.

One thing I found interesting is that Shirer had a message that almost contradicted Bezet’s. Bezet essentially said that we need to be aware of the unbelievers in our midst and be wise and considerate to how we utilize our Spiritual gifts in order to make the unbelievers more comfortable in our presence so that they can encounter God. While Shirer essentially stated the opposite, that IT IS the manifest presence and gifts that unbelievers are seeking. I enjoyed and respected what both of them had to say, but there was a little bit of a contradiction. Neither side is anywhere close to heresy though. It’s a matter of opinion, presence, and the context of which you minister. But I think the relevant truth lies somewhere in the middle of these two amazing speakers philosophies.