Understanding God's Will: How to Hack the Equation without Formulas

Kyle Lake's new book Understanding God's Will: How to Hack the Equation without Formulas. You may not know Kyle yet, but you know the guy that leads worship at his church. Kyle is the pastor of University Baptist Church in Waco, Texas--home of the David Crowder Band. How fun would that be?

Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:

"The God of the Scriptures seems more interested in relationship than performance."
"The central question in life is not, 'Have you discerned God's will for your life--vocation, college, spouse, location?' but, 'Are you becoming a learner of Christ as you navigate life, career, family, dating/marriage, and relationships?'"
"Herein lies a major misconception about God's will--namely that God's will is the path of least resistance...our mistake is to confuse an open door for an easy door."
"Though we have intentionally chosen to follow God, that doesn't mean our lives are exempt from disappointment, illness, conflict, and even unexpected tragedy. God's will is not the path of least resistance!"
"God's primary will does not revolve around what you do, but who you are and who you are becoming."
"No matter how each of us employs the king's specific will for our lives, if we can't connect it with the good of the kingdom, then we'll most likely not experience the full meaning for which our lives were intended."

10 Advantages of Doing Ministry Without a Ministry Strategy

Tod's blog today pointed me to "10 Advantages of Doing Ministry Without a Ministry Strategy" from Tony Morgan

http://tonymorgan.typepad.com/tony_morgan_one_of_the_si/2005/05/10_advantages_o.html

1. You give the loudest person the opportunity to decide what happens at your church.
2. Sharp leaders who are accustomed to serving in organizations with clearly defined plans for future growth won’t stick around your church. That means more ministry for you!
3. You’ll get to hone your debating skills as people argue about what to do next.
4. More meetings! Where there's no strategy, the meetings flourish.
5. Some people call them church splits. We like to call them church plants. More mother churches!
6. You don’t have to worry about celebrating success, because no one even knows what success looks like. It’s just better to keep that a secret.
7. Rather than trying to discern God’s will for your ministry, you can just rely on dumb luck.
8. You don’t have to pray as much, because there's nothing to pray for. As an added bonus, that means you don’t have to develop as much faith either—whatever happens…happens.
9. You can count your offerings a lot faster, because people will save their financial gifts for organizations that actually have a plan for the money they receive.
10. Your lack of ministry strategy, which is a ministry strategy, will do just fine in Nothing, Arizona.

Hhm, interesting stuff - I am not sure if I completely buying to all this stuff or not (but even I do, their church size is just too big for my imitation taste). For now, I am adding him on to the other blog for some trial basis...

Trust, not clarity.

When the brilliant ethicist John Kavanaugh went to work for three months at "the house of the dying" in Calcutta, he was seeking a clear answer as to how best to spend the rest of his life.
On the first morning there he met Mother Teresa.
She asked, "And what can I do for you?"
Kavanaugh asked her to pray for him.
"What do you want me to pray for?" she asked.
He voiced the request that he had borne thousands of miles from the United States:
"Pray,” he asked, “that I have clarity."
Surprisingly, she said firmly, "No, I will not do that."
And when he asked her why, she said, "Clarity is the last thing you are clinging
to and must let go of."

Kavanaugh commented that she always seemed to have the clarity he longed for, [but] Mother Teresa laughed.

She said, "I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God."[1]

Citation: Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust (HarperCollins, 2000); submitted by Dave Goetz; Wheaton, Illinois, cited in PreachingToday.com, More Perfect Illustrations for Every Topic and Occasion (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2003), 290-291.