The Moscow Rules - Part 4

Yesterday we covered the 3rdd of the Moscow Rules... and today we are looking at the 4th. So just to recap on those 10 rules:
1. Know Your Mission
2. Gather Intelligence
3. Maintain A Natural Pace
4. Vary Your Pattern
5. Blend Into The Crowd
6. Be Aware Of Your Environment At All Times
7. Avoid Defensiveness At All Times
8. Assume That You're Under Servailence
9. Never Go Against Your Gut
10. Never Look Back

One of the easiest traps for churches and Christ followers is to fall into routine... mindless habit.
Now there are some routines / habits that are good for us... habits like having a devotional time with God, having a date night with your spouse, going to the gym, etc.
Where these habits become counter productive is when the become stale and predictable because we never vary our pattern in the habit.
We always follow the exact same routine in our devotions, date nights, at the gym, etc. Our times become boring, dull, and lifeless. Now the reason that we started the habit in the first place is because it was so good for us... but due to familiarity it has become meaningless.
Rick Warren tells of an interesting fact in his book the Purpose Driven Church... he tells us that once we have sung a song over 50 times, we can sing that song without thought... and therefore without worship!
Even our bodies respond negativly to the same workout program. It is important in working out to keep your workout program varied if you want to achieve optimal results in the gym.

The habit itself should not change... but what we do within that habit should be varied in order to keep it vibrant and full of life. After all variety is the spice of life!
Are your devotional times predictable?
Change the order, change the venue, change the version of the Bible that you are reading, change the way you read the Bible (theres just reading through a book, word studies, topical studies, character studies, chronological studies, etc.) Instead of reading the Bible why not picture it, take parables and make modern versions of it, write your own psalms, make songs about it, sketch what you read, memorize versus, etc.)

It is a crime to make the Bible boring! Its a crime to allow ourselves to drain of life simply because we allowed ourselves to get stuck in a certain routine.
Be creative... and you will soon see life flooding your soul once again!

I look forward to your comments!

The Moscow Rules - Part 3

Yesterday we covered the 2nd of the Moscow Rules... and today we are looking at the 3rd. So just to recap on those 10 rules:
1. Know Your Mission
2. Gather Intelligence
3. Maintain A Natural Pace
4. Vary Your Pattern
5. Blend Into The Crowd
6. Be Aware Of Your Environment At All Times
7. Avoid Defensiveness At All Times
8. Assume That You're Under Servailence
9. Never Go Against Your Gut
10. Never Look Back

Maintain a natural pace... thats easier said than done in our crazy paced culture.
We glee over telling one-another how busy we are... but is our busyness something to smugly gloat over? Perhaps its this very busyness that killing the work of God in us!

Some thoughts from Mark Batterson:

• Study less and live more (not just a sermon well preached but a life well lived)
• Balance between family and ministry
• Balancing act between work & play

In our own ministries, we encourage our leaders to only be out at church activities 3 nights a week (1ce for life group, 1ce for Department service & 1ce for church service). We want our leaders to live balanced lives, to have time for family, mates and those who don't yet know Christ.
This has meant that we've had to do some serious shifting of various activities, but people's balance and personal spiritual health is of the utmost importance to us!
We've had plenty of leaders starting all keen and being involved 5 sometimes 6 nights a week... but these people soon burnout and shrivel back.
Serving God is a life long commitment... we need to pace ourselves accordingly.

How are you at pacing yourself?
What tips / habits have you developed in this area?

I look forward to your comments : )

The Moscow Rules - Part 2

Well for those of you who read yesterdays blog... I'm addicted to Alias... and just last night finished watching the 4th season. Now I'm waiting for the video store to buy in the 5th.

Yesterday we covered the 1st of the Moscow Rules... and today we are looking at the 2nd. So just to recap on those 10 rules:
1. Know Your Mission
2. Gather Intelligence
3. Maintain A Natural Pace
4. Vary Your Pattern
5. Blend Into The Crowd
6. Be Aware Of Your Environment At All Times
7. Avoid Defensiveness At All Times
8. Assume That You're Under Survelience
9. Never Go Against Your Gut
10. Never Look Back

So rule 2, gather intelligence... how can we apply this to our leadership?
Intelligence gathering is key to espionage... and it should be key to our faith.
Today the church suffers from both perceived and real irrelevance.
Are we answering the right questions? I know we always say that we have the answer... but apparently weren't answering the questions that the 'world' is asking.
Now I agree that part of the problem is that the 'world' isn't asking the right questions, but that ain't gonna change!
Can you imagine a fisherman not putting bait on their hook. We need to bait or make our presentation relevant to our audience (which should not be the church according to rule 1!)

The truth is irrelevance is irreverence!
God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent as well as omnirelevant! And so should the church be.

Today the prophets of our culture are the movies and music!
We should use these modern day 'prophets' to preach the good news to our culture!
Thats why in our youth youth ministry we did a series called mixed tape where we took secular music and preached off it... from Foo Fighters to Incubus, etc. we discovered some great spiritual truths.

But the church's preaching is just one aspect...
How is your life relevant to those outside of your faith?
Do you use the modern 'prophets' to create spiritual conversations?

I'd love to hear your comments : )

The Moscow Rules - Part 1

Over the past 3/4 weeks I have had a bit of an obsession...
I have consumed just short of 4 seasons of the TV show Alias!
Its a great show with plenty of suspense and adrenaline pumping action.

If I must be totally honest... I've even had a few "CIA" dreams...
Anyhow... a few blogs ago I did a post on 'Innovative Church Leaders Move Into The Neighborhood' which spoke about the Buzz Conference 07. At the Buzz conference Mark Batterson did 2 messages on 'The Moscow Rules'. I thought I'd take a few of his thoughts, mix them with some of mine and do a few blogs on these various rules.

Before we go there... heres a piece on the Moscow Rules:
The list may never have existed as written; agent Tony Mendez wrote "Although no one had written them down, they were the precepts we all understood ... By the time they got to Moscow, everyone knew these rules. They were dead simple and full of common sense..."

So here are 10 of those rules:
1. Know Your Mission
2. Gather Intelligence
3. Maintain A Natural Pace
4. Vary Your Pattern
5. Blend Into The Crowd
6. Be Aware Of Your Environment At All Times
7. Avoid Defensiveness At All Times
8. Assume That You're Under Survelience
9. Never Go Against Your Gut
10. Never Look Back

So today lets look at rule #1: Know Your Mission

Our mission as Christians is simple... To win people over so that we can share our lives and faith with them.
Jesus left us with the great commission (Matt 28:18-20) but in the church today it has become more of the great omission!
Jesus said that he came for the sick... but how much of our lives are spent in pursuit of the sick, the lost, the hopeless?

I must admit my greatest challenge is prioritizing space in my life for hanging out and doing life with those who need Jesus. Life is sooo busy, and I have just found over and over again that without great initiative and proactive planning on my part... this just doesn't happen.

Those who work statistics will tell you that after 2 years in the church, the average Christian doesn't spend anytime with non-Christians! How sad!!

This life will be over in a few blinks of the eye... you'll look in the mirror and wonder where the past 70 years have gone...
This life would have been wasted... even if we busied ourselves in church programs and devotion without concern for those who don't personally know Jesus!

What do you need to change in your week?
What tips do you have for keeping on mission?

I look forward to your comments : )