Some of you may be unaware that my formal training is in business management. When I was getting my MBA, I had to read a book called The Goal by Eli Goldratt. And while the book doesn’t age particularly well, the emphasis of the book was simplifying problems down to one goal. One of the ways that the main character, Alex, is mentored is by reverse engineering his problems. So, at this year’s recommissioning, we looked to the future and moved backwards to where we are right now.
As a leader, I want you to know where we’re going:
A year from now we will be participating in a churchwide Alpha. The ambition is that many of us will experience God anew through awakening the hearts of those who don’t yet know him. It could be friends, coworkers, neighbors, family members, strangers or even those who attend our church now but don’t yet know Jesus. This is all under the banner of replanting Vineyard Columbus. We want people to meet Jesus and have him bring about his rule and reign in their lives.
Ahead of that, about nine months from now, we’ll be in the late spring early summer of 2022. This is a time of preparation. We will be preparing our environments (home, meeting space at work, a room at the local library) to host people in the fall. This is a time to flex those invitational muscles.
In about five months, we will be in the season of Lent preparing our hearts and minds for expectation. We are eager to see God move through us! Right ahead of Lent is the Holy Spirit conference coming at the beginning of 2022. To be clear, we want you to wait on the Holy Spirit in this season of renewal. The hope is for us to encounter the Holy Spirit afresh through things like the Holy Spirit conference, Lent, and even through something special that we are preparing in small groups at the beginning of 2022.
And now you’re at today – a few weeks away from the Legacy Conference in October. Over this past year we have been in a season of rebuilding our habits around meeting regularly, attending church and serving.
So why did I bring you through that reverse engineered path from the future back to the present? In reading, you likely feel a mix of emotions. Some excitement but also a bit of exhaustion or anxiety as you reflect on those in your group participating in Alpha. There is a lot of work ahead for the next year. But I shared this path to give a realistic picture of the setting. This year is largely research and development. It also means that some of our activities won’t tie as closely to the sermons. I’m not as concerned about your conversations being about the sermon content in as much as I am praying for actions of our lives to look like our King. That takes hard work. And we have a problem.
We have a leader shortage. This is a term borrowed from the world of business that means that demand for groups is higher than the supply of leaders we have. We have more people looking for groups than are available to send them to. This reality is forming a bottleneck.
The good news is that Jesus knows this. We’re not alone with this problem. “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
So, what do you do when you are in situations like this? Where are you facing a shortage? Maybe it’s a demand for energy that is greater than the supply. Or perhaps your workplace is facing a shortage of workers. When I find myself in places of shortage, I tend to (over)work. I want to show my God that he can rely on me. God is always looking for those he can trust. And while it’s not wrong to work hard, God does not ask me only to work hard, but speaks to how it is that I work.
In our small group last month, we studied the following verses out of the Gospel of Matthew:
Matthew 11:27-30
27 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
We were discussing the cost of following Jesus.
- We know the Father’s will by knowing Jesus.
- We know the Father by knowing Jesus.
- Therefore, as we follow Jesus, we are doing the will of the Father.
And as much as we need to hear these words as a comfort when we’re tired, we also need to hear the cost of following Jesus from these verses. The cost is this: there is a yoke. We need to learn from him. What he specifically wants us to learn is his gentleness and humility. We will not experience rest or the yoke being easy or the burden being light without surrender. Jesus says this is the way forward and what we need to learn from him.
As Julia mentioned a few weeks ago, the cost comes with the benefit of rest for our souls. Rest is found in learning from Jesus. We carry and accumulate burdens that we just cannot bear. But as you continually come to Jesus and take on his life, your will become continually easy and light – not burdensome.
So, looking to the work set ahead of us, the only way you will be able to do it is by learning from Jesus. I want you to consider what God may be saying.
Some of you need rest. This this past season has done violence to your soul. So let us know that you need to put work down for a bit. You’re not giving up; you need to reconnect with Jesus and follow him outside of being a leader right now.
Some of you need release. You didn’t sign up for this particular way of leading. You may still want to host or support someone who leads a group, but this is not the season for you to lead in this way. If that is you, please let us know and we’ll kindly take you off of our email distribution and leader list.
My hope is that that many of you are in need of recommissioning. You are all in, whether you are a brand-new leader or you’ve been one for some time. You want what Hebrews 6 calls the ‘powers of the coming age’ to be more apparent now. You want a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit to lead with more boldness. You want to see the fruit of your labor expressed in Kingdom realities like signs and wonders, people coming to Jesus for the first time, and a renewed hope in the future of the world. We want to bless and commission you.
Let me close with one last passage from Matthew 9:35-38
35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
