Abiding in Christ key factor for leaders — Hope Stephens
Christian leaders often hold multiple positions. Abiding in Christ is a key factor in empowering Christians to lead
others.
According to Hope Stephens, former consultant and Missions Adventure Camp director for Alabama Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU), to abide is to remain, stay and continue in a place. Abiding in Christ is not a destination or a task to cross off. It is instead the active process of continually seeking God’s presence.
“When we abide in Christ, there is a steady presence of peace,” Stephens said. “We are constantly growing. The Lord is teaching and pruning us in that.”
By abiding in Christ, the believer will produce fruit, allowing Him to direct his or her prayers, sharing His love and experiencing His joy.
A Christian leader’s first priority is to create and protect time and space to abide with Christ, Stephens said. By reading and meditating on God’s word while praying for wisdom and understanding, leaders can receive guidance and courage to be obedient to the will of God.
Abiding in Christ will allow the Christian to lead with peace and confidence, focusing on others with Christ as his or her goal. In this way, leadership becomes a personal and God-centered act of worship. (Lanell Downs Smith)
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‘Digital Babylon’ culture competing for hearts, souls, minds
By David Kinnaman
President, Barna Research
Many of us today turn to our devices to help us make sense of the world. Teens and young adults, especially, use the screens in their pockets as counselors, entertainers, instructors, even their sex educators.
Why build up the courage to have what will likely be an awkward conversation with a parent, pastor or teacher when you can just ask your phone and no one else will be the wiser?
When it comes to technology, the path of least resistance is not scorn-worthy because it’s easy. It’s praiseworthy because it’s efficient.
Google searches are wonderful benefits, mostly, of life in the modern world. Who hasn’t found their life improved by access to the right information at the right time? Watch a step-by-step tutorial on repairing your dishwasher. Listen to your favorite song. Discover a new recipe.
Screens are magical portals to more rabbit holes than Alice could visit in many thousands of lifetimes — and a few even lead somewhere helpful. Yes, there’s the rub: instant access to information is not wisdom. How do you find the rabbit hole that leads to real, worthwhile wisdom for living well and following Jesus in an accelerated, complex culture?
We at Barna have adopted a phrase to describe our culture that is marked by phenomenal access, profound alienation and a crisis of authority: digital Babylon.
Ancient Babylon was the pagan-but-spiritual, hyperstimulated, multicultural, imperial crossroads that became the unwilling home of Judean exiles, including the prophet Daniel, in the 6th century BCE.
But digital Babylon is not a physical place. It is the pagan-but-spiritual, hyperstimulated, multi-cultural, imperial crossroads that is the virtual home of every person with Wifi, a data plan or — for most of us — both.
The Jewish elite were captured after Babylonia’s military conquest of Judah, forcibly taken to the empire’s capital and subjected to a cultural conquest nearly as devastating as their military defeat. (The book of Daniel is a vivid account of Babylon’s culture-eradication campaign and of how some exiles successfully resisted.)
If a literal Babylon were around today, the internet would certainly be in the imperial toolbox — and insofar as we thoughtlessly consume whatever content comes our way, we’d be cheerful participants in our own colonization.
Websites, apps, movies, TV, video games, music, social media, YouTube channels and so on increasingly provide the grid against which we test what is true and what is real. The media and the messages blur the boundary between truth and falsehood. What is real is up for grabs.
The power of digital tools and the content they deliver is incredible, and we are the first generation of humans who cannot rely on the earned wisdom of previous generations to help us live with these rapid technological changes. Instead of older adults and traditions, many young people turn to friends and algorithms.
Much more could be said, but the point is this: we are on the front end of a digital revolution that is tinkering with what it means to be human.
We are all residents of digital Babylon. We are all exiles now.
Excerpted from “Faith for Exiles: 5 Ways for a New Generation to Follow Jesus in Digital Babylon,” copyright Baker Books, 2019. Used with permission. BakerPublishingGroup.com.
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Letters to the editor
I read the article on being generous and it made me really aware of ways to be generous.
One of those happened this morning. I was in a medical clinic and as I was sitting in the waiting room, two people had come in wanting to be seen but had no insurance. They didn’t have the $70 to be seen so they were turned away and had to go to the ER. It broke my heart.
I looked in my wallet and I pulled out some cash I had. I counted a $20, another $20, another $20, then a $5, and then I started counting the ones. And there was exactly $70 cash in my wallet. So I took it to the receptionist and asked her to hold it for the next person who couldn’t afford to pay the $70 to be seen.
She was very appreciative, and I hope that that $70 blesses someone and gets them quick medical care. Thanks for inspiring generosity, especially this time of year.
Anonymous
My wife and I receive TAB courtesy of Memorial Baptist Church, Citronelle, and we look forward each week to its arrival. Keep up the good work.
John McWhorter
Deer Park, Ala.
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I wish I followed God as faithfully as I follow my Garmin’s turn-by-turn directions.
Traylor Lovvorn
Co-founder of Route1520 and Undone Redone
We can do far more together than we can do on our own. We can do better together serving God together.
Barry Cosper
Associational missions strategist, Bessemer Baptist Association
If we are not careful, sometimes we like to do a good deed here or there, think God is happy with us, feel good about ourselves and then go on our merry way to do whatever makes us happy. Yet God is not interested in our momentary efforts, He wants our hearts!
Pastor Matthew DeBord
FBC Clanton
We like to focus on the far more abundantly part and it’s awesome, but that doesn’t happen without the Father! It’s because of Him and we must keep Him on the throne seat of our life to then experience Him. That’s the far more abundantly that He has for us. Himself.
Matthew Daniels
Baptist campus minister, University of North Alabama
It is my prayer this year that we become more evangelistic than ever before; that we are willing to do whatever it takes to see that people hear about our Jesus.
Keith Box
Director of missions, Marion Baptist Association
You don’t want Jesus to be an addition to your life, you want Him to give you the mission for your life.
Pastor Matt Mason
The Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham
The more experience I have as a theologian and pastor, the more I see the virtue of keeping the gospel message as my focus. One cannot avoid politics, simply because one is human. However, wisdom somtimes calls for silence, sometimes for speech. Knowing the difference in tough.
Malcolm Yarnell
via Twitter
Can you say, “I know that I have grown in the Lord,” comparing now to the previous year? Do you have a greater love and appreciation for who He is?
Larry Vinson
Director of missions, Cleburne Baptist Association
Please pray with me that in the year 2020 our congregation will focus on studying God’s word and sharing the gospel with those we meet.
Julie Donovan
Children’s minister, North Shelby Baptist Church, Birmingham
All of you who serve in a role of leadership in the local church have an awesome responsibility. Whether you are the pastor, teacher, director or deacon, the congregation has placed their trust in you to help equip the church body for service. You cannot possibly do that effectively if you are not consistently sharpening your leadership skills.
When God calls us to serve Him, He also expects us to prepare to do our best. That preparation is not a one-time event. It is an ongoing experience.
Larry Felkins
Retired director of missions, Chilton Baptist Association
I do not hold onto Jesus’ hand — that would be a perilous way to live. Jesus holds me with His hand and nothing can undo His grip of love, grace and forgiveness.
Bob Adams
Retired pastor
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From the Twitterverse
@ERLC
We should seek to find fulfillment and delight in the arts, sports, our vocation, ministry and any other good gifts, first of all, for God’s glory; he’s the one who has gifted, enabled and sent us to use our abilities for his mission.
— @matcrawford
@MichaelHyatt
The secret to accomplishing what matters most to you is committing your goals to writing. …
@scottsauls
We say that people are proud of being rich or clever or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer or cleverer or better-looking than others. … It is the comparison that makes you proud — the pleasure of being above the rest. — C.S. Lewis
@gavinortlund
Some of the difficulties our non-Christian neighbors have with accepting the gospel are more concerned with contemporary evangelical views than with historic Christianity.
@pjanrn_c
“Today I shall behave as if this is the day I will be remembered.”
— Dr. Seuss
@Franklin_Graham
God can use each of us to bless someone’s life in different ways, even if it’s not financial. What do you think would happen if we started each day by asking Him to use us to make a difference in the lives of others? Watch the joy …
@myutmost
We want to cling to our natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us in contact with the life of Jesus Christ — a life that can never be described in terms of natural virtues. #myutmost,
utmost.org
@ToddAdkins
“Unless your church perceives more danger in maintaining the status quo than moving into this new unknown territory, they’re not going to move forward.” #90SL #LeadershipPipeline
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