Leadership Training Seminar II, The Safeguard of Accountability

I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I believe that I shall see the. Goodness of the Lord in the land of the living I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord. In the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. Wait for the Lord. Wait for the Lord. Hey, God. Be strong. Let your heart take her. Be strong. Be strong. Let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord. Be strong. Let your heart take courage. Be strong. Let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord. Wait for the Lord. Let's get out of the pews. I believe that. Get out of those pews. Hallelujah. In the land of the living I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in. The land of the living. Wait for the Lord Wait for the Lord Wait for the Lord Once more. Be strong. Be strong. Let your heart take courage. Be strong. Let your heart take courage. Be strong, Let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord Be strong. Let your heart take courage. Let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord once more. Be strong, be strong. Let your heart take courage. Strong, let your heart take courage. Strong, let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord Be strong. Let your heart take courage. Be strong. Let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord Once more. I believe I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the. Land of the living. Wait for the Lord Wait for the Lord Wait for the Lord. How excellent, how excellent how excellent is thy name. How excellent, how excellent, how excellent is thy name. Once again. How excellent, how excellent, how excellent, how excellent is thy name how excellent, excellent how excellent, how excellent is thy name. Every knee shall bow Every knee shall. Bow Every tongue confess how excellent is. Thy name Every knee shall bow and. Every tongue confess how excellent is thy name the Lord is coming forth today a people for his praise the Lord is calling for today for his praise how how excellent how excellent is thy name how excellent, how excellent, how excellent. Is thy name Once more Every knee. Shall bow Every knee shall bow Every tongue confess how excellent is thy name. Every tongue confess how excellent is thy. The Lord is calling forth the Lord is calling forth today a people for his praise the Lord is calling. Hallelujah. How excellent, how excellent, how excellent how excellent is thy name how excellent, how. Excellent, how excellent is thy name let's. Just exalt his name. We praise your name, Lord. How excellent is your name, Lord Jesus Christ, our redeemer, our sanctifier, our wisdom and our righteousness. We exalt your name, Lord. We raise your name on high. Blessed be the name of our God and King. Hallelujah. Hallelujah, Jesus. Hallelujah. Oh, Lord, how many of you have been working all day long. You're just glad to be able to bless the Lord and receive. Now don't be expecting him to respond to your praises by washing over you with some refreshment. Okay, how about imparting? Go ahead and impart some refreshment to somebody. Give them a hug and impart some refreshment. Bless thou the Lord O my soul. Praise ye the Lord So just the ladies sing. I will sing. I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live I will sing praise to my God while I have my feet. My meditation of him shall be sweet. I will be glad. I will be glad in the Lord all together. Blessed are the Lord O my soul. Praise ye the Lord. Blessed are the Lord, O my soul. Praise ye the Lord. Blessed are the Lord, O my soul. Praise ye the Lord. Blessed are the Lord, O my soul. Praise ye the Lord. Bless thou the Lord. Bless thou the Lord. Praise the Lord. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Praise ye the Lord. Bless how the Lord of my soul. Praise the Lord. Bless thou the Lord O my soul. Once more make it an offering. Go beyond what you can give. Blessed thou the Lord Blessed the Lord O my soul. Praise ye the Lord. Bless thou the Lord O my soul. Praise ye the Lord. Bless all the Lord O my soul. Praise ye the Lord. Bless thou the Lord O my soul. Praise you the Lord. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. You know, in the coming Sunday, we're going to be looking at the ways that we hallow the name of our father and boy. We have so much that we can benefit by learning to really lift up and hallow. The word means to sanctify the names of God, to set them apart in our thinking and begin to dwell on the strength that God imparts. Would you just, wherever you are, think for a moment of just some of the names of the Lord Jesus that he might quicken to you right now. Just of the Lord Jesus. Think of some names. The Bible calls him Old Testament, New Testament. Just go ahead and begin to worship him with those names tonight. Thank you, Lord God. Lord, I thank you that you are my wisdom and my righteousness. The Bible says that you are my sanctification and my redemption. Glory to God that you are the captain of the host of the Lord tonight. Father Jesus, my strength and my rock. Hallelujah, Jesus, Praise the Lord. Remember this chorus. Jesus, you are the sweetest name. Jesus, you're the sweetest name of all. Jesus, you always hear me when I call. Jesus, you pick me up each time I fall. You're the sweetest, the sweetest name of all. Jesus, you're the sweetest name of all. Jesus. Jesus, you always hear me when I call. Jesus, you pick me up each time I fall. You're the sweetest, the sweetest name of all. Jesus, how I love to praise your name. Oh Jesus, you're still the first, the last, the same. Oh Jesus, Jesus, you died and took away my shame. You're the sweetest, the sweetest name of all. Jesus, you're the soon and coming king. Oh Jesus, we need the love that you bring. Oh Jesus, we lift our voices up and sing. You're the sweetest, the sweetest name of all. You're the sweetest, the sweetest name of all. Hallelujah. Oh, we worship your name tonight. Jesus, sweetest name. We worship you, lord. We worship the lord God almighty. How I love your name. O holy one of is right. In all your glory. In all your. Hallelujah. Jesus. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Bless God. Bless God. Bless the name of the lord. Blessed be our God, Father, we're here tonight to receive refreshment from you, Lord. How thankful I am, Father, that you recognized that your servants needed tending and feeding and refreshing, Lord. And that many times the Bible records that Jesus took his disciples away just to impart to them and just to rest together, Lord. Though we're here tonight to learn, we're here most of all to receive impartation, Holy Spirit. If we've learned nothing else in these last weeks, we've learned the wisdom of waiting on you and receiving from you. We just pray now tonight, Lord, that you in the unseen realm would loose towards us every provision for overcoming. Hallelujah, Lord. Every provision to overcome the snare of the evil one. To overcome weariness. To overcome the exhaustion of that which we have taken upon us as burdens and responsibilities today. Hallelujah, Lord. Impart life to us. Blessed be your holy name, Lord. Blessed be your holy name. Blessed be your holy name, Jesus. Praise the name of Jesus. Together. Praise the name of Jesus. Praise the name of Jesus. You're my rock. Once more. All together. Hallelujah. Praise the name of Jesus. Praise your name. Glory to God. You're my rock. You're my rock, you're my fortress, you're my deliverer. In you will I trust. Praise your name, Lord Jesus. Amen. Praise the Lord. Go ahead and be seated. Today I'm not C. Douglas Roth. That's an inside joke. Well, would you just take a couple minutes as we begin and focus on. We're going to talk about accountability to tonight and I want you to focus on two relationships. If you have two, if you have one, that's fine. Either a personal relationship of accountability or a ministry relationship of accountability. And I want you to get one on one with one other person. Describe that relationship and how it's defined and your perception of how well it's been going. A relationship, a personal relationship of accountability or a ministry relationship of accountability. Do you know what I'm talking about? Okay, do that right now. Will you get with another person, describe that and define how well it's going. To. Back together and talk about accountability. Something that really, you know, when you read through the Bible, there really, the word really isn't mentioned in the Bible. It doesn't talk about accountability, but it's replete with accountable relationships. You like replete? It's just filled with relationships that hold all the ingredients of accountability. My definition, our definition of accountability is the word accountable literally means the only definition I can find is answerable. So I see it as answerable relationship for agreed upon goals. Answerable relationships for agreed upon goals. That is really, in a sense, we might have a boss that has one goal and we have another. But due to our relationship in the company, we agree upon those goals, don't we? Many of us don't even have a choice upon the goals that are set by the company. We don't even have a part in that. But in the church, when we're really talking about goals in the church, we could pretty well agree on some purposes for the church, but those necessarily wouldn't be goals. Because there really is a difference between purposes and goals, aren't there? What are purposes? Just purposes are what more general than goals. They're aims, they're framework, they're a context in which we operate that we agree to operate. Everyone in the church is going to love one another, right? That's a purpose. Really loving relationships. What else? What's another purpose of the church? To spread the gospel, right? What's another purpose of the church? You just think, what was the purpose of Jesus? What was his reason for coming? Another purpose? To redeem what all mankind. Redeem the lost. You see that we want to focus on that because ultimately we can't hold people accountable for the purposes that we establish. What we can hold people accountable for and one another accountable for are goals. I believe that we agree upon goals that we agree upon. Now, we're going to talk a lot about goals. And Jerry just came up and he said, boy, I sure hope we come down to some definitions and some definable areas. And when you talk about there, under number two, a mutual goals, what are we talking about? Let me give some definitions here. Goals are statements about what we need to do as well as what we need to be. Goals are statements about what we need to do as well as what we need to be. And then I put a little parenthesis on that. That we might glorify God. That we might glorify God. That brings it under the rubric then of the purposes of God. Now, without goals, most of us recognize that without meaningful goals, we will wander aimlessly. Goals basically set our path in life. We go from one goal to the next. Next, can you think of some goals that Jesus set for himself? What are some goals that Jesus set for himself? Bill. That he would do the Father's will and know the Father's will. How did he. Okay, let's talk about goal. I want to put the framework for goals. Goals are measurable and accomplished. Goals are measurable and accomplishable. They help us to take our eyes off of the negative and to focus our thinking on the positive. That is present problems versus future possibilities, difficulties. Another way of looking at a goal is A goal is a statement about how we hope things are going to be at some time in the future. A statement about how we hope things are going to be at some time in the future. In other words, it's a statement of faith. What is faith? The substance of things hoped for. So we begin to get a picture of goals when we put these all together. They're definable, they're measurable, they're accomplishable. They're within our framework of possibility. They're not way out in some distant future in a way that puts them beyond our expectation, our realm of possibility, recognizing our quote, unquote limitations, and acknowledging at the same time that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Now, why is it so important that we talk about mutual goals? It's so significant. Because if we don't agree with him, if we don't agree with the goals that are set, are we going to accomplish them? They won't be accomplished if we don't agree on the goals that are set. So this little phrase always really helps help me. My goals are good goals and your goals are bad goals. My goals are good goals and your goals are bad goals. And that is unless they're our goals, unless we own them. Don't you hate somebody when they talk? Not hate, but I mean, you can't stand it when somebody talks about. Well, at the church, they do this and they do that. But when we begin to speak, we are envisioning this and we. We are doing this. We have problems in this area. You see the difference. And that's the same reality needs to be ours in relationship to our ministries. When it's their ministry and the home group leaders do this or the home groups do that, you can tell it's subconscious in a way, isn't it? You hear those attitudes coming across, whether the goals are owned. In other words, goals must have ownership, and they must be indeed our goals. Now, what we're talking about then, in terms of accountability is accountability for those goals that we set together. Now, sometimes we might set them individually, we might set. Now as elders, perhaps we might set some goals for the community. But if we don't communicate those goals, if we don't share those goals, if we don't enable those goals to become our goals together, or your goals as well, we're going to go nowhere. And that's the reason, quote, unquote, we're always talking. This is what leadership is all about. I believe one of the key qualities of leadership is to set accomplishable, measurable goals and to communicate them in such a way that we can hold each other accountable for reaching those goals. Goals. Does that make sense? I'll tell you, if we don't do that as leaders in our own individual ministries, there is no way that we're going to be successful. We're going to achieve the goals that we set. And thereby, you know, many of us choose to fail because we fail to plan, we fail to set goals. And we basically say, well, if I don't set goals, then I won't fail. But I'll tell you, beloved, if we don't set goals, we will fail in the eyes of the Lord. We will not accomplish anything of any significance. And so it applies across the board. Now, I'll give you an example, if I may do this, Gene. Oh, six months ago, a couple of gals came to me and they had a real burden to reach out to the singles, to the ones who seemed not to have any direction, wandering aimlessly, not feeling that they really were a part of things. And this had been on my heart long before they came because of my counseling load and recognizing the need. And I had been praying about that. And they just said, we need to reach out, but they didn't know how to do that or know how to proceed. So what does a good pastor say? Well, let's pray about it, right? And that's the greatest thing to say when you're not sure of what the next step is or what the goal should be or if there even should be any goals. And so what we prayed about is God raising somebody up in terms of providing leadership. And they both knew that they were not to be the leaders, but they wanted to be available. And so we agreed to pray together for six weeks. We would pray for God to raise up the person to share in the leadership of that ministry. And guess what? It didn't take six weeks. It took more like six months as we prayed through it and just began to seek the Lord. And we thought one person was going to do it, and that wasn't the person. And then God brought along Gene. And Gene had a vision for intercessory prayer. Well, here's a person over here with a desire, with a goal to meet the need of the church, to intercede on behalf of the body, of Christ and of the world. And here's two people over here say there's a yearning, longing need to reach out to these single women in the life of our body. And I believe that goal, the vision for me, was that those two would come together. That in reaching out, looking beyond themselves, that inward, the need to reach out and care for people would flow out of the need to pray. Because when we get together and begin to pray together and begin to minister to one another, well, just an excitement wells up and an anticipation and a vision. So that's what happened. Ultimately, Gene began to get together with these two ladies. Gene brought along another gal, and they had been meeting for about four or five weeks, just praying together during the second service, praying, interceding on behalf of the service and sharing other needs, sharing their own personal needs and beginning to minister to one another. And Jean says, well, I'm so excited. What do we do next? What is the goal? How do we set a goal? They are so malleable, so. So tender, so ready to do what God wants us to do. And said, let's. I said, well, let's begin to open the door. Let's see what God would do if we just opened the door to your friends, to your acquaintances, to these gals, acquaintances, and invite them to Begin to pray for one another and to pray and intercede on behalf of just the second service. I think that's basically what they're doing. They're interceding on behalf of the second service. See, all along my goal is to see this as a means of reaching out to single gals and single men over 30 or 35 in the life of this body. And I've shared that vision with them. But you know, see, we're going to plod along. We've agreed together that that is the goal. But how we reach that goal is going to be step by step. The mutually agreed upon goal is first of all, we'd pray together once a week. Week and meet together once a week. The next step is, and I'm sure it's been more than that, I bet you've had contact and interaction and phone calls and that kind of thing. It's all coming together. The next step is to open it up to our friends. The next step is to open up to the community. And by that time, see, these four gals will be trained to such a degree to pour in to give their lives away to four or five others. Do you see what the goal is that we would be ministering? That's the broadest goal to 50 or 60 women and men over 35 in the life of this body. But it begins with a vision for intercessory prayer and a vision to reach out that comes together. And God just established that in my heart. Now do you see what I'm saying? In other words, there was a long term goal goal and it's still not accomplished. But the short term goal was to begin with just praying together and caring for one another, administering one another and teaching them how more fully to do that Sunday by Sunday, week by week. Okay. Yes. It's always important to keep in mind the difference between a purpose and a goal is to even write them down. Let me give you an example. If you would put that right there. That's the one right there. And the Barnabas ministry and we're thinking about changing the name and giving it a name that really communicates to. Even the people who are not part of. You can't see it. Oh boy. Okay. Well, we tried. We have to get the large printers out. We'll have to move up close to the front. But I can go over and just read it. What it is, is the foundations of the Barnabas and New Life Ministry. We got together one Saturday and we're just brainstorming, Lord, how can we expand this ministry? How can we care for the new people that you're going to be sending and you have been sending? So we even thought immediately that the name should be changed to communicate more effectively. But let me just go down. Why don't you just start down that list? The scriptural basis is second Timothy two. We centered in on the Word. We focused on the Word and what that should be. And then we went on and talked about what is the purpose of our. Of this ministry. So again, we went back and redefined what is the purpose. And it's always good, if you've not done that in the home group, to bring it back. What is the purpose for us being together? What's the reason we're together? And define that and redefine it and do it once a month if need be. And I said to lay a biblical. We got four. The four or five of us centered in on this and agreed upon the purpose of this particular ministry to lay a biblical and spiritual foundation for every new believer so that they mature into a productive member of the body of Christ. That's the purpose. Those aren't goals because it's not measurable or in a sense, accomplishable. You can't measure whether it's been achieved. And then the third is the goal itself. Involvement with one person once per week for a minimum of six weeks. Weeks, covering the following areas as the means of providing a firm spiritual foundation. And we said, keep in mind the analogy between a newborn baby and their needs and the fact they don't get everything that they. All the analogies, they don't get everything that goes in their mouth. A lot of it goes out. And just keeping that in mind and recognizing that it's a relationship and yet they're an adult and we have to be sensitive to them. But all of that analogy. But see, the goal is once a week to accomplish a firm foundation for at least six weeks. And it'll probably be more like 12 weeks in some cases. In most cases. Does that make sense, in other words? And this establishes, then we can come back to this again and again, what is the reason? And as always, we can come back and redefine it. Now, most of you have, some of you, I shouldn't say most of you, some of you have done a lot of work in terms of goal setting, setting. Dan has helped the elders in terms of this whole process and worked through a lot of areas with us. And he does this, and I think Jerry does this full time for a living. So I know that you're constantly doing this, but for Most of us, we're struggling, you know, with our people, the people that we have accountability for, to continue to see the goal out in front. What are we trying to shoot for? For home group leaders? We have two purposes. Two purposes really to grow. Well, three really to grow in the Lord. Right. How do we do that? We set goals by setting this particular material we're going to be going through, building them in terms of the Spirit, in terms of the Word, in terms of fellowship and relationship, of freedom. Home we please, what is a second to grow, continue to grow. That we might split. And number three, that we would bring along another leader. We would grow up another Timothy and encourage him. Now, that would be three purposes of a home group leader, and that's different than the home group itself. But what is he doing? He's always keeping that vision before him as he deals with the people week after week and encouraging them to move out, to move beyond themselves, to grow up and take responsibility themselves and become accountable themselves. Okay, so and then I. And then we list out. See, these are the guidelines. These are the. Just. You can go all the way down that, Paula. And this is how to feed themselves. And we see, we make the analogy to the baby, how to talk to the Father in prayer, how to dress themselves in their appropriate garments for spiritual warfare, praise and worship and scripture memorization. To have a proper self image in the family of God. That's the framework then of achieving the goal, and that is to grow up a babe in Christ so that they can in turn teach another the same thing. Ultimately, the process isn't done until they in turn can do it with another. Okay, so let's. We'll turn that off and we'll go on. I talk about the second quality of an accountable relationship, and that is submitted a submitted heart. I don't think that you'll find this quality in a lot of churches, really, and among a lot of pastors. But the reality is that we believe that each of us indeed are ministers, each of us are priests, and each of us have input. And there is nothing that we set in cement that God can't change through one of you. And we have to come to ultimately come to some agreement and say this is the way and we really believe this is what God's calling us to us. We need to keep checking that in prayer, don't we? Keep coming before the Lord in that. But ultimately, in terms of your own ministry, anyone in your ministry has the freedom to call into question the purpose and the goals to call into question really any Area of our lives, character wise, decision wise, attitude wise, goal wise. And the Scripture really, you think about Ephesians 5:21 that begins the passage regarding husband and wife. But it's really key. Ephesians 5:21 be submitted to one another out of reverence for Christ is really an umbrella for all of our relationships. Of course we know that from Jesus life in terms of his own willingness to submit. He wants to be greatest in the kingdom, must be servant of all. And a servant heart really is one who's teachable and has a teachable spirit. We talked about it a number of times in terms of leadership. But we can never say we have all the answers or this is the only way that we can go. But we want to, as one version say, argue together as talking God saying, come let us reason together. But one version puts it, come, let us argue together. And in the weeks ahead, I think even next week, we're going to talk about conflict and conflict resolution in the body of Christ. And I think that will be a significant time for us to give. I'm having a lot of conflicts, so I need all the teaching I can get. But, and it's something that I believe that as a body, as we grow, it's only natural that we're going to have more conflicts. You look at your children when they're little babes, they don't have a lot of conflicts, do they? You know, but as they grow, more and more conflicts begin to happen between, in the family and we see that. I know you've seen that in your, in your relationships, in the body here, the conflicts that come come up. And so we're going to be talking about that. But the key attitude, the key is our attitude of submittedness one to the other, that we submit so that the accountability flows both ways. Accountability for common goals. So when they're not achieved, and Jay's going to talk more about that in just a minute, but when they're not, we're not moving forward toward the goals. We're not taking steps and walking toward that either short term or long term. Goal, goal. We can approach one another in love, we can confront one another in love, we can speak the truth in love and there will be power. I think most of us really want people to speak into our lives. I know that a number of you have said that. I really want you to speak into my life. And I'm going to tell you that's the hardest thing in the world for me. I don't know about you, but to speak into somebody else's life, even though they've given permission is very hard. It all of a sudden puts great responsibility, a great sense of responsibility. Isn't that what accountability is, a call to responsibility? So that's another definition of accountability, a call to responsibility, mutual responsibility. See one to the other. And so I have, I have no trouble talking about this. And I don't know if it was the devil or the Lord just brought it to mind because I'm thinking that some have been burned in this whole area of accountability. I have never been burned in this area of accountability. By God's grace, the people who have been over me and held me accountable have done it in a very loving, caring. They want to see me succeed and be successful. Isn't that what we talked about last week? The goal of accountability is to see the person that we're giving our lives to and responsible for before the last Lord to be a success. So let me just finish there. Then number three, I talk about another foundation of accountable relationships and that is single mindedness. Single mindedness. Let's look at Second Peter, chapter three, verse ten. I say recognize that everything in this world is temporary, temporal and transient. Somebody read that for us. I had the privilege of talking with a young lady today who is really struggling with God and his reality. And I shared, had a chance again to share the gospel, which I love to do. And. One of the points that I made in my presentation of the gospel today was how recognizing the things that we see are not really the things that last, the things that we touch are not the things that matter, the things that we have. And yet how much time do we spend thinking about them? And every time I share the gospel, I always get convicted, as I'm sure you do. But and see, I believe that someone who has an accountable relationship. And I see what I'm talking about here and what we're talking about for the most part is our personal accountability, our responsibility to enable another person to hold them accountable. And as I said, Jay's going to be talking more about that. But we often have to keep this single minded attitude before us that really the most important thing is what we're doing in relationship to building the kingdom of God. The most important thing that we can do is build into another person's life to grow them up and to mature them. And if that means in ministry, see, it's just in a little different context, we're working together towards a common goal, towards a common purpose. We're working as one. And so if one is out here kind of Straggling along. Well, whose responsibility is it to see them come along and enter in to feel a part of things? It's my responsibility and I have to keep a single minded attitude that what I'm doing is. What we're doing is the most significant thing that we can do. And the things of this world are transient. And I have to realize that only two things last forever. The word of God in people's lives. See, only two things last forever. And when I think of that, then when I put it back in perspective. I don't know about you, but lately I've been feeling an awful lot about taking a vacation to Florida. It seems like in California you never hear about Florida ever except for the storms. But here every other day I hear about Florida. Everybody's going to Florida, doggone it, Jack. And see, it's so easy for us to fall into that. If I could just escape, if I could just get away and ultimately see, that's so transient. What am I doing in relationship to building the word of God in my own life and in people's lives and building people up in their relationship with God, that's the most important. That's what's going to last forever. And then secondly, in the single minus, life is too short to be wasted. James 4:14. Does somebody have. That's funny. I mean, I didn't even think about this, but you're a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. You're like the grass that withers and fades. And our time is so short, you know, and this is something that Jay has really helped me with. He's so intense. He's so intense in terms of understanding the priorities of life. Life. And we didn't talk about priorities in the framework of goals and purposes, but priorities basically help you to establish what goals are important and what aren't. One of my goals that I shared with Jay a couple weeks ago was a short term goal to run a marathon before I'm 40. Well, there's the Pittsburgh marathon. Don't laugh. The Pittsburgh Marathon is May 5th. Well, you know, and here there's Mike back in the back and he's been trying to get me in shape and I had a little, I got a. Little. Sore in my foot and it really hurt me. I was really hard and I thought, oh, I don't know. But see, what I've got to do is continue to keep that in perspectiv