We just finished our annual Generation Unleashed Conference at City Bible Church. Over two weekends, we hosted about 6,000 teens and young adults for an awesome time of worship, devotions, powerful preaching, and prayer.

We also hold leadership sessions in the mornings for all youth pastors, leaders, and all those involved in leadership training. College age young adults, interns, and some senior pastors and their staff came. This is the group I speak to every year and it is always a wonderful time of reconnecting to this age of leaders.

This year I chose “servant leadership” as my topic and found an amazing response to this subject. Servant leadership is not gift-based or talent-based leadership. Servant leadership starts in the heart and moves from the heart. What underlines servant leadership is the motivation behind our actions as leaders.

Servant leaders who are serving people the way Jesus served people are a special kind of leader. Every leader has a style, a calling, a gift, and distinctive strengths and weaknesses. In the middle of these gifts there is a core that affects how our leadership flows through all of these. What is at the core should be a new spirit that is a Jesus spirit.

The Jesus spirit says “I serve” rather than “I lead.” Servant leadership is upside down leadership. It is opposite of all the top-down models we are so familiar with. Instead of forcing those below you in organization to serve you, you as a leader serve those who can do nothing for you. Leaders serve and servants lead.

In this teaching, I gave the servant leader foundations, a biblical definition of servant leadership, hindrances to becoming a servant leader, two kinds of leaders, and eight servant leadership insights.

Download the notes “8 Characteristics of Servant Leaders” at our store. Please click here to learn more and to find more resources.

Everyone has an atmosphere. Every place has an atmosphere. An atmosphere is that pervading feeling or sense of something that sets a certain tone and mood. The right music in a film sets an atmosphere of suspense, relaxation, humor, and so on. Likewise, our churches and our lives carry a certain atmosphere.

The element that should mark our personal and corporate atmosphere is the presence of God. The personal presence of God is not just some sort of “force” that we seek, but it is personal, real, and life-changing. Before Moses set out to lead the people, he made one request – that God’s presence went with them.

What is God’s presence? In Scripture, the presence has the idea of God’s face being turned toward someone in acceptance and favor. His presence fills up, pervades, permeates, and overspreads every place. He is present in the whole of creation and universe.

God also chooses to reveal His presence in a manifest way, that is, something tangible. One author wrote this about the manifest presence: “To be in the presence of the Lord is to be revived. When a community of believers is brought low before the presence of the Lord, when the very air that they breathe appears to be supercharged with the sense of His presence – this is the beginning of revival. It is revival!”

Why does God want to manifest His presence?

• To commune with His people – God desires to have a close relationship with every person.
• To confirm His Word to His people – Receive confirmation and strength to do the things God has asked you to do.
• To inspire His people to do great and mighty things – Take the lid off your imagination and pursue what you thought was impossible. It’s possible with God!
• To call His people to action – No more excuses, no waiting, no procrastination. Act now.
• To comfort, heal, and restore His people – In His presence is refreshing and healing. The Holy Spirit is our comforter at all times.
• To inspire courage, faith, and new vision – Lift your eyes to see the God-sized vision for your life and receive His strength to do it.

The presence of God is a place where things happen! Are you building an atmosphere in your life and your church that welcomes and daily encounters the presence of God?

Read more about setting the spiritual atmosphere. Check out the resources at our store by clicking here. We recommend:
“The Atmosphere of the Presence of God” sermon notes, click here
Alive, sermon series, click here
Strong, sermon series, click here

Every person has a choice: slumber and sleep your way through life or wake up and live life to the maximum! Life is meant to be filled to the full of all the great things God has done, is doing, and will do in the future.

Life is best lived when aligned to Jesus and His Word, living a life of abandonment and agreement, anticipating God to do great things. How is your anticipation today? How positive are you about the future?

Are you enjoying life to the max?

• “Awakening Anticipation” sermon notes, click here
• “Alive” sermon series, click here
• Imagine, book, click here

Leaders are stewards. When we hear the word “stewardship,” most of us think about money. Yes, money is one thing of which we are stewards, but leaders are also stewards of the resources of people, time, and knowledge.

One of the greatest tests of stewardship: people

• Leadership Series: 3 part sermon notes, click here



• Leader Who Builds the Church: sermon notes, click here
• Leaders Who Thrive: sermon notes, click here
• Character All Leaders Must Have, book, click here

Have you ever popped opened a bag of chips, sunk your teeth into a piece, expecting a nice crunch, only to find it is soft and gooey and definitely without flavor? That chip was stale, not fresh!

Fresh bread or stale?

• The Leadership Series: 3-part series, click here



• A2-Seven Characteristics of the A2 Church Builder: sermon notes, click here
• Awakening: sermon series, click here
• Becoming a Surplus Leader: sermon notes, click here

Whether delivered as a line in a Disney movie or exchanged between friends embarking on a dangerous expedition, the question, “Do you trust me?” must be asked of leaders. Trust must be earned and protected at all costs, because without trust, we have an empty leadership process.

Trust is a firm belief in the honesty of another and the absence of suspicion regarding motives or practices, with no fear in the relationship. When you deem someone trustworthy, you are saying, “I believe you are capable of doing what you say you can do, and that you will actually do it if you say you will.”



There are some trust myths that leaders have:

• Trust because of my position: I should be trusted because I have a title or a respected position.
• Trust because of my experience: Experience is not sufficient to make trust happen. Some people with the richest and deepest experiences can be morally corrupt and unworthy of trust.
• Trust because of my skills: Skill may demand awe or even respect, but not guarantee trust.
• Trust because I ask for it: This is trust on-demand. If I ask for it, then I should get it.

Trust is a key factor in leadership. Without trust, there will be little teamwork and low energy. Let me give you a few leadership characteristics that build trust:

1. Integrity: honesty in one’s words and consistency in one’s actions. Gaps between what people anticipate and what actually occurs gives rise to distrust.

2. Honesty: open and truthful, not deceitful or hypocritical, and not taking unfair advantage

3. Truthfulness: quality of being accurate in all that is spoken, presenting things with a truthful, authentic, and genuine perspective.

4. Promise fulfillment: Trust is built on kept promises. Leaders should be known as people who are capable of being depended upon and worthy of belief because of faithfulness to do what is promised.

5. Consistency: Trust takes time to build through visible actions, time, true words, and true behavior repeated over and over. Trust is built when people can anticipate what right direction you will take.

6. Delegate righteously: using delegation as a tool to train others, knowing when and how to hand over responsibility to someone else and let them grow with it.

7. Pure motivation: perception that the actions, words, direction, mission, or devices are pure motives rather than hidden, self-serving motives.

When you ask your team or your colleagues, “Do you trust me?” what do they say?

Please check out our resources on leadership and building trust. Click on the links below for these recommended titles:

Great vision is a vision that is as big as our great God. That vision is ours to grasp, we need only to reach out and take it. Martin Luther once said, “God loves not the questioner but the runner.”

The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to share the steps. We must step up the stairs! Great leaders understand that the vision must be taken.

Those who take the vision have a spirit like Caleb who, along with Joshua, took the Promised Land. Here are some qualities of the Caleb spirit.

1. A Caleb spirit follows God fully, unswayed by the size of the opposition.

Caleb believed God’s promise that the land where giants currently resided could be his for the taking. He believed it when he first spied out the land and he believed it 40 years later when he was much older yet still strong.

To take possession of the vision, you must not allow opposing words, people, or circumstances to sway your faith and determination that the vision will be fulfilled.

2. A Caleb spirit follows God fully, undaunted by limitations of man.

Age was not a limitation. At the age of 85, Caleb had a spirit that possessed his inheritance! Gender was not a limitation. Both male and female were instrumental in taking the land, building cities, and building families.

Whether you have been in ministry for 3 years or 30 years, you are able to take the inheritance promised you! Do not be daunted by what you think are limitations.

3. A Caleb spirit is birthed into the heart of the next generation.

The spirit to take possession must be passed on to the next generation. It takes a cooperative effort by all generations to shoulder the vision and march confidently into the future. We must build a generation of leaders who break the spirit of retirement and say, “Where’s the biggest mountain? That’s the one I want! Where are the biggest giants? Those are mine!”

Be strong and courageous! The mountains and limitations in your way are no match for God. Take possession of the great vision ahead of you.

Please check out more of our resources on vision and strong leaders at our store. Recommended titles include:

The last couple of days, we have talked about great vision and the leaders that implement it. Today I want to address another aspect of great vision with this statement: Great vision takes great faith!

Does your faith match the greatness of the vision?

“Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime!” Reinhold Nieburh made this statement and I think it is a fitting perspective. Vision should be so grand that it extends beyond your capacity to do on your own and beyond your lifetime.

Vision is that which a congregation perceives by the Holy Spirit as pertaining to God’s purpose for them.

Do your people see the vision and are you leading them there?

Vision is a biblical word. A spiritually healthy person or church must have a biblically accurate vision that they are continually progressing toward fulfilling. A participating member of a local church is a person of vision and is an important factor in fulfilling the vision. The responsibility for casting that vision rests on the leadership.

Leadership has two critical components: knowing where you are going and knowing who will go with you. The people willing to follow will face certain faith challenges and take certain risks, so you must have a clear picture of where you are headed and it must be the right direction.

An effective church must have a clear vision. Clear vision provides the church with clear direction. It enables the church to move together in unity of mind, spirit, and purpose. It also motivates people because it is the lifeblood and the driving force behind the church.

Clear, Holy Spirit inspired vision that is as big as our great God will motivate people to make sacrifices and work for the vision.

A church with clear vision has the grace factor. I see three levels of grace needed for a church with vision. The first level is individual grace. This includes every person’s unique gifts and calling. Next is family grace. There might be a medical grace given to a family that produces generation after generation of doctors, or a ministerial grace that produces generation after generation of ministers.

Then there is corporate grace, a God-given gift present in a group of people that empowers them to serve God together in a special way to produce spiritual fruit. A church with vision recognizes and pursues the corporate grace that unlocks a harvest of spiritual fruit.

A church with clear vision is effective if… its people are committed and equipped to function in fulfilling the vision. You might have a vision for the church that is grand and inspired, but the people must be divinely energized and unified to accomplish the God-given plan.

A church with vision is effective as long as it controls hindering tendencies that would stagnate and divide vision. This calls for leadership to be strong, focused, and committed to the prophetic vision which has been agreed upon. Every effort must be marshaled strategically to accomplish the vision.

A church without vision is like a glacier, fascinating to observe but going nowhere fast! Do you have a clear vision for your life and ministry?

Read more about vision in the new series called “Great Vision for a Great Church.” Click here to read more at our store. Also check out these other resources on church building:

“Leader Who Builds the Church,” sermon notes, click here
“Strong Leaders Build Strong Churches,” sermon notes, click here
“Unleashing the Power to Grow,” sermon notes, click here