“In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.” –Augustine

A fundamental ingredient to successful church growth and health is unity. A unified church will receive the blessing of God, have success in spiritual battles, see powerful results in prayer, and fulfill God-given vision.

But unity does not come naturally. It has to be cultivated, starting with the leadership team. Here are five attitudes that will promote unity on the team and in the church.

1. Attitude of humility

Another word for humility is “lowliness.” This is modesty, having a humble opinion of one’s self and a deep sense of one’s moral smallness. The humble person does not insist on being right all the time or always making his voice heard. He does not feel the need to justify his every action. Unity of the whole is more important than undue attention drawn to himself.

2. Attitude of kindness

Kindness, or gentleness, is treating others charitably, not insisting on the letter of the law. Kindness and meekness is a quality that enables a person to suffer wrong and not retaliate, murmur, or criticize, but to commit himself and the circumstance to God.

3. Attitude of forbearing

“Forbearing” is bearing with one another in love. It is making room for another’s faults because of love. This is an ongoing decision to steadily pour yourself out for others in acts of love and being quick to mend fences. You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction. So stay together.

4. Attitude of love

Love the Jesus way – with responsibility, deliberately setting your will and your mind to love people with attitudes and actions. God gives the power to love the unlovable.

5. Attitude of peace

Peace is the bond that keeps the unity chain together. There must be peace between individuals for there to be peace in the church. The church and the team are made of people, so without peace between individuals, there will not be peace corporately. Protect the atmosphere of unity with peace.

This post was taken from the new series now available at our store: “Dynamic Effects of Spiritual Unity.” Click on the links below to learn more about this and other resources and to download immediately.

• Dynamic Effects of Spiritual Unity, sermon series: click here
• Atmosphere, sermon series: click here
• Awakening, sermon series: click here
• Relationships, sermon series: click here

“United we stand, divided we fall.”

This is the motto of the state of Kentucky. It’s a principle that applies to so many areas of life, particularly the church. To build an enduring church, we must build with the dynamic, vital principle called unity.

Unity is singleness of heart and mind, being whole and one in purpose. The people of God are called to be one unit with one heart, mind, judgment, accord, spirit, and focus. The church that grasps and preserves this vital principle will be powerful in accomplishing God’s plan for them.

But like everything that is powerful in the Kingdom, unity can be attacked. The attack on unity comes in the form of offense. Offense is described in the Bible as a snare, something like a trap that baits an animal and snaps shut once the creature puts his foot in the trap’s jaws.

Here are a few signs of unresolved offenses. Learn to recognize these so you can combat them and preserve unity.

1. Strained relationships and bitterness

Bitterness spreads within your life, showing up in attitudes and emotions. Bitterness always grows, always causes trouble, and always defiles others. Blame and resentment are ways to split people into groups. Watch for any unforgiveness you are holding and be quick to forgive.

2. Resisting authority

Offense causes distrust, hindering response to authority. When you resist authority, you are choosing to separate yourself from the direction God is leading the church through His leaders.

3. Drifting from, and ultimately leaving, the local church

The local church is the place of planting. Trees planted in stress sites such as the side of a hill or a windy spot will grow stronger than one grown in a greenhouse. The tension grows a stronger, better wood. The planting place is designed to cause some stress tension to the tree. Don’t run from that stress. Stay where you are planted.

4. Strongholds of vain imaginations

The trauma of offense may cause a person to become emotionally unstable, seeing all situations and circumstances through the frame of their offense. Realize the reality of your situation. Don’t allow your mind to wander and extrapolate the situation. Don’t make a mountain out of a molecule.

Resolve today to root out habits or thoughts that threaten unity in your church and your life. United we stand!

This post was taken from the new series now available at our store: “Dynamic Effects of Spiritual Unity.” Click on the links below to learn more about this and other resources and to download immediately.

Much work goes into building a healthy church that endures. It takes time, a team, and lots of work! Throughout the years that I have worked at a church, planted a church, and led ministry teams, I have found that there are seven key elements for enduring church health and growth.

1. Continual growth

The church leadership team must continually grow, reach and achieve vision both personally and as a team. They must see the future with a 360° vision: the near future (0-5 years), the future (5-10 years), and the distant future (10-50 years).

2. Fluid structure

The church structure must be conducive to the vision allowing for change and growth yet with stability and longevity.

3. Values driven corporate gatherings

The church corporate gatherings must reflect vision values and be a catalyst for building momentum for the vision. Be open to new ways of doing church while honoring the values.

4. Strategically used finances

The church finances and resources must increase with the vision, match the size of the vision, and be utilized wisely and strategically. A stewardship team, along with the lead pastor, should evaluate the use of finances and make sure they are aligned to the vision.

5. Guarded spiritual life

The church’s spiritual life and health must be guarded and deepened as the church pursues corporate vision. A strong building cannot be built on a shaky foundation. The basics must be sustained and empowered.

6. Keeping the vision foremost

The church core vision must be kept as the main thing in the face of the many things that could distract. Evaluation and revisiting those values are a must.

7. Commitment to refining the vision

The leader and leadership team must be committed to refining the vision with re-focus and new focus, making changes and adjustments as they move into the future with faith and excitement.

This post was taken from the new leadership training notes: “Team Building in the Local Church,” now available at our store! Please click on the links below to learn more about our leadership training materials.

A healthy leadership team is a prerequisite to a healthy growing church or organization. This is nothing new – first the leadership, then the church. There are several factors that make up a healthy team and they can be summed up in one word: unity.

Healthy teams speak the same thing, showing unity of heart and mouth. Healthy teams are perfectly joined together in relationship, share the same mind (philosophy of ministry), and share the same judgment (principles of ministry).

This healthy team will set the pace for the healthy church with these four principles.

1. Diversity of Ministry

Even though there is one leadership team, there are still many members on that team, each having various strengths and specialties. The leadership team models that more than one person, more than one personality type, is required to successfully lead a group forward. When the church sees that, they are inspired to contribute to the church, seeing that they play a necessary part on the church team.

2. Unity of Purpose

Those who plant and those who water are one. Paul, Apollos, and Peter were not competing with one another. Rather, each was assigned his task under the lordship of Christ. Diversity of ministry must maintain unity of purpose and unity of principles. All works by the same Spirit and the same vision. Servants with various functions are really one being united in God’s work.

3. Individual Responsibility and Reward

Though all workers are one in the work, they are individually accountable to God and responsible to Him. God ultimately rewards workers according to their faithful labor. What others think of our ministry is not important. What God thinks is of supreme importance.

The individual responsibility is “labor.” God wants us to produce much fruit. To do that, we must constantly care for the soil of the church and plant seeds. It requires diligence and hard work to produce a harvest!

4. Recognition of God’s Ownership

The local church belongs to God and we are His workers. We should never forget that our part is to obey His mandate to work in the field, but ultimately, His part is to make the fruit grow. We plant, we even harvest, but God changes the nature of the soil from barren to fruitful through our work of prayer, sharing the gospel, and loving people.

Set the pace for healthy church growth with these four principles today.

This post was taken from the new leadership training notes: “Team Building in the Local Church,” now available at our store! Please click on the links below to learn more about our leadership training materials.

Yesterday, many of us celebrated Mother’s Day – a day to honor the mothers in our lives, both natural and spiritual, who have raised us, imparted their wisdom to us, and trained us in a godly way. They are those who live an “exchanged life.” They sacrifice so much of their comfort and life so that we can have a full and successful life.

Likewise, Jesus calls us to live an exchanged life surrendered to Him, letting His love flow through us. To live the exchanged life like Jesus is to love people the Jesus way. We exchange our weakness, our inability to love perfectly like He loves, for His perfect love. That includes sharing the gospel with people. One of the greatest expressions of love is to share the gospel. We proclaim the gospel with word and with power – the power of Christ to change lives.

Jesus has given us spiritual authority and power. Power is the ability, the strength, and the might to complete a given task, and authority is the right to use the power of God. We have the right to use God’s strength and release it over the sick, the hurting, and the broken. In doing so, we proclaim the full gospel with power.

I like to call this expression “power proclamation.” It is sharing Jesus beyond just words. It is a presentation of the gospel that is rational but also transcends rationality by demonstrating God’s power. Power proclamation is a spontaneous, Spirit-inspired, empowered presentation of the gospel preceded and undergirded by supernatural demonstrations of God’s presence.

You are a channel of God’s divine power and He has empowered you for ministry right now. Jesus can flow through you and meet the needs of people around you. Begin to pray for healing and miracles as you see the need. Pray for divine appointments to happen every day that allow you to encounter people with whom you can share Jesus’ love by proclaiming the full gospel with power.

This post was taken from the new series “Live.Love.” now available at our store! Please click on the titles below to read more about this powerful resource.
Live.Love., complete series: click here
Single messages:

• Live.Love Starts with You: click here
• Live.Love: Proclaim a Full Gospel: click here
• Live.Love: Mandate to Pray for Miracles: click here
• Live.Love: Shepherd the People: click here
• Live.Love: Pray for the Harvest: click here

The past couple days we’ve been looking at the essential qualities of shepherds. Every believer is called to be a shepherd, one who watches over the soul condition of others and does all that is possible to help them live like Jesus and share His love.

Along with being a shepherd, every believer is to be a harvester. Jesus desires every labor, every working harvester, to be excited about the harvest and to get on his knees and pray for the harvest. We are to prepare to reap the greatest harvest of souls ever reaped in all of history.



Here are a few facts about you and the harvest.

The harvest is reaped continually.

We must seize every opportunity for activating the ministry of reconciliation – making people right with Christ. There are no seasons in the moral world of man. Years come and go, irrespective of our choice or effort. But in the moral domain, you can change temperature, create seasons, turn foul weather into fair, and make moral November as bright as sunny July! The harvest is ripe! Seize the opportunity today!

The harvest is all around you.

Raise your eyes and observe the fields. Make a deliberate effort to gaze at the field of people around you and study it with intensity. This is not a casual glance, but a look of fixation. Commit to see and pursue the harvest with the same tenacity expressed in Billy Graham’s world evangelism statement: “We affirm our commitment to the Great Commission of our Lord and declare our willingness to go anywhere, do anything, and sacrifice anything God requires of us in the fulfillment of that commission.”

The harvest is reaped with personal reward.

The reaper of souls is a reaper of eternal harvest. When Jesus says, “He who reaps receives wages,” He is teaching that the wage is the personal reward of gathering fruit unto eternal life. What greater reward is there?

The harvest is reaped without delay.

Don’t procrastinate. Don’t be discouraged. Don’t shrink away from any opportunity. Let your heart be open to opportunity and to different people. Don’t allow dislike for the lost or indifference to the lost to keep you from extending Christ’s love.

God is calling you today to seize the harvest that is all around you. Pray for it, see it, and pursue it!

This post was taken from the new series “Live.Love.” now available at our store! Please click on the titles below to read more about this powerful resource.
Live.Love., complete series: click here
Single messages:

• Live.Love Starts with You: click here
• Live.Love: Proclaim a Full Gospel: click here
• Live.Love: Mandate to Pray for Miracles: click here
• Live.Love: Shepherd the People: click here
• Live.Love: Pray for the Harvest: click here

Yesterday we established that people matter to Jesus, so they should matter to us. Every person is called to be a shepherd – one who cares for the soul condition of another. Today, let’s look at a few more characteristics of the shepherd.

1. You the shepherd love ordinary people.

Neither skills nor knowledge can have a positive effect if there is no genuine love and compassion for others. The shepherd must demonstrate a great love for people and their problems. Without love, they will not want to listen to you.

2. You the shepherd have the essential quality of empathy.

Empathy is an imaginative capacity for listening that is able to enter into another person’s frame of reference and feel one’s way into his or her emotional world. Shepherds have an interpersonal competence to reach into others’ world to gain their perspective, which helps them see the need to be met.

3. You the shepherd are an accessible and approachable person.

The people you minister to must see you as friendly enough to be perceived as an approachable person. An approachable shepherd creates the open door for ongoing pastoral care of people. As shepherds, we must be open to all nationalities, classes, all kinds of people not just with our group or “own kind” of people. Remember – Jesus was approachable! He was a friend of sinners and tax collectors, insiders and outsiders, children as well as adults, the poor as well as the wealthy.

4. You the shepherd have genuine honesty about yourself.

Your ability to be open, friendly, accepting, and readily available to listen or talk about what interests the other person is invaluable. The shepherd is in touch with his own feelings and own weaknesses and strengths, understanding his own feelings accurately. This allows him to maintain humility and not project his weaknesses onto others.

5. You the shepherd view spiritual formation as ongoing.

Spiritual formation should not be viewed merely in terms of short-term crisis pastoring, but rather in terms of the long-term development of the whole person through continued care, prayer, and relational health. View the pastoral caring process as taking place within a community of caring, rather than just an isolated interaction.

Be the shepherd today!

This post was taken from the new series “Live.Love.” now available at our store! Please click on the titles below to read more about this powerful resource.
Live.Love., complete series: click here
Single messages:

• Live.Love Starts with You: click here
• Live.Love: Proclaim a Full Gospel: click here
• Live.Love: Mandate to Pray for Miracles: click here
• Live.Love: Shepherd the People: click here
• Live.Love: Pray for the Harvest: click here

People matter to Jesus and people matter to us as Jesus followers. We love, give grace to, serve, and help in any way we can. We are all to shepherd just like Jesus. There are people in need all around us. People who have spiritual needs, physical needs, emotional, mental, social, and relationship needs are in front of our eyes.

You as a believer and a leader are called to love people, to care for people, to shepherd, encourage, help, and watch over people. Every person who cares for souls is living like Jesus and sharing his love.

There are several characteristics of the shepherd who excels as a selfless person, meeting the needs of others. Here are five.

1. You the shepherd must have a healthy soul.

The mind, will, and emotions must be whole, healthy, and balanced. The shepherd must know the state of his or her soul and understand himself inwardly> what are the driving passions? Motivations? Doubts? Fears? Inward struggles? The more clearly we grasp our own soul, the better we understand and respond to others and their needs and complications.

2. You the shepherd must search out the lost sheep.

The lost are all around you, but you must have eyes to see them and go where they are. Seek out the lost sheep in your workplace, in your family, at the supermarket – every place you step is a mission field where you search out the lost.

3. You the shepherd restore the wandering sheep.

God is in the restoration business. Like an antiques owner who sees beauty and value in what others perceive as junk, God brings the wandering back to Him and reaffirms their value. Do your part to bring back those who are aimlessly wandering in life.

4. You the shepherd have sober awareness with the care of souls.

It is possible to do great harm by ignorance, immaturity, or wrong motivation. If you agree to take responsibility for the soul and for the spiritual growth of another, it is your task to make sure you do it carefully and prayerfully.

5. You the shepherd view each person as invaluable in God’s eyes.

No method or approach to the caring of souls is more enlightening and reliable than Jesus’ approach to people. Jesus took time for each person as He encountered people one at a time. He listened deeply to the particular needs of each person in each situation and then ministered care to that person, not through massive programs, but for that very person.

You are a shepherd! Take this mandate seriously today, live like Jesus and share His love!

This post was taken from the new series “Live.Love.” now available at our store! Please click on the titles below to read more about this powerful resource.
Live.Love., complete series: click here
Single messages:

• Live.Love Starts with You: click here
• Live.Love: Proclaim a Full Gospel: click here
• Live.Love: Mandate to Pray for Miracles: click here
• Live.Love: Shepherd the People: click here
• Live.Love: Pray for the Harvest: click here

There’s always a choice. You can live life with limitations of live life the Jesus way. The limited life is one of indifference, self-pity, isolation, and a negative attitude. This life will not put you on the path to sharing Jesus’ love with the people He died to save.

Life the Jesus way is one of possibility! Anything can happen – it’s possible! This is a life full of energy and full of God, full of purpose and strength to defeat the enemy, be powerful in influence, and having enough strength for others. The Jesus way is the “Live love” way.

“Live love” is a phrase we started using at our church to communicate this idea. It is short for “Live like Jesus, share His love,” which is our mission statement. Live love is a life attitude that focuses on becoming a conduit for the life and love of Jesus to other people. It has eyes and heart to see the opportunities to pour love into others.

Live love starts with you today. Here are three facts about your live love mission.

1. Live love does not “pass by” the need

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, both the priest and the Levite “passed by” the beaten man. They could have helped but would not. Passersby are people who see compassion based on worth, not on need. They ask, “Is this person worth my time or my money?” If the answer is “no,” they continue walking. Live love does not pass by the need.

2. Live love starts with you – the unlikely person

The most unlikely person to help the beaten Jew was a Samaritan. Samaritans are half-Jewish and half-Gentile. Culturally, Samaritans and Jews had a mutual hatred toward one another.

But in this parable, the Samaritan helps his enemy instead of finishing him off. Who is the unlikely person in your path who you can show Jesus’ love to?

3. Live love starts where people are

To help people, you must move toward them. Move to where they are and start the journey with them from that point. This takes concentrated effort and is usually inconvenient. But the reward is great! Live love costs something. It is the extra mile life.

Go further and take the extra step, even when it costs you. The Samaritan paid the entire bill for the Jew’s lodging and food. He not only lived love with the feelings of love, but he also decided he would live love with practical means.

This is our time to make every moment count – to influence our homes, jobs, schools, and all places we can impact with love-God action.

This post is taken from the new series, “Live.Love.” available now at our store! Please click on the titles below to read more.

• Live.Love, complete series: click here

Single messages:

• Live.Love Starts with You: click here
• Live.Love: Proclaim a Full Gospel: click here
• Live.Love: Mandate to Pray for Miracles: click here
• Live.Love: Shepherd the People: click here
• Live.Love: Pray for the Harvest: click here

The visionary leader understands that vision fulfillment is a journey that begins with encountering God and the continual unveiling of God’s vision for his life and work. What begins as a dream will, through persevering faith, become a reality.

God desires to make His dreams our dreams, especially as it pertains to building the church. God dreams of a place where the atmosphere is charged with His supernatural living presence, where His voice is heard and new present truths are believed and assimilated, where people are daily added to the church, and where the family is blessed and built by a positive atmosphere and powerful teaching.

Jesus has given His people specific keys used to build His church. The key signifies the power of the original holder. Christ, the Head of the Church, holds the keys to everything. He has all power and authority, and today, He has delegated the keys to us, His people.

Here are a few of those keys that are designed to build Christ’s church.

1. Key of Davidic Worship: a new release of praise and worship

The “key of David” also refers to praise and worship. David was a man after God’s heart, a worshiper from the beginning. He built the Tabernacle of David that was known for its 24-hour, seven-day-a-week worship. All churches need to find the key that releases a new level of worship.

2. Key of Knowledge: a new level of teaching and learning

The key of spiritual knowledge brings the understanding that causes the church to enter into truth. This key opens people’s understanding, causing them to grasp something that has been difficult in the past for them to understand. When the key is removed, people become stubborn and self-willed and moral weakness abounds. Pursue the key of knowledge that is taught and assimilated.

3. The keys of death and Hell: a power for preaching the gospel

When this key is used, death and Hell must loose their grip on the souls of people who believe the gospel message. Use of the gospel key “unlocks” the power to open people’s eyes so they can turn to Christ and receive forgiveness of sins. The gospel preached properly is a message of victory and the good news is proclaimed with power!

Today is the day to claim your door of opportunity, to take up your keys and unlock a new level of anointing for worship, relevant teaching, and power to preach the gospel. May these three keys be released on your church today.

This post was taken from the book, The Gate Church, available now at our store. Please click on the titles below to learn more about this and other resources.

• The Gate Church, book: click here
• Effective Keys to Successful Leadership, book: click here
• “Leaders of the Future,” sermon notes: click here
• “Leader Who Builds the Church,” sermon notes: click here
• “Dream, Dreamer, Finisher,”sermon notes: click here