Praising God at All Times.

The month of November started out great.  Our ministry team and a few pastors from Shalom churches had the honor and privilege of attending the Global Leadership Summit here in Santo Domingo put on by Bill Hybels and the Willow Creek Association.  We praise God for the opportunity to attend this incredible leadership conference, and we thank Resurrection Lutheran Church for sponsoring us in this event for the second year in a row.

The conference was tremendous.  As we listened to one speaker after another, we were challenged, stretched and inspired to give more of ourselves, individually and as a ministry team, for the glory of God and so others may know Him.  We learned a lot of interesting things about leadership and working as a team. It always seems to come back to the same thing: Love God and Love others.  The message is simple but not always easy.

Since our return from the conference, our team has faced several challenges due to misunderstanding and conflicting opinions on how to do things.  We have opportunities right in front of us to practice what we've learned about loving God and others, about leading with courage and following the example of Christ.

In times of study and reflection this month, I've been reading Gifted to Lead by Nancy Beach.  She wrote some things that I found helpful to our situation.  She said, "We human beings have an unbelievable ability to misunderstand one another, to hurt each other in small and even big ways, often without even realizing it."

I couldn't agree more.  If you are a human being and have relationships with other human beings, at some point in your life you have probably asked yourself this question, "Why can't we get along?"  If you have worked on a team at school, work, church, other community organizations or ministries, you have probably asked yourself this question more than once.  If you work with teenagers or junior high school students, you may ask yourself this question daily!

Nancy has a simple answer to the question.  "Sin." she says.  "We are all sinners and too often get puffed up with pride, selfish about our ideas or pet projects; jealous of someone else's apparent success; bitter about feeling overworked, underappreciated or underpaid; slanderous toward coworkers or our boss in private conversation.

"All of us can get better at working through conflict and none of us will be able to avoid it all together.  It is perhaps the way we most grow in ministry and as followers of Jesus Christ, because our character is tested in the fire of painful emotions like pride, envy, fear and selfishness."
 

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, becaue you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
James 1:2-4

Nancy continues, "Once we have a relational breakdown, we have a choice to make.  Either we take steps to work towards reconciliation or we move on with bitterness, avoidance, envy and perhaps an overwhelming sense of victimization.  The only way to get through a relational breakdown, or even to get over the tiny little dings and hurts that take place along the way, is to be willing to engage in the difficult conversations."

Joselo and I, and the youth we are working with have some great opportunities ahead to be courageous, to engage in difficult conversations, to communicate honestly, listen to one another, love, honor and respect one another and to truly work together to find God-honoring solutions to the different issues that have come to the surface.

We know we can't do it alone.  We must depend completely on God for grace and mercy, for wisdom and understanding, and for God to do what only He can do as He demonstrated with power when Jesus Christ rose from the dead, paying the penalty of our sins and making all things new.  Because Jesus shed his blood for us on the cross, we all have the hope of reconciliation.
 

"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Corinthians 5:21

We enter the season of Advent, a season of waiting and preparing for the coming of Christ, Our Savior,  with hope because Jesus, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! (Phil 2:6-8)  Praise the Lord!