Lessons Learned

During this break from day to day church ministry & consequently without a paycheck, I've learned some valuable lessons that I don't think I could have ever learned otherwise. I'll be sharing a list of them today & over the next few days. So here they are in no particular order.

1) Your Real Friends Are Revealed
Unfortunately many relationships within the church aren't built on mutual love but on mutual convenience. As long as the people we're "in relationship" with are useful to us, the so-called relationship appears healthy, but the minute we're no longer useful to each other, the "relationship" dissolves because it was a relationship built on convenience & not a real connection. As a result, you learn very quickly who your real friends were & who you were using & who was using you. It's an ugly but all too real truth in many churches. As leaders we have to understand it & be the first to set out to build authentic relationships, not relationships of convenience.

2) Save, Save, Save
Can you afford to trust God? Literally, can you financially afford to trust God? Many of us can't follow God into a lot of places because we simply haven't created the margin necessary to do so. If you're not building the discipline of saving into the rhythm of your financial life, then you are setting yourself up to be a slave to your bills rather than a servant of your God. In relation to this lesson is another: It doesn't take as much money as you think it does to live. The reason so many of us live paycheck to paycheck is because we choose to not because we're forced to.