Vetrean Pastor, Life time Learner, Problem Solver, Servant-Leader and Motivational Speaker.

Matt Chandler - De-churched Video of the day. I love it.....

via www.youtube.com

COOL VIDEO!!!ELMA REPORT.......I WILL NOT BE DISCOURAGED!!!!EVEN THOUGH NOBODY RESPONDS TO MY ALTAR CALL FOUR WEEKS..... IN A ROW!!!!Check this video out!!!WOW!!!!!!!! Opera duo Charlotte and Jonathan....Especially if you struggle with your weight!!!!!!

 

1. This video GOT SOME DUST OF MY EYES and made me have a "black baptiscostal moment" rejoicing at the power of God despite the negative "voices" of the enemy. Christ will build His church despite the pull of Satan. 
2. Just before watching this movie, I was lamenting in my office in Elma that nobody responding to my call for salavation in the past four SUNDAYS!!!!
3. I was discouraged tONIGHT when I saw young men  selling drugs right in front of my apartment (in Elma, WA) directly across the street from our church. (Satan, seriously????Our God is greater.He will kick your .....!!!)
4. My heart sank!!! I could not believe that Satan will engineer people to destroy lives right between two churches. GOD  have MERCY!!! HEAL ELMA!!!!Elma for Jesus!!!!! Pastor James needs prayer support......
5. BUT WAIT!!!!!! THAT IS NOT THE END OF THE STORY!!!!
6. God has gifted numerous people in our church to accomplish His work as we obey HIS WORD!!!!!
7. What we are doing is more important that "Britain Got Talent".WAIT A MINUTE!!!!!!! CHRIST HAS PROMISED TO BUILD HIS CHURCH!!!!
8. God is bringing people to Himself. All kinds of people to Himself.....
9. After church TODAY!!!! numerous people told me they have invited people for Easter. People hugged me and told me God is rocking their MINDS WITH JOHN 3:16!!!!!!!!!!
10. We are praying that God will send us 80 people on Easter Sunday.
11. We believe that God is totally in-charge  and can do great things through us. We are excited that God will do amazing things for us!!!!!!YEAH GOD!!!!!!!!
12. We are riding a wave, a wave of the grace and amazing goodness of GOOD God great God of Isreal. 

Amazing NEWS!!!!

1. Over 55 people in Church today....we will celebrate and give God the glory.
2. We will not listen to the naysayers about this "being the honey moon" or "it will wear out in 1 year".
3. A young solider and his wife attended our services....we honored He and his wife for serving our country. Thank God for men and women who are willing to fight for our freedom. Freedom is not free baby!!!!!!
4. We will party hard and rejoice in the goodness of the Lord.Grays harbor county will continue to see what God is doing throught First Baptist Church Elma.
5. We will join the lord in His work in and around Gray's Harbor County...
6. Jesus is Alive!!!!THE TOMB IS EMPTY!!!!!WE WILL proclaim His word in our lives. God is good!!! Our anthem forever will be!!!!!!!!!!!

ELMA FOR JESUS 2012..

Grace and Peace

Pastor James Owolabi

3/25/2012

How to Quickly Overcome Inexperience « Leadership Freak

10 dangers of inexperienced leaders:

1. Needing to be liked.
2. Blaming.
3. Emotional decisions.
4. Impulsiveness.
5. Trying too hard.
6. Neglecting the long term.
7. Focusing on symptoms rather than causes.
8. Aiming without pulling the trigger.
9. Meddling.
10. Forget to say thank you. (Speaking of thanks, many of these points were inspired by contributors on the Leadership Freak Facebook Page. Thank you!)

10 questions every inexperienced leader must keep asking:

1. What type of world are my behaviors building around me?
2. How many questions did I ask today?
3. What am I learning?
4. Am I acting or reacting?
5. When was the last time I spent an hour in self-reflection?
6. What’s the most fun?
7. Am I soliciting input from experienced leaders and staff?
8. Do I welcome ideas from everyone?
9. How are we leveraging everyone’s strengths?
10. Who do I feel threatened by? Why?

12 powerful suggestions for inexperienced leaders:

1. You matter in ways you can’t imagine. Watch your tone, body language, and attitude, everyone else is.
2. Be optimistic about the future and realistic about the present. Optimism frustrates others if you don’t acknowledge present realities and problems, first.
3. Challenges aren’t your biggest opportunity, people are.
4. Be tender when you’re being tough.
5. Remove manipulators and backstabbers. They may quickly deliver results but everyone around them slows down.
6. Courageously ask dumb questions. (From the Chief Security Officer of Microsoft)
7. Protect your team from political fallout and organizational interference.
8. Believe your perspective matters. Listen to yourself as well as others.
9. Avoid extreme reactions.
10. Recruit mentors, advisors, and, coaches. Get support.
11. Take responsibility.
12. Make the best interests of your organization and others your priority, always.

Bonus: Stick with it. The reason it’s called experience is it takes time.

**********

What can you add to these lists?

What can you modify or amplify?

via leadershipfreak.wordpress.com

Elma Update Pictures and video: Prayers needed this Easter Sunday......at First Baptist Church Elma, WA. Check out this video.

1. This morning I read Isaiah 38, and wow!!!....God is super amazing  AND SO......really Gracious. He sees our tears, He knows our pain and He can change our destiny...God is so gracious and kind....check this out.

Isaiah 38 ---In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”( God sees us when we hurt)

 ² Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, ³ “Remember, LORD, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. ( God knows when and where it hurts)

 ⁴ Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah: ⁵ “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life. ⁶And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city ( God can change your destiny). AWESOMENESS!!!!!!! Our God is greater......

 

1. Hey Church!!!!!Thank you all for your praying and investing in our community and church!!!.
2. Continue to pray for Easter Sunday 2012 at First Baptist Church Elma. ( I love this Church)!!!!!

 

 

 

 

1. Pray that God will move in power and save lives through the preaching of His word.
2. Pray for those getting baptised this Easter Sunday.
3. Pray for those who have been invited!!!!!!
4. Our average attendance for the month of March is over 65.
5. Attendance my third Sunday in December of 2011 Sunday was 39 people.
6. Keep praying....the negative forces in my life  say: "it just the honey moon"....My spirit says " Celebrate what God is doing".. Guess what!!! I will celebrate what God is doing......
7. We are praying for over 80 people for Easter. I am planning on showing this movie this Sunday as a teaser for Easter.
8. Pray for God to use this service  this Sunday to hook people to Jesus Christ for the rest of their lives...
9. Pray that God will use these service to assist us in embracing the greatness of the cross and reality that the tomb is empty.....
10. Take some 20 minutes to watch this video and pray that as I show it this Sunday as part of my 40 minute sermon God will use it to ignite in people a passion for God.

 

 

 

Grace and Peace 
Pastor James Owolabi  3-19-2012.

3. Amazing Quotes from a book am reading.....

1. ‎"Leaders usually have the role of capturing and communicating vision. They must see it first and then help everyone else to see it. That was what Winston Churchill did when he spoke to the coal miners during the war. That was what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did as he spoke to people about his dreams from the steps of the Lincoln Monument in Washington, D.C. That was what GE CEO Jack Welch did when he let his poeple know that a division of GE that couldn't be first or second in its market wouldn't be a part of GE. The people on a team will sacrifice and work together only if they can see what they' re working toward"-( The 17 Indisputable laws of team work by John Maxwell.....reading this book right now.......The Law of the Picture... Pg 21.....Share what's interesting to you)
2. Leaders at the highest level understand the law of the big picture. They continually keep the vision of the big picuture before themselves and their people.
3. There is nothing like cancer to keep you focused on what is important.

God make me a servant on your team!!!!!

Fors Clavigera: An Open Letter to Praise Bands

So let me offer just a few brief axioms with the hope of encouraging new reflection on the practice of "leading worship":

1. If we, the congregation, can't hear ourselves, it's not worship. Christian worship is not a concert. In a concert (a particular "form of performance"), we often expect to be overwhelmed by sound, particularly in certain styles of music. In a concert, we come to expect that weird sort of sensory deprivation that happens from sensory overload, when the pounding of the bass on our chest and the wash of music over the crowd leaves us with the rush of a certain aural vertigo. And there's nothing wrong with concerts! It's just that Christian worship is not a concert. Christian worship is a collective, communal, congregational practice--and the gathered sound and harmony of a congregation singing as one is integral to the practice of worship. It is a way of "performing" the reality that, in Christ, we are one body. But that requires that we actually be able to hear ourselves, and hear our sisters and brothers singing alongside us. When the amped sound of the praise band overwhelms congregational voices, we can't hear ourselves sing--so we lose that communal aspect of the congregation and are encouraged to effectively become "private," passive worshipers.

2. If we, the congregation, can't sing along, it's not worship. In other forms of musical performance, musicians and bands will want to improvise and "be creative," offering new renditions and exhibiting their virtuosity with all sorts of different trills and pauses and improvisations on the received tune. Again, that can be a delightful aspect of a concert, but in Christian worship it just means that we, the congregation, can't sing along. And so your virtuosity gives rise to our passivity; your creativity simply encourages our silence. And while you may be worshiping with your creativity, the same creativity actually shuts down congregational song.

3. If you, the praise band, are the center of attention, it's not worship. I know it's generally not your fault that we've put you at the front of the church. And I know you want to model worship for us to imitate. But because we've encouraged you to basically import forms of performance from the concert venue into the sanctuary, we might not realize that we've also unwittingly encouraged a sense that you are the center of attention. And when your performance becomes a display of your virtuosity--even with the best of intentions--it's difficult to counter the temptation to make the praise band the focus of our attention. When the praise band goes into long riffs that you might intend as "offerings to God," we the congregation become utterly passive, and because we've adopted habits of relating to music from the Grammys and the concert venue, we unwittingly make you the center of attention. I wonder if there might be some intentional reflection on placement (to the side? leading from behind?) and performance that might help us counter these habits we bring with us to worship.

Please consider these points carefully and recognize what I am not saying. This isn't just some plea for "traditional" worship and a critique of "contemporary" worship. Don't mistake this as a defense of pipe organs and a critique of guitars and drums (or banjos and mandolins). My concern isn't with style, but with form: What are we trying to do when we "lead worship?" If we are intentional about worship as a communal, congregational practice that brings us into a dialogical encounter with the living God--that worship is not merely expressive but also formative--then we can do that with cellos or steel guitars, pipe organs or African dr

via forsclavigera.blogspot.com

learning my lines. . .: Crossing The Line With Ellen Degeneres. . . .

To be honest, you feel like a killjoy when you start to question stuff like this. But we still need to stand back and ask the hard questions. Did Ellen cross a line? Did the parents cross a line? Do we cross a line when we ignore what's really going on to enjoy the cuteness of a couple of little kids, justifying it all by saying, "Come on, they're only little kids"? Do we allow our emotions to trump responsible thinking and critique? I'm afraid we're losing our ability to think critically and Christianly about all of life, a reality which requires us to recapture and relearn skills that evidence discipleship of the mind.

I took some time to think more intentionally about this whole thing. I wrote up a 2-page 3(D) review of these videos of Sophia Grace with Nicki Minaj for our latest edition of ENGAGE. You can download the pdf of my review here. Use it to provoke your own thought. If you're a parent, talk about it with your kids. If you're a youth worker, spend an entire evening looking at, talking about, and thinking through the video clips.

After you read it, I want to know. . . Am I over-reacting? Should we be concerned? Is this evidence of deeper issues in our culture? If so, what are those issues? What do you think?

via learningmylines.blogspot.com

Sunday School problems are not Sunday School Problems

People who are not doubling their groups sincerely think they are happy. They think that because they don't know what happiness is. There is a whole other level. People who are doubling their groups are some of the happiest people I know. They have often said to me, "My group is that most exciting thing in my life." They have engaging careers and good marriages and take trips to exciting destinations but they have said to me, "Watching my group double is the most exciting thing in my life."

By comparison, groups that are not doubling are half a sleep. They are happy, but happy in a drowsy kind of way. Groups that are doubling every two years or less are happy in an exhilaration kind of way.

It is an important point because people often say to me, "OK, I am convinced. But, how do I convince my class to embrace the vision of doubling groups?" At the end of the day, you have to convince them it is a better life, and it is.

The problem with Sunday School is we don't believe this. We don't believe that life is better on the playing field than it is in the bleachers.

But again, this is not a Sunday School problem.

To fix the problems of Sunday School, we can't look to Sunday School answers. We have to fix the people. We have to fix us. I wish it were simpler. We have to exchange our values with a value that suggests that people matter to God and that reaching them is more important than my comfort. We have to willingly, eagerly, joyfully surrender our will to His and become willing to do whatever he asks. We must embrace the great adventure of joining God in seeking to double groups every two years or less.

via www.joshhunt.com

Ten Life Lessons From Business

Ten Life Lessons From Managing and Consulting

1. You can be in charge, but you're never in control.

2. If you have a Powerpoint slide with a graph whose curve always points upward, you're lying. Delete it.

3. If you look at people through your own eyes, you'll judge them for who you think they are. If you look at them through God's eyes, you'll see them for who they can become.

4. You can't be good at who you are until you stop trying to be all the things you are not.

5. Charge what you are worth. If you don't, you'll begin to resent your employer or client, even thoughyou decided to take the assignment.

6. You can't control circumstances. You can control your response to them. Those who learn to respond thoughtfully and peacefully are the ones who are accorded trust and power.

7. Overt displays of position power show weakness.  Genuine humility shows power.

8. All groups aren't "teams". Often they are just collections of people who work really, really well together. Leave them alone.

9. No one can know how to be an effective leader until they've toiled as a dedicated follower.

10. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge applied with discernment.

via www.allthingsworkplace.com

12 Characteristics Of Pastors That Drive People Crazy by Alan Danielson - ChurchLeaders.com - Christian Leadership Blogs, Articles, Videos, How To's, and Free Resources

In my line of work as a pastor and consultant I meet tons of pastors. All are wonderful people, some just don’t quite get what pastoring is all about though. Here are some of the characteristics of many pastors that make me crazy:

• Focusing on “church growth” rather than mission.
• Thinking small groups are about “getting people connected” rather than discipleship.
• Trying to lead without being relational.
• Identifying things that need to change, but not changing them.
• Tolerating obvious sin in their congregation.  Gossip, division, greed, lack-of-faith, and idolatry top the list of tolerated sins.
• Not having accountability.
• Not being in a small group.
• Having a “vision Sunday” once per year.  People need vision all the time!!!  Over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over…and over!!
• Making plans, without executing them.
• Not returning phone calls or emails.
• Blaming staff for problems without looking to themselves first for fault.
• Openly offering feedback without being open to feedback.

via www.churchleaders.com