Larry Osborne – has served as a Senior Pastor and Teaching Pastor at North Coast Church since 1980. He has helped oversee the growth of the church from a fledgling group of 128 meeting in a rented school, to a multi-site ministry that reaches nearly 7,000 in weekend attendance.

Finding & Multiplying Leaders:

The Barnabas Factor-

What does the life of Barnabas  teach about leadersship?

5 keys

1. personal finacel generosity- Joseph was his real name. He got the nickname by selling a farm and helping others. Barnarabas means sons of encouragement.  Stingy people are not empowerring people –stingy people tend to sabotage team building. Scriputres are not binoclars to look at others but a mirror to look at selfves
2. spirit of forgiveness- he focused on who the are today rather then what they did yestrerday. A lot of us look on to yesterday when God is on today.
3. Focused on annoiting  not pedigree – you can’t focus on school and what kind of hoops the jump through. One of things that hold us back is we become risk advert. We cant win by playing not to lose you have to play to win. Don’t play the tenure game and not have a spot at the table for the young up and coming.
4. Defend the right to be different- Ask what God is doing not what  you like. They are 2 different things. So many of our church make rules so the next leader can’t lead.
5. You have to willing to step asided and take second billing.

Pete Briscoe

Pete is Senior Pastor of Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Dallas Texas

Ephienas 3:1 -

How do you evalute a good trade?

We are talking about trading in the american dream but what are we trading for?

Some times what  we trade in for is ministry, that’s part of it, but not all of it.

What did Paul trade in for 5 things

1. Christ  2. Grace 3. Mystery  4. The Church 5. Ministry

Unconvinced traveling agent handing out panflents to place we have never been, Have you truly experienced Christ.

Why pastor’s burn out, they start out walking with Jesus and end up working for Jesus.

Leadership is walking with Jesus and bring others along with you.

The Church is not perfect but a complety uniquie group of people.

What ever you trade in for never turn your back on the church.

Unback your bags

3 seanson in ministry

This Rocks Season – everything is great

This Works Season – Kinda like a job but its not bad

This sucks Season – the difficult times

Remenber what you traded it all in for.

So you’ve been eating healthy for a while now and cant figure out why your not seeing any progress. Let’s have little experintent.

Let’s look at good old fashion whole grain oatmeal. You look and see a 1/2 cup is 1 serving and that what your going to have so you measure it out.

Now your ready to boil some water and get cooking.

But wait that’s 6o g which is 20 g more than is in a serving.

So you go to measue that out and now what to you have?

Now that’s a big difference, so if you have been eating oatmeal every morning for a week. you should of eat 280 grams instead you have had 420 g. That’s an extra 3.5 servings.

Last night I started reading a book called “The E Myth Revisited”  a book  by Michael Gerber about small business and how to be successful. I came across a passage I want to share with you. It expressess some of our challenges we face in our fight to get healthy.

Let’s take a look at two personalities we’re all familiar with: The Fat Guy and The Skinny Guy. Have you ever decided to go on a diet? You’re sitting in front of the television set one Saturday afternoon, watching an athletic competition, awed by the athletes’ stamina and dexterity.

You’re feeling sluggish in the face of all the action on the screen when, suddenly, somebody wakes up in you and says, “What are you doing? Look at yourself. You’re fat! You’re out of shape! Do something about it!”

It has happened to us all. Somebody wakes up inside us with a totally different picture of who we should be and what we should be doing. In this case, let’s call him The Skinny Guy. Who’s The Skinny Guy? He’s the one who uses words like discipline, exercise, organization. The Skinny Guy has just taken over. Watch out – things are about to change.

Before you know it, you’re cleaning all the fattening foods out of the refrigerator. You’re buying a new pair of running shoes, barbells and sweats. You have a new lease on life. And you actually pull it off! By Monday night, you’ve lost a kilo.

On Wednesday, you really pour it on. You work out an extra hour in the morning, an extra half-hour at night. You can’t wait to get on the scale. What you see is… nothing. You’re exactly the same as you were on Tuesday.

Dejection creeps in. You begin to feel a slight twinge of resentment. “After all that work? After all that sweat and effort? And then – nothing? It isn’t fair.” You go to bed, vowing to work harder on Thursday. But somehow something has changed.

It’s raining. The room is cold. Something feels different. What is it? For a moment or two you can’t quite put your finger on it. And then you get it: somebody else is in your body. It’s The Fat Guy. He’s back! He’s running the show again.”

The thing we have to understand is the fat guy and the skinny have different needs, different desires, and a different way they see how life is to be lived out. It’s the internal struggle that we all face when it comes to living a healthy life. Like or not we have a daily fight with spit personalities. Until one begins to recognize this internal struggle, becoming healthy will not be easy. Even for myself, the fat guy wants to take over. Just this morning I think I hit snooze 8 times and had a million excuses but I knew  what I need to do.

Who will you listen to the fat guy or the skinny? One is competing for you to make smart choice and the other wants you to be successful at channel surfing and buffets.  The fat guy will not go away over night but you have to take it one battle at a time till you have one the war.

Often I’m asked if I really enjoying eating like I do and the answer is “yes, I do”. If you were to ask my wife she would tell you I don’t eat foods I don’t like. Now I haven’t always eaten healthy; like most Americans I ate what I wanted and when wanted. So, how did I make the switch from bad eating habits to healthy eating habits? Now that’s not a one word answer but here are 7 Myths and Excuses that I ignored and I want to share those with you.

1. Healthy food doesn’t taste good.
I’m not sure who started this but its far from the truth. You might not like all foods but then again who does? Do you like ALL the fast food restaurants in your city?

2. It costs way too much.
Yes, it does cost more but it won’t break the bank. The high cost comes in when you try to to eat healthy and buy the crap too.

3. I could never eat like that.
Sure you can – one change/decision at a time. If you start off defeated then you definitely can’t.

4. There’s no variety.
Not true, there are thousands and thousands of foods out there to try.

5. I don’t want to give up (insert favorite junk food here).
You don’t have to, you just can’t eat it daily.

6. I don’t know how to stop eating crap all the time.
It’s a simple approach that I like to take from the 80’s drug campaign “Just say NO!”.

7. I’ll die if I eat like that.
The truth is you’ll die if you don’t.

I’m sure there are others but these 7 will get you started. Remember – No Excuses EAT, MOVE, REST.

It’s time for you Monday Motivation. Watch this and then tell that you still have an excuse.

NO EXCUSES LETS MAKE IT HAPPEN!

This made me laugh so I thought I would share it with you.

It seems like most of the time we think we can out out exercise a bad diet.  How many times have you said or thought I’ll eat this now and tomorrow I’ll just do some extra cardio. Now while in our heads that seems to make sense it reality it just not true. Check out these video experiment proving YOU CAN’T OUT TRAIN A BAD DIET

I know it might be hard for some of you to believe but I used to smoke. For about 10 years I thought a cigarette, a bag of peanut M&M’s, and a Dr. Pepper made for a good breakfast and lunch. That’s definitely a drastic difference from how I live my life now.

Now, you’re probably thinking that maybe I didn’t know smoking was bad for me and the answer is I knew it was bad for me before I started smoking and the whole time I was smoking. See, as a smoker I knew what all smokers know that smoking is harmful to your body. They just don’t care. The satisfaction of having that cigarette now outweighs what might happen years from now. It didn’t matter how many ex-smokers came up to me and told me that they almost died from it or they have lung cancer or a whole in their throat. I remember being outside on smoke breaks and people saying you know those things will kill you and not really caring or I would reply sarcastically, “ Really? I didn’t know that” or “ Gotta die of something “. None of that outweighed the instant gratification I got from smoking.

See, the same thing happens when it comes to eating healthy. No matter how much I stand out on my soap box and tell others about all the bad food choices I used to make, how damaging fast food is, how good I feel now that I eat healthy, people make their food choices based on instant gratification and craving. The truth is that the majority of people already know. When I quit smoking the choice was mine and mine alone. I chose to look up from the now and decided to look ahead to what would be if I made smarter choices.

I didn’t write this to tell you what might happen if you don’t start eating right and exercising but to encourage you to take control of what will happen if you make smart choices.

Find your motivation and never let go. Take it one step at a time and celebrate the small victories you health is in your hands. what will you do with it. Ben chose to take control of his. Watch is inspiring video