TODD PHILLIPS

As the pastor of Frontline Church in Washington D.C., Todd Phillips is leading one of the most well respected and looked to churches in the country for ministry to 20 and 30-somethings

A Letter To Young Leaders: Excelling Within The Boundaries God Has Placed In Our Lives

Have you built a house before? No but I live in one and I’ll do it for have price.

Yet this is what we do when it comes to building lives. That why we must depend on God

We are all under authority

We are not going to agree with every decision made above us

We each have given a certain level of authority God has given us

How do we truly excel with the boundaries God has placed in our lives?

Many of us are so quick to get out of a frustrating environment, that we miss what God is try to do in us

Some times we se boundaries as thing placed by man

Most often boundaries are placed in lives to limits movements for his purpose

If I was king for a day syndrome

There is true joy surrounding in the boundaries God has placed in our lives

We get so frustrated about things we have no control over.

God has a history of taking us out of our confront zone so that we will be depend on him. To help shape us more like Christ

Character building is God plan for each of us

1.Excel where God has placed you – Numb 14:30,33

2. Simply refuse to let bitterness take route – sometimes God takes us in the dessert and doesn’t tell us how long we are going to be there because we couldn’t handle it. We need to submit to the process and learn from it

Learn through the process, learn what to do and what not to do

3. When we are ready to leave we need to stay a little bit longer.

There is no mathematical formula of when to stay and when to go that between you and God

When your most certain seek wise counsel from people that our older and wiser  not older and dumber

Through all the mess we see the finger print off God moving

Church can be clean and easy when know one is there.

We look at stink and just tell it to stop. Or we just ignore it or try to wish it away.

We have to look at the variables of the mess. That is going on.

Often when thing are running as they should they’re is a waste product of it. Like the engine of the car.

Sometimes mess is the by product off growth

Sometimes mess is the catalyst for growth

You have to approach each mess different

The Sin Mess- when the mark perfection of Christ is missed and needs to be addressed

Relational Mess – not a sin issue but people are different with different personalities it easy to point fingers and think its a sin mess when it not.

Life Mess- the mess we find ourselves in as leader, because we live in a fallen broken world.

They can all bleed into 1 another.

There is no formula of how to handle the mess.

Create environments in which mess can be transformed into something good..

Can you look at the problem and see solutions.

Be a mess engineer. Be able to look learn and walk through the mess.

1. Acknowledge the mess

2. Determine what kind of mess it is. So you know how to address it.

3. Have the right perspective-depending on how you see it there might be beauty. What’s God perspective

4. Ask good question- what we see on the surface is not all there is to it. It helps us dig further into the mess

5. Talk to the right people-big difference between gossip and getting help

6. Communicate a biblical goal -how do grow from this and how does God get glory in this.

7. Commit to the process- a mess is not cleaned up in 1 conversation or 1 week. Its a process

Jesus said go make disciples not go find disciples. Sometimes that requires getting messy.

TD Jakes –

The world is changing

Having the foresight and vision to see where you are going

We have to reach all ages and all groups

If you get out front, you’ll get shot at.

God called us to be forward thinking person.

People who hang on the corner have a limited worldview. They think the whole world is like the corner they hang on.

Leading out of your comfort zone.

Don’t rob yourself of getting off the corner; we have to leave the safety of our community

ON YOUR MARK GET SET GO- go into the entire world and preach the gospel to every living person

If you walk up to someone and put a mirror under their nose and there’s fog start preaching

Our job as Christian leaders is not let anything around us push us back to the corner

You cant change the world from the corner

People who play it safe aren’t leaders, you have to get out front

Look how far our reach is, yet are we armored with what reaches the masses

You can’t reach the world if you not a multi cultured person

Leaders are forward thinking people who are stretched

The only way to learn how to not say something stupid is to say something stupid

We serve a God that can speak to anybody; the question is who do you speak to

The cell phone test- if you wanna no broad you are check your cell phone and see if they are all like you

If preachers only talk to preacher they regurgitate the same things its like your on the corner

Only the church doesn’t take the time to learn the langue of the masses

If you do a good job in a fish tank but your called to an ocean what are missing out on.

Fish are limited to the size of the tank they are in

Good doesn’t want you in a bigger tank he wants you in the ocean

You have to go place where you are uncomfortable

If you live in world were you are the smartest person get out of that room. Go where you are out of your element

This is the year God is saying I am going to stretch

God doesn’t want you fishing in 10 gal tank but out in the deep ocean

Every great teacher is a great learner

Every great speakers is a great listener

Fruit is born when differences come together

This is the time for us to be more fruitful today.

Are you gonna be an eagle or are you gonna be a chicken on the ground

Are you gonna fly or are you gonna flop?

When it comes to the generations in ministry, division is bad tension is good.

I am able to do so much because of those who invested in me.

Do resent the next generation poor into the them.

We are not raising the next generation they are the church of today.

One reason the older generation finds it difficult to invest in the younger generation is because on insecurities.

When you lead from insecurities to hinder those around you. You hand out task and make followers and not responsibly and create leaders.

There is nothing worst than a fat 50 year old pastor wearing skinny jeans.

To the older generation if you are not dead you are not done.

If you’re of the older generation embrace the fact that you can be like a parent to the younger generation.

The younger generation needs the older generation

When it comes to ministry the younger generation feels like things should come easy.

Don’t over estimate what God wants to do through wants to do through you in the short run. When it does happen you under estimate what God wants to do in the long term.

Don’t get discourage in the short run

Because the younger generation feels entitled so they don’t show honor well

If you want to lead up show honor

Honor publicly influence privately

Jesus is not your homeboy is the True Risen King of Kings and Lord of Lords

We need to lift up and place people in a place of honor

One of the biggest problems in the church is men don’t love the wives like Christ loved the church and women don’t honor their husbands.

Your dishonor or those in authority of you is hindering what God wants to do.

We honor those who have paved the way for us. They are those who made it possible to do some of things we can do today.

This generation is the most cause driven generation and I believe in you

God believes in you. You didn’t choose him he choose you.

Give God glory by taking the best of those who have gone before you.

Gabe Lyons is the author of the forthcoming book, The Next Christians: The Good News About the End of Christian America and co-author of UnChristian, a bestseller that reveals exclusive research on pop culture’s negative perceptions of Christians.

People don’t want to believe that we know the way truth and the light. We are meet with resistance

The church is no longer the center of culture like it once use to be it now sits on the outside.

Christian interaction with current culture

Separatist – to avoided the culture and fight the enemy (the culture)

Culturist  – just to live like the culture

They should not just separate, they should not just blend in but they are going to come along and restore.

We have to understand the gospel. Restorers understand the gospel

Overt the past century we only looked at 2 parts the fall and then the redemption to get as many as possible to go to heaven.

The culturist – just about doing the good deeds apart from Christ

Restorers – about the renewal and restoration. Not just a speech or stick to beat them over the head with.

The next generation isn’t just doing things the old way. They aren’t scared of the broken; they aren’t offended by it or just talk about it. They get up and do something about it.

They create things to do something about the work or restoration. Using the talent and the burden they have for the broken world.

When we look out at the people in church we must realize they are out on mission in their everyday life. Be it a teacher or someone working 9-5 in an office.

We have to understand our mission in the world

Culture changes when leaders start to work together on a common goal.

Sometimes your deep in the work of your calling and sometimes you calling finds you.

We are not just to state the good news but embody it the good news.

Every time I hear Francis Chan I’m not sure if I love Jesus any more

1 Kings 17

I’m not sure if I should be following this guy, I not sure he’s going to take me where I need to go.

Church is sometimes like the prom, everybody dress up and acts like there good, especially the leaders.

The best ministry advice I can give you “do what the Lord tells you”

More time on your face less time on facebook will equal more of God in your church.

Consultants don’t really know jack about your church, God does

If you can explain what happing in your church it not God, It’s when you can’t explain what going on its God.

If you’ve been in ministry more than a week you’ve driven by Home Depot thinking I could sale hammer the rest of your life? Sometimes it’s hard when dealing with people

The brook is dry, you thought God called you there but things don’t seem right. You know God called you to do this. Your praying to God how could this happen.

Most of us get 1 Kings 18 because that what we preach.

God didn’t bring Elijah to the brook to punish him but to prepare him for greater things.

If your at point where the brook seems dry God’s not punishing you he’s preparing you. God had to teach Elijah something – Elijah thought the brook was his supply and God want to teach him the brook might go dry but I am God and I never go dry.

God always comes through!

We don’t give up when we are by the brook and it’s dry. Jesus is alive he blew the doors of the tomb.
Some of you are at the brook and are about to run from the situation that God Rules over.

You shouldn’t quit don’t give up on the God that has never given up on you

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Life quickly changes but the gospel is still the same life changing

Fear and insecurity
Proverbs 3:26

We cant’ believe our own fear on insecurity that tries to come out of us
This is the gorilla on our back. It’s the snare that we put our selves in.

It will still the life of God from us. We are from birth naturally self-centered, our unchecked self-conciseness just get bigger and bigger. The world we live in now the draws out on our insecurities. Instant scrutiny consumes us, before we are finished with a project or message we are over critical.

Everybody has a voice making us all published authors. Yet with out the benefit of an editor. We are in age and time were people tweet stuff before they even have a chance to absorb it.

On your best day of leadership you’ll have something come on you about how you can do better. One of the greatest battles a leader has is to feel threatened.

Pride is the graveyard of great leader, insecurities is the pych-ward.

Our society is producing an alarming rate of full-blown narcissist. Most narcissists have no idea they are narcissists. It is the big threat of our day and would we even know it if it over took us. God is doing all this amazing work all over the earth yet we seemed to be focused on the “me”.

Job 18:15

We can’t start stuff in the spirit and finish it in the flesh. We can’t make supernatural things happen with our on fleshly hands. We can’t forget about Christ our first love.

The enemy is real and he will do all he can to render you ineffective or make you quit. We have to know who we are and who we are not.

A lot of leader loose out to the slow death of discouragement., Know who you are in Christ.

No matter how many times you crash and burn in life, it’s not the end of you but a reminder that God still works miracles. So don’t it take you out. You are miracle matrial.

Who would  we throw away our life for a bowl of stew? Something so small and temporary? Andy points to the fact that we all would for the right bowl of soup.  What’s your bowl of stew? Esau trades his birth right for a bowl of soup to his brother Jacob.  Esau was hungry and that’s all he could focus on. Andy walk us through the fact that research that your brain lies to you. It will magnify you desires and you think it will make us feel better if you could just get the thing you have an appetite for at that moment. Yet it‘s why we have buyer’s remorse are appetites blow things out of per portion.

What if we could go back and tell Jacob what would happen if he didn’t trade for the soup? Yet there was no one there to reframe his appetite. The same is true for us. This will never go away and our only hope is to reframe our appetites to look at the broader perspective of what God wants to do. We can’t allow our appetite to dictate our future or we will trade it for a bowl or soup.

Ten years from now………………………….

What do you want to see God do through you, your family, your job, your ministry what do you want it to look like. The more defined this is the less grip you appetite has on you life.

Don’t give in and trade your life for a bowl of stew.

What your bowl of STEW? What’s hard you for you to say no to?

Ticket – You can’t get in without your Event Ticket

Note Pad –  Your going to want to take notes

Mac Book Pro – Edit video or pics,take notes, post blogs and Skypee back home with your family what can’t you do with a Pro

Bible – Its always a good idea to spend time in the word before you start your day

Water Bottle – Cheaper than buying bottled water and you can refill at a water fountian

Flip Cam – Mine is actually a Kodak Zi8 but you never know when you want to capture some video

Lunch Sack – Its always possible to eat healthy you just need to bring something to carry your food in

Business cards – You’ll meet tons of people and make great connecctions

Camera – Your going to want to capture the moments a picture is worth a thousand words

Smart Phone – This is your all in one device phone, camera, video camrea, note taker, bible (you version) and more

Back Pack – You need something to carry all this stuff in

Natural Almonds – I never leave home with a can of these