Steve Murrell's Blog, page 7

“Where Your Heart Is” by AWAKE84

Here’s AWAKE84’s newest music video from a song off of their LIVING AWAKE album. Enjoy.

What Was God Doing on the Cross? by Alister McGrath

Alister McGrath earned multiple degrees from Oxford University, including chemistry and a doctorate in molecular biophysics, theology, and intellectual history. After earning his degrees, he served Oxford students in various teaching roles from 1983 through 2022.

Even though his book was written thirty years ago, it is still relevant today.

View book here →

[This book’s] goal has been to make accessible the treasury of Christian insights concerning the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is written with the needs of ordinary Christians, and those who minister to them, kept firmly in mind. These insights are your heritage; this book has been written in order that you may lay claim to them, and in doing so, deepen your faith and understanding.

Three Leadership Realities

In Psalm 69, David paints a good picture of what life and leadership are like.

Rather than focusing on the highs and downplaying the lows, David admits that leadership includes complex circumstances that require difficult decisions, but in the end, God gives wisdom and grace to his leaders.

Follow Me by J. Lee Grady

Lee Grady, author, journalist, and ordained minister, is committed to helping mentor and disciple younger Christians. Instead of relying on large-event evangelism, he turned to Jesus as the model of relational discipleship. In Follow Me, Lee looks at the ways in which Jesus taught the twelve men who went on to turn the world upside down.

View book here →

In the days before COVID we assumed we were successful if we had big crowds in a nice building. But the apostle Paul said ministry made with wood, hay, and stubble will burn up when tested by God’s holiness. (See 1 Corinthians 3:12–13.) Just because a sanctuary is full of people doesn’t mean we are making strong followers of Jesus. We must never evaluate our success by worldly standards. God is not impressed with crowds. He wants strong, faithful followers who can influence others.

Set Apart for Him

On Day 1 of the 2024 North American Build Conference, I was reminded of exactly what we are set apart for. Psalm 4 says we are set apart for God “himself.”

So, before we are set apart for mission, for ministry, for leadership, for discipleship, we are set apart for God himself. This means being set apart is always personal and relational before it is missional.

If you want to think like a leader, think relationship first and mission second.

“Holy One” by Joshua Jamison

Here’s another song we sang at Build North America last week written by one of Southpoint Community Church’s worship leaders. Enjoy.

Acting Up: 14 Acts of Leadership from Acts 14 by Lereko Tsoloane

Pastor Lereko, along with his wife Kholofelo, serves as the Discipleship Pastor at Every Nation Rosebank, Johannesburg, in South Africa. He is also a student at Every Nation Seminary. In Acting Up, he explores leadership principles found throughout Acts 14. Pastor Lereko writes with humble insight, but more than that, he reveals God’s wisdom. Everyone will find something to encourage and challenge them in these pages.

Here lies a fundamental lesson for any of us who would seek to develop and hone our leadership skills—it doesn’t matter how talented you are, how charming and anointed, it doesn’t matter what you believe your calling is from God, alone you are insufficient and together is always better.

Engaging Politics

Today’s Think Like a Leader will be a little different. Instead of exegeting a text, I want to look at a narrative of David’s life as a guide for spiritual leaders as we engage elected officials. Three principles serve as guidelines:

Our advice is spiritual, not political.Our relationship is pastoral, not transactional.Our role is to call them up, not call them out. (Thank you, Pastor Chris!)

More in today’s video.

Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene

Graham Greene (1904–1991) is considered one of the most significant novelists of the twentieth century. His spiritual journey took him from agnosticism to a conversion to Catholicism. After his conversion, he continued to grapple with the theological questions that bombarded him. In Monsignor Quixote, we find a Catholic priest, assailed with doubts, embarked on a road trip with his best friend, an atheist Communist. This entertaining and subtly instructive story is deeply theological. I highly recommend it.

View book here →

Belief in Monsignor Quixote is cold and still. But doubt—and there is no affable agnosticism anywhere in Greene—unfolds on a vital road of pilgrimage. For Quixote and Sancho, it provided a place of pursuit, escape, despair, shame, constant change, courage, adventure, joy, generous moments and foolish ones, intellectual debate, sometimes fresh wisdom, and almost always amiable wine.

Overcoming Difficult Situations

As leaders, we are often faced with difficult situations that seem too powerful, too personal, and too impossible to overcome. In Psalm 18, David describes an enemy who is powerful, personal, and impossible, but God supports him.

If we want to think like a leader when in difficult situations, we have to trust God to be our support by the way he:

RescuesRewardsEquipsDelivers