Two questions for today: Who are you? What breaks your heart?
Andy’s answer: people who don’t or won’t go to church because the church has been marginalized
Sandra’s answer: the children trapped in foster care
So who are you and what breaks your heart?
We’re here because John Maxwell looked around as a pastor and saw the church struggling with leadership problems and there was nowhere teaching the church about leadership
Bill Hybels planted Willow Creek because there wasn’t churches reaching those in their mid-20s
What breaks your heart?
There’s an inexorable correlation between leadership and change.
Great leaders make things better.
Every time you try and make things better, something must change.
Great leaders love progress, love to push things forward. The status quo drives us crazy.
If you love progress, you are committed to change.
Great leaders fix things that are broken.
It’s tough for us to stay in our silos, in our corners and ignore things that our broken.
When you fix broken things, you begin to introduce change.
Great leaders don’t blame.
Blame is perhaps the most effective change-avoidance strategy.
If you’re blaming, you’re not leading. If you’re blaming, you’ve left leadership.
Broken hearted leaders change things that go beyond their current generation.
Catalyst is about bringing together leaders who love the local church.
We are not simply all leaders; we are called leaders.
You have been invited as a leader into the story of God that began before you and will go on after you.
The thing that breaks your heart is perhaps what God wants to do in and through you.
Nehemiah’s broken heart was part of a divine design.
Ezra’s broken heart was over the fact that people of God had abandoned the law of God.
So let me ask: who are you? and what breaks your heart?
Is it possible that your broken heart is by divine design?
Your leadership gift is a gift from the Holy Spirit for a divine purpose.
You have not been called to change the world, but you have been called to change something.
You have no idea what hangs in the balance of your decision to embrace the burden God has put in your heart. You have no idea who hangs in the balance, what church hangs in the balance, what children hangs in the balance, what organization hangs in the balance…
If you opt for purposelessness because of fear, there will come a day in your life where you will look back and you will wish you could go back and go after what breaks your heart.
Many years from now, what would you like people to line up to thank you for? If you’re a leader, you have to know the answer to this question.
What God originates, God orchestrates.
If God has originated a broken heart in you, how is not a problem.
If how was obvious, it would already be done.
You don’t have to change the world, but you have to change something.
God is the God of how.
Pope Benedict 18 dedicated Roman Coliseum to Christian martyrs.
Imagine if we could walk up to 1st century Christians and let them know that this would all change….
One day there will be crosses all over this city, but they won’t represent Roman crucifixions. They’ll represent one crucifixion, the crucifixion of your Savior.
Do you think they could have imagined that type of change?
One day all over this world, people will gather together and share a story and the emperor of Rome will just be a footnote in the story.
One day people all over this world people will name their sons Peter, James, John and they’ll name their dogs Nero and Caesar.
If this is possible, whatever you’re dreaming about is possible. If this is possible, you need to dream bigger.
If God did that, He can do whatever He put in your heart to do.
You are a leader. And you’re not just a leader; you’re a called leader, whose gifts, talents and opportunities who at some point will intersect with God’s divine purposes for the world.
As Christians, we should be baffled by pride and arrogance.
Who are you? and What breaks your heart?
You need to answer both questions and hang on.
When you know, because you’re a leader, you have to change it. That’s what leaders do.
Apply the command that Jesus gave more than any other: “Fear not! I’m with you.”
