Strengthen your Net

God has given each of us passions and desires for bigger and greater things so that we never remain stagnant or feel like our lives are without purpose. He has placed things inside each of us that are much bigger than any of us could accomplish without His help. There is an amazing story from the book of John that teaches us a bit about being prepared for those dreams that he has given us. God does give us great vision but only wants us to step into that when we are actually ready.

Fisherman

In Matthew 4 Jesus begins to call the disciples. In return for laying down their fishing nets He told them that they could come with him to fish for people. After his resurrection there is also another amazing story centered on fishing that is recorded in John 21. In this story the disciples are found fishing after Jesus has risen from the dead. They did not recognize him at first but after following his instructions their nets began to fill with probably more fish than they had ever caught at one time in their entire lives. When they obeyed Jesus they experienced a supernatural favor and blessing.

When they return to the shore (John 21:10-11) the Disciples were asked by Jesus to bring their fish to Him. We are always meant to bring the things that Jesus blesses us with, whether resources or people, to Him. All of it is meant for HIS glory and never for our own. We get to partake and enjoy of this amazing abundance but we need to remember its always intended to be handed right back to him.

When they got back to the shore their nets were completely filled with fish but for some reason the nets did not break. The verse mentions an exact number, 153, that they caught. I believe the number was mentioned because had there been 154 the nets would have broken. The number is significant because Jesus only allowed them to catch what they could handle. What would have been the value of this blessing had they gotten to shore and as they pulled the net out of the water it busted and all the fish just swam back into the sea? He never intends for us to catch more than our nets can handle.

The number of fish in this story can represent each of our dreams and passions. They represent what God may entrust us with whether it may be people, possessions or some great position.  God may have given us vision for a huge ministry, or a thriving business but what I believe he wants us to focus on is the NET and not the quantity of fish. He wants us to be sure we have the capacity for the vision that he has placed in our hearts.

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The disciples were called in an instant to follow Christ and become fishers of men. But before they could catch the fish they had to make their nets. They had to take their time sitting and sewing each piece together and tying different places together. They had to invest time day after day to ensure that when the time came they would be able to handle whatever catch God had planned for them. Most people want to focus on their huge ambitions and make a nice looking plan of bullet points of how to get there but few want to go through the grueling work of preparing their character to be in that position one day.  Radical encounters with the Spirit of God can propel us into our destiny but only intentional effort to grow can give us the discipline that will ensure we are capable of withstanding the pressure of all that God wants to place in our nets.

Some people feel like their grand visions are vain or are something that they should not express so they choose to never talk about them or focus on them. This can sometimes be a person practicing false humility. The enemy wants to pervert our dreams and make it all about us. He wants us to forget that the whole reason we catch the fish is so that we can pull them out with our nets and take them to Jesus. We need to embrace our grand visions with great humility and set our hearts to let the Holy Spirit give us the character we need to achieve them.  In the same way that God gave all of creation natural sexual desires to ensure pro-creation, so did He give us these dreams to expand and grow His Kingdom. We have the ideas because God has placed them in each of our hearts so that we will pursue them with great passion!

Instead of asking Jesus for more fish, we really need to be asking him for a stronger net. We need to ask him for more patience, more character, more holiness, more desire to fast and pray and for more integrity. When we ask God for these things then we don’t have to worry about working to achieve a greater anointing or to grow our ministries. The growth will come quite naturally as we sit and sew our nets. The increase will always come as we abide (John 15) in the love of Jesus and allow him to mold us and shape us. We don’t have to strive or try to force it to happen.

Then one day Jesus will look at each of us, when he knows our nets are ready, and ask us to throw the net in one more time. We may have tried already many times with not much success but at this moment we will step into His shalom. We will enter into His peace and prosperity as we walk in maturity and obedience. One of my greatest fears is that I will walk through life with such a weak net that God never sees that I have the capacity to handle anything greater. Let us all be sure that we will have our nets strong and ready so that we can handle the amazing plans that He has for each of us.

Andrew Chalmers

Enriched Culture – Accurately Acknowledge Who People Are

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“Catherine Lawes was a young mother with three children when her husband became warden at Sing Sing prison. When the first prison basketball game was held, she attended with her three young kids and sat in the stands with the inmates. She insisted on getting to know them and their records.She discovered one convicted murderer was blind so she visited him over the next several months and taught him how to read Braille. Later, Catherine found a deaf-mute in prison. She went to school to learn how to use sign language so they could talk. Many said that Catherine was like having Jesus visiting Sing Sing prison from 1921 – 1937” (Habitudes 4).  After Catherine was killed suddenly in a car accident in 1937, all the inmates were allowed to walk to her home unsupervised to pay their respects and every one of them returned to the prison that night.

Danny Silk describes in his book A Culture of Honor one of the principles of this culture as “accurately acknowledging who people are will position us to give them what they deserve, and to receive the gift of who they are in our lives.”

A culture of honor starts with us accurately acknowledging the person God has brought to us; we can only do this when we recognize their God-given identities and roles. Sometimes because of what we see when a student enters our program, it takes a bit of Diamond in the Roughmining to find the diamond in the rough, the pearl in the oyster – but it’s there.

And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” ~ 1 Peter 2:4-5, 9.

“In a culture of honor leaders lead with honor by courageously treating people in their God-given identity and not according to the aliases they receive from others” ~ Silk.  Ever wondered why God changed Abram’s name to Abraham and Sarai’s name to Sarah, and many others who received name changes in the Bible? It was usually to establish their new identity. Names speak destiny over the person. Imagine when God said ‘Abraham,’ each time He spoke ‘father of a multitude.’ He was actively speaking over Abraham his destiny. “Father, Mother, son, daughter, pastor, apostle, prophet, Christian, human being – defines a person’s role and identity and when used correctly, establish God-designed relationships in which specific rewards are given and received to build and strengthen us” ~ Silk. A son will always be a son, a daughter will always be a daughter, a pastor will always have a shepherd’s heart.

Application

What would happen if we started accurately acknowledging the new identities of each person that walks through our TC doors? Ask yourself, “what is special, unique, and wonderful about this person? Then share what you see with the person and with others. Speak their life-purpose and destinies over them.

Those who come to us as students should leave as sons and daughters as well.

Level II Link

Core Courses

Our core course this month is Ministry Development and our text: From Dream to Reality dream to reality book cover by Dr. Jerry Nance. “Every pastor, CEO or Christian leader who builds a ministry or business from scratch face challenges; the beginning months and years are the hardest, yet are filled with some of the richest learning experiences” ~ Dr. J.

In this book you’ll learn principles like:

  • The Leader Must Hear From God
  • Pray Hard, Work Hard, Then Pray God Blesses Your Work
  • Cherish and Celebrate Victories Along the Way
  • You Can Fund Your Vision and more…

Your first post will be up on Monday, Jan 20th. As always, looking forward to chat with you on the discussion board.

 

 

Rep’s Link – Jan 2014

Happy New Year everyone! We thank God for the opportunity we have to identify, equip and train sons and daughters to identify their God-given purpose and live out their destinies in God’s kingdom. This month we will not have our ELP Revolutionized Leadership webinar because we are changing to a new webinar hosting software – Google Hangouts. We will be testing the system and making some tweaks so look out for an email when we start-up again in February (Feb 21st at 10:30am eastern).

Level I Adult 

We will continue with our 2-month course Knowing and Understanding God’s Will and our text: Experiencing God by Blackaby, Blackaby & King. For those of you who have elective book orders, go ahead and enter them in the Google spreadsheet and I’ll get these ordered for you.

Level I Adolescent

Our next in the Habitudes series is Leading Others and our text: Habitudes III – “The Art of Leading Others by Dr. Tim Elmore. Dr. Elmore quotes “sociologists tell us the most introverted people will influence 10,000 others in an average lifetime;” so how do you influence others? This course teaches the emerging leaders how to influence those in their care.

Monthly Book Orders and Grades

Southeast region Rep’s can go to Google Drive and search for ELP Monthly Order Form and Grade Sheet Edited. Look for your center’s name in the tabs at the bottom and fill in your center’s information. No need to save or email the spreadsheet (Google Drive saves it and I can access the info from my Drive). If you place an initial order on the form and update the order later (i.e. add 2 more books) after we have ordered your books, please send me an email andree.aiken@teenchallenge.cc. Thank you.

 

 

 

ELP Highlights

Michael ArnoldELP Michael Arnold pic
From Abingdon Va
Work at New Orleans TC
Graduated from Appalachian TC in West Virginia 2008

I was an addict for such a long time, I had totally destroyed everything. I had heard of God but never believed and sitting in a hotel room I said if you’re real and love me the way everyone says just let me die. Funny thing God answered but not the way I thought He would. Brother Jim from TC had drove an hour to visit me. I went to TC and that person died and God made something new.

The calling God has given me is the same as all. 2 Corinthians 5:18 “All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” My dream is to be the person in someone’s life that Gods uses like Brother Jim was to me.

The Emerging Leader Program helped me by the deeper knowledge it gave, the discipline it required, skills I could apply immediately, the confidence to take on challenges and now the privilege to serve the emerging leaders in Louisiana. What a blessing!