Two Wrong Ways To Pray [Part 1/2]

It is possible to pray wrong. If you've ever heard someone pray over 3 minutes before a family dinner, you know this is true. Prayer may seem like a matter where any attempt is a good attempt, but the words of Jesus indicate differently. Since prayer is a vital component for a Christian's faith, it scares me that we might be praying wrong. Thankfully, Jesus gives clear direction on how we ought and ought not to pray. 

1. Do not pray to be seen by others

"And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret." (Matthew 6:5)

An indicator of praying wrong like this is if your most intimate and passionate prayers are in front of others. If you are praying on stage, in groups or in front of people more than you pray in secret, you may have fallen into this trap--praying to look good in front of people. Staying faithful and intimate with the LORD in secrecy does not bring the accolades of praying in front of hundreds or thousands of people. Nobody will compliment you as the "Man of God" or be moved by your display of reverence. 

Your balance between praying in public and praying in secret reveals your true motives. Resist the temptation to make your faith about what happens in public. 

2. Do not heap up empty phrases

"And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." (Matthew 6)

I often see people praying out of fear. Cowering, muttering words under breath, and having little confidence their prayers are making any difference in the heart of God. Because of this, people attempt to find prayer loopholes or passwords (the right words or techniques) to unlock the heart of God. People may feel confidence in praying a certain way, rocking back and forth, raising a voice, or declaring certain Christian buzz words. Please consider that sounding and looking powerful in prayer does not guarantee you are praying powerfully. 

1 John 5:14 says, "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us." 

God isn't moved by our efforts. God is moved by His love. We aren't heard in prayer because we say impressive amounts of the right words, but because Jesus has connected us to the Father. His love us made the way for us to connect with Him boldly. An indicator you've fallen in this trap is if you perceive others to be less effective in prayer because they aren't using your certain technique. Display your heart to God, not your techniques.  

Conclusion:

Jesus is very clear on how we ought not to pray. Avoid these traps by making connecting with God your priority--not looking good in front of people, or impressing God with our efforts.

Next week, I will showcase the instructions Jesus gives us on how we ought to pray. 

Question: Are you praying more in front of people or in secret?

An Easy Way To Help Your Pastor

My most insecure moment as a Pastor is immediately after preaching. Even though my main preaching objective is articulating what I sense the LORD saying, I often find myself asking, "Did my message connect? Did I totally screw up my sermon? Was my zipper down that whole time?" 

"Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up."  

Proverbs 12:25

Having a group of people watching, processing and criticizing every word you say is stressful--especially when people's lives are on the line. Yes, most of us preachers have spent a lot of time on stage, but we are still human and have insecurities. Thankfully, there are people who encourage me immediately after preaching. Hearing an uplifting word after speaking means the world to me, and I'm sure it will for your pastor too. A positive word lets Pastors know their efforts are not wasted. 

I encourage you to encourage your pastor immediately after every sermon. 

This small gesture will produce strength, passion and motivation for future ministry. If you want to effectively encourage your pastor, follow these 6 simple tips.

6 Tips to Help Encourage your Pastor After Preaching

1. Encourage Immediately

The moment right after speaking is the most insecure. Approach your Pastor as soon as you can to say something kind. Encouragement a week later is good, but immediately is better if you want to neutralize the "insecure moment."

2. Send a Personal Message

Put your encouragement in a text message, email, card or on a piece of paper. I still read notes people gave me 10 years ago. Something as permanent as a written message will uplift your Pastor for years. 

3. Say Something Specific

After a sermon, people tell me, "Good job." Almost always, I then ask, "How did God use this message to impact you?" I want to know the specific parts of the message or delivery that caused it to be good. Find a quote, story or joke you found particularly exceptional and let your pastor know. 

4. Quote Your Pastor On Social Media

Once you have a quote, put it on Social media and tag your pastor. Even better if you incorporate the Pastor's quote with an original picture! I look forward to reading these every week. 

5. Share Transformation Stories

If God did something in your life or someone else's, please let your Pastors know! Most people got into the ministry because they want to see lives changing, so let them know it's happening. Pass on the testimonies. Don't assume the Pastor has heard any good reports. 

6. Save Constructive Criticism for Later

Growing as a preacher is one of my main focuses in life. Feedback is my friend, but only after a minimum of 12 hours after preaching. Please don't bring up negative feedback during the most insecure moment of a preacher's life!

Conclusion:

This blog seems very narcissistic and the product of a "selfie" culture. This may be true, but, ultimately, the main affirmation I want to hear is "Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant." Knowing that our sermons are making a difference, on this side of eternity, isn't just flattery though. It's confirmation that God is using us and changing lives. 

Please, encourage your pastor after he or she preaches. Your five seconds of kindness makes a huge difference and costs very little. 

QUESTION: What's holding you back from applying this every time you hear a sermon?

How to Get a Better Wife

As the Husband of an incredible wife, I want make life better for her. When she cries and mascara runs down her face (honey, you know you love my mascara jokes), I want to do anything I can to make it stop. Naturally, as a husband I will protect my wife when she faces danger, get her nice things to spoil her and take her on that dream vacation to show her a great time. Good husbands will do anything to make their wives better in any way possible--physically, emotionally and financially. Unfortunately, a lot of us husbands forget to help our loved ones with the most powerful tool we have--prayer. 

"I'm not going to let anybody pray for my wife more than me!"

-Pastor Tim Forsthoff

If you want the best for your wife, you need to pray for her. This last week I received a challenge to pray for my wife more than anybody on Earth. There are several things I don't want people to do for my wife more than me. I don't want people to win her heart, make her laugh or create babies with her more than me (especially creating babies). Prayer is incredibly powerful, intimate and effective. Through out the Bible we see prayer end droughts, raise the dead and shape nations. In my life, I've seen prayer directly protect me from death, change the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and heal the sick. Considering all these things, why would I let anybody pray for my wife more than me? This is my duty. My privilege.  I want to do everything I can to take care of my wife. As husbands, we need to war on behalf of our wives in the spiritual realm. Especially if things aren't as we know they should or could be, prayer is essential.  

What to Pray?  

It can feel overwhelming to start, so here are some of the topics I use to pray for my wife. 

Here are 7 Things I Pray For My Wife: 

1. Whatever God Wants. Ask God what He wants you to pray. He knows what she needs before your wife. 
2. Whatever She wants. Ask her. I'm sure she'll have a list for you.
3. Relationship with God. Pray she finds intimacy with God the Father and fresh fire for her Spiritual walk. Ask for her ears to hear clearly from the Lord. 
4. Purpose/Influence. Pray for her to walk in God's purpose for her life. Pray her influence is multiplied and her gifts and talents are used for God's Glory. 
5. Health. Pray her body is filled with life and life more abundantly.
6. Emotions. Pray for her emotions to be filled with joy, peace and balanced with great health.
7. Friendships. Pray for her to have strong friendships with people who celebrate her and she can be vulnerable with.

CONCLUSION:

Of course this is not an exhaustive list of prayers, but it will help you better your wife. In the Scriptures, Husbands are told to love their wives as Jesus loved the Church (Eph 5:25). What better way to love our wives than to be connected to God and fight on our loved one's behalf.

Husbands, don't let anybody pray for your wife more than you!

Question: What are other things a husband should pray?

3 Reasons Leaders Need to Plan Ahead

I grew up hearing people say, "The best way to make God laugh is by making a plan." I don't agree with this unless you are planning to build a comedy club. In that case, it's still unlikely. If God can speak to us in the moment, surely He can speak to us ahead of time. 

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”

― Benjamin Franklin

During my first year at Cornerstone Church, the Senior Pastor took out a calendar and said, "let's plan out the year." I had never seen anything like this. I quietly thought to myself, "Can people really do this? Is this allowed? Is this possible?!"  From that point, we went through each month and scheduled an entire year of ministry. This moment happened two years ago, and from that meeting on, we saw the LORD bring thousands of people to salvation, ministries move forward and success go according to plan. It forever marked me, and I've adopted planning ahead into my leadership ever since, and I believe you should too. 

3 Reasons For Planning Ahead

1. Planning creates space for creativity

Great ideas arrive quickly or after a long time of thinking, stewing and wrestling with a challenge or an idea. There are times I can sit down with the intentions of creating the next innovative idea for my ministry and nothing comes to mind. Then, while driving down the road, I'll see a dog walking across the road and somehow that inspires a great idea. At this point, I have to remind myself that my wife doesn't want me texting and driving, so I rehearse the idea in my head until I get home to write it down. When planning ahead, you create more opportunities for ideas to arrive. You aren't as restricted on time and the options for inspiration greatly increase. 

2. Planning allows people to join you

Spur of the moment leaders are often dynamic, charismatic and captivating. You never know what they'll do next. Unfortunately, they don't either. People are relegated to spectating leaders like this because nobody knows how to help. When a leader plans ahead, he or she allows others to join the vision, know the goals and bring individual resources and skills to the table. Have you ever helped someone move out of a house and all the boxes are already packed and neatly labeled. The host tells everyone exactly where the boxes need to go, and moving is fun, fast, and stress free. Contrast that with the host who hasn't planned ahead and is frantically packing boxes while the people who came to help awkwardly watch, not knowing what to do. Planning ahead allows an organization to be bigger than one person.

3. Planning means you are putting thought into the future

In order to plan, leaders have to put a lot of research, thinking, and praying into what the most desirable future is for the organization. Planning is more than filling in dates on a calendar. I understand, Christian leaders in particular, may not want to be presumptuous and want to follow the  "leading of the LORD," but God is a God outside of time. If God can speak to us last minute, why can't He tell us ahead of time? Hebrews 12 says "for the joy set before him [Jesus] endured the cross." Jesus knew the plan God the Father had for Him and carried full confidence in the reasoning behind all of it. He knew the joy of salvation available for all the world. Planning allows us to have confidence in what we are doing for the sake of the future. If God decides to change things last minute, no harm done. Follow Him. 

4 Ways To Get Started

1. Create Time and Space to Slot things on a Calendar

Pick a day to sit down with your team, and agree not leave the room until you've planned the next year out. Actually do it. Boom. Step one completed. 

2. Develop Clear Action Steps

Dreaming up great ideas is a lot of fun, but you need to know exactly what happens next. Draw on the strengths of your logistical person. For me, it's Rachael Kelley. I call her my bridge between vision and execution. As soon as an idea for an event is on the board, she thinks about scheduling the date, finding resources, recruiting volunteers and so forth. She then makes a list of all things that need to be done (action steps) and goes to the next step. 

3. Assign People's Names to Each Action

I'm not a huge fan of more than one person taking responsibility to do something. Too often will one person do all the work or nobody does anything thinking the other person will take care of it. Place a person's name by each task and see efficiency go crazy high. 

4. Choose Deadlines for Each Person's tasks

If you don't choose a deadline, a date for things to get done, nothing will ever get done. Give someone a year to accomplish a task, and it will take a year to accomplish it. Give someone a week, and it will take a week. Prioritize your assignments and have a clear timeframe to hold your people accountable to. 

Planning ahead allows creativity, teamwork, and thought to be part of your organization. Spur of the moment leadership can be easier, but planning ahead is worth the effort. 

Question: Have you ever seen a plan work out? What happened?

1 Thing a leader must be Redundant in. Redundant in.

“The only way for people to embrace a message is to hear it over a period of time, in a variety of different situations, and preferably from different people. That’s why great leaders see themselves as Chief Reminding Officers as much as anything else. Their top two priorities are to set the direction of the organization and then to ensure that people are reminded of it on a regular basis.”

In order to better lead Momentum (an 18+ God Party), I read, “The Advantage,” by Patrick M. Lencioni. One section of the book brought security to an area of leadership I see leaders often fail or are insecure about (people like me).

Lencioni says leaders must prioritize two things:

1. Set the direction of an organization

Six Months ago, I presented that “Momentum exists to lead young adults into growing relationships with Jesus Christ and one another.” We explained in our vision casting meetings why we existed and stated that Jesus came to the Earth, according to John 10:10, to bring life and life more abundantly. Therefore, Momentum joins in the vision of Jesus to bring life and life more abundantly to young adults by leading them into these stated growing relationships. In short, we party for life.

Coming up with our two portable vision and mission statements took months of painstaking thinking, praying and team brainstorming. As simple as “We Party for Life” sounds, it took an embarrassing amount of time to come up with.

Setting the direction of the organization, however, was just the start.

2. Ensure people are reminded of it on a regular basis

Earlier, I mentioned feeling an insecurity about my leadership. This is it. Since crafting our “Why we exist” statement (I call it that because I still get confused about the difference between vision and mission), I have repeated it in every one of my meetings. Every service, staff meeting, recruitment session, briefing, debriefing, all of it includes Pastor Pradeepan repeating something he has said hundreds of times.

To be honest, I get bored saying the same thing over and over. I also feel like my words become too predictable and babying. A meeting begins, I make a few dumb jokes and then drive home the point, “We Party for Life.” I share a scripture and explain what’s coming up on the calendar and then emphasize we do this to “lead young adults into growing relationships with Jesus Christ and one another.”

People are starting to mouth or say the words with me! Whether this is out of mockery or buying in, it makes me feel insecure! I know they aren't mocking me, though (Just to be clear)!

Reading that leaders need to see themselves as the “Chief Reminding Officers” brought me a lot of encouragement and passion to keep repeating the same words.

As leaders, we are responsible for keeping the organization going in the right direction, and, for the most part, that direction will never change. We know why we exist and everything we do must line up with that why. So often, we feel the need to meet everyone’s desires or facilitate all the random ideas. This should not be.

The difference between a life giving river and a home destroying flood is focus—the primary responsibility of the leader.

We must be unapologetic in sticking to our vision and repeating it so that we never go off track or lose focus. So, I gladly restate and restate and restate why we exist! I am the Chief Reminding Officer and if you come to Momentum, you know that WE PARTY FOR LIFE!

Leaders remind people why and how you do what you do every chance you can.

You are the Chief Reminding Officer! You are the Chief Reminding Officer!

Tongue Scrapers Eliminate Bad Breath [Practical Stuff #1]

To my wife’s joy, the tongue scraper I bought two months ago helped my breath smell better. I’m a preacher, so I try to impact people with my words. Unfortunately,  my jokes, and content did not deliver the strongest impression—my breath did.

I knew my breath was bad, but nothing I tried really worked to prevent it:

·      Brushing

·      Flossing

·      Not having an empty stomach

·      Mouthwash

The Wife Test

So I tried a tongue scraper, and my wife, who has no problem telling me when my breath is bad, said it worked wonders. I asked her to give me a quote concerning this difference.

“I can’t even smell your breath anymore!”

That’s all the proof you need, folks. Nobody is more aware of my breath than my wife (we kiss).

What is a Tongue Scraper?

This is the tongue scraper I use,

Basically, a dirty tongue contributes to 90% of bad breath. That’s why my traditional attempts (brushing, flossing, etc.) did not work. This tool scrapes the bad breath content off of your tongue.

All you do is scrape the white stuff off your tongue. Simple.

Smell it, and you’ll most likely agree your bad odors come from the white gunk.

If you’re a preacher, or someone regularly holding a conversation, get a tongue scraper. It’s less than $5 and makes a huge difference! You’ll see that people will talk to you a lot more than they used to.