Are you leading by example?

Really great article ended with this list... More than a message  The writer intended it for Pastor's as they are the primary readers of Leadership Journal.. but I think it is worthy for all of us.

Our churches need to see and hear ALL of us!

Maturity for a new year.

"The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple. That is the substance of our Message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. That’s what I’m working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me." --The Message 1 Colossians 27-28

Creative but committed... Carpe Diem

O captain my captain... 

Opening Music: 80s favorites... Walk like an egyptian, Funky Town, Wanted Dead or Alive

Scripture today: Galatians 6

MOVIE REFERENCE;-) Used the plot line and characters of Dead Poet's Society to discuss applications and ideas.. 

Attendance today:  Jeff, Tracee, Jessica 

Missing:  Everyone else(YOU)

Missed: Everyone else(YOU)

Upcoming.. We will be studying, diving in, and applying the message and scripture from the previous weeks sermon...For next week that will mean James 1  Chance to ask/answer questions, discuss and review the awesome messages that Bert brings us weekly.  

================  Thoughts from today: I bolded and highlighted the verses we focused on below... 

Galatians 6

The Message (MSG)

Nothing but the Cross

6 1-3 Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

4-5 Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.

6 Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.

7-8 Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.

9-10 So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.

11-13 Now, in these last sentences, I want to emphasize in the bold scrawls of my personal handwriting the immense importance of what I have written to you. These people who are attempting to force the ways of circumcision on you have only one motive: They want an easy way to look good before others, lacking the courage to live by a faith that shares Christ’s suffering and death. All their talk about the law is gas. They themselves don’t keep the law! And they are highly selective in the laws they do observe. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast of their success in recruiting you to their side. That is contemptible!

14-16 For my part, I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate. Can’t you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do—submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life! All who walk by this standard are the true Israel of God—his chosen people. Peace and mercy on them!

17 Quite frankly, I don’t want to be bothered anymore by these disputes. I have far more important things to do—the serious living of this faith. I bear in my body scars from my service to Jesus.

18 May what our Master Jesus Christ gives freely be deeply and personally yours, my friends. Oh, yes!

Open Door Summer Connect

What is "Summer Connect" and what do I do?

STEP 1: 
Our class, Open Door is charged to visit other classes and worship throughout the Summer and experience approaches and ideas of other teachers.  We should identify ourselves as members of OpenDoor but articulate a desire to better connect with our larger church body building relationships and our perspective of the church as a life community. In this attendance, we should also be attending worship and reflecting closely on worship and how it affects us. Take notes.. as you will need them.

STEP 2: 
We will meet together "out of band" at 5 separate events to eat together and then actively discuss moments and memories from our experiences in worship and other classes.  We will focus on the week prior to the actual scheduled connect event, but all prior weeks are "fair game".

NOTE: these special connect events are open to all HRBC members and will feature guest speakers and facilitators including Bill Moore, Matthew Hensley, and Jeff Prillaman just to start... We may even get other members of the staff to attend and speak. Children will be welcome and invited..

The first of these events will be held on 6/22 at the home of Jeff and Tracee Prillaman.  
Cookout & Fellowship 6pm - 7pm
Discussion 7pm - 8:30pm


Other Dates and Locations TBD but will be schedule about every 2-3 weeks through the Summer to include a Sunday afternoon at the pool,  maybe bowling... maybe shopping... and several others' homes. Interested in hosting...Call Jeff! or have another idea... Call Jeff! just want to talk.. Call Jeff!

STEP 3:  
We will reconvene Open Door.. in the coolest classroom, coolest class in the church, in the  upper corner room.. on Sunday, September 9...  connected.. passionate, and READY to GO forward with our lives as mission.

Leadership101

picture from The Art of Manliness blog

Leadership is a means to an end. A skill, a tool... Not an end in itself.
Leadership is accountability for results. Both positive & negative

Agree on the goal... The outcome.
You must actually Know how to do it...
Assemble a platform of support & action(resources)
Tell performers what to do. With humility, with honor, from a spirit of service to the goal... Never from a spirit of self.
Performers should choose to follow.
It is not about you. It is about the outcome, the results.
Measure, adjust, inspire, believe, expect, trust, assist...
If you fail... Try again

Wait
Then Go!

Reference Acts 1

Question: was the Emperor Constantine a Godly leader?

Tidbit from Wild at Heart Tayman

Open Door is the best kept secret at HRBC. It's the small, often easily missed, random comments and "tidbits" (Didn't tidbits also used to be some kind of crunchy cheese stick snack?) during our times together that challenge and inspire us. Like the time Woody Delcorso gave me the book "Wild At Heart" because of something he heard me say during class. Over the course of several weeks, Woody then "inspired" ( pressured, twisted my arm, forced, coerced) me to read it- something that I enjoy about as much as watching paint dry. 

Long story short... It has been a life altering event for my family... And as I like to say... It's all Woody's fault!

Woody has come and gone from HRBC. We still keep in touch. After his recent move to Louisiana, he summed up his short time with us by saying, "Tayman, God sent me to Open Door so that I could give you that book".

Open Minds. Open Hearts. Open Door.

... May God Light A Fire In Your Heart.

Stephen A. Tayman

Judging

Parents, church members... Christians

Matthew 20:1-16 (NIV)
The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard [ ] 20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. [2] He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. [3] “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. [4] He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ [5] So they went.“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. [6] About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’[7] “ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’[8] “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’[9] “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. [10] So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. [11] When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. [12] ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’[13] “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? [14] Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. [15] Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ [16] “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”