1 Thess 2: 11
For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into His kingdom and glory.
My initial experience in the ministry, was that 'instructors' tend to focus more on their legacies , on the vision of their ministry, on results and achievements for the gospel. i say this a bit tongue in cheek probably because of the negative connotations this had for me, but I'm very sure every 'instructor' is sincere and pure in motive of what their purpose is.
I discovered that many men and sons of God are desperately (knowingly or unknowingly) searching for the fathering that a mentor-father can give and needs to give. I needed it but couldn't not find it until much later. What I am trying to highlight is the need for this powerful quality.
Paul says in 1 Cor 4:15 "Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, ..."
Guardian originally referred to the slave who was responsible who was responsible for the child's early education in conduct. It would be an instructor or supervisor. One who takes care of the early stages of growth for understanding of the ways and conduct necessary in the house. But they did not and could not seal with the seals of a father.By what Paul indicates it's obvious these instructor types abound. But the mentor-fathers are scarce, or rather are not quite so prolific.
From the verse in Thessalonians we see there are 3 areas that mentor-fathers contribute to their sons:
1. encouraging
2. comforting
3. urging
Encouraging means we contribute counsel, aid, help, to exhort, with the purpose of producing an intended outcome.
It's always for the purpose of strengthening and establishing the individual, not for our own benefit. It could include even correction or admonition.It could be a stronger plea to the person even than to beg. To appeal to.
Comforting: Comes from a combination of words. alongside and mythos - telling stories. We are to come alongside with comforting stories of victory and inspiration and miracles so the son or child or believer can get comfort and motivation from what happened to those before us.
Urging: To affirm, validate, confirm positively, and establish as true, attest, declare. To drive forward onward and impel, entreat earnestly and repeatedly,To advocate earnestly the doing, consideration, or approval of; and press for, to stimulate; excite, to exert an impelling force; push vigorously.
Can you see the vital need to bring these components into our mentor-fathering so that the mentee, child, son, believer begins to live in the way that is required of them. This is not a small responsibility. Its not about your perfection, its not about being too demanding, its not about too much responsibility, its not even about being too religious - No! This is about fulfilling the call to be mentor-fathers in the earth and raise up a generation of sons who live for God as God's sons.
Measure yourself on scale of 1 to 10, 10 being dong great and 1 not so great:
Do I as a father/leader/male
Encourage 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Comfort 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Urge 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Where would you like to be a year from now?
Where are the biggest gaps?
What can you do immediately to begin to correct this gap?
Please write me and let me know how you are doing and how you would like to do and maybe correct some disparities.
Friday 23 July 2010
Wednesday 21 July 2010
Allowing The Power of an Opinion
One thing I had to learn during this time of transition and change was that for son's/children/mentee's to grow they needed a platform of expression.
I began my fathering with a idea that 'children' were meant to be seen and not heard. Of course I learnt that from my parents and others that came from the same culture. But I soon learnt that the Heavenly Father loves our honesty and wants us to express our hearts before Him.
Hey the Lord is not surprised by your opinions and utterances. He knows your heart before you do. Who knows the thoughts of man better than the spirit that is in man (1 Cor2:11). And yet He allows us to be who we are because He made us this way. Don't we try and mold people to our way because that's the way it has always been done before?
Someone taught me this principle: Consider all the facts; Make a single-minded decision; And settle it with finality; And live with consequences.
I began to teach my children and others around me this principle. because as we deliberate and halt between 2 opinions or places, we are double-minded and inactive and passive and the book of James tells us we are unstable in ALL our ways. We need to learn to make a single-minded decision and learn that decisions have consequences.
So, as part of their maturing, I began to allow my children to 'speak their mind' as such;to share the perspective in things, topics; to make their own decisions about things, but advising them to consider the consequences. I even found I had been taking the power to grow away from the members of our church by not allowing them to decide for themselves what God's will was for them. I would have my own agenda and idea of what they 'needed' and what was the Lord's will for them. Shame on me!
Empowering, growth, maturity means that we are allowed the responsibility of making the choices that affect and influence our destinies.
Have you noticed that in the book of Acts we told things happened but we are never given a 5 or 10 point plan or instruction on how to do the same thing. I believe it's because the Holy spirit wanted us to 'find' our what works for us; to make the decisions and choices that would bring about the same Holy Spirit inspired results.
Have you noticed how the Heavenly Father never 'forces' or coerces you to do something but says:"I set before you.. Choose, that you may live".
It takes patience and maturity on behalf of the father-mentor to 'listen' to the mentee and not constantly want to direct him. I had to deal with that in my own heart over and over. As a mentor-father are there times to guide and direct? Absolutely! But we should always have the mentee's/child's/son's maturity and empowerment in mind.
Responsibility is part of growth.
I began my fathering with a idea that 'children' were meant to be seen and not heard. Of course I learnt that from my parents and others that came from the same culture. But I soon learnt that the Heavenly Father loves our honesty and wants us to express our hearts before Him.
Hey the Lord is not surprised by your opinions and utterances. He knows your heart before you do. Who knows the thoughts of man better than the spirit that is in man (1 Cor2:11). And yet He allows us to be who we are because He made us this way. Don't we try and mold people to our way because that's the way it has always been done before?
Someone taught me this principle: Consider all the facts; Make a single-minded decision; And settle it with finality; And live with consequences.
I began to teach my children and others around me this principle. because as we deliberate and halt between 2 opinions or places, we are double-minded and inactive and passive and the book of James tells us we are unstable in ALL our ways. We need to learn to make a single-minded decision and learn that decisions have consequences.
So, as part of their maturing, I began to allow my children to 'speak their mind' as such;to share the perspective in things, topics; to make their own decisions about things, but advising them to consider the consequences. I even found I had been taking the power to grow away from the members of our church by not allowing them to decide for themselves what God's will was for them. I would have my own agenda and idea of what they 'needed' and what was the Lord's will for them. Shame on me!
Empowering, growth, maturity means that we are allowed the responsibility of making the choices that affect and influence our destinies.
Have you noticed that in the book of Acts we told things happened but we are never given a 5 or 10 point plan or instruction on how to do the same thing. I believe it's because the Holy spirit wanted us to 'find' our what works for us; to make the decisions and choices that would bring about the same Holy Spirit inspired results.
Have you noticed how the Heavenly Father never 'forces' or coerces you to do something but says:"I set before you.. Choose, that you may live".
It takes patience and maturity on behalf of the father-mentor to 'listen' to the mentee and not constantly want to direct him. I had to deal with that in my own heart over and over. As a mentor-father are there times to guide and direct? Absolutely! But we should always have the mentee's/child's/son's maturity and empowerment in mind.
Responsibility is part of growth.
Saturday 10 July 2010
And the Journey Continues: Growth and Maturity
My encounter with the Heavenly Father as father and dealing with the sense of lack, I had felt in my own heart, now led me to ask what my responsibilities were as a man, mentor and father.
There were men around me and I knew that my responsibility to them ran deeper than just being a minister or preacher.
Col 1:27-29 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:
Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
These few scriptures revolutionized my thinking. Paul states that his focus was to warn and teach every single man, to present every one mature, grown up, and complete.
This was is work, his labour; striving according to the energy the Lord worked in him powerfully.
Interestingly, the word striving means to contend, struggle, and labour intensely.
How on earth was I going to do this? Fortunately, at that stage, many of the men in the ministry with me and I had a fairly good relationship, but I needed to take it to another level, so that we could begin to journey at a different level.
It really would be about family. The difficulty was that I was still functioning and viewing most of what I would do through a wrong mentality for what was required of me.
Much of what I instruct to be out-of-balance thinking today, I did back then. I certainly said some totally unnecessary things and certainly had some unrighteous attitudes. But the Lord was gracious to me and so were many of my friends.
What a learning curve!
I committed and stepped out. Now I saw that it wasn't just about sharing or instructing and encouraging the 'sons', but also an element of correction and discipline. But here was the problem, I was totally intimidated and felt what happens if I am wrong.
Mentoring meant I had to get off my little soap box and begin to listen and understand and allow my friends to come into their completion and season of maturity.
Even though I had always wanted that for them, their maturity I mean, it now revealed my insecurity to actually see it fulfilled. Hey I enjoyed and needed everyone needing me and depending on me to guide them in what was 'necessary' for them. Really no-one could actually do what they thought was the direction and leading of the Lord for them, rather I would imply what it was they needed to do.
OK, so I am embarrassed about it now. But how many fathers in the natural still treat their children like that? We want them depend on us and we will make their decisions for them and always be telling them what to do. They have no room for growth and maturing by being allowed to make their decisions and living with the consequences; while being mentored by their mentor-father.
The only problem is that we keep them immature and unable to 'think for themselves.
I realised I had to fulfill my responsibilities, but boy it was going to take an enormous amount of growth and maturing of my own.
When was the last time you reviewed your responsibilities as a mentor-father?
Are you focused on your children's growth and maturity?
What do you have to deal with for your own growth?
There were men around me and I knew that my responsibility to them ran deeper than just being a minister or preacher.
Col 1:27-29 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:
Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
These few scriptures revolutionized my thinking. Paul states that his focus was to warn and teach every single man, to present every one mature, grown up, and complete.
This was is work, his labour; striving according to the energy the Lord worked in him powerfully.
Interestingly, the word striving means to contend, struggle, and labour intensely.
How on earth was I going to do this? Fortunately, at that stage, many of the men in the ministry with me and I had a fairly good relationship, but I needed to take it to another level, so that we could begin to journey at a different level.
It really would be about family. The difficulty was that I was still functioning and viewing most of what I would do through a wrong mentality for what was required of me.
Much of what I instruct to be out-of-balance thinking today, I did back then. I certainly said some totally unnecessary things and certainly had some unrighteous attitudes. But the Lord was gracious to me and so were many of my friends.
What a learning curve!
I committed and stepped out. Now I saw that it wasn't just about sharing or instructing and encouraging the 'sons', but also an element of correction and discipline. But here was the problem, I was totally intimidated and felt what happens if I am wrong.
Mentoring meant I had to get off my little soap box and begin to listen and understand and allow my friends to come into their completion and season of maturity.
Even though I had always wanted that for them, their maturity I mean, it now revealed my insecurity to actually see it fulfilled. Hey I enjoyed and needed everyone needing me and depending on me to guide them in what was 'necessary' for them. Really no-one could actually do what they thought was the direction and leading of the Lord for them, rather I would imply what it was they needed to do.
OK, so I am embarrassed about it now. But how many fathers in the natural still treat their children like that? We want them depend on us and we will make their decisions for them and always be telling them what to do. They have no room for growth and maturing by being allowed to make their decisions and living with the consequences; while being mentored by their mentor-father.
The only problem is that we keep them immature and unable to 'think for themselves.
I realised I had to fulfill my responsibilities, but boy it was going to take an enormous amount of growth and maturing of my own.
When was the last time you reviewed your responsibilities as a mentor-father?
Are you focused on your children's growth and maturity?
What do you have to deal with for your own growth?
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