Do You have Your…"Now-How"

November 17, 2011
Leadership Clip to Evernote
8

Yesterday  I talked about the Bible giving us the "What" but not the "How." You can read it...Here.

Here’s the deal. I think we as Christ followers and especially the church have moved away from owning the outcome of how we do things. If "how" we do something, doesn’t produce the "what must happen" commanded in scripture, i.e., "Go and make follwers of me everywhere." Then we must find the right "how."

When we know "What" we are commanded to do, and "What" must happen… isn’t happening, then our "how" is not right. But, most of us have relieved our sense of responsibility by just going down the "check list" saying, "but we are doing this and this, so we are good."

Like a struggling husband who reads a book on marriage and the author explains "How" he saved his marriage:

  • Bring your wife coffee every morning
  • Date her once a week
  • Buy her flowers once a month

But the struggling husband’s wife cheats on him in 2 years, because he fails to understand "how" his wife needed to be loved. He can’t use someone else’s "How!" But when a friend asks what happened, he will say "it’s not my fault, I loved her as Christ loved the Church"

  • I brought her coffee every morning
  • I dated her once a week
  • And, bought her flowers once a month

We are always looking for the secret formula the newest and greatest "how" to make our church grow, get our prayers answered or raising godly kids. We begin using that "how" because it was effective for someone else, but that is not our "how." We have to pay the price for our own "how", and that comes from feeling the "weight of the What." The "what" God has commanded must be heavy enough to drive us to our knees!

Then, we stay on our knees! Because the "how" will change… all the time! Your "how" for raising your kids cannot be the same when they are 2, as when they are 12! The "how" is fluid and constantly changing! We have to have the courage and the desperation to always operate in our… "Now-How." No one else’s's and not last years!

Will continue this Conversation tomorrow…. "You Are Poisoning People, You just Don’t Know it"

About artie: I'm the lead Pastor at Cornerstone, a Multi-Ethnic church in the heart of Orangeburg, South Carolina. Also the founder of the Comb Network.com, a movement to plant Multi-Ethnic, culturally relevant churches in smaller cities. I direct a gathering of small city leader called "The Sticks."

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  • Pat Thomas

    Good, good powerful word!  Thanks

    • Anonymous

      Thanks my dear sis!

  • http://diligentheart.com/ Diligent Heart

    Thanks. I enjoyed reading this article

    • Anonymous

      So honored.

  • http://www.jacook.org Ja Cook

    How radically our thinking changes when we fully carry the "weight of the what". Makes finding the right how worth whatever it takes.

    • Anonymous

      Good word.. Radical Change! That is what we need, the radical change will come with that new radical "Now-How"

      Thanks Ja!

  • http://deuceology.wordpress.com Larry Carter

    Isn’t it funny how we normalize our "how’s" in the church, but the how’s in the Bible aren’t. God’s how in communicating to Moses through the burning bush is never duplicated.

    • Anonymous

      Ha! Love that example Larry, appreciate the add.