As a pastor and leader I have spent a great amount of time studying leadership, influence and principles of communication in the Bible and through popular business books.  We live in a great day  for influencing when we think about all the different ways we have for communicating. Whether it is keeping up with family, selling a product, communicating to company employees or spreading a message of life change we have great potential for influencing others.

The Skype conversation reminded me of another talk Pat and I had several years ago before the rise of the social media frenzy. We were in his office talking about how God had uniquely positioned us to have influence and we were challenged with how we would steward the influence God had given. We talked about how we desired to have wide-spread influence around the world for the glory of God. He and I talked about what would it look like to have an influence on how people walk with Christ daily? How could we, as individuals and as a church, influence others toward living lives sold out for the cause of Christ? What would it look like to have influence around the globe, not just in one local area?

Who would have thought that several years later people from our church would be sent “to the ends of the Earth.” How were any of us able to realize the overwhelming potential of social websites such as Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter? We can be connected around the world and in a moments notice we can know what is happening 12 timezones away. We are be able to communicate in real time to people living in Western Europe and West Africa at the same time through video-conferencing. Stuff like this only happened in movies just a few years ago and now it is an everyday occurrence.

This type of influence is available to all of us right now and at your fingertips as you read this post. The question is how are you stewarding and managing the influence you have been given. I ask each of you to scan your email contacts, your Facebook friends, your Twitter followers and the other social media portals you use each day.  Take notice of where people live that you communicate with through these avenues and think about how what you write and tweet influences those who are reading. Now, look at how many people potentially view your status updates and your tweets. As someone who has spent time studying influence I can assure you if you are talking (posting) you are influencing someone.

On a quick scan of my email contacts, my Facebook friends and Twitter followers I noticed people who reside in Thailand, Brazil, China, Germany, USA, Lithuania, Turkey, India, West Africa and Australia. I am influencing people positively and negatively toward someone or something by what I write and tweet each day and so are you.

What type of influence are you spreading?

Who or what are you influencing people toward?

So how far and wide is your influence reaching?

I promise it is more far reaching than you realize.

Be a Man Mentor

Just as you need man mentors, so too do other men. No one needs guidance in the art of manliness more than boys and young men, who are trying to figure how to become worthy men. Every man should make mentoring a part of his life. Here are just a few ways to do that:

• Become a Scout leader. Boy Scout troops always need volunteers who are eager to make a difference in boys’ lives.

• Become a Big Brother. A lot of young men out there are growing up without a positive father figure in their lives. Be the man these boys can turn to and emulate as they grow up.

• Volunteer with your church’s youth group. Lucky is the young man can find a man who is both an older friend and a spiritual mentor.

• Get to know your kids’ friends. I guess some kids try to hide from adults, but I always liked chatting it up with my friends’ parents. Some of my friend’s dads became my friend in their own right. Obviously, you don’t want to be the dorky dad who’s always hanging around, and you should know when to let your son and his friends alone. But if they’re game, it’s okay to hang out with them from time to time. Take you son and his friends fishing or hunting.

Written by Brett & Kate McKay

In a little while I am leaving to go on the LifePoint High School retreat, Collision. Our High School Pastor, David, asked me several weeks ago to go and speak on Servant Leadership.

I want to ask you to pray for us as we head to Garner Creek. There will be approximately 130 high school students and another 20 or 30 (hopefully 30) adults that are worshiping, learning, laughing and losing sleep for the next few days.

I NEED YOU TO PRAY FOR ME!!!! Yes I am shouting.

Pray that I can model servant leadership. Pray that I can express from the Word what servant leadership looks like and means in a way high school students can grasp.

I will let you know how God moves next week.

We began to read books about how to discuss issues with children appropriately. We would talk with parents of kids who were a little older than ours and ask for advice on how to initiate conversations. Each time one of our kids had a question we would answer that question and wait to see if another question would follow, not leading the child to ask another one, but letting them drive the moment. Were we successful? I don’t know, we still have kids in our home and we are still walking through the process. I can assure you of this, it has opened communication between mother and daughter, father and son in very positive ways. Communication is the key.

The hardest part is gettting started.  In our culture today the worst thing we can do is ignore these conversations or hope someone else will deal with it.

Our job as Christ-Centered parents is to do the hard thing and talk with our kids. It will be uncomfortable for you and the child at first. But, it has to happen if we want to help our kids understand relationships and sexuality the way God designed for His children.

The LifePoint Student Ministry is beginning a new series on relationships next week. If you are a parent I would recommend you click here and check out the resources they have gathered and recommend for us to help us in this area (Scroll to the bottom of the page). Print it, bookmark it, do something to help you get involved in talking with your kids about healthy relationships and sex the way God desires.

Tomorrow I will tell you about how we handled our conversations concerning sex with our middle-school aged kids.

Really the event isn’t sold out… we gave away all the tickets for the event.

That means we are at capacity for the Multi-Purpose Facility. You, the families of FBCSmyrna, have really done a great job of partnering with the staff to invite your friends to this I2I event. We want to make it as smooth as possible.

Here are a couple of very important things to remember about the event;

Remember this is time change weekend…fall back and hour. This could affect us in the second hour programming (10:45 am) if we forget to set our clocks back.

Please attend the time on your ticket…both hours are full.

Remember to bring your ticket with you. One ticket per family and those with tickets are allowed in first. After families with tickets are seated others will be allowed into the Multi-Purpose facility.

If you have a family coming that you invited by all means sit with that family, you are the link to the church.

Be prepared to be flexible. This is one of our Core Values as a church. If we are in need of seats so a guest can be seated please be flexible enough to offer your seat so someone who is not apart of our fellowship can take part in the event. Our church body exhibits this value wonderfully. We need to be mindful of this on Sunday.

There will not be an overflow area for this event, but we will try to create an area for Standing Room Only.

We will offer Kid’s Club for children and Creation Celebration for Preschool children whose parents are on campus for 2 (two) hours on Sunday. Invite the families that are attending for the first time to go and view the Preschool and Children’s area so they will feel comfortable with where their child is on Sundays.

Help us spread the word about Sunday and how we can make it a positive experience for everyone.

If you have questions about Sunday and the To The Depths event please call the office (615-459-3311) and speak with Allen, Brittany, or Dana.

FBCSmyrna is a wonderful place to serve and I am looking forward to what God has in store for Sunday.

A very distressing article about the new book from Victoria Osteen.

[HT] Justin Taylor

Prov. 27:19

Matt. 12:33-37

James 3:9-12

Eph. 5:4

Philippians 4:8

Gal. 2:20

Here is a link to todays message.