Today was on an entirely new level. After a beautiful and powerful time of worship, with such a sense of purity, Andrew Wommack taught on my favourite message of his, Don’t Limit God. Many of you will know I read that book every month because I know my biggest issue is my limiting of God.
Andrew told us it takes time to be promoted because God loves us so much He does not want to give us authority and influence and pressure we cannot handle. He taught us to stop praying “God use me” and start praying “God make me usable”. Rather than look for ministry opportunities, look for chances to serve and love and submit and work on your character.
Andrew also shared a lot about how to delegate when your ministry grows, which was very timely for us at Tree of Life Church. He then shared the timeline of how his ministry grew, and my goodness, it parallels Tree of Life and my development so clearly, it was so encouraging. Andrew told us during the long development phase to keep our eyes on Jesus.
During the next part of the message, God spoke to me about my future so clearly, it was just remarkable.
And then as Andrew finished, the biggest challenge he faced was how he saw himself. He taught to us to see ourselves doing what God called us to do. I wrote down five big dreams I have and started seeing myself doing it. Even within just a few minutes, I just felt things shift so powerfully. I believe that even as much as I have read this message, listened to these sermons, hearing this sermon in person in the venue that Andrew has built, has lifted my faith to a brand new level.
After the break, Lawson Perdue received the offering, announcing that goodness is only revealed in generosity. It was a clear and powerful message and we all gave big!
Then Greg Mohr spoke. It’s difficult to be unbiased when recapping what Greg said because he is so precious to me, and such a powerful mentor, but without any bias at all, this message was excellent. Just so edifying and powerful.
Greg was pulling no punches as he challenged every pastor to set their house in order and make sure their leaders are in unity, submitting to the vision of the house. Greg told us persecution was coming, which it is, and that we cannot stand in persecution without a unified leadership team.
(Let me pause at this stage and tell you how grateful I am for Richard and Jacqui, Lee and Jannet, and Patience and all our pastors, they make building a team that is unified so easy, they are visionaries, humble, gracious and are not interested in playing church games)
Greg pointed out that John 17.21 lets us know that a church in unity is the only church that is credible to the world. Greg defined unity as moving in the same direction, and getting along while doing it. Psalm 133 tells us it is the mature, the leaders, that must be in unity. We will never get the whole church in unity, as need people are always coming but we can get leaders in unity. Anyone who wants to be a leader must put their love for the body above their personal liberty.
Greg defined maturity as serving without agenda, supporting the vision of the house, and being humble and teachable. He also warned against ever promoting people who were not supportive of the vision financially into leadership because if they are not faithful in the least they should never be trusted with true riches.
He also said never to promote people into leadership who always are in the middle of every drama, or people who criticise your heart and character. Love them, don’t make them leaders!
All our pastors here benefitted so much from this clear and powerful and Biblical message. It was good to be in a place where people are speaking leader to leader, and addressing issues pastors face. There’s actually a lot more to this I didn’t share, but all our pastors have got practical and powerful wisdom that will serve them as the Tree keeps growing and growing and growing…
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