Tree of Life Blog

One of the nine Tree of Life Churches that I have planted in the UK in the last decade once had what I wrongly called a church split. We had raised the church up to about forty people, and it was thriving. We saw cancers disappear, broken bones healed in the middle of the service, someone got out of a wheelchair. There were many salvations. It was a glorious place to go.

Then one of the elders starting lying about me. It was vicious, nasty, and just relentless. I took my son Joel one time to the church, to lead worship, and we got there and there were suddenly six people left. And they were all in the same family. Joel said “Dad, what do we do?” I said act like there’s a hundred people there, and he did, and I did, we had some worship and a great sermon like it was a packed out standing room only service. It was great.

At the end someone told me some of the lies that were being told about me, and I said none of that is true. The person said well, I didn’t believe it, and even if I did, I would still come here because God told me to come here, so we are going to keep coming.

I was impressed with that level of maturity. We went home and I was not sure what to do next. So, I called Dave Duell. He was my spiritual father before he went to glory, and was a man full of God’s wisdom. When I called, he was out of the country, he was in Mexico or Brazil or somewhere preaching. But his wife Bonnie answered, and kindly offered to listen and help.

I told her we had just had a church split. She said “oh that’s really sad to hear, I always thought you and Amanda were such a good couple, and were so good together, and I thought you had a great marriage”. I was confused and said so and explained my marriage was doing well. Bonnie laughed and said “I thought you said you had a church split”, she said “Unless you and Amanda break up there is no such thing as a church split, it’s just a few people leaving at once.”

That has always encouraged me. Churches do not split. There will never be another Tree of Life Church started by someone storming out the door in rebellion. It’s just people leaving. And I don’t take it personally, because it is invariably not about me – or Amanda, or any of our other wonderful pastors.

I have found over the years that when someone leaves a church it’s either the Spirit or the flesh leading them to leave, and about 75% of the time it is the flesh. That matches Mark 4, where only one in four people actually produce fruit. If you leave a church in the flesh it will take years for you to be able to bear fruit, if ever. It’s a real tragedy.

There are three signs that someone has left in the flesh. Firstly, they leave very abruptly. Suddenly they are not there. It’s shocking how sudden it is. If someone is genuinely called by God to a new area and a new church, we lay hands on them, we tell people they are off, we bless them, we say goodbye. Someone who disappears like a thief in the night, that is not how the Spirit leads someone to leave. Selah.

The second sign is that they will then badmouth the church when they leave. They were in the church, and the church fed them, helped them, loved them, looked after them for years. But now they have left, they have to justify their carnal decision, and the only way to justify something to the flesh is company. You need some other people to agree you should have left, so you call other people who still go to the church and badmouth it.

I never meet up with people who leave carnally if they ask me to – they only want to badmouth me and others in the church, they only want to tear apart the people who are still being humble, faithful, honest, serving day and night to build the church. No, if they want to come home, they can by attending a family celebration service Sunday morning, and I will kill the fatted calf! That’s happened more than once and we have never failed to give someone who stormed off a royal welcome home.

That’s a massive clue someone left in the flesh – fault-finding and whispering after they left. When people leave in the Spirit it sits right in them that they left, so they move on with grace and love. Even if they move because the church was bad in some way, they left in the Spirit, so they left in love, they shake the dust off their feet so they have no dust on their feet, and they go forward looking forward. Even in the church is Sodom and Gomorrah, leaving in the Spirit means looking forward to the next church. Not turning round to criticize the old church or whisper about it. Don’t become a salty pillar! Listen, it takes little or no effort to criticize a church. It’s that simple. Anyone can do that. What’s impressive is actually loving the people of God as well as the God of the people.

Finally people who leave in the Spirit end up at a better church. Not objectively better or worse, but better for them. They are discipled more, they are happier, they bring their friends more. They are growing in Christ more. It’s a cause for celebration for the whole kingdom. I genuinely love releasing people into a new church or ministry when they are following the Spirit.

When someone leaves a church flowing in the gifts, teaching the Word, standing for grace and faith to go to some dead church, or church where there are no miracles, but just noise and shouting, they have not left in a spiritual way. When people leave churches to “study the Bible on their own”, they did not leave in the Spirit. When people leave a life-changing church to go to a convenient church, they did not leave in the Spirit.

Selah.

When God called Moses into his ministry, Moses did not respond “Great choice God. Good move choosing me. I am not really sure how you managed without me the past few years…”

No. He said… Who am I to do this. He wasn’t cocky or arrogant, he was humble. One of my leaders said to me recently “do you mind I struggle to believe I can do this role”, I said a lot less than if you ever struggled to believe you couldn’t do it.

One of the character requirements for an elder is to not be a brawler, the word used means someone who thinks they can handle anything. YOU CANNOT. Not without grace.

It took God four decades to bring Moses to a place where he stopped relying on himself and started trusting God. I see many self reliant Christians today and they cannot bear fruit, because that only comes from God reliance.

I have actually had people say to me that Tree of Life will fail if they leave. They left and we are thriving. They needed to be a bit more humble and a bit less cocky. It’s so important when it comes to the body of Christ you do not think of yourself more highly than you ought. You are not better than others, you don’t get your own set of rules.

When I offer someone a leadership ministry or preaching opportunity I ask them how they feel about this. A cocky, “yeah yeah, I can do that” is rarely confidence in God, it’s mostly self reliance. An arrogance towards church and ministry is deadly. Some people think they are qualified others even think they are over qualified.

We started a leadership course called Qualified, I asked someone to go on it, they said “But I am qualified, do you not think I am qualified?”. What I think doesn’t matter, but it’s a concern to me someone thinks they have already attained it.

The truth is this… When you reach a place where you realize you truly have nothing to offer God or the church and that you are an earthen vessel, then you are ready to be a treasure. Until then, you are the wrong person to be promoted.

Paul, the great apostle, he said that he was a wretched man. Early in his ministry, Isaiah said “I am undone, I am a man of unclean lips”. Peter knelt before Jesus and told him to leave him alone, he was too sinful to have a future.

If you don’t reach that place where you realize you have nothing, and I mean a genuine authentic humility, not play humble, you will never find your place in the body.

Selah.

Several times in my life I have had someone in our church that is awesome, kind, servant-hearted, always looking out for others, reliable, faithful. Then when because of those attributes I promote them to a position of leadership, they stop loving. They become bossy, they become territorial, they keep asking for their ministry to be promoted, often at the expense of others, they expect others to work hard for them, but they are hardly working.

That is not good! If you are promoted in a local church, do not let it go to your head. When Joseph became prime minister of Egypt, he did not let it go to his head. He exercised authority with kindness and gentleness. The Bible tells us that when the wicked rule, the people mourn. It is sad to have leaders that are not kind and are wicked. I have seen people so kind until they get a position in a church or ministry or Bible College and suddenly they use that position to bully others. We appointed one couple as pastors and within days they wanted people to bow to them and were texting people to improve what they wore to church. That is not how to be a pastor! They did not learn that from me and Amanda!

When people are promoted they either become more wicked or they become kinder. Choose to use your position to show kindness! Choose to remember that you are not perfect and your title does not define you!

You must choose to be someone who sees God’s hand at work in your life and in others. You must be someone who does not just receive grace but who is gracious to others. You get that right, then you will be a good leader! If not authority might destroy you. It destroyed Saul, it destroyed Uzziah, it destroyed Judas, it destroyed Demas, and it could destroy you today if you do not become aware of this!

I don’t want to speak negative ever, but life can be seasonal. Sometimes you are in a great season of growth and peace and abundance, and sadly in that place you are vulnerable to be deceived. You are vulnerable to what John Wesley called the temptations of success. Jesus called it the deceitfulness of riches. Doing well can lie to you!

One of the lies that you will face when you are doing well is the temptation not to save or prepare for the future. After all, you are in such abundance, why should you save for a rainy day, when it’s always sunny in your church and your life?

That is one of the greatest reasons rich people become poor – they never prepare for a rainy day. They assume it is going to be year after year of fat cows and they never save for the skinny cow. Good times are so good it is hard to believe that there is a cow out there powerful enough to swallow them up!

I have counselled several pastors to save money during their fat cow years so that the skinny cows don’t destroy them, and I have been told I am negative, don’t get faith, don’t understand things. Oh I understand! I understand as I watch the same pastors struggle and call me and beg me for money. I watch ministries hire far too many people because it is fat cow time and they then struggle later to grow and move into what God is calling them to next.

Do ministries have to lay people off? Do churches have skinny cow times? Are there hardships? We lost a whole bunch of people one year in our church because another ministry lied about me and my leaders, and told those lies so often and so boldly people started to believe them! I had to cope through that, preach through that, and deal with the skinny cow year as much as the fat cat year. I am not saying God cannot provide, but I am saying sometimes God provides double manna on Friday not so we can gorge ourselves Friday but so that we can be prepared for Saturday!

If you understand that some of the fat cow is to be saved you will be wiser, not just with money, but with people, but in life. Joseph believed there were lean years ahead, and that made him so wise, he became prime minister.

All of us in whatever we are doing must prepare for the future. The church must be ready for the future, we must be making disciples who can stand a lean cow year, we must be saving for the lean cow year, we must not be exhausting the fat cows each year. Selah!

Gather the food of good years, and store it! That food will be to keep for the famine years! (see Genesis 41). You need faith to do this, and wisdom. The easy thing is just to enjoy today and exhaust all its blessings today. Why would I spend money on a problem that doesn’t exist? Why would I work hard when I can hire three people to do the job of one today? Why spend money on things that may never happen? Why invest in the dreams of a madman?

I believe God shows His people things to come. If He does show you something, get ready for it. No one is impressed if you saw the lean cow coming. They are impressed if you have a barn full of food! Selah.

Israel loved Joseph more than all his children (Genesis 37.3). There is a real culture in most workplaces that no one wants to be the boss’s favourite, no one wants to be the office creep. But if an organization is functioning properly, being the favourite means you are treating the most important people as the most important. What do I mean? Your colleagues are not paying you, they do not promote you, they do not give you payrises, they do not make decisions that will change your life.

You should be God’s favourite and your pastor’s favourite. You should be operating in favour so much you are the favour-ITE! Now I am not saying be pretentious, be a creep, being disingenuous. I am not saying be a creep! I am not saying be the chief bootlicker.

In most companies, and most churches, promotion is given to the favourites. You do not want someone promoted who you do not want to spend time with. You want to be favoured in local church, be prepared to be favoured – the favourite.

Being a favourite is not easy, it’s not in the slightest. You need to find out what someone likes and help them. In the office, work out what makes the boss happy and do it. He is the one who pays you! Some bosses love it when you are enthusiastic about starting a project, others do not care about progress until it is finished – find out and do that! Discover who is paying you, who is opening doors for you – and do what pleases them, learn to flow with them. You were called to their church or ministry, they were not called to yours. You are the one who has to learn to flow with them! Selah.

For example, I like punctuality. I do not promote people who cannot turn up to someone else’s service on time, because I don’t think they will turn up on time for their own church services or Living Churches. That will not do. That’s a small thing, but it is a thing that matters. I look around before the service starts on Sunday and go that’s who I am drawing my next leaders from.

Joseph was Israel’s favourite, then Potiphar’s favourite, then the jailer’s favourite, then Pharaoh’s favourite. Everywhere he was called to serve, he became the favourite. He worked hard, he found out what was needed, and he did it. He did it in such a way he flowed with them, he did not demand that they flowed with him. He was the one who was adaptable, he was the one who ensured he changed his clothes to visit Pharaoh, he was the one who ensured he was looking out for the prisoners even though he was a prisoner.

I know people who lie to my face and then wonder why I don’t promote them. I have a threefold principle for promotion. Character, Capability and Compatibility. Character – are they a decent person, capability – can they do the job I want to give to them, Compatibility – can they work with me. Some people would be fine elders in another church but could not be elders in Tree of Life because they could never work with me, they would be too demanding that I change to their style. They have no desire to be favoured by me.

I had a pastor once who would come and confront me after I taught something on a semi-regular basis. I would teach a message, and he would come to me and say “that’s not grace, that’s not a grace message, this is supposed to be a grace church”. I would try to show him the Biblical basis of what I was teaching, but he would not listen. Then after a few months, we would have a guest speaker, once it was Greg Mohr, once Greg Fritz and once Andrew Wommack. The speaker came to our church, and said word for word what I had taught. Then this pastor would come to me and go “oh, I see that what you said was grace now, I heard Greg Mohr say it”. We went through this a long time. Eventually I had to say to him, none of these people promoted you to pastor, none of these people gave you a church to pastor, none of these people believed in you and raised you up, I did. I cannot wait for a guest speaker to come to town before you accept what I am teaching as grace. You have to be able to work with me and learn from my preaching and teaching not just guest speakers.” In the end I had to let him go, he had godly character, he was capable, but he and I were not compatible. This is so essential and we must understand it.

If you want to work with something bigger than yourself, you have to work on being the favourite, work on being compatible, be adaptable, be flexible, learn to flow with the church God put you in. That will be essential for you to progress.

Sometimes it is hard to use your gift. That is a fact of life, a fact of ministry, and definitely a fact of local church. Joseph was in jail, falsely accused of rape, when he only did the right thing. That’s a tough environment. Sometimes we go to church and we feel accused, we feel passed over, we feel ignored. We feel like we should have been promoted quicker than that, we feel the church has ignored us – worse still, we feel that God Himself failed to protect us, help us, deliver us, exalt us, promote us.

Joseph is there in jail and he sees the chief butler and the baker of the Pharaoh. He doesn’t sulk, he doesn’t say the time is wrong, he has too much to deal with, it’s not the right place. He still serves!

Even in prison, Joseph interpreted dreams and encouraged these two men. He was not waiting for better people, a bigger crowd, a more anointed meeting with smoke machines and worship leaders. No, he served where he was no matter what he was going through.

He overcome the temptation to be bitter by serving. As a pastor, that temptation is there. I help people in remarkable ways and sometimes they totally forget what I have done. They forget how hard I have worked for them. But you keep going and keep reaching out and keep touching life and keep being grateful and keep serving. This example should help all of us serve in tough situations.

I want to say a lot more, but this account says it all – serve in the hardest times. It’s a principle that will lead to promotion. Go to church this weekend and serve, it will change your life. No matter what you are going through, help someone else in their mess and it will become a message!

Joseph was working for Potiphar when Potiphar’s wife started making advances on him. He wisely refused her advances, saying that to accept her offer would be to “sin against God” (Genesis 39.9). You cannot live in this world long without encountering the fact that our world is very sexually immoral. It is filled with lust and fornication and adultery. You will even encounter this in the local church! Christians living together as if there is nothing wrong with this, as if marriage is no longer holy, and is an outdated tradition rather than the purpose and plan of God!

Within church life I have had to deal with people who are into pornography, lust, fornication, adultery, prostitution and all forms of immorality. All of them have the same choice – to be in bondage to this, or to trust Jesus and find a place of freedom.

And you have to make a choice – what will you do about it! Will you be free? The best choice to make is the choice to overcome! To walk in holiness and righteousness. To be pure.

Avoiding sexual immorality is possible through the new birth and the grace that God has given us, and if we ask for wisdom He will give us wisdom to get out of any situation. One of the problems of course is that we are often fighting not just the world but our own bodies lusting after things we cannot have. That is why staying pure can be a great struggle. But we can and must overcome and walk in victory like Joseph did. Joseph would have been a great asset in the local church – because he did not have sex outside of marriage and stayed pure. A lot of the hard work of a pastor is counselling and pastoring people who never made the strong godly choices Joseph did. Churches fail because of people making bad choices in the area of sexual purity!

A second area of wisdom found in this account of Joseph choosing sexual purity is that Joseph also chose not to be provoked by false accusations. After being spurned by Joseph, Potiphar’s wife falsely accused Joseph of attempting to rape her. This lie caused Joseph to end up in jail. Satan loves to tempt us into sexual sin, but if he cannot, he loves to accuse of being immoral anyway. He is the accuser of the brethren, and if you are in local church with the brethren, at some point you will be accused of something.

Joseph was falsely accused, but he did not let that define him. I know good people who have been accused of terrible crimes, often the exact opposite of their character. If you want to be in local church, especially if you want to be a leader, you must learn how to deal with being accused and moving forward as if you do not even hear what they are saying about you.

Life is not fair. Joseph going to jail was an injustice – he had an experience that he did not deserve. That provokes strong emotions in people – we want to rise up and challenge injustice. I have experienced injustice many times in my life, and my flesh wants to go out there and somehow prove my innocence, and let people know you cannot do that to me, I will not be cheated. But that is not the way of Jesus. 1 Cor. 6.7 actually says “Why not rather be defrauded?”. There are times i have let myself be defrauded rather than speak up against an injustice against me because I will not attack the church, I will not expose my brother’s nakedness. As you grow in Christ, you will find out there is a need to accept injustice in life and just keep walking with God.

There’s a lot in Genesis 39 about how to be a remarkable disciple of Christ. Why not spend some time meditating on it today.

Joseph was a big dreamer, and he told his dream to his brothers and rather than rejoice in his dream, they hated him yet the more (Genesis 37.5).

I have found that if you really want to achieve your dreams, if you really want to walk in victor, if you really want to win in life, someone will always hate you. The bigger the dream, the more the hatred. There are rivers of hatred that will come your way and you need to learn how to surf them! We must not respond to hatred in a natural, carnal way, we have to respond in a spiritual way.

You must learn to respond with hate with love. We must learn to handle our detractors with love and patience and kindness and not envy and bragging and acting unbecomingly! One of the hallmarks of love according to 1 Cor. 13 is that love is not easily provoked. Getting provoked is one of satan’s favourite ways to get you to leave the local church that Jesus has assigned you too.

Joseph’s brothers hated him but he loved them. When he was promoted above them, he used that position to feed them not get revenge on them. That kind of heart is essential. I am in the position now where we are funding projects of other churches who tried their hardest to stop us growing and planting! That’s a good place to be. I will not let other people’s behaviours provoke me.

Often if we do not deliberately focus on choosing love, we act at the level we are treated. If we did not get love, we don’t care. If no-one in the church noticed us, we fail to notice others. If a leader is selfish, we become more selfish. That is not the way!

We need to learn how to surf a wave of hate and still stay loving, and still dream big even when being rejected and persecuted. There are times people have deliberately stood in the way of my dreams, lied about me, attacked me, tried to get me excluded from certain situations. That’s not abnormal sadly, you will be rejected if you want to succeed – rejected by your class, your friends, your tribe, your nation. This is a real experience that you have to learn to surf.

Some keys to surfing a wave of hatred aimed at you.

1. Remember this is not everyone. Some people hate me, but other people really love me, they celebrate me, they want me to come and minister to them, they seek out my prayers. They promote me. You realize this wave is not the entire ocean, it really helps you press on. Sometimes one person’s reaction can feel like everyone’s reaction and it just isn’t true.
2. Do not let the wave of hate move you. Do not leave a church because of hatred, do not move to PITYTOWN and start pitying yourself and having a pity party. Do not move to a mindset of feeling unloved. Stay where God has placed you.
3. If you are hated because you are not fully developed in an area, get developed.
4. Do not stop dreaming. Even when his brothers hated him, Joseph went and had another dream! I love that.
5. Do not drown in the wave of hate. It’s not worth it.

The hardest time of hatred and rejection is when it is someone you admire and look up to. A pastor you respect, a teacher you admire – and they try and shut you down or dismiss you or even worse persecute you. It’s really hard.

I know one man, who is now with the Lord, who rejected me even though I was utterly committed to his ministry. He treated me like a wild man even though I loved him and served him and gave to him. He seemed to welcome people who did not love him and were using him. I thought “why am I being so loyal to this man”, I was tempted to let the wave move me. But I kept dreaming and God turned the whole thing around and I am walking in some big dreams right now.

Do not retreat when rejected. And do not respond with hate. There will always be haters. Haters cannot stop you walking in your destiny, but you descending into hating yourself will!

I used to think if a pastor was hated they must be a bad pastor, but now I know universally liked pastors are generally the bad pastors! A good pastor is loved by some and hated by others. Jesus was not liked by everyone and nor is anyone trying to be like Him!

Selah.

Being in a local church is absolutely awesome. Besides salvation, the baptism of the Holy Spirit and your spouse, local church is the best gift Jesus has given you. You should not be a church-hopper. But sometimes there is a season to shift lanes in a local church. You might have been a deacon for a few years, but God is shifting your lane to become an elder. You might change small group, the serving team you are on, you might change what you do and who you are with. You might step into a new season.

You need to learn when to be able to detect a new season in every area of your life, but because church life is such an important part of your life, you need to be able to know when a season change is coming in your church life so much so! It is very important.

Now sometimes God will just tell you. You will be praying and God will say – join the music team, join the ushers, join the teas and coffees team. That’s great when that happens. Other times, you will just know that you know that you know. I see this like a spiritual instinct. Animals have instincts, they know where to migrate to but they have never been there before, they can do some amazing things that they have never learned. They are born and can hunt instinctively. Animals never watch porn or have marriage counselling but instinctively know how to make baby animals, they know when they are in heat, how to attract a mate without going to a seminar. They know when they need to store extra food for winter.

When we get born again we get spiritual instincts. There are some things we just know. A lot of people have come to Tree of Life Church, and they tell me “I know I need to be in this church”, they just know. Spiritual instinct.

I love it when we just know things. I want all of us to be in the right lane, when to slow down, when to serve more, when to serve in a different place, when to get involved in certain things. It means the church advances in new ways.

We need to know which lane is ours – what task is God choosing us to do in the local church? If you are in Tree of Life Church and you know in your instincts that God wants you in Tree of Life, then you have something to offer Tree of Life. You are there for a reason. Do you “know” what that reason is? If so, move into that lane with dignity and care. If you don’t, keep coming, and you will one day just know. It’s instinct.

One of the things that you must do be a loyal and mature contributor to a local church is tithe. A tithe is taking 10% of your financial increase and giving it to the local church. Abraham tithed, Isaac tithed, Jacob tithed. Part of living with the blessing of Abraham is to be a tither like Abraham.

Jacob made a vow before God to serve God, build the house of the Lord and tithe. Those things are awesome things and they go together. If you are not building the local church, you are not serving God. If you are not tithing you are not building the local church or servigin God.

You see the truth that you must accept is very simple – only God can provide for you, only God can look after you financially and only God can revolutionise your money situation. As you trust God to look after your money, you start to tithe, and show that trust in your consistent and regular giving.

Most people have no understanding of how powerful the tithe is, how powerful tithing is. Tithing is a step of faith that causes grace to manifest, it is a way of showing that you genuinely trust the Lord. Words are cheap, but tithing is proof that you know God can provide when you believe and act on His Word.

The tithe is what will cause you to be rich, and cause you to manifest the blessing of Abraham, and cause you to walk in victory. As an added bonus, you will help the local church grow and develop too! What a deal.