Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Wayne Cordeiro is the founding pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii, which has a weekend attendance of more than 14,500. Wayne is a church planter at heart, having planted more than 108 churches in the Pacific Rim countries of the Philippines, Japan, Australia, and Myanmar. He has also planted churches in Hawaii, California, Montana, Washington, and Nevada. He is the author of eleven books, and he and his wife, Anna, have three married children and four grandchildren. They split their time between Hawaii and Eugene, Oregon, where they have a family farm.

Larry Osborne is a teaching pastor at North Coast Church in northern San Diego County. North Coast is widely recognized as one of the most influential and innovative churches in America. Osborne speaks extensively on the subjects of leadership and spiritual formation. His books include Sticky Teams, Sticky Church, 10 Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe, and Spirituality for the Rest of Us. He and his wife, Nancy, live in Oceanside, California.

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Sifted

Zondervan

Contents

Introduction: The Twelfth Rep.........................................91. Where Sifting Begins...............................................212. Identifying the Two Greatest Days of Your Life.....................413. Expectations, Criticism, and Crises................................574. Cry Out to God.....................................................715. The Family Channel.................................................876. Rest, Sabbath, Drive...............................................1037. Desperate Times....................................................1178. When You Need a Breakthrough.......................................1259. Hand to the Plow...................................................14510. Accessing Character...............................................15911. Upping Your Skills................................................17912. The Classroom for Great Leadership................................189Epilogue: Sifted for the Sake of Others...............................203Acknowledgments.......................................................209About the Author......................................................211

Chapter One

Can you remember where you were when you first sensed God's call to lead a church, serve in pastoral ministry, plant a church, or be a strategic member of a church planting team?

The call was likely very real, vivid, and powerful. God invited you to dream big dreams for him, and you sensed God raising you up to do a mighty work for the honor of his name. I'm betting that you could not wait to get started on this large, kingdom-oriented adventure.

Maybe your dream looked something like this:

* The church you imagined leading would be highly effective. You envisioned that God would use it in big ways to help win large numbers of people to Christ. Lives would be changed. Marriages healed. Families restored. This church would accomplish much for Jesus' kingdom.

* You had high hopes for the limitless scope of your church's influence. Following the example of Scripture, your church would be a witness to Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8), meaning your church would start locally in your community and then spread its influence to your city and then who knows how big it would get?

* Perhaps you imagined that your church would evolve to be unlike other churches. You intended to "do church" differently to reach a new generation. You would meet people exactly where they were. There would be no stuffy dress code at your church. No baggage from the past. Coffee would be hot. Music would be cool. People would come to your church because they sensed a fresh moving of God's Spirit, and that pull would be irresistible. You sensed that God would move at the core of this work. The new church would gather steam, and there would be no stopping its momentum.

* Perhaps you dreamed of doing multiple ser vices, or of starting different church campuses in locations throughout the city linked through video feeds. These churches would all flourish to the point where they, in turn, would start churches of their own. Maybe your dream was eventually to grow to the size where you needed to start your own church planting network. Tens of thousands of lives would be changed!

* The idea of helping to create a church that reaches out to the world was alluring. You desired to enter a community and be salt and light for the sake of Christ. You looked forward to sharing the gospel and being a force for justice and social action in creative and effective ways. Your vision was truly missional—to introduce Jesus to people and invite them to step closer to him.

Regardless of the specifics of your ministerial dream, it was undoubtedly noble, fueled by good intentions, and confirmed by God and other Christ-followers at several strategic places along the way. You were excited to work with the people on your team. They were your friends and colleagues, an energetic group of like-minded visionaries. Every person was committed to the call, and you were certain these people would remain your friends forever.

Your denomination was excited. Your spouse was in agreement with the call. Even your kids (if you have them) saw the vision. You all shared the same goal: to plant a church, a highly effective church. This was going to be a powerful work for the glory of God! Dream in hand, you began your ministry.

You had heart!

Now it has been a few years. How is the dream today? If you were to give an honest assessment, would you say that the work of church leadership is anything like you envisioned it?

THE LONELIEST JOB YOU'LL EVER DO

All we had when we planted our first church was heart.

We didn't have chairs, let alone a sound system. We borrowed coffee pots and sat on cafeteria tables. We used the music stands from the band room, and everyone had plenty of time to stare at the name of the school painted on the lectern. We didn't have much, but we had heart!

We were thrilled that anyone would even come to our ser vices. Our welcoming committee formed a human gauntlet at the front door to hug attendees. By the time a newcomer was seated, he or she would have been hugged at least twelve times. Later when people described us, they said, "You'll know those New Hope people. They hug everything within ten feet."

Not only did we pour our hearts into everything we did, but we poured everything we received back into the ministry. I remember the first offering we took. We gathered $550. We were thrilled! I went to an office furniture outlet and bought chairs so we didn't have to sit on cafeteria tables anymore. The following week, the first thing my administrator did was approach the microphone and say, "We took an awesome offering of $550 last week. And you know where it is? You're sitting on it!"

I often reminded our volunteers that a mind can reach a mind, but only a heart can reach a heart. I prompted them to remember this by saying, "Don't wipe tables with a dish towel. Wipe tables with your heart." Or to the greeters, I said, "Don't pass out bulletins with your hands. Pass them out with your hearts." Several months passed, and soon we had enough money to buy our own coffee pots and even our own sound system. We bought our own music stands, and even had enough money left over to have the name of our church stamped on them. It was like a taste of heaven!

One day, after we'd been meeting for a while, a wise woman in the church pulled me aside and said, "Pastor, I see that we now have our own chairs and our own tables. We have activities and classes. But where's the heart we used to have? I just don't sense it like I used to." And as she spoke, I sensed that she was right. We continued our activities, but over time, the amount of heart that we poured into everything diminished. We grew busy, and somewhere along the line, though we were still committed to our mission, the passion...