Dr. Albert Mohler serves as the 9th president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Big Idea: You are going to die. I am going to die. Everyone else is going to die and there is nothing you can do about it. We ought to do ministry every day in light of this fact.

We are born and we die and in between is all of this earthly life we will know of it. So is this all there is to it? Let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we will die?

The reality is that there are two deaths and certainly there is no way to avoid the first one. Death is a hallmark of ministry and the work of this life will still be unfinished business. It is a constant work-in-progress.

Christianity can handle the subject of death as it gives light to physical vs. spiritual death.
1 Cor 15 – Paul points out that if Christ did not raise from the dead, we of all people are to be pitied. But if he did, lookout!

We prefer to try to put death out of view and out of mind. But we should keep in it view because it frames the reality of this life and the importance of the Cross. Time and life is short and goes by in a flash. There is an urgency to the work we are doing. The work is never done and we work until we die and then someone else comes and takes our place, but we are okay with that (or we should be).

People fear the first death, but it is the second that they should really fear.

So What?

Dr. Mohler used to keep a skull sitting on his desk as a reminder of this idea. [To keep Death in the Picture] In generations past this was an understood symbol of death, but not as much now (thanks to Halloween decorations).

A few key reminders:

James MacDonald is founding pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel in northwest Chicago

Big Idea: No More Bait & Switch – Ministry is Hard, But Worth It In The End.

2 Timothy 4:9-17 – Paul was lonely and felt abandoned by others. He was cold and in discomfort. He experienced relational conflict with those he worked with. Rejection was familiar to him as well. If Paul felt this way, should we expect less?

But God strengthened him that He maybe glorified.

If we had an accurate understanding of how great Heaven is going to be we’d be trying to get there right now. That may even be why the Bible doesn’t tell us specifics about it. This is why we suffer and why we don’t give up.

A lady who was upset with him and criticized him up one side and down the other and concluded by calling him a “big donkey” really bothered him until a friend reminded him that even the donkey knew that all of the palm branches and the shouts of praise were not for him, but for the person on his back.

To be successful in ministry you must be a professional forgiver. If a relationship is going to be a long-lasting one, there must be ongoing forgiveness in that relationship. His position is that successful relationships will encounter many smaller things that require forgiveness and several major things which do. Learn to be a forgiver.

Perry is the lead pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC.

Big Idea:To Grow Your Church You Need to Embrace Seasons of Pain

Doing ministry can often feel like you are being tossed up into a ceiling fan each day, being caught and then tossed back up into again.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – before they got to see Jesus in a way they never did, the furnace had to get 7 times hotter.

A couple things that ministry leaders need to learn how to deal with if they are going to effective in the long term:

Criticism
Number 1 question pastors always ask him are how to deal with critics. They are not necessarily a bad thing. They may not be the majority but they are often the loudest. Listen to those who love Jesus and love you but love Jesus more than they love you and will therefore speak truth into your life.

If you focus on trying to please everyone you will loose everything. You must remember that God is bigger than any critic. All-star athletes listen to their coaches, not the fat guy in stand. You need to surround yourself with coaches who love Jesus and not kiss your butt.

Depression
The Bible calls those who do not work, lazy. But he calls those who don’t rest, disobedient.

• Fun – What do you do for fun? The best ideas usually come when we disconnect.
• Family – If your church can’t survive without you, something is wrong. They might not treat you like a rock star, but
• Focus – Be still and know that He is God. You have to have time alone with God, without distractions.

Jon is lead pastor of Trinity Grace Church in New York City.

Big Idea: The Most Important Thing You Need to Do – Remain in God’s Love
(Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing”)

Church of Ephesus in the book of Revelation chapter 2 – You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen. At first they had perseverance, integrity, and faithfulness, but in this message Jesus scolds them for having lost that.

Myth of What the Church Needs:

The Church at Ephesus had all of these things, yet it was not enough to maintain their passion and love. What did they fall from? Union with Christ, co-heirs of God, the Bride of Christ (as Paul writes in the book of Ephesians).

A church that looses this focus and doesn’t get it back, He will remove their witness. Has this happened to some of the churches in America?

People are fickle beings. We must stay / remain in where we are with our union of God through Christ. We forget how deep, how wide and how far is the love of God. All of those other things, while important, are not at the core of what we must do and what we as leaders must help people do.

• If you are not doing this, you are creating a culture of failure based on works.
• We are not distributing Christian Vision, we are giving out the love of God.

How?

We are like a dirty child who doesn’t want to get cleaned by her parent and we squirm and wiggle to get free.

Revelation 22 – Tree of Life is the reward and what you can offer to the nations.

Tony is currently Pastor of Ministries at West Ridge Church near Atlanta. He is a ministry strategist.

Big idea: What happens after people connect with our churches.

Our objective is to help people take their next steps in their faith journey. As a ministry team you need to wrestle with the notion of what a fully devoted follower of Christ looks like. Then as yourselves the question if what you are doing helps people to get there. There is no magic formula to help people get from point A to point B, but we need to be more intentional about helping them get there.

Ministry programming is often put out there by churches to help them, but often it has the effect of just creating confusion. Example: grocery store taste test. Two scenarios. 1 with 24 options of jams and another with 6 options. The scenario with less options had a higher rate of purchase. Too many choices and options can create paralysis.

People want to take the next step and do the right thing, but they are stuck and we are making them stuck by confusing them. We often fall into the trap of measuring activity instead of life change. What the questions we can ask?

If there is not a clearly defined ministry strategy and communication each one just tries to speak LOUDER. Effect: lots of noise and confusion.

5 Steps to Avoid Noise:
1. Clarify the mission, vision, and values of the church
2. Focus the discipleship strategy – help people figure out next steps.
3. Consistency of your message (across ministries)
4. Prioritize your message (what is on platform and what is not).
5. Eliminate competing messages (critical eye to each ministry).

Too often our communication strategy is like that of car dealerships in the south. Just put out a giant inflatable blue monkey and they will come! Our individual ministries too frequently compete with each other for attention, so they try to outdo each other.

He (giant inflatable blue monkey) is roaming the hall of the church. He is the all of the things you do to promote your ministries in your church. Promoting better is not what helps people take next steps. So what gets people into church for the first time? A friend invites them. Once they are here, then what? Bring out the blue monkey!

Alternative Thought: Create environments where life change can happen and encourage people to develop relationships. But away the blue monkey.

Jonathan is the senior pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, VA and son of Jerry Falwell.

Big idea: What we do matters.

1 Peter 5 – God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Stand firm.

To accomplish all that God has for us we need to understand the word stand.   We must never distracted despite all of the many attempts by outside forces to distract and get us off mission.

There are many things even inside the church which might be good things, but distract us and get us off mission of who God wants us to be and to do what God wants us to do.

PRIDE
Be who you are. 1 Sam 17 (David vs. Goliath) Too many of us falter because we are too busy trying to wear someone else’s armor – trying to be someone we are not. Trying to be someone else is a distraction and ultimately we will fail at it.

Know who you are, accept who you are and be who you are. To not do so leads to discouragement and depression. There are many, many lists of churches and people to watch. Christ didn’t call us to make lists. He called us to reach the lost. God didn’t call us to be any of the people on those lists. He called you to be you and you only. Spending you time trying to be someone on those lists will distract you and cause you not to focus on being who God made you to be.

God does not want an army of ministry clones.

GRACE
Be what you are. You are a minister of the grace of God – and you cannot fail. God will never call you do to anything for which he does not equip you to be successful. If you just be who & what you are you will not fail. Image: lottery billboard

It is not like winning the lottery where you odds are against you.

Pride and grace can never coexist in ministry. It has to be one or the other.

Personal ministry is the focus and it will be tough – scripture tells us this. But God will perfect us and strengthen us for the work. He will place us on a firm foundation which is his grace. Let us not forget that or complicate that.

Stand in who God wants us to be and do not move from it.

I am really looking forward to the Whiteboard Sessions conference tomorrow (Friday). Making the road trip with Ryan and Jeff tonight which I am also very much looking forward to. The speaker line-up is great and should be a chance to really dig in and have our minds stretched.

I love this concept about the conference which makes it very unique:

Strategy + Ministry

The Whiteboard Sessions is a one-day conference on Friday, May 21, 2010 about ideas in ministry – ideas that will stretch our thinking and shape the church’s future. Seven, influential leaders will have 30 minutes each to present one, compelling idea. This could be a biblical conviction, a proven strategy, a recent epiphany, or even a raw, untested theory.

We’re asking the presenters not to bring a canned presentation, but rather to treat Whiteboard as an extended, senior-level staff meeting. We want them to roll up their sleeves and talk openly and honestly about what works or doesn’t work in their ministries. We believe you will be stretched by their thinking and challenged by their insights.

Can’t wait to share what we learn!