Rich Kao

This entry was first posted under the title "Making Discples the Peter Way."

Recently, I've come to another application of this passage: "Self-leadership - How to Lead Yourself Well." What follows are the edits from this perspective.

The apostle Peter makes this amazing promise: "If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless or unfruitful..for as long as you practice thes things you will never stumble." 2 Peter 1:8,10.

You can't state it much stronger than that. It's as close to a divine guarantee as you can get. What are the "qualities" Peter refers to? They are 8 of them listed in v. 5-7 -- diligence, moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love.

These qualities are the basis of what I call Peter's Path to Self-Leadership. Here's a visual of how I look at it.  "Your Faith" in the middle of the grid = Your Self-leadership."          

There are a couple important points to note: 1) These 8 qualities are organized in the sequence just as Peter states them showing how they build upon each other. 2) These 8 qualities are also organized in a grid to indicate that our self-leadership process may focus on one or more of these at different times, in differing intensities, but it still fits within an overall framework. They key thing is that we commit this grid to memory and keep them constantly before us as the 8 areas by which, if we nurture them constantly, we will experience self-leadership that leads to maturity, growth and fruitfulness.

"By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples."  Jn 15:8

I recently shared our 20 year plan for 5 Stones Church.  That's right, 20 years!   Two statistics helped forge my thinking on this.

#1 - Studies have shown church planters overestimate what they can accomplish in 5 years, and underestimate what they can accomplish in 20 years.  

We love to see instant, explosive growth, and that's what we celebrate, and we should.  Most magazine covers are about these stories.  But realiistically, statistically, and historically, this is not the trajectory of most church plants.  So, pray for explosion, but plan for incremental scenarios.

#2 - Most pastors exhibit their greatest years of fruitfulness after their 7th year. 

With so many church plants folding within five years, this is a shame, because if they could hang in there just a bit longer, traction could really take place and the planters ministry could really take off.  This is also true of pastors taking over a church, and leaving "too soon."

Put these two stats together, and you have a compelling reason to look at and plan differently for church plants.  At 5 Stones, we've divided our 20 year plan into four, five-year chunks. 

1st phase (first five years) = start-up phase (establish core values, vision, team, ministries).

2nd phase (second five years) = scale up phase (establishing systems, rails that anticipates and provides for growth - from accounting to HR policies to ministry processes and more.  This is the blow-up, experiment, renovate and hone stage).

3rd phase (third five years) = growth phase (seeing membership increase and take off after the net's been set and carpet's been laid).

4th phase (last five years) = multiplication phase (go plant other churches!).

If anyone is interested in my powerpoint on this, please go to "Downloadable Stuff" section (left hand column).   Cheers.

In part three of my series from the Gospel of John, I focus on our responsibility to open our mouth for Jesus.  It's easy to stay quiet or silent, but we must stand down the fear.  God depends on us to open our mouths when he sends Nicomedus' our way so we can proclaim to them the words of life.  We may not be called to be evangelists, but we are called to be evangelistic.  Message here.

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