Session #1, Handout

 Session #1 notes:

Some of you may not have gotten the information about who I am, so let me tell you a bit about myself.

·       I am married to Kathy. She is the daughter of the man who was my pastor during my childhood and teen years. I came to know the Lord, in part, as a result of Kathy’s mom’s ministry to children.

·       We have two sons and seven grandchildren.

·       I attended Appalachian Bible Institute (now, College) and Baptist Bible College (now, Clark Summit University), achieving a ThB. Later, during my years as a pastor I attended Liberty Seminary and earned my MA in Religion.

·       I was lead Pastor of the Covington Bible Church for forty-two years. I continue to hold the title of Pastor Emeritus. I’m currently the Interim Pastor at Woodland Church.

·       Through a set of circumstances to complicated to put here, I served as President of Pacific Islands University from January 2017 to May of 2021.

·       I’ve been involved with Liebenzell USA for around twenty years.

·       My email address is hmerrell@liebenzellusa.org. I don’t use X (Twitter). I can be found on Facebook. My phone number is (USA) (540) 620-8429. I do use Whatsapp. My favored form of electronic communication is email. I welcome your comments on the blog that I set up for this conference (below).

All of the notes I’ll give out, and other stuff related to this conference can be found at ZBAL2024.blogspot.com.

I’ll try to have some interaction in most of the sessions. Sometimes that will consist of a Q&A time at the end of the session. I’m also purposefully not planning a particular message for the last session. I’d like to keep it open to deal with bigger questions that may arise as we spend our time together. It would be helpful, if you jot your questions down ahead of our last session and give them to me, though I am also open to questions to come from the floor in our last session. You are welcome to post your questions as comments on the blog.

In the handouts, I’ll include links to other materials, most of it free, that relate to leadership in general and to the specific focus of each session. From time to time, I’ll also include general thoughts on Leadership. I may or may not refer to these in the session.

John Piper was, for many years, Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis Minnesota. His speaking and writing have been highly influential in the North American church. He has made many of his books available for free. The book I quote from in this message can be accessed at https://www.desiringgod.org/books/brothers-we-are-not-professionals.

A classic work on the life of Christ: http://classicchristianlibrary.com/library/edersheim_alfred/Edersheim-Life_Jesus-v1.pdf

https://www.heartlandchurchnetwork.com/uploads/5/8/1/6/58163279/courageous_leadership.pdf (Caution, though Hybels’ book is a great book, Hybels later failed morally.)

Here is a basic principle of leadership:
When my people, my culture, my church, is holding to falsehood and thus are going in the wrong direction, if I have the opportunity to teach and/or lead in the right direction and I don’t, then I have failed as a leader.

This conference puts an important question before us, “Why am I here?” I’ll be framing each of our sessions together as an answer to that important question.

Message #1, I Am Here to Lead as God Directs, Luke 14:1-6

 

1)      We are here to lead where God wants us to lead, and sometimes that is hard.

 

 

2)      We are to lead in the way that is for the ultimate Good of those we are leading.

 

 

3)      We are to lead.

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