You want REVIVAL???? THEN SERVE!!!

It’s a little long but I believe it’s worth the read..

A few years ago when my wife and I were Directors of Victory Outreach Men’s Home in Milwaukee WI. I remember we did some of the hardest jobs in downtown Chicago .. This one job we did, was to remove all the furniture from this high rise Hotel in the middle of winter smack down in the middle of the city.. At the time we only had about 12 men in the home.. But we had to load solid oak Furniture and shrink wrap all of it because it had glass tops, in 12 semi’s that were 53 feet long, and we only had 6 days to do it. That meant that we had to load 2 semis a night .. And because the Furniture Liquidator we were working for was under a permit . That permit would only allow us to load between 5:00 pm to 5:00 am because downtown Chicago gets crazy during the rest of the day and we would be blocking traffic.. We had to haul that furniture from 35 floors up into small elevators and load them in the middle of the street in the dead of winter, snow wind blowing in zero degree temperatures.. This task seemed impossible, but through Christ all things were possible.. So why share this story? Let me explain.. I had to assign my strongest men to a strategic plan to accomplish this task.. Not strong physically, but strong in the Lord.. So that the others would not grow weary with what seemed like an impossible task.. I decided to post up outside and had my right hand man beside me, Christopher Knippel to battle the freezing cold, and allowed the men to stay in the Hotel to shrink wrap and bring the furniture to us, in rolling dollies from all the floors.. They were lead by a strong man in the Lord, Ezequiel Rodriguez who I assigned to guide the men in the Hotel as they worked. As a Director, I could of stayed home, in the warmth of the Men’s Home and had all the men do the job, but instead I chose to soldier up and work side by side with them.. I’m not trying to brag about it, I did it because I loved them, and God put it in my heart that the best way to lead was to serve..

I’m reading Nehemiah 5:14-16” More over from the 20th year of King Artaxerxes, when I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, until his 30 second year, -12 years -neither I nor my brothers ate food allotted to the governor. But the earlier governors those proceeding me placed a heavy burden on the people and took 40 shekels of silver from them in addition to food and wine. Their assistants also lorded it over the people. But out of reverence for God I did not act like that. Instead I devoted myself to the work on this wall. All my men were assembled there for work. We did not acquire any land”. 

MY THOUGHTS… Nehemiah worked side by side with his men instead of lording over them with his position.. What leadership!!! He helped build this difficult wall with opposition coming against him from the inside, and the outside.. From the world around him, and from the church within.. OH HELLO!!! Sound familiar??? You want to be a great leader in a church? Start by being a servant.. You can’t lead if you don’t know how to follow.. I couldn’t expect the Men’s Home to take on a task that seemed impossible if I wasn’t willing to do it myself.. God lead me to lead by example, and not by position.. With God on our side, we loaded 12 semis in 5 days with glass tops and only broke one glass top.. And we did it with 12 men.. 12 ex- drug addicts who never had jobs!! But worked unto the Lord with the supernatural strength given them by God!! You want REVIVAL???? THEN SERVE!!! QUIT BEING A WHINING CHURCH ATTENDER LOOKING FOR THINGS TO COMPLAIN ABOUT!!! I pray this story will encourage you to seek the Lord, when things seem difficult or impossible.. I pray this story will encourage you to stand shoulder to shoulder, with your Pastor, and that it will teach the Pastors of this generation to lead by example.. Lord let it begin with me… ..

I almost forgot to mention.. We loaded up 12 semis in 5 days instead of six.. because the Furniture Liquidator sent 3 semis by accident two of the nights.. And I also forgot to mention, that a couple of those nights, we didn’t have 12 men to help, because some of the men had to stay back to do another job of cleaning the Bradley Center after a Milwaukee Bucks game.. You can’t tell me that God isn’t the God of the impossible..