Picture taken by my daughter when she was in Venice recently.
“Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord.”
Romans 12:11
There is a difference between position and passion. I'm a pastor, but that isn't my passion. That is my position. It's the way that I give expression to my passion. My passions go deeper and extend further than my positions.
C.S. Lewis said, "Every life is composed of a few themes." Here are a few of my passions that have become themes:
My primary passion is to help people reach their highest God-given potential. I believe in people and I believe they can be more than who they think they are. That's me in a nutshell. So whether I'm parenting or pastoring; whether I'm preaching or leading; whether I'm mentoring or ministering, I want to help people reach their God-given potential. I do this by helping people to first allign their lives to biblical values. I then help them stretch and grow such that they find themselves becoming what they never imagine they could be. It doesn't matter how long that process will take. Some may require more time and more motivation than others. But from my maid to my mentees; from my family to my staff, my greatest fulfilment has been seeing them reach God's highest potential.
And there is no way any person can reach God's highest potential for him or her until they open their hearts to the Lord. That is why I find myself becoming increasing passionate about evangelism.
John Maxwell said it best. "Potential is God's gift to us. What we do with it is our gift to God."
Another passion is communicating deep, old truths in simple, new ways. I love taking complex concepts and bringing them to their irreducible minimals. I love giving a fresh look to an old truth. That's the teacher in me. I challenge myself to continually communicate with creativity and originality. The truth, especially biblical truth, should be anything but boring.
That is why I decided to preach the current series Tikam Tikam Faith (Is Faith A Betting Game?) from a totally new angle. When I started conceptualizing the series, I listed a total of 28 questions people ask about faith. From those questions, I surfaced multiple misconceptions people have about their faith in God. At that point, something in got stirred to search for the scriptures for the biblical definitions and conceptions of faith.
I keep challenging myself this way in my preaching so that I can keep my passion in preaching alive. I love to preach but I do not want to become boring and dull. I have often told the pastors under me that it is crime to bore people with the Word of God.
I have "sub-passions" as that complement my primary passions. I'm a comedian. I believe that laughter make life great! I take fun seriously! I believe that we need to be good stewards of our medial ventral prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain identified by neurologists as being the seat of humour). I love making people laugh. And I laugh at myself often.
Right humour is not just healthy, it's holy. It's a gift from God. God is the one who created us with the capacity to laugh.
I really don't want a relationship with someone I can't laugh with. Laughter is the closest distance between two people. It is the essence of humility and one key to health and holiness.
My kids crack me up all the time and the best thing about our family is that we laugh a lot. Even with a daughter now living in Europe, laughter connects us all the time via skype.
Two of my other sub-passions are parenting and mentoring. Parenting is an art and a skill in raising kids to their highest God-given potentials. Parenting is not experience-driven or personality-driven. If that is true, then only a select few will succeed in parenting. Parenting is principled-driven and value-based. When a mom or dad has the raw courage to stand on principles even when it hurts and even when it looks like you are going to lose the love of that child, you will finally win them over. I have seen this happen over and over again. I want to spend the sunset years of my life mentoring young parents.
Mentoring allows me to multiply myself. It happens both formally and informally. It happens at staff meetings, over dinner tables, in the car, and over formal mentoring sessions. There are often certain mentoring-moments that are unplanned and there are other planned mentoring seasons that slowly deposit substance into people's lives. But mentoring to me, gives life great meaning and they make each day worth living.
My other sub-passion is young people. I want to be a voice to emerging generations. They are our future. That is why I take time to meet with the youth leaders once a month. That is why I am excited about developing the Eagles Programme, to do leadership mentoring amidst the twenty-somethings.
One key to a fulfilling life is making sure your life revolves around your passions. I think fulfillment and fruitfulness are found where your gifts (what you do best) and your passions (what you love most) overlap!
If I had 30 days to live, I will not waste my time doing things that I am not passionate about. I will find my passions and give my life to glorify the Lord with them.
