Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

You never know how quickly your life can be changed. In 1967, my wife and I walked into an arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We had come to hear the well-known Evangelist Dr. Ford Philpot for an evening service of the Christian and Missionary Alliance General Conference. I found myself captivated by the gravel-voiced preacher, his clear-cut message and his Kentucky twang. Also, his sense of humor was refreshing. I never heard any preacher ever give stronger altar calls – especially for men to receive Christ.

A couple of years later, while pastoring in Sandusky, Ohio, the evangelical churches had an area-wide crusade for Christ, the first in their history. Dr. Philpot and his team were invited to lead us in the 8-day effort. The Lord had been dealing with me that a change was coming in my ministry, but I had no idea what it would be. When the crusade was over, Dr. Philpot asked me spend a few days with him. During that time he said, “Dan, I want you to pray about coming to our home city of Lexington, Kentucky, and serving as my Associate Evangelist. I want you to write and produce our syndicated television show, The Story, edit our magazine, The Storyteller, and preach in crusades that I cannot get to.” Three months later my family and I found ourselves moving to the blue grass state. For the next three years, I was with that wonderful minister in crusades all over the world. One night in Kinshasa, Zaire, over 100,000 attended a night meeting and thousands came to Christ.

My friend, if you are feeling in your heart that God is about to do something with you, be open to His leading. He knows what is best for your life and His kingdom. It could be this very day that the new path is opened to you.

Prayer: O God, may my heart and mind always be tuned in to hear your voice. I don’t want to miss any door that you have opened. You have created me for a special reason, and I pray that my life will truly and accurately reflect that reason. Amen.

Psalm 91:5 6
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

While on business in Honolulu, Hawaii, not long ago, I caught a cab from my downtown hotel and was taken to Pearl Harbor. There on December 7, 1941, a Sunday morning by the way ( 8 o’clock ), the Japanese Air Force pulled a surprise and very successful attack on our U.S. Navy. If you have ever visited this site, which I passionately suggest, you are aware of the exposure and vulnerability of our ships there that morning. You are perhaps also aware that about eight months earlier, two senior officers, one Army and the other Navy, drew attention to the possible danger to which the base was exposed from a carrier-borne aircraft attack. The warning, for some reason still not fully understood, was disregarded.

Japanese Vice-Admiral Nagumo was given a task force of 321 planes, two fast battleships, three cruisers, nine destroyers, three submarines and eight tankers to refuel his ships at sea. On that fateful morning, the U.S. had 70 warships and 24 auxiliaries in the harbor. No one apparently suspected what awaited them. Pearl Harbor was still asleep in the morning mist. It was calm and serene inside the harbor. In fact, vital U.S. naval vessels of the Pacific Fleet were strung out and anchored, two ships side by side, in an orderly manner. The initial Japanese concentration was on the seven U.S. battleships moored alongside Ford Island. Within 2 hours, most of our ships were sunk or severely damaged and about 2400 of our valiant men had died. Why did U.S. leaders neglect the warning of the previous months? Who was asleep at the switch? All these decades later, we still have no satisfactory answers.

But then how many times have you heard about eternity? How many times have you been told of the coming of Christ and the judgment to follow? I can only pray that you are prepared spiritually for that which is to come. Otherwise you are in for a spiritual Pearl Harbor of a dimension you can’t even begin to imagine.

Prayer: O God, may we not neglect our souls in these days before Your Son returns.
May we learn spiritual lessons about adequate preparation from historic tragedies. May we hear the prodding in our souls from Your Holy Spirit today. Amen.

Galatians 6:9
And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

The great, now-retired, sports columnist Hal Lebovitz of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote a column in 1986 titled, “Why Must Pitchers Be Babied?” We’re talking about baseball’s major league hurlers. The columnist claims they’re bigger, stronger, better-conditioned than ever, yet the theme of most managers is, “Just give me six good innings.” Lebovitz observed, “Once a pitcher has thrown 100 times, look out! The poor fellow’s arm may fall off.” A sarcastic, but true, report, I’m afraid.

Listen, there was a day when big-league pitchers hurled both ends of a double-header. Yes, of course, in the same day! There was once a big league pitcher named Iron Man McGinnity who pitched 2/3rds of the entire season’s games for his team. Today? Why, my goodness, if the guy is still upright after six innings he’s patted on the back and then goes back to the dugout to think on the quarter-million bucks he just made that afternoon or evening. Well, the last I heard, a baseball game lasts nine innings, not six.

So why am I on this soapbox? Because some of the folks I hear in front-line ministry moan about “burn-out.” John Wesley, who preached three to five times daily, going from village to village on horseback, might have had reason to complain about burn-out, but not us today. We have everything from laptops to iPods to air-conditioned cars to cushy offices and custom-made pulpits. I have a good friend who just started a new church and he’s 82 years old! My kind of guy! The famed Evangelist Billy Sunday once said that when he could no longer have enough teeth to bite Satan, he’d gum him to death.

Six-inning pitchers, indeed! Humbug!

Prayer: O God, help me to still be in the race to the finish line! Thank You for the health You have granted me. Now let me use it to its maximum utility as long as breath courses through my body. There is just too much to do, and too little time to do it, to go back to the spiritual dugout after a mere six innings. Amen.

Acts 9:15
But the Lord said unto him, he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel…

Those lines characterized the ministry of Paul. A friend of mine occasionally uses the phrase, “transformational leadership.” Pretty noble phrase, if you ask me. Webster defines “transformational” as “a system of grammatical analysis that posits the existence of deep structure and surface structure and uses a set of rules to derive surface structure forms from deep structure.” You say, “What????” Coach Vince Lombardi of the NFL Green Bay Packers had a simpler definition: “Keep it simple, stupid!” As a pastor, I define “transformational leadership” in this way: “The system by which one takes the great theological truths of Christ to make them work in a relevant and productive way in our secular society.” While leadership is not always necessarily rocket science, it is indeed visionary – or it’s not leadership. It might be managerial, but it definitely is not leadership.

Let me put this in tangible form: How do we tap into the enormous treasure lode of young church leadership among us and still maintain our core value system? Many of today’s young spiritual leaders abdicate what they term “the system” to go into independent ministries, free of what they think are restrictions. Ah, but there is a steep price to be paid for that sojourn. Loneliness is part of the price. Lack of accountability is yet another. We must incorporate the vision and energy of today’s youth into the church and yet maintain those biblical, eternal values that keep us holy and acceptable unto God. That, my friend, is a tall order. And that’s where this “transformational leadership” must come into existence. Maintaining status quo is not acceptable.

Jesus was a progressive leader even while He maintained conservative values. That’s transformational!

Prayer: O God, I never want to be status quo in what You have ordained me to do. But I also do not want to renege on those truths of the Gospel that have maintained Your Kingdom on earth. Guide me by Your Spirit, I pray, to always be transformational. Oh, how I thank You for such anointing! Amen.