Henry Will 4: Leadership Summit - Session 3 with Tim Keller

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Leadership Summit - Session 3 with Tim Keller

Tim Keller is the pastor of Redeemer Church in Manhattan (New York City) USA.
He's speaking now at the Leadership Summit (willowcreek.com/summit).
The church he leads has 6000 weekly attendance in 3 locations, planted over 100 churches.

He is the author of "The Reason for God" on NY Times Best Sellers List.

I'm at a satellite location in Ocean Grove New Jersey USA (oceangrove.org) attending the Leadership Summit . Even if you don't use twitter, you can see my postings at:twitter.com/henrywill It seems that #tls09 is too much traffic on twitter, so I'm blogging here.

What others are saying about him in pre-video: His vision is about changing NYC, not about him.

Points from Tim's talk for Leadership Summit:

He's always wiling to listen to someone who says "I have the key to Spiritual Renewal" - pastors are looking for spiritually alive people. Only a few people do the work, there is back biting. Pastors are desparate for finding a way to promote spiritual renewal.
Prodigal: the meaning is "wrecklessly extravegant" - so God's love for us is prodigal too. The story of the prodigal son is about both sons.
Luke 15: Religious leaders were concerned about Jesus hanging out with sinners. Jesus responded with several stories about the lost.
The brother that stays home is like the brother that stays home - that part of the story is to address those of us in the church
The two brothers show 2 ways to reject God:
Younger brother decides he wants everything from the Father (God) now
Older brother decides he deserves what God has to offer, he's only giving father lip-service. He's lost because of his goodness. He won't go into the feast. He's obeying God just to get things.
Gospel isn't moral or immoral - it's about God's love for you
Religion operates on the principle of us trying to be good to get to God
the Gospel operates on the principle of us not being good enough and God taking our place so we can have God's Love (grace). We do good for God out of our appreciation.
Older brothers: want everyone else to follow commands, and they're a bit uncomfortable because they're insecure because they aren't quite sure they are good enough.
Older brothers: not just sad when things don't go well, they get furious with God because they think God owes them.
Need to get to a new level of repentance and rejoicing
Repentance is not just being sorry for our wrong-doing and turning around (Pharisees did this)
You won't be renewed until you look at repenting from the things you do right, and trying to get leverage over God
You can't think you're doing God a favor by following him.
You need to get to a deeper level of repentance of repenting for our right-doing.
We need to look at what it cost the father
Since the younger son took half, the only way to bring the younger son back would be to take what was left which was the older son's inheritance
The older brother, if he was a true older brother, should have went after the lost brother into a foreign country and at his expense.We do have a true older brother. We need a brother that came from a distant country (heaven) and saves us at a cost (which Jesus did at the cost of his life)
How to get spirtual renewal in the church:
1. As leader, need to work this in your heart (don't go into the ministry to save your soul)
2. All of your teaching is Gospel
3. Gather all the leaders together and take them through book (could use the "Prodigal God" book)
4. Work it in your team and followers (congregation)
How you'll know when you're reaching people:Gracious disagreements, instead of people leaving or always fighting.When religious people come to you realizing they are not really a Christian