Fruitful teaching/training in the church is never directionless. It always points us toward holy behaviors. Fruitfulness is always evidenced in changed behavior. How is your personal and corporate Bible study changing your conceptual behavior about the following areas of life in today’s culture? 1) Life status? 2) un-Christlike behaviors? 3) idolatry keeping you from God-time? 4) Relationships and societal norms?

Proper, fruitful, biblical training should always produce changed behavior in all believers, even the most senior of saints. Unfortunately, in many churches we do not see changed, growing Christlike behaviors in God’s people. The word teach is defined as, “to impart knowledge or skill; to cause to learn by example or experience”.

Didasko, the Greek word used in the New Testament 84 times is translated in English as teach or teaching, is described as “the act of causing someone to learn”. The meaning goes much further than passing along knowledge. Facts and information do not create a learning experience. Behavioral change is the fruit of biblical training/teaching.

The definition of both teach and didasko use the word “cause” – to cause learning. How do we cause people to learn? The word cause is defined as, “Something the produces an effect, result, or consequence”.

According to this definition what teachers and preachers bring to the classroom and pulpit should produce a result. It should have a changing effect on people’s lives. If as teachers and as learners our Bible studies are not causing a personal behavioral life change, something has gone awry. To be a maturing disciple requires change, a change in the way we perceive and act in all areas of our lives. It requires a continuation in how we aid and serve others.

We’ve looked at teach, didasko, and cause, let’s look briefly at the word learn. Learn is described as, “To gain knowledge, comprehension, or mastery of; to acquire through experience”. More than knowledge learning is to gain mastery of. In a martial arts DoJo there is one person who is more accomplished in the art than anyone else. He is referred to as “Master”. How is your Bible study contributing to your mastery of Christ-like living?

Skill also appears more than once in our definitions. Skill is an applied ability. The only way to gauge the level of your skill is by applying that skill. It is the application of learned skills and knowledge that not only brings about behavioral or life change. Application is life-change. The very first time you sat in the driver’s seat of a car, you began applying the knowledge and skill you had learned.

Someone had to teach you how to drive. Your first time out may not have been the most graceful, yet from that point forward you practiced those learned skills, increasing your ability and improving those learned skills, thus changing your behavioral patterns.

Whether you teach in a church setting, a public school, or in your own family, Teach for Behavioral life change!

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

“Most churches don’t have a leadership problem—They have a leadership development problem.” David Stokes. While instead of the word problem, I normally use the word issue, I do agree with his statement. A statement I have used in equipping settings for years is, “Every leader should be mentoring another leader.” If you are a teacher you should have at least one apprentice teacher who shares in the teaching responsibilities. If you are a class secretary, you should be training someone in those duties. It matters not how big or small your task, you should be mentoring/equipping another person in those duties.

While mentoring is a great component of leadership development, it is not a complete process. Even the way we recruit leaders in most churches is unhealthy. I have written and produced videos on this in years past. In most churches we recruit to fill an empty slot. The first person we can find to say yes is our answer. That person’s qualifications and giftings is seldom considered.

At one church I served the nominating committee went to Gail several years in a row asking her to teach in our children’s ministry. Each year she declined. Gail was a second-grade teacher in a local school. Therefore, to the nominating committee, she was perfectly fit for the task at church.

Gail on the other hand was desiring relationship with a different age group on Sunday. She was with 7-year-olds all week and longed for adult interaction for Bible study. In time Gail and two other women came to me desiring to start a Bible study for women. They already had the commitment for a teacher, Gail. They had the ministry plans laid out beautifully and the women’s Bible study became a very fruitful ministry to the women of that church.

A church’s leadership process begins even before the recruiting process. It begins with prayer. In chapter six of Reaching the Summit I laid out a better recruitment plan for churches, and people have noted, “You have prayer in every aspect of that process.” Indeed, shouldn’t that be true for every single leadership position in our churches. My friend, Allan Taylor says, “In the church, we recruit many of our own problems.” Without a prayer based system, our entire leadership development process is doomed.

What can you do this week to prayerfully enhance and enrich the leadership recruitment and development processes of your church?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

A biblical worldview should be an essential for a believer in Christ. Yet, it is not always true for every person who claims the term Christian. If you have been in church – in most Christian denominations, you have heard your many Bible stories. Through preaching, Bible studies, Sunday school, dramas, music and other means, Bible stories are laid out for us in various fashions.

We gain lots of knowledge of various Bible stories, yet knowledge alone does not a disciple of Christ make. I would assert that most Christians/church goers have heard their share of Bible stories yet have no comprehensive approach of applying the truths of this knowledge in their daily lives. Little David killed the big bad giant, Goliath. But what does that have to do with my work on Tuesday?

Many churches have turned to the theory of need for information, give them as much information and knowledge of what is in the Bible, verse by verse, with little application of God’s truth in life throughout the week. some without any application. I am not knocking any method of teaching/preaching, but if all we are giving is information, are we creating only trivia buffs? In the Great Commission, Jesus said “teach them all that I have commanded you” shouldn’t that include Jesus’ instructions on how to? Over 60% of Jesus’ teachings were application.

The knowledge of truth is essential, but so is application. A true biblical worldview must contain both. Many churchgoers can tell you stories of the Bible. Faithful believers can convey how the truth of biblical stories connect to their beliefs. But “how many can convey how they know the beliefs they hold are true?”[i]

Without being able to answer that last question, a biblical worldview cannot exist. That question is answered as we apply the knowledge of truth in our lives and experience God working through those applications. We must have biblical knowledge, be able to convey God’s truth of that knowledge, while also communicating how we know our beliefs are universal truth. This is developed over time through knowledge and application into an instinctual awareness of confidence in who we are and who God is. Only then will we prevail with a true biblical worldview. And that worldview must continually be groomed and grown with further gaining of knowledge and continual application in every aspect of life.

We are tasked in the Great Commission to assist one another in the continual attainment of knowledge and prevailing practice (application) in our daily living. Certainly, Pastors, teachers, and leaders have a significant role to play here, but Christ gave the Great Commission to each and every believer. You and I have a role to play in growing in knowledge and practice while also assisting others in the same.

This dually aligned equipping with knowledge and application is God’s only concept for developing a biblical worldview, which He desires from each of His children. What is your next step for gaining biblical knowledge and applying it in your life space this week?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

[i] McDowell/Wallace, So the Next Generation Will Know,pg 89

I recently read a statement saying that “So many young Christians are ill prepared to face the…challenges that confront them today…” My immediate thought was, not only today, we’ve been turning out ill prepared Christians for decades. Many Christians came through good, well-meaning youth groups without a secure, firm foundation. We learned the Bible stories and the difference between right and wrong, but what was missing was the strength of conviction to walk away from wrong – that which was tempting to each one.

Learning Bible stories and the difference between right and wrong does not a worldview make. Everyone has a worldview. Your worldview is the lens through which you see the world. Each person’s worldview interprets his/her beliefs, values of life, influencing his/her perception of his/her place in life. A person’s worldview also establishes his/her moral standards.

If we do not consciously equip not only young Christians, but ALL Christians with a biblical worldview, they will inevitably absorb the philosophies and practices of today’s culture as their worldview. Today we have a much greater amount of information at our fingertips and instant influencers through many social media platforms, internet, than any time in history. Every person’s worldview is being infiltrated every hour of each day with new ideas, questions, and challenges.

“People need a worldview through which they can make sense of this information bombardment.” Christianity offers a biblical worldview. A person’s worldview has been considered a mental map of a  his/her reality. A worldview does not emanate from the mind but from the heart, the very soul of all belief. Therefore each person’s worldview is our fundamental commitment to our known reality and daily practice.

Not only what we are teaching in church, but are our methods of teaching creating biblical worldviews? For at least the last five decades, the amount of young people walking away from the church would suggest that at least one of the two has been failing. Let me suggest the following practices for every age group in our churches.

• Teach for a clear personal understanding of God’s purpose for every individual and all human life.
• Return to clear instruction and sound, functional grip on the afterlife.
• Bring listeners to a vibrant perception of the greatness of the True, Living God.
• Train people of all ages in the difference between fleeting happiness and everlasting Joy.
• Help Christians create their Life Road Map based on scripture.

These five bullet points alone are not going to in and of themselves create a biblical worldview, but they are a step in the right direction, a step that we in church too often fail to accomplish.

What will you do this week to strengthen your biblical worldview and encourage others to do the same?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

In chapters 37-50 of the first book of the Bible, Genesis, we read the life story of Joseph. Joseph is a great example of someone who “rises above his apparent circumstances. First, sold into slavery by his brothers, Joseph stayed focused on the Lord – and he prospered to be in charge of the household of a prominent official, comparable to a governor of one of our states.

Then Joseph is wrongly accused of attempted rape. Accused by the wife Joseph’s employer. Accused by a woman who was trying to seduce Joseph. Joseph’s employer has Josephhas Joseph imprisoned.

Joseph rises to be placed in charge of everyone in this prison. Scripture says the prison officials did not worry with anything about this prison because Joseph was in charge. Later, Joseph is released to become the King’s (of this foreign land) right hand man, second in command of the nation of Egypt.

Lets look at three things to learn from Joseph to Rise Above Our Apparent Circumstances.

1, Remain True to Biblical Principles – Joseph’s faith did not quiver. He remained true to his faith in God and his biblical understanding. Joseph never dwelt on the negative of his situation. Instead, he searched for God in the midst. Wherever Joseph was, no matter what the situation he found himself in, Joseph gave his very best.

2, Use What God has Given You – It is easier to take the “woe is me” route as opposed to pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and rising above the apparent circumstances, isn’t it? Joseph could’ve taken the attitude of, “I’m in prison. This unbearable miry muck. There is nothing I can do for God here.”

Joseph did not wait for the day God would use him after he got out of prison.  He chose to use what God had given him in the situation he was in. He made a difference and God saw to it that he was elevated above the other prisoners.

3, Remain Confident in God – I believe Joseph was content knowing God was going to take care of him, in or out of prison. He dreamed of being second in command in this oppressive foreign land. Yet, one day he would wear the king’s signet ring. Joseph was a man of strong conviction. A conviction of carrying on through even adverse circumstances.

You’ve not been sold into slavery or placed in prison for your beliefs. The mire and muck of whatever situation you are going through, you can live as Joseph lived (each one of us can) and rise above those apparent circumstances.

Joseph was only one man. A teenager sold into slavery, later wrongfully imprisoned. Yet God used him to save and preserve not only one nation, but many. You cannot possibly know the great and mighty things God wants to do through your life.

Do you have the mind and attitude of Joseph? To do your very best for God in every situation?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

In recent posts we’ve shared about multi-generational relationships. While these relationships are important to reaching people of different generations, relationship building should never be viewed as a means to coerce others into our ways of thinking or adopt our practices. People of all generations are in need of relationships. God created us this way.

As discussed in another post building relationships requires us first to understand their particular cultural orientation. This does not mean we must like and adapt to their generational practice – i.e. music, dress style, their lingo or other habits. Yet, fostering a new relationship includes understanding where the other person is coming from. Example: Generation Z (Gen Zers), those teens and just now entering their adult years, research shows 75% do not want to let others down. The same number, 75%, want to make a difference in the lives of other people. Get to know and understand those God places in your path.

To be heard, we must first listen to understand regardless of the generation. To enter into a relationship each person must believe of the other person, “You matter to me. I care about who you are and your goals in life. I am willing to invest in you to allow you to become all God created you to be.” Fostering relationships with others begins with us. It is a common practice to wait for others of another generation to come to us. Yet, this is not a God-honoring, well-meaning practice. We, you and I, must be willing to reach out with a listening ear to show we care.

1. Perhaps the greatest teaching technique used by Jesus was stories. Stories paint a mental picture that creates a learning experience. Do not be afraid to use stories – yours and stories of others to foster new relationships with other generations (and listen to their stories). Expose your vulnerability through some stories.
2. Demonstrate Empathy. Empathy is the willingness to get into the mental and emotional feelings of another person. To earn the trust and respect required in fostering a new relationship empathy gives the other person permission to share his/her vulnerabilities with a sense of security. Romans 12:15 says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” This is demonstrating empathy.
3. Be an effective listener. Do not only listen to respond. Listen to understand. It is in our nature to key in on the first couple sentences and form a response. That is not effective listening and will destroy chances of fostering a healthy relationship.
4. Prayer is always a major source of fostering relationships. Not only praying for the other person but asking how you can pray for them. Include them in your prayer time, pray with him/her.

Certainly, these are not the only concepts for developing relationships. Pray and use your experience of what made other relationships work in your life. What are you looking for in genuine relationships? This is what others want too. Begin today praying for your role in fostering new intergenerational relationships.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

If you are of the older generations alive today and were asked for descriptive words of the youngest generations today, what words come to mind? Likewise, if you of the younger generations today were asked for descriptive words of the older generations, what words would you use? Were most of your words negative or positive?

Unfortunately, for far too many people, when thinking of other generations we tend to focus on the negative and we categorize an entire generation (fifty-seventy thousand people) as a whole. “Old, curmudgeon, stuck in their ways.” or “Lazy, ungrateful, entitlement attitude.” Why is it we lean to finding the negative in other generations? Would we not be better off focusing on the positives, the things we have in common and the positive traits of others that may be lacking in ourselves?

Indeed, we would! We need to take the time to understand other generations who may have different thoughts, opinions, and practices. Perhaps the first idea to eliminate is that every person in a particular generation is a clone with all bad traits. Each person in every generation is a unique individual created by the God of the universe to live today in this particular nation, state, and local community for a purpose.

Once we understand this, we should strive with great effort to employ the greatest avenue of understanding others – through genuine relationship. It is only through relationships that you and I can understand each other in our uniqueness. God created us this way and He has placed people of different generations in your life to assist you and for you to assist them, in learning and in life.

As the church we must understand that truth (God’s Word) is best understood in relationship. God created us this way and demonstrated it for us. God Himself came down from the splendidness of heaven to walk among us first in the garden of Eden, and ultimately as Christ, the Messiah, kinsman redeemer.

He could have sent an angel or other messenger, but God created us for relationship. Jesus came in human form to live among us so that we could know the intimacy of a relationship with the God of the universe. Jesus lived life with His Disciples and others. He ate with them, walked with them, went to the market, prayed, attended church services with them. Jesus lived life in relationship with His Disciples and others so that we could all understand loving relationships.

God’s principle remains today, truth is best learned and sustained through relationship. You and I must relationally commit to passing on truth to other generations through our daily interactions with those around us, bringing them into the fold of life and introducing them to God’s truths through loving relationships. We each must teach, practice, and personify God’s truth through fostering new relationships with people of various generations. How will you lovingly practice God’s truth in fostering relationships that please God with other generational people in your life?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

A young man in his early thirties walked up to a pool one day. When he arrived, more than 300 people were already sitting, laying around the pool. This was not a pool of pleasure and enjoyment. This was known as a pool of healing, its proper name, The Pool of Bethesda. The young man was Jesus. He was on a mission that day, a lesson was to be learned by everyone in Jerusalem and for us today.

Jesus is part of the Triune Godhead. He is God. Jesus could have spoken the words and everyone there that day would’ve been healed. Instead, His focus was on one man, one man who had been paralyzed, unable to walk for thirty-eight years. The gospel of John tells the story in chapter five.

In verse six, Jesus asked the paralyzed man a question, a very simple, straight-forward question. “Do you want to get well?” If you had a cold, or something as debilitation as cancer or diabetes and someone asked you that question what would you say? Of course we all want to be well, we want to be rid of any ailment. Yet, this man on this day, does not answer the question posed by Jesus.

Instead, He says, “Sir, I don’t have anyone to help me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” What was he doing? He was making excuses, much like we do today. For years I thought that was it, he was simply making excuses, and I could relate that to many in the church today. As I was preparing to share with a church last week, I realized it was not only excuses. The paralytic man was making excuses because he could not see beyond the obstacles in front of him.

He did not answer the question because he could not see God’s provision standing in front of him. In the next verse we see Jesus’ response. He did not coddle, sympathize, or empathize with the man. Jesus again straight-forward gives a command. “Get up. Take up your mat and walk.” If you’ve ever had surgery or had your leg in a cast for several weeks, you know it takes time to regain strength to walk. This man had not been able to walk for 38 years, yet he immediately stood straight up – without help, then bent over (another impossibility) and picked up his mat and walked away from the pool.

Jesus looked right past the man’s words and watched for his actions. Today, we make excuses often because we cannot see beyond the obstacles in front of us. “We don’t have enough people or money.” Or “We’re all too old.” If you believe in the God of creation then you should know He is the God who can overcome all obstacles and provide exactly what we need. It’s not your words, but your actions that prove your faith commitment.

Today, what will your prayer consist of asking for God’s forgiveness for the obstacles that you have focused on, keeping you from seeing God’s miraculous victory in your life and the life of your church?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

While most students and adults today seem outwardly happy, happiness is always fleeting. Happiness comes from outside influences and is never lasting. A compliment or gift may bring you happiness, but that happiness will soon fade, leaving an emptiness.  Then we must go searching for something to fill the void. Therefore, searching for happiness is a continuous process. Searching for happiness can bring disappointment and loneliness.

Recent studies have revealed an increasing health crisis, especially in Generation Z (GenZ born 1997-2012). Partly due to technology and instant gratification coupled with an ingrained belief that individualism is the highest certainty (authority) strips people of many needed, well-balanced mental processes. Individualism leads to loneliness.

“Gen Zers have been raised in an age in which speed and convenience rule the day.” Not only GenZ, but many of all our generations today expect instantaneous delivery of every aspect of life, our food, shopping experiences, music, even our healthcare. In the past the attention span of young children was estimated at one minute for every year of age, a five year old can only focus on any one thing for five minutes.

With the speed and convenience of today’s technology, studies show Gen Zers (13-28 yr old) average attention span is eight seconds. Television, the internet, and other venues have designed programming that has shortened attention spans of all age groups. Short attention spans demands more choices, more options, more, more, more, which leads to loneliness.

We know loneliness leads to depression and unnecessary angst. We do not need more studies revealing what we can see all around us everyday, lonely people, more and more on anti-depressants and other drugs. What we as the church need is to help move people from the endless chase for happiness to the pursuit of true Joy.

 While happiness stems from outside circumstances, true joy comes only from God. God’s Joy, the only true lasting joy comes from within, a God-given attribute that fulfills and sustains even in times of struggle. His Joy is not fleeting and will never fade.

Joy comes from God, and it comes through us turning loose of self-desires to serving others without expectation of reciprocity (nothing in return). As the church, the people of God, we must practice and lead others in practicing Joy. Practicing our God-given Joy requires practicing humility, and a gratefulness for this moment we have been given to live in today.

While we are each created as a unique individual, individualism that says I am the highest authority, places a person and a society on a direct collision course with the God of the universe. It is detrimental to an individual and to society. We the church, God’s people, have an understanding of the answer. Will we, will you as an individual, choose practicing God’s gift of Joy by serving and helping others with no expectation of getting anything in return? How will you commit to teaching and leading others to do the same?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.