The Act or the Church? Which are YOU?

Do you go to church? Where do you go to church? I remember being in the company of believers hearing them exclaim " I Belong To The Church of.." or "I Attend...." It was as if they had an exclusive membership to a club or something. People will often flock to a church in which the leader is like a celebrity. It seems to bring a sense a pride to member to proudly say "I Attend New Wave Ministries" and "My Bishop Is..." How impressive.
There is nothing wrong with church pride, but church membership is not a promise of salvation. Your faith in Jesus Christ is what gets you into the body of Christ. Belonging to a prominent church with a membership of 1000 or stronger, doesn't mean that church has the monopoly on the teachings of Christ nor are they "THE" path to God the Father. Identifying with a favorite teacher, preacher, pastor or prophet is not good because they are just ministers (servants) of the gospel.
Paul had a similar problem with... the Corinthians (Corinthians 3), rather than identifying with the Body of Christ, the people identified themselves as being apart of Paul or Apollos. Paul referred to this type of behavior as carnal. Who is Paul but a minister (servant) of the gospel?, who is Apollos but a minister (servant) of the gospel? Who is your Bishop or favorite Evangelist or celebrity Prophet, but a servant of the gospel? In the book of Romans 8:7… “because the mind of the flesh is enmity to God, for to the law of God it doth not subject itself (Y.L.T).”
The ministry (service) has no place for superstars and heroes, we (the believers) belong to the body of Christ not to a building, not to a movement, not to a denomination or an organization. Attending a geographical location faithfully on a Sunday morning or being proud of the celebrity status of your church and its leaders does not equate to citizenship in the Kingdom of God.
When looking for a place to fellowship with Gods people, don't be fooled by the celebrity of the leadership of the high-tech gadgetry in the building that others call church. I'm sure there are many who are reading this article, have heard a hundred times, "You Are The Church?". Far too many people will express their disappointment in a Leader after he or she falls. But we are God’s people, how is it that we are and at times can be so easily fooled? In many cases we have only ourselves to blame.
Understanding who and what the church is will cause you to realize that you can't sign in, you must be Born again and keeping a close walk with the Savior won’t allow you to be taken advantage of by the “wolves in sheep’s clothing”.

Leaders: Born or Made?

A recent television reality show featured three chefs in a competition. They received the same list of ingredients and were to prepare several courses. Each chef had the same amount of time and could use only the ingredients on the list.  When the gourmet meals were finished, a panel of judges picked the winner. This is a good example of what happens during leadership development. Given the same individual, different mentors develop leaders differently; and, of course, leaders respond to each mentoree differently.  There are several implications here. Leaders should have multiple people developing them. Not only should we develop the leaders under us, but we should encourage them to seek outside mentors who can also develop their ingredients.

People often say, "He is a born leader." I respectfully disagree. Leaders aren't born; they're made, like bread is made. Leadership development is an intentional activity. Raisin bread doesn't appear by itself even if we leave the ingredients on the kitchen counter overnight. Someone must consciously take ingredients and knead them together, put the mixture under the right amount of heat and allow it to rise, then punch it down and start over again until the dough is the perfect consistency. Only then will it rise above the pan. Helping a leader rise takes this same kind of intentional activity.

One reporter wrote:
I believe everyone has the ingredients needed to be a leader. We are leaders at different times and places. Dad might be a manager in an office. The people who work for him acknowledge that he is a leader. But Mom is also a leader. She leads a Cub Scout troop, she leads the family in getting chores done, and every morning she leads the kids to school. But Junior could be a leader too. Maybe he is the academic pacesetter of the fourth grade or is the captain of the dodgeball team at recess. Even the dog can lead with his bark when a stranger comes to the front door. So if everyone is capable of being a leader, how do we explain the difference in ability between leaders? If we could measure people on a leadership scale of one to ten, some people will only rise to a level three while others will rise to a ten. The ingredients are there, but they never seem to come together to their full potential. That's where we come in. With the proper training, dogs are taught to lead blind people through busy streets. What can our leaders accomplish if we invest time in developing them?