Matt Chandler serves as Lead Pastor of The Village Church in Highland Village, TX. Matt is an outstanding communicator of God’s word with a strong call toward church planting. On Thanksgiving, Matt suffered a seizure and was found to have a tumor in his brain. You can follow Matt’s progress at http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/blog/pastors/, and read an Associate Press article about Matt here.

Here are some notes from Matt’s session aimed at the topic “Transformation of a Leader.”

“You cannot expect your people to be what you are not.”

We need to be careful as leaders because we deal with cosmic things, salvation things, everyday … and it can become routine. You replace your relationship with God with working for Him. Working for Jesus replaces knowing Him and walking with Him. As soon as that happens, things are going to become stale.

2 Corinthians 3:18

We are transformed by ‘beholding Christ’

How do we ‘behold Christ’?

1. Constantly have to preach the gospel to yourself. – constantly reminding ourselves of this; it’s not only when we are at our worst that we need God, but at all times (‘your righteousness is like a filthy rag’)
   1. Romans 1:14 – “I am eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome”
   2. 1 Corinthians 15:1-6 – past, present, and future constantly in need of the gospel
   3. Galatians 1:6 – “I am astonished that you … are turning to a different gospel”
   4. Ephesians 2:1-10

Jesus’ call to communion remembrance is remembrance of Jesus

1. Understanding that our faith is multi-generational; that God is working a bigger plan for the world
   1. Exodus 19 – at Mt. Sinai, God’s call that Israel is a priest to all the world
   2. Genesis 12 – Abraham’s call that all nations would be blessed by you
   3. 1 Kings 8 – the temple was given that “all the people of the earth might know Your name”
   4. John 10:15-16 – “I have other sheep who are not of this fold…”
   5. Matthew 28:18-20 – “go and tell all nations” → so…they go hide in an upper room
   6. Acts 2 – message to many nations present on Pentecost; work of the Holy Spirit → still predominantly Jews
   7. Acts 10 & 11 – vision in prayer to Cornelius and roof-top vision to Peter → Acts 15: the church debates whether or not God can do that…but God already did it
   8. 42 AD: Mark goes to Egypt
   9. 52 AD: Thomas to India
   10. 174: 1^st Christians in Austria
   11. 252: 1^st Christians in rural Italy
   12. 350: 53% Roman Empire were professing Christ as Lord; before Constantine was emperor → could have been a political move
   13. 432: Patrick heads to Ireland to preach gospel
   14. 596: Gregory the Great sends Augustine to England for missionary
   15. 635: 1^st Christian missionaries in China
   16. 900: missionaries to Norway
   17. 1200: Bible available in 22 languages
   18. 1554: 1500 converts to Christiainity in what is now Thailand
   19. 1743: David Brainerd to North American Indians

God is at work and has been doing something for a lot longer than us. The Gospel was going out people getting saved long before Luther or Calvin.

If you take a step back, you should be amazed that you have been invited into this, that you have the opportunity to be a part of this, and that you have the responsibility to hand it off to who follows next.

We need to rest in the fact that God is at work.

“The church doesn’t need to be saved. It needs faithful men and women who will preach the gospel out of a pure heart.”

[This is part of a series of note-posts from the Exponential 2010 conference.]