Monthly Archives: April 2010

Climbing Higher

Posted by chriswilliamsde on

I am not a mountain climber.  However, I have climbed one 14′er in my lifetime…Mount Bierstadt in Colorado.  I will always owe a huge debt to Paul Kind for guiding me through my first climb all the way to the top.  While I am not a mountain climber, my one experience has given me a lot of respect for what people do when they tackle a huge climbing challenge like Everest.  The altitude, extreme weather, and physical demands make accomplishing such a feat nothing short of amazing.  The people who take on this daunting task are driven by the vision of reaching the summit.

Mountain climbers or not, we all must be driven to reach the summit of our lives…the potential that God has given to each of us.  This requires us to train, prepare, rest, and climb.  And in order to reach the top we must keep climbing higher.

Think about it…if you drew a vertical line on a sheet of paper from top to bottom.  And at the top you wrote 100% and at the bottom you wrote 0%.  And if you considered this continuum to represent the potential of your life, how much of your potential are you currently using?  Go ahead.  Give yourself a mark.

Now, reflect on the mark you gave yourself.  What made you score yourself that way?  What would it take for you to move closer to 100%?  Whatever it is that you need to do to move toward your potential, those things form your personal growth plan.  It is this plan that you must follow to climb higher.

How committed are you to reaching the summit of your potential?  What are you willing to give up to keep growing?

May you keep growing…may you climb higher…may you reach the summit of your potential.

For more information on personal growth or to enlist the help of a personal growth coach visit Keep Growing, Inc.

Wesley’s View of Evangelism

Posted by chriswilliamsde on

“John Wesley had three ultimate objectives for people: 1) that they experience the grace of God and the gift of faith, and become conscious followers of Jesus Christ; 2) that they be “united” with others in a “class” and a “society;” 3) that upon achievement of 1 and 2, they experience growth toward Christian perfection. It is crucial to point out that the first two objectives could be achieved in a person’s life-history in either order, and the more usual sequence was, 2, 1.

“That is, most of the people who became Methodist converts first joined a class, and sometime later became conscious Christians! This helps to explain why Wesley, in his extensive open-air field preaching, never invited people to accept Jesus Christ and become Christians on the spot! That statement must surely shock those of us whose assumptions about public evangelism have been carved out in the Billy Graham era, as it would shock the evangelical Christians of any generation since Charles Grandison Finney began inviting responders to the ‘mourner’s bench’.” (To Spread the Power: Church Growth in the Wesleyan Spirit by George Hunter III, Abingdon, 1987)

What is your response to this perspective?