TESTIMONIES
JD Friel has his hand on the pulse of the problem and cure for much of our woes that assails the business community, education and the workforce at large. His ministry, "Lead Now", will go a long way in addressing and curing those woes. Lead Now cuts through the thoughtless cures for the woes facing our country and tackles it a the core, the next generation. His seminars can be adapted for schools, businesses and churches and is a must if we are to turn things around.
Ron Bramos, Senior Pastor at Victory Life Church.
Core Leadership Skills for Youth to Develop Now (Part 2)
As we have been discussing one of the core fundamental elements to leadership is integrity. We saw in Part 1 the importance of keeping your word in order to create and maintain your integrity. In this entry I show how critical attitudes and hypocrisy erode a persons integrity
When your actions don’t match your words
Have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t mind Jesus, it is Christians I can’t stand.” If you have heard this, you may have said back to them, “Why?” Almost always their response is, “Because they are a bunch of self-righteous hypocrites.” Now there could be several reasons why people think this way. One is that they may just be looking for a reason to justify some prejudice they have against church. They may be forming their opinions by borrowing another’s experiences or they may be picking the “nice” parts about Jesus to like. However, the fact of the matter is that many of us who proclaim that we are followers of Christ, don’t act like it. This leads to a disconnect between what we say and what we do and leaves us looking foolish. People will look cynically upon us and may even feel betrayed.
Let me breakdown the psychology:
a. People get their feelings hurt or are somehow made to feel inferior by someone in the church. They have either had a direct encounter with someone who has critically judged them or they have witnessed something on television.
b. Because this they are then on the look out to find something wrong in your behavior or in another Christian’s behavior and when they do they use it to galvanize their position. They then say to themselves, “See you guys are no better than me but you act so self righteous. Christians are nothing but two-faced hypocrites”
c. Since first or early impressions tend to have the greatest impact on ones opinions we are behind the eight ball from this point on, trying to establish integrity.
Can I make some suggestions? If you are a Christian who is having difficulty with a judgmental spirit or a negative attitude please stop! I know this is easier then it sounds especially if you have been this way for a long time but the damage it does to people and the impact it has on your spirit is huge. The truth is we are nothing apart form God’s grace and we have no reason to be critical of a non-believers behavior. We must love people to a new place not condemn them. Give it to Jesus, spend several hours a week in prayer asking for the Lord to convict you of this problem. Have someone who is close to you and doesn’t struggle with this issue hold you accountable and give you feed back on how you are doing.
If you are someone who has been burned by Christianity, can offer my sincerest of apologies? Christianity is not always represented well by those in the flock but on the flip-side there are many loving well intentioned, non-perfect people who want nothing more to share the love and compassion of Jesus with you. They want to walk alongside you and truly be your friend. I would like to ask you to please give Christianity another shot. If you would like feel free to contact me and I can speak with you or get you in touch with a loving church in your area. You can either respond to this blog or you can email me at jd.ileadnow@gmail.com I would love to chat with you.
