06 McDonald's or Steak

Let's imagine for a moment that Jesus decided to pay us a visit. We know that He warned that when He returns again, that's the end of all things, but let's use our God-given imagination. He pays us a visit and He bumps into you and He says, "I would love to come to your house for supper next week."

How excited would you be? I'm pretty sure that all of us would be thinking about that the whole week. What are we going to make? What are we going to eat? Let's make sure we've got the stuff in. Let's prepare well ahead of time.

Let's prepare a really good meal and really honour Him and welcome Him as He comes. I doubt any of us would completely forget about the invite until an hour before the evening and then suddenly pop into McDonald's and grab a burger. Not that the Lord would demand anything more, but I don't think any of us would just grab a quick takeaway burger for Him half an hour before He arrived.

Preparing Well to Honor Community Leadership

Well, what about community leaders? The way we treat people is the way we should treat Jesus. And when we know that people are going to be coming together and meeting together, how are we preparing for that? I'm not talking about necessarily physical food, although that's a really good idea.

Eating together is a really great part of being community. But even the spiritual food. The preparation that we're doing. Do we just quickly cobble something together half an hour before people arrive? Or do we really put a lot of thought and prayer and commitment into preparing for that evening?

Because how much we invest in that is a function of how much we honor the people and honor the Lord who's given us a responsibility for those people. Now there may be circumstances where we're so busy and there's emergencies and everything else. We may be scrambling around at the last minute.

So it may not be a sin to do that, but it shouldn't be the norm for how we lead. We should be seeking the Lord. We should be preparing our hearts. We should be preparing our minds. And we should maybe even be having conversations with some of our other leaders and asking them, "What's your perspective on where our community is? What do you think would be a good meal to feed them this week?"

"Proper preparation prevents poor performance," they say in the British Army. And good preparation is important. Consistent lack of preparation will show. Some people seem to be able to get away with it more than others.

Some people seem to be able to think fast on their feet. But ultimately, long term, you will find that you've not led people forward because you're always reacting, and you will breed unfaithfulness in the people. And that is not what we want. And so we want our leaders to really take seriously this responsibility of leading.

Prepared to Be Led by the Holy Spirit

To be prepared and to really give of their best. Now having said that, once we're prepared, we must be willing to throw our preparation out. Somebody once said about preachers, "Prepare like there's no Holy Spirit and then preach like you haven't prepared." And we can rip that apart to some degree, but there's some truth in that.

We want to do our best to prepare. But then we want to be willing to be Spirit-led in the moment and not just fixated on what we've planned for the evening. Because we don't want to be tied down by structure and our own ideas.

We want to be led by the Holy Spirit. It is rather like a really good jazz band. Now you may not like jazz, but if you are a jazz lover, you'll understand this. A jazz band doesn't just get together and make it up as they go along.

They have an understanding beforehand of music theory. They understand the basics. They understand the structure. They are well prepared and that great preparation gives them a solid platform from which to improvise. We can improvise, we can go with the flow a little bit, but it's easy to do that once you've prepared properly.

Making Room for Visitors and People in Need

And in terms of changing plans, here's the one thing that I would encourage probably more than anything else. If you have a visitor arrive, particularly somebody who's unsaved, be prepared to swing everything you've done for the benefit of that one person. You might have prepared a really amazing preach on the tribulation and the rapture and the end times.

And it's really fascinating to you. Somebody who's never been in a church walks into the room and joins your community and they listen to that, they're never coming back. We want to swing everything. Not to put the spotlight on them and make them feel awkward and difficult, but to make them feel included. To have an opportunity for them to hear the Gospel and for them to have an opportunity to respond. Likewise, you arrive in community, you've got your thing planned, and one of your members arrives in tears because they've just lost a family member or they've lost their job.

Are you going to say, "Oh, that's really bad. Now let's continue with what we're doing." That's not what families do. We accommodate each other within the boundaries of accommodating the Holy Spirit as well. And so what I want to encourage is this, to be a people who are faithful in holding two things in balance.

Balancing Preparation and Holy Spirit Guidance

One is our responsibility to be conscientious, to prepare, to do whatever we can to bring the best that we have. And then on the other side, to be those who are constantly attuned to hearing the Holy Spirit and following where He's leading. Too many people I know say, "I'm Holy Spirit led."

It's just an excuse for being unprepared. That's not being Holy Spirit led and I don't think it honors the Lord Jesus. But if we're prepared and willing to be Holy Spirit led, it's incredible how much life the Lord brings. And of course, in your preparation, that can itself be Spirit-led.

The Holy Spirit can speak to us three days before. He's capable of doing that. Or He can speak to us on the night. There's no law and no rule about how this works, but the principle must hold true. That we are people who do our best, we do what's possible, and then follow God and trust Him as He does what's impossible for us.