I feel like I’ve seen this scene played out in church before.
Like when a pastor is not willing to meet people where they are at and instead is only focused on his reality.
{ 2 comments }
Posts tagged as:
leadership
Conan is the now. Leno is the old. Fallon is the future.
They’re all really good at what they do.
Conan is approaching the time in his life where he will have peak impact.
Leno is on the other side of that curve.
Fallon is just starting his journey.
Who would you invest in?
I see churches with leaders who are in it way past their prime and sitting right there in the wings is a leader who is blossoming.
but there’s this thing….ENTITLEMENT.
I hope I’m willing to step aside when my time comes
{ 7 comments }
In the perfect world I would have an old Indian hang around and help me raise my son to be a wild stallion; not unlike in Legends of the Fall. That guy was cool…all pagan witchcraft aside of course.
His name is One Stab and his character narrates the movie and at the beginning he says this:
“Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and live by what they hear. Such people become crazy or they become legend”
Well of course. In my experience people who were or are really good at something, tend to have some quirks about them. They’re a little bit crazy. I think there is a fine line between a leader that can spark a movement and a crazy person.
I know I have to be a little crazy to have embarked on the things I have done in the last ten years and crazier still to keep moving in the direction I am going. I’ll be honest with you, I feel right as rain doing what I’m doing.
Maybe I’m destined to become a legend, or I’ll end up running down the street naked
{ 7 comments }
How do we engage experts in a volunteer setting? That is to say, how do we get the best people for the job in the right place?
For the most part, we tend to to put presence as the highest virtue that a volunteer can have, skills and gifts come second. Most leaders are scrambling between one project and the next and we usually rest at ‘good enough‘ out of pure survival rather than strategy.
I’m starting to see that this tactic, or lack thereof, while not bad or evil in any way, tends to alienate potential experts.
Here are some of my thoughts:
- Experts are really busy and can’t be bothered with the peripheral tasks that often come with serving, or just lack the skills to administrate them. This is because the are consumed with being really good at that thing they are an expert at.
- I find that people who are exceptionally gifted at something tend to wear weakness in other areas right on their sleeve. Experts are typically not the well rounded cookie cutter type people.
- Experts don’t get all excited about your big vision about ‘X’, especially when it relates to that which they are an expert. This is because you think your vision for them is big when to them its just more status quo and they have seen it one hundred times.
These characteristics usually mean more work for the leader. You may have to shape your work flow around the expert. You may need to find more people to help fill in the peripheral gaps around the expert. You my have to trust someone who knows more than you, that’s often the hardest pill to swallow. You will probably have to let the expert in on vision shaping. You will have to learn to love someone who has quirks and eccentricities.
{ 4 comments }
I’ve been as guilty of serving two masters as anyone. There’s one particular instance of it that I am really trying to shake.
I don’t want people to be confused by my motive for doing church. I want it to be clear that I do church because I am serving the Kingdom of God.
I don’t want to get caught up making stupid decisions because I am trying to build some institution.
It happens to all pastors, we get into a cycle of making choices that serve the institution we have built rather than serve the Kingdom of God.
{ 1 comment }
I wish I could see into the future. Who wouldn’t?
As a Christian leader I need to be able to read the terrain and make decisions and guide people based on what I am seeing. I’m not talking about Biblical prophecy here. I’m talking about regular everday political and socio-economic stuff.
I see a lot of Christian leaders who are good at reacting to what is happening today, but shouldn’t we have been prepared for this? Mike touched on some of this recently.
I think we should be prepared to make decisions based on what might be coming down the pipe. We should prepare those we lead as best we can. We should also be prepared to be wrong.
I’ll tell you what, it isn’t very exciting sifting through the information that gives the best indicators of what’s coming, after all it’s not MTV that puts out this data.
What do I do? I read the occasional book on economics. I keep an eye on what’s going on in countries that most people don’t care to think about. I listen to people around me who know what they’re talking about. I question what I hear and see in the news and weigh it against what I know about people and motives. I downloaded this document yesterday. Boring? Absolutely. Will it help me be a better leader? It might.
How do you get your information?
{ 0 comments }
I have been reading Simple Church, which has been one of those books that makes me think; ‘That’s what I have been trying to say for years. Finally someone understands me.‘
Geiger and Rainer touch on the concept that most leaders in churches are brought up through the ranks via programs. A leader starts off by leading a program like a small group and as their gifts shine they ‘graduate’ to something bigger, like a Sunday school class and then maybe they lead a department like youth or men’s ministry.
We have raised up a lot of leaders that are programmers. At face value this is fine, nothing to worry about.
The problem comes when we look for vision casting and senior level leadership. Leaders at this level need to be designers and the transition from designer to programmer is not an easy one to make.
What ends up happening is lead/senior pastors revert back to their ingrained instincts to be programmers.
Now we have church after church that is defined by program rather than the overall design and purpose. Churches are defined by what they can serve up in terms of programs and not in terms of people.
{ 3 comments }
Yesterday I read an article and posed a question that was triggered in my head regarding crisis and leadership.
There are three things that need to be considered when dealing with crisis. OK. I wish there were only three things, there are millions. So lets just call these guidelines.
Speed :: The speed at which you react to crisis is a big indicator of your concern. Not the only indicator, but it is an important measure of how much you care. When a church has a bogged down decision making process, it can be difficult to move quick when it is needed.
Transparency :: The urge to show strength and control is a strong one among modern leadership, especially those driven by personality. The reality is that we are human and we make mistakes, which is why we have a crisis in the first place. So lets not add fuel to the fire by faking our way through the crisis, instead lets approach the crisis with an open heart, mind and hand.
Simplicity :: Once a crisis is in full bloom, people are looking for a reason to distrust leadership even more and when leaders present a complex solution it is too easily interpreted as being shady. Avoid the compromise that sells everyone short, and make the tough call that in the end is right.
Crisis is a time to show your true colors as a leader and presents opportunity for massive spiritual growth for all involved.
{ 0 comments }
