Leadership can kill your spiritual life. Since becoming the senior staff person in an organization I’ve injected my reading and development with a tremendous dosage of leadership material.  I’ve been to conferences, read books, watched webinars and basically immersed my life in leadership. This has been both good and necessary. But there is a sense – as a Christian leader – that it’s all a bit too much.

Here’s what I mean.

Many of the teachers I’ve learned leadership from over the past two years are pastors themselves. Their books are about leadership; their blogs, their tweets, their conferences are all about leadership – which is both needed and good. I’m not throwing stones. But here comes the “but”….

What about “following?”

Being a Christian leader, particularly a Christian leader in the local church, my first call is NOT to lead. It is to follow.

Increasingly it is easy for observers to say that most church leaders see themselves primarily as CEO’s. There is a temptation, I think, to spend so much time thinking and developing our leadership that we neglect our “followship” (yes, I know that’s not a word). This, obviously, doesn’t have to be the case. And I assume that the good Christian women and men I mentioned above are great followers of God. Yet, still, I want to offer my friends a moment of pause to stave off the leadership idol that many fall prey to.

An over-focus on leadership will….

1. …crush your humility! If you’re a leader, you have one thing: Followers. This means there are people who will – whether rightly or wrongly – privilege what you think, say, and do. Done long enough, it’s nearly impossible to not believe that you know more and are better at things than they are. What’s worse is that they’ll let you. Giving push-back to your boss or leader is difficult, especially if your paycheck or “spiritual life” is involved. The antidote is not to believe your own hype.

2. …will make you think you’re supposed to produce something. Leaders love to produce and I’m a big believer in productivity, but that’s also why we need to remember that God is the one who produces. Turn to the Galatian’s “Fruit of the Spirit” for example. Our family once had an orange tree in our back yard. In the spring and summer we had oranges at every meal, but not in the winter. Why? There were no oranges in December. That doesn’t mean the tree isn’t doing what it’s supposed to be doing. The “fruit of the spirit” works the same way. The fruit is both inevitable (if you believe the Bible) and gradual (like all fruit). Too many times, leaders fear lack of movement and the stagnation of vision, but the wise Christian leader should know better. We should know that production cannot be manipulated or coerced….It’s not up to us anyway. Sometimes we need to let the ground rest and stop trying to “lead” everything.

3. …contribute to a cult of personality. This one is obvious. How many times have we seen a congregational leader fall and the next thing you know the congregation loses 75% of her members? Who were all these people following in the first place? Well, common sense would suggest they were following the congregational leader. This was the wrong leader to follow, but the preacher (or whoever) was too egotistical to ever tell them to trust more in God than the leader. In the absolute worse cases, these cults-of-personality create a Jim Jones or David Koresh cult. Your leadership could keep people from following Jesus. BEWARE.

I suppose I say all this as a check to myself and my fellow Christ-followers who are leaders in organizations. Perhaps the best thing we can do as leaders is not to lead, but to follow God and get out of the way of His Spirit.

What do you think? Have I missed the boat in terms of leadership? Too critical? What is the appropriate place for point-leadership and dedicated discipleship?

Your preacher might be better if they could focus on preaching. It had to be said! Truth is, many churches require so much of their pastor that they hardly have anytime to prepare to preach.

Preparing to preach isn’t always difficult, but it is time consuming.

There’s language study, historical/critical review, prayer, devotional time in the text, reading, reflecting, constructing, importing creative elements, story-building, writing and delivery. Preaching takes time, so does visitation, prayer for the sick, staff meetings and leading, building use and facility concerns, other teaching responsibilities during the week, and hosts of other activities. Some preachers have to handle all these activities themselves, so it’s no wonder some preachers serve up yesterday’s leftovers from the pulpit. It’s easy to flip open the latest book and harvest 3 points here and 5 suggestions there, call it a sermon and go home.

If you ever wonder why your preacher’s preaching is no good or shallow or fluffy or even mean-spirited, you might want to consider if they have enough time for their messages to be otherwise.

One way to change the game and add freshness to the pulpit is to free your preacher to preach. Church leaders need to surround their preacher with encouragement and make it clear to them and to the congregation which tasks their preacher is expected to do well – the first should be preaching. Regardless of the congregants individual druthers, there should be a canon of expectation determined as follows; (1) Things our preacher is expected to do well and (2) Other things they may be expected to do. There is a difference between what someone is expected to do with excellence and what one is simply expected to do. This is basic prioritizing!

There’s a lot happening at every church in America this week, yet only one person (in most churches) will be charged with feeding the entire flock.

And, regardless of what we wish were the case, Sunday morning is our best chance to impact seekers, visitors and Christ-followers alike for Kingdom living and missional impact. Plus, it’s often the only chance we get! Every element of the Sunday experience needs to be clear, powerful and prepared as well as possible. That means your preacher needs to have something worth hearing to say. I’ve known preachers who stay up until 1am Saturday night pasting together a jagged collage of a sermon they had no time to craft during the week. That is both disrespectful to the hearers and dismissive of the Word of God

I’m fortunate to be a place where I can turn on the DO NOT DISTURB light on my phone, shut my office door and craft a message. I hope my church and the Kingdom of God are better because of it. And I wish more of my friends and colleagues were free to do the same. Help them out if you can!

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Resources for crafting messages that connect and make an impact.

Fred Craddock’s “Preaching”

Andy Stanley  ”Communicating For A Change”

David Buttrick “Homiletic Moves and Structures“

I’m sick of it! Permit me to rant for a moment!

And if you’re a pastor/preacher/minister, you’re likely sick of it too. You’ve seen all the tweets and articles in magazines that act as if the pastor is a singular human in their organization, capable of creating and sustaining wonderful health and growth all by his or her own lonesome.

Here are some of the doozies I’ve heard lately:

• As the pastor, you should be the happiest person in your church.
• Pastor, what’s your staff culture? Remember, you set the culture for your staff.
• If you don’t have 5 evangelistic relationships going on, how can you expect your congregants to have any?

On and on the lists go. It all adds up to this: As the leader of your organization you’re expected to have a great family, exercise daily, be studied in theology, history, culture, music, Bible and the local and national news. You’re also solely responsible for the culture and spiritual growth of your staff and congregation, as well as their intellectual and emotional health and growth. By the way, how up-to-speed are you on fund-raising and systems-thinking and strategy- implementation? What about addiction, co-dependency, visitation, guest-services, and community activities. Oh, before I forget, don’t you have a sermon to preach this weekend?

The problem with these little maxims is that they are partly true. As a pastor and leader, you do carry some level of responsibility for all these things. Yet there are so many things to be responsible for that no human can do them all well. I don’t mean to be snippy, just realistic. I pastor in the real world with real-world limitations. And many church leaders I know are stuck in systems that they are handling with as much hard work and determination they can muster. And still others, face challenges that they cannot overcome. There are simply more considerations than some evangelical leaders understand when passing down their leadership maxims. While these considerations run the risk of being labeled excuses, for many people it’s the water they swim in. In nearly 20 years of working near, around and in churches, I know these considerations to be depressingly true.

1. Many pastors have no say over their staff. Who they are? How well trained? How committed? They can neither reduce salary for underperformance or increase it for a job well done. They do not hire and fire and can’t even make recommendations to do so. When the staff is inherited, the staff culture is inherited. While a good leader can change the culture, it takes time. Sometimes a long time.
2. Some church systems are anti-leadership.  The pastor is NOT the leader and no one wants them to be. Decisions are largely made by committee. Believe it or not, some folks think that’s the Biblical way to do it, even if it’s not efficient. Plus, it’s not as easy as you think for people who’ve gone through the process of education and the processes of becoming ordained, just to pick-up and leave their church or denomination. This becomes more difficult when children and family are involved.Many were reared in these churches, went to camp in these denominations and are deeply rooted relationally. To leave isn’t merely a job change, it’s a life change!
3. Many pastors are flying solo. While some have no say over their staff others have no staff at all, save volunteers. Surprising as it may sound to you, sermon preparation takes just as long in a 20-member church as it does a 200-, 2,000-, or 20,000-member one. And the clergy-person in the 20-member church has to oversee building concerns, adult ed, children’s ed, the youth group, processes for spiritual formation, pastoral care and nearly everything else. While some jobs in the church do scale with the size of the organization, some do not, and when you’re doing it all by yourself, you’re doing it all by yourself.
4. Most ministers aren’t starting from scratch. I’m a big-believer in church-planting, but that’s not what most clergy are doing. Most are working within existing cultures and systems. If you asked them, they could name 50 things they’d change tomorrow if they could. Why don’t they? They have chosen being pastoral over being a CEO-type leader. Pastoring means walking with people, guiding them along — often at a slow pace. I’m struck with a little referred to story of Jacob meeting Esau. As they leave for Sukkoth, Jacob – who was traveling with his wives and children – ask Esau to go ahead of him so that he can care for his children and flock. Jacob tells his brother he needs to slow his pace to the speed of the children. This, my friends, is ministry too — slowing down for the ones who cannot move more quickly. Some ministers choose to do so in order that we all arrive to worship God together.

These are just the beginnings of ministry in the real world. Again, I’m not saying that much of the counsel offered by church leadership gurus isn’t valid. It’s shaped who I am and how I lead. I am saying that I’ve not always been in the kind of context I am now, and I remember what it was like to work within other kinds of systems.

So, I  question whether much of what is flippantly stated in church-leadership conversations is realistic. More so, I question if it’s dismissive of the context the majority of ministers work in. If so, our gurus are speaking to a very small audience. It doesn’t mean that these men and women won’t show up at your conferences and buy your books, it just means that the beautiful meal you’re serving is going uneaten.

Perhaps it may be time for many of us to recalibrate our leadership message from, “what works for me” to “what can work for you.” Maybe we need an orientation that sees ministry in live-action and on-the-ground, rather than from the preaching Pentagon.

Have I missed the boat? Too snarky? How can church systems better empower their pastors to lead for the sake of the Kingdom?

Have you  noticed how the good folks over at The Weather Channel get far too excited about hurricanes! You’ve seen them. Jim Cantore, standing in boots, winds gusting while reeds sway in the background. Alexandra Steele covering the action with eyes glistening. If you didn’t know better, you’d think they were giddy about some beach city on the verge of destruction.
Why are they so exhilarated?

They live for hurricanes!

This is what they got in the biz for; why they went to school. 85-degrees and partly cloudy doesn’t quicken the pulse quite like a Cat 5. So when there’s a tropical depression turned tropical storm turned hurricane, it’s no wonder that they go nut-burgers when the tempests begin to rage.

So what’s your hurricane? Do you have one?

What is it that gets you going, charges you up, quickens your pulse & brings light to your soul? As I wrote previously, nerds are leading us because they have a disproportionate interest in something. If you don’t have a hurricane, I want to suggest that you spend the next year of your life finding out what it is and doing it. My wife routinely spends time jotting lists of things that she likes. She does this as an exercise in hurricane hunting. And once you find your hurricane, you need to go chase it.

Rearrange what you need to rearrange. Adjust what you need to adjust.

Buy what you need to buy. Move where you need to go.
As St. Irenaeus teaches us, “The glory of God is a (person) fully alive.”

Trust me, the best thing you can do for yourself, your spouse, and your children is to live  in the center of your hurricane. Your life has a mission. Whatever else you’re doing is off mission.

I know that life has seasons. And you can’t do everything at once. I’m a realist. At the same time, I know this: If you’re not doing something everyday to move you toward your hurricane, you’re slowly dying inside.

This is the way God made us.

Go find your hurricane.

…it’s time to get serious about transformation. You’ve already waited long enough to transform whatever it is that you think you need transformed (and yes, I said “think you wanted” because if you really wanted it, you would be doing it already.)

Resolutions are weak! They fail because (1) they begin at the level of behavior, (2) are hastily made and typically cliche, and (3) are arbitrarily set. Yet many of us want to change and live healthier, more productive lives. Here’s how:

1. Begin With Who NOT What. To sustain a change, you need to decide who it is you want to be; what you want others to think about you and say at your funeral. For instance, if I want to be a generous person, there are endless possibilities – time, money, talent, hospitality, credit. But if you simply want to give more money to charity, your decisions will be predicated by your bank statement. Plus, you have to seek out agencies to give to. Trust me, if you decide to live a generous life, it will transform all your interactions not just one.
2. Structural Change. We are people of habit. If you want to lose weight this year (which is a bad resolution when compared to being healthy), you’re going to need to physically change  functions in your life. Where is the workout time going to come from? Where will you get the money for new shoes, workout clothes, a trainer, gym membership, or a treadmill? Who are you going to give permission to hold you accountable? What are you going to do with your kids while you workout? How are you going eat differently? Do you need to buy organic? Where will the money for healthier (and more expensive) food come from? If you don’t execute a structural change around your transformation, it will fail.
3. Reward. You’re going to have to reward yourself – no one else will do it! If you’re looking to lose 40lbs, you’re going to have to celebrate losing 2lbs. This is what Chip and Dan Heath would describe as “shrinking the change.” Before you begin, you should determine when and how you will pat yourself on the back. Major changes take a long time, congratulating yourself along the way will help keep you motivated.
4. Focus On The Good. It’s easy to quit something after you feel you’ve failed. However, that’s the wrong thing to do. Forgive yourself and start anew. Lamentations says the Lord’s mercies are new every morning. God’s willing to do it for you; do it for yourself. If you miss a deadline or going to the gym one week, just go back. And remind yourself that last year you weren’t going at all.
5. Embrace The Spirit of Discipline. Of course, it’s going to take some discipline to get where you want to go, but often it’s not the discipline itself that thwarts us. We fail because we don’t understand the “spirit of disciplines.” The spirit of disciplines is that change comes from doing small, often boring things repetitiously and change is produced over time.  Whatever you’re doing is going to take time, become boring, and appear as if it’s not working. You must know this going in. If you don’t, the monotony will wear you down. Remember, the change only comes through the tediousness. When you’re bored, it’s beginning to work

Transformation can come for you, it just takes serious, focused effort over time. Go for it! I’m in your corner.

Help us. What have you done that has brought about transformation? What can we do to move ahead on our journey?

This week Redwood Church launches new small groups. These groups are a major part of what we’re doing and will do to impact our community and world. In fact, our groups are so crucial that I believe  if our small groups fail, our mission will fail. Our mission, generic as it is, is “To Know Christ and Make Him Known.”

This is how our organization works: To “know Christ” we invite our friends and community to environments for spiritual formation – namely Sunday worship, ongoing teaching environments and small groups. This is where people can “come and see” what Jesus is doing in the lives of our members and discover what God has done in the person of Jesus on their behalf and on the behalf of the world. Then to “Make Christ Known” we commission our small groups to do ministry on their own — it’s a requirement. Yes! We expect our small groups to do ministry without the entanglements of a budget line item, with no administrative hoops to jump through and no executive approval. We could add those hurdles if we wanted to, but we choose to trade on and trust in personal passion, group interests and — wait for it — the movement of the Holy Spirit. My fundamental, rock-bottom belief is that the Spirit of God is among the people of God and the best thing for church leadership to do is clear the way. As I’ve said many times; only church leadership can stop a church from growing!

So, why do I tell you this? Because your organizational structure should be simple, clear and easy.

Many will push back saying, “Where are your retreats, women’s days, pancake breakfasts, monthly service projects, fellowship dinners, etc…?” Well, we have those, but they arise out our core behaviors and are infrequent. As Jim Collins points out, organizations that do more than three things, do a lot poorly. We have deliberately chosen to focus. If you ask our staff members they will tell you not only our mission, but how we do our mission. (They will soon grow sick of hearing me talk about it, I’m certain.)  After they recite our mission statement they can tell you our strategy: “Relevant worship, small group interaction, and local and global responsibility.” It’s that simple, that clear, that easy.

In contrast, I sat in a board meeting for another organization recently. It was not unlike many board meetings I’ve been in throughout the years.  No one in the room could tell me either the mission nor the strategy of the organization. Everyone wanted the organization to grow, do more and have a greater impact on the community, but no one knew what impact or how they were trying to do it. This kind of organizational vagueness is rampant in non-profit organizations and churches, but riddle me this: If you can’t articulate a compelling reason for the existence of your organization, why would anyone else wish to be a part of it?

The best way to be stagnant at work, in your career, or in life is to be a complainer. I’ve learned this the hard way. Trust me when I say, no one likes a complainer. As a complainer-in-recovery, I can tell you that if you want to be consistently marginalized, overlooked, dismissed or excluded, be a complainer.

Yesterday I was browsing in my local Barnes and Noble. Two aisles over, a manager was complaining to a co-worker about a third co-worker whom she felt was milking an injury, slacking off work, and forcing others into covering her shifts. There is a place for theses kinds of conversations, preferably the manager would speak first to the offending employee and then to the regional manager about the issue, and all in confidence. But that’s not what happened. This manager, whom I know, found herself in full-throated complaint mode on the Teenage Fiction aisle. Honestly, it made me want to leave the store. I didn’t need to hear it. So I left knowing that this manager would likely never be a regional manager, and why she probably burned through employees.

Here are a three reasons why your career may be static because of complaining:

1. Complaining puts your preferences over organizational goals. When you complain, what you’re essentially saying is that your way is the one that should carry the day. If the compliant truly regards missed opportunities and the betterment of the organization, then there are likely modalities within the community to address those needs. Complaining about what you don’t like isn’t about the organization, it’s about you. Sooner or later, your superiors will notice your misplaced priorities and they will find someone else to do your job.

2. Complaining stokes unnecessary negativity. Both in work and life, disruption and setbacks create their own negative energy. No one wants to work with people who create and nourish unneeded negative feelings. Over time the negativity engendered by constant complaining grants the complainer a poor reputation. You become the “negative” person and in meetings and other setting you can speak freely, but everyone has long stopped listening. Not being listened to, your ideas are dismissed. When you happen to be correct in your assessment, you’ll complain, “They never listen to me.” And you’ll be right.

3. Complainers go to the end of the line. When organizations begin looking for new hires or to promote from within, the last person they want to hire is a known complainer. In all likelihood, regardless of your skill level, someone else has the same skill set. Why hire you and the complaining that comes with you, when someone more cheery is available? I wouldn’t. If you’re a constant complainer, plan on finding your career on hold. You’re just not good enough at your job to overcome the ill-effects that comes with your complaining.

There you have it. Begin now to re-work your complaining nature and you’ll see much of your life and work turn around.

New nuclear doctrine a step toward a morally sound nuclear policy

Evangelical Christians call Nuclear Posture Review a “welcome attempt to marry idealism and realism”

·      No use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Nuclear posture

Tiger Woods may have attended Stanford, but the past two weeks have proven how stupid he really is. I like Tiger Woods and believe him to be the greatest golfer of all time, whether he tracks down Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 professional Majors or not. Tiger is the best at what he does, but as we learned from Michael Jordan, being the best in a sport has very little to do with being good in the rest of life.

What’s odd is that we think it does. When I was a youth minister, I frequently told students that one of the best ways they could witness for God was by being good at what they did. Colt McCoy, Hunter Lawrence, Jordan Shipley and Tim Tebow are examples of this. By performing with excellence in one area, our very lives are granted credence in the minds others. It’s only natural that people believe that the excellent are excellent. But that’s not always the case. Through all the fist pumps, chest bumps, sunk putts and kicked rumps, we continue to find that our “heroes” are anything but.

Here’s El Tigre, the worlds most recognizable person, complete with a yacht named “Privacy” slinking around, hooking up with cocktail waitresses and pornstars – allegedly – and thinking, presumably, that he wouldn’t get caught; that no one would find out. You’ve got to be kidding!

That’s just plain stupid.

He was bound to get caught.

But it’s the best thing that could have happened to Tiger Woods.

Why? Because of Steve McNair and Michael Jackson.

Last summer, former NFL great Steve McNair was found shot by his girlfriend. A married man, McNair was having an affair with Shalel Kazemi, a 20-year old, who murdered him in his sleep before turning the gun on herself. (In case you didn’t know, if someone continues to hook up with a string of women who do not care that he is married, he will run across one who is crazy!) That’s what happened to McNair, whose girlfriend feared he was leaving her, and that would have eventually happened to Woods. It’s unlikely that it would have ended in murder, but it almost certainly would have been worse than bad press and a re-written pre-nuptial agreement.

And we all know the disturbing tragedy of Michael Jackson. Something dismaying happens to people when we are too tightly insulated. That was the case with Jackson and has been the case with Woods. No healthy person can exists in a world of yes men and staff rather than friends and mentors. Woods – due to our incessant desire to know everything about everyone – had created his own kingdom, perhaps with Elin and his own mother as the only citizens by choice, the only ones who wanted him for him and not cash or celebrity.

This has been his greatest weakness. Tiger has fired caddies and coaches for doing commercials and giving too many interviews. In Tiger’s world, it’s Tiger’s way or the highway. In fact, Tiger’s mom once reportedly told a former girlfriend of his, “There’s only one star in this family. Tiger.” That’s the problem. Everyone needs people in their life to tell us the truth, to remind us that the world, in fact, does not revolve around us and folks like Woods are woefully short of them.

The titillating headlines concerning the train wreck Woods’ life has become over the past two weeks, present Tiger an opportunity. If he can resist the urge to be handled or save face, he can come clean with himself. No one besides Elin needs an apology or explanation. Tiger has the chance, right now, to rewrite who he is, not to resurrect his shattered image, but become a new man. Right now, Tiger can take a big swing.

Deal with your issues, Tiger, – because it’s clear to everyone now that you have them. Become a better father to your kids (good dads don’t cheat on mom). Stop sporting for gullible, star-struck women, using them as objects, and stop doing whatever else you’ve got going on under the surface. Become a man who is honest, friendly, open, humble, straightforward, less the golf machine and more an authentic man. Just think what Jackson’s life could have been had he a chance to be more Michael and less icon. Today Tiger’s life has a chance to be genuine, something, I think, at the end of life, he would much more enjoy than the coat-check girl.

This is some of the most thought-provoking work on motivation I’ve heard. If Dan Pink is correct, it should change everything in the place you work.

Here some thoughts/insights/ questions brought to my mind by Pink.

1. People have to be invested in the organizational mission/goals for this to work. Oftentimes employees can go through difficult times and/ or malaise, what would pink suggest then? I suspect he has a good answer.

2. He mentioned taking money off the table. What should companies do when they can’t afford the best people and the people they have are not the intrinsically motivated kind? And how, in the interview/on-boarding process can you best eliminate those candidates?

What say you?