Tag Archive - Leadership

Leading with a Limp

November 24, 2009 in Book Notes, Personal Growth with 0 Comments

This book by Dan Allender is a revolutionary approach to leadership.  I know that the book has been out a few years but somehow I missed it.  Or perhaps I could say that I read it at exactly the time in my life when I needed to read it.  The premise of the book is simply that God favors leaders who make the most of the power that comes from brokenness.

This is not to say that strenghs don’t play a part.  They do.  In Allender’s words:

“Our calling  is often shaped as much by our weaknesses as by our strengths. We tend to run with our strengths and avoid those people and tasks that expose our weaknesses. But the story of God is not a saga of human potential; it is the revelation of the kindness and passion of the Father who seeks and redeems sinners. Therefore our strengths may help us with certain tasks and opportunities, but it is our frailty and sin that make known the glory of God’s story (150).”

As a leader I know the temptation to “act like you have it together” and not reveal weakness or struggle.  There is danger in doing so:  lose respect of others or some choosing to leverage it against you.  Yet I’m seeing that there is a greater danger if you don’t: miss out on God’s power working through you first and foremost.

Allender suggests there are four realities to embrace to be broken:

1. I am never sufficiently good, wise, or gifted to make things work;

2. My failures will harm others, the process, and myself, no matter how hard I try to avoid failure;

3. The greatest harm I can do is to try to limit the damage I cause by not participating, by quitting, or by pushing for control;

4. Calling out for help from God and others is the deepest confession of humility.

Our “limp” at the end of the day is there to deflect the glory to God and get it off of ourselves.  After all, look at the damage we do when we hog the spotlight: trying to control situations, bullying others into “our” way, not being receptive to God’s still small voice, building a better kingdom for myself instead of building God’s kingdom, etc.

Allender challenges leaders to embrace Paul’s title of himself as the “chief of sinners.”  When this is accepted and lived out God is positioned in our lives in such a way that there is no doubt he has been at work.

If you are interested in the notes I took from this book you can find them here.  It’s the best leadership book I’ve read all year, maybe all decade.

The 3 questions of Dave Gibbons

April 15, 2009 in Book Notes, Church Planting, Leadership, Personal Growth with 0 Comments

I recently read The Monkey and the Fish by Dave Gibbons. In it he talked about 3 questions that have been a filter for deciding direction for him personally and for the church he leads. They are:

1.  Who is my neighbor?

2. What’s my pain?

3. What is in my hand?

Who is my neighbor? is a question related to Luke 10:25-37.  Through this parable Jesus teaches that our “neighbor” are those who are around us but very different than us.

What’s my pain? is a question about personal brokenness and passion.  What are you most passionate about?  What pain in your past has been a catalyst for passion?

What is in my hand? is a question about the gifts, skill and interests God has given you.  It’s about using what God has given you to work towards His mission.

These may be 3 of the most powerful questions I’ve ever considered.

What do you think?

Larry Osborne session at the Sticky Church conference

March 31, 2009 in Doing Church, Sticky Church Conference with 1 Comment

The stickiest thing you have in your church is close and tight relationships.

Holding on to people is about fulfilling the 2nd half of the great commission.
-teaching them to obey all things I have taught them

They don’t do marketing.  all word of mouth.

4 new priorities:
1. A healthy leadership team

  • in an effort to reach out to new people he ignored his existing leaders

2. Shepherd the flock I already had

  • no one likes to be used.  It feels that way if you only care for outsiders.

3. Believer targeted and seeker sensitive

  • user friendly
  • seeker expectant
  • everything they do is aimed at Christians but it is always done in a way that a seeker can understand
  • practical:
  • remove in house jargon
  • don’t assume they will understand
  • seeker expectant:
  • way they do messages
  • approaching the church
  • talk about how you expect visitors

4. Foster long-term, Christ-centered relationships

Lessons I’ve learned:
1. stickiness starts with church health;
2. Stickiness has two important aspects

  • Visitor retention – assimilation
  • Long-term retention – discipleship
  • In a word of mouth church everyone is coming on the arm of someone else and they are being assimilated naturally.  but by marketing, they don’t have a connection.
  • those who come for the event come back expecting it again.
  • weak ties – fun or task specific which has the result of being high intensive with an end point
  • strong ties – frequent, long term and vulnerable
  • people are like legos – once all the connectors are connected, you will be friendly but won’t connect; a church full of people like this feels friendly at first but you could hit a wall;
  • answer is new groups for new people

3.  A fancy front door can hide a leaky back door.

  • After 10 years  of a front door church you have more that used to go there than do go there.

4. Most of our programming is designed for casual and short-term relationships.

5. We get what we measure and celebrate. Retention seldom makes the list.

  • retention is one of the best measurements for health

6. It’s increasingly difficult to reach and keep people with a one-size-fits-all approach to ministry.
7. Spiritual growth is seldom linear.

  • velcroing to the Bible and community
  • You then have what you need in a need to know or need to grow moment;

8. New relationships need easy on and off ramps

  • if you don’t have an easy off ramp, they will try it and weasel out and not try it again

Andy Stanley on becoming a student

February 5, 2009 in Leadership with 0 Comments

I thought this Andy Stanley podcast was one of the best.  It is on learning to be a student instead of a critic of new ideas.  Strong emphasis on something I think we know instinctively but are afraid to admit:  the best ideas for church tomorrow don’t come from those doing it now, they come from the next generation.  Being a young man of 35 who turns 36 next month (ouch) I recognize I’m not in the aforementioned category anymore.  So the question I have to ask myself is:  Who am I listening to?

Here’s a few random takeways from the podcast:

• The best ideas for tomorrow don’t come from our generation but the next generation;
• Whatever we are saying is “dumb” and has no ministry value but is being utilized by the younger generation is the NEXT thing that WILL BE used for ministry;
• It’s okay to fail, celebrate failures.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes but here is the most recent podcast on the subject of becoming a student.