Leader || Preacher || Teacher
When Vietnamese game developer, Dong Nguyen released the smartphone game Flappy Bird he had no idea how immensely successful the game would become. He also hadn’t predicted that less than a year later, with Flappy Bird still enjoying immense popularity, he would take the game down.
“Leaders have more trouble than anybody else when it comes to receiving feedback, particularly about how they’re doing as leaders.” – Daniel Goleman, Primal Leadership
I learned while serving as Lead Minister in a prior ministry that it was difficult to receive feedback from the eldership and those who reported to me. I created a formal system of evaluation and feedback for the organization that was administered twice a year. This proved to be insufficient.
Continue reading “Resonant Leadership: Attunement > Alignment”
How do I want to live so I can be who I want to be? – Ruth Haley Barton
I was somewhat familiar with the concept of having a rule of life. Yet, I first desired to learn more about this rhythm for spiritual formation when I listened to a theologian describe a weekly schedule he shared with his wife at my first spiritual formation retreat.
What he described was enough to wet my appetite.
Continue reading “How do I want to live so I can be who I want to be?”
Ruth Haley Barton opens chapter seven of her book Sacred Rhythms with a quote by Ernest Larkin. He says, “Discernment in its fullness takes a practiced heart, fine-tuned to hear the word of God and the single-mindedness to follow that word in love. It is truly a gift from God, but not one dropped from the skies fully formed. It is a gift cultivated by a prayerful life and the search for self-knowledge.”
Continue reading “Where am I Going? And How to Know if God is Leading”
“Love is a habit… We learn to love… not primarily by acquiring information about what we should love but rather through practices that form the habits of how we love.” James K.A. Smith
When you choose to gather in worship it reorients your heart towards God.
God is the object of our worship and God does the work of worship. Worship is top-down, not bottom-up.
And what God works in worship is the transformation of our minds. He moves us forward in our commitment to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. This begins with His Spirit and is perpetuated in covenant community.
We learn to worship God through revelation and in community. Our faith community plays an important role in how we choose to express our affections to God. It’s where we learn to put into practice living out our response to God’s initiation of mercy and grace. Continue reading “Learn to Love Out Loud”
If you grew up in a church you may remember being there “every time the doors were open.” It’s a cliché that many identify with in their spiritual development or their faith tradition. But those times and habits, they are a changing. You could simply say that they have changed. Even with people who are considered faithful members of a church body, the frequency of their church attendance has diminished. It used to be that that you were considered a member in good standing if you were with the church 3 times a week, today it is more like 2 to 3 times a month. Did we just move the bar?
If you are part of a club or an organization that only allowed people to join by invitation you would probably be extremely excited to accept their offer to become a member. You made it in! Conversely, after you have accepted their invitation, you might be a little upset if they decided to allow more and more people to join the ranks.
When you were on the outside you may have wished that more people would be allowed on the inside. Unfortunately, what happens often is that when you finally get on the inside you will be tempted to keep outsiders on the outside. You grow increasingly more concerned with how the club serves you than inviting more people into your club. Ironically, club growth may actually be part of the club’s mission.
Continue reading “Habits – Part 4: Engage Those Far from God”
Our organization has chosen to adopt four habits that will help us to honor Jesus and participate in His mission here on earth.
These four habits are:
Today we will look at the third organizational habit – Attitude of Gratitude.
All organizations can fall into a rut of repeatedly doing the same things in the same ways even when they do not produce the results that they want. I think this can especially be true of churches. Churches and non-profits that resign themselves to routine will commonly say things like,
“People just aren’t interested in Jesus (church) anymore.”
“There are so many other things that compete with people’s time.”
“We’ve never done it that way before.” Variations include: “We’ve always done it this way,” and, “That’s always been our tradition.”
“Don’t upset the apple cart.”
“Don’t rock the boat.”
Have you ever gotten in your car at the end of your workday with plans to stop by the grocery store on your way home but somehow ended up in your driveway instead? Sound familiar? Or maybe it was the beginning of the summer so you got up early to take the kids to the neighborhood pool but ended up taking the route to their school instead. Why is that? Continue reading “Habits – Part 1: People First”