mybrbc.org

Are leadership books worth reading?  I think so.  Lots of pastors look down on any reading that’s not biblical- theological.  I’ve found great insights from many of the books I’ve read on leadership.  Most recently I’ve read the Next Generation Leader.  The focus of the book is around five issues: competence, courage, clarity, coaching and character.  Of these five issues the most helpful for me were clarity and character.  By Clarity Stanley means that we don’t always need to know what the “right” answer is, but we must be clear about what we are asking others to do.  Vagueness in leadership can be paralyzing.  This challenged me as a leader to be clear as I lead with the staff, leadership and the entire church.  I’ve already been praying about just what I can do to be clear in my leadership.  The second chapter that struck me was the chapter on character.  Interestingly, Stanley points out that often a leader’s ability will take him past his character.  He notes that many times we have the ability to bring success to an organization without being biblical.  (By the way the first chapter of Deep Change another popular leadership book by Robert Quinn, inadvertently points out the same thing when he notes that the majority of businesses with deep change couldn’t be used as examples because they actually had to break state laws to institute the change). We expect pastors to lead with principle but even pastors are tempted to take short-cuts.  These can be short-cuts in dealing with relationships or short-cuts in handling meetings to bigger issues of finances etc. Regardless, what a leader must decide is what success really looks like.  Usually, as Stanley points out, to maintain character a leader must slow down and take a much more complicated path than someone willing to do whatever it takes to “get ahead”.  This issue matters to me.  My character matters.  By character I mean who I am before God.  I care about pleasing God and so in all I do, with every decision I make, I want God to say “good job”.  Stanley helped remind me to review everything I do and who I am because my goal is to not only grow the Kingdom but to allow God to grow and impact my life.  The Next Generation Leader is a great, easy read for anyone who wants to grow as a leader.     

Eddie

Jn 3:30

What I love about Dan Zimmerley and the group that came from Nashville is their passion for Jesus.  The first time we invited Dan I expected him to come and teach us how to witness.  You know I was expecting method and technique.  Instead what we got was a weekend of passionate teaching about God and His Son Jesus.  This time Dan brought six men, one of them was my dad.  They are all walking with Christ.  Each of them are growing and in love with God.  Over the weekend we broke into small groups and went through six sessions.  Overall I got one thing out of the weekend.  The key to outreach in the church is being in love with Jesus- Period.  We will share when we love Him.  We’ll know what to share when we love Him.  We will have the leading of the Spirit when we love Him.  We will have the power of the Spirit when we love Him.  When we don’t worship through witnessing it’s because we don’t love Him.  We don’t need more programs or more teaching we need more love for our Savior.  The bottom line is the church acts like a teen afraid to be seen with their parents- it’s pure immaturity.  We need to grow up and all the programs in the world and all the training in the world can’t replace or even begin to compare with people who truly love Jesus.  As a pastor I realize I don’t love Him with the passion I should and the result is I’m not sharing like I once did.  My goal is simple- to fall back in Love with my Savior!     

Sorry, it has taken a while for me to get back to the blog.  Chris wrote about authenticity and the desire we all have to know and live truth.  In a world full of fakes we can sometimes feel pressure to equal their fakeness and so before we know what we’ve done we create a community of fakes.  The church should be just the opposite we all know that.  The church should be a place where we can share and struggle and grow together in Christ.  But let me ask you a question.  Wouldn’t it be great if when we looked into our hearts we loved what we saw and who we are?  But, what if when we look at who we really are we don’t like that person?  What if when we search our hearts what we find is an insecure sinner in need of growth and change?  How do you handle the reality that even in Christ or maybe I should say especially in Christ we find we are in need of being transformed?  Instead of trying to give a trite answer I will give you a word of comfort- Christ loves you and He knows you better than you know yourself. He loves you as you are.  So be real, not fake, but know you’ll never be more real than being who you are in Christ as He transforms your life.  The more real we are the more it frees those around us to be real.  The reality is we are all sinners who struggle. God bless you as you struggle to be real in Christ.

Eddie