the reluctant leader

A Simple Solution to the Leadership Shortage

Churches and other volunteer-based organizations are always plagued with leadership shortages. Too many good people are waiting around for a title, a position, a salary, or an invitation to lead. But that's not how real leadership works.

Consider the leadership lesson in Judges 10:18.

"The leaders of the people of Gilead said to each other, 'WHOEVER WILL TAKE THE LEAD in attacking the Ammonites WILL BE HEAD over all who live in Gilead.'"

In other words:
Whoever acts like a leader will be recognized as a leader.
Whoever takes responsibility will get authority.
Whoever takes action will get a title.
Whoever leads will be the leader.

You want to be a leader? Start leading and you will be.

5 Tips for Finishing Strong in Life & Ministry

I do not understand young leaders who do more talking than listening when around ministry veterans. Far too many act as if they already have it all figured out. There is absolutely no way they can learn anything from a ministry dinosaur who owns a suit, shaves daily and can't spell UFC. 

Maybe it was the way my generation was raised, but I have always had deep respect for ministry elders and spiritual fathers, even if they are pitiful at self-promotion and totally unimpressed with their own accomplishments. When around these spiritual heroes I try to ask a lot of questions and listen aggressively.

Pastor Jack Hayford is one of those elders we can all learn much from. Ed Stetzer (Mr Ed) included the following Jack Hayford gem in his blog today. (Pastor Jack's words are in bold italics. My comments follow.)

In this my 77th year, I am still privileged to speak to thousands of pastors annually. Their most asked question: "What is the secret to an abiding fruitfulness in ministry." To answer, I acknowledge the essential touchpoints:

1. Fidelity to God's Eternal Word. (The Bible is always a good answer, no matter what the question is.)

2. Faithful devotion to one's wife and family. ( As Vito Corleone once said to his worthless son, Sonny: "A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man." And a pastor who does not prioritize family...)

3. Personal purity and self-discipline in all things. (This is not a side issue or a afterthought, but a daily and lifetime conviction and passion.)

4. Love Christ's people, humbly and respectfully acknowledging the worth of all who honor Christ, though they differ from my theology. (There is so much we can learn from other movements and denominations, as long as we don't assume our group has all the answers.)

5. Keep a life of personal worship and intimate prayer fellowship with Jesus. (So simple, yet so powerful. Probably the key to all of the above.)

 

10 Leadership Lessons from My 1st Global Leadership Summit

I don't go to conferences. Ever. Unless I am speaking or hosting. But I caved-in to Every Nation Nashville office peer pressure and attended the Nashville live satellite feed of the Willow Creek Association's annual Global Leadership Summit last week. I'm glad I went. I learned a lot.

Here's my summary based on my top 10 tweets during the conference. Some people take notes in meeting. I tweet my notes. What I tweeted is in bold font. Tweeted quotes are in bold italics. My comments follow each tweet.

1. "Everyone wins when a leader gets better." -Bill Hybels (Lots of winners this week because tens of thousands of leaders got better. Thank you Bill Hybels and Global Leadership Summit!)

2. "I hate cats." -Bill Hybels (I've always respected Bro Bill, but never more than this moment, which was probably the highlight of the whole conference. I felt the power when he made that statement. Wanted to stand and shout HALLELUJAH!)

3. "People in positions of authority need truth tellers... who will walk in the room and say 'YOU ARE WRONG.'" -Condoleezza Rice (My question after this session: why is this woman not running for President? Run, Condi, run!)

4. "The X factor of great leaders is not personality; it is HUMILITY." -Jim Collins (This guy said so many profoundly simple things, it was impossible to capture them all in 140 characters.)

5. "An organization is not truly great if it cannot be great without you." -Jim Collins (What level of arrogance is required to build a church or ministry around a fallen fallible human leader?)

6. "Authenticity trumps cool... Nothing worse than a 50 year old fat preacher in skinny jeans." -Craig Groeschel (Big decision: should I diet, or toss my skinny jeans?)

7. "Everything I say is simple... People need to be reminded more than instructed... Life is simple but hard." -Patrick Lencioni (Lencioni was hilarious, deep and quotable. Not enough space for all the tweetable quotes from his session. One of the rare times when a speech seemed too short.)    

8. Usain Bolt can run. Gabby Douglas can flip. Joey Chestnut can eat. John Ortberg can preach.   #statingtheobvious (After that tweet and one of the greatest sermons I have ever heard, I immediately went to the lobby and bought this book by John Ortberg. Seriously, maybe the best sermon I have ever heard.)

9. "The local church is the hope of the world." -Bill Hybels (It is a good thing I love the local church, because I am a member of not one, but two local churches. One is pretty big and the other is small but growing. One is in Manila, the other is in Nashville. Both are healthy and filled with some of the finest people on the planet.)

10. My Global Leadership Summit summary/conclusion: I get to work with amazing people at Every Nation, Victory Manila and Bethel Franklin. 

It will probably require much less peer pressure to get me to the 2013 Global Leadership Summit.

What is an Every Nation Church?

"What is the key to empowering next generation leaders, and not seeing them eventually run off and do their own thing?"

I have been asked many versions of the above question countless times.

My answer is always something like this: before we empower leaders,we  have to establish exactly what we are empowering them to do. In other words we have to be crystal clear about our mission, vision and values. If we are not clear about what we are building or where we are going - when we empower leaders, they will run full speed ahead in the wrong direction.

But, when we are clear about where we are going and what we are building, we can confidently empower next gen leaders, knowing they know what to do and where to go.

A couple of years ago I had a breakfast conversation with my friend Mel Mullen about what kind of churches we are trying to lead. We both expressed that we don’t fit in the standard “Charismatic” or "Pentecostal" box.

If we are not traditional Charismatic or Pentacostal churches, then what are we?  In response to Mel's question about what kind of churches Every Nation is planting, here’s what I said:

"We want to plant churches (and campus ministries) in every nation that are Christ-centered, Spirit-empowered and socially responsible, and we want to do it in a way that is culturally relevant."

In my next few reluctant leader blogs, I want to explain what I mean by each of these 4 ideas:

1. Christ-centered

2. Spirit-empowered

3. Socially Responsible

4. Culturally Relevant

(This is a slightly edited repost of a blog from Feb 1, 2008.)

2 Simple Keys to Long-term Success in Ministry & Life

Today I preached at two of the eleven weekend worship services at Victory U-Belt (aka University Belt).

I think I need to go to the U-Belt more often. Going back to where it all started is good for my memory, and good for my soul. The U-Belt reminds me why we stayed in Manila beyond the one month we signed up for. That was twenty-eight years ago. Hard to believe it has been that long ago. Time really does fly when you are having fun.

I was twenty-five. Deborah was twenty-two. We were clueless. We knew two things: campus ministry and small group discipleship. So we got busy doing small group discipleship on the campuses of the U-Belt. Soon those students we were discipling started small groups of their own. Then others did. And others. And others.

Now there are over five-thousand people leading Victory discipleship groups all over Metro Manila. And, that church we helped start in Manila's U-Belt twenty-eight years ago is healthy, strong, and influential, meeting in sixteen Metro Manila locations. It has sent missionaries and planted churches all over the Philippines, Asia, and the world.

As I look back on twenty-eight years of making disciples, training leaders, and planting churches in Asia, I am convinced that ministry success is relatively simple. Not easy. Simple. At least it was for us.

Long-term ministry success simply comes down to this:
1. Dare to believe.
2. Refuse to quit.

If you are young and clueless, just starting out in ministry, DARE TO BELIEVE. If you have been at it for a couple of decades, REFUSE TO QUIT.

Over the years we have had countless opportunities to quit. I am glad we passed on every one of them. Every time we rejected a good opportunity to quit, another would soon present itself. And we would pass on that one too. No regrets for not quitting.

Too many people believe for too little and quit too soon.

If you will simply dare to believe and refuse to quit, you will wake up one day amazed at what God did in, for, and through you.

Racism and Revival

I've spent most of my adult life as a white guy in a brown world - an American missionary in the Philippines. After twenty-four years living in Manila, I now split time between Manila and Nashville. One of the more shocking experiences as I have re-engaged American church culture is that so many churches are still basically all white or all black or all Latino. And that's not a good thing.

A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of participating in the Lausanne Strategic Working Group in Orlando. I learned a lot from the forty brilliant strategists, theologians and missiologists in the room. The meeting ended with an evaluation question: "what was missing that could have made this meeting more effective?" My answer required no deep thought or prayer. Seemed obvious to me that the missing ingredient was color. A room full of middle-aged highly educated white men (plus one Nigerian, three Latinos, an Indian and a Lebanese) can create good strategy, but add more diversity and the ideas go from good to great.

"The color line was washed away by the blood." That's how Frank Bartleman described the early days of the Azuza Street revival a century ago.

Sadly, it didn't take long for good religious people to re-draw color lines.

But not everyone was drawing lines. During one of the most racist periods of American history (1890-1925) most early Pentecostal churches were bold exceptions to the culture of racism and segregation.

In 1897, several years before the Azusa revival, the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) became the first legally chartered Pentecostal church in America. COGIC founder CH Mason grew up hearing about the vibrant faith of southern slaves from his parents who had recently been freed when he was born. He would build COGIC on the foundation of prayer, the power of the Holy Spirit and racial unity.

For many years COGIC had as many white ministers as black. (Read that sentence again, and remember we are talking about one of the most racially divided periods in American history.) This unity and diversity effectively ended in 1914 when most of the white COGIC pastors broke off to establish the Assembly of God. Undaunted, Mason continued to work on both sides of the racial divide, often speaking at AG conferences for many years.

My favorite Mason quote is as true today as 100 years ago: "The church is like the eye. It has a little black in it and a little white in it, and without both, we cannot see."

Without ethnic diversity, the church cannot see. That explains a lot about the blindness in the church today.

If we want correct vision and fresh revival, maybe we should look at the Azusa Street playbook and embrace unity with diversity.

Seven Deadly Sins of the Pulpit

I was digging through an old notebook this morning, looking for notes on Ephesians 1 for my sermon this weekend at Bethel Franklin. I did not find what I was looking for, but I did find piles of vintage Steve Murrell sermons. This blog is a summary of a sermon I preached at Victory-Manila in November, 2004. Not sure where the original idea come from, but I think it was inspired by a conversation with Rice Broocks.

__________

It is increasingly common today to hear parts of the gospel proclaimed. The same was happening in the early church. In Acts 20:26,27 Paul says to the Ephesian church elders, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of any of you.  For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the WHOLE WILL OF GOD. (Acts 20:26, 27)

Unlike many modern preachers, Paul refused to edit out the difficult parts of the message. He insisted on preaching the whole gospel.

In 604, Pope Gregory wrote about the "Seven Deadly Sins" which included pride, gluttony, envy, lust, anger, greed, and laziness. In the spirit of the Pope's top seven, here's my list of "Seven Deadly Sins of the Pulpit." 

1. PREACHING CHRIST WITHOUT THE CROSS. No cost Christianity. Paul determined to know and preach nothing except Christ and Christ crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). Today it seems we preach everything but Christ and the cross, causing many to live as enemies of the cross (Philippians 3:18).

2. PREACHING SALVATION WITHOUT SANCTIFICATION. No change Christianity. So many claim Christ today with no evidence or change in their lives, and the pulpit is at least partially to blame.

3. PREACHING DECISIONS WITHOUT DISCIPLESHIP. No commitment Christianity. I know we are getting crowds and decisions, but are we making disciples?

4. PREACHING LOVE WITHOUT LORDSHIP. No compliance Christianity. Jesus is Lord, and because He is Lord, he heals, delivers, provides, and saves.  

5. PREACHING PROSPERITY WITHOUT PURPOSE. No cause Christianity. God blesses us so that we can be a blessing.

6. PREACHING BLESSING WITHOUT BIRTHRIGHT. No covenant Christianity. Esau threw away his birthright and still expected a blessing. It does not work that way. If we want the blessing, we must accept the covenantal responsibilities that go with the birthright. 

7. PREACHING REVIVAL WITHOUT REFORMATION. No transformation Christianity. We are called to be salt and light, to impact individuals and cultures, families and nations. The gospel is supposed to be transformational.

I have certainly been guilty of all of above at different times in my life as a preacher. As I have matured, hopefully, I'm being more and more faithful to preaching the WHOLE WILL OF GOD. How about you?    

 

Upper Room Joy vs Frontline Sacrifice

From Upper Room Joy to Frontline Sacrifice: 3 Essentials of Healthy Church Culture

One of the most important, but elusive, tasks of church leadership is creating and maintaining a healthy church culture. What I call church culture, some people call environment, atmosphere, or vibe. No matter what you call it, it is vital that church leaders create good environments.

No matter if you are leading a new church plant or an old established church, a mega church or mini church, a western church or third world church, an urban church or a rural church, an attractional church or a missional church... no matter what kind of church you are leading, if you want a healthy church culture you will need to constantly over-emphasize the following:

1. VIBRANT SPIRITUALITY. Seems silly to even list this one, but countless times throughout history organizations and churches that start out deeply spiritual end up spiritually dead. When I say spirituality I do not mean spooky, cooky, scary, or weird. Vibrant spirituality is Christ-centered and Spirit-empowered, not experience-seeking and out-of-control. Many churches have traded spiritual transcendence for cultural relevance or unbiblical mysticism. Both are bad trades.

2. GLOBAL MISSION. Yes, the presence of the Holy Spirit makes our meetings exciting, but that's not the point. The purpose of Holy Spirit power is to prepare us for mission. (see Acts 1:8) If we want healthy churches, we will have to lead people from upper room joy to front line sacrifice, from personal devotion to global mission. A healthy local church, requires a global mission. Jesus told his original followers to makes disciples, not just in their local communities, but in all nations. Jesus called them to a global mission, and he calls us to no less.

3. COMPASSIONATE COMMUNITY. I have observed some deeply spiritual people pursue a global mission, and leave piles of body bags in their wakes. This happens when we are more concerned about mission than people. Remember, Jesus died for lost people not for religious experiences and mission statements. The people are the mission.

4 Next Generation Leadership Tips

Moses was one of the strongest leaders ever, but occasionally the leadership burden got to him. At one particularly low moment he said to God, "I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me." (Numbers 11:14)

Moses discovered that doing leadership alone is a heavy burden. He also discovered that equipping and empowering next generation leaders is the best way to lighten the leadership load.

That sounds simple, but how do we equip and empower leaders? Here are four leadership development tips from Numbers 11:

1. GROW YOUR OWN. Next generation leaders are already with you. When more leaders were needed, God told Moses to bring 70 of Israel's elders. He did not tell him to find some Egyptians. The future leaders were already with Moses, he just had not yet recognized them. (Numbers 11:16a)

2. LOOK FOR LOYALTY. Next generation leaders must be willing to "stand with you" for a season. If they are only interested in replacing you, and are not willing to stand with you, then they are not ready to lead. (Numbers 11:16b)

3. THE GOD FACTOR. Next generation leaders need the power of the Spirit. No amount of natural leadership ability, education, or charisma can replace the power of God's Spirit. You have your part to play, but only God can anoint leaders with the power of his Spirit. (Numbers 11:17)

4. THE NECESSITY OF COMMITMENT. Next generation leaders must consecrate themselves. You can teach them and you can train them, but only they can consecrated themselves. (Numbers 11:18)

If your leadership burden seems too heavy to bear, it's probably time to identify, equip, and empower a new generation of leaders.

Creativity and Relevance Are Way Overrated

A few days ago I tweeted the following: Creativity and relevance are way overrated. If you want a healthy church you might want to try consistency and reliability.

That one got multiple re-tweets, upping my weekly re-tweet average from one to two. For those unfamiliar with the twitterverse, a re-tweet means the author of said tweet is both profound and important. A re-tweet brings much honor to the family name.

Back to the point. I am tired of watching sincerely dedicated pastors and church planters focus on things that ultimately don't matter and on things that don't transform lives, all in the name of being creative and relevant.

Creativity is fine and good, but it does not break the power of sin. Relevance appears to be hip and cool, but it does not restore broken relationships or heal broken bodies.

I have done church for a long time. Sometimes I have been creative. Often I have not. But I have always tried my best to be consistent: to do what I say I will do, to stay faithful to the basics of the Faith.

Over the years, I'm sure there have been times when I looked relevant, and times when I did not. But I think my church is healthy today because relevant or not, I have been reliable (ie: authentic, genuine, trustworthy, dependable).

I know this is not an either/or situation. It is possible to be creative and relevant, and consistent and reliable at the same time. But too many pastors and preachers tend to go all OCD about creativity and seemingly forget that the power is in the gospel.

Question: I know you are creative and relevant, but are you consistently preaching the gospel?

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because IT IS THE POWER OF GOD for the salvation of everyone who believes... (Romans 1:16)