the reluctant leader

Listening Leaders

Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. Half way btw Calgary and Edmonton. Unlikely location for one of Canada’s largest most influential churches.

I have known Word of Life founding pastors Mel & Heather Mullen for about 20 years, and I’ve always been impressed with the youth in their church. Most pastors reach people 10 years older and 10 years younger. Not Mel and Heather. They have always reached their peers, and the generations coming behind them - people 20 and 30 years younger.

Right now as I type this blog on my Air, Mel it talking to about 200 Canadian pastors and church planters, trying to get them to think big. I’m doing the afternoon sessions. As usual, I will talk about discipleship principles and process. The theme of this conference is “MULTIPLY.”

Here’s what Mel just said, that explains why his church has always had a vibrant youth movement. “I walked into a staff meeting 4 years ago and said to my team: ‘I’m no longer asking you to build a church for my generation. From now on, I’m doing church to reach your generation."

Then Mel asked his young leadership team a question that all over-40 leaders need to ask: "What do I need to change about my leadership and this church in order to reach your generation?"

Mel went on to say, "Then they started telling me what I need to change. And they still tell me, everyday. And I’m changing.”

I wish every pastor leader would ask that question, and listen to the answer. Mel and Heather have built a great church because they listen and they change. That’s a good idea for all leaders, no matter what we are leading.

Pastor's Priorities

A young pastor recently asked me to help him with his sermon prep skills. We met at Panera Bread, across the street from my office.

The more we talked about his 60-70 hour work week, the more i realized that sermon prep was not the pressing issue in his life, and our conversation shifted to priorities.

To help make my point, I wrote 4 words on the back of my Panera Bread receipt: Christian, husband, father, pastor.

I then pointed to the receipt and said, "This is WHO YOU ARE. What you DO flows from who you ARE."

Then I scribbled this on the receipt:

    Because of who you are, this is what YOU have to do:
        1. follow Jesus
        2. be a good husband
        3. be a father to your 3 sons
        4. lead the church

Pointing to the list, I explained to my friend that no one can do the first three, except him. If he does not do them, no one does.

No one can follow Jesus for him.
No one can love his wife for him.
No one can father his sons for him.

This stuff can't be delegated.

Number 4 is totally different. Number 4 can be delegated and staffed. In fact, the more number 4 is delegated, the more successful the pastor (and the church) will be.

The first three demand a one-man-show. The last one demands a team.

Not sure if i helped my friend, but I think I helped me. I always need to remind myself who I am and what my priorities should be.

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- Also on this topic - from the archives - something I wrote at least 10 years ago for Evangelicals Today mag -  "Succeeding at Church, Failing at Home"

- Now playing on my accidental missionary site: "If I Had Millions, I'd Be Generous"

What Should Leaders Do?

I recently asked a group of pastors to serve on a regional apostolic leadership team that would help oversee and expand our churches in the USA. Before accepting my invitation, some wanted to know exactly what I was asking them to do. 

Since there are about a million things spiritual leaders must do, I worked hard to simplify and summarize what I was asking these leaders to do. I eventually came up with a 4 point job description for our USA regional apostolic team:
        Focus
        Unity
        Equip
        Lead

Although I never do acronym sermon outlines, I realized my four points spelled F.U.E.L.

We can build a great motor, but without FUEL, it is going nowhere.

So here’s the FUEL that spiritual leaders must provide their churches and ministries in order to move forward.

1.    Focus. Seems like a no-brainer, but more often than not, leaders end up doing everything that can be done in the name of God - except their specific mission. Smart leaders keep a narrow focus on mission, vision and values - and say no to  everything else.

2.    Unity. Maintaining unity is hard work, because people are basically selfish, opinionated and easily offended. But, one of the main jobs of the leader is to bring people together and to fight for relational, doctrinal and organizational unity.

3.    Equip. Spiritual leadership is not about doing all the ministry all the time. Leaders are called to equip God’s people, then get out of the way. Unfortunately, most pastors spend more time ministering to people than equipping people to minister. That's probably why many are so tired and cranky.

4.    Lead. Spiritual leadership is about creating and maintaining a healthy atmosphere and culture, not about not micro-managing staff and problems. Leadership is all about example and influence, not command and control.

Narrowing the focus, maintaining unity, equipping people, creating culture - that’s the FUEL that drives high-powered churches and ministries.  That’s the main job of church leaders.   

Leadership, Living Legends & The Power of Words

(Too busy to blog lately - but i'm back.)

My friend, Russ Austin, is always talking about the importance of creating an atmosphere of affirmation, especially in male leadership and mentoring circles.

In some of our churches this gave birth to what became known (and sometimes ridiculed) as “champ talk” and included the following power-packed terms of endearment:

“Champ”

“Strong”

“Hero”

These multi-use words made it possible for a man to say a lot with one or two syllables. That’s an important man-thing. I don’t know if there is a Harvard study to prove it yet, but I have feeling the more multi-syllable words a man uses, the more he is in touch with his feminine side. And I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

While I never personally used champ talk as a part of my vocab, from my observation, here’s how “champ talk” simplified male communication:

Rather than saying: “Hey, I think you’re a really cool guy, a good leader, a real man and a good friend” you could lazily slur, “Chaaaaaammmmp.”

Or, when you want to use one syllable to say, “That sermon was deeply convicting, emotionally touching, theologically sound, biblically accurate, homiletically powerful and hermeneutically excellent” you simply grunt, “strong” as you bump clinched fists with your preacher friend.

Or, when you want to give honor where honor is due, and you want to go overboard with the honor, you use 2 syllables and utter: “hero” with a serious smile.

I don’t hear champ talk as much as I used to. And, I kinda miss it.

This champ talk nostalgic moment was inspired by my time with the COC leaders in Australia a couple of months ago. Those guys have created that “atmosphere of affirmation” that Russ is always talking about. And their own version of champ talk was part of creating and maintaining that atmosphere.

No, I never heard them say champ, strong or hero. But every time I finished preaching, several men would slap me on the back, shake my hand, bump my fist or give me a classic charismatic hug and say with that thick Aussie accent the whole world loves: “you’re a legend.”      

If I heard it once, I heard it a thousand times during my week with my new COC friends. And it put strength in my soul and a smile on my face every time.

I eventually asked, “don’t you have to be dead to be a legend?” Undaunted, Dave the COC leader, smiled, slapped me on the back and said, “YOU are a LIVING legend!”

Words are powerful. Life & death.

Are we using our words to create or to kill the atmosphere of affirmation that is so important to the spiritual life of our churches?

***IMPORTANT PRAYER REQUEST HERE.

Visionary vs. Relational Leadership Styles

A couple of months ago I sat around a table with 10 American pastors talking about leadership. Half the pastors talked about the importance of vision. The other half talked about the importance of relationships.

Some ministries value vision; others value relationships.

Healthy ministries must value both.

Too many visionary leaders leave a trail of body bags in their wake, and too many relational leaders don’t accomplish much besides a feel-good experience.

Vision and relationships - if anyone figures out how to do both at the same time, please let me know.

It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.  - Ecc 7:18

Criticism & Crappy Seagulls

Chapter 4 of John Maxwell’s “Leadership Gold”  sure explains a lot about my job, and maybe yours. It is called, “When You Get Kicked in the Rear, You Know You’re Out in Front”.

Here are some quotes from chapter 4, with my comments:

One of the prices of leadership is criticism. When spectators watch a race, where do they focus their attention? On the front runners! Few people pay close attention to the racers who are out of contention. Racers who are viewed as out of the running are often ignored or dismissed. But when you’re out front and ahead of the crowd, everything you do attracts attention. -- John Max 
Why didn’t they tell me that 24 years ago?

Criticism is something you can avoid easily – by saying noting, doing nothing, and being nothing. -- Aristotle 
Not an option. Like it or not, we have to say, do and be.

Some (people) are like seagulls. When something goes wrong, they fly in, make a lot of noise, and crap all over everything. -- Ken Blanchard
Seagulls and critics - the same yesterday, today, forever.

Here’s the deal. When it comes to leadership -  at some point something will go wrong. Then the noisy, critical, crappy seagulls will show up on cue, and criticize. How will you respond to their criticism?

When our seagulls show up, we can…
    Ignore the criticism,
    Attack the critics,
    Defend ourselves.

Or we can…
    Listen to the criticism, no matter how painful,
    Learn from our critics, no matter how unfair,
    Look for that grain of truth, no matter how microscopic.

I know it’s not fun, but it’s part of leadership.