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Category Archive: Pastoral Leadership

The Trap Of Tradition

Posted by on March 15, 2020

Some traditions are very good and should be maintained because they provide important reminders of things that still matter. The still matters is the hard part because at some point in time the tradition becomes more important than the people involved. In church life, our message is sacred but our methods should always be changing. Why, because contextualization teaches us to never let the methods step on the ability of the people to hear the message. Ed Stetzer is always great and this post is not exception:

“Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And, I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name.” -Jaroslav Pelikan

They can create shared memories that remind those who participate in them of important events or truths.

Family Traditions

In the summers when my daughters were a little younger we had a standing appointment on Saturdays. We used to go to Cracker Barrel and make the rounds of the garage sales nearby to see if anyone else’s junk should be our junk.”

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How To Know If You Have Made An Idol Out Of Politics

Posted by on February 23, 2020

If you as a Christian leader have more of a passion for the kingdom than you do America, you could be the target of persecution. The gospel has always been the primary mission of the church and not the government. Yes, we are to be salt and light but to what end? I am sorry if I care more about finding the elect than elections. This post by Joe Carter is worth the read:

“Have you considered you might have made an idol of politics?”

Here we go again, I thought. I wasn’t surprised by the question. Idol-hunting, after all, is a favorite pastime of my fellow evangelicals. But I was caught off guard by the candidate for the potential idol.

It’s certainly possible I’ve made an idol of money. And I’d reluctantly confess that I’ve often made an idol of comfort or security. My wife might say I’ve made an idol of my smartphone, since I always seem to be staring at it in adoration and obeisance. But an idol of politics? How is that even a question? I hate politics. I consider politics to be, at best, a necessary evil, not something I would put ahead of God.”

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Why Christian Leaders Struggle With “Dark Nights Of The Soul”

Posted by on February 15, 2020

Pastors who lead local churches have one of the hardest leadership challenges I see in both corporate and non-profit roles. In reality their customers are both their volunteer work force and financial investors all at the same time. No corporate leader faces those challenges and pastors feel that tension every day. This post by Chuck Lawless is excellent:

“If you read church history at all, you’ll learn that men as faithful to God as Martin Luther and Charles Spurgeon struggled with bouts of at least heaviness, if not depression. I’m convinced more church leaders than we know face these battles. Here are some reasons we do, followed by a simple suggestion when we struggle:

Our calling is a calling of God. We’re blessed to have that calling, but we still answer to the Creator of eternity. That’s a weighty reality that sometimes gets really heavy.
We work with life and death. In fact, we work in the light of eternity, reminding people of life and death matters. Just that fact can pound on our shoulders.
We live with our own sin. No church leader I know wants to be hypocritical in front of church members, but all of us know our own sin issues. Our desire to be leaders of integrity increases the burden of our own sin.”

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3 Reasons We Shouldn’t Reject Leadership Culture

Posted by on January 12, 2020

The sad reality is that more churches die because of leadership failures than theological arguments. Some leaders are too passive and insecure, which eventually means the church will never change and die. Other leaders are like dictators and believe they alone have the word from God. The vicious cycle is that most churches then overreact and shift the leadership culture to compensate for their pain. This becomes unbiblical and eventually the pain of the past is so great there is no hope for the future. I highly recommend this post by Ed Stetzer:

“I think leadership is an important issue that’s often overlooked. I know… you think I’m crazy. Leadership resources and speakers abound. But there’s a reason the best place to find leadership books is at a Goodwill or some other thrift store. Yep.

Secondhand stores are like leadership book archive vaults. Why? Well, there seems to be a pendulum that swings… and has swung. In the 1980’s there was much talk about leadership and there was a lot of people writing on it, speaking on it, and just great prominence on it. Leadership theories and ideas were influencing the church and the church was, in many ways, being shaped by that.”

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How Successful People Start Their Day-And Their Year

Posted by on January 6, 2020

William Vanderbloemen is a great leader who has built a very successful business that is also a ministry. He understands all of the tensions between merging work and faith and has a lot to teach leaders about how we can more effectively lead ourselves. This post is excellent:

“Early in my career, one of my mentors told me, “How you start your day affects how the rest of your day will go.” I’ve learned a lot of lessons over the years that have proven true, but this one may be the most solid.

As we start 2020, I think this idea applies to starting your new year, too: how you start your first full week of 2020, what habits and reflection you put into January will affect the rest of your year.”

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The Non-Negotiable Virtue In Leadership

Posted by on December 13, 2019

Great leaders many times can be average to good in their public leadership gifts. However, they must be excellent in what happens in private. Character matters today more than ever and people will not follow someone they do not trust. This post by Matthew Hall drives home this point:

“Leave out one ingredient and the whole recipe falls apart. Some things are just essential. When it comes to leading others, the task is impossible without trust. That’s because trust is at the heart of leadership. If you’re called to lead, you’re called to steward the trust others place in you. Students want to be able to trust their teachers. Spouses want to be able to trust one another. Church members want to be able to trust their pastors. And employees want to be able to trust their managers.”

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Top 10 “Basic” Relationship Skills

Posted by on December 1, 2019

Great leaders have both competency and character and that is why they are effective. Today more than ever, there is a third “C” and it is chemistry. Simply put, it is the ability to lead and work well with other people. Leadership today is far more relational than positional. This post by Dan Reiland is great:

“Getting along with people can be more complicated than it appears. If it were easy, everybody would be good at it!

How you treat people, how they treat you, what makes it work well, and why it doesn’t work when it doesn’t is always important to consider. Conflict is part of human nature.

When the challenges and stress of leadership are added to everyday relationships, conflict is heightened.

The speed and pressure of leadership increase the potential to overlook even the most simple and basic relationship skills. That always gets a leader in trouble.”

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A Toxic Person Is Not Your Fault

Posted by on November 25, 2019

How cruel would it be to walk into a room of blind people and ask them how they enjoyed the sunset today? They cannot see and in many ways its just as unrealistic to expect a toxic person to respond to reason or truth. I must assume responsibility for changing myself but never for changing them. This post by Gary Thomas is excellent, but my only addition would be that God is able to change anyone so never give up:

“If you adopt a wolverine and pour all your love into that animal; if you treat it like a puppy, hugging it and feeding it and playing with it; if you give it the very best care anyone has ever given to a wolverine, the day will still come when that wolverine will attack you, because no matter how kindly you treat a wolverine, it is still a vicious, wild animal, and in the end, its nature will win. It is the same with a toxic person.”

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4 Ways That Exaggeration Can Damage You As A Leader

Posted by on November 18, 2019

Great leaders have the ability to cast vision and inspire people to make changes to accomplish incredible things together. We however have to be careful that we do not use hype instead of reality. If everything requires too much “greatest ever” language, then when the time comes to make major change people will not hear you. This post by Scott Cochrane is excellent:

“As a leader you must certainly project optimism. But when you cross the line into hyperbole, your leadership is facing significant risks.

Recently, a leader in my orbit described a meeting as “Quite possibly our best meeting ever!” Right away, the thought flashed through my mind, “I need to keep watching my own communication for any signs of such exaggeration.” How many of these statements, or statements like them, have you used?”

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8 Ways To Add Margin To Your Day

Posted by on November 12, 2019

Leaders of non-profits and for profit organizations face the same challenges when it comes to personal leadership. If we do not define our priorities, then someone else will gladly do it for us. That puts us in a constant reactive mode instead of a proactive one that makes sure the important things get done everyday. This post by Ron Edmondson is very practical for every leader:

How do you fit more activity into an already busy schedule?

Isn’t this a great question?

How do you create more margin in your schedule – to do the things you want to do and the things you need to do?

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