Posts Tagged ‘Leadership’

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Politics and religion meet the spirit

July 20, 2010

By what authority do you teach? When you stop to think about it, that’s an interesting question. In today’s world, if you’re “ordained” by a religious body (say, Catholic, United Methodist, Lutheran, and so on), then you teach by the authority of that organization. Me? I just started teaching. Never thought about authority.

That question directed by the Jewish leaders (who were both religious and, in many ways, civil, leaders) to Jesus was what we call a loaded question. Jesus was openly questioning their authority. They thought they were just part of the leadership lineage that traced back to Moses. Somebody had to be in charge. Somebody had to oversee religious rites, tell people what was right, interpret God to the people. There had always been priests beginning when Moses appointed some. They were appointed to be part of that line of authority. They were essentially political leaders.

Mark says that this confrontation came the day after Jesus drove the commercial people out of the Temple. This was a revolutionary act directly affecting the income of the leaders–as well as their authority. So they asked Jesus by what authority he did that. But Jesus asked them about where John the Baptist derived his authority. Many people thought it came directly from God. But the leaders had opposed him.

Ah, here is where politics and religion meet the Spirit. If you are a leader and you want to maintain your authority, you begin to think like Mark reports. “If we say from man, the people will get mad at us. But if we say from God, then they’ll ask why we didn’t support him.” So, they didn’t answer. And that’s the problem with organizational leadership where people in power want to maintain power as their objective. This can happen at any level of any organization where someone gets comfortable and likes being in charge.

Jesus did not organize in that manner. His organization technique–one that is being emulated by many even in businesses today–is one of teaching, empowering, setting free. He gathered willing people to join him. Taught them. Gave them the power to act along with the foundation that would prepare them to act in a right manner. And eventually he set them free to lead themselves.

No matter where you are a leader–family, church committee, civic organization, political, denominational–think on these things. Are you in it for you? Or are you in it because God wants you to lead, teach, empower and set free?

Oh, Jesus authority? It came from God. By whose authority do you teach?

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Who Is In Charge

July 7, 2010

You’ve decided to start a new organization. You have a vision of what you want to accomplish. You have been teaching about the vision. So then you recruit some associates to help you in the ministry. You know at some point you will be leaving, so you need a succession plan. But you have a unique vision of how an organization should be run. So you have a number of  vice presidents. Then two people approach you and want to be appointed senior vice presidents. But that violates the vision. It needs some explaning.

Jesus had just such a problem. He had been teaching a radically new way of relating to God–and doing it outside the structure of the established organization. He recruited some “vice presidents.” Then James and John approached him and asked to be SVPs (in Mark they did it, in other Gospel accounts their mother was the culprit).

That created two problems. One–they didn’t understand yet (but they would shortly) the new vision of leadership and mission. Two–it creates dissension among the small group where each thought of themselves as special.

This story comes at the end of the section where Jesus is teaching his followers. The next section chronicles his confrontation with the authorities. So, one of his last instructions is on how to be a leader. A Christ follower approaches leadership as a servant. You are not to aspire to leadership in order to have the best place at the table and to have worshipful servants. You are to be the servant–teacher, too, but servant of all. You think of others first.

Try it. It’s not easy.

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Where do you lead from

August 25, 2009

More from the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. Tim Keller (“The Prodigal God”) added more insights about the lack of spiritual vitality that rests in so many churches. His telling of the parable of the Prodigal Son is that both brothers were alienated from their Father, and that both brothers wanted his money. But one eventually was saved through his badness; the other was lost through his “goodness.”

His takeaways–get it in your heart that you don’t do ministry to save yourself; when you teach or preach, move beyond Biblical principles to teach the Gospel.

David Gibbons leads a “Third Culture” (that is, multi-cultural) church. One of his teachings is that it’s the people. Not their skills, ambition, but their story. Do you take the time to know a person’s story? We all have a story of our life, and we all want to share it. Listen to the people. Therefore, it’s all about relationships. “We don’t need more visionaries. We need more relaters,” he said. He now spend 70% of his time on leadership development (equipping leaders) where he used to spend at least that amount of time on sermon and Sunday morning program development.

Where do you go to develop spiritual vitality within yourself? Can it be developed in your church? Are you equipping people for the journey–or loading them down with rules?

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Leadership Differently

August 14, 2009

Gary Hamel is a noted professor of management, director of the Management Innovation Lab and author of Leading The Revolution and The Future of Management. His wide-ranging keynote at the Willow Creek Association Leadership Summit Aug. 6 will be covered in several posts.

He began with a question to  ponder–Are you changing as much as the world around you?

You cannot possibly have missed how much the world is changing. Are you (singular) as a leader changing at least as much in your ideas and attitudes as the world? Are you (plural), the church, changing as much as the world around you?

I don’t mean (and neither did Hamel) that you change your core beliefs. Rather, are you changing how you “do church”?

As you ponder that, answer the question “What if the church stood out with spiritual vitality in a sea of indifference?”

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Leadership Summit

August 13, 2009

The first session was a panel discussion on hiring, firing and board meltdowns. If’ you’ve been involved either with churches or businesses for a long time, you’ve dealt with all three. Experiencing a board meltdown is not an experience anyone wants to duplicate.

The panel included Carly Fiorina, deposed CEO of Hewlett Packard, who has experience all three. She has recently had a life-changing experience and has become an active Christian. To be honest, I think there is still some defensiveness with her HP experience, but she has some valid insights. Think about these suggestions from the panel as you work with or on your boards.

Fiorina noted that if the board is not functional, then neither will be the organization.

A board is a team gathered for a specific purpose. Each member should understand the purpose, what they do to agree and how they agree to disagree. It’s a good thing to reflect at the end of meetings about whether the meeting moved the organization forward, if members can disagree about an issue without being disagreeable or disfunctional.

Membership of a board should be diverse so as to incorporate people of different skills and backgrounds. There should be term limits in order to bring in fresh ideas–and to prevent burnout. Boards should be smaller, perhaps less than 15.

A final warning–if you lose the team dynamics, then the organization loses its immune system.

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Leadership Summit

August 10, 2009

I’ve been off the proverbial grid for most of the past two weeks. Two of those days were invested in the Willow Creek Association Leadership Summit. These were intense days of high profile leaders and scholars speaking on a variety of subjects applicable to both church leaders and business (and NGO) leaders as well. Considering I used Marriott points from my business travels, the $99 I paid (discounted because of an affiliation with Compassion International) plus meals and the drive to and from Chicago generated huge return on investment.

As I break down my notes and compile themes, I’ll have a series of posts reflecting on the teaching. From a personal leadership view, Bill Hybels talked about starting his day off right. Instead of being in a rush to be the first one in the office every day, he invests the time in reading (the Bible and thoughtful literature), meditating and journaling. Now when he arrives at the office, he’s refreshed and ready to tackle the meetings and tasks of running a huge operation.

I’ve written on the impact the study of Luke 12 has had on me, and I’m obviously not alone. Many speakers cited the stories–especially of the “Prodigal Son.” Jesus tells the three stories gathered in that chapter to illustrate who is a neighbor when he says the second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Much of the teaching of the summit for church leaders pointed to examples of how people of faith are responding to this commandment.

As Hybels put it in his opening remarks, there is nothing like the local church when the church is doing it right. In these stormy economic times when people are losing jobs and even their houses, he challenged his members who are still working to be generous to their brothers and sisters. The response was overwhelming.

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