Tag Archives: Leadership

Passing the Baton!

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Deuteronomy 34 and Joshua 1 is a fascinating insight into a major transition in Israel’s history from Moses prophetic ministry to Joshua’s conqueror ministry. The contrast between Moses and Joshua is massively intriguing to say the least. They passed through each other’s lives for a significant period of time and yet had two very different callings.

Moses was called to be a Deliverer of God’s people out of the bondage of Egypt. A deliverer gives birth to a new move of God’s Spirit, rescues, preserves and positions a remnant for God’s sovereign purposes in the earth. Moses was foremost a prophet who knew God face to face and led Israel through 40 years of pruning, preparation and miraculous provision. God gave Moses a vision of the Promised Land but didn’t let him enter into it.

A vision isn’t always possessed by the person who carries it. Abraham carried God’s vision for a new land and a new people but it was his offspring that actually possessed and lived in the reality of the vision. Sometimes we think that because we can see something, that we are the one’s entrusted with the fulfilment of the vision. Not always so. 

Moses saw the Promised Land but Joshua entered it. Moses passed the baton of leadership and faith to the Joshua generation. Even though Moses’ energy and spirit was not waning in any way, God was calling him home and required him to pass the baton to the next generation.

Joshua was called to be a Conqueror. Conqueror’s defeat and subdue their enemies. They gain ground and overcome obstacles and prevail over their adversaries. Joshua inherited a nation and led them into the Promised Land of God’s purpose and promise for them. However, Joshua grew mightily in his anointing and authority under the ministry of Moses. After Moses would leave the tent of meeting, Joshua would linger and soak in the presence of God. When Moses prayed, Joshua would fight on his behalf because God built Joshua for combat. Moses knew God face to face and Joshua benefited from Moses relationship with God.  However, there came a time for Joshua to step out of Moses shadow and lead Israel into God’s promises for them. God has given us a great example of generational leadership in Moses and Joshua.

Someone has said that Christianity is only one generation away from extinction. For 2,000 years Christianity has continued because each generation has taken responsibility to train and tell the coming generation of the greatness of God, often at remarkable cost.

King David said, ‘One generation shall commend your works to another generation, and shall declare your mighty acts.’  (Ps 145:4)

Each generation has to take responsibility to equip, empower, train and tell the generation coming through of what God has done and what He’s wanting to do today. Sadly, Joshua didn’t follow the pattern shown to him through his mentor Moses and did not raise up a successor after him to carry on the legacy of God’s promises and God’s purposes. It says in Judges 2:10 ‘There arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.’

This tragedy occurs when the current generation becomes happy with what they have achieved and falls into a spirit of complacency about the generation to come. God has never called any of us to retire in our calling but to re-fire the next generation to carry the anointing of God’s Spirit to hearts who desperately need to hear and respond to the Gospel message.

Who are you passing the baton to? Just like a relay runner in a 4x100m race needs to run their leg well and pass the baton onto the next runner in order for the team to complete the race, You and I need to identify who God has called us to mentor and raise up in order to pass the baton on, so that God’s kingdom can continue to move forward in every successive generation.

The Oracle!

The Iceberg Principle!

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The iceberg principle states that it’s not what’s above the surface that will sink you but what’s under the surface.

What you generally see of an iceberg is only 10% of it. 90% of it is under the surface. The Titanic sunk because it hit the part of the iceberg that couldn’t be seen. 10% of who you are is what people see. Your gifting, charisma and appearance. These qualities won’t make or break you but the 90% of who you are in your character is what will sustain you or sink you.

Your gifting will always make more room for you than your character has capacity for. Your gifting will take you places but it’s your character that will sustain you, once you get there. The great thing about God is that he is already committed to developing the 90% that no one else can see. He knows you already have a gift. He gave it to you of his own free will. He expects you to develop that gift but inherent within the seed of the gift is the necessary ingredients to be effective in your calling. What you need to grow is your character and your internal capacity. The Holy Spirit is your sanctifier and helper who perseveres with you through your morphing process to become more like Jesus.

Pay attention to what’s under the surface. Your emotions, psychology, attitudes, heart and spirit are foundational to undergirding everything you express in your external environment.

The Oracle!

Listen to Billy Graham!

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Someone once asked Billy Graham what would you do differently if you had to do it all over again? He replied,

‘I would have spent twice as much time preparing myself for leadership and preaching and half as much time actually leading and preaching. If I had 5 years left to live, I would go back to bible college for 3 years and then hit the road and preach all over the globe for my last 2 years.’

If it’s good enough for Billy Graham, it’s good enough for you and I. Lead yourself before you lead anyone else!

The Oracle!

Importance of Spiritual Authority

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Hebrews 13:17 ‘Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.’

I think many of us in the church take the issue of spiritual authority far too lightly. There’s no doubt spiritual authority has been abused in the past and because of the brokenness of people, still will be but that doesn’t mean we throw it out the window and deem it unnecessary or irrelevant.

I’m coming to understand so much more the importance and significance of coming under Godly spiritual authority no matter what stage of life or ministry we are at. We imbibe of the spiritual authority we are under. The grace and authority God gives to the people who oversee us is critical to our spiritual vitality and ministry influence.

As goes the leader, so goes the ministry. We reproduce who we are. Leaders, your ministry is a reflection of you. This might be the cause of great anxiety for you because we all have things God is taking us through, to help us mature and grow in him but I can’t expect to see fruit in a particular aspect of my ministry if I’m not personally growing in that area myself. My life and leadership is a lid on others and if you want those you lead to excel in life and ministry, then you need to excel as well.

Apostles play a key role in the area of spiritual authority, especially, as it relates to prophets and all the other ministry gifts within the body (Eph 4:11-12). Apostles are sent of God to a region or regions to carry spiritual authority to establish and build the church, as well as, father people in the faith and release people into their ministry. Apostles are especially gifted to carry the weightiness of churches and have exceptional capacity for church expansion. We can learn a lot from the ministry of the apostle and they are integral to the exercising of spiritual authority in the church across entire regions.

Whose spiritual authority are you under? Do you have any oversight speaking into your life?   I have learnt so much and gone far further through the blessing of oversight, than I have on my own. You will too.

Spacial Relationships

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Every relationship belongs in a space in our lives.

Problems arise when we allow someone to occupy a space they shouldn’t be in. I’ve observed that in leadership we can have inappropriate people too close to us and the appropriate people too far away from us.

God didn’t build us to have relational spaces for everyone.

We each have a limited amount of space in which to place people. Our spirit has infinite capacity to be with God but we have emotional limits when it comes to being with others.

Every country has controlled airspace above it. There are specific ‘no fly zones’ that if you violate you risk being attacked. You can’t just fly into a country’s air space. You need to ask for permission and for a commercial airline paying a fee is required.

Everyone of us need to take responsibility for our own ‘relational space’. There are some people that are ‘no fly zone’ people and there are others who are allies and there are others who are partners. Don’t turn your landing lights on for every passing relationship that enters into your life.

I wonder if you have ever been on a vacation with someone you got on well with over a meal but being on a vacation with them was another experience. You came away exhausted and wondering what just happened? Just because you get on well with someone in one space doesn’t mean they are suitable for other more private spaces of your life.

The key question before embarking on a relationship journey is, ‘Have I got space for you?’ Don’t drift into a relationship you have no room for. Think about where you will put this person in your life.

Proverbs 12:26 ‘A righteous man chooses his friends carefully.’

A classic biblical example of spacial relationships is Abraham and Lot. God called Abraham to go to the land He would show him but Abraham invited Lot along for the ride and it proved disastrous. Abraham’s family and Lots family had to eventually separate because the land could not sustain both of them. Abraham had to end up rescuing Lot from disaster. One episode after another occurred because Abraham invited Lot into a space, God never invited Lot into. It was only after Lot had separated from Abraham did God speak to him again about his call.

Heed the lesson.

Maybe there are some things God wants to say to you but he can’t until you reorder your relational space. You are responsible for your relational spaces. Don’t give your most important spaces to the wrong people and sideline the right people from your life.

Gods got a dot to dot plan of your relational world. Pay attention to the sign posts and build significant relationships with the people God wants in your relational space. This isn’t being arrogant, it’s being a wise steward of your relational spaces and emotional well being.

Grace!

Culture Trumps Vision

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In 2008 I wrote a book on Vision. I defined vision to be a clear and compelling God-given picture of the future. The book had minor success and from all reports, readers found it very helpful for their own lives and ministries. I have a vision and I have casted vision to people around me. I believe vision is critical to the success of any venture…

HOWEVER… Since I wrote the first edition of ‘Vision’, I’ve come to discover that it doesn’t matter how clear or compelling your vision is, if your culture is unhealthy (or shall we say stuffed), then nothing is moving anywhere.

Culture is the air a church breathes. The X Factor that brings definition to a group of people and distinguishes it from other groups of people. Culture is the social fabric that binds a group together and defines what’s most important in that group. Culture can attract or repel. Culture is the lens through which we look at the world around us. Culture hinges upon the dynamic intersection of core values outworked in the relationships we have with people in our particular group. Culture cannot always be easily defined but is smelt, felt and caught by osmosis.

The most influential people at the top of the tree define culture more than anyone else. Just as the inner workings of a city influences the culture of the suburbs and surrounding regions, so too does the inner workings of a core leadership team impact everyone else around them. That’s why Jim Collins research principle ‘First who, then what’ is so profound. It’s who you have around you that often determines the quality of the culture you are attempting to build. Before you work out what you want to do, get the who right. The right people in the right seats on the right bus will have the biggest impact on your culture than your vision will.

The sort of people you are looking for are self-motivated and self-disciplined mixed with a paradoxical blend of humility and ferocious resolve to obtain the desired outcome. These people bring music to the ears of the leader and can help build the sort of culture that is not only sustainable but free of micro-management. Constantly attending to motivating people is one of the leading causes of burnout of leaders in every field. I’ve given it up and chose rather to just recruit gun people to play key roles. Can you nurture these qualities in people? To a point but I’ve observed people either have the basic wiring for it or they don’t. I know this is challenging for those of you who believe you can disciple people to life change. I believe and practice discipleship and mentoring but the whole process is predicated on the willingness and positioning of the individual themselves. I can’t change people, but God can and sometimes does.

If your culture has the necessary ingredients, vision momentum will accumulate to the point of breakthrough. If the culture is unhealthy, you will feel like you are in a dense fog and you are groping around for answers that aren’t forthcoming. I know what’s it like to be apart of an unhealthy culture and thankfully the opposite as well.

Leader, get your vision from God. Clarify it, process it with the key people on your team and cast it in as many creative ways as possible but for goodness sake, pay attention to the culture because if the horse is stuffed the cart isn’t going anywhere. I’ve come to learn that culture pulls the vision, not the other way around.

Grace!

Vision Requires Capacity

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Ecclesiastes 5:3 ‘A dream comes with much business.’

If there is anything I’ve become acutely aware of, as a senior pastor, is that vision requires great personal capacity. Leaders don’t just need clarity of vision or good communication skills, they need great capacity.

I haven’t met one great leader who didn’t have a deep well of capacity inside of them. It is one of the marks of a great leader. The point leader doesn’t need to know everything and doesn’t even need to be the most talented but needs to have great capacity.

God hands out dreams and visions to leaders for the benefit of Gods purpose for his people. A leader is gifted with influence to steward Gods vision and lead Gods people from where they are to where God wants them to be.

I believe that capacity is a grace God gives to leaders for their calling but it can be developed as well. I believe that increasing capacity requires an intersection of 5 key things:

1. A lifestyle of training

When I was an athlete in high school I would train every morning for 2-3hrs before school. This training gave me the capacity to perform well in competition. For the spiritual leader a lifestyle of training would include daily spiritual disciplines such as prayer, study, worship, solitude, fasting. I devote the first 3hrs of my day to training spiritually for my calling.

2. Incremental increase in responsibility

When I was a personal trainer, I would teach clients seeking to get fitter, that they must increase the resistance of the weight they were lifting or the amount of reps they were completing in order to grow stronger. If you don’t allow for incremental increases in stress in life, you won’t grow. We grow with resistance and increased responsibility stretches our capacity to lead.

3. Prioritize the main thing

My observation is that a great leader is only great at 1-2 things. Rather than being average in 5-6 things, you should devote your energy to building your capacity in 1-2 areas and become a master in it. Divide your week into 4 categories – Rest / Results / Response / Refocus. Devote chunks of time to each.

4 Find your daily rhythm

Every one of us has a natural rhythm that we need to connect to. Peak performance comes from connecting to your natural rhythm and getting into the zone each day in your work-life. Where are your energy peaks and lows each day? Do your results activities in your energy highs and your response activities in your energy lows.

5. Increase your energy

Your physical energy will have an impact on your emotional energy and mental energy. Exercise regularly and eat healthy to not just look after your body but increase your energy for life.

Grace!

Building a Team for Breakthrough!

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People aren’t your greatest asset, the right people are!

One of the great metaphors for a church or ministry team is a bus. On a bus you have a driver and a whole lot of passengers, with hopefully some key people in the seats closest to the driver. Depending on who you have in the key seats, will determine the trip you take.

Research has shown (Jim Collins – Good to Great) that the first thing you must do before you want to build a team for breakthrough is get the wrong people off the bus, the right people on the bus and the right people in the right seats. Before you work out where you want to go or what you want to achieve, you must focus on who you are going to take the journey with.

Great vision without great people is irrelevant.

Whoever is on your bus should be there because of who is on it, not just where it is going. When you have the right people on the bus, you eliminate the need to constantly micro-manage and drive them to get results. The right people are self-starters and are led, not driven to make things happen.

“We focused year after year on injecting endless stream of talent and building them into the best managers in the industry. That’s how you build the future.” (CEO Dick Cooley, Wells Fargo)

Are you trying to be the genius with a thousand helpers or are you trying to build a team of great strength and depth? A genius leader doesn’t need a team, just a bunch of soldiers that will implement their ideas. The problem is, it’s unsustainable. Don’t settle for being a genius on WHAT to do in ministry. Aim to be a genius in WHO you pick for your team. Great leaders build a team for breakthrough, not a platform for their talents.

Look for the 4 C’s in recruiting people – Character, Chemistry, Competence and Calling. Recruit people to your team, even if you don’t have a vacancy for them as yet. Great people will start to contribute because they are initiator’s. It takes rigorous discipline, not a ruthless dictatorship to build a team for breakthrough. A rigorous team environment is disciplined, whereas, a ruthless dictatorship is ego-centric and fear mongering.

Practice the 3 essential disciplines of a rigorous environment:

  1. When in doubt, keep looking – better to have an unfilled position, then fill it with the wrong person.
  2. When you need to change, act quickly – Don’t delay but be decisive.
  3. Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems – Your best result on your biggest problem will be average. Your best result on your biggest opportunity could be world-changing.

The human component in bottle-necking church / ministry growth isn’t location, circumstances or marketing but the ability to get and keep enough of the right people. Walter Bruckart was once asked to name the top 5 factors in his companies breakthrough. He responded with, “Factor 1 – right people. Factor 2 – right people. Factor 3 – right people…” You get it!

Grace!

Choose to become a Great Leader!

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I’ve observed leadership is a choice, as much as it is a calling. Once you answer the call to lead, you are given a choice as to how much you want to grow as a leader, and this choice can be a wrestle as great as the wrestle to answer the call to lead. The reason why we wrestle with this decision is because we love comfort and convenience, which leads to a static approach to life. Leadership is about progress and requires a more dynamic approach to life. If you’re going to move from where you are to where you want or are being called to be, you need to choose to grow.

Good is the enemy of Great! Most organizations aren’t great because they’re content with good. Yet I believe any church, company or team can go from good to great provided they have a desire and intentionality. A great church isn’t a result of right location, right branding, right planning, right circumstance or a celebrity leader at the helm. It’s largely a matter of conscious choice.

A church becomes great because people within it choose to become great leaders. A great leader is a paradox of both humility and sanctified ambition, not for themselves but for the church or group they’re apart of. Just as a duck floats on top of the water with grace but is ferociously paddling under the water, so too is the great leader. They are humble and self-effacing but ferociously determined to accomplish a result for the sake of their team.

To become a great leader (which is possible for all of us) observe the following:

  • Repent of pride
  • Become results oriented
  • Be more plow-horse than show-horse
  • Look out the window when you succeed and look in the mirror when you fail
  • Reproduce yourself in the next generation and set them up to succeed.

Remember, Great leaders are very rarely recruited from outside the organization but are already being raised on the farm. Great leaders attribute any success as a work of Gods sovereign grace rather than personal greatness (1 Cor 3:7). Make the decision today to move from being a good leader to being a GREAT leader.

Grace!

Reinvent yourself at each stage of growth!

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One of the most important leadership lessons I’ve had to learn is the need to reinvent aspects of my leadership during the different stages of growth we have experienced as a church.

I thought I was under pressure as a youth and young adult pastor of a large church but it’s clear there is a drafting effect of being a staff member on a team with a strong point leader at the helm. When you are apart of a team, you can get into the spiritual slipstream of the point leader, like a cyclist, riding in a pack, gets into the slipstream of the lead cyclist.

When I transitioned from youth pastor to lead pastor, the shift in weightiness of responsibility and accountability was very significant. Here are some ways I’ve had to reinvent myself as a leader:

  1. From highly directive to highly collaborative – When I first started the church with a core group of 13 people, I could make decisions instantly. Because the majority of the group were inexperienced in ministry, I needed to be stronger in my directives to shape the foundations of the church but as we grew bigger, I needed to consider the counsel of more people and include them in the decision making process. How I lead now is different to how I led in the early days. I recognized this by listening to people’s feedback and realizing if I didn’t change, I would limit the buy in of others. It’s not that I’ve abdicated the need to be directive, it’s that I’ve brought more people into the decision making process with me.
  2. From generalist to specialist – Like a GP at a doctors clinic I played the role of a generalist in the early stages of the church plant. As we grew I had to move from being all things to all people to being a specific thing to some people and empower others to be a specific thing to other people as well. Unless a leader makes the transition from generalist to specialist, the organization will be limited in its future growth. For me this has meant a greater clarity on my strengths and what I specifically bring that can make the single best contribution to the church. This reinvention must be reflected in your role and job description. For me the primacy of preaching and leadership are the twin towers of my role that must fight against the onslaught of the distractive attacks against it.
  3. From defined to re-defined – I began the church with a 52 page blueprint doc of defined ideas that I wanted to build the church with. Every year after that first initial year, I’ve had to redefine my ideas to fit with the ever changing context of the ministry and cultural landscape. This has extended to my theology. The demand for answers to people’s questions and my own wrestling with issues of God, life and ministry has forced me to delve back into the study of God’s word and bring a re-definition to how I think about God and the world around me. There has been a deepening of my faith in God and ideas about God through this redefining process.

Grace!