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Category: Leadership

  • Book Review: Developing a Vision for Ministry in the 21st Century by Aubrey Malphurs

    “ok” describes my experience with this book. It is a good read – but not great.  There are a lot of other great books (here, here, or here) on the topic of “vision” that say what Aubrey Malphurs says in a less antiquated way.

    Antiquated?

    Yes…outdated.  Old.  On the verge of irrelevant.  In fact, there is a section of the book that I literally marked in pen:

    “Warning: From here to the end of the chapter some/most of the advice is outdated”

    It’s also widely known that – in the world of casting vision for ministry – Aubrey’s protege, Will Mancini, has now become the master.  So if you’re looking for a defining book on vision in the same style and vein as Aubrey, pick up Will Mancini’s “Church Unique”

    With all that said, there were some bright spots in Developing a Vision for Ministry by Aubrey Malphurs.  As a “next-generation” pastor, I do find a connection to leadership models that are described as being more “flat”, but the longer I am in leadership in ministry, the longer I have realized that “flat” leadership is not only unproductive but unbiblical.  I appreciate Aubrey’s passion to communicate the need for Point Leadership with a God-inspired vision.

    Having now served in vocational ministry for over a decade, I do wish I had read this book early in my days of ministry to have been warned of the “dark side” of leading in the ministry setting.  Describing these situations is something Aubrey does a very good job with – remaining biblical and simply stating the facts without coming off as a “negative Nancy.” In fact, as I was reading this book, there were many times I would flashback to previous times in ministry.

    There are also other things that I found to be points with which I found either interesting or points that I resonated with. Here they are in no particular order:

    • an organization can sustain only a single ministry vision.  Most often a ministry with multiple visions ends with a split.
    • Today’s emphasis on coleadership, especially in the church where it is known as lay elder rule, attempts to be biblical but most likely is an overreaction to leadership by a single tyrant or despot, or in some cases to weak or unskilled professional leadership.  Not only is there a problem with finding a biblical foundation for coleadership, the greater problem is that people cannot follow a group.
    •  A church or parachurch ministry’s vision begins with and is the primary responsibility of the point person.
    • Cutting edge organizations are characterized by a whirlwind of activity and catalysmic change
    • There are “squeaky wheels” with solutions, but their solutions are characteristically out of touch with the ministry and its times…Visionary leaders are completely different from squeaky wheels
    • If people do not understand the vision, then in effect there is no vision.
    • [Other leaders] role is to follow the visionary’s leadership, aid in developing the dream, rally support behind it, and pass it on to as many people as possible.
    • Character is the foundation of Christian leadership….If the character is flawed in some way, then the ministry will be flawed proportionately.
    • …leadership is about comping with change, while management is about coping with complexity.
    • If an environment has not been established where people have freedom to fail then people will not take risks, and the ministry will either plateau or decline.
    • Human sources of discouragement
      • Vision vampires…well intentioned Christians who sincerely believe they are correct in opposing the vision…see themselves as courageous defenders of the faith rather than defenders of the status quo, for many of them confuse the status quo with the faith.
      • Vision vultures…people who like things the way they are, because they feel so intimidated and threatened by change
      • Vision firemen…when they hear of a good vision, run and grab the nearest fire hose to put it out…they are pure managers in leaderhip positions who do not properly understand leadership and its relationship to management…they feel threatened by innovative dreams and beleve it is in their vested interest to protect the institution from change rather than to work with leaders to procure change.
    • If the person who differs with the ministry leader is also a leader, then a decision will have to be made as to whether or not that person should stay with the ministry or pursue that which is closer to his philosophy in another ministry.
    • Some people in ministry organizations are well-intentioned troublemakers.  They work their way up through the ranks of a ministry organization until they reach a leadership position.  They appear to be loyal to the ministry and are very faithful to it.  In the church they are people who carry a Bible and are present at all the meetings of the church.  They give regularly and show up on church workdays…however, these people have a different vision with a different agenda.  They manifest themselves through their constant opposition to the visionary leader and the vision.  It becomes obvious that he will not be able to lead them.  This is because ultimately they, like Diotrephes in 3 John 9, want to control the organization.

    So…with all that said, if you are new to ministry or trying to sort out whether or not God is calling you to ministry, this book has some really great practical skills for not only finding God’s vision for your ministry, but it clearly gives you pragmatic – super practical advice – for how to handle opposition to vision and what that will look like in ministry.

    For those who have been in ministry for over 5 years, you will most likely read this book and cringe in remembrance of the times you faced opposition to vision, or even how poor execution of leading with vision effectively came back to impact you and your ministry negatively.

  • Book Review: Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath

    I must be upfront and honest and say that this isn’t a true book review.  For those of you who are familiar with Strengths Finder, it’s less about the book and more about the tool for finding your potential strengths.

    One of the things I learned by reading the book is that the title is misleading.  The test you take to find your strengths is really a test to find your TALENTS.

     This is what is says on pg 17:

    “What StrengthsFinder actually measures is talent, not strength”

    So what are my Talents?

    1. Futuristic
    2. Strategic
    3. Achiever
    4. Learner
    5. Belief

    Here is a breakdown of what these talents mean:

    Futuristic
    People who are especially talented in the Futuristic theme are inspired by the future and what could be. They inspire others with their visions of the future.

    Strategic
    People who are especially talented in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.

    Achiever
    People who are especially talented in the Achiever theme have a great deal of stamina and work hard. They take great satisfaction from being busy and productive.

    Learner
    People who are especially talented in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.

    Belief
    People who are especially talented in the Belief theme have certain core values that are unchanging. Out of these values emerges a defined purpose for their life. 

    I totally recommend this resource.  Both Leona and I have done this and it is not only a great tool for the professional context, but the interpersonal relationship context as well.

  • Book Review: Church Unique by Will Mancini

    I first mentioned Church Unique when I posted about it on my facebook page and have been chomping at the bit to share a review of it.  Well, I’ve finally found a day off to share with you some insight.  For the most part I really learned a lot from this book.  It challenges a lot of the perspectives I have been taught about strategic planning, casting vision, and creating a missional culture within your church – but it also confirmed a lot of thoughts that have been rolling around my head.

    Below are some quotes from the book that caught my attention.  Just because I mention them does not mean I agree with them.  Some I agree with, some I don’t, but all of them got me thinking.  If you are involved in church leadership at any level, I totally recommend this book.

    • reaching the surrounding community should be innate, driven by the church’s DNA rather than programming
    • The reality is that most people don’t think; they only rearrange their prejudices. Real thinking can be disruptive to the status quo and requires a great deal of courage.
    • The pastor on Sunday morning no longer speaks to a monolithic culture with shared experiences and anchor points….it is increasingly difficult to discern and then lead from a common DNA
    • (Defining the “stuck church”) They simply define their vision in terms of glorifying and propagating the past.
    • …strategic planning is no longer the preferred tool for leading the church into the future…change now happens so fast that the planning processes of yesteryear are obsolete.
    • Sending is not something you do, but being sent is something you are.
    • This is exactly what happens when church people resist change in a program. They simply don’t want their personal value to drop to zero (who does?)
    • Would you rather rally a hundred people into one effective initiative, or have a hundred people going in a hundred directions?  Inadvertently most churches tend toward the latter.  When they do, they often sacrifice their cooperative potential for the well-intended whims of the individual.
    • Missional leaders need to polarize this same reality for their people.  It should be clear that the most important people are those outside the church.
    • …differentiate or don’t exist…people desrve to know why your church is special, what God is doing uniquly through your leadership, and why they should sacrificially contribute.
    • You walk into a church you have never attended and pick up a guest brochure at a welcome center. On the inside flap you see a nice mission statement.  Then on the next page (and the rest of the brochure) you see umpteen ministries, listed from A to Z.  As you stare at the brochure, a paralytic effect ensues.  “What in the world do I do next?” you momentarily wonder.  Then you choose to do nothing at all.
    • Growing people grow people.  Consuming people consume programs.
    • …stop vision casting to making the church better and show people how the church makes life better…”Now is the time” is the mantra of the leader\
    • Everyone in your organization is in one of four categories
      • Stowaways: people who don’t know the vision and don’t want to contribute
      • Passengers: people who do know the vision and don’t want to contribute
      • Crew: people who do know the vision and do want to contribute
      • Pirates: people who don’t know the vision and do want to contribute
    • To want to contribute and to not agree with the vision is an act of piracy, whether the person has harmful intentions or not
    • role of worship is to keep the community so God-centered that the euphoria of being used by God doesn’t replace intimacy with God Himself.

  • The most practical book I’ve read…and more

    Over the past 7 years, my passion for reading has grown, and I would like to say that a huge part of my personal growth comes from mu commitment to always be a learner.

    So of all the books that sit on my shelf in my office, I always refer to the following on as one of the most practical books I have ever read.  It’s The Fiener Points of Leadership.

    Other than the Bible, I have not found a more practical book on leadership within a work environment.  I wish this book was given to me before I even started college, but who knows if any of it would have made sense.  There are a few books that I read at least once a year and this is one of them.

    For those who are curious, here is a list of the ones I re-read yearly for work-related enrichment:

    What are the most practical books you’ve read that have positively impacted your work-related personal growth?

  • Book Review: Switch by Chip and Dan Heath

    Point #1. You need to buy/read this book

    The subtitle of Chip and Dan Heath’s book, Switch, is “How to change things when change is hard.”  I first heard this book at the willow creek leadership summit I was at last year.  And after hearing a keynote address regarding this book, I knew I had to have it.  It wasn’t until borders went out of business did I get the book since it’s $26 price tag was not that all appealing.

    SO what do I think about this book?  Well, first of all – this book would have been worth the $26 if I hadn’t got it 75% off at the Borders going out of business sale.  Why?

    There isn’t quite anything that motivates me than the idea of change.

    Don’t ask me why.  I thought this was something that has developed over time as I grew as a leader and grew as a reader.  But after finding a grade school soliloquy I wrote entitled “Why is Change Hard?” I realized very quickly that I have always been a person open to change.  And why is that?  Because the belief that things can change – that things can be better than they are right now in the near future – is what motivates me to live.

    Because I live life from this paradigm I often see myself at the helm of movements for change, and my experience has been that…well…it’s hard to change things when change is hard.  This book has been not only VERY insightful, but very practical.  Micheal Hyatt does a good job giving you the bullet points of the book here, so I’m not going to waste my time to repeat them.  Instead, I’ll give you some of my favorite quotes.

    • 3 Surprising things about change
      • What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem
      • What looks like laziness is often exhaustion
      • What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity
    • SMART goals (Specific, Measurable,  Actionable, Relevant, and Timely) presume the emotion. In looking for a goal that reaches the Elephant – that hits people in the gut – you can’t bank on SMART goals.
    • When you think about the people whose behavior needs to change, ask whether they would agree with this statement: “I aspire to be the kind of person who would make this change.”
    • Everything looks like a failure in the middle [of change]
    • Fundamental Attribution Error…our inclination to attribute people’s behaviors to the way they are rather than to the situation they are in.

    Seriously…there is so much good stuff in this book.  I highly recommend this book no matter who you are or what you do for a living.  If you desire to make any difference in the world, that means change.  And if you want to navigate change effectively, I believe the principals in this book are irrerplaceable.

  • Someteimes POLICIES just get in the way

    Don’t believe me…just watch this guy.

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzE-IMaegzQ]

    If you are a leader, be careful that the policies you make are not just representations of mistakes you have made in the past. Make sure that they function to actually help and promote the results you actually want. Otherwise, get rid of them.

    HT: Tom deBruyn

  • A parable on change

    [vodpod id=ExternalVideo.867143&w=425&h=350&fv=m%3D52844712%26type%3Dvideo%26a%3D0]

    Say Cheeeeese!

  • “Not so Famous” quotes

    “You can’t be late and expect to get taco bell!”

    When I was about 15 years old I got shoved into the position of leading worship for my church’s youth group by (at that time) the “new” youth pastor.   I learned a lot of things about ministry and leadership at that time, but one of the greatest lessons he taught me was during the one night I arrived late to my own worship team practice.

    During the formation of our new worship team we started rehearsing at around 5:30pm before church, which was tough as high school kids just getting out of school. So to do what I thought was a way to “reward” us for making the sacrifice of coming out early, my youth pastor said he’d buy us all Taco Bell.  The only condition was that we needed to at the church at 5pm if we wanted free taco bell.

    Well I didn’t arrive until 5:30pm.  And when I got there, I came in (like a typical teen) expecting to get some food. When I found out the food was gone, I made a big stink that I didn’t get dinner and I probably had some lame excuse for being late too. My youth pastor looked me right in the face and told me, “Phil, you can’t be late and expect to get taco bell!”

    That day was the moment I learned some huge principles in leadership.

    1. Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable. As a leader, my actions set the precedent of what “on time” means. If for me, being on time means 5 minutes late in reality, then whenever I say, “Be there by so and so” people will always feel that what I’m really saying is “be there at ‘so and so’ but if you’re 5 minutes late, it’s cool.”
    2. The reward for doing what you’re supposed to do is the doing. Too many times you can place your hopes in the result of your “doing” as a reward, when the “doing” is the reward. If we as leaders can begin by seeing that being a leader is a reward that God has given, then it will take the focus off of us, because leadership is not about you, it’s about others.
    3. People are watching. Leadership is about influencing others. That night I learned that acting out of selfishness caused a diminishing effect on my leadership status in front of those who I was leading. Yes I was hungry, but as a leader, there is a fine line between “keeping it real” and understanding that my actions can hurt my ability to influence others. (1 Corinthians 9:11-23)
    4. Keep the main thing the main thing. Taco bell was a reward for coming to worship practice, but I as a leader did not accept the position to get taco bell. I wanted to be used by God to lead people into real encounters with a living God. If I was focused on that, then I would have thought with my head instead of my stomach.

  • Book Review: The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player by John Maxwell

    The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team PlayerI picked up John Maxwell’s The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player in the bargain bin at the bookstore a couple of weeks ago.

    Being that I am a firm believer that effective leadership is best done in a horizontal environment (where each person is a vital player) and not in a verticle environment (where one person at the top dictates what those below are to do) – I was excited to find some insights.  After all, even though not all readers are leaders, all leaders are readers!

    So here’s some things that really stood out to me.

    • Teamwork and personal rigidity just don’t mix.
    • A person’s age can be determined by the degree of pain he experiences when he comes in contact with a new idea.
    • Commitment and talent are UNCONNECTED – unless you connect them.
    • …you cannot make a commitment to uncommitted people and expect to receive a commitment from them.
    • You cannot have teamwork unless you have communicative players.  Without communication, you don’t have a team; you have a collection of individuals.
    • If you have any kind of difficulty or conflict with a teammate, don’t let more than twenty-four hours go by without addressing it.
    • Having hidden agendas, communicating to people via third party, and sugarcoating bad news hurts team relationships.
    • Open communication increases trust, trust increases ownership, and ownership increases participation.
    • The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
    • Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.
    • It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.
    • What we do on some great occasion will probably depend on what we already are, and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline.
    • People have just two choices when it comes to their emotions: they can master their emotions or be mastered by them.
    • Discipline means doing the right things at the right time for the right reason.
    • If you try to push people to work in areas where they have no talent, you will only frustrate them.
    • Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
    • Being intentional is…about focusing on doing the right things, moment to moment, day to day, and then following through with them in a consistent way.
    • A team really isn’t a team if it isn’t going anywhere!
    • Anyone who loves his opinions more that his teammates will advance his opinions but set back his team.
    • You can’t make the other fellow feel important in your presence if you secretly feel that he is a nobody.

    There’s so much more to this book.  I receommend this to anyone who feels God has called them into leadership because leadership is more like football and less like tennis – it takes a team to win big!

  • Book Review: The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player by John Maxwell

    The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team PlayerI picked up John Maxwell’s The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player in the bargain bin at the bookstore a couple of weeks ago.

    Being that I am a firm believer that effective leadership is best done in a horizontal environment (where each person is a vital player) and not in a verticle environment (where one person at the top dictates what those below are to do) – I was excited to find some insights.  After all, even though not all readers are leaders, all leaders are readers!

    So here’s some things that really stood out to me.

    • Teamwork and personal rigidity just don’t mix.

    • A person’s age can be determined by the degree of pain he experiences when he comes in contact with a new idea.

    • Commitment and talent are UNCONNECTED – unless you connect them.

    • …you cannot make a commitment to uncommitted people and expect to receive a commitment from them.

    • You cannot have teamwork unless you have communicative players.  Without communication, you don’t have a team; you have a collection of individuals.

    • If you have any kind of difficulty or conflict with a teammate, don’t let more than twenty-four hours go by without addressing it.

    • Having hidden agendas, communicating to people via third party, and sugarcoating bad news hurts team relationships.

    • Open communication increases trust, trust increases ownership, and ownership increases participation.

    • The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.

    • Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.

    • It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.

    • What we do on some great occasion will probably depend on what we already are, and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline.

    • People have just two choices when it comes to their emotions: they can master their emotions or be mastered by them.

    • Discipline means doing the right things at the right time for the right reason.

    • If you try to push people to work in areas where they have no talent, you will only frustrate them.

    • Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

    • Being intentional is…about focusing on doing the right things, moment to moment, day to day, and then following through with them in a consistent way.

    • A team really isn’t a team if it isn’t going anywhere!

    • Anyone who loves his opinions more that his teammates will advance his opinions but set back his team.

    • You can’t make the other fellow feel important in your presence if you secretly feel that he is a nobody.

    There’s so much more to this book.  I receommend this to anyone who feels God has called them into leadership because leadership is more like football and less like tennis – it takes a team to win big!