Catching Up

A book I couldn't put down!

I've been on a journey over the last several months.  It's a journey that goes back to my initial calling as a pastor.  I will never forget the day when I "heard" God say to me through a teacher, "it's unfair for a person to hear the Gospel more than once when some have never heard the Good News."   This may explain why at Brooklake (the church not a body of water) we try to make the services a safe place for those who are beginning to investigate what is means to be a follower of Jesus.  It reaches beyond the church I pastor to people groups around the world who have never heard about Jesus and His love for them.  I recently read a book that has added fuel to this fire inside of me.  The book, "Church Planting Movements: How God is Reaching a Lost World"  written by David Garrison. I started reading this Saturday morning and couldn't put it down.  For me every page was a moving experience for me.  Based on research and observation, Garrison tells a moving story while giving  guidance to leaders.   

The big question for me is,  how do I response to what I sense is Gods voice speaking to me through this book?

Trying to learn and grow

One of the books my pastor friend, Don Ross, www.gradydawn.blogspot.com , recommended to me is: The Five Temptations of a CEO written by Patrick Lencioni, subtitle, A Leadership Fable. When it comes to leadership, I find a lot of great insight from writers like Lencioni that can be applied to my personal life and to the church I lead. Here are the lessons I gained from the book: These apply to those who directly report to you.

1. Choose Trust over Invulnerability Actively encourage your people to challenge your ideas. Trust them with your reputation and your ego. As a leader, this is the greatest level of trust that you can give. They will return it with respect and honesty, and with a desire to be vulnerable among their peers.

2. Choose Conflict over Harmony Tolerate discord. Encourage your direct reports to air their ideological differences, and with passion. Tumultuous meetings are often signs of progress. Tame ones are often signs of leaving important issues off the table. Guard against personal attacks, but not to the point of stifling important interchanges of ideas.

3. Choose Clarity over Certainty Make clarity more important than accuracy. Remember that your people will learn more if you take decisive action than if you always wait for more information. And if the decisions you make in the spirit of creating clarity turn out to be wrong when more information becomes available, change plans and explain why. It is your job to risk being wrong. The only real cost to you of being wrong is loss of pride. The cost to your company (church) of not taking the risk of being wrong is paralysis.

4. Choose Accountability over Popularity Work for the long-term respect of your direct reports, those who are accountable to you, not for their affection. Don’t view them as a support group, but as key employees who must deliver on their commitments if the company, (Church) is to produce predictable results (people placing their faith in Jesus). And remember, your people aren’t going to like you anyway if they ultimately fail. 5. Choose Results over Status Make results the most important measure of personal success, or step down from the job/ being the lead pastor. The future of the company (church) you lead is too important for customers, employees, and stockholders (eternity’s sake) to hold it hostage to your ego.