Leaders

Check out what I’m growing in my garden this year. And in my leadership.

I still remember the first worship service I attended more than 40 years ago. I understood very little of it, as I was not yet a believer. Over the last several decades, though, here are some things I’ve learned about worship.

God really loves me! Really, He does. When was the last time you contemplated that truth? In this article, Matthew reminds leaders that Jesus loves them always, and a strong illustration of this is when Jesus told His disciples to abide in Him. He also outlines a few practical ways to receive Jesus’ love every day, and to enjoy Him.

The challenge is to create time without having your team feel like you hit the “pause” button. For many, “pause” creates inertia that's tough to break.

Here are ten tactics used to avoid accountability for mistakes, poor practice, dysfunction, and outright deviance.

Visionary leaders create hope and possibility. They appeal to people’s dreams and goals. They define a preferred future. The better a leader is at casting a compelling vision, the more influence they wield.

I could write for a week on this topic, but these four thoughts are enough to ponder. Examine your own life to see if you are drawn to power, or people. I hope it’s the latter.

When the pressure is on and there is a lot to do, in the very time we need to be intimately connected to God and depending upon His Spirit, we as Christian leaders tend to cut back on quality time with God and end up “running on battery.” Sadly, what usually starts out as a temporary measure often becomes a dangerous habit. Before long, we find ourselves operating in our own strength and wisdom, and not in God’s.

Just a little rain transforms an arid desert into a magnificent blooming garden. That rain changes the arid environment and draws life from dormant seeds. The same can happen when we face changes in our lives. Sam experienced not one, but four painful organizational changes in his 24 years with World Vision. He said, “I was laid off once, resigned once and ‘stormed out’ once.” Sam outlines some growing lessons from Psalm 37.

Here’s the problem ‒ at least in my own life. The log is so hard to see. No one should miss a log hanging out of their eye, much less be able to notice the meager speck in someone else’s. But we do it all the time. Why? Why is the log of my own sin so hard to see?

Organizations and communities offer tremendous opportunities to share and give of our talents, time, financial and other resources with each other. We know that the sharing begins with love. The Bible exhorts us to share generously and give cheerfully. Each of us has so much to give.

Gideon’s colossal might in slaying thousands of men in war is not at odds in any way with his heart and posture of peace. Gideon was fully a man of peace and yet he was also a man of violence, aggressive strategy, confrontation and victory. Gideon would never have achieved this, never would have functioned as one of Yahweh’s Judges of Israel, had his own personal peace with God not been built first. It was this peace that made him foundationally capable of destroying the locust scum that came every year to destroy the hope of the people of God.