Tag: Leadership

2Daysw/Rob

Last week I had the opportunity to sit in what essentially amounts to a living room with 47 other leaders and Rob Bell. And for two full days (9 am to 9 pm) we talked about leadership, creativity, spiral dynamics, how to handle criticism, exegesis, raising kids, the eucharist, and surfing (along with various other topics). It was all over the place, but completely awesome.

I really appreciated the way Rob ended our time: he served us all communion. He talked about how the word eucharist can mean “good gift.” That Jesus’ body, broken and poured out, is God’s good gift to us. As leaders we almost always are serving other people (sometimes literally serving others the eucharist), and that we need to be put back together and poured back into. And that is what those two days were all about.

I needed that.

There are a million other things to say about this time (I have over 20 pages of notes), but I’ll leave you with these three:

  1. I appreciate Rob because he doesn’t hold back. It’s immensely clear that he throws himself completely into whatever it is that grabs him…whether that’s searching for the perfect taco or preparing for a talk, he goes all out.
  2. I appreciate Rob because he knows the ups and downs of pastoral leadership. He has many metaphors to describe it too (i.e. pastors are not “ecclesiastical punching bags”)! He gets it and he wants to pastor pastors through the ups and downs as much as possible.
  3. I appreciate Rob because he walks the line between humility and confidence with a great deal of grace. He’s a totally normal dude. He makes his kids breakfast everyday and drives them to school. He remembered someone at the conference because of a conversation they had after a tour stop in 2008. He also was named one of TIME’s 100 most important people in 2011. He’s very down-to-earth, but he knows he has a voice and he is confident in what he has to say.

I am extremely grateful I had the opportunity to be a part of this experience…it was life giving and timely. Good for my soul!

Letters From the Past and Future, Questions of Science and Progress, and Other Notables

  1. Gary Molander on “what I would tell my 20-something self.” Interesting stuff…I wonder if I would say similar things?
  2. Michael Ruse claims that science can answer many questions, but it cannot answer this one: “Why is there something rather than nothing?“
  3. Interesting letter from Ronald Regan to his son. Love the line: “how really great is the challenge of proving your masculinity and charm with one woman for the rest of your life.”
  4. Tyler Braun on the 5 shadows of leadership.
  5. Steven Johnson (one of my favorite social commentators) wondering if Facebook will turn out to be its own worst enemy.

Don’t Be Complicit

Here are a couple of intertwining thoughts from two different books I’ve been reading. In Safe People (by Cloud and Townsend) the authors write: “An important question to ask (when discerning if a person is safe or unsafe) is: what does this person do with my no?” 

Saying yes and no (being truthful), and how people respond to that, is a theme that keeps showing up in a number of places.

In The Bottom of the 33rd, Joe Morgan (no not that Joe Morgan) is the manager of the AAA Pawtucket Red Sox. As a AAA (closest minor league level to the major leagues) manager Morgan saw a lot of guys who went on to play in bigs, but he also saw a lot of guys who were good but not quite good enough.

These not quite good enough players would hang around and hang around hoping against hope for their break. At some point they would come to Joe and ask: “What do you think, skip? Am I going to make it?”

And Joe Morgan was honest with them. He told them the truth. Sometimes that was a really hard, even brutal, assignment. But, and here’s our quote of the week:

“Morgan never wanted to be complicit in another man’s delusions. He felt morally required to provide either encouragement or release. To say yes or no.”

He wasn’t a jerk about it. He didn’t take delight in crushing a man’s dreams. But he didn’t lie to them either. This is a hard lesson of leadership, but, as I am learning, it is important to tell the truth.

We Don’t Do That Here

On a friend’s suggestion I picked up Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball’s Longest Game and I have not been able to put it down. The book tells the story (and the back story) of the longest game in professional baseball history. The game took place in 1981 between the AAA level minor league teams for the Red Sox and the Orioles in Pawtucket, RI (about 40 min south of Boston).

The book is full of a number of incredible anecdotes, and anyone who loves baseball or who has lived in New England should read it!

One of the best scenes centers around, arguably, the most famous player to participate in the game: Cal Ripken Jr. Ripken was a bit of a hot head in his younger days, a star in the making who needed to be put in his place. Here’s how it went down:

“Ripken’s white-hot desire to win, always, leaves little allowance for the inevitability of failure. He is quick to lose his temper–usually, but not always, with himself. A couple of years from now, after Ripken will have emerged as an up-and-coming major-league star, a veteran teammate, Ken Singleton, will show him a videotape of yet another Ripken fit; something thrown, something slammed. Embarrassed, Ripken will work hard from then on to contain his temper, to be a model of retrained passion, the message imparted by Singleton finding hold somewhere deep in his temporal lobe: ‘We don’t do that here.’“

Baseball Wisdom

I am a huge baseball fan and I love stories like Phillip Humber’s. I also loved this article by Tom Verducci about Humber. In it he talks a little bit about the art of coaching pitchers at the major league level. He says that every pitching coach has access to the same kind of knowledge…there’s no magic that one coach has that none of the others have. What makes the difference then is this:

“It’s the coach who gets the player when he’s ready to learn who will wind up getting credit for that player’s success.”

Quick Hitters

Updates in bullet form:

  • Headed to Dallas, TX early Wednesday morning for round two of the Leadership Networks University Leadership Community. This never seems to come at a convenient time in the semester, but I am grateful to get some time away and focus on the big picture for a couple of days.
  • We are deep into preparing our leadership teams for the fall. I’m excited to see new students coming on board and excited to be a part of the Sojourn story next year.
  • We held a baggo (or cornhole) tournament at UMB on Friday (picture). Met some new people and had some good times with old friends!
  • Tons of writing and prep to do today: it’s a short week!

Finish Strong

It’s the final month of school for most of our students and people are starting to think about finals, summer jobs, traveling, internships, and all that good stuff. And, it is a super busy season for us…readying new leaders, finishing well relationally, planning new things, evaluating the year, etc, etc, etc. All on top of the normal rhythms of groups and one-on-ones and meetings.

I’m ready for vacation.

But I don’t want to check out early. At our last leadership community I shared with our students the story of Caleb. I always come back to Caleb when I think about finishing well, finishing strong.

Consider Caleb’s example (you can read about him in Numbers 13 and 14)…

  • He was one of only two Israelite spies (Joshua was the other) who saw how good the promised land was and believed the people could take it over.
  • He was sold out by the other 10 spies who freaked out because of the “giants in the land” and their weapons.
  • He and Joshua were the only two people from his generation allowed to enter the promised land.
  • He had to wander around the desert while his contemporaries died out, all the while knowing the good things he was missing out on. He had to question his fate a ton, I would think.
  • He went to a lot of funerals and dug a lot of graves.
  • And then, God picked Joshua to be the leader to take over from Moses. Joshua got the book deal, the twitter followers, the big church. Caleb had his life and his family and a hope for a plot of land.

If anyone had an excuse to give up, to lose hope, to become cynical or bitter or entitled or frustrated or angry or to quit, it was Caleb.

We don’t know much about what Caleb did for those 40 years, but we know how his story ends. He shows up again in Joshua 14. Everyone else had received their allotment of land, and finally Caleb says, “It’s time for me to take mine.”

And we read this:

6 Now the people of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the LORD said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh Barnea about you and me. 7 I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, 8 but my fellow Israelites who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt in fear. I, however, followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly. 9 So on that day Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly.’

10 “Now then, just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! 11 I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. 12Now give me this hill country that the LORD promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the LORD helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.”

13 Then Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him Hebron as his inheritance. 14 So Hebron has belonged to Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite ever since, because he followed the LORD, the God of Israel, wholeheartedly. 15 (Hebron used to be called Kiriath Arba after Arba, who was the greatest man among the Anakites.)

Then the land had rest from war.

Somehow, through all that, he still followed God wholeheartedly. He finished strong.

I love that image of 85-year-old Caleb still looking for a fight, still ready to go, still throwing himself fully into the work God had asked him to do. And somehow all of that contributed to peace in the land.

When I get tired I think about Caleb…I want to finish strong too.

Start with Why (Quote of the Week)

Great story from a book that has captured my attention: Start With Why

The story of two Stonemasons:

A stonemason is asked, “Do you like your job?” He responds: “I’ve been building this wall for as long as I can remember. The work is monotonous. I’m out in the scorching hot sun all day. The stones are heavy and lifting them day after day is backbreaking. I’m not even sure if this project will be completed in my lifetime. But it’s a job. It pays the bills.”

A second stonemason, working on the same wall, is asked, “Do you like your job?” He responds: “I’ve working on this wall for as long as I can remember. The work can be monotonous. Yes, it can be really hot out here and lifting these stones, day after day, is back-breaking. I’m not even sure if this project will be completed in my lifetime. But I love my job…I’m building a cathedral.”

Build cathedrals, not walls!

Leadership Quote(s) of the Week

I have spent some time over the last week skimming back through one of the most formative books I’ve ever read: The Making of a Leader. Here’s some good stuff from the intro, “A Letter to Dan, the Intern”:

“Superficially it may appear that ministry training is the focus of development…but closer analysis shows that the major thrust of God’s development is inward. The real training program is in the heart of the person.

The amazing thing is that during [the primary phases of leadership development] God is primarily working in the leader, not through him or her. Though there may be fruitfulness in ministry, the major work is that which God is doing to and in the leader. Most emerging leaders don’t recognize this. They evaluate productivity, activities, fruitfulness, etc. But God is quietly, often in unusual ways, trying to get the leader to see that one ministers out of what one is. God is concerned with what we are.

We want to learn a thousand things because there is so much to learn and do. But he will teach us one thing, perhaps in a thousand ways: ‘I am forming Christ in you.’

Perhaps the key issue in all of this is submission. Are you willing to submit to God’s purposes right now for you? Anyone can submit to something he or she wants. Submission is tested only when the thing is not desired. God is not in as big a hurry as you and I are.”