For years I’ve played the game of leveraging productivity: through teamwork, technology and innovation. This article from The Buffer blog suggests I may have neglected one of the most effective techniques truly productive people employ daily. Take a look.
http://blog.bufferapp.com/the-4-elements-of-physical-energy-on-how-to-master-them
This blog is dedicated to those who have heard the call of God to leadership.
Whether through an audible voice, an inner impression or a outer compulsion most of those who begin to read this blog will have heard the call to leadership. You’ve wondered whether it was God. Sometimes you’ve hoped one way and other times another, but deep down you’ve believed that what you heard was God, and you’ve responded ‘Here, I am. Send me.’
Now, you wonder it you were wrong. Perhaps you’ve been struggling in areas you think you should find easy. Perhaps people you respect have questioned your call. Or perhaps you’ve been rejected by the very people you feel called to serve. In any case, you wonder, if you were wrong. You contemplate giving up, walking away, going a different way.
Perhaps you should. My pastor, a man I respected a great deal growing up and still do, said, ‘Don’t presume to lead unless you can do nothing else.’ On the other hand, he said, ‘If God calls you to preach the gospel, don’t step down to be a king.’
The call to leadership is like the call to faith. Sometimes you’re hanging on by a thread. And sometimes you’re not hanging on at all, something, someone, is hanging on to you. Sometimes to walk away would be to walk away from the one you’re called to serve. Sometimes letting go of the leadership, is all you can do to preserve the faith that under girds it.
John Maxwell says leadership is all about influence. Christian leadership is about influencing others in the direction of Christ: His will, pursued in His way. Before it can be about others it must be about Him, about us, coming under the influence of God, daily, basking in His presence, soaking in His strength, learning to live in the confidence and the humility that come from Him. Influencing others to do the same.
Today, like most days, I face challenges in leadership. I face challenges in life. Do I press ahead or walk away? Before either, I must ‘press in’, to Him.
Over the next days and weeks together we’ll talk about many aspects of Christian leadership. Today let’s concentrate on the basics.
How did you ‘get into’ leadership?
Looking back, where do you see God in ‘the call’ or in ‘the fall’?
Looking forward, what do you have to do, to ‘live’, daily, under the influence of Christ?
Embarrassed to say ‘Its a question I still ask myself.‘ Last year I felt like God told me it was about time I grew up. Maybe …
I remember hearing the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel as a kid. I was impressed with his boldness. I remember thinking ‘It’s because he was ‘a man of God‘. I don’t know why I thought that. In retrospect it seems like a kind of strange thing for a kid to think. But it was my thinking. I guess it still is.
I’ve wanted to be ‘a man of God’ that for a long time. After many years of aspiring, I still struggle with it. Boy do I struggle! More often than not I’m weak, wrong and whining. I drag myself back to God and say ‘I blew it, again‘. Every time I think I’ve got it together, I blow it again. God please, help me, pick me up straighten me out. Lead me in the path of righteousness. And He does.
Some time ago I read a book called ‘The Quest’. I don’t remember much about it but I remember the title. This morning it strikes me that perhaps the great ‘Quest’ of the Christian life is to be ‘a man or woman of God’: to know God, be like Jesus, to live in His strength instead of our own.
Today, I want, more than anything else, to be ‘a man of God’. I’m not sure I’m even sure what that is.Â
I’d love to hear what you think?
I’d love to hear how you pursue, that particular ‘quest’?
Remember that warning your parents used to give you?
The one about: How holding a particular expression too long could cause your face to stick that way? It crossed my mind last week.
I was with Pastor Len Crow of North Country Baptist Church in Orillia and my mouth was open the whole time. I’ll share the North Country story (as I remember it) and you can see what it does to your expression. Be warned!
You can close your mouth now.
Before you react too strongly, let me say, I’m sure I got some of these figures wrong. Its difficult to hear with your mouth wide open.
To get the facts contact Pastor Len Crow, North Country Baptist Church. Â www.northcountrybaptistchurch.com
When you talk to him, please, try to keep your mouth closed.
Have you ever had a dream that you thought was from God?
It’s happened to me repeatedly.
In Bible College
I had a dream of coming alongside churches, bringing them together in terms of relationships and sending them out in ways of evangelism.
Afterward
I had a dream of coming alongside graduates, helping them discover whether they fit, helping them find that place and excel in it.
As a young pastor
I had a dream of coming alongside leaders, who were going thru tough times, helping them to gain perspective and move forward.
As an older pastor
I had a dream of a place of retreat, for pastors who needed to come apart, to spend time alone with God and their families.
Later
I had a dream of sabbaticals, for pastors and churches to rediscover their call and to refocus on pleasing God rather than the multitude of voices that pursued them.
Over the Years
I’ve experienced a lot of frustration, around dreams. I’ve come to the conclusion, or maybe better said, I think the dreams God gives us are glimpses. They’re glimpses of a reality God would like to see fulfilled, a reality He would like to create with us. Whether we see them fulfilled or we don’t, our pursuit of such dreams, is deeply pleasing to God who gave them.
Today
In most of the areas I`ve mentioned above I`m either `living the dream` or `in the pursuit. What about you?
Have you ever had a dream that you believed was from God?
Have you despaired of realizing it or do you remain ‘in the pursuit’?
Are you living the dream?
Many years ago I dreamed of having a beautiful wife. Someone told me that such a dream was inconsistent with my other goals – that all of my other goals were highly altruistic while the dream of a totally beautiful wife – one who was as beautiful on the inside as on the outside, was selfish. After thirty two years of marriage, I’m glad I held out for my dream.
When I proposed to my wife she expressed her desire to travel and her concern that if she married me we’d never ‘go anywhere’. Since that time we’ve visited California, Hong Kong, Barbados, Grenada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Iri Anjira, and Hawaii. For a year we lived in main land China. I’m glad I caught hold of her dream.
For years I dreamed of quitting my day job to travel around the world, come alongside Christian leaders and speak into their lives. Three and a half years ago I did exactly that. I ‘jumped into the sea’ as they say in China. Since that time I’ve been having a ball. So glad I decided to ‘go for the dream’.
Do you have a dream? If you do I’d love to hear about. To see you live the ‘Maximum Impact Life’ you’ve always dreamed about.
According to Impact Canada www.impactcanada.org 80% of Canadian churches are either plateaued, declining or disintegrating.
Such statistics are alarming but perhaps not surprising.
– How many boring church business meetings have you attended?
– How many board meetings seem to cover the same ground over and over again.
– Despite all of your hard work, is your ministry taking new ground for God?
The statistics would say that most Canadian churches are going around in circles. The nation of Israel spent 40 years going in circles because of her sin. Is the problem in the 21st century church sin?
The more I work with the church, (27 years as a lead pastor, the last three as a Coach and Catylist) the more I get the impression most churches don’t know where they’re going. They’re busy and they’re frustrated. Mostly they’re just tired of going around in circles, not getting anyplace. With the number of people willing to devote themselves to the endeavour declining all the time.
Have we confused busyness with effective ministry?
What’s the solution?
Would love to hear what you think?
I love Gary R Collins blog People Builders. In his latest issue Gary talks about athletes feel pressured to perform. Obviously its not only athletes that feel this pressure.
The pressure to perform is real and for many of us it comes from within.
As Christian leaders, some of us misinterpret Paul’s declaration that he could do all things through Christ’s strength to state that we can do everything. We commit and commit until overwhelmed. Then we come back to Jesus’ declaration that he had come to so that we could have life. We recognize that racing from commitment to commitment isn’t life and pull ourselves out from under, only to start again.
Its exhausting, overwhelming and discouraging.
We could call it sin, in the sense that everything bad is sin but I wonder if it isn’t more personality based. Who shall deliver me from this ‘type A’?? personality?
Do you feel constant pressure to perform?
I’d love to hear how you deal with it?