The Life Giving Leader

When I first started reading The Life Giving Leader, I honestly wondered if we needed another book on leadership. Certainly not everything has been said that could be said about leadership, but I know there are lots of resources available for leaders. As I read Tyler’s Reagin’s book, I saw the value in what he had to share.

As the President of Catalyst, I know Reagin is in a position of leadership and also rubs shoulders with many of today’s top leaders. He draws from those experiences and shares them in the book.

In the first part of the book Reagin focuses on the person of the leader, primarily helping every leader to lead from who they are. He shares how he didn’t feel he could be a leader because of his personality type. He even shares how on two different occasions people told him that his success could be hindered by his personality. He goes on to encourage leaders to live and lead from who they are, what he calls “your truest self.”

I think we all have a picture in our mind of what a leader looks like. While we identify that ideal image, we also are able to point to the places where we don’t match up to the ideal. Reagin’s encouragement is to be who God made you to be, to lead out of that identity and give life to others. Those are good words we all need to hear.

In the second part of the book, he writes about the behaviors of a life-giving leader, including being willing to sweat, sacrifice, surrender and serve. While he had some good insights and suggestions in those chapters, one particular portion really stuck out to me.

Near the end of a chapter, he was writing about the importance of being on a team and how the leader builds good teams. He writes about developing trust and a culture where people believe the best instead of expecting the worst. I thought this quote was a great reminder as we work with people. We are going to let one another down, we are going to make mistakes and there is no perfect team. Knowing that Reagin writes this:

I know this is a crazy thought, but it’s good business to trust people. Obviously, there’s a chance someone will prove to be untrustworthy. But just because you had a bad cup of coffee once doesn’t mean you stop drinking coffee. Just because someone once used you and lost your trust doesn’t mean everyone who works with you should be called into suspicion.

If you work in any sort of group, team or organization, you know there exists what is called the “gap of information.”  When that gap exists, when we don’t know all the details or what someone is thinking when they make a decision, we fill in the gap with either trust or suspicion.  Reagin’s encouragement to leaders is to build a culture of trust and to be an advocate for your team members.  That is some solid advice for leaders as we continue to work with people.

The Life Giving Leader is filled with some good insights for leaders.  Reagin makes it clear that being a leader isn’t easy, but it is worth it. If you lead in any type of organization, this book would be of value to you.

Thanks to Waterbrook and Multnomah for an advance copy of The Life Giving Leader.

Parents Interpret for their Kids

Any time you turn on the news, something bad has happened. The big news right now is the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and it is terrible to watch and think about. This morning I also saw the story of the mudslides in Washington and the difficulty the search and rescue teams are having in locating survivors. Those are only two of the sad stories the news carried just today.

This morning I listened to a conversation between Ken Coleman and John Piper. The conversation turned to parenting, including raising adopted kids as both gentlemen have adopted children into their family. Ken then presented the question to John Piper about how to communicate with our kids about the bad things that continue to happen in the world. There are so many ways our kids can hear about tragic events and Ken Coleman asked Piper how do we deal with that. I thought John Piper’s answer was great: “We have the golden opportunity to take the initiative, if they hear it from the news on TV or the iPad, to get the interpretation from mom and dad.” He went on to say that we won’t have all the answers, but we can help our kids interpret the evil in the world and what God has to say about it.

Now that my wife and I have a 6-month old in the house, we are kind of beginning the parenting process all over again. It was a good reminder to me that whatever the future brings and whatever evil takes place in the world, we can help our son interpret it and point him to a loving Heavenly Father who is bigger than any of the evil we experience.

Importance of Mentors

This weekend served as a good reminder to me of the value of mentors in the lives of students. For the past 8+ years, we have made small groups a primary part of our student ministry. We connect students with adults who will meet with them on a regular basis to build relationships, to study God’s Word and to create a safe place to share both the trials and triumphs in life. This weekend, we experienced a couple of “wins” that reinforced the value of that.

I am learning the importance of celebrating the wins. We tend to focus on what’s not right or what didn’t work and there is value in pointing out when good things happen. Also, with the nature of small groups and student ministry in general, you don’t normally see fruit or results until later down the road.

This weekend one of our junior high boys small groups made an effort to invite and include another guy in their group. They saw the guy at church, invited him to come to small group, made sure they knew where he needed to meet and he showed up! While they were encouraged by their small group leader, the students made the invitation.

Another of our groups – a 6th grade boys group – just completed a challenge put forth by their leaders. Each boy was given a certain amount of money to invest into a kingdom project. Each boy was given the freedom to choose where to use that money. I just received a report from the leaders about what each boy did. That’s a win!

Then, this morning, on my way into the office, I was listening to the Catalyst Podcast. One of the interviews was with Josh Shipp, who leads a mentoring ministry.

He said the biggest problem our students face today is a lack of Christian, caring adults involved in their lives. He then shared these two statistics. Students who have a caring adult who is not mom or dad in their lives are 50% more likely to succeed and 50% more likely to stay away from things that are destructive. What he shared just continued to point to the importance of involving caring, Christian adults into the lives of our students.

The entire interview is a good as Josh shares his story of how mentors in his life made a huge impact on him. (The Mandisa interview which preceded his is good, too.). Check it out on the Catalyst website.

I’m so grateful for the adult leaders who have been (and still are) are a part of my own children’s lives and for the small group leaders that lead in our ministry. They are making a difference.

What Do You Hope For?

I’ve been catching up on my podcast listening (again) and was listening to some previous editions of the Catalyst podcast. There was an interview with John Eldredge relating to a talk he gave at one of the Catalyst events.

Several years ago I went through the “Wild At Heart” curriculum with some men here at church and then read some of Eldredge’s books. Epic was one of my favorites and I have always enjoyed Eldredge’s unique perspective on being a follower of Christ, a husband and how we look at heaven and the eternal life that God offers.

In his talk at Catalyst, his focus is how we look at heaven. He asked this question, “What do you hope for?” His question was meant to bring to the surface what we think about when we think about heaven. How we look at heaven and what we think eternal life will be like impacts how we live now. He said if we see heaven as “the never-ending church service in the clouds,” there’s not much to get excited about. If, however, we see heaven as the place where God makes all things news, where beauty is restored, where eternity is full of adventure, then we can long for that.

In the interview, the discussion went to what keeps us from being hopeful. The contrast was made between those of us who live in the US and those who live in poverty in other countries. It seems those Christians who live in poverty, especially compared to life in the US, live with more hope. Eldredge observed that most Christians in the states aren’t as hopeful because of our stuff as much from the fact that we are numb. We are so busy with all that we have and do in life, we don’t have (or take) the time to consider eternity. This life keeps us numb to the hope that God offers.

I think that question – What do you hope for? – is a good one to consider. We weren’t made just for this life, yet so often we live as if this is it. What do we hope for? What do we think God has in store for us? How does that impact how I live now?

Belong – Believe – Behave

I was listening to the Catalyst podcast yesterday as I was driving between the house and praise team practice. As always I’m a few weeks behind on my podcast listening, but I enjoy the interviews Catalyst presents.

This particular podcast was from sometime in July and one of the interviews was with Jud Wilhite who is a pastor in Las Vegas. There were two things they talked about that I thought were especially valuable.

The first was about volunteers.  Due to the economic situation in Las Vegas, the church can’t afford to hire all the staff they would like to bring into a paid situation. So, they depend heavily on volunteers.  Jud Wilhite shared how they treat their volunteers and seek to honor them. Some of their volunteers are treated just as if they were paid staff.  He said they couldn’t do what they do without their volunteers. It was a good reminder of the importance and value of volunteers.  I am fortunate to have some great volunteers and need to make sure they are cared for and honored.

He also talked about their approach, highlighting the Belong – Believe – Behave model they seek to follow. Many times in churches, we communicate that the first thing that needs to change is how we behave.  Once we behave, then we can belong.  In Las Vegas they seek to keep the order of belong – believe – behave.  A person doesn’t have to it all together before they are welcome at church.  People are invited to have their questions answered and experience the love of God.  This leads to belief and then the change in how they behave comes as God works.  It was another reminder of how the church should operate and welcome those far from God.  It caused me to consider how we do as a church in this area and how I personally look at and treat those whose behavior is not like mine.  Sometimes I need help to keep things in order.

Good to Great

One thing my wife enjoys doing when we are running errands is to visit a Goodwill store. Now, she has hooked me on it as well. In the past couple of visits I have picked up some nice, inexpensive dress shirts. The other thing I enjoy doing at Goodwill is looking at their books. You can get a good hardcover book for just under $2. Several weeks ago I saw a copy of Good to Great for just $1.99 and I couldn’t pass it up.

Good to Great by Jim Collins has sold over one million copies and has been read by many people in the business world. As I was picking it up I knew I was way behind the curve (it was published back in 2001).

While this is written about companies in the business world, there were several principles in the book that apply to all organizations, including the church.

The first principles is the Level 5 Leader. I listen to the Catalyst podcast and they continually use the phrase Level 5 Leader. Leadership plays a huge part in any organization being successful and Collins talks about that from the very beginning of the book. He identified several people who were able to lead their companies to be great and spelled out characteristics they modeled.

Another principle from the book was “First Who, Then What.” What Collins’ research team discovered was the great companies focused first on getting the right people in place, then zeroed on what they wanted to do. Some companies he highlighted hired people who were believed to be the right people before the company knew exactly what its main focus was going to be. The people in an organization are so valuable and Collins showed how it was important to start with the people first rather than some great business strategy.

I’m sure many people have already read Good to Great and know about the principles Collins identifies. If you lead on any level in any organization and haven’t read it, it would be worth your time (especially if you find it on the rack at Goodwill!)

Power of Proximity

Last weekend as I was driving around to run some errands and hit up a girls basketball game, I was listening to some past episodes of The Catalyst Podcast. Back in January the podcast featured three interviews with individuals who had spoken at the TED Conference.

All three interviews were good, but the discussion with Bryan Stevenson really stood out to me. He leads the Equal Justice Initiative and shared these staggering statistics: In 1972, 300,000 people in the US were incarcerated. Today, there are 2.3 million. The US has 6 million people on probation and we have the highest rate of incarceration.

As he shared some of his thoughts on this issue, the gentleman doing the interview asked him how the church at large could engage with this issue. I thought his response spoke not only to this issue, but to so many more: “There is power in proximity to the things that matter.” In other words, as you get close to the issue, you are more able to understand it and be involved with it.

I thought how true that is in so many arenas of life. Once you are close to an issue, you have more compassion and awareness of it. If you have a family member go through a sickness or disease, the proximity makes you more aware of how it impacts others. I can think of many ministries, groups and causes that began because someone had a close friend or family member experience a life-changing event and it moved that person to action.

His response of the power of proximity speaks to our need to be involved in the lives of people. It can be easy to insulate ourselves, go about our routines and schedules, and miss out on what others are experiencing. While we can’t engage in every hurt and problem we see, there is something that changes in us when we experience life with others. There is power in proximity to the things that matter.