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Humble leadership

April 27, 2012 in Leadership, Life, Spiritual with 8 Comments

What is leadership? What is greatness? How we view these two questions directly impacts how we lead. If you are working outside of ministry you may view this differently because of the many ideas, ambitions, books and goals set by the worlds standards. If we are talking about leadership in ministry, our definition must come from God’s word and greater yet, it’s defined in how Jesus himself lived and led others. If I am going to lead people in ministry, my greatest goal should be to reflect the heart and character of Christ in all I do by serving others. How do we lead with humility? Where do we find it? We find it in Christ and it all starts at the cross.

The reason humility starts at the cross is because we deserved death, but instead were given life. None of us have been chasing God since we were born, none of us as children thought, “I’d like to follow Jesus, let me stop playing with matches,” He pursued US, he chose us first. It’s the great exchange. We did nothing to merit this. You see, humility starts at the cross of Christ when we realize we, being sinners, deserved death no matter what, but he gave us eternal life instead. It delighted him to become our death so that we could share in eternal life, together. THIS revelation makes all the difference in our attitude, our heart but especially in our approach to leadership. Not that we deserved it but that he chose to give us life, forgiveness, joy, strength and the promise of his presence.

There should be no evidence of entitlement from a heart that has realized this. No sense of anger, discontent or arrogance should be aimed at anyone for something you feel you deserve because …..we deserve nothing, yet have been given everything. His grace, poured out upon us, he did this for us, he paid the ultimate price to set us free from this selfish nature. Now, as we receive it, we embrace it by living in gratitude for him, living in LOVE with him first and because of this our leadership is transformed into understanding something entirely different than that of the world. No longer a sense of “you owe me” but instead “what can I do for you?” Not an attitude of “I am the leader around here” but instead “I am here to serve, how can I help?”

Humble leadership is the real greatness Jesus always desired for us in his work, in our leadership, not the greatness the world has tried to describe to us by taking more, achieving more, gaining more and demanding more but the genuine, gentle, kind and loving leadership of a servant, that Jesus demonstrated time and time again. If we are talking about ministry here, humble leadership is a must.

One final note, if you have the gift of leadership remember one thing that is very easy to forget, God doesn’t call leaders to lead people, he calls leaders to lead HIS people, the people belong to him, each person belongs to him and when you allow this to begin to settle in your heart, as it has with mine, you realize the magnitude of this calling and so we  should “work it out with fear and trembling.“

The book on Prayer and emotions

April 26, 2012 in Leadership, Life, Ministry, Spiritual, Worship with 6 Comments

I have completed reading through every book in Psalms, including Psalm 119 (ha). What a wonderful collection of thoughts, prayers, cries, concerns, praises and emotions. No other book for me, except Psalms teaches us how to deal with emotional stress and labor. We deal with people everyday, our emotions can become wounded and drained, other times they can be refreshed and renewed. King David finally helps us understand how to properly deal with emotions. The standard approach in the church world for emotions can be…”suppress them, no matter what you feel, just remain positive”..there is some truth to that. The standard approach in the world can be the other extreme “Say what you feel, just let it all out”..this can be liberating to the person and harmful to the listener. David understood something that really kept him close to the Lord, no matter what or how he felt towards life or people, he would “pour out” his concerns and complaints before God, then he would always praise God regardless of what he was feeling. It was the combination of sorts, be honest about how you feel but speak truth over yourself. This particular chapter in Psalms 142 captures this approach:

 I pour out my complaints before him
and tell him all my troubles. When I am overwhelmed,
you alone know the way I should turn.
Wherever I go,my enemies have set traps for me. I look for someone to come and help me,
but no one gives me a passing thought! No one will help me; no one cares a bit what happens to me. Then I pray to you, O LORD.I say, “You are my place of refuge. You are all I really want in life”

Notice how david starts his prayer…and how he ends it. This is how we need to learn how to deal with emotional stress and labor in prayer, pouring out honestly what we feel To God alone, to God first, then giving God praise and speaking truth over ourselves.

Insecurity signs

April 25, 2012 in Family, Leadership, Life, Ministry with 4 Comments

We get our identity from Christ, not in what we do. Leadership is something I do, just like music but it isn’t who I am. When we begin to worship what we do instead of the God, whom we do it all for, we misplace our identity and begin take our focus off of God and unto ourselves, this ultimately leads us to place our security in our abilities, in what we are doing instead of on our savior, who calls and sustains us in all we do. We get vision and mission from God and sometimes we can take our eyes off and lose our sense of worth. So, here are four general signs you just might be suffering, dare I say it?………from insecurity.

1. Control- Hands on everything, not delegating anything, won’t allow anyone to do something of significance or won’t release anyone to take over a responsibility in an area of impact. If someone pushes back on your idea you get offended and consider them to be against you, your idea usually has to be the final idea or you have to have the final say.

2. Spotlight- You have to take the credit, you have to prove yourself as often as possible, your Insecurity drives you to fear losing favor with people or your influence so if a meeting has to take place, if there is a major event, you can pretty much be sure that you HAVE to be the leader. If there is an agenda, YOU have to lead it.

3. Jealousy- Normally, if you have talented, capable leaders, you are afraid to let them “do their thing” usually “their way.” You find it hard to celebrate the achievements of others, if so they are very short lived. You normally have a spirit of criticism and choose to speak negative words, you try and emphasize what YOU would do and how YOU would do it as if it were the best and only way.

4. Discouragement- Your prefer those around you to be afraid or feel intimidated, you threaten to “fire” or “dismiss” someone who doesn’t see eye to eye with you. You don’t welcome different perspectives, you use your words to tear down instead of building up. You normally respond and communicate in a very negative way. Ultimately you don’t see the full value or potential for those you lead, you see them as “usable tools” or people who are just working for you and can easily be replaced if they won’t stick to your rules.

Leaders have issues, this is a given, we are all in process but let’s call it as it is. These types of behaviors are negative in nature, they do not reflect the character of God and above all they don’t build up anyone, if anything, selfishness is at the core of almost every attribute listed above. We are to be selfless, we are to be servants, bold yes, courageous yes but with the attitude of Christ, demonstrating his love in everything we do. Above all, when God calls us, he calls us to lead HIS people, we are accountable to HIM for this calling and just thinking about that part of it long enough….should cause you to tremble just a bit.

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