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Archive for the ‘Leadership’ Category

Sowing Seeds

There is an older Chevrolet commercial set on a highway running through a cornfield.  The opening scene shows a close up of the pavement with one kernel of corn laying there.  After a few seconds, the kernel begins to vibrate and then suddenly it is catapulted into the air where it miraculously morphs into a Suburban, which hits the ground running.  As it drives off, the camera pans back down to another kernel that follows suit, but it turns into an Avalanche pick up.  Soon, one vehicle after another is “popping” onto the highway.  As the vehicles begin to appear, they form a line moving the same direction down the road.  They begin, one after the other to pass an old Chevrolet farm truck driving the same direction down the road.  As the vehicles pass, the camera zooms in on the open bed of the old truck.  There in the back is a large gunnysack of corn seed spilled over into the bed.  The commercial ends with a flood of kernels spilling out of the back of the truck onto the highway.

As I sat and watched that commercial and pondered the message of the old truck spreading the seed and the resulting “lineage” of newer vehicles popping up, I began to see this as a metaphor for our own Christian heritage.

Our existence is dependent on the many who have been here before us.  Our heritage is one of seeds, spread out over time and space.  In turn the future is dependent on the seeds we sow.

What kind of seeds are your spreading?  Where are you sowing them?

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I just finished a book recently by Clay Shirky entitled, Here Comes Everybody.  The book deals with issues around technology and social networking.  There is a lot of information and challenging thoughts in the book but one of the things I took away from it was that as a leader, I should be developing my network.  Let me  explain.

Development of a network does not mean growing the number of contacts you have exponentially.  For example, I tweet (you can follow me at @jbrianhill on Twitter).  I get a couple of followers per day who are using online tools to gain followers.  When I look at their follow and follower counts and the numbers are over 10,000, then I know that they have no desire to really connect with me as part of their network, they are just trying to see how many followers they can get. So I choose not to follow them back.  The result of my choice is that in a day or two, they quit following me as well.  But what is the point of all of that?

Development of a network should be about pouring yourself into others to develop them.  As an employee or a member of an organization, if you are not working to contribute to the goals of that organization then you really hold no value to the organization.  But as a leader, if you are not contributing to the organization by investing in those whom you lead, then you are not relevant and even worse, possibly a detriment to the organization.

What are you going to do to develop your network today?  When you take the time, the dividends are huge!

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Leaders aren’t born, they form.  I truly believe that statement.  Certainly, people are born with certain skills, passion and gifts that help them down the road to leadership, but much of what makes a leader is learned and experienced.

The most important key to leadership is trust.  Do people trust you?  There are libraries of leadership books that will give you all kinds of formulas and ideas for leading people.  But if the people you lead cannot trust you, nothing is going to work.

So how do you build trust?  First, realize that trust does not come with title and position.  Sure, you will begin a new position with some “leadership change” in your pocket, as John Maxwell has said.  You will be given a little trust up front simply because people will give you the benefit of the doubt.  But that is not going to carry you far.

There are volumes written on this subject, but today I want to leave you with two ideas to think about as they relate to building trust.  The first is that people need to know that you truly and sincerely care about them – and that takes time.

The second is that you need to be transparent and vulnerable.  People need to see that you are real and authentic.  When you mess up, and you will, admit it, learn from it and go on.

People will trust someone who really cares and is authentic; and people will follow a leader they can trust.

Lead well today!

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This morning I spent some time looking back through Brian McClaren’s book, Finding Our Way Again.  The book deals with regaining a sense of the contemplative life – the life that spends time in the interior aspects of our being.  McClaren does a great job reminding us that our focus on our relationship with God is not an end in and of itself – our relationship with God serves as the platform from which God affects the world.  At the close of one of the chapters I had written this prayer in a blank spot on the page – it is my prayer today and I hope it could be your prayer too.

Father – I am utterly inadequate to be an apostle.  Mold me through your word, your touch, your community – into one empowered by your Spirit – committed to making a difference around me in my world.  Not only in the lives of my family and friends but also in the lives of strangers – even in the lives of enemies!  An apostle!

Amen

Be blessed today!

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When I was 12, I played baseball – first base.  I really enjoyed it but my career came to a close one afternoon when a fast grounder came right down the first base line.  It was coming so fast I had to field it behind the first base bag.  You guessed it, it hit the bag and popped up and hit me in the right eye.  I really don’t remember what happened next.  I remember regaining my senses in the dugout and hearing these words, “That’s gonna leave a mark.”  It did – along with astigmatism I still suffer with today.

I have the opportunity to speak to a group of college students today at noon.  One of the things I want to relate to them is appropriate for us to think about today as well.

Do you want to leave a mark on the world?  At the end of your life, do you want your eulogy to include, “the world is a better place because of  . . . (insert your name)?”

If so, here is something for you to think about today.  Maybe instead for thinking “I want to leave my mark on the world,” maybe the better aspiration would be, “I want to allow God to leave a mark on the world through me.”

The question I have been asking myself over the last week is “whose mark am I trying to leave?”

Leave a mark today!

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Daring Humility

One of the books I am reading right now is titled, Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith, by Shane Hipps.  In this book, Hipps spends a chapter discussing how our perception often shapes our reality.  In fact, if the truth be told, we build our lives around what believe to be true.  And of course, that is how it should be.

But what happens when we realize that some element we have always believed to be true turns out to be false?

Stay with me – I promise I am not out in left field.  But here is what I want us to see today – we should live our lives built on the truth as best we understand it.  But when our understanding of truth becomes an arrogant certainty, we have gone too far.

Hipps uses a great phrase to remind us of where we stand with this issue of holding our ground when it comes to our beliefs:  daring humility.  He says this:

Daring humility is honest enough to admit that we see things in a mirror dimly, and bold enough to live a life of deep conviction anyway.

While we need to admit we do not have all the answers, we need to hold fast to what we believe.

Practice daring humility today!

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Who Do You Doubt?

We are into our second week of the study, “In The Dust of the Rabbi,” on Wednesday nights.  Last night we had a good bit of discussion around one particular Bible story.  You can read the story here.

The setting was the Sea of Galilee and the disciples in a boat, caught in a storm.  Jesus came walking along as if this was a normal thing and said something to the effect, “Hey guys, what’s up?”  Well, something like that.

When the disciples figured out who was out on the water, Peter wanted to join him.  He asked Jesus to call him out of the boat.  Jesus did and so Peter stepped out on the water – not in the water, on the water – he was doing it!

The problem came when he took his eyes off Jesus and focused his attention on the waves and wind.  He began to sink and called out to Jesus to save him.  I have written about this story before – you can read that post here – but today, the point I want to make is a little different.

What was Jesus’ response when Peter called out for Jesus to save him?  “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  Now I have always read this story and thought, “Peter was doubting Jesus.”  But think about it.  Was Peter really doubting Jesus?

Jesus was still standing on the water – he wasn’t sinking!  So why would he be doubting Jesus if Jesus is still standing there?  I think he was doubting himself and the calling Jesus gave him to step out of the boat.  I don’t think it was an accident that the disciple in this story is Peter – the bold one.

Jesus used this experience to illustrate the importance of being bold in our faith.  If Jesus has called each of us to follow him (and he has) then why should we doubt?  Jesus is still standing!

Jesus has a plan for each of us – it is his plan – it can’t fail.  So be bold in the way you step out of the boat today – or do you still doubt?

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As  a minister, it is not uncommon for a children’s class to do some project to show their appreciation for the church staff.  Several years ago, one of our children’s classes did just that.  They made book marks from regular copy paper.  On the paper they wrote a verse and included some artwork along with a three word reminder.

It still hangs above my desk on my bulletin board.  The verse comes from Hebrews 13:7 and says, “Remember your leaders who have spoken God’s word to you.  As you carefully observe the outcome of their lives, imitate their faith.”  Below the verse is a hand-drawn cross and the symbol of the fish.  Then below the multi-colored artwork is this phrase, “Follow the Leader.”

What a humbling reminder that children (adults as well) are watching what I do and how I live as a model for their own faith.  Knowing myself as I do, at times I want to say, “Don’t look to me.”  But I know that God planned the Christian community this way – to learn from and lean on one another.  I also realize that as a minister, for better or worse, I am more in the spot light than many.  So I am tremendously humbled.

But as I think about this reality today, I also know that who I want people to see in me is Jesus.  So while the children who made this bookmark for me were telling me that they are watching me so as to imitate my faith, I must always be watching Jesus to be able to imitate him.

Who are you watching today?

Follow the Leader!

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In leadership positions we must learn the importance of seizing opportunities.  We train ourselves to be sensitive to those opportunities when they arise because we know that, normally, opportunities are time sensitive.  With most opportunities there is a window.

As I think about all the windows of opportunity I am faced with on a daily basis – opportunities to reach out to others, to show Jesus’ love to them, to grow to be more of the leader God wants me to be – I am reminded that windows not only offer a view of what is on the other side of the glass.

Have you ever noticed that while you are looking out a window, you not only see what is outside but also a reflection of what is on your side of the glass as well?  The lighting has to be just right for this to happen, but it requires you to concentrate on what is on the other side of the glass because you are having to look through the images reflecting on it.

The reflection we see when we look out windows is who?  Ourselves (unless you live in a different plane of existence)!  I would suggest to you that opportunities arise each and every day – all kinds of opportunities.  But the real issue is what is in the mirror not the window.

In every window of opportunity, there is also a mirror.  What we have to remember is that regardless of the opportunity, the responsibility to seize that opportunity falls squarely to the image in the mirror.

Get busy!

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God Desires Unity

God loves you – God desperately wants a relationship with you – so much so that God became a man and lived among people in order to build that relationship.  None of this is new news really.  All of us have heard the Christmas story most likely.

But have you ever come to grips with the truth that just as God wants a relationship with you and with me, God wants each of us to have a relationship with one another!  I don’t know about you, but that causes me to pause.  The thought that our relationships with each other are just as important to God as our individual relationships with the Almighty.

John 17:20-23 tells us that Jesus prayed that we would be one as he and God are one.  Why?  So that the rest of the world would see that unity and be drawn to God.

Jesus wants us to be unified – one body.  Now we all know that there are divisions among God’s people.  But do you think that brings honor and glory to God – does it draw others to the One who desires us all to be one?

In reality, we are human – we have different likes and dislikes, different ideas and different ways of doing things.  Diversity is a good thing.  But when we focus on what divides to the detriment of what unites, we have lost our way.

What separates you from other followers of the Way?  In the grand scheme of eternity, do those things that separate really matter?

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