Category Archives: Leadership/Management

Books I have read: Who Stole My Church

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who-stole-my-church

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been reading Who Stole My Church by Gordon MacDonald.  Travelling back from the Digital Children conference at Cliff College I had a chance to finish it on the train.  The concept of the book is a story, a narrative of an imaginary church in a New England town which examines issues and tensions that are experienced as a church goes on a journey of change.

During the narrative we see the Pastor of the Church meeting with a group of older people for a “Discovery Group” exploring their concerns and frustrations with change ranging from worship, name of the church, prayer, mission and more.  Through the story I could recognise many of the characters in the people I have met in the four churches I have worked in.  It reminded me of the fables that Patrick Lencioni has so brilliantly written.

I borrowed this book from my library but enjoyed it so much that I’ve added it to my wish list.  It is a book that I would come back to several times to think how am I sharing vision, how am I enabling people to fill ownership of decisions, and some really interesting thoughts on how to bring different generations together in church something that I will reflect on more here on the blog in the coming days.

Spring Harvest: Lead Zone – part 2

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Here are my notes from part 2 of the Lead Zone by Debra Green & Mark Madavan

Debra:

  • Youth worker at Altrincham Baptist church – saw real growth from 30 to over 200.
  • Then went to IVY Manchester, been there for 20 years – was first female elder – took five years for women to get onto the Eldership.
  • Leading Redeeming Communities – was going to be a North West charity, became national and about to come international.
  • Key is having a go, never had a formal theology training, got a diploma in clinical and pastoral counselling.

Mark:

  • Involved in youth groups.
  • Led a semi-professional drama team for four and a half years.
  • Theological college
  • Became Associate at Andover Baptist Church for 6 years.
  • Lead Loxley Heath with 350 people through doors on Sunday, 800 come through for other activities – been there for 10 years.  Have 150-200 youth and over 300 under 11s.
  • Been a school governor for a school with 1,700 pupils.
  • Looking to buy a warehouse and do a £4 million refurb.

You join because you’re really passionate about it but then hit all the red tape.

Present to God

Reflecting on Mary & Martha – are we happy to be, reflect and to sit with the Lord or are you working out your faith, activist.  p. 47, Timothy Keller quote on our default position.  We often try to emulate the leaders we look up to.  Coming to terms with who we are in Christ, being me, and letting God affirm us in that.  If we copy it’s not us and we will fail.  The key is loving yourself and enjoying that.  “I am special as God loved me…”.

We teach things as leaders, but we need to take time out to reflect on these things time and time again.  We can lead by experience, on automatic pilot, and forget that we’re special and loved by God.  So often we doubt ourselves, is it matching up to someone else.  We get into that trap as leaders.

So we need to focus on the rhythm of prayer – being present to God.  Allowing God to shape me and mould me.  To know what God is speaking into our lives.  We can lead from that, being fruitful for Him from that.

Paula Gooder quote on p. 52.  We forget who we are and find it difficult to receive.  Take some time out to be, to be present to God.  To sit and notice the things around us.  Look at Mystically Wired: Exploring New Realms in Prayer and Cave Refectory Road: monastic rhythms for contemporary living.

CWR asked church leaders what was their most important priority – most said prayer, but the next question said what takes the most and least amount of time in the diary and the least was prayer.

Besides a crisis what inspires you to pray?  We turn to God in the crises as it is all we can do, but what else helps us to pray.

  • Pray when we’re outside – as we’re visual people – being moved by God
  • Guilt – you get so busy, it makes you feel guilty and so you pray
  • Pray when writing a new song
  • Community Prayer Experience – prayer communities meeting regularly with particular topics linked to the venue.
  • Silent prayer – not about effort but consent – about us sitting there and consenting – say a word or picture when distracted it refocuses your mind on God.
  • Don’t judge your prayer – give thanks for spending time – you don’t know what it will do or mean.
  • Julian group after Julian of Norwich – spending 30 minutes in silence – a scripture passage to use as an option.
  • Park as far as away from the office as you can.
  • Prayer walk where say thank you prayers – we get into ask me prayers too often.
  • Who needs encouragement in your church – pray for them?
  • Pray during the gardening – active and close to nature!
  • Purposely pray in the gaps.

SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP – Psalm 42 – Be still and know that I am God

Pete Greig, God on Mute

500 More Prayers for All Occasions

Present in the world

First name?

Age?

Where you are from?  Complicated question – origins, where you were born, where you live now, your church …

Being in the presence of God is linked to wherever you are – not just where you are from.  Outside of Butlins you have family, social life, work and more.  “God moved into the neighbourhood”.  When you moved into your neighbourhood, God moved into your neighbourhood.  There is such a connection of God’s presence and where people are.

We need to reflect on this.  We expect God’s presence at church. or our cell group, do we expect God’s presence to be in Butlins outside of Spring Harvest, what about work or your grocery shopping.  Do you expect to be with God in those places.  If truth be told you are expecting God in more areas than others.

One of the biggest challenges that we face in the West in consumerism – we shop for our faith and encounters of God.  We go round a big shopping centre but only visit our favourite shops.  We look for God in our favourite places.  God in his grace does meet us there.  But the truth is God is in your neighbourhood and God wants you to encounter his presence in the different areas.  The danger is it is a lot of heartache when it goes wrong, but the good news is that God is with us in it.  When we go to school, work, the community centre, we’re with the Good News!

“My work place is my ministry place, so I don’t need to serve at church”  Discuss  Do you also expect the church to provide quality Sunday services, children’s work, youth work etc.

  • Pints of View – men’s ministry
  • Brew Crew – Refreshments Team
  • Sacred secular divide is false // Children asking leaders
  • God, home, work then church

How to Spot a Weak Argument

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Daniel Dennett on how to spot a weak argument:

When you’re reading or skimming argumentative essays, especially by philosophers, here is a quick trick that may save you much time and effort, especially in this age of simple searching by computer: look for “surely” in the document, and check each occurrence. Not always, not even most of the time, but often the word “surely” is as good as a blinking light locating a weak point in the argument.

Surely, we should be careful when making our case to others!

10 Signs of a Healthy Team

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Teamwork - crossword - Healthy Teams

I loved this post over on The Resurgence blog adapted from Perry Noble’s blog on some great signs of a healthy team – something I want to come back to time and again:

1. You actually enjoy being around one another instead of trying to find ways to avoid each other.

2. Truth is spoken in love and not in a condescending or condemning way.

3. There is an atmosphere of freedom where differences of opinion can be shared without the immediate perception that the person who is disagreeing is somehow disloyal. (BTW, if you are in a meeting and you disagree mentally then you have an obligation to disagree verbally! If you do not feel that freedom then there is a problem!)

4. People are willing to walk into the room and ask for help rather than put off the perception that they have it all together.

5. No one is trying to prove themselves.

6. Everyone in the room values the opinions of everyone in the room.

7. There can be disagreements without the fear of relationships being destroyed.

8. The entire group is focused on attacking the problems in the room and not the people in the room!

9. People embrace responsibility rather than cast blame.

10. People work through tension honestly rather than saying nothing is wrong and then walking out of the meeting and tearing apart those with whom they disagreed.

Books I have read: I am a follower

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I am a follower

Too often in the culture of church we focus on leadership and growth models – we have seminars, books, models, techniques, tools, study guides, celebrities and more.  I Am A Follower by Leonard Sweet challenges the church that their priority is on following Jesus.

“I Am A Follower” is a new kind of book about leadership paradigms.  Its goal is not to establish the five most prominent attributes of a leader nor is it a tutorial on how to become a great leader.  Rather, its premise is based on the idea that the best “leaders” point to the true Leader and that we need to recommit ourselves to loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength so that Jesus can live his resurrection way, truth, and life in and through us.

The book is divided into four parts. In the first section, the author states his case for rejecting leadership development and instead focusing on pursuing true discipleship.  The book invites us on a journey as author Leonard Sweet wrestles with John 14:6: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  What does it mean for us that Jesus did not simply show us the way or what truth is or how to live life, but that He Himself is the very Way, the very Truth, and the very Life?  As Sweet says:

Following Jesus’ lead, this book is organized into three parts to reflect Jesus’ three-part story: the way, the truth, and the life. When we focus on the world’s view of leadership, being a Christian becomes more about blazing our own trail than tracking Another’s footsteps, more about being happy than knowing truth, more about creating a guide to living than accepting the gift of life. When we focus on followership, however, a whole new template for the life of faith pops up:

    • To follow Jesus is to be in the right mission—the way: missional living.
    • To follow Jesus is to be in the right relationships—the truth: relational living.
    • To follow Jesus is to be in the right future—the life: incarnational living.

This seems to be a natural progression that Jesus proposed: first belonging (way), then believing (truth), then behaving (life).

This book, as with all Leonard Sweet books, is deeply challenging, and while I struggled with his over use of semantics, for example, replacing the word “leader” for “first follower”, I wholeheartedly agree with Sweet’s assessment of leadership infatuation within the church and culture.

As always, Sweet has a brilliant and artistic way with his words that captivates the reader throughout the pages.  More important than his artistic style, the heart of the book is challenging to the core.  I would absolutely recommend this book to any person: “leader” and “non-leader” alike.  Our primary goal is not to accumulate more followers of our ideas and thoughts (and Sweet certainly does not intend to earn followers of his own); rather, we have been called to follow Christ.  Are you ready to leave the mindset of leadership and enter in the relationship of following?  If so, “I Am A Follower” is a must-read for you.

Top Tips: Start on Time

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I loved Nicholas Bates’ post on Presentation Tips : Start on Time, quite obvious, but easy to forget:

Start on time to reward those who turn up on time, to be able to manage your schedule and because it might be impossible to wait for everybody. But how do you cope with the problem of latecomers missing part of your message? Offer 100% value from the start but ensure that it is not integral to your argument until say 5/10 minutes in. Then ‘on-timers’ are rewarded with extra ideas. You get into the flow. And late-comers have enough to pick up the story. Start on time.

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