Category Archives: Blog

The Most Important Person to Lead is Yourself

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Having been in church planting for 28 years I have not only shot myself in the foot numerous times, but also watched other perfectly competent leaders do the same. While I don’t know who came up with the title for today’s blog, I do know that it is true.
Here are four ways we can lead ourselves:

* Lead yourself in the ways of God. As one recent church planting leader said, “If I don’t have my relationship with God right, nothing else will be right.” You would think that we would learn this lesson early on, but the number of 50 year old pastors who are still struggling with this leads me to conclude that it is a lifelong battle to be fought.

o Make a leadership choice to connect more fully to Jesus today.

* Lead yourself in overcoming fears. When we get scared we have three typical responses—Fight, flight or freeze. It takes careful leadership to have a thoughtful, prayerful response to a frightening set of circumstances. Saying, “I will walk by faith in my God in this instance” requires a leadership choice.

o Make a leadership choice to confront that situation that is causing your fear this week.

* Lead yourself in breaking new ground. The default mode of human nature is to walk by sight- to return to the safe place. But just like the church that says, “We’ve never done it that way before” so a leader who always returns to what has worked in the past without considering the future has limited the reach of his leadership.

o Make a leadership choice to try one new thing in the next thirty days.

* Lead yourself into replenishment. Often as leaders we think that green pastures and still waters are for those we preach to, but they will never make it there if we don’t model what that looks like. If the leader sets the standard of workaholism—read skips her day off, the all who follow or report to that leader will do the same. Taking a Sabbath day, affirms our belief that God is in control of our church plant and that He is Lord.

o Make a leadership choice to take care of yourself better (rest, exercise, or vacation) this year.

Your spiritual, mental and physical health as a leader will determine your effectiveness. The better you lead yourself the more effective you will be in leading others God has placed in your sphere of influence. Go ahead, lead! Lead yourself, lead your family, lead your church plant. Lead, because God cares what you do.

This post originally appeared on www.churchplanting.com.

 

Two Keys to Relational Momentum

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In my experience, one of the Holy Grails of church planting is relational momentum – more people bringing more people who bring more people. In the end it’s not about more people, it’s about more and better disciples, but you can’t really get there without relational momentum.

 

How do you get it?
First, build relationships. This doesn’t happen by accident, especially in a culture of isolation. Building relationships requires intentionality. It’s not enough to hang out at the coffee shop, or in the neighborhood, or at the gym. You have to do these things in a way that results in relationships not just a random encounters.

  • Go to the same coffee shop at the same day and time.
  • Learn when people in your neighborhood our outside and be outside at that time.
  • Don’t just go to the gym, invite people around to you to work out together.
  • Teach and train the people on mission with you to do the same.
  • Second, create communities. A community is just a group of people in relationship with each other.
  • It could be really small, like 4 people who play tennis together once a week.
  • It could be bigger like 30 people who get together every week to grill meat and watch the football game.
  • You can build communities around common interests, missional causes, or spiritual practices.

Here is the key, if you want to see relational momentum, you must do both. You must build relationships and create communities. If all you do is build relationships you will quickly run out of relational capacity. If all you do is create communities you’ll just keep the same people so busy doing stuff they won’t have time to build relationships. Do them both and you can create relational momentum that fuels more people becoming better disciples.

The Art of Making the Ask

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Whether God has given you a vision for a neighborhood, a city, or a whole country, effectively reaching people far from Him and helping them become the Church is eventually going to require more time, talent or money than you have.

 

You can’t do this alone, which means you need to master the art of the ask. Practicing these three pieces will help you be ready.

  • Tell a Story – preferably an exciting one.
    There is some event or experience or both that God used to grab your heart and compel you to go all in. That story is the why. Telling it well connects other peoples heart to your heart and together to God’s heart.
  • Paint a picture – preferably an inviting one.
    There is a future God’s put on your heart to make real. That picture is the where. Painting it well makes people want to go there with you.
  • Describe the Steps – preferably simple ones.
    There is a way to get from where you are to where God is calling you go. Those steps are the how. Describing them clearly gives people steps to take.

Can you think of someone God has given time, talent or treasure that could help reach the people you care about? Tell the story. Paint the picture. Describe the steps. Make the ask.

Paradox of Proximity

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In the last year I’ve had the privilege of traveling in my country and out of my country, to big cities like Los Angeles and London and smaller towns like Caldwell Texas and Cinque Terre in Italy. I have observed a paradox of proximity. The farther apart people live the more likely they are to know each other. Conversely, the closer together people live the more likely they are to be strangers.

Walk the streets of a densely populated city like LA or London – almost any time of day or night – there are people everywhere and they are all strangers. Walk the streets of a small town like Caldwell or Cinque Terre – where people may live miles apart – they all seem to know each other.

Where in the paradox do you live? Who has God sent you to reach?

  • If you’re in a densely populated city, are you finding that presence alone is enough to build relationships?
  • If you’re in a sparsely populated area, are you able to build relationships just by showing up?

Whichever reality you’re in – how are you’re working with relational environment, not against it, to be effective on mission?