Jun
3
But first, an apology:
I burned out.
It’s what happens when you run five blogs and write over 300 blog posts on sexual purity in one year.
We had just finished Journey, we were crazy busy with finishing the documentary on sex trafficking and moving to Central America… that by the time we landed, I was totally toast.
I was empty.
But this “Sabbath Season” (sabbatical) is restoring me. I’ve got a renewed vision and a hope for the future. I’m gonna ease back into it, so here we go!
Michelle and I are living in the mountains of Mexico right now. Yet with the joys of technology, we’re able to download messages to listen to right here in our little lakeview casita.
We listened to a message two nights ago that absolutely WRECKED me. 
I wish I had learned this lesson years ago.
I wish the concept and truth had permeated my soul when I was a high school volunteer.
I wish I understood this principle when I was a youth pastor.
It’s a message that I hope and pray many of my friends will come to receive, as many of us are struggling with this very issue.
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Mar
18
In my business bachelors, I took a few leadership courses. In one of my courses, we attempted to define leadership. We came across three definitions. If you consider yourself a leader, which one are you?
Managerial Leader: meet the day-to-day, short-term objectives. Motivate workers to accomplish direct goals. These leaders are essential to get things done!
Visionary Leader: create long-term goals and objectives. Motivate a team seeing the overall perspective and pushing a team toward a long-term goal. These leaders are essential to create and cast vision for people to follow and be motivated.
Strategic Leadership is defined this way: “Influence others to voluntarily make day-to-day decisions that enhance long-term viability, while maintaining its short-term financial stability”
I was interested to take this definition of a strategic leader and apply it to church ministry. When I look at Jesus, I see Him more of a strategic leader: he cast vision & met the daily needs of people.
Here is my working definition of a Pastor (I know that having a definition for a role is kind of weird sometimes, but it helps me know what to focus on and stay focused):
“A Pastor must focus to positively influence the congregation to voluntarily pursue involvement that supports community, advances the church and glorifies God, while challenging personal growth and developing spiritual multipliers.”
I would be very interested to know your thoughts on this!
For Jesus’ Fame,
JK
Mar
11
I play Ultimate Frisbee. If you haven’t heard of it, you’re missing out. I love it! It’s my best exercise, and usually only, of my entire week. A few months back we had two pretty big games. As Captain, my role was to motivate, encourage, teach, and lead by example.
In our first game, I did none of those. We were trying new things I had taught and nothing was working. I was playing horrible and my attitude switched to silent, negative, and frustrated. What kind of a leader is that…a useless one. I recognized it near the end of the game and tried to switch back, but it was too late. We lost a game we should have won.
When I look back on that game, our entire team was more negative. There were nearly no “high-fives” going around like usual. Nothing was clicking. Attitude reflects leadership. If you’re a leader, its time you reflect on your own attitude. If you follow a leader, your voice has a major impact on your leader. Encourage and challenge that leader to be a better one!
People tell me that their favorite leader is one that lives what they teach. Is your attitude reflecting what your calling people to have? How is your attitude when you lead people? Would you want people to echo that attitude?
What are your thoughts about this?
In my second post on leadership, I will give a few definitions of leadership, followed with a potential definition of a lead pastor of a church.
For Jesus’ fame,
James Kelly (JK)
March 18th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Wondering… shouldn't a church at all three types of leaders as pastors?
March 20th, 2010 at 5:16 am
I think that one of the toughest, yet one of the most rewarding parts of being a leader (particularily as a pastor) is the part where you are motivating people to do something voluntarily. Difficult because you can’t use force when you are trying to change and impact the state of someone’s heart, but so rewarding bc you know that at the end of the day, that person made the decision voluntarily and you know it goes deep a a result.
I also like the phrase “spiritual multipliers”… I have my hunch as to what you meant by this James, but care to elaborate?
March 22nd, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Jay - I think it would be good for a church to have all three, but sometimes a church ain't big enough to have them all - in that case, I would hope they have a strategic leader rather than the other two.
Leah, Great comment and great question about spiritual multipliers (yes I know its a little christiany lingo). I had the same comment asked by someone on my blog, and here was my answer:
"First, a spiritual multiplier is energizer bunny discipleship - it keeps going and going. The idea is that if you and I hang out, and I really built into you, the hope is that you would then go out and do that with a few other people, and so on." - does that suffice?