Monthly Archives: June 2012

June 27, 2012 · 10:08 am

Wednesday Wondering: Could the TOMS model work for Christian education?

Every now and then, I get a random idea that doesn’t leave my brain for weeks. Almost 2 months ago, I wrote two blogs on the gospel, Christian parenting, & education options. I received a lot of positive feedback on both of them, and it led me to continue thinking through how certain models of education that parts of the church pursue could be moved toward improving education amongst the poor.

Poor areas of the city are notorious for poor education scores and in great need of investment that goes beyond what government can provide. Only the church has the long-lasting motivation of the never-changing God and His gospel of hope and salvation that can sustain long-term transformation.

There are quite a few families in the church that are pursuing homeschooling alternatives and classical Christian education. This has led me to wonder how the benefits of these can be leveraged to improve the quality of education in our cities. While I believe the church must engage in the public schools and assist students in need, I also wonder how these families and Christian education providers could partner together to serve their city.

The TOMS Model

TOMS Shoes was founded by Blake Mycoskie in 2006 after he traveled and connected with children in Argentina that had no shoes to protect their feet. The company matches every pair of shoes purchased with a pair of new shoes for a child in need. According to their website they have “given over 1,000,000 pairs of new shoes to children in need around the world.”

Whatever your view of TOMS shoes, it’s obvious that they are a business created to bless people around the world. In the same way they have blessed kids with shoes, they are now seeking to bless the world by improving eyesight through selling sunglasses.

Why not for Christian education?

This has me wondering if the same idea could be applied to Christian education, whether it is private schools, homeschooling, or classical Christian education options, similar to Veritas.

Christian families that seek to embody the gospel of Jesus Christ desire that their children know God, have a great education, and share Jesus with the world through declaring the gospel and demonstrating it through mercy and justice. Many of them pursue these education opportunities to do just that.

What if these curriculum providers partnered with local families to provide curriculum and resources at a different cost to provide a better alternative to schooling? Much of the content has already been created and the information technology today provides an opportunity to distribute this content in innovative ways that reduce cost.

Could parents pay a little more than usual and curriculum providers partner for merciful engagement of one of the biggest needs in our day? Each homeschooling or classical Christian educating family could participate in the education of another child in their area. This invites Christian families to take ownership of the education of those around them, seeking to extend the benefits they receive from education to others.

I know that Christian private schools provide a limited number of discounted tuition and scholarships, but what if the pricing structure changed for these schools, co-ops, and classical Christian schools to seek renewal of a city through education? The church’s mission is to participate in the gospel of Jesus Christ as it renews broken systems, structures, and institutions just as it addresses personal needs.

Education is one of these systems and institutions in need of innovation and investment from the church.

Bob Lupton in his book, Theirs is The Kingdom, writes about how his family and church’s investment in a local public school transformed the grades in that school.

Four years later, when the children of Slaton Elementary School took the California Achievement Test, a national standardized test, parents and teachers alike were overwhelmed at the result. The average test score was in the seventy-second percentile, an increase of more than forty percentage points!

I genuinely believe that the church is a powerful force in addressing injustice and can do so especially well in education. My hope is that churches invest in public schools as well, but I also know that the gospel of Jesus Christ can be displayed through every schooling option.

This is a great time of opportunity for the church to think innovatively in how they can meet the needs of their neighborhood.

I wonder if the TOMS model could be an opportunity for Christian education in seeking to improve the quality of education that the poor and marginalized receive. It could be a great partnership between the church, Christian families, and Christian schooling providers to renew a broken area of our society that is in desperate need.

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June 21, 2012 · 10:37 am

Discipleship Myth: Age = Ability

This could and might come across like an arrogant young guy (which I can be), but as I have read the scriptures, listened to some consistent complaints, I can’t help but wonder if we are forming our theology of discipleship around scriptural principles or personal preference.  I also want to be quick to say that I value the wisdom of those with more life experience.

I desperately need it and if there were more older men and women who were discipling in the church, my assumption is that we would be better off.  We desperately need men and women who are older to remind us of the truth of God, to disciple us through their wisdom, and continue to guide us with their advice. I absolutely believe that multiple generations of God-centered people in community with one another truly embody God’s design of the body of Christ.

I’ve heard this complaint so many times that we can’t really have discipleship happening because we lack older men and women to do it. It also seems impossible to avoid in church planting circles when the average age seems to be early to mid-30s. Not exactly seasoned veterans right?

It seems that people have an idolatry of the aged thinking that an individual must be above a certain age to be listened to, to be followed. The scriptures and church history tell us another story. Psalm 119 declares that observing the precepts and scriptures of God makes one wiser than the aged. John Calvin, who is arguably one of the best teachers in church history, was 27 when he wrote his Institutes. Martin Luther was 34 when he nailed the Ninety-Five Thesis to the front of the Cathedral. Charles Spurgeon started preaching the largest Baptist church in London at 20. It wasn’t their age that qualified them for leadership in the church nor was it their age that disqualified them.

Are we looking for the wrong things when it comes to who can or should disciple us?

Again, there is nothing wrong with seeking the wisdom of older men and women. In fact, it is greatly needed, but to claim that a church is lacking discipleship because of lack of these older men and women is incorrect. It’s a myth.

So what should we look for in someone to disciple us?

Follow Christ-Like Character at any age

In Paul’s letter to Timothy, he anticipates the pushback that Timothy will give him about stepping into leadership. Timothy knows his age will be a question mark, but Paul’s charge to him in 1 Timothy 4 is to not let anyone look down on his age, but in all areas to set a Christ-like example.

When the same letter from Paul asks Timothy (a young guy remember) to appoint elders and deacons the bulk of the criteria is character that displays Christ to the world. In discipleship, we aren’t merely looking for people with more years than us; we’re looking for people with godly character and wisdom from the scriptures.

Follow Sound Teaching & Life Combined

In addition to character, Paul turns Timothy’s attention to his doctrine as well for a reason for leadership. If the word of God is truly the authority for the Christian, than discipleship is a leader who teaches the truths of the word of God and not merely worldly wisdom and advice. It doesn’t neglect wisdom and advice, but its emphasis is on sound theology.

Why is this?

Theology and behavior are forever linked. When we understand who God is and what He values, we learn what we should value. The scriptures also indicate that until we love God and His ways, we won’t live for them; if God captures our attention, our lives will be shaped by His will and His ways.

Follow Someone Who Recognizes and Repents of Their Sin

Discipleship that involves life and doctrine will inevitable reveal where the leader is falling short in one of these categories. As I was discipled, I learned a lot of doctrine, but I can attest to being most impacted by the humility of those who have led me to acknowledge the areas of their life where God is asking them to repent and change.

My aim in discipling other men is to model for them this idea. Truth learned is essential and valuable, but truth applied in repentance is worth following because it points to Christ as the only perfect one.

Discipleship Implications

This has massive implications for discipleship.

The value a single man or young married brings to the table for an older father can be immense if his character is embodying godliness. The authority that younger and older men or women stand on is their life experience (which varies) but on the Word of God (which doesn’t vary).

This will force us to confront the preference of learning from someone in or above our life stage. This is hard for us, but it is good for us to acknowledge that it’s hard for us to learn from those younger, but we need it since we are unable to be right in every circumstance.  They may not be able to help us in a specific situation we face, but they may be most valuable in pointing us to the truth that ultimately guides that specific situation.

The gospel of Jesus Christ and the word of God have the ability to make one wiser than the aged. If we believe the word of God, then we have to deal with discipleship myths that don’t match up with scripture and embrace God’s ideas over our own.

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June 13, 2012 · 11:16 am

What will you be known for when you’re 65?

This is the question I’ve been asking myself lately.

I tend towards being ambitious and wanting to achieve great things, but after I preach a sermon, counsel someone, or discuss missional communities with another pastor I do some self-analysis about my end goals.

My ambition leads me to want to be a great pastor, even the best pastor for my church. It leads me to want to be a respected voice in the missional community conversation about leading a church towards being a gospel-centered community on mission. I want to impact my neighborhood, make a dent in the cycle of poverty around where we live, and see those I love believe that Jesus Christ really did die for them and resurrected to give them a joyful life despite current circumstances. I moved my family to New York to be a part of a church-planting church and I wanted to be a part of planting and starting new churches that connect people to God and one another.

When I was an engineer, I wanted to be the best urban planner and be a great manager at my company, leading our company toward designing great cities that benefitted the community. None of these are bad ambitions. In fact, I think they are great ambitions.

While none of the ambitions I have had for pursuing ministry have died, I have asked myself if these things are ultimate for my life, specifically in regards to my family. As I think about what I’m giving my time and thoughts to on a regular basis, I’m looking ahead multiple decades to evaluate how my time now will yield results later.

I am blessed, by God, with an amazing wife and 3 truly remarkable children that blow me away constantly. As my Eli finishes his first year in kindergarten, my Calvin starts pre-kindergarten and my little lady, Mya, starts talking and acting like a big girl, it feels like I’m going to wake up tomorrow and they will be grown.

So I’ve been evaluating, do I want to be known as a great pastor, a great missional community thinker, and missionary to the point that my kids will only know me as that as well? Will my sons or daughter say, “My dad was a great pastor, but that’s where he spent his life.”

I do not believe that they are mutually exclusive. I don’t believe that I have to fully sacrifice my family to be great at my calling as a pastor. I’m currently pursuing both and currently (check back later) feel as though our family has a healthy rhythm of life. I also don’t believe that I have to sacrifice all of ministry to be a great husband and father.

But if they were mutually exclusive, where would I lean? If I could only be known for one thing when I’m 65, what do I want to be known for?

I continue to be more resolved and hopeful that my kids will want to bring their grandkids around me because I was a great father to them. More resolved that my wife would consider me a great friend and lover. My hope is that I’m known by my kids as a great father, pastor to our home, friend, teacher, and someone who was concerned with what they were concerned with and interested in their ideas and interests.

And yes, I want my kids to know that I love Christ and His mission more than I care about their approval or them getting everything they want in life. I don’t intend to stop seeking to be an excellent pastor, an excellent missionary or to stop pursuing the mission of God, as this would be swinging the pendulum to family idolatry, but I do intend be most proactive in cultivating my relationships at home. If this means putting a glass ceiling on my “career” (which is what I would call engineering, so why not call it that as a pastor?) in certain ways and areas because it allows me the mental capacity, energy, and time to invest in my wife and children, then I am completely ok with that. I really believe that this will demonstrate the gospel of Jesus Christ to them, to demonstrate a sacrificial love for those God has called me to care about the most.

This question has been rolling around in my head for the last month and it’s changed my approach to life at home with my wife and children. I find myself seeking to identify ways to hear how they are viewing life, what they are processing, and what motivates, excites, or hurts them. When my Calvin asks me to do the 15th puzzle of the day, I find myself more prone to get off the couch to join his fun than to try and get him to join or stop interrupting my activity. When Eli tells me about potential kindergarten girlfriends, I typically want to immediately jump to teaching him about girls, the purpose of dating, and physical affection. Lately, I’ve started by asking him questions about his perspective, what he likes about the girls in his class, and how they make him feel. The desire and time to teach are still there, but now I know his thoughts, feelings, and the kind of teaching he might need, plus it couldn’t be any cuter than a 5-year old telling me his feelings.

We talk a lot about industry renewal at our church, seeking to let our faith influence our work, creating good culture for the benefit of others. It’s the way we should pursue work, but I wonder how much I’m subtly pushing the idolatry of work as the end result. Am I encouraging them (and myself) to be known as the Steve Jobs of their industry? Innovative, forward thinking, a revolutionary at work, knowing that this will cost them dearly at home. Or am I encouraging them to do excellent work, but ultimately to seek industry renewal at home, to be Steve Jobs-esque in the way they approach their family?

What will you be known for when you’re 65? As I consider this, I’m thankful for my parents. They blessed me, their co-workers, and many others through their work over the years, but I’m thankful that I know them best as the most consistent presence of love and interest in my life.

I hope to be an amazing pastor, missionary, and a contributor to the missional community conversation, but I am convinced that this starts at home by being a great pastor to my family, demonstrating Christ’s love for them, and spending my time, thoughts, and energy on them primarily.

What will you be known for when you’re 65?

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June 7, 2012 · 12:15 pm

To Lead Well, Align Well

As my wife and I were preparing to have our first son, Eli, we had to make decisions about our vehicles. The plan was to sell the ’96 red Ford Mustang she had purchased in high school and to purchase a mom-mobile sedan and keep the Xterra I had been driving since college. Unfortunately, the Xterra was totaled when a racing vehicle on the highway that eventually fled the scene hit us. We were fine, but the Xterra was done and we replaced it with the mom-mobile sedan.

This meant that I inherited the ’96 Ford Mustang, every young professional’s dream. Unfortunately the Mustang wasn’t in the best shape being as old as it was. The tires consistently wore out quickly and had to be replaced, the battery connections rendered multiple batteries useless, the radiator tapped out over time, and the odometer stopped working at 95,789 miles.

One of the major problems it had was an alignment problem. When I would take my hands off the wheel it would veer away from the direction I was traveling. This started off as a small issue, I only had to overcorrect on the wheel slightly, but it kept getting worse. This not only affected driving straight, it caused the tires to wear out even quicker and became a costly repair.

I’ve seen this same type of alignment issues and affects inside communities that I’ve led and I’ve seen others lead. The leader may have a clear direction of where the community or small group is supposed to go, but if the entire community is not aligned it could eventually be a costly fix to re-align.

Leading well in missional communities, community groups, or whatever you term small groups, requires that there is clear alignment and direction through the life of the community.

Align at the Start through Vision Casting & Collaboration
Every Ford Mustang was supposed to built with accurate alignment to drive straight when the wheel was straight and to adjust as the wheel directed. There can always be a design or direction for anything at the start. If there is no vision or direction in a Community Group, it will falter from the beginning since it lacks a purpose.

For every new leader, we ask them to think through how their community will embody our core values of Gospel Enjoyment, Intentional Community and Prayerful Mission. Their first official meeting as a community is centered on casting this vision and forming it with the rest of the group.

The unique nature of a missional community that seeks to share leadership is that the leader both casts vision and collaborates on vision.

The leader spends time considering their neighborhood and the people in the community to see how this group will truly embody the core values. This allows the leader to cast vision for what they sense needs to happen as a community. As they cast the vision to the community, they seek input from the rest of the group in order to solidify the vision.

This type of collaboration enables every person in the community to take ownership as they form a unified vision. The leader casts the vision based on the community values and the community forms the vision into practicals that shape how the community will function in seeking to accomplish the vision.

Alignment is most easily set at the beginning, as this enables you to identify when things are in need of realignment. When the community is drifting away from the aims that have been set. Realignment assumes there has been initial direction and alignment.

Maintaining Alignment
Just as every car has regular check-ups to make sure it is functioning appropriately and that includes the car alignment, each community will need regular alignment checks. A leader has the responsibility to assess each new idea or activity to see if it is in line with the direction set by the community.

A community group will certainly evolve over time, but the principle aims for the a gospel-centered community on mission do not shift much. The practicals can either reinforce the alignment or begin to take the community off course.

I had a meal recently with leaders who were discussing the future of their community and identifying the current state of their community. The leaders recognized the health of the community in their care for one another, but also saw the need for the future to be more about extending their gracious community to other people. It was so encouraging to hear these leaders recognize their long-term aims, to celebrate where the community was meeting them, but also to humbly recognize and hopefully seek the change the group needed.

This type of reflection is essential for leaders in maintaining alignment.

Realignment Conversations
In a functioning community, there will be some level of disagreement along the way. Some people in the group will only be around for aspects of the community life, but will avoid others. There will be some people who completely disagree and don’t like the community’s direction.

As beautiful as it would be for the dissident to come and discuss their disagreements, in nearly every circumstance it is up to the leader to initiate these conversations. The leader has the responsibility to pursue those in the community who only participate partially and to pursue those in obvious disagreement.

Leadership cannot be passive because the gospel of Jesus Christ is not passive. God is actively seeking and pursuing people to align with His ways. A leader impacted and guided by the gospel moves toward those in need of realignment, they do not simply tolerate them.

These conversations need to happen privately with the aim of winning the person and not the argument. This requires a leader that loves well by listening. This could be a huge opportunity for the community to change and the person in disagreement may have specific gifts that reveal where the community is lacking a full gospel understanding.

When it’s time to sell the car
Over the life cycle of a missional community, it may grow to a point where there are significant differences in alignment throughout the group. It may mean realignment is needed or it may be time to move on altogether. A leader will need to discern if the community is developing multiple directions that would lead to a healthy and beneficial multiplication.

In these instances attempting to maintain alignment will actually be destructive and hinder the mission of God through your community. A handful of the community could develop a passion to display the gospel through mission in a different way that isn’t a complete departure from the aims, but will be expressed differently. Multiplying the community into new expressions will be the best way to start over with new alignment and direction to pursue a healthy community on a healthy mission for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Aligning well as a leader is not an easy task, but leading well requires that every lead identify and seek to maintain the direction and vision of the community. The best leaders won’t simply have the best vision, but will have the clearest community vision. This vision is based on the direction of God from His scriptures to embody the gospel through a loving community faced outward to the world. This gospel-centered vision is worth the effort to seek collective alignment to join in God’s loving mission.

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June 6, 2012 · 10:06 am

To Lead Well, Share Well

I was meeting with a leader of one of our Community Groups who was exhausted. He was ready to give up, discouraged by the lack of participation from the rest of the community and felt like he was doing too much. He thought the best answer was to quit leading and end the Community Group. After a good conversation over lunch, it became clear that one of the biggest issues facing the Community Group was that he was trying to lead everything. This seemed counterintuitive to him and to most of us. “If I’m the leader, shouldn’t I be leading everything?”

The biggest issue I see in leadership is hoarding responsibility. It comes from a great place, but does not serve the leader, nor does it serve those being led. It burns out leaders, frustrates those being led and rarely mobilizes or develops other leaders.

This is a major issue for gospel-centered communities on mission. To lead well, leaders must share well. Leadership is not about doing everything, being the superhero who plans every event, meets with every person, or finds every opportunity for mission for the community.

Leading like Christ leads us takes an empowering approach, especially to a community. This kind of leadership reflects the gospel of Jesus Christ. Believing in the gospel of Jesus Christ requires people to believe that we have flaws and only Christ was truly perfect in every way and sphere of life. A leader who is a follower of Christ does not assume that they can do everything the community or group needs accomplished.

Missional communities desperately need leaders who humbly seek to share responsibility for leading the community. The question we need to answer is why do we typically hoard leadership?

We View it as Scriptural Expectation

For many of us, we view this type of leadership as very scriptural. Aren’t we supposed to lead like Christ? Doesn’t this mean we sacrifice most and take on most responsibility, not demanding from others? This is a view of leadership doesn’t think a leader is ever supposed to share responsibility.

The good news for every leader: they are not Jesus Christ. Christ alone could fully embody every perfect gift and bear the burden of us all. The scriptures that follow Christ’s life, death, and resurrection point the need for communal leadership that seeks to empower every Christ follower for the work of ministry.

This is the point of passages in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4 that speak to the reality we see everyday. We are all gifted uniquely, which leads us to need one another to accomplish the mission that God has placed in front of us. We cannot do this alone and the community can lead through individuals taking leadership in a variety of ways.

This how the scriptures speak of leadership and how it is demonstrated for us in the stories of the Bible. A community led by a community of people.

We Fear Losing Control

For some of us, if we’re honest, we fear losing control of the outcome. This could be born out of fearing that quality will suffer or that it won’t get done or done perfectly.

The gospel of Jesus Christ can free us from this. Christ’s gospel reminds us that we couldn’t accomplish salvation on our own and we were in need of Jesus to do it right for us. It frees us from thinking so highly of ourselves that we think we need to do everything or it won’t be done well.

Quality tends to suffer most when people hoard leadership most. Sharing leadership may result in a dip in quality, but part of good leadership is coaching and empowering those you share with to better than you were.

This sounds that a nice ideal, but it may actually be what is preventing us from sharing leadership in the first place.

We Fear Others Being Better Than Us

There are some leaders who don’t share responsibility and if they were really honest, would admit that some of it has to do with fear of others doing it better than them.

When we look at Jesus and His leadership, once again we are encouraged to move beyond this fear and make it a hope. Jesus says that His disciples will do greater things than what they saw Him do. He didn’t have a fear that they would accomplish more and do greater things, it was His hope and plan! Isn’t that amazing?

We see this same mentality in Barnabas in the book of Acts. If you follow the story of Barnabas, you see that he was the one who took a risk on Paul and discipled him. Over time Acts tells the story of how the discipler (Barnabas) takes a back seat to the disciple (Paul).

Great leaders don’t fear others being better than them, they aim for it. Sharing leadership can be the best way to empower and develop leaders that will take the community to greater places. It will redefine success for leaders who tend towards wanting credit and seeking glory, to wanting the same for others.

Leader who seek the glory can tend towards using people to get their own ends, instead of being for people, wanting greatness for those they lead.

We Don’t Know How

For others, and specifically for the Community Group leader I had lunch with, they don’t know how to share leadership.

Over lunch, we discuss the various aspects of his Community Group. They were seeking to be a healthy missional community. A community that prayed and discussed the scriptures together, ate meals together, served together, had accountability and incorporate non-Christ followers into the community. The main problem was that he was the only one initiating all of these things.

After discussing the people in his community and what they are passionate about in the community or naturally gifted in, it became apparent that the next step in his leadership development was to help them and given them ownership.

The first step in sharing leadership is personal invitation as opposed to mass messages of requesting help. This means identifying the potential gifts of those in the community, encouraging them in those gifts and personally asking them to use their gifts for the benefit of the community.

I encouraged the leader to work with them to get started and follow up with them after they began leading, but then to give them the freedom to lead. Eventually, a leader has to move from directing to coaching to fully trusting those with whom they share leadership.

The biggest transformation that takes place through shared leadership is the death of a consumer community and the birth of a contributing community. An entire community that seeks to contribute to the overall health of the missional community based on the gifts God has given them.

Only when this happens can the community truly display Jesus to one another and their neighborhood.

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June 5, 2012 · 11:02 am

To Lead Well, Pray Well

Continuing what has become a series of posts on leading missional communities, those who lead well also pray well. While this is primarily about missional communities, I see this in my own life when it comes to my marriage, family, work, or anything I’m in charge of, the more I consider these things in prayer and declare my dependence on God in prayer, the better leader I am for those things.

A praying leader builds a prayerful community. Jesus’ instructions to His disciples when He had compassion the crowds and saw their needs, was to pray. The typical thought of the leader of a missional community is to rush hard into meeting needs, but Jesus’ call to us is to pray, seeking God who has the power to change the world.

As I consider prayer’s affect on leadership, I see its influence in 2 predominant ways.

 1.    Prayer Changes The Leader Who Prays Often

The Pattern of Praying Leaders in Scripture

In the story of Daniel in the Old Testament, we find a leader who is under authority that does not honor God. He faithfully serves the country and his authority, but also faithfully prays. Daily he seeks God and it becomes such a pattern that when his heart is burdened by needs as it is in Daniel 9, his first impulse is to pray and God responds.

You see the same reality in the story of Nehemiah. A leader who is burdened for those he loves and his first response is prayer. In the midst of his daily work, you see this leader pray and God provide for him in prayer.

It’s no surprise then that Christ follows the same pattern of seeking God privately and also publicly in the midst of everyday life. Prayer is not something only reserved for the closet and is not something only reserved for the midst of everyday life. The apostles and Paul in his letters continue to pray for those they lead.

It transforms them as leaders, bringing them in line with God’s heart for others and bringing them in dependence on the power of God, not their own strength.

To Be a Praying Leader, Pray for Others

All of these mentioned spend much of their time praying for other people. It’s fascinating to look at the prayers recorded in scripture, to see many of them follow a similar pattern of thankfulness to the character of God and asking for God’s work in others.

Leaders who pray selflessly, fixed on God providing for others become the selfless leader the community needs. Daniel & Nehemiah pray for the restoration of the nation of Israel, Jesus prays for his disciples and those who believe in Him. Paul prays for the churches he helped start. These men all have personal needs, found them met in God and spent their prayers asking for God to meet the needs of others.

Not surprisingly, they become the best models for leadership because they sacrificially serve those they lead. This is the result of praying well.

2.    Prayer Invites God to Change Those You Lead

The content of the prayers recorded in scripture show the belief of the leader in the power of God to change any situation and any person.

Daniel believed in the power of God to change an entire nation to return to following God. Nehemiah believed in the power of God to restore the city where God’s people lived. Jesus knew the power of God to establish His followers in His ways and His joy. Paul believed in the power of God to reveal His goodness to His people and to move them to know and follow Him with their lives.

Leaders can easily become prideful thinking they are the ones with the power. This is usually quickly dispelled by their inability to change people or situations on their own. The counter to the prideful leader is the dependent leader, who trusts not in their own power, but entrusts their efforts to God through prayer.

God has recorded many prayers for us in the Bible that teach us how to pray. As leaders, we must recognize that God has given us direction in prayer, it is not focused inward, it is focused upward in praise to God and outward in requesting great things for others from God.

A prayerful community can change the world because it is a community dependent on the power of God to change the world. Their prayers change them into selfless people seeking the welfare of those around them and not seeking the provision of their wish list.

Leaders have the opportunity to join in God’s efforts, to develop God’s heart, and to see God answer our prayers. The great leaders are the ones who seek God in prayer.

This is a challenging reality. It has changed the way I walk to work, spending less time trying to be updated on the world news and spending more time asking God for great things for the people I love and have been asked to lead. It has changed the way I go home, praying for my family as I seek to enter the home to love my family and not just seek rest. It has changed the way I go about work and conversations, making me more willing to stop and pray in the moment as opposed to promising to pray later.

The strange thing about prayer is you never feel like you can do it enough. This can be a cause for guilt and a joyful invitation to find more time to be with God. I recommend the latter for leaders, so we remember it is a joyful and a joy-filling opportunity to talk with God and pray for others.

Pray well, lead well.

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June 4, 2012 · 10:40 am

To Lead Well, Love Well

Last week, I wrote about leading well by being faithful after I read a Michael Hyatt article that got me thinking. As I continued to think about the leaders in our church and the expectations we place on them, I couldn’t help but consider writing about other aspects of leading well.

I’m blessed to watch 60+ leaders care for and model Christ to their community groups at Apostles. The consistent thing I see for these leaders who lead well is that they love well.

I’ve seen many people shy away from leadership, describe is as a daunting task and excuse themselves as not the leadership type. Many of those people I see taking the initiative to cook for someone in need, bless someone on a random day, and pursue people out of the blue simply because they care. The most amazing missional community leaders I’ve seen are the ones that love people well by modeling the love of God to them.

This is just another reason why it is so essential for every leader to be rooted in the never-stopping, never-giving up, unconditional, and consistent love of God for them in Jesus Christ. Our love can either be hindered or enhanced depending on our grasp of the love of God towards us.

Love Pursues People

One of the primary reasons this is so key in leading is because love causes leaders to pursue people in their community and those outside their community. This is how God loves us. He pursues us, not because we deserve being pursued or we have made ourselves interesting to Him, but because He loves us. He even pursues when we do everything in our power to run away from him.

For leaders, entering into a community aiming to love people tends to result in them pursuing those people to join and contribute to the community. There will also be times when people who have been a part of the community tend to drift away, but love pursues, not demanding they stay, but communicating their value and extending the invite back into the community.

If leadership isn’t based on love, but on creating a great mission, there’s no reason to pursue people that “aren’t on board” since they left, but thankfully the love of God transforms our whimsical ways. To lead well, pursue the people in your missional community well.

Love Rejoices & Grieves Alongside People

One of my favorite verses recently is Romans 12:15 “Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.” There  are few things as powerful in leading than celebrating with those in your community who are celebrating and hurting with those who are hurting.

This is the result of loving someone like Christ loves you. Their joys become exciting for you and there sorrows become sad for you. Community brings us out of ourselves to focus on others and this is only possible through love. No quality leader lacks this kind of love. Every quality missional community displays this kind of love, this kind of gospel-centered love.

It’s been amazing to watch different community groups celebrate together each other’s successes. At times it is even more inspiring and moving to watch a community grieve with one another, tears that display a joining together to endure the worst and seek healing together. It’s a beautiful display of God’s design for community.

Love Enjoys People

The last part of this that I will focus on is the simple reality that when you seek to love someone, you enjoy who they are in all their quirks and personality. Lacking love can cause a leader to identify their favorites in the community and become annoyed with others. This type of leadership does not enjoy people based on their gospel identity of being a part of a Christ-centered community, but on what their contributions are to the community.

To lead well, love like Christ has loved us, enjoying our presence because He chose to and because He embodied love. Enjoy the people you find yourself with, not matter how different, or in your mind challenging, they can be. You’re (translate: I’m) just as challenging to others in the community.

Every one of us longs to be in friendship, relationship with a group of people who knows us and still values us after knowing us. We long for every relationship to be as if it were Christ. Someone that loves us because they choose to and even endures with us our quirks, flaws, and failings.

A gospel-centered community on mission like this is possible, but it desperately needs leaders who have been loved well by God to love their community well.

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