God will give you everything you need to minister to others. But there’s one thing you have to do first…
“He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in God; but he who really thinks has to believe in God.” —Isaac Newton
Back in 1929, Donald Gee shared three temptations that Pentecostals needed to be cautious of avoiding: (1) selfish satisfaction, (2) fanaticism, and (3) the temptation to forsake the pure worship of God in exchange for popularity. Check out the full article here.
I really appreciate the leadership insights from Dan Reiland. That’s why I was so honored to have him write such a nice endorsement of my book Shepherd Leadership! Here is an important post Dan wrote for leaders, warning us of 5 ways we can misuse our spiritual authority.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Did God really call me to this position? Did I hear God correctly when I made that big decision? Now that times are tough, is that an indication that it may be time for me to move on, or am I supposed to persevere through this?
I have experienced this myself, and I have walked with many other leaders who have experienced this same thing. A situation arises in your organization that makes you question whether you are truly the leader for this time, or whether it may be time for someone else to step in.
In my book Shepherd Leadership, I share a story from my leadership journey where I had to wrestle with the thought of whether I truly heard from God or not. Check out how I shared my story with some ministry interns…
Because of this incident, and many like it, I am a huge proponent of journaling. I have found it so comforting to be able to return to thoughts, answered prayers, Scriptures that have been revealed to me, and confirmations from friends. To read what God spoke to me on specific dates has helped to renew my confidence in His call for my life. I would highly recommend that you take up this discipline of journaling as well, especially during the times that you are contemplating a big decision.
I would also humbly recommend that you check out Shepherd Leadership, particularly two chapters where I talk about a leader’s confidence and a leader’s humility. When these are correctly balanced, we can make much better decisions during the questioning times. My book is available in print or ebook and as an audiobook.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Imagine if 700 years before you were born there was a prophecy given about you (Matthew 3:3). Or if on the day of your birth your father said, “And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for Him” (Luke 1:76).
This was John the Baptist.
With these kinds of announcements and the stamp of approval from God Himself, it’s really quite astounding how humble John remained:
“After me comes One Who is more powerful than I, Whose sandals I am not worthy to carry” (Matthew 3:11).
“[Jesus] must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).
The confidence that he was God’s man for the hour gave John boldness to speak truth to religious leaders, wealthy people, and Roman soldiers (Matthew 3:7-12; Luke 3:7-20). Yet his humility was almost his undoing.
John preached boldly, fulfilling the prophecies that were made about him. But when Jesus came to him to be baptized, John’s humility caused him to defer initially. Then Jesus reminded him that His baptism was necessary “to fulfill all righteousness. Then John consented” (Matthew 3:13-15).
Whether I am lacking confidence to speak or lead boldly, or lacking humility to let someone else take the lead, I need to return to the Word of God—just as John did. Both his confidence and his humility were balanced by words spoken over him by God. So it must be for you and me too.
Confidence without humility or humility without confidence can trip me up and cause me to miss out on all that God needs me to do. So my daily prayer must be: Holy Spirit, may I be sensitive to every correction and adjustment You need to make in me. Illuminate the Scriptures that I need to apply to my life that will keep me in a healthy, balanced place.
I wrote about this tension between confidence and humility in my book Shepherd Leadership. This was also a topic of conversation in two interviews I did, which you can find here and here. Healthy leaders need the proper balance of confidence and humility to keep their leadership in a place that God can use powerfully.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
I read a report that said today the world’s population hit 8 billion people. Demographers estimate that in the history of our planet, 120 billion people have lived on Earth. Amazingly, every single one of these 120 billion people have been unique creations!
Let me state that more personally: There has never been anyone like you, nor is there anyone like you now, nor will there ever be anyone like you. God made you unique from all others.
And God made you uniquely unbalanced.
If you’ve ever taken a personality test or any other kind of assessment you probably noticed that there were areas that scored very high, and perhaps some areas that barely even registered. This is a part of your unique composition.
Your uniqueness was given to you by God on purpose—He knew exactly what He was doing when He made you you. I recently chatted with the pastoral staff of Faith Wesleyan Church as they are doing a book study on my book Shepherd Leadership: The Metrics That Really Matter. I joined them for their discussion of chapters 4 and 5, in which I talk about the way God has wired leaders to be naturally more confident or more humble. Check this out…
Shepherd leaders, you can best individualize your care of the sheep God has given you when you understand how God has wired you. Don’t make excuses for your unbalancedness, but don’t let your uniqueness hold you back either. Get around other healthy leaders who can speak firmly and lovingly to you. This will allow your uniqueness to be leveraged for God’s glory as you lead His flock that He has entrusted to you.
I’ll be sharing more clips from this training session soon, so please stay tuned. In the meantime, if you would like me to join your team in a similar discussion of Shepherd Leadership, please get in touch with me. Shepherd Leadership is available in print or ebook, and in audiobook through either Audible or Apple.
Shepherds individualize their care. Good shepherd leaders don’t have a one-size-fits-all approach for everyone around them. Good shepherd leaders know how to individualize the care that each and every person needs.Check out my book Shepherd Leadership where I go into more detail about these kinds of leaders.
“The Bible really seems to clinch the matter when it puts the two things together into one amazing sentence. The first half is, ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling’—which looks as if everything depended on us and our good actions: but the second half goes on, ‘For it is God who worketh in you’—which looks as if God did everything and we nothing. I am afraid that is the sort of thing we come up against in Christianity. I am puzzled, but I am not surprised. You see, we are now trying to understand, and to separate into water-tight compartments, what exactly God does and what man does when God and man are working together. And, of course, we begin by thinking it is like two men working together, so that you could say, ‘He did this bit and I did that.’ But this way of thinking breaks down. God is not like that. He is inside you as well as outside: even if we could understand who did what, I do not think human language could properly express it. In the attempt to express it different Churches say different things. But you will find that even those who insist most strongly on the importance of good actions tell you you need Faith; and even those who insist most strongly on Faith tell you to do good actions.” —C.S. Lewis, on Philippians 2:12-13
“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals Himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.” —Albert Einstein
The safest place to vent our hurts and frustrations is in God’s presence. He is not going to fall off His throne when you tell Him what’s really in your heart (because He already knows!). But it can bring healing to your hurt when your ears hear what’s really going on in your heart.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
We all know that it’s impossible for a leader to be “on” 24 hours a day, seven days per week. Yet many leaders continue to operate as though they are supposed to be “on” all the time. The Bible not only calls for us to take a Sabbath rest, but it is something that God Himself demonstrated for us.
I enjoyed my time on the Thriving In Ministry podcast with Kyle Willis while his podcast partner Dace Clifton was on sabbatical. Kyle and I didn’t plan this, but he mentioned a passage from Hebrews 4 that the Holy Spirit used years ago to get my attention.
I would make my plans for a day off, or even a break in the middle of a busy day, only to find myself allowing work to consume that time. I was sabotaging my sabbath time until I saw three life-changing words in Hebrews 4:10.
It is a very humbling thing to recognize that it is “my own work” that is sabotaging my sabbath rest. God is aware of my need for sabbathing, but I have to submit my plans to His plan. As I mentioned in this interview, and in a previous blog post, writing “ITLW” at the top of my daily To Do list has helped me immensely. It is a reminder to me that God knows what I need to be doing, with whom I need to be speaking, and what ministry needs to be accomplished each day far, far better than I ever could. I must listen to the Holy Spirit and submit “my own work” to God’s will.
I talk about some other strategies that helped me in this area in my book Shepherd Leadership. It is a part of a 5-chapter section where I discuss how leaders can achieve wholly healthiness—mental, physical, spiritual, and relational health. I hope you will pick up a copy for yourself.
I’ll be sharing more clips from this Thriving In Ministry interview soon, so please stay tuned. Shepherd Leadership: The Metrics That Really Matter is available in print or ebook, and in audiobook through either Audible or Apple.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
In my book Shepherd Leadership, I take five chapters to unpack the lessons we can learn from the health of Jesus. Yes, Jesus was mentally, physically, spiritually, and relationally healthy.
On the 200churches podcast with Jeff Keady we talked about a chapter in my book called “The Pinnacle of a Shepherd’s Health.” In that chapter I wrote—
The phrase Dr. Luke uses about Christ’s growth is, “Jesus grew in favor with men” [Luke 2:52]. People liked having Jesus around. The word Luke uses for favor is from the same root word that is also translated “grace.” Jesus was a graceful Man. Or we could say that He was a Man so full of grace that when He was jostled, only grace spilled out of Him.
What does it mean when someone is graceful? It means they are pleasant to be around. It means you feel safe around them, knowing they will never belittle you or put you down. It means that their focus is on your agenda, not their own agenda. It means they are a “there you are!” person, not a “here I am!” person. The bottom line: grace-full people are full of grace for others.
Let’s return to our perfect example in Jesus. He was treated rudely and spoken to condescendingly, even by people who should have been His allies. Then there were those on a constant mission to try to trip Him up or get Him to say or do something that would have undermined His credibility. Yet Jesus never spoke inappropriately nor acted childishly. Jesus never had to say, “My bad, I misspoke there,” or “Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”
We can make all of our plans to behave in loving ways toward the sheep under our care, but what happens when the sheep ignore us, bite us, or leave us? As boxer Mike Tyson noted, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Surely the best indication of our overall healthiness and servant-like attitude is not so much our actions but our reactions.
If your reactions are less than what you would like them to be, I believe you will find a lot of excellent content in my book that can help you.
If you want to catch up on some of the other clips I’ve already shared from this interview, you can find them here, and I’ll be sharing more clips from this 200churches interview soon, so please stay tuned. Shepherd Leadership: The Metrics That Really Matter is available in print or ebook, and in audiobook through either Audible or Apple.
Jim pastors a very large church, I pastor a small church, and John coaches pastors who pastor every size church in between. We are all in agreement that when it comes to the vitality of both the church and the pastor, the size of the church or its budget is not the best metric to monitor. Take a listen…
None of us are anti-growth when it comes to the church, but we are pro-health. Jim said it well: We will get what we focus on. If we just want numbers, the numbers may explode, but people may explode (or implode) in the process. But if we focus health, we will get healthy—both the pastor and the congregation.
This idea is the reason behind my book Shepherd Leadership, especially the subtitle “The metrics that really matter.” I am so grateful to hear that my book is helping pastors and church boards realign their thinking along biblical practices, and that Shepherd Leadership is even being used as a textbook in a pastoral training school. I believe my book can be of assistance to you too.
I’ll be sharing more clips from this Leading From Alignment interview soon, so please stay tuned. Shepherd Leadership: The Metrics That Really Matter is available in print or ebook, and in audiobook through either Audible or Apple.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
I had a great time on the Thriving In Ministry podcast with Kyle Willis while his podcast partner Dace Clifton was on sabbatical.
From all of the podcasts and interviews they had done, Kyle shared with me how so many pastors find it difficult to take a Sabbath break. Kyle noted that a pastor’s day of rest seems to bump into everyone else’s day of work.
That passage in Mark 6 that I mentioned is instructive for leaders in a couple of ways. First, Jesus was looking out for His teammates. He saw that they were tired and He called them to a place of rest. Good shepherds are always tuned in to the needs of the flock around them. As David said in Psalm 23, the Good Shepherd knows when to lead us to quiet pastures and still waters.
Second, I see that Jesus was also tuned in to Himself. Even though He was trying to get to a quiet place, He took time to minister in teaching and food to a crowd that was described as “sheep without a shepherd.” When this time was finished, Jesus took time alone to pray (Mark 6:46).
I think sometimes leaders have sabotaged their own health and effectiveness by saying things like, “This is quitting time” or “This is my day off.” Instead, we should listen to the Holy Spirit giving us insight like, “Take a break now. It’s time to go to a quiet pasture. It’s time to recharge in prayer.”
Leaders, don’t stick rigidly to your schedule but stay tuned in to yourself. Listen for the unmistakable voice of the Holy Spirit giving you wisdom. I have a section of five chapters in my book Shepherd Leadership that deal with every aspect of a leader’s health. Please pick up a copy today.
I’ll be sharing more clips from this Thriving In Ministry interview soon, so please stay tuned. Shepherd Leadership: The Metrics That Really Matter is available in print or ebook, and in audiobook through either Audible or Apple.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
I’ve discussed quite a bit the two ways that organizations—especially churches and non-profit ministries—can measure success: By quantity or by quality. And I think a good case can be made for both of these metrics from the Bible.
My bigger concern is when we try to use bigger numbers as the sole gauge of success. In a training time I had with some ministry interns, we took a deep dive into the reasons why the metric of bigger and ever-increasing numbers became the sole measurement for success in our churches. During this training time, I took these interns to Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians and two Old Testament examples where people got this wrong. Take a listen…
