My friend Marla had the privilege to attend a seminar with John Maxwell yesterday.  John has been a tremendous leadership in my life and in this generation and Marla was gracious enough to share some of the highlights with us.  Thanks Marla! 

 

It Is Not Lonely at the Top

Lately I have been hearing a lot of talk about Christians boycotting Oprah because of some of the people, products and things she endorses along with some of the spiritual language she is using. To be honest I haven’t really paid much attention to this, but I happened to tune in a couple of weeks ago because she featured Marcus Buckingham, one of my favorite authors.

In that episode Oprah made several comments to how “the universe speaks to us” or how “the universe guides you”. The language was a little odd and a felt forced.

Tonight I spent some time searching the internet and some message boards and found myself more upset with other Christians than with Oprah. I was troubled by the hateful, angry, judgmental attitude I perceived from a lot of Christians. We act hurt and appalled that a non-Christian is not sharing the Gospel.

No, I don’t agree with most of what Oprah endorses and we don’t share the same views on Christ or our faith, however as far as I know she doesn’t claim to be a Christ-follower so why would I expect her to do anything differently?

I recently finished reading the book UnChristian and this issue with Oprah got me thinking about how we as Christ-followers should respond. Here are a couple of quotes from the book that have me thinking:

• Christians are primarily perceived for what they stand against. We have become famous for what we oppose, rather than who we are for.
• Outsiders (non-christians) believe we are more interested in proving we are right than that God is right. They say Christians are more focused on condemning people than helping people become more like Jesus.
• When it comes to our interaction with outsiders, we have to realize that our relationships, our interactions with people, comprise the picture of Jesus that people retain.
• To rebuild our lives and restore our nation, we have to recover love and concern for others.

I encourage you to read this book. It will challenge you to rethink how you are interacting and communicating with people who don’t share our faith in Christ. In so many ways our judgmental reactions have alienated us from building relationship and earning influence by which we can display the love and grace of Christ.

No, I don’t support Oprah. I don’t watch the show. Oprah, however, has an amazing amount of influence in our world. Yes, I believe that we should be concerned that the message of the Gospel is lost and possibly even directly opposed by Oprah, so here is my question for you…

How do we as Christ-followers show the love of Christ in this situation? How do we make sure we are known for what we are for rather than for what we are against?

If your boss has a blog you should read it!

If your employee has a blog you should read it!

If someone you love has a blog you should read it!

You could learn a lot… what’s important to them, what energizes them, what concerns them, etc.

Whose blog should you be reading that you’re not?

I read a great article today by Nancy Ortberg about how to avoid the 5 most common dysfunctions of a ministry team. She takes the principles from Patrick Lencioni‘s book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and applies them to ministry work. It’s a great, practical read for church leaders.

You can read the entire article HERE.

Here are a few quotes that I particularly enjoyed:

• Simply put, “team” is just business language for “community”—the glorious intersection of task and people. For thousands of years, the Bible has spoken of using our giftedness in community. Strong leadership emerges in biblically functioning, God-honoring, Christ-forming community. On the other hand, since community is made of people, you can be sure every community is susceptible to dysfunction.
• Vulnerability-based leadership invites others to initiate, innovate, and take ownership of the ministry by making significant contributions. In this way, energy is generated throughout the team and not only by the strong central leader. Our churches are hungry for this kind of leadership.
• Avoiding conflict almost guarantees that we will fail to build relationally deep teams, and that we will be unable to make the best decisions for the organization. When teams don’t engage in healthy, passionate, unfiltered debate around the most important issues, they inject more politics into the organization and make mediocre decisions that will deliver mediocre results.
• One of the biggest challenges a leader faces in helping the team get better in this is that you have to allow yourselves to do it poorly in order to learn to do it well. This isn’t the kind of thing that you just read about, tell your team about, and then expect to do it well. It takes practice, sometimes painful practice.
• Leadership is, at its heart, about the promises we make and the promises we keep
• Great teams get to the point where the members hold each other accountable. Failing to live up to group commitments does not result in private, one-on-one talks about the failure but to team discussions of accountability. Teams do this so they can pursue the cause about which they feel so deeply, and so that they are involved in helping each other learn and grow.
• As leaders in the church, we understand that results are not completely in our hands. We are not ultimately responsible for everything. However that is very different from saying that it is okay to rationalize the fact that the ministry is not moving forward because of our poor or misguided efforts.
• Great leaders perform autopsies on poor results. They are constant learners and listen to God, as best they can, and relentlessly pursue doing things better and more effectively. They are passionate about results, because results affect people. Sometimes results are people.

Which dysfunction is the greatest challenge for your team?

I’m a little bit late in posting these, but nevertheless here are a few race day pictures. I finished in 2:16:03. I was pretty pleased with that time, but am already itching to improve it – that competitive streak always gets the best of me!

Thank you to everyone who cheered us on and thank you to my running partners – I love you guys!

Ashley, Shelby, me & Rachel wearing our ponchos waiting in the porta-potty line before the race.

My sister Jes came out to support us at the starting line & the finish line.

We did it and we have medals to prove it!

Completing this 1/2 marathon was a big accomplishment for me.  I’ve never considered myself a runner, but my friends inspired me to train and to do something I never thought I could do.

What major goals or accomplishments have you tackled?

Today at Cross Point we had the privilege to hear the story of Todd and Angie Smith and the amazing life of their daughter Audrey Caroline. Little Audrey only lived 2 1/2 hours outside of the womb, but the impact this precious baby is having through the sharing of her story by her parents is amazing. Todd and Angie shared their story in a video interview with Pete, and Todd sang the song “I Surrender All” to close the service. It was an amazingly emotional and powerful day. Thank you Todd and Angie for so graciously sharing your story amidst the pain of your loss. We have been honored!

If you were not able to attend today, I’ve included the video and the link to Audrey Caroline’s blog. Here are my take-aways from the day:

• Trust is not expecting things to happen the way you are hoping them to happen, but rather knowing that God is with you no matter what the road in front of you holds.
• The challenge of balancing the tension of planning for loss and hoping for miracles
• Rest in knowing that your Plan B is not a surprise to God
• We don’t control outcomes
• Trusting God doesn’t mean we understand it, get it or like it
• Do I interpret God through my circumstances?
• Do I believe that God is who He says He is?

The blog: http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com

“If we are not careful, we can become the sum total of all the expectations others impose on our lives.”

Erwin McManus from Soul Cravings

It’s less than 36 hours until the race! I’ve been training since December and can’t believe it’s time. Over the last several months I have talked to so many people at Cross Point that are also running, so I thought it would be fun to create a list of all the runners. If you attend Cross Point and are running the Country Music full or half marathon, post here to let me know.

Good luck everyone!

Lately I’ve been wrestling with my motivation for blogging. Not motivation as in the initiative to do it, but motivation in why do I do it? What are my motives? Am I blogging because I want those closest to me to get a glimpse of my every day life? Am I blogging because I feel like I have something important to say or some insight to share? Am I blogging to meet new people or people that I admire?

There are some stages to this blogging thing that I am just starting to discover:

1) At the beginning you are just excited that you figured out how to do it and that you have a live blog.

2) Then you get excited that friends and family are starting to read and comment.

3) Then you discover this whole world of bloggers that are out there and you begin reading about them.

4) Then you realize that you can start making connections and having conversations with some of these other bloggers.

5) Then you realize that there are what I would call “celebrity bloggers”, the ones that everyone has on their blogroll. There are the cool bloggers, the smart bloggers, the edgy bloggers, the church ministry bloggers, the business bloggers, the leadership bloggers, etc, etc. And each one of these groups has their own celebrities.

My challenge lately is that I find myself trying so hard to connect with the “cool kids”. I feel like I’m back in high school trying to make small talk with the popular kids and hoping they’ll like me = hope that they’ll link to my blog or comment on my blog.

This supports one of my theories that we always aspire to something we are not. Now, I don’t think it’s wrong to aspire to more or reach for what is next, however when this consumes you and keeps you from engaging with the people and the networks you currently have influence with, it becomes a problem.

I read a good article in Church Solutions Magazine today called “Social Networking Is a Must” by Ken Godevenos. My take-away quote from the article was this… we should strive to “a form of networking that is pure in its motive, models the image of our Maker and is void of a hidden agenda.”

Fellow social networkers, how do you balance continuous networking while also maintaining consistent, thoughtful contact with the people you currently have influence with?

Today is Administrative Assistants’ Day so I wanted to take a minute to say a huge THANK YOU to Ashley Warren for everything that she does here at Cross Point. Her title is actually Office Manager and she takes care of the general office needs, runs our First Impressions ministry PLUS assists Pete and myself. It’s a huge job and I’m so thankful for her great attitude, relentless dedication and passion for ministry.

We love you, Ash!