The following is an excerpt from my just released book 5 Ministry Killers and How to Defeat Them available from Amazon.

Pain and ministry go together like peanut butter and jelly. Once you make a PB&J sandwich, there’s no separating the two ingredients. Neither can we isolate successful ministry from the pain it inevitably brings. I don’t like rejection, disappointment, or criticism. I don’t know any pastor who does. Sometimes, however, I do everything I can to avoid them.

A French nun who lived in the late 1800s, Thérèse of Lisieux (known as “the Little Flower”), practiced a simple way to draw closer to Jesus.

It is, in short, to seek out the menial job, to welcome unjust criticisms, to befriend those who annoy us, to help those who are ungrateful.

Thérèse didn’t allow those experiences to help her grow only if they came her way; she actually sought them out and embraced them. As difficult as that seems, perhaps the Lord would want you to consider this unusual tool to help you become a more effective pastor and follower of Jesus.

A psychologist friend of mine helped us create these 7 rules that guide how we talk in our staff meetings. We call them conversational ethics.

1. Listen: let others say their piece. As Covey says, “Seek to understand before being understood.”
2. Suspend judgment: Don’t make assumptions about what others say.
3. Share in the thought pool: everybody gives input; participate truthfully (how you really feel)
4. Stay detached from the ideas: don’t take things personally; Use “I” messages; Own your personal view.
5. Let others be inarticulate: help others articulate what they are trying to say by engaging.
6. Make sure anything you would contribute privately would be contributed in the group discussion related to topics discussed. If personal, deal with it 1-on-1.
7. Everybody helps hold each other accountable to this set of ethics.

Recently during our weekend services I realized how much power I wielded as a pastor. I’ve served in vocational ministry over 30 years, and I knew intuitively that my position brought with it power over people, but not until recently did I understand a unique power my position carried.

When I say ‘power’ I don’t mean destructive power seen in high profile mega-church pastor melt-downs or in the abuse cases in the Catholic church. Peter eloquently reminds us in the following verse not to misuse our position.

1Pet. 5.2 (NLT-SE) Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God.  3 Don’t lord it over the people assigned to your care, but lead them by your own good example.

Rather, I mean power to bless others. These simple interactions I’ve recorded below helped me realize this influence I carry.

• In one Saturday evening service as I chatted with a couple with two young daughters, out of the blue the mom said, “You want to hear my daughter quote the names of the presidents of the United States?” I replied, “Sure.” As I knelt down, the kindergartener quoted them. I replied with, “Wow, that’s super. Good job.” The following Sunday the grandmother beamed with pride as she recounted that brief encounter. Her kids had told her about it.
• That same Sunday as I talked with a single mom, she said, “My daughter made straight A’s this year. She’s one of the top five students in her school.” I looked at her daughter and said something like, “Way to go. Keep up the good work.” I could tell that my simple affirmation encouraged that mom, and the daughter as well.
• The same weekend during my improv class get-together on a Saturday, I complimented several in the group on how well they performed. Most of those in my class don’t go to church and they all know I’m a pastor (and they still like me). Yet, I could sense that my genuine compliments meant a great deal to each of them.

As I’ve done the proverbial “put two and two together” I now realize more than ever that our position gives pastors a power to bless others in a unique way. Although everybody has that same ability, I wonder if other people give greater weight to our blessings (or lack of) than they do others. If that’s true, perhaps we should bless others a lot more than we do.

What do you think?

• Do pastors wield this kind of beneficent power?
• Am I overstating this influence?
• Do pastors use it enough?
• Can and do pastors misuse it for their own ends?

I’d love to hear from you.

Strategic planning can sometimes be difficult to explain. This diagram has helped me easily explain the process.

The outside circle represents the process of strategic planning.

• Plan what you want to do
• Train and communicate to those who will carry out the plan
• Execute the plan
• Review/evaluate what you accomplished

The three questions to evaluate how well you are doing are these (the triangle):

1. What? (do you have a clear target, goals, mission?)
2. How? (do you have simple and effective systems in place to accomplish your goals?)
3. Who? (are you using unified teams of people to accomplish your goals?)

Here’s the diagram.

Related posts. Strategic Planning for Dummies, part 2.

A very successful businessman inadvertently taught me a lesson about paying attention to other people’s needs … with macaroni and cheese.

Recently I ate breakfast at my favorite diner with one of our church’s key leaders. He owns a flourishing business and gives quite generously to our church. As I enjoyed the blue plate special of eggs, pancakes, and Canadian bacon, I asked him how business was faring. He described one recent experience with a potential client that brought a smile to my face and a fresh reminder that I must pay closer attention to other people’s stories.

He had scheduled a lunch with a local company CEO and remarked that she ordered only salad and mac & cheese. I thought that a bit odd, as did he until he said, “She explained that her favorite food was mac & cheese.”

He then described a second luncheon with this CEO at this office he had scheduled for the next Monday.

The menu that day? Mac & cheese from six different restaurants.

From a business perspective, he ordered this novel lunch menu hoping to make a good impression on a client that might garner more business. But I thought to myself, What a creative and thoughtful way to touch a person’s life.

His kind gesture may not bring new business, but I’m convinced that this CEO will never forget his thoughtfulness. My friend simply paid attention to someone else’s unique interests.

As I drove back to the office after that breakfast and mulled over this mac & cheese luncheon, God impressed these thoughts on me.

• Do I pay close enough attention to the leaders, friends, and spiritual seekers in my life to discover their unique interests?
• Do I consider those  interests as invitations from God upon which I could capitalize and in doing so become Jesus’ hands and feet?

I don’t think I will ever see mac & cheese in the same way again.

A question for you: How have you met other people’s practical needs after discovering something unique about him or her?

If you lead people in any way … in a church, an organization, or a team, those you lead will screw up, fail, and often disappoint you.

When that happens, and that employee or team member needs correction, when is the best time to correct?

When a staff person who reports to me makes a mistake, I tend to be ‘quick on the draw’ to point out the mistake or poor judgement. But, is that the best approach?

I recently dialogued with a psychologist with expertise in leadership. I asked him for advice about a recent issue where I felt that a staff person who reports to me was totally off-base in his response to a particular situation. My emotions ranged from shock to surprise to disappointment and finally to anger. My carnality wanted to blast this guy and let him know how wrong he was.

My psychologist friend just listened as I processed. After I finished my ranting, he asked me this question.

Why do you want to say these strong things to this person?

As I mulled over his question, I had to admit that I probably wanted to exert my authority to make him feel ‘guilty’ for being ‘wrong.’ My desire to reprimand was ME focused. When I forced myself to evaluate my motive and heard my words that tumbled out, I realized that my motive was very wrong.

He then suggested two things:

• Don’t bring up the issue until I and the other guy had cooled down.
• Then, bring up the issue in the context of a teachable moment, a moment in the other guy’s life when what I say comes across as a way to boost his leadership ability, rather than be perceived simply as a reprimand.

How do you deal with your staff when they screw up?

This is a great post from Jeff Iorg, the president of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. He gave me permission to re-post.

July 27, 2009 – Finding Security for Leadership

An important character quality for any leader who wants to make a significant impact and leave a positive legacy is security. Yet, security is seldom listed in job profiles as a desired quality. Secure leaders know who they are and what God has made them to do. They understand their strengths and weaknesses and are comfortable with both. Secure leaders fell less pressure to perform, less pressure to please people, and less pressure to prove their worth by their accomplishments than insecure leaders do. Secure leaders have an ease about them that engenders confidence among their followers. And, secure leaders attract strong leaders to work with them because they are not afraid to share the work and the rewards.

Many leaders are high achievers or over achievers. Often overachievement is a mask for deep insecurity. Insecurity, for many of us, is rooted in the psychological and emotional scars incurred during childhood. Many Christian leaders, including many high performance leaders, come from broken or dysfunctional families. Much could be written about the causes of insecurity, including these and others. But for our purposes, analyzing the causes is not essential. Let’s agree with the obvious! Insecurity affects most of us. Leaders, not matter how gifted, are not exempt.

The search for security is a primal human urge. That truth is self-evident. People, including leaders, want to and need to feel secure. We often go to great lengths in our search for security. The problem is we frequently pursue wrong sources for security. We look for security in accomplishment and relationships, often with catastrophic results.

A good example of this was the woman Jesus met at the well (John 4). She asked Jesus a question about religious achievement, “Where should we worship?” Jesus replied with a question about the whereabouts of her husband. This prompted her admission of multiple marriages and adultery. Her pattern of searching for security in relationships was unveiled.

Jesus did not answer her question about religious accomplishment (proper worship) or confront her misplaced search for security in relationships (serial marriages). Instead, he addressed her deepest needs. He promised he would come into her life and quench her deepest thirsts. He portrayed himself as a “spring of living water.” He challenged her to stop drawing from wrong wells and come to the true source of inner satisfaction.

Most people, including many leaders, look for security in accomplishments or relationships. Christian leaders make this more palatable by searching for security in religious accomplishments or religious relationships. Neither ultimately satisfies. A better source for security is available to every Christian leader.

First, however, it is important to diagnose the problem by revealing the symptoms of insecurity as they express themselves in leaders. Starting with a negative analysis may be discouraging. But before you can solve the problem, you must diagnose it. Many leaders have unhealthy behavior they would like to stop. They have patterns or habits that undermine their success. Yet, some inner drive repeatedly motivates the same destructive actions. That powerful inner drive is your search for security expressing itself in unhealthy ways. Over the next two weeks, we will look at four ways insecurity expresses itself through leaders in leadership situations.

If you have any of these symptoms, you will feel some dis-ease as you read! But that unsettledness can motivate significant change as you become more secure. Leading out of security, rather than insecurity, is essential to leaving a positive leadership legacy.

Questions or comments? Please email those to jeffiorg@ggbts.edu

Ed Stetzer is one of the most creative minds in the church world today. An author and a researcher with Lifeway, he is a smart dude. Next year I plan to attend a course at Trinity Seminary that he will teach on Missional Leadership.

One of the required books I’m reading is The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leadership Organizations by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom. The book, as the title states, highlights the value of what they call ‘leaderless’ organizations. Although I’m not endorsing leaderless organizations, one chapter describes tools that successful non-leader leaders use to catalyze their respective organizations.

I found the qualities they suggest would probably to any leader.

1. Genuine interest in others
2. Loose connections (they don’t limit themselves to a few close friends but have many connections)
3. Mapping (catalysts think of who they know, who those people know, how they all relate to one another, and how they fit into a huge mental map)
4. Desire to help others
5. Passion
6. Meet people where they are (there is a difference between passionate and pushy; catalyst rely less on persuasion and more on meeting people where they are )
7. Emotional intelligence
8. Trust
9. Inspiration (catalysts often inspire others to work toward a goal that often doesn’t involve their own personal gain)
10. Tolerance for ambiguity (they learn to be OK when they don’t have concrete answers to big questions)
11. Hands-Off approach (they are less apt to use command and control)
12. Receding (after they accomplish what they intended, they get out of the way)

The authors also contrast CEO’s to Catalysts.

CEO’s  vs    Catalysts

• the boss vs a peer
• command-and-control vs trust
• rational vs emotionally intelligent
• powerful vs inspirational
• directive vs collaborative
• in the spotlight vs behind the scenes
• order vs ambiguity
• organizing vs connecting

What do you think about leader-less organizations? Do you think leadership is either one or the other? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I recommend Church Leaders Intelligence Report. It’s a great distillation of current news and leadership tips. It’s free. Outreach publishes it and here’s the link where you can get it.

http://www.sermoncentral.com/clir_subscribe_capture_email.asp

Here’s a sample of what you get (from the Nov. 3 edition)

When Things Speed Up, Leaders Should Slow Down

Leadership development consultant Brad Lomenick suggests that when facing times of great intensity and pressure, leaders should:

1. Always over-communicate.
2. Be methodical and calm, not intense and short.
3. List out priorities, so as to not be overwhelmed by the small things that seem to be incredibly urgent, but really aren’t.
4. Seek out quiet moments for prayer, reflection and thinking. During times of pressure, that is when we need those quiet moments the most.
5. Resist the urge to let things slide or just settle for something average because of the pressure to get it done. Keep your standards and levels of excellence at their highest—don’t compromise.

Brad Lomenick, On the Journey

Several years ago I attended a Rick Warren conference when Mark Beeson, pastor of Granger Community Church spoke.

I’d never heard him speak before yet ten years later I still remember two qualities about his talk. First, he knew how to tell a funny story. Second, he believed that of his primary roles each Sunday was to be a cheerleader for the people.

That image struck me at the time as a bit odd. But the more seasoned pastor I’ve become, I’ve realized the wisdom in his words.

In high school and college when I’d attend a football game, if the game wasn’t going well, we spectators would boo, sigh, or even leave if the score got too lopsided. Not a cheerleader, though. Even if their team is getting stomped, they still cheer. Can you imagine cheerleaders walking off the field when their team gets behind? Actually, when things look bleakest, thy intensify their cheers.

Mark explained that he’d never let a Sunday pass without specifically thanking several volunteers for their service. I’ve taken that to heart and have found that when I look a volunteer in the eye and say, ‘thanks for serving today,’ I se

e their countenance brighten. I will often roam the church building corridors before the service and thank as many volunteers as I can.

We probably will never know the kind of week many of our volunteers have faced. In spite o

f a bad week, they show up and faithfully serve. When we take notice and tell them we appreciate them, I believe we deposit hope into their hearts.

So, if you are a pastor, put on not only your leading hat or your teaching hat this Sunday. Put on your cheerleader hat as well.