Missional learning journey

Jesus Christ was a master teacher.  Jesus embodied Truth, and He understood perfectly how people learn and change.  He gave extremely effective lessons to His disciples.  His approach to teaching involved doing, not just talking.

I have been reading, The Beauty of Partnership and have enjoyed teaching others who have engaged in cross-cultural mission trips.  You can visit their site at beautyofpartnership.org and take a look at yourself what partnership might look like before you engage in your next missional project.

The challenges of serving a cross-cultural partnership are great.  The risks are substantial.  The opposition to building the Church and expanding God's kingdom is real. Yet, by God's grace, we can develop the skills to be a truly effective advocate for a cross-cultural ministry and partnership is very doable.

I believe that God is a missional or a sending God. Missio Dei (the “God of Mission”) is one of the ways we refer to God. God forms and sends people into our world to be a sign, servant and foretaste of the Kingdom of God. The term “Missional Church” is being used today and we are part of that movement if it is described as a “renewed theological vision for the church.”

Leadershp Thoughts

The role of a leader is somewhat akin to the general practitioner n medicine.  Rather than concentrating most of their time on one area of leadership activity and becoming extremely proficient in it, the average leader is required to do a great many things fairly well.

Upon graduating from our various school studies, it is wise to remember that commencement is just that, it is a beginning, not an end.  Remember that sill increases the more you use a tool.  Do your best from the beginning, but do not consider yourself a finished product. You've only just begun!

In recent years we seem to have overlooked modesty.  We should admit that we are novices in many areas and need wise counsel and support of those who have been in the business for a while.  We need to remember that just as submission to authority is a two-way street, mentoring needs to go in two directions: leader to people in areas in which they are specially equipped; people to leader in areas where members of your team have gained expertise through years of priceless experience.  Even when you have become a seasoned veteran, maintain an attitude of an amateur willing to learn from the marvelously gifted team members that surround you.

Whatever you do should not be done casually or haphazardly.  Whatever is worth doing at all is worthy of your best effort.

Rather than impressing people with your giftedness, remember two basic factors that will hold you in high esteem with your team.

First, love your people extravagantly.  If they are convinced from your tangible performance that you genuinely loves them, it is often easy for them to forgive many of your inadequacies.  This kind of love evidences itself in the degree of sensitivity you demonstrate for them.  It surfaces in your ability to spend time with them and really enjoy them s people, not as potential means for accomplishing your programs.  It comes to light more dramatically as your people find that you are quick to assume the blame for something that goes askew, humbly admitting that you do not have all the answers, seeking and honouring their opinions, hurts with them when hey hurt, and is quick to ask their forgiveness if you feel that you have failed them.  Such a leader does not come into the team environment exuding the impression that they know it all.  You need to come in knowing that God has given everyone a gift and that the accumulated giftedness, working in harmony together, is what makes up the genius of your team. "I am humbled that God has called me to a position of leadership among such a superior group of people.  I'll share what I know. You share what you know. Together we'll discover what we need to be and do.  Together we'll work to bring about what we want to accomplish through this team."

Secondly, there are a great number of leadership tools out there for you to use.  Personally find the material that deals with the spiritual, emotional,  and mental support system you will need to succeed.

We will get tired serving, but we will never tire of serving.  In our emotional roller coaster of life, we will feel inadequate until we reach a level we determine is success.  Until then, along with unrealistic expectations put on us from others may tempt us to put inordinate amount of time and effort into your work.  As a result, for those with families in particular, you may neglect those very people that are the most important to you.  Then there are others who spend so much time with their families that they perform not enough service to their work.  Both extremes of ambition and indifference must be avoided if a person is to succeed in leadership.

We are called to feed, lead and serve a group of people making up our team.  We look for ordinary people called upon to do extraordinary things.  Most of the time we dread giving out specifics to a job, we would rather go through a list of character traits and that's because it is more important to us what a team player is than what they are able to do.


http://youtu.be/3sDgIQJlGYg

The Ideal Leadership Plan

Allowing for great creativity because God allows that in our lives, we should all have a very unique leadership plan.

Some of us who work with managers, supervisors and team leaders should be assigned to a few standing committees or project teams - reporting back to the greater team body.

Structure of the project teams need to be such that it encourages greater discovery and research at the same time freeing them to engage actively in the work.

The leadership of this team needs to have a road map that they trust in order to allow for such open creativity - and comfortable with their own skin to all small leaders to begin to grow and exercise.

Related articles

• When To Use Facilitative Leadership (facilitativeleadership.wordpress.com)

Leadership Task - Shepherding

The word pastor means shepherd.  Many times I went to my team members and told them I was their pastor.  Freaky looks, but lots of wonder and then amazement as they saw a different kind of leadership in their lives.

Shepherding can only be successful if implemented with the right attitude - not begrudgingly, feeling compelled to do so, but voluntarily and willingly.

Shepherding should be one of the most desirable and gratifying areas of your leadership responsibilities.

Check out this link - first part of a thesis paper on shepherding leadership -http://gradworks.umi.com/34/25/3425741.html

Code of Leadership Ethics

MY PERSON

• I will endeavour to pray daily; to read, study, and meditate upon God's Word; and to maintain extended times of contemplation
• I will plan time to be with my family, realizing my special relationship to them and their position as important members of my team
• I will seek to keep my body physically fit through  proper eating habits and planned exercise, renewing myself through a weekly holiday and an annual vacation
• I will try to keep myself emotionally fit, keeping in touch with my feelings and growing in healthy control of them
• I will strive to grow through comprehensive reading and through participation in professional educational opportunities

MY PROFESSION

• I will seek to conduct myself consistently with my calling and my commitment as a person of God
• I will give full service to my team and will accept added responsibilities only if they do not interfere with the overall effectiveness of my work with my team
• I will consider a confidential statement made to me as a sacred trust not to be divulged with out consent of the person making it
• I will responsibly exercise the freedom of my leadership pulpit, speaking the truth of God's Word with conviction in love, and will acknowledge any extensive use of material prepared by someone else

MY FINANCES

• I will advocate adequate compensation for my profession 
• I will be honest in my stewardship of money, paying bills promptly, asking no personal favours or discounts on the basis of my professional status
• I will give tithes and offerings as a good steward 

MY TEAM

• I will seek to regard all persons on the team with equal love and concern and undertake to serve impartially to their needs
• I will seek to be friends with all team members, yet retain the right to seek close friendship with some
• I will exercise confidence in the upcoming leadership, assisting them in their training and mobilizing their creativity
• I will seek to lead the team in a positive direction to achieve the goals we have mutually agreed upon.  I will remain open to constructive criticism and to suggestions intended to strengthen our common initiatives

Developing Leaders

If you are arriving at a place where there is a healthy leadership team in place and you are surrounded by competent team members who understand that they are leaders and are in development - great - have an awesome honeymoon.

If not, not so great and post-pone honeymoon for extended period of time.

I love it when I entered a new place of ministry and found no leadership team, no experienced team members, no structure that supports the development of leaders yet am asked to perform miracles beyond imagination.  To this date that has never happened - I have always developed a team first.  In the long run - for those who can wait - success is always the fruit.

Why, because my first real leadership position was in a church.  I think there were at least 40 different groups raging in all kinds of activities - young to old, sports to marriage, evangelism to prayer.  Guess what - they all wanted me to be part of their group - guess what I said - yes.  Guess who saw the need for change, growth, development - people listen to this - for forty groups!!!  That's right, I never went home until midnight, six days a week, never saw my wife - and then the leadership team had the gull to say I wasn't working hard enough....

From then on, I developed first and moved on and developed again and moved on and developed again.  Much more fun.

One of the first things I do is check out the gifting, then equip based on that.  That includes Myers Briggs stuff, love language, leadership strengths/weaknesses, spiritual maturity etc.

Remember through the entire scenario that it is God who chooses all leaders.  Though we may have the tendency to become impatient with them because of their lack of training, ability and effort, remember to treat them with dignity and respect, trying to be submissive to them where possible just as you expect them to be submissive to your leadership.

God often will surprise us.  The most profound thought may come from the lips of someone we had considered totally inept.  If God is indeed the author of leadership and the chooser of leaders, then He is able to perform His work through the most unlikely candidates. If we doubt that, we who are part of active leadership should take a careful and penetrating look in the mirror.

The Right to be Heard

This is not what you think - I am trying to say that you need to earn the right to be heard - and to do that you need to come into your team and respect each member.

Do not think that any member of the leadership team is "old" or "ignorant" or "retrogressive."

There might be more wisdom there, especially in practical matters. Attach yourself to them.  Ask them questions.  Respect their judgement.  In most cases you will prosper and mature greatly if you do. 

You may not be able to move ahead as fast as you want, but progress will come as you gain credibility and experience and as you begin to emulate more and more the gentleness of Jesus.

The principle of mutual submission

An organizational structure resolves around some type of leadership hierarchical system.

The built in principle that applies to all those in leadership positions should be that of mutual submission.

There are some individuals who feel that they can do everything better than the next person, even when the next person is being paid to do that job specifically.  That usually happens to someone who has more educational training and they imagine that they have all the answers.  They believe that it is appropriate for them to impose those answers on everyone else, and goes about doing so with a grim determination.  Of course with a tad of humility, they would realize they are not the possessors of all wisdom.

God gave our communities a plurality of wise leaders.  A wise leader will realize that one of them should be discipling them.  Brighter still, a wise leader will keep themselves from clashing with older leaders, asking them to mull over the ideas and consider their wisdom.  Then when new ways of doing things are presented to the community they will be backed by a united front.

Members of your team should be treated with love

When I have taken over a new team there are two things that I concentrate on - love my team lavishly and preach the Word everyday.

Some people are easy to love.  Remember to pray for them.  For those who are not easy to love, you will be spending a lot of time praying for them expecting that God works the greatest miracles of all in the lives of the "unlovely" people.

Develop a one-to-one relationship with your team members - remember to meet wtih them at least once every three months to ensure both of you are successful.

In those meetings ask a lot of questions - key questions about themselves. As a result, you will find yourself  becoming genuinely interested in them.  They in turn will see that you are interested in them.

There are quite a few practical ways of demonstrating love - remember the five love languages so that you will not do a "team" love but more expressions at the time when you meet one on one - although team celebrations are awesome.

Here is a team that "loves" - welcome to the world of auctions--

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xh1f4e_show-the-love-to-auction-committee-members-run-your_webcam

Marriage transcends children

Odd point to bring up don't you think?

True, but as leaders today, we forgot at times to stop doing and start loving.  Our love for our children will never reach the emotional state of expression or the physical state of expression our our spouse will.

Are you empty - have you poured yourself out to everyone at the workplace, to your children?  You can't tell me that a snuggle while watching your favourite show or fireplace or dvd does not just make the soul right with God, with each other - you feel one, you feel whole.

With our spouse we stop leading - we start loving, transparent, open, safe, best friends....

Reconciling Relationships

Not in the sense of peace verses conflict but in the sense of time - spent at work verses at home - a conflict that probably never will end.

Nolan Harmon identifies that "there are time when an emergency at home demands every thought of the father/husband, there are times when an emergency at the office becomes so imperative that it takes precedence over all home duties.  This will be admitted.  What is not so easily remembered, however, is that a leader's relationship to their family is as high and as sacred as that to their work."  So sometimes work gets precedence and sometimes family.

What we have is an interlocking of responsibilities.

Nolan Harmon calls for this - "the better the father, the better the leader; the better the guide for the others, the better the guide for one's own children."

Study Life

"Full of God's Word"

In order to give God's Word away to others and see it make a difference in others, we must be studying, interpreting, applying God's Word to our world that we engage with.  To know that Word, means we have to spend time with in it.  We also need to spend time with people, getting to know them and their needs, so that are application of the Word will 'scratch them where they itch."

Here are some thoughts that my prove helpful -

To be authoritative, we need to be aware of the whole scope of Scripture.  Have a plan toread through the entire Bible every year, divided properly into daily segments so that it is not so time consuming - reading it rapidly is okay as it provides a rather big picture scenario or stopping to meditate on some jewel you found in the midst of everything is okay too.

Spend considerable amount of time studying - even consider apply what you are learning as if you would be invited to speak somewhere on the topic you have just found interesting.  If you do at least one outline a week, following closely to what is happening around you in the world you live, you may make small presentations that prove effective in the lives of your listeners - but give the Holy Spirit something to work with.

If you were to obtain a university degree in any subject there would be at least a minimum of 15 hours of study required outside the classroom in order for you to succeed.  Is that the right time to put towards studying? Why not?

Each expressed learning point needs to make a call for some type of decision - hopefully to yourself first and then when sharing, to others.  Make the call for a decsion then you know how your studying is making a differenct in your life and not just in your head.

Personal LIfe

"Life In a Fishbowl"

Excessive demands make it often easy for us to become absorbed in tasks and ignore those important personal needs.

Those needs include the following:

•Sleep – morning person or night owl get the required amount of sleep that we have you refreshed for the next day http://www.thoughts.com/shemelts/the-power-of-sleep

•Nutrition – watch the sugar and the caffeine - some of you know the 3 o'clock wall is an indication of a sugar addiction and just try and not have a coffee for a day and see how many trucks have hit you...

•Recreation – do it regularly and make sure your phone is no where near you - whether sports, gardening, hiking, reading, fishing...

•One day a week off – unplug the phone - doing something that completely has nothing to do with your work environment

•Find a mentor/friend/confidant - sounds easy? Try it...

•Relationship with Jesus - Many people take this part for granted – especially if the leader has ‘pastoral’ tendencies. A close walk with God does not come automatically. In fact, this is the hardest work of all and the part of a leaders life that requires the greatest amount of personal discipline.

The Call

Questions to ask yourself to determine if in fact you have been "called."
1.  Do you like people enough to give yourself in service to them unselfishly?
2.  Are you comfortable with people, or are you easily threatened by them?
3.  Are you able to confront people lovingly?
4.  Are you an organizer, a motivator, a person who can inspire people to undertake ever greater and more exiting tasks?
5.  Do you have the capability of being an interesting person, or do people yawn at the very thought of your appearance?
6.  Are you able to communicate?  Can you organize your thoughts in logical fashion and present them in such a way that you will provoke attention?
7.  Do you have the physical stamina?  Will you be able to hold up under long hours and during times of stress?
8.  Do you have administrative and leadership abilities?
9.  Are you comfortable with children, the aged, as well as those that are between?
10.  Are you a disciplined person?  Are you able to manage  your time wisely?
11. Are you able to project realistic expectations upon people and thus solicit their support and encouragement?
12.  Are you sufficiently trained for the challenge of leadership?
13.  If you are married, is your spouse sympathetic to your role and is she possibly willing to enter into a partnership with you in the ministry to which you have been called?