Tag Archives: First Epistle to Timothy

Posted on

Horst Schulze on “Creating an Organization of Excellence & Efficiency” from the Leadership Summit 2016

by

leadership

I’m at the leadership summit with the team from Revolution Church. This is by far the best leadership conference of the year. This is my 13th summit and every year, God stretches me and challenges me. So much wisdom and inspiration wrapped up into two days. I always blog my notes, so if you can’t attend or missed something, I’ve got you covered.

Horst Schulze is the President of Ritz-Carlton, so he has a lot of wisdom that churches can learn from as it relates to guest services and be excellent.

Here are some takeaways:

  • It doesn’t matter what your business is, the guest wants to be happy, you want the guest to return.
  • You have to know what segment you are in so you know what that segment wants.
  • If you don’t know who your customer is and what they want, you will not be able to reach them and keep them.
  • To be successful, you must produce it better than the competition.
  • You have to be more efficient and sufficient than the competition.
  • No matter what our business is or what our market is, part of what you have to be excellent in is hospitality.
  • The guest wants 3 things: that the product is perfect, that you serve them timely and that you care (personal attention).
  • Personal attention drives customer satisfaction more than anything else.
Personal attention drives customer satisfaction more than anything else.

Click To Tweet

  • Efficiency and sufficiency doesn’t come from management but from leadership.
  • Leadership involves people and implies going somewhere.
  • The first day is the most crucial day for a new volunteer or employee in your church.
The first day is the most crucial day for a new volunteer or employee in your church.

Click To Tweet

  • Efficiency is not cost cutting. Cost cutting is killing your business and killing your brand.
  • Eliminate work that is wasted effort and doesn’t add value.
Posted on

Chris McChesney on “The 4 Disciplines of Execution” from the Leadership Summit 2016

by

leadership

I’m at the leadership summit with the team from Revolution Church. This is by far the best leadership conference of the year. This is my 13th summit and every year, God stretches me and challenges me. So much wisdom and inspiration wrapped up into two days. I always blog my notes, so if you can’t attend or missed something, I’ve got you covered.

Chris McChesney gave a talk from his book The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals, which after hearing him talk, I’m really excited to hear.

Here are some takeaways:

  • The thing that leaders are most frustrated in is not what they are educated in.
  • The hardest thing a leader will ever do, will drive a strategy or a plan that changes human behavior.
The hardest thing a leader will ever do, will drive a strategy or a plan that changes human behavior. @McChesney4DX

Click To Tweet

  • Any time the majority of people behave a particular way, the majority of the time, the problem isn’t the people but the system and the leader.
  • Execution is harder than strategy.
  • Leaders don’t get to blame the people they lead.
Leaders don’t get to blame the people they lead. @McChesney4DX

Click To Tweet

4 Disciplines of Exeuction

Focus on the Wildly Important

  • A team should have 2 – 3 goals to get 2 – 3 goals accomplished. If they focus on 4 – 10, the will accomplish 1 – 2 goals. 11 – 20 goals, they will accomplish nothing.
  • If you have too many goals, no one will hear you as a leader.
  • Too many goals are based on good ideas.
  • Focusing on wildly important are why narrowing the focus is so hard.
  • Too narrow the focus, don’t let things blur.
  • What lives at the corner of “really important” and “isn’t going to happen?”
  • What makes a goal a “wildly important goal” is how you will treat it.
What makes a goal a “wildly important goal” is how you will treat it. @McChesney4DX

Click To Tweet

  • When you are tackling something, go narrow.
  • Ask, “what are the fewest number of battles to win the war?”
  • Have 1 wildly important goal per team at the same time, everything else is sustainment mode.
Have 1 wildly important goal per team at the same time. @McChesney4DX

Click To Tweet

  • You can veto as a leader, but dictate.
  • A wildly important goal needs to have a deadline, a target.
  • Execution doesn’t like complexity.
  • The best friends of execution are transparency and simplicity.
The best friends of execution are transparency and simplicity. @McChesney4DX

Click To Tweet

Act on lead measures

  • Lead measures are predictive.
  • Lead measures are influenced by the team.
  • There is a big difference between knowing what to do and knowing the data behind what to do and why to do it.
  • Bad news is data is hard to get.
  • Bad news is that people forget data in 3 days.

Keep a Compelling Scoreboard

  • People play differently when they (not the boss) are keeping score.
  • You need a players scoreboard, not a coaches scoreboard.
  • The scoreboard needs to be simply, visible to the player, the lead and lag measures and tells the person and team if they are winning or losing.
  • The number 1 driver of morale and engagement is whether or not a person feels like they are winning.
The number 1 driver of morale and engagement is whether or not a person feels like they are winning. @McChesney4DX

Click To Tweet

Accountability

  • When you increase accountability, morale and engagement go up.
When you increase accountability, morale and engagement go up. @McChesney4DX

Click To Tweet

  • What are the 1 – 3 things I can do to drive the lead measure?
  • In the meeting: report on last weeks’ commitment, update & review the scoreboard and make commitments for next week (don’t give people their commitments).
Posted on

Alan Mulally on “The Art of Working Together” from the Leadership Summit 2016

by

leadership

I’m at the leadership summit with the team from Revolution Church. This is by far the best leadership conference of the year. This is my 13th summit and every year, God stretches me and challenges me. So much wisdom and inspiration wrapped up into two days. I always blog my notes, so if you can’t attend or missed something, I’ve got you covered.

Session 2 was with Alan Mullaly where he talked about The Art of Working Together.

Here are some takeaways:

Working together principles and practices

  • People first.
  • Everyone is included.
  • Compelling vision, comprehensive strategy and relentless implementation.
  • Clear performance goals.
  • One plan.
  • Facts and data are important.
  • Everyone knows the plan, the status, and areas that need special attention.
  • Propose a plan, positive, “find-a-way” attitude.
  • Respect, listen, help and appreciate each other.
  • Emotional resilience – trust the process.
  • Have fun – enjoy the journey and each other.
Posted on

How to Handle Guns Blazing Awesome Guy

by

awesome

If you are a pastor you have had this experience.

You meet someone new at your church on a Sunday morning, or they email about getting together and they are excited. I mean really excited. They can’t wait to jump in. They are passionate, extroverted, seemingly gifted and they have tons of experience at other churches. They know the lingo, have read the books, have been to the conferences and have the t-shirt.

They are guns blazing awesome guy (or girl).

Your first thought is, “Where has this person been? Finally!”

Be cautious with ‘guns blazing awesome guy.’

Click To Tweet

I get it because as a leader you want people who are excited, and guns blazing awesome guy is excited. He’s excited enough for 10 people! You can only imagine how far he can move the needle in your church and the people who will follow him, and how great it will be to have someone to shoulder the load.

All that may be true, but let me throw a caution flag.

There is a reason guns blazing awesome guy is at your church and not the church he just left. And it isn’t because of doctrine or because your church is somehow better. There is often something hidden in the background, lurking. It is this that gets so many church planters and pastors in trouble.

This is why there is so much wisdom in Paul’s advice to Timothy to not be hasty in laying on hands (1 Timothy 5:22). Move slowly. Guns blazing awesome guy may turn out to be simply awesome and great for your church, or he will move on to the next church that will elevate him into leadership quickly.

Now let me talk to the guns blazing awesome guy. The guy who is gifted, ready and maybe even mature. Not all guns blazing awesome guys are bad or sinful.

Many times you jump from church to church trying to find a spot, and the reason you have to jump from church to church has nothing to do with you and everything to do with people not seeing how awesome you are.

Slow down.

I know, I know. You are 25 and not getting any younger, and you have all these ideas and energy. Yet part of being a leader is being a follower, being under authority.

I recently talked to a pastor who was interviewing pastors for a job. He said, “One guy stands head and shoulders above the rest in talent and gifts. Yet he hasn’t been in a church for more than a year, and when he has, he didn’t volunteer anywhere, and he had no reason for that. It was ‘the leaders and the culture.'” I told him it would be a mistake to hire this guy, no matter how talented he is.

If you’re awesome, be patient instead of impatient. People will notice.

Click To Tweet

For both the leader in charge and the guns blazing awesome guy or girl, patience is in order. This is hard for both because ironically they need each other but often have different goals.

I can tell you in my years of ministry I’ve been frustrated because people didn’t see how awesome I was when I thought it. The moments I dug into that, learned and allowed myself to be teachable were the most beneficial. When I kicked up the dirt and moved on, it brought anger, hurt and bitterness. When I’ve rushed the guns blazing awesome guy or girl into leadership because, well, they were awesome, I’ve paid a hard price for it. I’ve overlooked character issues because of how talented they were and because we needed someone in that role. I’ve also moved too slowly with someone and lost them because another opportunity came along.

This isn’t an exact science, so it won’t end like that.

This is more of a caution to explore where you are right now. You may have a guns blazing awesome leader you need to slow down the process on or put a process into place. That way it is less of a feeling and more of a science as you move them into leadership. You may need to take a step back to ask why people don’t think you are as awesome as you think you are and what God might be trying to teach you in the waiting.

Posted on

How to be a Better Communicator

by

book

I watched the Preach Better Sermons conference yesterday. So much great stuff when it comes to preaching and growing as a communicator.

Here are some things I learned that are dynamite for preachers:

  • 90% of unchurched people choose a church based on the lead pastor & the preaching.

The First 5 Minutes of a Sermon – Jeff Henderson

  • If you don’t engage people in the first 5 minutes, it is very difficult to grab their attention again.
  • When you start a sermon, you have to assume the worst. You can’t assume that people are already are listening.
  • In the first 5 minutes, great communicators are shrinking the gap: the physical and emotional gap between the person speaking and the audience.
  • Connect with the audience first, then bring on the content.
  • Connection is the most important thing in the first 5 minutes, not content.
  • Communicate that you are there to help people, not impress them.
  • 5 tips for the first 5 minutes: be like able (smile), tell a story, create tension (make them wonder what the solution is), ask, “Have you ever felt like this?” (this creates understanding), and tease the solution (say, “there’s a way to get ahead in ____”).

Jud Wilhite

  • Preaching is a gift. Ask God to steward his gift in you.

The Pain of Preparation – Jeff Henderson

  • If we aren’t careful, we skimp on preparation.
  • If we don’t get ahead on our preparation, our preaching suffers and our church suffers.
  • The better you prepare, the better you preach.
  • Preparation starts with empathy. You have to be empathetic towards the people you are preaching to.
  • When you have empathy, it causes you to make sure you are prepared.
  • Questions to ask for preparation:
    1. What does my audience currently think about this topic? Where is the pain point?
    2. What do I want my audience to think about this topic?
    3. What is my single most persuasive idea?
    4. What do you want them to do?
  • Until you can say “because of that, this is what I want you to do” your sermon prep is not done.

Transformational Preaching – Derwin Gray

  • Consecrate yourself.
  • You preach out of the overflow of your time with God.
  • Always preach the good news. People need good news, not advice.
  • Be compelling and clear.
  • Too many pastors are not overwhelmed by Jesus so they look for other things to be compelling.
  • Preach convicting sermons.
  • At the end of the sermon, people should want to join Jesus’ cause.

Feedback:

  • What was working?
  • What could have made this better?

Crafting Memorable Phrases 

  • A sticky statement is one that someone can memorize and utilize in their life.
  • One sticky statement repeated several times.
  • Sticky statement is your big idea, it is your elevator pitch of your sermon.
  • Can people take your sermon and remember it?
  • To create sticky statements, you must P.R.E.A.C.H.
    • Give people a word picture.
    • Rhyming is key to a sticky statement.
    • Use an echo in your statement: Nobody expected no body.
    • Use alliteration (contrasting): your soul is more important than your stuff.
    • Contrast different things.
    • The hook is what makes it memorable and tells them what you want them to do.

[Image]

Posted on

Being a Pastor’s Wife: Pastor Your Wife as Much as You Pastor Your Church

by

Pastor's wife

Many churches (and pastors for that matter) do not know what to do with pastor’s wives, how to treat them, what role they play or how important they are. It is a hard role to live in and stay in. Everyone has a lot of their own expectations of what the wife of a pastor should be like, yet, they are all different.

While Revolution (and myself) has struggled just like every other church to figure this out, I believe Katie and I have figured some things out that we have put into place which will prove to be invaluable in the future. While this is not exclusive to pastors, any leader in a church and for that matter, any husband can do better in understanding their wives and how to engage them.

Over the next month, I’ll be sharing some of the things we’ve learned that I hope will be beneficial for you.

I remember when Katie and I were engaged; she met with a woman who was married to a pastor. Katie told her about our engagement, our future plans of being a pastor and starting a church. This pastor’s wife looked at Katie and told her to “run away as fast as she could.” In no uncertain terms, she told her to not marry a pastor. Now that I am a pastor, I can see why (now, let me share my completely biased opinion).

I have not held many other jobs. At 18, I knew what I wanted to do with my life and I poured everything I had into getting there. God opened many doors for me and blessed me with the opportunity to be on staff at some great churches and be around some world class leaders.

But, being a pastor is hard work. It never ends. There is always another meeting to be had, another person who needs help or someone else to counsel, there is always another book to read or a sermon to write, there is always another fire to put out, another person who needs me this minute. Simply put, being a pastor is a lifestyle job. This is the joy and curse of it. It is what I have given my life to, I will just never complete my to do list. And that is okay. What many pastors struggle with is that it is easy to serve others and help others instead of helping and serving their own family. They pour all they have into their churches and leave their families to fend for themselves. What is interesting though is that according to the qualifications of a pastor/elder in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 is that you judge a pastor/elder based on his family and how he leads them, serves them and how they work together.

3 ways help your wife become all that God has called her to be & all that she wants to be.

Click To Tweet

Protect Her Heart 

It is easy for a pastor’s wife to get bitter. To see how her husband helps so many other people, how he listens to other people’s problems and not hers. How he can be ready to serve someone at the drop of a hat, but not pick up his clothes at home. She is left to fend for herself and her kids. What many pastors forget is that their wife and kids attend their church and not only are they pastor dad, they are a pastor to them in the same way that he is a pastor to everyone else in the church.

Because it is a lifestyle job that involves counseling, doing weddings, funerals, and being with people, you get a front row seat to everything. You see the good, the bad and the ugly (and sometimes grotesque) of people in the church. A pastor’s wife sees all of this as well. What can make this painful is when you pour into someone, help someone through a difficult patch, spend hours with someone, only to have them stab you in the back, gossip about you, take all of your available time and then tell everyone you weren’t “there for them when they needed you.”

Pastor, are you pastoring your wife? Are you making time for her? Are you helping her deal with the pains you are experiencing? As a man, it is easy to compartmentalize what is happening and you can get lost in your work, but she doesn’t have that luxury, so you need to help her. I remember one time we went through a painful experience and I got over it rather quickly, but never told Katie that I had dealt with it personally, so she kept hurting for me. One night she let me know how bothered she was by this situation and I told her, “That is over.” Not a good thing.

She will be affected by things you won’t be affected by and you need to be sensitive to those things.

Her Gifts

Another area I see many pastor’s failing in is not helping their wife find her gifts and passions. In the past year, Katie has gotten more and more into photography, which has been awesome to see. For too many years, I failed her by not helping her find her gifts and passions outside of church, and was too focused on mine.

Many pastor’s wives are not able to use their gifts because they aren’t seen as worthwhile in the church. Many people think a pastor’s wife should lead the kids ministry, sing, play piano, lead the women’s ministry or teach somewhere. Maybe she is better at discipling, she may be gifted in hospitality or she may be a talented graphic artist. Whatever it is, she should be able to use her gifts.

She should also have the freedom to take breaks like everyone else as she goes through certain seasons of life. There have been times that Katie has been heavily involved in our church and other times where she did less things because of how young our kids are. I’ve always told people, my expectation for a pastor’s wife at Revolution is that she should be like everyone else who attends our church, plugged into community, and using her gifts. Sometimes she will do a lot and sometimes she will do a little, but we’ll have the same expectation for her as anyone else, she just happens to be married to a pastor.

Help Her Grow Spiritually

Another area pastor’s can help his wife is to grow spiritually. Spiritual growth can be hard for a pastor and his family because everything about their life seems spiritual. Often, Katie and I will talk about things she wants to grow in or learn and I will put books on her kindle for her to read. Men are called to pastor his wife and what better way than making sure she is reading good books instead of garbage (which there is no end to in popular books).

Bottom line for this first post, a pastor’s wife is part of the church. They attend it, use their gifts in it, are bought in, but they can easily become bitter or feel left out. They can feel like their husband has chosen work or other people over her and her kids. Don’t do that. Protect her and her heart. Make every effort to make sure she is growing, that she has hobbies and friends so that she is able to become all that God has called her to be.

Posted on

How to Make Smart Food Choices When You Eat Out

by

healthy

For anyone wanting to eat healthy, a roadblock is often what they do when they eat out.

You sit down with friends or your spouse, you are thinking in your head, I’ll make a good choice. And then something happens.

You open the menu and see all the choices and see all the pictures and boom. You make a poor choice.

Same goes for dessert.

You know that a dessert at a restaurant could feed a small family in terms of calorie count, but when you see the dessert menu or tray, you are done for.

What do you do? Stop going out to eat? Stop traveling for business or vacation?

In my journey of losing 130 pounds and keeping it off, I’ve learned a couple of things about how to eat out while on business, a date night, lunch meeting or vacation and stay healthy.

  1. Eat some protein a couple hours before eating out. Not eating enough protein is one of the reasons you get hungry in the middle of the morning or afternoon. When you eat out, this leads you to ordering an appetizer and then a meal that has way too many calories in it. Before eating out, grab a banana, a protein bar, greek yogurt, a smoothie. Something with protein in it so that you aren’t as hungry when you arrive at a restaurant.
  2. Know where you will eat. This is important if you are traveling or are on vacation or having a meeting. When I travel somewhere, I know the options near me that have healthier options. Don’t show up blind to a new city and just guess. That’s a way to make poor choices. I was recently in Orlando with another pastor and I had 3 options for breakfast and told him, “you can pick but it has to be one of these three.” Without this, you pull into the first place you see.
  3. Know what you will eat before you arrive. When you open a menu, if you don’t know what you want to eat, you will often order something very bad for you. Restaurants don’t put pictures of the healthiest meals in the menu. Also, things like salads are not always the best thing to order on a menu as they may have low amounts of protein (which will make you hungrier in a couple of hours) and high in sugar (so it tastes better). If you know what you want before you arrive at a restaurant, you are more likely to make a good choice.
  4. Order first. This came up in Tom Rath’s book Eat Move Sleep. He said that the person who orders first at a table sets the standard for what others will order. This is often true. If someone orders a healthy option first, others follow suit.
  5. Box up half your meal when it arrives. A friend told me this one, but when your meal arrives, ask for a box. Put half your meal in the box and close it. Now eat.
Enhanced by Zemanta
Posted on

Women, It Matters Who You Marry

by

marry

This past week, as I wrapped up our series Beautiful at Revolution, I preached on Proverbs 31. If you missed it, you can listen to it here.

One of the things that struck me is verse 23 when we are told what her husband is like.

There are many sides and applications to this verse.

The first is to women. I’ll blog another time about fathers and the impact of this verse.

In our culture, we often minimize the impact that comes from who we marry. Whether it is movies, the rise in divorce, the lack of seeing strong marriages as we grow up, but whatever it is, many people seem to minimize the impact of this decision.

Outside of your choice to follow Jesus, who you marry will have more of an impact on your life than any other decision you make.

Who you choose to marry will determine so much of your life. Choose well.

Click To Tweet

The woman in Proverbs 31 marries well. She marries a man who is respected. He is at the city gates, with the elders. The gates is where decisions are made. He is part of leading the city and community. He is respected by the others.

Women, if you want marry well, marry a man who is respected by other men.

Men respect men.

Don’t marry a guy you think you will make into a man. That doesn’t happen.

How do you know if you are dating a man or a boy? Here are few ways to find out:

  1. Get him around men you respect. Men can spot men. They can also spot a fake. Women can struggle with this because they fall for a boy and can’t see the truth. Those around you can. Ask men you respect what they think of him. This might be a father, a pastor, someone in your MC, someone who cares about you and wants to see you find a man.
  2. Ask him about his vision for his life. This one question separates men from boys. Men have a vision for their life, which means they will have a vision for your life as a couple. Boys do not. They are simply floating through life waiting for it to happen.
  3. Look at how he worships. Does he read his bible? Does he serve in a church? Does he love Jesus? How does he worship? How does he use his money? How he does these things while you date is exactly what he’ll do when you are married. Most of the time, men will take these things down a notch when they get married, but that’s a post for another day.
  4. Look at his work ethic. Does he have a job? Does he provide for himself? Is he saving money or getting into debt? Men work hard. Men are called to provide (1 Timothy 5:8).

Ladies, marry well.

4 ways to know if you should marry the guy you are dating.

Click To Tweet

Posted on

The Sins of a Pastor || Lazy

by

book

Pastors, like any person sin. While this may be surprising for some people as they put their pastors and their wife on a pedestal, it is true. Because of the nature of being a pastor and the life they live, their sins are often not obvious and ones that no one will ever know about. In fact, some of the most hurtful and dangerous sins are ones that a church and elders can unknowingly encourage. These sins are not in any particular order, just the order I wrote them in.

So far we’ve covered:

  1. Your Bible is for more than just sermon prep.
  2. A pastor being untouchable.
  3. The pastor’s family. 
  4. The need to be needed. 
  5. Giving away too much at home.

The sixth sin that many pastors deal with is the sin of being lazy.

Not exercising or eating well. Pastors are notoriously overweight. The reasons for this are many. Most of our meetings happen at Starbucks or over a meal. There is snack sitting around at every church function and feeding more than 4 people is hard to do in a healthy way. This may be a symptom of poor planning, bad eating habits or a lack of self-control. I speak from experience on this as I used to weigh 300 pounds.

Not making enough money. Many pastors are underpaid. This can be because the church doesn’t have the money. Or, as is often the case, the church doesn’t pay well enough. Too many elder teams still hold to a poverty theology when it comes to their pastors, as if this will teach them humility. If you think your pastor needs to learn humility, you shouldn’t have hired him in the first place. 1 Timothy 5:17-18 says: “The elders who are good leaders should be considered worthy of an ample honorarium, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, ‘Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain and, the worker is worthy of his wages.” By no means should a pastor be overly wealthy and most pastors do not go into ministry for the money, but they should be paid well. A pastor should be paid like others in his church.

Not having structure in the church to stay on task. Many pastors do not stay on task well. They struggle to close their office door and get things done. You should have times that cannot be interrupted. If you need to get out of your office to not be disturbed, do that. Go to Starbucks or work from home on your sermon. Set a time that you begin work and end work and stick to that. Decide when you are most alert and creative and do your sermon work then. For me, that is the morning. Nothing intrudes on my morning. All my meetings happen in the afternoon and evening because the elders have stated to me the most important thing I do centers on my sermon.

Here are a few ways to fight this:

  1. Make an exercise and eating plan. Find something, join a Crossfit box, make an eating plan and stick to it. Decide that you will start losing weight and eating better. One of the ways to do that when you go out is to know what you are going to eat when you go to a restaurant so you don’t even need to see the menu and the tantalizing pictures of food you shouldn’t eat. When you eat out, order first so you aren’t swayed by what others order (this has huge implications if you order after someone), try it sometime.
  2. Get accountability on that plan. Go public with your plan. If you are planning to eat a certain or exercise, tell others about it. Have them hold you accountable.
  3. Ask for a raise. If you need to make more to provide for your family, ask for it. Lead up in this area to your elders. If they are a stone wall and want to keep you humble, pray that God will change their hearts. If they stay closed off to you and you feel God has released you, look for a new job.
  4. Elders and money. If you are an elder and have the power to give a raise to a pastor, ask yourself, “How would I want this elder team to treat me and my finances if I was the pastor?” Changes the discussion when you put yourself in the position of receiving money. Bottom line for elders, one of the main reasons pastors leave churches is so they can provide better for their families. Before you get angry about that, everyone in your church switches companies for the same reason.
  5. Create structure. Have a start and end time to work. Have a to-do list, the 2-3 things you have to accomplish everyday for today to be worth it and get those 2-3 things done each day.

[Image]