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Links for Leaders 11/16/18

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It’s the weekend…finally.

And since it’s the weekend, it’s the perfect time to catch up on some reading. Below, you’ll find some articles I came across this week that I found helpful as a leader and parent and hope you do as well.

Recently, God has been teaching me a lot about grieving losses in life and leadership. All of us have experienced loss and come up against the limits in life, whether in a relationship, a dream, finances, health, but how we deal with them and move forward determines so much for us. Many of us get stuck. Recently, I came across a great quote that helped me understand this even more and what it takes to move forward.

Before diving into those, in case you missed them this week. Here are the top 3 posts on my blog this week that I hope you find helpful:

Now, here’s what I found helpful:

Christmas is almost here, and I hope you are preparing for it as a church. Tony Morgan’s company has helped a lot of churches, and they have two posts you should read: 3 strategies to leverage Christmas for reaching new people and three next step ideas for annual Christmas attendees. Don’t miss the opportunity of Christmas!

We’ve adopted twice, and adoption is beautiful, challenging, amazing and tragic all at once. Many times, you feel like you are fighting for the heart of your adopted child (or any child for that matter). This post from parent cue was so encouraging to me, and if you’re a parent (adoptive or not), I think it will encourage you.

I get asked a lot about the books I read and how I find good books. One way is to see what other leaders I respect are learning. Brian Dodd is always posting great books, and he lays out 19 books leaders should read ing 2019. I’ve read a few of these but look forward to diving into a few others on this list.

If you’re a pastor or been in church for any length of time, you know the drill at church, so it is easy to forget what it feels like to be a guest. The emotions a guest has the fears, the thoughts. This post from Rich Birch was so helpful to me, and a great reminder of what people feel when they walk into your church on a Sunday morning.

The holidays are almost here (I can’t believe that Thanksgiving is next week!), so it is important to decide as a family, individual, couple, what pace you will keep over the next month so that you aren’t too tired. Here are 10 great tips from parent cue.

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How to Talk About Money in Your Church

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Many church leaders struggle with talking about money in their church or loathe the offering time. However, this fear can be alleviated by making a shift in their perspective about money. The topic of money is not about money per se. The Kingdom of God and helping people to live as disciples of Christ is the true aim of money. In the words of Peter Greer, “Money is a vehicle, not the ultimate objective.”

The reality for pastors is that money is important. It is needed when it comes to ministry and money is one of the biggest struggles and stresses of the people who sit in your church.

Many pastors this time of year (or after the new year) will talk on money in a sermon. Here are 5 things to keep in mind for the next time you preach on money:

5 things to keep in mind when you preach on money.

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1. People genuinely are interested in what the Bible has to say on money. People come to your church to hear what the Bible has to say. They drove there, probably looked at your website, they drove past a sign that said church, so they are expecting for you to open the Bible and read it. I think people want to know what God thinks about a whole host of things, money included.

Why?

Because very few people have strong financial knowledge. There are so many takes on it, ideas on what you should do, how to get out of debt, where you should invest that it becomes overwhelming and then people stick their head in the sand. Telling them what the Bible has to say is incredibly helpful and refreshing to them because it says more than “you should give to the church.”

People genuinely are interested in what the Bible has to say on money.

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As well, most couples are fighting over money. Most people are laying in bed at night stressing over money. Talking about it hits them where they live and answers some of their most burning questions.

2. Get your financial house in order. Many pastors don’t talk about money because many pastors aren’t generous and don’t give. Generosity doesn’t come easy for me but preaching on what the Bible has to say about money has convicted my heart to grow in it. If a pastor doesn’t preach on money, generosity or stewardship of finances, it is usually because he isn’t doing well in those areas personally and that will affect the life of a church. Generous churches are led by generous leaders.

Generous churches are led by generous leaders.

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Be honest with your struggles if you have them. Talk about what you have learned and how God is continuing to grow you. People will resonate with that. Every time I talk about money I’ll hear people say over and over, “Thanks for being open about what is hard for you.”

3. Make sure you don’t make promises God doesn’t make. Especially with passages like Malachi 3, it is easy to make promises God doesn’t make when it comes to money. Is God faithful? Yes. Does God bless people financially when they give? Yes. Are there lots of rich people who don’t give? Yes. Are God’s blessings to us always financial reimbursement? No. This is the one area that a lot of damage has been done in terms of preaching on money.

4. Stewardship is more than money. While most pastors preach on money to get more people to give money, that isn’t the goal. The goal is to help people follow Jesus when it comes to stewardship and that includes money, but also includes how they use their time, house, car, retirement and steward their whole life.

Stewardship is more than money.

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Make sure that when you talk about stewardship, you help people understand that God’s heart is for more than their bank account, but also their calendar, relationships, and heart.

5. Give clear and helpful next steps. You should have clear next step every week that you preach but with money, it is incredibly important. Whether that is doing a 90 day giving challenge, a financial class like FPU or something else. Don’t just leave people hanging on this. Especially because as I said on point 1, people want to know how to handle money.

5 things to do the next time you preach on money.

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When to Quit Something or Let it Ride

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One of the critical jobs of every leader is problem-solving. The longer I’m a leader, the more I realize that much of my time as a leader is spent in brainstorming, making decisions or looking ahead to decisions that will be made in the future.

The struggle is that often, solving problems means taking very little information and making a decision based on that little information.

One thing that pastors seem to be notorious for is solving problems that aren’t problems. Something doesn’t go right, we start a new ministry, and no one shows up, a creative piece falls flat, a marketing tool does not bring in the people we thought, a new direction or vision is laid out, and no one is excited.

Are these problems? Potentially.

The problem is that we start to solve them before we know. One night of something not going right does not constitute a problem; it’s one night. We make changes and then when they don’t work once, we quickly make adjustments to them. Now, sometimes adjustments need to be made. Sometimes we can see things that we can tweak to make something better.

But often, we solve problems that are not problems. Let something ride a little bit before you decide it is a problem. Let it show itself a problem before fixing it. Many successes come from merely continuing down the path instead of giving up. In fact, we often quit something right before it breaks through.

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What You have to Give Up to Move Forward in Life & Relationships

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I have a confession: I like control.

A lot.

I like to stack the odds in my favor in situations. I want to know the details of things, who will be there, what we’ll eat and do. For me, it is incredibly comforting. And it’s easy to do.

This desire though, while it can be helpful in certain situations, in others it can be destructive.

Especially in the areas of relationships.

Why?

I can’t control the outcome of them.

I can’t control what someone else will do or say.

I can’t change my spouse, friends, kids or co-workers.

Yes, I can do things to help, but I can’t change them.

For many of us, this desire for control hurts us.

Our desire for control will destroy our best relationships.

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Now, before you think you are off the hook and aren’t into control, consider this.

We will control people with our silence, our passion, our drive, passive-aggressive comments, knowledge, anger, shaming, withholding, tears, anything to swing the situation into our favor.

Amazingly, it is easy to do.

And often, the people around us will let us because it is more comfortable than the alternative.

But, control not only destroys us, but it also destroys others.

To move forward in life, to start anything over or see something (or someone) flourish, we must give up control.

To move forward in life, to start anything over or someone flourish, we must give up control.

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Why would we do this?

There is a sense of peace that awaits us that we will not experience in control mode.

Many spiritual practices in Scripture center around the battle for control: submission to authorities or in relationships, prayer, fasting, giving, Sabbath to name a few.

God knows that in our heart of hearts, we love control and will do anything to have it.

The adventure of faith is stepping into uncertainty and risk.

Letting go.

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When Someone Doesn’t Pull Their Weight at Work, Church or Home

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One of the realities of leadership and relationships is that someone will always do more work than the other person. When you are the person who is taken advantage of it can be hurtful. When you are the person who is taking advantage, it doesn’t feel as bad.

For many, this can be devastating in a relationship or job. The closer a person is to us, the more hurtful it is.

As I preached through the book of Nehemiah this year, I was struck by a verse in chapter 3.

Verse 5 says: The nobles, the leaders, would not lift a finger. One translation says they wouldn’t put their shoulders to the work, another says, they refused to do the work.

This verse is telling. Not everyone will do the work; some will flat out refuse it. And either stay and watch and cause problems or they’ll leave.

If you’re a pastor, you’ve had this happen as you’ve watched leaders and people come and go to your church.

They will leave for doctrinal reasons, theological disagreements. Some will go because you use too much bible or not enough. Your sermons aren’t helpful enough, or they are also useful and not deep enough. People will leave because you won’t do their ministry idea, you aren’t meeting their needs, and the list goes on and on.

We had an elder leave our church because he wanted a church that was more about him and his needs. When this happens, it is crushing because one of the jobs of an elder is to lay aside their needs and preferences to lead for the good of the body. He told me since “Revolution targets men in there 20’s and 30’s and I’m older than that, so it doesn’t make sense to stay.”

That’s refusing to do the work.

I’ve watched it happen among church planters as they go through an assessment. When they don’t pass right away or hit snags, they can choose to do the work that lays ahead or look for a shortcut.

A leader sets aside their needs and desires for the good of others, the good of the vision.

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When a leader burns out, they can choose to do the work to come back healthy and come back and lead, or they can say, “I won’t do the work.”

Why does this matter?

In the New Testament, obedience and sacrifice are linked.

In the New Testament, obedience and sacrifice are linked.

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We are more interested in glory.

But that doesn’t come first and might not even happen in this life.

As Andy Stanley said, A vision worth pursuing will demand sacrifice and risk. You will be called upon to give up the actual good for the potential best.

I love what Karen Burnett said: If you decide that what God is asking you to do with your life is just too much on you and is just a little too inconvenient, then you will never see the miracles he has for you.

I want the miracles of God, every day. But rarely do I want any inconvenience. I want the reward that comes from obedience to Jesus, but not the sacrifice that that obedience will require.

Here’s a hard reality of life, church, family, and work.

Some will refuse to do the work. Some will refuse to be a part of the vision. Some will refuse to sacrifice like you will.

You will give more than others.

You will give more than your spouse.

You will give more than your kids.

You will give more than your boss.

You will give more than your pastor.

You will give more than your board members.

If you have a vision, at some point, you will be called upon to sacrifice something for that vision. That sacrifice might be time, money, hard work, failure.

It’s okay to grieve and be upset about people who don’t do what they say they’ll do. But we don’t stay there; we have to heal and move forward.

Some will do more work than others and work harder than others.

We’re told multiple times in Nehemiah 3 that some people did their section and then another.

Did they complain? I don’t know, but they started to work on another section because they were finished with theirs.

This is one of our church’s values, to take it personally.

They didn’t finish their section and said, well we’re done, let’s wait for them.

One of our values is seeing a problem or something that needs to be done here and jumping in.

Nehemiah wants us to know that not only do some people do more work, some work harder.

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Links for Leaders 10/26/18

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It’s the weekend and it’s been a while since I posted a list of articles I’ve enjoyed, so I thought I’d bring it back.

Recently, I posted about some of what I’ve been learning recently as a pastor and parent and I think you should check it out. Especially if you struggle to enjoy things instead of fixing things and struggle to be thankful in the moment something happens.

Before diving into those, in case you missed them this week. Here are the top 3 posts on my blog this week that I hope you find helpful:

Here are the posts I enjoyed:

A lot has been written this week on the passing of Eugene Peterson and his accomplishments and he had an enormous impact on me as a pastor, especially his memoir. But I particularly enjoyed reading Philip Yancey’s tribute to him.

Recently, I’ve been enjoying and been challenged by the writings of Chuck DeGroat. If you’ve never read anything by him, you should start. Here’s a great first post, The beautiful mystery of you. 

I’m always on the lookout for evaluation questions that help me to move forward. Most of the time as leaders or parents, we focus outside ourselves or what we can fix in others. That often leaves me frustrated, so I really appreciated this list of 11 questions to ask yourself about soul care and personal fulfillment from Paul Alexander.

I’ve been reading a lot about gratitude and joy recently (read this recent post to see more) especially because of how negative and toxic our world through social media has become recently. So, I really appreciated Brandon Cox’s post on 3 practices to becoming a more positive person.

I’m always looking for tips to grow as a leader, so I really appreciated this list of 7 ways to grow as a leader from Ron Edmondson.

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The Hidden Secret to the Good Life

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Everyone is looking for the good life.

This is why you’re here on this blog and why you read other blogs, listen to podcasts, seek out advice from mentors and coaches and why you get up and go to work every day.

The Hidden Secret to the Good Life

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What if I told you, that the good life, is less about what you do, what you accomplish and more about what you enjoy?

In a culture that rewards doing this seems counterintuitive.

The reason it is counterintuitive is that few of us do this well.

We are so busy going after things that we rarely stop to ask if we want what we’re going after.

Yes, you work hard to make money, but do you want the sacrifices and losses that come with that? That can range from loss of family time, higher stress and aggravation.

What if, what if you had everything you needed?

Many of us live as if God will ask us at the end of our lives if we lived the good life, if we climbed the highest ladder, if we raised our kids to climb the highest ladder or if we achieved the highest status possible. When in reality, God will ask us if we fulfilled his calling on our lives with our only life.

While there can and often is overlap between the two, they are often very different.

What this does besides stress in our lives and a sense of longing for more, it leaves us feeling like we’re missing out or that we somehow are living the wrong life. We daydream about another life, another opportunity when the one we should go after is right in front of us.

For the most driven of us, it leaves us missing out on the present in our lives.

Many of us, spend so much time on our phones or grabbing moments on our phones that we fail to live the moments we’ve captured on our phones.

Recently, I’ve started a practice that has been incredibly helpful to me. At the end of each day, write down three things I’m grateful for. Three things, I can thank God for.

For me, this has caused me to be more thankful, to be more present throughout my day, but it has also helped me to see the small things God is doing in my life.

Most of us are on the looking for huge things from God (which He does), but most of life is lived in the small moments with God and others.

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The Key to Building a Generous Church Culture

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What is the key to building a generous church culture?

Could it be:

  • Telling a compelling story?
  • Running a slick capital campaign?
  • Sharing a recent testimony?
  • Letting your church members know their gift matters?
What is the key to building a generous church culture?

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These tactics and more can motivate people in your church to give, and they may lead to a short-term boost in generosity. But any tactics you use will fail in the long run if you don’t build a culture of generosity to sustain them.  

There’s only one way you can build a generous church culture.

Zacchaeus, meet Jesus

Zacchaeus was a man of small stature (Luke 19:3), but he was also a man of great wealth (19:2).

He was despised by the people of his community. Not because he was a man of financial means, but because he presumably used his position as the chief tax collector in town to collect more money than he should have collected.

But Zacchaeus was transformed into a generous giver. He gave half of his possessions to the poor and paid back what he took from others fourfold (19:8).

How did this happen?

Jesus transformed Zacchaeus (19:3–6).

Jesus gave him a new life and a new heart (19:9–10). He led Zacchaeus to become a giver.

There’s an essential lesson in this story you need to grasp in order to unleash generosity in your church.

The foundation of generosity

The foundation of generosity is not built upon a solid campaign strategy or the pillars of the latest digital tactics. The foundation of a generous church culture is built upon leading the people in your church to Jesus.

I know this sounds trite, but hear me out.

Jesus is a giver.

He graciously gave his life for us so that we might live in him.

Like Zacchaeus, it’s when we come face-to-face with Jesus that we are transformed into generous people. This isn’t a superficial transformation or a one-time offering.

In Christ, our desire to give will in time overshadow our willingness to receive, the grasp on our belongings will become loosened, and we will be led to give joyfully from what we have.

If you want to build a generous church culture, then continue to preach the gospel and teach biblical stewardship.

Remind your church that Jesus has given them new life. Regularly let them know that Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice so that they could be forgiven from their sins, receive his perfect righteousness, and become children of God.

In time, as you preach the gospel and lead people to meet Jesus, you will see your church members respond to his generosity by being generous themselves.

Over to you

It will certainly be helpful to provide your church community with online giving and mobile giving tools, as well as following the best practices for increasing giving in your congregation. But in the words of Chris Willard and Jim Sheppard, the authors of Contagious Generosity, “Well-executed tactics fail if there is no culture of generosity to support them.”

Before you rush to embrace the latest and greatest promotional tactic, take time to prayerfully reflect on the ministry in your church and whether you are regularly preaching the gospel and leading the people in your church to meet Jesus face-to-face—just like Zacchaeus.  

Here are three questions you can ask to help you think through your ministry:

  1. How does Zaccchaeus’s story illustrate the importance of preaching the gospel?
  2. In what ways does your church do a good job of leading people to a deeper connection with Jesus?
  3. Where can your church improve in this area?

About the Author

Jesse Wisnewski is the senior content marketer at Tithe.ly. Jesse is also the founder of Stillhouse Marketing and the keeper of Copybot. He lives outside of Nashville, TN with his wife and five kids.

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Creating a Family Mission Statement

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If you’re like most people in our culture, you find yourself running from one thing to the next. One writer called this the whirlwind when everything is flying around you, and you feel like you are just barely keeping your head above water.

We feel it with our jobs, finances, kids activities, marriage, health issues, aging parents, the list goes on and on.

We have a picture in our minds of what our lives should be like, those around us expect what our lives should be like, and many of us feel like we aren’t even keeping up, we’re falling behind.

I think the way forward is through creating a family mission statement, a “rule of life” for your family.

Why?

One reality is that 1 decision makes the next 1oo.

1 decision makes the next 1oo.

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If you think about the process of getting out of debt or losing weight, that simple decision begins a domino effect. Now, instead of eating that second dessert (or dessert at all) or buying something on credit “because it’s a great deal” you now take a step back because you’ve already decided to get out of debt or lose weight.

The problem for us is that we struggle to make that one decision. We’re afraid of missing out, falling behind, not having as much fun or we just get caught in the whirlwind of life.

That’s why a mission statement is so helpful. It is a decision ahead of time to live intentionally.

Katie and I went through this practice several years ago. To help us, we each reach through Patrick Lencioni’s book Three Questions for a Frantic Family. You can read my review of the book here.

You need to know this up front:

  • This process is incredibly freeing.
  • There is no right or wrong mission statement. It is your life, your family, you get to define it. So don’t compare to others.
  • Lastly, future generations are affected by this statement because it will define how you spend your time, your money, who you are friends with, where you will worship Jesus, etc. Your grandkids will feel the effect of this statement and if you don’t have one.

Why do this?

A family mission statement helps you make better decisions.

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If you don’t do this, you and your family personally wander around aimlessly. How do you make a decision when both options seem good? Without a mission statement, you guess and hope you are right. With a mission statement, choices become more natural. You are also able to evaluate things more clearly.

Let’s get started.

Start by listing out what God says about family and you. This should include things like accepted, loved, worthwhile, beautiful, well pleased (proud of), etc. The reason you start here is many of us are chasing after this, yet we already have this in Christ.

Start by listing all the things that describe your family. Not what you hope your family or life is, but what you are, who you are. What is important to you? What matters most? What things will you fight till the death on? This list should be exhaustive. You are listing everything you can think of. Words like creative, intentional, fun, athletic, etc. This can be hard because as you are listing out words about who you are and sometimes because we’ve lacked intentionality, we don’t like who we are. If you want to put in words that describe your hopes as a family, so changing your narrative, do it. This is your statement.

Now, start paring it down. Are there words that mean the same thing or can be combined? You are looking for about 3-5 words to describe your family or you personally. This is the beginning of your statement.

Then, think through 3 – 7 words that describe your values. If you have kids, these are words that describe the things they’ll know when they leave your house. Yes, you want them to know 73 things, but they probably won’t remember them all. Our family landed on gracious, generous, hospitable, learning and laughing. Why? That’s what we wanted our kids to know and what we wanted to be about as a family. Notice, there are a lot of things not on that list, and that’s okay with us.

Now, put it all together in a short sentence, you want it short enough to fit on a t-shirt if possible so you can remember it.

Now, here is how this statement can be helpful right now.

Having this statement decided will also help you make decisions about what is most important for your family to accomplish over the next 2 – 6 months. What one author calls “The rallying cry.” Sadly, most families do not have this. Each person knows what it is, but they haven’t agreed on it and aren’t moving in the same direction. This might be getting out of debt, dealing with a health issue, a learning issue for a child, your marriage. It is, outside of the usual things your family does, the one thing you have to do in the next 2-6 months for your family to go to the next level. Accomplishing this would mean a whole new ballgame for your family.

Once you have your “Rallying cry” what do you need to do to accomplish this? List all the things it will take.

A simple way to take stress and busyness out of your family calendar.

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Got it.

Okay, now share it with a close friend or two. This can be incredibly scary. Ask them to listen as you read it and give feedback. Are the words you used to describe your family, what your family is? Do they see a different value system than you do? You want to pick close friends for this.

Once you feel confident, put the mission statement and the rallying cry in a place where you will see it on a regular basis to remind you and keep you on track. For our family, we discuss our mission statement as dinner and how we lived it out that day. It is an excellent reminder of what we are called to as a family.

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Prayer is Helplessness in Action

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Paul Miller in his book A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World said: “Prayer is bringing our helplessness to God.”

Prayer is bringing our helplessness to God. -Paul Miller

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In many ways, prayer is helplessness in action.

Prayer is helplessness in action.

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But that’s the difficulty.

For us to pray, we must admit our helplessness. We must acknowledge that we don’t have it all together, that on our own we are weak, lost, helpless. 

For some of us, this is easy to do, but for many of us, this gets to the core of who we are.

We are raised to be self-sufficient. We have been taught from a young age that you can’t trust anyone, count on anyone. Why? We’ve been betrayed, cheated on, hurt, abandoned. So, when we pray and talk about our faith in God, this is in the back of our minds.

It makes sense.

But Jesus tells us to pray to God our Father like a child, to ask like a child.

If you think about a child, a few things come to mind: they are relentless in their asking. They are focused on the present, not the past or the future. They have confidence that the person they are asking can come through for them.

But we don’t do this.

Have you ever stopped to ask why?

Recently a friend of mine gave a great talk on prayer to pastors on five reasons pastors struggle with prayer, but I think it applies to everyone:

1. We think we should be better at this. We should be able to handle it. We should be able to figure it out. We think we should be able to get through the day without asking for help.

And we don’t pray because we think we should be better at praying, so we beat ourselves up about how bad we are at praying.

2. We’re afraid of vulnerability. We’re okay with social media vulnerability, “I’m the worst mom ever, well that happened, here’s my pile of laundry, here’s my messy garage, here’s my failure.” As long as we decide the vulnerability, we’re okay with it, but to be known we have to vulnerable.

Vulnerable is sharing needs, but it is also sharing who you are and sharing weakness.

Tim Keller said, “To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”

3. We like to look competent. If I have a prayer need, I don’t want to say it. I want people around me and God to think I’m qualified and have my act like together.

Remember: Prayer is helplessness in action. 

This is why our favorite prayer request in a group is “unspoken.”

4. We’re hurting, but don’t want to admit it. I don’t want to admit that I’m in pain or having difficulty. We don’t want to share that our marriage hurts, our kids don’t listen, and we have trouble forgiving or trusting God.

Have you noticed how praying about something, asking someone else to pray about something makes it real? It is the moment of truth because

5. We’re cynical. Deep down, many of us hedge our bets with prayer. We don’t believe that God will come through. This is why many of us aren’t generous and don’t give back to God. We need to hold on to some money just in case it rains, and God doesn’t show up with a big enough umbrella.

How do children pray? They are honest; they recognized that they are a mess, that they need help, and they didn’t stop. Have you ever noticed that children never stop asking? They are convinced they will wear you down. God invites us to pray like that, yet few of us do.

I came across this the other day that I think sums this up:

 

 

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