Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit. To capture what I’m learning and to help you grow as a leader, I always share my notes from each session, so be sure to check back after each session and bookmark them for future use.

The second session featured an interview Strive Masiyiwa, who is the founder of Econet (one of Africa’s largest telecommunications companies), will help us learn what it means to be a leader who perseveres to fight for the future of our world. This was an inspiring interview.

The following are some takeaways:

1. Too many people think they run into failure that they’re done.
2. Vision is what we hold onto.
3. If we’re doing what God is calling us to, we are not losing anything.
4. Cultures matter when we grow a business or organization.
5. Multiculturalism begins with the way we think and thinking differently.
6. Values are universal. Just because you have differences doesn’t mean you can’t embrace and work together across cultures and differences.
7. You haven’t been to a country until you have been in the home of someone who lives there.
8. If your business or vision solves a problem, people will seek it out.
9. If you want to be a success, find a human need and reach out and solve it.
10. Meeting a need changes the way people see themselves and changes the way they live.
11. We’re raising kids to not only think for themselves but think for us as parents.
12. You can mentor all you want but if you don’t model it, I won’t see.
13. A dream often dies when it is shared with people who have not seen what you see.
14. Building anything always takes longer than you think.
15. A great vision is only as good as your ability to deliver daily wins.
16. Consistency is the bridge to each short-term win that finally leads to the great vision.
17. If you know how to do things you will always have a job. If you know why you, you will always be the leader.
18. Your people must believe in you.
19. The best of our people are volunteers, whether we pay them or not.
20. If you want to know who someone is, watch how they treat people they don’t need.

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It’s the weekend. The perfect time to grab a cup of coffee and catch up on some reading. Here are 4 articles I came across this week that I found helpful as a leader and parent and hope you do as well.

Every leader is busy but we don’t often realize what our busyness does to us and our churches. Here’s a great list from Carey Nieuwof of what busyness does to a leader and how it holds a church back. #2 is especially relevant to pastors I think.

Do you get enough sleep? The answer for most of us is no. But what are you supposed to do? Charles Stone has a simple test to gauge your sleep and some really practical tips to get your sleep back on track.

Do you want to be a part of a healthy team? Are you on a healthy team? Ron Edmondson lists out 10 phrases to help you answer those questions. 

If you have a middle schooler, you can relate to this list from Kristin Ivy: 34 reasons your middle schooler is freaking out.

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• It’s been a whirlwind of 3 days.
• Sunday right after church, I flew to Reno for the Acts 29 West Conference.
• Which was awesome.
• Then got up at 4:30 Tuesday morning to fly home so I could be here for Katie’s birthday.
• I was dragging through the Reno, Vegas and Tucson airport.
• But it felt so good to get home.
• One of the things I love about Katie’s birthday is surprising her with her summer reading list.
• I think one of the best ways a husband can love and serve his wife is get her good books to read that fill her heart and soul with some gospel goodness.
• And some funny/sad/moving memoirs.
• And yes, I got her other stuff too.
• Speaking of summer, now’s a good time to start thinking through your summer reading list.
• Summer is a great time to grow, give your brain a break, think through a new project or dream.
• It’s a great time to reset something and start over halfway through the year.
• It was incredible being in Reno and hearing all the things that God is doing, not only in Acts 29 West, but around the world.
• I love being a part of a global network that is planting churches and seeing lives changed.
• One of the things I was most excited about when I left Reno were some of the ideas me and the other pastors in Arizona have for partnering together to plant more churches in our state.
• Can’t wait to see them unfold.
• On the plane, I got to read David Murray’s new book Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture.
• So helpful.
• If you are a leader who is over 30, this is a book you must read.
• I’ll share some book notes soon.
• My birthday is Saturday so Katie and I are celebrating our birthdays with friends next week.
• It is one of the advantages of having your birthday the same week as your spouse’s.
• Well, I’m a day and a half behind on my sermon.
• Back at it…

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There are many reasons one church grows and another does not.

Some of those reasons are within the control of a church and its leadership; some of those reasons are not.

Two things that are often overlooked by churches, church planters and pastors are context and timing. They are incredibly important to churches but things we often don’t talk about.

First, context. This is a mission question and one that I think a church should ask every few years. It is one that gets asked before a church is planted, but when a church is established these are hard questions to get back to and easy to forget.

Here are some questions to consider:

• Who are we best suited to reach as a church?
• Are we near those people?
• If we are, what are we doing to reach those people?
• If we aren’t, do we need to move to reach those people or change what we are doing to reach those around us?

Admittedly these are uncomfortable questions to ask as a pastor, but as a church planter you asked them easily. One of the ways a church grows is by keeping that entrepreneurial, risk taking spirit.

Who are we best suited to reach as a church? Every church and every pastor are best suited to reach someone. The way you preach, the kind of music you have, how much emphasis you put on kids’ ministry, the times of your services and your location all determine many of the people you will reach. Oftentimes you simply have to look at who attends a church, and you will see who that church is best suited to reach, because they are reaching those people.

And who you are best suited to reach as a leader and pastor and where the church you lead should meet are often wrapped up in where you grew up and the kind of environment you grew up in. Not always, but many times.

If you are struggling to figure out the answer to this question, you may simply need to look at who shows up at your church to see who you are best suited to reach.

Are we near those people? Let’s say you are best suited to reach young adults and college students. Are you near those people? Let’s say it is white collar or blue collar. Are you near those people?

The church planter of one of the churches Revolution (the church I lead) helped plant had a heart for the poorest area of the city where he grew up. Many times pastors and churches are not near the people they care the most about, feel the call to reach or want to have an influence on. So they drive past those people to get to where their church meets. That isn’t good mission work.

If we are, what are we doing to reach those people? Let’s say you live and are located as a church near the people you are best suited to reach and have a passion to reach, because you can’t reach everyone. What are you doing to reach those people? Are you reaching out in a way that makes sense to them and is relevant to them?

If we aren’t, do we need to move to reach those people or change what we are doing to reach those around us? This is an easy question before you plant and a hard question after you plant, but I think it is a crucial one to vitality in a church.

The answer to this question does not always mean you move or abandon your vision, but I think a church needs to be willing to ask it. In our area, people do not travel more than 20 minutes for church. This is a reality of traffic patterns and timing with sports and other activities. And you know, the further people get from a church, the less involved they are, the less engaged in mission they are, the less likely they are to invite people and the less likely those people are to come.

Last thing about location, do you meet in the best spot possible for who you are as a church and what you are trying to do? If you are portable, the school or place where you meet is connected to who you are as a church. We think long and hard about this when we plant, but it goes out the window after we get started.

It isn’t just context and location that matter, but timing.

Timing.

This is having an understanding of when you plant, when you grow, how that works in the life of the lead pastor, the church and the city you are in.

I always chuckle when I go to church planting conferences and a megachurch pastor stands on stage and says, “We started with no people and no money. We preached the gospel, and boom! People just showed up.” While they are trying to be inspiring, it isn’t helpful and usually not even close to accurate.

This overlooks how long a pastor has been in an area, if they’re known, if they were part of a larger church before they planted, if they were a traveling camp speaker or a well known youth worker in an organization. Did they work in a large college ministry? All of these factors work into timing.

Many times a church will get planted and not grow, and within a few years it no longer exists. A year or two after that church was planted, a new church is planted nearby, and that church finds stability, grows and becomes self-sufficient. Some of that is timing. The timing of people being ready, the timing of the church. Those are all things out of our control but are important to remember. They are not to be excuses for a church or for a pastor to say, “I was faithful and nothing happened.” But it is a reality to the question of why a church grows or doesn’t grow.

When planting a church, it is not just the call of a pastor and having funding and people, but asking the question, “Is the timing right for this church? Have there been churches planted here before? Have they succeeded or failed?” Many times a church takes off after others have closed down. This is the work of a leader understanding the “soil” in which he is seeking to plant seeds.

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I was sitting with Katie in a room with 50 other people. All of us were in ministry of some kind, and the speaker (who also is the counselor that Katie and I meet with) asked the question that stopped me in my tracks.

“How many of you are comfortable in your body?”

How many of you are comfortable in your body?
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Now before I go on, there is something you need to know.

I’m 37 as I write this and I weigh 190 pounds. I do Crossfit four days a week, and I’ve never been in better shape or as strong as I am right now. That wasn’t always the case, though. In fact, when I was 28 I weighed 300 pounds, wore a 2 XL shirt and had a 42 inch waist.

As I sat there and thought about this question, the answer was, “No, I don’t feel comfortable in my body.”

Not a day goes by that I don’t look in the mirror and see a 300 pound 28 year old who hurts when he wakes up, sweats at the most inopportune moments and gets out of breath from walking up a flight of steps. I struggled to get on the floor to play with my kids.

And I still see that guy. I stare at myself in the mirror and think about it.

When I see body builders talk about having a cheat day, I cringe. Why? A cheat day is simply a step back to 300 pounds, is how my mind thinks. This often takes away the ability to enjoy food and simply relax. My wife is so kind, but I’m sure I drive her nuts when I miss a workout or feel off my game with food.

Food, body image, the dreaded mirror and being comfortable in your own skin.
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Is it possible to be comfortable in your body? Notice, the question is different than comfortable with your body.

I think it is.

Part of it has to do with accepting who you are, accepting the parts of your body that you would change (everyone has those). It also means celebrating the parts of your body that you do like. Yes, it also means enjoying food. Probably in moderation, though.

This past year, after eight years of counting calories (to teach myself how to eat), weighing myself almost daily, being insane about what I eat, I stopped. I still eat really healthy, but I’m working on stopping when I’m full. I’m enjoying life and what goes in my body. Yes, I punish myself at the gym, but that’s more out of a desire for strength and enjoyment of that punishment than trying to reach a certain body.

Am I comfortable in my body?

Not yet.

I’m closer than I was when I heard this question six months ago.

Do you feel comfortable in your body?
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So it’s January.

This is the year.

This is the year you finally do what you have longed to do.

This is the year you take that step financially, spiritually, physically, relationally, emotionally.

This is THAT year.

I know. I know.

Statistically, this isn’t your year. It’s someone else’s year.

But, what if this was your year?

It has to be someone’s year, so why not yours?

Take a moment and thank God that you woke up this morning. That you are breathing. That you live somewhere with internet.

Thank God that it is a new year and what is past, while part of your story and who you are, is in the past.

It’s time to move forward.

Alright. Pep talk done.

Let’s get going!

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• This past Sunday at Revolution was one of those days that pastors love.
• It was a topic that has so much relevance to people, challenges people and is helpful.
• How to forgive.
• If you missed it or want to hear it again, you can watch it here.
• For me, it was very timely.
• Sunday morning I got a nasty anonymous comment on my blog that was really painful.
• So walking onto the stage to preach about forgiveness with that hanging over me was hard but also a reminder of God’s grace to me.
• I’ve been forgiven for things that are so much worse than someone lashing out at me on my blog.
• I’m thankful for the RC leaders and elders at Revolution who pray with me and over me on Sunday mornings.
• Especially this past Sunday.
• Pastors, remember this: when someone lashes out at you in an email, a blog comment, conversation, a tweet, they are hurting and they don’t know how to process that hurt. Don’t take it personally.
• It has way more to do with them, not you.
• Easier said than done, but possible.
• Last week was awesome for me, Katie went and got a tattoo.
• It turned out amazing.
• I love the imagery behind it and the story it represents in her life.
• It was a lot of fun too.
• We’re in the middle of a busy season of family coming into town.
• Over the next 7 weeks, we have 5 weeks of family either coming to see us or Katie and I traveling.
• Lots happening!
• I’m preaching on politics this Sunday as part of our series in Romans.
• It should be a lot of fun.
• These books have been really helpful to me while I’ve prepped: Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel and Jesus Outside the Lines: A Way Forward for Those Who Are Tired of Taking Sides.
• You might not agree with everything in them, but they’ll at least make you think.
• Which isn’t always a bad thing for a Christian to do.
• I’m probably taking one of our sons to see the U of A homecoming football game on Saturday.
• I’m hoping it’s at least close.
• We started sharing about our Christmas offering and some of the ideas we’re doing this year as part of our series Being Rich in What Matters Most. 
• I think it’s going to be a challenging series for our church.
• I love the idea of people in our church sharing God’s love on a daily basis for 30 days in December.
• My hope is that it is the start of a simple, daily habit.
• Don’t forget that Halloween is next week.
• Great opportunity to engage your neighbors and meet them and share the love of Jesus with them.
• Well, back at it.
• Have a great week!

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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.

Here are some takeaways from session 2 with Melinda Gates:

• Have a vision and need that drives your life.
• Your values drive your life, family and work. You must be willing to make hard choices to have values lived out.

You must make hard choices to live out your values. @melindagates
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• A leader must lead with the awareness that you are spending and giving away someone else’s money and that comes with great responsibility.
• A great leader is a constant learner, not someone with all the wisdom and knowledge.
• Everyone needs to think through what they can give away.
• Sometimes leadership & success is being in the right place at the right time and luck.

I’ve really appreciated all the talk at this year’s summit on passion, values and legacy. It has been on my mind a lot recently and God has really been confirming that in this conference.

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“Exercising leadership might be best understood as disappointing people at a rate they can absorb.” -Ronald Hiefetz

I had a mentor tell me when I first started out in leadership, “Every leader on a daily basis should disappoint someone; if not, you aren’t really leading.”

Every leader on a daily basis should disappoint someone; if not, you aren’t really leading.
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There’s a part of me that likes this idea. It means I’m moving something forward, creating change or pushing against the status quo.

The other side of me hates it because I want people to like me. I don’t want to disappoint people. I want them to love what I’m doing, be a part of it and think, “I never want to leave the church Josh is leading.”

The reality is, leaders do disappoint people, and if you aren’t disappointing people, you aren’t really leading.

Why?

Disappointment can look like frustration, bristling at changes that are made, challenging people to step up and lead, take ownership or challenging someone in a counseling session to deal with their junk.

All of those things disappoint people because it pushes on something in those people.

I’m calling disappointment; when you as a leader make someone uncomfortable, lead a church where they don’t think it should go, make a change that they wouldn’t make.

Now, to be clear: disappointment is not the goal of leadership, but it is a byproduct of it.

Disappointment is not the goal of leadership, but it is a byproduct of it.
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It is the reality of what you are doing.

Disappointment also comes in another form and from another place: past hurts.

When you hear things like, “You’re moving too fast, you’re changing too much, you’re building your kingdom and not God’s”, two things might be happening. One, they might be true and you need to listen to them. Two, someone is looking at you through the lens of a past hurt and past disappointment; you are reminding them of a leader they once followed or a church they were once a part of.

Where does that leave you as a leader?

Leaders do a few different things with this:

1. They run from it. Many leaders have enormous wounds from their past that shape their present and future, and the idea of disappointing anyone keeps them from leading. Many leaders want everyone to love them, which keeps them from making bold decisions, praying big prayers or making any changes. The slightest hint of conflict or an unwillingness to move into a new future from anyone in their church, and they are done as a leader. Many pastors fear the Monday morning emails that come in, so they look towards the status quo and simply surviving.

If you’re afraid of upsetting people, you won’t be able to lead.
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2. They revel in it. Some leaders genuinely enjoy making people mad or disappointing them. In a sick way, it is a badge of honor. “I made this change and we lost __ blank people, but I’m being bold.” Maybe you’re bold, but you might be brash and kind of a jerk. How you talk about people’s reactions to change reveals a lot about you as a pastor. If you enjoy people leaving over changes, that can reveal some broken things in you.

3. They learn from it. Leaders are learners, bottom line. It is not just about reading books and blogs (thanks for reading this one) and listening to podcasts. Do you learn from the reactions to your leadership? Do you learn from how you make people feel when you walk into a room or how you speak to them? Any time you disappoint someone, you should find out why. What can you learn from that?

4. It makes them stronger, better leaders. If you allow disappointing people, turning people’s anger into learning as a leader, you will become a stronger, better leader. This creates resilience to keep leading. The strongest leaders I’ve met are the ones who have lived and led through some pretty big storms.

Strong leaders handle storms correctly.
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There has been a lot written about church growth barriers, what they are, how to break them and get past them. The reality, though, is a church will only grow as much as the leader grows.

Every church experiences barriers at different points, but they are usually around the same size: 60, 100, 200, 400, 800, etc. While barriers can happen at other times, these are usually the ones discussed.

I was talking to someone the other day about how things change at different times in a church, and it got me thinking about the barriers and what changes at each one.

5 questions every leader needs to ask each year.
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1. What new temptations do you face? As a church grows, leaders face new temptations. There are new ways to cut corners, new perks that creep up, and it is easy to start believing your own press. It is also easy as a leader of a growing church to start to think you are too big for some things, and while your job changes you are still a leader, and leaders are to serve.

When you start a church and there are just a few people on your launch team, you face unique temptations. While some temptations follow a leader through the life cycle of a church, some temptations are unique to sizes of a church.

Every time your church grows, ask: What new temptations do I face?
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2. What things must you stop doing? Peter Drucker asks, “What can you stop doing that nobody would notice?” John Maxwell thinks a leader could stop doing 80% of what they are doing, and nobody would notice. While that might seem high, there are a number of things you should stop doing. It might be because you aren’t as good at those things, but usually the things you do keep you from doing what only you can do. As a church grows and as you grow, the things that only you can do, the things that you are wired to do, might change. This is why it is important to consistently ask this question.

Leaders must ask themselves on a regular basis what they need to stop doing.
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3. What things must you start doing? A helpful grid to think through is, what things must I do or else this thing falls apart? Another way to think about this is, are there things I am not doing right now that I need to start? Or, are there things I need to give more time to than I currently give to those things?

4. What is keeping you and your church from going to the next level? A leader lives in two worlds: the world of the present and the vision of the future. This is a tension of leadership, but it is one you should invite because you are the leader. A leader must continue to ask, “What do I need to do to keep my church healthy and growing? What can I learn or grow in to take my church to the next level?” That next level is not always a size issue. It might be growing in personal productivity, preaching or care. It might be getting better at reading culture or developing leaders. There is always a next level to go to.

For me, each year I think through one aspect of my job that I need to grow in. I ask for input from those closest to me, and then I look for resources and people doing that well and learn from them.

What is one thing this year you need to grow in?
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5. What am I afraid of now? I heard Matt Keller say this on a podcast recently and felt very convicted by it.

Many leaders make most of their decisions out of fear.
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If you think about it, you make a lot of decisions as a leader out of fear; fear of people, finances, success, failure, your team, what you look like to others. While every pastor has fears throughout his ministry career, there are specific ones at each size. What are they? They will be unique to you as a leader, but you must identify them. You must be on the lookout for them.

5 questions every leader should wrestle with today.
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