Month: January 2013

How Do You Promote Leaders

Last September my wife and I began a new season of life and ministry.

When everything was still in a state of flux we were introduced to Dave Jewitt from Your One Degree. He helped us define the most important thing we should be doing for the rest of our lives and has been helping us walk in that thing at least 80% or our time. It has been a very profitable and rewarding experience.

Dave sends a daily encouragement that I highly recommend you get. Near the bottom of this main page there is a subscription form.

Recently he made an excellent point about promoting leaders. I have always said promote faithfulness and calling above gifting. He says it this way:

Daniel 2:47,48 The king said to Daniel, “Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings, and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery.” Then the king placed Daniel in a high position.

Daniel had just interpreted a dream the king had recently had. The stakes were high. The king was going to kill Daniel and all the other wise men in the kingdom if no one stepped forward to interpret the dream. But there was a catch: the king could not describe the dream to anyone. God showed Daniel both the dream and the interpretation after much prayer by Daniel and his friends.

This passage provides the following guidance for a leader in promoting others:

  1. Promote those who are honest, not just articulate.
  2. Promote those who do not take the credit deserved by others.
  3. Promote those truly committed to the cause/organization, not their own.
  4. Promote those who have high-caliber friends and associates.
  5. Promote those of demonstrated character and competence, not just those who make you feel important and comfortable.

Lord, please keep me from the trap of promoting the wrong people.

In the book “Sticky Teams“, which I also highly recommend, Larry Osborne says “The best time to remove someone from the team is before they get on.

Make sure your adding and promoting for the right reasons.

Posted by Gary in Church Growth, Leadership

The Friends of Job

What immediately springs to mind when you hear, “the friends of Job”?

It’s not positive is it?

We think of the misdiagnosis of Jobs problem and the subsequent bad advice. However it started out in a way we can learn from.

In Chapter 2 verse 11 it says they made an appointment together to “come and mourn with him, and to comfort him.”

In trying to be a friend I know that I have not always been as helpful as the friends of Job.

In Verse 13 “they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him.”

It was Job who finally spoke. I wonder how long the friends would have sat in silence. How long would I?

Several years ago a good friend of mine lost a child very unexpectedly  I didn’t want to call. I had no idea what to say. I had never been through anything like this but as a pastor I felt I had to say something. So I said…

“There are no words, if there were, I would say them.” And then we wept together.

Being a friend doesn’t always mean knowing what to say. It often means we mourn with those who mourn and we rejoice with those who rejoice. It means making an appointment with other friends or just making a decision to go, sit on the ground, and weep.

Posted by Gary in Discipleship, Pastoral Care, Personal

Why Am I Here?

This blog has been publish intermittently sometime very regularly and sometimes not. Sometimes spiritual, sometimes political, sometimes personal, and sometimes all of the above.

The stated purpose of this blog is “A place for me to process my thoughts and get your feedback”.

I am on a journey as I hope you are as well. Many things I would have fought over years ago are now not worthy of a word. My evolution has been slow but steady. I hope I will always stay teachable, humble, and gracious.  Though I know I have, at times, not been any of those things God has always brought me back to a place of humility.

As we enter into 2013 I am again defining what this space should be about, thus my long absence from here.

I have removed almost all political posts not because I don’t have strong opinions but because my opinions don’t really matter. What matters is building the Kingdom. The has been, is, and will always be the hope of the world. Kim and I know we have been called to build the local church. So this space will mostly be devoted to supporting that goal. Not promising I won’t get political or personal but it will mostly be in the context of building the local church. Which is the people of God not the building. I’m not good at working with my hands. I am however good at working with people.

As always I would love your thoughts. What would you like to talk about? What are you in the midst of that I may be able to shed light onto? I appreciate you for being part of this community.

Blessings.

Posted by Gary in Personal