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Maintaining Leadership Passion in 2012

As we launch into another new year, I have noticed there seems to be at least two types of leaders. One leader looks at the opportunity a new year brings to hit the reset button…to try something new…to experience the energy that comes from stepping out by faith into the unknown realm of potentiality.

Another leader takes a deep breath and with a massive sigh breathes out a quiet prayer hoping that the next year will be better than the previous year, or perhaps maybe this year I should change jobs and get off of the leadership treadmill.

Leadership is hard work. It requires a high level of self awareness and the courage to allow God to do some work in the soul to bring about an increasing level of integrity and honesty.

Yet most leaders are so busy they seldom take the necessary time to pause, slow down and listen to their soul and to what God is saying in the quiet spaces. It is easy to justify why there is no time to deal with these things, after all, we are important, we have things to get done, people to lead, objectives to accomplish for the common good and corporate vision right?

One key trait that I have observed in the lives of great leaders that last is that they take the time to engage in healthy self-examination. I’m not talking about becoming a comatose navel-gazer, but rather becoming a person that is self-aware and deals with the shadow side of their personality in order to grow in a holistic fashion (body-soul-spirit). This also grows the organizations that they lead.

Take a moment and read through Gordon MacDonald’s piece on what he calls “The Seven Deadly Siphons.” While he wrote this for pastors specifically, I think you will easily be able to make the connections to whatever area of leadership you are in.  Evaluate where you need to invest some energy this year so that you lead well with integrity and continue to finish strong!

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The Seven Deadly Siphons

Loss of Spiritual passion seems to be the inevitable result of:

1. Words without action. We are tempted to think that saying something actualizes it. We have a momentary feeling of spirituality when we talk about wanting to pray more or “have more time in the Word.”

2. Busyness without purpose. Ministry produces activities, programs, conversations. If our choices of time-use are not disciplined by call and purpose, our energies become like a lazy, shallow river.

3. Calendars without a Sabbath. A datebook filled with appointments but absent of significant hours (days) of quiet and reflection-written in first-is an abomination (an old and harsh word) to the God of the Bible, who said, “Six days you shall labor…the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.”

4. Relationships without mutual nourishment. Pastors tend to be acquainted with too many people but know too few people. The spiritual masters have told us for centuries that without soul-friends, we won’t gain spiritual momentum.

5. Pastoral personality without self-examination. Too much ministry is built on unresolved anger, unhealthy needs for approval, and the instinct to control. Failing to explore our soul for un-wholeness ultimately takes it toll.

6. Natural giftedness without spiritual power. A pastor can go a considerable distance in ministry with catchy words, people skills, political savvy, and a facility for organizational dynamics. But kingdom work demands qualities that only a filled-up soul can offer.

7. An enormous theology without an adequate spirituality. A pastor cannot represent a view of reality that includes Creation, evil, reconciliation and conversion, sacrificial service, and eternity-a mind-boggling expanse of conviction-and have a spiritual-exercise regimen that is pea-sized in contrast. A great theology demands a great spirituality.

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These are some powerful areas to consider, ruminate upon and take action. The power of your public ministry will only be as great as your private world. If you are not investing in the private world of your soul you are choosing to cap your level of leadership and growth. Each of the areas that MacDonald mentions are worthy of spending some time unpacking, and I would encourage you to do exactly that.

Make it a great year!

Monty

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Self Forgetfulness

Today as we journeyed a bit into chapter 2 of Philippians, we looked at this incredible invitation of grace God gives us…from His goodness…so every person regardless of their past or present might enter the incredible dance of God.  Many people were asking me about the video clip I used to demonstrate this incredible dance (perichoresis) of God that He invites us into, as well as the clip of the Apollo 8 flight where humans saw the full scope of the earth for the first time.

Here is a link to the message from today: http://www.svaonline.org/connect-and-grow/messages-and-podcasts/item/341-poured-out

And below are the videos…

poured out 3 message notes

Poured out study week 3 take home sheet

Grace and peace…Monty

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Alzheimer’s and ethics

You might not know it, but today is  “World Alzheimer’s Day.” This day is spearheaded by an organization called The Global Voice on Dementia. You can check them out at:  http://www.alz.co.uk/  This has become a global concern that even the UN has taken notice of, and this week they are addressing it for the second year in a row.

The most recent stats claim that there are currently 30 million people who suffer from dementia, and there will be an estimated 100 million people by the year 2050.

If Alzheimer’s has not affected you or your family, there is truly no way to adequately communicate how painful, hard and devastating it is on the whole family. As the days go by, there seems to be less and less of the person you knew and loved “at home” in their body. To live through the deterioration causes you to ask God some serious questions. Walking through the effects of Alzheimer’s when it came to visit my family, has left all of us changed…it was a very long and hard journey.

I think that is why I had such an instantaneous reaction to Pat Robertson’s remark about Alzheimer’s this week. A man whose wife had Alz indicated that since his wife was no longer “there” he was moving on with his life, and wondered if it was okay to divorce her since there was not a tangible relationship anymore.

While Pat has made some pretty embarrassing news remarks over the years, which have often given Christianity a black eye, when he said it was okay for this man to divorce his wife since Alzheimer’s is a “kind of death” I was speechless.

When we reduce love and commitment to a formula that says, ” I am only in this as long as my needs are met, we have absolutely missed what it means to follow Christ with our actions and choices.

This kind of ethic-less thinking means that if you are not able to do for me what I want, regardless of a medical diagnosis, then I have no moral or ethical responsibility to stay in a relationship with you. Unfortunately I have actually witnessed couples divorcing months after a marriage began because one spouse got cancer, and the leaving spouse knew his sexual needs wouldn’t get met.

Amazing…bad form…wrong…selfish…ugly…

This reveals how me-centric we have the capacity of being, and how desperately we need God to help transform us into men and women who choose truth and sacrifice over self, ease or comfortability.

Do you remember the old “Lifeboat” analogy we grew up with…where there was a diverse group of people in a rescue boat, from teachers and lawyers, to disabled and jobless. The Lifeboat dilemma was that the boat was overloaded and some of the people had to go…the question to process through was…which life was truly worth saving. Welcome to ethics 101, and throw in a dash of situation ethics as well.

When we think life can be trimmed down to easy answers and flippantly decide which people deserve our love; which people deserve our unconditional commitment, and what is the loop-hole I can deploy when life get tough, we reduce our humanity to something more animalistic.

The man who Pat gave a get-out-of-marriage free card to, might have felt some relief for a while, but I think soon he will be flooded with other feelings that are not quite so life-giving. I know the weight and burden the loved ones of Alz patients carry is immense, but life isn’t devoid of pain. Instead of running from the pain and the feelings, real life it’s about who we are becoming through the pain.

You see God has placed His own source code into the hearts of us all. While we are good at tricking ourselves, living in denial or avoiding the questions of the soul…when the night spaces come, our heart is crying out the questions unleashed by the divine DNA within us, and we know that there are truths that exist beyond our comfort zones and our ability  to justify.

Every life matters because every life has its genesis in the creative imagination of God. We have the opportunity to most reflect the God-reality within us when we choose love, life, to invest in those considered un-worthy, to love those who seem un-lovable, and to stay committed to those who we made a covenant with and are unable to reciprocate because of something as devastating as Alzheimer’s.

In a very real way, God demonstrates the opposite advice that Pat gave. As God looked at broken humanity that struggled with a complete disconnect from the divine, He could have said, “Well, their sin situation is kind of a death, so I don’t need to stick around.” Fortunately for us He didn’t. In fact in Romans 5:8 we read:

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were       still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Then in chapter 6 verse 23 Paul reminds us: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So when we were considered “dead” that is when God’s extravagant love went into overdrive, not into a me-centric justification for non-involvement.

The life-giving model we see in the choices of the Father and the Son is to preserve the beauty and sanctity of life…not look for loop holes to disengage.

May we raise our awareness, compassion and love and stay committed to the ones we love, especially those with whom we said, “Til Death do us part.”

Dei Gratia…Monty

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Transformation & Information

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"So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

2 Cor.5:16-17

"But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit." 

Rom. 7:6

Through the centuries the church has been making the same mistake over and over again as it has defined Christianity by what you know instead of Who you know, or better yet, Who knows you. We've confused information (learning about God) with transformation (being known and recreated by Him in His image, not our own).

When we define Christianity by what we know…it becomes a doing based religion, a treadmill of shoulds and a list of tasks derived from the information we have acquired. That is not the freedom found in being a new creation, or the new way of the Spirit, it is life under the old Law of performance.

There is a big difference between these two dynamics however. As I was thinking about these two realities, the following considerations and contrasts came to mind:

information is finite – transformation is infinite

information improves – transformation creates

information is temporary – transformation is permanent

information is the known – transformation is the unknown

information is safe – transformation is risky

information is predictable – transformation is unpredictable

information requires study – transformation requires trust

information promotes self-sufficiency transformation demands dependence

information breeds familiarity – transformation embraces the unfamiliar

information is inanimate – transformation is alive

information is a noun – transformation is a verb

information takes hold – transformation lets go

information is knowledge – transformation is truth


There is so much more for us to encounter and experience in God, but we must be willing to allow the information to translate into a liiving reality in the graceful grip of God. The journey in and down to the soul-ular level is a journey that will change your life.

It's time to experience being a new creation, and life lived in the new way of the Spirit…if it is a new way, then why do we keep doing the same old things? Perhaps it's time to move from information to transformation.

Dei Gratia,

Monty