CAPACITATING LEADERSHIP TO THE NEXT LEVEL –
CAPACITATING LEADERSHIP TO THE NEXT LEVEL –
Proverbs 1:5 (Amp)
“The wise also will hear and increase in learning, and the
person of understanding will acquire skill and attain to sound counsel
[so that he may be able to steer his course rightly].”
We
are living in the very best of times in all of human history.
There
have never been more opportunities and possibilities for you and for me in our
society – be it about learning, economy and in every area of our lives, than
today.
There
are no limits to what you can accomplish except
for the limits that you place on yourself.
Whatever
you have accomplished up to now is merely a shadow of what you will be able to
achieve in the exciting months and years ahead.
Understand
and take comfort in knowing that whatever changes are taking place in your life
today, they are part of a larger plan of God to lead you onward and upward to
fulfilling your potential and the ultimate purpose for your life.
There
may be countless unknowns in the future, but I’m believing that the rest of our
life is going to be the best of our life.
Having
said this, we need to understand also that this is not going to be served to us
in a silver platter.
There
are things that God requires of us to make the match with the mighty works and
blessing He has prepared for us.
What Do We Do To Capacitate Ourselves & Our
Leader for the Next Level
Psalm 78:72 (NIV)
“And David
shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them.”
(MSG)
“His good heart
made him a good shepherd; he guided the people wisely and well.”
1.
Cultivate and possess a
great love for our church people.
Do
you love your people?
Are
you committed to your church?
1 Peter 5:1-4 (MSG)
“1 I have a special concern
for you church leaders. I know what it's like to be a leader, in on Christ's
sufferings as well as the coming glory. 2 Here's my concern: that
you care for God's flock with all the diligence of a shepherd. Not because you
have to, but because you want to please God. Not calculating what you can get
out of it, but acting spontaneously. 3 Not bossily telling
others what to do, but tenderly showing them the way. 4 When God, who is the best
shepherd of all, comes out in the open with his rule, he'll see that you've
done it right and commend you lavishly.”
Indicators if there is a genuine love for people:
1) A
commitment to lead/pastor the church people for a long
haul.
2) A deep
desire to see the church people experience a great life.
– which means having a Christlike character, competence,
intimacy with Christ and contribution in the God’s Kingdom.
Your
great joy and fulfillment is in seeing people living successful and significant
life.
That
we make a difference in their lives.
You
don’t only see your people as they are now but also as they ought to be.
2.
Understand that staying where we are today will cost us more than moving
to where we should be.
Maintaining will be more costly than moving forward.
Our
world is in transition!
Illustration:
When Albert Einstein was teaching at Princeton University and had just
administered an exam to an advanced class of physics students. On the way back
to his office, the teaching assistant carrying the exams asked him, “Dr.
Einstein, wasn’t this the same exam that you gave to this same class last
year?” Dr. Einstein responded, “Yes, it was.”
The teaching assistant, in awe
of perhaps the greatest physicist of the twentieth century, then asked, “Excuse
me for asking, Dr. Einstein. But how could you give the same exam to the same
class two years in a row?”
Einstein replied simply, “The
answers have changed.”
At that time, in the world of
physics, with new breakthroughs and discoveries, the answers were changing at
such a rapid rate that the same exam could be given two years in a row and have
different answers.
How does this relate to us?
Researchers at Harvard
University once made three predictions about the future. First, they said, there will be more
change in the coming year than ever before. Second, there will be more competition in the coming year than ever
before. And third, there will be
more opportunities in the coming year in your field, whatever it is, than ever
before. But the opportunities will be different than the opportunities and
activities of today.
Those Harvard researchers made
these predictions in 1952. They are
as true today as they were then. And today, once again, the answers have
changed.
Because
of our fast-moving society, almost everyone is in a state of transition in one
or more areas of life all the time.
This
rapid rate of change is inevitable, unavoidable, and unstoppable.
Acceptance of the inevitability of change helps us cope with the
effects of it quicker.
Knowing
how to deal with change effectively is a primary requirement for living
successfully in perhaps the most exciting time in all of human history.
This where FLEXIBILITY - Adapt, Adjust,
Respond, becomes very important.
Three Traps To Avoid:
1) The temptation to settle in our comfort zone.
This is the natural tendency of
most people to become comfortable and complacent in their current work or
lifestyle, and to resist changing in any way.
But
change is the law of growth, and growth is the law of life.
If you don’t move out of your
comfort zone, you cannot make any progress.
Remember,
the more you do what you are doing, the more you will get of what you’ve got.
You must continually force
yourself to move out of your comfort zone into your discomfort zone.
There is no other way to change
or improve your life in any way.
The trap of the comfort zone is
one of the greatest of all enemies of success and progress.
2) The natural tendency to follow the path of least resistance.
Our tendency to continually
seek for fast, easy, enjoyable ways to do things. Following this path lead to
searching for get-rich-quick methods and easy money.
Anything worthwhile takes a
long period of hard work and single-minded concentration to achieve.
You must resist the siren song
of the path of least resistance and discipline yourself to do what is hard and
necessary to achieve the goals that are truly possible for you.
3) Learned helplessness.
This is triggered by the fear
of failure or by the of loss of some kind. This is expressed in the words I can’t.
Whenever you think of something
new, different, risky, or uncertain, you may immediately think of all the
reasons why it’s not possible. You may think that you don’t have the resources
or the ability. You may feel that you don’t have the money or the contacts.
You will think of the
possibility of loss of time, money, or emotion.
The fear of failure makes you
freeze inside, like a deer caught in the headlights, and triggers the reaction
of learned behavior.
LEADERSHIP NOTE: Leader must not only be good
at cascading the vision he must be good in communicating that staying where
they are is no longer tolerable.
Now
in the leadership you can talk about how good to be there in your vision and
have people sing the same chorus you have, but they would never move from where
they are until you have communicated effectively how bad for them to stay here.
They will only say, “Yeah that sounds great, but we
like it here.”
3. Remember that our job
is to become one of the most productive people
for God’s glory.
Parable
of the unfruitful fig tree (Luke 13:6-9)
Jesus
cursed a fig tree (Matthew 21:18-22; Mark 11:12-14, 20-24)
John
15:2, 8 (NIV)
“2
He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that
does bear fruit he prunes so
that it will be even more fruitful.
8 This is to my Father’s
glory, that you bear much fruit, …”
Our
goal is to develop a reputation for being the person who, when anyone wants or
needs something done, gets the job done.
Result
is everything!
Study
after study has found that within two years of leaving college or school, your
education has little or no impact on your career.
From
that point on, all that matters is your ability to perform and get results for
you company.
In the final analysis, you only get paid for
results.
Intense
result-orientation goes hand in hand with high productivity and
high-performance in every area.
BECOME a
solution-oriented person and be the most valuable person in your organization.
Make
yourself more valuable!
This means …
1) Develop the habit of
getting things done without delay.
This
is the story of the great men and women of God listed in the hall of faith in
Hebrews 11.
James 2:17 (NIV)
“…faith
by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead”
God wants our words, actions and beliefs to work in agreement.
Putting
the right actions behind our faith gets His attention.
What do you believe for?
You
can put some action behind your prayers by talking like your situation is going
to turn around.
When you do, you're not just praying and believing — you're expecting.
If
you don't see anything happening, choose today to put some action behind your
prayers.
2) Be proactive and avoid procrastination.
“‘Someday’ is not a day of the week.”
- DENISE BRENNAN-NELSON
1
Peter 1:13 (Message)
“So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to
receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives.”
The
Importance of the Nowness of Our Action:
One
characteristic of the most successful and happy people is that they are taking
advantage of today with the view of the future in mind.
Their actions today are deliberately oriented
towards the future.
They
refuse to dwell on what has happened and things that cannot be changed. Instead
they focus on factors that are under their control and actions they can take to
control the kind of future they desire.
You must
become intensely action-oriented.
The top performer takes
initiative to get the job done.
The top
performer takes action, over and over again, continuously toward the goal.
Only action is action.
Only execution
is execution; only getting the job done really
matters.
Make a
decision today that you are going to move fast when an opportunity or need
presents itself.
3.
Know and realize it’s the culture of our church
that either prevents or facilitates
growth and development of our church.
I’ve
been asked so many times what’s the best
strategy/approach for growth in a Filipino culture. And because I’m crazy
when it comes to strategy for growth, I tried to ask that same question and
looked for an answer and tried so many strategies. There was even a time when
the Purpose Driven Conferences were conducted in U.S.A, there were so many Filipino
pastors who wanted to come. And I was one of them but the U.S. embassy didn’t
grant me visa. I was very disappointed then not because I can’t go US but
because I can’t attend the conference. You see, I’m not a fan of going US or
having ministry in the US. I’m a fan of church growth. I devoured books, attended
seminars on church growth because in my heart I desire to grow our church. …
So, I was always in the quest for the best strategy. Hence, the question what
is the best strategy for growth Filipino culture, is like a preoccupation in my
mind. Then it hit me one day - it’s a
wrong question! You see when you asked a wrong question you will never
arrived to a correct answer.
The
correct question is, what culture facilitates church growth and development?
Culture is defined as the prevailing
attitudes, feelings, values, beliefs and behavior that characterize
a society or any social group.
A
story appeared in a local paper about a tiny congregation that was merging with
another church after being forced to close its doors for financial reasons.
During World War II the church had been a thriving congregation in the center
of the city of Tacoma, with families from the surrounding housing development
at its core. But over a period of time their church attendance have steadily
dwindled and finally they came to a sad realization that they can no longer
continue to operate as a church. So they forced to merge with another church. When
the church members finally met for one last service-together, one of the
remaining original members, a lady in her seventies, was asked why she thought
the church had dwindled to the point where they could no longer afford to open
its door. She sadly replied,
“Well, I guess after the kids grew up and went
away there was even less need to change the way we did things. Why start a
children’s ministry when there were no kids? And we all just started getting
old and dying off. Now we are down to just a few of us old ones, and there just
didn’t seem to be any point in keeping the doors open anymore.”
It’s
outdated culture eventually led to the demise of the church.
It was a
culture that failed to progress, a culture that failed to realize that families
wanted more for their children than they themselves had received in the church.
Churches
that counted on keeping their doors open based on past operations have ended up
like those churches that died with the last original members.
They
failed to develop a culture that kept up with the times and met the needs of
today’s society.
Churches
rise or fall on the basis of the culture she embraces.
“Any development
program that fails to take into consideration the prevailing belief system of a
people and the possible influence of this belief system on the proposed
development plan runs a serious risk of foundering before it gets off the
ground.”
- DARROW MILLER
Culture
is the ground/soil on which you plant your strategy or development program.
Any
strategy will work if you have the right culture in your church. But no matter
how perfectly well thought your strategy is, if the culture of the church is
anti-growth it won’t amount to anything.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
- PETER
DRUCKER
LEADERSHIP
NOTE: Form a culture-creating leadership
PASTOR JR
4. Give serious attention to the development of our leadership carrying capacity.
This
is about investing in our personal
development.
Remember you cannot give what you do
not have.
The
challenges we will be facing in the coming days require a new discipline from us if we are to expect greater
results and greater success.
There has
never been a stronger need and urgency than today to expand our carrying capacity if we are to experience more of
God’s activities and blessings He prepared for us.
2 Peter 1:5-8 (NLT)
“5 So make every effort to apply the benefits of these
promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral
excellence leads to knowing God better.
6 Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient
endurance leads to godliness. 7 Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally
you will grow to have genuine love
for everyone. 8 The
more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
DEFINITION:
Capacity means our maximum ability to
receive, to contain, to withstand, and to produce.
Ecclesiastes
5:19 (MSG)
“Yes, we should make the most of what God gives, both
the bounty and the capacity to enjoy it, accepting what’s given and delighting
in the work. It’s God’s gift!”
We must have
the capacity to enjoy what God has given to us. That means the capacity to
accept, to make use, to delight in the many blessings, and anointing that God
is given to each one of us.
I’m talking on
the maximum blessings that we can receive from God.
Now God has no
limit to His blessings. The question is how much can you receive?
The maximum we
can contain inside so that it will not leak away.
The maximum pressure we can withstand when we go
through a stressful time.
The maximum production we can bring-out. The maximum
we can muster in our life in the midst of all the difficulties.
Now again there is no lack and shortage in God. He is
true to His promises. He is full of provisions. He is full of power for His
people.
But the problem is, do we have the capacity to release what he
has given to us?
Biblical Illustration:
2 Kings 4:5 (NIV)
“5 She left him and shut the door behind her and her sons.
They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring.”
This is a story
of a miracle taking place in the life of a widow. So long as she has many jars
she is receiving continuous flow of oil. It was her capacity (jars) that determine how much
miracle she can have.
We all want
increase in our lives. In our business, career, ministry, Support Group, in
everything we are doing for God’s kingdom.
We want to see
multiplication. And it is God’s will that we come to that realm of
multiplication.
2 Kings 4:6 (NIV)
“When all the jars were full,
she said to her son, ‘Bring me another one.’ But he replied, ‘There is not a
jar left.’ Then the oil stopped flowing.”
But the oil
stopped multiplying when she no longer have that capacity to collect it in the
jars.
Our ability to
solve problems, our ability to live successfully depend on our inner capacity within us to receive, to contain, to
withstand, to produce, to give away.
2 Kings 4:7 (NIV)
“She
went and told the man of God, and he said, ‘Go, sell the oil and pay your
debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.’”
The widow was able to pay her debts and to keep
surviving for the rest of her life.
But consider this, if she only had the ability to keep
on receiving a greater capacity on the inside to keep containing, not only where she will be able to experience the
blessings of God for her family, but also she could help others pay off
their debts.
That means she could be a blessing to others around. So, this lack of jars limited her inner ability to
receive more and to be a blessing to other people.
Therefore, our capacity is a sure indicator how
far we go in life.
So when we expand our inside to
receive and to give we enlarge the blessing flow of
God in us.
Our capacity is not fixed.
It can change.
It can be
expanded.
It can grow
according to our responses.
Your inside,
the size of your inner ability is going
to determine how far you can go, how much you
can achieve, how happy a life you can live.
The bigger a vision, the greater the inside has to be.
So there are many things we want to achieve in life.
We want to have happiness. We want success. We want significance.
I mean if you are a Christian especially you grew up
in DBC then you must want to be a person of destiny. You probably want to be
world shaker, a history maker. We want to reach the world with the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ. But it is not enough just to have passion.
The world is not change by passion alone. It is change by a humungous capacity.
There was a story of a very famous Preacher in fact he was the most
famous at that time. He can pack indoor stadiums, arenas. His books sold like
hot cakes.
But you see, you cannot do that much for the gospel without some kind of
demonic attacks. I mean the devil will not fold and say, “Ok good ahead! …” So
devil started attacking him. Overtime he had lapses in judgments. Made
mistakes. And there was a major TV network in America made an expose on him. He
was publicly humiliated and shamed. But in spite of it the leaders love him,
supported him, encourages him. They said, “Pastor we love you, we believe in
you. There was a mistake. But you can overcome it. You will been even greater
after this. So, don’t give up.” But you know what this pastor didn’t recover
from the sting of humiliation. He slumped into depression. His marriage broke
down. And he didn’t recover from it.
He was full of passion for ministry but he doesn’t have the inside not
just to receive and to contain but to withstand and he didn’t have the inner
ability to keep on producing, to keep on serving I the midst of all the Satanic
attack upon his life.
But another worker, working in an atheist country. Twice he was
imprisoned for his faith. The last time for seven years. No family member was
allowed to visit him. While inside prison he had a stroke. He was never allowed
to go out to seek medical help. So for the first month he has to crawl to survive.
And only by the grace of God he was able to stand up after four months. And
then after seven years he was released. He came out looks older than his age
because of severe deprivation. But he was a very positive person. Happy. And he
keeps on serving the Lord.
Both were hard
pressed. One cracked!
Both were
struck down. One couldn’t get up!
You see friends when all is said and done, it has to do with our inner capacity – our ability to receive, to contain, to withstand, and to
keep on producing in the toughest of times.
Proverbs 24:10 (MSG)
“If you fall to pieces in a crisis, there wasn’t much to you in the first place.”
TLB
“You are a poor specimen if you can’t stand the pressure of adversity.”
“In me is working a power
stronger than every other power. The life that is in me is a thousand times
bigger than I am outside.”
That means the inner man, my inner capacity is bigger
a thousand times on the inside than in the outside. He has a huge inner
capacity.
Apostle Paul understand this. So he prayed for
the believer in
Ephesians 3:16 (NIV)
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being (man),”
What was Paul’s concerned of? For him he is
concerned of our inner life, of our inside.
You gotta grow in your inner
capacity.
What Do We Do To Enlarge Our
Capacity
5 Keys To Increasing Our
Insides:
Isaiah 54:2 (NKJV)
“Enlarge the place of your tent, And let them stretch out the curtains
of your dwellings; Do not spare; Lengthen your cords, And strengthen your
stakes.”
Now God
is not just talking a physical temple but also a spiritual temple. We are a
temple of the Holy Spirit. So in sense God is talking about us.
1) Desire
to expand.
“Enlarge the place of your tent …”
You got to have
a desire. You got to want to grow up.
You don’t
remain young.
When you are young and you wear a diaper, you are cute. But when you in
your fifties and you still wear one. That’s off!
You got to make
a choice!
In the original text the word enlarge
means to expand, to make room, to go
beyond the limits.
In other word
to have no limits, no boundaries; to increase capacity. And this phrase was
spoken as an imperative. Therefore, it is a command. It is not a suggestion. It
is not an option. But to be able to receive the benefit of it. Then, you have
to desire to obey.
Biblical
Example 1 Chronicles 4:10 - Jabez.
When you are in
pain you shrink!
Hebrews nation
got stuck in the wilderness.
Jesus said, you
cannot put new wine in an old wineskin.
If we want to
have the bigger capacity in inside, to receive, … then we got to be willing to
go through the enlarging process.
That means when
we are pulled, when we are stretched, when we are extended by God we can’t
complain. We don’t murmur. We just trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Sinking feeling
every morning, - hole in a soul.
People with
Chronic Depression and yet manage it and came out overcomers:
Charles
Spurgeon
C.S. Lewis
Derick Prince.
Elijah.
2) Get out of your comfort zone.
“And let them stretch out the curtains of your
dwellings;”
You got to
stretch out.
Get out of your
comfort zone. Stretch out the curtain of your dwellings.
To be stretch
means to be pulled, to be extended by tension. So, God will put you through a
period of tension. You become very tense, stressed.
You will become
very uncomfortable. Nobody like stress.
But God would
love us to do something previously thought impossible.
Genesis 12:2-3
(NIV)
“2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you
And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, And I
will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall
be blessed.’”
Before verse 2
and 3 there was verse 1.
Genesis 12:1
(NIV)
“Now the Lord had said to
Abram: ‘Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.’”
Leave behind
your protection. Provision.
Part of the
enlargement process is to leave your own comfort zone. Leaving behind the predictable. To believe God
for greater things.
God doesn’t want us to depend on the predictable
but to trust Him for the impossible.
3) Think
big with courage in the Word of God!
“Do not spare.”
That means do not withhold. Fear not.
Think big!
Think the way God thinks. See the way God sees.
Visualize what God visualize about your lives, future, ministry.
And for this we
need the word of God. Not just good idea but God idea. We need the Scripture to show us
how and what God thinks.
And remember that God is a very Big God.
So we need to increase in our spiritual knowledge and understanding
beyond our current capacity.
Luke
5:1-6 (NIV)
“1 One day
as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding
around him and listening to the word of God. 2 He saw at the water’s edge two boats,
left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one
belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat
down and taught the people from the boat. 4 When
he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let
down the nets for a catch.” 5 Simon
answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But
because you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done so, they caught such
a large number of fish that their nets began to break.”
Why did Jesus preach first before did a miracle… After preaching enough
Jesus said … Before the miracle Jesus has to let Peter hear His words.
Faith comes by
hearing by hearing the word.
Another
thing to take note: Jesus didn’t just let the fish appear out of nowhere and jump into the
boat. The fish is already there. But until Peter’s perception change, his
reality is not gonna change.
As a man
thinks so is he. Your perception determines your reality.
You are able
when you think you are able.
Now the changing only came with
the words of God.
The Bible help us think beyond our circumstances.
The more we hear the more we listen, study, memorize, meditate on the words
of God the more we think like God. The more we think bigger and greater.
Our greater
capacity to think big comes from our association with the God’s words.
The word of God
enlarged our imagination.
4) Build positive connections.
“You got to lengthen your cord.”
That means you got to build positive connection. You got to connect!
The flow
of God’s blessing depends on the people around you.
Now it easy to
be surrounded with people who will never challenge you because you feel
superior.
But if the
people around you have lesser capacity, then they can never enlarge you and
make you greater.
Be with people
who have large capacity so they can enlarge your capacity as well and make you
into a person God wants you to become.
Now, of course we should be
friendly with everybody.
But when it
comes to mentors, disciplers, people that you submit then you have to have a
few consideration.
Now, remember
you cannot soar like eagles if you hang on with the turkys.”
Few considerations you have to have when looking for a mentor:
A) Do they have proper spiritual insights to lead you higher?
This is
about their understanding of the word. Of the spiritual insights.
B) Have they really experienced the advised they
are giving you?
Don’t be
someone’s guinea pig.
5) Dig
deeper in Christ
“And strengthen your stakes”
If you can
focus on getting deeper and deeper. If you can just let your roots deeper, then
God will take your tree taller and wider.
Don’t worry
about your influence, the size of your ministry. You just focus on growing
deeper in Christ then everything else will take care of itself.
The bigger you
want to be the deeper you need to go.
Everyone who
desires to work on developing church must aim To Be
an authentic and able leader.
Most often leading church development is thought of as something
you do, but the truth is leadership is more of being rather than doing.
So much of what we hear in leadership development focuses on
what leaders do instead of who they are.
Leading church
development is not just a task or a project; it is strength
of mind and a prevailing mood of spirit.
We are not human doings;
we are human beings.
Once you
recognize the power of being, it’s then a matter of developing ongoing, never ending habits that support a life of a leader.
Three Reasons For This Perspective:
1) Modeling
Demonstrate:
Tell them to make a victory sign. And then tell them to put it to their cheeks
but put yours to your chin. Chances are many of them will put it also in their
chins like you.
People don’t
follow what we say. They follow what they see.
2) The life-giving spirit lies not in what
we do but on who
we are.
Although our
doing is essential to the work that we must get done, the essence of being a leader
(the part of us that people connect with and respond to) is not in what we do but in who we are.
The distinct
difference in a leadership that can facilitate development of the church is
that it not only teaches but also models and cultivates a life-giving spirit – a spirit of encouragement,
a spirit of confidence.
Be enthusiastic.
Be full of God-ideas.
Be full of vision.
Being expectant that God will back you up.
Soon others
will want to be like you, and the culture of development you were hoping to
create will take shape.
There are many
habits you can develop that will help you be a person who can naturally carry
encouragement and confidence in your spirit.
Part of being a life-giving leader is learning to
live healthy and keeping yourself built up.
This requires …
(1) Intelligent use of your time,
(2)
Physical exercise,
(3) Discretion on who you are hanging out with,
(4)
A sensible diet,
(5) Laughter
Illustration: Abraham
Lincoln had a melancholy personality that often caused him to drift into low
moods in his younger years. Along the way some significant changes took place,
and he became a much brighter and more optimistic person. He once stated that, “Most people are about as happy as they make up their
mind to be.” What Lincoln realized is that our
attitudes change when we change our choice of thoughts. During the Civil
War he was criticized for gathering his staff in the evenings and telling jokes
while the nation was in severe crisis. When asked about it he explained that
this was how he kept himself from despair and rejuvenated his soul. His choice
to laugh was a source of strength.
Proverbs 17:22 (NIV)
“a cheerful heart is good medicine…”
(6) And lots
of good mental and spiritual food for growing a
positive attitude.
Great leaders
have a leadership spirit that motivates,
compels, and inspires followers. Without the spirit of
leadership in a person, plans, messages, hard
work, and worthy causes are simply not enough to
inspire followers.
If
you want people to follow you, you must first define where you want to take
them, and then enjoy living in that place yourself.
When you do
this, people will naturally gravitate toward you and allow you the privilege of
being a leader.
Positive
people attract more positive people.
Negative
people attract more negative people because they are not comfortable with
positive people. Rarely will a negative person change and become positive; most
often he or she will leave that positive atmosphere altogether and go in search
of people who support negative attitudes. Pity
parties are no fun if no one attends.
3) It is
the strength of your character that will determine how
far you can go.
Our doing should grow out
of our being.
Kinds Of CAPABILITY Leadership Should Develop:
1) Capability to provide clear
and evocative direction
This involves:
(1) The Formulation of Vision, Strategy, Motivation
The church should be missional
in her stance not maintenance.
(2) The Articulation of Direction
Casting
Kinds
Of CAPABILITY Leadership Should Develop:
2) Capability to resource
the ministry needs
This involves two things:
1) The raising for
financial support.
It
is not just enough to have the ability to write
a vision you must have the ability to underwrite
it.
To be able to resource the ministry needs this requires that members of
the church must be first liberated from poverty that have plague them.
You got to teach and motivate your people to get out of poverty.
[Capability
to resource the ministry needs] This involves two things:
2) The management of
resources.
Both on the personal and corporate level, the issue on finances is
always on management.
If the issue on finances is management of
resources then there is no amount of increasing
the income will solve the problem.
This is the issue of efficiency, which is the ability to accomplish task
at a lower cost.
This
requires…
(1) Thriftiness
(2) Discipline
(3) Utilization of what God has already given.
Kinds
Of CAPABILITY Leadership Should Develop:
3) Capability to empower,
release and mobilize
people into the ministry.
Empowering and releasing people to
make their unique contribution requires both individual attention and a
supportive corporate climate.
For most people, this kind of
environment is something never experienced yet always longed for.
At the same time, most leaders crave
for a way to increase the horsepower of their organization, but building this
kind of environment will require developing new skills and new priorities for
their time and energy.
Requirements for
Empowering, Releasing, and Mobilizing People:
(1) Equipping them.
Very
fundamental to empower and releasing people is the training needed to develop
genuine proficiency, targeted assistance in regards to problem solving,
mentoring devoted to skill and leadership development, adequate access to new
ideas, and information about the bigger picture of the organization so that
leaders have the ability to make effective decisions; (ie. financial status,
major projects, goals, new personnel, etc.)
Without adequate
training:
The
feeling of “being over my head” may stimulate energy to learn and grow for a
while, but over time it erodes confidence in our ability to do a job well.
(2) Resourcing them.
If
people are going to be able to carry out the responsibilities they have been
given, they must provided the resources they need to do so.
Unfortunately,
it is common for those with defined responsibility to be operating
“short-handed” in terms materials, finances, and equipment.
Without adequate
resourcing:
There is a nagging sense of disempowerment that grows
in people when they don’t have the tools, resources to truly succeed. All of us
want to make a real impact, but can’t do it for long without resources.
People feel setup for failure.
(3) Giving them clear direction.
(A)
Responsibility. What is there responsibility?
People need to know
specifically what they are responsible for.
Behavioral expectations,
desired outcomes, much of what we typically think of as the important parts of
a job description is included in this first requirement.
Yet, beyond what is written on
a page, everyone of us wants to know that we have a strategic assignment so
important that if we miss it then the whole team–the whole mission–will suffer.
To use a sports analogy, people
need to know what their “blocking assignment” is and that if they miss
their block, the quarterback is going down.
Some corollary components of
this requirement: Helping people discover God’s unique calling and shaping on their
life; mobilizing people according to their calling and passion versus
recruiting them to an ‘open slot;’ developing and communicating effective job
descriptions.
Without a clear sense of
responsibility:
People struggle with role confusion: whose responsible for what,
what do people expect me to be doing... it can lead to creative paralysis, or
differing assumptions which form the basis for miscommunication.
There is a nagging fear of “doing it ”wrong, or not giving my energy to
what really matters. We want to give ourselves to a task that is demanding and
significant.
People cannot minister out of freedom, there are no boundaries on the
playground.
Senior leaders end up micro-managing people because those who are serving
don’t know enough about what they need to be doing to think ahead nor solve
their own problems.
(B) Relationships. Who are they accountable to?
All of us want to know that we
are part of a team, that we are working alongside a group of people who share
the load and who are committed to our well being as much as they are committed
to the task at hand, that we have people who are “watching my back.”
Granted, people are wired
differently and some need more relational support than others, but no one wants
to be sent out to play a position and then ignored.
Meeting this relational need
means creating time for encouragement, time for shared learning and growth.
Ministry is about the work that we do and about the people we do it with.
Carl George’s concept of the
Huddle for the community of leaders who make things happen is exactly on point.
Unfortunately most senior leaders worry more about the production of their
people than about the people who produce.
Without adequate relationships:
Left
alone we lose perspective...
especially in the midst of demanding responsibility.
Mentoring
becomes formal,
often wooden, rather than natural and simple.
People
can be destabilized
or demoralized by problems.
People
focus on the task alone and miss God’s
unique and ongoing work in them as they serve.
People
reproduce the task-driven approach
to the work at hand among those they lead rather than truly developing the
people they lead.
(C)
Risks.
What are the risks involve here?
The
freedom to risk is directly correlated with the freedom to innovate. All
innovation, all creativity, all new ideas are inherently risky.
In
fact, in a world that is changing so rapidly, even doing what has been tried
and true in the past can be risky.
There
are no guarantees of success. Therefore, it is critical to build a culture
where there is the freedom to fail.
When
someone truly has the freedom to fail without undue fear of personal
repercussion then they have the freedom to risk.
We
say more about what is acceptable by who we choose to honor than almost any
other behavior, therefore, there is probably a need to honor people who failed
in spite of the quantity or quality of their efforts.
This
is profoundly different then honoring people who failed out of laziness or
carelessness.
It
is important to note that creating an environment that nurtures risk will
challenge the ability of leadership to release control.
It
will challenge the willingness of leaders to trust other people.
And
it will surface the character-based issues of reputation and ambition:
What
will others think of me if our organization stumbles?
What
if we release people to try new things and they succeed better that I would
have?
What
if someone else’s new idea diverts attention and resources from my agendas?
Without
a culture of risk:
There
is a lack of freedom to innovate or pioneer what’s new.
People
live in fear of judgment, failure, or disapproval rather than in the confidence
of support and encouragement.
The
size of an organization’s collective comfort zone actually decreases... we move
further and further away from the edge.
Potential
leaders are not discovered or appreciated... leadership cannot be developed
without the freedom to lead.
There
is a steady loss of leaders. Leaders want a place to serve that will allow them
to lead, an opportunity to enlarge the tent, a place where they are trusted to
use their gifts.
Over
time, organizational “leadership” positions are filled by those committed to
the status quo.
(D)
Review.
What and when is the evaluation?
One
way to honor the work people do is to review it’s quality and quantity.
By
never reviewing it, we dishonor the sacrifice they have made.
How
can you know how to resource someone without knowing how things are going? How
can you provide problem-solving support without knowing what the problems are?
If
the mission of your organization matters, then the contribution of your leaders
and the work they do to carry out that mission matters, too.
Unfortunately,
many people have experienced periodic assessment as a club being held over
their heads.
Instead,
it should be a regular two-way dialogue, and opportunity to advance the cause
and to support your people, a chance to capture learnings as they occur.
Regular
review is a far cry from controlling accountability, rather, done well it
should accelerate individual and corporate capacity.
Without
effective review:
People can feel undervalued.
After all, they have given so much of themselves, often sacrificially, and it
feels no one is paying attention.
Problems that arise become forest fires before they
are dealt with. And forest fires take a huge toll, not only on
what they burn, but on the people it takes to put them out.
People have trouble keeping the dots connected:
ie. Remind me again how the thing I am doing makes a difference?
(4)
Motivating them. This is about
the reason for the task.
Listed
last for emphasis, this may be the most important of all.
People
need to know there is something worthwhile at stake and that their effort is
directly connected to it.
Every
organization, business, or enterprise of any sort is actually populated by
people who volunteer.
Even
when there is a paycheck involved, employees volunteer themselves to the
challenges of the task at hand every day.
But
as people get involved in the demands of their responsibilities they lose sight
of the reason behind what they are doing. It is nothing devious, it is just
human nature.
Vision has a half-life of seven days.
That
is to say, no matter how clear and strong the vision for what we are doing is
today, seven days from now it will only be half as
clear and half as strong.
Seven
days later and another half-life has expired. Within 28 days, whatever you
started with will be down to a meager 6 1⁄2% of
its original strength.
No
one is out there looking for a way to fill their time.
People
want a cause that is worthy of sacrifice. They want to give themselves to
something that will change the world in some small way.
And
when they take on a responsibility, those in leadership must help them continue
to connect the dots, showing them how what they do is directly related to the
capacity of the entire organization to change the world.
Without a compelling
reason:
People are left to work out of duty or obligation
alone. And working solely out of duty is the pathway to
burnout.
People compete for resources based
on personality or positional power rather than vision and strategy.
Turf wars become the name of the
day.
Pettiness reigns because
pettiness is the clear indicator of a lack of compelling vision... one that
deserves personal sacrifice.
Things that comprised leadership capability:
1) Convictions
Belief precedes
knowledge.
Things that comprised leadership
capability:
2) Character: Solidly possessing the virtues of
Christ.
2 Peter 1:5-8 (NLT)
“5
So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your
life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. 6 Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient
endurance leads to godliness. 7 Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally
you will grow to have genuine love
for everyone. 8 The
more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Important Virtues:
1) Integrity & Honesty: Having your action
correspond to your word and your word correspond to your action.
2) Self-control: Keeping
your cool at all times.
3) Patience endurance: Commitment to consistently take responsibility
regardless of the behavior of others and the setbacks in the process.
1 Kings 8:61 (NIV)
“But your hearts must
be fully committed to the LORD our God, to live by his decrees and obey his
commands, as at this time.”
4) Godliness: Living
with awareness of God and devotion to Him.
5) Compassion:
Diligently cultivating genuine love for people
in the world.
Matthew 22:30 (NIV)
“And the second [greatest commandment] is like
it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Why do we need
love to redefine our world?
It is because love never fails.
How do you cultivate genuine love for
people?
(1) Invest in them.
Matthew 6:21 (NLT)
“Wherever your treasure is, there your heart
and thoughts will also be.”
(2) Live in Godliness.
2 Peter 1:7 (NLT)
“Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone.”
Things that comprised leadership
capability:
3) COMPETENCY: Having the necessary skills that addresses the present issues.
Two Capabilities To Develop
1) Chemistry: Ability
to connect with people.
This
is about building great relationships.
Proverbs 11:30 (NLT)
“The seeds of good deeds become a tree of life; a wise person
wins friends.”
2) Creativity: Readily
crafting productive ideas that will develop the
church.
This requires …
(1) Bravely exploring
all the possibilities in the world.
“Far
better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though
checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither
enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows
neither victory nor defeat. It is not critic that counts; not the man who
points out how the strong stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done
them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena’ whose
face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs,
and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and
shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds.”
- TEDDY ROOSEVELT
Proverbs 25:2
“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is
the glory of kings.”
Man was made in God’s image.
With a mind patterned
after God’s, he can think God’s thoughts after Him.
(2) Resolutely pushing the boundaries.
Boundaries that restrict advancements:
A. Physical/material restrictions
Resources are limited only by man’s
moral imagination, creativity, and stewardship.
¿Economics is an intelligent
stewardship, not a mindless, mental servitude.
¿Solomon Noted:
Proverbs 3:13-15 (NIV)
“13 Blessed is the man who
finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, 14
for she is more profitable than silver and yields better than gold. 15 She is more precious than rubies; nothing you
desire can compare with her.”
“Wealth is not physical, but metaphysical; that it is to be
found not in matter, but in mind; and that being in mind it is at once
individually liberating and expansive, universally available and unifying.”
- WARREN T. BROOKES
¿We
are going to have to reorient
totally our thinking about the true nature of wealth.
“The real source of wealth is mind.”
- MICHAEL
NOVAK
B. The lack of Conviction
“Because economies are
governed by thoughts, they reflect not the laws of matter but the laws of mind.
One crucial
law of mind is that belief precedes knowledge.”
- GEORGE GILDER
Former
Israel Prime Minister Shimon Peres said,
“This year Israel will make out of [its] brains more than the
Saudis will make out of their oil wells.”
Things that comprised leadership
capability:
4) CONNECTION w/ CHRIST: Constantly abiding in Him for effectiveness
John 15:4-5 (NKJV)
“4
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,
unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches.
He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do
nothing.”
Ephesians 3:16 (AMP)
“May He grant you out of the
riches of His glory, to be strengthened and spiritually energized with
power through His Spirit in your inner self, [indwelling your innermost being
and personality],”
“We cannot
prevail by our own might or strength, we need to plug on to the source of our
strength so that we will remain resourceful always.”
“When we are connected to the
source, we will not be afraid of any task set before us.”
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