Category: Leadership

Posted on

Leadership Gold

I recently listened to John Maxwell’s latest book called Leadership Gold. I was traveling, so I was able to listen to the entire book within a couple of days. John Maxwell has been a mentor of mine, even though I have not met him in person. I have read nearly all his books and I also subscribe to his monthly CD club called Maximum Impact. I have learn a lot about leadership and relationships from his teaching. John has such a great ability to communicate in a way that I can apply things to my life. He keeps it simple, direct and uses illustrations to make his point.

I have used much of his material in teaching others about leadership as well. In this latest book, he shares the things he has learned in his life. He said that he waited to write this until he turned 60. I could share a lot of things from the book, but one thing that has stuck with me over the past week is this:

Each of our lives is like a suitcase. We all have the same size suitcase, but the outside looks different. We all get a chance to pack our own suitcases. Some people can get more in their suitcases than others. The reason for that is they know what to pack and how to pack it.

What are you packing in your suitcase? Is it the right stuff? What are you having a hard time getting into your suitcase? What do you need to dump from your suitcase?

Posted on

My Biggest Challenge

Every week I have to fill out a report at work that summarizes what I did last week and what I am working on and focusing on. We call it the 5/15 report (5 minutes for my boss to read and 15 minutes for me to fill out).

One of the questions on that report is “what is your biggest challenge right now”? For me the biggest challenge has been and always will be me.

Leading myself is what determines how well I lead and help others. If you are really honest with yourself, this is true of all of us. We tend to be the biggest roadblock to our own success.

So, if this is the biggest challenge many of us face, how do you lead yourself? Here is my top 20 ways to lead yourself:

  • Spend time with God on a regular basis (prayer, reading the Bible, meditation)
  • Discover your strength and focus on developing those strengths – Understand your weaknesses and manage around them
  • Character is a big deal – It’s what you do when no one is looking that matters
  • Find systems that help you work and live smarter
  • Read
  • Ask Questions
  • Find mentors and organizations that you can learn from
  • Have someone holding you accountable – Give them permission to ask tough questions
  • Continually work at listening better
  • Don’t be afraid to fail or take risks, but learn from your failures
  • Surround yourself with good people that are strong in your areas of weakness
  • Be Humble – Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking less about yourself
  • Be willing to step out of your comfort zone – Do something that stretches and challenges you
  • Pay attention – To people, to culture, to circumstances, to body language etc.
  • The things you do today are preparing you for your defining moments of the future. Little things matter
  • Think about the big picture every day – Work on it not in it
  • Get help – It is OK to go to a counselor, pastor or doctor
  • Make sure you are healthy Emotionally & Physically – This takes discipline
  • Don’t forget to relax and have fun

I could list many other things, but this is a good start. The better you lead yourself, the better your relationships will be and the more valuable you become to the people around you.

Lead On!

Posted on

Divorce

I am passionate about reducing the divorce rate in Tuscarawas County. The rate of divorce in Tuscarawas County was 69% in 2006. That is up 5% from 2003. The rate for the state of Ohio is 55%.

What if I said we could cut that rate in half in the next 10 years. Would that get your attention?

There are proven ways to work at reducing the rate of divorce. The best approach is to pull the local churches, local government leader’s and other local leader’s together to form a strategy.

Part of the strategy would be to work at better preparing couples for marriage, offering marriage enrichment events and activities, mentoring and coaching troubled marriages, offering support groups for blended families and more.

If anyone is interested in being a part of a movement to lower the divorce rate, please contact me or comment. NewPointe Community Church is part of a program called Marriage Savers. Marriage Savers has done the research and put together a great program that is designed to bring a community together to make a lasting difference in families.

I am believing God is going to do something BIG in 2009. The local church can impact a community and change a community, if we work together.

Posted on

Men

I’ve been talking with a few guys about what it means to be a man. Not just any man, but a Christ following man. Most guys have not had many good role models to learn from. We grow up learning what men should or shouldn’t do. We see bad examples and a few good examples. We are influenced by television, Internet, magazines, books and people. The church has also done a poor job of modeling the right view of the Christian man. For most Christian guys, we think we have to be this nice guy that gets along with everyone, provide for our families and have it all together.

As men, we desperately need to change this wrong view of who we are. In my conversations with these guys the theme that came out, is that most men growing up today are not getting the message that God wants them warriors and lovers. Men are not, in general standing up and leading their families well. Many men have settled into the role of just providing. We are much more than that. God has called us to be courageous warriors to go into battle for Him. He has called us to love like He loved, serve like He served and fight like He fought.

God does not want us to be timid and passive, especially in spiritual leadership. Most women want their men to be the spiritual leader in the home, but have had to take that role on, because he hasn’t. I think that happens because men and women have a different idea of what that looks like. How do you lead your family spiritually? How do you become the man that God created you to be?

Maybe we don’t understand who Jesus really was. Jesus is our absolute best example to follow. Maybe we need to take a new and fresh look at Jesus the man.

Jesus was bold, courageous and daring. He did not care what others thought about him or said about him. He was focused and driven with incredible passion. He was not afraid to speak his mind and even offend some people. Yet he did this with incredible compassion, humility and love. He was a perfect balance of warrior and lover. He stirred things up, challenge people to think differently and then loved deeply. Jesus was not a nice guy or a good teacher. He was God and man. He was the greatest leader of all time. He showed us what he wants us to become. As a man that inspires me, that challenges me.

Life is an adventure, we are part of a bigger story that God is writing every day.

To become the man that God wants you to be, you need to have a right view of how God sees you. He sees you as His son.

Our challenge as men is to grow closer to Jesus, so that we can lead better, serve better and love better. Don’t settle for being a nice guy.

Posted on

A Winning Team

On Thursday night the Florida Gators defeated the Oklahoma Sooners in College football for the National Championship. I am a sports junkie and love to follow sports teams. Whether it is football, basketball or baseball, I enjoy follow sports stories. ESPN is my favorite channel on TV.

Many things in sports teach us things about life. The National Championship on Thursday night was a very good game, with these young men giving everything they had on the field. A lot of preparation went into that game. Weeks of practice, watching film and studying the game plan.

The head coach of Florida is Urban Myer. I was listening to an interview with him the day after the win. This is his second national championship in three years. The reporter asked him why he has been so successful over the past several years. Without hesitating the coach responded that he has become very good at hiring great people to surround himself. He talked about the trainers, the assistant coaches and the support staff. He said that it is the people around you that to a great degree determine your success. It was not about him, so much as the team he built around him.

I believe that is very true. You can see it in the business world, in schools, in government, in non-profit organizations and churches. The most successful organizations and people have great teams. Our President elect Barack Obama has been assembling his team over the last several months. His success or failure, will in large part be due to the people he surrounds himself with right now.

Sometimes this can be difficult, as we want to surround ourselves with people that like us and are like us. The danger in that, is they will tell you what you want to hear and not what you need to hear. Sometimes you need to bring in people that are much different than your self. You need people with different skills and talents and personalities to complete your inner circle.

Don’t we tell our kids to be careful who they hang out with. It is the same for adults, be careful who you spend time with. The people you meet and spend time with will have a big impact on your life, so make those choices wisely. Whether you are hiring a team member, building a team of volunteers, recruiting board members, getting into a small group, joining a business group or just making friends, choose wisely.

Who do you have in your inner circle at work? In your personal and spiritual life? Do you even have an inner circle, or have you isolated yourself? If you want to win in life, you must surround yourself with the right people. People that will speak the truth in love to you. People that will be there when things get tough. People that will watch your back and encourage you to keep going and growing. People that will challenge you. People that will discipline you. People that will love you.

Posted on

Here and Now

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3

I love to talk and write about spiritual growth. Many of my posts talk about how to grow in all areas of our lives. This passage of Scripture gives some great insight into how that happens. You see, the power to grow doesn’t come from us, it comes from God. Peter talks about having everything we need for life, but then adds and godliness. The second word is meant to qualify the first. It might have been easy for us to interpret this as eternal life, if the “and godliness” had not been added. I believe he is talking about this life, right now.

Godliness is a God-honoring life from the time I make a commitment to Christ until the time I die. Until we fully understand what Jesus did for us, we cannot fully live life with godliness. This provision is more than following commandments, applying principles and claiming promises in Scripture. God’s provision for a godly life now, is Christ himself. He gave himself, so that we could be like him.

In Galatians 2:20, Paul says “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” The key word I see is “in”. We have Christ in us, we have become the temple where God is. He actually lives within us now by His spirit. Because of that presence in us, we have everything we need to be the person we are supposed be and do the things that God is asking us to do.

If we are not fully aware of Christ’s presence in us, we tend to live blindly. Going about our daily lives, missing much of the life God has for us. We tend to avoid hard things, and are easily overwhelmed. But if we have a clear sense of who we are, it gives us the hope and courage we need to face any challenge or temptation. When was the last time you called on the name of Jesus in the face of temptation. You have everything you need to live a godly life right now.

None of us are perfect like Jesus was, but He has given everything we need to be like him. Peter goes on to say this: “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We have everything we need to be effective and productive for God’s kingdom.

Posted on

Serving Food

I am on the board of the Greater Dover/New Philadelphia Food Pantry. The Food Pantry started this year by combining some existing church food pantries into one. The neat thing was how many local churches joined in this effort. We now have over 20 churches that are supporting this pantry in some way. Some provide volunteers, some provide food items and many give financially. The need for an organized local food pantry is greater than most people realize. There are many people in our community that have a very hard time getting enough food for their families. I have met single parents, grandparents and people that have lost their jobs recently. All are grateful for a local pantry to get emergency food items.

Over the past few months we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people seeking help. I have noticed this at the Church as well. The Pantry had been housed in the Salvation Army Church in Dover. They had been running a food pantry, and agreed to allow the new pantry to use their facility and roll their pantry into the new one. The Salvation Army has moved into a new building and had offered space there, but we needed a larger area to grow and serve more people. I want to thank the Salvation Army of Dover for their generosity and help in getting this pantry going.

This past week we moved into the old Buehler’s building in Dover. The Church of the Harvest owns the building and was not using the back part. It has a loading dock and ample space to store food. Many volunteers worked hard to get the space ready for Friday’s distribution. The Church of the Harvest graciously has allowed us to move into this space. We are paying for the extra utilities and for the improvements and repairs, but no monthly rent.

The best way to support the pantry is by giving money or volunteering your time. They are able to buy large volumes of food from the Akron Food Bank for penny’s on the dollar. We recommend instead of bringing in food items, that people donate money.

Every Friday from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm we distribute food. We are expanding that to Thursday evenings in 2009 from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. My wife Vikki and I went and helped serve on Friday. It was NewPointe Community Church’s turn to provide volunteers. I took some pictures to give you an idea of how the operation works. We served 150 families in two hours. People can only come once per month right now, so that translates into nearly 600 families a month that are being served food through the Greater Dover/New Philadelphia Food Pantry.






Posted on

Go ’08 Christmas Edition

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy for me, but busy in a good way. I have been working on matching up families and small groups in our church with local families and widows that could use some help over the Christmas season and beyond. I have been calling families and talking to them about the needs they have. I am amazed at how many local families are really having a hard time. This year it seems a little worse, because of the economy and the lay offs.

At NewPointe Community Church, we try very hard to make a difference in our community. To do that, it takes initiative to reach out through acts of kindness to families and individuals. One of the areas I am excited about is the amount of elderly that we have been connecting with and helping. Our local Senior Center has been great to work with. Our population of senior citizens is growing, and our church is aware that we need to reach out to them as well.

Our Go’08 Christmas Edition is an extension of this summers outreach day when we closed down church and went into the community to serve. This Christmas we are sponsoring local families, widows and children. Some of the widows and children are local and some are in the countries of Jordan, Egypt and Iraq.

I have been truly blessed to see the generosity of the people that are a part of the NewPointe family. That generosity is having a huge impact on our local community and the Middle East. I am so thankful to be a part of this local church that wants to change the world.

Posted on

Nehemiah

My favorite book in the Old Testament is Nehemiah. This is an incredible story that is packed with wisdom, leadership principles and examples on how to live life and get things done. Nehemiah had a good life, he was comfortable, had a good job, made plenty of money, had influence with his boss and was well respected by many. Things were good, until God revealed to him the situation his home town was in. His home town was Jerusalem, and it was a mess and the people that were trying to rebuild it were under attack and being taken advantage of.

When Nehemiah heard what was going on he was deeply troubled and impacted. He was never the same again. He felt deep compassion for the people and their situation. But he did more than just feel for them, he immediately began fasting and praying for how he could make a difference.

I love that about Nehemiah. He started by seeking God with all his heart. He focused fully on God by fasting and not getting distracted from praying for this situation. He did this for months, before God opened up an opportunity for him to make a difference. What I really love about Nehemiah was that during those months of praying and fasting, he also began to make plans. He thought about what it would take to go and help the people that were in Jerusalem. He put a plan together and began gathering resources and thinking through what it would take.

What I take away from that, is that we need to pray and seek God with all our hearts. We also need to continue to work hard and make plans while we seek God. If we do both of those, God will open up the doors to help make things happen. It may be as simple as giving you favor with your boss, like he did for Nehemiah. When Nehemiah got that chance to go, he had a plan on how to get there.

Has God put a burden on your heart? Are you deeply concerned for a person, a family, a people group, a country, a leader? If you are, then start fasting and praying for them. Also start making plans on how you can make a difference. Maybe it is building a better relationship, maybe it is doing some research, maybe it is giving some money, maybe it is writing a letter, maybe its getting involved in your church. Whatever that burden is, pray and make plans, be ready when God gives you that opening.

If you have not read Nehemiah lately, I suggest you read it. Nehemiah didn’t complain about what was going on around him, he did something about it.

Posted on

Planning

I have been spending a good bit of time planning lately. I try to spend time every week planning out what I want to accomplish that week. I lay out the main areas I oversee and then spend time thinking about each of those areas. It helps me to decide where I need to focus and who I need to meet with. It is kind of like sharpening the axe before cutting down the tree.

I also have been working on the strategic plan for my department for 2009. This involves developing a budget, laying out some goals and formulating the systems that will help me accomplish those goals. I love to think ahead and make plans. I also know that the best laid plans can change in an instant. I always try to stay flexible and ready to make changes if needed. Especially working in a church environment, things can change quickly. Sometimes even priorities can shift for a period of time.

The other thing I have been working on is my personal growth plan for 2009. I spent some time thinking about the things I can do to grow physically, emotionally and spiritually. I also tried to think of some systems that could help me achieve those personal goals.

You might say, what good does it do to make all those plans and spend all that time thinking ahead. For me, it helps me to lead people better. It also helps me lead myself better, which is even more important. The best leaders out there spend a good bit of time leading themselves. Working on their areas of strength and managing their areas of weakness. If it has been a while since you made plans, I suggest you start today.

If you want to have a better marriage, you better make some plans on how you will make that happen. If you want to lose weight or get in shape, you better decide how you are going to go about doing that. If you want to grow your business or stay in business, you better start making some strategic plans. This is what some people call working on it instead of in it.

It is so easy to get caught up in the day to day stuff of work and family and never step back and look at the future. If you don’t do that, you can’t see the changes you need to make, the adjustments you need to be successful and the mistakes you are heading for. So take an afternoon, get away from the office or the house and do some planning. I highly recommend you include your personal with your business planning. That way you are looking at your whole life and not just the work portion. If you include your personal planning with business, it helps to keep your priorities in place.

Make sure you write it all down and then review it and make adjustments. Then take it one step further and start putting those plans on your calendar at work and at home. Schedule the things that are important to get done both personal and professional.

Plan on!