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Only God Book Review

I finished reading Dwight Mason’s book Only God – Change your Story, Change the World.  I happen to know Dwight and have worked with him over the last 15 years.  I loved reading about the stories of his early years as a pastor and the many challenges he faced.  I remember some of those difficult times and some of the big break throughs along the way in building NewPointe Community Church.

Dwight is both humble and persistent and that came through in this book.  The leadership principles he shares are vital to any leader that wants to make a difference in this world.

The book is about how important our story is and how it fits into God’s bigger story.  We are all writing a story and have some control over how that story reads moving forward.

I particularly liked the way he talked about embracing change and the enemies of change.  Life is filled with changes and challenges and how we handle those changes determines much of our story.  There is a lot of action steps after each chapter that helps you put into action what you just read.

Every parent should read the chapter on Helping Your Children Write A Great Story.  It is packed with practical wisdom on how to raise children in a healthy way.

This is a leadership book and yet it is much more than that.  It’s a book about life and living it with an eternal perspective.  Invest in your future by reading this book.  To order your copy today click here

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How to Launch a Ministry to Save the World, Jesus Style

I was recently at a meeting with a group of pastors from my community.  To open the meeting the leader asked us to all read John 2:1-11.  This is the story about Jesus at a wedding where he turns water into wine.  It’s the launching pad for his ministry and it’s his first miracle.  He asked us to read through this and then give feedback on what we noticed.  Part of his motivation was because he was preaching on that Scripture and wanted more ideas.  It was also a great way for us to have some discussion to build some community.

As I read through the story something brand new jumped out at me and has stuck with me over the past several days.  So here is the story:

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited tot he wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “they have no more wine.”  “Dear woman, why do you involve me? Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”  Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew.  Then he called the bridegroom aside and said. “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.

Jesus was on a mission to change the world and this is the moment he used to launch it.

I never noticed this before, but this entire story is about the servants and Jesus’ disciples. His mother must have been helping with the food and drink for her to know they were out of wine.  She may have been helping prepare and serve people or she knew others who were serving.  She knew this could be a disaster and asked her son for help.  She told the servants to do whatever Jesus told them to do.  I can see her approaching Jesus with his followers around him and explaining the problem. He did not want to get involved, but he saw an opportunity.

Jesus knew that his disciples did not really know him and what he could do.  He saw this as an opportunity to develop the men that would be critical in leading this movement.  He also saw an opportunity to launch his ministry with the servants that where.  No one at the wedding knew that Jesus did this miracle except the servants and his disciples.  How powerful that moment had to be when they drew out the water and saw that it was wine.  Can you imagine the sense of awe and wonder that they had when they realized what Jesus did?

Here are some lessons I took away from reading this amazing story:

    • Jesus is always interested in building our faith.  How many of those servants that day became faithful followers of Jesus?

    • Jesus is focused on the individuals, the servants and his disciples, not the master of the banquet or the bridegroom.

    • Jesus wants to use ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

    • When we are obedient, Jesus works in unexpected ways.  The servants could have questioned Jesus or tried to solved this problem by themselves.  Instead they took a risk and followed his instructions without questioning why.

    • Jesus can take any situation and do something miraculous.

    • Jesus will ask us to do something before a miracle happens.

Can you imagine the conversations that happened after this wedding? The servants, telling their friends and families about this amazing thing that happened.  In a close community like that the word had the spread fast and I am sure it raised a lot of questions.

When the servants and his disciples saw Jesus’ miracle, they believed. The miracle showed his power over nature and revealed the way he would go about his ministry.  He came to serve and help people, He spoke with authority, and He was in personal touch with people. Jesus continues to do this today, using ordinary people to do the extraordinary and changing lives one person at a time.

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Top 10 Posts in 2012

These are the most viewed Posts from my Blog in 2012:

  1. Ten Characteristics Of A Healthy Marriage
  2. 4 Principles For Healing a Wounded Relationship
  3. Problem Solving Do’s & Don’ts
  4. What is Good Character?
  5. Six Questions About Spiritual Leaders
  6. 8 Characteristics of a Growing Christian
  7. 5 Mistakes Women Make in Marriage
  8. Don’t Recruit, Develop
  9. 5 Mistakes Men Make in  Marriage
  10. Forgiveness

Thanks for reading in 2012, keep checking back for more posts on Character, Faith and Leadership in 2013.

 

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5 Practices For A Healthy Marriage

What does a Healthy Marriage Look Like? To be healthy in any area of our lives, it takes work and being intentional.  If you want to get healthy physically you need to eat right and exercise.  This does not mean perfect but healthy.  When one area of our lives is out of whack or unhealthy it affects all the other areas of our lives.  When we are struggling financially, it causes stress on our relationships and work.  When we are struggling with a relationship with our spouse or children, it causes us to be distracted, unfocused and can even affect our work performance and work relationships.  Many times we try to compartmentalize our work, our family, our faith and our person time, but the reality is that they all affect each other either in a positive healthy way or a negative unhealthy way.

Marriage is one of the most difficult relationships we will ever have in our lives.  I believe marriage is hard work, because we all struggle with selfishness and unhealthy views of what marriage should or shouldn’t be.  Many times we have learned about marriage from our parents, from television or the movies or from other people we see from a distance.  Many of the things we have learned are not healthy.  The way in which we handle conflict; the way we communicate; the way we approach sex; the way in which we parent; the way in which we handle our finances; the way in which we handle extended family issues; the way in which we do household chores.

What I want to share with you today are some of the best practices I have learned over the 23 years of my own marriage and also what I have learned as a pastor over the last 10 plus years in meeting with couples.

1.  Understand & Speak the right Love Language

  • Fill your spouse’s Love Tank or Bank Account by practicing the right love language
  • Words of Affirmation
  • Quality Time
  • Receiving Gifts
  • Acts of Service
  • Physical Touch

2.  Recognize & Stop the Fear Dance or Crazy Cycle

  • The Dance – I hurt, I want things to be different, My core Fear is touched, I react in an unhealthy way, My spouse is hurt, they want things to change, their core fear is tapped, they react in an unhealthy way, you are hurt even more.
  • The Crazy cycle – I feel disrespected, I react in an unhealthy way, She feels unloved, she reacts in an unhealthy way, we both are hurt.
  • Identifying your core fear, helps you to stop the crazy cycle
    • My story – I was in the Kitchen fixing a salad, my wife say’s “leave everything out for me, so I can fix a salad as well.” When I was finished with my salad I start putting lids on, she says didn’t you listen to me I told you to leave it out (sarcastic), I immediately get defensive and start explaining what I was doing, she says, “well you don’t have to yell at me”, I say, “I am not yelling!” – We just did the fear dance and the crazy cycle.  I felt disrespected, she felt unloved, my core fear of being inadequate and a failure were pushed and her core fears of feeling invalidated, ignored & unimportant were touched.  That is how quickly we fall into this unhealthy routine and it soon becomes a way of life.

3.  Understand & Nurture the three types of intimacy needed in marriage

  • Emotional intimacy – Friendship
  • Spiritual intimacy – Deep Connection
  • Physical intimacy – Need I say more

4.  Understand & Improve the way in which you communicate

  • Really Listening – Eye contact, positive body language, repeat back what you heard, ask questions
  • Having the Floor – Allow the other person to have the floor and explain their position.  You only ask questions and repeat back what you heard.  Once the other person is satisfied that you heard them, you get the floor and repeat the process.
  • Be interested not interesting – Spend 5 minutes within 5 feet of your spouse everyday
  • Know Your Filter – men & women are very different.  Your background, your experiences all are used to filter what you see and hear.
  • Settle disagreements – don’t allow conflict to go unresolved for long periods of time

5.  Understand How Powerful Forgiveness is – Every relationship has to practice forgiveness.

  • It is not forgetting, but it is the first step toward forgetting
  • Forgiveness trumps anger – unforgiveness breeds anger and bitterness
  • Be quick to admit when you are wrong and ask and give forgiveness
  • Don’t let arguments go unresolved – Are we OK?

These five practices are vital to having a healthy marriage, but it takes work and practice.  It also takes humility to admit that you need to make a change and do things differently in order to improve you marriage.  Sometimes it takes working with a counselor or mentor in order to make the necessary adjustments and changes.  The good news is that your marriage can change and improve and be healthy and all the work is worth it.  Remember that you cannot control your spouse and what he or she does, but you can control what you do.

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7 Distractions That Keep Us From Growing

Most of us would agree that there are areas of our lives that are not where we want them to be.  It might be a marriage relationship that has deteriorated or maybe a relationship with a son or daughter or parent that is unhealthy.  Maybe we are not where we want to be in our professional lives.  For some it could be emotional health, hurts from our past that are causing problems in our present lives.  Many of us struggle to be where we want to be spiritually as well.  So what holds us back from growing in these important areas of our lives?  Why do so many people simple remain the same and maintain the status quo instead of growing and changing?

Here are some of the distractions that keep us from growing:

  1. Busyness – Being consumed in a rat-race to keep up and get things done does not allow us the margin to think deeply and focus on the important things. We keep adding things to our lives without stopping other things, so the list just gets bigger and longer.
  2. Comforts – Most people look for and desire comfort and when they find it they become trapped by it.  Getting out of our comfort zone becomes more difficult the longer we stay there.
  3. Too Many Options – Today there are so many opportunities to learn and grow and change that we can sometime be confused by the wide range of options and opportunities.  When we have too many options, we often choose nothing.  This can also lead us to simply be busy because we choose to do too much.
  4. Insecurity – If we don’t really know who we are, how can we know what we are suited to do or where we should go.
  5. The Past – Issues not dealt with will hold us back, and this is often expressed through fear.  Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of being misunderstood, fear of being inadequate and hundreds of other fears.  These fears pop up every time we experience something that connects us to our past hurts.
  6. Laziness – This is often what keeps us in our comfort zone.
  7. Secret Sin – This dulls our senses and blocks our ability to enjoy healthy emotions and relationships.  It keeps us from the vision that God has for our lives and keeps us stuck in darkness and slaves to sin.

One or more of these may be keeping you from growing and making progress in certain areas of your life.  In order to move forward it takes a decision to face these things head on by first acknowledging the problem and then developing a plan to make a change.

I love to spend time planning this time of year.  It is a great time to evaluate where we are at in all the important areas of our lives.  If there is an area we are not happy with, we can begin to focus on how to make a change in that area.  It might mean getting help from someone that has been through what you are dealing with or taking a risk to try something new or different.  The important thing is to acknowledge that you do not want to remain the same and that you desire to grow.  Then start praying and asking God to help make this happen.  A year from now will you be the same person you are today or will you be in a new place spiritually, emotionally, physically, relationally and financially?

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Secure Leaders Empower People

One of the keys to effective leadership is to empower the people that you lead. In a growing organization empowerment is a must, otherwise the leader becomes a bottleneck or a barrier within the organization. If the leader continues to block people instead build people, the people, especially the leaders will begin to leave. If you want to be a successful leader, you need to learn to empower people instead of trying to control people.  I love this quote from Theodore Roosevelt “the best executive is one who has the sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and the self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” Empowering people is hard work, it takes a lot of self-restraint to not get involved with things when people want to do things a little different than what you would do.

Leaders that empower are able to lift people up.  They work hard to add value to people and develop people and then empower them to do what they are asked to do.  This is a skill set that can take some time to develop, but if you can do this well you will grow your organization in a healthy way.  So how do you empower people?

  • Believe the best about your people – This can be the hardest part if you are naturally skeptical about people.  If you find it hard to believe the best about people you might need to deal with your own insecurities and past hurts in order to move forward as a leader.  Sure there have been people that have let you down and hurt you, but that does not mean that the next person will do that.  It all starts with trusting that the people you are leading have huge potential.
  • By believing in people you build their self-esteem – The greatest leaders draw out the best in the people they lead.  Many times the people you are leading don’t realize what they are capable of doing.  As the leader it is your responsibility to know the strengths and weaknesses of your team and place people where they can use their strengths on a regular basis.  Once they are in that right place you can empower them by giving them authority to make decisions without having to always check in with you.
  • Keep growing yourself – A leader that is not growing will not empower others. The more you grow the more you can give away. Personal growth helps you to become more secure as as a leader and allows you to be able to invest more in the people you lead. Leaders that are teachable and humble realize they don’t know it all and are willing to allow others to contribute to the team.
  • Endorse people in public – To empower people it is necessary for others to know that you are endorsing them and believe in them. Give them praise in public and let others know that they have authority. Bring to light their strengths and acknowledge their contribution to the team. When they make mistakes talk to them in private and coach them to learn and improve.
  • Invest in people – What I mean by that is you must do more than believe in someone in order to empower them. You need to take steps to help them become the leaders they have the potential to be. This requires your energy and time. Spend time pouring what you know into them and by learning about what makes them tick.  This can be done one-on-one and in groups. I often do book studies with people that have potential. I also meet with people one-on-one to get to know them and to let them get to know me. Another way I invest in people is by giving them tests.  I give them a project to work on and see how they do with it.  As I get to know the person I can quickly determine if they are in the right place on the team and how much I can trust them. The more potential someone has, the more time I give them, not micro-managing them, but listening, encouraging and coaching them.
  • Lastly, be clear – It is vital that the people you empower know the outcome you are looking for.  The method they use may be different that you would take, but the outcome is what you are concerned with. Establishing clear Key Results Areas or Objectives is vital to healthy empowerment. It means putting it in writing and then reviewing it with them along the way. If you take the time upfront to establish clear direction and objectives it empowers the person to focus on what is important.

So who do you need to empower?  Who do you need to believe the best about? What is your plan to grow yourself?  Do you have a plan to develop others? Who do you need to spend more time with? What can you give away? Are you clear about what you want to accomplish as an organization?

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How Healthy Are You?

 

When we talk about health most of us think about our physical health.  That is an important thing and I try to take that seriously by eating healthy and exercising.  Emotional and spiritual health is something we don’t think about or talk about as much.  I believe that they are even more important than physical health because they contribute to physical health.  When we are unhealthy emotionally or spiritually it can actually contribute to physical problems because of the unhealthy beliefs and thinking that contribute to the emotional state we are in.  So how do we get a handle on how healthy we are emotionally.

One of the biggest indicators of emotional health is the level of trust a person has.  The dysfunction of mistrust hurts relationships, marriages, work environments, churches, families and even entire countries.  Mistrust and control often go hand in hand.  At its core control comes from not trusting others to make healthy and wise choices.  Mistrust is often present when there is not proper clarity and when boundaries are not defined.  When their is a lack of communication people begin to mistrust.  Here are some things that create a culture of mistrust, either at home or at work:

  1. Approaching people from the beginning with an attitude of mistrust. Many people have a built-in attitude of mistrust.  This attitude says, “I will not trust you until you prove that I can trust you.”  That is the reverse of what a healthy person would think.  This attitude often is the result of being hurt in the past and therefore guarding against that ever happening again.
  2. Believing something to be true when you don’t have all the facts.  In other words assuming things that turn out to be false or untrue.  This happens when you don’t ask questions and dig for the truth.  It also happens when you automatically think the worst instead of believe the best.
  3. Believing what someone says without hearing the other side of the story or knowing all the facts.
    Healthy people don’t draw conclusions without doing due diligence.

So how do you build trust?  How do you change a culture in a home, church or workplace that has mistrust?

  1. Choose to trust unless you are given a reason not to.
  2. Assume that motives are right even when you disagree.
  3. Be proactive in clarifying issues rather than assuming something to be true.

Finally here are some trust building principles that will help transform your relationships at home and at work.

  • Choose to Trust – Choose to trust people unless they give you a reason not to.  When trust is broken make the effort to let that person know how trust can be re-established.
  • Be up-front and candid – Tell people what you are thinking and don’t hope they pick up on your hints.  Tell people what your expectations are and be clear about what you are thinking and why.
  • Keep your Promises – Do what you say you will do and be honest when you know you can’t.
  • Act Consistently – Your life needs to match your words.  You need to be consistent in how you treat people, how you express love to people and how you handle conflict.
  • Listen Carefully – This will transform your relationships because it will help to cut down on misunderstandings.  To listen well you need to ask clarifying questions, repeat back what the person said, honestly consider peoples opinions and suggestions and even change your mind if they have a better idea.  Seek first to understand and then to be understood.
  • Caring for People – Be genuine and treat people the way you would want to be treated.  Care about them as a whole person not just for how they can help you.  No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.
  • Be Self-Disclosing -Be quick to admit your own weaknesses and when you have made a mistake.  Share your story with people in appropriate ways.  For people you are close with open up and share the good the bad and the ugly.  If you are hiding something, it eventually comes out in your behavior.
  • Empower people don’t control – Give people the freedom to do what they are responsible to do.  Allow them to make mistakes and coach when necessary.  In a marriage relationship this means allowing your spouse to have other friends and activities they enjoy.  Clarify your desires and vision for your marriage.  Speak their love language without expecting them to speak yours.  Don’t give in order to get.
  • Clarify, don’t Assume – Always believe the best instead of assuming the worst.  When he is late again, believe that he had a busy day and something unexpected came up instead of assuming he intentionally worked late to make you mad.

Healthy people trust, unhealthy people mistrust.  It is the same way spiritually.  Healthy people trust God completely and believe He will do what he says He will do.  I encourage you to get healthy, take a risk and start trusting more.

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7 Ways Leaders Should Handle Criticism

If you have been in leadership for any length of time you know that you will always get criticized and that criticism always changes you as a leader, whether in a good way or a bad way.  Unhappy people tend to attack the point person.  We see this throughout the Bible, when Moses was leading his people through the desert they were constantly complaining and criticizing.  His own family criticized him, yet he persevered through it and grew as a leader.  Here are some guidelines we can learn from Moses and other leaders in the Bible on how to handle criticism:

  1. Maintain Your Humility – Humility is one of the most powerful traits of a great leader.  Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking about yourself less.  Humility allows you to look past the criticism and look for the nuggets of truth that can help you grow or make changes that truly help move you forward in your vision.  Humility helps a leader be less defensive.
  2. Face the Criticism Squarely – Great leader’s go directly to the person criticizing and listens to them.  This allows the leader to correct misunderstandings, redirect people that are off-base and cast vision for why we do what we do.  This is hard work, but necessary if you want to lead well.
  3. Be Specific About The Issues – Great leader’s are very clear.  Don’t dance around the topic of criticism, be specific.  Push the person criticizing to be specific and give examples.  Ask them what they think would be a better way or what other options might be available.  Also be willing to apologize if you were not clear in something you communicated.
  4. Understand the Difference Between Constructive and Destructive Criticism – Who benefits? Challenge the person if the criticism is destructive and meant to hurt instead of help.  If you are asking for feedback on a regular basis and seeking criticism it will often turn destructive criticism into constructive.  This takes intentional vision casting and expressing an openness to listen.  If people feel safe to tell you something they don’t like, they are more likely to come to you.  If you bite their head off when they criticize they won’t come to you, but will tell everyone else.
  5. Guard Your Own Attitude Toward the Critic – Don’t get defensive, but stay objective.  Your attitude will go a long way in determining the outcome.  If you go in with both guns blazing, attacking the critic, they will fire right back or shut down and then go tell everyone they know how you handled the situation.  Every encounter with a critic is an opportunity.
  6. Don’t See Only the Critic; See the Crowd – Is this an isolated piece of criticism or is it widespread.  If a lot of people have the same criticism the approach must be different than if only one person is complaining.  This takes work to know your followers and to get the feedback to know if this is a bigger issue.  As a leader it is vital that you are in touch with your followers.  They need to have clear open ways of communicating with you.  You need to be intentional about meeting with people one-on-one in order to hear their heart.
  7. Make Sure You Are Emotionally Healthy – This is huge for leaders.  If you are not healthy emotionally, criticism will eat you up.  All the hurts you have inside will leak out in unhealthy ways.  Your perspective will be off and your focus will be on yourself, not the bigger picture.  Emotional health will determine the level of your leadership.

I lead at a Multi-site church and I must say that criticism has helped me to grow as a leader.  I work hard at being open to push back and criticism.  I pay attention to comments that come in.  It takes courage for someone to make a critical comment and it deserves to be followed up with.  I recently had a new person to our church share something that was critical of something we did.  I sent her an email explaining our motive behind what we did.  I cast vision for who we are trying to reach as a church.  It helped her to better understand the why behind what we are doing.  I had opportunity later to talk with her and her husband on the phone and even pray with them.  I also have around 10 people that I often ask for criticism and feedback on what is not working, what is working, what is missing and what is confused.  These conversations help me to get a better understanding of what the perception of the people really is.  It also helps me to communicate more clearly and cast vision more effectively.

Lead On

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Don’t Recruit, Develop

I work on the staff of a multi-site church.  We have three locations and will soon have a fourth.  One of the big challenges in any growing organization is people development.  In the non-profit and church world we often talk about recruitment and finding the right people and adding them to our ministry teams.  Many of our staff have been asking for help in recruiting better.  This is vital as you have more people attending the church, that means more children and teenagers and adults to lead.  That takes a lot of volunteers to do it well.

I think that trying to be a better recruiter is the wrong mindset or perspective.  As I think back on my last 10 years in ministry I don’t think I would call myself a good recruiter.  If that is your mentality, you tend to focus on what people can do for you and help serve in your ministry.  Every person you meet you are evaluating to determine if they could be a good fit in your area of ministry.  People sense that pretty quickly and are often turned off by that.

The right mindset or perspective is to think about people development.  In order to attract people to your ministry there needs to be several things in place:

  • First it starts with your own personal development – If you are not growing, you will not be able to attract and develop other people.  In order to grow, you must have a plan.  I like to use a Life Plan model that I discovered in the book “Becoming A Coaching Leader” by Daniel Harkavy.  This plan looks at all the important areas of your life and helps you develop a set of goals in each area and then helps you take action on those goals.  Michael Hyatt has a great article and resources on his website about this Life Plan system, check it out here – Life Plan

 

  • Second, you need to identify your inner circle – This is the group of people that get the vision and mission of your ministry and are actively involved.  This could be key leader’s or people that have influence and are willing to tell you the truth.  This is the group of people you should meet with regularly and invest in.  Do a book study with them, ask them questions and involve them in your decision making process.  These are the people that will attract and invite others to join them in the vision and ministry.

 

  • Third, you need to regularly meet with people one-on-one – I first learned this in the business world.  I worked as a banker early in my career and learned quickly that people will do business with me and even pay a little more interest or higher fees if they like me and feel that I am serving them well.  I would take people to lunch, golfing etc and get to know them and their families.  I would meet them at their business or home to make it more convenient for them.  Now when I meet with people one-on-one I don’t go in with the mindset of getting them to volunteer, its more to get to know them and let them get to know me.  I have the mindset of how can I serve this person and help them grow.

 

  • Fourth, you need to be willing to ask – Depending on how my meetings go with people I ask them to consider serving, giving or joining.  I don’t do this too early in the relationship, however I will mention things that I think they would be good at based on what they talk about.  Once I have built a rapport with someone I am not afraid to make a big ask and challenge someone, but only when I have change in my pocket with them.

 

  • Fifth, Don’t get discouraged when people are not ready – Some people are not ready to make a commitment.  People have been burned before or are over committed and need to say no to some other things before they can say yes to you.  Keep meeting with them and investing in them, even if they are unwilling to commit.  If you think long-term you will end up with some great leader’s.  The best leader’s are often reluctant to jump right in.

 

  • Lastly, when someone joins your team know how to lead them – Some people need lots of attention and coaching.  Others need little supervision and just occasional encouragement.  Leader’s, though want to be able to make decisions and be a part of the process.  Knowing how to lead each person is vital to their growth and level of commitment.  You cannot lead everyone the same way.

More people will join your team because they like you than any other reason.  Knowing this is huge, because if you are not likeable or approachable it will be difficult to attract people around you.  If that is a struggle for you find some resources that can coach you on being likeable.  A great book on that topic is “The Likeability Factor” by Tim Sanders.  You also need to make sure that your ministry or organization is organized and well run, because people will get very frustrated if you are flying by the seat of your pants.  That may feel exciting to you, but you will lose a lot of volunteers if you don’t pay attention to details and strategy or if you don’t execute well.  Part of that is allowing gifted volunteers to lead you in areas you are weak.  That takes humility, but it can make a huge difference in the people you attract.

Lead On

 

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Six Guidelines for Forgiveness

Practicing forgiveness is one of the most powerful ways a person can stay emotionally healthy.  This is the most effective way to release negative emotions like anger, resentment, hurt and unloved.  Because this is such an important part of healthy relationships I want to give some guidelines on forgiveness:

  1. Forgiveness is a choice – We seldom feel like forgiving someone that offended us or hurt us.  It is an act of our will to let go of the the offense.
  2. Forgiveness is a matter of stewardship – Colossians 3:13 says “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”  Because we have been forgiven, we should forgive others.  We often choose not to forgive because the person that hurt us does not deserve to be forgiven.  The truth is that no one deserves to be forgiven.  When we remember the grace that God gave us it can help us to extend that kind of grace and forgivenees to others.
  3. We should forgive whether or not our offender asks for forgiveness – Jesus forgave the people that abused him and nailed him to a cross.  Forgiveness is not based on whether our offender deserves our forgiveness or whether or not they ask for it.  We are to forgive because we have been forgiven.  Forgiveness releases negative emotions and when we wait for someone to ask for forgiveness those negative emotions can cause much damage to our emotional state and relationships.
  4. We should not make our forgiveness conditional – God forgave us with no strings attached, we should do the same.  We should not say:
    • I’ll forgive you if you promise to never do it again
    • I’ll forgive you if you clean the house.
    • I’ll forgive you but I’m going to sulk for days
    • I’ll forgive you but only after I tell you everyone what you did
    • I’ll forgive you this time but not if you do it again.

Genuine forgiveness never involves an if or but.

5.  It is OK to share with our offender how deeply we were hurt by what happened – We shouldn’t put conditions on forgiveness, but it is healthy to share with the offender how much you were hurt.  It is also healthy to set boundaries with people that have hurt us, so that it does not happen again. If someone has been beating you physically there needs to be clear boundaries so that does not happen again, and if it does there are clear consequences.

6.  Forgiving does not mean forgetting – Just because you forgive, does not mean you forget.  It is the first step toward forgetting.  Usually there needs to be a time of rebuilding trust with the person that hurt us.  This can take time and require clear boundaries.  Forgiving means I am choosing to release the offense or cancel the debt.  The person does not owe me anything anymore.  There is great freedom when you practice genuine forgiveness.