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There is a very practical (and scary!) side of grace. We invite Him into every area of life, He exposes our brokenness in new and startling ways, and He patiently sets to work. As the Skillful Soul Surgeon, He carefully cuts away the cancerous tumor. As the Gentle Potter, He firmly molds and reshapes the clay. His grace progressively transforms who we once were into the person we will be. His Divine vision of you and me—restored image-bearers.
Reactive response is always easier than proactive pursuit. It connects with our need to be a hero in other people’s eyes. It makes us feel needed and useful when we react to other people’s “emergencies.”
Living in emergency response mode is very hard to get out of. It takes a huge paradigm shift to go from reactive response to proactive pursuit.
Organizations can be very beneficial when they support life and relationships. But when they reach the point that life and relationships are the means to support the organization, you have lost the entire purpose of the organization.
Lifecycles imply that there are death cycles. Something needs to die so that new life can sprout in its place. Structures need to fall down so that new structures can be built, but when we become personally attached to those structures, it is painful to let them die.
The habits your team practices repeatedly will determine its health. The rhythms and routines you establish—whether intentional or incidental—will shape your team’s culture, for better or worse.
I want to share some things I've learned over the years in my experiences on team. I also attribute a lot of what I will be sharing to Bruce Tuckman's "Four Stages of Team Development" as well as Patrick Lencioni's book "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team."
It’s one thing to choose to change my conscious self--what I consciously say and do when I have the time to think about what I want to say and do. It’s another thing to change my subconscious self--the part of me that’s beyond my conscious control.
And that is, perhaps, why Paul talks about the renewing of the mind. Yes, your conscious choices matter. But it’s so much deeper than that.
Your problems in ministry spring out of your heart. Your unmet desires to be filled and loved, to be valued and happy (sorry to break it to you). I’ll be brutally honest. Ministry is a very bad place to look to be filled. But yet, so many of us instinctively look there to find it.
The only problem is when those people--the recipients of our selfless, noble service--don’t meet our expectations. We aren’t thanked. We don’t see the change we hoped for. We are taken advantage of. Our personal boundaries are violated. We feel hurt.
We live in a more distracted world than ever before. Perhaps the greatest problem is that there are so many good things that we could do that we don’t know which ones to prioritize. Multiply this times 10 if you find yourself in leadership. Perhaps this is one of the reasons more leaders than ever find themselves on the brink of burnout.
As a leader, you don’t realize how much responsibility is in your hands until you strike the unexpected. There is no more drastic example of this than the landing of US Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson.
When everything is going well, it’s easy to forget just how impactful your every decision can be to those you’re leading. I want to highlight 3 leadership lessons from the crash landing on the Hudson.
So what triggers the anxiety and uncomfortableness when facing the simple task of ordering food at a diner or fast food line? It’s not so much the overwhelm of the options (I typically love options!) or the intimidation of standing before someone I’ve never met (after all, I’m fairly comfortable striking up a conversation with a stranger).
It’s the innate sense that I still don’t fully grasp the social norms around me when I’m expected to.
As you reflect on your childhood and teenage years, which of these four core strategies resonates most with your experience? Note that these strategies are not bad in and of themselves. They become idols when they become the end of our pursuit.
As I reflect on my story, I see very distinct chapters. Each chapter represents a set of people, a focus, and a place. There is a clear beginning and then an end. It closes and the next one starts.
As a TCK I feel like a social bridge—part of me finding common ground with almost any culture, spanning the chasm that separates me from the other person in front of me. This enables me to fit in (sort of) almost anywhere, forge relationships with a very diverse group of people, and bring understanding between people and cultures that are so far apart. But I never quite belong anywhere. Something about me always communicates, I’m not a cultural native.
Reaction is a natural human response. Yesterday I was frying eggs and a piece catapulted out of the skillet toward my eye. My eyelid reacted and heroically rescued my eyeball from being scalded. It all happened in a split second. My subconscious reaction saved the day.
Subconscious reactions are part of survival.
You and I are part of the mighty, ever-growing river of Christianity - the one and only body of Christ. And within that mighty river are many currents. Each current cannot make up the entire river. And the entire river would not be the river without the many different currents. I have been growing in my appreciation for the many different currents within the river. Each current has a set of strengths and weaknesses. Each current has certain emphases and blindspots.
My personal musings about the challenges we’re facing today due to rapid change and how we can turn towards one another rather than reacting against each other.
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