Passing On The Baton

A relay race can be lost by a missed passing of the baton. No matter how well the individuals run, the race hinges on the effective transfer of what the runners carry.  Mess that up and the race is lost!

Effective leaders know that their effectiveness to a large extent depends on the transfer of information and power to others. At significant times it actually means the transfer of key leadership.  In my early sixties I knew the time was right to step aside from the senior pastor role and allow a younger leader we had raised up to assume the lead role in the church. In transitions like this there are number of considerations:

·     A senior pastor needs to consider their leadership: how far can they take a church, how are they developing, how do the needs of the church match their strengths and gifts and their season in life, and where is God leading them vocationally?

·     Plan carefully and prepare the church well for such transition, especially the staff and Church Council. Even if the new lead pastor has possibly been in the congregation for many years they bring their unique personality and different emphases. The smoothest transition will still bring inevitable change.

·     Ensure that the successor is essentially a person who can take the lead role and is not best suited to a second chair or other designated position.

·     Plan the transition to occur at an appropriate season in the church. Avoid major festivals and events so that the leadership change itself receives adequate attention and people are truly aware of the change of personnel.

·     If the exiting leader has negotiated to remain in that church, ensure that appropriate boundaries are established and stick with them. In my case I stayed on the pastoral staff part time in an executive and mentoring role and spent the balance of my time in ministry beyond that congregation. A couple of years later I officially retired and gave ten months elsewhere in a strategic interim ministry. I now continue as a member of the church I led for twelve years and am called upon to preach quarterly and write studies but wisely I am not involved in governance.

·     Denominational ethics may stipulate expectations of the retiring leader. These should be consulted.  They are written to protect various parties and to avoid detrimental conflict that can harm the ministry. This has particular importance if the new leader has been recruited from outside the congregation, but also applies to internally developed leadership.

Biblically, Moses passed the baton to Joshua, Jesus to the disciples, the Apostles to the seven in Acts 6, Paul to Timothy and so on. It is a principle and process we need to do well for the sake of the church and future leaders.

Rev Dr Dean Brookes

3Dnet Interim Co-Director

Today Dean devotes his time to leadership development and coaching pastors.

15 Things You Didn’t Know about Condoleezza Rice

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com

You probably know Condoleezza Rice as the first female African-American US Secretary of State succeeding Colin Powell in the position. Before joining the Bush administration, she was a professor of political science at Stanford and later Provost of the university. She joins the faculty of The 2012 Global Leadership Summit.

You may know Rice’s professional accomplishments, but did you know:

1. Her name comes from the Italian word con dolcezza, an Italian musical term meaning “play with sweetness.”

2. Rice grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, “the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.). At the age of eight, one of the girls in her school was killed when white supremacists bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. (September 15, 1963)

3. She was the only child of a school teacher and Presbyterian minister who couldn’t eat at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s because of segregation laws, but they believed their daughter could be President.

4. She skipped first and seventh grades and graduated at the age of 15.

5. Her grandfather was a sharecropper who went to college and paid his tuition with cotton.

6. She changed her major to political science after hearing a lecture about Joseph Stalin taught by Madeleine Albright’s father. (Albright was Secretary of State 1997-2001).

7. When Rice became Provost at Stanford, the school’s budget was $20 million over budget. Within two years, the deficit was wiped out and the university’s coffers were nearly $15 million in the black.

8. Her father coached football and hoped his unborn child would become an all-American linebacker. When he had a daughter, he taught her all about football. She compares football to warfare because both involve the use of strategy and the goal of taking territory.

9. The best way to win her heart is to spend Sunday afternoons watching football.

10. After serving on the Board at Chevron, the corporation honored her by naming a 129,000-ton tanker SS Condoleezza Rice. (It was renamed Altair Voyager.)

11. One of her prize possessions is a first edition of Tolstoy’s War and Peace—written in Russian. (She has read it twice.)

12. A concert pianist, Rice has played for Queen Elizabeth and has performed with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Aretha Franklin.

13. Her favorite composer is Brahms and her favorite band is Led Zeppelin.

14. Her dream job? President of the NFL

15. Rice attends Menlo Park Presbyterian Church where John Ortberg is senior pastor.

2012 Global Leadership Summit Speakers Announced!

Bill Hybels

Founder and Senior Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church

- Founded The Global Leadership Summit, now in 450+ cities and 85 countries

- Passionate about the local church, he is committed to developing and mentoring leaders worldwide- Best-selling author of more than 20 books including his most recent, The Power of a Whisper

"If it's the last thing I do, I will give every ounce of the rest of my life to helping leaders and churches get better."

Condoleezza Rice

Former U.S. Secretary of State

- Professor of Political Science at the Stanford Graduate School of Business

- Former Stanford University Provost — responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and the academic program for 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students

- Author and co-author of numerous books, including: No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

"I use the word power broadly. Even more important than military and economic power is the power of ideas, the power of compassion, and the power of hope."

Jim Collins

Nationally Acclaimed Business Thinker and Author

- Relentlessly curious student of enduring great companies, he is the author of the leadership classics Built to Last and Good to Great

- Former faculty at the Stanford Graduate School of Business

- His newest release, Great by Choice, answers the penetrating question, Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not?

"Throw leaders into an extreme environment, and it will separate the stark differences between greatness and mediocrity."

Geoffrey Canada

President & CEO, Harlem Children’s Zone

- Pioneering leader in urban education and fervent advocate for U.S. education reform

- Featured in the acclaimed documentary, Waiting for Superman

- Targeting a 100-block municipal area with educational and social services, the Harlem Children’s Zone has become a model for effective community engagement

"You have to be prepared to think outside the box...Stand back and think about what we could do creatively. We’ve got to do that to push the field forward."

Sheryl WuDunn

Pulitzer Prize Winner; Business Executive

- Author of the award-winning book, Half The Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

- Senior Managing Director of Mid-Market Securities and President of Triple Edge, two social investment and consulting firms specializing in companies run by women

- Pulitzer Prize winner for Asia: Thunder from the East and China Wakes, co-authored with her husband Nicholas Kristof

“One of the best ways to fight poverty and to fight terrorism is to educate girls and bring women into the formal labor force."

Craig Groeschel

Founder and Senior Pastor, LifeChurch.tv

- A pioneer in multi-campus church, LifeChurch.tv holds 76 weekly worship experiences, ministering to over 40,000 people

- Known for leveraging technology to reach a new generation, including the development of LifeChurch's popular YouVersion Bible App

- Author of influential books, including the soon-to-be released Soul Detox

"If we want to be better than normal we must move from good intentions to what I call God intentions."

John Ortberg

Senior Pastor, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church

- Senior leader of a thriving multi-site church in Northern California

- A prominent voice in the worldwide spiritual formation movement

- Best-selling author of numerous books including the upcoming, Who Is This Man? The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus

"God is a God of endless opportunities to do good; the God of the open door."

Mario Vega

Senior Pastor, Misión Cristiana Elim, El Salvador

- Leader of one of the world's largest churches with 73,000 attendees, campuses throughout El Salvador, more than 7,000 cell groups and a staff of 92 pastors

- Misión Cristiana Elim achieved exponential growth in the midst of civil war through the successful implementation of cell group strategies

- Known for his humility, his passion for justice and for the rights of children

"When you have the humility to listen to the Bible it does more than enlighten us, it transforms us."

Marc Kielburger

Co-Founder, Free The Children; Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Me to We

- At the age of 18, co-founded Free The Children with his brother Craig Kielburger

- The world’s largest network of children helping children through education, Free The Children has built more than 650 schools and school rooms in developing regions

- Co-founder and Co-CEO of Me to We, a social enterprise providing better choices for a better world including international volunteer trips, leadership training programs, a socially conscious clothing line and resources that address issues of positive social change

"How are you going to keep your workforce engaged, retained, active and motivated? It all comes down to what kind of meaning and purpose can you provide."

Pranitha Timothy

Director of Aftercare, International Justice Mission, Chennai, India

- Led over 50 slave rescue operations, serving as the chief legal witness in court

- Developed IJM's pioneering aftercare strategy for restoration and reintegration, successfully serving thousands of freed slaves

- The child of dedicated missionary doctors in rural India, she's a brain tumor survivor who describes her resulting feeble voice as a "voice for the voiceless”"

“In my work with International Justice Mission, I free slaves and work to restore them to a life of dignity and wholeness."

William L. Ury

Co-Founder and Senior Fellow, Harvard University’s Program on Negotiation

- A negotiator and mediator, with 30 years practical experience in conflicts ranging from corporate mergers to ethnic wars in the Middle East.

- A social anthropologist and teacher, he is the author of award-winning business books, including Getting to Yes, an eight million copy best seller

- Co-founder of the International Negotiation Network with President Jimmy Carter, a non- governmental body seeking to end civil wars

“Look for opportunities to act inconsistently with their perceptions. Perhaps the best way to change someone's perception is to send them a message different from what they expect."

Patrick Lencioni

Founder and President, The Table Group; Best Selling Author

- A leading organizational consulting firm, The Table Group advises clients with ideas, products and services to improve teamwork, clarity, employee engagement and overall organizational health

- Named by Fortune Magazine as one of “Ten Gurus You Should Know” and by The Wall Street Journal as one of America’s “Most Sought-After Business Speakers”

- His upcoming book, The Advantage, explores the significance of organizational health and why it trumps everything else in business

"The vast majority of organizations today have more than enough intelligence, experience and knowledge to be successful. What they lack is organizational health."

Slowing Down

I was struck recently by these words of Scripture in Isaiah:

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength … The Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion.  For the Lord is a God of justice.  Blessed are all who wait for him.”

(Is 30:15,18)

The whole feel of what God is saying here to Isaiah is about slowing down, resting and being quiet before God. We read that those who wait for God will be blessed. 

How different this is to our culture where we are pumped with the message that we need to have it all now. I’ve been in a number of conversations with people (a bit older than myself) who reflect on their adult children needing to have all the creature comforts now. Somewhere in the conversation is usually the statement that “in my day” we made do, we saved and we were happy. How far has this culture of “we need it now” infiltrated the church? 

We want to see growth – by next Sunday; we want to see God act – now; we need to do the church extension - this year. Of course God can and does act quickly, but more often our experience would tell us, as He told Isaiah, that we need to “wait, rest and trust.”  

In May we will be hosting a number of Spiritual Transformatin Seminars with Mindy Caliguire from the Willow Creek Association in the US, complimented by our own Rev Dr Keith Farmer leader of the Mentoring Network, who will help us explore the health of our souls and how we can engage with God and others in ways that nurture a “peace filled” spirit. We would love you to be part of these days.

Andrew McCafferty

CEO

FOCUS: What People Need from their Church

Two Reviews by Pastor Mark Conner from Melbourne's CityLife Church about the resource 
FOCUS (Reveal): The Top Ten Things People Want and Need from You and Your Church:

FOCUS: What People Need from their Church
What people want and what they need may be the same thing or they may be different. Sorting out wants and needs is an important task for any church leader. Understanding what people really want from their church is an important starting place. We need to understand why motivated people show up every week. What do they want from their church experience? Knowing this helps you determine whether there is an “expectation gap” or not. 

The following insights were gleaned from surveying 80,000 people in 376 churches who took the REVEAL spiritual life surveys between October 2008 and March 2009. The churches represented a broad range in size, style and theological persuasion (including Pentecostal churches). read more

FOCUS: What People Need from their Pastor

What People Want from their Senior Pastor

REVEAL also included research about what people expect from the Senior Pastor (or Senior Minister – SM). People view the Senior Pastor’s responsibilities as:

1. Serving Advocacy. The SM is expected to be the chief promoter and champion of serving opportunities. They identify and encourage the use of people’s gifts and talents. They attract, develop and motivate ministry teams. They promote and create enthusiasm for serving activities. They create a welcoming and friendly environment for this to occur.

2. Spiritual Challenge. The SM is expected to provide sound doctrine that is biblically accurate, to model and reinforce how to grow spiritually, and to challenge the people to grow and take next steps. read more