Biblical Leadership Characteristics

Some of the best leadership principles are discerned through strategic Bible study.  Recently in reading two scripture verses from Hebrews I became aware that the writer really understood leadership.  Here are the verses and what I gleaned from them.

Hebrews 13: 7 and 17, “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you.  Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith… Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.  They keep watch over you as people who must give an account.  Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

The following leadership principles stood out for me:

1. Leaders need the prayers of their people – remember them. Leadership can be very lonely at times, extremely demanding and quite risky. Many leaders have intercessors who pray for them regularly.
2. They speak God’s word because they are steeped in it. My practice is to read about four chapters of the bible each day and to write in a journal what I perceive God is saying to me. Consequently when I speak and preach I can bring fresh bread to hungry people.
3. They have fruitful outcomes. They get results, bearing the fruit that indicates excellent time management and shows that they are disciples of Jesus. (John 15: 8)
4. They are teachers and mentors worth emulating and their faith is an example to follow.
5. They carry authority in their very being through living a life of integrity, excellent character and high competency. Hence they deserve willing “obedience.” Serving such a leader is satisfying because they have the passion and skill to grow your leadership and your capacity.
6. They carry great responsibility; they keep watch and consider the big picture. They study trends and they monitor progress. They consider the whole of the organisation and how each part relates to the whole. They also, together with others in the organisation, decide what is to be done and what is to be left undone.
7. They are accountable. Perhaps more than others in the organisation they have to report on progress and account for their leadership and the health and productivity of the organisation.
8. Wise and fruitful leaders gain success through the people they mentor, release and empower in leadership. They surround themselves with people who complement their own strengths, and in other areas are smarter than they are. Hence they have inner security in Christ, excellent self-acceptance and deep humility.
9. They experience much joy in their leadership, because they are at the helm of a very effective organisation and, particularly through empowering others, they also have excellent life balance which creates a healthy culture throughout the organisation.

Good leaders read widely on leadership. Great Christian leaders also wisely read the Bible, for in it is a wealth of wisdom that enhances leadership excellence.

 

Rev Dr Dean Brookes

Leading In The Small Organisation

Eighteen months ago I left a leadership position in a large parachurch organisation, following a call from God to come to lead the Willow Creek Association in Australia.  From a leaders perspective it may seem like an odd move and almost a “step back” in leadership. But what I have discovered about leadership and the size of the organisation has been quite surprising.  Let me share some of my experiences and insights.

Larger enterprises don’t necessarily demand better leadership.  In fact in some ways smaller enterprises demand more of a leader than larger ones.  Let me elaborate.  Larger enterprises generally have more “elasticity”.  They can spring back from errors of judgment with less impact.  In a team of 60, a few poor performers are felt less than in a team of 6.  A minor poor financial decision in a budget of millions is very different to one in a budget of less than a million.  The point is this, the value of preciseness in leadership in a small enterprise can be a matter of life or death.  In a larger enterprise, while preciseness is important, the consequence of some “slack” may not mean shutting the doors tomorrow.  

Each decision a leader makes is an important one, and it may seem as though the larger organisations require better decision makers.  But in the context of risk, there may be far greater risks for the decision maker in the small organisation than the large one.  The wrong staff or volunteer appointment, the wrong financial call may lead to a quick demise of the organisation or church.  The perception may be that the pressure on decision makers in larger organisations is greater, but this is not necessarily so.  In a small tight knit group the decision that Greg a lovely guy who has poured his life into music ministry, is not actually particularly gifted in this area and needs to be moved aside, ripples through the small church in a way that would not be the case in a larger one.  And the leader who makes this decision knows that s/he is risking many relationships amongst other things.  

Larger organisations have the capacity to engage specialists, whereas smaller organisations tend to demand a broader range of skills from fewer people.  The youth pastor may also be the part time receptionist and graphic designer for church publications.  And when s/he resigns you can’t just cover the gap by pulling a staff member from a less critical area, because everyone is engaged in a critical area.  

So I want to hail the leader of the small enterprise who faces challenges and pressures in ways that leaders of larger organisations don’t.  Sometimes we feel at Willow Creek that there is a perception that we exist for leaders from larger churches and organisations.  Not true!  God has called each of us to lead where we are, the phrase you will find firmly attached to our Global Leadership Summit. 

Andrew McCafferty

CEO, Willow Creek Australia

An 'Un-Fun' Experience

I’ve recently been in ‘church shopping’ mode.   It was a strange experience for me as in all my previous 27 years walking this earth, I’d never ever done it before.  But after finishing up at my church as the Youth Pastor in order to study fulltime, we decided it was the best idea.

Leading up to the experience I thought it would be fun. I thought I’d enjoy the process. Going to different churches, checking them out, critiquing, thinking about what I liked and didn’t like.  But pretty soon I found the process frustrating, saddening, not all it was cracked up to be. 

This has taught me two things.

Humans need humans.

Christians need Christians. 

We are built for relationships.  We cannot survive in this world on our own.  After about two months of being without a church to call home I began to feel lonely.  Sure, I had friends from my old church, and family around still.  But I didn’t have a home. 

The bible tells us in Hebrews that we should, 'consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another...' I'd always known that it was important to go to church, but it wasn't until I was without a home, that I realised just how important it is. In fact I know now that I'd rather be in a church that frustrated me than be in no church at all. 

So because relationships matter, churches must be friendly.  We ended up choosing the friendliest church.  Not the one with best music, or best preaching, or slickest services.  No, we chose the church where multiple people said hello, who invited us out for lunch afterwards; and backed up its friendliness on our second and third visit.  Many of the churches we visited struggled.  Sometimes we sat in the foyer alone for 15 minutes drinking a cup of tea by ourselves.  On another occasion the only people who talked to us were the ones who were supposed to (minister/person with a name tag that said welcomer on it).

Christians need Christians.  We need the different parts of the body to bless and encourage us, and we need to use our gifts to bless and encourage the body (1 Corinthians 12).  So I need church and church needs me.  You need church and church needs you.  I believe that if we worked hard on making our churches places of love and openness, which were quick to welcome and show hospitality to strangers (aka newcomers), then we would see many more people darken the doors of church and begin a journey following in the footsteps of Jesus.

Chris Bowditch

Theology Student

www.youthministryandme.com

Bill Hybels’ hardest years

As one of the founders of Willow Creek Community Church, Bill Hybels knows the sacrifice that comes with starting a church. At the 2012 Exponential Conference on April 25 in Orlando, Florida, he spoke with church planters about their early successes and struggles planting Willow. And he invited his wife, Lynne, and two grown children, Shauna and Todd to join him for the interview.

“The first five years after Willow started were one of the hardest experiences of my life,” Bill shared with church planters. “I did a lot of scrambling. In the first five years it was like 25, 100-yard dashes a day.” 

Willow Creek began meeting in a theatre in Palatine in 1975 with approximately 100 people in attendance—most of them from a youth group who had met in the suburbs of Chicago. After six years of steady growth, the church took a leap of faith and committed to build a building at its current location in South Barrington. 

“When I look out at a crowd like this and see how many of you are in the first five to ten years of a church plant, I just want to sprinkle pastor dust all over you and wish you well,” he said. “I think [church planting] is inherently messy. I think it’s inherently confusing. I think it’s inherently complex. We can help, and council, and bless each other, but one of the toughest things I’ve ever been through is the first five or ten years of planting Willow,” he said.

It was hard on his family, too. “We didn’t have anybody giving us any direction or council,” Bill’s wife, Lynne said. “We weren’t a part of any organization. There were no church planters’ organizations that we knew of back then.” 

But as a family they were still able to make some good decisions. “We made a decision that if we had to choose between disappointing people in our congregation or our kids, we would disappoint the congregation because if they don’t like us they can go to another church, but our kids are stuck with us,” said Lynne.

“It was important for us to keep focused on our family while building into the church we were planting,” said Bill. “When our two kids arrived, nothing ever touched me as deeply. The thought of leaving these kids in the jet stream of a fast-moving church was unconscionable to me,” he said. “[My family] is my ultimate, lifelong small group. They are my permanent community. What do you have when you drive away from your church after 35 to 40 years if you don’t have an ultimate community?”

With a belief that after a church planter has established the fundamental commitments and isn’t going to quit, Bill believes it is becomes a matter of managing the commitments. “The idea of bailing on this, and I don’t mean this unkindly, I think it’s the coward’s way out. I think it requires more courage to be a covenant keeper—your covenant with your calling to God, your covenant to your marriage, and your covenant to your children,” he said. “I had to pray to God, that unless you take my life or release me from my call at Willow, I’m going to serve this church with my heart, soul, mind, and strength every day. I’m not breaking that covenant.”

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com

William Ury: A Yes Man Says No

The co-author of Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (1981), William Ury knows a few things about mediation. For 30 years, he has served as a negotiation adviser and mediator in conflicts around corporate mergers, wildcat strikes in a Kentucky coal mine, ethnic wars in the Middle East, the Balkans, and the former Soviet Union, and even family disputes. With former President Jimmy Carter, he co-founded the International Negotiation Network, an organization dedicated to ending civil wars around the world. Along the way, he has taught negotiation skills to thousands of corporate executives, diplomats, labor leaders, and military officers helping organizations reach mutually beneficial agreements. 

Getting to YES focused on finding acceptable solutions through “principled negotiation.” 

But after nearly 25 years of getting to yes, this yes man said no. As the father of a baby with serious medical problems, he realized that in order to make positive choices about her health, he would have to oppose new medical procedures that he felt were inappropriate.

In The Power of Positive No: How to Say No & Still Get to Yes, Ury offers the following tips:

1. Uncover your deeper YES (a core interest, need, or value), express it to the other person, and stay true to your yes.
2. Deliver a respectful NO. Keep your tone neutral and matter-of-fact and empower your NO with a Plan B.
3. Negotiate to a healthy YES. A healthy YES yields a positive outcome. Follow your NO with a positive proposal and facilitate a wise agreement.
“In order to say yes to what’s truly important, you first need to say no to other things,” says Ury. “No is the new Yes,” he says. “And the “positive no” may be the most valuable life skill you’ll ever learn.”  

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com