Category Archives: Compelling Leadership

Leading the way Jesus led.

Dealing with Failure

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“Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.”

This famous quote is from “The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived” or, as he’s better known, Ted Williams.  What he’s referring to, of course, is that if you get a hit 30% of the times you come to bat in baseball, then you’re a good player.

But think about that for a minute.  Ted Williams, widely considered one of the best, if not the best, hitter in baseball history got hits 34.4% percent of the time.  But the flipside of that stat is that he didn’t get a hit 65.6% of the time.  That’s a ton!

Ted Williams failed to get a hit almost two thirds of the times he went up to hit as a professional baseball player.  Francis Vincent, a former commissioner of baseball, said it best: “Baseball teaches us, or has taught most of us, how to deal with failure.”  So the secret to Ted Williams’ success, and that of any baseball player, was that he learned how to get past failing so that he could be his best during his next at bat.

Here’s the point: Are we able to do that?  As people, as leaders, as followers of Jesus, as missionaries in our neighborhoods, can we fail, learn from it, putting it behind us and trying again?  And how do we do this well?

Jesus taught his disciples how to fail.  Read Jesus’ words from Luke 10:10-11: “But whatever city you enter, and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, ‘The very dust of your city which clings to us we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you.’”

Here’s the backstory: Jesus wanted to give some of his followers a task, so he trained up 72 of them to enter cities that he was planning to go to later.  They were supposed to do the same kinds of things that they had seen Jesus do, namely healing the sick and proclaiming the kingdom of God.  But Jesus knew that they wouldn’t be welcomed everywhere they went, so he prepared them for failure.  He told them to put the failure in the rear view mirror and move on.

Jesus’ words are true but so very hard to live out.  At least they are hard for me to live out.  When I fail at something it hurts me.  Maybe it’s because I secretly serve an idol of perfection.  Or maybe its because when I fail at something I interpret it very personally.  Either way, it’s hard for me to move on.

But how can we wipe off the dust of failure and continue following Jesus wherever he leads?

  1. Acknowledge the failure quickly.  It doesn’t do anyone any good at all to let failure fester.  We need to admit that we have failed so that we can begin to heal.  Why hide it?
  2. Apologize and mean it.  If it is your fault that you failed, apologize.  If your failure hurt anyone else, apologize.  If you think your failure hurt no one, then admit it in your journal, on facebook, on your blog, wherever.  We must take responsibility for our failures!
  3. Take time to process feelings.  When you fail you might get bombarded by a series of strong emotions.  You’ll probably be angry, nervous, scared, and frustrated.  Or you might be glad that you failed at something because what was on the other side of success looked pretty daunting.  Whatever it is you are feeling, well, feel it.  Give yourself time (but not too much time!) to experience what you are going through and be honest with yourself and those close to you.
  4. Learn from the failure.  What good would failure be if it didn’t teach us well?  So when we fail we need to take stock and learn from it.  Perhaps there’s some way to prevent the same failure from happening again?  In order to find that out, you’re must learn from it.  Or perhaps God is using your failure to teach you one thing or another, like reliance on him, patience, and humility?
  5. Get moving.  There’s no better road to mediocrity and boredom than wallowing in failure.  Instead you have the chance to work through steps #1-4 and then to take the huge leap of faith into the great unknown.  To put it differently, we can’t follow Jesus well if we stay put and mope.

How have you learned from failure?  Let me know in the comments below!

Missional Leadership Development

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OpenClips / Pixabay

If you are a leader you are developing leaders, even if you don’t know it.

The question is this: Are you doing it on purpose or by default?

In my case I’ve spent the last 19 years or so developing leaders passively, or by default.  I figured that as I taught the Bible, led worship, and moderated discussions that burgeoning leaders would simply learn by osmosis.

I was wrong.

How do I know?    That’s not how I learned to be a leader!  Several people took special interest in me, devoting time and energy to me.  They sat me down and taught me how to teach, how to lead, how to counsel, how to plan, how to be on mission, etc.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’ve submitted to the leadership of some poor leaders in my day too.  And in those cases I knew that I wasn’t being led well because they weren’t leading me.  Instead they were placing all the responsibility on me.  I get that.  Who wants to volunteer for more to be put on his or her proverbial plate?

Whatever the case, somewhere along the line I dropped the ball.  I went from being intentionally developed by a few great people to hoping this whole missionally following Jesus thing would just rub off on those I would like to develop.  This was a mistake…and I don’t want to make it anymore.

So, as I look back into my past I can think of a handful of people that I did invest in intentionally. In these few relationships I tried to be strategic and purposeful.  Here are a few things I learned:

  1. Be Clear about Expectations — If you are wanting to invest in someone or someone asks you to mentor them, spell out the expectations.  How often are you going to meet?  What will you talk about?  Who will be responsible?  What are you asking of yourself and the other?
  2. Hold Each Other Accountable — Listen to the person you are investing in.  He or she will likely tell you, overtly or covertly, how you are doing.  When you get this information, respond!  Make changes when appropriate in order to help the person you are leading reach his/her potential.  And hold the one you are leading accountable to the things he or she agrees to.  Don’t assume progress is being made — check up on it!
  3. Follow up, Follow up, Follow up — I have found that when it comes to leadership development, one old adage is true and one is not.  It’s not true that distance makes the heart grow fonder!  Instead, distance helps lead the heart to wander.  On the flip side, it is true that once you are out of sight, the one you are leading will eventually let you drop out of mind.  How do you prevent this?  Meet regularly, check in via email, facebook, text, etc. more often than you meet in person, and do a drop in every now and then!
  4. Listen a Bunch and Listen Some More after That — If you’re anything like me, then you like to talk!  But if I want to help someone grow in their leadership, I need to listen way more than I talk.  This is so very hard for me!  Instead of listening I’d rather think out loud, fix problems, and just enjoy the sound of my own voice!  But doing so hampers the growth of the one in which I’m investing.
  5. Be Inviting — There may be nothing that is more damaging in leadership development than being overly guarded.  I’m not saying that you should be stupid and eradicate all the boundaries around you and your family.  But what I am saying is that you must be authentic with the ones you are leading.  Invite them in.  Lead by example  Let them see you fail.  And let them see you get back up again!

What else would you add to this list?  How else can we develop missional leaders?  Let me know in the comments below!

Living the Future into the Present

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One of the hardest things about seminary was reading Jürgen Moltmann.  His works are dense and complex — well, they were for me at least!  However, Moltmann has been a major, shaping influence on my thinking and on how I live as well.  By trudging through his book Theology of Hope, I came to a better and more complete understanding of eschatology, the study of how human history will end.

Up until I read Theology of Hope, I was convinced that eschatology was something that got me through some boring sermons as a teenager (the book of Revelation reads an awful lot like the fantasy novels I loved then!), or an interest that only complete wingnuts had, or it was just an addendum slapped onto the end of a systematic theology.  I certainly knew that you didn’t preach about it since I had heard so few sermons covering eschatology growing up attending church services.

Suffice it to say, my understanding of eschatology was seriously limited!

But then I read Theology of Hope.  Moltmann helped me better understand why what we believe about the end matters.  He helped me better understand the future-orientation of both Jesus and Paul.  And Moltmann gave me an interpretative lense through which to understand the eschatology I read in the Bible and to apply it to my very own life in the here and now.

I want to share with you the passage that turned the light on for me:

From first to last, and not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present. (Theology of Hope, page 16)

Let that sink in for a minute.  Really.  Go back and read it again.  And then again.  Let it marinate with you for a little bit.  Then read it again.

 

Okay, here’s how I understand what Moltmann is getting at: He’s saying that the future, namely Christ’s glorious return and God’s remaking all things new, is real.  It’s so real that it has the power to change the present.  The future can change the now.

Here’s one more way of saying the same thing: God is calling us to live the future into the present, just as Jesus prayed, “your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  The future realities that we read about in Revelation 4-5, 7, and 21-22 can begin to be realized now.

We can participate in God’s will to bring all people groups together, tearing down all the walls of separation.

We can work with God in order to bring real peace and reconciliation in our world.

We can join in God’s work of recreation in our own lives, in the lives of others, and in our world.

Now we cannot do these things in our own power.  It’s only through the working and empowering of the Holy Spirit within our communities!

The future is coming.  It’s not a maybe kind of thing.  The future reality is the real reality…and God is calling us to live that future reality into our present.

But how?  How can we do this within a missional context (or any context for that matter!)?

  1. We can live in Christian community with people very different from us.  The picture painted in Revelation 5 and 7 of those who will be present to worship God at the end is beautiful — there will be every sort of person there!  Why then do we syphon our selves off into little affinity groups where everyone looks like us and thinks like us?  The call of the Bible is as clear as the crystal sea: We are to be in community with those different from us.
  2. We can be workers of peace and reconciliation in our lives.  As we look forward to the future reality that is being brought to fruition, it is obvious that Jesus created peace and reconciliation by offering his whole self up.  We can follow suit.  Peace and reconciliation are tough and costly, but not to pursue them is disobedience and, ultimately, sinful.  So as we see brokenness, we must leverage all the power and influence we have to bring healing.  When we see strife, we must work tirelessly to bring resolution.
  3. We can utilize our talents and gifts to bring new life to a dead world.  Death is all around us.  It’s in us.  Our present reality is really pretty bleak if you think about it.  We’re hurtling through space on this tiny spec of dirt…and then we die.  Where is hope in that?  Nowhere, that’s where!  Our only hope must come from outside the system, from God himself.  And God brought hope to us in the person of Jesus.  As we follow him he will lead us into ways that bring life to our dying world.  He’ll lead us to hydrate the thirsty trees that are desperate to bear fruit.  And he’ll pour his refreshing water over our lives too, cleansing us and preparing us for our next steps.

How else can we live the future reality of God’s ultimate victory into our lives today?  Let me know in the comments below!