pray and plan
Around 650 B.C. the Babylonians destroyed the city of Jerusalem. 100 years later, Nehemiah had a vision to return to the destroyed city and rebuild it. Before he did anything sporadically, he prayed and he planned.
Nehemiah didn’t plan for months and then pray to ask God to bless his dreams, he prayed from the beginning and made sure he was in the center of God’s will.
Then when the timing was right, and the King asked Nehemiah what he wanted, Nehemiah had a plan in place.
Pray and plan.
rubber band leadership
Recently I re-read parts of Nancy Ortberg’s book titled, Unleashing the Power or Rubber Bands: Lessons in non-linear Leadership. It is one of the best books on leadership that I have read.
Nancy encourages her readers through her unique writing style, to breath new life into your style of leadership by:
- naming someone’s giftedness
- offering hope
- vision inspiration
- give of yourself as a leader
- paying attention to the needs of your team
- learn to identify defining moments
Some quotes I enjoyed from the book:
Three components of a powerful crucible of development are opportunities, challenges, and a relationship.
The core of leadership is hope.
To lead well, we must possess the strong belief that our best days are ahead of us, always ahead of us.
Vision is about creating a reason to believe again.
You can purchase the book here. It is one of the best books on leadership I have read.
introducing baby Booth # 2 :)
Expected due date, February 18, 2011.
take me back
I love the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. The one son wastes his inheritance, messes up his life and finds himself feeding pigs. Worse yet, he is even joining the pigs for dinner. Finally he has had enough and decides to head back home, to ask his father to be a servant. Because even his father’s servants were living better than he was. The story concludes with the son walking down the dusty lane and sees his father running towards him, welcoming him back to the family.
Ministry isn’t always full of glamourous stories. There are times when the life seems to be sucked out you. Recently I was startled to find out that one of my friends had fallen back to his old lifestyle. Individuals searched the city until he was found. As I was sitting beside him, he cried out, “pastor, do you think God will take me back?” It was a joy to walk beside him that night as I shared the story of the prodigal son and how God would gladly welcome him back home. We wept together and prayed together.
I can never thank God enough for taking me back.
exits and entrances
- The success of change is determined by the leader’s attitude about change.
- Change allows us to exit the comfortable and enter the improved.
- Remember that change represents the unknown.
- People always resist change.
- People usually don’t understand why change is important
- Understand that people resist change and help them move positively through the change.
Some thoughts from chapter seven of Monday Morning Mentoring by David Cottrell.
snapping wet footballs
In “The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love with the God Jesus Knows“ author James Bryan Smith shares this incredible story about Peyton Manning.
Peyton Manning practiced indirection. He was the winning quarterback of Super Bowl XLI. It was a rainy night, and the ball was slippery. Rex Grossman, the quarterback for the losing team, fumbled several times. But Peyton Manning never fumbled. A few weeks after the Super Bowl a reporter discovered that every few weeks during the year Manning has his center (the one who snaps him the ball), Jeff Saturday, snap him water-soaked footballs. He practices handling wet footballs so he will be ready in case it rains—even though his team plays half of their games in a dome. Manning did what he could do (practice handling wet footballs over and over) to enable him to do what he could not without this preparation (play great in the rain)
Rubber band power
Recently I re-read parts of Nancy Ortberg’s book titled, Unleashing the Power or Rubber Bands: Lessons in non-linear Leadership. It is one of the best books on leadership that I have read.
Nancy encourages her readers through her unique writing style, to breath new life into your style of leadership by:
- naming someone’s giftedness
- offering hope
- vision inspiration
- give of yourself as a leader
- paying attention to the needs of your team
- learn to identify defining moments
Some quotes I enjoyed from the book:
Three components of a powerful crucible of development are opportunities, challenges, and a relationship.
The core of leadership is hope.
To lead well, we must possess the strong belief that our best days are ahead of us, always ahead of us.
Vision is about creating a reason to believe again.
You can purchase the book here. It is one of the best books on leadership I have read.
What if Tiger Woods came to your church?
Over these past few weeks, we have been fascinated with the saga of Tiger Woods. Our world was shocked with the news of gross allegations. Daily the stories kept coming. I am not writing to blast the media, or the Christians who have not stopped talking and writing about it.
My question is this, I wonder if your church is prepared to help individuals like Tiger and Tiger’s wife.
Too often in my short life, I have seen people shunned when they have committed immoral sin. Please understand that I am not condoning what has been done. Far from it.
But I do wonder what churches would do if Tiger walked in this Sunday? Would we be prepared to offer him forgiveness? Would we be prepared to lead him to redemption and reconciliation? And I don’t mean just tell him he needs God – he probably already knows that. Would we walk with him through this incredibly hard journey?
Let’s stop talking about Tiger and commit to pray for him. And we need to pray for those that we know who are going through circumstances like this. I love how Jesus handled a similar situation.
“Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her. And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.
But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
Jesus stood up and said to her, Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said,
Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” ~ John 8:6-11
Send me to the rough
A few weeks ago Arlene and I found the grave of David Brainerd in Northampton Massachusetts. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 29. Brainerd attended Yale University but was expelled in his junior year for privately saying of a college tutor, “He has no more grace than this chair.” Brainerd made repeated attempts at seeking forgiveness, but was unsuccessful. Years later, Yale named a building after him and to this day it is the only building at Yale to be named after an expelled student.
In 1743 he began ministry among the Indians in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania until he died on October 10, 1747 at the home of Jonathan Edwards in Northampton.
Here are a few challenging quotes from his journal.
“Oh, that I could dedicate my all to God. This is all the return I can make Him.”
“Here am I, send me; send me to the ends of the earth; send me to the rough, the savage pagans of the wilderness; send me from all that is called comfort on earth; send me even to death itself, if it be but in Thy service, and to promote Thy kingdom.”
And the entry he wrote in his journal two months after being expelled from Yale. “I hardly ever so longed to live to God and to be altogether devoted to Him; I wanted to wear out my life in his service and for his glory.”
