I thought this was interesting… The 2 Most Admirable Qualities in a Leader…

When asked what they look for and admire in a leader and in a colleague, people put:

1. Honesty
2. Forward-Looking

But the second-highest requirement of a leader — that he or she be forward-looking — wasn’t applied to colleagues. 72% of respondents wanted leaders to be forward-looking, but only 27% looked for that trait in a colleague.

SOURCE: “To Lead, Create a Shared Vision” in Harvard Business Review, January 2009 (Excellent article, BTW)

Change is hard work. Looking at the book of Nehemiah (an example of a masterful change-agent) we see he did three initial things — 1) he established a sense of urgency (including identifying and embracing the crises as well as “grace disguised” opportunities), 2) he created a guiding coalition (in other words he put together a group with enough influence to lead the change and sought to help them work together like a team), and 3) he developed a vision and strategy (asking, “how do we get there from here?”).

Following is a list that has been percolating in me regarding the opportunities that have been placed before us to take our church to a new place. What does it take to change?

10 Signs You’re Not Ready for Change

1. You believe conflict is a bad thing.
2. You are trying to avoid the criticism that comes when you fail — and when you succeed.
3. You think the surrounding culture needs to think like you do (instead of contextualizing the gospel for them – like a missionary would).
4. your life is too fast and cluttered — and there’s no space to dream.
5. You value being right over being in right relationship.
6. You think disillusionment is a bad thing (remember, to have an illusion is to have a false idea).
7. You’ve stopped asking questions.
8. You think systems and strategy are the enemy of creativity (remember, we’re invited to live in the tension of Spirit AND Truth).
9. You’re expecting to receive credit for your ideas.
10. You think you’ve already arrived.

BTW — Clicking on the pic above will take you to kiva.org – loans that change lives…

Yesterday we spoke about our vision for 2009. (It would be good for us as a church to take some time and focus on the fundamentals this year…)

1. Our vision for this year is simple and to the point: Learning to love well. (Pete Scazzero states this as his thesis statement in the book The Emotionally Healthy Church – p. 18)
2. Loving authentically and honestly – and venturing below the waterline to those places that hinder true and godly intimacy in the scope of all our relationships.

I also provided a snapshot of contemplative spirituality, which we will be focusing on later in the year…

1. My (current) understanding of contemplative spirituality is that it is about building spiritual and holy rhythms into our lives (sometimes it’s called a “rule of life”).
2. It is also about growing a quiet center in our hearts — where we enjoy communion with God (Did you get a chance to read the My Heart, Christ’s Home booklet by Robert Munger?).

What does communion with God mean? It means that we are creating space in our lives to be with Christ. This is where Henri Nouwen, a Dutch-born Catholic priest and writer , reminds us of an excellent perception of the fundamentals/basics…

1. Nouwen said, “To pray is to listen…” To encounter Christ is to learn how to listen. The work of prayer – or growing intimacy with Christ — is to create that space and to learn how to listen.
2. What are we listening for? (Nouwen says it so well…) To pray is to listen to, or for, the One who calls you, my beloved — “my beloved daughter,” “my beloved son,” “my beloved child.” This is what Jesus heard from his Father when he came up out of the water at his baptism.
3. To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being. Who am I? I am the beloved. That’s the voice Jesus heard throughout his life and his ministry.
4. If you can’t hear that voice above the tapes that are already playing in your head then seek out some prayer and help…
5. If we can hear God’s voice saying we are beloved we can deal with an enormous amount of success as well as an enormous amount of failure without losing our identity.
6. True ministry (and evangelism for that matter) starts when we operate out of the understanding that we are beloved. We claim our belovedness and use it as a response to all the voices and tapes that play in our heads.
7. When we discover our belovedness by God, we see the belovedness of other people and begin to call that forth.
8. What we are talking about is the definition of obedience… (The Church has made “obedience” a “religious” word, not a spiritual word.) The primary action of Christian obedience is for us to make room in our lives to hear God call us beloved.

Click here for an excellent article by Nouwen entitled Moving From Solitude To Community To Ministry. Thanks to all the people who are stepping up to get things done and make things happen — you help make this fun!!

There’s a story about a major corporation that launched a new brand of dog food. Through research, they developed the most sophisticated, most nutritious dog food to date and poured millions into marketing it.
But it didn’t sell…
Out of frustration, the corporation gathered in a Chicago hotel. The national sales manager got up and said, “What’s the problem? We have this nutritious product that is cheaper and better marketed than our competitors’ product. Why is nobody buying it?”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Then, from the back of the room, a salesman from Atlanta drawled, “The dogs don’t like it.”

Sometimes vision is overrated. As this story reminds us, vision is no match for reality. Here’s a great quote (I think):

“A vision from God goes beyond simply recognizing that change is healthy; it celebrates the ability and opportunity to change.” (Anonymous)

The above quote speaks to our vision for 2009: A Quest for Authentic Christian Spirituality. I (prayerfully) decided not to teach on “Enlarging Our Soul Through Grief & Loss” this week. I want to spend some time dreaming about possibilities for this coming year. If you go back a couple of posts (or click here) you’ll find a questionnaire related to uncovering your spiritual passion. If we take the time to think deeply about our God-breathed holy passions it will help us think through the many opportunities before us. It’s still important that we manage ourselves within the tension of grief and hope (or vision). We’ve also had some pretty cool people step up and take on some ministry responsibilities in the last couple of weeks. I’d like to take the time to acknowledge them and pray for them. Also, families talk about finances, so I’d like a chance to give a macro overview of our 2009 budget. Finally, we’ll have a chance to interact and dream out loud together. And then there’s worship…

Also, soon there will be a couple of documents that will be downloadable from the website. One is a position paper regarding women in leadership. We have added two women to our preaching/teaching team, which can be a hot-button for some people. So, read the article and if you’d like to dialogue, I’d be happy to. The other is an article on financial stewardship. This is especially important, I think, in a down economy like ours — as a nation we’re being forced to re-think how we spend our money. Via con Dios…