Category Archives: Differentiation

John the Baptist: The Unlikely Emotionally Healthy Leader – EH Leader Podcast

Imagine making your personal list of the top 10 most emotionally healthy leaders found in the Bible. Would John the Baptist make the list as a strong leadership role model? Possibly not. Taken from the opening sermon of the 2017 Emotionally Healthy Leadership Conference, Pete looks at three aspects that make John the Baptist an extraordinary model of leadership. He knew himself and he knew God. John the Baptist was very aware of who he was and was not influenced by what others thought of him. He was free from impressing people but was completely attuned to what God’s mission was for him. He was deeply aware of issues surrounding him. John the Baptist realized there was a cultural crisis of shallow spirituality in which people kept the rules but did not have a vibrant relationship with the Father. He knew his limits. John the Baptist realized that his job was not to change. Read more.

Your Integrity and Your Leadership: Part 2 – EH Leader Podcast

Living with integrity, whether you are in your twenties or seventies, is no small task. In this podcast, I lay the foundation for a leader’s integrity by discussing four critical areas: 1. Integrity with God. Throughout church history, one of the seven deadly sins was described as sloth. This referred not just to laziness, but to busyness with the wrong things. We are overly active because we cannot bear the effort demanded by a life of solitude with God. The Desert Fathers had no patience for activism, even godly activity, unless it was nourished by a rich interior life with God. They repeatedly warned about being engaged in activity for God before the time is ripe. 2. Integrity with Yourself. Leadership in the church can do violence to your soul. When we give to others out of our emptiness, we are of little value to those we serve. One of our greatest challenges is. Read more.

Your Integrity and Your Leadership: Part 1 – EH Leader Podcast

The first crisis the early church confronted was a crisis of integrity. In the book of Acts, a married couple named Ananias and Sapphira pretend to sell their property and give all that money to the church. The reality, however, was they kept back part of it. They pretend to be something on the outside that they are not on the inside. And God’s immediate and drastic judgment falls on them. The apostle Peter, the leader of the church, sees this lack of integrity as an invasion of the powers of darkness into their community of the Holy Spirit. He knows the power of the Spirit will be quenched without truth and integrity. Thus, he calls it out. I have rushed through areas of my leadership more times than I want to remember. I have avoided meetings I knew would be hard. I have skimmed on truth when it was uncomfortable. I have preferred. Read more.

10 Questions to Ask in the Crucible of Differentiation – EH Leader Podcast

When I was in a very painful season of differentiation during 2006 and 2007, I developed a set of questions that I wrote in my journal and returned to over and over again. They became an anchor for me as I regularly and prayerfully brought them to God during my morning prayer time, asking Him for wisdom and power to deeply change me. I mark that season as a crucible – painful, severe, purifying, yet liberating. Without doubt, it was a turning point in my 30 years of growing into a more effective pastor. And they formed the foundation of The Emotionally Healthy Leader book that I wrote eight years later. When I accidentally rediscovered them in an old journal recently, I was taken aback at how carefully I had crafted the questions for myself, and how they had become so much a part of me after that two-year period. I offer them to. Read more.

Becoming a More Differentiated Leader: Part 1 – EH Leader Podcast

In this podcast, I introduce the paradigm-shifting concept of differentiation as one significant reason why exercising excellent leadership is so hard – whether it be in a church, a business, a non-profit institution, or an educational institution. Differentiation involves remaining connected to people and yet not having your reaction or behaviors determined by them. Our primary task, like Jesus, is to calmly differentiate our true self from the demands and voices around us, discerning the vision, pace, and mission the Father has uniquely given us. It involves being clear about our life goals and not becoming lost in the anxious emotional processes swirling around us. (See Edwin Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve.) Jesus, of course, models for us a 100% differentiated person. In this podcast, I address three key questions that have helped me to grow in differentiation and to maturely navigate high-charged situations that have come my way: What do I do with. Read more.

You’re Incredible

To live and lead like Jesus requires that we embrace the fact that we are people with deep weaknesses and vulnerabilities. At the same time, it also requires we embrace the glorious truth that we are incredible – with unique passions, histories, gifts, experiences, sufferings, and destinies. In the early years of my faith, most of the discipleship I received focused primarily on depravity and sin. The good seeds of God hidden beneath my unique person as an image-bearer of God were rarely mentioned. Granted, every part of our being is flawed and disfigured by sin. Nonetheless, because of God’s image in us, goodness also dwells within every human being. Henri Nouwen describes it well: For a very long time I considered low self-esteem to be some kind of virtue. I had been warned so often against pride and conceit that I came to consider it a good thing to deprecate myself. But now. Read more.

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