Category Archives: Leadership

Self-Leadership and the Battle of the Bulge

How you and I handle our anxiety in the midst of setbacks is one of the critical tasks of leadership. For ten days, during the Battle of the Bulge, American troops were badly beaten by Hitler’s armies in Europe. American casualties were brutal – with 19,000 killed, 48,000 wounded and 9000 others forced to surrender. The US Army was in full retreat. The pressure on Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) to blame his generals for the disaster was immense. Imagine! He did not. Henry Stimpson, his Secretary of War, wrote in his dairy: “He has been very extremely considerate. He has exercised great restraint, for the anxiety on his part must have been very heavy.” This was the fruit of his 12 years of serving, and suffering, as President during the Great Depression and World War II. May it be ours.

10 Trends for 2013

Where we live impacts us. I have been the pastor of a multiracial, international church in New Life in Queens, NY for the more than twenty five and a half years. It is the soil out of which I see the world and the larger church. Thus, I offer the following trends, or concerns, that I believe we need to carry to God in prayer: Evangelicalism will continue to lose young people in their teens, 20’s and 30’s who are genuinely searching for an authentic transformative experience with God. The issue of same-sex marriage and partnerships will increasingly dominate our youth ministries. We will be very slow to equip our youth leaders and ministries with a well-thought, nuanced, theological response. There will continue to be little interest for Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox believers to learn from one another. Marriage discipleship will remain non-existent or superficial in our churches. The high divorce rate, along. Read more.

The Pastor as Museum Curator

A museum curator knows he or she can only display a very small sampling of the artifacts to depict a certain era or time period. Among the perhaps hundreds, or even thousands of possibilities in their storage area, they must choose the few that are most significant. We are much like curators. One of the most important leadership functions is to edit – whether it is in deciding what to not include when we teach/preach, the focus of a staff meeting, the most significant emphasis for a given season, or what is presented in our lobby space to represent our values and vision.

Shame, Guilt, and Leadership

How much of our leadership is actually driven by guilt and shame? In broad terms, shame has to do with feeling about who we are; guilt is related to our feelings about what we do. They both rob us of the profound experience that we are God’s beloved children. We may feel deep, hidden shame about who we are because of addictive behaviors or dysfunctional choices. We may feel shame due to negative messages from our family of origin – “You are no good.” “You’re a loser.” “You’ll never amount to anything.” Then there is the shaming nature of so much Western Christianity. As one author said, “My very being was so sinful that God himself was enraged.” She recognized later that she was trying to repent her way out of what she thought was guilt. Some of us don’t need to repent. We need to be rescued from our shame. Ask the Lord to. Read more.

The First Thing To Do Each Day

Seth Godin wrote a great blog called, “The First Thing You Do When You Sit Down at the Computer” each day. He says, “If you’re an artist, a leader or someone seeking to make a difference, the first thing you do should be to lay tracks to accomplish your goals.” I think he is right – for artists and leaders at least. If you are a Christ follower, however, the first thing you are to do is “to get up and go” to the place of grace like the younger son in Luke 15:11-24. Soak in the unconditional love that God bestows on you. Let Him heal your shame and celebrate over you “with music and dancing.” Dare to believe that you are His beloved. Adam and Eve lost this sense of their blessed identity and listened instead to the voice of temptation. In their hiding God sought them, asking “Where are you?” God. Read more.

Learning to Lament – Newtown, CT

The painful images of the funerals of the children from Sandy Hook elementary school is an invitation from God for us to learn to lament. David not only sang this lamentation; he ordered the people to learn it, memorize it and inhabit it as their experience. After the terrible, tragic deaths of Saul and Jonathan, we read: David took up this lament concerning Saul and his son Jonathan, and ordered that the men of Judah be taught this lament of the bow: “Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights. How the mighty have fallen!…Tell it not in Gath, proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon….O daughters of Israel, weep for Saul …How the mighty have fallen in battle! Jonathan lies slain on your heights. 2 Samuel 1:17-20; 24-25 Eugene Peterson says it well: “Pain isn’t the worst thing… Death isn’t the worst thing. The worst thing is failing to deal with. Read more.

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