Is Visionary Leadership Enough?

When good leaders set in motion to accomplish a vision, there usually comes a question:

”What is it going to take to get there?”

I think most leaders would agree that this is a fantastic and necessary question. Without it, leaders might never really get their team to the next milestone.

But another question comes into play. Author and psychologist, Dr. Henry Cloud suggests that an equally important question (and seldom asked is): “What will NOT get us there?” He says, “Probably there are some things that you’re involved in today, even good things, that have to go away. Maybe their season has ended.” Pruning MUST happen in our own lives and in our leadership to give new life to things that will actually grow.

As you continue to progress towards a vision, are you pruning just as diligently as you’re building?

What is one practice or principle that you follow (or should follow) to help with this discipline?

By: Devon Noonan (@devoncnoonan)

Content Development, The LIFT Project

If you're looking for a next step….

• Video of Dr. Henry Cloud talking about pruning (6:30 min)
• To go deeper with this topic, consider Shaping Culture a 7-week online course that will raise the issue of culture and further equip leaders to lead toward a healthy culture in three key areas: Organizational, Relational and Spiritual.
• Necessary Ending Webcast hosted by Henry Cloud (on Friday, January 28)

God Wasn’t Late

8:29: I arrive in the parking lot at work and scan for the closest space I can find.

8:29…and 17 sec: I was frantically fretting my late arrival (again).

8:29…and 42 sec: I start to do the run-walk-skip (wish my legs were longer) thing that people do to make up for lost time.

8:30: Internal monologue begins: ‘I’m not late, I’m not late, I’m not late…’

8:31: I was late for staff prayer time.

Even though I was late. God wasn’t. God isn’t ever late. I am struck by the peace that overwhelms my soul when I stop and (try to) quiet myself enough to reach God’s gentle presence.

Today Psalm 37: 1-7 met our team where we are, junk and all.

1 Do not fret because of those who are evil
or be envious of those who do wrong;
2 for like the grass they will soon wither,
like greenplants they will soon die away.
3 Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
4 Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him and he will do this:
6 He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
your vindication like the noonday sun.
7 Be still before the Lord
and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when people succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.

Just as the verses served us (me) smack in the middle of over-hurried thoughts, I pray that the words from David’s Psalm are a not so gentle reminder for you to make time to delight in the Lord (verse 4) today.

Peace from snowy Chicago.

By: Hanna Koenig (@hannaksays)

Marketing Team, WCA

Do you love what you see?

A few weeks ago, Kirk Franklin came to Willow. Kirk has been a premier gospel artist for nearly 2 decades. His mission was to take gospel music and to broaden its range beyond the traditional gospel audience without losing its message. I could just say it was awesome and leave it at that – but if I reflect on it a little deeper, I was struck by something over the weekend:

Sometimes Kirk Franklin is portrayed as a high energy artist geared towards praise and celebration. I would never argue with that, but that stops short of what we experienced this past weekend. One of my favorite moments was during the song Imagine Me. This song asked the question, can you imagine me letting go of the past, becoming free, trusting God. Hearing thousands of people singing, “gone, gone, gone, all gone” is a powerful sound.



Is there something in your life that has continually been a struggle in the past? Is there something that you’ve been carrying with you day after that you want to get rid of? Are there voices in your past that are whispering lies to you? If you want to say goodbye to all of those things and be reminded that once we choose “life to the full” those things are gone.

Take a minute and listen to Imagine Me right now and just open your hands and tell God what it is.

Peace.

Matt Lundgren (@mattlundgren)
Worship Leader/Executive Producer, Willow Creek Community Church
Contributor to Beyond Singing: The Worship Blog of Willow Creek

High Ground

This is for all of us who are facing a challenge that

demands our everything--every resource, every shred of prayer.

we have a struggle on our hands

a battle for body and soul

so now we must raise our game

to the intensity of the athlete

of the olympian

of Paul

not merely begging for mercy

but shouting instead of God's sufficiency

it is now time to grapple

for the victory of God's peace

for the high ground of relaxed trust in the Provider

for the foundation of faith to win the day

instead of crumbling fear

for the braced body to be loosed of its chains

the power of God is something we eat and drink

we swallow and absorb it into our bloodstream

no longer cowering in the night

no longer buried in spirit

we will not be mastered by anything

we do not run aimlessly

we do not box helplessly at thin air

God You made the vessels of our bodies

the world filled them

and we absorbed it deep down

we now allow You through the currency of TRUST

to excise all poisons

to renew and regenerate

body and soul

we invite our rebirth

we welcome our cleansing

the jettison of all confusion

sabotage and subterfuge

never will the boot heel of fear crush us underfoot

never will dismay have its way

never will despair foul the air

never will our resolve dissolve

our hearts will instead expand

our souls will stretch but will never break in two

bitterness will not gain a foothold in our spirit

joy will not be strangled by weeds of dark thoughts

love will not be starved by regret and resentment

we submit ourselves to the hard work of healing

the discipline of letting go

allowing Your undaunted power

to heal and to liberate

pushing apart the flimsy doubt of the moment

all to Jesus we surrender

to obedience with abandon

to exuberant submission

to believing in the realization

of the perfect restoration

of this body

this heart

this soul

this grateful soul

By: Greg Ferguson
Co-Producer/ Experience Designer, The Global Leadership Summit
Higher Ground is also posted on Greg's blog, 10,000 Pages

30 Seconds with Dr. B

In between video shoots for our online training courses (The LIFT Project), Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian (aka Dr. B) took a few minutes to answer this question: If you could give church leaders one piece of advice, what would it be? He answers in 30 seconds. Matthew 20:25-26



What about you, if you could give church leaders one piece of advice, what would it be? Write it in the comments or post your own 30 second video to leaders.

by: WCA (@wcagls)

Ghost Town

I wrote this poem for everyone who feels lonely in leadership,
or like they have to start from scratch with next to nothing.

ghost town

well well
you and i are the last ones standing
it's quiet here isn't it
among the twisted girders
and the charred infrastructure
of what was
a bustling destination town

tumbleweeds rolling across broken up boulevards
abandoned four by fours on pothole parking lots
an occasional lost crow passing overhead

so here we are
you and me
what will we do

we will find a hammer or two
scoop up some nails
round up some old boards with a little life left in them
and we'll build a scaffold
we'll gather up some scrap tools
and get to work

and we will make this ghost town into a chapel
a house of prayer
and when we're all prayed up
we'll forge this chapel into a shelter
for the lost ones and the refugees
as they pass through in the storm
and find a home
rough around the edges
but solid and warm

one by one
little by little
this tumble down old ramshackle of a town
will rise again
and become
the city of God

By: Greg Ferguson
Co-Producer/ Experience Designer, The Global Leadership Summit

Ghost Town is also posted on Greg's blog, 10,000 Pages.

Leading Through Prayer

In this audio clip Harvey Carey, the Founder and Senior Pastor of the Citadel of Faith Covenant Church in Detroit, Michigan, challenges pastors to lead through prayer. Harvey fits a lot into this 6 minute clip. Consider how what he says might spur you to action.

> Listen to the 6 minute (mp3) interview with Harvey Carey.
(Quick note: this mp3 is a sample of the content offered by The LIFT Project)

• Does your leadership look similar or different than a secular organization? What is the difference maker?
• Do you spend as much time in your personal prayer life, as you do in your management and planning meetings?
• Reflect on Psalm 127. Invite God’s presence into your leadership.

Praying for God’s spirit to be in your equation today!
By: WCA (@wcagls)

If you're looking for ways to grow this year, the Willow Creek Association brings you The LIFT Project!

You can enroll in a 7-week interactive course to sharpen your leadership, strengthen your soul, and build a healthier, more effective culture in your organization.

Living Deployed

Consider the aircraft carrier- large, massive and powerful. It’s a self-contained community of 5,000 men and women working, eating, and doing life together; each person on mission each with a unique role. The mission? To further forward deploy (send) its 90 aircraft to places the carrier cannot go. The carrier’s impact is measured by its deployment of the planes. Take away their deployment and the carrier is simply floating metal. Dead weight.

The crew of 5,000 serves to support the 120 pilots who fly the 90 aircrafts. The majority provide supporting roles such as cooking, cleaning, operating the power plant, and more! In fact, less than 5% of the crew actually forward deploy the planes. Not everyone is a pilot but everyone has a role.

Likewise the local church, regardless of its form (from first century house church to present day mega-church), requires a crew, each with a unique role. God calls us to support the Fellowship of Believers by serving one another as a family. We’re called to meet both our internal needs AND we are each called to engage our unique good works to serve the world. Just as the carrier is a platform for deploying planes, the church should be the premiere home base for deploying Believers to live on mission. Imagine if a carrier sought to accomplish mission by attracting and consuming rather than deploying and sending. God designed the church to deploy every believer to live on mission.

What would it look like for the church to see its role as platforms of release to deploy Believers? Jesus designed the church to function as a revolution with every Believer engaging their unique calling and gifting to deploy (Ephesians 2:10).

While each expression of the church might look very different, all are taking the idea of mission seriously. Churches of all kinds are looking to use their current forms and assets as platforms to launch the more fluid, adaptive, and missional people-movements. Next spring, the Exponential Conference hopes to play the part of this as we see apostolic movements come to life and provide working models. I hope to see you there!

By: Todd Wilson (@toddwilson)
Founder of Exponential Network, Church Planting Advocate, Kingdom Entrepreneur

God Will Speak to You!

In 2011, God is going to speak to you.

He’s been speaking to his kids since the beginning of time. He loves you and He’d love to have a bigger place in your life. God would love to open doors for you that you think can’t be opened. He’d love to take you on adventures that you think your life can never be about. God would love to whisper to you about the poor, about race, about greed, or other things that wreck this world. Broken things in this world don’t get fixed unless someone receives a whisper from God, steps up, steps out on faith, and does something about it.

So God is going to be speaking to you this year. My question is will you hear it and heed it? You will never regret this! But it actually takes a decision! Will you take the risks to walk by faith and not by sight?

By: Bill Hybels (@BillHybels)
Senior Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church

A Prayer for the New Year

God I give you
last year
with its close calls
rescues
traps and sorrows
collapses and renewals
crises and joys
stains and scars

and I hope somehow
I lived it well
in your wise eyes.

I give you this new year
with all its bright and shine
caution and hope
I lift it high up to you now
when it has barely broken the horizon.

take it up into your hands
along with my soul
look them over with your keen eye
trim away the chaff
the chaos
the reticence
and re-fire me to go
poised at the gate
fueled with hope
blackened with the burn marks from last year
but rich with the hard-won lessons
and ready to go again
as the planet is ready
for a new revolution around the sun.

there is much to learn
adventures to welcome and not to fear
as I step onto your proving ground
knowing you post your angels everywhere
and that the same providence
that guided me through the last wild ride
is all still there
ever aware
on the watch
and worthy of my second-by-second trust.

say the word
I'm ready to go
into the rising new year
even though
my knees might be shaking
a little
from the old one.

By: Greg Ferguson
Co-Producer/ Experience Designer, The Global Leadership Summit

A Prayer for the New Year is also posted on Greg's blog, 10,000 Pages

Unengaged with Jesus

Albert Luthuli was the first African recipient of the Nobel peace prize. In his autobiography he wrote, “If the Christian concern is with people and not disembodied principles, its concern must be with the conditions under which its people live. Christianity must be concerned with what is going on… here and now.” ^[1]

Luthuli wrote these words in the midst of apartheid, an inhumane system that ravaged the lives of millions of people in the country where I live. The “disembodied principles” to which Luthuli refers are an apt description of what my Christian life entailed under the apartheid system. It was a kind of Christianity wherein I believed in Jesus as “my Savior,” yet this belief didn’t engage me—or my friends—with “the conditions under which its people live.” Somehow, I could believe in Jesus without attempting to follow Him. I lived in a cocoon (of whiteness), disengaged from the world around me.

As a beneficiary of oppression I comfortably practiced my spirituality while the majority of South Africa’s people struggled for their lives. It was this disembodied version of Christianity that, among other things, led to the theological justification of apartheid. Believing in Jesus and following Jesus were severed from each other. I followed Jesus with my intellect but not with my body. Faith was in my head and not in my hands or my feet.

In the Gospel of Luke we read about a walking Jesus: “And he said to all, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.’” ^[2]

After reading this a decade ago, I wrote in my journal, “What does it mean to deny myself and take up my cross daily?” I had no idea! My Christianity was not made flesh. I believed in Jesus, that He died for my sins so I could go to heaven. My version of Jesus was highly individualistic and very personal. This was true, but not true enough. Since writing those words in my journal, I’ve been on a quest to put flesh to my beliefs, to discover the way of Jesus.

By: Tom Smith

Tom has a passion for integrating spiritual formation and social justice in post-apartheid South Africa. Check out Tom's blog.

This article first appeared in Issue 8.2: Contemplation & Action of Conversations Journal, titled, Getting Naked with the Friends of Jesus: Living the Reality of Community,

copyright 2011, and is reprinted with permission. For more about Conversations Journal, visit www.conversationsjournal.com or join the conversation on Twitter.


<sup>[1] Albert Luthuli, Let My People Go. Tafelberg/Mafude Edition, 2007, 131.

[2] Luke 9:23-24, English Standard Version.</sup>

10 Reads for the New Year

I was asked recently the following question: “What, besides the Bible, have been the top 10 books that have influenced your formation in Christ and leadership?” The following is my answer. They are not in order of importance or rank.

Let Your Life Speak, Parker Palmer. Filled with powerful insights integrating faithfulness to God to faithfulness to your true self.

New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton. Written out of years of solitude and silence. Many of his short chapters need to be prayed in a lectio divina fashion, not simply read.

Under the Unpredictable Plant, Eugene Peterson. Brilliant exegesis and application of Jonah to pastoral leadership and the reality of serving Christ with sinners in Nineveh rather than live in the “ecclesiastical pornography” of illusions.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Written in the 1850’s, it remains one of the most powerful accounts to understand racism and slavery in America. Transformed my understanding of the race issue in the USA.

The Dark Night of the Soul, John of the Cross. No writer brings a healthy integration of loss, suffering and spiritual formation like this 16th century Carmelite.

Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Benedicta Ward. I have been meditating on these sayings for almost ten years now as part of my time with God. Require meditation

Generation to Generation, Ed Friedman. A seminal book on systems thinking, written by a rabbi, essential to leading any church or organization.

A Grace Disguised, Jerry Sittser. The best book on the theological nuances/complexities of grief and loss. Written out of indescribable loss and tragedy.

The Making of a Leader, Bob Clinton. Well-researched and written. I have returned to his insights again and again for perspective on how God makes leaders over the long haul.

Americas: The Changing Face of Latin America and the Caribbean, Peter Winn. This book enabled me to understand the global, historical and cultural dynamics of skin color and how they inform our churches, politics, cultures and families.

By: Pete Scazzero (@petescazzero)
Senior Pastor of New Life Fellowship Church in New York and author of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

This post was printed with permission from Pete's Blog, PeteScazzero.com (Thanks Pete!)

Learning to Be Here Now

Learning to be “present” could be one of the best gifts you give to yourself and others this next year. But as you’ve probably already discovered in our distracted, anxiety-filled world, being “present” not at all easy. It will require some effort, some training of the soul.

Perfect fodder for a new year’s resolution! But wait, you cry… wait! This is not impressive! Just one goal?! And one that cannot be measured (in pounds or otherwise)?? But let’s think about impressive in a new light… imagine what being present could open up for you:

• What would it be like to look deeply into the eyes of those you love, and really see them? Hear them? Understand them? Imagine just one evening marked by deep connection with those around you? What would open up? How about a whole week? An entire year?
  
• And what would it be like to shake off those nagging chains of guilt and self-hatred mentioned in the video? Who doesn’t need ongoing protection from the hissing, scathing voice of the accuser?
  
• Or, what would it be like to feel fear as you face challenges, failure, adversity, or conflict… feel it, but not be driven by it? What would that kind of freedom taste like? What possibilities would a fearless perspective open up for you, day after day… month after month?

Rather than set your sights on a list of goals or achievements for 2011, if you set your focus on increasing your attunement to God moment by moment, you will open yourself up to a flood of God’s care, God’s power, and God’s direction. You may even unlock dreams you would never have dared to dream on this day you sit reading this blog.

As some overarching themes, your soul has to get comfortable with silence. It needs to find it’s true voice, and it needs to rest in God’s love. Here’s some ways that have helped me. You may find many valuable others elsewhere…. But find them. Learn to be present. Train your soul to Be Here Now.

• Silent Prayer
  
• Journaling
  
• Breath Prayer

By: Mindy Caliguire (@mindycaliguire)

Mindy Caliguire is the founder of Soul Care, a spiritual formation ministry, and Director of Transformation Ministry for the Willow Creek Association.