Category Archives: Christian Leadership
Committed Action (part one)
Imagine the impact on the United States if Christians here were known – first of all — for being people of action.
If we were regarded as people who leap when there’s an opportunity to help others.
People who jump at the chance to undermine injustice?
Those who are swift to relieve suffering?
What if Christians were known for bravery?
For generosity.
And for personal integrity in doing the kinds of things Jesus did?
What if we were vigilant in our intolerance of hypocrisy, dishonesty, and favoritism—especially in ourselves, and then, in society as a whole?
And, what if, winsome, courageous, and humble—our way of living invited the entire community to be like this, more and more?
What then?
Christianity, for many, has been boiled down to an intellectual acceptance of religious premises. It’s been reduced to a fairly flimsy apprehension of select promises—while we disregard many other promises that deal with obedience, sacrifice, and judgment.
What’s become of the confidence of the early church that Christ – through us – will change the very fabric of society? “…if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors…” [2 Cor 5:17-20a]
What has become of our embodying the hope of the world? “…God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” [Col 1:27b]
Or, being the light of the world? “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” [Mt 5:14-16].
Or just being light? “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light.” [Lk 11:33]
Maybe it’s that the Protestant Reformation was so intertwined with the Renaissance that we’ve become transfixed on defining the Christian faith intellectually, cerebrally, and propositionally.
What if we committed to be the change Christ promised to make in the world?
Coaching Distinctions #13
Repentance that lasts a lifetime (part three)
For several installments, we’ve been considering the motivation that is common to human beings—to look good, feel good, be right, and be in control—yet largely goes unexamined. Then, contemplating what to do about it, we’ve been examining repentance.
Repentance that sticks.
In my coaching practice, not uncommonly our focus turns to patterns in the pastor’s leadership or relational style that undermine his or her effectiveness. I call this: “getting in your own way”. All of us, from time to time, behave in ways we regret.
Some of these behaviors become habitual, keeping the leader in Groundhog Day—repeating the pattern in one church after another.
The antidote is sorrow unto repentance.
And, that’s easier said than done. When you examine the impact your selfishness, preferences for control, irresponsibility, perfectionism, or irritability has on those close to you, it can open you up. Once opened up, you can allow yourself to be impaled by the horrible effects of your sin.
You’d think it’d just about kill you.
Funny thing is, the opposite is true.
As Paul notes in 2 Cor 7:11 godly sorrow produces concern, longing, earnestness, and indignation. And, it also produces the eagerness to set things right and a readiness to see justice done. Your heart is changed. Because it is, you are changed, too.
The result is freedom for you and the possibility of new intimacy with those you’ve harmed.
Hard to believe, but true.
Now, some of you have no trouble ruminating on just how awful you are… like a well-worn path across the schoolyard, you relive your errors and with ferocity you abuse and debase yourself.
Forgiveness?
Never! You say you don’t deserve it! You say you’re just that awful.
I say no.
You’re not especially awful, you’re just arrogant.
Arrogant.
You’re so certain you’re the special case. The one person beyond forgiveness, cleansing, restoration. The blood of Christ, you think, is insufficient to cover you, your sin. You discount the remarkable provision of Heaven rather than embrace the truth that you, special little you, are an ordinary sinner.
Not special.
And not at all remarkable in your unworthiness. You’re just as unworthy as everyone else.
Of course you’re unworthy.
That’s exactly the point of the atonement: God paid it all.
So, my invitation is to allow yourself be run through with the sharp sword of the sadness, pain and loss you’ve caused others.
Freedom waits on the other side.
Coaching Distinctions #12
Repentance that lasts a lifetime (part two)
Buried in the archaic curiosity of the King James translation is a gem: “…godly sorrow worketh repentance … not to be repented of…”. [2 Cor 7:10]
Repentance that sticks.
Consider that when God sorrows, it’s not the self-serving, feeling-sorry-for-myself kind of sorrow that leads to death. God sorrows for others.
There’s the key to deep and lasting repentance: you must enter into the suffering of others. In this case, the suffering your sinfulness has caused those around you: your spouse, your family, your coworkers, your friends.
A decade ago I was in a workshop participating in exercises and discussions designed to help me see my impact on those I claim to love. Like most everyone I know, I’d made a practice of overlooking how my preference to look good, feel good, be right, and be in control had affected those closest to me. There was so much frustration and sadness and hurt and resignation that I just didn’t see.
Didn’t want to see.
Until… one particularly powerful exercise about the value of life.
In an instant I saw myself as an analyst, with lab coat and clipboard, standing on the sidelines of my own life, carefully studying its complexities. Once I understood, I’d lay down my clipboard and lab coat, walk off the sidelines and into “the game” of life.
Trouble is, while I’m on the sidelines, I’m not in the game.
And, without me, people I love were suffering.
Most poignant, when our kids hit adolescence, the game-changers came with such ferocity and velocity that – for years – I couldn’t figure it out. So… I stayed out of the game. Annie, essentially, parented all six kids through the turbulence and discontinuous change of their adolescence– alone.
In the awful hours that followed, I drank deeply from the cup of their suffering.
Slowly, thoroughly I considered each child and what it would’ve been like for them to traverse the stormy uncertainties from child to adult without their dad… without my love, assurance, encouragement, tenderness, confidence, collaboration, sensitivity, and wisdom.
Not that I’d actually gone anywhere. I’d mastered the art of being present without being present.
Then, I imagined what it must have been like, instead, to get a steady diet of my disappointments, judgments, distance, comparisons with my [idealized] recollections of my own adolescence, demands, and ever-present distraction.
I chose to enter into the loneliness, confusion, isolation, frustration, loss, sorrow, fear, perplexity, discouragement, de-valuing, and opposition they likely experienced because of the way I’d chosen to be.
I let myself feel everything.
Deeply. Influentially. Unrelentingly. Sickeningly.
It broke me.
It devastated me.
It undid me.
THANK GOD!
Coaching Distinctions #11
The Formidable Four (part four)
When someone behaves in ways that don’t seem to make sense it’s usually due to one of the “formidable four” motivators: looking good, feeling good, being right, or, today’s focus: being in control.
The older I get the more sure I am that it is impossible to control anyone … other than myself.
And, controlling myself is a full-time job.
Ironic that we invest so much energy and effort trying to control that which is most uncontrollable: another human being.
Don’t believe me?
Try raising a child.
You may eventually soothe your bellowing newborn, but not before dozens of attempts to quiet her went unheeded.
Teenagers? We had six… at one time. Honestly, I don’t know if any of us were under control at all during those chaotic years.
Undaunted by the reality that we can’t control our kids, co-workers, congregation, or spouse, we continually employ strategies in an attempt to do just that.
The beleaguered clerk who, after being humiliated at work, comes home and browbeats her spouse.
A teen who, feeling powerless to communicate effectively with his parents, steals the car and runs away from home.
The spouse of the rapidly-ascending politician who suddenly comes down with a mysterious illness and can no longer make public appearances.
An elder who, being confronted, deftly pivots and attacks the semantics or logic of the person raising the concern.
The denominational executive, discouraged by the anemia in the churches under her influence, who travels from one seminar to the next hoping something will happen to stem the tide of attendance and financial declines.
A minister who pretends not to see troubling immorality among church officials, hoping it will all take care of itself.
These control strategies have enormous prices attached to them. Prices are extracted from the perpetrator and those connected to him. When I’m with a coaching client who’s operating out of the formidable four, we explore the impact on those closest to the client.
What prices are your loved-ones, co-workers, congregants paying?
What do you think it’s like to be in relationship with you?
The key is to drill down far enough until the client has embraced – both mentally and emotionally – the devastation caused others. This is slow, painful work.
To be impacted by the pain one’s control strategies have caused others is central to repentance.
The Apostle Paul noted: “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation…but worldly sorrow brings death.” [2 Cor 7:10] See, worldly sorrow is sorrow for myself.
But when God sorrows, God sorrows for us. [Lk 19:41] So, to truly repent from our commitments to the formidable four, the pathway runs straight into the suffering we cause others.
From this place, repentance lasts a lifetime
Coaching Distinctions # 9
The Formidable Four (part three)
Whatever we do, we do for a reason. Since we’re not crazy, there is always a reason behind our actions.
Every action.
When our behaviors are perplexing, it’s almost always because we’re unaware of our true motivations in the moment.
One of the most pernicious motivators is being right.
If you’ve ever sat with a couple heading for divorce, you’ve seen this. Each spouse has reached conclusions about their mate’s limitations, motivations, character defects, and willingness to change. Over time, they’ve found ample evidence to support these judgments — solidifying their commitment to what they’ve decided is true.
And, they’ve ignored many dozens of data points that disagree with this thesis.
As you labor to referee reconciliation you quickly discover they’re not having one conversation but two. Each lobbing evidence to support how right they are about how wrong their spouse is. The energy that each spouse invests to defend the “rightness” of their position is only overshadowed by the devastation that’s wrought on their relationship.
To be proven right is the “booby prize” in any conflict.
The desire to be right is a powerful motivator all across life. A pastor had developed the practice of predicting who was about to leave his church, trouble that would be erupting on his staff, and problems his ministry would soon be encountering. His track record was excellent: just about every departure, difficulty, and hardship he predicted did happened. Despite the devastation these events brought, he took solace in the clarity with which he’d anticipated them.
Crazy, I thought.
Why not labor to prevent these things from occurring? As we worked together, he developed strategies to undermine the problematic scenarios before they happened. And yet, before he gave himself to thwart these troubles he first gave up being right about their inevitability… and his ability to predict the future.
When being right will not serve you or them, my invitation is to give up being right about it.
The drive to be right is a lot like living with tunnel vision: you’re predisposed to notice what confirms your assumptions, and you’ll likely miss most everything that contradicts them. This undermines creativity, closes down opportunities, and locks you into outcomes that you may really not want.
I listen to political talk radio. There are several radio personalities that I like. They say what I think, promote what I believe is best for the country, and oppose practices I think are weakening us as a society. It’s easy to listen to them.
Also, as a discipline, I listen to the radio station on the other side of the political spectrum. I listen for what I can agree with and what I can consider that’s new to me. It is rigorous to listen not to be proven right, but to discover what I don’t know.
So, where in your life are you locked into being “right” about someone or something?
What if you gave up the preference to be right, and trusted God to surprise you with something new?
Coaching Distinctions # 8
The Formidable Four (part two)
It’s true. You never do anything for no reason.
So, whether you’re coaching yourself or someone else, it’s helpful to dig to discover what actually motivated apparently incomprehensible behavior. Four basic motivations are often at the root of such actions. I call them the formidable four.
Looking good.
Feeling good.
Being right.
Being in control.
We’ll examine the second one today.
Have you noticed society’s growing intolerance of anything difficult, painful, challenging, or distressing?
The desire to feel good and to avoid feeling bad are enormously influential in American culture and, sadly, in the Church today. It influences contemporary theology.
The ridiculous notion that ‘God’s great aim is to make you happy’ has helped undermine our stamina as people of faith. When distress occurs, we no longer interpret it as a normal feature of faithfully following Christ [Act 14:22, Phil 1:29, I Pt 2:21]. Rather, we consider it evidence that something’s gone wrong. Gravely wrong.
Consequently, we prioritize the deliverance from suffering over the development of our souls.
The result? An anemic witness and a society gone awry.
Feeling good quiets pastors when it’s time to forcefully confront a sinning member—particularly when she wields enormous power or money.
Feeling good keeps denominational leaders moving incompetent ministers from parish to parish—instead of directly challenging his dysfunction.
Feeling good invites elders to ignore a series of relatively mild, but troubling, ethical breaches—because to take decisive action might be misinterpreted.
Feeling good confines a senior pastor to the seclusion of her study rather than mix it up with church members who are unhappy or unpredictable.
Feeling good beckons Christians to ignore the impact of their self-centeredness on those God’s called them to influence.
Our Enemy, knowing this vulnerability, loves to pile on. When I’m facing opposition in one area of ministry, trouble will often beset another. Before long, the wheels have come off in a third area of life, then a fourth and a fifth. As the challenges mount, determination can evaporate into discouragement and morph into despondency.
To shield myself from additional difficulty, I can begin to withdraw from life.
My life.
This creates a vacuum. When I am absent from my own life, mayhem takes over. Since I’m not present, those who are accustomed to my participation try to make sense of my absence. Since they don’t see me, they make stuff up. And the rumors start. In time, the congregation’s confidence in the pastor’s leadership is so eroded that there’s no coming back.
When you catch yourself withdrawing from your life or ministry, my invitation is to trust God and leap back into the middle of your life.
Amazingly, you’ll usually find God there waiting for you.
Coaching Distinctions # 7
The Formidable Four (part one)
Last time, I suggested that no matter how astonishing, everything you do, at some level, made sense, at the time you did it. Almost always, in situations like this, you were motivated by one or more of the formidable four.
I once worked for a clinically-diagnosable narcissist. This psychological malady renders a person unable to recognize anything that disagrees with the favorable fantasy they hold of themselves.
One needn’t be a narcissist, though, to succumb to the first formidable foe: looking good.
Every one of us prefers to look good—particularly in the eyes of the people we decide are important to us. Those whose childhood was particularly punitive when a disappointment occurred will relate more closely to the motivation to avoid looking bad.
As kids, many of us made innumerable blunders when taken over by one or the other of these motivators.
Remember your first crush?
If you’re like me, you made a million mindless moves to appear as smooth and slick as your favorite Hollywood hero. In the decades since, our heroes may have changed, yet we’re still vulnerable to the desire to appear in as favorable a light as possible. Sometimes, even more favorable than possible.
Not long ago, I helped a pastor work through a difficult situation. He’d been caught preaching other ministers’ material, failing to fully credit his sources. As we unpacked Ralf’s failure he discovered he’d long felt inadequate as a rhetorician. He’d come to believe the swelling numbers in his congregation needed better sermons than he could bring. So, he “juiced” his messages by plagiarizing others.
For a brief season early in my business career, I enjoyed fairly stunning success. Near the pinnacle, I was flown by corporate jet to New York to receive some accolade for the performance of the business unit I ran. The return flight was so turbulent I expected to lose my lunch—literally—at any moment. Facing me, just inches from my knees was the Chairman of our parent company’s board. Rather than admit my intense distress, I tried to ride it out— barely avoiding a career-limiting disaster. Had my greatest fear been realized, the potential damage would’ve been far greater than the brief humiliation of admitting my weakness.
Ministers are particularly vulnerable to looking good.
It seems many congregations would prefer to follow an idealized image of a minister rather than an actual human being who, like every bible character, is flawed, needing the Savior. So, rather than model what it means follow Jesus amidst struggle and disappointment, ministers hide their scars, failings, and vulnerabilities from an adoring, albeit intolerant, church.
Detrich Bonhoeffer commented on this in Life Together: “The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everyone must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship…So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy.”
The tragic result, too often, is the eventual revelation of gross immorality, which mushroomed in the damp darkness created by the collusion of minister and congregation—both desiring to look good.
Coaching Distinctions # 6
Throwing my Body into the Middle of the Room (part two)
Last time, I introduced the phrase: Throw your body into the middle of the room and see what God does with it. Let me clarify.
When you’re surprised by life and find yourself frozen in uncertainty, the pervading impulse is to stop.
Ponder.
Evaluate.
Assess.
Trouble is, often life’s reality won’t give you the luxury of opting out. Action is required—and it’s the last thing you want to do.
So, while my brain is screaming: “Stop!” “Wait!” “Protect yourself.” “Stay safe.” another option appears: Kirk, throw your body into the middle of the room…
Trust God and leap into the chaos.
I imagine myself picking my body up and – literally – heaving it into the midst of whatever it is that has stymied my brain. It’s a decision of my will – my heart – overriding the cautioning calculations of my head.
Once I’m there, in the middle of all that mess, God seems to show up. Options appear. Resources seem to arise. And, maybe best of all, I’m 100% alive and awake looking for God to step in.
Driving home from work, I come upon an accident. It’s just occurred. Broken glass, twisted metal, a stunned, vulnerable fellow amid the wreckage. I leap toward his car… An hour later the police have left. He and I are talking about Jesus who has preserved this young man’s life… I’ve thrown myself into the middle of the room.
We’re in Washington, DC touring with our young sons. The hotel room phone 
rings and I learn that my brother Glen, on a short-term mission trip in Irian Jaya, is dead. Malaria. We didn’t even know he’d been sick…
Without hesitation, I book a flight to tell my sister and parents the horrible, terrible news. They must hear it in person. I am the one to tell them. I throw myself into the middle of the room, trusting that God will be there in the brutal, painful hours that must follow.
Our word crisis comes from the Greek. It means “to decide”. In moments of crisis you are thrust into conditions where you must decide—right away. To hesitate is to decide. Not to decide is a decision. Each has repercussions.
All through life you are training yourself, preparing yourself for an uncertain future.
It can be no other way.
Practice throwing yourself into the middle of the room. The more you do, the more effective you’ll be when you don’t have the luxury to sit and wonder and weigh and ponder.
Compendium (part ten)
Leadership Courage Series # 44
Go first!
Leaders go.
They take action.
They leap.
Managers, strategists, futurists, idea practitioners, educators, and visionaries can all get by without going—and particularly without going first. Leaders, however cannot.
Leaders lead. It’s just what they do. That what Jesus did. The apostles, too.
Somehow, as Christianity has passed from generation to generation the profile, role, and expectations of the local pastor has morphed—radically.
I work with pastors. Lots of them. These pastors can exegete the biblical text, minister the sacraments, craft and deliver a sermon, counsel, comfort the hurting, and coordinate the dozens of moving parts that go into a weekend service. All these things they do well. Seminary prepared them. Others modeled how it’s done. And they are busy, busy, busy with ministerial commitments of all kinds.
And yet, it doesn’t seem to be working. Offering a pretty wonderful worship experience, a variety of ways for friendships to flourish, and reasonably good religious education and entertainment options are not provoking the kinds of life-change we intend. Christianity in the US is not growing. Our influence in society is waning, too.
Remember Tom Skerritt’s character in A River Runs Through It? That brand of pastoral ministry just won’t do—not in this day. The “Reverend Maclean” of today has to be a leader and one who draws, develops and deploys leaders who advance the Kingdom of God in the community outside the local church. To lead like this takes risk. And, risk involves pain.
My friend and mentor Ennio Salucci says that fundamentally, there are two types of pain in life: the pain of sacrifice and the pain of regret.
To go first, with all your chips in play, trusting Jesus to rescue you as you attempt God-honoring exploits … this is to experience the pain of sacrifice.
To sacrifice the comfort and safety of what’s familiar for the danger and uncertainty of the unprecedented. To live the life God’s given you — with your whole heart engaged — is to be fully alive, awake, and influential.
To pull back from this to settle for what’s safe, easy, and predictable— is the short route to the pain of regret. You know people in their later years who are going through the motions… asleep to the amazing life God’s made them for.
Think about the movie Rudy. The conversation between Daniel Ruettiger Sr. and his son: “Chasing a stupid dream …causes nothing but you and everyone around you heartache…” his father intones, half-awake. You see the pain of regret all over this man’s visage.
As American society becomes increasingly anxious and intolerant of difficulty and challenge, the Church can leap into the fray—led by pastors who have grounded themselves in the fidelity and goodness of God, who’ve learned to govern their emotional reactivity, and who are willing to lead by going first.
Will you?
Compendium (part nine)
Leadership Courage Series # 43
Reintroduce yourself to the adventurous life. This is the eighth of nine characteristics necessary to lead the Church well today.
Notice how little risk-taking the Church does today? Other than making a bold “leap of faith” to finance a 400-seat sanctuary for the comfort and convenience of their own people, when did any church you’re aware of attempt anything great for anyone?
For what greatness are we admired in society today?
As a young believer, the Signs & Wonders and Church Growth video series by 
John Wimber inspired me. It challenged me to believe that God would “confirm his word by the signs that accompanied it.” [Mk 16:20] when sharing Christ with those outside the Church.
Wide-eyed, I watched people receive prayer and several being healed of various medical maladies. Soon after, Annie and I signed up to be trained in “Power Evangelism” … the adventure was on!
Within weeks of the training, several of us were in Times Square chatting with pedestrians and offering to pray with them. I’d never done anything like it before. Many entrusted themselves to Christ and even more were miraculously healed: a punctured lung, alcohol addiction, paralysis, and other conditions were remedied before my astonished eyes. What an adventure.
Returning home, fearing we might’ve left behind the ability to minister God’s power, we threw ourselves into caring for the poor in our town—bringing groceries and offering to pray for anyone about anything. People began experiencing forgiveness, freedom, restoration, and healing. Uncontrollable hemorrhaging, severe infections, cancers, spinal meningitis was healed. Each encounter was a new adventure. We were walking in brand new territory. Biblical, but new.
Someone suggested we throw a Christmas Day banquet for the homeless, the poor, and those with no place to go. Without the time or resources, we leapt at the chance. People from all over town donated turkeys, hats, coats, and mittens, the use of a commercial kitchen, and a community center to hold it in. Adventures like this invigorate everyone. It’s now an annual event—where thousands are fed, clothed, and loved.
A couple years ago, somebody decided to “blow up” Vacation Bible School– realizing that by having it at a church almost all who attended were churched kids. That first year, against all odds, “VBS” happened in almost 30 locations off the church campus in parks, garages, driveways, community centers, and back yards across Orange County.
Of the nine hundred kids who took part, more than 70% were unchurched.
Adventures like this aren’t easy, comfortable, or predictable. When you are trusting God and taking leaps for the benefit of others—especially those who are not Christian—you are “living as Jesus lived” [I Jn 2:6] Jesus, in his humanity, got to trust the Father as he took risks—with the woman at the well, Lazarus, the Gadarene, etc, etc. He lived the adventurous life.
What about you?
