Leadership Courage Series # 42 The seventh of nine leadership characteristics needed in the Church today: Disengage from an unreasonable faith in reasonableness. Let me ask you: How reasonable was Jesus when confronting opposition, faithlessness, and cowardice? Consider his arrest, in Gethsemane. Jesus is betrayed with a kiss by one of his closest confidants, an […]
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Leadership Courage Series # 41 The sixth leadership characteristic needed in the Church today is: Undermine the 80/20 Rule. 80/20 is another evidence that cowardice is thriving in much of the American Church. A week ago, my pastor announced that last year’s tithes and offerings – totaling more than $5 million – came from 15%
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Leadership Courage Series # 39 The fourth trait to lead effectively in a Church caught in a culture of cowardice: Stand, as an exemplar, in the sabotage and backlash that must come. A Christian leader is not simply someone who gets things done or who gets others to behave in desirable ways, in a religious
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Leadership Courage Series # 34 Last time, I used the phrase “do what’s right because it’s right, whether it works or not.” I learned this from a friend, who says he learned it from the Lord. His wife had lost both her parents to cancer. One after the other. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. The impact was devastating.
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Leadership Courage Series # 28 Within a larger conversation concerning courageous leadership we’ve been examining the outworking of placing “an unreasonable faith in reasonableness” – a central tenet of much of post-Enlightenment Christendom in the West. I am indebted to Edwin Freidman’s A Failure on Nerve for illuminating this characteristic of the anxious, shallow, quick-fix
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Leadership Courage Series # 24 Here’s a final look at the 80/20 Rule and its connection to the culture of cowardice in the North American Church. And, it may be hard to hear. Could it be that a distorted substitute for biblical grace has taken the Church? Consider how little the Church asks of Christians…
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Leadership Courage Series # 23 We’re looking at another characteristic of the culture of cowardice that’s become normative in North American Christianity: the 80/20 Rule is flourishing! As senior pastor, elder, or lay leader, what can you do to Undermine the 80/20 Rule in your congregation? One: Think like a people-developer, not a gatherer of
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Why is it that the Christian life is such an adventure? What has your experience been, following hard after God, as best you know? In my life, I repeatedly find myself in dilemmas that are completely beyond my ability. This was far less common before I surrendered my life to Christ. Now, it seems, the
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Leadership in a Culture of Cowardice (part ten) Where and when did the role of Pastor become so closely associated with the characteristics of terrible leadership: anemic, people-pleasing, comfort-oriented, weakness-honoring, safety-bound, consensus-collecting, approval-seeking, distress-abating caretaking? How did we get from the decisive, principle-inspired boldness of Jesus with the money-changers [Mt 21], Paul and the riot
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Leadership in a Culture of Cowardice (part five) If the Church in North America is to become fully alive, awake, and influential, her pastors must become what they were always intended by God to be. Courageous leaders. What does it mean to live and lead courageously, particularly amidst a culture of cowardice? Here’s a quick
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