Live Generously

Sorry I haven’t been posting much lately.  There has been a lot going on since I got back from my trip, and I suspect that has prevented me from thinking too deeply about things to write about.  I did want to post briefly about a message that I watched at the staff retreat I went on a few weeks ago that has had a profound effect on me.  It was given my Bill Hybels at the 2007 Willow Creek Leadership Summit, and it was on the topic of motivation.  Specifically, Hybels dealt with the how leaders can motivate themselves when they are the ones who are responsible for motivating others.  This is a significant obstacle of leadership, as it is easy to lose a step or two when you don’t have anyone spurring you on.  I am fortunate in that while I am a leader to many, I also have several superiors within my organization to whom I report that are fantastic about providing me with encouragement and motivation.  That being said, I, like everyone else, still struggle with feeling drained and unmotivated from time to time.  In the course of his message, Hybels listed ten of his personal keys to staying motivated.  They were terrific, and I should say that this message was by far the best I’ve ever heard Hybels preach.  His ten keys were (with my personal comments in italics):

1. Stay clear on calling from God- I find for myself that my moments of apathy sneak in when I allow myself to drift from the understanding that God has called me into ministry and he has called me to the specific position that I am currently in.  I believe that anyone, in any profession, can fight apathy by remembering that they are uniquely called by God for the task they are doing.

2. Leverage spiritual gifts- This is huge.  It is crucial that leaders understand what their spiritual gifts are and structure their schedules accordingly.  My top two spiritual gifts are knowledge and teaching, so I am intentional about allotting large portions of my schedule to study, sermon preparation, and meetings with individuals where I can engage in meaningful conversation.  I am particularly weak when it comes to administration, so I try to delegate administrative tasks as best I can because a) I stink at them and b) Seven24 and Overdrive suffer when I am the chief administrator.

3. Make sure players on teams are inspiring people- As a sub-point to this he said, “get people around you that give you a positive emotional jolt.” It is crucial that people in leadership are intentional about getting positive people are them.  At Seven24, I am very intentional about making sure people are serving in areas where they are passionate. My primary reason for this is to care for that specific individual, but a secondary reason is that people are more positive when they are passionate, and positive people make for a positive environment.  Bottom line, I want people around me who I like and who are positive thinkers.

4. Read the right books- He specifically suggested biographies of inspiring people.  I devoured biographies when I was a kid, but don’t read them as much anymore.  It would probably be worthwhile to look at the biographies of people ranging from Lincoln and FDR to Charles Spurgeon, A.W. Tozer, and others. I am, however, very selective in the books I read, remembering what USC president Steven Sample said at the Leadership Summit in 2004, that with every book you read you are rejecting thousands of others.

5. Rub shoulders with exceptionally inspiring people- Do you have people in your life that inspire you?  Two people that inspire me most are my college friends James and Ben (his bio is in the BFG section).  These guys both live inspiring lives and think inspiring thoughts, and being around them motivates and inspires me like few other things can.  I love being with those guys first and foremost because they are my friends, but also because they are role models.

6. Participate in inspiring events- We all need inspiring events to break us out of the doldrums every once in a while.  I’m not entirely sure what these are for me, but I know that there are certain events that fire me up in a way that is good for the soul (how’s that for vague?)

7. Pay attention to physical disciplines- He claimed that studies have shown up to a 20% energy gain in those who are physically active.  I’ve fallen into a pattern of relative slothfulness in that regard lately, and starting with the Grand Canyon I’m trying to resurrect that for the sake of my energy level and overall health.  It’s easy to completely disconnect physical condition with motivation, but there is in fact a strong link.

8. Pay attention to working environment- Here is one that I have completely ignored.  By virtually any human standard, my working environment is a mess, and it is completely my fault.  To be honest, I haven’t done much to change this since hearing the message, but it’s at least on my radar as something I ought to address.  There is something to be said for walking into a well-organized office that perhaps contains decorations that encourage motivation.  This is something I need to work on.  What is your work environment like?  Does it effect your productivity?

9. Have inspiring recreation outside of work- This one, in my opinion, relates closely to the physical discipline point.  I’m coming to realize the importance of recreation to my productivity at work, and it became especially evident to me while I was at the Grand Canyon.  My soul simply needs recreational time outdoors, and there is something about that time that inspires and motivates me.  I’m fortunate enough to have a job that I love to the point that I rarely call it ‘work’, but nonetheless I need to be disciplined about creating space for recreation (is that an oxymoron?) outside of work.

10. Practicing daily spiritual disciplines- This one I know to be true from personal experience.  When my daily spiritual disciplines go in the tank, so does my motivation level and effectiveness in ministry (go figure).  On the flip side, when my relationship with God is healthy I’m extremely motivated.  One discipline that he spoke of was what he called “saturation reflection”.  Saturation reflection consists of reading a particular passage of Scripture every day for a substantial length of time (for him it was one year). Hearing him talk about that put me over the top, as I’d been considering implementing something like that into my devotional life for some time.  I have thus been reading Colossians 3:1-17 every day for the past two weeks in an effort to have the concepts from that passage really sink in to the point where they deeply impact my life.  I have no set time frame that I’m going to continue for, but I certainly plan on reading the chapter daily, in addition to my regular Bible reading, for at least six months.  So far, it has been an absolutely amazing experience, and I highly recommend it.  Meditating deeply on that passage has not only enriched my life, but it has also deepened my passion for Bible study in general.

So those were his ten points, and needless to say I think they are good ones.  We live in the midst of a pretty apathetic world, and I suspect that Southern California is one of the more apathetic places in the country. Preaching and practicing motivation is especially crucial in college ministry I am finding, as for many these are truly ‘make or break’ years where students are deciding if they are going to strive for God’s best for them or just settle for the status quo. I found Hybels’ tips to be most helpful, and I look forward to my continued attempts to implement more of them into my daily life. Did any of Hybels’ ten tips stick out to you?  What do you do to help stay motivated?  Is motivation ever a problem for you?

This morning I spent my entire two-hour train ride from Oceanside to Los Angeles working through chapter 4 of the workbook Learning to Lead, which was an assignment due today for my Biblical Organizational Leadership class at Fuller. The chapter dealt largely with the concept of failure in leadership, an idea that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Consider the following quotation:

“For a lot of people, the word “failure” carries with it a finality, an absence of movement characteristic of a dead thing, to which the automatic human reaction is one of helpless discouragement. But for the successful leader, failure is a beginning, the springboard of hope.”

The book then took me through a variety of questions that encouraged me to recall failure in my own life. I thought about times when I’ve failed, times when others have told me I failed, and how I felt in those sorts of situations. The overall idea of the chapter was to learn to embrace failure as a type of growing experience that, when properly understood, can in fact be a sort of springboard to hope.

I’m inclined to think that in society at large we suffer from being failure averse. That’s not necessarily a bad thing (I don’t recommend pursuing failure), but what is destructive is the fact that as a society all too often we are conditioned to be unwilling to admit failure.

Instead, whether from a personal or organizational level, there is tremendous social pressure to always have things together, to never admit weakness, and always show how we’re better than our competitors (yes, I realize I’m straw-manning here, but hopefully it makes sense).

That sort of thinking has crept its way into the church, and I believe it is wildly destructive. There is pressure to always present one’s church, book, article, ministry, small group, whatever as good, better, and best. Self-promotion within the church is nothing short of an epidemic, and I believe it compromises authenticity in leadership.

I would suggest that one of the most valuable skills a leader can have is the ability to comfortably be authentic with those whom he or she leads. Rather than leading from pressure to be perfect, a Christian leader ought to lead from a position of humility and dependence. When we fail, instead of trying to cover it up, we should be comfortable enough with ourselves and those we lead to be able to own it. Perhaps we can even laugh about it. Furthermore, it is my deep conviction that leaders ought to be completely honest with those who they lead. At my church I have the privilege of working with two very talented young worship leaders on a regular basis. I’ve worked a little bit with both of them on helping them get more comfortable speaking to the congregation in between songs. One thing I’ve made clear to them is that at our services we will not, under any circumstances, tolerate people saying things from the stage that are designed to elicit a reaction out of people. I simply can’t stand that sort of inauthenticity. For that reason I’ve told both of them, “don’t say what you think is going to get a reaction out of people…speak from your heart.” I should note that both of them do a very good job of speaking from their heart, something that is difficult when getting used to speaking in front of people. Such speaking and self-disclosure forces any leader to lead from a place not of self-promotion and pride, but of authenticity and humility. It allows for failure, and it allows a leader to admit that his or her program maybe isn’t the biggest or the best and that’s ok. It also, in my opinion, encourages increased dependence on God.

To be honest, I don’t want the pressure of trying to prove how great my church or ministry is all the time. Also, at the end of the day, I don’t really care what people think of Seven24, because we’re not trying to convert people to Seven24, we’re trying to help them know, understand, and authentically follow Jesus. If God sees fit to let Seven24 play a part in helping people do that, what a humbling honor that is. I also don’t want the pressure of trying to always look cool and relevant. I’d much rather be authentic. It may not always be popular, but at least it will allow me to sleep at night knowing I’m being faithful in being who God made me to be. The great irony, that I’ve noticed, is that often when churches abandon authenticity in the name of appearing ‘cool’ or ‘relevant’, it is then that they unfortunately become uncool and irrelevant.

For leaders out there, do any of you feel pressure to ‘put on the happy face’ and promote yourself or your ministry? To what degree should the church consciously pursue ‘relevance’? Am I totally off base in what I’m saying? For others, do you want that sort of a leader? Are you uncomfortable with a leader admitting failure? I’d appreciate any other thoughts you might have…and sorry that this post is all over the place.