Goodwin's expectation principle: A potential leader rises to the level of genuine expectancy of a leader he or she respects.

While wrapping up reading The Making of a Leader, Clinton speaks of the need for leaders that are continually developing themselves and others, and in the middle of the chapter he brings up Goodwin's expectation principle.  I was struck because while I have seen this principle in operation many times, I'm not sure that I have ever seen this principle stated so succinctly.

I am fortunate enough to have been able to watch several strong leaders during my developmental years and one of the enduring lessons was the ever present need for the leader to see with eyes of vision and faith that which the follower could not see for themselves.  Time and again, a leader who could see more in the follower then they could see in themselves, would result in that developing leader stepping into roles and giftings they never anticipated.  

Aftertall, isn't this the way God operates?  If anyone can see potential in us that we believe is not only not present, but not possible — it is God.  

I have to ask myself, how often I have failed to look at others with eyes of faith and helped them see what they could not.

Burned Out on Church

Periodically I will talk with people who are burned out on church.  I'm not referring to the people that are dissatisfied with their current church and are contemplating going somewhere else (statistics say that this is approximately 10% of any congregation), but rather the people that are really, really burned out on church.  

These people are so burned out that they don't even want to go to church anymore.  They see church as full of politics, hypocrisy and judgment.  Many of these people still love God but they don't love His church anymore.

Barna talks about a whole segment of the population that is pursuing Christianity outside the walls of any traditional church.  I would guess that there is a segment of this population that are burned out, but there are a number of them that are just trying something different.

Whenever I talk with these people, it saddens my heart.  They have lost a love for the Church, the bride of Christ.  There is no doubt that church is full of all the things they say.  But the problem is that there is no other bride of Christ.  There is no other place that Christ has set up on earth — no other institution that functions like the church.  

Where are we to go?  There is no other place.  

Pre-made Opinions

Tonight, I'm reading How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler (while watching the great movie, Buckaroo Banzai).  Adler makes the very convincing point that we altogether too often fall prey to regurgitating ready-made opinions that are fed to us by media sources.  While this idea is not revolutionary in any way, what I found interesting was the connection that he made between our belief that we are informed and wise, when we are actually just accepting pre-cooked opinions.  

Part of the difficulty with media sources is that because of the short time in which they (and we) have to transmit the information, they take pieces of information and digest them for us.  They share with us the information in a manner that makes it sound like there is really only one way to interpret the data, when it is rarely that simple.  

But what are we to do?  If we can't believe the talking heads, is the only way to do in-depth research into every subject?  Well, I don't think the answer is that difficult.  It is certainly true that understanding does not require full knowledge.  But some knowledge is necessary for understanding.  

More later perhaps.