Out of Line

for the Hanford Sentinel

Most everyone has heard of the story of David and Bathsheba even if they don’t know the details. It is one of the more intriguing stories in the Old Testament because it has all the classic elements that make stories so engaging — adultery, murder, deception and more.

To grossly oversimplify, King David committed adultery with the wife of one of his lieutenants, and when she became pregnant he had him killed to cover it up. After the death of the lieutenant, David then married Bathsheba, but the son they had conceived died in childbirth.

Honestly, there is nothing incredibly surprising about this story. It has been told and retold many times in many different ways. Almost certainly a version of the story was shown just this week on one of the soap operas on daytime television. It is one of the great tragedies of human nature and only the names are changed but there are few innocents.

And it can happen to you if you get out of line.

You may not commit adultery and you may not kill anyone, but that same nature is inside of us that was inside of David. But there is a way to protect yourself against it. The clue is found in Second Samuel chapter eleven verse one, right at the beginning of the story.

It says, “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war...but David remained in Jerusalem.” The problem was the David wasn’t where he should have been. Instead of being on the front lines with his army, he chose to enjoy the trappings of his success by staying safely within his palace walls. Instead of doing the thing that made him successful, he was relaxing by the pool. He was out of line.

In can happen to any of us! Whenever we attain a measure of success in our lives—in a relationship, at work, in our marriage, at school—we can make the mistake of stopping too long to enjoy the view. It is always wonderful to celebrate success, but when we stop and build a monument and begin to believe that we have “earned” the right to stay in the palace....that’s when we are headed for trouble.

We all have a part to play in this world. God has a plan and a purpose for our lives. When we stay connected to our purpose and walk in line with what Father God has designed us to do, then we are actually protected from certain temptations. It is not that we are never tempted, everyone is. But when we are in step with God, then it is much more difficult for the Enemy to draw a bead on us.

So the question is, “Where are you out of line?” Where are you putting yourself in danger? Where have you stopped doing the things that you know you should be doing, but you have talked yourself out of doing them? Don’t delay too long, or else you will pay!

This weekend, the pastors in Kings County would love to help you keep “in line” with Father God. Why don’t you bring your family to church this weekend?

Leadership Thought: A Leader Must Breed Leaders

One of the challenges of leadership is to find and develop people on your team who refuse to buy into a role of passivity. I have seen this play out on teams all the time. The senior leader is deferred to because "he is the leader."

A little bit of deference is not a problem. But what begins to happen is that instead of making decisions, bringing developed vision and moving forward aggressively as a peer, people on the team abdicate these roles to the leader. So it becomes the senior leader's sole responsibility to make decisions that are not necessary for her to make and, further, she begins to play into this role. A healthy team is composed of leaders that bring all they have to the table. If there is disagreement, so be it (and usually all the more for the better). The senior leader recognizes that her role does not mean that she is the smartest person in the room but is rather the person tasked with making the final decision. There must be a decision maker or else very little gets done effectively (this is why leadership by committee is such dismal failure in so many cases).

A truly effective leadership team is made up of a group of co-equals with a variety of strengths and abilities. These giftings and strengths must be individually recognized and respected. The team must not be allowed to fall into the quagmire that is paternalism, dictatorship, authoritarianism or whatever you want to call it. The senior leader must refuse this role. The team must recognize that to push this role onto the leader is to cop-out of their responsibility and to ultimately damage the team's effectiveness. To play into these unhealthy roles creates a form of top-down leadership that breeds discontent among team members. There might be effectiveness in decision making, but because there is withholding going on around the table, team members become disenfranchised and frustrated. If left undealt with, then the teams effectiveness is severely compromised and its longevity limited.

To avoid this, some have adopted an alternative leadership model that involves consensus among the team. I believe this is not an effective response and is actually a failure to see the true nature of the problem. Consensus leadership seeks to take the pressure off of the senior leader by widening the decision making responsibility to include more team members. This method does succeed at lessening the psychological pressure on the senior leader, and it does avoid the dictatorship scenario, but it also results in a team that will never reach its true potential.

It is not that consensus forming is not important in a team, for it is vital. But to suggest that it is the goal is to miss the point. The goal is to create a team environment where everyone around the table is actively engaged and carrying the load apropos to each specific skill set, gifting and level of authority. Therefore a leader must constantly fight against the innate tendency of her team to "deify" the leader. This god-making tendency is within all humanity. It is a conflicted and ultimately destructive process. Humans know that no fellow human is perfect enough to hold a position of absolute leadership for very long before self-destructing in some way. And yet we enshrine our leaders and treat them as if their decrees are absolute (all the while knowing they are not).

We play this game until there is such a disconnect between the senior leader's decrees and the reality of the situation that we either determine to break association with the leader or dethrone her. This is what the Greeks did with their military heroes after they became to powerful (of course the power was freely given by the populace).

What we need are leaders who recognize that everyone sitting around the table is called by God and has a vital and important role to play. Further, we need leaders who see themselves in this light. Leaders like these are not threatened by the giftings and anointing of their fellow leaders. Leaders like these are also not content with sitting idly by waiting for the "one anointed senior leader" to give them a directive.

Who are You Becoming?

for The Hanford Sentinel

Life has a way of lulling us to sleep if we are not careful. Oh, we may not be completely unaware of the things going on around us, but we are such creatures of habit that we can easily find ourselves stuck in a routine. Our routines are so dear to us that many times we will do all we can to preserve them without considering whether they are even worth preserving.

As humans, we take comfort in our routines. We find they give us stability in a world that is constantly changing. They are one piece of our lives where we are able to exercise some measure of control when so much feels out of control.

The problem is that routines reinforce behavior and solidify character. This fact can work for us or against us depending on our routine (because not all routines are bad). For example, if part of your daily routine is to take time to talk with your spouse in a way that connects with her heart, that habit that you are forming is going to cause you to feel out of sync if you don't have that conversation. It is also going to build in you patience and a sensitivity to her needs.

On the other hand, if your routine is to always nitpick or get into an argument with your coworkers or simply be unhappy with whatever is going on in your life, then you are creating a habit that is little by little making you into a person who is a bitter nag who no one wants to be around.

I don't know what your routines are, but I do know that your routines are making you into a certain kind of person. The question that we must ask is, are you becoming the person who God wants you to be? Are your habits taking you closer to or farther away from the Father?

We are spiritual creatures. God has made us that way. Everything we do has a spiritual component, whether we like it our not. Every action, every decision and every thought forms our soul just a little bit. This process is so gradual it often goes unnoticed. But little by little we are becoming more and more of the kind of person we are creating ourselves to be.

So today, take a moment and look at your habits. Ask yourself if you keep doing the things you are doing in your life, where are you going to end up? Are you headed towards being a kinder, more loving, more joyful person? Or are you headed in a different direction? Are you cooperating with Father God and allowing Him to work within you, or are you ignoring His still, small Voice and sleeping right through the lessons He wants to teach you?

This weekend the pastors of Kings County would love to help you get some good habits started. Why don’t you get your family together and take them to church! You might just set yourself on a path towards a wonderful future!

Breaking Growth Barriers in Churches

As a church grows, the internal dynamics of the congregation change and so must the leadership style of the pastor as well as the systems within the church. Since a church is an organism as well as an organization, there are balances that must be maintained within the system or else it will not be able to reach its potential. Just as a growing plant must have the right balance of light, water, heat and carbon dioxide, so too a church must have the right balance of leadership styles, structures, outreaches and care (among other things).

I was recently asked to compile a list of material having to do with breaking growth barriers and the dynamics of a growing church for a pastor of a growing church in Mexico. My list was as follows:

• How to Break Growth Barriers: Capturing Overlooked Opportunities for Church Growth
  
• The Everychurch Guide to Growth: How Any Plateaued Church Can Grow
  
• Breakout Churches: Discover How to Make the Leap
  
• anything by Lyle Schaller, Charles and Win Arn (these are older but good material) and Gary McIntosh
  

After sending this list off, I came across a much better list at DJ Chuang's site entitled the Dynamics of Different Church Sizes.