Tuesday, June 29, 2010

How to lead when you are scared to death...

How do successful leaders lead when the place they are leading their followers scares them to death?


1) They keep their eye on the finish line.


I think one of the greatest leaders of all time was George Washington our first president. But before he was president he was an officer in the army. At this point the United States of America was just a vision, a dream of our founding fathers. George Washington did not have an experienced group of soldiers, he did not have an intelligence network, he did not have anything at his disposal but a group of rag tag frontiersman who were used to going it alone, and a bunch of soft city dwellers who probably couldn't tell you which end of a long gun to put the powder in. But even though the odds were against him, George Washington kept his eyes on the prize. The crossing of the Potomac is my favorite George Washington picture. In it George is in the front of the boat, foot on the gunwhale ready to be the first to jump to shore. He was not steering the boat, there was better men to do that. He was not rowing the boat, there were better men to do that. He was standing lookout, ready to spring into action when the unseen became known. He was staring at the finish line, independence.


2) They think of themselves as less than others.


It has been told many time about a leader giving himself up for his men. Great leaders think of others first before themselves. Recently one of the ships sailing around the horn of Africa fell prey to pirates as they boarded the ship and took it over. The Captain requested that the pirates take him captive and let all of his other men go. That takes guts!! You have no guarantee that you are going to make it through, no guarantee that your captives won't mistreat you or even worse take you life. There is only one guarantee in that situation, your men will be freed. A great leader thinks about other first than his or herself.



3) Great leaders lend a helping hand.

I think Nehemiah in the Bible was a great leader. He was able to not only lead those that followed him from Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem's walls but he was also able to rally the ragged, miserable outcasts who lived within Jerusalem's broken down walls. These people were not living in houses but under the stones that had fallen when the city was sacked by the Babylon army. Nehemiah was able to form a cohesive group out of people who had been living in captivity in Babylon and the remnants of Israel who still lived among the burned out walls of Jerusalem. Even when those around him rose up to oppose his objective of building the wall he was able to hold together every faction at his disposal. How could he accomplish that? I believe that Nehemiah did not just organize the wall building, but that he got his hands dirty actually building the walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah jumped right in to lend a helping hand to rebuild the walls of Jersusalem. Great leaders don't just organize and delegate, they get down and dirty in the trenches with those that follow them.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Scared Spitless...

We got a call from my in laws last Friday that our nephew is being diagnosed with Luekemia. Yeah it was a shock to us as well. He is the same age (well 6 months older) than my youngest son. He and his family are part of my church body and his mother is a staff Pastor. And this just frankly stinks that he is going through this.
The Bible tells us that it rains on both the godly and the ungodly and that means both good and bad. But many people tell us that as Christians we are exempt from trials. Oh not so fast... we are not exempt but we do have a power to lean on.
Jesus said that we can cast our troubles on him, that he will supply all of our needs, and that no weapon formed against us shall prosper.
Well my church has decided to stand on those promises, to pray and intercede for a miracle in this young ones life. There is a passage of scripture that talks how JESUS did not do any miraculous things while he was in his hometown. Was he weak from doing miracles, did his miracleometer run out? No, he did not do any miracle because the people of his hometown did not believe. Well we are believing for a miracle, no matter what report we might receive.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Father's Day

Well yesterday was "officially" Father's Day, but really today is my 18th anniversary of Father's Day. 18 Years ago I was blessed with a baby girl on Father's Day in 1992. She was my first child and with her being born on Father's Day it made it that much more special. But today I am sitting here realizing that I have a young woman's birthday to celebrate today. She graduated high school earlier this year, has her first car, and is off to college in a few months. She is legally an adult today. Wow, I am getting really old.
My associate pastor just celebrated his first Father's Day yesterday, although his daughter was not born on Father's Day, she was just a few weeks early, I thought to myself as I saw him walk into church with that baby in his arms that just a short time ago I was in his shoes.
It seems like only yesterday we were learning how to bathe, feed, burp and change diapers on this small little helpless infant that joined our family. She was so fragile, so defenseless, so tiny. Now she is not so fragile, not so defenseless and not so tiny. It probably won't be too long when she will find someone to spend the rest of her life with, and they too will begin the process of begining a family. Then there will come a day when I will get to celebrate Grandfather's Day...
OK now I officially feel old...
So Dads, as we remember Father's Day, remember, it will be gone before you know it, and that bundle you once carried home will be placing a new bundle in your arms...

Friday, June 18, 2010

My first accident...

Well I have been driving now for 25 years. In that time my wife has had a few accidents.
Before we were married she actually hit a motor home. I was like, wow that's pretty bad and it got worse when I found out the motor home wasn't moving!! Then she hit a cow in the head with the mirror of my car and later in the same car got backed into by a 4x4 pickup that knocked the grill almost off. So here was this car with a missing mirror, a damaged grill but still driveable. Well she was sitting at a stop sign when a semi ran over her back end. Yep went right over the backside of the car. So for the last many years neither of us had an accident. So I got to tell the horrifying stories of HER accidents and laugh at her. Well all of that changed on Tuesday.
I was in a rental car in Birmingham Alabama and was hit in the driver's side door by a Toyota Yaris. I saw her coming, braking hard and all I could do was BRACE FOR IMPACT!!
Damage was minimal, the door was smushed in and the front of her car wore a piece of my door in her bumper but all in all both drivers were fine. Air bags did not deploy so it was not that big of a crash. But it ruined my record.
Now I have been involved in an accident. Yep my spotless record is now tainted, no longer can I point my judgemental finger at my wife and imply she is a bad driver. Now when I feel the need to laugh at her expense I can't point the finger because I will have three others pointing back at me.
Many have asked if anyone was hurt, and thankfully no one was. Really nothing was damaged that could not be repaired, other than my perfect driving record. Oh well it was a good 25 years.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Whew, who knew?

When I think of hard things to do, work out wise, I think of iron man type things. Like bench pressing a truck, doing deep squats with 500 pounds, running five miles. Of course that is because I am a couch potato. Sometimes I don't even get up off the couch to run to the fridge because it is too far. Anyway I digress.
This weekend we had somewhat of an adventure including riding ATVs over hazardous terrain, rope swings and canoeing. Who would have thought those activities would put my body on life support today.
First my fingers don't work properly. I am pretty sure it was the rope swing as I went to grab a spoon this morning and my finger joints almost locked up. It was a pretty easy thing, just climb this tree (that was the hard part) and grab this rope above a knot and swing out holding onto the rope and then drop in the water. Well when gravity takes over, well watch out, first swing the adrenaline was pumping, I was sure I would end up in a coma or at the bottom of the lake so I hung on with dear life, some on the bank began to point and yell like those people on the Godzilla movies. "HE'S COMING BACK!!!" The second time the fingers just did not have the adrenaline to hold on, so the rope whip up between my legs, (yes painful) and burned through my fingers as I plumetted off the platform into the water, not near as graceful or as far out as the first time.
Secondly, I went to close the sliding door of the van and the muscles behind my arms and my shoulders cried out in such agony I actually looked behind me to see where the sound was coming from. From there I gathered that the canoe trip we took on the river had itself taken a toll on my upper body. My shoulders and back seem to want to stay in the hunched over position, although swing the paddle back and forth they are not so cool with. It was not like we took a forty mile trip, we were gone less than two hours, and did not travel that far. Actually I think my wife paddled more than I did. Something about splashing her while I paddled made her tell me to stop paddling.
Thirdly, I leaned to the left to pick up a book that had fallen and found that the muscles on the sise of my body and the back of my thighs have recently engaged in some activity that made their presence known. I think it was the ATVing, we were riding some pretty rugged areas so your were always leaning this way and that ducking tree limbs or just trying to keep your seat in the saddle. Apparently my thighs were gripping that gas tank like Suzzanne Summers and the thighmaster. Well at least I did not fall off of course the dents in the tanks made by my knees was a little embarassing.
So here I lay on the couch in utter agony from a little weekend adventure, I wonder if my wife would get me something from the kitchen...

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Songwriting is like life...

In so many ways. Most times the best songs are written about true life events. I have written a few songs in the last year and it is really hard work. Most of them were just poetry that we put a rythm and melody to. But I am working on one right now that was a scary time in my life and I am finding my emotions are getting the best of me. Everytime I sit down to write I remember things about those days and it all comes flooding back, the fear, the uncertainty, the grief and I seem to relieve those days all over again. It is almost enough to put that song away and forget about it. But then the story would not be told and the glorious ending would never be found out.
Life is kind of like that, we live through hard times in our lives and we would rather forget them than relive them. But when we do we fail to get to share in the triumphs that come out of the hard times.
So as your life is lived out loud in front of others, sometimes we need to relive those hard times to let the triumphs truely sing out.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

10% inspiration, 90% persperation...

I think we sometimes get those things backwards. We think to really accomplish something it takes 90% inspiration and 10% persperation. Reality shows us that the inspiration part is sometimes the easiest, the real work is in what comes after the inspiration.
I see people fall into that pit everyday, who am I fooling, I fall into that pit daily too. Each and every day I have great ideas. Songs to write. Books to pen. Bathrooms to remodel (hey I am getting really close on that one, of course it was about 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration). And even though we know the 10/90 rule we always seem to get it backwards.
Mark Batterson always says, "plan as if it depends on GOD, but work as if it depends on you". That will preach in most churches I have been in.
So how do we go from the 10% of inspired thinking to the 90% of the grunt work? We just have to do it.
As a young man I worked on my grandfather's farm during the summers and almost every weekend till we moved away. At grandpa's farm, there is always work to be done. I remember one day we had an especially nasty job to do. We had some cattle who needed to be cared for. This amounted to injecting antibiotics into them, making the little bulls into steers, and de-horning those that had horns. Now the first two are no big deal, but that dehorning, that was a NASTY job. There was no way to not get bloodied, bruised and banged around when you are de-horning cattle. So I asked my grandfather, do you think we could just not de-horn the cattle. And he explained that we had to de-horn them so they wouldn't hurt each other. I asked him if there was another way we could do it where I would not get all bloody and nasty. He scratched his chin and thought for a moment and said, "well I guess we could just leave the sheers (big sharp clamps that you clip the horns off with) and the paste (a mixture of antibiotics and medicine to get the blood to coagulate) out in the field and see if the cows will cut their own horns off." I remember looking at him and thinking he really had lost his marbles. I blurted out, "grandpa, those cows can't cut their own horns off" and he replied, "well I guess that means we have to do it."
Sometimes in life we just have to do it. It won't get done unless we do it. It won't happen on its own, it won't just magically appear or even go away no matter how hard we want it to. Sometimes we just have to buckle down and prepare to PERSPIRE.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Am I the only one?

Who really doesn't care for Shrek? My wife and I saw parts of the first one when it first debuted and we walked away thinking we wasted an hour and a half of our lives.
I just did not think it was that funny, sure there were a few funny lines but I am so over the old physical gags routine that burping, passing gas and boogers just aren't funny to me.
I guess part of it is growing up with three younger brothers. When someone flips a booger at 100 miles per hour and it impacts on your forehead it just isn't funny anymore. I remember taking a nap one time and awaking to my brothers backside right in my face. Yep he did it. And burping, well one of my brothers CAN burp his ABC's and sing that little diddy right at the end too. You know the one, now will you sing with me? Well he inserts "burp" in the sing part.
And then I had kids. Yep nose residue (ie Boogers) and all those other icky bodily functions I had to deal with as Dad. It becomes no fun after a while, actually it begins to grate on you. "Didn't I just wipe your nose?" I think I needed to hook the shop vac up sometimes and just attach it to the kid's noses and maybe just maybe I would get all that yucky stuff out at one time. And the diapers...well lets not go there. And then the kiddies get a little older and they start to do icky stuff to each other. And then Mom and Dad yell at them for doing things to their siblings that we did to ours years ago. It is the circle of life...
So Shrek I won't miss you now that your fourth film is done. My kids are almost grown up now, and I stress almost...and I am looking forward to a life without icky bodily functions happening every minute.
Ahh peace... ---Burp!!!!---and quiet.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Motivation...

I remember that old Sprite commercial with the three hip hop looking gang member dudes are shooting the commercial, talking all ghetto and such till the director yells cut and the main guy breaks into this prim and proper English and asks, "whats my motivation?".

I think of that a lot when dealing with motivation.
What I have found is this.
Any time I am motivated to do something for myself it is usually self serving, self centered and self indulging.
Any time I am motivated to do something for someone else it is usually selfless, appreciated and I get a better sense of fulfilment out of it.
Paul said that we should do all things as if we are doing them unto the Lord. There in lies all the motivation that we need to succeed in what we are doing.
I started thinking if I did everything as unto the Lord, wow, how motivated I would be to do a lot of things for him!
So tomorrow, in your cubicle, work for him. When your wife asks you to do something, do it for him to please her. When your kids need your help, help them as you would help him! It will change your life!

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Golf Tournet a Success!

Well the golf tourney went over great, well pretty good.
First started at 5:30AM when the alarm went off as we had an early morning tee time for the players. At 6AM I was running a skill saw (to the angst of my neighbors I am sure) cutting stakes for our sponsors signs. At 7:30AM we were on site getting everything together. At 8:20 we had a meeting with the players to go over the rules. At 8:30 they teed off and began play, after the teams filed past the first hole we politlely "golf clapped" each drive. And then we went and had breakfast. There was nothing else for us to do till the end!
So all in all, every team won something, some had a member win a hole challenge, long drive or putting contest. Fun was had by all and even the workers seemed to enjoy themselves in thier baby blues.
So see you next year golfers!

Friday, June 4, 2010

Overwhelmed...

Have you ever felt overwhelmed? I know I am going through it right now. Work has been non stop, the entire months of April and May I was all over the place, to give you an idea, I was in Iowa, South and North Dakota, Minnesota, Ohio and Kentucky (twice), California, Florida (three different times so you can't feel to sorry for me), and Missouri. I feel like Johnny Cash (insert "I've been everywhere man" soundtrack here). This is all for my regular job.
Now for my other job as Pastor, we have a golf tourney fundraiser slated for this Saturday to pull off, Sunday services to minister in, Monday is Berean School where I will teach on the entire Old Testament in three hours time, and then we have a staff retreat to organize for next weekend, and also TWO different firework tent fundraisers that will start in a couple of weeks. Throw in the occasional funeral service, counciling sessions, and hospital calls and it gets to piling up on you.
Oh and lets not forget being a husband and a father. I have a daughter who just graduated, another getting ready for her senior year who decided to play sports this year so we have summer softball to arrange around, a son who is playing both summer baseball and basketball, as well as youth camps, I camps, football camps, softball camps, scouting camps, PK camps and any other kind of camp you want to throw in there. Oh and my wife is wanting out bathroom done that we have been remodeling for five years now. She thinks it might be a good thing to have the second bathroom BEFORE all the kids leave the house.
So what do you do when you feel overwhelmed?
Let go... yep, do the exact opposite of what you should do.
Remember when you were a kid and got on your first roller coaster? You gripped that bar in front of you so hard you thought it was going to break in two? You were just sure when the guy let you out there would be fingerprintes embedded in the metal? After your first ride what did your more experienced roller coaster friend tell you to do? Yep, let go and raise your hands in the air. It was scarry, insane and not rational all at the same time. But the first time when you raised your hands and the coaster built up speed and you took that first downhill plunge you would never hold onto the bar again.
So when you are feeling overwhelmed, let go, relax and let GOD take care of you.
Raising your hands is optional...

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Childbirth...

My associate pastor and his wife are expecting their first child any moment now. It has been a pretty good pregnancy for both of them. She has been very active throughout the pregnancy (she was helping dig out post holes two days ago) and really has seemed to be in good shape throughout the entire nine months, fourty weeks or 280 days. So why is it since she is at the hospital that we expect that little baby to just pop out in no time flat. It seems like the last couple of days no one wants to wait for the birth. It was funny on friday that people were throwing around having a C section so it would be over. We get in such a hurry to see the completion we miss out on the glorious thing it is seeing something come to be.
We are kind of like that in life, moving from one thing to another as quick as we can and never really getting to enjoy the little miracles that happen all around us. Working so hard to get a project complete but never really relishing the finish line because we are onto the next project that needs our attention.
I know that when that baby finally makes her appearance, there will be time well spent cherishing and enjoying the moment of the miracle. And it won't just be Mom and Dad who are going to share in that accomplishment, there will be great granparents, and grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends who will all join in the celebration.
Here's to wishing that all of our accomplishments could be celebrated the same way as we wait for those things to come to completion.