You win at life and leadership by doing the basics. How do you actually do them? Well, first you need to know what the basics of life and leadership are. For my vocation, I have distilled out five essential habits for Christian leadership. They are: Daily prayer Weekly exercise Evening routine Weekly Sabbath Digital minimalism…
Do the basics. You nothing without the basics. So much of success in life in general, and leadership in particular, is merely doing the basics. There is a large market for sharing the latest leadership hack, trick, or steroid which will make things better or cause your church to grow. It won't happen. Anything good…
Jesus gave the church the task to "make disciples" of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20). He did not reserve the task to just a select few, however. All Christians can make disciples...that means you can make disciples! Unfortunately, many pastors and books make discipleship seem complicated. It's not. Here is a practical guide for how to disciple…
Some Old Testament texts seem harsh, even morally backwards to society today. But if you want people to listen to you on your own terms (and not put words in your mouth), shouldn't you also extend the same courtesy to others? It's just the Golden Rule of Listening: listen to others as you want to…
Here are some scattered thoughts about how the book Team of Teams applies to LBC. 1. Focus on structure and culture of the church. Don't worry about creating a "top down" org chart, those are terrible anyway. Try to visualize the "web" of relationships between the ministry. Leaders must be "crafters of culture." What kind of…
People waste a lot time at work. Too often, they end up doing things which don't really matter. The authors of 4DX wants leaders to reclaim their time and and purpose by focusing on Wildly Important Goals (WIGs). WIGs are the one or two things which really drive results for an organization. However, leaders often give in…
General Stanley McChrystal wrote Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World to recount how the Joint Special Operation Task Force evolved into a new kind of organization. In 2003, McChrystal came to a startling revelation: they were losing. Even though the US forces were better trained, better resourced, and far more expansive,…
So much of Christian leadership is just doing the basics. So much of success in life is just doing the basics. For example, we all know that we need to get a good night's sleep in order to do good work and be effective. Yet people can neglect their sleep, watching Netflix in bed on an…
Why do some great ideas fail? Simply put: there's too much talk and not enough walk. Some organizations are really good at writing down a strategy but much less effective at actually implementing it. The greatest plans in the world mean nothing unless there's execution: actually getting the work done. But what keeps organizations from…
Church leaders love them some ministry models. They love to read about and study what other churches do and how to replicate those models in their own church. They love to debate the merits of the model. But guess what? Ministry model doesn't matter. Just about any model can be successfully implemented in a church.…