Sunday, August 21, 2011

HUMILITY: The Key to Great Leadership--Adam Jeske

A couple weeks ago John Dickson spoke at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit. Here’s what he had to say about humility that I think is a huge concept leaders must embrace for true and real Kingdom impact...

Humility is the noble choice to forgo your status and use your influence for the good of others before yourself.

Humility will not automatically make you great. And being great will not make you humble. Humility makes the great greater.


Here are five characteristics of humility:

1. Humility is common sense. None of us is an expert in everything, so we understand our limits and thus need humility. Within the Church, because the Bible trumps all other knowledge, Christian leaders sometimes think they know about topics and fields way outside their area. Actually, what we don’t know and can’t do far exceeds what we do know and can do.

2. Humility is beautiful. We are more attracted to the great and humble than to the great who know they’re great and want us to know it, too. It’s not always been so. Our research found that a humility revolution took place in the first century, stemming from Nazareth. We found it was Jesus’ crucifixion that changed how ancient people thought about humility. Crucifixion was the lowest possible ending to life. “So did Jesus’ death mean he wasn’t as great as we thought he was?” No, they decided, and they redefined greatness, through humility. Western culture has been profoundly shaped by the cross of Christ. Our culture is profoundly cruciform. Philippians 2:38 has had a profound effect.

3. Humility is generative. It leads to new ideas. Humility has been formative for scientific investigation and for business theory and practice. The humbling place is where flourishing happens.

4. Humility is persuasive. That’s because the most persuasive person is the one who you know has your best interest at heart. If someone serves you tea, you may be more easily convinced by them later because of their demonstration humility through their service.

5. Humility is inspiring. If someone is aloof, you don’t feel like you can really follow in their footsteps, as you’re too different. We just admire them. But if someone is humble and open, we feel we can be like them. They are human enough. Some of the most inspiring leaders in history had no structural authority. Jesus comes to mind.


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Saturday, August 20, 2011

A List of Top 37 Leadership Quotes from the Global Leadership Summit

Quite the list of quotes from the can't miss event at Willow Creek...which I missed this year...so I am glad for a look at these words...

1.We live in a world that’s crying out for better leadership. @billhybels
2.Nothing rocks forever. @billhybels
3.If you can’t predict the future, create it. –Len Schlesinger
4.Little bets and baby steps make all the difference. –Len Schlesinger
5.The world you see outside of you will always be a reflection of what you have inside of you. @corybooker
6.Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you say. @corybooker
7.Catalytic events are never nice, easy, or comfortable. @revdocbrenda
8.Pray for a divine mandate, name your catalytic event, mobilize people to go! @revdocbrenda
9.Competence is no longer scarce. –Seth Godin
10.I’m not a psychopath—I’m wearing a tie! –Seth Godin
11.There’s no map for being an artist. –Seth Godin
12.If it’s worth doing, why aren’t you doing it now? –Seth Godin
13.The world is begging for you to lead. –Seth Godin
14.To love is to give, to give until it hurts. –Mama Maggie Gobran
15.I’m just dumb enough to believe God can do anything. @stevenfurtick
16.If the vision isn’t overwhelming to you, it’s probably insulting to God. @stevenfurtick
17.One of the reasons we struggle with insecurity is because we are comparing our behind-the-scenes with others highlight reels. @stevenfurtick
18.If we aren’t careful we can become addicted to the narcotic of success and growth. @billhybels
19.I don’t know a single leader who ever regretted taking a tough assignment from God. @billhybels
20.May God grant that we are worthy to stand beside sisters and brothers standing in faith in the hard places. @wess_stafford
21.In silence you leave the many and are with the One. –Mama Maggie Gobran
22.We choose whether to be a nobody or a hero. –Mama Maggie Gobran
23.I would much rather deal with anger than apathy. @m_rhee
24.Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. @m_rhee
25.People are either wise, fools, or evil. You must deal with each differently. @drhenrycloud
26.It takes guts to do what leadership requires when you’re dealing with a fool. @drhenrycloud
27.Humility is the noble choice to forgo your status and use your influence for the good of others before yourself. @johnpauldickson
28.Humility is beautiful, generative, persuasive, and inspiring. @johnpauldickson
29.Enter the danger. @patricklencioni
30.People are hungry for those who will tell them the kind truth. @patricklencioni
31.Your job is not to look smart. It’s to help your team do more and better. @patricklencioni
32.The only thing worse than someone farting in a meeting is someone pretending they didn’t fart in a meeting. @patricklencioni
33.We, the Church, need to become cultivators of human potential and narrators of the human story. @erwinmcmanus
34.We need a revival of great storytelling. Whoever tells the best story wins the culture. @erwinmcmanus
35.Sometimes the truth is lost in a bad story. @erwinmcmanus
36.An ordinary human has never been born. But most of us die as tragically ordinary humans. @erwinmcmanus
37.Evil men don’t ask permission to create the future. @erwinmcmanus

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Entering Consumer Detox by Mark Powley

Loved this little piece from the book CONSUMER DETOX...isn't it what we all struggle with in so many ways almost every day?

"What I want," Lydia implored, "is for you to make me stop wanting the next summer fashion collection."

She was a young—early 20s, maybe—serious-minded Christian desperate for freedom from the shopping-mad culture all around.

I know how Lydia feels.

"Buy me!" screams the book on Amazon. "Dive in!" calls the beach from paradise on the travel advert. And the more subtle stuff, too: I desire films to help me to relax; I desire a car so I'm not restricted in my options; I desire food because—well, because it's just food. And yet all the time the "holy" guilt inside my head screams, "Desire is bad."



So what did I say to Lydia?

"No."

I said no. I can't stop her from desiring.

Why not? Because it's impossible. In fact, it's undesirable. God made you to desire. God is a desiring being. He desires you, for starters. And He made you in His image. So desire is part of who you are, and it can't be switched off.

So ... desire is good? Not exactly. Our addiction to stuff has unhealthy side effects. It doesn't truly satisfy—we have nearly three times as much stuff as our grandparents, but on average we're no happier than they were. It's not good for the planet. And it tends to make us just that much more self-obsessed.

The problem isn't the fact that we desire—it's what we desire. "Why are you working so hard and worrying so much about stuff that just isn't going to last?" Jesus asked. Don't stop desiring; desire the Kingdom. Seek that and everything else worth having will come with the bargain (Luke 12:29-34). If there's nothing at stake, our hearts are not engaged. If we're not risking anything real, our desire isn't going to follow. In other words, where your treasure is, there your heart will be.

Christianity has been called a personal relationship or a religion of the heart. But the heart is just where consumerism wants your faith to stay. It's a well-worked deal: Let God have your heart and consumer society will effortlessly take up the rest—your politics, your relationships, your finances, your fears, your habits and your imagination. Whether your Christianity is megazealous enthusiasm or chilled-out faith tourism, consumerism doesn't care. As long as your faith stays in your heart.

But Jesus wasn't interested in this kind of deal. He deliberately calls people to act in ways that evoke their desire; He calls out their heart by summoning them to action. He invites them to put their treasure where they want their heart to be.

James K. A. Smith describes this tellingly in his book Desiring the Kingdom. He writes that some practices are "identity-forming" in that they "get hold of our core desire." For instance, we may not feel that our shopping habits, film viewing and web surfing affect us that deeply, but all the while they are "grabbing hold of hearts and capturing imaginations, shaping our love and desire and actually forming us in powerful ways." To be a follower of Christ is to be on a journey where heart and life and possessions all get pulled along in the direction of the Kingdom.

So what kind of habits can reshape our desires? There are many: Sabbath worship with all our soul and strength; sharing life with other Christians; practical action for the poor, and many more. But Jesus did prescribe one particular habit to remake the desires of would-be disciples with plenty of stuff to their name: sell your possessions.

In fact, in Luke's Gospel. every time someone increases their possessions, it coincides with moving away from the Kingdom. Bigger barns, new fields, new oxen—it didn't matter what it was; their hearts were just following their newly acquired stuff. But to His followers, Jesus said "sell your possessions" and "those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples" (Luke 12:33 and 14:33).

There's no point turning this into a new law—our response should be Spirit-inspired, grace-filled and creatively unique. But this is definitely a call to action. So what could that possibly look like?

Idea one: sell your possessions. Call me a fundamentalist, but why don't we actually try what Jesus said? A few years back, I realized I had never sold anything to give the money to the poor. So I decided to make a sale—my high-tech keyboard. I can't say it didn't hurt, but I was amazed at how freeing it was. And four years later, in answer to a prayer, God gave us a piano for free. So sell something. Go crazy-sell two things.

Idea two: change tracks. A friend of mine did this. He was a successful management consultant in London, a bright guy with a bright future. But it turns out he was on a different track. At first it was just that he had an older car than most colleagues. Then he started sharing his budget with friends as a way of being accountable. Before long he negotiated a four-day week so he could serve his local church. Little steps, one thing at a time, but God was remaking the shape of his life. And where is he now? In Pakistan with his wife and kids helping to start microfinance initiatives.

It's not the destination that counts, though. It's the journey—the willingness to let the Kingdom change your desire, your habits and even the shape of your life. It begins with the smallest of steps, but where it will lead you, who can say?

Monday, August 8, 2011

25 BOOKS EVERY CHRISTIAN SHOULD READ

Here's quite the list from a new book by RENOVARE highlighting A Guide to the Essential Spiritual Classics:

1 On the Incarnation St. Athanasius
2 Confessions St. Augustine
3 The Sayings of the Desert Fathers Various
4 The Rule of St. Benedict St. Benedict
5 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri
6 The Cloud of Unknowing Anonymous
7 Revelations of Divine Love (Showings) Julian of Norwich
8 The Imitation of Christ Thomas à Kempis
9 The Philokalia Various
10 Institutes of the Christian Religion John Calvin
11 The Interior Castle St.Teresa of Ávila
12 Dark Night of the Soul St. John of the Cross
13 Pensées Blaise Pascal
14 The Pilgrim’s Progress John Bunyan
15 The Practice of the Presence of God Brother Lawrence
16 A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life William Law
17 The Way of a Pilgrim Unknown Author
18 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky
19 Orthodoxy G. K. Chesterton
20 The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins
21 The Cost of Discipleship Dietrich Bonhoeffer
22 A Testament of Devotion Thomas R. Kelly
23 The Seven Storey Mountain Thomas Merton
24 Mere Chris tianity C. S. Lewis
25 The Return of the Prodigal Son Henri J. M. Nouwen