The faith of a child

It was about 25 years ago and Yellowstone National Forest had been burning for months leaving vast tracts of land barren and charred. My son and I were driving in Northern Minnesota and he was agonizing over that fire. Suddenly he folded his little hands squeezed shut his eyes and prayed, "Jesus would you stop the fire?" That night it snowed in Yellowstone and the fire was extinguished.

Coincidence? I won't attempt to answer that question but Jon knew in his heart that God could do anything He chose to do and in his innocence and faith he simply asked God to stop this enormous fire and God did.

Jesus loved the faith of children because it is so simple compared to the sophisticated faith of adults - so sophisticated that we often do not believe that God could or would do those things that we might ask for. Our innocence and simple faith has been lost, replaced by our complex ideas of who God is and how He acts. And as a result our prayers are often prayers of greater unbelief (He won't answer this) than they are prayer of simple faith and belief.

When at about four I invited Jesus to come into my heart and forgive my sin, I had no doubts that He had done just that. When I prayed for his help I knew that He would help. In my innocence I simply believed promises I knew to be true and that He was who He said He was. It was a wonderful, simple, profound, faith unclouded by doubts and all my rationalist thinking.

Jesus said, "Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3). He desires that our faith be simple and profound, simply believing His promises and His forgiveness and His presence.

As a theologian, I know many nuances of theology. As a follower of Jesus I desire to have the innocent, simple, profound, believing faith of a child. These are not antithetical to one another. In fact, they are the trust of a child to a father.

Agreeing and disagreeing agreeably

Healthy relationships, healthy leadership and healthy teams are built on a culture of high trust and a culture of high trust requires the ability to engage in honest dialogue about important ministry and missional issues.

Honest dialogue, however, requires the ability to agree and disagree with those we work with without our agreement or disagreement affecting our relationship. In fact, in a healthy organization or team, honest dialogue is always of high value and encouraged because it is in the give and take of ideas, options and alternatives that a team will come to the best solutions.

In a healthy organization, opinions and ideas are seen as neutral, designed to get the team or organization to the best solution.

As neutral, they are not good or bad, they are simply puzzle pieces on the table that may or may not fit the final picture but which need to be considered. Because they are neutral entities, it is not necessary to see disagreement as bad or a challenge to us because we are simply trying to fit the puzzle pieces together in the best configuration. Thus it is not about me or you but about which solution is best for the team and its mission.

Where this breaks down is where a team member so holds their solution or idea as the right one that it is no longer a neutral option but becomes to them to only right option. Someone who must get their own way displays unhealthy emotional intelligence (EQ) and they infuse what should be a neutral option for the group to consider into a more charged issue of what is right (my way) or wrong (the other way). Once this dynamic occurs, trust is damaged for the give and take of options is no longer possible without a fight over right and wrong, rather than over different options.

This often happens on church boards where individuals with strong convictions insist that their way is the right way and what should be an agreeable discussion of options becomes instead a conflictual discussion of options where their is no way to resolve the issue without conflict because someone has drawn hard and fast lines that must either be followed or the conflict will continue.

In these cases, whether on a team or a board, what should be a discussion of neutral ideas and issues designed to get you to the best solution has instead been hijacked by an individual (well meaning or not) who has a personal agenda. Personal agendas hurt group process and decision making because there is no longer the ability to dispassionately discuss ideas and issues. They have now been infused with what is "right" or "wrong."

Those who believe that honest dialogue toward shared solutions means that they can fight for their personal agenda (the way it should be) misunderstand what healthy dialogue looks like. In fact, unless they can grow in their understanding of the give and take of ideas and issues toward a common solution, they do not belong on a team or a board because their agendas will sabotage the process, and damage trust because there is no longer a way to agree and disagree agreeably.

Remember, in a healthy organization, options and ideas are seen as neutral, designed to get the team or organization to the best solution. They are pieces of a puzzle that may or may not end up in the final picture and should be seen as valid options without being infused by personal agendas. Where a team member cannot do that, they don't belong on the team!

When one is hemmed up by their job

It is a common problem in the workplace: leaders who micromanage and control, leaving good people feeling disempowered, hemmed in and not trusted. Consider these true scenarios:

• A supervisor tells their staff that every email they send must be copied to them so they know "everything" that goes on
• Staff members know that most of their planning will be revised by their leader
• Nothing can happen without the approval of the supervisor
• Last minute changes to ministry plans by a leader continually complicate the life of a staff member
• Leaders change their minds from week to week on strategy leaving staff members unsure of where they need to go
• Staff members are publicly criticized for decisions they have made
• There is an unspoken rule that staff cannot speak their minds on issues they feel strongly about if their opinion is not in sync with their leader
• Staff are given responsibility but not the authority to do what they need to do

Actions like the above violate good people who are not released to use their full potential. They also convey an attitude of mistrust (why else would one need to control or micromanage). Lack of trust translates into major dysfunction on teams and within ministries.

There are many leaders who believe that to lead means to tell people what to do and how to do it. What they don't understand is that people may do what they ask but out of fear rather than out of trust. Those who respond out of fear rarely have great respect for their supervisor.

If you are in the spot of being hemmed in what do you do? The first suggestion is the hardest but it is to be candid with your supervisor by telling them that when they exhibit certain behaviors it makes you feel like.... and describe the feeling. In the best case scenario, you are talking to someone who is reasonable and does not understand how their actions affect you. Help them understand how you feel when they hem you in and what you would prefer their response to be

It often takes one courageous individual to carefully but honestly put an issue on the table so that the "elephant in the room" is named and therefore cannot live in the dark anymore.

It is often helpful to read as a team, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. It can stimulate honest dialogue around issues that confront the team and hopefully bring some necessary change.

There are some leaders who will not listen, do not understand and whose narcissistic tendencies (yes even in ministry) simply continue to cause pain. Those who disagree are marginalized and find themselves without any influence whatsoever. It is a painful place to be.

My advice in that case? Leave when you can for the sake of your own emotional and ministry health. Find a leader who is empowering and healthy and you will feel like the walls that hemmed you in are gone. I spent time with one who did just that this week and it has made all the difference in the world for them. Life is too short to work for unempowering leaders who control, micromanage or marginalize good people.

The glue that holds good teams together

It is a fun game: how many cards can we stack on top of another until the house of cards comes down.

In real life, it is more serious - for leaders and team leaders. The measure of our leadership is not what happens when we are leading but what happens when we leave. Does what we built hang together and continue to flourish or does it come apart like a house of cards?

Some leaders build their team or organization on the force of their personality but once they are gone the glue is gone - the cards fall. Other, wiser leaders build their team or organization on values and principles and good people. When they are gone, the values, principles and good people remain and the organization or team continues strong. These leaders have not built a house of cards but a team of strength.

If you are a leader here is a question you should ask. If I disappeared today, what would happen? Would the direction and effectiveness continue in spite of my absence or would it flounder and come apart? In too many cases the reality is the latter rather than the former.

True team and organizational strength is built on a commonly held mission, set of guiding principles, central ministry focus and a carefully built culture that is held, believed in and practiced by everyone. It is in their bones, not just in their leader because their leader has brought alignment around beliefs and practices not around their personality or authority. One builds true long term stability while the other builds temporary but weak alignment.

The mission clarifies what you are about. The guiding principles clarify how you go about doing what you are about. The central ministry focus clarifies what you must do day in and day out to succeed and the culture clarifies the ethos that you are committed to creating. These are the four most important questions every leader answers for their team or organization and they are the glue that holds people together for maximum alignment and ministry passion.

Missional glue is far more powerful than the glue of one's personality - especially if one wants to build something that has influence beyond their time in leadership. It is also a sign of a humble leader when they build around a set of principles and values and a clear mission, rather than themselves. After all it is not about us but the mission God has entrusted to us. 

If you want help in building a ministry based on those principles that will last, read Leading From the Sandbox. It contains the secrets of clarifying those things that are most important for your team or organization. It will take you from a house of cards to a house intentionally built to last.

The leadership discipline of paying attention

It was a few years ago that an American submarine off of Hawaii managed to blow to the surface and smash into a Japanese fishing boat. Note to self: before surfacing, put up the periscope and look around! Carefully!

Healthy leaders pay close attention to what is going on around them. They regularly look around, ask questions, look in the closets and drawers as it were to understand the climate, mood, realities and issues that their team or organization faces.

Not to do so is to invite unhappy surprises! A pastor realizes one day that his staff have gone south on him and he has a coup on his hands (it happens). An organizational leader finds out that members of their board are unhappy. A team leader realizes that a staff member is undermining him or her in an unhealthy way. Or, something is going on that has the potential to create a crisis - like the submarine taking out the hull of the fishing vessel.

Organizational or team culture requires vigilance and care. Leaders who ignore threats to the culture are likely to pay a price for their lack of attention. The submarine captain lost his job!

I have watched leaders ignore significant staff discontent or lack of alignment because they didn't want to face an unpleasant reality. In the end they lost leadership capital because it was obvious to staff that their leader was not dealing with real issues in the organization that needed attention.

Some leaders are so self absorbed that they are clueless to what is actually going on around them. Then they feel betrayed when they realize that a collision has occurred. If they had been looking around and paying attention, they would not have been surprised.

Wise leaders ask questions and look for honest feedback in order to understand where people are at. Leaders who are threatened by honest feedback don't and find out what is going on the hard way.

Organizational culture and health is one of the primary responsibilities of leaders. But you have to look around and know what is on the water! Keep your periscope up and avoid surprises.

The right questions are more powerful than the right answers

Those who supervise others are often tempted to give answers to issues that arise in their conversations. It is often a mistake as it does not help the staff member think through the issues themselves.

It is far better to ask the right questions than to give the right answers. The right questions cause all of us to think, to focus and to evaluate. Those who ask us the best questions are those who often have the most influence in our lives.

Our natural instinct is to tell not to ask. Next time you are tempted to give an answer ask a question instead. An answer puts a period on the conversation. A question opens up a conversation. And, it causes people to think.

Uncluttering our lives

I often reflect on the prodigious output of individuals like Calvin and Luther who wrote in a day when there were no typewriters, computers, electricity or study aids. How did they do what they did?

The truth is that their lives were much more uncluttered than ours. Uncluttered by ubiquitous email, by cell phones, by television and the Internet, easy travel or the unending options we have for how we spend out time at work or at play.

Often, our conveniences become our challenge. Clutter is how I think of all the emails, communication, media, travel obligations, paperwork and meetings. Not that some of these are not important but because they are not all equally important, but we often treat them that way, to our detriment and frustration.

A personal goal of mine is to unclutter my life so that I don't live in the frustration of too much to do or the lack of time to do what I really should be doing well.

Consider:

Email screams at us to respond. I set aside a specific time to go through the bulk of my email so that it does not distract me through the day. The delete button is wonderful. So are short replies. I respond personally to every email from my staff, but at a time that works for me. Just because others can talk to us any time does not mean that we need to respond at any time.

Paperwork is ubiquitous. I have a wonderful pile in my office that I call the six month pile. When I receive paperwork that is of questionable importance, it goes in that pile. Every six months or so I go through it and realize that 95% of it can just go in the trash. The rest I deal with. I love that pile.

Meetings waste tons of time. Lencioni's book, Death By Meeting, is a classic. I cannot control what others do but I have resolved not to waste other people's time with meetings that are unplanned, poorly run or waste precious time. Meetings are not social occasions but missional.

The cell phone is a blessing and a curse. My strategy is to answer those calls that are important (caller ID), to return other calls when it is not a distraction and to schedule phone appointments rather than to take calls at any time. I am available to those who I need to be available to but in a way that does not clutter my day.

Obligations clutter our lives. Many of those obligations are not obligations we feel but obligations others impose on us. Saying no to those things that are not necessary unclutters life and gives us breathing room for those things that are truly necessary.

Travel is time consuming. I have increasingly been turning to video meetings, even for consultations with church leaders or other organizations to save the wear and tear of travel and simplify my schedule. Sometimes being there in person is necessary. Often it is not. Video meetings can save major travel time.

Reading: Too many books, too little time. The key is to read more selectively - we will never keep up with the information out there but we need to keep up with the critical information out there.

Relationships: They are important. Uncluttering our lives gives us time for what counts more - people.

I suffer from the disease of not being able to work in a cluttered office or study. If things are not in order I feel that my life is not in order. But life itself can be cluttered as well. I am on a mission to unclutter my life. Order and the ability to concentrate on what is most important lightens the load, clears the brain and focuses my energy.

Back to Calvin and Luther: One of the greatest downsides of clutter is that it keeps us from deep thinking. And deep thinking is the key to successful living and ministry. When our clutter crowds out time to think deeply it has compromised our lives. Our business provides the illusion of importance and significance but it is only an illusion. Those who accomplish the most are those who think the most about what they do and how they do it.

How cluttered is your life and do you have a strategy to keep it simple?