Ambiguity is the enemy of unity

There are times when we are tempted to be ambiguous in our answers, directions or instructions. This is especially true of those who by nature want to be liked and default to telling people what they want to hear rather than what one really thinks. Or, simply trying to avoid issues that might be conflictual. It is a mistake!

Ambiguity on the part of a leader is the enemy of unity. A unified team is always based on a high degree of clarity where all involved are clear about their roles and the game plan. Ambiguity, or lack of clarity either out of carelessness or out of a desire to please everyone and avoid conflict actually creates conflict since different people hear different things or in the absence of clarity assume different things.

Conflict is a natural part of team dynamics, at least healthy conflict where differences need to be sorted out and negotiated. When leaders fail to do this out of a conflict avoidance posture, they create the very conflict that they sought to avoid only worse. And it is frustrating to staff members who find themselves at odds with others precisely because their leader was not clear in the first place.

Clarity is a friend of unity while ambiguity is its enemy.

All of T.J. Addington's books including his latest, Deep Influence,  are available from the author for the lowest prices and a $2.00 per book discount on orders of ten or more.

The Twitter principle: Simplify, clarify and focus

The twitter principle is powerful when it comes to bringing clarity, focus and simplicity to almost any endeavor. The challenge is to clearly state your case in 140 characters or less. That forces one to simplify, clarify and focus!

Take, for instance the mission I lead, ReachGlobal. With 550 personnel working with scores of partnerships that touch nearly 100 countries there is obviously complexity involved. Yet we can clarify our purpose in the space of a tweet: We develop, empower and release healthy national leaders in order to see transformational churches multiplied. 

That simple statement sums up our philosophy (it is not about what we do but what we help others do), our goal (transformational churches multiplied) and our method (we develop, empower and release). In addition it touches on our culture of health since only healthy personnel can develop healthy national leaders.

Can your church sum up its philosophy, goal and methodology in a tweet? Chances are it it cannot it is too complicated and many even in leadership cannot easily remember or communicate what is truly important.

If you preach or teach, can you sum up the big idea in the space of a tweet? If not chances are that you are not clear on the essence of what you are communicating. And if you are not, neither will your listeners. How many left church today not totally sure what the message was about?

One can take almost any endeavor at work and ask the question, can we explain our mission in 140 characters or less? If so you know where you are going and if not probably not.

Clarity, focus and simplicity are keys to leadership at any level. Use the Twitter Principle to help you get there.

All of T.J. Addington's books including his latest, Deep Influence,  are available from the author for the lowest prices and a $2.00 per book discount on orders of ten or more.

Have you ever wondered what was happening in heaven in the days before the incarnation?

Have you ever wondered what the days leading up to the incarnation were like in heaven? Certainly the angelic hosts knew what was up as they would play a part in the story. Were they in awe (or perhaps disbelief) that the creator was now to become a creature? The one who created creation was now to become a part of that creation?

And what about the Trinity? For all of infinite time they had been one in three and now that unity would be disrupted in a way it had never been before. Soon Jesus would be talking to the Father through prayer rather than the living with Him as One. How did they process the new reality that was about to come?

And Jesus! What did He think about taking on the flesh of those who He had created, going from Spirit to human form not only for thirty three years but forever - identifying for eternity future with those He had created? Moving from the splendor of heaven to the squalor of Bethlehem. How did He process the fact that His life would end in death with the Father's face turned away? 

And the Holy Spirit! Knowing that after the resurrection of Christ, He would from that time on take up residence in every one who called themselves a Christ follower. Infecting every community, workplace, home and situation where those Christ followers lived, worked and traveled with the righteousness of God and heaven.

What words passed between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit regarding the imminent defeat of the evil one who had thrown a perfect creation into disarray and brought so much pain, suffering and heartache into a world hijacked from perfect goodness to grinding evil? What kind of pain had the Godhead suffered watching the insanity of a world gone wrong? Knowing what was intended and how humanity had become inhumane.

As the time of the incarnation drew nearer, did heaven become quiet? Were the angelic hosts peering over the balcony of heaven watching in disbelief for what was going to happen? They certainly could not imagine doing what Jesus was about to do. Were they watching Joseph and Mary who would become mom and dad to God?

One thing is sure. The incarnation changed our planet forever and the eternal destinies of all who embrace Jesus. But it had to have shaken the heavens as well. 

The devil's ponzi scheme

Treasures are powerful magnets that have a tremendous pull on our lives one way or the other. They are never a neutral force. Our use of our treasures and our attitude toward them will either help or hurt our relationship with God. With treasure there is never any neutral ground. This is what Jesus wants us to understand.

Matthew 6:19-21: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Here is the connection between our hearts and our treasure: Our hearts always follow our treasure! “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Our heart follows our treasure so making sure our treasure is in the right place is foundational for how we relate to God.

Our treasure impacts our relationship with God!

Each of us has two investment strategies we can follow with the stuff God has given us and which strategy we choose will determine how connected we are to our Father.

The first investment strategy is that we can invest in ourselves. The mindset of the person who uses their treasure to invest in themselves, their priorities, and their desires without regard for what God might want with their treasures can be described this way: What I have is mine, life is about me, I am the owner of all that I have, I earned it and the focus of my life is on me.

In verse 19, we see what Jesus has to say about investing in ourselves: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.”

Do you see why Jesus says this is a bad idea? It’s the Bernie Madoff thing. You think you can store it up – that it can provide security – that it can deliver on its promises that it will make you happy and satisfied and fulfilled and you find out that is not true and in the end the treasure box is empty because you can’t take it with you.

Actually, thinking that our stuff can buy us happiness is the Devil’s Ultimate Ponzi Scheme: He wants us to think that our stuff will make us happy, that our stuff will buy us security, that life is about us and our pleasure when in truth his promises are empty promises and all of us have learned one way or another that stuff cannot deliver on its promise.

Have you ever wanted something really, really badly? You thought about it, fantasized about it, dreamed about it and finally the day came and you got it. And a couple of years later you asked yourself what the big deal had been?

For years and years I drove beater cars. Every time I got in my car I wondered what it would be like to have a really nice one. Every Sunday I would drool over the new car ads and finally one day I found the car of my dreams, a brand new white Accra with tan leather seats, six speeds (my son says it goes really fast like 120) sport tires and that awesome new car smell. I was in heaven…for a time. Nine years later I am used to it, I like it but it certainly did not deliver on much life satisfaction. It is only a car! You ever had that happen?

The ponzi scheme of the devil is that our stuff will deliver on life satisfaction when in fact, the more we have the more unsatisfying it is because the more evident it is that our stuff is just stuff. And one day like those who invested with Bernie – it is also all gone.

Jesus has an alternate investment strategy. He says we can invest in God’s Kingdom, verse 20. “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal.” This is actually an amazing statement because Jesus says, you cannot take your stuff with you but you can send it on ahead of you.

Here is the mindset of those who invest in His kingdom. They see all of what they have as His rather than theirs. They see life as about Him, not me. Rather than owners they see themselves as stewards. Rather than I earned it, they know He gave it. Rather than a focus on me, they have a focus on God and His purposes.

Those are very different world views. The first world view says life is about me so that I will accumulate all that I can, spend all that I can and save all that I can. The second world view says that life is about God so that I will give all that I can, share all that I can and invest everything I can in things that will build His kingdom. These world views are 180 degrees from one another.

How is it that we can store up treasures in heaven with our treasures on earth? Think about this: There are only three things that cross the line from time to eternity. Our own spiritual maturity; the lives we have impacted with the love of Jesus; and the financial investments we have made that helped others find Christ or grow in Christ. Nothing else crosses the line from time to eternity.

But, any treasure that I invest in the expansion of God’s kingdom becomes a treasure that I store up in heaven because it resulted in lives changed and people coming to Christ. You cannot take it with you but you can send it ahead of you. The ponzi scheme of Satan cannot deliver and you lose it all in the end. Invest in God’s kingdom and you live with the investment results for all eternity. Which choice are you making with your treasure?

Why does it matter? Because our heart and life focus follow our investments! Verse 21, “For where your treasure is, there you heart will be also. Remember the two life views? Our treasures are either focused on ourselves or on God’s kingdom and our hearts follow the direction in which we invest our treasures: Self or God. Each of us has one treasure but two investment options. Our hearts will follow the investment option we choose.

Jesus wants us to understand that we cannot be focused in both directions! We are either focused on ourselves or on God’s Kingdom. Where we have our treasures is where our focus goes. Our hearts and life focus follow our investments. Jesus wants us to carefully consider which direction our lives are focused: On ourselves or on God!

Treasures are powerful magnets that have a tremendous pull on our lives one way or the other. They are never a neutral force. Our use of our treasures and our attitude toward them will either help or hurt our relationship with God. With treasure there is never any neutral ground.

All of T.J. Addington's books including his latest, Deep Influence,  are available from the author for the lowest prices and a $2.00 per book discount on orders of ten or more.

Incarnation and the heart of God

There is no more beautiful story than that of the incarnation. We have trivialized the incarnation into a nice holiday season with presents and fancy trees when the reality was stark and harsh.

The Son of God, the one who was present at the creation of the world, the one who mankind rejected to go their own way, the king of the universe, was willingly sent by the Father to become a baby in a squalid town, Bethlehem, to grow up in a working class home making furniture. Think of that, the one who had made the world, the mountains, the seas, the animals and the sky, who put the galaxies in their place is now sawing tables and chairs.

In becoming a man, in taking on our humanity, everything changed in how we could relate to God for in becoming like us and living with us for a season we could touch, hear, learn from and relate to the unapproachable God. The Apostle John put it this way, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Never again could men and women say, “I cannot understand God” for now they had met and can continue to meet the Lord of the universe through the person of Jesus Christ.

When at thirty years old, Jesus started his ministry he was clear about one thing. The only way to the father, the only way to salvation, the only way to know God was through him. He declared, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the father except through me” (John 14:6). There are no alternate routes, there are no other spiritual guides, he and he alone is the route to the Father!

This is not politically correct and never has been. If you read the gospels and the life of Paul you discover it was not well accepted in that day either. For the religious officials in Judea, Jesus could not be the awaited Messiah because he came in poverty and died on a cross in shame. For the Greeks and Romans with all their various “new age” type religions including statues to “unknown God’s” (just to stay on the safe side), a savior who died and rose again was nothing less than foolishness on a grand scale.

In our day, Christianity is vilified and marginalized and alternate spiritual routes are explored and embraced no matter that they contradict one another and have no basis for truth. I am intrigued by how quickly people grab on to numerous alternate spiritual routes that have no validation in history and no internal consistency, but only vague and foggy spiritual language but it is believed as truth while Christianity with its historical grounding, Scriptures and internal consistency is rejected as foolishness.

One of the lies of the evil one is that life is about us. There is another lie: that we can choose our path to God – which is a grand lie indeed since it elevates our wisdom above God’s and allows us to create our own God, our own path and our own spirituality. That is a greater lie than the first one because now life is not only about us but we have the ability to determine its destiny.

If Jesus was trying to create a popular religion he failed miserably. God does not appear as a baby, make furniture, live itinerantly without a home, befriend prostitutes and the sick and the poor and sinners. He does not allow himself to be nailed to a cross so that he can bear our sin on his own body, naked, bleeding, diminished and alone. He would not choose twelve followers who would not qualify for anything other than blue collar work and tell them to change the world (which they did). He would not choose ordinary people like us down through the centuries to keep on changing the world – which he does.

Jesus did not come as a religious guru, or to found a popular religion. He came as the Lord of the Universe, took on our bones and flesh and with truth and grace pointed us to himself as the one who could save us from our sin, give hope to the hopeless, heal the sick and lead us into a relationship with the father – through him. And Jesus and the message of the gospel have been transforming individual lives, one at a time ever since. Not in religion but in relationship.

Anyone who is serious about a relationship with Jesus Christ must confront the claim he made that he is the only way to the father. There are no alternate routes. If he is wrong on that he was not God. If he is right on that he is the only God.

All of T.J. Addington's books including his latest, Deep Influence,  are available from the author for the lowest prices and a $2.00 per book discount on orders of ten or more.

transformative leadership

My colleague Alvin Sanders defines transformative leadership as the ability to convince people to do what they don't naturally do. I think that is a pretty good definition and it is every leader's challenge.

Organizations, including ministries, naturally gravitate toward what is comfortable rather than what is missional and best. It is why it is so easy to slip into an institutional mode, lose one's cutting edge and all the while think that all is well until we wake up one day and realize that we are no longer effective. 

Think for instance of how easy it is in the church to focus on ourselves, fill our lives with programming and activities and to almost ignore the mandate to be salt and light in the world. That comfort zone is reflected by the amazingly low new conversion statistics in most churches. We simply don't have the time or inclination to develop friendships that are genuine outside of the church. Where you do see regular conversions happening you have a transformative leader who has convinced the congregation to do what they don't naturally do! But what God calls them to do.

Or take the issue of dealing with conflict. Most people are conflict avoiders who would rather not deal with relational difficulties. In organizations where there is a Matthew 18 practice (keeping short accounts and dealing with conflict) you have a transformative leader who has convinced the organization to do what it does not naturally do.

Transformative leaders see through a lens of what should be rather than what is and lead their team, division or organization to healthy practices that others often ignore because they are harder, uncomfortable and not what folks naturally do. It is why their staff look different than the average and why their results are better and their culture healthier. 

If you are a leader, are you a transformative leader or one who easily settles for what is comfortable? Jesus was a transformative leader and I believe He desires us to be the same.

All of T.J. Addington's books including his latest, Deep Influence,  are available from the author for the lowest prices and a $2.00 per book discount on orders of ten or more.

Spotting your future leaders is often counterintuitive

Every organization needs good leaders and a leadership bench. Often, however, the very people we need to help us lead in the future are under our nose but we miss them because they are "leaders in the raw" whose behaviors don't look like leadership material today. In fact their behaviors today may cause one to assume that they are not potential leaders. It is counter intuitive but here are some of the traits of your future leaders that should cause you to pay attention.

They have strong opinions
All leaders do. In the case of leaders in the raw however, those opinions have not yet been tempered by diplomacy so those opinions may come off as sounding arrogant or obnoxious. Now some people are arrogant and obnoxious but often what sounds like such is actually a future leader who is yet unpolished.

They have lots of ideas
People with lots of ideas are obviously thinkers. Granted there are people with lots of ideas and no ability to carry them out but it may be that they are on to something and we should pay attention.

They question the status quo
That is what leaders naturally do. This can be threatening to us because they are questioning how we currently do what we do. There is no need to be threatened - and there is reason to pay attention even if some of their analysis may sound naive. Those who question the status quo are often leaders in the making.

They are not afraid to get in your face
Truth is, you may have to get in theirs to talk about attitude or how they express themselves. But the very fact they are willing to go head to head with you is an indication that there may be a leadership gene that does not yet know how to finesse the message.

They are passionate about what they think
Passion is a trait of a leader. They believe deeply and that belief can easily come out in less than helpful ways when they are young. I am not talking about those who are inflexible in their beliefs but those who have a passion around their opinions and actions.

They want to change the world
Those of us who have been around a while know that none of us can change the world. But we can change something in the world for the better. Those who want to change the world when they are young may not know that life is not that simple but we should pay attention to the underlying desire that is expressed.

They attract others to follow them
This is the definition of a leader (whether a good one or not - others are following). Leaders must lead and there is something about them that causes others to follow. 

They have strong personalities
Yep, that is what leaders have. The strength of their personalities when young can be irritating and cause them friction with others but it is a sign that there are deeply held beliefs and passions that lie beneath the surface. Leaders are not shrinking violets after all.

The behaviors of a potential leader or leader in the raw may seem irritating, caustic, arrogant, or cynical to more mature leaders. And, indeed, that is often the case in terms of how they come across. Because they have strong personalities it is often necessary to "get in their face" and talk about how they come across, how they are perceived when they speak passionately and about behaviors that are counter productive. 

None of that, however, should keep you from paying attention, developing them, giving them opportunity to lead something at an appropriate level and to mentor the underlying leadership piece toward greater health and maturity. The very behaviors you may not like today are the ones that you need in a more mature form tomorrow. If you are a leader think of your younger days and you get the drift.

All of T.J. Addington's books including his latest, Deep Influence,  are available from the author for the lowest prices and a $2.00 per book discount on orders of ten or more.