Inside Issues for Spiritual Leaders: Are You Clean?

In Luke 11:37-41 Jesus is addressing a crowd of people when a Pharisee invites him to dinner.  The Pharisees were religious leaders in Israel that sometimes also served as politicians and social guardians within Jewish society.  At this point in the narrative the Pharisees were already bent on trying to discredit and destroy Jesus  over perceived violations of the Jewish Sabbath.  They were questioning his authority.  But Jesus accepts this particular Pharisee’s dinner invitation.  Upon reclining at the dinner table, the Pharisee is appalled that Jesus did not first wash before dinner.  This was not just an issue of clean hands to be germ free before a meal.  This was a religious legal issue of being ceremoniously clean.  This was a Pharisaical rule, not one derived from the Old Testament Law.  Jesus responds with two observations and a command.

First, Jesus makes an indicting observation that the Pharisees in general pay close attention to ensuring that utensils are kept ceremoniously clean but are unconcerned about the issues of the heart.  Jesus notes that the condition of their heart was one of greed and wickedness.

Second, Jesus goes on to declare them foolish and to remind them that the one who made the outside made the inside.  The condemnation of being foolish reveals that the Pharisees in general were ungodly and full of false piety.  The emphasis is on the fact that God is the maker of both the outside and the inside and therefore equal weight must be given to cleansing both.

Finally, Jesus commands the Pharisee to give alms as a way of gaining cleansing.  But this is not works righteousness.  Jesus is using a ritual activity the Pharisees knew well, the giving of alms.  But he places a twist on it by stating that the alms they must give are on the inside.  The notion is that they should give up their greed and avarice and they will be clean.  Cleansing is always an inside issue, an issue of the heart.

The problem with spiritual leaders is that we can look clean for quite awhile.  We can say the right things, do the right things, be regarded as righteous and worthy. But inside there is greed, covetousness, and the desire for all forms of gain.  It will show up eventually.  It usually shows up in the form of pride and legalism.  And people begin to feel it.

The Pharisees were often accused of being hypocrites.  Today our society has looked at the Christian faith and given us the same label.  When we over emphasize external behaviors as markers of holiness and disregard the heart we set the stage for hypocrisy.  Jesus was placing an emphasis on inward cleansing.  If the inside is clean then you are clean.

Here are three questions for us as leaders to help make application to our lives:

1. What external markers of righteousness are you holding others to that may not match Scripture?

2. How is your heart?  Are there forms of greed lurking there?  Do you covet some other leader’s ministry, fame, or success?  What are you counting as gain?

3. Are you willing to confess those attitudes, repent, and give them away to the grace of the gospel for inward cleansing?

King David once prayed, Create in me in a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

May that be our prayer today.  Lead well!

5 for Leadership (08/17/12)

Here are five new posts for 5 for Leadership.  If you are familiar with the 5 for Leadership series then you will recognize a couple of these authors.  But I am also highlighting some new ones.  Click on some links and see what you think.

5 Traits of an Aware Leader  This is a throw back to March of this year and comes from Ron Edmondson.  These five points will help you to think about what you don’t know regarding the health and function of your team or others you lead.  This is a worthy read.

For Those Who Want To Lead, Read  This post hits a nerve for me.  From the time I was a young leader I have been admonished to read–a lot.  You have probably heard it too-“Leaders are readers and readers are leaders.”  I think there is a lot of merit to this.  Take a look at this Harvard Business Review post by John Coleman.  There are some very practical insights to get you going.

Missy Franklin: The Cincinnatus of the Olympics  This is a fun and insightful post linking a famed Roman general of character with the young American hero of the London games.  I found this on the Let’s Grow Leaders blog.

Genuine and Wholehearted Praise  This comes from Mary Jo Asmus.  I have highlighted her before because of her insightful and practical posts.  In this one she highlights the need for employee praise and for not crossing the line into “cheerleading”.  She also offers three wise steps to help you be sure that you remain genuine and effective with your praise.

Andy Crouch: Celebrate the City  This comes from the Faith & Leadership blog and is an interview with Andy Crouch.  Andy is part of a project sponsored by Christianity Today about the value of the city and what churches are doing in the city to be a blessing.  This resonates with me as my day job is also about being a blessing to the cities of our country.

There are the 5 for this week.  Lead well!

Leadership and The Crowd

There is an astounding contrast of leadership revealed when you read Mark 15.  In the biblical narrative Jesus has already been arrested by the Jewish religious elite.  His time had come to move toward the cross.  Those who arrested him thought that they were doing away with him.  But this is why he came-to go to the cross.  The trial was a mockery and all that they could truly accuse him of was laying claim to his very identity: Messiah, the Christ, the son of the blessed, the son of man.  This was blasphemous to these religious leaders.  But they needed Pilate’s judgment as a civil authority to have Jesus executed.  When Jesus comes before Pilate he makes no defense, save one.  Again, he can’t deny his very identity as King of the Jews.  Usually a rival king would be enough for a Rome appointed authority to have someone executed, but Pilate refuses to do so.  He knew that it was out of envy that the Jewish leaders desired to have Jesus put to death.  The religious leaders stirred up the crowd to invoke a custom of substitution-Barabbas for Jesus.  And this brings us to Mark 15:15.

So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.

Allow me to make a few leadership observations.

The religious leaders used the crowd to get what they wanted.

Pilate, fearing a riot, satisfied the crowd to keep the peace.

The crowd, in true group think mode, decides that it is better to substitute a murderous insurrectionist for a teacher/healer/holy man and have him put to death.

Jesus, wishing to serve “the crowd”, lays down his life for their sins-a genuine substitute.  The innocent for the guilty.  The living for the dead.  That they might have real life.

Allow me to stretch the leadership application a bit.

We always have three choices regarding “the crowd”:  use the crowd, satisfy the crowd, or serve the crowd.  Using the crowd is usually for our own ends and our own glory.  Satisfying the crowd is usually out of fear and the need for acceptance.  Serving the crowd is hard and humble work and can often mean difficult choices of sacrifice to give them what they don’t want in the present to take them where they ultimately want to go.

What are your thoughts?

3 Traits of a Missional Leader

There is much talk today about being missional.  The idea is grounded in the notion that we move towards people, not that we require them to move towards us.  It carries with it the understanding of empathy that allows us to meet people where they are with the love and compassion of Jesus Christ.  But what type of leader does it take to lead people into this experience?  I offer up three critical traits from 2 Corinthians 4:1-10 and 2 Corinthians 1:8-11.

1. An identity rooted in the fact that we have been redeemed and called  This is the sure knowledge and understanding that we as Christ followers have been rescued and commissioned.  We have been bought and sent.  The gospel is not a collection of good sayings-it is the announcement of good news.  It is the proclamation of redemption that carries with it the privilege and responsibility of transference.  A leader must be secure in who they are as a redeemed loved child to ask others to follow their calling into missional engagement.

2. A belief in the gospel as the ultimate reality of life  There are many, many competing philosophies of life in the world today.  There always have been.  The gospel stands alone.  Again, the gospel is the proclamation of good news, of a historical, life altering event.  It is the announcement of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection that can set us free from slavery to sin and death.  All other world philosophies offer improvement theories.  The gospel offers freedom and transformation.  There is no greater need or greater reality.  A leader must surely believe this to lead others into the morass and messiness of missional engagement.  This bedrock belief also provides the passion to the message.

3. A ridiculous faith in God’s presence and goodness  I believe these two traits provide the foundation for faith.  The clear understanding that God is completely good (no imperfections and no injustice) and always present (he is with us in every situation and setting) allows us to weather the missional storms.  I only call this type of faith “ridiculous” because it is other worldly and will be attacked by the world.  A leader must continually point followers to this reality about the nature and character of God.

What are your thoughts on other key traits?

5 for Leadership (8/10/12)

Today’s 5 will expose you to some new authors for me.  I have included a powerful leadership story, some great leadership principles, and some timely leadership quotes.  Enjoy.

Red Marbles and a Very Kind Leader  You must read this post.  I found it on the Teamwork and Leadership blog.  It is the story of personal leadership with influence and great generosity.  For me it highlights well that all leadership is influence and that generosity in leadership is often a forgotten component.

Overcoming The Fear of Asking  Are you an inquisitive leader?  If not, why not?  This is something I struggle with at times.  I either think that I am wasting someone else’s time or I fall into the trap that I don’t have time to be an asking leader.  This post from the Leadership Solutions blog provides some very practical reasons and practices for becoming a more inquisitive leader.

Leadership By Choice  I have often highlighted the Leading Blog for it’s quality content.  This offering is a simple four part evaluation to better determine if you are leading with great intentionality.  It is a brief summary of a book written by Eric Papp.  I think all four parts are critical and worthy of our reflection.

Can A Church Be Both Attractional and Missional?  This comes from Tony Morgan’s blog and is an interview with Dave Ferguson.  Dave and Alan Hirsch recently co-authored a book entitled On The Verge.  This is an insightful interview on this ongoing and very important topic.  It will give you a taste of the book.

Leadership Summit: Bill Hybels  The well known Willow Creek Leadership Summit is currently in progress.  I returned to Tony Morgan’s blog for this offering because he has been capturing some of the key principles and quotes from the summit for our digestion.  Here is Tony’s gleanings from Bill’s opening address.

There are the 5 for this week.  Lead well!

How Not To Lead-5 Principles For Failure

No leader plans to fail in their leadership.  Yet, leaders do fail regularly and sometimes in such a way that they even forfeit their leadership position.  I am not talking about leaders who make noble efforts and fail in the pursuit of a worthy vision.  I am talking about errors of judgment and character that go unaddressed and lead to total leadership failure.  These types of errors are most often revealed in times of trial.  The consequences are not simply personal.  Leadership is always a leveraged proposition and affects many others.  Here are five ways to self destruct in a leadership role.

1. Act presumptuously when faced with a difficult situation.  To act with presumption is to overstep your bounds or take undue liberties.  This most often takes place when leaders feel great pressure to perform.  Presumption often flows from a sense of entitlement or self preservation.

2. Take control and usurp the role that was not meant for you.  When a leader is faced with a difficult situation, the temptation is to double down on control and wrongly step into the role entrusted to another.  It comes from the belief that you can do it better than the other person-and you must.  Failure is not an option so presumption moves toward over control to the point of over reaching.

3. Blame others and your circumstances when things go wrong.  You know a leader is on the path of self destruction when a pattern of blaming becomes apparent.  When leaders fail and blame everyone and everything but themselves you can be certain that you have a leader who is insecure and inauthentic.

4. Sanitize your wrong actions when they have been discovered.  When leaders are ultimately caught in wrong doing and they attempt to explain away their sins, you have a leadership platform in super erosion.  Followers can smell this and will follow grudgingly at best. This is where a leader’s character is clearly revealed.  A leader must always take responsibility personally and corporately.

5. Do not take seriously the authority over you.  Every leader is ultimately a person under authority.  How you treat or respect that authority will in some measure determine the longevity of your leadership life.  When you work around authority, disregard authority, or simply defy authority-you do so at your own leadership peril.

What would you add to my list?

By the way, all of the above principles come directly from the Bible.  You can look at them yourself and make some other observations by going to 1 Samuel 13 to read about King Saul.

5 for Leadership (8/6/12)

Here is 5 for Leadership for the 1st week of August.

Leadership and Courage This first post comes from Gwyn Teatro on her blog You’re Not The Boss of Me. Gwyn defines courage in the context of good leadership. She offers a great real life illustration of a CEO who either lacked the courage to truly investigate a problem or was simply ignorant of the problem. Gwyn closes with the principle that real courage is sometimes simply facing the truth.

The Outrageously Simple Visual Guide to Goal Setting Here is a great info graphic on goal setting in ten practical steps. Take a look.

Rembrandt and Leadership This is a guest post on the Great Leadership blog. The authors compare the life of the great Dutch painter to leadership. The points are very sailable as they talk about dealing with both success and failure-and the need for authenticity.

Graceful Leadership 101 This post is by Tanmay Vora and offers a pdf download of 101 ways to be a more graceful leader. This is a resource you can read and share with those you lead or those you are developing for leadership.

The Three R’s of Christian Engagement in the Culture Wars This final post is from Kevin DeYoung and offers three worthy points of how Christian leaders should act when taking on the moral issues of our day. This post holds some good principles in light of the Chick-fil-a controversy.

There are the 5 for this week. Lead well!

My Top Posts for July

Here are the five most popular posts from my blog for the month of July.

6 Common Errors in Strategic Planning  In this post I attempt to uncover regular mistakes I see leaders and teams make in the strategic planing process-and offer some tips to correct.

Delegation vs Empowerment  This remains my most popular post month in and month out.  This is a critical leadership issue for the effective function of organizations and for the multiplication of leaders.

The Leader and Planning  This post was the first of a five part series on planning.    Here, I revealed the two primary purposes of team planning, stewardship and celebration, to lay a foundation for the planing environment.

3 Types of Leadership Decisions  Decisions are at the heart of effective leadership.  In this post I discuss the merits of directive, consultive and delegative decisions.

The Nature of Leadership Decisions  This post originally preceded the 3 Types of Leadership Decisions post.  In this post I lay out three diagnostic questions I believe every leader should answer before making a critical decision.

There are the five most popular for July.  Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and interact.  I hope you find these posts beneficial for the first time-or again.  Lead well!

6 Major Barriers to Finishing Well

As I have contemplated my own personal leadership over this past year-one aspect has stood out.  It is hard to finish well.  Think about it.  In almost any arena it is rare to see leaders who end their leadership lives with integrity and vibrancy. I am more convinced than ever that a leader will not finish well without great intentionality.  Part of that intentionality is understanding what could keep you from finishing well.  Below are six barriers to finishing well as identified by J. Robert Clinton.  Clinton is a Senior Professor of Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary and has done extensive research on leadership formation and development.  Below the list are two links for further reading from Clinton.  I highly recommend him to you.

1. Finances-their use and abuse.  Leaders, particularly those who have power positions and make important decisions concerning finances, tend to use practices which may encourage incorrect handling of finances and eventually wrong use.  A character trait of greed is often rooted deep and eventually will cause impropriety with regard to finances.

2. Power-its abuse.  With leadership comes power-and the tendency to abuse it.  Leaders who rise to the top in a hierarchal system tend to assume privileges with their perceived status.  Frequently, these privileges include the abuse of power.

3. Pride-which leads to downfall.  Pride which is inappropriate and self centered can lead to a leader’s downfall.  There is a dynamic tension that must be maintained.  We must have a healthy respect for ourselves and yet we must recognize that we have nothing that was not given us by God.

4. Sex-illicit relationships.  Illicit sexual relationships have been a major cause of downfall for leaders in every culture in every era.

5. Family-critical issues.  Problems between spouses or between parents and children-or even between siblings-can be a major source of a leader’s downfall.  This aspect is often ignored, but always carries greater consequences.

6. Plateauing.  Leaders who are competent tend to plateau.  Their very strength becomes a weakness.  When leaders plateau they stop developing.  This can lead to the slow erosion of leadership vibrancy and competency.

Which of Clinton’s six barriers caught your attention?  What are your thoughts?

The Making of a Leader, by J. Robert Clinton

Finishing Well Factors-Enhancements and Barriers, by J. Robert Clinton

3 Ways in Which A Shepherd Leads

There are two passages in the Bible that are incredibly forthright about God’s concern for how his people are led.  Both of these passages serve as a rebuke towards the spiritual leaders of Israel.  One is found in Ezekiel 34 and the other is in Jeremiah 23.  In both of these passages God, through the prophets, uses the leadership metaphor of “shepherd” as a way of negatively describing what these spiritual leaders should be doing.  I have previously written on Ezekiel 34.  Today I will highlight some principles from Jeremiah 23.

Jeremiah was a prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah right before and during her exile at the hands of the nation of Babylon.  Jeremiah is sometimes referred to as the “Weeping Prophet” because he never saw any tangible results from his 40 years of preaching, warning Israel to repent of her idolatry.  Yet, he remained obedient to God in communicating all that was expected to this wayward people.

Verse one states the charge against the spiritual leaders of Judah, “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!”  There are four critical aspects to take notice of in this verse.  Yahweh proclaims a “woe” on these leaders.  Jesus will do something very similar in Matthew 23 where he proclaims seven “woes” on the spiritual leaders of Israel in that era.  A “woe” served as a lamentation for the miserable state that someone was in.  It also served as a warning.  God, through the prophet, highlights two particular charges against these spiritual leaders-they were “destroying” and “scattering” the sheep.  Sheep is a common biblical metaphor for God’s people.  It is fitting because sheep are weak creatures, open to attack and harm.  Somehow these spiritual leaders of Israel were directly causing harm to the people that they were suppose to be nurturing.  Sheep must be protected by a shepherd from themselves and from outside predators.  And a sheep that wanders away from the flock is a dead sheep.  Also note that God states that these are his sheep.  They rightfully belong to him and are entrusted to the shepherd.

In verse two God restates the charge and adds another dimension, “and you have not attended to them.”  The essence of being a shepherd is to be attentive.  An actual shepherd watching over sheep had to be constantly attentive to lead the sheep to food and water and to protect the sheep from themselves and from outside predators.  In a spiritual sense, Israel’s shepherds were beyond being inattentive.  In verses 3-4 God clearly states what he will do from his own initiative to care for his sheep.  He states that he will “gather the remnant”, “bring them back to the fold”, and “will set shepherds over them who will care for them.”  Now we see the other side of being a spiritual shepherd–care.  To be a spiritual shepherd is to be attentive and to care.  In verse four God describes three ways in which attention and care can be applied.

1. Shepherds help to diffuse fear  It has been said that fear makes cowards of us all.  Fear is the opposite of faith.  Fear looks at the circumstances and calculates that they are bigger than God’s ability to act.  A spiritual shepherd addresses specific fears and points people back to the reality of God’s character.

2. Shepherds help to infuse courage  Unchecked fear can lead to dismay.  Dismay is the emotional result of feeling overwhelmed and lacking courage.  Dismay can tempt people to escape their circumstances.  A spiritual shepherd not only addresses specific fears but he also helps people see the concrete steps of faith they need to take to get past their fears.  Courage in the Bible is often the notion of remaining in circumstances long enough to see God act on their behalf.  Courage is not bravado-it is faith in a great God applied to current reality.

3. Shepherds make it their aim that none are lost  Real sheep have a nasty habit of wandering away.  And, again, an isolated sheep is a dead sheep.  So it is with us.  We were meant for community.  When we isolate ourselves we are vulnerable to all sorts of attacks from without and within.  A spiritual shepherd remains vigilant for the wandering disciple.  They gently lead them back into the fold-for their own protection and nourishment.  This should remind us of the parables of Luke 15 and God’s diligent heart for the one.

Being a spiritual shepherd is hard work.  It is often work without acclaim.  Two things must be remembered by any would be spiritual shepherd: we have a Chief Shepherd to whom we must give an account; and every shepherd needs a shepherd for their own survival and thriving.  Finally, note that in Jeremiah 23:5-6 the prophet points us towards the coming Messiah who will serve as the ultimate Shepherd-the Righteous Branch.

Lead well.