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What is "empowering" leadership?
Leadership that "empowers" flows from the "equipping"passages of the Bible, such as Ephesian 4:11ff and 2 Timothy 2:1ff. Leaders are to empower, or mentor, others to do the "work of ministry." They become the vanguard of the movement of God in the local church. Their main task is to "lead" (Romans 12:8), and the integral factor here is to be a God-influencer and trainer to others. NCD writers Bob Logan and Tom Clegg put it this way: “Effective leadership begins with an intimate relationship with God,
resulting in Christlike character and a clear sense of God’s calling for leaders’ lives.
As this base os spirituality maturity increases, effective pastors and leaders
multiply, guide, empower and equip disciples to realize their full potential
in Christ and work together to accomplish God’s vision for the church.”
(Bob Logan and Tom Clegg, Releasing Your Church’s Potential) Helpful principles developed from the Timothy passage are outlined below:
1. Empowerment leaders have ministry models in their lives.
These consist of "content models" as well as "character models."
2. Empowerment leaders continue to grow personally.
Such growth must happen in the areas of character formation, authentic relationship building, skills development, life-long learning and ministry focusing.
3. Empowerment leaders see developing others as primary. Logan and Clegg ably point out that
“Your ministries will only grow as deep as the depth of your leadership—only as broad as the breadth of your leadership.” (Releasing Your Church’s Potential)
4. Empowerment leaders identify potential leaders with faith and discernment. Paul puts it this way to Timothy,
“. . . entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” (2:2). Evidences to look for are giftedness, even if not fully developed, character rather than social or personality standing, obedience rather than knowledge, willingness rather than "knowing-it-all," and availability.
5. Empowerment leaders always have an eye on multiplying other leaders. Empowering leaders look for
“ . . . reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others” (2:2) Questions to address would be:
a. What leadership positions do you have that need apprentice leaders?
b. Who are your apprentice leaders?
c. Which potential leaders need your “sponsorship” to move into new areas of ministry?
d. Which church leaders need challenged to move into new ministry?
e. How are you raising up the next generation of pastors, church planters and missionaries through your church?
What makes an "effective" leader?
Leadership is not a "given" in the Bible. Leadership abilities, skills and effectiveness need to be developed and honed over time. Several key "essentials" for effective, long-lasting leadership are as follows:
The ability to influence. If no one is following, you may not be a leader! Leaders have an innate sense of being influencers of groups and people.
A godly character. Character sets you apart because it is a lasting quality and something on which people can count. Character creates trust. Character promotes excellence and models that behavior for followers. Character gives staying power and helps a leader “finish the race.” Character extends influence creating fuel that enables others to burn brighter in their vocations.
Church leadership assumes and demands definite character qualities (cf., e.g., 1 Timothy 3; Titus 1, 2), and a certain “gift-mix” (Romans 12:8; Ephesians 4:11f). Many would also add a “calling” or “being set apart” by God for a certain task."
A servant's heart. This is another way to refer to "empowering" leaders. (See Question Above).
Task and Relationship Behavior. Effective leaders have grown in their "task" behaviors--the ability to develop and articulate a vision for a ministry area, discover core values in a people group, provide structure and organization, define role responsibilities and behaviors, evaluate ministry performance and so forth. They also are growing in "relational" behaviors --activities of building trust, edifying God’s people, motivating followers, nurturing and caring for people, building biblical community, fostering healthy interpersonal relationships and so forth.
What kinds of leaders does a church need to be healthy?
Healthy church leadership is not "guesswork." For churches to be healthy and function in a healthy way, there are several key principles to monitor.
A Right “Mix”
Healthy church leadership, even in smaller solo pastorates, is not about a single person. Biblical church leadership focuses on the team of leaders God has given to a particular congregation at a particular time in their life and ministry. For a church to experience sustained health and growth, this team must be well-balanced in terms of leadership types. There are essentially four types of leaders that need to be found on every church leadership team—the “Let Me Help You” type, the “Let’s Go” type, the “Let’s Be Careful” type, and the “Let’s Stay Together” type. Different ministry contexts or cultures require different leadership styles.
Dangers In The “Wrong Mix”
The danger to church health in this “mix” of leadership styles comes from senior leaders or pastors, who have a certain leadership type, hiring or wanting around them people like themselves! This natural tendency must be resisted for spiritual health and vitality to occur among the leaders of the church. There are several reasons why a church may not have the “right mix” of leaders and thus lacks health in this area—insecurity of the main or senior leader, lack of intentionality in developing leadership teams, distractions from the daily press of matters, and lack of mobilization of the spiritual gifts of the congregation.
A Right “Match”
Healthy churches have leaders that match the context, culture, and environment of their churches and ministry assignments. A pastor I worked with had an intense struggle with his rural church. His mannerisms, likes and dislikes, and style of ministry created a health blockage in his church. People just did not respond to his ministry. He finally left that church and became an inner city church planter! God has marvelously used him to plant a network of churches in a major city in the East and work with all kinds of people, including a black minister leading one of the churches. He loves the urban lifestyle, with its challenges and needs, and God is blessing his ministry and leadership. What happened? He found his ministry match!
Pastoral and leadership “fit” has a lot to do with a church experiencing health or disease. Often there has not been a proper discernment of the spiritual gifts and needs of the leader when assigning or attempting to match him or her to a particular congregation or ministry. Sometimes smaller congregations are thrilled to just “get” someone to lead them only to find out that person’s gift-mix, or personality profile or temperament did not mesh well with their culture and environment.
A True Love for the PeopleHealthy leaders truly love the people God has entrusted to their care. Even the cynical and politically virulent Niccolo Machiavelli insisted that “leadership was virtuous only if the good of the community was sought out and achieved above all else. A good leader, in other words, was a steward of the community.” This is a very integral part of a “right match.” According to surveys, executives usually fail for the same reasons as anyone else, with the main reason being a “failure to build partnerships with subordinates and peers.” John Maxwell, definitely a “Let’s Go” type of leader, says that a “landmine” that leaders step on is the “propensity to lose touch with the people they are leading.” He gives five steps to avoid this “landmine”—value people, avoid positional thinking, love the people you lead, understand that you’re in the people business, and understand the “law of significance,” namely, that “one is too small of a number to achieve greatness.”
A Right Vision/Direction
Leaders set the course of the church or ministry. A healthy church moves toward a vision and in a direction that honors God, fulfills the mandates of Scripture and accomplishes God’s special purpose for them in that time and place. Without this vision, the church or ministry will find a substitute reason for its existence and church health and growth will be derailed.
Why do pastoral or leadership visions fail?
Many churches are at best stumbling through life. They long for direction, reason and purpose. Why don’t leaders cast vision? On the other hand, why do visionary leaders sometimes fail?
No Vision At All
Leaders of healthy churches lead by God’s vision for that church. First, leaders, certainly pastoral leaders, and especially solo pastoral leaders, need to believe in, seek out and apply a God-directed vision for their church or ministry. Some don’t accept this statement since they don’t see it in the Bible. They see teaching and preaching. They see caring for people. They see evangelism. They see body life and fellowship. They see some brave people plant churches. They see missions and missionaries. What they fail to see, however, is any kind of God-directed, coherent plan or objective for these things to happen. They just “happen,” these pastoral leaders believe, if they remain faithful to the Word of God, properly care for people and pray earnestly enough. God will take the church where it needs to go.
The question these well-intentioned pastoral leaders need to ask and answer is, Why? Besides for the glory of God, why did the Spirit lead Philip to speak to the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8)? Did God have a vision of His Church spreading through the continent of Africa? Or, was this just a picture of personal evangelism? Why did Jesus give the Great Commandment (love God and others) and the Great Commission (go and make disciples)? Why does my local church really exist? Why are these particular people here? Why are we in this community? The answers are bound up in the vision for the kingdom of God on earth. They are wrapped in the vision that one day the knowledge of the glory of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the seas (Hab. 2:14).
A Clash of Leadership Vision and Peoples Values
A smaller denominational group with whom I have consulted wants its church base to grow and expand. They want vision, but many of their churches remain small and fighting for health. The problem is a clash of core values along with cultural traditionalism. Many of these churches are founded and continue to operate on the basis of fellowship. That means that on a given Sunday morning, the main reason why most people attend is to see one another, connect with each other, support each other and hear again why and how God loves them. These are good, sincere, well-intentioned Christian people for whom “church” has always meant the “gathering of the saints.” Vision is not a term in their core-values vocabulary. As a matter of fact, many of these congregations see vision as threatening to their community and inimical to their reason for being. Vision is for other church groups, or the large, goal-directed, program-laced church not far from them. They exist for closeness, support, mutual care and love.
Lack of Specific God-given Vision for A Specific Ministry
Healthy church leaders find and lead by God’s vision for that church or ministry. Where the pastor’s or church leaders’ personal vision does not match God’s vision for that particular church, frustration and failure are inevitable. God has a specific plan and vision for every church and every ministry. They are all part of his glorious world-wide plan and purpose. All of them, of course, fulfill the mandates of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. But they are specific to the needs, culture, environment and character of a particular place at a particular time. Visionary planning fails because it is either too generic and unspecified or not really for that place and those people! Leaders must seek God’s vision for their specific churches and ministries. They cannot “borrow” another successful church’s vision for their own. They must not “convince” themselves of what they want to do and then seek God’s blessing for that agenda. Healthy leaders pray, fast, plead for, seek for, and study for what God wants where they are.
Failure to Communicate and Involve Enough People
Visions and visionary leaders sometimes fail because they do not involve the people of God in the search and do not sufficiently communicate with them. A larger church where I live has “exploded” in growth from the 600s to just about 1000 in a little over two years. The new senior pastor came in with a goal to find God’s specific vision for that specific church. He enlisted the help and advice and counsel of many of the church’s historic leaders and current lay leaders. He formed a “dream team” to seek God’s picture for the future of that church. He respected their past, celebrated their Ebenezers, thanked God for former pastoral leaders, and studied the congregation and the area until a vision gelled for him and the people. He maintains he is still seeking for God’s specific vision, but he has taken the people with him on that journey. Building on the strengths of the past, he has consolidated the leadership team and prayerfully sought God for the future.
Healthy churches have leaders who cast and communicate God’s specific vision for their specific churches and ministries, whether that is a third grade Sunday school class, a small group movement, or a church-wide picture of what God wants.
How do I lead my church through change?
Many church leaders stumble over "change." They know the church ministries need to undergo change. They realize that without change their ministries will not only become irrelevant, but could actually harm the forward progress of the body of Christ at their particular place and time. HOW a church leader goes about change is critically important.
Understand the Dynamics of Change
We react to major change in our lives according to the DIAGRAM above. Any major change in our lives produces a state of shock or disorientation. Thinking shuts down for a while. We huddle together looking for reassurance and information. Notice that fellowship becomes defensive and restrictive at this stage. At this crucial stage, a healthy church leader needs to give information, personal and corporate support and very clear explanations as to why and how this change will take place.
After the shock comes a time of defensive retreat and perhaps anger. Here the leader needs to provide reassurance that not everything is changing. Programs and ministry that emphasize stability have to come to the front, even in the midst of change. John P. Kotter, in his book, Leading Change, notes that people “become suspicious of the motives of those pushing for transformation; they worry that major change is not possible without carnage; they fear the boss [pastor?] is a monster, or that much of the management is incompetent.” This is a very hard time for a loving, but vision-driven, leader. He or she wants to show love and concern, but knows that the vision from God needs to guide and direct plans and objectives. This is a time of much prayer, dependence on other respected leaders in the congregation, and waiting on God for forward movement.
Fear can be alleviated by four principles:
1. Affirm tradition, without losing sight of planned changes (cf. Acts 15:14-18);
2. Build on strengths (cf. Acts 15:12);
3. “Add to” rather than “subtract from” the church’s traditional ministry (cf. Acts 15:19-21); and,
4. Begin with those changes that are the easiest to implement.
In the acknowledgement stage, a resignation to the change begins to take shape. Often, sadness results in a mourning over the loss of the “good old days.” Here the wise leader involves his ministry people in planning for the future. He encourages risk by showing how true support will be given. The leader bonds people by noting everyone is learning through this time.
The final change-stage is the adaptation or reorganization phase. Here plans are implemented stemming from the change. Communication paves the way for future growth and mid-course corrections are made, tweaking the change to meet the needs and vision of the church or ministry.
Establish A Sense of URGENCY!
This is the step many church leaders neglect to implement and give adequate attention. The first and biggest mistake a church leader can make in moving through a planned change is the failure to gauge the amount of complacency when initiating the change. If that complacency is too high, the change is doomed to immediate failure and severe leadership frustration. People only change when they feel the need to change! Even well-founded, well-taught, biblically based people do not think first. They feel first! John Kotter, in his newest book, The Heart of Change, and co-author Dan Cohen organize their message around one basic premise: “People change what they do less because they are given analysis that shifts their thinking than because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings.” This “see-feel-change” approach, they contend, actually results in more lasting behavioral change than the “analysis-think-change” method.
Churches and ministries that have no visible crisis, too many visible resources, low spiritual performance standards, lack of spiritual accountability, dislike or denial of “bad news” and too much “happy talk” by pastors and church leaders account for complacency that inhibits the change process. As Kotter says, “Never underestimate the magnitude of the forces that reinforce complacency and help maintain the status quo.” How do leaders overcome such complacency? Nine suggestions are:
1. Create a crisis by allowing a program or ministry to die, or by allowing errors to “blow up” instead of being corrected at the last minute.
2. Eliminate obvious outward examples of “doing well.”
3. Preach on biblical urgency and assign homework to the congregation that you will “go over” the next Sunday.
4. Set goals so high that they can’t be reached by “doing church as usual.” For example — 10 new unchurched families by the end of the month.
5. Insist more people be held accountable for church health and growth. For example, the children’s third-grade teacher is to visit all his/her parents to seek to bring them to a class function.
6. Send more data about real spiritual conditions of the unchurched to the whole congregation.
7. Insist church members have non-Christian friends that they spend time with regularly.
8. Use church consultants to force more honest evaluation of the church’s ministry.
9. Bombard the congregation with information on future opportunities and rewards for aggressive change.
10. Understand there are essentially three types of followers: the “fall-in-line” Fred and Flo, the “hesitant” Hank and Harriet, and the “resistant” Rob and Ruth. Each of these followers need to be treated differently in the change process.
More cautious leader types will have to work very hard at upsetting the equilibrium balance in a congregation to introduce necessary change, while the “let’s go” type of leader will have to work hard at maintaining enough stability for urgency to have its expected effect in the group.
Timing is especially important in establishing urgency. Have you been in your church long enough to establish the credibility for successful change? Do you have enough proverbial “change in your pocket” to effect change without much significant loss? How much loss can your congregation sustain and still maintain its effectiveness for God?
Build A Strong Team For Change
A change team should include key church players, variously gifted and skilled people, people respected for their credibility by the congregation and proven leaders who are able to drive the change process. Two or three team members are sufficient for a small church, eight to twelve in a mid-sized congregation and twenty or more in a large church. This team needs to get to know and trust each other well-enough to endure anger and fear and still support one another in the process. This team probably should not be your church board. While some team members can and should come from the board, church leadership boards are often designed by the congregation to aim toward status quo and stability rather than major change and transformation.
Develop An Achievable Vision With Strategy
Remember that we must not change for change’s sake! Good and necessary changes will accompany healthy church growth. A clear vision with common core values shared by the leadership and congregation along with a workable strategy will give a cohesive, forward-moving effect on the change process. A clear vision with strong division between the people and leaders will result in fragmentation in the change process. A vague vision with strong people vs. leadership division will disintegrate a congregation and/or ministry. And, commonly shared values between the congregation and leadership joined with a vague vision will end up in frustration.
Communicate! Communicate! Communicate!
Nothing is more important in the change process than God-honoring, prayerfully-sought, biblically based, creative communication. Lyle Schaller notes in this regard that the change agent needs to create a “reliable, accurate, redundant and lucid system of internal communication, knowing that ‘bad’ news travels faster than ‘good’ news.” Bulletin announcements, mailbox flyers, posters and other standard forms of communication do not broadly, positively and decidedly communicate, especially in the change process. I know. I have tried these methods. And every pastor and leader I know will attest to a congregational member saying, “This is the first time I’ve heard about that!” Redundancy and internality are the keys here.
Redundant communication need not be boring or irrelevant. That will make the change process that much harder. Redundant communication means that you say something, then say it again in a different way, then repeat it in a way that evokes conviction and understanding. Videos, dramas, and children’s sermons (everyone listens to those!) are means of creative communication.
Internal communication refers to the word-of-mouth talk that change-team members share with congregational members and friends. It’s the grocery store meeting of a team leader and a church person chatting about the change. It’s the before class, after service, sitting-around kind of talk that sticks with people. It’s the church influencer sharing a word about the change with his Bible study class. It’s kids being excited about the change that communicates with parents. Without this internal communication network, very little gets across in our busy lives. With this kind of networking, changes are communicated adequately and effectively.
Empower Broad-Based Congregational Involvement
People need to own a change before it can be accepted by them. Even when they see that change as statistically or analytically necessary, they have to feel that they have had a part in its formulation or its process. Congregational “focus nights” and open forum discussions have worked for me in helping people own a change. The opportunity to openly interact, answer questions and concerns on the spot, and dialogue with gainsayers have done much to help the congregation or ministry own and desire the change.
Sometimes a ministry change will involve training. You cannot expect people to own or do what they don’t know how to do. Teachers who are asked to use a brand-new curriculum need to have orientation sessions on the new materials. Small group leaders will need orientation and constant training to keep the vision of multiplication of group life alive in their minds and hearts. Board members will sometimes need outside consultants and trainers to understand changes to church policy and procedure.
In this connection, the visionary leader will have to remove what Kotter and others have called “structural barriers.” An example of a structural barrier would be a key Sunday school teacher who steadfastly refuses the vision and the changes required to accomplish the vision. The only solution here is honest dialogue, much prayer and biblical confrontation. I have had to confront teachers, deacons, elders, other pastoral staff, and significant lay leaders in effecting change. Some of them have been not only “late adopters,” but resistant roadblocks to necessary and good change. In loving confrontation with careful explanation buttressed by days and weeks of earnest prayer, a few of these people-barriers have had to resign their ministry positions or leave the church. Most of them pulled themselves out of the active congregational process and became “benchwarmers,” passively aggressive but out of the decision-making loop.
Generate Short-Term Wins
A major change process involves many smaller change processes in order to be successful overall. By focusing on the smaller processes and attaining short-term, strategic “wins,” leaders can help the ministry more quickly buy into the overall change. Short-term wins give convincing, visible, undeniable evidence that a planned, major change is working.
In a church I served we have moved a congregation through a multi-million dollar building project with changes in classroom and worship service location, times, and styles. In the midst of discouraging building committee reports, withering criticism by major congregational stakeholders, delays by the contractors, bad weather conditions and two major thefts, we had enough short-term wins to see the congregation through the changes. First, the senior adult class (averaging over 70 years old) did not want to move. One of their teachers, however, felt that the overall ministry change of welcoming and integrating many new people to the church was good and necessary. By his attitude and actions he persuaded his co-teacher and the class to walk twenty feet down a new hallway to their new class. While there was some complaint about “being so far away” the class members have liked the widened hallways and have found the extra distance “no problem.” That was a short-term win in an overall change strategy. Then, the thefts of computer and IT equipment actually helped the church in that our insurance company stressed better security procedures with sensitive electronic equipment. Enhanced security, a new safe for laptops and a new security procedure for borrowing equipment have made the costs not only bearable but welcomed. The new, larger family life center has enhanced contemporary worship. While a number of people have had to change their times of Sunday school class meetings, they have distinct choices of either a sanctuary environment for traditional worship or an Olympic sized gymnasium for contemporary worship. Both groups “won” in the overall process. The church has attracted a number of new, unchurched people—another short-term (possibly even long-term!) win.
Consolidate Gains And Produce More Change
The seventh step in moving through major change is to consolidate gains and keep momentum flowing in the direction of change. Called the “Big Mo” by leaders, momentum has been cited by John Maxwell and others as one of the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Momentum can either be for you in the change process, or against you in a defining way. Short-term wins can help keep momentum moving forward, but short-term wins are not the “ballgame,” so to speak. Kotter again says that “the celebration of short-term wins can be lethal if urgency is lost.” Remember that it isn’t over until it is over, even in ministry and church work. Mid-term wins are great but they are not the overall aim.
Use short-term wins to produce more change. Use these wins to fuel the fire of overall directional change. Fan the flames by building on these wins. Again at the church where I served, we initiated a major adult Sunday school time shift due to growth, the additional of another worship service, and the need for more classes. We spent a great deal of time talking with each class and teacher, seeking to inform them of the need for the changes and the process we were going to use. And, we had significant grumbling, especially in one of the major adult classes. The class changes were made with most everyone on board in the fall. This summer, with the new facility completed, class times and rooms were once again changed as we went back to two main services in larger worship centers. This time classes made a major adjustment with little to no complaints and with little up-front preparation. The gains of last year were consolidated and used to produce more change and to move the church forward.
Anchor the Change In The Culture
Every church has a “culture.” More than the church constitution, or doctrinal belief system, or even core values, the culture of a church is what makes it who it is and what it is about. As change becomes accepted, make it a part of the culture of the church so that people are saying, “this is who we are and what we’re about!”
Not too long ago I worked as a staff pastor of evangelism and discipleship in a mid-sized church with the goal of changing that church’s focus from “us” to “them.” In my years with that church, a number of people came to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Sermons and studies were given and groups were formed to heighten the evangelistic awareness and outreach of the congregation. We publicly introduced in Sunday morning worship neighbors and friends who had been led to Christ. People laughed and wept with tears of joy as they saw friends, relatives and parts of the community transformed by the grace of God. The church participated in a major evangelistic crusade in the area, with dozens of new people attending due to their efforts.
What does this have to do with change? A paradigm shift took place in that congregation. No longer content to just have fellowship among those we know, a large, new welcome center was built in the church lobby. The church began to expect many seekers. The congregation began talking excitedly about heart-change in peoples’ lives in the hallways and classrooms and restrooms of the building. The church has dramatically grown in the last few years. One of the members saw me in a store the other month and said to me, “It’s all your fault, you know!” I did not understand what he was talking about until he shared that the growth in conversions and numbers was not by accident. It has now become part of the culture of that church. It was the result of five years of step-by-step change. And I was blessed to have been part of that change!
How do I become a better leader?
Casting a challenging, God-given vision, mentoring people, effecting successful change, empowering others, pulling together a strong leadership team—these are the marks of healthy churches with healthy leaders. But, you may be asking, how can I, just an average pastor in an average church, actually do these things? How can I become a better leader?
Here’s what I have seen God do in my own life and in the lives of younger and older growing and successful leaders around me:
1. What you are today does not restrict what you can do for God tomorrow. I have a pastor friend in a small rural church who feels like he has not been a real leader for his congregation. Yes, he has loved them, preached to and taught them God’s Word, visited them in the hospital and in the funeral home and has “been there” for them. Yet he finds the church plateaued, not moving forward. What is worse, he has found himself vision-less. He has had only a vague idea of God’s direction for himself and the church.
He and I have become friends. I have worked with his church in two health consultations and in various seminars and classes. He has attended all of my leadership seminars, and he and I have in turn attended local and national seminars on leadership. He has read books on vision and vision-casting. We have worked on his own personal ministry vision in a mentoring relationship.
Has all of this helped? Yes! His wife has testified to me that his self-esteem has improved and there is more direction and leadership in his marriage and with his kids. He knows where he should go, and even though he has a hard time finding exactly how to get there, he moves forward in faith that God will do mighty things in him and through him. His faith has been tested and stretched. He has become in the process a much better leader today than what he was yesterday.
2. Use your God-given team to make up for your leadership weaknesses. What “team?” Your church body, and especially your lay leaders. God has invested them in your church to make a difference to last for all eternity. They are planted there for that body’s health and growth. You as a pastoral leader need to tap into their strengths and God-given gifts and talents.
Practically this means if you can’t really preach that well, find someone in the body who can and use them more and more in the pulpit. Of course this goes against the typical job description of the lead pastor, but who cares?! Use your specific gifts and strengths to advance the cause of Christ in your church and area and don’t worry about who gets the applause! If you can’t counsel well, find someone who can, train them and use them for marriage and family counseling.
3. Keep growing personally. I play tennis once or twice a week. I love the game and have attended professional matches. But to become a better tennis player, I need to force myself to keep growing in the strokes of tennis. I need to play better players so I can become a better player. I need the challenge to keep focused.
Growth equals change. You can change without growing, but you cannot grow without changing. If you are at the same place in your personal, devotional and spiritual relationship with God you were a month ago, you are losing ground and not being all that God has made you to be. Challenge yourself spiritually. Instead of the same old devotional readings and books, read something that will stretch your mind, challenge your soul and free your spirit! Attend conferences that you know will force you to look deeply inside yourself and then to God for repentance, renewed faith and hopeful courage.
4. Don’t protect the past and don’t sit on previous successes. John Maxwell has a sign in his office that says, “yesterday ended last night.” When he wants to relax, bask in his or his company’s successes, all he needs to do is look at that sign on his office wall. Ministry is not over until God says so. It’s not that you cannot rejoice over a job done well or over leading a person to Christ. Of course God gets all the glory, but you have had an important part in the process. The issue is making the past a predictor or gauge for the future.
In New Testament biblical theology, the future is the gauge and predictor of the present. We live in a “now but not yet,” Lordship-driven, eschatological frame of reference that tells us God ever beckons us to find fulfillment in who He is and what He will give us in that last day. We are servants of the future, not protectors of the past. We are bearers of the light, not keepers of lighthouses. “Yesterday ended last night!”
5. Accomplish what God wants you to do. There is a great difference between busyness and results. I know many busy pastors and leaders. They do a lot, but accomplish little. Of course not everything is in “results,” but God says we shall be able to distinguish between true and false prophets “by their fruit” (Matthew 7:15ff). We are to bear “much fruit” and thus show ourselves to be Christ’s disciples (John 15:8). We are to “forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead . . . to win the prize for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:13, 14)
The point is we are to accomplish what God has entrusted to our care. We are to “finish the race” (2 Tim. 4:7) and complete the course He has laid out for us. I believe God has implanted in every leader a “sense of destiny.” Accomplishing what God wants you to do is to find and fulfill your sense of destiny.
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