From One Degree to Another

Phil Auxier's Blog

Connect

Leadership Email – Playing It Safe

by

Here’s my Monday email to leaders in Reno County from 3/4/13:

In Vol. 4, Issue 2 of the Journal of the Kansas Leadership Center (p.51), Joyce Webb made an interesting few comments about our engagement in the civic arena, especially on issues that are “value-laden.”  She writes,
“Effective interventions requires a keen sense of self-awareness and awareness of others, which is really hard to hold onto when the person across the table is polarized.  People have territory and values to protect and often get mired in the energy this defensiveness brings. 
“Whether one of us agrees with any factions’ opinions or not probably isn’t the issue when it comes to practicing leadership.  It’s OK to hold to purpose and not compromise values.  But one is always presented with a potential dilemma when deciding to make opinions and beliefs clear.
“This work requires us to be honest, yet challenges us to be intentional in reaching out and embracing those who have different life experiences, beliefs, values, and sometimes fears to protect.  It highlights our own beliefs and exposes our own biases and potential losses.  It requires tremendous courage, openness and love for our neighbors to be effective. 
“That kind of vulnerability seems to be too risky these days for most of us, including myself.  But we need a great strategy than playing it safe and doing nothing in order to make progress.
(Webb, Joyce. “When It Comes to Civic Life, We Need To Do More Than ‘Play It Safe’,” in The Journal [published by the Kansas Leadership Center] Volume 4, Issue 2, Fall 2012.  Pp.50-51.)
There are many things that resonate with me in what Webb writes, but one issue we consistently encounter is what we might call “Kansas Nice.”  We don’t want to cause trouble or a ruckus, so we choose silence and miss out on opportunities for leadership.  Now, I’m not suggesting we try to be intentionally unkind or mean-spirited.  I am saying that to make progress on issues that matter, it will require us to step into acts of leadership that are risky.  We must try to free ourselves out of that ever pressing default mode and find new behaviors that will help us make progress.  The competencies like managing self, diagnosing the situation, intervening skillfully and energizing others help give us some different ways of acting in leadership.  Today, what strategy will employ to help our community make progress?  It might be that rather than helping us make progress, playing it safe will actually hinder progress.  At the very least it’s something to think about.  At the most, it requires our skillful intervention.  Let’s check ourselves on this point, then, and see if we can’t make progress in these areas we are so passionate about.

Weekend Recap – To The Church

by

My 3/3/13AM sermon, To The Church, overviewing Revelation 2-3 is now online.  This sermon was challenging in tying these two chapters to the rest of the book.  For instance, the Risen Christ, addressing the seven churches comes from chapter.  And the fulfillment of promises to those who conquer are, by and large, fulfilled in Revelation 20-22.  Other emphases I highlighted were that Jesus knows His church, He calls His church to endure and He urges them to listen.  I hope it proved helpful to people.

And, I trust and hope you had a great Lord’s Day, as well.

Dangerous Calling Email – Needing The Body

by

As our leadership team reads through Dangerous Calling together, I try to pull together a devotional insight for us.  Here’s one from Chapter 5:

Chapter 5 of Dangerous Calling (if you’re reading roughly a chapter a week) is the chapter we come to this week.  It’s called Joints and Ligaments.  The point: leaders are not above the ministry of the body of Christ, they are in need of the body of Christ.  Using Hebrews 3:12-13 as a springboard, Tripp outlines the critical warning: see to it that none of you has an evil—unbelieving, falling away—hardened heart.  He then follows that up with the essential call of this passage: encourage each other daily so that sin doesn’t do its blinding work in you.
Much of this chapter is written to pop the ministry bubble that pastors often live in, devoid of the body of Christ.  So, it’s a great reminder for us.  The question Tripp began this chapter might be an appropriate way to end: “Who are you and what do you spiritually need?”  Know that I’m here for you if you need to talk and I know many of you are there for me.  Let’s model the body of Christ in action to our body and see if it doesn’t help our people see how glorious the Gospel we believe is.

Leadership Email – Natural Born Leader

by

As we’ve maneuvered our way around some of the 5 civic leadership principles over the past few weeks, some collisions might have occurred in your brain regarding other examples or definitions of leadership that we regularly encounter.  Part of the foundation of these principles comes from the pen of Ed O’Malley: “Kansas said a different type of leadership is necessary if we want to make more progress on our biggest challenges and opportunities.  The ideas in [the KLC Quick Guide] embody that leadership and come from intense listening across our state.  Today, thousands of Kansans are working to exercise the type of leadership described here.” 
One notion that you’ve maybe heard of is that of the “natural born leader.”  When we press a little further to define what we mean by that, the language we gravitate toward can often tend to be a charisma, twinkle-in-the-eye, or a willingness to step out and lead by example.  So, as you think about these 5 principles: 1) Leadership is an activity, not a position. 2) Anyone can lead, anytime, anywhere.  3) It starts with you and must engage others.  4) Your purpose must be clear.  5) It’s risky.  I might concede that there are certain traits within certain people that make them more willing to engage others in risky ways, but leadership is decidedly about making a conscious choice for yourself to be about the activity of mobilizing others to difficult work. 
Progress in our communities doesn’t happen as we all sit passively waiting for the next great natural born leader rise up and fix the daunting challenges we face.  No, progress happens as we individually choose to step into risk and engage others with a purpose (often higher than ourselves) so that progress is made little by little and our community is a better place. 
Today, then, step out and be the leader you’re capable of being.  With you…

Weekend Recap – The Risen Christ

by

My 2/24/13AM sermon, The Risen Christ, from Revelation 1:9-20 highlighted how the Risen Christ was active to instruct John to write for the good of the churches, to reveal Himself and to reassure His people.  We tend to make so many minor things the major issues of our day when the Bible holds out Jesus, the Risen Christ, as the compelling vision of our lives for eternity.  My sermon helped to give a picture of Christ that can give us grounding for the future, no matter what we face.

Dangerous Calling Email – Heart of the Matter

by

Here’s the email I sent leaders at my church this week related to Paul Tripp’s Dangerous Calling book, Chapter 4:

Did you grow up watching Bugs Bunny cartoons?  It seemed that ever so often the plot involved Bugs being very tired and drained in a desert, only to see an oasis of rest in the distance.  He would run up and start drinking what he thought was water only to have sand in his mouth.  This mirage deceived him.  In Dangerous Calling, Paul Tripp unpacks the mirage of ministry for us in Chapter 4: “More Than Knowledge and Skill.”   He begins with an illustration of a church that hired a pastor only to learn that he didn’t end up being what they thought he was. 
Here’s a great summary paragraph: “I’m convinced that the big crisis for the church of Jesus Christ is not that we are easily dissatisfied but that we are all too easily satisfied.  We have a regular and perverse ability to make things work that are not and should not be working.  We learn to adjust to things that we should alter. We learn to be okay with things we should be confronting.  We learn how to avoid things we should be facing.  We would rather be comfortable that to hold people accountable.  We swindle ourselves into thinking that things are better than they are, and in so doing we compromise the calling and standards of the God we say we love and serve.  Like sick people who are afraid of the doctor, we collect evidence that points to our health, when really, in our heart of hearts, we know we are sick.  So we settle for a human second best, when God, in grace, offers u so much more.” 
Wowzer, that’s definitely the case often isn’t it?  Tripp continues saying that our ministry is never just shaped by our knowledge, experience and skill.  It always shaped by the true condition of our hearts.  On pp.61-62 there are some great questions that might reveal our hearts.  I commend those to you for study.  The solution is so simple: we “must be enthralled by, in awe of—can I say it: in love with—[our] Redeemer so that everything [we] think, desire, choose, decide, say, and do is propelled by love for Christ and the security of rest in the love of Christ.”  “The heart is the inescapable X factor in ministry.”  So, today, what’s being revealed in your heart?  This chapter, for me at least, is one in which I need to put away my “inner lawyer” (Tripp’s words again) and ask for a tender spirit before the Lord.  What’s being revealed out of your heart today?  Find encouragement in the glorious Gospel.

Leadership Email – Risk

by

Here’s the email I sent out to Leadership Reno County alum on 2/18/13:

Good morning, everyone.  We’ve been looking at the KLC Civic Leadership Principles:
1) Leadership is an activity, not a position.
2) Anyone can lead, anytime, anywhere.
3) It starts with you and must engage others.
4) Your purpose must be clear. 
And, today, we finish up with the 5th principle: “It’s risky.”  I grew up loving the concept of the game Risk.  I was fascinated that the “older kids” could maneuver those wooden pieces around the board and seem to have so much fun.  There’s a risk to playing risk and achieving global domination. 
For those engaging in acts of leadership, we probably don’t need to be reminded that “It’s risky,” but it certainly is.  When we make a conscious choice to intervene (even if we’ve been effective at managing ourselves and diagnosing the situation), there is a risk involved.  That’s why, we’re encouraged to act experimentally or take a “smart risk” with our actions.  When it comes to deeply adaptive work, where neither the problem nor the solution of our adaptive problem is clear and there are many stakeholders involved, we should be very aware of the risk inherent to an act of leadership.
Deeper still, since leadership is risky, it calls for courage.  We can’t let the risk that goes along with acts of leadership paralyze us from this activity.  In this sense, this final point works well with the other principles we’ve seen.  Since leadership is activity done by anyone, anytime, anywhere and it begins with me and engages others out of a clear purpose, I can courageously step into this risky adventure and see what progress can be made, little by little, on the issues I care about so deeply. 
Today, then, will you resolve to remember that leadership is risky and courageously act to make progress for the good of our community?  With you to that end…

Weekend Recap – Rhythm?

by

My 2/17/13AM sermon, Introductory Rhythms, from Revelation 1:1-8 is now online.  It was a relief to finally be in this book and lay aside the introductory themes we have hit for a couple of weeks.  This introduction to the book helped establish some rhythms for us to consider.  Specifically, we saw that this revelation was given to encourage us, there’s a blessing found in this book and that Jesus is returning.

Hope you had a great Lord’s Day, as well.

Our men met in the evening continuing our study of 33: Authentic Manhood.  There is some good fruit developing from that, as well.

Dangerous Calling Email – Chapter 3

by

My Wed AM email to leaders at Crestview is based on Paul Tripp’s book, Dangerous Calling:

“Heart Disease?  Or Theology Problem?”

There’s been a trend in reason days (maybe since the Enlightenment?) to emphasize human reason over and against everything that stands in its way.  And, this has subtly filtered into the church world.  In certain pockets, there are people who believe (even though they might not verbalize this it is very much how they live) that if you have correct, orthodox beliefs or theology, then that is what God requires of you.  Part of what Tripp is going after in Chapter 3 of Dangerous Calling, “Big Theological Brains and Heart Disease,” is this kind of thinking. 
After recalling some history as to how he’s arrived at his conclusions, Tripp asks “What are we doing with the Word?”  In this section, he says, “All creation is meant to be finger pointing us to ultimate glory, the only glory that can ever satisfy the human heart, the glory of God.”  And, then, he uses that amazing illustration from Isaiah 55:10-13 and the conclusion: “The ultimate purpose of the Word of God is not theological information but heart and life transformation.” 
After lamenting how theological institutions have become increasingly specialized, Tripp asks, “What the Danger?”  What’s the danger in losing sight of God’s heart transformation through His Word:
1) Spiritual blindness – handling Scripture that doesn’t allow people to see themselves as they are
2) Theological self-righteousness – thinking maturity is more a matter of knowing that living
3) Dysfunctional personal relationship to the Word – study is more a world of correct ideas that a world of submission to the Lord
4) Lack of personal gospel neediness – not approaching God’s Word with tender, needy hearts
5) Impatience with others – being critical, dismissive, impatient with others
6) Wrong perspective on ministry – driven more by theological correctness than by worship of and love for the Lord Jesus Christ
7) No living communion with Christ – a Christ-less Christianity that puts hope in theology and rules and somehow forgets that if theology and rules had power to transform the heart of idolaters, Jesus would never have had to come, live, die and rise again.
So, in our church, where we love truth, are we in love with the Savior or drawn to mere academic growth?  Let’s be careful to exalting reason at the expense of our hearts. 
Grateful to be in trenches with you all…

Leadership Email – Purpose

by

My Monday Email to Leaders in Reno County from 2/11/13 was entitled “Peter Piper Picked A Peck of Pickled PURPOSE”:

Good Morning.  Here’s a review of where we’ve been for the past 3 weeks:
We’ve been looking at the KLC Civic Leadership Principles:
1) Leadership is an activity, not a position.
2) Anyone can lead, anytime, anywhere.
3) It starts with you and must engage others.
Today, we move to principle #4: “Your purpose must be clear.”  Purpose should loom large in our acts of leadership.  One exercise that has helped some of us get after purpose is that “Why, Why, Why” exercise.  If you’re not familiar, we form a class into groups and encourage participants to think of an issue that they care about so deeply that they would be willing to give their time to be involved in it.  Then, we have them explain their purpose by digging deeper and asking “Why?”  What emerges is typically what is driving you to do what you do and often this purpose is shared between people with different issues they care about.  This simple exercise helps, then, to inspire a collective purpose, energizing others, as well as helping each individual hold on to purpose, which might make their interventions more skillful. 
As we think in this core principle, then, about how “our purpose must be clear,” we can begin to see that our engaging in acts of leadership—mobilizing people to difficult work—is helped by a clear purpose.  A clear purpose doesn’t mean our acts of leadership will be easy, but it does remove some of the fog off of the windshield of our journey.  A clear purpose helps everyone: it reminds us why we are doing what we’re doing and helps unite us with others so that progress can be made on issues we care about deeply.  
So, today, focus.  Have a clear purpose in what you do and see if it doesn’t affect our community for the better.
Have a great week…