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LRC Email – Keep The Change

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Here’s the email thought I wrote to Leadership Reno County alumni today (1/27/14):

It’s been said that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”  What this is saying is that sometimes it’s difficult to adapt or (*scary word coming*) change.  Most of us change all the time, though. Sure we have staple menu items we like, but we also like to try something new (didn’t we Pin 100 new things yesterday).  When it comes to ourselves, we think we’re progressive.  Those of us who swore years ago we’d never have a cell phone suddenly can’t get enough of our Jitterbug.  We change.  Part of the personal challenge comes when change doesn’t happen in others the way we’d like to see it happen.

And, this process of change (or rather changing others to be precise) is precisely why we engage in an act of leadership.  Leadership is mobilizing people to do difficult work.  Leadership may include mobilizing people to change.  It starts with you and engages others.  It’s purposeful.  And, it’s risky.  So, today, as your heart is possibly growing faint with the lack of change you’d hoped would be so prevalent in the New Year, recommit yourself to this amazing work.  You can keep the change.  You can engage in act of leadership.  What would that be for you?  Pursue a step in that direction today and see if it doesn’t help us work together for the common good of our community.     

LRC Email – The Side of Caution

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Here’s my email to Leadership Reno County alums for 12/16/13:

Are you paralyzed to error on the side of caution?  I know I am.  As we’ve rounded out this year thinking about the “gap” that exists between where we believe things need to be and what our realities are, one thing we don’t like to admit is how much we are driven by the path of least resistance, erring on the side of caution or never ever upsetting the apple cart.  The only problem with being paralyzed by this way of thinking is that it rubs against a core leadership principle: leadership is risky. 
On this day many years ago, our country’s founders decided to engage in an act of leadership and rebel against King George by dumping some tea in the harbor (the Boston Tea Party).  Undoubtedly, they were driven to do something out of norm.  We love stories like this.  We don’t typically celebrate the acts of leadership that never had any risk to them.  Now, I am saying that engaging in acts of leadership can be risky and not necessarily encouraging you to be reckless.  The risk for many of us is simply doing things a little differently than we typically have done them in the past or like we typically do them.  By experimenting in this small way, I believe we can make progress in the gap.
So, as this year moves toward an end, what acts of leadership—even daring, risky acts of leadership—do you need to engage in?  What kind of progress might you make in the “gap” if you did things just a tad differently?  That’s what “leadership is risky” is all about. 

With you in this risky adventure…

Dangerous Calling Email – Bridging the Gap Within

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Here’s my email to Elders/Deacons at Crestview on 11/13/13:

As we look to wrap up this year and think about what it means to re-engage community, live in the already and the not yet and separate from the outside world (Chapters 6, 11, and 14 in Tripp’s Dangerous Calling), I loved the practical reminders Tripp gives for “vital gospel-in-everyday-life applications that every leader must preach to himself again and again”:
1) I do not have to be anxious that I will never measure up, because Jesus perfectly measured up on my behalf.
2) Because grace allows me to get my identity and security vertically, I am freed from building them on what people think of me.
3) I do not have to be haunted by what may be exposed about me, because everything that could ever be exposed has already been covered by the blood of Jesus.
4) I need to remember that my weaknesses are not in the way of productive ministry, but my delusions of independent strength are.
5) I can rest assured that God didn’t get a wrong address when He called me to ministry.  My spiritual neediness doesn’t compromise the message of the Gospel; rather, my need preaches it.
6) There is only one Messiah, and I am definitely not Him!

Rehearse these themes and rest in the liberating truth of the Gospel.

LRC Email – Another Important PSA from Our Sponsors

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Here’s my email to Leadership Reno County alumni, sent out on 11/12/13:

Good Morning.  I was asked to write another brief word from the Leadership Reno County Alumni Association (we’re also on Facebook: LRC Alumni).  As you know, many of you reading this weekly email at one point went through the Leadership Hutch or, as it was later (and currently) called, the Leadership Reno County program.  What is Leadership Reno County about?  Well, like I’ve said before, that would be an interesting discussion, but one theme that emerges for me is equipping leaders in Reno County to make progress on issues that we care about deeply.  Many of you are in the trenches, behind the scenes, working to make our community a better place.  Leadership Reno County exists to help you make progress in your difficult work. 
A new class for the winter and spring is in the process of filling up.  As is usually the case when we are preparing for a new class, we are facing immediate needs for scholarships for our program.   The Alumni Association would like to encourage you to join them by renewing your membership before the end of the year.  This will ensure membership through next year and it will help our community by enabling others to make progress in their work.  You, most of all, probably recognize the change factor that comes once you’ve gone through the LRC program and, therefore, you will want to be a part of this opportunity.  Therefore, would you please send a $25 membership renewal fee payable to “Leadership Reno County Alumni Association” to the following address: Debbie Cowl, Treasurer
Leadership Reno County Alumni Association
 % First National Bank of Hutchinson
P O Box 913
Hutchinson, KS  67504-0913

Thanks for taking time with this important request.    

Dangerous Calling Email – DVD Session 10 Review

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Here’s my email to the elders/deacons of Crestview on 11/5/13:

In last week’s email, we reviewed session 9 of our DVD curriculum with Paul Tripp’s Dangerous Calling series.  Today, I’m wrapping up the brief review of these final sessions with a summary of session 10.  Session 10 was entitled “Removing Pretenses.”  The major Scripture Tripp engaged was 1 Peter 5:6-11.  He unpacked what pretenses were and got into some main points:
·      We will blame situations or people for the separation we may have between our public ministry and our private lives. 
·      We all experience a loss of awe and feelings of arrival, but can fight these temptations by:
o   Remembering your place: humble yourself under the mighty hand of God
o   Resting in God’s care (He cares for you)
o   Taking the war of ministry seriously
o   Resisting (evil), no matter what
o   Trusting God’s sanctifying grace
Some questions:
1)    What is a pretense?  How do we use pretense to make ourselves comfortable with a separation between our public ministry and private lives?
2)    What changes would you like to see in your church ministry culture?  In yourself?
3)    What perceptions about yourself or ministry have changed as you’ve worked through this material?
Applications:
·      Which action do you need to be more mindful to incorporate into your life and ministry: humbling yourself under the mighty hand of God; resting in God’s care; taking the war of ministry seriously; resisting, no matter what; or trusting God’s sanctifying grace?
·      How can we build a healthy and effective culture of ministry together?

I trust these sessions have been good for us as a leadership team.  I’m going to do 2 more emails and then wrap up for the year.  Hope you have a great week living out these truths.

LRC Email – About the Gap (Another Take)

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My 10/28/13 email to Leadership Reno County alums:

For a couple of weeks now, I’ve been talking through how we go after our toughest challenges, suggesting that it takes a different kind of behavior.  You might be mindful of a current problem or reality facing us and see areas in which progress could be made.  We call this the gap.  And, this gap requires an act of leadership.  And, my bigger contention last time was that it’s not so much about the authorities we can get in place as much as people engaging in activity, after all leadership is an activity, not a position.
Here’s a different angle today and it’s relevant as we are gathering people for our 2014 Leadership Reno County Class.  Maybe you’ve been reading my Monday emails and wondered what in the world I’m talking about? While I talk a lot about competencies like Diagnosing the Situation, Managing Self, Intervening Skillfully, or Energizing Others, you may want more.  Even if you’re alumni of Leadership Hutch or Leadership Reno County, you might benefit from a refresher in this curriculum we’ve been using since the Fall 2009 class. 
If so, you are invited and encouraged to apply for Leadership Reno County…even if you previously participated in our program. The curriculum changed in 2009 reflecting a state-wide initiative of the Kansas Leadership Center to help us make better progress in the gap.

I can tell you as one who benefited from this curriculum that it’s helped me in all parts of life.  By continually seeking to apply these competencies and principles, I feel like I’ve been able to make progress on issues as I engage in acts of leadership.  If this is something you might be interested in, please contact Kris, Lynette or me, and we’d be happy to answer any questions.  Thanks for your consideration in this and we hope that by engaging in acts of leadership through better behavior, we can make progress on those issues we care about deeply.

DC Email – Awe of God

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Here’s my email to elders and deacons at Crestview related to our Dangerous Calling study on 10/15/13:

For today’s thought on Tripp’s Dangerous Calling, we return to chapter 8 on “Familiarity.”  Tripp is driving at how awe of God is to be the center of our existence and applies it to our ministry areas: “Awe of God must dominate my ministry, because one of the central missional gifts of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to give people back their awe of God. A human being who is not living in a functional awe of God is a profoundly disadvantaged human being. He is off the rails, trying to propel the train of his life in a meadow, and he may not even know it. The spiritual danger here is that when awe of God is absent, it is quickly replaced by our awe of ourselves. If you are not living for God, the only alternative is to live for yourself. So a central ministry of the church must be to do anything it can to be used of God to turn people back to the one thing for which they were created: to live in a sturdy, joyful, faithful awe of God.” 

While there are many things we can be about in ministry, let’s stand in awe of God’s love for us in the Gospel and how it creates an awe of God and be reminded that this is the goal of our work.  (If you need a Scripture, run to Psalm 145.)  Hoping today that we as a collective team could be in awe of God.

LRC Email – Feeling The Gap

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Here’s the email I sent to Leadership Reno County Alumni today, 10/14/13:

What are the big challenges facing us?  Not only do we have a federal government shutdown but even on the local level, today’s Hutch News reported that there’s a mediator working between USD308 and teachers.  They are still at odds when it comes to an agreeable salary negotiation.  All around us, then, we have areas that are challenging (undoubtedly, I’m guessing that you have a personal challenge or the organization you work in has a pressing challenge that it’s facing).
Opposite of these challenging situations, we have ideals.  We have areas that we’d like to see headway made. We have an end goal in mind.  And, as you can maybe feel reading this, there is a gap between our current reality and where we’d like to be.
So, what is going to bridge that gap?  Doing things the same old way?  Part of my contention is that no, that won’t work.  It will take a different kind of behavior.  It will require we engage these things in a different way.  And, this is what the leadership principles and competencies of the KLC speak to.  That to make progress on these deep issues, we have to engage in often risky acts of leadership and act differently: diagnosing the situation, managing self, intervening skillfully, and energizing others.  Today, take some time and review these on the KLC site (pp.9-17) and see if they don’t help you envision a small step you can take to see progress on the deep challenges you face. 

Feel the gap and join me in pursuing progress for the common good…

DC Email – Self Glory and Our Kingdoms

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Here’s an email I sent out to Elders and Deacons at Crestview based on a DVD series we’re watching entitled Dangerous Calling with Paul Tripp:

We’re coming off the heels of our meeting on August 13 (reminder, if you missed the meeting, the videos and handouts are available from Bob G).  These 2 sessions really got after how much we live for ourselves and fail to be the ambassadors which we’ve been called to be.  There were lots of areas of application and Tripp put his finger on that one of personal worship before God. 
Here’s some key points from Session 7:
·         Through ministry we can build God’s glorious Kingdom or we can attempt to build our own glorious kingdom.
·         The DNA of sin is selfishness.
·         Your actual position in ministry is God’s ambassador; as such, we are called to incarnate the King.
And some points from Session 8:
·         We must continually be reconciled to God.

·         Ministry is only made effective, safe and attractive when it is fueled by our own devotional life.

LRC Email – Leadership and Inspiration

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Here’s the email I sent to leaders in Reno County on Monday, 8/19/13:

Good morning everyone.  Thanks for your continued care for me in the aftermath of the flooding we experienced 2 weeks ago.  Many of you have checked in and continue to be an encouragement to me and, thus, my family.  I’m very grateful to be a part of this community.  And, it’s inspiring, which gets me to our thought for today.
A recent communication card from the KLC asks about the connection of inspiration with leadership.  The answer: “Inspire means ‘to exert an animating, enlivening or exalting influence.’ Something got you fired up.  Now you must motivate others through your words and example.  If you hope to make progress on a daunting, adaptive challenge you cannot do it alone.”  I’m wondering how inspiring our words and actions are, actually.

I’ve had some conversations recently with people who are plenty fired up about a great many things, but their words and actions aren’t moving toward a purpose.  One was fed up with a recent Brownback policy, another couldn’t believe Obama had done this or that thing.  Across the board (and more than likely all the way down to our local level), people get fired up about a great many things.  But, how we act in light of being fired up may help or hinder progress.  So, this Monday AM, what are you fired up about?  How are you speaking and acting?  And, what might you do to be more purposeful, to step into the arena of inspiration, so that progress is made?  Consider these things and, better yet, act on them and see if it doesn’t help move our community along.