New Life Assembly

Be Yourself

It's harder than it sounds.  Believe me, I know.

I spent a good part of my early years as a pastor trying to be someone else.  I had great mentors in ministry who invested so much into my life, and were such godly examples for me to follow, that there were times I felt like I had to be them in order to be a good pastor.  I thought that if I didn't preach like they did, or lead like they did, that I would somehow end up as a pastoral failure.  Little did I understand that the more I tried to imitate them, the more I failed.

Not only did I have good mentors whose example and influence I valued, but I also had well-meaning folks in our church who had ideas about what I could do to be a better pastor.  Desperately wanting to please anyone and everyone led me to confuse leadership with popularity.  There were times I bent to those wishes, and then found that when I had, I still wasn't fully pleasing them.  There would always be something else.  I could never be "good enough". 

There were days that I thought, in the depths of my heart, that I couldn't keep meeting these pastoral demands.  There were days that I believed I had made a mistake when I embraced the call to pastor, days when I felt like I had made a mistake coming to New Life.  I was trying to please everyone except the only one who mattered, the one who had called me, gifted me, and prepared me for the purpose that only he could accomplish in me and through me.

I'm not sure when I turned the corner and stopped trying to be someone else.  One significant step in that direction was being involved in a mentoring network in the spring of 2005.  As part of that experience I took an assessment called Strengths Finder, which measured 5 areas of talent in my life.  In reflecting on those I started to understand how God had designed me, maybe even perfectly fit me for the role he had called me to at New Life.  I started to trust that God actually knew what he was doing by bringing me here.  I began to truly believe that if I leaned into him, and allowed him to have full rein working through me, that I might be more fulfilled, and that my ministry might actually be more fulfilling to those I was trying to lead.

Some days, I admit, I'm tempted to turn around the corner in reverse.  And then I remember that God has called me to lead this church; he has prepared me for the task.  In fact, just the other day I had a long conversation with God in which I allowed him to remind me that my only desire as a pastor is to please him.  My sole passion is that when I stand before him to give account for how I have lived my life, that he will be pleased with my faithfulness to his call.  Everything else will be consumed, only his call will remain.

Everyone will admit that they want to just "be themselves", but few seem willing to put in the effort required to take that path.  More of us seem willing to settle for people-pleasing and pacifying others we think are smarter or more powerful than we are.  Too many of us are willing to take the road of no resistance, no standing out, no risk, no pain.  But I've found that being yourself, in the truest sense, requires us to find all of our sufficiency, all of our value and all of our approval in God and him alone.  You could say that if you really want to find yourself, you must first lose yourself in the cross, and allow him to resurrect you for his purpose and glory in your life.  I learned to be myself when I learned to fully embrace who God created me to be, and to lead from that place.

When we next meet (I won't promise tomorrow, though I intend it...) I want to write about what drives me as a pastor:  people matter.

Ten Years Later

On Sunday our church took some time to honor Rita and me (and our kids) for Pastor's appreciation month.  I've always been humbled by the ways that the church has chosen to share their love and appreciation with us through the years.  In my heart, this one was particularly significant, because in a few days I will be marking my tenth year of ministry here at New Life.  I like symbolic milestones and always have, and there's something about 10 years that makes me pause, reflect, give thanks, and then turn towards the future for my life and ministry.  So over the next couple days I'm going to share some of what's changed in me and our church, and some lessons I've learned in 10 years as pastor of New Life.

In 1999 I was 24 years old, married for just over two years, and had been serving on staff at a church for just over a year.  We came to New Life at a time in her history when she was battered and bruised from several years of internal church conflict.  During that time many people had left, and the ones who stayed were weary and worn down from what was an emotional and spiritual battle.  It was not what anyone would describe as a dream job, and yet Rita and I both felt undeniably called to accept the responsibility of pastoring this church.

I had no real idea of what it would take to right the ship.  I don't think I knew it even 5 or 6 years into the process.  I was still trying to figure out who I was as a pastor and leader in the church.  I'm sure that in the process of my own growth and development I frustrated some who were trying to work with me.  I made my share of mistakes along the way.  I avoided conflict when I should have accepted it, and probably initiated some conflict when I should have avoided it.  I was overly timid at times, and sensitive to criticism at others.  I tried to please some, and (truth be told) actively tried not to please others. 

Through it all I kept holding on to the one clear word I believed God had dropped into my heart when I accepted that he was calling me to New Life:  that he wanted me to come and be a servant leader.  I learned that in order to gain the trust of those God had called me to lead, it was essential that I prove myself trustworthy, and prove myself to be the kind of person who would give himself away on behalf of others.  So I worked hard at that from the beginning.  I actively sought to lay down my rights and refrain from asserting my privileges as a leader so that everyone would know my first priority was to serve the church and do what was best for all of us.

Not everyone saw it that way, I'm sure.  There were lots of ups and downs, and many moments when I questioned the wisdom of God's plan to bring me here.  There were days I was hurt beyond what I could possibly express, and days when I felt I was being taken advantage of.  And I still came back to this overarching mandate to lead by serving.  I did not do it perfectly, but I think I did it faithfully, which is ultimately what God requires of those he has given the responsibility to lead in his church. 

I'm particularly grateful to God for those of you who have stuck it out through ten years of my ministry, through my mistakes and failures and have been gracious to me while I, for much of it, learned on the job.  God has used you to make me a better pastor, a better husband, better father, and a better man.  It truly has been a privilege to serve you at every turn, and you have been more than gracious to serve with me in so many different ways. 

So, first lesson in ten years of leadership:  be willing to serve.  Those you lead will be thankful for your heart and your commitment to honor them above yourself.  If God gives me another ten years, I pray that I will not lose the heart of a servant.

Random, semi-connected thoughts

Lots of thoughts cluttering my brain this week, so I thought I'd unload some of them here:

• Had a brief conversation with Rita last night about our personal giving to the church and mission of the kingdom - I've been feeling challenged while preparing the messages on managing our money, so I think we're going to make some changes coming up.  I think there's no better way to lead than by example.
• Coaching Jacob's instructional league baseball team could be the most draining thing I've ever done.  An hour and 15 minutes has never gone by so quickly and never taken so much out of me.  My assistant coach and I agreed - you could not pay me enough money to be a first grade teacher. 
• Speaking of first grade teachers, my son has had the privilege of running into one of the best.  After our first interaction with her on a parent night in the first week of school I told Rita that she reminded me of my own first grade teacher, Mrs. Stack.  When you can still remember your first grade teacher in a positive light at age 33+, I'd say that's a good comparison.  So thanks to Mrs. Stack for being an incredible teacher to me, and thanks to Mrs. Sauro for the incredible effort you've given to Jacob this year.  I have no doubt he'll remember you at 33.
• Speaking of kids... I woke up this morning to the sound of my kids reading to each other in Aislinn's room.  Some days they amaze me, literally.  As a parent you wrestle over and over with the constant shaping of their character, the incessant need to give them sound direction and the agonizing hope that they will "get it".  I laid in bed listening to them while a wave of thanksgiving swept over me for a moment when they were speaking to each other with kindness and interacting with each other positively.
• I haven't been to the gym in almost two weeks, the result of an unfortunate meeting between me and poison ivy.  I can't wait to get back to it.  My gut is begging for a beating.
• I've been working on the writing for a new book on character that we can use in our partnerships at the church.  The idea is to explore the beatitudes in Matthew 5 as a manifesto for character in the kingdom of God, and I hope to finish up the first manuscript in the next couple months.  That will require, however, that I get my act together.  And then editing.  Gotta love editing.  Or not.
• There's been some discussion with a few people here at the church about the possibility of hosting some kind of a block party event for the community this summer.  More details to follow, but the key is I've already had somebody say they love to organize things, which is music to the ears of this organizationally and administratively challenged person.
• Looking forward to two things tonight: (1) Worship practice - I love playing with these guys!!  (2)Celtics/Magic, Game 2 tonight.  Hopefully the C's play with more energy than they did in Game 1.

Thanks for indulging me in offloading these thoughts to a page.  Now, back to work on the message.

Two quotes that guide me...

Yesterday afternoon I cracked open a brand new Moleskine Plain Journal with the heavyweight pages that allow me to use my fine point Sharpies for writing out my sermon notes. This morning I took a few minutes to inscribe the following two quotes into the first two pages, as I have done for the last two books before this one. I genuinely enjoy the process of crafting and delivering a message every week, and these two quotes have served as a beacon for me as I endeavor weekly (and sometimes weakly) to speak a word of hope and life into the hearts of those who sit in need with me on Sunday.

They are both from a beautiful little book on preaching called "Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale" written by a remarkable author I first encountered on a recommendation from my brother: Frederick Buechner.

"Let the preacher tell the truth. Let him make audible the silence of the news of the world with the sound turned off so that in the silence we can hear the tragic truth of the Gospel, which is that the world where God is absent is a dark and echoing emptiness; and the comic truth of the Gospel, which is that into the depths of his absence that God makes himself present in such unlikely ways and to such unlikely people that old Sarah and Abraham and maybe even when the time comes even Pilate and Job and Lear and Henry Ward Beecher and you and I laugh till the tears run down our cheeks. And finally let him preach this overwhelming of tragedy by comedy, of darkness by light, of the ordinary by the extraordinary, as the tale that is too good not to be true because to dismiss it as untrue is to dismiss along with it that catch of the breath, that beat and lifting of the heart near to or even accompanied by tears, which I believe is the deepest intuition of truth that we have."

"The Gospel is bad news before it is good news. It is the news that man is a sinner, to use the old term, that he is evil in the imagination of his heart, that when he looks in the mirror all in a lather what he sees is at least eight parts chicken, phony, slob. That is the tragedy. But it is also the news that he is loved anyway, cherished, forgiven, bleeding to be sure, but also bled for. That is the comedy. And yet, so what? So what if even in his sin the slob is loved and forgiven when the very mark and substance of his sin and of his slobbery is that he keeps turning down the love and forgiveness because he either doesn't believe them or doesn't want them or just doesn't give a damn? In answer, the news of the Gospel is that extraordinary things happen to him just as in fairy tales extraordinary things happen....it is impossible for anyone to leave behind the darkness of the world he carries on his back like a snail, but for God, all things are possible. That is the fairy tale. All together they are the truth."

Good to Great: A Culture of Discipline

I have a feeling that before I finish this blog post, something is bound to self-destruct in my computer, due to its inability to process more than two posts a week.  Nevertheless, we press on in pursuit of greatness...

I think most people don't like the "D" word - discipline.  Given free rein, I'll slide towards freedom over responsibility most every time.  Given complete license to do what I want, I'll often choose that over what I have to do, procrastinating the necessities until later.  So this chapter about a creating a culture of discipline really hit me between the eyes.  Collins asserts that companies that make the transition from good to great consist of disciplined people who are incredibly disciplined in their thoughts and from those thoughts take disciplined actions.  They are tenacious about their one thing we discussed in the last post, and will go to seemingly extreme ends in order to make sure they adhere to that concept in every aspect of their organization.

Yet, he contends, these companies seem to balance freedom and responsibility.  Because they have done the difficult work of getting the right people on the bus, they have confidence in their ability to think through the issues facing the company, and to take disciplined action to resolve problems and capitalize on opportunities.  There is a clear belief in the system they have created, and yet a freedom to create within that system that continues to allow the right people to experiment within the bounds of the system.  It's that balance that is, I think, particularly difficult to strike.

When I heard Collins give his talk at Catalyst, one of the key points I took away was the need for a "stop-doing" list to coincide with the "to-do" list I already have.  He said that our tendency is to just keep adding to the to-do list, and never eliminate anything from it.  Even as I write it, it sounds ridiculous, and yet true.  But he says that the disciplined organizations (again, made up of disciplined people) knew what lay within their hedgehog concept and were passionate about eliminating anything and everything that didn't move them closer to that goal.

Churches (and pastors) tend to get stuck here, I think.  We get comfortable doing certain things on a weekly, monthly, or even annual basis, and we never question whether they are helping us achieve the goal of seeing the lives of people in our churches and then in our communities transformed by the gospel.  Reading this chapter I was encouraged to think through some of those things again, to try to take a look with fresh eyes at what we're doing, and what we may need to stop doing to become more effective.  That, of course, applies also to me personally as the leader.  I have to be willing to not do certain things so that I can focus on the few things that I can do that will help us become a great church.  Lots to think about there for me. 

I think I'll take tomorrow off.  All this writing is exhausting me.  I'll be back on Monday with the regularly scheduled weekend reflections.

Good to Great: The Hedgehog Concept

I'm working from home this morning because Rita's taking the day off and this way I can see her for a few minutes on my breaks!  One of the advantages of a flexible work schedule, I would say...

Of all the good chapters in Good to Great, I thought the chapter on the hedgehog concept was the great chapter - the one that I've found myself re-reading several times since I finished the book.  Collins talks about an ancient Greek parable that says "the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."  He says that foxes are cunning creatures who are able to devise many ways of attacking a hedgehog, but the hedgehog continually returns to the one thing that will save him from the fox - rolling into a ball and pointing his spikes outward.  Collins relates this to two different kinds of companies.  On the one hand are the companies who see the complexity of the world and pursue various and scattered ideas in all different directions.  On the other hand are the good-to-great companies, who see the complexity of the world, but are able to come up with a single, unifying concept that they can work with.

To get to this "hedgehog concept" Collins encourages us to look at the intersections of three circles, which are the answers to three questions.  (1)  What can you be the best in the world at?  (2) What drives your economic engine? (3) What are you deeply passionate about?  He asserts that if you can find the place where those three overlap, you can find the unifying concept around which you can build a great organization.  The good-to-great companies had a single ideal that drove them forward in their success, and they pursued it relentlessly.

It has gotten me thinking about our church, and asking where those three intersect for us?  I still don't have an answer, but I can see how crucial the question is for our long-term success.  I've said for a long time that I want New Life to be a great church, and I think the potential is there for it to be a goal we realize.  But to do it, I think we're going to have to understand what we can be the best at, what will drive our discipleship engine (because I think that's the key factor in a church), and what we're deeply passionate about.  If we can do some digging on those (and I think we did some already in creating a mission, vision and values) then I think we can really drive towards becoming the great church God wants us to be; a great church that will have a great impact on the communities of South Kingstown and Narragansett.

Good to Great - The Stockdale Paradox

For some weird reason I woke up before 6 this morning with an awful lot of energy, so I've been returning emails, and feeling highly productive and thought this might be as good a time as any to blog some more thoughts on Good to Great.  It's highly likely this post will be interrupted by my oldest child stampeding down the stairs looking for breakfast, but it's a chance I have to take.

The third principle Collins brings out regarding the good to great companies is their willingness to confront the brutal facts about their current situation.  He keys in on just how imperative it is that companies were willing to take an honest assessment of their position in their markets.  He specifically contrasted two grocery store chains - A&P and Kroger.  A&P was the leading grocery store chain in the US, at one point with gross sales that ranked second only to GM among all American companies.  When they began to falter, however, they were unwilling to deal with current reality, instead they actually chose to ignore things that were right under their nose - particularly the reality that the grocery store industry was changing.  When they started a sort of pilot project store to gauge what people wanted it showed them exactly where the industry was headed, but because they didn't like the conclusions, they shut down the store.

Kroger, on the other hand, was faced with the same challenges:  multitudes of stores and capital invested in the old school grocery store.  Instead of hiding their heads in the sand, however, they chose to confront the reality that the world was changing under their feet, and took action to be prepared for the change.  Collins writes that, "Kroger decided to eliminate, change, or replace every single store and depart every region that did not fit the new realities.  The whole system would be turned inside out, store by store, block by block, city by city, state by state."

Collins tells us, however, that equally important as confronting brutal facts is maintaining an unwavering sense of optimism and hope that the company will succeed in the end.  It's a paradox, of course, because you must first see just how bad things are before you can believe they need to change.  And once you see how bad things are, it's quite possible to lose hope that they could ever change.  So some see the reality and don't ignore it, but instead accept it, and just throw up their hands about it.  But the good to great companies saw it and didn't accept it, they worked to change in the midst of it buoyed by great faith that they would overcome the obstacles in the end.

I think they applications for the church are stunning in this chapter.  I can't tell you how often I've thought that much of the church world is burying their heads in the sand about the brutal reality that what we're doing, by and large, is not working.  I know of some highly effective churches, but for each one of those I could name another 2 or 3 that have completely lost touch with reality. 

And yet, I am eternally hopeful about the church because I believe that it is God's purpose to use the church to advance his Kingdom in the world.  I don't think he's ever backed off of that redemptive proposal that we would go into all the world making disciples of all nations.  That calling has never been rescinded, and so I have great hope in the church as a whole.  My question is whether the individual churches that make up the larger church will have the courage required to confront reality, and will have the faith required to make the needed changes to be what God is calling them to be in a world that has most definitely changed underneath our feet.  It's my hope that New Life will be one of those courageous churches who meets the challenges with our head up, our eyes open, and our hearts filled with hope.

First Who, Then What

I had great intentions last week of a series of posts based on Jim Collins' book Good to Great, and then my kids got sick and my whole routine was thrown off.  Though I'm used to it by now, it's still a little frustrating when it happens.  So today's the first day I feel a semi-normal day is in order again, and so it's the first chance to get back to those posts.

In the good to great companies, Collins asserts that their way of hiring staff followed the principle "first who, then what" - meaning that it was more important to get the right people involved in the organization than it was to fill roles that seemed to be priorities.  Not only was it key to get the right people involved, it was equally important to make sure that the people who were in a wrong fit were either moved to a different position, or moved out of the company altogether.

Those companies that practiced the principle found that they were able to more effectively meet the challenges of uncertain times because their focus was not on hiring for positions, but on hiring people with the right character, and the right competencies to navigate difficult situations.  When you have the right people involved from the beginning, they don't need to be micro-managed, because you trust that they can accomplish the necessary tasks to succeed.  They took time to make the right decisions and hire the best possible people up front, which is difficult to do, but pays off in the long run.

At the end of the chapter Collins distills it this way:  "The old adage 'People are your most important asset' is wrong.  People are not your most important asset.  The right people are."  I can't tell you how much this resonates with me and my understanding of my own life, and my own desires for leading the church.  I want to do ministry with people I can trust, with people who are committed in relationship to each other, and who are then committed to doing something great together.  A friend of mine says that it's important to process relationships before tasks, and I couldn't agree more.

I've made mistakes in this respect, sometimes looking at the gifts and talents of people as more important than their fit into the relationships of the church.  It's a mistake I don't want to make again, because it's such a difficult one to reverse.  But I am committed to being rigorous about making "who" decisions before "what" decisions.  Right now I'm privileged to be doing ministry with people I know are invested in their relationships to one another.  To take another step in our growth as a church will involve now getting all of those good, talented and committed people into positions where they can use their gifts and talents in the most productive ways.

If all goes well, tomorrow will be a chance to talk about confronting brutal facts while never losing faith.  It's always fun to look at brutal facts, right?

Level 5 Leadership

Good Morning!

I stayed up way too late reading last night, so I'm dragging just a little bit this morning.  I'm feeling like a second cup of coffee may be in order for me to get through to lunch...

Yesterday I mentioned that I wanted to take some time to blog through the concepts advanced by Jim Collins in his book, Good to Great.  So this morning's topic is centered on the leadership provided to these companies that made a leap from good to great.  Collins says, that he "gave the research team explicit instructions to downplay the role of top executives so that we could avoid the simplistic 'credit the leader' or 'blame the leader' thinking common today."  Despite that instruction, they found that leadership of a particular kind was critical to the success of these companies.

They developed a 5 tier hierarchy for categorizing leaders, from Level 1, a highly capable individual, to Level 5 - a leader who blends personal humility and professional will.  He contends that these leaders walked in the paradox of not thinking too highly of themselves, and yet having a perfect understanding of their mission to build something great.  The Level 5 leaders were not interested in being so great that the place would fall apart when they left, rather they were concerned with building a company that would have enduring greatness even after they were gone.

Because of that drive, the Level 5 leaders displayed a remarkable penchant for doing the "right thing" even if it was the hard thing to do, even if it meant shouldering their share of blame for the failures.  Collins describes this as the difference between a window and a mirror.  The comparison company executives often looked out the window to find someone else to blame for the issues.  The good to great leaders were willing to look in the mirror at themselves.  At the same time, they were quick to look out the window to give credit for successes to those with whom they worked.

So, since this quality is all about leadership, it was a "mirror moment" for me as I read it and then thought about its implications.  My own tendency is to be strong on the personal humility aspect of leadership and weak on the professional will aspect.  I have rarely struggled with taking my share of blame for our issues as a church, in fact, I sometimes wonder if I've taken too much blame, but that may be another conversation. 

But I haven't been as driven to see us become great as I would like myself to be, and as it seems that Collins thinks is necessary for us to be.  I heard a podcast a week or so ago (an ESPN production of all things) in which the football analyst being interviewed said, "Remember, never confuse hope with a plan."  That quote stuck with me.  I've been strong on the hope, and much weaker on the discipline to create a plan and stick to it.  In that sense I think I've managed to chase different concepts around, hoping to hit on one that would make me (and us) great.  I feel like I'm coming out of that mode now, which is good news for me personally and for us as a church.

Collins says there are no 10 steps to Level 5 leadership, but that there is an interrelationship between this kind of leadership and the other disciplines described in the book.  He encourages his readers to pursue those disciplines and then see where they take you in your leadership.  So, with that said, I'll close out this post on leadership by inviting you to come back tomorrow for a glance at the "first who, then what" principle.

Good to Great (Part 1)

In October I went to the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta with about 30 other pastors from our district.  It was a great journey, filled with inspiring and challenging speakers who charged me up for quite a while to do the work that I've been called to do as a pastor.  On the flight home I spent some time writing down my top takeaways from the conference, and was a little surprised to find that maybe 6 or 7 of them came from Jim Collins, author of the book Good to Great. 

Several months later I purchased the book.  It took me a while to get through it, not because I found it boring, but because there was so much information to digest that I typically found myself only reading a chapter at a time in an effort to absorb as much as possible.  I just finished yesterday, and thought I'd lay out some of my own thoughts related to the concepts Collins presents in the book.  As always, please feel free to engage my thoughts (or Collins') in the comments section of the blog - I'd love to hear from you!

"Good is the enemy of great.
And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great.
We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools.  We don't have great government, principally because we have good government.  Few people attain great lives, in large part  because it is just so easy to settle for a good life."

This is the opening to the book, and it's a great one, principally because it's so true.  The book itself is an examination of 11 companies (and 17 comparison companies) who make the leap from being just a good company, to being a great company.  Collins and his research team spent several years (5 I think) collecting data on these companies who had a history of average performance related to the market, punctuated by some sort of transitional period after which their companies outperformed the general market by at least 3 times in the next 15 years.

The companies range from a bank, to a steel producer, to a grocery store chain to a pharmacy chain.  The goal of the research team was to look inside the transition period to see what happened that made such a remarkable difference.  Their objective was to see what, if anything, were the contributing factors to the giant step forward?

Having heard the talk Collins gave at Catalyst, I was a little familiar with the lingo already, and had already thought through some elements of how these would apply to me personally and to my leadership of the church.  Yesterday as I finished the book I couldn't escape the question, "What can I do to apply some of this to New Life?"

I'll give you the bullet points of Collins' conclusions, and then probably spend a post a day on each concept.  I'm hoping this will help me with the processing that I'm still trying to do of how I can apply these to me and us.

1. Level 5 Leadership:  "....these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will."
2. First who...then what:  "People are not your most important asset.  The right people are."
3. Confront the brutal facts (yet never lose faith):  "....unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end...at the same time the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality...."
4. The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the three circles):  "To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence."
5. A culture of discipline:  "When you have disciplined people, you don't need hierarchy."
6. Technology accelerators:  "...pioneers in the application of carefully selected technologies."
7. The Flywheel and the Doom Loop:  "...the good-to-great transitions never happened in one fell swoop."

So tomorrow, Level 5 Leadership, and the ways that I can strive towards that goal.