I appreciate a well told story.
Telling stories is one of the most effective ways to lead a community or congregation.
The church that I serve, Resurrection West, is a member of the Olathe Chamber of Commerce who recently released a video to promote Olathe.
This model could be effective for a wide variety of settings to share stories of:
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One of my favorite podcasts is the HBR IdeaCast. Episode 283, The Right Mindset for Success, focuses on the distinctions between a fixed and growth mindset. One of the most helpful portions was about supervision and management. This list, from Carol Dweck, describes the methods and message that a manager or leader could give to new employees that would put them into a growth mindset:
I have much to learn from these methods in the way that I supervise staff and volunteers. These methods would be helpful for:
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I have had the privilege of spending time with Ray Pitman, a member of Resurrection, over the past several months. Several years ago, I officiated at the funeral for his wife, Betty, and we reconnected this summer when I lead worship at Leawood one Saturday night. I found his perspective on capacity to be particularly helpful as presented to an executive MBA class at the Helzberg School of Management at Rockhurst University.
As drinking glasses exist in different sizes, people have varying capacities in life and work. If you fill a glass to the point of overflowing it won’t do any good to keep putting water in it. When your own glass is overflowing you have to be able to recognize that and make sure that you are surrounded by other people who have some additional capacity.
I have had the privilege of spending time with Ray Pitman, a member of Resurrection, over the past several months. Several years ago, I officiated at the funeral for his wife, Betty, and we reconnected this summer when I lead worship at Leawood one Saturday night. He has shared with me over and over his four keys to business and entrepreneurship. I have found them to be applicable in a wide variety of circumstances:
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I have had the privilege of spending time with Ray Pitman, a member of Resurrection, over the past several months. Several years ago, I officiated at the funeral for his wife, Betty, and we reconnected this summer when I lead worship at Leawood one Saturday night. Last Friday he invited me to hear him speak to an executive MBA class at the Helzberg School of Management at Rockhurst University. He has told his life as a case study to classes at the Helzberg School for several years and I wanted to share a few tidbits for life, work and ministry.
Here are some posts from Thoughts of Resurrection one year ago, that I think you might find interesting. Take a look…
On Sunday afternoon, Nicole and I met some friends to see the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts as part of the Community Open House. It was a drizzly afternoon and the line was long. We waited in line for over an hour. Along the way, there were volunteers that were present to answer questions or handout a flier about the event. Generally, pretty helpful.
Near the building, I saw a woman with a blue jacket who I first thought was another volunteer greeting people. When we shook hands, I saw her nametag: Jane Chu, CEO.
The CEO was standing outside in the drizzle shaking hands and greeting everyone in line.
I don’t know if she stayed there to greet every one of the over 50,000 people who were at the open house, but it made a distinct positive impression on me. Not inside, not present just at the gala opening previously – outside in the rain, greeting everyone.
This is the kind of leader that I want to be and follow.
There are many things that I hope to do well as a pastor. One of those is strategic planning. The Wikipedia contributors define strategic planning in this way - ”Strategic planning is an organization’s process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people.”
This process is critical for a local church to have significant success in their purpose. At Resurrection, our purpose is that we are building a Christian community where non-religious and nominally religious people are becoming deeply committed Christians. Each year the church council defines strategic objectives to help us accomplish this purpose. As an associate pastor, I have some role in this process and when I am the lead pastor at a church I want to be great at leading the congregation through this type of planning process.
Strategic planning can undergird the purpose of the church, equipping volunteers, mobilizing for mission and faith sharing. It is a helpful skill for pastors.
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Last week, I was reading Mr. Brown can Moo, Can You?: Dr. Seuss’s Book of Wonderful Noises to my son when I realized that I was holding the book at a level that was easy for me to read and not one that was great for him to see. I quickly changed the angle of the book to one that he could see.
I realized that there was a lesson here, not just for reading books to our son, but for leadership as well. You may have a way of interacting with others that works just fine for you, however if your interventions are not made in a way that they can be received by others they won’t do much good.
Are you leading at the right level?This is similar to our leadership interventions.
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