You are constantly celebrating with people as you hear their stories of how God has worked in their lives. You get to walk with so many along their spiritual journey and watch them grow and change all along the way. You get to be a part of people coming to know Jesus, being baptized, and celebrating the Lord’s Supper. You watch as brothers and sisters in Christ begin to understand their calling in the Kingdom and use their gifts to show heaven on earth.  You get to spend a great deal of time in God’s Word and praying that the Holy Spirit will speak to people as you preach your guts out each week and lead others in worship of our great God. Nothing is more emotionally charging than these things!

Then you spend the day in a hospital watching families hurt as their loved ones suffer. You counsel people who have been beaten bloody by the brokenness of our world and the relational violence of people. You try to help the marginalized who are so often stuck in a cycle of poverty or violence knowing that the cycle is so strong that without a miracle of God it is nearly impossible to break.

The ups and downs of the roller coaster are enough to make  you sick to your stomach.

Ultimately, for me, the celebrations far outweigh the hurt. There is hope in the hurt as I get to share Emmanuel, God with us, with those who are in pain. I wouldn’t choose to do anything else. Thank God for His peace that is greater than I could ever imagine!

What do you do to stay emotionally healthy through large swings of emotion?

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

So often this song is sung with a cheerful celebration that I feel takes away from the depth of the song. The Civil Wars give us a mournfully emotional tune with the overwhelming hope of the lyrics.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

The beauty of this song is in the fact that even when we are in our lowest place, even in the midst of exile and despair, we can still rejoice in the victory of God. We can still celebrate (even when we don’t feel like celebrating) the fact that “death’s dark shadows” have been defeated by the God who has come to be with us!

Enjoy this powerful song and pray for the peace only God can give during this season of advent.

I am a follower of Jesus. I’m trying to walk that path.

The most important people I want walking along that path with me are my boys. If I’m not walking with them in a way that leads them in the way of Jesus, then I haven’t done what I’m supposed to do.

This is why I love hiking with the boys. We literally walk on the path. I get to enjoy and talk about God’s creation on this path. I get to have conversations with them about what they like and who they will become on this path. (It’s amazing what kids will talk about when we aren’t all distracted by non-path life.) We get to imagine together on this path. They get to see who I am and I get to see who they are on this path. I get to disciple them on this path.

You may not hike with you kids, friends, or loved-ones but are you walking on this path with them?

How do you walk with others?

At the end of the day, can you say to yourself that you acted in concert with your values? (pg 117)

The second half of The Truth About Leadership covers truths 7-10. You can read my reaction to the first 5 truths from the book in Part 1.

Truth 6: Trust Rules

Truth 7: Challenge is the Crucible for Greatness

Truth 8: You Either Lead by Example or You Don’t Lead at All

Truth 9: The Best Leaders Are the Best Learners

Truth 10: Leadership is an Affair of the Heart

Truths 8 and 10 are challenges that all who lead people, and especially pastors, need to wrestle with on a regular basis.

Lead by Example

So often we preachers stand in front of a congregation and speak about building relationships, evangelizing, discipling, etc. and yet once we leave the pulpit we go back to the administrative grind of “leading a church” and forget that we to wholeheartedly participate in these things we have been preaching. It seems that in the midst of “church work” we can loose sight of our values and priorities and forget to lead the discipleship charge by participating. I challenge you to sit down this week and ask, “What do I value? Am I DOING those things?”

Love is Key to Leadership

Do you truly love what you do? Do you truly love the people who are walking with you on the journey? A passion for the “work” and a passion for the people are key to good leadership. Leader, ask yourself, “Do I really love this? Would I rather be doing something else?” If you are passionate about what you do then ask, “Do I love this enough to truly love the people who are in this with me?” Love leads to great leadership!

I highly recommend this book for anyone who leads others. It ranks with  Collins’ Good to Great and is an easier and more immediately applicable read. Pastor, this isn’t a book written specifically for you but you would be remiss not to read it and honestly evaluate your leadership in light of this book.

Now, I may be overstating my point a little but something has been bothering me over the last few years. There is a distrust/disgust/distaste for the existing church among many young training pastors. There is a constant conversation about the ineffectiveness of existing churches and the need for renewal. This has led to a large church planting movement and what seems like an attempt to restart the church. If someone is talking about rejuvenating an existing church, it usually consists of making such wholesale changes that the church splits or “restarts” and the result is something that functions much like a church plant anyway.

I have no problem with church planting. I think it is vital to continue to spread the Kingdom through multiplication of churches. What isn’t sitting well with me is the exclusion of existing churches from training for the work of the Kingdom.

Many existing churches are broken. Many have internal structures that are dysfunctional and ineffective in spreading and growing new disciples. What is unsettling to me is that those of us in vocational ministry who may see these problems are just writing off the people in these churches as people who don’t really care about the Gospel or are too selfish to change. Maybe pastors are seeing the dysfunction rather than seeing the people.

And besides, haven’t people in these churches been trained by us pastors to be the way they are over the last 100 years?

Are we training pastors to see people who do love God and want to see His Kingdom advance even if they are (at times) misguided in their methods or mission?* Are we as pastors willing to make the long-term commitment and endure the slow process of helping people see what our life in the Kingdom of God should look like even when it doesn’t look like what they have always known?

It takes longer to change people’s preconceived ideas than it does to start with people who are new to Christianity and it is a long, hard process. But does that mean we shouldn’t try?

What do you think?

Confession…I grew up on bluegrass music and I enjoy it.

Now don’t ignore this post because of the bluegrass stigma. Nickel Creek pursued this genre of music with excellence and creativity that can’t be found in most bluegrass artists. Their lyrics tell great stories, paint great pictures, and often have something to say. Not to mention they are extraordinary musicians. Don’t write off all bluegrass until you have at least listened to Nickel Creek.

That being said, anyone who likes to challenge the status quo will enjoy one of my Nickel Creek favorites, When in Rome.

No one wants to be an outsider. Most kids learn to “fit in” in order to be liked from a very early age and the ones who don’t are likely to be bullied and left out. There is nothing wrong with picking up on cultural norms and trying to work within the cultural system. However, we often become so caught up in fitting the “norm” that we never question that “norm” and hear the voices coming from the margins.

As Christians, we need to speak and hear from the margins. Culture sets up a norm that is often not in line with the Gospel and we take it at face value. We learn to live in Rome and cry, “Caesar is Lord” instead of yelling “Jesus is Lord” from the margins.

The last verse says it best:

Where can a dead man go?
A question with an answer only dead men know.
But I’m gonna bet they never really feel at home,
If they spend a lifetime learning how to live in Rome.

How have we learned to “live in Rome” at the expense of the Gospel? What are some of the “norms” that Christians should be challenging?

The old has become new.

This is a major theme in Christianity. We believe we have been given new life. We believe that our old life is gone and we live a new life in Jesus. We believe the Good News is fresh for every generation. Do we sell this Good News short with our unwillingness to take this old, classical message full of beauty and artfully play it as skilled musicians for another generation of hearers? Are we willing to take the instruments given us and play them in a way that is heard by our current culture?

What do you think? What does this look like in your church? Let’s go beyond the music discussion…how do we play the classic instruments of historical liturgy for a new generation of Jesus followers?

Substance oh substance where have you been
You’ve been replaced by the masters of spin
You make good looking books and write mystery in
We’re selling the news
The lines start to blur I get so confused
I get shiny new models mixed up with the blues
I get binary code mixed up with abuse
The facts are simply one option to choose
When nothing is sacred there’s nothing to lose
When nothing is sacred all is consumed
We’re still on the air it must be the truth
We’re selling the news