thejakers

Anthony Tjan wrote a great post over at the Harvard Business Review blog entitled “The Three Roles of Great Entrepreneurs“. He breaks down the necessary components for a successful startup into three simple things.

To stay focused, early stage CEOs need to remember that there are just three important things that need to get done in a business — 1) planning, 2) selling, and 3) executing — and that these tasks require three different mindsets. Some entrepreneurs can excel in all three roles, but the best ones are aware of their strengths and weaknesses and build their teams accordingly.

He then goes on to give three types of entrepreneurs.

The Architect: Big-Picture Planning

This is the visionary. The leader who can set the culture and inspire the troops, but who isn’t as skilled in executing that plan. They’re great at finding the right team members and inspiring them to own the vision, run with it, and make it successful. But they’re not too concerned with the details.

The Storyteller: Researching and Selling

This is the person who can take a vision, communicate it well, and get others outside the organization to buy into the vision or purchase the product. The Storyteller knows the details in and out and can communicate them with passion, blending the communication and selling.

The Disciplinarian: Executing

This is the leader that is great at making sure the plan’s details are perfectly executed. Where The Architect loves to build the farm, The Disciplinarian loves to cultivate it. This person measures results, builds structures, and develops systems.

Tjan’s article is dead on in terms of the business world. But it also strikes me as just as important for churches—especially church plants. The counterparts to these roles in the ministry world are the Lead Pastor, the Communications Director, and the Executive Pastor. While a successful church plant requires more than just these roles to be successful—most importantly God’s blessing and calling—I think one would be hard-pressed in this day and age to be successful without them.

Often church planters, and even seasoned pastors, try to do all three roles themselves. After all, resources are limited, and it’s hard to let others run with your vision. But as Tjan points out, it’s important to identify your strengths, leverage them, and bring others on to fill the important roles better than you can.

By building a great team that compliments each other, a church can far more effectively reach the world with the transforming gospel of Jesus.

I’ve been reading Seth Godin’s Linchpin (affiliate link) for most of the day. It’s an awesome book, and you need to read it. I don’t say that about a lot of books, but I really mean it. You need to read Linchpin.

Here’s a particular quote that I loved:

Successful people are successful for one simple reason: they think about failure differently.

Successful people learn from failure, but the lesson they learn is a different one. They don’t learn that they shouldn’t have tried in the first place, and they don’t learn that they are always right and the world is wrong and they don’t learn that they are losers. They learn that the tactics they used didn’t work or that the person they used them on didn’t respond.

You become a winner because you’re good at losing.

Great post by Jared Wilson over at Shrinkthechurch.com on the “Simple Church” concept. In it, Jared gives us 10 reasons to under-program the church. Here are a few that resonated most with me:

• You can do a lot of things in a mediocre (or poor) way, or you can do a few things extremely well. Craig Groeschel has some great things to say about this subject. Also check out Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger’s Simple Church.
• Over-programming dilutes actual ministry effectiveness. Because it can overextend leaders, increase administration, tax the time of church members, and sap financial and material resources from churches.
• Over-programming leads to segmentation among ages, life stages, and affinities, which can create divisions in a church body. Certainly there are legitimate reasons for gathering according to “likenesses,” but many times increasing the number of programs means increasing the ways and frequencies of these separations. Pervasive segmentation is not good for church unity or spiritual growth.

You can read the rest of them over at Shrink The Church by clicking here.

I’ve been very intrigued by the idea of de-programing the church, so to speak, since I read Andy Stanley’s The 7 Practices of Effective Ministry (affiliate link), in which Stanley talks about having a singular mission and creating steps to the end goal rather than programs that are ends within themselves.

I encourage you to check out both Jared’s blog and Andy’s book. I think that the Simple Church movement is an important development in the US church both to focus mission and combat Christian consumerism.

What are your thoughts? Are you taking steps to revamp your church programs? If so, what are you doing?

Great video from Matt Chandler to his congregation and supporters before his surgery.

Some interesting thoughts from Tim Keller this morning over at the Gospel Coalition blog. I’d be interested in your thoughts on the role of the teaching pastor in pastoral care. Is Tim’s critique justified?

“I have often seen many men spend a great amount of time on preparing and preaching lengthy, dense, expository messages, while giving far less time and energy to the learning of leadership and pastoral nurture. It takes lots of experience and effort to help a body of people make a unified decision, or to regularly raise up new lay leaders, or to motivate and engage your people in evangelism, or to think strategically about the stewardship of your people’s spiritual gifts, or even to discern what they are. It takes lots of experience and effort to know how to help a sufferer without being either too passive or too directive, or to know when to confront a doubter and when to just listen patiently. Pastors in many of our Reformed churches do not seem to be as energized to learn to be great leaders and shepherds, but rather have more of an eye to being great teachers and preachers.”

You can read the whole post here.

For those of you who are unaware, I’m an editor and ghostwriter and have written or edited seven books in the last three years. Additionally, I’m privileged to serve as the Communications Director at Praxis Church, am honored to be an elder canidate at the church, run two blogs (with a third under development), and read a ton. I’m often asked how I keep up.

Long Hours

Before I start, please watch this video by Chris Brogan to get in the right frame of mind:

As Chris says being an overnight success really means working overnight when required. It’s hard work. Like Chris, I put in a lot of hours. On average I’d say I work 10-12 hours per day, 6 days a week. I take one sabbath where I rest and hang out with my family.

But putting in a lot of hours is not enough. What’s really important is how you order those hours and finding proper tools to make you productive.

Rise Early, Start Right

Even though I work long hours, I still have evenings with my family. Why? Because I rise early.

Most days I’m up around 5 a.m. At that hour, the house is quiet, and this time of year it’s dark. I use those still morning hours to open my Bible, study God’s word, and pray. It gets me started on the right foot. I believe it was Martin Luther who said something to the effect of, “I generally pray two hours every day, except on very busy days. On those days, I pray three.”

“I generally pray two hours every day, except on very busy days. On those days, I pray three.” – Martin Luther

And while I’m not doing two to three hours per day in prayer (maybe I should!), I’m consistently putting in one hour a day. On those days when I think I have too much to do or feel too tired, I often fudge and skip my devotions or sleep in. I find this to always be a bad idea. I can feel the difference because I’m relying on my own strength rather than the Holy Spirit.

I’ve found my best days happen when I rise early and start right.

The Importance of Order

I map out my day. I have to-do lists and a fairly set schedule and way of doing things. For me it looks like this:

• 5:00 am–6:30 am – Prayer and Bible study (and coffee!)
• 6:30 am–7:00 am – Get my son, Liam, breakfast and chat with him
• 7:00 am–8:30 am – Google Reader
• 8:30 am–10:00 am – Work on blogs
• 10:00 am–5:00 pm – Work on client projects

I try to call it a day around five each day and spend the evenings with my family and friends. After Liam is in bed at eight or so, I’ll read books till around ten, hit the sack, and then start all over again.

Now this isn’t always how the day goes. There are client meetings and other things that come up, but generally this is how I try to keep my day ordered. Your order may look totally different, but the importance is that there is order.

Tools

For my profession, writing and communications, there are tools that make my life much easier and more productive. These may be of help to you or not. I encourage you to seek out tools that will help you become more productive for whatever you do.

• Google Reader – I love my Google Reader. I subscribe to over 70 blogs and websites, and all the fresh new content is downloaded right into my reader. I skim through the headlines, read what catches my eye, and ignore the rest. This saves me hours of work and reading.
• Evernote - For the longest time I used solely paper note-taking systems, jotting down to-do’s in my Molskine. The problem was that I was starting to drop some of the balls I had in the air as life got busier. Today, I still use my Molskine, but I download my information into Evernote. I can categorize my to-do’s and easily clip web content for later review or future blog topics. Plus it syncs with my iPhone, which is handy. Because it’s based on a cloud server, I can access my account anywhere. If you haven’t checked out Evernote, you’re missing out.
• Twitter – I half-jokingly call Twitter the search engine that finds you. By following people on Twitter who share my similar interests I have access to material and information I might have never found myself or spent hours looking for. Twitter does work for me. I like that.
• MobileMe – I highly suggest using some sort of cloud system such as MobileMe or Google to synch up your address book, calendar, and other items. I love MobileMe because it automatically updates my iPhone and computers with new contacts, events, and email. It saves my time and my sanity.

The best part is that most of these tools are free – or close to it. There are literally hundreds of tools out there that you can use for free to help you become more productive. Go find them.

Time for Rest and Exercise

Finally, I make time for rest and exercise. I ride my bike nearly every day for an hour. I spend the evenings resting with my family, and I make one day a sabbath day where I don’t work at all. This makes sure that I recharge and can run at full capacity when I am working. And it keeps my family from hating me. God rested, so should we.

So, I’ve shared with you my insights. What are some things you would add? How do you work more productively, and what techniques to you find essential to getting your work done?

[Photo by David Robert Wright]

I’m excited to see Michael Goheen tonight as he speaks to our Surge students (myself included). Surge is our leadership development program that is in conjunction with a number of other Valley churches, spearheaded by my pastor, Justin Anderson of Praxis Church, and Tyler Johnson of East Valley Bible Church.

If you aren’t familiar with Goheen, he is a preeminent missiologist and associate professor of religion and theology at Redeemer University College. His book, The Drama of Scripture, is a perquisite for anyone wishing to enter Surge. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. Here is a quote that sums up the book nicely:

“Many of us have read the Bible as if it were merely a mosaic of little bits–theological bits, moral bits, historical-critical bits, sermon bits, devotional bits. But when we read the Bible in such a fragmented way, we ignore its divine author’s intention to shape our lives through its story. All human communities live out of some story that provides a context for understanding the meaning of history and gives shape and direction to their lives. If we allow the Bible to become fragmented, it is in danger of being absorbed into whatever other story is shaping our culture, and it will thus cease to shape our lives as it should. Idolatry has twisted the dominant cultural story of the secular Western world. If as believers we allow this story (rather than the Bible) to become the foundation of our thought and action, then our lives will manifest not the truths of Scripture, but the lies of an idolatrous culture. Hence, the unity of Scripture is no minor matter: a fragmented Bible may actually produce theologically orthodox, morally upright, warmly pious idol worshippers!”

Acts29 has some talks by Goheen that you might like to check out as well.

Joy.

Do you have it? Have you lost it?

The Bible is full of passages that remind us of the importance of joy in the Christian life. The Psalmist reminds us to “shout for joy,” to rest in God as our “exceeding joy,” and makes supplication for God to “restore the joy of [God's] salvation.”

Paul speaks of joy as a fruit of the spirit (Gal 5:22), and is “overflowing with joy” (2 Cor. 7:4). James calls us to “count it all joy” when we meet trials (James 1:2).

Indeed, joy is to be the perpetual state of all believers who are in Jesus. Yet, we are often joyless – especially those who serve the church in full-time ministry.

Leaders, we are not called to be stoic. We do a huge disservice to our people when we do not daily express the joy of our salvation. Come to Christ like a child, filled with laugher, free of care, resting in the sovereinty  of our mighty savior. Celebrate with your people. Laugh, exclaim, dance, if you must. Let your joy be evident.

If you are lacking in joy, pray today, like the Psalmist, that God would restore your joy. And live like Paul, who strove to make his joy the joy of those whom God entrusted to him.

As an entrepreneur, I found this video to be such a great reminder of why I do what I do. Thanks to Tallskinnykiwi for making me aware of it.

This morning I read Part 1 of Pastor Mark Driscoll’s blog post entitled, Leadership is Lonely. Mark is one of my favorite Christians, and a great leader and pastor. But  I was troubled by his words, not because he is wrong in claiming that leadership is lonely (we all know it can be), but because I think loneliness in ministry is very destructive. I believe that Mark would agree, but in at least the first part of his series on leadership being lonely, he addressed the sins that the loneliness give birth to rather than exploring the question, Should leadership be lonely in the first place? In fact Mark goes so far as to start out his blog with the statement that “Leadership is lonely. Anyone who disagrees is likely not a leader.” And I think it is this definitive statement that got me thinking the most.

First or Last?

In saying that “leadership is lonely”, Mark indicates that it is the natural state of a leader to be lonely. Something he expounds on in his first paragraph:

“By definition, a leader is out ahead of his or her team, seeing, experiencing, and learning things before everyone else. One on hand, this causes great excitement and enthusiasm because the opportunity to learn and pioneer is incredibly invigorating. On the other hand, however, the distance between a leader and his or her team is incredibly lonely, even to the point of becoming debilitating.”

According to this definition of leadership, Mark is right that leadership is lonely – and always will be. But to me that definition of leadership is more akin with our western capitalistic conceptions of leadership than with a Biblical understanding of leadership. I agree that leaders (even Christian ones) are often ahead of their team, but I’m not convinced that is where they should be at all times. I’m of course thinking of Christ’s conceptions of leadership in the gospels, which so often align with His Sermon on the Mount refrain: “You’ve heard it said, but I say unto you…”  Teachings such as: “So the last shall be first, and the first last” (Matthew 20:16), “It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to serve but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:26-28), and “An argument arouse among them as to which of them was the greatest. But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side and said to them, ‘Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you is the one who is great.’” (Luke 9:48)

According to Christ a true leader is a servant. Mark knows this. We all know this. But let’s reflect on what that means. A servant is not generally out ahead, but more likely behind, making those he serves look good. A servant doesn’t get credit for success – though often times he is the reason for it. As leaders it is our job to cast vision, and in that sense we are ahead. But that gift is meant to be used in coming behind and pushing and empowering those whom God has entrusted to our care to be successful in carrying out that vision.

We of course see this most truly embodied in Jesus, who condescended (in the best sense of the word) to be human and die a bloody death on the cross for us. And while Christ clearly walked in authority, I find it hard pressed to say he was lonely, with the exception of his passion when even the Father forsook him. Was he exasperated at times? Most definitely. Was there times he just wanted to get away from it all? Of course. But generally, we see Jesus in continual fellowship with both his disciples and with others, specifically tax collectors, prostitutes, and other social outcasts – and there is no indication that he didn’t enjoy himself, at least most of the time. And in the end, Christ cast vision (a big one at that), and empowered his people to live it out. That to me is servant leadership. And it is far from lonely.

Everyone is Lonely

Something to consider is that we as leaders don’t have the market cornered on loneliness. Everyone is lonely. That is why they seek out the Church. We are a community that follows Jesus and strikes hard against the prevailing cultures of the world that seek to ostracize and isolate. Our job as leaders is to create a culture whereby people feel the all encompassing love and joyful community that being a follower of Jesus affords – and we as leaders are a part of that community. We too should feel the joy and peace that our community brings to our lives.

We Serve a Triune God

As a community we can be assured that the ultimate reality of the Kingdom of God is one of peace, unity, and community. After all, our God is a God that lives and has lived throughout all eternity in perfect and holy community with Himself. A triune God. And as Lesslie Newbigin writes in his book Foolishness to the Greeks:

“From its first page to its last, the Bible is informed by a vision of human nature for which neither freedom nor equality is fundamental; what is fundamental is relatedness. Man – male and female – is made for God in such a way that being in the image of God involves being bound together in this most profound of all mutual relations. God binds himself in a covenant relationship with men and women to which he remains faithful at whatever cost and however unfaithful his covenant partner is. And people and nations are called to live in binding covenant relationships of brotherhood. Human beings reach their true end in such relatedness, in bonds of mutual love and obedience that the mutual relatedness in love that is the being of the Triune God himself.”

When we examine the Triune God, we do see a clear hierarchy in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, yet we also see perfect harmony and community – there is no room for loneliness. In fact, I would be so bold to say that in such a communion, loneliness would be sin.

And that’s really the heart of what I’m exploring here. It may be technically right to say that “leadership is lonely,” but I wonder, is it morally right that it is so?

Loneliness Leads to Isolationism

As a parting thought, I want to share a story. The pastor of the church I grew up in began to experience what Mark is writing about. Our church was growing fast, and he was a dynamic and charismatic individual that was definitely a type-A personality. He had grand dreams and big plans. Slowly and imperceivably, my pastor began to distance himself from those whom he had trusted so deeply just years earlier as they worked hand-in-hand in ministry. Soon, he was consolidating power and pushing his life-long friends away. He too claimed that everyone wanted a piece of him, and went so far as to hire a body guard to escort him from pulpit to his office after each service. Eventually, he ran many of the pastors that had served with him for years out of the church and replaced them with his family members.

At its peak, my church was a thriving body of over 2,500 people who were seeking Jesus and living out the gospel. Today, that church no longer exists. The list of lives that were shipwrecked by the seeds one pastor’s loneliness stretches far and wide.

As leaders we should be asking ourselves how and why we perpetuate this pervasive condition of loneliness in ministry leadership. There must be a better way.

I pray that there is. It breaks my heart to hear that Mark and many other pastors feel this way, and to hear the questions that arise out of such feelings. I know all too well where those feelings lead, and the destruction they can bring on a community. I thank God that Mark is sharing his thoughts for all pastors to see (and feel comfortable acknowledging in themselves), but I also hope he goes straight for the jugular of loneliness itself, and shows just how destructive a force it can be.