This is a random post, but I was thinking about leadership again today. There are many leaders I know who certainly have responsibility for an organization, but I wouldn’t necessarily consider them “good leaders”. (This is not aimed at anyone specific; so don’t read it as such. If the shoe fits…)
Organizations hardly ever replace their leadership with the same type of leadership they currently have. When a leader leaves the organization, they look for an almost opposite to what they had in a leader. I’ve observed this trend over the years. It’s true at every level of society. School systems, churches, governments, universities, corporations, and non-profits all do this in relatively the same way.
Is it production or process? In terms of which is more important in your work, is it production or process? In other words, is the end product being produced well more important than enjoying the process of working towards an end product or vice-versa?
Ultimately God’s call is on a person’s heart. He wants control of our complete heart. That’s true of every believer. For the one who is called to vocational ministry, however, God wants our dependence on Him for financial support.
Everything has changed. Now a person who senses a call to vocational ministry has a huge range of choices available.
That’s a tough question, but it is one I have actually faced that a few times in my life. Once in business where I knew, I didn’t have the energy or the expertise to carry the company to the next level. In my last two churches, I reached a point where knew it was time for another pastor if the church wanted to continue to grow.
We have such an awesome staff at Grace Community Church. God has blessed us with people who love Him and love others and each of them has a true heart’s desire to be found faithful in their Kingdom work. With the size of our church, by most standards we are under-staffed. We have a philosophy that everyone on our staff is a true minister. There are no strictly administrative people working for Grace. (I hope that’s always our philosophy.) I want to take this opportunity to honor each of them for their special contribution to all God has done at Grace in the last 3 ½ years.
I am in the midst of a life transition of sorts. It was subtle at first, but over the last couple years, as our church has grown in size and our ability to make an impact in the Kingdom has increased, it has become more recognizable. I am moving from more of a receiver to an investor into other people’s lives. I am honored to invest in younger men, many who are pastors also.
A seminary student who was doing a paper on church planting recently interviewed me. For those planters who follow this blog I thought you might want to hear some of my answers. If you have other questions for me, please ask.
I received an email from an Internet friend via my other ministry site (www.mustardseedministry.com) asking me how I determine if what I am doing is within the plans God has for me. Here’s my quick reply to him for knowing you are within God’s plans for your life:
