Leading on Empty

"For over thirty years my drive for excellence propelled me. It wasn't that I was compulsive; I simply had a deep desire to do my best. I drove hard on all cylinders, not realizing that being an entrepreneur means that everything you initiate, by default you must add to your maintenance list ...

Slowly, the unwelcome symptoms began to surface. Ministry became more arduous. My daily tasks seemed unending, and e-mails began to stack up. People I deeply cared about became problems to be avoided, and deliberating about new vision no longer stirred my soul.

Although I never doubted my calling and gifting, what began as a joy that filled me now became a load that drained me. But I didn't know where I could trim. People were coming to Christ and lives were being changed. How could all this be wrong?

Decisions -- even small ones -- seemed to paralyze me. Gradually my creativity began to flag and I found it easier to imitate rather than initiate."

The above quote comes from Pastor Wayne Cordeiro. In his new book, Leading on Empty, Pastor Wayne diagnoses a problem that is wide-spread among church leaders: burnout. He tells his story, and encourages pastors to learn from him and many leaders from the Bible who experienced burnout. Leaders like Elijah, and Moses, and David.

If you think you’re the only leader that wonders how he can continue at the same pace, you’re not. And if you think you can lead uninterrupted with vision and passion for year after year without a break, you’re wrong.

How’s your energy level? Do you need a break? Do you need to re-charge? Might I suggest one way to do so is to pick up Wayne’s book and learn from it. He will give you some great insight on how to lead well, and, best of all, how to FINISH well.

[from MMI Weblog by Todd Rhoades]

Should Protestants Use The Sign of The Cross?

A Methodist scholar on the Apostle Paul suggested today at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama that Protestants try using the sign of the cross as a reminder of the importance of Jesus' sacrifice for mankind's salvation.

"I think we have lost that very heart of the gospel," said Michael J. Gorman, a visiting New Testament scholar at Duke Divinity School. "What if Baptists made the sign of the cross?"

Typically, liturgical Christians make the sign of the cross by using the right hand to touch the forehead, then chest, then left shoulder, then right shoulder, while reciting, "In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

"It's a perpetual reminder our lives are shaped by the cross," said Gorman, dean of the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore.

Protestants revolted against many traditional rituals at the time of the Reformation, Gorman said. "It think it's an anti-Catholic reaction, and it's time to get over it," he said.

After Gorman's remarks, former Baptist pastor Michael K. Wilson, director of the Resource Center for Pastoral Excellence at Samford, led the interdenominational group in prayer, beginning with the sign of the cross.

[from The Birmingham News - by ppierce@bhamnews.com]

President Obama Re-Establishes Faith Based Office

Declaring that "there is a force for good greater than government," President Barack Obama on Thursday established a White House office of faith-based initiatives with a broader mission than the one overseen by his Republican predecessor. Obama said the new office, which he created by executive order, would reach out to organizations that provide help "no matter their religious or political beliefs."

Obama said the office would work with nonprofit organizations "both secular and faith-based" and would help them determine how to make a bigger impact in their cities, learn their obligations under the law and cut through government red tape.

In a time of economic crisis, the president said, it was important for the government to help distressed Americans but added that "the change that Americans are looking for will not come from government alone."

Obama said the top priority of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will be "making community groups an integral part of our economic recovery and poverty a burden fewer have to bear when recovery is complete."

To lead the office, Obama appointed Joshua DuBois, a 26-year-old Pentecostal minister who headed religious outreach for Obama's Senate office and his presidential campaign. He also named 25 religious and secular leaders to a new advisory board.

"The big picture is that President Obama believes faith-based and smaller secular neighborhood organizations can play a role in American renewal. They can work with the federal government to address big problems," DuBois said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We're also going to make sure we have a keener eye toward the separation of church and state."

Obama said the office would also work to reach out overseas "to foster interfaith dialogue with leaders and scholars around the world."

Obama's order expanded and redefined a similar office established by President George W. Bush. Focused primarily on faith-based initiatives, the Bush office sparked constitutional questions about whether the separation of church and state would be preserved, particularly if groups receiving tax dollars sought to hire on the basis of religion.

Groups that were critical of the Bush faith-based office — including the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and People For the American Way — issued statements Thursday expressing disappointment in the Obama version. All said that by failing to repeal Bush policies, the White House will allow participating religious groups to continue discrimination in hiring.

The ACLU also charged that the new advisory council amounted to "a president giving his favored clergy a governmental stamp of approval."

Before signing the order at the White House, Obama told the annual National Prayer Breakfast that the program would not show favoritism to any religious group and would adhere to a strict separation of church and state.

Addressing the gathering of lawmakers, dignitaries and world leaders, Obama spoke of how faith has often been a divisive tool, responsible for war and prejudice. But, he said, "there is no religion whose central tenet is hate."

"There is no god who condones taking the life of an innocent human being," he said, and all religions teach people to love and care for one another. That is the common ground underlying the faith-based office, he said.

Obama's advisers want to be certain tax dollars sent to the faith-based social service groups are used for secular purposes, such as feeding the hungry or housing the homeless, and not for religious evangelism. The administration doesn't want to be perceived as managing the groups yet seeks transparency and accountability.

Obama pledged during the campaign to allow taxpayer-funded religious institutions to hire and fire based on religion — but only for the activities run on private funding.

"There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this hiring problem," said Ira C. Lupu, a professor at the George Washington University School of Law. "It might be at the end of the day, faith-based hiring is going to be allowed in some government-funded programs and not in others."

Obama on Thursday asked White House lawyers and the Justice Department to write a policy that would address the question of hiring.

"There is a pretty clear lack of legal clarity and data in this area. This mechanism allows us to explore those areas on a case-by-case basis and find out exactly where things are," DuBois said.

Lupu said Bush-era faith-based regulations were ambiguous and sought to limit faith-based groups as little as possible. Obama's order, on the other hand, emphasizes oversight of how taxpayers dollars are spent, making sure they don't go to religious purposes, he said.

"He's signaling, 'We are going to take more seriously than the Bush people did the constitutional concerns about what it is the government may or may not directly support with government money,'" he said.

[Associated Press writers Eric Gorski in Denver and Tom Raum in Washington contributed to this report. Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved.]

5 Things Leaders Understand About Problems

1. They’re unavoidable.
2. Perspective on the problem, rather than the problem itself, determines success or failure.
3. There’s a big difference between problem spotting and problem solving.
4. The size of the person is more important than the size of the problem.
5. Problems, responded to correctly, can propel us forward.

[Click here to read the full article from John C. Maxwell]

Time Management for Pastors

In the last few months, I’ve been trying to figure out how I can get better at time management without adding more “stuff” into my day, but rather more time to spend with others. Here are some tips that I have been using - I hope they help you as well:

Seek God Daily

If you don’t spend time reading the Bible, praying, and listening to God’s direction for your day, the rest will fail. Even full-time pastors must give priority to this. God has been directing me daily for years on the big picture things. When I get those done, I know I’ve obeyed Him and honored Him. The rest is all extras.

Find Your Hotspot Times

What are the blocks of time during the day that you are most productive? I am best in the early AM and just before dinner, so I schedule my most important work then and let the rest fill in the gaps.

Reduce Your Email, Texting, and Phone Time

Limit yourself to specific times during the day to check email. This may require some communication with those that expect immediate replies, but in the end you will be much happier and more productive (see the next point for why this works).

Work In Blocks Of Time

Computers are great at multitasking, humans are terrible at it. No matter how good you think you are at doing multiple things at once, you aren’t as good as when you focus time on one thing. I work on one thing at a time, turning my phone off, closing my email client, and shut down Twitter and IM services. This provides me with the time needed to focus my mind, think about what I need to do, determine the best course of action, do it, and finalize the details so nothing is left for the task. Give yourself blocks of time to work.

Give Yourself Time To Think

The time just before New Year’s Day is often a time of reflection. But what about time each week to reflect on what you did (and didn’t do)? Give yourself time to think about daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly strategy. This means managing your time more effectively so that you can take the appropriate time off every day, week, month, quarter, and year.

I hope these tips help you have a more productive year for your ministry!

[from Agile Ministries referred by Pastor Milton Gordon]

A Moment of Worship

[Central Church of God Sanctuary Choir]

More Than 5,000 Pastors Take "The Preacher's Pledge"

Pastors across the U.S. and around the globe are affirming The Preacher's Pledge -- a declaration of the centrality of the Bible in preaching and sermon preparation. More than 5,000 preachers have now taken The Pledge, with many more affirming it every day.

The Pledge was introduced by http://www.sermoncentral.com/, the world's most highly trafficked sermon website. More than 250,000 visitors come to the site each month to access over 140,000 sermons and illustrations, amounting to nearly a half-million pages of online Scripture commentary.

"We introduced The Pledge because we think preachers must engage the Bible in their sermon preparation and not simply short-cut the process using someone else's study," says Ron Forseth, general editor for SermonCentral.com. "Our site is a valuable supplement--but not the primary source for a sermon. God's Word is."

Sermon manuscript and illustration databases have been around long before the advent of the Internet. But in the cyber age, the availability of such resources is far greater and, in the case of SermonCentral.com, free. Some preachers have been known to drift from the centrality of the Bible or even plagiarize others' work. The Pledge allows preachers to make a public commitment to integrity in their preaching.

Scott Evans, president of Outreach, Inc., which owns SermonCentral.com, adds, "SermonCentral.com offers an unprecedented opportunity for pastors to share their thinking on various passages of Scripture and relevant topics. We want to strengthen the quality of preaching in pulpits around the world. The Preacher's Pledge is helping to do that by affirming pastors that keep their messages purely and intentionally biblical. With every sermon on our site, we encourage pastors to affirm The Pledge."

The Preacher's Pledge was drafted by a group of Christian leaders on the site's advisory council. The Pledge states:

"I will make the Bible my primary resource in sermon preparation and preaching. I may use other resources such as commentaries and web sites to enhance, not replace, my personal interaction with Scripture. As I study I will strive to accurately understand and honestly apply God's Word, allowing Him to uniquely proclaim His truth in a relevant way through me."

Pastors wishing to affirm The Pledge may do so by visiting www.sermoncentral.com/pledge.

Questions or inquiries may be directed to the site's communications coordinator, Cindy Harper, at support@sermoncentral.com.

[Source: Christian Newswire]

Career Leadership in Difficult Times

10 tips for leading in challenging times:

1. Work hard and perform. Wow, isn’t that profound? I’m serious, though. As leaders, these are times that require sacrifice, hard work, and perseverance. This is how battles are won and great companies get turned around. It’s the collective hard work from each and every one of us, especially our leaders. No one’s going to put in the extra effort if they see their leaders coasting.

2. Radiate confidence and optimism. Another well known blogger said that if a CEO did this, it showed he was clueless. I strongly disagree. Our people need to see that their leaders are not afraid, that we believe in our organization, and that we are committed to success. In recent SmartBreif reader poll, most business leaders said the media’s focus on the negative is hurting businesses. I think it’s true for leaders too – fear and pessimism will make your situation worse.

3. On the other hand… that doesn’t mean we hide the truth and sugar coat bad news. We can do both. Let people know exactly what the situation is and what needs to be done. Ask for their help. Yes, they can “handle the truth”, and once they get over it, will want to pitch in and be willing to sacrifice in the short term for the greater good.

4. Enlist your team’s help. Give them a sense of control, something to do to help make a difference, even if it’s just a small difference. In a crisis, leaders make sure everyone is focused and engaged.

5. Don’t bad mouth your manager, your company, or your co-workers. Don’t point fingers, make excuses, or look for pity or a bailout. Focus on what you and your team can do, and offer to help your manager and co-workers.

6. Don’t take advantage of low turnover and a tight job market to take advantage of your employees, just because you CAN. Again, this is counter to some advice I’ve been reading, and it seems freezing 401K contributions is becoming the latest cost-cutting fad. Take advantage of your employees now, and they will take advantage of you the first chance they get.

7. Tough times are an opportunity to drive change and innovation. No one wants to listen to your radical ideas during good times – there’s no reason to change. Just be smart about it. I’m not talking about panic-driven change, rather well though out process improvements and innovation. It’s a great opportunity to ask “what if…”, and “why not?”

8. Now’s the time to collaborate across functions. Big problems require big, enterprise-wide solutions, so tear down the walls and start working across boundaries. Think task forces, committees, action learning, and Kaizen workshops. Even sworn enemies should be able to band together to fight off an invasion of a common foe.

9. Communicate, communicate, and communicate some more. Got it?

10. It’s a leadership development opportunity - really. As leaders, we all need to learn how to lead during tough times, and how to turn around a struggling organization. It’s a required course in your leadership curriculum. Ask yourself; ten years from now, what would I have liked to learn from all this? And more importantly, how would you like this chapter to read when your leadership biography is written?

[from Great Leadership by Dan McCarthy]

Today's Quote

Look to this day for it is life,
For yesterday is already a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday
A dream of happiness and ever tomorrow,
a vision of hope. -- Kalidasa

Church Property Disputes

An Episcopal priest who proposed rewriting Texas law to favor dissident congregations in property disputes said January 30 he considers it “the next natural step” in an attempt to halt lawsuits within the church.

“It’s shameful we’re spending so much money suing one another when we could be using that money for mission,” said the Rev. Canon Ed Monk, rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Corsicana.

He and other leaders of the conservative 300-member St. John’s, located about 50 miles southeast of Dallas, contacted state Representative Byron Cook, a three-term Republican. On January 22, Cook introduced House Bill 972, which directs courts to find a “just and right” division of property, having “due regard” for all parties.

Cook did not return calls January 30, but Monk said that the changes were inspired by a Virginia law which awarded property to dissident congregations, contradicting Episcopal Church canons. “I thought it would be good to have a similar one,” he said.

This would affect all centralised churches.

[From Positive Infinity, by Pat McCaughan - Episcopal Life]

Rural Churches Grapple with a Pastor Exodus

Carol Porter, 63 and no word mincer, sits in her modest kitchen in Euclid, Minn., and recalls the day her 118-year-old church was burned to the ground. "I was baptized, confirmed and married there," she reports. Her family had moved two lots down from Euclid's First Presbyterian, so she was able to watch through the kitchen window a few years ago as fellow parishioners knocked down the church, buried its fixtures and then put a match to what remained, sending a thousand Sundays of memories up in smoke.

America's rural congregations, thinned by age and a population drain that plagues much of farm country, have gotten too small and too poor to attract pastors. No pastor means no church. And losing one's church -- well, Porter has a vivid memory of that, living as she does in an area where abandoned buildings are control-burned for safety. The flames were taller than a man, she remembers. "In plain English," she says, "it looked like hell."

The ticktock of farm auctions and foreclosures in the heartland, punctuated by the occasional suicide, has seldom let up since the 1980s. But one of the malaise's most excruciating aspects is regularly overlooked: rural pastors are disappearing even faster than the general population, leaving graying congregations helpless in their time of greatest need. Trace Haythorn, president of the nonprofit Fund for Theological Education (FTE), says fewer than half the rural churches in the U.S. have a full-time seminary-trained pastor; in parts of the Midwest, the figure drops to 1 in 5. "It's a religious crisis, for sure," says Daniel Wolpert, pastor of First Presbyterian in Crookston, Minn., and a partner with the FTE, which supports young ministers and religious teachers. "And to the extent that these churches are anchoring institutions, it's a crisis of community." The sign for one lovely wood-framed church in nearby Buxton, N.D., says it all: GRUE LUTHERAN CHURCH. FOUNDED SINCE 1879. PASTOR -- and then a blank where a name should be.

Why are the pastors disappearing? Mainline churches (as well as some Evangelical) prefer their ministers seminary trained. But the starting salary for debt-burdened seminary grads now runs to $35,000 a year. That can break a poor and aging congregation, says Elizabeth Rickert Dowdy, pastor of the Tar Wallet Baptist Church in Cumberland, Va., who recently helped disband her other church: "When you have a congregation that's historically been able to survive at 20 members and loses 12, they close." And for the first time in American history, the majority of seminarians don't come from rural areas. Shannon Jung, a rural-church expert in Kansas City, Mo., says of young pastors, "A town without a Starbucks scares them." Wolpert recalls a professor's warning to a promising seminarian to shun a rural call: "Don't go. You're too creative for that."

But creativity isn't the problem in places like this gorgeous, wind-strafed corner of Minnesota, where clergy are trying out several innovative ways to keep God in the heartland. The fertile, Scandinavian-settled farm towns in the Red River Valley were the models for Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon; for decades, thousands of farmers comfortably worked 80-acre lots and prayed in small, ethnically uniform churches. But starting in the 1970s, Wobegon was hit with sinking commodity prices and job-cutting farm technology, a combo that sharply reduced the population. Churches foundered. But only in the past few years have people like Haythorn and Wolpert begun experimenting with new ways to counter the trend.

One response to the pastor shortage is "yoking" two congregations to share a circuit-riding minister -- and one salary. Along the Minnesota -- North Dakota line, the yokes stretch thin. Jeff Gustafson, in the town of Warren, Minn., adds a degree of difficulty: he's Methodist, but one of his two yoked churches is Presbyterian. Another pastor travels 200 miles (about 320 km) every weekend to serve five churches. A botched three-pastor attempt to connect three already yoked churches (including Grue) with four more resulted in, among other things, shut-ins being overlooked and not receiving Communion for years.

Yet the believers don't give up. Many denominations are exploring ways to allow laypeople to preach. Some ordain laymen and - women but restrict them to their home pulpit. Wolpert of Crookston's First Presbyterian entertains even more radical visions. The average age of his Sunday flock is 63 (Carol Porter is now a member). But he is also founder of the Minnesota Institute of Contemplation and Healing, an energy-independent, nationally ambitious retreat center offering ancient disciplines such as icon and walking meditations and surrounded by a storybook hayfield with a view of the Red Lake River. Wolpert sees God's future here as extending beyond small-town churchgoers to northern Minnesota's more ethnically varied newcomers and even to religious tourists. "This is an incredibly powerful landscape," he says. "If something here is passing, then God will raise up other forms of worship, because people will be drawn here."

His friend and more down-to-earth counterpoint is Nathan Baker-Trinity, a 31-year-old Lutheran pastor and FTE fellow who shuttles a red Mercury Tracer between two yoked churches near the White Earth Indian Reservation. His answer to the pastor shortage is simply to commit to the countryside (he grew up in rural Iowa). "I was like, 'Why wouldn't you go to a rural area?'" he says. Baker-Trinity is an indefatigable local booster. "They're talking about making my whole town wireless!" he says enthusiastically. Equally smitten are his parishioners, like Howard Steinmetz. After decades working his farm -- most of them minus a hand lost to a field chopper in 1959 -- Steinmetz is finally auctioning off the land. Selling, he says, "is tough." But his religious life is supporting him. "Everybody was pretty excited to get a young one," he says, indicating Baker-Trinity.

On All Saints' Day in November, when Lutherans recognize the holy who have passed on and their connection to the living, Baker-Trinity notes that the holiday reinforces the web of community that "has always been the rural church's strength." Before the sermon, he gathers the children. There are at least 10 -- an extraordinary tally for a congregation in this area. The young pastor, with two babies himself, talks softly about a God who never departs. "God is with you wherever you are going," he tells the youngsters. "God never says goodbye to us. Let's pray: O God, thank you for not saying goodbye. Thank you for always being with us."

[By David Van Biema / Crookston - Time Magazine]

NBC Won't Play It - I Will

Six Habits of Highly Defective People

• They have a losing attitude: People generally get whatever they expect out of life. Expect the worst, and that’s what you’ll get.

• They quit growing. People are what they are, and they are where they are because of what has gone into their minds.

• They have no game plan for life. As William Feather, author of The Business of Life says, “There are two kinds of failures: Those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.”

• They are unwilling to change. Some people would rather cling to what they have rather than embrace what might be better because they are afraid of getting something worse.

• They fail in relationships with others. People who cannot get along with others will never get ahead in life.

• They are not willing to pay the price for success. The road to success is uphill all the way. Anyone who wants to accomplish much must sacrifice much.

[From Success One Day At a Time, by John Maxwell - as posted on Eagle Flight: Reach ~ Restore ~ Relate by Pastor Milton Gordon]

Pastor Stacey Prewett Honored at Chamber Banquet

The Willow Springs (MO) Chamber of Commerce annual banquet was held Saturday evening at Frank D. Hicks’ multipurpose room at Willow Springs Elementary School.

Howell County Presiding Commissioner Larry Spence served as the emcee for the evening, and the invocation was given by Scott Williamson, pastor of Willow Springs First General Baptist Church.

Howell County News publisher Kim Wehmer was named the Adult Citizen of the Year, with the award presented by chamber of commerce board member Loretta Jones.

Business of the Year went to Stacey Prewett, owner Prewett’s Collision Repair, whose business location was damaged heavily by fire last year.

In the award presentation by First National Bank president and chamber board member Jon White, White said Prewett was in Branson at the time of the fire.

"Within a matter of days, he summoned help to relocate his business to the other end of town,” locating at a former Missouri Department of Transportation building near the north junction of U.S. Highway 60-63 and its business route.

In May 2008, repairs to his buildings were complete, and Prewett’s returned to its original location, on Main Street across from ALCO Discount Store and First National Bank.

White said Prewett is the pastor of the Church of God of Prophecy, and has suffered tremendous family loss – with five family funerals in recent months, including his father and grandfather. White said Prewett’s wife used three words to describe him – loving, compassionate and caring. “You can’t have one without all three,” said White.

The President’s Award and Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to former Bears’ coach Brent Colley, with the award presented by Larry Spence.

The 2009 chamber board will include Andrew Gilmore, Jon White, Derene Kissee, Mike Wake, Jackie Williamson, John Bailey, Phillip Chaffin, Loretta Jones, Mitch Harris and Vicki Sigman.

The Get Motivated Seminar Was Awesome

Pastor Robert Schuller

Zig Ziglar

Rudy Giuliani

Synergy was pleased to be a part of the Get Motivated seminar in Huntsville Wednesday. It was not only an inspiring experience, it was a new way to have church. The venue was packed.