Looking back...

During my time in the Vineyard I often felt like the denomination had an over reliance on its founder, John Wimber. I can confidently say that the national conferences which I attended would always taken up with a fond reminiscing of the how 'John' would have done things.


I was particularly taken with this quote from Bloomberg business week about advice Tim Cook received from Steve Job in regards to leading Apple

“Among his last advice he had for me, and for all of you, was to never ask what he would do. ‘Just do what's right,'” Cook said. Jobs wanted Apple to avoid the trap that Walt Disney Co. fell into after the death of its iconic founder, Cook said, where “everyone spent all their time thinking and talking about what Walt would do.”

Not that I don't think what John Wimber did things not worth remembering;  Maybe the 'thing that are right' have to revealed, first and foremost. The rest will just fall into place.
Mind you, I think Tim Cook will always be in the shadow of Steve Job. The comparison will be hard for him  to avoid "What would Steve do..."

Leadership ::4 Alan Hirsch, moving on...

Sometimes a person will say something which sits very deeply with you. It is how I have evaluated part of my own ministry and, for the good or bad others ministry as well.

That person was Alan Hirsch. What he said was basically that every five years your leadership methods needs to change. That in five years if there has been no significant growth then things need to change. If in five years there has been significant growth then there is a need for change in your leadership methods because you are now working with more people.
If after ten years, where there was no significant growth in the first five years and there was a re-jigging of leadership methods, then there was still no significant growth in ten years . Then its time to move on.

I have seen beyond a doubt churches, which are stagnate, yet the main leadership is satisfied that they are doing alright. Mmmm, time for critical evaluation I would say. Just looking at the Hirsch idea is a good place to start.

Its petty good idea, except I think five years is to long. I'd like to think a more realistic time would be three to four years.

leadership ::2, 'The itch in Church'

This is a bit of a follow up from my previous post so to get the context I'd recommend reading it.

One of the reasons, apart from 'consumerism' that some people move on from church is that there is the leadership uncomfortable itch. That current leadership does not have the capacity, for innovation within their own set of vision, mission or what ever they call it statement. That the leadership often feels threatened if the ideas and impetus don't radiate from the top! Therefore there is uncomfortableness and someone moves on.

Once we had a great guy coming along to our church who didn't quit fit. It took a while to work out why. When his itch was identified and he was given the freedom to scratch the itch, I discovered he actually didn't have the capacity to implement what was missing, in a sad way it was easier for him to move to a church which already had this stuff going on. (The strange thing was this person was perceived as a leader because he went to bible college, but really he was a manager, but more on that later)

I would go on to say, to have true apostolic leadership the 'Itch', needs to be present, with the capacity to implement whatever.

Leadership ::1 'Seth Godin'

I'm going to throw up a few of my thoughts on leadership in the next couple of weeks. One of the people who helped clarify a lot of the thoughts for me was Seth Godin and his book Tribes, Here is an excert from his blog::

Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.

The scarcity makes leadership valuable. If everyone tries to lead all the time, not much happens. It’s discomfort that creates the leverage that makes leadership worthwhile.

In other words, if everyone could do it, they would, and it wouldn’t be worth much.

It’s uncomfortable to stand up in front of strangers.
It’s uncomfortable to propose an idea that might fail.
It’s uncomfortable to challenge the status quo.
It’s uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle.

When you identify the discomfort, you’ve found the place where a leader is needed.

If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you’re not reaching your potential as a leader.

 I supose as my stint at Ranges I've experienced these; some mulitiple times