So I was going to take a break from blogging, but you drove me back to it.  Why?  Because I am just amazed at what can happen when people are motivated by love and compassion. I am amazed at the potential of the community that Jesus has in mind.

Thanks for the incredible concern and love you have expressed for Cindy Morris and her family.  Cindy works as my assistant and also manages the office at Connexus.  She is one remarkable woman whom I consider it a privilege to know and work with.  On Tuesday she had a very bad car accident that left her with serious injuries.  You can follow the updates on the Connexus blog, but we are cautiously and prayerfully optimistic that she is going to pull through. 

After more time at the hospital today, my wife Toni and I drove back to Barrie.  As we were talking about community, I pulled out my blackberry and counted 63 missed calls or text messages in the last day.  Those were missed calls.  I took hundreds more live, and my call log thing doesn’t count those. People care so deeply.  That’s so amazing.

There are moments where you just see the potential of love, see the potential of prayer and hope, and see the best side of human nature in brilliant display.

Question:  what if we just lived like that?  Why does it take a crisis? 

True story:  An hour before Cindy’s accident, I got together with a good friend for breakfast and we talked pretty openly, as always.  I was sharing some struggles and things I wasn’t happy about.  Twenty minutes after finishing that conversation, I was on the accident scene and learned it was Cindy who was hit.  Man, talk about a change in perspective.  My friend and I talked later that day and commented on how our "struggles" seemed a whole lot different now.

So that’s what I’m asking myself…why can’t I just "live" this way every day? Thanks for being the community you are, and in community pointing me once again to the redemptive potential of love.

As some of you may have heard, Cindy Morris, who works on staff with us at  Connexus, was involved in a car accident yesterday north of Barrie.  Cindy was seriously injured in the accident, and we are praying moment by moment for her full recovery.  I’ll be off this blog for another day or two.  Thank you in advance for your prayers for Cindy and her family.   We are seeing some good signs of hope in these first 24 hours, and grateful to be connected to such a wonderful extended community. 

You can check the Connexus blog for updates.

#7 Believing the Next Big Thing Will Turn it Around

I am a future-oriented leader. If you were to ever look at my strengths-finder profile, and you’ll find futuristic as one of my top strengths (for those who care or follow Marcus Buckingham, here are my top five: futuristic, relator, command, strategic and maximizer).

But I’ve seen a tendency in myself and in other leaders to always believe the "next big thing" will turn an unpleasant present reality around. Like our consumer-obsessed culture, those of us in church leadership can always believe that the "next best thing" will save the day and make anything you might be struggling with go away.  Sure…maybe some big changes are in order and they could help, but I’ve come to realize how important it also is to name reality as it really is and commit to working through your issues in the context of current reality.

The shadow-side to living in the future is that you don’t live in the reality of the present. You actually miss fixing real problems you might be facing today.  The problem may not actually be your model, but how you’re implementing it. While we’re all "learning" and on a journey, at some point as leaders we need to make a commitment to the best model of ministry we can find or create, and basically give it all we’ve got. 

So at Connexus, we’ve accumulated a few years of leadership learnings and we’ve made a commitment to follow one model of ministry over the indefinite future. It’s simply the best we’ve found, and we’re committed to it.  Further, we have no intention of doing any big "model" changes.  As a strategic partner of North Point ministries, we’re committed to making a consistent, simple model of church work.  It’s a model we deeply believe in (obviously), and a great model well-implemented always trumps the next idea vaguely conceived.

Ironically, by engaging today with full-on attention,  you actually work your way to a better tomorrow in a much more strategic way.

#8 Not Wanting to Be Big or Good
So trap #9 was "wanting to be big," but an equal trap is not caring whether we ever become big or good.

I have run into this more times among church leaders than I really want to remember. It’s like we want to disguise a lack of hard work, prayer or simply being smart about what we do as "faithfulness."  It’s as though languishing away in apathetic irrelevance is somehow more godly than a church that is growing and actually reaching people and therefore, say the critics, must have sold its soul. 

God does have a preference for reaching people instead of not reaching people.  He does have a preference for being effective as opposed to ineffective.   Ineffectiveness can also lead to an arrogance of justification… a perverse sense of superiority over those who have seen growth and genuine life change.

I can hear what some of you are saying. Agreed. Just because a leader hasn’t seen the results he or she is hoping for does not necessarily mean that God is not in what they are doing.  Some ministries will always involve a lot of investment for little visible reward. But why do so many people gravitate to that as the default answer as to why their ministries are ineffective?  Too often, leaders are ready to mask incompetence, a lack of diligence or deeper issues under the guise of being "faithful".

At the end of the day, I wonder if these two traps (8 and 9) force us to look deep into a place few of us want to look: into our motivation as leaders.  Some of us are motivated by pride.  Some of us are motivated by a fear of admitting we really don’t want to work intelligently, strategically and prayerfully at the ministry God gave us, or that we may be in the wrong place.

In both cases, the soul-work of honest prayer and introspection is hard.  But the fruit could be great – it might open up room for God to work more effectively in all of us.

#9: Wanting to Be Big
Many of us ambitious, A-type people want to succeed.  That’s the way we get rewarded the most (in our minds).  People start to take notice of our ministry, of our gifts, of how "good" we are. If a church is growing, it strokes egos, makes us feel like we’re "succeeding" and can make us feel great about ourselves.

But church leadership and humility don’t always go hand in hand. Pastors and humility don’t always go hand in hand.  Not often enough anyway.  It’s been a personal struggle for me for years.

In the process of wanting to be big, we can sacrifice people, we can sacrifice faithfulness, we can sacrifice our souls.   (Thought this one would be hard to write — it is.)

God is not the enemy of big.  Those who claim that are dead wrong.  The early church grew by 3000 in a single day, and the vision of heaven in God’s heart is of a multitude too great to count that the church has a pivotal role in reaching. 

But God is the enemy of pride. Too many leaders are quick to claim credit and just as fast to blame others for failures. True, there there are some very "successful" and humble pastors, and ironically there are also "unsuccessful" pastors who are quite full of themselves.  But Jesus and humility always went hand in hand.  And Jesus taught a lot about any of us who would exalt ourselves.

Ironically, when you really let go, and realize how little you have to offer, it’s at that point that you actually begin to release the power of God. 

My prayer:  God, make those of us who lead realize how limited we are, and how truly powerful and good you are. Let me see how little I bring without you. Every day. 

I’m heading off for a short trip again this week (more great Orange leaders to meet) and as soon as I got into terminal three at Pearson, saw that might 3:30 flight got canceled.  So I’m stuck here at the gate until the next plane goes out over the dinner hour. 

I was thinking about how I would have reacted to that five years ago versus how I react to it these days.  Today, it didn’t really bug me.  I was surprised. Five years ago, I would have gone somewhat ballistic inside and shown at least handful of sparks and smoke on the outside. That just didn’t happen today. My biggest concern was being able to get down there tonight since I’m speaking tomorrow and thinking I could have been hanging out with Toni and the kids during the delay…but the delay didn’t trigger me like it would have just a few years ago.  That was refreshing.

So I’m sitting here catching up on stuff, thinking about communicating at Connexus on Sunday (big message), and giving thanks that little by little, God is changing me. Still very grateful that God is better than we think He is, and thankful that He continues to visit and change very ordinary people. Looking forward to what God continues to do in me and in you.

#10: Blaming Others for Your Failings
One of the most memorable talks I ever heard at Willow Creek’s leadership summit was some guy whose name I can’t remember (yes, I hear the irony — but kudos to anyone who remembers who it was) who said there are only four levels people live at:

1. Building
2. Managing
3. Justifying
4. Blaming

God created us to build, he said.  Build families. Build value.  Build into people.  Build lives. Build the Kingdom.

When we aren’t building, we’re managing what we built.  Not bad, but only for a short time until we are again building.

If we’re not building or managing, then we’re justifying why we’re not doing what we’re supposed to be doing (under these circumstances, you wouldn’t really expect anyone to….).  Such is the stuff for lesser people.

And below it all is blaming.  (If it wasn’t for that mega church down the street….if I only had a better congregation…if he hadn’t gotten involved.) Blame is ugly.  Filthy.

As a leader I have to catch myself all the time from making excuses or blaming others.  If I stop justifying and blaming, it means I need to do the most difficult thing of all — face my shortcomings.  My failings are really my fault.  And when I own that, guess what?  God gives me the grace to build again.

So this next series of posts that will follows over the next 10-12 days will speak directly to those of us who lead in ministry.  Whether you lead a small group, lead a "small" team, or lead a church — it doesn’t matter.  Leadership opens us to a whole new set of challenges and opportunities.

The Bible says leadership will be hard, and that those of us who teach will be under even greater scrutiny by God than those who don’t.  Nice calling!

It’s common for leaders to commiserate about how tough leadership can be.  None of us is exempt from the complaints of the people we serve.  And the task of church leadership itself is hard; we really do ask people to do crazy things — serve, give, and sacrifice. 

But that’s not why we’re going to do these posts.  All that may be true (or a little true), but the truth is that leadership is an incredible privilege.  It’s an awesome thing to partner with a great and holy God.  Seriously.  We are so fortunate.  And it’s a great responsibility.  So, it’s good to chat about and pray about the traps we leaders can fall into.  Avoiding them can be so helpful too — because when exercised well, leadership is an incredible joy.

I hope you’ll take the time to comment and reflect on how you’ve experienced these, in whatever capacity you lead — volunteer or staff.  It’s great to be part of a leadership community.

#1 Thinking of Prayer as a Way to Manipulate God
We’ve all done it.  Prayed a certain prayer and then when things don’t turn out the way we want them to, we let God have the full fury of our anger.

I’ve seen some deeply spiritual people fall into this trap (just claim it in Jesus’ name and it will happen!!), some well meaning people, and just about every other type of person you can think of fall victim to this one.  At some point, most of us spend time praying for a dying relative or a sick child or friend.  While illness and death are not simple to deal with, I’m honestly shocked at how many times people make the assumption that God somehow let us down because our prayers weren’t answered our way.

I won’t pretend for a second to trace out cause and effect — why some people recover and others don’t.  Do I believe that God can and does intervene and heal people?  Absolutely.  Would I suggest that it’s always a direct intervention?  Not sure.  Would I say that God directly willed the death of someone who didn’t recover even though they were prayed for?  Stated that way, and you can begin to see the problem with our thinking.

So what fixes this? Respect.  So many biblical writers and figures had a very healthy respect for God.  They did not pretend to be able to figure God’s every move out.  When they prayed, there was a deference to the wisdom of God.  When they prayed, their prayers were honest, gut-wrenching, real dialogues that laid out the whole array of human emotions before God.  (Read the Psalms for example.)  And at the end of it all, many were simply able to worship God in the face of their loss and worship God in the face of a healing.  They just worshipped God because they knew Him to be good.

But in our culture, God is good when He does what we say.  God is bad when He doesn’t listen to us.  Ouch.  I think we all long for a God who is far deeper than that. Thank God He is.

When have you been disappointed by the way God handled a prayer you deeply prayed?  How have you resolved that over the years, or have you?

How’s your passion level for God and for his work lately?  Your level of engagement with this incredible God we serve?

I got back yesterday from Orlando where we did stop one of the Orange Tour hosted by the awesome team at Summit Church in Orlando.  As always, I was inspired by Reggie Joiner’s level of passion for family ministry and by the passion of some great North Point leaders who also taught on the tour.  But the other thing that really grabbed me was the level of real engagement I felt from the hundreds of church leaders that gathered for this tour stop.

These are people who took time off work, volunteers who pour hours each week into ministry for kids, students and families, and people who just really care about what happens to other people spiritually.  Man, I love that.

Sometimes we get a bit jaded about church, but then there are moments when we see it for what it is in parts and for what it could be if we all really cared passionately about what happens to people spiritually.  I see that spirit in some great team members at Connexus, and seeing it played out from such a wide variety of church leaders this past week really made me optimistic about the church.

Thanks to the people who gathered over the last few days in Orlando for fueling my spirit. Thanks to the people of Connexus who drove through more snow with smiles on their faces to create relevant environments for others again this morning.  People actually came and brought their friends.  Honestly, we just have no idea how much all this is affecting lives and changing eternities.

Thanks to everyone who gave me hope this past week.  Thanks for your passionate.  Your passion is raising mine to an even higher level.