We celebrated our first family day in Ontario today…a celebration, our premier says, of family, because families need more time together.  Good idea.

So what does your family do to stay together, to foster family life and a journey that points kids in the right direction? We’re at the stage where racking up the mileage on the car is not hard…hockey rules, and right now we’re all over the place in playoffs.  Beyond that and work, there’s not a lot of time left.  So how do we leverage that time?   Because time is the key to relationship, and relationship is the key to life in Christ (it’s all about a relationship!)  To me, as the kids get older, the key is not just praying together or reading the Bible together (that’s important and necessary), but opening a dialogue about faith and life that runs through life. That can be a lot trickier.

Personally, I find conversations about God and life happen best in the flow of every day life. Here’s what we do to try to track together at this stage in life (my boys are 16 and 12):

• We eat dinner together almost every night.  Very important. With my BBQ busted, I’m loving it when Toni brings out the crockpot in the morning.  Ribs rock.
• We serve together Sundays at Connexus.
• We listen to music together, and let the kids drive the playlist.  Beats four people living together 24/7 with four iPods running and four soundtracks. 
• I let my 16 year old drive wherever he’s legally allowed to.  That gives us time together.
• I pull each son out of school once a term and do something with him for fun.
• I’m reading through Daniel with Sam (aged 12).  Great story about a young man, God, and integrity.
• We play board games, watch movies and read in the same space.
• I’m trying not to work to hard. 
• We try to do several shorter vacations together each year.

Pretty normal, unimaginative stuff, but the key to relationship is time.

What things do you do with your family?  What helps you keep communication and God-opportunities wide open?

#1 Pride

There’s a lot of pride in leadership these days.  I think we often translate God’s desire for "fruit" into a human desire to "succeed".  I know I struggle with the tension between wanting to see the Kingdom grow for genuine reasons and wanting it to grow for selfish or personal reasons. 

Somehow, we are all little demi-gods in our own minds.  The world spins and revolves around us.  It’s infected the culture and infected the church.  Are we really saying "look at Jesus" or are we just as concerned that people look at us?

Pride is more than arrogance – more than a strut or swagger.  Pride started the whole distorted, twisted ride into sin.  Pride caused Satan to think he was better than God. Pride usurps dependence on God.  It replaces humility and worship of God for who He is in all of His self-giving, with worship of self in all of its’ self-taking.  Satan counterfeited the glory of God with the glory of self, and he’s been selling plenty of that false medicine for millennia.  We’ve been buying.

Pride can also stem from insecurity.  There’s a ton of insecure leaders out there.  We need to talk about how great we are when we fear there’s really nothing inside.  But when we see that there’s something of deep value inside (God, in all His glory), the need to talk about ourselves plummets, and the desire to point to Him swells. 

Funny that the words humility and humiliation are linked to the same root.  When I have been humiliated, I find I see so little value in what I bring, and I can see far more the real value of what God brings.  For that, I am grateful.

To what extent do you think pride has infected and affected your world?

#2 Substituting Activity for God for your Relationship With God

Leadership attracts a certain personality type — achievers, people who love to get things done.  It’s easy for our lives to get consumed with doing, not with being.

If we are performance addicts (as many in ministry are), it only makes it worse, because we derive our sense of self-worth from achievement.  As someone who struggles with this, I’ve had to fight to keep my relationship with God first in my life.  For me, it’s way easier to "do" than to "be".

Jesus was the opposite.  He was completely focused on who He was as it was defined by His relationship with His Father.  Jesus spent thirty years preparing for three years of ministry.  And even during those three years, he would disappear for long periods of time to pray, fast and meditate on scripture.  He knew God intimately, and tapped into a power source (God) that truly turned things upside down.  We’d consider it sacrificial to spend three years preparing for a thirty year run at something…Jesus did the opposite, and we’ll never be the same.

As a leader, I need to spend more time being in Christ and less time doing things for Him.   What about you?  After all, the things I do will pass away.  But the relationships with God and each other that we establish will last forever.

#3: Not Staying in Step with God

Leaders can fall into one of two traps on this one.  Some of us are so full of ambition and our own ability that God can end up being an afterthought in our leadership.  We dream it.  We do it.  And then we ask God to bless it, and hopefully He does.

On the other end of the spectrum are those who spend so much time reflecting, praying and talking about God that nothing gets done.  This one’s more subtle, because every thing looks holy and humble. But the reality is that nothing’s actually happening.  It’s all talk, no action. At one point, God had to remind Moses to stop talking to Him and get moving.  Come to think of it, isn’t that what the angel had to tell the disciples after Jesus ascended into heaven ("what are you doing standing here staring into the sky?").

I tend to alternate between the two extremes.  There are times where I’m so busy and ambitious that I can fall into the trap of "double checking" my plans with God.  Yikes.  In other seasons, I can get into a mode of inaction where everything sounds holy and good, but the truth is I’m not accomplishing anything in Christ or for Christ.  I’m just stuck in a ‘holy’ haze.

I don’t know how to land on this one, except to say that working in partnership with God means you have an authentic, live relationship with God. With that come all the dynamics of a real relationship.  It’s a daily check-in through scripture, prayer, and wise counsel to make sure I’m not running ahead of or lagging behind the Spirit, but instead keep my life in step with the Spirit.

How about you?  Do you tend toward one side or the other?  Any advice?

#4: Failing to Tell the Truth   

It sounds a little ridiculous to say this, but I think Christian leaders have trouble telling the truth.  It’s partly related to trap #5 (wanting the please people), but I think there are three ways I have to be careful that I’m sticking to the real story…

1. I can veer off the truth because I don’t want to name an unpleasant reality.  God’s truth is always spoken in love, but it’s not always "nice".  How often does nice slice truth in half?
2. I can veer off the truth because I don’t want to name reality as a leader.  Sometimes the truth about ourselves or about a situation is not pleasant.  It’s just way too easy to live in denial or to pretend it isn’t so.
3. I can deny the truth that God may have called us/me into a situation that requires tremendous courage and trust.  Ironically, false humility or a sense that "God couldn’t be calling us to this" might actual deny the truth that God has called us to do a very great and courageous thing.

The great truth-ometer is God’s Word, discerned with prayer and applied with wise counsel in community. 

What’s your experience with truth?  My prayer? God, just make me faithful to what’s true — and to you.

#5: Wanting to Please People   

The church today is in a major vision crisis (if you don’t believe this, just tour the churches in your community.)  One of the key things driving the crisis in vision is leaders who won’t stick to the best course of action largely because they are afraid of angering people. 

In fact, many leaders simply want to be liked by the people they serve.  We simply don’t anyone to be angry at us.  And the best way (in the short term) to avoid people’s anger is to do what they tell you.  The problem is that in leadership, leaders need to lead.  And agreeing to what everyone at large wants to do is not leadership.  That’s followership.  Particularly when people’s ideas about the future are different from each other and often fundamentally incompatible.

Ironically, when people pleasing becomes your chief goal, you end up with an ineffective mission plus a group of angry and/or ineffective people.  They get angry because the mission isn’t accomplishing anything, and in the end, the very people you were trying to please by saying "yes" end up mad at you anyway.   So not only are you not further ahead, you are actually further behind.

Leadership takes secure leaders.  Leaders who are not afraid to take a few hits — who have the guts to take the best idea and run with it even if it’s not the most popular at first.  Great ideas have a way, over time, of winning converts.  Most of the eventual converts need to see the idea become reality and succeed though, before they’ll endorse it.  Enter the job of the leader. 

Leaders always need to lead with humility…this is far from justification for a big power trip. In fact, it’s just the opposite.  It means we need to submit to God at a whole new level.  But usually, leaders will grasp a sense of the wisest or best course to take…it’s just that sometimes we lack the courage to take it  That’s where reliance on God needs to kick into a whole new gear.  He can give grace and courage when everyone else has withdrawn theirs.  And that is powerful.

As a leader, there are seasons where I need to motivate myself with a single thought:  I really believe God is in this, and even though it’s not popular, I’m going to commit myself to it because I honestly believe that down the road, the entire group will be grateful we got there. 

What part of this resonates with you (if any)? How’s your courage?  Who are you trying to please?  What might you do to overcome it?

So, with all that’s been going on, it’s been a while since I’ve blogged about leadership traps.  So, it’s time to wade back into that with a quick recap of where we’ve been…and then into #6.

#10: Blaming Others for Your Failures.  Poor leaders rarely take responsibility for their own failures.
#9:   Wanting to Be Big.  Ambition isn’t always godly.
#8:   Not Wanting to Be Big or Good.  Laziness or indifference are not next to godliness.
#7    Believing the Next Best Thing Will Turn it Around. The future will not turn a terrible present around all by itself.

So…without further ado, here it is:

#6:  Treating People As Though They Were Tasks
Sometimes as leaders, we can get so consumed by the mission, the task or the project, that people can end up being a means to an end.  I know this is my default, and I’ve hard to so guard against it.  It’s a sign that God doesn’t really have all of my heart, because God’s heart actually is for people.

Those of you who are task driven probably winced when you saw this one.  After all, we struggle with people who don’t give it their "all" or for whatever reason, can’t or won’t deliver in a way that’s helpful.  And, if this traps you, it drives you nuts that in ministry, too many people use "niceness" as an excuse for incompetence, laziness or lack of focus.  After all, Jesus came in highly focused on a mission and let nothing — I mean nothing — distract him from it.  So sometimes that makes us feel justified.

But the truth is, Jesus did an awesome job balancing task with people.  People were, after all, the point of his mission and the point of ours.  So the way I’m working around my flawed personality defect on this one is to :

• Realize I have this bent, and consciously try to compensate for it.
• Realize that mostly its a question of getting people in the right position.  Everybody fits somewhere…you just need to find their sweet spot and let them roll.
• Take time every day to value the people I’m with as well as the task we’re working on.
• Remind myself that the people I’ve valued most in my life valued me as a person before they valued what I brought to a team.

The ironic thing is that when you get people running in the same direction, you get an incredible group running together on an incredible mission.

What’s your experience with this trap, both on the "trap" and the "success" side?

It’s not like life’s big questions can be limited to three…but this is the third and final post on the big questions series before we jump back into Leadership Traps.  Thanks for the provocative dialogue and insightful comments everyone.  I love this community.

Last big question: how do we know our prayers are answered?  This one’s a tough one for me.  It’s actually easier for me to look back to the Bible and have a biblical writer interpret events by saying something like "And the Lord heard their prayers and delivered them…."  It would be nice to have crystal clear answers and laser-like precision in knowing what was an answer to specific prayer and what wasn’t.  But I’m just not sure I’m that great an interpreter.

I think I would like to believe that God answers every prayer I pray in specific, measurable ways, but I’m not sure I can.  I have prayed for people before who have died.  I have prayed for people before who have lived.  Sometimes I’ve prayed more intensely for the people who have died than the people who have lived.  So why did they die?

Deep down, I think most of us love to see cause and effect.  I prayed — this happened.  I didn’t pray — this didn’t happen.  It’s so neat, so simple.

Personally, I see more and more mystery in prayer…more and more beauty in it than I used to.  I feel less like a toddler who asked for a Wii for Christmas and got one, and more like someone who stumbled into a friendship with an artist who paints works so commanding and majestic that I can’t even explain what I’m seeing…its beauty and complexity exceeds the ability of my mind to understand it.

I think when we can’t see cause and effect in our prayers, we’re in good company.  Paul prayed three times to have an issue dealt with in his life.  Three times, God said no.  His prayers didn’t "work", but they made God’s grace work even more.  That, to me, is a beautiful mystery.

I’m sure we’ve all got story after story of unanswered prayer, and many stories of what we might call "answered " prayer.  I am convinced God hears every spoken and unspoken word I pray, and I am increasingly grateful that he doesn’t always answer the way I hope he will.  He’s just way wiser than I am both in life and in death, and somehow we are caught up in the mystery of receiving grace in every circumstance.  That, I think, can produce an even more profound gratitude than knowing we "convinced" God to do something we thought was important.  Maybe the answer is that "The Lord actually heard their cries and delivered them" no matter how it turns out. 

What do you think?

When I was in the waiting room at Sunnybrook a few days ago, someone from our community asked me a great question, point blank:  does having more people praying affect God in some way? 

So….that’s a big one.  After all, our instinct in praying is to want to get as many people praying for a person or about an issue as possible.  In this era of mass email, you don’t have to be a Christian long to get a "prayer chain" email begging you to forward a request to everyone in your in-box.  So does more people praying about an event affect the outcome of a situation?

To be perfectly candid, I’m not 100% sure.   What I say next is going to sound like a contradiction: I think the answer is "no", but I am very much in favour of people praying together.  What on earth do I mean?  Hang on — I know got some ‘splaining to do. 

I say no because the Bible is chalk full of examples of one person praying prayers that God found very effective and influential.  Abraham completed arrested God’s attention all by himself when he pleaded for Sodom and Gomorrah not to be destroyed (interestingly enough, God still destroyed the cities in the end, but saved Abraham’s family because of his dialogue with Abraham).  Daniel appears to have influenced heaven all by himself, and Jesus pointed to a widow who single-handedly wanted to bang down the door of heaven.

And yet all followers of Jesus are encouraged to pray regularly, and Paul prayed regularly for people.

What bothers me most about modern prayer is that I feel like we use it as a way to manipulate God, not as a way to honour him, submit to him or worship him.  Basically, I think we want to control God.  And that’s just not biblical.  In the Bible, people dialogued with God, but they submitted to him.

Praying regularly, and constantly can do many helpful things for us:

1. It points us to the mystery of God…that much of life is still beyond our control, and yet like a parent loves to hear a child ask for things, God takes pleasure in hearing the deepest longing of our hearts.  And sometimes, maybe, that influences what happens in the heavens in ways we don’t (and probably shouldn’t) fully understand.
2. It points us to our reliance on God.. that really we really can learn to trust him.
3. It deepens our trust in God…when you really spend time with Christ, you see the goodness of God.
4. When we pray together, it reminds us of what unites all of us.

At Connexus, we see our community groups as the main forum in which we pray together.  And I know last week and this week, literally hundreds of people gathered in community groups were lifting up prayers covering topics too many to mention.  Somehow, that’s just good.

The outpouring of love, prayer and compassion after Cindy Morris, whom I work with at Connexus, was involved in a car accident this week has been overwhelming.  Much of what happened with Cindy is outlined on the Connexus blog.

Among the many conversations this week, some really good questions have arisen that take us into the heart of God, suffering and life.  I thought I might spend a bit of time on the blog over the next few days answering some of the questions you asked. Feel free to enter the discussion and to ask the questions on your mind too.  (We’ll get back to the Leadership Traps series next week.)

The number one question I’ve heard is a variation on "why on earth would God let something like this happen? She’s an amazing person who is serving God.  Of all people, why her?"

The short answer is always disappointing: I’m not sure we specifically know why it happened.  We can talk about ice, a car losing control etc.  But underneath is a bigger idea of God we need to name.  I wonder how many of us still carry a picture of God as a puppeteer who directly pulls every strings in our lives? That view of God often blames God for all the bad in our lives and in the world.  (Rarely does it give him credit for good, though).

I’m not sure that’s the picture of God we get in the Bible.  Occasionally God is shown as directly causing calamity — but not often, and most often not individually. Every death or tragedy that happened in the Bible is not described as the result of an angry God harming people.  Even Jesus infers that tragedy is often random.  And the overall picture of God in the Bible is of a God rescuing people from a very present and real evil.

The Bible paints a picture of a world that was once ideal (in the beginning), became corrupted (when sin entered the world) and is in the process of being redeemed (through the cross, resurrection and second coming of Jesus). While we long for heaven, we don’t live there yet, and the world we in fact live in is one deeply scarred by sin.   If an analogy is helpful, it’s like buying a new computer that runs perfectly for a while and then gets infected by a virus.  When the virus invades it, things are still recognizable, but nothing really works like it was supposed to.  That’s what life, infected by sin, is like.  Good people get hurt.  "Bad" people live to be a 100.  It’s just corrupted.

I’m not sure we know why bad things happen to good people other than the whole system has been corrupted, and nothing is as it once was or will be. 

But — and this is a huge but — God’s redemptive purpose can be at work in every situation. The Joseph perfectly illustrates how God can take a terrible situation and use it for good.  (I talked about this principle on some length last weekend at Connexus).  Similarly, God can take all things (good and bad) and use them somehow for his glory if we submit them to him.

I think if we keep framing the question the way we usually ask it (why do bad things happen to good people or why did God let this happen), we’ll always be disappointed with the lack of an answer.

If we reframe the issue in recognition of the fact that we are still living in a fallen world, and ask it this way — what can God do in the midst of this bad situation if we offer it to him? — we might be surprised to see what can happen in our lives.

This isn’t a neat and tidy answer, but it has helped me immensely as I’ve tried to make sense of the pain in my life and the pain I’ve experience in other people’s lives and situations.

What do you think?