I’ve got one of the best things in my life happening in the next few days, and I’m also up against one of the hardest disciplines I face.

I’m going on vacation. That’s the best part.  Nine days starting today with the famous you-can-only-understand-this-if-you’re-Canadian 22 hour non stop drive to the FLA.  Seven nights to unwind and then a slower drive back with a stop at one of my favourite places: North Point for church.

My kids are getting older.  Jordan starts university in September and this may be one of the last or the very last “four of us in lockdown together” vacations we have.  Can’t believe life is flying by as quickly as it is.  I am completely savouring the time I’ve got coming up with the three most important people in my life.  I love time with my family.  We’ll even be able to spend time with some of Toni’s family who’s down in Florida as well.  Should be fun.

Now the hard part:  I’m going to unplug for nine days.  No work, no blogging, no email.  I might twitter, because, well, because it’s twitter. Or maybe not.  We’ll see.

In this uber-wired world, I find it harder than ever to unplug.  I don’t worry about Connexus – we have the most awesome team running it.  I know they’ll handle everything as well or better than I could.  It’s just I like to work.

Time and again, it’s caused tension when I’ve tried to combine play and work, so I’m going to try to do something I don’t do well at all – unplug.  No email.  No blogging for a week or so (even though I have about a dozen posts floating in my mind).  No sermon prep (I love the writing almost as much as getting to preach).

But the tension is here even on day one.  My family’s sleeping in as we get ready for the ride.  I can’t sleep.  I showered, got ready, gassed up the Honda, grabbed some Tim Horton’s tea for Toni and I.   They’re still resting.  So I do the only thing I know how to do:  work (finishing some future series outlines).

I have a disease I think.  Truthfully, more than a few of us in church leadership have this disease.

I just want to be fully present for my favourite people on the planet.  For me, that means unplugging.  So…here we go.

How do you wrestle with the tension between working and resting?  What helps you?

I’ll look forward to reading any comments (when I get back in a week or so, of course).  :0)

So…who is responsible for your spiritual growth?

If you’ve hung around church for any length of time, you might be tempted to say “my church is”.

At Connexus where I serve, we’ve been talking about that recently.   I did a message last month about blame and responsibility that seemed to resonate as deeply as any message we’ve ever done.  It got me thinking.   Although we’re not suffering from this right now, those of us who have led for a while are far too familiar with Christians who hop from church to church every few years, leaving church after church because they didn’t grow in their faith.  They leave, blaming the church and church leadership for failing.  I’ve discussed this for years with other church leaders, and we’re all frustrated by it.

Sometimes, churches need to change and admit we are not doing a great job helping people grow.  But honestly, sometimes it’s not the church’s issue.  The leadership has often done all it can to create environments that help people grow.  I wonder if there’s an underlying issue beneath it all  that rarely gets addressed.  It centers on the answer to this question: who is responsible for your spiritual growth?

The truthful answer is: you are.

I am not responsible for your growth.  Your wife isn’t.  Your children are not.  Nor is your car mechanic or small group leader.  The elders are not.  Nor is your neighbour across the street.  Who’s responsible for your spiritual growth?  You are.  In exactly the same way that I’m responsible for my growth and development.  It would be ludicrous for me to blame you for me not growing spiritually, but that’s what people do all the time to their churches.

Your church can help.  We try to create great environments that help people grow.  But think of it this way:  a chef can set a spectacular dinner table and cater a great meal, but at the end of the day he can’t make you eat or make you have fun.  That’s your business.  All he can do is create a great environment conducive to wonderful dining.

I have been tremendously helped by great leadership and great teaching in the church over the years.  But I’ve also grown under poor leadership, learned from mediocre teachers and even been sharpened in less than ideal community.   In fact, I’ve always grown the most when I’ve assumed personal responsibility for my spiritual development and looked for others to help me (not grow me, just help me grow).  I’ve grown the least when I’ve slacked off.

I wonder what would happen to the church if Christians took responsibility for their growth?  I wonder what would happen if we pursued a personal walk with the same passion we use when we blame others for our failures?  I wonder what would happen if we helped each other out and prayed for each other but continued to encourage people to take responsibility for their spiritual growth?

What do you think?  Is this an issue you see?  What would happen we collectively re-assumed responsibility for our spiritual growth?

I am a fan of Toyota.  I own one currently and have owned another one in the past.  They make great cars.

So it hurts me to see how they are responding to what is emerging as the greatest crisis Toyota has faced.  I want them to do better.  I want them to sell more cars.  But right now, I’m not sure they’re helping themselves.

Most of us non-caver dwellers have by now heard that Toyota has halted sales on eight models (representing over 50% of its sales) and recalled millions of vehicles because of gas pedals that stick.   As this piece points out, Toyota’s not saying much.   They haven’t apologized – really.  And while every defective vehicle will likely be fully repaired, somehow their handling of the situation has been less than optimal.

Here’s what great companies and leaders do when facing crisis:

• The top leader are involved.  Sending the VP of marketing (or associate pastor) out to do your dirty work is a failure of leadership.
• Great leaders name the problem honestly.  Any “probably most of you won’t die from this so it’s not that serious” talk from the CEO is not helpful.  Tell people it’s a serious situation and tell them you are aware of the consequences.
• Top leaders take full responsibility.  This is not the time to point fingers, assign blame or play they “it really isn’t my fault” card.  People who take responsibility inspire confidence in followers.
• Great leaders fix the problem.  Honestly admitting you have a problem is different than doing everything in your power to make it right.  Even if you are not sure how to fix it, publicly announcing that you will do everything you can do to find a solution is helpful.

I know that as a leader, it’s hard to do these things.  There’s something inside all of us that wants to turtle when crisis hits.  We’d love to cover up, underplay it and hope it would go away.   But that undermines confidence among your followers.  Doing the hard thing and owning it, assuming full responsibility and fixing the issue inspires confidence.  This has been one of my key learnings over the last number of years.  The more I do this, the better I (and the rest of our team) lead.

But I’m learning over time that the very best response I can have to bad news is to get on top of it and accept full responsibility.

What do you think?  What are some practices you’ve seen in crisis that either inspire or diminish confidence?