Tag Archives: Leadership

The 3 P’s of Leadership by Phil Strout

In the below video, Phil Strout, National Director of Vineyard USA outlines his 3 P’s of leadership – summarized by the following quote:

“Without God’s presences we have no power; without the proclamation we really don’t make a difference, and without things practical we never get traction or movement.”

The 3 P’s:

  1. God’s Presence
  2. Proclamation of the Gospel
  3. All Things Practical

Lollypop Moments

A friend sent me a TED video today by Drew Dudley about “celebrate leadership as the everyday act of improving each other’s lives.” During the talk, Dudley tells a story about a gal who came up to him and told him that he made an impact in her life. The crazy thing was that Dudley didn’t know this gal nor could he remember handing out the famed lollypop which was the catalyst in changing this gal life.

From this experience, Dudley realized that leadership is not just about changing the world (i.e. big, huge important stuff) but about improving each other’s lives through small actions in everyday life. Accordingly, we all should be celebrating and sharing our lollypop moments with each other and those whose lives have impacted our own.

As I reflected on this video I realized that I had a lollypop moment last month.

I was at the office working away when I received a phone call from a number I did not recognize. Answering it, I found myself talking to an old family friend whom I had not talked to in 17 or so years. He used to teach at a small country church I attended in high school and was good friends with my step-father… but as happens, we all moved away from that small Texas town and lost touch with each other. Recently, however, this gentleman was remembering those days with his son and decided to look up both myself and my parents – hence the phone call.

The crazy lollypop moment happened in the middle of the phone call when he mentioned that his son vividly remembers me and that I had an impact on his son’s life. I was blown away as…well…to be perfectly honest… I didn’t really remember this guy as he was friends with my parents and his son was five years old at the time…

Yet as it turned out, his 5-year old son was watching me, a 17-year old high school student worship God and serving in the church…the son also remembers riding in the car with me as we all car pooled from the church to some unknown location… somehow those simple, everyday acts that I don’t recall made an impact on this child’s life – so much so that he still remembers them 17 years later…

Crazy lollypop moments…

So….yeah… your daily actions DO matter a TON!

[ted id=1355]

Two church planting related posts by some Vineyard bloggers

jason clarkThought I would share a few church planting related blog posts by some Vineyard folks:

Post #1: “Leading and managing change: lessons from a church planter #1”  by Jason Clark

Author bio: Jason is the pastor of the Sutton Vineyard in London, UK (planted in 1997) and serve as Area Leader. He holds a Doctor of Ministry degree in theology and leadership, and is currently completing PhD research on the church and culture.

Post summary: Jason outlines the five key leadership areas that he realizes that he has to face up to and grow in if his church is to move forward with God. The five areas are: Vision, Skills, Character, Counting the Cost, and Change.

My thoughts: I love Jason’s honesty and openness about having to change and grow as a leader in order to take the church to the place that God wants it to go. His statement, “what had gotten me here wouldn’t get me there”, is very telling and resonates with me as I transition out of the senior pastorship and into a new currently-undefined role within the local church. To always be growing, always going deeper with Jesus…that is life and it is hard.

dave jacobsPost #2: “If I Planted A Church Again, I Would… Pt. 1” by Dave Jacobs

Author Bio: Dave is a church coach and consultant based in Southwest Oregon. Before that he was a church planter and Vineyard area leader in California. (Personal note: Dave coached me for six weeks a few years ago and was very, very helpful!)

Post summary: Over the years Dave came up with a list of 37 changes he would make if he ever planted another church (he started three of them). Enough folks have asked him about this list that he decided to publish the list in small chucks. The link above takes you to the first six items on the list. The other 31 will be coming out over the next few weeks.

My thoughts: I’m not too sure about a few things on Dave’s list….granted, I know that he has a ton more experience and time pastoring then I do…yet, comment like the following make me nervous:

“I would try to be a humble, benevolent dictator, surrounded by a few people not afraid to get in my face and be honest with me.”

I think I know what he is getting at in that in starting a new church it is good to have someone calling the shots…however, I have seen a rise in team leadership that I feel is healthier for both the church body and the pastor/leadership team. For example, if one is bivocational (which Dave lists as a good thing in point number 2) then being a “humble, benevolent dictator” means long hours and TONS of stress. To me personally, I would rather go with a co-pastor/team-leader structure and try to lower the stress load. =/

What do you think about these two articles?

Christmas Greetings to Vineyard Movement from the Strouts

Phil and Janet Strout have released a sweet Christmas greeting to the Vineyard Movement. Give it a watch. 🙂

Phil also posted a video summarizing the past year and looking forward to the new year. Specifically, God seems highlighting the concept of servant leadership and what it means to be servant with Phil – leading him to pulling out all his books on the topic so that he can re-read them this winter. Not sure what that means for the movement, but it should be good.

 

Pillar Four: The Golden Rule

The fourth installment of Phil Strout’s series on leadership and ministry:

A few thoughts on the video… in the video Phil talks about pebbles that come out of our mouths that turn into boulders before they reach the ears of the listeners. wow…what a word picture! Sadly enough I can say that this has happened to me more times than I care to remember… things that I think are innocent or benign (pebbles) can care into huge problems (boulders) or insults as they travel through the air to the ears of those around me. The solution to this is to always keep Jesus’ words on the forefront of our hearts and minds – to treat others like we want to be treated.

Pillar Three: This is the most important _________

The third pillar in Phil Strout’s Ten Pillar of Leadership and Ministry” is the concept of “This is the most important ______________ ever”.

In other words, approach each job or task you have as if it is the most important task in your life. You only have one shot at it – so make it count.

Why he did not mention it, I see echos of Colossians 3:17 in this leadership pillar:

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Ten Pillars of Leadership and Ministry

phil stroutPhil Strout is staring a new series on his video blog about the ten pillars of leadership and ministry that has helped him throughout the years. It should be a good series. 🙂

1.    Whatever it takes
2.    This is the most important _________
3.    It’s amazing what can be accomplished when you don’t care who gets the credit
4.    The Golden Rule
5.    Soul Care
6.    Fruitful Longevity
7.    If it’s worth anything, it’s worth everything
8.    For the Greater Glory of God and the well-being of people
9.    Ministry is overflow, not overwork
10.    The Cup of the Lord

Note that he only posts every few weeks so, yeah, it is going to take some time to make it through all ten… 😕

Leading From Within The Herd

Soon after I posted my thoughts on being “Trail Broke” (i.e. leading by example), I ran across a post by David Fitch that posed some of the same questions yet with a slightly different spin.

In his post, David, who, BTW, is a bi-vocational pastor and seminary professor, asked the question of what is the job of a pastor:

a.) lead everyone individually into the Christian life that I [the pastor] am already living? or
b.) to lead everyone into joining in life with God and His Mission wherever that might lead?

As the post developed it became clear that to David that the first option lend itself to a pastor who thinks that they have already achieved the “perfect life” and can now “give it to someone else.” In other words, it a leadership model that assumes that the leader is “ahead” of the everyone else on journey and is simply showing them all the way forward.

The second option, which David heavily promotes, is a leadership model that places the pastor “among” the people as someone who is journeying together with them “into the depths of life with God and His Mission.” The beauty of this model is that it frees the pastor for having to be perfect or having to have figured out everything beforehand. Instead they are just another Jesus follower who is growing with everyone else through interactions with the greater body of Christ.

Needless to say most of us when presented with the above choices would gravitate towards the second options as it defiantly sounds better than the first. Yet, I would have to say that I have seen and been around pastors who, whether or not they admit it, lead based upon the model of the first option. In fact if you look up the twenty most used qualifiers for successful Christian leadership in America you would get a list of words that reflect the essence of this leadership model hidden in ‘Christianese” language.

However, I must also admit that I’m uncomfortable with David’s second leadership model as I don’t think it fully recognizes the difference between a pastor and a non-pastor. Or to say it differently, I believe that those who are called by God to serve in the role of a pastor/teacher are held at a higher level of accountable than those who are not.

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