King George VI

In July 1972, I stood in a small side chapel within St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. After seeing elaborate graves all over London with wonderfully carved statues, long inscriptions about the person’s importance and so forth, here was a simple marble slab in the floor bearing just a name: George VI.

Source: BBC News (c) 2003

I was so impressed that here was a man who needed no explanation.  It didn’t say King George VI. Nothing about him as being thrust into a leadership role he never expected nor even aspired to, about the speech impediment he overcame so he could inspire a nation fighting for its life through his speeches. Nothing about his commitment to stay in London to be with his people, even after his own residence was bombed, inspired a nation to persevere. Nothing needed to be said because his name says it all. I was only a young teenager in 1972, but even I knew what a great man he was. Although I expected something much more elaborate, I was more impressed by this simple tombstone than any other grave that I saw.  His legacy is summarized just by his name alone. What a fabulous way for a leader to be remembered!

Queen Elizabeth II

Queen Elizabeth is another remarkable inspirational leader whose name, I’m sure, will bring a legacy to mind for a long time.  She is to be congratulated for a remarkable reign of sixty years and counting.

Queen Elizabeth is an amazing woman who provides leadership as Head of State not only to the U.K., but also as Head of State to fifteen other nations (including Canada). Furthermore, another 38 member nations of the Commonwealth also follow her leadership. Her dedication to her role, her ability to stay steady through turmoil, her simple style and her graciousness have inspired me. I believe her greatest legacy is simply the way she’s lived her life in service to others.

Today, one columnist wrote about Queen Elizabeth saying,

“In this present time of glaring, intrusive, nasty media, it is hard to imagine the proportions of the Queen’s achievement in serving 60 years, every one of them as one of the most prominent and publicized people in the world, without one gaffe, one embarrassing photograph, one injudicious utterance or slip on a banana peel, literal or metaphoric. Queen Elizabeth II has personified the British middle-class virtues: moderation, unflamboyant consistency and unflappable reliability.”

Queen Elizabeth, as her father did, represents the best of the figurehead leader. Figureheads in practice have very little real power.  What power they have is pretty much ceremonial and their ability to get anything done depends more on leading by example than by authority. But in spite of that, some figureheads have so much personal power they can accomplish a lot.  The Queen fulfills the figurehead role admirably and embodies the aspirations of people everywhere to live lives of civility, graciousness and a whole lot more.

What’s Your Legacy?

As a senior leader, you fulfill a figurehead role for sure, but you also have the authority to direct an organization and get results. How will you be remembered twenty or thirty years after you retire? What attributes will people talk about? What will be your lasting imprint on your ministry? It would be really nice if in 2060 or so someone mentioned my name with regards to CCCC and a listener said, “Ah yes, John Pellowe.  He…” and then some nice thing or other is said. What would you want said?

Is life about individual accomplishment? About doing? Is it really “all about me”? Or is it about us and how we lived together and what we did for each other?

I hope to accomplish a lot, through my own work and that of the CCCC team, during my time in leadership here. However, given that Christianity is fundamentally about relationships, between us and God and us and other people, I think our legacies that endure will be about how we cared for each other, inspired one another, and helped our neighbours.  Here are some things I think would be worthy to be on a leader’s wish list for a legacy:

• Your leadership produced an outstanding crop of gifted people who filled mid and senior leadership roles from within for a generation
• During your term the organization learned how to live out its values and this culture of authenticity endures “to this day”
• People still tell stories of how you gave them their big break that opened doors for them to flourish in their ministry careers
• The fun and pride people had working together as a team during your tenure is still the stuff of organizational lore decades later

Take a moment and write down your list of words or phrases you’d like to have associated with your name.

Then ask the question: Is the way I am currently leading going to leave a legacy anything like what I have just thought about? If not, now is the time to do something about it.  Now is the time to create the history you want to be told to new generations later on.

• I believe a rich enduring legacy will not simply be a list of accomplishments, although there will certainly be accomplishments in a leader’s legacy.
• It will not actually be about you or me as if the goal in life is to say “Look at me!” It will be about us as conduits, about how we obediently followed God, received the gifts and roles he gave us and acted as one of his means to bless others and help them to be the great person God intends them to be.
• It will be how we made other people feel about themselves, how they believed more about their abilities and future, and about how we helped them to have more significance, more meaning in their lives.
• In the end, what matters for leaders is the influence our leadership had on others and what they were able to accomplish because of our influence.

I realize that my accomplishments today are the result of many people who believed in me and who got me to where I am today and those who work with me day-by-day. While I need to accomplish things to fulfill my job responsibilities, my true leadership will be measured by how well I helped other people to do the same.

A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.
Proverbs 22:1

When ministry leaders come and go in just a few years, I wonder how connected they were with other people.  Could they have had greater longevity and success by being vulnerable and discussing these issues with someone else?

If you are finding leadership a lonely experience, here are some people who can keep you company.

Staff

You should be able to discuss almost any issue with your senior staff because they are your team and they are the ones who will execute whatever plans you approve.  They are every bit as familiar with the ministry as you are and they share your vital interest in its success.  Why not bring them into your confidence?

Just because the senior leader has the executive authority and bears all the responsibility for results (to the board) doesn’t mean the person must be a lonely, solo leader.  Two of my senior staff report directly to me and I trust both of them completely and value their judgment.  Beyond them, there is a leadership team (and also staff who join us based on the topic of discussion).  Why should I rely only on my own knowledge and experience when I have so much more available to me?

There are a couple of reasons why some leaders hold back from their staff:

• They may have a personnel issue or something that they don’t want to discuss with any staff.  Okay, but as you’ll see below, there are still other people you can discuss things with.
• You many think that not having the answers will make you appear weak.  You may be afraid of losing the staff’s confidence if you ask for their help.  If so, I think you’ve bought into the ‘heroic leader’ myth.  Business books and biographies almost always tell a story by focusing on one individual, as if their success was 100% from their own efforts and ideas.  I can recall only one book written about an heroic team, The Wisdom Of Teams.  That’s the exception.  All the other books focus on a single person because we want a hero, and heroes are supposed to be able to overcome obstacles by themselves.  But this is to put unrealistic expectations on yourself.  Roger Patterson, co-author of Leading from the Second Chair, sent me the text for his second book (not yet published) called The Theology of the Second Chair and in it he makes an interesting point.  Scripture shows that God appoints people to leadership, but these are all people with limitations well known to God.  Think about Moses and his poor speech.  God puts people around his leader who fill in for the leader’s shortcomings.  The leader is strong in what God wants them to do, and the team does the rest.
• Finally, be wary of pride.  For the sake of the ministry, accept the team’s wisdom.  James presided over the Council of Jerusalem and allowed his team to thoroughly discuss the Gentile question (Acts 15) even though he alone made the final decision.  Paul had his missionary team confirm the meaning of his Macedonian vision even though he knew what the dream meant.  It was a way of testing his interpretation.  So confide in your team.

Board

If you think you can’t talk to your staff, you can talk with your directors.  I am blessed with a board that is supportive while at the same time holding me accountable.  CCCC has a policy board, so my concerns are within my jurisdiction not theirs, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a ‘fireside chat’ with them.  We both know that they will not tell me what to do and that I am solely responsible for any decision I make, but we have had hours of fruitful discussions that have benefitted me greatly.  Just like my staff, they are dedicated to the success of the ministry, and because they hired me, they want me personally to be successful as CEO.  Why should I not have the benefit of their wisdom and experience too?

However, you might not want to talk with your board because you may feel your job is in jeopardy if you ask for input or show that you struggle with some things.  You certainly need to be a top performer, but it shouldn’t be a problem to seek counsel or to ask for prayer support.  Unfortunately we at CCCC hear about many conflicts between board and staff.  You can reduce board-staff conflict if you accept the board’s authority and if the board does good board orientation and development so directors know where the line is between board and staff.  The board should also recruit people who subscribe to the values, ethos, and strategic statements already in place and who are in basic accord with the senior staff person.  They don’t have to always agree with the leader, but they shouldn’t come on to a board already wanting to change basic elements of strategy or staffing.

Ministry Peers

I have developed relationships with ministry leaders across the country by simply visiting them in their offices, seeing them at events such as EFC’s Presidents Day, and otherwise being open to any opportunity to say “Hi” to them.  You may not have access to leaders across the country, but there is no reason why you shouldn’t know the ministry leaders in your area.  Pick up the phone, call someone and ask to have lunch with them, or ask to come and see their ministry.  You may have to juggle schedules, but sooner or later you can make a new friend who could be very helpful.

When I wanted advice on change management I called four leaders of ministries that had been through successful change, and all of them were willing to talk about their experiences and the lessons they learned.  While visiting some leaders out West a few weeks ago, conversation drifted around to a leadership topic that I’ve been wrestling with for a while and these leaders just opened up and shared their own experiences with that issue.  Leaders are willing to talk and help each other if you are willing to be vulnerable and share the issues that you are dealing with.

Sometimes you need someone else to see something that you can’t.  Moses had his Jethro who could see the quagmire that Moses had fallen into.  Wouldn’t it have been better for Moses if he had found out earlier about the problem and fixed it sooner?  He could have asked someone, maybe even Jethro, “Here’s my plan to lead the people of Israel.  Do you see any potential problems with it?”

The only thing that might hold you back from talking with your peers is pride.  Everyone wants to look successful at what they do, but the most meaningful and helpful conversations come about when the masks come off and people are real with each other.  It deepens your relationship from the relatively superficial “Hi, how are you?” stage to the much deeper level of feeling you really know the other person.

Your Spouse

I am richly blessed with a spouse who also has a business degree, is an accountant, and who has chaired some boards.  She understands leadership, strategy and all the other issues I deal with.  She is an invaluable support to me and offers great perspectives.  But even without her background, she would still be a tremendous support because:

• as my spouse, she is 100% committed to my success because both of us are bound together  in marriage, so my welfare is her welfare and she wants the best for me.  In this spirit, your spouse is not afraid to ask the tough questions, and will provide a clear-headed perspective.
• she doesn’t have to know business or governance to ask the right questions.  ”Have you prayed about this?” is one of those perennial favourites of hers!!!  Your spouse doesn’t need to have the answers, just the right probing questions to stimulate your thinking.

God

I’ve left God to last not because he is the least important but to end on the note that you must be talking with God because the ministry you lead is his, not yours.  This reminds me of a video that we show in the Stewardship I course – God’s Pie.  A person divvies up a pie with pieces for people representing his house, his cars, etc., but gives God nothing.  As he eats his own piece of pie while God watches, with an empty plate, the guy representing his German car says, “Dude!  He brrrrought ze pie!”

Well, dude, the ministry you lead is his, so consult with him about what you should do with it.  The key to Christian leadership is to recognize that you are a follower before you are a leader.  If you find yourself talking about leadership and then admitting as an afterthought that, “Well, of course, the Bible says that God is the ultimate leader of this ministry,” then God’s leadership looks pretty perfunctory.  His leadership needs to be fresh and vital every day.  If you only know the idea of God’s leadership rather than the experience of God’s leadership, I suggest you check out the spiritual disciplines and practices that are at the core of being led by God.  Take a spiritual formation course at a seminary or Bible college or pick up a good book such as Space for God: The Study and Practice of Spirituality and Prayer or Listening Prayer: Learning to Hear God’s Voice and Keep a Prayer Journal.  While you should go to God first, he is also the final resort after all human wisdom and advice has failed.

Conclusion

I hope you see by now that there are a lot of people around who could support you in ministry.  There is no reason to feel lonely and unable to talk to anyone.  Take the initiative and go see someone right away.  And if you have anything to contribute to this discussion, I’d love to hear from you.

I’ve seen a fair bit of research over the years that shows how important fathers are to the development of their children.  A contributing factor to many of our social problems turns out to be the lack of a father in a person’s life.  I admire single parents who are able to raise their children on their own and I know they do their best.  But there is no doubt that the best family experience is when a mother and father live as Christlike parents caring for and nurturing their children together.  Courageous shows how five fathers, in different scenarios, come to a place of decision about their role as fathers.

This is the fourth movie by Sherwood Pictures, a ministry of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia.  Every one of their movies (even the first one that was done for less than $20,000) has been excellent.  Flywheel dealt with coming to faith; Facing the Giants with maintaining faith through adversity; Fireproof with marriage; and now Courageous with fatherhood.  You have to hand it to this church, they have done a wonderful job of developing a creative outreach ministry against all odds.

Leaders and their work

Leaders need to ensure that the way they lead at work does not cause their employees to be unable to fulfill their duties to their spouse and children.  In some environments, particularly large global consulting firms for example, I have heard people talk about the employer’s demands that they put their career ahead of their families.  People at any level of leadership may self-impose demands on themselves that effectively put their work ahead of family too.  They need to set appropriate boundaries for how much claim their ministry will be allowed to have on family life.  Several years ago one president told me he divided the week up into 21 blocks of time (morning, afternoon and evening) and would give his ministry up to 12 of them (or perhaps he said 14).  He would not go beyond that for the sake of his health, marriage and family.

From 1994 to 2001 I was self-employed and working from home.  I discovered that in that situation, not only was there no separation of home and office (I did have a dedicated office in the house, but it was in the house), but there was also no sense of ever leaving work.  Who’s to say when the job is done?  It was never done.  There was always more that could be done.  And then there is the feeling of achievement from work that can become addictive.  I ended up not being as ‘present’ as I wanted to be with my family.  Boundaries are the foundation for a well-balanced life.  They should be augmented by a clear set of priorities that will help you and your family make decisions in those seasons when work and home schedules collide.

The movie Courageous shows the dads signing a covenant that outlines the principles of fatherhood that these men will follow.  I have to admit, my very first thought was that this was a cheap marketing ploy.  They probably already have these in stock ready to sell by the thousands.  (However, as of today, they don’t appear to have done this.)  My second thought was that I wouldn’t sign the covenant because it would be a mass event sort of thing and who wouldn’t sign it?  It wouldn’t be meaningful because it would be an event rather than my personal commitment.  I thought it would be better as a personal commitment.  ”Just do it.  Just be the father I aspire to be.”

I believe the best outcome of the movie will be that dads sit down with their families and talk honestly about their relationships with spouses and kids.  It’s never too late to make a course correction.  You can’t change the past, but you can change the future.

My dad died a year ago this week, and I have such good memories because I committed years and years ago to being the best son that I could be.  Your children and mine deserve a similar commitment from us, that you and I will be the best parents that we can be.  Your ministry is important, but so is your family.  You are replaceable at work, but not as a parent.

Any thoughts to share?

As I was driven to the school, the streets became alleyways that soon twisted and turned through a pretty depressing part of the city.

The streets were narrow...

...and got narrower!

This area is poverty-stricken and it is quite emotionally moving to see it first-hand.  You realize that this is their life each and every day, and it is likely a picture of every day that remains in their lives, unless something happens.  Perhaps, say, a miracle.

As we drove, I saw children converging into our alley, pouring in from all the side alleys and streets.  They were dressed in a smart school uniform of dark blue pants/skirts and light blue shirts.  Each child had a good haircut, and there were plenty of different hairstyles in evidence.  These children were all clean, neat and tidy, in a stunning contrast to the drab grayness of rags, dirt and dullness that surrounded them.  As they walk through the alleyway each day, the school kids are truly a beacon of hope to a community that has no hope.  Someone is taking good care of these kids!  And someone has a vision for how to change their lives.

I couldn’t help but contrast the love and care that these children are experiencing with the crass commercialization of babies that I saw in both Bangkok and Kolkata.  Missionaries who have lived in these cities for some time told me that mothers rent their babies by the hour to women who pose as mothers and grandmothers.  They drug the babies into a stupor and then go begging on the streets.  The missionaries say most beggars are controlled by the local ‘mafia’ and they see very little of what they raise.  The baby, of course, sees nothing at all.  These babies just lie limpid in the arms of their exploiters.  My Indian guide at Agra said that babies there are rented for about 40 rupees per hour.

The children coming to AG Church School live on the edges of the Kolkata garbage dump.  They are the poorest of the poor.  And they have been given a chance to change their future due to the love of many Christians who will probably never meet them.  The AG Church in Kolkata (Assemblies of God) has a vision for them, and they run the school.  The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada has a vision for them too.  And they are funding programs at the school and other programs being developed that will operate from the school property.

But who had the vision for buying the property and building the school itself?  Who indeed!

The project to buy the property (an old tannery) and convert it to a school cost $3 million.  That was just to get the elementary school going.  It will cost a lot more than that to finish the school, and other funders are needed for that.  You would think that the ministry that raised the money and the major donors would be listed on the dedication plaque by the front door, but you would look there in vain.  No one is mentioned at all.  The couple who raised the money wrote what is on the plaque, and insisted that they not be mentioned on it.

I’m told it is no secret who raised the money.  It was a very public appeal, and this couple was front and centre of the fundraising effort.  So the who is public knowledge.  But to take no credit for it!  What a great spirit of service!  It reminded me of Child Evangelism Fellowship Ontario, an organization that runs summer camps under a local church’s name rather than their own.  Athletes In Action does the same with at least some of their soccer camps.  This is the true spirit of Christian service.  It is not about working for credit, but working to advance the mission of the church.

I’ve wrestled with whether or not to reveal who this couple is.  They don’t want the congratulations or credit for raising the money.  They want the focus to be on the kids and the goodness of God who provided for them.  But I think that when ministry leaders do something well, there is no harm in pointing it out.  After all, when things go badly, that will be pointed out.  Fair’s fair.

So I give a public thank you to Reynold and Kathy Mainse who had the vision to invest in this property and who worked hard to raise the funds for it.  They gave control of the property to AG Church with the only provision being that it always be used for charitable purposes either by the church or by whoever they sell it to later on.  (That’s good – a textbook implementation of Canada Revenue Agency’s policy for foreign capital projects!)  The Mainses have no say or involvement in what happens to the school.  Their work is done, although I’m told that either Crossroads or 100 Huntley Street continues to provide some operational funding.

What are the results of this school’s three years of operation?  Plenty.  The kids are encouraged to dream about what they want to be when they grow up.  They are learning too.  But there is a huge multiplier factor at work here.  The parents of these children have seen what their children can be.  I’m told the parents are very proud of their kids and the futures that have opened up for them.  They are taking very good care of their children and doing everything they can to support the school’s work at home.

This has caused a ripple effect throughout the garbage dump community, as people for the first time in their lives start to take care of themselves, as they start to have hope that life will not always be the same, and as these Hindus realize that fate does not rule their lives.  The Christian teaching that these children receive at school goes back home with them, and people start hearing about a God who cares about their plight, who has heard their complaints, and who loves them so much that he is bringing a miracle of change into their lives through his followers, people like those who responded to the Maines’s appeals, the Christians of AG Church who support the work of the school, the PAOC members across Canada who continue to send money, and many more beyond.  Each one followed God, and God led them to these children.

This is something for all ministry leaders to think about.  The senior-most leader of a ministry often receives most of the public accolades because, for many people, they personify the ministry.  While such affirmations are great encouragements, it is unhealthy to feed off them, to need them and crave for more of them.  Deliberately taking a back seat, either personally or as a ministry, is a healthy way to keep humble in spirit and realize that you and your ministry are just one part of the comprehensive work of the people of God.  Remember, even if there were no public affirmation, your motivation and encouragement to continue ultimately comes from knowing you are doing the work of God as he called you to do it.

Such dedication by many people to the mission of God resulted in seeds being planted that will change the future of each child attending this school, probably their families as well, and maybe even the entire community that lives by the garbage dump.

A miracle is at hand!

See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43:19

The Lover pleads with his Friend for Old Friends
by William Butler Yeats

Though you are in your shining days,
Voices among the crowd
And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think about old friends the most:
Time’s bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but those eyes.

While in leadership, many will be friends with you not for who you are but for the position, power, or wealth you control and what that means to them.  Your longtime friends have seen you in different circumstances, know you for who you really are, and still want to be friends with you.  Don’t cast them off!!  What attracts people to you in your prime will not last and then you are left with nothing if you have no old friends.

When my mother died at 68 years of age, she was still best friends with a woman she met when she was 3 years old.  That makes me want to rekindle some old friendships!

I wonder sometimes about ministry leaders who get a lot of attention and then retire.  How does their world change?  Or does it?  Let me know what you think.

I can’t believe I’m going to quote him, because, well, because I’m not a teeny-bopper girl, but he said a very wise thing, so I’ll quote him anyway.  And besides, just using his name will bring millions of tomorrow’s leaders to my blog!  Justin Bieber said “I have so many people to help me stay grounded and humble – people that aren’t gonna just say I’m amazing 24/7, people that actually want me to be a good person.”

Amen!

The ideal believer lives a Christlike life manifesting the fruit of the Spirit.  Unfortunately, everyone is on a journey toward that ideal.  We all fall short and we always will until God finishes perfecting us.  Until then, we have to deal with imperfect people.  That’s the really hard part of life for those of us who are already perfect!  (Just kidding!!!)

But should we expect more from ministry leaders than from the average person?  Yes, but they still won’t be perfect.

Why leaders deserve a higher standard

Most people have a very localized sphere of influence and we never hear of their shortfalls unless we know them personally.  But leaders represent a community, and the ripple effect of their shortfalls is much wider.  In Satan And The Problem Of Evil: Constructing A Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy, Greg Boyd writes that:

Moral responsibility is proportionate to the potential to influence others…the greater the potential a [person] has for love, the greater the potential this [person] must have for the opposite of love [because of free will]… When people who have the capacity and moral responsibility to bless many fail to do so, their extraordinary potential to bless becomes an extraordinary capacity to harm.  Hence those people require greater accountability and deserve more severe judgment if they fall…every increase in the capacity for good means a similar increase in the capacity for evil… If God wants a world where a Mother Teresa is possible, he must also be willing to contend with a world in which an Adolf Hitler is possible… We have no idea of how glorious Satan might have appeared had he chosen to actualize his potential for loving service to God rather than his potential for rebellion.  Neither can we acquire any clear idea of what Mother Teresa or Adolf Hitler might have looked like had they chosen each other’s paths rather than the ones they in fact chose.

Hitler’s powerful oratory skills could have been used for good, but he chose to use them for evil.  Just as he did great evil with his skill, he could have done great good with the same skill.

Ministry leaders have great gifts, skills and talents that got them into their leadership roles, but being a leader they now have the potential to do greater good or greater harm for the cause of Christ than they could before.  Somebody with no communication skills, no organizational skills, and no charisma could have the exact same failing as a leader, and never cause a ripple.  The leader, however, with the identical failing could devastate a whole community and bring great disrepute to Christ’s name.  This means that those who have the ability to influence many should be held to a higher standard.  The concept applies to everyone who works in vocational ministry, but my focus is the leader.

Furthermore, when ministry leaders fall short, most people (especially the secular public) see it as not just an imperfection or development need, but as outright hypocrisy.  That puts a different spin on the perceived problem.  It is not a personality quirk, lapse or error of judgment, but an intentional choice.  The shortcoming does nothing to help the proclamation of the Good News of the kingdom when it is interpreted this way.  Thus ministry leaders get judged harshly when they fail to live up to the Christian ideal.

In my post, “Early warning signs for loss of integrity,” I referred to an excellent book, Integrity: Doing the Right Thing for the Right Reason, that softened my view of people who fall short of the ideal.  While we often like things neat and simple, black and white, this is rarely the case.  A person could indeed be truly evil in intent, but in many cases the person has succumbed to the very traits that made them a leader in the first place.  For example, the same confidence that enables a young person to start a new ministry can later develop into cockiness, arrogance and progressively worse.  Then they start to justify their attitudes and behaviours and they are on their way to a fall.

Leaders are like kings

If we believe that the people placed in ministry leadership are God’s choice, then they are similar in function to the kings of Israel who ruled over Israel as under-lords to the Lord, who was himself the  true king of Israel.  Ministry leaders are under-shepherds to the true Shepherd, Jesus Christ.  The church and its ministries belong to Christ and any human leader is just like a steward who runs a portion of his master’s household.

In Abraham Heschel’s masterful study of the Old Testament prophets (The Prophets) he discusses the role of the king and how the prophets were a check to ensure the king did not begin to rule in his own name, rather than God’s:

The king…is the ruler appointed by God who must reign according to the will and the mishpat of God…What were the safeguards that kept alive that attitude and prevented the king from ever assuming the mysterious nimbus that goes with the power of sovereignty? …  Of paramount importance in the history of Israel was the freedom and independence enjoyed by the prophets, their ability to upbraid the kings and princes for their sins.  From the beginning of the monarchy, the king was at any moment in peril of rebuke, even of rejection, by the prophets, who reminded him that the king’s sovereignty was not unlimited, that over the king’s mishpat stood the mishpat of the Lord – an idea that frequently clashed with the exigencies of government.

The role of the prophet is to speak correction to God’s leader so that God’s justice (mishpat) rules over the king’s justice.  Heschel said that our conscience develops scales: excuses, pretense and self-pity.  The purpose of prophecy therefore includes the intent to “conquer callousness, to change the inner man.”  The prophet’s duty is “to speak to the people, whether or not they hear or refuse to hear.”  Every ministry leader who wants to stay on as a ministry leader should pray that God would send them a Nathan, a prophet, who would stand up to the king and say, “You are the man!”

Critics as prophets

The Bible has lots to say about people who cause division and stir up contention, and it condemns them.  However, there are people who I believe are acting in a prophet-like role who are pure in heart and inspired by God to speak correction to those in leadership.

As a leader, don’t be too quick to label your critics as troublemakers.  Their calling a spade a spade may be the greatest service they can do for you.  Their message is a wake-up call to assess who you have become and what you are doing.  Has being in leadership had a negative affect on you?  Has holding power corrupted you?  Do you believe your own press?  Have you forgotten who you serve?

The best case outcome when a prophet speaks is that their ‘targets’ see the problem in their current way of being or see that they have some explaining to do (if they have been misunderstood).  It would be much better if leaders catch their developing problems while they are relatively insignificant, so that much worse could be avoided.

My take on shortfalls

When I read or hear about yet another leader with a problem, I first sigh and then say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”  Their shortcoming is a call to examine myself, my foibles and my attitudes, and check for self-justification, rationalization and so on.  Have I submitted to proper authority and allowed myself to be scrutinized?  Of course, all Christians should do exactly the same because they too have the same potential to fall short.

If I were in a position to work with the leader, I would approach it with compassion and with the goal of rehabilitation rather than punishment.  The goal is always advancement of the Christian mission and in God’s kingdom there is always forgiveness and restoration.  The same Jesus who said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns” later said to Peter, “Feed my sheep.”  This is also the approach of the standards program at CCCC.  Its goal is not to punish those who fail to comply with a standard, but to correct the problem and bring them into compliance.

The real issue for me in terms of expectations and failure is, what did they learn from their error (and therefore what will they do differently) and did they submit to correction?  Sometimes the unChristian behaviour is so sinful that it is not possible to continue on in the ministry role.  But even then I have hope that beyond exposure and censure there can be correction and redemption so the person can continue in some useful service of the Master.

In this regard, Jim Bakker really impressed me.  I never watched him, but I was in the service at a church in Phoenix when we were all surprised as he came out and was interviewed.  He had been through a rehabilitation process, clearly admitted he was wrong (he wrote a book by that title although I haven’t read it), and at the time of the interview had been working for some time in Los Angeles at the Dream Center as an ordinary, anonymous volunteer.  I still don’t follow him at all, but the day of his interview I was impressed by his humbleness.  It seemed authentic.  What was even more impressive, perhaps, was that the pastor of this church along with a very few others went to visit him in prison and walked with him through contrition and repentance with the goal of redeeming him for something useful.

Kings and queens, listen to your prophets!

Oh Lord it’s hard to be humble
when you’re perfect in every way.
I can’t wait to look in the mirror
‘cos I get better looking each day.

To know me is to love me
I must be a heck of a man.
O Lord it’s hard to be humble
but I’m doing the best that I can.

God kept me humble today in a very funny way, and as I thought about humbleness this equally funny song came to mind.

Here’s the set-up.  I met a man and his wife a few weeks ago.  I did not know them.  He says he’s known of me for some years, and it is now time that we met.  He invites me to come to his office in the heart of the financial district of Toronto.  I discover later that he and his wife have a thriving financial business, support a number of Christian ministries, and are very highly thought of by people whose opinions I greatly respect.  So I want to make a good impression and live up to the good image he has of me.

Fast forward to today.  

This rube from Elmira ventures into the centre of financial power in Canada. 

I go to his office.  It is very high up and very elegant.  Nice plush chairs, lots of wood, subdued lighting.  You get the picture, not ostentatious but pleasant.  As I walk into the meeting room, I go to get a pen out of my pocket and realize it is in two pieces.  I try to screw them back together in my pocket, but can’t get the pieces together.  So I forget about it. 

He sat across the narrow table from me. 

He said some very wise things, and I went into my thinker’s pose, cradling my face in my left hand – resting my chin on my thumb with my forefinger on my cheekbone and my middle finger curled under my lip.

I had an itch under my nose.  Surreptitiously I rub my upper lip with the side of my finger.

He asks me a great question, and I take up my pondering pose, with my forefinger and thumb on my chin.

I touched my face a few more times for various and sundry reasons.

His wife comes in to greet me, chats for a few minutes and then leaves.

The meeting is over, he walks me out and thanks me for coming.

I go to the washroom.  As I wash my hands, I look up in the mirror and…

HORROR OF HORRORS!!!

I have ink all over my face!

Yes, I hadn’t noticed until now when I turn my left hand over that my fingers and palm have ink all over them.

When I did my thinker’s pose, I got a bruise on my cheek and the beginnings of a chinstrap beard.

When I scratched the itch, I drew a moustache on my face!

When I did my pondering pose, I got a Van Dyke beard.

And this very gracious, classy husband and wife said nothing!  Either they hid their amusement or, in the low lighting, they didn’t notice what was happening. 

It sounds like a Candid Camera skit - how does an innocent bystander respond when a person unwittingly defaces their own face?

At this point, I could be mortified, give up on life, crawl away and never show my face again (marked or unmarked!), living the rest of my life in humiliation, letting this moment be the defining point in my now miserable and squandered life.  Or, I could choose differently!  I could choose to see the humour in the moment, laugh at myself, and make hay with a terrific story that now goes into my speaking repertoire to entertain and delight thousands over the next 30 years, go on and live a happy life full of laughter and accomplishment, forever being flooded with healthy endorphins when someone points at me and says, “Hey, aren’t you the guy who inked his face?”  Everybody needs to be able to laugh at themselves and not take themselves more seriously than they ought (Romans 12:3). 

As for me, I say “Oh Lord, it’s far too easy to be humbled!”

So I’ve told a story on myself.  Now it is your turn!  What is the funniest thing you’ve ever done to embarrass yourself?  Maybe you couldn’t laugh at it then, but we can certainly laugh at it now.  And I hope that in hindsight, you can too.

What is sustaining my dad at the end of his life

We tend to be consumed with leading our organizations.  But as Dad assesses his life, he is very satisfied.  Not with his professional practice (he was an optometrist) nor with his material possessions.  What counts most to him right now are the times we had together as a family and the contentment he has with how we kids have developed into adults with families of our own.  He says he thanks God many times a day for the blessing of having the love and care of his children in his time of need.  He looks at a picture of himself and Mom in their fifties and says, “She was an amazing woman.  I can’t believe how fortunate I was to have her as my wife.”  He is appreciating the people with whom he travelled through life.

As I clean out his house, I have the sobering realization that all the furniture, all the electronics, all the books and DVDs and all the knick-knacks really mean nothing.  They were enjoyed, but in the end, life is not about them.  I know that and you know that, but actually going through everything while knowing that Dad’s life is now restricted to his immediate surroundings (apart from almost everything that he owned) really drives the point home.  What survives are relationships and the memory of those relationships. 

What is sustaining me as I face Dad’s mortality

While cleaning out the house I’ve found many things that display a side of Dad that he was not too comfortable talking about: the spiritual and emotional side of life.  Notes with thoughts about God.  An envelope marked “Cards from the children: These are treasures.”  Copies of sermons he found helpful.  Even some love letters from Mom written during their engagement.  Dad was of a generation that didn’t talk too much about private thoughts, although he has shared a fair bit with me.  I feel like I have come to know him a lot better while preparing the house for sale and I will enjoy sharing what I have found with my siblings.

I also take great comfort knowing that over the last twenty years of his widowhood, I have done everything I can to be the son that Dad should have.  I have involved him in my family’s life, taking him many places.  Some CCCC members may remember Dad from the 2004 and 2005 conferences.  I have respected him, honoured him and served him, so that now I have no regrets at all.

Take-away points

I got the news from the doctor that Dad’s death is imminent about a week ago.  Over the same time period two CCCC staff members and one retired staff member have lost people in their immediate families: a brother, a mother and a wife.  This has been a sobering week for us all.  You don’t know when life will change, so: 

• As far as it is up to you, do your best to have rich relationships today so you can live (and die later) without regrets.  If there is anybody you need to repair a relationship with, DO IT NOW!
• Create the memories today that will sustain you later.  They don’t have to be huge events.  Dad remembers some trips we took, but he also remembers us singing in the choir together, and doing other normal family activities.  Be involved with people, not just related to them.

What ultimately sustains us as we face death ourselves or the death of someone near and dear to us, is the certainty of the constant love of God in this life, through the experience of death, and then eternally in the life to come.  That is the greatest comfort of all. 

“In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.”
John 14:2

Leaders tend to travel a lot and be away from their families.  Leaders tend to think about their organizations pretty much constantly.  People who become leaders may tend to be workaholics.  We must fulfill the responsibilities of our leadership positions, but make sure that your relationships, particularly with family and friends, are not neglected.  You’ll be living eternally with them, not your ministry.  Now, I can’t help it.  I have to recommend two great books on the afterlife in heaven.  Here they are:

• Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by Tom Wright, and
• Heaven by Randy Alcorn. 

Both are quite good, but Wright’s is the more weighty one (if you like that).  Alcorn’s is written for a general audience, and has a bit more speculation in it.

Please pray for a peaceful and painless transition for  Dad from this life to the next.  PS: For the answer to this prayer, click here.

In that post, I wrote:

A sabbatical is a time to get away from regular work for a period of personal and professional development in order to improve my value to my employer.  It should refresh my vision for my personal mission and my employer’s organizational mission and equip me in some way to be a better leader.

I found my board very helpful in designing the sabbatical.  A really practical suggestion was to take time at the beginning and end to transition into and out of my time away from work.  So I’ve decided to start with a short time at home followed by a spiritual retreat at The Sabbath House.  At the end, I will do the same thing in reverse order.  This is the personal development time. 

For the professional development part I was in a bit of a quandry.  I’ve already taken courses and earned my doctorate, so what to do?  Larry Nelson, a CCCC board member and a font of endless creative ideas, came to the rescue with some excellent questions that surfaced five possible research topics.  I recall the questions were something like, regarding Christian ministries:

• What are you really passionate about?
• What are you curious about?
• What are you concerned about?
• What upsets you?

He suggested that my professional development should involve applying my research skills to some big topics that are beyond what my work schedule would normally allow me to do.  He also asked when I was last off the continent.  Aside from a few business meetings where you don’t see much more than the hotel, I was last overseas in 1974.  CCCC members have missions around the world, so I need to be there with them and get a firsthand glimpse of the complexities of overseas work.  Putting this all together, two research projects emerged:

1. To research the effects that different tax systems have on Christian charities, their donors and support organizations such as CCCC.  A whole list of research questions will provide benefits to CCCC and our members.  Stay tuned for some interesting CCCC Bulletin articles and blog posts!
2. To explore the complexities of operating international projects from the perspective of administrators in the receiving countries.  There will be lots of new CCCC material to help our members and their overseas project administrators.  I’ll be visiting ministries in Thailand, India, Kenya, Malawi, and Rwanda.

Finally, it was suggested that there should be some down time that is purely personal.  I finish the research part in London, so I will take two weeks in Great Britain and France to do some things I’ve wanted to do for a long time.  I will attend a service at the Luton parish church in England where my paternal grandfather sang as a choir boy more than 100 years ago.  I also will attend the Abbey church in Paisley, Scotland where my maternal great-great-great-great-grandfather was baptized in 1786.  He emigrated to Canada almost 200 years ago.  It will be fun to look around the areas that my ancestors came from.  Last, I will go to Vimy Ridge and visit the Canadian monument.  Every time I give my Vimy Ridge speech, someone asks if I’ve been there.  I want to be able to say “Yes!”

So those are my plans.  I’m keenly excited!  The sabbatical will be next spring, but there is lots of prep work before then to be ready to use my overseas time as productively as possible.  A collateral benefit of this sabbatical will be the chance to build connections with charity experts in other countries.  I have been richly blessed by a wonderful, visionary board that encourages me to live in the future so that I can better lead CCCC in the present.  And I am grateful for a capable staff that gives me the freedom to have a sabbatical knowing the great work of CCCC does not depend solely on me!

I’m still very interested in what others do for a sabbatical, so please contribute a comment about what you have already done or are planning to do.

I remember 28 years ago now driving home from our cottage and the highway was stopped dead.  No problem.  I had a map  showing a side road that went all the way down past the slow area.  It went through a few tiny towns and over a river, but it sure looked good as an alternate route.  So off my wife and I went.  Maybe I should have been concerned that no one else had the same brilliant idea.

We drove along a two lane paved road that became a two lane gravel road.  Hmm.  We went through a tiny town that reminded me uncomfortably of the scene where Dueling Banjos was made famous in Deliverance.  Hmm again.  But on we went, and the gravel road became a single lane.  Eternally optimistic, I knew we were close to getting back on the highway and whizzing home.  But, fixated on my goal, we drove obliviously through miles of forest with no sideroads and no driveways until it became a cow path, two ruts with high grass in the middle.  It didn’t help that my wife said repeatedly that she was enjoying the drive and seeing places she’d never otherwise see!  However, by this time even I was thinking, “Something’s not right here.”

According to the map we were almost at the river and all we had to do was cross over it and we’d be back in civilization, but it was looking doubtful.  And then a hill arose in front of us, and we climbed up it slowly driving on smooth boulders poking through the earth, finally stopping when we came to outright rocks.  Climbing up the rocks I had a glorious view of the river below, a paved road on the other side, and absolutely no bridge at all!  The map showed a bridge, but there obviously had never been a bridge here.  I had to back up for miles before I could turn around! 

I wish when I first turned on to the gravel road I had realized that the roads were  deteriorating in quality and unlikely to be through roads.  At that point I could easily have turned around and got back on course with no significant loss of time.  In the same way, when people make those first choices that set them on a questionable course, before they lose their integrity, surely at that early point if a person recognized the significance of  the present choice in terms of how it can lead to lost integrity, they would gratefully make a different choice and preserve their integrity.  I thought someone should research that, and I discovered accidentally while perusing a bookstore this week that someone has.  (I did my usual checking out of the book before deciding to buy it.) 

Every person in Christian ministry should read this (secular) book called Integrity: Doing the Right Thing for the Right Reason.  I’ll warn you though, it is a frightening read because the author, a clinical psychologist in Toronto, found that the earliest warning signals are things that I think every person already has to a degree in their psychological make-up: the desire to perform well.  In fact, society honours and rewards those who exhibit the related behaviours of producing good quality work and having a good work ethic, even as we say we want to avoid their logical extremes, perfectionism and workaholism.  The author, Barbara Killinger, says the problem is that these two behaviours are really just socially-acceptable diseases. 

For example, workaholics are overly responsible idealists who have compulsively competitive natures and they seek fulfillment in work.  Being responsible is good.  Having ideals is good.  Being competitive is good (it leads to better value for your ‘clients’).  Finding fulfillment in your work is good too.  But there can be too much of these good things.  You can feel so much responsibility on your shoulders that you feel only you are carrying the weight of the ministry and you become resentful and curmudgeonly, as though the ministry owed you something.  You can be so idealistic you will continually be frustrated with the reality of the world around you, so you become angry and bitter.  You can become ruthless in your competitive race to win.  If you find fulfillment only in your work, you have an unbalanced life and incredible stress as pressures mount in other areas.  Workaholism leads sequentially to chronic fatigue and no longer being able to relax or play, guilt over the parts of your life that are falling apart, loss of feeling which means loss of compassion and purpose, and finally character change as you become self-absorbed while leading a dead life of declining physical health.  The workaholic is now primed and ready for loss of integrity.  Yet employers unconsciously (at least I sure hope it is not conscious) are complicit in their employees’ slides down the slippery slope because they give them laptops and Blackberrys so they can work 24 hours a day.  These are good tools, but need to be used responsibly.

Perfectionists have their own issues. They believe they are highly intelligent, superior people.  Their feeling of specialness, Killinger says, can foster arrogance or a feeling of entitlement, that they are the exception to the rule and are exempt from community standards.  The perfectionist who reaches this point has the attitudes that will support loss of integrity.

Perfectionism and workaholism are particularly insidious because they are related to the key threat to integrity: obsession.  Killinger says that “If I had to make an educated guess about who might eventually lose his or her integrity, it would likely be an individual who has become obsessively fixated on a thought, idea, or action.”  So what are the pre-conditions that lead to obsessive thinking?  It turns out that all the pre-conditions are related to the choices we make about how we think about things. 

If the choice was between stealing or not stealing, that would be an easy decision.  Will you cheat on your spouse?  “No, of course not!” you say.  But that is now.  How does someone get to the place where they can say “Yes”?  They get to that point when they have no empathy or compassion left for their spouse, when their intuition has become negative so that it is slow to speak up and the person becomes bored, impatient and impulsive.  You get to this stage through more innocent choices you make, such as the choice a perfectionist makes as to how to handle self-doubt.  The choice a person with chronic fatigue makes about whether to press on with work or give in to sleep.  The choice a creative person makes about whether or not to be concerned when it takes 12 hours to do what it usually took 8 hours to do. 

These are among the many conditions that Killinger says are pre-cursors to loss of integrity.  And that is what makes this book so scary.  We associate loss of integrity with the obviously bad choices people make, and we say “So I won’t do that!”  But the road to lost integrity starts with nothing so obvious.  It starts with apparently benign and unrelated symptoms that we choose to ignore because we don’t appreciate their true significance.  The choices we should be concerned about are not what we choose to do at the end of the road, but what we choose to think at the beginning of the road.  It is at this point that we can most easily avert what Killinger calls ”the predictable breakdown syndrome.”  But even if you have started to slide, it is still possible to grab on to a branch and keep from sliding all the way down.

Here’s an important point about integrity.  Integrity means being consistent and predictable, acting in ways that are consistent with what you say you believe.  Moral failure such as cheating on your spouse is one form of lost integrity, assuming you say you believe in faithfulness to your spouse.  That is an obvious sin.  But we must remember that any behaviour that is not consistent with our Christian view of life would also be a loss of integrity.  Skipping church.  Treating staff as objective resources rather than as humans made in God’s image.  Staying silent and insensitive to injustice.  You might not fail in obvious sin such as adultery, but you could still lose your integrity as a follower of Christ.

The solution is relatively straight-forward.  Killinger says we need compassion and a deliberate surfacing of the positive aspects of the personality traits that we have least of.  For example, thinkers need the emotional side to come out while emotional types need the rational thinking side to come out.  The point is to have a holistic view of the situation and make a decision that takes into account the needs of other people who would be affected.  She says, “Discerning integrity, I believe, requires a compassionate eye.  Informed decisions based on hard facts and figures, or stringent rules and regulations, rarely represent the whole story.  Our moral choices must also show a genuine concern for the welfare of others.  This is not to downplay the role of thinking in formulating opinions, but wise moral choices are made when intelligence, compassion, and maturity come together to guide our judgments.” 

This post is closely related to another post, The private life of a Christian leader, in which I wrote about how compartmentalizing life creates a condition in which moral failure is rationalized away.    It turns out that Killinger says the same thing.

I think the upshot of this is that everyone should have an accountability partner to whom they disclose what they are thinking and feeling.  This is a lot more important than disclosing what they are doing, because they won’t be doing anything questionable until long after they have been thinking and feeling that they are alienated, hard-done-by, or any of the other pre-cursor attitudes that Killinger identifies.  Accountability relationships should be focused on our attitudes and feelings.

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
Philippians 4:8