Leadership Reflections

A ministry leader told me that he bases his leadership style on R&R.  No, he’s not taking it easy all the time.  I’m sure he gets an appropriate amount of rest and relaxation, but he defines R&R as “Require and Relate.”  Requiring happens when a leader sets out performance standards and evaluates to see if the standards [...]

Your faith is seen by what you do (James 2:18), so what are you preaching through your ministry’s deeds?  In How Christian is my ministry?, I dealt with the same issue in terms of the employment relationship, but now I want to approach it from a different angle:  What do your programs and practices say about your theology?  How can you ensure [...]

I’ve just delivered a seminar called Ministry Employment Practices across Canada, and many people shared stories from their workplaces.  The ones that stood out involved a few pastors who were fired with no notice and no pay in lieu of notice.  I don’t want to identify the people, so I’ll just say that the worst case by far had these words associated [...]

My hero-in-the-faith, John Richardson, was called to ministry in 1959 at the age of 47.  This wasn’t quite a mid-life career change since today he is a very healthy 97 year-old, but it was close to mid-life.  (CCCC members will remember John as the banquet speaker at the 2007 conference.)  John was a senior manager at a textile company and could see [...]

My wife’s family was a bluegrass gospel band and classical music was not part of their repertoire.  So when I bought tickets for us to see Die Fledermaus, a comic opera by Johann Strauss (in English), she told me this would be her first experience of a live, professional orchestra.  To whet her appetite, I played a record (yes, [...]