Jesus For President!!

As I write this blog entry, we are just about 2 months away from our next presidential election. It's not hard to hear about the candidates from various media sources and word of mouth, and so all this talk about the election got me thinking.

It seems like many people think that one person is really going to define the entire American culture. I hear people discouraged about how they think the election might turn out, as if the whole world is going to fall apart. In reality, the world has already fallen apart. It's unfortunate when people invest so much in trying to make this world awesome even though the Bible says that we are like a mist the appears for only a little while (James 4).

I agree that we should have governmental laws regarding the moral behavior of our nation, but making a certain law does not necessarily mean people will follow it. I believe that the real way to invest our time and energy is in the eternal future; living for Jesus and telling others about Him. He should be the one that we vote for with our hearts and our lives, and He should be the one that we get excited about--let's have a Jesus National Convention!

Now, I have a lot of respect for the U.S. president, no matter who gets elected. Butif I ever get to meet the president it won't hold a candle to how cool it will be to meet Jesus face to face!

So Ben, How's the New Job?

I'm glad you asked! So far, so good. This Saturday (August 16) I will be having a Childrens Ministry Kickoff for all the coworkers who minister to children. This will be a time of encouraging them and training them to be more effective for the Lord. I am very excited about it, and I expect great things from it.

During a typical week, I spend a lot of time on phone calls and e-mails. This may not sound fun for many other people, but I really enjoy it because it allows me to connect with people. I am a big fan of e-mail because I get frustrated playing phone tag. I also make myself available to meet with Sunday School teachers who have questions about how to teach an upcoming lesson.

Another main component of my job is to make sure that the rooms and supplies are in good condition. Christina and I stayed after church a few weeks ago to help our curriculum coordinator sort through a supply room. We threw out or donated a lot of outdated stuff, and we organized what was left. It looks great! I am also in the process of finding someone to install windows and locks on all the childrens ministry rooms. Finally, I will be stocking the classrooms with all the normal supplies that they should have so that the teachers are never low.

I am learning a lot about leadership. I am reading a great book called Change is Like a Slinky, which is basically a book for leaders on how to bring about good transitions in their organizations. It is very relevant since we are at a point in the church's history where schedules and policies need to be updated.

Overall, I am doing pretty much what I expected to be doing. The only surprise is how much more supportive of new ideas most of the coworkers are than I expected they would be. I had been told that most people are very resistent to change and it's best to make slow adjustments over time. I agree with that wisdom, but it's so refreshing when people see the potential of how things could be and support the vision that I am offering. I get equally excited when they start to come up with ideas of their own, because this shows that they want to take things to the next level like me.

As a prayer request, I would ask you to pray for time management. There are many good things that I could do, but I do not want to get spread too thin. Pray that I would grow in the areas of prioritizing, delegating, saying "no" when needed, and having the self-discipline to get things done. Thank you.

What is leadership?

What is leadership?

You could ask 10 people to define leadership and end up with 13 distinct definitions. However, the best definition I’ve heard is that “Leadership is influence”. After all, how can you be a leader without having followers? I am beginning to learn a lot about influencing others in my new job as a Childrens Ministry Director. Today was a day when I was challenged to return to the basics of influencing others. Most of my thoughts can be summarized by Socrates’ three components of public speaking: Logos (the logic of the words), Pathos (emotional energy), and Ethos (the basis for the audience trusting the speaker).

I need to have all three of these components to be a good leader. I have to think things through well and recruit others to help me see aspects that I could not see on my own. When we finally come up with a plan, I need to show others that I’m excited about it so they will want to get on board with it. However, along the way, I need to be strengthening my relationship with all these people so that when the time comes for them to listen to an idea or take a step toward implementing it, they will want to do so.

Another thing I was reminded of is the two basic elements of persuasion: Raise a need and offer a solution to that need. People don’t care about your solution until they first understand the need. They also don’t want to listen to you if you only complain about problems without ever offering a solution. I personally tend to skip over the first part and get to my solution, assuming that everyone else sees the same need that I do, but I can’t assume that they do.

I’d like to leave you with a quote that I heard on the radio a couple days ago: “You don’t need a classroom full of kids looking up at you in order to be a teacher; you only need one.” Everyone is a teacher to somebody else in some ways at some times. That includes you. I want to encourage you to consider the quality of teaching (or leading) that you are living out and take a moment to go “back to the basics” to see how you can be a little more efficient.