Off the Agenda: Conversations for Building Church Leaders

How should a leader carry herself? I don't mean in terms of virtues. I would likely draw consent on this page that a leader should display humility, courage, and charity above all.

I mean physically. What posture should a leader take when walking around doing whatever they do to lead?

I got to thinking about this while reading about prison ministry. Chuck Colson, who has done so much in that area, described his admiration for a fraternity brother he admired deeply and wanted to be like (in his great memoir Born Again). The older man told of his love for the Marine Corps with such feeling he made Colson want to sign up. So he soon stood before a "tall, arch-backed first lieutenant" and asked to join. It is military people who speak of one's "carriage," and take such care to be sure it is appropriate, bold, inspiring. Political leaders care about such things too. Sam Wells describes how future British politicians are taught already in their boarding schools how to hold their heads very erect, as though they could carry a plant on top without letting it so much as quiver.

Continue reading "How Should a Leader Walk Around?"...

Vulnerability, our theme this week, is the degree of openness between oneself and others. Finding the right degree is a balancing act. A related challenge in ministry is confidentiality—that is, how open can you be about someone else? These nine questions can help you decide whether what you know should be shared.

1. Am I telling this to someone who can do something about the problem by helping the person or offering discipline or correction?

2. If not, am I telling this to someone who is wise enough to help me sort out my feelings and courageous enough to make me do the right thing: to confront the person or to confess where I was at fault?

3. Is this news approved for sharing?

4. Am I breaking a confidence? If so, is it only because the person is endangering someone's life, including his or her own?

Continue reading "Is This Gossip?"...

Simon Fox is executive director of Adventures in Caring, an organization that mobilizes volunteers to visit the sick and lonely in hospitals and nursing homes. He spoke with BuildingChurchLeaders.com about the practice of compassion.

What is compassion, and how can it be taught?

Let's start with what compassion is not. It's not just a feeling, a sentimental, touchy-feely thing. At its heart, compassion is the art and practice of being with someone who is suffering. It comes from the Latin root compati. Com means "with, together" and pati means "to feel intensely, to suffer."

There are three aspects of compassion: giving to, doing for, and being with. The first two can be done at a distance. Giving to (those who are poor) can be a check in the mail, and doing for (those who are unable to help themselves) can happen at an emotional distance, such as bandaging a wound without any feeling. But being with requires all of you showing up in body, mind, heart and soul.

Compassion cannot be taught by lecture or sermon alone. Clear examples must be presented, not just theory or philosophy. It is a process of self-discovery. And it is an art, so it must be practiced.

Continue reading "The Practice of Compassion"...

This week's download, Transforming Nominal Christians, is designed to help you assess how well your church challenges and disciples attenders. The piece below gives another model for the idea of discipleship: re-parenting.

To seize upon one of our Lord's favorite metaphors, the "fish" business these days is not as simple as it once seemed. The human fish now come out of outrageously polluted cultural waters, and they bring all the effects of their pollutedness with them. So how do you develop leaders—productive disciples of Jesus—from such a population?

The word re-parenting comes to mind. It suggests an effort at conversion, discipleship, and leadership development—a thorough renovation of one's life in line with Paul's strong words: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." Not just a nicer person, but a new creation. Re-birthed! And if re-birthed, then also re-parented.

Re-parenting is selective. You pick a specific group of people and tell them why you've picked them. You tell them that this is not a therapy group and that we are not going to be driven by problems, but rather by possibilities ("henceforth you will be fishing for men" is a biblical example).

Continue reading "Re-Parenting Disciples"...

Gordon MacDonald has served pastorates in Massachusetts, New York City, southern Illinois, and Kansas, and spent three years as president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He has also written more than a dozen books, including Ordering Your Private World.

The case study below highlights the challenge of guiding a church's prayer life. For help with planning prayer services for your congregation, see our newest download.

The Case
"This church hardly ever prays together," complained Joan, a 40-something church leader. "The only times for congregational prayer are during the services and 30 seconds before our committee meetings." An older man named Bill also chimed in, "Whatever happened to our midweek prayer service? The pastor dropped it five years ago, but that should be the lifeblood of our church."

As the conversation continued, there was a clear consensus among church leaders that Grace Church desperately needed a church-wide prayer awakening. Unfortunately, the traditional model of the midweek prayer service wasn't working anymore. So all the church leaders looked to Pastor Mark to either revitalize the midweek prayer time or jump-start corporate prayer another way. But Pastor Mark, who longed for a prayer awakening in the church, didn't know where to start. Sadly, the deep longing for prayer left Pastor Mark feeling defensive and burdened with yet another program to organize. And the church leaders felt disappointed with Pastor Mark's apparent lack of spiritual leadership.

What Would You Do?

• Who is responsible for the prayer life of the local church? What is the pastor's role? The lay people's?


• What would you recommend as a good starting action for this church board?

Continue reading "Jump-Starting Church Prayer"...

Our newest download is designed to help you equip yourself and others in your church for outreach to other faiths. Often the barriers we face in doing this aren't just religious—they're cultural. Below are five cultural barriers a Westerner should look out for.

Event Time vs. Clock Time

In his book A Geography of Time, Robert Levine explores the role of industrialization in how a culture views time. According to Levine, industrialization promotes an ethos of producing and consuming. As a result, people in those cultures live by "clock time." Punctuality and efficiency rule the day. In contrast, less-industrialized cultures are far more interested in emphasizing the priority and obligation of social relationships. Levine refers to these cultures as "event-time" cultures. Events begin and end when all the participants feel the time is right rather than artificially imposing clock time.

What's the time orientation of the people you're hoping to reach out to? Understanding alone can't prepare you for all the challenges that might come with opposing views of time, but it's a good start.

Continue reading "5 Common Cultural Differences"...