Every Step Counts

Leaders today have become visionaries. When we look at most of the leadership development material in the mainstream, we see there is a lot about vision. Stuff like how to define purpose, mission, or the end result. This is good in that as leaders we are begining something with a goal in mind and therefore it is easier to accomplish something.

Then we find a lot on the topic of vision casting. How to get people on board to accomplish the goal and fulfill the mission. We find tools on the proper way to communicate the big picture and make it relevant to everyone. Sometimes we even allow those we are leading to discover or develop how what they are doing will help accomplish the end result. We are getting the ball rolling.

Now we start to get down to the meat and defining tasks and objectives that make the whole thing work. The excitement hopefully is there because we have taken time to define a worthy goal and get people motivated to help us accomplish it. Now we keep that vision at the forefront as everyone plans their next steps in the mission.

This is where we get to the challenge! How good are we, as leaders, at recognizing, celebrating, and encouraging those steps? I find myself being so focused on the vision, the goal, the end result, that too often I am not celebrating the people who are taking steps forward to get there. For some people it is easy for them to take the ball and move forward, but for others that can be a challenge. We can’t get so caught up in looking at the goal, and demanding that it be reached, that we don’t see the steps people are taking to get there.

Once the vision is developed, the casting is done, the objectives are set, and plans are made, that is the time to start focusing on the people. Keep the goal in sight but stay aware of the forward movement, by everyone. When we do this, we build momentum, we build confidence, and we build other leaders. If that one person on your team, who really has to find it deep within themselves to take a step, moves one foot in the right direction, be there to celebrate! Then the next step they take will be that much easier for them to take. The power is multiplied also because as you set the example of celebration, those on your team who find it easy step forward will see that you value everyone who takes a step, and they will begin to genuinely encourage others also.

Know what the goal is. Cast the vision. Make the plan. Most importantly though, we need to  get in touch with our team and understand what steps they are taking. Build momentum, build confidence, and build our team by celebrating every step. When we do that the mission will be fulfilled with courage, with boldness, and without hindrance.

Sun Showers, A Tribute to My Paw Paw

This past weekend has been a trying time for my family. We lost my grandfather on Saturday. This is the first loss this side of my family has had to go through. By the grace of God we had Paw Paw for 81 years.

Paw Paw was a craftsman. He could do amazing things with wood. He was a furniture maker, a clock maker, and a carver. He spent his life taking the resourced God gave him and creating beautiful pieces that are a testimony to God’s creation. As my grandfather became a master of his trade, he always sought to teach others what he knew. If there was ever anyone who wanted to learn and wanted to ask questions, he was there eager to help.

Paw Paw was a family man. As I grew up, I always knew the love of my grandfather. After working all day in a furniture factory, Paw Paw would come home  and get on his tractor and tend to the land. He never tired of growing the things needed to provide for his family. He taught me that if there was something your family needed, then you should use what God had provided you with and provide for your family. Paw Paw always made you feel special to be with him because you could tell he truly wanted you there.

Paw Paw was a neighbor. Not only did Paw Paw provide for his family but anything more that he had was always given to his neighbors. We were always taking corn or green beans from the garden and giving it to somebody down the road. If there was ever anyone in the valley that was on hard times and not able to tend there fields, then as soon as Paw Paw tended his, he ride his tractor over there and take care of theirs too. Some of my most cherished memories are from making molasses. We would all go and help bring in the cane harvest. Then for days people from all over three counties would come by and lend a hand pressing out the syrup and boiling it off into molasses. It was a community event for days of family, friends, and neighbors in fellowship together. And nobody could leave without taking a jar of molasses home with them.

The day my Paw Paw died, my son and I went down to Paw Paw’s workshop where he had spent so many years. I just wanted to be in the place he loved to create things. As we were looking around and talking about memories we had, we started hearing rain drops hitting that old metal roof. It was just a light rain but the my son, Jacob, looked out the door and saw the sun was still shinning. He said to me, “Look dad, how ironic, a sun shower.” At that time I thanked God for His grace. It was a sign to me that God was weeping with us for our loss but He wanted us to know He was happy to have His son, Edward Kanupp, home with Him.

Rest in peace Paw Paw and sing praises to the Lord for me, now that you are in the presence of His glory. I love you and will never forget you.

The Big Three Traps of Leadership

When we are given the opportunity to lead, it can be both exhilarating and frightening. You have the opportunity to make a difference and use your knowledge, skills, and gifts to advance a cause. But you also have the expectations of those who have asked you to lead and the expectations of the people you are leading. Plus as you move forward you will need to have others along side of you for support.

With all this comes The Big Three Traps of Leadership:

1. Pride – We can be proud that someone has asked us to lead. We can become proud of the success that comes from diligently applying our knowledge, skills, and gifts. We can start to boast, both to ourselves and to others, about what we have accomplished.
2. Envy – In a leadership role we are exposed to other leaders and their success also. We begin to feel a need to compete with success. We see what the fruits are of others success and we can start to want that for ourselves.
3. Fear - We not only fear failure and the shame that would bring us when we can’t live up to expectations. Most of those expectations are self imposed while some are from others. We also can start to fear the success of other leaders around us. But one of the most damaging fears is of those who are coming behind us. We sometimes won’t bring talent of the next generation along side us for fear of them being able to do a better job than us.

So how do we overcome these traps of leadership? There are three things we can all apply to stay focused and accomplish even more than we imagined!

1. Humility – All that we have comes from He who created us. God is the one who gave us our skills, knowledge, and gifts. He is the one who placed us here at this time so that we are able to have the opportunity to lead. All the praise and boasting should always be for Him.
2. Contentment – We can be thankful for the things we do have. Have joy in knowing that you can play a small part in doing something great. Be glad that you have been asked to step forward and use what God has given to you to use and remember that He is the one who gives all that is good but it is His to give and it is His to take away, just ask Job!
3. Honor – The celebration of others and what God has given to them overcomes fear failure. When we start to realize that what others have also comes from God, we honor Him. When others succeed it is a victory. When those who are coming up behind us, we can give them encouragement in what they can do and help to realize their own success. This brings honor to them and to God, also it gives us peace in knowing that we had the opportunity to be a part of that.

So when we are given the opportunity to lead always know that, everything good comes from God, He will always provide what we need, and celebrate what God is doing all around us.

A Hurting World

I have been so consumed by the thoughts of how we are treating each other. So many people spend so much of their time and energy tearing everyone else down. Is this the only way we can feel any better about ourselves? Do we have to slander other people? Why are we always looking for the other person to trip up so that we can laugh at them? If they don’t act like us or look like us, does that really make them less of a person?

Those that do these things are hurting inside. Whether they know it or want to admit it, that is the truth. The root of their hurt is that they do not have an understanding of their identity. When we come to know that we are all a creation of a loving God and no matter who we are He loves us just the same, these attitudes towards others go away. None of us are better than anyone else in any way. Yes we all have differences, but not one makes us better than someone else, they only make us unique.

I have seen too many Christians today trying to make themselves feel better by attacking other people. Get out of your lofty place and realize every person on this earth was created by God. Every person on this earth is loved by God. We are commanded by Christ to go forth and make disciples of this world. We do that by loving God and loving our neighbor. We don’t get to choose our neighbor, everyone is our neighbor. Christ took all of our sins onto himself on the cross. That means every ones, not just yours or mine. Christ loves everyone and we are called to also.

I only have one question then: If someone, who did not know Christ, heard how you talked about other people or saw how you treated other people, understand who Christ is?

The Beautiful “B” Word Pt 2. Boundaries Give Us Margin

In part 1 we talked about how when we have the proper boundaries in our lives that we are able to focus on God. We are able to run freely toward God and not be distracted by temptation. We can turn the barriers in our lives that are keeping us from God into boundaries that allow us to move toward Him. Those boundaries come from God’s Word.

Boundaries for marriage we find through out His Word from Genesis 2:19-24 all the way through to 1 John 3. God gives us the boundaries for our marriage. Boundaries for parenting are given from Genesis 21 through Revelation 5. Boundaries for family are given from Genesis 33: 1-17 through Luke 18. Boundaries for work are given from Genesis 39:21-23 through 2 Thessalonians 3:6-10. These are by no means exhaustive. God tells us in Deuteronomy 6:5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Then He tells us in the next verse These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.

When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment Deuteronomy 6:5 was His answer plus to love your neighbor as yourself. When we take the Word of God into our hearts and apply it in our lives it gives us margin. It gives us breathing room. It gives us peace.

But what are we called to do with that? Are we to keep it for ourselves? In Luke 12 Jesus gives the parable of the Rich Fool. The man was given a bumper crop (margin) from God. When it came in he had no place to store it. So he decided he would tear down the barns he had and build bigger ones to store it in for himself. But God called him a fool! He wasn’t a fool because he war rich. He wasn’t a fool because he was given margin. He was a fool because he was keeping the margin for himself and not using it for God’s purpose.

In 1 Timothy 6 Paul tells Timothy how do deal with rich people (people with margin). Paul tells Timothy, “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God who so richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they take hold of the life that is truly life.” 1 Timothy 6:17-19

God’s purpose is the reconciliation of His creation back to Himself. The margins we are given in our lives are for us to more freely fulfill that purpose. When we use boundaries in our roles and our lives, we are blessed with margin and freedom. We are blessed with increase in every way. We are provided for by God, not only for us but so that we use that to build God’s Kingdom. We are called to lay up treasures in heaven. The thing is there is only one thing that goes from this world to heaven. That is our souls! Our treasure in heaven is the fellowship we will have with everyone who has everlasting life, everyone who has found salvation in this world.

Properly place the boundaries God has given to us. Create margin and live rich, be free, be generous in building His Kingdom!

The Beautiful “B” Word Pt. 1 Boundaries Keep Us Focused

As we go through life we have many different roles. Some are there from birth like, being a child of our parents, or a sibling, along with all of our family roles that we are born into. These are life long roles. As we grow up more roles are added like, being a student, being a friend, being a boyfriend or girlfriend, being an employee. These are sometimes temporary or seasonal. We some times add permanent roles to our lives like being a spouse, being a parent.

As we fulfill these roles, we have a desire to be successful. When we start a new job, we are excited and really want to do the best we can as an employee. At the beginning of a new school year, we want to get all A’s and be a great student. When we start a new relationship, we want it to grow into a last companionship. When we have children, we want to nurture and teach them well, so they become the best they can. Our lives are filled with anticipation as we pick up each new role.

But what happens? It always seems that as we go along in these roles, it starts to not look like we thought it would when we started out. We have challenges and strife in our roles. Sometimes these roles get so far from where we first envisioned them that we just want to set it back down or quit. But the issue is that we were looking through our eyes to set the vision of these roles, and our eyes are flawed. We have to look through perfect eyes to have the right vision.

The one role we leave out is one that we had before we were conceived. All these others roles are of this world. There is one that we had before that and supersedes all the others. That is we are a creation of God. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” Jeremiah 1:5 The role we have as children of God is the covering for all the other roles in our lives. When we set a vision for all the other roles, it must stay within the boundaries of this role.

In the book of Nehemiah we get an picture of the importance of this. Nehemiah finds out that the nation Israel returned to Jerusalem from exile but  the wall of Jerusalem had been broken down, and its gates had been burned with fire. When he heard these things Nehemiah mourned and fasted for some days. Why did he mourn? Because Nehemiah knew the wall offered a boundary. It gave protection from the enemy and it gave freedom. The wall allowed Jerusalem to praise and worship God wholeheartedly.

We are all under attack from the enemy. Satan doesn’t want us to have proper boundaries in our lives so he can redirect our attention away from God, and keep us from fulfilling God’s purpose in our roles and in our lives. Without boundaries we leave ourselves open for attack. We stay too close to the edge of the cliff and we become so worried about falling off, we get distracted from our goal of moving toward God.

If we do not have up boundaries in our roles, we can’t move freely toward God. We get distracted, we stumble, and we allow the enemy to attack us and change our priority from looking at the goal to looking at the edge of the cliff into the abyss. Place your boundaries so you can run run headlong toward Christ.

Are Our Small Groups Fulfilling Needs?

Willow Creek recently released Follow Me, the expansion of their Reveal study on discipleship growth and spiritual formation. They divided people into four distinct stages of spiritual development, and looked at the things that served as catalysts to move people from one stage to the next. Readers of smallgroupministry.com probably won’t be surprised to hear that their study of 80,000 people in 200 churches revealed that participation in small groups was a key aspect of growing as disciples.

But before we assume that we have this covered, congratulate ourselves, and move on, the book… well, reveals… a problem. The study included a “gap analysis” to measure the difference between how important people believed things were, and how satisfied they were with how well their churches were providing them. The two biggest shortfalls between perceived needs and what the church is offering them were:

• Helping me in my time of emotional need

• Helping me to develop relationships that encourage accountability

In other words: Of all the things people think they need from our churches, the two things people are least getting at the level they want are the things our small groups should be best at providing! So why isn’t it happening?

No doubt some of the 200 churches in the study don’t have small groups. But 84% of them averaged more than 250 in attendance per weekend, so chances are good that very few that don’t have small groups at all.

The problem, then, would appear to be that all too often churches have the wrong kind of small group. Small groups that aren’t helping people in their time of emotional need. Small groups that aren’t building enough community to allow people to be transparent with each other. Small groups that aren’t really providing what people need to develop as disciples.

How many of the things we call small groups are really Bible studies? Of course Bible study is important, and having additional Bible learning outside the weekend services is another catalyst for spiritual growth that they identified. But taking Bible teaching out of the church classroom and putting it into a living room with cake and coffee doesn’t make it a small group.

We contribute to this problem by putting out calls for small group leaders. We’re immediately setting up a hierarchical structure that will attract those who tend to dominate a group. But if we’re going to fix the shortfall identified in the study, we need people who are less leaders and more facilitators — people whose focus isn’t on how much time they spent during the week preparing a lesson, but how much time they spent praying for and pouring into the lives of those in the group. People who aren’t so eager to begin imparting their wisdom on people, but can’t wait to hear what’s going on their lives.

Having that sense of community is a key to spiritual growth. People are telling us they want it. They’re also telling us they aren’t getting it. How will we respond?