Category Archives: Leadership

Courageous for Something

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Devotions on the lake

A quick get-away to visit my family has been extended for several more days. I am not complaining! Lots of hugs, kisses, and laughing with my two granddaughters is the best! An unexpected few days on the beach with family was an added bonus too. And now, to be able to have some time on the lake is priceless!

This morning, I had the great pleasure of sitting on the back deck overlooking a gorgeous lake view. I grabbed a large mug of freshly brewed coffee and focused on some needed quiet time…devotions and bible study. Tomorrow, I will leave this place to return home…our new home, which is far away from this place. I’ve been asking God to give me courage during this transition and I’ve been praying for my husband, even more so to be strengthened in courage and resolve as a leader. I found what I was looking for in the book of Joshua.

This is the best leadership text and not for the faint hearted. It is as if God reaches out and shakes me to get my attention. For my husband and me personally, God has called us to a mission, this particular mission away from home and familiarity.  I am challenged that God repeats to us: “Be strong and courageous.”  I once read that nothing in life or in ministry ever happens apart from courage. There is no such thing as courage apart from mission, just as there is no such thing as faith apart from challenge. You’re not just courageous to be courageous, but you are courageous for something.[1]

I learned a few things this morning:

1. I must be courageous for something! God has given us a clear assignment. Joshua had no doubt what God called Him to do. There should be no doubt what we are called to do.

2. God promises that He is with us! God promises to never leave or forsake us. We have confidence that God will keep His promises! God will not leave us high and dry. Being courageous for something means that I fear God more than I fear my environment.

3. Be resolved! Be careful in making the right decisions. Be strong and courageous and do not sway or change course. Leadership is strengthened by acts of obedience. Being courageous for something means I need to take the first step and another step and another and another. I can not run away because of opposition.

4. Anchored in Truth! Success (or failure) in a mission is tied to my relationship with God. I need to be immersed in knowing, really knowing, God’s truth. When trials come, and they surely will, being courageous for something means I must be able to practice and apply that truth. Love God’s book. Live it. Be totally immersed.

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Joshua 1:8

“Read the Bible praying, ‘Father, hold my mind’s attention. Wake my heart’s affection. Speak for your glory and my holy joy.’ – John Piper

[1] The Call to Courage │Two Ways You Can Become a Cheerful Person (“The Cheery Tree”)

 

The Saturday Assortment #8

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The Saturday Assortment

The Saturday Assortment is a collection of unrelated and random things that I find interesting, challenging, motivating and sometimes quite out of the ordinary. It’s an assortment of things that caught my attention throughout the week. I bet you will find them equally engaging.  There are no affiliate links on this page. Read and Enjoy!

From a father to his daughters :: The most beautiful thing that I read on the internet this week

To My Daughters on Being Pretty via A Deeper Church.

Remember how Peter warns: don’t get bogged down with trends and keeping up with fashion. Rather, keep up your spiritual beauty—cultivate and prune so the garden will grow. For what glows your countenance is a clear conscience and a pure heart. Worry and stress darken and drown.

Imbibe in the beauty of your youth. But always hold it loose—it flees and withers. If you let it define you then you’ll wither with it, on the inside.

Though your body dims and moves toward the grave, your soul thrives and moves towards eternity. It is like a deep red wine, it’s savory nature deepening over time.

Forget the legalists! They will try to hide all that’s good and beautiful and pure. But do not lash out at them, they, your weaker brothers and sisters. No, you instruct them in your grace and charm and in the stewardship of your beauty.   ~by Timothy

For your family :: A Free eBook for Holy Week

Love to the Uttermost via Desiring God

The devotional begins Palm Sunday (March 24) through Easter Sunday (March 31.) A lovely and special way to focus on the self-giving love of our Savior.

To love to the uttermost is to love freely, without reserve or limit, and without flaw or failure. As we watch his arrest and trial and death unfold for eight days, we gaze on a God-man who begrudges no pain or reproach on his pathway to redeem lost sinners. This is the man who “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).

A good word for parents :: 1 Thing you need to give yourself immediately

Give Yourself Grace! via Jon Acuff

If you’re a parent and you have young kids, don’t for a second be ashamed that you’re not working on a dream. You are. It’s called “kids.” You are raising humans. Do you understand how crazy that is? You don’t need to go kill yourself looking for a big new dream, you have one. You’re raising humans! ~Jon Acuff

Start conversations that end bullying :: Bully in a Box

Bully in a Box ❘ Solving it together via live.bullyinabox.com

It’s a sad and harsh reality that we need to address the problem of bullying, but here is a very helpful collection of iBooks to assist parents and children identify feelings and resolutions surrounding the situation. My daughter alerted me to this great resource (“Thank you, Leslie!”) The  iBooks, written by a mother and daughter duo (Cheryl Tunno and Michelle Tunno Buelow) cover topics such as: respect, compassion, loyalty, confidence, honesty, fairness and more!

“As a retired Superintendent of Schools I am all too well aware of the issues posed by bullying and harassment among and between students. The Bully in a Box program provides young children with ways to recognize inappropriate behavior and the tools to manage the behavior.”

—Mother of 2, Grandmother of 2 with over 30 years in the NJ public school system ~via Bully in a Box

Encouraging and Notable Voices

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The sun is shining so warm and bright, with sunbeams cascading through the windows. I’ve always loved sitting in a sunbeam.  When I was much younger, I would grab a big pillow, a blanket and a book…get comfortable on the carpet and soak up the sun shining through my bedroom window. I still enjoy doing that!  In fact, today afforded a surprising treat with time to soak in the simple pleasure of enjoying a sunbeam from an oversized plush chair.  This is just what I needed!  I brewed a cup of tea, grabbed a Bible, motivational books and my iPad to scroll through Twitter and to look through my photo collection.  I love rediscovering encouraging and notable voices!

Here are three fantastic passages of scripture that have encouraged me today, as well as a few notable voices that have inspired my faith, added fuel to a depleted “motivation tank,” and challenged me to have a right and correct attitude.

Here you go!

Photography by Donna Harris ❘ Remember the Year

This is the day that the LORD has made; let us REJOICE and be GLAD in it. Psalm 118:24

By God’s GRACE, I am…

A child of the Father. Forever forgiven. Completely supplied. GRACE.

Fully accepted. Indwelt by the Spirit. Friend of the Savior. GRACE.

Loved with no ending. Viewed now as righteous. Sin cleansed and covered. GRACE.

(Quoted from Paul David Tripp  Twitter feed ‏@PaulTripp)

Romans 8-38-39

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

Roger Crawford, author of:  How High Can You Bounce ❘ Turn Setbacks Into Comebacks was sixteen years old before he could tie his shoes, even then Velcro made it possible. But he excelled in other areas such as sports, becoming a star tennis player. You can look at Roger and see that he has a disability. As Roger explains it, however, most people’s disabilities cannot be seen, but they’re just as real and in many cases more pronounced than his. [1]

“I think it’s important for every young person whether they have a physical challenge or not to find something in their life that they can become passionate about.”

“People often ask me if I ever speak to groups of disabled people. And my answer is ‘Yes, every talk I give.’ The point is that disabilities come in different forms, including emotional and intellectual, but the most disabling of all is attitudinal.”

“We can control what we dwell on, and I think that is a vitally important principle no matter who we are or what we do. Having a better attitude is a daily choice, and how we think creates the window through which we see our life experience.”

Roger Crawford : Turning the Pessimism of “I can’t” Into the Unstoppable Power of “I Can!”

 

2 Corinthians 12-9

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. 2 Corinthians 12:9

My wish for you is to take time to sit in a sunbeam. Enjoy a good book. Close your eyes and mediate on God’s truth. Be inspired and encouraged. More Grace!

[1] Something to Smile About: Encouragement and Inspiration for Life’s Ups and Downs; Zig Ziglar, Tying Your Shoes, p. 13, Thomas Nelson publishers

How to Break Bad Habits

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Don’t you wish breaking bad habits would be as easy as digging in your heel to stop and never doing it again? Aristotle had this to share about habits: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit. I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self.”

Thank you Taryn and Bethany for the photo!

Yes, we are what we repeatedly do and the hardest victory is over self.  I wish it were simple, don’t you? Just stop doing whatever has repeatedly become a bad habit and victory over self is accomplished. Ta Da!

In our family, you will often hear us say to each other, “Stop It!”  You’ll appreciate this comical skit from MadTV with Bob Newhart as Dr. Switzer, a psychologist with a simple theory on human behavior.  The skit is hilarious and worth watching through the end!

For me, overcoming a bad habit is more complex than hearing the words, “Stop It!”  I must make the deliberate effort towards changing a wrong behavior or I will forever be stuck with a burdensome yoke around my neck as, “The Bad Habit.”

Changing behavior must be intentional. It will require you to be introspective regarding your behavior and lifestyle. Study yourself  in the fashion of looking through a binocular lens…but this lens is looking into your inner most being, studying what makes you tick, what brings you low or lifts you high. You want to get into your head and to know yourself really well!

Here are 4 ways I’ve found helpful to breaking a bad habit:

1. Identify the habit you want to change. (over eating, spending too much money, substance abuse, not exercising, etc.)

2.Use the binocular lens to identify the cue that triggers the behavior. (hungry, angry, lonely, tired, stress, insignificance, etc.)

3. Know yourself really well and understand the need the habit meets. (comfort, creativity, social stimulus, the high from spending cash, etc.)

4. Without changing the cue and reward, replace the routine with a new behavior.

Here are 3 ways I replace the routine with a new behavior:

1. A daily time with God. A lack of personal time with God will result in casualty! There are many options for you to use. I personally am using this method for a consistent time with God. (Four ways to make daily time with God a habit.) Currently, I am reading through the book of Nehemiah, a fascinating book detailing leadership, resolve, overcoming obstacles, trusting God, prayer…God’s Word is perfect at every stage of life and will meet the need at that moment.

2. Spending time with friends. I cannot possibly go for days without being with friends. The adage, “Laughter is the best medicine” is true. I need to laugh and I crave laughter! I need friends to keep me accountable. A good friend will encourage my soul to grow deeper into God’s truth while cheering me on to become the best at what  God created me to be. A good friend will stay with me in the messy places.

3. Exercise. When boredom strikes or if I become agitated or fidgety, I slip on my running shoes and go for a fast walk around the block or in the parking lot where I work. Taking regular and routine 5 minute breaks throughout the day helps me regain focus. I work at staying in the habit of daily exercise, whether it be walking, running, lifting weights or jumping rope.

Real change and real transformation will take work. You can’t do it on your own, and you shouldn’t try to.

You may enjoy reading:

Boasting in Weakness

The Unmaking of a Worship Disorder

Two Ways You can Become a Cheerful Person

 

The following are some resources that I’ve found helpful:

How to Change a Bad Habit Into a Good One

The worship of the living God gives us peace and equilibrium to face the troubles of life. -Tim Keller

How to break bad habits from biting your nails to running late. -Real Simple

What have you learned about breaking bad habits?  Does saying, “Stop It” make it easier?  What do you think?

The Saturday Assortment #7

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The Saturday Assortment

The Saturday Assortment is a collection of unrelated and random things that I find interesting, challenging, motivating and sometimes quite out of the ordinary. It’s an assortment of things that caught my attention throughout the week. I bet you will find them equally engaging. Enjoy!

Family Devotion Ideas – threethirtyministries

Free! Easy! Fun! Family Devotion Ideas! You’ll find FUN theme ideas like Toothpaste Squeeze, Spoon Catapults and Izzy Dizzy Walking Wobble that will keep your kids wanting more family time! All devotions are based on a passage of scripture. You’ll discover clever ways to teach timeless truths in a relevant way.

Top 200 ministry blogs – Kent Shaffer 

Kent Shaffer and the team at Church Relevance has released their latest ranking of the Top 200 Ministry Blogs.

Self-Care or Self-Medication: Which path are you on? – Carey Nieuwhof 

When stress and life overwhelm you, you will either choose to respond to it in a healthy way (self-care) or an unhealthy way (self-medication).  Carey Nieuwhof shares five ways Christian leaders self-medicate and Ten healthy options for self-care.

Page CXVI

Page CXVI is a project started with the idea to make hymns accessible and known again. To celebrate their 7 year anniversary of making music, Page CXVI is giving away their entire catalog of music for the month of March. 11 albums, 74 songs, 2 bands. Go to http://www.pagecxvi.com/jubilee and get your FREE music!

Confessions of an Evernote Junkie

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I confess, I’m an Evernote junkie!  The more I learn how to use this productivity tool, the more I like it.  Here are a few reasons why:

Evernote is like a digital file drawer where I can store anything and find it almost instantly. I’m a creative thinker and a collector of information. With the “Evernote Web Clipper” I  can clip an article and  save it to a designated notebook (folder) and also tag the article into a category. For example, I often read web articles and a variety of blogs on the topic of  leadership. With the web clipper, I am able to save the entire article or a section of the post to my leadership notebook and use a tag that best describes the content of the article, such as team.

My family has the kitchen table back.  I am an “unorganized perfectionist” meaning I keep everything in order except the top of my desk and the kitchen table. There is a paper trail of meeting notes or copies of articles out of magazines and added to that are splashes of color from neon colored post-it notes. To help clear this paper trail,  I’m now scanning documents and saving as a PDF to Evernote. And for all of those ideas I’ve written on post-it-notes,  I grouped the notes in the shape of a square, I took a photo of the notes, dragged it from my desktop into Evernote and saved it to bright ideas. I’m amazed by the search function that even picks up words within pictures!

Important emails can be easily retrieved.  With the unique Evernote email address, I am able to forward important emails to my Evernote  account by adding the name of the notebook I want the email saved in and including a tag to the subject line of the email. To specify the destination notebook, append the subject line with the symbol “@” followed by the name of an existing notebook; to add a tag, include “#” followed by an existing tag.  This has been great to use, especially for saving flight reservations, hotel bookings, or receipts.

Keeping up with notes and reminders has never been easier. I am a note taker. I always write notes in meetings, or when I attend a conference plus I’m constantly writing reminders for myself.  I have always used the note pad on my iPhone or iPad. What has been frustrating is that I am unable to access the notes from my Mac.  There are times when I don’t have my iPad handy or it takes too long to find the notes on my iPhone. I now use the Evernote app for note taking and because Evernote syncs remotely in the “cloud,” I can access the same notes anywhere, regardless of the device I am using.

Having quick access to highlights and notes from books on Kindle. I recently discovered through my Amazon Kindle account that I can access all of the highlights and notes I’ve made while reading. I select the book, search for the highlighted notes, use the Evernote web clipper and save to the booknotes notebook with the name of the author as the tag.

I realize there is much more to learn about Evernote and I’ve just begun to scratch the surface of this amazing tool that will help me stay organized and more productive. What do you think? What have you discovered that helps you stay organized or more productive?

Helpful link:

Michael Hyatt (Intentional Leadership) provides a handy index to all of his Evernote posts.

Don’t Just Show Up–Grow Up!

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How many times in our children’s ministry has the story of the Good Samaritan been told? Numerous and countless times. We are able to recite the story from memory and most likely the children in our classes can do the same. Often times in our haste to prepare a lesson for children, we read the bible passage from the mindset of a child. Often times, we quickly skim through the words in God’s book, overlooking the depth and power of timeless truths. Many times we are guilty of not even reading the bible before Sunday morning simply because we are “just teaching children” and so we show up in the classroom and wing in.

I know all about that. I can show up unprepared, retell a bible story, tell kids the facts and hope they experience the love of Jesus in the words I tell them. By doing this, I have lowered the bar of teaching with excellence, decreased the value of God’s timeless truths for children (as well as for myself), and I’ve muddied the beauty and dulled the passion of  glorious grace.

I realize that God can still use my lame-duck teaching efforts to work his glory into the hearts of children but now I’m beginning to see how frequently I miss the mark and I am repenting more so.  I am more and more convicted of my sin with taking for granted the word of God.

Children’s ministry can become a wasteland of morality training instead of a culture of gospel transformation. Having a passion for children’s ministry is having a passion for gospel transformation in the hearts of children…as well as in the hearts of those that teach them.

I pray that we who lead children don’t just show up but we grow up and own this: the grand story of Scripture!

The Saturday Assortment #6

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The Saturday Assortment

The Saturday Assortment is a collection of unrelated and random things that I find interesting, challenging, motivating and sometimes quite out of the ordinary. It’s an assortment of things that caught my attention throughout the week. I bet you will find them equally engaging. Enjoy!

7 Common Energy and Time Wasters for Leaders —Ron Edmonson Staying on task is critical to being a good leader. Here are seven time and energy wasters to avoid.

Actually, it goes the other way. Wouldn’t it be great to be gifted? In fact... Always a good word from Seth Godin

Rebuilding With a Prayer Community —Jared Musgrove (The Village Church) With the ups and downs and stress of any job, in particular a church ministry, learn to pray, listen, and intercede with other. You need community.

How Andy Stanley and Tim Keller Preach with Non-Believers in Mind –Trevin Wax There’s no denying the significant differences between Andy Stanley and Tim Keller when it comes to theology and ministry. But we can learn from them both in how to respectfully engage the unsaved people in our midst.