Joel Young Blog.com

For some reason I have been talking about and reading about age all day. It’s like God is trying to tell me something. Listen to what Perry Noble had to say recently when he comprised his list of the top 5 leaders he would most like to meet with. His #4 guy was Matt Chandler of The Villiage Church. Here’s what Perry said about Matt,

“His series on Ecclesiastes is one of the best freakin series of messages I’ve ever heard.

Pride is the thought behind that statement! If people actually think that more years somehow equal superior knowledge…then they cut themselves off from some of the greatest leadership instruction that is out there.”

Sure, this benefits someone like me who leads many people who are decades older than I am, but it also benefits me in that I need to be looking at the courage and passion of those who are even younger than me to see what I can learn. Ask yourself these questions.

Are you closed off to learning from, or receiving guidance form someone who is younger than yourself? What have you missed out on because of this attitude? What will you do to ensure you don’t do this in the future?

I have been learning a lot over the last couple weeks. It’s like God is giving me what I’m praying for, but I was never ready for it to happen, stupid I know. I’ve been praying for him to clear a path that will lead our church to change the community we exist within. I want God to change the world through us and I knew he could do it. What I didn’t count on was that this path would lead me to so much adaptation.

Over the last month we have restructured, restaffed, and reevaluated everything we’re doing. Through it all I have seen that the mark of a true leader isn’t how well he/she executes the plan they have set into motion, but rather how well they adapt to the inevitable changes that will need to be made along the way.

What kind of leader are you? Are you unwilling to change your path or thinking because it will make you look like a failure? If so, you care more about your ego than whatever it is you are leading. Leaders of the church can’t afford to live this cliche. We have to adapt and change our strategies and methods to follow God’s path for our ministry WHENEVER HE ASKS US TO.

What do you need to adapt?

One of the most unavoidable and dangerous things for any church, or leader, to do is compare themselves to someone else. Comparison can place the expectations of another place and time on your current situation, which can often unjustly inflating or deflating your passion.

As a pastor I struggle with this. Though I love getting together with friends and acquaintances who also lead churches its sometimes had to avoid the comparison game that some seek to play. You evaluate their age, to their success, or the beauty of their situation and comparison quickly turns to envy. It’s a very slippery slope yet it’s a position that many leaders constantly put themselves in.

Since the situation of a church planter is a constant comparison game from supporters, church members, and your ego I thought I would share some of the things I have been doing lately to keep myself from comparing Horizon to any other church or situation. I’m not always successful in doing these things, but I know they help when I do practice them. These can work for so much more than just church leadership.

Make sure you’re not holding back progress. Live your life in such a way that you feel confident that you have access to the full measure of God’s ability. Seek HIS will, HIS vision, HIS direction, and HIS timing.

Constantly remind yourself of your achievements. There is never a victory too small to celebrate. By remembering the things that have gone right you are more likely to forget about the things that have gone wrong. Feeling great about the progress you are seeing eliminates the need to compare.

Remember why you do what you do. Do you do what you do for the praise or approval of others? Do you do it for yourself? Or, do you do it for the glory of God? Never measure something done for God by human standards. Remember God’s standards for your work.

Stay away from people who force you to play the comparison game. If you know a friend or a colleague that constantly wants to compare your work against his/hers? If so, you need to guard yourself from that situation. Some people only want to compare work to make themselves feel good. Don’t puff up their ego and deflate your confidence simply to maintain that relationship. Either let them know you don’t want to talk about it beforehand, or don’t go around them.

Leaders get a lot of feedback on what they do, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned through the years it’s this. There are two people that every leader needs to ignore.

#1: People who ALWAYS agree with you and do nothing but sing your praises. It’s nice to have people who will give you the confidence you need, but these aren’t the people who you should be looking to for that confidence. Their unbiased approval can be your undoing if they lead you to believe that you are never wrong.

#2: People who are NEVER happy and only complain. If the squeaky wheel always gets the oil, it’ll just keep on squeaking. It’s good to have people that are going to give you criticism to help make you better, but these aren’t the people you should be taking that criticism from.

Even though it’s impossible to remove these people and their influence from your life completely, leaders need to distance themselves from these people. The people that leaders need to keep tight are the people who are going to always love and respect them, their hard work, and their leadership, but aren’t afraid to properly offer advice and criticism to them when it’s warranted. Balanced support builds great leaders.

Sometimes the way that God implements His word into my life is so profound and yet subtle that it allows me to appreciate His power on an entirely different level. For this week’s message I have been doing a lot of research and study on the leadership style and abilities of Moses, and I noticed some things about this man that I never had before; I see struggles that we both share as leaders.

One big problem Moses had was that he was in the habit of shouldering the entire burden of leadership himself. He was constantly being told to share his burden of leadership with others, but to maintain his visionary role for the people of Israel. He didn’t have to do all the work himself.

The time with which this spiritual truth has arrived at my door could not have been anything less than divine. The last couple months at Horizon have been pretty difficult. They have not only been a time of transition, but a time of truth for me; realizing where we are and seeing where we need to be. A big part of our transition has been me handing off a lot of the responsibility I once shouldered alone. Even in few short weeks this has changed my life and freed up more of my time to spiritually focus my efforts on being the vision caster and leader that the church needs me to be. But more than just sharing in the work of the church I have learned that I need help in shouldering the load of leadership. Moses had to learn to do this very thing in Numbers 11.

In every church there needs to be people who are sharing the Pastor’s load of leadership. That means there needs to be others who are sharing his level of passion, spiritual commitment, financial commitment, and ownership. Only when people are sharing the load of leadership will a church truly reach its potential and give their vision casting leader the confidence to be bold in the Lord’s work.

Who is helping your Pastor/Minister share the load of leadership? Do you need to help someone with this very thing?