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I use to think the idea of intentional Christian community was a radical concept. That is, until I glanced at church history. The early church, the Celtic Christians, the Anabaptists, the Monastic movements, the Moravians, and many others in between all sought to live out their faith in the fertile soil of small intentional communities.
Words by Jason Fowler in the latest Mustard Seed online magazine
Congregations Without Conflict Fail to Learn How Not to Escalate Conflict
In my book, Every Congregation Needs a Little Conflict, I share the following about congregations without a healthy intensity of conflict:
“Congregations without a healthy intensity of conflict do not learn how to keep conflict from escalating to an unhealthy intensity. Because they do not know how—or refuse—to deal with healthy intensities of conflict, significant conflict situations get out of hand too quickly.” [9]
I like this thought on conflict. However, I would add that it helps if the conflict/tension is about something important.
Too often I see conflict in Churches around unimportant things, usually associated with worship: music style etc.
How much better would it be if our disagreements and resulting conflict is about how we are engaging with our local community in mission?
The Beginner’s Guide to Twitter
This post is a 20-minute guide to Twitter for non-techies. (If you don’t know what Twitter is, you can start with my first post on the topic, Twitter-dee, Twitter-dum. If you still aren’t convinced, then read 12 Reasons to Start Twittering.)
Saturday night over dinner, I helped my friend, Karen Anderson, get started on Twitter. Yesterday, my son-in-law, Chris Crimmins, got started. He was having some difficulty getting his phone hooked up to Twitter. I thought, I wish I had a simple, step-by-step guide to give him.It doesn’t take long to get set-up with Twitter, but it helps if you know the basics. So, I decided to document these eight basic steps:
This is a great beginners guide to Twitter. So, if you want to get into twitter - make sure you read this.
I recently was flying to Hobart from Melbourne to spend time with Forge Tassie and I puchased Seth Godwin’s book on tribes at the airport. By the end of the flight I had read it - yep, easy and quick read but boy what a powerful little book.
This is a must read for leaders!
Tags: books, leadership
Hat Tip to Alan Hirsch for linking this
Michael Hyatt is the President and CEO of Nelson Publishing. He writes about productivity and leadership. I have learnt much from him by reading his blog and following him on twitter.
Recently he posted on the important of the heart of the leader. It struck a chord with me - in the early days of Northern I think I was much better at this but as I reflected on this post in my morning walk with my boxer dogs, I have come to the conclusion that there are areas that I can improve on. There are certain leadership teams within Northern that I wish had more commitment, more vision, more time, more of many things and maybe the first thing that I need to do is look at my attitude and heart when I am with them.
I had someone once say that a leader is like a thermostat control for the tempreture of the room, team or organisation. This is so true and frankly scary in its responsibility.
Michael concludes his article with the following:
The bottom line is this: it matters if your heart is open or closed. It will have a tangible impact on your organization. The good news is that you can open your heart. This is the leader’s most important work. It is foundational to building a healthy organization.
The key is two-fold: awareness and discipline. With regard to the first, you must learn to discern the condition of your own heart. Is it open? Is it closed? Is it somewhere in between? I find that I have to check-in with myself several times a day. I call this a “heart check.â€
I ask, Where is my focus—right now? Is it in the past, where I am grieving over some loss or regretting the way I handled some situation? Or is it in the future, where I am worried about something that hasn’t happened yet. Either way, I am not present to what is happening now.
If I sense that my heart is closed, I have a choice. I can either leave it that way or open it up. This is where discipline comes into play. I literally make a decision to open my heart up, and I mentally visualize doing so. I force myself to think about what is possible. I choose to see this situation—these people—from the lens of possibility. As a result, I am fully present, available to the potential that exists in any given situation or relationship.
Maintaining an open heart—pumping possibility through your organization—is the most important thing you can do as a leader. There are other tasks, of course, but this is foundational.
Read the full post here
This week one of Danielle’s co-workers were ego-googling Dan. While doing so she came across this link at the BBC site which has an article from our old blog signposts linked up.
It reminded me that we had some good resources on signposts that are in line with the aim of this new blog. I will from time to time republish some of our older posts here.
In terms of the BBC article, I would like to point out that the words of the meditation are not our own. But rather someone else did the work of merging the words of Oscar Romero and Theresa of Avila. As much as I would like to take credit for the beautiful words, I unfortunately cannot.
They are indeed powerful words. It has become my habit to use the words at the forge leadership workshops that I run. Our annual leadership retreats at Northern also use the words to reflect deeply on our own work and ministry.
Here are the words again:
Christ has no Body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which he looks
Compassion on the world
Yours are the feet with which he walks
To do good
Yours are the hands with which he blesses
All the world.
Yours are the hands
Yours are the feet
Yours are the eyes
You are his body
Planning in the Kingdom
It helps, now and then, to step back
And take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts
It is even beyond our vision.
Lord, we know in whom we believe
We accomplish in our lifetime
Only a fraction of the magnificent enterprise
that is God’s work
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying that the
Kingdom always lies beyond us.
Lord, we know in whom we believe
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith
No confession brings perfection
No pastoral visit being wholeness
No programme accomplishes the Church’s mission
No set of goals and objectives includes everything
Lord, we know in whom we believe
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted
Knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
Lord we know in whom we believe
We cannot do everything
And there is a sense of liberation in realizing that
This enables us to do something,
And to do it very well
It may be incomplete
But it is a beginning,
A step along the way, an opportunity for the
Lords grace to enter and do the rest.
Lord we know in whom we believe
We may never see the end results,
But that is the difference between
The master builder and the worker.
We are workers,
Not master builders,
Ministers,
Not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future
Not our own.
(Oscar Romero)
Lord, we trust in you
To eternally renew our belief in you
In ourselves and in each other
In this is our joy. Amen
Yours are the hands
Yours are the feet
Yours are the eyes
You are his body.
Christ has no Body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which he looks
Compassion on this world
Christ has no Body but yours.
In a week’s time the Victorian forge interns and the forge team will descend on Frankston. We will be there for our third intensive for 2008. This time our focus is on pioneering leadership.
If you are nearby or even if you are not and want to come along for our open day on Saturday, here are the details:
Title: Stories of Mission and Pioneering Leadership CIRCA 2008
When: Saturday November 8, 2008 11:00am to 9:00pm
What: Inspiring Stories of Grassroots mission in the 1st world. God is at work in our world and inviting us to join with him.
Who: Peter Roenfeldt , Brad Buchanan, Kim Hammond and Mark & Sue Whitby.
Where: City Life, 12 Clyde Street Frankston CBD 3199
How much: $45.00 [meals not included, plenty of eateries nearby]
What else?: This is a great opportunity to be inspired, to take some practical tips from real life examples and to connect with a community of people seeking to live out the mission of Jesus in out world - right here, right now!
We look forward to your joining us.
Recently I had six weeks long service leave. I spent most of the time in the garden at our weekender. It was great and I miss the fresh air and the pottering about in the garden. But, I also worked hard! Many days were spent weeding the fairly large block, and the covering all the gardens with mulch, planting new trees and constructing new garden beds. I even put in a hot house and a automated watering system which was so much like lego for adults it wasn’t funny!
All in all the garden was looking pretty good - it has the air of being in good shape.
I went back to work for a week and came back on my next day off to find the following sight in our backyard.
A big branch had come down from one of the gum trees in our backyard, and had covered all of our citrus grove.
I know the picture is hard to make out but hopefully you can get the general idea.
So, my day off was spent chopping up the branch and spreading some out to the rest of the garden and burning some of it up.
I could not help but be struck by the similarity with Church leadership. Just when we think we are making progress or when we think we are doing OK - the wheels fall off. Something unexpected happens and we have to direct all our energy to that particular crisis.
Our leadership role is very similar to a gardener - a task never done, Still, hopefully we can experience some sort of sense of progress even when such events happen in our faith communities.
Oh by the way, after cleaning this big branch up and going back to work, I received a call on monday from one of our neighbours who informed me that a huge tree had come down in the front yard This tree smashed into the carport breaking the spouting, and taking with it the telephone and power lines.
Oh well… more to do!
Welcome to my new blog (web site).
For a number of years I (along with Dan) were blogging at a blog called signposts. We started the blog musing about leadership and various different things we were experiementing with at our church at Northern Community. Over the journey at signposts, our little blog became known as a place for vigorous and robust discussion and debate - particularly around the issues of theology, homosexuality and one that was surprising to us; the mega church phenomenon. The ride over at signposts was sometimes rewarding, and at other times frustrating. If you are interested to know more about that journey and the reasons for the eventual close of signposts then head over here and have a read.
It is now nearing a full year since I have been blogging regularly. The break from blogging has been good and yet over the past year there have been times when I have read an article, or have been thinking about something or even just wanted to ask a question. It has been during these times that I have missed having a blog, and all that goes with it.
So, I have decided to start another blog.
I am not sure how often I will update it but I do know that it will be different from signposts. In fact, I did consider restarting signposts but I felt that I new name and home was needed to reflect the new start and that the character and style of this blog will be different. So, how will it be different? Well to tell you the truth, I have not completely worked that out. I am not even sure that I will leave comments on all the time. But, I do know that parenthesis will be focussed more on my experiences, struggles and experiements in my roles at Northern Community and Forge.
I hope some of you may join me in the journey.
