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Get To or Have To?

Everyday, as Christian leaders, we're placed in a position where the amount of tasks facing us is always greater than the amount of time we have to accomplish them.  In addition, everyday, we're required (or asked or expected) to do things that we really don't want to do.  So, how do we respond to this?  Well, for most of us, we just resign ourselves to living with an incredible number of moments of resignation, "I guess I just have to do this."

Now, think about that phrase.  How do you feel saying it?  "I just have to ______."  Any way you say it, it's not very positive is it?  But before you resign yourself once more to having to do something you may not like doing, why don't you try this phrase on for size, "I get to do this."  Feels better doesn't it?  It's such a simple vocabulary change, but the effect is amazingly different. Watch this.

As a church leader, you don't have to put together another message, you get to put together another message.  You don't have to make another call to someone in your congregation, you get to make a call to someone in your congregation.  You don't have to write another report, you get to write another report.  You don't have to attend another meeting, you get to attend another meeting.  You don't have to study another theory, you get to study another theory.  You don't have to attend another conference, you get to attend another conference. 

Can you see and feel the difference?  It's amazing isn't it?  As ministers, we've been given an incredible gift—the gift of standing between two worlds.  We have this wonderful opportunity to spend our full-time vocational efforts in the spreading of the gospel.  Yet we're often not grateful because we get stuck in the "have to's".  So, if you'd like to experience more joy in the ministry and find a more grateful heart, you may want to make this simple vocabulary shift from "I have to" to "I get to."  You'll be amazed at the results!

Never Underestimate the Power of Expectation

As I was eating breakfast this morning, I happened to be listening to Robert Schuller and thought I'd pass on to you his closing illustration.  To the best of my recollection, it went something like this.

"I recently met a professor in physics who told me that he taught at a university where he was told he needed to flunk 50% of his students each year.  And each year, that's exactly what happened—50% of his students failed.  Then he started attending a church where the pastor kept preaching on being positive and believing the best about others.  Finally, over time, he bought it all—hook, line and sinker.  The next fall, he began his class with the following statement.

'Class, in previous years, 50% of the students have failed this course.  But this year, I have a feeling, that this year is going to be different.  I've checked your records and you are a special group of students.  So this year, I'm confident that none of you are going to fail.  And to that end, I'm going to help you succeed.'

At the end of that semester," Schuller said, "not one student failed.  One got a C+, another one got a B-, but the rest of his students got B's and A's—and the professor concluded with this statement, 'And I didn't change my grading criteria one iota'"

Incredible!  You know that the intellectual capacity of students didn't change (it was just a normal distribution of students).  You know that content didn't really change.  And you know that the grading didn't change.  There was only one thing that changed.  And that one thing was the attitude of the professor toward his students.  Just by raising his expectations from failure to success, 50% of the students who would have failed in previous years didn't.  That is simply incredible.

But it happens all of the time.  The most famous experiment about this in education happened in the '60's in San Francisco and you can read about it in "Pygmalion in the Classroom."  It that study, a normal distribution of students increased their IQ's by 15 to 30 points in one year simply because the teachers believed they were the best teachers and that they were given the best students (neither of which was true).  Expectations drive so much of what happens around us.

So, as you look around you, what do you expect from those who are around you?  Who do you expect the best from?  Mediocrity from?  And the worst from?  And how much do you think your expectations play a role in how they perform? It could be your staff, your board members, your small group leaders, your ministry leaders, your spouse, your kids, your parents, your in-laws, your neighbors, your team members, or even yourself.  For example, when I talk with pastors, they'll often say, "Well, no one can hit a home run every week.  Sometimes you're going to hit a single and sometimes you're going to strike out.  But you just keep getting up to the plate and every now and then you get to hit a home run."  No!  What a terrible expectation.  I say, you go to the plate expecting to hit a home run every week.  And if you expect that you'll hit a home run every week, you'll hit a whole lot more home runs (and an occasional triple or double, but no singles or strike outs). 

So please, never underestimate the power of your expectations—on the people around you—or on yourself!  In fact, why don't you raise them right now.  You just might be surprised by the difference!

Make the List

If you're leading a church, chances are you're overwhelmed—there's simply too much to do. Just think about it for a moment.  In addition to preaching and teaching issues, you've got assimilation issues, board issues, children's ministries issues, care and compassion ministries issues, community involvement issues, computers and IT issues, correspondence and e-mail issues, counseling issues, denominational issues, evangelism issues, facility issues, financial issues, leadership issues, marketing issues, ministry issues, missions issues, planning issues, prayer issues, programming issues, spiritual formation issues, staffing issues, web issues, writing issues, young adult ministry issues and youth ministry issues. It's enough to depress anyone.  And even worse, you'll be held responsible for anything that doesn't go right and have to pass on the credit for anything that does go well (it's a great job, eh?). 

So what should you do?  Well, David Allen, in his classic book Getting Things Done (who also keeps a blog at [link]) suggests that the first step is to do a data dump and put everything that's in your head down in one place and on one list.  Why? Not because you'll get it all done.  But because it'll free you up emotionally.  In other words, when we're overwhelmed and we know we have too much to do, we never feel emotionally free.  We continually have that nagging feeling in the back of our heads, "I know I have more to do, but I can't remember what it is," or "I hope I don't forget this," or "I don't know what to do first." 

Now, the first time you do this, it may be overwhelming to see everything that's in your head on one piece of paper.  But, it'll also be freeing because now you won't be worrying that you might be forgetting something. For example, earlier today, I had to make one of these lists up for the next month.  I'm taking my wife on vacation next week so I wanted to make sure everything that needs to get done over the next few weeks gets done.  I have some other categories (other than those listed in the first paragraph above) but those categories should give you a running start of some of the categories you might want to use to organize your list.  Now, I'll admit, I'm an obsessive list maker, so mine (for just work) came out to three pages, three columns, 10 point type.  Yours may be much shorter (prayerfully).  That's fine (you might actually have a life).  What matters is that you get everything in your head out into one place.  Then once you have everything written down, you can make better choices about what you're going to do and what you're not going to do.  But you won't be worrying any longer if you've forgotten something.  It's a simple technique.  But for leaders of life-giving churches, it just might bring a little life back into your life.

Life's Too Short to be Angry

Let's be honest, ministry creates almost unlimited opportunities to be angry because we're in the people business.  Plus, as one pastor, Scott Williams, wrote as to why he left the ministry.

people assume ministers are available for their criticism 24/7. people say things to clergy they would not say to their worst enemies. for some reason they feel at liberty to delve into every aspect of clergy life. they have an opinion about everything we do. they believe it is their god-given right to critique your personal life, your professional life, your emotional state, the way you dress, your use of colloquialisms, your kids, your personality, how much you spend on a car, your friendships, how you drive, etc.

You can read the whole blog and responses at [link] It's worth a read!

Yet, despite all of the opportunities to be angry or frustrated, that is not the kind of life we're called to (nor the kind of life most of us what to live).  God, through His Word, was rather clear about this—that the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.  So, how do we avoid this tendency to become angry and bitter people?

Well, besides the obvious answers (like choosing forgiveness and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit and keeping short accounts—all of which should not be overlooked), one of the lessons I learned early on in the life of our church plant, that has helped me stay emotionally healthy over the years, has been Larry Crabb's distinctions between goals and desires. In a reductionistic way, he would say that the difference between a goal and a desire is that a goal can only be something over which we have complete control, everything else is simply a desire. Furthermore, he would say that the reason why we experience so much anger is because we keep making  desires goals—and whenever a goal gets blocked, we get angry.

For example.  People liking a message.  Goal or desire?  Desire.  Why?  Because you don't have complete control over people's responses.  Someone you're discipling following through on an assignment.  Goal or desire?  Desire.  Why?  Because you don't have complete control over your disciple's life.  Your church growing.  Goal or desire?  Desire.  Because you don't have complete control over the growth of your church.  People showing up on a Sunday?  Desire.  Money coming in?  Desire.  People not leaving the church?  Desire.  Being able to hire a staff person by a certain date?  Desire.  People appreciating all that you do?  Desire.  People trusting your motives?  Desire.  People signing up for an event or class you're sponsoring?  Desire.  People following through on their part of a ministry assignment?  Desire.  People not gossiping?  Desire.  People liking you?  Desire.  People following your leadership? Desire.

It's a pretty impressive list isn't it?  Ministry is fraught with opportunities for us to turn desires into goals (and with that, the propensity to be angry).  But, that's a terrible way to live.  The better way is to keep desires, desires (and hold them loosely in our hands).  While, at the same time, keeping our goals, goals.  What that means is that you and I should only hold tightly to what we can hold tightly to (that over which we have complete control).  So let me explain with a recent example.

Last week, we found out that the land contract (on 105 acres of land) that we've had for 18 months will not be extended by the owners.  Our county is in the middle of a debate about churches in rural zones and we got caught in the middle of a political debate.  We applied for a water and sewer category change 16 months ago and still don't have an answer yet (even though it is a no brain-er because our lines would be right next to the lines the County approved for a Catholic church not long before we applied).  So, we can't go to settlement (this April 28th) until we can get approval for what we want to do (or we might end up suffering a multi-million dollar loss).  With that background, you'll understand where I'm taking you.

Yesterday, I was talking with another community leader and when I told him about this situation (and clearly there are some County officials who have killed this deal for us), he said, "You must be outraged and angry."  To which I said, "Not really.  I'm doing quite fine."  He had that, you're not for real look and said, "Who are you kidding?"  "I'm not kidding you."  "Don't blow smoke in my face, I'd be ticked."  "Well, let me tell you why I'm not."  I then said (since he's not a believer to the best of my knowledge), "From where I sit, I think it's important that I actually live out what I believe.  I thoroughly believe that God is sovereign and in control of all of this so there has to be a reason for this to occur.  In other words, I believe there has to be something better for us (and that God is using this to direct us to it).  And secondly, owning this piece of land and getting our County to agree to everything we've asked was never my goal, it was simply a desire.  All I could own was my part in the process and I've worked the process to the best of my ability.  I have no regrets.  I can't control our County's planning board or any of our County Council members. But  I've done everything I could do, so I'm at peace.  Life's too short to live with anger. I like to go to bed at night and sleep well."

Do you see the difference?  It's huge!  Any time you sense anger welling up within you, I'd encourage you to ask, "Is this because I've made a desire a goal?"  If you do that, I guarantee you that you will immediately cut out the vast majority of anger that exists in ministry.  My guess is that, if I hadn't learned this lesson from Larry Crabb years ago, I would've joined Scott Williams and left the ministry a long time ago.  I can't overstate the importance that this one lesson has had in my ministry.  Life is just too short to live with anger.

Sometimes the Best Thing is to Accept the Worst

Earlier this morning I had the privilege of speaking to a group of Executive Administrative Officers at the National Institutes of Health.  During my presentation, I shared with them one of my favorite stories about one of my most important strategies for maintaining a positive attitude in even the worst of situations—something all church leaders face, especially if they want to be change agents.  I call this strategy, catastrophizing.

Back in the early days of Seneca Creek, I lost my voice twice during about a six month time frame.  As you can well guess, this is not a great career encouraging sign.  Being unable to talk for a week, twice in six months, tends to put fear in the heart of any preacher.  As that fear grew (the fear that I might be losing my voice for good and never able to preach again), I was almost immobilized.  Then one day, as I was turning on to a little road near our house, a God thought came, "Bruce, if you were never able to speak again, what then would you do?"  In that brief moment, I chose to accept the thought that I might never speak again—and immediately I began to think of a whole slew of things I could do without the ability to speak. In other words, by simply accepting the worst, I was set free. The way i like to put it is this.  As long as we allow fear to grip us, we're under it's control.  But when we embrace our fear, when we put our arms around it, then we're in control. Either fear controls us, or we control our fear.  Catastrophizing allows us to accept the worst, and then ask the question, "What then?".

So, for example, let's say you're a church planter and you're afraid that you might fail.  Accept it and then ask, "So if I fail, what do i have left?"  Do you have still have your health?  You family?  Your intelligence? Any new wisdom gained while planting this church? Any new people to restart another church with? Your relationship with God? Etc.  In other words, you still have an amazing amount more going for you, than against you—even if your church plant doesn't make it.  Fear is a dangerous thing.  It can grip us and control us.  It can immobilize us and destroy us.  It can cause us to not make decisions we need to make or to make decisions we ought not to make.  But most of all, fear is the opposite of faith.  Faith and fear are antithetical to one another.  They cannot coexist in the same space.  So, learning to come up with strategies that help us learn to avoid fear and embrace faith, is always a wise idea.

So what are you afraid of in ministry (or life)? Failing?  Someone leaving your ministry/church or life?  Conflict with someone?  The loss of a great opportunity?  Rejection by someone?  Being broke?  Being fired?  Whatever it is, why don't you accept it.  Then once you accept it, ask, "What now?"  "What do I have left?"  "What can I restart with?"  "What's my next step?"    If you try this, I think you'll agree that sometimes the wisest thing you can do is to accept the worst ... and then move on.  Remember, either fear controls us, or we control it.  The choice is ours!

Focus on What You're For, More than What You're Against

Last week, someone sent me a blog post against Rick Warren because he was writing an article for Ladies Home Journal.  I couldn't believe it. Once again I thought, "There we go again. Shooting our own."  Personally, I thought it was incredible that a Christ-follower was invited to write a regular column for a "secular" magazine.  The next day, I got an e-mail about someone who has a website against our denomination, the Evangelical Free Church of America.  Once again I thought, "Don't Christians have something better to do than criticize one another?"  And, as some of you know, last week I had all kinds of people reading way too much into an innocent post on "Don't Keep Your Staff Guessing."  Which, once again left me asking, "Why are so many Christians so prone to find the negative in anything they read or hear?"

This always amazes me.  For a group of people who claim to follow Christ, I am regularly shocked at how Christians treat one another, especially in public.  The command to love one another seems to be a missing command in American Evangelicalism.  I remember talking with Doug Murren about this several years ago and Doug told me that when he was at Eastside Foursquare, he would regularly try to dissuade Christians from other churches from joining Eastside.  Why?  Because he said, "Almost all of my problems at Eastside came from Christians.  People who came to Christ at Eastside, loved our church.  But people from other churches were always trying to change Eastside or
complaining about how we weren't meeting their needs or doing things the way they wanted them to be done."  In other words, they were the quickest to be negative.  But why?

Well, while there are lots of reasons why, one of them may be because there are so many preachers who preach in a negative way.  In other words, they argue more for what they are against, than what they are for.  Over time then, an unintended consequence is that they end up creating a negative environment which invariably leads to creating
negative people.

A much better option is to focus more of our time and energy on what we are for.  A positive preaching environment creates more positive people.  However, it does take more work to be a positive preacher.  It's a whole lot easier to say, "Homosexuality is wrong!",  than it is to explain why a deeply committed marriage between a man and a woman is so much better.  It's a whole lot easier to say, "Rick Warren is wrong!", than it is to suggest why someone thinks their concept of the Christian life is what people should be shooting for.  It's a whole lot easier to say,"They're wrong!", than it is to say, "There is a better way and this is that way."  You see, it's a whole lot easier to be against something, than it is to be for something.  But, in the end, we end up producing what we focus on.  Positive preachers produce positive people.  Negative preachers produce negative people.  So, which do you prefer?  If you want to produce people who are more likely to follow Jesus' command to love one another, then you may want to focus your preaching on the positive side of the equation.  It will take more work.  But I think you'll like the difference!

P.S.  This principle ought to also be reflected in our marketing.  Personally, I dislike it when a church says, "Come experience the difference!"  Or, "We have the best _________."  Or "Tired of lame music and pathetic preaching? Come to [our church] where the music rocks and the preaching excites."  Why do we have to be negative towards one another?  Couldn't we say the same thing by saying, "Looking for Music that Rocks and Preaching that Excites? Come visit [our church]" Just a thought.  Okay,another thought.

Assume the Best Unless Proven Otherwise

Since my blog on Don't Keep Your Staff Guessing has started a firestorm of comments on lots of blogs (both positive and negative), I thought I would share one of the heart attitudes that we work with our leaders on here at Seneca Creek, "Believe the best, unless proven otherwise."  For my blog, which is aimed at a small slice of the world (leaders of life-changing churches), yesterday was an amazing day.  I had 864 hits on that blog.  Lots of the comments I've read have been positive and I've had several pastors e-mail me for my list (which I find rather interesting/funny.  Note: read the blog and you'll know why). But, I've also read some of the most amazing comments on several blogs.  My favorite was the guy who said that my need to be THE BOSS was a drive for power and that I was undermining Jesus as the head of the church and hindering the advancement of the kingdom of God (though he used much more colorful language).  Oh, and then there have been the "You need therapy" kinds of comments. 

Whoa!  Slow down there!  For any of us to make those kinds of assumptions about people we don't know is amazing (let alone to post them in a public forum).  If you go back and read that blog again, you will see it's not slanted toward employees, it's focused on the employer/boss.  My blog wasn't really about "the list", it was about bosses (and if you are the senior pastor, you are the boss—note: no caps on that word) and our need to communicate our expectations and idiosyncrasies to our employees.  Despite how some have read this, this is not an authoritarian action, it's a loving action.  I'd encourage you to go back and read the blog.  My opening paragraph was about how no employee likes having to feel out the work environment for the first six to twelve months trying to figure out their new boss (and his or her likes and/or dislikes).  So, let's avoid that and make it easy on them.  Once they have the list, then they know.

As for the chairs illustration, I think I clearly stated that the "big 'rock' issues are easy for most of us to identify, like "I care passionately about us getting our work done, on time, with excellence."  But, it's often the little things that really get under our skin that hinder our relationships with staff that we don't communicate."  I then chose the littlest thing I could think of on the list to point out that little things that bug us ought to be on the list as well.  Now, while some may think the chairs item was small, I explained why, for me, this is an issue (and it has nothing to do with chairs).  My point was, "When someone leaves a conference room a mess (or a production room), it communicates, "I don't care" or "Someone else needs to clean up my mess" or "I'm too important to clean up my stuff" or "Excellence doesn't matter to me."  In other words, i was saying, this is a values issue.  For me, I think that selfishness, lack of respect for others, lack of team play, not thinking about how our actions influence others, etc. are big issues.  The chairs illustration was simply the smallest thing on my list I could think of that illustrated something that I find big.

But we all have preferences.  My point wasn't that everyone's preferences should be the same.  Some of us are Type A and some Type B.  Some of us are more task-oriented, others more people-oriented.  Some of us are "J's" according to the Myers-Briggs inventory, while others of us are "P's".  My the point was, whatever you are, make sure you communicate that.  if you are a laissez-faire kind of leader, your list will be very short.  If you are a more driven kind of leader, your list will be a little longer.  And if you are an employee who wants a more laissez-faire kind of work environment, then you better not work for a Type A kind of boss.  Letting people know our preferences is not authoritarian, it's loving and wise.

For example, I have a phenomenal new assistant, Heather (whom you can ask how she felt about the list).  Today I had to ask her, for the first time, to book a flight for me to Minneapolis.  Now, some leaders would be fine with just saying, "Get me from point A to point B" and be done with it.  However, I do have preferences about my flights.  Since I value time, I prefer direct flights over layovers.  During the winter months, if I have to do a layover, I prefer connecting flights in the south over the north.  Since I have a health issue, I prefer aisle seats.  If the emergency row is available, I prefer that.  Since we live near DC, even though I can fly out of three different airports, I prefer BWI.  Since I get motion sickness, I prefer large planes over puddle jumpers.  And since DC traffic is horrendous during rush hours, I prefer flight times that don't have me driving during rush hour.  Now, I could keep all of those preferences to myself and be frustrated every time she booked a flight that didn't meet one of my preferences.  But, now that she knows (which she prefers), it makes her job infinitely easier.  Letting employees know our preferences (however short or long the list is) is a wise and loving thing to do.  Assuming this is authoritarian is wrong.

So, back to where we started.  To read how some people have made all kinds of wrong assumptions about someone they don't know is probably not the wisest choice to make.  That's why I would always opt for the heart attitude of "Assume the Best Unless Proven Otherwise."  If I'm not mistaken, Jesus said, "A new command i give you, love one another.  As I have loved you so you must love one another.  By this will all men know you are my disciples." To the best of my ability, I will do everything possible to keep this blog positive.