Friday, May 08, 2009

Profound Leadership Day

What a great leadership day...full of wisdom. It began with MC "Envelope Moments" with Jeanne. Won't share why, but this is a special day each year. Her message was golden. The notes are below, but my favorite line was "Your gift-set will be ready for ministry long before your character, your endurance, your wisdom, or maturity will be."

Then after a little afternoon work, it was off to a post-NYLC meeting with Mike, an incredible man of God, full of wisdom regarding business and Jesus ... then dinner with some of the NYLC team ... then sat in on the MC meeting with Mike where he shares his wealth of experience whenever he's in town.

Leadership Nuggets from Jeanne, the queen herself, this morning...

  • An envelope moment is when you feel another person or circumstance are in control of your life and you feel powerless regarding the outcome
  • A loss of relationship with the Lord isn’t sudden, it is a slow process that goes bit by bit
    Most of the time it will be, “wow, feels like a curveball hit my face”
  • It takes more faith to have a right response and trust God when circumstances don’t go as planned than to go along merrily when they go as planned
  • People and circumstance will make or cause countless decisions that will cause pain in your life
  • Never confuse man’s decisions with God’s directive
  • Unforgiveness is like drinking a poison and expecting someone else will die
  • You need to get nervous when the coaches in your life get quiet
  • The degree to which you are able to trust God with heavy envelope moments is parallel to the degree of anointing on your life
  • A goal of “finishing well” may not be impressive to people, but is to God
  • Do not focus on the why of the envelope, but rather on the what
    Not, “Why Lord did You do this?”
    You probably won’t ever really figure out the why
    Say, “Lord what can You do with this in my life?”
  • Success in life comes not from holding a good hand but playing a tough hand well
  • Never let a good crisis go to waste
  • Faith doesn’t mean its always going to be pretty
  • Never doubt that ultimately God is bigger than any envelope in your life…SO much bigger
  • Plan B can become plan A when envelope moments occur if your spirit and heart are right
  • The Father heart of God wants to take care of you when you go through hard things
    During those envelope moments, refuse to give in to the narcotic of self-pity
  • Be above society and don’t get the victim mentality
  • All of life really is suck it up, because if you don’t suck it up, it will eventually suck you up
  • Many people build their identity off of what people did wrong to them
  • Compassion is the adrenaline for acts of mercy
  • Self-pity is a narcotic that leaves its addicts wasted and alone
  • SELF – Satan’s Exact Location Forever
  • There is a difference between compassion and picking up another persons offense
  • Finish the race with the wind in your face
  • The object is not getting over the finish line, the object is getting over the finish line with a spiritual passion and the fire still burning in your heart (illus. olympic marathon athletes in old days)
  • A double minded man is unstable in ALL his ways
  • Your gift-set will be ready for ministry long before your character, your endurance, your wisdom, or maturity will be.
  • Don’t turn a deaf ear to the messages when you say you want coaches in your life
  • Don’t be too quick to be done or you will forfeit all who you could be
  • In God’s economy no sin is worse, the problem is some sins cost more
  • Story of boy opening the cocoon too early to see the butterfly but the butterfly wasn’t fully formed and developed so it ended up crippled and couldn’t fly
    All the other kids had their experiments done and all that was left was his
    He saw the rip and made it bigger
    The boy didn’t want the caterpillar to strain and work an go through this hard ordeal so he snipped it to make it easier, it seemed better at first and the butterfly had come out, but really it wasn’t done growing
    Relate to this
    The only thing that gave the butterfly the strength in its wings to gain the altitude was the struggle
    Only through difficult times do your wings ever find the strength to fly
    If you want to be real good you won’t take your wings until you are saying to people around you and say, “Am I really ready for this?”

Leadership nuggets from our amazing board Mike (caught without a pen on this one...stink!). Three memorable ones...

  • Come September, after the summer, will the team come back stronger or weaker? Will you be stronger on September 1, than you were on June 1? Challenge, spiritually what are you going to do over the summer to get better? It was meant as a challenge to the students, but because of some staff changes, I'm owning it for myself. We are going to the team approach for teaching our MC clasesses and I'm on the rotation. Game on. I'm pretty excited to get back behind the music stand on a more consistent basis.
  • Some are given the vision, while others are given the provision (for the vision). I think there is a sermon in there ... "pro" vision ... "for" vision.
  • Some of you think because circumstance changed, that God changed His mind.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

That's one for the books

Aaron Hill, one of our MC students, let me rip off his notes from the Leadership Lessons that Jeanne taught a couple of days ago. In it was a quote from another MC student, Adrian Taylor. I thought it was a pretty profound leadership one. In my paraphrase, it was "when the coach goes quiet, that's when you should worry."

Here are some of the other notes Aaron took (they're kind of random, but some real golden nuggets in there):

Give the why behind the what
Don’t let there be negative perceptions of the people
Don’t freak out but have faith and wisdom in finances
Use the situation to make everyone better
Start out saying that’s its all going to be all ok then go to the worst then to the least worst
Don’t do it when it's convenient to you
If you treat people right, God will treat you right
Bring the info. In a clear tangible way
Set your people up for success and failure.
Live a life with Jesus and integrity and go above and beyond.
Present a solution with a problem
There is a God outside of Master's Commission
Many ministries mean well but the picture they give is that if they aren't with them they wont be ok
Don’t make people feel less or stupid
You may feel the pressure but don’t show it
The Lord lets you learn how to do the small stuff then you can build to the heavy stuff
Each year get a little better
A great leader assesses a situation then takes care of it.
Masters will take care of the church because without the church there is no Masters
A good leader looks into the future to see what the enemy could use as grounds.
Bring the news, but mentor as well. Show how to present it as a good leader.
Make the meetings comfortable. Have a voice tone that this is important but you're not in trouble.
To get respect you give respect
Always give a strong finish
You impact others around you by the attitude you have
God's plan for your life is bigger than the mistakes of men.
Deal with it, feel it and go on. God is bigger than the mistakes that the executive team can make.
We are more rewarded now because we handled things well
Don’t pace yourself by other people give your personal best!
It gives more hope when a leader can say that they get worried
Every good leader knows first they've got to sort things out in their own head before they make everyone else ok
The longer you walk with Christ the less faith it takes to have faith.
The more you walk with God the more faith you will have because you have seen God come through so many times.
Answer questions before people have them
When I'm yelling you're ok but when I stop talking then you should worry.
Character will always out weigh charisma
Churches normally applaud charisma not character
Security is built by a loving mom and dad and you
All wise parents know there has to be disciplines. That gives your children security.
Don’t judge others unless you are judged
Live a life that is not perfect but is so Christ like it is tough to disrespect you.
Remember Jesus Christ is inside of you watching and listening to the media you listen or watch

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

May they remember

Just came out of a 2 1/2 hour meeting and watched my hero/mentor "do her thing" masterfully. She is a brilliant communicator, leader and wife to her hubby. The meeting was full of teaching moments ... and I mean FULL of them. Having lived a lot of them, the only words that kept going through my head are "that's good"..."that's real good." Unfortunately most of the MC students haven't lived them to know their true value. My prayer is that when they are in the midst of the twists and turns of life, they will remember.

Friday, May 01, 2009

Marking Moments

Walking through marking moments in life with young men and women hungry to hear from Jesus has to be one of the greatest privileges in life ... those marking moments are some of the sweetest and, sometimes, the most painful.