Kyle's Random

I’m planning for 2010 to be the most disciplined year of my life so far. Rather than planning for big ministry or family breakthroughs, I’m going to commit to daily and weekly disciplines that I believe will pave the way for those other things to happen too. This isn’t a new thing for me, but this year I’m branching out to include some new areas.

To aid me in this process, I’ve documented each of my 11 goals (for accountability). For the first time, I’m also going to journal my food intake and try to lose 10 lbs with the aid of an awesome free website called DailyBurn.

You can see a few of my resolutions below as well as the main screen from DailyBurn running on my iPhone.

What about you? Have you set any goals for 2010? If so, I’d love to hear about it.

Prior to coming to Knoxville a year ago, I spent two years as a Campus Pastor at a second campus of my church. It was a great experience, God opened all of our eyes to new ways of doing church, and I built some lifelong friends, but we didn’t see a lot of growth or people coming to Christ.  It was a time of enormous sowing, but very little reaping.

In some ways, things did not go the way we hoped and dreamed.  It caused me to question my ability to lead and my capacity in ministry, and I began to work through my insecurities to rediscover that my personal worth has nothing to do with my performance. Through Christ, I have worth.  I don’t have to spend my life trying to prove myself.

Now, a year later, I’ve found myself in the totally opposite situation. Things are going well. We’ve launched a new website, an Internet Campus, and done a bunch of other cool projects this year. The list of accomplishments is impressive, and people’s lives are being impacted each week through new initiatives.

Now that things are different, who gets the credit?

God, please protect me from my pride.  Show me how to give you the credit and glory – for it all belongs to you.

If you’ve never read any articles or books by Andy Stanley, you’re really missing out.  When it comes to communicating leadership principles, the guy is a genius.  To see what I’m talking about, just read this short quote from an article in Leadership Magazine.  It’s brilliant.

It took me several years to figure this out. As a young leader I was tormented by the assumption that I should know what to do in every situation. If I were a good leader, I would reason, I would know exactly what to do. After all, I am the leader! Leaders are supposed to be able to stand up at any given moment and give direction with absolute certainty. Or so I thought.

Time and experience have taught me differently. There will be very few occasions when you are absolutely certain about anything. You will consistently be called upon to make decisions with limited information. That being the case, your goal should not be to eliminate uncertainty. Instead, you must develop the art of being clear in the face of uncertainty. The art of clarity involves giving explicit and precise direction in spite of limited information and unpredictable outcomes.

I just read a great article about church innovation.  It was a Q & A with Bobby Gruenewald at LifeChurch.tv.  I found two comments in particular to be very interesting, and I wanted to share them here:

Some are saying that online social networking and virtual sites… may actually be harming genuine community.  What do you think?

A lot of people are predicting what consequences online community is going to have.  But that happens with every new technology.  When the telephone was new in the early 20th century, there were bold predictions that it would negatively impact how people interact.  But very few of those predictions came true.

With technology and culture changing so rapidly, how can a church keep pace?

Some organizations take three to five years to change, so to keep pace they would have to predict what things will look like years from now and begin making adjustments now.  That’s really inefficient.  The alternative is to be an adaptive organization and nimble enough to adjust within a few months to what’s actually happening.

“The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating – in work, in play, in love.  The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation.  To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.”

- Anne Morriss,  A Starbucks customer from New York City.
(From “The Way I See It – #76)

Disclaimer: heavy sarcasm ahead.  In case you missed the first post in this series, you’ll want to start there.

Antiaxiom #5: Hide your weaknesses.

Never be transparent.  The only reason people want to know about the hurt and broken places inside of you is so that they can use those things against you.  Because of that, you must hide these things at all cost.

Yes, this means that you must sometimes lie to protect yourself.  Make sure that no one knows how often you have no idea what you’re doing.  Otherwise, you’ll be taken captive by your naive trust in others.

Disclaimer: heavy sarcasm ahead.  In case you missed the first post in this series, you’ll want to start there.

Antiaxiom #4: Teamwork is overrated.

People are always talking about “teams” these days, but honestly teamwork is overrated.  Instead of worrying about that, work on developing a good poker face.  Always keep the people around you guessing what you will do next.  It creates control.  Control might not be leadership, but it is power.  Giving teamwork the beatdown also gives you the opportunity to take the credit when things go right and pass the blame when things go wrong.

Disclaimer: heavy sarcasm ahead.  In case you missed the first post in this series, you’ll want to start there.

Antiaxiom #3: Ministry is a Job

As much as you may feel called by God, you have to remember that ministry is a job.  It’s something that can be taken from you, if you make enough people unhappy.  Because of that, you’ve got to know how to play cards.  You can be passionate on occasion, but don’t bug people, or you may lose your job.

Disclaimer: heavy sarcasm ahead.  In case you missed the first post in this series, you’ll want to start there.

Antiaxiom #2:  Don’t Rock the Boat

Play it safe.  Don’t stand out from the crowd.  People who try to beat the system just end up getting hurt.  Instead, look to see what everyone is doing, and fall in line.  You may try to improve on it, but don’t overhaul it.  Don’t get dangerous or risky, or someone might think you’ve lost your mind.

Over the past few years I’ve had the opportunity to lead in different capacities, as a father, a husband, a manager, and a pastor.  What I’ve learned is that I’m weak and frail.  At times, I can give in to what is easy or comfortable rather than what is best.  To keep myself in check, I started compiling some of my thoughts on paper.

Back in August, I was inspired by Bill Hybel’s excellent talk on leadership axioms at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.  Prompted by his brilliance, I began to classify some of my thoughts into “antiaxioms.”  The result was a completely sarcastic recipe for leadership.  I will be sharing these over the next few posts, and I hope that others will find them as helpful as I have, even though they’re painful to read.

Antiaxiom #1: Avoid Decisions at all Cost

Avoiding decisions is one of the most important aspects of misleadership because decisions can lead to actions, and actions lead to change.  Always remember that few things are as painful as change.  It throws off our equilibrium and gets us out of our ruts.  It disturbs the normalcy of life.

Besides that, there is always the chance that the change will end up negative.  What if we accidentally make a mistake and end up worse off than we were before?

I always say that it’s better not to try at all than to try and come away looking like a fool.  In the words of Tolkien’s Treebeard, “Do not be hasty, that is my motto.”