Tag Archives: Leadership

Aaron Perry ~ Self-Consciousness vs Self-Awareness

When I was in my early twenties, I was really good at softball. I could play defense, run reasonably well, and hit for power. I got better because I had a coach, Gordon, who watched me play and gave me pointers. As a result, I positioned myself intentionally at third base depending on the batter. I chose a heavier bat more frequently. I positioned my feet strategically in the batter’s box.

 As life took over, I quit playing softball. Because I missed the atmosphere and the camaraderie, I picked the sport back up in my mid-thirties. Between my early twenties and mid-thirties, however, I got married, added three children, and bought a house. I also lost my softball skills. While I was no longer any good at softball, I thought I could get better. So I took my coach’s spot: I started analyzing my own game and made appropriate adjustments. But the changes didn’t come as quickly as I wanted. I tried harder. I made more changes. Rather than improving, I became rigid. I was too concerned about several minor adjustments and I forgot about playing the actual game for fun.

This difference in experience—exhibited by my early twenties and my mid-thirties softball self—is vital for leaders. It is the difference between self-awareness and self-consciousness. My early softball self was self-aware; my later softball self was self-conscious. Good leadership requires self-awareness: a leader knowing herself by acknowledging her gifts and limits to set herself up for success.

John Maxwell once said something like, “Everyone who is a success found out what they’re good at.” Finding our what you’re good at is the journey of self-awareness, but it can also become the journey of self-consciousness if you become obsessed with looking at yourself. Leaders must be courageous in being self-aware but cautious at becoming self-conscious. Here are some differences between self-consciousness and self-awareness.

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

Self-knowledge is crippling                           

Rigid                                      

Embarrassed by faults

Focused on how others perceive self 

Easily offended/demanding as defense

SELF-AWARENESS

Self-knowledge is actionable

Flexible within limits

Comfortable with self

Aware of gifts that can serve others

Aware of tendencies under pressure

 This is hardly an exhaustive list; more distinctions could be drawn. But I’ll  offer an illuminating character sketch from C.S. Lewis.

“I’ve got to have my rights, see?”

The words come from one of C.S. Lewis’ heaven-touring ghosts in his classic, The Great Divorce. The speaker—a burly sort of brute willing to enforce his will with fists, is quite a strong fellow from an earthly perspective. He seems to have had a management position where he made life difficult for those under his leadership. But his self-affirmation cripples him in heaven. He cannot go on by his own strength, demanding that he get what’s coming to him. The burly ghost is self-conscious, aware of what he wants and what he demands. Yet he is completely lacking in self-awareness. He does not realize that in this new world, a demanding, self-promoting will won’t get him anywhere.

I study leadership from a theological perspective, so when I consider leaders who are self-conscious vs. leaders who are self-aware, I think of the initial story of idolatry. You know the story from the Garden of Eden. When that bit of attention was paid to the initial couple’s own desires and they set those desires above and beyond the desires of the Creator, with disastrous consequences. St Augustine defined virtue as the right ordering of loves. We ought to love persons before things. We ought to love beauty but not before we love God. The person who loves their laptop before they love their child has a misordered love. Captured in that initial story, that little rearranging of the proper order of desires spelled consequences for an entire planet. Self-consciousness emerged as the initial couple realized they were naked and covered themselves. Self-consciousness developed as they hid from God.

Because of this disaster in our collective history, sometimes the prospect of self-assertion strikes fear in the heart of potential would-be leaders. They do not want to repeat that initial sin of misordered love, giving in to their desires; they shrink from full-throated voice, shying away from full-bodied leadership. They can fear a strong sense of self. But this shrinking shyness does not keep us from sin; it is a sign of self-consciousness.

Leaders do not avoid the route of self-consciousness by avoiding the self. The spirits of heaven, for Lewis, are not disavowing, shrinking selves. They are more real than the ghosts. They are glorious beings, full of life. They are true selves. The spirit sent to engage the burly ghost is well aware of his self—his failures, his sins, his weak desires. But rather than demanding his rights, he is able see himself rightly. The point is not to get rid of the self. It is to grow into the proper self. Leaders are not trying to do away with their desires and deny their skills. They are trying to grow them through self-knowledge.

Former counseling professor Dr. Burrell Dinkins once remarked that to play professional football, you need a big ego. Without a big ego, he argues, you’ll get pushed off the field, too easily relinquishing your spot to the next eager competitor. I think there’s a parallel to leadership. Without a sense of self—a properly aware ego—there is no leadership. People do not follow shriveled selves willingly. Having a strong ego need not be hubris. Neurologist David Owen described a twisting of the self after years of success and power as the “hubris syndrome.” Self-awareness is not about inordinate pride, but about developing an appropriate ego. Self-consciousness is an obsession with the self. Self-awareness contributing to an appropriate ego is vital for success. Self-consciousness leads to anxiety.

So how does one develop self-awareness without succumbing to idolatry and the resulting self-consciousness? Though leadership scholar Ron Heifetz writes, “You don’t change by looking in the mirror; you change by encountering differences,” self-awareness can include looking in the mirror. With a nod to the wisdom of James, we look in the mirror not just to remember our appearance. We look to see what needs to change. Self-awareness is about knowing whatis different from us and being appropriately postured to engage it critically. It is about positioning our feet in the batter’s box and picking the right bat to swing. Self-awareness might involve a look in the mirror, but it doesn’t gaze there. Self-consciousness, on the other hand, results after a second, third, fourth look in the mirror. Self-consciousness grows alongside obsession with the mirror. Self-consciousness thinks that what it sees in the mirror is what everyone else sees, too.

Let’s apply some of these reflections. Do you know what your leadership self looks like? When was the last time you paused to do some self-reflection? Or to do some evaluation with a trusted, honest, and courageous friend, colleague, or follower? If you can’t remember what you look like, you might want to take a peek back in the mirror.

On the other hand, spiritual disciplines author Richard Foster once remarked that we need to stop taking our spiritual temperatures so frequently. Likewise with self-awareness. After getting some pointers, I needed to get back to playing softball. I needed to test the hitting hypotheses.

What do you know about yourself right now that could influence your way of acting in the world? Put it to use. Try it out. Make a change. [Don’t get stuck staring into the mirror. Self-conscious leaders will lead organizations into being stuck—afraid to move, crippled because only a perfect action will suffice. Self-aware leaders will position themselves well and help others to do so, as well, free to swing hard, run hard, and enjoy playing.

Featured image is “Passage of the Mirrors” by Maria Helena Vieira da Silva under Fair Use. 1981.

James Petticrew ~ Our Greatest Leadership Challenge of the New Year

In late 2017, I found myself in discussions with an English congregation in Switzerland about their pastoral vacancy; much to my surprise, those discussions were progressing well. After several years of serving parachurch organizations and acting as a consultant, there seemed to be a growing prospect that I would be heading back into local church leadership. It was a daunting prospect. The church near Geneva was full of highly educated people from around the world, including academics, diplomats, business executives, and senior officials in NGOs. There was no doubt in my mind that being their pastor was going to be the biggest challenge of my leadership abilities that perhaps I had ever faced.

Now as 2019 begins, I am the pastor of Westlake Church-Nyon, that English-speaking congregation just outside Geneva. Nyon is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva; it has the Jura Mountains as a backdrop and the majestic Alps dominating the horizon across the lake. It’s a stunningly beautiful place to minister but, as I predicted, I am finding the return to local church leadership a great challenge. However, the biggest challenge any of us face is often ourselves.

I have a book sitting on my desk as I write these words, the title of which now seems either ironic or prophetic. It is called When Leadership and Discipleship Collide and was written by Bill Hybels. In case you have been ministering on Mars for a year, leadership and discipleship did indeed collide in Bill Hybels’ life in a way which has destroyed his reputation, deeply damaged the lives of his victims, terminated the ministries of his successors and shaken to its foundations one of the flagship evangelical congregations in America.   I wish this high-profile pastoral fall from grace was an isolated incident.

Over the last year it feels like high-profile pastors, friends and colleagues in ministry have been falling from their ministries like dominos, one after another. It’s been dispiriting to hear of case after case from the Christian press or through the denominational jungle drums. Their fall has been exclusively the result of sexual misconduct: there’s no other way to put it.

As a pastor, my big question has been how to react beyond the initial moments of unbelief and disappointment when I say to myself, “Who?” “Really?” I haven’t had it in me to join the chorus of condemnation that these things stir up on social media and in hushed conversations at pastors’ get-togethers. Nothing I would say would make most of those involved feel any worse about themselves than they do already and the Holy Spirit does a pretty good job of leading people to repentance without my tuppence’ worth on Facebook. But as all of this has been happening just as I am reentering pastoral ministry in a local church, the whole issue is becoming more personal to me.

Reflecting on these current events, I happened to read Eugene Peterson’s translation of 1 Corinthians 10:11-12. It might have been Peterson’s choice of words, but I heard God’s voice through them:

11-12 These are all warning markers—danger!—in our history books, written down so that we don’t repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel—they at the beginning, we at the end—and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were. Don’t be so naive and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-confidence.

“Don’t be so naive and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else.”

God, as he so often does, put his finger on my soul and pointed out that my reaction toward those who had fallen, to whom I had looked up in ministry and with whom I’d shared ministry, was naïve. I have often thought when hearing of another nose-dive from ministry, “not him?” but underlying that has been a naive attitude that has assumed that it won’t ever be me. The Lord confronted me with a harsh truth: the biggest threat to my ministry is me. I now see that, to use Peterson’s inspired choice of words, I’m “just as capable of messing it up …”

In his book Charis Preston Sprinkle has a great one-liner about King David and Bathsheba: “Within seconds, a man after God’s own heart turns into a man after the woman next door.”Listen, if it can happen to King David, a man after God’s own heart, if it can happen to ___________(insert name of your fallen ministry hero or mentor), if it can happen to ____________ (insert name of your ministry friend or colleague), then it can happen to James Petticrew and it can happen to ___________ (insert your name). I’m not exempt from sexual temptation. Neither are you, my pastor / church leader friend. No matter how close we are to God right now, how good our marriages are, how careful we are with the opposite sex, let’s not be naive enough to believe it can’t happen to us.  I bet David thought that; I bet ___________thought that.

When I was training to be a police officer, an instructor told us that, “you are never more in danger than when you think there is no danger.” I have realized that that is true for me as much as a pastor as it was for me as a police officer.

As the pastor of Westlake, I am indeed facing some tremendous leadership challenges: learning a new church culture, navigating a congregation where people come from different countries, continents and theological traditions, seeking a way forward for us with our unique gifting and setting. Yet by far the biggest leadership challenge I face is the self-leadership challenge: leading myself well.

A couple of years ago I had the privilege of preaching from the pulpit of one of the most influential Scottish pastors of the 19th Century, Robert Murray M’Cheyne. God used Murray M’Cheyne in extraordinary ways to bring spiritual revival to parts of Scotland. The current minister of the Church had a quote from Murray M’Cheyne on the wall of his vestry that now faces me on the wall of my study in Nyon: “The greatest need of my people is my personal holiness.” The people of Westlake Nyon have many needs for which ultimately I bear some responsibility: the need for a good preacher, for clear leadership, for help in discipleship. But their single greatest need is my greatest leadership challenge, my personal holiness.

Samuel Rima says in Leading From the Inside Out, “The way in which a leader conducts his personal life does, in fact, have a profound impact on his ability to exercise effective public leadership. There is a direct correlation between self-leadership and public leadership.” If we don’t lead ourselves well, we can’t lead others well and will probably end up leading no one at all. This issue of self-leadership, this need for personal holiness, is one I want to suggest needs to be at the top of your priority list as we enter this new year.

Over the years I have gained a bit of a reputation for my phobia of making any sort of marks on my books, but I read something once that made such an impact that I broke my usual practice and highlighted it so I could easily find it when I got home. The book was The Next Generation Leader by Andy Stanley. I highlighted a question that Stanley asked. “What small thing in my life right now has the potential to grow into a big thing?”

Thinking about that question, I wondered what would have happened if all those high-profile megachurch pastors and my ministry colleagues who had pastored in relative obscurity had asked themselves that question? If they had just taken the time to look for small problems before they became the big problem that brought them down? I wondered what might happen to me in the future if I don’t answer that question honestly now?  

Maybe I should put Andy Stanley’s question next to Murray M’Cheyne’s quote on my study wall where I can see it every day. Maybe you should too.

Priscilla Hammond ~ Remembering: Weigh Well and Consider

Before people used Enneagram types or extroversion temperaments to describe themselves, personalities were described using ancient medical terms: sanguine, melancholy, phlegmatic, and choleric. Maybe you’ve seen the words used as nouns or used descriptively about a person.

Sanguines are social butterflies. They can carry on a conversation with anyone, anytime. They’ve never met a stranger, because they’re friends as soon as they’ve met. Sanguines love to tell stories, and those stories are usually embellished and may seem to their melancholy listeners to be purposefully exaggerated to make them more exciting. But they aren’t intentionally grandstanding. That’s just how they remember it. The Apostle Peter had a sanguine personality (is there ever a time in the Gospels when he wasn’t talking or in the middle of the action?).

Sometimes we misremember the past – or perhaps put an interpretive lens over it, like the child in a poignant scene of the movie Inside Out, realizing that many of her happy memories were originally sad times that she remembered differently. We often remember things better than they actually were. We want things to be like they were in the “good old days.”

There were times when the disciples probably misremembered their faith like that. Peter probably loved to tell stories remembering the time when Jesus asked them to get a coin out of a fish’s mouth to pay their taxes. Good times, Peter, good times. We laughed and laughed about that one!

The memories weren’t always good, though. There was another time that Peter remembered. Mark recorded it this way: “Immediately a rooster crowed a second time and Peter remembered how Jesus had made the remark to him, ‘Before a rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times.’ And he began to weep.”

The word remember in this verse is the kind of remembering that includes the act of weighing well and considering. This isn’t a remembering a funny story moment. It’s not an embellished telling of the good old days. This is a remembrance of grief; a recollection of shame; a calling to mind the weight of sin.

If we do not consider and weigh well the mistakes that we have made, we cannot learn and grow. In change management studies, this is referred to as double-loop learning. Single-loop learning solves a problem. The problem may recur, but we can alleviate the effects of the problem for now. Double-loop learning seeks the cause of the problem. “Solving problems is important. But if learning is to persist, managers and employees must also look inward. They need to reflect critically on their own behavior, identify the ways they often inadvertently contribute to the organization’s problems, and then change how they act” (Argyris, 1991, p. 100).

In the midst of tragedy, loss, hardship, or violence, practicing double loop learning helps us to remember how we got where we are, how to weigh well the fundamental issues that are preventing change, and how to consider the ways our behavior must change to impact future outcomes.

Often we only think of applying this to ourselves. Like Peter, we weep. Later, as individuals, we must move on. But double-loop learning applies to social ills as well. The sins of the past are being revisited on generations. As a society, we need to weigh well and consider past mistakes we have made. We must look inward and then change our behavior in acknowledgement that our intentional or unintentional acts contribute to the problems that arise.

Lately, flags have been at half-staff more than not. With each tragic event, there is a call to change laws or pursue justice for the individuals lost. That solves an immediate problem, but double-loop learning requires more than weeping and moving on. We need to practice the kind of remembrance that weighs well and considers the power of God to change us and what can happen if we engage with that Power to change the future. Peter remembered more than the good times. He remembered more deeply, weighing his decision in light of Jesus’ prediction. The consideration of his mistakes led to repentance, which allowed him to change his future. Today, we don’t remember Peter as the washout; we remember him as the Rock.

When we look at the tragedy around us, we can practice double-loop learning and weigh well our responsibility for the tragedy as well as our responsibility to effect change. An example is David, who considered and weighed well his shortcomings, and his reflections can help us to see the double-loop learning pattern. Like David (Psalm 30), we dig deeper and seek out our flawed assumptions. When we consider why we do what we do, we can ask God for help and God will heal us. This reflection and healing process led David from despair to gratitude, and can do the same for us. If we then act out of that gratitude, as we give thanks to his holy name, he will show his favor. He can turn our mourning into dancing, gird us with gladness, and return thankfulness to our hearts and minds as we work together to turn this very day into the “good old days” about which we long to tell stories.

 

Reference:

Argyris, C. (1991). Teaching smart people how to learn. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/1991/05/teaching-smart-people-how-to-learn

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ The Courage to Be: Conferencing and the Kingdom of God

While United Methodists spend a great deal of time, money, and energy attempting to shape potential outcomes of the specially called 2019 General Conference in St. Louis, it is quite possible that the conference most potently rocking the Kingdom of God already took place in St. Louis over the summer.

The fate of the United Methodist denomination is not unimportant; but perhaps neither is it as vital as we sometimes think; after all, the connection is only about 50 years old and is only one expression of global Wesleyan Methodism. No, the fate of the universal church does not hang on the continued existence of the United Methodist Church, as I’ve written elsewhere. And on this website, we feature contributors from a variety of Wesleyan Methodist denominations. Certainly, the UMC has value – I mean ecclesial value, not just net worth, which bears pointing out in days when talks of formal separation are occurring.

But the Kingdom of God is far more expansive than any one denomination or tradition.

And one might well wonder if a modest St. Louis conference last July is the first ripple of an expansive, if demanding, movement. The leadership of the Revoice Conference represented several Christian traditions, Protestant and Catholic, Episcopalian. Over 400 people were present, and thankfully, Revoice leaders made plenary and pre-conference sessions available – for free, and thank you for that, conference organizers – on YouTube.

As the official website states, “The annual Revoice Conference is a gathering designed to encourage and support gay, lesbian, same-sex attracted, and other gender or sexual minority Christians who adhere to traditional Christian teaching about gender, marriage, and sexuality. General sessions offer opportunities to worship together with other likeminded Christians, and workshops cover a variety of topics, aiming to encourage and support gender and sexual minorities in their efforts to live faithfully before God. We also offer workshops for straight family members, friends, pastors, and other faith leaders, helping them to understand the challenges that gender and sexual minority Christians face in their faith communities and society at large and equipping them to respond with gospel-centered compassion.”

In our current cultural moment, reaction was swift from all different directions; critiques were levied at organizers, either because they were promoting celibacy, or because they chose to use phrases like “gay Christian.” In this sense, rhetorically they couldn’t win. In another sense, when one watches the plenary sessions, it’s clear that in a deep, profound, cosmic sense, they couldn’t lose. Such is the nature of chosen sacrifice. At the time, Twitter went into overdrive, and allies cropped up in figures like Southern Baptist professor and writer Karen Swallow Prior, who, despite having recently been hit by a bus – by a bus – took to the organizers’ defense.

After watching the three general sessions, here’s what I came away with:

Humility. The sweet spirit and bold courage of each presenter was evident. Each had the courage to be…well, to be. To be themselves, in their own skin, with their own stories, in the context of a great and loving God of transformation. I was humbled, watching these siblings in Christ who knew critics of all stripes were ready and waiting to dismantle their very personal testimonies and communal convictions.

Deep sadness. The conference was organized wisely around three hubs: praise, lament, and hope. This ordering makes sense, I think, for participants. For viewers who are straight, I think I’d recommend watching in the order of hope, praise, and lament: we need to sit a while with lament and not hurry through it. I was grieved, and I think you will be too, as I listened to testimony of lament – and it is powerful testimony.

Hope. Not everyone will agree with the theological beliefs that ground this conference. But I was encouraged to see that in a cultural moment where so much seems defined by polar opposition, here something grows that is unique, different, and beautiful. It does not particularly fit one mold, because it seeks to follow Christ as best it knows how, and following Christ means you simply can’t be pigeonholed.

Much of the work of this conference is based on the thinking and writing of New Testament scholar and Anglican celibate gay Christian Dr. Wesley Hill, who has authored a couple of books on the subject and has a website here. His excellent discussion topics frequently have the sting of intellectually honest analysis; he has a high view of scripture; he believes in the great tradition of the church; he has experienced mistreatment from within the church. There is a great deal here that will strike to the heart either of progressive or conservative readers.

The Spiritual Friendship website, which features multiple contributors, gives space for ongoing discussion about Christian community, friendship that is robust or even as I would describe it (I don’t know if he would) covenantal, service, and hospitality. Because as unique as this venture may sound to 21st century Western ears, in fact, there is a rich tradition of Christians choosing to live celibate lives and to serve others and the church through that. So too are there meaningful examples throughout Scripture and church history of deep friendships that sustain us in our need for human relationship.

What the Revoice Conference has given us, in part, is a potent call to receive the leadership of this ecumenical group of Christians who are wrestling through theology, philosophy, Scripture, and tradition as they exercise the courage to be. For a long time, straight Christians have spoken to topics of human sexuality. We are not in the wrong to do so. However, through gatherings like Revoice, the Holy Spirit is asking us if we are ready to listen and learn from the spiritual depth of our Christian siblings who are leading intentional, deliberate, and sacrificial lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvEUnnA8nFo

 

Note from the Editor: The featured image is part of a work of art entitled, “A Friend of Solitary Trees” by Shitao, dated 1698.

Kevin Watson ~ On Pragmatism, Integrity, and Faith

The Rev. Dr. Kevin M. Watson delivers his sermon in the William R. Cannon Chapel at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 18, 2018.

Candler School of Theology “prepares real people to make a real difference in the real world. Our mission is to educate—through scholarship, teaching, and service—faithful and creative leaders for the church’s ministries throughout the world. One of 13 seminaries of The United Methodist Church, we are grounded in the Christian faith and shaped by the Wesleyan tradition of evangelical piety, ecumenical openness and social concern.”

Andy Stoddard ~ Preaching for the Long Haul: How to Find Your Voice

My first appointment out of seminary was the hardest appointment that I’ve ever had.  It wasn’t because the people were hard to pastor: they were some of the sweetest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of serving.  It wasn’t because the church was located in a bad place: it was out in the country, a beautiful church and beautiful parsonage.  It wasn’t because the pastor I followed was troublesome: in fact, he became and remains one of my closest friends.

It was because I had not yet found my preaching voice.  I, like most United Methodist preachers, took homiletics – preaching – in seminary.  It was perfectly fine.  I did fine in it.  My lack of voice wasn’t the fault of my seminary education. It’s just that I did not know who I was in the pulpit.

The churches I served during my seminary years were wonderful, they loved me and I loved them.  But my great responsibility there was pastoral care.  In this appointment, I had to preach.  The people there expected a good sermon.  And my friend whom I followed is the best pulpit preacher in the Mississippi Annual Conference.

At that point, young in my ministry – and I’m not being falsely humble – I was not a gifted preacher.  It wasn’t because I didn’t try: I did.  It wasn’t because I wasn’t praying: I spent hours praying over each message.  It wasn’t because I didn’t care: I worried about every word I would say.

I wasn’t lazy.  I wasn’t unspiritual.  I wasn’t uncaring. I just couldn’t preach.

So what did I do?  I kept at it.  I listened to sermons of those I admired.  I read books.  I prayed.  I worked.  I tried things.  I experimented.  I got loud. I got quiet.  I got high church. I got low church.  I followed the lectionary. I preached through books of the Bible. I created themes.  I did everything I could think of until one day I found it.

I found my voice.

My voice is this:

I love humor.  I love CS Lewis. I love personal experience.  I am transparent, but I do not treat the sermon like the therapist’s couch.  I wander around, I don’t stay behind the pulpit.  I preach without notes, but my sermon is not memorized: I say it is internalized.  I really love Jesus, and I want you to as well.  I believe in hell, but I’m not a hellfire preacher – Romans 2:4 says that we are driven to repentance by the kindness of Christ.  I believe in transformation. I believe in grace.  I believe that when the word is proclaimed, each time lives can be changed.

I found my voice.  I have never departed from it.  My wardrobe has changed; I’ve preached in suits, robes, and blue jeans.  Many things have changed about my ministry.  But what hasn’t is my voice.

How did I find it?  How do I keep it?

First, I do my very best to be authentic.  I don’t have a preacher voice and a real voice: I have my voice.  I try to preach like I talk.  I am just me. I like Marvel. I like Star Wars.  I talk about them in my sermons. I try to just be a normal person who loves Jesus and loves people.  I am unafraid to talk about what is really going on my life, while not airing my dirty laundry.  I am simply Andy Stoddard and I try to preach while remaining who I am.

Second, I know that I am imperfect, and I am not afraid to try to get better. I talk too fast.  I always have, probably always will. I work on it.  I try hard not to.  But when I get excited and start “hollering” (what my music minister calls it) sometimes I speed up.  I know it and I work on it.  The hardest thing for a preacher to hear sometimes about a message is criticism.  It’s hard for me to hear, but I need it.  I want people to know Jesus, and I know that the sermon is a great tool in that, so I want to know where I can get better.  I want to know where I can improve. I don’t always like it, but I need it.

Third, I follow a plan. Sometimes it is the lectionary, but not always, and not normally.  We’ve just finished eight weeks in Philippians at St. Matthew’s.  We are entering into a series on fear and commitment now.  Next month we’ll be in the lectionary and will stay with it through Advent.  What I do not do is just pick a passage of scripture at the last minute. I pray about where my flock is at this moment. Where am I at this moment?  I talk with my associate pastors: what do they think?  What feedback do they have?  And then I plan at least a month out what we will preach on.

Fourth, I know my people.  Preaching is an act of pastoral care.  For me to properly share the word with my people, I must know them and love them.  They must know that I love them.  I am their shepherd.  Preaching flows from my love of God and my love of my people.  What do they need to hear to grow?  Sometimes it’s encouragement.  Sometimes it’s a kick in the pants.  But it always comes down to what I feel they need to hear.  My pastoral heart guides my preaching.  My people know I love them and because of that, they are more likely to listen to what God wants to say through me.

Last, I say what Jesus wants me to say.  The scariest as well as the most exciting moment of ministry is when you get up to preach on Sunday and the Lord says nope, you’re not preaching that.  In fact, you are preaching this right here. That has only happened to me about four or five times in twenty years of ministry, when God has upended my preaching.  Even though it cuts against the grain of what I do, I always follow in those moments, because my preaching is not about me or what I want to say.  One of my professors in seminary used to say that the preacher needs to be able to say, “thus sayeth the Lord,” knowing they are saying what God wants, not what they want.  That is my mission each week in the pulpit.  What does God want me to say?  Will I say it?  That’s my job.

In the end, I’m an adequate preacher.  There are folks worse than me and there are many, many, many who are better than me.  I have worked hard at this calling, though. The best words about preaching were said by Dr. Harold Bryson, Professor of Homiletics at Mississippi College: “Prepare like it depends upon you.  Preach knowing it depends upon God.”  I’ve tried to do that within my ministry and I believe it is key for all of us preachers.  Let’s do our job.  But we know that the harvest, the revival, is God’s.

Also, take heart! If God can speak through Balaam’s donkey, God can speak through any of us!

Wesleyan Accent ~ Tune In: New Room Livestream

This week, on your lunch break or between meetings, while you’re folding laundry or recuperating from surgery, the must-see experience is the New Room livestream:

A couple of times, Wesleyan Accent has reviewed this conference that’s only a few years old, with reflections like this, from At Your Table: New Room Deconstructed:

“If you really want to see something odd, attend a gathering where people apologize to each other for things that were said or done years ago. When that happens, you know the Holy Spirit is teasing out the deep places of peoples’ souls. At that moment, pastors and laypeople are willing to lay aside the desire to be perceived as in the right.”

The next year, “I saw scholars, professors, pastors, worship leaders lying flat, face down on the ground in prayer. A prayer and worship service that was scheduled to be 90 minutes long went on for three and a half hours. It didn’t feel that long.”

This year, the schedule of speakers promises to be more representative and diverse than ever. We hope you’ll tune in.

Don’t Miss She Leads: Church Together

This November, She Leads will be held at Pasadena First Church of the Nazarene and broadcast to multiple regional locations. The gathering is a Missio Alliance event, with multiple sponsors and stakeholders from a variety of denominations and traditions. This year’s theme is represented in a stark but hopeful visual: the words church too melded into church together. 

As the website states,

The world has an old, painful story about men and women. This year the #metoo moment brought to light some of the most disturbing parts of the story and the #churchtoo moment forced us to confront how much the brokenness of the world has entered the Church. This broken story is deeply painful on a personal and communal level.

It’s easy to believe we’ll never overcome the brokenness.

But this is not how God sees our story.

It’s time to name and lament how the world’s story has limited the Church’s imagination.

And it’s also time to tell a better story. God is weaving a restoration project in us as individuals and as a body. It will give us a better story to tell the world.

It’s not the first year for She Leads, even if it’s the first year you’re hearing about the one-day conference. (You can listen to a panel segment from 2016 here or a talk by Carolyn Custis James here. Past speakers include Rev. Jo Saxton, author Nancy Ortberg, General Superintendent Emerita of The Wesleyan Church Dr. Jo Anne Lyon, Bishop Todd Hunter, Professor Janette Ok, and Rev. Tish Harrison Warren. This year, speakers include Rev. Tara Beth Leach, Dr. Mark Labberton, and Rev. Ines Velasquez-McBryde.

Though many of the speakers are different, The Junia Project‘s 5 Reasons You Don’t Want to Miss #SheLeads are much the same, especially “connecting with likeminded women and men in your area.” At the same time, the urgency for this kind of gathering is felt in reading reflections like this one – What One Small Church Plant Learned from She Leads.

Registration is currently open for attendance in Pasadena or at one of the regional gatherings, and student discounts are available. There are still opportunities to be a regional host or to host a viewing party, as well. Click here to learn more about being a regional venue.

For more resources on women in ministry visit Missio Alliance, The Junia Project, Sacred Alliance, and CBE International.