Lead Well

Over the last several weeks we’ve explored four major problems with the church and what we should do about them . After digging into these issues, we’re left with the question, “Is this even possible?” The answer is yes, but getting there may be harder than we’d like to think. In Good to Great by Jim Collins, the author,  introduces the Stockdale Paradox. To better explain this paradox, I would like to quote the story told on pages 83-85 of the book. “Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was the highest-ranking United States military officer in the “Hanoi Hilton” prisoner of war camp during the height of the Vietnam War. Tortured over twenty times during his eight-year imprisonment from 1965 to 1973, Stockdale lived out the war without any prisoner’s rights, no set release date, and no certainty as to whether he would even survive to see his family again. He shouldered the burden of command, doing everything he could to create conditions that would increase the number of prisone...

When I was kid, I thought I was the best at Karate. I thought I could beat anyone up with a couple kicks and karate chops, and they’d be done for. Granted, I was 4, and my skills were learned from watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Here’s the questions though, “Have you ever thought you were really great at something just to discover that you really were not? We don’t like to admit it, but it happens to all of us. In our lives, our jobs, and our ministries, there are problems that we don’t see. We put on blinders, and simply refuse to see what’s happening all around us. Unfortunately, it can become a lot like this guy: He’s obviously bad. I can only hope that someone has told him that he can’t sing. He may have even had a Simon moment, but that didn’t deter him. He was blind to his own shortcomings and refused to listen to his critics. What this guy needs is what Thom Rainer calls in Breakout Churches an ABC moment. A wareness, B elief and C risis ...