Vulnerability: liable to increased penalties but

Pain and suffering and discomfort and sacrifice is so countercultural.

Three fears that keep us from being vulnerable – Naked Service:

1. Fear of Losing the Business (of being rejected)
• Enter the danger
• Speak the kind truth – terminal niceness in churches
• You will not always get rewarded for it
2. Fear of Being Embarrassed
• We have to ask questions and make suggestions
• Trust comes from helping them even if makes you look dumb
• Celebrate our mistakes
3. Fear of Feeling Inferior
• When we take a lower position – we do the dirty work
• Genuine desire to serve you
• Honoring your clients work – be so interested in them

We are called to vulnerable because the one who called us was the most vulnerable and humble of them all.

Five reasons for cultivating humility in your personal life and dealings:

1. Humility is common-sense
   • None of us is an expert on everything
   • Expertise in one area counts for little in another
2. Humility is beautiful
   • We are more attracted to the great and humble than the great who know it too
   • A humility revolution took place in the middle of the first century under the teachings of Jesus.
   • Western culture has been profoundly shaped by the cross of Christ…the cross changed everything.
3. Humility is generative
   • It generates new knowledge, and new abilities
   • Humble place is the place of learning
   • It’s flourishing
4. Humility is persuasive
   • Ethos – the character of the persuader
   • The most believable person in the world is the one who has your best interest at heart
5. Humility is inspiring
   • Leaders normally have four tools (ability, authority, character, persuasion)
   • Some of the most inspiring leaders in history had no authority, but character and persuasion
   • You don’t need the keys to the kingdom to impact the kingdom

Humility is not just another leadership technique, but the humble life is a life in touch with reality.

Wherever you are, God has called you to be a steward over a vision, for the specific reason for changing something. Are you going to allow “This Guy” to stop your vision, robs your joy, and could have the power to stop an entire mission.

What does a person do when the truth comes to them? What is reality?

Feedback is not easy to hear sometimes. But sometimes the feedback is not so good either.

If you are a kind and responsible leader, you take feedback and adjust. And you think other people are like you, but they are not. You cannot deal with every person you lead the same; recognize who you are talking to.

Bible says there are three types of people (we actually have all of these in us):

Wise

• Light -> Adjusts themselves
• Truth -> Change
• When confronted you get smile, a thank you
• Strategies
  • Talk
  • Coach
  • Resource them
• Challenges
  • Make sure they are a match for what you need
  • Good feedback and coaching
  • Keep them challenged appropriately

Fools

• They may be the brightest, gifted
• Light -> adjust the light
• Truth -> change the truth
• Shoot the messenger
• When confronted they are not happy and get angry and triangulate
• They do not own it, generate hopelessness
• Strategies
  • Stop talking
  • Limit my exposure
  • What will we do if I do it and we don’t get results – consequences
  • Fools change when they live in the structure and reality
• Challenges
  • Limit exposure
  • Make consequences clear
  • Give a choice
  • Follow through

Evil

• Destruction is in their hearts
• Want to inflict pain
• Strategies
  • Lawyers
  • Guns
  • Money

What if we were called to work that didn’t grow and succeed. Can we confront the suddenly addictive narcotic of growth and success.

Ethiopia

• Under communism the church was forced underground, pastors beaten and thrown into prison
• during the oppression the church grew five fold

Egypt

• Stephen’s Children – food and care for children of the garbage dumps of Cairo
• We don’t choose where to be born, but we do choose to be sinners or saint

Forgiveness is between you and God.

Among the poor the Creator is hidden, there is mystery.

Have a pure heart and get to know the Almighty.

Our secrets in silence:

Silent your body to listen to words

Silent your togne to listen to your thoughts

Silent your thought to listen to your heart beating

Silent your heart to listen to your spirit

Silent your spirit to listen to His spirit.

In silence you leave many to be with the One.

Jeremiah

As a young man, Jeremiah is called to speak to God’s people, warning them if they didn’t change, they would be taken over by another force.

The people did not respond, Jeremiah failed and the people are overrun.

Our world is broken and getting worse. The fixes will not be easy or short-term. God is looking for strong-shouldered leaders who will be available.

There’s something wrong in the community you live in, and you can take some of your leadership and take that tough calling.

Audacious Faith: being in God to do the impossible.

2 Kings 3:9-20 – Elisha dripping with Awesome Sauce

We can position ourselves and get great training…but only God can make it rain. After we’ve done all we can do, we need God to intervene.

If all you have is a few good ideas doesn’t make you a visionary, it makes you a day dreamer.

Ask God to give you the faith to get started.

If you want to see the land filled with water…dig some ditch. By being here we are preparing for God to work.

Audacity has a lot of ambiguity to it. We get frustrated because we compare our behind-the-scenes to somebody’s highlight reel.

If you will dig the ditches, God will send the rain.

Don’t just dig a little ditch, but make this valley full of ditches.

Someone here today will change everything.

The notion that we can promote from a position of power…the TV-industrial complex:

Buy TV->Get more distribution->Sell More Products

Ends up with average products for average people – mass is built into our system.

Revolution is occurring destroying the perfect, enabling the impossible. Industrial age is over, replaced by tribes who surround ideas or common bond.

People still want to be in sync, we want to do what “our people” are doing.

Tribes need leaders who will connect, commit, build a culture and be clear about where we’re going.

Is it your opportunity?

What’s changed in the last five years is the laptop…the means of production. Everybody has their hands on the world.

Is this the end of job? The rise of the artist. In the post-industrial age we have the change to do things differently. But there is no map.

Quit bowling…if you’re playing by the rules…don’t expect people are going to talk about you or stop and visit. Pick yourself…if you want to write, write…if you want to sing, sing!

If failure is not an option, then neither is success.

Give gifts not favors. Too many people are holding on to something while it rots.

Go Make something happen. Make art, give gifts, do work that matters, lead.

We need you to lead us.

Has the technology and events spurred us to engaging the globe, or do we retreat?

Our mission: we become witnesses of the Gospel and take the Good News across cultural thresholds…be the leaders to break through the “sound barriers”:

1. Jerusalem – comfort zone, speak truth to power and confront those people in our own family. Take on the policies and traditions that are uninclusive.
2. Judea – differences in political parties, denominations, generations
3. Samaria – we avoid like the plague, it takes a spirit-filled leader to go to Samaria…they need to move them beyond their natural affinities

From the beginning the church was intended to be a global movement.

Are you ready to break through your sound barrier?

1. Pray for a divine mandate – what’s breaking your heart, God?
2. Name your catalytic events
3. Mobilize People to Go!

Where is your Samaria…that’s where Jesus is calling us to go!

Lessons I’ve learned from my parents; a story about standing up for something.

You will always face outrageous adversaries; before you can stand tall you must realize that you were born out of radical love and action. A grand conspiracy of love.

What will you do? There are forces that will try to crush you and worse lull and seduce you into mediocrity.

We are the result of people who did not see the world they way others saw it; they had extraordinary vision and the courage of doing something about it. Your attitude about the world speaks to your character.

The world you see outside of you is a reflection inside of you. If you see despair and destruction that’s what’s in your heart and you’ll be worthless, but if you see hope and love then you can do something.

If it is to be…it’s up to me.

Show me first of how you choose to live…about your values, ideals, thought put into action. Infuse truth in that moment.

In every moment you can let life be, or infuse life with truth.

Let us know, stand up. Let us stand and tell our truth.

1. Find out who your customers are
2. Find out what they want
3. Give it to them

Organizational change: here to there. Be very clear about aspects of “here” that are unacceptable, before you start articulating about “there”.

Entrepreneurship has the power to go a long way for providing for a full life.

When we look at the behavior of successful serial entrepreneurs over time, it turns out that they:

• Have a low appetite for risk
• They spread risk around
• They start out without a big vision
• Distrust projections and studies that forecast the future
• Do create new businesses but not necessary original

Go to war with your business model and reinvent yourself 3 to 5 times in your career

Drucker – Entrepreneurship is a discipline that can be learned

Understand the natural limitations of what we have learned: cost and effect, predictability.

Paralysis – risk-measurable and uncertainty-subjective If you can’t predict the future, create it. Creation-oriented action.

Understand that in the face of unknowability, the only logical thing is to act.

- Take small steps, not big leaps

1. What do you really care about?
2. Pay only what you can afford or want to?
3. Then act…sell or enroll people
4. What keeps people from doing this? Worrying about what you want to do, instead worry about what you want to do next.
5. Fear of failure stops us from acting
   1. failure rate of professional venture capitalist is 60%
   2. If things turn out different, you’ve just learned something that others don’t know

With action trumping everything, you get more times at bat, more chances to win

Five Critical Questions

1. What’s your challenge level at work?

Dangerously over challenged
Appropriately challenged
Under challenged

Best work…just above appropriately challenged.

If you don’t challenge more – your gifts will atrophy.
If you stay above dangerous – you will break down.
If I live in crazy land I set a bad example

The discipline of replenishment…fill the bucket

Do this test in your departments. Save people who are overchallenged…keep people who are under-challenged.

Your organization can be over-revved or get sleepy. Do the challenge test.

2. What is your plan for dealing with challenging people in organization?

The line exercise: if we lost 50% of our revenue…put people in the order of keeping them or saying goodbye first.

These are not bad people, just people at the end of the line
• Do they carry their weight
• Underperforming
• Off mission
• No longer fit

Key to future is unquestionably tied to the ability to attract and retain fantastic people, and dealing with people at the end of the line

Leading difficult people:
• Fantastic Fred – bad attitude, how much time will you allow Fred to spread his poison (30 days)
• Underperformers – not carrying their weight (3 months) – multiple reasons
• Growth of organization requires someone with greater capacity to perform role – talent elasticity (6-12 months)
If you don’t deal with difficult people, you discourage high performers
Best Christian workplace – build a better culture – engagement survey

3. Are you naming facing and resolving the problems that exist in your organization?

Why can’t we call problems problems? We come from a legacy of leaders who courageously solve problems.

Life cycle diagram – every initative/program has a life cycle:

Accelerating -> Booming -> Decelerating -> Tanking

We are going to address these problems (decelerating) restoration teams with new ideas, fresh thinking

4. When was the last time that you reexamined the core of what your organization is all about?

Are we clear about our core? Churches are in the life-transformation business.
5 words – central message of Christianity
1. Love
2. Evil
3. Rescue
4. Choice
5. Restore

5. Have you had your leadership bell rung recently?

Has anything rocked your leadership world recently? Casting a big vision…fearless and confident…need my boldness back.
Job is to move the organization from here to there…you have to believe that God is willing to help you move. Too much at stake to be defeatist. Why cant your next five years be your best five?