Characteristics of Superior Leaders

For my church planting/pastor buddies, This is a great little synopsis of leadership characteristics found in business leaders. You can insert church lingo in place of business lingo and see how it can apply to church leaders.

I found it interesting and know we have seen this kind of stuff before. I know from my own experience in the business world that so much of this  kind of information can make you glaze over thinking here we go again, but he has some valid points.

His point # 5is one I really hang my hat on, find people around you to fill in where you are not quite as strong, Trust their ability to serve and have faith in the Lord that He will use them. We can’t do it all, we think we can but …….

A strong team: Realistically, few executives possess all of the skills and abilities necessary to demonstrate total mastery of every requisite area within the organization. To complement the areas of weakness, a wise leader assembles effective teams of experienced, credentialed, and capable individuals who can supplement any voids in the leader’s skill set. This ability is what sets leaders apart from others. However, the leader needs to be willing to admit he lacks certain abilities and go about finding trusted colleagues to complement those deficiencies. After building the team, the entrepreneur needs to trust that team to understand issues, create solutions, and to act on them.

Anyway, it is a short read, insert your own words in place of the business words and see how well it can apply to church planting and pastoring.

Tone

Coffee and Friends

Coffee and friends just go great together, some of my favorite conversations have been with friends over a cup, it seems like no matter how bad the coffee is, if the conversation is with a friend all is well.

I am going through the book of Acts and so much of it seems to be based around community, or in Greek koinonia a word whose base meaning is shared or in common and which is often translated as fellowship. Community is about the common life we share with each another, our shared interest in a common bond and  we just enjoy the fellowship with one another within our circle of faith and friends. It’s about our shared goals and values, our common dreams and aspirations. The experience of becoming part of an authentic community is one of the most powerful motivators for joining and attending a church.

I look forward to sharing coffee with so many people I call friends, new friends , old friends. Nothing profound in this post I just reflected on what a blessed man I am tonight,and it started with a good cup o joe and a great friend.

Tone

Great Day

Had a great day today, we ministered to our friends at Sunrise Retirement Center, it was great to hear John give a message of hope and love to some of our older, seemingly forgotten people. Then this afternoon I was honored to baptize three friends, a dad and his two daughters.

Some of the best of being a Pastor is sharing in life events with families. Sharing scripture about what they were about to do, seeing the joy in parents eyes.

Then wrapping up the day with a new dog 🙂 cute little mut.

Hope to see you all tomorrow

Tone

Anticipation

I was working on my message this week and one of the things I do in preparation is to read and read and read the passage of scripture over and over, it etches it in my mind. As I am reading it, it sometimes can feel almost boring, the same passage 30, 40 times a week, over and over. Anyway, about a year or so ago I really wanted this Bible, I added it to my wish list and finally got a copy as my Christmas gift to myself, well the reason I wanted it was, the margin lines so I could make notes and journal as I study and pray over the text each week. Well, I guess I am a real nut case, here is a journaling Bible,  with lots of room for such writing but I have not written one word in it since I received it. I don’t want to write in it because it looks so good 🙂 crazy eh.

I have been anticipating putting the first note in it, I think tomorrow till be the day !! but in my eagerness to write, I am finding I am suffering from writes block 🙂 it is a subconscious block about what will I first write, what pearl of wisdom will I pen,

I have been keeping a prayer journal that I use for specific targeted prayers, I have something big I am praying about and that is in the journal, in this bible I think I want to put down my day to day grind stuff, what I see in the passages I am studying and how it relates to my sermon for the week, I am just stumped 🙂 so, if any of you journaling bible users have any ideas, let me know, I need to move past anticipiation and on the writing

Have a great week,

Over

Tone

Pastor Jeff is blogging

My buddy Pastor Jeff is blogging at wordpress, it is a new site but I know he will have lots to say. Drop in and keep an eye on him 🙂 He is pastoring a church in Fontana, if I was not busy at 10:30 on Sundays I would pop in on him>

Tone