February 14, 2005
Skills 2
I was quite surprised by some of the comments made to my posting entitled “Skills”. I had a simple thought that in growth in devotion makes one qualified to lead while growth in some skill set makes one capable of leading. (And yes, I am referring specifically to leading the body of Christ in the local Church. But I am not referring strictly to Elders but any servant of the Lord who is in some leadership position.) Some were not sure that was quite true, others thought you would be better off spending your time acquiring ‘servant-hood heart' rather than ‘leadership skills’. From all the reaction, I decided it was necessary to post a small essay on the matter.
From Dictionary.com, the definition of a leader:
1: a person who rules or guides or inspires others
For the sake of my essay, I want to qualify that what I really mean to be talking about is “Effective Leadership” A person who is effective at ruling, guiding and inspiring. I think most of us, if we are humble about ourselves, realize that when we started leading, we were not all that good at it. I also want to qualify my thoughts by saying I’m talking about Christian Spiritual Leadership where growth in Christ-like qualities and maturity are implied. What I mean by devotion, is growth in those qualities among simply spending time with the Lord and His people.
Example 1:
When the Rock Production started in the Fall of 2000, after the third week, we had run out of available ‘qualified’ leaders to lead a setup team. I was then asked, because of my availability to lead a setup team. I was not qualified at the time, but later grew into it. At that time in my life, my devotion to the Lord was growing. I was reading my Bible on a daily basis, I was memorizing the Word, I was praying all the time and my understanding of God and our love relationship was increasing. But honestly, that meant very little (at the time) on the battlefield of Rock Setup.
I had huge holes in my skill set when it came to working with people. And sure Proverbs are clear that you must use your words wisely, but what I thought was wise, actually wasn’t. I spent a painful year learning to be more gentle, more encouraging, less critical, more flexible and more loving. These were all skills and deliberate decisions I had to make at Rock Setup on a weekly (even daily) basis in order to grow my ability to effectively lead. Sure at first I got the job done, but people’s feelings were hurt, people even cried because of some of the things I said, and sure I had John 17 pretty much down in my mind about love and unity; I knew nothing of what it really meant in practice when it came time for Setup. In short, I needed more than growing in my understanding of God and His Word and depth of devotion. I needed practical skills that I only learned on the field of battle through quite a fiery trial and a lot of loving instruction from Tim B.
Example 2:
Worship leading. If there ever was a leadership position that required much skill and devotion, this is it. You need a strong devotion to be able to effectively encourage and lead the flock from the front. But you also need skill. In contexts of Sunday morning singing as the worship format, you must be able to sing. You (at Stonebrook) have to be able to (usually) play the guitar, lead the band, coordinate practice and help the others in their instrumentation and role for the music.
Psalm 33:3 “Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy.” (NIV) In versus 1 & 2, the Psalmist refers to singing, the harp, ten-stringed lyre and in other places trumpets and tambourines. Where does the Bible ever cover how to play these instruments, yet alone skillfully? This is a cornerstone verse for people in our band so they know that they are to be excellent at what they do. How does excellence at guitar playing come solely from growing in devotion to the Lord? Sure devotion will cause one to be excellent and to put in the time necessary to play well and effectively, but growth in strict devotion will not.
Hence my key thought, to grow as a leader, you need more than to grow in your devotion. There are skill sets required in areas of leadership that are extra-biblical that require other forms of study.
Other examples:
* Pastors learning how to publicly communicate
* Treasurers learning the art of money management.
* Life Group leaders learning to love people in our cultural context.
On the matter of serving:
Jesus said, “To become the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, you must become the servant (or slave) to all” (MTR’s paraphrase) So leader’s before us, took this verse and said, “Now, if you want to lead, start serving.” And we also see a Biblical example in Christ of the servant-king. This however, does not preclude the need for skill set growth. Pick any area of service, do you not need to know something about serving in that context?
Cleaning toilets, baking cookies, painting houses, roofing, siding, framing, raking leaves, dry-wall hanging, carpet laying, vacuuming carpets, cleaning house, washing dishes, washing clothes, electrical repair, concrete pouring, retaining wall laying, architecture drawing, sound wiring, lighting wiring, being generous, are all things I have either served in or seen other’s serve in. All require unique skills and some areas, more skill than others. But skills none-the-less. Growth as a servant, not only means growing in the heart of a servant, but also the skill of a servant. Serving by leading is no less different.
Thinking of servants who had a great heart, I recall when Tim Borseth our pastor bought his house on 418 Stanton Ave. (He may not have been a pastor at the time, but he was really close.) I spent, kid you not, eight (8) hours fixing the mistakes (mostly painting ones) of the good intentioned and servant hearted saints who helped fix up the place. They were (not all) a great example of people who had the heart (devotion) of the servant, but no skill. (It was a real mess and a pain to fix and clean up after them. And a full day’s work as well.)
Or when I started to lead Rock Lighting. I spent the first four months, going to others in the church getting advise on some electrical questions, fixture questions and the like. What was I doing? I was growing in my skill set so that I could effectively lead setup for Rock Lighting. That equipment was not going to put itself together no matter how much time I spent reading or praying or worshiping that week. Now, out of my prayers, out of my worship, I humbly sought the skills of the men before me so I could do the job God had given me to do. (But for that period of time, growing in my prayer skill or my understanding of worship, would have no direct bearing on my ability to setup the lights. It drove me to humility to ask for help, but was not the direct cause in of itself.) (And I can’t even begin to estimate the number of hours I have put into research on lighting equipment, setup and other related skills so that I could do my job in leading the Lighting Crew.)
Again, the point, growth in devotion is not the same as growth in skill sets. One will drive the other on, but the first will not imply the former without extra study or extra work. Thus to grow as a leader, requires growth in devotion and growth in skill sets.
Tangential thought. Some are wondering why I put generous a skill set to grow in. Surely that’s more of a heart attitude right? I’m not so sure of that. What is it we teach 2, 3 and 4 year olds when it comes to their toys? Sharing! What is the end result of sharing? Being generous with your stuff. Does that come by just knowing God told us to be generous, or also out of a life where we learned how to do it?
Posted by mtriley at 12:20 PM | Comments (6)
February 07, 2005
Skills
A couple of weeks ago I had a leadership thought bubble to the surface.
To grow in devotion to Christ is to make one qualified to lead. To grow in necessary leadership skills makes one capable of leading. Qualification and capability do not go hand in hand. I think there is some overlap, but by in far, you must be developing both skills simultaneously. And as always, any good church will prefer qualification over capability. But as we are young leaders at the Rock, besure you are growing in both! :)
Posted by mtriley at 11:00 PM | Comments (8)
December 10, 2004
Friday Night Rock...
I was inspired by Paul's blog (found here) on the topic in the course of his comments regarding the Friday Night Rock. Also inspired by our recent All Leader's Meeting, I thought I would attempt to hash some thoughts regarding the Friday Night Rock.
I was originally going to cast my view and understanding of the Rock's vision for Friday, only to realize that would take much time and probably not be too relevant to some of the comments on Paul's blog or at the Leader's meeting.
I don't want to beat a dead horse, but as I have said in varying forms and phrases, "I've not been presented with clear, 'Yes what we are doing is actually working and fits the culture', with objective means of measuring our effect." When I think back to the comments, I think people really don't see how 'what we do', actually helps us or advances us closer to our objective, reaching people far from the cross.
I think there may be some confusion about other specific objectives for the Friday Night Rock (FNR), but overall I think we are a little lost in the detail of it all. When, in my opinion, the discussion degrades to matters of preference and style then we are loosing sight of what it is we are aiming at, but more importantly, loosing sight of knowing how to aim at what we are wanting to aim at.
But not to discredit the stylistic issue too much, we must understand, ISU is a very diverse place. Will one format fit all? Probably not. Can we pick something that will work for most? I think so, however, I'm not as convinced that we (leaders as a whole) have an understanding of what that looks like.
Overall...
I wish and pray that God would raise up a few who seem to have a really keen pulse on the culture and could help provide the leadership with clear measuring posts by which to conclude that what we are doing is in fact meeting our objective. And that these people would meet on very regular basis taking the personal initiative outside of the specified meeting to be pondering and praying over this matter.
I have to be personally careful here and not want the miracle pill. Having been involved with the Rock for six years now, and involved with the FNR since it's conception during summer of 2000 I have noticed that we as a people group like to set things one way. However, our culture is very malleable right now and as such, will require at least bi-annual tweaking of implementation. (And it's way to easy as humans to let our preference override what is best for the whole or to keep it toned down to submit to the objective.)
Thinking about this topic as I am writing, I think we made a good attempt a year ago to specifically hallmark our relationship skill (Paul called it Fellowship) and our music. I still feel that we were not quite sure how to effectively go about that. The changes came on the heels of sending off the IC church plant so it was a strange time of transition. Perhaps the change in leadership coupled with the format change, unsettled us in some fashion and so we were not quite sure what to make of it all.
At that time though, I felt we lost some of the depth of public message from the stage and de-emphasized it. This isn't a bad thing but for me points out a very important principle:
Our format must be clearly able to meet our mission objective while at the same time actually be able for us to achieve it.
For example, we cannot pick a format that would require too much out of our people to the point that they were failing at achieving what it suppose to achieve the mission objective. Let's say we just de-structured the FNR and had it be one big hang out time. It's not a bad format but would the gospel go out? Would conversations that naturally occurred at the time be spiritually salted? If not, why? Are the leaders too timid, not sure how to bring up spiritual conversation? Then why not pick a format where the spiritual nature of the meeting was presented or forced in such away to cause one at least the potential to think/talk about such things?
Culture of Apathy...
I sometimes wonder if part of our struggle for genuine growth (either in depth of character or numerically) is part of the prevalent attitude of apathy in the culture. Things like this must drive the format as well. How could we jar that attitude at the FNR?
...
Well I have probably left you with more questions than answers, but hopefully it got you thinking. As more thoughts bubble to the surface, I'll share them with you.
Posted by mtriley at 09:37 PM | Comments (4)
November 23, 2004
Bibles and Papers 2
I was intrigued by a comment from a friend regarding my previous posting on "Bibles and Papers". You can view his comments here. [Comment #3] As such, I thought some clarification was in order.
This is what I am not saying: I am not saying that if you carrying your Bible around with you where ever you go that you are spiritual, mature and/or a leader. No, rather I am saying the opposite.
I am saying that if you are a leader, then you will bear the fruit of such. As our friend was good to point out, it is more important that the Word be hidden in our hearts. However, if you cannot in clear conscience come to a leaders meeting in full assurance you don't need your Bible with you, then I ask you, "Where is it?" Are you actually prepared for what it is you said you are willing to take on as a responsibility?
What will you do if the leader of the leader's meeting asks for an impromptu Bible Study? Do you have enough of God's Word in your heart to not need the Bible?
Again, I am not saying that you are spiritual or mature if you carry your Bible with you. No, what I am talking about is being adequately prepared for what it is you are doing. So I thought I would take on a more tangible topic.... Daily Quite Times. (Or daily times with the Lord.)
Would it be wrong to mandate that all leaders have a daily quite time with the Lord?
Yes and no. I think the 'no' is evident. If what you are saying is: "By having a daily quite time with the Lord, you are a leader."
On the other-hand, if you say, by having daily quite times you demonstrate in part, a heart after God, then you can be a leader. This is the 'yes' to the question.
It's just a matter of which is coming first. Do I say, "Once you are a leader you are mandated to have daily quite times." or do I say, "You have daily quite times, now it is okay for you to be a leader." Both sentences mandate daily quite times. One just does it in the proper Biblical prioirty.
So then this begs the question, "What do you do with the person who became a leader and then later stops having daily quite times?"
But back to topic. I don't think by saying, "The fruit of leadership is that the Word of God is near you." and as such, expecting some form of it to be with you at the Leader's Meeting is inappropiate.
It's just a matter of preparedness. I'm asking the tough question.
So yes, I expect that some action be taken. Either the person is confident enough with the Word in their heart or they have the appropiate tools handy to help them. Is there someting wrong with my expectation of this from the people who are calling themselves leaders and coming to an All Leader's Meeting?
As for using Colossians 2:8, I would be careful here. In context Paul the Apostle is making sure that the Colossians aren't decieved so they don't be come saved (v1-5) or that they are not mis-informed about the Truth, their standing before God and how they got there (v9-15).
That is why I said, "I am not saying....". No what we are talking about is expected behavior in a given context. Not many people would claim picking your nose in public or going around bare foot in public spaces is appropiate. But at home those actions are just fine. The context drives the appropiateness of the action.
What is appropiate behavior to expect from leaders at a Leader's Meeting. The questions I raise in "Bibles and Papers" addreses this soley and is not intended to state anything about their position before God, thus I am not confident my remarks qualify for Col. 2:8.
Hope that clarifies a few things. The more appropiate discussion would then be: What is appropiate behavior for the Leaders at Leader's Meetings?
Posted by mtriley at 04:24 PM | Comments (7)
November 19, 2004
Bibles and Papers
So I was thinking this morning about a few thoughts I have been carrying with me over this last week. Being the administrator I am, it's part of my job to help people keep on top of what is going on in the Rock. As such, I have to announce upcoming events and activities at our All Leader's Meeting. So, what have I begun to notice?
....
How can you show up to a spiritually engaging battle like prayer, or the administrative side of the spiritual war front without your Bible and the tools needed to carry out one's God given responsibilities?
....
It seems to me, that very few people who are calling themselves leaders actually bring paper or their schedule to leader meetings or some other medium to which to write down important events, changes or announcements. I find it hard to believe that so many can actually keep all the upcoming events strait in their mind.
I think we saw the fruit of this last Thursday (yesterday) when many of our key leaders forgot it was the day we agreed as the Rock to fast for world hunger in our joint support with our Catholic friends. But we have also seen this in the fact that important upcoming events, like All Rock Prayer, isn't on people's minds. Some have even forgotten that we gave them a calendar with all the important dates on it. [Not to mention the wonderful web-site that Kirsten keeps up to date.] So, what is the world coming to?
But I have also noticed that many people seem to come to church functions, like leader meetings or prayer meetings without their Bible. They just show up. Maybe I am strange, but when I go somewhere and my Bible isn't near by, I feel really naked. Tim shared a thought at our Men's time about soldiers not forgetting to put on their armor or not forgetting to carry their rifle. Of course, I naturally think, duh, they are in a war and they physically see it. The spiritual war is hard to see and putting the armor of God on is like a constant mental work to keep ourself yielded to the Spirit and in God's presence, but to leave the Word of God somewhere not near by, is just like the soldier putting on armor and leaving the gun at home. It's our only tangible weapon (as in, we have either have it completely memorized or carry it around with us) and many of us treat it like a text book.
How can you show up to a spiritually engaging battle like prayer, or the administrative side of the spiritual war front (leader meetings) without your Bible and the tools needed to carry out one's God given responsibilities?
My thought went a little father this morning. I was wondering if some of use are more interested in our position as a leader (aka the fact that we can come to leader meetings and hold a position) than really interested in the responsibilities and duties of that position?
Or maybe we have just lost sight of what it means to come to church functions (with our Bibles!) and to leader meetings (with paper & schedules!), ready to do and know our part of this spiritual war. It is very important to remember that leader meetings are no less important than other things, it is where the business end of the spiritual war takes place and it is where the Devil can scatter (or spread out) the flock by causing organizational chaos or mis-information or what have you.
{And in case you forgot, I love the leaders and am honored to work with and for them. We are young and need to grow in this arena of spiritual war.}
Posted by mtriley at 01:44 PM | Comments (3)