100th and final blog(for this site)

Yep, that's right.  It's my 100th blog entry.  It's also the last one for this site.

It turns out that I'm blogging across too many sites.  It's time to condense.

So, starting today, I'm no longer going to be blogging on the blogger.com site.  I will be blogging at posterous.com and mainly on Next in Line's new website.

You can link here.  

I think you'll like it.  You can still subscribe to it via the RSS feed, and it will still feature the same content. It just needs to be condensed with our other content.

I appreciate your readership through these first 100 posts, and I hope that you'll continue to follow this blog as it makes the switch-over to it's permanent home.

What Every Church Should Know About Student Leadership Development Pt. 6

It’s Totally Worth It

Okay, for the past week I’ve been looking at some of the things I wish I had known about leadership development before I dove in head-first.  Some of those things have been a little scary, and you may have even been put off by a few of them.  My goal hasn’t been to scare you off, but to interject a little reality into the mix here.  

Leadership development isn’t easy with any age, let alone youth.  It’s difficult and it takes time.  There will be days when you want to throw it in because your students have destroyed your will to keep going.  It will stretch your leadership to it’s limits.  But here’s the kicker, and it’s a good one.

It’s totally worth it.  I knew this going in, but I think everyone needs to hear it.  There is no feeling like watching young students develop leadership skills and begin leading in their lives, jobs, schools, and the church.  

Entrusted to us is the future.  God is raising up young people everyday to lead His people in this generation and the next, and this same God has invited us to help Him do it.  What an amazing privilege.  What a humbling stewardship.

We may be tired, overworked, and ready to pull our hair out at times, but at others we are humbled by God’s work in our students to the point where we just fall to our knees and worship Him.  As we watch them take what God has been teaching them and apply it, we are overwhelmingly proud of our students as if we were their parents.  

Through the headache and the heartache there is pride, satisfaction, and moments where you feel so close to God that the hair on the back of your neck will stick up.  

There’s no job anywhere like working with young leaders.  Nothing more challenging, and nothing more rewarding.  It’s totally worth it.

What Every Church Should Know About Student Leadership Development Pt. 5

It Will Stretch Your Leadership

When I was in school preparing to become a teacher, it was told to me that I would learn what I was teaching better by preparing to teach it.  Sure enough, those teachers were right.  As I studied for lessons and prepared to teach, I came to a better understanding of what I was teaching.  

I’ve also been told, in my very short career as a minister, that if you don’t first preach a message to yourself, allowing it to change you, then it is very hard to preach to and ask for change in others.

It should come as no surprise that teaching leadership is the same way.  Teaching leadership will stretch your leadership in two ways.  By teaching leadership principles you’ll gain a deeper and more abiding knowledge of what it means to be a Christian leader.  Also, you’ll be leading a group of people, gaining the benefit of the experience that leadership brings with it.  

You’ll be a living example to your students for what you’re teaching.  You’ll be gaining and exerting influence, modeling the leadership principles of Christ, and showing your young people through your actions what it means to be a leader.

Bottom line is this:  As your students are learning, so are you.  As your students become better leaders, so will you.  Teaching leadership stretches your own.  

What Every Church Should Know About Student Leadership Development Pt. 4

It Will Test Your Faith in Your Students

Going in to a leadership development program, I had certain expectations of my students.  Because they had  volunteered for leadership training, I figured that they would be mature, respectful, Christ-Centered students.  

I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Without going into details, I have to say that I spent a lot of time ranging between disappointed and horrified as I dealt with issue after issue with my students.  It really rocked my boat.  Before I knew it, my faith in my students was waning.  

Because leadership development demands that we be closer to and spend more time with our students, we tend to get more enmeshed in their lives.  They also get more enmeshed in our lives.  As this happens, we learn all about our students in a way that we haven’t before.  As everyone’s warts appear, we can get rather disenchanted with our students if we’re not careful (they can get disenchanted with us, too).  

I think our expectations are at the heart of the issue here.  We must expect students to be mature, respectful, and Christ-Centered, just as we would expect any other believer to act in this way.  However, we must also remember that just as we screw up, so will our students.  Sometimes, they’ll screw up real bad.

When things get dicey (and they inevitably will), our reaction determines whether a failure will turn into a lesson or into a situation that may alienate your students and keep them at arm’s length.  I’ve seen how one screw-up alienated a student so much that he quit the leadership team and fell away from the church.  Sure, He could have handled the situation differently, but I could have as well.  If we allow ourselves to become disillusioned with our students after a failure, it’s more likely we’ll lose faith in the entire process.  Our groups start to hurt, and then it disappears.  

Just as we expect our students to act a certain way, we must also expect that they will mess up.  We mess up, and we shouldn’t expect anything more from our students.  Practicing mercy and grace is not only the right thing to do in these situations, but teaches a powerful lesson that your students will hopefully pass on in their time.  

Preparing ourselves now is essential.  If someone had told me before I started that I would have periods of tremendous disappointment with my students, I would have looked at them like they had a third eye.  Now I know better.  I’ve been there.  

Best practice?  Before you start a team, or even if you have a team now, have a policy about how you’ll deal with moral and legal problems with your students.  How will you react?  What will their status on the leadership team be?  What process will be used for restoration?  How will you deal with the rest of the students on the team?  

And most of all, prepare your heart.  Ask Christ to give you a spirit of forgiveness and mercy.  Ask Him to make His grace real to you in a way that you can make it real to other people.  Humble yourself by daily reminding yourself that you too, sin and need forgiveness. That way, when the inevitable happens, you’ll know what to do and in what spirit to do it.

What Every Church Should Know About Student Leadership Development Pt. 3

It Takes Time

There are no shortcuts when it comes to developing leadership in young people.  In many business leadership development programs, development revolves around very company-specific competencies.  It’s easier to set a time frame on specific competencies, but less easy to set a time frame on the teaching of leadership principles, on discipleship, and on mentoring.

Because many churches don’t have the time or budget for a leadership development program, they tend to leave leadership development to retreats and conferences.  If your development program takes place in a weekend retreat, or a conference (no matter how good it is) then you’ll probably be disappointed with the development that’s taking place.  Don’t get me wrong, conferences are great places to develop leadership, and I love a weekend retreat to develop leaders.  However, leadership development is more organic; it doesn’t take place over the course of just a few hours.  It takes a lifetime.   We have to resist the temptation to allow retreats and conferences to constitute our entire leadership development program.  It’s easier in the short run, of course, and faster; but in the long run very little leadership development will take place.   

A leadership development program takes constant, intentional, targeted work; and that takes time.  Because we are working with individuals with different personalities who are in different places, we can’t put a time frame on their development.  Some of your students are going to soak this stuff up quickly.  With others it will be longer sinking in.  Either way, you’re going to spend a lot of time developing leadership.  

Please don’t believe that leadership development is a quick process, or fall prey to the summer intern line of thought.  Leadership development is a lifelong journey for every leader.  Young leaders are no different, except they are just starting their journeys, looking to you to spend as much time on their leadership development as you did on yours.

What Every Church Should Know About Student Leadership Development Pt. 2

It’s Hard

If you looked at some of the available literature on youth leadership development in churches (which usually consists of one chapter in a book) then you might get the impression that developing young leaders is easy.  

In fact, it reads almost like a recipe.  Pick these students, teach them these things,  and do these activities.  Next, shake them up, pour them out, and you’ll get student leaders.  Problem is that life isn’t that tidy, and neither is a youth ministry program.

One of the things I wish I had been told up front is that leadership development isn’t easy. It isn't easy to start, and it only gets more difficult as you go along.

There are no magic recipes to make your leadership development program work.  There are no super-lessons that will instantly turn apathetic youth into leaders.  There are no guarantees that the students you pour so much into will go on to become great Christian leaders.  

Like all other aspects of ministry, leadership development takes a lot of time and effort.  We shouldn’t go into it thinking that it will be a walk in the park or an afterthought to the rest of the youth ministry.  Done right, leadership development takes just as much effort and preparation as the rest of the youth ministry.  It takes constant tweaking, sleepless nights in prayer, planning, and research.  Oh yeah, and did I mention that you’ll be pouring tons of time into these students?

If you are going to start a leadership development team, keep these things in mind.  Way too many leadership teams are started and then quickly thrown away when it’s discovered that they take more than 10 minutes of prep time.

Don’t fall into this trap; your students deserve better than that.  Go in knowing that leadership development takes time, effort, and plenty of both.  This isn’t about being negative, it’s about going in with your eyes open. 

What Every Church Should Know About Student Leadership Development

There are a lot of things that I wish I had known before I started developing student leaders.  I wish I had been more prepared.  I wish I had planned more.  I wish I had thought through the whole idea.  I wish I’d known how much time it would take, and how much effort.  

I wish I had someone like Next in Line to guide me through the process.  To tell you the truth, that’s part of my passion for Next in Line Ministries.  There are so many things that could have gone better had I had someone with some experience standing beside me. 

All that being said, I was thinking about what I wish I’d known before I started.  I thought about the dirty truths that I should have known, despite what I was being told in the literature.  So I came up with five things that I wish I had been told before I started.  If you heard these things before you started, you were truly blessed.  If you didn’t, then you probably know what I’m talking about.  

My prayer is that I catch a few of you before you start a leadership development team.  I don’t want to be negative, but I want to be real about what happens in a leadership team from day-to-day.  I want to be real about the struggles that you will probably have, and about the kind of walls that you will probably have to break down.  I want to be real because I would have benefited from someone being real with me.   

So here’s the top five things that I wish I had known.  

It’s Not Easy

  

It takes time

It will test your faith in your students

It will stretch your leadership

It’s totally worth it

We’ll talk about each of them in the weeks to come.   In the meantime, if you have anything that you wish you’d been told before you started developing young leaders, let me know.   I’d be curious to know what kind of things would have helped you.  

Student Leaders Grow Into Adult Leaders

No matter what church I visit, or what church leader I talk to, they will all tell me the same thing:  We need more leadership.  Whether it’s to run new ministries or to take over old ones as existing leaders move, burn out, or pass on, the church is constantly in need of new leadership.  

Where do these leaders come from?  Do they magically appear out of thin air?  Of course not.  New leaders are the product of God’s gifting and development.  Many churches are joining God in this process and have set up leadership development programs to help these emerging leaders grow and learn.

One place that we’re not always looking however, is in the ranks of our youth programs.  The fact is, when we don’t develop leadership within our youth we are missing out on the leadership of many young people that God has gifted and called.   I know that many church leaders are careful not to put too young a person into leadership positions, but the truth of the matter is that student leaders grow into adult leaders.  Before you know it your students are out of school and out of the youth group; ready and willing to lead.  

We need to develop the leadership of young people just as we need to develop other leaders in our church.  Youth may seem too young, too immature, or unwilling, but if we don’t start developing youth leaders, we are missing a great opportunity to invest in the future of our young people, and in the future of our churches.

3 Common Buy-In Problems Leadership Programs Face

Leadership Programs fail for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is buy-in.  Here are three buy-in problems that spell certain doom for most leadership development programs.

Student Buy-In

Obviously, if the students you are serving don’t buy in to a leadership development program, there isn’t going to be much of a program.  Having committed students is at the heart of what you’re doing.  Usually, the lack of student buy-in is because of a lack of depth in other programs or a problem with the pitching of your vision.  And sometimes, they just don’t respect you.

Parent Buy-In

I know that a lot of time those who deal with youth consider parents to be their enemies.  Truth is, they should be your best friends.  Because you are only speaking into a student’s life for a short interval each week, parents’ role in leadership development cannot be overlooked.  Just like in youth ministry, parent involvement is key.

If the parents of your emerging leaders aren’t buying into a leadership development program, your program will suffer, if it survives at all.  Make sure that you are talking to parents constantly, and including them in the process.  Give them training, materials, and opportunity to help develop leadership in their own children.  

Administration Buy-In

Here’s a real killer.  Whether you’re in a school, a church, or civic organization, if the guys who run the show aren’t buying into a leadership program, don’t expect to make a lot of headway.  Studies are showing that if the lead person or persons of an organization don’t participate in a leadership development program, that program doesn’t run as well or long as it should.  

Lack of administration buy-in will affect things like budget, space, time, and participation.  Pitch your vision for leadership development early and often to the people in charge, and move forward cautiously if those in charge aren’t completely on board.

Don’t be blind.  Buy-in problems are real, and they sink leadership programs everyday.  Don’t ever assume that everyone is on board with your program.  Pitching your vision, both to individuals and groups, is essential both before you start and while your program is operating.  Involve other people; don’t run your program like its Area 51.  Buy-in is essential to your program’s survival, and if you don’t pay attention to it your program will not-so-slowly fall into trouble.  

3 Things You Can Do Right Now To Develop Young Leaders

So, you don’t have time, money, or support to start a leadership development team?  Here’s three things you can do to develop leaders without having an actual “program.”

Model Leadership-Lead where others can see.   Invite emerging leaders to participate with you in everyday work like planning, phone calls, lesson prep, and all those other mundane things that add up to great leadership.  Invite them into your morning prayer time, meetings, and other places that they’ll get the feel for leadership and learn the process.  Best of all, it doesn’t take up much extra time, because you are already doing these things.

Disciple-We already know that the best Christian leaders are those that are Christ Centered.  When you put an emphasis on discipleship, you are investing not only in the spiritual maturity of those you teach, but helping emerging leaders see what Christ demands in a person whom He’ll use as a leader.

Mentor-All right, this one takes a little extra time, but short of an actual program, mentoring is probably the best way to develop individual leaders.  Take a young person under your wing and pour your life into them.  Don’t just use this as a time to teach about leadership, but show the emerging leader how to live a sustainable life in Christian Leadership.  A mentoring relationship may be the most influential relationship in an emerging leader’s life.

Not having the green light to start a leadership development program doesn’t mean you can’t develop young leaders.  There are plenty of opportunities; you just have to look for them.

A Difficult Vision

It’s great to have a vision about how the world can be, but it’s not always easy to share that vision.  It can be scary, difficult to get across, and many times people just laugh at you or wonder what planet you’re really from.  Some people are taught very early that sharing their vision earns them ridicule, scorn, and shame.  They learn to keep their vision to themselves, and deprive the world of potentially great ideas.

I learned all of this the hard way when I started to share the idea of Next in Line with other people.  The idea of involving young people in leadership training had people looking at me like I had a third eye.  After a couple months of that, I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to do anything with Next in Line.

I say all of this because I know that many of you have the vision to start leadership groups in your organization but may not be getting any traction.  I talk to people all the time who have tried leadership development in their churches and schools but couldn’t get any support and ultimately ended up quitting or never getting off the ground in the first place.

To those of you who are dreamers and visionaries I say don’t give up.  The world needs young leaders now more than ever.  Now, like never before, the call to raise up young leaders needs to be answered.  

I know it can be discouraging sometimes; I’ve been there.  But I’ve also seen young people rising up to their potential.  I’ve seen young people do amazing things and take the reigns of leadership before anyone thought it was possible.

As we talk about pitching the idea of leadership development programs, don’t get discouraged if you’re having trouble getting your idea off of the ground, and don’t let others dictate to you what God has put on your heart.  Don’t let past obstacles dictate the route you take in the future.  Keep praying, keep planning, and prepare the ground.  What God has ordained you to do, He will bring to pass!

Training Tomorrow’s Leaders Today,

Matt

Four Questions To Ask Yourself Before the Pitch

Before you ask someone else to take on the responsibility of a leadership development team, there’s a couple of questions that you should probably have answered yourself already.  

We’ve talked about the need for planning and preparation, and here are a few questions that will help you prepare before you pitch:  

Who:  Develop An Identity

Who is the organization that you are pitching the idea to?  Are they a local school?  Is it a church?  Who the organization is and what they do will determine how you approach them about leadership development.  Do you belong to this organization?  Do you have any existing relationship with this group?  Are they a fit for a leadership development team?  You probably wouldn’t pitch a leadership development team to a local book club, but you wouldn’t hesitate to make sure your school district has a leadership development program in place.  

Why:  Develop A Reason

Why would the organization that you are pitching to want to start a leadership development team?  Is there something about the organizations purpose or mission that points to developing young leaders?  Are they equipped to carry out the team or program?  An organization is going to want to know why they would do what you’re asking them to do.  Make sure you have an answer for them.  

Answering this question might require some research.  Do it.  It’s time well spent if it answers questions before they are asked.

How:  Develop a Way

How can this particular organization be a catalyst for leadership development?  This may seem a lot like the why question, but it is different.  With why we gave them a reason, now we’re giving them a way.  Know the organization that you’re pitching to so well that you maneuver their resources and talents around like a conductor before her orchestra.  They know these resources exist within their organization, they may just not know how to use them to develop leaders.  You do.  You asked: How?  Know how they could specifically pull off a leadership development team, and be ready to show them when you meet.

What:  Develop a Vision

Finally, ask: what benefit can a leadership development team bring to this organization?  What benefit can it bring to their community?  What will be the end result of a leadership development team at this place and at this time.  This question develops a vision for you and for the organization that you’re pitching to.  It helps you see (and them, subsequently) what it is you’re working towards.  This is very important.  Without vision, this idea won’t last long.  This last question will become very important as this process continues.

If you’re about to pitch the idea of a leadership development team to someone, I hope you’ve already asked yourself these questions.  If you haven’t, take some time and mull them over.  When it comes to pitch time, you’ll be glad you did.

Training Tomorrow’s Leaders Today,

Matt 

Three Essentials When Pitching a Leadership Team

I’ve been thinking about how difficult it was to get a leadership development team off the ground when I first did that five years ago.  The hardest part, as I remember, was pitching the idea to the church.  I had to pitch it to our leadership board.  I had to pitch it to my pastor, and I had to pitch it to the youth.  I also had to pitch it to myself, but I hope you’ve done that already.  I broke two of the three suggestions below (plan and prepare) and I paid for it.  It cost me time, momentum, and ultimately support.  

If you are looking to set up a leadership development team in your church, school, for your homeschool association, or in a local civic organization, then the next few posts are going to be for you.  They’ll tell you why and how you should pitch the idea of a leadership development team in your particular setting.  In the meantime, there’s three things you should probably do no matter who you’re going to pitch to: Pray, prepare, and plan.

Pray

 I can’t emphasize this enough.  This whole process should be bathed in prayer.  Time in prayer should help work the other two out.  This whole thing belongs to God anyway, so it might be a good idea to consult Him about it.

Plan

You need a plan.  If you go at this haphazardly, you’re not going to get anywhere, and you’ll get there quickly.  Who are you going to talk to?  In what order?  Have you set up those meetings?  You get the picture.  Get a plan.

Prepare

Preparing is the second most important thing you’ll do as you pitch the idea of a leadership development team (next to prayer).  Do you know why you should have a leadership development team?  Most people will want to know that.  Do you know what your leadership development team will do?  Most people will want to know that.  Do you know what your leadership development team will cost?  That’s the 64,000 dollar question, now isn’t it?  Preparing for the pitch meeting means you can answer some of the questions that will inevitably come your way, and you look like you know what you’re talking about, even if you don’t.

Training Tomorrow’s Leaders Today,

Matt 

What Distinguishes a Christian Leader?

What makes a Christian leader a Christian leader?  Is it a style?  Is it training?  Is it the kind of organization that the leader is running?  What should be the criterion by which we designate a leader to be "Christian?"

With hundreds of books on leadership hitting the shelf each year and just as many different methods of leadership, it's easy to get caught up in method when determining what makes a Christian leader.  Christ has a very distinctive method of leadership, one that is based in service and in power revealed through weakness.  However, even the "secular" world has co-opted these leadership methods and uses them with much success in the corporate, government, and not for profit realms.

Neither can we determine a Christian leader by the kind of organization that the Christian is heading.  There are Christian men and women in all realms of society, leading all sorts of ventures.  Likewise, I fear that there are many non-Christian people who are leaders in Christian organizations. 

Likewise, Christian and other leadership training is available to all people, regardless of their faith.  A good leader will peruse leadership material from all sources and incorporate that which works for them and for their organization.  The Christian leader will consider non-Christian sources of leadership, determine whether they are of God or not, and use them accordingly.

What then, distinguishes a Christian leader?  It is as simple as this:  The Holy Spirit.  The Christian leader is indeed a Christian, and therefore is guided, chastised by, and strengthened by the Holy Spirit.  This difference between a Christian leader and a non-Christian leader cannot be overemphasized.

God does not hold a specific training regimen for leaders, nor does He work the same in all leaders.  He calls, trains, and uses different leaders in different ways.  God's spirit which indwells us is manifested so many different ways.  The Holy Spirit gives Christian leadership a mysterious edge that you can never quite predict and a quality that makes it incomparable with regular leadership. 

This makes even the most unlikely person a leadership candidate, and makes normal models of leadership training and development irrelevant.  It means that instead of solely paying attention to a book or program of leadership development, Christian leaders must also discern the calling of the Holy Spirit on the lives of leaders and be open to His leading and prompting, no matter how much this leads us outside the realms of "normal" leadership or our zones of comfort and familiarity.

And while it is important to see and understand the Holy Spirit's place in Christian Leadership, let's not forget that the Holy Spirit also plays unknowable and mysterious roles in non-Christian leadership too.  The Holy Spirit factor in leadership and leadership development should not be overlooked, and those Christian leaders who do run the risk of being outside of the will of God and leading without the sustaining power of the Holy Spirit.

Training Tomorrow's Leaders Today,
Matt

"Radical" Leadership

Lately, I've noticed a jumble of books hitting the shelves that have to do with "radical" Christian living.  Personally, I think that they have to do with real Christian living, but that's another topic for another time.  Personally, I'm enjoying these books.  I just finished Crazy Love (for the 4th time), and am in the middle of David Platt's Radical. 

I know people are reading these books because they turn up in the Christian book section of Wal-Mart.  Only very popular Christian books turn up there. 

More than reading these books, I pray that people are convicted by them and are repenting.  My first romp through Crazy Love dropped me to my knees, and I've been in two other groups who have studied it now.  I know what a book like that can do to a person who has betrayed Christian ideals for the safety and comfort of our American lives.

What I also pray is that we are teaching these books to our kids; discussing them and doing what they prescribe.  I say this because I'm convinced that tomorrow's Christian leaders will live in the ways that are described in these books.  Tomorrow's Christian leaders will throw off the compromise that we have lived with between the world and our faith.  They will live in radical obedience to God and lead a movement of radical obedience to God.

I'm a student of history, so I don't believe that the things discussed in these books have never been discussed before, but I truly believe that we are faced with a time in which our technology and state of information overload are allowing more and more Christians to come into contact with the ideas that people like Chan and Platt are writing about. 

We have an opportunity, given our "new" awareness of the Christian life, to explore and integrate this teaching into our programs.  We have the opportunity to model this kind of life to our students and practice this kind of life with our students. 

Thank you, Francis Chan and David Platt, and all of those like you, for being the modern day prophets that we need, and for calling us back to the truth.  Now, for the rest of us, lets take that truth, live it, and teach it.

Training Tomorrow's Leaders Today,
Matt

Field Day

Today, I'm doing something I've never done before.  I'm going to talk to the offices of two senators.  I'm taking two youth to our local senator's offices for IJM and we're going to have a little chatty-chat about human trafficking.

I'm doing this for a couple of reasons.  First, human trafficking is one of my hot-button issues and tends to be pretty important to the young people that I teach.  Second, this is a wonderful opportunity for the leadership team to actually do something that can make a difference in so many lives.  Our leadership students need this kind of experience. 

In this case, it was one of our leadership students that became aware of this opportunity because of her past dealings with IJM.  There's a bill that's going through the Senate concerning human trafficking, and of course, senators need prompting and briefing about these sort of things, so we volunteered.

Participating in these kinds of activities now can very well wet your student's appetites for their entire lives.  I doubt that the students will forget what happens today, one way or the other.  It will mean even more to them because the idea didn't originate with me, but with them.

Now, some of you might not want to involve your students in politics like this, but I assure you there are lots of ways different activities that your students can do that will increase their leadership skills without visiting the offices of the local politicians.  Here's a couple of things I've found about these sort of trips that really help cement them into the minds of students:

1.  Make it important.  If your students feel that what they are doing isn't important, the activity isn't likely to have much impact.  Even if your students can't see the importance of what you are doing, it is our responsiblity to show them how important what we're doing is.  Students want to do important things.  They want to be involved.  Give them that opportunity.

2.  Give them ownership.  This opportunity didn't come from one of my sources, it came from a student's source.  It means more to them that way.  As much as I'd like to talk a lot today, I'm not going to.  My students are taking the lead.  They are coming up with the agenda and the talking points.  They will lead the meeting.

3.  Debrief.  Luckily, we have time between our two visits to talk about how the first one went and what we can do to improve the second meeting.  Make sure you are thoroughly debriefing your activities.  I've found that the real learning takes place after the activity as we all sit down and digest what we did.

4.  Make it Fun.  After we're done, we're going to go have coffee at one of our favorite coffee shops and just chill out for a while.  These kind of activities can be wonderful times to strengthen your relationships with your students.

Training Tomorrow's Leaders Today,
Matt

Explosions of Worship

This morning at Desperation Church, our worship pastor talked about the Spirit of God filling us to such an extent that we just exploded in worship to our God and King.  I had never heard this analogy before, and like so many other things, this got me to thinking about leadership.
My worship pastor talked about glorifying God in explosions of worship.  He prayed that there would be explosions of worship all over the world.  It was simple and beautiful, yet so poignant that I have been thinking about it all day.

So I began to think to myself:  "What is it that we want to see out of the next generation of leadership?" 
The answer?  I want to see explosions of worship in leadership positions all over society.

It's true that if we explode in worship people will see and be drawn to God.  It's also true that if we have godly leaders living lives of worship in positions of leadership throughout society, people will see and be drawn to God.

This is what God wants.  This is what I want.  It's why Next in Line Ministries exists.  It's why we do what we do.  It's why I write this blog, and why the board of  Next in Line works their tails off to help raise new leaders.  We believe that Christian leadership througout society witnesses of Christ, honors God with just and true decisions, and changes society at it's core by leading like Christ.

Just as our worship pastor prayed today, I also pray tonight:  Father, raise up a generation of leaders that live for you.  Fill them with Your spirit that they may burst in explosions of worship to You.  May their every action, their every word, and their every interaction be fueled and guided by love for You and others.  May they be a light in the darkness, a constant witness for You, and a guide to those who need it.  In Christ's Name, amen.

Training Tomorrow's Leaders Today,
Matt

Sometimes You Just Need to Keep Your Mouth Shut

It's not easy for me, but the art of keeping your mouth shut is just as important as knowing how and when to speak.  A lot of leadership literature today hinges on communication, and I don't mean to denigrate communication, but sometimes it's better just to keep your mouth shut.

A lot of leaders feel they need to add something to every conversation.  Please kick this impulse in the teeth.  There are many times that people just want you to listen.  There are many times that you need to just listen. 

Learn before you speak. 

Though you may have something to add to the conversation, always having something to add to the conversation will get you a reputation that you don't want.

Equally important to a leader as speaking is listening.  Communication without understanding doesn't happen.  That's miscommunication; and if we feel the need to talk more than we listen, miscommunication is exactly what we're going to have.

As leaders, we are expected to be charismatic, witty, charming folks that liven up all conversation with our intellect, wisdom, and anecdotes.  We can do those things to.  There is a time and a place for that.  More than that, though, is the need to understand before being understood.  If we truly serve the people we lead, our job is to listen to them more than we talk at them. 

In all honesty the more we listen and understand other people, the more poignant and guided can our words be.  Hastily speaking we miss important aspects of a situation, or have a less than full understanding of a person.  A leader can't afford misunderstanding; sometimes there's only one opportunity to lead correctly and wisely.  

I'm not suggesting a prohibition on talking, but I am suggesting that we not only learn to listen better, but find ways to teach our leadership students to listen more carefully and thoroughly.  Doing so will be a long haul, because listening to others without interjecting our own opinion and beliefs is not an art that is being taught by today's culture. 

Your overtures into this disicipline are going to need to be planned, intentional, and plentiful. We are constantly encouraged to give our view on something, no matter how little of it we know, and so as teachers we will have to be contantly vigilant to expunge that tendency in our students as much as we can. 

Remember, a servant listens, and then acts.  It is a tyrant that dominates a conversation or a debate without understanding the situation or the person.

Learn to listen.  Listen.  Model listening.  Raise listeners.

Training Tomorrow's Leaders Today,
Matt

The Hardest Lessons

It's been a while since I blogged, and I feel I owe you some explanation.  The last few months have been one of transition for me, and have been extremely difficult.  There have been a lot of changes in my life, and a lot of difficult decisions that I've had to make.  Through it all though, I've learned some incredible leadership lessons, and am looking forward to finally getting back on track with blogging and Next in Line in general.
These last couple of months have shown me that the hardest things that a leader will face can't be completely prepared for.  As teachers, we can academically prepare our students for a lot of things, but our students will have to experience them to understand and learn from these experiences. 
Academically, we can teach our students how to make hard decisions; but they will never know the stress and pain that making them entails.  We can academically teach our students how to confront someone, even one of their closest friends, but we can't teach them how difficult it really is, or how much anguish there can be in confrontation. 
Only experience can teach these things, and they are lessons that will stick with them for the rest of their lives.  The hardest lessons learned are those that will be strongest in their minds throughout their lives.
Does this mean we shouldn't try to academically prepare them?  No, of course it doesn't.  By training students in the proper way to handle a situation such as confrontation or decision making, we can help them push through the emotional aspect and make the right decision, or confront in a loving and productive way.  We can and must continue to teach our students to do things correctly and in a Christ-honoring manner; however we can't expect them to fully understand some of these situations until they have gone through them themselves. 
Along with academically preparing them, we also have to let them get real experience in the leadership world.  By allowing our students to "get their hands dirty" we allow them to have some of these hard experiences early, where we can come alongside of them and help them through.  The earlier these hard lessons are learned, the more prepared our students will be for where God will put them in life.
Keep carrying on, and remember that the hardest lessons learned will also be some of the most important lessons learned.

Training Tomorrow's Leaders Today,
Matt

Educated Above Our Obedience

One of my favorite preachers is Matt Chandler, and one of my favorite sayings of his is that we are “educated above our level of obedience.”


Let me ask you a question. When it comes to your leadership students, how are you measuring forward progress? Are you looking at how much information they can regurgitate? Are you looking at how into their spiritual disciplines they are?

Many of us fall into the trap of believing that the more education our students get the better off they are spiritually. Nothing could be further from the truth. In today’s culture, our students are absolutely inundated with information. They can check out any book on any Christian topic that their brains could ever conceive of; and they can do it all with the click of a couple of buttons. This blog is a testament to how much education anyone can have access to in today’s world.

Education does not necessarily translate into life change though, as many of you are well aware. For our responsibilities to be filled, we need to provide students with the opportunity to put the lessons we teach into action, and encourage them to continue to behave in a manner that is in keeping with Christ’s Character and Leadership.

I think of Ephesians 5 as Paul is exhorting the Ephesian Church to behave in a manner worthy of God. It isn’t just a matter of hearing the truth, or learning the truth. It’s a matter of doing the truth. Be a “doer of the word, and not a hearer only,” as James says.

If you are measuring the success of your leadership development ministry in terms of ideas imparted, then please reconsider. If you aren’t giving your students the opportunity to put their knowledge and conviction to action, then please reconsider.

Our success in training young leaders is contingent not on how they turn out, but on what and how we taught them. In other words, while we may not be responsible for them, we are certainly responsible to them. Help them to be as obedient as they are educated.

Training Tomorrow’s Leaders Today,

Matt