The Bronx Adveture begins!

The Leaderhip Advance begins at 8 this morning, and lasts all day. The topics are: Transitions, Clarity, the Kingdom Concept (thanks Will!), Building a High Performing Team, and Mastering the Management Buckets.

There is snow coming, maybe 6-8 inches, so I might be delivering the Reader's Digest version!

Here we go!
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Clock Dyslexia

Note to self: don't rely on memory for flight tiime: The difference in 7:05 and 7:50 AM seems greater when you went to bed after midnight.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

A Great Adventure

Tomorrow I leave early in the morning for a four-day trip to Bronx Bethany Church of the Nazarene. Pastor Sam Vassel, the church staff, and their leaders are meeting with me all day Saturday. On Sunday I will be worshipping with the church and doing a program and space analysis. Monday I will be meeting with the church staff during the day. Monday night I will be meeting with church leaders and an architect to talk about expansion possibilities.

It's an awesome responsibility, and I'm totally inadequate for the task, but somehow Pastor Sam found me at Indianapolis WFX last spring, and again at Houston WFX last fall, and I'm trusting in God to work through me.

Your prayers are greatly appreciated and needed! Look here over the next few days for impromptu posts.

The Bronx, here I come!

The Kneebone is Connected to the ...

Whether it's the nursery rhyme about the bones or Newton's Second Law or today's crazy economic scene, it's pretty amazing to me how things connect and interact with one another. I know it's a God thing, and I'm very grateful for that right now.

Consider this:

I'm at work prepping for the fourth and final presentation in our Financial Learning Lab. We brought in experts from four different financial companies to talk with us on their work, how we can partner with churches to find funding for construction projects, and what their take is on the current financial picture. It's been great stuff, and will fundamentally alter our client interactions.

I spoke at Radiant Life Fellowship last Sunday on the topic of Transition, and will be speaking again in a couple of weeks on "Collective Potential".

I will be spending four days at Bronx Bethany Church of the Nazarene beginning Friday for an all day Leadership Summit, observation and analysis of space and ministry needs, staff meetings, and a meeting with an architect on site.

While these three events stand alone, they are also interrelated in unique ways. I am finding that my prep, delivery, and reflections for one are dovetailing into another.

All of this fits together, and is intertwined and connected in a way that only God can orchestrate. I feel totally inadequate for the task, and am behind in my preparations, but in a calming sort of way I know that God will bring something good for His work.

Wow!

Divine Appointments

I love it when the God of the Universe reorganizes my schedule for a divine appointment. My view of God is so big that He created the universe and everything in it and that the universe owes its continued existence to Him. My view of God is so small that He delights in rearranging my schedule so that I run into people in the parking lot that I need to see, and hear from.

My day included a stop at Staples for office supplies, to the library to drop off and pick up books, gas for the Jeep (my office on wheels), the post office to mail some CD picture files to architects, and then by a client’s office to drop off a packet of information for an upcoming meeting. Simple enough, and logical – at least to me. That’s the most efficient way to make the trip.

God had other plans.

Looking at the long line out of the gas station and not wanting to fight the traffic, I turned the other way, the less efficient way, and headed to the client’s office. I dropped the info off, headed out to the Jeep – and promptly ran into one of the members of the vision team who was coming by the office also. We only had a 5 minute conversation, but it was pure gold. Insights from this individual on his thoughts of the upcoming project, observations about the vision team makeup, and his belief that God would guide the process if we would only listen with our hearts and not just act with our heads. It was stuff I desperately needed to hear, but would not, could not, have uncovered on my own.

Thank you, God, for reminding me daily that you want to be involved in all our lives, and that you want us to constantly seek Your wisdom.

A Bridge is Born

On January 5, 1933, work started on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, CA. Ideas for a bridge spanning the narrow entrance to The San Francisco Bay had surfaced just after the California Gold Rush of 1849, but engineering challenges delayed the project. In the mid-twenties two engineers came up with a proposal that was simple yet daunting: a pure suspension bridge with a center span of almost 4,000 feet. By the time the work was ready to begin, the Great Depression had begun and the project stalled. San Francisco based Bank of America stepped in and bought all the 30 million dollars in bonds to help the local economy. The bridge opened in May 1937, with over 200,000 people walking, riding, and even roller skating across the span. With its tall towers and red paint job, the bridge quickly became an American landmark and a symbol of San Francisco.

I love bridges. I collect books about them, I read many more, and I'm fascinated by their engineering and beauty. My favorite is the Brooklyn Bridge ( I'm going to be in NY this weekend, and I hope to get a chance to see it). The Golden Gate Bridge is also a favorite. Bridges represent the dynamic tension of a pure engineering and ascetics. It's no big challenge to build a functional bridge - they have been around for thousands of years. But to build one that works, and is a work of art, that is a special talent.

The purest purpose of a bridge is to get from one place to another, usually overcoming some obstacle. Leaders are bridges, too.

How are you building bridges in 2009?

Persuasively Speaking

While prepping for the weekly post at my blog on Church Solutions, I was struck by the word "rhetoric." In our society today it generally has a negative connotation - just think back to the recently concluded election campaign for examples. Originally, though, rhetoric was a good word, one of the three branches of discourse developed by Aristotle (the other two were logic and dialectic). At its heart, rhetoric is all about persuading people to your cause. Church leaders should know about, and practice, rhetoric in their writing and speaking.

Here are a few resources that will help:

Rhetoric - Aristotle

Words that Work - Frank Luntz

You've Got to be Believed to Be Heard - Bert Decker

Little Green Book of Getting Your Way - Jeffrey Gitomer

For real world examples of rhetoric in action, check these out:

White House Ghosts - Robert Schlesinger

Jacked Up: The Inside Story of How Jack Welch Talked GE into Becoming the World's Greatest Company - Bill Lane

Compelling rhetoric makes for compelling leaders. Leaders want their words to win hearts and change minds.

How will you learn to use rhetoric in 2009 to effectively persuade people?