I give a couple of hours each to talk to church planter and church leaders that want to talk shop and think that we can help them in some way. I’m always honored when someone calls us and thinks that something we do or have learned over the years can help their ministry.

At the same time, I take a few hours each month to learn and get myself around leaders I respect and learning from them. I try to read as much as I can, so that I can learn from others with different areas of expertise.

Everyone has someone they can teach and someone they can learn from. It annoys me when guys only want 1 or the other. The guy who only wants to learn and not share what he’s learned is greedy. God has given you experiences and opportunities to steward, not horde! The guys who only want to teach and not learn is a little too impressed with himself. We need a balance of learning and teaching. As the saying goes, “We all need a Paul and a Timothy in our lives.”

I’m very thankful for the guys that are willing to give some of their time to answer my questions and part of how I repay them for their generosity is to share what God has shown me through these mentors and my own experiences with those that want to learn from me. It’s what this verse is all about!

Many times we find it difficult to make the tough leadership decisions because we can’t untangle ourselves from the situations themselves. Most of the time we know the right thing to do, it’s just the entanglement of emotions, history, and a host of other things that keep us from making the right call. Then we end up dragging things out way longer than necessary.

So here’s what I’ve done over the last couple of years. I say to myself, “What would ________ (fill in your friend’s name) say about this situation?” By that time, the decision is easy. Sometimes all it takes it seeing your situation from the perspective of someone who’s not involved to get us to do the right thing.

“How things go when you’re there is a test of your giftedness. How things go when you aren’t there is a test of your leadership.”

The smaller a person’s mind is, the bigger their mouth is.

As January 1 approaches, I’m thinking about my personal growth plan for the new year. Most of the time, we make resolutions and we don’t keep them, simply because we don’t have a plan.

So I’d like to encourage you to think about what you want to accomplish and/ or see happen in your life in 2007 and think through the steps to get you there. You need a destination, but then you need to make wise decisions to get you there.

Most people tell me the want to grow, but have no plan to facilitate that growth.

Here are my suggestions that I think every person, and especially leaders need to think through:

- Personal Relationship with God (Are you going to have a daily quiet time? Will you read through the Bible? Just the OT? Just Proverbs? Decide and then stick to it)

- Relationships with others (Are you going to deepen your friendships this year? How? Are you going to spend more time with friends? Family? As you decide that as you say yes to this, you’re saying no to something else)

- Health (I neglected this one for years and now I have the pleasure of looking at a fat version of myself in every picture during my 20′s. I started getting serious about my health after I taught a church and after the 3rd service I thought I was going to die! That was a sign that if I wanted to be used by God for my whole life, I needed to put down the Twinkies.)

- Leadership (If you’re a Pastor, you need to be serious about growing as a leader. That means reading, being in places where leadership is taught, and then actually leading. So decide what conferences you’re going to attend, what books you’re going to read, what relationship with another leader you’re going to build.)

I could go on and on, but I’m sure you get the point. Personal growth is not accidental, it’s intentional. And the more intentional you are, the greater the results we see.