As a leader, I am always hearing about new books that come out. Because I love to read, I buy many of them and try to glean as much as I can from them. But here’s what always seemed to happen to me: I would get on a kick to read a certain author, genre, or subject and it wiped me out. When we were in our first 18 months at CCML, I read every book I could find on church planting, church growth, and ministry paradigms. I felt this was the only responsible thing to do, so I could be the most informed person possible about what I was in the process of doing. The next year was nothing but leadership books. I think I read 3 John Maxwell books back to back to back besides all the other standard leadership texts. Now we’re 4 1/2 years into this experiment called CCML and I’m mixing up my reading. I can’t tell you how much healthier I feel (losing 60 pounds has also helped). So as of late, I have been challenged spiritually by “The Barbarian Way” by Erwin McManus. “The Likeability Factor” by Tim Sanders has helped me a great deal relationally. “Jewish Sources in Early Christianity” has pushed me theologically, and “Simply Strategic Volunteers” is helping me ministerially. The point is, now that I’m mixing up the kinds of books that I’m reading I am enjoying the books more and I feel I’m getting more out of them. I’ve even started reading books that have nothing to do with church or the Bible from time to time, just to clear my head and let all the ideas being introduced settle for a while. So I’ve read a couple of books on baseball just to keep it real. The point is: as a leader you must read, but mix it up because everyone likes pizza but no one wants to eat it every night.

“I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.” – Darth Vader

Those words must have hit Lando Calrissian like a ton of bricks. He made a deal with a leader and he broke his promise. One of the keys to leadership is trust and when we go back on our word we lose whatever credibility we have built. I believe Kouzes and Posner were right when they said that the foundation of all leadership is credibility in “The Leadership Challenge.” John Maxwell called it, “The Law of buy-in: People buy into the leader, then the vision.” It only makes sense because a person can have a great vision, but without proven character very few will get on board. That’s is why when we promise to deliver something to someone on our team, we need to follow through. The greatest leaders make a promise and keep it because they know that if a leader doesn’t have his word, then no one will be willing to follow him. I don’t think Lando is going to make any more deals with Mr. Vader any time soon. Because a leader that alters the deal is a leader that isn’t worth following…

2 things are making post this today. The first is, I saw Tony Morgan’s notes from the Saddleback conference that he posted. What great stuff. His book “Simply Strategic Stuff” is fantastic. But what blew me away was the graphic that showed the rate of success in hiring from outside versus hiring from within. It was shocking! I put the file here so you can download it. Download ssswithblanks.pdf
The second thing was I received an e-mail from a church this week that’s looking for a new Pastor. There’s nothing wrong with that, because there are times when going outside is the right call. I guess I’m just hearing about churches looking outside their own 4 walls a lot more lately. It just got me thinking about the importance of making our own disciples as opposed to borrowing someone else’s. So I realized the difference: It’s as simple as e-bay and a physical store. E-Bay is great. You can look at the picture and description (Its’ résumé) and get an idea of what you’re buying, but you don’t really know waht you’re getting until you open the box. At a physical store, you can browse, handle the item, and come back later when you’re totally ready. So I’m not saying hiring from outside is wrong, I’m just saying inside is our best bet.

I was looking at my calendar and I saw what I did on the 9th of this month and I wanted to mention it to you. I went to the C3 Regional conference in Fort Lauderdale on the 9th and I want to encourage you if you have the opportunity to go, do it! It was great! Ed did a great job as he always does, but I wanted to share an insight that I think gets overlooked when it comes to Fellowship Church’s success over the last 14 years. These guys are great leaders! Ed has surrounded himself with phenomenal leaders who are very gifted at executing the vision God has given him. Being able to interact with Fellowship’s executive staff at the conference through the breakout sessions gave me a glimpse into the kind of staff that’s leading this flagship church. I visited Fellowship when I attended C3 in 2003 and was blown away like most people are by the worship, creative teaching, and fantastic media pieces, but this time I was able to see the people that make this happen. And I’ll tell you this, as impressive as what they do was, I was more impressed with who they are.

Mistakes. Everyone makes them. The issue that will affect your ability to lead is, “How do you handle it when those around you make mistakes?” Let’s look at Darth Vader’s leadership on staff mistakes. In The Empire Strikes Back, Captain Needa has made a critical error in allowing the Millennium Falcon to escape. He apologizes to the dark lord of the Sith and Darth Vader chokes him to death and says, “Apology accepted, Captain Needa.” While we probably don’t choke people to death when they make mistakes, let’s be honest, we probably want to. No one likes mistakes, but they are going to happen. We are all going to screw things up at some point in time. That’s just a fact of life. But a truly great leader is one that can take a failure and make it an opportunity for teaching and training. If you decide to take that moment and turn it into a lesson, we’ll gain an ally for the long haul. But we will never build trust with our teams if we humiliate them publicly and ‘choke them’ through our words and reactions. The truth is if our team members are making mistakes, it means they’re doing something. And I’d rather have active team members making mistakes than perfect benchwarmers any day!