Category Archives: seeking understanding

Sweet Anna was telling me about some girl’s engagement diamond. They seem to be getting bigger, these diamonds. Why? Then it hit me. At least in some cases, the pressure to produce the reaction (pleasing her is at top of his list) causes the boy to go as big (or bigger) as he can afford in this all important diamond purchase. Pleasing her is number one.

Leaders fall into a similar trap. Pleasing people.

Whether it be her board or among major stakeholders, leaders find themselves trying to  measure up to someone’s idea of what they should be or do (recently dubbed ‘metrics’). My contention is that when we look just at outcome not at progress, the tasks can cause us to lose sight of people. Measuring up to stakeholder’s expectations and the meeting of board directed objectives can become all encompassing. Sound familiar? Well, its even worse if you have no oversight, then you’re not sure who to please.

Now, this is not to say that objectives aren’t important (I value Peter Drucker as much as the next guy), but my question is based again on kingdom building. Did our board (or our elders, or deacons, or the vestry, or the session) prayerfully come to these objectives that drive the leader to her decisions? Are those objectives decided upon prayerfully? Really?

Does our oversight body really pray together and with us and seek relationship with us to know heart, gifts, “calling”? Really? If not, how can we know if we are building God’s kingdom or ours… or theirs?

Where there is God directed, God based relationship, leaders get together and invest significant time in prayer.

Let’s think hypothetically for a moment. Let’s say that at a given meeting or gathering of leaders, we were to invest more time praying together prior to talking and before deciding… what do you think might happen to the discussion process, to the decision making process? If leaders and their leaders were to practice this, how would that impact the relationships among them all? Do you think there would be more unity and unanimity? More peace? Clearer direction?

Oh, I’ve heard the other side… “I’ve been praying, its time to act!!!!!” You’ve been praying? Really? See its just you here, you and your conscience… oh, and God. He’s here too. You’ve been praying?

Sorry, I digress.

How would this idea of a significant time invested in prayer together affect the leader’s pressure to produce? See, if we are united in seeking God, God guides our work and then… then, wouldn’t we be better guided by Him?

Time????? If I ask if I have time to pray, whose kingdom am I building? Who is the real boss? God? or me?

If our companies, institutions, organizations, churches, schools or whatever find ourselves in a hard place, in a crisis. I ask us, how much and how often is our leadership praying together? How much and how often are the leaders of the leaders investing in prayer? Asking God to guide our minds and hearts toward decisions that build God’s kingdom, not ours, this should be our first (and perhaps out most time consuming) task.

I would suggest that the deeper we are connected to God, the better our decisions are going to be. We might then put people above tasks and we will find more unity than disunity when we pray together.

If there is disunity, if there is gossiping, if we are fighting a battle over decisions and goals and mission and strategy, we may need to reevaluate how much time we are investing in listening to and talking to God about these things.

I once heard some statistics about leaders and the time they devote to being with God, …just to be with God.

(Actually it was pastors not generally about leaders, but I apply it here anyway).

44%  –   less than 7 minutes per day

37%   –   7-35 minutes per day

19%  –   35 min or more

(Don’t ask me, a friend got them from a conference speaker citing some survey, I’m just illustrating a point here.)

<7 minutes

7-35 minutes

>35 minutes

Where am I?

Where are you?

I know where God is.

He’s right there, waiting to give us direction toward building HIS kingdom.

His kingdom.

C. S. Lewis said that “If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire. If you want joy, peace, eternal life, you must get close to what has them.”

“I want wisdom!”

Where did Solomon get it?

I was talking to a pastor recently who was struggling with all that was on his plate. Could it be that this is because he is working in his own power without deeply connecting to God on a daily basis? Luther famously said, I have so much to do that I must pray and extra hour today. Spurgeon, Mueller, the reformers all talked about the need to cultivate the deep abiding relationship with God.

“Abide in me.” He said.

Remember?

If we invest significant time with God as leaders, or as groups of leaders whether formally (as a board) or informally (as a group of friends), we will hear God better. We will see people differently, we will find tasks easier. We will build HIS kingdom, not ours. We will stop performing.

Who am I performing for today?

Whose kingdom am I building?

My post Tuesday, about my friend who lost his job, has me thinking about the cost of a well run railroad.

On my just-completed trip abroad I noticed something. The already well run railroad was being run better (I like like trains, it’s my opinion – its my blog).  I noticed that the people in the ticket windows (I still buy my ticket from the person in the ticket window not from the Internet, thank you) and the conductors on the trains were younger and, in my opinion, a bit more professional.

I noticed it over a couple of weeks and then mentioned my observation to a friend of mine who keeps up with these kinds of things. He told me there was some sort of forced early retirement that had opened up a lot of jobs for the younger folks, cost savings you see. Airline flight attendants have been striking about similar actions for years (and we flying public, pay a price too, I might add). When I first heard this, about the jobs thing, and considered the fact that my own experience had been improved, I was satisfied…

Then Tuesday happened…

Now I wonder.

I wonder about my desire for expediency.

Look, I am glad of the increased professionalism on the trains and am glad that those younger people have jobs… but I wonder. I wonder about moving older people out of the way (who are my age – just to be clear and objective) for the sake of younger people. And I wonder most of all about my own “ends justifies the means” position I had a few weeks ago when I learned about this.

All of us, especially I, need to be very careful of thinking that we have it figured out.

We also need to be careful not to put our “vision”, our “movement”, our “cause” or “calling”, ahead of people.

I do not believe that in God’s eyes, vision, movement, or calling, no matter how important the cause, comes before people. He said we are all precious.

I don’t want to be that guy who cares more about my mission than I do about a person. I’m not sure that is actually building God’s Kingdom.

I think, when I put my “cause” ahead of people, I may very well be building my own kingdom.

I need to be careful.

I need to put people ahead of my “cause.”