Jonathan Herron

Os Chambers: Let Him Have His Way

'I chose you...' (John 15:16).

Keep these words as a wonderful reminder in your theology. 

It is not that you have gotten God, but that He has gotten you.

God is at work bending, breaking, molding, and doing exactly as He chooses.

And why is He doing it?  He is doing it for only one purpose - - that He may be able to say 'This is My man, and this is My woman.'

We have to be in God's hand so that He can place others on the Rock, Jesus Christ, just as He has placed us.

Never choose to be a worker, but once God has placed His call upon you, woe be to you if you 'turn aside...to the right or the left...' (deuteronomy 28:14).

He will do with you what He never did before His call came to you, and He will do with you what He is not doing with other people.   Let Him have His way.

The Blind Spot of Influence

On the DISC scale, I score as a high "I." 

My default leadership style tends to be an influencer. 
I am most comfortable influencing and convincing people from up-front.

Influencing is a double-sided coin:
on the one hand, it allows passionate partnership and collaboration
in the creativity process. 

On the flip side, as a lead pastor, there are times when I have to exercise a more "D" (dominant) form of leadership to steward well what God has placed in my charge.

This is because "I's" can sometimes come across as downplaying or sugarcoating the meaning of what it being said.  Experts call this mitigation. 

Mitigation is the blind spot of influence;
we don't always realize this potential hiccup of leadership.

We mitigate when we're being polite, or when we're ashamed or embarrassed, or when we're being deferential to authority.

Instead of directly saying, "Paint the wall red,"
an example of mitigation would be,
"What do you think of using red paint instead of blue?" 

I need and want the wall red, but haven't directly led in that direction.
I've left wiggle-room in my communication. 

While mitigated speech is sometimes good for showing respect,
it can also be deadly to teams moving forward: 

"Mitigation explains one of the great anomalies of plane crashes. 

Captains and first officers split the flying duties equally. 

But historically, crashes have been far more likely to happen when the captain is in the 'flying seat.'

At first that seems to make no sense, since the captain is almost always the pilot with the most experience...

Planes are safer when the least experienced pilot is flying, because it means the second pilot (the captain) isn't going to be afraid to speak up." - Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers (197)

 

Improv*ing Leadership: Define Reality

1.  Define Your Reality.  Leaders bring clarity to mist and fog.

2.  Commit to Your Reality.  Throw yourself into the mix full-speed.

The Danger of Praying, "Thy Kingdom Come"

Don't get me wrong - - the Lord's Prayer is good.

But how often do we think through the danger of praying those three powerful words, "Thy Kingdom Come?"

I mean, what if He answers that prayer?

C.S. Lewis puts it best:

Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil?

Why is He not landing in force, invading it?

Is it that He is not strong enough?

Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when.

But we can guess why He is delaying: He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely...

God will invade.

But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does.

When that happens, it is the end of the world.

When the Author walks on to the stage the play is over.

Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy: Watch a Movement happen start to finish in under 3 minutes

This is BRILLIANT - - its like anthropology for movement leaders.

Let's watch a movement happen start to finish in under 3 minutes:

• A leader needs to have guts to stand alone and look ridiculous.

• You must be EASY to follow - simply + instructional.

• 1st follower = crucial role!
  He publicly shows everyone else how to follow.

• Leader embraces 1st follower as an equal. 
  Its not about the leader, its about THEM, plural.

• Being a 1st follower is an underappreciated form of leadership!

• Leader = flint; 1st follower = spark.

• Three is a crowd and a crowd is NEWS!

• New followers emulate followers, NOT the leader!

• As more people jump in, its no longer risky. 
  No reason NOT to join in now!

Bottomline: The BEST way to create a movement is to courageously follow and show others how to follow.

1 Corinthians 11:1!

Are you a Church Planter or Pastor or Leader who is ready to throw in the towel today? This post is for you:

1. You are not crazy.  Discouragement is part of ministry and pain reminds you that you are alive.
2. I know it hurts, but do a quick heart-check.  Is God exposing/purging idols in your life and ministry?
   
   "The reality is that the God who the pastor serves has no allegiance whatsoever to the pastor's little kingdom of self. In fact I’m persuaded that much of the ministry opposition that we attribute to the enemy is actually God getting in the way of the little kingdom intentions of the pastor. It’s God, in grace, rescuing the pastor from himself." - Paul Tripp
   
3. Take a weekend off.  Or better yet, take two Sundays off in a row.  Trust me, your church will not fall apart in your absence (and if it does, that's God's mercy!).  It will take one Sunday off to decompress and stop thinking about work; it will take the second Sunday off to begin to enjoy your family again.

 

All In

Jesus approached some fishermen who were coming off a bad day.

No fish.

He casually told them to try the other side of the boat.

Result?  Record haul.

Then Jesus said, "Follow Me, and I'll make you fishers of men."

They dropped everything.  All in. 

On their greatest, most profitable business day ever.

That's the kind of radical passion I want to live with: All in.

My Carpenter-King wants to use me to take His Message worldwide?  All in.

Contagious enthusiasm is my gameplan.

I'm always pushing myself to invite everyone I run into to church:
neighbors, hairstylists, I even invited the entire surgical team last week as the anesthesia was rushing into my veins!

Afterward, the anesthesiologist asked me if I remembered passionately inviting her entire crew, scrubs and all, to church. 

She said I went on and on about our music, the free mochas...

She said that even though she's Catholic, she's coming out.

All in.

Are you thinking like a Movement or an Institution?

Some thoughts after 11 years in full-time ministry:

Institutions ask, "What are your credentials?"

Protectionism = Fear of failure = Risk-free.

 

Movements ask, "Are you with us?" 

Innovative freedom = No fear = Free to risk.

 

Movements die when they protect themselves.

 

For example, say you want to join a group.

They may require an assessment.

Assessments tend to toss out out-of-balance people.

And God tends to raise up mavericks.

The Apostle Paul wouldn't have made the cut in many denominations!

Paul tended to plant messed-up churches...

and it resulted in the New Testament!

 

When I read the Gospel accounts, I see Jesus leading a movement.

"Follow Me."

Not, "Let's observe you for a little while and then decide."

 

It seems like institutions always have to manufacture energy.

Movements, though, already have energy.

 

Am I thinking like an institution or a movement?

Do I embrace protectionism or innovation?

Am I risk-free or free to risk?

For God gave us a spirit not of fear BUT OF POWER and love and self-control.  - 2 Timothy 1:7 (ESV)

When we press into God, our fears are extinguished.

Or perhaps, they are overwhelmed by fear of the Lord.

Which is the beginning of wisdom, according to the Proverbs.

Holy fear - - awe - - eclipses our shadowy fears with a reverence for the almighty, all-powerful God of the cosmos.

And this power that makes men tremble is available to all followers of Christ.

Not in a hokey-dokey way, but in a real, profound sense.

In the 1880's, a man named Alfred Nobel took a common explosive, nitoglycerin, and repackaged it with a controlling-plastic.

His original patent named the device "Nobel's Safety Powder."

Thankfully someone urged him to rename the product using the Greek term for "controlled power:" dunamis.

Nobel marketed dynamite proudly, raking in millions.

In 1888, his brother died in Cannes.  The newspapers mistakenly ran an obituary for Alfred Nobel.

Imagine opening your morning paper, bagel in one hand and coffee piping hot on the waiting table, only to be confronted with yur own death notice, headlined: Merchant of Death Dies.

Obviously this jolted Nobel with the jarring realization that his legacy to the world would be dynamite.

 

Fear-Less

For God gave us a spirit NOT OF FEAR but of power and love and self-control.  - 2 Timothy 1:7 (ESV)

Everyone wrestles with fears.  Most fears are learned.

In fact, babies are born with only two fears:
fear of falling and fear of loud noises.

All other fears are learned.

Paul wrote these words to Timothy in Greek.
The word for "fear" Paul used in the original language was "deilia,"
meaning one who flees battle.

Anxiety, stress, worrying.  That's all deilia. 

Jumping to the worst-case scenario in our heads.

And yet it doesn't have to be that way.

God didn't wire the human body to live in fear of life.

"Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows,

but only empties TODAY of its STRENGTHS." - Spurgeon

Fear is not of God!  Count how many times Jesus says, "Fear Not!"

When tempted to fear anything but the Lord, I'm encouraged by the precedence of Christians past.

Those who pressed into the Spirit to eclipse fear inspires:

During the Boxer Rebellion of 1899, terror was waged against Chinese Christians.

One church was surrounded by armed warriors.

The Christians inside were taunted as they saw a cross erected by the lone exit.

They were told that anyone who walked out and trampled the cross would be spared.

Seven students exited and did just that.  They were sent on their way.

The eighth student, a young girl, approached the cross, knelt down in the dirt, prayed for strength, carefully walked around the cross, and was immediately shot to death.

The remaining 92 students, strengthened by the girl's courageous example, also walked around the cross to their deaths.

Fearless.

And the solution is to Fear-Less.

Press into the Spirit whom gives us power and love and self-control.

History records the dialogue below between John Chrysostom (circa 347 - 407) and the empress Eudoxia.  Chrysostom was brought before her and threatened with banishment if he insisted on pointing people to Christ:

"You cannot banish me, for this world is my Father's house."

"But I will kill you," said the empress.

"No, you cannot, for my life is hid with Christ in God," said John.

"I will take away your treasures."

"No, you cannot, for my treasure is in heaven and my heart is there."

"But I will drive you away from your friends and you will have no one left."

"No, you cannot, for I have a Friend in heaven from whom you cannot separate me.  I defy you, for there is nothing you can do to harm me."

Fearless.

God is not a God who gives us fear.  He gives us faith.

It was John Wesley who once said,

"Give me a hundred men who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of God on earth."

Fearless.  Fear-Less.