Over 22 seasons as a major leaguer, Bill Buckner batted just under .300 and had over 2,700 hits. But he is best remembered for a ground ball he failed to field. It was Game Six of the 1986 World Series and the Boston Red Sox were up 3 games to 2 over the New York Mets. The game went into extra innings, with the Mets having the winning run at second base. Mookie Wilson tapped a slow-rolling grounder towards Buckner at first base. What should have been a routine play turned out to be the black mark of Buckner’s career. The ball rolled under his glove and into right field, allowing the winning run to score. After twenty-two seasons of professional baseball, the mention of Buckner’s name brings to mind his failure – not his many successes. Life can be that way. Jimmy Swaggart. Bernie Madoff. Lindsey Lohan. Ted Haggard. …
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This quote will change your perspective on sermon preparation: "Preaching is not so much preparing a sermon and delivering it as it is preparing a preacher and delivering him,” wrote Bishop William Quayle.
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If you are a visionary leader, you live to see the big picture. While others are thinking about lunch, your mind is five years down the road. And that's ok. As long as you enable your team to fill in the picture. Until the big picture gets filled in with color and details, it's not really a vision; it's a nice thought.
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Just read this morning an interesting article on "Discretionary Energy." Here's how the author defines it: What is Discretionary Energy? For our purposes, we define an employee’s discretionary energy as: Their willing application of knowledge and skills in service towards espoused strategy and goals, and Their demonstrated positive enthusiasm for their work, their team & its members, and their customers. Discretionary energy is at play when an employee goes beyond the minimum. Sometimes discretionary energy is about innovation and creativity, but more often it is about jumping in before being asked, going beyond the basics to meet a need or solve a problem. The article is about how leaders motivate employees to use their discretionary energy towards furthering the mission or vision of the organization. Source: Driving Results Through Culture.
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Do you fold your hands when you pray? Is closing your eyes during prayer a prerequisite to receiving God's answer? If you're like me, many of us maintain certain rituals even when we don't fully understand why. Not all of them are bad. We might say "God bless you" or "Gesundheit" when someone sneezes; what we may not know is that this originated from a belief that a person's soul might fly out of their body when they person sneezed. Most religious rituals are comforting and provide a consistency to life. A family tradition might be appropriate for birthdays, but when a religious ritual replaces personal faith in God -- then we've wandered into dangerous territory. This weekend we will be exploring the tension between placing our faith in rules and rituals instead of God. I hope you'll join me as we dig deeper into Romans chapter four!
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